Yeah I kinda like the style of telling a small story from an op I played to help set the tone. After all this knowledge is just as combination of my own experiences, so to directly reference a mission I derive knowledge from seems like a good idea.
I’m part of the player base in TSB and yes when it comes to common knowledge, it needs to be explained quite a bit because well, we’re pretty brain dead in all honestly XD. Some more than most but however, this community is one of the best communities I’ve personally been in. There’s so much fun happening all the time, and I absolutely love it. Liru and other Zeuses in TSB actually listen to the player base feedback and it’s great!!
Strange how a lot of these tips could and should be applied to most team based games especially tabletops. I as a DM use these a ton when it comes to balancing games and ensuring player fun. Keep up the good work Liru!
New Zeuser for a casual, small community. Thanks for putting this together to go over some rules you follow! I can see some examples in what I do that are both "bad" and "good," and you putting those into words do help me understand further. Love the content, keep it up!
I really enjoy this style of videos, I got into arma by watching people Zeus on TH-cam, and I now Zeus for a small group of friends, so being able to hear advice from people who have been doing it for so much longer than I have is super helpful!
Thank you Liru for all your hard work eh. You inspire many people to look at arma that never would have otherwise, while bringing entertainment to many that already play the game. Many people owe you a beer mate, so cheers from Canada!
I am really interested in seeing how you would handle certain scenarios in Zeus. I heard a while back on how you and your viewers had really good Zeus ideas but the playerbase was so braindead you couldn't do it haha. I'd love to see it!
@@LirutheLanceCorporal It would be funny to see a simple trade off of resources between AAF and CSAT (fuel trucks for ammo etc.), that goes wrong when CSAT instead decides to arrest AAF for War Crimes. Or a hostage situation. It would probably unravel but it would be interesting.
@Liru How do you tackle campaigns? or maybe to narrow that down, how do you tackle the specific problem of escalating the story with fading player interest over an longer campaign? E.g. If you have an op with a playerbase driven insurgency, that is supposed to become a bigger and bigger threat for the Government forces over the course of a campaign, but in reality that Campaign is losing players, how would you have the insurgency still be a bigger threat, even if they are less men each phase?
Campaigns are a topic I have planned to tackle in a video, insurgency/open world campaigns is a *second* video topic because balance is a major factor in that component
@@LirutheLanceCorporal Praised be! The Syndicat campaign a few years back was a huge inspiration, both for me and many-many players on the wide spectrum of the Arma 3 communities, I believe. This idea of starting small and picking your battles (much like the Arma 3 vanilla campaign) really defines the essence of infantry for me. I will be looking forward to your video and thank you for being so vocal in support of the player experience! PS! Any chance you would tackle the technical side of setting up a server in some future video?
Nice video keep it up. For the nxt video try using examples from you streams or other videos that shows what you did good/bad as a zeus and what you learn from them or what feedback you got from the playerbase.
Yeah I'm working on making it more themed, this was just a pilot to get my thought on paper because this went from a video about convoys to this through 9 scripts.
Thanks for taking the time to do this little video. Honestly, 20 minutes for just broaching such a topic is not surprising to me. I Zeus for 4-5 close friends and that is pretty much it. It's pretty easy to tailor content to them, since I know them pretty well. I would mention, as a person whos day job involves dealing with the public, common sense is no where to be found in large enough groups. Trust me, it's not just Arma 3, or even video games, it's everywhere. It being the lack of common sense. Or, to be more correct, it's not that they lack common sense, it just isn't used. People don't really think a whole lot. To put it into Arma terms, packing a crap ton of nades for a mission, and not using any, or just 1 or 2. An asset unused it an asset you might as well not have. Honestly, I can more relate to being Dungeon Master for D&D. It actually involves a lot of the same things. Including preparing a lot of content and the players somehow sidestepping all of it. I find a that something to keep in mind, is that the job truly relies on others having fun. You can have fun in your own way, seeing how someone or some group approaches a problem, but really, they come first. That can be very, very hard sometimes, especially when they (the playerbase) do something particularly stupid. A common scenario is, how would I react, keeping this story immersive and real, but not kill them all for stupidity? Leaving a way out for them is what I find to be the best option. Making sure they know they can back off. Make a point to not cut off their escape routes. That sort of thing. This can be as simple as letting them know, they can just simply surrender. I then take them to an interrogation area they can escape from, or a badly designed holding area. This can also be as complex as letting them hide. Making sure enemies don't agrro on hiding people. That sort of thing. With D&D, it wouldn't be the first time I've ignored a good roll of the dice on the part of NPCs so that the group isn't demolished. Really, you do a pretty good job. I do find with Arma that people don't think open-minded enough, if only because they aren't sure what is or isn't allowed. If the mission is to dress as a civie and distract a guardpost/checkpoint, they will do that, but they would never think of it on their own, even if there was civilians they could get clothing from. (This is tailored from my own experience with a smaller group though, where I can interact with the players as an NPC(s) much, much easier.)
