Multiplayer is lacking.

[Blackhaze440]

I have been playing DCS for over a year now and the multiplayer still has the same exact missions since I started last year, GS, Aerobatics servers, 1 dogfighting server that's hit or miss if anyone is in it. Also the through the inferno missions and Capture bases. All of these are repetitive and is more than likely why player count is so low. Update comes out and everyone plays for about a day or two loses interest. online population is dropping off fast. I even noticed that the die hard players are hardly playing DCS anymore. It needs more missions that don't have the same layout.

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, Blackhaze440 said:

All of these are repetitive and is more than likely why player count is so low.

That’s because you only play on public servers ... try to enter to a virtual squadron, they have much better and varied missions, as well as more mature pilots who are more interested in simulating real word missions than "capture the flag" gameplay.

[JimBo*]

2 hours ago, Blackhaze440 said:

I have been playing DCS for over a year now and the multiplayer still has the same exact missions since I started last year, GS, Aerobatics servers, 1 dogfighting server that's hit or miss if anyone is in it. Also the through the inferno missions and Capture bases. All of these are repetitive and is more than likely why player count is so low. Update comes out and everyone plays for about a day or two loses interest. online population is dropping off fast. I even noticed that the die hard players are hardly playing DCS anymore. It needs more missions that don't have the same layout.

mission type suggestions, or what do you think should be the layout?

[Blackhaze440]

4 hours ago, JimBo* said:

mission type suggestions, or what do you think should be the layout?

I really don't honestly know. Idk how the engine itself works with the mission editor. but it is possible for game modes without mods? Like say TDM the way Counter Strike Source used to be back in the day. like Blue for has to escort or something back to lz or destroy target before time runs out or wipe other team. Red's goal is to Seek and Destroy all pvp defend target until clock time expires. I don't even know if any of this is capable of being done or not because I do not know enough about DCS as a whole with the mission mechanics

[JimBo*]

29 minutes ago, Blackhaze440 said:

I really don't honestly know. Idk how the engine itself works with the mission editor. but it is possible for game modes without mods? Like say TDM the way Counter Strike Source used to be back in the day. like Blue for has to escort or something back to lz or destroy target before time runs out or wipe other team. Red's goal is to Seek and Destroy all pvp defend target until clock time expires. I don't even know if any of this is capable of being done or not because I do not know enough about DCS as a whole with the mission mechanics

 

what aircraft do you fly, Maps and do you have the WW2 assets pack?

are you using Beta version or Stable version of DCS?

Edited August 24, 2021 by JimBo*

[QuiGon]

1 hour ago, Blackhaze440 said:

I really don't honestly know. Idk how the engine itself works with the mission editor. but it is possible for game modes without mods? Like say TDM the way Counter Strike Source used to be back in the day. like Blue for has to escort or something back to lz or destroy target before time runs out or wipe other team. Red's goal is to Seek and Destroy all pvp defend target until clock time expires. I don't even know if any of this is capable of being done or not because I do not know enough about DCS as a whole with the mission mechanics

 

There are servers that fit your description. Try this one for example:

 

[Blackhaze440]

3 hours ago, JimBo* said:

 

what aircraft do you fly, Maps and do you have the WW2 assets pack?

are you using Beta version or Stable version of DCS?

 

I am playing the latest 2.7 beta. I fly mostly Sukhoi 27/33 F/A-18, KA-50 but also have the A-10II F-16, Spitfire, P51 and the Hind, Also have Pursian gulf, Syria, Normandy Maps

[StevanJ]

14 hours ago, Blackhaze440 said:

I have been playing DCS for over a year now and the multiplayer still has the same exact missions since I started last year, GS, Aerobatics servers, 1 dogfighting server that's hit or miss if anyone is in it. Also the through the inferno missions and Capture bases. All of these are repetitive and is more than likely why player count is so low. Update comes out and everyone plays for about a day or two loses interest. online population is dropping off fast. I even noticed that the die hard players are hardly playing DCS anymore. It needs more missions that don't have the same layout.

I agree for Multiple reasons, Im a little bored of multiple servers, and have multiple excuses for not playing it anymore.

The only way youre going to get what you are looking for is to start something and create it yourself, but its ALOT of effort.

