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Bare with me on this, because it's a little indirect.

While I was loading my TFs into missions, I happened to glance over and see my incomplete Metroplex sitting there in Mobile Fortress mode and it made me think of something. You guys remember some of the old, I mean really old, missions? The ones where the mission text wasn't just "This is (blank), opposing faction is doing something. Help me fight them." But things like "This is (scientist), we've found a large source of an unstable but powerful new energy source, I request all (faction)s responding to have some form of experience in dealing with such things" and then having a minimum Intel requirement of 2 or three, something like that.

I don't remember immediately what happened to them, though I think they were dropped because people were maxing out certain stats and then taking only those mission that called for them.

Well, three things came together in my mind to form an idea;
1. My G1 Metroplex is, as said, incomplete.
2. Those older missions.
3. The 'Defend Ratchet while he repairs Omega Supreme' stage in War For Cybertron.

The resulting idea?
"Autobots; This is Metroplex. I am trapped in Battlestation mode and my drive systems are disabled, Scamper and Six-Gun units are down and Slammer is heavily damaged. Requesting back-up and a repair team for immediate response."

"Six-Shot to Decepticon forces; Metroplex will soon be dealt with permanently. Continue assault and deal accordingly with any Autobots that get in our way. Whatever happens, Metroplex must fall."

And the catch is that TFs on either side with Repair have a random chance of Repairing (or technically 'Sabotaging' in the Decepticons' case) Metroplex instead of one of their own allies. For gaming purposes, Metroplex would probably be a Level 10 Autobot that starts the mission at %50 health and instead of just 'All Autobots are defeated' and 'All Decepticons are defeated', the Autobots could also win if Metroplex reachs 100% health and the Decepticons could if he drops to 0%.

Of course, to keep things balanced, it would either have to be a 1-11 mission or Metroplex would have to be a noncombatant somehow. The biggest problem I see is that, as cool as it sounds (to me at least), it would be such a pain to program and... is anyone even handling the game programming right now?

turbomagnus wrote:(...)The biggest problem I see is that, as cool as it sounds (to me at least), it would be such a pain to program and... is anyone even handling the game programming right now?

Most probably... Not.
But it sounds cool. This should definitely go on the list for HMW 2.0.

alldarker wrote:Most probably... Not.
But it sounds cool.

Indeed missions like that would be interesting.

alldarker wrote:This should definitely go on the list for HMW 2.0.

turbomagnus wrote:I don't remember immediately what happened to them, though I think they were dropped because people were maxing out certain stats and then taking only those mission that called for them.

They came about because people wanted a reason to use Intel, specifically those with medics.

The results saw some of the more dubious players at the time jacking up their rammers, putting in the necessary intel, and then beating up weaker medics.

So in the end, due to complaints of abuse, they were removed.

is anyone even handling the game programming right now?

Ryan ... but HMW isn't high on his priority list right now.

Problem with the OP is that its no different from throwing a low level medic into a 1-11, there's a chance they could get a repair off on a high level anyway. the only advantage sending a medic in over another mission type would be if the Metroplex NPC had higher endurance than the average high level opponent. and if he has above 7 endurance it would be possible for a level 1 medic with the right spec and some luck to one shot repair/sabotage the NPC ending the mission on the first turn.

alldarker wrote: This should definitely go on the list for HMW 2.0.

Go put a penny in the swear jar.

Editor wrote:Indeed missions like that would be interesting.

Yep, missions with actual objectives to accomplish besides just 'show up, fight, suffer the consequences'.

Burn wrote:So in the end, due to complaints of abuse, they were removed.

Yeah... sometimes it seems that any form of game development boils down to trying to come up with a harder-to-abuse game faster than players can come up with ways to abuse it.

Tammuz wrote:Problem with the OP is that its no different from throwing a low level medic into a 1-11, there's a chance they could get a repair off on a high level anyway. the only advantage sending a medic in over another mission type would be if the Metroplex NPC had higher endurance than the average high level opponent. and if he has above 7 endurance it would be possible for a level 1 medic with the right spec and some luck to one shot repair/sabotage the NPC ending the mission on the first turn.

