SF missions, why?

[sic-disaster 311]

Hello guys.

For ages now i've been looking for good singleplayer missions based around infantry, like in the good old days of Operation Flashpoint.

But allmost all missions i find are Special Forces-based! Why is it that no-one feels so passionate about the good oldfashioned grunt anymore?

I've found some infantry missions but they're pretty much all badly designed, it's a shame really.

Any reason why people enjoy SF so much?

Also, if you know any good infantry sp missions, please tell me about them too!

[Trapper 0]

"The Raid" at OFPEC, even if it's a squad leader mission.

I guess it was caused by ArmA versions pre 1.09b. It would've been easier to create missions which rely on just one player hero who doesn't have to babysit buggy squadmates at 6 FPS.

And the reduction of vehicle variety in ArmA doesn't leave much options for interesting battles.

[monty67t 0]

Special Forces are appealing to most players. It's an exciting role to play, being heavily out numbered and sneaking around. But I agree that it would be cool to see more conventional infantry missions. I would like to see some mission utilizing the strykers and humvees, convoy operations and what not. Also, large scale air assaults would be cool. Maybe 5 to 10 aircraft inserting 50 -75 grunts. Would be hard to find a group that could handle the logistics of that kind of mission, you would probably have to rely on the AI too much and also a mission that big would put a strain on people's computers. ArmA definately has the capability to support good conventional missions, just gotta make them.

[sic-disaster 311]

Guess thats just the thing, i'm a hardcore infantry player. I love nothing more then standing right there in 'the suck' feeling totally unimportant to the success of the mission.

Special Forces are so overdone these days they just dont do anything for me anymore.

Not that i dislike a couple of missions with them, but it's just an overabundance of SF missions. Where-as in the OFP days infantry-missions where allmost allways to be found everywhere, reason i loved the game so much together with its scale and realism, and a great story.

Now i'm kind of let down in ArmA cause there arent enough, though i really do love the game.

(except it's sucky campaign, compared to OFP. But i knew the focus was on MP for ArmA anyway, so i wont complain to much about that. Co-op rocks my socks. )

[Wolfrug 0]

Here's one, although you'll be in command of half a platoon of Marines Requires an addon too, beware!

*self promotion mode*

Regards,

Wolfrug

[Drake Starkiller 0]

I think its the problem ArmA has with "large Scale" Battels, Sahrani as Island is not as sutiable for this than Everon was.

So, what is left when we dont have large Infatry battels? Small Fireteams/squads engaing the Enemy/doing othe Objectives. When you want this, to be authentic for normal Infatry, you have to do some hard work to create a Enviorment for your Mission, wich fits the Infantry thing. It is much more easy to do the lone SF Thing, deep behind enemy lines. And then, like Monty said, SF are just cool for a wast number of palyers, and so the missions are done and played more often.

But I agree we need more nromal Infantry action, maybee a new Task for the more experienced mission designers out there?

greetings,

Drake

[sic-disaster 311]

Here's one, although you'll be in command of half a platoon of Marines Requires an addon too, beware!

*self promotion mode*

Regards,

Wolfrug

Nothing wrong with being in command heeh

[eJay 1]

Also, highly numbered infantry battles requires more script work to do. It's not quite easy to prepare good timing for all units (if you drop all units into one place you will have a lag). AI sometimes fail to pick appropriate path to attack etc. etc. SF missions are smoother to create. There's only you and your gun, and you shouldn't worry about AI far-from-perfect moves.

[zwobot 22]

Special Forces are appealing to most players. It's an exciting role to play, being heavily out numbered and sneaking around.

Definitely not the kind of mission(s) I like.

Look at "Axe point" from snypir, "Short straight" (forgot who made it) or "Platoon Commander" from General Barron for Operation Flashpoint. Those are the kind of reasonably realistic missions which are the most exciting (to me).

I think mission editors who say SF missions are easier to create are lazy or don't have a clue of mission making. For missions as mentioned above you need a lot of synchronization and planning actions the AI can take in reaction to certain approaches the player takes (alternative routes for reinforcements and so on).

[The_Captain 0]

For users of the CWR mod:

If you port some of the infantry missions from OFP's campaign that were on Malden/Abel to Arma/CWR, they're quite fun! My favorite missions in the OFP campaign had me as a part of or leading a small infantry squad, with one or two other squads and perhaps a tank or gunship for support.

That scale allows the individual infantry soldier a good amount of control over the battle without it being overwhelming. When a large battle is set up in arma (8+ tanks, many squads, etc), the individual infantryman doesn't have much fun, and can't really affect the battle in a meaningful way. Small battles that emphasize the importance of the squad, whether the player is in control or merely a part, are the most enjoyable for me.

[Bunkers 0]

I absolutely agree, I really want more "standard" infantry based missions. But it's hard to argue that one thing is better than the other. Probably SF appeals more to the masses. It's always an advantage to be Average Joe. If you like the same games, the same music, the same food, the same humour, same everything as the majority you're gonna have a good time

(lol what did I just smoke?)

[The_Captain 0]

Here's one, although you'll be in command of half a platoon of Marines Requires an addon too, beware!

*self promotion mode*

Regards,

Wolfrug

My only problem with commanding missions (IE, platoon size and up) is the same problem I have with SF missions, actually: the entire outcome of the battle often depends on the player's actions and forces, and usually there are not many friendly or supporting units.

