What are the Xenonauts 2 Design Goals?

[Drakon]

Reading Chris recent reply to Bobby Gontarski made me realize that my assumption that Xenonauts 2 would actually attempt to be a more serious, adult and sophisticated game of the X-Com genre that holds itself to higher standards than what Firaxis delivered was actually based on literally nothing that was ever said by anyone on the Goldhawk staff, but exclusively by my own expectations formed from playing Xenonauts 1. Instead i read a lot of "we are going to add something like that, which already is in the X-Com 2 made by Firaxis" and not much "This is what will be awesome, special and unique about Xenonauts 2" (and don't get me wrong, using good ideas from other games is an intelligent choice, but i'm not really interested in a Firaxiscom 2 clone made on a smaller budget, so here i am looking more for the differences than the similarities).

So my question is:

What is it that you actually set out to create? What are your design philosophy goals? Do you have a specific target audience in mind, and if so, what is it? What in particular will be the outstanding sales point(s) of Xenonauts 2 that should convince us all to give you money, and what will differentiate Xenonauts 2 from the competition - most noteably Firaxis X-Com 1 and 2?

[Chris]

The core design philosophy of Xenonauts-2 is to make a sequel which:

• Expands upon the strategic choices available to the player, particularly with regards to Geoscape strategy and research choices
• Improves the production values of the original game with regards to graphics, stability and hopefully also the AI
• Has a more interesting setting, ideally one which builds upon the Cold War rivalry between the great powers
• Diverges from the original X-Com where necessary

The audience for the game is the same as the original game, but I'm hoping also to capture the players who bounced off the original Xenonauts due to the relatively poor graphics and the fact it was pretty impenetrable if you weren't already familiar with X-Com.

You didn't explicitly mention it in your post, but I think there's an underlying assumption that differentiating ourselves from XCOM is inherently a good thing, but that's certainly not always the case (e.g. XCOM2 added weapon attachments to game, and I can't imagine too many people would complain we were dumbing the game down if we implemented them). There's definitely things we can take from the XCOM series that would improve Xenonauts, but that doesn't necessarily have to mean the core of the game will move substantially closer to the Firaxis games ... ultimately, we're still chasing different audiences but there can be cross-pollination.

 

(However I find myself increasingly defending XCOM because it seems the default criticism for a game someone does not like has morphed from "this game isn't for me" to "this game is shit and the developers are lazy idiots." The guys at Firaxis set out to make a mass-market strategy game rather than a hardcore strategic simulator, but that doesn't mean that they are lazy or stupid and that every idea they had was bad. Some of the criticism that is thrown at them from people who know nothing about game design is flat-out ridiculous and, quite frankly, it annoys me sometimes.)

[Drakon]

4 hours ago, Chris said:

You didn't explicitly mention it in your post, but I think there's an underlying assumption that differentiating ourselves from XCOM is inherently a good thing, but that's certainly not always the case

Well, i actually wrote

7 hours ago, Drakon said:

using good ideas from other games is an intelligent choice

but i do think that differentiating yourselves from Firaxiscom is not only a good thing, it is downright necessary to be something different than "that X-Com clone", which is why i asked where you want to take a different path.

 

4 hours ago, Chris said:

However I find myself increasingly defending XCOM because it seems the default criticism for a game someone does not like has morphed from "this game isn't for me" to "this game is shit and the developers are lazy idiots." The guys at Firaxis set out to make a mass-market strategy game rather than a hardcore strategic simulator, but that doesn't mean that they are lazy or stupid and that every idea they had was bad. Some of the criticism that is thrown at them from people who know nothing about game design is flat-out ridiculous and, quite frankly, it annoys me sometimes.

I get what you are saying. I might be less allergic to those statements because a.) i've been exposed to them less and b.) the areas where Firaxis did decide to skimp, namely writing and AI are areas i hold much dearer than graphics, where Firaxiscom overall did really well (and i haven't heard anyone say: "The movement of those aliens just looks really wonky.").

 

I think it might be a good idea to pin something like what you posted here, because that is the underlying premise under which anything else can be discussed.

[Chris]

Apologies - you did indeed say that. I guess I was addressing a general viewpoint than your words specifically.

A lot of the effect also comes from the fact that we’re mostly talking about changes rather than the stuff that stays the same (because there’s nothing really to talk about in the second case), and if 25% of our new ideas are drawn from XCOM then there’ll be lots of discussion about it ... but those changes might only make up about 2% of the final game. And obviously the most controversial changes (usually XCOM related) see the most discussion, which just makes the effect worse.

