Davion Fuxa
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Posts posted by Davion Fuxa
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Fundamentally I don't like the idea of giving the player information on the crash site before the mission starts because it makes the missions a lot less interesting to play. The limited sight ranges, narrow view cones and unrevealed terrain in X-Com and Xenonauts are effectively what makes the combat feel so tense and claustrophobic and that's not something I want to lose. Of course, it didn't make any sense even in the first game (why can't your soldiers look out of the window of the skyranger?) but it's there for gameplay reasons.
To be honest, the gameplay will eventually get tense and claustrophobic when you start throwing in more challenging missions down the road. You might be able to scan for an Alien Base or Alien Spaceship but we could justify it by saying we have no idea what's in there. The Aliens might eventually start using technology that disrupts intelligence gathering abilities or radar or thermal scans, thus leaving the player with little ways to gain information outside of old maps of the area Maybe we could even get to the point where the Aliens figure out that you are deciphering their communications so they begin scrambling them so you can't tell what Aliens or Activities they are pursuing.
Personally though, I'd like to see less of 'Tense and Claustrophobic' and more of 'Tense and Challenging'. Having the Aliens adapt to you and get stronger - to the point that even if you know what they are coming with at you and know that they are still going to take out a soldier or two would be a lot more pleasing then sticking a Reaper behind this or that corner.
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I'd like to see Intelligence perhaps expanded a bit more outside what the Aliens are doing. Maybe in Xenonauts II, you might be able to get maps or satellite imagery of your battlefields so you know the layout of the area and where buildings of the Alien UFO are. Perhaps you might be able to communicate with the local ground forces and know their positions and Line of Sight on the map; assuming we have third party forces in play. Maybe you could have real-time information on the position of where certain aliens might be - ie, maybe the Alien Officer communicates with his Alien Overlords, and everytime he does so he gives away his position. Perhaps the Reapers might have a detectable bio-sign, and running a pre-scan of the area will always tell you in advance how many Reapers (and potential Reapers if we do it with Civilians too) are going to be in the area.
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I found vehicles okay in the beginning, where the enemy spaceships were small and a lot of time fighting was spent outside in the open. The Armored Car worked well to kill off those dangerous enemies like Reapers which would be unable to harm them, and at night they worked well to open up your field of view. They also didn't cost you a soldier when they died.
Overall, quite a good investment and well balanced against your troops.
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I agree with Gazz that the Androns should be able to turn in place if necessary, but make it costly for them to do.
This sort of suggestion reminds me of playing Space Hulk. The Termination Marines were clunky and not very nimble compared to the Genestealers they were fighting.
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What weapons are the aliens going to be using against the player? If the aliens are going to be using Plasma Weapons, shouldn't they already have some concept of how to resist Plasma Weapons to begin with, and immediately start wearing the Plasma Resistant Armor?
Maybe Plasma Weapons should be designed so that they instead are extremely powerful, and even if the Aliens have near-full/full resistance to it at the start, they still take a lot of damage to it. When Humans start researching Plasma Weapons, they will deal their full damage at Tier 1, and subsequent Research is more about increasing Accuracy and Range with them. However, compared to the Aliens, the Plasma Weapons Humans use will never be as strong or as versatile as their Alien counterparts in some aspect.
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What's specifically wrong with the name Caesans? Generally unless there is something seriously wrong with a name in a game, I wouldn't recommend renaming for subsequent games.
Additionally, I would recommend outright removal of Caesans and replacement with an entirely new race that both acts and plays differently.
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So, something I assume with the Aliens is that from the getgo, they will have strengths and weaknesses much like they did in the original game. Ie, Sebillians have Regeneration and are require lots of firepower to bring down, though they suffer from being inaccurate and having poor reflexes. The general tactic for fighting them should be always the same - overcome their regenerative abilities and avoid having them get too close.
What I'm saying is that whether the Aliens progressively get tougher or not, their general traits should remain throughout the game. Maybe the tactics for how the players might overcome a Sebillians regeneration might change or how they keep them distant from their soldiers - Lasers cauterizing the Sebillians wounds so that would hamper regeneration for example; but the overlying theme when fighting Sebillians should always remain the same, overcome the regeneration and keep them away.
The fear I have is that eventually the enemies are just going to extremely tough as gameplay progresses - human technology or tactics are going to hit a certain point where they plateau and there just isn't any really good available tactics to use; it is just a situation where running away is your only play left. That in itself shouldn't be seen as a bad thing, but if you are being forced to run away from a situation where if you don't do the mission you face losing the game...
