Ok since starting In Shadows last night I have noticed one of my science officers abilities (Satra) won't work. I've moved her to a different station, removed all officers and set them back, even changed ships to the mogai and both Hazard Emitters and Transfer Shield strength on her will not work. Anyone else having this issue or had it but figured out how to get them to work?
***UPDATE***
Issue resolved found out once I changed my ships deflector from the tal shiar reward one to a different one ALL boff abilities were available
This has probably been said... but "Mind Games" needs a trigger warning. I found the mission's beginning part, with the indoctrination, rather deeply disturbing, and I'm not particularly sensitive as far as things of that sort go. The nonconsual-ish implications - including your character's rage toward the end, and the slow removal of the player's control over their character's actions during the course of the mission - are rather brilliantly done, but that could make the mission VERY painful for certain people to play.
This has probably been said... but "Mind Games" needs a trigger warning. I found the mission's beginning part, with the indoctrination, rather deeply disturbing, and I'm not particularly sensitive as far as things of that sort go. The nonconsual-ish implications - including your character's rage toward the end, and the slow removal of the player's control over their character's actions during the course of the mission - are rather brilliantly done, but that could make the mission VERY painful for certain people to play.
ummmm.... I gladly did all they asked! They never had to ask twice! I wanted to stay with them. Most fun thing in the arc was torturing the chick and stucking Borg parts on her. Wish I had stayed "brainwashed". What was painful was going back to being Dudley Do Right.
Just wish there were Feds in the tank instead of Bunnies.
Ok since starting In Shadows last night I have noticed one of my science officers abilities (Satra) won't work. I've moved her to a different station, removed all officers and set them back, even changed ships to the mogai and both Hazard Emitters and Transfer Shield strength on her will not work. Anyone else having this issue or had it but figured out how to get them to work?
I had this, removed the tal shir (sp?) deflector and everything worked again. I think that one is bugged.
Also, I believe its was enemy action, but one of the missions you are pretending to be Tal Shir (sp?), the Tal officer talks to yo and calls your ship the RRW (ship name here), Romulan Republic Warbird. I mean if they overlook that, I should have just asked them for the secret plans.
ummmm.... I gladly did all they asked! They never had to ask twice! I wanted to stay with them. Most fun thing in the arc was torturing the chick and stucking Borg parts on her. Wish I had stayed "brainwashed". What was painful was going back to being Dudley Do Right.
Just wish there were Feds in the tank instead of Bunnies.
Yes, but that isn't going to be everyone's experience of the mission. I don't think it's intended to be anyone's experience of it.
Here are my notes from the first play-through of this story arc
An Inside Job
There are many typos and punctuation errors in this mission - especially in the initial hail, but also when talking to Drake and Tal'Mera. It needs to be read through and corrected! The same goes for the information in the isolinear chip that is given to the player.
Enemy Action
When warping into the system, all my bridge officers were once again not slotted. This part of the mission was rather frustrating - it took a long while to take down the decoy ships, only to have them warp out at ~7% HP and give me around 3% objective completion.. And the fact that one ship always seemed to spawn to attack whenever I tried jamming a station or feeding false information made it an even more painful experience.
After the interrogation, the action button to talk to Subcommander Khimek is labelled "Speak to Khemek".
Sleepers
Really cool mission, the inside of the Borg cube is really well done, especially the hollow area. And the small cutscene when you first beam into the cube too - it's little touches like that that really adds to a mission!
The Borg in this cube doesn't seem to adapt - I think it would be better if they did, and then add info on frequency remodulators and how to use them. This could be a good mission to introduce new players to the Borg and teach them how to overcome their adaption mechanic.
Also, Captain N'Vek was constantly at 1 HP (but not dying) during the protect phase - perhaps it would be better if he just had a ton of HP?
After beaming out of the cube, a boff notification appears, and it is the same one that appeared when we first saw the cube earlier in the mission. During the battle with the cube, I was unable to use one of my ensign science skills (hazard emitters).
Cloak and Dagger
Some spelling errors in the initial hail from Janek. Otherwise a really well done mission!
Revelation
Great mission! But slightly odd that we slaughter the Reman guards, then suddenly we're allies against the Tal Shiar.. Oh, and the gateway room looks like it has straight out of Stargate SG-1 :P
During the gate room cutscene, there are lots of commas missing in the dialogue between the player and the bridge officers. Also noticed a few instances where "there" was used instead of "their" and "your" instead of "you're". Might be good to proofread this mission as well.
Mind Game
It's an ingenious mission, I especially enjoyed the part where we have to unlock the doors. But would it be possible to hail Khimek no matter where on the ship you are? My short-term memory struggled to remember everything that I had to get and where to get it at once. I would have marked this as an awesome mission, but forcing us to kill epoohs.. not cool That last space battle was pretty tough.
Joined in March, 2011. Lifer since December, 2011.
I've just finished Mind games. It was pretty fantastic. It made me Really frustrated that you had all these options to fight, but they really meant nothing, made no difference etc. Now of course frustration is usually bad, but in this case.. i really felt like I was in my chracter's head there. I mean I would choose these other things, and still have to proceed on the one specific path. I did have a problem at the end in fighting with Hakeev and the fleet. The first one i have no idea what happened, it seemed like i had jsut been greabbed by a tractor beam and immediately blew up. The second time something similar happened it was the multiple high yeiled shotsa form a Big D. Still.. one attack, instant kill. This seems a bit excessive.. I went up three different times. Now.. i also went right to Mind games skipping over my promotion intending to get it after.. so the new ship Might have helped too.. still i think it bears a little looking at. If I'm the only one who found it overly difficult then I probably jsut should have gotten my new ship first. :^D
The combo mission of mind games and the one before, (name escapes me at the moment) were two missions that really caught me. Like others I wish the choices to resist would actually do something. I can understand Taris getting away to play into the fed mission.
I dont think this episode is complete, however, without the voiceover. I think Sela's voice in your head should really be voiced. would add an effect to this mission.
the only bugs I ran into on these two missions was a minor camera glitch in the med bay after getting unindoctrinated. camera shaked uncontrollably until I moved out a bit.
The final showdown with Hakeev and his fleet of warbirds...This could be toned down alot! its not bad but I played this on normal twice each time picking a different buff, I barely scratched hakeev's ship and got torn to shreads in a hot second even with the defensive buff. i tried everything, the moment i came out of cloak all ships seemed to switch to me and blast me down. this and with my hazzards being locked for some reason i still don't know (thinking a bug) i died in a hot second.
