Arma 3 Apex: Old Man Feedback

[Kreu 16]

7 hours ago, James Bonds said:

Now a quick note on fps, why is it so low? I understand low fps on multiplayer servers but this is a single-player one person scenario to me it just doesn't make sense but it does not ruin the experience since I'm so used to low fps in Arma 3.

@James Bonds
I am by no means an expert on this subject. But i do create missions by myself and i can tell you that certain scripts can have quite an big impact on the performance.
It might be that quite a lot of scripts are constantly running in this Szenario. Testing the knowsabout value OPFOR units have about the player, Testing if the player is holding any weapon, spawn scripts for all the ambient units and civilians. Each time these units spawn they have to get initialized and start moving to their waypoints and start their pathfinding.
Im pretty sure there is a lot going on in this mission.

@darkChozo
I also like the current saving system. I only miss having more than one slot for my save points. Currently if something breaks the mission and it gets saved you gotta restart everything.

[XerXesCZ 89]

6 hours ago, Kreu said:

I also like the current saving system. I only miss having more than one slot for my save points. Currently if something breaks the mission and it gets saved you gotta restart everything.

 

Oh, but there are actually two autosaves present in this scenario, the newest autosave and the one before it.

[TheLegendaryMX 0]

Hey Bohemia Interactive Team!

First of all: Thanks for that; it's great! I like the opportunity to have a SP mission which isn't only war-based; and it's also a great story (so far I've played yet). Please make missions like this on every map and please bring the mechanics and functions into the mission/ Eden Editor to allow us to make story missions by ourselfes! (Like sleeping, Time-skipping, money, better Intel, ...)

Please make the following points (better):

- more Auto-Save-points or saving after waiting

- (we'll se, for the moment no more)

 

I love you all! Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Sincerely

TheLegendaryMX

[Godis_1 63]

THis is a great scenario! I really like the sandbox-style gameplay together with a good story to follow. The given freedom on how to approach missions is good. However, there are still some minor things that you might want to consider.

At certain points of the story could be more auto-save points.

The mission where you have to take photos (at the abandoned CSAT camp) seems not to trigger progress properly - or I'm just missing something. But I've been searching the whole town, and besides of 3 photos I was able to take, there's nothing left anymore, and the mission doesn't continue. After closing and reloading the game, I was able to take another photo and continue the mission. though it would be better to at least mark the entire area in which we have to search, with a bigger circle or something. Because it can be pretty annoying to not knowing where to look approximately.

So far the balancing seems pretty well. It's not too hard, not too easy. But I have to play it through first to be able to give better feedback.

Btw I love these immersion adding features, like the checkpoints. It adds a good feeling.

[remi6 18]

Hey Bohemia, love your work so far. Definitely excited about the Incubator project and hope to see you put out more content like this. I've found some bugs in my first playthrough i'd like to report, some may be repeats but i'll do my best to document everything i've found so far and add some comments.

 

First and foremost, I believe there are some bugged tasks:

 

Bugged task 1:

Spoiler

this mission never worked for me. i would complete the task of destroying "at least one silo" (but always destroying both), and whether i blew them up, or the rebels did, the task would never complete, and Samjo would call to say that the mission was a failure and we were to retreat.

 

 

Bugged task 2:

Spoiler

this task was even more frustrating to repeatedly fail to complete, only to end up destroying the mobile AA, the static AA radome, every single comms tower on those 2 hills for good measure, only to be left with no feedback as to whether or not i had completed the task.

 

This happens quite often when I am engaging an enemy and the QRF responds:

Spoiler

 

CSAT VTOL stuck in the air, not moving:

Spoiler

 

Located at the airfield where the CSAT weapons lab is.

 

Map Menu buttons become jumbled nearly each time I play. (If I save and quit and reload the mission, it works, but then at some point it breaks again).

Spoiler

Here I have "Call Log" selected, but my Contacts are displayed.

 

 

Here I have "Contacts" selected, but nothing is displayed.

 

 

 

Here I have "Call" selected but my Call Log is displayed.

