Low reaction to official news, updates, community interaction - why?

[.kju 3239]

What do you guys think are the reasons for that? Is the impression even correct?

 

• Has the type of crowd moved on from arma?
• People have less time to spend on games and forums?
• Does it happen elsewhere? (discord, reddit, twitter, youtube, feedback tracker, voice chat, other forums, etc)
• Too many have lost hope that interaction with BI leads to meaningful or desired results?
• People have become too cynical?
• BI's feedback and communication strategy needs a different approach?
• What else?

 

Personally I was happy to see the A3 team to interact a lot more with the community after Joris (DnA) took over.

 

Yet I can see various reasons why it hasn't worked as good as it could/should be (true?) and the general negativity

(albeit justified at times) on the internet doesn't help either with personal motivation and reward.

 

To me it seems one of the crucial elements in modding and for the most part seems to work pretty well there.

 

Could it work also better for BI and with commercial products?

[Wiki 1558]

Well, to me, the communication strategy BIS had for Apex was sh!t.

We almost had no information, even 1 month before release.

 

I think I ain't the only one thinking that way.

So, now, even if they say "we're gonna tell you something later", I'm just expecting them to announce it 1 week before release.

[bars91 956]

Yep, as much as I enjoy BI games (hell, even Carrier Command I shit you not) for more then 11 years now, my thoughts on the whole PR/community involvement regarding APEX was unprofessional/amateur/sloppy.

 

Let me explain a bit:

- trailers for APEX were unexpectedly amateur/uninspired/lazy. The first one even had tons of unfinished animations upfront in the foreground.

- gameplay of APEX Protocol was clearly meant to mimic such PC classics as Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six (the first ones) but fell flat.

- AP utilized VERY little of the actual new, and most of the old, ArmA 3/RV specific features.

 

Now this whole thing saddens me exactly because I know what BI are capable of.

That's pretty much the main reason I personally (and some of my friends) became somewhat more sceptical towards future of the ArmA as a franchise.

Surely, modders will make sure A3 does not fade into deep anals of gaming history too soon. But I digress...

 

P.S. It's still really cool, when a dev responds on the topic with details, as it's almost always handled really smoothly.  ;)

[GBee2 68]

Well, to me, the communication strategy BIS had for Apex was sh!t.

We almost had no information, even 1 month before release.

 

Huh? They were releasing information about Apex for months before release, including trailers and even a completely open beta was available weeks before the release.

[.kju 3239]

Guy please look beyond APEX (or just about the campaign) - there were several engine updates on the path to APEX, there is dev branch,

specific threads created by BI devs asking for feedback, there is blog posts, there is the feedback tracker.

 

Please don't repeat (only) what was said about the APEX release (and its campaign/content/assets). Broaden your perspective!

[Eagle1992 373]

Imho people seem to be lazy, i knew most of the stuff about Apex at an relatively early point, especially about the Engine improvements, in my Opionion BI communicated it good enough, there was something  in most of the News Article on Steam.

 

• People have become too cynical?

 

Thats true for sure.

[bars91 956]

Imho people seem to be lazy, i knew most of the stuff about Apex at an relatively early point, especially about the Engine improvements, in my Opionion BI communicated it good enough, there was something  in most of the News Article on Steam.

 

Yep - also dev branch got alot of engine goodies. And I was all over that stuff soon as it hit! My main problem was with extremely half-assed PR campaign for APEX and it's content besides Tanoa.

 

Before that, I had high hopes for APEX exactly because of prior BI track record (not perfect by all means, but with a high probability of good outcome).

That is why I focused my initial post here on the latest developments.

