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

[2nd ranger 282]

3. Just change the Task so that instead of trying to kill specific guards you're basically told "here's eight rounds, do as much damage as possible with them". <- my suggestion

But then you would always have to use all eight rounds and never have any left for the reinforcements (unless you had an option to say "I'm done" without having to use all rounds). It's a nice option you have in the mission to be able to shell the incoming AAF, although it would make it a bit more interesting if the vehicles were armed, or there were alot more infantry than two fireteams.

As for being well written, I guess that's subjective, but if I can say I consider a BFx story better written, that's saying a lot about this one.

Well, saying a BF game is better written doesn't really say much about Survive at all, because AAA games like that are normally written by actual writers, sometimes even established Hollywood scriptwriters.

[Varanon 892]

Just noticed: In Death Valley, I still get my gear replaced by some default loadout. Can anyone confirm ?

[Tonci87 163]

But then you would always have to use all eight rounds and never have any left for the reinforcements (unless you had an option to say "I'm done" without having to use all rounds). It's a nice option you have in the mission to be able to shell the incoming AAF, although it would make it a bit more interesting if the vehicles were armed, or there were alot more infantry than two fireteams.

Well, saying a BF game is better written doesn't really say much about Survive at all, because AAA games like that are normally written by actual writers, sometimes even established Hollywood scriptwriters.

Or why not simply my suggestion:

Place a few HMGs overlooking the gate on top of the big fortified structure and tell the player to kill those MG´s with Mortarfire

[Zipper5 74]

The AI can make its own decisions well enough when you give it a cohesive group and some logical instructions

I wish that was always the case, but it is not. Would make my life a lot easier. :)

I feel I should maybe explain a couple of the reasons for the other issues with Radio Silence.

So, first of all, the only requirements for succeeding the tower task is you kill all of the tower occupants before you run out of mortars. I'm sure you can see now that changing them to MGs would make no difference. You can try shooting the guards, but if the AI in the base detect you as a result, you will compromise your position and be forced to engage anyways. While nowhere in the mission does it explicitly tell you that you only need to kill the guards in the tower, it also doesn't tell you that you need to destroy the towers themselves. You need only "neutralize" them. This is because I had to think of what sounds most transparent to the player. Destroy the towers? Why? Kill only the occupants? Why? "Neutralize" keeps it ambiguous, but it is interesting to learn that, for most, this defaults to thinking you need to destroy the towers themselves. Something to note for the future.

The other issues with this mission all go back to the change that was made to how mortars behave. When the mission was designed, everyone could easily take out all 3 towers with 3 mortars. This left you with 5 rounds to use on the reinforcements. Your squad will not attack the reinforcements until they either get too close to Mike-26, or you run out of rounds. As such, a player would typically have used the remaining 5 rounds by a point that the reinforcements are so close that your squad rarely even got to the dirt road before the reinforcements were neutralized, if they ever moved from Mike-26 at all. And now, again, I'm sure you can see how the change to the mortars affected this. This part was only ever meant to be a failsafe, but now it's become a part of the default mission flow.

I wish this had been caught earlier and allowed us time to properly adjust the mission or the mortars, but it wasn't, and I apologize for that. I am in full agreement that this reinforcement segment doesn't work very well now. It definitely doesn't work as I intended it, at least. As such, I am investigating how I can improve both aspects of this mission.

[cozza 24]

I wish that was always the case, but it is not. Would make my life a lot easier. :)

I feel I should maybe explain a couple of the reasons for the other issues with Radio Silence.

So, first of all, the only requirements for succeeding the tower task is you kill all of the tower occupants before you run out of mortars. I'm sure you can see now that changing them to MGs would make no difference. You can try shooting the guards, but if the AI in the base detect you as a result, you will compromise your position and be forced to engage anyways. While nowhere in the mission does it explicitly tell you that you only need to kill the guards in the tower, it also doesn't tell you that you need to destroy the towers themselves. You need only "neutralize" them. This is because I had to think of what sounds most transparent to the player. Destroy the towers? Why? Kill only the occupants? Why? "Neutralize" keeps it ambiguous, but it is interesting to learn that, for most, this defaults to thinking you need to destroy the towers themselves. Something to note for the future.

The other issues with this mission all go back to the change that was made to how mortars behave. When the mission was designed, everyone could easily take out all 3 towers with 3 mortars. This left you with 5 rounds to use on the reinforcements. Your squad will not attack the reinforcements until they either get too close to Mike-26, or you run out of rounds. As such, a player would typically have used the remaining 5 rounds by a point that the reinforcements are so close that your squad rarely even got to the dirt road before the reinforcements were neutralized, if they ever moved from Mike-26 at all. And now, again, I'm sure you can see how the change to the mortars affected this. This part was only ever meant to be a failsafe, but now it's become a part of the default mission flow.

