Contact Expansion Playable Content Feedback

[nikelzero 10]

Spoiler

well, avoiding "ivel russkiez" bias is a fresh idea, but, at the end, story justify baltic states occupation, LDF portrayed as total idiots, and Russians are the only competent force in this region, is it legal in nowadays western narrative?

 

[ISparkle 49]

4 hours ago, nikelzero said:

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well, avoiding "ivel russkiez" bias is a fresh idea, but, at the end, story justify baltic states occupation, LDF portrayed as total idiots, and Russians are the only competent force in this region, is it legal in nowadays western narrative?

 

Spoiler

Well, to be fair, no one else was gonna come, Livonia is still a NATO member and it is highly unlikely that NATO would have helped our 'dissident' characters stop LDF from blowing up the core which might lead into explosion that can wipe Livonia and Europe for that matter... Spetsnaz captain explained that they've seen what one of those can do in Russia and when that core exploded, it wasn't even active and still created a huge crater about 10 years ago game time. Even if LDF was acting on its own, NATO would have respected Livonia exercising sovereign right to defend its country. And even if NATO told LDF to stop, it's doubtful that LDF would've stopped. So... who else was gonna come and stop LDF if not the country that's already its enemy? So, it makes sense somewhat to me. I also would like to think that all NATO and its allies were preoccupied in dealing with their own fair share of aliens since they do mention there were total of 11 alien ships (including the one we see in Livonia) appearing all over the world. And later, a report of the incident basically say that we might have made a bad impression on our visitors and that UN is going to send a message as one to the visitors. So, there's a general consensus that LDF jumped the gun on the international stage and it seemed like Russian occupation didn't last iirc from credit radio msgs.

 

[L3TUC3 32]

That was pretty fun, but the low FPS was really disappointing and detracted from the experience a lot. Averaged about 20.

[R3vo 2654]

2 hours ago, L3TUC3 said:

That was pretty fun, but the low FPS was really disappointing and detracted from the experience a lot. Averaged about 20.

Same here. I skipped all side quests and will do another complete run once we see some optimisation.

[Ex3B 266]

On 7/27/2019 at 11:27 PM, Glow said:

Once I hack a Stomper... yeah...rip... I will try to approach this again with no hacking. I hope that someone who design those mission took this under concieration - to not kill allies. Even when they are temporarily not friendly.

 

I also tried to limit the killing of LDF. I managed to find a suppressed SPAR, and later on a MOS (no need for a NVS with all that moonlight, but I found one of those later too). There's one point in one mission where I could have optionally hacked a UGV, but in the end I didn't. I did headshot a single LDF soldier that was exactly where I needed to go, and I got the objective done with one LDF death (different objective from the one you're talking about).

However, I suggest that you kill as many LDF as you like. If its simpler to kill them, kill them. If its safer to evade and misdirect, then do that.

As to why I say this, spoilers:

Spoiler

The last mission you are going to need to kill a butt-load of LDF. The LDF have been behaving stupidly and irrationally the whole time, and nearly get everyone killed because they can't be reasoned with. Knowing what I know now, I would have been much more trigger happy much earlier.

 

 

10 hours ago, nikelzero said:

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well, avoiding "ivel russkiez" bias is a fresh idea, but, at the end, story justify baltic states occupation, LDF portrayed as total idiots, and Russians are the only competent force in this region, is it legal in nowadays western narrative?

 

 

Well, this seems like a good point to respond to and give my thoughts.

Spoiler

1) I don't see the Ruskies as the "good guys", nor as the bad guys. They were rational actors whose interests aligned with yours.

I was expecting to have to fight them, so that was an interesting surprise. However, we should keep in mind that the Ruskies apparently knew about aliens from 2020, 19 years ago, since this takes place in 2039. They did nothing to prepare the world or warn about the dangers of these things underground. In fact, we don't even know for sure that what they said was true. We also see them carting off alien tech at the end. I don't know if the rest of the world got alien tech from the other 10 places, but if the LDF is the only one that fought them, the downed small entities may be the only ones to be recovered, and the Ruskies have them.

They acted in their self interest... which aligned with the wider world... ie not pissing off aliens that could wipe us out, and presumably not splitting the world open from a massive (antimatter?) explosion.

 

2) The incident that started this mess was an exercise in stupidity. #1- why wasn't that a training warhead. Practice bombs aren't he same as real bombs. #2- When GPS is on the Fritz, isn't that a good reason to call off the test, why drop a GPS guided bomb close to friendlies, when GPS isn't working properly. #3- What are the odds in the sparsely populated area that it lands in a group of 8 soldiers? I think just about everyone could tell that calling in that bomb was a bad idea.

