ZEUS actions

[Amentes]

From what I was told, the objective of the Spartans is to create custom tasks and to spice up AOs if deemed appropriate.

 

I'm of the opinion that the use of Zeus remote control can extend to killing players under the right circumstances, such as when a player exposes himself in a royally stupid way, and there's a medic around to get him back up. Used sparingly, it's just another tool in the box in trying to impart some human brains into the opposition.

 

In the same vein, if players take advantage of the AI's "view distance", shooting them with Titan AT and AP from 3500 meters, safe from any retaliation, I'd personally have no qualms about shooting back.

 

Zeus is there to enhance the experience for the players, but also to make the AI a bit smarter, more human.

[TheScar]

my usual engagement range is 1,5 - 2k distance - if you dislike this happening i d suggest you vouch for a removal of the ability to change view distance.

Also,great assumtpion skills - i have yet to read one reply to the actual question ...

 

 

 

 

 

And screw this positive/negative rating of posts,i m assuming half of the people posting up here have a dedicated view on the topic at all,you just quickscope assumptions,no matter the left or right.

How is this usefull?

Oh,i get it - clicking a button is way easier than investing 1 min to form a reply with a custom opinion.

 

 

 

 

[zissou]

Zeus at the moment while directly controlling ai killing players results in a TK message and for this reason is not being permitted at the moment.

This is not up for debate.

If a player joins and sees multiple tk messages and someone explains "oh that's fine he's an admin" it reflects terribly on all of us.

 

The manner in which I use Zeus is as follows, others may use it differently.

Lightning should be used in moderation and only for discipline for players who are tking spamming or otherwise breaking the rules. Players will get stuck for tking with no explanation reminded that tking is not permitted and will be kicked the next time an infringement happens.

New units are spawned out of sight of players so as not to appear from nowhere. This ruins the immersion and gives players a feeling of helplessness whereby the feel as if they can't win.

 Zeus missions: I don’t do them because we have a fabulous canvas of mission within I&A that have stood the test of time and keep bringing back players. I find having Zeus missions dilutes it takes away from the main mission and adds little. Also it takes time and resources and there’s no guarantee that the sever won’t have to be restarted just as you’ve finished delicately placing all your items/units/buildings.

I’m going to write up a list of do’s and don’ts for all new Spartans so hopefully this won’t be an ongoing issue.

 

[PiranhA]

9 minutes ago, zissou said:

New units are spawned out of sight of players so as not to appear from nowhere. This ruins the immersion and gives players a feeling of helplessness whereby the feel as if they can't win.

 

Ofcourse, a good challenge is neve.... oh, nevermind. +1 for you Zis, not giving rep, as mr scar dosnt like it. Have fun typing your novel.

[Eagle-Eye]

11 hours ago, Cebi said:

It is very much harder to please a larger crowd (as in real life). Mission balance that all players on a server will agree on does not exist. Therefore it is your "Job" as a mission creator to set it up and watch it unfold and give only minor touches to it while players are present.

 

Did you make it too easy? If they had a good time playing it, even an easy mission is a good experience and you learned that you can provide harder mission next time.

 

Was it too hard and they failed? If it was their fault like destroying objective, then it is fine. If you made it too hard then it is Your fault they failed. Remember that you are playing with Players, not against them. Maybe provide them more intel next time or suggest them something they missed.

 

Finding a good mission balance is #1 PRIO on the to-do list.

 

11 hours ago, Cebi said:

1. You can rarely do it fairly. You are the Zeus. The only time it is OK in my eyes to kill a player is if it is part of story telling and you have some revive system in place. Also, you can get away with it if Kill messages are off in difficulty option and as ppl before me stated they are on and you will be identified as a Tker. Furthermore, I think the point of the game is to have fun, not to train poor players to be soldiers.

 

Let me tell you what I would have done instead of controlling gunner and wrecking that GH. I would hop in as a driver and moved the Ifrit. AI will probably notice the GH then and engage without me doing it. My hands would figuratively remain clean.

 

Being fair is a matter of perspective (unfortunately). What is normal to the spider, is chaos for the fly... I remember Luetin also had a lot conflicts about whether or not it was okay to engage a unit. Personally, I'm a sucker for realism, so each time I do something as Zeus, I run through a mental checklist if it would be realistic for a certain unit to behave like that. I try not to have my knowledge as Zeus impact that, and I sincerely hope it doesn't. Like Amentes says, however, if "a player exposes himself in a royally stupid way", I don't think it's unreasonable to fire at him, even if Zeus has to do it himself due to AI limitations.

