EBass, that was me you killed at the end. I had no idea where you were it was so dark, All i could hear were your shots. I started shooting at (and into) civies cause I was so bored. Then you finally found me. I shot back with my glock a couple times but you got me. Defending the base in Scapegoats was horribly boring. I feel like playing the hosties would have been more exciting.
Well Joe A) There aren't any special forces teams on the entire map so I don't know where you got that from. B) And no entry point has more than one static so I don't know where you got that from either. C) There are only two humvees in the entire compound which have totally different patrol routes, so you must have caused quite a stir when you got in.Originally Posted by Joseph-Sulphur
I also don't know whats wrong with your PC but the mission really isn't that dark on mine, I can see everything fine with no night vision and when we tested it we didn't have anyone complaining about vision. The mission requires you to destroy at least 50% of the derricks and when I died we had destroyed over 40% of them, and we still had about 30 people alive at that point. So its hardly uncompleteable, it's supposed to be tough yes and I admit I perhaps made it too tough, but considering we nearly triggered the completion point I don't think the balance was that scewed. With our new playercount we've been steamrollering missions we used to fail fairly routinely so I wanted to give a challenge. Again considering we pretty much completed the mission I'd say I balanced it probably too tough but not ludicrously. Indeed even earlier in this thread we've had people saying it was their favorite mission of the night.
Remember about a month ago when we played one of Nullkigans missions where we had to assault a town which had about 4 BMPs some heavier tanks, numerous statics and we all died before we'd even got near the town? I didn't hear you whining on the forums then about "pathetic excuses" for missions. You're pissed off I get it, I didn't want to take the bait but maybe next time you could deal with it in a better manner than throwing grenades or rockets (whatever it was) at people, and making fairly unsubstantiated and thoroughly non-constructive attacks on other players missions that they've worked hard on in the forums.
EBass out.
Last edited by EBass; 04-07-2012 at 09:18 PM.
Actually I was going to say in my feedback of the mission, I'd scrap the base mechanic entirely. The only way its really feasible is either having large groups of AI defend it, or having players defend it. It's not really fair on those players who get picked just to sit in a window hoping someone will turn up for them to shoot.
The SOV humvees (the ones with Mk19s and M240s) have special forces in them.
The point we attacked had two bunkers with M2spB) And no entry point has more than one static so I don't know where you got that from either.
There were 2 humvees there, we must have gotten unlucky if there are only two in the whole compound.C) There are only two humvees in the entire compound which have totally different patrol routes, so you must have caused quite a stir when you got in.
People in my squad had the same issue. The others made it a decent way through, but only because a significant amount of the team died within 5 minutes of initiating the engagement. It isn't fun for the people who have to be the initial meatshields.I also don't know whats wrong with your PC but the mission really isn't that dark on mine, I can see everything fine with no night vision and when we tested it we didn't have anyone complaining about vision. The mission requires you to destroy at least 50% of the derricks and when I died we had destroyed over 40% of them, and we still had about 30 people alive at that point.
Doesn't matter how many people we have, multiple Apaches and 3 TUSKS (4 if one of them wasnt upside down) is just too much stuff.So its hardly uncompleteable, it's supposed to be tough yes and I admit I perhaps made it too tough, but considering we nearly triggered the completion point I don't think the balance was that scewed. With our new playercount we've been steamrollering missions we used to fail fairly routinely so I wanted to give a challenge.
That was Garbagemen, the one I cited in my post as the right way to do a really hard mission. The way we approach the town gives us an opportunity to actually get close to some enemies with cover. The BMPs coulndt hit us in the valley we approached in and we had a fun firefight with Russian infantry patrols.Remember about a month ago when we played one of Nullkigans missions where we had to assault a town which had about 4 BMPs some heavier tanks, numerous statics and we all died before we'd even got near the town? I didn't hear you whining on the forums then about "pathetic excuses" for missions.
