Goldwell

I'm dropping my next standalone mission next week. And I wanted to give everyone a little teaser of what's to come by showing off my new briefing video. In it you'll hear a brand new voiced protagonist which is quite a bit different to the norm The mission was supposed to be featured in the Connections Contest but due to real life constraints I was not able to make the contest deadline. Because it was originally a connections contest mission you'll notice some references to the Volta universe (I was given permission by Kingsal to do so of course). With the extra time, I have spent it polishing and finishing up the mission which is now in beta and almost already to be released.

Congrats on the release, a huge milestone to put out your first mission!

Yeah I am not a fan of the no killing/no knockout objectives as well. I have played with it in the previous missions but moving forward I don't do that anymore. There's nothing worse than finishing a mission and realizing you have to find another 500 loot or whatever. The only exception with the no ko/kill rule I think is if you have a critical NPC that the mission cannot function without. If you have to go meet Alfred to discuss some deal and kill Alfred before you meet him.. well the mission is doomed right? It makes sense really only in specific cases like that. Plus creatively it's just a lot more fun to just think up more difficult tasks for higher difficulty levels, or to change the locations of key items in the level based on difficulty.

I think the best solution would be if we could add an extra difficulty level, although that might be hard or impossible depending on how the GUIs are broken down. But something like a normal, hard, expert and then save limit would be great. Given the current system of three difficulty settings, as I have suggested before you could do something like normal, expert and save limit (which is just expert but with save limits in place). The only downside I have seen searching in between the different threads is that a couple of people feel that is sacrificing a difficulty level, but personally I think that's just grasping at straws. If a mission is designed around only having two difficulty settings, normal and expert. Nothing is sacrificed. It's just the way the mission is designed.

The purpose of this poll, as my OP states is to see what the community thinks of this feature. To gather a consensus on how people feel about this feature. If people don't like the feature, then they should voice their opinion as such. So having "no" as an answer to "Should there be save rooms in missions?" is a valid response.

What?

I just want to clarify I am all about giving the player choices. I believe you should play the game the way you want to. Which I why I said I want to INSPIRE a change in player thinking, NOT control it. Two very different things. Also I believe if you want to try out this new feature, which is an experiment, that you should have the option to. In another thread discussing this I had put forward the idea of three difficulty settings. Normal/Expert/Save Rooms. So that way you can either play on normal or expert, which is your standard, save as much as you want experience. And then a third option which is for save rooms. That's a win / win situation. It's a win for folks who want to play with save rooms as they have the choice to, and it's a win for folks who don't as they can play on normal or expert with zero restrictions.

We already have two discussion threads on this, but I wanted to put out a poll to see the numbers of where folks sit from the community at large. This poll is anonymous.

Specifically with save limits they're implemented to inspire a change in player thinking. For example with the old system you might approach a situation and just quick save, attempt your idea and then if it fails you'll quickload. You have removed any sort of risk and challenge involved. If you have limited saves you would approach a situation and then take pause and think "hm.. do I risk this? is this worth the risk? is there a better way to continue?". Because the risk of dying is lost progress, and the risk of getting caught means you're forced to deal with it. It adds a lot more weight and consequence to your action because there's no easy way out. It forces you to play outside of your comfort zone, but that's why it's tied to a higher challenge level and not on base difficulty. I do agree that you shouldn't be forced to use the system and missions that do include this feature should have an opt-out option, but there should at least be an option for those that are willing to try something new.

Kingsal's new mission Hazard Pay features save rooms on expert difficulty.

Devs: hey here’s this new OPTIONAL feature which we think might change up gameplay a bit. It’ll be a fun experiment. TDM Community: *Braveheart music playing* THEY CAN NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM!!!!!

I'm using the new save room feature in my next mission, but I changed it so that I really only have 2 difficulty levels with a third being the save room option. That way people can just pick and choose. Difficulty 1 is the mission on normal Difficulty 2 is the mission on hard Difficulty 3 is the same difficulty as 2 but with the added save rooms. That way players can choose if they wish to play on normal or hard, and if they want to have the save rooms as well. I think that's the best solution as it gives everyone a choice of still being able to experience the harder enemies and extra objectives without being forced to deal with limited saves BUT for the folks that love the save room feature, they're able to opt in to it and don't miss out.

Congratulations on the release! I had a lot of fun playing this mission!

I changed it so that only one objective was mandatory. And then during the ending scene that one objective gets completed which allows the mission to end.

Congrats on the release! This mission is so much fun!

Thank you for the script, that’s really handy! And if you get the time to implement that showing all loot without any selected that would be very handy

I appreciate the offer but I don't like the idea of extending the contest deadline just to suit my schedule. It's not fair on the other folks who have worked hard to have it in by the deadline.

Thanks! I do plan to release my mission as a standalone release at some point in the future

Unfortunately due to RL constraints I will need to withdraw from the contest. Good luck to everyone else!

You're right, it does look quite epic!

Loving these new volumetric lights in 2.10!

I have two AIs that conduct a conversation in an area of my map. In a nearby area I also have a camera. When the camera detects me and the alarm goes off it breaks the two AI and they no longer have their conversation. Is there a way to get specific AI to ignore the alarm sounded by the camera?

Oh perfect timing, I was just looking for some new textures for an area i'm building. Thanks!

I've been playing around with a lot of the new 2.10 features and have implemented a few into my contest mission. So far i've added in the new cameras, volumetric lights, the new secret system and i've setup the guis of my FM to be compatible with the new method that we're using moving forward. It's all really great (especially the dmap optimizations) but I was thinking, either I rip all of that out, release my mission for 2.09 to meet the contest deadline and then wait until 2.10 drops to patch everything back in. Or I just wait until 2.10 drops and release my mission then, However that might push me over the contest deadline, depending on where the release date for 2.10 lands of course. This has put me in a bit of a predicament as I want to be apart of the contest, but I don't want to release my mission for 2.09. Rest assured my mission will release regardless of whether it's a contest mission or it's a standalone mission. But I just wanted to give a heads up to let y'all know where i'm at.