Why are public games in ArmA II so terrible?

[Murklor 10]

I have to disagree with your transport statement on the grounds that Rambo is more than happy to transport himself. If you have a single individual on the map he will need transport at some point in time.

True, but that still doesnt eliminate the transport as an encouragement to teamwork.

Imagine if all Domination variants restricted vehicles to mountain bikes instead. Complete a sidemission, get even more bikes.

Then again maybe that's a setup for a bike race :D

[ANZACSAS Steven 395]

@Xeno, What a shame.

[Zipper5 74]

Wow. Well, if you can't take a bit of criticism (and trust me, this is only a bit in comparison to what others have received), then fine. I've put lots of hours into a project, be it for ArmA II or anything in real life, only to have people not like it or to have it never see the light of day. If you can't deal with that, then don't bother with it. Which seems to be the course of action you are taking.

And hey, I wasn't trying to personally insult you. Far from it. In fact, I doubt anyone was trying to insult you, or was directing their issues towards you. You've seemed to taken it that way, which is unfortunate. The issue lies in the server administration(s), and not your mission. But if you're so blinded with rage on someone criticizing your work, then fine. I find sometimes that people are "hurt" way too easily here, occasionally being those who create awesome content for the game and keep it alive.

Well, with that over, shall we continue with the discussion?

[Binkowski 26]

Like Zipper5 said. It's not the mission, it's the people who are dictating the server. That's what ruins it for me at least.

[Opticalsnare 12]

Yeh same for me, as i wanted to play online with mods ive made and other peoples. I havnt really played online because ive been so busy and thought right now that my mod has been released along with server keys and signed files and so on i thought it would be nice to finnaly get to play online and see what its like playing with other people for a change who are using my mod but every server i tried to connect told me to kill all the mods like like JTDs, WarFX, Tracers, SoundMods.... And i was like well the fucks the point in even playing online then i might as well go back to playing by myself until these moron servers sort themselfs out.

[Zipper5 74]

Well, another issue is the unfair advantage some mods give to players. Also, some hacks for ArmA were addon-based, so you could block them by disallowing all mods. Not many cheaters left in ArmA II, thankfully. They were all over ruining that "other game". :D

[An Fiach 10]

I did that to long, more than a year now, including ArmA 1. There is allways a point where it is simply enough.

What those crybabies (sorry, but that is exactly what you are for me) don't understand is that all those countless hours that go into such projects are all done in spare time. And I'm not talking about Dom alone but ask Benny for example, how many hours he invests to get Warfare right or Zaphod how long it took for Berzerk.

None of the MP missions that get played are done by payed BI personal, all those missions are done by people who invest many many hours for free in their spare time just that others can have some fun. Fighting against limitations or bugs that the A2 engine has, trying to get out of the engine whatever is possible.

So instead of crying you should invest the same time to get what you want or try to solve your problem. Or invest money to get your own server and play what you want (btw, all the servers out there are not payed by BI but by others who invest their hard earned money).

But, as you can see in a thread like this, that is not the goal. It's easier to blame something else (whatever it is). Investing a minute or two to write some lines in a forum hidden behind a forum nick is much easier than investing thousands of hours for developing.

I guess I'm to old for that shit and that is why I stop here doing anything more for such a "mature" community. It is not worth it, it really isn't.

Xeno

:o:

Nobody was criticizing you, they were discussing elements of your mission as they relate to the discussion (as it is a much used mission it made it very relevant), but you come in fussing like a teething infant and calling everyone else immature. Further more, stop painting yourself as some sort of martyr. You didn't invest all of that time developing those missions so that other people could have fun, you developed them so that YOU could have fun, just like everyone else that designs a mission or a mod. What you do for the community is that you SHARE those things with the rest of us once you have finished them.

There are many players that absolutely love your missions and their popularity is a testament to that fact. Personally, I'm glad I had the opportunity to play them because they have shown me all that is possible with the game engine and how such things might be achieved. I've even defended your missions because given the right players they can be an amazing exercise in combined arms combat and team play. Unfortunately if anyone even hints at not liking some aspect, you come out swinging. You aren't too old for this shit, just too sensitive.

Even if your missions could be identified as a major factor in all of this the blame would still lie squarely with the admins because they choose to run the missions. By choosing not to enforce any type of game play rules and by running missions that make it easy to do the things so sorely lamented in this thread, they encourage it.

