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Offline slird  
#1 Posted : Sunday, August 23, 2015 7:07:32 PM(UTC)
slird
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I am offering a pre-release of my map for you all test play for me, because I have hundereds of hours of play testing invested in this and , frankly, Im just sick of playing it!
It consists of four parts. Part one is finished, part two is almost finished but parts three and four havent been started yet.
Ive worked out 90% of the scripting bugs, so it should play as a normal campaign map.
I am very interested in hearing your feedback; what you think it needs or can do without, any errors that you encounter, etc.
I have included a short intro, and the credits preceeding. I hope to hear your input.

P.S. This is a veteran level campaign, newbs may find it a bit frustrating. Take your time and go slow, and keep your defenses up...the GLA can attack from anywhere!

Edited by user Sunday, August 23, 2015 7:09:26 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

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Offline Gameanater  
#2 Posted : Sunday, August 23, 2015 9:44:30 PM(UTC)
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Haha! XD I've used the exact same map before (Four Squad I believe was the name) for one my own campaign maps! lol

Took a very brief look in WB (can't play it right now, don't have time, but I'll try tomorrow), and I must say it looks nice. Although you might want to do some additional texturing like sing more than one texture on the sides of your mountains there.

Can't wait to play this! Big Smile


btw, did you know there's an area in Oklahoma named Broken Arrow? :P|


EDIT: I'm looking at the map.str as a txt. I'm so glad you listed me in the credits, but lol this is before you posted it here. Why am I there? Tongue Not that I'm complaining... Wink

Edited by user Sunday, August 23, 2015 9:48:32 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Any old friends still on here can add me on discord @jcdenton2187. I'm far more likely to respond there.
Offline slird  
#3 Posted : Monday, August 24, 2015 5:37:54 PM(UTC)
slird
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I retextured the entire map once already, not doing it again, lol. Ive got the three way blends down to the bare minimum...thats good enough for me.
Yes, I made the credits intro just before I uploaded the map. I was looking back over all of my posts here to find the people who who have helped me with scripting and ,well, you were one of them. I am going to update it because there were a couple more people I unintentionally left out...that will be updated in the next release.
The only thing that bugs me about loading the map in WB is the assertion falures. Anyway to fix that that you know of?
Offline Gameanater  
#4 Posted : Monday, August 24, 2015 7:31:39 PM(UTC)
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K then lol

The assertion errors, idk. It happens all the time with me in creating maps with the weather set to "snowy", but it doesn't actually affect the game and at least with this map it's only one error. Don't know how to fix it.

I'ma play the map now. Smile
Any old friends still on here can add me on discord @jcdenton2187. I'm far more likely to respond there.
Offline Gameanater  
#5 Posted : Monday, August 24, 2015 8:59:55 PM(UTC)
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Well, right know I'm playing it, and I will say this:
I realize this is a veteran-oriented mission, but you have GOT to the give the player more units and funds at the start of the map or something. It takes forever just to get past a relativity mildly-defended GLA camp with what you've given. lol
Any old friends still on here can add me on discord @jcdenton2187. I'm far more likely to respond there.
Offline Gameanater  
#6 Posted : Monday, August 24, 2015 9:43:57 PM(UTC)
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I really love the work you put into this, but, tbh... I tried to play the map and I quit prettymuch about 30 minutes after defeating the West GLA because it felt like mission was actively trying to keep me from having fun.

There's a lot of problems here, but they can fixed.

-I don't understand why you want to SCUD the entire west GLA base if the player tries to capture any one of the GLA buildings there. That's no fun at all. Sad

-The Hackers don't transfer upon destroying the surrounding guards

-MONEY. I NEED MONEY. I REALLY NEED A BETTER SOURCE OF MONEY AT THE START OF THE MAP AND THROUGHOUT.
Or at least level 3 Cash Bounty, that would be a huuuge help.

-I also can't use the artillery barraige or landmine drop general's powers at all. I also don't understand why you have to have so many of the general's abilities taken away from the player to begin with, again it just ruins the fun.

-I don't understand why you want Black Lotus's Cash Hack taken away, either. So I added it back in lol


I loved the cinematics, though. Plus I actually somewhat liked the small waves of infantry starting from the beginning (though I would recommend getting rid of the Combat Cycle waves from behind).



Imo, this map IS off too a pretty decent start but I feel like there's a lot of stuff that should be changed.



