Co-op Campaign: APEX PROTOCOL

[badluckburt 78]

I'm only on mission 2 but I can't say this is a very engaging campaign, it feels too easy. I am one of the worst players of the Arma franchise but even I manage to clear out the enemies with little to no effort and afterwards I feel like I've achieved nothing.

 

Completing missions like Bingo Fuel or whatever it was called in the original campaign had me doing a little dance as I was very ill prepared for that mission and didn't want to 'cheat' by reverting back to an earlier stage but here we have none of that.

 

I don't know if it picks up after mission 2 but so far, I'm sad to say I'm not impressed. I'll play through the whole campaign but I can't see myself replaying it in it's current state which is a shame, I really love Tanoa.

 

- edit

 

I'm almost finished now, one exfil has pretty much confirmed my suspicion :( This is Arma on rails, the last thing it should aspire to be. I really wish this would've been more, Tanoa is a fantastic setting but you guys (BI) seem afraid to do things on a larger scale like you did in HR and I think it's a shame. The visual presentation might be impressive but it's lacking a certain charm in my opinion and it fails to draw me in to the story. I guess I just don't feel the love like I did in Arma 2.

[dragon01 902]

I don't think it's accessibility vs. difficulty per se. There are a lot of deep games with steep learning curves. It's just that the good ones have a decent tutorial, a good introduction to the mechanics - while gradually increasing the difficulty over time. I don't mind providing tutorial missions where the player cannot fail. (Like Arma 2 did for example.) It's just that Apex Protocol stays on this diffculty level and never evolves into a proper game.

Interestingly enough, ArmA3 already does that, as well. Between VR training, the Bootcamp campaign and in-mission hints through most of The East Wind, it really does prepare you for the challenges afterwards. I wouldn't mind if Apex was just an easy-level campaign where you have the advantage in all situations (Tier 1 operators vs. criminal goons), but still have to put all this tactical stuff to use. Indeed, something the tutorials don't teach well is advanced squad tactics. Apex could do that, seeing as it's a COOP campaign, it could have been a way to ease the new players into complex tactics (these things are hard to really do well with AI teammates, though certainly possible with a bit of practice). Missions could have been set to showcase a particular kind of tactical situation, with briefing explaining the general idea and possible approaches, with further in-game hints on how to pull it off. I'd say, all in all, Apex Protocol is a huge missed opportunity.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Interestingly enough, ArmA3 already does that, as well. Between VR training, the Bootcamp campaign and in-mission hints through most of The East Wind, it really does prepare you for the challenges afterwards. I wouldn't mind if Apex was just an easy-level campaign where you have the advantage in all situations (Tier 1 operators vs. criminal goons), but still have to put all this tactical stuff to use. Indeed, something the tutorials don't teach well is advanced squad tactics. Apex could do that, seeing as it's a COOP campaign, it could have been a way to ease the new players into complex tactics (these things are hard to really do well with AI teammates, though certainly possible with a bit of practice). Missions could have been set to showcase a particular kind of tactical situation, with briefing explaining the general idea and possible approaches, with further in-game hints on how to pull it off. I'd say, all in all, Apex Protocol is a huge missed opportunity.

 

Exactly. Which is why my original impression was that they just didn't have enough time or budget to do it properly.

[mrdee3 0]

many people are going to hate me for saying this (I hate myself as well) but I think you should know

 

I load up arma 3 today I haven't bought the Apex DLC yet most because I cant afford it but I allow some mods the normal CUP vehicle CUP infantry ect I go into the editor which I spend most my time in and I start messing around making a mission then I see NATO (Pacific) so I thought maybe cup updated its mods I go into it and its all the new stuff from the DLC helicopters cars people ect...

 

like I said many people will hate me for this but its the better thing to do

I cant get apex for a while 3 months until I can but looks good

 

thought you should know

 

mrdee3

[dragon01 902]

That's actually normal. Apex (and other DLC) content is available to everyone, you just can't crew the vehicles unless you spawn in them, equip the inventory items (again, unless you spawn with them equipped), connect to UAVs, play the campaign or play on Tanoa. In editor, yes, but also in the Virtual Arsenal. Regular missions don't require DLC ownership unless they have you actually using the content. For example, you can make a non-DLC mission in which you fight the Viper team, you just won't be able to grab their gear for yourself. Likewise, inserting in a Blackfish or Huron is possible without DLC, as long as the pilots and gunners are AIs (or, if you're playing MP, players who do own the relevant DLC). I also don't own Apex (I'm going to wait until BIS gets the campaign into a decent shape), but I do participate in testing its content on a fairly regular basis. 

