Hi all, general feedback and more proposals

[Kaslak_CG]

Hi all, yesterday I started playing this game, and first of all I want to congratulate with whoever worked at this game. Since the departure of X-com (my apologies - I only played and had the opportunity to appreciate Apocalypse) I thought many times how good would have been to have a newer game with some other features and so on. But I suppose I am not the only one.

I would like to give some "first touch" feedback, things that at first could be or not corrected from a newcomer's perspective. Once someone is used to certain features they may seem normal and a "fresh look" could be needed. This is why I am going to give feedback after so few hours of play. Fresh touch.

Combat Scale
Good. Xcom style. Small organization using brainpower. I apologize if I am going too fast in judgement but... 8vs8 is too small. The combat map itself is too small. At least 4x would be good. In less than a turn there's contact, you almost always have a clue on the aliens localization, no mutual Search&Destroy

Intrigue & Politics
I can't get alien strategy in all this. So... they go in small groups slaughtering civilans. Perhaps I am too addicted to the concept of infiltration from xcom3, and expanding this would be great. Kidnapping the New USA president because he fell under alien control in a secret mission could fit the Phalanx concept, more than (only) playing "Batman VS Joker" defending weak people of brazilian forest. Of course this is about the "fresh touch" i don't know if alien plans get smarter going on. For now they seem nothing more than isolated hi-tech marauders.
Would Aliens try to influence the Oceania toward expansion in south america? Would they try to shatter the Federations in theyr smaller constituents? Of course - in game terms at this level of abstraction - wars and political instability would lead just to dramatic cuts on $$$ for Phalanx (seen as secondary at the moment) and a rise to alien control in the geographical zone. Perhaps some humans could join the aliens after some brainwashing. Until Phalanx fixes the situation with dedicated missions perhaps...

Combat Damage & Hospital system
Now, before posting I had a look to accepted proposals and so on. Localized damage was one of things I would have recomended, and i have seen it was already proposed and accepted for future releases. Good.

I propose (Beware:very very low priority) to expand also the Hospital treatment system, and add localized long-term and severe injuries.
Not just "penalty to hit" if head got struck. If head got struck, maybe nothing happens maybe complete blindness due to eye damage. Torso could result in a broken spine, needing regeneration tecniques (relying on stam cells). A small medical staff could work in the base hospital, with skill. If legs got struck to many times, perhaps a severe fracture could incapacitate the agent. Everything could go in the hospital interface (when you select the agent there are blank spaces...

Why not in future releases, biological weapons used by aliens against humans needing advanced treatment and quarantene in hospital. Not just a raising healing bar. More "Damn! My agent is blinded, i had to spend either in eye regeneration or in an implant"

Scientist & Workers skills

I had seen this will expanded for pilots and the new combat system. Very good.
Let's take scientist for example: skills are divided into general groups (Physics, Biology, Enginering, PSI). A scientist should have developed skills only in one or two grups max at the beginning.
Say for example a Phisicist would have average "High Energy Phisics" (related to plasma and co.) poor "Astrophysics" (related to techs involving alien origin) good "Low energy & quantum optics" and so on... but being a Phisicist would have no good skills at Biology group and so on... Skill system with closed groups to mark the scientific specialization.

Solider Traits
I found a nice proposal for Solider background & details. More than a nice looking background would be nice a group of traits for each unit. These traits would have game impacts, not only on combat, also on leadership.
Take a "coward" solider. Takes morale damage if aliens get close. A perfect Sniper. If this sniper gets promotions and become officer this could give problems to the entire squad.
Perhaps traits (good and bad) could be taken during the game. A normal solider who risks too many deaths could become "cold" or "coward" or "confident"... some could be fixed by Psychologists at the hospital and... ok i had gone too far now

I hope you appreciate this brainstorming, for future long-time development.

[Hertzila]

Hi all, yesterday I started playing this game, and first of all I want to congratulate with whoever worked at this game. Since the departure of X-com (my apologies - I only played and had the opportunity to appreciate Apocalypse) I thought many times how good would have been to have a newer game with some other features and so on. But I suppose I am not the only one.

I would like to give some "first touch" feedback, things that at first could be or not corrected from a newcomer's perspective. Once someone is used to certain features they may seem normal and a "fresh look" could be needed. This is why I am going to give feedback after so few hours of play. Fresh touch.

Welcome to the forums!

Combat Scale
Good. Xcom style. Small organization using brainpower. I apologize if I am going too fast in judgement but... 8vs8 is too small. The combat map itself is too small. At least 4x would be good. In less than a turn there's contact, you almost always have a clue on the aliens localization, no mutual Search&Destroy

Bigger teams are coming but IIRC the biggest team you're going to be able to field is 16 guys + 3 UGVs.