There should always be some avenue to winning basically. It is possible that an Alien Adaption mechanic may do more then just hinder a player from winning, but rather make it impossible to win because there is no tactic for winning - unless you follow a specific strategy that involves actively gaming the system.
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@UnstoppableCarl
Eventually further on in gameplay you can build a base structure in Xenonauts 1 which tells you the contents of a spaceship (EG what aliens are on the alien craft) and what its goal is. While you never get an overview of the map (outside of Terror Missions), you do get more information as the game progresses.
@Chris
I like a lot of what is being said here, but I would question a bit about the Reactive Nature of the Aliens. The Aliens getting a little bit more resistant to your tactics is good - but if the aliens are made too difficult then it may become less fun for the players when the aliens start overwhelming them.
Where possible, I would do what you can to emphasis the weaknesses of the aliens - maybe they might figure out how to become resistant to your new Laser Weapons with enough Adaption to your tactics, but the new units that get and put in the field lose some of their resistance to Ballistic Weapons. Perhaps the Sebillians have more survivability at range against your soldiers due to their regenerative abilities - but they will always have much less accuracy at range due to their near-sightedness.
The key thing is that the player should always have some tactic that is generally effective against the aliens - in spite of what new tactics the Aliens may adopt against you when they throw units into battle.
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I wonder if it might make sense if some variants of advanced weapons might have more then just one unique weapon associated with them. While there may be a concern that this may regulate traditional ballistic weaponry to only be used when you don't have the resources for more advanced weaponry; if certain enemies will be more resistant or less resistant to certain weapons then this will be less of an issue. Maybe a way of looking at the weapons is that they can fit into certain weapon scenarios better while not being useful in other instances.
For example, maybe Laser weapons are at their core very accurate weapons that fire a powerful beam that pierces cover very easily; however, they are prone to overheating and suffer from extreme recoil. Your R&D teams figure out that this would make Laser weapons good for long range engagements where more accurate single shot placement is important; thus they focus on Laser Sniper Rifles which can only be fired once per action or Laser Marksman Rifles which can only be fired once or twice per action. Effectively they work well against most targets - though Drones and Androns are typically quite resistant, and Sebillians are particularly weak.
Maybe for Plasma weapons, they are light weapons that can be fired rapidly or within a warhead; but when not fired in a warhead the plasma is both inaccurate and dissipates quickly before reaching longer ranges. Your R&D teams figure out that this regulates Plasma weapons to CQB, and just focus on making Plasma Submachine Guns and Plasma Missiles for Missile Launchers. Effectively these weapons are good against most targets, but Wraiths & Reapers are quite resistant while Androns and Drones are somewhat weak.
Finally for the Mag weapons, maybe they are weapons that are both accurate and can be fired at both close or long range very easily; but they are quite heavy and cumbersome to fire. Your R&D teams conclude that no soldier would likely be able to adequately carry and use one, but they have an idea (*Insert Predator Incarnation here*). Mag weapons typically will murder anything they are shot at, but for some reason it seems Caesans and Harridans are particular resistant; though Reapers and Wraiths explode nicely.
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I think a problem that might come with naming a region Greater Africa that includes the Middle East is that some people will feel it intrinsically doesn't fit well. It might make sense to think about using your 'alternate history' that will allow the USSR to survive to perhaps reshape the world a bit politically instead.
One idea I guess I should throw it is that maybe you should have a region called 'SEEMEA', which is an Acronym for 'South-Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa'; shorthand that businesses sometimes use when indicating what markets they are specifically referring too.
Another idea might just be to create a whole new political region that doesn't exist in our reality but would exist in the game - maybe something like MEAU, or Middle East & African Union.
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Sounds like a good overall plan.
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Events: Yeah, I could see us making use of linked events that progress on a day-to-day basis. If Event A is not dealt with it spawns Event B the next day, but if the player sends in a combat team or fighter squadron to achieve a certain objective then maybe it spawns Event C instead (and if fully dealt with, it is removed entirely).
It might be hard to create a system where it's not completely obvious what Events you need to prioritise though. In the example you mention above, there's no incentive to tackle the main event if you can just take out a different one that will stop it happening instead. I'm also not sure how you could do "hidden" events, as the player would probably find them hard to respond to. Maybe it'll work OK in practice though? It'd be a simple enough thing to test out in any case.
You could always go for randomized outcomes. One of my favorite games I played this year was Payday 2, and it was really good in allowing players to approach the gameplay in different ways - along with changing up how the formula to complete their objectives get changed.
In one of my favorite Heists from Payday 2, Election Day, there are multiple approaches to playing it. To give a quick jist of this heist, you are essentially playing two operations - broken down in a first part where you need to get intelligence on the destination for a truck carrying Ballot Box machines; and a second part where you need to mess with the Ballot Box machines.
