Night missions

[Skitso]

There was a discussion about night missions on Xenonauts' Discord channel and I think it's a discussion better had here at the forums. I feel nights are not dark or scary enough as they are now and the game utilizes dark conditions way too little.

About the visuals: Here's a quick Photoshop where the left is how it is now and the right one is my edit which, granted, looks quite bad too, but maybe you get the idea what I'm after:

 

Also, we could try to think of different ideas how to force players to play more night missions or missions in dark conditions.

My ideas:

• Crash sites and other missions could be available for shorter time
• Some missions could be available only at night (landing ship waits at the location until it's night time)
• Alien bases could be played with night rules (do aliens need lights?)
• UFO interiors could be played with night rules (do aliens need lights?)
• Some missions could have significantly fewer enemies at night to encourage night time operations
• 2 part mission where the second part is at night no matter when it's started

Edited July 16, 2023 by Skitso

[Chris]

I just don't think it's a good idea to have no clear visual distinction between areas in shroud and revealed areas that are not currently in LOS. Those are different things in gameplay terms but in your suggestion they look either identical or close to it. However it's something you'll be able to mod once the mod tools are out.

I'm also not really interested in ways to force the player to do more night missions - I'm interested in ways to encourage the player to want to do more night missions. At the moment night missions are significantly harder than day missions and there's no real reason why you'd ever voluntarily choose to do one.

[Skitso]

5 hours ago, Chris said:

I just don't think it's a good idea to have no clear visual distinction between areas in shroud and revealed areas that are not currently in LOS. Those are different things in gameplay terms but in your suggestion they look either identical or close to it. However it's something you'll be able to mod once the mod tools are out.

Yeah, I understand there needs to be distinction between shroud and revealed areas for obvious gameplay reasons. The illustration I made was just to sell the idea. As it is now, the difference in brightness is huge and tweaking a big darker might give some visual benefit.

Quote

I'm also not really interested in ways to force the player to do more night missions - I'm interested in ways to encourage the player to want to do more night missions. At the moment night missions are significantly harder than day missions and there's no real reason why you'd ever voluntarily choose to do one.

Fair enough.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Skitso

[Raffik]

On 7/16/2023 at 3:29 PM, Chris said:

I'm also not really interested in ways to force the player to do more night missions - I'm interested in ways to encourage the player to want to do more night missions. At the moment night missions are significantly harder than day missions and there's no real reason why you'd ever voluntarily choose to do one.

What about adding some extra equipment for night ops (silencers for ballistic weapons or specialised silenced weapons, motion scanners, night vision) and in some missions (like the cleaner cells) with less enemies at night, while reinforcements coming in lets say 5 turns in high numbers if the xenonauts get discovered (meaning a sighted enemy is not dead in the same turn, no grenades, no demo charges etc f.e.)

That would give the night missions another feel. And here I would agree with Skitso about the "fading" vision effect during night missions. Perhaps not so extensive as in the screenshot above, but it would be more realistic (the tiles, that would be only partially visible could have less chance/pecentage to see an enemy etc)

Terror missions could be restricted to night time only f.e. or It could be worth adding some special missions with special equipment restricted for such missions only.

[Mr.Xia]

 

On 7/16/2023 at 9:29 PM, Chris said:

I just don't think it's a good idea to have no clear visual distinction between areas in shroud and revealed areas that are not currently in LOS. Those are different things in gameplay terms but in your suggestion they look either identical or close to it. However it's something you'll be able to mod once the mod tools are out.

I'm also not really interested in ways to force the player to do more night missions - I'm interested in ways to encourage the player to want to do more night missions. At the moment night missions are significantly harder than day missions and there's no real reason why you'd ever voluntarily choose to do one.

I feel that night missions should retain their difficulty, but have some situational circumstances that benefits the player. 

QOL features

- Nightvision equipment To give more options for night play, nightvision goggles as equipment that remove the darkness penalty but reduces cone vision to simulate night vision goggles and their reduction of awareness. However adding new elements can accumulate micromanagement, so to prevent that, the accuracy module can by default be outfitted with night vision that provides a toggle on/off option with TU spent for soldiers to activate their night vision.