"Enemy Action", after boarding the Tal Shiar ship.
Is it extremely hard for me to believe that this Khimek guy is on my side. I was not briefed about any allies that would be present on this mission, and for him to know about who I really am, he would have had to be briefed about my coming... Which wouldn't have happened without telling me. At the very least, given everybody's fondness for code phrases, he would have presented a code phrase to prove his identity. This feels like an attempt by paranoid Tal Shiar to test me, and my character would have caught on.
During the interrogation, apparently the Lieutenant is a pile of lunch trays? The sounds made when loosening restraints are... extremely strange. Surely in your library you have a "sliding strap and buckle" sound effect.
During the Lieutenant's dash for freedom, it would have been better to let the player shoot her. It feels clunky that it happens in a cutscene. At the very least, the player should be equipped with a modified pistol instead of their usual weapons, because at that point I was toting around a plasma assault rifle. Which doesn't make beams.
For that matter, why are the Tal Shiar not incredibly suspicious that you choose to use a kill shot at the highest possible intensity on a prisoner who is trying to "escape", through 3 guards who are about to grab her and slam her to the deck. Plus you're on a space ship. Where is she possibly going to escape to? This should ideally be rewritten so that the LT is not merely trying to get away, but starts tampering with some kind of dangerous equipment inside the interrogation room. Equipment that might pose a threat to the ship, like a canister of some chemical or biological agent. Then, it is easier to justify a vaporizing kill shot because you need to end the threat to the ship immediately and absolutely instead of merely subdue a prisoner running to nowhere. The player could be called outside the room by the security subcommander to give the LT time alone to set up her staged sabotage.
After speaking to Khimek for the second time, you're told to go to the bridge without any explanation of why. We aren't told that the Commander is interrogating the Captain on the bridge. For that matter, why is the Commander interrogating the Captain on the bridge...
Okay, finished this story arc and here are my thoughts.
Each of the episodes were wonderfully done. Much better story progression than in the Federation and Klingon factions. There were a number of typos in the text in each of the episodes. Most everyone else in this thread have covered in detail what these typos were, so I won't reiterate them.
When selecting the Tal Shiar uniform, it's initially a bare polygon model, until you select "Tal Shiar Shirt," which is an option toward the bottom of the tailoring screen. It should select the Tal Shiar texture by default. I'd recommend fixing this.
Also, when selecting the Mogai at New Romulus Command, If you don't choose to go to the Flotilla to ready the ship, the SubCommander mission breaks and won't resolve. Don't see any reason why we should be required to go to the Flotilla when there is a ship selection officer two feet to our left. This needs to be fixed.
I would also like to see consequences for fighting the Tal Shiar brainwashing. After clicking the green option 3 times, you end up being forced to do what you don't want to do. But there's ultimately no consequence for it. It'd be more interesting if there were consequences in some way.
And I'd also like to see some information or correlation between the Elachi and the Iconians. Are they one and the same, are they allies? I'm not sure how the Elachi even play into the story. Especially since previews of LoR seemed to show Iconian ships, rather than what was used for the Elachi.
I just finished the storyline (at least what is available) for the Romulan side of things, and like others I am amazed with the story line, it is well thought out and immersive, especially mind games, it kind of reminded me of the TNG episode where Geordi is used as a pawn to start a conflict between the Klingons and Federation.
My only bugs I have encountered thus far, is the elastic banding people have been talking about, and occassionally various weapons effects don't show up. but that is all minor. I am going to keep playing around with the Romulan, through at the moment there are now store missions so i will just do some side things. But good job so far in my books.
Finished All the Romulan Missions so far. I have to echo everyone's comments that this is a great storyline overall. Honestly, I am kinnd of bummed I completed it all given how much fun it was. I can totally see me wanted to level up a Romulan on Holodeck in a week or so just to enjoy the stories.
Sela seems especially fascinating to me, I hope we learn what all she is up to before her eventual abduction in Cutting the Cord. At times, I think she has no idea what Hakeev is up to, at Times I think she knows something is rotten with him and is plotting descreetly against him, at others I think she is in on the whole thing. I hope we find out eventually (and hopefully it isn't the latter most. )
Couple of things
Sleepers
When Captain N'vek is hacking into the borg to help us escape, there is some wierd graphical/clipping issue. at some angles his cape appears to detach and float above him.
Cloak and Dagger.
I don't usually post many Spelling/grammatical issues, but this one goes into the "makes no sense" when left, so I don't want it over looked. In the beginning when Janek gives you her instructions she currently says:
you will act as part of the advance force that will shut down the colony's planetary detection grid so the rest of the feel can move in unseen.
Temporal Ambassador.
Minor thing here, but during her explanation Tasha says I am a Starfleet Officer too. Not sure if this is because I am allied with Starfleet, or if it is just a placeholder, but Since I am a Romulan and not Starfleet, she should really reflect that.
"An Inside Job" needs some serious work, dialog, storyline, and spelling/grammar.
The numerous grammatical and spelling errors aside, the conversations are really not up to the quality we've seen from other missions. We're on a brand new Drozana and engaging in some serious spycraft with ROMULANS and your ally's intelligence officers, and the limits of the initial mission are talk to X, go to Y, then talk to someone in a booth? There's so much room for great storytelling here.
The dialog reply options for the player are pretty bad as well. Having multiple choice options that lead to the same eventual resolution would really go a long way towards improving the player replies and increase immersion.
-=Pre Episode=-
-Transporter colors are still Klingon instead of Romulan
-Tal Shiar Tachyon Deflector Array prevents science abilities from being used - it does not appear to register as a deflector, despite being able to fit into the slot.
-=An Inside Job(KDF)=-
-Numberous typos and factional errors(referring to Drake, despite being Klingon-aligned, etc.) encountered in the dialogue. I highly suggest fully reviewing all the text.
-=Enemy Action(KDF)=-
-Mission feels a bit slow requiring almost all of the relays and sensor platforms to be interacted with. Perhaps it's the lack of sense of imminence.
-Encountered a "Decoy Ship"(Negh'Var) stuck/clipping inside the central station. It seemed unable to escape and was difficult to get a firing solution on.
-At the end of the mission it says to return to Drozana, but you can simply hail the mission contact. Hailing the contact seems preferable as Drozana is a long way from Psi Velorum.
