What's The Obsession With Coop?

[richard_dean_anderson 0]

The thing is, coop was fun for like a month or two back in the 90's when playing Quake I/II. It's incredibly sad that more than 10 years later, we've got a game like Arma, and the most popular game type still consists of shooting robot enemies. This is going backwards. By now, we should be playing games like this, with such a huge map, with at least a hundred or so human players and no AI. Something like RTS but without AI.

[robs456 0]

Just try playing in a tournament like IC-ArmA.com or ArmaI and get the best of both worlds.

[churnedfortaste 0]

If the game was able to handle hundreds of players on a server at a time, then you could have realistic player vs player...

If the game had intelligent AI (that you couldn't cheat and couldn't cheat you) then Co-op would be realistic...

Correct me if i'm wrong but ArmA doesn't have co-op campaign modes in it does it?

Vanilla ArmA phails at being realistic, but doesn't fail at being an extremely good realistic concept, which can be remedied by mods (ACE) and future sequels when they have somewhat advanced technology...

[R3MF 0]

because coop is fun.

[Junker 0]

because coop is fun.

and AI dont use wallhacks - aimbots

[hund 0]

IMO, an ideal mission, whether coop or versus, has to have AIs, and the ratio should really be about 90% AI to 10% human.

I beg to differ on those values. The "one-guy-to-a-tank-battallion" approach worked pretty well in OFP (sadly), but in arma it's just plain wrong. The problem I've found with the majority of arma missions is that they actually OFP missions. You don't need a ratio of 1:10 to make a mission challenging, you just need to put a little more back-bone into AI placement and management - as opposed to just sticking them in and calling it a day.

My ideal mission would involve a ratio of 1:1 or maybe 1:2 (at most). Killing hordes of stupid AI just gets boring after a while.

[Kay 0]

IMO, an ideal mission, whether coop or versus, has to have AIs, and the ratio should really be about 90% AI to 10% human.

I beg to differ on those values. The "one-guy-to-a-tank-battallion" approach worked pretty well in OFP (sadly), but in arma it's just plain wrong. The problem I've found with the majority of arma missions is that they actually OFP missions. You don't need a ratio of 1:10 to make a mission challenging, you just need to put a little more back-bone into AI placement and management - as opposed to just sticking them in and calling it a day.

My ideal mission would involve a ratio of 1:1 or maybe 1:2 (at most). Killing hordes of stupid AI just gets boring after a while.

I thought he meant per team.  90% AI and 10% players on each team; which makes more sense to me...

He wanted more realism, and having more AI's than players per team would solve that. The developers would be able to program the AI's to do "realistic" things(Ex.  Patrol with weapon holstered/in safe position, guard a certain post, etc.), while the human players went around doing their own thing.  So for every 1 "rambo" type player you get, you would also get 9 "realistic" AI's to kill.

I'm sure ratio tweaking and the exact numbers of everything would differ depending on missions,map sizes, etc, but I think it's a pretty good concept.

Edit: I'm talking about PvP type of games. Not too sure how this would work for coop unless the OPFORs had objectives to perform as well, as OPFOR would have 10% human players too... Which would make it more or less a PvP game anyway so...

[zwobot 22]

Isn't that the idea of PvP coop? To have platoon or company sized (meeting) engagements where there is every human player at least a squad or team leader commanding the AI.

Large scale PvP coop without large numbers of AI needs really a lot of humand players and sadly that is rare.

[Kay 0]

Isn't that the idea of PvP coop? To have platoon or company sized (meeting) engagements where there is every human player at least  a squad or team leader commanding the AI.

Large scale PvP coop without large numbers of AI needs really a lot of humand players and sadly that is rare.

I guess the line between PvP and PvP coop can be quite vague depending on how you define each, so I won't go into debate about that. 

What would happen with a huge PvP/PvP coop server without AI's is, it would be just like some evolution servers, just without the AI.  Now, this is just speculation based on what I've seen on some of these servers; DM/CTF servers included.  Players would lone wolf it.  There would be no sense of goal to work towards, as even if you were given a mission, the odds are your enemy, who's also played by a human player, won't want to "play along".  

Your enemy will also have missions of his own that he would want to complete.  Ofcourse, a developer could try to come up with a way to sync both forces to run into each other at some point during their missions.  But even this would be hard to implement because the defending side(watching a post where the opposing force is trying to infiltrate) would have to be entertaining.

This is where the AI would come in, I imagine.  By giving the AI's the "boring jobs", the human players(whom there are significantly less of compared to AI's) would be able to do the "fun missions".  This would not necessarily mean all AI would only defend..but that's up to the developers.  They could have AI squads ambushing/attacking what have you..

This, I think, would give PvP games a better sense of immersion.

[zwobot 22]

Kay, I did not mean to talk about large scale missions with many objectives like Evolution.

