[SP/CAMP] Black Lands

[Undeceived]

@Gruntage

Ouch, I got it, I got it!

This is great feedback, because you're completely right! There should be some kind of stealth option to do the job... I'll think of something, thanks for your ideas!

[Undeceived]

@Clayman

I checked it. The crucial intel in the hideout should be there if the ammo crate was.

[Clayman]

should I rather lock the entry to the hideout and unlock it later?

I guess this would be the best way to solve this. Having access to the camp from the beginning, but nothing to find there until later, would feel strange.

I thought I had thoroughly searched the camp, and still almost missed the other intel. There is so much stuff lying around in the camp, which is good. But it's easy to miss something. The take action only appearing when looking at the exact spot doesn't make it easier, too. I don't know how this can be improved to make it more obvious of what is important.

So, are there actually different ways to approach this mission? As I wasn't sure if I had messed something up by going to the quarry before anything led me there. And the task with the murderer, I had the feeling that there was more to be found. Overall I had the feeling I had missed some stuff, not only regarding the intel from the camp.

Or if the "directing" / designing is ok.

Ok? No, it was not Okay. It was spectacular! Like I said, I enjoyed this ending much more than the one I had in my A2 playthrough. (I guess there is something similar when I manage to find Sergej.)

I feel that the cutscenes again are very long already

Sorry mate, but this excuse doesn't work here anymore. When a player reaches this point, he already endured (or enjoyed) like 27 hours of cutscenes.  Having an extended outro is what anyone would expect from you for a campaign like this. 


Edit:

I checked it. The crucial intel in the hideout should be there if the ammo crate was.

Ok. I'll keep my eyes peeled the next time I play this.

[Undeceived]

So, are there actually different ways to approach this mission?

Well, I'd say yes. But bottom line there are two endings, finding Sergej or giving it up. The way to Sergej is via Jacek. From there on the mission is more straight forward, even though there will be some more choices to make.

Before finding Jacek there are some dead ends too, e.g. the dead civilian in Solnichniy. But you can only get to that civilian when you go to the quarry. And in the quarry you'll hear the drunkards mention the word Orlovets, so you have another lead. There is one more direct lead to Jacek, but I don't want to spoil that. Others mention that they saw or will meet Jacek in Solnichniy, so you can say that the quarry is one of the two important spots.

All in all it shouldn't be a problem or break anything when you snoop around without been told to do so.

[Gruntage]

Had some time to test today so on we go...

Starting to Inflame Again (Part 2)

Quite a simple, straightforward mission but I feel there are some issues with its execution. I won't go into too much depth about how I completed it but I will highlight the key parts and comment on them.

The radio savegame. I think this is redundant as the game has a built-in save game mechanism. On previous playthroughs I've found I wasn't able to resume the mission from the campaign menu when utilising the radio savegame. That's probably a bug within Arma itself. My advice is get rid of the radio savegame as you don't need it.

I found that the run to the overlook (i.e. the objective) was a little on the boring side as nothing really of interest happened. There wasn't any music or sound effects to act as mood/atmosphere multipliers, no interesting dialogue between Tomas and Sergei. Felt a little lacklustre with room for improvement. Ended up using the time acceleration feature as I was confident that I wouldn't come across any enemies.

The revive script was again causing problems for me unfortunately. The holdaction 'circle' disappears which can be very misleading for people if they don't know how the script works. This can cause people to cancel the action thinking that it's completed when it hasn't. This is compounded by the fact that mission takes place at night and it's difficult to see the player's animations in the dim light. I know it's a third party script but it needs reworking because at the moment, in my view, it's not fit for purpose. I don't know why the circle disappears but that's probably the biggest issue. I don't like being unable to revive whilst prone as a few times I got my head shot off because my character insisted on kneeling in order to revive. I feel like reviving takes too long as well; I'm a sitting duck and it's not like I have a choice of where I can revive.

For me that script is a bit of a nightmare from a gameplay perspective. I can't really be all that constructive on this particular aspect because it's not a script I've ever delved into. If it's a third party script, I would look into finding an alternative as I'm sure there are loads out there. If you feel like it, you could try making your own but a simpler and thus more effective version.