I wish this had been caught earlier and allowed us time to properly adjust the mission or the mortars, but it wasn't, and I apologize for that. I am in full agreement that this reinforcement segment doesn't work very well now. It definitely doesn't work as I intended it, at least. As such, I am investigating how I can improve both aspects of this mission.

Delay the renforments and lay mines?

But thats too much like Blackfoot down.

[xendance 3]

Unless they rewrite their AI to make tactically sound decisions, again, they need to motion capture and script the movements of the AI. Script them to get online and prone. Script them to lay down a base of fire. Script them to flank to the left and take up an assaulting position. Script a textbook squad attack and other types of attacks/maneuvers. That's what they need to do. I know plenty will hate that, but it's currently the only way for the AI to actually behave in a realistic manner. Because while the AI take a lot of factors into consideration, they are far from realistic and far from behaving believably. And honestly the only way to talk about a solution is to talk about the AI and AI scripting and AI behavior, and that's really the topic of another thread.

So you're saying that it shouldn't be improved because it's hard work?

Btw the "Tipping Point" mission is awful. I have like four people alive when we start to retreat. Well guess what happens? Those goddamn mortars kill everyone else except me, every single time. It turns the game into a dying simulator. It isn't fun.

[tortuosit 486]

Bugs found:

- Cannot start (does not appear in the menu) the UAV terminal in Girna's mission.

Same here. I think it was in the action menu, but when I needed it it was gone.

It's always predictable when the auto chatter clocks in, I mean like "Go 200 meters, west" - then I know something will happen.

Voice acting is a bit too über cool for me. Not sure if all US citizens are really like this or if its just a clicheé. I wish for some more fear and frightening. I mean now you've got the feeling like "hey, OK, it's war, but we're so cool, we'll freeze the enemy".

However, enjoyable campaign so far.

Edited November 5, 2013 by tortuosit

[Smurf 12]

Yep, that final part of Tipping Point wasn't that great. if anything, those boats should come to you. And remove the Hamok from the battle, just make them pass by and go to Charlie, it looks silly to a beast like that don't engage anything.

[antoineflemming 14]

So you're saying that it shouldn't be improved because it's hard work?

Btw the "Tipping Point" mission is awful. I have like four people alive when we start to retreat. Well guess what happens? Those goddamn mortars kill everyone else except me, every single time. It turns the game into a dying simulator. It isn't fun.

I'm saying that I don't think there's a way to make the AI behave in a tactically sound manner without scripting them to do so in the game. It's hard work either way, but the more the AI have to process and calculate and take into consideration, sure, the smarter they may be, but the slower they will be. Look at how slow the AI currently is to react? Look at how they constantly run back and forth, crossing fields of fire. They need to be able to, when engaged, get down, get on line, and lay down fire. One team (talking about teams in a squad-sized element) needs to envelop the enemy to their left or right flank, while taking into consideration terrain and the weapons at their disposal. They need to aggressively assault the enemy as well. They need to be able to shoot from cover when pinned down. They need to throw back or at least run away from grenades as well as call them out when they are thrown. In short, they need to be able to behave like humans. And currently, they don't do that too well. Sure, they aren't on rails with map-defined paths like in COD. But they react like robots at the moment. Sure, it's not so important for the editor or MP, or for the random AI in the campaign, but it's really important for the NPCs (non-playable characters, obviously not the same as AI).

Of course, some will say this isn't important, period. But Arma 3 is supposed to be simulating infantry combat, correct? Well simulating infantry combat isn't just getting AI to move, get down, shoot, maybe peek around a corner, and repeat. Proper infantry simulation should include the AI making proper tactical decisions. Sure, that's hard to do. But nowhere did I mention that the AI "shouldn't be improved" because it's hard work. I'm saying that there are two options. If they do a rewrite or major effort to improve the AI, then it'll take longer I'm sure, but it might be good if they sort of try to rewrite it from the ground up in a separate project (so as to not break Arma 3), in order to make it as simple as possible (a little code as possible) while being robust enough to properly simulate infantry behavior. That'd be the perfect solution. The quicker solution would be to script your main NPCs (them only, so the ones with names like James, Northgate, Miller, Lacey, Adams, etc).

[Fergal 10]

Are Mortars that useless in real life?

