OpenXcom Forum
OpenXcom => Suggestions => Topic started by: Surrealistik on August 13, 2015, 09:51:42 am
-
https://openxcom.org/bugs/openxcom/issues/341
I think it should work like this:
If an infiltrated/withdrawn country hosts no alien colonies/bases there is a % chance that they will rejoin X-Com at the end of each month that scales with the score for that month if X-Com managed to obtain a rating of 'Good' or better. This % chance is further increased in proportion to the score X-Com accumulated in that country's territory.
In general, if they would increase their funding if they were still a member nation they would rejoin assuming there are no alien bases in their territory.
To compensate for this, the aliens may be more aggressive and proactive in their attempts to infiltrate countries.
Also, for the love of god, if I shoot down the vast majority of an infiltrating armada before it lands, or stop a landed Dreadnought via a ground assault, please don't let the country get infiltrated anyways; that is just straight up bullshit. I know it was like this in the source game, but it was a stupid design flaw then, and it still is now. Easily my biggest peeve/annoyance.
-
By the time you go to land site the aliens will already have made a deal,you are just arriving at the time they are leaving
-
Even within an hour or two of landing?
Man, that's pretty damn fast as interspecies diplomacy goes.
Also what about actually downing the ships in the first place? Why should that do nothing?
I mean the way it actually works in the code is that the moment they enter the geoscape you're done son; it's over, they've succeeded, sit down, your agency doesn't matter; doesn't matter how many of the ships you shoot down, or whether you invade the landing site. It's nonsense.
-
Presumably most of the discussions happen between envoys, and even "by hyper-phone" and the battleship landing is just so the president can shake the hand of the alien diplomat. You interrupt the celebration of the new alliance, so they both hate you more and the country defects. It makes no sense that the discussion would happen only while the battleship is landed. How do they even "get permission" to land? Or arrange a meeting? You don't bring a battleship to open discussions...
Anyhow, I don't really like the way it works currently either, since it leaves no power in the hands of the player. With the new mission scripts, it might be possible to tweak things and make the mission more dynamic instead of a predetermined failure.
-
I figured that they don't have permission to land; the initial armada infiltrates alien operatives into the target country's government that sets things up, and the follow up second dreadnought/battleship does the handshaking/treaty signing.
But yes, all that shit is irrelevant/besides the point; what really matters is that the mechanic is utter shit because it totally disrespects player agency.
-
But otherwise Xcom can farm aliens forever and there is no need to go to Cydonia.
Player is supposed to fight a losing battle against alien menace.
-
And really, any player worth his salt is making enough money by the time countries start defecting that it doesn't REALLY matter. Just sell everything you got from those ships you shot down.
-
It's not about the (financial) consequence, it is about the mechanic that doesn't make sense. Players who care about losing countries mostly don't do so because they lost money, they do so because they don't want to lose the country, worked on killing every alien that attempted to turn the country and still lost it because of game magic. There shouldn't be scripted game magic, there should be a self-consistent story.
As for being pushed to go to Cydonia, that's what increasingly numerous and difficult missions is for: Once you are ready, you have the choice to go and most likely win, or stay here for little real advantage but risk getting your soldiers killed in combat.
And really, if someone wants to farm UFOs for fun, I'm not going to argue against that. It is a single player game and we all have various conceptions of what's fun.
-
The mechanic makes sense from a game design perspective, but I agree it is done a little heavy handed. But then the game could just spam like 20 battleships all at once on infiltration missions to achieve the same thing. Would make more sense story wise like you want, but would probably piss people off just as much.
-
Well, a mechanic that says "As soon as the rng decides this mission starts, there is nothing the player can do about it, but it's ok because it doesn't hurt the player too much if they are already abusing something else" is a mechanic that many would like to see improved, myself included ;)
I'd rather try to fight an air war against 20 battleships in the hope of saving a country than look at the one landed battleship and wonder if I should raid it, knowing that besides loot and points, I will not get any advantage out of it. It's like if shooting down terror ships did not prevent terror missions from happening. Actually, the very fact that shooting down the terror ship can prevent the terror mission hints that it should be doable to shoot down the battleship and prevent the defection.
