Favourite/Least Favourite Aspects of Warfare/CTI?

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

19 hours ago, esfumato said:

 

The thing is, that is not needed a big modification, just a few good designed multiplayer game modes that use the potential of all the assets of Arma 3.

 

>The thing is, that is not needed a big modification, just a few good designed multiplayer game modes that use the potential of all the assets of Arma 3.

 

If it were easy there'd be lots of them, it must not be so easy ;)

 

Look at the top modes by popularity, all have many thousands of man hours put into design/build/maintain/balance.

[esfumato 75]

I don't believe that replicating a battlefield MP game mode could be that hard to do in arma 3.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

13 hours ago, esfumato said:

I don't believe that replicating a battlefield MP game mode could be that hard to do in arma 3.

 

what sort of mode? like say, conquest?

 

I just haven't seen a frequently played ArmA 3 mission that doesn't have many many man-hours of labor behind it.

 

Like from scratch, even small script like magazine repack/combine can take a number of hours.

 

https://github.com/auQuiksilver/Apex-Framework/blob/master/Apex_framework.terrain/code/functions/fn_clientRepackMagazines.sqf

 

Scripting entire mode, and making it work everytime, bug free, fun, balanced, maintained through arma updates, and able to hold the attention of a server of players, SQL database construction (players expect persistence now) ... Speaking in numbers, I just don't see any from-scratch big scale gamemode taking under 2000 dev hours, even from already reasonably skilled dev(s), and reasonably skilled at arma modding means already hundreds and thousands of hours experience.

 

If you look at mode like Exile, probably there was ~2500+ hours put in by the original dev team, and their is considered bare-bones compared to the versions of Exile that are played on servers now.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Well, when playing EUTW servers it's always a blast, and tactics are key to a victory. But I think the only con is how limited it is. Not only that but how few players are actually exposed to that game mode. All anyone ever plays is Life, or KOTH, as well as Wasteland, with barley any really engaging game mode that exposes the player to everything Arma has to offer at once, covering a large portion of the map, and forcing players to think wisely as well as work closelg with team mates and allies to complete a objective, or win a battle.

[spanishsurfer 58]

On 2/11/2018 at 8:47 PM, esfumato said:

I liked a lot to play Arma 2 Warfare Benny Edition mission. And I hoped to see the game mode again in Arma 3.

In arma 3, the most similar thing that I have found is CTI - EUTW. (no base building in it, and no upgrades).

 

Dislikes in Arma 3 CTI.

 

No 3D objects to represent the Base Factories. (Now maybe could be possible to add some Eden Editor Composititions)

Long wait for upgrades. making the games even longer.

Weird Menus and options in the CTI missions of Arma 3. hard to understand.

Long travels to find action. Respawn and long travel again, is more a car driving simulator than a shooter.

Commanders can't take desitions must do what players ask for, or get kicked.

Empty servers no one is playing

 

Likes in Arma 3.

Haven't played. so no likes at all.

 

I had a really big suggestion post with images and everything in the arma2 subforums of the benny edition, but all those post have been removed and lost if you want some feedback I can try the mission and post something at your forums.

 

Also, I don't know why in Arma community each modder have his own version of a mission instead of cooperating with missions that are already done and have servers running. In EUTW is GIPPO alone developing the mission, it have 4 servers and have a hard time to fill just 2 of them, maybe some help to EUTW could improve the mission and make it a must play for every Arma 3 player.

 

 

Ok, I had to respond to this. CTI is alive and well. 

 

1.There are 4 CTI servers that are active and populated. 1 in USA, 2 in France, and 1 Russian.

2. https://www.gametracker.com/server_info/arma.ofps.net:2302/  mine.

3. EUTW is NOT CTI. (Fun, but not CTI)

4. My CTI version has an entire dev team behind it including Benny.

 

On 2/10/2018 at 5:38 AM, fn_Quiksilver said:

 

simple is to add constraint coefficients to the important values in the mission.

 

1. detect stacking

 

2. differentiate between veteran and noob (time played, database, etc)

 

3. apply constraint coefficients to players who are veterans on a currently-stacked team.

 

some examples of coefficient tweaking: 

 

- multiply incoming damage in a handledamage event, effectively giving the veteran on the stacked team less health. such as:    if (veteran) then { incoming_damage = incoming_damage * 1.25 };

- reduce income or any ingame currency the veteran on the stacked team can earn or have access to. basically like a graduated income tax, if he's a vet on a currently stacked team.

