Campaign Episode 2: ADAPT - Feedback thread ** SPOILER WARNING! **

[dr. hladik 231]

I just tried the first mission of "Adapt", and oh boy.

I can say with complete honesty that thus far, I have never once come across such a joyless, unfun, poorly designed, poorly thought-out, genuinely bad gameplay-experience thus far in ArmA 3.

Firstly, it's a stealth-section.

A stealth-section.

In this game, where enemies can see and shoot for kilometers, wear camouflage, and quite literally spawn and move about all around you.

What the fuck were they thinking?

To make it perfect, you spawn with a pistol. Note that this isn't a regular pistol - the kind that protects you and shoots enemies - but one apparently designed by the mentally disabled, shortly before being fired and punished for gross criminal incompetence. The pistol cannot hit anything beyond the range of "squirt gun". I have literally seen airsoft pistols with better accuracy than that wretched piece of cunt. For this reason, the game recommends you explore ruined buildings for vital weapons and supplies. Problem is; BI has placed enemies either in direct proximity of said ruins, or within rifle range. Should you by chance come across a ruin that does not have at least two patrols fucking around three feet away from it, you can bet your ass a heavily armed helicopter will land right next to it and drop off a full fireteam as soon as you come close. So the game first recommend/force you to explore ruins, and then make a point out of punishing you at every turn for doing so.

Again; what the fuck were they thinking?

For all I know, the game might improve significantly as soon as you meet up with the squad at the top of the hill. But I haven't gotten that far because not only is the level an un-entertaining slog through frustration, anger and hate, you can look forward to re-starting all the way back at the fucking beach each time you die, meaning you get to experience all that fun and good gameplay, all over again.

Difficulty: "Regular".

Urrrgh. I'm going to go punch something, now.

- Efficiency of soldier's armour and headshots is work in progress and will be changed. But also please do remember AAF soldiers do have ballistic armour.

- Stealth: If they are shooting, they saw you. Consider this - how often YOU attack /spot enemy that is 200m far?

[trent 14]

Flipped through a few walkthrough videos and it seems no vehicle combat again. Just your ragtag bunch of infantry nipping at the heels of giants like the first chapter. :(

[IndeedPete 1038]

I just finished the second part. Overall, it was good. The mision design often remined me of the Resistance campaign which is very nice, but the solely infantry-based combat also has its downsides as it lacks a certain diversity. Also, the story delivered in the second part was a little bit thin in my opinion. There's not much of a progress and the order of many of the -really well done- missions could be changed easily. I had some motivation lows in the middle of the second part but that changed the more I advanced towards the end. There were some really cool experiences in between and the last story cliffhanger at the end really got me. ;)

So, for the last part I hope to see some more storytelling and interesting twists, and some more diversive gameplay; e.g. bringing all kinds of vehicles in etc. Otherwise the campaign would not use the full capacities this great game has to offer and that would be sad. In total: keep up the good work, BIS. I'm really looking forward to the last part. :)

[doln 10]

I think the mission where Orestes defects could have a few more enemy infantry or something walking around the AO. The only enemies I encountered were an ifrit, a marid, (both of which I managed to completely avoid) and the 5 infantrymen at the helicopter LZ. So the mission was just an hour of me running around, more or less. Maybe add some small patrols to spice things up with a firefight every now and then?

Edited January 17, 2014 by Doln

[Lightningstrike 10]

i partially agree with St!gar about the gameplay (its far less fun than ArmaII) and here is my 2cents of what i consider as bizarre and lame campaign story-line and logic design flaws:

after the mission 'Breaking Even' (where you attack an outpost and wait for the small pickup truck to be loaded with supposedly 'a lot of gear' and that takes so much 'time' to load),

The effort and time we spend doing that mission , seriously i was expecting to find that truck in our guerilla compound or at least more ammo and geaer crates with a larger choice of new gear we have supposedly stolen in that mission using that pickup truck, instead after the briefing for the next mission (Gori) , not only i got stripped out of the ammo/gear loot from the mission but also there was the same poor choice in ammo and gear as for all missions!?

hey seriously, the scenery writer people, wtf you were thinking when you were creating that ?? where in the fuck is that pickup truck full of new gear we had hardtime to steal? i think that is a joke, and a very poor and cheap story line campaign mission design, it doesn't reward player and totally ruins the 'players immersion' in the campaign... it doesn't really make me want to pursue playing, because due to this design flaw i know that there are no 'rewards' , and when there are no rewards in a game, that ruins completely the game's interest, that is a part of a crucial gaming 'doctrine', and it is being ruined here.

and now a question:

was anyone ever able to complete the Bingo Fuel mission without fucking NV goggles? :mad:

[st!gar 3]

The part where you have to sneak through the town I went in the hard way.I waited for 2 greenbacks to enter back side of

building and ambush them.I didnt get them right away but had to flank them with CSAT guys patrolling the area.