[jcdarma 5]

This was a rant of mine in the discord, i was asked to post this, so here it is:

 

This is a very typical problem of game development. What the users want to see (features, bugfixes) is apparently really hard to do, so BI doesn't do it. And thats probably for the most part quite OK. But i don't see BI explaining that enough to people, honestly. Then there is also the bugs that (at least i naively think) could be fixed easily but they aren't. Good example would be the action menu, hell even dslyecxi ranted about it ages ago and nothing happened. And then there is content/new features introduced by BI that some people didn't ask for, so you're annoying these people then because they didn't get the features they wanted, and then the update maybe broke other things, and you got mad people. Making the process of what is implemented and why more transparent would help. Maybe i'm retarded for not checking source X for the infos from BI i'm wanting to have, but thats my impression. I might add i don't really dive into the myriad of sources for arma infos all day long, i'm rather busy playing the game. I do however occasionally check the wiki for mission building/server setup and the often questionable status of the documentation in terms of being up-to-date is particularly annoying. But Dwarden made it clear to me this is apparently not a high priority - thats horrible for me. You can have bugs, break stuff, etc to a wide degree without me ranting about it, but please document it well so i know about it. Preferably in a central place. Well organised. Like, you know, a wiki or something.;)

 

Just inform people why you do what you do i guess. Its OKAY not to fix a bug, or not to implement a feature if you explain people reasonably that it is really hard to fix. Don't get me wrong, i read the news, updated etc i just rarely find the stuff i'm looking for in them.

[FallujahMedic -FM- 866]

Kju, 

 

    Personally, I am happy that BI have (after all these years) realised that the benefits of communicating with the community go both ways. I read every bit of news that they release, I just choose not to comment on it unless it creates a technical problem for me, which it often times doesn’t. BI wavered a bit prior to A3’s release, but they seem to have regained their footing. 

 

    I don’t play as often as I did previously due to a career change and being in Higher Education once again. I went from playing daily sessions of Domination , EVO and loads of SP missions to only playing every other Thursday or Friday with SBP (Icebreakr & Crew).  In retrospect, I spent so much time playing, that I never had time to learn to do things (Program, Design, Etc.), whereas now I do.

 

    As a new member, I was cynical. BI’s poor communication led me to believe that they either didn’t listen to or care about their player base. I also used to think the moderation on the forums was too harsh and that mod makers were too inflexible. But, over the years I think I’ve matured as a community member. I’ve realised that they really do have a lot of work to do and at the end of the day, they have a business to run. It would be very difficult to sift through thousands of feature requests, ideas, etc. each month. Though, there is always room for improvement, and who better to solicit input from than the player base who use their product every day. 

 

    Do I think improvement is needed, absolutely?! Quality improvement is something every business should strive for. I personally think BI should solicit input from its users more often, but in a way that is convenient for BI.  When I was a Paramedic, we tried our best to avoid asking leading questions or asking questions that could be answered with a “Yes†or “Noâ€. To that end, BI could:

 

• Run monthly surveys or

• Post a list of questions with Multiple choice answers. 

 

This would allow BI to control the flow of conversation and gather pertinent data. For example, one survey could be:

 

 â€œWhich terrain do you prefer to play on?â€

 

• Stratis

• Altis 

• Tanoa

 

This could be followed up with:

 

 â€œWhat influenced your choice?â€

 

• Open Spaces

• Urban Combat

• Dense Vegetation

 

These are just examples, but future questions could be used to help guide or improve certain aspects of the game through two-way communication. 

 

    Finally, I’d like to address some of the cynicism. Having recently been given the opportunity to help moderate the A3 Discord server, I now see just how whiney some users are and the false sense of entitlement they have. I’m not talking about long term modders who’ve had to redo islands or models 3 or 4 times due to new updates. I’m referring to those with less than one year in the community who falsely believe that everything should be handed to them on a plate. My personal thoughts on this matter are “If you have an idea or think something should/could be done better, then head on over to the forums and lay out your ideas/thoughts  in a logical and coherent mannerâ€. Unfortunately, many just post one liners like “this is shit†and that’s it. It’s neither specific in what the problem is or in how to address it and does a disservice to everyone involved.  

 

I too have been extremely satisfied with DnA’s work. 

[rosenberg91 15]

Personally i kind of felt Bohemia lost touch with its original fanbase.

