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Greetings all, A little preface here on relative skill level: The issues I want to talk about get more obvious and more of an issue the better a player is, hence this preface. This is sort of an inverse of "Get gud". However, it may appear I am asking to make the game easier in general, that is not the case. I would like the game to be harder if anything, but at the end where it makes sense for it to be hard and not at the beginning where it doesn't. More on that later... A note on my own skill level: I've completed pretty much every decent strategy game on the hardest possible difficulty, that includes games like: XCOM (The originals, terror from the deep excepted as I never got into it), XCOM (The Remakes), Jagged Alliance (even the awful reloaded one), Panzer General, Peoples General, etc. Also, some hard realtime stuff like EUIV (One-tagged the world), Shogun II total war (Impossible Ironmanned it), etc. I also have a youtube where I do hardest possible turn based Ironman campaigns, though that is mostly battletech. If your interested in that or simply want to verify, you can find it at www.youtube.com/TheEdmon and I hope you enjoy it :). My two key issues with XCOM type games are thus: 1) In the early game no-one seems to know there is a war on and it determines everything. 2) Win-More, Lose-More gameplay. The early game: Most of these turns based games are won in the first 6-10 hours and the rest of the game is just a walk to the victory screen, provided you don't make some critical mistake. But if you are winning hard enough, early enough, the odds of a critical mistake drops: 1) You win early missions with no losses and get more stuff. 2) So you have more money to expand, upgrade and research faster, with no losses to replace. 3) You are powering faster than the difficulty curve due to the above and can afford more coverage (when applicible). 4) You win more easily, due to your powering, which leads to less/no future losses and more money. 5) The cycle repeats, with your A-Team carrying you to the victory screen often without any losses at all. Dont you know there is a war on? The early XCOM game has this weird tone, situational as well as gameplay issue. You start off weak, barely any better or the same as a standard military of the time period. Then the game pretends like other militaries don't exist or are unable to mount even the slightest defence. So, where you are and what coverage you can get early is all that matters. This means that (often randomly), the game is determined by how much of the early hostiles appear near you (so you can deal with them) and is a race for you to power up as quickly as possible so you can protect the earth. The game balance revolves around this, making it so that you can get more ahead very quickly because you are 100% of the force being exerted against the aliens. That 100% can be vastly different between a good player and an excellent one, let alone a weaker casual player. You are totally and 100% critical in the early game, so balancing that early game becomes very difficult. I have always thought a good way to solve this problem would be to have the player be more like 10% of the force in the early game. NPC Military, coverage, airforces, etc. So what if we do this instead: 1) NPC's have military bases, airforces, coverage just like you do. 2) There is a lot more alien activity in the early game, but NPC militaries can barely handle it. The scramble interceptors, shoot down hostiles, airstrike, etc. 3) You can place your base to try and protect a country with a weak military, like africa, or place it where activity is high to protect a stronger NPC so they are useful for longer... The early game then consists of a world at war against the aliens and actually holding it's ground. You are there, to shoot down what appears in your general area, steal technology, go on missions, etc as usual. But you are not 100% of the fight, more like 10% of it. Of course, as the game goes on, your technology improves and so does the aliens. But your human allies do not. So in the mid game, they start to lose and some very badly: 1) You can see NPC bases and interceptons getting crushed. 2) Gaps appear in earths defence, relations sour. 3) It becomes clear that you must fill in the gaps, protect your allies, etc. You can afford to make the general alien presence that much more, when there is a lot of NPC defence around to handle it. Taking the pressure off the early game. In the late game: 1) NPC presence is all but gone, now it's all down to you. 2) Difficulty can be much higher 3) You've had time to put coverage in place, but the pressure you are under can also be higher than in a normal XCOM like difficulty curve. In conclusion: The early game matters too much, player skill level cannot effectively be balanced for, due to the snowballing effect that is caused by the player being 100% of the force against the aliens. The tone is also odd, where is everyone else, don't they know there is a war going on? My thought is to try and shift this to the mid game, while also fixing the weird lore and tonal issues. What do you guys think?1 point
