Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

This is an idea that's fascinated me for a long time. I wish OFP had some kind of "badge" system, with a series of 'challenge' missions that test players' skills in certain areas, and award them badges upon completion of the challenges. Whichever 'badges' the player had earned would be visible on their profile (or somewhere easily accessible to other players), providing a snapshot of the player's skills.

For example, one test (I actually put this together in the editor one time, I was bored) could put the player in an A10 with no mavericks, only the 30mm cannon. The player would then have to strafe and destroy four T80s while avoiding their co-axial MG fire. In the Cold War Crisis campaign you never spend enough time in an A10 to need to use the cannon, really, and in coop missions I've played involving fixed wing aircraft, I've seen more than one player simply eject from their perfectly fine A10 once they used all their mavericks, not even bothering to try and hit anything with the 30mm. It takes quite a bit of skill to line up a target for a run, hit it, have the self control to pull up before it's too late, and then dodge the MG fire from below. Anyone who can manage it is a good pilot, and if doing so was a test that awarded a badge to whoever completed it, you'd know right away that person should be the one to fly the A10 in a mission like Desperate Measures.

Actually, after all that raving on, I just described achievements. They fit the bill. Of course, there's always the possibility of falsifying such information, cheating to achieve them, but what would be the point? Anyway, just throwing that out there. In a game like OFP with so many skills to be learned, such a system would serve as a useful gauge of who's suited for what roles in multiplayer games where no one has time to wait around for people who don't know what they're doing. I'm sure we're all aware of how annoying it can be when someone takes an advanced and crucial role that they're really not prepared for.

Eh, not really. It's technically similar, but the reasons for it are different.

Like I said before, in a game as multi-tiered and complex as OFP it would be useful to see, at a glance, what other players are good at. And, at the least, the tests would provide much needed practice doing the things the average player doesn't spend a whole lot of time doing. I think that, all things considered, the official campaign didn't include all that much training beyond the basics. And, no doubt, some people probably haven't even done that.

And I know there's no way to do it, it'd have to be hardwired into the engine, it'd require new UI elements, etc. But there's no harm in talking about ideas in abstract.