Campaign: Supply Network (mission feedback)

[Adam Beckett]

I now decided to continue giving feedback on the single player campaign, not expecting any BIS gamedev to ever read this (they are busy porting their game to XBox?). The largest part why people are motivated to write lengthy feedbacks is rarely fueled by delight, but rather motivated by hours of frustration - keep that in mind - yet, I still hope to give some constructive feedback. Peter Molyneux said in a Gamasutra recent interview:

If you really are serious about making a great game, then it has to be an iterative step, and you need to realize the negative comments are the most valuable thing. The most destructive thing is the positive comments. Because they make you think, "Well, I don't need to worry about that stuff." - Peter Molyneux

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242058339

Mission: Supply Network
Objective: Ambush an enemy supply convoy.

The mission structure is again multi-layered. You split with your group, head to your other group, become team leader, go to an area where you are setting up an ambush. Steal the supply vehicle and move to the hideout.

This mission introduces 'advanced commands' to the player, having to give out orders to his NPC team mates.

All sounds great.

It even starts great! There is a car in a garage near the mission start. It's almost waving to me, saying "Come over here! You can drive me to your next waypoint!" This was a glimpse of advanced mission design!! But it stops right there, of course...



http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242058266

After successfully having captured the vehicle (but losing all my man - again, open world sandbox and NPC AI don't mix well together), I am on my way to the hideout.

I don't know why BIS paid money to license the PhysX technology, since the vehicles still drive like tin-cans, if you remember the infamous "Pathfinder" mission from Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead. Physics - even PhysX - should not behave like that.

I was trying to get to the safe spot by going off road with this six-wheeler. The truck was sliding ("unphysically") down a hill, I could not brake fast enough and I hit a tree.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242058216

Immediately, all the vehicle stats turned to 'orange' - hull, wheels, tank, etc, etc ... all are damaged (very sim-like). The front left wheel was blown ... and now, the vehicle was only able to crawl (do vehicles 'crawl'?). Of course, I could not repair or swap the broken tire (rather NOT very sim-like?) and so I had to crawl over one click (or more like 10-15 minutes in REAL TIME!) to the checkpoint.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242058294

I finally made it to the hideout, being told to wait, until the spotters have returned. Wait what? I was not able to save. I had to wait. Luckily, the real reason was not to wait for some simulation event (which could have gone wrong again - imagine those invisible spotters getting killed on their way back, while I was waiting, ending in a mission fail, having me repeat the whole thing yet again - even when it is not my fault). No. This time the enemy has found out the hideout and I was told to blow up the truck that cost me my comrades and 20+ minutes of my lifetime.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242058308

So THAT is why I had two bombs in my inventory. Not for the ambush? Too late. I used them earlier. Now all I had was hand granades. The time it took the animation to repeat itself (try to throw two granades quickly after each other - use a pocket stop watch ... you'll have time enough to use a pocket stop watch, is my point), was time enough for the enemy to close up on me and when I eventually was able to run away - all remaining vehicles were gone - I was killed by either an armored vehicle, or a tank, or a helicopter or something else - pick your choice.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242058321

Not the kind of Single Player mission design you would expect. Not the kind of mission design you would expect, even on the LOWEST DIFFICULTY SETTINGS. If the truck becomes undriveable, end the mission or let me repair it? No console gamer will spend 10-15-20 minutes driving a broken truck at the speed of 3 mph to the next checkpoint? It does not take a Microsoft focus testing group to see that? I tried it in different difficulty settings - no difference. As usual, in the Arma sandbox games, the only difference is that you don't die with the first hit, but you'll get hit 5x per second at this point in this mission (design), so doesn't matter really.

Now - again - this could be filed under 'simulation, not a CoD-FPS'. I could restart the mission and replay it, but the risk is to have yet another of those unpredictable outcomes, when the ambush ends up in EVERYONE dying (including my character), like the 10x before.

Btw, to this day, I do not know how to have the friendly and enemy units showing real-time in the map, while not having green and red dots in the game too.

I chose the Veteran settings (slightly customized), so I do not get the Battlefield like in-game UI triangles and hexa-angles around the squad (what is the purpose of 'realistic' graphics, when you have floating UI all over your 'field of view'?).

THE BIGGER POINT:

If you, BIS guys, really are looking to put your games on consoles and expose your game and mission designing to the console audience, which is far less tolerant than veteran Arma players, I can only wish you the best of luck. You need to stop thinking in your Arma Editor bubble and have non-Arma players play your games, so you can see through their eyes the pain you cause?