So i used to create a buzz through Discord and get players that way.
Alot of us used to join up in Discord, start a private server, and play missions we had created ourselves, but after a while (with the gameplay the way it is now) you kind of just get bored of waiting for bug fixes.
So you just go play another game.
If you feel like something is a little stale, create your ideal mission, then invite people to play with it, take their critisicm on how to improve it, and keep making it better until its joyful.
Youll either:

1 Get bored with making missions for other people and end up right back at the start.

2 Make missions for other people that get bored and then end up right back at the start.

My advice is to just take what enjoyment you can from the game and focus on that.
If you worry about the online population (which I agree, is definitely dropping off -fast), youll just end up having a bad time.
I used to be like yourself, wanting more, so i created a load of missions for the guys i flew with, but then 2.7 kinda broke the game for us so we moved on.
Ive given up even caring about the game anymore to be honest, so i end up popping here, seeing if stuffs been fixed yet, and then playing single player for a bit..

 

[naizarak]

try the dynamic pvp servers like DDCS or blue flag

[=475FG= Dawger]

Cold War 1947-1992 is the server you want to play in. 
 

The best PvP public server by far.

[SharpeXB]

I don’t get why the maps are so full of SAM sites that the players can hardly engage one another. I figure when the Dynamic Campaign comes along MP will likely die out because it’s just so poorly done so why bother? Who wants to play online against SAM sites when you could just do that in SP? and if you really want to make some sort of coordinated SEAD SP mission it could actually be done. That kind of organization online is impossible. And there are other things to do besides constantly dodging SAMs. 

[Steel Jaw]

Agreed...the online public servers are pure anarchy and filled with children and Air Quakers.

[randomTOTEN]

I don't get the disconnect between the need to restart the .miz every several hours for stability reasons, but the requirement that missions be "persistent." That requirement seems to really take a lot of the life out of a mission. Why not just make 3-5 hour long missions with multiple client slots?

[=475FG= Dawger]

9 hours ago, randomTOTEN said:

I don't get the disconnect between the need to restart the .miz every several hours for stability reasons, but the requirement that missions be "persistent." That requirement seems to really take a lot of the life out of a mission. Why not just make 3-5 hour long missions with multiple client slots?

Cold War 1947-1992 server has 4 to 8 hour missions. It is the best PvP public server overall.
 

“ Dynamic”, persistent mission servers are pretty dull.

 

Most server operators are not willing to put in the hard work required to maintain missions that put limits on weapons and aircraft and have realistic missions.

 

So, few are built in that fashion.

 

There are some.

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

Dynamic”, persistent mission servers are pretty dull.

I would think that having the mission results continue to the next restart would make it more rewarding or interesting. Given that so few people play online, a 4-8 hour session doesn’t seem like enough time to see any outcome. Although I’m not very familiar with MP in this game. It generally seems like a mess. 

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, LoneS said:

They would not destroy anything but actually get destroyed because they're used to the simple stuff with ground units staring stupidly into the sky waiting for Mavericks to crush them.

Actually what I see so far on the modern servers is that the ground targets and even the entire battlefield are so covered with SAMs that any action at all is sorta impossible. The game becomes PvE instead of PvP. I don’t know why mission designers think that excessive AA defenses lead to better gameplay. It should be up to players to defend the targets and not the AI. 

[LithiumR]

Growling Sidewinder used to be fun to me because it was always packed but there were objectives. You had specific targets to hit and to defend. So awesome to have a 4 man squad load up 2x A-10’s and 2x18’s (or whatever) and escort them. In the ground pounder roll there was a real sense of vulnerability and dependence and if you were escort a real feeling of responsibility to your team. I think originally that’s what made the GS server so popular. And whatever side won had its music play when all targets destroyed. Not a lot of Sam’s but a lot of resistance from the other team who were actively trying to defend their assets and attack yours also. It was f’n awesome imo. 
 

Now it’s just team death match so not as much planning and teamwork going on. Because there are no team goals now hardly anyone in comms. Bummer. I asked GS on discord why and he said it’s because of a bug with ground units lagging the server. Bummer...  That server used to be so much fun.  
 

I think SOW is starting to get there on the WWII side. Similar setup to what GS used to be. If we had some bombers it would be the absolute awesomeness. Some actual planes with real ground pounding power but vulnerable to fighters. THAT is the setup for tense action packed team based pvp. That’s what most are looking for in DCS mp I think. It is for me anyway....  But I figure that’s at least 10 years down the road. Maybe 15 at DCS development pace haha. I’ll probably be dead by then . I know the skeeter is coming... maybe that will help create escort kind of situations. But with weak/ no splash damage and no fused bombs it’s hard to ground pound effectively in the warbirds. I kind of give up waiting on these things. 

[Frederf]

In my opinion the ideal MP mission is a short session where everyone starts at once, flies as a cohesive group for a single overall objective, and the mission ends in 1-2h maximum. Currently the sandbox type MP missions are asynchronous. Someone joins at 0:00, another at 15:00, another at 25:00, etc. so you get an "ant trail" and thus solo effort. The targets are overly defended and usually pop up as soon as the previous is defeated. The whole thing is reminiscent of World of Warcraft. For basic training and experience the other thing is good. There is no wait. You get to experience target-weapon execution over and over.