 

3) The LDF behaved irrationally the whole time. Ok so there was a training incident and they want to call it off... fine, but to them implement shoot on sight orders beyond a certain region? come on.

Ok, its really because they found AYYLMAOs and it was a cover up... but they called in outside experts (the scottish guy for example). Wouldn't they inform their closest allies in the process, wouldn't NATO forces be useful for security? Change the exercise, don't start shooting your allies.

Then to open fire on the aliens for... what purpose? because one guy that got close to the entity collapsed? You're going to start a war with a vastly superior enemy because one guy got close, got plenty of warning, and then collapsed?

And didn't even die, but then they continue to attack long after it becomes clear that they aren't invading or eradicating us, that we've been watched for millions of years and if they wanted to wipe us out  they could have centuries or millennia ago?

Really, the LDF are too stupid to live.

 

4) Its really unclear what caused the aliens to show up. It initially seems that they showed up because of the exposure of the network... but the network was active (neutrino storm prior to events) and causing issues (GPS problems leading to the bomb mistarget) before stuff starting. In the epilogue, there's some BS about the aliens not having FTL and obeying Einstein's relativity, but then also somehow maybe the message arrived before it was sent???

IMO a better explanation would be that (since the network is sensitive to neutrinos, and those are given off by nuclear reactions) that the network sent the signal in the 1940's when the first nukes were detonated, and then became active again when the AYYLMAOs were about to show up. So then if the AYYLMAOs travel at close to the speed of light, they could have come from anywhere within about 50 light years.

 

5) Its really unclear if the underground network and the UFO AEs are even the same type of Aliens. The underground ones seem to be part of some galaxy-wide network on the basis of images from the AE induced visions... but it could also be that the UFO AEs were trying to eradicate these networks (they seemed to be extracting them from the ground). One part of the vision maybe seemed like they were hostile to each other, or maybe it was a warning that they could explode, or maybe I'm just misinterpreting things.

 

As far as gameplay, there are a few instances where stuff spawns/despawns while within the players FOV or really close to the player... which is not very good.

Having an enemy just pop into existence right in front of you, or in a place that you just checked is not good. Having a unit be there one moment, and gone the next is also a bit bad... I only saw the appearing enemies once, and the disappearing unit once, but I've read a complaint about enemy spawns elsewhere on the forum, that was clearly not the same place I saw it happen... so its something that could be improved.

in my case:

Spoiler

The appearing enemy was by the 2nd or 3rd Titan launchers that you need to clear on the last mission.

The disappearing unit was right before you untie your team after they were tied up by the Ruskies.

 

 

[Glow 181]

1 hour ago, Ex3B said:

I also tried to limit the killing of LDF. (...)

However, I suggest that you kill as many LDF as you like. If its simpler to kill them, kill them. If its safer to evade and misdirect, then do that.

(...)

I'm not trying to limit, I'm not killing at all. Simpler or safer is not in my interest.

 

The end of Anomalous Phenomena was kind of unexpected and in the next mission you have only this what was on you, I believe. This should be better solved by mission maker so I could adjust my inventory.

 

Carpe Noctrem is very bad optimized:

After long game 2-3h, saving take very long time.

Sometimes when I load a game, on a map I could see items like some weapon attachments in editor (in civilian, pink color) by the camps

Spoiler

 

 

Saves pop up sometimes like I was in danger zone but I'm not. Two in a row once, by the HEMETTs when I come back with second visit after longer time.
 

Low fps, 20 when most of the time I have 60.

 

When I pause a game by esc and then come back to play, fps drop to 2-3. Could by my win10...

 

Some LDF uniforms and vest are not lootable - if this is a part of optimization I'm ok with it.

 

Small thing:

Spoiler

"Opuście swe posterunki" intel ~ Abandon your posts, Rough Map Instructions. When you look at in Notes the map is much more low res, hard to see a place name than when you look when is on a ground before pickup. Additional marker with name on that intel would help.

 

Not finish yet... I'm trying accomplish in stealth. I like that stealth-loud mechanic idea a lot. I'm a PAYDAY2 player 🤡👍

 

 

 

 

[laxemann 1673]

Spoiler

Got a bug:

In the fourth mission, Anomalous Phenomena, I saved and loaded a few times.

Just got to the part where I should use Eddie on the second rut to get a tissue sample from the inside, but looking at YouTube videos, the inside part of the rut was missing for me.

