Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

Okay, so we had the discussion about tasks or no tasks, and the general opinion of the Contra team was it is railroading the player.


Which I do not understand.


In Alias' mission, we had a section "Objectives" in the mission description that listed the two tasks, destroy tanks and take out general. This supposedly is less railroading than having the exact same text only in the task section. I don't follow.


Order of tasks or order of Objective entries in the Briefing are equally irrelevant. In almost 99% of all cases, the order of objectives is more or less given by mere proximity, and that was also the case in this mission. We start near the tank base, so naturally the tank base is the first thing attempted. However, we might have attempted the second objective first, which would have been the exact same thing for tasks vs. briefing description.


So, what exactly is the advantage? Not railroading the player? Tasks do not do this either.


What are the advantage of Tasks?
1) Everyone can easily see if they are achieved or not. Sure, you can pop up a hint (which is easily overlooked since it is silent when you have music disabled), or do a sidechat (which is easily scrolled out by constant AI chatter). A task always tells the truth. Without it, you are guessing.


2) JIP players can check quickly what they have to do and what is still to be done. Sure, you can argue they can ask, but why burden the gameplay down with this? Task lists immediately show what has to be done still.


3) Tasks are very visible. They pop up in the middle of the screen. And even if you happen to miss that, it is easy to check.


4) Tasks are easier to read. You do not need to search the briefing for information, the information is right there. The fact that you can easily recognize what remains to be done means you don't run into a situation where you suddenly are at the end of a three kilometer hike only to discover that you didn't blow up all the ammo crates at that depot forty five minutes ago.


So, to bottom-line it, I'd really like to hear an explanation why not having tasks is a good idea, because quite plainly, it isn't. It's not about realism, because we're still talking about a game, and if we want to make this realistic, we wouldn't know if a mission is finished or not. It's not about immersion, because the briefing itself is already an out-of-context item. It's not about forcing the player to play in a certain order, because there is no such requirement unless it is artificially introduced. On the other hand, we have a list of very distinct advantages of tasks.


I know I am probably not convincing anybody that things otherwise, but here's your chance to make a point. Because plainly, I don't think there is one

First of all good topic.
You have a good point and I agree with you if there are many tasks where you risk turning in a confusion game.
I personally have only one objective in my missions.


Spoiler alert for those who didn't play my missions.


In ARMADA destroy tanks is a "non-task" cuz nature takes care of it


What seems to bother you is incertitude and lack of control which is something i'm looking for, for me is a feature as long the mission is not bugged

(12-05-2014, 03:23 AM)Alwarren link Wrote: [ -> ]In Alias' mission, we had a section "Objectives" in the mission description that listed the two tasks, destroy tanks and take out general. This supposedly is less railroading than having the exact same text only in the task section. I don't follow.

Is not about logic is about a feeling, you are right in your argument, but the feeling is different, if it would be many tasks that feeling can turn for me into frustration maybe, but as you may know i only have one objective in my missions. This doesn't mean you'll not have surprises while playing

(12-05-2014, 03:23 AM)Alwarren link Wrote: [ -> ]Order of tasks or order of Objective entries in the Briefing are equally irrelevant. In almost 99% of all cases, the order of objectives is more or less given by mere proximity, and that was also the case in this mission. We start near the tank base, so naturally the tank base is the first thing attempted. However, we might have attempted the second objective first, which would have been the exact same thing for tasks vs. briefing description.

We could've tried that, i don't impose a specific order for actions in my missions, however tornado is lethal for players too that could've ended in our death

(12-05-2014, 03:23 AM)Alwarren link Wrote: [ -> ][/size]Everyone can easily see if they are achieved or not. Sure, you can pop up a hint (which is easily overlooked since it is silent when you have music disabled), or do a sidechat (which is easily scrolled out by constant AI chatter)

That's why i disable AI chatter in my missions and i rely more on radio messages (txt+sound) than hints.