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So after playing beta 1 and beta 2, I noticed a huge change in Air Combat. It's very different from X1 and sort of looks basic. Some people who I share my playhtroughs with also commented on this - some more openly that well it's just bad. Is there any information about future plans for AIr Combat? Will we get something similar to X1 or just accept this version, or maybe there is something else hidden behind the idea? I think that X1 air combat was one of the best implementation of air combat in X-COM type games. The original was: Get Avalanche and you can down anything except Battleship - get plasma you win all the time. UFO series - pure RNG determined by tech and UFO you fought. Even with best tech battleships could take several attemps. UFO Extraterrestials - sort of good way XCOM - again RNG.1 point
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This is honestly the first time I've ever written a topic on this forum so forgive me for any inconvenience I might do. Idea: In the first Xenonauts game your interaction with your squadrons was merely maintenace and logistical services (such as re-arming or exchanging armament, decommissioning aircraft and obviously purchasing and researching new types of aircraft). What if you were able to interact with the pilots of the interceptors themselves, just like a regular soldier, each pilot belonging to the Xenonauts project would have their own feed and info such as names, nationalities, past military services and so on, but pilots could have their own set of skills and capabilities for the commander to take in consideration, some of these could be awareness, vitality (or endurance), survival and cunning. So, would pilots come as more of a challenge or benefit to the player? Well it would be a mix of both, having unique pilots with different pasts and personalities would challenge your capability of management and taking advantage of those same personalities during interceptions, a commander that is capable of selecting the correct individual for the specific task has an advantage over any other aircraft in the air, but it is this same individuality and instability that might pose as an obstacle for less "seasoned" commanders who were used to similar aircraft with exactly the same statistics. What would be the assessments and dangers of having fully interactive, individual pilots? Well to start off, there can be as many skilled pilots as there can be incapable individuals, it is up to the commander to see which skills are more important for his/hers fighting style, pilots would also occupy space in the barracks just as any other regular soldier; there would also be the "unfortunate" instance of brilliant pilots dying due to a streak of bad luck or just a mission that wasn't well planned, but sometimes pilots could survive a crash landing and this could bring a good opportunity for a new type of ground mission, search and rescue. To finish this off, I'd just like to thank all who took their precious time to read my suggestion and I'm sorry if I committed any mistakes regarding the template of the topic or the fact that I might've accidentally mentioned something that someone else already said. Addenum 1: Skills? Awareness: Situational awareness is actually a skill that should be practiced by the player him/herself, but again... Pilots would be required to be extremely perceptive of the environment surronding them and dictate the future of the decisions and options they might take while conducting a mission, pilots with high awareness would be able to dodge and take evasive maneuvers faster than other pilots. Vitality (or endurance): Pilots should take intensive training regularly, individuals unfit to the task wouldn't be able to resist as much shock and G force as trained pilots would. This skill dictates the pilot's chance of survival in case his aircraft is shot down. Survival: Survival training will guarantee the pilot's capability of self management and tending to personal needs in an hostile environment, not to mention that the pilot will most likely be hunted down by search parties conducted by the enemy, thus revealing a catastrophic scenario of capture or even death. A pilot's survival skill would determine the time he would be able to survive alone in an hostile environment until he is rescued. Cunning (optional): At last, a pilot should be an example of ingenuity and wisdom, either from tunning with his own aircraft to meet his needs and extend the efficiency of it's systems to the capability of saving fuel during flight. Addenum 2: Downed pilots? Yes, there would be a chance of survival of your pilot if his/her interceptor was shot down by alien craft, this would be determined by the vitality skill or just a random chance. After the pilot was downed, the player would have the option of risking his men to