2298 replies to this topic

[need my speed]

Ah, right. I also didn't see a time freeze, indeed, though I remember the in-game text telling me about it.

 

What's the black animation at the very lower left of 'Paranoia' (see mouse cursor)?

And should destroying the Psychic Beacon in 'Paranoia' free the Allied and Soviet forces present (this is a question, I'm not saying it should be so - if it had been a Psychic Beacon, yes, but it's a Psychic Amplifier, so, who knows)?

 

EDIT: Ha, this is a fun one - I completed the mission, but Norio died:

EDIT2: Though the game crashed when the mission screen of 'Relentless' finished loading. But I suspect that is unrelated to Norio dying.

 

Good job on managing to create fun hero-only missions with someone who choronshifts and someone who flies, though. That's quite an accomplishment!

Edited by need my speed, 24 May 2021 - 12:24 PM.

[BotRot]

Can't help but notice that aside from Libra Clones, the only remaining Epsilon support powers that have yet to be usable by the player are the Ruiner and the Magnetic Beam. Both of these involve disabling infantry in some form, so is it not eerily coincidental that these 2 will possibly play a large role in the Battle of Antarctica; not against the Allies since Epsilon is more worried on their aerial and naval superiority, but possibly against Libra and her clones, which are arguably bigger infantry threats than even the Allied heroes?

 

For one thing, there's many hints that Libra went berserk before, and there's no denying the possibility that Libra and her clones will likely go berserk again in the finales.

[JackGranger]

I think the plot of the 11th Soviet mission, "Unshakeable", could use some refinement. The mission description says "The Russians uncover information referring to a secret operation targeting the Japanese weapons developer, Kanegawa Industries. To confront the facts, the Russians attempt to capture the KI Assembly in Japan and acquire all of their technology for themselves." Yet its briefing says Russians are there to investigate Chinese actions of late and captured an unoccupied KI facility to "find out just how far the PRC has gone extracting their tech, and whether they have been sharing to the Comintern like we agreed to". in-game, Norio says this place/mission is an elaborate trap to bury everyone here. Acknowledging this facility has been captured by the Chinese, Russian liaison said the Chinese wants to keep all KI tech for themselves and Russia would lose in the arm race, then called in the cavalry to openly engage the Chinese and capture the KI assembly by force. These neither add up nor make much sense.

1.The Chinese just asked Russians for help to destroy a Psychic Beacon that they shouldn't have, then denied its existence and condemn Russia's "intrusion", which caused Russians to suspect Yuri of collaboration with China. Since Yuri had fled (before Unshakeable happens) and Chinese were playing dumb, the Russians shall make the deal between China and Yuri priority one of their investigation. Yet they ignored this lead and focused on some possible tech share treaty infringement with little to do with The Lunatic instead.

2.The Russians uncovered information referring to a secret operation targeting the KI facility, but they didn't even know the Chinese were already in charge or the Chinese-Pacific pact, so what's the secret operation they knew? What kind of facts they wanted to confront? In my opinion, these are reference to Think Different. After Yuri fled, the Russians found documents related to PsiCorps' operation targeting KI, so they came to Kagoshima (Where both Think Different and Unshakeable happened, though not the same precise location) to find out what Yuri, rather than China, did with KI. Also, Russians think the KI facility was run by Pacific Front, why would they examine Chinese extraction progress from somewhere they hadn't occupied?

3.After they discovered this facility was run by China already, Russian liaison simply jumped to the conclusion that the Chinese wasn't going to share, and summoned heavy reinforcement including Morales to openly engage the Chinese. They should stand down and clear the misunderstanding with Chinese, but instead they escalated the level of conflict and tried to capture a Chinese occupied facility form the latter.  China had every right to occupy a KI assembly and they can argue that they hadn't finish the necessary protocols to share their newly acquired tech with Russia, especially they had only recently overrun this facility. Since Russia wants to keep the WSA together rather than tear it apart, it is unreasonable to forcibly capture a Chinese base after being refused entry.

4.It's unreasonable for the Chinese to open fire at Russians, they could just say this place is off-limits. Just as Norio said, this is a trap, but the mission doesn't clearly explain why. According to MO APYR Wiki, it's to conceal the truth of the Sino-Pacific Front alliance, but that's absurd. You cannot bury a whole Russian taskforce including Morales by an earthquake before their General's eyes and act like nothing happened. Maybe to prevent Russia from obtaining KI tech, but as I said above, they could just say this place is off-limits the moment Russians made landfall. 

