Gambit7

Okay... uhhh... Evolution is getting old IMO. BUT, not for the reasons one would expect. The reason is simply because it's near impossible to really glean all of the content from the map before it resets from completion or a crash. Heck, a determined squad could probably clear the map by themselves in one evening if they really wanted to.

We talked about this a few times the other night, and many agree with me that the ranking system needs to go bye-bye. This would enable us to really dig deep tactically and take advantage of the impending increase in player numbers we're seeing on the server. Also, the old destroy mission spamming would cease and we could enjoy some of the other built in missions in the map.

Aside from this, I believe the AI needs a good kick in the arse. Is it possible to tweak the difficulty at all?? Obviously, with greater difficulty the map wont reset as much either and it'd be more of a challenge, especially with 10+ players on the server.

Anyways, I really believe Evolution was a nice attempt at a coop dynamic campaign, but it really needs quite a bit of work to get there. It's definitely no "Falcon 4.0". I DO believe it's possible for a long term dynamic campaign to exist in the VBS format, but it'd take a heck of a lot of work to get there:

a) There needs to be capturable objectives that the AI can fight over with the players. Towns, FARPs, etc. And each should be spawnable with dependant loadouts. Obviously, HQ would have the most complete loadout.
b) AI should respawn dependant on supply chain, communications, etc. (this would give reason for actually destroying said items in-game). Most importantly, this would penalize squads that dont complete objectives in a timely manner. i.e. before the enemy reinforces
c) Campaign status should exist on disk so if the server crashes it's not lost
d) AI needs to simply be more aggressive and offensive (like in Falcon 4.0). It has to want to take over the map, not just sit there and take it up the butt.


I cant wait for the day we get to this point.

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tHa_KhAn

There are newer versions of the mission with different options, including more randomization in the A.I. and vehicle spawn. I would happy trying one of the official newer versions before questing to make our own rendition.

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boudreux

Our talented mod&mission crew is hard at work on a large-scale, persistent mission like you are talking about. Besides our guys, there are a lot of CTI (MFCTI/etc) maps in the works. We'll be seeing a lot of good stuff soon, now that the patches are unified.

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Gambit7

Good stuff. I have no doubts that this "game" will have so many different iterations it'll be nigh impossible to sort through them all. Cant wait to try em out.

Until then, I'm definitely down with trying out some of the newer versions of Evo, or tweaking our own. I think a newer version DOES do away with the ranking system yes??

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Gambit7

Nice! Our Evo server is "unranked" now. So we're all hereby full Colonels! When did that happen??
Too bad my game crashes when I'm in a harrier. <sigh> I'd say we have quite a few more patches to go yet.

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stickyjeans69

Evolution i think has lots of potential, but you need enough players and like 6-7 hours maybe depending on how big the evolution map is, in my playing around with ArmA today i was on about an hour at the most. we captured like 7 citys with 24 people, 2 great little bird pilots, and alot of people just chit chatting on where to go

tHa_KhAn

The best times I've had is in big groups on the server. With the no rank thing if we can get enough we could split up into individual units with a overall commander calling the shots. The commander could direct the Armor, Air, and Infantry to the objectives. With the A.I. available the commander could also handle logistics in the form of Support Trucks and Anti-Air. Good times ahead.

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tHa_KhAn

Well maybe it's because it's the whole NEW factor, but the Evo server sucks with the unranked.

First in that post somwhere about the little know facts of Armed Assault, evolution doesn't spawn enemy until someone approaches a city. Now this could be something added, but since I didn't see it mentioned anywhere that there were hordes more infantry I will assume that the 30 + infantry in dolores after I cleared were from other cities that had been attacked, but not by a ground force as of yet so they came to teh fighting. Kind of like the ones from Paraiso if it wasn't cleared were come to the airfield.

The second, way more predictable problem is all the useful vehicles are gone and strewn about the islands. I know instability of the game can cause some of this, but when you see huge pileups of aircraft you have to wonder who was daring the AA but couldn't find it in time.

