Campaign Episode 1: SURVIVE - Feedback thread ** SPOILER WARNING! **

[NeMeSiS 11]

Thats what I meant :)

There is no reason though to not set your sound settings to 2.0 becouse it's not only the dialog that is affected but EVERYTHING. If the enemy is firing at you and he is at your twelve then you hear nothing. Same if he is behind you. Only left and right channel work in the game at the moment so everyone that has their system set to surround will have a lot of sounds muted depending on where they are in 3D-space. Game is basically unplayable unless you set your system to 2.0 sound.

That does not appear to be the case, at least on my system. Maybe the x-fi upmixing is doing some kind of magic, but guns, vehicles and explosions definitely come from the correct position. I just tested it again in the editor, and making a vehicle drive in circles around yourself should confirm this for everyone.

It just seems to be the mission dialogs. And i prefer having to look to the right during dialog rather than completely sacrificing my 5.1. :p

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

I am enjoying the campaign so far (the way they have done certain things_. Just finished the mission with the helo crash. However I am disappointed in a few things. It appears as though some of the show cases I believe it is, are being reused in the campaign (that bothers me as it seems like they are not putting enough effort into the campaign). That is very disappointing in my view. Why is BIS reusing something I've already played???

Secondly, the team leader runs full speed through each mission making my guy not keep up unless I make him very tired by sprinting the entire mission. There is no way to get them to move carefully through the map they just sprint like mad men. So I die lots because I have no time to survey my surroundings if I sprint to keep up. Or they kill everyone before I even get to them because I try keeping my fatigue down or my fatigue is so bad I have to stop and rest.

You guys are looking at it the wrong way. Now that we've seen the mission in the campaign, we can clearly tell the campaign came first and was 'reused' for the showcase mission because of how well it works as both a graphical and small arms showcase. Going back, we can clearly see bits of the story in the showcase which solidifies that rebuttal.

On the other hand, I deff agree with you on your second point. The CO of your group needs to stop and regroup when his team breaks up.

---------- Post added at 08:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:40 AM ----------

That does not appear to be the case, at least on my system. Maybe the x-fi upmixing is doing some kind of magic, but guns, vehicles and explosions definitely come from the correct position. I just tested it again in the editor, and making a vehicle drive in circles around yourself should confirm this for everyone.

It just seems to be the mission dialogs. And i prefer having to look to the right during dialog rather than completely sacrificing my 5.1. :p

I can confirm the opposite. Front channel is always gone, even with environmental and mechanical sounds. And I'm also using an X-Fi card.

What may be happening in your case is that you're actually just using Dolby SS, which only emulates it. (but does a shit ton better job of it than the current bugged 5.1 and standard 2.0)

[Brisse 78]

Alright I just tried to restart "Radio Silence" mission instead of reloading and this time it played as I would expect it too do. The terminator AAF soldiers were now normal and I could finish the mission without incident. Wierd :S

[Sgt.Rock 10]

Great work team!

I like it a lot so far. Only have the final segment to complete today and then I'll probably restart it and run it through one more time before release.

[NeMeSiS 11]

I can confirm the opposite. Front channel is always gone, even with environmental and mechanical sounds. And I'm also using an X-Fi card.

What may be happening in your case is that you're actually just using Dolby SS, which only emulates it. (but does a shit ton better job of it than the current bugged 5.1 and standard 2.0)

Odd, i just tested it again with SS disabled, and all speakers except front middle unplugged, and it still works. If i look directly at a moving car i will get proper sound from that speaker, and if i dont there is just a muffled noise. Same for weapons and explosions.

Oddly enough firing your own weapon will not make a sound through that speaker, but through the front left/right speaker.

EDIT: I guess we should take this to another topic. Not really campaign related anymore. :)

[formski 0]

I'm stuck in the 2nd mission Situation Normal. Adams dies to an AP mine and after making my way to the survivors nothing happens. I've tried avoiding the squad of AAF at the end of the forest as well as engaging them, the BLU survivors won't interact with me either way.

I found I had to disable all mods for this to work (haven't tracked down which one did it) - Kerry should say 's##t' when Adams dies along with some other dialog from a British Officer over the Radio. I'm guessing there is a trigger not activating due to one of the mods.

[h - 169]

Radio Silence mission:

I was just wondering what exactly is the point of having to use mortars to perform surgical strikes when they don't hit on the given coordinates at all? It's like having to snipe targets 800 meters away with a paintball gun..

