Whats up with the PvP??

[ryguy 10]

I'm constantly looking in public servers for a PvP game, and although I understand there are scheduled ones that are hosted privately, why are there never any PvP?

[qwertz 10]

We have public PvP (Advance and Secure, see here:http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=96871) every day, 24/7. 10-40 people online in the evenings ( US eastern time). Just hop on and check it out :-)

Edited April 10, 2010 by qwertz

[Taxman 10]

We have CTF/DM at least 4 days a week on the SBS server Uk times though.

Guaranteed to get have a game on Tues.Thurs. and Sunday. (sometimes we have a match or friendly on Sunday)

[Zipper5 74]

For some reason, PvP has become frowned upon in the community. At least, modes like DM, TDM, CTF, etc. have been. Most opted towards a coop standard, and tons of coop missions are available. However, this has evolved into the playing of two modes that have loads of 3rd-party modifications - Evolution & Domination.

So now, most servers you see are running some variation of these two maps. They've been played to death yet server admins keep allowing people to play them, so it's all you ever see being played. Competitive PvP modes like the ones mentioned before have pretty much disappeared from the popular Arma2 MP scene, but there are still a few who have their servers online occasionally.

[Herbal Influence 10]

I think the feature JIP is the reason why PvP is no more the favourite gaming mode on public servers though I am absolutely only a PvP-Fan.

If you do PvP you really need steadily connected human enemies whereas a Coop-thingie can be done alone or with people coming and going.

[Lonestar 11]

The "Official" Advance and Secure Thread (AAS) / Download V1.0

Where to play AAS?

Arma2 Russia Public Gameplay on a daily base (Russia/Eastern Europe)

Armacalypse Public Gameplay on a daily base (U.S. East Coast)

Armed Global Warfare Tournament. Registration required. Sign in now for up to 100-player matches with maximum organized Teamplay (Somewhere in the U.S. and Canada)

Basecamp Allstars This server always runs the latest AAS-Alpha-Releases / Public Gameplay every Thursday starting at 8pm CET (Germany, Central Europe)

[Taxman 10]

Competitive PvP modes like the ones mentioned before have pretty much disappeared from the popular Arma2 MP scene, but there are still a few who have their servers online occasionally.

Hya buddy,,, I know what you are saying about the Pvp side BUT you will find that the pvp servers that are out there ARE always online,,,,(just we cant be on them 24/7 the missus would kill me) ours and quite a few more... you are welcome to drop into ours anytime,,vote yoursefl admin (be nice) select a map from a hundred plus CTF's and Dm's start one and people will join,,, always best to start with a popular map... Napalm, Agnus dei, Banana Polana, Gorka are just a few.... you put it on and peeps will join.

We use ZERO mods so its easier for you to get a game. Signature check is on , so it wont allow any mods either...

If you are really interested in CTF/Dm then click on my APL Sig, join the site and put a request in the recruitment forum, teams are always looking for players....

[walker 0]

For some reason, PvP has become frowned upon in the community. At least, modes like DM, TDM, CTF, etc. have been...

Hi all

TDM CTF and DM are not frowned upon.

First up, unlike other games COD/BF/Unreal etc. ArmA is not limited to just those 3 game forms.

There are many game forms in ArmA that are PvP like CTI, A&D, Advance and Secure, Capture and Hold, Berzerk etc which are all PvP forms. As well as the asymetric warfare concepts and all the RPG forms.

Secondly unlike other games the AI in ArmA is good enough to be worth playing against, IMHO it is aproximatley as good as the best human COD players. With Zeus AI it is comparible platoon for platoon to a good BF clan.

A good ArmA community can beat even a Zeus ArmA AI most days.

Kind Regards walker

[Zipper5 74]

TDM CTF and DM are not frowned upon.

Sorry, but they are. They have been associated with mainstream gaming and arcade FPS titles, and are therefore more-or-less disliked by the BIS community. Last time I checked that's how it was, I don't know if it's changed since. All evidence points towards - no.

IMHO it is aproximatley as good as the best human COD players.

Not only is it not as good as the best COD players (seriously, search YouTube for some, they'll blow your mind) but it can never beat a human opponent.

Hya buddy,,, I know what you are saying about the Pvp side BUT you will find that the pvp servers that are out there ARE always online,,,,(just we cant be on them 24/7 the missus would kill me) ours and quite a few more...