- Choosing day/night battles Now this could be a tricky element, because the player can simply decide to attack at daytime only and nothing else, and the day/night cycle is an element for players to be more tactical due to missions having limited time, but if night missions are incentivised enough to be desired, then this would be a good feature.

incentives for nighttime

- Less civilians at night. Civilians might be more sparse in night missions, which if there is a bigger factor to prevent the loss of civilian life. If I recall in X1, there is an effect to whether you prevent the loss of civilians or local forces? Perhaps a gameplay element that having less civilian casualties result in better increase in goodwill, night missions would be perfect to minimise collateral damage in the field.

- Alien strengths and weaknesses. If sunlight is a factor, aliens might provide some weaknesses at night missions. Regenerative abilities might be weaker or robot sensors have a smaller range for example. Or provide strengths such as more potent mesmerise abilities to strike true darkness in the hearts of the soldiers.

- Subtle landing entries Nightime might provide some kind of shroud for landing crafts to land troops before the aliens could notice. If the starting positions of aliens are further from the landing craft, or are still bunched up around their crashed UFOs, that provides some tactical consideration.

- Map variation Perhaps for an excuse to change map variety, the aliens might prop up mobile bases or scientific equipment depending on the time of day(solar plants in daytime if they actually used solar power, that provide cover and obstacles on the alien side)

- Alien frequency Depends on the time of day, different types of aliens might be more frequent in the battlefield, which players can predict and adapt their tactics accordingly (reapers could be more frequent at night). Of course this will be limited to alien research or terror missions in the field, it would not make sense on crashed UFOs. If a player needs a specific alien to research this could turn their direction towards choosing the time of day to approach.

- Weapons/armour changes I cant think of a realistic way of weapon changes on darkness, but perhaps armour might play a part. The stalker armour for example could be much more effective in areas of darkness.

- Resources Perhaps nighttime would be ideal for clandestine activities to move alien research cargo or alien abduction pods for example. This provides a financial incentive for players to attack at nighttime, knowing that there is more chance of loot to be found, although that has to be balanced out otherwise, nighttime missions would be the meta for getting resources.

- Story required night mission Perhaps a 'forced' incentive is to play a mission at night where a particular alien or technology could only be around at night.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Mr.Xia
added more ideas

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

Just speaking personally of course, but I wouldn't like to see night missions made easier by having circumstances that benefit the player. Part of the fear-factor comes from knowing that you're really up against it!

I have a simple answer to the question of why would people choose to do night missions, which is to make all Terror, Abduction, and Alien Base missions be night missions. And inside UFOs too. They should be the scariest missions anyway, right? The issue here, as I see it, is that those missions -- well, Terror or Abduction at least -- could only be on the geoscape for a maximum of 12 hours, which is of course too limiting. I've been thinking about this today, and have what is (in my mind at least!) a neat solution.

For Terror and Abduction missions, the aliens cover the area in a fog-like miasma of nano-particles (or whatever ). This is basically a way of creating night conditions even if the mission is encountered during the day. It fits the Abduction mission really well because the aliens want to keep their antics away from prying eyes, and Terror because it makes things, well, terrifying!

This idea opens up more possibilities. Maybe the fog is weaponised to instil fear in humans (a bit like a milder version of the Scarecrow's toxins from Batman). This fits thematically, especially for Terror missions. So, any Xenonauts in this dark fog suffer a penalty to their bravery and are more likely to panic. Maybe the fog is neutralised by photons of light, so soliders can rally themselves by sticking to well-lit areas. Perhaps the effect is cumulative, and the longer a solider is in the dark, the lower their bravery gets. End their turn in some light to restore bravery. The current morale system is pretty barebones, so this could spice it up.