 

 

Extra notes:

• A friend of mine told me that right out of the gate he accidentally ran over Dr. Drabek and nothing happened. It essentially broke the game for him. It seems only logical if Dr. Drabek dies, your mission is over.
• A.I. does not react realistically enough when their comrades are falling dead near them. They also barely react to explosions going off, regardless of proximity to them.
• Safehouses's Fast Travel function often times just stops functioning and I have no idea how to make it function again. I will arrive, be told Safe Travel available, only to walk a few meters away, lose it, and then never get it back regardless of where I am in relation to the Safehouse.
• Can you disable the constant Get Medicine for Doctor notification? Perhaps a less intrusive reminder in our map/menu?
• Can you find a way to allow the player to essentially ignore a phone call when engaged in combat automatically, or manually when not in combat, and allow them to hear the voice recording via voicemail or text?
• I have called for L'Ensemble to attack certain areas, only to have the "5 minutes" phone call after waiting nearly 20 minutes or more, and then they don't even show up.
• CSAT QRF helicopters seem to be having a difficult time responding as a QRF. 99% of the time I have encountered them, they loiter around with a crew full of soldiers or hover statically and make themselves an easy target.
• CSAT armed patrol boats have driven within 3m of me and never reacted to my presence. I was armed (and driving one of their boats).

Overall, i've been having a lot of fun despite the bugs -- but the biggest ones I mentioned first thing in my reply here are the biggest game breaking issues that have only ended up causing me frustration. I am currently torn between restarting my mission or waiting for some hotfixes from you fine folk.

 

Hope this was constructive. I know not a lot of the bug reports were very detailed but as I continue to play I will compile more data for you.

 

Thank you.

[soceris 56]

(grid 063041 near Katkoula)

The criminals from the hidden location are still alive for some reason.

Spoiler

 

[Rydygier 1309]

Another observations:

 

1.

Spoiler

I can confirm - destroying any of the two radars on the Mount Tanoa doesn't push this questline forward - stuck.

 

2. Regarding stealth/detection system

 

After more tests my guess is, it works based on knowsAbout combined with restricted gear, actions or areas. At least in case of restricted areas seems enough for the AI to have knowsAbout high enough to react on the player inside such an area, no matter, if "physically" this AI possibly could see area violation. It can be behind the wall or watching opposite direction, it will react as soon player enters restricted area. To make it more realistic, I would suggest, script-wise, on the top of knowsAbout add three-step detection check: 

- distance. If not too far:

(inbetween these two knowsAbout condition could be put)

- orientation. If inside FOV arc (not behind the AI):

- LOS check. If there's not obstructed LOS: reaction. 

 

3. Regarding "phones' bad timing" - I can suggest, what I did in Pilgrimage. I had two variables. One was true, if the player knew about any enemy, another - if any enemy knew about the player. First one meant "stealth mode", second - "combat mode". In both modes phone calls was rejected by the player, and attempts to make same call was repeated after some time. Here however there's third factor - incognito. Only, if incognito is broken (player is "wanted"), calls should be rejected. But if in the incognito he is not hostile towards AI, then likely there's no "stealth" not "combat" mode anyway. BTW I would suggest indicate somehow level of suspicion somewhere out of the map, otherwise without GPS active, player may have no clue, what's going on until he open the map. 

 

4. Regarding QRF, the chopper. Seems, it does similar thing, the chopper in my Pilgrimage does, namely SAD waypoint. Can't say, what it does next, because in the two cases, I saw, the chopper stuck mid air during SAD and was just hovering, probably indefinitely (I felt merciful and I shot down second one with AT missile to put end on his misery). Same was happening sometimes in Pilgrimage (nothing new, it was so at least since 2015, I recorded a playthrough in this year with this issue shown, it was A3 1.40 stable). I suspect, the reason may be some issue in the SAD waypoint behavior code. 

 

5. Don't know yet, how it will develop, but I wonder, how useful l'Ensamble support is. I mean, if the player can achieve everything alone (so far my case), there may be no motivation to dance tango with Syndicat, and in such case whole, not so small aspect may appear redundant - would be a shame. We'll see.

 

6. 

Spoiler

Dr. Drabek's quest for deliver medicines for malaria: there's several guys listed and time pressure, how long until drugs deplete. Nice, I like that as long it is not too quick, but not sure, how each package affects this deadline. Seems non-linear? At first I gave 7 at a time, which resulted with value like 14-24 or so. Then I gave another two and value raised to 32-64. Weird.

 

7. Loading saves takes usually too short for me to read all these interesting hints displayed during that process.

 

8. I know, it's not trivial, it's hard to do believeably in fact, but I'll note this just pro forma, not expecting any remedy - if I snipe some AI from the safe distance, my preferable way, his comrades does little to none about that. I've cleared the checkpoint that way, one by one, some, from the killed unit's group I guess, seemed alarmed for a while, but in general, all AIs was passive about the situation, just some QRF patrol arrived, which allowed me to assume, they at least called for help. 