One another note, I noticed that Sergei doesn't copy my stance when ordered to do so. He's standing the entire time. It's great for mobility as at least he and I get to places faster. But it makes him so easy to hit and he got downed several times because he doesn't want to get his clothes dirty, I guess  .

When it comes to the gameplay, I have mixed feelings about it. I took control of the black site with some difficulty (Arma 3 AI) and so it took longer than perhaps it should have. The reinforcements arrived when I reached the shed with the hostages and I think this is when the mission execution took a hit. As soon as we got ported outside, we all got slaughtered within 5 seconds by a squad and an APC. As far as I could tell, there wasn't a way of countering the APC. Even if there was an RPG somewhere in that village, I wouldn't have had enough time to grab it without getting killed.

After a reload I found that the best way was to simply sprint away and hope that the AI teammates get the memo and do the same.....they didn't. They all got killed but the mission ended anyway successfully. I don't think they made it out of the walled section behind the shed because AI pathfinding.

That section of the mission feels weird because it almost relies on the AI needing to be smarter in order for the mission to function properly. If your teammates were players as opposed to AI, then the mission would work brilliantly and nearly all of the issues would disappear.

I think the reinforcements also make that section feel strange as well. Funnily enough I think at one point during earlier tests I mentioned the then lack of reinforcements as criticism. I think what we have now is maybe too difficult for 2-4 people to deal with (3 of whom being AI).

Obviously I don't consider myself very good at Arma so I'm very curious as to how this mission could be completed optimally. I'd love to see a video of how this one should be played because I feel like I'm missing something and it makes the mission feel strange to play. It reminds me playing the Apex campaign but as single player...very difficult because the campaign was balanced around multiple people playing.

I completed the mission but it felt weird because I'd lost my team and yet I was rewarded for it. It makes the player think that the teammates don't matter at the end of the day when in fact they do.

I like the concept and the plan; it makes sense strategically. But I'm not really a fan of the execution of this one.

If I get time later I'll have a look at the next mission.

[Gruntage]

Continuing on...

Setting up Time

Remember this one back from the original tests. This is probably the first mission I've played so far that I've very much enjoyed, though the mission is not without its shortcomings. I haven't finished the mission yet; I'll have to carry on with it another day. On that note though, I think the mission is too long. The whole section with meeting Kamil should probably be in its own mission with its own cinematics and so on. Honestly after playing this one for about 3 hours, I was getting a little bored and was looking forward to the mission ending.

EDIT: I'll expand on this a bit more. A mission should be structured as such: beginning, build-up, climax, wind-down, conclusion. It's how stories in books and films are structured. In the case of this mission, you have your beginning at the camp, the build-up in acquiring the motorcycle, the climax in clearing the Russian camp, the wind-down in bringing your supplies back to the camp and the conclusion should be arriving at Kamil's house. There is an argument that the conclusion should simply be at the camp, with Tomas and Sergej visiting Kamil in a cinematic. In fact I'd prefer this.

If I were planning this, I'd have Tomas and Sergej visit Kamil at night, when they're less likely to be discovered or overheard. Right now you have them visit Kamil in broad daylight when Kamil is being watched. I would have thought two guys visiting Kamil would have been of some interest to the Russian intelligence service. It just feels like a bizarre choice for this important meeting to take place during day time.

Unfortunately what we have instead is the section with Kamil tacked onto what should be the end of the mission. It feels a bit weird. I noticed in the task info for finding Kamil that you say that the mission will end after the task. So it's like you're aware that the mission is too long by this point and you want to reassure the player. It's as if you're saying to the player 'don't worry it'll all be over after this'.

Anyway, I'll summarise the good parts and the bad parts of the mission below.

Functionally the mission is generally fine; there weren't any error messages or scripts not working as far as I could see. The mission allows for many different takes on strategy, offering choice which I'm a huge advocate for. In fact I like the concept of acquiring supplies very much as it gives the player a sense of accomplishment for having done so. At least, as long as the supplies are not simply ignored in future missions. I don't remember the rest of the campaign very well but I hope that the supplies I literally bled to get are made use of.

