Co-op Campaign: APEX PROTOCOL

[froggyluv 2136]

The co-op campaign consists of highly replayable missions, featuring a drop-in/drop-out multiplayer structure, and the difficulty scales up or down based on the number of players.

~Steam Page

 

 Was this stated from the beginning when we all pre-ordered? If so, shame on me I guess. But that scaling is bullshit unless they mean 4 player fight 4x as many enemies as i did -that being 144 bogies :rolleyes:

 

 Problem is there is no ryhme or reason to how many people we have to kill when you just keep hitting Respawn. All feeling of mission readiness, support, planning etc is lost -we are just steadily chipping away at enemies until they all gone.

 

 After Montignac is great example of well calibrated SP mission with no Ai. You had good story, started in a precarious spot, had a lot of enemies but it was all plannable to avoid if smart, a variety of interesting angles to finish (*cough red car) and ONE SAVE. I repeat,ONE SAVE.

 

Twas awesome.

 

 ~Maybe Im just older than all the new programmers *grabs cane and beats dog

[probad 44]

I can barely remember my own callsign. Was it Riker or Raider or something? I last played it three hours ago and already forgot. And this time they're not even trying to convey some background information

you complain about "not having backstory details" and then go on to fumble every particular that was actually presented to you

it was a tsunami, caused by the earthquake machine from east wind.

are you purposefully trying to be forgetful about everything just to support your own argument?

[kylania 568]

Yeah, and that's exactly what I wanted to see. A story with shades of gray, more down to earth and not the same "we are so good special people, saving the world from the evil overlords" propaganda again. This is what really disappoints me now.

 

Played the Witcher 3 recently and there was some fantastic writing in that.  (Possible spoilers here)  One case was where I was given a fairly obvious choice of helping or not helping a probably bad guy do something.  Seems like you wouldn't want to help a bad buy, but he was going to do something for me I really needed done.  He promised to leave the area ending the trouble he was causing if I helped him.  Win win, right?  I helped him, he did what he promised and he left.  Case closed.

 

Much later I finish up another quest in the area and I'm feeling great about myself when suddenly a likable NPC dies unexpectedly.  Turns out others didn't enjoy losing the chance to deal with that bad guy I'd let go and took out their frustrations on this other NPC.  By making what seemed like the right choice and helping the most people ended up killing someone innocent.  That was a pretty heart wrenching moment for me in the game.  

 

Something like that in an Arma campaign would be pretty cool.  What's that?  Miller needs a distraction to get past a checkpoint and your mission is nearby.  It'll just take a five minutes to blow up an empty depot then you can get back to your task?  Sure!  However in doing so you miss the lone vehicle that drives past your OP and that ends up being a VBIED that enters into the CTRG camp and kills Group 16 or something.

[IndeedPete 1038]

it was a tsunami, caused by the earthquake machine from east wind.

are you purposefully being forgetful about everything just to try to support your own argument?

 

I just wasn't that far yet to find out. (Though that conclusion is not really hard to reach.) I was just saying that the environment didn't really support the narrative in that regard. It didn't look like I'd imagine it would, considering what was supposed to have happened there. Still, first impression after being halfway though, might change when I approach a later stage and / or all cutscenes were added.

[mistyronin 1181]

After giving some thought I think they planned to have AI mates in all the missions, that revived you. Which would have improved the experience a lot.

But as they couldn't add it on time, they scrapped it.

I just hope they will add something like that in the future. It would make it half bearable.

[metalcraze 290]

And I thought it can't get any worse than PMC DLC campaign (and "survive" episode of ArmA3 campaign). But looks like BIS has achieved a new low.

 

This "campaign" is a total surprise. In how it is just absolutely horrible. One thing is if It's completely unplayable in SP because it's designed for COOP, but another thing is that any fun is utterly destroyed by respawn-spamming until you kill all enemies. Hell, dying even lets you skip walking to an objective, you just skip any fight or walk in between and teleport straight to the target. And because of respawn there's absolutely zero balance, you are outnumbered 4 to 1 and sometimes 8 to 1.

 

So basically instead of actually playing this "campaign" you just exploit it like take UGL, spam all its grenades at enemies, die, wait 20 secs, respawn (yes you respawn right near the objective, once I just respawned 10m behind enemies and just sprayed them all, killing a whole team in 2 seconds), spam ugl , repeat repeat.

 

Seriously what the hell is this rock bottom of mission design?

 

 

I mean think about it - isn't it more logical to just make a mission with those same objectives for 1-4 guys, giving an option to fill empty slots with AI teammates. Balance it for no respawn. You know, normal, fun COOP. Not a shooting gallery with zero ability to fail. How hard can it be to put some, you know, effort into those whopping 7 missions? Oh wait, right, effort.