Admins are not obligated to do any of these things that players in this thread want so their only real recourse is to either join a private server, or host their own. I think what many in this thread are looking to do though is to let people know that this is the kind of game play the are looking for and hoping that someone might try to provide it if they see it is a popular sentiment.

[Pain0815 10]

i have to give my 2 cents to it...

First one, i play both Arma and Project Reality.

And in my opinion its just by the missionmaker to force teamwork.

Domination is a really nice coded mission but it doenst force teamwork.

On non public servers you may play it realistic but on publics you will find rambos all time.

Not in Pr because here you dont have acces to ALL weapons. And you need ppl to get things done, in most arma missions (i will take domination as example) you can all make on your own.

In Domination you can be a medic with mg and a rocketlauncher, but thats absolutly bullshit in terms of realism.

What the mission designer have to do is putting some restrictions into the mission.

Things need to be changed to force teamwork:

1) Take out ALL teleport stuff, to make transport usefull and necessary

2) limit the gear for the inf to the specific classes (no launchers for non AT soldiers, MG´s only for mg gunners, m203 only for grenadiers, only snipers with sniperrifles, only pilots can fly... bla bla bla) this forces squads stick together because not every soldier can handle every thread on the battlefield alone

3) death penality (longer spawn, loosing money or rank, or without teleport just getting to the front again after death) --> ppl need to have fear to die!!!!!!!

Good things alredy in domination but not needed because of "spawn-die-spawn-die" mentality:

Ammo loadable into vehicles to get supplies to the front troops. This is necessary if you force ppl to stay alive without the ability to teleport to the front with new loadout after getting killed.

So in my opinions its just the mission which force ppl to play as team if there were restrictions which force the teamplay. This happens in Project reality AND in some ARMA missions.

If anyone is searching a good mission for10-30 ppl which force teamwork you should give HUNT WALDO 2 a try.

Its like a mix of Domination and Project Reality.

The mission is random after the first airfield cap (first mission is same)

Features:

Coop 35

- no teleporting

- revive

- ammoboxes loadable into vehicles

- multiple variant of missions (no kill anything every time) you have to search for intel, looking for weapon caches, rescue ppl, blow stuff up or laser stuff

- equipment only avaiable for the classes they should have it (no rocketlauncher medics or snipers)

- your team get money for solving missions, with those money the Engineer can build a mash, an artillery base with sat view or statics and more (only squadleaders can call in ari if the FOB is builded by the engi with the truck)

- if someone DIE your TEAM loose some money, so if many ppl die there will be no money to build stuff

- if you get sidemissions done you get new special vehicles for your team (if they waste it it needs 20min to respawn the unlocked vehicle)

- for mainmissions or any searched convoys or enemy HQs before destroying your team will get INTEL (intelligence points), if you have enough intel by getting missions done you will get the position of the enemy general (waldo) and youn have to arrest him.

The missions after getting the airbase are all random every time (random missions in random towns with random enemy forces).

Give it a try...

btw dont blame xeno, he done a good job to build a mission for everyone. all kind of players can play together here, but for real teamwork you have to go non public with this mission as he said or you just connect with a couple of friends on a pub server and make your own thing with teamwork and let the others around make their thing to simulate your war around you.

or just try other missions where you need more teamplay.

Edited November 16, 2009 by Pain0815

[DrStrangeLove_EBDA 10]

Fact is, regardless of admin or mission, it's only YOU that determines how you play. Even in severely restricted missions designed to enforce strict tactics, nothing ever really works as planned unless and until you and others get together and work at planning it. Which is the antithesis to the very nature of a public server.

Brass tacks are this, if you want something -- and this is especially true with online gaming -- you must do one of two things. Do it yourself. Purchase/rent your own server and set it up the way you want it. So far that's the minority in this thread. Or, join a group that plays the way you want. Again, a minority here.

You get the free servers you play on because you have no stake in them whatsoever. You get to complain about them because you have no stake in these forums, either. Many of you have berated Domination and a few Xeno directly. What's sad is that, while he's been very cordial about his mission, with others mangling it for their own use and him being very helpful in the process, all you've really done is spent the $50 more or less for the Arma2 DVD.