For the past hour I've tried to destroy the quard towers but it appears that the mortars want to hit everything else than the towers.. :mad:

EDIT:

I know the mission won't fail due to not hitting the towers but it is so annoying to have to leave a task unfinished :p

Edited October 26, 2013 by h -

[Tonci87 163]

I finished it and here is some feedback:

-Well made Campaign Episode!

Seriously guys this Episode has shown us that you are capable of delivering a good campaign with exceptional voice acting and well made missions. Now I really look forward to playing the other Episodes. Other guys in my group that played the campaign agree with this.

But:

-You reused the Infantry showcase Mission.

That made me cringe since I didn´t like that particular mission and now I was forced to play it again. I like that you spiced it up by making me use the drone to find the spotters. That was nice.

-Tipping Point:

Please send that Gunship away after it deploys the CSAT Squad. It was hovering around with my squad in clear sight without engaging us. That was kind of immersion breaking. Just send it off towards the airfield or somewhere else. Alternatively: increase the fog density so that it can barely be seen.

Add some columns of smoke on the airfield so that it looks as if it is under attack by CSAT forces.

If the other two Episodes feature 8 wellmade Missions each with a good story on top then this will be the best campaign since OFP, maybe even better.

[Brisse 78]

Radio Silence mission:

I was just wondering what exactly is the point of having to use mortars to perform surgical strikes when they don't hit on the given coordinates at all? It's like having to snipe targets 800 meters away with a paintball gun..

For the past hour I've tried to destroy the quard towers but it appears that the mortars want to hit everything else than the towers.. :mad:

This task is meant to fail. Just leave it and move on with the primary mission.

[-RFP-CHykis 11]

Short and stupid (cause of story) episode. No massive fights - it's not war it's a small gang pew-pew 7 vs 7 in each mission.

About story: Stratis is really small, and our brave heroes "hiding" under 3 trees. And they so surprized about being attacked by Buzzard. Buzzard can fly all around Stratis for 60 seconds? or less? Flying Kaimans in the sky? Oh, wait, let's run on speedboats! They can't shoot us on these things!

I am dissapointed again.

[HKFlash 9]

This task is meant to fail. Just leave it and move on with the primary mission.

They could change the task to "Weaken Mike-26" and just have the task be completed when X number of enemy soldiers would get killed. Increasing mortar precision would make indirect fire too accurate and easy to use.

[chortles 263]

This task is meant to fail. Just leave it and move on with the primary mission.

I'd rather suggest that the task in question by either replaced wholesale or that the correction method(s) actually work...

It's one thing for the mortars to somehow not land true on the first round or even none of the rounds on the first call-in, it's another when subsequent call-ins don't either... plus with three towers, you're probably going to have to deliver some one-round salvos in there.

HKFlash's suggestion of changing it to "Weaken Mike-26" is a good example of the former (replacement).

[coolts 0]

Pretty damn solid for me so far (no mods installed). No crashes and only a few glitches. Loving the extra help in the comms menu. Whoevers idea that was at BIS I owe them a cold beer.

I've always had sound issues in Arma games, with voice acting volumes all over the place. I get that they have modelled sound so people talking further away are quieter, naturally. But when you can see the briefing guys lips moving and can barely hear him, that needs tweaking.

Just completed the "Death valley" missions. After doing the drone showcase (eventually), and watching several drone showcase YouTube how-to's, I've just figured out you need to activate your laser with left mouse button then lase by holding right mouse button. That may be In the manual, but it wasn't in the hints. That's going to baffle people.

Edited October 26, 2013 by coolts

[HKFlash 9]

Just completed the "Death valley" missions. After doing the drone showcase (eventually), and watching several drone showcase YouTube how-to's, I've just figured out you need to activate your laser with left mouse button then lase by holding right mouse button. That may be In the manual, but it wasn't in the hints. That's going to baffle people.

What manual? The field manual? Because if so they can easily add it as an Hint, since the new system uses Field Manual entries.

Example:

_null = [["InfantryMovement", "BasicMove"], 10, ""] call BIS_fnc_advHint

[Brisse 78]

I've always had sound issues in Arma games, with voice acting volumes all over the place. I get that they have modelled sound so people talking further away are quieter, naturally. But when you can see the briefing guys lips moving and can barely hear him, that needs tweaking.

It's a bug so it's not about tweaking. I posted a workaround on page 27 of this thread. Check it out, it only takes a few seconds of your time.