[bad benson 1733]

Not really.

In the A3 vanilla campaign the most enemy kills I get were like 10-15 in a long mission (meaning like 3 hours gameplay, Bingo Fuel), and that was with an AI squad assisting me. Here in a mission I killed on my own 34 fools in 1 hour (as you can see in my score). 

In the crash site mission you said, you can first add mines. And of course you can flank. I did it few times when I played. So you have margin for tactics, hence nothing compared to CoD. 

IMHO you should play the APEX protocol before commenting anything more about it.

 

i didn't comment anything about the campaign but on what people commented compared to the steam page...don't try to make it look like i'm making shit up please.

 

10-15 is a realistic kill count?

 

also you write stuff like "kills WERE LIKE". that's hardly a direct comparison. besides, it's kind of obvious that you kill more enemies when playing a coop campaign with respawn on your own compared to something balanced for SP where in addition AI kill them too. still you will 100% definately also classify as a rambo after playing the altis campaign or some missions of it. i find that comparison pretty silly overall. you want AI buddies? fine, reasonable. but stop with the retarded COD and rambo comparison. or at least come up with a new one.

every coop game out there has that structure and approach. if you paly them alone you HAVE to be rambo to get through.

 

as for the flanking in that campaign mission. it literally forced you to go back. how does placing mines, in a small area the AI will run through for sure (much tactics..wow), change any of that? you still can't flank how you want in the game with the giant maps. it literally told you to go back bf3 style. if you aren't bothered by invisible walls like that but by a too high kill count then i guess there are just very diverse sensibilities when it comes to immersion and freedom. totally fine.

 

and don't worry. i will comment on the actual gameplay once i played it, just waiting for buddies to be ready to play this, since it's designed for that. and so far, as always, there is already a lot to go by in this thread that doesn't need hands on experience of the campaign to be "allowed" to be commented on.

 

 

savegames:

 

if you load a save game over and over you do literally the same thing except you can tell yourself "no no i went back in time, i didn't respawn, i'm still going here". pretty nitpicky to ask them to balance the a coop campaign to recreate that vague difference, if you ask me.

 

i 100% get the value of a fully SP designed campaign and the immersion it can create due to that feeling of going through it in one run but i don't see how at any point BI said they are going for that (if someone can post a quote we might have a real conspiracy on our hands here but so far...). feels more like people are trying hard to make a case against something they had wrong or too high expectations for. or in short. BI made a coop campaign when some people were expecting a sp campaign that can also be played coop.

[pansyfaust 69]

Stringtable for playable assets (basically nothing but spoilers):

http://pastebin.com/92NEGjKU

 

It just confirms there's hardly any reason to explore in the campaign, nothing to discover on your own.

All plot information is force fed to you during the briefings.

 

Also did anyone else notice the zombies and demons video on the TV screen in mission 6?

I wonder if BIS asked the author...

 

 

 

 

 

savegames:

 

if you load a save game over and over you do literally the same thing except you can tell yourself "no no i went back in time, i didn't respawn, i'm still going here". pretty nitpicky to ask them to balance the a coop campaign to recreate that vague difference, if you ask me.

 

 

There's a big difference, as a loaded save game starts where you actually saved and the enemies that you haven't killed up to that point are also still alive.

You can't cheat your way by killing one enemy and then re spawning back into a safezone.

Not to mention a save also keeps your ammo status so running out of ammo and supplies is actually a concern.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

If you can't save/load, does that mean the campaign needs to be completed in one sitting?

[metalcraze 290]

savegames:

 

if you load a save game over and over you do literally the same thing except you can tell yourself "no no i went back in time, i didn't respawn, i'm still going here". pretty nitpicky to ask them to balance the a coop campaign to recreate that vague difference, if you ask me.

 

Except you have 1 savegame per mission (except for autosaves) and it's usually far off and enemies are alive too.

With the respawn everyone you killed are staying dead, you are just cleaning the remaining guys up with infinite ammo and grenades.

 

Loading a savegame is like rewinding to the state that was there 10 minutes ago or even more. Respawning is equal to getting resurrected 20 seconds later and there's absolutely no penalty for dying whatsoever. Only upsides like getting your ammo refilled.

[mistyronin 1181]

i didn't comment anything about the campaign but on what people commented compared to the steam page...don't try to make it look like i'm making shit up please.

What are you talking about? :wacko:  You should probably re-read the message you comment. No one is trying to make anything. I just said that, in my humble opinion, you should first play the APEX campaign before replying to the comments people who already played make about it. 

