Holo-synth by Darcanis

Comments

• remairtamec Member Posts: 44 Arc User

  March 2013 edited March 2013

  Since reviewing new foundry missions while waiting for mine to qualify is becoming a hobby of mine I gave yours a go. It was a good mission, pretty straightforward but an entertaining half hour. The humour was good and was in keeping with the tone of the mission, nothing overly serious just a fun romp around blasting enemies.
  
  A few things I noticed if you are interested:
  
  -You've missed changing the default prompt text from "Interact" in a couple of cases, one of the "collect data" objectives and a disable forcefield.
  -The combat was fine for the most part, you did warn players it is challenging so that's fine, it was easier than I thought it would be. The one bit I thought was badly balanced was when the orions show up, the groups are so close together that 3 groups attacked me at the same time. Pretty much were insta-killing one Boff at a time until I had to respawn.
  -I did like the variation in enemies, it kept the combat being interesting as the player proceeds. One suggestion might be to rename them as they are meant to be holograms, maybe adding "holographic" before the normal name, or "holo-synth" afterwards (though if I understood right these were just regular holograms).
  -Not sure if it is by design or not but the 3rd wave of klingons doesn't move into the transporter room as the first two do. This may be to draw the player out to the next area but I was stood waiting for a bit expecting them to turn up.
  -Your forcefields are too short for the doors and corridors they block, leaving a blank space above it. You can fix this simply by putting a second forcefield on top of the first and giving it the same triggers. Really a minor thing though, only noticed half way through.
  -Just a general note, using emotion animations on the player's bridge officers can be a bit immersion breaking. For instance I have a vulcan science officer who in this mission's dialogue was constantly smiling or looking sad, personally I think its best to leave emotions for those characters you add for the mission and allow Boffs to be a blank slate for the player.
  -Lastly I noticed a few grammatical errors, mostly in the use of punctuation. One exclamation point is plenty when used sparingly. Three in a row is needless.
  
  But as it stands its a good first mission. Humour that made me smile, a good story for those who read it and enough combat for those who don't. Keep it up.

  [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  
  Click for more details

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• lincolninspace Member Posts: 1,843 Arc User

  March 2013 edited March 2013

  Holo synth? what about dropping the holo bass?

  A TIME TO SEARCH: ENTER MY FOUNDRY MISSION at the RISA SYSTEM
  Parallels: my second mission for Fed aligned Romulans.

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• darcanis Member Posts: 0 Arc User

  March 2013 edited March 2013

  Thanks for all the feedback remairtamec. I really appreciate your input and will be making the changes to the next version of the map later this week.
  
  I know what you mean about the emotions as Cryptic always has my Vulcan angry at the Breen for wanting to trade for her in the daily mission. lol I'll set them all to military instead and keep emotions for my created NPCs.
  
  Thanks again for the input and glad you enjoyed the mission.

  [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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• darcanis Member Posts: 0 Arc User

  April 2013 edited April 2013

  Well I tweaked the mission a bit to address remairtamec's suggestions.
  
  

  • Replaced the missed "Interact" prompts with proper naming like "Lower Forcefield"
  • Spaced out the Orions a bit more so they don't one shot your away team
  • Added holo designation to the enemies to show they are holographic
  • Moved the third wave of Klingons more into view
  • Re-sized the forcefields so they fill the entire doorway or hall floor to ceiling
  • Removed emotions from BOFFs and kept it military instead
  • Removed extra !!! and fixed some minor spelling errors I missed earlier
  • Also reworked some of the dialogue to work a bit better

  
  
  So far I have only had one additional comment since fixing these things, and it said my mission was "Poorly written with excessive and typo-ridden dialogue". Which according to them ruined the mission. Ouch! Personally I didn't find any other typos and as for excessive.. *shrug* to each their own I guess. I did say 10 min not reading and 30 min reading.
  
  Overall though reception has been positive and I thank those who played and left constructive feedback.
  
  I am working on a mission now for the newest contest and will try to keep it less wordy and more balanced. lol

  [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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• donkyhotay Member Posts: 38 Arc User

  April 2013 edited April 2013

  Personally I prefer story to action. I would much rather have a "wordy" mission with an interesting story then one with lots of combat but lacking in story. If I want lots of combat I'll play a grinder mission. I disagree with remairtamec a little bit. After playing your mission my opinion was that it had too much combat and not enough story. Also I disagree with the idea of never having BOFF's emote, keep the emoting minimal but if story-wise you are "doomed" then having them sad/fearful is appropriate likewise when the day is saved having them happy is fine too. Just don't have them always happy/sad/etc., especially if they're providing the player with information. Sure it may be a little odd for players who have vulcan BOFF's but that's why you keep it minimal. Whatever you do don't create a back story for the player or BOFF's. This isn't something you did but I once played a foundry mission that included a romantic relationship between my captain and a (non-BOFF) medical officer on my ship that supposedly had been going on for at least a couple weeks. That was *really* jarring to me. Most of the rest of the other stuff remairtamec mentioned I either agreed with or didn't notice. I suspect however that my opinion on what makes a fun mission isn't standard. Especially given the fact that my only mission which I advertise as "story driven, narrative heavy" currently has zero feedback, I suspect most people are interested in action rather then story.

  Do not be afraid to joust a giant just because some people insist on believing in windmills.
  
  Check out my foundry mission "The Writers of History".

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• darcanis Member Posts: 0 Arc User

  April 2013 edited April 2013

  I also like story driven missions. This one was more of a intro to the Holo-Synths so I could create more story based missions later.
  
  I'll have to try your "story driven, narrative heavy" mission as those are the ones I enjoy.
  
  Thanks for playing and your feedback. I'm new to the foundry so am happy to get what feedback I can.

  [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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• donkyhotay Member Posts: 38 Arc User

  April 2013 edited April 2013

  Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed the mission.

  Do not be afraid to joust a giant just because some people insist on believing in windmills.
  
  Check out my foundry mission "The Writers of History".

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