UFO:Alien Invasion
General => Discussion => Topic started by: Shakerfish on December 08, 2006, 11:43:31 pm
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Hello All,
I am new to this forum and this is my first post.
Is it not possible to save the game during ground combat? If not I would highly recommend making this change to the game programming. Respectfully… My sons won’t play the game unless they can save during combat. Me… I’m still trying, but I can’t figure out how to replace my units and their getting killed too fast.
Any suggestions?
P.S. Developers… Thanks for all your time and hard work with UFOAI. It looks really good so far and wish you the best with further improvements.
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hi, first of all - thanks for the feedback
we decided long time ago, that there will be no mid-mission-saving in ufo:ai - just to prevent the "oh i killed one alien, let's save" and the "oh i lost some soldier - let's reload" behaviour. it's all or nothing :-)
best regards
martin
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I agree with mattn, that a battlescape save/load feature would be contrary to the style of the game.
It is possible to complete most missions without losing any soldiers, using only basic equipment and within a few mission retries, but admittedly you have to be rather familiar with the game mechanics and maps to do this. It is intentional that you should lose at least a few soldiers in each stage of the campaign, if you didn't the aliens wouldn't be very menacing! If you are losing too many soldiers, you can always play the game on an easier setting. This gives you more money, soldiers and scientists (but the game-play remains the same AFAIK).
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OK, I can understand why you’ve eliminated game saves during combat, but it doesn’t appear you can hire more soldiers. Is this still under development? If so I can buy that and I’ll be happy to wait for newer releases.
P.S. I notice there are no sound effects when a unit is killed. Perhaps this is under development as well. Just thought I would suggest those agonizing blood curt ling sounds your soldier or the alien make can defiantly add to game play.
Thanks Again…
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anyway, you can save right before the mission start. you can use that too.
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New soldiers can be hired inside the bases. Under Hire Employees. The unhired ones will have a cross next to them I believe, you change that to a tick and they are hired.
New ones arrive every month I believe for hiring, at the same time as the income from the regions.
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Hi,
First, I would like to thank you for the great game u have created. It really comes close to the old trilogy and provides a fresh graphic.
I have played ufo 1-3 and I am kind of missing the possibility to save the game in combat situations. Today, I had to replay 3 missions again and again because Windows decided that noticing me about irrelevant updates is more important and therefore crashed the game.
While it makes really much fun playing the game, without an option to save in combat, it is too time consuming for me ;-)
If i knew more about c i could write a patch myself, but again, i am just a casual gamer.
Best regards
Hamlet81_2
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Hi everyone,
I played RC6 for a few hours, and I felt some things were missing :
- The mid-combat save is a MUST. You won't prevent people from cheating if they want to, hexa editors and such are available, the game is open-source, etc... But, for someone who HAS to quit playing in a hurry (end of free time, storm closing in, power failure with computer holding on batteries...), it is extremely annoying to lose one hour worth of gameplay, especially if things went particularly well (you killed 20 aliens without a scratch, and now you have to either quit and lose all, or rush in the final areas to "finish" the survivors, forgetting all precautions just to save some real-life time.) This is, in my opinion, a big mistake to try and prevent people from saving. And saving in missions may be extremely useful to test some tactics, or weapons, quickly. So please reconsider.
- Where is personnel when you need it ? I mean, you are Earth's only hope of survival, an international institution financed by all major countries, and a good thing for all mankind. And how much people would like to work for you, especially when you need them ? No one, or nearly so. It is totally incredible ! I started a game in "normal" difficulty, and all I could hire was a lone soldier... Well, I can't imagine waiting a full month to replace casualties, or to reinforce my scientific or technic squads, when nearly all population on the planet should be draftable by us (mankind's survival is a good enough reason, I think, even for most pacifists). So why not ALWAYS present the commander with, say, 20 to 50 pre-selectionned people, in EVERY speciality ? And if you hire some, then they get "replaced" within a few hours (time for ordinances or secretaries to select the ones good enough to serve in Phalanx). I think this would be much more realistic. And after all, if aliens are supposed to be that deadly, then we should get lots of replacements... err, I meant reinforcements, of course :) We could even imagine seeing different people with different stats, and different experience, at different wages (a bit like mercenaries in Jagged Alliance). This last idea came to me because all armies on earth are NOT composed of total rookies, and an organization like Phalanx could be interested in using a few hardened veterans (even mercenaries, if needed), instead of green soldiers, even if it means paying twice the standard wages...