[R3vo 2654]

Is for anyone else here Arma 3 crashing when starting the first mission?

 

I am getting the following error msg

ErrorMessage: Include file a3\3DEN\UI\macros.inc not found.

The file is there and I also verified my game files. No clue what else I could do.

[SaOk 112]

The End Game showcase seems much better than campaign, but the tasks wont show then loading savegame (repro save, exit game, come back and load).

[froggyluv 2136]

 Ive not played past 2nd mission as have zero interest in this type of gameplay -but curious, how do they call this a campaign if its meant to be played in one sitting? Isnt that just a 'mission'?

[MartinFromZeusCommunity 15]

 Ive not played past 2nd mission as have zero interest in this type of gameplay -but curious, how do they call this a campaign if its meant to be played in one sitting? Isnt that just a 'mission'?

I think all that's required to call something a campaign is it being a series of missions. Even if it is short compared to other campaigns, if this was tied together as just one mission it would be considered a pretty damn long mission.

[IndeedPete 1038]

 Ive not played past 2nd mission as have zero interest in this type of gameplay -but curious, how do they call this a campaign if its meant to be played in one sitting? Isnt that just a 'mission'?

 

Well, technically a campaign is a collection of missions played in a defined order. The length is irrelevant, I believe. Some community-made campaigns are just as short or even shorter than Apex Protocol. They are still proper campaigns to me.

[Alwarren 2767]

Alright, here goes: My Review of the APEX protocol campaign.

This is purely my own opinion, nothing else, so all the White Knights can reign in their horses, call me a hater, or add whatever incoherent babble you can come up with.

 

I try to be as impartial and objective as possible, but anything that contains "I like" or "I dislike" is inherently subjective. As a veteran mission maker since the early days of Arma 2 and as a player since Flashpoint, I also know that it is already difficult enough to make a mission with a broad appeal, and impossible to make one with universal appeal. My own missions tend to be rather challenging, so this might also explain where I am coming from.

 

First part is spoiler free.

 

The most important question to answer: Did I enjoy playing it? The answer is yes, for the most part. I still think that the respawn is one of two factors that mostly ruin the experience (the other factor I will mention below). Why this was chosen is absolutely beyond me, but I have already elaborated on that enough so I will skip any discussion of this specific thing here (except at the end). What I am going to mention below is actually worse than the respawn.

 

My major pet peeve is, and always has been, immersion. If I don't feel invested and immersed into a story (especially with a campaign), it seriously harms my enjoyment, and immersion was one of the things constantly damaged by the respawn, and factor 2 (I won't mention that here because it is a spoiler).

 

I liked the voice acting during the briefings and missions, the locations were gorgeous (the island just looks fantastic), and I was pleasantly surprised by the frame rates.

 

Now, for the missions

 

01. Keystone.

The mission's main problem is that it has no context. It's meant as the usual "X happens, but here is how we got there" kind of introduction. Things like that usually work better as a cutscene, since the player is pretty much confused as to what is happening at that moment, making it hard to understand. That somewhat dampens the immersion.

 

Other than that, it is a simple checkpoint walk with "kill all things" at each checkpoint. A bit of off-side storytelling with the police officer you find, but no heavy lifting, which makes it okay for an introduction.

 

02. Warm Welcome

I liked the location in the jungle and the temple ruin. The mission itself was a pretty easy one (but then, so was every mission in the campaign). Ambush a convoy, take out weapon cache, extract.

 

Right off the bat, factor 2 comes into play - namely, the mission CANNOT fail. Never. There isn't any way that you can actually miss the convoy or fail to destroy it, just like there is no way to fail ANY of the missions in the campaign.

 

Once I realized this, all sense of achievement went out of the window. You could just lean back and watch things unfold, and still would "beat" the mission.

 

03. Firestarter

A simple mission where you have to find the lumbermill and blow up everything there is. Not much to say, except that I was disappointed that it didn't have a proper extraction. That point will repeat itself. Again, no way to fail.

 

04. Heart of Darkness

I'd say this was the best one in the campaign, even though, again, there was no way to fail. The mission suffered greatly from this - since it is essentially a fight for survival, the survival aspect is completely lost because you will make it eventually anyway. Still, the mission was entertaining.

 

05. Extraction

Basically the continuation of the first mission. In essence, it was Heart of Darkness by daylight. No point of failure, the friendly AI is invincible, respawn makes the mission way too easy, no sense of achievement. The first transport being shot up was predictable as hell, the second transport being shot up was cringeworthy, and then essentially a repeat of HoD until you reached the boats. Again, no extraction, just "Mission Complete".

