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COVERT OPS

ROLE

Designer

DESCRIPTION

Covert Ops is a beautiful corner project of a single level of a stealth based FPS. I used the assets I got from my community as a base to build and design my level as well as add or change systems to fit my vision.

LENGTH

24 weeks

GENRE

First-person shooter

ENGINE

Unreal Engine 4

Project Overview

I created this level as a tactical/stealth First-person shooter. Giving enemies senses and increased difficulty to provide a sense of danger for the player. Resources are low and enemy count is high to encourage the player to remain hidden and restrain from combat unless necessary. That being said, the player gets an opportunity near the end of the level for a full on shoot out while defending their extraction point.

Playthrough

LEVEL DESIGN PROCESS

Goals:

  • Create an FPS with an emphasis on stealth.

  • Semi-Open World with clear objectives presented to players.

  • My previous project while was linear and I wanted to give more freedom to the player.

I also had a couple personal goals I wanted to accomplish in this project. I wanted to enhance the AI past such a basic sensing system. So I added their sense for vision cones and various ranges for sound for hearing the player while they ran vs walk or even crouch.

The second goal I had was to create an objective system on the HUD to guide players through the level. Both a constant goal for the player to be guided in the case they forget their current objective, and a more detailed instruction from their Commander from the radio that comes up as they progress. 

Shipping Yard Rework

My original layout of the shipping yard seemed practical on paper, but after play tests I quickly realized it was lacking strategic thought. The pathing was too open which made the patrols too easy to avoid and players could run straight through planting the objective and move on without needing any stealth. 

I took a step back and evaluated why this area was not what I wanted. I realized that to emphasize on the importance of stealth I had to redesign the shipping yard. I took the entire area and rearranged the containers and AI to create a much more enjoyable zone. This rearrangement not only made stealth much more desired, but more importantly this made the shipping yard much more fun. I was happy with the changes and how they effected my level.

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Self Implemented Systems

AI was one of the most important factors I think, I needed them to give a sense of danger and fear, but I didn't want them to become unkillable. The balance didn't take much time to find once I had chosen my ranges for senses. ​

  • Senses​​​

    • ​​Hit reaction - Response to being shot outside of senses range, this was a no brainer, I wanted them to react to the player regardless to how far away they were shot from.

    • Vision - A narrowed vision cone with flashlights on their guns to indicate vision for the player. I didn't want them to have a excessive vision range, because this level is in a nighttime setting. It's also important to have an indicator for the players so they know a proximity to avoid. To achieve this I used flashlights on the enemies guns, I felt it was logical and gave a great visual for the players to know where they'd be seen.

    • ​Hearing - Various ranges of detecting running, walking, crouched movement and gun fire.​ In a stealth game, at least in my opinion, sound is on of the most important factors. The player needs to have a reason to sneak (crouch walk) and avoid running, ranges of hearing and player sound achieve this very easily. 

  • Objective System

    • Commander giving live updates via radio. This is a great way to continuously guide the player to their next goal without forcing them. Radio communications from their Commander after each progression also helps the player stay engaged.​

    • Consistent current objective to help guide players. Many players love to explore where they may not be "meant" to go, I didn't want a forced pathing to guide the player. Instead I added the current objective to HUD incase the player explores but then forgets where they were suppose to go for the mission.

    • Objectives with multiple tasks. The multiple part objectives help encourage a player to explore each area as fully as possible.

    • Placement of certain objectives with visible indicator for players. For the majority of the  level the player is planting explosives to sabotage the enemy base. The Commander has specific areas they want the explosives for maximum damage. The indicators help the player see from afar where they need to plant these explosives to avoid players searching for where to plant and becoming frustrated.

Pre-Existing Systems

  • AI w/Behavior Tree and Controller

    • Alterations to the behavior tree and controller was needed for AI Sense to be implemented. 

    • Balancing adjustments to damage, movement and health of the AI were made.

    • Fine tuning of the AI's weapon socketing and positioning to to improve aim and light added.

  • Interaction System​​​

    • Key interactions, used a small modification of an interactive item to create the objective indicators.

  • Inventory System​​

  • Player Character

    • Sound emissions for AI hearing sense implemented. Players auditory output was needed to communicate with the AI hearing sense to add detection variations for varying speeds.​

    • Balances to health and movement, simple balancing.

    • Objective integration added in blueprints.

  • Weapons

    • The weapons needed adjustment in the player character socket/model.​ They were not properly set, creating bugs with aim as well as failure to shoot when hitting their own mesh. These were easily fixed with some fine tuning.

    • Issues of projectiles not registering hits correctly were fixed. The projectiles were a nice base to work on, but they had issues with ignoring nearly all meshes besides a character model. Technical adjustments to the parent actor made them function as needed.

    • Hitting/Ignoring correct target categories fixed. This was linked to the issues with the previous statement. I had inconsistencies before I adjusted settings and overlapping variables.

    • Damage, fire rate and capacity balanced for the players inventory.

Most Enjoyable Aspects to Create

Ultimately I have enjoyed every aspect of creating my level and all the work for this project and others I have done. Even the difficult and frustrating tasks are satisfying to overcome and learn from. Some of the things I enjoyed the most were:

  • Building the level block out inside UE4, arranging assets and actors to create the vision I saw for my level, watching it slowly develop was very satisfying.

  • Adjusting AI to be functional in the way I needed, it was very satisfying to overcome the errors in the systems of the assets I used. Some were small, but there was some larger issues with the AI and the predeveloped assets not communicating with the senses being administered. Overall it was a great feeling after many hours to get the AI functioning as I wanted.

  • Tackling some of the challenges created by systems or assets when editing them to function the way necessary for my level was rewarding. I learned more about design from fixing preexisting issues as well as some that develop in the process than I could ever hop to learn any other way.

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Deviations from the original plan and future additions:

  • The entire final extraction process was revamped from the original plan. 

    • The plan was originally to fight your way out of the base after completing the final objective inside the Intel building. That changed almost completely from an idea sparked from my instructor that I really liked. Instead of fighting their way out of the base, the player instead heads to the roof of the Intel building to a helipad where they signal for extraction. Then they must defend the extraction point until the helicopter arrives.

  • Ambient FX to add some life to the level.

    • Ambient noise/effects to immerse the player, things such as distant missiles, gun fire, airspace usage, etc. 

    • Immersing the player is what makes a great game, I would like to add some visual and sound effects to bring the feeling of war to the level. Distant sounds and maybe a visual of a jet overhead would be subtle enough to not pull the players attention from their objective and enough to add an additional layer of immersion.

(Image of sniper AI in towers)

Complications During Development

  • Adding perception to AI, behaviors and reactions.

    • The only reason this was an issue was because the AI that I had at the start of the project was fully blueprint based. They did not have behavior trees, this became a real issue when I was implementing senses. I ended up weighing my time and options and changed out the AI I was using for another from my assets that did have a base behavior tree. Worked in the behavior tree and adjusted senses as well as other smaller changes to make the AI function as needed. 

This turned out to ultimately be a blessing for me, as I learned a lot about behavior trees, behaviors and perceptions in the AI systems. 

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