- For a UFO player, which I am (I was still playing it yesterday), the equipment buy-and-sell interface is quite puzzling. The direction for buying and selling seemed strange to me (buy by clicking left), but it's only a detail. On the other hand, I didn't understand why some material "lingered" on the "sold" side, like alien weapons. Are they only "mortgaged", not sold ? This would explain why the buying price is the same as the selling price, and why you can re-acquire them at will...
Ah, and why is the production price ten times higher than the buying price ? I understand that in UFO, production was maybe too good a way to earn money, but even with concerns of artisanal VS industrial, mass production, Phalanx should be able to use it's technological lead to generate profit. And at least sell the items it produced at the price it costed it, especially when these items are rare enough on Earth (and I guess a brand-new weapon, designed minutes ago in our top-notch labs would fit in this category...)
- In the Ufopedia, or in the Research screen, we can see some "Prerequisites". But it is not always written that those are such (for buildings, at least, in the pedia, you can see 'Base Entrance' (or whatever name it has), or 'Power Generator', and you have to guess it means you have to have built this before to build the other structure. In research screen, it is written there is a dependency, but is "stun ability" a technology ? (in the Stun rod technology description). If so, then maybe it would be good to rename it, as it is confusing. If it is not so, maybe it would be good to modify the description, for this ability not to appear as a prerequisite anymore :)
Well, I've finished criticising your nice work for now, so I'll wait for answers, or maybe hunt for some new things to describe as broken, unfitting, or just not cool enough (eh, my way of having fun :p)
Regards,
Kzwix - French game addict, programmer, and amateur translator.
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Hi everyone,
I played RC6 for a few hours, and I felt some things were missing :
- The mid-combat save is a MUST.
I disagree here. In non-emergency situations, you can always "Retry" at the end of a battle. In an emergency, well... save early and save often. An autosave before entering battle would be a good compromise.
- Where is personnel when you need it ?
In-character answer: Yes, you are an international organisation. Each nation has to look out for their own first and foremost. After that, then they can worry about loaning out troops to some half-baked "UN" style organization.
Out-of-character answer: Challenge. Would be pretty boring steamrolling an infantry brigade (soldier by soldier!!) over a handful of aliens.
Ah, and why is the production price ten times higher than the buying price ?
Handled here: Production vs. Purchasing (http://ufo.myexp.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=822)
- In the Ufopedia, or in the Research screen, we can see some "Prerequisites". But it is not always written that those are such (for buildings, at least, in the pedia, you can see 'Base Entrance' (or whatever name it has), or 'Power Generator', and you have to guess it means you have to have built this before to build the other structure. In research screen, it is written there is a dependency, but is "stun ability" a technology ? (in the Stun rod technology description). If so, then maybe it would be good to rename it, as it is confusing. If it is not so, maybe it would be good to modify the description, for this ability not to appear as a prerequisite anymore :)
Bloody seconded!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Hi everyone,
I played RC6 for a few hours, and I felt some things were missing :
- The mid-combat save is a MUST.
I disagree here. In non-emergency situations, you can always "Retry" at the end of a battle. In an emergency, well... save early and save often. An autosave before entering battle would be a good compromise.
Autosave before a battle would be a good option, yup. But what I'm saying is we shouldn't dictate HOW people get their fun. In fact, this is all about it, am I wrong ? So if some die-hard players play in impossible AND forbid themselves the use of save and load except when they stop playing, it is their right. If some others just make a "hero" team suffering no casualties from the start, and reload every time it is needed, to create a scenario of their own, well... Is it a problem to us ? After all, a simple statement somewhere, maybe in the manual, or in a popup window the first time you save during combat, telling the player that "saving and loading while in a combat is considered cheating by the game creators" would be enough to ensure "loyal" players do not abuse it, without being a nuisance to those it would have entertained.
You know, this ain't a competition : You don't have to make sure everybody plays in the same conditions, to be able to compare performance in the end. You just want people to enjoy their gaming experience, and for this, the more liberty they have, the more likely they are to enjoy it.
- Where is personnel when you need it ?
In-character answer: Yes, you are an international organisation. Each nation has to look out for their own first and foremost. After that, then they can worry about loaning out troops to some half-baked "UN" style organization.
