9/12 soldiers is too much

[gG-Unknown]

9 soldiers is too much for a new player

 

later on, 12 soldiers per mission is too much even for seasoned warrior.

- one turn takes too long

- it is easy forgot who is where OR who is covering what alley

- need to move all the soldiers then wait for result makes game somewhat sluggish,  I simply exit mission with 12 soldiers after 15 minutes of babysitting my f-ing army.

 

For better game-flow AND for better acceptance by casual customers (which is majority) I highly recommend reduce max number of soldiers per mission to 8 early stage then 10 for late stage.

Well 7/9 would be even  better. 9 soldiers is so - so manageable, then lets keep it as maximum.

Lowering numbers  also allows link solders to hot key numbers 1 to 0 on keyboard, which further improves control toward speed.

I am aware that some difficulty balancing of current missions have to be tweaked again, but better now then never.

I very strongly believe that turn based game where  one turn takes more than 5 minutes is doomed.

Edited July 10, 2024 by gG-Unknown

[gG-Unknown]

oriiginal UFO used 8  soldiers as initial size of squad, but a tank cost is 4 soldiers.

Also first mission used just 6 soldiers as you see,  below becouse of sluggish gameplay

also people back then were far more patient, myself included.

Less soldiers >>> more chance to get commercial success.

Edited July 10, 2024 by gG-Unknown

[Komandos]

34 minutes ago, gG-Unknown said:

I very strongly believe that turn based game where  one turn takes more than 5 minutes is doomed.

In the classic game, (X-COM:1; 2; 3) which became iconic:

 

X-COM: 1; 2 allowed the presence of 26 soldiers on one combat mission. At the same time, in some key and final missions, even this amount was not enough for a confident victory.

In X-COM:3, the player could already take 36 soldiers on one mission.

 

 

For dynamism: You can have one soldier in the game, just like it is implemented in the Diablo game

[Twigg]

For what it is worth I agree with you, past a certain point increasing the number of soldiers and enemies makes the game more tedious then fun. IMO these type of games work best when you are quickly cycling between the strategic and tactical layers and 2+ hour missions break that great flow. If I as a player have proven I can take out 12 aliens with 6 soldiers doubling the numbers on both sides doesn't lead to more interesting or clever gameplay, just more time between mission start and end.

 

I also think that capping the number of soldiers and aliens can open up space for new gameplay options like secondary objectives on missions or a more fleshed out relationship between a soldier and their weapon so they don't feel like basically the same thing with tweaks to range, damage, and rate of fire.

[Skitso]

I agree. I find the game most enjoyable for the first 100+ days where my team is still small and missions quick to complete. It just gets more and more tedious as the game progresses and unit numbers get greater.

I'm pretty sure team sizes are way past altering at this stage of the development, but I feel optimal would have been 8, 10 and 12, where MARS takes two slots and had 50% more armor/health. Many alien races could also benefit from lower numbers with greater stats to make them feel more like a superior species with superior tech.

Edited July 11, 2024 by Skitso

[Bernie22405]

On 7/10/2024 at 3:38 PM, gG-Unknown said:

I very strongly believe that turn based game where  one turn takes more than 5 minutes is doomed.

Evidently, you're not a fan of turn-based wargames then.  As an example take the old Steel Panthers series, first from SSI and then later Steel Panthers: World at War from Matrix Games and now Slitherine.  That game premiered in the early 90s (I was one of the first reviewers) and still has a huge following today.  Some turns don't take minutes or even hours, they take days and can involve a hundred units or more.  That game was very much a commercial success and there are dozens more that I can think of like it.

[Komandos]

4 hours ago, Bernie22405 said:

Evidently, you're not a fan of turn-based wargames then.  As an example take the old Steel Panthers series, first from SSI and then later Steel Panthers: World at War from Matrix Games and now Slitherine.  That game premiered in the early 90s (I was one of the first reviewers) and still has a huge following today.  Some turns don't take minutes or even hours, they take days and can involve a hundred units or more.  That game was very much a commercial success and there are dozens more that I can think of like it.

And there is also a series of "Civilization" games, where the number of units in need of player control can reach several hundred. And that's not to mention dozens of cities.

[Komandos]

16 hours ago, Twigg said:

For what it is worth I agree with you, past a certain point increasing the number of soldiers and enemies makes the game more tedious then fun.

The game is made tedious by a huge number of monotonous combat missions. The combat missions themselves are also tedious due to the small viewing radius, as a result of which the player has to spend a lot of time just examining the map.

All combat missions are very similar: 8-12 of your soldiers must destroy a certain number of aliens. The final battle is essentially no different from any other battle. In classic X-COM:1-2, the final battle was a large-scale battle requiring the participation of 26 soldiers, while a regular UFO assault required no more than 12 soldiers (from the middle of the game). And with some UFOs, 4-6 soldiers could easily cope. Also in X-COM:1-2 there were several combat missions that also required the maximum number of soldiers (26). There weren't many of these large-scale battles, but these battles gave the player the most intense emotions from the game.

16 hours ago, Twigg said:

If I as a player have proven I can take out 12 aliens with 6 soldiers doubling the numbers on both sides doesn't lead to more interesting or clever gameplay, just more time between mission start and end.

The problem with this game is also that, according to legend, aliens are more technologically advanced, and humanity can resist them in battle only in quantity, not quality. In fact: the player's soldiers are more powerful than the alien soldiers, and the aliens can defeat the player in battle - only by quantity.

