What do you think has caused OpenXcom to succeed?

[Falko]

are you talking about options or mods?
there are GUI/sound/technical options and options that change gameplay
unfortunately in OXC its all a bit mixed up

e.g. there are not gameplay relevant options mixed with gameplay relevant ones
like:
play intro
autosave
mousewheel speed/increase
infoscreens
invert drag scrolling
inventory stats
enhanced soldier sprites
smoth bullet camera
confirm fire mode
supress panic message for aliens
disable autoequip
skip next turn
save pre primed grenades
...
[some only slightly game play releavant options]
realistic globe lighting
field promotions
building queue
...
if you get rid move these options somewhere else there is not that much left in regard to options

and if you talk about mods getting rid of existing possibilities for modder is just stupid
if there are 300 mods out there +30 (binary) options you have 2187250724783011924372502227117621365353169430893212436425770606409952999199375923223513177023053824 options to play a game
are you now scared more?
anyone should see that creating random numbers that way is not helpful

i can agree that the option/medscreen needs an overhaul .. not sure whats the best way to do it especially with the limited screen space have

there are perhaps 10 game play relevant options
alien weapon self-destruct
psi strength improvement (never tried it)
override LOF
instant grenades
ufo extender accuracy
sneaky AI (i plan to test it some day)
TFTD manufacture rules
psi strength evaluation
storage limits for recovered items

so there is options for
GUI/Information (inventory stats)
convenience (confirm fire mode, build queue, autoend battle)
slightly gameplay relevant (globe lighting, alien bleeding, force craft launch)
gameplay relevant (TFTD damage, instant grenades, override LOF)
game play-changer (extender accuracy, sneaky ai, ...)

at least a better ordering of the options according to relevance is doable.. so now we have to agree what option goes where that should be easy ... HAHA 

[Hobbes]

are you talking about options or mods?

Options. There's no limit to mods since it's up to the players to choose and install them.

there are GUI/sound/technical options and options that change gameplay
unfortunately in OXC its all a bit mixed up

This is my experience as well with the options under Advanced button.

e.g. there are not gameplay relevant options mixed with gameplay relevant ones
like:
play intro
autosave
mousewheel speed/increase
infoscreens
invert drag scrolling
inventory stats
enhanced soldier sprites
smoth bullet camera
confirm fire mode
supress panic message for aliens
disable autoequip
skip next turn
save pre primed grenades
...
if you get rid move these options somewhere else there is not that much left in regard to options

Those should be kept as long as they don't affect gameplay. But stuff like:
* Savescumming
* Aggressive Retaliation
* Custom initial base
* Force Craft Launch
* Sneaky AI
* Etc.

These all change the gameplay, sometimes very drastically.

i can agree that the option/medscreen needs an overhaul .. not sure whats the best way to do it especially with the limited screen space have

there are perhaps 10 game play relevant options
alien weapon self-destruct
psi strength improvement (never tried it)
override LOF
instant grenades
ufo extender accuracy
sneaky AI (i plan to test it some day)
TFTD manufacture rules
psi strength evaluation
storage limits for recovered items

so there is options for
GUI/Information (inventory stats)
convenience (confirm fire mode, build queue, autoend battle)
slightly gameplay relevant (globe lighting, alien bleeding, force craft launch)
gameplay relevant (TFTD damage, instant grenades, override LOF)
game play-changer (extender accuracy, sneaky ai, ...)

at least a better ordering of the options according to relevance is doable.. so now we have to agree what option goes where that should be easy ... HAHA 

Your 10 relevant gameplay options are a nice attempt

I think that a nice idea to decide might be to just call for a community vote for choosing the 10-15  gameplay options that should be included using something like https://doodle.com/. You list all of the options there and set it so that you can only vote in 10. Afterwards you get the 10 most voted by the community, keep/add them and move the rest to mods.

I mean, for instance there is the Custom Initial Base option, but then the game comes included with XComUtil's Starting Defensive Base, Improved Starting Defensive Base and Starting Improved Base under Mods (which doesn't make much sense for a game to have Mods already included when it's released). Do we need 4 different types of starting base included in the release build?

[pmprog]

I mean, for instance there is the Custom Initial Base option, but then the game comes included with XComUtil's Starting Defensive Base, Improved Starting Defensive Base and Starting Improved Base under Mods (which doesn't make much sense for a game to have Mods already included when it's released). Do we need 4 different types of starting base included in the release build?

Heh, when I wrote the custom start base code, the other options didn't exist. I did wonder if it's worth leaving in, but Warboy and SupSuper told me it was quite a popular feature.

That said, rather than having them as seperate options, it could be made neater by having a "Starting Base" option which you pick from "Original", "XCU Defensive", "Improved Defensive", and "Custom"

That way, you retain all the functionality, but not as many "options"

[Yankes]

Moving some options to mods is interesting idea, it will allow for moder define precise how game should work. Many mods have some disclaimers like "best work with options ...". Even if end player loose some option he can always become moder and enable it himself.

[Solarius Scorch]

I thought the absurdly large number in the trailer would be rather humorous than scary, I mean it's a pretty typical joke to insert in a game ad (or pretty much any ad today).

Anyway, I do like the idea of moving gameplay options to mods. There are two reasons for this:
1) It means more features will become moddable by moving the code to the ruleset.
2) As a modder, you will be able to enforce the use of some gameplay options with your mod if you feel it's necessary. For example, Piratez are build along the idea of capturing live "aliens" and UFO Extender Accuracy, yet there's no way to ensure the player chooses these options. It's not about forcing the player to play the game as they want, but because reading several lines on which settings should be enabled seems to be way beyond the capabilities of an average user.