Well, perhaps I should have added that the ones that are online are rarely populated when I go looking for them.

you are welcome to drop into ours anytime

Thanks for the offer. My friend Infamous has mentioned you guys a few times. Might pay you a visit if I feel the need to play some PvP in Arma2. :)

[qwertz 10]

Secondly unlike other games the AI in ArmA is good enough to be worth playing against, IMHO it is aproximatley as good as the best human COD players.

Serious? Still looking for the [sarkasm] tags...

Edited April 11, 2010 by qwertz

[Herbal Influence 10]

The solution for the PvP-missing problem is here:

CTI Golden Army.

Much faster than a normal CTI - a good possibility to be fast in and use an enormous amount of material! (I am online with this now in about a 15 min - get in at "Herbals" Server).

[walker 0]

Hi all

When I was playing Berzerk at the start when all the Leet Noob CoD players were joining I was top ten table for months.

Amazing how many I offed by sneaking up behind them with a silenced pistol while they hid in a forest edge with a sniper rifle, or MG ed while they ran around the cities like demented elves.

They used to charge into cities in a tank straight over the mines like numpties. They used to pile down the same access routes making them selves easy pickings for a satchel charge and MG.

Amazing how easy it was to take cities from them. A cobled together ArmA II team would have the AT and sniper secure the FUP then move in the support vehicle, an AFV and or grenade launcher jeep. Supress the target and access route, assault team would infiltrate in with the sniper directing supressing fire from outside on to each target and the AA and AT guys provinding security and plink another town taken.

The BF players were better especially when they worked as a team. They even learned how to run tank hunter killer teams in the forests.

Half the problem with the COD players was they could not cope with the concept of an open environment. They had no concept of what a flank was, they thought one dimensional. Easy meat. Playing a life time of games in a shoe box environment does that to you.

Just because it does not say it is TDM CTF or DM does not mean it is not PvP.

Try CTI, A&D, Advance and Secure, Capture and Hold, Berzerk etc. they are just some of the more advanced forms of PvP ArmA has to offer.

Kind Regards walker

Edited April 11, 2010 by walker

[celery 8]

Hi all

TDM CTF and DM are not frowned upon.

First up, unlike other games COD/BF/Unreal etc. ArmA is not limited to just those 3 game forms.

Just because it does not say it is TDM CTF or DM does not mean it is not PvP. Try

CTI, A&D, Advance and Secure, Capture and Hold, Berzerk etc. they are just some of the more advanced forms of PvP ArmA has to offer.

Still you're constantly lobbying people to play something else than DM and CTF, and hold Berzerk, an almost direct BF2 gameplay clone (difference being that in Berzerk everyone is an anti-tank sniper flying an assault helicopter), as a more advanced mode.

[galzohar 31]

Yeah, I have to agree Berzerk is basically BF2 in Arma with no classes but with Arma's more realistic game mechanics.

[Taxman 10]

Lets face it the only NON PvP is Coop

There are plenty of different modes and im sure more will turn up.... there is plenty of room for all of them.....

ONE thing we all have in common is we like to play Arma,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[nkenny 1051]

Personally I would love to see more smaller squad-based PvPs. And to get a 'real' interesting PvP scenario -- I think you need round based deaths.

1 Death per Round essentially. Screw revives. Make it deadly and simple. Smaller objectives, don't try to win the war in one scenario -- but permit the large scale Arma2 maps without artificial barriers.

Smaller and more realistic weapon selection goes a long way -- remove binoculars, GPS, and perhaps even Maps from the majority of players and you'll have a forced need to cooperate. The same would go for vehicles.

-k

[galzohar 31]

Well, there were some smaller squad-based PvPs with no respawns/revives and smaller objectives, but nobody seems to play them. In fact, most people who are capable of getting more than 3-5 players in their games also seem to play nothing but missions that they make by themselves, and for themselves only.

Even the missions I make only for my friends I try to get to a publish quality, but considering the lack of interest by the community I haven't been bothering with it too much.

[-sbs-Karlos 10]

Personally I would love to see more smaller squad-based PvPs. And to get a 'real' interesting PvP scenario -- I think you need round based deaths.

1 Death per Round essentially. Screw revives. Make it deadly and simple. Smaller objectives, don't try to win the war in one scenario -- but permit the large scale Arma2 maps without artificial barriers.

-k

You would love Siege mode. Check out www.armaleague.com where we are getting the PvP community together and we are starting a ladder for Siege. Siege mode is team v team where one team defends a location whilst one attacks. When you die....you are out of the game. Winner is when all of one team dies or attacking team get into the defending zone.

