Rate Apex Protocol! *****SPOILERS WARNING*****

[matkob 6]

I am after the first 4 missions of the campaign and I have to say that everyting is excellent except:

 

- I really miss normal SP campaign with AI team-mates.

- The respawn is much worse than saving your mission + inability to interrupt your mission to finish it another day.

- I would appreciate more options to customize my gear...

[Wiki 1558]

I am after the first 4 missions of the campaign and I have to say that everyting is excellent except:

 

- I really miss normal SP campaign with AI team-mates.

- The respawn is much worse than saving your mission + inability to interrupt your mission to finish it another day.

- I would appreciate more options to customize my gear...

 

Yop.

Also, the respawn system with the kit selection is a very bad idea.

They should have replaced it with the savegames + gear selection at the beginning of the mission

[Mynock 244]

What difficulty level are you guys playing on where you want to be able to quit a mission and come back to it? I have to play on the easiest difficulty level available because I suck at the game, but even with all my dying and waiting to respawn I finished the whole campaign in about 3 hours. I think the last mission took me the longest because I think I died 14 times, but it was maybe 30-40min.

[OMAC 254]

You can't quit a mission and come back to the same point in the mission later, regardless of difficulty, because of the respawn-only system.  If you abort in the middle, you will have to restart that mission later.  Once you finish a mission, the next one is unlocked.  So the most you have to replay if you quit the game in the middle of a mission is one mission.  And the missions are fairly short, so replaying one mission isn't a big deal. 

 

I'm playing on default Veteran.

[Rydygier 1317]

so replaying one mission isn't a big deal.

 

 

Well, since ignoring respawn (unlike save/load it breaks any immersion left to me), I have to replay it every death. For some may be not a problem to die/respawn 14 times in 30 minutes, for me it surely would be 100% fun killer. Playing the same over and over again from the beginning - the more. It's not fun, but some psychical torture. If the campaign is designed for coop, meant to be played in coop, poor experience in SP, then better, if it hasn't any solo mode. And the best - if would be well designed also for SP experience. For me it's plain and simple - I require ability to save my progress freely. 

 

Good thing, to me official playable content never was important comparing to the rest, Arma offers... But is that a good thing for sure?

[OMAC 254]

Well, since ignoring respawn (unlike save/load it breaks any immersion left to me), I have to replay it every death. For some may be not a problem to die/respawn 14 times in 30 minutes, for me it surely would be 100% fun killer. Playing the same over and over again from the beginning - the more. It's not fun, but some psychical torture. If the campaign is designed for coop, meant to be played in coop, poor experience in SP, then better, if it hasn't any solo mode. And the best - if would be well designed also for SP experience. For me it's plain and simple - I require ability to save my progress freely. 

 

Good thing, to me official playable content never was important comparing to the rest, Arma offers... But is that a good thing for sure?

 

I agree with you on all counts.  I am dismayed and disappointed by the MP-only nature of the "campaign," especially the poor quality of SP gameplay (solo only, no AI teammates), the lack of the normal saving system, all ammo/weapons restored on respawn, no ability to choose loadout at mission start, completely linear progression of story, and the short, simple nature of the missions.   At least you can respawn at several fixed, well-paced points of your choosing. 

 

Perhaps the worst thing about Apex solo gameplay and the respawn system is that you can never fail a mission.  On each respawn, enemies previously killed are still dead, so it gets easier with each respawn.  Any noob can now hack away at the enemies in this way, and eventually make it through.  With normal saves, this is not the case, and you have to hone your attack plan and make it work.  I also agree that respawn is more unrealistic and definitely kills immersion more than loading a save.

 

But, I guess I am more happy to have a way to play in SP, however flawed, rather than none at all.  There are still some good Arma moments to be had, deep in the jungle.  :ph34r:

 

For me, official SP playable content was, overall, the aspect of Arma that I enjoyed and valued the most.  So you can imagine how Apex makes me feel. 

[war_lord 934]

Seems like Arma both as a concept and in terms of Mechanics is meant to be a rejection of the Video Game idea of one to four individuals on foot being able to mow down armies of brainless mooks. I don't understand why Bohemia is moving more and more in the direction of imitating the flood of "20 years into the future" FPS games. 

[OMAC 254]

I am mystified as well.  It appears as if they hate the great legacy and SP gameplay of their own game and will do anything to destroy it for the sake of kiddy FPS run 'n' gun MP crap.  They need an official SP mission or campaign pack big time to restore their great heritage, which pettka "says" he cares about.

[lexx 1391]

Played some more in coop yesterday and it *is* fun in coop, for as long as you try not to get killed + use revive instead of respawn. So the only thing missing now is the feeling of "shit, better don't die!" that doesn't come from "then I'll have to wait 30 seconds for respawn".

[Stalkermaster2015 60]

As a solo campaign it's around a 3/10 for me while in co op bumping to a 5. The reason for such low scores is for the following.

