richard_dean_anderson

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.

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.

You guys should post some clips of the AI actually doing something intelligent. I still don't believe that they are capable of doing it. Seems like they exist only to serve as something for human players to shoot at. I don't know what kind of game types you guys are playing, but I'd opt for a squad full of mediocre to borderline retarded human players (perhaps even BF2 fans) rather than AI soldiers any day.

I agree with Beagle. The AI is not worth playing with. It would be nice if a couple hundred human players could play at once. Unfortunately, you need to play with a bunch of AI in order to have the "large scale" mutiplayer games which I always thought were the only reason one would want to play Arma/OFP instead of other FPS games.

Yeah, I guess I usually use Engage. I Hit the corresponding F-key, and then just click on the tank, and that's the same as using Engage I think. So I should be using the "Target" command from the menu, scrolling through all the target lists, and the hitting the number of the target, hoping that I chose the correct target at "11 o clock" or "12 o clock" or whatever? That seems sort of unwieldy. Wouldnt it be better if you could select "Target" and then click on what you want them to target? I dunno,I just wish the AI would be a lot more intelligent and FASTER. My AI just always seems stupid and slow. They do so many foolish things that get them killed. Something as simple as entering a vehicle after you've ordered them to still takes longer than you would hope. Telling them to "take cover" doesnt seem effective, since they do so very slowly, and don't do a very good job of it anyway. How hard should it be for them to find cover? But I'm probably expecting far too much from them. I just cant wait until the day when you can play with 100+ or so human players online and not have to worry about having any AI in the game at all.

I for one would say that a more infantry-oriented version would be nice.

Nah, it doesn't work well at all. Just like in OFP. It seems that if you have to rely on AI AT soldiers to take out a tank/bmp, you are screwed a lot of the time. So many times, I tell them to attack a tank, they will wait a few seconds, take out the RPG, sit there for 2 seconds, put it away,take out their M4, lay down, crouch, take out the RPG, put it back, lay down, stand up, STAND UP and run a few feet, and by this time the tank has killed him, me, and all other members of my squad, even though we were pretty well hidden and all that was required was a couple easy RPG shots.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea, sorry if its too bf2 for anyone. Being that the chopper will have to take off, fly to your position without being shot down, and then drop the ammo makes it quite different than BF2 where it just magically drops to you. Thats why I like the idea of having an AI blackhawk pilot (in it's own group, commanded by no one) being able to drop new AI guys, who will then join your squad. Remotely training a new squad, then ordering them to get into the newly-deployed chopper, directing them where to go/land/disembark is just too much work, especially if you are simultaneously trying to regroup/heal etc. the remaining squad members that didn't die in the firefight you were just in. Hitting so many function keys isn't that much fun, especially when the guys you are deploying from the barracks show up right away on the list as soon as they get out of the barracks. Also, isn't there a way to set the respawn to "group" and then when the last group member dies, you respawn at the base like normal? As far as I know, thats still not possible. But, wouldn't that be nice if it was?

Yep, I like this idea too.

What exactly does this mean? Like you can have 10 guys added to your squad, starting in like a truck/chopper at the base? I thought it would be sweet if instead of having them spawn one-by-one at the barracks, bases, etc., you could have your new soldiers dropped, all at once, at your position from an AI-piloted blackhawk. From there, they will join your squad and the chopper will go back to the base so other squad leaders can use it. Like if I lose all but like 2 of my squad, I could just run to a safe place and order up what kind of guys I need, and have the AI attempt to drop them right on me. As it is now, I can train them, but then I have to worry about making a vehicle, loading my guys in it, and transporting them to where I need them, where I will probably abandon the vehicle anyway. Just an idea.

Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. The sad thing is that all these maps maps I play in Arma are like bf2-style maps, only it's not as fun as playing a bf2-style map in BF2 (which isn't really all that fun to begin with). But, I didn't even know this Project Reality thing existed, I guess I'll give that a try for a while until I can find some Arma games/maps that are actually fun.

Oh, I'm well aware of that. But, it ran pretty well in 1.04, now that is funny. Doesn't seem to be only people that have systems that are under the minimum requirements that are having these problems either.

