OpenXcom Forum
Modding => OXCE Suggestions NEW => OpenXcom Extended => OXCE Suggestions Archive => Topic started by: Delian on July 13, 2022, 12:56:48 am
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It often happens that "pro" players use a tactic where, in missions that involve civilians, like terror missions, they stun civilians so that aliens wouldn't attack and kill them.
I suggest modifying, or adding an option to modify alien AI in the following way: If the player stunned any civilians (check the battlefield if there exists any unconscious civilian units where the last his was from the player), it triggers a change in alien behavior in a way that they (the ones with ranged attacks) start attacking downed civilians. Not sure about the AI priorities, but attacking the bodies should become an option for the AI.
In other words, if aliens shoot a civilian and the civilian lives, then all is good and the behavior stays the same. But if player does that, then aliens start cheating and attacking downed civilians.
Hmm. Maybe it would also be a good idea to change the civilian AI so that it would be a bit more fearful of aliens. So that this counter wouldn't be too detrimental to the normal gameplay.
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The only way to tell the difference between a corpse and an unconscious unit is to stand over it and check the inventory (barring mod added indicators), so aliens knowing from a distance feels out of place to me. And if they could, why would they distinguish between who knocked them out?
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There's another way to tell the difference between a corpse and an unconscious unit. It's called "basic logic".
1. When units are killed, they scream, and when they're knocked out, they don't. So based on this, aliens could tell who was stunned and who wasn't.
2. Aliens have a theoretical power called "memory". They can remember who they already killed and who they didn't. So if they suddenly spot a civilian body who they remember that they haven't killed yet, well, that's pretty sus, isn't it?
3. Mod indicators. If players are allowed to see the zzz signs, then why wouldn't aliens? It's kinda obvious that if a civilian body isn't lying in a pool of blood that they aren't quite dead yet hehe
So the way I see it, it makes a lot of sense that aliens, who are on a mission to kill civilians, would know that they need to kill both conscious and unconscious civilians to complete their mission.
Anyway, the distinguish of who knocked them out is for the purpose of keeping original behavior in case the player isn't using the exploit.
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Hardest part will be - to teach AI to attack an item. Because unconscious people are items, not units.
Much easier will be mod, giving negative score value for inconscious civilians, as it is for dead ones.
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Hardest part will be - to teach AI to attack an item. Because unconscious people are items, not units.
Much easier will be mod, giving negative score value for inconscious civilians, as it is for dead ones.
I prefer the exploits being a part of the game (for UFO and TFTD at least) - it wouldn't have been too difficult to program Terror Missions to lose you a minimum of 1000 points on mission failure even in the original DOS engine. It could have been hardcoded: IF mission_status = fail OR abort AND mission_id = terror AND points_lost <1000 THEN points_lost = 1000. Imagine TFTD without being able to bail out of Lobsterman terror missions before you even have the Not Small Launcher or the drills researched. The difference between an exploit and an intended advanced strategy can be as simple as a developer realising something and leaving it in, like Melee's Wavedash.
As for mods, a better approach may be to make the civilians more like Fire Emblem green units, and balance the aliens around them actively supporting X-Com in the fight. That said, an optional AI behaviour to execute or capture downed enemies ("Civilians" are player-allied AI) could be very useful. Imagine Mutons smart enough to pick up unconscious X-Com units and drag them away somewhere so they're no threat when they revive. (And maybe mission failure or abort leading to MIA units could spawn Retaliation battleships if your guys are psi-weak enough!) After all, the aliens want to capture unconscious units as much as X-Com do, at least story-wise.
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I do not know if this is good suggestion, you can't control Civ and then are only big lability, at least now you have race to who reach them first.
Adding this make stunning pointless and guarantee that most of civilians will die and remove strategic options for player.
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I don't really have anything relevant to add to this discussion, just a small thought: if I was an intergalactic alien horde, civilians and xcom are both just "civilians" to me (or "hairless apes" if you wish), I don't care who gets plasmified.
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I do not know if this is good suggestion, you can't control Civ and then are only big lability, at least now you have race to who reach them first.
Adding this make stunning pointless and guarantee that most of civilians will die and remove strategic options for player.
