Ok, I was wondering, what kind of foundry series ending do you find to be your dream ending? For me, it is a final desperate battle with the player being a part of a massive cross-faction (npc-wise) armada fighting against a very powerful foe (stronger than most other enemies the Alpha Quadrant has fought against but no doubt weaker than the Iconians). During the fight, the player's ship goes into battle against the enemy armada's flagship and while there fight is taking place, the player's allies' armada is getting absolutely decimated (with a massive mixture of main ships being sunk or disabled)
It sort of depends on what the rest of the series is like. If it's a Tom Clancy-style techno thriller with far-reaching socio-political consequences then yeah I'd say you definitely want to have a big confrontation at the end. I've done two of those now (Purity and my first series which is not published at the moment which had an ending similar to what you describe). Definitely has to feel epic and satisfying.
The only problem with big fleet battles in STO is I find they tend to be kinda easy for the player. Because the enemy mobs are only partially focused on the player, you don't take a whole lot of damage. IDK maybe people have some ideas how to make them more difficult.
If your series is not like that, I'd say you have to do something that would feel right. If you look at how the TV shows other than DS9 ended, there's a good variety. TNG had more of a "riding off into the sunset, the adventure continues" sort of ending. VOY had a "wrap up the major plot point in the craziest way possible" ending. The less said about ENT's finale the better
For me, it's one that brings the series to an end providing closure on the plot, and maybe some funny little extra bits dotted around. What form that takes I don't care, as long as it finishes the story in a well paced and satisfactory manner.
ENT's ending was fantastic. A threat to the formation of the Federation, after all that deep space exploring, the crew faces a major threat from home, from humans no less. A Pathfinder cameo, fantastic acting from Peter Weller, brilliant scenes between T'pol and Trip over their baby.... just a shame the series ended with such a downer. But it was a fantastic finale.
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A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
The only problem with big fleet battles in STO is I find they tend to be kinda easy for the player. Because the enemy mobs are only partially focused on the player, you don't take a whole lot of damage. IDK maybe people have some ideas how to make them more difficult.
My new gold standard for epic space battles in STO is the Elachi invasion of New Romulus at the end of "Devil's Choice", which closes out Cryptic's Elachi arc for Romulan captains. To approximate that would involve three waves of 4-5 multi-stacked enemy mobs, each progressively harder than the last, with maybe one or two friendly NPCs fighting alongside you. To make it even harder, give each mob in each wave its own kill objective and then trigger each mob in the next wave to immediately spawn as soon as you complete that kill objective, so you have no respite between waves, making it feel like one ginormous nonstop battle.
My new gold standard for epic space battles in STO is the Elachi invasion of New Romulus at the end of "Devil's Choice", which closes out Cryptic's Elachi arc for Romulan captains. To approximate that would involve three waves of 4-5 multi-stacked enemy mobs, each progressively harder than the last, with maybe one or two friendly NPCs fighting alongside you. To make it even harder, give each mob in each wave its own kill objective and then trigger each mob in the next wave to immediately spawn as soon as you complete that kill objective, so you have no respite between waves, making it feel like one ginormous nonstop battle.
That's basically what I did at the end of Dereliction Duty. The task force engages the pirates and there is a battle with 3 waves of enemies that come one after the other. The difficulty depends on how many of the other ships you call in for reinforcements.
To make things more seamless what I did was actually have it so that there were essentially 3 "groups" of enemies. Each group went something like this (not every group was exactly the same) Frigate -> Cruiser -> Fighters -> Battleship, but only one of them was the focus of the kill objectives, the others were just spawned by component complete (the player has no choice but to fight all of them though since they'll all be attacking).
The reason for that setup was to make it so it wouldn't be an obvious wave, but rather a sustained attack, while at the same time keeping the player from getting overwhelmed by too many ships attacking at once.
By far the most difficult aspect of the epic battle is to make it so that it is a decent challenge, without accidentally making it extremely difficult (multiple deaths). The line between those two events is actually not as wide as you'd expect, especially when you throw in friendlies.
