StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
So DudkiSC2, I've not forgotten you. More feedback will eventually come. But I wanted to share something with you...something that if you did not know about, you would now use all the time. I've made a "All doodads" picture pack for easily searching through all doodads. At first it was for myselft, but I though that it would be usefull to anyone like you, who does epic terrains and have so much terraining skills.
And if you like it and want more, I've been through many many models one by one and created doodad actors for those that are not used. For instance, I've added multiple models like beams, placement models, many unit models, skybox, ... a hell lot of stuff, as doodads. And I'm far from done though. I made this a MOD that you can acutally download by adding it to your dependencies.
Add other -> login -> Source: Map / Mod name -> extra doodad -> go
You should find "Extra doodad" as the only mod. Then, when you go in the doodad tab of the terrain, you can search "extra" to find all the added doodads. You can then go through and be imaginative with the new models :D Everything you see there is within the editor by default, it was just not set as doodads.
So have fun. Btw, there are some old models as well such as: "Glue intro drop ship" or interesting models like: "medivac upgrade" "aiur tree creeped".
It's been few months since last time i worked on it, but it's something I want to continue eventually. There are just sooo many models.
I knew you made an all doodads pack, however I didn't know you included something extra to it. I'll definitely have to take a look at that! :D
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StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Looking good, I love how much environmental variety there is in this campaign. First we are in a zerg infested planet, then a lab, then a protoss ship, then a desert, and now a murky swampish area! It also looks like things are going to get quite serious, judging by Maxwell's quote. :P
That's normal that you did not know... as I've not posted "officially" about it. I wanted to finish it, but it takes soooo much time. This is probably why no one has done this.
And just a little note to open your imagination, it is much more easier to set scale, color, etc on doodads than units. So if you want to use for example, a very tall Nexus like: X:30% Y:30% Z:200% and you put another one right under it up side down, it makes some cool effects. You would no more see it as a Nexus.
I always wanted to make a kind of phantom city with only placement models, I'm sure that would be quite weird to see and pretty unique... :P Tinted scaled placement models how cool would that be? eh xD
Here is an example of scaled building used in a different way. This was made in the WTE169 as a JTE.
Wow, these are awesome, thank you for sharing these with me! Really big fan of the creative use of buildings as doodads. :D
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StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Suuuup, here is Part 2 as promised. I was wondering, if you know my all doodad project, does it mean you use it? If so, do you like it, what would you like to see for it, etc.
MAP OVERALL: It's great, it's a little bit less fun than first map. There is still place to add some content and optimise a little bit.
TERRAIN OVERALL:
Pathing/LOS: The pathing is really refined and prevents any little issue like moving through objects or passing through paths you shouldn't. That is really good. There is an issue though in front of Rhik's huge gate where there is a hidden pathing blocker. Units have to move around it. The LOS are once again well used.
Doodads: You don't slack on rocks. Moaaaarr rocks. Terrain is just awesome. Like, the only thing I could say is you could still refined more the terrain and add even more little details, but it's already epic, seriously. There are no major flaws.
Environment doodad/Fog Data: In this map, you used some more fog doodads as well as the default data fog which makes the far background blue-ish. So the background bridges that you put and the overall terrains near bridges looks like a very deep lab, which is cool. Although, some wall doodads are floating and do not reach the far ground. This makes a confusion about the fog, like, if not all doodads were affected by it even though the angle of view looks like reaching the ground.
Lighting: A big part of the mission is played in red lighting. Nothing too crazy here. Not even Floodlight or any lighting mix. That's a little negative.
Texture: Texture is totally fine. You're a master of texture play. I'm pretty sure you could push that even further and try to be even more original in this aspect of terraining.
DATA OVERALL:
Units: Reeves OP. Eh. Why would you make the Building armor upgrade? It's "fine" that it is there, but it looks like if you removed everything and forgot that one haha. It's not even usefull at all as you must search and destroy, and not defend (at all).