-Looking over the missions, the Contact information for previous missions seems inaccurate; listing either "Mission Simulator" or "Eta Eridani Missions" instead of actual people/contacts.
-=Sleepers(KDF)=-
-The tooltip should probably note that the T'liss System as being in the Alpha Centauri sector.
-The (presumed) Tal Shiar vessels milling about the system are hostile to the player as a KDF. I'm not sure if this is intended, but it seemed odd as they're not a mission objective.(It would be nice to get a federation aligned player to report if they are hostile to them as well.)
-The lack of need for a Remodulator to fight the Borg feels.. strange.. and potentially detrimental in preparing players for future encounters with them. However, given the status of the cube in a crippled state, it is reasonable that they are unable to adapt with things still coming online.
-"[Promotion]: Subcommander" does not finish/clear from the log when all stages are completed.
-=Cloak and Dagger(KDF)=-
-Interesting plot twists abound.
-The storyline pacing did feel a bit.. off.. during the mission though. I suspect people will have a rough time relating to sudden back and forth of it.
-Didn't really run into issues aside from the relatively crude/work-in-progress cutscenes.
-=Revelation(KDF)=-
-A random Klingon face appeared in the text window before the D'Deridex unlcloaked at the third space objective. ("This is probably an ambush sir, I suggest going to yellow alert..")
-The mission text after the second download appear in the middle of combat. I was in the midst of firing and ended up bypassing the conversation - missing the dialogue.
-"Gah! Why are there soo many different kinds of food drops that just clog up mah inventory!?"
-The Dynamic Reroute Impulse Engines are quite interesting.
-=Mind Game(KDF)=-
-Really dig the environment/atmosphere of Hakeev's ship.
-Tables were missing in the Borg Tech Lab. Various items being assembled and worked on were floating in mid air.
-Whew.. that was a rough ship battle with a lot of shield ignoring hull damage. Didn't pop, but being under 20% hull is always hair-raising.
-I half-expected a second plot twist - inception style.
-The Indoctrination percentage tracker reset to 0% and didn't clear from the quest log after that part of the mission concluded. I'm not sure if that is an intentional red herring or not.
-=Temporal Ambassador(KDF)=-
-I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Obisek who offered distract the guard.
-Otherwise, no issues.
-=(Closing thoughts)=-
-The first bugbear I had with this episode was how spread out the missions were(it spans 4 different sectors!) and the relatively little ingame guidance. For a veteran player, this isn't as big of an issue, but new players are going to get horribly lost.
-The second thing nagging me was the flow of the storyline. I get the whole theme of infiltration, but motivations and believe-ability were conveyed poorly in a way that just subtracted from the overall cohesion of the episode. I'm kind of at a loss on what to suggest. Perhaps reworking the introduction a bit to emphasize how important it for the player to accept this infiltration assignment? I was really feeling a disconnect from my character and the plot for a major portion of the storyline.
-That aside, It did have a very enjoyable and memorable finale. Props to the team!
As a Fed allied player, Romulan ships are hostile to me but they aren't "pirates" as per mission objectives. I have a feeling these are supposed to be other Tal Shiar agents out sweeping the area for the cube.
It would make more sense to find pirates at the cube than drifting aimlessly in the middle of nowhere. ("We found it first, buzz off greenblood.")
I like the sinister atmosphere of the interior of the cube. It's very VERY dark, weird, and confusing. Just how the Borg should be. However, the music selection should be one of the darker options to enhance the mood.
Blowing things up to salvage the parts doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Wouldn't it be better to cut the parts free with one of those cutting beam? You could even introduce the player to your little mini-games here: As per dilithium mining, adjust the focus of the laser to remove the Borg components. If you really like blowing things up, at least move the things we need to blow up away from the members of the other teams. :rolleyes:
The commander mentions that we can destroy nodes to further cripple the ship, however this never becomes an element of the mission. I assumed the nodes were the large green-lit prismatic thingies, but they don't show up as something I can destroy. Probably easiest just to remove that line of text.
Fighting these borg is nothing like fighting later borg because they do not adapt to gunfire, one the defining traits of the borg in combat. It's fine to give them "easy mode" adaptation rates (like the hordes of drones in Khitomer Ground contro room), but the player MUST be taught what a remodulator is and what happens when they don't use one. If you want to make it more focused and dramatic, I saw an Elite: have the Elite adapt and have the commander kill it for you in a cutscene before chastising you for not having a remodulator.
Fighting these borg is nothing like fighting later borg because they do not adapt to gunfire, one the defining traits of the borg in combat. It's fine to give them "easy mode" adaptation rates (like the hordes of drones in Khitomer Ground contro room), but the player MUST be taught what a remodulator is and what happens when they don't use one. If you want to make it more focused and dramatic, I saw an Elite: have the Elite adapt and have the commander kill it for you in a cutscene before chastising you for not having a remodulator.
Honestly, I have never understood this mentality. I realize you want people to adapt to endgame, but this is no where near endgame. Having endgame mechanic in something early on only adds unnecessary difficulty that can dishearten players. Furthermore, in my opinion the fights are challenging enough just by sheer numbers without effectively making weapons useless because the borg adapted.
If you want to fix people who don't understand endgame, do it at endgame. Make it clear how important it is to the mechanics of what you are doing at the time, Not unnecessarily increase the difficulty of a level 17/18 mission so people aren't confused.
Ok, I love it all so far, not noticing too much for bugs. I think that some of the big boss battles earlier on should be toned down a bit. It was awful hard to take down some of those boss ships. Also, please tell me somebody is going to proofread all of the text. I have noticed so many spelling and grammatical errors, I'm not even going to try to list them. If you dont have anyone to go over that stuff, I would be happy to do it for you. Send me the script, I'll revise it...
This mission has a lot going for it. Overall it's a very good one!
A few niggles though. Of course.
The colony leader seemed awfully eager to set off that bomb. He seemed like a political terrorist more than a colony leader: "All my people will die for the cause!" Really? Did you ask them? Seeing as this colony is supposed to be another member of the Romulan Republic, it left me feeling very concerned about what wild-eyed crazy people we have on our side. Have his first thought be for his people, and his second thought be for vengeance.
The artwork of the colony deserves a special commendation: Whoever worked on this map did an outstanding job.
Dong the shuttle thing 4 times over got rather tedious. Keep it fresh by
* making one shuttle captured by the Tal Shiar with civilians watching from hiding nearby. Kill all the agents and the civvies will run for it.