(12-05-2014, 03:23 AM)Alwarren link Wrote: [ -> ][/size]JIP players can check quickly what they have to do and what is still to be done. Sure, you can argue they can ask, but why burden the gameplay down with this? Task lists immediately show what has to be done still.

A stats report or basic info you have to give anyway for JIP players with tasks or not defined.

(12-05-2014, 03:23 AM)Alwarren link Wrote: [ -> ][/size]Tasks are very visible. They pop up in the middle of the screen. And even if you happen to miss that, it is easy to check.

I suppose is a matter of taste, i personally don't like prefer that, is more immersive for me to have the feedback via radio. Tho, as i said before, when you have many tasks is a good compromise to have tasks defined.

(12-05-2014, 03:23 AM)Alwarren link Wrote: [ -> ][/size]Tasks are easier to read. You do not need to search the briefing for information, the information is right there. The fact that you can easily recognize what remains to be done means you don't run into a situation where you suddenly are at the end of a three kilometer hike only to discover that you didn't blow up all the ammo crates at that depot forty five minutes ago.

You are right again, that's why i take extra-measures when i define objectives and related triggers.

At the end if i would make a mission with many or complex tasks i'll do it your way so we are pretty much at the same page  
Otherwise, for one objective, i will always try to introduce a feeling of incertitude and lack of control in my missions so I will not use tasks ... like i said is a matter of taste... and surprises

(12-05-2014, 12:54 PM)alias link Wrote: [ -> ]What seems to bother you is incertitude and lack of control which is something i'm looking for, for me is a feature as long the mission is not bugged

In how far is that a feature? Internally, you do the same as anyone else, just externally, you refuse to present this (important) information to the player.

Quote:Is not about logic is about a feeling, you are right in your argument, but the feeling is different, if it would be many tasks that feeling can turn for me into frustration maybe, but as you may know i only have one objective in my missions. This doesn't mean you'll not have surprises while playing

I beg to differ. What different "feeling" do you get from a list of "Objectives" as opposed to a list of "Tasks"? Perception-wise, there is none.

Let me give you an example. I don't remember the name of the mission, but there was one that we played where all our tasks were completed just to receive another one ("Look for a suitcase in the next town over"), which was clearly one task too many. Too many tasks, as you put it, is always a bad thing, and that doesn't matter whether you put them in prose or have a real task list. I rather have tasks and KNOW where I am in the mission than having no tasks and having to GUESS where I am in the mission. A mission that just piles objective after objective is broken, period.

Quote:We could've tried that, i don't impose a specific order for actions in my missions, however tornado is lethal for players too that could've ended in our death

Again, in how far do tasks impose an order? Again, let's look at an example:

- Infiltrate the base undetected
- Take out the commander
- Destroy Ammo Cache

There is a natural order here, the first objective is quite obviously to be done first (assuming both the HVT and cache is in said base). Whether you spell it out of players or do tasks, the first one is always going to be the first. The second two are freely available in any order. There is no order imposed on this. Quite the contrary, if your briefing says "After infiltrating the base, take out the commander hiding in this barrack, then blow up the ammo cache", THIS will implore a specific order of execution.

So, in the end, the way that tasks are presented is in no way any different than your list of objectives, just with the loss of feedback.

Quote:That's why i disable AI chatter in my missions and i rely more on radio messages (txt+sound) than hints.

Disabling AI chatter isn't necessarily always a good idea. Yesterday on Stinger, Variable reported an AT solider, which was for us at that time a crucial information.

Quote:A stats report or basic info you have to give anyway for JIP players with tasks or not defined.

Yes, but you will want to keep this short. And what if there are two teams? Does one team necessarily know what the other team is doing? If they get wiped out? Sure, you can play the realism card here, but I prefer to know what is going on for gameplay's sake instead of having to guess.

