Express yourself!

Party-approved discussion of ArmA 3
User avatar
Gaia
Posts: 44
Joined: Mon May 27, 2013 11:01 pm

Re: Express yourself!

Post by Gaia »

Rook wrote:For example, One Tactical have a plethora of different mods and they average 35-40 every session, even with a huge modpack necessary to play in their sessions. Capraia, Thirsk, Namalsk, Chernarus, Takistan, Zargabad etc etc all feature in their missions, and this variety keeps it interesting. Could we introduce an A3 V+ session perhaps?
I get a second for including a modpack for maps and guns. Arma 3 is just boring, and there is very little to do it in.

User avatar
Kefirz
Posts: 440
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 11:44 am

Re: Express yourself!

Post by Kefirz »

Then have at it Gaius, make it happen. I can help a little bit. But only just a little.
''I am not going against tanks'' - Tryteyker, MAT gunner.
''Downboated so much, it's an u-boat now.'' - Boberro.
''Sorry, I meant hon hon hon baguette baguette Eiffel Tower'' - Mabbott

User avatar
Rook
Posts: 29
Joined: Thu Dec 26, 2013 6:01 pm

Re: Express yourself!

Post by Rook »

Kefirz wrote:Then have at it Gaius, make it happen. I can help a little bit. But only just a little.
It's not just a modpack, we would probably need an extra modded server, and hosts to run it - which was the reason A2 V+ stopped.

User avatar
Kefirz
Posts: 440
Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2012 11:44 am

Re: Express yourself!

Post by Kefirz »

Modpack isn't such a big deal, take one of the many packs that there are out there as a base and add a mod or two to it,
Or even take the existing A3 V+ mod pack.
As for the server, but correct me if I'm wrong, the mission testing server could dub as the mod server, as it did in A2. There was a vanilla server and a sMODgasbord server.
And the hosts are a problem that can be solved.
''I am not going against tanks'' - Tryteyker, MAT gunner.
''Downboated so much, it's an u-boat now.'' - Boberro.
''Sorry, I meant hon hon hon baguette baguette Eiffel Tower'' - Mabbott

User avatar
audiox
Host
Posts: 641
Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:58 am
Location: Norway

Re: Express yourself!

Post by audiox »

I'll get back to the rest of it later. You've really made some great points and i'd like to respond at length.

One thing though.
I'd preferably not see this thread become a mod-related exploratory venture.

FA has as its focus a session that people can show up for without having to download anything at all (besides teamspeak, that is...). That will continue to be our focus, and the current host team is not entertaining the thought of spending resources on a modded Arma 3 session. Also, we do not want to bring anybody on board for the purpose of setting up such a session even though the offers of help are much appreciated. Having some hosts do one kind of session and other hosts doing another kind of session has failed to work properly in the past, and we are not interested in trying it out again for the foreseeable future.

If you want to help head out with his attempts at having a mod-evening then he'd probably appreciate it. Other than that our friends in 1tac host a weekly session on alternate fridays/saturdays, they're nice people so drop by and say hi sometime.


To reiterate
This thread is for discussions about what FA currently is for you. And what is good/bad about FA at present. Not a thread for the organization of a mod session.


(Also, kefirz, you bastard! You have one post more than me! :D)

User avatar
audiox
Host
Posts: 641
Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:58 am
Location: Norway

Re: Express yourself!

Post by audiox »

Ok, since i'm stuck with being sick for this session (sunday) i might as well spend my time looking through this and responding a bit.

Disclaimer : These opinions are my own and do not respond to any defined party line.


@head : Yeah that would be cool. All that would be needed would be for somebody to put your standard FA/3 assortment of units into one of the many military bases existing around Altis/Stratis, writing up the "who" of the setup so that its not completely backstory-less, and then leave it up to a zeus to control the actual mission. This would mean that some of the ambience given from "situation/mission/etc" tabs will be gone though, so i'd like to get somebody elses opinion on that particular part of it.

@kefirz : Yeah there have been times of too many AI. That is either solvable by dynamic AI spawning or by hosts ninjaing it with zeus when the mission starts. Zeus makes thes an obstacle that it is easier to deal with now than it used to be.

The times we have had respawn in missions (Fers mech. inf. missions) it has tended to work out pretty well. With the addition of zeus ability to quickly get troops from a safe spot to the frontlines this is definitely something we could do more of.

5.56. Well, i can only speak for me, and i'll let you know that there will probably be a mission pretty soon that explains the glorious upgrade of FIA forces to 6.5 funtimes.