Coming from Operation Flashpoint myself, i found it had an amazing community, online as well as the modding teams, that developed so much content, it would be hard to list all the amazing projects that were accomplished then.

From thereon it felt like with every ArmA title they tried to experiment more and try to reach out to more people which meant losing everything that made the Flashpoint experience what it was.

Now having reached Arma 3 there are almost none of the original awesome modding teams left, only CSLA seems to keep working on a new version.

Bohemias own content, campaign-wise and mission wise has become nothing more than Showcases with almost no replayability value and the campaigns have turned into what people who bought Apex described as the most streamlined experience so far.

Add to that the steep price of 30€ with otherwise retextured models, i will still not care how good the Tanoa map is until the price drops massively.

In addition Multiplayerwise the trend of RPG's, Survival modes and DayZ clones isn't helping either.

So i really find it hard to see how the people that made a gem like Flashpoint that defined about half my teenage years, are now behind Arma 3 which feels more and more like a soulless continuation of an engine without maintaining any of the core trademarks that made Flashpoint memorable.

[panduhh 40]

reddit is discussing this topic too.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

I don't have the largest group of "Arma friends," but to me, although I'm personally in it to win it - this is the only game I play - I've talked with plenty of people that just get burnt out on having their missions and mods broken by BIS updates.

Let's be honest. The amount of vanilla playable content in this game isn't exactly enormous. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that the modding community provides a lot of what a decent percentage of people play with. Although most in the community are polite and understanding - happy that the game is ever evolving and improving - I've had quite a few conversations with players that just get burnt out on it all and need to find something else to play because their favorite *insert game mode or mod here* is broken. And probably will be for the next several days or weeks.

I sense this sentiment the most when a *seemingly trivial or unwanted* feature is given to us and is the likely cause for the downtime. Take for example the author is not a value error, or the change to armor values, or the lighting overhaul (and not just what it did to A2 maps, but what it did to illumination making certain missions unplayable). It's hard enough as a player to resign yourself to the fact that you can't play the game for a bit. But it's on a totally different hemisphere when the PR team isn't out in front it, especially for behind-the-scenes coding changes, and *that's* where I feel the disconnect lies.

The most hardcore among us understand this is par for the course. We understand this is what it takes to better the platform (I have a Netflix catalog to go through when my favorite mission or mod breaks and I'll always come back when the community has a chance to catch up :) ). But on the flipside, I totally get it when someone jumps ship too.

The PR team has an opportunity to mitigate this. Better communication and thorough documentation of changes to ease the transition between updates would be a good thing to look at going forward. Also, better forsight from development in doing their best to minimize the frequency of mod breaking updates would go a long way as well.

[commy2 188]

Tanks / tracked vehicles are completely broken in this game. If you turn them on the spot, they fall over for seemingly no reason. See:

 

This has been the case for over a year now and I haven't seen any response about it from anyone at BI.

 

Maybe it's the case that the DayZ / Life / whatever crowd has moved on, or has started to move on to the next shiny title. Why wouldn't the core and long term interested milsim crowd be "cynical" and "lose hope" if game breaking (!!!) problems like this are ignored?

[nikiforos 450]

For me Arma 3 has come to an end. The game has been out for more than 3 years  now and it's quite common that people and business move on.
Personally I was hyped many many times during this period for DLCs and announced improvements . The visual update was the reason why I lost my passion for the game.

Many of the custom maps I used to play are not appealing any more so I just removed them from my SSD.
Also I expected the game to be much more optimized after 3 years of continues development.

Nobody except BIS knows if they plan an Arma 4 but I  know one thing for sure. If they decide to work on a new Arma game I will be much more cautious with future purchases. If we talk about huge engine improvements it will be positive otherwise I will turn my back to Arma  for the first time since 2001.

[jcdarma 5]

Tanks / tracked vehicles are completely broken in this game. If you turn them on the spot, they fall over for seemingly no reason. See:

 

This has been the case for over a year now and I haven't seen any response about it from anyone at BI.

