Success screen

[sparhawk]

I realize that we do have a death screen, but I don't think I don't recall ever seeing a success screen. Do we have one, or has this been forgotten so far?

[oDDity]

Well the Thief one was quite simple I think, just text saying 'mission successful' wasn't it? I really don't think it's something that requires a specific design, just something derived from existing GUI screens to keep a consistent look.

The problem is that you can't really have any sort of specific imagery on it, because the scope and objectives of each mission are different.

In fact, I'd prefer no auto-success screen, rather, I prefer to quit myself when all objectives have been completed. I don't think a Thief audience requires a 'you won' pat on the back.

[OrbWeaver]

In fact, I'd prefer no auto-success screen, rather, I prefer to quit myself when all objectives have been completed. I don't think a Thief audience requires a 'you won' pat on the back.

 

The player should certainly be notified when the mission is accomplished, otherwise they would constantly have to check their list of objectives; however I recall that TDS had a "Quit yes/no" option which allowed you to continue playing if you wished. I actually preferred this to the T1/T2 option of forcing the mission to end as soon as your last objective was ticked off.

[oDDity]

I think it's pretty obvious to a Thief player when they have completed the objectives.

There was an option of in-game notification when you have completed each objective, which was a discrete bit of text on the screen, and I think that's all that is required for the 'mission success' as well - just a sound and a bit of text at the bottom of the screen, no need to ask the player if they want to quit or continue, they can decide that for themselves (this would depend on the mission of course, so it should be left to the designer if they want to force an auto-end to a mission, but the default should be no auto-end)

[sparhawk]

I think something similar to the death screen, only with a more positive attitude and a fanfare or something like that, would be justified. And I agree, it would be nice to get a dialogue, asking you to either quite to the menu, or continue on with the campaign (if appropriate) would be good as well.

 

If the player doesn't get a reward, this feels a bit like a bug. What happens? The map continues ithout anything left to do? It goes straight to the main menu? We said we would like to have a stats screen, so this also needs a design. But going from the last objective completed directly to the stats, I don't know. Feels a bit lame.

[oDDity]

No need for a success screen or even a quit/continue option. Tell the player in-game when the mission is over and they can then do what they want. Stop treating players like fools.

[sparhawk]

Just because the player gets a small reward, doesn't make him into a fool.

[oDDity]

It is patronising though, and it's not really a reward, since it means nothing, simply telling you what you already know.

What would be interesting is the stats screen when you choose to leave the map.

[Springheel]

I realize that we do have a death screen, but I don't think I don't recall ever seeing a success screen. Do we have one, or has this been forgotten so far?

 

One is already made and on SVN, it just isn't called by any gui code yet. It could probably do with some tweaking though--I've learned a lot about material shaders since I worked on it. I haven't made it a priority since it isn't used currently.

[sparhawk]

I've learned a lot about material shaders since I worked on it. I haven't made it a priority since it isn't used currently.

 

Cool! Well, since we already have the death screen, it would be good to have this as well, to makr it off the list of todos. Since we already have working objectives, it shouldn't be to hard to make it into there.

[Ishtvan]

It's part of the "post mission" set of code that hasn't really been started yet. We have to do a bunch of stuff, including: play the mission success GUI, play some debriefing GUI/video as an option, show the stats screen, decide which is the next map (there could be more than one option), move to next map or move back to menu if there is no next map.

[sparhawk]

Since we already have objectives, it would be nice to have at least the mission completed screen. Stats and debriefing can wait for later, but it would make a playthrough feel more complete.

Currently I'm trying to see if I can find additional setups for locks, and see why the keys are not working. Apart from that, maybe I can take a look at this afterwards.

[oDDity]

SO is there going to be a forced auto-end to missions when the last objective is completed?

Will that be the default?

[sparhawk]

Well, that's the plan. What else should there be? Last objective completed means that the map is finished and the mission should end. Just like in Thief. I think this makes sense.

[greebo]

I think we should leave that up to the mapper, whether the mission should be auto-ended or not (just set a spawnarg on worldspawn).

 

When the last objective is finished, the player should be notified with a GUI message (like "Mission Complete" or something), but for some maps it would make sense to let the mapper stroll around a bit (city-type missions), for some it makes sense to auto-end the mission (compare "Easy" setting in the original Bonehoard - grab the Quintus Horn and the map will end).

[sparhawk]

OK. So the best approach would be to call a script function. The default version will just end the mission, while a mapper could override it and do some other stuff or ignore it.

[Ishtvan]

@Sparhawk:

We could easily overlay the success GUI on the player's screen when the objectives complete, but we would almost certainly have to rewrite that once we do a real debriefing. I don't really see the point writing something that we will certainly have to rewrite.

 

I think we should leave that up to the mapper, whether the mission should be auto-ended or not (just set a spawnarg on worldspawn).

 

When the last objective is finished, the player should be notified with a GUI message (like "Mission Complete" or something), but for some maps it would make sense to let the mapper stroll around a bit (city-type missions), for some it makes sense to auto-end the mission (compare "Easy" setting in the original Bonehoard - grab the Quintus Horn and the map will end).

