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Co-op Campaign: APEX PROTOCOL

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But at the moment, every time I die, I can actually respawn at a position closer to the current objective than where I originally was. It's a mechanic I immediately exploited because there was nothing in place to prevent me from doing so.

 

This is rather unfortunate, hopefully something thats been overlooked this close to release?

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This is rather unfortunate, hopefully something thats been overlooked this close to release?

 

Probably. They could refuse to unlock these respawn positions until the player actually reached that. Still, the main problems with this respawn-based system persist.

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but you respawn on a save, sounds like playing with words here

 

fighting csat in mission 7 in the end is ridiculously annoying, it's virtually impossible to see them in the fog while they have absolutely no problem finding you despite your "camouflage"

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but you respawn on a save, sounds like playing with words here

 

[...]

 

Not really in my opinion:

 

[...] One could argue that loading a savegame in SP is doing the exact same thing. But that would be not true as gear, health, position, and amount of enemies is saved to re-create the exact same situation. The respawn system on the other hand allows me to just walk into a difficult situation, pew pew a few enemies, die, and then come back at full force to beat off the remainers. [...]

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I would like multiple different respawn points defined in the area, which only get activated if you have been close to them. Either by walking there at least once or dying in the area. This "respawn hopping" right now really is a bit weird, as I can just bump behind enemy patrols over and over again.

 

Oh, and I just had a scene in mission 4 where I had to walk approx 1km with no respawn point in between and a truckton of enemies around me. In coop this probably is a lot easier, alone on the other hand I occasionally missed an enemy who then easily killed me from behind or somewhere else, which resulted in me having to walk all the way again and again until I cleaned up enough foes. This again wouldn't be that bad of a situation if I could (in sp) save and load as I please.

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Oh, and I just had a scene in mission 4 where I had to walk approx 1km with no respawn point in between and a truckton of enemies around me. In coop this probably is a lot easier, alone on the other hand I occasionally missed an enemy who then easily killed me from behind or somewhere else, which resulted in me having to walk all the way again and again until I cleaned up enough foes. This again wouldn't be that bad of a situation if I could (in sp) save and load as I please.

nothing would be troublesome if you could savescum as you please, imagine the score you could rack up if you could savescum pacman haha

 

i agree with disabling spawnpoints until you physically hit that checkpoint.

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Well, what can I say. Having to run the same mile over and over again because a hidden bullet got you is hardly how I would define fun. If you like it, you can switch to a higher difficulty setting instead.

 

Besides, while you mention "the score I could rack up" - last mission I killed about 30 soldiers. Alone. Rambo would be proud of me.

 

/Edit: Additionally the 30 seconds respawn timer. So basically I die, wait 30 seconds, respawn, walk the mile again, hope not to get hit again. If I do get hit, wait 30 seconds, walk the mile again... Save & Load is simply faster and less annoying (in sp), especially when dealing with a mostly invisible Viper squad.

 

 

/Edit2: And just now I had a crash again... means I'll have to walk all the ways and stuff again... argg.. because I can't save the progress. See, that's what I am going on about. And I can't just stop inbetween- if I start a mission, I'll have to finish it. Granted, they aren't very long, exactly because multiplayer reasons, but still applies in case of playing alone.

 

 

/Edit3: Just to not look so negative: Again, I can see a huge potential in these type of missions. They also allow "easy" additional mission DLCs, as the story / background would allow them to be kind of stand-alone. For example, there could be a one or two mission thing where you are in the role of Viper (hint, hint @ BIS), without having to make a full blown campaign to explain things.

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Oh, and I just had a scene in mission 4 where I had to walk approx 1km with no respawn point in between and a truckton of enemies around me. In coop this probably is a lot easier, alone on the other hand I occasionally missed an enemy who then easily killed me from behind or somewhere else, which resulted in me having to walk all the way again and again until I cleaned up enough foes. This again wouldn't be that bad of a situation if I could (in sp) save and load as I please.

 

If this is the "flares" part, I got stuck on that and it sucked.  The other three members of my team made it to the extract point but I died from a head shot.  I couldn't see any of them or the end as a spawn point, just the middle house.  So I had to respawn back there and run 600m through enemy territory alone.  Problem was stamina had hit full force since it was mostly uphill so I couldn't even run or shoot without waiting 5 minutes for sway to stop.  I ended up stripping all my equipment off and running naked through the fog and flares three times just to get it over with.

 

Respawning as classes really kills the "campaign" feel too.  First mission I started gathering gear, a backpack, extra grenades, an RPG.  Then I died and lost it all on respawn.  At that point I stopped caring about the mission and just concentrated on kills.  Later we lost a tire on a vehicle and my friend called out "Hey, no problem, I'm a repair guy!" fixed the tire and off we went.  About 10 min later we lost another tire so I called for a repair.  My friend replied "Oh, I'm not a repair guy anymore, I respawned as a sniper".  Mid mission... not cool.

