Reapers too powerful?

[Endominus]

So, this suggestion might make thegame a bit darker, but might result in more interesting decisions in Terror Missions; what if Reaper attacks didn't cause instant zombification, but the target turned in 3-5 turns? You see a civilian running toward your lines, you know there are Reapers around; do you take the risk of letting him live? Is the score he gets you worth the risk of having a possible reaper running around?

Plus, imagine the look on a new player's face as the civvie he's trying to shield explodes into a zombie, which all his soldiers shoot to reveal a reaper, which then takes out half his squad. I suppose that's a reason not to do it that way, in addition to the added complexity of reaper/alien AI (to make them pick their targets more judiciously).

Although, this would provide a possible upgrade for the medical kit (perhaps after performing an investigation on a live Reaper) - the Reaper Egg Extraction Kit. Then again, that might neuter the fear that they engender in players.

[HWP]

I'm usually all for difficulty, but there are some issues with introducing mechanics that ignore other mechanics.

For one, if Reapers ignore armor, one of the best armors against them is naked. Is that really the idea - that it makes sense to be naked around them?

"X disregards all your defensive mechanics" should be a last resort measure; balancing is about making mechanics outweigh one another, not go over all others' heads.

I think a better way to add challenge would be to make Reaper infections probabilistic and occasionally not easily detectable. E.g. have some civilians turn into walking zombies, others turn into a corpse harboring a Reaper, others still just get infected and hatch with no prior signs.

If the idea is that Reapers can not be "tanked", using MMO jargon, - then you can give non-lethal Reaper attacks on a Xenonaut a moderate chance to cause an infection. Said infection would then have random chances on each following turn to 1) zombify them or 2) hatch a new reaper outright, or 3) "mind-control" the Xenonaut and in a couple turns or upon death spawn a reaper.

This way you can't safely stand there and have your armor take it all, but it doesn't promote battle nudity either.

The difficulty of detecting infections would make Reapers more challenging without requiring magic-like mechanics. More fearsome, too, since unknowns are the worst.

"Egg extraction kit" would be too gimmicky, but allowing a medical scanner to detect infections (with no chance of treatment) is probably fair enough. Taking control away from the player upon detection, e.g. via panic, to prevent exploiting this for a safe suicide.

Edited January 18, 2014 by HWP

[ventuswings]

RANT WARNING

For that matter, I think it would be best to reintroduce the ability to suppress the Reapers. Formerly they seemed useless but clearly this is no longer valid with improved AI. Allowing them to be suppressed would allow more strategic planning than "fire everything you got them and hope it is enough or WE ARE SCREWED" thing going on right now.

Also yeah, no instant zombification. It will prevent snow-balling, and when Reaper just stops right next to soldier completely defenseless as they are prone to do right now, player will have to figure out whether to kill that soldier or not! I mean, it's unintuitive that result of the attack is immediate instead of being delayed; soldier suddenly bursting into Reaper out of nowhere would be much less confusing. I know it is bit much to request such complex mechanic right now, with all the multiple states regarding infection states and corresponding morale effects, but it would lead to some epic moments - you have your best soldier infected, or have ten corpses-about-to-be-zombie littered throughout the battlefield, but you kill the last alien on the map and everything is fine! Hooray!

Throw in the Reaper Egg Extraction Kit as end-game tech too, why not. Would help nerf the final mission which is super ultra extreme hardcore at the moment.

All of them are clearly much more simple solution than making them more rare.

Edit: Apologizes for much sarcasm, but Chryssalid mechanic issue is something I feel strongly about as it was icon of XCOM. I hated what Firaxis did and some of the proposals are... traumatically reminiscent. I'd rather experiment with simple solutions such as stat change and reduction of missions where they appear before making huge drastic changes.

Completely blowing up a zombie so there is no corpse = no reaper.

Does gibbing Zombie with explosives still yield a Reaper? That's something which should actually be changed I think.

Edited January 19, 2014 by ventuswings
less raging :(

[TrashMan]

"Egg extraction kit" would be too gimmicky, but allowing a medical scanner to detect infections (with no chance of treatment) is probably fair enough.

Hmmm..why not an egg extraction kit?

Remember, it would still cost you a lot of TU's and it would only prevent zombification, not heal the already criticly injured soldier.

Hell, the kit might even have a % chance to work, possibly futher injuring or killing the patient (given that that thing has to be cut out NOW).

So again, more factors are added into the mix:

- do you waste precious TU's (given reapers are around) for a slight chance you can save a solider thats probably a goner?

- do you waste space for such a kit in the inventory? How many people will carry the kit?

[Endominus]

I was just suggesting something for the tonal shift it would cause, not the gameplay shift. I don't imagine that this should take preference over balancing Reapers in general, and understand the difficulties in implementing complex behavior patterns this late in the development cycle. Don't get me wrong; it's doubtful that my ideas are in any way implementable in the game in its current state, but I like to think about the design of games and this alteration I believe would be interesting as a thought experiment.

Although... Imagine the scenario you described; a soldier is infected, but you kill the last alien on the map and everything is fine. The transport returns to base, and a few hours later the base is assaulted! That soldier that got infected is gone! All your scientists and engineers and janitorial staff are running around and something keeps turning them to reapers!

That's basically a horror movie plot.

You could go even more extreme (and this is totally in the realm of fantasy - infinite development time and resources to test out drastic gameplay changes); any given terror mission starts out with at most only one Reaper but each civilian on the map has a chance to be infected when the mission starts. Although that would raise the issue of what happens when you miss one of them by the time the mission ends; going with the darker theme, we could assume that everyone who witnessed the event was "silenced" to prevent the spread of panic, but that might be a bit too grim.

And not only do gibbed zombies become Reapers, you know how sometimes your "casualties" in ground combat remain alive with 2% health at the end of a mission? One of my best agents got zombified, gibbed, gibbed again, and survived the mission. I believe even her corpse was gibbed. She got renamed Kane afterwards, in honor of her alien parasite.

[HWP]

Hmmm..why not an egg extraction kit?

Remember, it would still cost you a lot of TU's and it would only prevent zombification, not heal the already criticly injured soldier.

I was thinking along the lines of curing civilians.

It runs the risk of turning an overpowered enough squad into essentially a medical team, which likely runs contrary to the vision for these missions.

I don't imagine that this should take preference over balancing Reapers in general, and understand the difficulties in implementing complex behavior patterns this late in the development cycle.

Perhaps.

Replacing essentially infinite damage with a % risk of infection for every attack that deals damage is, on the other hand, a relatively very simple change.

[Dead Dread]

Guys its ment to be a terriflying opponent that will destroy your squad with a single poor move... on the other hand we are handicapped compared to the OG as buzzard armour "jumps" rather than flys, so you cant hover above them safely and we dont have incidenary rounds to prevent them hatching from zombies...