It was very intense playing, awesome mission design.No more hand holding, exactly what I love.

My problem has got nothing to do with hand-holding, or the lack thereof.

Strange, I ignored ruins and run stealthy directly towards hill to RV point. Mission done without any frustration.

Then they shouldn't have specifically advised you to search the ruins, if all they ever do is make it harder for you.

Stealth: If they are shooting, they saw you. Consider this - how often YOU attack /spot enemy that is 200m far?

Exactly. Which is why you do not design a daytime stealth mission in ArmA 3.

Flipped through a few walkthrough videos and it seems no vehicle combat again. Just your ragtag bunch of infantry nipping at the heels of giants like the first chapter.

Awww. more small-scale infantry combat? Damn. :( I was hoping Adapt would be a departure from the Survive-gameplay and focus more on large-scale operations.

Edited January 17, 2014 by St!gar

[2nd ranger 282]

It's not a stealth mission unless you play it like that. I found it frustrating at first, but then after a couple of tries I found a dead guy in the ruins and took his rifle, then just fought the rest of the way. Although I think the mission might have been a bit more atmospheric if it was set in the evening and had actually been designed for stealth.

[enex 11]

Stigar your attitude makes me sick.

If you don-t like something you explain the problem and offer possible solutions.Venting off on forums, for everyone to

read only encourages negativity which wont fix anything.Thats why I described one positive experience because

I cant stand people on high horses.

[L3TUC3 32]

This is a lesson learned a hard way indeed.

But - if you have troubles finding mines at night and/or don't have a mine detector - you have to Adapt^TM - try to find some or visit the AO during day and your odds will be much better.

Nevertheless, we can add an extra sentence into the task description to warn you about this danger.

You'll make Zipper sad, as he is completely innocent in this matter :)

YOLO wins.

Finally finished it. I adapted by yoloswagging over the mines with an ATV. ATVs are practically invulnerable to them and I'm sure that was intended behavior you were alluding to. (No there was no mine detector at base, and I wasn't going to go look for one at the other missions I finished already). Unfortunately once I killed the sniper and his mate the rifle clipped through the building and I wasn't able to recover it :(. Is the sniper team spawn random? I ask because they were in a spot I'm sure I had checked before.

[st!gar 3]

Stigar your attitude makes me sick.

:o:

It's not a stealth mission unless you play it like that. I found it frustrating at first, but then after a couple of tries I found a dead guy in the ruins and took his rifle, then just fought the rest of the way. Although I think the mission might have been a bit more atmospheric if it was set in the evening and had actually been designed for stealth.

But the mission so utterly implies that it's stealth-based. I also managed to beat the mission by essentially running in a straight line until I reached the hill, but it felt like cheating. Like I was abusing an exploit.

Edited January 18, 2014 by St!gar

[NeMeSiS 11]

If you want any equipment to be available at the armory, then you must take it back to base from scouting. So choose carefully and don't get your car immobilized when you are on your way back :)

The vehicles are not currently saved, but all weapons, magazines and attachments in cargo (and from backpacks in cargo) are saved to weapon pool, so they will be immediately available at the armory once you return back to base.

The other items are not currently saved.

You may want to change that a bit, at least put some weapons in the truck or something. Taking weapons from corpses and putting them in vehicles just isnt very good gameplay. Also, almost all weapons were 9mm or pistols so i didnt even think about taking them, since they are competely useless against enemies with vests. I think that that mission cost me more than reward was available. All this makes it a rather useless weapon gathering mission.

About the stealth sections: They are fine, just dont expect splinter cell like stuff. Stay low and stay completely out of sight. A slow crawl is often better then a quick sprint from cover to cover if you dont want to attract attention. (Playing on default regular AI settings)

There was only 1 occasion that bothers me:

During 'Bingo Fuel' i am expected to sneak into that last base to steal a fuel truck. This is literally impossible because there is at least 1 firesquad directly on top of the damn thing, so sneaking towards it is impossible, let alone driving away alive. 'Luckily' i can call in a squad to divert attention away. Apparently this means throwing a single grenade somewhat vaguely near the base, then calling it a day. The base defenders didn't even go into combat mode.

