OpenXcom Forum

OpenXcom => Suggestions => Topic started by: kikimoristan on March 04, 2015, 09:46:15 pm

Title: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 04, 2015, 09:46:15 pm
Flanking: be situated on each side of or on one side of (someone or something).


In XCom world flanking is a gameplay mechanic where you position your soldier in such a way that you deal bonus damage or get bonus aim or negate enemy cover.

I propose to include a simple flanking mechanism to OpenXCom. Since OpenXCom doesn't employ cover as a gameplay mechanic I propose this simple and elegant solution.


First Flanking should be an optional setting from Advanced settings.

Flanking grants +10 AIM and +50% bonus damage.  This bonuses do not apply to area damage weapons like HE, smoke, grenades, rockets etc.

Let's say we have 2 units . Our soldier Bob. And Alien JIM.

Flaking happens when Bob is positioned  behind on the same X OR Y axis as JIM and JIM is facing away from Bob. Facing away means JIM has to look same way as Bob or to the sides.   JIM can't be looking at Bob or to the left or to the right of Bob that negates flanking.

The points to note is it has to be on the same X or Y axis, behind, and enemy must be looking away.

Have a look at the following picture

(https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3428.0;attach=13728;image)

Two sectoids are looking away from my soldier but only #2 is on the same axis as the soldier so only #2 is flanked. If i move my soldier one square to the side then #3 will be flanked but #2 will no longer be flankd.

Flanking is denoted as a yellow pulsating marker instead of regular red.

Flanking works on 4 tile units (like HWP or sectopods etc). If any one tile of a 4 tile unit is flanked then the whole unit is flanked.


The calculations to be done is check each enemy that unit can see and check for flanking. When shooting same thing check for flanking before shooting. Flanking is checked once for displaying the enemy markers and again before taking an action (shooting).

Good/bad?
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: shinr on March 04, 2015, 10:47:46 pm
Too gamey for my taste;

For what it is worth, the "bonus damage from flanking" already kinda exists with the weaker non-frontal armor.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 04, 2015, 11:34:24 pm
Too gamey for my taste;

For what it is worth, the "bonus damage from flanking" already kinda exists with the weaker non-frontal armor.

I think would be interesting with a mod that bumps up alien damage or nerfs xcom damage so you kinda wanna be flanking a lot to kill aliens making it even more strategic.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Arthanor on March 05, 2015, 12:43:29 am
I'd rather see a mod where cover reduces damage or chance to get hit (which would be relatively easy to do by making "shots on target" have more deviation than they have currently).

What is the rationale behind having to be exactly on the same X or Y coordinate? If anything, it should be relative to where the guy is looking (the whole half circle opposite to the target's heading?) more than an arbitrary cartesian coordinate.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: hellrazor on March 05, 2015, 12:44:22 am
Go play Firaxis Xcom i you wanna have such a mechanic and this game relies on this mechanic.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: hellrazor on March 05, 2015, 12:49:46 am
I'd rather see a mod where cover reduces damage or chance to get hit (which would be relatively easy to do by making "shots on target" have more deviation than they have currently).

What is the rationale behind having to be exactly on the same X or Y coordinate? If anything, it should be relative to where the guy is looking (the whole half circle opposite to the target's heading?) more than an arbitrary cartesian coordinate.

Actually if the enemy looks away from you, you can practically do what you want.
Run up shot it in the face with Auto Heavy Plasma Fire, or let some else from behind take a aimed or snapshot from out of sight.
Or attack with a melee weapon or throw a grenade or what ever you want. Because if you do it right the enemy will not turn around and shoot you if not killed.

So there you go your flanking mechanic. Fully implementet XCom Style :)
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 05, 2015, 01:07:21 am
Actually if the enemy looks away from you, you can practically do what you want.
Run up shot it in the face with Auto Heavy Plasma Fire, or let some else from behind take a aimed or snapshot from out of sight.
Or attack with a melee weapon or throw a grenade or what ever you want. Because if you do it right the enemy will not turn around and shoot you if not killed.

So there you go your flanking mechanic. Fully implementet XCom Style :)

LOL!
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Warboy1982 on March 05, 2015, 08:53:21 am
you already get a "bonus" to your damage for shooting things in the back, due to every unit having weak armor in the rear.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 05, 2015, 09:33:46 am
true!
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: mrxian on March 05, 2015, 09:40:37 am
So, shortly put, OpenXcom has a strong flanking mechanic where you do additional damage (And considerable amounts of it, considering how armor works) against flanked enemies, and an enemy you are currently flanking will not shoot you for dancing in his face.