 

9. I've rather negative opinion on saving mechanics blended into character's activity. Paradoxically, it breaks immersion in a way. Protagonist does things because of out-of-scenario reasons. Like going to sleep not because, he would in his situation do such thing, but because the player wants to save the progress. I do not like this. It's healthy, IMO, to keep narrative layer (what is going on inside the gameplay) and meta-gameplay layer (save/load, options, settings etc.) separated. 

 

10. Would be useful to have an option to fast travel from anywhere to one of discovered FT points, if it is safe. Without this, so far found no reason to use FT even once (especially, if without my vehicle). 

 

Still having great fun (*note, I'm playing with custom mod re-enabling free saves button, condicio sine qua non as for me), I like, how the island is enliven, not desolated. Once I described, what kind of scenarios I would love to see in Arma. That's the closest so far - personal, immersive, open, freedom of the choice, how to approach to the tasks, and all as true singleplayer... Also I like procedural elements, wherever they show up, not sure, how many of them here, but these are great for replayability, as preventing each playthrough repeativity. Anyway, it's definitelly worthy of polishing and adding into official platform. 

 

And, if I'm not mistaken, I see number of small mechanical inspirations from Pilgrimage? Cool, if so. 🙂

 

 

[miklin 1]

Some Feedback fro a causal Player

 

Saving Game

I wasn’t so convinced in the beginning, but after while it makes sense along the game’s narrative. The sleeping bag save works fine, if in distance to the enemy.

 

Fast travel.

It’s ok and appreciable, otherwise you are in a walking and driving simulator. Yet, it won’t work time by time from Oldman’s house.

One detail to realism: Just have a fast travel button, but have the time at destination point adjusted to the time spend by regular travel by car.   

 

Murderous Furniture

I got killed almost more often by a sofa, table ore a pallet than by any enemy, MUST be fixed!

Even the Sofa killed me once at home before I could save the game. Sucked me right in, like a black hole.

@ 109078 Pallet

@ 135083 Table

@ 136083 Table

@ 124084 Sofa

 

Looting

Looting to build up a substantial cash reserve is a tedious task. Each single item must be picket up and stored in a car. Filling up a Truck is an extreme time-consuming undertaking. Not being much of a scripter a “loot all” function would be appreciable as looting is a major part of the game. (black market/ stash boxes/ buying medical supplies.

Looting tip: Saving the game cause death enemies to disappear with all their inventory/ loot.

Before saving take the enemies inventory and drop it again, then save the game (sleeping bag/ Save house). Bodies still disappear after save, but inventory remains on place to be picket up when time.  

Filling up the resistance stash boxes give about 2/3 of the pricing you get for the same item at the black market. However, filling the stash boxes raise the reputation with the resistance which in return accumulate a better buy / sell pricing at the black marked and provide with more missions.

 

There is not much of a story to the game, you do your missions, Loot, supply the Dr. with Drugs, do some missions again. The freedom of the complete map and its action spots makes it worthwhile to log into it for an hr or so.

 

End Game

Not sure yet if an end game is planned, once the Malaria thread is solved there is not much to do except of continuing to lift check points.  

 

Dr. Dràbek

The permanent notification Dr. Dràbek needs more medical supply is a bit annoying. And yes, he needs an infinite amount of it. I suppose this keeps on going until the malaria strain is found (by accident I suppose, as no hints are giving on the location) and the counteragent is brought to the Dr. to produce a permanent antidot.   

Proposal for notification: make it as an urgent message when the remaining time has come down to 2 hrs. left.

 

Check points

Working all right for me, if approached in car correctly. But there is a logic drop trough.

If approaching in civil clothing, but loot stored in the car inventory you are under immediate fire which renders the drone scan at the check point basically obsolete.

If loot is not openly visible than it is not visible, period.

 

Radio message after detection by enemy.

The voice loop is utterly distracting after a while “we have an enemy at 4 o’ Clock.”  

Could be solved by having the message once at first detection and after this just mark the area in the map as with mine fields. A final radio voice “we have lost the enemy” once your leave out of the area.  

 

Refueling

Refueling is at any gas station possible, just not that cheap.

 

Known issue:

Finally change the action menu. Placing a satchel charge while intending to open a door is an old Issue and overdue to be fixed since ever.

 

Overall: A nice single player game bringing back the attention to the Tanoa Map it deserved.

After hours of play, I finally get know my neighborhood and the map in general.

