General > Discussion

New soldier stat increase system

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eleazar:

--- Quote from: tobbe on February 13, 2008, 05:38:53 pm ---Why do you guys want to make the game even more difficult? The power of alien weaponry increases during the game, you face tougher and more deadly aliens...and you are going to LOOSE health for barely surving an encounter...do this on some consectutive missions and you have no chance to save your hard built up 50-mission trooper, cause he has only 50 HP left and will almost die from any hit....NO FUN!

--- End quote ---

The devs may correct me if i'm wrong, but while this game is supposed to be win-able it's not supposed to be easy.  You are going up against an unknown and superior enemy.  For the proper atmosphere of desperation, you are supposed to take casualties.  That's why there's a way to hire new guys.  Having multiple ways for the soldiers to be taken out of battle-fitness besides being instantly killed on the battlefield IMHO emphasizes the feel of a desperate fight.

nemchenk:
No problems there, but I am with SpaceWombat on this -- non-fatal wounds are taken care of by healing. Until we get stat- and skill-improving implants, that is ;D

SpaceWombat:

--- Quote from: eleazar on February 13, 2008, 10:42:45 pm ---The devs may correct me if i'm wrong, but while this game is supposed to be win-able it's not supposed to be easy.  You are going up against an unknown and superior enemy.  For the proper atmosphere of desperation, you are supposed to take casualties.  That's why there's a way to hire new guys.  Having multiple ways for the soldiers to be taken out of battle-fitness besides being instantly killed on the battlefield IMHO emphasizes the feel of a desperate fight.

--- End quote ---

You are right but the same difficulty level would be met by simply saying "health = 0". Whether you cripple a soldier to a point where he simply cannot be useful because chances are too high to have a loss at a medium shot or you just take him off the list by health = 0 is not that much of a difference.
It would be slower over several missions but that's just another disadvantage in many cases as I think of it. I will make compromises saying "well, he is still a good soldier". And next time he will be pumped up a bit with xp again and then I have to pull the break and get him off the list. Just another point to let me play paranoid and avoid any losses or woundings and play every mission 5 times on average.  ;)
I like better a clear cut and .

We can save code work on that one I think. In the end -as always- it is a matter of balance. If the weapons/armour balance is right you do not need to mess around with the health bar too much. It would be just another complicated variable the player effectively is not really caring about.

shevegen:
Hi,

this all looks quite complicated :)

I'd have a few request:

- The XP system should be simpler.
- I would not give XP for any movement. Failed hits would also not account for XP.

- Getting injured (and healing up too) should give a reward for the time its healed.
- I would not make any MAX XP cap anywhere, however I would make "learning" or training
more and more expensive. My reasoning for this would be that such a trained soldier
would always learn more and more, but he could benefit only a tiny tiny tiny bit
more and more. It was written that there could be a the
--- Quote ---XP cap is there to prevent "training abuse"
--- End quote ---
but I would instead make the cost grow faster - there should never be "too much
training" (if one has the time to learn... if you train in reallife, you also have to eat and
sleep a bit better normally. You cant make weightlifting and drink only beer and eat
only pork meat and then expect to go on a marathon and win it without sleeping
much :D )

Btw although it doesnt belong here, I would love to see temporary enhancements, i.e. the soldier would inject into himself some pain drugs to continue fighting, surrounded by aliens...

My main gripe is that the whole XP system seems too complicated. I am sure you guys have good
reasons for having a sophisticated XP system, but one aspect is also how new players learn a
concept, and I think the XP system could be a bit simpler than the one presented here.



--- Quote ---The power of 0.6 makes sure no veteran soldier will ever be surpassed by a newer soldier, even if the newer one had better initial stats, as long as the veteran keeps training.
--- End quote ---
That is of course your decision to make, I have however one thing to throw in, which is that sometimes there is a little bit of luck involved too. For example, the elite sniper might be losing out to a new recruit slowly (because this recruit trains more and is smarter to learn from something, and has slightly better eyes and better genes *g*).
I just think that a tiny bit of luck should also be a factor in having benefits from constant training, and in this scenario it would be two veterans. However, as I wrote earlier that I am for simplifications, I am totally fine with capping it in such a way, after all luck adds to the complexity too (and is hard to predict, although to be honest, I dont think the system should be totally _predictable_ to a player...).

BTW I think killing or capturing an alien should give extra XP

Also how are the physical stats improved?

Last but not least, a XP system is great to have because everyone starts to care for his veteran soldier that killed 58 aliens and has trained so much that it really is a HUGE loss to not have him around anymore... ;-)

Surrealistik:

--- Quote ---You are right but the same difficulty level would be met by simply saying "health = 0". Whether you cripple a soldier to a point where he simply cannot be useful because chances are too high to have a loss at a medium shot or you just take him off the list by health = 0 is not that much of a difference.
It would be slower over several missions but that's just another disadvantage in many cases as I think of it. I will make compromises saying "well, he is still a good soldier". And next time he will be pumped up a bit with xp again and then I have to pull the break and get him off the list. Just another point to let me play paranoid and avoid any losses or woundings and play every mission 5 times on average. 
I like better a clear cut and .
--- End quote ---

Wombat, if you're getting this same soldier repeatedly injured to such an extent that health loss is triggered each time, then that is precisely what you deserve; a debilitated cripple. It really isn't that hard to avoid serious damage to your troops on most missions, especially once better armour is researched.

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