Alien Psionic Powers Discussion

[StellarRat]

@Silencer - Yes they did. But was that a good implementation? I would argue, "no".

@kabill - I may actually have put this in the wrong thread, but here's my thinking: If the berserk state is induced by psionics, then it could well be the way you describe it and maybe should be re-labeled. If, on the other hand, it's induced by morale failure from losses of a soldiers buddies in combat, it would no doubt be rage directed at the enemy and my changes would make sense.

@Both - If you'll remember, in the OG, there was overlap between alien MC could and morale failure could do to a soldier. Soldier could panic and lose all TU from both MC and morale loss, but the result was the same. My argument is that "berserk" would/should not be the same.

[Gauddlike]

I like the idea of berserk forcing the target to charge at the enemy.

It would be good for the aliens in most situations if it forced one of your soldiers out of cover.

I still think some suppression damage could be applied as well for the following turn.

I think of it as a bit of natural paranoia after the mental attack.

[Max_Caine]

There are complaints about there not being a defence against psionic attacks, but I'm not sure what people want instead? You want there to be a way to completely prevent your soldiers being affected by psionic attacks? You can't fully protect your soldiers from an alien walking round a distant corner and one-shotting your soldier with a lucky plasma cannon shot either, but doesn't mean there's something fundamentally wrong with the shooting system.

If you look at the posts complaining about psi abilities, the bedrock complaint underneath the layers of emotive language is "I have no agency over what the aliens can do". That's mostly because when an alien uses its psychic power, that power always seems to work, and the player can't do anything about it. So adding a morale-based saving throw looks like a pretty good idea. In turn-based tabletop games (such as warhammer 40K), "saving throws" verses abilities form a cornerstone of player psychology. They create a barrier to harm that the player has some agency over, even if it's just rolling a dice. "Oh no!", cries the player, "I couldn't stop the alien kicking off it's ability! Go save verses psionics!". If you give some kind of agency, somthing the player can do, I think you'll see these complaints dry up.

[StellarRat]

If you look at the posts complaining about psi abilities, the bedrock complaint underneath the layers of emotive language is "I have no agency over what the aliens can do". That's mostly because when an alien uses its psychic power, that power always seems to work, and the player can't do anything about it. So adding a morale-based saving throw looks like a pretty good idea. In turn-based tabletop games (such as warhammer 40K), "saving throws" verses abilities form a cornerstone of player psychology. They create a barrier to harm that the player has some agency over, even if it's just rolling a dice. "Oh no!", cries the player, "I couldn't stop the alien kicking off it's ability! Go save verses psionics!". If you give some kind of agency, somthing the player can do, I think you'll see these complaints dry up.

It is true that in the OG, some soldiers were more vulnerable than others. At a minimum, you could at least pick soldiers that were less vulnerable. I remember I used to fire every soldier that had come under mind control when my team returned from the mission even if they were awesome in every other respect. It was just too risky to keep them on. Just by process of elimination I could eventually build up some defense. The only other solution were very gamey things like completely disarming troops that had been mind controlled, etc... It all sucked in that regard. The fact that the player can't mind control the aliens back makes mind control seem grossly unfair and frustrating.

[Gauddlike]

Having an alien walk onto the screen and fire off a shot that just misses or just fails to kill your soldier is a moment of relief.

You just don't get that with the current psi powers.

There is no chance for the player to get a surge of elation when their favourite corporal resists the psi attack that could have crippled him.

It is just a continuous grinding down of patience with pop up messages that have no tactical counter.

If morale was the counter then grouping your soldiers together or getting a couple of kills could turn the tide of the fight.

If a resist degraded alien morale or increased soldier morale then a couple of lucky resists are even more of a nice surprise for the player.

[StellarRat]

One thing that could be very helpful and make things much more "fair" for the human is to reveal the location of any alien that uses psionics. Maybe the power puts the picture of the alien in humans mind at the same time it is being used or some other "magic". At least then you could hunt down the psionic users or use suppressive fire to prevent them from "beaming". Then the players wouldn't feel completely powerless to stop them.

