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Proposed Psionic Fixes


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So psionics have been discussed for a while now as being broken and not very fun. I've been thinking about them and how we can improve them without taking their threat away completely. Here are my thoughts:

1) The new calculation is going to use current soldier Morale, instead of Bravery. I thought it already did that, but apparently that is not the case. This means the morale bonuses of having an experienced commander on the mission and so forth don't actually provide protection against psionics right now. Similarly, a soldier who has seen his friends shot dead around him and is losing his cool is going to be more susceptible to alien psionics.

2) Berserk is going to be renamed to Hallucinate, and it'll work slightly differently. The "berserk" morale event currently makes a soldier fire at the closest alien unit, or if there are none around, they will fire at a Xenonaut unit instead. This works fine as an occasional panic event, but it's not a very good psionic power.

If an alien manages to cast it on your men, it either forces the soldier to do what they would do anyway (if there is a nearby alien) or makes them gun down friendly units....which is practically the same as Mind Control. Instead, I think we'll change it so the Hallucinating unit has a 75% chance to fire at a random ground tile instead of a unit. This reduces the chance of friendly fire, but also means the unit is forced to waste a turn so it's also some use to the alien side.

3) Mind Control is pretty strong. I don't want to make this LOS-only, because then it's too easy to avoid - it's rare you end a turn in the LOS of an alien leader unless you've just gunned it down. I imagine we'll give the power a cooldown, with the stronger aliens able to use it more often. So perhaps a Praetor can use it every two turns and a Caesan Leader every four turns.

4) I'm still thinking on what the updated formula should be, but the overall effect should be to reduce the amount of psionic spam the player endures. One thing we could do is to make psionic powers hit automatically, but give your soldiers Morale / 2 as a "psionic save" (so up to 50%) check against every power that would negate the power.

We could then give all aliens different modifiers to this roll to represent their differing levels of power - so a Caesan psion might give you +40% to the save, but a Praetor might give you +0%. We could also consider giving the powers cooldowns, and the more powerful psions having shorter cooldowns?

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This all sounds good to me. I quite like the simplicity of the proposed mechanic, in particular.

Re: Mind Control: If it's not going to be LoS only, would it be possible to make it fairly short range (say 15-20 tiles). If one of the issues people are having is guys getting MC'ed at the dropzone, a cooldown isn't going to help much with that.

Alternatively (to pitch this again!) a save bonus based on range (say +2%* per tile away from the caster?) so low morale troops are susceptible at any range, but high morale soldiers are only vulnerable in relatively close quarters.

* EDIT: actually, even 1%/tile would make a pretty big difference.

Edited by kabill
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@Chris - I think all these powers should be affected by range. A power that can hit anywhere on the map 100% of the time is pretty OP, IMO. The Xenonauts have nothing even remotely as good. One thing I hated in the OG, was that they could MC you anywhere, LOS, no LOS, spotted, not spotted it was horrible. At least, if they're range dependent you might be able to estimate where the psion is hiding with some deduction. When you say, you don't want MC to be LOS-only I'm assuming that the still has to be spotted by an alien of some type, yes?

Edited by StellarRat
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Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten that no-LoS doesn't necessarily mean no LoS at all!

Also, further idea re: not getting MC'ed off the boat: have powers start cooling down from turn 1, so it takes a few turns before the aliens can use their psionic attacks for the first time (their brains are warming up, or something like that).

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I think that current Psi effects are fine, the problem is not in his essence, the main problem is the bravery system. For a soldier have enough defense to get a really low "chance" to resist if is closer to other xenonauts.

Mindcontrol is powerfull because is unknown field for humans, and at the same time is the human weakness.

My proposition

We been running lot of test of Mind controled humans and first of all we find two things:

1. Make the controled humans RUN, only RUN to a near group of aliens, like an abduction. The soldier drop his weapon and run mindless throught Psi source.

2. That aliens can target Civilians and soldiers.

If you make that this both things work, mindcontrol will work great. Berserk is wrong too, whena soldiers get panic and berserk.... shot allied? No, I don't think so... I think that is completly wrong, instead the berserker soldier will shoot to the nearest alien like crazy even with low accuracy, and if the soldier dosen't have any target he shot at random, each "shot" at random.

I imagine Hallucination like other thing completly different, like psionics creating images of aliens that don't attack but run and take cover. Thing that make the player waste ammo and get crazy.

