[SUGGESTION] Ideas for singleplayer gameplay

(IMPORTANT: I originally wrote this for Nexuiz, but it should still make sense for Xonotic)

I've thought quite a lot about how the singleplayer part of Xonotic could work, so I'll post the ideas that I've had

My singleplayer mode can be split into three sections:

Story - Basically a full campaign that has a plot behind it.
Challenges - Similar to the current singleplayer mode.
Missions - These levels will be like story maps, but each mission contains its own story.

I'll focus on the Challenges and Missions part of singleplayer here.

Finally I'll talk about the sort of things that'll be needed for this to work and why this is different from Assault.


Challenges
This section of the singleplayer would be very similar to the one that already exists. The first level would be a brief tutorial, and then the following levels would take the player through the different game modes.

After a player has completed the tutorial levels, they can start the "time trial" levels. These are tasks that the player will have to complete within a certain time limit. Time trials won't have to be completed in any particular order, so the player can choose which challenge to do.

Examples:

DM - Get 20 frags within 15 minutes.
LMS - Win in less than 5 minutes.
CTF - Make a cap in less than 30 seconds.
Race - Complete 3 laps in less than 3 minutes.
CTS - Complete a jetpack course in less than 1 minute.
Domination - Gain control of ALL control points.
Onslaught - Win in less than 5 minutes.
Minstagib - Survive for 5 minutes.
Other - Hit 10 targets with the Nex before the time runs out.
Other - Collect every item (could be coins, energy shards, bananas etc.) on a map within 1 minute.

(12/9/20) EDIT: I have coded a countdown timer for campaign (see this thread), so most of these should be possible to make.


Missions
After a player has completed the tutorial levels, they will unlock the ability to play missions. Each individual mission contains its own story, so players can play them in any order. Some missions will be more difficult than others, and the difficulty can be adjusted. (12/9/10) EDIT: However, if story mode is sufficiently developed, these concepts can be used for it instead.

Examples (I'll add more when I think of something good ):

#1. Plot - You board an enemy ship to recover an artefact from your planet that was stolen. Retrieve the artefact and destroy the ship!
Obejectives:
- Fly your spacecraft into the enemy landing bay (tZork's Raptor craft would be great for this bit See this video.)
- Find a way out of the landing bay.
- Retrieve the artefact.
- Deactivate their defence systems.
- Overload the engines
- Escape! (the engines explode in 5 minutes.)

#2. Plot: Terrorists/aliens have taken over a skyscraper and are holding some government officials hostage. It's your job to rescue them and defeat the terrorist/aliens!
Objectives:
- Keep the hostages alive!
- Restore power to the elevator system.
- Reach the top floor
- Shoot down the terrorist/alien helicopter on the roof (like a boss fight)

#3. Plot: Quark Robot Industries have created a robot army and are trying to take over the world! Infiltrate QRI HQ and shut down the robot army. (This one could be a two-part mission)
Objectives:
- Find a way into QRI HQ via the sewage system
- Break into the CEO's office
- Find important information in the office
- Use the CEO's lift to get to the secure basement levels
- Shut down the QRI mainframe (boss battle - the mainframe could attack back!)


Very important stuff!
Without the following things, there's NO WAY that story/missions will work.

Monsters:
Bots won't work, because they have exactly the same weapons, health, movement etc. as you do. If we have monsters, we'll be able to set different health levels, movement speed and attacking speed. Models wont be much of a problem, because we could use existing player models. (12/9/10) EDIT: This is an extremely important feature that WILL need coding. Without monsters, story mode will not work.

Items:
I think it would be interesting if players could pick up items that aren't used straight away. For example, a player could pick up a key that's used to unlock a door later. This could use a similar code to the one used in KH or CTF. This would be useful for the item collection time trial mentioned above. (12/9/10) EDIT: Most instances of items usage will probably not need any special code, just trigger_relays

Difficulty settings:
This won't be difficult to make, because all there needs to be is a cvar that multiplies the monster stats (health, power etc.) e.g. Normal = 1, Hard = 1.5, Insane = 2

Why Assault is different, and why it wouldn't work:
People have said that this is just like Assault. Well, it isn't! Assault is a team game, which implies that you would be facing either human-controlled or bot enemies. This is not how missions would work, because they are supposed to be singleplayer games, and we need monsters instead of bots (see above).

Assault is also time based and turn based. Each teams takes it in turn to be the attacking and defending sides, and the team who completes the objectives in the shorter amount of time wins. The missions wouldn't have any sort of timer in a map (except for objective specific time limits - see mission #1), and you don't suddenly become the defending side when you finish the objectives - there isn't a defending side! It's just you, against the monsters, with objectives that are for you and you only.

And this is why missions are not Assault maps


(Feel free to ask questions or suggest improvements )

im still up for this. im really hoping the objectives system can be used. im tired of games who's entire story consists of running around killing everyone and reaching an exit. give me something to do! id love to do voice acting and possibly write some of the script. i used to love writing, and recently ive started having more creative ideas for it. i thought about writing an action novel of some sort just for the heck of it. id love to give this a shot if there was enough interest that it could all actually come together! voice acting is another thing i love. im a musician, so ive got a pretty decent setup and ive always been good at acting (just one more thing i used to love doing, seriously )

also, i feel like contributing in creative ways to this would help make up for my lack of technical skills in coding the game.

starting next semester im majoring in graphic design as well, so i may be able to help out with some textures or something if needed.

also, i feel like contributing in creative ways to this would help make up for my lack of technical skills in coding the game.

