[Suggestion] Vanilla - Extra Hard

[Xcommander]

Hello,

Love the hard mode expansion and similar mods, but I'd like to play as vanilla as possible, just harder.

- Superhuman is not *that* hard if you've playing this for a while
- Many of the minor conveniences (grenades that go 3 levels, game combining half-used alien clips, sorting soldiers in the skyranger) actually seem to make the game a little easier, one by one, if we're honest
- The challenge for me is to beat the aliens like it's 1994, with all their quirks, not to play a different (better) game
- I don't want to do crazy challenges like "night missions only" or hawaii-base.

So I'd like a bunch of extra buttons below "Superhuman", ideally that would be done by changing one variable in the game and with as little custom work as possible. If that's not possible I could see more aliens, aliens shooting better, aliens retaliating harder and having more battleships.

Thoughts?

[Meridian]

So I'd like a bunch of extra buttons below "Superhuman", ideally that would be done by changing one variable in the game and with as little custom work as possible.

And what would those buttons do?
Just scale more?

You can find these 2 lines in difficulty.rul:

Code: [Select]

difficultyCoefficient: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
aimAndArmorMultipliers: [0.5, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]

and change the last numbers to make superhuman superhumanier.
Like e.g.

Code: [Select]

difficultyCoefficient: [0, 1, 2, 3, 6]
aimAndArmorMultipliers: [0.5, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.5]


If that's not possible I could see more aliens, aliens shooting better, aliens retaliating harder and having more battleships.

All of that is possible, but it's a little bit more work than just editing one line... you can find most of this in the hardmode expansion and other mods. Inspire by them and tweak it to your needs.

[Xcommander]

Extra difficulty button(s) ("Superhumanier", "Superhumaniest") would be even nicer as they'd be an "official" challenge. "I have beaten the game at "Utmost Superhumanism" vs. "I beat the game with a bunch of random mods, forgot half of them".

The difficultyCoefficient seems to be what I want: a single number to make things harder. I see that it affects various alien stats, but also firing rate of alien ships. Very interesting, I'll have to try that.

Looking forward to some ridiculous cyber disk parties!

[R1dO]

You can always combine Meridian's suggestion with a relabel of the buttons

Code: [Select]

extraStrings:
  - type: en-US
    strings:
      STR_1_BEGINNER: "Superhumanier"
      STR_2_EXPERIENCED: "Superhumaniest"
      STR_3_VETERAN: "I am Badass"
      STR_4_GENIUS: "No seriously ... I am"
      STR_5_SUPERHUMAN: "Utmost Superhumanism ... cause badass++ aint difficult enough"

P.s. some strings might not fit inside a button

[Xcommander]

In which file would I change the labels? Thanks!

Edit: also, level "9" (difficultyCoefficient: [0, 1, 2, 3, 9] and then picking Superhuman) only brought 7 Sectoids in the first Large Scout that landed. I modified C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenXcom\standard\xcom1\difficulty.rul, hope that's correct.

Maybe further testing is needed.

[R1dO]

I would advice against modifying the rulesets that come with the game. Chances are your modifications will be lost upon some future update.

Instead it is much easier to write your own mod and activate it from within the game. For that you will need your mod folder [1].
Inside that folder create a new folder (e.g. "Vanilla - Extra Hard"). [2]
You can put a ruleset file in there (plain text, YAML formatted, ending with .rul)

You can paste the code from my post into that file and make other adaptations.
Please have a look at ruleset reference and editing basics if you need more information.

Have fun modding

[1]
I'm not using windows myself, so i can't point you to the exact path.
Try searching for your save games in explorer (for instance ``_autogeo_.asav``) and note the path, it would look somewhat like

Code: [Select]

C:\<SOME_LONG_PATH>\openxcom\xcom1\ your mod-folder would be

Code: [Select]

C:\<SOME_LONG_PATH>\openxcom\mod\
[2]
Not absolutely necessary, but it helps differentiating in case you have multiple mods.

[Meridian]

In which file would I change the labels? Thanks!

Edit: also, level "9" (difficultyCoefficient: [0, 1, 2, 3, 9] and then picking Superhuman) only brought 7 Sectoids in the first Large Scout that landed. I modified C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenXcom\standard\xcom1\difficulty.rul, hope that's correct.

Maybe further testing is needed.

"Difficulty coefficient" doesn't influence the number of units spawned, that's defined in alien deployments ruleset.
As I said earlier, if you want to make more complex changes, you'll need to make a mod (similar to e.g. hardmode expansion), which changes quite a few things. Changing one number doesn't scale all aspects of the game... that would be quite stupid and limiting.

