Co-op Campaign: APEX PROTOCOL

[mistyronin 1181]

Simple missions, guided, no team mates, pure Rambo style, no savegames, respawn points, waiting times, no secondary tasks ...

We'll have in mind to that it's theoretically W.I.P, so some changes may still happen (let's pray). Although some more time in the dev branch would have benefited it.

[Alwarren 2767]

You have a save but your buddy doesnt... so does he warp forward to where you are at or do you restart the mission... either is undesirable...

 

Huh? If you hosted a campaign in Arma 2 (say, Harvest Red), the hosting player saved the game. If you wanted to continue, the hosting player loaded the game back and everybody slotted into their places like when you start a mission.

 

Did you ever play a coop session under Arma 2? Apparently not. Nothing "warps", nor does your buddy need to save. The host saves. Worked fine.

 

I haven't played the campaign yet since I didn't want to spoil it, I just started the first mission, and the first thing that struck me was that horrendous respawn system. Who thought that was a good idea? Because it absolutely isn't. At the VERY LEAST, it should be optional, for those players that actually want a bit of a challenge instead of just endless respawn where you cannot even LOSE the game.

 

At the danger of sounding like a Trump tweet now... not good. So disappointed. Respawn is weak. Need to make Arma great again.

[Alwarren 2767]

Where are missions like Razon Two, Manhattan, Bingo Fuel?. Tanoa is one of the best, if not the best terrain ever made, with the worst campaign.

 

Yeah, all three of those were great missions. Or go back to Flashpoint, After Montinac. Heck,. almost any mission in OFP could fail and you had to endure the consequences of that failure. Harvest Red could end with a mutiny of your team, or a fecking Nuke going off in your face. If you didn't play it right, the whole campaign could turn on you.

 

One week to release, I doubt we will see much changes except bugfixes.

[pansyfaust 69]

Huh? If you hosted a campaign in Arma 2 (say, Harvest Red), the hosting player saved the game. If you wanted to continue, the hosting player loaded the game back and everybody slotted into their places like when you start a mission.

 

Did you ever play a coop session under Arma 2? Apparently not. Nothing "warps", nor does your buddy need to save. The host saves. Worked fine.

 

I haven't played the campaign yet since I didn't want to spoil it, I just started the first mission, and the first thing that struck me was that horrendous respawn system. Who thought that was a good idea? Because it absolutely isn't. At the VERY LEAST, it should be optional, for those players that actually want a bit of a challenge instead of just endless respawn where you cannot even LOSE the game.

 

At the danger of sounding like a Trump tweet now... not good. So disappointed. Respawn is weak. Need to make Arma great again.

 

Moreover, a save file can be shared.

With this system in place just having arma crash means you have to restart the entire mission, both in singleplayer and coop.

[Varanon 892]

Peak around the corner only a tiny bit and you can wait 30 seconds for respawn.

 

You wait 30 seconds for respawn ? Also in SP ?

[mistyronin 1181]

You wait 30 seconds for respawn ? Also in SP ?

Yes.

[ProfTournesol 956]

 One week to release, I doubt we will see much changes except bugfixes.

Yes, this is indeed embarrasing. Thanks god i can watch Euros 2016 semis to forget that.

[Zipper5 74]

Hi everyone. :) I'd like to start by saying thanks to you all for your feedback so far. Believe me, we're watching and we're listening. As zozo wrote in his original post, we're still hard at work on Apex Protocol, even with only a few days left to go.

 

It seems that there's already a few topics of discussion popping up which I'd like to try my hand at addressing.

 

Respawn vs. Saving

In the early stages of development we made the decision that Apex Protocol would only be playable, from a purely technical standpoint, in a "multiplayer environment." What we mean by that is: even when you're playing alone, you're playing on a server of some kind. If you click the "PLAY IN SINGLEPLAYER" button, a LAN server is automatically created, which you're then connected to and the chosen mission is launched. We made this choice first and foremost because it allows friends to join you while the mission is in progress, something we want to strongly encourage in Apex Protocol. To a lesser (but still important) extent, it also allows us to focus on maintaining one version of all systems, mechanics and missions, rather than both singleplayer and multiplayer variants like we did before (which always led to both versions facing unfortunate compromises that negatively impacted the quality of the final product).

