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Training and perks


NeoRad

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In a game with a single character, or a small group of significant ones, the perks would work.

In Xenonauts your ground squad limit is 16 troops.

You may have several of these squads plus several more to defend your bases from attack.

That would be a lot of perks to identify, sort, and keep track of.

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.

Edited by Luvz
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I don't see how that is any different to having a soldier with high reactions and low bravery personally.

Would you not fire someone because his strengths and weaknesses had a name?

Someone with 70 strength and 20 bravery would get fired but if he had a perk called berserker that gave him those stats then that would make you think about keeping him?

I don't get how adding the perks system you talked about would make any difference to the game.

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If I can have the rolebadges for easy management/overview, then I definately agree with Gauddlike and FranTorres.

Perks will add unnecessary micromangement (having more variables to consider when assigning roles). I think we have enough depth with the stats and experiencesystem already. Maybe we could use some medals but that discussion is in another thread.

BTW. I love all Fallout games, but not so much Fallout Tactics - eventhough the concept of the game sounded good...

Edited by AradoX
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I don't see how that is any different to having a soldier with high reactions and low bravery personally.

Would you not fire someone because his strengths and weaknesses had a name?

Someone with 70 strength and 20 bravery would get fired but if he had a perk called berserker that gave him those stats then that would make you think about keeping him?

I don't get how adding the perks system you talked about would make any difference to the game.

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.

Edited by Luvz
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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 don't really agree with that perk system giving them personality. It kinda forces something artificial onto them. I wouldn't stop looking at them as numbers just because they had a perk. I would just look at them as numbers and be annoyed.

And about how you recruited solders in X-com: Chris has his own ideas how to dissuade that. mainly looping recently fired soldiers back into the recruitment pool untill they are cycled out the natural way. (you're going to ahve to read the thread for a full explanation)

Doesnt the increase in rank already cover what you think "gifted marksman" or "veteran" would add to gameplay?

You keep refereing to total war. How many generals are present at the same time in the same battle? and how many perks does one general have? Sounds like just one. So it's basicly just nameing stat changes and conforming those changes to make them less random.

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I don't really agree with that perk system giving them personality. It kinda forces something artificial onto them. I wouldn't stop looking at them as numbers just because they had a perk. I would just look at them as numbers and be annoyed.

Traits that real people would have are not more artificial than spreadsheets of numbers as the only thing differentiating two troops.

And about how you recruited solders in X-com: Chris has his own ideas how to dissuade that. mainly looping recently fired soldiers back into the recruitment pool untill they are cycled out the natural way. (you're going to ahve to read the thread for a full explanation)

Alright.

Doesnt the increase in rank already cover what you think "gifted marksman" or "veteran" would add to gameplay?

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.

You keep refereing to total war. How many generals are present at the same time in the same battle? and how many perks does one general have? Sounds like just one. So it's basicly just nameing stat changes and conforming those changes to make them less random.

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.

Edited by Luvz
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Traits that real people would have are not more artificial than spreadsheets of numbers as the only thing differentiating two troops.

Sorry that was said while keeping in mind some stuff from a thread about getting attached to soldiers. Some of us agreed that "less is more" and that you should be makeing up your own stories about soldiers instead of beeing forced to use a backstory provided by the game. more on that in its own thread =P

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.

Does it matter? even in X-com you followed soldiers growing, good as bad.

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.

It's precisly that kind of perks that most of us opposing perks think would be boring and/or annoying. If a soldier got that kind of perk why would i keep him on the payroll? Basicly it destroys a good soldier without killing him. Positive perks would be equally annoying imo. I believe the soldiers in a squadbased game like this is vastly ifferent from the generals in totalwar. (I don't really know how big setback it was to lose a general etc so I can't really make a qualified guess as to the comparisment)

If it is just named stat changes then its simply extra work for the programmers to identify and name these perks. Time they could have spent on other things.

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.

