Suggestions and Hopefully Helpful Critique

Sun Jan 02, 2005 12:00 am by ianthecrusader

I hold Privateer as one of my favorite games of all time.
This was because of its open ended gameplay, its unique theme, wing commander storyline, and awesome replay value.
Thus, when I heard that a modder was working on a remake for freelancer, you bet I was stoked! And when I played it, beautiful! Perry actually has a fleet!
Dispite all of these wonderful additions, I felt a few subtractions .

Know that I highly respect all of the people who contributed to this mod, warzog, I give you my utmost thanks for bringing back a game in which never got boring.

These items are what I find in lacking, and thus suggest humbly, but modestly, that they become fixed. Being a modder in the past, I will suggest some things in my experience for balance and componsation issues to be fixed and carried out.

COMBATING AND MISSION SYSTEM
First off, the mission system has some defects.

The first and most obvious defect and difference from the original privateer in which I have noticed is the mission system. This system is fun indeed, but the types of missions offered can be taken and dull in their repititiveness. This is not due to the mod's inconsistency, but rather freelancer's. Freelancer had developed a system in which mission location placing was completely random, and was set in the system. Thus, when a spawn point is picked randomly in oxford, the nav point may place itself in an inaccesible place, say, the middle of the planet. Though this is easily avoidable by the cancelation of the mission, I thought i'd bring it to the attention of the masses.
The mission system was more enjoyable in privateer because of it's replay value and payment differences. Freelancer, on the otherhand, lacked this replay value. Privateer offered various mission types, these being:

Scout a wav point (averaging 2500 credits mission computer, 4000 merc guild),
Attack wav point (ave 4000 c MC, up to 7000 MG)
Defend base (from 3000 to 8000 c, )
Patrol nav points (5000 + 1000 per nav point, averaging 10000)
Cargo mission (4000-20000 depending on distance)
Bounty Hunter Mission (10000+ depending on how many systems the target was in)

If any of these missions were in other systems, the price went up dramamticly, making it worth your time.

Guild missions also increased the payment, but required a small fee for you to join them.

Freelancer came up with a new and inventive idea, the destroy enemy base mission Actually, missions like these were available in the wing commander games. Privateer originally had torpedos and launchers, but you never had any bases to use them on. Trying to meet this lack, one can safely assume this was the reason the destroy enemy base mission was implemented into freelancer. Sadly, it consisted of shooting ten seconds at a stable, easily killable object, and then going to wipe out the easier weapon platforms. Afterwards, to increase the challenge (or as many agree, the frustration) you had to chase around many AI in which were not very difficult, but a pesterence, just so you could land and repeat the process.
This mod needs the original types of missions.

I remember running around, system after system, looking for paticular enemies for a bounty mission. after searching the last system of the last nav point, actually finding my target, and with much joy, destroying the pirates hunk of junk he flew in, and being rewarded my 40000 credits offered by the mercenaries guild to a far off sector, involing three systems for the pursuit. What happened to this mission? This is not the modder's fault, no doubt, but the lack of employment of skill to the freelancer team.
The same repetitive missions, destroy a person at a specified nav point, and either be done, or tractor his pod, cargo, or destroy his cargo not only get boring, but also take out the whole seek and destroy aspect of gameplay by blantently giving you a place to go. Some people may argue that this would save time. Actually, what makes a game fun is the consistency of challenge. One also wonders why the great confed military would assign a mission to a freelancer if they know exactly where the pirate is.
I am not saying remove these missions, but I am suggesting that the modder(s) would implement the other types of missions entered above.

There are also a few more issues regarding the practiallity of pirate ambushes, but it's too late for me to get off on another tangent.

Thank you, that is, if you, for reading this, and please do take heed and consider what I say.

I tip my glass to the modder(s) of this memorobilia engaging mod.