 

However, you can see how this led us to 2 interesting questions:

1. How do we handle respawn?
2. Do we want a save system?

We've overhauled various systems on the Road to Apex but, as it is an expansion to Arma 3, we still had to work within certain confines and adhere to some existing standards. Using the multiplayer version of the Firing From Vehicles showcase as an example of our existing co-op missions, we made it so players can respawn on their group leader or at specific respawn locations unlocked as the mission progresses. Both feedback from the community and internal feedback revealed that it wasn't clear to many players how respawning on group leaders worked, often leading to confusion and players becoming chaotically spread out and disorganized. Along with the improvements to the Respawn Menu, we made the decision that Apex Protocol would allow respawning on all players while maintaining the mechanic of respawn positions unlocking as players progressed. So far, we feel that players understand the system significantly better thus keeping them together and co-operating with each other. Nonetheless, some of you have already reported areas where respawn positions are perhaps unlocking too soon. We'll get right on those. :)

 

However, we had to approach the question of saving differently. Apex Protocol is designed to be finished in a single playsession and, although it depends on your playstyle  :D , each mission tends to be a little shorter. Going back to the Firing From Vehicles example, the mission simply failed when all players were dead at the same time. Though Apex Protocol is a co-op campaign, we did not want to lock out players who choose to play alone; that's where the decision was made to introduce scaling based on player count, something we've not really tried to do before. But it also introduced an interesting conflict with failing the missions when all players are dead, as that would mean a solo player would fail the mission each time they were killed. They wouldn't have a chance to call a friend for help, and they'd have to play through the whole mission again. This was indeed the case in Firing From Vehicles, and we felt this was definitely not how we wanted to facilitate solo play in Apex Protocol.

 

Some of you have rightly addressed that Arma 2 had a multiplayer saving mechanic for Harvest Red, Operation Arrowhead and Operation Black Gauntlet (Arma 2: PMC's 2-player co-op campaign). I mentioned before that we have had to work within some existing confines, so it came naturally that we evaluated this existing system right at the start of development. While there were many reasons why this solution was far from optimal - saves were shared between both SP and MP (which still causes issues in Arma 2 to this day), clients could not see when a mission was saving, only the server had access to the save files, etc. - what ultimately made us decide not to use it was it lacked design for use on Dedicated Servers, and understandably so; all of Arma 2's MP campaigns could only be hosted on a player's machine with the host forced to occupy a specific player slot, typically the main character (e.g. Cooper in Harvest Red). While forcing the host into a slot is far from ideal in itself, we knew from the very beginning that Apex Protocol had to be playable on Dedicated Servers in order to get it out there, to the masses, and for it to support our new Quick Play feature. This was the nail in the coffin for re-using Arma 2's multiplayer saving.

 

In the end, we hope that the support for players joining in progress, combined with respawn, the overhauled Respawn Menu, the Revive mechanic, the dynamic difficulty scaling based on player count, and the somewhat shorter length of the missions help to mitigate the impact that a lack of saving has on each player's experience. :) However, we do understand that it isn't perfect, especially for solo play.

 

 

Solo Play and the "Commanding Question"

On first glance, it may seem logical that unoccupied player slots would simply be filled with AI subordinates in Apex Protocol, with you as their commander. Admittedly, this is how the vast majority of our previous official attempts at multiplayer content have handled it, and was definitely where we started from. However, we are no stranger to both the impressive strengths and unfortunate weaknesses of our Commanding system and AI. These are perhaps the most commonly criticized aspects of the Arma franchise, aside from performance and controls. While they are no doubt capable of feats perhaps considered impossible in other games, it's sometimes difficult for many players to look past their weaknesses. Early on in Apex's development we decided to focus all our energy on players co-operating with each other, and have Commanding sit this one out this time.

 

This did, however, open us up to a new design conflict: how do we minimize the impact that (a potential minimum of) 1 player has on the plausibility of them being deployed on a super important mission, as a member of an elite special forces group? In fact, this is where Riker, Grimm, Salvo and Truck came from; we decided to have our story follow 1 squad - CTRG Group 15, callsign "Raider" - with the squad leader (Riker) and his immediate subordinates (Grimm, Salvo and Truck) making up 1 fireteam (Raider 1), and the player(s) making up the other (Raider 2). Along the way, we definitely discovered areas where this approach wasn't entirely perfect (how do we keep Raider 1 from doing all the work for the players, for example?) but, although there are indeed lessons to be learned, we feel this was a good decision overall.

 

In some solo play instances I can indeed see how it might feel like 1 person against the world, but this is where the scaling depending on player count should come in. I'd like to thank everyone who has already reported specific areas where this doesn't quite seem to be working as intended at the moment, and I'd encourage everyone to continue letting us know about any instances where missions feel too difficult and/or unbalanced.

