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ARMAKrush

Special Ops Campaign

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While I've no doubt this has been discussed before, I thought I'd bring the topic up again. I'd like an official 'spec ops' campaign. Small 4 man teams, silencers, NVGs, black suits, balaclavas, scuba diving, high quality equipment and plenty of support available for use. While the official campaign we have now is great, playing as guerrillas, you're the 'underdogs'. The odds are always against you and you have to scavenge for equipment. This way, while the numbers are still against us, we have MUCH higher grade equipment and support available for use. We would be given tasks that the regular forces couldn't handle. I'd like some discussion going on this one to see how the reception is. I'd also like to know how much you'd be willing to pay for such a DLC. Some pictures to get people in the mood:

Pakistan's SSG:

http://i.imgur.com/olBmNOp.jpg

Israel's Shayetet 13:

http://imgur.com/DdIAwTc

US Navy SEALS:

http://i.imgur.com/zc3g6CM.jpg

UK's SBS:

http://imgur.com/ABC7Scw

Denmark's Huntsmen Corps:

http://i.imgur.com/DYmAqe1.jpg

(For some reason the pictures aren't showing up in the actual post even when I use the correct code, so links is the best I can do. Apologies :))

Edited by ARMAKrush

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A few months ago I tried to rally a few of the more experienced scenario designers in the community to help work on something like this. Couldn't reel any in, so abandoned the concept in infancy.

Was pretty much a 1-4 player MP campaign with small 15-45 minute missions, with high attention to detail, complexity, interactivity and replayability.

Wouldn't require official support unless you're looking for things like voice acting, custom animations, etc.

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This is the best Arma idea I have heard in a very, very long time. Before I saw this thread, I had been thinking this evening of my desire for a way to get BI to sanction more SP A3 content (or SP with MP compatibility). Who wouldn't pay for an official SP mission pack, or another official A3 campaign? Very few, if you ask me. If BI could keep production costs down, that seems like a no-brainer. I am 100% supportive of this idea even if made by the community alone (although being able to tap the great depths of BI expertise would so greatly enhance any such effort). The SpecOps concept as expressed by ARMAKrush is fantastic, although it could easily be both SpecOps AND regular armored combat. One thing East Wind lacked, besides a first-world SpecOps component, is serious missions involving armored forces (IFV/tanks, etc.)

I offer my support to any such effort. A3 needs an injection of playable content.

--------------------

BTW, just look at all the SpecOps missions offered by CWR2 (single missions and in CWC campaign). And there are basically none in A3.

------------------------

And you're forgetting some real ass-kickers:

Edited by OMAC

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I was thinking about making a mod that was essentially shoving Delta Force 2, Delta Force Black Hawk Down, Rainbow Six (the good ones), and Ghost Recon (the good ones) into one mod. It would mostly be based around Delta Force 2 with concepts from the other game thrown in like mission planning and team member skills and availability carrying over from mission to mission. Not sure if I'm still going to do it though.

I didn't realize that I wasn't playing as SF in the ArmA 3 campaign. Every mission I have played so far has felt very special forces like.

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If anyone wants to spearhead the project I am happy to lend a hand with the content/interactivity/MP-compatibility scripting.

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This is the best Arma idea I have heard in a very, very long time. Before I saw this thread, I had been thinking this evening of my desire for a way to get BI to sanction more SP A3 content (or SP with MP compatibility). Who wouldn't pay for an official SP mission pack, or another official A3 campaign? Very few, if you ask me. If BI could keep production costs down, that seems like a no-brainer. I am 100% supportive of this idea even if made by the community alone (although being able to tap the great depths of BI expertise would so greatly enhance any such effort). The SpecOps concept as expressed by ARMAKrush is fantastic, although it could easily be both SpecOps AND regular armored combat. One thing East Wind lacked, besides a first-world SpecOps component, is serious missions involving armored forces (IFV/tanks, etc.)

I offer my support to any such effort. A3 needs an injection of playable content.

Glad to hear you're on board with the idea! The more people we have supporting this, the better. I hope BIS notice this thread and start working on such a DLC. Would be great fun :D

I didn't realize that I wasn't playing as SF in the ArmA 3 campaign. Every mission I have played so far has felt very special forces like.

