Hey guys!
Leave your feedback for the "Hostage Situation" by [user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/9116490/avatar/small.1400145727.png” name=“Price”]9116490[/user] in this topic. Share your experiance and thoughts.
Nice try [user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/9116490/avatar/small.1400145727.png” name=“Price”]9116490[/user] though. I’ll say that IMHO you’ll never make this work because people do not relate with OOTW (operations other than war) concepts well. It’s not just CNTO, it’s player base in general. There is no incentive which exists in real life and only true punishment in this game is when you get killed where you really feel it.
In the 2nd round terrorists started shooting without even trying to negotiate. The ratio of attack vs defense was still too low for attack (in reality it be more like 50 vs 10) and the behavior of players was unlogical (shooting at police without any confrotation, police shooting even when hostages were in danger etc).
Nice try, but I think there is no chance to make this work like you’d want. It’s simply something that players can’t relate with.
It was great, it needs tweaking to be frank, and there needs to be an incentive for the kidnappers not to open fire on the cops the second they see them. As for the concept itself, I think it worked really well.
A major issue is that you can’t really simulate such situations in Arma. A death of a hostage hasn’t got nearly the same amount of gravity as it would in real life. Here the hostage-takers could have executed them all without the cops changing their stance, while in reality even a single death is a giant escalation and usually a point of no return at which point overwhelming force is used (like highway said a lot of operators storming in a race against the clock to save as many people as they can).
However I do think similar missions should be tried in the future. Maybe not only hostage rescue but others like bomb defusal, rapid deployment, high risk warrant service, barricaded suspect, etc.
I really liked this mission but I agree with Highway that this is never going to work in it’s intended way. Most people here come to play for tactical gameplay with a laid back style. This requires some roleplaying but this mission takes that a little further and probably beyond what most are used too.
Therefor I’d love to play this mission again, but I would suggest that you remove the GM and the AI and all that. Just leave it bare as a hostage situation with clear goals for each team. That’s the part that it seemed like people really enjoyed and I think that will give the mission a lot of playability.
The concept is interesting & could definitely work I believe. The OPORD was fairly clear on the goals to achieve but, as Anders & Highway said, it requires more role playing & less "shooting & killing" to work properly.
As said in the short debrief, the peace between both sides is very important & I would have liked to see more on the negociations for means of escape. Like exchanging hostages for a car etc…
As for the hostage executions, I thought they were misused. As a hostage taker, killing an hostage should be the last resort & only works if a threat is issued first. If you kill hostages without Bluefor knowing about it & especially why you are doing it, it loses all purpose.
IMHO it could potentially work if you gave both sides a reason to let the hostages live; ie. if 2 or more of them die, everyone loses. That would make the captors keep them safe & attackers not target them. You can then pile other rules on top to make hostages valuable and not just something that should be stashed away while everyone kills each other.
I disagree with the "nice try but we are not that kind of group" sentiments. It could work, with clearly defined goals. With the best will in the world the objectives for both sides were very ill defined. You have to put the rules of the operation in the briefing and it is even better if there are defined areas on the map with markers and triggers that help players know what is going on. A Zeus briefing at the beginning and what seemed to be a discussion and definition of objectives on the fly in the map screen is not going to work, we tried our best and I think we did very well considering but I sat through half a dozen questions waiting and it took until the end for us to have a rough idea what the win conditions were for both sides.
Split the mission into phases and make sure everyone knows what is happening. Saying after the fact "the terrorists didn’t negotiate!" when it wasn’t a predefined objective or condition is crazy. As was pointed out it is almost impossible for either side to win. Not because the basic idea was bad but because the objectives for both sides were not clearly and simply defined. We didn’t have objectives we had a small screenplay.
Still I think we are a pretty easy going group and we did do our best and try role play the situation. Even without knowing what the objective really was I had a lot of fun.
I think some kind of scoring system would really help - terrorists get e.g. 1000 pts for each terrorist that escapes, but lose 200 for each hostage they kill (makes you more likely to get hunted down afterwards). Police gain 1000 for each hostage that survives and lose 200 for each terrorist that escapes. I think it’s important that both teams can win, they aren’t competing against each other, each team should be trying to get their own high score rather than beating the other team.
I think it was just about the proportions. If SWAT were double the numbers of terrorists, then they would think twice to kill any hostages. any hostage killed is bad for them because once all of them are gone, SWAT will just own them. This was still doable with 8v13 terrorists could easily kill all the swat with the defensive positions they have.
