Talk to me about ArmA 3 Multiplayer

[gravyface 10]

Thinking about pulling the trigger on ArmA 3 on Steam, but I'm a bit wary of the multiplayer aspect as it seems to be so heavily co-op. I put a lot of hours into BF2:PR and while the engine was obviously limited, it was some of the best MP I've ever played because of the squad tactics, placing team objectives ahead of personal kills, and the combined arms cooperation that was imperative to win (you literally couldn't get to the insertion points without air transport, which required a proper squad of chopper pilots to run). But it was PvP, just on a grand scale with 64+ players.

I have ArmA 2, but never got into it because all the servers were multiplayer co-op, humans vs. dim-witted bots; now this was a couple of years ago, things may have changed, but the public servers all seemed to be co-op which seemed completely mind-boggling.

Hit up YouTube for ArmA 3 videos and they too seem to be all co-op.

What gives?

[kbbw123 115]

The reason people play allot of coop is:

1st. it is awesome to see full scale synergy combat going on with 100+ players

2nd. no matter how dimmwitted the AI's may be they are still a thousand times smarter and more leathfull than allot of players (Personal experience) especially when you consider there god like aiming abilety!

playing a coop match is just so hard and fun at the same time that you can't compere it to PvP. its like comperaing a elefant and a giraffe.

also often the servers show coop whitout it being coop its just that the coop header is rather easy. its possible tha someone plays a mission that is acctuall TvT with ai's in there and configure them to coop

[KeyCat 131]

Hi gravyface,

Thinking about pulling the trigger on ArmA 3 on Steam, but I'm a bit wary of the multiplayer aspect as it seems to be so heavily co-op. I put a lot of hours into BF2:PR and while the engine was obviously limited, it was some of the best MP I've ever played because of the squad tactics, placing team objectives ahead of personal kills, and the combined arms cooperation that was imperative to win (you literally couldn't get to the insertion points without air transport, which required a proper squad of chopper pilots to run). But it was PvP, just on a grand scale with 64+ players.

If you are looking for a BF2:PR like experience in A3 look no further than TacBF! IMO one of the best PvP mods available. Safest bet to find players on the server is on weekends ~1900+ GMT. At events there usually are 65+ players on the server, not so many regular nights, last night it peaked at 40+.

http://www.tacticalbattlefield.net/forum/index.php

They also have a Steam group so just search for TacBF on Steam.

Hit up YouTube for ArmA 3 videos and they too seem to be all co-op.

Your search mojo isn't strong enough ;)

@KBBW123: I agree with your first point but not with the rest. I like both co-op and (teamwork minded) PvP's like TacBF. You should give it a try and you will notice that there are some very good players around - they usually kick my poor a** on regular basis but I'm having fun anyway :)

/KC

Edited December 27, 2014 by KeyCat

[gravyface 10]

Thanks fellers.

@KeyCat: looks cool, I will dig into that a bit further. Why was a mod required to pull off TvT?

@KBBW123: "full scale synergy with 100+ players". And why couldn't that be achieved with a TvT format?

Not to get all cerebral on everyone, but why did the ArmA community gravitate towards coop as being the defacto MP experience vs. TvT? Every other shooter, tactical, arcade or otherwise is the opposite and has been forever.

Edited December 27, 2014 by gravyface

[kbbw123 115]

Thanks fellers.

@KeyCat: looks cool, I will dig into that a bit further. Why was a mod required to pull off TvT?

@KBBW123: "full scale synergy with 100+ players". And why couldn't that be achieved with a TvT format?

Not to get all cerebral on everyone, but why did the ArmA community gravitate towards coop as being the defacto MP experience vs. TvT? Every other shooter, tactical, arcade or otherwise is the opposite and has been forever.

100+ player on each side thats a bit overkill for the servers mate ;)

[gravyface 10]

100+ player on each side thats a bit overkill for the servers mate ;)

50 vs 50 then.

Seriously, is that the reason for the coop focus?

[DSRT800 10]

Me and a friend bought Arma 3 on sale and we can't play with each other. When ever I accept an invite from my friend a steam window pops up saying, "Server not working". Also when ever we do get the chance to find a server online, its extremely laggy.

[galzohar 31]

You've been watching the wrong videos.

Join the Arma 3 PvP Community Steam group:

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/arma3pvpcommunity

Some videos:

COOP does tend to make prettier videos, though, since there are no enemy players to interrupt your film director from getting the kinds of shots he wants (formations, tacticool style talk, etc).