_
Good, order, faith, hope, love.
Cruxvader

Sun Jan 02, 2005 12:31 am by Stinger

This has got to be one of the best 1st posts I've seen in 4 years. Hats off to ya and a warm welcome to the family.

Rob "Stinger" Lordier
Creator of the original Privateer FAQ
4+ years here and still lovin' every minute!

Favorite saying - Life is a journey, not a destination

Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:53 pm by warzog

ianthecrusader:
Well, I agree with everything you said.
Unfortunately, Freelancer won't allow us to make random missions outside of the system that you're in.
(Except in the storyline.)
However...
I'm working on increasing the number of different types of missions that are offered to the player at each base.

Having said that, there are a few ideas gleaned from your post that I CAN incorporate into the mod.
The primary one being the fees paid for completed missions.
(I didn't have that data.)
The one that intrigues me the most, and is probably going to be the most fun, is the Merc's pricing.

In fact...
I think I'm going to go with a 4-tier pricing system...
1) Cheapest being the Mission Computer.
2) Next will be the Corporations.
3) Then the Militia and Confed.
4) And the top missions will be given out by the Mercs!

Should mix things up a bit!?!!

Oh, yeah...
Before I forget...
Privateer is my all-time favorite game, too!
In fact...
I only bought Freelancer because it Could be Mod'ed, and it sounded like a close approxiamation of Privateer.
I taught myself how to mod, just so I could make THIS mod!

Watch your 6!

Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:56 pm by ianthecrusader

Thank you for the welcome Stinger, I'll try to conrtibute as much help as possible.

Now, if noone objects to the continuation of the critique... =)
Bear with me now.

The missle capacity seems to be glitched(most likely limited to freelancer's original code), such that when you buy two missles launchers of the same type the max loadout is 10, when it should be 20. Assuming 1 missle launcher provides 10 missiles, then 2 provide 20 of the same type.

Also, I did testing of the money balance within the game, and found a major problem. It is simply to easy to make money.

I started with the Tarsus and worked my way up. With particle guns attached after 15 minutes of assassination missions and a decent shield generator, I begin to fear the games challenge and it's replay value, as this gamer realized that his cargo tractored in from destroyed enemies sold as much as my missions gave! Wow, what a boost in money! Not only am I picking an assassination mission for 15k a pop, but once I blow the guy up, I get double, (sometimes triple!!!) the money!

Once again, the most blameworthiness persons in this situation are the freelancer designers. I noticed this problem in freelancer when I played it for the first time, and the recokning as well. This intution, if you will, proved to be a testimony to the sloppy work at digital anvil, or perhaps the sugarcoat in which microsoft places on all of their games, in which I've noticed greatly reduces the replay value up to 90%. Don't believe me? Look at dungeon siege. Look at midtown madness. Nevertheless, and before I get off topic, this flaw is sadly in freelancer.

So I can run in with a low class ship and do a few hits or runs. I'm bound to die sometime, right? Well, thanks to freelancer's gamesystem, I can use nanobots and shield batterys (also seen as potions in dungeon siege) to make me invincible for a short time, as long as I can hit a few buttons. Even with the AI improved, in which I am so glad for, the game is too easy. Some would argue that I could simply not use them, and yes, thats correct. If you want to not use them, show self restraint by selling them at the bases and never hitting those tempting f and g buttons. But in truth, this was not the original intention for privateer. Privateer was a game that got your adrenilne going, putting your life on the line, keeping your awareness in the utmost keen. Indeed, to quote freelancer AI, if you let your guard down for a second, that was all it took. It required skill, not some suit-up doll house 'press a button and you get healed' excuse for a game.

Solutions and more critque tomorrow. Thank you for your patience in reading this. Logging off for the night.

_
Good, order, faith, hope, love.
Cruxvader

Mon Jan 03, 2005 12:05 am by warzog

ianthecrusader:
Ammo is limited to 10 mines/missiles/torpedoes, each.
Irregardless of the number of launchers. (Which is how FL has it set up)
In Privateer, you could only have 10 missiles at a time.
In the Wing Commander games, it was often less than that.
In Freelancer, the limit is 50, which is to much for our universe.