Essentially if you want to play and not spend hours recoverying vehicles, you would need to restart the server for every new "group" that comes to play. Which turns the evo server into the regular coop mission server. The only solution would be to require people to make the best effort to recover vehicles they use and not just air attack every city and spawn all the infantry. Again, there are coop missions for this type of gameplay so I don't get it why people want to do it on the evolution server.

These are just my first impressions of the unranked, but with the volume of players who don't get on TS and don't check the forums because their friends passed along the pass or they jsut got the password and never plan on coming back this could get really annoying.

I support the Evo unranked version, but unless the player base is willing to make some effort to play the mission with those coming after them in mind, the server is going to need a bunch of restarts, which I guess isn't a problem since you don't have to worry about scores.

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TheBigC

I loath Evolution, period. For some of the same reasons Khan stated above. If you do not start with the game, you play clean up your entire time. People have zero concern for the players that come after them, so they leave vehicles everywhere around the map.

Unranked Evo solves none of the core issues with why Evolution sucks. When people have zero incentive to work as a team, they will continue to play like that no matter the version or ranking. I do not know how many times, every single player was assaulting a separate city. That causes another issue. Once some clown gets in an aircraft, they have to fly the entire map activating all the AI. That slows down the server by creating a huge burden on the CPU. If you were to simply assault each city as one and progress together, that would not happen.

I am all for large scale conflicts that have acheivable end states to them, yet realistic limitations. This is nothing more that a feeble attempt at a 1st person shooter where you get killed and respawn, along the way implementing nothing in the form of unit tactics. There is nothing simulation based about Evolution, nor will there ever be.

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gunjunkie

IMO, people should earn the leet vehicles, that way you are more careful not to lose them for your team.

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SnakeDoc

Theres a discussion in another thread about proposed changes to the evo mission which would probably help a lot (can't remember where it is atm).

One is no ranking but combined with making ALL the vehicles respawn but at a longer time period like 90 minutes or 2 hours. I agree just turning ranking off makes things worse since people start ditching vehicles all over or just using bombers to level cities.

The thing with loading the ai in other cities happens regardless since people go near them for missions or decide they're going to attack bagango while everyone else is at somato for example.

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|TG-Irr| Snake Doc

tHa_KhAn

As a pub server, unranked Evo only maximizes the existing problems. Atleast ranked you could hope if you could play long enough to get to use some vehicles, but when I initially loaded in yesterday, the only vehicles left at base were the little birds and hummers, a few scattered strykers were near by. So that is why we got together and restarted the server to use it as a COOP server essentially. Now being Evo is really allowed people to come and go and continue rolling on as happened. Everyone stayed organized and continued the spirit we started with all evening.

Check out this After Action Report: http://www.tacticalgamer.com/armed-a...vo-server.html

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|TG| B

I think we should make a standing rule of entry to the game. Such as communicate and join the acting squad or one of the squads if there are many.

Make sure to get the current objective city.

Always have a rally point to regroup outside a city, Landing Zone for troop insertions, and waypoints when traveling through a city. etc.

Because organized Evo is much fun.

When BF2 was at its heights we had extremely disciplined troops who had nothing but teamwork on their minds. I am really not seeing that here in Arma community, and this is my second night. I see people driving around by themselves, passing by a stranded soldier, or some cowpoop like that.

About the server being unraked, it really makes it too easy and takes the fun and requirement to work together out of it. Since they have access to choppers and planes they will just do air attacks and us ground pounders would spend 20 minutes looking for that last single infantry.

But then again, I am relatively new and everybody has opinions right?

No intention to cause anybody a emotional distress.

tHa_KhAn

You have a great point B. Being new you don't see the flip side of the ranked Evo. You would spend hours getting a score just to have the server crash or something of the sort and you'd be back at square one. The same effect, you never get to play with the advanced toys and everyone is out for themselves.

Great games last night. Organized Evo is a bundle of fun. I too would like to see some standard rules specific to the Evo server. There are enough Evo servers running that if someone doesn't like it they could play elsewhere.
This is community is only going to grow with teamwork oriented people who keep their fellow player in mind.

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VegaBond

You should try out 1.0m and 1.0n, tons new changes.... There the latest official builds...

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