[antoineflemming 14]

I found I had to disable all mods for this to work (haven't tracked down which one did it) - Kerry should say 's##t' when Adams dies along with some other dialog from a British Officer over the Radio. I'm guessing there is a trigger not activating due to one of the mods.

For me it was any mod that actually changed something about the game, so CBA, Speed of Sound which changes sounds, TMR which changed sights, and all weapons mods with sights that affected what default sights could show up. All I've got there now are my Mediterranean Operations units and Sabre's US Army.

[2nd ranger 282]

this Episode has shown us that you are capable of delivering a good campaign with exceptional voice acting

The voice acting is generally solid but there were some lines I personally felt were either a bit overdone, making them sound cheesy, and some that suffered from a lack of direction. For example, emphasis being put on the wrong word in a sentence, and even some lines that were just read wrong (sometimes due to clunky dialogue). There was one in particular, I think it was in Radio Silence, where the actor kind of pauses mid-sentence as if the line is finished, but then he realises there is more on the page and finishes it. Either that or the sentence was cobbled together from two different files. I'm guessing the actors are pretty much handed their lines to record with no feedback from BIS.

Can't really complain though - on the whole the voice work is ten times better than in Arma 2, where alot of the time it seemed like the 'actors' were random delivery people who walked into the office. And where certain characters' voices would sometimes be a completely different guy from one mission to the next. And where a USMC intelligence guy is British for some reason.

Edited October 26, 2013 by 2nd Ranger

[Tonci87 163]

I should add that I played with CBA, JSRS and TPW Mods

No Mod related Problems here

[nmdanny 22]

The overall story(the betrayal, sudden CSAT involvement) seems interesting

However there are several (logical) flaws in the first episode, a lot of them I find to be related to the scale of Stratis

For example, while the AAF might not be as well trained as NATO, they do have helicopters, CAS(and I presume AA) jets, HMG armed striders, mortars

And with Stratis being relatively tiny, surely the AAF found out about Camp Maxwell's location. So why is it only directly attacked once, by highly inaccurate mortars(not sure if they were even mortars), and this being 2035, mortars have the NEMO system for aligning them, even unskilled/dumb AAF/greenbacks would know how to operate them enough to cause a considerable havoc on Maxwell, as opposed to ~5 casualties without damaging anything particularly important.

In the episode, the AAF never mounts an organised assault on camp Maxwell. (By organised, I mean some squads arriving in striders, maybe some mortars and maybe even buzzard CAS support)

So, in all missions where you had a vehicle(minus the SDV, although I wonder how they even got it to shore/transported it with AAF all around the island), why didn't any CAS buzzard lob some cannon shells or bombs/ATGMs to your vehicles.

How did so many(relatively) FIA insurgents managed to hide in this island until now, their vehicles should have been spotted at first glance by any patrolling jet or helicopter, let alone the actual soldiers with their base and equipment.

Also, how were the survivors completely cut off from contact with the world(and NATO), just because some communication dome doesn't work - won't NATO satellites notice combat activity, notice that their soldiers stopped contacting them, or NATO radars detecting a bunch of CSAT aircraft invading Stratis during the end?

As for the gameplay:

The gunfighting was quite tedious, I had a large amount of scope sway while the AI can hit me after shooting a couple of rounds, even when standing up.

Friendly teammates died very fast, they weren't ambitious enough to perform more complicated assaults(as opposed to staying in the same area shooting enemies even though they have bad cover and outmanned), they all relied on the player(not a squad leader) to do everything.

This was noticeable in the last mission during the attack on Agia Marina(more specifically, on some warehouse near it), they had no cover, did not make any attempts to advance into the warehouse zone, and were basically waiting to die. On another mission where you attacked the dome, after repelling the counter-attack, me and another soldier are sent to stop alone, ~2-3 AAF teams who came with unarmed striders, my teammate just walked to the middle of the road and died in some seconds, I had to run back to the dome and go up to a watchtower, then pick them off from range. Leaving the dome was quite pointless.

[squadie 10]

I kinda liked it but...... there was a part where it was raining and the sky above was clear...the rain looked awful...like long yellow/brown streaks....other than that....pretty good

[antoineflemming 14]

I should add that I played with CBA, JSRS and TPW Mods

No Mod related Problems here

When I play with those, I can't restart the mission.