Depending on how you do the first operation you may end up with two very different operations for dealing with the the Ballot Box Machines. Ideally, your looking to end up at a warehouse with the Ballot Box machines that the truck was headed too, but if you screw up in the first part of the operation then it is very possible that you may end up going for Plan C - you just show up on voting day.
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On another note with Payday 2 (because it is really good with making random outcomes), there are several heists dealing with Armored Trucks. In these heists you are tasked with attacking a convoy of Armored Trucks and raiding the deposit boxes within them for their goodies. Depending on difficulty and the operation you do, there can be between 1 to 4 Armored Trucks, and each truck has 9 Deposit boxes. To complete the heist successfully, you need to collect a certain number of mission specific loot and take that loot to your getaway car.
However, there is a bonus in these operations which may spawn randomly. With a 50% chance in any of these operations, one of the Deposit Boxes in an Armored Truck with contain secret documents. If you collect these secret documents and successfully complete the mission, then you are rewarded with another bonus operation afterwards.
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I'll note by the way that there a lot of games that can probably be looked into in regards to having different outcomes. In Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun, the missions in the GDI campaign sometimes played heavily into each other. Sometimes you could play a side mission which would make an upcoming main mission easier to play - or you could just jump into the main mission immediately if you wanted too. Sometimes doing the side missions made the main mission WAY easier to complete, while other times you could probably skip the side mission and easily complete the main mission easily enough anyways.
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Events: All events are spawned at the start of the day and presented to the player, likely with some information of the enemy types involved in each event. The player then chooses where to assign their power and Cores for the day, then plays any interceptions and combat missions they chose to do.
On Events, I think it would a good idea if there was some surprises that might pop up along the way. This would be where say you might send you forces against some aliens in a mission, and then some additional event will pop up randomly because you discovered new information - kind of like discovering hidden activity that you may or may not of known was going on.
It might also make sense that if you do an event, then you know it will lead up too finding out information or change how another event you know is going on already will play out when you do it. IE, maybe the aliens are conducting some sort of sabotage mission to kill off a chunk of the population in a region; but them being able to successfully carry out that mission is entirely dependent on another alien mission being successfully completed - which if it fails means they automatically fail as well.
Also, but as a thought, maybe there could be the potential for you to spawn certain events you may want as well. IE, maybe you know something is going down in Latin America, but you have no event there - but you can try and create a trap to trigger an event there.
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I like the idea of your soldiers being able to upgrade their abilities. Maybe all of them could be passive things - so for example, perhaps your soldiers could eventually be able to detect alien signatures within 'X' Radius of themselves, even if they aren't in line of sight. Maybe your soldiers might be able to eventually Reflex fire at enemies they aren't facing if an enemy approaches within another soldiers line of sight.
Though, having some active abilities could be nice too. Perhaps there could be an active ability that let's you coordinate your troops to all fire at the same time - and prevent reflex fire from enemies. Maybe their could be a sort of toggle ability that let's you lock doors, preventing enemy movement through those doors (unless they break through them).
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Okay, so thoughts:
What's the purpose of the Alien Virus - did the Aliens arrival trigger a sort of European meet Native American genocide, or was their some intention behind it such as wiping out all/most of humanity so they wouldn't be a threat?
The idea of the five starting regions sounds good - especially with how they are broken down. However, how would the regions break down in terms of worth - would NATO or USSR have specialized facilities to indicate their superpower status for example?
I see a mention of F-16's - does this mean we won't be seeing USSR tech themed planes being requisitioned?
Outside of these questions, not a whole lot else to say at the moment. I'd need to see some workable demo to get the jist of the gameplay in action to give further thoughts.
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EDIT - on second thoughts, it's also possible we could move to a more modern setting if we went down the route of alternate history. So maybe set the game in 2009 or something, but a 2009 when the Soviet Union never collapsed etc.
You could go even further and take an entirely Orwellian look at things; maybe the world is divided into superpowers covering North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia, the region consisting of China, Korea, and Japan; add in a couple of mostly peaceful regions for South America and Australasia; and finally just label a few wasteland regions for South Africa, North Africa, Middle East, and South Asia. One of my favorite game series was Command & Conquer for example, and part of the reason was due to its setting which was quite familiar to our own.
On another note, could it perhaps be an idea that Cores could come in different sizes? Maybe you might have Small Cores which could be incorporated into various small firearms, Medium Cores which could power Heavy Weapons for either Ground Forces or Jets, and Large Cores which could power Advance R&D Systems, Jets, and Armored Suits.
