UGC Mission Design

[Matt-The-Silent]

Here is a new Mission

A Bridge to Nowhere

[Matt-The-Silent]

Just played yours Ghost... it was pretty cool, showed me things i didn't know you could do. Good job!

[RD_21]

TO THE TOPIC CREATOR: I faced a similar problem than yours in my second level, you face baddies and you need to kill them, once you kill them the NPC move to a location and when you enter the location you will trigger a brief where he will say Follow me. If you were entering it too soon the text would start. Here's how I fixed it; Monitor (Militia incapacitated) => Script (Move NPC to location) => Multiple input switch with one input (My volume was also connected in the input of that switch) and I edit it to All and not Any and then that switch was leading to my dialogue so both conditions had to be met before the brief would trigger (don'tmean to brag and it's not much, but it's funny how you feel smart and proud of yourself when you finally fixed your problem hehe).

So far I've made 2 Counter-Surveillance mission and I will be making a 3rd one and a race one tonight. I plan on being a major player with the UGC and do a lot of (I hope) good level.

Here's the first one Counter-Surveillance it's very similar to the first game, you go at the Cabaret and you need to disable surveillance devices (I know they are bomb but the antenna were dumb since they were too big and couldn't attach to the wall... which makes me wonder why we can't reduce object and attach them to the walls).

The second one is Counter-Surveillance + that I am really proud of and really like (even thought only 1 person played it and rated it a 3 so far). In this one you will need to get to the Cathedral to disable devices and you may have to do some fighting in your way so it's not only a collect or disable mission that some people complain about.

[Gelzibar]

A Swift Rescue

-Search and Rescue (though searching is not involved ), Secure NPC, Kill 'Em All

-Northwestern Portion of the first island. The Northwest block adajacent to the big circular block (the cathedral?).

-Hostages are being escorted to a Miltia checkpoint. You have to quickly intercept and neutralize the Miltia escort before any hostages make it to the Miltia checkpoint.

http://www.infamousthegame.com/en_GB/infamous2/community/ugc/mission.html?missionId=fa7940e5-cbe1-4a...

I'd greatly appreciate any thoughts, comments and criticisms on the mission. I haven't had any friends playtest it, so I have been limited in my ability to hear others thoughts. If private messaging is available on the forums, that would probably be the best way w/o derailing this thread ;-).

Thoughts and Problems

-I thought it turned out pretty good for my first effort. It is a small scale test for a more complicated mission I'm considering creating.

-There are some tweaking problems-- hostages will trigger volumes which indicate their distance from the Miltia checkpoint through an onscreen brief. I think this happens for each hostage, when it essentially only matters for the hostage in the lead. It doesn't matter if hostage #3 is at the halfway mark, if #1 is nearly at the checkpoint!

-I like that the mission only has a certain amount of time to complete it (the time it takes for the hostages to make it to the checkpoint) because it forced me to play more aggressively. With playing on hard and w/o full power unlocks, I'll often spend too much time on a rooftop taking a few quick shots before retreating to recoup.

-At least one of the three hostages has to survive to complete the mission. With the Miltia escort and hostages travelling together, I felt that losing ANY hostages would result in failure was too harsh. But I believe less savory Coles could exploit the system by intentionally killing any hostages in the lead, I really don't like that.

- The Hostile Escorts and Hostages follow waypoints through an alley for the whole mission. They seem to suffer from single file line syndrome. I believe this could be fixed by having multiple paths for units to follow.

-The beginning mission briefing is long. It's a banter between Zeke and Cole that's progressed by the player. I felt like the mission goalds need to be conveyed as well as a little goofiness, but I think it's a little too drawn out for such a short mission.

-I tried to make the reward for climbing to rooftops (that is, being in a much better position to attack the miltia) balance with the risk of dealing with miltia snipers. There are a few snipers intended to complicate the rescue (they're positioned over the alleyway) and then there are snipers that can't support the alleyway, but would be in line of sight if you're on the rooftops. I like the idea, but need to flesh it out. Snipers + Guard this area only work so well.

-I like that you have to act fast, but I think that the mission clocking in at about a minute is way too short. I chock this up to mission design and learning the ropes, so probably won't revise it for this mission.

-Players fail if they alert the checkpoint. I quickly set up the checkpoint and it could use more work. I would like to see it on the minimap (so players have an idea of what is off limits), but I don't feel like the current waypoint markers (like the white star) are a good representation of this. As a player, when I see a white star, that means I should go there.

-With multiple ways to fail- all hostages dying, hostages reaching the end point, Cole alerting the Miltia checkpoint- I added a few seconds delay to the mission failure, and launch a brief explaining why the player failed. I hope this reduces players scratching thier heads in confusion, and I think it was something the original infamous did.

[Matt-The-Silent]

You do know you can go to your mission fail and type in why they failed. So when it brings up "Mission Fail" instead it will say "You Alerted the Militia Checkpoint"

Just add multiple fells, which i asume you already have and make each trigger when something happens, then instead of a mission brief, add the dialouge into the Mission Fail toggle.

[Gelzibar]

Thanks for pointing that out Matt. I'll have to clean up my failure logic sections in future mission crafting. Having it plugged into the failure node will get rid of that pesky timing that I was having to plug in to provide time for the player to read the brief.

[bnfdhfdhfd]

Those who played the beta may remember this mission. It is called Rod of War. It is a series of minigames inspired by the challenges in the God of War games.

[bnfdhfdhfd]

One thing I forgot to mention: Despite my best efforts, there is still a chance that the swamp monsters could fall onto the roof of of a building and not die during the first trial. If this happens, you will have to jump down and try this section again. I tried setting up a volume to kill any monsters that fell off the platform, but sometimes they still survive. Apparently they can handle falls better than they could in the beta.  It only happened to me twice when I was testing the mission, but I coudn't find a way to prevent it from happening.

[thshdw]

Would it break your mission design if you removed the monster from the world when it fell off the platform?

[bnfdhfdhfd]

I set up a volume to trigger and defeat all the monsters that exit the volume, since apparently the cube/cylinder glitch still hasn't been fixed. I think there might be a building that is somehow above the bottom of the volume, even though it's almost at the game's height limit. I also use the defeated monsters to trigger the falling blocks now, since there can only be one trigger group at a time.