In a similar vein, Kirk wakes up in bed next to Deela and we find out that the last 140 years has all been a dream brought on by Scalosian radiation sickness.
With a shameless nod to Newhart and The Bob Newhart Show.
I loved how Babylon-5 handled the endings. There was a big bang, then the reveal then you got to see the consequences. The whole story was put into a frame.
In answer to the question, my dream series ending is having an important character that the player has come to know and love (or even hate) over the course of ten or so missions, end up sacrificing themselves to buy the player time to save the universe/Federation or otherwise accomplish the mission. Life goes on and the day is saved, but it's only bitter sweet because some of our friends/allies are no longer with us.
In answer to the question, my dream series ending is having an important character that the player has come to know and love (or even hate) over the course of ten or so missions, end up sacrificing themselves to buy the player time to save the universe/Federation or otherwise accomplish the mission. Life goes on and the day is saved, but it's only bitter sweet because some of our friends/allies are no longer with us.
Don't worry, I plan on pulling just that in toward the end of my up and coming foundry series! (killing off my main player character!)
Comments
The only problem with big fleet battles in STO is I find they tend to be kinda easy for the player. Because the enemy mobs are only partially focused on the player, you don't take a whole lot of damage. IDK maybe people have some ideas how to make them more difficult.
If your series is not like that, I'd say you have to do something that would feel right. If you look at how the TV shows other than DS9 ended, there's a good variety. TNG had more of a "riding off into the sunset, the adventure continues" sort of ending. VOY had a "wrap up the major plot point in the craziest way possible" ending. The less said about ENT's finale the better
ENT's ending was fantastic. A threat to the formation of the Federation, after all that deep space exploring, the crew faces a major threat from home, from humans no less. A Pathfinder cameo, fantastic acting from Peter Weller, brilliant scenes between T'pol and Trip over their baby.... just a shame the series ended with such a downer. But it was a fantastic finale.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
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My new gold standard for epic space battles in STO is the Elachi invasion of New Romulus at the end of "Devil's Choice", which closes out Cryptic's Elachi arc for Romulan captains. To approximate that would involve three waves of 4-5 multi-stacked enemy mobs, each progressively harder than the last, with maybe one or two friendly NPCs fighting alongside you. To make it even harder, give each mob in each wave its own kill objective and then trigger each mob in the next wave to immediately spawn as soon as you complete that kill objective, so you have no respite between waves, making it feel like one ginormous nonstop battle.
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That's basically what I did at the end of Dereliction Duty. The task force engages the pirates and there is a battle with 3 waves of enemies that come one after the other. The difficulty depends on how many of the other ships you call in for reinforcements.
To make things more seamless what I did was actually have it so that there were essentially 3 "groups" of enemies. Each group went something like this (not every group was exactly the same) Frigate -> Cruiser -> Fighters -> Battleship, but only one of them was the focus of the kill objectives, the others were just spawned by component complete (the player has no choice but to fight all of them though since they'll all be attacking).
The reason for that setup was to make it so it wouldn't be an obvious wave, but rather a sustained attack, while at the same time keeping the player from getting overwhelmed by too many ships attacking at once.
By far the most difficult aspect of the epic battle is to make it so that it is a decent challenge, without accidentally making it extremely difficult (multiple deaths). The line between those two events is actually not as wide as you'd expect, especially when you throw in friendlies.
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.
Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.
Oh my God, I was wrong
It was Earth all along
You've finally made a monkey
Yes, we've finally made a monkey
Yes, you've finally made a monkey out of meeeeeeeeeeeee
With a shameless nod to Newhart and The Bob Newhart Show.
The day that happens, is the day I can finally feel content with a created foundry experience.
Click here for my Foundry tutorial on Creating A Custom Interior Map.
Don't worry, I plan on pulling just that in toward the end of my up and coming foundry series! (killing off my main player character!)