new dealing with the size of Altis

[subx]

After a bit of playing on Altis, it's clear that the travel times are quickly going to become tedious. A fairly obvious thing to do is to implement some kind of FOB system to make the island more readily accessible.

 

Personally I'd also like to see the AO's occur in a more logical fashion in a kind of campaign across the island. Not completely lacking randomness, but far less than is current. But perhaps this strays too far from the style of play that made Domination so popular.

 

It would be damn cool to capture the various airports in order to set up FOBs and have side missions deep behind enemy lines though

 

[Lonestar]

That is a very interesting suggestion.

 

If we look at the terrain size comparison here, we can see that Altis is bigger than Takistan and Chernarus.

Arma 2's Domination on which I&A is based, didn't take into consideration the big terrain size and always used the same AO/side random generation.

Maybe I&A 3 could take advantage of the new playground in a better and more interesting way for the players to enjoy the whole battlefield without loss of momentum.

[lbdude]

Does the current mod pick the next AO randomly across the island with equal chance for each spot, or does it do something else?

 

I was thinking that if you can query the game DB for graph data (or construct your own data) you can do something better than uniform random. For example, let's say we can query an importance graph (of objectives), then we can create randomness around this graph along with logic attached to it (think voronoi regions with locality based logic for AO selection). So you get AO near the base and advance progressively expand. You can have side missions further along the graph (deep behind enemy lines). You can also dynamically alter the data to create a feedback system.

 

Edit:

 

ARMA 3 should have a system like this right? You can take over sectors? is there a score on each sector?

 

More edit: 

 

It's not that hard to implement. I just mean selectively pick on a graph over the island. 

[lbdude]

The init script is doing this: currentAO = _targets call BIS_fnc_selectRandom;

 

So it calls a BIS function to select the AO. If we want to change this behavior we can call our own AO selection function.

[ProGamer]

I would prefer not to teleport into the AO because then why use a helicopter or a different aircraft. And it eliminates the transit aspect of the game.

[subx]

I assumed that a feature like the mobile respawns from Domination had not been included in I&A was to stop the air transport element being side-lined. And I think that is a very good reason to limit it, but at the same time, something needs to be done to cope with the size of the map.

 

My suggestion is to have limited, predefined FOB points on the map, which would first need to be captured, but could then be used as alternative spawn points. This would hopefully bring travel distances down to less than 10km in the majority of situations, but people would still need transport to AOs.

 

I guess this would also mean that not all AOs were the same, with some having different objectives - a good thing

 

Having the AOs progress in a sensible order would also help travel times, and I think that will become essential when more armoured units are in the game - driving around the map takes stupid amounts of time.

 

It would be great to feel like we were actually invading and annexing the island, that progress was being made, that the war could eventually be won. I'd love to suggest special scenarios (like establishing a beachhead), but I think a key to Domination's success was it had relatively uniform gameplay across the span of the mission, allowing people to drop in and out without feeling like they'd missed much.

I've just seen the latest version has a "teleport to teammate" option (although it currently doesn't seem to actually do it?)

 

Please don't go down that route, death should have consequences in Arma. Teamplay will suffer if the importance of medics and pilots are reduced.

[Noble7]

I agree that the mobile respawns would hamper the transit option of this game especially on the size of Altis. I think people get irritated when they are aimbotted from far away after spending a good amount of time trying to get to the AO and in position (understandable). 
 
I would however like to suggest one addition to the "Invade and Annex" domination style of gameplay.

 

We could have the Blufor side take over a town/city/base "Invading", but have them also defend it in a counter-attack staged by the Opfor. Include the ability of some crew served weapons and/or defensive positions that we can take over, keep and reposition so we can have a fighting shot with "Annexing" and keeping the territory. 

 
I have some other ideas as for gameplay on Altis if you guys would be interested (anyone from Ahoy World) would like to listen and have me pitch some ideas to you guys.

 

Anyways, I would like to thank you guys at AhoyWorld for making this game all the more awesome. Keep up the great work!

[edward]

noble, your suggestion was made long ago...... it might turn up in 3.0, Rarek would have to confirm this tho

I assumed that a feature like the mobile respawns from Domination had not been included in I&A was to stop the air transport element being side-lined. And I think that is a very good reason to limit it, but at the same time, something needs to be done to cope with the size of the map.

 

My suggestion is to have limited, predefined FOB points on the map, which would first need to be captured, but could then be used as alternative spawn points. This would hopefully bring travel distances down to less than 10km in the majority of situations, but people would still need transport to AOs.

 

I guess this would also mean that not all AOs were the same, with some having different objectives - a good thing

 

Having the AOs progress in a sensible order would also help travel times, and I think that will become essential when more armoured units are in the game - driving around the map takes stupid amounts of time.

 

It would be great to feel like we were actually invading and annexing the island, that progress was being made, that the war could eventually be won. I'd love to suggest special scenarios (like establishing a beachhead), but I think a key to Domination's success was it had relatively uniform gameplay across the span of the mission, allowing people to drop in and out without feeling like they'd missed much.

I've just seen the latest version has a "teleport to teammate" option (although it currently doesn't seem to actually do it?)

 

Please don't go down that route, death should have consequences in Arma. Teamplay will suffer if the importance of medics and pilots are reduced.

 

teleport to teamate and all of those functions are admin functions

[Noble7]

noble, your suggestion was made long ago...... it might turn up in 3.0, Rarek would have to confirm this tho

 

teleport to teamate and all of those functions are admin functions

 

Oh man I cannot wait! Thanks for the update Edward.