* one shuttle needs its colonists rescued (what we have now, but more colonists in one area)
* one shuttle needs a few parts before it can fly, cover a mechanic while they get it ready
Sela's presence was.... poorly explained? We were flying in a shuttle, then "ZOMG it's Sela!" How? What? I didn't see anything. That cutscene needs some polishing.
Honestly, I have never understood this mentality. I realize you want people to adapt to endgame, but this is no where near endgame.
This mentality is due to the fact that every single time we see people fighting the Borg with energy weapon, the Borg adapt. It's one of their core defining features. It's directly in violation of canon that they aren't adapting. I'm okay with the adaptation being "generous" for newbie-coddling gameplay purposes, but somewhere in that mission it must be addressed.
"Cloak and Dagger"Sela's presence was.... poorly explained? We were flying in a shuttle, then "ZOMG it's Sela!" How? What? I didn't see anything. That cutscene needs some polishing.
If you look out the window of the shuttle, I think you can barely make out the shape of a Scimitar.
In temporal Ambassador, having the hand drawn map in that little box next to the the button, and under neath the big giant view screen with nothing but an image of a book in it makes the map a bit harder to read. Maybe not that important, but it's a wierd place for the map to appear, and it's not very convient for checking your progress in the tunnels.
A very interesting arc. I liked the characters, most of them have a personality, except the other Romulan Republic spy in the Tal Shiar. He's just there for the plot but that's it.
I liked the insane colony leader willing to blow the planet up. This is the kind of "bad guy" we often see in star trek episodes, and the plot was a bit more complex than "beam down and kill everyone". Great mission.
My favourite one so far is "mind game". This one is really excellent! I think it could use some cosmetic improvement: the Tal Shiar clickable boxes are all red and the "good" choices are green. The colours make the "good" choice visually more attractive. You should make the bad guy choice orange so that people really have a choice.
The percentage also comes back at 0% right after we are converted to a good RR soldier. Is it a typo? Can't you change the text instead?
The funniest moments were the scientists and guards running after the borg walker. This was really awesome.
An inside job: Could you please add a tailor on Drozana so that we can use the Tal Shiar uniform we're supposed to wear when we play the next episode? Looking for another social zone broke a bit my immersion.
Revelation: I don't remember this episodes very well but I remember being a bit confused, there were friendly and enemy NPCs, both were Tal Shiar. Why?
Enemy action: I like the fact that we could choose what to do. Too bad i couldn't save the Vulcan captain.
Enemy action: Excellent episode, fighting makes sense here. Too bad the mission reward wasn't Borg-themed!
All the maps were awesome, especially the Mind Game one. I hope we'll see it again.
Right, so... I played "Revelation" and "Mind Games". I'm a little hesitant to get into these. Firstly because there is a lot that is wrong with them, and secondly because other people seem to think they are okay so I feel like maybe I just didn't get it?
But, here goes anyway.
First off, we're told by our new Tal Shiar handler that they want us to investigate anomalies in "staffing manifests". So, they've got some people that are in the wrong place, or too few, or whatever. Our first officer sifts the data and tells us something is probably going on in Hobus. Instead of just saying "We should go to Hobus", tell us WHY. Are there discrepencies with passenger manifests in and out of that system? There's a lot of missing and redacted data... What kind of data? Give us some context here. "I found a pattern" and then "We should go to Hobus" doesn't sound like an officer giving the captain a brief upon which to make a decision.
When you get there, data indicates the presence of a base. It does? Is the same data that we haven't heard anything about? The lack of motivation feels like I'm being led around by the nose here. Tovan needs to explain his thought process.
We scan the system, isolate the background signals, and then scan the system again. We find a something. Let's check it out. "The contact is a Romulan ship. What are they doing here?", my crew doesn't wonder. "They're charging weapons!", they fail to exclaim. Is nobody else on my ship surprised to that a Romulan ship fired on another Romulan ship without any attempt at communication?
"I wonder what they are trying to prevent us from finding". Who is 'they'!? Why does my crew seem to know who we're up against but I don't?
"This is probably an ambush, sir". Which is why I was cloaked. Emphasis on was.
Scanning the planetoid, I'm told that we can expect resistance. But at this time we don't know who's down there.
Up to this point, the mission is written by somebody who already knows what's going to happen and what's going on. It's NOT being written as if it's from the perspective of somebody who is trying to figure things out e.g. our character. Our Tal Shiar handler makes it sound like we're hunting down a suspicious clerical error to hide a mole, and then suddenly we're engaging multiple warships and a large asteroid base with no indication about who or what they are. Importantly, nobody seems to think this abrupt shift in our mission is at all strange.
We're handed the name "Taris". Perhaps I should point out that as a new player joining STO for the Romulan campaign, I have no idea who Taris is. The whole revelatory paragraph is frankly poorly written. It should read something more like "Here's an authorization for research materials from Taris... The same Taris who was a Praetor of the Empire? Wasn't she responsible for the subspace weapon that destroyed Romulus? Wait. She is here. Here, on this station! We have an opportunity to bring this monster to justice!"
Speaking of poorly written... "Assault the command room". My first officer should never presume to give me orders.
As Taris explains her position, it would be nice to know what, exactly, she thought she was doing for the benefit of all Romulans. "I thought I was doing something for the greater good" is completely unsympathetic since it lacks context. Also, her comment about appealing to the Iconians makes her look like a complete idiot. Hakeev was working with them, and Hakeev built the bomb (at least in her version of the story). Why would the Iconians help in any way.
Why are the Tal Shiar assault troops hostile to us? We're here as agents of the Tal Shiar, and they knew we were coming. At their request.
The ending was kind of silly. We have no idea where that gateway leads to, we don't know how to operate it, and it takes the same amount of time to yell in your commlink "Get me out of here!" as it does to run across a room into a big alien portal.
What should have happened is that the Tal Shiar ships would have set up a transporter inhibitor field. Your crew escapes back to your ship in a shuttlecraft, but you stay behind first to operate the shuttle bay controls and then to blow up the gate. As the facility starts to explode, a Tal Shiar assault squad runs up and says "It's all coming down! We need to get out now!" (remember, the Tal Shiar are not hostile because they think you're one of them). In the confusion, you get beamed to Hakeev's ship instead of your own. Except Hakeev knows you're not who you seem...
(Mind Games starts here)
Continuing the theme: A neat idea, but the execution is not very good.