-
Even if X-Com was intended to be fighting a losing battle (I don't think that was ever actually confirmed by the devs), there's definitely better ways to do it that don't totally rob the player of agency and exploit arbitrary bullshit. Slowly escalating UFO activity to the point that the player can't keep up for example (no suddenly lolwtf 20 battleships, but that might happen if you let things drag on too long).
-
I agree that the mechanic is not the best out there, especially when you have the equipment to shoot down 3 battleships and their attended escorts. That said turning on and off the funding of a counsil member doesnt sound legit either. It can lead into schizophrenic occurances the like of: January the US abandons X-Com. March US rejoins the X-COM. Add infinitum.
-
To be fair, alien infiltration is exactly that; no good alien shits masquerading as humans that have subverted the government. If those shits were outed because you totally handed the aliens their ass and there was popular uprising against an alignment with the invaders, it's totally possible that a country could pull a 180 in short order.
On the otherhand, if the aliens were especially aggressive in subverting governments, they could indeed yoyo a newly anti-alien government back into line, by replacing its leaders with bugeyed imposters.
-
Also, for the love of god, if I shoot down the vast majority of an infiltrating armada before it lands, or stop a landed Dreadnought via a ground assault, please don't let the country get infiltrated anyways; that is just straight up bullshit. I know it was like this in the source game, but it was a stupid design flaw then, and it still is now. Easily my biggest peeve/annoyance.
There are many players who feel like this, but this is not a reason enough to change one of the cornerstone UFO mechanics. A mechanic that adds the feeling of inevitability and powerlessness. It naturally angers me when a country defects, but isn't it a bit of a childish feeling? Such is the reality of war, and X-Com is not The United Earth Defense Force, not even The Anti-Alien Inqusition, but a small, clandestine operation - so there are many things beyond X-Com's power to change. If a government wilfully embraces the aliens, what the X-Com can do? Bomb that country? Stage a coup? The real diplomat-carrying alien vessel is probably not even shown on the map, as it is bound to be protected by the airforce of the defecting country.
-
Again, it's a game, player agency is important, and disrespecting player agency as this does is pretty much a leading hallmark of bad design; it's not childish to take objection to a punishing mechanic that totally discards your ability to do anything about it. You can't even stop the aliens from distributing their agents/infiltrators, the precursor to pact signing, in the first place.
If the motive behind this shitty mechanic was to guarantee inevitable failure, assuming such a motive exists, this was a terrible way of doing it, and there are better alternatives.
-
swearing in every single post doesn't help get your point across, please tone it down and talk like a civilized human being.
if you can't make your point without devolving to this kind of behaviour, please don't make it at all.
-
I believe I recently read here, that Russia won't defect to the alien side. If that's true, you have no problem whatsoever. As somebody else already said, by the time this could affect you, you probably won't have any money issues any more, as production and selling scavenged times will keep you a rather large income, even if there's only one supporting country left.
-
Hey, they could have made it so that there wasn't even any indication this was happening, with countries just randomly siding with the aliens. At least this way you know you're losing a country at the end of the month.
I don't know, I guess I just don't have a problem with timer mechanics that push the game forward.
-
I believe I recently read here, that Russia won't defect to the alien side. If that's true, you have no problem whatsoever. As somebody else already said, by the time this could affect you, you probably won't have any money issues any more, as production and selling scavenged times will keep you a rather large income, even if there's only one supporting country left.
Never heard that, but if true, it debunks the idea that inevitable failure is intended as a deliberate design goal, and that infiltration is supposed to put the player on a clock as seems to be believed by many, and which was never actually confirmed.
@ Mazian: That the mechanic could be worse doesn't mean it shouldn't be better.
-
I have to correct myself: I (probably) had it from here (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Talk:Alien_Infiltration).
-
Never heard that, but if true, it debunks the idea that inevitable failure is intended as a deliberate design goal, and that infiltration is supposed to put the player on a clock as seems to be believed by many, and which was never actually confirmed.