Quote:I suppose is a matter of taste, i personally don't like prefer that, is more immersive for me to have the feedback via radio. Tho, as i said before, when you have many tasks is a good compromise to have tasks defined.

I cannot follow your arguments about immersiveness. As you might have noticed, I have frequent radio messages in my missions when tasks are completed. If you argue that the tasks break immersion, then I will have to ask you why. Because with the same rights, I could argue that hints or radio messages that I have to read break immersion.

What is it, then that breaks immersion for you? The task hints? The presence of tasks? Seriously, I cannot follow the argument, and so far, I can only see downsides to not having tasks.

Quote:Otherwise, for one objective, i will always try to introduce a feeling of incertitude and lack of control in my missions so I will not use tasks ... like i said is a matter of taste... and surprises

This feeling of incertitude does not add anything to gameplay, quite the contrary, it takes away from it by leaving the player in the dark about the progress of the mission.

As I said above, we recently played a mission that was pretty long already and when we thought we were finished, it came up with yet another objective to search for a suitcase in the next town over. It seems like the author had a problem with letting his mission end. This self-absorption - you get the feeling like the author doesn't want you to stop playing HIS mission - really annoyed me.

There is nothing wrong with a surprising turn of events, quite the contrary, I wish more missions would do that. I tried this with "Stop That Train". But the first objective is very easy and quickly done, precisely because it this way the mission will not overstay its welcome when you do not get extracted at the supposed end of it. But just imagine that after you have fought yourself through the hordes of CSAT attackers, reached the friendly lines, and then get yet another surprise task to do something else?

Tasks - a checklist of things to do in a mission - are a good way of tracking progress. We are not there to play only one mission - the big flaw (IMO) of most of the Wolfpack missions. I might have been guilty of making long missions myself, but that was never intentional. I do not like, at all, the feeling that I have to ask myself "how long will this still go on?". Which is why I prefer a good set of tasks where I can verify the progress of the mission.  And that is in addition to the (very valid) arguments I have already listed in my first post.

Tasks remove ambiguity during a mission.  Either the objective is accomplished or not.  As Alwaren mentioned this is where the thin line between immersion and game-play must be crossed in order for players to understand their progress through the mission.

I consider missions without briefings or tasks to be incomplete or at least very poorly presented.

(12-18-2014, 03:51 AM)Imperator link Wrote: [ -> ]Tasks remove ambiguity during a mission.  Either the objective is accomplished or not.  As Alwaren mentioned this is where the thin line between immersion and game-play must be crossed in order for players to understand their progress through the mission.

I consider missions without briefings or tasks to be incomplete or at least very poorly presented.

While tasks are a good way to track progress in a mission I think that they can sometimes utterly break the immersion. Take for example an objective to kill an officer in a heavily guarded enemy base. If you use mortars on the base and kill the officer you get a pop-up saying that the objective is completed even though you actually have no idea whether you killed the officer or not.

I'm trying an approach where the player actually decides when the objective is completed:
-Destroy all AA threats in the area.
-Call in air support when you think the coast is clear (objective completed).
-If you did a hasty job and the air support is shot down, good luck with the rest of the mission  8)

My point is that while we are used to giving control over whether objective is completed or not to the game logic, perhaps we should consider giving it the the player. Is this going a bit off-topic?

(12-18-2014, 08:07 AM)Fuiba link Wrote: [ -> ]Take for example an objective to kill an officer in a heavily guarded enemy base. If you use mortars on the base and kill the officer you get a pop-up saying that the objective is completed even though you actually have no idea whether you killed the officer or not.

Yeah... I hate when that happens. The correct course of action should be to have the task/whatever to "kill officer and confirm his death" or even "take proof he's dead". This way, even if the officer was killed during the attack, the players must reach his body and use an action to "take dogtag" or "take picture".