I mean 2 player teams of platoon maybe company size each in an engagement with a realistic amount of objectives (realistic in the sense of real world military objectives assigned to a single platoon or company). For example a meeting engagement where both sides have to occupy a town in a given time or attack and defend mission.

I would not consider playing something like PvP coop on a public server with random players I don't know.

If you want to have fun in coop you have to play with a dedicated group you know and can trust.

[hund 0]

I thought he meant per team.  90% AI and 10% players on each team; which makes more sense to me...

Oh! My bad, I thought we were talking about coops. Well, in the case of PvPs with humans leading AI in a coopy kind of situation, I agree. That's what they played on Zeus back in the day, and that was very fun.

But, as someone else said, it very much depends on who you play with, it wouldn't work on a pub (but then again most things don't really work that well on pubs).

Even better of course would be the situation where you could actually fill out all those AI slots with humans, but the way thinks are now, technology-wise, thats not gonna happen. At most you'd get platoon vs platoon action; not half bad but still not as good as company vs company either.

[tophe 69]

I am so happy that the ArmA community has taken this turn. I VERY rarely play PvP games and seeing that many good games have been destroyed when good coop servers are lacking, I'm happy that ArmA offers good COOP play.

There are tons of good PvP games but when it comes to COOP I have to say that ArmA is unbeaten! Me and my friends have tried pretty much every single coop game on the market for that last 5 years and this one beats them all. We played OFP from day one until we got our hands on ArmA.

As the AI gets better many people find that COOP is more rewarding. It's easier to play tactical gameplay in coop, since it usually attracts less rambo-style players. I love it! I love the amazing amount of work that the community put into making ArmA THE game to turn to, when looking for serious coop gameplay.

I hope it continues (with good PvP development on the side of course. A good game has both.. just like this one!)

[guerilla -MCY- 0]

seems like i'm the only one enjoying all kind of game mods. sad to see so much ppl are just able to have fun in 1 kind of gamemod. Evolution is a really good missions showing off what ArmA is capable off. Just because BIS messed up ctf and dm due those robotic weired anims and total disturbing weapon feeling, doesnt mean the mod itself is bad and i think thats the reason why you'll only find coop servers out there, even doh there are the same problems or even more bugs but they aren't as important in coop as in fast paced gamemods.

there is as much tension and teamplay in coop as in ctf, depends on the players and servers, not on the mod, but coop will never give you the real boost you can have in a teamplaying and organised CTF/C&H/CTI clanwar, where you face real opponents instead of througt 12 bushes shooting ai's or ai's that run around you at 2m distances without even noticing you...

[hund 0]

I'm a coop'er through and through, and I think you're dead-on: The best way to play coop would be against humans (kind of a contradiction in terms but hey). But actually getting to that gametype is pretty damned hard. I know a few closed communities have achieved this, usually with discipline and a common love for the gametype, but on pubs it will never, ever work. It takes a great deal of effort to keep people from sliding back into a CTF/TDM mentality - and let's just admit it, CTF and DM in all its various guises are lesser artforms than the coop - but if and when it works, it's really a much more rewarding experience than any AI could ever give you.

In short: humans for teh win!

[Dallas 9]

I disagree. PvP is a fun rollercoaster ride. You gotta stay sharp, focused and determined to stay in the top scores and score those game winning points.

You can never get a human to do what the AI does. Standing guard, patroling a perimeter. The human opponent would grab a sniper rifles and some ATs and run for the kills.

Even in organized coop communities, PvP is just a recreational pause from the real games. Coop offers coordinated teams time to plan, brief and execute their missions in it's own unique pace.

Bottom line: Team respawn is the real difference.

[guerilla -MCY- 0]

well it's still a game meant to have fun, that's why it came along with the respawn option and with dm / ctf / c&h / cti / coop maps.

[frederf 0]

When was it decided that no respawns and long missions were "unfun" and fast respawns and quick battle was "fun"?

Was I absent for that meeting?

[M@Nu-SoLo 0]

I don't understand why you try to explain that coop could be better than ctf or ctf can be better than coop... This topic sounds for me as a no sense topic. I saw so many things....

Respawn would be faster on CTF than on Coop ? On evolution respawn is faster that on CTF as Gamezclub one...

Coop would need tactics and CTF no ? If you play CTF and make wars on a league, you need to have tactics.

Coop and CTF are two diferents game type. On coop you play with friends for a couple of hours together trying to reach an objective, on CTF you play with your friends against real players on 2 rounds of 30 minuts and have more pressure.

I like playing CTF against a clan, for me war take all its sense. I play against real player and try to show them that my clan (you can call it unit, group, army as well) is better. And I play more CTF, DM or C&H that Coop. But that's my bussiness.

Sounds strange for me to see people say that CTF players would be quake players. What's wrong with CTF ? The game type or people can't kill others ?

