Co-op Campaign: APEX PROTOCOL

[petek 62]

I personally have replayed most of the showcases multiple times (often to check impact of improvements/changes as the game develops as I'm so familar with them) Sadly find most of them infinitely more enjoyable than Apex (with the exception of Endgame which I quite liked...... and yay... works like a proper single-player experience!) I can honestly say I have no intention of replaying any of the Apex campaign..... which again I find sad.

Reckon it's true that most people would have tried them out in Alpha etc... so steam may not count them as completed - and I would really hope low recorded completion would not be viewed as no one tries them out and are therefore not important. 

[Alwarren 2765]

Agreed.

We still dunno how NATO nor CTRG is aware of it, where they come from, who is in command, etc...

Plus, you never see NATO in Tanoa (okay, except 2 or 3 times for extraction...)

What is the poibt of all this?

 

Good question. It feels like the new Battlestar Galactica series. You build up mystery, everybody keeps wondering how that is going to be resolved/explained, and then you just say "screw this" and don't explain anything.

 

(Warning spoilers for East Wind and Apex below)

 

The East Wind device was never even called that way in The East Wind. The whole seismic weapon seemed like an afterthought cramped into the story in the last episode when they were trying to resolve all the "We don't know a Captain Miller" thing - there has never been a single earthquake or any hint of it in either Survive or Adapt. It was retconned into the bootcamp campaign, but since that came later it doesn't count. The whole Seismic Weapon thing only ever came up in Win, which shows to me that they worked the same way as the makers of BSG (which actually admitted to that): They made things up as they went.They really seemed to have asked themselves the question "why is CSAT here" at the very last episode of their campaign.

 

As for explanations, there are none given. There are essentially two endings of the campaign, you can decide on the spot without any of your prior actions or decisions (and there were preciously few to begin with) having any impact: Go with NATO, or go with CTRG. There is no middle ground. Any sane person would have called his CO and reported that a NATO officer (Lt. James) is in need for assistance, but you don't have the obvious choice and can either leave an obviously endangered Lt. James to die, or become a traitor. WTF?

 

So if you decide to become a traitor, you get one chance to "make sense of it all" in one of the research domes, only to end up being told that it is "just a bunch of gibberish" (can't remember the exact line). Then Miller and crew desert you and CSAT launches a full-fledged invasion. No explanation, nothing. The game ends when you leave Altis.

 

If you go with NATO, Lt. James miraculously survives (he is in APEX at the end), AAF capitulates after you destroyed five of their tanks, and you are treated to a "six months later" mission that has a reporter drop all sorts of mysterious hints about Miller and Stavrou's backstory that are never resolved or even mentioned anymore. Since you find James in the traitor ending and he dies, I assume this one is the "canon" ending.

 

Fast forward to APEX. The East Wind device is a seismic weapon (well big surprise after Win) and Miller is a good guy after all. Stavrou never comes up again, nothing is explained, and it ends by flying the device off into the sunset (well, metaphorically speaking, it's a night mission anyway).

 

I am not even talking about what a logical mess the Survive episode was. How it makes zero sense to set up shop in a military base (the first thing the AAF would check), how being mortared to shit doesn't do anything but cause a few fires and still does not prompt anyone to go away, how "making a point" after a botched resupply operation does not make any sense whatsoever and is just a waste of ammunition, how "decapitating the command structure" is pretty much a non-issue in a world of global communication and, you know, planes and helicopters, or how "Reinforcements are coming so we have to strike now" is the most suicidal thing to do in a situation were help is JUST AROUND THE CORNER (and before someone says that Miller had ulterior motives, yeah that might be true, but then why the heck did nobody ask him about it? Why did everybody just nod and say "yeah good idea"? Especially Kerry who has been uppish about that stuff all the time?)

 

The best part of the campaign was Adapt because there was no real attempt at story telling in it, it was just the usual struggle of a guerilla group trying to survive the circumstances. All of a sudden, moving camp made sense.

 

Now, the bottom line is, storytelling-wise the whole Arma 3 experience was literally non-existent. Despite all of the shortcomings of APEX protocol, I could have gotten behind it if it at least provided a good story. Single player or coop, I expect a campaign to tell a compelling story, otherwise I am better off with a couple of standalone missions that promote diversity. But a campaign should be engaging, tell a story, you should get out with something about the protagonists and antagonists. Nothing was present. Besides outrageously trivial gameplay with no option for failure, besides the respawn forced upon you, besides the other calamities like not being able to save or even pause the game, it was a boring, generic, "look-at-me-I'm-so-special-ops" kind of story that will be forgotten soon and pales under classics like CWC: Resistance or Harvest Red (which had its share of issues but was indefinitely more enjoyable than this one).

