(Review Completed) [SP] Angelina's Reign of Terror

[DonKnottts]

I want to thank Sui and The Architect for their helpful comments.  I have made changes that I wanted to share, so I posted the new version 1.06 in my original post at the top of the thread.   Any thoughts are welcome.

Changes include:

- Added an overview shot of Angelina with a border.
- changed the date to 1984
- enhanced the intro sequence, mostly added additional loons and rearranged them
- reorganized the briefing, clarifying and adding content
- added weapons selection, including a couple sniper rifles
- added radio chatter from Bravo squad
- changed resistance fighter's weapon to an FN FAL to reduce the temptation to shoot & loot (I experimented with event handlers, but ran into some problems.  I need to work with those some more before I can implement a real solution there)
- added some hand motions to the girl with the AK74 at the beginning
- changed save sequence to 0-0-0, maintained infinite saves so that the less talented can play
- spiffed up the triggers and waypoints
- added some random east soldiers on the hill to keep snipers on their toes
- tweaked the T80 reinforcement response for added realism
- made it possible for Angelina to escape: ten minutes after West troops are spotted her nerve breaks and she runs for it.  Hopefully this time pressure will make a difference to the sluggish players.
- added a "Loose" outro depicting Angelina's escape (if I can implement a punishment ending for resistance-slayers, this outro will also have to play -- otherwise it will play the win outro)
- numerous other tweaks

I kept the two snipers for each team.  The way I see it is that a green beret team in-country has to have snipers on hand, and they work in pairs (a spotter & a shooter).  But frankly I just think they look cool.  I still need to do Angelina's psych evaluation.  I will be doing research in my wife's DSM to make sure I get the paranoia thing right.  Does anyone know her last name?  Where she comes from?  I don't even know her rank.  I didn't want to randomize her location.  Making it so that she can escape seemed like a big step to me -- in that if you kill her while she's running for her UAZ it's not clear how Guba finds her bullet-riddled body lying on the second floor of city hall in the outro sequence.  I suppose some helpful Russkie non-coms dragged her back up there to keep the crows away?

I am hearing from most of you that killing Angelina is too easy.  Chucking grenades, sniping through the window, or blasting away from the turret of the BMP all can take her out.  I find that the easiest way of all is to carefully shoot a LAW right through the window of Troska's office from a fair distance due South.  But I'm not sure that this gameplay problem can be overcome.  Maybe I could set up multiple randomized fixed sites for her to show up in, all inside the city hall building?  I'm still not sure if that would work.  Maybe a different sort of Angelina, more flighty and wily, would react more quickly and move around the town in unpredictable ways, adding more of a challenge?

Killing the resy loons, killing the resy loons, killing the resy loons, what is wrong with you people?  Don't you know that they are on our side?  I will figure out this AddEventHandler "killed" issue I swear to God.  It's just going to take some more experimentation on my part.  Hopefully the weapons selection option will take the edge off.  BTW, in my version of Nogova in 1984, the Resistance often carry FALs which they got from British army surplus, in addition to the more common AK74s swiped from the Reds or armalites donated by the USA.

Architect -- your wife is unfazed when you are gunned down because she is a serious badass.

I am concerned about the difficulty level.  I like these things short and light, but I know you all are hardcore.  Keep the comments coming and I will hit that balance in due course.

Thank you all again.

- DonKnottts

[macguba]

The vital thing with difficulty level is to get it where you want it to be.     The think is to avoid making it heavy and hard when you want it to be short and light, or vice versa.   The community at large has in my view an emphasis on difficult missions which I'm not too keen on:  personally I would like to see more slightly easier missions.

Randomising Angelina's position and having her run away are both good ... don't let them get away from each other though.   If she's random we need time to find her.    Altertively, you could make her harder to kill:  put a medic in the building or put her on a slow setdammage 0 loop.   She should be pretty high skill.    Making her setbehaviour combat will at least make her lie down and prevent the sniping approach.