Point by point: 4-5 people is an great number to zeus for, you dont have to really care about server resources and you can put as much detail into things as you want, and with basic ace medical or a simple medical script you can have a ton of fun, so I admit I envy you in that position :P You're not wrong about the common sense statement, I saw it a lot in college, and honestly its one of the main reasons I like to stay inside. People are...well...a whole other beast... I'd equate zeusing to being a DM in DnD hands down, and yeah, in both, you're going to have players do dumb stuff XD And that last paragraph, I agree, but it's usually because after a month playing in a place they develop a mindset to fit a playstyle for there, so if a zeus throws a curve ball in then it can really screw with everyone. That and the second half of "if only because they aren't sure what is or isn't allowed" is something i;ve seen a few times...
@@LirutheLanceCorporal Well, if you envy me being able to do lots of small details, maybe do a couple of small ops sometime? *Shrug*. It could be something different for you. Though your own expectations of what you need to do might limit what you do. The box of the mind one attempts to think out of and all that. Same things that limit playerbase thinking on larger ops I see you do affects us all. You do what you do since that is what you do. If you think it could be fun, go ahead. Don't feel like you have to stream it or anything, just enjoy yourself. People are... um... people. I myself don't go out much, but I find myself disgusted over how many act. I totally get liking to stay inside in part because of that. Take care Liru, and enjoy life. Who knows how long we all got, eh?
I had a flashback to an milsim unit I was in *Won't name it* where I was running in an engineering squad. Any op we did, we just sat in the back of the trucks waiting for stuff to do. I recall going two or three ops before quitting and then later to hear they dissolved the engineers and spread them into the infantry fireteams. They "tried" to give us stuff to do after we complained, like demoing stuff or clearing routes of mines but what actually happened is the armored assets would roll through and do it instead, which was something you mentioned of the support doing the work and everyone else playing walking simulator. They're still around, and I don't know what has changed but it left a taste in my mouth that's kept me from trying communities again. That and work has made it near impossible to find a group that does things when I'm actually free instead of when I'm at work or asleep haha!
Yeah having detachments sounds cool until you try and give them stuff to do, at that point most mission makers completely forget about them lol. Players are a limited resource. Every player slot should be spent on something important for the sake of the overall playerbase experience. Wasted potential and slots just leads to a duller experience. Heh, I could do a whole thing on EOD slots... seen a few good uses of them... and plenty of useless ones...
Liru, as a Dnd DM, i wholeheartedly agree with what youve said here. Its really easy to get upset or railroad the player choices and fun in order to push the narrative or script of an op or (in my case) dnd campaign that youve spent hours on. And at that point you have to put player fun over your fun and not hold it against them.
Honestly I've used this video to give advice to DM/GMs for non-ARMA RPGs. While in this video you're focused on ARMA a LOT of this really applies to those other games too.
Honestly anytime you make something for others to enjoy the same philosophies apply... just communicate to people and work together... not hard but a lot of people never think about it XD
Eyyy liru I’ve been watching your channel for a while and you’ve inspired me to Zeus and I’ve wanted to for a while. Thank you. I would Zeus if I had the computer to do it.
Liru, I started watching your videos and being blown away by how cool Arma 3 was, the missions, the tactics, the zeus. I've been playing ever since I first say you back in 2016. All i want to say is thank you. Can't wait to see the rest of the Zeus Encyclopedia.
I'm not going to tell it, but I will reference parts of it here and there. I wanna keep the slandering as little as possible because I'm not that type of person and it brings the wrong types of viewers to a channel. That being said, it's still important to know some parts in order to draw knowledge from peoples' mistakes so you do well not to repeat them.
I just recently started Zeusing for my unit, and this was definitely helpful. I think I stumbled on to a few of these things by pure accident because I spent so much time on the ground with the unit that I just got a sense for what they like, so ... yeah, I'd definitely say that spending time on the ground with your players is *essential*. Disclaimer, I am -- again -- a new Zeus, so ... take my opinion with the appropriate pound of salt.
I only play ARMA 3 as a player, but all this is very good advice for running Role Playing Games as a Game Master. Talking to your players, finding out what they enjoy, and getting that to them is key for designing campaigns that people want. Some people may want in depth story and tightly scripted events, others may just want to fight goblins in a cave, and one style of gameplay that works for one group won't work well with another, and feedback is the only way you'll be able to tell if you're hitting the right notes or not. It's an informative and useful video regardless.
I'm really glad you're making videos like this one, This video has helped me think about what to think of when making a mission and what to do when hosting. I look forward to more videos like this one.