Abilities: "Plant C-4" ability of Baldwin would probably look better if there was an actual animation when using the ability. Also, maybe a little more range would be nice instead of charging in bunkers, plant c4, back up to heal, plant c4 again, back up to heal... It would be nice if there was an actual countdown for detonation such as the "Salvage" bunker ability. Maybe something more fun and viable to use would be great, like instead of having to cast it on a building, you could plant it on the ground, and instead of automaticly detonating, you could manualy detonate it to make traps or blow multiple stuff at the same time. It would be nice if "often" the units inside the bunker would just go crazy and unload and run before explosion. It also feels weird that, if you kill a bunker with normal attacks, units inside will unload upon destruction, but if you use the ability, units never spawn after destruction.
CAMERA OVERALL:
Angle: Some camera roll would help breaking that monotony of flat camera moving around. There were less cinematics too... And you need to reset the camera position after force-moving it to show gate opening for example.
Depth of field: Will be to add in for futur cinematics.
MISSION OVERALL (normal):
Text: Some of the discussions had alot of text. It's still readable though. Personally, when 3 or more lines of text pop up at the same time, I'm less tempted to start reading in fear of not being able to finish and having another 3+ line of text to keep reading. That's not (yet) a problem, but watch out...
Understanding: Reeves meet Rhik, a random guy in a random lab doing random research on "recently" captured Zergs. Reeves get betrayed by Rhik while acquiring Zerg samples by putting them in a Warp-in pad that warps to the main part of the lab (eh but not humans can get warped) Then you move through the lab opening doors, killing people, and get outside? It looks like a cave in a lab in a cave... eh, I actually lost the sense of cave depth. Then you find a random base and take control of it to gather up resources, make mass marine and kill gate controllers before overload protection. Then you kill 80% of the Planetary fortress to get Rhik at your feet. All this, pure logic.
Goals: Investigate a cave (that is a lab)...into killing people to get a random guy to share his research.
Music/Sound: The alarm is quite annoying in the long term. Instead of continuous alarm background sound, there should be areas with more intense alarm, and some others with no alarm at all. Music changing is quite well done.
Cinematics: There are less cinematics, it's more like short visual interaction like gate opening. Except the Rhik meeting. I always like the "past time" lighting grey-ish. Need more movie!
PLAYTHROUGH MISSION 2:
-Marauders and Marines start with the stim ability not researched. Either research it by default or hide it during lab exploration maybe?
-Make hero push other units, no matter if they are shooting, healing, whatever. So you don't get stuck by your own units.
-When you make the camera move to the door to show units coming, send back the camera to where it was, at least.
-Random fact: Why does destroying the gate control machine would make the door open again? It's like, hitting your broken computer to make it works again, doesn't make sense to me. eh xD Also, it would be nice if there was a visual when you get close to tell you "this is a target" like the gate control in the macro part of the mission with the red square poping on the gate control.
-The texts when meeting the SCV guy Rhik for the first time are said in a way like if everyone knows what everyone is talking about. Like how the guy knows that Reeves and Baldwin are talking about the disrupter machine outside the cave..when they never said a word about it.
-There is also a message that says: "Unknown individual" instead of just "Unknown" like the other messages.
-Reading the story, the lab was built by "someone else" and Rhik found it and started using it for his own research. "Why would someone leave a lab empty; it's not even destroyed?" Why does Rhik speaks and knows "everything" about the lab, like talking about "the room in the back contains cages with all of our captured Zerg" soo.. he has been there for a moment to be able to capture Zergs. "How does Rhik knows every code for opening closing doors and whatever else? Did he found the lab instruction manual? haha". Same for macro part with the huge door and gate controllers... he did not build the lab but uses it like if built it... that's awkward.
-There is a mistake in a message. "When you've collected enough DNA, just bring them to the WARPING pad inside..." instead of "warp-in". I doubt I'll find all the mistakes, but this one was easy to spot.
