Campaign Feedback

[DCS_moldy]

Finished the campaign. Overall it was an excellent experience. I thought it was very immersive and that the Red Flag setting was both done really well and was particularly suited to providing a good DCS campaign experience.

The campaign is challenging, but in different ways than campaigns typically are. I think most campaigns are limited in how challenging they can make missions because having difficult combat encounters that players struggle to get past leads to a lot of repetition and frustration as you play the same mission over and over. This campaign isn't like that. For one, a lot of the challenge is not purely "combat" but is instead being in the right place at the right time with your jet properly configured. Second, immortal is on as long as you are following the rules, so you can "fail" without actually dying and having to replay anything. I thought this worked excellent for DCS, as it's immersion breaking in other campaigns to "die" and then replay the same mission again knowing everything that will happen. Instead it's a teaching moment, you continue on, and you reflect on what went wrong as you fly back to base. It made it rewarding to nail a mission and get 100% in the debrief. I can see myself actually going back and reflying some of the missions to get a better score vs feeling forced to in order to progress.

The missions themselves were really well done as usual. The campaign offers a ton of variety in mission objectives and weapons, though the way out to the range and back can get repetitive and expect to spend 20 minutes sitting on the ramp before taxiing. You could fast forward through that part if you want, but whenever I had the real world time to spare I preferred to spend the waiting period reviewing the objectives, familiarizing myself with the route, and refreshing myself one last time on weapons delivery procedures. All the dialogue was great, especially between Mac and Jester. It was just enough to add some character and lighten up some dull moments without being overdone.

I think this campaign is best suited to players who have solid proficiency in flying the F4 and have prior experience with Reflected's campaigns. While the fact that immortal on may make it "easier" to just fly out to a spot in the desert, drop some bombs, and head home, the real strength of this campaign (and Reflected's campaigns generally) is the immersion. There's a ton to learn within the campaign itself, and I can't see having that same immersion if you aren't proficient enough with the jet to land bombs on target or follow the various procedures. If you are proficient in the F4 and have enjoyed any of Reflected's other work, then this campaign is a must-buy. 

Thanks for another awesome campaign, hopefully it's not the last F4 one for a while. 

[Reflected]

Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I agree the 20 minutes on the ramp can be boring, but unfortunately that's just how long the INS alignment takes.

I wonder if you ever revisited a mission, and noticed anything play out slightly differently due to the randomization triggers.

[DCS_moldy]

20 hours ago, Reflected said:

Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I agree the 20 minutes on the ramp can be boring, but unfortunately that's just how long the INS alignment takes.

I wonder if you ever revisited a mission, and noticed anything play out slightly differently due to the randomization triggers.

I did not revisit any missions during my initial playthrough. I wanted to treat it more like the "real thing" and just try to improve as much as I could over the course of the exercises without taking the extra attempts. My final scores for the initial playthrough were:

M01 - 80% (did not survive)

M02 - No debrief (thought it was bugged at the time but I think I just missed a switch at shutoff)

M03 - 40% (did not survive, did not hit TOT, missed procedures)

M04 - 100%

M05 - 100%

M06 - 80% (violated hard deck crossing a ridge)

M07 - 60% (felt extremely grateful to get out with this score)

M08 - 60% (procedures - Pappy ingresses at less than 15k so I was told to check blocks while joining up. Also smoky sams killed my entire flight)

M09 - 80% (missed TOT but briefing made it seem this would not be a factor)

M10 - 80% (did not kiss off wingman when breaking)

M11 - 80% (had a utility hydraulics failure for some reason and the slats were stuck out, preventing me from hitting TOT)

While I wasn't consistently hitting 100% towards the end, I still felt like I had improved and had a better grasp of the exercise and the range.

 

Now that I'm finished there are a few I want to go back and revisit. For instance in Mission 3:

Spoiler

I had an SA-6 pop up right on ingress to the target. There was essentially no way to both avoid the SAM and hit the ToT, but I was wondering if that was just luck of the draw.

Another note on mission 6:

Spoiler

During hung stores check Waldo started on my left, I check him, return to his right side, hit spacebar, he immediately smashes into my jet. Fortunately with immortal on I just blacked out and went into a spin. Jester started puking in the back due to neg G and I barely regained vision in time to recover the aircraft.

 

[Reflected]

M3: yepp. Although when the SA-6 pops up is slightly randomized, it's a problem that you may encounter on real life missions as well.

M4: Why did you cross back? The message says "Cross under Waldo's  jet to inspect the hung ordnance" - during BDC you cross under and come up the other side. After the thumbsup he's set to follow on the right.

[DCS_moldy]

I actually really liked the SA-6 popup despite maybe being "unfair" because it reset the typical rules of campaigns (basically - it should always be possible to 100% a mission 100% of the time) and that put me more on my toes for the rest of the missions. And also the realism that the SEAD guys may not pick up every threat. If a SAM waits till a striker is in the WEZ to emit there's not much SEAD can do to prevent it.

Yeah I realized later what went wrong with the BDC, just an error on my part. That's one of the reasons I recommended this campaign moreso for experienced players of your campaigns, since missing those small details have the potential to mess up the whole mission. Not a mission issue itself but maybe an opportunity for more clarity on the prompt.