 

06. APEX Protocol

In spite of being a mission with the same name as the campaign, it was pretty much like Firestarter, just replicated a couple of times. I found this to be the most boring mission of the campaign. It essentially is the same task replicated, what, six times or so: Destroy Technical #1, Destroy Technical #2, Destroy Technical #3, Assault Point X, Assault Point Y, Assault Point Z. Apart from the fact that it couldn't fail anyway because of the same reasons as with 01-05, the UGV's made it really trivially easy, and the Technicals were easily dispatched with the mortar. I have no idea what the point of the mission was, it was tedious, repetitive and boring. As before, mission just ended without extraction.

 

07. End Game

Night time version of APEX protocol/Keystone. Three attack points, and a randomly placed Warlock. In a wild shootout at the gate, Warlock obviously decided to be stupid and got randomly shot. We retrieved the key, grabbed one of the Chinese LSV, and drove to the device, disarming it. Then we defended an invincible Keystone against more Chinese, and the mission ended. At least with someone of a proper extraction this time.

 

Conclusion:

The Good

Things I liked about the campaign was the voice acting, locations, and a couple of the missions. HoD was quite nice. The rest was, let's say, "competent". Nothing out of the ordinary, but solid. After a few missions the set pieces started to repeat themselves, though. It was basically eating at McDonald's. Filling but everything tastes the same.

 

The Bad

Some of the missions were pretty uninspired. APEX Protocol was by far the weakest IMO. It was way too easy to grab one of the UGV's and wreak havoc, and the mortar support did the rest. Since Arma mortars are pin-point accurate at short range, and the position of the Technicals was accurately displayed on the map, taking them out with the mortars was easy.

 

The Ugly

Three things: Respawn, respawn, and.. oh yeah, respawn. It was completely impossible to fail, partially because you could never actually die, partially because there was no way to even fail the tasks. Everything had safety nets, and as a consequence, none of the missions had any feeling of achievement to it. And tension went out of the window. I should have felt threatened by the Viper troops that attacked us in Heart of Darkness, I should have felt relief when we finally saw the extraction truck, but I felt neither because there was no threat.

 

I don't play respawn missions normally exactly because of this reason, but at least in most missions on the workshop it is possible to fail, and so even if they had respawn at least there would be the thread of failing the mission by way of not achieving the goal. But if achieving the goal is guaranteed by the very setup of the mission, there is no feeling of accomplishment. You burn through these missions like nothing, and since the campaign is very short, the whole thing is over very soon.

 

The respawn has turned out to be as much of an issue I had thought it would when I first read about it, but this could have been mitigated by the possibility to fail any of the targets. As it was, not only was there respawn, there was also a win guarantee. Being "new player friendly" is one thing, but this was retard-friendly, even my grandmother could have played this and won.

 

Also, the no-failure design meant that the most dangerous thing encountered was technicals, because of the generic setup there was no guarantee that any of the players had any anti-tank capabilities. It meant that thread-level has to be kept to a certain level. Of course, you can always blow yourself up with a grenade and switch loadout mid-mission anyway. No planning needed, no conversation of ammunition, no brains, nothing. This wasn't for new players as it was for people that only know Candy Crush.

 

I have pointed this out again, but there is nothing in the campaign that actually teaches a new player anything. They don't need to plan, they don't need to conserve energy, they can go Leroy Jenkins on the entire campaign without every failing. The first custom scenario a player "educated" by this campaign will play, he will be completely overwhelmed and will have a high likelihood of putting the game down afterwards. How you think that this is a good introduction for new players is beyond me.

 

The campaign only manages to keep up the illusion of danger for one mission. Afterwards, any sense of challenge simply evaporates.

 

While I did have some fun playing it, it was way behind the potential, and the repeating of mission goals and structure didn't help it very much. As it is, it's replay value lies mostly in the fact that it is short. The story itself was pretty obvious and rather lame, and there wasn't really any highlight mission or moment that stood out. Missions like "Bingo Fuel" and "Moral Fiber" from the East Wind campaign stand out as example of really good missions. None of that was in APEX protocol.

 

 

And that's it. I hope BI can make sense of this and can understand the reasoning why my review of the campaign came out so harsh.

[froggyluv 2136]

 Strange as generally games like to promote how many hours of play their story features with happy places being in the 50-70's. Ah well, ive already said my piece on this debacle - be waiting anxiously on that hinted at 'other project' and series roadmap. BI, please recruit someone who has extreme passion for the military aspect of this series as well as alot of heart in the original SP lifeblood of the series.