(12-18-2014, 08:07 AM)Fuiba link Wrote: [ -> ]I'm trying an approach where the player actually decides when the objective is completed:
-Destroy all AA threats in the area.
-Call in air support when you think the coast is clear (objective completed).
-If you did a hasty job and the air support is shot down, good luck with the rest of the mission  8)

That's a great idea.

(12-18-2014, 08:07 AM)Fuiba link Wrote: [ -> ]My point is that while we are used to giving control over whether objective is completed or not to the game logic, perhaps we should consider giving it the the player.

Most definitely!!!

(12-18-2014, 08:07 AM)Fuiba link Wrote: [ -> ]Is this going a bit off-topic?

nope, this is spot on.

Obviously I'm with Fuiba on this one, tho the balance must be kept in mind, without any kind of feedback the mission can be prolonged for a no real reason too much for a MP experience where there are people joining only for a mission or two, 1-2 hours.


As he said, i think the center of weight should be moved on players in co-op MP at least (didn't think about PvP yet), that's why i prefer players reporting/spotting enemies, objectives and not the AI, i don't want to see tags on enemies or markers for them on the map, and definitely i don't want aimbots or auto-aiming not that this has been an issue until now but it represents the extreme we want to stay away from it.
...That's why i'm not a big fun for guided rockets.


The hard part in this approach is that you have to test the mission very well to make sure everything works, and you have to keep it simple and give hints visual/txt chat/sound without breaking the mission/immersion, we are all here for fun after all and i personally don't like puzzle games


For instance in my missions i use campfires, radio/chat message, vehicles or whatever comes to mind  to "signal" the targets, waypoints or important area. The sense of accomplishment is higher when a player does something well without hand holding even with the help of some subtle hints.


For instance in OFP i remember a SP mission where i was lost, had to use the compass and map?(not sure i had a map tho) and the surprise and reward was big for me when i discovered that i can actually navigate and find the exfil point without a waypoint marker.

(12-18-2014, 08:07 AM)Fuiba link Wrote: [ -> ]While tasks are a good way to track progress in a mission I think that they can sometimes utterly break the immersion. Take for example an objective to kill an officer in a heavily guarded enemy base. If you use mortars on the base and kill the officer you get a pop-up saying that the objective is completed even though you actually have no idea whether you killed the officer or not.

This doesn't necessarily hinge on tasks vs. no tasks. There's much more involved here. The problem is, how do you actually confirm the death of the officer ? You can have a trigger that has !alive officer in it's condition field, and it will go off once the officer is dead. This can either pop up up a task hint or send a void message (or both, my preferred method) and tell the players about it. Or, you can say nothing. What do you do then ? Have the players go and see the officer's body ? How ?

The solution I would do for this is to make the success depend on two conditions, the officer being dead, and a player being near the officer's body. Then, the task is shown to be finished.

However, this is NOT AT ALL an issue of whether you use tasks or not. It's a mechanical issue and the way it is presented is totally decoupled from it.

(12-18-2014, 08:07 AM)Fuiba link Wrote: [ -> ]My point is that while we are used to giving control over whether objective is completed or not to the game logic, perhaps we should consider giving it the the player. Is this going a bit off-topic?

It's somewhat off topic (although I think we should start a new thread on this), because the problem you describe is a design decision, and the why it is presented to the players is independent from this.

(12-18-2014, 11:05 AM)Variable link Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah... I hate when that happens. The correct course of action should be to have the task/whatever to "kill officer and confirm his death" or even "take proof he's dead". This way, even if the officer was killed during the attack, the players must reach his body and use an action to "take dogtag" or "take picture".

I'm with you here, but again, this has nothing to do with the way the information is finally presented to the user.

For example, a task would only be ticked once the officer is dead and the evidence taken. However, as I said before, how this is presented to the user is absolutely independent of the implementation. It's basically either "show a task hint when the officer is dead and evidence taken" vs. "show a normal hint/say something/have the player say something when the officer is dead and evidence taken".