[zapmaster14 10]

I personally love the Arma 3 Multi-player

1. There are a lot of mods out their to make the multi-player experience even better

2. Coop is great!!!! Once you get a lot of people working with each other.

3. Generally a nice community besides a few people your most likely to meet (Its the internet its going to happen :P )

I would recommend it! :)

[spanishsurfer 58]

No mentions on here about BECTI, that makes me sad. Here's my general description to the public:

BECTI Warfare Seattle, WA www.ofps.net. Buttery smooth PUBLIC server with typical #'s between 20-40 people playing in the afternoon (PST, MST, CST, EST) and most players are in the USA with others being in Australia, Europe, Japan, China. It's a Team VS Team environment with AI also in the mix to make it interesting. We have an army of admins to keep it civil and a mission dev team to iron out bugs as they're reported. I've worked hard to make it one of the BEST public servers out there. Also, the guys communicate quite a bit via text/voice so be ready for that. Here's a video to demo the mission:

[malcom86 33]

I think no one will never really explain why coop is so popular on Arma games :D

You have to play it to understand. To be honest, you don't know what tactics really are until you play Arma on coop. PvP never gives the realism of a true military operation...it's always more like a paintball match or, in the best cases, a large fire fight where the enemy "knows" you're coming. There's no real planning, and it's difficult you really need to apply tactics. And the most annoying thing (which makes shitty those kind of shooters, IMO) is that the victory often has given by known glitches or workarounds. Just as paintball, the fun is just in repeating the same and learning which strategy is better to win on that map. That's why on other games MP modes are often all the same: Free for All, Team Deathmatch, Plant the bomb, etc.

Coop vs AI is never the same. Everytime is different and you can't be prepared to everything. Most of the time you have to learn how to do that on the battlefield.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Malcom86

[galzohar 31]

It's easier to apply tactics in COOP because COOP is easier. It usually is made very forgiving so you can use whatever tactics you decided on and it'll work more or less because your enemy is not trying to do better.

In PvP, even the most sophisticated tactics can be defeated by an opponent with even better tactics. While some might claim PvP doesn't have tactics, in reality it's just more difficult and if you're having a hard time tactics isn't exactly going to be your main focus. If you're playing high level of PvP, though, you should definitely be taking tactics into account, and when you do it's much more satisfying than in coop because you know your tactics were really effective and didn't just succeed because the enemy AI let you pull it off.

[quadrono 10]

A3 Coop is for two kinds of people.

1) People who cannot compete with real opponents.

2) Walter Mitty Military Wannabes who wanna RP being in a military unit because they lack the balls or age to do it for real.

PVP (A3Wasteland, Breaking Point, Epoch, King of the Hill) is where Arma Multiplayer will head and excel going forward.

[terox 316]

A3 Coop is for two kinds of people.

1) People who cannot compete with real opponents.

2) Walter Mitty Military Wannabes who wanna RP being in a military unit because they lack the balls or age to do it for real.

PVP (A3Wasteland, Breaking Point, Epoch, King of the Hill) is where Arma Multiplayer will head and excel going forward.

What a complete load of crap to put it mildly.

I used to be an ardent PvP Player back in OFP days and I do enjoy the odd fast paced TDM, CTF etc. I even ran a competition clan and played a lot in the European combat League. However I find the teamwork and cooperation of 50 players working towards an end goal and supporting each other correctly while role playing their particular class type much more rewarding that the faster paced and mainly solo play that comes with PvP.

Coop requires more patience, which is somewhat lacking in our youth

PvP gives the youth an advantage due to their quicker reaction times over us oldies

That's the real comparison

As for the statement "2) Walter Mitty Military Wannabes who wanna RP being in a military unit because they lack the balls or age to do it for real."

That shows a real lack of understanding of a fair proportion of coop players as there are a lot of players in my community that are either still serving or are ex military personnel, myself included

That would be my opinion having played this series of games for what, 13 years now compared to your ????? how long :j:

Seems to me your talking out of your ass!