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Sounds like respawn should be optional. Or tied to difficulty...

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Didnt realise the campaign was so multiplayer focused.For people like me who only play SP, a kind of hacky way to get a team is to use MCC.Spawn a couple of freindly troops and use the MCC console to make a "join group as leader" waypoint.Then they will join your squa.I use that for some multiplayer style missions in SP

 

Regarding the End Game showcase, i also could not collect the intel at the second area like the post above.

 

Love the night sky on Tanoa-hopefully we will se Altis get some brightness back to it's nights now as well.

Wait didn't they say they can play it with 3 AI squadies just as well as 4 player Co-op?

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Only had a little dabble with first mission. Quite playable even on my laptop but as a SP guy I also would hope that a "normal" Single player experience will make it to final release. Habe never liked the "Rambo" type missions and always feel ARMA works best when you're just part of a bigger war. Was also expecting more than 7 missions to be honest. I've specifically been holding back on roaming around Tanoa til campaign release and the island is pretty damn fine but think I need a much more powerful rig to enjoy it!

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But as of now, I feel like Rambo. I just finished the first mission and killed, what, 30 people? And how? Recon by fire, run 'n' gun, random grenade bombing...

34 in my case... Heck even for a 4-men team it's an insane number of kills. 

It's really disappointing. Specially after the great campaign in Arma 3 vanilla.

Now its like if Arma 3 has gone Far Cry style but even more Rambo if possible, and all that without all the possibilities from Far Cry that allowed a lot of tactics. 

Heck even a Ghost Recon approach would have been nicer. I think that they should have given at least few IA guys to assist when playing with one player. 

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I've specifically been holding back on roaming around Tanoa til campaign release and the island is pretty damn fine

 

I've been all over the place in the Editor and still the campaign felt fresh and new to me.  Some places I'd never even been and others were familiar but with the great atmospheric feel of the campaign were new this time around.  The weather in some of the campaign missions is really great and adds a lot to the feel.

 

 

34 in my case... Heck even for a 4-men team it's an insane number of kills. 

 

 

You expect to play through a whole mission and only kill like 6 guys?  I don't get it, what would be a reasonable kill count for you?

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I agree that it would be nice to disable respawns; especially for those die-hard, you got one-life, style gamers :D

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34 in my case... Heck even for a 4-men team it's an insane number of kills. 

It's really disappointing. Specially after the great campaign in Arma 3 vanilla. Now its like if Arma 3 has gone Far Cry style but even more Rambo if possible, and all that without all the possibilities from Far Cry that allowed a lot of tactics. 

 

 

I absolutely love the rating. Why don't they just write Max Int by default? Fits the Rambo super soldier setting quite well. :D

 

Okay, I'm going all ridiculous here but really, the challenging aspect of the game is completely gone. And even without having it played in MP yet, I don't expect much of a challenge there as well. It relies on the same systems after all.

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You expect to play through a whole mission and only kill like 6 guys?  I don't get it, what would be a reasonable kill count for you?

 

I don't think it's the number; that is just a symptom if you want to call it that way. It's the fact that, again due to the respawn system mostly, the AI is nothing more than target practice. (At least in the first mission. I haven't gotten much further yet.) I really hate to say it, but I feel like I'm shooting those COD-style cardboard enemies. Not really all that satisfying, especially since it misses the threat of getting killed and the need to apply tactics or conserve ammunition.

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You expect to play through a whole mission and only kill like 6 guys?  I don't get it, what would be a reasonable kill count for you?

It all depends on the kind of mission and the "enablers" you have (one single pilot can kill thousands of people with a nuke). But 6 guys for one soldier is quite a fine number for most missions. 

If you kill single enemies, or little groups, then you can kill dozens of them. 

But in the first mission you have to kill outposts with like a dozen enemies by yourself... 

Arma is supposed to be fairly "realist". Heck even in Call of Duty you have a better balance most of the time.

As I said, if you had the chance to have the other player slots as AI, it would change a bit the experience, as you could apply some tactics. Heck an Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead approach would have been way better IMHO, and that was a Co-op Campaign.

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 Well I had no idea when I pre-ordered that there woulndn't be a cohesive SP campaign -I mean this is a major change in their M.O and it would have been nice if they had highlighted that fact. As Ronin said, killing 35 guys on my own is really just a shooter and in that sense, a downgrade from what we are used to. Im still early in these missions but from what Im reading here this doesnt change and thats mighty disappointing.

 

How do we get that 'individuality' feel of approaching a mission now? We are just some amorphous Raider Team Guy with no class, no name, no squaddies to bond with and boss around or hell, even BE bossed around. And how you even gonna call me Raider Team when its just me?!