-When returning to game after Rhik meeting cinematic, the heros are next to Rhik while the rest of the army stayed 2000 miles away. Maybe make them walk closer, or be nearby somewhere.
-Some units can be left behind the gate and/or "in" the gate if you hold position with units over it. These units could then move on one side or the other.
-You should make it more obvious that you gathered DNA. You pretty much just see that you killed Zerg.
-After Adjutant opening more cages, all units are teleported inside, even if you had some outside. To prevent units from staying outside right in the beginning, you could add in a short cinematic showing all the units moving in and the door closing, etc etc.
-Zergs are targeting a Point based on unit position, upon reaching the point, they just sit there and look at the cave-sky. Maybe some retargeting would be great so you can't actually just sit back , move a bit, wait, move a bit, and so on with Zergs spawning and never retargeting you.
-When crossing the bridge after running from the Zerg, there is a little pathing gap in it and units heigh changes from like 0 to -10 and come back to 0. (Looks like that, but technically, they stay at heigh 0)
-I hate wall of text messages. Too much to read to allow playing at the same time. Gotta stop and read, or not read and play. If only there was voice acting, this campaign would be ..indescribable.
-Why a door is closed, so you move up, you see another closed door, then come back and the first one is open like magic. There is a little logic gap here.
-How can drop pods fall from the sky if you are in an underground lab? Ehhhh..
-I lost my only medic, then in the long run I died and lost. There is probably place to add some healing thing like in blizz lab missions. That would at least help survivability. The only healing you get is when entering the meeting with Rhik.
-There is a hidden pathing blocker in front of the big fortified door of Rhik. Units have to move around it.
With the release of these missions, also comes huge updates to the older missions. Any future downloads of these missions will feature these changes. Some of the notable differences are:
A01:
Several bug fixes
A02:
Reduced the cooldown of Baldwin's C-4 Charge from 30 to 12 seconds, as well as increasing his range to 4.
Couple bug fixes and minor scripting events changed.
A03:
Fixed a bug where a transmission would play even though the objective associated with it had already been completed.
A04:
Changed various scripting events, as well as other minor bugs.
Added several additional units to the macro part to up the difficulty.
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Mission 5, here is a short playthrough issue that I went into.
-Double must survive objective; keep it simple: Reeves and Baldwin must survive
-Issue with APC not entering the ship if you hold in front of them
-Really hard to save an APC if your troops are not in place. You should be able to have the time to reach at least the 5 first cargos if your troops are not there, and not just die right away. Cargos should have a little more life and/or give a chance of one dieing and then defeat. And well, even if your troops are in place and following the cargo, the cargo can sometimes just get focussed because it has an attack, so high priority. Cargo should have a lower priority than your attacking units and/or have more life. One time I was moving marines and I heard your allies are under attack, I jump right away and just see it explode. No time to react. I used to save way more often than usual and ended up just killing anything on the map.
-instead of "New tech available" you should specify exactly, what is new.
-Hellbats are mechanical and not biological. This is due to campaign dependency.
-Top middle base extractors are Neutral
-Last APC doesn't need to reach end route. When it spawns, job finished?
-Last transmission by Rhik doesn't have a wait and just end game.
-Triggers about APC spawning and pinging keep running once even after game ending, not a problem at all though.
-Gate opening moving camera, must return camera to main hero
-Why would bridge open without any logic behind it? Why not make a bunch of marines pass through or something?
-When reaching the hatchery, Krayen says: More of my Zergs are located (...). Then right after he says "Shit, don't let 'em near the specimens!" without actually "Krayen:" before it.
-White hero contour would be nice
-Air strikes does not target hidden units that are in extractors. This means you can rebuilt with an untargeted drone and have all your tech safe.
-Game breaking issue where I cannot open the cages from 2nd area near the gate. It's an automatic lose.
Okay, I've temporarily decided to remove the download file for mission 5 and 6 as there is in fact, as Scbroodsc2 stated, a game-breaking error with one of the triggers. I have no idea how this happened.