As a note btw, if we aren't going to have vehicles such as we had in Xenonauts 1, could we have 'vehicles' in the forms of Mechanized Walkers? IE, think like the Goliaths in Starcraft - a guy in a giant mechanized suit.
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I suppose I'll take my usual trek and ask a few questions then:
In regards to Action Valuation, what would be the worth of Political Capital actions versus Main Base actions? If we are going to be able to requisition local forces for example, how much overall value are they going to have versus your regular soldiers - ie, is it going to be worth it to be sending a lot of your soldiers through the teleporter when you could potentially just send one or two of your own soldiers with special weaponry and have a couple squads of Spetsnaz, SAS, Marines, or what not to fill your ranks to help fill your ranks?
The above said, I could potentially see some ability to adjust the valuation if the player knows that they will be facing a certain type of alien in the future that is very resistant to convention ballistic weaponry; but in general practice, what is the plan to keep certain actions from being overvalued?
In regards to your Returning Soldiers and Hardware, what would be the intrinsics behind how the work? How long would your 'Chronoshifted Jet' (we are practically ripping the C&C Red Alert idea from the second installment of the Red Alert Universe, might as well get ready for the term) stay shifted before eventually snapping back to the base? Same goes for your Chronoshifted Fighting Vehicles and Troops. For example, are they going to be shifted out for the full turn (and thus why you can't just shift your jet, wait for it to return, and then load your Alienium into your soldiers weaponry)? Also, if they do stay out for a longer period of time, would Aliens be able to counterattack you in the field?
In regards to your soldiers being turned into Zombies or Reapers and Returning as well, maybe that could be a none-issue since it might be assumable that you would have defensive mechanics in place to either neutralize or eliminate such problems upon their 'return' to the base.
Finally, What's the Aliens Goal and the End Game going to Look Like? Obviously you could try and go for a similar scenario and ending to Xenonauts 2 that you had in Xenonauts 1, but it might be worth imagining the alien intentions from a different perspective. In Xenonauts 1 it mostly seemed to be about the Aliens testing your abilities until the breaking point and harvesting whatever worth they could from your species. Maybe in Xenonauts 2 there could be a different approach on the part of the Aliens - and thus have a different approach to how they go about their missions?
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The US / USSR would be the only two safe zones, and the aliens will eventually reach their borders. The final mission would have to be won before they are overrun and humanity is wiped out, and I don't plan the ending to be a cliffhanger.
That's about as far as Chris got with his answer on how the game ends.
Personally though I wonder if the game should be thought about in terms of going beyond rescuing civilians and having a Final mission though. Could it be possible that rescuing the Civilians could compose half the game, and then the game shifts to a sort of 'pushing the aliens back' with the remnants of humanity type of scenario? Maybe at the half way point there could be a sort of 'Mid-way Win or Lose Mission' where you cut off Alien Reinforcements, and then the game devolves into a really 'Risk-eque' game where you and the remaining Aliens battle it out.
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Overall I like this, in comparison to a lot of everything else that has been posted. Anyhow, Here's some questions to think about:
When does the Alien Invasion begin in relation to the game starting? Seeing as how the Aliens have already deployed a virus to kill a lot of people, I think it is safe to assume that the Aliens have probably already started visiting and are likely ready to do more then just scout and research. They likely also have probed the superpowers as well and have already turned their focus elsewhere.
Where are safe zones going to be/will we perhaps have random safe zones? I think it can be assumed that the Soviet Union and the United States are safe zones that can hold their own, but perhaps there may be other powers that are able to put up a noticeable resistance. Perhaps in one game, Australia and Brazil are holding the line and are defending themselves; leaving you to have to worry about evacuating Europe, Africa, and most of Asia. In another, maybe it is South Africa, France, and India.
Can we expect that the Aliens are capable of attacking Safe Zones? Potentially this could be where Terror attacks for example could return, along with Base Attacks against Xenonaut assets. Perhaps as well there could be other types of attacks - like full blown threat of Genocide by the aliens against a Safe Zone region.
What would the end of the game look like? Would you be aiming for a sort of cliffhanger ending where Humanity manages to hold out against the Alien threat; with a hint down the road towards Xenonaut 3? Would you aim for a definitive final mission which would see humanity figuring out how to cut off alien reinforcements and then slowly work to reclaim the earth?
Could you sort of employ and Iron Curtain Strategy? Maybe Japan isn't exactly all that juicy of a target for the aliens Reaper Swarm, and instead of engaging it you just work on trapping it on Japan where its damage would be localized. Perhaps there might be an Alien Research base in Canada that would be extremely costly to attack, but very cost effective to just starve of any research fodder.
