Beta Gameplay Considerations

[StellarRat]

Please consider lighting or putting a marker on aliens that are spotted in FOW. Right they are nearly impossible to see at night or in certain terrain and angles. I've spent a lot of time moving cursor over the middle of the map trying aim at aliens "in the dark".

[Sathra]

+1 for this. Will help to find aliens hidden by props too (lost a few soldiers to that)

[thothkins]

Please consider lighting or putting a marker on aliens that are spotted in FOW. Right they are nearly impossible to see at night or in certain terrain and angles. I've spent a lot of time moving cursor over the middle of the map trying aim at aliens "in the dark".

is there a point though that having aliens neon lit and waving at you from the FOW breaks the immersion of having to desperately hunt them out in the FOW? Presently, if I really can't see them I take it as a sign that perhaps using cover would be a good idea.

[Sathra]

Not so much neon lit as having a marker over their heads. Dunno about anyone else but I sometimes have trouble seeing Sebbies in the desert maps. They kind of blend into the ground.

[thothkins]

yeah, I went with "neon lit" to emphasise the immersion break, that I think could happen. Obviously, I'd not actually expect it to wave either, and having it shout "Coo eee!Over here soldier!" would be right out

[Sathra]

Could always make it optional.

[StellarRat]

My point is you've obviously spotted them because alien head symbol is "on" and the map will center on them. At that point why make the player spend time moving the cursor around trying to find them?

[GizmoGomez]

How about, when you click on the alien sighted symbol, a marker appears above their head for a second, and then disappears? It would be an easy, unobtrusive way to show where it is, and if you wanted it to show up again you just hit the button again, and the symbol pops up again.

Edited April 13, 2013 by GizmoGomez

[StellarRat]

How about, when you click on the alien sighted symbol, a marker appears above their head for a second, and then disappears? It would be an easy, unobtrusive way to show where it is, and if you wanted it to show up again you just hit the button again, and the symbol pops up again.

That works for me. I'm not too picky about how it's shown.

[Gauddlike]

Rather than the marker you could simply have the normal red cursor (that you get by mousing over the enemy) appear for a second.

[GizmoGomez]

Perhaps we could have an option to leave it on, to assist in finding the punks in the darkness and whatnot.

Just have an option:

Alien sighted marker, Off, 3 Sec, On

or something like that. Maybe 2 seconds would work better, I dunno.

I just would rather there be an option to have it show up, and disappear instead of it being on all the time, because unless they're in darkness, there's little point.

Also, we should be able to hover over the marker itself and target the alien. That would help infinitely with aliens being behind walls and such.

As far as the normal red crosshairs showing up, that could work, yeah, except then it'd be moving your cursor to it and I thought we wanted to avoid moving the cursor, as many (myself included) get annoyed when something moves the cursor for us.

[Gauddlike]

I was thinking of an option that feels easier.

Hold down a keyboard key and all actors on the map currently visible are highlighted in their correct coloured cursor as if you had moused over them.

All your own troops would have the green circles, aliens would have the red.

Could be a toggle as well, if the option is in the game might as well allow a keybind for each method and let the player decide which one they want to use.

Don't really see how that would involve moving your cursor any more or less than you would if the alien was clearly visible to you, or why it would be more annoying.

It certainly wouldn't move it automatically or involve changing any systems involving where you can click to fire and so on.

All it would do would be to show the cursor around the target as if you had moved your mouse to it.

Edited April 13, 2013 by Gauddlike

[GizmoGomez]

Oh, I misunderstood then. I thought you were advocating having the game move the cursor over the alien when sighted, or something along those lines.

So, your setup would allow us to hold a button, which would highlight everyone on the field? (So, Xenonauts, Civilians, Local Forces, Aliens.) While holding this down, we would be able to select the alien with the cursor and fire at it?

My main desire is to be able to target an alien even when it's behind a wall, or a prop, or something that entirely covers it up.

So, if we went with my idea (any method would be fine, so long as we use it easily) the little alien icon would allow you to hover over it and have the alien targeted just as if you were able to hover over the alien itself. The icon would always be above any other textures, like the suppression icon is.

Perhaps we could combine our ideas, and have the button held down pop up a symbol over the head of all the aliens.

Although, I suppose that's just my system, with the addition of a button to hold down instead of it showing up automatically.

