descriptions I don't do anything also if you are doing a custom group of custom enemy's I have cut down the number in the group.
also if it is not a timed mission then don't need to worry about the mission fail stuff all I can think of atm
Personally, what I read since the MA came out:
NPC descriptions - Yes! It currently makes me sad when I look for a description and see "A minion is no match for a hero...". There shouldn't be important information, but any sort of flavor is great to go here. Even if it's as simple as a robotic custom group who have for their descriptions "ID# 4521, rank: minion" Just whatever flavor you want to add to your custom group.
Clues - I find myself forgetting about clues a lot, I wouldn't put any story-important information in there. Maybe just if something needs explained a bit better.
NPC dialog - I like dialog, it pops up right were I can see it easily. Although if you're spawning multiple patrols/ambushes, that becomes many repeated lines of dialog in the window.
Sub-mission conclusion - Depends on the story really. Most don't need much, just a little capper then give the important info in the next mission's intro.
The biggest place you can save on space is custom critters honestly. And there's always just editing down the details, cut a line here or there while trying to keep the same basic idea. You can probably cut a four paragraph intro text into a three paragraph intro text. It really depends on what's important to you.
Personally, I read EVERYTHING (including the contact away text!)
That said, there is a lot of fat that can be trimmed from most mishes.
<ul type="square">[*]Boss Fight Text: 4 lines is more than enough: Unaware, Initial attack, 1/2 damage and defeated.
[*]NPC Bios: Keep 'em short and sweet. It's a nice bonus if they're there, but not always needed.
[*]Enter/Exit Mish Text: It's good to have the bubble on the first mish, and afterwards only if you needed to clarify something from the story you couldn't fit into the mish dialogue or clues.
[*]Hostage/Patrol Dialogue: Just use one line each. If you use all 4 it gets too cluttered and you won't be able to read it until the fight is over.
[*]Contact Return Text: If you have a mission following this text, keep it short. You can explain whatever you need to in the next mission text.
[*]Boss Navigation Text: Instead of having every named boss listed in the nav bar, use the Multiple objectives line and use more generalized terms ie. "Defeat 5 MyBadCustomGroup Leaders." Nav text overload is a growing problem![/list]
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Play "Crafter's Cafe" - Arc #487283. A 1 mission, NON-COMBAT AE arc with workable invention tables!
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NPC descriptions - Yes! It currently makes me sad when I look for a description and see "A minion is no match for a hero...".
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Whenever I see that it just strikes me as laziness. Put something in there!
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Clues - I find myself forgetting about clues a lot, I wouldn't put any story-important information in there. Maybe just if something needs explained a bit better.
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If the arc is meant to be played with a team I will repeat some of the story in the clues just so that the rest of the team can follow along. Too often I've done an MA arc with a team and had no clue WTH was happening since so many important details were in the debriefings and ended up not even rating the arc because I couldn't make an informed decision.
Boss Fight Text: I don't bother much with this outside of Unaware and Attack unless it's a EB/AV fight. Then I'll fill up all the lines.
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If the arc is meant to be played with a team I will repeat some of the story in the clues just so that the rest of the team can follow along. Too often I've done an MA arc with a team and had no clue WTH was happening since so many important details were in the debriefings and ended up not even rating the arc because I couldn't make an informed decision.
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very good point. I should remember to put in some clues with at least a sketch of the plot.
What I love about MA text blocks is it encourages punchy material.
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NPC descriptions - do you read them? What should be listed there?
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A quick description of the powers (better to limit to just primary), and a little flavor. If it takes more than 5-10 seconds to read, time to trim.
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Clues - do you read them?
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I'm still deciding on this one. I say only put in relevant to story material. But, this is a great place for flavor, and I don't think that many people actually read all the clues in a mission.
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NPC dialog - In general I like one line of dialog per group, two or three for rescues/allies and bosses. That's enough for flavor without becoming clutter.
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Clutter becomes background noise. This can help immersion by causing us to do something we normally do everyday, tone out background noise. Keeping it short is best.
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Mission conclusion middle missions - if the mission does not end an arc, how much do you put into the mission successful text?
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Enough to keep the story moving. You did this- it had this result- and now you are going to do this.
I think it's a bad idea to compare what people do in regular missions to MA. It's a broad assumption, but I am assuming people are reading FAR more of the stuff in MA than they ordinarily would, because it's mostly new stuff they aren't so familiar with.
Dec out.
Boss text: Not much is needed beyond "Aware" so that people know an important mob has aggroed. Maybe "Unaware" and/or "Defeated" text for EBs/AVs important to your story. But the 3/4, half, 1/4 texts don't add much because they're always variations of the same thing.
3/4: Ha! Is that all you got!
1/2: Arrgh! Maybe you're tougher than I thought!
1/4: Owww! How dare you! Now you must feel my wrath!
Even if you do something more creative, like having the villain monologing about his evil plot during the fight, players may miss it. So fight text is a great area to pare down the file size.
