Unfinished fan mission.... started in 2003... what should I do?

skacky on 30/7/2021 at 10:21

Oh no, there hasn't been as many FMs as last year in 2021. Surely the community is on its last legs.

Esse on 30/7/2021 at 11:14

Not to sound like a mini-mod, guys, but isn't the discussion of the state of the modding community better suited for its own thread? This guy is looking for feedback on a mission that looks beautiful already, and we should save space for talking about the mission and updates he wants to make.

Vortex85 on 30/7/2021 at 15:16

I had some time to work on my level.

- Added 3 objectives and tested them successfully
- Added some NPCs
- Added a few objects for objectives
- Added some books/text for story and helping with objectives

The hardest part is deciding on objectives and where things should go. One thing in particular is hard to decide. I think I may need to make some additions to my level now....

EDIT: Nope I figured out how to do the objectives without making big additions. Came up with good idea for sequence of tasks to complete an objective that encourages exploring and some reading for clues.

NOTE: I'm not personally a fan of reading too much in Thief so I will never have a note or book more than 1 page! So don't worry about important info being too hard to find...

downwinder on 30/7/2021 at 17:46

that is amazing news ,cant wait to hear more updates

also please dont forget to add dewdrop in mission and a few healing fruits

Vortex85 on 31/7/2021 at 06:21

Going to bed late tonight but I got A LOT accomplished. :ebil:

Normal difficulty objectives are done. Not sure if I want to add more or not. Was thinking of just upping the loot objective on higher difficulty.

What are people's opinion on no killing for expert? Do you love it or would you rather just have to find all the loot instead?

A.Stahl on 31/7/2021 at 07:31

Quote Posted by Vortex85

What are people's opinion on no killing for expert?

That is an almost standard approach, actually. As long as you don't have many unknockable guards -- "no killing" will meet almost no objections from players.

Galaer on 31/7/2021 at 07:59

Obligatory objective to find all loot may be too much, but you can make it optional or as bonus objective triggered after completing requirements. Also I would prefer different loot requirements on all difficulties.

Esse on 31/7/2021 at 12:29

It's standard fare across Thief missions, OM and FM, to have a no-killing objective on Expert. A lot of people feel, canonically, that Garrett almost always avoids killing on his jobs. The OMs that come to mind where this wasn't necessary involve non-human entities (such as burricks and the undead), or were grand finale, no-holds-barred types of missions (such as Sabotage At Soulforge). Guards with anti-knockout features are a good opportunity for a challenge, but as A.Stahl said, limit how many you put in a mission to appeal to most players. Different loot requirements are also pretty standard.

You may also want to alter the amount of resources Garrett has with each difficulty level, if you know how to do this. Fewer water arrows on Expert and Hard, fewer Health Potions, and the like. Some difficulty levels also include more patrolling guards, but I think this requires a bit of advanced coding - I'm not entirely sure. There's also an OM where particular enemies had more health on Expert, so that could be an extra challenge as well.

RippedPhreak on 31/7/2021 at 14:59

Quote:

would you rather just have to find all the loot instead?

I really, really don't recommend making "find all the loot" a required objective. Certain people such as Supreme Ghosters will do it anyway as a point of pride, but you don't want to make it mandatory. That would lead to a lot of annoyed players.

In fact the loot objective should never be more than around 50%-60% of the total. I made a loot goal of getting 4,000 out of 6,140 and a lot of people got frustrated with that.

Vortex85 on 31/7/2021 at 22:59

Thanks for all the suggestions regarding objectives. I was actually adding more Normal objectives to finish up mission and it took a lot of time and research to pull it off but I think I've got those figured out.

The next big tasks are going to be adding a lot of NPCs and making them behave properly.