Hey, never said it was perfect, just that it was an idea. I knew it would need some work. So, any advice on how to un-break it?

Ok, well the main problem with objective based missions is that you'd need to make the win payout at least as much as you would on average get from a non-objective based mission, so if the Objective Is completable on the first turn it needs to pay out a vast amount of XP. It would probably be a good idea if the mission didn't end once the objective is complete, unless the objective is going to take about the average mission length to complete. What might be fun is if you have an objective and completing it scores you some XP and increases the chance the other side will retreat, or either weakens them or buffs you. Something like weapon damages increased by x% or increasing chance of tactic occurring by x%, or hell even increase the XP earned by x%.

Your mission in particular, I wouldn't have a single Metroplex NPC, but maybe 3-5 NPCs based on how many a side it's open to. Ideally you'd remove each NPC from the fight if they reached full/zero health, though that not a necessity if you go with the XP for the objective complete its probably a good idea if the other side gets an increased chance to retreat buff, some balance of the three. You'd have to stay aways from stat bonuses as pushing those past 10 tends to end up dividing by zero, or less than zero, but tactics should be work without breaking the game if they go past 10 though probably not a good idea to push them very far.

Tammuz wrote:Ok, well the main problem with objective based missions is that you'd need to make the win payout at least as much as you would on average get from a non-objective based mission, so if the Objective Is completable on the first turn it needs to pay out a vast amount of XP. It would probably be a good idea if the mission didn't end once the objective is complete, unless the objective is going to take about the average mission length to complete. What might be fun is if you have an objective and completing it scores you some XP and increases the chance the other side will retreat, or either weakens them or buffs you. Something like weapon damages increased by x% or increasing chance of tactic occurring by x%, or hell even increase the XP earned by x%.

Your mission in particular, I wouldn't have a single Metroplex NPC, but maybe 3-5 NPCs based on how many a side it's open to. Ideally you'd remove each NPC from the fight if they reached full/zero health, though that not a necessity if you go with the XP for the objective complete its probably a good idea if the other side gets an increased chance to retreat buff, some balance of the three. You'd have to stay aways from stat bonuses as pushing those past 10 tends to end up dividing by zero, or less than zero, but tactics should be work without breaking the game if they go past 10 though probably not a good idea to push them very far.

makes you wish the quints could get a dust off

Phaze wrote:makes you wish the quints could get a dust off

Hey, if we can figure out a way to make this kind of thing work, they just might, huh?

So what you're saying, Tammuz, is that instead of just auto-win/lose when Metroplex reacheds full or zero health, maybe something like;

Full-health, Autobots get increased Strafe damage to represent Metroplex combining his firepower with theirs while Decepticons get a higher chance to retreat to represent their objective being failed.

Zero-health, Decepticons get an increased chance to stun Rammed opponents to represent the Autobots reeling from Metroplex' loss, while the Autobots now have the higher chance to retreat.

Either way, let's see... Standard payout for a 1-11 Mission is 400/200, so how about a 200/100 bonus for objective complete?

That could, theoretically, actually give us a situation, however improbable, where one side completes the objective and gets the bonus, but the other side still wins the mission, couldn't it?

turbomagnus wrote:Hey, if we can figure out a way to make this kind of thing work, they just might, huh?

It would be nice but I don't foresee that piece of legacy code becoming active again.

Aw, Burn, you mean you don't like hearing players from both factions complain that they got beat by a bunch of NPCs and thus no one got anything from the mission?

Wait, I think I'm on to your plan now; take the current HMW game code, clear out all the left-overs from Minicons, Quints, The Fallen, Maximals and Preds, etc., give it a garish-neon 'camoflauge' paint-job, new packaging and mark it as 'Generation 2'. Oh... you mean Hasbro already did that? Well, blast...

Bottom of the bin, as usual...