Edited April 9, 2014 by StellarRat

[dmholt]

Chris, I don't want "a way to completely prevent your soldiers being affected by psionic attacks", but I do want a strategy that can be used to mitigate them. I can't stop aliens shooting at my soldiers, but I can be careful about moving my soldiers, seeking cover, etc. In other words, I can apply a strategy. I cannot apply any strategy for psi powers in Xenonauts - that is no fun in a strategy game. My recollection from the original game is that psi attacks were a big challenge at first - but through research you could determine which soldiers were resistant to psi powers, and you could build a squad that was resistant enough that psi powers became a minor annoyance. You could apply a strategy in response to psi powers. In Xenonauts now, there is nothing I can do, no strategy I can use. Psi attacks affect my bravest soldiers often enough so that it doesn't seem like there's much point in building a "braver" squad, and I find myself reduced to doing things like dropping weapons at the end of each turn in order to be able to complete a mission without several deaths. This is no fun.

[Gauddlike]

That was why I suggested that remaining TU could be used as a modifier as with reaction shots.

You could defend by moving slowly and spending the rest of your time humming annoying songs or doing complicated sums in your head to protect your mind.

Not sure that would be overly clear to players though.

[Vahilior]

There are complaints about there not being a defence against psionic attacks, but I'm not sure what people want instead? You want there to be a way to completely prevent your soldiers being affected by psionic attacks? You can't fully protect your soldiers from an alien walking round a distant corner and one-shotting your soldier with a lucky plasma cannon shot either, but doesn't mean there's something fundamentally wrong with the shooting system.

Disclaimer: All my comments are based on V22 Experimental 2

The thing is with the being shot scenario there are a huge number of actions you can take to avoid it happening or to mitigate the damage when it does happen. You can equip better armour to reduce the damage, more experienced soldiers have more health and a higher chance of getting of a reaction shot. By advancing very carefully and checking sight lines etc its pretty unlikely it will happen in the first place.

In the current situation with psi attacks there is absolutely nothing the player can do about them. Positioning and careful movement does nothing, in fact youre incentivised to throw caution to the wind and advance as quickly as possible to kill the psi unit. There is no equipment choice you can make to sacrifice in order to protect against the attack type. Stats appear to make almost no difference (I didn't notice any discernible difference in frequency of successful psi attacks on my Commanders or the Sergeants in the same mission). There is absolutely nothing the player can do about psi capable enemies except sprint through the mission and hope to minimise damage.

Compounding these problems many aspects of the psi powers still don't seem to work properly, mind control most certainly is not limited to 30 hexes or squad sight. On Battleship assault missions my men were being mind controlled one turn into the mission and miles from the ship and its Praetor commander. They were also being mind-controlled and berserkered when they hadn't even seen and enemy for five turns. The success rate for psi attacks is also extremely high, in the game I was playing one soldier went berserk or became mind controlled every 2-3 turns and would kill another soldier pretty much every time they did. Often they would kill one soldier and then another would reaction fire and kill them. Without saving before every turn and reloading the mission was effectively winnable.

The current implementation of Psi Attacks makes them much like a finger of God. There is nothing you can do about it but pray that the Enemy Psi unit doesn't reach down from on high and squish one or two of your units whenever it deems fit. Which it will do, frequently

Radically improving the effect of the bravery stat will help this situation, but its worth considering what making psi defence dependent on this will mean if you loose you elite troops. It should ideally be possible, but difficult to train up a new team. If rookies are completely defenceless to psi attacks in the late game then this will not be possible. Effectively linking psi power to range and implementing the squad sight limitation will also make a huge difference. Ideally you want your troops to only be dealing with mind control and berserk when they are entering the top floor of a UFO with a psi unit or the command room of a Alien base. Then the tendency to instantly lose men feels less like divine punishment and more like the consequence of facing an enemy elite.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Vahilior

[Skybirduk]

The current implementation of Psi Attacks makes them much like a finger of God

Or like being attacked by the Monty Python foot...

[video=youtube;-rutX0I6NxU]

(At the end 37 seconds)

Edited April 10, 2014 by Skybirduk

[kabill]

Radically improving the effect of the bravery stat will help this situation, but its worth considering what making psi defence dependent on this will mean if you loose you elite troops. It should ideally be possible, but difficult to train up a new team. If rookies are completely defenceless to psi attacks in the late game then this will not be possible. Effectively linking psi power to range and implementing the squad sight limitation will also make a huge difference. Ideally you want your troops to only be dealing with mind control and berserk when they are entering the top floor of a UFO with a psi unit or the command room of a Alien base. Then the tendency to instantly lose men feels less like divine punishment and more like the consequence of facing an enemy elite.