In all the game types that I have played with this engine OFP, ArmA1,2,3, by far the best fun I have ever had is when playing a form of attack and defend where each side had player controlled A.i, it basically gave you PvP but at the pace of a coop and was absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately B.I nerfed the AI after OFP when they started letting them think for themselves. This is great for serverside AI, but when you as a player are controlling them and you order them to go somewhere or hold fire and they do the opposite due to their FSM behaviour it stinks. That gameplay died due to that and Player controlled AI have been pretty crap ever since

Edited January 13, 2015 by Terox

[malcom86 33]

It's easier to apply tactics in COOP because COOP is easier. It usually is made very forgiving so you can use whatever tactics you decided on and it'll work more or less because your enemy is not trying to do better.

In PvP, even the most sophisticated tactics can be defeated by an opponent with even better tactics. While some might claim PvP doesn't have tactics, in reality it's just more difficult and if you're having a hard time tactics isn't exactly going to be your main focus. If you're playing high level of PvP, though, you should definitely be taking tactics into account, and when you do it's much more satisfying than in coop because you know your tactics were really effective and didn't just succeed because the enemy AI let you pull it off.

To be honest, I partially agree with you as I used to be a like-minded like you, than...

And the most annoying thing (which makes shitty those kind of shooters, IMO) is that the victory often has given by known glitches or workarounds (read tricks, explain better)

...and I quote:

Coop requires more patience

You can't really think "taking tactics" means playing on a map you know pretty well because you played a lot of time there, in a fast paced match of more or less 15 minutes ! (except some very very rare cases, playing with clans)

I don't feel old, but neither I'm a kid willing to show off how professional he/she is at FPS videogames competing "with real opponents" (most of the time spending hours on games and playing with others who just play those games once in a while) !! I seen often how they rage on Arma just when they have to plan, learn new game mechanics and they can't hit targets at 700 meters just firing straight...

EDIT: Last note...

COOP is easier

It's the same thing I tell everytime to the AI soldier killing me from 700 meters with a no-scoped AK !!

Edited January 13, 2015 by Malcom86

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Problem I have with PvP / TvT is that the most enjoyment goes to the person(s) who do nothing/little else with their lives, as it is in anything competitive. This result in very sad game where people who want to have a bit of fun in the evening get their ass kicked by teenager, or college dropout addict who went to sleep at 5am and woke up at 2pm, ready to start another 12 hour gaming session.

The many bugs/glitches/exploits/kiddies/more serious vulnerabilities on A3 just multiply that, and the steep learning curve of A3 doesn't soften it either. Victory goes to the person with the highest time input. In CO-OP, this is not the case. You can still have a good time and complete objectives without wasting your life. Re kiddies, can you believe I at one point had 3000+ script kiddies in my bans.txt? That is sad, but reality in A3 ego-scenarios (pvp/tvt)

You will find that true PvP scenarios in A3 will never be popular, for those reasons. The more competitive, the worse the experience gets due to A3 being a poor platform for competitiveness. TvT was popular for a time, and is fun in its own way, but you see it waning as that high-turnover-tempo market of 'gamers' moves on to other more competitive/less frustrating games.

A3 has long term social/PvE/RP/BP/Z potential as those are not true PvP/TvT. There is competitive aspects but much harder to exploit as there is much higher level of unpredictability in the combat.

Co-op will never die since it has strong asset support in A3 (lots of military stuff compared to civ stuff), although Co-op/mil-sim market will always be overshadowed by the 'gamer' market.

AI performance is what is currently holding back CO-OP development. There is very strict performance budget in AI missions, in that if we go over ~100 AI, performance/FPS plummets. With only 100 AI, it is hard to keep 50 connected clients occupied. There are cheap tricks to get around this, however the players see these as cheap tricks. "Hey I just cleared this area but there are enemies there again, this sucks!". Aside from that, what we (Co-op scenario designers) have failed to do thus far is provide more meaningful 'social' player interactions. Most development in CO-OP focuses on mission content and AI fiddling, and does little to improve the social stimuli between the connected clients.

Scenario like Wasteland and Altis Life have plenty of opportunity for dynamic social interactions, which keeps the player interested. Humans are social creatures so this fulfills a human desire in itself. Co-op can be a cold experience compared to that. We could of course add some ego-drivers like money / accolades / recognitions / medals / ranks / levels / unlocks / access, in order to generate a level of competitiveness, but in general that stuff is not the spirit of co-op, as it encourages player to break teamwork and charge ahead, in order to boost their stats via 'rambo' behaviour. And there is no real penalty for charging ahead, merely a 'respawn'. We have to make concession to 'gamer' in CO-OP by adding respawn and revive, or else the player gets bored/frustrated and leaves the session to find one that has respawn/revive. Therefore it is hard to create workable penalty for death, so you get over-aggressive player actions. (IE peeking from behind a rock while taking heavy fire. In RL you keep your ****** head down, in CO-OP, you peek knowing you can respawn or get a resurrection).

