#offtopic_communities

1 messages · Page 2 of 1

regal yarrow
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blobdoggoshruggoogly Depends on the setting, I mean tactics that stretch more over a campaign of missions
That would be strategy then, not tactics

Like I mean tactics that aren't "pretend your in a formation till you get in contact, at which then nobody knows what they are doing and they just run around"
Peeling? Bounding? Flanking? Dog-leg/E&E killbox/staged valley... They're about as "big picture" as tactics get before becoming strategies.

In strategies you've got a whole host of techniques that can be employed in an Arma 3 context

feral plaza
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Tactics are the specific actions or steps you undertake to accomplish your strategy.
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you dont really change strategies as a unit

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but tactics, I mean everyone is gonna teach you how to bound

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but nobody is actually gonna use it

regal yarrow
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We use it, and peeling, etc. all the time. It depends on the unit you join

fickle notch
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If you're not bounding in some form, you might be doing something wrong.

regal yarrow
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My perspective as well, but I'm also giving the benefit of the doubt that some units don't find it worth it, or it isn't the experience they care about or want? I can't comment really, since it's a mindset I don't share

feral plaza
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see ive seen DOZENs of units train it

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but rarely is it actually used

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its a combination of the mission not being that difficult and the fact that the SL usually forgets

fickle notch
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Well, proper movement under fire doesn't need to be directed by the SL. The squad level bounding overwatch is not the same as movement under fire. When you're under fire, you aren't supposed to move a fire team at a time, both fire teams could be moving at the same time, but only one individual per team should be moving at any given time. One individual selects their next piece of cover, SPRINTS to it, drops, next person goes, if they can, everyone else should still be engaging during that time. But bounding can be in any direction, too, right. "Peeling" is just lateral bounding. Breaking contact usually involves retrograde bounding of some sort.

The community I used to run, we were bounding pretty regularly, in various situations. Normally, on first contact, no one was bounding until we had tenderized the contacts, and the incoming volume of fire had been significantly reduced, then one or two guys per squad would sprint to next cover, but again, only for the final sweep, because you can't really cover every piece of cover until you've already pounded them pretty good.

We did plenty of retrograde bounding, though. Our server difficulty was finely tuned, so we were forced to back out pretty commonly. Took a long time to get the guys used to the enemy being that way, but it was great when they realized we couldn't Rambo shit anymore, haha.

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@regal yarrow, when I was running my old community, we didn't do the tactics to shape the experience, we just kept tweaking the AI until it was so tough that it forced the players to work together well to overcome the threat.

regal yarrow
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@fickle notch what settings and mods did you use to get this finely tuned AI?
We've currently got LAMBS on which already makes them more aggressive, but I'm curious to see what you're referring to, and whether it matches up or not with what we have.

fickle notch
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What is LAMBS?

All our stuff was made by my community.

We made our our own server side mod that made the AI engage at much longer range, and gave them much longer bursts with automatic weapons.

We also made scripts that made the AI call for air, artillery, and mortar support, and we made them break contact, instead of fighting to the last unit.

The IDF stuff was AWESOME. We made it where if they knew about players, the players didn't move for too long, and if mortars or whatever was within the specified range, the AI would start bracketing the player positions. First round would be short or long, second or third round would be pretty close, then they'd drop six or so rounds over a couple dozen meter area.

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The ranging rounds would sometimes land on players that weren't being bracketed. Shit was dope.

regal yarrow
feral plaza
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generally speaking though under fire

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you shouldnt be moving away from your TL/SL

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atleast be in earshot

pastel spade
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Fire for Effect is the main script peeps use for indirect

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Although Vcom has a bit of it as well

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As for bounding, tend to agree with Rommels. I only really see bounding in zombie missions, or when preservation of numbers is silly important.

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Sorta like when people teach breaching, Aside from stacking up and tossing grenades, it's not worth trying to do any sort of sweep style movements. AI don't flinch, get suprised, ect.

feral plaza
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tell you the truth, I never understood why so many units have an application

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just to join

dry bronze
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Probably because they have a target demographic

regal yarrow
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Aye, remember for some people accepting others into the unit isn't just to get numbers up... If the person in question doesn't look like they're going to fit, or blatantly aren't the type of people you want (as a unit leader(s)) in the unit then it's better to find out before it causes any kind of unnecessary drama or friction within the unit.

dry bronze
# regal yarrow Aye, remember for some people accepting others into the unit isn't just to get n...

To add, the death of a lot of units can be attributed to starting with say (whether they knew it or not at the time) an average age of 24, blowing up their numbers and suddenly it's 15, and by that point you loose your older members faster than you can recruit. Then what happens is, the new flock don't have the same ideas as the leaders, those who do the work, then once those people loose interest in serving, the doors close.

Most units of any size have a common culture, an application helps to determine if they are a right fit, but usually talking to them does that better anyway.

limpid lintel
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If a unit only recruits to get the numbers up, there's something wrong with the unit...
The goal should be to give a place to new and old players which fits their play style, but within the boundaries set by the unit (could be age, location and language, but also the roles which are needed in a unit).

regal yarrow
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If a unit only recruits to get the numbers up, there's something wrong with the unit...
Aye, although some people do start units for the sake of leading a unit, and don't care about what an actual unit should be about... which is sad but true.

limpid lintel
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those units usually don't last long

regal yarrow
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True, and the irony is that almost all involved then get frustrated about it

dry bronze
limpid lintel
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I think the best unit leaders ... are the ones serving the members
so serve me James 🤣

regal yarrow
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The application should be a two way street. Not only should the unit get a good sense of the applicant, but the applicant should get a good sense of the social aspect of the people that make up the unit, and in particular the leadership

regal yarrow
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In our case, we don't have an application form, but we do have 6 questions that we ask, and they are mostly for admin purposes and include age (to make sure they aren't below our limit), DLCs they own (we keep track of Contact/Apex so that we know who would be able to join x or y mission based on those maps), where they heard about us and previous experience.

The rest is all handled personally, in a conversation. They also get access to view our general chat and media and many of our channels that we speak on. There they see who we are as people. Once they've answered the above questions they get write access in said channels, so they can interact with the community. This is all before doing the BCT and actually joining the unit.

It's more long winded than a straight application form, but we think it's worth it.

dry bronze
limpid lintel
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Except we (I'm with James in UNITAF) also use the website for a lot of other stuff, so registration is actually required and the questions on registration are only minimal compared to the introduction talk. And even after that there's a sort of temporary time for both parties to see if it fits.

regal yarrow
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Yeah, we're going to be moving to a website soon, which obviously will involve them creating an account with Discord OAuth and will replace our questions as above. Even then, we'll be keeping our more personal method

sinful pecan
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My unit doesn't have applications. And we're running since pre-Arma 3 in early 2013

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We also have the questions asky thing, but we call that "introduction" where they also get shown our mods and systems, at that point you're already in.

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We are supposed to have a trial phase, but I don't think we ever kicked anyone out in trial, if they don't make it it's usually cuz they leave by themselves

dry bronze
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So I think the answer to the original question is probably something like, applications, introduction chats, trials are all used to see if someone is a good fit, or if the unit is a good fit for them. Before either party invests a load of time into the other, since every unit has a slightly different culture, demographic and playstyle.

regal yarrow
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That sounds like an excellent summary of it

sinful pecan
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I don't even know how my unit does that.
I guess we are just so family grown together, that people who don't fit automatically get pushed out by not having fun or not feeling part of the family?

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We had many people come and go.
But the part that stays, seems like nothing could rip them apart.

Exchanging personal phone numbers, meeting up to chat outside of Arma, playing other games together, real life meetups.

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We even have some "core" members who barely play Arma. Some people even considered member who didn't play for like a year. Because it's all family by now

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Which also sometimes makes it hard to grow, if people don't feel accepted

feral plaza
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Personally I just see it as useless bureaucracy since its just paperwork that may end up in the same scenario as you people say, the unit isn't fit for you, you can't prevent people from clashing heads but you can easily discourage potential recruits when you make certain hoops they have to jump through to join your unit

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And aren't most applications just things you can literally do in a one on one conversation, it's not like a personality test

dry bronze
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In our case, and probably many others, the people that join know that theres a process and expect it, I think it depends how casual or organised the group is. It's practical for us, we've received 30 applications in the last 30 days, our introduction takes on average 30 minutes, that's 15 hours of someones time if we accepted every application. We don't accept all applications, 99% of people that do the induction join though and then we go on to spend 3 hours with them at a later date to start integrating them into our SOP.

Applications, chats are designed to determine if someone is a good fit before wasting any time. Units do it because it works, most of us are pretty common sense folk.

feral plaza
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Yeah if they are a good fit, but in my expirence units don't turn down people, they leave themselves

limpid lintel
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From my experience in online recruitment (real jobs), the application form serves 2 purposes;

  1. getting the required information about an applicant which need to be stores anyway (name/username, discord connection, etc.), information which is used for the system in use (password) and additional information for geo-/demographic use (location, timezone, etc.).
  2. putting up a wall against people who don't want to join in the first place (trollers/spammers/etc.) and creating an initial filter to not have to spend time on people who will leave within 2 days again for whatever reason.

The first purpose is required if there is a system in place which needs it; website, forums, etc. Although can also be used just to keep track of people and their progress.
The second is something you can use to increase/decrease the amount of applicants (more questions = less applicants), or add filters for the recruiters to accept/deny an applicant before an interview/introduction even takes place. This depends on how fast an unit wants to grow or if they're looking for specific people (incl. minimim age or timezone).

feral plaza
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Eh I just prefer actual conversation, I have a huge distain for units that have more paperwork than they do actual gameplay

dry bronze
limpid lintel
dry bronze
limpid lintel
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Lying is always possible, but that will be known fast enough

feral plaza
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Arma has been out for what, 7 years?

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Arma 3

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And most units don't last 10+ years

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Unless you count the ones with a "hiatus" spanning multiple years

limpid lintel
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Most bigger units started in Arma 2 already ;)
And I know communities which are older than 10 years (not Arma specific)

feral plaza
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Or units that are actually just communities and their "est 2006" can mean oh they had a gmod server back then or something

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Yeah most bigger units were in A2, today, im not gonna bet this unit with less than a dozen guys, is gonna get to that point because they have applications

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I used to come from units that were like that and I really grew to hate them because they valued RP over actually playing the game

dry bronze
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As Grez says, applications have a practical function, for us at least. If you're using them just because then IDK.

feral plaza
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I dont know man, this whole thing just seems arbitrary

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You wanna join a unit? Cool jump through the hoops and in about a day or two, you'll be in it but if the unit turns out not to be what you wanted, then yknow it's just a waste of time on both ends

dry bronze
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Doesn't really work like that in my experience, these days people will have watched Twitch live streams and the like of units way before they join them, i.e. they know more about them before ever applying.

feral plaza
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Well every unit nowadays is fun

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Its not hard finding a fun community

dry bronze
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And in any case, I wouldn't fancy processing new members to ours, by verbally taking their Discord ID, Arma UID, email, name, DLC over a call versus having them create their account!

feral plaza
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Alot of the stuff you just mentioned, to me is just redundant

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Things like email and name

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Come on, it's an arma community

limpid lintel
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true, although required to be able to use our system (which is fully automated)

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and I agree; you can do a lot with just a Discord server and game server, until you want to have structure and automation

feral plaza
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And even things like DLC, like unless your a vanilla unit or something then I've never had issues of players in communities being locked out of something with dlc

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Of course this varies per basis but still

dry bronze
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You do you man. There's a million flavours of Arma. We all do it a different way.
You asked why applications exist, I'm just telling you from a medium sized units POV, (200+ with 100 active) 6.6x per month, why we have one.

feral plaza
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Yeah so now you know why I think regardless of what your unit growth is, why some people like me find it redundant and useless on how it adds effectively nothing but beaurocracy that could be avoided

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I understand there's a need for organisation

dry bronze
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If you had 100 people to cater for I'm sure you'd appreciate some structure my friend

feral plaza
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But you don't have 100 people show up in your unit overnight

dry bronze
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Of course, systems are built over time, to optimise how things work

limpid lintel
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but we also don't just have an application form...

feral plaza
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Right but to get to where you are now, obviously not everyone who joins stays, people get cycled

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Some stay, a couple leave, etc etc

dry bronze
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Of course

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It's a constant process

limpid lintel
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and if you have to manage that without automation, you'll go crazy

feral plaza
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I dont know about automation

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But sure I guess, there's a million ways to manage a unit

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And only 999 thousand of them will end up in a dead unit

dry bronze
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Quite often though when people make new units, they will say stuff like "without the X" from the larger units, but then when they grow, they realise you need X to make it work.