Trying to complete Radio Silence, having a hard time since the mortars completely miss every time, my squad die trying to take the station, leaving the rest of the mission impossible where the team leader just runs into a hail of fire leaving me to myself with this awful, weak, inaccurate gun.

[ShotgunSheamuS 1]

Btw the "Tipping Point" mission is awful. I have like four people alive when we start to retreat. Well guess what happens? Those goddamn mortars kill everyone else except me, every single time. It turns the game into a dying simulator. It isn't fun.

Mainly came to put my input for exactly this. That was the part that got me, I literally had to redo that part like 16 times before I actually made it through. And it isn't that much of a case of, "Oh I am approaching this wrong, I should do it another way", because fairly simply put, you get nailed following your squad regardless, and thats where the problem lies... I found it more likely that the mortars were really going for ME and not my squad. I had to break away and go far right away from them to realize this (thinking I wouldnt get nailed), and only then, still die, however! Not as easily, I had a much better chance of survival because of the uneven ground, and then I figured how to traverse that uneven terrain to safety. So yes this part will be majorly frustrating to other players (and this is to an extent where newcomers, your future bread and butter will give up), and the whole "keep moving so they dont get a bead on you" advice doesnt help much for the newcomer or the average player because they will be following the squad to their death beds. I would suggest that during that section, the path gets redirected and leans more right towards the ditch and uneven terrain on the right where mortars are less effective than the flat even terrain the squad is going towards. Just my 2cents on that one.

Other than that, This is definately a good experience so far, and I just love that it doesnt feel like a copy paste of A2 at all, I think thats what I respect most. It does feel like something new, and fresh and you guys are stretching your creativity (the future theme makes this doubly as cool). The action is pretty decent, gun play is fun, dialogue feels solid, and well done, story I cant comment yet as this felt much more like a teaser or demo to be honest, AI arent too bad, although I will admit, as far as squad mates go, after your squad leader hits that mine at the beginning, the rest of guys I end up joining, I dont feel them at all, feels very disjointed, and clunky, and they are pretty damn useless to be honest. But maybe that works partly because you are joining up with strangers that you arent suppose to feel connected with yet as a team, it is not expected that they would jam well with the player... However this may become a greater problem in the future as the player will be getting to know the new outfit and yet it would still feel very disjointed. But to top it off, this is really great, I'm enjoying it, and I love the new rain and sunshafts that just add a whole new level of beauty to ARMA. I really do hope to see more performance tweaks, more natural beauty added to the world of ARMA and the rest of the campaign =P

Lastly, as the credits rolled over (and yes I watched it, feel it was deserving) I was surprised to see my profile name in the credits at the end before the long list of other players. Very nice touch that, I didnt expect it, and yet it struck a cord =)

PS: on the subject of my preference whether I prefer the episodic content or the full content release... I am liking the episodic. It gives me a gap when I need it, like when I want to play mp, or other games, I dont have to be held up to finish arma first. and also, this right here, feedback, which could probably promote improvemnts on future episodes, also a great thing. Personally I prefer this! I would just like to suggest one thing though. When starting the next campaign, could you guys kick it off with a "previously on ARMA" take? The release of the episodes are fairly far apart, and alot of this information about the events and story will probably be lost on me by the time I start the second episode, so just brief intro to highlight the events of the first episode just to refresh my memory before I kickoff episode 2 would be awesome =)

[Polygon 11]

figured I'll post my neg. feedback here as well:

- attacking an AAF VIP in the middle of the day?

- naive soldiers, doesn't present questions to Miller or anyone else high in command in this dire situation

- Maxwell full of lights in the dark? next time don't be surprised why arty hits you hard later. (why not use metal military barracks for cover?)

- AAF miraculously incapable of locating a group of survivors... on an abandoned MILITARY COMPOUND (lol) (even survivors doesn't put any effort into covering up their traces before danger closes...)

- advancing through a valley? squad's leader should have his head chopped off.

- Wet Work: terrible insertion with no recon info or any smart preparations. like, "let's gamble our lives guys!"

- didn't notice any actual active patrols around Maxwell or going further to ensure safety of others. everybody relaxed.

- AAF air harmless? jets flying over and disappearing, attack helis ignoring obvious threats... epic win.

- no vehicles utilization while so many of them on the battlefield.

- terrible waypoint placements in terms of tactics/safety/etc. by game designers. both sides take the most stupid approaches possible.

- Tipping Point: remnants of survivors attack the main city (logically, it should be most defended!) of Stratis... then their evac boats ignore everything around (no covering fire, etc.).