The way bravery improves at the moment should mean this is a non-issue. Bravery only increases by itself if a soldier panics, which is fairly rare until you start meeting psionic aliens anyway. The only other way in which veterans can have more bravery than rookies is if they have medals, but the effects of medals are so small (on average, your soldiers may have maybe +5 bravery from medals?) that this is hardly much of an advantage. Naturally high-bravery soldiers are therefore pretty much the only source of high-bravery soldiers; new recruits won't therefore be at much of a disadvantage at all.

(An aside: shouldn't resisting/succuming to psionic attacks improve bravery as well as panicking?)

[arcweldx]

The thread started by focusing on mechanics, but I'd instead focus on *gameplay* - what do you want to accomplish with psionics? Many good thoughts so far about why psionics (here and in the OG) turn people off. The fun of a strategy game comes from being able to control your own destiny through skill and planning. Bad luck and random noise is fine, but at the end of the day you want the sense that the outcome mainly depended on your own good or bad choices.

Your own example is a good place to start: "You can't fully protect your soldiers from an alien walking round a distant corner and one-shotting your soldier with a lucky plasma cannon shot either, but doesn't mean there's something fundamentally wrong with the shooting system."

I have no problem with the "lucky shot" scenario. In fact, the possibility adds to the tension and paranoia. But it doesn't happen that often, and I can mitigate the chances through caution and tactics. Every once in a while you drop into a hot LZ and you take fire stepping off the dropship. Again, the possibility adds to the tension. But if every landing began with shots coming straight into the dropship killing 2-3 troops, that would be irritating and frustrating.

So, some loss of control is good. A great deal is simply not fun. Like lucky shots from the dark, I think psionics should be a threat with potentially devastating effects but only *rarely* takes gameplay (tactics, planning) out of the hands of the player. BTW, I think tying psionic vulnerability to a a transparent trait that's clear from the beginning (Bravery) is a big improvement from the OG, where you discovered in the middle of the game that half the troops you'd worked so hard to develop were now completely useless.

[Gauddlike]

Radically improving the effect of the bravery stat will help this situation, but its worth considering what making psi defence dependent on this will mean if you loose you elite troops. It should ideally be possible, but difficult to train up a new team. If rookies are completely defenceless to psi attacks in the late game then this will not be possible.

That would be where morale comes in.

Keep your troops within 10 tiles for a morale boost, take along a higher ranked soldier for a morale boost, get a couple of alien kills for more morale and so on.

[Vahilior]

That would be where morale comes in.

Keep your troops within 10 tiles for a morale boost, take along a higher ranked soldier for a morale boost, get a couple of alien kills for more morale and so on.

I did say if you've lost your elite troops I mean more in a scenario where your entire team gets wiped out than if you loose just a bunch of them. It happens sometimes and it should be a massive set back but not game over.

The way bravery improves at the moment should mean this is a non-issue. Bravery only increases by itself if a soldier panics, which is fairly rare until you start meeting psionic aliens anyway. The only other way in which veterans can have more bravery than rookies is if they have medals, but the effects of medals are so small (on average, your soldiers may have maybe +5 bravery from medals?) that this is hardly much of an advantage. Naturally high-bravery soldiers are therefore pretty much the only source of high-bravery soldiers; new recruits won't therefore be at much of a disadvantage at all.

Guess this explains why my vets were being mind controlled exactly as much as Rookies. I think that just reinforces the point that you need ability to respond to or prepare for psi attacks. In the original game people complained because you would unlock psi testing and have to bench some of your best guys because bad scores made them a liability. Currently though bravery is kind of similar. I had one issue with panicking or bravery on my last playthrough when a reaper took out 5 people in one turn, other than that it just wasn't important so I didn't prioritise it at all. Then psionics show up and youve got people one shotting each other left and right. It makes it like the psi score in the original xcom but there's even less you can do to prepare or respond to it.

Part of the problem of removing psionics for the player is if its badly balanced it feels even more ridiculous when you get crushed by it. With XCOM it wasn't greatly balanced but you got to dick on the enemy with it so you didn't mind as much. The current Xenonauts implementation has it less balanced and you don't even get to run around being a dick with it yourself. I think currently its really the only glaring problem with the game. Everything else is nicely balanced and great fun.