Yes, scoring system definitely. Remove negotiations altogether and turn it in hostilities immediately. Negotiations are just waste of time because it was shown both times people want to kill each other badly. Any killed hostage points for opposite side and use hostages only as a human shield. That’s how R6 basically works. Huge points for police if they capture a hostage, smaller if they kill a terrorist etc…
Punishment of both sides is not a good idea, it just means a weaker side can get a draw by shooting them. Even create awkward situation where terrorists are winning and have to protect hostages in order to win.
Ratio of police vs terrorist is not good, there should be more police by at least 2:1. Being defender is easier.
And no Teddy, we’re not that kind of group. 
[quote user_id=“13688253” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/13688253/avatar/medium.1433248519.jpeg” name=“Highway”]
And no Teddy, we’re not that kind of group. :)[/quote]
Funny how we have lots of people asking for these kind of missions and saying they enjoy them…
But seriously I think it is one of definitions. A clear goal, communicated to everyone, and many of our players enjoy it or at least appreciate the variety compared to more simple military operations. Sometimes one is in the mood for something slightly more involved than "shooty bang bang".
Gotta agree with Highway. i wasn’t there for the mission, sadly, due to a Family emergency…but Roleplay has always had a few ‘takers’ in CNTO (and Arma groups in general) and a majority who don’t. My only suggestion would be to ensure that those who are going to take leader roles are going to roleplay it, and those who aren’t in leader roles keep their trigger fingers still while people explore an option that doesn’t require ‘shooty-bang-bang’.
I think a mission like that would work better, as Highway suggested, with a higher ratio of Police. Think of the situations where hostages are taken and apply it:
Examples could include:
1: A heist or other action gone wrong and now the ‘bad guys’ want to have something to negotiate with knowing that if they don’t negotiate they will die (Police forces most the time can just keep coming with better weapons, gear and special equipment).
2: To make a political statement.
In the first case, I think you’d get a nice bit of tension built as the roleplay would focus around negotiating for a helicopter to come and pick up the baddies for the escape. Any action from the terrorists outward against the police of perimeter would be cause for an escalation…you’d get tear gas and smoke and a breach by ERT units (SWAT style)…so the reaction has to be in place. Kill a hostage without reason and there’s another cause for escalation.
I think the whole thing has potential, but its a hard concept to pull off that would run the risk of being boring without the injection of the Shooty-shooty everyone draws to. Like they say: You gotta know your audience.
Forgot to say I agree with you Highway the ratio was way off, that was obvious from the moment we saw the role selection screen. I was slightly surprised that once the fighting began the terrorists didn’t pick a compass direction and force their way out against a divided blufor force as both times it probably would have worked. I guess they were role playing the situation rather than just gaming it.
It was very good PvP action. Really liked it. PvPs make me feel differently opposite basic arma coop servers where it s like relax, our coop against AI it s like being carefull and PvPs it s for me like fight for life so Im trying not to do any lethal mistake.
At first like a terrorist was simply holding all the time south-west (?) direction untill the run to the chopper, where really had the feeling like it will not work, bc we had just one hostage alive and had not anything to threaten second side. When I heard the shots and watched dead of our member, rather did run to the safest position I knew about with the thinking to shoot 2-3 policemans and than run away from building towards sea. When standing on the stairs, there was so dark, that I just shoot any movement I saw after some incoming flashbangs and firefight in which other group member died, and fired all magazine into darkness and took cover for reloading. After came back on stairs very quick tried to surprise and exchanged fire with dark siluette in corner, just saw body falling on ground and I got died. I made a mistake that behind me was a lot of light so I was like "sillueting", could use a lightstick at least. If there was not the tripwire I would maybe just tried to escape but was not sure if Im able just jump over it by "V" like in some arma mods is possible jump over things.
At the beginning like everybody run like 2 kilometers in the house I think There were the tripwires, so with this knowledge I rather stayed on one place except the moment I had briliant idea to look if we have friendlies on upper floor. One second before reaching end of the steps I stoped and looked down on the tripwire, It could end for me in that moment but stopped in the last second. Less lucky was later Tropical which maybe was the same courious like me. Maybe we could get some M14 mines which are not so lethal but in bigger numbers as the Villa was quite a big and it could give us better choice where to stay.