 

Did I enjoy East Wind? Yes, I did, because the Adapt part (and also some of the Win part) had a few notable and well-made missions in them. There were some that were not so great, but then, every game has stretches that you do not enjoy. Overall, the experience I got from East Wind was an Arma experience. APEX protocol, besides being short (which is fine for an expansion), was just not that. It was even less than Call of Duty - at least in CoD you can actually die and fail. APEX was like watching a bad interactive movie which didn't allow you to change anything.

 

Bottom line: Unless BIS wants to drop the single player part completely (and frankly, I sincerely hope they don't) there should be a dedicated story writer. The talent for mission making is there, but there is a distinctive lack of storytelling talent that needs to be filled. Drama is not measured in the density of "fuck" in radio messages. Suspense is not built up by making things mysterious and then ignoring them. I never re-watched BSG because of the crap ending, as much as I struggled (and ultimately gave up) to replay Mass Effect for the same damn reason, and let's face it, Mass Effect had DAMN good writing in it.

 

Anyway, that's my opinion. I suppose I will get people calling me "hater" now (I am not; I still think there is no better game than Arma 3, and I still think Arma 3 is the best Arma ever.), or someone telling me I should take up gardening instead (I hate gardening). I just care for the franchise, and I want it to become better. All I have said above contributes to the fact that the 2035 scenario is not sold well enough to be compelling. It's telling that I can get into a world with Salarians, Asari and Krogan more easily than I can get into a world with Katiba-wielding secular Iranians and Israeli tanks in the US Army.

 

And if you have read all of my rant above, you really have too much time :)

[2nd ranger 282]

Regarding the device:

 

Although it does seem like they pulled that out of thin air in Win, there is actually a reference to it in the original plot summary way back when the game was announced. Something about Turkey being devastated by a series of 'unprecedented natural disasters', and CSAT stepping in to take over. There was also the original involvement of CTRG, who were supposed to be infiltrating the island to discover some new weapon (which perhaps many assumed at the time to be the railgun tank). So I don't think the device was just pulled out of a hat, but it definitely could have done with some foreshadowing. I think the rest of the plot was cannibalized from the original story so it's never going to make much sense (the main offender for me being the AAF attack in survive, which makes zero sense).

 

Some minor, nit-picky things that bother me about the Apex story:

 

1. It's been pointed out before that Apex takes place a few days after the end of Win, but Miller claims to have been in the Horizon islands for weeks.

2. It seems likely, and I always assumed, that the device was actually developed on Altis, and was only completed toward the end of the Win episode. But according the Apex cinematics, the pacific tsunami happened 3 months prior to CTRG team 15 arriving on Tanoa (again, Win ends on something like August 11, which is the date of team 15's first mission, chronologically).

3. Surely the point of covertly supporting some group to destabilize a region is that nobody finds out about it. So why does CSAT give Syndikat a bunch of their own weapons, complete with CSAT camo, that they never even use? Are the AKs and MGs supposed to have been supplied by CSAT? If so, why advertise that they're the ones doing it by using their own equipment and crates with chinese writing on them? I think Viper needs some pointers on how to carry out covert operations.

[Alwarren 2765]

Regarding the device:

Agreed but the original plot was entirely different and it seemed to me that Miller was actually the protagonist. Nikos was a shady arms dealer, not a freedom fighter. The strategic map was obviously meant as a centerpiece (maybe similar to the way the Arma campaign worked).

I still think the device was an afterthought. You don't pull out a major plot device at the end of the show, that's a deus-ex-machina. There wasn't even the slightest hint at anything like this prior to Win.

 

One of the things I did when the game was out and Altis was available was to go into the research domes at the airport, hoping to find something in there. The whole thing looked like a biological research station to me, so I assumed that bioweapons or something of that nature were "the thing". Likewise, I was surprised to see nothing of it in either Survive nor Adapt. So even if it wasn't an afterthought, it still came out of nowhere.

 

And apparently the device already existed at least half a year before the events of the campaign, since there is a tremor in the Bootcamp campaign which takes place six months earlier, but as I said, it came after the Win episode was released.