 

To save the developers' trouble, I've devised a plot I believe is more reasonable and doesn't need re-script of the mission map, as follows:

It's apparent that China's Psychic Beacon was given by Yuri, who has fled. Russians uncovered information referring to PsiCorps' secret operation targeting KI in Kagoshima. They decided to sent forces to Japan to investigate the Sino-Yuri deal and what Yuri wanted and acquired from KI. Conveniently, there's a KI compound in Okawa Falls, Kagoshima, still controlled by Pacific Front. Comrade General is tasked to capture it, so Russia can establish a foothold in Japan to conduct the investigation independently from China and claim some KI tech by the way. Unbeknownst to Russians, China recently overran that compound and, with their good intel, knows Russians are coming. Knowing their own agenda with PF and KI would be exposed if Russian forces begin operating in Japan, and the war with Russia is inevitable, they decided to take advantage of the situation. The plan is to lure Russians ashore and into the compound where the Seismic Stabilizer stands, then destroy the Stabilizer, kill everyone present and blame Russia for the destruction, using this incident as a casus belli to declare war on Russia and justification of their "protection" of Japan. Sadly for them, the Russians successfully defended the Stabilizer and Norio told them everything. Here goes the Dragonstorm.

[Reshy]

Going to say this now, playing through the campaigns enemy defensive structures are far too numerous for the massive durability increase they got.  Most units do almost no damage to them anymore, making it very slow to remove them and with many also cheaper to rebuild there's no good way to outpace the AI on it.  Realistically speaking it's just better to go for more cheesy strategies like rushes or base walks from what I've seen.  Another issue is that the AI also won't give up until literally every production and power plant is destroyed, drawing out missions since even if you take out their base and all their production, you still gotta kill the 3-4 power plants behind their defenses to get them to sell off and it really drags out the missions.

 

 

 

Playing through the no-build missions I didn't find very fun either, most of it comes down to memorization of the enemy attack patterns due to needing specific counter units due to the damage rework rather than using a handful of versatile units.  The ones with the heroes are a little better as they can actually kill enemies with decent speed, but if there's any time limit (like Soviet 11) their health recovery is just too slow relative to the pace of the campaign, needing you to do all the fights in a way to avoid taking as much damage as possible with as little of the map discovered as possible.

[Reshy]

Playing through the allies, I think there's way too many no-build missions in the campaigns.  They're like 4-5 missions back to back without seeing any hint of a war factory, and the few times you do you don't get an MCV till like mission 10.  It's a bit much.  Mission 12 is also pretty unfun in it's design since you have to make sure all 3 systems remain rather than just one.  I definitely think the allied campaign should be re-evaluated during act 1.  I'll see if act 2 is any better, but I ended up skipping almost the entire campaign due to how tedious most of the scenarios were.

Edited by Reshy, 19 August 2021 - 03:24 AM.

[Handepsilon]

If you felt that way in Allied Campaign already, you're gonna hate the entirety of Epsilon Act 1. Also, the missions were harder than this before. A LOT harder

[Speeder]

The ratio of task force to base building missions is 1:1. Also, you don't need to memorize anything, all attacks on Casual and Normal have been designed in a way that gives the Player time to react with what they have. Mental is a different story and was designed to those who want the toughest challenge there can be.

 

If you have trouble, I suggest switching to a lower difficulty.

 

Jack, I've read your rewrite and I think it works, but right we're not doing further adjustments to the existing plot.

[Reshy]

If you felt that way in Allied Campaign already, you're gonna hate the entirety of Epsilon Act 1. Also, the missions were harder than this before. A LOT harder

It's less about the difficulty and more about will I have fun doing it.  A lot of the no-build missions aren't very fun for me.

 

 

The ratio of task force to base building missions is 1:1. Also, you don't need to memorize anything, all attacks on Casual and Normal have been designed in a way that gives the Player time to react with what they have. Mental is a different story and was designed to those who want the toughest challenge there can be.

 

If you have trouble, I suggest switching to a lower difficulty.

 

Jack, I've read your rewrite and I think it works, but right we're not doing further adjustments to the existing plot.

