Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 1:45 am Post subject:
Some of my own input
Subject description: ... Even though it's mostly complaining.
Hi, new here. I figured I'd register here so I can basically offer some input, since I just played through the new version of TI's campaigns the other day.
So, some issues I think should be addressed:
- campaign arresting control of the camera in some missions. What I mean by this is that sometimes in certain missions you will temporarily have no mouse control, and the camera will pan over to some particular point of interest on the map. This is not a problem in of itself, as it adds some dramatic flair to the situation or can highlight important objectives, but in TI it can be very annoying, or even detrimental.
Sometimes the camera will hang over an area and not give control back for 15 agonizing seconds, only to be showing the same gate we're supposed to unlock or some other objective. This is annoying, but sometimes it can actually cost you the entire mission. The worst examples can be found on Nod mission 7 Azure Corpse. The mission literally feels the need to show us the same tunnel exploding for like 20 seconds straight. But far worse is nearing the end of the mission, where GDI begins a large assault of the airbase. The camera suddenly takes control and zooms over to the airbase where the action is happening.... and stays there for no less than 3 minutes. The first time this happened my units where in all in a Tiberium field being chased by an army of GT soldiers, and I ended up failing the mission because all my units were killed offscreen. Seriously, if you want us to see something going on, just cut to wherever it is for about 2 seconds, and then give us control back. It doesn't take too long to get the point.
- Nod m6 Scavenger Hunt is unpredictable. First off I want to say I was very impressed with the mission for its environment being so radically different from anything I'd ever seen in C&C before, and found it very fun (when I wasn't getting my ass kicked). That said, I think there's a lot of cheap tricks the enemy pulls on you here, and the mission can be unclear as to what you're supposed to be doing. For one, I wasn't expecting a bunch of trains to come plowing through the entry point right off the bat, and so when I played this mission for the first time I ended up failing because on train hit my flame tank and my entire platoon went up in smoke. Now don't get me wrong, the trains are cool, but don't run them through my starting point for a good few minutes.
Another thing, too, is that I find the reinforcements you're given to be a little off. I personally found the Viper drones pretty useless on this mission, since you tend to get swarmed with infantry. Maybe in the next release replace them with Incinerators? Those would be much more befitting for the mission anyway.
Also, I think a little more warning should be given for the mission's end. The objectives stated you had to destroy all the supply stashes throughout the mission, and while it makes sense to surprise the player with new objectives, suddenly receiving a number of demolition drones that you have no control of, while all your units are in the northeastern-most corner of the map is pretty irritating. The first time I played it I wasn't sure if the demo drones were gonna be under my control, or what. A little clarity would be great, maybe you get the message "deploying demolition drones. Move your troops back to the entrance to safeguard these units until they are activated," or something of that nature. Maybe you could even give a timer for when they arrive, since it was a little confusing.
On that note, when the drones actually begin to detonate, all the explosions make the game lag like crazy. I'd tone those down a lot.
Oh, and another thing: where are all the crates on this mission? It was really jarring to see a non-production mission in a C&C mod where there were zero crates. They would have come in handy a lot, too, given how badly beaten up and sparse units become by the end of the mission.
- Nod m5 Sea of Sand is frustrating. While I guess the way the level is layed out is pretty interesting, ie you try to find a way around the Scatterpacks and Snipers to get the flametank, you use the flametank to kill the snipers, you can use the veinholes as a buffer to hide from the Scatterpacks, etc). Only thing that really ruffles my jimmies about this map is the patrol programming for the Scatterpacks is pozzed. If they detect you, they'll murder any dudes within their sight range, and then go back to patrol, but then at seemingly random intervals, suddenly escape their patrol path to go massacre your units again, return to their patrol, then move back again for more slaughter, ad infinitum. It's annoying because you can be on the western corner of the map, and suddenly a Scatterpack charges you because it caught one of your troops at the mission start.
- GDI m5 Fields of Green. This mission is looooooong. Really, this is something I'd just recommend cutting down the Tiberium needed to complete the mission down to 30,000 or something. A mission like this doesn't need to be 2 hours long.