Out-of-character answer: Challenge. Would be pretty boring steamrolling an infantry brigade (soldier by soldier!!) over a handful of aliens.
Your in-character answer makes sense, but don't tell me governments with hundreds of thousands soldiers cant spare a few hundreds for an international cause... So even if you cannot get the best ones, you shouldn't be short on soldiers, or only by lack of funds, not by lack of volunteers. What can be discussed, however, is the quality of those volunteers : You may have a few soldiers available, initially, and if you "consume" too many of them, you'll end up having only civilians to fill up the gaps (volunteers answering UN -or Phalanx- calls for personnel, NOT through government procedures). And if governments want to try something, they fund it AND cooperate. Else, they DO NOT fund it, and do not cooperate either :)
As for your out-of-character answer, I'd like to remind you that you still have a limited size in transports, and that I don't think you'll be able to add the crew of several crafts to attack one UFO, or terror site... So I don't think numbers would be a problem for challenge, especially if you do not get experienced soldiers as replacements. The only times where you would greatly benefit from having stockpiled loads of soldiers is when :
a) You get casualties, or woundeds : You may replace them instantly with stand-by soldiers
b) Your base gets attacked, and you have a legion ready to defend it.
Don't lose sight of the cost, there ! Recruitment costs are one thing, and they're not so cheap, but maintenance cost is a problem too. If the player wants to man every base with twenty guards, well, let him do it ! Let's just hope for him they're usefull, and not a bunch of lazy bastards playing cards, eating and drinking, having fun, and costig lots of money for naught while a few of their comrades actually fight a bloody war outside, under-equipped by lack of credits...
In UFO:EU (aka XCOM 1), you're not limited in the number of soldiers, scientists, or engineers you can hire. It does'nt make the game uninteresting or too easy, believe me. When you lose half your squad in each battle (and you do, at the hardest level, especially when fighting mutons with laser guns, or conventionnal rifles...), you HAVE difficulties to train people to a decent level, and you have difficulties recruiting enough people to replace casualties. But you have those difficulties because it costs money, not because nobody wants to join. And it is extremely painfull to get rid of that hard-earned artifact just to replace a squad, believe me :)
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n UFO:EU (aka XCOM 1), you're not limited in the number of soldiers, scientists, or engineers you can hire. It does'nt make the game uninteresting or too easy
I have to agree here. And I think is a waste of resources to have models, stats and so on for every engineer and scientist in the base. The limits to purchase/recruit are pretty narrow. Why I can't spend one monthly asignation to hire 50 scientist to complete one key research and fire then later? It would cost much money, but it's the user money and users don't usually want to hear what they have to do.
I don't know why are so few "recruitables" in the actual gameplay, but why not have a fixed number of new scientists/engineers/soldiers each month? 5 or 10 oportunities to hire someone a month will allow the user to decide if he wants to have a good lab/workshop/troops, and make every game different.
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I just want to add myself to the ranks of those requesting a tactical mission in-game save.
There are numerous reasons why this is necessary, the least of which is the wife calling me for dinner when I was half-way through clearing out some mine near Wellington.
As Kzwix points out, for something as important as this you should let the players decide for themselves what is fun. A no-reload iron man-like feature is OK but it should be optional because some of us wimps like saving our tactical battles every minute or so. I could do it in the original XCom - I strongly suggest I should be able to do it here.
Cheers,
Andy
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Simply, put in-mission saving, but limit it to e.q only 3 saves per mission . This helps in emergency cases and to aviod frustration when you lost 3 peoples to last alien in 2 minutes, when you played current mission for 45 minutes and replying mission can only lead to more frustration.
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While I would prefer a save feature and optional iron man, I fear the developers decided already against. But what about an autosave evertime you exit battle which gets deleted after loading? I don't think any sane person would abuse this consequently by copying the file.
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Many of the arguments put forward here for a battlescape save-game feature are very compelling and I doubt any of the devs would prevent such a feature from being added to the game (at least as an option). Certainly if we can get some bigger maps (i.e. longer missions) into the game then such a feature or a variation of this feature (save at way points or after certain events) would be very useful.
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Simply, put in-mission saving, but limit it to e.q only 3 saves per mission . This helps in emergency cases and to aviod frustration when you lost 3 peoples to last alien in 2 minutes, when you played current mission for 45 minutes and replying mission can only lead to more frustration.