 

Maybe it's the case that the DayZ / Life / whatever crowd has moved on, or has started to move on to the next shiny title. Why wouldn't the core and long term interested milsim crowd be "cynical" and "lose hope" if game breaking (!!!) problems like this are ignored?

 

Also only the first person entering a vehicle has the option to use the smoke screen the commander can utilize. If the driver enters first, and then the commander, the commander will have no smoke. Same for the gunner. So me and my friends implemented "smoke checks" whenever we use a tank in a team, and then everyone hops out and hops back in (except for commander) so that the commander has smoke.

 

Needless to say, if you're out in the field, there might be the need to leave the tank to repair it, or to maybe launch a shoulder launched AA missile against an air-threat, and this will mess up your smoke situation again.

 

I believe this is an easy to fix bug that has caused me and the group of people i play with a lot of pain, also it is so obvious that i am sure BI is aware of it if even minimal testing is done.

 

These highly annoying easy to fix things should just be fixed.

 

I'm not even going into how the tank armor system is completely unrealistic, same for infantry armor. I could even live with that, i can't live with tanks flipping upside down and my smoke screen being bugged.

 

I'm definitely cynical due to shit like this.

[BadHabitz 235]

I think that the game/community just naturally declines and fades over time, and it's the DLC/expansions that extend that decline. The DLC packs were not bad. Apex was far overvalued at $35, which I would suspect has affected sales, and has eroded the excitement some felt for the game.

[KeyCat 131]

Personally I was happy to see the A3 team to interact a lot more with the community after Joris (DnA) took over.

 

I don't play many games these days but the A3 teams effort to keep us informed is the best I've experienced during 30+ years of gaming. It's a major improvement compared to OFP/A1/A2 but my guess is that's becuase the are a much bigger team now and have more resources to give us...

 

Daily change logs, A3 Dev version is available for everyone, they read and respond to our feedback, feedback tracker, a whole section for the dev branch all the SITREP's, SPOTREP's, several Twitter feeds, RSS feed, lots of documentation on the Wiki (I do understand that modders need more info than the average grunt) and so on.

 

I mean how much can we "demand"? If they spend lots and lots of time and effort to keep us informed of every single row code they write would mean  less time/resources to actually improve A3.

 

We as gamers/simmers are a very hard crowd to please and everyone have their own pet peevs and wan't it naooow! Lots of people don't know anything about programming  and think it's easy to add/fix/tweak/etc. but no one really knows how easy or hard it actually is. On top of that the A3 team have their own vision (and pet peevs) they wan't to see fixed or added.

 

In my book they rank ++A but there are still one "+" to be assigned so always room for improvements ;)

 

PS: Last section is a bit OT but I have already written it so....

 

/KC

[en3x 209]

Personally I think that Apex missed condensed clear set of feature that really excited people.For DLC marksmen I couldn't praise enough bipod system, for helicopters

slingloading with actual physical ropes (!!!). If we agreed on Tanoa as being excelent apex selling feature and move it out of equation  I have hard time finding gameplay

systems like in previous dlcs that would hype me up.

 

Singleplayer that aimed to a more different (read casual) audience

Vehicle in vehicle which is half baked (no animation, bottom line plain "attach to" system)

New vehicle classes which bottom line is revved up car

VTOLs that still base on arma 2 action menu interaction between modes (hover/fly)

Further futuristic weaponry which is of course subjective feeling but I

never could relate to weapons like Type 115 or ERCO nvgs

[haleks 8204]

What do you guys think are the reasons for that? Is the impression even correct?

 

When it comes to community interaction, I think you're correct indeed.

I'm thinking about the new "units" thingy : most milsim groups already have their own structure, new players will tend to join an existing one if they're seriously involved, or just look for a wasteland or exile server if they're more "casual"... It's nice to see BIS stepping in the community arena furthermore, but I would rather have them focusing their manpower on the games themselves.