Main thing is that the no-build missions are too numerous.  In the main RA2 they were a rare distraction from the usual gameplay.  In the mod though they comprise significant portions of the campaigns, often back to back, which I find tedious to play.
 

[Reshy]

Just tried allied mission 21, and it's super laggy, and you're rushed constantly unlike the developer playthrough.  Guessing something happened in middle of the development of the new version that made the AI was more aggressive on the newest version.  I'm wondering if it has something to do with the base you start next, as I noticed as you start building more of your base they become exponentially more aggressive, maybe because you're too close to them they start producing constantly?  I don't know.  Most of the mission though seems to be you enduring all of the yuri player's attacks while your ally slowly whittles them down.  I wonder if it'd be better to have your MCV not on the main island, but have that be teleported in later once you make a landing as a forward base?  As is, it's mostly a hold out mission where you're fighting 2-3 other players while your ally smacks them in the back of the head for each push they send to you.

 

 

By the time I can firmly establish a beachead, the AI usually wipes them out.  While it's nice to have a competent ally it's really unsatisifying being constantly under attack by the entirety of Yuri's arsenal and in a tiny corner while your ally gets free reign to make a huge base uncontested.

Edited by Reshy, 20 August 2021 - 02:25 PM.

[JackGranger]

Jack, I've read your rewrite and I think it works, but right we're not doing further adjustments to the existing plot.

Thank you for your attention, Speeder! I sincerely hope you could adjust Unshakeable mission plot as I suggested when you have some free time, maybe implementing in a later patch. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you must do it my way, I just wish it to be done the right way. You did an amazing job adjusting the plot of old missions in patch 3.3.5,  which really made the whole plot much more reasonable and more rigorous than before. MO's current plot is almost perfect, except Unshakeable, whose plot has several confusing, implausible and self-contradictory elements in it, as I stated above. It's like a stain on a Picasso. Thanks to MO Wiki history, I notice that Unshakeable's mission briefing and description haven't been changed since 2018, except a minor grammar check. I think maybe you missed it during the remake of Act One missions. I know re-scripting a map could be time-consuming and you may be busy making final missions, so I offered a revised plot that you only need to edit the text in those csf files to implement. You don't need to edit Unshakeable's map, I actually like the process of the mission and revise the plot with "no gameplay changes" in mind.

 

I also wish you could consider changing Apocalypse Tank's lore-wise status from an old, retired design to a limited-in number, cutting-edge experimental tank. Current lore make Russia's enemies look quite stupid since almost everything in their arsenal is beaten by an old Russian anti-everything tank. And "Our new Tesla Cruiser completely outclasses the old Mammoth and Apocalypse." during Road to Nowhere is just hilarious. You only need to edit some text in those csf files and on the official website to make it a new tank rather than an old one.

 

Apart from suggestions, I have some questions as well, if you don't mind:

1. I notice that PsiCorps is sometimes referred to as the PsiCorps division during Act One. Does this mean PsiCorps is officially named "PsiCorps division" when they serve Russia, or the word "division" is just used to emphasize the fact that PsiCorps is a subsidiary branch of Russian military?

2. Yuri's commanders are called "Proselytes", which I find confusing. The word could mean new converts(in modern English), strangers or sojourners(in the Bible). Are proselytes named so because they're believers of Yuri, or they are outsiders to Epsilon society, or they only serve Epsilon as temporary members and will "leave" in some ways when the time comes?

Edited by JackGranger, 20 August 2021 - 01:41 PM.

[Handepsilon]

 

Main thing is that the no-build missions are too numerous.  In the main RA2 they were a rare distraction from the usual gameplay.  In the mod though they comprise significant portions of the campaigns, often back to back, which I find tedious to play.

Kinda feels like this is just a personal preference, because some of the baseless mission does feel fun to me. Then again I play on Casual/Normal to lessen frustration of getting backside ambushes when I least expect it. Too many base mission would make the campaign feel like skirmish 2.0, and the campaign in MO are not designed to be a prep for skirmish play anyways.

 

On the other hand, I find Epsilon Act 1 to be quite a pain partly due to storyline element forcing them to be mostly commando-based and partly due to the amount of micro and timing you need to do. I'd estimate 80% of Epsilon Act 1 to be baseless mission. I only remember 3 of them where you get an actual complete base. It's in Act 2 where you truly get to have fun. All of the missions on each sides are interconnected instead of having their own storyline per side, so you'll potentially miss out on things if you decide to skip Epsilon Act 1 altogether

[JackGranger]

The MO APYR Wiki claims Blut Royale happens after Panic Cycle according to "the existing order", and Berlin is already controlled by the Soviets by the beginning of the mission. If that is official lore, I suggest changing it into the exact opposite.