"Difficulty coefficient" affects:
- some AI decisions
- enemy placement/facing direction at the start of the combat
- dogfight escape timer
- dogfight firing speed
- retaliation odds
- monthly rating/scoring (resp. threshold for losing)

"aimAndArmorMultipliers" affects:
- firing accuracy
- armor

There's also one more setting for "stat growth", which adjust enemy stats (firing, throwing, strength, melee, tu, etc. ..). The logic is a bit more complicated there, so I didn't mention it for your "one number" fix.

[Xcommander]

Very interesting. Started with the mod by multiplying all alien counts by 3, e.g.

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_ABDUCTOR
    data:
      - alienRank: 5
        lowQty: 9
        highQty: 15
This makes for a target rich environment and feels more of a battle than a special operations mission. I'd recommend classical accuracy in order to get things done with long range autoshots. I'll have to study alien morale; too much panic early on even if they have a decent army left.

Meanwhile, what would you guys expect from a plain vanilla hard battlescape mode?
- more aliens?
- beefier?
- better aim?
- better AI? (one can dream)

[Meridian]

Meanwhile, what would you guys expect from a plain vanilla hard battlescape mode?

- smaller xcom teams
- no smoke grenades
- alternate movements option OFF
- extender accuracy option ON
- instant grenades option OFF
- no reload
- no camping

[Xcommander]

(If I make a mod and use other mods as part of the experience, can I just steal it (with credits) or should I refer to it (use X)?)

The game as I am currently testing:

3x the number of aliens in all kinds of ships, therefore
- really hard battles,
- "target rich environment" with lots of shooting (leave vanilla accuracy on), less SWAT team, more army vs. army
- underused equipment like grenades become more important, less worry about blowing up loot since you get plenty
- lots of loot, so Geoscape play is fun and easy -> all bases, equipment, research affordable early on
- tactics are now "worth it" more since everyone on the map (including e.g. flanking units) are always spotting or shooting something
- no boring missions

no PSI, no blasters, therefore
- hardcore conventional battles
- no tragic decimation of your top crew when the Ethereals show up
- no PSI'ing the aliens, thats BS
- No carpet blastering the map

just a few mods, like
- grenades 3 stories high
- possibly things like extra ufos
- I did "starting defensive improved base" (nah because "not vanilla" or yea because "hassle-free geoscape"?)
- I did "pre-save primed grenades" (not Vanilla, and something that streamlines things, but makes it a little easier, so mabye nah)
- maybe heavy laser, but THAT'S ABOUT IT -> I'd recommend doing either the final mod pack/hardmode expansion/other mod OR this plain vanilla one!

So as an experienced player you find the game as you know it; you breeze through the purchase, research and manufacturing screens, you know how aliens react and you know your odds shooting laser pistol across the map and the vision mechanics with smoke and light. Things that felt unbalanced are now all right - you need every advantage you can get. Battlescape/money management was boring and half-broken anyway if you can manufacture+sell lasers and live of selling mind probes

If you want to enjoy the trip to Cydonia more, try the other mods that add content in Geoscape (research, diffculty). This one is about the battles. Just take one by one as a challenge in itself.

In Vanilla the few alien survivers in a small scout were often vastly inferior to a strong human team. The only thing they could do was kill one of the better soldiers which didn't change the battle but kind of annoyed the player and maybe set him back long-term in Battlescape. Annoying. Now every alien ship can win.

In Vanilla even tougher battles didn't really *need* all 14-26 soldiers; you want to train them all but there wasn't enough to shoot at, there was the risk to get shot at if you didn't move everyone right, and many just stood around or just "trained" time units or energy. Boring. In this mod you want to deploy them all, everyone is useful.

With the point system it was often beneficial to, say, land on a terror site and leave immediately to reduce negative score. Let's forget score - let's play to win a ground battle. You get the idea by now

Oh and I would allow restarting any battle from the beginning if you don't like whats happening.
- no more worrying about losing your super star!
- you get another chance, that's how training works. Try the same thing again and see if you can do better
- in the beginning ths mode needs some adjusting and you really need to develop your "best practices", smoke things up, look half-diagonal through windows or around corners to be safer from alien reaction, flank, ... so don't sweat it.
- don't worry about difficulty: it's difficult enough and there are enough aliens around to never give you an easy mission. It seems like the mission layout/landscape is fixed for each alien ufo now

I like it, this is XCOM for me now! Would anyone want to play that? :-) Let me know what you think! Suggestions (practically or philosophically) welcome

[Solarius Scorch]

(If I make a mod and use other mods as part of the experience, can I just steal it (with credits) or should I refer to it (use X)?)

Just go it with the credits, we all steal from one another anyway.

(but mostly from Hobbes)

[Countdown]

Very interesting. Started with the mod by multiplying all alien counts by 3, e.g.

