What do you want in a co-op mission?

[Circle_A 0]

Hi y'all. Haven't been on here since OFP days but I'm back and plan to be part of and do my bit for the OFP/ArmA community. I've ordered Arma and it's in the post. Should be waiting for me by the time i get home

I used to create missions for OFP, mostly co-op, and wanted to ask the people what they really want in a co-op mission. Along the lines of how long a mission should be, how many enemies, are cinematics important to you, the difficulty, what you really like/hate about co-op missions, etc.

I'm probably going to create missions before even playing the campaign, so hopefully my first offering will be done by the start of next week.

Cheers

[l mandrake 9]

For me the best co-ops have several stages, preferably with a simple story told by cutscenes (i.e. you capture a town, then you see enemy counterattack coming in cut scene, then play next stage etc). I love the feeling of not knowing when the mission is going to end...

I also love flying the littlebird with minigun so please make me one with this!!!!!

Mandrake

[celery 8]

I like compact missions that are possible to finish with good chance on the first try. Assault & extraction is something that appeals to me. Big missions where you just start in a base with lots of vehicles and weapons and there are enemies in random positions just waiting to get YOU are boring. Everything must have a purpose, the enemy shouldn't be just an army of meat waiting to be slaughtered. Build the hostile place like you would build your own base.

[badkarma 0]

-cinematics - definitely, nothing complex but something to add atmosphere to the mission

-length - insertion zone needs to be relatively close to the action. I hate missions where you start off REALLY far and have to hoof it on foot.

Few other things - fleshed out background scenario and mission objectives, atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere.

PS. Have a soft spot for blowing up convoys... dunno why. =D

[l mandrake 9]

Also, missions which allow a mixture of skills to be deployed, e.g. sniping, then machine gunner in large battle, then saboteur with silenced weps, then maybe pilot or tank commander.... the word here is 'epic'!

[mattxr 9]

atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere i like that.. i try to add a lot of realistic things into my missions. My next mission Flashpoint Rearmed is taking on all points i see in this thread.

[deady 0]

I am currently looking for good quality coop missions to run on public Jolt.co.uk servers.

The requirements are:

No bugs - Helicopters failing to take off, scripted events going wrong etc. are instant rejection for a public server.

Easy going on CPU use - Avoid heavy looping scripts.  If you use the UPS script try to limit it to only 1 or 2 uses in your mission.  I'd prefer no UPS or similar scripts at all, though.

Clear and simple objectives.

Robustness - people will get up to all kinds of antics.  Can the mission handle it?  Or will it break?  What happens if your extraction chopper gets blown up?  Does the mission end or just leave everyone stranded forever?  What if someone kills that friendly soldier you were supposed to speak to?  The mission needs to be able to deal with this stuff without breaking.

File size:  Doesnt really matter since upload speeds are no issue, but try to keep it under 2mb.

Number of players:  Were aiming for small coop servers rather than huge confusion fests of camping and DM play.  So ideally the number of players will be 6-8.

No huge clan/squad graphics or advertisements - A small titletext showing your squad is fine, but please, no half screen .paa files with your squad logo on

Finally, It needs to be fun  I'm not after amazing cinematics and storylines, simple, clear and fun is whats needed by me

Sooo...if anyone can satisfy the above, let me know and i'd love to have your mission running on Jolt for everyone to enjoy.  I'll even host it for download.

Thanks for reading

[Call911 0]

Hi,

I have been playing for a while in the Beer Drinking Assassins server, we play a lot of sweet co-ops that are collected from different places. The other night we were teamspeaking and this same tpoic came up. I am posting here to see if anyone has an interest in making a mod for us.

We were wondering how hard it would be to make a custom map with new skinned objects, like penis-turret tanks and penis-choppers. Sort of like the Amibuously-gay duo from Saturday Night Live. There could be forrests of penises and semen-shooting weapons. Since I am not a modder, I wondered if anyone was capable of making such a mod.

-C

[Lt_Damage 0]

I'm going to pretend that last post never happened..

[hlford 0]

You will get a radio message about the AI occupy a random town (with troops, tanks, Anti-air, MG posts) and you will have organize a team to take back the town with reinforcement (via chopper/trucks/humvee/tanks platoon).