Honestly I'm just going to try and pass my knowledge to everyone who wants to listen, too many times I see zeuses, including myself, get so close minded and stagnant.
For the support assets and infantry portion, along with not having support assets take over the mission I ask zeuses try to spread the action across the infantry units. Its frightingly common for one squad to get all the action across the entire op, while the other squad/squads see nothing and only hear distant gunfire. Its also common for this to persist across multiple ops as well. I see it a lot where for 5 or so ops a single squad will be in constant gunfire from start to finish, while the other squads are sitting and chatting. Maybe the zeus will send an enemy team to take potshots and ultimately die in a minute, but for a two hour long op that's not enough. Not only does this make it boring for the squads sitting around, make it seem like your favoring that one squad, but can it also tires out the one squad getting all the action and make it no fun for them as well. It may be difficult but just the attempt to draw back on that one squad, and send more to the others would the op loads more fun for everyone. I have another essay about my gripes with the playerbases and their attitude towards zeuses and their ops but that's more directed at a specific few.
I think I just want to repeat your point that you made in the video, but in caps. TALK TO YOUR PLAYERS. We have a language for a reason, use it! Tell your players what kind of Op you want to run and ask them if it will be fun for them. If not -- tweak it or scrap it if it doesn't fit the bill at all. This is very important part of Op creation before you even get to creating it.
The Ops you make are Epic, and I love watching Drum (Jester) Heller, he makes your ops fun to watch and the way you always seem to come up with a twist to the tail is brilliant, keep up the good work, I hope I can become as good as you some day
Only thing i can add to this as a small community Zues, is realize that your mission can change based on the number, and composition of your playerbase. If you build a mission that is already meant to be difficult/tackled by 15 people, and you only get 6 or 7 one day, the mission in terms of enemy strength and composition can change. It doesn't have to be set in stone, and go "oh, theres only 6 of you, good fuckin luck" and throw them to the wolves. its on of the huge advantages of actively Zues'ing, use it
I am coming from a German community and i am zeusing since i got into there a year ago. I made a lot of well balanced missions but not a really good or great one till i changed my "angle of attack". I started to include the method of giving the Players a set in which they can move however they want. E.g: We did a Zeus op with only six players and i went on the server one hour before the players just to prep the mission. What happend was that the players outmanouvered my entrenchments and walked around them. Not what i have entended but it was a good move so what i did was nothing. They ended up assaulting the main objective and did a good job overall. So here is my hint: Just be reactive. If you built a template and the players manage to outplay what you did and what you built dont punish them. Praise them in the briefing and let them roll. Edit: www.sol-diers.com/
Man that streamer note of prioritizing the community fun over your stream fun just reminds me of when i was with this one arma community. Been trying to find a new semi-realism arma group to join .
@@LirutheLanceCorporal it's less serious and a tad more meme'y but it touches on many simillar topics yours does. I'm not an Arma player but I love your ops. Keep up the good work!
Ehh unless someone directly references me I wont be responding to any arma videos, Arma's a sandbox and there are multiple ways to do things, each way varied based on the playerbase and server, so really there is no single best way to do something, hence why I said at the beginning of this video to take it as advice.
On a semi related note.. what do you do if you are learning to zues, and you have fun making mission.. but you dont have a playerbase or community to share it with?
Camo Dude In TSB, we do something every other Monday called ‘Potluck Zeusing’ where a random few players will receive the opportunity to Zeus an hour-long op for the community with an experienced Zeus helping make sure that no critical mistakes are made and that everything runs smoothly. Liru normally hangs around for the first of said potluck ops, and I highly recommend checking it out whenever Potluck missions pop up on Mondays. The idea itself is more or less aimed at giving normal players a chance to Zeus, and receive feedback on said zeusing in a scenario where other players who didn’t get to Zeus do still get a chance to listen to the feedback and apply it to their own Zeusing skills.
How do you feel out about how much the players can handle, mission by mission? It's easy to overestimate, "they have 3 AT ammo, they wont miss ALL of them" and end up with an unkillable tank. The opposite being a definite possibility as well, leading to boredom
You know it's actually not that hard if you take it mission by mission: see who shows up, what slots they pick, then the first firefight be a test. Throw in a flanking action or two, maybe some arty, see how they react, then adjust the rest of the AO with zeus to cater to not only them but the difficulty you want to be had throughout the mission. Eventually when you'll get a good baseline across multiple ops.
Are you guys still taking people to join the Ops? I've been itching to do a giant Op like you do. I host small sessions with friends and zeus for them here and there, but the manpower is just lacking. Great video btw, I do like how this dually kinda works as a viewpoint how to see Arma. One of my buddies hate Arma because the game isn't like Squad or Battlefield, but it's only because he doesn't understand the greater scope of the game. With how it isn't just one sole thing, it's what the little community wants. Surival, Rp, Halo, Star Wars, WW2, Vietnam, Coldwar, ect are all routes you can have. Or just do them all at one point, Arma is truly a amazing sandbox game.