 

As I said I expected some closure from the events in APEX, so lose ends tied up and some questions answered. I could have lived with a "To be continued" at the end of East Wind if there was the intention of closing the story at a later point - I mean, after all, I am patiently awaiting "The Winds of Winter" (and I don't mean the episode) - but this doesn't seem to be the case. APEX was that "to be continued", and even that had an open ending. What is with Miller? Is he rogue? They did not surrender the device to NATO, or did they? It leaves you with as many question marks as the original East Wind campaign.

 

I am quite sure that Harvest Red (which I really really liked, in spite of a lot of people that didn't) collapsed under the weight of its own ambitions, that it was meant to be longer and more complicated (and less Warfare) than it turned out to be. I am quite sure the same goes for the East Wind. The "incident" caused a lot of damage (besides the human drama which I can't even start to imagine, and frankly would not want to) and I suppose that, in the long run, ripped a gaping hole into what Arma 3 was originally meant to be. That is completely understandable and there is no shame in that. I am not trying to paint anyone as the assholes with my criticism, and things will always go wrong one way or the other. This is not trying to blame anyone.

 

However, it bothers me that it apparently isn't even permissive to point out the flaws in the end result without getting attacked for it.That when I or anyone else voice serious and reasoned criticism of the APEX campaign that they get shouted down and someone proposes to "take up gardening instead". I enjoyed the first Modern Warfare even though it wasn't really a good story, and I enjoyed the East Wind even though it wasn't really a good story. To a degree, I enjoyed the APEX protocol too, but that enjoyment didn't last long and will be hard to replay.

 

Anyway, I am getting into terrain were I am flogging a dead horse.

 

[lexx 1331]

Huh, I haven't seen anyone seriously getting shouted down for criticizing Apex. Wasn't it like 2 people who kept repeating how good Apex is and everyone else pointed out the big flaws and disappointments?

[Stalkermaster2015 60]

And if you have read all of my rant above, you really have too much time :)

Awkwardly raises hand :)

I do agree with you with almost everything you have said.

I feel like you should be head mission maker, you seem to understand what BI somehow don't.

[froggyluv 2130]

 Dont worry Alwarren, you hang out here long enough and you'll go around the dial  from the 'epitome of fanboi' to 'full blown hater' multiple times -consider it a BI steam achievement.

 

 the thing is, there just arent that many good stories to tell - like you said how that series Battlestar Galatica (never seen) went down or something similar with the show "Lost" -starts by offering tons of compelling "wtf's" and then just lazily never answers or gets so hokey into the realm  of *cough Matrix 2* "keymasters" and "11 dimensions" that you just end up throwing your remote at the cat lamenting 20 hours+ life that were actually lost.

 

 Interestings plotlines that arent cliche are extremely hard to make -especially by computer programmers constrained by deadlines, budgets and the need (or want) to go mainstream casual. There are however other ways to make gimmick-less stories compelling some being 'gritty, intense, shocking. personal dramas' or others being (as i prefer) new gameplay mechanics which let the player create their own story with a wartime, loose narrative backdrop.

 

Another problem is feeback. I used to be called fanboi because i thought it important to let the development team know they were on the right track, not to stroke their delicate egos. Many people here dont say jack unless to gripe, creating the impression that either 'we are never happy' or are so split in opinions that they minds well ignore our opinions and go listen on steam or reddit or wherever the fuck they got the impression that SP campaigns dont matter.

 

 Personally I liked the concept of adding the warfare to Red Harvest though seeming 95% hated it on release. After the fact though i did see quite a few people also appreciate it but it was few and far between. The idea of adding more command to player was cool imo, tho a 100% rip of Warfare without more story specific customazation came across as a cheap port. Id love to see a whole new approach, something akin to a mix of Rydygiers Hetman and SaOk's WLA in terms of watching a real war unfold -and actually know what squads are doing what where and possibly why. Add in a sort of a Career mode with a world full of stats including squads performance, command performance, medals, promotions, demotions, and yes even The Hague -twould be awesome and provide endless gameplay.

[en3x 209]

 Dont worry Alwarren, you hang out here long enough and you'll go around the dial  from the 'epitome of fanboi' to 'full blown hater' multiple times -consider it a BI steam achievement.

 

 the thing is, there just arent that many good stories to tell - like you said how that series Battlestar Galatica (never seen) went down or something similar with the show "Lost" -starts by offering tons of compelling "wtf's" and then just lazily never answers or gets so hokey into the realm  of *cough Matrix 2* "keymasters" and "11 dimensions" that you just end up throwing your remote at the cat lamenting 20 hours+ life that were actually lost.

