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Author Topic: 1.8 Feedback  (Read 20434 times)

Offline justaround

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1.8 Feedback
« on: April 02, 2021, 12:47:02 am »
I am still not really active anymore due to many things happening nowadays and simply not having enough time between regular life and other interests but I've found some time to play the new version, compare it to experience from a couple of versions ago and offer general feedback. It's not really just neither only suggestion/wishlist nor a bug report thing, but a collection of thoughts, issues and hopes with/for various aspects of the game gathered over dozen or more hours of gameplay. If it doesn't deserve its own thread, my apologies.

1.8 FEEDBACK

Strange creatures mission division
Spoiler:
I still miss how "strange creatures" missions have the generic debriefing description rarely hinting at what one would be fighting. Dividing them into several missions named the same, but with various description giving vague hints of what one would be up against ("fragmentary reports from the area mention sightings of a single/a group of/a horde of wild animal(s)/humanoid(s)/alien beast(s)/giant spider(s)" etc) would be great. I see that you did make some progress in that direction with zombie infestations and other such stuff, but probably most variations of strange creatures missions could have their own stuff, be it spiders, megascorpions or whatever.

Early game knives balancing
Spoiler:
Regular knife has considerably better stats than combat knife, at least when wielded by an average soldier, despite the latter being the one meant for combat and more than twice as expensive. Also, regular knife can be taken on covert missions combat one cannot despite the fact it wouldn't be too suspicious in situations where regular knife is allowed.

Zombie missions
Spoiler:
Zombies seem more aggressive - and frankly, they're much better now. Some missions with them may be harder, perhaps, as you have actual traditional zombie scenario of whole hordes running at you in numbers greater than what you can quickly dispose of in the beginning, but it also makes the fights more dynamic and not drag as long as before. First time I had to pull agents from a regular "strange creatures" zombie mission as they just got swarmed. Also, first time I found it worthwhile to set up firing zones with flamers and (the agricultural flamer itself seems awful at actually setting zombies on fire, but it does make firewalls zombies avoid). Good change.

However, now that they all rush, they keep making that charge roar all the time. Changing it to something less bothersome when it's repeated 10 - 15 times a turn, some short zombie moan/groan for example would be better. Or even disabling it till replacement will be found.

Also, not sure if intended but now that zombie infestation is its own kind of mission, maybe zombie variant of strange creatures mission where it's not just a couple of zombies isn't necessary?

Madmen' rampages
Spoiler:
In several games across several versions, "madman rampage" enemies or "concerned citizens" seemed to be unable to squeeze their missions into the roster and are very rare in general. In current version "strange creatures" mission happens all the time but I had literally one single mission with some "homicidal" type enemy before I moved (without rushing, either) far enough in plot that I didn't even dare to expect they'll show up anymore. And they didn't, that was one, single instance of that mission in whole campaign so far. Never even got to fight other "homicidal" enemies and I recall there being several.

Mission clusters
Spoiler:
Missions seems to show up in "clusters" even more so that it'd seem a couple of versions ago. A year without zombie infestation mission and then I suddenly had 2 following about 2 strange creatures sightings, all in a span of one day. Then several days of a pause, then again a couple of missions pop out nearly one after another. Missions shouldn't happen completely regularly, but at the same time having them clustered like that is weird.

Early game and pacing
Spoiler:
It seems we get new content but the pacing is still the same as many, many versions ago, which makes it easy to skip by some of content. Extending the early game phase, requiring some more time to get each promotion and pushing the date of official beginning of alien invasion back may help there.

Map size and enemies ambush
Spoiler:
Some maps are smaller than before. That's okay. But now there's even more of a problem with how enemies ambush operatives. Far more frequently now there's absolutely no chance but to lose operatives at no fault of the player's - they simply spawn in sight of several armed opponents and get shot at from several directions the moment they as little as even crouch. It's neither fun, nor fair nor well-designed and simply makes save-scumming not even an option but a necessity at times as sometimes missions aren't winnable because of particular enemy strengths but because my agents parked the van in the middle of enemy group with no cover they can ever reach.

It's less of a problem later in the game where one starts inside one's own vehicles but till then, having enemies in such firefight-intensive missions have slightly less TU or even just lowered reaction stat during first player's turn so they don't just take out whole team after one player's click, before the player even gets a chance to do anything with said troops seems kinda necessary if save-scumming is to be avoided. At this point, there's no difference if there'd be a random chance of "after your van left the base the drunk driver crashed it and killed everyone" - would be as silly, but at least wouldn't waste player's time spent reaching the mission and modifying loadouts.

Smoke grenades would be ideal thing for such a situation but they won't work because mechanics-wise grenades explode after player's turn, not during it, making any cover they provide happen too late to be of any use during said first turn. Again, lowering TU and/or reactions for first player turn would at least help players position troops and throw some smoke.

Early game and content
Spoiler:
As I've mentioned in the past, early game, when it's more of an X-Files vibe than X-COM one is also my favorite part and what makes this conversion stand out. Together with above idea of changing pacing and extending early game phase, there's a lot of potential here that's simply untapped.

Especially with new mechanics like reinforcements. For example, basic cult/gang mission "suspect apprehension" could very much use it in a way that requires XCOM operative to apprehend the members in several turns or they get reinforced with a sizeable group of other, simialr gang members (which could be even kind of challenge for those hoping to use that ambush to lure additional enemies) with additional variant of this mission where it's friendly law enforcement that shows up as reinforcement, forcing players to apprehend enemies quickly or risk them getting shot by NPCs.

Maybe even easiest apprehension missions could be covert ones, allowing any and all concealable weapons which wouldn't change much early game, where civilian clothing and small arms are the staple of XCOM's equipment, but would still add a bit to the flavor.

Or a mission that's practically unfinishable (a single enemy is hidden somewhere inaccessible to players) where a bunch of covert operatives lands in area full of early game equipment, secret files, small quantities of money and it's up to them to find and gather as much of it as they can and drop it at evac point before escaping, but every few turns a new unit or two of enemies shows up, slowly, if anything making operatives use up all the ammo - fitting for abandoned lab with zombies or other cryptids, for example).

Perhaps even a downed UFO mission where military of some country managed to take down an alien ship all on their own and XCOM under guise of law enforcement managed to get itself in support role - with player being able to see how aliens fare against human military and perhaps gather some loot and escape before said military crumbles. Or maybe said military keeps getting reinforcements ultimately defeating aliens at the cost of many lives, underlining the threat aliens pose - though in such case, no loot beside what's at the evac zone tiles should be available.

There's also other content which could be hinted at early game but isn't. For example, repeating haunting missions with a couple of hostile possessed civilians (who should still bring score penalty if killed) and a single ghost (with ectoplasm unlocking parapsychology research rather than being unlocked by it) at some haunted house would be great.

Civvies nicking stuff
Spoiler:
Random civilians can steal weapons from XCOM's spawn. I don't know if it counts as lost at the end of th emission so I tend to stun them and take the gun back but still, I know the items just lie there in the field but it'd be nice to have some way of preventing people from taking them. Maybe it's possible for deployment tiles to be considered something like being on fire as far as AI pathfinding goes?

Another, related issue is civilians wielding picked up alien tech, one even my agents cannot use yet.

Events
Spoiler:
As always, events are a really nice addition and I am glad there's more of them, even if most seems rather negative in effect. Two things I'd like to notice:

They all seem to have comparable frequency, when I think some should be much more rare/common than others. For example, attacks by beasts, kidnappings by the deep ones should be more common, but so should be ones where rituals are disrupted (granting that corpse and a spear). I only had one land survey event and frankly, that probably should be far more common thing - rewards in it, the same as in disrupted deep one operation one are really weak, even by early game standard, but they'd add to the feeling that things are happening behind the scenes and balance out the impression that most events are negative.