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X can be structure, systems, SOP, training. At least in my experience.

feral plaza
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But on the other hand, some units expect growth far too quickly

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And they have all the bells and whistles for a unit that could manage 1,000 people

limpid lintel
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and others can't handle the growth, which usually results in death aswell

feral plaza
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Yeah thats a suprising one

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Some get a mutiny

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Some just fizzle out and quietly die

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Others die in a fit of passion and whatever you wanna call those kinds of units dying

dry bronze
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@feral plaza Literally what you were saying before is why we have applications. If we accepted every one, we'd grow too quickly and the dynamic in the group would change too quickly. We just made it "harder" to join rather than closing application, and we just cherry pick the applications and therefore grow slower..

limpid lintel
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although not too picky, since I'm in it 🤣

feral plaza
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I mean

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That can be interpreted in two different ways

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Either you guys can't handle the recruits or you guys prefer to prevent stagnation by a slow trickle of recruits

dry bronze
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We could handle them system wise, but (and when we say recruits we just mean people that are new to our way of playing, our missions) you don't want too many recruits at once.

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From a gameplay point of view and from a culture point of view, you want people to be integrated at a trickle, as you say, in excess of the number leaving to continue growth, but not just at any rate that nobody knows who's who anymore.

feral plaza
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I mean personally I prefer that

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Makes it more fresh

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More unpredictable

limpid lintel
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I would say; an unit/community is like a business:
When you start with a few, you don't need the bureaucracy, because everyone knows how it works and everyone is "equal" (leadership should exist).
The moment you start growing, you also need to make sure that you can handle that growth and implement the systems/structure required.
However, you must have those systems/structures in place before you reach the threshold, otherwise it will cause problems.
You improve while you grow, always being one step ahead. And in case you don't grow anymore, or even lose people, you put your improvements to a halt till you need to again.

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And that is what a lot of units don't understand

dry bronze
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You might prefer it but the culture of a unit is what makes that unit unique, if you saturate it with people that aren't exposed to it, it ceases to become that unit anymore, the established older members are alienated and leave.

feral plaza
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What? Isn't that the point though? Not having a central circle of friends / admins that if you are not accepted to, your basically shunned from the unit?

limpid lintel
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I've seen that happen

dry bronze
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I'm not talking about a circle of friends but I know what you mean. I'm just talking about the wider culture, the identity.

feral plaza
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The identity doesn't change from a few recruits

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Your leadership defines the identity

limpid lintel
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If you limit your recruits, you can slowly let the old guys work with the new guys without creating multiple groups in your unit.

feral plaza
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I like cliques though, brings out the sort of realistic personality

limpid lintel
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And I believe the community defines the identity; leadership sets the boundaries

dry bronze
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A few recruits doesn't make a difference no, and within a month they are integrated

feral plaza
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Right, so back to the point on hand because we are getting sidetracked

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Recruits will always be problematic but honestly that's just part of the fun of being in a unit

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If it was all just sterile, safe and boring then it would just make people complain, see that's one thing that missions can't provide, the diversity in people

dry bronze
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I agree, they are not all problematic though, but there are some very rough diamonds out there 🙂

feral plaza
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Yeah I mean not every recruit is out there to mutiny the unit but like, you will encounter some problems later down the line with how some people act

limpid lintel
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I fully agree with you that application forms are abused everywhere, but that is because they're not used properly. Which will result in a useless wall which shouldn't be there.
However if done correctly, and handled properly for the right reasons, I don't see why they don't have a place in Arma units.

If people don't like them, there will be enough units who don't have them. If people are willing to take that extra time and effort, they might end up in an unit which they don't leave within 14 days.

dry bronze
feral plaza
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@limpid lintel I don't think I've seen a application form done correctly first hand but you have a point

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And yeah I mean I dealt with cheaters

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In a private community

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Which to this day makes 0 sense to me

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Like aimbot and wallhacks

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Not like spawn a bomb in your torso kind of cheater

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And these guys were recruits who all joined together

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Maybe if we had apps we could have prevented them from joining

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But like, I dont think I'd ever experience anything as dumb as cheating in a private community against bots

dry bronze
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I don't think applications prevent that, but we have zero tolerance for that type of thing, and the staff would handle it

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And yeah, cheating in vs AI 🤔 can't say I've seen that before

limpid lintel
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someone gave me an idea

feral plaza
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Yeah but like... Come on against bots? How do you come to that as a human being

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Anyway yeah like one thing that really changed my perspective on units

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Was joining new ones, they really teach you how to not run a unit usually

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Because jesus christ the success rate on a unit is extremely low sometimes

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In theory it's not difficult

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But like some people just aren't leaders

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Or their personality just doesn't work as a leader

dry bronze
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Of course it is. I've seen the good bad and ugly (I've been in-out since 09) and Started in TAW which was 4K strong at the time, with 250 in Arma and I like to think we've learnt a thing or two over the last decade.

limpid lintel
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But that is because they are ran by 14-year-olds who have no idea how to do stuff... They just want to have power over others and pretend they are something more...

feral plaza
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I mean case in point simple things like one of the main biggest causes for failed units, is their inability to trust people

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The unit leader controls EVERYTHING

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He does not let anyone else manage any thing else

limpid lintel
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I was in one as well, and the moment I proposed to get some structure going; they first wanted to recruit new people, without knowing what to do with them...

feral plaza
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This is good until, as you guys mentioned, a recruiting spree

dry bronze
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I'm a firm believer that democracy does not work in a unit setting

feral plaza
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Depends on alot of factors

dry bronze
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Distribution of power (what you mention) yes, but democracy no, voting no etc.

feral plaza
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I dont think I've met a unit that does democracy

limpid lintel
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or voting (at staff level), but with final veto from leader

dry bronze
feral plaza
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See there's this one mystery I still wanna figure out with units that are decades old

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Everytime I see their perscom

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Theres always a handful of people who look to be at the unit leader rank

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Retired

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So who pays for the server, for all the utilities

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Who gets the keys to the castle

dry bronze
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Usually I think because the top job has cycled a few times, TAW does that with their CIC

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I'd imagine the current one funds, and or is community funded

feral plaza
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Right but I highly doubt the unit leader just manages to seamlessly manage to carry their weight

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See if it's community funded, someone's gotta be pulling the strings keeping the unit on track

limpid lintel
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People shouldn't start a community when they're not able to handle it, especially paying for things.

feral plaza
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Its always a mystery to me how they managed to pick up where they last left off

limpid lintel
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Structure, systems and bureaucracy 😉

feral plaza
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Its never that simple

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Unfortunately

limpid lintel
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if person A stops, person B should be able to take over without relearning all the processes

feral plaza
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Everyone likes to bring in their own ideas to the table

limpid lintel
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ideas are fine, but the process should be the same

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and if there is no process; one should be made for the future

dry bronze
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Well this is kind of why I believe again just through past experiences and why with UNITAF we made sure we made clear that we set out exactly what we wanted to do, and how we were going to do it from Day 1, decisions are made by the staff, (We're talking 3 people out of the total) and executed by around 20, although we take advice from many people.

The problem is without those 3 people the unit would not work. If we started to implement ideas we didn't agree with we'd give up and the unit would collapse.

Your not born into a unit, you are always free to leave, so as long as the unit is consistent, and doesn't change drastically from the reason why you joined it in the first place, then it will last. At least till something drastic happens.

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The major failures of units I've been in, is massive changes in direction or leadership

feral plaza
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See yeah that's hard to prevent

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Lotta luck honestly just comes into all of this

dry bronze
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Of course, units don't fail because of luck though, or because of their own fault, most of them anyway, it's usually down to the same 2 or 3 reasons.

feral plaza
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Heh I remember back in the day people saying "units shouldn't disband, they should all merge into one super unit"

dry bronze
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But I agree, if I were to hand over to someone else as the person ultimately responsible do I think it would work, yes, but I don't think it would be the same unit in 12 months time, but then I have no intention of going anywhere anyway.

feral plaza
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God, so many hours of units told me that a superunit, will absolutely not work

dry bronze
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I think the reason we don't see them, is there is no need for them

feral plaza
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Thats because arma players will find conflict in anything

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We all have our ways of playing

dry bronze
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I don't think you can tar the entire player-base with the same brush, but yeah

feral plaza
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And if we don't like how we're currently playing, what do we do, we make our own community that plays how we like to play

dry bronze
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Of course. But you will see super units when the MILSIM / Combined Arms gameplay of the future allows battles in the 100s or even 1000s.

feral plaza
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One super unit that is just an amalgamation of various units will just lead to creative differences, personal problems, leadership incompetence

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I wouldnt say super units as much as I would say massive joint operations

dry bronze
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When I say super unit, I suppose I don't mean loads of units slammed together, I mean just a huge unit. But maybe in the example above it'll be more like the joint operations we see today, just on a larger scale.

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But interesting conversation. Always interesting to hear other peoples points of view, and to see how other groups go about things. But even if you don't agree, hopefully you appreciate how larger groups, or groups that need a lot of organisation need systems in order to function well, and communicate at an efficient level - which is what I think we have been able to do.

regal yarrow
crystal tulip
viral onyx
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any greek dudes around? want to ask a question on greco culture stuff, thank you 😄

teal steeple
fresh topaz
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Any good estimates or overviews of ARMA3 segments, ie. how big is CTI, etc?

feral plaza
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good estimates?

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you mean like overall or active

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because depending on what you ask you can say that private communities are the biggest arma "gamemode" or altis life or KOTH is the biggest arma gamemode

flat escarp
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anyone here in the military who can help me with joining up?

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irl

crystal tulip
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Wrong chat, also its props best to talk to a recruiter of your countries military @flat escarp

winged snow
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Fellow unit leaders, I have recently hit a wall in terms of active members and wanted to know if y'all had any advice on how to retain active members and gain new ones.

crystal tulip
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make sure that you listed to the members feedback, but also dont listen to it too much

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you need to sort of balance everyones feedback to keep everyone engaged

winged snow
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I've been trying to do that the best I can, but the bigger problem I have is gaining more members period.

modest rune
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Keep to a playstyle you enjoy, make sure people enjoy your events. Organize things outside of Arma3 to make people mingle.
Recruitment comes and goes in waves.

winged snow
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Noted, ty

crystal tulip
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Also things like joint ops with other units can help, there's a chance of people wanting to try out your unit aswell if you perform well

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(note that that shouldnt be used to yoink players from other units, but rather to try getting them to play in both units)

winged snow
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I'm just bummed that even though there are 100+ folks in our discord, not many folks are active and I feel like I'm using every recruiting avenue I know of.

sinful pecan
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Recruit the right people, don't recruit all people

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Don't recruit too many.
You need to concentrate on getting one guy to fit in and feel at home. Then continue slowly

winged snow
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I will keep that in mind. Thank you Dedmen, very cool.

feral plaza
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well I mean that depends on your unit @winged snow and if you enforce any sort of attendance

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if your an casual unit, you just gonna need to keep throwing people into the mix and hoping they are active

winged snow
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It is a casual group so the brute force tactic you described is what I’ve been doing @feral plaza

feral plaza
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I mean its a matter of time

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how many people you got active per week, just be honest

winged snow
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~10 @feral plaza

feral plaza
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Well I mean thats tough, do you want to keep your unit as casual? It might not be a bad idea just to purge actually inactive people

modest rune
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10ish is a decent number, if its roughly the same bunch of guys.

feral plaza
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if its 10 and he has 100+ people in his discord, thats barely 10 percent attendance

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even for a casual unit... thats pretty uhh

clever dawn
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looks around nervously with his ~15 players out of 200+

limpid lintel
#

starts sweating with more people signing up for 40 player ops than slots, 3x per week... in a 100 member discord

quiet schooner
#

You might want to consider a system of kicking inactive players

#

And try to get more activity in the discord, some form of interaction outside of ArmA might boost attendance

#

Since people feel more compelled to come if they know others in the unit from outside of ops

sinful pecan
#

Arma* ree :D
In my unit we spam the crap out of people who don't sign in/out of missions.
But always include mention that they can just message us if they want to be away for a while and not be bothered.