[KaRRiLLioN 0]

I like coops, but TBH, the main time I play them is when there aren't many people on my server and I'm waiting for more people to join.  I look at the AI as a good "warmup" for facing humans.

When I designed RTS-IV, I knew that players like to be at the front lines, or doing something interesting instead of just sitting around guarding, so that's why I put in customizable squads, etc. so humans could create squads and have them do the boring work for them.

In a way, that's the kind of gamestyle I like the best.  You never know if the enemy who just took the territory you're about to go into was an AI or a player.  Or you never know if the tank rolling down the road has AI or a player, unless you have a weapon that locks on, of course.  So you have to be ready for anything, be it the robotic AI, or a wiley human.

We've had several games of RTS-IV with 20 players per team plus hundreds of AI, making each army close to 200 units in size.  Now those were some battles.

So while the AI in a usual coop will do exactly what their waypoints will do, the AI in a mission like this with players controlling them can be a lot harder to predict.  I'm hoping with the 1.07 final patch the AI will be even more formidable.

So anyway, coop is fine, but missions where you can mix AI plus players are a lot more challenging, IMHO.

[CanisDEK 1]

Most server are playing Evolution atm

I stopped playing ARMA altogether, because of the lack of non-COOP servers...

But what is "Evolution"?

[Mora2 0]

Honestly, what is your obsession with CTF? Or deathmatch?

Competitive game modes are played by competitive personalities. Just like sports, it enables you to find out which team or player is better and fighting against live opponents is more thrilling. A co-opper may accuse competitive players of unrealistic gameplay with no tactics, but for CTF/etc players the realism lies in close-to-real weapon effects, game mechanics and environment. They want to play it in ArmA because of the realism, they want to get away from stuff like Unreal and Call of Duty. For a PvP player tactics means the methods of beating another human team instead of mandatory military procedures and slow maneuvering.

Personally I don't give a damn about who plays what but when someone wants to restrict the way others play a freely customizable game, the perp is usually a co-opper who labels himself a "tactical realism player" and that makes me a bit reserved about co-oppers. Sometimes they are so full of it that they participate in PvP map threads to slander the map, click the Hexenkessel link in my sig for an example.

The realism argument used by co-oppers to prove their superiority over PvP gamers is extremely funny because killing 100+ retarded enemies to "take and hold two villages" in a small scale theatre is laughably unrealistic. Replace those enemy soldiers in coop missions with an intelligent human team and you gain ten realism points when it comes to credible opponents. If it's out of the question, another question may rise: are they playing co-op because slaughtering braindead AI opponents is the only way they can achieve the sensation of accomplishment?

awesome post.

The thrill i got playing ctf-everon with the OFP was amazing.

Not a single coop map can be compared with the tactics that can be displayed in that map.

That was real warfare at its best.

[richard_dean_anderson 0]

Most server are playing Evolution atm

I stopped playing ARMA altogether, because of the lack of non-COOP servers...

But what is "Evolution"?

Yep, I've also stopped playing for that same reason.

Coop is almost as boring as the small CTF maps where you're all boxed in wolfenstein 3D style.

I think I just totally don't get the ArmA online community. With the exception of RTS, nothing is remotely close to enjoyable. Yet, I think I am in the minority so I'll just stfu. I'm glad some people enjoy it.

[whisper 0]

Most server are playing Evolution atm

I stopped playing ARMA altogether, because of the lack of non-COOP servers...

But what is "Evolution"?

Yep, I've also stopped playing for that same reason.

Coop is almost as boring as the small CTF maps where you're all boxed in wolfenstein 3D style.

I think I just totally don't get the ArmA online community. With the exception of RTS, nothing is remotely close to enjoyable. Yet, I think I am in the minority so I'll just stfu. I'm glad some people enjoy it.

Gna, Berzerk, m8!

Well, I'm not online since weeks (no internet @home) so I don't know how the situation has evolved.

But there is certainly room for competitive gameplay. There was always a server I could chose for PvP few weeks back.

[Kay 0]

Most server are playing Evolution atm

I stopped playing ARMA altogether, because of the lack of non-COOP servers...

But what is "Evolution"?

Yep, I've also stopped playing for that same reason.  

Coop is almost as boring as the small CTF maps where you're all boxed in wolfenstein 3D style.

I think I just totally don't get the ArmA online community. With the exception of RTS, nothing is remotely close to enjoyable. Yet, I think I am in the minority so I'll just stfu. I'm glad some people enjoy it.

Have you tried playing with a group? It can get pretty dull if you pop into an Evolution server, or any server, and go around by your self.

Coordinating,planning,and killing with a squad, imo, is what makes this game orgasmic.

[Rambo-16AAB 0]

my personal opinion - if you want to play online, play multiplayer. the AI can never substitute for the randomness and thought process of another human being. Play tactical missions against people not AI, its far more rewarding to out think a person on the battlefield.

Personally cant stand CoOp in any game, not just Arma.