Well yeah, the whole purpose of civilians is that they're supposed to be a liability. You're supposed to be aggressive and take risks to save them as fast as possible. Stunning isn't a "strategic option", it's an exploit and you know it. If anything, stunning civilians removes strategy from the game. Instead of having to carefully advance and position your units, and cover civilians, you simply stun them, no risk at all. Well, even if this suggestion was implemented, you'd still be able to stun civilians and drag them to a safe spot, so it wouldn't be pointless.
Anyway, it would be useful to get the opinion of the mod makers on this matter.
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Well yeah, the whole purpose of civilians is that they're supposed to be a liability. You're supposed to be aggressive and take risks to save them as fast as possible. Stunning isn't a "strategic option", it's an exploit and you know it. If anything, stunning civilians removes strategy from the game. Instead of having to carefully advance and position your units, and cover civilians, you simply stun them, no risk at all. Well, even if this suggestion was implemented, you'd still be able to stun civilians and drag them to a safe spot, so it wouldn't be pointless.
Anyway, it would be useful to get the opinion of the mod makers on this matter.
Another way to address this issue could be to give negative points for stunned civilians (possibly less negative than killed one). I don't know if you can do that already, but I suspect that should be possible. That should give the modders a chance to defeat the strategy. Or alternatively, make civilians susceptible to high stun, so that they could die as a result of being stunned.
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Well yeah, the whole purpose of civilians is that they're supposed to be a liability. You're supposed to be aggressive and take risks to save them as fast as possible. Stunning isn't a "strategic option", it's an exploit and you know it. If anything, stunning civilians removes strategy from the game. Instead of having to carefully advance and position your units, and cover civilians, you simply stun them, no risk at all. Well, even if this suggestion was implemented, you'd still be able to stun civilians and drag them to a safe spot, so it wouldn't be pointless.
Anyway, it would be useful to get the opinion of the mod makers on this matter.
The easiest way to "address" this "exploit" is for people who think this a big issue to simply refrain from stunning civilians. You're literally complaining that people "are using an exploit" and your solution is to add....and option for people who don't want to use this "exploit"?
If you want civilians to be "a liability" you are free to treat them as such. Your "pro-players" are also free to do so. I see absolutely no reason to add this option to the game, because it's "usefulness" directly depends on players wanting to use said "exploit". It's also kind of interesting that you're complaining about aliens not killing stunned civilians instead aliens not killing stunned soldiers.
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give negative points for stunned civilians
If the player is not using the exploit and aliens stun civilians, then this solution would punish the player, so I'm not sure if this is a good solution. Basically, the player would only have to get negative score if the player was the one that stunned a civilian, even if the civilian was later destunned with the usage of destun items. I don't think this can be modded. I also don't know how high susceptability would be possible.
You're literally complaining that people "are using an exploit" and your solution is to add....and option for people who don't want to use this "exploit"?
I wrote "I suggest modifying, or adding an option". So as far as I'm concerned, it's perfectly fine if this isn't an option but a permanent change to standard behavior.
As for the option, you seem to be misunderstanding this. The point of the option isn't for players to change it. It's so that mod authors can lock it in their mods. Similar to "UFO Extender Accuracy" or "Instant grenades", it's for the mod authors to decide whether such an option would be balanced in their mods or not.
you're complaining about aliens not killing stunned civilians instead aliens not killing stunned soldiers.
Hmm, that's an interesting idea... I like it! But it's irrelevant to this topic :P It's also a bit more complicated with soldiers.
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I wrote "I suggest modifying, or adding an option". So as far as I'm concerned, it's perfectly fine if this isn't an option but a permanent change to standard behavior.
Yeah no, that's outright not going to happen. At that point you might as well shelf the suggestion entirely.
As for the option, you seem to be misunderstanding this. The point of the option isn't for players to change it. It's so that mod authors can lock it in their mods. Similar to "UFO Extender Accuracy" or "Instant grenades", it's for the mod authors to decide whether such an option would be balanced in their mods or not.
That still begs the question what the option would actually achieve that existing options don't, such as giving a penalty for stunned civilians.
"But what if aliens stun civilians" - I honestly don't remember aliens ever stunning civilians during terror missions, and given your justification it doesn't make sense either: If the primary goal of aliens is to kill, why would they use stun weapons to begin with? I just remember a lot of dead civvies tbh. If that's such an issue make them immune to stun damage or give them a high stun recovery rate instead. Achieves basically the same thing because it makes stunning civilians pointless.
