Lack of good usermade SP content

[Callsign 128]

I can only echo the sentiments of everyone above. I think Arma 3 is worse for the lack of SP content over Arma 2/ Arma 1 etc. I imagine this is in part because mission making is more complex, but also that those mission makers who have been playing since OFP have probably become tired of the fact that things aren't easier - eg there aren't nice simple dialog boxes to put in intel/ tasks/ markers etc. It just means mission making is that much more work than it needs to be.

I definitely think BIS could do a lot more to promote mission making and quality SP content. It's a shame there hasn't been any competitions (other than Make Arma Not War) that could showcase content and raise the profile of content creators. I did suggest it ages ago somewhere but it seems to have fallen of deaf ears. I think this is something a community manager should definitely be doing - maybe with a cup that people's names get engraved on.

I do miss your missions though @Wiki

[Electricleash 133]

Quote

I think this is something a community manager should definitely be doing

I'm given to understand that they've been looking for an ARMA 3 Community Manager for months but no-one apparently stepped up to the plate.

There was a listing on their jobs page but a week ago, however, it appears to have been removed... whether that means they've finally found someone, or they gave up looking, one can only speculate.

https://careers.bohemia.net/positions

[Broseph_Stalin90 72]

While 90% of the time I strictly play (generally my own created) SP missions enjoyably, I have to agree that as a community there isn't much in the way of SP. If it's simply a matter like my case, where I do not tend to release missions and just play them myself, or something else, who knows? I will say, as much as I sort of like the "learning curve" that the editor has, a more user friendly editor would cut down on most of the rushed and low quality missions, the Eden editor enhancement is a stellar example.

[MrSplendid 4]

People might be interested in a Project i started today. I called it "ARMAVERSUM".

let me know what you think of it. im looking forward to people with passion for Arma to take part in the project !

Looking for english People who are interested in translating the Website (Grammar/spelling correction)

 

https://armaversum-com.jimdofree.com/

[kibyde 64]

Some very good SP content I play often are the campaigns and missions from Undeceived, WWThomahawkWW, AlphaDog, AZcoder, RobJ, Mynock and Lato. The official BIS missions and campaigns I find rather boring and diappointing.

[nettrucker 142]

The amount of SP content in ArmA 3 is far superior to the amount of Arma 2. On Steam workshop, SP content missions show 18069 entries. Campaigns 395 entries. The quality of the missions is completely another pair of shoes though.

We all know how long it takes to get a good mission done not to mention a whole campaign especially when you are doing it in your free time.  I've never really gotten into Arma 3 and I can't tell you a specific reason. I'm still tinkering in ArmA 2 with CWR2 mod. I'm doing this for quite some years now and I'm still not done. I teamed up with batteriefuhrer and me we made a 19 mission single player pack for A2 CWR2 just updated to version 1.01.

Due to real life issues on my side, it took us more than 2 years to finish it.  Batteriefuhrer bore the main brunt of the mission editing. It was a labor of love because most of you guys don't play A2 anymore but for those of you that do check the SP mission pack out.

 

Well, how much time does it take for you guys in the average to design a good mission- campaign?

[joostsidy 685]

48 minutes ago, nettrucker said:

Well, how much time does it take for you guys in the average to design a good mission- campaign?

Friends of mine are interested in making missions, but intimidated by how much time I spend on mission making and scripting. I decided to create a MP coop mission without any scripts. Still took me five hours for a very basic linear mission with 4 transport helo's dropping of 8 squads surrounding a target and attacking, supported by a gun ships and two slingloaded LSV's. Finding out how to do stuff with only the editor and just calibrating the whole thing took a lot more time than I expected.

 

A 'normal' mission that I create which usually has a very basic introduction, has no cutscenes etc. however some intelligent variable gameplay and interesting details through scripting takes me about ten hours I think. After OFP I decided to 'cap' myself a bit on mission editing and only create short scripts and recycle them a lot.

 

My main advise for aspiring mission makers would be: work with the quirks of Arma, don't fight the game engine and end up wasting hours getting tiny details right.

[nettrucker 142]

16 minutes ago, joostsidy said:

My main advise for aspiring mission makers would be: work with the quirks of Arma, don't fight the game engine and end up wasting hours getting tiny details right.

1

 

This is really a good advice but you are often forced to face the fact that ArmA is not a perfect game and never will be. During test runs of one particular mission at times the squad leader wouldn't move. Restarted the squad leader moved as he was supposed to I restarted again and the squad leader was again stuck. The last 3 test runs of the same mission the squad leader moved without problems.  Now try and figure the reason why at times it works perfectly at times it doesn't. i've learned to live with the limitation but when designing you will constantly be reminded of those so you can't really avoid them. I can't say how it works in ArmA 3 because I never tried to design a mission for it.

[Rydygier 1309]

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how much time does it take for you guys in the average to design a good mission

 

Depends on the scope and ambitions... and what you tend to call good (enough). As for me, something cameral may take roughly few to several tens of work hours, while "opus magnum" project several to dozen of hundreds work hours and more. I guesstimate, my biggest scenario so far took well above 1000 (and there's still room for further work, if I feel fancy), while my biggest project ever - few thousands at least (but I was learning basics by making it). My very first mission I was developing to the playable state on daily basis one month and then I perceived such amount of time as "huge endevour". Well, it was the first, thus it WAS unprecedenced, but today laughter fills me on such perception, it was "a small beer", as we say.

