Managing a new community

[MatzeOGH 10]

Hi

I have started playing ArmA 3 with a couple of people. A huge part of them were new to the franchise so I tried to ease them into it.

That was as fare as i can tell pretty successful. We overcame most of the problems players encounter at the start of their arma career.

Now we have grown to an up to 15 player party trying our luck on medium sized coop missions.

We are using VAS and revive for our missions and thats ok for the beginning but i have run into a problem lately.

We have up to 60% of our players in support roles, be it in vehicles or as infantry. Especially 50cal sniper are hindering the teamplay.

for Example we were 7 people tonight. We had one attack helo(2), 2-3 sniper and the rest were boots on the ground.

I deactivated the score for our next round but I am not too sure how to push them in the right direction.

I don't want to alienate players but if this is going on I don't thing that we will survive the year.

Does any one have some tips for me how I can empower better teamplay without losing all of the convenience systems like VAS give my teammates.

Thanks in advance.

MatzeOGH

Edited September 23, 2013 by MatzeOGH

[Ra-USMC 10]

Hi MatzeOGH,

There are a couple of things you can do. First off you need to determine what type of group you want to be. Ask your squad mates if they want to be a casual group or if in fact they/you want to form up as a semi Mil-Sim style. Casual group players usually want to get online, chum around with friendly, like minded people and digitally massacre a small population of AI or other groups of like minded individuals. Mil-Sim guys are typically looking for some structure. They want a plan maybe even some sort of ranking schedule. Knowing what kind of gaming group you want to be will most likely be the largest indicator for you. If you want to be the "Boss" you have to act like the Boss. Generate missions with limited controlled assets (vehicles), limit the number of high caliber rifles available in your missions.... Be the "Director" this is your team delegate based on performance who will do what. You have to understand that in gaming groups people come and go. People will stay and play because they like the friend atmosphere or they will stay and play based on the level of action they see. You have to grow the group you want to play in, after all that's why you started your own group right?

In terms on empowering your squad mates you should give them roles that are important to your mission. Have individuals take turns on being a squad leader or make it a rule that to be a sniper you have to "try-out" and the top marksman gets the job for what ever current mission you are about to play. Make it competitive within your team. Speak to missions/map makers and ask the community for help with tailor made missions for the way you want to play. The beautiful thing about our ARMA community is that we are huge! There are so many creative people out there constantly producing new addons or maps or game styles. Literally what you do in game is only limited by your imagination. My opinion on the matter is that you play the way you want to. The people that stay and play most like are there for a while, build on this and you will have more people than what you know what to do with!

Do you have a team website, Team Speak or Game Server? Go and advertise in the forums here!

Feel free to shoot me a private msg if you want any other advice!

Ra [uSMC]

[Ra-USMC 10]

double post deleted

Edited September 25, 2013 by Ra-USMC

[Rich_R 1087]

Ra covered brought up some very good points. Our group is in our second year and I can tell you running any online group appears to be a series of learning as you go.

Here are some bullet points that we found successful. Some of these have been mentioned by Ra

• Define who your group is. The founding members of our group did this from day one and it helps in attracting quality members and more importantly, keeping them. Example, we are Air Assault. We don't have any armor so if a member applies wanting to drive a tank, we are obviously the wrong group.
  
• Define what you do every week. If you want to train every week, make sure you train every week. If you really dont care what you do every week, then that needs to be laid out as well. If you want members to give up their valuable time week after week, you'll need to give them a reason to.
  
• Set the rules and everyone follows them. Very important. You need to decide whats important to your members and the group, set the rules to maintain those behaviors and make sure everyone, including the people in charge.
  
• Realistic or just fun. You need to decide this as well. This will help you work through what people take for weapons etc....and it will help you explain to members why they should take what they need to take.
  
• Someone needs to lead the group. This could be two or three members running it as a committee or just one person...whatever your poison!
  
• Share the work. As you get more members, the workload will grow. Make sure you have people to help maintain the group, its rules and more importantly, the members.
  

It sounds like all of these decisions should be made after discussing the matters with the current membership to be fair to them. Good luck with the group!!!

Feel free to PM me as well.