If you want a large scale manpower op TSB is decent but we only average out ~30-40 most of the time. If you want something truly large scale you'll have to find a specialist group, like the 700th does 70+ warhammer ops on Saturdays or the 506th has ~60 person milsim ops. You could also do BIA has 60 person ops that anyone can jump into every Thursday and Sunday, with Thursdays focused on modern day or Vietnam while Sundays are WW2. FK also does ops every day with 40-60 guys and they take in people, however since both of those communities have pretty hardcore medical settings i'd just make sure you know what you're doing before you join either.
@@LirutheLanceCorporal 30-40 isn't bad at all to me :) To me, that's 'large scale' compared to what we do haha I usually at best have 4 friends to host for. You guys seem more laid back than hyper milsim which would be more up my alley because I'm not looking for something that's super serious.
Oddly enough, Luetin actually now gets more views reading Warhammer fan fiction for people too lazy to look it up themselves. His old ops were educational. I'm sure he's finally happy. If anyone wants to stalk the swamplands with aliens, feel free to try this. Quick little mission I made. steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2116505210&searchtext=alien+outsiders
He was a great zeus that made one of the best playerbases through his use of mortars to keep us on our feet and for what tools were available in 2016, the ops were some of the best you could have... that all changed when he hit 100k subs...
Thanks for the Video. I have one topic: Please try to keep the number of Addons to a minimum. Not each Detail needs to be correct, if it saves me downloading 10GB of AddOns
I must ask, how do you maintain getting feedback after an OP if you feel a sort of negative vibe? In my case I ask around for both positive and negative, but I rarely get much in debrief. :)
I've recently been getting some of my friends into arma, so I have been zeusing operations for them. Its a much smaller group than the scale most of your ops are, but this video has still been a good help. Are you still working on making more?
honestly playing/watching Ops, from the ground or zeus, is a good start, I get plenty of inspiration from them myself. I do plan on getting to dissecting mission types and concepts but I need to lay my framework first so I can reference it later, so it'll be a few months
So in my experience dming and zeusing are the same thing. Make the op simple enough for a child to understand trust me the players will make it seam harder. And have good pacing. Good pacing with simple missions in my experience = the most fun.
Pretty much, however one phenomenon i've seen in zeusing compared to DMing is playerbases that otherwise do really well have "Bad days" where their normal tactics and logic go out the damn window and things grind to a halt, so you gotta know when to rebalance on the fly or stay firm
@@LirutheLanceCorporal yeah unless they are like super hard-core if they are having a bad day I would give them a few friendly assets. I mostly did space marine ops until work got in the way but that was always fun
I've never played with anyone else on arma but I'd say I'd be a decent zeuse because of my creativity and the way I prefer air not being able to hit their targets easily even if its a armed vehicle.
Creativity is a pretty important part, but compared to everything else a Zeus/mission maker needs, it's something that shouldn't be focused on in the beginning. I'll get to that later ^_^
So the beginning feels like liru is 66 and drinking whiskey while telling war stories to his grandchildren. XD
Yeah I kinda like the style of telling a small story from an op I played to help set the tone. After all this knowledge is just as combination of my own experiences, so to directly reference a mission I derive knowledge from seems like a good idea.
@liru the lance corporal I love your videos!
I’m part of the player base in TSB and yes when it comes to common knowledge, it needs to be explained quite a bit because well, we’re pretty brain dead in all honestly XD. Some more than most but however, this community is one of the best communities I’ve personally been in. There’s so much fun happening all the time, and I absolutely love it. Liru and other Zeuses in TSB actually listen to the player base feedback and it’s great!!
Strange how a lot of these tips could and should be applied to most team based games especially tabletops. I as a DM use these a ton when it comes to balancing games and ensuring player fun. Keep up the good work Liru!
DMing is pretty much like zeusing!
New Zeuser for a casual, small community. Thanks for putting this together to go over some rules you follow! I can see some examples in what I do that are both "bad" and "good," and you putting those into words do help me understand further. Love the content, keep it up!
I really enjoy this style of videos, I got into arma by watching people Zeus on TH-cam, and I now Zeus for a small group of friends, so being able to hear advice from people who have been doing it for so much longer than I have is super helpful!
Thank you Liru for all your hard work eh. You inspire many people to look at arma that never would have otherwise, while bringing entertainment to many that already play the game.
Many people owe you a beer mate, so cheers from Canada!
I am really interested in seeing how you would handle certain scenarios in Zeus. I heard a while back on how you and your viewers had really good Zeus ideas but the playerbase was so braindead you couldn't do it haha. I'd love to see it!
