Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

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Kasmeister
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Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by Kasmeister »

Today on discord we discussed a posibilty of FA having long, possibly session long missions. I think, with the right missions, we can have a really fun experience, which will not get boring, and is playable by playercounts in the range of 35-40. These missions could be played once a month maybe. We already had a few ideas for them, and im thinking of some more right now. I also think they might even increase the usual player counts if they are successful. What do you guys think of such a thing? How would you make the missions? Would you play them?
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boberro
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Re: Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by boberro »

One thing is sure - I'd only rage quit once per session with missions like this.

Problem is, you can't have 40 people for 3 hours straight. Some people show up after two missions, some must run to work after first one.
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Sparks
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Re: Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by Sparks »

/remembers being killed by the action menu during the HALO drop last night and sitting out an entire mission because BI.

Yeah... I can see drawbacks.
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boberro
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Re: Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by boberro »

One way I see is to break the rule of "no respawns".
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Kasmeister
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Re: Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by Kasmeister »

Problem is, you can't have 40 people for 3 hours straight. Some people show up after two missions, some must run to work after first one.
That's why it'd be best for it to not be a regular thing. I was thinking for example first sunday of each month. Or even another day like saturday, although that'd change everyone's timetables.
One way I see is to break the rule of "no respawns".
I don't think that's a bad thing, we've had some missions with reinforcements and they played fine (the infamous Juliet squad). Reinforcements are a must in a mission like this, but they also should be made in a way that makes sense. Let's not give reinforcements just because, lets give them if the team does a objective or if they are in an actual need of them. We could even make some ghetto system of CO calling out the need of reinforcements in global chat and the having a host set them up to battle.
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Re: Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by Pooter »

On the one hand it might be interesting, but on the other hand we probably picked our current mission length for several reasons:
1. Dying early sucks, but happens. (can be countered by reinforcements).
2. People come and go (we usually get at least one request for a slot after slotting has already started).
3. The number of AI you can have active at any one time is limited, otherwise the server will not like you.
4. The larger a mission is, the more likely that it will break, or that players will find a way to break it.
5. You can't really take a break during a mission if you're still alive, thus asking all the players to stay for all three hours in one block might not work out.

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Kasmeister
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Re: Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by Kasmeister »

I don't have any perfect solutions for 2 and 5, but the answer to 3 and 4 might be actively zeusing the mission. Not only it'd make it more replayable, customizable with adjustable difficulty for diffrent player counts, but also less performance hungry due to zeus spawning and deleting units at the right time and requiring less triggers and waypoints and stuff like that.
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Re: Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by Eagle_Eye »

Theres a very simple way for this to work.

Write a campaign. Simple as. There is almost no manouver or operation that we can do as a single platoon of <50 people that cannot be broken up into 45 minute sections.
The pros of this pretty much outweigh all of the negatives.
1) We can have a break between missions to get new people in/let people leave.
2) We can rearm and regroup without needing to spend 20 minutes milling around crates.
3) People can swap roles (no-one wants to play as a rifleman for 3 hours), and my brain is hard pressed by 2 CO missions in a row.
4) Pilots/Crew can be brought in and out of missions, and dont have to sit around and be given meaningless tasks.
5) The actual technical limitations are lessened (as cool as a 3 hour zeus mission would be, its pretty unfeasable, and zeus just really isnt there yet in terms of what it can provide).
6) It can be broken into managable 30-40 mintue chunks and the story written around breaks in the action (ex. capture a base, then come nighttime have to repel the counterattack).
7) Parts of it that are good/better can be used on other days as hosts see fit.
8) Provides opportunity for narrative cleverness ( you are surrounded and have to hold out as long as possible. The next morning another platoon is sent to rescue the prisoners/survivors) and switching sides halfway through to get some.

I would love to see a set of missions written with some slightly stricter continuity to be honest. We have some great linked missions (Ferrards "To arms" and following, Fers "Pancho" mech series, I like my Rebel alliance and HSLD missions) but something that took place over the course of a few hours/days would be cool. The thing is that, no matter what kind of story you try to come up with, I can almost guarantee that it would be possible to split over multiple files and will be more fun at the end of the day, for our playstyle, which is the caveat here.

In Folk missions, the best fun comes when every action you take or decision you make has real and useful consequences, and a proper need for it. If you want a mission with logistics, make sure it fulfils a goal of the mission, is integral to its sucess, and flows with the story. Adding things just for the sake of it, whether it be assets/logistics/excessive trekking across the map or whatever just takes the spotlight off of the goal of the mission. As an example, look at Quds Radio Hour. It has arguably some of the toughest logistics from all of the missions, but the idea is that the crazyness and the challenge of the helo organisation is the mission, thats its number one point, and it streamlines the rest of the mission so that the really fun and unique parts can shine through.

Rambling now, but thats my take on it. If such a set of missions was to be made and tested and ready to go, I would love to have a showcase night where we play through the whole story, and would gladly host, and even encourage people to keep a semblance of consistency with their roles so that we get a bit of a campaign feeling. For what its worth, as soon as I get back to the mission making groove, I plan on overhauling HSLD into 3 interconnected missions played over the course of a couple of days, and would love to get a chance to play them all in one go.

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boberro
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Re: Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by boberro »

But I'm afraid that playing a series of missions will not have that "epic" feeling a long mission would have. The "Empire" series played one after another felt too much as more of the same, not as a continuity. Not saying it can't be done though - I remember some kind of script or server side mode that added option to send data between the missions in Arma 2 (I guess?)
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Sparks
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Re: Session-Long-Efficient-Super-Hardcore-Ambitious Mission

Post by Sparks »

You're more thinking of ALIVE I think...
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