Other night factors can include an accuracy penalty to shooting aliens in the dark, which could lead to a strategy of wanting the illuminate them with flares before attacking. There could be more equipment tailored to these "night" missions too, such as night vision goggles, anti-miasma torches, adrenaline shots to counter the bravery-sapping effect (synthesised from Reapers maybe?) Making it an alien-generated effect rather than just natural nighttime opens up a lot of possibilities, as you can basically give it any properties you like.

Wouldn't it be cool if UFOs and alien bases followed this ruleset too? It could be like a defence mechanism activated by the aliens. It'd make them a lot scarier, for you the commander and for your troops as well.

Maybe there's potential in tying Mantids into this, as they're currently a bit dull as enemies. Perhaps they generally excel in these conditions, as it mirrors their natural environment, so get buffs to their stats. For a special ability they could belch out concentrated miasma, making soldiers panic and creating a smoke effect. Capture a live specimen to unlock Panic Grenades, which have a big impact on an enemy's bravery.

And it would be a great reason to have the kind of awesome lighting effects that a modern game engine allows!

Lots of ideas, hopefully some good ones are in there somewhere 

 

[cman1983]

The reapers need a generic rebuild I like the idea of them bein the way they are but with  more aggression and attack from turn 1 

[Conductiv]

43 minutes ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

 

I have a simple answer to the question of why would people choose to do night missions, which is to make all Terror, Abduction, and Alien Base missions be night missions. And inside UFOs too. They should be the scariest missions anyway, right? The issue here, as I see it, is that those missions -- well, Terror or Abduction at least -- could only be on the geoscape for a maximum of 12 hours, which is of course too limiting. I've been thinking about this today, and have what is (in my mind at least!) a neat solution.

For Terror and Abduction missions, the aliens cover the area in a fog-like miasma of nano-particles (or whatever ). This is basically a way of creating night conditions even if the mission is encountered during the day. It fits the Abduction mission really well because the aliens want to keep their antics away from prying eyes, and Terror because it makes things, well, terrifying!

This idea opens up more possibilities. Maybe the fog is weaponised to instil fear in humans (a bit like a milder version of the Scarecrow's toxins from Batman). This fits thematically, especially for Terror missions. So, any Xenonauts in this dark fog suffer a penalty to their bravery and are more likely to panic. Maybe the fog is neutralised by photons of light, so soliders can rally themselves by sticking to well-lit areas. Perhaps the effect is cumulative, and the longer a solider is in the dark, the lower their bravery gets. End their turn in some light to restore bravery. The current morale system is pretty barebones, so this could spice it up.

Other night factors can include an accuracy penalty to shooting aliens in the dark, which could lead to a strategy of wanting the illuminate them with flares before attacking. There could be more equipment tailored to these "night" missions too, such as night vision goggles, anti-miasma torches, adrenaline shots to counter the bravery-sapping effect (synthesised from Reapers maybe?) Making it an alien-generated effect rather than just natural nighttime opens up a lot of possibilities, as you can basically give it any properties you like.

Wouldn't it be cool if UFOs and alien bases followed this ruleset too? It could be like a defence mechanism activated by the aliens. It'd make them a lot scarier, for you the commander and for your troops as well.

Maybe there's potential in tying Mantids into this, as they're currently a bit dull as enemies. Perhaps they generally excel in these conditions, as it mirrors their natural environment, so get buffs to their stats. For a special ability they could belch out concentrated miasma, making soldiers panic and creating a smoke effect. Capture a live specimen to unlock Panic Grenades, which have a big impact on an enemy's bravery.

And it would be a great reason to have the kind of awesome lighting effects that a modern game engine allows!