#

And we also have constant activity on TeamSpeak. And people playing all kinds of games together.

#

Not really sure about how you make people do that though.
If people feel welcomed and happy, they'll automatically stick around

feral plaza
#

I dont know how to help you honestly other than "time is the problem" because if you did want a fix, it wouldn't really work under casual sims

#

But yeah just kick the really inactive people

#

And if you do recruit, do some QA, its better to have recruits that actually fit the playstyle

#

Trust me, nobody likes the super serious guy in a casual unit

#

He may be active but he's a problem because he tries to get other people to play like him, now this is just my very particular experience I had with casual units

#

So yeah dont be afraid to kick people

sinful pecan
#

We have a 3 mission long recruit phase and are supposed to kick them, but never really happens.
Either the people who don't fit leave by themselves, or were being too nice

#

But there are also people where you think "oof yeah, they wouldn't ever find a group, we can atleast try to help them"

limpid lintel
#

Indeed; most people will leave themselves if the unit doesn't fit them or they got bored and went somewhere else.
Although we do have a system in place to see who played when, so also if they didn't play for a longer time. In that case we just send them a DM asking if they still would like to play.
Only in very special cases people will be kicked out actively, but haven't seen (or heard) of that.

#

I guess the most common reason for people leaving or being inactive is because there is not enough to do within the unit (in form of games, both Arma and other stuff, but also within Discord/TS).

sinful pecan
#

We have a big auto generated matrix.
Players on one axis, missions on other.
And nice emojis for signed in/signed out/not signed/AFK

#

Makes it easy to see who's a problem

quiet schooner
#

Another thing is having people assigned to squads

#

If the same couple of people slot into Boris every Saturday then they might become friends and come more often

#

Even just having a core group for each squad can help

#

And, my phone autocorrects arma to ArmA and I'm not going to change that

sinful pecan
#

Not for me.
Everyone is free to choose every mission.

We also don't want people to form seperate groups, everyone only belongs to one group.
Small groups can cause conflicts between the groups.
Also anyone can do any slot so we have to mix and match to fill the mission teams up

quiet schooner
#

We do the same except people are signed int squads

#

But that's not a hard rule

#

Within the squad people can freely choose roles

#

And even go into the other pretty often

#

Since we have lower attendance for variety op squad assignments to out of the window anyways

crystal tulip
#

In my unit we spam the crap out of people who don't sign in/out of missions.
I have 1k+ mentions in the discord of a unit I never played with at the moment heh

feral plaza
#

Well its nice that you have premade squads, I dont know man, there's alot of reasons that people can stop coming to ops, uhh I don't know much about anythin with casual units but I can speculate

winter rune
#

how many people are on our discord right now Dedmen? I would say like 70. With some of them being guys from clans we have or had a partnership with. And Like 20 to 25 active players.

#

Thek in our group the players can freely choose any role from mission to mission. Last friday you played an AT Soldier in the USMC and this weekend you can be a tank commander in the german Bundeswehr. Many people like this freedom.

#

In germany there are many units where you have to visit special trainings for different roles. And the players are stuck on their role. Those units have a hard time to survive longer than half an year.

charred grove
#

not so many actually. just a small bunch of people who never made it to the actual service and now trying to shine as keyboard warriors

quiet schooner
#

We do the same, everyone is free to pick whatever

#

Except leadership roles

#

And we are considering doing special vehicle training

#

Because combined arms so far has been disastrous

feral plaza
#

I feel like not having fixed roles limits the competency alot

#

Especially for things like piloting and specialist roles like AT, marksmanship and of course leadership

#

Personally I think that pilots need to be held at a much higher standard because the outcome of the operation usually depends on them

#

Sure you can ask most pilots "hey can you pilot" but then you ask them to do basic things such as even landing aircraft and they can't do it without "hey zeus can you fix my jet its broken"

#

Because somehow we can all take off, but we can't land

#

And I mean even for piloting, I dont mean AFM and ITC enabled, just simple basic stuff, like laser bombing or some simple PID. I've had pilots tell me they couldn't differentiate between players and AI

#

Piloting is just something that gets on my nerves sometimes because people spend like 30 minutes flying in KOTH or wasteland with jets and think yep im good and they get all defensive when they are questioned

#

But anyway I mean, most roles that I outlined that needed to be fixed roles because they can change the outcome of the op

#

If your AT guy misses all of his shots, well at that point it just becomes a sideshow

limpid lintel
#

I believe fixed roles/groups are a no-go; in the end, it's a game and not the real military.
However I do think it's important for everyone's enjoyment to have some form of qualification which can limit role selection.
As long as training is available and the possibility exists to show you're capable.

feral plaza
#

Yeah it's a game but I wanna have a good time, nobody likes suffering from someone else's failure

limpid lintel
#

tbf the best moments I've seen were people making mistakes 🤣

feral plaza
#

It gets old quickly when it's something basic like AT and you don't want to get blown up

#

Like I've been hit with backblast twice in a row once before and yeah it was funny but at the time it was just incredibly annoying

limpid lintel
#

But that is training (and qualification), or simply making a mistake when it doesn't turn out the way it should.

feral plaza
#

But by having training and qualifications, aren't you essentially making fixed roles

#

Because you need to have said stuff before you get to that role

limpid lintel
#

as I said, it can limit.

feral plaza
#

But I mean like at that point, what roles do you have for someone completely new, rifleman or ammo bearer?

#

Maybe machinegunner if you can trust them not to bring blanks

limpid lintel
#

eg. we do trainings for different roles, and we have a qualification system.
People who are qualified will have first choice on that slot, others can slot in later.

#

And if you really want to slot in on a specific slot, it can be requested.
eg. someone wants to learn/practice leading a fireteam, without being qualified for it, can simply ask for that slot and we make sure someone more experience will join his team in case he has questions/problems.

feral plaza
#

What roles for example

limpid lintel
#

our system is rather complicated; but I'll try to make it look simple ;)

  • a new player will have to do one basic training and one mission as a standard rifleman
  • after that he can sign up for other trainings (leading, AT, air, vehicles, marksmanship, medical, etc.), or take supportive roles (ass.mg, ass.at)
  • every 1st tier of a role group requires one training session + one mission as that role, which can be requested
#

But for example; Medical has currently 4 tiers:

  • Combat Life Saver (1 training, 1 mission)
  • Squad Medic (2 trainings, 10 missions)
  • Platoon Medic (4 trainings, 20 missions)
  • MERT (6 trainings, 30 missions)
#

approx

#

That said; when I joined the unit I only did the basic introduction training and a day later I jumped in as a Squad Medic. Simply because the slot was not filled, I asked if I could take that slot and had a short talk with the SL to make sure I was capable (since I was new).

#

And most importantly, we run 2-3 training sessions per week, depending on what is needed (basic training for new people, specialist training when upcoming mission uses it) and/or requested (eg. if people want to get training hours for a specific role). So it's very easy to get the qualifications needed if you don't want to wait 12-24 hours after a mission is put online.

feral plaza
#

I dont know, I feel like trainings sometimes are arbitrary more than anything

feral plaza
#

You gotta actually go over stuff multiple times and practice, but it needs to actually be realistic, like for example best way to test TL/SLs is to give them a simple mission like move to get another point but have everyone suppress fire on where they are, throw at them all you got, multiple MGs and even indirect fire

#

It becomes like sensory overload at some points

winter rune
#

Its funny that it somehow works for six or seven years right now because people know which roles they know how to play. And if someone wants to be a pilot most people will ask the better pilots for advice and Training.

#

But we dont have Trainings or Something like that. More like learning by playing the role (for most of them).

sinful pecan
# feral plaza Especially for things like piloting and specialist roles like AT, marksmanship a...

It self regulates for us.
People who don't feel like they can pilot a heli full of people without crashing, don't sign up for pilot slots.
Same for AT, teamlead, sniper, medic.

And some people always pick their favourite roles (pilot, teamlead, sniper, medic) and thus we achieve a quasi specialization but at the same time letting everyone feel like they can do anything they want to, which they do, they do what they like best, and that also makes them the best in their role

#

Just the people's desire to not make all other teammates unhappy and to not feel like a noob. Already causes them to only do what they know they can, or to ask for help/guidance by themselves.
Last week two people just got on the server, and one taught the other how to fly helicopters because he wanted to try it out.
No need to offer and organize trainings if people can do it by themselves. Keeps the effort for our leaders very low

What the leads do though is offer a platform in form of a simple wiki page where people can enter what they know, so that people know who to ask about what

sinful pecan
feral plaza
#

Yeah it's pretty great when it does but seriously though, really shouldn't happen

#

But like that's cool unless you expect a degree of competence from people and also people can sometimes overestimate their skill

#

The reason I try to get people "good" is for stuff like one life operations

quiet schooner
#

bring blanks
That's why you should not give people arsenal

#

Loadouts get what they have

#

And get other stuff from trucks or apcs

#

But people just wasting time in arsenal to play dress up or get their favourite guns is the worst

sinful pecan
#

We usually heavily limit arsenal

#

Dress up usually never possible, as we have all same camo.
Just glasses, weapon choice between a specific group of weapons. And attachments.
And then just backpack packing with needed stuff

regal yarrow
#

^ We do the same, and it makes it very clean (no crap on floor or in boxes), and it avoids long lists of unfilterable stuff which you have to go through to find the ammo/bandages or whatever it is you're looking for because the ACE Arsenal comes with sort and filter options.

sinful pecan
#

Our arsenals also act as very big boxes, to throw crap into.
Because otherwise people still throw stuff on ground

regal yarrow
#

Yup, same

#

But that's just a garbage bin

#

You're not actually expected to go through it

feral plaza
#

Until you see a railgun or something

trim quarry
#

It'd be interesting to write a sort of Pitfalls guide to making Units for the community at large but it'd get lost in the waves of text unless kept somewhere.

sinful pecan
#

Can put it on community wiki

trim quarry
#

I've never used the wiki, could learn how to make an article and experiment. Do people self publish or do articles/additions await a confirmation from a wiki admin?

sinful pecan
#

You cannot register a biki account, so you'll have to pipe it through someone who has

feral plaza
#

meh units are too diverse for a definitive guide on pitfalls

#

you can always just say things like "No organisation ever thrives when there is only person who can do X job" or "do not hoard all the control to things like the server etc or else if you are not around, the entire operation stops because you wont give anyone else keys to the castle"

regal yarrow
#

The last statement is quite true. You say that, but basic pointers could be made, at least a breakdown of what some things result in, making suggestions, etc.?