Sounds like a pretty solid flanking mechanic.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Hythlodaeus on March 05, 2015, 02:07:45 pm
Flanking was a set of mechanics introduced for compensating the non-directional aiming system of XCOM2012, along with the simplification of unit stats.

In the original UFO, having flanking would be redundant, because the game already does that automatically, by dimuinishing the chances of reaction fire and by having enemy units expose their less armored back to enemy fire.

Seriously, what else do you want? We're talking of a core set of mechanics that is actually BETTER and more complex than whatever XCOM2012 has to offer.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 05, 2015, 07:12:26 pm
True. You guys make good points.

I just come up with these ideas post them here but I like that everyone is engaged giving lots of points. This is not about making OpenXCom like EU2012 but improving OpenXCom using lore friendly mechanics. Some ideas may work some may not :)
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: mrxian on March 05, 2015, 10:14:46 pm
True. You guys make good points.

I just come up with these ideas post them here but I like that everyone is engaged giving lots of points. This is not about making OpenXCom like EU2012 but improving OpenXCom using lore friendly mechanics. Some ideas may work some may not :)
Think about it. You had an idea. A good idea. An idea that is so good that it is, effectively, already implemented.
You just failed to realize how it was already implemented, that's not a big deal.
So thanks for your idea.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 05, 2015, 11:24:21 pm
Think about it. You had an idea. A good idea. An idea that is so good that it is, effectively, already implemented.
You just failed to realize how it was already implemented, that's not a big deal.
So thanks for your idea.

Thanks sir. I don't wanna be spamming the forums but if I get an Idea i'll quickly post it so is not lost and let the community decide. Who knows maybe is a good idea. Or not :)
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Sharp on March 05, 2015, 11:32:34 pm
I'd rather see a mod where cover reduces damage or chance to get hit (which would be relatively easy to do by making "shots on target" have more deviation than they have currently).

Cover does reduce chance to get hit. If your behind a fence and a shot hits the fence the fence takes the damage and you don't. I don't see why standing behind a fence would make the alien aim away from you.

Presenting a smaller target to hit means your less likely to get hit, it doesn't mean plasma is going to go away from you though.

XCOM2012 has a lot of different mechanics to OpenXCOM because of the way it is designed, flanking and cover and critical hits are all part of it's experience but OpenXCOM has many of the same features presented differently, flanking with reduced armour, cover with cover being hit, critical hits (and un-critical?? hits) with damage range on weapons
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Arthanor on March 06, 2015, 12:27:42 am
Cover does reduce chance to get hit. If your behind a fence and a shot hits the fence the fence takes the damage and you don't. I don't see why standing behind a fence would make the alien aim away from you.

Presenting a smaller target to hit means your less likely to get hit, it doesn't mean plasma is going to go away from you though.

XCOM2012 has a lot of different mechanics to OpenXCOM because of the way it is designed, flanking and cover and critical hits are all part of it's experience but OpenXCOM has many of the same features presented differently, flanking with reduced armour, cover with cover being hit, critical hits (and un-critical?? hits) with damage range on weapons

I am well aware cover can be hit if it is in the way and I am not saying that being in cover should make something aim away.

The current aiming/shooting mechanic is that a part of your target is picked when calculating a shot, and a success is represented by a very narrow deviation from that. Since the deviation is very small, the likelihood of cover being hit is minimal (unless the center of the "success area" is badly picked, as described and hopefully fixed eventually by volutar in his post about aiming) and presenting a smaller area is not really meaningful since the "success area" is very small.

Increasing the deviation would mean a larger "success area", which would be more affected by cover. If a success represent "threading a needle", all you need for a success to always be a hit on target is to see a tiny bit of your target. If a success represents hitting a person, hiding half of your body behind an obstacle means a success will actually be a hit on target only 50% of the time (there is only half of the person to hit, the other half of the shots hit the obstacle). Thus cover would play a bigger role. By extension, positioning to avoid giving your target cover (= flanking) would become more relevant as well.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: yrizoud on March 06, 2015, 01:11:06 am
Increasing the deviation would mean a larger "success area", which would be more affected by cover
And distance, which I'd appreciate.XCOM gameplay favors out-of-sight-range sniping a bit too much for my taste.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Arthanor on March 06, 2015, 01:15:14 am
Indeed! I very much dislike the idea of dancing in the smoke or at 20 tiles to exploit the game mechanic.

