A New Method for Online Missons

[Exorcet]

The current online mission design is on average not highly realistic (forgive me this has changed, as I have not been on FC2 multiplayer for 3 months due to technical issues). Planes come and go randomly and fight on their own with no objective save for killing as many bandits as possible.

 

It's easy to understand why this is, as getting a bunch of people to get together at the right time for an organized mission can be daunting. However, I have a possible solution.

 

Why not utilize the load mission feature on servers to switch between "air quake" and combat sortie missions?

 

When there is a limited number of players online, keep the usual unorganized mission set up. However, once the server attracts a large number of people (15+), have someone switch the mission over to a realistic one. There would be no need to gather people, and everyone would start off at the same time. The only issues would be people leaving and those who don't want to participate in a realistic mission.

 

This should work exceptionally well on the 104th.

[104th_Crunch]

A good idea. Short missions with very specific focused goals for each side to complete. Still, a very tough task to create.

 

In the end though (as discussed in other threads) it is all how play the mission. Yes, mission design can help, but as you elude to, it takes players working together, which is tuff unless you are in a squad for example.

 

I can take any half decent mission, go in with a few friends and set our own tasks and goals.

 

Again, good ideas though.

Edited August 31, 2010 by Crunch

[HiJack]

Only LOCERF works on a controlled form right now and thats limited to just a few. I would love to see what I will call an organized "BigWar" for "normal" players.

[Grimes]

I've been working on a realistic scenario for some time for the 3sqn server. I won't say to much as its still far from release and other opportunities are delaying its progress. But what I will say is that your teams assets carry weight. Everything in the mission serves a purpose, if they fail at that purpose there are consequences of that failure.

[Sov13t]

I've been working on a realistic scenario for some time for the 3sqn server. I won't say to much as its still far from release and other opportunities are delaying its progress. But what I will say is that your teams assets carry weight. Everything in the mission serves a purpose, if they fail at that purpose there are consequences of that failure.

 

Sounds great! Can't wait to check it out! :thumbup:

[Exorcet]

I've been working on a realistic scenario for some time for the 3sqn server. I won't say to much as its still far from release and other opportunities are delaying its progress. But what I will say is that your teams assets carry weight. Everything in the mission serves a purpose, if they fail at that purpose there are consequences of that failure.

 

Yes, I remember the Capturing Maykop mission from the early days of FC2. It was a pretty impressive mission, but I never saw more than 4 people participate, and that number includes myself.

 

I have nothing against the 104th, but it's somewhat unfortaunte that they seem to have a monopoly on players.

[104th_Crunch]

Yes, I remember the Capturing Maykop mission from the early days of FC2. It was a pretty impressive mission, but I never saw more than 4 people participate, and that number includes myself.

 

I have nothing against the 104th, but it's somewhat unfortaunte that they seem to have a monopoly on players.

 

We have no monopoly and we put A LOT of work into our server. What is unfortunate is that the player base isn't larger to support more servers. There are a lot of possibilities for good missions with DCS/FC2. The 104th has some of those possibilities and others may choose other options. Just because you may prefer one over another, doesn't mean another is worse. As Grimes can tell you, it takes a lot of work to create a mission. So, while ideas are great, even better, design your own mission and try to get your ideas hosted on a server.

 

Maybe we should focus on what we as players can do to get more people into our MP community instead.

[Grimes]

We had a decent influx around the time it was released, however most of the playtime it got occurred when it was still evolving heavily as a mission around the 1st and 2nd release. I wouldn't mind if the 51st put it in rotation to get some stat collection on it, could even use it as a guinea pig to associate mission objectives with persistent stats. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

 

The overall way FC2 MP is organized kinda shoots itself in the foot. And that is the paradox of what makes FC2 different from most other games out there. The vast majority of missions that we play online didn't come with the game nor were released by Eagle Dynamics post release as additional content. Instead missions that are made for servers have a pre-defined ownership associated with whichever server runs it as someone who runs that server put time and effort into making the mission. Thus the 104th missions belong to the 104th, likewise is true for 51st, 3sqn, RAF, VNAO, and most other servers. I don't necessarily agree with that fact, but it seems to be the way things are. I can argue for both sides of the coin. When it was just Black Shark all of Dragons missions dominated the server lists, there were a few out there that had their own missions, but the majority were dragons co-ops. Now there is great variety but few actually get to experience that variety.