I second this whole-heartedly!!!
btw, Great game.
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Players really need saves in ground combat. I just picked up your game for the first time an hour ago, and while some of the elements are unpolished (player models look silly, controls are confusing) or incomplete (hire/fire screen needs to list expenses), the game is still a tremendous achievement. But to actually deny players a vital feature just because you don't like it when they use it to make single player games too easy is really petty. Dialing the difficulty down to Easy makes the game really easy too - are you going to disable that in future versions?
My first time out, my soldiers wandered into gunfire because I couldn't understand the controls and couldn't tell civilians from aliens. I was really upset to find that I couldn't save, load, or undo what had just happened, so, assuming an unfamiliarity with the game, I came here to find out how to save. Now I see that you've crippled a decent game intentionally because of a dislike for the way certain people play by themselves. What if I want to exit from a battle to talk to someone on Google Chat, change the music in my mp3 player, or free up some CPU cycles? I can't do that because I might abuse the save feature?
And in fact, what if I do "abuse" the save feature to make a perfect mission? How does that hurt your enjoyment of my enjoyment of your game? UFOAI is a strategy game - how can I improve my gameplay without being able to correct my mistakes?
X-Com is over a decade old, but as long as your gameplay is so seriously crippled, I may as well play it instead. I wanted to recommend this game to my friends, but now I can't do that, because they'll react the exact same way I am. Think about the effect on other fans, too - If you implement mid-mission saving, all of us who like it will use it, and those of us who object to it like you do won't use it. You could only benefit from re-implementing this feature.
Come on, guys - You've got a pretty HUD icon for save/load, put it to some good use.
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But to actually deny players a vital feature just because you don't like it when they use it to make single player games too easy is really petty.
We do not deny anything. We are just not going to neither code that nor include any patch regarding this into official release.
This is open source game, so if anyone wants such feature, he can prepare a patch and use it.
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We do not deny anything. We are just not going to neither code that nor include any patch regarding this into official release.
This is open source game, so if anyone wants such feature, he can prepare a patch and use it.
Oh, absolutely. You have every right to shoot your game in the foot, I just think that you would appeal to players if you didn't. I do assume you want players and that you're not doing this purely for yourselves. Competition is stiff in your field, and this is something that could put you ahead of it.
Yes, someone could maintain a competing version of this game, re-coding the patch each time you updated your source.
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Well, personally I think its way better to not adopt the kill once save once tactic.
When save option is possible in tactical mission, even after restraining myself I end saving each time I move my soldier and at the end there is no more any challenge in the game.
That's being said, I dont think it would be a wrong idea to allow a one time save during tactical mission. 3 times its already huge, there isnt more than 8 aliens in a mission, you dont want to save each time you kill 2 aliens do you ?
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Iron man mode. Nuff said.
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If it's not too much trouble, maybe you could add a code that compiles how many times you save your game to determine end game outcome? I.e., you don't get the best ending if you saved 5,500 times in-mission. Out of mission saves probably shouldn't count, but maybe they should.
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We don't HAVE in-mission saving. And Zenerka already said nobody on the team is going to code it nor include a patch for it in the official release. It's a design decision that has been made, and there will be no compromises.
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That's a little defensive there Sarge... I thought the point of the forum was for people to add their input and suggestions, regardless of what the devs decided was gospel or not. Consider that maybe someone will have an idea that really makes sense and maybe, just maybe one of the devs will decide that they really like the idea and change their minds. ;)
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Yeah, but this happens to be one point about which they've already made up their minds. The thing is that sometimes you just have to go with the plan rather then jump at a new idea, even if it's a good idea. Jumping at ideas is how you get feature creep. I'm not saying that mid-mission saving would be feature creep (as my earlier post in this thread suggests, I'm all for iron-man style saving), but you have to make a decision at some point. For almost every feature, both existing and imaginable, goes that some people will want it and others will not. If you're going to change your design decisions based on a convincing speech, then you'll end up changing stuff around every few days. So what I'm saying is, this particular issue is pretty much beyond debate.
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I'm with the developers on this one and tend to favour less of a save game feature. Infact I would like to see the replay battle option be tuned down some. I also think the battles would deliver better gaming experience with more casualties sustained.
I'm also more likely to replay the game again if I was beaten or financially ruined where I'm left to consider I think I could do a better job a second time around and are left with that yearning to see how the game unfolds.
