Forged Alliance Forever

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2018-02-02T05:06:12+02:00

Minor issue with the "defeat the Order Commander" objective:
The HQ does the "Are you waiting for an invitation or something ?" nag related to destroying the Order Commander even after she was destroyed (I assume it's because the trigger to destroy all of her units doesn't include walls, so the walls remain and are counted as Order Commander units that are alive, making the script think the Order Commander is still in the game while actually already defeated), causing the pointless nag message.

...or the script's timer just wasn't disabled / removed after the Order Commander was defeated.

Statistics: Posted by Idontknowman — 02 Feb 2018, 05:06

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2018-01-10T12:10:55+02:00

Replay: trucks
-full playthrough of the 1st mission as UEF (taking my time with Gari), showing pretty well the issue with the remaining trucks which I had to bump to the city center with my Commander because the objective was completed while trucks remained and thus the command button to issue the move order was no longer available

subs:
I suppose a replay for this is pointless as when it's assigned, not assigned and removed is just script design and nothing the player can influence by gameplay. For testing how that one shows up after the mission I'd just cheaply edit the mission script to instantly win the mission seconds after starting it to see how the objective is listed if it was never assigned to the player.

I realize the subs objective functions as in the original FA mission design. I merely think faforever can do better to avoid the mentioned flaws.
There's that time span between making it on planet and before the initial construction is done that'd imo be ideal to assign the "destroy the subs" objective rather than tying shield and subs to another while each has nothing in common with another, as that may actually cause the player to pointlessly miss out on the objective.

Fletcher:
I'm not a fan of "need to know of something in advance and prepare for it before t actually happens" mission design either. I just thought he'd build at least one Fatboy at some point as it's the classical UEF unit to hold the line in a hold the line map as it's also able to produce units and yet it's absent on a map where it could shine.

Also I feel like difficulty settings should really alter the gameplay of the missions to increase their replay value and to enable players to pick what they want to experience in a match.
Easy should be for people that are new to the game or want to introduce others to the game: no T3 bombers / artillery / battleships for the AI, no experimentals, no nukes, smaller groups being sent out, maybe even extra mass nodes for the player to claim that don't exist on other difficulty settings, no automatic map expansion. The players picking this should get all the time in the world to be able to explore and explain the map and gameplay.

Normal should be the regular mission design the map designer envisioned without any extra easy / extra hard scripts being used.

Hard should require everything at the player's disposal and have an enemy that actually advances towards the player, uses siege units (and structures), fortifies important areas, builds experimentals, launches nukes and doesn't just wait for the player to build up and come over. Maybe a change of initially installed components on the ACU would be required at some point get the battle started better than that's currently the case with just T1 and no upgrades.

I suppose such an approach would not only require extra work and testing but also to split up the missions to be listed as original FA missions and Faforever versions of the FA missions.

Statistics: Posted by Idontknowman — 10 Jan 2018, 12:10

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2018-01-06T10:45:10+02:00

Can you provide a replay for this?

The subs objective is assigned 30 seconds after the shield objective ends, it can be assigned only before the map expands and only if there's at least 1 submarine alive. All that is intended behaviour.
The idea of the objective is to secure the channel before you move forward, so if you skip it and destroy the bases, there's no point af giving this objective.

It might count as failed cause it was never assigned, not discovered flag is only for bonus objectives. I could tell you more with a replay.

I dont know about changing the trucks count, since its tied with voice overs and would just put more mess there to use different values. Im happy it's working right now.

Fletcher is not suppose to build much more stuff, else he would not need your help at all. He's suppose to be losing, but he's in a good spot to not be losing.
There's trigger for the chickens to attack, I reduced it and then added to build some more to increase the difficulty, but it's still pretty easy if you know what you're doing. And I dont want to send them right away, since than you would really need to know that and be prepared for it before the map expands.

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 06 Jan 2018, 10:45

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2018-01-05T10:47:23+02:00

2 issues with objectives:
1) Destroy the subs objective:
This one has very exotic trigger conditions that cause issues in the mission.
The player will only receive the objective after 30s after the shield was either repaired or destroyed. Due to these conditions it's possible that the player may have destroyed the subs but once the operation is over the sub-objective will still be listed as a failed objective because the player could never complete it with success as it wasn't ever assigned to him. The sub-objective is also automatically counted as failed objective once the map expands, if it wasn't completed by then. In addition to that the player will never receive this sub-objective, causing it to be listed as failed objective, if either
-the shield was neither repaired nor destroyed
-the shield was repaired after map expansion
-the player destroys the subs before receiving the objective to do so (tested)
-> change: This objective shouldn't count as failure unless the subs still exist when the whole operation is over, as it makes no sense to do so: the subs are still there and so is the player, nothing has changed. If that sub-objective is so important and urgent it should at least get a text, indicating that it's of equal importance as a main objective, due to being on a tight timer. Ideally this objective should be assigned by a timer that runs right at the start of the operation instead. That not only ensures to get rid of the issues around the scripting but it's also convenient because the player still has access to subs and sonar by then.