conduct a rescue operation on the pilot's known crash site, just like a regular mission the player's squad would spawn in a corner of the map and scout the crash site looking for the downed pilot, depending on how fast the player managed to conduct this operation would determine how many enemies are present on the map, the player's objective would be looking for the remainders of the downed aircraft expecting the pilot to be nearby, if the player managed to find the pilot there could be two situations: situation 1, the pilot would be in a good health condition and able to return back to the helicopter by himself or controlled by the player, the pilot would have a pistol for self defense and his/her skills in combat would be randomly generated (so pray for good AP). situation 2, the pilot would be in a critical state requiring the player to carry him/her back to the helicopter.1 point
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Hey Chris, thx for this topic.. as i gave many years to X-Division, i want to share what i wanted to create for my dream X-Com style game.. X-Division's main point was about the "enemy" rather then the player even there is tons of additions to the player side. So i want to explain my thoughts one by one.. Enemies..: 1. Variety.. many and different enemies.. as the game got "phases", the player needs to see different mechanics/types of enemies with every phase.. not just with more stats of the same things.. when the player go to the next phase, he should react to new ones as "wtf is that"... he should reconsider his tactics, game play.. he needs to find new ideas to win.. for example, at second phase, i gave power shields to ceasans, at third phase i gave them big bossy xenomorphs.. i tried to add totally new enemies at every phase to surprise player base, then at next phases i added new abilities to the old ones when they updated.. aliens which moves underground... 2. Harder.. all the Xcom style games got the same difficult problem.. the game starts very hard, you get even at mid, and later its cakewalk.. because you got better weapons and armors to resist enemies even they got more stats.. it should be balanced. I tried to balance this within the phases. As the X-Division is much longer then base game, you have some time in a phase enough to simulate the game itself. At a phase, you start very weak. You try to catch aliens, try to survive rather then winning.. then you got the tech and starts to match with the aliens.. then later if you got enough high level items, you can fight and win against them. BUT when you pass the second phase and you start to react with "WTF", you feel weak again.. because they are an alien invasion army.. they are better then you, they should be.. and you cannot surpass them just in some days.. 3. Horror.. this is an important point too. You need to be horrified when you saw them.. it could be the shape, it could be the weapons, or maybe size.. but you need to feel fear.. I feel that at Terror from the Deep.. at that deep sea missions with dart weapons, i feel very weak when i saw that crapman.. i still hate them.. so i added xenomorphs and some more to the game.. they fit so great.. who would not fear when they see a big xenomorph queen?.. I added side robots to androns.. robodog, roboreaper, roboREX.. i added them a repair abilily which you need to kill it again before it's fully repaired.. we hidden them into the boxes as sleep state to wake up late at mission, when you feel just safe as you think you cleaned the map already.. XCE, solver and charon added hiding mechanics to game which is so great to create this atmosphere!.. Possibilities are so much with just some code tricks.. i hope you consider to add them to next game.. 4. Bosses.. for a tough and fearsome enemy, you need to have bosses.. big ones.. even an ultra mega skilled caesan with a huge weapon, would not enough to consider an ultimate enemy.. so i think at least 2x2 sized enemies are MUST.. look to all Xcom games.. new xcom, old xcom, project phoenix.. people are to be excited to see them.. to fight against them.. 5. Gadgets... game should have some nice inventory items for special things.. an energy shield for 360 defence with own HP.. something for hiding.. something for teleporting.. something for more stats, night vision, heat vision..this is not for only players, it will help to create much bigger variety for aliens.. 6. Dodge mechanic.. for fast aliens or fast melee soldiers.. everything should not relay on more damage to survive.. like a weak caesan with tons of HP to survive at late game (they should have really power shields) or a reaper which is just flesh but can stand against plasma cannons.. Players..: 1. More type of weapons with more abilities.. the game engine should allow every type of weapon combination.. like shotgun, flame thrower, grenade launcher, one shot launchers, mines (which i never use).. more shot options.. auto-shotguns, miniguns, multiple rocket launchers, energy based unique ones (like you got 30 energy rounds at your magazine, you should able to use a special laser shot witch consumes 10 charge from 30.. same weapon could have a autofire option for 1 shot 1 charge and single shot for 1 for 3 charge.. so you can have a heavy laser which can melt armor, or a sniper with autofire ability.. this is my dream for energy weapons but any of the xcom games done this..).. 