 

As for the GH, I don't see how taking the driver position and have AI shoot is better, or keeps Zeus's hands clean? It's still Zeus taking control over a situation where AI is too stupid on its own... In fact, the end result would be the same, or worse. Once AI does have his eye on you, he will always shoot to kill, in which case the GH would most definitely be destroyed. If Zeus takes the gunner position, at least he can choose to fire on the unit directly (kill), his projected LZ if he's still in the air (possibly disable or kill), or just close to him (possibly damage).

 

 

1 hour ago, TheScar said:

my usual engagement range is 1,5 - 2k distance - if you dislike this happening i d suggest you vouch for a removal of the ability to change view distance.

 

This, in my opinion, is a bit twofold. Real life equipment nowadays has the ability to engage beyond 1km. For that reason, I don't think you should impose artificial crutches like limited view distance settings on players using them. Fog could theoretically be used in some situations, but in most, it wouldn't be realistic at all.

 

On the other hand, however, I've noticed many people park a Marshall or Slammer at very long ranges, and then send dozens of tracer rounds towards the enemy before hitting anything. On the receiving end of those rounds, AI won't react AT ALL, except maybe walk around a bit with their gun held up, while obviously, in real life, they would flee for cover, locate the source and set up a counter attack.

Same for intercepting a squad with small arms fire. Kill one from 100-200m out and his teammates will become "suspicious". If you just take cover, however, they'll become "safe" again after a few minutes and resume their normal routine. This animated video of Skyrim's stealth attack shows it brilliantly.

 

In my opinion, operating like that is merely taking advantage of the AI limitations, and I feel it's Zeus's job to raise the AI skill level just a bit above a headless chicken (the level of a trained monkey would already be a dream come true for some AI, so let's save that for later).

 

1 hour ago, zissou said:

I’m going to write up a list of do’s and don’ts for all new Spartans so hopefully this won’t be an ongoing issue.

 

Thank you.

[TheScar]

I appreciate the "setting a ruleset" for any ZEUS to get the guidelines and basic figured out.

I really do,yet this doesnt at all helps in my very situation.

We r jumping from "explaining individual tactics from individual ZEUS´s" to talking over engagement range to ... whatever comes nxt.

 

My intial point for this post was the blatant sabotage by "several" ZEUS on more than one side mission i had the engagement on.

This is far from discussing a "opinion" on how to act,shoot from which distance or use whatever tool that is to your access.

 

Side Intel missions have rarely any chance of success due to either not understanding pubs,air units flying over it or just simply by the INTEL guy crashing to movement.

Then deciding to "enhance" a mission without ANY notice to involved people (yes,me) then screwing me over to the point i loose any motivation to continue on that BS i got handed there by a "overconfident" ZEUS in order to enhance the mission then watching it fail is a unstandable offense ... and yet it happend more than one,two or three times!

 

Everything has a limit and the stuff you "assume" me bitching about like a little girl with no background knowledge makes up for a hilarious read if it wasnt so sad ...

 

[Liru the Lcpl.]

Speaking as someone that's been zeusing actively for a few years, has done some zeus work for Ahoy already (and will be again sooner or later  ), and from the sideline of independent indifference here.

I have a few pointers that should be made based on what I just sat down and read.

1. Consider making an extension to the whistle blowing topic for the new Spartans. I won't lie, it takes many MANY mission creations to get a good feel for making missions, but every playerbase is different. Every playerbase has different skill levels, strategies, levels of interest, and so on. It is EXTREMELY difficult to Zeus for an actively public server where people can just drop in and out compared to zeusing for a fixed playerbase such as a clan or a group of regulars.

*That said*

Based on what I have read (and experienced first hand on EU 1), I think there needs to definitely be some sort of report thread so @MessedUpSmiley, @Chuck Norris, and other admins can see what some Spartans are doing, and then guide them in the right direction. Hell, i'd be willing to give a few pointers as well when it comes to balancing and spawn design. The skill of zeusing takes quite a lot to critic, and yes there will be bad experiences down the road BUT the zeuses will become better mission makers as a result.

2.

9 hours ago, zissou said:

Zeus at the moment while directly controlling ai killing players results in a TK message and for this reason is not being permitted at the moment.

This is not up for debate.

If a player joins and sees multiple tk messages and someone explains "oh that's fine he's an admin" it reflects terribly on all of us.

