What's wrong with the official MP Missions?

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

Just perusing the server browser.

 

At the moment there are zero people playing End Game and zero people playing Support.

 

The only official MP scenario with any populated servers is the 'Escape From' missions (9 players), and ZGM Master Altis (8 players). 2 playing 'Defend Kamino'.

 

Why do people not play these scenarios? Genuinely curious.

 

http://arma3.com/servers

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT (a few days later):

 

 

Here's my theory, as a scenario designer. Regarding PvP mission like End Game.

 

(The desire for achievement in games is a powerful motivator)

 

 

 

 

 

PvP (as we know it in 2015) is more about points, scoring, statistics and accumulation, than it is about actually competing against other players in a game.

 

The things successful PvP all have in common:

 

- Points / XP.

- Statistics ( K/D , etc)

- Leaderboards / Comparative Scoring.

- Competitive character optimization (Leveling, Weapon unlocks, Perks)

- Accumulation of objects/e-stats. (Persistence, Progression).

- Ego expression (A place to see other peoples numbers/score/stats/etc compared to your own). (Database)

 

Those 5 components underpin the design psychology of modern PvP. Without those elements, you will find your PvP mode falling in popularity against modes which do utilize those psychological tricks to enhance player retention and popularity. 

 

The core of the gameplay can remain the same, but people are more likely to play your gamemode (or one with substantially less compelling gameplay) if it has those elements.

 

I think that while the gameplay of End Game is more compelling than many scenarios, its a 'bad' PvP mission currently, in the sense that it misses the point about PvP in 2015, and is not utilizing enough of the above criteria to get people psychologically and emotionally invested in the gameplay.

 

First thing I would do, if End Game was put on my desk with the task of 'make it more popular', would be to design a persistence system and basic leveling system, which would work toward satisfying 2 of the above criteria. The goal would be to provide players some number(s) which can be increased by 'grinding', with 2-3 layers of levels (IE get to level 100 3 times, instead of just get to level 300). 

 

The next would be to work on weapon tiers and unlockable assets/systems, to fulfill another criteria. The goal here is to create a 'sink' for players to spend their numbers on, to keep their number in the desired range to keep them striving/grinding for things. It is dangerous to let the player 'beat' the game by accumulating too much of any number, as then they begin to focus on the actual gameplay, and boredom sets in (the stimuli from competitive optimization disappears) . A force multiplier here is to divide this system by the different roles players can take on (IE medic, engineer, marksman, etc), and ensure things cannot be transferred across roles.

 

Toward the end I would work on a global leaderboard for players to compare their numbers with the numbers of other players. This component I believe is less important than the competitive character optimization component.

 

 

cliffs:

 

- If you want your gamemode to be popular in 2015+, you have to have achievables (MP) and collectibles (SP).

- You can motivate people to continue playing your gamemode past when they would otherwise log off, by implementing a (false?) sense of achievement and reward of 'hard work/grinding'.

 

 

 

Source:

 

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/114668/Analysis_The_Psychology_Behind_Item_Collecting_And_Achievement_Hoarding.php

http://au.ign.com/articles/2011/10/10/why-are-you-addicted-to-achievements

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/248787/Video_Applying_human_evolutionary_psychology_to_game_design.php

 

[Richie 330]

I never even knew they existed :lol:  i'll have to check them out.

[Fushko 60]

I never even knew they existed :lol:

 

This in a nutshell.

 

Endgame alone is better than most of the crap that plagues the public servers. Why does no one use it? Because BIS apparently doesn't know how to make their own missions more known.

We should have official servers as the first thing you see in the server browser.

[semiconductor 309]

1. Both of those missions aren't really suitable for small coop (2-10) communities;

2. No official servers to play with 2-6 friends;

[2nd ranger 282]

I only play small co-op games (me and one other person), and I find it quite disappointing that there are so few official co-op missions. Really the only decent one is the Marksmen FFV showcase. It's the only one with any kind of production value. Headhunters looks like it took about an hour to make, and personally I find 'Escape from ___' missions quite tedious. I'd hope for at least two new co-ops with the expansion.

[St. Jimmy 272]

Official 2-6 coop missions or campaign would be awesome. Hopefully BIS can come up with that stuff after or with expansion because the game is really missing nice coop with a friend or two. And if anyone know missions for vanilla Arma 3 that are suitable for 2-4 players and aren't outdated then I'm happy to have a link :P

 

So BIS next time you make anything like MANW then have a category like: COOP Mission/Campaign packet, for 2-6 players. Or better, make those by yourself. 5-10 pack of nice missions. That's the stuff how people can get in the game.

[inlesco 233]

Apparently, BIS failed to put a short intro video for players entering MP browser for the first time to introduce them into the signature official MP game modes and explain why they're special.