First off, don't show us the indoctrination. Tell us "Hakeev is very creative". "Let me show you what my masters have taught me". Hakeev raises some device, and then the screen flashes white. As we fade to black, we hear disturbing mechanical and grisly sounds with no visuals. Then we wake up in the detection block.
Do not give us an inner voice.
The fact that we have an inner voice instantly tells us firstly, that we are still we, and secondly, that the indoctrination isn't working. Don't give the player this information. The player shouldn't be sure whether they are still controlling their original character or somebody else. For that matter, change the mission segment to something innocuous like "A day at the office". We should wake up, think "Wow my head hurts", and then we immediately get a message from our handler that we are supposed to be reporting for our duty assignments. Give us a friend to escort us there, somebody sympathetic. The food is terrible, when are we going to get paid, did you hear about that brawl the other day? Hakeev should be trying to ram into our head this alternate identity, and he will do that by giving us supporting illusions like those of having persistent friends and affairs as a Tal Shiar agent.
Nobody should mention conditioning, or indoctrination. Because you don't know anything about that and Hakeev wouldn't be eager to tell you. "You" just completed your special training, and now you are ready to take your proficiency tests.
At the morality decisions, we don't have an inner voice. Take the color coding off the choices and mix them up. Give us some "duds". The morality choice needs to make sense in the context of our forced reality. In our conscious reality we are a Tal Shiar agent and we should have no problem with picking up the pistol. But our subconscious (emphasis important) will balk at shooting somebody we recognize. Our choices at this point should be "Yes, sir" (accept the brainwashing), "Who is this prisoner?" (hesitate/dud), and "Wait, don't I know her..." (reject brainwashing).
Every time you reject the brainwashing, you're "punished" by the screen going all bloomy and whobbly, and the situation will slightly alter itself. Continuing the example, if you initially reject the brainwashing, you are punished and then Satra is replaced by somebody with a different name. It's still Satra, but our programming has been adjusted and refined so that we don't recognize her as Satra. That's how you play mind games.
This continues until Khimek tells you to go to the med bay. When he knocks you out and deprograms you, now is when you throw in the exposition about the programming you received, and the player is relieved to know that they are still themselves. Khimek needs to provide some kind of proof that he is who he says he is since both the player and the character should be suspicious as hell for more shenanigans, and he also needs to mention that he's giving the player a covert in-ear communications device.
After that, the rest of the mission is fine.
So... Yeah. Mind Games. It's an interesting premise but it could benefit from some RADICAL overhauls. Remember: I'm tough because I love you.
Comments
***UPDATE***
Issue resolved found out once I changed my ships deflector from the tal shiar reward one to a different one ALL boff abilities were available
ummmm.... I gladly did all they asked! They never had to ask twice! I wanted to stay with them. Most fun thing in the arc was torturing the chick and stucking Borg parts on her. Wish I had stayed "brainwashed". What was painful was going back to being Dudley Do Right.
Just wish there were Feds in the tank instead of Bunnies.
I had this, removed the tal shir (sp?) deflector and everything worked again. I think that one is bugged.
Also, I believe its was enemy action, but one of the missions you are pretending to be Tal Shir (sp?), the Tal officer talks to yo and calls your ship the RRW (ship name here), Romulan Republic Warbird. I mean if they overlook that, I should have just asked them for the secret plans.
Nouveau riche LTS member
Yes, but that isn't going to be everyone's experience of the mission. I don't think it's intended to be anyone's experience of it.
An Inside Job
There are many typos and punctuation errors in this mission - especially in the initial hail, but also when talking to Drake and Tal'Mera. It needs to be read through and corrected! The same goes for the information in the isolinear chip that is given to the player.
Enemy Action
When warping into the system, all my bridge officers were once again not slotted. This part of the mission was rather frustrating - it took a long while to take down the decoy ships, only to have them warp out at ~7% HP and give me around 3% objective completion.. And the fact that one ship always seemed to spawn to attack whenever I tried jamming a station or feeding false information made it an even more painful experience.
After the interrogation, the action button to talk to Subcommander Khimek is labelled "Speak to Khemek".
Sleepers
Really cool mission, the inside of the Borg cube is really well done, especially the hollow area. And the small cutscene when you first beam into the cube too - it's little touches like that that really adds to a mission!
The Borg in this cube doesn't seem to adapt - I think it would be better if they did, and then add info on frequency remodulators and how to use them. This could be a good mission to introduce new players to the Borg and teach them how to overcome their adaption mechanic.
Also, Captain N'Vek was constantly at 1 HP (but not dying) during the protect phase - perhaps it would be better if he just had a ton of HP?
After beaming out of the cube, a boff notification appears, and it is the same one that appeared when we first saw the cube earlier in the mission. During the battle with the cube, I was unable to use one of my ensign science skills (hazard emitters).
Cloak and Dagger
Some spelling errors in the initial hail from Janek. Otherwise a really well done mission!
Revelation
Great mission! But slightly odd that we slaughter the Reman guards, then suddenly we're allies against the Tal Shiar.. Oh, and the gateway room looks like it has straight out of Stargate SG-1 :P
During the gate room cutscene, there are lots of commas missing in the dialogue between the player and the bridge officers. Also noticed a few instances where "there" was used instead of "their" and "your" instead of "you're". Might be good to proofread this mission as well.
Mind Game
It's an ingenious mission, I especially enjoyed the part where we have to unlock the doors. But would it be possible to hail Khimek no matter where on the ship you are? My short-term memory struggled to remember everything that I had to get and where to get it at once. I would have marked this as an awesome mission, but forcing us to kill epoohs.. not cool
Joined in March, 2011. Lifer since December, 2011.
It seems like the campaign should either be continuous, or the tutorial messages should suggest to new players where they can get some XP on the side.
I dont think this episode is complete, however, without the voiceover. I think Sela's voice in your head should really be voiced. would add an effect to this mission.
the only bugs I ran into on these two missions was a minor camera glitch in the med bay after getting unindoctrinated. camera shaked uncontrollably until I moved out a bit.
The final showdown with Hakeev and his fleet of warbirds...This could be toned down alot! its not bad but I played this on normal twice each time picking a different buff, I barely scratched hakeev's ship and got torn to shreads in a hot second even with the defensive buff. i tried everything, the moment i came out of cloak all ships seemed to switch to me and blast me down. this and with my hazzards being locked for some reason i still don't know (thinking a bug) i died in a hot second.