It's not the admins. It's not the missions. It's everyone here that's complained and not done a damn thing beyond that. There's the real problem.

Edited November 16, 2009 by DrStrangeLove_EBDA
Brevity

[Pain0815 10]

It's not the admins. It's not the missions. It's everyone here that's complained and not done a damn thing beyond that. There's the real problem.

Wrong. Why public teamplay is given on any pr server then if not the missions force ppl to work together?

You need to get restrictions to force ppl to play as a team. If a player cant deal with any situatin on his own they automaticly group up. With no teleport stuff they will get a ride with other ppl to the same landingzone, so they already grouped so far.

Thats all some little restrictions you need for teamplay.

And thats just in the hand of the missionmaker.

A big part of teamplay is the oppertunity to communicate with the others (arma voip should be enabled on all servers, to make it possible to communicate between units --> TS and stuff is additional)

Why someone should stick to the team if hes medic with a sniper rifle and a anti tank launcher???

thats the biggest problem in such "arcade missions".

Other example are the missions without respawn, there the ppl work as a team, because they have to.

As i said, try HUNT WALDO 2 playing as rambo. You dont survive long on your own, thats no 1 man army map where 30 rambos equipped with 30 sniper rifles and 30 at launchers going around...

p.s. cant wait to play that mission with ACE 2 on public servers

edit: @admins --> ever played xenos mission on the jägerbatallion or the fun clan public server? awesome teamwork there on a public, but why ?? ;)

I think the reasons are the admins and the community which play together in TS and force teamwork this way.

Edited November 16, 2009 by Pain0815

[An Fiach 10]

Fact is, regardless of admin or mission, it's only YOU that determines how you play. Even in severely restricted missions designed to enforce strict tactics, nothing ever really works as planned unless and until you and others get together and work at planning it. Which is the antithesis to the very nature of a public server.

Brass tacks are this, if you want something -- and this is especially true with online gaming -- you must do one of two things. Do it yourself. Purchase/rent your own server and set it up the way you want it. So far that's the minority in this thread. Or, join a group that plays the way you want. Again, a minority here.

You get the free servers you play on because you have no stake in them whatsoever. You get to complain about them because you have no stake in these forums, either. Many of you have berated Domination and a few Xeno directly. What's sad is that, while he's been very cordial about his mission, with others mangling it for their own use and him being very helpful in the process, all you've really done is spent the $50 more or less for the Arma2 DVD.

It's not the admins. It's not the missions. It's everyone here that's complained and not done a damn thing beyond that. There's the real problem.

Really? You are someone that has not read the thread obviously.

[whisper 0]

Fact is, regardless of admin or mission, it's only YOU that determines how you play. Even in severely restricted missions designed to enforce strict tactics, nothing ever really works as planned unless and until you and others get together and work at planning it. Which is the antithesis to the very nature of a public server.

Brass tacks are this, if you want something -- and this is especially true with online gaming -- you must do one of two things. Do it yourself. Purchase/rent your own server and set it up the way you want it. So far that's the minority in this thread. Or, join a group that plays the way you want. Again, a minority here.

You get the free servers you play on because you have no stake in them whatsoever. You get to complain about them because you have no stake in these forums, either. Many of you have berated Domination and a few Xeno directly. What's sad is that, while he's been very cordial about his mission, with others mangling it for their own use and him being very helpful in the process, all you've really done is spent the $50 more or less for the Arma2 DVD.

It's not the admins. It's not the missions. It's everyone here that's complained and not done a damn thing beyond that. There's the real problem.

Some people have a hard time realising we don't all have the free time / free schedule to be in a group day in, day out, hence the very existence of public playing. 30 mns free NOW, must mean 30 minutes on a server, playing. All this "get in a group, blablabla", is NOT a solution. Excuse us trying to get some experience fitting our tastes while having these schedule restrictions

[tractorking 10]

Xeno

Youve got to take a deep breath and relax.

Im a little dissapointed that you took that route.

Your a well known veteran of the game and if you approach things in the right fasion you have a lot of influence in the community based on your works and your name, but if you start off by calling people "crybabys" and "whiners" you wont win any favor.

I think you may have missinterpeted this thread to be a direct attack on your mission when it clearly is not.