I just resorted to shooting everyone. I havent finished the mission yet, because i couldn't be bothered playing on after getting a killcount higher than Rambo in what is supposed to be a stealthy mission. It is definitely possible to take out the entire base though, which is funny because i was specifically told by the commander that taking over the base was not my task.

Honestly, i didnt like a single aspect of this mission after joining up with my squad (which was nice and atmospheric). I didnt like the locations. I didnt like having to walk for fucking ever. I didn't like having to take out an entire army with a shitty equipped squad. I didnt like some dude deciding that it was a good idea to attack the second base after losing half my squad and almost all our ammo at the first base during a >30 minute shootout (also because commanding AI to rearm is a pain in the ass), then having to walk all the way to the second base, with nothing to do but blowing up a single badly placed tank on top of a hill that kept my squad from going into aware mode because they spotted it from kilometers away. It is 'Death Vally' all over again, but with more walking.

EDIT: Also, why the fuck do we need so much fuel? For that single pickup truck at our base? Cant we just rob a fuel station, or siphon it out of someone else's car if we cant be bothered to pay for gas? I see no reason to attack the most well guarded fuel truck in the world.

This mission needed an option to yell 'Go fuck yourself!', take that ridiculous checkered hat from one of those corpses that are randomly thrown about next to the side of roads and take a nap on the beach.

Edited January 18, 2014 by NeMeSiS

[call_911 10]

Little bit of OFP nostalgia, somthing ArmA1-2 an OA missed on IMO. Like how now it sucks u in to the whole story etc whereas the last ones just did'nt quite manage to do so. I once again find myself fearing every decision I make, just like in OFP.

[Lightningstrike 10]

now, this is fucked up:

at the RV where you have to meet the defecting officer (EXIT STRATEGY mission), if you stay there to wait, not only you get nearly ran over by the arriving humvee but also you get shot! and the mission ends and its impossible to continue the campaign..

i have restarted the mission several times, either you get shot, or if you shoot at them and kill any ;the mission (and the campaign) ends as a fail.

WTF? lol

Edited January 18, 2014 by Lightningstrike

[msy 22]

I'm afraid the first answer is no - we now have to focus on fixes, not new features.

The vehicles should also be saved, but there are some vital questions that haven't been answered yet:

- should all vehicles be saved? If yes, where to place them (most likely not, the base is not a car park :) )? If no, how to decide, which should be saved and which not?

- some cars have random texture (and offroads have random number of doors and rear mirrors). How to make it consistent across mission? If it's even possible.

- saving the car status - fuel, damage, cargo - should we give every enter-able vehicle an identity? If it gets immobilized somewhere, should it stay saved or should it be deleted after you return to base?

- how to make sure there will always be some vehicle near the base, so player won't have to walk few km on his own to get any and it won't look too artificial?

Learn from GTA, you have given numbers of parking space, like 1 or 2 at one base. You can park whatever car in it but once you park them outside or you park more than the number, when in the next mission, the excess car(s) will be missing and the reason is others (NPC patrol, NPC OPs, etc.) are using the car(s), and unfortunately they will never come back.

So, what you devs will do is make an area for parking and write some big letters on it: 2 spaces available.

---------- Post added at 11:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:49 AM ----------

For side mission, can I have chance to get some AI companion? or some AI volunteer?

I play Elder Scrolls 5 these days and think there will be some side mission recieved on the way I patrol. And there will be some AI like to help me...

So many RPG elements to say (such as conversation system, friendship system, leadership system, etc.) but at this stage ARMA3 are so lacked of them...

Edited January 18, 2014 by msy

[sseagle 0]

Wow, I am absolutely terrible at this campaign so far, I have to set it down and walk away to cool off, I can't even get through to the second checkpoint in the first mission.

This makes me excited for the rest of it !

[msy 22]

I must say, AI even don't know what is guerilla warfare!:mad: They don't know what is hit and run. they like fighting too addictively to retreat! They like to kill every enemies they find that make them get killed at last because the enemiey reinforcement has tank but my AI has nothing but rifles. I have left the hot zone hundreds of meters away but they still stay there to fight the last footmen of the first wave of enforcement of enemy.

Every time I press ~-2-1 + ~-3-6 + ~-3-2 + ~-1-1, they only say "copy""copy""copy" but won't follow me.