Your concerns about the ease of making money are being addressed in the version being worked on right now:
1) The AI has been pumped up even more.
2) High-priced equipment won't show up as often.
3) Mission pay has been lowered.
4) Shields don't regenerate quite as fast.
5) Nanobots/Shieldbatts are limited to 10, now, like the missiles and torpedoes.

As to my previous post...
I went through and changed the mission's offered to 6 levels:
1) Mission Computer-(El Cheapo & the easiest missions)
2) Companies, Pirates & Retros
3) Confed & Militia
4) Privateers
5) Mercs
6) WARZOG (Find Warzog, and he offers the best paying/hardest missions around!)
(And NO, I don't Really look like him!)

Watch your 6!

Mon Jan 03, 2005 3:10 pm by ianthecrusader

"I only bought Freelancer because it Could be Mod'ed, and it sounded like a close approxiamation of Privateer.
I taught myself how to mod, just so I could make THIS mod!"

Thats very funny, because I bought freelancer to play a privateer mod of it =) How sovergin of an arrangement. =P

Your mission ideas sound like they would mix things up. The only thing that is sad though, is that with the games missions like assassinations, we can never have the same challenge as we did in privateer. It would be cool even to (and I know some people would call me on this, saying it'd be too hard) if we didn't give them the nav point for the location of the mission. muahahahah!
Yeah, it may be too far off, but maybe there may be a way to alter the game's system to make multiple nav points for the missions, such that when you goto patrol the way points, the assassination target has a possiblity to be in these areas. If this barrier is breakable, then we could do alot of things with the multinavpoint missions, (perhaps including out of system missions for increased pay) and this would contribute to the fun-ness of the game =P.

You also mentioned the missions of the main storyline: Is it possible to make a storyline? For that matter, custom missions? If this is true, then we could make (meaning that I would try to help as much as possible) to make hundreds upon hundreds of balanced, fun, unique missions. If this barrier can be broken, imagine the possibilities!

Well, I have alot more inspiration, but I think I'll just save it for now...

Thanks for your patience and time taken for reading this.

_
Good, order, faith, hope, love.
Cruxvader

Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:02 pm by ianthecrusader

From what I remember with the missiles, now I remember you are right, mainly due to the hud illustration of wing commander 1.

Now, Concerning Nanobots and Shield Batteries:

When I first bought freelancer, I thought this was a good addition to the game. It made some sense. Why not just attach an battery to the shield. Would they not have the technology?

Then I remembered what a shield generator was. A shield - generator. Meaning, that you could not attach a battery to it and it regerate immediately. If that were true, then they make the ship out of that solar energy converters, and as long as you were in a system with a sun, you would be invincible. Futhermore, the closer to the sun your were, the more powerful you'd be, (forgetting that heat of the sun would burn your core.) making you extremly difficult to blow up. So then, why doesn't attaching a duracell plugin work for shield generators?

I have no reason for them not to.

But for game mechanics to be much more challenging, I perfer to not have them.

If they must remain, however, I suggest the following changes.

Privateer had a nanobot.. except... it wasn't microscropic, it was big enough to be a part of the ship. Repair Bots.

Repair Droid
Repairs your damage except to armor and weapons. Cannot repair
destroyed items. Costs 30000

Advanced Repair Droid
In Righteous Fire, you get access to "Advanced Repair Droid",
which costs twice as much and repairs 50% faster.

(Thanks Chang, http://faqs.ign.com/articles/381/381871p1.html)

Well, it costed 30000. The adv. Costed 60000. Okay, nanobots cost 20. Also, they repair instantly, not gradually. But, they do go away after you use them, and the max is 10. Still, 20 credits? Doing a rough estimate with no sources to it's validity, the price of a super advanced repair droid would cost around 120000. Now, assuming that it won't cost more, which it would with the ability to repair instantly, one wonders why Confed doesn't use one ship with this one droid to go into Kilrah to win the war.