I hope you like my suggestions

Edited by TacticalDragon
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How about aliens roll a random number up to their psi strength, humans roll a random number up to their morale.

Highest number wins.

If you want to make higher ranked aliens better at landing psi powers you give them more psi strength, if you want to protect your soldiers more you take along a high ranked commander or move them closer together.

Technically if both values are about the same then you already have a 50/50 chance of the power working without needing to add the save mechanic.

Taking along higher bravery troops or getting morale boosted would increase your save chance.

The player at least has something they can do about psi powers.

The psi strength would be something like an accuracy roll for weapons.

You could even combine that with stellars suggestion for range degradation by adding a modifier per tile, as with weapon range.

Psi powers may even have an optimal range so some are better than others when it comes to distance, as with weapons.

Mind control for example may not need line of sight but it could have an optimal range of 20 tiles.

If an alien tries to use it from outside of those 20 tiles it will have a steadily lower chance of success.

Then you may even be able to reuse the AI setting that prevents them taking shots with low accuracy.

Aliens will not use psi powers with a low chance to succeed, they will wait until enemies move closer.

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The thing that makes Mind Control so much more powerful than in the original is that the MCed soldier gets to act immediately. In the original, they would only act after a turn had passed, giving you time to either knock out the soldier in question, or just have your remaining soldiers run away and take cover from their newly MCed ally.

Is this something we could try? Having a whole turn to deal with the problem soldier would give us time to decide if we want to shoot, stun, suppress, or run away from the affected soldier. It puts some agency back in the hands of the player, rather than MC = almost certain death for somebody, as is currently the case.

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First of all, I love the change to berserk. Hallucinate already sounds like a much more balanced ability just from the description.

Secondly, I don't know if I agree with a 50 max chance to avoid psi attacks. While a max level soldier with maxed moral would have a 90% chance to avoid against the Caesan in your description, I feel like a 50% chance to lose control of my battle hardened max rank Colonel may be a bit much, especially if he can potentially be captured every two turns in late game. Instead, I propose that a soldiers max chance to avoid the attack be based on their rank. For example; against a Praetor you could cap Colonels at 60%, while a lowly Private would only have a 20% chance max to avoid the attack. This could be adjusted for other psionics, such that a Caesan psion would have great trouble attempting to MC a high rank soldier. They would still be a threat to you in the early game (and late if you bring low level troops), while being something you can negate later on with proper planning. Additionally, these odds could be adjusted for various difficulty levels.

Thirdly, range should definitely be considered. Nobody likes being MC'd from across the entire map. Maybe psionics range could be 1.5-1.75 times visual range, and psioncs could attack any enemy within sight of an ally? This would allow them to remain on the back lines of combat, and attack your soldiers, without requiring themselves to be within LOS of your soldiers.

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As long as I can't actively work against MC and psi-attacks in general will I be forced to abuse the game mechanics and drop all my weapons every (second) turn. A mind controlled unit would mean a certain death of at least one comrade otherwise. I highly doupt that anyone would consider that fun so there definatly need to be changes.

If you don't want to make it LOS only than give it as suggested at least a range limitation and/or an indicator what is going to happen. As long as it can happen to anyone at any time is it just frustrating to play against, whatever you decide I think you should keep that in mind. I know I added here nothing new but I really wanted to point that out.

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I like the changes, but I think the chance of success is still too high (> 50%). The tension comes from the threat of psionics (good). The frustration / irritation comes from psionics overshadowing game play too much (bad). Keep the threat but make it less likely to succeed (for example, save based on on "Morale" rather than "Morale/2").

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The thing that makes Mind Control so much more powerful than in the original is that the MCed soldier gets to act immediately. In the original, they would only act after a turn had passed, giving you time to either knock out the soldier in question, or just have your remaining soldiers run away and take cover from their newly MCed ally.

Mind Control in the OG worked exactly the same way as it does in Xenonauts:

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Mind_Control

This is one of the reasons why it was broken *for the player*, because you could control an alien, use it to scout and spot more aliens, mind control them and so on and thus potentially mind control all aliens on the map without any effort at all.

Perhaps you're thinking instead of XCOM2012, where MC'ed soldiers only act the turn after they were MC'ed. It's worth bearing in mind that this sytem worked there partly because MC lasted more than one turn anyway; I'm not sure it would work so well in Xenonauts since it needs to be refreshed every turn to keep working.

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I don't get your argumentation on MC, Chris. When one of your soldiers gets mindcontrolled, he's pretty much always in a position to kill at least one of your soldiers. When MC isn't LOS only, then there is NOTHING the player can do to prevent losing that soldier, which is NOT FUN!

