General > Discussion

Again on reaction fire

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Xeinar:
To H-Hour: I understand your point; while I share Krilain's attitude of actively check any single square of the map, for someone the camping could be an option. Moreover I don't have historic knowledge of the development of the game so I could easily miss something. Still, even if the dev team wants to keep this method, I believe that something should be tuned.

I see RF as an active way to fight, not as a last resort. At the moment RF with a pistol is useless or with a snapshot (rifle), as the damage delivered is so low that it is way better to use the remaining TUs to find an adequate cover. A possible compromise could be to set a standard TUs amount needed to activate the RF, regardless of the kind of RF you reserved (aimed, snap, 3-shots and so on). To avoid camping, you could set a maximum number of rounds to complete the map, or as the very old Spellcross game when camping for too long your unit could lose morale (like frightened of being in the same place). So if you reserve too many TUs each turn you lose morale and end in panicking (just an idea that bounced in my mind right in this moment).

I also share the concerns from Telok, as I've experienced both issues/behaviours. The reset of TUs count together with the current RF system is a real killer of my unit (and believe me, I LOVE to finally risk to have all my team wiped out every mission - it is so challenging!!!).

H-Hour:
Telok: I have seen RF go out nearly 2/3 of the base map, so I know it can activate over large distances. And it was with a very low-probability-to-hit firemode, so RF must not take these things into account. I've also seen RF from my soldiers across the dam map.

Nanomage: It's a difficult trade-off. In some cases I may want to tell my soldier NOT to RF -- if I know the aliens will be moving out of range and don't want to waste ammo, or if there are civilians around and I don't want to go spraying machine gun fire. We tend to err on the side of extra control, but it is a lot of micromanagement.

Xeinar: I don't agree that RF with a pistol or rifle is useless. In these cases you need to team up your soldiers. Just last night I used two soldiers with a shotgun and an assault rifle to close down a corridor on ferry. It took both of them to knock down the shevaars that appeared. Regarding your other ideas, I think making all RF TU costs the same would really undermine other core mechanics regarding the different firemodes. Setting max rounds or losing morale for not moving would alter the game in ways that aren't justified for this feature (there is already a very large upper limit to rounds passed with no aliens seen).

RF is always going to be a very contentious mechanism because it deals most frequently with those situations where your soldiers are dying. This is a classic case of gamer vs. game. Gamers want to win, they want their soldiers to be better, stronger, faster -- able to cope with every situation. But the game has to set out challenges. Managing RF is a major part of that challenge. RF requires careful management to improve your odds and abilities, but if it becomes too powerful it will crowd out other mechanisms. Your soldiers will not be able to overcome every scenario.

Xeinar:
Thanks H-Hour, understood: better things as they are rather risking to mess up the things. I love that frightening feeling of losing my soldiers, so let's stay in this way (and yes, I agree on your answers to me: you have a wider and internal view on the game, so you know its mechanics and possible drwabacks).

krilain:

--- Quote from: nanomage on November 28, 2012, 10:04:54 am ---I have one more suggestion to improve RF system, or rather make it more manageable. It may be somewhat offtopic here, but I don't think it's worth it to start a new thread for such a small thing.

For now, RF is only triggered if your soldier is explicitly set to use reserved TU's for it. However, there's no other use of leftover TU's after you have completed your actions. I'd suggest that any leftover TU's at the end of turn are automatically useable for reaction fire (with the cheapest possible firemode, if none is specified).

It seems to me this suggestion takes away some unnecessary micromanagement burden from the player.

--- End quote ---

--- Quote from: H-Hour on November 28, 2012, 11:11:08 am ---Nanomage: It's a difficult trade-off. In some cases I may want to tell my soldier NOT to RF -- if I know the aliens will be moving out of range and don't want to waste ammo, or if there are civilians around and I don't want to go spraying machine gun fire. We tend to err on the side of extra control, but it is a lot of micromanagement.

--- End quote ---

As many of us on this topic, it is not I want absolutely a change on how reaction fire works, but just any slight change which could give UFOAI RF more sense, and make it more captivating. And on this way, I tend to agree the first quote due to nanomage. The answer from H-Hour is also fully reasonnable, but in principle shouldn't we look always on how to give a feature the more amount of fun or "colour" when possible at low price? (I insist on at low price of course)

I'll try to expose exactly why the nanomage idea allows a great gain with nearly no change. It will take just a few words and it's just for illustration of why I hear by "colouring the game".

Currently the RF is a choice which contains an arbitrary fixed efficience. The things can be arbitrarily fixed, that's a developer setting, and a part of a large set of all strings attached settings. It's ok.

Whatever, the player would comply easier in general with a setting if he is given a reason for this, a reason to believe on it directly or not. Here comes the advantage of the nanomage's idea, because I see a good reason for a soldier to use automatically his TUs reserve for saving his own life, or for he meets a moment of panic. This gives the colourizing I was talking about, an human behaviour brings something to the game. Moreover it explains some arbitrary choices by linking it to the soldier's mood (of course arbitrary in real world).

Last thing interesting also, is the fact that the different soldiers we recruit could have different single internal moods. For instance, some could be more nervous at auto-RF, and others more phlegmatic. This property could appear onto the face designed by the game-artists, or could be linked to a stat (mind?), or just be correlated to their rank (a newbie should panic easily).... Moreover a nervous soldier should never be promoted as a sniper, but could be the perfect fireman. I may be wrong, but I find that funny.

Ok, I hope I didn't disturb too much this excellent thread. I just intended to share what is a philosophy of giving easily an added value to a feature, discussed or not.

H-Hour:
I understand the philosophy and the appeal behind what you're talking about krilain. The idea that inside the game is a living, breathing world that is beyond my control is an intriguing premise and central to a lot of claims made in open-world games like Eve or other MMORPGs. But -- and I am only speaking for myself here -- I think the premise is lot more appealing than the result. And that is especially true in a strategy game like this one.

Every aspect of our game is premised on the ability to control all the details. That is not realistic, of course, but that is also what makes it fun. You can lose control of soldiers if they freak out on the battlefield, but this is when things go terribly, terribly wrong. It's a punishment, not a regular part of the game.

I know that some players desire aleatory mechanisms which mimic the way in which objects in real life can never really be controlled or anticipated. I can only say that I'm not one of them.


--- Quote from: krilain on November 28, 2012, 03:32:16 pm ---Ok, I hope I didn't disturb too much this excellent thread.

--- End quote ---

No problem. I appreciate threads like this where people recognize there are trade-offs involved with new features and understand we're not necessarily going to agree on every mechanic in the game. It's much better than the threads which begin: "This game is totally ruined because of [insert minor feature]."

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