[CAMP] PIROG [Review Complete]

[bardosy]

Hahahaha   It's very funny. I was wandering why you say goodbye same as Mathias, and your name is Mathias too. (Mathias and me are old buddies, we met once in real life too.)

You've updated your mission.  Can I download it, drop it in my missions folder and continue the game from mission #4?  I don't want to have to start over again........

Theoretically yes. (of course not in mission folder but campaigns).
But when I did it once in the near past, ArmA said some error with structures, but I just click to Revert button and mission works fine.

If you cannot do this, Restart the whole campaign, but use ENDMISSION cheat in missions 1-4. Do you know the endmission cheat? Hold Left Shift and then Num -, and then release these buttons and type: endmission
Mission is ended as same as you win it and the next mission start...
It's not nice, but very handy to test.

I really need feedback about mission #5 and #6, because I have shotage on it.



NEW POST (but double post is prohibited): I tried the 2nd mission and after you eliminate the battery at the top of the hill, you can use the mortars to shot a few ammo to Khelm... So your idea was implemented without I knew...

[mathias_eichinger]

Hey Barodsy,

I found the time to try your campaign again and I re-played the first mission.
This time around it is a perfect experience. The medic is lazy only at the beginning at the airport, and the difficulty is easy, as it should be for the first mission of a campaign. I am wounded several times, but I am never killed and my medic is always able to save me. There are several firefights and I am glad that you decreased frequency and amount of enemy grenades as Krasnostav. Now they really do as you intended. They keep you running but they do not kill. Krasnostav itself was easy too, and that was in line with the "superior russian numbers of troops" that one would expect in such a scenario.

I like this mission now, good job!

[SaOk]

I played first two missions trought and I liked those much. I had some bad moments with medic but finally I managed to complete the second mission too. I didnt see any bugs but in second mission I didnt know how to give targets to artillery. They often seemed to miss the targets with over 10 meters. Should I have a laser-pointer or am I just missing something?

I dont have much to say for these two missions since they feeled very great and finished already. Maybe there could be some few reinforcements for player group if he losses his men already on the artillery hill.

Time to continue playing third mission...

[bardosy]

Mathias, SaOK! Thanks both of you!

I thought no one wants to test through my campaign more, and I tested it well enough and export the text to stringtable and send it to native Englisg speakers. Now I'm waiting for them and then - I thought - releade the campaign. But if you're testing it now, I can wait a few more days. 

[SaOk]

The third mission is really great too. But at start it was little confusing to talk with the insurgents - there was no waypoint to them and the activation area around them was too little. At least you could increase the trigger sizes so you dont need to stand on their toes to start the conversation. 

I will continue testing this but I cant promise how fast I will complete rest of the missions (with the current AI). If the rest of the missions are as good as the first three then I would see this to easily be ready for the release. I will play this throught sooner or later anyway when I am not editing my own projects.

[bardosy]

Thanks for the trigger suggestion!
I'll fix it!


What is you opinion about High Command? Many people left testing my campaign when they found the HC driven missions.

[SaOk]

I think it fits great in these "capture the location"-missions. HC is easy to use (with the same "number combination"-shortcuts as in single group commanding), you can have control in larger battles and it allows player to use more tactics. E.g. In 3rd mission I surrounded the enemy from different angles and also used the HC groups as cover when my group was full of injured.

Your campaign actually made me planning to use HC more in my mission too.

[bardosy]

Your campaign actually made me planning to use HC more in my mission too. Cheesy

Funny. Those comments inspirated me to stop using HC in my next campaigns...

[SaOk]

Very challenging fourth mission feels great too. I am currently heading to harbour after long fight at lumber mill. I would guess that you are using UPSMON which seems to make AI behaving great in urban combat. After I met the russians at marker before the harbour task, the enemy was spawned too visibly. I saw one group spawning 100m ahead me near the harbour and my group that I left too much behind was killed near the lumber mill very suddently. It would be better to spawn them immediately when player gets near the russians meeting place. Also you could spawn them more far where they would walk slowly to their patrol area.

The mission is also so huge that there could be some few reinforcements for the player. Like at lumber mill a script could count player group and bring more men to the group (4-5 more men or less to keep total group size 10 at most. And the first soldier could be a medic).

Edit: The rest of the mission was quicker and easier than I thought. Reinforcements could be unnecessary.