[Falko]

putting option in mods has disadvantages like:
how do you manage if one mods enable an option and another disables it
do i have to guess whats actual my game behaviour?

if i look at the current options i do not see an obvious candidate that says "hey i want to be a mod instead of an option"

there are some things you can put in a mod if you really want to like
tftd manufacture rule (a new manufacture property)
live alien sale (SellCost for live alien-item !=0)
explosion height...

others like sneaky ai, tftd damage formula are 100% not a mod

[Solarius Scorch]

putting option in mods has disadvantages like:
how do you manage if one mods enable an option and another disables it
do i have to guess whats actual my game behaviour?

I guess it's the same as with other conflicts between mods... You just need to control it. There's not much that can be done here. But if it's modded, it'll also be less binary I guess. For example UFO Extender Accuracy: in one "mod" (I mean vanilla), accuracy drop for auto fire is 0, while in another (UFO Extender Accuracy) it's... well, whatever the value is; but there would probably be more values possible.

if i look at the current options i do not see an obvious candidate that says "hey i want to be a mod instead of an option"

I think there are some, though it's also a matter of taste.

there are some things you can put in a mod if you really want to like
tftd manufacture rule (a new manufacture property)
live alien sale (SellCost for live alien-item !=0)
explosion height...

others like sneaky ai, tftd damage formula are 100% not a mod

Agreed!

[Sturm]

I guess everyone should write his own options and compile his own sourcecode. Also everyone should have his own mods that are dependent on his personal version of X-Com and won't work with anyone else's.

[Falko]

and anyone should make stupid comments to avoid determining reasonable solutions
Edit: i admit perhaps here in "why is openxcom great"-thread  is the wrong place for such

[the_third_curry]

As Solarius suggested, the "549,755,813,888 ways to play Openxcom" was a jab at the sort of silly, excessive statistics that get thrown around in commercials and ads. For Enemy Unknown, Firaxis could easily have tallied up their 4 difficulty levels, ironman mode, and 12 Second Wave options and legitimately claimed that there are 131,072 ways to play Enemy Unknown. It is true, but it's meaningless - who's going to play a game that many times? I don't find a stat like that intimidating though, it's just ridiculous.

While the options vs. mods issue may merit further discussion, it's more of a matter-of -onvenience issue at this point than a playability issue. Could the options stand to be cleaned up and reorganized some - probably, but everyone would have their own ideas about how it should be done (as this topic is starting to demonstrate.)

Hobbes, I don't think your fear of overloading the player is baseless, but I'd imagine most new players are probably going to either go with just the vanilla settings until they learn the game or ask around the forum for recommendations. While the many options and modibility are selling points of Openxcom, the game itself doesn't make any effort to push you toward changing the default options. To me, the advance options and mods are something like Second Wave, they're there to give some more variety and customization for people who have experienced vanilla.

i admit perhaps here in "why is openxcom great"-thread  is the wrong place for such

Yeah, this thread is derailing pretty badly.

To tie it back into the topic, I'd say that the fact that we're debating the layout of the options menu as one of the bigger issues of the game is a testimony to the success of Openxcom. Option layout preferences are a pretty big step down from base disjoint bug and 80-item limit.

[Hobbes]

To tie it back into the topic, I'd say that the fact that we're debating the layout of the options menu as one of the bigger issues of the game is a testimony to the success of Openxcom. Option layout preferences are a pretty big step down from base disjoint bug and 80-item limit.

Agreed. I'd never expected to be going back to the OG so soon after getting completely hooked on the remake since it came out, even less be modding it.

To me evaluating a project is not a matter of answering the question 'why is it successful?' but rather, 'how it will be successful in the future?' But that's another issue that might deserve another discussion    

[SupSuper]

The options/mods/enhancements debate is a huge prickly issue with the dev team right now and we're internally discussing what to do about it.

Long story short, while OpenXcom was founded on vanillaness, supporting options was inevitable given the history of the original X-COM (Xcomutil/Extender/MapEdit/etc). However they were never given that much thought, given the focus was getting X-COM done. But now with 1.0 over and the huge community increase, they've become more of a development nightmare and source of community attrition. For every 1 person that's happy with the way things are there's 10 that have got their own differing conflicting opinions. Things will have to change. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

[Hobbes]

Things will have to change. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

One question that might help you guys is precisely to determine: what is your next goal after 1.0? And something else to consider: all projects have an end.

[Sturm]

The options/mods/enhancements debate is a huge prickly issue with the dev team right now and we're internally discussing what to do about it.

Long story short, while OpenXcom was founded on vanillaness, supporting options was inevitable given the history of the original X-COM (Xcomutil/Extender/MapEdit/etc). However they were never given that much thought, given the focus was getting X-COM done. But now with 1.0 over and the huge community increase, they've become more of a development nightmare and source of community attrition. For every 1 person that's happy with the way things are there's 10 that have got their own differing conflicting opinions. Things will have to change. A line has to be drawn somewhere.

So, we're at point of diverging into different versions of OpenXcom...

It creates a question of what to do when one wants to use options created by different people.

[54x]

Hmmm... I don't know.

Did you ever play Worms 2? Did you ever try customising it? I loved every aspect of tweaking the gameplay. What happened when I bought the Worms Armageddon - you can pick power 1-5. meh. Being able to decided how much spread from the minigun, and how many bullets it contained made for some interesting battles.

At the same time, yes, you can get lost in the customisation, and spend longer tweaking than playing.

But just because there's a large number of available options, doesn't mean you have to - or even should - play them all.

I would never turn Ironman mode on, and argue that that can be mimic'd outside of the game without needing to be coded in; but I won't knock the game for having it.

Yeah, I think the important part of this is that you have to be careful how you present the choices to players so as not to overwhelm them. OpenXcom has been good about this.

It might be better if we categorised the advanced options and consolidated them a bit at some point, but at least the complications are properly hidden away.