#

Not hard rules, nor linear guides

trim quarry
#

Maybe make it a pros and cons sort of list? General pointers of upsides and downsides of certain actions that most if not all Units share/take in common

limpid lintel
#

There are too many things which are too specific, and not a lot of common things units should do.
The only real thing I can think of is; either run it as a group of friends where everyone is equal or as a company with just one boss.

regal yarrow
#

The "keys to the castle" spiel is very relevant too though. I've seen multiple communities slow down or go down due to a single person hosting servers/infrastructure and not allowing anyone else to peek. It never really helps any kind of organisation

feral plaza
#

I mean there's alot of esoteric stuff like dealing with poaching and mutinies or bored players

#

Or trying to combat unit bleed / stagnation

#

Turns out leading people aint as easy as you might think and large communities have alot of working parts holding it together

winter rune
#

I think that most orgs that are older wont Change themselves anymore. And people who want to build a unit today normally say Something like "we want to be different". Dedmen and i are running a unit since 2011/2012 and i have to say that it is the hardest thing i have done and every year brings new up and downs. Things other units where do wont work for yours and vise versa. And i have to say that i dont like the many small units that are founded every year. Many small units and most of them dont survive the first 6 months. And after falling apart many players just stop playing Arma because they believe that it wont work like they want.

final wave
#

I just got banned from a server cuz I said ghost recon wildlands is better than breakpoint

winter rune
#

Thats hard

feral plaza
#

Honestly units are a bit like a business

#

Except there's probably more luck involved with units

#

Because in theory you can have the utopian unit just for a mutiny to form out of nowhere and everything is lost

sinful pecan
#

Yeah that mutiny thing happened twice in the past

#

But the majority always got back together.
It was always only the people who started the mutiny and who were also anyway only in it with one leg and didn't actually care about the group who got lost in the transition

slim linden
#

Wow I didn't know this chat existed lol.

feral plaza
#

Happens to the best of us

limpid lintel
#

seen it once, 2 weeks later the unit was dead

proper saddle
#

Happened in my former unit once, luckily it wasn't many people and the ones who actually cared came back short after

trim quarry
sinful pecan
#

I don't see any reason why this channel should suddenly get more activity?

feral plaza
#

Probably because someone has a question and it's hard to have brevity with units

trim quarry
#

I see people post questions about starting up Units occasionally in the #looking_for_unit channel, but most of the time not many people respond to those sort of things for obvious reasons. If people understood that this channel existed perhaps more questions concerning communities would get answered.

sinful pecan
#

Yep

tacit basin
limpid lintel
#

it's offtopic, because it's not about Arma the game or it's game modes 🤷‍♂️

tacit basin
leaden brook
#

Happy new year guys!

feral plaza
#

I mean technically cooperative play is a gamemode

fresh topaz
#

@flat escarp sensible, interesting ops. That are a bit different every time

flat escarp
#

yeah just started throwing very different ops into the mix, recruitment is painfully slow atm

fresh topaz
#

It's best when you don't even need to recruit. Or the people start doing it

feral plaza
#

Well I mean you gotta have a good mission maker first

#

Its easy to make a mission thats simple and its easy to make it fun but that only lasts for so long

fresh topaz
#

A couple of good zeus

winged snow
#

Gamers, my plight has not improved since last time I sought help. I don't know what I should do to grow my unit aside from what I've been doing for three years, but then again, I've been recruiting for three years and have ended up with like ~10 active folks. So I'm at a loss as to what to do. 🤷

fresh topaz
#

Merger is a possibility too

modest rune
#

Rarely goes well.

winged snow
#

Yeah that aint really what I'm goin for

fresh topaz
#

An alliance can work better

#

joint ops

limpid lintel
#

Well, proper recruitment is one thing.
But the important question is; what do/can you offer to your recruits?

feral plaza
#

well joint ops and mergers are usually just to gain more players but even then, ive noticed they cause problems aswell

#

but your issue... well recruitment doesnt seem to be the issue then

fresh topaz
#

If you've been running an active group for 3 years, that's a pretty good result 👍 It's likely the guys have worked their basics together. It could be something related to whether the members feel the group (and ARMA3) offering something unique. Or getting the group members / new faces active in recruitment.

#

Could be that if you do the same old thing (even if with new mods/maps etc) over and over, it gets boring

trim quarry
#

Joint Ops perhaps could make people from the other Unit want to dual clan or leave their clan all together for the alternative, perhaps also give visibility if anyone records.

Mergers are dangerous because they bring the unknown problems of the other Unit into yours.

#

Having a small core player base isn't bad, Grezvany is right that you need to make your Unit stand out somehow with something you offer. A stable relaxed place is something that a lot of people may look for, on the other side of the spectrum is someone looking for that really hardcore game play or etc.

#

The last thing to sort of consider is the problems the unit already has that may turn new people away. Perhaps there is no problem and people are just flaky from commitments every weekend.

sinful pecan
#

yeah. Some people seek action and changes and repeated new unique missions.
Other people just look for a stable group of people they can hang out with

slim linden
# winged snow Gamers, my plight has not improved since last time I sought help. I don't know w...

Have you spoken to your members directly?
Something I do is an end of month feedback/ meeting session where we leave all egos at the door and just talk through things.
What worked out , what didn't. Not just unit related but also mods, tactics, equipment, missions, leadership , training or lack thereof. Everyone has a say and it's always better than through a form or something.
Just an idea. Not saying it will work out but you can try. I tend to do it after the debrief of the last mission of the month. Much easier to talk to interested people directly.

That being said. If you have a single minded vision for your unit, and have a core playerbase that enjoys that and such. Keep at it. And rather focus on advertising and playing the waiting game to get more members over time. It's not worth bending backwards for everyone all the time and there should always be a few unbendable rules for every unit. Maintain that.

The way I look at it is a colouring book. You can put whatever colours you want in it, but make sure you colour inside the lines.

I'm not completely aware of your issues but random changes or pandering to people just to grow and alienating your original/ core playerbase isn't a good thing either.

#

Just my ramblings on lunch break lol

feral plaza
#

we would have to know much more on how to help you because yknow, you wont need to do the same things that a hardcore sim does if your only casual

winged snow
#

As far as what my group offers, we have our own mod with heart shaped iconography, uhhh we are casual so folks aren't pressured to always attend (which is a pro and con), we have a dedicated server and TS that we use to play antistasi often, a friendly environment and we have PMC PVE gameplay

trim quarry
#

Perhaps your recruiting campaign isn't aggressive nor consistent enough?

sinful pecan
#

"we have a dedicated server and TS "
as about every group?

regal yarrow
#

Well..... you say that...

feral plaza
#

well your a casual unit, have you tried expanding to other games and making yourself into a clan?

winter rune
#

Do you mean multi gaming? Rommels

fresh topaz
#

Multigaming can be a bit challenging

feral plaza
#

well I just call them clans, its a nice way to pretend like you have alot of members

#

since your casual your not looking for a more serious enviroment meaning its feasible for you to try to become a clan

dry bronze
#

Sounds like fundamentally bad advice to me to someone asking how to grow their Arma group, that your advice is to focus on other games instead. You don't have to be a hardcore realism unit to focus solely on Arma (using your definition of Casual).

limpid lintel
#

In the end it's all about expectations.
What do you expect from your members, what can the members expect from you and is that clear for everyone?

fresh topaz
#

Or just getting feedback. Dunno. One of the first hurdles for me always seems to be getting the feedback. If you put your mind into it you'll become proficient after a couple of times.

#

I think the other is getting people active and do some of the stuff for you, that can be a big one.

feral plaza
#

if hes been doing the same thing for 3 years

#

maybe conventional advice isnt working for him ykno

#

if his unit was a couple months then yeah you would be right but hes trying to grow and hasnt been able to really successfully for a substantial amount of time so advice like "try to recruit more" probably has already been tried and tested

#

they play antistasi and PMC stuff which is the bread and butter of casual units so it wouldnt hurt them to try to jump into squad or any other game aswell,

#

basically its a catch 22

#

to get more people

#

you need more people, the larger your unit is then generally its easier to recruit people since they like a large unit and all that

#

and if you have other games to spoof your number count and make everything seem more active then yeah maybe you will break out of your loop

limpid lintel
#

Yeah.... great advice...
Bump numbers with fake members (since they play other games), and straight up lie that you have a big unit...
People WILL see that and leave directly the moment they see nobody plays the game they want to play...

#

Not saying you shouldn't play other games, but it shouldn't take away the fact that we're talking about an Arma unit, so people expect to be playing arma

winter rune
#

Thats the Problem with multi gaming Clans (normal Arma groups or units are clans too). Maybe you will someday habe a big Number of Players that play all kinds of games, but you wont have enough Arma Players.

quiet schooner
#

How is playing other games faking numbers lul

limpid lintel
#

If you have people in your unit playing other games, who are only there to increase numbers so it's "easier" to get Arma players, it's faking numbers

feral plaza
#

Well if you have any better advice to a guy like him then go on ahead

#

Its a casual unit, what are you gonna tell him "oh recruit more"

winter rune
#

I would give a advice most people dont like to hear but its the best if nothing else works and sooner or later he will follow my advice even if he doesnt knows IT yet

feral plaza
#

Wait what

winter rune
#

Yeah

feral plaza
#

I dont know what advice you gave though

winter rune
#

I didnt gave one yet.

feral plaza
#

Anyway

#

Its a given that most units can and tend to lie about their history especially with things like oh they are X amount of years old but in reality they were a unit for 4 days but never got anywhere

#

5 or 15 years ago

#

And then when you ask their numbers and depending on the person its 5 to 80

#

Obviously people do this for a reason and there ain't nothing stopping you from doing it

winter rune
#

Never lied about our group. I know that some people did that but those units tend Not to live long

feral plaza
#

Nobody fact checks if your unit was created in 2004

dry bronze
#

This is all hyper irrelevant, the man was asking how to grow his group, and why waste your time with recruitment only to fail at retention. Anyone joining will see you for what you are, not what you want them to see you as.

If you provide something unique, interesting or different as most of what people might deem successful groups do, then you'll attract players, and actually, those groups need do less recruiting simply because they attract through their own momentum. The problem is most units don't and that can be seen on /r/FindAUnit and #communities_arma3.

What Rommels said before is true though, you need a good core group to start and to maintain momentum before recruitment really cycles, and most units fail before that point. I think from what he said about having tried for 3 years puts you in no different position to essentially starting again.

feral plaza
#

Props for him to try for 3 years though

winter rune
#

Ok i will give my final advice: if you are not happy with your unit because of the small Player Base and you are not able to make it bigger right now, Stop tryring to build a unit. There are far to many groups out there and many fail and many players loose interest in arma because their old unit failed. And if you are not happy as a part of that group you wont be able to get new people to join you. We had multiple time where our members dropped to like 4 or 5. We even started our groups with 4 guys. Dedmen, two friends we met a few days before and me and we just played along and it was a gamble if we would get new members again..but we liked our group. If you are so Desperate that someone needs so many advises to make their group bigger (and only that) it doesnt sound like something that will survive for long.

Sorry for my bad english and i hope that im not the asshole of this channel now.

feral plaza
#

I dont know, I wouldnt say stop making units because he's better unit leader than most of the ones I've met

#

Solely for the reason he persists

#

I've met multiple unit leaders who just give up or implode their unit

#

Just because things didn't go their way or they couldn't be bothered, and those are the worst unit leaders because they break up the group

winter rune
#

Yeah but maybe its better if he tries to help a unit that works better and has some things that makes it unique

feral plaza
#

I'd rather a unit leader tell me outright that the unit is shutting down rather than him quietly killing it and breaking people up and you see friends go

winter rune
#

But its not good if he tries to get a bigger unit because he is not happy how his group is right now. He will kill it with that Attitude. Slowly but he will kill it

feral plaza
#

But he's seeking improvement, is that bad attitude?

winter rune
#

But the help lasts for days now

limpid lintel
#

Main issue is that nobody knows what the problem is.
Is recruitment bad, are missions terrible, are the core members evil, is leadership not able to handle it, etc.

Giving general advice doesn't work especially if it's the wrong one...

feral plaza
#

How do you know its the wrong one

limpid lintel
#

Lying to people is always wrong...

feral plaza
#

Yeah and people have done much worse and life goes on

limpid lintel
#

I don't care if people want to destroy their own credibility...
But it's bad advise if you take it seriously

feral plaza
#

What credibility though, its like reading reviews for anything, you know its biased and obviously they will always put themsleves in the be light

#

No units gonna tell you "we have internal issues"

#

Or "the unit leader has power issues'

#

Every unit has its own issues

#

Your not gonna talk about to the new guy unless you don't like the unit

winter rune
#

We actually did that when we kicked Out a leader. We sayed to new recruits what happened and that because of that some Things dont run perfect.

#

Right now i dont know one thing that i would not tell everyone here or a new member.

fresh topaz
#

Making up things like when you were founded or how many members you have is just bizarre. Especially since members lists are easy to inflate and a lack of active members is obvious to anyone with some experience and half a braincell.