There's probably a lot more things that irked me about the campaign, but these were just huge ones that stuck out. I'll list more as I recall them.
Some bugs I've noticed:
- Game crashes whenever I try to do Skirmish or Network in 720x576 resolotion. This isn't a massive issue since I can just change the resolution, but it's still annoying.
- Crashes whenever you enter the area near the GT Armory in the south on Nod m4 Shadow, Shadow. I still managed to complete the mission however, since apparently the only "real" objective needed to beat the mission is capturing the GDI network array.
Some stuff that might be cool to see:
- Voice acting in missions. Sometimes it's hard to read a lot of those messages that come up in campaign missions, especially while you're in combat. Some voice acting to supplement those messages would be a great help, not to mention would bring the game to life better.
- Cutscenes. I think live action cutscenes would be a little out of the question, as fantastic as they'd be, but something to tie the missions together better would be great. A lot of the time I found myself confused as to where the game was going from mission to mission, since with the exception of the last few Nod missions it seems more like a series of unrelated skirmishes than an actual story. I dunno what style of cutscenes would work or be feasible, but I could see something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o38fLvvQzEc or this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVtPf5ATROY&feature=plcp&context=C378a443UDOEgsToPDskLyxO4P5qeIFkJ9JcU0eXqy
- Garrisonable buildings. Dunno if this is possible with TS's engine, or if it just hasn't been implemented because it'd make the game less like TS, but it would be cool to see.
- Explaining when each mission is supposed to take place. Given the nature of some old, Tiberian Dawn units appearing in some missions and high tech units appearing in others, I always find myself confused as to when each mission and each campaign takes place. Are all the missions like a few days apart, or do some take place years afterwards? I think this is where cutscenes of some kind would really help out.
Also, just want to say, I'm extremely impressed with this mod. I can really say I don't ever think I've seen a C&C mod this elaborate, complex, or well-polished. Can't wait to see this mod completed in its final form, whenever that may be. QUICK_EDIT
I haven't played the campaign, so I can't comment on that.
However, I know for a fact that TI takes places shortly after Tiberian Dawn, but instead of GDI winning the war, Nod did. Since this takes places so soon after TD, there are still a lot of TD units. _________________ Okay, my signature was starting to annoy even me. QUICK_EDIT
I haven't played the campaign, so I can't comment on that.
However, I know for a fact that TI takes places shortly after Tiberian Dawn, but instead of GDI winning the war, Nod did. Since this takes places so soon after TD, there are still a lot of TD units.
Yeah, I understand it's a sequel to TD where Nod is on top (hence, "Twisted Insurrection", with GDI becoming the titular insurrectionists). What I'm confused at is when each particular mission is supposed to take place in relation to each other. QUICK_EDIT
First of all, welcome to PPM and thanks for sharing your input.
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- campaign arresting control of the camera in some missions
I am aware that this can be irritating, but it is done for a good reason, especially on Azure Corpse as a prime example. As the mission objective changes after the air-base is destroyed, it's necessary for the player to lose input once the air-base is reached because people in the past have insisted on trying to save the air-base (which is in-fact impossible to do). The time in which the input is locked is based on how long it takes for a GDI unit to enter the base, which isn't normally that long, but sometimes they AI acts like an idiot and just loiters. However! I will see what I can do.
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Nod m6 Scavenger Hunt is unpredictable.
Ah yes, one of my personal favorites. The train at the start is very irritating, I agree and that trigger will have to be removed in future releases.
In an older version of Scavenger Hunt, there were Cleaver Drones instead of Vipers, but had to be switched due-to storyline purposes. The Vipers will remain as reinforcements, but I will also throw in some Incinerator reinforcements to also help narrow down the Mission Difficulty as I know it can be near impossible as the enemy is very unpredictable.
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On that note, when the drones actually begin to detonate
Yeah, the lag an be irritating, however it's not the explosion being the main cause of the lag, it's the alarm effect with the red lights flashing on and off. While it is a nice effect, I suppose it's best if such fancy effects are switched for game-play instead (It's a shame that triggers can't be modified via Detail Level tags in this engine).