As for the trucks and pickups. Yup, people crash them way too often, but for my missions having the up-armored vehicles would be a stretch. I have messed up on this as well, so i know it can happen even when you're alert about it.
The problem with the IFVs is that they require a lot of crew for too little carrying capacity. If you could get an entire squad into one and then run driver/gunner it would be great. As is you have to have at least two guys/eight guys loaded.

@zitron : nope. hosts produce most missions. being around for most sessions mean we spend a lot of time wondering what missions fit when. i do not want my ideas about what missions fit a moment constrained by such a rule. Also, occasionally a host wants to play it as safe as possible, knowing the backend of a mission due to having made it helps a lot in that regard.

@liet : 1 : this is (for me) at least a natural extension of my desire to place most of my missions in the same narrative. That means things will happen in and around the same area. I also find that as part of the fun, as it allows areas to be approached in different manners. Attacking Topolia from the NE is something quite different than attacking it from the S for instance.

2 : See answer above. This is now something we can alter much more on the fly with zeus. Zeusing it does though mean that one person will not get to play for a while. (As for me, i find it fun, but occasionally you want to pewpew a bit as well.)

@bodge : more chill afterparty stuff would be nice. We do have a lot of missions that can be played with AI slots open after kicking it, so that is definitely doable.

@Roe : yeah, more variety in missions would be nice. As for me i find it a bit difficult to be so very novel about it. I mean, there are many variations on "go there, shoot stuff, win/get out" but i don't really have that many more ideas.

@rook : sorry man, making people download stuff to play with us isn't gonna happen.

Terminal Boy
Posts: 124
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2013 4:14 pm
Location: London

Re: Express yourself!

Post by Terminal Boy »

Archetypal AAR / driver / support slot taker here...

What have been the ups and downs when it comes to your experiences with FA during the past ca six months?

Not getting to join sessions anywhere near as often as I'd like due to RL commitments.

How do you feel the missions are. Do they hit the sweet spot often enough? What do we need more/less of in our missions?

I find them a good mix of different scenarios. While I'm enjoying the new mechanics and look of A3, I am slightly tired of running around just the 2 Greek islands. Doubly so when the Stamina system means my character can't actually run as far as even my old and unfit body can in RL.

What do you think would make you attend more often?

Sadly, unless Fer can introduce my management chain to Comrade Makarov, this isn't something FA can fix.

What do you think would help to keep other people more interested in our events?

Have a few more larger co-ops with other A3 groups? The couple of A2 ones I took part in were damn good fun.

What should happen more/less during FA sessions.

I don't know if this is down to running co-op missions with less players than intended, but the enemy numbers occasionally seem too high to allow mission success.

Do you have any annoyances during your average FA session? Do you think said annoyances could be mitigated somehow?

None that can't be fixing by my playing more and remembering my keybindings, or not standing out in the open adjusting TrackIR settings or the 100 other dumb things I do in game..

User avatar
fer
Posts: 1586
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:16 am
Location: Emotional wreck

Re: Express yourself!

Post by fer »

Terminal Boy wrote:Sadly, unless Fer can introduce my management chain to Comrade Makarov, this isn't something FA can fix.
In RL I am a consultant, and I could probably do that; but if they're like my other clients, they'd ask me to use it on you. Which I'd be happy to do, for the right day rate.

User avatar
Thirith
Posts: 114
Joined: Wed Aug 07, 2013 5:29 am

Re: Express yourself!

Post by Thirith »

The main reason why I join so rarely is RL - less of the work kind than of the married life variety. Seeing how I barely managed half a dozen regular sessions over the last year, my take on this won't be all that relevant, since even if things changed I wouldn't be around all that more often.

For the rest of it, though, it's different things. The main point is definitely that of diversity: I find Altis and Stratis, or at least the way they're used in the missions I've played, less interesting than Chernarus and Takistan, the two of which tend to result in very different missions. I understand the point re: no mods, which means that this is a tricky issue to address: how do you change things up if the most obvious way of changing things up is the one you can't take? While V+ was around, that gave me enough variety so it didn't feel like All Mediterranean, All The Time, and Arma 3 felt like a nice change. I'm not a mission maker, nor do I know Stratis and Altis well enough to have an idea of how they can be made to feel more varied, so I'm afraid I don't know how to put a more constructive slant on this.

I'm also not yet all that used to the things Arma 3 does differently from its predecessor, so while some things feel like changes for the better, with others I'm not yet past the "different, and therefore worse" stage.

Finally, my old computer ran Arma 3 okay, but it was definitely getting to its limits. I'm certain that the game will feel better on my new machine.

Anyway, hoping to join again more often in the new year and on a new computer.
"Until now we scraped along the ground like rats, but from now on, we soar. Like eagles. Yeah. LIKE EAGLES... ON... POGO STICKS." - Grim Fandango

Post Reply