I am unaware if the "success area" increases with distance but that could be a neat way of addressing the distance. Threading the needle at 10m or hitting a guy at 1km can both be considered successes.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: hellrazor on March 06, 2015, 07:37:35 am
How about you give all direct fire weapons a maxrange of 20?
So you always have to shoot from insight of the enemy visual field?
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Arthanor on March 06, 2015, 05:39:30 pm
That would make the game pretty limited.. I use the extender accuracy and set min/auto/snap/aim ranges that vary by weapons which makes the game more varied. It's not as good as changing the shot deviation (low accuracy means more wide misses, larger hit deviation means more close misses) but it manages to create a situation where dancing at 20 is not a great option and every weapon has its use.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Sharp on March 06, 2015, 08:01:31 pm
I am well aware cover can be hit if it is in the way and I am not saying that being in cover should make something aim away.

The current aiming/shooting mechanic is that a part of your target is picked when calculating a shot, and a success is represented by a very narrow deviation from that. Since the deviation is very small, the likelihood of cover being hit is minimal (unless the center of the "success area" is badly picked, as described and hopefully fixed eventually by volutar in his post about aiming) and presenting a smaller area is not really meaningful since the "success area" is very small.

Increasing the deviation would mean a larger "success area", which would be more affected by cover. If a success represent "threading a needle", all you need for a success to always be a hit on target is to see a tiny bit of your target. If a success represents hitting a person, hiding half of your body behind an obstacle means a success will actually be a hit on target only 50% of the time (there is only half of the person to hit, the other half of the shots hit the obstacle). Thus cover would play a bigger role. By extension, positioning to avoid giving your target cover (= flanking) would become more relevant as well.

Ah cool I get you now, but it might be a bit tricky to implement nicely. If only half your body is visible but a "successful shot" is aiming at any part of your body it would then always be a max 50% chance to get hit which can then be silly i.e. why aim at someone's leg when you can't see it if you have 100% accuracy.

Typically you aim for what is visible and then from that the centre of it.

Tbh I still think the way it works now is better, might just need tweaking of accuracy in general so you don't get so many successful shots and deviations can still be likely to hit cover.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 06, 2015, 08:18:32 pm
this thread somehow ties in with this one Topic: Aiming algorithm  (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3413.msg40073.html#msg40073)

this thread i about  flanking/cover/aiming bonuses
volutar's thread is about aiming/cover

both thread discuss the mechanics of cover/aiming in Xcom. both game mechanics are being thoroughly being analyzed by the community . everyone has good points and if you got time i'd read them all. i did. i recommend going over both threads for extracurricular reading :)
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Sharp on March 06, 2015, 11:45:18 pm
Yeah I just read that one now and see that many arguments have already been hashed out :P I will say that I am more on Volutar's side of it
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 07, 2015, 12:18:53 am
i'm also with volutar 

and if he could do his thing as an optional advanced setting  it would KINDA enable my idea but in a completely different way..

he proposes aiming to be on the part that is visible rathe than always center. OR make shots go trough cover and affect accuracy based on how much is obstructed. that means fences, bushes, and half solid objects won't provide as much cover as before forcing you to flank more by going around or employ hit and run tactics.  you wouldn't wanna just go heads on with his adjustments on cause you'd always be hit unless is a fully solid object in front of you.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Arthanor on March 07, 2015, 05:29:07 pm
Ah cool I get you now, but it might be a bit tricky to implement nicely. If only half your body is visible but a "successful shot" is aiming at any part of your body it would then always be a max 50% chance to get hit which can then be silly i.e. why aim at someone's leg when you can't see it if you have 100% accuracy.

Typically you aim for what is visible and then from that the centre of it.

And that's why I think a larger "success area" combined with volutar's "always aim for the center of the visible area" would make a great shooting/cover mechanic.

You should always aim for the center of the visible area, but cover will make that area smaller and if you can make your visible area smaller than the success area, success shots may hit cover = cover is relevant. The problem now is that the success area is so small that it is almost impossible to obstruct so much of your area that the visible are is smaller than the success area. Aiming for the center of the visible area will almost always ignore cover. Increasing the size of the success area fixes that.

It comes down to two different reasons for flanking:
1- Shoot at your target without giving it cover (= increase chance to hit). This works regardless of where the target is looking, but the direction is given by which side of the target is protected by cover.
2- Shoot at your target from a direction it's not looking. This is independent of cover and will reduce retaliation (= increase your survivability) and also allow you to hit side/rear armor (= increase damage).