Some events could very well offer their own research and missions. XCOM got hacked? Maybe it generates a mission next month where one disrupts some minor hacking operation - a completely regular, unaltered EXALT safehouse mission, just under different name, with different fluff, hanging around on the geoscape for long. If one feels more ambitious, changing loot items to a military computer and secret files instead of ammo/weapon boxes or switching EXALT for Osiron goons. A simple thing, again, not very hard nor profitable after early game but at a low work price the immersion and fun's greater.

Lastly, there seem to be almost no events relating to zombies despite how big role they play. Even some just along the lines of "We have multiple reports about an illness causing people to mutate into aggressive beasts not unlike those of classic zombie movies. Despite our efforts, those reports start to filter to the mainstream media and the condition itself may be responsible for disappearances among populations of small villages and remote farms, rumours of which add to the unrest."

Dossier missions
Spoiler:
Many dossiers entries could also be done in that way. It's nice that some dossier targets get their special scenarios, but I wouldn't mind simple stuff like, for example CHAD (which could be just a recolor of MiB power-armored unit, totting some hydra laser rifle and with morale/status effects disabled) attacking XCOM base or some civilian facility early game after its dossier is researched, making it a tricky enemy given at what level XCOM is (usually I get CHAD dossier while still running around with hunting rifles, AKMs and similar) but doable. Rewards? Maybe its laser gun and an alenium crystal?

Alenium crystals, disregard if AI units are meant to be limited resource
Spoiler:
Speaking of which, some version ago there were concerns about balancing rates of receiving crystals vs losing units (as IIRC the crystal can be lost permanently if the unit is destroyed in a fashion not leaving a corpse or the mission is lost completely). Maybe rather than just giving one usable crystals, some way of slowly gathering resources that can be recombined into such crystal could be introduced? For example, the crystal itself is not be enough, one also needs to have disposable "alien programming lattice", "resonance imprinter" and whatever other pseudotech mambo-jumbo one can think of - and only by combinining them through a simple, short-lasting manufacture order one gets a "functional AI core" item. Such parts could drop from Osiron crates or Syndicate research labs and the crystals acquired from destroyed, disassembled AI units.
Thanks to that there'd be some way of getting more AI units, but it also requires collecting resources over a span of succesful battles - and makes enemy AI units more valuable, upping their value is fair given how often (at least in my case) they require use of powerful explosives to take down, risking destruction of the "corpse".

The informant
Spoiler:
Regarding non-dossier special units - the informant mission is yet to make it possible for me to retrieve the informant alive. Almost always, given where he spawns, enemies find him in first one or two turns. Not sure if that's intended or if there's even any value in keeping him alive.

Inventory spacing
Spoiler:
I recall long time ago someone adding handcuff graphics that was deemed not as bad as previous iterations but it wasn't still implemented yet and we have bulky two-tile handcuffs still - is it still not good enough even just a temporary measure to change handcuff bulkiness? Also, in general many items seem bulky and spaced weirdly, making it hard to put them in "limb" slots that normally should be able to handle such items easily. Melee weapons like katanas taking more space and being as hard to wield as anti-tank missile launchers. We have one tile pistols, but some extendable, electrified batons (even just a miniaturized version of game-start ones which are supposedly telescopic but in reality are as big as wooden clubs) and better one-tile knives that could be smuggled on any covert mission would be great, make sense and be quite practical. I know that items can change graphics when they're in hand vs when they're stored elsewhere so visuals shouldn't be a problem.

Hydra and laser tech
Spoiler:
Rsearching hydra laser should probably be alternative lead to laser weapon technology. It wouldn't unbalance anything since the tech itself is just a prerequisite and one requiring certain lab (and often the player will get alien laser rifles before then) but it'd make sense.

Vanilla aliens vs other enemies and XCOM troopers balancing
Spoiler:
A thing I suspected earlier but now confirmed - aliens have stats not balanced well compared to other units.

A series of early and mid-game checks (Veteran difficulty) made me see a puny, thin-limbed sectoid that could:
- react faster than trained, experienced troopers with dozens of completed missions
- repeatedly overpower in "gun struggle" a high-ranked operative with 50 - 60 points of strength and finished training, be they the ones trying to shoot or prevent being shot point-blank
- when shot at from somewhat covered location - repeatedly do a spin in reaction fire and then tap out a sniper from across most of a medium-sized map with just a laser or plasma pistol

Sure the missions are still beatable, but the pure stat difference, no matter RNG luck often makes it seem like the game discourages tactics - it's all about either cheesing and exploiting AI mistakes or just out-tanking most aliens in primitive heavy-caliber slugfest where you exchange hard-hitting attacks till one side has no units left.

I don't want just weaker enemies but more differences between them, greater variation. Strong aliens, weak aliens. Even Storm-taking enemies seemed less purely physically able than those little grey guys - sectoids of non-soldier type shouldn't compare to even rank-and-file human solder by stats alone but depend on their powerful equipment.
Armored units should be very slow but be able to shrug off weakest of weapons.

In general, more enemies, especially stuff like sectoid engineers or just random Dagon priests should be stat-wise very weak as they weren't even meant for combat but still can pack a punch due to their powerful toys, and some combat-dedicated troops should be some danger even when their weapons are rendered ineffective. Especially Red Dawn, due to aforemenetioned Storm, should be much more eager and capable unarmed vs other NPCs and possibly on par with Black Lotus (with former being much less accurate but stronger, while the latter reacts better and is more accurate in melee). Currently most humanoid enemies work the same in this regard and the only difference between them lies in what attack they can do/what weapon they use.

Funnily enough, when it comes to melee even weak, all melee enemies, beasts and human aline, somehow either miss completely or are able to take down my rather healthy, high-rank and somewhat armored operatives with just a few whacks with random improvised weapons, with rarely any in-between (injured, yet still well-capable of fighting) results.

Psionics and the plot
Spoiler:
As always, it's nice to see more plot developments/storyline missions but I tend to notice that for how much world-changing things psionics is, it doesn't seem really that much underlined in fluff itself. I am yet to see missions where it'd be the main concern - no homegrown occultists to arrest or perform services for in exchange for mystical knowledge, no books of purely human magical lore to study, no non-Dagon rituals (with exception of that one pentagram at mental asylum) that actually would seem to do anything. It's a pretty good potential plot-driver with its various applications mentioned in many dossiers, hopefully you'll explore it further!

Will write more as I keep going through old and new content in a fresh new game, should time allow. Unless it'll be just bugs, then I post those in the relevant thread.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2021, 01:52:12 pm by justaround »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2021, 01:57:14 pm »
I am still not really active anymore due to many things happening nowadays and simply not having enough time between regular life and other interests but I've found some time to play the new version, compare it to experience from a couple of versions ago and offer general feedback. It's not really just neither only suggestion/wishlist nor a bug report thing, but a collection of thoughts, issues and hopes with/for various aspects of the game gathered over dozen or more hours of gameplay. If it doesn't deserve its own thread, my apologies.

By all means, go ahead! But of course other people can write here too.

Also, I can't really reply to spoiler-marked content, so consider this post to be not spoiler free.

Strange creatures mission division
I still miss how "strange creatures" missions have the generic debriefing description rarely hinting at what one would be fighting. Dividing them into several missions named the same, but with various description giving vague hints of what one would be up against ("fragmentary reports from the area mention sightings of a single/a group of/a horde of wild animal(s)/humanoid(s)/alien beast(s)/giant spider(s)" etc) would be great. I see that you did make some progress in that direction with zombie infestations and other such stuff, but probably most variations of strange creatures missions could have their own stuff, be it spiders, megascorpions or whatever.

Separate missions for various species are not planned. Right now there are 80 scripts to run basic monster hunt missions by biome type and deployment size. 80 scripts! I am not going to multiply this number by the number of species. Random race per mission exists for a reason, and it is good enough for me in this case.
But on top of that, some species get special missions, like zombies and werecreatures.

When it comes to briefings, I could add direct info on deployment size, but it would kill the suspense, no?

