Arma 3 Apex: Old Man Feedback

[flyer_ofp.info 1]

On 12/22/2019 at 5:10 PM, Kreu said:

I have a problem with the main quest.
 

  Hide contents

I found the evidence in Haircourt and got tasked to take it to Keystone. But once i arrive there i can't give it to Miller.
I also have stuff from the "destroy fuel depot" mission. I found it right next to the entrance. But i can't give this to Miller either.

 

 

I have the very same problem:

Spoiler

The "Top Secret Documents" from the CSAT base in Harcourt are in my inventory, but besides the greeting, there is no response from Miller and the task is NOT finished.

 

However after sleeping, the "Prevent Malaria Crisis" quests started with the subquests "Get the counteragent" and "Give the doctor the counteragent" --> does anybody of you know if this is the actual result from handing over the documents, even if I did not get any dialog?

 

Furthermore without any dialog, I have no clue where to search for the counteragent.

 

 

[flyer_ofp.info 1]

General feedback and findings:

 

1. I like this scenario. Thank you very much BIS! Keep up the good work.

2. If Arthur follows at the beginning, he might get lost because the AI cannot pass between two stones on a ridge close to the village, approach from the starting town (usual AI problems, not really Old Man specific, I'd guess). The distance between the stones is big enough, but I needed to collect him and walk another way around this position.

3. When the sleeping hint appeared, it showed at the bottom $str_a3_missions_f_oldman_cfghints_oldmanupdate_timeshift0_0

4. Howard asks to find his notes. After that I see a yellow ? marker on the map. The marker title is "Location" and the description is "Description of the location". --> I'd guess that might be the marker for Howards notes?

5. When I hit "Messenge", it shows me "Me - I found that documents" with a picture of Dr. Drabék instead of mine.

 

That's all for now folks. As I cannot finish another task (see dedicated post above), I'll stop testing/playing for now and carry on when it has been fixed. (I do not have the time to start over again with the hope that it will work next time).

 

Despite the flaws, I'm really happy about the Old Man Scenario 🙂

 

Edited January 1, 2020 by R0adki11
missing spoiler tags

[mmm 35]

I've seen people complain about save so I'll throw my hat in as well. IMO when it comes to game I don't believe in undo 40min+ of player progress as a consequence of death, at least this is not the kind of game.

 

Also put all the tutorial message in map screen or field manual, people(like me) may need to review those custom mechanics more than the once in a life time popup, and there are quite a few of them.

 

I'm not far into the game yet and have been taking it very, very slow. But the one man army thing is really a mismatch for ARMA IMHO. I get there are other, more difficult challenges associated with making it otherwise from where ARMA is today, but I hope someday they can get there, and before that happens, make efforts to pave the way to that destination. Original East Wind campaign made attempted to portray warfare, if in a limited fashion on many different levels. But this "old man", it is NOT WAR.

[rsoftokz 288]

I've played this mission several times

Spoiler

( but never gone to the end further than splinter cell way to approch the dome after I did almost all the other tasks)

 

I experienced several bugs as mentionned in previous posts by other players.

It is a cool scenario, largely inspired by Rydygier's Pilgrimage mission on many aspects. (that's fine for me, my almost only way to play Arma is Pilgrimage ) 

As Said by others, Saving method is not the best choice and it kills action on my opinion.

I noticed you can be killed by objects if you stand to close of them, that is boring. (crate, sofa, beds, etc....)

I firstly played this mission on Arma with all DLC activated ( Contact and GM) and then you cannot have acces to the phone menu and action ( unable to call for the bomb activation ) so I played it only with Apex and some other mods.
 

Spoiler

I've tried to pass throught a gendarmerie Check point with a stolen gendarmerie pickup, with gun and ammo on me ( no explosives devices) and it works....

As I eared guys talking about lazy corrupted gendarmes,  so I guess it is the reason.

BTW it is a nice mission that needs tweaks and improvements

remember that is a Beta version.

[zukov 490]

some hours ago Old Man has had an update there is a changelog?

[R0adki11 3949]

Can everyone who posts in this thread try to remember to use the spoiler tags when discussing elements of the scenario. 

[pierremgi 4879]

15 minutes ago, zukov said:

some hours ago Old Man has had an update there is a changelog?