 

As for news and updates : those are regular and frequent. I think the modding scene is getting used to it while staying reactive (look at the constant feedback flow in the dev threads) - but I'm betting most casual players don't really care or don't feel concerned by engine & script updates.

[KeyCat 131]

Personally i kind of felt Bohemia lost touch with its original fanbase.

Coming from Operation Flashpoint myself, i found it had an amazing community, online as well as the modding teams, that developed so much content, it would be hard to list all the amazing projects that were accomplished then.

From thereon it felt like with every ArmA title they tried to experiment more and try to reach out to more people which meant losing everything that made the Flashpoint experience what it was.

Now having reached Arma 3 there are almost none of the original awesome modding teams left, only CSLA seems to keep working on a new version.

...

 

IMO you are missing one crucial point. During the journey from OPF>A3 modding have become more and more difficult so less and less people have time/skill to take on big projects. I really admire all modders and especially large mods like CUP/AliVE/RHS/CSLA... to name a few. They invest their free time and share it with the rest of the world for free.

 

So why is it more difficult now in A3 than before?

 

Because "we" ask - again, hard crowd to please - for more and more features being implemented/improved continuously. Usually many features equals complexity and I guess it's the same here. As an example. How many are well versed in the PhysX sphere among existing modders and people in general? I can tell you that I don't know a thing more than it handles the physic forces of objects in the 3D world.

 

 

Add to that the steep price of 30€ with otherwise retextured models, i will still not care how good the Tanoa map is until the price drops massively.

 

 

 

Steep price? Heck thats what I pay for a bottle of rum and empty with a friend over a few hours :D

 

BIS like every other company needs to pay the bills to. It would be interesting to know what just the rent for all their offices and the payroll for all employees costs every month.

 

 

In addition Multiplayerwise the trend of RPG's, Survival modes and DayZ clones isn't helping either.

 

Totally agree with you on this one ;)

 

In short and as the old saying goes...

 

 - You can't please everyone every time no matter what you do!

 

PS: Of course every one has the right to their own opinion I'm just giving you mine. So now I'm gonna crawl back under my rock again.

 

/KC

 

[VanZant 48]

My thoughts.

Lot of content is now useless due to constant changes. And this is real. At times, after spending 2-3 hours trying to play i've ended playing nothing due to errors, outdated mods, tons of mods required or broken savegames.

People, modders, get tired of adapting to those changes constantly.

The sensation of a never finished game, again, due to constant game-breaking changes, reinforced by a year of beta testing.

Steam has boosted the amount of content yes, but low quality, plenty of noob content, errors, lack of info, discontinued or obsolete, etc. It's like the fast food of content, and the main source of content now for SP people not in a milsim group.

The infamous contest of half million for 12 people.

Many playable content requires more mods than before. Too much mod dependency forces the player to stay constantly aware of updates, compatibility, more stuff to download, and now it's higher than ever.

The way the game is shifting towards ... something.

More recently, how a campaign like apex protocol can somehow be approved.

Bad implemented, copy-pasted, futuristic content which, you may like or not, gives less possibilities and adds magic. In other words, high tech is boring.

The lack of a constant supply of official playable content. Good, complex, intelligent content, not apex protocol.

The attitude of "They (us) will fix it".

 

Artistically the terrains are great, but in essence are enormous empty, dead spaces. There is no easy way for mission makers to add ambient combat or civilian life.

...

How not to get tired?

[RoF 240]

BIS seems really out of touch with a huge amount of their player base, most servers are running exile or life etc. So when they put out Tanoa, a lot of players didn't like it cause it offered nothing to them, due to you not being able to go in buildings etc. It's the same when a patch or some new feature comes out, most people see no reason to comment on it as it doesn't effect the mod they are playing. I don't know the stats, but I bet most players didn't even complete the campaign for apex.

 

I think DayZ (mod) drastically changed their player base, so maybe they haven't adjusted to that.