2. Different type bullets for same weapons.. a weapon should able to use different kind of bullet types with different damage types.. 3. Balanced melee fighting system.. cool melee weapons with some unique abilities.. combined with special armors.. there should be a reason to carry a blade or knife when you can just spam shotgun.. could be combined with stealth mechanic.. 4. Unique weapons per weapon types.. lasers can have gattling minigun, plasma can have a short range cannon with aoe... Plasma based laser magazines.. acid bullets.. blabla.. 5. New weapon versions for every phase.. every phase should have its own grenade, rocket, plane, magazine types.. so player should choose some of them for research in limited time.. 6. Randomized research.. this is great for replay value.. new xcom got this right.. old xcom got it right.. you get something and when you research it you get something new.. with possibilities.. like you got a caesan weapon officer alive, at every research you can learn one type of laser weapon.. some surprise, hard to get, low chance researches.. why not?.. please at this mechanic to modding at least! 7. One time manufactures.. able to erase manufactures at modding.. same to research.. a research or manufacture should able to lock ro release another manufacture or research.. 8. Vehicles.. at least small mechs with human pilots.. could be used as heavy armor with "unique" weapon branch.. they should able to use at least 2 weapons.. Game..: 1. More Phases.. at least 1 more then x-1.. 2. Non-Ufo missions.. random missions which you got different goals without ufo.. ---------------------- Those are main reasons for X-Division and some of them could not be happen because the game did not allow me.. I hope those helps.. thx!1 point
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I'm glad you thought of this thread, it was something I was thinking of starting myself, but I've been spamming the forum a bit too much already. One of my favourite Xe1 mods is Tactical Armouries as it did a great job of using asymmetric weapon upgrades to give each tier its own strengths, which is something discussed on this forum that would be good in Xe2, e.g. lasers more accurate and high damage but lacking auto (hence best at long range), ballistic retain flexible fire options, mags have better burst fire and armor penetration (and the mod also gave the aliens advancements in armor as the game progressed), plasma had very high damage but low ammo and less fire options. Kabill also tweaked the way suppression works so armored sollies/aliens can actually be suppressed, and encouraged pistol use by making inventory swaps and grenade use while using two-handed weapons cost more TU, and they only took up 2x1 inventory space rather than the entire belt. All of this, with solly carrying capacity also being reduced, really made you think about what each one is carrying (overall a great middle ground towards some of the potential changes discussed for Xe2 while still using the basic mechanics of Xe1). X:CE - simple things like mousewheel support and sort by column in base, faster alien turns and improved Lore+ was great. Any amount of extra effort put into the story and feel of the game rather than just the engine and game balance help with a more immersive feel, and give you more ability to create something noticeably unique right from the get go. Enhanced Crash Sites - you have already mentioned elsewhere you want to make UFOs destructible (which Fire in the Hole! did for Xe1) so we don't need to talk about that, but I liked it how with this mod there could be a big fire already on the map, which actually affected which route my sollies had to take on approach to the craft, which helped make up for lack of map diversity until I started using some of the other maps, and even gave some smoke cover to one or both sides, making it more replayable. It also made the whole thing more realistic and immersive. I'd love to see using chunks of a UFO that has broken up on impact as cover. Anything that makes assaults on the same UFOs different on each mission is good. 120 degrees view angle , as it was annoying having keep right clicking to look around a corner here and there, and repeat this every few steps, rather than just incorporate a mechanic for sollies' peripheral vision, their constant "heads on swivel" so to speak. They still had to turn to shoot of course. Hold the Line - made ranked officers more important for defense against psionics since it reworked the morale system. Projectile Overhaul - made the game look a lot better, with projectile look and movement that matched the weapon type. Laser bolts were a bit buggy though.1 point