No one was singleing you out or your mission. Its was a healthy constructive disscussion on the pros and cons of open server games and why they work or dont work..

Im not sure why you got so defensive but you should really take all of this feedback into account and use to your advantage in the future.

Feedback is always good, whether good or bad...

Your mission is on %80 of the open servers. There is always going to be some negative feedback....Hell, I like your mission and appreciate your work.....But like the others....

Im tired of it a little too and would like something different.....Not like your Dom mission all of a sudden sucked or anything, but after playing through 6 hour conquests over and over, week after week......I want some change too.....

Im an old dude too... I make missions sometimes....upload em....some good feedback....some bad.....I enjoy making missions as I am sure you do to.

I sent a beta mini campaign to some folks and got mixed feedback....am I offended....did I take it personal.....no.....its just feedback....it makes me better.

It gives you an outside perspective.

You did a great job with Dom. Obviously its very popular.

The general consensus here is that its the players not the mission, however the mission can play a part in forcing teamwork...

Edited November 16, 2009 by tractorking

[cross 1]

A game / missions is only as realistic & cooperative as WE(players) want it to be.

Only play with mature players who promote teamplay. Do not blame it on the mission or the game exploits. There are enough groups/clans etc who provide properly managed public servers.

[An Fiach 10]

A game / missions is only as realistic & cooperative as WE(players) want it to be.

I certainly agree with that, I think what people are sayin though is that they'd prefer to have missions that are more restrictive (pretty much asking for ACE 2)

Only play with mature players who promote teamplay. Do not blame it on the mission or the game exploits. There are enough groups/clans etc who provide properly managed public servers.

I don't agree with this. The majority of the servers you mention can only offer that in the timezone that their members play in, otherwise there is no one keeping out the rabble. This is especially true for the clans that have public servers but mostly play on their private servers.

[Opticalsnare 12]

Some people have a hard time realising we don't all have the free time / free schedule to be in a group day in, day out, hence the very existence of public playing. 30 mns free NOW, must mean 30 minutes on a server, playing. All this "get in a group, blablabla", is NOT a solution. Excuse us trying to get some experience fitting our tastes while having these schedule restrictions

+1 to that.

Since i started working fulltime and have to deal with two jobs, pay bills, go to work for 8hrs a day - 5 days a week, work from home, find time to make mods, play games, find time to enjoy myself on other things not relating to computers, try and have a some form of contact with my friends who arnt into gaming, spend time with family, everything else that you need to do in life. Trying to fit all this into a day or week is extremly hard. I used to have all the time in the world to work on mods & play games and do nothing else but those days are well and truly over.

On another note, a bit of advise to some people.

For those who feel the need to say "calm down" to someone whos not in a very good mood, its best to just stop and not say anything towards them until they are ready to talk. Saying things like "calm down, relax, do this" does not work because to them it sounds like your telling them to do something, if they are pissed off and angry just leave them alone.

[galzohar 31]

You won't have teamwork without players that don't want to work as a team and you won't have teamwork without missions that require it. It's really both.

Editing domination for teamwork is practically impossible, because it's designed from the ground up to be a great mission for playing with anyone.

If you restrict weapons people will still rambo as they can't lose.

Limiting teleport/respawns will simply make it more annoying, especially if it's really a public game with not very good players and even worse if you're just playing with a small player count which means you die a lot more even if you play great.

[Cain_ 10]

Every time I play i try to tell people to help me cap zones or defend zones. Theres always been guys coming to help out! Ask for help and guns will come!

[Halli~SPARTA~ 0]

Well All I can say Is JUST FIND A SERVER YOU FIT IN they are out there.

As for Dr.Strangelove he Understands as he is an Admin for a fine Server

As For Xeno Well What can be said.... He has given Our Server A chance to Be in the top 10 and Has done a hell of a job at supporting his work.

Xeno SPARTA thanks you.

OP Why not try Xeno's server or even Sparta's and come back to tell us what you think.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I've played Domination on Tactical Gaming and FoW, where the teamwork has been phenomenal. Usually that requires an admin to really take charge of things though. But most players have no problems playing in teams.

These days, restricted weapons setting should be default. For the loner starting up the server, it will become an annoyance that he can't use everything at the same time, but his scoreboard will stay even if he changes class. With the amount of armor though, maybe more guys should have access to M136? That requires some editing though. But at least not everyone will be a sniper/smaw/engineer combo class, which is currently ruining most public game styles.