To be short, shield batteries and nanobots, as they stand, are the 'invulnerability button' of freelancer, and take out balance within the game.

To Componsate:
- In order to use nanobots, you have to buy some sort of injector, which costs alot. This is to prevent lowbies from buying it, and for the realization that it is sophistocated technology.
- If there are no injectors, then increase the Nanobot's price to the thousands's range. Or make some sort of balance in between the injector and nanobot.
- Nanobots speed of healing should be reduced dramaticly if possible
- Nanobots amount of healing should be reduced dramaticly if possible.

If these things are possible, then I highly recomend you employ all of these ideas. I've been in a case like this before, where the players could go buy potions for 50 gp, (which restored health in a fantasy mod) and eventually the server and mod became very dull, until I took up the burden to find a balance. It works, believe me. If this is not fixed, then eventually the players will give the game a few hours, and move on to the next mod. Don't believe me? Why isn't Jenskins server filled?

Reducing the nanobots to 10 will produce the same effect. This is because enemies drop them frequently, so you always have an unlimited supply of them.

If these are not removed, then it is only fair that all factions that can afford it, their ships, and their bases, recieve and use this technology, making it near impossible for them to be destroyed, when they can just release nanobots to repair their base in seconds. I hope you see my point

I perfer shield batteries to be removed enirely, seeing how they do the same thing along with lacking the scientific explanation. 'Why they didn't come up with this idea in the first place?'

Thank you for your time, warzog and gang, and I hope earnestly that you do something about them. People, in my experience (along with many other modders and game designers know this), will leave if you do not change these things.

Best of luck, and thank you for your considerations in advance.

Tue Jan 04, 2005 3:57 pm by warzog

You also mentioned the missions of the main storyline: Is it possible to make a storyline? For that matter, custom missions? If this is true, then we could make (meaning that I would try to help as much as possible) to make hundreds upon hundreds of balanced, fun, unique missions. If this barrier can be broken, imagine the possibilities!

If you check out some of the earlier versions of the mod, you'll find several "storyline" modifications/creations.
I had the Centurion, Galaxy, and the Orion, departing Freeport 7 after it exploded.
I also rewrote the Dexter Hovis race, so that it was optional.
I'm planning to rewrite the storyline missions AFTER the main mod is bug-free.

Repairbots were an original part of the game.
There are several referances to them in the various files.
But they've been disabled, and can't be reactivated.

Watch your 6!

Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:47 pm by ianthecrusader

Seems like you got it down warzog. Just to clarify, what is your response to the lowering the power of the nanobots or raising the price? I realize that you are taking this one step at a time, and I think its a good idea, otherwise, you will have a rough time getting anything accomplished in full. But, I would like a 'bird's eye' view of what you want, and what you think should be done with this situation of the nanobots and shield batteries, and what you plan to do with them.

I hope you don't feel like your in grammar school here, but what can I say, I'm an english major.

Wed Jan 05, 2005 7:39 am by warzog

Well...
Without an automatic repair droid, we've gotta have the nanobots.
In the Privateer games, the repair droid was optional.
Whereas, in the Wing Commander games, it was standard equipment aboard almost every ship.
So, we've gotta have the nanobots.
Problem is...
To find a level that is dangerously low, but liveable with if managed correctly.
I tried to set it up so that if you used the nanobots, you only used one at a time.
Problem is, FL isn't set up that way, it uses every nanobot you have to repair all damage, until you run out of them.
The original FL nanobots only repair 250pts of damage.
Ours repair 2000pts of damage.
But, that's all a mute point right now.
While people have complained, and complained about the combat aspect of the mod, they're forgetting a very important item:
BETA v4.0!
It's in Beta!
We're trying to find bugs!
(Kinda hard to do if you get blown away every few seconds, doncha think?)
Making the mod hard is easy, finding bugs isn't.
I can take away the shieldbatts, nanobots, slow shield regeneration, increase refire rate, increase firepower, and make it so that leaving base to go to the nearest jumphole is a suicide mission.
BUT...
I Digress...
(Can you tell I work nights? And it's hours past my bedtime?)