I'll repost these tomorrow as I don't have time today, (Hopefully they'll be completely fixed by then)
Keep an eye out for them tomorrow!
And my apologies if I got you too excited, EivindL XD
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StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
-Mission failed, all structures have been destroyed. Eh, the bases are not important and you must evacuate or get destroyed. Why would you lose if you lose all structures while waiting for gate to open? It's not even in the objective "keep at least a structure alive"
-Terran troups poping in your face during evac
-Hero should have push priority over any unit to don't get stuck in other computer units.
-Boss battle is quite nice, although it took me a while to figure out how to finish her. It's an interesting idea, but maybe, a little glimpse to help out figuring how to do would be nice. Ofc I won't reveal how here to leave it for other players. It would be a nice add if the boss abilities actually had sounds you know... xD
-Mission failed, all structures have been destroyed. Eh, the bases are not important and you must evacuate or get destroyed. Why would you lose if you lose all structures while waiting for gate to open? It's not even in the objective "keep at least a structure alive"
You know what, the reason I added it initially was because it's part of my process of making a mission that has a macro element. Just like setting up the Dialog to choose your difficulty, this is just one of the things I end up doing. I can see now though, that it really doesn't make much sense, so I'm removing it for the next version. As to the reason why it doesn't show up as a direct objective is partially because it's like multiplayer, where you automatically lose once all structures are destroyed, and Blizzard never showed it as an objective in their campaigns either, so I just stuck with what they did. Every macro part of my missions have had this objective, though. You may just not have noticed it :)
What do you mean exactly? The Terran reinforcements dropping during the final part of the mission with K'zool? And what is the issue? Please elaborate a little bit.
-Hero should have push priority over any unit to don't get stuck in other computer units.
The thing is, I don't actually know how to allow units to push other units. Do you know how I can do this? I would like to add it to my heroes but as I said, I'm currently unaware of how.
-Boss battle is quite nice, although it took me a while to figure out how to finish her. It's an interesting idea, but maybe, a little glimpse to help out figuring how to do would be nice. Ofc I won't reveal how here to leave it for other players. It would be a nice add if the boss abilities actually had sounds you know... xD
I like that. That would actually be a very good idea. I think what I'll do, is make it so that after a certain amount of shots, a transmission will play from Krayen giving you a hint as to how to use the spawning units.
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StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
I'm not gonna lie: that was frustratingly, near-masochisticly difficult. I tried at hard first, then failed. Figured I'd try brutal. Big mistake. Finally settled for normal, and even then I had trouble. I think the explanation of the difficulty is very simple: the mission is very intense, because the APC cool-downs are so short, and the APCs themselves are very fragile (they have 200 HP and move very fast).
So, to be honest, I'm not sure what to think. I like the mechanics and the gameplay, and you put your own twist on the escort scenario (I like that you're forced to move out, and essentially have the APC come to you). The terrain is fantastic (though a bit too dark to see things clearly occasionally), and the music is great. But I felt my patience was tested more than my skills. So often the APC would die because a ton of zerg would pop out of a cave, and I'd have to restart or load.
A lot
I think if the APC was a bit more sturdy, the mission would be a lot more fun. If you changed that, and maybe gave the player more resources in the beginning, it would make a big difference. I mean, the story is great. I like Rhik, for instance. He's a lovable asshole, and he gives the campaign some needed levity (although I trust him less than Reeves and Balwdin do).
Now, some small details:
There are some typing errors. "APC's" should be "APCs" (the former denotes ownership, the latter plurality). This one pops up a lot (at least you're consistent). On the loading screen, you write "withing" instead of "within" (though it should be "on"). And it should be "Reeves", not "Reeves' " (you only denote ownership for the last person). "Hypothesis" should be followed by a colon.
I prefer bottom left portraits in cinematics to center left, but that's me.