On Steam? Nothing has changed since dec 18th.

 

IMHO, too many uncompleted tasks...
 

Spoiler

 

related to building destructions like silos or radar(s)

You can sweep the whole bases, plant charge(s) or fire missiles, nothing happens when the building/radar/launcher is(are) destroyed.

 

 

[zukov 490]

4 minutes ago, pierremgi said:

On Steam? Nothing has changed since dec 18th.

today i had an update , notified me in launcher, i surprised too, to be picky 548 mb in download

 

[rsoftokz 288]

11 hours ago, zukov said:

today i had an update , notified me in launcher, i surprised too, to be picky 548 mb in download

 

 nothing new for me neither since DEC 18th

 

[alky_lee 279]

12 hours ago, zukov said:

today i had an update , notified me in launcher, i surprised too, to be picky 548 mb in download

 

The only update I have had was for Ace. As BI have gone away for the Xmas holidays I would not expect any updates for Old Man.

[zukov 490]

2 hours ago, alky_lee said:

The only update I have had was for Ace. As BI have gone away for the Xmas holidays I would not expect any updates for Old Man.

maybe is a steam problem, I cleaned the registry before , but the download it was real

[flyer_ofp.info 1]

On 12/31/2019 at 3:08 PM, flyer_ofp.info said:

 

I have the very same problem:

  Reveal hidden contents

The "Top Secret Documents" from the CSAT base in Harcourt are in my inventory, but besides the greeting, there is no response from Miller and the task is NOT finished.

 

However after sleeping, the "Prevent Malaria Crisis" quests started with the subquests "Get the counteragent" and "Give the doctor the counteragent" --> does anybody of you know if this is the actual result from handing over the documents, even if I did not get any dialog?

 

Furthermore without any dialog, I have no clue where to search for the counteragent.

 

 

 

Coming back to this point:

@Kreu did you had any mods activated? I noticed that I forgot to switch them off (CBA, RHS and CUP)... If I deactivate them now, Old Man cannot load.

[R0adki11 3949]

1 hour ago, flyer_ofp.info said:

 

Coming back to this point:

@Kreu did you had any mods activated? I noticed that I forgot to switch them off (CBA, RHS and CUP)... If I deactivate them now, Old Man cannot load.

 

Well the save file will have those mods in. So you will need to play with them or restart without them.

[klaki892 3]

Spent about 10 hours in-game before i "finished" my first runthrough. Here's everything i've found in terms of bugs/feedback:

 

Inconsistent Fast Travel

As it has been mentioned before, Fast travel randomly breaks when travelling from safehouses and accomodations back and forth.

The only way to fix it seems to travel to a remote safehouse (and maybe it'll let you fast travel again) or to go back to your house, or the L'Ensemble camp itself

I've noticed it immediately breaks if you operate with another "interactive" region before going back to the same safehouse:

Steps to reproduce:

1. visit the public safehouse located at grid 092059
2. Interact with either the Market vendor or..  
   Spoiler

   the nearby cache supply crate

    

3. return to the safehouse and notice the fast travel option does not reactivate.

Destroy Missions

Spoiler

1. The "Destroy House" mission at the beginning is the only mission that worked without an issue for me. By placing the Explosive charge in the middle of the house and it registering as destroyed.
2. [Feedback] The "Destroy Police Station" mission i was unable to complete using the car bomb. i placed the car right in front of the building, on the side facing the road, and behind it where the staircase is on three separate attempts, none of which blew up the station itself. In the end, i bought a Explosive Satchel (Explosive Charge did NOT destroy the building when attempted) and took the building down with that. 
3. [Bug] "Destroy Silos" as others have mentioned, the objective never did trigger as completed, but only sometimes was i told to "abandon" the mission. (usually after 1 squad gets wiped out by reinforcements) 
   

 

For other destroy missions not mentioned, i didn't have to complete to beat the scenario as will be explained below...

 

Fast Travelling does not elapse time by default.

Whenever i fast travelled by not changing the default settings for time elapsed, i would arrive at the time that i left the original place. no time would be elapsed.

Upon dedicated testing, this was also true if i set my own "arrive by" time. No time would elapse.

 

Quick Response Reinforcements from a patrol attack have some interesting quirks.

Spoiler

[Feedback/Bug?]