I captured the first village in fifth mission. Looks goods again but the pre-made waypoints for 2 non-HC infantry groups feeled a little backstep when you had control of more groups in 4. mission. I couldnt advance as slow as before since the friendly AI groups ran in to the first village. Finally I just ingored them and worked together with my tank squad. I am still far from the second village but I already hope that I could command also the 2 infantry groups.

[bardosy]

Thanks for the feedback!
Your spawn suggestion is valuable! I'm not sure what can I do, but I'll try to rethink it. The problem is the random action of players... But you know this.

I used an older version of UPSMON, but for only static (design time) enemy units. The spawned (runtime) units didn't use UPSMON. I read something in the news, the new UPSMON is able to called for spawned units too, but I didn't apply it in this mission.

The WP driven AI teams wait for you before the main objectives. If you are slow, this is the better way, because the fast players left the AI teams behind (because they are not so fast). And I cannot speed them up, but I made them wait for the players in WPs in front of the objectives (villages).

I also found HC handy as you, because it's not to hard command them, but I can use them in my style. But players complains me and BIS about HC is too complicated. I guess in HC you can command in very complicated way IF YOU WANT, but it's not necessary.
But - as you know - we (the mission designers) are for the players... So I love collect opinions and research the demand of players. Of course, your opinion is also important!

[kju]

Good job bardosy  

I am into mission five now; while I confess playing with invulnerability.
The style of the campaign is pretty good.  

I cannot think of any good suggestion or feedback other than good job and thanks for the effort.  

Well next campaign in Coop mode with norrin revive and a community made world
like Namalsk or many other great to chose from. That's all.  

[SaOk]

I finished the last two missions in the campaign. I liked it much but maybe there could have been more variation in mission types. E.g. there could be some "defend a position"-missions instead of just assaulting  everytime.

Bugs/Flaws in "Doglarukiy"-mission:
-I saw the AI shooting unmanned static weapons. Its a game bug and not a very serious one, but you could prevent it by destroying the static gun with a trigger when the gunner is dead.
-After I captured Polana, I was standing next to friendly AI group which suddently deleted few squad members and spawned some new members. I am not sure what exactly happened, but if you spawn new soldiers then its a good to have two possible positions where the units are spawned. If player is near of one then the units would be spawned to the other position.
-In Dolina there was a CDF counterattack but it was beaten in notime. There was no challenge at all but still the game was automatically saved. Friendly chopper seemed to destroy all threat in less than minute.

In "Race"-mission I first shot the whole american group in forest when I thought they were CDF. The dead leader started to talk to me and I thought it was better to load a savegame. Second time I saw the cutscene and I finished the mission. I think the cutscene would maybe be better to start already when player isnt spotted the american himself. The whole encounter could be shown in the cutscene instead. But with some tweaking the event could also work in the current way everytime.

[bardosy]

SaOK, thanks for the bug-report, especially about the spawn and the cutscene...

I thought the cutscene could be a problem, but my beta-testers said, it's OK. But I was afraid what you did: the player will kill the americans... I put a trigger (activated: bluefor detected by opfor) to warn the player: don't kill americans. But this trigger never fire, because bluefor and opfor switched to CAPTIVE (prevent AI kill each other) and somehow the captive bluefor is not bluefor (for the trigger).
Well, I'll redefine that trigger, fire by "player knowsabout specific americans" and I hope it will warn the pleyer in time to don't shoot.

[SaOk]

If "knowsabout" dosent work right then you could use the "distance" as condition between player and american leader. And to prevent them dying there is a "allowdamage"-command. Examples:

Code: [Select]

player distance sfleadername < 200

Code: [Select]

{_x allowdamage false;} foreach units sfgroupname;

[mathias_eichinger]

Hey bardosy, I had the time today to play your "Spearhead" mission.

I have to be honest, I was gravely disappointed about it. While I was tasked to attack Khelm, HQ diverted me to take out a mortar battery on Hill 324, and then the annoying part of the mission began.

First of all, the mortar battery was heavily defended and I had no own support. Sorry, I played the beginning of the mission a 2 weeks earlier, so: Why can't I have an airstrike on that position? Can't my own artillery work a bit faster? My own forces are depleted... any reinforcements?

In the course of my battle, my squad was reduced to me and just one mate, and then the medic tent on site was listed as enemy, so I could not use it! After I killed the mortars, I was tasked to do artillery targeting in Khelm, but I do not remember that the Briefing told me to bring a laser designator. When a squad of enemies encountered my lonely pair of soldiers in the forest towards Khelm I could not take it anymore and gave up.

Sorry for the rant here, I am used to top-notch quality from you, and did not expect bugs in a mission of yours.