As a big fan of turn based strategy games, I'm in favour of the player losing again and again until they they improve there strategy. (I certainly wouldnt have played the number of hours I have in the civilization series if it wasnt for getting my ass kicked).
I understand the argument of frustration of replaying the same level, but don't agree with a save game option as a solution. This would impact negatively on the game play experience of each battle. Loss of fear and amphosphere.
I also feel that losses need to be sustained to apply pressure on the other strategic elements of the game, geoscape management etc.
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While I would prefer a save feature and optional iron man, I fear the developers decided already against. But what about an autosave evertime you exit battle which gets deleted after loading? I don't think any sane person would abuse this consequently by copying the file.
Well, i would edit the code to make such a copy automatically for me :P
I dito that both systems could be used simultaneously.
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there will be an autosave feature before you enter a battle.
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Ok, after reading the previous posts I couldn't help myself from commenting on it. Especially the argument about "the original":
The original UFO had in-mission-saving, yes. (And I used it heavily :)
BUT on the other side the missions were much longer, more aliens, more soldiers (especially with the bigger dropship, ~26 wasn't it?) In Terror from the Deep the missions were even more time consuming: very large and complex maps AND most missions had even 2 maps. - Just remembering the missions on the cruise-ship where you had difficulties just finding the aliens, the save-function was a must after playing for an hour. (BTW I hated that about Terror from the Deep.) I don't want to talk about the titles after TftD, they had maps that really took the fun out of the game.
UFO:AI strayed from the path of "the original" already when the team size was capped at 8 members. The whole game is made around smaller, faster missions. I understand the argument of the "pro-in-mission-save-faction", they want a more original-like UFO:AI and in-mission-saving is only one point of that. But UFO:AI is not the original in high resolution. It is a game of it's own. Some people think that is good others do not - that is ok.
So my oppinion is, that the devs should make it easier to mod the game. In the long run even split the project into an engine- and a game-part like other projects have done. So the argument of the devs "do it yourself" is more realistic than now. In the mean time I have no problem with a missing in-mission-save.
- Poldy
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I have to agree with Derrida...
Because with all due respect, but whether or not someone wants to save in mid-mission is not your concern. You have absolutely no right to tell people how they should or should not play the game, within it's own limitations.
Deciding not to add an easy-to-implement feature is your right as the makers, but trying to explain objections to that away with 'we don't want people to play the game using it' is not a good excuse.
There's more reasons to save during a mission than just perfect-scoring yourself through...
Let's say for instance (and this is a very dramatic example) I'm playing the very last mission of the game's story.. I'm almost through and I've killed all the aliens except one and all of a sudden I get a call from the hospital telling me my mother was in a serious accident and her situation is life-threatening and I should go over there as soon as I can. With your current system this means I have to either: a. quit the game and start all over again or b. leave my computer running UFO:AI for however long it takes me to get to the hospital, see whether my mother is ok or not and eventually get back.
Now in my example above, whether I finish the mission or not is no longer a real concern as my mother is dieing and for all I care the computer and UFO:AI can go screw themselves. But in less dramatic situations (for instance: I get an unexpected visitor or there's a thunderstorm and the power could go out at any minute) I'm pretty much screwed...
So yeah 'do we like it?' is the LAST thing you should considder when designing a game. The first thing you should ask yourself for every feature is a ratio of 'do people want it?' to 'how hard is it to implement?', with the in or out of the feature being determined by whether enough people want it to justify the time you have to spend on it.
But that's just my advice and opinion, not an attempt to convince you of anything. Do with it what you want.(The advice/opinion, not the post, so don't delete it and use 'you said do with it what you want' as an excuse).
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Because with all due respect, but whether or not someone wants to save in mid-mission is not your concern. You have absolutely no right to tell people how they should or should not play the game, within it's own limitations.
Deciding not to add an easy-to-implement feature is your right as the makers, but trying to explain objections to that away with 'we don't want people to play the game using it' is not a good excuse.
Well, it kind of depends on how you look at it. You have a point when you say it's not good to push the player into a box when it comes to playing the game. However, every game imposes SOME restrictions on the player in order to make it more of a challenge. In Tetris, you don't get to pick what blocks you get or how fast they fall. In Quake, you have a limited amount of health. In Civilization, you can't build an unlimited amount of units. They're not meant to screw the player over, they're simply part of what makes the game the game. And that's the philosophy behind this save feature too. The lack of in-mission saving is meant to heighten the tension during battle by making it less easy to go back and prevent that casualty. Some people perceive it this way. Others don't.