 

This is about extensive scripting mission making, development of the linear scenario relying more on cinematic narrative may differ here. 

[Wiki 1558]

3 hours ago, nettrucker said:

The amount of SP content in ArmA 3 is far superior to the amount of Arma 2. On Steam workshop, SP content missions show 18069 entries. Campaigns 395 entries. The quality of the missions is completely another pair of shoes though.

 

Most of the SP missions are more SP/Coop missions than real SP ones.

 

3 hours ago, nettrucker said:

Well, how much time does it take for you guys in the average to design a good mission- campaign?

 

It depends a lot :

how many missions, what kind of missions, etc...

 

I can set up a small SP mission within a day (from scratch to release).

[tortuosit 486]

On 13.8.2018 at 7:40 PM, Undeceived said:

The suggestion that @lexx brought up is good and we really could use a bit of support by BIS when it comes to rating and giving feedback to mission  designers.

 

What I really miss though (and unfortunately I don't have the needed time for it) is a good web page that reviews scenarios. I loved e.g. the OFPEC.com times because you could find quality stuff there - no matter if it was campaigns or single missions. The reviews were detailed and extensive, showing up pros, cons and special details. Yes, it took the rewiever a lot of time but the value for the players and the community was enormous.

 

Old story for me and I have made some suggestions here in the forum as for community building, with no success.

 

a) BIS is not helpful as for community building. The forum is crap, their sit|op|spot|whateverREPS are not linked to the forum and discussions.

b) ArmA/BIS forum has only a micro fraction of community life/users. There's sometimes better discussions in that Youtube video comments sections.

c) The forum software. It is not inviting. It's a kick in the ass. A major PITA. I may be too conservative, but I prefer easier phpbb's where you have a source code view. This crap of a gui imitation forum software stinks massively and wasted a lot of my time. Especially when it comes to multiple tags, nested tags. It permanently adds blank lines to code. Etc. etc. UTTER CRAP. I always rage when it comes to the forum software.

 

If I had no job BIS should hire me... coughcough, erm...no ;-) The Life community would find old postings of me where I express my love for Life ;-)

 

They really should have 1 fulltime job doing only community work. I think it would pay out.

[mamasan8 11]

My 2 cents

 

1. I don't play without addons, ever. Haven't done since OFP days. 

So a mission has to allow my addons and it can't contain addons I don't like. So just there a lot of missions go out the window.

I'm not going to download 2 gigs of addons to try some mission I might not even like. Maybe a 5 minute intro video about the mission would be a solution so I can see what the mission is like.

Bottomline: Addons are devisive. Divides users/missionmakers/community

 

2. I make my own missions for me and they are always MP/Coop. Because of respawn.

I can't take on hundreds of units on my own and expect to live. At best, maybe 30 with a sniperrifle.

The world feels dead if there is only a small squad on the map to find and kill. It is made for huge scale war. 100s, not 10.

This also means I always have friendly AI soldiers, tanks, air. But AI...don't rely on them to solve any of your problems.

 

3. Artillery/air support

 

It is so bugged. I can play the same mission 30 times and half the time artillery gets bugged first time I call it, bombs never come and that option is now greyed out til I restart.

So I have 4 arties. Half of them get bugged at 1st time usage.

Air support, when they do finally come in a plane, almost never drops the bomb at first flythrough so they get shot down. If they don't they will circle around the area and drop bombs on the same spot til the plane runs out of bombs. Not an expected behavior either.

 

4. Scripts

What scipts does your mission use? Would I enjoy it?

I use a carpetbombing script I found somewhere. I like it. It is only used once in my mission. It is supposed to be timed with planes flying over a town but of course it rarely triggers at the right time. The planes don't generally follow the flightpath I have put down for them, they don't fly in at the right angle etc. If they fly in over the town at all.

Neat idea but AI is too random for any planned sequence.

 

Do you have VAS? It is a requirement for me.

Heavy script usage is a no no for me, because it will slow down the game and the game is already running poorly out of the gate.

 

5. At the start, I didn't find any nice SP-missions so that is my expectation now. First impressions last. So I don't look at SP-missions at all.

Back in OFP/Arma-days, I played a lot of SP. And a lot of Coop. Not so much in Arma3.

 

[JohnKalo 657]

@nettrucker About 18 to 36 hours need to be spent for a stand alone mission. That is a mission with intro, chats, images, testing and scripts included. Those hours can be exhausting. 

                        Yep those way-points and constant glitches can easily break a mission just like that... So many hours gone bad because one unit refuses to follow his simple way-point.

 

@mamasan8 Addons are indeed divisive. Not just for the players but for the editor too. It is not the same trying to create a mission with hundreds of choices and a mission with thousands of choices.

 

In general, as aforementioned, you first write down how you want a mission to be and then you check how it can be. The lesser waypoints and AI dependence the better.

Oh and after starting to create a campaign and having to make higher quality images, intros, outros and voice recordings it is like sooooo hard. Even finding the voice actors available is hard alone.

 

[BattleChief 97]

I can't help but agree, there is a lack of decent SP scenarios, and the main problem is the lack of dialogue and the lack of interaction..Any and all of my SP scenarios are designed around the idea that you are not staying in one area, and that everyone (being the NPC's) are busy with other tasks...