Join in progress (JIP) and possible problems

[luemmel 20]

We heard that it will be possible to join a war in progress. In others games I saw that if one side is loosing, many players will change the side for this battle (get out / rejoin) to be on the winner side.

From my point of view the ArmA Server should store the information from a player which side he have chosen and it should not be possible to change the sides during the war.

Does anyone heard something about this matter?

[Heatseeker 0]

I have also experienced the oposite, if a team in adversarial is too strong some players will switch to make the gameplay more even . Anyway JIP wont be the all great thing for me, it will bring all kinds of fps MP idiots to play and screw up the game, join, mess up, TK, etc. A spectator option would have been enough for me. JIP is like having respawn in coop, a big mess imo.

[D.murphy man 0]

I have also experienced the oposite, if a team in adversarial is too strong some players will switch to make the gameplay more even . Anyway JIP wont be the all great thing for me, it will bring all kinds of fps MP idiots to play and screw up the game, join, mess up, TK, etc. A spectator option would have been enough for me. JIP is like having respawn in coop, a big mess imo.

I have also experienced the fact that people will join the loosing side/side with less people more then people switchin sides becasue their side is loosing.(actully iv never seen it happen)

As for your other concerns about JIP im hoping that itll be a server option or an option for who ever made the mission to set weather JIP will be aloud. Maybe different options such as JIP aloud bit only as spectator, JIP aloud but only as civilian, JIP aloud but only for a certain side, etc...

[GBee 0]

I have also experienced the fact that people will join the loosing side/side with less people more then people switchin sides becasue their side is loosing.(actully iv never seen it happen)

I've been playing online since Quake 2 hit the shelves and in that time the prevailing trend has always been for people to join the winning team. Or stay on it when balance is on their side. Another favourite is joining the team with the perceived advantage on any mission/map.

Yes you will get those fair players who switch to a losing side, but in most games on public servers they are the minority.

I never played OFP online much, think I just had too much fun creating offline missions to be interested in 'Paintball' etc The OFP crowd may be different to the CounterStrike & Battlefield playing masses but Arma will attract new players and I would rather see some precautions in place.

Along the same lines, perhaps there can be a system to balance the veteran and newbie players. If the client tracks the 'skill' of the player then this can be sent to the server when joining a game. It would work best when joining a game before it has started or on a restart. The server would decide the teams assigning a rough balance of good/bad players. As a server side option it could be turned off for clan games.

[7-62 0]

join in progress wil be imo more enjoyable, and almost complete with 10 min. respawn time penalty for changing sites!

[Metal Heart 0]

It'd be better to let the admin handle JIP, not the players. Like the way admin can lock players to slots in OFP. So initially if the mission is JIP capable, you jip first as a spectator and then the admin decides what to do with you.

[lwlooz 0]

As a mission maker and a guy who likes scripting stuff for personal enjoyment now and then,I have to say I always hate to see how people who say they are into Coop dislike the JIP feature and want to make it useless(spectator-mode).Just think about all the positive possibilities JIP brings especially for COOP once .

Besides that I have to refer to what has been said in the already existing JIP thread(should be on page 2 or 3 now)

[ziiip 1]

We heard that it will be possible to join a war in progress. In others games I saw that if one side is loosing, many players will change the side for this battle (get out / rejoin) to be on the winner side.

From my point of view the ArmA Server should store the information from a player which side he have chosen and it should not be possible to change the sides during the war.

Does anyone heard something about this matter?

I doubt OFP players would act this n00bish.

I've never seen such thing in OFP, and there's no point in doing it in OFP since there's no statics logging unlike in BF2.

[privatenoob 0]

In most games I play there is automatic balance and when its

not automatic there are admins doing it. (Vietcong, RO, AA)

[berghoff 11]

We heard that it will be possible to join a war in progress. In others games I saw that if one side is loosing, many players will change the side for this battle (get out / rejoin) to be on the winner side.

From my point of view the ArmA Server should store the information from a player which side he have chosen and it should not be possible to change the sides during the war.

Does anyone heard something about this matter?

Sorry this sounds if like only a bunch of kids that got a hold of an game would do this. Change to the winning team come on lol

[stakex 0]

We heard that it will be possible to join a war in progress. In others games I saw that if one side is loosing, many players will change the side for this battle (get out / rejoin) to be on the winner side.

From my point of view the ArmA Server should store the information from a player which side he have chosen and it should not be possible to change the sides during the war.

Does anyone heard something about this matter?

I doubt OFP players would act this n00bish.  

I've never seen such thing in OFP, and there's no point in doing it in OFP since there's no statics logging unlike in BF2.