I think Kerry is just a standard US soldier who has joined up with some guerrillas. As far as I know he's not special forces.

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Glad to hear you're on board with the idea! The more people we have supporting this, the better. I hope BIS notice this thread and start working on such a DLC. Would be great fun :D

I think Kerry is just a standard US soldier who has joined up with some guerrillas. As far as I know he's not special forces.

I assume he was referring to the fact that a lot of the missions feel quite "spec-ops", given Kerry is remarkably difficult to kill for a standard US soldier, you can see why.

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I think Kerry is just a standard US soldier who has joined up with some guerrillas. As far as I know he's not special forces.

This is what I thought also. And in Win episode he is more or less back to being a grunt, a cog in the NATO machine.

Years ago, W0lle made two short campaigns for A2 based on Delta Force game:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=13447&highlight=DELTA%2BFORCE (Lingor)

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=17264&highlight=DELTA%2BFORCE (Takistan)

Edited by OMAC

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Funny, distinctly remember people complaining after Team Razor that they missed being a cog-in-the-machine-type military scenarios similar to OFP. Would love to see campaign based off of Goblin's SpookCom stuff though.

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Funny, distinctly remember people complaining after Team Razor that they missed being a cog-in-the-machine-type military scenarios similar to OFP.

That's true. Aren't half of the user made campaigns / missions special forces stuff already? Don't get me wrong: I like the special forces theme. Lots of variety in mission design, customisation and characters. Though if anything I'd prefer a unit of platoon or company size instead of a single squad gunning down 50.000 enemy officers and saving the day single-handed. It just feels more realistic. For me the biggest problem with the Harvest Red campaign around the Razor team was the last two missions. The campaign started off pretty well and then went total crap when Sergeant Cooper took over all NAPA forces and began to build bases to kick the red army's ass completely on his own. :rolleyes:

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Funny, distinctly remember people complaining after Team Razor that they missed being a cog-in-the-machine-type military scenarios similar to OFP. Would love to see campaign based off of Goblin's SpookCom stuff though.

I remember these complaints also. CWC campaign of OFP (and CWR2) had cog-in-the-machine, chopper pilot, armor, A-10 pilot, and SpecOps (Gastovski) all in there. Arrowhead was mainly cog, but had armor, chopper pilot, and SpecOps-like action (Coltan Blues). Both campaigns thus had something for everyone. Harvest Red was kind of a strange hybrid of a small squad operating on their own for the most part, but they weren't presented as real SpecOps.

A new campaign or mission set using SpecOps and/or BlackOps is something A3 is lacking. Another benefit of SpecOps missions is that they typically require less placed units than platoon/company missions, resulting in better game performance.

But basically I'd like more playable content, period, as long as it contrasts with what is already available in East Wind. The CWC method of switching between different protagonists to allow different types of missions would be very cool. I wouldn't mind being a small cog as long as that cog has an IFV, Slammer, or T-100 to play with.

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Aren't half of the user made campaigns / missions special forces stuff already?

I'd say more like 80%.

If BIS was going to have SF missions, I'd rather they were part of a varied campaign like OFP, not SF-only. I really liked the first couple of missions in Harvest Red, but the campaign kind of went downhill from there.

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I assume he was referring to the fact that a lot of the missions feel quite "spec-ops", given Kerry is remarkably difficult to kill for a standard US soldier, you can see why.

I thought that he was literally special forces. From the first mission and Prologue alone:

A.) He seems to be part of a four man team. Normally soldiers work in squads.

B.) They seem to be the commander's personal team almost. He always sends just the four of them out to do stuff. Normally via Littlebird.

C.) They are training other soldiers (though that is not something that only SF do it is something that they commonly do).

D.) That squad gets to do whatever they want.

E.) They wear whatever they want. You'll notice that Kerry isn't wearing a helmet in the first mission and that everyone has different gear.

F.) Not saying it doesn't happen but I have never seen anyone but Special Forces travel in Littlebirds in the US military.