Nobody said that you can loose through country defection, the Russia non-defective status is sort-of-confirmed (better ask the devs for 100% confirmation), and it is highly improbable that majority of countries will defect before even a low-skilled player, who managed to survive to this point, will have the final mission available. It just was never the point of discussion. Your point was, it seems, that your feelings are hurt if a country defects due to non-controllable outside effect (ie. a random dice roll). My point is that hurting feelings is precisely the point of this mechanic and it's all good, as - in my personal opinion - the mechanic isn't overtly punishing, especially considering how strongly almost every other strategical aspect of the game (money, tech improvement, firepower) favors the player. The only strategical factor that favors the aliens is that player's elite soldiers are hard to replace - but this is balanced by the fact how uber-powerful these elite soldiers are, compared to any alien unit.
Having said all that, OpenXCom is supposed to be a faithful recreation of the original, not an "improved" version that removes or changes important parts of game experience. Such as the dreaded Alien Infiltration mission. I love XCom precisely because it sometimes just plainly says F**K YOU to the player. For example there was a long discussion over removing the "first turn grenade TPK" un-fun event from the game, and it finally stayed out (with an added option to enable it), but this was much nastier and definitely more unfair event than the Infiltration Mission.
-
Again, it's a game, player agency is important, and disrespecting player agency as this does is pretty much a leading hallmark of bad design; it's not childish to take objection to a punishing mechanic that totally discards your ability to do anything about it. You can't even stop the aliens from distributing their agents/infiltrators, the precursor to pact signing, in the first place.
If the motive behind this shitty mechanic was to guarantee inevitable failure, assuming such a motive exists, this was a terrible way of doing it, and there are better alternatives.
I dont know weather that is fixed or not but the Russians never bail out therefore you can continue indefinently as long as you can manage scraping cash. Also in theory one of the fail scenarios is indeed this. Theoritically X-Com cant continue the fight indefinetly either and the world is slipping in mass hysteria by the hour so...
I agree with the resty of your post that it indeed is counter intuitive as a mechanic though.
Never heard that, but if true, it debunks the idea that inevitable failure is intended as a deliberate design goal, and that infiltration is supposed to put the player on a clock as seems to be believed by many, and which was never actually confirmed.
It was not done on purpose I think, it was a bug resulting on how the map was divisioned into zones and has something to do with the overlapping of Russia/Siberia/Europe.
-
just as an FYI: Russia never gets infiltrated because there's no infiltration missions scheduled for that region, and there is no failure condition for having all funding nations drop out.
getting back to the point, i find myself in complete agreement with Dioxine's posts, and this Russia thing doesn't really debunk anything. my reasoning is based on the source code, specifically where, how and when things are handled. to put it in simple terms:
you have two functions: spawnUFO and UFOLanding.
all the code regarding for instance, terror site generation, happens in UFOLanding. the ufo touches down, but instead of becoming a landed craft, it becomes a terror site, if anything happens when a UFO touches down, it's in here.
all the code for pact signing etc. happens in spawnUFO.
my point is, the relevent code didn't end up in spawnUFO by accident. we don't need an official statement from an interview with the developers to determine that.
-
I thought, in vanilla, there was. Anyways, that confirms, that you simply can't loose caused by lack of funding nations, even if there were such a game-over-condition. It simply won't happen. So you can play the game until the sun explodes, if you wish.
-
[Opinion]
The alien auto-successful infiltration mission was always my number one nitpick with the original. To me, what the original developers intended is largely irrelevant (I tend to lean more towards 'death of the author' interpretations of work). I just never liked how this was handled. Mind you, I'm past the frothing rage I felt many years ago when I first lost a nation after a bunch of UFO assaults, but I still never liked how the game slaps you in face with it. It's rather strange, because the game does this all the time in other aspects and no one cares. I think infiltration specifically makes players angry because players give themselves the illusion of being able to do something about it even though the game never suggests these missions could be stopped. Most players simply assume that infiltration can be stopped like any other mission. Expectation leads to disappointment. That disappointment is worsened when players mop up every UFO that lands which takes forever and they still lose the nation. At least that was my experience with it.
[/Opinion]
That said, while I don't think the vanilla game should be changed, I do wish infiltration wasn't hardcoded. I would totally mod a special mission out of it. I want to fight aliens in the Capitol Building while useless congressmen run around screaming. ;D
-PS I hope my opinion doesn't make anyone upset. I find my opinions have a tendency to do that.