If we can't get psionics ourselves, then there needs to be at least an efficient way of countering it. Hoping the dive will role well for you is not a good way to do that.

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Berserk / Hallucinate:

Hallucinate idea is good i think. With alien prioritization, berserk was kind of pointless for aliens to use, like taunting Xenonauts to fire at them. And without prioritization, it was too powerful like being equal to MC. Let's try hallucination I say. It sounds good.

Mind Control:

In the other thread, someone suggested adding suppression as the effect of less successful MC attempts. So instead of cooldown or "Miss", less successful MC attempts would suppress the soldier with a message like:

"trying to resist the mental probing of a powerful pshychic entity"

so higher bravery/morale soldiers gets less Tus for the alien controlelr to use, and none when just too high, or unable to control.

Range / LoS Issue:

Psychic being LoS only would break the immersion. Though a while ago someone had an idea of revealing the attacker (simulating that the alien's image appearing to the victim in his mind). Being usable from across the map is OP, but I think it needs to stay from within the next room, like when you are approaching the command room of the caesan base. Caesan Leader's psychic powers emanating from his command lair would cause the tension build up and be the distinguishing factor of his race from others. This should of course go with the Caesan commander often preferring to hole up in his command room, as opposed to for example a Sebillian commander who might want to lead his elite warriors in a charge against the attackers early on.

Passive Psychic Abilities Suggestion:

When engaging a Preator. Dread, MC, other mindscrew might start to unnerve and disperse your team as you get close to him. Soldiers may be affected by a dread chance purely by being near him or within LoS (he is mentally so terrifying). Say when we get the close range bonus to our guns, Preator gets these more terrible powers of passively dreading your guys. Alternatively unnerve can get buffed to be multiple target for really powerful psychics. Variation will make him feel more interesting. Though his MC from across the map should be toned down surely.

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The problem is then the effect being too powerful rather than the lack of LOS, Amaror. There's nothing wrong with non-LOS powers or relying on dice rolls (the game is basically all dice rolls).

I quite like the idea of incorporating range into the powers, and I actually think Gauddlike's suggestion of the "success" calculation simply being a roll up to the alien's psionic strength stat vs. a roll up to the target soldier's current morale.

You can also give every power a range, and then give the defending soldier +1 to their defence roll for each tile beyond that.

Possibly the mechanics of MC can be updated. Maybe it could last until either the unit or caster is killed / stunned, but not take effect until the next enemy turn so you've got a turn to react. We'll see, though. I'm going to make the other changes first and see if they mitigate the problems by themselves.

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My take on MC:

The effect of MC depends on how "good" the connection is.

- If the soldier is in direct LOS of the controlling alien, control is total and he can be made to shoot team mates.

- If the soldier is within squad sight and 15-20 tiles, the soldier can be made to grenade / shoot at "safe" scenery, wasting ammo and TU and possibly ruining cover.

- If the soldier is within squad sight he can only be made to move around. That can be dangerous all by itself but doesn't auto-kill your team.

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As long as I can't actively work against MC and psi-attacks in general will I be forced to abuse the game mechanics and drop all my weapons every (second) turn.

This.

We shouldn't discuss how powerful psi should be. Core of the discussion should be game mechanic. That means, how can player react. What are players options?

Game mechanics that roll random number and than kill your soldier without any input from players is ...

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How about range affecting how many TU the alien has to use, representing their unfamiliarity with the controlled body and the targets resistance to the commands?

This would be on top of a range modifier to psi strength to provide extra resistance at longer ranges.

A range penalty to the psi strength means there is a resistance mechanic in place but it is invisible to the player.

A resisted MC attempt could have been weak from extreme range or just a very lucky rng from close range.

If the amount of TU available to the controlled unit is also modified by range then every tile beyond the optimal range of the power reduces available TU.

The player could deduce the rough range to the enemy by what the controlled soldier does.

If they have time to run halfway across the map and fire a shot they must have been close, if they can only take a couple of steps then they must have been at extreme range.

If aliens are still given squad sight by controlled enemies then controlling one of your troops could still be useful even if they don't immediately gun down your squad.

If it helps think of this as similar to how weapons work.

Psi power against morale is like the accuracy roll to hit, modified by range.

The range modifier to TU is like a damage falloff over range.