Soooo I'm unable to progress and have to reload.

 

[R3vo 2654]

18 minutes ago, laxemann said:

  Hide contents

Got a bug:

In the fourth mission, Anomalous Phenomena, I saved and loaded a few times.

Just got to the part where I should use Eddie on the second rut to get a tissue sample from the inside, but looking at YouTube videos, the inside part of the rut was missing for me.

Soooo I'm unable to progress and have to reload.

 

Are you far enough way? The stuff inside retracts as soon as you approach it. Use Eddie for that.

[tpw 2315]

4 hours ago, R3vo said:

Same here. I skipped all side quests and will do another complete run once we see some optimisation.

I wonder what is going on. I'm used to shit framerates in Arma, but Contact takes it to a new level. Editor missions on Livonia give acceptable framerates outside of towns and less than acceptable framerates in larger towns (the "new" buildings are CPU killers), but Contact itself is just sluggish everywhere. 

[lex__1 422]

49 minutes ago, laxemann said:

  Hide contents

Got a bug:

In the fourth mission, Anomalous Phenomena, I saved and loaded a few times.

Just got to the part where I should use Eddie on the second rut to get a tissue sample from the inside, but looking at YouTube videos, the inside part of the rut was missing for me.

Soooo I'm unable to progress and have to reload.

 

Keep a distance to the cable, it feels you and hides the inner core. Only a drone can come close to it.

[Glow 181]

In Arma it's hard to solve complicated puzzles, if you expect a bug behind every corner 😛

[stburr91 1002]

Let me start off by saying that my intention for writing this is to provide honest feedback, and I genuinely hope that this is taken as it's meant, as constructive feedback. 

 

I waited 24 hours before posting this, as to avoid a knee-jerk reaction. 

 

Arma fanboys need not read any further.

 

First, the overall experience of the campaign was up, and down. However, when it was all done, and after a day of thinking about it, I feel the campaign was just not very good (for a lot of reasons). Okay, that's pretty vague, let me go into more detail.

 

Spoiler

The first, and biggest thing is the lack of a realistic storyline. Yes, I know it's a fictional story about aliens, but that is all the more reason to ground the story in reality as much as possible, especially when the storyline strays so far away from that of the base game.

 

I liked the story up to the point when NATO went to war with the LDF. However, that was so unrealistic that is was very immersion breaking, and caused the experience of the campaign go do downhill quickly. Major decisions in the storyline, ones that have such a dramatic effect on the story have to be right, and the decision to make the LDF mindless blood thirsty killers just wasn't. The decision was parochial, it lacked any sophistication, on top of being so unrealistic. 

 

The second decision that so dramatically impacted the campaign was the one to make the storyline about a root system, it was the main part of the story, not the aliens. In fact, you could have removed the aliens entirely, and it would have little impact on the overall storyline. The roots storyline was very uncompelling to say the least, not to mention that the reason for, or the purpose of the roots was never developed. The roots sortyline was just that, undeveloped, and uncompelling, and that was a real problem for such a main part of the overall story. 

 

To continue on with the undeveloped aspects of the storyline, the the purpose of the aliens was under-developed, as was the visions that Rudwell was having. Truthfully, the campaign felt like the old TV show "Lost", were most of the story was never explained. It leaves the player feeling unsatisfied, like the campaign was never really fully developed. 

 

Lastly, many of the tasks were not very interesting, or were even outright boring. None of the "Areas of Interest" that I found were interesting. The worst of all was the task of finding the root tips, which had a number of problems. First, it was very boring running around looking for roots. Second, it was repetitive, as we already probed the glowing tip earlier( I won't even mention what the root tips looked like). Third, it was all made worse by the danger zones, which needlessly made the task all the more boring, and tedious.  

 

I could go on, but I think I'll leave it at that.

 

I want to reiterate, this is meant as constructive feedback. However difficult it may be to read such feedback, I've taken the time to write in an effort that the BI writers/developers, can improve, and hopefully put out a better product in the future. As unpleasant as it may be, it may well be time to go in a different direction, and maybe with different writers for Arma 4. I would think it's safe to say that moving to more realistic, and sophisticated storylines in the future would be welcomed by most, if not all. 

 

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Spoiler

Carpe Noctem:
In the small camp north-east of Camp Kresnik (2 CRBN Military Scientists, 3 CRBN Specialists, Alien Orb, ED1-E-like drone) there is a set of cabinets that has a "Take Intel" action (screenshot below after using the action), which results in pretty much nothing except an empty notification popping up at the top of the screen and map opening.