As for the end scene, add a pair of medics without guns standing side by side beside her, that might just imply that they have brought her in.

[Calamity]

Hey DonKnottts,
Don't change the difficulty level! If I don't get killed a bunch of time's it's not worth it! I like to just run around with no concern for my safety. (Goes back to my Quake and Half-Life days in the Death Match Arena!)
I'll download and test the new version when I get home tonight, but I had a quick thought about forcing the player to go Inside, and preventing random Law rockets or sniper rounds from destroying the building and taking out Angelina.

In simplest terms, don't place her in the building until the player enters.
I would do it like this:
Place Angelina on the far side of the island.
Create a trigger inside the building.
Group the trigger to the player. (When Vehicle Present)
When the player enters the building the trigger fires a script "Randomize_Angelina.sqs"
Create a second trigger Conditions: Not(Alive Angelina_guard) and NOT(Player_inThe_house). Actions, Loose.

Use the "Camera.sqs" to move around the Building and get some positions where you want Angelina to appear. The value you are looking for will be the _camera CamSetPos [x,y,z] value. Save the [X,Y,Z] Values for each of the locations.

The "Randomize_Angelina.sqs" script should look like:
Player_inThe_house = true

Angelina_loc = Random N
:N being the number of locations you've chosen

? Angelina_loc >= 1 : Angelina setpos [X1,Y1,Z1]
? Angelina_loc >= 2 : Angelina setpos [X2,Y2,Z2]
? Angelina_loc >= 3 : Angelina setpos [X3,Y3,Z3]
.
.
.
? Angelina_loc >= N : Angelina setpos [XN,YN,ZN]

exit

With this if the player kills the guard before he enters the building, the mission will end with a loose and Angelina will have "escaped". When the player enters the house, Angelina will appear at one of the pre-defined locations you have chosen. This also eliminates the question of the player killing Angelina en-route to here car. It is presumed that she escaped. No moving bodies inconsistency either.

More to come...

[Calamity]

Awe, Ya got rid if the turkey! I liked the Turkey! But yes, I see you put a border around your new Pic. Good deal.
Downloaded the mission, played through it. Again, Probably my lack of experience as a reviewer, but I didn't see much wrong. (I'm much better at solving clearly defined problems I guess.) Gona play through again and see what I can screw up.
Actually I do have a suggestion for the intro. As our Hero approaches the bike the music score ends. The lack of music is deafening. I might suggest another score, since the second score is the right mood for the scene. The Motorcycle departing should have an up beet. Something that hints to the player that their going to do something about the atrocities. A wrong is going to be righted. Something like that…
The weapons selection is good. All most too good! I feel like we were slamming you for no weapons choice, now I'm slamming you for too much choice. Ah well, balance right? I may be suffering from my original prejudice with regard to giving the player older, down-level weapons. That way there are some hard choices to make. That may be good for a campaign, But I can see why you'd want to leave it this way for a SP mission, Keeps em' coming back. I'm not helping here am I. Enough on that.
The in game music, Good for empty spaces, but there should be a way to shut it off when the action starts.
Went to try out that sniper hill. Got a nasty surprise when an enemy sniper came over the rise and shot me! Didn't matter anyway. My visibility was turned down enough that I couldn't see much further than the first row of houses anyway. And even they were shrouded in mist and haze.
I decided to move into town, as I got closer I was then able to make out Angelina, Yep I took her at 250 meters. Really do need to make the player go into to town. That randomized location script and building trigger will really force the player to move in.
I should turn and burn right now, but I just can't resist a slaughter. So I hang out and pick of some more guys. I even once move through town burning and pillaging. It's what I do, it is my gift… :~}
But eventually I run back to base, None the worse for ware. Get in the jeep and head to the alpha site, sorry I mean "The Secret Hideout" (Too much SG1).
Mission ends on the high road. I never do get to see the hidden base.