- reduce what weapons/attachments the veteran on the stacked team can use, or what vehicles/buildings they can spawn.

- show their position on the map to the enemy team

 

if they dont like it they can just switch teams

 

the damage modification would probably cause irritation, so if I had to pick one I'd pick the currency taxation. add a 90% 'income tax' to the veteran when they're on a currently stacked team.

 

Great tips ty!

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

On 3.1.2018 at 4:49 PM, spanishsurfer said:

So I'm late to the party on this post but I feel like many of the "CONS" some of you have addressed are in fact being worked on in the OFPS community who runs BECTI. I've played CTI since it's inception in 2001-02 and have watched the game mode flourish from the abomination that it first was to the monster it's become today. The 2 biggest problems with the mission to me are this, the length of matches and the constant attacks on bases.

 

To fix this, we're currently in the process of switching the emphasis from base attacks to town captures. We don't want to remove the ability to attack an enemy base as many folks love doing that, but we have made it a hell of a lot harder for 1 lone wolf to wreck another teams base (autonomous defenses like a CRAM, custom compositions w/AT-AA turrets on top of towers, etc). We also want to introduce timers and economic victories. After X hours, the round ends and the team with the most town value wins; simple.  The other is economic victory. When a team captures 50-60% of a maps available town supply, that team wins. To really push players back to the towns (besides the $ incentive) we want to have notifications that remind a team on their progress towards an economic victory and when they're about 5-10% from achieving that victory the opposing team will receive a notification on how close to winning their enemy is. We're hoping this system draws most players out of the mindset of constantly attacking each others bases (which is also a lot of fun) and more towards battling out in towns. Also, regarding town warfare (since I read some of your gripes on that).

 

-When a town is captured there is a 10 min "Peace Time" which prevents the opposing team from taking the town

-Towns can only be capped by taking all the surrounding "camps"

-Camps act as spawn points by which ever team has taken it.

-You can purchase low tech gear, vehicles, infantry from the town center if you occupy the town and own all the camps (if the enemy takes just 1 camp you can't purchase anything from the town center)

-Teams can HALO jump into a town being taken by an opposing team to defend it (if you have the upgrade and an air fact at base and if you're thinking about spam spawning, the HALO jump has a timer)

 

The above is just a taste at the level of detail we go into CTI.

 

We are constantly editing/fixing stuff with the mission but IMO, we currently have the best CTI mission ever made, with more content than any other mode I've seen (RHS gear, CUP assets, all vanilla stuff, fast roping mods, jump/climbing scripts, etc, etc, etc).

 

 

TLDR, CTI is alive and well and it's in it's best form it's ever been. The OFPS CTI mission is the game mode by CTI players for CTI players!

 

**Hit me up on our discord if you'd like to join the dev team or just want to play.

 

Removing the MHQ at least is my all-time-fav in CTI-context. Loss of MHQ is in most cases the loss of game or at least such a significant supply loss usually making you loosing the game.

It is an odd simulation and odd game-style design making everything depending on a single item. So why not removing it? Or making an optional switch in game parameters? Benny told me it is easy - but he never did it :-)

If every game starts with at least 1 town close to initial spawn (there are even game start parameter defining how many towns owned by each side at game start), you do not need any MHQ if your design is forcing you to build INSIDE a town perimeter instead of OUTSIDE as today.

To be able to build smaller versions of base constructions you could add the related actions to the repair/support trucks as it is today for defense construction.

 

This major change would result into a change of win conditions. But it would prevent that some bases are hidden in the woods to keep the game running if the win condition is that enemy does not own any town any more.

Hence it would be sufficient to steal all towns owned by the other party asap and to prevent for a defined time that they are able to capture another instead.

 

Length of match is not an issue, just design according everyones taste - keep all options open.

In A2 WFBE we had the very same match open for days, with persistent mode even without human players, just AI comms were battling.

This is my personal preverence, having a massive war ongoing where you can jump in and turn it a little bit for your faction.

If peeple want's a time limit or somehow a mode with a fast decision, the best is IMHO a smaller map, limited resources and cash and limited amount of cash-generation towns/zones.

This is easy done by starting a CTI on Zargabad, 4 towns, few cash&suply per minute.