So yeah 'do we like it?' is the LAST thing you should considder when designing a game. The first thing you should ask yourself for every feature is a ratio of 'do people want it?' to 'how hard is it to implement?', with the in or out of the feature being determined by whether enough people want it to justify the time you have to spend on it.
Now with this I can't agree. Game design has never been a matter of democracy. Suppose 51% wants feature A and 49% doesn't want it. That would mean we'd have to implement it, wouldn't it? Now suppose some more people arrive at the boards who don't want feature A, bringing the amount of people who don't want it to 51%. Crikey, now we have to remove the feature again until some more people want it!
No. That's not how it works. How it works is, developers make a game. If the developers are being paid for their work by a publisher, they usually have to listen to the wishes of the publisher, who in turn believes it's representing the wishes of the end user (which, as it turns out, is not usually the case). But we're not getting paid, we do this for fun, and with no interest other than to make a fun game. And our definition of "fun" is not dictated by "the players". It's dictated by ourselves. That's not to say we don't listen to people on the forums - if someone suggests something we think is a good idea, we'll adopt it. But ultimately, the decision is ours. As for the end user, for any feature (or lack thereof) that you don't like goes: you have three choices. Play it, don't play it, and change the game so it's so you want it.
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makes sense.
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Firstly, I'd like to add my voice to the chorus of folks requesting an in-battlescape save feature. Us old guys with families, hot wives, etc. can't sit and play forever, nor can we let it just sit paused forever either. Since I've weighed in, I won't belabor the point.
However, I did want to add:
you have three choices. Play it, don't play it, and change the game so it's so you want it.
True, but misleading. Even if I were to implement such a feature, it has been repeatedly stated in this thread that the core devs will NOT include such a patch into their mainline.
I can see not implementing a feature, but to not allow other people to do it? That's just lame.
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I can see not implementing a feature, but to not allow other people to do it? That's just lame.
I'll tell you what is just lame: using your first post here to bash the developers of the game.
Hopefully none will listen to your moaning and they will continue developing this wonderful game.
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Considering that this feature is a must-have and I'm not playing the game or beta testing it because it is unplayable without it, it doesn't matter much.
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Whoever claims the game is unplayable like this has not given the current system a chance.
With the amount of monsters, level size and soldiers replaceable we now have this is totally fine, and if this changes in the future our great devs will sure find a way to make up, like one autosave when half the aliens are killed or so.
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I played the game for an hour. 15 mins to set up a base, 45 mins to run a tactical mission. This exceeded the "I need to be able to save my game every 15 mins of wall clock time because that is the maximum limit on the amount of time I can allow to elapse between when I am asked to do something and say "give me 5 minutes to save my game". 45 minutes exceeds this margin by 200%. Ergo, the game is unplayable.
Like I said, some of us have lives, families, etc. and grab our gaming time when we can. Game designers need to understand that if they want us to play their games. That said, if no one cares if folks like me play this game, that's fine. It doesn't hurt my feelings any.
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Stop saying you have a life and family, we all have. That just sounds offensive. Some of us even dedicate every free minute to develop this game.
OK, if you absolutely must be able to save the game within 15 mins AND are a slow player (tactical mission takes me ~10 mins) AND cannot leave UFO running until you get back (windowed/minimized) then this game is probably really not for you. But frankly, I think you are the only one here that matches all the three problems at once ...
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I don't see a reason for being able to save during tactical missions; The missions are quite shot, search and destroy, all done in max 15 minuttes. And if you save before entering a tactical mission, it is not much you loose if you exit the game (if anything). Whatever you do in a mission, it is not so very important that you can't have it undone
I think playing the game is actually more fun if not saving after even the slightest progress
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After playing alot with 2.2 I can say that I liked the fact that there was no save game feature, because it made things interesting on the smaller and easier maps.
Here is what I think -
Ironman mode is great for the smaller and easier maps, because it makes them thrilling, unlike the simple crashsite missions from X-COM (which were very boring after a while, because you could save all the time).
Even this concept is great for the simpler missions, you can't keep it for the longer and harder missions (which I hope you are planning) because, as many people stated before, it gets quite hardcore. Imagine doing the cruiseship in Terror From The Deep on Ironman mode.