Lots of ideas, hopefully some good ones are in there somewhere 

 

this is not the player choosing to do a night mission, this is forcing the player to do a night mission because the mission is only active during the night, or generates a night like condition.  and it creates problems it then generates solutions for.

my personal view on this is that there must be a reason I would want to prefer to do a mission by night rather then by day...do I have equipment that gives me specific advantages over the alien at night, do some materials become more obvious to scavenge at night etc. at the moment there really is no reason to do a mission by night as it only increases the risk with no real reward...I don't have specific gear that would work well hunting enemies at night, and night missions do not become more appealing if the only thing I get out of them is solutions to the very problems night missions have

[doubleskulls]

We could think about this the other way... what if we made daytime missions tougher? e.g. giving aliens improved vision or range in daytime? So that night time is our friend, not theirs. This often true for the underdog in asymmetrical conflict. 

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

46 minutes ago, Conductiv said:

this is not the player choosing to do a night mission, this is forcing the player to do a night mission because the mission is only active during the night, or generates a night like condition.  and it creates problems it then generates solutions for.

my personal view on this is that there must be a reason I would want to prefer to do a mission by night rather then by day...do I have equipment that gives me specific advantages over the alien at night, do some materials become more obvious to scavenge at night etc. at the moment there really is no reason to do a mission by night as it only increases the risk with no real reward...I don't have specific gear that would work well hunting enemies at night, and night missions do not become more appealing if the only thing I get out of them is solutions to the very problems night missions have

Night missions have the potential to be exciting, scary, and add more variety to the game. Many people's -- including my own -- predominant memories of the original XCOM games is from night missions, such as creeping through corn fields at night... Those games didn't incentivise you to do night missions, but they were often highlights of the game. What I'm trying to do is engineer a way to give those experiences to players. At the moment it just doesn't happen as players avoid night missions, and night missions don't really feel much different.

Could you not say that the abduction missions are more difficult than normal missions, so why do them? I'm trying to remember if there's any additional reward. Reduced panic? Extra alenium and alloys? You can apply that to the "night" missions I've described. Upon mission completion you capture the fog generators, which converts into alenium and alloys for you. Is that incentive enough? If you still want the choice of tackling a mission by day or night, then I like @Mr.Xia's suggestions, including nighttime affecting Sebellian's regeneration, Wraith's cloaking fields, etc -- so long as nighttime doesn't just remove the things that make the aliens interesting! I can get behind certain equipment giving buffs to make you want to do night missions, but then would that flip things, and you'd never want to do day missions? I just think that my idea is a bit more interesting and provides plenty of creative possibilities.

We might be coming at this from different directions because I'm not fundamentally against "forcing" a mission or mission type on a player, if it helps advance the plot or creates cool and fun situations. Is the Cleaner HQ a "forced" mission? I think so. Base defence missions are "forced"? Alien bases? I guess you can skip those, but you're heavily penalised for doing so. My suggestions for Terror / Abduction / Alien Base missions are really to ensure players have those memorable, scary experiences; as well as solving other things I think are issues, such as increasing the variety on offer, making the game more atmospheric, making more of the bravery system, making Mantids more interesting, adding more situations that require different approaches...

[Conductiv]

6 hours ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

Night missions have the potential to be exciting, scary, and add more variety to the game. Many people's -- including my own -- predominant memories of the original XCOM games is from night missions, such as creeping through corn fields at night... Those games didn't incentivise you to do night missions, but they were often highlights of the game. What I'm trying to do is engineer a way to give those experiences to players. At the moment it just doesn't happen as players avoid night missions, and night missions don't really feel much different.

Could you not say that the abduction missions are more difficult than normal missions, so why do them? I'm trying to remember if there's any additional reward. Reduced panic? Extra alenium and alloys? You can apply that to the "night" missions I've described. Upon mission completion you capture the fog generators, which converts into alenium and alloys for you. Is that incentive enough? If you still want the choice of tackling a mission by day or night, then I like @Mr.Xia's suggestions, including nighttime affecting Sebellian's regeneration, Wraith's cloaking fields, etc -- so long as nighttime doesn't just remove the things that make the aliens interesting! I can get behind certain equipment giving buffs to make you want to do night missions, but then would that flip things, and you'd never want to do day missions? I just think that my idea is a bit more interesting and provides plenty of creative possibilities.