Intrigue & Politics
I can't get alien strategy in all this. So... they go in small groups slaughtering civilans. Perhaps I am too addicted to the concept of infiltration from xcom3, and expanding this would be great. Kidnapping the New USA president because he fell under alien control in a secret mission could fit the Phalanx concept, more than (only) playing "Batman VS Joker" defending weak people of brazilian forest. Of course this is about the "fresh touch" i don't know if alien plans get smarter going on. For now they seem nothing more than isolated hi-tech marauders.
Would Aliens try to influence the Oceania toward expansion in south america? Would they try to shatter the Federations in theyr smaller constituents? Of course - in game terms at this level of abstraction - wars and political instability would lead just to dramatic cuts on $$$ for Phalanx (seen as secondary at the moment) and a rise to alien control in the geographical zone. Perhaps some humans could join the aliens after some brainwashing. Until Phalanx fixes the situation with dedicated missions perhaps...

Different kinds of missions are coming, most likely hand-in-hand when the briefing system is implemented. Most likely not political missions or anything but some fresh types to the simple terror missions and landed UFOs and such deathmatches.
BTW, the aliens will have humans among their ranks, just not by brainwashing... You'll see it eventually.

Combat Damage & Hospital system
Now, before posting I had a look to accepted proposals and so on. Localized damage was one of things I would have recomended, and i have seen it was already proposed and accepted for future releases. Good.

I propose (Beware:very very low priority) to expand also the Hospital treatment system, and add localized long-term and severe injuries.
Not just "penalty to hit" if head got struck. If head got struck, maybe nothing happens maybe complete blindness due to eye damage. Torso could result in a broken spine, needing regeneration tecniques (relying on stam cells). A small medical staff could work in the base hospital, with skill. If legs got struck to many times, perhaps a severe fracture could incapacitate the agent. Everything could go in the hospital interface (when you select the agent there are blank spaces...

Why not in future releases, biological weapons used by aliens against humans needing advanced treatment and quarantene in hospital. Not just a raising healing bar. More "Damn! My agent is blinded, i had to spend either in eye regeneration or in an implant"

While implant system is planned (or at least was at one point), the medical staff has been cut at the very least, the devs thought that they didn't add anything to the game. Most likely ordering specific healing for different things is also out. Too much fuss, too little effect other than pointless micromanaging.

Scientist & Workers skills

I had seen this will expanded for pilots and the new combat system. Very good.
Let's take scientist for example: skills are divided into general groups (Physics, Biology, Enginering, PSI). A scientist should have developed skills only in one or two grups max at the beginning.
Say for example a Phisicist would have average "High Energy Phisics" (related to plasma and co.) poor "Astrophysics" (related to techs involving alien origin) good "Low energy & quantum optics" and so on... but being a Phisicist would have no good skills at Biology group and so on... Skill system with closed groups to mark the scientific specialization.

Most likely not. It's been planned for long that their recruiment will be turned into a simple <-|-> system, like items.

Solider Traits
I found a nice proposal for Solider background & details. More than a nice looking background would be nice a group of traits for each unit. These traits would have game impacts, not only on combat, also on leadership.
Take a "coward" solider. Takes morale damage if aliens get close. A perfect Sniper. If this sniper gets promotions and become officer this could give problems to the entire squad.
Perhaps traits (good and bad) could be taken during the game. A normal solider who risks too many deaths could become "cold" or "coward" or "confident"... some could be fixed by Psychologists at the hospital and... ok i had gone too far now

While the idea of traits is good, I don't think there should be any "leadership" traits, because there seems to be no squad leader. And just picking the highest guy doesn't sound to me as a good strategy.

[Kaslak_CG]

Thanks for the answers

-I think 16 is sufficient, creates nice situations and opens more space to situations in which sending less guys than maximum is preferible.
-New missions are good indeed
-I love useless micromanaging
-Hope for a change in the far future ;P
-If leadership effects are not planned indeed there should not be a leadership-traits system. But if someone adds some leadership system in the future, then traits could be attacched to that exixsting system

[Lew Yard]

I'll just note that as the number of actors grow, the larger a problem you have with either

(1) artificiality imposed by serial actions -- i.e. actor A moves slightly, sees enemies, spots for other actors who use TUs to kill them, A moves a bit further w/o additional TU expenditure as if his teammate's firing was simultaneous, even though it was predicated on his own previous actions... or, say, A kills enemy B, which results in a clear line of sight to allow A's teammate C to see and shoot a second enemy D...

...as well as 'actor A moves, is in sight of enemy B, but B 'reacts' by instead shooting actor C, who hadn't yet been given orders for the turn and was at full TUs'

vs.

(2) simultaneity ala Combat Mission wego style -- preplotting orders to be executed simul, which results in extreme Degrees of Fun writing a TacAI that can override preplotted orders in a sane fashion (e.g. not shooting somebody who's already dead, not blithely strolling in front of a newly noticed enemy, firing his machine gun at the kerrblade-wielding enemy who just popped around the corner instead of a previously targeted one, et al).


Also, UI design will be increasingly important -- e.g. esp. giving feedback like "hey, you might have a 50% chance to hit the enemy... but you also have a 30% chance of hitting an ally and a 10% of hitting the civvie" or the like, or highlighting which actors should be moved first as a result of the reaction-fire system (namely, those already with LOS to known enemies, compared to actors who don't).