 

Perhaps if we had a larger player base capable of filling multiple servers at once this wouldn't be much of an issue. But we don't have that many players. So what can we do?

 

I'm more inclined to think that servers should share missions more. After all when joining a server most players look to the player count first, if the count is close they decide based on the mission running or the culture of the server. But the fact is if Server A has 20 players in it and Server B has 2, people will probably join server A.

 

I'd be game if each major server allowed all other servers to host one of your missions of your choosing. It allows for a sample of a mission from each server to be played by more people while still retaining said servers "mission identity"

 

What say you other admins?

[Exorcet]

We have no monopoly and we put A LOT of work into our server. What is unfortunate is that the player base isn't larger to support more servers. There are a lot of possibilities for good missions with DCS/FC2. The 104th has some of those possibilities and others may choose other options. Just because you may prefer one over another, doesn't mean another is worse. As Grimes can tell you, it takes a lot of work to create a mission. So, while ideas are great, even better, design your own mission and try to get your ideas hosted on a server.

 

Maybe we should focus on what we as players can do to get more people into our MP community instead.

 

Sorry, I didn't mean it as an insult to you or to imply it's the 104th's fault. What I meant was basically what you said, the situation is such that people find it easier to gather in one spot. The 104th is that spot. However since people tend to gather in one spot, it limts one's options when looking for a large scale mission. I certainly agree that the 104th is dedicated and runs its server well, I frequent it more than any other server.

[power5]

This is the problem with A2A MP. Its always air quake. What is the mission if not air quake? You have a su25 and a10 in fc2 for A2G, right? Add in the BS and you have 3 a/c. So, all the other a/c play air superiority and shoot each other down. The only real mission objectives always seem to be to take out tanks. That is for the 3 a/c that can do that. This is why I do not understand the A2A desire for the upcoming DCS editions. Better AI for the ground troops would make the missions better. What would be best is a sort of interactive ground force. Sort of like the online war simulation games where you can be the commander. Like RISK. When the mission starts, all the players are in predefined locations like chess. Then as the game plays on, the commanders move their forces to react to the changing battle conditions. The commander would be a human that controlled the forces using his reports from his human pilots. So, when I fly toward the enemy and I notice that they have moved, I tag their new position with my arbris and my commander can then route tanks in that direction.

 

I only have BS, so it doesnt really matter what server I play on, I almost never see anyone. Rookie Terrorists is about the only one where I see other human pilots.

[104th_Crunch]

No problem Exorcet, and I agree. I'd be the first to join other servers to experience some variety, but I gotta help to admin the 104th. Cheers

[mikoyan]

104 has a fantastic server, but I think that missions could be better if the pilots collaborate more instead of going for the kill. A few months back we had a blast (ares falcons) trying do bomb an airfield; we had to talk to each others to coordinate the attack; at the end I had to engage instead of bombing; but still it was fantastic; and it was all, because of the cooperation between players; I also have to tank Iraqi outlaw too for his skilled work.

 

Maybe missions can be made with tons of ground units attacking the airfields; that way players would have to do ground attack in order to keep flying. Maybe if someone can work as a ground controller, there is a mod for that I believe.

Cruiser missiles can also be implemented; these would target airfields (where the players are parked) so if players don't want to get killed on the ground they would have to chase b-52s and bears to stop them form launching their missiles; naturally this bombers would have to be escorted, SAMS would be ready to protect them too.

Night missions could add some spice to the mix; what about fog over the airfields; using that would force pilots to coordinate their landings and hopefully avoid taxyway take offs and runway parking.

[Moa]

mikoyan, the problem with the collaborative aspect is that sooner or later someone shows up wanting to fight others in air-to-air. Ground pounders know this all too well, they can be working together on a server and then someone pops into the server and starts shooting them down, stating, "Well its war, deal with it!". I conisder this is very bad manners for the person who does this but I realise I'm completely outnumbered by people who do think this is perfectly acceptable.

 

To get colloboration you need two things:

a) discipline: you need common objectives and everyone must work together to achieve them, and

b) communications: everyone needs to talk (and listen!) as part of a team. Many servers provide this and channels open to all players (eg. the 104th Teamspeak 3 server).

 

The problem is that many players are not interested in these things. As soon as you have more players that are impatient (won't wait for their teammates) and ego-centric (prefer a high personal score over a high team score or the thrill of being in a team) than team players then collaboration breaks down quickly.