EDIT:
 

Spoiler

Carpe Noctem:

 

If a UGV is killed, its signal light remains hovering above.

 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Sniperwolf572
More stuff

[laxemann 1673]

9 hours ago, lex__1 said:

Keep a distance to the cable, it feels you and hides the inner core. Only a drone can come close to it.

I feel stupid. Thanks! 😄

[R3vo 2654]

5 hours ago, stburr91 said:

Let me start off by saying that my intention for writing this is to provide honest feedback, and I genuinely hope that this is taken as it's meant, as constructive feedback. 

 

I waited 24 hours before posting this, as to avoid a knee-jerk reaction. 

 

Arma fanboys need not read any further.

 

First, the overall experience of the campaign was up, and down. However, when it was all done, and after a day of thinking about it, I feel the campaign was just not very good (for a lot of reasons). Okay, that's pretty vague, let me go into more detail.

 

  Hide contents

The first, and biggest thing is the lack of a realistic storyline. Yes, I know it's a fictional story about aliens, but that is all the more reason to ground the story in reality as much as possible, especially when the storyline strays so far away from that of the base game.

 

I liked the story up to the point when NATO went to war with the LDF. However, that was so unrealistic that is was very immersion breaking, and caused the experience of the campaign go do downhill quickly. Major decisions in the storyline, ones that have such a dramatic effect on the story have to be right, and the decision to make the LDF mindless blood thirsty killers just wasn't. The decision was parochial, it lacked any sophistication, on top of being so unrealistic. 

 

The second decision that so dramatically impacted the campaign was the one to make the storyline about a root system, it was the main part of the story, not the aliens. In fact, you could have removed the aliens entirely, and it would have little impact on the overall storyline. The roots storyline was very uncompelling to say the least, not to mention that the reason for, or the purpose of the roots was never developed. The roots sortyline was just that, undeveloped, and uncompelling, and that was a real problem for such a main part of the overall story. 

 

To continue on with the undeveloped aspects of the storyline, the the purpose of the aliens was under-developed, as was the visions that Rudwell was having. Truthfully, the campaign felt like the old TV show "Lost", were most of the story was never explained. It leaves the player feeling unsatisfied, like the campaign was never really fully developed. 

 

Lastly, many of the tasks were not very interesting, or were even outright boring. None of the "Areas of Interest" that I found were interesting. The worst of all was the task of finding the root tips, which had a number of problems. First, it was very boring running around looking for roots. Second, it was repetitive, as we already probed the glowing tip earlier( I won't even mention what the root tips looked like). Third, it was all made worse by the danger zones, which needlessly made the task all the more boring, and tedious.  

 

I could go on, but I think I'll leave it at that.

 

I want to reiterate, this is meant as constructive feedback. However difficult it may be to read such feedback, I've taken the time to write in an effort that the BI writers/developers, can improve, and hopefully put out a better product in the future. As unpleasant as it may be, it may well be time to go in a different direction, and maybe with different writers for Arma 4. I would think it's safe to say that moving to more realistic, and sophisticated storylines in the future would be welcomed by most, if not all. 

 

That's some very good feedback and I have to agree. After finishing the campaign, I felt like something was missing, a proper ending, some explanation. Additionally, now that you mention it. The Aliens are in fact quite unimportant. They do nothing expect teleporting around,  doing dolphin-noises, they are not even a threat.

 

Quote

Lastly, many of the tasks were not very interesting, or were even outright boring.

I cannot agree that the tasks were boring, but something I have been missing was the proper use of the CBRN gear, a main part of that DLC. We didn't even have to use that chemical detector.

[jakerod 254]

4 hours ago, R3vo said:

That's some very good feedback and I have to agree. After finishing the campaign, I felt like something was missing, a proper ending, some explanation. Additionally, now that you mention it. The Aliens are in fact quite unimportant. They do nothing expect teleporting around,  doing dolphin-noises, they are not even a threat.

 

I cannot agree that the tasks were boring, but something I have been missing was the proper use of the CBRN gear, a main part of that DLC. We didn't even have to use that chemical detector.

Spoiler

Did you listen to all the different radio channels in the last mission? Was that still not enough?

 

[lex__1 422]

3 hours ago, jakerod said:

Did you listen to all the different radio channels in the last mission? Was that still not enough? 

That's what this is about. The eventful final mission did not give me a hint of listening to the air. Or I missed something. If a player can easily miss something - this is a disadvantage that needs to be eliminated.