-
Nobody said that you can loose through country defection, the Russia non-defective status is sort-of-confirmed (better ask the devs for 100% confirmation), and it is highly improbable that majority of countries will defect before even a low-skilled player, who managed to survive to this point, will have the final mission available. It just was never the point of discussion. Your point was, it seems, that your feelings are hurt if a country defects due to non-controllable outside effect (ie. a random dice roll). My point is that hurting feelings is precisely the point of this mechanic and it's all good, as - in my personal opinion - the mechanic isn't overtly punishing, especially considering how strongly almost every other strategical aspect of the game (money, tech improvement, firepower) favors the player. The only strategical factor that favors the aliens is that player's elite soldiers are hard to replace - but this is balanced by the fact how uber-powerful these elite soldiers are, compared to any alien unit.
Having said all that, OpenXCom is supposed to be a faithful recreation of the original, not an "improved" version that removes or changes important parts of game experience. Such as the dreaded Alien Infiltration mission. I love XCom precisely because it sometimes just plainly says F**K YOU to the player. For example there was a long discussion over removing the "first turn grenade TPK" un-fun event from the game, and it finally stayed out (with an added option to enable it), but this was much nastier and definitely more unfair event than the Infiltration Mission.
No, it's not that my 'feelings are hurt', it's that it's a poor game mechanic because again, it completely disrespects player agency and prevents the player from having any say about whether or not an infiltration succeeds in a game that is all about outmaneuvering the aliens on a strategic and tactical level. A mechanic that is about robbing the player of agency in a game predicated on it is a bad mechanic; full stop. I don't mind RNG rolls determining outcomes for small scale stuff, like individual shots on the tactical level, since it's possible to control and manage your overall risk and still come out ahead; the loss of agency here is not meaningful unless you're a bad player and you constantly rely on making a shot or two to uphold your tactical game. I _do_ mind it however, when it comes to completely irreversible, high impact nonsense like infiltration events.
Yes, OpenXcom is intended to be largely a faithful recreation; that is why I am asking for an _option_ to make Alien Infiltration counterable.
Lastly, since you can still continue the game even with all countries having signed a pact, it seems more likely than not that inevitable failure was not a core design goal (and again, even if it was it should have been handled differently).
-
@Warboy: Is there a way with the new mission scripts to create a mission where the landing of a ufo triggers a defection instead of its spawning?
If there is, a simple mod that removes the old infiltration and adds a new mission where landing triggers defection, everybody could be made happy..
I am surprised that the idea of allowing players to impact all aspects of the game faces so much opposition. It seems a pretty basic thing to want from a game to me.. "Oh, you weren't good enough" is desirable, but "oh, screw you because why not?" is not a great mechanic, even if the consequence isn't too bad (then it is even more pointless, if it's not too bad of a consequence, why not allow the player to play against it?)
-
@Warboy: Is there a way with the new mission scripts to create a mission where the landing of a ufo triggers a defection instead of its spawning?
From my point, this looks as ridiculously, as the no-way-of-stopping-part. If they land and I land there as well, obliterating them completely, this mission totally shouldn't be a success for them. As for any other landing mission, I presume. Or does e. g. an alien abduction mission succeed, even you catch them in the act? Don't know about that.I am surprised that the idea of allowing players to impact all aspects of the game faces so much opposition. It seems a pretty basic thing to want from a game to me.. "Oh, you weren't good enough" is desirable, but "oh, screw you because why not?" is not a great mechanic, even if the consequence isn't too bad (then it is even more pointless, if it's not too bad of a consequence, why not allow the player to play against it?)
I agree, especially, when you find out later... I also noticed, that they »somehow« managed to get past my defenses, which I always found very suspicious. Now I know why they still succeeded in infiltration, even when I shot down every last one of them. Seems like there's no point in reacting to this supposedly »worst threat« (O-Tone of the Ufopaedia) to the X-com-Project, as you will not succeed anyways, no matter what you do. That kind of fools the player. It might not be a problem, if it comes down to loosing the game, or not. But it still feels quite bad.
-
Perhaps it was originally set up where you could stop it from happening, but it made the game too easy? Maybe the way it is now was purely about adding a challenge. I'm all for someone making a mod to change this, but I bet the game becomes even more of a cakewalk. Maybe add into the mod lower over all increases in funding to compensate?