If you have anything in mind feel free to ask
@@LirutheLanceCorporal It would be funny to see a simple trade off of resources between AAF and CSAT (fuel trucks for ammo etc.), that goes wrong when CSAT instead decides to arrest AAF for War Crimes. Or a hostage situation. It would probably unravel but it would be interesting.
@Liru How do you tackle campaigns? or maybe to narrow that down, how do you tackle the specific problem of escalating the story with fading player interest over an longer campaign? E.g. If you have an op with a playerbase driven insurgency, that is supposed to become a bigger and bigger threat for the Government forces over the course of a campaign, but in reality that Campaign is losing players, how would you have the insurgency still be a bigger threat, even if they are less men each phase?
Campaigns are a topic I have planned to tackle in a video, insurgency/open world campaigns is a *second* video topic because balance is a major factor in that component
@@LirutheLanceCorporal Praised be! The Syndicat campaign a few years back was a huge inspiration, both for me and many-many players on the wide spectrum of the Arma 3 communities, I believe. This idea of starting small and picking your battles (much like the Arma 3 vanilla campaign) really defines the essence of infantry for me. I will be looking forward to your video and thank you for being so vocal in support of the player experience!
PS! Any chance you would tackle the technical side of setting up a server in some future video?
Nice video keep it up.
For the nxt video try using examples from you streams or other videos that shows what you did good/bad as a zeus and what you learn from them or what feedback you got from the playerbase.
Yeah I'm working on making it more themed, this was just a pilot to get my thought on paper because this went from a video about convoys to this through 9 scripts.
Thanks for taking the time to do this little video. Honestly, 20 minutes for just broaching such a topic is not surprising to me. I Zeus for 4-5 close friends and that is pretty much it. It's pretty easy to tailor content to them, since I know them pretty well.
I would mention, as a person whos day job involves dealing with the public, common sense is no where to be found in large enough groups. Trust me, it's not just Arma 3, or even video games, it's everywhere. It being the lack of common sense. Or, to be more correct, it's not that they lack common sense, it just isn't used. People don't really think a whole lot. To put it into Arma terms, packing a crap ton of nades for a mission, and not using any, or just 1 or 2. An asset unused it an asset you might as well not have.
Honestly, I can more relate to being Dungeon Master for D&D. It actually involves a lot of the same things. Including preparing a lot of content and the players somehow sidestepping all of it. I find a that something to keep in mind, is that the job truly relies on others having fun. You can have fun in your own way, seeing how someone or some group approaches a problem, but really, they come first. That can be very, very hard sometimes, especially when they (the playerbase) do something particularly stupid. A common scenario is, how would I react, keeping this story immersive and real, but not kill them all for stupidity? Leaving a way out for them is what I find to be the best option. Making sure they know they can back off. Make a point to not cut off their escape routes. That sort of thing. This can be as simple as letting them know, they can just simply surrender. I then take them to an interrogation area they can escape from, or a badly designed holding area. This can also be as complex as letting them hide. Making sure enemies don't agrro on hiding people. That sort of thing. With D&D, it wouldn't be the first time I've ignored a good roll of the dice on the part of NPCs so that the group isn't demolished.
Really, you do a pretty good job. I do find with Arma that people don't think open-minded enough, if only because they aren't sure what is or isn't allowed. If the mission is to dress as a civie and distract a guardpost/checkpoint, they will do that, but they would never think of it on their own, even if there was civilians they could get clothing from. (This is tailored from my own experience with a smaller group though, where I can interact with the players as an NPC(s) much, much easier.)
Point by point:
4-5 people is an great number to zeus for, you dont have to really care about server resources and you can put as much detail into things as you want, and with basic ace medical or a simple medical script you can have a ton of fun, so I admit I envy you in that position :P
You're not wrong about the common sense statement, I saw it a lot in college, and honestly its one of the main reasons I like to stay inside. People are...well...a whole other beast...
I'd equate zeusing to being a DM in DnD hands down, and yeah, in both, you're going to have players do dumb stuff XD
And that last paragraph, I agree, but it's usually because after a month playing in a place they develop a mindset to fit a playstyle for there, so if a zeus throws a curve ball in then it can really screw with everyone. That and the second half of "if only because they aren't sure what is or isn't allowed" is something i;ve seen a few times...
@@LirutheLanceCorporal Well, if you envy me being able to do lots of small details, maybe do a couple of small ops sometime? *Shrug*. It could be something different for you. Though your own expectations of what you need to do might limit what you do. The box of the mind one attempts to think out of and all that. Same things that limit playerbase thinking on larger ops I see you do affects us all. You do what you do since that is what you do. If you think it could be fun, go ahead. Don't feel like you have to stream it or anything, just enjoy yourself.
People are... um... people. I myself don't go out much, but I find myself disgusted over how many act. I totally get liking to stay inside in part because of that. Take care Liru, and enjoy life. Who knows how long we all got, eh?
