Suggestion - Player Guided Soldier Level Ups

[Tyrranus]

Playing a similar game called UFO: Extraterrestrials Gold, in it when a soldier levels(promotion) you get 5 points to distribute how you want among their stats. I thought that perhaps a similar system here would help get you more personally invested in your troopers more and make the hurt that much bigger when they die.

[H-Hour]

There's nothing wrong with that mechanism for character development, but personally I prefer ours, where soldier stats grow based on their actions during battle.

When faced with a choice like this, I generally prefer a mechanism which encourages the sense that a player's actions in battle or during the campaign (research, construction) have a direct effect on each other. If we give the player the stat points to assign in whatever way he wants, I think we would turn character development into a strategic choice, rather than something that emerges out of the decisions the player actually makes in the tactical game.

There are pros and cons to both mechanisms, but IMHO what made the original X-Com so good was how much the player's actions in the short game (battlescape) effected the long game (geoscape) -- and vice-versa. For that reason, I generally prefer systems which keep this interaction as direct as possible.

[Crystan]

Yeah, i prefer our RPG System as well - it makes also more sense.

[Triaxx2]

True and frankly if training gets implemented that would work similarly. In X-Com interceptor, you could send pilots for training to boost their skills. It'd be pretty useful.

[Tyrranus]

I agree with the point about wanting the skill ups to make sense, and I generally do my level ups in that fashion. There are other times where you just want their strength up or whatnot that seems a little counter to what you'd expect the progression to be tho.

Perhaps a little of both...player chooses but can only level up skills that have been used since the last level. That would be just a quick flag on skills/attributes.

Ex if you keep using heavy weapons, your heavy weapons skill, will be available for levelling up but your pistols will not be.

extending that idea you could have frequency of use also help determine level up cost to prevent meta-gaming of having a person cycle through 1 weapon a mission.

Ex if I used heavy weapons 1 time since my last level up it will cost X where as if I used it 10 times it would cost a fraction of that.

This is just an idea I figured merited bringing up, as you said theres merits to both systems

[Jon_dArc]

Perhaps a little of both...player chooses but can only level up skills that have been used since the last level. That would be just a quick flag on skills/attributes.

Ex if you keep using heavy weapons, your heavy weapons skill, will be available for levelling up but your pistols will not be.

Or have some relatively small fraction of XP earned be discretionary, assigning the rest via use.

~J