(Thinking Out Loud) Rethinking Morale and Psionics

[kabill]

Download Test Version

So, I've been thinking about alternative ways to use the morale and psionics system particularly in terms of making psionic attacks a little less random. Here's some thoughts:

Current Systems

The current morale system simulates sudden shocks. Something terrible happens! Your soldiers are shaken. But given them a turn or two and they're more or less fine.

With this in mind, the current psionics system doesn't actually interact with the morale system very much. Usually, your soldiers are on full morale (or more, from killing aliens) and the psionic ratings of aliens have been balanced against that fact. Therefore, having lower morale from events doesn't really matter in terms of psionics, as it doesn't happen often enough or for long enough to make much of a difference.

Objective

I'd like to try and integrate these two systems more, such that the current state of your soldiers has more of an impact on psionic attacks. I'd also like to take the edge of early-mission psionics, at least the most powerful abilities, so that the player doesn't immediately (and more or less randomly) get screwed over by mind control and berserk.

Suggested System:

- Morale is reconceptualised so that it's less about sudden shocks/panic and more about long term fatigue, stress, exhaustion and battle-weariness. This doesn't actually matter, but that's the 'lore' justification for the changes.

- Accordingly, morale recovery is reduced to a minimum. I.e. around 1 morale/turn. (In some ways I'd like to turn off morale recovery entirely, but I'm not 100% sold on this).

- This also applies to morale buffs from killing aliens. (Implicitly, killing aliens will 'buff' your morale in the sense that there'll be less aliens to deplete it!)

- Morale penalties from deaths, wounds, suppression etc. adjusted to take into account these changes. Not sure on the exact values, but they'd need decreasing anyway.

- Panic threshold reduced to 9 or less morale, but panicking *always* occurs once you're reduced to this level. The reason for this is that I don't like panic being divorced from immediate events. If a soldier didn't panic last turn and nothing bad happened to them between then and the current turn, IMO they shouldn't panic.

- Panicing restores a small amount of morale (4), capping the number of turns a soldier can panic in a row (without further damage) at 2.

If this works how I want it to, what will happen is that morale becomes a resource that will deplete over the course of a mission. The worse you play and the longer the mission, the more morale will suffer. Once soldier's start panicking, they're more or less out of the fight unless you can ensure they won't take further morale damage, as they'll be continuously hovering around the 10-15 morale point where attacks, deaths and so on will certainly cause them to freak out. If you find your morale has been depleted across the board, you will find then that you probably need to abort the mission, as your soldiers don't have the resolve to fight on reliably.

Coupled to this, these are the changes to the psionic system:

- The range and power (maybe) of Fear is increased so that it's generally reliable against most soldiers. However, the effect of the power is reduced so that it only does ~20% morale damage on a successful attack.

- Other powers are given heavy penalties to psionic power values, such that they average out at around 10-20 psionic strength (maybe a bit more at close range).

- Aliens which currently have higher level powers are also given Fear (although this will depend in part on how well the AI can cope with that).

The idea here is that Fear is no longer about actually panicking your soldiers but instead about depleting your soldier's morale so that the higher-level powers can kick into effect. This produces a buffer against the powerful psionic abilities: other than the lowest bravery soldiers, your units should be more or less immune to everything besides Fear at mission start. However, as the combat goes on, your soldiers morale will deplete to the point that they are vulnerable to more powerful psionic abilities. Again, playing better (well, avoiding being shot at, anyway!) will ensure that your soldiers retain high morale scores, while the player can also choose to fight quickly so as to minimise the morale-depletion caused by Fear using aliens.

So, does anyone have any thoughts about this? And if anyone likes the idea, do I have any volunteers to playtest?

EDIT: One issue with this system is that it might be quite difficult to level up bravery if you play well. (WHY TO SOLDIERS ONLY GET MORALE BUFFS WHEN THEY PANIC. AGH!)

Edited July 8, 2014 by kabill

[Khall]

Have you thought about re-adding the bonus to morale from proximity to other soldiers, with a bigger bonus from higher ranks? It seems like a good way to combat low morale, and indirectly psionic attacks. If you have low morale, don't send off soldiers by themselves, keep privates close to higher ranks etc. Seems like it has potential.

[KevinHann]

I like your thoughts, mate. Although I recommend you to consider integrating two more factors and start tinkering with balance from there instead as sooner or later those two will be pointed as flaws and someone will look into modifying that as well.

- Balanced natural progression of leveling bravery (no punishment for playing well);

- Armor psionic protection (consider the base mechanic available in X:CE rather than any individual implementations of it; or even better: combine this pack with specific armors balanced towards the system you have in mind).

This way you could come up with a very thorough psionics fix which could be used universally as a base without any need of further modifications.

[kabill]

@Khall: I just did a mock up before including proximity bonuses. I'm not 100% certain, to be honest, because it can potentially create issues with soldiers freaking out as a result of moving them too far away from allies. But I'll include from the off and see if that actually seems to be a problem in practice.

@Kevin: I'd love for there to be a better way of leveling bravery, but there's not a lot I can do about that and even if it were sorted so that it was easier, I think the only meaningful change I'd need to make is shift all the moral penalties up a little bit to account for the higher range.

In terms of psionic defenses, in terms of what they do I don't think there's any particular reason why I'd need to tailor anything for this mod idea specifically. Furthermore, I'd be looking to keep this as a simple mod rather than adding in items and stuff as well. I think it would be better to use this as a baseline that people can add things to if they want, rather than loading it with stuff from the off.

But thanks for the suggestions.

[Ragnarok]

Im all ears for more consistence and less variance and RNG.

[Gauddlike]

Sounds good in general.

I would be interested to see how aliens handle the change and if they can choose the right power at the right time.

[kabill]

I would be interested to see how aliens handle the change and if they can choose the right power at the right time.

That's the main sticking point. Although I think it should be fine so long as they don't automatically default to their highest chance ability (because that would always be Fear).

[kabill]

I've put together some files on the basis of the above ideas which you can download from the OP if anyone cares to.

I've checked that it's working, but I've not had any chance to give it balance-testing. That said, you should be able to install/uninstall the mod mid-game without issue, so if you fancy trying it for a mission or two that should be fine. Indeed, testing on some of the top-level missions (especially Caesan ships/bases) would be ideal.