[Gauddlike]

I did say if you've lost your elite troops I mean more in a scenario where your entire team gets wiped out than if you loose just a bunch of them. It happens sometimes and it should be a massive set back but not game over.

Guess that is a playstyle issue as even if my whole first team gets wiped I will usually have at least one or two soldiers around somewhere who are not total rookies, even if they are just a base garrison leader or someone who was replaced for a while due to injury.

I rarely only have the exact number of soldiers to make up just one team without a single person left over above the rank of private.

The other points would still apply even if you had complete rookies as they don't depend on your soldiers rank but on the players actions.

[StellarRat]

Psionics in the OG were poorly done in general. That was one of the few things that people complained about even back then. I really don't think it would be good to basically do the same thing in Xenonauts just for the sake of making it more like the OG. I think people will have the most problem with dread and paralyze as they can affect your troops with absolutely no chance of the player knowing where the attack is coming from hence my suggestion about range attenuation and possibly even revealing the location of the "emitter". This would a least give the player some way to counter the attack by firing at the alien. I have less problem with MC as it is strictly LOS now. So you know the source can't be too far away. If dread was quite range limited then you would also have some idea that the "emitter" is fairly close and could proceed with a search the in the immediate area. When the whole map is a possible location than it is just complete frustrating and rage quit can happen. Any power that can essentially "go through walls" and has a 360 degree AOE makes it very powerful weapon even if it is very range limited.

I also believe that bravery should have an effect on the aliens chance to use Psionics. That way at least the player could identify soldiers that might be best suited to keep in the long run. It does make bravery a more important attribute. Right now all I really care about in my soldiers are accuracy, reflexes and strength.

Edited April 10, 2014 by StellarRat

[Vahilior]

Psionics in the OG were poorly done in general. That was one of the few things that people complained about even back then. I really don't think it would be good to basically do the same thing in Xenonauts just for the sake of making it more like the OG.

I don't think anyone has suggested making psionics more like in the original game.

My experience with Mind control was that it is not limited to LOS at all, nor by range. The suggestion about revealing the location of the psi attacked is interesting but given psionics tend to be in the bridge of the UFO or the command centre of an alien base it doesn't make much difference. You know where the psionics are and you are still going to have to go through every other enemy to get to them.

It seems like everyones in agreement about bravery needing to be more of a factor, but perhaps given what Kabil said about how rare it is for bravery to increase apart from a small amount with medals perhaps the simple fix is too have bravery increase every time a soldier gains rank. Maybe we all think bravery has no impact simply because none of our soldiers ever increase their bravery much beyond the starting point.

[StellarRat]

I don't think anyone has suggested making psionics more like in the original game.

But they ARE like the OG in many ways and that's bad. That is what I was getting at (sorry if it was a little vague.) Some of the attacks are unlimited in range, arc, and don't require LOS just like the OG.

The location thing might not be useful in all situations, but a substantial range attenuation would definitely help.

There ought to be a way for Xenonauts to improve their bravery. Maybe everytime they are the target of enemy fire they ought to get an increase at the end of the battle just like they get increases in accuracy for firing their weapons in combat.

Edited April 10, 2014 by StellarRat

[wcanyon]

I posted this elsewhere, was asked to bring it here. A couple of things about this berserk/unnerved system that need help:

1. When someone is unnerved or berserked it's impossible to figure out after the alien's turn. All I get is a brief message and a sound effect. There should be an icon in the soldier's portrait that means "unnerved" etc so I can pull that person out of heavy combat.

2. Berserk people just shoot randomly. That's not what berserk means. 9 times in 10 my people go berserk when there are no aliens around. I would expect berserkers to run straight at an enemy and start firing. That would make more sense. Why would a berserker just start shooting randomly? In a military sense, battle "berserk" doesn't mean just smashing shit, it means losing control and rushing the enemy.

3. Alien control. There should be some sort of research around it. I lost 3 people on a mission due to alien control. When I get back to the base, there's nothing about it (other than some text in the alien leader research summary). There should be a suit addon that will allow me to partially negate alien control. There should be at the very least a research item that I can research that will give my guys a 10% chance to resist or something.