Second round like a policeman, we had insertion by heli with yellow team on closeby hill. Which was too close and come probably to eye on opposite group, so If they watched from windows they could easily estimate where we are. This unwelcomed attention cost life of our FTL. I have to say it was surprisingly good shot. Later we moved to side doors and entered building. (btw I do not have idea what second FTL was telling me near the wall, it sounded like keep volume down for me, so I just use the Tab to lower my voice) In first contact second in command of our FT died. I just was moving very slowly using flashbangs and granades from dead FTLs and switched later to channel one to know about other teams. In corridor one terrorist run on us and got shot one other died by granade or by 2. FTL. I was just watching the guy with the suite on him and he got no weapon so, I could not do anymore - like to arrest him bc we had no "handcuffs" or at least me.
I generally like competitive PvPs but it just have to stay coordinated team play. To shoot tens or hunderets of AIs I just go to public servers, here I want the pure tactical aspects of Arma, which I have feeling CNTO is really good in. So there should be somebody who tell us that this is Role Play mission, Not a Team Deadmatch and repeat it moretimes ideály to be sure everybody understands. I read the briefing like 3x times so, the rules was clear for me, and I think to read the mission briefing 2x-3x in 5 minutes before mission while being on TS is not big deal. I had sometimes feeling in the past like ppl do not read the briefings and they rely later on knowledge of leaders.
I had fun in this more tactical PvP than just trying to shoot each other PvP types. Would like to see some actions like this in future. :thumb:
Ok let’s see how a well played round would look like. First, you need so many police that terrorists would stand no chance against the police (which is realistic). Yes they might kill some but in the end, game over. Second, negotiator would need to buy his time and trade hostages for something. While this might sound interesting ‘on paper’, entire SWAT team would die of boredom together with terrorists. Realistically these negotiations will last more than just 10 minutes and you’ll get 2 amused players (negotiator and terrorist head) and a lot of those who contemplate hitting abort and going off.
This reminds me of the time I wanted to setup a spy game in Arma (ex community) and it ended everyone just wanting to shoot each other.
This is war, eh?
Second round could have turned completely around in an interesting way. I was demo terrorist in the basement. A tripwire placed in such a way that that the police cannot reach the charge to defuse it and if it goes off all hostages die. You cannot crawl over it, nor vault, a grenade will not set it off and if it does all hostages die. I as demo terrorist was the only key to rescue them. If I died: Game over for hostages. A stalemate situation or maybe rather "check"-situation laying ground for negotiation for escape vehicle although the situation was completely escalated in the hotel. I intended to shout this situation and warn SWAT about the tripwire both to save my own life and progress in the mission.
Too bad it didn’t work out due to another factor: Another explosive. I had linked Price (I think) to a dead-mans-switch linked to another explosive in the basement. Also rigged to kill the hostages. I should have defused it when I realised that it was only destructive to the situation, but still leaving Price with the though that he had that life-line card at hand. Price died -> boom all 4 hostages in the basement and me dead. A shame really. Could have been so good.
Oh and BTW. Add a tool-kit to the demo terrorist. I’m not sure that I could’ve defused the tripwire anyway, making it all pointless.
Explosives are excellent to maintain such status quo’s: One unknown terrorist carries a dead-mans-switch and a remote detonator. Escape vehicle is made ready. A timer is set on the explosives. When the terrorists go for the vehicle, a number of SWAT (enough to get all hostages out in time. One each fx.) rushes in to save the hostages against the clock. If one hostage in the group is killed restrained or bargain is not held up: remote detonate. If all terrorists are killed: dead-mans-switch. Look-alike Batman: The Dark Knight.
This is a status quo that is maintained regardless of role-play. The motive to win keeps the situation in check.
There are two kinds of CNTO player. Those that read the briefings. And those who just want to shooty bang bang.
I mean yeah. I was leader os SWAT in the first round and as much as I tried to negociate it felt a bit weird. I tried to please the terrorists in order to save hostages (in the first part when i still had comms with my leaders) but since some terrorists were there for the shooty bang bang it was kind of hard. That I think was because they didn’t see the threat. Their goal was surviving and that could be done either by complying with me and maybe falling into my trap that I setup or maybe just trying to kill us. Since it was 8v13 the odds werent so stacked against them so they chose the second approach. Then I lost my fireteam leaders and communications went to shit and the situation was too far escalated for a renegotiation.