I really don't want the foolish War zealot to die.:mad:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=16898

Edited January 18, 2014 by msy

[Holden93 12]

I agree about the stealth parts, to be honest they were fun in night missions, boring in day missions because you always got spotted and the enemy has like 1000 tanks in the AO, on the fuel mission for example I got spotted where the second spotter was, somehow the enemy knew he was there in fact when I joined him a group of about 10 enemies was there yet he wasn't reacting, he was standing without problems.

He joins me, after 3 minutes I have the entire AAF infantry against me and 3 tanks, I loved this episode but BI did you think about balancing things first? The other missions were nice and fun, only the Orestes and the fuel missions are meh because you need to walk for miles.

[h - 169]

A bit bad mission design in Supply Network:

When the thing goes fud and you have to escape they wish you could bring the ammo truck to their base, which ultimately is 1.1km away from the fight (after the first escape RV changes) well within the circling radius of the enemy choppers I have to crawl uphill with the truck the choppers keep attacking me and thus I draw them with me to the base (if they have not spotted it already).. :rolleyes:

Also, you can die in the black'n'white 'mission accomplished' screen, having to restart from last save although you just finished the mission.... :angryfire: :banghead:

And the AI seriously needs a "Reatreat you f*****g c***s!!!" order because

for example in the above mentioned mission the AI just starts to fight the overwhelming enemy and gets killed no matter what I try to do..

Edited January 18, 2014 by h -
unclearly worded first spoiler..

[msy 22]

A bit bad mission design in Supply Network:

When the thing goes fud and you have to escape they wish you could bring the ammo truck to their base, which ultimately is 1.1km away from the fight (after the first escape RV changes) well within the circling radius of the enemy choppers :rolleyes:

In addition, when I crawl uphill with the truck the choppers keep attacking me and thus I draw them with me to the base.

Also, you can die in the black'n'white filmgrained 'mission accomplished' screen, having to restart from last save although you just finished the mission.... :angryfire: :banghead:

And the AI seriously needs a "Reatreat you f*****g c***s!!!" order because

for example in the above mnetioned mission the AI just starts to fight the overwhelming enemy and gets killed no matter what I try to do..

AI don't know what is death and what is retreat, they are war zealot:mad:

[clarionhorn 10]

Little bit of OFP nostalgia, somthing ArmA1-2 an OA missed on IMO. Like how now it sucks u in to the whole story etc whereas the last ones just did'nt quite manage to do so. I once again find myself fearing every decision I make, just like in OFP.

the ofp narrative was engaging. the dialog was so bad it's funny sometimes, but nonetheless appropriate. it can be interpreted like a satire of war. the cutscenes used multiple angles and pans and some interesting guitar music.

in arma 3, they tried to play it straight. the dialog sounded silly that way.

"no offense sir, but fuck you", is not a clever line to an even less clever line about americans and freedom. imho, it seems they were doing the easy jokes rather than the random, obscure, non sequitur that made ofp a unique experience. serious dialog punctuated by kowalski's idiotic ramblings were brilliant.

also, i was not a fan of the lack of cutscenes. as i said, they improved ofp's story. but in arma 3:

it's through your eyes, probabaly to make it feel like you're there, but this only draws attention to the linearity of your actions anyway. you go to camp on a rail, following another guy. in ep1, it was james, not it's random fa guys. you always go back to camp, always go pick a gun, always go to the briefing area. it's the same formula from the first episode, just the guy talking is a different person.

and the briefings are frankly, boring. he doesn't say anything helpful, interesting, he just keeps repeating variations of "we must adapt and kill obj a, steal obj x, intercept, etc... i can read all of that in the briefing screen. use that scene for something else....cutscenes...such a missed feature. and a missed opportunity since this game has a beautiful environment, why not show it off some more with cutscenes feature helicopter chase views, birds eye views...taking you outside of the player's body for once. it makes those moments where you are in control even more personal by contrast.

i hope in ep 3, we don't get the same formula rehashed a third time.

of god i hope you don't "go back to base/camp" and have to sit through that nato officer's talk(the one who says he doesn't have a record of capt scott miller).

[JamesSaga 1]

Really great 2nd part to the campaign, was hard and challenging, made me really think how I was playing.

Very few issues.

Only main issue was that during the chopper ambush, chopper never showed then when re-loading the mission, it still never showed but I got a mission complete so I figure it must have crashed on route.

But really great job.

[EBass 0]

Ok full feedback with bits copied from earlier.