- with so many AAF helis/jets occupying the sphere, Miller decides to leave for Altis right now in boats, through plain sea (genius). equals to death sentence. nobody, perhaps aware of themselves, opposes dumb Miller's decisions.

* no cutscenes

* storyline hooks on a massive cliffhanger

* huge lack of any tactics/decisions that would represent military-like thinking

Maybe BIS needs a consultant or a more experienced, self-critical designer which may drive a campaign to perfection almost?

[Tonci87 163]

I wish that was always the case, but it is not. Would make my life a lot easier. :)

I feel I should maybe explain a couple of the reasons for the other issues with Radio Silence.

So, first of all, the only requirements for succeeding the tower task is you kill all of the tower occupants before you run out of mortars. I'm sure you can see now that changing them to MGs would make no difference. You can try shooting the guards, but if the AI in the base detect you as a result, you will compromise your position and be forced to engage anyways. While nowhere in the mission does it explicitly tell you that you only need to kill the guards in the tower, it also doesn't tell you that you need to destroy the towers themselves. You need only "neutralize" them. This is because I had to think of what sounds most transparent to the player. Destroy the towers? Why? Kill only the occupants? Why? "Neutralize" keeps it ambiguous, but it is interesting to learn that, for most, this defaults to thinking you need to destroy the towers themselves. Something to note for the future.

The other issues with this mission all go back to the change that was made to how mortars behave. When the mission was designed, everyone could easily take out all 3 towers with 3 mortars. This left you with 5 rounds to use on the reinforcements. Your squad will not attack the reinforcements until they either get too close to Mike-26, or you run out of rounds. As such, a player would typically have used the remaining 5 rounds by a point that the reinforcements are so close that your squad rarely even got to the dirt road before the reinforcements were neutralized, if they ever moved from Mike-26 at all. And now, again, I'm sure you can see how the change to the mortars affected this. This part was only ever meant to be a failsafe, but now it's become a part of the default mission flow.

I wish this had been caught earlier and allowed us time to properly adjust the mission or the mortars, but it wasn't, and I apologize for that. I am in full agreement that this reinforcement segment doesn't work very well now. It definitely doesn't work as I intended it, at least. As such, I am investigating how I can improve both aspects of this mission.

No no no I think you missunderstood me Zipper. I wasn´t suggesting that you add additional MGs on top of the tower task.

This is my idea:

1. Remove the neutralize towers objective but keep the guards in the tower.

2. Add one or two Crew served MGs on top of the large fortified structure. The fortified Structure is a lot easier to hit with mortars than the towers and one hit on the roof will usually kill everything on top of it.

3. Make it the objective to kill the MGs before the assault. It makes perfect sense to the player since those dangerous weapons are High Priority targets. I experienced that if I order a 5 or 6 round salvo on the fortified structure, at least one round will land on top of it, killing all the guards up there.

[Grek 10]

looks like BIS should fire their story writer/army consultant:D

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

I wish this had been caught earlier and allowed us time to properly adjust the mission or the mortars, but it wasn't, and I apologize for that. I am in full agreement that this reinforcement segment doesn't work very well now. It definitely doesn't work as I intended it, at least. As such, I am investigating how I can improve both aspects of this mission.

Make fire support laser guided and give Kerry the designator. Problem solved.

[marcai 1]

Well I've just completed the Radio Silence mission, and apart from the aforementioned mortar issue (The guy next to me points out that I missed the towers! Bitch, please... :rolleyes:), I'm loving the campaign to bits so far. The missions can seem a bit short at times, but I've grown to like that; no one part drags on for too long and the pacing feels nice. Really well done, BIS.

[barakokula31 10]

* no cutscenes

* storyline hooks on a massive cliffhanger

What exactly is wrong with these two?

[ShotgunSheamuS 1]

figured I'll post my neg. feedback here as well:

- attacking an AAF VIP in the middle of the day?

- naive soldiers, doesn't present questions to Miller or anyone else high in command in this dire situation

- Maxwell full of lights in the dark? next time don't be surprised why arty hits you hard later. (why not use metal military barracks for cover?)

- AAF miraculously incapable of locating a group of survivors... on an abandoned MILITARY COMPOUND (lol) (even survivors doesn't put any effort into covering up their traces before danger closes...)

- advancing through a valley? squad's leader should have his head chopped off.

- Wet Work: terrible insertion with no recon info or any smart preparations. like, "let's gamble our lives guys!"

- didn't notice any actual active patrols around Maxwell or going further to ensure safety of others. everybody relaxed.

- AAF air harmless? jets flying over and disappearing, attack helis ignoring obvious threats... epic win.

- no vehicles utilization while so many of them on the battlefield.