Download our map pack and try them out.

[BCA Cat Toaster 10]

I think, the biggest problem of Arma2 is its biggest strength at the same time: You can modify everything! Because of that, every single player in the world thinks that "this is good, BUT I want to change it here and there to suit my personal needs, otherwise I´m not gonna play it" and that´s what people do all the time. This leads to total inconsistency in ArmA2-MP-Gaming everywhere.

I´ll just take AAS as an example because its a good one I´m familiar with but I´m sure that works with other modes as well:

1. 80% of all ArmA2-Interested PvP-Players don´t even know that the AAS-Mode even exists.

2. Those who know have to make their choice if they want to play "AAS-Core", which already offers five different Rulesets for different gaming-needs to choose from. Than we have "PvPScene-AAS" which is way more feature-packed to the maximum but only supports up to 20 players and there´s a SBS-Mac-Script-Pack-AAS. And I know of even more missions not based on these three mentioned bases that call themselves AAS... all these have different key-controls, different HUDs, different features, different game-mechanics...how attractive is that as a first impression for a normal player who does not even know that there are several different AAS-Implementations? Who is interestend in trying them all before making a choice?

3. 10% are saying "it must be p0rn-hardcore-realistic ACE2-PR-Stuff, otherwise I´m not touching it"

4. The lack of an game-integrated Mod-Distribution-System or just a better informational system. People just get cryptic messages that they can´t join a server because they don´t have a required Addon installed and never come back. They need to find a website and the desired addon, they need to know how to install it or what Yoma is and how that works and so on... Is it possible that Server-side-required Addons contain a XML-File that describes where to get an Addon if a player joins?

I know that people who play since the OFP-Days don´t see that as a problem, but please wake up. 11 years passed and that system has not seen any major improvements in all that time?

I can´t change it, I´m a part of it. But do I really have to wonder why people don´t want to play "my favorite mode" under these circumstandes? No, of course not!

Choice is good, too much choice leads to confusion. ArmA2 is total confusion even for average players. You can spent hours in ArmA2 without playing a minute just learning which Mods and Addons are out there (and that´s part of the fun in ArmA2!). I love ArmA2 and I hate it at the same time because it misses a lot of potential players out there, who want to click on a server, join and play without the need to know what "Yoma" is and how all this stuff works behind the scenes. That could improve sales without the need to make it "battlefieldish"!

Edited April 13, 2010 by BCA Cat Toaster

[ginger mcale 11]

Perfect analysis! Excellent post. Thats the point, accessibility.

Its to hard for new players. Most give up demotivated and play a another game that hess less possibilities to choose from and no cryptic "mod_xyz.pbo" is missing kicked from server messages.

I think thats the biggest problem of the whole OPF / ArmA series. I dont know if Bohemia doesnt see it. If they dont change it, i think ArmA will never come out of its niche having the most hardcore uber motivated users that do spend hours to get the game working with server xyz with mod xyz and map xyz.

*edit*

Excellent example of an user complaning about that:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=97806

But, he is very motivated to get things running and to get into this game / community. How many percent of gamers are like him and are willing to learn the essential things and go to some forum to ask how to do it? 5, 10, 20% ?

Edited April 13, 2010 by Ginger McAle

[whisper 0]

The usual answer is that people not willing to do the interface/setup learning part are not worth playing this game... go figure

[norsu 180]

Couldn't agree more Cat Toaster, well said!

During OFP times things were in my opinion much more simple. We had only few big mods that dominated multiplayer (i.e. WGL and FDF) and then we had servers with either a selection of best addons or just vanilla units. Multiplayer modes were also a lot more simple and most of them didn't have dozens of complex UI variations.

I guess the players wanted more when ArmA was released and these complex playmodes were born. Too bad coordination was forgotten and now we have the need for big mods like PR to sort things out for new players.

There are still some servers left with simple game modes that don't require learning new UIs every time. But these are mostly behind passwords which once again don't attract new players.

[Infam0us 10]

PvP is not dying in the community, you just need to know were to look ;)

[ryguy 10]

Good points. I am just sick of seeing 50 people in a server and being like "Oh this should be good, huge ground war", but it ends up being a bunch of people getting in helis alone and getting shot down. PvP guarantees an actual opponent, one that can think. If you actually had people in squads, it could be quite fun, as in a real test of skill.

[helo 10]

Well there is organized PvP, with squads and differenbt army branches working together to vanquish OPFOR/BLUFOR.

It´s called Charlie Foxtrot www.cfarma2.com