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Messages - osunightfall

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Open Feedback / Re: Mission frequency?
« on: June 20, 2014, 07:17:50 pm »
I'm noticing in 1.0 that there seems to be a dramatic increase in terror missions (2-3 a month), while standard UFOs seem much rarer; I tried several new campaigns at various difficulties and terror missions started popping up immediately, while it would sometimes take two weeks just to spot a UFO. Is it just me? Was the original game like this and I'm just remembering incorrectly?

1.0 is fantastic, regardless. :)

I don't know... I feel like I've had a lot of different experiences in the first month. I know that sometimes I've gone the entire month and not spotted a single UFO, only to get the terror mission at the end of the month. I don't know that I've seen three terror missions in a month but it might be possible. I've definitely seen two. And I know playing on veteran in the classic game I've definitely had a sectoid base invasion in month 1.

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Suggestions / Re: the 80 item limit
« on: June 19, 2014, 06:20:00 pm »
Yes, I think it is important to note that nobody is suggesting changing OpenXCom's default behavior of "infinite items on transports." Rather, my original suggestion was to re-instate a configurable item limit that would apply to all craft. Others have proposed more ambitious, weight-based ideas, sometimes on a per-craft basis. If I were designing the game today, I'd certainly try to implement such a system. However, my original suggestion was intended from a curatorial standpoint. If OpenXCom sees curation as an important part of its mission, then I think that their current implementation has failed to meet this goal. This is not even mentioning the simplification of strategic decisions discussed above.

Not that I don't love OpenXCom. Let's not get the wrong idea here.

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Suggestions / Re: the 80 item limit
« on: June 19, 2014, 09:53:19 am »
Hm, it seems my post has been moved. Perhaps some kindly dev will see it and be inspired by our eloquent arguments. :)

4
Open Feedback / Re: Graphics differences (OpenXCom/OriginalXCom)?
« on: June 18, 2014, 06:15:47 pm »
Depending on why you asked, it's also important to note that you can apply various filters to the graphics to give smoothing or sharpening effects at higher resolutions. Also, the resolution of the Geoscape and Battlescape can be effectively increased by increasing the viewable area. For example, you can set it to be able to see much more of the battlescape on the screen, which will effectively shrink all graphics, but also make them look better and sharper by modern standards.

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Suggestions / Re: What you have done here is a work of art
« on: June 18, 2014, 07:58:56 am »
you make a compelling argument, but perhaps a WEIGHT limit would be better than a "number of items" limit?
also, don't worry too much about the blaster launcher, the AI has limits imposed on the number of waypoints it is allowed to use based on difficulty

I certainly agree that were I designing the game today from the ground up, a weight limit would be by far the better option. The reason I propose an (optional) return of the item limit is simply to adhere more closely to the original game whilst also preserving certain strategic decisions. A weight limit also imposes another problem, in that one would have to re-examine the weights for all carryable items. I've heard that a lot of the weights don't make a lot of sense, but I admit I haven't looked at it myself.

My comments with regards to the blaster launcher weren't because I was afraid of misuse by the AI. Rather, it was already an incredibly powerful tool in the hands in the player, certainly the most powerful in the game. My concern is that giving it more waypoints merely boosts its power further, though I admit that on most maps, 9 waypoints was enough to do practically anything already.

Thanks to everyone in the thread for your consideration of my points. And if I haven't said it enough already, thank you especially to the entire team of OpenXCom. After playing for a while, this recreation of X-Com is better than I could ever have hoped. Everyone involved deserves the most sincere thanks of X-Com fans everywhere.


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Suggestions / Re: What you have done here is a work of art
« on: June 18, 2014, 12:41:10 am »
I am personally happy with this "no limit" as I considered in the past this 80-limit was a nonsense
Especially when I tried to load 20 pistol clips and 60 rifle clips, and had also no free place anymore to take any other weapon : this is not as if I was trying to load 80 rocket-launchers...

But I agree this was a constraint that was part of the game and you are right to say removing this limit changes the game balancing

Would it be not more logical to implement a limit in terms of storage capacity (I mean taking item size into account) instead of number of items ?

Right, question already discussed

It surely would be more logical, but this strays ever farther into the territory of "modding."

Another scenario that occurred to me was, with some kind of limit, and the 80 item limit in the main game, there was another strategic decision that came up. With a squad of 24 men, it was generally the case that you knew those 24 men would be spread thin in terms of equipment. You might get, say, a plasma weapon, one clip, and a grenade, with a few more items for spice. However! If you decided you wanted better armed, more elite troops, now there are more decisions to be made. You might purposefully take less men in total in order to better equip those that did come along. This gives the player another reason to use the sometimes maligned HWPs. Or, perhaps you might decide to switch to laser weaponry, specifically to save yourself another 24 items on clips. Now, you've traded some firepower in order to be more versatile. Or you might combine the two, both replacing some men with HWPs, and also choosing to use laser weaponry. Now, you have soldiers that are equipped for a wide variety of situations, but you've sacrificed both pure firepower and boots on the ground (keeping in mind that trained soldiers own HPWs) in order to bring along more secondary equipment. These are the types of decisions you'd expect to see in a game of this type; it's merely happenstance that in X-Com they exist because of an oddly implemented limit on total carried items. I would argue however, that if the nature of the decisions is correct to the game, it doesn't matter that the reason you're making them is to avoid an arbitrary item limit. Really the absurdities only reveal themselves when you start trying to carry 150 rifle clips into battle or give every soldier a half-dozen grenades, three clips, a stun prod, and flares.

The point I'm trying to make in general is, simply removing the item limit wholesale rather than making it more configurable is not quite so obvious a choice as it might seem at first. The item limit had many effects on the game that affected the way one played, and similarly, removing it also has many effects on gameplay, both good and bad.

