FALLOUT 4
The Lesser Evil
“The lesser Evil” is a fallout 4 single-player campaign. The player encounters a new group of extremely strong and hostile super mutants and fights alongside regular green super mutants to overthrow them in the fictional world of the lust green forest outskirts of Kharvil.
Development Details
Program: Creation Kit, Fallout 4
Development Time: 8 weeks, about 120 hours
Team Size: Individual
Platform: PC
DESIGN GOALS
There were 4 design goals that I had in my mind and I made sure to follow that throughout the entire process of construction of my level.
The player should always have a weenie like structure in site no matter his position in the exterior If not there should be some form of path/guiding lines to direct the player.
To better control the pacing and gameplay all enemies should be disabled initially and should later be enabled on player trigger enter off the player’s sightlines
The level should provide adequate cover and alternative ways to help assist the player during difficult enemy encounters.
Since the main theme of the level revolves around super mutants so there should be very little emphasis on dialogues and grammar also to try to break the rules of basic English grammar to fit the super mutant theme.
QUEST MAPS
GALLERY
RETROSPECTIVE
The level turned out to be a fun action-packed quest.
I was over scoped sure, but I did not hesitate to cut stuff and I did cut early. That proved out to be quite effective.
The design principles (Huge Weenies, Sightlines)
The learning curve for Creation kit was not steep for me, I ran into a few problems but always found multiple ways to solve that problem
My exterior space was well done and the idea that an undamaged Lush green forest feels good.
My exterior battle was a great moment as most of the playtesters loved the entire experience even if they felt it way too hard for a level 1 character.
Though it took me a while to get to it, My interior clutter was good at the end of the day. It was almost on par with the main game’s quality of debris and mess.
Instead of making a decision right at the end and giving a conclusion based on that, I used the string of pearls design concept for choices and consequences.
I understood in’s and out’s of papyrus and can now code effective gameplay systems in CK.
What went well
The Initial Design was way too over scoped. I had to cut 2/3 of the initial LDD.
I did a good job in capturing the playtester feedback for all the milestones but struggles to make a priorities action plan for all those captured points which had an impact on quality for the corresponding upcoming milestone.
I took a long time to answer the 3 main questions of the level “What was this place before the war?”, ?”,”What happened to it during the explosion?”, “What is it now?”. That set me back a little when it comes to level quality and clarity.
My navmesh… Well, it didn’t work out well. I had difficulty in working with the navmesh and couldn’t work well with it and it kind of ruined some of the enemy encounters.
I Focused was too much on the exterior and kind of neglected my interior space until the later milestones which resulted in an unbalanced level of quality.
I still even to this day haven’t yet understood the idea behind metrics, proportions, units, and scale as compared to the LDD and the game counterpart. This is something that I need to work on.
The game was heavily unbalanced right until the very end of the milestones which effected playtester feedback that I was supposed to receive from them which in turn affect the quality of the level in the upcoming milestone.
What went wrong
I learned that I was good at set dressing using the creation kit and was fast in doing that.
I understood the key difference between a scripting language and a programing language and as CK (Papyrus) being a scripting one I realized it was really powerful but not all-powerful i.e. I couldn’t take everything with it.
It is always better to under scope your project than over scope as you can add additional gameplay in the later milestones as opposed to removing your hard work and the stronger you LDD the strong your level is
If the level is easy for you then it's hard for the average player, if it's slightly hard for you then it’s extremely hard for the average player so tone it down to as easy as you can get.
Be very very careful during the aesthetics milestones. As you will add beauty and details to your level you can add too much stuff and break and undo your sightlines and conveyance that you worked so had on in the previous milestone.
Never try to make a level/mission that targets all the player levels i.e. level 1-100. The number of conditions that you need to tweak to balance that out are way too many. It's much easier to lock your level so that the player cannot access it until he reaches your desired level gate.