Early game knives balancing
Regular knife has considerably better stats than combat knife, at least when wielded by an average soldier, despite the latter being the one meant for combat and more than twice as expensive. Also, regular knife can be taken on covert missions combat one cannot despite the fact it wouldn't be too suspicious in situations where regular knife is allowed.

Let's see:
a) Damage:
Regular knife: 20 + 0.2 REA + 0.1 MEL
Combat knife: 20 + 0.2 STR + 0.25 MEL

b) Accuracy:
Regular knife: 90*(0.5 MEL + 0.5 REA)
Combat knife: 75*MEL

I think you're right, the combat knife deserves a bit more accuracy; I'll boost it to 85*MEL. For damage, I decrease knife's base power to 18.

Zombie missions
Zombies seem more aggressive - and frankly, they're much better now. Some missions with them may be harder, perhaps, as you have actual traditional zombie scenario of whole hordes running at you in numbers greater than what you can quickly dispose of in the beginning, but it also makes the fights more dynamic and not drag as long as before. First time I had to pull agents from a regular "strange creatures" zombie mission as they just got swarmed. Also, first time I found it worthwhile to set up firing zones with flamers and (the agricultural flamer itself seems awful at actually setting zombies on fire, but it does make firewalls zombies avoid). Good change.

Yes, I wholly agree. It's all on Meridian!

However, now that they all rush, they keep making that charge roar all the time. Changing it to something less bothersome when it's repeated 10 - 15 times a turn, some short zombie moan/groan for example would be better. Or even disabling it till replacement will be found.

My thought are the same. I'll discuss it with Meridian.

Also, not sure if intended but now that zombie infestation is its own kind of mission, maybe zombie variant of strange creatures mission where it's not just a couple of zombies isn't necessary?

Sorry, I don't understand. Do you mean to say that zombies can be excluded from standard monster missions? If yes, then I guess they could, but why?

Madmen' rampages
In several games across several versions, "madman rampage" enemies or "concerned citizens" seemed to be unable to squeeze their missions into the roster and are very rare in general. In current version "strange creatures" mission happens all the time but I had literally one single mission with some "homicidal" type enemy before I moved (without rushing, either) far enough in plot that I didn't even dare to expect they'll show up anymore. And they didn't, that was one, single instance of that mission in whole campaign so far. Never even got to fight other "homicidal" enemies and I recall there being several.

So? Not sure what you're trying to say. You got some missions, some didn't happen this campaign, that's how RNG works and how it was designed. And what is a "mission roster" - was it a metaphor? Because there is not such thing as a "roster"...

Mission clusters
Missions seems to show up in "clusters" even more so that it'd seem a couple of versions ago. A year without zombie infestation mission and then I suddenly had 2 following about 2 strange creatures sightings, all in a span of one day. Then several days of a pause, then again a couple of missions pop out nearly one after another. Missions shouldn't happen completely regularly, but at the same time having them clustered like that is weird.

Of course "random" doesn't mean "evenly spread", it's actually the opposite. ;) (Well, usually.)

Early game and pacing
It seems we get new content but the pacing is still the same as many, many versions ago, which makes it easy to skip by some of content. Extending the early game phase, requiring some more time to get each promotion and pushing the date of official beginning of alien invasion back may help there.

Eh? Why? I don't get what you're getting at. Why would I want to do that?

Map size and enemies ambush
Some maps are smaller than before. That's okay. But now there's even more of a problem with how enemies ambush operatives. Far more frequently now there's absolutely no chance but to lose operatives at no fault of the player's - they simply spawn in sight of several armed opponents and get shot at from several directions the moment they as little as even crouch. It's neither fun, nor fair nor well-designed and simply makes save-scumming not even an option but a necessity at times as sometimes missions aren't winnable because of particular enemy strengths but because my agents parked the van in the middle of enemy group with no cover they can ever reach.

It's less of a problem later in the game where one starts inside one's own vehicles but till then, having enemies in such firefight-intensive missions have slightly less TU or even just lowered reaction stat during first player's turn so they don't just take out whole team after one player's click, before the player even gets a chance to do anything with said troops seems kinda necessary if save-scumming is to be avoided. At this point, there's no difference if there'd be a random chance of "after your van left the base the drunk driver crashed it and killed everyone" - would be as silly, but at least wouldn't waste player's time spent reaching the mission and modifying loadouts.

This change is what people actually begged me for, so I went ahead with it. There's a saying in Poland "keep the fish or keep the aquarium" - you can't have both. If the mission start is too bad, just abort.

Smoke grenades would be ideal thing for such a situation but they won't work because mechanics-wise grenades explode after player's turn, not during it, making any cover they provide happen too late to be of any use during said first turn. Again, lowering TU and/or reactions for first player turn would at least help players position troops and throw some smoke.

Yeah, I can move smoke grenades a bit earlier. Hell, let's make it Promotion I, as an experiment.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2021, 01:58:19 pm »
(continued)

Early game and content
As I've mentioned in the past, early game, when it's more of an X-Files vibe than X-COM one is also my favorite part and what makes this conversion stand out. Together with above idea of changing pacing and extending early game phase, there's a lot of potential here that's simply untapped.

I've been tapping into early game's potential for like 5 years, I'd really like to move the fuck away from early game eventually. :P

Especially with new mechanics like reinforcements. For example, basic cult/gang mission "suspect apprehension" could very much use it in a way that requires XCOM operative to apprehend the members in several turns or they get reinforced with a sizeable group of other, simialr gang members (which could be even kind of challenge for those hoping to use that ambush to lure additional enemies) with additional variant of this mission where it's friendly law enforcement that shows up as reinforcement, forcing players to apprehend enemies quickly or risk them getting shot by NPCs.

Sure, we can make more reinforcements missions... In fact, almost any mission could use it. But we need to draw the line somewhere.

I am open to considering adding it to some other mission too, but the cult apprehension feels too early for an advanced feature like that. Maybe something else?

Admittedly, I like the idea of police arriving to spice things up... But they should shoot you too, and we can't have that! :D

Maybe even easiest apprehension missions could be covert ones, allowing any and all concealable weapons which wouldn't change much early game, where civilian clothing and small arms are the staple of XCOM's equipment, but would still add a bit to the flavor.

Are you talking of something roughly between cult apprehension and cult activity?

I want to make more undercover missions, of course... But most of development time went into early game, why would I pour even more into it when the mid/late game is a skeleton???

Or a mission that's practically unfinishable (a single enemy is hidden somewhere inaccessible to players) where a bunch of covert operatives lands in area full of early game equipment, secret files, small quantities of money and it's up to them to find and gather as much of it as they can and drop it at evac point before escaping, but every few turns a new unit or two of enemies shows up, slowly, if anything making operatives use up all the ammo - fitting for abandoned lab with zombies or other cryptids, for example).

Fun concept, maybe some day.

Perhaps even a downed UFO mission where military of some country managed to take down an alien ship all on their own and XCOM under guise of law enforcement managed to get itself in support role - with player being able to see how aliens fare against human military and perhaps gather some loot and escape before said military crumbles. Or maybe said military keeps getting reinforcements ultimately defeating aliens at the cost of many lives, underlining the threat aliens pose - though in such case, no loot beside what's at the evac zone tiles should be available.

TBH I don't get how these ideas would work. Are we still talking about the reinforcements feature?

There's also other content which could be hinted at early game but isn't. For example, repeating haunting missions with a couple of hostile possessed civilians (who should still bring score penalty if killed) and a single ghost (with ectoplasm unlocking parapsychology research rather than being unlocked by it) at some haunted house would be great.

Ghosts are shelved for now, but of course I'd like to develop this arc at some point.

Civvies nicking stuff
Random civilians can steal weapons from XCOM's spawn. I don't know if it counts as lost at the end of th emission so I tend to stun them and take the gun back but still, I know the items just lie there in the field but it'd be nice to have some way of preventing people from taking them. Maybe it's possible for deployment tiles to be considered something like being on fire as far as AI pathfinding goes?