(12-18-2014, 12:12 PM)alias link Wrote: [ -> ]Obviously I'm with Fuiba on this one, tho the balance must be kept in mind, without any kind of feedback the mission can be prolonged for a no real reason too much for a MP experience where there are people joining only for a mission or two, 1-2 hours.

Obviously ?

Sorry for being a dick now, but you are all totally arguing beside the point.

Honestly, you are arguing mission design, mechanics, concepts, while the point Alwarren made was just about how the stuff is presented to the user, that's all. This has NOTHING AT ALL to do with balance, or whether you want to focus on players, or whatever you bring up.

You are trying to argue about an internal concept to argue against an external concept, and that is, sorry to say, completely and utterly beside the point.

(12-18-2014, 12:12 PM)alias link Wrote: [ -> ]For instance in OFP i remember a SP mission where i was lost, had to use the compass and map?(not sure i had a map tho) and the surprise and reward was big for me when i discovered that i can actually navigate and find the exfil point [img alt=]http://ciahome.net/forum/Smileys/default/smiley.gif[/img] without a waypoint marker.

I think I know what mission you mean, the one where you were a pilot stranded behind enemy lines and had to navigate by the stars ?

But see, there's your problem and why you are not discussing the point: Find the exfil point without a waypoint marker ? What the heck, we never show waypoint markers on CiA servers, anyway, and what's the connection to tasks ? When you reach the extraction point, you have several options: End the mission with "mission successful" (which is kind of bland), have the player say "Whew, I finally made it" or similar (which is immersive), or pop up a task hint "Task Completed: Find the exfiltration point". Or a combination of those (I would actually use both speech and task).

What you are trying to say, then, is that while the mission is on, you think that going to your map and seeing "Current Task: Find exfiltration point" will immediately break the immersion ? I'm not buying that.

All of the examples given are valid in the context of how missions are designed, but have nothing at all to do with the presentation, which was what Alwarren initially talked about.

Obviously i'm missing something here or is a language communication barrier otherwise i can't explain the strong language.


I thought this is a friendly exchange of opinions and experience, i know that communication in writing can be misleading and maybe i misread others post or my post was misread, sorry if i wasn't clear or more precise.


In my post i didn't try to argue or convince people about something, i just presented my point of view, as i said before this can be a matter of taste and as they say... de gustibus non est disputandum


Is just my opinion and the rules i use for my missions.


I agreed that Alwarren has a good point if the mission is complex especially in MP where we don't want to waste time guessing or find needle in the hay, i still enjoy a mission with tasks, is not a game breaker for me, but again is just my point of view.

(12-18-2014, 01:15 PM)alias link Wrote: [ -> ]Obviously i'm missing something here or is a language communication barrier otherwise i can't explain the strong language.

Strong language ? Where did I use strong language ?

(12-18-2014, 12:12 PM)alias link Wrote: [ -> ]As he said, i think the center of weight should be moved on players in co-op MP at least (didn't think about PvP yet), that's why i prefer players reporting/spotting enemies, objectives and not the AI, i don't want to see tags on enemies or markers for them on the map, and definitely i don't want aimbots or auto-aiming not that this has been an issue until now but it represents the extreme we want to stay away from it.
...That's why i'm not a big fun for guided rockets.

You are missing the point. There are two layers at work: The actual state, and what is presented to the user.

In Computing, there is a paradigm called "MVC", short for "Model-View-Controller". In this, a "model" is a dataset with associated operations, "view" is a presentational element (for example on a UI), and "controller" is the glue code inbetween that translates user action on the view into model operations. As an example, take the typical integer entry widget with two arrows next to a text field with a number. The model is the number and the operations "increase" and "decrease". The view is the code that draws the widget/control on screen. The Controller is the event handler that translates a press on the "up" arrow to an "increase" operation and so on.

In this example, the model always stays the same. It's a number and two operations. There is nothing in the view that makes any assumptions over the way the model stores its data. We can easily exchange the view, for example make it a slider, or a dial, or Mickey Mouse pointing at numbers with his hands.