 

I know I'm gonna get shot down as it mostly mil sim players on here, but that's just my 2 cents

[brightcandle 114]

Having played and modded and run a community since Arma 2 I have had a lot of cause to provide feedback to BI. But so far I have found it to be a mostly abusive relationship where they want to market (their sitereps etc) their progress or want me to test something, but bug fixes or improvements we need? Forget about it. So there isn't much to say or do at this point, they want their thing and I want mine and there just isn't any point banging on about it because I know they are never going to do anything about what I want or need and hence what my community is suffering through. I think of the amount of bugs people still run into that I reported years ago its just downright irritating how BI prioritises things.

 

So the lack of participation is because while on the surface it looks like they are great company doing good by the community in practice what actually gets done is work that already aligns with their current plans.

[teabagginpeople 398]

BIS seems really out of touch with a huge amount of their player base, most servers are running exile or life etc. So when they put out Tanoa, a lot of players didn't like it cause it offered nothing to them, due to you not being able to go in buildings etc. It's the same when a patch or some new feature comes out, most people see no reason to comment on it as it doesn't effect the mod they are playing. I don't know the stats, but I bet most players didn't even complete the campaign for apex.

I think DayZ (mod) drastically changed their player base, so maybe they haven't adjusted to that.

I know I'm gonna get shot down as it mostly mil sim players on here, but that's just my 2 cents

Haha ok before I rag on the company. I'll give some pros.

You say they don't cater for some sections of their player base. Altis life, wasteland, exile. All. All benefit from the dlc strategy that added new game features just as much as mil sim. From bi pods to new stamina. In fact the new stamina was streamlined to cater more for a balanced play against most mil sim players wishes.

Now the campaign. It's funny that a player that plays more the other modes of arma than mil sim brings up the campaign being unused. Because bis screwed the mil sim crowed over to make a more baby step casual campaign experience to try suit the other players. Guess what. Majority of mil sim players can't stand the campaign. So essentially it was for designed for everyone but enjoyable for nobody. God damn it.I'm biased when it comes to campaign so I can't really generalise here as I'm sure some people actually do like the campaign.

So I don't see your point of bis doesn't pander to it's other user base. Frankly I play all the mods and game types so I see it from both sides really.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

I don't have the largest group of "Arma friends," but to me, although I'm personally in it to win it - this is the only game I play - I've talked with plenty of people that just get burnt out on having their missions and mods broken by BIS updates.

Let's be honest. The amount of vanilla playable content in this game isn't exactly enormous. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that the modding community provides a lot of what a decent percentage of people play with. Although most in the community are polite and understanding - happy that the game is ever evolving and improving - I've had quite a few conversations with players that just get burnt out on it all and need to find something else to play because their favorite *insert game mode or mod here* is broken. And probably will be for the next several days or weeks.

I sense this sentiment the most when a *seemingly trivial or unwanted* feature is given to us and is the likely cause for the downtime. Take for example the author is not a value error, or the change to armor values, or the lighting overhaul (and not just what it did to A2 maps, but what it did to illumination making certain missions unplayable). It's hard enough as a player to resign yourself to the fact that you can't play the game for a bit. But it's on a totally different hemisphere when the PR team isn't out in front it, especially for behind-the-scenes coding changes, and *that's* where I feel the disconnect lies.

The most hardcore among us understand this is par for the course. We understand this is what it takes to better the platform (I have a Netflix catalog to go through when my favorite mission or mod breaks and I'll always come back when the community has a chance to catch up :) ). But on the flipside, I totally get it when someone jumps ship too.

The PR team has an opportunity to mitigate this. Better communication and thorough documentation of changes to ease the transition between updates would be a good thing to look at going forward. Also, better forsight from development in doing their best to minimize the frequency of mod breaking updates would go a long way as well.

I don't want to go into the merits of this post I'm linking. I only share it because it is yet another example of people being burned out by constant changes to the game engine, and as a result, not being able to tailor their content properly to work again.

http://2017mod.com