I don't see anything that justifies the time and effort this would probably take to implement and balance, if the simple solution is just for the player to refrain from stunning civilians. This would be another matter if civilians were actually player controlled or not moving more or less randomly, but they are enough of a liability to begin with.
And "locking" mod options isn't really a thing. It's more of a suggestion. Mod authors don't get to decide what players are to consider balanced or fun ;)
It's also a bit more complicated with soldiers.
How so? Stunned units/corpses are treated as objects.
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There are plenty of options available through scripting and item recovery that a modder could add a penalty for the player stunning civilians but not for the aliens, or find some other way of making it undesirable to do so.
Thus the issue is not that the tools don't exist, it's that modders don't consider this enough of an exploit to address, ot it's not worth the effort.
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>I honestly don't remember aliens ever stunning civilians during terror missions
It doesn't happen often in vanilla, but it happens quite regularly in other larger mods that have plenty of lower-powered weapons.
>such as giving a penalty for stunned civilians
As I wrote, I don't know how to mod or write a script that would give negative points for when player stuns a civilian.
>Make them immune to stun damage or give them a high stun recovery rate instead
1. It's unrealistic that civilians would just magically be immune to stun damage and destun faster than all other units.
2. It's not practical for the mod authors, since it would require making special stun-resistant copies of all the existing civilian units.
3. Since this is a vanilla exploit, it makes more sense that the counter is implemented at a level where it can affect vanilla games as well.
>I just remember a lot of dead civvies... I don't see anything that justifies the time and effort...
Personal incredulity logical fallacy.
>"locking" mod options isn't really a thing. Mod authors don't get to decide what players are to consider balanced or fun
Yes, it is. And yes, they do.
There are plenty of options available through scripting and item recovery
Item recovery doesn't consider who stunned the civvie. And scripting... there's no end of mission hook and no functions for modifying mission points.
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It doesn't happen often in vanilla[...]
Thanks, rest is pretty much irrelevant because it's down to the mod authors. As for vanilla, out of 100 terror mission - how often do civilians actually get stunned? As for "larger mods" - how often out of 100 terror missions do civilians get stunned (and not bleed to death subsequently) there?
As I wrote, I don't know how to mod or write a script that would give negative points for when player stuns a civilian.
You have yet to show that establishing who stunned a civilian is a relevant concern - or that this issue is relevant at all.
1. It's unrealistic that civilians would just magically be immune to stun damage and destun faster than all other units.
It literally is not because using "unrealistic" as an argument concerning the vanilla game, let alone mods like XCF would invalidate ~90 of the game mechanics. How "realistic" is it that X-COM is pretty much the only faction able to use squad tactics? Or the only faction able to use medkits, for that matter?
2. It's not practical for the mod authors, since it would require making special stun-resistant copies of all the existing civilian units.
How is that "not practical"? You literally only need to change two entries (damage modifiers and recovery) in the armor defintions, and this can be done as a sub-mod. You don't need to make copies of any units. This would take a max of 5 minutes even for larger mods. Instead you're asking people to waste their time - instead of yours, I take it - on something that is pointless for anybody but you, given the replies you've gotten. There is no comparison between "modifying existing armor defintions" and "having to code new AI behaviour from scratch, including balancing and debugging". Sorry, but at this point you either have no idea what you're talking about or you're simply delusional.
3. Since this is a vanilla exploit, it makes more sense that the counter is implemented at a level where it can affect vanilla games as well.
Aliens not shooting ground objects is intended behaviour. The point of OXC and OXCE is to preserve vanilla compatibility. Changing this means you're by definition not playing "vanilla X-COM".
Personal incredulity logical fallacy.
Not really, since you've yet to demonstrate that this is
a) "a problem" that needs to be "fixed"
b) the only way to "fix" this is by programming new AI behaviour (because changing armor definitions is impractical lol)
Nothing "personal" about this, given the rest of the replies.
"locking" mod options isn't really a thing. Mod authors don't get to decide what players are to consider balanced or fun
Yes, it is. And yes, they do.
battleInstantGrenade: false->
battleInstantGrenade: true
No my man, it simply isn't. Mod authors don't get to decide how their mods are played. They literally have no control over that.