Ideally both mechanic should be in, but #1 is already not really potent currently (playing LoS shenanigans is more worth it than kneeling behind cover) and it will be worse after volutar's fixe, hence some of us being worried.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 07, 2015, 06:55:18 pm
yeah but Arthanor you guys gotta compromise and have his option be in the game as advanced setting optional. That way everyone is happy. remember h's doing this work for free he really cares bout this aim thing being perfect. why not let the man do his thing? non vanilla optional but in the game. ultimately the more flexible/customizeable/setting the more powerful the engine and the more fun.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Arthanor on March 07, 2015, 07:31:24 pm
I'm not sure why you think I'm opposed to his fix or think that the current "bad target placement" should remain in the game. Bad aiming should not stay in the game and I very much support volutar's proper target placement.

I am simply suggesting here a different mechanic that would allow cover to play a larger role (regardless of the aiming scheme, actually, although it might be more needed with the new aiming since it makes cover less relevant). Increasing cover in turn favour flanking to deprive your target of said cover.

The argument that the AI does not understand cover and flanking manoeuvres of either kinds (to remove cover or to deal extra damage) is however quite relevant. (I think it's from the other post?) It is a good argument to limit mechanics that favour flanking (to at most optional settings), since increasing the role of flanking is in a sense adding a new tool for the player to use when the AI can't.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on March 07, 2015, 07:51:22 pm
true. like ai would act as if nothing has changed. perhaps if deviation from center is non 0 all NON terrorist units go 1 aggression step backward to passive or cautious
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: pilot00 on March 10, 2015, 08:53:17 pm
What I dislike in modern games and their cover mechanics, is that their cover is statick and predetermined. You can blow up a whole building in the 2012 x-com and have a ton of debri in front of the soldier (such as plasma ridled walls) and the soldier wont take cover because its not programmed as cover. Likewise a hair thin pole can provide half cover. Call me nostalgic, but I prefer the calculations of the old game. No matter what it is, if the shot hits it, it counts as cover, and quite possibly gets destroyed.

And lets not get started with 2012 shot tragectories. You miss the alien, and there is a football team behind him and the shot just gets through without hitting anything.....grumble grumble.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 31, 2015, 05:59:55 pm
Call me nostalgic, but I prefer the calculations of the old game.

Not just you, bro... Not just you.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Jstank on March 31, 2015, 07:28:23 pm
How about flanking shots do morale damage regardless of weather they hit or not?

Kind of like in UFO 2000 when shots fired around a soldier does morale damage.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Solarius Scorch on March 31, 2015, 07:30:41 pm
How about flanking shots do morale damage regardless of weather they hit or not?

Kind of like in UFO 2000 when shots fired around a soldier does morale damage.

That's way too simplistic. It'd require some Xenonauts-style suppression mechanics.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: x60mmx on March 31, 2015, 08:09:04 pm
Totally unnecessary in X-Com, as others have pointed out there is rear/side armor and the fact that they can't see/shoot you.  Flanking worked the way it did in Mass EffeXcom because the combat was very simplistic and lined the opposing sides up like football teams.  Without their flanking system, it would be pretty blatant how 2d the combat really was.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Jstank on March 31, 2015, 08:20:47 pm
In the new one, there is no Alien Morale. This is a shame as they don't panic berserk or anything. Stupid really  :'(
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: pilot00 on April 01, 2015, 03:45:16 pm
Totally unnecessary in X-Com, as others have pointed out there is rear/side armor and the fact that they can't see/shoot you.  Flanking worked the way it did in Mass EffeXcom because the combat was very simplistic and lined the opposing sides up like football teams.  Without their flanking system, it would be pretty blatant how 2d the combat really was.

Ah mass effect...What a great game it would have been IF they would put some more work hours into it...Reminds me of Apocalypse in so many ways.

In the new one, there is no Alien Morale. This is a shame as they don't panic berserk or anything. Stupid really  :'(

Been several months since I last played but I think they do get panicked.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Arthanor on April 02, 2015, 12:09:02 am
I'm going through the android version of XCom 2012 and I can definitely say that they panic. You can hear your soldiers say something like "Enemy is retreating" when it happens. They don't shoot around or drop their weapons like in the old XCom, but they fall back instead of engaging.