 

The problem is not the missions, it is the attitude and desires of the people that fly them.

 

This is why slightly exclusive events such as RedFlag (note: open to squadrons and lone-wolves alike) produce superior collaboration, regardless of the mission scenario and set-up.

 

I known the mission designers of the 104th would love to have fog and overcast and clouds and lots of units and all sorts of good things that you mention. Many people complain (loudly!) that their machines can't handle it. So the missions are made relatively conservative (all it takes is one player with a crap computer that can't keep up to induce lag in all players - which sucks for everyone). This is where other servers get to cater for more specialist needs (which is why it is a good thing that there are lots of servers out there trying all sorts of things out, as well as the popular and 'safe' 104th server).

Edited September 1, 2010 by Moa

[3Sqn_TomAce]

The people who comment about the state of MP "AirQuake" in Lomac are normally the ones who are keen to coordinate and fly to a more real standard. I see the easy no cost solution that we can all do right now regardless of server or mission.

Join the server team coms, someone put their hand up for the commanders role and give everyone a quick five min brief on what he/she would like to be done. Everyone else simply do what the commander has briefed you on, after an hour or so swap and give someone else a go at the commanders role. Anyone who doesn’t participate on your team well best of luck to them.

The more varied the tactics and operations the more we will learn what works and what doesn’t. Debrief if you can to cover lessons learnt and highlight good performances.

Last night IraqiOutlaw, Mouse, Warhammer and myself linked up on 104th TS and with a little team work brought getting our butts kicked back to a level of getting our butts kicked less. Though our teamwork was ok it could have been tons better and don't we all want to learn how to achieve that regardless of what squad you fly for?

[Insanatrix]

One thing that helps contribute I think to the whole "Air Quake" thing is the scale of the missions. We have a very big theatre honestly and we can create many different scenario's. I forget what server I was on but red CAP was stationed at ANAPA and KRYMSK and blue was at MIN VODY and one of the bases down in georgia.

 

The scale of it really immersed me more into it. Not to mention I knew if I was shot down it wasn't a little 2-3 min flight from base back to the "fray". The nature of the mission and the scale made me fly a different way than I would say on the 104th's operation moon shield mission where the targets are really close and the fighters only have short hops to get there.

 

Easiest way I can put it is like comparing the scale of ArmAII or the ArmA/OPF series to something like Battlefield or Call of Duty.

 

Another thing is the willingness of people to communicate. Now quite frankly and to be perfectly honest and blunt, someone who is going to go into a server just to shoot down planes and not contribute to the mission is either going to do that or leave. They most likely don't care about getting on TS or communicating with others. It is just about turkey shooting to them.

 

Then of course you have the hardcore realist simmers who want a good experience more than racking up the kills. They fly this sim online to experience the thrill of flying a military jet/helicopter with others and to mimick real world experience. To them the thrill isn't about how many kills, but that the job is done and the job is done the right way and they worked together to accomplish it.

 

Inbetween you have the casual simmer who could be a little bit of both. Maybe he needs a push in one direction or the other. He may not know enough about tactics and procedures to consider himself a hardcore sim junkie but wants to learn.

 

I think as a community and as server administrators you/we need to decide what player type/base we want to cater to as a whole. You can't possibly please everyone or every type of virtual pilot out there. We can sit on the forums obviously and argue it until the end of time but it only makes a difference once the first step is initiated.

 

Some thing that honestly would make the online experience better in my opinion would be actually requiring a pilot to be in TS for him to fly on the server. It's the first step. Doesn't matter if they speak russian, english, italian, spanish or german. It shows that they are ready to communicate as best as they can and work together towards a common goal. If they don't have a mic at least they can hear what is going on and they can type responses out if they have to. Communities in ArmA have been doing this for years and to great success, It promotes communication and teamwork over lonewolfing.

[Boberro]

The current online mission design is on average not highly realistic (forgive me this has changed, as I have not been on FC2 multiplayer for 3 months due to technical issues). Planes come and go randomly and fight on their own with no objective save for killing as many bandits as possible.

 

It's easy to understand why this is, as getting a bunch of people to get together at the right time for an organized mission can be daunting. However, I have a possible solution.

 

Why not utilize the load mission feature on servers to switch between "air quake" and combat sortie missions?