Wat? I didn't friendly fire anyone. I died like 5 minutes in.You're pissed off I get it, I didn't want to take the bait but maybe next time you could deal with it in a better manner than throwing grenades or rockets (whatever it was) at people,
I'm just giving my honest opinion on the mission. It's nothing personal, I'm not trying to attack you.and making fairly unsubstantiated and thoroughly non-constructive attacks on other players missions that they've worked hard on in the forums.
I guess the wider point I'm trying to make is that just because we have 60 players now doesn't mean a hard mission has to entail 10 of them dying early on and having to sit out a long mission in the spectator script.
Last edited by Joseph-Sulphur; 04-07-2012 at 09:34 PM.
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While yesterday was my first TT, I'll have to agree with Joe that Blazing Derricks was too dark. I was the AT guy for my squad(can't remember which one) and kept being told "RPG, hit the humvee." to which my reply was always "I can't see 2 feet in front of me, let alone that humvee off in the distance." The enemy all having NVGs didn't help on the initial approach either, but once we got inside and were able to loot some NVGs ourselves it wasn't completely terrible.
Maybe I'm an exception or something, but on pretty much every night-time map I can't see anything at all. It doesn't matter if it's a full moon with clear weather, the best I can hope to see is the horizon line. Everything else just looks like it's made of black construction paper on a black background. There's absolutely no contrast anywhere but the skyline. And I've never, ever, been in a place that was that dark unless I'm deep in the woods somewhere. And yes, I have gone camping in places miles from any meaningful artificial light sources. I know that a large part of the darkness is that Arma is limited in its lighting, and doesn't have such helpful things as pupil dilation and light reflection that you'll find in real life, but that just means that night missions are completely terrible for me unless I have NVGs.
Actually Arma does simulate pupil dilation - if you walk around with NVG's in the night, and take them off, it will take a minute for your sight to adjust to the darkness, first it will be completely black. Same vice-versa, if you turn on NVG's during the day and take them off, you will be blinded.I know that a large part of the darkness is that Arma is limited in its lighting, and doesn't have such helpful things as pupil dilation and light reflection that you'll find in real life, but that just means that night missions are completely terrible for me unless I have NVGs.
Unfortunately, Armas HDR system loves to jump around randomly, like it happened for me during Derricks. When I approached the base, everything turned pitch black as there was one light source somewhere on the distance and the HDR focused on it. Only flares solved the light problem, but the burning derricks later on helped too.
Imho, remove those tanks and apaches, take away NVG's, make it a little brighter, and we have a great mission. As we were close to completing it, and those tanks and apaches were very demoralizing.
You're right there, but seeing as theres one SOV humvee in the whole mission that makes 3 special forces guys in the whole mission. Seeing as they won't get out unless the humvee is knocked off (meaning most of the time they're knocked off too) I don't see that as a massive issue
There was one M1A1 and one Bradley in the compound, I have no idea where you're getting 4 TUSKS from? Apaches were two, now reduced to one.
Which kind of proves that in many ways it wasn't the mission itself that was the problem in and of itself, it was the way it was approached. You know the best way to take those bunkers? Don't go straight at them, sneak up to the wall and then move along the wall to take them out at knife fight range. I've breached the perimeter killing loads of enemy many times doing this testing the mission.
I've just had a look at the mission and the only place where two M2s could possibly hit you is if you attacked right between the firing lines of two M2s that were about 400 metres apart covering different areas. I'm guessing you were attacking from the North East? Its hardly the mission makers fault if you choose to "attack across 30 metres of open ground" (your words) into the ONLY place on the entire map that can possibly be hit by two statics
I thought it was you that tried to blow up Killa and our hostage in Feruz_blues or whatever its called, if it wasn't I apologise.
Most people don't open constructive criticism with the lines "Pathetic piece of shit mission" or whatever you said, cba to look up the exact quote.
All in all I really don't think that one static per enterance and about 4 men should pose an insurmountable problem to a team of players. If you got caught out in the open by a humvee thats bad luck. But considering each team had an RPG man, and 400 metres is quite an easy shot they really shouldn't get off more than one burst. That said, I've toned down the difficulty for the next version.