Then the AI will randomly counter attack the towns where you liberated with its own air support, arty, special forces coming from choppers, trucks, tanks or troops once you take back the town. Or they might not counter attack the town you are in but go to another town.

Repeat the whole process again until X no. of towns or all the towns on the island are liberated or AI camp(s) are destroyed base on the parameter set at the beginning of the game.

I think the players going to have a great time playing for weeks until all the towns are liberated on the island, including the towns/villages on the remote islands that are defended by anti-air and MG posts defending the beach/island.

[Inkompetent 0]

Open and dynamic missions, first and foremost, and lots of players. To me it is important not to be herded around in a very strict way, but rather to be given open objectives like destroy that, liberate this or rescue him. I don't like to be told how to do it by the mission objectives.

To play in half platoon or platoon sized battles with a need for logistics and so on, that's simply fantastic.

Air Cavalry is my best example, even though it isn't an ideal one.

Urban Patrol Script in some areas, maybe random objectives, and not really any objectives that says "If this happens you fail" (like in Air Cav).

I'd love stuff where you have to have pilots fly people out, recon an area before attack, sneak in and do your stuff and get out, or where needed, gather up for a large assault and let hell loose with 20 infantrymen and supporting air and land vehicles.

Again I refer to Air Cavalry. You lose if the convoy reaches Ortego. Baaaad. I'd love if the computer got enough material and people down there to assemble a counter attack though or something like it, so that you lose if they beat the shit out of you in the Airbase that is your HQ. This way you can fail with stopping the convoy, but it'll raise the difficulty of the mission if you do so.

Of course these maps are silly vulnerable to retards that loves ruining stuff and run&gun players, but when people really try these are the kinds of missions that gives the most back to the player, imho. A great sense of achievement.

And as mentioned earlier there should be a spot for everyone. If you have people that loves driving AFVs, let them have some Stryker to play with. Have some choppers in, even if you limit the attack choppers to AH-6 Littlebirds and put a *need* for transport choppers/trucks/cars to be used. Some people love doing the logistics stuff, and if missions uses big parts of the map (as I love them), the pilots will really feel and be needed.

And well, random scripts/events for the win! Let's say you take a town from the enemy with the 'seize' trigger. Let a counterattack be launched, but randomize to where. Maybe against the place recently taken, or maybe they will go around the backside to your base since all your troops are at the front.

Oh, and for this kind of missions respawns are a must, just so that you don't forget that.

I think this pretty clearly shows where I stand, so I think I don't need to add more.

Oh, one more thing! No long intros. They can be nice to see, but at an adminless server they are just a pain since they can't be turned off by anyone, and with lots of players around it is hard to vote an admin into place.

[KiwisDoFly 0]

First of all, Spec-op stealth missions suck. All of them. They are over-done and they are so not fun.

Secondly, the whole KILL THIS CONVOY AND THEN KILL THIS TOWN AND THEN KILL EVERYTHING thing is getting old. We need missions with proper objectives like destroying a bridge, or securing a briefcase - things like that.

Thirdly, missions need to be hard. They need to be absolutely teeth shattering difficult. However, there is a difference between idiotic difficulty and perfect difficulty. Idiotic difficulty is when you are supposed to say destroy a bunch of tanks and you don't have any AT weapons.

Perfect difficulty is when the mission places you in a difficult situation - like being surrounded, or being suddenly shot down in the middle of the enemy territory and having to somehow survive, but at the same time it has a weakness which might or might not be visible to the player (hanging the ol' proverbial carrot just out of reach) - maybe sort of a hint at a weakness. Basically you have to "tickle" a player's brain - make him formulate plans. I noticed that the best multiplayer missions are the ones that make you think up plans and try to execute them - these are the ones you play for hours at a time, over and over again.

Kinda like a difficult puzzle with a few solutions you need to reveal.

EDIT: Forgot to mention something - don't over complicate missions. Every mission needs to have a basic idea behind it, onto which you can add layers of complexity, but at the same time that basic idea must shine through.

Don't add too much scripting either.

[Call911 0]

Any ideas on the Penis mods?

[froggyluv 2136]

Total urban mayhem with screaming +armed civilians

...an no penises

[d3dsh33p 0]

more like "free ortega" and always vehicles and player respawns

this seems to be best for our server

fast, lots of action, and everyone can go nuts and tk the shit out of everything and each other and it wont hurt the mission itself

yes, i also want penis guns