This isn't a question to me, I can only enable/disable civilians from picking up weapons. I personally like how it works now.

Events
As always, events are a really nice addition and I am glad there's more of them, even if most seems rather negative in effect. Two things I'd like to notice:

They all seem to have comparable frequency, when I think some should be much more rare/common than others. (...)

Of course they don't have comparable frequency.

Some events could very well offer their own research and missions. XCOM got hacked? Maybe it generates a mission next month (...)

There is no elegant way to do so. Well, maybe once (events grants a hidden research, this hidden research enables a one-time mission script), but I don't want to put work into something that happens once per campaign, unless it's important.

Lastly, there seem to be almost no events relating to zombies despite how big role they play. Even some just along the lines of "We have multiple reports about an illness causing people to mutate into aggressive beasts not unlike those of classic zombie movies. Despite our efforts, those reports start to filter to the mainstream media and the condition itself may be responsible for disappearances among populations of small villages and remote farms, rumours of which add to the unrest."

Good point, I'll add something like it, thanks :)

Dossier missions
Many dossiers entries could also be done in that way. It's nice that some dossier targets get their special scenarios, but I wouldn't mind simple stuff like, for example CHAD (which could be just a recolor of MiB power-armored unit, totting some hydra laser rifle and with morale/status effects disabled) attacking XCOM base or some civilian facility early game after its dossier is researched, making it a tricky enemy given at what level XCOM is (usually I get CHAD dossier while still running around with hunting rifles, AKMs and similar) but doable. Rewards? Maybe its laser gun and an alenium crystal?

Yes, more missions are nice and all, and I am not against them, but they're really not a priority.

Alenium crystals, disregard if AI units are meant to be limited resource

They definitely are meant to be limited resource, else you eventually get a robot army (Enforcers) instead of human agents. And that's not what I want.

The informant
Regarding non-dossier special units - the informant mission is yet to make it possible for me to retrieve the informant alive. Almost always, given where he spawns, enemies find him in first one or two turns. Not sure if that's intended or if there's even any value in keeping him alive.

There is some value, but yeah, it's a hard mission. Good luck next time!

Inventory spacing
I recall long time ago someone adding handcuff graphics that was deemed not as bad as previous iterations but it wasn't still implemented yet and we have bulky two-tile handcuffs still - is it still not good enough even just a temporary measure to change handcuff bulkiness? Also, in general many items seem bulky and spaced vertically, making it hard to put them in "limb" slots that normally should be able to handle such items easily. We have one tile pistols, but some extendable, electrified batons (even just a miniaturized version of game-start ones) and better one-tile knives that could be smuggled on any covert mission would be great, make sense and be quite practical.

Cuffs: to be decided.
Better one-tile knives: no idea what would be better than the shiv but not larger. A plasma switchblade?

Hydra and laser tech
Rsearching hydra laser should probably be alternative lead to laser weapon technology. It wouldn't unbalance anything since the tech itself is just a prerequisite and one requiring certain lab (and often the player will get alien laser rifles before then) but it'd make sense.

Sort of planned. As of now, your only option for powering lasers is E-115. I want to introduce more battery types, made with other tech (like UAC magitech, or Cyberweb dimensional batteries, or Black Sun science) and with somewhat different effects, but that's still only a rough idea.

Vanilla aliens vs other enemies and XCOM troopers balancing
A thing I suspected earlier but now confirmed - aliens have stats not balanced well compared to other units.

Ethereals say thanks :3

A series of early and mid-game checks (Veteran difficulty) made me see a puny, thin-limbed sectoid that could:
- react faster than trained, experienced troopers with dozens of completed missions
- repeatedly overpower in "gun struggle" a high-ranked operative with 50 - 60 points of strength and finished training, be they the ones trying to shoot or prevent being shot point-blank
- when shot at from somewhat covered location - repeatedly do a spin in reaction fire and then tap out a sniper from across most of a medium-sized map with just a laser or plasma pistol

Yeah, they've been conquering the Galaxy for the past couple millions of years, if not more. They're pretty good at it. They would be way better at it if they weren't so absurdly paranoid about their own troops.

Sure the missions are still beatable, but the pure stat difference, no matter RNG luck often makes it seem like the game discourages tactics - it's all about either cheesing and exploiting AI mistakes or just out-tanking most aliens in primitive heavy-caliber slugfest where you exchange hard-hitting attacks till one side has no units left.

I don't want just weaker enemies but more differences between them, greater variation. Strong aliens, weak aliens. Even Storm-taking enemies seemed less purely physically able than those little grey guys - sectoids of non-soldier type shouldn't compare to even rank-and-file human solder by stats alone but depend on their powerful equipment.
Armored units should be very slow but be able to shrug off weakest of weapons.

No, there aren't any weak aliens. I mean there are, but not on the battlefield. They're meant to be comparable to high tier enemies anyway, like fully developewd MiBs.
Sure, Sectoids are small and frail, but as you well know they have psi shields. Yes, it's unfair. So what?
As for more variance between aliens, I think they're different enough already. We have weak aliens, strong aliens, tough aliens, squishy aliens, flying aliens, crawling aliens, melee aliens, sniping aliens... Honestly I'm not sure what else is needed.

In general, more enemies, especially stuff like sectoid engineers or just random Dagon priests should be stat-wise very weak as they weren't even meant for combat

Says who?

but still can pack a punch due to their powerful toys, and some combat-dedicated troops should be some danger even when their weapons are rendered ineffective. Especially Red Dawn, due to aforemenetioned Storm, should be much more eager and capable unarmed vs other NPCs and possibly on par with Black Lotus (with former being much less accurate but stronger, while the latter reacts better and is more accurate in melee). Currently most humanoid enemies work the same in this regard and the only difference between them lies in what attack they can do/what weapon they use.

Sorry, but this just isn't true. They are as varied as they can within reason, and carefully designed for it.

Funnily enough, when it comes to melee even weak, all melee enemies, beasts and human aline, somehow either miss completely or are able to take down my rather healthy, high-rank and somewhat armored operatives with just a few whacks with random improvised weapons, with rarely any in-between (injured, yet still well-capable of fighting) results.

Not sure how I should react to this. You know well that the melee stat is a continuum, so are weapon parameters. So I fail to understnad your point, feels more like a rant than anything else, sorry.

Psionics and the plot
As always, it's nice to see more plot developments/storyline missions but I tend to notice that for how much world-changing things psionics is, it doesn't seem really that much underlined in fluff itself. I am yet to see missions where it'd be the main concern - no homegrown occultists to arrest or perform services for in exchange for mystical knowledge, no books of purely human magical lore to study, no non-Dagon rituals (with exception of that one pentagram at mental asylum) that actually would seem to do anything. It's a pretty good potential plot-driver with its various applications mentioned in many dossiers, hopefully you'll explore it further!

Well, what can I say - missions get done when they get done :)

Will write more as I keep going through old and new content in a fresh new game, should time allow. Unless it'll be just bugs, then I post those in the relevant thread.

Many thanks for the feedback. As you see, I took it to heart and even did some changes. However, I have the feeling that you only addressed very early game, which I've been focusing on for the past few years and I really am not interested in developing it further for now, since late game is sorely neglected. Do you even go beyond the invasion phase?

Offline Bananas_Akimbo

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2021, 05:04:01 pm »
Quote
It seems we get new content but the pacing is still the same as many, many versions ago, which makes it easy to skip by some of content. Extending the early game phase, requiring some more time to get each promotion and pushing the date of official beginning of alien invasion back may help there.

Eh? Why? I don't get what you're getting at. Why would I want to do that?

I could be wrong, but I think what he means, is that with every update we get more and more stuff to research but not more time to actually perform the research in. The concern is, that you will be less prepared once the invasion comes because you couldn't complete key research in time, because the new research took too much of your time. This is something, that I have contemplated myself. I don't know, if it actually plays out that way, though. Haven't played enough.