#

I don't think I've ever been in a group that did that. I've seen a few "bad" or not excellent groups though, and many good ones too

#

Maybe I just have better calibrated standards just because of that. The first clan I joined was run by a guy who was 16 years old. The membership wasn't much different. Fun times still.

#

When I started my own clan I went the opposite way. Basically I kicked out anyone (from the members list) who we hadn't seen for a week or two. I detested the members list inflation, maybe it was mostly about being honest to yourself but also keeping a better track of things, esp. for the guys who were trying to organize something but weren't online every evening to talk with everyone in the clan. Then I made sure there was team gaming happening and other things.

#

Our retention rate was extremely high and it was more successful than I had expected. Maybe the memberslist was a factor because it immediately communicated to people that hey, somebody is running this thing, and the other members like it so much they are on almost every evening

#

Like officially we have 12 members and you'll see 8 online on a given night. It speaks for something.

limpid lintel
#

Although even if you have 200 members on your Discord, it still doesn't mean anything when less than 10 people will play a mission once a week.

fresh topaz
#

If you're around a bit in multiplayer games, you see that thing A LOT

#

So maybe my clan just was something different, and I was serious about making it that way

#

It gets noticed

limpid lintel
#

Looking at the unit I'm currently in, we have 80 active members (a little more on Discord) and we have issues getting enough missions to get everyone players regularly...
eg. people are fighting to get a slot on a 40 player operation, and that 2-3 times a week...

fresh topaz
#

It sounds like you have a high standard (or barrier of entry) for mission makers

limpid lintel
#

We have campaign driven missions, and will have at least one mission maker/zeus who is experienced within the unit next to one or two lesser experienced.
Everyone is allowed to make missions or zeus them, but they should meet a certain requirement.

#

But to get some numbers out for October 2020:

  • a total of 25 operations were played
  • on average did each person play 6.4 missions
    PS. missions can be actual missions or training sessions
#

We may not be a huge unit, but we have people who like to play a lot. And we actually slowed down recruitment because we rather have people who want to be in and people just hopping around.

#

That said; heavy recruiting, generating fake numbers or giving false expectations can hurt your unit.
Rather have a small group which sticks together than having a lot of random people who never play.

fresh topaz
#

I wonder how much is different in multigaming communities. They have different rules than single game clans.

limpid lintel
#

I used to play in a large (600+ member) multi-gaming clan, and the rules and way of operation is exactly the same.
Only difference is management... When you support multiple games you'll need people experienced for each game in a managing position, where as a single game group only need one person/group of management for that game.

fresh topaz
#

That seems true, I was in one excellent multigaming clan, but it operated very differently from anything else I know

#

but there was a separate leadership for each game. We common members hardly ever bumped into the guys/management that was running the whole show

#

It was extremely structured to any other gaming group I've known

#

I realized the same approaches wouldn't have worked with my clan

limpid lintel
#

Although that is how single game units also should operate; and the amount of management/leadership should grow based on the amount of members (or actually, be there BEFORE certain amounts are reached)

#

My unit is handling it as a 1000+ member community, even though we're under 100 members. Or at least has the technology and resources for it.
If we would grow to 250 members in a day, all we need are people in specific roles and it will run without a problem; everything else is already taken care of.

#

In the end; a gaming community is like a company.
You start small as a start-up, and you can be lucky and grow massively within the first year, or take slow for 3-5 years making a name for yourself.
As long as you have the will and resources to keep it running, go for it. Otherwise step out and do something else.

fresh topaz
#

Growing leaders is important too. Otherwise the whole thing will collapse when you take a break and go for a vacation for a year

limpid lintel
#

Definitely! And recognizing people who can help you at those positions is also important, without forcing them in those positions.

feral plaza
#

well yeah no organisation survives on a single person being able to do a critical job

fresh topaz
#

If you don't recognize people who put themselves in it and "promote" them, they'll be frustrated and give up, you'd lose a lot of potential. Also it's silly to promote people who put in a couple of nights effort then lose interest, and it's very hard to demote people...

fresh topaz
feral plaza
#

in my hours of arma I have never joined a large unit

#

all of my expierence in units comes from failing and dead units

#

trust me when I say this

limpid lintel
fresh topaz
#

It sounds like a bit of a bad luck to me

feral plaza
#

its not bad luck

#

they just set out to fail from the get go

#

I specifically look for small units because I love the growth and the friendships

#

although its extremely difficult to let those friendships go when the unit implodes

#

I know I could join a large unit and have a fun and probably stable expierence

#

and I would never have to complain about arma units being ran by idiots or this or that

#

but whats the fun in that, I wouldnt know anyone and to get to an interesting position in the unit, it might take me months or years even

#

anyway back to my point

#

you cant have only one person having access to the server

#

or only one person able to make missions

#

or only one person to do recruitment

winter rune
#

About the point activity: In Our Clan people have to sign in or out to missions via discord or our Updater. They have to do one of those two things. Either they are signed in to a mission or out. If they dont sign in or out we ask them. And if it happens to often they will get kicked out or something like that. Every few months some of our led staff check the discord members and kick the ones not playing anymore.

feral plaza
#

its not easy finding a number two or someone reliable enough to take the weight off you

#

like to this day im amazed some units can just transfer leadership of the unit to the XO without any major issues

#

but like as for promotions, you gotta understand not everyone is a leader

winter rune
#

We have like 25 active players and you will find friends and talk with each other. We even hat Clan Events in RL.

fresh topaz
#

My ARMA units are much more loose, one is a semi-open community where people just recruit their friends

#

Must be like 80 people and most are practically never seen, but it works great

feral plaza
#

atleast for me, I look for more serious stuff because I dont like wasting time and sitting at the arsenal or waiting for someone to figure out how to do this and that

fresh topaz
#

Ops are maybe 12+ people typically, and they fill up decent, typically

winter rune
#

And we have 3 Leads and like 6 Moderators that help us

feral plaza
#

anyway back to this leadership stuff, its one thing being the guy who can give out orders and its another thing actually using your brain

#

like to be a basic squad lead or maybe even team lead, all you need is what, a presence and basic knowledge of what the operation is

#

by presence of course I mean you have a mic and you speak legibly and your not shy or mumbling because ive met leaders like this

#

guys who like the "rank" more than the responsibilites

#

with leading anyone in my opinion its just taking a moment to think about stuff

#

its not how loud you yell or how funny you are, its how you can make decisions that wont slow down the op and make it take another 30, 40 or even an hour

limpid lintel
#

Question is: how is feedback given and handled when things go good or bad?
Because I believe that everyone should get the chance to show that they can or at least have the chance to be trained for it when they want it. And if it turns out it doesn't work out I think it's a good idea to simply not take that role.

winter rune
#

Im not a fan of Clans with only one dedicated lead. Normally ends in totalitarianism.

limpid lintel
#

And with mature members it's never an issue; which I prefer units where there are no 13-year-olds pretending to be sPeCiAl FoRcEs...

feral plaza
#

I dont know

#

I had an experience where I was blamed for the failure of a one life operation and it ruined the magic of the unit

#

long story short a team decided to cross an open field in an irrigation ditch

#

got killed because there were enemies at the other end and the team lead shifted blame to me because some of the recruits got annoyed at how the op went

#

I didnt control the units nor did I tell them to cross an open field

#

but they werent gonna take "poor leadership" as an excuse

#

this unit had a "core member group" that were all admins and all knew eachother

#

irl

#

and the team lead happened to be a part of them so go figure,

#

they were all mature

fresh topaz
#

Permission to fail is important if one is supposed to learn anything

feral plaza
#

well ive noticed that unless you specifically tell them to retreat

#

they tend to take Order No. 227

#

im referring to the order stalin gave that was "not one step back"

fresh topaz
#

It's a common problem

#

I believe many real world combatants wouldn't retreat when they really should

#

(but also vice versa, in the real world)

#

And we see this in role playing games

#

it's victory or death!

feral plaza
#

I dont know, ive come to adapt just a high speed breakthrough approach whenever im leading anything

#

you know how some guys will try their best at stealth?

#

I just noticed that its more fun for everyone going in guns blazing

#

sure theres more casualties but in the end its about the experience

fresh topaz
#

Did they indicate that in feedback?

limpid lintel
#

been there done that...
Quietly moving around the target area so enemies won't spot us... guy walks over a flare tripwire...

feral plaza
#

we barely did any feedback or debrief but people seem thrilled

#

yeah I mean grez if theres one thing I learned about combat through my special forces DELTA OPFOR FORCE units

winter rune
#

Every mission there is a debrief. Inmy group

feral plaza
#

its that if your gonna be in a firefight, be the ones who shoot first

#

youll live much longer

limpid lintel
#

if you don't have briefing and debriefing... you're doing something wrong...

fresh topaz
#

I think ours has an outstanding debrief practice. We do a round and everybody says something about the mission (operation), what they think was good and what was bad. It's superb.

feral plaza
#

we have brief but debrief is just arbitrary couple of seconds of "hey does anyone wanna say something"

winter rune
#

We do the same

feral plaza
#

and thats it

winter rune
#

Everyone has to say something. And most people even take notes mid mission if something is awesome or really bad

#

Ask Dedmen. He allways has a notepad ready

fresh topaz
#

We tend to have well written briefing materials one is supposed to glance at before the op

limpid lintel
#

We have full AAR's after an operations to give scores about the mission, leadership, communication, team members, etc.
Which is not required, unless you gave a bad score somewhere.

feral plaza
#

meh I kinda dont like those highly systematic debriefs, reminds me of the days of a pmc unit that had a point system of ranks

#

god that was horrible, its like I was playing gmod military rp

#

the debrief was just "give two points to people who you thought did well in the op"

fresh topaz
#

The multigaming clan I was in implemented an actual chain of command. Seemed to work superb 😄

limpid lintel
#

we also have MVP's, which is just for fun; nothing is done with it except for eternal fame 🤣

winter rune
#

its not highly systematic. Its just everyone can say something. No points or something like that. only what they think about mission, teammates, leads and so on. Its really important for the Mission maker/zeus

#

And im happy to hear every good opinion about my missions ^^

feral plaza
#

ehh yeah I dont know, chain of command is good until it isnt

fresh topaz
feral plaza
#

heh ex military, I could go on a tangent about how it sorta doesnt mean much in sense of arma,

winter rune
#

Its time for corona to let me meet my CLan mates again. Want to play paintball this year again

dry bronze
#

It doesn't and being a military leader doesn't mean you're going to be good nor successful at leading people you might have never met on the internet. That said, many principles of leadership and communication can be applied, and Chain of Command is hyper effective for medium to large sized organisations when implemented correctly

feral plaza
#

well yeah thats the big issue, correctly

fresh topaz
#

Yeah they didn't have military ranks in the clan just for fun 😃 and c00lness

dry bronze
#

i.e. applying it as it is done in reality in order to simulate it, verses applying it to actually be effective in running the organisation

feral plaza
#

but like explain more about what you would use from the chain of command

winter rune
#

We dont have them and also dont want them (Military ranks)

feral plaza
#

because obviously you dont use the entire chain of command stuff

limpid lintel
#

we have an actual E-4 Mafia 🤣

dry bronze
#

As Grez says, we have close to 100 active, deploying 7 times per month, and close to 220 with our inactive force. We have to have robust lines of communication to keep everyone happy, no one person makes that work.