 

To do session-based missions everyone has to be at a certain competency level. When you get one chance there is no "hold on, I'm figuring it out" stuff. It has to be approaching second nature. Yardstick, datalink, time on waypoint avionics knowledge can't be learned during the mission. It takes too long. Taking natural units of 2, 4 groups of the same airframe help much in coordination. One type X, three type Ys, 1 type Z is hard to integrate. People joining mid mission need something to do (practice or similar away from the mission) waiting for the next mission start. Shot down probably means being out of the fight for the rest of the mission simply due to timing. It's a lot more fun and even boring/easy missions take on a whole new flavor.

[LithiumR]

17 minutes ago, Frederf said:

In my opinion the ideal MP mission is a short session where everyone starts at once, flies as a cohesive group for a single overall objective, and the mission ends in 1-2h maximum. Currently the sandbox type MP missions are asynchronous. Someone joins at 0:00, another at 15:00, another at 25:00, etc. so you get an "ant trail" and thus solo effort. The targets are overly defended and usually pop up as soon as the previous is defeated. The whole thing is reminiscent of World of Warcraft. For basic training and experience the other thing is good. There is no wait. You get to experience target-weapon execution over and over.

 

To do session-based missions everyone has to be at a certain competency level. When you get one chance there is no "hold on, I'm figuring it out" stuff. It has to be approaching second nature. Yardstick, datalink, time on waypoint avionics knowledge can't be learned during the mission. It takes too long. Taking natural units of 2, 4 groups of the same airframe help much in coordination. One type X, three type Ys, 1 type Z is hard to integrate. People joining mid mission need something to do (practice or similar away from the mission) waiting for the next mission start. Shot down probably means being out of the fight for the rest of the mission simply due to timing. It's a lot more fun and even boring/easy missions take on a whole new flavor.

This is how my “squad” did it on GS. We all started together. But it was in a mp environment. Obviously not everyone started together but that was irrelevant. We started together. Mixed airframes was a necessity for taking out objectives. That was before the 18 had a T-pod. A good “squad” could usually take out an objective in about 1-2hrs. I think there were 4 objectives for each side (so 6hrs to win the server). 
 

I think what you suggest is good for a group of 4 or so in a locked server playing PvE. Hard to coordinate PvP like that... and to me PvE even with my squad gets stale. AI will never play a strategic chess match like real players will. That’s just my opinion though... there is no wrong way to fly DCS

[Csgo GE oh yeah]

Maybe it's for the better that multiplayer is so lackluster. I mean that. 

Just imagine if DCS would get popular online , with 0 anti-cheat and with 0 experience in anti-cheat. 

DCS devs not ready for this and never will be. 

[jwflowersii]

This topic is why ED needs to get Dynamic Campaign in multiplayer ASAP.  I suspect a lot of players want to do online play, but with the current state of MP, it's repetitive or too time consuming.  We have a 100 person group, but it's a challenge to design missions that involves everyone.  It can take hours or even days depending on how many people decide to show.

[randomTOTEN]

5 hours ago, jwflowersii said:

We have a 100 person group, but it's a challenge to design missions that involves everyone.

Can you go into detail about what's so challenging about this process? Perhaps provide some examples? Thanks.

[jwflowersii]

1 hour ago, randomTOTEN said:

Can you go into detail about what's so challenging about this process? Perhaps provide some examples? Thanks.

 

 

One it takes time setting up that many planes for clients with appropriate callsigns and numbers.  Also, if you want to have actual waypoints, you have to do a flight plan for each flight since it can't be added through a data cartridge and has to be manually inputted.  The environment is also very static without ground forces really moving without manual intervention.  Overall, it just takes time.  We've tried importing multiple combat flite into one mission file and that sort of works, but still ugly.  It's just a long process.  Also, the scripting involve also provides some challenges when it doesn't work as expected.

 

[randomTOTEN]

22 minutes ago, jwflowersii said:

One it takes time setting up that many planes for clients with appropriate callsigns and numbers.  Also, if you want to have actual waypoints, you have to do a flight plan for each flight since it can't be added through a data cartridge and has to be manually inputted.

But these are all tasks you would have to perform for AI aircraft that were performing the same tasks. You would have to place them, give them callsigns and numbers, and give them flight plans. Literally the only difference is you use the skill dialog to choose "client."

Is that correct?

So your problem is just that making a mission takes too much time for you in general?

[Steel Jaw]

Agreed that this sim desperately needs a DC.