The Mermaid's briefing says Tanya was captured after a failed chronoshift attempt after Blut Royale. Since by the time of the Mermaid(1984) chrono backpack is still in prototype phase and Tanya needs to find an AMC to be chronoshifted, it can be safely assumed that Siegfried cannot teleport another person using his Zeitgeist, or he could simply chronoshift in on Zeitgeist(as in convergence), grab Tanya and teleport away. So the only way for Tanya to be chronoshifted in 1982 is the Chronosphere, which is destroyed at the end of Panic Cycle. 

Besides, Berlin is in eastern Germany and Black Forest is near southwestern border.  According to Sunlight, "Germany has finally fallen after a MIDAS missile destroyed the Black Forest", sounds like Panic Cycle is the last stand of Germany. In Blut Royale, the the SteinsTech assets are carried by technology truck driving off the map, indicating the way to the west is all clear for the Allies. The city is free of Soviet forces until the timer ends, so at the start of Blut Royale the Soviets haven't controlled Berlin. Blut Royale description "The evacuation of Berlin is almost complete" also shows the city is recently under Allied control. 

Could Berlin fall after Black Forest? Possible. But it would be more plausible for Berlin to fall before Black Forest. I think Blut Royale shall happen before Panic Cycle, and Berlin shall fall to the Soviets after Blut Royale.

[Reshy]

 

 

Main thing is that the no-build missions are too numerous.  In the main RA2 they were a rare distraction from the usual gameplay.  In the mod though they comprise significant portions of the campaigns, often back to back, which I find tedious to play.

Kinda feels like this is just a personal preference, because some of the baseless mission does feel fun to me. Then again I play on Casual/Normal to lessen frustration of getting backside ambushes when I least expect it. Too many base mission would make the campaign feel like skirmish 2.0, and the campaign in MO are not designed to be a prep for skirmish play anyways.

 

On the other hand, I find Epsilon Act 1 to be quite a pain partly due to storyline element forcing them to be mostly commando-based and partly due to the amount of micro and timing you need to do. I'd estimate 80% of Epsilon Act 1 to be baseless mission. I only remember 3 of them where you get an actual complete base. It's in Act 2 where you truly get to have fun. All of the missions on each sides are interconnected instead of having their own storyline per side, so you'll potentially miss out on things if you decide to skip Epsilon Act 1 altogether

 

I find them to be too long is the big thing.  Allies has the same problem as Epsilon Act 1, as like there's only like 4 building missions and the rest are no-builds.

[FuyuShaymin]

The MO APYR Wiki claims Blut Royale happens after Panic Cycle according to "the existing order", and Berlin is already controlled by the Soviets by the beginning of the mission. If that is official lore, I suggest changing it into the exact opposite.

The Mermaid's briefing says Tanya was captured after a failed chronoshift attempt after Blut Royale. Since by the time of the Mermaid(1984) chrono backpack is still in prototype phase and Tanya needs to find an AMC to be chronoshifted, it can be safely assumed that Siegfried cannot teleport another person using his Zeitgeist, or he could simply chronoshift in on Zeitgeist(as in convergence), grab Tanya and teleport away. So the only way for Tanya to be chronoshifted in 1982 is the Chronosphere, which is destroyed at the end of Panic Cycle. 

Besides, Berlin is in eastern Germany and Black Forest is near southwestern border.  According to Sunlight, "Germany has finally fallen after a MIDAS missile destroyed the Black Forest", sounds like Panic Cycle is the last stand of Germany. In Blut Royale, the the SteinsTech assets are carried by technology truck driving off the map, indicating the way to the west is all clear for the Allies. The city is free of Soviet forces until the timer ends, so at the start of Blut Royale the Soviets haven't controlled Berlin. Blut Royale description "The evacuation of Berlin is almost complete" also shows the city is recently under Allied control. 

Could Berlin fall after Black Forest? Possible. But it would be more plausible for Berlin to fall before Black Forest. I think Blut Royale shall happen before Panic Cycle, and Berlin shall fall to the Soviets after Blut Royale.