 

Simple as hell, yet not yet implemented. The benefits of this are obvious.

[AveryTheKitty 2626]

Because Altis Life, Exile, and Wasteland.

 

Personally, I'd love to see BIS bring back Warfare from Arma 2.

[Mirek 166]

Same thing as in arma 2.

Comunity missions like DCG, Domination, Patroll ops, or Insurgency, Are playable in small numbers of players 2-6 as well as in larger numbers. DCG for example checks how many players is there, and spawns appropriate number of AI oponents, in Domination, if you dont have enough Players to take the AO, you can go for sidemission, in Insurgency if you have not enough players to clear the larger pcks of red sqares you go clear the smaller ones or isolated red sqares. they are also usualy editable, so you can make your own Version/Clan-Edit, with Units Weapons and Vehicles you like.

 

That makes them suitable for public servers, and for clan servers. And all of them usualy either has ACE and other popular mods readily implemented, or ACE versions exist.

 

Another thing is, that even in full server, most of the players will not know each other, and from my experience most of the solo players you run into on public servers are not able to function in team. So you and your small lts say 4people team is only unit on server full of solos, what do you do? in COOP In missions like DCG, Domination, or Insurgency, youjust check on wich task/AO/red square are most of the other players concentrated, and go to the different one.

IN TVT you just leave because you dont need such mess, and you rather go to fing some other team of appropriate size and play TVT against them on some Private server. 

[eriktrak 76]

End Game is really fun to play when at least 8-10 players on the server. During the beta phase servers were highly populated but not now.

 

I guess the low number of missions causing the people leaving.

 

Maybe we should organize a session to play End Game again.

[andersson 285]

As said above, people generally play with just a few friends and are looking for missions 2-6 players.

Another thing that would is a better ingame VOIP system. Right now you normally end up using TS and that means you end up with your friends even if there are more people on the server.

[Mirek 166]

As said above, people generally play with just a few friends and are looking for missions 2-6 players.

Another thing that would is a better ingame VOIP system. Right now you normally end up using TS and that means you end up with your friends even if there are more people on the server.

Not neccesarily, there are public servers that use script that check if the player is connected to correct channel on correct teamspeak. So if you are not connected to teamspeak at all, or you are using different teamspeak than the serverowner wants you to use the server will kick you. That means that all the people on the server are on the same channel on the same teamspeak.

 

I saw it on almost every ACE/TFAR server i played on. And in my oppinion it should be on every server by default.

[froggyluv 2130]

 Official servers.

 

 Theres too many empty or nameless voids of servers too be honest -if I could simply filter a few always packed offical servers, I'd be in all the time.

[Roddis 27]

On regard of End Game there is, imo, a forum problem too that affect poorly of people on servers, due to the difficulty on information searching about. 

 

Try to find on the forum any information about what's happen with End Game (I did).

 

Try to use key word "end game", also with quotes... 

 

The known problem with four word limit on forum search engine makes the searching nearly impossible, cause the engine goes for "game" word only.

 

Bi understate little this issue, IMO, although they are tracking it here (and they are busy of work by now i think). Anyway it's avoidable with google advanced search.  

[Beagle 684]

Because Altis Life, Exile, and Wasteland.

 

Personally, I'd love to see BIS bring back Warfare from Arma 2.

Oh yesm indeed. Warfare is the reason why is fire up ArmA2" still more often than ArmA3 In fact I obly start ArmA3 after patches to see if something in the actual GAME has changed to the better.

[devilslayersbane 28]

It also doesn't help that only a few of the official servers have the [official] tag. Nor does it help that some of the older official servers without the tag aren't updated.

http://arma3.com/servers

[eriktrak 76]

Official 2-6 coop missions or campaign would be awesome. Hopefully BIS can come up with that stuff after or with expansion because the game is really missing nice coop with a friend or two. And if anyone know missions for vanilla Arma 3 that are suitable for 2-4 players and aren't outdated then I'm happy to have a link :P

 

So BIS next time you make anything like MANW then have a category like: COOP Mission/Campaign packet, for 2-6 players. Or better, make those by yourself. 5-10 pack of nice missions. That's the stuff how people can get in the game.

 

Check Terrorist Hunt by Fin from Steam. Not an official mission but fun to play 2-4 players.

[fabio_chavez 103]

the reeeaaaall question is, whats from with the official PVP mp missions? :)

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

 

the reeeaaaall question is, whats from with the official PVP mp missions? :)

 

 

Original post updated with my thoughts on the matter.

[eriktrak 76]

 

 

Toward the end I would work on a global leaderboard for players to compare their numbers with the numbers of other players. This component I believe is less important than the competitive character optimization component.

 

 

Agree with you on global leaderboard.

 

However I would limit from what multiplayer sessions give points to the player. Sessions for example on official servers / trusted servers / admin controlled session etc. give points to the global leaderboard but not the others.