8 hours ago, R3vo said:

I cannot agree that the tasks were boring, but something I have been missing was the proper use of the CBRN gear, a main part of that DLC. We didn't even have to use that chemical detector. 

I also have the impression. There is a feeling that there should have been an environmental disaster in the storyline, as a result of the accident at one of the plants in Livonia. Addressing the consequences of the accident calls for specialists from NATO and Russia to the area. Perhaps this is not enough in the plot, to reveal the potential of this part of the content. It was the elimination of the consequences of the accident that should have provoked the discovery of the roots.

 

14 hours ago, stburr91 said:

Lastly, many of the tasks were not very interesting, or were even outright boring. None of the "Areas of Interest" that I found were interesting.

Not quite agree with that. Perhaps you should have tried less to hide your actions in relation to the Russian units.

[R3vo 2654]

4 hours ago, jakerod said:

  Hide contents

Did you listen to all the different radio channels in the last mission? Was that still not enough?

  

Maybe it's because I think the campaign was overall awesome and I want a follow-up 😉

[ISparkle 49]

1 hour ago, R3vo said:

Maybe it's because I think the campaign was overall awesome and I want a follow-up 😉

Yeah, left me wanting follow-up for sure. If this was intended, it was effective.

 

As far as the feedback goes, I just remembered, anyone had trouble listening into LDF nets? For some reason, I could never get LDF net convos, hence, I feel that I got way less side missions. I also had to resort to shooting everyone due to me being unable to use the device against LDF effectively most of the times.

[lex__1 422]

16 minutes ago, ISparkle said:

Yeah, left me wanting follow-up for sure. If this was intended, it was effective.

 

As far as the feedback goes, I just remembered, anyone had trouble listening into LDF nets? For some reason, I could never get LDF net convos, hence, I feel that I got way less side missions. I also had to resort to shooting everyone due to me being unable to use the device against LDF effectively most of the times.

You must select an audio file with the same name as the group to which you are sending the message: if the group is "delta" (as seen on the analyzer screen), then send a call to the corresponding group - "Delta, where are you?" or "Delta follow there ...". Messages must be sent on behalf of which you were recommended to use in order to avoid suspicion of a false message.

[R3vo 2654]

 

That doesn't look nice. I think combo box of type 42 would look nicer. The drawback would be that one had to go though multiple topics.

[cub1 11]

On 7/29/2019 at 1:16 PM, tpw said:

I wonder what is going on. I'm used to shit framerates in Arma, but Contact takes it to a new level. Editor missions on Livonia give acceptable framerates outside of towns and less than acceptable framerates in larger towns (the "new" buildings are CPU killers), but Contact itself is just sluggish everywhere. 

I read somewhere on this forum to disable Battleye from Arma 3 Launcher if finding low frames with "Contact". Frame rate has been ok for me, but I still disabled Battleye as its single player content.

[zimms 22]

5 hours ago, lex__1 said:

That's what this is about. The eventful final mission did not give me a hint of listening to the air. Or I missed something. If a player can easily miss something - this is a disadvantage that needs to be eliminated.

 

I guess by final "mission" he meant the epilogue/outro. You can still change frequency there and listen to several radio channels. You will have to "replay" it several times if you want to listen to all of it since some channels are concurrent.

[ISparkle 49]

4 hours ago, lex__1 said:

You must select an audio file with the same name as the group to which you are sending the message: if the group is "delta" (as seen on the analyzer screen), then send a call to the corresponding group - "Delta, where are you?" or "Delta follow there ...". Messages must be sent on behalf of which you were recommended to use in order to avoid suspicion of a false message.

It wasn't that part I had trouble with. My trouble with Spectrum Device was picking up signals. I can point my device directly at a team leader or squad leader and most of times it just won't pick up radio signals on military radar spectrum device. Sometimes, even on the right frequency and my device pointed straight to the leaders, and radio operators, they won't pick up my spoof signals. Maybe my spectrum device was faulty the whole time since I seemed to have had troubles with what streamers had 0 trouble with. 

[Glow 181]

38 minutes ago, ISparkle said:

It wasn't that part I had trouble with. My trouble with Spectrum Device was picking up signals. I can point my device directly at a team leader or squad leader and most of times it just won't pick up radio signals on military radar spectrum device. Sometimes, even on the right frequency and my device pointed straight to the leaders, and radio operators, they won't pick up my spoof signals. Maybe my spectrum device was faulty the whole time since I seemed to have had troubles with what streamers had 0 trouble with. 

Have you change an antenna on your SD? ID signal have a low frequency so sometimes it take time, you have to aim and wait until you see spikes on screen.