Funny, distinctly remember people complaining after Team Razor that they missed being a cog-in-the-machine-type military scenarios similar to OFP. Would love to see campaign based off of Goblin's SpookCom stuff though.

I miss cog in the machine type stuff but I enjoyed Team Razor stuff too. If Manhattan would've been a bit less resource hungry that might've been my favorite mission. I'm told that it was a much more realistic portrayal of Special Forces than most games. I enjoyed having to travel around and hoping not to get ambushed. It was cool having the helicopter at your disposal too even though I got it shot down within the first 5 minutes. Props to the AI pilot for safely landing us in a clearing when we were over a forest. I had some really great moments in that mission.

That's true. Aren't half of the user made campaigns / missions special forces stuff already? Don't get me wrong: I like the special forces theme. Lots of variety in mission design, customisation and characters. Though if anything I'd prefer a unit of platoon or company size instead of a single squad gunning down 50.000 enemy officers and saving the day single-handed. It just feels more realistic. For me the biggest problem with the Harvest Red campaign around the Razor team was the last two missions. The campaign started off pretty well and then went total crap when Sergeant Cooper took over all NAPA forces and began to build bases to kick the red army's ass completely on his own. :rolleyes:

I prefer platoon or company sized battles as well but frankly I don't think this game does it that well anymore. I would really like combined arms type battles but I really don't like any of the vehicles in this game for some reason.

I remember these complaints also. CWC campaign of OFP (and CWR2) had cog-in-the-machine, chopper pilot, armor, A-10 pilot, and SpecOps (Gastovski) all in there. Arrowhead was mainly cog, but had armor, chopper pilot, and SpecOps-like action (Coltan Blues). Both campaigns thus had something for everyone. Harvest Red was kind of a strange hybrid of a small squad operating on their own for the most part, but they weren't presented as real SpecOps.

A new campaign or mission set using SpecOps and/or BlackOps is something A3 is lacking. Another benefit of SpecOps missions is that they typically require less placed units than platoon/company missions, resulting in better game performance.

But basically I'd like more playable content, period, as long as it contrasts with what is already available in East Wind. The CWC method of switching between different protagonists to allow different types of missions would be very cool. I wouldn't mind being a small cog as long as that cog has an IFV, Slammer, or T-100 to play with.

Yeah the OFP and Arrowhead campaigns were awesome minus a few realism issues. But overall I think that CWC, BAF, and Resistance have been the best campaigns by far. Arrowhead had some nice missions in it but I felt like I was invincible and just running down a poorly equipped army the entire time. I never felt threatened. It did have the cool branching thing in it as well. For example, if you got shot down in this one mission things went differently in the mission after it.

I'm told that was the most realistic portrayal of spec ops in most games. Units like Force Recon and the Green Berets are more of a interact with the local population to gather intel type units where as Navy Seals and Delta Force are mostly direct action.

I'd say more like 80%.

If BIS was going to have SF missions, I'd rather they were part of a varied campaign like OFP, not SF-only. I really liked the first couple of missions in Harvest Red, but the campaign kind of went downhill from there.

Agreed.

The only reason I had that Delta Force idea was because I figured it would require very few units/weapons/vehicles at the beginning and could be added to as time went on. I felt that was more realistic an objective than something like CWR2 or 3 where you have to make 50 different vehicles to make the campaign playable.

Edited by Jakerod

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I'd enjoy to see some Special Forces/Stealth type missions released officially, I still play Hidden And Dangerous 2, simply because I really have not found another game that provides such a great combination of unique missions that often have a lot of stealth gameplay opportunities along with being ably to take on missions in your own way, rather than so many games these days pre-script everything so that it feels like your on a one way track to your objective. Too many games constantly come up with these pre scripted unrealistic scenarios that you literally get stuck in, open style games that give good quality Spec Ops mission content seem rare.

Only downside to Arma stealth type missions is that one must deal with clairvoyant AI units, not only do group units share all known enemy data, but groups nearby other groups even share a limited amount of known enemy data as well under certain conditions, and most of this all happens regardless of Line Of Sight. It would be nice if BIS would provide someday options to turn off and on various AI detection abilities to help make it easier for users to create stealth type missions where the AI is less clairvoyant when they have no LOS to another unit being silently eliminated.