Ok, Now that I've played through…
I ripped the mission and took a peek inside. DonKnottts I bow to you. You did all that camera work with triggers. Not a single script! I could never do it that way I'm too lazy. But it looks just like a Bis mission in that regard. To that effect, if you would like some one-on-one assistance for the Scripting suggestion I made, Please feel free to shoot me a mail.
I'll have to agree with previous posts. With the availability of a sniper rifle and Angelina always in the same spot, an easy 250 Meters away, the mission is just too easy. You've put a lot of work into that town, I know I've intentionally went in there for the mayhem factor, and a crafty player will never see it. This defeats the re-playability of the mission.
Either eliminate all the sniper rifles, I'll pause here until the cacophony of objections dies down, or find a way to force the player into town. I go back to the suggestion in my previous post.
Also, I'm an obliterator; once an objective is complete I like to linger around until I can't find any one else to kill. Keep this in mind. I don't know how many other players are like me. But the availability of a super weapon, in this case the BMP, and a target rich environment, is too good to pass up. You can either find a way to force me out before I turn everything to ash and trash, Choppers and 6 tank platoons coming into town would do the trick. Or, you could provide a reward for clearing the town. A second, hidden objective…
Just a thought.

Calamity out…

[DonKnottts]

Thank you Calamity and MacGuba for your excellent input. I have incorporated additional improvements and I feel that this most recent version is about as good as it's going to get.

This is a slightly plainer version of the mission -- I deleted some bird songs and cars and got it in under 50k for posting here.  The final (mission depot) version will have all those things put back in.

I have included a primitive event handler in the resistance guys to punish the player for killing them.  I did this without scripts, simply by having the event handler increase the rating of the "killer" to an unfeasibly high level.  Only the player will trigger the ending with a high rating level: on the others (i.e. enemy) it should have no real effect.

I have included no such event handler in any non-resy civilians, because the player would probably not be able to avoid killing them accidentally with all of the ordnance flying around the town.

I made the resy-killer ending the same as the "loose" ending, with the idea that the killing of a resistance guy results in a scrubbed mission and Angelina's escape.  Otherwise, killing the resy loons would result in the player seeing the "win" outro which would be bad as I intended that to be a reward for the effort of killing Angelina.

It is possible to kill Angelina FIRST, and then kill the resy loons, and *then* see a logically impossible outro cut scene of Angelina escaping.  Therefore, I had to add a special message that informs the player in this circumstance that skilled Soviet medics have revived Angelina from her apparently dead state.  It's cheesy, but I must admit it appeals to my sense of the ridiculous, which has obviously guided my efforts in the creation of this mission.

With help from my wife and her DSM-IV I added the CIA psych eval of Angelina to the briefing.

I realized that given the year in which this mission occurs, 1984, if the player is succesful in his mission then the events of the main OFP Red Hammer storyline are impossible. Angelina could not have gone on to appear in all those cut scenes if she was killed in 1984!  Therefore, the events of the official campaigns occur in a universe in which the player of my mission fails in his assassination attempt.

Inspired by your comments I have added a randomizer that puts Angelina in a different position each time you play.  Most of these are within the city hall building, but others are nearby so that the mission cannot *always* be solved by a quick LAW shot thru Victor Troska's office window.  This should also prevent hilltop sniping from always working.

However, Angelina does not roam about, nor does she have any healing abilities.  I thought these would make the mission too difficult, especially given the time constraints.  I want to avoid having the player scour the town looking for Angelina, which could get complicated if she played the standard loon trick of sliding ghost-like into a solid building and hiding there.

At this point I want to make sure that the difficulty is balanced, and that there are no more obvious bloopers.  Thank you all again for your comments!

- DonKnottts

[Calamity]

Donnottts,
Looking Good.

Intro:
I see you've done something with the music score. It didn't have that period of dead air. The music faded out in a real nice way… Very, on-queue. I guess I'm trying to say; it fit real nice this time. Good job!

