My first Foundry mission

spiritborn

I have a Foundry mission called "Price of Peace" I'd like to know what people think about, it's on the federation side.

Oh just that people know english is not my first language so if (most likely when) you find typos or poor grammar it would be nice if you told me what's the problem rather just saying the problem exists.

duncanidaho11

I'll give this a go when reviewing comes back online (it's disabled ATM, we're just coming out of downtime ).

spiritborn

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

I'll give this a go when reviewing comes back online (it's disabled ATM, we're just coming out of downtime ).

That would be lovely, granted that is my first attempt so things are a bit "rough", also there's few things I've yet to update like the doctor character uses the old eye design I used for that species rather then ones I'm using now (my SF engineering character is of the same species).

oh and don't let the warning about it being a darker work scare you, it's dark like STVI:TUC was dark not like WH40K is dark.

spiritborn

Has anyone tried this? I'd love know what people think about, while I've got nothing against the people who had reviewed it still those are fleet mates and/or friends and thus biased (most likely unintentionally).

duncanidaho11

It's next on my list, I should be able to get to it a bit later today.

spiritborn

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

It's next on my list, I should be able to get to it a bit later today.

if you're not too busy would mind expanding on what you said in the in-game review, while some parts were easy enough to understand. I wouldn't mind if you could expand exposition and combat issues and possibly give hints as to how to fix them and also how to avoid them for future projects.

duncanidaho11

spiritborn wrote: »

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

It's next on my list, I should be able to get to it a bit later today.

if you're not too busy would mind expanding on what you said in the in-game review, while some parts were easy enough to understand. I wouldn't mind if you could expand exposition and combat issues and possibly give hints as to how to fix them and also how to avoid them for future projects.

Hey, no problem!

Some of the key story points occurred "off-screen" when they could have made for powerful moments in the mission. Ie. the attacks on the Klingons, death of the renegade Starfleet officer. We're told of events through the perspective of other characters and then they react to it, back and forth. This may have been a more comfortable writing style but it does run at odds with the format of an interactive mission. Players need to see, experience, and drive key events for the story as much as possible. It also results in long, heavy exposition through the last three maps (some of which I didn't feel was necessary, ie. speculation about the Undine. This threatened to upend a main point of the story [ie. that Starfleet officers could go off the rails because of their own failings] and resolved only to reiterate that point, just before closing out.)

It just goes back to the adage in creative writing: show, don't tell (where possible). Some suggestions for this mission would be:

• There's presently two attacks that are at issue: the one on the Klingon colony and the one on the Risan Dream. The latter is what we focus through gameplay but the former is what really matters to the story. Why not set the mission to deal with the former instead?
• Have some kind of a lead-in to Starfleet officers going so rogue that they'd attack civilians and other officers (I personally found this to be very extreme, even for the stated reasons.) Show how they're disgruntled through moment-to-moment actions, leading to the moment where they start fighting (making it a part of the mission rather than something that happens before it starts). This would also give you more room to firmly establish personal stakes which makes villains more compelling as characters.

Along those lines, what you also might consider is scaling down the conspiracy plot to be less overt. Ie. restage the mission so the player is investigating some other group besides Starfleet Macos (ex. Orion pirates) who are attacking by direction from bent Starfleet officers (trying to wreck the peace while still maintaining to a very loose set of principles). Then, as you work your way through the mission, you uncover this conspiracy and have a direct confrontation similar to what you have now. This would also elevate the sense there being a mystery to investigate.

Combat is more straight forward, there's too many NPC's on the bridge fight. It seemed that each station was manned in a way that fit bridge operations, but not necessarily for boss fight gameplay. I got through it (running my Sompek smashing build) but especially given how that space is setup (you're fighting from inside a box, essentially) this encounter could definitely be toned down (fewer officers, lower ranked.)