I had a flashback to an milsim unit I was in *Won't name it* where I was running in an engineering squad. Any op we did, we just sat in the back of the trucks waiting for stuff to do. I recall going two or three ops before quitting and then later to hear they dissolved the engineers and spread them into the infantry fireteams.
They "tried" to give us stuff to do after we complained, like demoing stuff or clearing routes of mines but what actually happened is the armored assets would roll through and do it instead, which was something you mentioned of the support doing the work and everyone else playing walking simulator.
They're still around, and I don't know what has changed but it left a taste in my mouth that's kept me from trying communities again. That and work has made it near impossible to find a group that does things when I'm actually free instead of when I'm at work or asleep haha!
Yeah having detachments sounds cool until you try and give them stuff to do, at that point most mission makers completely forget about them lol.
Players are a limited resource. Every player slot should be spent on something important for the sake of the overall playerbase experience. Wasted potential and slots just leads to a duller experience.
Heh, I could do a whole thing on EOD slots... seen a few good uses of them... and plenty of useless ones...
I recently discovered your channel and been enjoying a lot of your videos, especially the older ones.
1 tip of mission making
Do not leave vehicles that players are to destroy unlocked, many a helicopters were stolen
Liru, as a Dnd DM, i wholeheartedly agree with what youve said here. Its really easy to get upset or railroad the player choices and fun in order to push the narrative or script of an op or (in my case) dnd campaign that youve spent hours on. And at that point you have to put player fun over your fun and not hold it against them.
Just wanted to say awesome work on the ops and video man , keen to see more 👌👌
Honestly I've used this video to give advice to DM/GMs for non-ARMA RPGs. While in this video you're focused on ARMA a LOT of this really applies to those other games too.
Honestly anytime you make something for others to enjoy the same philosophies apply... just communicate to people and work together... not hard but a lot of people never think about it XD
Eyyy liru I’ve been watching your channel for a while and you’ve inspired me to Zeus and I’ve wanted to for a while. Thank you. I would Zeus if I had the computer to do it.
Liru, I started watching your videos and being blown away by how cool Arma 3 was, the missions, the tactics, the zeus. I've been playing ever since I first say you back in 2016. All i want to say is thank you. Can't wait to see the rest of the Zeus Encyclopedia.
Yeah i'll probs change the ordering of the encyclopedia but we'll eventually get everything and more out of it.
I Zeused an op this week was probably a bit hard, playes said they had fun and at the end I wanted to tear gound command, 2ic and the RTO a new one.
tell the whole story, where the biggest Zeus at the time, fell!
Luetin lost it. Even stopped a interesting horror op because his fraps stopped and hiscomp kicked him out for a couple of minutes
I'm not going to tell it, but I will reference parts of it here and there. I wanna keep the slandering as little as possible because I'm not that type of person and it brings the wrong types of viewers to a channel. That being said, it's still important to know some parts in order to draw knowledge from peoples' mistakes so you do well not to repeat them.
@@LirutheLanceCorporal fair enough!
refers to luetin. Community was BSO but he didnt seem to enjoy in or got burned out
I just recently started Zeusing for my unit, and this was definitely helpful.
I think I stumbled on to a few of these things by pure accident because I spent so much time on the ground with the unit that I just got a sense for what they like, so ... yeah, I'd definitely say that spending time on the ground with your players is *essential*.
Disclaimer, I am -- again -- a new Zeus, so ... take my opinion with the appropriate pound of salt.
I only play ARMA 3 as a player, but all this is very good advice for running Role Playing Games as a Game Master. Talking to your players, finding out what they enjoy, and getting that to them is key for designing campaigns that people want. Some people may want in depth story and tightly scripted events, others may just want to fight goblins in a cave, and one style of gameplay that works for one group won't work well with another, and feedback is the only way you'll be able to tell if you're hitting the right notes or not.
It's an informative and useful video regardless.
Great video very informational would love to see more
i don't play Arma but i love have your zeus videos in the background, stay sane my favorite Arma youtuber
I'm really glad you're making videos like this one, This video has helped me think about what to think of when making a mission and what to do when hosting.
I look forward to more videos like this one.
Honestly I'm just going to try and pass my knowledge to everyone who wants to listen, too many times I see zeuses, including myself, get so close minded and stagnant.
For the support assets and infantry portion, along with not having support assets take over the mission I ask zeuses try to spread the action across the infantry units. Its frightingly common for one squad to get all the action across the entire op, while the other squad/squads see nothing and only hear distant gunfire. Its also common for this to persist across multiple ops as well. I see it a lot where for 5 or so ops a single squad will be in constant gunfire from start to finish, while the other squads are sitting and chatting. Maybe the zeus will send an enemy team to take potshots and ultimately die in a minute, but for a two hour long op that's not enough.