 

 

  

[pierremgi 4853]

On 12/23/2019 at 6:54 PM, remi6 said:

Bugged task 1:

  Hide contents

this mission never worked for me. i would complete the task of destroying "at least one silo" (but always destroying both), and whether i blew them up, or the rebels did, the task would never complete, and Samjo would call to say that the mission was a failure and we were to retreat.

 

Map Menu buttons become jumbled nearly each time I play. (If I save and quit and reload the mission, it works, but then at some point it breaks again).

 

Extra notes:

• A.I. does not react realistically enough when their comrades are falling dead near them. They also barely react to explosions going off, regardless of proximity to them.
• Can you find a way to allow the player to essentially ignore a phone call when engaged in combat automatically, or manually when not in combat, and allow them to hear the voice recording via voicemail or text?
• I have called for L'Ensemble to attack certain areas, only to have the "5 minutes" phone call after waiting nearly 20 minutes or more, and then they don't even show up.
• CSAT QRF helicopters seem to be having a difficult time responding as a QRF. 99% of the time I have encountered them, they loiter around with a crew full of soldiers or hover statically and make themselves an easy target.
• CSAT armed patrol boats have driven within 3m of me and never reacted to my presence. I was armed (and driving one of their boats).

 

Confirmed.

[remi6 18]

I think it would be a  solid touch to the mission if, once you've made large strides towards combating the opponents on Tanoa and hurting their occupation, the mission moves to a new phase where as you take out bases and checkpoints, you can have L'Ensemble move in and occupy those positions to essentially permanently remove the opponents from those areas. At least CSAT. Gendarmarie would be a constant opponent due to being local law enforcement, but that could be handled a little differently.

 

Edit: this would give the player a more tangible sense of the overall scenario changing due to their actions, and a measurable way to see how close to victory the player is.

[Tochka-U 0]

An image of the probelm , not much to explain, fast traveled to the safe house at 070-097 walked out and saw a 2 man patrol both of them wearing AAF gear

[five_seven5-7 56]

Great scenario, like Scouting Missions in the "Adapt" Campaign with extra steps

 

Cons gameplay:

 

• More save-game slots ( main quest; side mission; sleeping bag; shelter)
• Like Far Cry, cleared checkpoints should empty or occupied by syndicats (each one becomes more difficult to conquer with bigger QRF teams)
•  

Spoiler

Sabotage mission with armed vehicle not always explode the Police Station even with the car near the front door

• If possible like Hitman, for the better or the worst, if the player uses the same clothes,vehicles and armament should granted access to some areas. In contact with opposite forces should engage.( I´ve remember something like this on the pre-alpha arma 3)
• In every gas stations also the repair option

• On 12/25/2019 at 7:09 PM, miklin said:

  Looting

  Looting to build up a substantial cash reserve is a tedious task. Each single item must be picket up and stored in a car. Filling up a Truck is an extreme time-consuming undertaking. Not being much of a scripter a “loot all” function would be appreciable as looting is a major part of the game. (black market/ stash boxes/ buying medical supplies.

  Looting tip: Saving the game cause death enemies to disappear with all their inventory/ loot.

  Before saving take the enemies inventory and drop it again, then save the game (sleeping bag/ Save house). Bodies still disappear after save, but inventory remains on place to be picket up when time.  

  Filling up the resistance stash boxes give about 2/3 of the pricing you get for the same item at the black market. However, filling the stash boxes raise the reputation with the resistance which in return accumulate a better buy / sell pricing at the black marked and provide with more missions.

   

Arma 3 engine:

• Better AI behavior some times they don´t react to explosions or gunshots
• Repack magazine function 

[Morbo5131 16]

4 hours ago, five_seven5-7 said:

• Like Far Cry, cleared checkpoints should empty or occupied by syndicats (each one becomes more difficult to conquer with bigger QRF teams)

 

I could only get behind this if CSAT would try and take them back (And usually succeed even if the player tries to intervene). Syndikat are insurgents and probably wouldn't dream of trying to hold territory as anything other than a distraction.

[froggyluv 2136]

Interesting how many people are noting the lack of AI reactions to gunfire/nearby shots and explosions -these have been lacking forever and hardly doubt they're going to do something about it at this point (Engine level). Such a strange thing not to address as its totally doable (Mission Level)

[br2600 0]

I grabbed a copy of this and started playing it.   Like some others, I stopped when things got too difficult and there was no way to save, except by going all the way back home or one other location.

 

Bugs Encountered, some may have already been mentioned. (contains spoilers)

Spoiler

As previously reported by remi6, I did not get credit for blowing up the radar dome or the aux radar truck, although other aspects of game play hinted that I did.