 

When there is a limited number of players online, keep the usual unorganized mission set up. However, once the server attracts a large number of people (15+), have someone switch the mission over to a realistic one. There would be no need to gather people, and everyone would start off at the same time. The only issues would be people leaving and those who don't want to participate in a realistic mission.

 

This should work exceptionally well on the 104th.

 

Personally I think it is not too good idea. That requires mostly team members to be met and TS support. Neither everybody wants to join TS, nor we have in-built VOIP. I prefer "as is" now as I don't see your idea would be succesfully introduced as well :)

 

Yes, I remember the Capturing Maykop mission from the early days of FC2. It was a pretty impressive mission, but I never saw more than 4 people participate, and that number includes myself.

 

I have nothing against the 104th, but it's somewhat unfortaunte that they seem to have a monopoly on players.

 

There is too low amount of players. We have maximum maximum 100 players who play, but usually it is about 70... for few dozen servers. People go there where are more people... if 5 join to 104th\51st ect.. people will go there :P. Like flock of sheep... most go there where go few of them.

 

IL2 has circa 1000 players hehehehhe

[HiJack]

The people who comment about the state of MP "AirQuake" in Lomac are normally the ones who are keen to coordinate and fly to a more real standard. I see the easy no cost solution that we can all do right now regardless of server or mission.

 

Join the server team coms, someone put their hand up for the commanders role and give everyone a quick five min brief on what he/she would like to be done. Everyone else simply do what the commander has briefed you on, after an hour or so swap and give someone else a go at the commanders role. Anyone who doesn’t participate on your team well best of luck to them.

 

The more varied the tactics and operations the more we will learn what works and what doesn’t. Debrief if you can to cover lessons learnt and highlight good performances.

 

Last night IraqiOutlaw, Mouse, Warhammer and myself linked up on 104th TS and with a little team work brought getting our butts kicked back to a level of getting our butts kicked less. Though our teamwork was ok it could have been tons better and don't we all want to learn how to achieve that regardless of what squad you fly for?

This is so true. TS3 on the 104th server works wery well! I have several times had good help from IraqiOutlaw and others when doing ground missions. When you call for help there is always someone willing to help. :thumbsup:

[Exorcet]

This is the problem with A2A MP. Its always air quake. What is the mission if not air quake? You have a su25 and a10 in fc2 for A2G, right? Add in the BS and you have 3 a/c. So, all the other a/c play air superiority and shoot each other down. The only real mission objectives always seem to be to take out tanks. That is for the 3 a/c that can do that. This is why I do not understand the A2A desire for the upcoming DCS editions.

 

I don't see why air to air is a problem at all. I fly Eagles and Flankers almost exclusively, and when I was at the right place at the right time, I've had some fantastic air to air cooperation.

 

Occasionally on the 104th, you find people requesting wingmen to go take out the AWACS or strikers asking for cover from enemy fighters. Even in air quake missions, there is a lot of potential for team work. If a more concentrated effort were made by players in coordination with server admins to focus on a realistic experience I don't see any problems with air to air combat. This is what I'm talking about:

 

104 has a fantastic server, but I think that missions could be better if the pilots collaborate more instead of going for the kill. A few months back we had a blast (ares falcons) trying do bomb an airfield; we had to talk to each others to coordinate the attack; at the end I had to engage instead of bombing; but still it was fantastic; and it was all, because of the cooperation between players; I also have to tank Iraqi outlaw too for his skilled work.

 

Personally, if there is an issue with air to air combat, I think that it is symmetric mission design. In other words, Red and Blue both have the same situation imposed on them. It's like a war between two defensive sides. Red trench and Blue trench, and in the middle is no man's land where fighting takes place. I think asymmetrical missions would help out. Have one side hold their ground while the other has to push on the offensive and take the other's territory/air space.

 

 

mikoyan, the problem with the collaborative aspect is that sooner or later someone shows up wanting to fight others in air-to-air. Ground pounders know this all too well, they can be working together on a server and then someone pops into the server and starts shooting them down, stating, "Well its war, deal with it!". I conisder this is very bad manners for the person who does this but I realise I'm completely outnumbered by people who do think this is perfectly acceptable.

Well, I really don't see much wrong with attacking strikers, unless maybe one side has no fighters. That's what would happen in a war. Air to air involves exactly as much coop as air to ground.