I would really love to see a Microsoft focus test with any of the BIS or Arma games. That would be fascinating to watch? People with NO experience, trying to play any of these games, for two hours? Would produce amazing data?!


I myself am schizophrenic, obviously. I still return to this game, since I love it - even with it's flaws! These kind of games are hard to make! Don't give up on Single Player campaigns. And I hope, everytime I see these daily -dev branch patches, ONE day, maybe ONE day, they will address these kind of problems with the game(s)?

[Adam Beckett]

*ATTENTION: SPOILERS - do not read unless you want to play it. I am not going to spoiler-tag this.

Another playthrough, another approach:

This time, the support truck blows up, before I can reach the hideout.

I would have been dead, but the game allows me to survive. Also (after the mission) I see 'Repair truck' as a mission objective, instead 'Destroy truck', after I was previously able to successfully bring it back to the hideout - so, the mission is partly "dynamic" (=good!), although, I get the command to blow up the truck later which already blew up.

A single team mate of mine (Gekas!) survived too. He is asking me for my position. How do I report him my position? I cannot.**

**) (Any game design book should have the following rule. Only show things to players that are both ways 'interactive': 1. if a player can get hurt, the player must be able to heal her/himself. 2. If a door can be opened, a door can be closed, etc, etc)

I am injured. How do I apply my medkit on myself? Right-click drops it on the ground. Going through the in-game 'manual' again? No, thanks. "Intuitive" UX/UI - a selling point for any other FPS style game.

Giving him the command to 'move there' though works. He was able to catch up with me. (=good!). NPC's in general can catch up. NPC's in general are aweful in finding cover or following an objective. Again, this is one of the hardest parts of any Game AI programming, due to open world, sandbox environment. Nothing BIS is particularly bad at - everyone is bad at this.

We make it to the hideout. The attack* happens. Now, that I know that this would happen beforehand, I already managed to get into an armored pickup truck with my buddy Gekas and we were able to escape, despite getting shot at close range (=again, good - it's a single player experience, remember. You can keep killing team members in coop/mp plenty.)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242120935

In the end the pickup truck blows up. I survive again (=good!) and now have to run away from the mayhem, while a helicopter is searching for me and I am getting shot at for a time by random (infantry) fire.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242120971

Running for another couple of endless minutes on foot, while injured, moaning like Monika Seles (googlebing) - the ultimate ARMA experience? - I made it to the wide area trigger, before having to actually make it to the actual point (=good!).

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=242120999

Finally made it, to get dropped into the hub world.

Another general thing:

Between missions the game is loading. It shows me the map with the objectives. I click and it is LOADING AGAIN (more) - it seems, even the latest Arma engine is not capable of LOADING IN THE BACKGROUND? Sitting and clicking several times to load into the game, should be a thing from the past.

Pulling up the map, should be possible without the game having to hibernate and re-load itself, as it seems to do. Scaleform is not for everyone. But there needs to be some solution, better than this?

[less than three]

I hear you. It's true that some missions are badly designed and poorly playtested. This particular mission looks impossible to complete without RPG and proper loadout. AT Specialist in your team can't hit MRAP, or goes down before he even tries to shoot by direct order.

Still the beauty of Arma games is variety of events, things go differently every time.

My only complaint is about enemy AI who can pinpoint your position within a few milliseconds for every other member of the enemy squad, and they will be able to see you through bushes, trees, grass. Even if you badly damage MRAP with satchel charge and soldiers will pop from it, they will instantly know your position and start shooting. I can't imagine this to happen in real life. I mean, I stay in prone position, hidden in bushes and grass, do not move and detonate charges by remote.

[Adam Beckett]

I vaguely remember a John Carmack quote about Enemy AI (aka 'your computer') always knows your position. The (game design) trick is to not take advantage of that.

In many ways, I am more certain than ever that BIS is building an engine first and trying to build a 'game' around that engine, while more video game saavy companies (think of Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games, Danger Close, DICE) have gameplay in mind first and build their game engines to support that game and gameplay.

In the end, BIS campaign devs are using the Editor we all have available to us and they try to create great missions etc, but are stuck with the flaws that Editor/Engine comes with.

And everyone is playing multiplayer anyway. Their main customers don't care about SP campaigns.

Even with the flaws, we all can have great moments in the game, but many (many!) flaws would be easily avoidable and irrelevant, if the guys would take advantage of heavy scripting. Avoiding the traps of sandbox games with a few cheats (lines of code) to make the single player experience not suck.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=319788315