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I thought that he was literally special forces. From the first mission and Prologue alone:

A.) He seems to be part of a four man team. Normally soldiers work in squads.

B.) They seem to be the commander's personal team almost. He always sends just the four of them out to do stuff. Normally via Littlebird.

C.) They are training other soldiers (though that is not something that only SF do it is something that they commonly do).

D.) That squad gets to do whatever they want.

E.) They wear whatever they want. You'll notice that Kerry isn't wearing a helmet in the first mission and that everyone has different gear.

F.) Not saying it doesn't happen but I have never seen anyone but Special Forces travel in Littlebirds in the US military.

Good points, I think the squad size is more to do with the limited number of available men given the situation, I guess the gear thing is because the whole operation is supposed to be wrapped up shortly, they think there's no danger so Kerry doesn't wear a helmet, rules are being relaxed. Also the whole backstory is involves NATO training the AAF post civil-war, but again, I see your point. I suspect a lot of this comes from the fact they weren't going for such a high level of realism, thinking that "using a little bird gives a better view of Stratis so we'll use that for the tour", as opposed to "well they ought to be in a ghost hawk". I think something they could have added was a much clearer sense of what unit Kerry and his soldiers are from, e.g. in ARMA II you know you're from Force Recon, in BAF you know you're from 2 PARA. "Task Force Aegis" is the closest you get to a unit, but it's just kind of faceless. There's some detail on the official website, and the ORBAT system kind of does it but it's not very clearly presented to you, hence it's easy to assume Kerry is supposed to be special forces.

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Though if anything I'd prefer a unit of platoon or company size instead of a single squad gunning down 50.000 enemy officers and saving the day single-handed.

That's not what it would be like. SF are meant for stealthy operations. By the time the enemy knows what's happening, special forces should be long gone. As I said in the OP missions would generally be at night and all weapons would be silenced. If there was something to happen that was loud (for example we're tasked with taking out a communications hub) we would set the charge and only set it off once we were either extracting or about to extract. Or if we were tasked with taking out an officer, a sniper would take care of that so the officer would die and the enemies would never even know where we were. It's about operating like ghosts. This is the type of thing I had in mind:

http://i.imgur.com/KxlaciT.jpg

Larger scale ops like what you're suggesting doesn't sound appealing (to me). I find doing things quiet and unnoticed more satisfying than doing it by sheer brute force.

Edited by ARMAKrush

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CWC was one of the best campaign I've ever played, in ArmA series, and in FPS games in general (and it was the best official campaign in the Armaverse).

Didn't enjoy Resistance - but maybe it's just because I don't like guerrilla style.

ArmA: Armed Assault campaign was quite good too, but not as much as CWC.

Royal Flush and the other one (can't remember the name) were, IMO, not very good.

Harvest Red was good only at the beginning. After the chief died, it just become a big mess - especially with the warfare missions in solo!!!

Operation Arrowhead tried to replicate CWC with different kind of missions. Intention was good, but it was too short (like 5 missions and the entire country is secured). I didn't feel the tension and intensity, and to be honest, didn't feel really concerned about the whole thing.

East Wind part 1 had the same problem - plus the fact that we were always outgunned, no big moment with tanks, helicopters or whatever.

East Wind part 2 : really didn't enjoy it that much, because I'm fed of guerrilla style missions.

East Wind part 3 tried to compensate but the story fucked it up.

So, I think if BIS would release a DLC with SP missions packs (don't need to be long : I enjoyed Laser Party and Hike in the mountain in ArmA 2 SP missions, or the fixed wings showcase) and a proper decent campaign with CWC spirit, I would buy it day one.

