Luvz

Power suit I'm guessing.

Fair enough. I guess this discussion is just for fun then.

Well, I keep using the Total War series as an example because I think they did the best job. In those games, when you first get the unit it would have a few random traits, which might be positive or negative. So in this case, you could start the game and have a coward, but after that, the traits are related to what you do. If a general succeeds at attacking, he might get a bonus when he's on the offensive. If he fails, he might get a reduction due to a lack of confidence. If he is always hiring assassins, he might get a discount or an Assassin Trainer and get slightly more experienced assassins. There were random ones in the game, but they were usually non-combat related and most would not fit into this game (like 'Infertile' lol). Yeah, but older experienced troops would accrue much more positive traits than negative ones, unless you traumatize them with failed mission after failed mission. Also in the case of being afraid, I think that's only fun if you can overcome that guy's fear with successful missions. It wouldn't be fun to have a worthless coward who pisses himself every mission for the entire game, but it would be fun to keep a guy around him protecting him for a few missions to calm his nerve and then watch him become one of your best and bravest soldiers. Sure you don't need an 'Overcoming Fear' trait to accomplish this, but it's more noticeable than one of my 100 soldiers gaining 10 bravery because they randomly resisted panic in X-Com. I think while most traits can be simple stat differences, they can also document and shape the progression of a character. In X-Com I agree with you that each soldier has his own story, but if Jack took 3 hits from plasma wouldn't it be cool if he got scarred from it? In TW, if you almost die, you can get scars of different degrees. If it was a fatal injury and you survive, you get 'Brutally Scarred' sometimes which raises your HP a little and improves any nearby unit's morale because they think you're unkillable. If from that point on, Jack is 'Scarred' and gets a small HP boost and soldiers feel more confident (+morale) around him, that makes him a badass. It also makes him real in a way that an unlabeled HP boost could never do. I don't even notice my X-Com soldiers getting HP boosts until they're at the 60 cap. Too often the storied progression of an X-Com soldier is something like this: Crappy->Decent->Good->Ridiculous Sniper with 120% Accuracy, 80 Time Units, 60 HP. Then he either has high or low Psi-strength and you keep him or fire him based on that one number. I think there should be more of an evolution of a soldier than from crappy to good even though we can make a few cool stories ourselves. In X-Com, as great as it is, we are forced to tell our own stories instead of just believing them. I once was playing a game where I didn't allow myself to save in combat, so I went up against some early-game psionics and had half my guys mind controlled grenading the other half. I managed to get one of my soldiers into the Skyranger and get out alive, but the other 9 or so died or were MIA. He ended up being my best soldier for a while. That's a cool story for that character, but he got out of that traumatizing situation without being affected at all. He was the exact same as if he never went on that mission. Not a big deal, but it would be cool if he got something to show for it even if it was a very minor trait for being the sole survivor.

Paranoid is not necessarily a bad thing. Paranoid people can be more observant even if sometimes it's a false alarm. And as far as a coward being in a highly specialized anti-alien military force, they are the first humans ever to fight aliens in close quarters combat. Can you really say that the first organized force we ever send against aliens will realistically have zero cowards? These guys will effectively have zero previous experience fighting aliens no matter how good they were before at fighting humans. Also in the beginning of the game, you are wearing what looks like riot gear, standard issue weaponry and your soldiers have mediocre stats. Not exactly an elite squad early-game. It was just an example though off the top of my head. Traits just add more potential. Maybe he is only a coward when he's alone. Maybe he is stronger when he has a partner. In real life, if you know one of your guys is new and hasn't been on many missions, you wouldn't send him down a dark alley to draw bullets like in X-Com. You would have a more experienced soldier keep an eye on him until he gets his bearings. I would assume that in a war so fierce as one versus aliens with superior technology, new recruits would be needed fairly regularly and none of them would have faced an alien before. So maybe the coward trait is just a "F***ing New Guy" trait and you can't expect him to go rambo on his first mission or two. I'm just throwing out ideas. If I was part of a design team creating my own game, these decisions would have to be made very carefully: not off the top of my head.

As I discussed with Gorlom, you could use the exact opposite argument for the same scenario. I think it's more gimmicky that the only differentiation between two soldiers is numbers. How can you look at a soldier's reaction time? You can't. You can however see that he is 'Sluggish.' How is it a lazy gimmick when it takes more effort and creativity than having solely numbers to define characters that are supposed to be human? In this day and age, every single game has stat points. From indie roguelikes such as the Binding of Isaac to huge MMORPG's like WoW. Numbercrunching is the lazy gimmick. I can numbercrunch in any game and see that item/unit A is better than item/unit B because stat X is greater, but there are few games where I can actually see that my unit is an individual with his own traits. In real life, sharpshooters exist, cowards exist, reliable veterans exist, guys with excellent reflexes exist. Dudes with 85 points in Reactions, 75 points in Firearms and 60 points in Bravery don't exist. I'm not against having stat points, but there should be something supplementing it to make it more believable. As for the psychoanalysis bit, that's simply not true. A sniper joining a unit would already be recognized as an expert marksman. A guy traumatized from his last mission would be obviously shaken to his fellow soldiers. A guy with a steel nerve would be known as such within his unit. A paranoid soldier would be constantly observing things that may or may not be there. And in most of these cases, whoever is in charge of them on a tactical squad-based level would certainly already keep a mental list of traits that each of their soldiers possess. There are simply way more human factors than the 8 or so main stats and for some people (not all) it would be more fun and more immersive to control a squad of people, rather than John Does divided by how crappy or good their 2 most important stats are. I'm not saying they need to code thousands of possible traits, but even if I just sat here and rattled off 20, it would cover by and large the most common traits relevant to combat situations.