We might be coming at this from different directions because I'm not fundamentally against "forcing" a mission or mission type on a player, if it helps advance the plot or creates cool and fun situations. Is the Cleaner HQ a "forced" mission? I think so. Base defence missions are "forced"? Alien bases? I guess you can skip those, but you're heavily penalised for doing so. My suggestions for Terror / Abduction / Alien Base missions are really to ensure players have those memorable, scary experiences; as well as solving other things I think are issues, such as increasing the variety on offer, making the game more atmospheric, making more of the bravery system, making Mantids more interesting, adding more situations that require different approaches...

night missions can definitely can be exciting, and I'm not opposed to them, but I am opposed to being forced to do them because a mission that currently has both a day and night option only spawns with night modifiers. I prefer the carrot over the stick...give me a reason to do a mission by night rather then by day without forcing the night modifier on the mission. I take the constricted vision and the risk of getting fired at from the fog of war when attacking at night, what strategical or tactical advantage would this grant me?

your suggestion of there being generators ..available only at night...that grant bonus resources can definitely be an enticing enough reason for me to take a shot at it. extra resources can be a great strategic asset and worth taking extra risk for. but that is a completely different suggestion compared to "all terror missions should only be at night". same deal with enemies being weaker at night (when talking about the mantid, lets say the mantid had a 50% increased LOS during the day...but 75% of its current LOS at night), that is a tactical advantage that has to be weighed against the disadvantage of not being able to see them from a significantly longer distance. important here..I can still do the mission by day in both cases...the night however gives me something more that somewhat offsets the risk.

the other bit is equipment and tool based, when nightvision was introduced..nations that had that technology moved to preferring nighttime ops against less developed enemies. as they got an advantage. if the player gets access to specific pieces of equipment that grant it benefit during the night, you might very well have a squad that prefers fighting in those conditions. example could be that for instance the wraith tech is more effective by night, this would work both for the wraith alien and my own troops, but I can employ it against psyons when I have that tech and opt to fight at night. this can also be trade offs, having thermal goggles for example could negate the negative effect of smoke at the cost of vastly increasing the suppression value of enemy fire as a shot now has a flashbang like effect on the trooper. smoke will still be heavily enticed as it will protect you and you're not impeded by it, but you don't really want to get shot at.

in effect, make it so that fighting during the daytime isn't always the best option. (the night battle soundtrack is good, so I'd really like to have a good reason to fight night battles)

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

6 hours ago, Conductiv said:

night missions can definitely can be exciting, and I'm not opposed to them, but I am opposed to being forced to do them because a mission that currently has both a day and night option only spawns with night modifiers. I prefer the carrot over the stick...give me a reason to do a mission by night rather then by day without forcing the night modifier on the mission. I take the constricted vision and the risk of getting fired at from the fog of war when attacking at night, what strategical or tactical advantage would this grant me?

your suggestion of there being generators ..available only at night...that grant bonus resources can definitely be an enticing enough reason for me to take a shot at it. extra resources can be a great strategic asset and worth taking extra risk for. but that is a completely different suggestion compared to "all terror missions should only be at night". same deal with enemies being weaker at night (when talking about the mantid, lets say the mantid had a 50% increased LOS during the day...but 75% of its current LOS at night), that is a tactical advantage that has to be weighed against the disadvantage of not being able to see them from a significantly longer distance. important here..I can still do the mission by day in both cases...the night however gives me something more that somewhat offsets the risk.

the other bit is equipment and tool based, when nightvision was introduced..nations that had that technology moved to preferring nighttime ops against less developed enemies. as they got an advantage. if the player gets access to specific pieces of equipment that grant it benefit during the night, you might very well have a squad that prefers fighting in those conditions. example could be that for instance the wraith tech is more effective by night, this would work both for the wraith alien and my own troops, but I can employ it against psyons when I have that tech and opt to fight at night. this can also be trade offs, having thermal goggles for example could negate the negative effect of smoke at the cost of vastly increasing the suppression value of enemy fire as a shot now has a flashbang like effect on the trooper. smoke will still be heavily enticed as it will protect you and you're not impeded by it, but you don't really want to get shot at.

in effect, make it so that fighting during the daytime isn't always the best option. (the night battle soundtrack is good, so I'd really like to have a good reason to fight night battles)

OK, I hear what you're saying and everything seems reasonable. Perhaps my ideas have veered too far from changes to night missions, and should be taken as something separate.

