Arma 3: S.O.G. Prairie Fire Tactical Realism 1 Feedback Thread - CLOSED

[Mazinski.H]

New thread for a new mission. This will be where feedback for Tactical Realism 1 is collected to help facilitate the development process. Please be constructive with feedback to provide clear changes that you would like to see made. Keep in mind that all mission devs are volunteers who have put tons of work into making this server possible and want to see it succeed.

For players new to the server, the presets for the server are attached below. Please see here for more information about Tactical Realism 1.

 

[Davidson.J]

Tac 2 has the same issue but is it possible we could start spawning in with pre-made loadouts for whatever slot we go with?

I also notice there are certain attachments (like scopes on the M14) we don't have access to in the arsenal, if that wouldn't be too much to ask for.

 

[Blake.H]

Missing/Bug: Missing ACE_Maptools from arsenal
Missing/Bug: Missing 22mm Rifle Grenades (For M1 or M2 Carbine)

Suggestion: Remove Advanced Bandages from CBA setting, or give access to QuikClots in the ACE Arsenal. (due to reopening)

 

[Kastor.K]

Apparently the villages / areas having Supplies for pickup require Zeus unblocking them. Can we change that possibly, because w/o Zeus present it results in gameplay where we're stuck without ability to build and no reward for taking ground.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a direct Zeus slot?

 

[Sypolt.R]

Apparently the villages / areas having Supplies for pickup require Zeus unblocking them. Can we change that possibly, because w/o Zeus present it results in gameplay where we're stuck without ability to build and no reward for taking ground.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a direct Zeus slot?

It requires the players to build storage at them, and then the commander to begin the production process. This is hard coded into the mission file, but we can look at allowing production settings to other roles, perhaps atlas 4. It may take some major rewriting though so its not going be quick. Currently anyone who was whitelisted for mission controller slots is whitelisted to enter the commander slot.

 

[Kastor.K]

The Mike mission file not having squad structure creates utter chaos, there's no proper milsim to be done when we don't have squads.

AI also absolutely relentlessly spawns insane amounts of troops constantly pressing FOBs and any kind of movement. I mean, it's nice to get beaten by AI for once, but fighting zerg rushes is rarely fun.

 

[Kastor.K]

Also have witnessed severe desync on both ground and in air.

The initial mission format was way superior. The Mike one may have it's things, but the lack of ACRE and basic functionalities like ACE (with the medical system!) or squad structure is just killing this for me.

We should return to the initial setup ASAP in my opinion.

 

[Blackburn.A]

spawned with a M1 helmet (camo), M16, infantry backpack, and rifleman webbing
saved it in the arsenal to check weapons
reload loadout
all gear restricted, including standard M16 and magazines. 'Unable to Access Due to Restricted Arsenal'

Please go back to the Liberation file . Restricting weapons and gear to the extent they are in Mike Force, as well as the shocking change to the less-desirable TFAR (got to love hearing people join and leave the teamspeak channel while in-game).

The inability to change squads (not including everyone being visible on the map) led to a squad so big that half of it was off the right side of my screen.

There are several reasons to see that this might not be the smartest option.

 

[Black.A]

I understand why we just switched to Mike Force, and it's pretty cool for a vanilla experience.
I however think that once new visitors starts to slow down I think Liberation with ACE3, Advanced Movement and TFAR was truly a new Arma experience that with minimal tweaks can be the best Arma experience to date.

(I do think TFAR Beta is better and easier to install than ACRE2)

I could write an essay but it all comes down to I just think Liberation with the mods we had hit a sweet spot that I and many others loved.

Thanks for all the hard work setting this up, S3 Staff!

 

[Grills.A]

I liked this idea, although TFR messed with me for hours, and the frames are low as they are on liberation (which is weird because I run a decent rig usually pulling 70fps). I hope we focus on content that is available for EVERYONE not just a paid DLC. There are lots of people not in s1-7 that also work their asses off to just build up each other and work together. I didn't like the logistics or building system in liberation. There needs to be history, continuity and retention in order to grow, switching up maps and things on a whim could be tested on training servers before launching. I know we might see the short term influx of public members as success but we need to keep in mind the retention for when we play the other game modes that require ace etc...