 

Edit: Reading Alwarrens breakdown above is depressing. Danger BI, danger is critically important to this series. Removing that element doesnt bring in fresh blood -they come here in the 1st place because they've heard how this game is harder and more challenging than most!

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

I don't see how they would release this campaign, acknowledge that the revive timer is set 1:40 too short, and not hotfix it.

My unit had a decent time playing this yesterday (we played the first 3 missions. Though it does feel uninspired and most moderately rated Workshop missions feel like they are made with more care IMO) but having 20 seconds to revive my guys really amplifies the feeling of it being a monotonous chore. I'm personally trying to hold back my options on this campaign until I can at least play it how they envision it.

I don't understand why this didn't warrant a hotfix?

[panicsferd 25]

I guess for me personally I mainly bought the expansion for the new units/vehicles and the like and for me the campaign was pretty much a secondary option. To me it was just okay, I would have preferred if we got a more full fledge singleplayer campaign.

 

Here is some spoilers talking about the missions (only read if you have completed all of the apex missions):

 

A thing I kind of noticed myself with the campaign that they may have some continuity issues because when I played the last mission (Paradise Found) of the east wind campaign the date of that mission was August 10, 2035 and I believe the starting date for the first mission in APEX was August 15 or 16, 2035. If going by the dates this takes place less than a week from the ending of east wind and when you get further into the mission it almost sounds like miller and his CRTG team was in the field for like weeks which wouldn't make any sense - how can he be in two places at once?

 

Plus on the last mission falcon makes his appearance, and it is the same james from east wind... and even though there were multiple endings and depending on which one they chose as cannon, doesn't he die.

 

Besides the problems up a head, it was just an okay mission and I wasn't a big fan of the respawn/respawn/respawn mechanic and it pretty much made it so you didn't have to worry that much about taking this slows since you could just respawn if you die.

 

 

Another thing as well and once I finished playing the apex campaign for me personally I don't have another reason to replay it (except for getting achievements or to play with my friends since I first played it solo to see what it was like) and so I am kind of wondering how are these missions "highly replayable" like it was advertised.

[kylania 568]

 Strange as generally games like to promote how many hours of play their story features with happy places being in the 50-70's.

 

Games like these have single player campaigns counted in minutes these days.  3 hours is an epic length FPS campaign now.  Even during the heyday of FPS campaigns 20-30 hours was the max.  

 

RPG games are the 50-100 hour campaigns, but that's because the campaign is the whole thing basically.  With FPSs most of the gameplay comes from multiplayer.  I don't have 2000 hours in ArmA due to the campaign.  I have 100 hours in Skyrim because of the campaign.

[panicsferd 25]

Games like these have single player campaigns counted in minutes these days.  3 hours is an epic length FPS campaign now.  Even during the heyday of FPS campaigns 20-30 hours was the max.  

 

RPG games are the 50-100 hour campaigns, but that's because the campaign is the whole thing basically.  With FPSs most of the gameplay comes from multiplayer.  I don't have 2000 hours in ArmA due to the campaign.  I have 100 hours in Skyrim because of the campaign.

That is the same for me, for the 2300/2400hrs I have on arma only 10 if not 20 hrs of that is the campaign and the rest is multiplayer or me making singleplayer missions in the editor. Most FPS now days have shorter campaign since most of the main stream ones (bf, cod) the main attracting component is the multiplayer.

 

Unlike with a lot of your RPG games (like skyrim for instance) is mainly a big open world singleplayer component and they are designed to be a long story, but if you think of it most of these RPGs can be just as short since most of them (at least the bethesda ones) if you just do the main story (like in skyrim) you can probably finish the game in a day or so, but if you take it slow and explore, do all the side quests then it will last longer.

[corellian_storm 20]

I haven't played the apex campaign simply cause I never did the campaign with the canon ending and wanted to do that first. I'm half-way there. So I know nothing of what actually happens on Tanoa. I have heard enough, though, to know that at the end of East Wind, James is alive and Kerry is a sergeant.

 

Anyway,

It'd be cool if the campaign somehow got dragged into episodes like east wind. What I would love to see is some scenario where (Sgt) Kerry gets dragged to Tanoa and back into Miller's secret ops, Miller turns out to be the bad guy, and even Lt. James gets betrayed. The player character (Kerry!) gets to shoot Miller (just the way his accent gets right up my nose, ya know?), Lt. James becomes the team leader, and Kerry has the choice to get a well-earned vacation or become a full-fledged CTRG officer under James (depending how the game's rank system works, that would either raise him to his old friend Adam's role as Staff Sergeant, or James now vacant position as lieutenant)

[R3vo 2654]

Problem occurred when saving profile data. The file may be set to read-only or can be blocked by another instance of the game (e.g., dedicated server).

