(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[Fragorl]

For example with my no.2 who thought his formation position was 30m ahead of me

;D

some undefined location where they vanish in a puff of setPos.

;D

I must have been drinking again.    Never trust a post made by me after 1am.    Or rather, trust only those since I'm pissed and therefore writing what I really think.

;D ;D

Yes, I'll second that, the mission must be good indeed if we're quibbling over the lodge and the availability of medical attention. Ignore my complaints on that score; its my fault for deciding on an armoured assault where injury is inevitable, yet not retreiving the BMP ambulance. As for the bum medic, ah well ofp pot luck, the game's thrown me another curveball. Should be able to manage just fine. I'll make sure I use a tank with a healthy crew & bung the others as infantry/support crews.

[Planck]

Actually by this time the 2 sides are fighting each other and all the little camps at the various villages will be mostly deserted.

If I recall correctly most, if not all those camps had a hospital tent.

So, you can always drop by the nearest village that has a garrison camp, for medical attention.

If the newer version has a guard still in position in these villages you will just have to 'pop' him off first.


Planck

[THobson]

a first aid tent would have been good at the lodge as well

In fact I have already put a MASH first aid box on the wall inside the ruin.  It works just like a Field Hospital.  It is next to the relocated ammo crate (out of the rain) and is clearly visible behind Irena in the cutscene - so there should be no excuse for missing it.

The lodge is begining to look more and more like a base, so I had better re-think those civis.  I am not yet with the idea that they should go somewhere else, after all this is meant to be a refuge and I have just got them there, perhaps getting them to lie down clearly hiding, or perhaps have someway they can interact with the player later in the mission, or maybe they can head for the first base that the player manages to clear.  Hmmm worth thinking about.

Actually by this time the 2 sides are fighting each other and all the little camps at the various villages will be mostly deserted.

If I recall correctly most, if not all those camps had a hospital tent.

Indeed.  Actually it is all.

If the newer version has a guard still in position in these villages you will just have to 'pop' him off first.

 ;DSingular?

[GI-YO]

Havent played this for a while so im back in straight at the deep and, massive fog and rain attack 1 meter visibility. After taking out that squad i drive back to the lodge and save, then head south down the main road but get wasted by a T80 I can neither see nor hear! This fog is hindering play cause you cant see a thing and you drive right into the arms and tracks of the baddies. I think this has been mentioned before but i would suggest looking at this, the fogs great for infiltrating onto the island, but most coastal fog clears once the sun comes up, maybe you could have it overcast with a little fog, but not the whiteout im experiencing at the moment.

[XCess]

How about have a "base" position you move onto after collecting the civilians, refual rearm and all tha sheet.  Have one of the last civs tell you about an almost unguearded area u could use a strong base - maybe even have a landed helo with crew on the other side of the base so if u kill em off before they get in u can steal the helo. Another sub mission idea maybe.

dunno,jus an thought

[ACF]

I am not yet with the idea that they should go somewhere else, after all this is meant to be a refuge and I have just got them there, perhaps getting them to lie down clearly hiding, or perhaps have someway they can interact with the player later in the mission, or maybe they can head for the first base that the player manages to clear.  Hmmm worth thinking about.

No guarantee that this is worth thinking about, but why not an objective to move the assembled civvies (who don't want to stay and fight) back to your 'boat' so they can reach your island?  It gets them out of the way and may provide opportunities to develop some characters a bit.  Maybe there could be consequences if it's not dark/foggy.

Structurally, it would add a rare linear element to the mission if there are specific things you need the player to see or do (I'm thinking things like information)

To keep it addon-free, you could cheat with the boat itself and finish it at a clifftop cutscene.

While I'm here, another opinion: I haven't seen much of the Northron base as it's been foggy when I've been passing. I did like the cramped nature of the Southron base (so much I stayed there; though I was dead) and it seems a good idea to have bases of different character for more challenging gameplay.  Stamenov (the copper) with the amateurish king-of-the-castle physical defenses and Andropov (Spetsnaz) with a more professional firepower-based defense (snipers, etc.). He's got the fields of fire for it  and it would help keep the object count down.

[THobson]

GI-YO

This fog is hindering play cause you cant see a thing and you drive right into the arms and tracks of the baddies

This is now fixed.  The weather pattern remains but the maximum level of fog is lower and it changes more slowly.  The frequency of rain coming and going is pretty much unchanged (it is a showery time of year), but maximum overcast level, fog level and rain intensity all reduce as the mission progresses.

XCess, ACF:

All ideas are worth thinking about, I will certainly think about them and thank you for offering them.  I find it best just to let things like this soak for a while, then a result emerges.

@ALL
I feel I am now getting to the point though where if I am not careful I might start to diverge from my original design intent.  Up to posting this mission here I had given little thought to fun, or playability.  My intent was to create (within the limitations of OFP) as reasonably a realistic world as I could, and then just let the player loose on the island to figure out what they want to do and when to do it.  I did also want it to be smooth and polished.  The suggestions so far have helped enormously with the smoothness and polish (or will when they are all done) as well as helping with the fun and game play.  But now they are in danger of diverging.  I have tried to make sure that everything that happens on the island happens for a reason (eg: kill the lead vehicle of a convoy and infantry will come and investigate; kill the whole convoy and that side will occupy 3 in retaliation, a side has its fuel bases destroyed - tough, its units don't get refuelled there, even synchronising the waypoints used by the northron group that attacks Stamenov's base with the southron attack on Andropov's base is justifiable in the context of the northrons being more professional.  The recent change of linking the weather pattern to the progress of the player is my first real break with my original intent, however, one of my original design premises was that most people would hate the mission and so I was only writing it for me and perhaps one or two other people in the whole world - the response has caused me to re-think what I am trying to do here.