I'm not saying that this change alone will perfect lacking teamplay on public servers, but maybe it's worth a try? There are a ton of options if hosters bothered to de-pdo the mission and make some changes so the mission was less forgiving and convenient. Lock all enemy assets. Prevent backpack cheaters from exploiting the system. Activate and change limited weapons to what you think is required.

I have removed base teleporting, but you can leave one MHQ at crate if you need access to ammo quickly. I've placed a C130 far away from the flag, and let it have the HALO Paradrop. You can place the MHQ there. Default HALO height is 10000 feet (3048 meters I think), so it takes a while to use the drop. A new joiner will have to run a bit to get into action, but when he dies once, he can respawn at base or any of the MHQs. I've increase the ammo drop point to 750m from the ammo pickup point, so now you can't drop a crate at the C130 (HALO). Basically what I've done is make it possible to choose one "exploit" to use throughout the game, but made it impossible to use all of them. For us, that works great.

And Xeno has gone to great lenghts to make it possible to configure his mission the way we want, with nice comments all over the code. Other missions seem to be as cryptic as possible to prevent editing. If I can't edit a mission to suit our own needs, it won't get played.

[galzohar 31]

The problem with removing mobile respawns in domination is that it will simply turn the mission into a "taxi back back and forth repeatedly throwing a stream of friendly soldiers at the enemy town until it's all clear" which is not very different than just using a mobile respawn other than the fact it takes longer, is more annoying and actually requires someone (or 2) who can fly to constantly man the helicopter(s) and just taxi.

Realistic class restrictions will simply mean that if you don't have enough players on the server then the few that are on will soon quit because it's too much of a hassle for them to get the objectives done (note I said "too much of a hassle" and not "impossible" as you'd need to edit a lot of things in domination to actually make it "impossible", but a big enough hassle is enough to make people not want to play).

Edited November 19, 2009 by galzohar

[-GCA- Salah ad Din 10]

Yep, the standard teamwork on a Domi server consists of people being in the same general area simply because that is the current target.

But on a basic level, the Domination missions are good material to edit. Already the inbuilt options can make it much more interesting, and with a little tweaking it is possible to transform them into "teamwork yet publicly playable missions".

People want to experience good teamwork on a public server. We all know that you get awesome TW on a closed server, but that's not what this thread is about.

[galzohar 31]

I still think you will get much better (and more satisfying) teamwork on a simple, good no-respawn mission though, especially if the admin does his job.

[Murklor 10]

I still think you will get much better (and more satisfying) teamwork on a simple, good no-respawn mission though, especially if the admin does his job.

Perhaps, but that would of course never work on the grander scale missions. And it really doesnt take all that many enemies to make it grand (I mean how many enemies can your average soldiers be expected to kill and survive?).

Personally I still believe that a squad focus is the way to go. An idea to limit the general respawn would for example be to make it so that squadmembers can only respawn once the entire squad is dead (then the squad respawns at the same place at the same time), with a revival system in place that will let you know everyone of your squadmates that are down so you can focus on keeping them alive. Any squadmember can revive any other squadmember, but only the squad medic can revive anyone on the team regardless of squad.

This would enforce rather than "just" encourage teamwork on a squad level, since no one really wants to die and be left in limbo in some far off region of the map, yet it will cover respawn if everyone simply die (say that a helo with the entire squad go down). Not different than doing it for the entire team you say? Well one man can only focus on so much. I dont think a rifleman should take heed what 50 other players are doing - that's the job of a commander. He should only need to be in contact with his group.

Edited November 19, 2009 by Murklor

[An Fiach 10]

I have to say it again, good Admins equal good game play. I've played on several servers that run Domination missions and it all comes down to booting out people that don't want to play along.

The only down side I see to these servers are their requirement to join 3rd party voice comms in order to utilize aircraft. On the surface it seems to be a good idea, but it is a minor hurdle for someone that just wants to jet around in a chopper doing their own thing and worse it tends to cut off communications to individuals not using that voice software and have no interest in using aircraft. Eventually a large number of people are on voice comms and they don't communicate with everyone else, leaving some players, out to dry.