The one thing I mostly hate, is when I am suppose to do some sort of a heroic scene with this paladin, when the simpson theme music came on.

I hate it when I cannot beat the game and I don't think it matters if I win or not. When making a tough game try to make the player stick to the game. A good example would be 100 years war v. 2.0 by Marko Crnigoj

Square forests.

Square water.

Obvious spelling and punctuation mistakes.

well I don't hate anything , i Just don't like the story/music in some campaigns.Especially the story. Well the spelling isn't that important if u understand what they are talking about.

[This message has been edited by TheiceTiger (edited 02-18-2002 @ 00:14 AM).]

Those damn boring cutscenes that seem to take up 90% of the campaign and just keep going and going and going and going.

I also find repetitiveness annoying.

I hate a mixture of weird terrains like snow, dirt, grass, pines, palms and road all in the same screen... (well, not hate but dislike) ex. Dancing Days Are Here Again.

I hate when scenarios just crash for no reason (not really they're fault)

*Shoots ElftheHunter*

That'll show you.

I dislike un-amaginative conversations, and weak dialogue.

I dunno, maps always piss me off when I see no elevation, and a map that starts good but ends like crap....Bon

I also hate superheroes.

You shot me!!! You shot me!!! How dare you, I'm the Elf!!!

j/k, it's more of a personal taste and I loved your campaign anyway so what's the grudge

Yeah, I hate superheroes too.

You hate superheroes? *Removes elf character in his scenario with 1000 HP and 45 Attack* (J/K)

god all 3 of those make me pi$$ed.The spelling can slip a little

i really hate super units.You go to a boss and kill them with taking little damage.Or 1 person getting badly hurt than and you can easyly kill the boss.

also a bad idea is to put alot of the following games in,
matrix
nemo I and II
warrior odyssey
castle blood
germ blood
germ blood
castle blood
more germ blood
even more castle blood
and castle germ

those are my least favorite things

Having to click on every single unit to look for important tips and most of them say irrelevant things.

Important conversations that are timed too fast, trivial conversations that are timed too slow.
Having to run back and forth doing this, doing that, doing this, doing that ...
Having a million units in position from the start set up to slaughter everyone without having to do anything.

Triggers that crash my computer, not a problem on the new one but something to watch for (too many things changing ownership at once, big view changes).

Having to extract scenarios from a campaign to fix them myself when they don't work so I can get on to the next one!

Quoted from The Kestrel:

Hmm, I understand why you could hate buffy characters who can waste an army of 20 well armed knights in two minutes, but I have another issue:

In my current project (and also first, keep your eyes open, people ) I have two Paladins escorting the hero. They are quite strong, and they can even demolish a camp of highwaymen on their way to their goal. It doesn't suit the story when an entire army has to do it, and if I don't make those two paladins strong enough, the scenario becomes unplayable...

The thing is, I did try to stick to some realism. The paladings can't do the job without being healed by a monk now and then. Another thing, they are well armed paladins from the King, while the highwaymen are just a bunch of "wall meat" (Militia and Archers, with Woad Raiders as their strongest force). So I don't think it damages the realism too hard if the paladins can waste the highwaymen without too much trouble, although there are only two of them.

Quote:

Yeah superheros are usually really stupid when it comes to gameplay, but they are not at all that bad in cutscenes, I mean does it actually make sense to you that a bowman had to hit a paladin with 20+ arrows that are all accurate?

I think heros' HP should stay somewhere between 100 and 350, and attack power should stay between 10 and 30. It's too bad that you can't modify its armor and its range...

Another thing I hate is that when a scenario is easy, or old-fashioned. I am trying to learn something about map editing every time I play a scenario. And when it's too easy, or when I know everything on the map, I don't even know why I am playing it...

See Kestrels spelling in campaigns is bad . Even in the fixed The Shadowed Realm there was millions of spellng mistakes .

Is a 7 mins 52 seconds cut-scene too long?

Its going to be an amazing huge battle between two armies, set across a front-line spanning an entire country, (forests, atmosphere, villages falling and burning, ambushes, melees etc.) - ending with the final annihilation of one army, and the solemn and evocative death of their king, (suicide, not hunted down) set to Rob D's "Clubbed to Death" from the Matrix soundtrack.

Its the final scenario of my campaign. Kind of a victory movie.

Perhaps it needs cutting down a bit...

Make sure it is exciting and well done or people might get bored.

Yeah. The cutscene at the beginning of the Tamerlane campaign was about that long, and wasn't exactly riveting.

What to do though...

Check out TDS' work(The Nexus especially) or Ex-t's work for EE to see how to make good cutscenes.

Quote:

Hm... when I remember some player comments, forum comments, and reviews, the majority of people seemed to feel quite differently about that cutscene in Tamerlane...

Your opinion is fully acceptable as an opinion, Immortal Wombat/intrepid. But I don't think you would make all players happy if your opinion was turned into a general rule for every designer to follow.

I like cutscenes, both when I see them, and when I design them.

Oops. I just said something positive in a thread that is supposed to be negative! Not very helpful, am I...

Ingo

I agree with Ingo van Thief. There is a big difference between FACT and OPINION. Opinion should be adressed and well seen as just an opinion.

"King's Best Men by Ingo is the best CPN EVER!" Opinion
"Ingo van Thief is a very talented SCN Designer." Fact

BTW, I really liked your CPN Ingo van Thief. I learned from it. You have my respects as I Designer. I only ope to see more of your work

Heya Outlaw_BG, glad to hear you agree and liked my work. By the way, "Thief" is a real cool game, but it's not really my surname. If I ever get myself a pseudonym, I'll think about it though.