Hmm, the way I define it, if the mission doesn't end when objectives are completed, the mission will never end unless the player dies or quits the game. "Leave the area" is part of the set of possible objectives. Of course it doesn't have to be, it could be like the bonehoard on easy where it just ends when you get the horn. Either they have to get to an exit to complete the mission, or it ends earlier. It's up to the FM author, but the mission has to end somehow.

 

Even if the author wants free-roaming after main objectives are complete, to me it's much more immersive to end that free roaming by having my character walk to an exit out of the map, rather than just hit escape and end it. I guess the FM author could set this up if they want with some special inventory item or something that ends the mission when used, but it can all be handled with objectives.

 

Again, you could make several options for how you leave the area. It could be several different exits that all point to different maps (we need code to support this, basically change one variable for the next map).

[sparhawk]

The only thing I can imagine is, that if you have a free roaming area, the story might not advance until some objectives are fullfilled. For example, of somebody creates a real city hub, you might get the objective, to meet whith this particular guy. So you go there and he tells you something, which makes the objective complete. However, because of the nature of this map, the story could be triggered to continue after this, which wouldn't happen. In such a case you wouldn't want to go to the main menu.

 

However, you could also achieve this by creating a hidden objective, that never can get fullfilled, so there is no need to support such a case. Honestly I don't know how the game is supposed to continue if all objectives are done. What should the player do in such a case? As you said, the only option would be to quite the game which is not satisfiying and feels incomplete or buggy.

[Ishtvan]

The only thing I can imagine is, that if you have a free roaming area, the story might not advance until some objectives are fullfilled. For example, of somebody creates a real city hub, you might get the objective, to meet whith this particular guy. So you go there and he tells you something, which makes the objective complete. However, because of the nature of this map, the story could be triggered to continue after this, which wouldn't happen.

I think you could set it up to happen with objectives. You could have the "talk to person" objective be mandatory, and add a new objective when it completes. We'd have to make sure the order is correct so that the new objective is added in the objective complete script before the map thinks all objectives are complete and ends, as I think is currently the case . Or, you could just have the objective to do the next thing on there but hide it, and then show it when they complete the talk to guy objective.

[sparhawk]

That's why I said it might be good to not directly do the end mission thingy, but rather call a script, which in turn does this. Then the mapper can add additional objectives via this script which will block the end mission.

[Domarius]

May as well have the option. If someone tries to make a hub thing, they'd have to hack around an auto-end feature.

[Springheel]

"Leave the area" is part of the set of possible objectives. Of course it doesn't have to be, it could be like the bonehoard on easy where it just ends when you get the horn. Either they have to get to an exit to complete the mission, or it ends earlier. It's up to the FM author, but the mission has to end somehow.

 

 

Yeah, it seems like it is already under mapper control to me. If you want the mission to end right away, then fine, and if you don't, then you add a "leave area" objective. Otherwise, the mission will never end and you'll never get to see your stats screen or a debreifing.

[Ishtvan]

That's why I said it might be good to not directly do the end mission thingy, but rather call a script, which in turn does this. Then the mapper can add additional objectives via this script which will block the end mission.

All objectives can call a script when they're completed. We just have to make sure the order is such that it lets the script run before it decides the mission has ended.

 

Maybe I'm not clear what people are envisioning here. Are you thinking of something like an RPG city hub, where initially you have no objectives until you figure out what you have to do next by talking to people? That could be possible, although that also implies you could pick up more than one "quest" in the city hub and then these would have to stay in place as you go from mission map to mission map and keep coming back to the city hub. Kind've like an RPG quest journal or something.

 

I think that would require an additional layer of hierarchy in the objectives system, where all the objectives for a particular mission are then bundled into a single "quest" that is completed when the mission is completed. I guess it could be written that way. I didn't initially because we said we wouldn't be supporting hubs in the 1.0 release.

 

Alternatively, you could set the objectives differently in the city hub, and condense down everything to "complete mission A", then when you go to mission A, you save the city-hub objectives and load new objectives for mission A. You wouldn't be able to check the overall/city-hub objectives from the mission though, in that case. I think another level of hierarchy might make more sense, especially if things done in one mission can change objectives in the hub or in other missions, and you want the player to see that.

[bob_arctor]

I like the idea of auto-end, with one of the options open to mappers being "Leave the area" after the other ones are done.

 

Pressing Escape when the objectives are done as Oddity wants is completely unintuitive for gamers, not immersive at all, just bizzare really. Not very Thiefy to just stop in the middle of a street either, be better to either be done when the objectives are done, or to go home/find the exit.

[oDDity]

Shut up. What's immersive about auto-ending the mission and showing a mission complete screen.

That's more immersive that letting the player end when they want, go back through the map and have some fun etc?

Right- but then I'm not a gamer, I'm just a normal person who plays the odd game.

99% of games make me want to puke.

And what happens if I want to mess around on a map? Doing it after I've completed the obectives is much better than having to be evicted, and then have to restart the game again.