Mission briefings - do you read them, actually?

[Polygon 11]

[ An elaborate ] briefing is one of the essential features of Arma missions. In theory. In practise...

Do you actually read and analyze them? Honestly? I read, depending on entry lenght / number and if some entries (for example, personal insights of soldiers) interest me.

I feel there's too much emphasis put on official briefings in BIS missions that 0 interesting personal insight from those who are part of the battle.

This thread may help mission makers to see what the audience thinks.

My suggestions:

- instead of boring digital text, present briefing more personally as in OFP - hand-written, on an actual note, not your smartass phone. There goes the future (2035) setting...

- to get the player more "emotionally involved", present diary entries more often instead of official military jargon throughout

Edited October 10, 2013 by Polygon

[chrisb 196]

Make open world missions (not pos yet in A3, well ones that would work right), then your briefings and planning mean something, as a team or sp, not just a given ‘this is what to do’, sort of linear entry/exit, but in an open world.

Open world missions mean planning before hand, the player decides more on how to execute the mission, not the mission designer..

[maffa 29]

it all depends on the mission and on the context. If there's a sort of narrative behind the action then it can be verbose, if it is more a militaresque "okay listen up we've got a job to do" it's okay the bullet point list brief.

[Ranwer135 308]

Voted. "REASON?!?"

If your going to join a server, when you get in the mission, its best to read it, otherwise you might get kicked from a private owned team server. I did that once and got kicked for it.

EDIT: "What's a briefing? I like them cutscenes... :P", Haha..nice one. I bet no one will vote that.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Ranwer

[2nd ranger 282]

I read the essential information. The current BIS method of a condensed OPORD style is ideal, because you get all the information you need in a few short paragraphs.

• Situation - quick overview of what is happening, maybe some brief background info.
  
• Mission - your overall task in a few sentences.
  
• Execution - point-by-point plan of how the mission should proceed.
  

That should be all the information you need to gain an understanding of what is going to happen. After this, sections on Signal, Enemy and Support may be added for additional - but not essential - information. I'm not against adding additional entries, and sometimes you may need to if the mission contains some sort of complex gameplay device and requires further explanation (but I really dislike briefings that have 'instruction' sections and even credits). But alot of people probably don't like having to read through multiple paragraphs or walls of text, and it's for that reason I think that everything you need to know can and should be presented in those first three sections.

As for 'journal'-type entries, this can sometimes add something to the experience, but I usually don't read it simply because most people just aren't good at it. Most people aren't good at creative writing in general, so in mission briefings it usually comes off as cheesy and cliché. For this reason I think it's preferable that most briefings stick to an 'official' military style.

All that said, I have missed the notebook-style diary since it was taken away and I would love to see it back. If nothing else, it lends itself better to scenarios set in the past than the current design.

[Kerc Kasha 102]

Short situation, objectives, anything that could be important to mission planning (movement plan... fire support etc)

I don't want to read someones poor attempt at a Tom Clancy novel for a mission that boils down to 'shoot some guys', and there's far too many missions that do this.

[instagoat 133]

Usually, players punish themselves in this game when not reading the briefing, especially in involved community missions. Those often force you to read journal updates anyway, though, so you can get back to it.

As far as storytelling goes, I agree, mission briefs are a -bad- place for exposition. Stick to the template, put in what is demanded by that. Exposition is for cutscenes.

[NeuroFunker 11]

not possible to complete some mission, without reading breafings. Like at escape altis mission, in workshop. Don't be lazy to read some information, this gives you a clue whats going on, some pre-history what happened etc. Just to start up mission without having a clue what to do, and why, is kinda boring, at least for me.

[massasster 1]

If its anything other then something simple and stupid - I find the avg person who joins a mission just leaves in the next 5-10 min. I gathered much better groups during the alpha - it slowed during the beta, and became complete crap after release. I think the majority of players are looking for insta-gratification and anything beyond some version of Invade and annex or occupation - and they are lost.

[igneous01 19]

for the most part I will read as much as I can. If the briefing was put together really well (like strategic map showing lines of conflict, positions of nearby platoons/armor forces) and contains a concise load of information about the situation and how it is 'expected' to resolve. If someone decides to add back-up plans in case the main execution path fails that makes it even better.

I usually spend a lot of time writing good detailed briefings, including photos of the AO and targets, map outline of forces, etc. The more realistic the situation the better.

[Cyper 18]

Reading the briefing properly just makes the mission a lot easier. Doing otherwise may make you miss small details. But I just look at it quickly if it is a simple mission.

[OrLoK 20]

Hello there

I'm not from the tl;dr generation but i mainly skim through them as many are walls of text or don't get their point across succinctly.

Perhaps I'm just impatient?

Im much more likely to refer to them when in the actual mission.

But im a fan of bullet points.

Rgds

LoK

[Polygon 11]

I find links [to map icons] in briefing text hard to notice. Shoulda differentiate them with some color.

[mistyronin 1181]

I have always loved RPG ( where you have to read a lot ).

IMO a well cooked briefing can give you a good insight on the story besides the basic points to follow in order to success.

[Wiki 1558]

Agree here, I like reading good and detailed briefing.

[nodunit 397]

I read for the same reason as MistyRonin, both the briefing and notes if there are any. This was an especially nice part of cold war crisis.

[cool=azroul13 14]

It Depends, for me campaign really needs some little cutscenes and detailed briefing to explain all the plot. But for SP and MP simple mission, I prefer synthetic briefing, with the situation of the mission, enemy forces, friendly forces, maybe attack plan or retreat plan.

[Wiki 1558]

Same as above