My suggestion is to enable some checkpoints on the larger and more difficult maps, which would enable the player to go back to that position, like in a platform game. Reaching the checkpoint before someone dies could be an extra challenge, and you can play with that too.
I'm saying this because as the game is designed right now, it's really hard or even impossible to play it on ironman (ie if half of your best squad dies, then that's it and you'll have to deal with it), because there are so few replacements and all of them are below average.
Then, if you really want to keep the ironman feature, you should provide much more soldiers and better than average skilled.
As many others said, and I agree with them, it's quite unrealistic for a top military organization to rely on a bunch of average GIs. There is hard to find one that has at least one proficient skill in the recruiting window, and even that one has poor accuracy or mediocre TUs....
Besides, I think that most players would like to make a squad of "heroes" and go with that squad until the end of the game. I remember some of my 1st top squad names, like Arthur Parker, or the two Iakubiks I had... and I'm sure that many can relate to this. I haven't abused of the save game feature, but it was useful mostly when something really stupid happened which killed 2 ppl or more, like a bug.
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ie if half of your best squad dies, then that's it and you'll have to deal with it
That is the intention, as far as I know. Since the more experianced soldiers are not that much stronger, every mission can be won with 8 recruits. This holds for every difficulty setting.
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LOL !? where is the fun of building an experienced squad, selecting the best soldiers, improving each other through missions on certain skills, "training" specialists from average soldiers, etc etc?
This isn't a RTS game, and as you have put it (as being intended), it's a major flaw of any TBS game!
1st ) You don't get enough new soldiers to replace the experienced ones as they die "realistically" during the missions
2nd) The replacements are crap
3rd) Improving a soldier stats takes to much time because they die to easy
4th) Aliens cheat, by sniping your soldiers from ridiculous long ranges, and you'll never get a soldier with that kind of superhuman stats unless you cheat...
and this brings us to the topic where some people chose to cheat by editing the saved game (buffing soldiers' stats, changing weapons' specs, etc) in order to have fun, because it's frustrating to play a mission for 40 mins and lose your best sniper because of a bug (like an alien shoting your soldier through a truck or hill), then go back retry it and waste more time, because the game isn't well balanced at the moment.
EDIT - and more experienced soldiers aren't stronger but much more effective, having more TUs, and better skills, which mean more damage/shot
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Being quite a newb to ufo:ai, starting my adventure with the 2.2 release on standard difficulty setting ("first time with a challenge", if I remember correctly) I must say I wouldn't like to see save option during missions. In fact it is quite easy to figure out right tactics not to loose your men, and later on with proper equipment I can let my outfit act reckless most of the time, and surprisingly they usually survive (or I retry ;)).
Adding a possibility to save during ground combat would (at least for me) take away all the fun and destroyed this special thrill of excitement, stronger with every turn ended.
And hello forums :)
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Well probably you haven't played for long either.. as missions get more and more difficult.
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Well probably you haven't played for long either..
It's only 30, so probably not, maybe I should've stated that in previous post. Had no idea difficulty factor changes ::)
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LOL !? where is the fun of building an experienced squad, selecting the best soldiers, improving each other through missions on certain skills, "training" specialists from average soldiers, etc etc?
This isn't a RTS game, and as you have put it (as being intended), it's a major flaw of any TBS game!
I can provide some insight into the design decisions that were made some years ago - but I need to mention that I have been out of touch with the game for quite a while before checking it out again recently, so those decisions may well have changed.
The problem that had been observed from some other TBS games, was that the games often required you to have perfect wins (in some way or another). Due to this, higher difficulty settings on such games often involved several frustrating save-reload-until-luck-favors-the-player moments. In order to avoid such moments, mid-mission saves were excluded from the game and it was agreed to limit the difference between veteran soldiers and recruits to a reasonable level.
I have not played any recent version except 2.2. In 2.2 while playing on "hard" difficulty I lose somewhat less than 1 soldier per mission on average and am drowning in new recruits*. Almost all of my initial soldiers are dead as of 13 august '84, and except for convoy there was no particularily difficult map.
*I'd be in favor of a minimum and maximum number of recruits that are available at any moment, to avoid running out of soldiers, or drowning in them.
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Replacing the soldiers to easy would merge this game into a RTS, where you pop units like popcorn without any worry towards loses.