 

TL;DR: a Mi-28 Attack chopper stayed around after my heat went away and "dropped off" an entire 6-7 person Viper Squad upon landing.

 

As i was running back to base (because broken fast travel) i came across a 3 man CSAT squad after seeing a 7 man L'Esamble group patrolling. 

Because i accidently ran into them and gained heat, i took them out and was looting them when a Gendarmes police offroad came to respond. They were taken out by the nearby patrol group.

Then an Qulin with a squad of CSAT respondants arrived. I assisted with taking them out. 

Then, an Attack Helicopter (Mi-28) came in. Knowing i was prepared to take it on, i hid in the nearby grass fields, the guerrilla group was obviously obliterated from the attack chopper. 

[Bug] After the area was marked "clear" and heat was removed, the helicopter hovered statically  nearby for about 5 minutes in-game time. Since it was "clear" i went to go loot the two vehicles, while on my way the Mi-28 began landing in a nearby area. As i was moving to snipe the pilots out, it took back off after landing for 30 seconds and then flew away. The next thing that happened was a Viper Squad was coming from the area where the Mi-28 had just landed. leading me to believe that they had spawned from the helicopter's interactions. 

having no choice but to take them out.i secured myself some highly valuable Viper equipment and weaponry. which leads to some more bugs mentioned below.  

 

 

Thermal Sights are broken at night.

This appears to be a contrast issue to make the night seem dark as hell. It breaks the color palettes for both White hot and Black hot.

Images of the bug/side effect (NVG at night, BHOT at night, BHOT during day) : https://imgur.com/a/NaNb2o0

Depending on the time of day, its also unusable during the day (when i got my thermal optics it was this way initally) it seems to have corrected itself after some restarts of the game and senario. (for Day only)

[Feedback] This makes it nigh-impossible to use thermals at , which when i acquired sights for them i was very excited to use them because of the much needed advantage for one-man army skirmishes. But using them at night proved impossible when you cant see anything

 (Side note: Likewise, when driving around at night and you use car lights, the area in front of the car is just a blinding white, if you drove up right next to a NPC they would appear entirelly white. suggesting to me this was an overall color palette/contrast issue at night)

 

Helicopters get free refueling at Gas stations

I assume this is a bug considering its costs for ground vehicles.

 

[Feedback]Thank you for silence weapons and quick kills not raising heat.

I was almost able to take out an entire CSAT outpost because of attacking at night with a silenced weapon and i really enjoyed the ability to do so. Although im unsure if the enemy reacts to dead bodies lying around... 

 

Endgame related bugs & feedback

Spoiler

After playing for about 10 hours (in-game) and having 47 reverts apparently, i was starting to get tired of the overall scenario so i started goofing around, and wound up beating the scenario as a result. I was nowhere near the endgame normally, and as a result some dialogue obviously happened out of context and started breaking...

 

[Feedback] Remove the helicopter from grid 045022 . This let me cheese the entire scenario by having access to a helicopter, as explained below. If this is intentional, i have mixed feelings.

Yes it is a syndicate helicopter, and [feedback] there should be some hint/tooltip/warning that they dont like you touching their things or going to close to them if they arent patrolling.  But because there appears to be no noticeable side effects from killing the 4 guys guarding it and flying off other than a depressing phone call, it's essentially free real estate and because of the helicopter fueling bug mentioned earlier, i now had a free fully fueled helicopter to "fast travel" with supplies

 

[Feedback] Remove the Ifrit GMG from the Silo base mission.

Find your own back after after blowing up the silo? Okay. Well, with a GMG sitting right there i drove that right on out. and hilarity pretty much ensured on the rest of the island from that point on. As long as AT guys were taken out, i pretty much had free reign over the entire island after that. Busting through checkpoints, blowing up whatever i needed, i was unstoppable as the AI doesnt know what to do when you roll up in a nigh-bulletproof IFV that blasts everyone immediately. (i tried blowing up the police station with just the GMG gun, didnt work) This would've been even worse if i had a way to transport it over the main island.