Probably the most enjoyable part of the mission was sniping the gunner of the patrolling BMP at the camp, which rendered the tank basically useless; it just drove round in circles not doing anything. It looked silly but it was satisfying to see. I wasn't expecting heavy reinforcements to arrive and unfortunately they did so when I was in the base. What followed was a game of cat and mouse between me and the T72. A few times I had to deal with game bugs such as being shot through walls and units requiring an entire clip of AK rounds before dying.

Eventually I cleared the base with a sigh of relief. There weren't any vehicles in the base for some reason so I had to run back to the fuel depot to grab a UAZ. I loaded nearly everything from the crate into the UAZ and drove back to the camp, detonating the charges at the fuel depot along the way. For some reason the objective to destroy the fuel depot didn't tick off despite the place being a smoldering ruin. I placed the charges on the fuel tanks so I think that should have been enough. At any rate, after returning to the camp I felt like a conquering hero with a great sense of accomplishment, so well done here.

So let's talk about the things that could do with some polish;

The amount of running is quite excessive in this mission to be honest and there were a few points where I had to use the accelerate time feature otherwise I'd have gone nuts. My personal stance on this is that if a player feels compelled to use the + key, then something should be done about it. It's not actually a difficult problem to solve. For example, you could place more foot patrols to increase the level of threat to the player and to establish the Russians as ruling with an iron fist. The player therefore has to be more careful with his movements which makes travelling more interesting.

Next, the dialogue. My main issue with the dialogue is that nearly all of it should be placed within a camera cinematic. During the conversation with Kamil, for example, I could literally run out of the house and sprint back to the camp with nothing to stop me. It's immersion breaking and this is probably the most egregious example of this. The dialogue with Kamil is well done but it's damaged by the player being able to run around his house with no consequences. The same issue applies in the camp when Tomas is speaking to other members of his team.

There were also a few moments in the dialogue that made me raise my eyebrows. For example, when Kamil asks what equipment that Tomas has, Tomas responds by saying that they basically have nothing. Motherfucker I just cleared an entire Russian base and a fuel depot, looted the whole place and drove everything back single handed. We have a lot of equipment. You get the point; it was just a bit strange and again, kinda breaks the immersion.

One other moment and this is really nitpicky. We get told in the camp at the beginning that Tomek knows an ex-CDF special forces guy. Later, when Tomek is awake, the dialogue basically repeats and we get told that Tomek knows an ex-CDF special forces guy. It made say 'you don't say?!'. I think the dialogue just needs a bit of looking at and polished.

Finally, the atmosphere. I found it a little lacking in this mission to be honest. The world feels somewhat populated but could do with a bit more to make it feel more realistic. I just remembered, when I went into the store in a village beginning with P that I can't pronounce, I had an AK, an RPG launcher, a Russian vest, helmet and yet nobody batted an eyelid. I'd have thought that the village people would have had a reaction, be it panic or cheering me on or something. At the beginning of the mission, I shot one of the policemen with a pistol and nobody reacted. When you stack these things up, it does take its toll on the immersion. Also are the police the enemy? Are they working for the Russians? Should the player be taking them out at all? That's more of a world-building issue.


Anyway, as I said, I haven't finished this one yet so I'll tackle the second part of this mission another time. The mission is enjoyable but could certainly be improved.

EDIT: One other thing I remembered. I shot two enemies in one village stealthily; no one was alerted. I put their gear in the motorcycle. I wasn't carrying any equipment yet I was shot at when leaving town. Was a bit of a let down to be honest because it means that stealth wasn't really an option when it absolutely should have been.

[Undeceived]

Thanks, Gruntage! I'm "on leave" here at the moment, but I read everything and I'm aware of your feedback. I won't go into all of them for the next version, otherwise I won't finish the project But some of them are too important and too "true" to leave aside. There might be some ways here and there to implement small changes to have a more or less better effect than it is now.

Thanks for your time (testing and then writing)!