To be honest I think it’ll sort itself out pretty quickly once we start showing off the strategy layer - I think at that point the whole game will be visible and it’ll be very clear that X2 isn’t going to be any less complex than it’s predecessor, even if we have borrowed a few ideas from XCOM2.

 

[Conductiv]

21 hours ago, Chris said:

Apologies - you did indeed say that. I guess I was addressing a general viewpoint than your words specifically.

A lot of the effect also comes from the fact that we’re mostly talking about changes rather than the stuff that stays the same (because there’s nothing really to talk about in the second case), and if 25% of our new ideas are drawn from XCOM then there’ll be lots of discussion about it ... but those changes might only make up about 2% of the final game. And obviously the most controversial changes (usually XCOM related) see the most discussion, which just makes the effect worse.

To be honest I think it’ll sort itself out pretty quickly once we start showing off the strategy layer - I think at that point the whole game will be visible and it’ll be very clear that X2 isn’t going to be any less complex than it’s predecessor, even if we have borrowed a few ideas from XCOM2.

 

what I am wondering about is most of all the changes that speed up the gameplay on the tactical layer, X1 was a good game but the tactical layer was very slow to play...it always sorta ended up being a slow creep to the ship followed by a slow creep through the dahm thing trying to weed out every corner hugging alien in there.

not things that make me literally play the game faster, no things that makes it less like a "overwatch creep" for lack of a better term.

personally I really do like the firaxis Xcom's, naturally with their higher budget they can afford much better graphical fidelity to improve immersion during cutscenes, better animations etc etc. (X1 actually did a solid job with its immersion through audio..keep that up..) battles are more volatile because they use squads rather then single aliens and its recent iteration stealth system really speeds up the pace (but it is also borderline broken with how easy it can be used to exploit the AI)

now it does have downsides, most of all the Xcom squads are dinky and have little battlefield support (its only 6 guys and they have no vehicles) and the troops turn into gods as they rank up (breaking the turn system with bonus shots and actions) to top it off the loadout and class system was restrictive (X1's weight based system was much better) and especially during the mid and late game aliens practically never use their main weapons. they just melee/psi-power/rocket/nade/spit etc effectively rendering their whole cover system moot...half of them don't even use cover they just stand in the open with mythical defense bonuses and a metric ton of HP. (in X1 aliens shoot...and later on...they still shoot and they didn't get excessively tanky) late game players in Xcom just take cover out of habit more then actual necessity.

 

[Drakon]

4 hours ago, Conductiv said:

what I am wondering about is most of all the changes that speed up the gameplay on the tactical layer, X1 was a good game but the tactical layer was very slow to play...it always sorta ended up being a slow creep to the ship followed by a slow creep through the dahm thing trying to weed out every corner hugging alien in there.

not things that make me literally play the game faster, no things that makes it less like a "overwatch creep" for lack of a better term.

Problem in Xenonauts 1 was that the player really had very little incentive to take risks and move faster. The addition of timed VIP rescue / capture missions, lateron appearing reinforcements and the like should alleviate that problem. I actually posted an idea for the AI in my suggestions thread that would largely solve the issue. So it's definitely on the radar for the dev team and they will be addressing it - we'll probably have to wait and see for a later version of the game as to how and to what extent.

 

4 hours ago, Conductiv said:

now it does have downsides, most of all the Xcom squads are dinky and have little battlefield support (its only 6 guys and they have no vehicles) and the troops turn into gods as they rank up (breaking the turn system with bonus shots and actions) to top it off the loadout and class system was restrictive (X1's weight based system was much better) and especially during the mid and late game aliens practically never use their main weapons. they just melee/psi-power/rocket/nade/spit etc effectively rendering their whole cover system moot...half of them don't even use cover they just stand in the open with mythical defense bonuses and a metric ton of HP. (in X1 aliens shoot...and later on...they still shoot and they didn't get excessively tanky) late game players in Xcom just take cover out of habit more then actual necessity.

Those were actually design decisions. They deliver on the power fantasy of "I am so grandious, the aliens' weapons just bounce off my chest". And those special, gamebreaking powers feel awesome ... for about the first eight times that you use them. So especially if your QA sessions aren't very long, they'll get glowing reviews. In the short term they provide player gratification ... of course at the price of sucking the fun out of the game long term.

While i do not like Firaxis design decisions, there are enough people out there who would readily enough spend money on a third Firaxis X-Com.