Overview.
I think it's complete enough…  :~)
I must admit, When I read the letter home I had to get up and share it with my wife. Had me in stitches with that one.

The Mission
Now, since I've reviewed this mission before I won't go into too much detail…

Went with the XMS this time. Started out, didn't try to kill any Resy guys. Just ran through he mission. Approached Lipany from the north. One of my guys eliminates the BMP that rolls out.
I die a few times as I approach the main Avenue into the center of town. Got a couple of sentries there that are a real pain in the ass. Good placement.
Finally take them out and take over the courtyard to the east of the main Avenue. Hold that with my guys as I pick off the sniper on the roof. As I'm running back and forth between the street and the courtyard, some of my guys by it. Before I know it I'm just down to my sniper. I tell him to hold for me while I advance through an ally way to take out a Shilka. Die a couple of times here as well. Got some guys in the courtyard that keep picking me off as I shoot and scoot. But I preserver and finally make it into the back yard of Angelina's house. Heal up and grab a couple of satchel charges. There's some dudes still running around the back yard area, so I'm obliged to send them on their way. Finally get the back yard secured, so I move around to the front and take out a Shilka that's taken up position in the courtyard.
I do a quick savegame and then storm the house from the back yard. By this time, though, a T80 has taken up position on the other side of the courtyard and a couple of times he takes me out with his .50. And the  couple of times I don't die I get the message Angelina has fled. Now how can that be? I never saw her run out. So once more I go back to my savegame point and instead of running into the back yard like I've done every other time, I turn around and look back to the courtyard. What do I see running away, weaving and dodging in that tight little green skirt? It's Angelina! I drop to my knees and start to follow her in my sights. It's s so wrong to shoot a woman in the back. I hesitate on the trigger. Then I remember those innocent civilians she had executed and the steal returns to my fingers. BLAT, BLAT, BLAT… But Angelina is a wily one. I've missed my mark! Flick the selector to full auto and Rat-a-Tat-Tat-Tat-Tat I go. Finally after I empty my clip I look out and see…
Nothing. No body, no smoking crater, nothing. Then I get told. Angelina has escaped. Crap I'm a bad shot!
So I reload to the save point. Spin around, and this time I'm looking down the barrel of her gun!
BLAT, BLAT, BLAT, it goes, and I'm the off to meat my maker.
Third times the charm though. I spin around. She didn't see me. 50 meters out, zigging and zagging. I wait until she is going to slide under my dot. Then I pull the trigger. It was already on full auto, so four rounds fly down range, cutting the air with their supersonic shock wave. Only to end in a resounding Splat, Splat, psewt, Dink.
Angelina goes stiff as the bullets enter. Then she crumples to her knees. As the last breath of life leaves her lips she topples over onto her face.
Time to make my exit. I commandeer that BMP, My favorite way out of town. I take a couple minutes to indulge myself and pick off some troops that are still running around, before I take my leave. I get back to base, hop into a jeep and drive off down the road. Mission ends. And all is well. Except that I lost every guy in my squad!

After Action Review
The mission feels balanced to me. I tried to look at it as if I was playing for the first time. As such I got killed a bunch of times. But that's how I judge a good mission. It has game play, as long as you're forced to go into town. I didn't explore Angelina's various placements too much though. I'll have to try again at a later time.
All in all though, I think your right, it's done.
Though in the future you might want to release a version that uses BAS Deltas & Rangers…. Just a thought

Calamity out…

[DonKnottts]

Thank you all so much for your help!

I have posted the finished mission to the mission depot.

No changes from v1.10 except thanked you guys in the credits.

Keep on rockin'!

- DonKnottts

[The-Architect]

If no-one else gets to it first I'll review it when I get round to it. There is a rule however that states I have to work from the oldest to the newest missions, so don't be phased if it takes a while.
 


Edit: This mission has been reviewed and is available from the Missions Depot.