I hope we stay true to our arma roots, because if we confuse popularity with longevity, we'll be a revolving door.

I hope everyone gives people time to fix maps, I also hope Paid content remains a very RARE thing.

 

[Jarvis.A]

Thread unlocked, let’s keep things civil now please

 

[Whitsel.M]

Going to write out a rather general response to the Mike Force experimentation today.

First, I would like to say that I do appreciate people putting in feedback, and it will always be welcome here. It is critical to the continued development and curation of the experience we provide here. Please do continue to share your thoughts and experiences here, both positive and negative, to better inform that process.

S.O.G. Vietnam released less 48 hours ago. We are still learning what it offers. Regardless of the mission file, we're running in a capacity more or less out of the box still. The limitations imposed by both files is per their mission design and open to adjustment. As with all things, it will take time for us to find what we like, and what we do not.

Regarding Mike Force, this was something we wanted to try as it has a lot of hype surrounding it and right now quite frankly the largest portion of the player base of the new CDLC. By design, it aims to accomplish many of the same things as Liberation with a much more developer polish built it. It is still in development and as such is something that we have limited capacity to adjust. Because of some of the custom systems on it, it would have taken much more work to implement ACRE (if we could), and ACE does not yet work with it (or really any of the CDLC). Inevitably, there were issues with players not understanding many of the boutique systems added by the game mode but none the less we worked with it and figured it out as we went along.

For those claiming that it was rushed in whatever capacity, yes - of course it was - the CDLC was released less than 48 hours ago. Willingness to experiment without the constant need for red tape and paperwork is important for maintaining a positive creative environment. We wanted to see if this is something we would be interested in running for a 24h Operation being organized in the shortest turnaround time in Cav history. For now, it's clear that is not the case. That said, it still has a lot of promise and is something we will be keeping an eye on in the future. Please, in the future, do understand that everybody putting in all the work to make these missions a reality is acting in good faith to try and provide an entertaining experience for us all.

---

I'll use this section for more specific responses to what little feedback remains

The Mike mission file not having squad structure creates utter chaos, there's no proper milsim to be done when we don't have squads.

This is perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome for us with the Mike Force system. The grouping system is very integrated into their task management system that allows, for instance, Mike Force to create a pickup request for the Green Hornets, or a resupply request for ACAV. The hope is that in the future this is something that could be further adapted to support a number of different squads and assets instead of simply a large group of infantry, support, and air.

AI also absolutely relentlessly spawns insane amounts of troops constantly pressing FOBs and any kind of movement. I mean, it's nice to get beaten by AI for once, but fighting zerg rushes is rarely fun.

There were certainly times I experienced this myself to an extent, but we managed to fight through or break contact. balancing is always something that is really an individual flavor and something difficult to make to everyone's liking. Once we understood better the flow of the mission, it became clearer when to expect heavy contact and when to expect sporadic patrols surrounding a primary fortified compound.

Also have witnessed severe desync on both ground and in air.

I can't personally attest that I saw anything different than what I experienced in Liberation yesterday, but it is certainly more significant than playing without the mod. It may be more closely linked to the map or mod assets than the mission file itself.

Restricting weapons and gear to the extent they are in Mike Force

FWIW this was not a design choice by us. It comes with a progression system built in that unlocks more of the arsenal as you rank up. It works but likely servers mostly to limit possible griefing in less regulated servers. I do agree that in the context of a Cav server it is greatly preferable to simply have things available or not and not require special conditions to unlock.

as well as the shocking change to the less-desirable TFAR (got to love hearing people join and leave the teamspeak channel while in-game)

Certainly a matter of opinion, but TFAR is at this point more feature-rich and their team was already working with the CDLC devs for complete integration. The only things ACRE really has a step up in is (by some standards) installation is easier, and muting TeamSpeak sounds (which can easily be remedied by binding the same toggle key to turn of TS sounds and toggle TFAR plugin).

The inability to change squads (not including everyone being visible on the map) led to a squad so big that half of it was off the right side of my screen.

I've already touched on this some above, but I will take the time to expand by saying that not everybody needs to be in Mike Force. Much of this boiled down to a lack of understanding about what the different groups were which the mission did itself no favors in trying to explain. Having ground support was critical to pushing and holding objectives, yet ACAV remained largely unpopulated because people would just join the largest group.

I hope we focus on content that is available for EVERYONE not just a paid DLC

The focus of 1BN and S3 will always be on content made for all of our players, but I do think it would be foolish to ignore what is quite frankly the only big news to come to Arma in 5 years. People can have fun with the new CDLC if they chose to do so but are by no means forced to get it to participate in regular cav activities. I would also contrast this with the fact that 1BN still requires APEX DLC, which is something we very rarely even use in any capacity.

I hope we stay true to our arma roots, because if we confuse popularity with longevity, we'll be a revolving door.

The funny thing about our roots is that everybody seems to have a different idea about what those are. A little over a year ago I went through every single milpac for every trooper that had joined in the previous 18months. I looked at how long they stayed, if they were still in, and what their "cav career" looked like. Overwhelmingly, if a trooper did not participate in operations or training, they were out the door in 6 months. If we want longevity, it is imperative that we are able to continuously create engaging content for our player base to indulge in.

 

[Kastor.K]

I've already touched on this some above, but I will take the time to expand by saying that not everybody needs to be in Mike Force. Much of this boiled down to a lack of understanding about what the different groups were which the mission did itself no favors in trying to explain. Having ground support was critical to pushing and holding objectives, yet ACAV remained largely unpopulated because people would just join the largest group.


The focus of 1BN and S3 will always be on content made for all of our players, but I do think it would be foolish to ignore what is quite frankly the only big news to come to Arma in 5 years. People can have fun with the new CDLC if they chose to do so but are by no means forced to get it to participate in regular cav activities. I would also contrast this with the fact that 1BN still requires APEX DLC, which is something we very rarely even use in any capacity.

It could've been that the majority of people were unaware of the other groups altogether or why they should have gone to ACAV in the first place. Also, people mostly want to pew pew instead of running Logi trucks. Classic dilemma.

Historically, we've started requiring Operation Arrowhead for A2 as soon as it's shown up. We've switched to A3 as soon as it was released. Apex is not that much of an outlier, we got it mostly for Tanoa - which we maybe should make more use of again?

Anyway, thank you for the open minded and well thought out, positive reply to all the concerns and for taking on board both the positive, neutral AND negative feedback, being able to sift the meritum from the emotions and personal preference / bias of the reporting users. That's an immensely positive quality and it often goes underappreciated - so kudos there, Whitsel.M.

Seeing this I'm more than happy to have your stewardship over the process

 

[Grills.A]

The focus of 1BN and S3 will always be on content made for all of our players, but I do think it would be foolish to ignore what is quite frankly the only big news to come to Arma in 5 years. People can have fun with the new CDLC if they chose to do so but are by no means forced to get it to participate in regular cav activities. I would also contrast this with the fact that 1BN still requires APEX DLC, which is something we very rarely even use in any capacity.


The funny thing about our roots is that everybody seems to have a different idea about what those are. A little over a year ago I went through every single milpac for every trooper that had joined in the previous 18months. I looked at how long they stayed, if they were still in, and what their "cav career" looked like. Overwhelmingly, if a trooper did not participate in operations or training, they were out the door in 6 months. If we want longevity, it is imperative that we are able to continuously create engaging content for our player base to indulge in.

Pragmatically, as long as it's clear the DLC is an extra, not a baseline and new troopers are made aware of this, ethically it would make sense. We shouldn't be fooling people into joining by hosting content and then removing it like we did with the Canadian mods, it's dirty pool. It's very myopic to believe people coming for one style of gameplay from a DLC, would want to play the way the cav is structured with courses etc...

I was in the 7th cav 10 years ago when no one paid a dime for DLC but we still had a great time with what the developers in the cav made from scratch. Simply looking at a milpac doesn't do justice to what that trooper experienced. People need to be engaged, talked to, asked and included. If your only new and engaging content is stuff people have to pay for, you're running a casino, not a milsim gaming community. There's nothing stopping our game staff from creating that content other than their own willingness and ability, is there a reason the maps aren't being created this way? I know section leaders are responsible for creating SP's, why wouldn't our respective departments who's literal job it is, do it?

 

[Grills.A]

Please go back to the Liberation file . Restricting weapons and gear to the extent they are in Mike Force, as well as the shocking change to the less-desirable TFAR (got to love hearing people join and leave the teamspeak channel while in-game).

The inability to change squads (not including everyone being visible on the map) led to a squad so big that half of it was off the right side of my screen.

There are several reasons to see that this might not be the smartest option.

I totally agree, TFR wouldn't install on my teamspeak until I reinstalled it, after exiting games people were muted (never had an issue with acre), "user disconnected from your channel" is a phrase now burned into my head.

Our staff out sourced my tech support request to TFR discord. We should NOT be using things we can't troubleshoot, sending our troopers somewhere else for help is an easy habit to get into. If our staff isn't able to fix our comms, we should be using different comms.

 

[Maco.D]

I totally agree, TFR wouldn't install on my teamspeak until I reinstalled it, after exiting games people were muted (never had an issue with acre), "user disconnected from your channel" is a phrase now burned into my head.

Our staff out sourced my tech support request to TFR discord. We should NOT be using things we can't troubleshoot, sending our troopers somewhere else for help is an easy habit to get into. If our staff isn't able to fix our comms, we should be using different comms.

I don't understand this at all. We didn't make ACRE so if it breaks we just stop using it if we cant fix it. People are only having issues because its something we haven't used in a long time or for some have not used at all. Just cause somthing is new doesnt mean we shouldnt try. At also again because TFAR is new to some of course troubleshooting is gonna be hard. So of course you go to the people who know what they are talking about.

 

[Kastor.K]

Just cause somthing is new doesnt mean we shouldnt try.

Yes, but how we try it should also be given consideration. New CDLC, new game mode, new comms, new lack of ACE, new loadout limitations.

There's too much new with the TFAR / Mike change and it's small wonder it's throwing people for a loop.

 

[Maco.D]

I don't want this to go off on a long winded thing all im gonna say it how do you expect us to try new stuff. people wont go to mod tests last time we had one only like 5-6 people turned up. This server has been up for less than 3 days or so this is the best time to hot swap to find whats right or whats wrong but people flaming the people from trying isn't gonna do much. If you don't like it good sit back wait and go on tac 2.

Its the big change regardles we just gotta find the right tune thats all

 

[Grills.A]

I don't understand this at all. We didn't make ACRE so if it breaks we just stop using it if we cant fix it. People are only having issues because its something we haven't used in a long time or for some have not used at all. Just cause somthing is new doesnt mean we shouldnt try. At also again because TFAR is new to some of course troubleshooting is gonna be hard. So of course you go to the people who know what they are talking about.

I didn't imply we shouldn't try something new, I'm showing support for someone speaking out about issues and pointing out our own, I support to have our own solutions and creations in the community, rather than going to people I don't know, to be asked questions I can't answer with my knowledge.

 

[Maco.D]

Moving on

Anyway loving the new stuff it makes a nice change. The AI seem to have a good balance cool map and nice new toys did a bit of flying enjoying it so far and happy to see TFAR again on a cav server I do hope this moves over as its way better than acre. i remember when we started using it when the acre devs wasnt gonna move to arma 3