Puzzle Contracts Opinion

Does a contract have a chance to get featured if there is only one way to get SA? I get the feeling that IOI frowns apon this, and will only feature contracts that can be completed SA in multiple ways?

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Theyā€™ve admitted in the past that they donā€™t even play all the contracts they end up picking. Some were picked based off the picture for the contract, the user-created story, the contract name, etc.

There"s no standard for how or why they"re picked.

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Out of pure luck I think many kinds of contracts can become featured if Clemens has not the time to check all contracts.

But I hope he decides against contracts that seem to be solvable only in one way. If he can even guess the solution. I also hope people generally donā€™t try to get such contracts featured. One-trick contracts can end up being super obscure and force less experienced players to use a guide.

Better make puzzles that have multiple solutions. And loopholes for slow players.

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As Urben said, they may not even play the contract before featuring it. You will get ire from the community though if the puzzle is so hard that thereā€™s only one way to complete it.

I donā€™t personally care if Silent Assassin is even possible, but excessive complications, exploiting glitches, arcane tricks, or puzzles that require walkthroughs to solve are hard ā€œNoā€™sā€ for me.

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Thanx for the advice, Urben. I will have to get more creative, I currently find it tricky to make a contract with multiple solutions. I usually focus on the fun factor, like blowing up 3 targets at once, or getting a sniper double kill, but there is usually only one solution to these contracts. Seems like I need to change my way of thinking.

What helped me the best is focusing on problems, not on solutions. I donā€™t ask myself anymore how I can make a player to do X. More like I try to make up a problem where all easy solutions fail.

Then I think about how I would tackle this problem. And if I still can think of only one solution the contract might not work out.

See my submission for this monthā€™s batch:

The problem I set up is: You have only one detonator for two explosives of the same kind. Add a different disguise restriction for both targets and there you go. You canā€™t do what people always did with explosive device contracts: Press the trigger at the exit. At least one of the two kills have to be done way before that.

When I thought about the solutions, I found a good few of them. It already doubles the amount of them because of the symmetry. Whatever the player might come up with target A might be viable for B too.
Both explosives are on the map. I donā€™t even need to limit the loadout.

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Ok, I see what you are getting at. This will help a lot, thanx man!

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Is my last contract normal?Just as if you can start from another point and quickly take a sniper rifle from a hiding place.

Says the guy that made a contract with a flying something through the Sapienza hole thing to kill the target or something like that. lol

I couldnā€™t be more vague on what Iā€™m saying but you know exactly what Iā€™m talking about. :joy:

To be fair that was like 5 years ago and I did not even submit it to be featured. :stuck_out_tongue: But yeah I only talk about submission contracts, otherwise go wild.

Maybe you see contracts like this as puzzle contractsā€¦ Like where you have to be in certain disguises to kill whichever targets in a ā€˜Rock, Paper, Scissorsā€™ type of way. You have to be disguised as a chef to kill the guard, be disguised as a guard to kill the gardener, be disguised as a gardener to kill the tech crew guy, be disguised as tech crew to kill the chefā€¦ Itā€™s all one big circle of disguise changes.

Or there are contracts where youā€™ll need items obtained from the mission like a scissors, screw driver, propane tankā€¦ and kill the appropriate targets with said methods/instruments.

As for my opinion on them?.. They could be a headache sometimes, but there can usually be a neat/efficient way to get the targets with the appropriate disguises. Maybe with remote explosives, or long range shots from across the map. For this - one should usually leave the kill methods to ā€˜Any Methodā€™.

Some target kills may not allow for much freedom. I kinda donā€™t like when kill methods are something specific. Youā€™re essentially telling other players to copy your method, or ā€œHere. Now do it the way I did it.ā€ And Iā€™m guilty of that myselfā€¦ Not that that makes a bad contract, but when you allow for more freedomā€¦ :wink:

Youā€™ll pry my exploits-disguised-as-puzzles from my cold dead hands