 

 Interestings plotlines that arent cliche are extremely hard to make -especially by computer programmers constrained by deadlines, budgets and the need (or want) to go mainstream casual. There are however other ways to make gimmick-less stories compelling some being 'gritty, intense, shocking. personal dramas' or others being (as i prefer) new gameplay mechanics which let the player create their own story with a wartime, loose narrative backdrop.

 

Another problem is feeback. I used to be called fanboi because i thought it important to let the development team know they were on the right track, not to stroke their delicate egos. Many people here dont say jack unless to gripe, creating the impression that either 'we are never happy' or are so split in opinions that they minds well ignore our opinions and go listen on steam or reddit or wherever the fuck they got the impression that SP campaigns dont matter.

 

 Personally I liked the concept of adding the warfare to Red Harvest though seeming 95% hated it on release. After the fact though i did see quite a few people also appreciate it but it was few and far between. The idea of adding more command to player was cool imo, tho a 100% rip of Warfare without more story specific customazation came across as a cheap port. Id love to see a whole new approach, something akin to a mix of Rydygiers Hetman and SaOk's WLA in terms of watching a real war unfold -and actually know what squads are doing what where and possibly why. Add in a sort of a Career mode with a world full of stats including squads performance, command performance, medals, promotions, demotions, and yes even The Hague -twould be awesome and provide endless gameplay.

 

That is very intriguing scenario that would really connect me to Singleplayer missions - being part of the war, another gear in a bigger machine.And watching war unveil as a soldier,

would be interesting premise.Sure that was survive and adapt but it was more over the place.

[dragon01 902]

Warfare was a good idea done in a bad way. I'm all for turning ArmA into RTS, but for that to work right, AI and commanding interface would have to improve. UAVs could be the game-changer here. With real-time feedback on your troop movements and actions, it could be a lot better than in A2. Another thing would be dispensing with a "point buy" system in favor of either fixed ORBATs or Wargame-style system, where the units either arrive from off map or are airdropped in (or delivered by plane to an airport). This would be much more immersive and realistic. I think that with a few new assets, mostly planes large enough to carry tanks, it'd also be quite possible to implement without engine changes.

Awkwardly raises hand  :)

I do agree with you with almost everything you have said.

I feel like you should be head mission maker, you seem to understand what BI somehow don't.

I would agree with most of it, too. Though I think that the reason Kerry didn't report James' situation was that he was explicitly told a few missions earlier to leave the Brits alone. He pretty much knew, at this point, that reporting this would only get him shouted down and told to get back to the mission. It was either go alone or ignore it. As for why nobody protested when Miller send them on increasingly ridiculous missions? Two words: Captain Miller. There was some grumbling, but he was a superior officer, so it makes sense that everyone did what he told them to. That's what soldiers do. 

 

I'd say that BI needs a new lead writer more than new mission makers. It's clear that either nobody in there has an actual idea on how to tell a story, or if there's such a person, he or she isn't allowed to have enough input. Missions are one thing (those were generally good in The East Wind), but what ArmA is struggling with is the overarching narrative. It would be good if the writer was also versed in mission creation, but mostly to ensure intimate familiarity with the game's constraints (so that you don't end up with a grand story that turns out to be impossible to implement in the game). Ideally, the writer would work with both mission creators and players to create a story that is both fun to play and deep in a literary sense. There are several examples of games with such stories.

[Alwarren 2765]

Huh, I haven't seen anyone seriously getting shouted down for criticizing Apex. Wasn't it like 2 people who kept repeating how good Apex is and everyone else pointed out the big flaws and disappointments?

 

It's a more general thing, not restricted to this specific topic. Every time I say something critical, I'll get a brigade of White Knights on me that will shout me down. It happened so often that I come to expect it.

[Alwarren 2765]

Interestings plotlines that arent cliche are extremely hard to make -especially by computer programmers constrained by deadlines, budgets and the need (or want) to go mainstream casual. There are however other ways to make gimmick-less stories compelling some being 'gritty, intense, shocking. personal dramas' or others being (as i prefer) new gameplay mechanics which let the player create their own story with a wartime, loose narrative backdrop.

Which is why companies usually hire a dedicated writer. I wouldn't claim that I can come up with a compelling story. But if you have a good writer and a good idea, you can make a good story.

 

Another problem is feeback. I used to be called fanboi because i thought it important to let the development team know they were on the right track, not to stroke their delicate egos. Many people here dont say jack unless to gripe, creating the impression that either 'we are never happy' or are so split in opinions that they minds well ignore our opinions and go listen on steam or reddit or wherever the fuck they got the impression that SP campaigns dont matter.