So, how about this, which I think combines our thoughts. First, apply my terror-inducing fog idea just to terror missions (and perhaps alien bases). This would make them scarier, fit thematically, and add some interesting variety. Ditch adding it to abduction missions; the whole rescuing civilians with a time limit mechanic provides enough change. As for other missions that you tackle during the night, make the darkness a bit more oppressive and nerf your vision / accuracy (which might be the case already). After you kill (or capture?) a Mantid, you unlock enhanced night vision goggles (or whatever) that gives you the edge over aliens at night. I can see how it would be a cool point of progression for a player to turn night against the aliens.

Best of both worlds?

In any case, thanks for being so articulate with your reasoning, I've enjoyed thinking all this through.

[FLIR]

On 8/5/2023 at 8:05 PM, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

Night missions have the potential to be exciting, scary, and add more variety to the game. Many people's -- including my own -- predominant memories of the original XCOM games is from night missions, such as creeping through corn fields at night... Those games didn't incentivise you to do night missions, but they were often highlights of the game.

Exactly - what many people remember from the original X-Com are those experiences and the atmosphere. Everyone of my colleagues and friends, who played the original X-Com, first talk about the creepy corn fields at night. And when it comes to X-Com: TFTD it is something like that: 

"The music + late night playing with no lights + alien base missions + high volume sonic cannon shots and aquanaut screams + tentaculats = the definition of terrifying"

 

It is also the atmosphere and the "experience" that attracts a lot of people when it comes to games; not perfect gameplay mechanisms and balancing down to the smallest detail. It is about how it "feels" to play.

The graphical presentation is a part of this: I love the sober mil-sim look of X2, but more darkness and things like fog could greatly increase how the game feels. For example: the alien bases would be much more atmospheric if they would be dark and maybe filled with fog (the alien creatures having their own atmosphere in there).  "Darkwood" or  "Aliens: Dark Descent" (aka X-Com: Colonial Marines) do it nice, albeit a little bit too much of everything. A more "sober" approach like in X2 would be better. 

And equally much can be achieved with game features: keeping the enemy creatures as "unknown" as possible (no status messages for the creatures: HP, "suppressed" etc.). A nice little, immersive gadget: a separate "motion sensor" (very atmospheric to have to use it and draw conclusions), presenting a motion sensor with overlay UI (something flashes on the virtual battlefield), on the other hand, is not atmospheric at all. This creates memorable experiences and is immersive/atmospheric ("What moves there in the darkness/inside the barn/house etc.):

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/File:Xenomorphs.png

On 7/16/2023 at 3:29 PM, Chris said:

I'm also not really interested in ways to force the player to do more night missions - I'm interested in ways to encourage the player to want to do more night missions. At the moment night missions are significantly harder than day missions and there's no real reason why you'd ever voluntarily choose to do one.

What players often remember most about games, the most memorable experiences, seem to be the "levels"/"missions"/etc. that they had to go through despite being hard (and dark and scary): Everyone talks about the "Tower of Latria" or having to climb down into the "Valley of Defilement" in Demons Souls, or "Blighttown" in Dark Souls. Same for the original X-Com: those atmospheric night missions, going through the cornfields...

X2 is a game about alien creatures and the "unknown" (and not something like "Jagged Alliance") - so darkness and creating an overall eerie atmosphere would really fit imho.

