Yandros on 26/7/2013 at 18:35

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So, as Random_Taffer and I are getting thick into developing and testing DCE, our 10 mission campaign, something occurred to me, and I thought I would ask the players.

In the course of the campaign, as is often the case, you will revisit areas, and re-encounter characters, from earlier missions. In the earlier mission, however, you may have chosen to kill an AI if playing on lower difficulties (without a No Kill objective), but the AI will still be there in the later mission because they play a part in the story. So the question is, does that bother you? In other words, would you rather have a mandatory No Kill objective on ALL difficulties on the earlier mission to avoid that, or can you accept that the presence of the AI in a later mission is reflective of the Expert "timeline", if you will, even if you chose a different difficulty level? Meaning, had you played the early mission on Expert, you would have not been allowed to kill him. So if you played it on Normal and killed him, but he's there when you get to the revisit mission, does that break immersion or require too much suspension of disbelief?

I fear that's confusing as I've stated it, so please ask if I'm not getting the question across.

klatremus on 26/7/2013 at 20:23

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I agree. I think a no-kill objective on lower difficulties (especially normal) is harsh. Although I always play on expert, seeing a character I've already killed (without it being a ghost) to me somewhat breaks the immersion. Most people would report that as a testing bug I'd imagine. What SlyFoxx suggested, simply keeping the characters in question off limits, sounds good if that in itself doesn't break the mission.

gnartsch on 26/7/2013 at 21:12

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I definetly would not like the idea of running into a paradoxon.
I would suggest to create a 'Don't kill any civilians' objective (usually the VIPs are civilians, arent' they?).
Or - if the importance of that AI is either known or suspected at that stage, then the objective might include only those VIPs.

Question: how can a (potentially) dead AI actually still play an important role in a later mission, especially if you stick to Normal throughout the entire campaign?
Or are you saying that you are designing the campaign in such way that the quest & objectives will give you a totally different gameplay depending on difficulty?
(Like new quests on Expert that require person X to be still alive, which you might have killed on Normal before ?)
In that case I would sell that as 3 different campaigns. (Personally I never switch between difficulties anyway)

Well, if these AI just 'look' the same, but do not have a name, I could live with that (e.g. one 'anonymous' stereotype noble replaced by another).
But killing Lord Esteban in mission 1 and then see him roaming around and still roaming the same place and using the same name in mission 8?
No.

kdau on 27/7/2013 at 00:08

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There's always the option of a person-specific no-kill objective, although it would only work for one special AI. I suppose you might not want to highlight their importance to the plot as early as that would require.

Let's keep in mind that no less than Garrett himself has a canonical after-death existence, thanks to Pavelock Prison. :nono:

EmperorSteele on 27/7/2013 at 00:16

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It would disturb me if I killed a guy only for him to come back in a later mission.

I would find it HILARIOUS if I killed the same guy in every mission and he kept coming back.

Assuming these are "innocents" (ie, not armored guards), you can safely apply a no-kill objective to them, even on normal. One smack with a blackjack and they go down, even on high alert, so there's little reason to "kill" an innocent anyway.

If there are certain named NPC guards, you'll have to indicate to the player in some way that they are not to be killed. Further complicating matters is if I let this important NPC see me, flashbomb him then knock him out, I'd expect him to remember me the next time we meet.