Agree it is a matter of preference.
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I'm a little confused... wouldn't having their own STATS make them different from each other? The kind of perks you're referring to there would only be identified by some seriously deep psychoanalysis. Most of the stats have nothing to do with personality, that's going to depend on how you play them. There is an argument to be made for things like bravery not being shown at all as there's no real way to quantify the concept of bravery.

Don't need a 'Sluggish' trait to tell me someone has crappy reaction time. Just look at his React. WOW he's slow. At the end of the day it's a lazy gimmick as opposed to a properly designed random generation of the character.

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I'm a little confused... wouldn't having their own STATS make them different from each other? The kind of perks you're referring to there would only be identified by some seriously deep psychoanalysis. Most of the stats have nothing to do with personality, that's going to depend on how you play them. There is an argument to be made for things like bravery not being shown at all as there's no real way to quantify the concept of bravery.

Don't need a 'Sluggish' trait to tell me someone has crappy reaction time. Just look at his React. WOW he's slow. At the end of the day it's a lazy gimmick as opposed to a properly designed random generation of the character.

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.

Edited by Luvz
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I'm haveing problems with cowards and paranoid soldiers existing within the Xenonaut organisation... HOW THE **** did they end up there?

If your real life human traits don't make it into the game you could allways modify the soldier profiles to recruit people with traits instead of nationalities (although this wouldn't affect their stats)

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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.

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I might be more convinced if you could tell me how you see these perks being attained.

I don't like random perks because I feel they are arbitrary and get between the player and the troops.

For example you have been playing one squaddie as a brave and charismatic leader and the game suddenly decides he is a coward etc.

Perks earned through various situations, such as injuries causing stat reductions or causing fear, might work but could end up with your older more experienced troops being weaker than your rookies, or so much stronger that losing a few team members leaves you too weak to compete with the aliens.

This is also overlapping on to the planned medals system.

I disagree that adding a little tag to a squaddie that gives a reason why he has 40 bravery and 70 accuracy would give him any more 'human factor' than otherwise.

It is just adding another thing on top of the numbers to be aware of and to manage.

Every soldier who survived a few missions in x-com developed their own story over time.

Jack was the one who took 3 hits from a plasma before managing to take out the last 5 snakemen alone.

Pierre is the guy who blew himself up with a grenade trying to get that Chrysalid before it got to him, somehow he survived both.

That is so superior to having to deal with what the game thinks your troops should be like.

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I might be more convinced if you could tell me how you see these perks being attained.

I don't like random perks because I feel they are arbitrary and get between the player and the troops.

For example you have been playing one squaddie as a brave and charismatic leader and the game suddenly decides he is a coward etc.

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).

Perks earned through various situations, such as injuries causing stat reductions or causing fear, might work but could end up with your older more experienced troops being weaker than your rookies, or so much stronger that losing a few team members leaves you too weak to compete with the aliens.

This is also overlapping on to the planned medals system.

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 disagree that adding a little tag to a squaddie that gives a reason why he has 40 bravery and 70 accuracy would give him any more 'human factor' than otherwise.

It is just adding another thing on top of the numbers to be aware of and to manage.

Every soldier who survived a few missions in x-com developed their own story over time.

Jack was the one who took 3 hits from a plasma before managing to take out the last 5 snakemen alone.

Pierre is the guy who blew himself up with a grenade trying to get that Chrysalid before it got to him, somehow he survived both.

That is so superior to having to deal with what the game thinks your troops should be like.

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.

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On the old forum there's been a huge thread on all kinds of ways to do a training system with and without pre-existing or achieveable perks / stats.

Chris said it's not happening.

That was that.

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

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I have no idea how he survived, needed two guys with medkits to manage it though.

He had the weakest armour and ended up in the hospital for a long time.

Didn't get the chrysalid either.

i dont know why but i just read your post, then looked at your monkey and started bustin-a-gut laughing.

almost like your monkey said "I give up"

Weird! :D

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