The same thing holds true here. Your model is whether the officer is alive or not. The view is tasks or no tasks. There is no difference in the model (you could even have Clippy or Mickey Mouse pop up and tell you what the state of the mission is) regardless of what view you choose. What you can do, though, is determine when and how the controller updates the view.

What you are arguing about is the view, not the model. What Fuiba argued about is the controller. You are arguing against tasks as a view, and argue as IF it were the model. Fuiba argues about the controller and when it updates its information to the view. Fuiba uses tasks in his missions, and quite plainly, there is nothing wrong with tasks. They are the appropriate method to visualize progress. I think we can all agree that Mickey Mouse is poor at pointing out numbers in a range greater than, say, 1..12. A slider is good for values lower than, say, 500. Other than that, you need the input box.

Quote:The hard part in this approach is that you have to test the mission very well to make sure everything works, and you have to keep it simple and give hints visual/txt chat/sound without breaking the mission/immersion, we are all here for fun after all and i personally don't like puzzle games

This is not at all any different whether you use tasks or not. Your model is the same, always, and your controller code needs to decide when to consider the task completed. Whether you present that to the player with a task hint or a radio message (or, as I usually do it, both), is completely irrelevant to the difficulty.

Quote:For instance in my missions i use campfires, radio/chat message, vehicles or whatever comes to mind  to "signal" the targets, waypoints or important area. The sense of accomplishment is higher when a player does something well without hand holding even with the help of some subtle hints.

I strongly object to your calling tasks "hand-holding", with all due respect, that is bollocks. A task that says (as in the flashpoint mission you quote below) "Escape the area" is in no way any more hand-holding than having a briefing saying "Escape the area"?

In Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, the "hardcore" mode took away all HUD elements. They called that "realistic" and failed because there are information in reality that you have access to that are no more available in the game. For example, hardcore mode made it impossible to determine whether you had selected the grenade launcher of the normal fire, a bit of information that would be easily available to anybody because you usually know what trigger you are holding. Taking away does NOT equal more realism. It just means withholding information, information that the player is POTENTIALLY entitled to have.

Now, you think that withholding the information "Task Completed" makes the game more realistic. Which is what I object to. Of course, we COULD go about playing missions that draw out for hours because we don't know if the mission is completed, or we could play it to the end only to hear in debriefing that the mission was a failure. However, that is not what I would want to play.

Take my recent convoy mission. It has two objectives for the convoy: Prevent the armour from reaching the outpost, and (optional) destroy the complete convoy.
I could of course go ahead and just let you continue trying to mob up the convoy while the crew of the first tank is already getting drunk in Chernogorsk. Would be fun for the tank crew, but once we are at the end of the mission and hear from our CO that there was a tank that escaped and we failed the mission. So, the task failing is the best way to tell the players to not bother anymore.

A good example of what Fuiba was referring to is actually in the East Wind campaign. You have to kill a high-ranking officer after getting inserted by sub. The mission goes like this: You insert, kill a few perimeter guards, and then start to engage the town. After the town is cleared, you have to identify the target. THAT is actually a good example of how to do things like that, and it uses tasks all along without any supposed negative effects.

(12-18-2014, 11:05 AM)Variable link Wrote: [ -> ]nope, this is spot on.

I actually made such a mission. In the first mission of the Pandora's Box campaign, you had to examine the site and decide when to radio in to tell command what you found. It was generally perceived as "unfair"

(12-18-2014, 01:15 PM)alias link Wrote: [ -> ]Obviously i'm missing something here or is a language communication barrier otherwise i can't explain the strong language.

Alias, you are reading too much into words. We're all friends here, and nobody is using "strong language" as in f-words, s-words or q-words.

This is obviously something we all feel passionate about since it is our hobby. Don't interpret this as hostility, it isn't. Let's call it "accentuation"