1. Too short, im fine with 7 missions but only taking me 4 hours on solo to beat them all at least once? Way too short

2. Basic mission structure ie "go here and clear this area", "blow this up" "defend here" was basically all the missions. There were no choices, not many optional stuff to do and lacked real creativity.

3. The solo experience. Who thought it was a good idea to have to wait 30 seconds to keep playing by yourself? You can't pause or save only respawn and with no allies to command your stuck being Rambo with no other way.

4. The lack of showcasing the new assests, sure The East Wind didn't do this as well but it didn't need to because it had the showcases which had all the gear to learn and test. Mission six would of been a good mission to test the new nato drone for instance.

I will say the voice work, mission briefings and such are really well done but that can't stop the other bad things.

[OMAC 254]

Mission six would of been a good mission to test the new nato drone for instance.

 

I agree.  I played the mission twice, and both times didn't get to use another AFV that is present (marked on map) at the landing site town/harbor at the north end of the island.  It was blown by kill switch before I could even see what it was. Hmm.

 

I did take command of the flying, loitering drone, but it didn't have any weapons, did it?  All I could use it for was to direct mortar strikes, but you don't need the drone for that, you can do that using only the map.  It was good for thermal recon, though.

[Stalkermaster2015 60]

I agree.  I played the mission twice, and both times didn't get to use another AFV that is present (marked on map) at the landing site town/harbor at the north end of the island.  It was blown by kill switch before I could even see what it was. Hmm.

 

I did take command of the flying, loitering drone, but it didn't have any weapons, did it?  All I could use it for was to direct mortar strikes, but you don't need the drone for that, you can do that using only the map.  It was good for thermal recon, though.

that third one is just a stationary gun that aims at the beach, quite useless if you ask me.

[zoog 18]

I had a great evening playing the campaign in co-op with 4 players. Spend about 3 - 3,5 hours finishing the missions.

+ Nice cut-scenes

+ Great voice acting

+ Great atmosphere with different time/day weather which sometimes made your jaw drop taking in the scenery.

+ Liked the addition of the second Raider team you had to work with, making it seem you were operating together with another team

+ I like SF missions and I like jungle environments, so I was happy from an MP/coop experience with the campaign.

- Do agree that respawn is ill suited, especially after playing 2 hours you'll slowly have a tendency to play more loosely which definitely would be different if you would have limited lives.

- The campaign was quite short, but we had an enjoyable 3 - 3,5 hours none the less. Would have liked more though. More missions/variety/gear/showcase etc.

- I don't see how it has a lot of replayability though? I think most things are not randomized as far as I know?

- We all thought the capture the island mission was quite silly. All just running around killing everything with those vehicles, it really felt like a shooting gallery

[M. Glade 524]

Sorry, just finished replaying all of the A3 campaigns.

 

But I definitely agree with everyone's statement above, I miss the old A2 style missions. Sit down, brief up, get a STRONG ASS attachment to the characters. With a team like this, us (the community) can barely compose a proper wiki on everyone. Would also like to see more use of the added gear/equipment. There was nothing wrong with the stand alone campaign (compared to other stories/games), but its very short and that "cliffhanger" effect isn't working, after playing it you don't feel like the story affected you. I had a different feeling in ArmA2. AP is repetitive. 

 

I also wanted to see more immersive missions, which incorporates all factions (civilian, syndikat, CSAT and finally NATO GROUND FORCES), made into smaller missions similar to what BI showed with the rebels on Altis, not even once I've seen the regular NATO troops in the campaign. The cutscenes were something new.

 

I also see a small problem with what happened in the current campaign which might effect future campaigns, like if you look, CSAT were f*cked over in the End Game mission so probably means they don't want to make more of a appearance and that Solomon Maru dude could have done way more (mission-wise) down the line but he had to be killed off. So if an extension is made it'd have to be completely from scratch (more or less, or bring in that Kerry guy who imo was an AI with a nice voice) or do that PMC thing everybody wants. 

 

Constructive-critic-rant over *sorry for the poor grammar, this was written with speed*.

[rickford 1]

Protocol was way to short and I did not like part 7.   I feel the design was not up to par imo.

[mathias_eichinger 64]

As a purely SP person I really scratch my head about the direction BIS is taking with APEX - it feels like they do everything in their power to scare away mature players who prefer SP and a good story and are also more inclined to participate in mission and addon editing than run-and-gun-on-to-the-next-big-thing-kiddies. To me, the best SP campaign ever was the original OFP Cold War Crisis or Resistance one (the former had 39 missions IIRC), and with each successive game they lost SP campaign appeal (length, character development). I started to have WTF? moments in the ArmA2 PMC campaign already, this feeling intensified over the ArmA3 East Wind campaign. If I would be CSAT, what about some false-flag terror incidents instead of inventing an "earth quake machine". :huh: 

Playing an SP campaign in an MP style totally ruins immersion.

 

I think they really need a DLC campaign that has as much as length and enjoyable characters as the original OFP one.