[Ninothree]

Not to rain on the anti-Firaxis parade but you are getting a little off topic. I mean, I guess that this comes under "what are the distinguishing themes between xenonauts and XCOM?" - which is fair enough, XCOM has its power fantasy and no one wants xenonauts to mimic that entirely. The issue becomes one of extent, how much can xenonauts implement grand weaponry without selling out on its core values? I think that @Conductiv has nailed it with the point about troop positioning. If you aren't putting a lot of thought into where you place each soldier, then it has ceased to be ground combat. I remember in XCOM:EU I preferred the first missions of the playthrough because they were all about outflanking the enemy. Classic gameplay. However, a judicious amount of additional options in the fight will keep you coming back. From what I understand, this is the point of the alenium resource, that it will always restrain those 'cheat' options and nerf the power fantasy into more of a mild day dream. In any case, if those alenium weapons are just going to be augmented versions of regular weapons then soldier positioning should still remain sacrosanct. i.e. your rifle will still need line-of-sight and it will still put out a similar number of shots per turn.

In terms of the xenonauts theme as differentiated from XCOM? I guess that would be the claustrophobic style of ground combat and the greater scope for strategic decision making (i.e. less of an instant gratification, arcade feel). Returning then to the concerns about importing too much from XCOM, yeah, it would be awful for the player ever to get the feeling of invincibility. That would annul the claustrophobia and undermine the strategy. So whilst it would be bad to encroach on the feel of XCOM, that doesn't mean nothing of the game can be imported, just that it should be implemented carefully.

[Chris]

19 hours ago, Conductiv said:

what I am wondering about is most of all the changes that speed up the gameplay on the tactical layer, X1 was a good game but the tactical layer was very slow to play...it always sorta ended up being a slow creep to the ship followed by a slow creep through the dahm thing trying to weed out every corner hugging alien in there.

We're not really planning to change the core mechanics of the ground combat for the sequel, so I don't think combat will necessarily be any faster. As has been mentioned above though, the intention is to have more varied missions so hopefully the game will feel less repetitive simply because you're not playing crash sites 90% of the time (and some of those missions maybe have more time pressure, or don't follow the traditional "sweep-and-explore" setup that most of them do).

[Conductiv]

4 hours ago, Chris said:

We're not really planning to change the core mechanics of the ground combat for the sequel, so I don't think combat will necessarily be any faster. As has been mentioned above though, the intention is to have more varied missions so hopefully the game will feel less repetitive simply because you're not playing crash sites 90% of the time (and some of those missions maybe have more time pressure, or don't follow the traditional "sweep-and-explore" setup that most of them do).

ah well...maybe we get some alenium powered gizmo that facilitates (safe) movement a bit more.

varied mission types a fine idea but please do avoid general turn timers, that particular part of Xcom 2 (the feeling of being rushed to dash your squad halfway across the map to an objective, lest I lose squad-members and/or fail) was definitely not something I was enjoying.  it was too much stick too little carrot

[Chris]

17 hours ago, Conductiv said:

varied mission types a fine idea but please do avoid general turn timers, that particular part of Xcom 2 (the feeling of being rushed to dash your squad halfway across the map to an objective, lest I lose squad-members and/or fail) was definitely not something I was enjoying.  it was too much stick too little carrot

Yeah, I agree. The hard turn timers weren't much fun to play with, but to be fair they did also have good ideas for "soft" timers in a lot of missions that worked much better - e.g. the Meld in the XCOM1 expansion, where it was an optional objective you had to reach in X turns in order to recover it, or the way that many missions in XCOM2 just started spawning enemy reinforcements via dropship if you took too long on the mission.

That's the sort of thing I'm more interested in - you can still win if you take too long, but it might be a bit sub-optimal.

[Ninothree]

I actually liked the turn timers - but I play quite aggressive so they don't spoil my fun. It cheered me a little that the timers removed the strategy of overwatch creep as my personal feeling is that playing the defensive waiting game is dull (I'd rather reload and try again than take it slow). Though there is surely room for all styles to be encouraged. Scenarios like terror missions give you that soft timer as civilians get wasted for every turn your dally, and as Chris says, you can insert any dwindling mission reward into that secondary objective slot. My point is that I think there is scope to design some secondary mission objectives along a contrary premise: that you earn more rewards from the mission by taking less damage i.e. exposing yourself to fewer risks with a safer (if slower) strategy. In this case, the sub-optimal victory would be that you allowed yourself to be put in a position of weakness, taking on more enemies at once than your squad could handle.