Even if that really is a problem, I still don't like the suggested solution of pushing back the invasion date. It's already taking a really long time to get to (what is supposed to be) the meat of the game. Other solutions would be shortening research times (don't like it, research times are already unrealistically short), reducing cost/upkeep of scientists/labs (slightly less unrealistic than previous option, maybe) or reducing costs of other stuff or increasing early income (more loot in early missions), so that the player can spend more on research.

Offline justaround

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2021, 05:52:18 pm »
By all means, go ahead! But of course other people can write here too.
Obviously, no issue with that.

When it comes to briefings, I could add direct info on deployment size, but it would kill the suspense, no?
Depends how much info and in what case. A set of vague statements about the mission, be it terrain or describing enemies going from "a creature" through "multiple contacts" to "whole horde" and merely underlining "humanoids", "some sort of animals", "weird creatures" would least make one aware that, for example, it's an area where some type of weapon wouldn't work (sniper rifles in confined spaces, shotguns in vast open plains) and that what they fight wouldn't be numbers of animals (easy to fire, low damage weapons prefered) but something big and mean (hevy caliber rifles necessary). Less of suspense destruction and more of a giving the player the bare info any COC would give its soldier, lest they come shooting at rats with missile launchers, pull out knives against horde of chupacabras they should be able to see outside the window before they even deployed or force player to spend boring time and turns moving each agent to equipment stash near the vehicle and rearm each of them one by one.

Yes, I wholly agree. It's all on Meridian!
Sincere props to Meridian as well, then.

Sorry, I don't understand. Do you mean to say that zombies can be excluded from standard monster missions? If yes, then I guess they could, but why?
It's basically the same mission with similar numbers of enemies under two different names, making it double as likely to show up compared to other missions that could be chosen instead of it. Not a big deal either way, I just thought that since there's already mission like that, why double it? The one where it's just a couple of zombies is a different matter.

So? Not sure what you're trying to say. You got some missions, some didn't happen this campaign, that's how RNG works and how it was designed. And what is a "mission roster" - was it a metaphor? Because there is not such thing as a "roster"...
Ah, if it's intended then nevermind. I was under the impression that the intent is to have every player get a considerable chance at experiencing all kinds of creatures and missions. As for roster, yeah, a figure in speech in that it's not exactly roster but - from what I know, missions that will spawn are decided a bit ahead of time and there's no script running random dice every in-game X minutes to spawn another mission.

Eh? Why? I don't get what you're getting at. Why would I want to do that?
High chance to miss lots of content as the player moves through the game, unless they purposefully wait with promotions to enjoy it (but then that may cripple them later on).

This change is what people actually begged me for, so I went ahead with it. There's a saying in Poland "keep the fish or keep the aquarium" - you can't have both. If the mission start is too bad, just abort.

Yeah, I can move smoke grenades a bit earlier. Hell, let's make it Promotion I, as an experiment.
That's the problem - without saving before first move you don't know if it's too bad. One often doesn't know if it's too bad till they actually start moving on the first turn and realize there's several enemies aiming at them - and then the very fact they made one trooper take one step may lead to them being shot up and then there's little left to abort with. Same problem with smoke grenades: I repeat, because of how grenades seem to work, they're not useful because agents get shot up after making a single move, so before those grenades explode even if one starts the round with them equipped and primed.

I've been tapping into early game's potential for like 5 years, I'd really like to move the fuck away from early game eventually. :P
Hah, I understand. My personal bias speaking because as mentioned, the "special agents in trenchcoats and with normal military hardware uncovering paranormal happenings/conspiracies" is kind of unique yet very much appreciated aspect for me.

I am open to considering adding it to some other mission too, but the cult apprehension feels too early for an advanced feature like that. Maybe something else?
As you've mentioned, nearly any mission could have *some* reason to add such, start-game cult apprehension just felt fitting for me because at this point XCOM is just budding initiative pursuing their first leads wherever they may be and trying to apprehend what's basically simple criminals - so having their gangs send a few guys more if they realize some of their men were attacked/someone went onto their turf or regular police coming in to take care of these criminals seems reasonable to me.

Admittedly, I like the idea of police arriving to spice things up... But they should shoot you too, and we can't have that! :D
In regular cult apprehension, maybe we cannot. I could think of a special mission though where some intelligence agency had secret op to raid some important place housing things not meant for their eyes tied to some council members so rather than going undercover and browbeat their officials to let XCOM in on it, one's forced to crash the party and either fight both groups (with penalties for killing cops) or prepare less-lethal crowd control. Could even underline the aspect of how council isn't really just good guys and we may be forced to do some of a really morally ambiguous, wet work for them.

Eh, I know, ideas are easy but what's the work to put them in!

Are you talking of something roughly between cult apprehension and cult activity?
Wasn't thinking about it but that'd be an option - rather than heavily modifying suspect apprehension mission, one could get its alternative where there's no penalty for letting it slide, but there's additional risks and rewards (in form of more enemies if one takes their time) if they want to get on it (could be easily explained that since local authorities are onto it and the targets are unlikely to be of any great priority, XCOM can let it sort itself out).

I want to make more undercover missions, of course... But most of development time went into early game, why would I pour even more into it when the mid/late game is a skeleton???
Could think of the reasons but as mentioned, I'd rather give you the honest answer of untapped potential and how it's by my absolutely subjective take the most awesome part of the game and its greatest appeal. Of course, I understand if your opinion differs on it, but just there's so much more that could be done so it'll be better (and some of those things with less work required than the others) that eh, it hurts. But yes, I am aware there's a lot of other things to be done in other parts of the game and there's only so much time and will.

TBH I don't get how these ideas would work. Are we still talking about the reinforcements feature?
Yes. All those scenarios are just hypothetical ideas for the ways reinforcement mechanics could be implemented. Be it enemy reinforcements for some gangsters if player is slow to capture enemies the mission begins with, police reinforcement to fight those enemies and thus possibly deprive XCOM of captives (again, should player be too slow) or military reinforcements in a bigger battle against aliens (as the battle keeps raging).

Ghosts are shelved for now, but of course I'd like to develop this arc at some point.
Looking forward to it.

Good point, I'll add something like it, thanks
No problem. Hell, while I am hardly a professional writer, if you want any little text blurbs like that about any little thing for events and whatnot, just let me know what's needed for what and I can probably make several on the fly.

There is some value, but yeah, it's a hard mission. Good luck next time!
Uh, not my point. The mission difficulty isn't what I concentrate on, but it's the fact that the informant doesn't have to be kept alive and cannot be kept alive since he spawns in the middle of enemy location and dies instantly all the time. Sometimes he even appears in mission loadout phase (sometimes he doesn't), sometimes he's not there during the mission, sometimes he's a controllable character, too and sometimes just implied to exist in mission debriefing but not actually appearing on the map. It's a weird mission like that.

Better one-tile knives: no idea what would be better than the shiv but not larger. A plasma switchblade?
We wouldn't even have to get as far technologically though plasma knife which would be basically just a small hilt till it's in one's hand and activated makes sense. I was thinking mostly about absolutely or just somewhat realistic alternatives to shiv which by the name alone usually implies improvised, small weapon mostly made in prisons or other criminal circles - while there's proper, quality folding knives, short, very easily concealable blades for some special forces - and that without mentioning simple, tiny knives once alien or hi-tech materials get researched or XCOM gets into occult.

Plus, there's general a lot of tiny, useful things that should be available to clandestine organisations and fit one slot of covert operative's inventory, not only knives, pistols or telescopic batons. Lethal or disabling agent injectors/syringes? An accurate melee weapon dealing a lot of damage but holding one "ammo" and having hard time with armors, for example.

But the core of the issue is examples that seems to be what I edited in before you started replying, like katanas which because of graphics even when not held take as much space and are as hard to wield (on account of needing to be put in a backpack when not held) as heavy missile launchers. No quick draws possible.