Well from what I witnessed OFP was never a very popular MP game. I myself only play it with a couple friends and the bugs in MP trouble us almost every time. The games MP support is really lacking. However, when ArmA comes out its very likely the MP will be much improved. So its safe to say a lot more people will be playing the mp in ArmA as opposed to OFPs. With this, you have a much better chance of getting people who are not as mature, and only care about the fact that their team won and things like that.

There seems to be this assumption by many people that the OFP community is extreamly mature, and things like this are very un-common. And perhaps thats true right now because the only remaining community for flashpoint is true, dedicated fans and mod makers, but when ArmA comes out expect that to change. ArmA is going to bring in a whole new crowd of players. OFP/ArmA is nothing more then a game, and there is no rule that states its players have to be mature.

And these things happen in almost every FPS, and very few of them actually keep stats. Happens in COD all the time and there is no stats kept in that. (Unless your on a server with a mod to keep stats). People just like to be on the winning team.

As for solutions to this... either play with people you know, or the server admin should be able to remove players who do such things. Or perhaps there will be an auto balance feature that prevents an unballanced game, or if not... Im sure someone can probly mod it.

[luemmel 20]

Besides that I have to refer to what has been said in the already existing JIP thread(should be on page 2 or 3 now)

I searched for such a post but I didn't found it. Maybe I am blind :-) But you are right, I can remember that there was such a post but it must be deleted in the meantime...

[Zendjir 0]

There should be an autobalance system, playing an even match is always more fun. I personally don't mind if i'm on the winning or loosing team; when I'm winning I feel good about it but when loosing I feel like I can make a difference. And the nature of ofp is not that numbers are everything; a well placed sniper or tank can stop attacks on his own.

[Kode 0]

I always found the OFP community much more mature, people can play serious and cooperative, of course they are always some people that are annoying... So I *hope* this won't be too much of a problem.

[Heatseeker 0]

Imo there are many organised mature groups who play OPFR but if you join a open public server you will find a mix of good people and total idiots, coop is almost impossible.

Even without JIP and respawn players rush to their death and dont follow orders or try to discuss and agree on a good plan or strategy (coop) then moan about being seagulls and keep asking for restarts just to rush and get killed again and again... On my last decent public game i had to struggle to keep one dialup 100/200ms pinger (way above average player) on the server because everyone went nuts when he was downloading the mission file and his ping climbed to 1500.

Ingame it was doing an average of 160, there was no desync or lag on the server and he was a good and smart team player. So what im saying is that currently public OPF MP gaming is sometimes playable, with JIP it will problably suck alot more.

From years of gaming i have the impression that 80% of the people who play online games are idiots and with Arma being more MP friendly we will suffer from a huge stupidity invasion .

[4 IN 1 0]

think of it

you are on a mission , there is only a few ppl left alive, then you finally reach another objective, and HQ told you that you will have reinforecment ASAP..........

how sweet it is

but wait, those same old problem(idiots, nuts, etc) is still there, hum

[jimgun 3]

Say NO! to JIP......in my humble opinion. Hope to god one can toggle it server side.

[[aps]gnat 28]

From years of gaming i have the impression that 80% of the people who play online games are idiots and with Arma being more MP friendly we will suffer from a huge stupidity invasion .

I generally believe different, from my years of online OFP gaming I'd say more mature gaming prevails, but a major factor of that is all the kiddies play BF or HL or other mindless "broken records". But yes I agree, once ArmA hits the shelf with JIP, the first 6-12 months will be plagued with idiots.

Something that will control this as it does today;

- Custom Addons - As it does for OFP, 500MB of Downloads will keep most "fly-by-night" players away.

- Less CTF or DM and more Coop

- REVIVE REVIVE REVIVE missions!! (ie different from Respawn) Idoits who rush to their deaths and don't "teamplay" will find other players will not bother finding their bodies to revive them, so the impatient will disconnect and find another server.

JIP CONSIDERATIONS

- Admins need the option to temparary ban a players ID from a server because of stupidness. Option from 5mins to 24 hrs. A server LOG file must record this action.

- For Coop missions the joining player should be allowed to "appear" near the team leader or jump into an AI's body who is part of the team. The later option is less flexible but should be ok as an option for mission making.

- For vs's type missions (CTF, C&H, DM or CTI) the spawn point needs to be a definable (and movable) point, different from the normal respawn point.

- Obviously a max number of JIP players must be selectable at the start of any mission.

- Auto balancing is a good idea

[grayace 2]

Imo there are many organised mature groups who play OPFR but if you join a open public server you will find a mix of good people and total idiots, coop is almost impossible.