 

Very good review and I completely agree with the statement that the respawn at - least in single player - is an immersion-killer.

[funkotron 4]

this---> "I hope you can remove respawn system in singleplayer and bring back the old save system. " and perhaps an AI team of two.

thanx bullet purveyor

[chortles 263]

BI, please recruit someone who has extreme passion for the military aspect of this series as well as alot of heart in the original SP lifeblood of the series.

Unfortunately that'd require someone with not only what you want but also willingness to meet other employment conditions/preferences... I know of at least one community member who claims to have actually turned down a Bohemia offer (didn't say if it was for SP).

That, and if Bohemia isn't looking for SP, then that "someone who has extreme passion for the military aspect of this seasons as well as alot of heart in the original SP lifeblood of the series" is going to end up doing something very different than what you wanted them to be in the company for...

[Varanon 892]

Games like these have single player campaigns counted in minutes these days.  3 hours is an epic length FPS campaign now.  Even during the heyday of FPS campaigns 20-30 hours was the max.  

 

RPG games are the 50-100 hour campaigns, but that's because the campaign is the whole thing basically.  With FPSs most of the gameplay comes from multiplayer.  I don't have 2000 hours in ArmA due to the campaign.  I have 100 hours in Skyrim because of the campaign.

Agreed, most of the games (for example Dragon Age: Inquisition) fluff up their story with countless very similar side quests.

 

However, if you consider the playtime on Apex and, for example Harvest Red's Manhattan mission, you get to about half the Aex play time on Manhatten, and that was just one mission without fluff or repetition.

[Varanon 892]

Why so much criticism for 5 scenarios based in a drop-in, drop-out gameplay?. There are a huge number of realistic scenarios out there, some are better other are worse. But I dont see that anyone creating such amount of posting.

Because those "5 scenarios based in a drop-in, drop-out gameplay" were heralded as a coop campaign that would be part of the Apex expansion. Because people were rightfully expecting a bit more playtime from an EXPANSION ? Maybe it's too much to ask, but take a look at the BAF DLC that came out for Arma 2. It was a DLC, not an expansion, but the campaign in there had about the same amount of missions, but was much longer, and hand much more varied missions. Apex has basically one or two missions duplicated several times in different locations (go there kill everything, go there and blow up everything).

 

So, yeah, people are rightfully criticising those "5 scenarios based in a drop-in, drop-out gameplay" (actually, it's 7, but never mind). Because it wasn't that good to begin with. It felt like a demo for the island, nothing more, something like "Look how good it looks", and hell, it does look good, but sorry, there were days when an island that was released was actually accompanied by single (and multi) player content that was more than just a commercial for the island.

 

I was wary when I always heard that Tanoa was the crown jewel (which it undoubtedly is, don't get me wrong, it's fantastic). When I heard that, I just KNEW that the rest would be on backburner, and I was right.

 

Remember that roadmap way back ? "The Civilian Faction will receive some love".. Well, we got one more car and one more jeep, and one more jetski, and more men in shorts. .

But I am drifting off topic, which is about the campaign. Since everything has been said, I just rest my case.

 

 

And I see that in the last few pages, you still haven't learned to actually bring up arguments, you still just fluff up your posts with pointless nonsense like "have you read my previous posts" or accusing others of "drama". Or your ingenious "If the people dont like potatos they dont eat potatos."

[petek 62]

...."The Civilian Faction will receive some love".. Well, we got one more car and one more jeep, and one more jetski, and more men in shorts. ."

Had to laugh at this....."More Men in Shorts!"!!  Really do think BIS had a good chance to address a big criticism with East Wind which was lack of Civi immersion (assets and civilians). Have now played all missions of Apex (albeit "Solo Play") and can only say "meh". Even the few new assets in the expansion were sorely under utilised in my opinion. Hate to say it but Must try harder.......

[das attorney 858]

 

Remember that roadmap way back ? "The Civilian Faction will receive some love".. Well, we got one more car and one more jeep, and one more jetski, and more men in shorts. .

 

Hey man, that's not fair - We got one civ plane as well!   ;)

[petek 62]

Forgot about the plane! ;-) Dis we get another car for the Civi's other than the jeep??

Seriously I personally would pay for a decent, diverse, Civi "factions" expansion to enable a wee bit more depth...... They were sorely missed in East Wind and especially Apex Protocol in my opinion but going off topic from the structure of the campaign. I've been replaying some of the original Showcases in East Wind and it reinforces to me that again it's a sadly missed opportunity to show off what Apex does have to offer......