Sure, Sectoids are small and frail, but as you well know they have psi shields. Yes, it's unfair. So what?
I don't mind them being difficult enemies and being defended by psi-shields, when I was mentioning wanting strong/weak enemies with fitting stats I was literally meaning that - some enemies which have to depend on their hi-tech guns, but some that are just beasts in general. Enemies that are frail (but may or may not make up for it with aforementioned tech) and not.

The issue with sectoids are that they're NOT small and frail outside of their graphics and they, as mentioned, seem like any other kind of able enemy: whatever their stats, in examples above, they outmatched strong (for a human!), fully trained, fit adult in matters of purely physical prowess, as if it'd be sectoids who are muscled up martial artists, not operatives fighting them. And that applies even to those sectoids which simply even aren't in combat roles, but merely support. Their performance and warfare experience as a species is a different topic altogether.

Says who?
That's how specialization works. The former are, as you've just said yourself, meant to be small and frail. The latter have no mention of any extensive training and conditioning with their purpose being warfare but are implied to serve mainly as a middle management of Dagon's cult.

Sorry, but this just isn't true. They are as varied as they can within reason, and carefully designed for it.
I'll take your word for it, but from their prowess in battle I am willing to attest that depending on their rank, all enemies seem to be comparably skilled all across the board. If an enemy is a decent rifleman, they're usually also good at bashing my troopers or pushing their guns away in what I called "gun struggle" (trying to shoot next to each other). If they can shoot well, they can also react quickly with their shots - 360 no scope headshot reaction fire seal of excellence. If they're strong, they're usually also pretty sturdy. I am sure there's some variation in their stats, but it just isn't visible during the gameplay when it comes to armed sentients. I have to underline t's better in case of non-sentients like, for example, chupacabras which indeed seem very fast, hit very hard but have merely okay toughness fitting for their looks and ufopedia description.

So I fail to understnad your point, feels more like a rant than anything else, sorry.
No problem, to a degree it is. It may be that the boundary for what's lethal and not for melee is thinner because usually when enemies get into melee range, they exchange several strong hits most armors offer limited protection toward - and thus it looks how it does, with melee attacks either doing nothing or outright obliterating xcom operatives of average health pool.

However, I have the feeling that you only addressed very early game, which I've been focusing on for the past few years and I really am not interested in developing it further for now, since late game is sorely neglected. Do you even go beyond the invasion phase?
Yes and no. I got much further in the game before but as I've mentioned, I wanted this feedback to be about what was very noticeable to me in 1.8 alone. I've started a fresh new game for this purpose, play it when I have time not occupied by anything else (which varies, thus me not being that active anymore) and try to make my remarks on this basis, without mixing in stuff I recall from further down the line till I get there in this new playthrough, since otherwise it'd be unfair as things may have changed by now. Like I wrote:

Will write more as I keep going through old and new content in a fresh new game, should time allow. Unless it'll be just bugs, then I post those in the relevant thread.

So, should I get that sweet, sweet time and IRL won't bother me with tragedies and responsibilities to deal with, I promise to put in at least some of that time in playing and writing more of the feedback for 1.8

I could be wrong, but I think what he means, is that with every update we get more and more stuff to research but not more time to actually perform the research in.
I mean merely access to the content itself - certain missions, enemies etc stop being available with time and progression. I don't think one should get cheaper research just because there's a lot of potential technologies - no one says player has to research absolutely everything before moving on and shouldn't prioritize. Plus, early game the biggest limiter for research isn't even just money (though it is expensive) but number of available laboratories and amount of space for scientists to staff them with. But again, that's not really the issue I talk about.

It may indeed affect one's preparedness for invasion, as with new threats and things one has to deal with they also may suffer more casualties to build up back from but I find it fair - new opportunities bringing new risks - as long as they're not forced onto the player and heavily penalized.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2021, 04:21:14 pm »
I could be wrong, but I think what he means, is that with every update we get more and more stuff to research but not more time to actually perform the research in. The concern is, that you will be less prepared once the invasion comes because you couldn't complete key research in time, because the new research took too much of your time. This is something, that I have contemplated myself. I don't know, if it actually plays out that way, though. Haven't played enough.

This might be true. Or not. I am just running another test campaign, we'll see how it goes.

Even if that really is a problem, I still don't like the suggested solution of pushing back the invasion date. It's already taking a really long time to get to (what is supposed to be) the meat of the game. Other solutions would be shortening research times (don't like it, research times are already unrealistically short), reducing cost/upkeep of scientists/labs (slightly less unrealistic than previous option, maybe) or reducing costs of other stuff or increasing early income (more loot in early missions), so that the player can spend more on research.

I also don't like it, because it's really a lot work to change the schedule of all missions and events... And prone to nasty bugs due to sheer amount of data to change. :)
If any corrections are needed, I'd rather modify research costs. It's also a lot of data, but less catastrophic if done wrong.

Depends how much info and in what case. A set of vague statements about the mission, be it terrain or describing enemies going from "a creature" through "multiple contacts" to "whole horde" and merely underlining "humanoids", "some sort of animals", "weird creatures" would least make one aware that, for example, it's an area where some type of weapon wouldn't work (sniper rifles in confined spaces, shotguns in vast open plains) and that what they fight wouldn't be numbers of animals (easy to fire, low damage weapons prefered) but something big and mean (hevy caliber rifles necessary).

I'm afraid we can't have such specific info, since I'd have to completely overhaul the missions structure. And honestly, I don't see enough need to put work in it. I have zero problems on monster missions with a generic mix of shotguns and long range rifles. (Well of course I fail the mission once in a while, but I don't think it's not at all because I didn't have enough info on the enemy.)

Sincere props to Meridian as well, then.

*ding*!

It's basically the same mission with similar numbers of enemies under two different names, making it double as likely to show up compared to other missions that could be chosen instead of it. Not a big deal either way, I just thought that since there's already mission like that, why double it? The one where it's just a couple of zombies is a different matter.

Zombies were at first just another monster type, they only got their own arc afterwards, organically. Some other monsters also have their special missions, though not as developed. So the difference is mostly quantitative.

Maybe more special mosnter missions will appear in time to balance it further.

Ah, if it's intended then nevermind. I was under the impression that the intent is to have every player get a considerable chance at experiencing all kinds of creatures and missions.

We accept whatever RNGesus provides. :)

As for roster, yeah, a figure in speech in that it's not exactly roster but - from what I know, missions that will spawn are decided a bit ahead of time and there's no script running random dice every in-game X minutes to spawn another mission.

Indeed, they are set once per month.

High chance to miss lots of content as the player moves through the game, unless they purposefully wait with promotions to enjoy it (but then that may cripple them later on).

I am trying to minimize it to a degree, but don't care too much. Every cmapign is different and that's okay.

That's the problem - without saving before first move you don't know if it's too bad. One often doesn't know if it's too bad till they actually start moving on the first turn and realize there's several enemies aiming at them - and then the very fact they made one trooper take one step may lead to them being shot up and then there's little left to abort with. Same problem with smoke grenades: I repeat, because of how grenades seem to work, they're not useful because agents get shot up after making a single move, so before those grenades explode even if one starts the round with them equipped and primed.

Okay. For now let's leave it at that and talk after testing the new availability.

Hah, I understand. My personal bias speaking because as mentioned, the "special agents in trenchcoats and with normal military hardware uncovering paranormal happenings/conspiracies" is kind of unique yet very much appreciated aspect for me.

I realize it's the mod's biggest point, and perhaps it shouldn't even include real aliens... But it's too late to change that. I can only keep improving the current model.


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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2021, 04:21:34 pm »
(continued)

As you've mentioned, nearly any mission could have *some* reason to add such, start-game cult apprehension just felt fitting for me because at this point XCOM is just budding initiative pursuing their first leads wherever they may be and trying to apprehend what's basically simple criminals - so having their gangs send a few guys more if they realize some of their men were attacked/someone went onto their turf or regular police coming in to take care of these criminals seems reasonable to me.