I'm exactly the same! I know nothing about coding, but I can come up with ideas

I feel like a revamp of the single player mode is a good idea. I have internet that likes to spike lag every now and again and sometimes shut off. Sometimes I have to play single player mode to make up for the lack of online play due to my internet. I'm all for this =)

Yeah, I thought that it was strange that the Nexuiz singleplayer mode was just multiplayer game types, just with bots

Well, Xonotic is planned to have a more in depth single player mode I believe.

Ok whats up with the weapon changes? that makes almost no sense to me. if i'm going to play singleplayer im going to want to have the same weapons when i play online. a person should be able to learn from single player in order to play online.

Yeah, I agree that the weapons should be the same.

Yeah, the weapons shouldn't be changed. Besides, revamping the single player mode is going to be enough work without having to think about creating new weapons just for it.

Here are my reasons for the weapon changes:

Laser(pistol): The story/mission element of singleplayer is going to be much SLOWER than multiplayer, so we don't really need a weapon to help us get around quicker.

Shotgun: I think should be more powerful, because it's no a starting weapon

Machine gun: Loads of people complained about the machine gun being "overpowered" or a "spam weapon" in that-game-that-shall-not-be-named, so having a magazine limit should solve this.

Mortar: Removed, because I think it would be more strategic to have off-weapon grenades. E.g. you could take out enemy turrets which would otherwise kill you. Would it be better if you had mortar with grenades that explode on impact AND off-hand grenades?

Electro: The old electro is just like a weaker rocket launcher, so hardly anyone used it (except for the combo). You can still do the combo with the plasma grenades.

HLAC: "spam weapon", see machine gun.

Hagar: "spam weapon", see machine gun

Rocket launcher: I don't really have a reason for this one, except to make it a bit more difficult to use,

Besides, revamping the single player mode is going to be enough work without having to think about creating new weapons just for it.

It won't be too much work, because you only have to change a few cvars for each weapon. Maybe a little modification of quakecode, but nothing major.

a person should be able to learn from single player in order to play online.

That's what the tutorial levels and time trials are for Besides, it'll be made clear to the player that the weapons will be slightly different.

Or maybe we could have these weapons in multiplayer

OK, I've decided to not change the rocket launcher after all

Added another mission concept

Concerning your plot mission 1:

I've had an idea like that for a long time. I was considering finding a way to implement it using assault/domination game modes.

Concerning your plot mission 1:

I've had an idea like that for a long time. I was considering finding a way to implement it using assault/domination game modes.

I think we'd need an entirely new game mode for stories/missions. Assault could work, but isn't it a team game?

The most important thing to sort out is monsters, though.

I think the best way to do this is a "build it, and they will come" mentality. If someone were to put the foundations in place, in order to be able to create such a campaign, then you will more than likely see lots of different map developers taking a crack at it. I would but have no coding skills to create the scripting system.

Concerning your plot mission 1:

I've had an idea like that for a long time. I was considering finding a way to implement it using assault/domination game modes.

I think we'd need an entirely new game mode for stories/missions. Assault could work, but isn't it a team game?

The most important thing to sort out is monsters, though.

assault is a object based team mode. one team has to attack certain position and the other one has to defend them.
for single player you can replace the defending team with npc

assault is a object based team mode. one team has to attack certain position and the other one has to defend them.
for single player you can replace the defending team with npc

I know what it is - that's why I'm arguing that we need something new for these ideas to work!

Assault is, as you put it, an object based team mode. We can't have anything to do with teams because a, it's singleplayer and b, team and npc implies that you would be facing bots, which wouldn't work (as I've explained in the first post)

ThePWTULN is correct. We need not just bots but actual monster enemies that spawn in their place.

A little while back, psychcf and another coder were working on a character class mutator for old nexuiz. My understanding was it would eventually allow you to define the physics settings, health/armor and a fixed weapon for each class.

This or a new attempt at achieving the same thing as a mutator for xonotic would allow you to create "monsters" for a singleplayer campaign.

Can I just ask that if we have a singleplayer mode the player moves at a more realistic pace instead of doing a marathon everywhere?

A little while back, psychcf and another coder were working on a character class mutator for old nexuiz. My understanding was it would eventually allow you to define the physics settings, health/armor and a fixed weapon for each class.

This or a new attempt at achieving the same thing as a mutator for xonotic would allow you to create "monsters" for a singleplayer campaign.

That would be really useful

Can I just ask that if we have a singleplayer mode the player moves at a more realistic pace instead of doing a marathon everywhere?

We can just modify some cvars and change the movement settings

If we want to use assault, we can have the player on team A and the bots on team B. And suppress the unbalanced teams message.

If we want to use assault, we can have the player on team A and the bots on team B. And suppress the unbalanced teams message.

Assault doesn't work! I've explained why in the first post.

So you have. Sorry.

Actually assault would work as a singleplayer engine, if/when you had a character class mutator. Character classes within factions would create an even more diverse experience.