CO-OP is easier to get kills, yes. So if 'kills' is your metric, CO-OP is far easier.

Personally I see the aim (and difficulty) in CO-OP in operating in a co-ordinated, disciplined manner, not kill-counting.

Plenty more, but I have said enough for one post.

Edited January 14, 2015 by MDCCLXXVI

[twisted 128]

Hi gravyface,

If you are looking for a BF2:PR like experience in A3 look no further than TacBF! IMO one of the best PvP mods available. Safest bet to find players on the server is on weekends ~1900+ GMT. At events there usually are 65+ players on the server, not so many regular nights, last night it peaked at 40+.

http://www.tacticalbattlefield.net/forum/index.php

/KC

That looks pretty damn nice. I've been looking fur a good pvp arma3 experience. Will try this out. Thanks

[bullhorn 18]

I think one of the main factors of less organized group PVP is that you need double the players to have a similar game session. With COOP, even a group of 12-18 players is enough to have a ton of fun, while for PVP, 18 players is really not even close to enough.

A lot of communities would like to PVP but they are just not big enough and rarely grow big enough due to all kinds of internal political crap.

[KeyCat 131]

You can't really think "taking tactics" means playing on a map you know pretty well because you played a lot of time there, in a fast paced match of more or less 15 minutes ! (except some very very rare cases, playing with clans)

Don't know what your experience is but "15 min matches" sounds like you are talking about CS or something!? In the ones I play each match is much longer than that, about ~60-180 minutes depending on teams and that time frame definitely allows for tactics!

I like co-op's as well and I've had great moments playing with the CiA guys among others. IMO you do not need to pick one or the other.

Problem I have with PvP / TvT is that the most enjoyment goes to the person(s) who do nothing/little else with their lives, as it is in anything competitive. This result in very sad game where people who want to have a bit of fun in the evening get their ass kicked by teenager, or college dropout addict who went to sleep at 5am and woke up at 2pm, ready to start another 12 hour gaming session.

I understand what you are saying MDCLXXVI but I say it depends on what type of game modes you choose.

Personally I only enjoy team oriented PvP/TvT modes like TacBF where more than quick reflexes counts. If you like me kinda suck in CQB (probably due to age - LOL) there are other roles that are equally important. For example in larger A&D missions you can fly heli transport, setting up so called FO's and deploy defences, deploy and use mortar far away from the frontline and rain hell on marked targets, S&D the enemies FO, mine previously secured areas etc.

Of course most people choose to be at the frontline fighting but to secure victory for your side all these roles can be important and the score is not by kills but how much "work" you did for your side. Some people do go Rambo'ing but they will be an easy pick for a enemy squad working together as a team.

Another thing I really like about TacBF is that their mission makers actually use everything ArmA has to offer in terms of weather and different times of day. Battles often takes place in dusk/dawn or in poor weather, sometimes fog, sometimes rain, sometimes overcast and sometimes sunshine. This gives good variaton compared to some other servers that always plays on mid day with clear blue skies.

That looks pretty damn nice. I've been looking fur a good pvp arma3 experience. Will try this out.

Bring a friend or two :)

Last couple of weeks there have been action going almost every day of the week from ~17.00-02.00 GMT and peak seems to be around 21.00-23.00 GMT and there have been an influx of players from US and Canada.

To minimize "first time confusion" it may be good to read their Quickstart Guide so you know the goal of the different mission types (A&S, A&D, S&D).

http://www.tacticalbattlefield.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=614

/KC

Edited January 15, 2015 by KeyCat

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Another thing I really like about TacBF is that their mission makers actually use everything ArmA has to offer in terms of weather and different times of day. Battles often takes place in dusk/dawn or in poor weather, sometimes fog, sometimes rain, sometimes overcast and sometimes sunshine. This gives good variaton compared to some other servers that always plays on mid day with clear blue skies.

Yea

A lot of decision to not implement a weather system for public server is the performance issue in AI scenarios.

If you have low player count and low AI count, you can get away with a lot. With high player count and high AI count, you have very tight performance budget, and for me, weather was seen as a performance drag for marginal enjoyment gain.