If you simply can't refrain from stunning every last civilian while playing vanilla, here's a handy mod for you. Let me assure you that this is quite a bit more...practical...than changing and balancing AI behaviour ;)
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>how often do civilians actually get stunned?
As long as there exists a chance that aliens stun a single civilian, it's good enough cause for concern.
>You have yet to show that establishing who stunned a civilian is a relevant concern
I've already explained that it's a relevant concern because it would punish players who don't use that exploit. Should those players be punished regardless? Maybe. Perhaps a solution would be to write a function for dynamic score based on how damaged/stunned a civilian is at the end of the mission, regardless of who did it. But then, players could use destun items to destun stunned civilians to further game such a solution, so you'd need a counter to a counter to a counter...
Anyway, my position remains at "preserving vanilla behavior if the player isn't abusing the exploit", tho any solution would be better than no solution I suppose.
>using "unrealistic" would invalidate ~90 of the game mechanics.
Not that kind of unrealistic. Unrealistic based on the established game mechanics. I guess a better word would be "inconsistent". Generally it's good game design for game elements to behave in a predictable manner.
>squad tactics / medkits
Irrelevant.
>You only need to change two entries
You forgot "painImmune" in your mod. And no, it's way more complicated than that. Some mods use many different units as civilians. And in different roles. The same unit can sometimes be a civilian, other times an enemy. It would be complicated and with high maintenance cost. Also, any new modder that comes along would be oblivious of the problem and of the solution.
Essentially, this is a problem with the game, not a problem with any mod. So a solution that involves modding is at best a dirty hack.
>something that is pointless for anybody but you
You really need to tone down your personal incredulity. So far no major mod authors have given an opinion on the matter.
>you either have no idea what you're talking about or you're simply delusional
In the AIModule::setupPatrol() you have code where, in base defense missions, aliens seek out base modules to destroy. This code could be reused so that aliens would seek out tiles with stunned civilians on them to attack.
A more complicated solution would involve modifying AIModule::selectNearestTarget() so that if no valid visible targets are found, the function does a 2nd pass (so a low priority) over stunned civilians and returns the nearest one valid (visible, attackable, hostile unit has rifle, etc). Of course, other places in the class expect _aggroTarget to be a standing unit, so several other modifications would be required.
>If you simply can't refrain from stunning every last civilian while playing vanilla
I'm neither playing vanilla, nor have problems refraining from stunning civilians. But I'm worried about other players being unable to refrain from doing so, so I want to help them ;)
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Can you actually elaborate what's the in-game reason for alien-stunned civs being penalty-free, yet player-stunned civs being penalised? I know if I were a civilian when plasma is flying overhead, and a black ops soldier conks me on the head so I wake up to the recovery teams and first responders... I wouldn't be angry. I'd be really grateful that I'm still alive and not plasmified.
Same thing with the scorekeepers: a live civilian is alive. Probably saw less of things he shouldn't have, too.
You really need to tone down your personal incredulity. So far no major mod authors have given an opinion on the matter.
You need to familiarise yourself with what 'personal incredulity' means. It does not mean that if someone points out you're standing on your soapbox all alone, maybe the problem is yours and yours only.
For the record, I have no opinion on whether you actually are alone (since there's scant evidence for either position being strongly supported), but your debating tactics are in quite poor taste.
As long as there exists a chance that aliens stun a single civilian, it's good enough cause for concern.
Since you like throwing around the word 'fallacy' a lot, this is the 'Think of the children!' fallacy. :-\
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>As long as there exists a chance that aliens stun a single civilian, it's good enough cause for concern.
No, it's not. If this happens once out of 100 terror missions it's inconsequential and no justification to prefer an overly complicated solution that - as far as we can tell - only benefits you. So far you've not provided any evidence that this is:
a) needed at all
b) cannot be "solved" using existing mechanics
>I've already explained that it's a relevant concern because it would punish players who don't use that exploit.
You've provided nothing to show that this is actually the case let alone relevant, and you're pretty much outright refusing to provide evidence for this.
>Anyway, my position remains at "preserving vanilla behavior if the player isn't abusing the exploit", tho any solution would be better than no solution I suppose.