I hope it doesn't seem like I'm bashing your map, I actually do like it, it's just that it's... It gets very not fun to play when you have the scripts and ridiculous SCUD Storming-if-you-capture-anything-of-the-enemy's that seriously holds back a lot of the fun to be had in the map.


btw, I re-textured your mountains for ya plus added a few civilians for the mood (and a couple hobos to get run over for comedy XD).
(I did also add a script to skip the beginning credits, feel free to disable them. :P)
File Attachment(s):
BA.zip (159kb) downloaded 17 time(s).
Any old friends still on here can add me on discord @jcdenton2187. I'm far more likely to respond there.
Offline slird  
#7 Posted : Tuesday, August 25, 2015 7:31:10 AM(UTC)
slird
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I understand what youre saying. Ive limited the players options on purpose for two reasons: 1. To give it more of a "war time" RPG aspect in the respect that semi-covert missions are not a "build and smash" type game. and 2. I am eccentric and my idea of fun is different than everyone elses, lol. My idea for the map was to have it focused on survival instead of cash, that was the only reason for limiting the players income. But I was thinking about upping the Cash Bounty, but maybe only to two, lol.

Scudding the base: I knew somebody was going to steal the GLA buildings so I was looking for a way to prevent that. The evil scuds made me laugh so I kept them, and besides, the GLA dont like thier building being stolen, lol. Again, it goes back to my survival idea. Encountering hardship and being able to survive with the bare minimum.

Hackers: They do transfer. If you read the intro it stated that Black Lotus must rescue them. Which means that she must go into the cage herself and get them. It may seem boorish but it offers a fail safe in that they wont be left alone and surrounded by hordes of GLA with no place to run.
But you just gave me another idea for that...thankyou!

Generals Promotions: The Artillery, mines and EMP are are awarded. Beng did the same thing in Superheroes, I liked the idea and ran with it.

Lotus Cash Hack: Again, this goes back to my limited resource idea.

And the combat cycles that attack from behind actually serve a purpose...they do not hunt, which means easy kills which means easy income. Again, its that eccentric thing, lol.

And the other thing I failed to mention is that I havent play tested much after defeating GLA West, so I have no idea what goes on in GLA East as of yet, lol.
It is defintely not your typical map, and not for everybody. I love RPGs and was attempting to give this map that type of feel. If it was a money map, I would done it differently. But again the map is still in its early testing stages, so there is alot of room for change.
Thanks for your input. I will look it over in the map and see if I can make it fit without straying too far from my original idea.

Edited by user Tuesday, August 25, 2015 7:37:39 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Offline Gameanater  
#8 Posted : Tuesday, August 25, 2015 10:02:04 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: slird Go to Quoted Post
I understand what youre saying. Ive limited the players options on purpose for two reasons: 1. To give it more of a "war time" RPG aspect in the respect that semi-covert missions are not a "build and smash" type game. and 2. I am eccentric and my idea of fun is different than everyone elses, lol. My idea for the map was to have it focused on survival instead of cash, that was the only reason for limiting the players income. But I was thinking about upping the Cash Bounty, but maybe only to two, lol.

I get what you're going for, but imo I think it is done a bit wrong here. To me at least, it just seems like there are far too many highly artificial limitations put on the player for the mission that simply just make you scratch your head and take away from the fun.
I think if you want to create a semi-covert mission, you should look at how the devs did it. Best examples to my memory is one of the missions in the original generals where you need to get Black Lotus to a train bridge to blow it up (I can't remember the exact name) and the other mission where you need to destroy several Stinger Sites to allow an airstrike to come in and destroy a Chemical Factory, and finally USA mission 3 in Zero Hour with Colonel Burton having to blow up a secret lab via an avalanche. All of those are excellent missions that are not the standard form of "build and smash", especially USA 3. I think your mission should be modeled more after the first two examples, because both in your mission and those two there still is an element of "build and smash" in the sense that you still have to build up a decent force of units to be able to accomplish almost anything.

I think Cash Bounty level 3 would be the best. The kills even at that level take awhile to add up into decent cash flow.

I believe survival and cash can actually go hand-and-hand. Give the player a good flow of cash, you allow them to be able to actually build enough to be able to survive. :D

Quote:
Scudding the base: I knew somebody was going to steal the GLA buildings so I was looking for a way to prevent that. The evil scuds made me laugh so I kept them, and besides, the GLA dont like thier building being stolen, lol. Again, it goes back to my survival idea. Encountering hardship and being able to survive with the bare minimum.