[Gauddlike]

I just don't really like the idea of detaching the aim function from the actual target and clicking to aim at an icon that is potentially in a different spot from where your shot will go.

My system addresses the issue someone posted about not being able to see an enemy that is apparently clearly visible to their troops.

I haven't really had an issue targeting an enemy once I know where it is.

Maybe if once the icon was up putting your mouse over if would ignore any terrain between the cursor and the highlighted enemy?

[GizmoGomez]

Yeah, that'd work well, I think.

Like I said, I just want a way to shoot an alien if I can't actually see him, but my guys can. Imagine a train car blocking your view of the alien. Even if you know exactly where he is, you still can't target him because you'd just target the train car, as that texture is above the alien texture and completely covering it. If we can see where the alien is (through your highlight idea), and target the alien through the texture, then it's not a problem, even if we can't physically see the alien itself.

Although, now that I think about it, since we're needing to be able to actually see the aliens to differentiate the rank, see what weapon they're carrying etc, maybe we need to be able to physically see the alien somehow. We could do something like, when you target the alien (using the method you (Gauddlike) said above) any textures over the alien (so, props, train cars, walls, etc) would go transparent, like they do for your soldiers already (well, some props don't yet, but they should if they can cover them up completely, like train cars (can you tell train cars annoy me sometimes? )).

So, say the alien is behind a train car, and we can't see it at all. We hold down the magic button, and voila! We can see where he is and target him for shooting. When we move the cursor over him to target him, as in the cursor is on the alien, the train car goes transparent to show the actual alien. If the cursor isn't over the alien (and targeting him for shooting) then nothing would change.

This wouldn't change anything with night missions, where the alien's in the dark and the soldier can see him, but we can't (this kind of simulates how you'd be able to tell that it's an alien before you can see what rank it is, due to the darkness and all that), but in day missions when you would be able to see the alien (and see his rank, weapon, etc) if he were not behind a wall or whatever, you'd be able to see him and make a more educated decision about what to do.

Since we can't rotate the camera at all (which honestly I wouldn't really like that much, anyway) to show things behind props and such, this could help alleviate that problem.

I hope that made sense.

Edited April 15, 2013 by GizmoGomez

[Gauddlike]

Yeah it did.

I would also like to see the transparency aura work for highlighted enemies.

If the cursor could be made to work the way I suggested then maybe that would be enough to trigger the transparency for everyone as well, at least until you left go of the button.

[GizmoGomez]

That could work too, yeah. It's just annoying the way it is, and honestly unplayable at times. I mean, the game is to shoot aliens. When you literally can't shoot your alien because the camera in the sky has a boxcar in the way, somethings not right.

Ha, I don't even mean for everything to involve a train car in the way, they're just so easy to pick on I choose them by default.

[Sathra]

Anyone else having the crosshairs not showing on otherwise fully visible aliens? There's something weird going on near the Cruisers. Besides the bum's rush.

[StellarRat]

Anyone else having the crosshairs not showing on otherwise fully visible aliens?

I think I've had that happen. Don't remember exactly when though.

[erutan]

I've had it with a drone that was hovering over some boxes, and with a sebillian that was crouching near a transparent wall that still "covered" him visually though my soldier had LOS.

[Sathra]

What I'm talking about is an alien not near any props at all. 2-3 tiles from the UFO hull in the open and have to use manual targetting to attack.

[Bansheedragon]

There is one thing that I find extremely frustrating.

I played allot of these UFO games over the years and the one thing that in my opinion seems to be the biggest flaw in all of them are the aim.

My soldiers cant seem to hit the broad side of a barn regardless of skill even at point blank range with a 80-90% hit chance, while the aliens seem to be able to hit the head of a pin from across the map.

I know that 80-90% is not a guaranteed hit, but I should be hitting on average 8-9 of 10 times.

I can have 5 soldiers shoot at an alien with that hit ratio, each of them firing 2-3 shots each, and be lucky to hit with 1 or 2 shots.

I'm talking 1-2 shots total, not for each soldier.

And then there is the angle of the shots from the weapons, many shots seem to go in what looks like 30-45 degree angle from the weapon and sometimes hits my own soldiers instead of the aliens, and in many cases I end up killing my own troops.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Bansheedragon