#

It means having a limited communication overhead, we don't have global administration, it's all segmented

feral plaza
#

No I mean how does your chain of command work

winter rune
#

Yeah but you also dont need liek 10 Ranks for your Members. usually you need your leeds, Mods and players

#

But its 1:29 AM in Germany right now. I go to Bed now. have a nice day/night. And don't write too much for me to read.

fresh topaz
#

It was a lot about comms and team structure. You'd always have the one step superior officer to talk to. You would jump higher only in exceptional circumstances or when the issue is general eg. via the forum

dry bronze
fresh topaz
feral plaza
#

ah man dont give me that, I have a bad habit of dissecting that stuff and looking for... nvm

limpid lintel
#

in short; overall leadership -> management -> members

feral plaza
#

one of my favourite things to do with large units and ones that are est 1776 and have 2500 members is to always look at their handbooks and SOPs

#

you can find the most dumbest, stupidest stuff on there imaginable

dry bronze
#

We also separate Chain of Command into Operational and Organisational

feral plaza
#

like im not joking here

#

I saw a fairly large marine unit have regs on facial hair

#

I swear to god

#

they had a grooming standard for your face

#

in game

limpid lintel
#

Realism where it matters

dry bronze
#

Well, the whole officer on deck stuff I've seen in one before etc

dry bronze
feral plaza
#

HAH you wish

#

it was in game

#

swear to god

fresh topaz
#

In some cases I just say, if it's not for me it doesn't mean it's wrong...

feral plaza
#

it outlined what characters you couldnt use

#

because they had facial hair

dry bronze
fresh topaz
#

@dry bronze esp. with a big big community that is diverse like ARMA

#

I typically look at milsim from the outside

feral plaza
#

but more humorously, I remember a unit that had some werid part to it and they outlined what to call each rank so for example one of my favourite ones was I think a gunnery sergeant was to be referred as "master guns"

dry bronze
#

Definitely there really is no right way to do it, but there are for sure some bad examples out there

feral plaza
#

master guns

#

for me the definition of bad is what people from the outside see as cringy

#

theres a reason why when someone says hardcore sims, you think of the yes sir no sir bullcrap

#

its because of units that ruin the name of hardcore sims

#

by adding stupid stuff like paperwork and endless bureaucracy

dry bronze
#

Again I think for me at least, we do things because they work for us, rather than because thats the way the real military do it. A lot of that stuff is because people copy things for the sake of it, and in reality I don't think it adds anything to what you are doing.

#

i.e. Paperwork, what paperwork, automate it - this is 2021

feral plaza
#

like I love hardcore arma and its so damn hard to find a unit that does hardcore sims without cringe

trim quarry
#

All the Unit terms and perspectives vary from Unit to Unit is what I've experienced. What's cringey to one is necessary for the other etc.

dry bronze
feral plaza
#

but I mean is it really necessary to outline what face you can use in game?

#

or what to refer to each rank as?

trim quarry
#

To put a point against automation I sadly can't automate my weekly newspaper that I write for my guys to read D;

dry bronze
feral plaza
#

anyway by hardcore I mean the difficulty, not the rp

limpid lintel
#

tbf... I was in training sessions where I was really like "why the hell do I need this... I know how the game works and others should too"
Now I still apply everything I learned during that training because it simply makes sense, and everyone knows what is happening.

feral plaza
#

but I mean @dry bronze why do you need a seperate organisation for chain of command and operations if I may ask

trim quarry
# feral plaza but I mean is it really necessary to outline what face you can use in game?

I can see both sides of the argument. I think in a scenario where everyone is trying to enjoy the missions it'd be off putting if you saw like a Zombie face in a WW2 mission or something.

Concerning Ranks I got nothing to really defend that outside of an RP perspective and a more difficult way to organize people. The Unit I'm in does ranks based on the history which is a whole different can of worms.

feral plaza
limpid lintel
feral plaza
#

you guys dont have fixed roles?

trim quarry
dry bronze
feral plaza
#

theres something called moderation, I understand doing that for camo, but not your face

dry bronze
#

but in terms of the organisation, I do.

limpid lintel
#

No; we don't have fixed role, but we do allow people with experience (training/hours in slot) to pick a slot first

feral plaza
#

ah yeah fair enough then

dry bronze
#

OPCOC takes priority on deployment ORGCOC ultimately runs the group

feral plaza
#

yeah fair enough then

feral plaza
#

like for me the ideal unit size is 40 people

fresh topaz
feral plaza
#

40 is a nice number, couple of squads + whoever you want as support and everyone probably knows eachother

limpid lintel
#

40 is perfect indeed, but if the unit is only 40 members big and (if you're lucky) 50% can play at each mission, you're left with only 20 people...

feral plaza
#

server can handle 40 and it gives us alot of flexibility

dry bronze
#

40 what though? People who are active, how active? Or 40 people in op, if so how many ops, how frequently and what only at that size?

feral plaza
#

obviously this is perfect world

#

40 perfectly active people in ops

#

every time

trim quarry
#

At least for the Unit I've been with that's been a blast ever since I joined in 2018 we have 80 people on paper including new people or people who have taken a break but will return ™️ I'd say we hover around 45-50 in a mission.

feral plaza
#

well yeah I understand that to get to that amount of people, you need to have some in excess

dry bronze
#

I agree 40 for the in game numbers is a sweet spot of sorts, having done literally every scale possible.

trim quarry
#

If you get to what those Starwars Units get to with their close to 80 I wouldn't imagine being there

feral plaza
#

shame though

#

id love to see company level operations in the future

#

maybe in arma 4 we will see the first company sized joint operation

#

thats what, 120 people?

trim quarry
#

Earier in the year 23PzD and 5GKVD did a PvP that got to I think either around 90 people I'd say? Opposing sides of course

limpid lintel
#

I'm pretty sure we could do a 100-120 man operation (technically), problem is that it's extremely hard to build missions for that amount of people

trim quarry
#

^^

feral plaza
#

yeah I mean a smooth mission

dry bronze
#

We've done 64 internally, and 115 joint, 115 is fine, but ultimately players prefer half that - you can't please everyone when there is that many since you have to sacrifice due to the game engine. You cant do conventional at 120 players with enough AI.

trim quarry
#

Big mission = big lag

feral plaza
#

yeah

#

thats why im saying in the future

#

arma 3 isnt really able to handle that many peeps

trim quarry
#

I think FNF can get pretty big in their PvP friday events

feral plaza
#

again this would be a PvE joint op event

dry bronze
feral plaza
#

but man imagine the actual organisation you would need for a company sized operation

#

this aint no public zeus so you would actually have a team of zeuses

fresh topaz
#

I was in one big joint op that was probably around 100 or a bit more, it was superb and the concept was well refined

#

I think 2 zeus and some players on the other side

dry bronze
#

it's not uncommon

feral plaza
#

you say that like its an everyday occurance

#

realistically

limpid lintel
#

Technically it's possible to handle 200-300 people on a single server (good hardware, HC's, light modpack, etc.)
But making a mission which is interesting enough for 100+ players (PvE) without having people sitting around half of the time or feeling useless is the hardest part...

I've made a 120 player mission in my Arma 2 days (so no Zeus!), and took us 2 months to build and test everything...

dry bronze
feral plaza
#

how many units in arma are actually able to do platoon sized operations

#

I doubt the figure is in the 3-4 digits

dry bronze
#

Oh probably not, there's probably only sub 50 doing decent throughput

feral plaza
#

well yeah im thinking like 50-80

dry bronze
#

It's hard to tell really

feral plaza
#

just to account for the starsims

#

but with 120 people

#

jesus, you would actually need a decent map

dry bronze
#

There's also nothing wrong with the 100's of squad sized groups, some of the best missions I've played have been 15 players or less

fresh topaz
#

@limpid lintel is maybe right, it was a different experience. And more hard core, we didn't have a respawn, but the mission was in two parts. Half of the time we were just lying there waiting for the Russians to come 😅

dry bronze
feral plaza
#

yeah thats the thing

#

but it also allows you to deploy legit assets like enemy air, artillery and armor

#

since you probably have the manpower to deal with alla that

dry bronze
#

Well sort of, you have 100 players and you already have an AI problem, and to add force multiplication on top means you need more AI for a decent fight, it's not really up to it

fresh topaz
#

We didn't really have support assets

#

2 armored vehicles

dry bronze
#

In the future through I agree, and it's something we'll work towards doing. But first we need a game which will support 3-4 times the scale we have currently, then let's see what happens to your typical unit.

fresh topaz
#

A tank given to players is already a huge force multiplier and you'll need swarms of AI or at least tanks or so

dry bronze
#

Or just disciplined crews that understand the word support

#

Same can be applied to Apaches

limpid lintel
#

^^ which brings us back to SOP's and training 😉

fresh topaz
#

I doubt making a bigger scale to the game would make much sense, because the player organizations would not be ready for it

dry bronze
#

I disagree

#

I think there are at least 10 groups at scale in Arma, that would easily eat up twice their size if they could put on double or triple scale operations

#

That's just chicken and egg

feral plaza
#

well jets and attack helicopters are force multipliers for the enemy

fresh topaz
#

And that's an insignificant sliver of the community 🤔

dry bronze
#

Sure, but the game has to exist first, then the players will adapt

feral plaza
#

I wonder how or why starsims are like some of the largest arma units

fresh topaz
#

It's possible but I'm wondering what would make them, when this is not a competitive MMO like Eve Online

dry bronze
#

Part of the reason there is so many units is you don't need more than 15-20 people to put on a decent operation, for a lot of people why bother going bigger

dry bronze
limpid lintel
#

Well, 90% of the current units are not really suitable for anything IMHO... They're either groups of friends, or simply destined to fail due to bad leadership and/or toxic players...

feral plaza
#

dont get your hopes up of a battalion / regiment sized megaunit

#

arma players are uhh, of a different mindset

fresh topaz
# dry bronze What would make what, do you mean? Maybe I misunderstand your statement

I think we're quickly hitting into that, it's easy to miscommunicate. I mean, if the ARMA gameplay (for milsim) is already great for 10-20 people in the op, what would make the player organizations to go through their immediate circle of friends, and create all that organization, which takes obviously lots of effort? Ie. the feature to support 300 - 400 players would in most cases be wasted development effort / sacrificed features.

limpid lintel
#

I'm sure that if Arma would support it (aka playable), I'm sure that multiple platoon sized units would do Joint-Ops because it's fun

feral plaza
#

yeah I mean a company sized op would be fun

#

but god anything above that seems like logistical and comms hell

trim quarry
# feral plaza I wonder how or why starsims are like some of the largest arma units

From an outsider's perspective and my view the SW franchise is well known to people for starters so it's not like they have recruitment problems. The biggest ones in GARC like the 501st for example I'm pretty sure they have like a single training to qualify you to be just a rifleman and various other trainings for specialized stuff.

One of my friends says they have just a massive turnover of players coming in and out, those that come and are consistent are elevated to permanent positions. I think those that are inconsistent get last picks on any missions or are slotted in reserves so people who are "in" the Starwars Units have worked their way up.

feral plaza
#

aye but how do they not balkanize and just start their own starsim

#

alot of people have this mentality of mutiny and rebellion

#

now alot is not the entire arma population but more like a cornerstone of it

dry bronze
# fresh topaz I think we're quickly hitting into that, it's easy to miscommunicate. I mean, if...

Good point, I think it's a balance right, at the moment a 120 player operation is a spectacle, but anyone that's done one will tell you that it was cool and all, and really hits at the heart of what Arma MILSIM is about, which is large scale sandbox teamwork. But ultimately that doesn't outweigh good performance, less waiting around and more focus on you, which you'll get from most decent 20 man deployments.