Why did I write all that?  I don't know I just started writing and it came out, and having written it I might as well post it.  I guess it is a reflection of some lingering discomfort on changing the weather model.

Thoughts welcome.

[macguba]

You are moving from creating a game world, which a player may choose to inhabit for a while, to creating a mission which a player might enjoy.     However, there is a great deal of overlap between the two.    Is rescuing the civvies world-creating or mission making?    Your discomfort at changing the weather model is perfectly understandable, but remember that your original weather model was arbitrary anyway.    

If you want to keep away from mission making, and on the side of world-creating, then make the weather changes dependant on the time of day rather than the player's progress.   The two are of course correlated to some extent.    

[THobson]

Is rescuing the civvies world-creating or mission making?  

That is a good point and now I think about it I remember having a little discomfort over that at the time, but not any more.  So it looks like this is going to be a mission - I will save the mission free world another day.  Maybe when I retire.

[rado1265]

If I understand you TH (and I'm not sure), you've came to a point when the beta testing affects your mission so much, that you're not comfortable with it any more.  Well, this is one of the "traps" that is hidden inside beta testing, and that's why I have a little reserves about beta testing and their meaning; where can I (the beta tester) help the mission maker, where's the line which I (the beta tester) shouldn't cross in order not to interfere to much in the mission's concept...

Just stick to your own ideas, you can't please every beta tester on this world, and that's I think you trying to do (you're just too kind, bro ). Some will not like YOUR mission, but many of us just can't wait to play it.  

Regards, karantan

[Planck]

TH

I played your 'film'... ;D.....from beginning to end.

I enjoyed it the way it was, despite my fps.

If it had been foggy all the time I would still have played it.

The only time the fog caused me to stop and wait was when I was going to St Marie in my tank.
It is very easy to miss and go right past when it is foggy, unless you can see the road.
I only waited until such time as I could see the road again.

The way I see it this mission is fine, and only needed minor tweaking to clear up small anomalies.


Planck

[ACF]

Yes - remember it's far easier for us to 'solve' others' problems than the ones in our own missions!

But, good news: maybe everyone can have their cake and eat it.  If the civilian rescue is a mission within the world, but the world will still carry on if the civilians aren't rescued, the mission should appeal to the broadest spectrum.  I'm thinking especially of the replay factor - second time around a player might want to get straight into the war of the world rather than the story.

If the civvies are rescued, then yes, the player ought to get some tangible reward and/or more stars, but if the war is dependent on the civilians being rescued then the quick conflict isn't an option.  In it's current position, the lodge fits well into either situation as it and your core team are on the direct route from your insertion point to La Trinite.

Anyway, your gut feeling's got you this far with the mission so keep going with it.

[THobson]

Thank you all for those comments.  They are very supportive and helpful.  I appreciate it.

[dmakatra]

OK, I'm going to test this 'cause every one else has done it (cheap mission, *wink wink* ;D ) . I'm such a sucker for group pressure.

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

[Fragorl]

@ THobson

I would agree with the others. The mission/world is spectacular as it is. I can see the enormous amount of work that has gone into it, as I (think I) have said before.

In my (humble) opinion, avoid the 'mission' side of it and stick to the 'world' side of it (like you have) as much as possible. Do things because they make sense, and are realistic, not because they help the player. When you do this, and the player should develope an intuitive feel as to what actions will have what consequences. For example, as you just mentioned, blasting the fuel depots causes the convoys to be stranded. Shooting one side in close proximity to the other triggers a retalitation. Upscaling the conflict will lead to an all-out assault on the other side.

A few ideas. I really wish that there were more aspects to the mission that stood up and shouted to the player that this is a living, breathing world. It is, I know. But the impatient player will sit in e.g. Arudy for 10 minutes with no sign of life and think 'oh well, nothing's really going on here.' Beta testers here know that there is, because they have all played through the AA thoroughly, possibly followed some of your other forum threads (like 'A long run'). The sort of behaviour, where convoy guards get out and check a town thoroughly before allowing the convoy to proceed, is superb, but how to show it to a player who simply blasts the soldiers as soon as he sees them, and then thinks, 'oh well, another bang-bang-shootemup mission' ? Of course, you might just preclude those sort of people ever playing the mission, but it'd be best to make it accessible to as many as possible. I can't imagine how you could slow otherwise impatient players down, make them see what is going on, but if you could, that would increase the immersion factor greatly (from an already high value).

Encourage the player to use the island more, i dunno, dynamically? I mean the whole island not just one or two hotspots like La Trinite, the Airfield, Dourdan. Perhaps (and this is just an example) you could give the player more 'alerts' as to events on the island, like 'the convoy has passed La Pessagne', and 'Your mine at Ga23 was triggered, damaging a T55', or, even 'A convoy guard detected your mine at Ga23 and disarmed it' . Perhaps also organising those civvies you saved into semi-autonomous bands of militia which you could 'assign' to certain areas (e.g. closeby to a section of road you mined). Then you could receive an alert like 'your 2nd militia group have had a total victory over the southeron convoy', or 'your 2nd militia group was massacred by convoy forward scouts' (if the convoy was tipped off by a mine they discovered). This would allow the action to take place in several spots at once, and for the player to be able to plan/organise and enjoy the experience more. There would be some loss in realism though.

Make a few more places in the island hospitable, ie as bases. This doesn't have to mean much, just a first aid tent, some space for vehicles and concealment from the road. Encourage the player to get out more, and base him/herself in different locations. This would facilitate more ways to play the mission.

Anyway, those are just my ideas. I will definitely be replaying this mission and doing it differently when I get time (and once i finish it first ).