Yep, 1.04 was not too bad, 1.05 seems to be crap. It doesn't look like any of my settings were automatically changed by the upgrade. The graphics look different, sorta "brighter". and its a lot choppier. Using Z-Tweaked 91.47 Nvidia drivers for my xfx 256mb gf 6600GT. 1.9 ghz Athlon Gig of cheap Kingston RAM 1024x760 or whatever, with the first 3 graphics options set to Normal, and everything else low.

haha yeah. It was sarcastic

Yes, but at least they're preventing people who probably weren't going to buy it anyway from playing it illegally. It's a good tradeoff, I'm sure.

Doesn't killing a lot of people contribute to the objective of a CTF mission?

Oh, so there was actually something called RTS? And that was different than CTI? How confusing. I wonder if that's what I played or not. Which was the one with the "mobile HQ" which was a Ural that you weren't supposed to let get destroyed?

Wow, I didn't even know the team assigning thing was in Arma. It wasn't in 1.01 or .02 was it? I thought I heard that it wasn't. But it's in 1.04, but yes, it seems totally worthless. I assigned 2 guys to red, 2 to green, and 2 to blue. So, their icons turn to the color of the team that I assigned them to. So then I select one guy from team red, and order him to move to a bush. But instead of all of team red doing it, only the guy that I ordered moved. In OFP, couldn't you order entire teams just by selecting one team member and ordering him to do something? My memory sucks, but I thought that's how it worked. The way it is in Arma seems sort of worthless, unless I'm doing something wrong. But yes, it should work the way the other guy was saying. You assign a leader to each of your teams, and they can order the guys underneath them, while the overall squad leader commands the individual team leaders.

I thought that was called Capture the Island. Where both sides start out with a Ural, and drive somewhere and start building their base? Then you can train AI troops, make vehicles, etc. and then find the other side and kill them. Or is that not what CTI was on OFP? Maybe it was something different, but it was fun. Weird, but fun. I don't recall "capturing" much of the island come to think of it, I just remember killing the other team after looking for their base for a few hours. The built-in CTI mission is nothing like the OFP mission I'm thinking of..

That's an excellent idea. I've always thought the same. It seriously should be implemented in a patch.

Actually I agree with Viper. Right now, coop is the most fun game type that's being played. But, I know I'll get sick of that soon. I think disabling the AI is a bad idea. Every human player should have a few other people in their squad, whether or not they are human controlled. Whats the point of all these CTF missions that people make where its just 20 squad leaders and no squad members?

It's funny how you co-oppers and CTI players feel so much above the rest just because you kill mindless bots and buy tanks and choppers. Richard Dean Anderson is hardly a representative of CTI players. But yes I noticed this snobbery you mention in alot of co-oppers myself. Infact one example just very recently. Actually, I don't enjoy killing mindless bots. I'd much rather kill humans. But, if I wanted to play a game where I'm restricted to a small portion of the map, and don't have to worry much about dying since I can repeatedly respawn and get right back in the game, I'd seriously play battlefield 2. BF2 does that kind of game so much better than OFP/Arma, hands down.

Yep, that's what I'm doing. I have no doubt that pretty soon we'll have some good MP missions that will let us play the way the game is meant to be played. Namely a proper CTI. Then all I'll need to do is find some quality people to play with.

I don't understand why people try to turn this game into BF2. The appeal of OFP and ArmA, at least for me, is that the maps are big. Ideally, I'd like to play some maps where the idea of "camping" in a place where soldiers "spawn" is obsolete. From what I've played of this game so far, most of the MP servers play either coops or small CTF's where every human player controls himself, with no one else in his squad, and just run off randomly. Then, once you die, you get pretty much instantly respawned back at the base to repeat the whole thing over. The whole thing about areas being off limits, "being shot for desertion" etc is just stupid. I'm also not very fond of scoreboards. This stuff takes away from the whole "war" feeling, and makes it feel more like a an arcade game or a paintball game. NO, you cant shoot me here, I'm in respawn safe zone!@!! Boring, gimme some large scale maps that require actual teamwork and strategy.