[Wiki 1558]

As a purely SP person I really scratch my head about the direction BIS is taking with APEX - it feels like they do everything in their power to scare away mature players who prefer SP and a good story and are also more inclined to participate in mission and addon editing than run-and-gun-on-to-the-next-big-thing-kiddies. To me, the best SP campaign ever was the original OFP Cold War Crisis or Resistance one (the former had 39 missions IIRC), and with each successive game they lost SP campaign appeal (length, character development). I started to have WTF? moments in the ArmA2 PMC campaign already, this feeling intensified over the ArmA3 East Wind campaign. If I would be CSAT, what about some false-flag terror incidents instead of inventing an "earth quake machine". :huh:

Playing an SP campaign in an MP style totally ruins immersion.

 

I think they really need a DLC campaign that has as much as length and enjoyable characters as the original OFP one.

+1

[hunne 1]

I solely bought Apex for the assets, map etc. - thus I did not expect too much but that new and strange feeling GUI, interrupted missions, some of which are just plain unfair, weird spawns (I can hear chinese, but there is no one around)...naaa...da hao!

if you do 100%, no respawn, it tends to get a weee bit tedious to click through all that clutter to actually start a mission with preselected loadouts, no way to customize (wooot???!!!) apart from looting the dead ingame...if you manage to stay alive long enough...pretty hard playing these mission all on your own (but take the jungle environment into account...it literally is a green hell)

dunno....it´s nicely polished around the actual gameplay....that´s a BIG NO NO...we got EA etc. for that kind of stuff...it actually doesn´t even feel like ArmA - more like SW-Battlefront with bots, except when you get killed out of the blue (or fog for that matter)

the story with Miller had so much potential  - you wasted it in great parts

 

so, SP-wise (coop I cannot rate but I guess it still lacks stuff) not the big hitter

 

 

assets-wise:

sweeeeeet....and boy, it got some memories back...remember that island hopping mission in the very first far cry (ok the whole game is about islands, getting there and blowing stuff up)?

yepp...it´s in ArmA now! (someone should make a campaign^^)

lots of new stuff, units and so on - a great addition to the sandbox

 

so for pure "gameplay buyers" I can´t recommend it unless there are some campaigns/mods out you want to play which need Apex

 

the price tag is...hmmm...some say hefty...I beg to differ - you need to account for the numerous free updates and continuous developement put into this game, so for me it´s allright...

to think of all the 50-buckers that displayed the credits in some 3-9 hours after purchase....

[MikeBagdala 1]

As simple as it gets: I like it

[Niethcort 2]

The Apex Protocol mission seems like a wasted opportunity. Tanoa as a map is great nevertheless.

[bi0nic 2]

I am a lone wolf.

 

Good

• I liked the story and look and feel of the missions and also of the jungle environment.
• 5.56 vs CSAT ballistic protection was quite challenging. But hey you play Arma 3 to have a challenge.
  • If you select Recon Sharpshooter you have no proper stealth nor ballistic protection, but a 7.62 NATO fire power or you select a Assault Class and you have proper stealth and ballistic protection, but a 5.56 potato fire power. Most of the time was Recon Sharpshooter with silencer.
  • I would have been happy with a MX with 6.5 as in all NATO missions before.
  • In jungle environment firepower and penetration is important because of the many obstacle. To get a critical it is with 5.56 way more difficult.
  • Even Syndikat has more fire and penetration power with the 7.62 AK.

Bad

• I don't liked that you cannot pause or safe in Solo.

To Improve

• Plain class selection for an Elite Unit is quite unsatisfactory. Some equipment customization would be cool.
• I want to see more of Tanoa without third party content (because this content is mostly modded).
• I want a follow up. This was quite to short. Yes, in terms of story line I am greedy.

[BroBeans. 279]

All I can say is it should have been longer. Some more in depth story, start it off with a number of simple intel/recon (i mean they are SOF) gathering missions, find out the details of the mission, and slowly but surely take syndikat down.

 

Some can say intel gathering is boring, but I say its a vital part of the mission, it allows you to get a feel for the terrain, story and characters. It gives you insight to what you're actually doing. The missions where you did retrieve intel felt very vague, and short.

 

I did enjoy parts of it though.

[lysan 17]

Just giving my 2 c,

 

I liked the missions, however as an old Arma SP player, I miss the good old days of OPF storytelling, now it's more pew pew and less tactical game play. Arma really need better SP campaigns there are only a few. Maybe reamping some of the old stories into arma apex would be good if you can't make new stories in SP to Arma Apex.

 

Cheers.  

[Variable 322]

Maybe reamping some of the old stories into arma apex would be good if you can't make new stories in SP to Arma Apex.

Maybe if they can't make new stories and interesting tactical missions in SP they should get someone who can.

P.S Jezuro׳s missions were great in East Wind, he should be making more. The level of the missions in Apex Protocol was just below a reasonable standard.

[Wiki 1558]

19 hours ago, Variable said:

Jezuro׳s missions were great in East Wind, he should be making more.

How do you know who was in charge of which mission?