In the middle of the intro cinematic, the text scroll starts again for a second time, but it gets stuck. I didn't check if it was a one-time thing, though.
I wouldn't mind a more moving camera in cinematics, especially when there's a lot of dialogue.
Now, I loved the timing of the appearance of the text scroll. The natural thing thing is to have it right off the bat, but you wait for it, almost like in a movie. Nice.
A little tip that I recently started using: use music more for certain events, like an APC moving out. If you play Blizzard maps, they do this all the time: a special event happens, and the soundtrack changes to highlight this. I did it myself for AE03, and it works splendidly. The best way to do is to first trigger a special soundtrack and set it to default. Then, when an APC moves out, play another soundtrack (preferably a short one, maybe just consisting of a short stinger), but don't set it to default. In the data editor, set next soundtrack to be your default soundtrack. The map will then go back to your original soundtrack once the music event is done.
Obviously, this could be a bit irritating considering how many APCs you have, but you can use it occasionally (as well for other events in your campaign). I feel that when you don't have voice-over to draw the player's attention, this becomes the next best thing.
Anyway, I'm rambling on. Keep up the good work! I'm a bit busy these days, so I don't know when I'll get to play mission 6, but hopefully it won't be too long!
Btw, this mission is eeringly similar to AE03 in so many ways. You even have a nice little battle cinematic too!
Wow, really? I'm surprised you found it that hard. I wouldn't have expected that, as I usually don't have a problem at all completing it, and you're pretty skilled when it comes to difficult maps yourself. I suppose knowing exactly when and where the Zerg spawns are and having tested is so many times myself gives me a bit of an advantage, but it's hard to tell honestly, how hard it will be when played by others.
I did what you said and buffed the APC, as well as giving the player more resources to start with, and released the map pack again with the updated mission 5. I hope this will make the mission more doable for future testers. I might need to give the Zerg attacks a little nerf too, but we'll see what happens. I want to get a couple more opinions before I change too much. :)
There are some typing errors. "APC's" should be "APCs" (the former denotes ownership, the latter plurality). This one pops up a lot (at least you're consistent). On the loading screen, you write "withing" instead of "within" (though it should be "on"). And it should be "Reeves", not "Reeves' " (you only denote ownership for the last person). "Hypothesis" should be followed by a colon.
Yeah, it's small grammar mistakes like this that I tend to make often even though I know most of the rules. xD. I'm glad you noticed them though. You really look at every little detail which I am a big fan of!
A little tip that I recently started using: use music more for certain events, like an APC moving out. If you play Blizzard maps, they do this all the time: a special event happens, and the soundtrack changes to highlight this. I did it myself for AE03, and it works splendidly. The best way to do is to first trigger a special soundtrack and set it to default. Then, when an APC moves out, play another soundtrack (preferably a short one, maybe just consisting of a short stinger), but don't set it to default. In the data editor, set next soundtrack to be your default soundtrack. The map will then go back to your original soundtrack once the music event is done.
Yeah, I remember those. Always added such a cool effect in the HotS missions. I got inspired to do the same after playing AE03, since I was already developing the triggers for Mission 6 at that time. As you'll see when you play it, I did add some of these soundtracks to enhance specific events. I'll try to use them way more in the future and may actually go back at some point and apply them to some of my older maps.
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Some mouth-watering terrain!!
Such High Expectations for Campaigns!
What decal is that on the transport?
@EivindL: Go
That is really cool! Awesome to hear that! Also very excited to see how that cinematic turns out. 7 minutes is quite impressive. :)
@Hockleberry: Go
I believe it is the "Monk" decal, or as I like to call it in my campaign, "Rhik's Goons" :D
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
So DudkiSC2, I've not forgotten you. More feedback will eventually come. But I wanted to share something with you...something that if you did not know about, you would now use all the time. I've made a "All doodads" picture pack for easily searching through all doodads. At first it was for myselft, but I though that it would be usefull to anyone like you, who does epic terrains and have so much terraining skills.