Preserving vanilla behaviour means "aliens don't attack stunned units/ground objects", and you haven't provided any reason why this needs to be "solved", let alone in the way you’re requesting.
>Not that kind of unrealistic. Unrealistic based on the established game mechanics. I guess a better word would be "inconsistent".
Funny how you then consider perfectly consistent behaviour flawed and want to replace it by a convoluted and inconsistent mechanic that makes aliens attack some stunned units but not others. No my man, we're talking exactly this kind of unrealistic, and your reasoning why the aliens should do so is not based on any kind of consistency.
>You forgot "painImmune" in your mod.
painImmune or IgnorePainImmunity isn’t relevant for civilians units in vanilla.
>And no, it's way more complicated than that.
It literally isn't unless you chose to make it more complicated.
>Some mods use many different units as civilians. And in different roles.
And yet I don't see any modder besides you complaining about this being needed. This is still not an argument that changing armor definitions is complicated or impractical compared to modifying AI behaviour. This is pretty much just you complaining about being inconvenienced. I'd rather see you inconvenienced than developers wasting time on this that could be spent on relevant features and bugfixes.
>The same unit can sometimes be a civilian, other times an enemy. It would be complicated and with high maintenance cost.
I'm curious, how many units does this actually apply to, in say, XCF?
This is neither complicated, nor does it have any kind of "maintenance cost" (lol). This can also be implemented easily via RefNodes and/or enviroEffects using armorTransformations if need be. Again, claiming that this would be "impractical" and that messing with and implementing inconsistent AI behaviour would be preferable or in any way simpler or easier is delusional.
>Also, any new modder that comes along would be oblivious of the problem and of the solution.
It's kind of ironic that you are under the impression that "people don't know that I consider this to be a problem" is an argument in your favour.
>You really need to tone down your personal incredulity. So far no major mod authors have given an opinion on the matter.
So you don't consider ohartenstein's or Nord's oppinion relevant, let alone that of the main developers of OXCE? Interesting standpoint. Protip: "personal incredulity" isn't a counter argument when you've so far failed to show why this is needed and when you need to invoke imaginary modders that would *surely* benefit from such a feature. At this point my claim is as valid as yours, if not more so given your incoherent reasoning and the feedback you've received so far.
>In the AIModule::setupPatrol() you have code where, in base defense missions, aliens seek out base modules to destroy. This code could be reused[…]
What exactely is there to "reuse"? This is based on static MCD information (byte 60 - Xcom_Base). This isn't even the same kind of object class, let alone is it dependant on who's "side" the object is on or who applied to most (or final?) point of stun damage. I still don't see how any of this supports the idea that modifying armor values is "impractical" compared to changing, debugging and balancing AI behaviour. By all means, show us that it is and implement it yourself then.
>But I'm worried about other players being unable to refrain from doing so, so I want to help them ;)
Why are you so worried with how other players are playing the game that you need to propose an inconsistent and convoluted mechanic that doesn't actually benefit anybody but yourself? How does this actually benefit players? You've outright stated that you'd be fine with forcing this on others and modifying vanilla mechanics accordingly.
This is intended and consistent behaviour, not a flaw. It's not for you to decide that people are "playing the game wrong", let alone force detrimental and unnecessary changes on others.
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Can you actually elaborate what's the in-game reason for alien-stunned civs being penalty-free, yet player-stunned civs being penalised?
The in-game reason is: "Aliens came to kill some civvies and they have a quota to fill. They can't fill this quota with all the unnaturally stunned civilians lying around. Therefore, they decided to also kill the stunned civilians".
If you're talking about the solution that revolves around a purely point penalty, then, "The government is scoring your conduct on a mission. You need to save all the civilians you can, but any additional harm to them for which you are personally-responsible will leave a severe blemish on your record."
So you don't consider ohartenstein's or Nord's oppinion relevant
Ah, I must've missed them among the mod authors, sorry about that. Yes, their opinion is relevant. Both recognized the issue, but neither expressed it in a clear-cut way on whether this should or shouldn't be fixed at an AI level. Both seem to favor the point penalty solution. I also think the point penalty solution is not bad, but again, a major problem with it is that players could destun civilians to bypass the penalty...
This is intended and consistent behaviour, not a flaw. It's not for you to decide that people are "playing the game wrong", let alone force detrimental and unnecessary changes on others.