I am guilty of that as well. If all is fine, I usually don't say a lot about it.

 

Personally I liked the concept of adding the warfare to Red Harvest though seeming 95% hated it on release. After the fact though i did see quite a few people also appreciate it but it was few and far between. The idea of adding more command to player was cool imo, tho a 100% rip of Warfare without more story specific customazation came across as a cheap port. Id love to see a whole new approach, something akin to a mix of Rydygiers Hetman and SaOk's WLA in terms of watching a real war unfold -and actually know what squads are doing what where and possibly why. Add in a sort of a Career mode with a world full of stats including squads performance, command performance, medals, promotions, demotions, and yes even The Hague -twould be awesome and provide endless gameplay.

In my opinion the Warfare stuff didn't really fit with a narrative of a campaign. It would be very interesting to have an entire campaign like that (Sort of Wargame: Red Dragon from an ego-perspective). I am not a big fan of strategy games, though, so I disliked the Warfare part. I really liked how the experience in Harvest Red could diverge depending on your decisions in previous mission, ranging from

successfully completing the mission and essentially having prevented a war to a nuke going off into your face.

I understand that originally the narrative would have been bigger but had to be cut back to to budget and time constraints.

 

Too bad, I think we might have lost a masterpiece.

[metalcraze 290]

The reason why not many people play showcases is exactly that - they are not real missions, they are showcases. Almost all of them suck. There's like 3 or 4 that play anything like ArmA SP and the rest are either ridiculous actiony trips or a railroaded boredom where you move from point to point doing exactly what you are told to. Zipper's missions in particular stand out as the worst offenders.

ArmA3 SP as a whole is a pure disaster. Since A2 PMC it has been scratching the bottom of the barrel with very rare signs of improvement.

Even Harvest Red with its millions of issues now looks like an amazing effort an ArmA SP/coop player can only dream about

[OMAC 254]

The reason why not many people play showcases is exactly that - they are not real missions, they are showcases.

 

I agree.  Just calling them Showcases instead of Scenarios suggests that they are not the real deal, and thus some will not even bother with them.  Note that the Night and Infantry showcases are just poor copies/spoilers of campaign missions.  The Tanks one is very uninspired, and it, along with Supports showcase, have endings which feel inorganic and overly scripted (like nearly all missions of Win Episode).  Combined Arms is ok, but Marshall and NATO attack chopper get blown way too easily.  I modified Combined Arms to make player commander of Marshall instead of a grunt, and you can plow through the base and reinforcements without breaking a sweat.

[Wiki 1558]

I find you a bit harsh.

Some shwcases are good, I liked them. Not all of them, but many were quite good.

[dragon01 902]

Also, the reason some of them feel like inferior versions of campaign missions is because they came before them. Most infantry showcases started out way back in the Alpha, then were adapted a bit and reused in the campaign.

 

I think that the real reason people don't play showcases is that they don't realize they're playable. There's literally no indication that "discover the range of fundamental ArmA gameplay" means playing actual missions and not, say, tutorial videos or faction showcases. Missions were always under "Scenarios" folder, which has now been relegated to user content. I think it might be throwing off new A3 players, even if they're not new to ArmA series in general.

[Variable 322]

Regarding the background story - this issue is secondary in my opinion, and I would have forgave Apex Protocol for its weak story had its mission were reasonably well made.

[Variable 322]

Also, the reason some of them feel like inferior versions of campaign missions is because they came before them. Most infantry showcases started out way back in the Alpha, then were adapted a bit and reused in the campaign.

 

I think that the real reason people don't play showcases is that they don't realize they're playable. There's literally no indication that "discover the range of fundamental ArmA gameplay" means playing actual missions and not, say, tutorial videos or faction showcases. Missions were always under "Scenarios" folder, which has now been relegated to user content. I think it might be throwing off new A3 players, even if they're not new to ArmA series in general.

I agree. I see the choice of the name "showcase" a complete turnoff. 

[chortles 263]

In hindsight a possible problem with the Showcases is that if a higher-level role (beyond being one-off SP content which could be adapted for The East Wind) was to highlight certain gameplay aspects or assets as in the faction showcases, hasn't the former been superseded by Bootcamp/VR Training and the latter by the Virtual Arsenal/Garage? Not that I know whether any of those were on the minds of the playable content team back in 2013 and thus I can't blame them for not seeing those coming when making that year's Showcases... it feels pointless to me to actually remove the Showcases but I can understand those of you who figure that they might as well find some way to 'properly' present them instead of what dragon01 described as the current state.