 

 

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

9 minutes ago, FLIR said:

Exactly - what many people remember from the original X-Com are those experiences and the atmosphere. Everyone of my colleagues and friends, who played the original X-Com, first talk about the creepy corn fields at night. And when it comes to X-Com: TFTD it is something like that: 

"The music + late night playing with no lights + alien base missions + high volume sonic cannon shots and aquanaut screams + tentaculats = the definition of terrifying"

 

It is also the atmosphere and the "experience" that attracts a lot of people when it comes to games; not perfect gameplay mechanisms and balancing down to the smallest detail. It is about how it "feels" to play.

The graphical presentation is a part of this: I love the sober mil-sim look of X2, but more darkness and things like fog could greatly increase how the game feels. For example: the alien bases would be much more atmospheric if they would be dark and maybe filled with fog (the alien creatures having their own atmosphere in there).  "Darkwood" or  "Aliens: Dark Descent" (aka X-Com: Colonial Marines) do it nice, albeit a little bit too much of everything. A more "sober" approach like in X2 would be better. 

And equally much can be achieved with game features: keeping the enemy creatures as "unknown" as possible (no status messages for the creatures: HP, "suppressed" etc.). A nice little, immersive gadget: a separate "motion sensor" (very atmospheric to have to use it and draw conclusions), presenting a motion sensor with overlay UI (something flashes on the virtual battlefield), on the other hand, is not atmospheric at all. This creates memorable experiences and is immersive/atmospheric ("What moves there in the darkness/inside the barn/house etc.):

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/File:Xenomorphs.png

What players often remember most about games, the most memorable experiences, seem to be the "levels"/"missions"/etc. that they had to go through despite being hard (and dark and scary): Everyone talks about the "Tower of Latria" or having to climb down into the "Valley of Defilement" in Demons Souls, or "Blighttown" in Dark Souls. Same for the original X-Com: those atmospheric night missions, going through the cornfields...

X2 is a game about alien creatures and the "unknown" (and not something like "Jagged Alliance") - so darkness and creating an overall eerie atmosphere would really fit imho.

 

 

Yes yes yes 100% agree!

[Skitso]

18 minutes ago, FLIR said:

Exactly - what many people remember from the original X-Com are those experiences and the atmosphere. Everyone of my colleagues and friends, who played the original X-Com, first talk about the creepy corn fields at night. And when it comes to X-Com: TFTD it is something like that: 

"The music + late night playing with no lights + alien base missions + high volume sonic cannon shots and aquanaut screams + tentaculats = the definition of terrifying"

 

It is also the atmosphere and the "experience" that attracts a lot of people when it comes to games; not perfect gameplay mechanisms and balancing down to the smallest detail. It is about how it "feels" to play.

The graphical presentation is a part of this: I love the sober mil-sim look of X2, but more darkness and things like fog could greatly increase how the game feels. For example: the alien bases would be much more atmospheric if they would be dark and maybe filled with fog (the alien creatures having their own atmosphere in there).  "Darkwood" or  "Aliens: Dark Descent" (aka X-Com: Colonial Marines) do it nice, albeit a little bit too much of everything. A more "sober" approach like in X2 would be better. 

And equally much can be achieved with game features: keeping the enemy creatures as "unknown" as possible (no status messages for the creatures: HP, "suppressed" etc.). A nice little, immersive gadget: a separate "motion sensor" (very atmospheric to have to use it and draw conclusions), presenting a motion sensor with overlay UI (something flashes on the virtual battlefield), on the other hand, is not atmospheric at all. This creates memorable experiences and is immersive/atmospheric ("What moves there in the darkness/inside the barn/house etc.):

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/File:Xenomorphs.png

What players often remember most about games, the most memorable experiences, seem to be the "levels"/"missions"/etc. that they had to go through despite being hard (and dark and scary): Everyone talks about the "Tower of Latria" or having to climb down into the "Valley of Defilement" in Demons Souls, or "Blighttown" in Dark Souls. Same for the original X-Com: those atmospheric night missions, going through the cornfields...

X2 is a game about alien creatures and the "unknown" (and not something like "Jagged Alliance") - so darkness and creating an overall eerie atmosphere would really fit imho.