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Nod m5 Sea of Sand is frustrating
I personally never found the mission to be a massive issue in terms of difficulty (probably because I know the map like the back of my hand), however, I guess giving Nod one or two Scout infantry for the mission could easily narrow down the difficulty for the first half of the mission.
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GDI m5 Fields of Green
It only takes me about 20 minutes to complete Fields of Green. The trick is to just get several harvesters on the go and manage them to harvest the patches of Blue Tiberium. Grenadiers are your prime source for defensive units on the mission.
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- Game crashes whenever I try to do Skirmish or Network in 720x576 resolotion.
Completely unaware as to why this happens and I knew nothing about it up until now. I'll look into it.
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- Crashes whenever you enter the area near the GT Armory in the south on Nod m4 Shadow, Shadow.
Someone pointed this out the other day too. I'm not sure what causes the internal error as last time I played the mission I didn't get it myself. I'll investigate.
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- Voice acting in missions.
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- Cutscenes. I think live action cutscenes
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- Explaining when each mission is supposed to take place.
Remember that TI is still in early stages, there are quite a few things that will be added to the mod itself, including the campaign (it lacks set-in-stone AI Triggers mostly), these things will also include some voice-acting as I also dislike having to read lines upon lines of text when you can instead listen to a voice-over.
What would make life so much easier in the campaign is for the briefing window to pop up before the mission starts (like in RA1) as we don't have to correct methods for FMV's (at the moment anyway). We have planned some FMV's for a while, but as we don't exactly have the most proffesional recoring equipment to our disposal as we are just a team of middle-class citizens (LoL), we are probably going to end up settling with some of our promotional sketches with some lines of text, background music and a voiceover to help elaborate on the start of the missions. This is a promised feature, but it may take a while to put together (Will probably also be put up as a separate download during the future release as FMV's take up a ridiculous amount of space). Soon enough, there will be some changes.
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- Garrisonable buildings.
Impossible in this engine I'm afraid.
Overall - Thank you for the feedback, it won't go unnoticed. QUICK_EDIT
Remember that TI is still in early stages, there are quite a few things that will be added to the mod itself, including the campaign (it lacks set-in-stone AI Triggers mostly), these things will also include some voice-acting as I also dislike having to read lines upon lines of text when you can instead listen to a voice-over.
What would make life so much easier in the campaign is for the briefing window to pop up before the mission starts (like in RA1) as we don't have to correct methods for FMV's (at the moment anyway). We have planned some FMV's for a while, but as we don't exactly have the most proffesional recoring equipment to our disposal as we are just a team of middle-class citizens (LoL), we are probably going to end up settling with some of our promotional sketches with some lines of text, background music and a voiceover to help elaborate on the start of the missions. This is a promised feature, but it may take a while to put together (Will probably also be put up as a separate download during the future release as FMV's take up a ridiculous amount of space). Soon enough, there will be some changes.
It shouldn't be difficult to make temporary FMVs with the mission briefing appearing as a scrolling text, mimicing the said RA1 feature. These would then play before every mission. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
It only takes me about 20 minutes to complete Fields of Green. The trick is to just get several harvesters on the go and manage them to harvest the patches of Blue Tiberium. Grenadiers are your prime source for defensive units on the mission.
Goliaths work quite well too. Also because they don't explode if they get killed (points to those Inferno's coming towards the main entrance after you hit 20k gold).
I always place 4 Goliaths behind the 2 Vulcan Batteries (usually I add another 2) at the base entrance and two at the top of the cliffs there. Heavily damaged Goliaths can be retreated towards the northwest entrance, which will be enough to fend off the attackers coming there after you hit 40k gold (you will have 4-5 Goliaths in red damage sooner or later, especially if you defend your northeast entrance with a group of Goliaths instead of Grenadiers). Also, keep the bridge repaired as long as you can, with placing Goliaths in FRONT of it (and not behind the chokepoint).
But yes, for those who find the mission difficult, it will take longer. It took me a while to figure out how to do it efficiently. QUICK_EDIT
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Some of my own input