[HKFlash 9]

The overall story(the betrayal, sudden CSAT involvement) seems interesting

However there are several (logical) flaws in the first episode, a lot of them I find to be related to the scale of Stratis

For example, while the AAF might not be as well trained as NATO, they do have helicopters, CAS(and I presume AA) jets, HMG armed striders, mortars

And with Stratis being relatively tiny, surely the AAF found out about Camp Maxwell's location. So why is it only directly attacked once, by highly inaccurate mortars(not sure if they were even mortars), and this being 2035, mortars have the NEMO system for aligning them, even unskilled/dumb AAF/greenbacks would know how to operate them enough to cause a considerable havoc on Maxwell, as opposed to ~5 casualties without damaging anything particularly important.

Although its true that Stratis is a small island, there are several factors that contribute for the AAF not attacking Maxwell earlier:

• Not attacking does not mean the AAF does not know that the remaining NATO forces have reactivated it.
  
• The AAF seems to lacks (at least on Stratis) several assets that could help with recon, such as drones.
  
• Maxwell is located in a very heavily forested area where aircraft without surveillance equipment would have a hard time figuring out it was occupied, plus NATO soldiers could just hide from view when an aircraft made a pass.
  
• Maxwell was attacked during the night because the AAF knew that they needed to have the surprise factor on their side to avoid NATO escaping the Camp and regrouping somewhere else. Night time also allows for military forces to stage at a certain area (in preparation for an assault) with a reduced risk of been spotted.
  
• NATO troops took shelter when the mortars started falling which is a natural military tactic against indirect fire, hence the low casualties, do not forget that some Squads (such as the player's) were not there.
  
• The AAF had to make sure the rest of the island was clean of NATO forces before making a move on Maxwell.
  
• The missions that initiate at Maxwell, all occur on the same day, so it just took some hours for the AAF to attack the Camp.
  

In the episode, the AAF never mounts an organised assault on camp Maxwell. (By organised, I mean some squads arriving in striders, maybe some mortars and maybe even buzzard CAS support).

An artillery barrage is a common military tactic before an assault. Why the assault never occured is related to CSAT pulling the strings on the AAF. I believe this kind of quetions will only be answered on episode 2.

So, in all missions where you had a vehicle(minus the SDV, although I wonder how they even got it to shore/transported it with AAF all around the island), why didn't any CAS buzzard lob some cannon shells or bombs/ATGMs to your vehicles.

How did so many(relatively) FIA insurgents managed to hide in this island until now, their vehicles should have been spotted at first glance by any patrolling jet or helicopter, let alone the actual soldiers with their base and equipment.

The buzzard is not a recon aircraft as far as I know, its not that easy to spot stuff, at least I have difficulty spotting ground targets when flying a jet (especially infantry). That's why players have access to a 'fictional' radar, to help them spot targets.

Also, how were the survivors completely cut off from contact with the world(and NATO), just because some communication dome doesn't work - won't NATO satellites notice combat activity, notice that their soldiers stopped contacting them, or NATO radars detecting a bunch of CSAT aircraft invading Stratis during the end?

As far as I know, its not like NATO has dozens of satellites. They need to make a pass in order to initiate surveillance, hence why those assets are not always avaiable. Plus the rest of NATO was already on the way when CSAT made its move on Stratis.

[Kydoimos 916]

I must say, credit where credit's due - I personally thought the first episode was AMAZING. Really, really impressed. Thanks BI - really enjoyed it!

[progamer 14]

Loved the first episode from the campaign, though there are probably a few issues with the military communications not being realistic that would need fixing.

[saul 24]

Very few issues on my end. Worked with mods. I did have a slight audio bug where I could only hear speech out of my left ear so I ended up having to use radio text and subtitles to get all of the conversations.

@NMDANNY = I think you are over-thinking the story a bit much. The first campaign episode only takes place over two days. In the beginning chaos it is very possible that a handful of NATO soldiers were overlooked until later in the day on the 7th. The AAF only had a companies worth of soldiers on the island (if you check the maps prior to each mission, it tells you), four platoons with some CAS support. To a point it makes sense that they wouldn't go all out on those NATO soldiers as they didn't know one how many they were up against and two they needed to hold their positions that they had. Camp Maxwell was an abandoned military post and until the AAF regrouped and realized what was going on again it would be easily missed. Air Station Mike 26 was taken down during the dismantleing so the gear there doesn't work and they would need the proper radio equipment to make the long distance call (assuming cell phones were jamed, lol). All I'm trying to say is don't take the story out of context, it's a story. If you want reality set up a checkpoint in the editor with a few buddies and check civilian traffic for six hours.

As for the AI, I agree to a point, only real problem I had was the final mission as well where only four of us made it out alive, lol.