This was my second (and a half) TT. I only caught the last half of Feruzablues and filling one of the jip slots I spent most of the mission catching up with the nearest fire team. I didn't really understand what was going on but I did see a bunch of dead paratroopers float sadly earthwards during the finale.
Internecine II saw me reluctantly take a FTL position in which I discovered 10 minutes in that my clip on mic had actually fallen to the floor and that no-one could hear me. Once I'd rectified that I was promptly shot in the face.
Blazing Derricks was insane but somewhat fun. Like Unruly, I was the RPG man (for Charlie 2 if I recall correctly) and after being commanded to take out a humvee all I could say was "where is it?". Definitely too dark for me and I'm loathe to crank the gamma up but I'm finding this a general Arma2 thing. Thankfully something lit the humvee up briefly on the horizon and I was able to take it out. I picked up a pair of NVG's a little later and was then shot in the face.
Scapegoats was actually a lot of fun for me, despite it being pitch black and not seeing a lot of action. I was a passenger in the rear SUV for OPFOR and after reaching the meeting point and sitting in the dark for an age listening to distant choppers, I watched a tense meeting between Halop and a man wielding a golden AK. Upon shooting my FTL in the face I opened fire on the golden AK before retreating to the trees where I died from an unknown source. It was the tension and anxiety that really made this one work for me but I feel for those stuck at base. It seemed to be over long before it actually was so maybe the win conditions should be tweaked so that if the hostages escape then that is the end? BLUEFOR having to take out the the weapon caches seemed a bit superfluous once the hostages had got to safety.
A general comment about night missions, and some other things.
ARMA2's lighting system is a really fickle thing. This is compounded by users' variable graphics settings (shadows, post-processing, gamma) and the fact that lighting can change uncontrollably between clients because weather isn't synchronized. The HDR implementation isn't perfect either, since it goes off based on what the brightest bit of the image is, instead of using center of the screen as a reference or something.
What this all comes to is: please don't make middle of the night missions unless players have NV gear or the full moon is out with no chance of clouds. The darkness is just a pain for a large number of people and not a fun mechanic. If you want to have the darkness present a challenge, arrange for sources of general large-area illumination.
One example of this would be the automatic flares in latest version of Nightblind. Another related trick is to have the mission take place shortly before sunrise or sunset, so the conditions change during the course of the mission.
Btw keep in mind that the engine will only draw a limited number of dynamic light sources at once so burning wrecks, streetlights etc will not light the scene similarly for all players.
As for the back-and-forth going on in this thread:
As mission makers, you need to keep in mind the general feel of the ARPS/Folk sessions, and that the missions will not necessarily play out the way you've planned. If people complain, there is usually a good reason. The reason may not actually be the claimed thing but something else entirely that isn't immediately obvious, and it may require some detective work to find the real issue and how to fix it. Sometimes your idea or mechanic just doesn't work, then you scrap it, salvage what you can and move on.
As players, please try to be considerate, constructive and factual in your mission criticism. Mission makers put a lot of time and effort into trying to provide the players with enjoyable experiences, your comments are there to improve their ability to do so.
Ultimately not every run of every mission can be fun for everyone, but that's still the end goal here.
Clips are fully loaded, and then blood floods the lawn
True. I glimpsed a guy with one of those special forces helmets bailing out before I got shot, but in hindsight I guess it was a crewman dismounting rather than an extra guy in the back seat.
I'm just going by what someone saw in the spectator script, I was alt tabbed at the time.There was one M1A1 and one Bradley in the compound, I have no idea where you're getting 4 TUSKS from? Apaches were two, now reduced to one.