Ingo

[This message has been edited by Ingo van Thiel (edited 02-16-2002 @ 08:35 PM).]

lol, sorry. Relized too late

I, too, hate superheroes. In my campaign, the first enemies have 100 HP and 8 attack- increasing throughout the campaign as you get better weapons and armours- and the heroes have 100 to 150 HP, and 8 to 15 attack at the start. Also you can only use 4 of the 12 heroes at a time.

Yeah... I hate campaigns where you get tons of heroes. But in campaigns where you get weak armies to go with your few heroes at certain parts, á la Battle of Evermore II, that is alright.

Quote:

Why would it become a general rule? I don't claim to post anything other than opinion. :s
Don't get me wrong though, it is a very good cutscene as far as storyline, detail and events go, its just not particularly interesting. The best bit is the beginning, where the action is focused. When the army enters Bahlk (I think) and the map is fully revealed, the focus is less intense, the story less close and there are two things to watch, the invading army take out some villagers and the king running south. The gap in 'action' at that point slightly loses its edge.
I think actually it is very hard to make a cutscene interesting all the way through, as there is so little player input. (and historical campaigns aren't my favourite anyway)

I really like all your campaigns though, and have learned much from them [/sycophanism]

My cutscene preview (see sig) may be ready some time and I've tried very hard to make it amusing. (shorter one though)

--------------------
Also, really long conversations are annoying, but necessary in many places. Making them is more of an annoyance though, I must admit.

Quote:

Thanks for clarifying, because it didn't come across that way for me at first. Problem is, the basic idea of this thread seems to be to make a list of "Thou shalt nots" for newcomers. So, whatever opinion somebody voices, it will sound like a general rule to follow. My fear is that a couple newcomers will go "eek! I included a cutscene in my scenario. I must go delete it now!" Newcomers react that way to opinions... and I think it'd be a pity for some nice cutscenes we might miss.

Btw, thanx for liking my work, and for teaching me a word I didn't know yet (sycophanism).

Ingo

what does that mean?

Immortal:
Where is the cutscene preview! there isn't one in your sig!

Ingo:
What does sycophanism mean!?

I also hate campaigns where there are tonnes of people that don't talk, or trigger de/activations were forgotten (such as this guy in a scn is meant to die, but not until you get to wherever place, then the guy dies there and you lose instead of the next thing happens)

Also hate campaigns/scenarios where your heroes are weaker than the enemies you encounter at the start. (except bosses)

And, finally, I hate campaigns where when you finish, there is a chat saying "THX 4 PLAYIN MY SCN PLZ RATE IT 5.0!!!" or "HOW DARE YOU BEAT MY SCN! U WILL LOZE NOW!!! (main character dies)" and stuff like that.

Oh? I've forgotten. But "sycophancy" should be in any encyclopedic dictionary you can find.

For the lazy people:

Quoted from dictionary.com:

I don't like massive battle situations where you have an uncontrollable army and where tactics are impossible

Thank you for all your replies until now, I'm sure a lot of newcomers have become a little wiser already. Because indeed, Ingo, that was supposed to be the meaning of this thread. Keep posting, y'all

I'm not mentioning the name of the campaign, since this isn't meant to be a review or anything, but it was a campaign which I stopped playing without even finishing the first scenario:

The hero had 800 HP, 70 attack strenght, and an army of about 150 units (paladins, pikemen, arbalests, siege stuff,... everything) The general objective was to defeat the 'barbarians', which consisted of a bunch of Woad Raiders just waiting there on the other end of the map. You had to find the path between the blocks of oak forest to get there, and that was it. No tactics at all, just dumb hack 'n' slash, a bad map, and 'battle' was consistently spelled as 'battal' which got very annoying after a while.

That's when I decided to post a thread like this. Thanks to you all for keeping it alive.

i played that campaign! hp was closer to 750 though, and he had a bunch of souped up cataphracts as bodyguards!

I hate to be rated on balance... i hate it... i hate it... i hate it... i always get a 2, for christ's sake, i only got a 3 on balance once. I make maps too hard, and i don't put an AI, and i keep doing it again and again...

There is plenty of things I hate in custom campaigns or scenarios. They are :

1. Spelling / Grammar Errors. But I shouldn't talk about this, since I'm an Indonesian and sometimes I also make mistakes like this.

2. Plain Terrain Types. The mixture of terrain types of Grass, Forests, Dirts, etc. make a pretty sight and interesting to watch. Plain terrain (like what Poetry said) is boring to watch.

3. Un-balanced Difficulty. If the scn/cpn is too hard or too easy, I'll get bored easily.

And the most thing I hated is . . . . .
It is the main character/hero of the game. Some people tends to create a good-looking unit such as T-H Swordsman, Cavaliers, Paladins, etc. and forgetting other weaker units, like Militia, Light Cavalries (bad spelling ?), Archers, etc. that represents the appearance of the main character. For me, this is the most fatal mistake for a scenario/campaign.. .. ..
I know, there's a few people who made this mistake, but please, don't do it anymore.

P S : Maybe what I said before is all wrong. Excuse me if there's a mistake. Thank you for your attention.

~ The ^Worthless Militia ~

[This message has been edited by Indonesian_Militia (edited 02-21-2002 @ 12:19 PM).]