The Xenonauts game does not have the emotions that were in X-COM:1-2. When in the first battles (especially at night), the player lost more of his own soldiers than he destroyed the alien soldiers.

[Komandos]

16 hours ago, Twigg said:

I also think that capping the number of soldiers and aliens can open up space for new gameplay options like secondary objectives on missions or a more fleshed out relationship between a soldier and their weapon so they don't feel like basically the same thing with tweaks to range, damage, and rate of fire.

Limitations cannot open up limitless possibilities. Unlimited possibilities arise only in the absence of restrictions.

[gG-Unknown]

4 hours ago, Bernie22405 said:

Evidently, you're not a fan of turn-based wargames then.  As an example take the old Steel Panthers series, first from SSI.  That game was very much a commercial success and there are dozens more that I can think of like it.

I have played Steel panthers about half year after  reelase. I liked that, back then.

The problem is, "commercial success" in 90"  is something  else than today. Number of customers who is able to digest game like  this is about the same. People with brain, were frontier of PC gaming therfore we can  assume that all possible customers in population had PC. But today gaming is mainstram, people with brain are marginal minority. Therfore, sales of Steel panthers around 130,000 units was success  in the past, but not today.

We know that number of customers is same, so when you create same game (for  same brains) then you sale about same 130 000 units.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Panthers_(video_game)

Same sales would be disastrous  for  Goldhawk interactive.

You need  to aim at broader segment of population to grab more possible customers, to get sales about million. e.i. ten times more than Stell panthers

Edited July 12, 2024 by gG-Unknown

[Komandos]

On 10.07.2024 at 23:08, gG-Unknown said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 12, 2024 by Komandos

[Komandos]

On 7/10/2024 at 11:08 PM, gG-Unknown said:

oriiginal UFO used 8  soldiers as initial size of squad, but a tank cost is 4 soldiers.

Also first mission used just 6 soldiers as you see,  below becouse of sluggish gameplay

also people back then were far more patient, myself included.

If you look closely at the screenshot, you will see that: 6 seats are filled, 8 seats are available. The actual capacity of the transport is 14.

When the Avenger ship appeared, the number reached 26 soldiers.

During the modifications, the players brought this number to higher limits. (modification X-Piratez - 36.) modification 40,000 Warhammer - 36-40)

Edited July 12, 2024 by Komandos

[Bernie22405]

6 hours ago, gG-Unknown said:

I have played Steel panthers about half year after  reelase. I liked that, back then.

The problem is, "commercial success" in 90"  is something  else than today. Number of customers who is able to digest game like  this is about the same. People with brain, were frontier of PC gaming therfore we can  assume that all possible customers in population had PC. But today gaming is mainstram, people with brain are marginal minority. Therfore, sales of Steel panthers around 130,000 units was success  in the past, but not today.

We know that number of customers is same, so when you create same game (for  same brains) then you sale about same 130 000 units.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Panthers_(video_game)

Same sales would be disastrous  for  Goldhawk interactive.

You need  to aim at broader segment of population to grab more possible customers, to get sales about million. e.i. ten times more than Stell panthers

I ran the Steel Panthers support site for Matrix Games for 12 years.  During those 12 years, Matrix Games produced 3 add-on campaigns for the game that each sold over 200,000 copies, and the SPWaW community itself added a community-created campaign that won several awards.  The community, when I retired and handed it over to someone else to manage in 2013, had more than 55,000 active participants and players worldwide and was even arranging group tours of WWII battle sites.

The point I'm making here is that your particular viewpoint of what makes for a good game is not the be-all/end-all of successful game development.  It's not an invalid viewpoint but neither is it the sole viewpoint.  Other players can and do have different criteria on what makes a game good.

[Twigg]

7 hours ago, Komandos said:

Limitations cannot open up limitless possibilities. Unlimited possibilities arise only in the absence of restrictions.

Why are we talking about limitless possibilities like that is inherently a good thing? All games have rules and the fun/challenge comes from working within that space to find solutions to the problem at hand. 

I would much rather make a few meaningful choices than a large amount of relatively simple or meaningless ones. 

 

7 hours ago, Komandos said:

The game is made tedious by a huge number of monotonous combat missions. The combat missions themselves are also tedious due to the small viewing radius, as a result of which the player has to spend a lot of time just examining the map.

I do agree with you that the combat missions themselves can quickly get tedious, though I believe that is down to how simple they are. "Kill all the dudes before they kill you" doesn't lend itself to particularly interesting tactical gameplay and it forces the terrain, map layout, enemy type, etc etc to do the heavy lifting. That said lots of people hated the timed mission (and the versions of it the second firaxis game) so maybe we are the outliers and most people find the very basic mission structure compelling enough.

[Bernie22405]

I'd also like to add that just because there's room for X, number of soldiers in a transport does not require you to fill every vacancy.  If you'd like to play with fewer soldiers then have at it, enjoy yourself and play the way that best pleases you.  There's no one here who will tell you that you can't and you're free to ignore any troll that does.

[gG-Unknown]

1 hour ago, Bernie22405 said:

I'd also like to add that just because there's room for X, number of soldiers in a transport does not require you to fill every vacancy.  If you'd like to play with fewer soldiers then have at it, enjoy yourself and play the way that best pleases you.  There's no one here who will tell you that you can't and you're free to ignore any troll that does.

Have  you tryed finish a  single mission  with one soldier ?

There is diffilty balance you know.

The mission  is balanced around map size, oponent numbers, soldiers numbers.

Stop talking nonsece, thanks.

 

[CaptainSPrice]

@gG-Unknown feels like L2P issue for me.