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If possible, making psionic attacks effects having more varied results would be great. Kind of like how normal weapons do varied damage, psionics could also be more varied than 'success' vs 'fail'. The effect can also vary with range as well. It will build up tension as we approach the psychic. He will start with only mildly unnerving some soldiers, but as we get closer, he starts dreading, suppressing etc. with increasing effectiveness, causing soldiers to lose so much more Tus, or health, or go berserk etc.

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The problem is then the effect being too powerful rather than the lack of LOS, Amaror. There's nothing wrong with non-LOS powers or relying on dice rolls (the game is basically all dice rolls).

...

Not to be a pooper but I find that not so lucky thought concerning games. The game basically rolls dice but the gameplay is about what the player can do, organize, plan and react to these dice rolls. In essence the question should be what the psionic powers are meant to change in gameplay for the player to do.

The great critic about MC is that the entire tactical game is about unit dispersal, movement, location and identifying threats. It kind of wrecks that because you have no unit tactics to actually deal with it. Imagine chess where the queen could be randomly overtaken by the other player. It would completely mess up the game.

Maybe a Reaper is a good example for having some similar factor but well dealt with. It's a one shot kill weapon that can really murder your team, in that way you could say it is overpowered and can be frustrating. But with a Reaper you can assess it being there (Sebillions around, big mission => there may be Reapers), your men slow to a crawl you check all corners, you preserve reaction shots. Then you could have Buzzard/Sentinel jump suits you move soldiers into safety, put vehicles in front etc. etc. etc.

So you have this overpowered melee unit (since no other unit nor your men can kill someone by touch) but there is plenty to be done to manipulate the odds of these dice rolls.

Imo the important bit aren't specifically the algorithms of those psi powers but the question how do you introduce gameplay to the "psi warfare".

E.g. one pretty crude but possibly fundamentasl change would be that MC doesn't kick in the turn the soldier gets controlled but next turn. That introduces one simple thing: The player can react to this change in the tactical situation. That's imo also where the LOS idea comes from by others. It essentially moves psionics somewhere where you can identify and neutralize it fast instead of being hunkered down in the UFO. It creates gameplay because you can react and adjust tactics.

I just wanted to add that imo that aspects goes beyond some formulas and algorithms but to a question of game mechanics and that for a player to accept getting thrown a curve ball he needs to get a reaction time to deal with it.

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If possible, making psionic attacks effects having more varied results would be great. Kind of like how normal weapons do varied damage, psionics could also be more varied than 'success' vs 'fail'. The effect can also vary with range as well. It will build up tension as we approach the psychic. He will start with only mildly unnerving some soldiers, but as we get closer, he starts dreading, suppressing etc. with increasing effectiveness, causing soldiers to lose so much more Tus, or health, or go berserk etc.

That's true as well.

If range affects how much morale damage is done and the message reflects how much morale damage is taken you could have people unnerved by a weak attack, scared by medium strength attack and suffer dread from high powered version of the same ability.

The player will know when they are getting closer and can respond by rushing the enemy or retreating and using a vehicle to scout.

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Not to be a pooper but I find that not so lucky thought concerning games. The game basically rolls dice but the gameplay is about what the player can do, organize, plan and react to these dice rolls. In essence the question should be what the psionic powers are meant to change in gameplay for the player to do.

This.

A random death ray has no place in a game where the player is supposed to be able to use tactics to win.

It's the same principle as your chopper arriving at the mission zone and you getting a popup window:

Your pilot was mind controlled and crashed the transport. Everyone aboard died. Mission lost.

What tactic would you use to prevent or mitigate that?

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This.

A random death ray has no place in a game where the player is supposed to be able to use tactics to win.

It's the same principle as your chopper arriving at the mission zone and you getting a popup window:

Your pilot was mind controlled and crashed the transport. Everyone aboard died. Mission lost.

What tactic would you use to prevent or mitigate that?

Oversimplify much?

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On the other hand it is like an alien pointing a gun at you then having to roll a random number to see if you get hit or not which is exactly what happens every time a shot is fired.

If range, mitigation, and line of sight are used alongside resists then you have very similar options available to counter psi that you do to counter weapon attacks.

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On the other hand it is like an alien pointing a gun at you then having to roll a random number to see if you get hit or not which is exactly what happens every time a shot is fired.

If range, mitigation, and line of sight are used alongside resists then you have very similar options available to counter psi that you do to counter weapon attacks.

except with weapon attacks I can use cover, smoke, and suppressive fire to counter

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