 

IMHO you should play the APEX protocol before commenting anything more about it.

And yes, to me 10-15 kills is a realistic score in a long mission, and with mates on your side. You can read reports about Afghanistan if you are interested. I can suggest you some biographies if you PM me.

In any case, you talked about a campaign you didn't finish, and a campaign you haven't actually played. I'm not even sure about the point of your reply, after all this is a thread for feedback about the campaign (to report bugs, give opinions, etc. on those who actually played it). 

 

you still can't flank how you want in the game with the giant maps

I'll remind you what you said before:

 

from A to B shooting a bunch of dudes on the way and not being allowed to flank even 100m when i was supposed to defend a crash site

As you can see you used an absolute sentence. Hence I told you that you can actually flank, in fact I did. Now you modify your stance to say that you are limited. which is fine.

On your savegame obsession, I'm not sure why you say that to me, as I haven't complained about it. 

[kylania 568]

If you can't save/load, does that mean the campaign needs to be completed in one sitting?

 

No, just each mission.  Once you finish a mission you can come back to it again.  Basically finishing a mission unlocks it for later play.

[froggyluv 2136]

 Now aint this better - tho a tad easy

 

 ******************************************DO NOT WATCH IF DONT WANT TO SEE OPENING SEQUENCE OF CAMPAIGN*****************************************************************

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So basically instead of actually playing this "campaign" you just exploit it like take UGL, spam all its grenades at enemies, die, wait 20 secs, respawn (yes you respawn right near the objective, once I just respawned 10m behind enemies and just sprayed them all, killing a whole team in 2 seconds), spam ugl , repeat repeat.

 

 

 Thats exactly what I did, felt dirty -need shower

[bad benson 1733]

Except you have 1 savegame per mission (except for autosaves) and it's usually far off and enemies are alive too.

With the respawn everyone you killed are staying dead, you just cleaning the remaining guys up with infinite ammo and grenades.

 

oh yea. listen. just to be clear. my expectations were very low, no offense to anyone. but you'll have to agree that it's possible to use respawn in a good way. i guess not for BI by the sound of it.

 

as i said. save games have their own value but we're talking about something designed for MP. eventhough poorly at that it seems. you can make a shit/good campaign with or without savegames/respawn. so i fail to see how savegames are the solution to overall design and balancing issues. i'd honestly rather have them fix THAT instead of turning it into an SP campaign since those problems you describe will most likely occur with more than one player too.

[pansyfaust 69]

oh yea. listen. just to be clear. my expectations were very low, no offense to anyone. but you'll have to agree that it's possible to use respawn in a good way. i guess not for BI by the sound of it.

 

as i said. save games have their own value but we're talking about something designed for MP. eventhough poorly at that it seems. you can make a shit/good campaign with or without savegames/respawn. so i fail to see how savegames are the solution to overall design and balancing issues. i'd honestly rather have them fix THAT instead of turning it into an SP campaign since those problems you describe will most likely occur with more than one player too.

Arma supports saving multiplayer games since arma2 the very least, no reason to turn anything to SP over game saves (unless it's another feature that bohemia broke by updating the engine).

[lexx 1390]

The most fun I had so far was when I stayed alive surprisingly long and suddenly had no ammo anymore. I've jumped around a corner, grabbed the AK from a dead foe and quickly strapped my attachments onto it (bipod, reflex sight, etc) and rocked on with that old scrap weapon. BAM BAM BAM BAM.

 

Yeah, that was good- my high-tech equipment became useless and I had to react to it.

 

Then a bit later I died and respawned with all my top gear, killing all sense of progress (which is one of the biggest problem of the respawn system, imo). Oh well.

[jinzor 31]

Before I give actual feedback, let me say this. The more I play this new co-op campaign, the more I wish ArmA II's "Harvest Red" or "Operation Black Gauntlet" style of co-op campaign came back. I believe that they were, in terms of story progression and mission structure, the best co-op campaigns made by BIS. Sure, they were a bit buggy at times, the presentation was wonky (i.e. the voice acting, music and stiff animations), and immediately failing the mission outright when one of you died was frustrating, but its sheer scale for allowing a variety of different strategies and tactics (short-term and long-term), its challenging nature and the fact that you could fail an objective or the mission yet still complete the chapter to finish the rest of the campaign made them unique. You also had to make decisions that could come back to help you later / bite you in the arse, or suffer from poor strategy / time management. Multiple, meaningful endings was icing on the cake. It was like everything you did mattered, which felt very immersive in that regard. Even Operation Arrowhead had that as well (but was a weird 4-player co-op experience - would have been better suited for 10 players instead due to its scale and multiple squads, otherwise it just felt like each player was playing by themselves. It wasn't user-friendly for beginners, who didn't know how to command, either).