Take a look at: http://www.sc2mapster.com/assets/all-doodads/
And if you like it and want more, I've been through many many models one by one and created doodad actors for those that are not used. For instance, I've added multiple models like beams, placement models, many unit models, skybox, ... a hell lot of stuff, as doodads. And I'm far from done though. I made this a MOD that you can acutally download by adding it to your dependencies.
Add other -> login -> Source: Map / Mod name -> extra doodad -> go
You should find "Extra doodad" as the only mod. Then, when you go in the doodad tab of the terrain, you can search "extra" to find all the added doodads. You can then go through and be imaginative with the new models :D Everything you see there is within the editor by default, it was just not set as doodads.
So have fun. Btw, there are some old models as well such as: "Glue intro drop ship" or interesting models like: "medivac upgrade" "aiur tree creeped".
It's been few months since last time i worked on it, but it's something I want to continue eventually. There are just sooo many models.
Working on projects:
@Scbroodsc2: Go
That's really awesome! Thanks man!
I knew you made an all doodads pack, however I didn't know you included something extra to it. I'll definitely have to take a look at that! :D
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
Looking good, I love how much environmental variety there is in this campaign. First we are in a zerg infested planet, then a lab, then a protoss ship, then a desert, and now a murky swampish area! It also looks like things are going to get quite serious, judging by Maxwell's quote. :P
@DudkiSC2: Go
That's normal that you did not know... as I've not posted "officially" about it. I wanted to finish it, but it takes soooo much time. This is probably why no one has done this.
And just a little note to open your imagination, it is much more easier to set scale, color, etc on doodads than units. So if you want to use for example, a very tall Nexus like: X:30% Y:30% Z:200% and you put another one right under it up side down, it makes some cool effects. You would no more see it as a Nexus.
I always wanted to make a kind of phantom city with only placement models, I'm sure that would be quite weird to see and pretty unique... :P Tinted scaled placement models how cool would that be? eh xD
Here is an example of scaled building used in a different way. This was made in the WTE169 as a JTE.
You can see here http://www.sc2mapster.com/media/attachments/50/30/Terrain_1186.jpg the units are actually doodads, there is also the mix of protoss ship parts with the planet rotating. That makes a pretty cool effect.
Here is another view http://www.sc2mapster.com/media/attachments/50/32/Terrain_1188.jpg
Here are some scaled building, it doesn't look right at all as you are used to see them always in the same scale, but whatever. http://www.sc2mapster.com/media/attachments/50/44/Terrain_033.jpg
And these are Nexus up side down. http://www.sc2mapster.com/media/attachments/50/43/Terrain_034.jpg
:)
Working on projects:
@Scbroodsc2: Go
Wow, these are awesome, thank you for sharing these with me! Really big fan of the creative use of buildings as doodads. :D
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
Suuuup, here is Part 2 as promised. I was wondering, if you know my all doodad project, does it mean you use it? If so, do you like it, what would you like to see for it, etc.
MAP OVERALL: It's great, it's a little bit less fun than first map. There is still place to add some content and optimise a little bit.
TERRAIN OVERALL:
Texture: Texture is totally fine. You're a master of texture play. I'm pretty sure you could push that even further and try to be even more original in this aspect of terraining.
DATA OVERALL:
CAMERA OVERALL:
MISSION OVERALL (normal):
PLAYTHROUGH MISSION 2:
Working on projects:
Mission 5 and 6 has officially been released.
With the release of these missions, also comes huge updates to the older missions. Any future downloads of these missions will feature these changes. Some of the notable differences are:
A01:
A02:
A03:
A04:
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
@DudkiSC2: Go
Wooo! Going to play it now. :P
Mission 5, here is a short playthrough issue that I went into.