[fabio_chavez 103]

I could get you an answer but the principles of human decency... and the forum rules about explicit language forbid to speak it out in public.

Its funny how there doesnt seem to be a mission too exotic to be found running on a server but at the same time its impossible to find a plain and mildly entertaining regular MP gamemode, e.g. as is the job of a company to provide to its multiplayer focused best selling game. So far any effort in that depatment was either nonexistent or kind of halfassed (except for performance improvement where they really do a lot)... They dont priorize the problem because there are still myriads of clueless mofos swarming any possible kind of server... The numbers seem to confirm BIs "benign neglect" laissez faire kind of policy here but i would disagree, its a lot of locked potential with relatively small effort to unleash. Eventually in the bigger picture, its the result of this policy that public pvp is abysmal in arma 3 and if i would have known this in advance id have not bought the game, nor will i put any money in any dlc as long as it in this state and the next game that can offer complex tactical pvp is just around the corner. A fact wich is unfortunately not an incentive for BI to priorize, because why compete with other products in the genre you traditionally suck the most instead of focusing of unique core features that bond diehard fans and openminded weird ass gamemode lovers instead of trying to attract fps hoppers in the niche market of tactical pvp milsim... It is reasonable for BI to doesnt give shht about pvp, they simply dont have to and only a masterful company of true greatness and honor would care to deliver that ontop of what arma 3 allready delivers :)

So long, we can taxi some bots from a to b with the official heli dlc missions, quite challenging :)

Inb4: You can try my mission XY its really great you can download it from the workshop

Inb4: Go play CoD kid!

Inb4: I find good missions all the time, the server browser is great, i have 200 fps in altis-life.

[A3_Melle 40]

End Game is really fun to play when at least 8-10 players on the server. During the beta phase servers were highly populated but not now.

I guess the low number of missions causing the people leaving.

Maybe we should organize a session to play End Game again.

Agree on that! end game is a great mission to play, and not much public server running it mostly BI official server wich are during the week (wenn I play) empty. During weekends they get more populated but still not filled entirely wenn you look at the Zeus servers they are mostly busy BUT even though Zeus is also great to play there are some great players who can be Zeus-Gamemaster but on the other side alot of the time players are playing/fooling around.

Wenn you have 2-3 players waiting in the server most people skip it, while if you just get a few players more the mission will start and the server will fill up fast enough, I'll try to be some more on the BI End Game servers (need the practise anyway), and might even stream a bit with twitch ;)

Send with mobile

[semiconductor 309]

PvP (as we know it in 2015) is more about points, scoring, statistics and accumulation, than it is about actually competing against other players in a game.

True. Interestingly, most of the features you listed are implemented in King of The Hill, which is very popular among casual players and I have to admit that this mission was quite entertaining for that reason only.

But I don't think that there is a place for such things in Arma.

Why? Because there is a reason why current PvP is about points and scoring — the majority of PvP games (with the exception of PR/Squad probably) are designed for lone wolfs and small groups of friends (like 2-4 guys), not for meaningful full-scale teamplay. To keep player motivated and invested in game, game designers force him to compete not just against an opposing team, but also against his own team as a whole and each member of that team separately. There is no teamwork or actual help between "teammates" (unless help is somehow rewarded, i.e. beneficial to player personally) but there is constant "Moooom, he stole my frag!" whining.

 

To be sure, that approach works in classic shooters but they are "glorified deathmatch" basically. If such ghillie-wearing "lone wolf" with M107 TWS comes against a squad or even a fireteam (or any other group that operates as a single unit) he will be send into oblivion long before he will be able to make a second shot. And that's great. That's what makes Arma special. How would scoreboards and other aspects of "modern PvP" damage it? Easy — by enforcing competition inside a squad, inside something that should be an one, single entity with a solid hierarchy and common goal in order to be efficient. Simply put, with competition against your squadmates it would be no longer "us" versus "them", it will be "me" versus "them" versus "those guys around me who aren't shooting at me ^{for now}".

So, if BI wants to make Arma into yet another laggy, glitchy and overall lame copy of a Battlefield, then yes, they might consider creating global leaderboards. If, however, they want to keep Arma a unique game with literally unmatched possibility for teamwork and almost RL-level squad gameplay, then implementation of those things might not be a good idea at all.

[chortles 263]

Semiconductor, that may fall under 'true but doesn't invalidate OP'... as OP seemed to imply that there's NO 'good in the sense of Arma as Semiconductor defines the word' TvT scenario that Bohemia could maintain a high player count on, for the very same reason that you acknowledge KOTH's popularity.

[semiconductor 309]

Ah, it seems that I misunderstood the "global leaderboard" part. I thought OP was talking about obligatory stat tracking across all gamemodes/missions in Arma.