 

With that in mind, here's the actual feedback on this campaign. In Apex Protocol, you have none of what I mentioned above - no consequential story / mission structure, more of the same boring missions which we've all played a million times before (start here, run there, shoot them, run to extract - *yawn*), and most importantly - it has no challenge. You literally cannot fail with the new infinite respawn mechanic. Without any of these things, it just makes the campaign dull. It lacks depth and difficulty - dying has no negative consequence as you can just immediately come back up and ignore what happened - it doesn't punish you for recklessly throwing away your life, which can encourage newer players to play recklessly in other gamemodes (they'll have a shock when they realise that most other ArmA missions are completely different - usually if you die, you will fail). There isn't much point having this new revive mechanic if you can just respawn in half a minute even closer to your designated objective. It would have been better to let anyone incapacitated last for a while in that state (maybe 2 or 3 minutes rather than 10 seconds). If everyone dies, the mission is called off and you have to restart. That would immediately add a sense of challenge and difficulty to the missions. If you're playing by yourself or with missing players, you should definitely have the option to take command of AIs if you wish - where the AI can also pick you back up if you get incapacitated. Some people do like the experience of commanding a squad. Without a doubt, the infinite respawn thing I think is just terrible and should be reverted back one of the previous setups in co-op scenarios (e.g. when all players die out, the mission fails), otherwise there is no sense of failure, therefore boring.

 

ArmA's co-op campaigns, even single player campaigns, have previously been about, and should always be about, making decisions which can have an affect on your overall playthrough and final outcome, ranging from best to worst (minimum of three - good, neutral, bad). In this campaign, just like in East Wind, we are told exactly what we have to do in a linear fashion, with no decision making at all. The only sort of decision you and your team can make is how you wish to approach a given objective - go on the hill and snipe them from a distance until they're thinned out, or rush in full guns blazing? That's okay, but there is still no over-arching decision making or long-term strategies to be made at all which I feel massively benefited previous ArmA campaigns. You can't even fail for time - if you leave your game running for three hours with no enemies to shoot you, nothing will happen. Royal Flush, Harvest Red, Operation Arrowhead and Operation Black Gauntlet all had that, even Operation Crimson Lance had a bit of it as well, and they all felt like unique experiences worth revisiting to see how your next playthrough would go out. East Wind and Apex Protocol feel a little more well-presented and stable (voice acting, music etc), but they feel way less immersive (not because of its future setting), and not worth replaying. I'd take a campaign with wonky presentation and a variety of outcomes / consequences / interesting mission objectives over a campaign with mediocre presentation and linear progression / generic mission objectives, that could have been put together by the community in a month or two, any day. If that's the direction that they're going to take for future official ArmA campaign installments, then you can count me out. I forgave East Wind due to that fiasco with the two devs being imprisoned which may have hindered development. I praised them for eventually delivering the campaign, even if it wasn't that good compared to the previous ones and not the one that they had originally planned to do (it was originally meant to be a sort of open-world, RPG-style campaign), but this was just unacceptable. It has really hurt my faith in BIS' ability to produce good, interesting scenarios - ones which require real thought and effort to succeed in anymore. If this co-op campaign was meant to symbolically be the "APEX" (meaning the highest point of achievement) of ArmA 3's official multiplayer content, then that's really sad. 

 

EDIT: Sorry for being negative in this post, but I am being genuinely honest here (if nobody criticises it, how will mistakes be corrected?). The co-op campaign as it stands, in my opinion, is just bad. It's not a good representation of what ArmA is about. It felt embarassing having to type up my thoughts on this as well, since I was actually looking forward to this campaign. I've been waiting for a good co-op campaign experience in ArmA 3 ever since East Wind.

[pundra 8]

They could add respawn tickets and let us choose how many we want.

[lexx 1390]

The good thing is, the military babbling is oftentimes so generic that you could easily reuse that for other, new missions. So technically someone could make a big, open mission, where you can mostly free-roam with whatever you like, and still have it sound like one of the official missions due to the reused sentences.

[madrussian 347]

Agree with those wanting AI squadmates (in both SP and MP, to fill out the squad).  Pretty shocked they weren't included actually.  I for one prefer group respawn, as opposed to revive.  Limited revive would be ok (can only revive so many times).  In short, we need a way to lose!