 

[Feedback] Dressing up as the enemy is almost extremely abusable. (and i like it because i managed to exploit it)

Using the full Viper special purpose loadout from one of the dead bodies, i noticed that i was able to walk around on enemy airports and in enemy bases. Only being "detected" when i was within 50m and the person saw me. otherwise, everyone ignores your presence, even in vehicles,  which leads to how i won the game. However, i do like that if you attempt to go into any vehicles, the "its an enemy spy!" line plays, and heat is raised and your gone. This stopped me from just walking up to an airfield and stealing a VTOL. 

 

The No-Fly condition/warning for the CSAT island is broken if you are flying with CSAT outfit on.

[Feedback] Its extremely hard to hear the warning while flying a helicopter, so i didnt even know they warned you until i was later taking off from the island. 

Upon testing, they will immediately shoot you down and you will gain heat if you travel without CSAT clothing on (approached the island while naked and got shot down) 

However, the No-Fly audio warning does still occur, but you will not be shot down while wearing CSAT Equipment despite being an "unknown aircraft" 

 

[[Feedback] How i beat the game

You can probably piece together what happens from learning about the above facts of the game. I had already uploaded the flashdrive to take out the autonomous guns, and seeing that i couldn't steal a VTOL to just rain missiles on the Weapons Lab, I went "covert" operation style.

Bought 2 Explosive satchels from a trader, put on my full viper suit, flew my helicopter straight into the heart of the enemy island, landed behind the Weapons Lab dome (inside the sandbags) so the guys out front wouldn't have visible sight on me, killed the one guy inside the dome with a silenced weapon, planted the charges, went back to my helicopter, as i was flying away from the island, kaboom. Success. 

For obvious reasons this broke the entire dialogue track from whatever was supposed to happen. as miller gives his lines which make no sense to how i just beat the core objective, but from there the game played out how its supposed to until you get "mission completed" end screen. i managed to beat the scenario before the "Get Doctor Medicine" timer ever really became a game point for me.

 

Im proud of myself for figuring that out, but it's a mixed bag whether i should've been able to break the entire scenario like i did because of how two functions work (or dont work) together, the no-fly warning and wearing enemy clothing. 

 

[Feedback] why does the special purpose helmet only sell for $82? the helmet that provides nvg/thermal unrestricted view? IMO that's worth at least 1k. the Type 155 is also a hilarious price because its similarly rare, but actually is priced correctly i believe.  

 

 

Overall feedback:

Thank you for making this scenario! 

• I was worried about (maybe needlessly) about leaving vehicles and time elapsing, thinking an enemy patrol would take them. hence i never took any stolen vehicle or likewise to my home base.
• As someone else mentioned, you can drive through checkpoints with guns and ammo in a stolen gendarmerie truck. (Never tried a checkpoint with guns normally) a stolen truck alone (unless wearing a police outfit) shouldve been cause for every concern.

 

What i really liked:

• The entire premise
• Fast travel/time elapse
• Caches - upon finding them had to mark what they had then plan out how to use the equipment for my next run. Without the caches for money/weapons the beginning of the game would be absolute hell to build your way up from nothing.

What i didnt like / annoyed me:

• You couldnt make and control your own team. In the beginning especially, even if you found some caches,  one-man-armying in ARMA is just hard, especially with little to no armor. because one well placed shot, explosion, grenade when everyone knows its only you is all is needed to end your run. I would like to control a team to at least assist on taking out outposts and other random fights
• Find intel mission - I had to cheat and look at the discussion posts on steam to know there was a paper on the ground that let me move forward with that mission line. 
• Clearing an enemy base, although enemies wont show up anymore, it doesnt get marked as clear on the map in any way.
• There was a "bigger" response to me attacking a 3 man patrol than there was for me 1 man armying an entire CSAT base which took way longer. (no reinforcements came to that) 
• Fast travel breaking caused a lot of unfortunate downtime (but in a way, also let me win thanks to a random patrol when i was trying to run back)

[flyer_ofp.info 1]

6 hours ago, R0adki11 said:

 

Well the save file will have those mods in. So you will need to play with them or restart without them.

That is clear and I had no problems loading with the mods. However I wanted to find out if the activated mods are somehow connected to the bug which Kreu and I experienced (see Spoiler Box for the non-working "delivery").

 

Maybe this bug only appears with certain mods activated? Need to restart without any mods.