I elected to purchase a rebreather for the upcoming dive mission, but it did not show up in inventory, but my money was refunded.  Later when I came back to the game after a break, I noted that I was wearing the rebreather, and I still had my money and I was able to complete the dive, so I'd call this a bug in my favor.

 

One objective that others have noted is impossible to complete without killing everybody in the area.  Another one is only possible to complete covertly, there are just far too many enemy solders for one person to take on.

[br2600 0]

On fast travel:

Fast Travel is not always bi-directional, meaning you can fast travel to a destination, but not return via fast travel.

Spoiler

The camp in the center of the map appears to be the hub.  However only about 50% of the destination safe houses have fast travel going back.  I don't know if this is really a bug or a feature to force you to find some means of transport nearby.   When I took on the mission of car bombing the police station, I had a long walk across the island to get to a safe hub that had fast travel working to get back to the main island.

 

[br2600 0]

On 12/22/2019 at 4:42 PM, darkChozo said:

 

I've mentioned it earlier in the thread, but try sleeping more. Sleeping is free at caches and cheap at safehouses, doesn't take up any time, heals you to full and saves the game. You can even create saves anywhere by waiting with a sleeping bag in your inventory. It's super helpful if you know you're about to get into a fight.

I tried this, but I got the message "Can't wait with enemy nearby".   I suppose I have to retreat a distance, then try again until I can successfully "wait".

[Rydygier 1309]

Spoiler

Autonomous turrets (supposedly disabled BTW) talk to me in Chinese, raise the alarm and try to aim at me, shoot too. 

 

[pierremgi 4853]

Sure, at least this "campaign" seems to be a good "best of feedback" for all Vanilla bugs and weaknesses.

Repairing "old man" could be nice.

Improving Vanilla Arma on standard FSMs, new commands (not BIN please), or new/improved modules could be a must. In your project?

 

[Kreu 16]

@XerXesCZ
 

On 12/23/2019 at 11:30 AM, XerXesCZ said:

 

Oh, but there are actually two autosaves present in this scenario, the newest autosave and the one before it.

Im finally back at home now.
Yes you are right there are two save slots.
When im sleeping or the game is autosaving its always using the upper save slot.
The last time it used the lower slot was pretty much at the start of the scenario.
So currently i have the option between a broken savepoint (upper save slot) or practikally restart (lower save slot) 😄.
I case you wondering why my upper save is broken.
 

Spoiler

I can't complete the quest "Locate the CSAT unit" because i can't give Keystone the documents.

 

[fobrien2007 0]

i cant do any more support attacks is stuck on the lumper mill place were csat are everyone is killed and i have slept a few hours in it and is still the same been like this since yesterday and cant now get help off the resistance wont let me use it after trying to call samjo 

[quickdraw_01 4]

When I approached 3 Syndikat guys standing around a M900 Helo they said "I shouldn't be here" and then they lit me up, it was on the island where I completed the blow up the police building with the car bomb, all other Syndikat soldiers don't shoot me.

 

[Greenfist 1863]

11 minutes ago, quickdraw_01 said:

When I approached 3 Syndikat guys standing around a M900 Helo they said "I shouldn't be here" and then they lit me up, it was on the island where I completed the blow up the police building with the car bomb, all other Syndikat soldiers don't shoot me.

 

I think that's intentional. The Syndikat likes you but they don't like you touching all their toys. I've seen the same happen in one situation where they had apparently captured a Gendarmerie van. They should give some time to leave the area before shooting though.

[bingo_fuel 10]

I like the mission but also noticed some problems but they have all been mentioned already multiple times. But I ran in a new problem:

 

Spoiler

I cannot complete the deliver ID task. The guy is standing here but I have no option to give something to him. Did I have to pick up the ID? I did not find anything in the house. Even went back and checked it again.

[B. Aidan 0]

On 12/17/2019 at 5:04 PM, FlameTower said:

I think there should be an option that allows allows you to turn on manual saving, or auto saves should be more frequent. i hit a small rock and my car randomly flew up into the air, and now i have to replay 1.5 hours of the scenario.

 

edit: after playing a bit more i realized that the game auto saves enough but it only saves the last one. it should save at least the last 3 so you can go back to before everything is messed up.

 

Some of the variables don't show up properly: 
https://gyazo.com/b48c70f54f3e8a1adb40eb37e5df64ff

 

French characters don't show up and leave a blank space

There's an option in game--->difficulty about multiple saves