 

If it comes to it, I suppose we can always script out the blanket respawn and script in a more limited respawn.  I have a pretty robust Group Linked Respawn system (wrote it a while back):

Operates like regular MP group respawn, with a few additional capabilities:

• Works across multiple groups.
• Add or remove takover units on-the-fly
• Works equally well in SP and MP
• Optional Limited Lives (silhouetted "life" icons that fade out when you die, plus ability to grant new lives.)
• Option to "see your death" (takes away the death blur in SP, and optionally puts cam at 3rd person vantage upon death)
• No birds!

Upon your death, you takeover as AI soldier within takeover pool.  First it looks for closest designated living AI in your own group, then it checks for closest designated living AI in other groups.  If there's no one left to takeover as -or- if you're out of lives, it's Game Over.  Plus it's dynamic in that you can add or remove takeover soldiers at any time, on-the-fly via script command (including those originally placed in the editor, plus newly created via createUnit.)  Along with this, I created a Task Refresher, which refreshes the takeover unit with all the appropriate tasks (all with correct state and all in the correct order, including omitting deleted Tasks).  Anyhow, might be a great fit with SP and small co-op for Apex Campaign.

[cosmic10r 2331]

I briefly played the first mission last night... really was curious about fps more than anything...

 

and honestly , imo, it reminded me of the division from this perspective...

 

While i was playing I was acutely aware it was designed for coop and as a result I could see where it would be way more fun with some buddies and beers...

So i stopped playing when I died and hopefully will get on today to give coop a playthrough..

 

In the division i stopped playing at about level 10 so i didnt ruin the coop and story and when my buddies finally get around to buying... then I will give it a go...

you guys know who you are :p

 

Having been a SP whore for many years I totally see where people are coming from but I knew this was being sold as a coop campaign and expected that to be the focus...

[metalcraze 290]

oh yea. listen. just to be clear. my expectations were very low, no offense to anyone. but you'll have to agree that it's possible to use respawn in a good way. i guess not for BI by the sound of it.

 

as i said. save games have their own value but we're talking about something designed for MP. eventhough poorly at that it seems. you can make a shit/good campaign with or without savegames/respawn. so i fail to see how savegames are the solution to overall design and balancing issues. i'd honestly rather have them fix THAT instead of turning it into an SP campaign since those problems you describe will most likely occur with more than one player too.

 

My point was not about the need for savegames. In fact the missions in the campaign thus far are much simpler and shorter (30-40 mins long) than some 2-3 hrs long I've played in non-respawn coop.

 

Which means that even without respawn you can finish several of those missions in one session easily. Just with a proper balance (e.g. not the ridiculous 1 to 8 numbers)

 

And then there's also the ability in the engine to save the COOP mission on exit if time is an issue for some reason.

 

In fact because of respawn it's much easier and convenient to play this campaign carelessly, because it will get you through the mission much much faster.

Basically it throws any tactics and teamwork out of the window because trying to avoid getting spotted or shot is a complete waste of time.

[cosmic10r 2331]

I think you have a problem reading, people suggest save games not because it'd solve everything that's wrong with the campaign but it'd be better than the current respawn system and it's a readily available solution.

You also haven't refuted any of the points brought up as to why save games are better than respawning.

 

 

He doesnt need to ... they were designed for different purposes...

 

everyone will notice that the first word in the title of the thread is coop..

 

i think at this point it would be wiser to ask that the pbos be made available so that someone could convert it to a fully SP experience rather than bitching at BIS for following thru with a coop campaign..

[froggyluv 2136]

 Outside of the campaign, Apex is awesome from features given along the way to the masterpiece which is Tanoa.

 

 Lets face it, at the end of the day Campaigns and missions are something we can all, and hopefully do make. We all have different interests and opinion of what makes a great mission so in paying for one we expect top notch creme of the crop. The franchise was built on great campaigns and storytelling with the added challenge of

 

"Can you beat me on 1 save?"

 

This was a hallmark of the game and led to our shared experience and fascination with the game. These missions were tightly calibrated and designed around that 1 element. Sure, some played on easiest with unlimited Saves and that could be abused like Respawn but that is NOT how the mission was designed for. 1 save game, you may have already spent half your ammo and have no grenades left -the immersion is in solving that puzzle. That simply dont exist with Respawn -again it is simply a chipping away of the enemy and the missions are surely not built around the 1 save as previously earmarked this franchise and THAT is what we miss.

[pansyfaust 69]

He doesnt need to ... they were designed for different purposes...

 

everyone will notice that the first word in the title of the thread is coop..

 

i think at this point it would be wiser to ask that the pbos be made available so that someone could convert it to a fully SP experience rather than bitching at BIS for following thru with a coop campaign..

 

game saves work in multiplayer environment, so that argument is invalid.