So let me get this straight. You're arguing that, aliens being unable to attack unconscious units is intended behavior? And players abusing this fact by stunning civilians is "players playing the game the way it was intended"?
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So let me get this straight. You're arguing that, aliens being unable to attack unconscious units is intended behavior?
Yes, it is, at least in OXCE.
And players abusing this fact by stunning civilians is "players playing the game the way it was intended"?
Neither yes, nor no.
This was not defined, thus players are free to think and do whatever they want.
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The in-game reason is: "Aliens came to kill some civvies and they have a quota to fill. They can't fill this quota with all the unnaturally stunned civilians lying around. Therefore, they decided to also kill the stunned civilians".
They can fill their quota regardless of who stunned the civilian. I didn't ask whether a penalty is appropriate. I asked why the distinction matters.
If you're talking about the solution that revolves around a purely point penalty, then, "The government is scoring your conduct on a mission. You need to save all the civilians you can, but any additional harm to them for which you are personally-responsible will leave a severe blemish on your record."
No even vaguely-realistic government is going to behave like that in anything but the most theoretical of exercises. Look up what happens during Robin Sage, for instance. Or what the Red Cell did to a certain security guard (and also in general).
The people funding your organisation are also likely a multitude of nations/polities/secret cabals. Them coming to such an agreement is highly unlikely. What really matters is the secrecy and body count, not whether the civvies can give glowing recommendations.
Finally, if they're anal like that, they'd also subtract score from alien stuns.
So, do you actually have an argument besides 'some players are abusing civilian stunning, make them stop!" Because that doesn't really endear you to anyone, and makes people prejudiced against you.
...a major problem with it is that players could destun civilians to bypass the penalty...
Incurring opportunity costs. Said costs also apply to stunning civilians in general, any civvie you spend time whacking is an alien you're not killing. Can also be mitigated to a lesser degree by making medical items more expensive to carry and use.
Now, I agree that entirely too often these costs are too low and I wouldn't mind a way to attach point penalties to stunned civilians, no matter how that happened. Implementing excessive bookkeeping and new AI routines when there are much more important things on the todo list, not so much.
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Yes, it is, at least in OXCE.
Neither yes, nor no.
This was not defined, thus players are free to think and do whatever they want.
Honestly kind of concerned either of these need to be explicitely pointed out.
But I'm sure OP will find a way to continue to argue that this needs to be "fixed" and that people are playing the game wrong.
The in-game reason is: "Aliens came to kill some civvies and they have a quota to fill. They can't fill this quota with all the unnaturally stunned civilians lying around. Therefore, they decided to also kill the stunned civilians".
No it isn't:
"When the aliens terrorize a city they will deploy some special forces with awesome powers. Civilians will be directly threatened, and governments will be forced to evacuate whole areas. The main purpose behind this activity is to generate sufficient public hysteria so that governments will threaten the X-Com project."
Nothing in the lore states that hey have "kill quota" to fill, or that killing people is the primary purpose. That is your head canon "justification" for why your idea is needed. Them "mass killing" civilians might as well be a direct result of X-COMs involvement for all we know.
And as Juku pointed out you're still contradicting yourself by claiming that it matters who stunned a unit. Stop claiming that this is about "consistency" instead of "realism". In fact it's neither, it's just you trying to come up with reasons why people need to be forced to play the game "the right way" - i.e. your way. It's also quite telling that you're unable or unwilling to adress the other obvious flaws and inconsistencies in your reasoning why changing AI behaviour is the best (or only) "solution" to a non-existent problem.
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But I'm sure OP will find a way to continue to argue that this needs to be "fixed" and that people are playing the game wrong.
Even intended behavior can be changed, given right circumstances.
Wouldn't be the first time.
I'm just saying that it is indeed intended, nothing more.
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I don't stun civilians, that's just stupid. But I know that many players do, which is why Piratez introduced a rather elaborate feature to make it less of an incentive (basically civilians carry a special item which is only recovered if this civilian dies or goes unconscious; this item gives negative points and also has to be "sold" at a negative price).
The very existence of this system in Piratez means that Dioxine considers this civilian stunning problem serious enough to spend non-trivial resources on.
I also kinda agree, but not enough to spend days on torturing the rulesets to get a similar effect.