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Story mission writing quality (spoliers)

ichor

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I have noticed that in vega to draconis, there is a lot of consistent writing and high quality storytelling. The two benefits i want to point out are
1: good storytelling
2: good explanation of success / failure conditions

Each sm through each system did a good job of outlining what the player needed to do, and when in a condensed format.
Then there is TC

the two main issues i see is that there doesn't seem to be a consistent story throughout the planets. It seems in venar you are...trying to colonize it? and in EIU you are trying to....escape it and figure out what the mantis are doing? and in calon you are trying to help the tower? there doesn't seem to be a consistent or immersive narrative.
On top of that, Failure conditions or success conditions are poorly outlined for example in the calon sm "the source of all nuisance" underlines this issue as the mission failure point simply states "you went too far! orbit to try again". the failure condition?: killing too many hostile NPCs. nowhere in the sm does it say not to do this, not even at the failure point. it also doesn't help there is a target zone that also could mean "dont leave the zone". its extremely vague and conditions for failure or success are prevelent across most TC sms.
another strange feature of tc sm writing is the mission update notifying you every...single...time...you...kill...one...mantis. making you have to scroll up through multiple useless notifications to figure out what to do.

ways to improve: consolidate mission notifications. we dont need to know every time a single enemy is destroyed.
improve writing descriptions for failure or success conditions
allow writing to be more thematic and story oriented when necessary.
 

KingSub

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What's that?
I have noticed that in vega to draconis, there is a lot of consistent writing and high quality storytelling. The two benefits i want to point out are
1: good storytelling
2: good explanation of success / failure conditions

Each sm through each system did a good job of outlining what the player needed to do, and when in a condensed format.
Then there is TC

the two main issues i see is that there doesn't seem to be a consistent story throughout the planets. It seems in venar you are...trying to colonize it? and in EIU you are trying to....escape it and figure out what the mantis are doing? and in calon you are trying to help the tower? there doesn't seem to be a consistent or immersive narrative.
On top of that, Failure conditions or success conditions are poorly outlined for example in the calon sm "the source of all nuisance" underlines this issue as the mission failure point simply states "you went too far! orbit to try again". the failure condition?: killing too many hostile NPCs. nowhere in the sm does it say not to do this, not even at the failure point. it also doesn't help there is a target zone that also could mean "dont leave the zone". its extremely vague and conditions for failure or success are prevelent across most TC sms.
another strange feature of tc sm writing is the mission update notifying you every...single...time...you...kill...one...mantis. making you have to scroll up through multiple useless notifications to figure out what to do.

ways to improve: consolidate mission notifications. we dont need to know every time a single enemy is destroyed.
improve writing descriptions for failure or success conditions
allow writing to be more thematic and story oriented when necessary.
the story telling from vega up to draconis was done by delloda i guess. story telling in tau ceti is shorter when you are active in the mission. with the beginning you get most information and in the end of the mission too. the only mission that bothers me is the 'doppelgänger' this story mission is not telling what really happened to ivanova.

tau ceti failure in storymission: as my experience i can say 50/50. we did the tau ceti part 3 mission for two of our pilots done. it took 4 days and 8hr play time with 1 failure in 4 squad, so i dont understand why you are keep failing. did even the last two mission with 4 squad not full squad. (no booster just drones and alloys, except me i m using speed and firepower 10% extra thats it)

part 1 and 2 failure are not that bad too, except undercover job

i learned that the story telling in tc is shorter because the combats are much heavier than on the lower system and you have to keep an eye to not fail or pod while you reading the mission information.

tau ceti is in my opinion good in story telling except the mission in calon 'doppelgänger'
 

Vesperion

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I think the major difference between th stories of Vega - Drac and TC is mainly that we where allowed to leave an mission area or even pod in a lot of missions without of consequences.

In TC this whole concept has been changed into an more strict and harsh environment ala "If you leave the mission area"; "To far/close from/to the target; "Pod during the mission/in the mission area" it will fail. Some Missions get even harder if you do them in sq cus 1 Pilot just needs to enter the zone a bit to late and it fails due of the one Wingman was not in the area when the mission updated or if anyone of the squad pods in the mission area cus everyone seems to hold the item that needs to be protected(?).

So it´s less of an bad explenation of "what does fail the mission" and more and nearly every mistake done in a mission can/will lead to a failure of it. Another thing that i noticed is that in TC many mission updates happen during the mid of some activity what is mostly during a battle or when you traverse the planet but not really have the time to keep track of it and the cobination of that the log does empty itself still from time to time after the mission has ended doesn´t help much either.

Can´t say how the missions play at Calon (still on 3rd one so far) but i have the feeling that the conditions for failure will not be really smoother or more forgivable.
 

alewx

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As a little bit of insight: the story of PG was created and written by about 4 different designers, that were working more or less together as mostly they inherited the work from the predecessor.
When i joined Splitscreen, i played quite some time in PG with the storyline, and noticed that while the messages and infos during the mission was quite immersive and expanding, it was not really helpful in all situations. when in the middle of the fight a text appears that, when opened, covers the whole screen to the top, there is just no time to read it.
That is why we decided to provide the player during the mission with shorter summaries of things that happen, while when opened it can contain more information but not too much, so that the action is stillable to get handled. most longer messaged are given at the start and close to the end of the mission.
About some not totally clear failconditions, it is a bit intended, as most players are very experienced in the game and the possible exploits for missions, i just wanted to make sure players can not just hit and run the mission because "first try".
And true in some missions it can happen that every single kill will porivde its own message, but that is simply because i also learned more with the missions and building them, so that I was able to improve things. so that now things that are important get a message no matter what, while others get a reduced chance to give a text, as i don't want to just ignore it when something was done.
 