 

I hope this answers some of your questions, while clearing up where we've come from and where we're planning to take Apex Protocol. Believe me, there's still some work ahead of us. Thanks again for your feedback and support. :)

[froggyluv 2136]

 Appreciate taking the time Zipper5 to address the community. Basically what Im hearing is that this is an MP showcase for QuickPlay and your focus has now shifted to Co-op because AI are the 2nd most criticized element.

 

 There isnt one game featuring AI that doesnt have a 3000 post "AI Sucks!!!!" thread because that is the nature of AI. But to just knock them out completely is a lil heartbreaking to the long time SP fans of this franchise.

 

 Ive stated many times on these forums that BI is to be applauded for sticking with AI whilst the Triple A companies have abandoned it for MP sake and rid themselves of that burden. Looks like the executioner has come for us.

 

 oh well, back to the editor for me :)

[ProfTournesol 956]

Why not releasing a SP version of it then, with traditional-ArmA savegames and AI squad mates ? Shouldn't be that hard.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

Appreciate taking the time Zipper5 to address the community. Basically what Im hearing is that this is an MP showcase for QuickPlay and your focus has now shifted to Co-op because AI are the 2nd most criticized element.

There isnt one game featuring AI that doesnt have a 3000 post "AI Sucks!!!!" thread because that is the nature of AI. But to just knock them out completely is a lil heartbreaking to the long time SP fans of this franchise.

Ive stated many times on these forums that BI is to be applauded for sticking with AI whilst the Triple A companies have abandoned it for MP sake and rid themselves of that burden. Looks like the executioner has come for us.

oh well, back to the editor for me :)

Excellent post. You summed it up perfectly. Not much can really be said beyond this.

It seems they stand behind their decision to move this franchise's original content towards a coop/mp focus, which basically means I'm not their target demographic anymore. I get it and it makes perfect business sense. It's sad this is what gaming in 2016 has become but it's just a sign of the times I suppose.

[mistyronin 1181]

However, we are no stranger to both the impressive strengths and unfortunate weaknesses of our Commanding system and AI. These are perhaps the most commonly criticized aspects of the Arma franchise, aside from performance and controls. While they are no doubt capable of feats perhaps considered impossible in other games, it's sometimes difficult for many players to look past their weaknesses.

First say that the explanation is appreciated. I may disagree in many points but I appreciate it.

Although the Splendid Arma 3 MP engine, allows precisely to enable or disable the AI in the empty slots. Which is the perfect solution that allows all possibilities for all kinds of players. And it doesn't suppose any extra effort on the maintenance side. A generic role could be applied in that case.

I really hope that option is considered, as it's already build-in in the engine and would really improve the campaign :)

[Wiki 1558]

Excellent post. You summed it up perfectly. Not much can really be said beyond this.

It seems they stand behind their decision to move this franchise's original content towards a coop/mp focus, which basically means I'm not their target demographic anymore. I get it and it makes perfect business sense. It's sad this is what gaming in 2016 has become but it's just a sign of the times I suppose.

Agreed

[bad benson 1733]

pretty much the reasoning i expected and was trying to hint at.

 

however. i see two questions not fully answered.

 

1. will progress be saved on the profile so you can continue another time? basically which of the missions from that apex protocol lobby are completed. not mission internal progress. if not, that would be a must imho. otherwise you always need to play the entire thing to reach where you left off. that would be ridiculous.

would be great, if the missions you choose from are based on the hosts saved progress. which of the missions he/she has completed while being the host and also as a client before. pretty much liek any other coop game.

 

2. what exactly is being scaled? enemy numbers or only skills?

[Zipper5 74]

1. will progress be saved on the profile so you can continue another time? basically which of the missions from that apex protocol lobby are completed. not mission internal progress. if not, that would be a must imho. otherwise you always need to play the entire thing to reach where you left off. that would be ridiculous.

would be great, if the missions you choose from are based on the hosts saved progress. which of the missions he/she has completed while being the host and also as a client before. pretty much liek any other coop game.

 

2. what exactly is being scaled? enemy numbers or only skills?

 

Actually, all missions are available right from the start. Though I strongly recommend playing them in order, you're free to start anywhere you like. This post by Silxnl on Reddit (warning: potential spoilers) includes a screenshot that illustrates this quite nicely, if you haven't had a chance to check it out for yourself just yet.