Is it extremely hard for me to believe that this Khimek guy is on my side. I was not briefed about any allies that would be present on this mission, and for him to know about who I really am, he would have had to be briefed about my coming... Which wouldn't have happened without telling me. At the very least, given everybody's fondness for code phrases, he would have presented a code phrase to prove his identity. This feels like an attempt by paranoid Tal Shiar to test me, and my character would have caught on.
During the interrogation, apparently the Lieutenant is a pile of lunch trays? The sounds made when loosening restraints are... extremely strange. Surely in your library you have a "sliding strap and buckle" sound effect.
During the Lieutenant's dash for freedom, it would have been better to let the player shoot her. It feels clunky that it happens in a cutscene. At the very least, the player should be equipped with a modified pistol instead of their usual weapons, because at that point I was toting around a plasma assault rifle. Which doesn't make beams.
For that matter, why are the Tal Shiar not incredibly suspicious that you choose to use a kill shot at the highest possible intensity on a prisoner who is trying to "escape", through 3 guards who are about to grab her and slam her to the deck. Plus you're on a space ship. Where is she possibly going to escape to? This should ideally be rewritten so that the LT is not merely trying to get away, but starts tampering with some kind of dangerous equipment inside the interrogation room. Equipment that might pose a threat to the ship, like a canister of some chemical or biological agent. Then, it is easier to justify a vaporizing kill shot because you need to end the threat to the ship immediately and absolutely instead of merely subdue a prisoner running to nowhere. The player could be called outside the room by the security subcommander to give the LT time alone to set up her staged sabotage.
After speaking to Khimek for the second time, you're told to go to the bridge without any explanation of why. We aren't told that the Commander is interrogating the Captain on the bridge. For that matter, why is the Commander interrogating the Captain on the bridge...
Each of the episodes were wonderfully done. Much better story progression than in the Federation and Klingon factions. There were a number of typos in the text in each of the episodes. Most everyone else in this thread have covered in detail what these typos were, so I won't reiterate them.
When selecting the Tal Shiar uniform, it's initially a bare polygon model, until you select "Tal Shiar Shirt," which is an option toward the bottom of the tailoring screen. It should select the Tal Shiar texture by default. I'd recommend fixing this.
Also, when selecting the Mogai at New Romulus Command, If you don't choose to go to the Flotilla to ready the ship, the SubCommander mission breaks and won't resolve. Don't see any reason why we should be required to go to the Flotilla when there is a ship selection officer two feet to our left. This needs to be fixed.
I would also like to see consequences for fighting the Tal Shiar brainwashing. After clicking the green option 3 times, you end up being forced to do what you don't want to do. But there's ultimately no consequence for it. It'd be more interesting if there were consequences in some way.
And I'd also like to see some information or correlation between the Elachi and the Iconians. Are they one and the same, are they allies? I'm not sure how the Elachi even play into the story. Especially since previews of LoR seemed to show Iconian ships, rather than what was used for the Elachi.
But, overall, I loved the Romulan content.
My only bugs I have encountered thus far, is the elastic banding people have been talking about, and occassionally various weapons effects don't show up. but that is all minor. I am going to keep playing around with the Romulan, through at the moment there are now store missions so i will just do some side things. But good job so far in my books.
Commanding Officer USS Frontenac
Commanding Officer Enterprise NX-01
Sela seems especially fascinating to me, I hope we learn what all she is up to before her eventual abduction in Cutting the Cord. At times, I think she has no idea what Hakeev is up to, at Times I think she knows something is rotten with him and is plotting descreetly against him, at others I think she is in on the whole thing. I hope we find out eventually (and hopefully it isn't the latter most.
Couple of things
Sleepers
When Captain N'vek is hacking into the borg to help us escape, there is some wierd graphical/clipping issue. at some angles his cape appears to detach and float above him.
Cloak and Dagger.
I don't usually post many Spelling/grammatical issues, but this one goes into the "makes no sense" when left, so I don't want it over looked. In the beginning when Janek gives you her instructions she currently says:
Temporal Ambassador.
Minor thing here, but during her explanation Tasha says I am a Starfleet Officer too. Not sure if this is because I am allied with Starfleet, or if it is just a placeholder, but Since I am a Romulan and not Starfleet, she should really reflect that.
The numerous grammatical and spelling errors aside, the conversations are really not up to the quality we've seen from other missions. We're on a brand new Drozana and engaging in some serious spycraft with ROMULANS and your ally's intelligence officers, and the limits of the initial mission are talk to X, go to Y, then talk to someone in a booth? There's so much room for great storytelling here.
The dialog reply options for the player are pretty bad as well. Having multiple choice options that lead to the same eventual resolution would really go a long way towards improving the player replies and increase immersion.
Large numbers of spelling and grammatical errors that needed correcting they ruin the immersion.
The new story lines are well though out though and good fun to play through.
-=Pre Episode=-
-Transporter colors are still Klingon instead of Romulan
-Tal Shiar Tachyon Deflector Array prevents science abilities from being used - it does not appear to register as a deflector, despite being able to fit into the slot.
-=An Inside Job(KDF)=-
-Numberous typos and factional errors(referring to Drake, despite being Klingon-aligned, etc.) encountered in the dialogue. I highly suggest fully reviewing all the text.
-=Enemy Action(KDF)=-
-Mission feels a bit slow requiring almost all of the relays and sensor platforms to be interacted with. Perhaps it's the lack of sense of imminence.
-Encountered a "Decoy Ship"(Negh'Var) stuck/clipping inside the central station. It seemed unable to escape and was difficult to get a firing solution on.
-At the end of the mission it says to return to Drozana, but you can simply hail the mission contact. Hailing the contact seems preferable as Drozana is a long way from Psi Velorum.
-Looking over the missions, the Contact information for previous missions seems inaccurate; listing either "Mission Simulator" or "Eta Eridani Missions" instead of actual people/contacts.
-=Sleepers(KDF)=-
-The tooltip should probably note that the T'liss System as being in the Alpha Centauri sector.
-The (presumed) Tal Shiar vessels milling about the system are hostile to the player as a KDF. I'm not sure if this is intended, but it seemed odd as they're not a mission objective.(It would be nice to get a federation aligned player to report if they are hostile to them as well.)
-The lack of need for a Remodulator to fight the Borg feels.. strange.. and potentially detrimental in preparing players for future encounters with them. However, given the status of the cube in a crippled state, it is reasonable that they are unable to adapt with things still coming online.
