Author Topic: Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.  (Read 1777 times)

Offline Professor Paul1290

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Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.
« on: April 27, 2012, 02:15:28 am »
All the current missions, resource gathering, and construction tasks are all things that tend to wait until the player decides to go to them and finish them. This is fine, but as a result it does feel somewhat passive and I think it would be nice if there was some way to convey the idea of an active conflict.

What if there were occasional missions that were very short term and very time sensitive, but had a high payoff?

Say you're out gathering plums or whatever and then you get a message from the Guardian Ilari. "[Insert name here] has been spotted by the Overlord's forces and needs to be rescued!" Then there would be a very short lived mission that would show up in that area. There NPC running around outside there being chased by enemies or something, then go in and you'd "pick them up" just like in a rescue mission and try to get them out without getting them killed.

Maybe suddenly you got a message from the Guardian Ilari saying "The Overlord is moving supply crates through [insert location here]". Then if you got there within a short amount of time there would be a stack of crates there with enemies guarding it, then you could destroy all the guarding enemies for some materials.

Maybe there could be low but decent chance of one of these occurring every hour or so.

Those are similar to already existing missions and missions that have been suggested, but the point is more that it would be something really sudden and time sensitive that the player would have to decide whether or not to break away from what he/she is currently doing to pursue it.



I dunno if it would fit and maybe it would seem a bit too silly, but it would be something to make things seem a bit more active. I think the idea of The Glyphbearer being "on call" would be a rather amusing one.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2012, 02:17:28 am by Professor Paul1290 »

Offline tigersfan

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Re: Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2012, 08:01:14 am »
Wow, I actually like that a good bit. Did you drop that into Mantis? I only ask because it might just get lost in the shuffle if it stays only here in the forums.

Offline Bluddy

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Re: Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2012, 08:56:58 am »
I always thought that some of the strategic stuff from the beta should come back in some form or another. Perhaps this is a good way to do it, although it's not clear in what timeframe you're supposed to be battling the overlord strategically. For example, it'd be cool if the overlord sent over a fast scout to try find out where the settlement is, and your job is to kill the scout before he can get back to the overlord. You could have the lieutenants send scouts first perhaps. Anyway, what timeframe does that happen in? Is it a sudden call to action? Should it happen in mission time? Should the bad guys move in real time?

Perhaps the overlord and the lieutenants could do some actions in real time, per tier. The longer you wait in a specific tier without countering their actions, the more stuff they can do. But if you move into the next tier, they suffer a serious setback and can't accomplish everything they wanted to in that tier. So they keep doing bad things, one thing leading to the other: first they send scouts. Once they send scouts they send armies. They build encampments of armies. Then they assault the settlement. Eventually maybe they start building a dangerous magic artifact. You can fight all those things individually, but they'll become more and more common. You can also use guardian powers to slow them down. But the best thing you can do is move to the next tier. Yes, their armies are strengthened, but for some reason they're also really pushed back and their work is destroyed -- the tiers represent you working on something that will eventually defeat the bad guys.

Why is this so important? Because it counters the currently negative effect of doing missions. Missions advance tiers, which make the game harder. But they're supposed to be continent progress towards the good solution. This mechanism would also clarify the connection between mission time and realtime. And it appears that people really do want a more pressured component to this game -- one that raises the stakes for all your actions rather than giving infinite time to do everything. This has always been a sticking point: the game is about the end of the world and overthrowing a dangerous overlord, but the devs wanted to make it laid back and non-time-sensitive. Perhaps this is a good way of combining the two.

Regarding the calls themselves, I see 2 ways to do this. You could have an immediate call to action that opens up a warp to the location. But perhaps it's better to have a call that starts a specific mission on the map, like an assault of your settlement. You can go to do this mission at any time within reason ie. if you don't respond within a ridiculous amount of time, the event resolves itself, usually badly. Again, you could make most events (or perhaps a certain amount of them) go away just by advancing the tier.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2012, 08:58:44 am by Bluddy »

Offline Professor Paul1290

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Re: Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2012, 01:28:15 pm »
Wow, I actually like that a good bit. Did you drop that into Mantis? I only ask because it might just get lost in the shuffle if it stays only here in the forums.

I kind of wanted to know what people thought first, since it would somewhat sharply differ from how missions currently work.


Regarding the calls themselves, I see 2 ways to do this. You could have an immediate call to action that opens up a warp to the location. But perhaps it's better to have a call that starts a specific mission on the map, like an assault of your settlement. You can go to do this mission at any time within reason ie. if you don't respond within a ridiculous amount of time, the event resolves itself, usually badly. Again, you could make most events (or perhaps a certain amount of them) go away just by advancing the tier.

Personally I would like for it to work like that, but on the other hand I could see some people being rather displeased if it did.

I've gotten the impression that some people wandering around more and taking their time, and if there were active things like this working against them that might be somewhat jarring.

I think it would be somewhat "safer" to first introduce more benign events where the player simply loses the chance for a reward if they don't arrive on time rather than being actively punished. If that goes over well then maybe more punishing events could go in.

Offline Bluddy

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Re: Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.
« Reply #4 on: April 27, 2012, 01:36:17 pm »
Quote
Personally I would like for it to work like that, but on the other hand I could see some people being rather displeased if it did.

I've gotten the impression that some people wandering around more and taking their time, and if there were active things like this working against them that might be somewhat jarring.

I think it would be somewhat "safer" to first introduce more benign events where the player simply loses the chance for a reward if they don't arrive on time rather than being actively punished. If that goes over well then maybe more punishing events could go in.

I hear what you're saying, and again this gets back to the topic of the tone of the game. I was basically piggybacking off of your idea and thought it could be used to introduce strategy elements again. If you just do this stuff randomly, then you've kinda determined that that's the mechanism that'll be used for it, and it gets harder to introduce a strategy layer. Maybe this timed strategy layer could be a difficulty switch. Or there could be an option to either have it be with a timer or to just queue up for you. So the overlord would be doing more and more things, all of which would show up on your map waiting to be dealt with. In low difficulty mode, you have infinite time to deal with them. In high difficulty mode, you have a set amount of time, but still quite a bit. Either way shows that the overlord's busy doing bad stuff. One way just makes things a little more tense.

And in terms of rewards/punishment, that could be done either way. These things could all just have rewards, or a mix, or both.

Offline Drjones013

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Re: Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.
« Reply #5 on: April 27, 2012, 01:55:43 pm »
+1

I really like the idea of the rescues.

Offline Professor Paul1290

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Re: Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.
« Reply #6 on: April 27, 2012, 03:50:21 pm »
I guess I'll put it into Mantis then.

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Offline Martyn van Buren

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Re: Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.
« Reply #7 on: April 27, 2012, 07:25:23 pm »
I dislike the idea of being forced to go do a mission; and timers are stressful.  How about if this were broken into two things --- one, missions of opportunity, like rescues, that start where you are and take pace in the normal map, and the other, events which progress every time you do a mission?  So a town assault could gradually get worse and worse as you ignore it to do other things, which could still be a good choice if you need to buff yourself up somehow to be able to take it on.

Offline Cyborg

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Re: Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.
« Reply #8 on: April 28, 2012, 11:34:26 am »
I like this idea as long as the rewards are appropriate for the difficulty of a timed mission.
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