True, but you see - I only added this mission because people complained that culthouses were too hard for a first contact with cults. Therefore I added the apprehension as a baby step to allow people to learn the ropes. It wouldn't make sesne to make it a bigger problem than it is.
Adding friendly police forces would be better in this regard, but I fear it would just promote doing nothing.
All in all, don't break what works.

In regular cult apprehension, maybe we cannot. I could think of a special mission though where some intelligence agency had secret op to raid some important place housing things not meant for their eyes tied to some council members so rather than going undercover and browbeat their officials to let XCOM in on it, one's forced to crash the party and either fight both groups (with penalties for killing cops) or prepare less-lethal crowd control. Could even underline the aspect of how council isn't really just good guys and we may be forced to do some of a really morally ambiguous, wet work for them.

Eh, I know, ideas are easy but what's the work to put them in!

Yeah :D

I'll get back to this phase at some point.

Could think of the reasons but as mentioned, I'd rather give you the honest answer of untapped potential and how it's by my absolutely subjective take the most awesome part of the game and its greatest appeal. Of course, I understand if your opinion differs on it, but just there's so much more that could be done so it'll be better (and some of those things with less work required than the others) that eh, it hurts. But yes, I am aware there's a lot of other things to be done in other parts of the game and there's only so much time and will.

No, no, I agree :) But there are simply other priorities. I need to develop the entire mod, not just the "favourite part". Other parts aren't favourite because they aren't developed. :P

Yes. All those scenarios are just hypothetical ideas for the ways reinforcement mechanics could be implemented. Be it enemy reinforcements for some gangsters if player is slow to capture enemies the mission begins with, police reinforcement to fight those enemies and thus possibly deprive XCOM of captives (again, should player be too slow) or military reinforcements in a bigger battle against aliens (as the battle keeps raging).

OK, gotcha.
Frankly coming up with new ideas for missions using this mechanic isn't hard. As usual, devil is in the details... :)

No problem. Hell, while I am hardly a professional writer, if you want any little text blurbs like that about any little thing for events and whatnot, just let me know what's needed for what and I can probably make several on the fly.

Feel free to drop any ideas! I like events, and they're easy to add.

Uh, not my point. The mission difficulty isn't what I concentrate on, but it's the fact that the informant doesn't have to be kept alive and cannot be kept alive since he spawns in the middle of enemy location and dies instantly all the time. Sometimes he even appears in mission loadout phase (sometimes he doesn't), sometimes he's not there during the mission, sometimes he's a controllable character, too and sometimes just implied to exist in mission debriefing but not actually appearing on the map. It's a weird mission like that.

Yeah, there's like 6 variants, but the briefing is always different.

Regarding informant's location, I will keep an eye on this issue. (I need to play more.)

We wouldn't even have to get as far technologically though plasma knife which would be basically just a small hilt till it's in one's hand and activated makes sense. I was thinking mostly about absolutely or just somewhat realistic alternatives to shiv which by the name alone usually implies improvised, small weapon mostly made in prisons or other criminal circles - while there's proper, quality folding knives, short, very easily concealable blades for some special forces - and that without mentioning simple, tiny knives once alien or hi-tech materials get researched or XCOM gets into occult.

Plus, there's general a lot of tiny, useful things that should be available to clandestine organisations and fit one slot of covert operative's inventory, not only knives, pistols or telescopic batons. Lethal or disabling agent injectors/syringes? An accurate melee weapon dealing a lot of damage but holding one "ammo" and having hard time with armors, for example.

But the core of the issue is examples that seems to be what I edited in before you started replying, like katanas which because of graphics even when not held take as much space and are as hard to wield (on account of needing to be put in a backpack when not held) as heavy missile launchers. No quick draws possible.[/quote]

Yeah, I guess the "shiv" implicitly covers other small blade types, which might be a bad idea. Perhaps I should add a more proper small knife along it.

I don't mind them being difficult enemies and being defended by psi-shields, when I was mentioning wanting strong/weak enemies with fitting stats I was literally meaning that - some enemies which have to depend on their hi-tech guns, but some that are just beasts in general. Enemies that are frail (but may or may not make up for it with aforementioned tech) and not.

Yeah, I agre, but for aliens it doesn't seem as fitting - they are varied, but all are reasonably strong and sturdy.

That's why we have other factions, or at least how I see it.

The issue with sectoids are that they're NOT small and frail outside of their graphics and they, as mentioned, seem like any other kind of able enemy: whatever their stats, in examples above, they outmatched strong (for a human!), fully trained, fit adult in matters of purely physical prowess, as if it'd be sectoids who are muscled up martial artists, not operatives fighting them. And that applies even to those sectoids which simply even aren't in combat roles, but merely support. Their performance and warfare experience as a species is a different topic altogether.

Well, Sectoids have 20 basic Strength. Their Melee is a whopping 12. Their only advantage in close combat is good Reactions of 63.

If that's too strong for your agents, then maybe it's gym time? :D

That's how specialization works. The former are, as you've just said yourself, meant to be small and frail. The latter have no mention of any extensive training and conditioning with their purpose being warfare but are implied to serve mainly as a middle management of Dagon's cult.

Generally yes, but it doesn't necessarily extend to Lovecraftian mutants. :)

I'll take your word for it, but from their prowess in battle I am willing to attest that depending on their rank, all enemies seem to be comparably skilled all across the board. If an enemy is a decent rifleman, they're usually also good at bashing my troopers or pushing their guns away in what I called "gun struggle" (trying to shoot next to each other). If they can shoot well, they can also react quickly with their shots - 360 no scope headshot reaction fire seal of excellence. If they're strong, they're usually also pretty sturdy. I am sure there's some variation in their stats, but it just isn't visible during the gameplay when it comes to armed sentients. I have to underline t's better in case of non-sentients like, for example, chupacabras which indeed seem very fast, hit very hard but have merely okay toughness fitting for their looks and ufopedia description.

Okay, I guess I misunderstood. Anyway, of course certain stats correlate in humanoids, you physically can't have a strong but fragile unit... But I'll keep that in mind for whenever I can do anything.

No problem, to a degree it is. It may be that the boundary for what's lethal and not for melee is thinner because usually when enemies get into melee range, they exchange several strong hits most armors offer limited protection toward - and thus it looks how it does, with melee attacks either doing nothing or outright obliterating xcom operatives of average health pool.

Yes, melee must be strong, as it's obviously disadvantaged.

Offline Mrvex

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2021, 12:36:55 pm »
Melee for dedicated melee enemies tends to hit hard as a truck, Vampire Knight can destroy a Sectopod with 1-2 swings from his sword because he has so much strenght and his sword scales from strenght really well. Same for Minotaurs. Cultists and humans with melee weapons arent as scary and mainly, they are squishy so if a cultist charges you with a iron pipe, he might just die from random reaction hit from someone else,standing 15 metres away from blackops rifle.

Melee needs to be good damage wise because it requires a good setup, ambush and stats and RNG to pull off.

The vampire knight one/two shotting most heavily armoured units might be scary, but the moment when you give your troops flying armours and you turn the Sectopod in to a hover plasma tank ? Well, now he is useless and cant reach you.

So melee seems OK in its intended purpose, yes its weird how someone with a Katana can one shot a sectopod, or Werewolves can rip through a Tank but this is just a case of gameplay and realism departure, for sake of having a more interesting game.


Offline Xenotrenium

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2021, 05:06:05 am »
Well, Sectoids have 20 basic Strength. Their Melee is a whopping 12. Their only advantage in close combat is good Reactions of 63.

If that's too strong for your agents, then maybe it's gym time? :D

I don't know if that is the full picture. They have very accurate weapons and if I am not mistaken they have the spotting\spotter ability? Correct me if I am wrong here, but I do feel like if I am putting shots into sectoids they can pin-point wherever you are and simply rely on their super-accurate weapons to kill your elite snipers. 63 react + spotter\sniper + thermal + accurate weapons is no joke. They also have psi-shields so you need to put some extra rounds in their way. In a world where direct fire is suicide, grenade launchers are king.