-Double must survive objective; keep it simple: Reeves and Baldwin must survive
-Issue with APC not entering the ship if you hold in front of them
-Really hard to save an APC if your troops are not in place. You should be able to have the time to reach at least the 5 first cargos if your troops are not there, and not just die right away. Cargos should have a little more life and/or give a chance of one dieing and then defeat. And well, even if your troops are in place and following the cargo, the cargo can sometimes just get focussed because it has an attack, so high priority. Cargo should have a lower priority than your attacking units and/or have more life. One time I was moving marines and I heard your allies are under attack, I jump right away and just see it explode. No time to react. I used to save way more often than usual and ended up just killing anything on the map.
-instead of "New tech available" you should specify exactly, what is new.
-Hellbats are mechanical and not biological. This is due to campaign dependency.
-Top middle base extractors are Neutral
-Last APC doesn't need to reach end route. When it spawns, job finished?
-Last transmission by Rhik doesn't have a wait and just end game.
-Triggers about APC spawning and pinging keep running once even after game ending, not a problem at all though.
Working on projects:
Damn it! I have so much to do right now! I'll still find time for this, though! Your campaign is so good I feel it's making mine better. :p
Mission 6:
-Gate opening moving camera, must return camera to main hero
-Why would bridge open without any logic behind it? Why not make a bunch of marines pass through or something?
-When reaching the hatchery, Krayen says: More of my Zergs are located (...). Then right after he says "Shit, don't let 'em near the specimens!" without actually "Krayen:" before it.
-White hero contour would be nice
-Air strikes does not target hidden units that are in extractors. This means you can rebuilt with an untargeted drone and have all your tech safe.
-Game breaking issue where I cannot open the cages from 2nd area near the gate. It's an automatic lose.
Working on projects:
Okay, I've temporarily decided to remove the download file for mission 5 and 6 as there is in fact, as Scbroodsc2 stated, a game-breaking error with one of the triggers. I have no idea how this happened.
I'll repost these tomorrow as I don't have time today, (Hopefully they'll be completely fixed by then) Keep an eye out for them tomorrow!
And my apologies if I got you too excited, EivindL XD
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
Alright, I've re-released Mission 5 and 6.
Download: http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/starcraft-ii-annihilation-campai/files/16-annihilation-campaign-mission-5-6/
That weird game-breaking bug should be fixed now. I found the issue and I can't believe I didn't notice it during playtesting.
The bugs that Scbroodsc2 reported should also have been fixed.
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
Mission 6:
-Mission failed, all structures have been destroyed. Eh, the bases are not important and you must evacuate or get destroyed. Why would you lose if you lose all structures while waiting for gate to open? It's not even in the objective "keep at least a structure alive"
-Terran troups poping in your face during evac
-Hero should have push priority over any unit to don't get stuck in other computer units.
-Boss battle is quite nice, although it took me a while to figure out how to finish her. It's an interesting idea, but maybe, a little glimpse to help out figuring how to do would be nice. Ofc I won't reveal how here to leave it for other players. It would be a nice add if the boss abilities actually had sounds you know... xD
Working on projects:
@Scbroodsc2: Go
You know what, the reason I added it initially was because it's part of my process of making a mission that has a macro element. Just like setting up the Dialog to choose your difficulty, this is just one of the things I end up doing. I can see now though, that it really doesn't make much sense, so I'm removing it for the next version. As to the reason why it doesn't show up as a direct objective is partially because it's like multiplayer, where you automatically lose once all structures are destroyed, and Blizzard never showed it as an objective in their campaigns either, so I just stuck with what they did. Every macro part of my missions have had this objective, though. You may just not have noticed it :)
What do you mean exactly? The Terran reinforcements dropping during the final part of the mission with K'zool? And what is the issue? Please elaborate a little bit.
The thing is, I don't actually know how to allow units to push other units. Do you know how I can do this? I would like to add it to my heroes but as I said, I'm currently unaware of how.
I like that. That would actually be a very good idea. I think what I'll do, is make it so that after a certain amount of shots, a transmission will play from Krayen giving you a hint as to how to use the spawning units.
