there needs to be a begginer's campaign

[nyran125 10]

This game's realistic approach has SO much potential to get millions more people wanting to play the game and obviously the draw card, realism and Massive maps and a huge fleshed out campaign, mixed with play by play tactics with your troops.

Its an awesome game , more potential than any other war game out there. But there are some things that could be learned from games like call of duty 4 and battlefield or cs or even the original Ghost recon.

Like maybe having 2 campaigns the full fleshed out one like the one we have(BUT WAY LESS BUGGY, beginner players WONT stick around long enough for it to be patched properly or run properly, thats a fact!!!, only the hardcore gamer's like ME will stick around that really enjoy all that this game has to offer, mainly the editor).

But maybe have a smaller beginner's single campaign thats very linear on that utes island or a quarter of the main campaign area, that is a mini fleshed out version campaign for beginner players, but actually make it so it can be easily achieved before going out there in the big wide world of a Czech region and taking over the whole place. A mini campaign that you can do, would be good just before you go straight into the full campaign, just so beginner's get more of a feel for the, massive, very complex, full campaign. It definately needs more missions at the start where your getting told what to do by a major or liutenant. Some beginner players get thrown off at the complexity to quick. When i meen some, im talking about the rest of the millions of gamer's that Dont play or even will bother playing Arma 2 or even look at it. I also meen the ones that werent thinking of even playing arma 2 yet saw the graphics and realism gameplay on you tube and went"WOAH , IM SO GETTING THAT" only to find that its to complex for them straight away.

This game would benefit from an arcade battlefield or Call of duty style mini campaign mode that comes with the Full campaign features mode like it already has. Just for noobs to teach them how to play it properly, Unless you dont want new players to play and enjoy your games? I doubt that very much.

Another thing that is quite irritating about the training for a noob is the fact the guys down in the MOOT mission in the training camp, attack you before you even get the chance to learn the rocket buttons or anything, it kills the learning quite a bit, even though its meant to throw you into the think of it i think the campaign itself throws you into the think of it enough, some beginner players that have told me what they think of Arma 2's single player game find that too full on straight away, when they are just trying to learn buttons. NOT EVERYONE HAS PLAYED OPERATION FLASHPOINT. Alot of people that want to play Arma 2 just see it on you tube or read reader's reviews or whatever and love the CONCEPT of the game more than the game itself.

I got over this fact very quickly and still continued to play the full game, but many will be waiting for operation flashpoint 2's easier approach. I love this game despite white textures on people or graphic artifacts or anything i still rather play this than any other war game like BF2.

And as far as the training missions being mixed together. Its easier for a new player if they have a more do this , then do that approach to learning, rather than do whatever you want, which by the way in the real military in training you CANNOT DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, you do what your told in training, get up!!!! stand up!!!!! move over!!!! go do this !!!! even some messenger missions at the start could of been handy or an actual orientation like course where you tell your squadies where to move but complete small orientation missions just uising compass could of been AND handy for the full campaign. IF YOU WANT REALISM, THATS WHAT THEY DO, before going into battle is learn about thier compass and stuff.

Theres no "SO what would you like to do now??", rubbish in the military in training. New players dont need options in training at the start and they dont need to be surprised by a bunch of insurgents while trying to learn how to shoot a weapon or rocket as in this case, they just need to learn buttons and concepts and get a feel for the type of game its trying to portray, do a small campaign , learn how to tell guys what to do, THEN off to the big spread big map.

So maybe For future BIS games maybe? if you want new players to play your games and enjoy the complexities of the full campaign and its realistic approach to storylines or area assaults or takeover's, in a huge area like you have, make sure you actually have a full mini training campaign with quarter of the size of the map. HAve a decent, follow this , follow that training camp and an actual orientation course using compass(just an idea). then after thats completed then bANG ONTO THE REAL CAMPAIGN. The mini campaign could easily be tied into the main story for example.

As far as mulitplayer is concerned, i think of Team deathmatch, call of duty 4 hands down. Bomb planting, i think of counter strike. Flag capturing, i think of BAttlefield series. Deathmatch, i think of Unreal tournament. Arma 2 i SHOULD be thinking of one mode only and thats probably warfare mode, a realistic town capturing type mode, i shouldnt be thinking of team deathmatch. Just a suggestion, focus on ONE multiplayer mode warfare and Co-op and just try and get those things perfect and forget deathmatch and crap.

Oh yeah, P.s

And release a much less buggy, glitchy single player experience so all can enjoy it the people with high end computers AND the mid range computer people aswell:):):):)

Edited August 2, 2009 by nyran125

[jgdj19 10]

I'm sorry, I havn't read all you wrote. Its too long and I don't have enough time. You may or may not be aware, the single scenario missions in ARMA 2 actually have a little guidance in them. Although my reaction, and I think most peoples, is to start playing the full blown campaign when you get a knew game

[mrcash2009 0]

** ignore this post **

Edited August 3, 2009 by mrcash2009

[nomdeplume 0]

Nice rant and I can't really counter-rant about any of it. The only thing is I think the free-form training makes sense in the context of the game, i.e. the character you play is an experienced Force Recon man, not a new recruit; he's allegedly there to brush up on his skills and it doesn't seem unrealistic to let him choose what he thinks he needs to practice. Of course it's a bit of a false choice since you need to complete everything in one session anyhow, but I guess it lets you get used to the conversation system which was probably the point.

I did feel like the 'boot camp' was more of a "welcome back to Operation Flashpoint/Arma" than a "welcome to Arma 2, it's a bit different to other military shooters you may have played so let's start with the basics".

It may have been better to have removed the MOUT training from the boot camp and instead have a simple mission, not necessarily linked to the campaign, for the player to complete which would walk them through the basics in a relatively unhostile environment.

I also like your idea of learning to use the compass and the map and so on. The training really should've detected what difficulty settings you were playing with and given you relevant advice; on Veteran without waypoint markers it still tells you to go to them and give you no other indication of where you're meant to be going.

Maybe a mission on Utes where you start with just a map and a compass and you're told to locate a box hidden somewhere that contains a GPS. Then you can use that help you get to another point on the map. Very simple but would help players get used to the games' visual style and different ways of navigating. At the end you could have an option to give your map, compass and GPS to a recruit and make your way to another part of the island without any aides, going purely by visual cues.

Similarly, an easy mission where you can learn to identify targets would be good. They also have a very noticable lack of any real military tactics being communicated. They just say "go do the MOUT course" with no pointers on how you should approach it, how to use cover and concealment, and so on.

Instead, you need to get used to the games' visual style, the slightly unusual movement model for soldiers, spotting enemies and locating them based on your teammates' reports, proper tactical approaches to combat, and navigating using the map/compass/GPS all at once. I expect this steep learning curve drives a lot of people away in frustration since they don't understand what they're doing wrong, and the game has given them no indication that they might be doing something wrong (other than repeatedly being shot by people they can't see).