- terrible waypoint placements in terms of tactics/safety/etc. by game designers. both sides take the most stupid approaches possible.

- Tipping Point: remnants of survivors attack the main city (logically, it should be most defended!) of Stratis... then their evac boats ignore everything around (no covering fire, etc.).

- with so many AAF helis/jets occupying the sphere, Miller decides to leave for Altis right now in boats, through plain sea (genius). equals to death sentence. nobody, perhaps aware of themselves, opposes dumb Miller's decisions.

* no cutscenes

* storyline hooks on a massive cliffhanger

* huge lack of any tactics/decisions that would represent military-like thinking

Maybe BIS needs a consultant or a more experienced, self-critical designer which may drive a campaign to perfection almost?

I agree with what you say, and it is for the most part valid. But I have to honestly say that it doesnt seem to kill the experience as much, and remember, to the newbish people joining ARMA now, this isnt even a concern to them and lets face it, BI are trying to open up to a wider audience. Now I do understand that this could make the hardcore fans feel neglected, but it does make it easier to get into for them. However, the flawed logic that you point out could likely be addressed and corrected and tweaked in a future update to the campaign, however for the most part, I think it could be taken into serious consideration for the upcoming episodes, to which I agree with totally. It would be nice for ARMA to stick to simulation, even though they are trying to go for raw adventure and action.

That said, I still think it was pretty damn good, rough around the edges, but still damn good. The cutscenes comment, really not a deal breaker, half life never had cutscenes and it turned out fine. As for the cliffhanger, it was perfect... Really makes me eager for next episode, so I think mission accomplished =)

[-=seany=- 5]

The points that Polygon made are all true. But, it didn't really detract from the campaign for me. Some of the points did cross my mind during the mission but most did not. Still, it would be worth taking into consideration for the next part of the campaign.

Things that most annoyed me was the way Your character keeps asking stupid questions, or questioning the mission itself. It just irritated me. He is a soldier and the all hell is breaking loose, he should just go along with what he is told.

I liked the way the Ai squad moved with you. They never got in the way. I also never got left behind, even when I stopped to look at some thing or engage from a distance. The increase in enemy accuracy as the campaign progressed was good too

Over all I liked the campaign. It wasn't ground breaking or innovative really and they where the usual cliches, but they where fun missions. Looking forward to the next part.

BUGS:

Only 2 real bugs

1.On the mission where you have to blow the Helicopter, one of the squad gets stuck next to the helicopter so you kill him if you detonate the charge. I got past this after several attempts by placing the charge a bit further away so it only injured him but still killed the helo.

2. Audio bug that causes direct chat to be inaudible unless you are facing a specific direction.

Edited November 6, 2013 by -=seany=-

[chortles 263]

Things that most annoyed me was the way Your character keeps asking stupid questions, or questioning the mission itself. It just irritated me. He is a soldier and the all hell is breaking loose, he should just go along with what he is told.

That sounds incredibly damning about your view on how people should behave.

Interesting to see that the official view of the feedback is "positive reception of "Survive" has boosted team morale and excitement to make the "Adapt" episode a fitting continuation." Also from SITREP #00033:

Some people struggled to work out how to start the campaign. We've hotfixed 1.04 to improve this a little by making double-clicking expand the campaign menu tree structure (besides pressing the arrow next to the campaign). Restoration of more obvious button methods is forthcoming.

[gammadust 12]

^^ well, i don't thing that implies not reconizing that there's issues mentioned in the feedback.

[chortles 263]

Of course, and devs such as Zipper5 have overtly acknowledged some specific issues and even elaborated on just what went wrong there, but it is notable to see that the official view of user feedback overall is "glass half full" instead of "half empty", which suggests an official view of "things proceeding according to plan".

[Grek 10]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/arma3/announcements/detail/1405415135894141674

The positive reception of "Survive" has boosted team morale and excitement to make the "Adapt" episode a fitting continuation. Asset producers are finalizing the new sandbox content, for which we can finally share more teasers soon - including 3 added vehicles. That is not to say "Survive" came with just the campaign episode. Have a look at the full SPOTREP, and go in-depth with the cool blog written up by Creative Director Jay Crowe. Besides the second episode, what else are we working on at the moment? Coming up is the Arma 3 Tools release (read on for more) and a more traditional update of main branch later this month.

Parralel Universe?

[2nd ranger 282]

No, unfortunately you're still in the regular universe where everybody doesn't necessarily share your own opinion.

[Smurf 12]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/arma3/announcements/detail/1405415135894141674

Parralel Universe?

Not at all.