I am partially conflicted on where I stand on sectoids. I love how they are actually a huge threat and whenever I see one I start sweating (unless I have disposable rats + grenade launchers). As an alien force that is supposed to be a massive threat, sectoids make up a big "oh shit" factor for me in the early phase.

On the other hand, sectoids -for me- does not fit -my- ideal theme. For me, a sectoid is not a reaction-fire god, but a cheap and sufficient genetic experiment suited for reconnaisance, abductions, diplomacy and other non-combat tasks. Obviously equipped for self-defense with whatever weaponry the Alien Overlords deem fitting for such tasks, but again not necessarily excelling in combat. Being a genetically altered species, a species could have their stats go up through genetic augmentation (reactions, eyesight, strength, armor...), but I also think it fits having some stats decrease. It goes to show how the Alien Overlords have abused genetic experimentation and their degeneracy in controlling and manipulating other species for their own purposes without empathy. A possible grim fate for humanity, having our flesh surrendered and possibly ending up as another degenerate genetic abomination, forever doomed separated from our pure natural origins.

I do think sending sectoids down a notch or two on the "threat-ladder" gives a more fleshed out thematic feel for the alien roster. The primary way for the player to experience (not read ufopedia articles) the contrast between different aliens is how they behave in different gameplay mechanics, such as reaction fire, armor, accuracy, sounds+graphics, speed - but losing an agent to 360 noscope aimbot alien hits harder, and perhaps that should be reserved for the bigger\better toys the aliens will bring on your little planet :)

If I would have my way off the top of my head, I would slightly reduce the reaction stat of sectoids to around the 40-50 mark and possibly tweak the spotting\sniper thingy. I would probably not even argue if their reaction fire was put down to around 20, but that might be seriously overkill. Interested in hearing what other people think, I'm not sure if this is the way to go.

Disclaimer - I love the mod and I'm just putting in my two cents. I love how sectoids are a threat, but I also think their behavior could better reflect their role, at least what role I personally am envisioning them in. Cheers!


Offline Mrvex

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2021, 02:34:35 pm »
Spotting mechanic isnt actually whats killing your troops, its the "reveal of the shooter" that does it. If anyone (Your men included) hits anyone, he is revealed, through fog of war or any obsctales. So a sniper can quickscope a Sectoid across the entire map and his budy then shoots the sniper with his plasma rifle through reaction shots way beyond his actual sight range.

This is also why in night missions, the moment you shoot someone, the entire map dogpiles on the XCOM soldier because its the only person they can see.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #10 on: April 12, 2021, 02:22:02 pm »
I don't know if that is the full picture. They have very accurate weapons and if I am not mistaken they have the spotting\spotter ability? (...)

Okay, but the conversation was about melee.

On the other hand, sectoids -for me- does not fit -my- ideal theme. For me, a sectoid is not a reaction-fire god, but a cheap and sufficient genetic experiment suited for reconnaisance, abductions, diplomacy and other non-combat tasks. Obviously equipped for self-defense with whatever weaponry the Alien Overlords deem fitting for such tasks, but again not necessarily excelling in combat. Being a genetically altered species, a species could have their stats go up through genetic augmentation (reactions, eyesight, strength, armor...), but I also think it fits having some stats decrease. It goes to show how the Alien Overlords have abused genetic experimentation and their degeneracy in controlling and manipulating other species for their own purposes without empathy. A possible grim fate for humanity, having our flesh surrendered and possibly ending up as another degenerate genetic abomination, forever doomed separated from our pure natural origins.

But they aren't that good. Yes, they have good Reactions, but nothing "godly"; they are merely compentent.

Aliens in general are too weak anyway, so not a design problem either.

I do think sending sectoids down a notch or two on the "threat-ladder" gives a more fleshed out thematic feel for the alien roster. The primary way for the player to experience (not read ufopedia articles) the contrast between different aliens is how they behave in different gameplay mechanics, such as reaction fire, armor, accuracy, sounds+graphics, speed - but losing an agent to 360 noscope aimbot alien hits harder, and perhaps that should be reserved for the bigger\better toys the aliens will bring on your little planet :)

Maybe I could tone down their Reactions, but I feel that it would be kinda cheaty. Those big brains and big eyes should account for something.

Aliens are supposed to be pretty nasty here. It's not vanilla where you had alien mooks, a bit more competent alien mooks, flying idiots, tanky mooks and Ethereals. Here all aliens are supposed to be bad news.

Disclaimer - I love the mod and I'm just putting in my two cents. I love how sectoids are a threat, but I also think their behavior could better reflect their role, at least what role I personally am envisioning them in. Cheers!

And thanks for your feedback, I really can see where you're coming from. However, it doesn't really fit the concept for reasons I mentioned above.

Spotting mechanic isnt actually whats killing your troops, its the "reveal of the shooter" that does it. If anyone (Your men included) hits anyone, he is revealed, through fog of war or any obsctales. So a sniper can quickscope a Sectoid across the entire map and his budy then shoots the sniper with his plasma rifle through reaction shots way beyond his actual sight range.

This is also why in night missions, the moment you shoot someone, the entire map dogpiles on the XCOM soldier because its the only person they can see.

Indeed that is true, and serves to enforce the aliens' image as an interconnected war machine, developed over eons. And to make them nasty, of course.

Offline krautbernd

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #11 on: April 12, 2021, 07:50:43 pm »
If I might add to this (in regards to Sectoids) - turning them down a notch in melee (point blank shooting/stabbing) would probably be beneficial for early game battles. At that stage enganging them at range is usually a death sentence for the agent who makes the shot (maybe I am just unlucky though). I think there should be some risk/reward balance here. Managing to sneak up on one of the little buggers should not end with them casually flipping away your agents guns or blocking blades bare-handed. Yes, they do have PSI-shields, but they are not Ethereals. The average human should be able to overpower a Sectoid at close range unless mind-controlled/panicked. And dear god is it satisfying take them down with a shotgun at point blank range.

Offline Mrvex

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #12 on: April 12, 2021, 11:30:30 pm »
Melee weapons cannot be blocked, they can only miss or do no damage if armour is high enough (and Sectoids arent armoured).

The main problem is that overpowering is based around reactions and melee, not strenght, Sectoids have high reaction stats so even if Humans are much stronger, they can still fail to Sectoids tiny little arms.
To quote the wiki

". You must overcome their defenses with a special close combat test, based on your and your foe's Melee and Reactions. The test also depends on the weapon you use (pistols are best, heavy weapons are worst)."

The close quater combat needs to be based on reactions AND strenght, this way you can still retain Sectoids high reactions as alien troops should have, but have more sensible gun struggle in general.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #13 on: April 13, 2021, 03:45:24 pm »
How does strength help in hitting? Is Hulk a better fencer than Musashi?

It would make sense if there was a more detailed melee system, involving blocks and breaking blocks. But it's X-Com and we cannot do that, or minotaurs will be able to school Lo Wo in melee combat.

Offline krautbernd

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Re: 1.8 Feedback
« Reply #14 on: April 13, 2021, 06:00:37 pm »
Playing devil's advocate here, but as far as I can tell X-Com never encounters Lo Wo and minotaurs on the same map ;)

CQC with guns should not be comparable to fencing to begin with - the point is not to hit your opponent with an edged or blunt weapon. The point is - literally - about being able to point your gun at an enemy.

What exactely does this "special close combat test" account for? Seeing how it only applies during CQC (i.e. standing next to each other) it's not about dodging - otherwise this should apply to long-ranged attacks as well. That leaves grappling (i.e. grabbing your opponent/pushing away your opponents gun). It should be obvious why strength should be a factor here - if you are stronger than your opponent they will have a harder time holding onto your gun/push it away. Reactions can account for your opponent being able to grab your gun, but not for being able to deflect it away if they are a lot weaker than you.