 

The scaling is quite complex. Pretty much every engagement in the campaign handles it individually, though there are instances where a general balancing framework has been applied. In some instances, the accuracy of the enemy is adjusted on the fly, triggered by players connecting and disconnecting. In others, units are spawned and deleted as the mission progresses based upon the player count at the time these parts of the missions begin. Nonetheless, if you point us in the direction of a particular engagement or mission that feels wrong, we'll be able to isolate it. :)

[pansyfaust 69]

Zipper5, I'm quite interested why is dedicated server support is so important for a coop campaign?

I find it hard to imagine dedicated servers are going to run 4 player missions, not to mention the entire campaign design is to host a client-server even when you play in singleplayer so friends can join you.

 

As for the other point about saves being shared between MP and SP, didn't you already solve that by forcing the coop campaign into MP mode only?

Enabling saves would also allow for players to fail a mission by dying without forcing them to replay the entire mission.

 

I seriously hope you'd reconsider this design choice as currently it feels like a movie; on the rails, no consequences, no deviation from the script.

Not to mention you can only win and never lose.

 

Edit:

I'd also have to completely disagree with this statement: "So far, we feel that players understand the system significantly better thus keeping them together and co-operating with each other."

When there are no consequences to wandering off on your own and dying, why would anyone cooperate?

The boldest example would be mission 6, with it's multiple objectives; What's there to keep the players fighting together instead of splitting off and going for the various different objectives? dying? they can just try again in 30 seconds.

 

As for the game saving notification not showing up for clients, forgive me but that's a lousy excuse; you have remoteExec, even mission makers and modders can implement such a feature.

[metalcraze 290]

Excellent post. You summed it up perfectly. Not much can really be said beyond this.

It seems they stand behind their decision to move this franchise's original content towards a coop/mp focus, which basically means I'm not their target demographic anymore. I get it and it makes perfect business sense. It's sad this is what gaming in 2016 has become but it's just a sign of the times I suppose.

Not true, as coop experience it sucks massively too

[Zipper5 74]

Zipper5, I'm quite interested why is dedicated server support is so important for a coop campaign?

I find it hard to imagine dedicated servers are going to run 4 player missions, not to mention the entire campaign design is to host a client-server even when you play in singleplayer so friends can join you.

 

We've always had a problem with what we call "Content Discoverability" in Arma 3. A large portion of our playerbase pre-Apex appeared to not even know Arma 3 had official content. Part of this was definitely due to the fact that all 3 episodes of The East Wind came out after Arma 3 launched, and most of the singleplayer Showcase missions existed in the Alpha and Beta. For Apex, we took a long, hard look at other reasons for this, coming to a few conclusions. These conclusions included: the UI and UX of the Main Menu did not draw players towards official content, there was far too little official multiplayer content, and there were no official servers. That's where the new Main Menu, Apex Protocol itself, and our official servers have come from, respectively. As part of this initiative, we intend to host Apex Protocol on our official servers for players to join as they please, playing with people they know and/or people they don't. This is why Dedicated Server support was important to us this time around.

 

It's not so much that the design focused around players joining your server; rather, it was focused around players joining you. You should be able to play Apex Protocol on any server you please and your friends should be able to join you. :)

 

As for the other point about saves being shared between MP and SP, didn't you already solve that by forcing the coop campaign into MP mode only?

Enabling saves would also allow for players to fail a mission by dying without forcing them to replay the entire mission.

 

This is where the other points I mentioned factor in. You're right, the sharing of saves between the different environments doesn't matter so much at this stage. :) However, all the other flaws in the design still stand:

• Clients, i.e. everyone if played on a Dedicated Server, have no indication that the server is in the process of saving.
• The game is entirely paused as saving occurs, which means clients are given the impression that they're having network troubles or the server crashed. This misconception was quite often the case in Arma 2 when a host would save.
• Saves are only stored on the server, meaning they'd be quite a hassle to access unless you have your own private Dedicated Server. Not much of a hassle for a server hosted on a player's machine, but it would still always require that player to host each time you wanted to resume from where you left off, which is not great.

Referring back to my point about working within confines, we had to determine our priorities when considering which systems to overhaul and which to leave as they are. Though it's personally disappointing to me that we couldn't tackle the saving issue for Apex, I concede that it is a task best reserved for a full fledged game, less so an expansion.

[pansyfaust 69]

• Saves are only stored on the server, meaning they'd be quite a hassle to access unless you have your own private Dedicated Server. Not much of a hassle for a server hosted on a player's machine, but it would still always require you that player to host each time you wanted to resume from where you left off, which is not great.