 

 

Well said. I've tried my best to get this thinking through with Goldhawk multiple times. Hopefully Chris will give in if enough people raise the issue.

[SHOGUN_YAMATO]

Hm... Because of the way the originals handled alien LOS at night I avoided playing night missions as much as possible. It nice Xenonauts 2 has free and unlimited flares. It make those missions much less frustrating.

[Skitso]

On 7/16/2023 at 4:29 PM, Chris said:

I'm also not really interested in ways to force the player to do more night missions - I'm interested in ways to encourage the player to want to do more night missions. At the moment night missions are significantly harder than day missions and there's no real reason why you'd ever voluntarily choose to do one.

If you are going to push Cleaners to be more significant part of the game, making them come and clean UFO crash sites after certain time period would also be a nice and organic way to make player choose between night and extra cleaners and also give a tangible reason for their existence.

First few cleaners could be added to crash site after 5(?) hours and a couple more after 10(?) hours. Crash sites could also be "cleaned away" from geoscape instead of player being to sell it to local forces until Cleaner HQ is finally destroyed. This kind of additional organic layer of gameplay and choise would IMO add a lot to the game.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Skitso

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

3 minutes ago, Skitso said:

If you are going to push Cleaners to be more significant part of the game, making them come and clean UFO crash sites after certain time period would also be a nice and organic way to make player choose between night and extra cleaners. First few cleaners could be added after like 5 hours and a couple more after 10 hours. Crash sites could also be "cleaned away" from geoscape instead of selling it to local forces until Cleaner HQ is destroyed. This kind of additional organic layer of gameplay and choise would IMO add a lot to the game.

Genius.

[SHOGUN_YAMATO]

2 minutes ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

Genius.

Hm... sound nice but overstretching it might make the game too hard.

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

18 minutes ago, SHOGUN_YAMATO said:

Hm... sound nice but overstretching it might make the game too hard.

These things can always be balanced though, right? Scale the toughness of Cleaner soldiers up or down accordingly, as an example. Or, seen another way:

59 minutes ago, FLIR said:

It is also the atmosphere and the "experience" that attracts a lot of people when it comes to games; not perfect gameplay mechanisms and balancing down to the smallest detail. It is about how it "feels" to play.

 

[SHOGUN_YAMATO]

6 minutes ago, Ogilvy the Astronomer said:

These things can always be balanced though, right? Scale the toughness of Cleaner soldiers up or down accordingly, as an example. Or, seen another way:

 

True, but after playing those game for the past 30 years I tend to look at them a bit differently when I was around when UFO: Enemy Unknown came out. I really like the streamlining of the newer games compared to the originals, with in some areas are just tedious to play today (not to say I don't like them, completed UFO on many PCs, my phone and my tablet too - this was fun, playing at night, IN A TENT XD).

If its possible and not to time consuming to do, an options menu with loads of difficulty options would be the best way to make everyone happy. Invisible, Inc. is one very good example for adjusting the game to players wishes.

[Raffik]

On 8/7/2023 at 11:52 AM, Skitso said:

If you are going to push Cleaners to be more significant part of the game, making them come and clean UFO crash sites after certain time period would also be a nice and organic way to make player choose between night and extra cleaners and also give a tangible reason for their existence.

First few cleaners could be added to crash site after 5(?) hours and a couple more after 10(?) hours. Crash sites could also be "cleaned away" from geoscape instead of player being to sell it to local forces until Cleaner HQ is finally destroyed. This kind of additional organic layer of gameplay and choise would IMO add a lot to the game.

Had the same idea  Absolutely agree! Instead of hours, I would probably use percentage of cleaner SAR mission encounter during tactical mission in days. Also the crash sites in general could use more "crash site-ish" maps, like crash trails behind the UFO, fragments laying around, fires, destroyed buildings, destroyed UFOs or escape pods.... hope this will come in the finished game.

For the "cleaning away" there could be off-site instalations on the geoscape for storing the UFO´s for disassembly, research and resource gathering. Or, one could always sell them.