However, TBS games like this one can have a certain roleplay factor, because you can customize (similar to leveling in a role playing game) your soldiers, give them names and so on. That's why even a checkpoint type of save feature would help alot, alowing harder, longer and more complex missions to be made - which everyone would like.
Maybe it's just me, and I played to much Jagged Alliance and Fallout games, but those small roleplaying elements were quite something.
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While I would prefer a save feature and optional iron man, I fear the developers decided already against. But what about an autosave evertime you exit battle which gets deleted after loading? I don't think any sane person would abuse this consequently by copying the file.
Could we at least have an autosave feature like this? Autosaving when you exit the game or something? Like a single combat-autosave we can reload if we have to exit the game or it crashes mid-battle. In Diablo II, you can't save the game, but it autosaves whenever you exit and then you load your save next time you play.
It's fine with me if it's never implemented, though. When I started playing X-com, I used load/save during combat a lot until I figured out how to not die all the time. Now, when I play, I let people die when they die and only save/load when I have to go somewhere or everybody gets blaster-bombed in the Skyranger or something. I always save before combats so I'm fine without an in-game save (I just hope there aren't any SUPER long missions).
Oh, and I believe this is the greatest open-source game I've ever played, and it's not even finished! ;D
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I absolutely support the Devs decision on multiple points.
Whilst I agree with the porponents of saving in mission due to lives, well, I have a job, family, etc. I only play when I have the time. It's not a lunch break game, go back to adventurequest.
I think the solution to that is a "Save and Quit" option, with no "Save and Continue". You can leave and come back, without ruining the game (As I believe it would)
In support of the current system:
The dev's did not really make the game for the players, they made it for themselves and for the players who will develop it. They do want regular players to enjoy it too of course, but it's not the main focus.
I save before each mission, I do. If I lose more than say, two people, I load, because I can't handle that much replacing, pisses me off. I still don't want to go back one turn and survive it, I feel it detracts from the game. Oh no, lost my sniper, well that makes it harder, and I'll replace him, hired a guy who's not a sniper? Well I just changed my lineup, and it's forcing me to change tactics slightly, hey, I'm learning how to play better. YAY
It's not so much ironman mode, as it is fun, more realistic consequences, with different priorities. Makes me think "Is it worth loading from before the mission?" Well I lost that one, or lost half my crew, so yes. I lost two, and they're replaceable enough, so no, I'll muscle on.
Ranks don't mean too much atm, that extra TU will help a bit, but it's probably not going mean you will survive when a rookie wont. And a rookie can have a higher, Assault skill, for example, than a soldier trained in assault, These Rookies" are the highest soldiers from armies all over the world, they're rookies within Phalanx, and at fighting aliens. Military training will help, but an army rookie would be nothing compared to the "Rookie"'s you're hiring.
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I would remind you that one of the reasons (and one of the more important ones) is that in-mission saving is hard to implement. It brings with it a whole family of potential issues (especially maintenance and compatibility) which we just don't want to deal with.
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From reading this thread, I have come to the conclusion that both sides have many valid arguments.
I would suggest the following compromise:
Let the player decide at the start of the game, in the window with the difficulty settings, whether battlescape saves should be permitted or not. This would give both sides exactly what they want.
Of course, nobody can demand that a dev implements such a feature, especially if none of the devs are interested in this feature. However, I hope the devs would at least permit such a patch to be included into the official source code, if someone else were to implement it cleanly. Even if such a feature makes it harder to maintain the source code, I believe that it would be worth it, since this thread has shown that many people want this feature.
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Battlescape saving is not for discussion. You can make (and maintain) your own mod for yourself, ofc.
-geever
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After reading the post i think that we can conclude - Most of the players want the save option, but it just hard to implement.
I'm also agree that it's more fun to have the save option and also to make the battle harder to win.
As i see it the main fun in the game is the battle so if you stay more time in the battle -> more fun.
Few more reasons:
1) You like your charactres and you know their strengths and weaknesses so you dont want to replace them...it's a real tragedy if someone dead. (for me at least)
2) It's too time consuming and not fun to look for a new soldier
I can agree that save during the battle demands smarter aliens and complicated serialization but i think it's worth it.
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Except if you can save during battlescape, it can and will boil down to a save&load fest. Which, as I understand it, the devs don't like.