-
Crossed my mind to create a mechanic for sponsoring xcom intelligence services. But hey, unless Julian Gollop himself has input, I wouldn't consider it authentic. Wish he'd do another squad based combat game, or rework laser squad nemesis.
Yeah, I'm a perfectionist. Still on my first playthrough of openxcom, getting about 30 ufo missions a month and so far no countries lost. Maybe with more than 250 soldiers with psi strength of 50 or more, the others were all 'lost'.... Guess I'd be disappointed to lose one country.
-
From my point, this looks as ridiculously, as the no-way-of-stopping-part. If they land and I land there as well, obliterating them completely, this mission totally shouldn't be a success for them. As for any other landing mission, I presume. Or does e. g. an alien abduction mission succeed, even you catch them in the act? Don't know about that.
I agree, especially, when you find out later... I also noticed, that they »somehow« managed to get past my defenses, which I always found very suspicious. Now I know why they still succeeded in infiltration, even when I shot down every last one of them. Seems like there's no point in reacting to this supposedly »worst threat« (O-Tone of the Ufopaedia) to the X-com-Project, as you will not succeed anyways, no matter what you do. That kind of fools the player. It might not be a problem, if it comes down to loosing the game, or not. But it still feels quite bad.
Yeah, I think that even if it lands, unless they successfully take off, you should be able to thwart them with a ground assault.
I mean hell, a Leviathan attacking a Dreadnought one on one with dual Sonic Oscillators will be put out of commission for nearly a month, while a Manta will get annihilated; ground assaults should definitely be an option for stopping it.
-
No, it's not that my 'feelings are hurt', it's that it's a poor game mechanic because again, it completely disrespects player agency and prevents the player from having any say about whether or not an infiltration succeeds in a game that is all about outmaneuvering the aliens on a strategic and tactical level. A mechanic that is about robbing the player of agency in a game predicated on it is a bad mechanic; full stop.
No it's not. It's only your opinion that it is. An opinion I happen to disagree. Dealing in absolutes like this is good for contained, full-control, full-information games like chess, or, speaking about Gollop, Chaos Reborn. Or games that are close to it, like Starcraft. In games that fall more on the simulationist side (see Dwarf Fortress, or any Grand Strategy game), the uncertainty factor should appear. Because in such games, you cannot ignore the meta level. You wish to, but I disagree with it. And the meta level is:
1. You cannot fully investigate Earth, and by extension the alien activities as a whole. The world is to be imagined as vast and complex, not a contained chess board. The simulation simulates only some aspects, because it cannot ever simulate everything.
2. The inability of XCom to revert Infiltration should be therefore seen not as game failing, but an element of simulation which conveys a message about the game's world. The message conveyed is, it's beyond XCom's power to do so. We can interpret is as: XCom neither is able to, or mandated to, wage war on defecting Earth countries.
I don't mind RNG rolls determining outcomes for small scale stuff, like individual shots on the tactical level, since it's possible to control and manage your overall risk and still come out ahead; the loss of agency here is not meaningful unless you're a bad player and you constantly rely on making a shot or two to uphold your tactical game. I _do_ mind it however, when it comes to completely irreversible, high impact nonsense like infiltration events.
You deny feeling an emotional impact, yet you use the word "nonsense". Nonsense implies illogicality, yet you deny illogicality by your argument - by stating that both random chance to hit with a weapon and a random chance of losing a country are both mechanics of the same ilk - "the loss of player's agency". A notion I agree with, except I'd prefer to call it "simulation uncertainty". Uncertainty, if it happens, can only be illogical from the metagame point of view - and I have explained how the metagame level logically explains Infiltration. Therefore, it is logical, which doesn't, of course, automatically make it fair. I have agreed it is unfair, but acceptably unfair. It is not, in my opinion, unfair enough to make the game unplayable.
We can of course argue if the game should be more simulationist or more contained. As XCom was balanced to cater to both crowds, it seems to sit somewhere in the middle... My XCom is more simulationist than contained, but everyone has the right to their own XCom. Your sentiment is as good as mine in that regard, with the exception the original game works the way I prefer, not the way you prefer. However I cannot agree with the notion that bad contained game mechanics = bad game mechanics, since contained games are not the only kind of games.