This makes the games tend towards more frustrating, as poor moves by the player in commanding his forces can signal a defeat, and the player feels like the responsibility for victory is entirely upon him. AI subordinate squads do not display tactical initiative, essentially forcing the platoon commander to act as platoon commander AND squad commander for each squad (positioning them, giving them appropriate orders, etc).

'Classic' OFP infantry missions usually allowed the player a degree of latitude while friendly forces engaged the enemy along with the player: He could simply hide behind a fence while the AI fought, and the battle would carry on without him. Usually the missions were balanced carefully such that the player would lose if he left the mission *entirely* up to supporting forces, and could win if he simply managed to survive while also killing enemies and completing the objective (or supporting the friendly forces in completing it).

This careful balance where the player has partial, but not full responsibility for mission success (and half the player's job is simply staying alive) is where I feel a great deal of the fun lies. Sometimes when I'm under fire, I simply want to worry about surviving and not babysitting my platoon or worrying that completion of the mission objective relies solely on me.

I think SF missions would be more enjoyable for me if the mission success didn't rely entirely upon me. I don't necessarily always want to take out an entire base by myself. I would be happy conducting recon or key target destruction missions while I enabled friendly forces to locate and destroy the enemy (as long as I could watch or assist).

</rant>

[malick 0]

Try playing 'The Cause', by Rejn. It has simple insurgency action at the beginning, then standard infantry missions.

Not very large scale combined operations, but it's the best campaign so far. Plus, the voice acting is near perfect, as well as the ambience.

Malick

[zwobot 22]

This makes the games tend towards more frustrating, as poor moves by the player in commanding his forces can signal a defeat, and the player feels like the responsibility for victory is entirely upon him. AI subordinate squads do not display tactical initiative, essentially forcing the platoon commander to act as platoon commander AND squad commander for each squad (positioning them, giving them appropriate orders, etc).

Generally that is not a mission designers fault. Arma AI does know nothing about chain of command and so on. It only is aware of it's own group and other friendly forces are ignored for the most time.

The mission designer can give the feeling of the AI interacting with each other in platoon or company sized formations, but it takes time and effort to create a mission like this (you really should play Operation Axe point mentioned in my previous post - it is THE example for those kinds of missions for me).

Also it is hard to give those missions a decent factor of replayability, I mean for example give the whole AI for one side 2 or more different general plans like it is possible in Combat Mission Shock Force. The tools the Arma mission editor provides for those tasks are too messy in my opinion. Not that the mission editor is crap in my opinion but it lacks some useful tools and functions, for example a layer or filter tool which could hide certain units or waypoints.

[Chaos 0]

The main issue i see in the very bad ArmA AI. Commanding of larger troops is problematic and sometimes ai-commanded troops aren´t hold formations, distance to leader and spreading at once on hundert of meters. The ai commanded vehicles (helos) don´t ignores the actions around them - not in "careless" and not in combatmode "blue" and not with disableAI "target/autotarget". Thats main issue of ArmA.

[sic-disaster 311]

Try playing 'The Cause', by Rejn. It has simple insurgency action at the beginning, then standard infantry missions.

Not very large scale combined operations, but it's the best campaign so far. Plus, the voice acting is near perfect, as well as the ambience.

Malick

Yeah i have been playing that campaign, it rocks.

Made a video of it, posted it on youtube and used it for my Armed Assault review on my website.

But unfortunately this is only a 5-mission campaign, i'd like to see more infantry-based missions then just these, although made of pure excellence, missions.

Any more you know of?^^

[stun 5]

I quite enjoyed the demo mission that came with the true range mod. it's mainly infantry with some armoured support. it's a simple mission, but lots of fun. Also the CEX Recon Platoon mission for CoC is very good.

[The_Captain 0]

Will try out CEX recon and The Cause. Thanks for the recommendations.

[=BFP=Cheetah 0]

Maybe Stop at Everon is something that suits your needs.

[sic-disaster 311]

Maybe Stop at Everon is something that suits your needs.

Yep, played that one allready

A bit short, but still nice.

Cant remember who said it, something about large-scale infantry fighting to be tough to manage in the editor or something like that.

While it might me harder to manage these things, an infantry mission doesnt necesarily involve hundreds of AI soldiers fighting at a time. A simple platoon-sized squad can be more then enough, just like in OFP.

Infantry dont necessarily operate in huge numbers at a time.

I'm just a bit tired of the same old silenced rifles, 'cool' black-ops soldiers etc.

I want something more back to 'the suck', so to speak

[zwobot 22]

Cant remember who said it, something about large-scale infantry fighting to be tough to manage in the editor or something like that.

While it might me harder to manage these things, an infantry mission doesnt necesarily involve hundreds of AI soldiers fighting at a time. A simple platoon-sized squad can be more then enough, just like in OFP.

Infantry dont necessarily operate in huge numbers at a time.

That was me. You are right, platoon sized fits well to Arma.

But even with a platoon of 3 squads with an HQ element and maybe 1 or 2 supporting elements and the enemy squads it is very fast hard to keep track of your squad's waypoints, the enemie's waypoints who might get reinforcements which themselves have alternative routes...

It is still managable but becomes very hard when you had a break of several days or even weeks from your mission editing and have to get back into it

[Heatseeker 0]

I like SF coop missions just as much as any other type, the problem is you always have to go and kill something.

I like it when you must avoid unecessary contact and your objectives include retrieving information or extracting someone, where confrontation might compromise the mission or make it more complicated.

People should think outside the box a bit more .