If you really want to line up a shot to kill some player (so long as its 100% justified) just line up the AI and set his skill level to 100%. This however should not be necessary however. You're making missions for a public server for the playerbase. Killing them off is NOT a good way to give them a good time. As people have said, shoot AROUND them, not AT them. Heck you can even wound them with a precise 9mm round to the chest or appendages if you really want to scare them. You're doing this for THEIR immersion and THEIR enjoyment, and that's what keeps players always coming back. That's ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT when you're just a Spartan working for your beloved Ahoyverlords. You're representing the admin team with every op, so try to make it a good experience for them  

3. I really do think Ahoyworld should make some strict guidelines about certain topics which many Zeuses vary on in the real world (and I often have disagreements with the great Luetin09 on some of these) regarding how to deal with lone wolves on foot and vehicles, the use of fire support such as mortars and mines, rough estimates on the amount of units Spartans are limited to spawn, how complex the AOs should be, etc. I think, with that framework in mind, it'll give the Spartans a clear path to follow and perfect.

That's really just my two cents on this situation. Yes, people are going to die in Zeus ops. Yes, they might be a pain in the butt to complete. Yes, accidents WILL happen, but that's how people learn.

In my personal opinion, i'm just happy to see Zeus ops again

Let's see what you guys think...

[zissou]

So here's the list I came up with, I'm willing to accept ideas and suggestions and hope this goes somewhat to reassuring players, also remember you can at anytime contact the admin team with any concerns or complaints. 

 

Spartan Dos and Don’ts

1.      Your main role is one of making sure the mission runs smoothly. That means alerting admins of any rule breaking. If it becomes clear that you are not reporting troublemakers your Zeus access will be revoked. It’s absolutely pointless having staff members on a server if they are not prepared to act in the best interests of players.

    If an admin joins the server sees lots of TKing that hasn’t been reported and multiple AFK players you will lose your spartan status.

2.      Do augment the existing missions in novel ways. Make sure that it looks organic and never give players the impression that the mission is unachievable. Example: if sending in reinforcements do it once don’t keep dropping paratroopers down again and again.

3.      Don’t spam that goes for; lightning, artillery, mortars or units. Think about what you’re placing and why.

4.      Don’t entertain requests: Don’t lightning or teleport stuck players, they can respawn. Don’t fix broken vehicles they need to sort it out themselves, don’t do the job of a player if they need ammo let the team do it don’t spawn in an ammo box. If you don’t you will get nothing but a list of shit to do when players could be doing it themselves.

5.      Don’t suspend the main mission you might think your mission is great but that’s not what people joined the server for.

6.      Don’t spend too much time on your mission server restarts happen all the time and you will feel shit if you’ve spent an hour on a mission just to have it disappear.

7.      Spawned items should not appear miraculously no one should see a unit being spawned in.

8.      Until it’s resolved taking control of AI and killing players is not permitted it will be classed as teamkilling.

9.      Observe potential troublemakers Zeus is an incredibly powerful tool for seeing how people are playing. Keep an eye out for AFK players, keep spawn area relatively tidy.

10.   Don’t play container Jenga.

11.   Do go easy you don’t have to be building missions all the time.

12.   You must be on teamspeak if you are in Zeus.

13.   Do not interfere with other people’s work if someone is Zeusing (you’ll know because they’re on TS) don’t do anything Zeuswise when one is already active, one Zeus at a time is enough.

14.  Custom missions should be not longer than 20/30 minutes. The creator must be present for the entirety of the mission. The mission should be cleaned up afterwards. If the creator has to leave he must delete all traces of his mission.

15. Don’t give perks to players you know. Don’t punish players you don’t like.

16.  Missions should be small, don’t use the big premade ares bases don’t place too many objects or units and don’t waste time on fluff.

17. Artillery and mortars, don’t aim and don’t spam, a round should land before the next is placed, never aim exactly on players but around them it’s much more entertaining for them.

[PiranhA]

Got some things i dont see covered in the list of @zissou but think it would make sense to think about it and maybe add to the list...

 

- changing time of the day (all of a sudden) specially to the night (so people who have no nv are ******).

- weather changes (dense fog not included) all of a sudden.

- rewards, specially the wipeout. Ive been told by several people (steam) the past 10 days the amount of wipouts spawned as "reward" is too much. 

[Teddy]

10 minutes ago, PiranhA said:

Got some things i dont see covered in the list of @zissou but think it would make sense to think about it and maybe add to the list...

 

- changing time of the day (all of a sudden) specially to the night (so people who have no nv are ******).

- weather changes (dense fog not included) all of a sudden.

- rewards, specially the wipeout. Ive been told by several people (steam) the past 10 days the amount of wipouts spawned as "reward" is too much. 

 

The last time i gave a wipeout for a Zeus mission reward, it didnt even make it to the runway.