Yeah, we were attacking from the north east. I was only an FTL so I just did what I was told. If we were in fact assault the worst possible location with two strongpoints in range and both humvees there, then the mission overall most likely isnt as difficult as it appeared to me from our point of view. We didnt just rush it, we got as close as we could using a wadi and then popped loads of smoke. Its just that since we had zero cover and no visibility we were either forced to get to the cover of the wall or slug it out with NVG-equipped BLUFOR ifantry, neither of which was destined to go well for us.Which kind of proves that in many ways it wasn't the mission itself that was the problem in and of itself, it was the way it was approached. You know the best way to take those bunkers? Don't go straight at them, sneak up to the wall and then move along the wall to take them out at knife fight range. I've breached the perimeter killing loads of enemy many times doing this testing the mission.
I've just had a look at the mission and the only place where two M2s could possibly hit you is if you attacked right between the firing lines of two M2s that were about 400 metres apart covering different areas. I'm guessing you were attacking from the North East? Its hardly the mission makers fault if you choose to "attack across 30 metres of open ground" (your words) into the ONLY place on the entire map that can possibly be hit by two statics
I was a bit pissed off when I wrote that, I apologise if it offended you. Again, I'm not trying to insult you. Just calling it like I see it.Most people don't open constructive criticism with the lines "Pathetic piece of shit mission" or whatever you said, cba to look up the exact quote.
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Made mission happen on full moon night, all armour removed from vicinity except for two humvees, all statics removed, Apaches reduced to one. NVGs now come as standard on Opfor leads and on Blufor squad leaders and sentries but removed from all other Blufor.
Which is fine, but you could have very easily called it like you saw it without pissing me off. I think you've made some legitimate criticisms and some not so legitimate.
I.e there are only two humvees which start on opposite side of the compounds and are waypointed to tour around the edge of the AO. The only place you could have been hit by two statics at once is in one very specific place, if you had two humvees and two statics firing at you thats a shitstorm of bad luck and a less than acute tactical approach. At each enterance to the compound theres a static and about 2-6 men. I really didn't think that would be too much for a player force.
That said I accept the point that statics are usually an insta death if you get hit and it might not be fun for a player to die in the first moments so I removed them.
Wth regard to the light, like I said I tested it on my PC very thoroughly so that with 1.0 brightness and 1.0 gamma you should have easily enough light to see the enemy even if it is a bit dim. The reason I didn't remove goggles from Blufor is so that players could loot them and those that didn't manage to get some would have their way lit up by the flaming oil derricks. Seeing as in testing I didn't receieve any complaints about the light level, I didn't change it. Now that I know some players have issues with it in the next version I've removed goggles from most of Blufor, given them to fireteam and squad leaders and made the mission take place under a full moon in perfect weather in the middle of summer.
Ah those, if you read the mission briefing you'll notice that it tells you that the enemy sends armoured reinforcements from their Southern Airfield about 40 minutes after being spotted. You aren't really supposed to fight them (as it says in the briefing) they're just basically a way of saying "You've taken too long get out or die." Though I suppose seeing as we have like 6000 satchel charges and they arrive in column formation by road it wouldn't actually be too hard to completely waste them. Anyway
If you'll allow me a few more comments.
I was on Joe's fireteam's right side when we assaulted the AO. It might have been the CO plan that was flawed, but: we did came under fire from one machinegun in front of us (that i remember taking out with my M203). I could never tell if it was a .50cal or a M60 though (or even just a SAW). At the same time we seemed to have a humvee with a mounted M2 firing at us on our right. I could never see it, i just saw a machine gun muzzle flash and got told it was a humvee. And then Joe's fireteam was wiped out by some fire on our left side, definitely .50cal. Was way too far in the distance for us to see it. I then got killed, as i said before, shot in the back when crawling back towards a wounded guy in my own FT.
The point is i never even saw a single enemy. The two i took out were a lucky shot with the M203, as i definitely knew there were enemies in front of me.
I guess it was pretty frustrating having to lose more than two thirds of the alpha squad before even actually finding the entrance of the oilfield is all. And more frustrating even to die before having seen any enemy.
Maybe a s#@tload of flares given to FTLs would help a bit.