KingSub

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As a little bit of insight: the story of PG was created and written by about 4 different designers, that were working more or less together as mostly they inherited the work from the predecessor.
When i joined Splitscreen, i played quite some time in PG with the storyline, and noticed that while the messages and infos during the mission was quite immersive and expanding, it was not really helpful in all situations. when in the middle of the fight a text appears that, when opened, covers the whole screen to the top, there is just no time to read it.
That is why we decided to provide the player during the mission with shorter summaries of things that happen, while when opened it can contain more information but not too much, so that the action is stillable to get handled. most longer messaged are given at the start and close to the end of the mission.
About some not totally clear failconditions, it is a bit intended, as most players are very experienced in the game and the possible exploits for missions, i just wanted to make sure players can not just hit and run the mission because "first try".
And true in some missions it can happen that every single kill will porivde its own message, but that is simply because i also learned more with the missions and building them, so that I was able to improve things. so that now things that are important get a message no matter what, while others get a reduced chance to give a text, as i don't want to just ignore it when something was done.
so, you did mainly completed the story of pg from the predecessor? thats great and i think you study the pg story so that tau ceti has a great storyline. we know that the last chapter will end in the new system. are there more to do for the future? e.g how created the ancients? it would be sad when we never know what they are, because aurora and desai shows the same temple structures as calon does and sirius sometimes with the ancients robots.

is there an expanding idea for the new system? because after part 4 is finished there will maybe not a new system again like we saw on tau ceti venar with nothing in it years ago. it took 8 years to complete tau ceti, players hope to see more for the future am i right? because the entity also said that their datablock has information over some starsystems that mantis are interestit in, it has something to do with the harvester hives to keep their homeworld alive i guess. its good that this mistake will not repeat himself, but its also sad when you say that there is 'nothing'. but you are the devs and you will not reveal future starsystems so quick. the most expected starsystem is lagrange singularity. if this will happen.. i dont know, you and other devs know

@-BoH- did a great job to create something as units and techs. the storyline could be very good if you link the ancients in it, as i did with brotherhood and valatory sect.
 

ichor

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As a little bit of insight: the story of PG was created and written by about 4 different designers, that were working more or less together as mostly they inherited the work from the predecessor.
When i joined Splitscreen, i played quite some time in PG with the storyline, and noticed that while the messages and infos during the mission was quite immersive and expanding, it was not really helpful in all situations. when in the middle of the fight a text appears that, when opened, covers the whole screen to the top, there is just no time to read it.
That is why we decided to provide the player during the mission with shorter summaries of things that happen, while when opened it can contain more information but not too much, so that the action is stillable to get handled. most longer messaged are given at the start and close to the end of the mission.
About some not totally clear failconditions, it is a bit intended, as most players are very experienced in the game and the possible exploits for missions, i just wanted to make sure players can not just hit and run the mission because "first try".
And true in some missions it can happen that every single kill will porivde its own message, but that is simply because i also learned more with the missions and building them, so that I was able to improve things. so that now things that are important get a message no matter what, while others get a reduced chance to give a text, as i don't want to just ignore it when something was done.
This is fair. I guess with this being said the only complaint I have is still why there is a need to spam the missions with a single unit being destroyed.
 

KingSub

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This is fair. I guess with this being said the only complaint I have is still why there is a need to spam the missions with a single unit being destroyed.
why? this helps to shootdown the left units so you dont have the search them and sometimes the mission cant keep going forward "one shoot,more incoming" - ''it wasnt the last one'' in my opinion this helps because calon or earth is more tricky, but in terms of failing and re-playing calon has some difficult in it.
 

Vesperion

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why? this helps to shootdown the left units so you dont have the search them and sometimes the mission cant keep going forward "one shoot,more incoming" - ''it wasnt the last one'' in my opinion this helps because calon or earth is more tricky, but in terms of failing and re-playing calon has some difficult in it.
This may be but it can make it hard to "keep an eye" to the more important Mission Information if they are pushed back by "insert rndm number here" massages that are more "useless".

Maybe a good option would be to make the mission units "more noticable" by giving them eventually a more outstanding colour (Neon Green for examble).

Sure comparing Siri with TC is not a stretch but on certain missions where the Pirate Units are involved it gives this one unit (Restutio when i remember it correctly) that tends to run away but is a mission target to progress the story. It does happen from time to time that such a units does ran wwwaaayyy off from the mission area or even lands on the other side of a mountain so all you can do is just shot anything in hope to find the remaining unit of the mission to progress it.

So maybe some sort of indicator or simply "marker" that would show us directly the mission units would be an "less mission updating spam".
 

KingSub

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This may be but it can make it hard to "keep an eye" to the more important Mission Information if they are pushed back by "insert rndm number here" massages that are more "useless".

Maybe a good option would be to make the mission units "more noticable" by giving them eventually a more outstanding colour (Neon Green for examble).

Sure comparing Siri with TC is not a stretch but on certain missions where the Pirate Units are involved it gives this one unit (Restutio when i remember it correctly) that tends to run away but is a mission target to progress the story. It does happen from time to time that such a units does ran wwwaaayyy off from the mission area or even lands on the other side of a mountain so all you can do is just shot anything in hope to find the remaining unit of the mission to progress it.

So maybe some sort of indicator or simply "marker" that would show us directly the mission units would be an "less mission updating spam".
that would be a good idea to mark the storymission units that needs to be killed on the map when they tend to runaway or like saboteurs the are in a big range sometimes.

as far my experience, i enjoy the storymission with the prolouge for tc and tc itself because it is a challenge. sure draconis is tough, but not as tc is.
 
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