However, if adding a configurable item limit to transports is too difficult or otherwise not worth the time, perhaps a compromise? A simple counter of total items on the plane in the equip transport screen. This would make it easier on those of us who would like to preserve the kinds of strategic decisions discussed above, whilst not putting entirely on us the responsibility of self-policing item count by manually adding up line-items on the equip screen.

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Suggestions / Re: What you have done here is a work of art
« on: June 18, 2014, 12:06:37 am »
And, as I think about it, more possibilities occur to me. For example, one of the great things about the hyperwave decoder is that it tells you what kinds of aliens inhabit a certain craft. This could also sometimes influence what you might bring on a mission, especially early on. For example, bringing extra proximity grenades and incendiaries for a Chrysalid mission, or extra AP rockets against Mutons. There are many other examples as well. The point being, that knowing what you were going to face with the hyperwave decoder was a noticeable, though often under-used advantage of that device. Now, I can carry every weapon that could possibly be useful against every enemy, and know ahead of time that I'll always have exactly the right weapon for the job, even when I have no idea of what I'm facing.

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Suggestions / Re: What you have done here is a work of art
« on: June 17, 2014, 11:50:39 pm »
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=340.msg2615#msg2615
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=1659.0

If they have already considered these issues and rejected a configurable limit, that is fine. I would still maintain however, that this falls too far into the territory of "mod" rather than "bug fix". Even other XCom launchers that removed the 80 item limit generally only extended it. Also, having the plane add to base stores does not fix the opposite problem. If I load every single man of my 24 man squad down with two weapons, multiple clips, flares, several grenades apiece, 40 or 50 blaster bombs, and so forth, my squad is now far more powerful than it could ever have been in the original game. This is not simply a matter of convenience as with so many of OpenXCom's fixes. Rather, it changes in a very serious way some of the fundamental balance of the game. That is the reason I asked for a hard limit.

If someone in authority rejects my reasoning, I'll accept that, but I still believe my reasoning is correct. While it is certainly possible to self-police, due to the fiddly nature of equipping transports it is far from optimal. I agree with one of the posters in the quoted threads. Some kind of limit, even if decided by the user, increases strategy and reins in the power of squads. One would have to decide for example: Is it worth giving up our proximity grenades to take flares for a night mission? Similarly, as mods begin to become more common, having a hard limit increases options for design. To cite an example, You might have a very powerful weapon with bulky clips, each of which is worth only one shot. Then you have a choice to make. How many of these is it worth it for me to take, and what am I giving up in return? To a degree we already see this behavior in the base game with rockets and blaster bombs. In a game that is largely about management, I would hate to lose this sort of strategic problem entirely, even if I do agree that 80 items is a bit too low, and that its effects on base defense missions were crippling.

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Suggestions / Re: What you have done here is a work of art
« on: June 17, 2014, 11:31:55 pm »
Simply for two reasons, in my opinion. First, because it was a condition present in the original game. Regardless of the reason for its being in the game, it was an engine limitation, not a bug per se. There is even an in-game message that will tell you that you can only carry 80 items on the plane. This is not like the 'Paying for Dirt' bug or 'Firestorm fuel calculation' bug where it's just something that slipped by the developers. If the objective is to be true to the original game whilst fixing bugs, then at the very least the 80 item limit exists in a grey area between bug and "intended because of memory limitations." I hope you will at least grant me that if memory limitations had not restricted the items carried to 80, that the limit the developers chose would not have been "infinity."

Secondly, while I agree that I could manually restrict myself to an arbitrary limit of items, it would get rather tedious trying to manually count items every time I try to alter loadouts or resupply the planes. I agree wholeheartedly with any number of bug-fixes. However, my argument is that this falls into a somewhat different category. Purists might prefer to leave it alone, and even in my case, where I think 80 is a little too stringent, I would prefer a configurable hard limit.

Please keep in mind however, that I am only talking about restricting the amount of items available in UFO capture missions. I do not think that base defense missions should be affected by any limit at all. Base defense being restricted to 80 items was certainly the 80 item limitation rearing its head in another fashion. Even then, it would've probably been acceptable if you'd had any control over what those 80 items were. The fact that you didn't was either a legitimately overlooked bug or a compromise made for time or budget reasons.

I hope this has answered your question.

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Suggestions / the 80 item limit
« on: June 17, 2014, 08:57:26 pm »
Guys, it's been a long, long ride. I think I never really believed this project would be finished. I've seen it here and there over the years, always in progress, with completion always a long way off. And now, out of the blue, I see that it's complete. Congratulations! I just...I couldn't be happier. This project means a lot to a great many people, and I'm one of them. I'll be hitting up the donate button later today. You all deserve it.

While I'm at it though, I do have two small pieces of feedback. Other than the feedback of "I absolutely love practically everything you've done, and it's amazing."

1. If I understand the differences page correctly, the blaster launcher and other waypoint based weapons that may be created no longer have limited waypoints. I'm curious about the rationale behind this decision. The blaster launcher was by far the most powerful and perhaps even broken weapon in the game. The only tiny, tiny balancing factor other than weight was that it only had 9 waypoints. Was it really necessary to make it even more capable of completing missions on its own?

2. I notice that the 80 item limit has been removed from the equipment slots on transports. This is good...to a point. But it seems a little silly and kind of broken that I can literally bring hundreds of weapons and pieces of equipment on board and always pick the best stuff immediately before and during missions. I realize that since this is a change to the classic game, opinions will differ on how much gear is too much, but perhaps a configurable item limit could be implemented? And perhaps it could default back to 80 items, as in the original? Bug or not, it was an important factor in how the balance of the game played out.

Other than that, OpenXCom seems utterly fantastic. This project proves that dreams can come true.

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