Keep in mind that this is just a set of suggestions to be taken under advisement. Building Foundry missions can be a long, complicated process and everyone has their own idea for how best to do it.

spiritborn

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

spiritborn wrote: »

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

It's next on my list, I should be able to get to it a bit later today.

if you're not too busy would mind expanding on what you said in the in-game review, while some parts were easy enough to understand. I wouldn't mind if you could expand exposition and combat issues and possibly give hints as to how to fix them and also how to avoid them for future projects.

Hey, no problem!

Some of the key story points occurred "off-screen" when they could have made for powerful moments in the mission. Ie. the attacks on the Klingons, death of the renegade Starfleet officer. We're told of events through the perspective of other characters and then they react to it, back and forth. This may have been a more comfortable writing style but it does run at odds with the format of an interactive mission. Players need to see, experience, and drive key events for the story as much as possible. It also results in long, heavy exposition through the last three maps (some of which I didn't feel was necessary, ie. speculation about the Undine. This threatened to upend a main point of the story [ie. that Starfleet officers could go off the rails because of their own failings] and resolved only to reiterate that point, just before closing out.)

It just goes back to the adage in creative writing: show, don't tell (where possible). Some suggestions for this mission would be:

• There's presently two attacks that are at issue: the one on the Klingon colony and the one on the Risan Dream. The latter is what we focus through gameplay but the former is what really matters to the story. Why not set the mission to deal with the former instead?
• Have some kind of a lead-in to Starfleet officers going so rogue that they'd attack civilians and other officers (I personally found this to be very extreme, even for the stated reasons.) Show how they're disgruntled through moment-to-moment actions, leading to the moment where they start fighting (making it a part of the mission rather than something that happens before it starts). This would also give you more room to firmly establish personal stakes which makes villains more compelling as characters.

Along those lines, what you also might consider is scaling down the conspiracy plot to be less overt. Ie. restage the mission so the player is investigating some other group besides Starfleet Macos (ex. Orion pirates) who are attacking by direction from bent Starfleet officers (trying to wreck the peace while still maintaining to a very loose set of principles). Then, as you work your way through the mission, you uncover this conspiracy and have a direct confrontation similar to what you have now. This would also elevate the sense there being a mystery to investigate.

Combat is more straight forward, there's too many NPC's on the bridge fight. It seemed that each station was manned in a way that fit bridge operations, but not necessarily for boss fight gameplay. I got through it (running my Sompek smashing build) but especially given how that space is setup (you're fighting from inside a box, essentially) this encounter could definitely be toned down (fewer officers, lower ranked.)

Keep in mind that this is just a set of suggestions to be taken under advisement. Building Foundry missions can be a long, complicated process and everyone has their own idea for how best to do it.

the reason I don't show the attack on the klingon colony is that it didn't happen, you and the Paladin stopped Admiral Rauha in time that she wasn't able to launch the attack. As for why I'm not showing the build up that's actually intentional, to show that "loyal" Starfleet officers were totally unaware of just how badly Rauha was hurt by the loss of her family, to give the idea that whole thing wasn't really pre-planned but rather a spur of the moment thing, hence why there's only rogue MACO or Starfleet since Rauha didn't pre-plan anything to that degree, she just stole the ship she in charge of testing, Rauha didn't have massive number of minions it was pretty much "what you see is what you got"

As for the combat I was thinking of re-adding the second group of friendly MACOs I orginally removed because the fight seemed too easy in the Foundry test

duncanidaho11

spiritborn wrote: »

the reason I don't show the attack on the klingon colony is that it didn't happen, you and the Paladin stopped Admiral Rauha in time that she wasn't able to launch the attack. As for why I'm not showing the build up that's actually intentional, to show that "loyal" Starfleet officers were totally unaware of just how badly Rauha was hurt by the loss of her family, to give the idea that whole thing wasn't really pre-planned but rather a spur of the moment thing, hence why there's only rogue MACO or Starfleet since Rauha didn't pre-plan anything to that degree, she just stole the ship she in charge of testing, Rauha didn't have massive number of minions it was pretty much "what you see is what you got"

As for the combat I was thinking of re-adding the second group of friendly MACOs I orginally removed because the fight seemed too easy in the Foundry test

Gotcha,

I assumed the attacked happened because of the KDF's very direct involvement (ie. sending ships) and need to discuss the situation with them in the latter part of the mission. But then why did the KDF get involved if, at that point, her crimes were only against the non-KDF? That's interference with an internal FED affair (which would be a separate and very serious issue in its own right) with the following dispute being over a thwarted (ie. dishonored) foe.