 

You've already mentioned previously the campaign is intended to be played in a "single playsession", which still makes perfect sense in a save game environment.

with save games the process would be:

mission failed -> reload last save -> keep playing

while with a respawn system its:

die -> respawn -> continue mission

However, if you decide to quit for the day and continue tomorrow you'd have to start the mission a new with the respawn system (unless there's an in-mission progress tracking, not that I've noticed it).

with the save game system you could pick off from where you left, and in some extreme cases like the ones you've mentioned you'd be forced to restart the mission (which is again, no worse than what the respawn system offers).

[slowrider8 41]

However, if you decide to quit for the day and continue tomorrow you'd have to start the mission a new with the respawn system (unless there's an in-mission progress tracking, not that I've noticed it).

with the save game system you could pick off from where you left, and in some extreme cases like the ones you've mentioned you'd be forced to restart the mission (which is again, no worse than what the respawn system offers).

 

That's exactly why it's meant to be played in a single playsession. The missions are no longer than 30 minutes - 1 hour each so there's really no point of having to save to come back. If you "Decide to quit for the day" there's really no point of starting part way in to the mission because they take such a short time anyway. No point spending precious man-hours fixing the save system just for that.  

[Zipper5 74]

However, if you decide to quit for the day and continue tomorrow you'd have to start the mission a new with the respawn system (unless there's an in-mission progress tracking, not that I've noticed it).

with the save game system you could pick off from where you left, and in some extreme cases like the ones you've mentioned you'd be forced to restart the mission (which is again, no worse than what the respawn system offers).

 

Actually, I agree with your point about having to restart the mission from the beginning if you simply took a break, for example. This is an area where the lack of saving hurts. :(

 

However, the intention is indeed for the campaign to be completed in a single playsession. Looking at the feedback so far from here and elsewhere, it seems some people have been lightning fast at burning through them. Faster than we expected in some cases. Again, though it's far from perfect, we hope that the shorter missions help mitigate the impact of saving being disabled for the vast majority of the players. I personally regret that it doesn't turn out that way for everyone, nonetheless.

[IndeedPete 1038]

I just finished it. My first impression was confirmed, unfortunately. I also appreciate Zipper's statement. I really enjoyed his works in the past and I'm sure the team put a lot of effort into Apex Protocol. I still feel the need to summarise and complete the largely negative feedback you got from me below, sorry.

 

Keep in mind that this is a personal opinion, not an objective evaluation. So please, don't hate me too much. If you liked Apex Protocol, I'm happy for you. Tastes are different and that is cool. :)

 

Scenery

Let's start with the good aspects. Tanoa looks gorgeus and Apex Protocol manages to show that off. I feel the fog is slightly overused but still, it looks awesome. The mission areas are picked well and are filled with lots of objects and details. I really appreciate such things.

 

Performance

Outstanding. Not much to say but at least the SP was perfectly optimised and ran smoothly.

 

Sound & Music

While the game sounds absolutely amazing after the audio updates we had (I almost want to gift my firstborn to the guy who crafted these terrific thunder sounds), Apex Protocol fails to utilise music properly. It is used very sparsely and doesn't add all that much tension. Especially compared to the East Wind which was spot on in terms of utilising music. Though I'm sure this has again to do with the cooperative nature of the campaign. (Players might want to communicate and would turn down the music anyway.) The voice actors are okay but not particularly iconic, Miller aside.

 

Narrative

It is there and it is complete. That is actually a step forward from East Wind's terrible cliffhanger. Still, the story is not really original and contains no interesting plot twists or anything. I realise that the storytelling isn't complete due to missing cutscenes. What bugged me a bit is that there was a tsunami but the environment didn't really reflect it. It just didn't support that narrative.

 

Futhermore, I personally felt rather disengaged in the first three missions. When Miller entered, I finally got someone that got me at least a little bit involved. The other "characters" are as flat as it can get and honestly, at no point I gave a shit about any of them. Their dialogues range from generic military chatter (which is well-executed) to really cheesy lines which had me cringe more than once. It felt amateurish and B-movie like. Just forced and out of place.

 

Consistency

Here's where the bad design starts. The arrangement of missions, the mission design itself, the gear selection, and the respawn system are a pool of obvious inconsistencies. I can switch loadouts mid-mission (where the hell is my gear coming from?). In one mission, I have thermal NVGs. One mission later I don't have them anymore. Another mission later I have them again, must be magic. One mission I'm on island A, suddenly I'm for whatever reason on island B. A four men team is taking out an entire island? And why, I thought we were just lookign for a blacksite? The game doesn't really bother to tell me why all that happens and how.