[Vahilior]

But they ARE like the OG in many ways and that's bad. That is what I was getting at (sorry if it was a little vague.) Some of the attacks are unlimited in range, arc, and don't require LOS just like the OG.

The location thing might not be useful in all situations, but a substantial range attenuation would definitely help.

There ought to be a way for Xenonauts to improve their bravery. Maybe everytime they are the target of enemy fire they ought to get an increase at the end of the battle just like they get increases in accuracy for firing their weapons in combat.

Ah ok thanks for the clarification, I completely agree with you on all points, perhaps when wounded or hit in addition to getting health increases soldiers could get bravery increases. Like "Eh, i've been shot before, wasn't so bad." Or simply when you loose a xenonaut on a mission. Combat experience in itself should increase bravery and confidence, not only when it all goes horribly wrong and everybody freaks out. Perhaps resisting psi attacks themselves should confer a substantial bennefit, it would make sense the more you are subjected to them the more resistant you become.

Berserk people just shoot randomly. That's not what berserk means. 9 times in 10 my people go berserk when there are no aliens around. I would expect berserkers to run straight at an enemy and start firing. That would make more sense. Why would a berserker just start shooting randomly? In a military sense, battle "berserk" doesn't mean just smashing shit, it means losing control and rushing the enemy.

Alien control. There should be some sort of research around it. I lost 3 people on a mission due to alien control. When I get back to the base, there's nothing about it (other than some text in the alien leader research summary). There should be a suit addon that will allow me to partially negate alien control. There should be at the very least a research item that I can research that will give my guys a 10% chance to resist or something.

I agree on these points too, berserk is currently pretty much as dangerous as mind control, simply from a game balance view rushing the enemy would be better. It still carries a huge risk of them breaking formation and being reckless but its less disastrous than mind control. They have said no additional items, but yes my preference would be for capturing a psion to let you research some object you could carry with you to protect against psi attacks, something heavy so it replaces a med kit or rocket launcher or equivalent. That said I think its unnecessary with some more mild changes to the way bravery develops and making mindcontrol and beserk actually behave the way they should.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Vahilior

[Gauddlike]

I agree that adding a new item would be kind of pointless.

The game doesn't have an in depth equipment system so off the top of my head it it would either replace your weapon, be carried in the backpack, or at a pinch be a one time research bonus or armour addition.

None of those feel like a particularly interesting idea that benefit gameplay.

Fixing the system rather than trying to patch the holes sounds like a better idea.

So far I like the idea of:

Tying morale into the system as a resist stat as it can be modified by the players actions from mission to mission rather than just by progression as bravery.

Berserk as a charge towards the enemy, maybe trying to get into short range?

Stellars ideas on range limitations so a psi attack is a warning of a nearby alien rather than an annoyance while you hunt for them.

*edit* I also like the idea of hallucinate adding suppression damage.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Gauddlike

[Max_Caine]

wcanyon, looking at numerous definitions of beserk I struggle to see how beserk means anything other than "behaving in an uncontrolled, frenzied and violent manner", which can indeed mean shooting at random, or running at the enemy, or running at a civilian, or running at your own side. The key words are "uncontrolled", "frenzied" and "violent". If there were melee attacks beyond stun batons, I'd expect beserk soliders to start laying into anything that was close.

[silencer]

Maybe instead of berserk - it should be - "Went bananas"

[StellarRat]

wcanyon, looking at numerous definitions of beserk I struggle to see how beserk means anything other than "behaving in an uncontrolled, frenzied and violent manner", which can indeed mean shooting at random, or running at the enemy, or running at a civilian, or running at your own side. The key words are "uncontrolled", "frenzied" and "violent". If there were melee attacks beyond stun batons, I'd expect beserk soliders to start laying into anything that was close.

There are closer the usual military definition of berserk - "an ancient Scandinavian warrior frenzied in battle and held to be invulnerable. 2. : one whose actions are recklessly defiant ..."

3.Unrestrained, as with enthusiasm or appetite; wild.

Generally, it means a frenized and reckless attack on the enemy without regard for orders. In Squad Leader berserk troops would charge the enemy without regard for their own safety. Giving up cover, running in the open, etc...

Edited April 10, 2014 by StellarRat

[StellarRat]

Maybe instead of berserk - it should be - "Went bananas"

That's a better definition of the current implementation. But it sure sounds silly.