My goal is to eventually have enough, barely enough, nanobots and shieldbatts to get you through a random mission.
The problem is that there's 25 pilotable ships in the mod.
Each with different armor and handling characteristics.
Each with a different number and types of weapon's setups.
So...
What's barely enough for a Broadsword, or a Thunderbolt, would be suicidal on an Epee, or a Hornet.
And, unlike Freelancer, and many other games, which forces you to get, and use the "most powerful" ship around, I'm trying to make it enjoyable for the folks who actually love the Epee, as much as for those who love the Broadsword.
A tough balancing act, to say the least.

Edit:
Just discovered something wierd...
The "Pilots_Story.ini" is corrupt!
It's not the file I wrote.
It looks like FLE rewrote it it!

Watch your 6!

Edited by - warzog on 1/5/2005 8:04:00 AM

Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:14 pm by ianthecrusader

Well, it certainly sounds like you do work nights. Thank you for the explanation. And I completely agree with what you are trying to do in finding a balance between ships, I totally think that is the way to go. This clears up alot of concerns I had with the mod, but now I see it is in excelent hand. Thanks for doing this once again, keep on it, and best of luck. May the strain on your eyes be granted relief from the results.

That is it for now, unless something else pops up.
Thanks to you very much.

Thu Jan 06, 2005 5:28 am by warzog

Thanx.

One other point I should mention...
In the original Privateer, there were only 4 ships the player could fly.
So...
Balancing them, and their equipment, was fairly easy.
One way in which that was done was to limit the shields, generators, and other equipment that could be put on each ship.
Except for the shieldbatts, nanobots, shields, and weapons, FL doesn't limit what equipment can be placed on ships.
I've refrained from placing limits on equipment, based only on which ship it's to be placed on.
Unfortunately...
To satisfy people...
I may have to.
Which brings up a new problem...
How do I place the limits?
If I limit high-end equipment to high-end ships, that almost forces players into the high-end ships.
(Which I really want to avoid.)
If I reverse that approach...
If I limit high-end equipment to low-end ships, it isn't logical to even consider.
An approach that might work would be a combination of the two...
1) Allow low-end ships to carry more nanobots/shieldbatts than high-end ships?
--Or do a reverse balance with the nanobots- More armor = fewer nanobots?
--Or at the very least, allow freighters the most nanobots around.
2) Limit shields based on the ship's size?
--Freighters Lvl 7, Heavy ships Lvl 6, Medium ships Lvl 5, Light ships Lvl 4?

Edit:
I think I'll try putting limits into the next version of the mod.
We'll see what people think of it?

Watch your 6!

Edited by - warzog on 1/6/2005 5:33:06 AM

Thu Jan 06, 2005 11:30 am by ianthecrusader

Why can't you just reinitiate the classes on the shields and what not. If I recall correctly, a low level ship could only get you a shield generator p to lvl 3 in freelancer. You could do this again with privateer.

Also, could you tell me where to get those voicepacks?

Edited by - IanTheCrusader on 1/6/2005 11:53:29 AM

Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:59 am by warzog

Well, that's what I meant by, "Limit shields based on the ship's size."

Voicepaks?
If you mean the Privateer Voice MOD, it was included in v3.0, aka v1.21 here on LR.
It caused one heckuvalotta ctd's though!
(Which is why it's no longer available.)

Watch your 6!

Fri Jan 07, 2005 4:13 pm by ianthecrusader

I assume a ctd means crashing or glitching. Is there any way around it? I would much perfer they don't sound all.. human...

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