Code: [Select]

  - type: STR_ABDUCTOR
    data:
      - alienRank: 5
        lowQty: 9
        highQty: 15
This makes for a target rich environment and feels more of a battle than a special operations mission. I'd recommend classical accuracy in order to get things done with long range autoshots. I'll have to study alien morale; too much panic early on even if they have a decent army left.

I did something like this once. Just for fun I made a mission with a huge map and 100 Chryssalids, but I did eventually run into the issue of them panicking when you killed too many consecutively. I'd just raise their bravery really high. If you want to make it harder anyway, do your best to prevent any panic by the aliens.

Spoiler:

(If I make a mod and use other mods as part of the experience, can I just steal it (with credits) or should I refer to it (use X)?)

The game as I am currently testing:

3x the number of aliens in all kinds of ships, therefore
- really hard battles,
- "target rich environment" with lots of shooting (leave vanilla accuracy on), less SWAT team, more army vs. army
- underused equipment like grenades become more important, less worry about blowing up loot since you get plenty
- lots of loot, so Geoscape play is fun and easy -> all bases, equipment, research affordable early on
- tactics are now "worth it" more since everyone on the map (including e.g. flanking units) are always spotting or shooting something
- no boring missions

no PSI, no blasters, therefore
- hardcore conventional battles
- no tragic decimation of your top crew when the Ethereals show up
- no PSI'ing the aliens, thats BS
- No carpet blastering the map

just a few mods, like
- grenades 3 stories high
- possibly things like extra ufos
- I did "starting defensive improved base" (nah because "not vanilla" or yea because "hassle-free geoscape"?)
- I did "pre-save primed grenades" (not Vanilla, and something that streamlines things, but makes it a little easier, so mabye nah)
- maybe heavy laser, but THAT'S ABOUT IT -> I'd recommend doing either the final mod pack/hardmode expansion/other mod OR this plain vanilla one!

So as an experienced player you find the game as you know it; you breeze through the purchase, research and manufacturing screens, you know how aliens react and you know your odds shooting laser pistol across the map and the vision mechanics with smoke and light. Things that felt unbalanced are now all right - you need every advantage you can get. Battlescape/money management was boring and half-broken anyway if you can manufacture+sell lasers and live of selling mind probes

If you want to enjoy the trip to Cydonia more, try the other mods that add content in Geoscape (research, diffculty). This one is about the battles. Just take one by one as a challenge in itself.

In Vanilla the few alien survivers in a small scout were often vastly inferior to a strong human team. The only thing they could do was kill one of the better soldiers which didn't change the battle but kind of annoyed the player and maybe set him back long-term in Battlescape. Annoying. Now every alien ship can win.

In Vanilla even tougher battles didn't really *need* all 14-26 soldiers; you want to train them all but there wasn't enough to shoot at, there was the risk to get shot at if you didn't move everyone right, and many just stood around or just "trained" time units or energy. Boring. In this mod you want to deploy them all, everyone is useful.

With the point system it was often beneficial to, say, land on a terror site and leave immediately to reduce negative score. Let's forget score - let's play to win a ground battle. You get the idea by now

Oh and I would allow restarting any battle from the beginning if you don't like whats happening.
- no more worrying about losing your super star!
- you get another chance, that's how training works. Try the same thing again and see if you can do better
- in the beginning ths mode needs some adjusting and you really need to develop your "best practices", smoke things up, look half-diagonal through windows or around corners to be safer from alien reaction, flank, ... so don't sweat it.
- don't worry about difficulty: it's difficult enough and there are enough aliens around to never give you an easy mission. It seems like the mission layout/landscape is fixed for each alien ufo now

I like it, this is XCOM for me now! Would anyone want to play that? :-) Let me know what you think! Suggestions (practically or philosophically) welcome

I feel like some of these changes are actually making the game easier rather than harder. For example, rather than take away PSI and blaster launchers all together, why not make PSI and blaster launchers unusable for XCOM, but let the aliens keep them? Just a suggestion.

[Xcommander]

For example, rather than take away PSI and blaster launchers all together, why not make PSI and blaster launchers unusable for XCOM, but let the aliens keep them? Just a suggestion.

Good points.
- I have morale modified as well
- I checked, aliens can use blasters already
- PSI sucks but you're right, without it it gets quite a bit easier

[yrizoud]

Have you tried or checked the features of Reaper's Hardmod ? It seems he got a similar goal of making XCOM more army-like. It's (I think) the mod which introduced the plasma caster in aliens' arsenal, a shotgun-like scattering weapon. It's more tactically interesting than the usual plasma, because
- you have to consider enemy's distance (closer = more dangerous)
- it tends to cause more wounds, rather than just miss or one-hit-kills.

[Solarius Scorch]

The Plasma Caster was introduced by my Alien Armoury Expanded, I made this weapon for this purpose. Then it was included in Final Mod Pack and X-Com Files.
Not like I care about credits that much, just providing info.