Even without JIP and respawn players rush to their death and dont follow orders or try to discuss and agree on a good plan or strategy (coop) then moan about being seagulls and keep asking for restarts just to rush and get killed again and again... On my last decent public game i had to struggle to keep one dialup 100/200ms pinger (way above average player) on the server because everyone went nuts when he was downloading the mission file and his ping climbed to 1500.

Ingame it was doing an average of 160, there was no desync or lag on the server and he was a good and smart team player. So what im saying is that currently public OPF MP gaming is sometimes playable, with JIP it will problably suck alot more.

From years of gaming i have the impression that 80% of the people who play online games are idiots and with Arma being more MP friendly we will suffer from a huge stupidity invasion .

well Im almost agreed with Heatseeker, but I think you (Heatseeker) are quite desperate about N00B (I hate this word but there are some people who are real equavalent of this definition) players.

Well, Coop is a gaming style where more advanced players can train NooBies who are willing to do so (I played with you once as Blackace if you remember, and I learned some new stuff since then) if you are wondering how? here it is, if a player (esp. a noob one) is playing a coop in OFP then his is somewhat willing to learn something. In this case, there could be teams (which is already available) to allocate advanced and newbie players (seperation would be better I think) once the game starts without "respawning" which lets players to go "Rambo", players will soon realize that its vital to stick to plans while still adding own freestyle skills to be the one who prevails in the battlefield. For those who are too stubborn to learn, they will learn in several games after they got theirselves killed (Damn OFP AI is real good! while many other players are enjoying the victory...

[grayace 2]

Gnat @ Jan. 08 2006,06:14)]

From years of gaming i have the impression that 80% of the people who play online games are idiots and with Arma being more MP friendly we will suffer from a huge stupidity invasion .

- REVIVE REVIVE REVIVE missions!! (ie different from Respawn) Idoits who rush to their deaths and don't "teamplay" will find other players will not bother finding their bodies to revive them, so the impatient will disconnect and find another server.

OOP there you said it, excellent idea! +1

[grayace 2]

Here is the deal especially for COOP

To find out and "label" who is nut, dumb, or just noob and as well as who is specops, officer and commander, There could be a "Endgame Opinion Poll", where players first to decide run a poll or not (coz game could've ended prematurely) and also this can be allowed after a period of time to prevent cheating..

and if it comes to poll, players can evaluate EACH OTHER in some major areas like Rifleman (CQB and BFops) , SpecOps (Stealth and Recon), Support (Marksman, Engineer&AT/AA, Medic), Officer, Commander (CTI) as well as Gunnery and Piloting in a point system like (-1/0/+1/+2) FOR ONLY ONE CLASS per game (IMO) and also there could be a multiplier if you get a commendation from an advanced player, when all the points are entered an average can be calculated for final scoring. Afterall this could define that player's main gaming style. While total score (game statistics) can be used to promote..

what it needs a server to store the database (goodbye pirate games) about players. Just like Novalogic did for its games..

[robert(uk) 0]

Here is the deal especially for COOP

To find out and "label" who is nut, dumb, or just noob and as well as who is specops, officer and commander, There could be a "Endgame Opinion Poll", where players first to decide run a poll or not (coz game could've ended prematurely) and also this can be allowed after a period of time to prevent cheating..

and if it comes to poll, players can evaluate EACH OTHER in some major areas like Rifleman (CQB and BFops) , SpecOps (Stealth and Recon), Support (Marksman, Engineer&AT/AA, Medic), Officer, Commander (CTI) as well as Gunnery and Piloting in a point system like (-1/0/+1/+2) FOR ONLY ONE CLASS per game (IMO) and also there could be a multiplier if you get a commendation from an advanced player, when all the points are entered an average can be calculated for final scoring. Afterall this could define that player's main gaming style. While total score (game statistics) can be used to promote..

what it needs a server to store the database (goodbye pirate games) about players. Just like Novalogic did for its games..

Now there is an idea. I was trying to think about some way of 'tracking' players, so that we could tell the idiots from the pros, but I couldn't think of anything. Yeah, that would be pretty neat I think, just as long as people used it sensibly...

[Dwarden 1125]

easy solutions .... either inbuilt team / sides balancing system or custom server mod / script addon ...

also ... You can prevent people side swap in certain time after exiting server and allow max 1 side selection etc. (again inbuilt or custom mod) ...

i see no problem on this really ...

[Heatseeker 0]

Well, Coop is a gaming style where more advanced players can train NooBies who are willing to do so (I played with you once as Blackace if you remember, and I learned some new stuff since then)..

Your nick seems familiar, drop me a PM if you ever need a teamate out there .

[ebns72 0]

most games with join in progress have automatic switches so it keeps the teams balanced no matter what. I.E. if someone tries to join one team with too many players they get automatically switched to the other team.