 

The problem is that many players are not interested in these things. As soon as you have more players that are impatient (won't wait for their teammates) and ego-centric (prefer a high personal score over a high team score or the thrill of being in a team) than team players then collaboration breaks down quickly.

 

The problem is not the missions, it is the attitude and desires of the people that fly them.

Yes, this is true to an extent. But the missions could be the things to push people in the desired direction.

 

Personally I think it is not too good idea. That requires mostly team members to be met and TS support. Neither everybody wants to join TS, nor we have in-built VOIP. I prefer "as is" now as I don't see your idea would be succesfully introduced as well :)

Well, I don't have TS or anything other than pressing Y to bring up game chat. That's enough to get together though. I've done it in the past, and even with less than perfect communication, it was a blast and worked well enough.

[Case]

We had a decent influx around the time it was released, however most of the playtime it got occurred when it was still evolving heavily as a mission around the 1st and 2nd release. I wouldn't mind if the 51st put it in rotation to get some stat collection on it, could even use it as a guinea pig to associate mission objectives with persistent stats. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

 

Your point got accross Grimes. I have put your Capturing Maykop mission in rotation on the 51st server. We will see how it runs. It should be possible to log some of the game state information and get the stats to record it.

[Case]

The current online mission design is on average not highly realistic. Planes come and go randomly and fight on their own with no objective save for killing as many bandits as possible.

 

Feel free to join the club Exorcet. You are one of a small group of players looking for a more realistic and teamwork driven flying experience.

 

As some have noted above, the average FC2/DCS pilot is looking for a quick kill without having to spend time on reading briefings and flying long distances to the battle area, let alone hook up on a VOIP service to work with other pilots. Furthermore, they tend to be pack animals going to where the crowd is. These properties make it very hard to fill a server that doesn't have all aircrafts on both coalitions, 5 min flight times to the FEBA and/or AWACS in the mission telling them where to find the nearest bandit.

 

However, though it may be hard, it is not impossible to get a crowd to fly more realistic teamwork driven missions, but it will take quite a bit of dedicated effort. For one, mission design is important. Grimes' Capturing Maykop mission is a good example of where teamwork is essential to the mission. Furthermore, small things like putting smoke rockets on strikers and choppers by default improves teamwork where targets can be marked for all to see. Besides the Capturing Maykop mission, we recently put a mission on our server where strikers and choppers are getting information from a simulated FAC (using triggers) about where to find their targets. Only when they follow these directions will the ground units appear. Besides adding the realism of having a FAC guiding you to targets, all strikers and choppers will work together to fulfill the task set by the FAC.

 

Grimes and I have brainstormed a lot about what can be done to improve realism and teamwork, and we still have a lot of ideas to implement. So the future isn't looking that grim.

[Frostie]

Besides the Capturing Maykop mission, we recently put a mission on our server where strikers and choppers are getting information from a simulated FAC (using triggers) about where to find their targets. Only when they follow these directions will the ground units appear. Besides adding the realism of having a FAC guiding you to targets, all strikers and choppers will work together to fulfill the task set by the FAC.

 

Grimes and I have brainstormed a lot about what can be done to improve realism and teamwork, and we still have a lot of ideas to implement. So the future isn't looking that grim.

I haven't tried the simulated FAC out yet, I will definately have to give my 25 vanilla a good dusting and test this out, thanks guys. :thumbup:

[Outlaw]

104 has a fantastic server, but I think that missions could be better if the pilots collaborate more instead of going for the kill. A few months back we had a blast (ares falcons) trying do bomb an airfield; we had to talk to each others to coordinate the attack; at the end I had to engage instead of bombing; but still it was fantastic; and it was all, because of the cooperation between players; I also have to tank Iraqi outlaw too for his skilled work.

 

Maybe missions can be made with tons of ground units attacking the airfields; that way players would have to do ground attack in order to keep flying. Maybe if someone can work as a ground controller, there is a mod for that I believe.

Cruiser missiles can also be implemented; these would target airfields (where the players are parked) so if players don't want to get killed on the ground they would have to chase b-52s and bears to stop them form launching their missiles; naturally this bombers would have to be escorted, SAMS would be ready to protect them too.

Night missions could add some spice to the mix; what about fog over the airfields; using that would force pilots to coordinate their landings and hopefully avoid taxyway take offs and runway parking.

 

 

Thats was fun,, we still do it,, we took down Maykoop and the Farp last weekend,, come join the fun :joystick: