FEEDBACK - Mike Force | May #1 - S.O.G.Prairie Fire

FEEDBACK - Mike Force | May #1

Northgate

Let me start by thanking you immensely for the extreme work put into this DLC, and the love put into Mike Force. It's a beautiful mission, where you quickly build up communities and teams, operating together - no man left behind. Toxicity is left at the door, everyone is equal in the jungle.

That aside, so far Mike Force (referred to as MF from now on) has been very interesting. The building system is the best in ArmA 3 and the gamemode is very immersive. Comms are always active.

General Feedback

Server restarts should not reset ranks. Whenever a server is about to restart, people have to disconnect and wait until the server has fully restarted to retain their rank.
The mission should start in the morning, so it's longer until night.
The time to be promoted can be made shorter by gaining experience (killing hostiles)
Create a flashlight, which can go into the NVG slots and creates a light attached to the vest of the user
Allow RTO to access a command channel, where they can communicate with other groups (only other RTO)
Once the entire map is captured, reset server
Create the ability to vote for a full restart of the map, only resetting the map itself but keeping all ranks etcetera
When a player first connects to a server after a restart, there are multiple tutorial panels - they can either read through them, or close all and be in the mission immediately
Make charging possible with bayonets, where if a user has a bayonet selected, it will automatically keep the gun upright while running - any AI coming into contact with the gun receive damage
Vehicles out in the field will respawn after 30 minutes, if not used or destroyed beforehand

Atmosphere Feedback

Night should be made shorter, by speeding up time between 1800 and 0600. I understand that night provides an interesting challenge, but in most cases it's very frustrating.
If possible, make flashlights more efficient, and make flares last longer.
If possible, make direct communications louder without the use of TFAR

Consumables Feedback

Make Pumpkins quickly reduce thirst and hunger
Make some rations reduce a bit of thirst
Make "Bug Juice" usable and repellent against snakes

Objective Feedback

Prevent objectives spawning in the ocean, rendering them incompletable - otherwise, add a failsafe which triggers if only one site is left in the AO
Make enemy groups attacking more frequent and larger
Make AA less intense on targeting vehicles
Prevent Artillery from other AOs on attacking you - this could be re-added when Spike Team is active, but allow a method for the mortar in question to be "tracked"
AI should suppress more if possible, rather than always shoot to kill
Make crashes survivable, and make groups of infantry try to kill the survivors
Make CHUCHI, SAIGON, DA RIA II, BAN HOANG AND DA NANG green at start of mission, but easy to take over - or atleast only SAIGON
Create enemy stashes around objectives, with some "captured" US supplies as well
Create special objective for SPIKE TEAM, where they can wiretap a specific point in an AO - this allows them to "listen in" on radio comms, which means as much as creating markers where enemy infantry is and is only shown to them
Add some SOG Prairie Music during certain points in objectives (which can be muted) - it's such a good soundtrack!

Infantry Feedback

Remove all OPFOR / GREENFOR uniforms and helmets from the arsenal
Add more backpacks, vests and helmets to lower ranks, keep weapons locked for higher ranks
Remove NVA / PAVN (non-US) uniforms from the arsenal
Make bleed out timer set to 500 seconds
Allow downed units to be seated in vehicles and helicopters, taking the "dead" animation while inside
Make dragging friendlies possible - currently only carrying is possible, dragging is buggy
Add more boats to the naval base - make them respawn if out in the field and not in use (they also don't respawn after destroyed)
When downed, allow friendly units to scream for help - for added trauma and that they get attention

ACAV / Building Feedback

Allow ACAV to request all SUPPORT TASKS via H (currently can only request pickup & CAS)
Fix Vehicle Workshop, currently most of the time vehicles can either not spawn in or when spawned in will explode. The truck will always tip over / explode when spawned
Allow the owner to remove objects (Optional: allow the owner of the Situation Room to remove all objects placed down around the room)
Allow ACAV to place one Duty Officer per ACAV player - useful so people don't always have to respawn back at the AF
Allow a "loading" Arsenal - players can load their previous loadout at FOBs if a special object is placed down
Make objects "passively" start building if they are in the area of influence of a Situation Room - very slow process
Add more lamps - Portable Light (single) & (double) for example
Allow a truck only to be driven if an ACAV member is inside (in any seat) - also, if vehicle is locked everyone is kicked out of vehicle, vehicle can be locked from the inside as well
FOBs can be renamed, and are given a marker on the map (on the Situation Room)
Enable "Master Arm Menu" for vehicles at ACAV HQ as well
Modify cost per hour parameters for buildings:
- Any essential FOB asset (Checkpoint, Situation Room, Vehicle Creation, Maintenance) should consume more supplies - bridges as well
- Aid post should also cost far less per hour
- Trenches and other walls should cost far less per hour
- Decorations and other generally less useful assets should cost close to nothing or nothing per hour

Mike Force is the best gamemode I've ever played on ArmA 3 - it combines all the things that make Arma so great, making full use of the engine.

I'm impressed. This team has possibly done the best DLC in the history of Arma, and for such a small team it is beyond impressive. Damn you though, I can't stop playing Mike Force!

Northgate

Forgot to add! Maybe also add a function with TAB, where you can do some animations as well? Like sitting etcetera. Would make some things extremely immersive.

JeremyDaneils

Nice post, only quoting the parts I want to comment on.

Northgate wrote:

Create a flashlight, which can go into the NVG slots and creates a light attached to the vest of the user

I really like this idea, it'd allow for us to be able to use something other than a 1911 with a light (without making a duct tape attached light for the rifles. I'm pretty sure my uncle mentioned that he did stuff like that when he was in country.)

Northgate wrote:

Vehicles out in the field will respawn after 30 minutes, if not used or destroyed beforehand

This sounds fine so long as it is only for non-destroyed/non-disabled vics. I am OK with having this to discourage people from trolling by taking all the vics out to a random/dangerous area and leaving the whole server in a lurch.

Northgate wrote:

Night should be made shorter, by speeding up time between 1800 and 0600. I understand that night provides an interesting challenge, but in most cases it's very frustrating.

I like the extra challenge for night fighting/operations. I don't think that the length is too bad all things considered.

Northgate wrote:

Make enemy groups attacking more frequent and larger

More people to kill us horribly? Sign me up!

Northgate wrote:

Make AA less intense on targeting vehicles

Prevent Artillery from other AOs on attacking you - this could be re-added when Spike Team is active, but allow a method for the mortar in question to be "tracked"

I don't see any issue with the AA intensity. And part of how to prosecute an attack on a sector should involve dealing with neighboring sectors.

Northgate wrote:

AI should suppress more if possible, rather than always shoot to kill

If this can be done, that'd be awesome. But it might be a limitation of the AI in Arma.

Northgate wrote:

Make crashes survivable, and make groups of infantry try to kill the survivors

I do know that there was a mod that tried to do this, I can't speak for how well it worked. If feasible. Would also be brilliant.

Northgate wrote:

Create enemy stashes around objectives, with some "captured" US supplies as well

Adding in caches that can be destroyed to reduce/downgrade the weapons the enemy has at the various sectors would be cool. Sounds like what Spike team would be doing.

Northgate wrote:

Add some SOG Prairie Music during certain points in objectives (which can be muted) - it's such a good soundtrack!

Totally on board with this idea. The music (and audio) direction is fuggin top notch.

Northgate wrote:

Make bleed out timer set to 500 seconds

I don't find that the 300 second timer is too limiting, if anything I'd like to see an option to set the 'withstand' and 'respawn' options to come up in 15-30 seconds rather than the full minute that they have presently.

Northgate wrote:

Allow downed units to be seated in vehicles and helicopters, taking the "dead" animation while inside

This is a grand idea. I'm surprised that it's not an option already.

Northgate wrote:

Make dragging friendlies possible - currently only carrying is possible, dragging is buggy

I have not had any significant issues with dragging people in most cases (we had one instance where someone tried dragging a casualty and got clipped into a rock or wall, and couldn't move.) I've had more problems with the carrying as some structures will let you set the casualty down, others won't.

Northgate wrote:
ACAV / Building Feedback

Allow ACAV to request all SUPPORT TASKS via H (currently can only request pickup & CAS)

Fix Vehicle Workshop, currently most of the time vehicles can either not spawn in or when spawned in will explode. The truck will always tip over / explode when spawned

Allow the owner to remove objects (Optional: allow the owner of the Situation Room to remove all objects placed down around the room)

Allow ACAV to place one Duty Officer per ACAV player - useful so people don't always have to respawn back at the AF

Allow a "loading" Arsenal - players can load their previous loadout at FOBs if a special object is placed down

Make objects "passively" start building if they are in the area of influence of a Situation Room - very slow process

Add more lamps - Portable Light (single) & (double) for example

Allow a truck only to be driven if an ACAV member is inside (in any seat) - also, if vehicle is locked everyone is kicked out of vehicle, vehicle can be locked from the inside as well

FOBs can be renamed, and are given a marker on the map (on the Situation Room)

Enable "Master Arm Menu" for vehicles at ACAV HQ as well

Modify cost per hour parameters for buildings:

Any essential FOB asset (Checkpoint, Situation Room, Vehicle Creation, Maintenance) should consume more supplies - bridges as well

Aid post should also cost far less per hour

Trenches and other walls should cost far less per hour

Decorations and other generally less useful assets should cost close to nothing or nothing per hour

Mike Force is the best gamemode I've ever played on ArmA 3 - it combines all the things that make Arma so great, making full use of the engine.

I'm impressed. This team has possibly done the best DLC in the history of Arma, and for such a small team it is beyond impressive. Damn you though, I can't stop playing Mike Force!

So far I've only played as Mike Force and Green Hornet, so I can't speak for most of the above. Other than I like the idea of having people need to go back to the main bases to change specialty or training. It forces people to think about what they are wanting to do and to stick with it before knee-jerking to another task.

Again, nice post overall. I can't think of anything (in my short time of playing) that would be good to add on specific to the game mode.

Grach

This is a pretty solid post, but regarding night length, I have to disagree. Firstly, because the night fight atmosphere in this game is incredible, but also because sneaking around and destroying artillery/AA as a small advance team is a lot easier and safer when it's pitch black!

Maarten

Hey North, thank you for your extremely detailed feedback!

Spoffy who works on Mike Force really appreciates feedback but he is extremely busy at the moment. By posting it on the Github you can make sure he does read all of your points down the line! https://community.sogpf.com/threads/44-Bug-reporting

CKowalewski

I am curious, how high can you make the lifetime of objects around a situation room as well as the room itself while playing Mike Force? My "FOB" only lasts 8 hours with a Sitroom but before I placed the HQ down each item could go up to 24 hours?

CKowalewski

MayhemMcAwesome

I very much subscribe to all of the points raised by the OP, and as a game developer by profession I do recommend these indeed as sound improvements.

Yet I do have a few minor details to add, from my own experience in the mission:

Building stuff:

ACAV has a very concentrated monopoly on building options. This group as such strikes me more as the US Engineers Core than one of "armored cavalry". (perhaps rebrand?)
The above concentration has Mike Force not enough capable in terms of self-sufficiency on digging in, especially when it comes to deploying static weapons (e.g: M2 50.Cal)
Mobile Forces should be capable of constructing any entrenchment features consisting mostly of piled sandbags (trench stairs, for one, plus a few others)
Some means of removal should be available for righting improperly placed constructions. (some kind of G.I. CTRL+Z)
The building preview floaters (green/red) outlines of constructions shouldn't be visible to other players, as they often get in the way when aiming at things trying to kill us.
The building preview BLUE floater (ongoing construction) however, should remain visible to all, allowing people to move off before becoming impaled by a newly placed trench.

Vehicle Workshop and Assets Spawning:

The Vehicle Workshop building is a much too large affair, somewhat off-key with the "things found in the bottom of a trench" visual style of all the other buildings of a FOB.
A smaller, Tent-like workshop should be available for the purpose of spawning static weapons. (call it an "Armory", perhaps)
- Such armory tents should also spawn items (small pickup-able boxes) used to rearm static weapons, these may then be carried out to wherever the weapon is placed.
Mobile Forces (non ACAV) should be allowed to check out static weapon assets from armory tents. Perhaps limited to one at a time per soldier, with a cooldown period sufficient to prevent abuse.
Spawn Checkpoints should allow redeployment back to main bases once an AO has been secured. It is common enough to have players stranded by spawning in the wrong place.
Fire pits and lanterns built should provide actions to be put on or off.
Redeployment by teleportation as suggested above may be allowed only after a reasonable time following capture of an area, preserving the importance of exfil for the immediate aftermath.

Areas of Operation:

There are various issues (server glitches, lag, etc.) known to be caused by spreading forces over various simultaneous AOs, this may be addressed by some of the following:
Provide a means of voting which of the available areas (not more than 3 simultaneously) should be focused on in turn, denying others be set as active tasks until one is cleared.
Provide on-screen feedback that once an AO is "cleared" - The enemy will not stop attacking, despite being unable to re-capture it. Urgent exfil of friendlies needs highlighting here.

These items are all but small details, any of which may be adapted loosely as determined best by the mission developers. Many of these could also be subject to server settings.

Again, most of the OPs suggestions very closely match my own, so +1 for everything listed there.

And of course, a million hands of applause for making such an awesome mission and DLC. You guys absolutely rock!

MayhemMcAwesome

Noticed some possible bugs:

A few arsenal items are restricted to lower ranks, yet they are still part of the default loadout set for newly joined players. This leads to many difficulties often encountered when reloading saved loadouts. (Rifleman Vests type 1 and 2 appear to be the main cause for this, these should ideally not be restricted at all)
Night times appears to last somewhat longer than daylight. Not due to any seasonal factors, but because there is one hour between 5 and 6 AM ingame where it is still dark and the clock runs at a much lower rate than the normal accelerated game time experienced at other hours.

CouX

Give Roles (Radioman, Medic) in Mike Force more of a Sense (only a Medic can revive Players, only a Radioman can create Tasks in H-Menu/can write in Global Chat)
Make Radio Jukebox louder (you cant hear it if your in a Heli)
Let Radio Jukebox run trought all Titles after one ended

hitman2b

Can we also get Vietcon and North vietnam army to use more of they asset like the Mi-17 , T59 , anti air radar with the missile so they can give a little more challenge for the Mike force unit which pretty much destroye anything, also make them use a bit more they RPG because i never saw one using they RPG to shoot down a chopper