Panicking aliens dropping their weapons and becoming useless, or worse firing their explosive weapon up close and getting hit by the blast, is a pretty bad mechanic of the old XCom.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on April 02, 2015, 12:56:00 am
i think the desktop version doesn't do that. the feature is probably there but is so rare than in all my years of playing i have never experienced happening it naturally not ever once. i can only make them panic by using psi or flamethrower. in fact even at 1 hp with everyone else dead they simply retreat and go in overwatch mode and keep their cool. in the mobile version they probably tweak that feature making it more common.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Jstank on April 02, 2015, 06:21:01 am
I'm going through the android version of XCom 2012 and I can definitely say that they panic. You can hear your soldiers say something like "Enemy is retreating" when it happens. They don't shoot around or drop their weapons like in the old XCom, but they fall back instead of engaging.

Panicking aliens dropping their weapons and becoming useless, or worse firing their explosive weapon up close and getting hit by the blast, is a pretty bad mechanic of the old XCom.

I don't think a mechanic is bad when it is so satisfying. And the fact that it can happen to you is even better. With the EU thing. I don't believe that YOUR troops panic at any point. Is there a morale system that is visible from your end. I don't know I haven't played it too much.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: shinr on April 02, 2015, 11:39:58 am
Actually, the Troops do panic in NuXcom, to such an extent that getting even one soldier killed can set off a panic/berserk chain reaction that will kill the rest of the squad on the very same turn (or at least in the early versions) as spoofed in the Nerf Now! strip below.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Jstank on April 02, 2015, 03:16:49 pm
Ah man you got me all excited that there was a euxcom mod called nuxcom. I went on a wild internet goose chase just now.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: kikimoristan on April 03, 2015, 02:58:12 am
Ah man you got me all excited that there was a euxcom mod called nuxcom. I went on a wild internet goose chase just now.

LOL me too..hahahaha ...i actually read your post and noticed EUXCOM and NUXCOM and i went searching for it hahahah...even tho I DID read your post saying you went on a wild goose chase i did it too anyway  . WOW
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Phoenix7786 on April 25, 2015, 09:51:50 pm
I can definitely say that aliens in X-com'12 do panic from dead alien buddies it's just obliquely mentioned. Coders have found that the aliens panic and your cue is your soldiers' announcing it. What was SUPPOSED to happen next was the Aliens would use Hunker Down. However the AI is bugged and won't. Instead they just end their turn without doing anything. https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/975377-r-d-tactical-bug-hunts-suppression-and-alien-skipping-turn/

Unfortunately though, they do not have the same exact mechanics of firing at random like us hu-nams.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Arthanor on April 27, 2015, 11:32:26 pm
On the android version they move back a little bit and indeed your soldiers announce it. I don't think they hunker down (the only time I saw an alien hunker down was when being suppressed), but maybe they go on overwatch. It's awfully annoying when they retreat and engage 1-2 more alien pods too.

Your soldiers can also panic. It never happened to the soldiers I started with (they gained willpower faster than the aliens could scare them with), but I once brought a bunch of rookies to a mission with mutons and yup, panic ensued (mutons also have an ability that causes panic in low willed soldiers).

The best was my heavy squaddie who unloaded his whole machine gun point blank into a muton berserker after panicking from being approached, managing to kill it before it struck. Close combat isn't very scary when you only get 2 action points. As long as you are just far enough, the enemy just plants itself next to you and you can shoot them with 100% accuracy next turn.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: mrxian on April 27, 2015, 11:55:30 pm
I used to play a reaction-heavy game in original Xcom (back when it still set the difficulty to novice). I usually kept overlapping fields of fire with plenty of action points to spare, and for some reason it scared enemy melee units so much that they wouldn't approach very closely.
They'd head towards one of my soldiers, but before reaching it they'd be within four or five troopers' line of sight, all of whom ready to reaction fire, and they'd run away again. It was a little confusing.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: Mr. Quiet on May 03, 2015, 12:21:14 am
Just as in flanking in military shooters, you don't get an accuracy bonus, you just get a better shot at the enemy AR from another angle. Very interesting idea though.
Title: Re: Flanking gameplay mechanic
Post by: hellblade on May 25, 2015, 07:37:38 am
This is the real X-com, not the simplistic new version.  If you turn it into a console-like game for kids who don't want to use their brains while playing, then maybe you have a point.

The mechanics is already in.  You just need to use your brain.  Front armor is already heavier than side or rear armor.  IF and ONLY IF you are behind cover, the game mechanics dictates that flanking (depending on how much you flanked the enemy) increases your chance to hit.   Why you would make a rule about extra damage and is beyond me.