[mmm 35]

Now that I've played a bit more, I don't find the spawn exactly ideal. Even the combination of Tanoa terrain and lack of means to extend awareness range with the likes of teammates or unmanned vehicles don't make the sometimes very short spawn distance feel natural enough. And then there are cases where clearly a site should have been populated that is not when you get the occasional long sight line, until you get much closer.

 

Ideologically I'm against making NPCs like electrons, that has a probability to be anywhere around you, and then cease to exist once you're at a distance that's deemed(not necessarily correctly mind you) not relevant. Pretty much nothing have a persistent presence in the scenario, you can't say for example shell a CSAT camp with mortar based on your earlier scout intel, because everything's despawned, or destroy the QRF in the base or kill it on approach because they just never existed until you started a conflict. I get spawning is something you have to deal with one way or another, but ideally having those spawn farther away from player's awareness range then enter physically will likely create a much more natural experience. Now there's going to be performance cost with longer distance spawn, which is pretty hefty already, especially in high density area. And then there's the random skirmishes that are in particular meant to be created within a range that's relevant to the player, which is pretty short for the one man army design. But at least they can try to introduce an option to make the spawn distance configurable, like many other dynamic scenarios.

[flyer_ofp.info 1]

20 hours ago, flyer_ofp.info said:

That is clear and I had no problems loading with the mods. However I wanted to find out if the activated mods are somehow connected to the bug which Kreu and I experienced (see Spoiler Box for the non-working "delivery").

 

Maybe this bug only appears with certain mods activated? Need to restart without any mods.

I restarted the Old Man scenario from scratch without any other mods activated. 

 

Spoiler

I rushed through all tasks given by Cpt Miller and brought him the documents. This time I got the "Hold space" action to hand the documents over, start the dialog and receive the destroy the bio-dome task.

 

However sth intersting from my former broken savegame: Even if I could not hand over the documents, I found the flashdrive at Millers position (I don't know if it was on the ground or in another object).

 

[Morbo5131 16]

31 minutes ago, mmm said:

Now that I've played a bit more, I don't find the spawn exactly ideal. Even the combination of Tanoa terrain and lack of means to extend awareness range with the likes of teammates or unmanned vehicles don't make the sometimes very short spawn distance feel natural enough. And then there are cases where clearly a site should have been populated that is not when you get the occasional long sight line, until you get much closer.

 

Ideologically I'm against making NPCs like electrons, that has a probability to be anywhere around you, and then cease to exist once you're at a distance that's deemed(not necessarily correctly mind you) not relevant. Pretty much nothing have a persistent presence in the scenario, you can't say for example shell a CSAT camp with mortar based on your earlier scout intel, because everything's despawned, or destroy the QRF in the base or kill it on approach because they just never existed until you started a conflict. I get spawning is something you have to deal with one way or another, but ideally having those spawn farther away from player's awareness range then enter physically will likely create a much more natural experience. Now there's going to be performance cost with longer distance spawn, which is pretty hefty already, especially in high density area. And then there's the random skirmishes that are in particular meant to be created within a range that's relevant to the player, which is pretty short for the one man army design. But at least they can try to introduce an option to make the spawn distance configurable, like many other dynamic scenarios.

Agreed 100%. I'm already below 20fps, I'd happily exchange a few more slides for more believable AI behaviour.

[pierremgi 4879]

Not sure "old man" is optimized (not speaking about endless tasks). The FPS are at the lowest acceptable limit (20FPS) in many cases, like playing in town or even villages. Too many objects, probably, but also bad engine for houses, trees and animated things. Tanoa is not the best BI map!

 

Anyway, one immersion killing point is that player can see some enemy groups, not walking and not reacting at fire. You can grab a marksman gun with mos optic, then fire at distance farer than 400 m... You can see a blood spot on hit unit, a little hit animation, then nothing. That's probably because the dynamic simulation is not fair.

BI, please! As a overall rule: what player can see (not matter the mean: optic, turret, eye), the player can kill or the unit/vehicle can react.

It's simple but mandatory. If you don't want to enable simulation on it, DO NOT SHOW it.

I can't understand why some disabled simulation unit/vehicle can be visible! Can you tell me any other game working like this?

[mmm 35]

1 hour ago, pierremgi said:

Not sure "old man" is optimized (not speaking about endless tasks). The FPS are at the lowest acceptable limit (20FPS) in many cases, like playing in town or even villages. Too many objects, probably, but also bad engine for houses, trees and animated things. Tanoa is not the best BI map!

