Official A3 campaign thread - discussion, wishlists & more

[HKFlash 9]

Click arrow to expand the campaign menu.

[TheVince 10]

Ok downloaded and there is no start options! WTF? I have checked/ verfy files.

Same here, how do i get it started?

Click arrow to expand the campaign menu.

thx HKFlash

[mkill73 0]

Same here, how do i get it started?

Click arrow to expand the campaign menu.

thx HKFlash

At first it didnt but after second download it does....but thx!

[yxman 90]

No CO-OP, just great.

[Ardanza 10]

No CO-OP, just great.

Yeah... I see that too... Is this intentional? I mean, I see the HOST button grayed out, I'm ASSUMING it's SUPPOSED to have MP co-op, or is this an unfinished feature as well? Been waiting for campaign to play this co-op with buddies, now I want to know if that'll ever be possible?

[chortles 263]

The host button is for use with user-generated co-op campaigns, but Zipper5 said that the official campaign was always intended to be SP-only.

[NeuroFunker 11]

I have a question related campaign end titles, why by Music is a question mark? Why can't we know the names of great music composers for campaign + and remixed ofp theme tracks and others? The music is really great, can listen to it over and over, campaign was pertty good, and pretty short at same time. I do hope, next episodes, would be at least twice it's time span, but not leass interresting ofcourse.

[paecmaker 23]

At the mission where you must find the blackfoot(spoilers).

When you are supposed to blow up the helicopter the medic refuses to move out of the way making it impossible to finish the mission. :/

Also is the pilot scripted to die or can you save him?

Right now Im to tired to restart the mission but maybe tomorrow.

edit: sry, got quote instead of spoiler tag :/

[matkob 6]

At the mission where you must find the blackfoot(spoilers).

When you are supposed to blow up the helicopter the medic refuses to move out of the way making it impossible to finish the mission. :/

Also is the pilot scripted to die or can you save him?

Right now Im to tired to restart the mission but maybe tomorrow.

edit: sry, got quote instead of spoiler tag :/

I can confirm the problem with the mission

[2nd ranger 282]

Some questionable tactics ...

Yeah. Numerous instances of your AI squad leader just running headlong into the enemy. Enemy reinforcements arriving, leave elevated position and run straight at them. Attacking enemy base, run straight at the entrance. Paratroops landing, run straight underneath them.

[Polygon 11]

just as I pointed out earlier, ' Survive ' is full tactical non-sense to make it look actiony. Not up to Arma's standarts, as I'd like it to be, but if this feels the right direction to take in the future, we'll definitely have to adapt.

of course, OFP CWC was from perfect either. But it transffered a special sense of scale nicely with minimum resources at hand. That's a milestone on its own.

[NeuroFunker 11]

Yeah. Numerous instances of your AI squad leader just running headlong into the enemy. Enemy reinforcements arriving, leave elevated position and run straight at them. Attacking enemy base, run straight at the entrance. Paratroops landing, run straight underneath them.

i guess, some waypoints were not set to combat, in combat modus, bots are quite carefull and use tacticts.

[2nd ranger 282]

It wouldn't matter what mode the waypoints were in, the AI would still follow them to where they are placed, which in those situations means they are running to meet the enemy head-on. The AI can only do so much by themselves. I know BIS likes to let the AI do their thing with minimal scripting, but some additional direction is required other than 'Go here' or they'll just take needless casualties.

The worst offender is in "Radio Silence":

You've just cleared Mike-26 and enemy reinforcements are inbound. The smart thing to do would be to dig in and let them come to you; there's plenty of cover and you're on higher ground, with a view of their approach. Instead, the team leader runs down to the road to meet them, temporarily losing sight of them because there's a dip in the road between them and you. This is bad, because it's your single fireteam vs. two enemy teams, and you can easily be flanked. Even down in this dip in the road, the situation is still salvageable because there are some decent rocks either side of this position. Not so when you get over the rise. Again, instead of waiting at this position where there is some hard cover and letting the enemy wander into your sights, your TL just runs over the rise like he's going over the top of a trench at the Somme. I've played the mission twice and both times it's only been myself and one AI left alive, the rest having died unnecessarily in a blaze of glory.

Now, I don't think this encounter is particularly difficult for a player to survive because it's just a couple of fireteams. But it takes me out of the experience because I feel I am being forced into one of two unfavourable gameplay decisions:

• Being a good soldier and sticking with my team, even though the TL is clearly insane. This is likely to result in injury to me, and certainly death for one or more of the AI.
  
• Be smart, hang back and use cover. This will keep me alive, but it makes me feel like I'm detaching myself from the team and thus being complicit in their death.
  

So, I either feel like I'm being forced to run and gun, or like I'm not part of the team. But I'd rather see my whole team mown down than get killed because of the AI's poor battle plans.

Regarding the last mission,

the problem with the AI leader running up to the paratroopers is because they are setCaptive until the moment they hit the ground. So your team leader doesn't even know the enemy is there until he's already running over the hill towards them.

[Electricleash 133]

Trying to work out the name of the music that plays toward the end of 'Situation Normal', a kind of quiet, distant piano. I'm sure it's a reworking of an ARMA 2 track but can't for the life of me work out which one. Any ideas?

[Fanatic72 181]

Ive finished the campaign and Im really satisfied.