Not only does this make it boring for the squads sitting around, make it seem like your favoring that one squad, but can it also tires out the one squad getting all the action and make it no fun for them as well. It may be difficult but just the attempt to draw back on that one squad, and send more to the others would the op loads more fun for everyone.
I have another essay about my gripes with the playerbases and their attitude towards zeuses and their ops but that's more directed at a specific few.
just listened to it as a podcast while making a mission. nice to listen to
Dude im the same way, I like to listen to streams or videos in the background while I make stuff
I think I just want to repeat your point that you made in the video, but in caps. TALK TO YOUR PLAYERS. We have a language for a reason, use it! Tell your players what kind of Op you want to run and ask them if it will be fun for them. If not -- tweak it or scrap it if it doesn't fit the bill at all. This is very important part of Op creation before you even get to creating it.
The Ops you make are Epic, and I love watching Drum (Jester) Heller, he makes your ops fun to watch and the way you always seem to come up with a twist to the tail is brilliant, keep up the good work, I hope I can become as good as you some day
Well said Liru. Well said.
I love watching your vids and you always give me something to do when im down keep up the amazing work from thrbeno on twitch
im glad for this vid i cant wait to see more i might bring some thing s up to my zues
Only thing i can add to this as a small community Zues, is realize that your mission can change based on the number, and composition of your playerbase. If you build a mission that is already meant to be difficult/tackled by 15 people, and you only get 6 or 7 one day, the mission in terms of enemy strength and composition can change. It doesn't have to be set in stone, and go "oh, theres only 6 of you, good fuckin luck" and throw them to the wolves. its on of the huge advantages of actively Zues'ing, use it
I am coming from a German community and i am zeusing since i got into there a year ago.
I made a lot of well balanced missions but not a really good or great one till i changed my "angle of attack".
I started to include the method of giving the Players a set in which they can move however they want. E.g: We did a Zeus op with only six players and i went on the server one hour before the players just to prep the mission. What happend was that the players outmanouvered my entrenchments and walked around them.
Not what i have entended but it was a good move so what i did was nothing.
They ended up assaulting the main objective and did a good job overall.
So here is my hint:
Just be reactive. If you built a template and the players manage to outplay what you did and what you built dont punish them. Praise them in the briefing and let them roll.
Edit: www.sol-diers.com/
Yay 501st footage as a current 501st SL this makes me happy
There...is no 501st footage in it though that's TSB my guy XD I deleted all of my 501st stuff years ago after a...dispute...
Liru the Lance Corporal so around the 10:50 mark that’s TSB? Looks like Acklay from the 501st
And the 11 minute mark to?
Man that streamer note of prioritizing the community fun over your stream fun just reminds me of when i was with this one arma community. Been trying to find a new semi-realism arma group to join .
If anyone is from the 101st airborne ranger regi. Hmu. Love to catch up some time. Miss my platoon
NGL I used to do it to during 2017-2018. My community had to pull my head out of my ass for me to realize it heh
This video is quite simillar to Rimmy's "ArmA 3 is not real life". I really like it!
huh, haven't seen that one yet, ill have to give it a look
@@LirutheLanceCorporal it's less serious and a tad more meme'y but it touches on many simillar topics yours does. I'm not an Arma player but I love your ops. Keep up the good work!
@@LirutheLanceCorporal at first i thought its gonna be a respond to Rimmy's video tbqh
Ehh unless someone directly references me I wont be responding to any arma videos, Arma's a sandbox and there are multiple ways to do things, each way varied based on the playerbase and server, so really there is no single best way to do something, hence why I said at the beginning of this video to take it as advice.
Good video!
On a semi related note.. what do you do if you are learning to zues, and you have fun making mission.. but you dont have a playerbase or community to share it with?
Join one. Many communities will let you trial as a Zeus!
Camo Dude In TSB, we do something every other Monday called ‘Potluck Zeusing’ where a random few players will receive the opportunity to Zeus an hour-long op for the community with an experienced Zeus helping make sure that no critical mistakes are made and that everything runs smoothly. Liru normally hangs around for the first of said potluck ops, and I highly recommend checking it out whenever Potluck missions pop up on Mondays.
The idea itself is more or less aimed at giving normal players a chance to Zeus, and receive feedback on said zeusing in a scenario where other players who didn’t get to Zeus do still get a chance to listen to the feedback and apply it to their own Zeusing skills.
How do you feel out about how much the players can handle, mission by mission? It's easy to overestimate, "they have 3 AT ammo, they wont miss ALL of them" and end up with an unkillable tank. The opposite being a definite possibility as well, leading to boredom
You know it's actually not that hard if you take it mission by mission: see who shows up, what slots they pick, then the first firefight be a test. Throw in a flanking action or two, maybe some arty, see how they react, then adjust the rest of the AO with zeus to cater to not only them but the difficulty you want to be had throughout the mission. Eventually when you'll get a good baseline across multiple ops.