[zissou]

yes excessive gifts are also to be avoided especially ones that change the balance of the mission ie arty or cas like the wipeout, as rewards they only reward the pilot who flies it and it's OPAF

[Eagle-Eye]

I don't think there's a smooth weather changer (if there is, can someone point me to where to find it?) so, it's always a sudden change. Time could be accelerated to provide a smoother transition, but that doesn't help the NVG-issue. Not sure if we are able to give NVG's to players through the Zeus menu? (don't think so)

[PiranhA]

35 minutes ago, IOnceWasATeddy said:

The last time i gave a wipeout for a Zeus mission reward, it didnt even make it to the runway.

 

Just asking Teddy, but why give a wipeout in the first place? I also (partly) dont understand why there should be a reward, the only thing i can think of is to keep people playing the zeus missions. A reward only benefits the few (max of, lets say 4 people?) and in many cases people who havent participated in a active way on the zeus "borrow" it. Not to speak of wasting the reward, just like what youve said.

[Teddy]

1 hour ago, PiranhA said:

 

Just asking Teddy, but why give a wipeout in the first place? I also (partly) dont understand why there should be a reward, the only thing i can think of is to keep people playing the zeus missions. A reward only benefits the few (max of, lets say 4 people?) and in many cases people who havent participated in a active way on the zeus "borrow" it. Not to speak of wasting the reward, just like what youve said.

 

To give them an incentive to play the mission in the first place, plus Zeus missions are normally harder than an AO and definitely harder than side missions, so i feel it would be bad not to give them even a little reward. And the same can be said for side missions, people take the rewards even though they did nothing to help the effort at said side mission. I think I've only gave a wipe out twice for a reward, but i make sure they fight and suffer damn hard for it.

[D.Devil]

I do have to say though, last 4 days I've been on the server we've received a Wipeout from side missions only. It's not always Zeus spawning those, please don't point your fingers at us immediately, it's just a coincidence that they've spawned so frequent. I, myself, haven't given a Wipeout as a reward and probably never will.

 

I did however, after speaking to 2 admins, spawn a Wipeout earlier today after a lying pilot had crashed the rewarded sidemission Wipeout in less than 10minutes. The pilot said he had 2000 flying hours in arma whilst after he crashed I checked his profile and only has 2 games, Insurgency and Arma 3 with a total of 28.3hours, 2 admins and I agreed on giving the guys on EU1 another chance with the Wipeout.

[TheScar]

the initial question has been greatly avoided in any replys so far,but i think this

 

On 17.10.2016 at 6:23 PM, zissou said:

 //Snip 

... we have a fabulous canvas of mission within I&A that have stood the test of time and keep bringing back players. I find having Zeus missions dilutes it takes away from the main mission and adds little. Also it takes time and resources and there’s no guarantee that the sever won’t have to be restarted just as you’ve finished delicately placing all your items/units/buildings.

 

comes as closest to my point.

EU1 and EU2 past days look like a regular ZEUS mission server.

Min. 1 ZEUS mission a day,mostly 2 or more.

As much as you may enjoy your ZEUS magic skills,i dont think we need that kind of hvy activity on EU1 or EU2.

Less is more.

 

 

 

And i can back up the pov that ZEUS spawned rewards mostly benefit a very small group of players.

Barely any mission i seen has the initial activity of playes in the end prior to their beginning.

Rewarding em with high valuable assets kinda kills any engagement of players after in the game.

After all,they should play for mission success not for receiving something max 2% can make any use of.

 

 

 

Wipeouts,yesterday a Kajman,the day before 2 Wipes,a KUMA and so on.

Nuff said.

eZ

 

 

[Teddy]

4 hours ago, Eagle-Eye said:

I don't think there's a smooth weather changer (if there is, can someone point me to where to find it?) so, it's always a sudden change. Time could be accelerated to provide a smoother transition, but that doesn't help the NVG-issue. Not sure if we are able to give NVG's to players through the Zeus menu? (don't think so)

In ares > Util > Change weather - i think it allows a smooth change.

[Eagle-Eye]

- Disregard -

[Cebi]

@IOnceWasATeddy: Are you perhaps using ARES Achilles expansion. As I remember it can provide a smooth transition of weather like it is possible in Eden editor.

 

@AllSpartans

I would still love to see if SPARTANS can find a way to make little enhancements to existing missions or HELP players in need (teaching them perhaps how to be better in arma and provide advice?) and not just LB dudes spamming Z/Y key. I know you want to let loose to your creativity but in most of the times, you are actually hurting the performance of the server and adding a little value for people that joined public I@A server which is listed as Coop and not as GameMaster.