-
What about my idea of liberating infiltrated countries I've stated several times:
Simply remove all alien bases within the borders/colonies in the sea zones bordering the country and there will be a chance each month that the country will nullify the pact with the aliens and start funding with an increase from $0. The higher your overall performance and the higher X-COM activity is within the nation, the higher chance of nullification.
-
No it's not. It's only your opinion that it is. An opinion I happen to disagree. Dealing in absolutes like this is good for contained, full-control, full-information games like chess, or, speaking about Gollop, Chaos Reborn. Or games that are close to it, like Starcraft. In games that fall more on the simulationist side (see Dwarf Fortress, or any Grand Strategy game), the uncertainty factor should appear. Because in such games, you cannot ignore the meta level. You wish to, but I disagree with it. And the meta level is:
1. You cannot fully investigate Earth, and by extension the alien activities as a whole. The world is to be imagined as vast and complex, not a contained chess board. The simulation simulates only some aspects, because it cannot ever simulate everything.
2. The inability of XCom to revert Infiltration should be therefore seen not as game failing, but an element of simulation which conveys a message about the game's world. The message conveyed is, it's beyond XCom's power to do so. We can interpret is as: XCom neither is able to, or mandated to, wage war on defecting Earth countries.
You deny feeling an emotional impact, yet you use the word "nonsense". Nonsense implies illogicality, yet you deny illogicality by your argument - by stating that both random chance to hit with a weapon and a random chance of losing a country are both mechanics of the same ilk - "the loss of player's agency". A notion I agree with, except I'd prefer to call it "simulation uncertainty". Uncertainty, if it happens, can only be illogical from the metagame point of view - and I have explained how the metagame level logically explains Infiltration. Therefore, it is logical, which doesn't, of course, automatically make it fair. I have agreed it is unfair, but acceptably unfair. It is not, in my opinion, unfair enough to make the game unplayable.
We can of course argue if the game should be more simulationist or more contained. As XCom was balanced to cater to both crowds, it seems to sit somewhere in the middle... My XCom is more simulationist than contained, but everyone has the right to their own XCom. Your sentiment is as good as mine in that regard, with the exception the original game works the way I prefer, not the way you prefer. However I cannot agree with the notion that bad contained game mechanics = bad game mechanics, since contained games are not the only kind of games.
From a perspective of respecting player agency, the infiltration mechanic is a failure as it clearly does not do so, whether or not it's euphemized as "simulation uncertainty".
From a perspective of simulationism, the infiltration mechanic is a failure because it either:
A: Involves UFO activity that is completely unnecessary if you assume that the activity is not required for mission success (i.e. everything of importance is done behind the scenes which is why you can't stop it; in this case the game may as well leave it as a dice roll), OR
B: Involves UFO activity that is necessary, but which cessation of has no material impact whatsoever, which makes it not simulationist at all as it violates logic and even verisimilitude.
Meanwhile the chance of infiltration success does _not_ in any way scale with X-Com's success which also contradicts a simulationist perspective; it is reasonable to expect that countries well serviced by X-Com would be more resistant to seeking a truce with the aliens, and doubly so if the overall effort is succeeding admirably.
From both perspectives this is certainly a bad mechanic, and there are far better implementations if it was intended to put the player on the clock, which it evidently does not because as previously established the player can self-fund quite easily by the time infiltration starts being a major issue, and defection of all countries does not end the game.
-
Even if X-Com was intended to be fighting a losing battle (I don't think that was ever actually confirmed by the devs),
The first line of Alien Origins in the UFOpedia is "It is clear that we are fighting a losing battle on earth." It's the message they're giving us.
-
Inflitration - This was one of the reasons I wondered why I didnt see opposing humans during alien missions. If a country has been infiltrated and turned over to the dark side, why dont we see soldiers from those countries?
-
Inflitration - This was one of the reasons I wondered why I didnt see opposing humans during alien missions. If a country has been infiltrated and turned over to the dark side, why dont we see soldiers from those countries?
Because it's not a unconditional surrender, rather a deal where the aliens agreed to stop terrorizing the country if they stop supporting xcom.