Main feedback:

Armory and Equipment selection: Currently I feel as in first episode, too much of a ballache. Searching through crates to find things, with your loadout often being reset at mission start. I feel a far more elegant solution would be some sort of gear select screen on mission start, much like you could customise your's and your squad's loadout in OFP:Resistance at mission start. To eliminate player error on select(i.e take no charges when mission calls for them, could have a default loadout, with hints STRONGLY suggesting player takes equipment X or Y.)

Also the "Saving weapons and stuff" mechanic feels weird and doesn't really work properly. If it doesn't allow you to select or save a backpack its almost useless picking up stuff. Infact I'd say the really useful stuff never saves, that being NVGs, GPS, and Backpacks.

Helicopter Ambush: *****SMALL SPOILER******

Helicopter seems to fly into turbine blades more often than not, did repeated saves to check this wasn't a one off occurance.

**** END SPOILER ****

Sneak to the Beach: Miller tells me "They might not be here if we took the opportunity to cut off their head when we had the chance." This SEEMS to me to be a reference to letting him use the fuel truck to assassinate the enemy commander. But I let him use the fuel truck to do that? Possible bug.

Patrol and Associated Side Objectives:

More needs to be done to communicate to the player that one needs to go "scouting" to fulfil the side objectives marked in orange on the map. I was running round the camp trying to find ways to "start" these missions. Additionally, seems odd that the player can only go scouting "solo" as far as I know, especially when one is going to attempt to take on objectives. Would feel more coherent to me if one had the option to take a small team (maybe a 4 man fireteam) with you.

Side mission "elite soldiers" was a borefest. Hiding a 6 soldiers in 2 buildings in a town doesn't make for much fun as far as I'm concerned. Clearing every single building in a single town is a very slow and boring process. Moreover the game misleads the player somewhat, which is bad design? How? Well if you're told that a town has some soldiers billeted in it, the player is naturally going to assume that they are billeted in the one large military structure in the town (the big tower). When the player finds a mine on the stairs of this structure, he's naturally going to be led into assuming yes, they are indeed in there, and the mine is to cover their backs. I spent about 10 minutes trying to get past that mine, but it seems impossible.

Game doesn't give much feedback as to how doing these side missions effects anything? Indeed they actively seem NOT to. I didn't notice any FAKs or medkits available for selection after I raided the clinic, same with weapons for the gun smugglers.

Ambiance: The lack of ambient civilian modules is really telling and a bit disconcerting. I know we're in a country torn by civil war, but people presumably still live there. When they make their government presumably they won't all be governing disarmed soldiers? I don't think I saw a single civilian in the whole campaign. This has a big hit on the immersion.

Mission start design: Going up to different characters to start the main mission seems odd when you have a strategic map, a map that's used to "select" exactly one mission. (so you don't really select it), why not let all main missions available be accesable through this map?

Enjoyed the campaign though, the last mission was really excellent.

[wattywatts 76]

Thank you for your constructive feedback :)

Regarding the heli bug in the "Exit strategy", our finest engineers are now looking at its' engine to see what's wrong and I believe they will be successful.

As for the equipment saving and the scouting missions mechanisms - these systems are still being worked on and exactly the points you mentioned are now a priority for the responsible designers.

[Brisse 78]

Here is another smal piece of critique from me:

It does not make any sense that Corporal Kerry would be allowed to wander away from base all on his own. It would be more plausible if he had a comrade by his side.

It does not make sense that Corporal Kerry can take down entire enemy road checkpoints all on his own without any enemy backup, QRF or any kind of reaction at all. Why don't the enemy call in backup?

[nsnipe 10]

OK heres my 2p - first of all I didn't even noticed how completely utterly retarded AI is until this campaign. Not to mention AI bugs. E.g. in Reconnaissance scouting mission - the two dudes sitting in a camp when they get some lead to the backs they try to stand up then sit down and this happens like 3-4 times. It happens almost every time I replay this. Then "sinking" into buildings items, flying vehicles (because of the lower terrain setting). C'mon guys if not mp and modding community I'd regret spending whatever I spent for this game. I've been playing Arma series since OFP and this time I think devs after sticking together half decent engine slacked around knowing that marketing dep will do their job. Actually there was nothing to do coz Dayz already attracted hundreds of thousands players who eventually matured into playing Arma. Back to bugs - save system terrible - Who wants to save and exit which saves on top of your last save? Some times I just want simply quit because of the certain reasons. Inventory system - meh. IMHO best inventory would be ACE2 mixed with DAYZ or even DAYZ alone. Why to make inventory saving in campaign if most of the items you never gonna use, and after 3-4 scouting runs theres no space to store anything. Thats it so far... over and out...