2) Civilian trucks:
Once either 6 trucks make it and the objective is completed with success or more than 4 trucks are destroyed and the objective is completed with failure the truck control button is removed. In any case some trucks may remain that can't be controlled anymore.
-> change: The objective may be counted as success or failure ahead of this, depending on the state of what happened, but I shouldn't be forced to abandon the remaining civilians. I'd rather have the remaining trucks change control to be under my direct control, so that I can move them to safety, until the last truck made it. The trigger to bring them to the city seems to run even after the objective was completed, which is a good thing, as I was able to bump them to the city where they'd then auto-drive to the center and despawn.
Edit#1: Also the mission script reveals that the player has to rescue 6 civilian trucks on all difficulty levels. Could rather be 2/5/8 on easy / normal / hard.

Question - Fletcher:
I played this mission on hard only, so far. Does he ever build a Fatboy on other difficulty levels ? Or get additional base defense then ?

Statistics: Posted by Idontknowman — 05 Jan 2018, 10:47

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2018-01-04T11:49:12+02:00

I'll add an option to disable it in some future updates.

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 04 Jan 2018, 11:49

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2018-01-03T16:29:16+02:00

Ah, I didn't check the changelog thoroughly enough before posting.

I wish that were configurable in some way, as most of my frustration about it comes from playing with my brother. He's played through the campaign countless times in the base game, and I thought playing through it with him would be a good way to introduce him to FAF for the first time. It uh, didn't go that well. He wasn't familiar with the time pressure, and we didn't manage to adapt within a few tries. I'm concerned it's created some bitterness towards FAF. It's my fault I suppose for assuming that it'd be a slow, casual, go at your own pace experience like the base game, but being able to go through that with a friend would have been nice.

I did manage to beat the mission on my own since my last post. I thought it'd be worth mentioning that some Aeon ships remained after their commander was destroyed, and they behaved very strangely. I don't have the game log unfortunately.

Statistics: Posted by CrazyMLC — 03 Jan 2018, 16:29

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2018-01-03T12:28:06+02:00

Read the first post and you might find some answers

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 03 Jan 2018, 12:28

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2018-01-03T10:59:25+02:00

What's up with this mission? Like Juchernaut said, in the base game it doesn't automatically advance, yet in this one it skips ahead to saving the civilians at about 15:30, no matter what objectives have or have not been completed. It's hard to tell if this is intentional...

Some of the entries on the leaderboards are below 20 minutes, which is surprising to me. I was interested in seeing how they did it, since the mission as it is now seems impossible to beat in the first place (even with a friend), but clicking on the replay link creates an uncaught exception. In fact, none of the links on the leaderboards for any of the missions appear to work.

???

Are the coop missions even still maintained?

Statistics: Posted by CrazyMLC — 03 Jan 2018, 10:59

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2017-11-17T05:55:31+02:00

Just experienced a desync. I was playing as Aeon. Also, the map opens up at 16 minutes regardless of whether or not you destroy the first two order bases. I don't remember that happening, so it might have been a fun way to make the map harder, but just wanted to let you know.

Statistics: Posted by Juchernaut — 17 Nov 2017, 05:55

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2018-01-05T09:45:14+02:00

Everything's fine, just one plea: I never liked how the mission just ends before all enemy forces are removed. Could the Seraphim ACU's destruction trigger a visible detonation of all remaining enemy forces before leaving the planet ? Actually that's a request for all campaign missions. Noticed the same in FA mission#3 with the princess' part: The enemy units would just remain despite the enemy ACU being destroyed.

Statistics: Posted by Idontknowman — 02 Oct 2017, 18:39

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2017-06-01T21:41:13+02:00

not really 100% sure but it might be related to aeon players i sure did desync on it dont remember the other players factions from the other times ill keep an eye out for it

Statistics: Posted by raptor227 — 01 Jun 2017, 21:41

Re: FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2017-05-31T22:35:26+02:00

been seeying desyncs for several players at the 2nd expansion point

logs:

Statistics: Posted by raptor227 — 31 May 2017, 22:35

FA Mission 1 - Black Day

2017-01-24T20:17:43+02:00

FA Mission 1 - Black Day

Feedback Thread
Feel free to post any thoughts about this mission or suggestions of what you'd like to see changed or improved. Link to the recent changes can be found in this post: viewtopic.php?f=78&t=13626&p=140165#p140165

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Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 24 Jan 2017, 20:17