-"[Promotion]: Subcommander" does not finish/clear from the log when all stages are completed.
-=Cloak and Dagger(KDF)=-
-Interesting plot twists abound.
-The storyline pacing did feel a bit.. off.. during the mission though. I suspect people will have a rough time relating to sudden back and forth of it.
-Didn't really run into issues aside from the relatively crude/work-in-progress cutscenes.
-=Revelation(KDF)=-
-A random Klingon face appeared in the text window before the D'Deridex unlcloaked at the third space objective. ("This is probably an ambush sir, I suggest going to yellow alert..")
-The mission text after the second download appear in the middle of combat. I was in the midst of firing and ended up bypassing the conversation - missing the dialogue.
-"Gah! Why are there soo many different kinds of food drops that just clog up mah inventory!?"
-The Dynamic Reroute Impulse Engines are quite interesting.
-=Mind Game(KDF)=-
-Really dig the environment/atmosphere of Hakeev's ship.
-Tables were missing in the Borg Tech Lab. Various items being assembled and worked on were floating in mid air.
-Whew.. that was a rough ship battle with a lot of shield ignoring hull damage. Didn't pop, but being under 20% hull is always hair-raising.
-I half-expected a second plot twist - inception style.
-The Indoctrination percentage tracker reset to 0% and didn't clear from the quest log after that part of the mission concluded. I'm not sure if that is an intentional red herring or not.
-=Temporal Ambassador(KDF)=-
-I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Obisek who offered distract the guard.
-Otherwise, no issues.
-=(Closing thoughts)=-
-The first bugbear I had with this episode was how spread out the missions were(it spans 4 different sectors!) and the relatively little ingame guidance. For a veteran player, this isn't as big of an issue, but new players are going to get horribly lost.
-The second thing nagging me was the flow of the storyline. I get the whole theme of infiltration, but motivations and believe-ability were conveyed poorly in a way that just subtracted from the overall cohesion of the episode. I'm kind of at a loss on what to suggest. Perhaps reworking the introduction a bit to emphasize how important it for the player to accept this infiltration assignment? I was really feeling a disconnect from my character and the plot for a major portion of the storyline.
-That aside, It did have a very enjoyable and memorable finale. Props to the team!
As a Fed allied player, Romulan ships are hostile to me but they aren't "pirates" as per mission objectives. I have a feeling these are supposed to be other Tal Shiar agents out sweeping the area for the cube.
It would make more sense to find pirates at the cube than drifting aimlessly in the middle of nowhere. ("We found it first, buzz off greenblood.")
I like the sinister atmosphere of the interior of the cube. It's very VERY dark, weird, and confusing. Just how the Borg should be. However, the music selection should be one of the darker options to enhance the mood.
Blowing things up to salvage the parts doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Wouldn't it be better to cut the parts free with one of those cutting beam? You could even introduce the player to your little mini-games here: As per dilithium mining, adjust the focus of the laser to remove the Borg components. If you really like blowing things up, at least move the things we need to blow up away from the members of the other teams. :rolleyes:
The commander mentions that we can destroy nodes to further cripple the ship, however this never becomes an element of the mission. I assumed the nodes were the large green-lit prismatic thingies, but they don't show up as something I can destroy. Probably easiest just to remove that line of text.
Fighting these borg is nothing like fighting later borg because they do not adapt to gunfire, one the defining traits of the borg in combat. It's fine to give them "easy mode" adaptation rates (like the hordes of drones in Khitomer Ground contro room), but the player MUST be taught what a remodulator is and what happens when they don't use one. If you want to make it more focused and dramatic, I saw an Elite: have the Elite adapt and have the commander kill it for you in a cutscene before chastising you for not having a remodulator.
Honestly, I have never understood this mentality. I realize you want people to adapt to endgame, but this is no where near endgame. Having endgame mechanic in something early on only adds unnecessary difficulty that can dishearten players. Furthermore, in my opinion the fights are challenging enough just by sheer numbers without effectively making weapons useless because the borg adapted.
If you want to fix people who don't understand endgame, do it at endgame. Make it clear how important it is to the mechanics of what you are doing at the time, Not unnecessarily increase the difficulty of a level 17/18 mission so people aren't confused.
This mission has a lot going for it. Overall it's a very good one!
A few niggles though. Of course.
The colony leader seemed awfully eager to set off that bomb. He seemed like a political terrorist more than a colony leader: "All my people will die for the cause!" Really? Did you ask them? Seeing as this colony is supposed to be another member of the Romulan Republic, it left me feeling very concerned about what wild-eyed crazy people we have on our side. Have his first thought be for his people, and his second thought be for vengeance.
The artwork of the colony deserves a special commendation: Whoever worked on this map did an outstanding job.
Dong the shuttle thing 4 times over got rather tedious. Keep it fresh by
* making one shuttle captured by the Tal Shiar with civilians watching from hiding nearby. Kill all the agents and the civvies will run for it.
* one shuttle needs its colonists rescued (what we have now, but more colonists in one area)
* one shuttle needs a few parts before it can fly, cover a mechanic while they get it ready
Sela's presence was.... poorly explained? We were flying in a shuttle, then "ZOMG it's Sela!" How? What? I didn't see anything. That cutscene needs some polishing.
This mentality is due to the fact that every single time we see people fighting the Borg with energy weapon, the Borg adapt. It's one of their core defining features. It's directly in violation of canon that they aren't adapting. I'm okay with the adaptation being "generous" for newbie-coddling gameplay purposes, but somewhere in that mission it must be addressed.
If you look out the window of the shuttle, I think you can barely make out the shape of a Scimitar.
I liked the insane colony leader willing to blow the planet up. This is the kind of "bad guy" we often see in star trek episodes, and the plot was a bit more complex than "beam down and kill everyone". Great mission.
My favourite one so far is "mind game". This one is really excellent! I think it could use some cosmetic improvement: the Tal Shiar clickable boxes are all red and the "good" choices are green. The colours make the "good" choice visually more attractive. You should make the bad guy choice orange so that people really have a choice.
The percentage also comes back at 0% right after we are converted to a good RR soldier. Is it a typo? Can't you change the text instead?
The funniest moments were the scientists and guards running after the borg walker. This was really awesome.
An inside job: Could you please add a tailor on Drozana so that we can use the Tal Shiar uniform we're supposed to wear when we play the next episode? Looking for another social zone broke a bit my immersion.