I think that the real reason people don't play showcases is that they don't realize they're playable. There's literally no indication that "discover the range of fundamental ArmA gameplay" means playing actual missions and not, say, tutorial videos or faction showcases. Missions were always under "Scenarios" folder, which has now been relegated to user content. I think it might be throwing off new A3 players, even if they're not new to ArmA series in general.

It's darkly amusing to imagine how many players/forumgoers can complain about Arma 3 UX while missing this from their complaint(s)...

[R3vo 2652]

So I have just recently played some remake OFP missions like Lone Wolf or Heavy Metal, and I belive Variable will agree with me. The Arma 3 missions are no match for those. Even after 15 years playing those missions was fun.

[OMAC 254]

I find you a bit harsh.

Some shwcases are good, I liked them. Not all of them, but many were quite good.

 

I played the heck out of them, but most are not of the enduring quality of OFP and A2 Scenarios.  Some of the Showcases are outstanding (The Fixed Wing showcase for example), and all of them adequately serve their main purpose of introducing key gameplay and mission design elements, especially to new players.  But the fact that the Scenarios section is only for user content gives away the fact that official SP single missions were not a focus of the devs for A3 as they were in previous games. 

 

Night and Infantry showcases should never have been released (or reused later) as they give away elements of the campaign, and make BI look lazy in that they released simpler preview versions/spoilers of campaign missions rather than purely original ones.  In general, the showcases do not compare favorably with OFP scenarios as R3vo wrote, and A2CO Scenarios such as Eye for an Eye, The Jackal, Bear Rising, Trial By Fire, Steel Panthers, etc.  But some of the awesomeness of those old missions stems from the atmosphere/terrains and the factions involved which are more memorable/relate-able than the 2035 factions.

 

I do recommend trying to get the "Dodge This" achievement in the Marksman showcase.  Quite fun, and it will hone your attack planning skills.

[Alwarren 2765]

Regarding the background story - this issue is secondary in my opinion, and I would have forgave Apex Protocol for its weak story had its mission were reasonably well made.

A nonsensical background story sure helps me to not get invested /immersed in the campaign. If there is no real story then you are better off doing single missions tbh.

Given the rest of the glaring issues it just adds another layer of disappointment...

Send from my tablet, so pardon any autocorrect bollocks

[OMAC 254]

Not mentioned here is the decision to invest LOTS and LOTS of dev time in creating the Challenges, which are a primary SP element of the game in addition to the Showcases and campaigns.  What if this time had been spent creating SP combat Scenarios?  A3 would be a much different, and much better, game if that had been the case, IMO, and much more in line with the great Arma heritage.  Believe me, I am toning down my real opinions regarding this key decision to a great degree.  I realize that this is a bit off topic, but this decision even impacted East Wind and the Showcases to some degree by diverting dev time away from them, I would think...

[chortles 263]

Night and Infantry showcases should never have been released (or reused later) as they give away elements of the campaign, and make BI look lazy in that they released simpler preview versions/spoilers of campaign missions rather than purely original ones.

That probably had to do with whatever the hell was going on with being so far behind on the campaign that they couldn't even have Survive out by the game launch date.

[OMAC 254]

^ ^ Yep, I'll bet you're right.

[Alwarren 2765]

Not mentioned here is the decision to invest LOTS and LOTS of dev time in creating the Challenges, which are a primary SP element of the game in addition to the Showcases and campaigns.  What if this time had been spent creating SP combat Scenarios?  A3 would be a much different, and much better, game if that had been the case, IMO, and much more in line with the great Arma heritage.  Believe me, I am toning down my real opinions regarding this key decision to a great degree.  I realize that this is a bit off topic, but this decision even impacted East Wind and the Showcases to some degree by diverting dev time away from them, I would think...

 

Agreed, same deal with leaderboards. It seems like competition is something that people want, for whatever reason. What I found particularly underwhelming about all the Challenges is that none of them really "trains" any sort of skill that is useful for playing Arma except shooting, and mostly timed twitch-shooting. No "try to get from X to Y without getting spotted in Z amount of time", or "try to spot infantry", or any sort of "real" combat-applicable skills. Instead, they are mostly about timing and memorizing the pattern, something that contradicts a game were usually each run of a mission is different.