Common sense is rarely common in ArmA community. I couldn't agree more.
Are you guys still taking people to join the Ops? I've been itching to do a giant Op like you do. I host small sessions with friends and zeus for them here and there, but the manpower is just lacking.
Great video btw, I do like how this dually kinda works as a viewpoint how to see Arma. One of my buddies hate Arma because the game isn't like Squad or Battlefield, but it's only because he doesn't understand the greater scope of the game. With how it isn't just one sole thing, it's what the little community wants. Surival, Rp, Halo, Star Wars, WW2, Vietnam, Coldwar, ect are all routes you can have. Or just do them all at one point, Arma is truly a amazing sandbox game.
If you want a large scale manpower op TSB is decent but we only average out ~30-40 most of the time. If you want something truly large scale you'll have to find a specialist group, like the 700th does 70+ warhammer ops on Saturdays or the 506th has ~60 person milsim ops. You could also do BIA has 60 person ops that anyone can jump into every Thursday and Sunday, with Thursdays focused on modern day or Vietnam while Sundays are WW2. FK also does ops every day with 40-60 guys and they take in people, however since both of those communities have pretty hardcore medical settings i'd just make sure you know what you're doing before you join either.
@@LirutheLanceCorporal 30-40 isn't bad at all to me :)
To me, that's 'large scale' compared to what we do haha
I usually at best have 4 friends to host for.
You guys seem more laid back than hyper milsim which would be more up my alley because I'm not looking for something that's super serious.
Oddly enough, Luetin actually now gets more views reading Warhammer fan fiction for people too lazy to look it up themselves. His old ops were educational. I'm sure he's finally happy.
If anyone wants to stalk the swamplands with aliens, feel free to try this. Quick little mission I made. steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2116505210&searchtext=alien+outsiders
He was a great zeus that made one of the best playerbases through his use of mortars to keep us on our feet and for what tools were available in 2016, the ops were some of the best you could have... that all changed when he hit 100k subs...
good info for zeusing. I will reccomend this for my friend who zueses
Feedback:
Good Video
End Feedback :)
Nice video.
Are there more of these?
or a playlist or something?
Thanks for the Video. I have one topic: Please try to keep the number of Addons to a minimum. Not each Detail needs to be correct, if it saves me downloading 10GB of AddOns
Now we know the correct way to Zeus.
I must ask, how do you maintain getting feedback after an OP if you feel a sort of negative vibe? In my case I ask around for both positive and negative, but I rarely get much in debrief. :)
I've recently been getting some of my friends into arma, so I have been zeusing operations for them. Its a much smaller group than the scale most of your ops are, but this video has still been a good help. Are you still working on making more?
yes, it's just been slow due to my time management skills
Where are good places to get inspiration for mission ideas?
honestly playing/watching Ops, from the ground or zeus, is a good start, I get plenty of inspiration from them myself. I do plan on getting to dissecting mission types and concepts but I need to lay my framework first so I can reference it later, so it'll be a few months
Who does he refer to as his predecessor? What’s that story?
So in my experience dming and zeusing are the same thing. Make the op simple enough for a child to understand trust me the players will make it seam harder. And have good pacing. Good pacing with simple missions in my experience = the most fun.
Pretty much, however one phenomenon i've seen in zeusing compared to DMing is playerbases that otherwise do really well have "Bad days" where their normal tactics and logic go out the damn window and things grind to a halt, so you gotta know when to rebalance on the fly or stay firm
@@LirutheLanceCorporal yeah unless they are like super hard-core if they are having a bad day I would give them a few friendly assets. I mostly did space marine ops until work got in the way but that was always fun
I've never played with anyone else on arma but I'd say I'd be a decent zeuse because of my creativity and the way I prefer air not being able to hit their targets easily even if its a armed vehicle.
Creativity is a pretty important part, but compared to everything else a Zeus/mission maker needs, it's something that shouldn't be focused on in the beginning. I'll get to that later ^_^
god reading the twitch chat on the side made me realise what kind of fucked up stuff we talk about
yeah twitch chat is...special... more special than any playerbase I have to be honest...
@@LirutheLanceCorporal well im bigmeesdog so i wonder why
Liru when you say 506th do you mean 506th IR
Probably, IR would mean infantry regiment and I think that's the same thing XD
@@LirutheLanceCorporal I watched the rest of the video and confirmed it I saw you with CPT Drumheller
eVerY sIngle oNe?
First
WHY DO PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY "FIRST" HOLY SHIT
I kinda like it, its a small way people show they care about my content XD
Test: if you do read every single one. respond to this.
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