Quote:
Hackers: They do transfer. If you read the intro it stated that Black Lotus must rescue them. Which means that she must go into the cage herself and get them. It may seem boorish but it offers a fail safe in that they wont be left alone and surrounded by hordes of GLA with no place to run.
But you just gave me another idea for that...thankyou!

Oh. Maybe you should specify that detail in the intro, because I didn't realize she needed to actually physically move into the camp to count as rescuing them.


Quote:
Generals Promotions: The Artillery, mines and EMP are are awarded. Beng did the same thing in Superheroes, I liked the idea and ran with it.

When are they awarded, then? Just wondering because they definitely would have helped in surviving against GLA East.


Quote:
Lotus Cash Hack: Again, this goes back to my limited resource idea.

In my opinion, removing the Cash Hack kind of ruins an aspect of the survival and just artificially ruins the player's fun too much.

Quote:
And the combat cycles that attack from behind actually serve a purpose...they do not hunt, which means easy kills which means easy income. Again, its that eccentric thing, lol.

Oh. Well maybe make them at least stop a little further away from the Barracks so that I don't have to deal with micromanaging my troops every time they show up to avoid the splash damage of their rockets to keep my barracks up.


Quote:
And the other thing I failed to mention is that I havent play tested much after defeating GLA West, so I have no idea what goes on in GLA East as of yet, lol.
It is defintely not your typical map, and not for everybody. I love RPGs and was attempting to give this map that type of feel. If it was a money map, I would done it differently. But again the map is still in its early testing stages, so there is alot of room for change.
Thanks for your input. I will look it over in the map and see if I can make it fit without straying too far from my original idea.

Haha lol.
I like your idea here, but I feel like RPG-style games are a very difficult gameplay style to pull off in Generals.

np, glad to help. Thumb Up



Couple more things I think should be changed:

-The Nuclear Reactor shouldn't be withheld until after defeating GLA West imo. To me it was quite illogical that I couldn't have taken it beforehand due to the fact that it was right next to my starting position. The positioning of the reactor also means the enemy with Rocket Buggies and RPG Troopers can attack it from a position that makes it very difficult to counter because of the bridge garrison you put.

-I would recommend adding a few GC_Slth Workers (they are always stealthed by default) and, if you want, removing all of their abilities except for building Demo Traps and possibly Tunnel Networks (plus removing enemy mines). It would provide a way to repair the buildings as well as with the case of Demo Traps and Tunnel Networks, give the player more use for the money and assist in defense.

-I'm not if this is what you intended, but I was under the impression that Colonel Burton was mission-critical because of the intro saying he needed to (somehow) dismantle the missile by planting explosives on it (which, to me, is kind of funny since explosives don't exactly dismantle in a very safe way XD). He died several times in my attempts at playing and I didn't get a mission failed message like I expected.

-Not critical, but I would suggest perhaps replacing the Dragon Tank at the start with the Boss General version, which can use the Composite Armor upgrade (which I noticed you gave). Maybe also replace the War Factory with the Boss General version, which can produce stuff like Gattling Tanks with Composite armor, Rocket Buggies, and Avengers. The Avengers and Buggies might seriously help against the enemy's Rocket Buggies, which basically annihilated my entire force way too easily.

-Possibly also move the sniper at the bridge back, if not removing him entirely. He ends up sniping half the infantry I send over to defend the War Factory after defeating GLA West.
Any old friends still on here can add me on discord @jcdenton2187. I'm far more likely to respond there.
Offline slird  
#9 Posted : Tuesday, August 25, 2015 4:46:17 PM(UTC)
slird
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I agree, there are alot of quirks in the game. Not being a dev or a master scripter Im still in the process of trying to make it all flow together. This is my first actual attempt at map making...its a learning curve.
I noticed that with Burton too, dunno whats goin on with him. But most of the things you are suggesting is all part of my integrated idea system for this map...Like you said it just needs a bit more explaining. Somethin I gotta work on.
But then again, this is the type of game that really grabs my attention; a few elite units going head to head with an army. Love it!
But thanks for the critique...ill look into some changes and let ya critique the next release.
thanks 1 user thanked slird for this useful post.
Gameanater on 8/25/2015(UTC)
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