Revelation: I don't remember this episodes very well but I remember being a bit confused, there were friendly and enemy NPCs, both were Tal Shiar. Why?
Enemy action: I like the fact that we could choose what to do. Too bad i couldn't save the Vulcan captain.
Enemy action: Excellent episode, fighting makes sense here. Too bad the mission reward wasn't Borg-themed!
All the maps were awesome, especially the Mind Game one. I hope we'll see it again.
But, here goes anyway.
First off, we're told by our new Tal Shiar handler that they want us to investigate anomalies in "staffing manifests". So, they've got some people that are in the wrong place, or too few, or whatever. Our first officer sifts the data and tells us something is probably going on in Hobus. Instead of just saying "We should go to Hobus", tell us WHY. Are there discrepencies with passenger manifests in and out of that system? There's a lot of missing and redacted data... What kind of data? Give us some context here. "I found a pattern" and then "We should go to Hobus" doesn't sound like an officer giving the captain a brief upon which to make a decision.
When you get there, data indicates the presence of a base. It does? Is the same data that we haven't heard anything about? The lack of motivation feels like I'm being led around by the nose here. Tovan needs to explain his thought process.
We scan the system, isolate the background signals, and then scan the system again. We find a something. Let's check it out. "The contact is a Romulan ship. What are they doing here?", my crew doesn't wonder. "They're charging weapons!", they fail to exclaim. Is nobody else on my ship surprised to that a Romulan ship fired on another Romulan ship without any attempt at communication?
"I wonder what they are trying to prevent us from finding". Who is 'they'!? Why does my crew seem to know who we're up against but I don't?
"This is probably an ambush, sir". Which is why I was cloaked. Emphasis on was.
Scanning the planetoid, I'm told that we can expect resistance. But at this time we don't know who's down there.
Up to this point, the mission is written by somebody who already knows what's going to happen and what's going on. It's NOT being written as if it's from the perspective of somebody who is trying to figure things out e.g. our character. Our Tal Shiar handler makes it sound like we're hunting down a suspicious clerical error to hide a mole, and then suddenly we're engaging multiple warships and a large asteroid base with no indication about who or what they are. Importantly, nobody seems to think this abrupt shift in our mission is at all strange.
We're handed the name "Taris". Perhaps I should point out that as a new player joining STO for the Romulan campaign, I have no idea who Taris is. The whole revelatory paragraph is frankly poorly written. It should read something more like "Here's an authorization for research materials from Taris... The same Taris who was a Praetor of the Empire? Wasn't she responsible for the subspace weapon that destroyed Romulus? Wait. She is here. Here, on this station! We have an opportunity to bring this monster to justice!"
Speaking of poorly written... "Assault the command room". My first officer should never presume to give me orders.
As Taris explains her position, it would be nice to know what, exactly, she thought she was doing for the benefit of all Romulans. "I thought I was doing something for the greater good" is completely unsympathetic since it lacks context. Also, her comment about appealing to the Iconians makes her look like a complete idiot. Hakeev was working with them, and Hakeev built the bomb (at least in her version of the story). Why would the Iconians help in any way.
Why are the Tal Shiar assault troops hostile to us? We're here as agents of the Tal Shiar, and they knew we were coming. At their request.
The ending was kind of silly. We have no idea where that gateway leads to, we don't know how to operate it, and it takes the same amount of time to yell in your commlink "Get me out of here!" as it does to run across a room into a big alien portal.
What should have happened is that the Tal Shiar ships would have set up a transporter inhibitor field. Your crew escapes back to your ship in a shuttlecraft, but you stay behind first to operate the shuttle bay controls and then to blow up the gate. As the facility starts to explode, a Tal Shiar assault squad runs up and says "It's all coming down! We need to get out now!" (remember, the Tal Shiar are not hostile because they think you're one of them). In the confusion, you get beamed to Hakeev's ship instead of your own. Except Hakeev knows you're not who you seem...
(Mind Games starts here)
Continuing the theme: A neat idea, but the execution is not very good.
First off, don't show us the indoctrination. Tell us "Hakeev is very creative". "Let me show you what my masters have taught me". Hakeev raises some device, and then the screen flashes white. As we fade to black, we hear disturbing mechanical and grisly sounds with no visuals. Then we wake up in the detection block.
Do not give us an inner voice.
The fact that we have an inner voice instantly tells us firstly, that we are still we, and secondly, that the indoctrination isn't working. Don't give the player this information. The player shouldn't be sure whether they are still controlling their original character or somebody else. For that matter, change the mission segment to something innocuous like "A day at the office". We should wake up, think "Wow my head hurts", and then we immediately get a message from our handler that we are supposed to be reporting for our duty assignments. Give us a friend to escort us there, somebody sympathetic. The food is terrible, when are we going to get paid, did you hear about that brawl the other day? Hakeev should be trying to ram into our head this alternate identity, and he will do that by giving us supporting illusions like those of having persistent friends and affairs as a Tal Shiar agent.
Nobody should mention conditioning, or indoctrination. Because you don't know anything about that and Hakeev wouldn't be eager to tell you. "You" just completed your special training, and now you are ready to take your proficiency tests.
At the morality decisions, we don't have an inner voice. Take the color coding off the choices and mix them up. Give us some "duds". The morality choice needs to make sense in the context of our forced reality. In our conscious reality we are a Tal Shiar agent and we should have no problem with picking up the pistol. But our subconscious (emphasis important) will balk at shooting somebody we recognize. Our choices at this point should be "Yes, sir" (accept the brainwashing), "Who is this prisoner?" (hesitate/dud), and "Wait, don't I know her..." (reject brainwashing).
Every time you reject the brainwashing, you're "punished" by the screen going all bloomy and whobbly, and the situation will slightly alter itself. Continuing the example, if you initially reject the brainwashing, you are punished and then Satra is replaced by somebody with a different name. It's still Satra, but our programming has been adjusted and refined so that we don't recognize her as Satra. That's how you play mind games.
This continues until Khimek tells you to go to the med bay. When he knocks you out and deprograms you, now is when you throw in the exposition about the programming you received, and the player is relieved to know that they are still themselves. Khimek needs to provide some kind of proof that he is who he says he is since both the player and the character should be suspicious as hell for more shenanigans, and he also needs to mention that he's giving the player a covert in-ear communications device.
After that, the rest of the mission is fine.
So... Yeah. Mind Games. It's an interesting premise but it could benefit from some RADICAL overhauls. Remember: I'm tough because I love you.