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
Dudki,
Push Priority is in the Data Editor for Units. It just says push priority and I think at 20 it pretty much moves anything movable out of its way.
@Hockleberry: Go
Awesome! Thank you! :D
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative
Mission 5
I'm not gonna lie: that was frustratingly, near-masochisticly difficult. I tried at hard first, then failed. Figured I'd try brutal. Big mistake. Finally settled for normal, and even then I had trouble. I think the explanation of the difficulty is very simple: the mission is very intense, because the APC cool-downs are so short, and the APCs themselves are very fragile (they have 200 HP and move very fast).
So, to be honest, I'm not sure what to think. I like the mechanics and the gameplay, and you put your own twist on the escort scenario (I like that you're forced to move out, and essentially have the APC come to you). The terrain is fantastic (though a bit too dark to see things clearly occasionally), and the music is great. But I felt my patience was tested more than my skills. So often the APC would die because a ton of zerg would pop out of a cave, and I'd have to restart or load.
A lot
I think if the APC was a bit more sturdy, the mission would be a lot more fun. If you changed that, and maybe gave the player more resources in the beginning, it would make a big difference. I mean, the story is great. I like Rhik, for instance. He's a lovable asshole, and he gives the campaign some needed levity (although I trust him less than Reeves and Balwdin do).
Now, some small details:
Now, I loved the timing of the appearance of the text scroll. The natural thing thing is to have it right off the bat, but you wait for it, almost like in a movie. Nice.
A little tip that I recently started using: use music more for certain events, like an APC moving out. If you play Blizzard maps, they do this all the time: a special event happens, and the soundtrack changes to highlight this. I did it myself for AE03, and it works splendidly. The best way to do is to first trigger a special soundtrack and set it to default. Then, when an APC moves out, play another soundtrack (preferably a short one, maybe just consisting of a short stinger), but don't set it to default. In the data editor, set next soundtrack to be your default soundtrack. The map will then go back to your original soundtrack once the music event is done.
Obviously, this could be a bit irritating considering how many APCs you have, but you can use it occasionally (as well for other events in your campaign). I feel that when you don't have voice-over to draw the player's attention, this becomes the next best thing.
Anyway, I'm rambling on. Keep up the good work! I'm a bit busy these days, so I don't know when I'll get to play mission 6, but hopefully it won't be too long!
Btw, this mission is eeringly similar to AE03 in so many ways. You even have a nice little battle cinematic too!
@EivindL: Go
Wow, really? I'm surprised you found it that hard. I wouldn't have expected that, as I usually don't have a problem at all completing it, and you're pretty skilled when it comes to difficult maps yourself. I suppose knowing exactly when and where the Zerg spawns are and having tested is so many times myself gives me a bit of an advantage, but it's hard to tell honestly, how hard it will be when played by others.
I did what you said and buffed the APC, as well as giving the player more resources to start with, and released the map pack again with the updated mission 5. I hope this will make the mission more doable for future testers. I might need to give the Zerg attacks a little nerf too, but we'll see what happens. I want to get a couple more opinions before I change too much. :)
Yeah, it's small grammar mistakes like this that I tend to make often even though I know most of the rules. xD. I'm glad you noticed them though. You really look at every little detail which I am a big fan of!
Yeah, I remember those. Always added such a cool effect in the HotS missions. I got inspired to do the same after playing AE03, since I was already developing the triggers for Mission 6 at that time. As you'll see when you play it, I did add some of these soundtracks to enhance specific events. I'll try to use them way more in the future and may actually go back at some point and apply them to some of my older maps.
StarCraft II: Annihilation Campaign - A 24 mission single-player campaign featuring unique heroes, custom tracks, boss battles, a varied set of mission scenarios and three intersecting storylines.
Starcraft II: A War Story Campaign - A multi-act campaign with custom factions. Follow my discord for updates: https://discord.gg/Ztu44gZ
If you want to see a list of other awesome campaigns, go to: Custom Campaign Initiative