 

Besdide MHQ, also base areas were pretty easy to destroy, there was IMHO OFPS's best job so far to add so many passive and active base defenses that a proper built base can survive several air rides which are usually lead into the loss of airplanes.

That was urgently required since too many high-tech weapons and to much "cash" enabling pretty early jets which are unrealisticly hard to defend.

 

I love the idea of having more AA capabilities as static/semi-static/mobile versions.

If this is combinde with a separate layered and triggered town defense it would help a lot. AA defences could be activated/spawned in every location on detection of an air contact WITHOUT spawning all town defences.

Town defences should anyway spawn in several waves triggered by much larger trigger areas.

I do not like the effect that enemies spawning in visual or even gun range.

 

 

One option might be considered: Right now OFPS-CTI employs easy access to rearm/refuel/infantry (after "peace time). This method is IMHO undermining the need of (or eliminating the reward of) proper logistics if it comes that easy.

Hence I would love to have at least the option that all staff must be generated by base factories.

 

 

 

 

 

[spanishsurfer 58]

On 2/19/2018 at 9:32 AM, The Man Without Qualities said:

One option might be considered: Right now OFPS-CTI employs easy access to rearm/refuel/infantry (after "peace time). This method is IMHO undermining the need of (or eliminating the reward of) proper logistics if it comes that easy.

Hence I would love to have at least the option that all staff must be generated by base factories.

So we do allow the use of the service menu at town centers however 2 caveats. First, a team must have the Forward Logistics 3 Upgrade (Not quickly obtained) and second there is an increased cost to use that option away from bases, a convience tax. So there is incentive for logistics. 

 

As for your comments on AA, we recently implemented BIS' uav statics from Jets DLC and they are extremely deadly. 

 

We are literally making changes and tweaks to our mission on a weekly basis.

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

ahh, means I must fire up PC and play OFPS....haven't for 6 weeks +.....

[esfumato 75]

On 18/2/2018 at 2:10 PM, spanishsurfer said:

 

Ok, I had to respond to this. CTI is alive and well. 

 

1.There are 4 CTI servers that are active and populated. 1 in USA, 2 in France, and 1 Russian.

2. https://www.gametracker.com/server_info/arma.ofps.net:2302/  mine.

3. EUTW is NOT CTI. (Fun, but not CTI)

4. My CTI version has an entire dev team behind it including Benny.

 

 

Great tips ty!

 

Can you tell me your mission server IP? I would like to have a look to your CTI mission.

Under any circunstances this is a good way to start a mission... what a pile of shit



Is even worst! you have to keep pressed " º " and then click on exit tutorial!!!!!

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

On 2/24/2018 at 12:56 AM, esfumato said:

 

Can you tell me your mission server IP? I would like to have a look to your CTI mission.

Under any circunstances this is a good way to start a mission... what a pile of shit



Is even worst! you have to keep pressed " º " and then click on exit tutorial!!!!!

 

lmao rekt

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

@ esfumato: it is their way of GUi design - they made it once and do not want to put more effort into I guess.

Clunky, but it works for me.

[jtareb1 0]

Random thoughts....

 

A better AI. I have experimented with several...some work and some don't. Am experimenting with GAIA( MCC Sandbox ) right now. VCOM seems to have some issues with the BECTI script but holds promise. ASR does fine for what it does but is more of an addition than a substitution. It does one thing right is keep AI groups from staying in Danger mode. Advanced AI command (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=685037021&searchtext=Advanced+AI+command) is something else to look at...kinda conflicts with the CTI command but is much easier to work with. Maybe bring in ALIVE in some fashion.

 

More variety. Seems right now the existing cti missions are either vanilla, CUP, or RHS. Those are fine (except for vanilla which I despise) but with all the options available with EDEN maybe incorporate some of the newer factions that have sprung up since Benny first wrote the A3 Becti script like Jarrad96's Special Forces Factions( my favorite https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=850816767). Also more variety in equipment like NiArms, SMA weapons and gear, and VSM clothing mod. 

 

Less emphasis on high end equipment and focus more on infantry combat. 

 

Make supply harder. Think of something like the Liberation mod scenarios where you have to get fuel, ammo, and resources and not just a generic supply number. Objectives could have varying amounts of each, making the commanders decisions of more importance of which ones to go after.

 

Bring back static weapons for the guerilla factions to make the objectives harder. Its the one thing I miss from the ARMA 2 Benny cti missions.