[malcom86 33]

Don't know what your experience is but "15 min matches" sounds like you are talking about CS or something!? In the ones I play each match is much longer than that, about ~60-180 minutes depending on teams and that time frame definitely allows for tactics!

I almost forgot about the PvP in Arma !! Counting it, there are some matches which can take much more time and bring tactics everytime !! I agree, anyway, you don't really need to choose. You just play what you wish to play that moment.

Speaking of PvP I always think about games like CS or similar.

Edited January 17, 2015 by Malcom86

[FLoJ 10]

EUTW host some very active 30v30 control point servers. All start as infantry then gradually save up for armour and air support.

Faster flowing than BECTI, not as silly as KOTH and really rewards the team working together the best to assault and defend the different points. Games take on average 3 hrs but people drop in and out all the time. I haven't found a mode that compares to it yet.

Set filters for Capture the Island, look for one saying EUTW and give it a go, peak times they have upto 5 servers almost filled.

[galzohar 31]

A lot of what you guys are saying about PvP is just flat out wrong. Though I see where you're coming from, playing only the PvP missions you have been playing.

You can have tactics in a 10-minute round. Actually, 10 minutes is plenty for a single-life mission if it's designed correctly. It's not easy to apply tactics at first, but once you get the hang of it, it gets pretty damn tactical.

You can have a good PvP match with just 12 players. The mission just has to be designed properly and not spread the players around a large area with long respawn delays and travel distances.

Let people fight in the purest form, and if the players are the tactical kind, the fighting will get tactical. If the players aren't the tactical kind, no game mode (COOP or PvP) will make it tactical. With no respawns you actually have to apply some sort of realistic tactics, since there's no playing around the respawn system and taking best advantage of how the respawns work in the mission. With short rounds, you actually get to enjoy it multiple times in 1 hour and not get bored waiting 30 minutes for next mission to start or guard an objective for 30 minutes while the attackers are really just AFK. With efficient spawn positions (defenders spawning at the objective, attackers spawning 1200m away already inside their vehicles and in the position they chose during the planning stage before the round), 10 minutes is more than enough to actually execute your assault - No need to waste time flanking as the defending team does not know where you chose to come from, and no need to waste time with logistics since you just start driving towards your disembark point as soon as the timer starts.

The competitive nature forces you to try get every possible edge over your opponents, yet the rules (available equipment, positions of objectives, time limit) prevent the usual "abusive" (or just "not fun") behavior you often see in other PvP missions, such as sniping from a hill 800m away or just ignoring the objective.

You really should just give it a chance and join the Arma 3 PvP Community Steam group to see the event notifications.

You can see some DTAS action in my youtube channel, though the tactical level is obviously not easy to see in a video. But I'm telling you that the teamwork levels I've seen in DTAS are some of the most impressive I've seen in Arma, simply because it's playing a realistic game with properly tuned competitive settings.

Don't get me wrong, COOP has its upsides - AI can be set to perform a duty that no human player would be willing to do in a game, and it is the most patient kind of player you will ever meet (which again allows you to make him do stuff no human player would be willing to do). However, after playing enough PvP, I really can't go back to the AI which are just not good enough of a simulation of a human soldier. The way they detect you and the way they shoot you is just off by more than I can live with. You can tune them down to easy mode or tune them up to god mode, but in both cases they simply won't detect and shoot like humans. And that's before even mentioning their behavior on the tactical level, as the detection and accuracy are more than enough to burn me out on COOP missions. Again, it's not that they're too good or too poor, but that they just follow different rules regardless of what settings you use for their difficulty. They don't see trees and bushes the way you do. They aren't affected by distance and camouflage the way you do. When I started playing PvP regularly, I had to get used to the fact that getting behind a bush actually makes me invisible from the enemy, unlike AI where getting behind the bush didn't seem to matter.

I might play some COOP again here and there, but PvP (the tactical kind, where realistic teamwork is beneficial) is where it's at for me.

Edited January 19, 2015 by galzohar

[Pinkamina 10]

When you have a group of enemies go over a minefield you set. It leaves a great feeling inside :D

[galzohar 31]

When you have a group of enemies go over a minefield you set. It leaves a great feeling inside :D

Ask Leon who plays DTAS with us, somehow for 3 rounds in a row he managed to have an enemy step on his mine, and in DTAS you only get 1 mine with the settings we use! You can be sure he was pretty happy with it :)

Of course, we also have a guy who stepped on friendly mines twice in a row, too...

Edited January 21, 2015 by galzohar