 

Anyway, one immersion killing point is that player can see some enemy groups, not walking and not reacting at fire. You can grab a marksman gun with mos optic, then fire at distance farer than 400 m... You can see a blood spot on hit unit, a little hit animation, then nothing. That's probably because the dynamic simulation is not fair.

BI, please! As a overall rule: what player can see (not matter the mean: optic, turret, eye), the player can kill or the unit/vehicle can react.

It's simple but mandatory. If you don't want to enable simulation on it, DO NOT SHOW it.

I can't understand why some disabled simulation unit/vehicle can be visible! Can you tell me any other game working like this?

 

I haven't seen simuation disable enemies yet, that would be something too. However I don't think there's much optimization they can do other than making ARMA 4, assuming you don't call water down object count optimization, just imagine playing this scenario in 2013 with their recommended spec, yeah... Yet the spawn is already below bare minimum distance IMO, and corpses clean up happens at fairly short distance away as well. I mean in theory they can just spawn a bunch of enemy in houses only when needed and since you didn't see it happening you can never grab their red hand and call it cheat, but that goes back to my point that enemy just decide to appear whenever they want wherever they want, and disappear the same way. Even If they decide to do LOS check on dynamic simulation that could cost performance as well.

 

Also it got me worried for a second when I got some ~20FPS, I thought my computer went kaput or got something seriously misconfigured, almost like back in my AMD FX days. I wonder on what spec and setting one could expect ~20FPS in high density area. I'm 6600k GTX1070, at 3000m/3000m(which is probably more than this scenario intended or needed), I could tell you it's mostly "ultra" but we all know it make little real difference in performance.

[pierremgi 4879]

Not a question for Arma 4. If you spawn enemies AND decide to make them visible, they must be simulated also. If not, hide them. Simple as that.

[mmm 35]

1 hour ago, pierremgi said:

Not a question for Arma 4. If you spawn enemies AND decide to make them visible, they must be simulated also. If not, hide them. Simple as that.

I'm not disagreeing with that. I've seen that in their Tacops, yes they look very wrong when they're not activated but visible, just spewing blood when shot. But to do what they attempted to do here more properly basically means allow systems to handle more real simulated entity at the same time, I doubt we'll see any real improvement in this ARMA, or wait for CPUs to have a few times more single core performance I guess...

[pierremgi 4879]

I don't forget it's a beta free addon, dependent on APEX, and not an official release. That's an important point. We can underline the work on new assets, reskins, and a rather good scenario for single player. I do appreciate the Frenglish spoken by locals (insurgents more than gendarmerie). Good job for that. A little bit less for the poor choice and repetitive chinese/french/english dialogs in red state:

Spoiler

"We've an enemy. 4 o'clock" (no matter if the player is in sight and no matter the direction) Absolutely boring for several minutes each time.

 

This "campaign" (see your saved folder) is not a campaign! I mean with successive missions as usual. It's a all-in-one mission!

That's a reason why you can save more than 200 Mo on each save! (little bit ridiculous, imho).  Add to this, as said, the simulation manager is definitely not fair. To be more precise, the old BI module "simulation manager", rough but efficient, was (is) able to un-hide/simulate units according to distance of player. AND... that's reversible (hide+sim off). On contrary of the holy dynamic simulation manager, which shows frozen units, "awake"  them, "froze" them (when the distance is far enough), no matter the immersion killing.

Spawning/despawning units/dynamic objects should be a rule also. That's a good way to save some resource and have lighter save files, especially during a looong mission/false campaign, visiting the whole world.

I'm sure there is something to do with the mix of all these BI existing approaches.
 

[zukov 490]

suggestion for radio music
 

 

[mmm 35]

The execution of scripts seem to become more lagged after running the scenario for a number of hours. Enemies get spawned in the face more frequently, the stash selling price update lags almost half a minute behind the item movement, price tool tip also lags a few seconds, even saving only happens several seconds later than fresh start after the "sleep" sequence, to name a few of the more visible ones. Now I've seen similar in other scenarios after extended run time, is this kind of degradation inherent with ARMA and fundamentally unsuited for single scenario campaign without refresh?