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I didn't say all of these units were in combat. My point was to create a believable special forces thingy, you'd need a whole bunch of supporters, techs, medics, intel guys, pilots and stuff working in the background. Hence my idea would be to have the story evolving around a (company sized) force which conducts operations in it's own. What you're describing is basically every second (or the vast majority to stay with 2nd Ranger ;)) user made mission. Without being any kind of expert I doubt that real world operations rely on five men teams saving the day all by themselves. I'd assume there's months of gathering intel, planning and training involving hundreds of people before the actual strike. It's just a thought though. Besides, these standard spec ops missions à la "kill the enemy officer and destroy all tanks without being noticed" are getting boring real fast. One or two well-done ones in a campaign are okay but a full blown campaign needs some variety in my opinion. Arma offers such possibilities, sadly not even the official content makes that much use of vehicles and combined ops.

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One of the annoying thing in ArmA is the AI:

either you lead and spent a lot of time doing micro management or you're led but it often fucks up missions because of the strange AI behavior.

I'd like to have a more scripted, movie-like campaign (but I doubt it with the AI problems).

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So, I think if BIS would release a DLC with SP missions packs (don't need to be long : I enjoyed Laser Party and Hike in the mountain in ArmA 2 SP missions, or the fixed wings showcase) and a proper decent campaign with CWC spirit, I would buy it day one.

This. Man do I miss Laser Show, Hike in the Hills, The Jackal, Village Sweep, Eye For An Eye, Littlebird, Steel Panthers, on and on. And Dum Spiro Spero and other missions in ACR Silver Lion. And Crimson Lance, but it was too short and those Jackals are open-air death traps. Did all those mission makers leave BI or move to DayZ? ;) The worst thing about A3 is the @*&^^**##$ Showcases and Challenges. Challenges = maddening crap. Showcases = cop out (but Fixed Wing showcase was excellent, as Wiki wrote). Official scenarios and campaign = the real deal. My credit card finger is itching to lay down some serious $$$ for playable mission/campaign content! But perhaps BI playable content team is hard at work on Expansion, so we either make it ourselves or forget Altis/Stratis and wait? :(

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Hum, as its an expansion, I doubt the campaign will be long enough - just lie in all expansions…

Hope so, but really doubt it.

And I think we'll only have 2 or 3 SP missions too...

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This. Man do I miss Laser Show, Hike in the Hills, The Jackal, Village Sweep, Eye For An Eye, Littlebird, Steel Panthers, on and on. And Dum Spiro Spero and other missions in ACR Silver Lion. And Crimson Lance, but it was too short and those Jackals are open-air death traps. Did all those mission makers leave BI or move to DayZ? ;) The worst thing about A3 is the @*&^^**##$ Showcases and Challenges. Challenges = maddening crap. Showcases = cop out (but Fixed Wing showcase was excellent, as Wiki wrote). Official scenarios and campaign = the real deal. My credit card finger is itching to lay down some serious $$$ for playable mission/campaign content! But perhaps BI playable content team is hard at work on Expansion, so we either make it ourselves or forget Altis/Stratis and wait? :(

Throw Ambush, Bomberman, and War Cry in there too. Especially Ambush. Can't say I would jump at the chance to buy it still though. But it would be more likely.

The further I get into the A3 campaign the more I think Kerry is Special Forces.

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Without being any kind of expert I doubt that real world operations rely on five men teams saving the day all by themselves.

I don't think they 'save the day' as you put it, but are used in situations where a small, mobile, elite force is needed to do things quickly and quietly. They wouldn't be tasked with things like 'sweep this village and clear it of hostiles' or 'clear this roadblock of enemies' they'd be tasked with very specific high difficulty things which the regular forces couldn't do. What those are is up for discussion.

I'd assume there's months of gathering intel, planning and training involving hundreds of people before the actual strike.

Sounds logical and is probably correct. I misunderstood you before and thought we'd be the ones having to run around as these guys gathering information, but I see now you meant that it's done for us before we're tasked with the mission.

One or two well-done ones in a campaign are okay but a full blown campaign needs some variety in my opinion.

True. What do you propose? Perhaps if they didn't make a full campaign as I stated (for example East Wind) but a small, concise group of special forces missions. Maybe 10-12 extensive missions for £10 (or your equivalent). It doesn't necessarily have to have an engrossing story, just something that gives a bit of purpose to what you're doing. This DLC would be pretty much all about the gameplay.

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