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Boss text: Not much is needed beyond "Aware" so that people know an important mob has aggroed. Maybe "Unaware" and/or "Defeated" text for EBs/AVs important to your story. But the 3/4, half, 1/4 texts don't add much because they're always variations of the same thing.
3/4: Ha! Is that all you got!
1/2: Arrgh! Maybe you're tougher than I thought!
1/4: Owww! How dare you! Now you must feel my wrath!
Even if you do something more creative, like having the villain monologing about his evil plot during the fight, players may miss it. So fight text is a great area to pare down the file size.
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I'm about to dump this text altogether except for the "blarg I'm dead" line anyways because I only rarely see the other, earlier lines actually show up on screen. They do show in the chatbox so I know they're registering, but I think my boss has uttered them "out loud" in a word balloon only once out of ten tests.
Blargh indeed. Anyone else having this issue?
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Boss text: Not much is needed beyond "Aware" so that people know an important mob has aggroed. Maybe "Unaware" and/or "Defeated" text for EBs/AVs important to your story. But the 3/4, half, 1/4 texts don't add much because they're always variations of the same thing.
3/4: Ha! Is that all you got!
1/2: Arrgh! Maybe you're tougher than I thought!
1/4: Owww! How dare you! Now you must feel my wrath!
Even if you do something more creative, like having the villain monologing about his evil plot during the fight, players may miss it. So fight text is a great area to pare down the file size.
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I'm about to dump this text altogether except for the "blarg I'm dead" line anyways because I only rarely see the other, earlier lines actually show up on screen. They do show in the chatbox so I know they're registering, but I think my boss has uttered them "out loud" in a word balloon only once out of ten tests.
Blargh indeed. Anyone else having this issue?
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I'd leave the Unaware in always for required bosses. They speak it once you get within a certain range of them, so it makes finding the necessary boss a lot easier.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
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Boss text: Not much is needed beyond "Aware" so that people know an important mob has aggroed. Maybe "Unaware" and/or "Defeated" text for EBs/AVs important to your story. But the 3/4, half, 1/4 texts don't add much because they're always variations of the same thing.
3/4: Ha! Is that all you got!
1/2: Arrgh! Maybe you're tougher than I thought!
1/4: Owww! How dare you! Now you must feel my wrath!
Even if you do something more creative, like having the villain monologing about his evil plot during the fight, players may miss it. So fight text is a great area to pare down the file size.
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I'm about to dump this text altogether except for the "blarg I'm dead" line anyways because I only rarely see the other, earlier lines actually show up on screen. They do show in the chatbox so I know they're registering, but I think my boss has uttered them "out loud" in a word balloon only once out of ten tests.
Blargh indeed. Anyone else having this issue?
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I'd leave the Unaware in always for required bosses. They speak it once you get within a certain range of them, so it makes finding the necessary boss a lot easier.
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I've given up on some outdoor missions because the boss had no unaware text. If he had I wouldn't have just missed him on the other side of that pile of rubble several times.
on outdoor maps I've found that unaware text often gets said when you enter the mission. Every spawn everywhere on the map seems to say it as soon as you enter.
I don't really read NPC information, so that may explain why I tend to keep my NPC descriptions short and plot-related.
One of my NPCs is described as, "Ohmboy must be here looking for his lost comrade, Naalehu." That way, all players get that plot point, but they're not bogged down reading a 400-word bio.
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I'm about to dump this text altogether except for the "blarg I'm dead" line anyways because I only rarely see the other, earlier lines actually show up on screen. They do show in the chatbox so I know they're registering, but I think my boss has uttered them "out loud" in a word balloon only once out of ten tests.
Blargh indeed. Anyone else having this issue?
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I'd leave the Unaware in always for required bosses. They speak it once you get within a certain range of them, so it makes finding the necessary boss a lot easier.
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Up until yestersday I wasn't seeing this text show up until I started combat, by which point the function you mention was pointless. I also wasn't seeing hardly any of the other health-triggered comments, as I mentioned above.
Then for some reason when I logged in yesterday it all seemed to go just fine with those, /em shrug. So yeah, I am keeping it all in there now. Plus I've had so much fun writing the dialogue, I'm pretty much guaranteeing that players will have to back track through the chat log to catch them all.
I keep the "mission complete" contact dialogue to an absolute minimum, one generic sentence or so. The reason is that if a team is running my arc, anyone on the team can read the "mission offer" and "mission accept" dialogue in their Mission window, but only the team leader sees the "mission complete".
Aside form that, instead of cutting out text, I just use less custom groups.
Character index
space is tight and there are lots of places to add text. So where should you not bother to put add text (or add little)? And where should you definitely put it?
NPC descriptions - do you read them? What should be listed there?
Clues - do you read them?
NPC dialog - In general I like one line of dialog per group, two or three for rescues/allies and bosses. That's enough for flavor without becoming clutter.
Mission conclusion middle missions - if the mission does not end an arc, how much do you put into the mission successful text?
any other places to skimp on text?