Even though I would like a little more "intro" playtime then being thrown right into the action, I kinda liked it here. The plot is unclear and a little mysterious, it has a "after montignac, resistance" feeling, dialogues are really nice. The best thing is the atmosphere to me. A3s graphics are used perfectly in all the missions, which adds so much to my enjoyment. And the best thing I could have hoped for happened....I did not encounter any bug! (not counting AI stupidity at some cases, overall AI was surprisingly good for both sides). Thank you BIS for giving me chills I had only while playing CWC and Resistance. :)

[Piru 10]

I think the blufor "base" shoud've been scraped and just tied the mission together in one great escape trying to stay under the radar. Doubt there would be any survivors left if they just sat in the open like that.

All in all, ok missions so definetly waiting for the next part with bigger guns and more explosions.

[NeuroFunker 11]

Trying to work out the name of the music that plays toward the end of 'Situation Normal', a kind of quiet, distant piano. I'm sure it's a reworking of an ARMA 2 track but can't for the life of me work out which one. Any ideas?

if you mean what i think, it's track from Arma 2 PMC campaign, mission where you have to destroy tanks with AS50.

[2nd ranger 282]

Trying to work out the name of the music that plays toward the end of 'Situation Normal', a kind of quiet, distant piano. I'm sure it's a reworking of an ARMA 2 track but can't for the life of me work out which one. Any ideas?

It's actually from Eagle Wing originally, it's called "Defcon". Two other EW tracks are used in that mission; "Fallout" and "Wasteland".

Edited November 1, 2013 by 2nd Ranger

[x3kj 1247]

I think the blufor "base" shoud've been scraped and just tied the mission together in one great escape trying to stay under the radar. Doubt there would be any survivors left if they just sat in the open like that.

Yes that's really immersion breaking. At night its illuminated like a christmas tree. They would be long all dead if somebody really wanted to find them. 1-2 bypasses by the enemy jet that comes as "evil overlord" and partypooper in several missions. Bomb Dropsite conventiently marked by hundreds of Chemlights

[Alwarren 2767]

Ive finished the campaign and Im really satisfied.

Sadly, I am not.

From a campaign, I would have expected some underlying narrative, which simply was paper-thin. There is hardly any storyline, just a series of seemingly unconnected missions. Worse even, most of what qualifies as the story takes place in your absence, you are being told most of the events because you happen to never be there when they take place. Most missions have the same general layout. They're entertaining enough, but you can play through them in one session within a few hours.

On the plus side, good voice acting, nice selection of locales, very nice work with moody lighting.

I still think that most of Harvest Red was better though, but I am biased because I played HR with four players in coop. I don't really comprehend why the Arma 3 campaign wasn't done for coop, most of the time you're in a squad anyway

[MissionCreep 12]

Yes that's really immersion breaking. At night its illuminated like a christmas tree. They would be long all dead if somebody really wanted to find them. 1-2 bypasses by the enemy jet that comes as "evil overlord" and partypooper in several missions. Bomb Dropsite conventiently marked by hundreds of Chemlights

How hard would it be to locate the hilltop and shell, mortar or bomb from air, land or sea on an island that is 19 sq km? They would have to be living in tunnels and caves and such during the day to escape detection. You need to suspend your disbelief for this campaign ..

[antoineflemming 14]

They need to hire someone to write a story for them.

---------- Post added at 14:09 ---------- Previous post was at 14:07 ----------

How hard would it be to locate the hilltop and shell, mortar or bomb from air, land or sea on an island that is 19 sq km? They would have to be living in tunnels and caves and such during the day to escape detection. You need to suspend your disbelief for this campaign ..

It's an old NATO base. Can't be that old though because the structures just look like rusted versions of their current bases. So, that means that at some point the AAF knew about it. Why wouldn't they immediately target NATO's bases? It's not like there are that many on the island anyway.

[artemas 1]

There aren't that many AAF either. They number only a few platoons, before the fighting, and probably don't have mortar rounds galore to just paste any old outpost. If even rich European countries run out of munitions during a war of a couple months, what sort of war stores do you think a economically crippled island of a few thousand people, recovering from a civil war, would have.

Remember, the campaign takes place over the course of 24 hours. That is not a long time for a shitty military to lockdown the entire island, and find, fix and finish the enemy. Some first world countries would be hard pressed to do the same.

[Polygon 11]

in Crossing Point,

I laughed when my team doesn't respond to Kerry's light on in the darkness. C'mon, at least put an EH to check it or remove flashlight.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Polygon

[Spectre867 0]

I'm pretty confused by this whole inventory system for the campaign.... it seems like after the first few missions, my weapons & gear from the last mission would carry-over into to the Maxwell in-between-missions scene where you can pick your next mission, change your gear, re-arm and whatnot. After about the third mission, some weapons I had left in the "weapons" crate started disappearing (but some also stay there, like the Mk-18 7.62 rifle I picked up on the first mission and a couple of .45 sidearms I've picked up off dead enemies... PMCL launchers, MX weapons, and any attachments for the weapons all disappear though.) Anyone else encounter similar weird stuff?

Not that it really matters anyways however... as I noticed by about the 4th mission my gear that I started the briefing with is not the same gear I have when the mission starts and there is no longer any scene where you walk out of the base to meet your team before the mission. Seems like inventory carry-over was a feature meant to be in the campaign that they gave up on half-way though? If this was the way it was designed to work, I'd love to know the thought process behind it lol