They use the ChronoSphere on the Paradox Engine (by that time is still in the Hangar) to do that, not the ChronoSphere which is destroyed by the MIDAS explosion.

[JackGranger]

 

The MO APYR Wiki claims Blut Royale happens after Panic Cycle according to "the existing order", and Berlin is already controlled by the Soviets by the beginning of the mission. If that is official lore, I suggest changing it into the exact opposite.

The Mermaid's briefing says Tanya was captured after a failed chronoshift attempt after Blut Royale. Since by the time of the Mermaid(1984) chrono backpack is still in prototype phase and Tanya needs to find an AMC to be chronoshifted, it can be safely assumed that Siegfried cannot teleport another person using his Zeitgeist, or he could simply chronoshift in on Zeitgeist(as in convergence), grab Tanya and teleport away. So the only way for Tanya to be chronoshifted in 1982 is the Chronosphere, which is destroyed at the end of Panic Cycle. 

Besides, Berlin is in eastern Germany and Black Forest is near southwestern border.  According to Sunlight, "Germany has finally fallen after a MIDAS missile destroyed the Black Forest", sounds like Panic Cycle is the last stand of Germany. In Blut Royale, the the SteinsTech assets are carried by technology truck driving off the map, indicating the way to the west is all clear for the Allies. The city is free of Soviet forces until the timer ends, so at the start of Blut Royale the Soviets haven't controlled Berlin. Blut Royale description "The evacuation of Berlin is almost complete" also shows the city is recently under Allied control. 

Could Berlin fall after Black Forest? Possible. But it would be more plausible for Berlin to fall before Black Forest. I think Blut Royale shall happen before Panic Cycle, and Berlin shall fall to the Soviets after Blut Royale.

They use the ChronoSphere on the Paradox Engine (by that time is still in the Hangar) to do that, not the ChronoSphere which is destroyed by the MIDAS explosion.

 

I believe that's possible but less plausible than the version I proposed. Chronosphere doesn't look like something could be rebuilt in such short notice. I mean, the one in the Black Forest is the only one ever presented in the campaign, the Allies totally rely on the Paradox Engine built-in one in Act Two, not even one another in their many bases to chip in. I suppose that shows Chronospheres are time and resource consuming to build. And if they have a fully functional Chronosphere in London in 1982, they would definitely use it during their most desperate hour, like Sunlight. Like I said, the current version of mission order is possible but I think mine would look more plausible.

Edited by JackGranger, 10 September 2021 - 05:06 PM.

[Handepsilon]

It's also not that plausible for Blut Royale to happen before Panic Cycle, considering the sabotage and as Road to Nowhere suggests, instability.

 

Also, the fact that Sieg can only chronoshift Tanya along with him kind of implies that he's using the Zeitgeist instead of the usual Chronosphere.

Edited by Handepsilon, 10 September 2021 - 03:16 PM.

[JackGranger]

It's also not that plausible for Blut Royale to happen before Panic Cycle, considering the sabotage and as Road to Nowhere suggests, instability.

 

Also, the fact that Sieg can only chronoshift Tanya along with him kind of implies that he's using the Zeitgeist instead of the usual Chronosphere.

 

Since by the time of the Mermaid(1984) chrono backpack is still in prototype phase and Tanya needs to find an AMC to be chronoshifted, I assume that Siegfried cannot teleport another person using his Zeitgeist, or he could simply chronoshift in on Zeitgeist(as in convergence), grab Tanya and teleport away.

And Tanya's failure to teleport could or could not be because of Yunru's sabotage, which really depends on the order devs want things to happen. I simply think it would be more plausible for Berlin to fall before southwestern Germany.

Edited by JackGranger, 10 September 2021 - 05:03 PM.

[Flandre]

It's also not that plausible for Blut Royale to happen before Panic Cycle, considering the sabotage and as Road to Nowhere suggests, instability.

 

Also, the fact that Sieg can only chronoshift Tanya along with him kind of implies that he's using the Zeitgeist instead of the usual Chronosphere.

And I though by this time someone already made a detail "timeline" of the game's story in order.

[Handepsilon]

Yes, but the argument here was/is about whether or not that order needs changing

[Flandre]

Damn what an ending. Might best to hold back and wait for the others to speak their experiences first.