The build up, BTW, would be to justify why the Maco's go rogue. Rauha's motivations are well enough established later on (the family is a good character angle) but it's a sizable leap for her officers to jump to violence against the Risan Dream (there were a lot of bodies). That's what I think needs to be better established, or reworked, since it doesn't fit with the Starfleet we know (even under these circumstances.) I liked the parallels here between STVI and Into Darkness but to get to that point I feel there needs to be more leading up to it.

spiritborn

OK for some reason my reply got deleted

I suppose I should probably mention it better but the idea is that there's this small(ish) group (about 100 max) that admiral Rauha had gathered to work with her on the Eclipse-project since due to their hatred of klingons their loyality wasn't in question to her and when the peace treaty caused her to snap those people followed her because they were of like mind with her.

As for the undine part it's suppose to serve 2 purposes first to date this mission as happening soon after the attack on ESD, so the possibility of undine infiltrators is fresh on everyone's minds and second to emphasis that Rauha was an imperfect human being and there's no way to explain that away from the story

I'll take your suggestions into consideration the next time I'll work on this mission.

while the Risian Dream was the main victim her Bird of Prey escort got blasted as well not mention the Honor Guard corpse present at the bridge so KDF did loose people in there, also I might have put more emphasis to it but old Klingon you face at end is suppose to be this dishonored gloryhound that has gotten himself stuck in menial task as punishment for his actions so he's willing to take any chance no matter how insignifigant to "regain his honor" or die in battle hence him getting involved in this that weren't his business

spiritborn

Duncan here's possible way I was thinking of changing the mission and want your opinion of it.

I was thinking of that instead of Rauha dying off-screen when you deal with the klingons, I'm gonna change the Paladin Bridge into the Paladin sickbay and end on Rauha's death scene, to give a feeling that Rauha's death was more tragic then glorious. I was also thinking of removing the space map with klingon fleet at end, move the dialogue from that into the Vigilance bridge and possibly do the same to the Warrior's Pride bridge as well as that string of events seems like you perfectly well do it in one map rather then 3

duncanidaho11

That sounds like a set of promising changes.

spiritborn

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

That sounds like a set of promising changes.

I'll admit when made this orginally I was kind of scared of doing too much on a single map hence there's a rather large amount of maps in the mission.

duncanidaho11

spiritborn wrote: »

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

That sounds like a set of promising changes.

I'll admit when made this orginally I was kind of scared of doing too much on a single map hence there's a rather large amount of maps in the mission.

I had some similar reservations early on but using a space to its maximum potential is a good skill to pick up. When starting something out, you may only have one idea but as you work with the space you might find that it could also host more dialog/objectives (including things on the side, ie. optionals). Play it by feel but be mindful that the Foundry has longer loading times than normal mission content (back-end server stuff).

spiritborn

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

spiritborn wrote: »

duncanidaho11 wrote: »

That sounds like a set of promising changes.

I'll admit when made this orginally I was kind of scared of doing too much on a single map hence there's a rather large amount of maps in the mission.

I had some similar reservations early on but using a space to its maximum potential is a good skill to pick up. When starting something out, you may only have one idea but as you work with the space you might find that it could also host more dialog/objectives (including things on the side, ie. optionals). Play it by feel but be mindful that the Foundry has longer loading times than normal mission content (back-end server stuff).

When I started I was worried more about boring people if I had too much talking in a single map, as you probably have noticed I'm not super confident about my abilities. Obviously I'm more confident now but I started working on this before Delta Rising was launched so I've learned a lot since then.