What i mean is the mission seemed balanced once our people got inside the oilfield, which did necessitate to loose a lot of people early on. Now, as said, it might just have been the location of Alpha that was wrong. But don't blame us for attacking in the worst location possible: we couldn't see shit, so didn't have a clue as to where the enemy was, which doesn't make it easy for the SL to effectively coordinate the attack. Plus, just maintaining a proper formation wasn't easy: i struggled a bit to find our place on the right flank of the squad, and A1 and A2 never could be in the right position (they were basically stacked upon each other; the minute they got away from each other A1 disappeared under fire).
Edit: Joe, i hope you didn't take my comment about you going all Rambo wrong. This was like the funniest stuff i got to watch during the session.
Last edited by Black Mamba; 05-07-2012 at 11:57 AM.
Regarding blazeing derricks, like other comments it was waaaaay too dark when we approached the entry point for alpha.
As we moved up we were spotted and two 50 cals , one possibly being a humvee start firing at us, caught out in the open in the blakness forced us to pop smoke and put some flares up. Still lost 2/3 of my sqaud from that 50cal humvee.
Tho had not that TUSK popped up at the end we might have made it. Not to mention my shitty maws skills in thirdperson wasn't helping(MAWS sights do not work with NV)
To add to the Blazing Derricks discussion, and the Night time missions thing, and what Harakka said above...
Night missions can work, and you can use the darkness as a mechanic. But, you do have to be very careful with the time/moon/amount of darkness. Whether it's an adversarial or coop, there should be a minimum level of light... people shouldn't be completely blind. Draakon spent several iterations of Generals trying to get the light levels right for that one, and whoever (wolf? harakka?) made the "Spetsnaz with very little ammo versus Patrols with the General getting ambushed and helicopter" adversarial, also went through a couple iterations to get the light levels right. Even in an adversarial, where one side has NVGs (and the advantage), a minimum level of light is still required for the other team... if they're totally blind, they're going to get slaughtered, and it's going to be no fun at all for them.
Another important thing, if you are making a night mission, is the terrain and layout of the mission. Nightblind is a good example of this. It works. It worked even before we had the flare barrage, when it was just the Sniper with NVGs and lights from the vehicles for light... because it's focussed down a valley, mountains on either side, directing us towards a town. We know which direction we're going, even in the dark. We know where the rest of the team are (vaguely), even in the dark. The darkness adds to the mission, and it's another hurdle for us, it leads to some confusion and chaos, but doesn't ruin the mission... we aren't constantly stumbling blind, because the mission/terrain etc focus us.
This is something I don't think Blazing Derricks takes into account. It's set over quite a vast area, it seems to encourage splitting the team (into A B C or whatever) and have them attacking/entering the compound/AO from different directions, which leads to confusion and more likely FF. Once we're in the AO, the spread of the objectives again encourages splitting up, so more confusion etc.
Combine that with the overkill of enemies, it really was a confusing experience. I had very little idea what was happening, what the plan was, what the objectives were even. It's a reasonable idea for a mission, but it does need some work before it fits into the TT way of things.
ARPS unofficial motto - And then we leave. No heroic stands.
Its just a mission. I can't really arsed to handle people's egos with kid gloves in situations like this. Still in hindsight it was a dickish way of putting it.
Oh, okay. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Yeah no worries I was just thinking that maybe it might have seemed like I'd run off from my squad and done my own thing. I think I was more like Weird Al's Rambo than Stallone's though lol.
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So from this we can establish that
1. The mission was hampered by the fact it was dark - look at changing this
2. Some people had some bad luck/timing - look at reducing the chance of this happening
3. Some people were frustrated with early death - perhaps look at altering troop placement/numbers
4. People were unsure of proceedings - Look at simplifying briefing or map markers.
5. People need to improve their tone to aid discussion rather than argument - Buck up and proof read it.
+1
That was a fantastic effort, it was pretty harrowing to be able to see the sheer volume of enemies swarming around you. Great that you managed to stay alive.
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