The point I'm making that with a platform more suitable to a scale of 400, with less hassle, better performance might tip that balance for a lot of people. Especially if it just meant a joint operation of 4 units for example, each providing 50 players. Larger organisations have more resources and can make systems for this. We're a good example of that, and while not for everyone, I think it will happen.

trim quarry
#

Lack of $$$ for a server box & TS of the same quality, lack of people willing to leave stability for uncertainty, those that do leave will have their positions replaced relatively quickly so if the mutiny doesn't work out it's not like they can return to their shiny position.

feral plaza
#

well I dont know

trim quarry
#

In a larger Unit I guess the idea of mutiny and petty squabbling is less apparent since you're more of a number than anything since there's at least a dozen or so people jumping for your position to play in such a large organization.

feral plaza
#

well I mean in normal communities, ive heard of mutinies happening etc, ive done one myself before

trim quarry
#

There's definitely been balkanizations but I can't really tell which SW units are the mutiny ones and those that are the original besides the one's apart of GARC/Largest 501st Unit

dry bronze
#

How big are these Starsims? I don't really have a clue because they are generally banned from here and I don't really take an interest anyway

feral plaza
#

its like company sized iirc

dry bronze
#

What are they doing differently to the average MILSIM unit, other than shooting lasers

feral plaza
#

multiple platoons

dry bronze
#

AI?

fresh topaz
#

@dry bronze I think our difference here is that I'm thinking of the development effort and design, which I assume you did not take into account. It would have to be a very different game with that many people on the server, and probably would need to have reduced features / network usage to not overload the system. Ie. a lot of things might need to be sacrificed in the engine architecture and the development project. It might take a lot of additional effort to make work, too.

feral plaza
#

how did they earn the title of some of the largest units

dry bronze
dry bronze
feral plaza
#

arma is a niche

dry bronze
#

Starsim is a niche within the niche

feral plaza
#

its a very weridly stable niche

fresh topaz
#

AFAIK ARMA 3 is a niche with 5 - 10 million players

feral plaza
#

yes but its a sandbox

#

some people come here for altis life

#

others for wasteland

dry bronze
#

Majority of that is like Altis Life etc as Rommel Says

trim quarry
dry bronze
#

only something like 20% of servers were under COOP last time I looked, and even that could be wrong

dry bronze
trim quarry
#

Bots

feral plaza
#

lmao its probably one of the first units ive seen that actually need a major

trim quarry
#

In any 501st Video it's all AI and I've seen maybe a handful of PvP events

#

They're so large they need multiple server boxes and can't field the entire Unit on one so divide them up

limpid lintel
#

So just a large unit who manage it perfectly fine

feral plaza
#

I dont think its the management

dry bronze
feral plaza
#

well its the management a little

#

but the playerbase just seems content with where they are

#

thats werid

dry bronze
#

Thats the thing, to the average grunt you know, being one of 500 in that unit is probably still the best Starsim experience there is

feral plaza
#

yeah I guess starsims are about that

trim quarry
#

Idk how many they stick in one of the servers but it's just about being a cog within the machine of a quality experience.

fresh topaz
# dry bronze From a developer point of view?

Development/technical. The whole thing needs to work before it can be an existing product. Now we do have games like Eve Online where you might have battles with 5000 players in them, but even the server hardware looks rather different.

dry bronze
#

That can be applied to anything though, some people prefer smaller groups, some larger, but the best large groups also have smaller sub structures as well, and much of the identity and friendship groups can be formed there, with the benefit of the whole.

limpid lintel
#

If there's no alternative, they have to 🤷‍♂️
Because no offense to the SW community; but I doubt most of those guys are able to manage a unit or setup a server without issues.
It's the same with any Arma unit though... which is the main reason why most units are broken to begin with...

feral plaza
#

I mean theres nothing stopping anyone from trying to mutiny your unit

limpid lintel
#

Although getting a pre-installed arma server is easy (and cheap), so a lot of people just throw money around and do it themselves

dry bronze
# fresh topaz Development/technical. The whole thing needs to work before it can be an existin...

Yeah that's true, I don't know what the BIS plans are if any. But it would be interesting to see procedural maps, or certainly massive maps that cover huge terrain, to support large scale deployments, either in Arma or another title - personally it's just a matter of time I feel. When the technology is there that a developer has that idea and the market catches up. Similar to MSFS but obviously with a more MMO style matchmaking.

feral plaza
#

Honestly id love to see the planet simulation adoption into arma

dry bronze
#

You know, maybe even an actual use for a fixed wing transport airlift.

dry bronze
fresh topaz
#

You may have to wait a decade for that but one should not underestimate how fast things can change 🙂

dry bronze
feral plaza
#

Organising stuff like just mass leaves etc

limpid lintel
#

no problem; all automated 🤣

fresh topaz
#

@dry bronze Maps in DCS are already 1000 km across and they are planning to make more detailed terrain that makes sense for helicopters now

trim quarry
#

I think an effective "Mutiny" is a splinter group that is pretty major that leaves cutting down your effective player base. Though larger Units may feel this a bit less depending on recruitment.

fresh topaz
#

BUT they need a home made engine to do what they have currently

feral plaza
#

But I mean like vanilla arma maps are small compared to the armament, like AMRAAMs can do cross map kills

trim quarry
#

Aren't the DCS maps really low quality though compared to what we see in Arma?

feral plaza
#

DCS doesn't have infantry

limpid lintel
#

yes, which is why they can be that huge... similar to the TKOH terrains

trim quarry
#

Just Planes right to my knowledge

dry bronze
fresh topaz
feral plaza
#

If I knew the answer to that then id know the answer to the cure for cancer man

#

I dont know, its just human nature that if you look at someone the wrong way once they come back to stab you or whatever

dry bronze
#

and I could only imagine adding ground combat to that

feral plaza
#

I guess one answer would be competent people who are conflicts of interest

dry bronze
fresh topaz
# trim quarry Just Planes right to my knowledge

That's very wrong but the point stands that the ARMA 3 and DCS engines / environments are quite different. But both franchises will probably expand their capability in the coming decade (one can hope)

feral plaza
#

Hah if it was only that simple

trim quarry
#

I think the most common mutiny or splinter is the more relaxed versus the more serious crowd that come into conflict with each other.

feral plaza
#

Mutinies happen and they tend to fail

#

You dont have to be dissatisfied with the unit to leave

trim quarry
#

Mutinies can happen for any number of reasons from petty squabbles to disagreements with the entire structure and wanting to take people, friends they made along the way, to leave.

feral plaza
#

You just have to miss the people you like in the unit

limpid lintel
#

the fact that they happen means something was wrong to begin with

feral plaza
#

^ that but sometimes it's nice to have em

#

Also you can't kick everyone with a differing opinion on everything

limpid lintel
#

Although I just leave a unit when I don't agree, instead of trying to take it over 🤷‍♂️

feral plaza
#

Sometimes it's right to ask "is this really the mission or order or whatever"

#

Well theres your difference man

#

Some people like to pillage

#

Then burn

limpid lintel
#

no wonder you have a lot of bad experiences 🤣

feral plaza
#

Its like an abusive relationship

#

Also its weridly difficult to recruit nowadays

#

Couple of years ago it was dead easy, I feel like a boomer talking about the economy

fresh topaz
#

When the game is new and everybody has 1-2 weeks of experience and no level of standard, it's easy to recruit of course

dry bronze
#

We are very clear with how we expect things to be, and what our thoughts are on levels of seriousness, things like 1st vs 3rd person, and we make it clear from Day 1, if you don't like it there is literally 70,000 groups you can join. Part of healthy group management isn't recruiting, but not even admitting people who go against the grain and quickly identifying them if they slip the net.

It doesn't happen often but it does happen, these are likely the people who will cause problems like you mention.

fresh topaz
#

These are constant issues for every clan / organization I think. And yes you can go out of your way to tackle most of it well beforehand (and maybe you should)

feral plaza
#

I have a method called throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks

dry bronze
feral plaza
#

If the recruits stay, cool

#

If not, there's always more players

fresh topaz
feral plaza
#

It works

fresh topaz
#

I'm not sure. I just can't do anything better right now I think

feral plaza
#

Idk honestly, I guess in the back of my mind, I wanna join a unit that gets successful

fresh topaz
#

I do screen and try to get to know the people, but beyond a certain point you just have to see what happens and hope for the best. Many times I have slight positive surprises

feral plaza
#

I wanna join early before everyone else so I can see how we prosper

fresh topaz
#

But my main issues is that after the first few days people just seem to drift away to other interests

feral plaza
#

And after what feels like dozens of units, im still trying to find it

#

Yeah I mean recruitment is tough

#

I think that like around 1 in 10 recruits you recruit, will actually be active members

dry bronze
#

Come and have a play, we wont bite

feral plaza
#

Nah that would break my ten commandments

#

I dont join large units man, it's cheating for me

fresh topaz
#

I once recruited and mentored recruiters in a clan that did rather extensive screening

dry bronze
#

nobody stays forever

fresh topaz
#

Like there was a record of the interview and a panel of comments for what we thought of the person

feral plaza
#

Heh but yeah man

fresh topaz
#

It didn't prevent major drama or keep people from coming and going, but we were rather successful and I think we limited it a bit

trim quarry
#

Most people that join a group during the winter or summer sale are likely to leave when life picks back up especially if they're in Highschool or early years of College with all that time still.

fresh topaz
#

Also recruiting was a distinct and separate function of the organization unlike in just about every other clan I was in

#

By the way DCS has plenty of ground forces, there is even a module named Combined Arms. We can discuss it on the other channel 🙂 But I think ARMA 3 does a better job in bringing out the combined arms aspect, it's more of a focus of the product.

dry bronze
fresh topaz
winter rune
#

What the fuck. No i wont read that whole Chat History

sinful pecan
#

To that conversation about member count from 13 hours ago.
I don't even know how many players are in my unit.
But we have all the mission player numbers and just look at how many people we have signing into missions on average.

And its also nice to offer that information to any recruit, they can see when we played what with how many people, what the story was what the slots were, going back to 2015.

sinful pecan
sinful pecan
sinful pecan
quiet schooner
#

Anonymous feedback forms can also work for more personal or controversial issues

sinful pecan
sinful pecan
# dry bronze We also separate Chain of Command into Operational and Organisational

Our leadership is split into 3 parts.
Technical, Internal, External.
And each (except technical) has a couple moderator members to help them out

One person can't handle it all.
But also, multiple people can't handle everything together.
People who don't know about the tech, shouldn't be forced to take part in deciding on it.
You can't do everything together

Let the people do what they do best

sinful pecan
winter rune
#

Thanks

feral plaza
#

Yeah let's agree to disagree on the server part

feral plaza
#

If the guy isn't there or he just forgot, thats an entire operation day ruined

winter rune
#

In our unit dedmen has all admin rights for the server. But we have server control on our homepage where all Leads and the moderators can control which mods are loaded and start or stop the server

sinful pecan
#

If something breaks, then we anyway only have one guy who's able to fix it, and thats the guy who has the server access.
Even if others had admin access, they wouldn't know how to fix things.
And they also don't need admin access, all they need is be able to start/stop the server

feral plaza
#

Its always good to have a few people to pick up the slack if the guy with the server is gone or afk, things like uploading mission files, updating mods etc

sinful pecan
#

We have all that stuff automated

#

basically all that full server access is needed for is fixing broken stuff, or adding new mods

regal yarrow
#

I haven't read the conversation for a few days, but will add that in our unit all our Officers and Server Administrators have direct access to the server via RDP. This means that any of us can fix or do anything we need to do. We've also got a document that outlines how to do x and y.

Ideally though, we'd have it automated like you guys do Dedmen, that's the real solution, to get rid of the human factor. We're still working on that slowly, though not there yet.

flint moon
#

One guy in my unit has written automated server manager which auto downloads mods from steam, setups the server and allows us to do everything from management website. It's even integrated with our enlistment bot so it automatically starts the server with correct modset before the mission (we allow different mods per mission).

#

That way no one but few technical admins need direct server OS access.

regal yarrow
#

Yep, that's what we're aiming for. It would make our lives so much easier. FASTER is a good stop-gap for now though, since it's easy for any non-technical Officer or whoever to pickup and use

#

With minor instruction of course

flint moon
#

FASTER is a good stop-gap for now though
it's somewhat fine but all of these tools rely on SteamCMD

#

which sucks.

regal yarrow
#

Ooooh.... I only knew of SteamCMD as a method of interacting with the Workshop. SteamKit... is faster/better to use or?

flint moon
#

It's a reverse engineered Steam client basically. Main advantage is no arbitrary timeouts and full control over downloading.

regal yarrow
#

3rd party then, not valve?

flint moon
#

Yep, in theory prone to breakage at any time.

mossy field
flint moon
#

Yeah but that was their CDN issues SteamCMD has artibrary timeout on the socket.

regal yarrow
#

Thanks a lot for these. Here's me working on automations with SteamCMD... looks like it's back to the research phase!

flint moon
#

it will always timeout if download takes longer than N time. I don't remember the exact number.