 

On the subject of giving OP (you know which are those) rewards: Just don't. If an experienced player gets it, he will break the mission for others and he will irritate you.

 

For example:

EU4 is empty and unused to my knowledge. What about some Gamemaster events on that server. You can create arma 3 vanilla missions for events in there without much restraint. If you are good you can build your playerbase. For advertising purposes, you can place for example Mission objective in base of EU1 and EU2 server which will list name, IP of server and message that there is ZEUS mission in progress on EU4.

 

What I am proposing is this: Do not hijack server full of people for Zeus mission but make EU4 The place to be!

 

 

[TheScar]

[Liru the Lcpl.]

3 hours ago, Cebi said:

@IOnceWasATeddy: Are you perhaps using ARES Achilles expansion. As I remember it can provide a smooth transition of weather like it is possible in Eden editor.

 

@AllSpartans

I would still love to see if SPARTANS can find a way to make little enhancements to existing missions or HELP players in need (teaching them perhaps how to be better in arma and provide advice?) and not just LB dudes spamming Z/Y key. I know you want to let loose to your creativity but in most of the times, you are actually hurting the performance of the server and adding a little value for people that joined public I@A server which is listed as Coop and not as GameMaster.

 

On the subject of giving OP (you know which are those) rewards: Just don't. If an experienced player gets it, he will break the mission for others and he will irritate you.

 

For example:

EU4 is empty and unused to my knowledge. What about some Gamemaster events on that server. You can create arma 3 vanilla missions for events in there without much restraint. If you are good you can build your playerbase. For advertising purposes, you can place for example Mission objective in base of EU1 and EU2 server which will list name, IP of server and message that there is ZEUS mission in progress on EU4.

 

What I am proposing is this: Do not hijack server full of people for Zeus mission but make EU4 The place to be!

 

 

For EU 4 you're going to have to talk to the CS about that one. EU 4 was Lt's private event server but I think something along the lines of scheduling Spartan events on EU 4 would be a cool idea. If the event is properly advertised I can assure you that you'll have a 20+ player turn out (as I did months back when I hosted custom zeus ops) but maybe we should throw that into the suggestion box, or pass the idea to @MessedUpSmiley who's handling the Spartan project.

On a side note about rewards...use common sense guys... spawn stuff that you could hypothetically easily blow up later

Also 300th post...THIS...IS...AHOYWORLD!!!

[PiranhA]

1 hour ago, Liru the Lcpl. said:

You can make a great Zeus OP, but that won't mean jack if your playerbase is a sack of onions.

 

Do players have to adjust to a Zeus, or does zeus have to adjust to the players?

[Liru the Lcpl.]

1 minute ago, PiranhA said:

 

Do players have to adjust to a Zeus, or does zeus have to adjust to the players?

The quote is regarding an event in the link where my players killed themselves because they were too close to a satchel that they placed to try to demo an ammo cache.

In my honest opinion, Zeuses NEED TO adjust to the players so they can make a mission that they will enjoy and find compatible...but some people have the fame to make the playerbase adjust to them... and it causes a lot of weeding out of people...

But there are some actions that happen that not even the great Zeus can control...hence the link...

[Teddy]

6 hours ago, Cebi said:

@IOnceWasATeddy: Are you perhaps using ARES Achilles expansion. As I remember it can provide a smooth transition of weather like it is possible in Eden editor.

 

@AllSpartans

I would still love to see if SPARTANS can find a way to make little enhancements to existing missions or HELP players in need (teaching them perhaps how to be better in arma and provide advice?) and not just LB dudes spamming Z/Y key. I know you want to let loose to your creativity but in most of the times, you are actually hurting the performance of the server and adding a little value for people that joined public I@A server which is listed as Coop and not as GameMaster.

 

On the subject of giving OP (you know which are those) rewards: Just don't. If an experienced player gets it, he will break the mission for others and he will irritate you.

 

For example:

EU4 is empty and unused to my knowledge. What about some Gamemaster events on that server. You can create arma 3 vanilla missions for events in there without much restraint. If you are good you can build your playerbase. For advertising purposes, you can place for example Mission objective in base of EU1 and EU2 server which will list name, IP of server and message that there is ZEUS mission in progress on EU4.

 

What I am proposing is this: Do not hijack server full of people for Zeus mission but make EU4 The place to be!

 

 

 

I only use the base Ares mod.

 

Plus if i give a possible OP reward (like the wipe-out) i don't give them an easy time in the air, I'd send jets after them periodically and make sure they're on their toes about anti-air in the AO.

[Cebi]

@IOnceWasATeddy: In basic ARES you can't change weather fluently...it will always be abrupt change.