Maybe you could think about making use of Scorched Earth tactics - towards Civilians? As evil as it sounds, maybe that mass of people fleeing across the Sinai Peninsula are about to fall into possession of the aliens - time to cut losses and launch a Nuclear salvo as any clear thinking Commander would and should do.
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So some thoughts on what Gizmo just gave us:
The idea of things having Concealment (Yes/No) and Protection Value sounds like a good idea, but should those values be fixed? Ie, maybe your Soldiers moves through a Bush - if an enemy is say within 10 tiles, perhaps he has 50% concealment value (he breaks a branch of something and alerts the enemy possibly). Another example, perhaps shots are fired through a car; depending on the part of the car shot through a soldier might have more or less Protection, so perhaps the Protection value might vary between 3 and 6.
Additionally, I would think some thought should be given as to penetration of things like Lasers in regards to objects. For example, maybe a Laser is fired through a glass door at a Caesan. The glass door and the Caesan have full protection value against Lasers. However, the Laser is fired for 2 seconds and it only takes 0.3 seconds to burn through the glass door and 0.2 seconds to burn through an unarmored Caesan. Depending on if the Caesan has any armor and whether it negates the damage from Lasers, that may also impact the Laser fired as well (twice too since it impacts the armor twice - front and back).
Also for movement, maybe just replace Reckless with Sprinting, Running, or Rushing - and while Sprinting or Running, enemies taking Reflex shots have reduced chance to hit the moving enemy (which would make Reapers a nightmare but whatever) and the moving unit has less accuracy as well.
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I think this might be covered in the weapons section, but will some weapons be able to penetrate certain covers? I'm thinking that some objects shouldn't do much more than hide you while others do stop bullets, etc... In my car example above I wouldn't expect that to stop armor piercing bullets, but probably stop "regular" bullets (assuming the soldier is behind the engine and wheels.) In JA2 many of the buildings were pretty much useless as far as stopping bullets, but you could still hide in them.
Recently while playing a game called Insurgency, playing the Tutorial you are told to learn the difference between 'Concealment' and 'Cover'. Taking that sort of element into Xenonauts, it might make sense if some objects are thought of in terms of what will prevent enemies from seeing your soldiers - but being able to fire at them and hit them if they figure out they are there; and differentiating that from soldiers that are in cover - and both being unseen by the enemy and protected from being fired on.
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The crouching feature could certainly be streamlined into the game, both for the cover system but also for firing. Ie, if you have soldier(s) in front of another soldier who is looking to fire, they will automatically take appropriate action to reduce friendly fire; though to what extent they reduce it depends on how far ahead of the firing soldier the others are.
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Leaning is definitely something that should be fleshed out more in the game. However, some quick questions that should be asked is how Line of Sight would work, where soldiers can be able to fire, and how the cover bonus can fluctuate just be being in a position to lean in the first place.
- Would standing at the corner of building allow for soldiers to be able to get a clear Line of Sight from their position or would they need to have to lean to fire around the corner?
- Would standing at a corner of a building allow for soldiers to be able to blind fire from their position or would they need to have to lean to fire around the corner?
- Would characters be able to notice enemies behind corners or would they need to lean out to be seen?
- Would characters that are in a position to lean around a corner be 100% covered from fire or would they have it reduced below 100%?
- How would things like Suppression and other indirect effects work towards leaning enemies or enemies capable of leaning versus enemies that are in cover or not in cover?
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We could actually think a little bit more 'decision time' in relation to pre-mission goodies. Maybe, you could have a situation where a UFO has landed on the ground with the intention of Constructing a Base. Pre-mission, you could decide your :
-To send jets in to bomb the UFO to prevent it from taking off and send a local taskforce by Dropship to clean up the area in a ground mission.
-Carpet bomb the area at a cost of +X Approval (varying based on whether you are hitting a densely populated area, or area of strategic interest) and destroy everything in the area; but you don't get a ground mission and you get goodies.
-Teleport your soldiers in, walk up to the UFO, and attempt to 'paint' the UFO for a gain of +X Approval (again, based on population and strategic interests) upon destructing on the UFO (note, Aliens immediately become aggressive and will charge your positions).
-Wait for the UFO to complete its task, lift off, and shoot it down; then assault the construct base for maximum goodies (and other stuff like leader captures).
-Etc
This would also have the intent of allowing the player to sometimes choose different courses of action, play-styles they wish to pursue, and so forth.
Xenonauts 2 Easter Update
in Monthly Development Updates
Posted
Just read through the post, overall it looks good. Will be interesting to see what the game looks like when it comes out.