The idea was that there wasn't any "most powerful" weapon in any tier. It's just that each of the weapons in each tier is stronger than it's counterpart in lower tiers. So the choice really shouldn't be that obvious.
You are right, it's not that trivial, but still less interesting than when you mix and match, especially if tiers are small (as they are currently).
Beware, though, too many weapons make for either extremely hard balancing, or for weapons that end up being useless (heavy explosive in X-COM, anyone?).
Very true. But if you have few weapons and additionally divide them into tiers, you really restrict player choices... Could we instead have an obvious newbie friendly weapon progression path based on tiers, but still keep mix and match sensible due to higher tiers not that overwhelmingly better in each respect? It would be nice if higher tiers were only generally better than lower ones (but some particular weapons could be uncomparable or just have no counterparts) and only approximately complete, just enough for newbies to play comfortably on easy difficulty without mix and match, or even with a naive choice of one of the weapons for reason of sentiment or cool particle effects --- perhaps we could compromise that way?
That's why I didn't write up too many weapons in the original design docs,
Ooops :oops:, so you are one of those ancient fathers of UFO:AI that I allegedly feel like receiving inspiration from through the stolen alien communication device...
If so, I'll try even harder to understand and take into account your ideas. And feel free to veto anytime you want.
because I felt every weapon should be worth using, and every weapon should be notably different from the others in its tier.
Ok, so at least we agree on this notion, even if I think it should extend to most weapons (except those 10 obsoletable, of course), while you think it should apply only inside any given tier (with some exceptions, I suppose?). Could you now tell me if the tiers you enovision right now are 3 (initial, human, alien) or 5 (initial, human advanced, laser, plasma, tachyon)? As you understand this is very crucial distinction... This is also somewhat related to the alien behaviour. I guess aliens will start with plasma weapons, then add tachyon ones, but will they ever mix? Or just switch to tachyon and stay there (with the possible exception of weak alien types on small ufo ships, etc.)? I think the approximately best tier composed of tachyon weapons, filled plasma weapons whenever they have no tachyon counterparts (Plasma Blaster (Grenade Launcher-like effect), Plasma Grenade, Plasma Mine, Plasma Blade, perhaps Plasma Pistol) is sensible, especially if aliens use it as well. Even graphically it should be less monotone.
So only one assault rifle, one sniper rifle, one mine, etc.
I'm with you; also, one proximity mine, one grenade, one melee blade, one mainly throwing blade, one RPG, and perhaps some others. Based on on your earlier posts I've already considered extending the set of obsoletable weapons (mainly the initial ones --- you did not research them so you are more inclined to let them go).
But, e.g. all pistols are very interesting, except the initial obsoletable one. Plasma is great at close distance, laser is long distance, tachyon can obsolete the laser pistol and has better damage type (less armor resistance) or can be again incomparable (it has lower range than laser). How do you want to make only one best pistol? Isn't the current setup more interesting? Should we change the name of the Plasma Pistol (Plasma SMG? Plasma Shotgun? Plasmathrower? Plasma Spray?) not to confuse the newbies that Tachyon Pistol is comparable to it?
Also, some weapons are so unique (and cool, at least after some more balancing, e.g. Bolter Rifle, Grenade Laucher) or so multi-purpose (Laser Rifle, Tachyon Rifle) they cannot be just directly compared with others. E.g. Laser Rifle may be worse sniper weapon than Sniper Rifle and worse assault than Plasma Rifle, but it's the only one combining the two. I think it's good (and it's already in the original design docs --- I got most of my appreciation for non-linear weapon design from there).
[...] in the original X-COM game. You can find it boring all you want, but that's the example from the game that has to this day been unsurpassed.
And we really don't have to repeat it's shortcomings (especially those repaired in xcomutil) to surpass it's success (commercially it wasn't that great, BTW, not dumb enough, I suppose).
And another thing. Don't forget that soldiers have skills.