 

Gotta tell ya BI, this will feel like a hollow shell to your original SP players if this the case for the entire campaign. Hell you could have at least given us a generic 4 man team, I dont need names or banter -but what I do need is that you thought out what it takes to beat a mission, what sized squad, what classes of men, what sort of supports? But in actuality it just takes one guy apparently considering my killcount.

 

Consider me very disappointed if this is the entirety of the campaign,

 

~ 1 Man Wolf

 

Edit: On second thought,was this advertised as a purely Co-op Campaign? I remember them saying it is a campaign that is co-op functional but thats an entirely different animal. Feeling a little shoeshined on this......

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I think they simply forgot to add the Crysis suit to the player. ^_^

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How about the whole plot / story etc..?

Is it interesting anyway?

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So i finished the campaign with NATO defeating AAF on Altis and here is what are my impressions "possible spoilers minor only"

 

Pros

 

Respawn system is great especially for me and the guys cuz we use loads of mods that can cause problems

4 Player CO-OP missions

The scene that work are cool

Suspense especially on "End Game" last stretch the enviroment made it hard to use thermals which was great

Story is good but some missing links around "Viper" and the idea what CSAT are all about and maybe the biggest question is Miller how he got to Tanoa and what was he doing during the 6 month skip after the Altis Flashpoint < maybe cuz some cutscenes did not work

Definetly no gun and run tactics

HACKING "but not enough of it"

My guys are highly dependent on intel and UAV recon and the campaign told em "DEAL WITH IT"

 

Cons

 

The AI is definetly problematic at few points during the campaign

Too short extremely infact "Possible episodes in the future ?"

Solo is playable but i recommend having a buddy

Only infantry "could use a mission or too where you can be a gunner in the V-44 or use a terminal to guide its weapons its 2035 should most stuff we see in Call of Duty to present"

Needs some Free Roam that is tied to the campaign where we can gain intel for next missions or some equipment

Campaign could've expended on CTRG before the 72h mark cuz the amount of damage they're causing could ruin the Syndikat within a month

Thermals might need some adjustments

Needs more wacky comments like during the Ambush Mission "2nd or 3rd"

 

Bugs

 

None except the AI sometimes leaves the task area making it harder to update but not big of a deal

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I assumed that this would have been like the Harvest Red campaign: you have a team of four, each as unique characters, with players able to choose which they were in co-op.

 

Instead, it's essentially a campaign where you are a nameless soldier, and if you play offline, you're caught in Red Hammer-esqe Rambo missions? That already sounds disappointing.

 

Perhaps one can use mods in single player to add three AI allies and force saves, like a few mods did for the mission Game Over. Then you can kind of force it into a more traditional single player experience.

 

Regardless, though, I do wish to praise Bohemia for being ambitious with Apex Protocol, if only because they said they wanted to make a co-op campaign, and they actually did. They marketed the campaign first and foremost as a co-op campaign, but I wish it would add some things to make it more serviceable for single player fans like myself.

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Needs more wacky comments like during the Ambush Mission "2nd or 3rd"

Also more wacky gifs on repeat disguised as important information, you know what I'm referring to :p

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You expect to play through a whole mission and only kill like 6 guys?  I don't get it, what would be a reasonable kill count for you?

 

 Do you remember when Maruk came out and said that ARma 2 would be different than its predecessors in that the Ai is much more challenging - 2 soldiers would be a challenge so it wouldnt be like the old OFP days  in which you killed 18 guys by missions end.

 

 36 is just an obscene count in the realm of ridiculousness. Basically you could give us 10,000 armed monkeys to shoot with unlimited respawn and sure, eventually I'd beat that as well. Its really a shame because I absolutely LOVE the production value on this. That splash Apex screen after the 1st mission was simply sublime -the best Ive ever seen in a video game.

 

 But where do we go from here? The mission is just not calibrated. So if I beat the mission, am I 4 times better than 4 guys playing Co-Op? If I hack in 3 squaddies, does that equalize things? is it a cheat? What classes should i put in as to not disrupt the balance of the missions or is there even balance with foresight?

 

Games whether sports or video games or board games are only fun for one reason -rules. if i suddenly give myself 5 Queens in Chess -is it as rewarding when I win? So that is my issue. Telling me I can also play a bought campaign as singleplayer -I expect a difference when loading it up in SP as opposed to MP. I expect and trust that to mean they have made a calculated distinction between the two and that it be not only calibrated, but created a challenging, realistic and rewarding experience.

 

 As it stands now - im putting the game on hold rather than shoot another 9964 monkeys

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Extremely disappointed with the campaign; infinite respawns, invincible friendly AI, no AI teammates when playing solo.

Had to step away for like 15 minutes in the last mission where time is supposedly of the essence and I left the game running, needless to say nothing peculiar happened.

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