#

IIRC Dedmen tool is also based on SteamKit.

mossy field
winged snow
#

I will persevere gamers. At the end of the day, it aint about the member count, but about having fun

feral plaza
#

wait you guys are having fun?

modest rune
#

It is not the right place.

limpid lintel
#

well; to promote your unit you should use #communities_arma3 (and follow the template)
For finding other units for Joint Ops I would change the message

left pond
#

i'm new so i don't really know where to put the message

#

we don't want to recruit, just want to find other groups to play with

regal yarrow
fresh topaz
#

@flat escarp I'm starting to think ARMA can do more than I give it credit for

flat escarp
#

wym

fresh topaz
#

In the end it's just programming and what you get out of the box depends on what you select as a basis - and a well done framework is often the sane starting point if you have actual ambitions

flat escarp
#

i have literally no idea what you just said

fresh topaz
#

2.5 years ago I established that Zerty/BECTI is the best thing that ARMA3 has to offer, as it creates nice combined arms in a refined operational system

#

But the issue is that it's basically always the same. Further compounded by the thing that it's maybe not what I really want

#

I haven't tried MCC yet although I've had it for a few years I think - it sounds like a system where you can easily create a scenario and the players can develop the means to solve it

#

Sort of like Zerty, but obviously adaptable to custom scenarios

#

Could cater well for a group that can muster 20+ players for TvT scenario

flat escarp
#

?????????????

fresh topaz
#

It's a long train of thought

#

I've been at it more than 3 years

#

Choosing a sandbox system like MCC could allow you to quickly create complex scenarios

#

There's probably some groups that play like this. But I'm hardly aware of those, I haven't participated in the whole Team vs Team scene, really

feral plaza
#

So out of curiosity, what are your guys thoughts on perscom

charred grove
#

what's a perscom? something to eat?

limpid lintel
#

PERSCOM is a tool to manage recruits, members, operations, service/combat records, etc.

#

Which in Arma is like a website which handles everything instead of "join and do whatever you want"

limpid lintel
knotty meteor
#

PERSCOM has a realllll nice bug right now for people on the cloud-hosted IPB websites where you can't designate moderators/admins for anything PERSCOM related.

#

I've been paying for PERSCOM for 2 months now and it's in a semi-unusable state. Very close to dropping it if they can't fix the bug.

limpid lintel
#

Didn't checked the details of PERSCOM, but having a IPB license + a module license, and it's not working... That's a very expensive broken feature, especially for small communities.

#

On the other hand; building it yourself also costs time/money/effort

tacit basin
#

We keep audio recordings of our unit meetings. What's a good hosting site where we can have them kept and be accessible with something like an unlisted playlist?

sinful pecan
#

Youtube? 😄

tacit basin
#

point. FFmpeg can easily add image to audio.

sinful pecan
#

just leave black

#

maybe soundcloud, but don't know if it lets you unlisted

tacit basin
#

The mp4s with image are even smaller than mp3s, so bonus 😂

vague shore
tacit basin
#

Yeah but do you really use that feature?

feral plaza
#

.... yeah?

#

I mean thats how I used to transfer mission files

#

if your paying for teamspeak, you might as well get your moneys worth

trim quarry
#

You could just use Googledrive

hasty crag
#

@leaden hazel your event post does not follow the template

flat escarp
#

So there’s been something I’m very curious about, and that’s how on earth I can work to help grow my server community. Setting up public servers is hard but getting the word out there and keeping that consistency of players is so hard to even get to it’s insane.

#

Anyone got any tips on what else I could do to get the word out?

feral plaza
flat escarp
#

Its only a public server, not a milsim community or anything like that

feral plaza
#

Making videos is also a really nice way and if you condense it down to le actually funy moments and post it on reddit, chances are new people will ask to join

#

I mean you could still stream it

#

I dont know much about communities but have you tried talking with other servers?

trim quarry
#

@flat escarp What Rommels say are true. Comes down to consistency. Advertising on the steam discussion forums, reddit, discords with recruiting channels, and server listing websites are some that come off the top of my head

#

Also may want to give some more info on what you do on the server specifically.

flat escarp
#

We're definitely on multiple server listing websites now and I do go around advertising. I'm just sat here wondering how this one public server ended up growing so quickly and where on earth those guys came from XD

feral plaza
#

Alot of it is just luck

pastel spade
#

I always say you need 2 people to run a Arma community. One person to do a lot of the admin back end work, and one person to just outright play all the time.

regal yarrow
#

As a minimum maybe, but running a unit without a core team of 4 or so "Officers" (or whatever you'd like to call the decision makers and doers) who are comfortable with each other and share a vision for the unit is incredibly difficult. I'm not going to say that it's prone to failure otherwise, but it's not easy, and puts a lot of strain on those two people.

pastel spade
#

Community doesn't mean a unit per say. My group is pretty fluid, Platoon lead, Squad lead, ect. Slots are generally taken up by the most experienced Arma players rather then what their discord rank entitles. We are also not bound by any roleplay theme, and organization comes from the practicality of the experience rather then a need to be effective.

#

Do we get our wedge formations perfect? Nope. Can we accomplish some very hard missions that units with thousands of ops under their belt struggle with? Yes.

feral plaza
#

eh honestly not having a rigid structure can have its detriments

regal yarrow
#

Pros and cons to both, but the fact that I stated "unit" doesn't mean that I'm inferring "structured". "Unit" in the context of Arma 3 is a group of people who take on a collective identity.

#

For me anyway

trim quarry
#

^^

#

Generally even in communities where people just get on and play pre-made missions in a serious fun manner still have the guys in the background. Background being like the guys who scripted the mission, get the mission on the server, pay for the stuff, moderate the game session, etc.

feral plaza
#

My main point was that without a rigid structure for at least leadership or command

#

Your gonna be susceptible to different playstyles and you can't say which one is right or which one is wrong because there's no set rolee

#

Some people lead more seriously

#

Others lead because they like to be in charge

limpid lintel
#

As long as you can handle people trying to change/take-over/destroy your community, there's nothing that can go wrong 🤷‍♂️

feral plaza
#

yeah thats a tall order though

#

which could be avoided by just simply having a more set in stone organisation

#

of course this is an alternative to kicking people who have embedded themselves in the unit which is very rare usually

clever dawn
#

that's a careful line to tread though, if you think everyone is looking to destroy your community, you may be blind to actual positive change (had a guy in my community that was super paranoid about that)

trim quarry
#

There'll always be people who want to make some change that they see fit to be good in their opinion to make the community better for them in what they think is good. It's up to leaders in a community/unit to take those and resolve it in an orderly manner to not cause one of them mass exodus events.

#

Though it is better to usually have a set play style, mission set, etc. to make your community distinct crafting a culture that draws people who are like minded rather than try to get as many people as possible while having many sub cliques or cultures which clash.

feral plaza
#

if your a CO your unit should be what you imagine it to be

#

at the end of the day if someone is trying to change what the unit really is then they are a conflict of interest

#

and should be removed

foggy wharf
#

I agree

pastel spade
#

I mean I don't disagree but it's a pretty fast way to lose your community. Has to be some give and take.

#

Like a big killer for me is rank and structure outside of the game. IE I expect you to give me a AAR after the session.

#

Like if you advertise that upfront great, but 90% the communities do not.

foggy wharf
#

That is true for me I don't mind the rank but the second I get like demoted for not being online due to reason that I have stated before is like annoying

#

Though I agree

pastel spade
#

Yea, that is a tough one, I can see it if it offers certain privliages for example having specific framework in your mission that whitelist slots. But if there isn't any framework, and there is no legit exclusives for your rank. There is zero point in it unless the group is roleplaying something with it.

regal yarrow
#

Not true.

We use ranks as a method of showing experience and appreciation for the loyalty that members have shown in the past for the unit. This includes their interactions within the community, how regular their attendance to operations and TacOps (Training) are, any other contributions to the unit, etc. Rank ups happen based on a 2 monthly rank review meeting which Senior NCOs and Officers attend to decide on whether or not each individual has shown the above adequately as befits the rank that the person is being considered to be promoted to.

Ranks have no meaning beyond this, until you get to NCO/Officer ranks. The latter involve administrative work for the unit, as well as a requirement to IC (Squad/Team lead) in-game whenever an IC is required.

The only impact in-game that ranks have is, like I say, when you're an NCO or up. Below that, the two ranks just below NCO are allowed to use a G3 in-game, but that's more of a historical perk for the unit than anything else.

So basically, the ranks have a purpose, but they also do not limit people to what they can do in-game. For instance, I'm an officer, but I can play as a Rifleman for a few ops a month if there are no more IC slots that need filling.
And, vice versa anyone regardless of rank is able to IC if they wish, as long as they've completed the necessary qualifications (Land Navigation, JFO, GL).

#

And, so far in the 2 years the unit has been running for, we've found it strikes a good balance between everyone being able to do what they prefer in-game, whilst still having some structure and, as a bonus, showing appreciation and experience.

pastel spade
#

Yea, I seen that set up in a couple units. I personally just see random ranks like that as a extra burden for admins. Like I think I only had community meetings for major decisions such as server migrations.

#

Like optimal ranks to me is.
FNG, Regular, Vet, CO, Reserve.

feral plaza
#

Your gonna lose your community when everyone isn't on the same page

#

Its like with casual units

#

Ive heard issues with them is that sometimes leadership is more serious than the playerbase meaning people get upset and leave

#

That can still happen in semi serious and serious units

#

I understand sometimes you gotta give but you can't let someone else make all the shots

trim quarry
#

In the Unit I've been apart of (Coming close to 3 years now) we do Historical stuff so people who want to 'lead' do a lot of stuff out of game to like manage attendance of the guys who came and meetings on what to train on next because we're portraying an entirely different Units across the WW2 period (Mechanized Infantry to Infantry or to Airborne Infantry so far).

Ranks after Recruit are really for showing time in the Unit so someone who has been here a long time is X rank while someone who is around for 2-3 years or so is Y rank.

pastel spade
#

I definitly like on your own time trainings.

#

Shooting skills, AT, Medic, so forth all done on our own players time. We have SP missions for it. Only time we do a actual trianning is new group orientation, were we just explain mods, what to expect in each op, so forth.

#

Occassionally we will do Op prep missions for a much fancier op. Like "There is armor but you just have Anti-Material Rifles" were you need to do some training to have fun.

limpid lintel
#

We provide trainings in small groups and log the time for it, which is translated into tiers of how proficient you are (together with OP hours in that role).
It's far from perfect and our system is being updated constantly (with input from the community), but it works for 90% of the time.

#

Because if we would ask the avarage player if they are able to do something (by training themselves), it usually results in a 'yes' while actually not being able to do it at all...

pastel spade
#

"Who is a good pilot"
*Entire server - "Yes" 😄

#

Think the hardest thing training peeps on is mechanized warfare.

#

Trying to keep their APC from being a tank and hanging back and acting like a ground CAS.

limpid lintel
#

"ground CAS" is indeed the best way to describe it, especially the Air part 🤣

feral plaza
#

well I mean mechanised stuff is pretty difficult

#

you gotta balance it so that your zeus doesnt get annoyed at how well its doing

limpid lintel
feral plaza
#

If nothing goes wrong then wheres the fun in all of it

#

Sometimes people do exceptionally well and your left with a small part of the team that felt accomplished whilst the other team was left walking around and mopping up

feral plaza
#

you know its interesting, unit leaders can be some of the most hit or miss people out there

#

also interesting how easily people are being used

#

I remember a unit I was in, one of the unit leaders wasnt that great at leading

#

his pretty much only merit was recruitment

#

and how many people he could successfully bring in

#

turns out the other unit leader didnt like how inactive he was and how he did stuff when he was active so he effectively pushed him out of the unit

#

whilst yeah this guy was incompetent at everything but recruitment, you could have atleast given him a cushy corner where he cant do any damage and where you reap the benefits

trim quarry
#

Generally people should "specialize" in a few things or hand out keys to the castle if you look at it that way. If not whoever keeps all the keys (perms/jobs) to themselves will get burnt out.

prime nest
#

Do y’all’s units tend to have dedicated pilot slots, or do you switch it up on an op to op basis

feral plaza
#

yeah I mean you wanna keep the people who keep the unit alive

feral plaza
#

a good pilot can make or break the op