Sure and this makes even strictly tiered design more interesting and sure tiers help controlling that your soldiers use a set of weapon that excercises all their skills. But I think there is no danger as long as skills and weapon purposes match, even if we allow the purposes to be covered by weapons outside of our current tier. Say, I use Laser Rifle instead of Tachyon Sniper Rifle in late-game, for whatever reason. But the sniping purpose of Laser Rifle is governed by the sniping skill, so the skill will be exercised allright. However, some exceptions are nice, to allow player to go against skills once or twice in the game. Say, he doesn't have anybody with good sniper skill in his team at base Delta and the aliens in this area have very hard armor. He can then use Bolter Rifle (heavy skill and bigger damage) and he knows what he is doing (the description of Bolter Rifle does not erroneously suggest that sniper skill is used or exercised).
It's not a simple matter of researching a new weapon, and reshuffling your weapon set to create a new style of finishing a mission. Your soldiers are supposed to evolve into experts in one (or possibly one and a half) weapon. So a sniper who doesn't get to use a stronger sniper rifle at times will degrade into a useless soldier once the aliens start getting better armor. You could desperately try to work around it with weaknesses, but I think we agreed earlier that we don't like weaknesses.
Agreed. Newbies better stick to tiers.
So the conlusion of the above is, I think you should keep it simple, as in the original idea.
The original idea was surely not as simplistic as you put it here. I guess I would not even touch the weapon scripts if they were so bland. What really caught me were all those little splendidly thought-off non-linear details (don't tell that was just 1000 monkeys typing weapon scripts at random
).
Have a balanced set of weapons, each weapon having a use and a reason for being in battle.
Sure.
Then as the game progresses, increase the power of those weapons, making the old ones obsolete.
Totally obsolete, under all circumstances, with all play styles and mixed with all possible sets of other weapons? Make totally obsolete even the nice laser weapons we researched with so much effort and were so proud of?
That's the only real way I think it can work. Too small changes (like you give in your examples) will probably be lost on the player.
So what's the problem. Let him be indifferent to those details and just go by tiers (they are already noticable in names, descriptions, technology dependencies, general damage figures, hard to miss and be totally confused what to research next). Then, when the player wins on easy and standard and cannot cope with hard, let his discover the replay value and an array of tactical possibilities hidden in the little weapon stat details.
Too much micromanagement. It's easier for the player to just know which weapon is best for any given role, instead of having to dig into the little details of how many TUs a weapon uses and how far it can shoot. Don't get me wrong, those parameters are important, but the casual player should always be able to pick the obviously superior weapon for the role he intends.
I agree, though I would relax it to "casual player should always be able to pick the obviously superior weapon
tier" plus "casual player should always be able to pick a weapon that is only slightly worse for the role he intends than the truly superiour weapon in this situation". I will try to make sure all this is newbie friendly. The only danger I cannot prevent is that a clueless newbie will not restrict himself to the obvious and will suspiciously starts digging in the weapon stats and gets confused. But after some more digging he should be able to rest assured that his "tachyon plus a bit of plasma" weapon set is generally better than initial+laser, even if some individual figures (e.g. some ranges) are slightly better in the latter, and even if a particular mix and match would be somewhat better, given skillful tactical use, in his current situation.
I personally wouldn't get attached to the old launcher; in fact I'd be happy to see it go. Seeing my soldiers walking around with the same stuff at the end of the game as at the start would make me feel like I hadn't progressed any, and all the work I did was trivial.
Even if you fire some really nice shiny new azure super-rockets with it? I fear your bordering the "passionate" stance I promised to aswer by designing Heavy Tachyon and scratching Tachyon-Beam Rockets (and probably the whole idea of multiple amunition with it)...
It's just my experience, you understand. I want to get the feeling I use stronger equipment. Keeping the old stuff around conflicts with that.
Could RPG be an exception (well, and the cool Flamethrower too, for some rare tactics)? All the other primary and secondary weapons that do not need research would be obsoletable. Would that be enough?
P.S. Don't you feel any kind of pride, when you kill alien bosses with your home-made RPG fitted with tachyon rockets or Grenade Laucher fitted with plasma grenades? They forced you to catch up technologicaly, but they did not manage to change your ways. You are still human, not alien. You fry their asses with trusty old Flamethrower and deal the final blow to the alien commander with your old obsolete grandfather-made shotgun (even if you have Plasma Pistol in your holster and Tachyon Sniper Rile across your back). Let them feel what the laughable human technology tastes like...
P.P.S. I sketched a proposal of the top tier weapon set at
http://ufo.myexp.de/wiki/index.php/Equipment/Obsoletable_equipment