Thanks. That did indeed answer my question.

Traits that real people would have are not more artificial than spreadsheets of numbers as the only thing differentiating two troops. Alright. Are you talking about X-Com or Xenonauts? In X-Com, promotions were based on promotion points, which was a random system allowing you to have really bad soldiers be promoted to the highest ranks. In Xenonauts, I don't know how the ranks work so I can't comment. There can be up to 6 generals present in one battle and each general has a lot of traits. The longer they stay alive, the more traits they get. Traits can also affect things that contextually wouldn't make sense if it was just a lowered or increased stat. For example, in Total War, a general can have a "Needy Wife" trait or something like that, which reduces his movement points and gives some bonus that I can't remember. If he just had those pluses and minuses randomly for no reason, then that is more artificial than anything else. You should be controlling units that can at least be believably human, not just robots with randomly assigned numerical values. Now I'm not saying that Xenonauts soldiers should have Needy Wives or Personal Bodyguards, but contextually appropriate traits would distinguish two soldiers and traits allow for possibilities beyond stat sheets like maybe one dude is afraid of a specific type of alien because that type almost killed him in the last mission. I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong, but there are definitely players (like me) who would appreciate personality traits. I admit that there are definitely players (like you) who don't see the point in it. So I guess it just boils down to a matter of preference. Some games have roleplayers that try their hardest to believe the game is real. Other games make you feel like you're controlling real characters without forcing you to pretend. I think the difference between us is what we consider forcing us to pretend or helping us believe happen to be the exact opposite.

In X-Com, I currently recruit 50-100 soldiers, then instantly fire anyone with lower than 40 Bravery/Reactions, then fire anyone with less than 50 Firing Accuracy etc. Later in the game, I fire anyone with less than 70 Psi Strength. Yeah, it's a super elite organization with high recruitment standards so I can believe it to be practical, but personality traits allow you to see them as more human rather than looking at a single numerical value like you're on an excel spreadsheet. If one of your units has a slightly higher firearm skill, you probably wouldn't notice unless you religiously study each unit's stat changes after every battle, but if he gained a "Gifted Marksman" trait or a "Veteran" trait after being on however many missions then every time he performs reliably, you would probably think "That dude's a badass and I watched him develop." And there would be permanent reminders of your experiences together in his character sheet. No micromanagement added, just a little human element to give each unit personality whether or not they die in the next mission or stay alive for your entire campaign. It's also more realistic because much of what distinguishes one person above others as soldiers, athletes, businessmen or whatever is some innate personality trait that they were either born with or cultivated as they developed. The difference between Bill Gates and another high school dropout or Aaron Rodgers and a high school quarterback is not a numerical discrepancy. It's that they both had traits that allowed them to succeed and they were both at the right place at the right time.

I just paid like a million bills and I'm super poor right now. Should not be spending money on games, but I had to play the alpha so I bought the standard pre-order. Will there be any way to upgrade my preorder later when I have some spare change?

They don't have to be like Fallout, where you pick your perks carefully and plan them out ahead of time. As I referenced in my last post, in the Total War series you are managing dozens of armies and you cannot choose their perks. They are simply stat changes with personality. For example a general with the Night Attacker trait fights slightly better at night. You can completely ignore these and most of the time I do for a 100 turn game, but it's nice to grow attached to one of my generals who has lasted longer than the rest and inspect him closer to see that he has interesting traits like "Drinks with the Troops: +1 Morale -1 Authority" or whatever. Would that be any different than the unit simply having 1 more Morale or 1 less Authority? No, it's not something you chose, it's just a realistic interpretation of why they have some stat bonuses. In X-Com for example, it would be cool to have a troop with the Paranoid trait who has -10 Bravery +10 Reactions instead of just seeing one of a hundred soldiers with low Bravery who I instantly fire. Instead of a giant stat screen, it highlights his strength and his weakness in a way that makes him human. If he didn't have the trait, like it is currently in X-Com, I would just fire him because I fire all soldiers with low bravery, but a paranoid trait would make me think about whether his increased Reactions are worth his lack of Bravery. I would agree with you guys if you had to pick and choose every single trait and perk that each soldier had, but Total War executed giving units personalities without extra management quite perfectly. I don't think I have ever dismissed a general or agent in Total War because of a trait. It just gave me the option to learn a little bit about my favorite units and if I wanted to, play towards their strengths or avoid their weaknesses.

Montie, I don't know why you're so mad about perk/trait systems. Sure, they can be done poorly, but if done properly, they add a human aspect to each unit. It really depends on how well it's executed. For example, in the Total War series, the perks and retinues created a sense of personality for each of your generals/agents. Delusions of grandeur, a manipulative spouse or a paranoid personality give each unit in those games a personality trait that the gamer can relate with and see as a human quality as well as providing a statistical effect on the game (Paranoia reduces chance of being assassinated, delusions of grandeur reduces loyalty etc.) X-COM: UFO Defense (or UFO: Enemy Unknown) had a system similar to a perk system, but was more subtle. Everything was randomized. Is there really a huge difference between having a recruit with 10 bravery and a unit with a "Coward" perk that reduces his bravery to 10? Obviously, if the developers make a joke of it and make perks called "Fairie Feet" or "Twinkle Toes," then we lose out on immersion, but perks like "Steel Nerve" or "Honorable" add dimensions of humanity to each and every unit and those same traits can and do exist in real life soldiers.