 

Difficulty

What difficulty? I'm basically an undead super soldier with unlimited ammo! It has been stated before, the respawn system, regardless where the spawn points are placed, is exploitable. I hate to say it, but it completely dumbs down the gameplay. It strips away everything that defines Arma for me and replaces it with an unlimited amount of lives, guns, and ammo. It goes so far that it makes the gameplay extremely tedious. It's too easy and annoyingly frustrating at the same time. Especially in the last mission when CSAT moved in on Miller (without actually attacking him, consistency please), I kept dying from being spawnkilled by CSAT. Easy and frustrating at the same time.

 

The next thing is the obvious dumbing down of certain tasks and missions. In mission three (or was it two) where you had to destroy the Syndikat chaces, all AI guards were conveniently placed so they looked away from the player's approach vector. Even more, every class was kitted with explosives. Consistency, God dammit. In the later mission with the drones, I needed a UAV terminal. Wow, lucky me, such a great coincidence that there are FOUR FREAKING BLUFOR TERMINALS IN THE CSAT DRONE'S CARGO SPACE. Sorry, had to get that out. Didn't mean to be rude but this is the exact bullshit I'm trying to get away from by playing Arma. Things like these are what kill most AAA titles for me. The games are designed so that the player just cannot fail, irrelevant what he does. I'm sorry but that is not cool. It breaks immersion. Please, allow the player to fail from time to time. East Wind had fail states, and it was fine overall.

 

Mission Design

It's lackluster, it just is. There's verry little variety in what to do, and even less in how to do it. Go there, kill all enemies, go here, kill more enemies, go there, extract. I said it before, I just rushed through it and bypassed most patrols. Once killed, I checked the map and went around my attackers. It was so oversaturated with combat that I felt like I was on some sort of weird shooting range, only that the cardboard soldiers actually fired back. Again something I loathe in modern FPS. Endless waves of meaningless foes to battle, only broken up by occasional 30 second respawn breaks. (Actually quite good to get something to drink or check the forums...) If I want fast-paced combat with tons of enemies, I fire up Doom. It's a brilliant game that executes this type of gameplay exceptionally well. Arma does not. The missions seemed to be deliberately designed to dismiss Arma 3's major game mechanics which absolutely boggles my mind.

 

Conclusion

Almost over guys, let's bring it to an end. A lot of questionable design choices, and a lot of polishing is required. There is no immersion whatsoever. Some things can be ironed out, I'm sure. Other issues seem to be so fundamental that changing them might be too costly. But the most devastating thing I probably have to say is: I didn't enjoy it. I was bored and annoyed after five minutes. Arma's campaigns were always borderlining between fun and frustration but still, the good always outweighed the bad for me. Well, it didn't in Apex Protocol. I'm sorry for the devs that might have to read this but there's no need to sugarcoat it: Apex Protocol was not your best work. I still value the Apex expansion as a whole and can foresee a number of cool community projects to fill the SP gap. Better luck next time, I guess?

[VanZant 48]

The company wants to move towards casuals and life players, not new, but this campaign has removed completely the SP. You can play yes, but it is just for the record, period. Apart, there is no tactics, decisions, planning in the gameplay ...
I understand company movements, but making the content, exclusively, pure MP, is a bad decision. We don't want to know how many problems are, we know that for many of us this campaign is unplayable and a fiasco.

Moreover thanks for being here answering, Zipper 5.

[pansyfaust 69]

That's exactly why it's meant to be played in a single playsession. The missions are no longer than 30 minutes - 1 hour each so there's really no point of having to save to come back. If you "Decide to quit for the day" there's really no point of starting part way in to the mission because they take such a short time anyway. No point spending precious man-hours fixing the save system just for that.  

Except it doesn't require fixing, it's an added benefit over the existing system when it does work.

Not to mention the other benefits of not relying on infinite respawns metagaming to kill one enemy and die just to respawn and repeat.

 

Zipper, the reason why people burned through the campaign is PRIMARILY because of the flawed respawn system that lets you kill x enemies, die, respawn and kill another X enemies until you reach the quota of killed enemies.

That's my main gripe with the respawn system, it doesn't set back players one bit, at worst they have to walk (but it's arma, walking is second nature).

[Varanon 892]

Yes.

 

*facepalm*