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Author Topic: A few suggestions and thoughts.  (Read 4600 times)

Luceat

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A few suggestions and thoughts.
« on: February 06, 2008, 06:48:08 pm »
Hi!

First of all, thanks for making my dream come true! (this game, i mean... umm.) I've read around a bit on the forums and played the game pretty much with the 2.2 windows non-svn version. Instead of posting my suggestions in the relevant threads, i'm gonna be an ass and put them here. So, I begin with apologizing for my rude and thoughtless behaviour! Because of my lack of programming skills, I will try to contribute through ideas and constructive critiscism, and hopefully some mapping :). I mean no offense by anything I post here, sorry if some things i point out are blatantly obvious and actually planned for release X in future Y.

UI/Interface ideas:
notes: I haven't used geoscape-UI nor alternate UI of tactical combat. Version of game is 2.2 windows release (soon to be switched though

- The 'Create Base' and ufopaedia buttons remained a total mystery to me, I went through each button on the keyboard to try to find a shortcut for building a new base. Eventually, I browsed the forums and found the button ^^. I would prefer to have the buttons 'mouseover'-look at all times. Might be a very subjective idea, perhaps i'm the only one having trouble finding it ;)

- The 'Research' screen in baseview: In the version i played, allocating more scientists felt very unintuitive. Adding scientist to a project was done by pressing the "<" button, instead of ">". I'd prefer arrows pointing up and down. Up for increasing, down for decreasing number of scientists. By looking at the 'Start Research Project" buttons, I realize it isn't finished. Perhaps put a UFO-Paedia window in the rightmost frame with scientist/labspace numbers?

- Storage screen. I'd love to have a list of all my assets, so I can be sure when my captured UFO has arrived :).

- Statistics: I can never get enough of them, I'd love to see more of them, especially interception-stats.

General Gameplay

- In UFO:Enemy Unknown, the effect of civilian casualties was reflected in the amount of funding you receive. I'd like to see this a lot more than the 40 civilian losses-system :).

- If I recall correctly, the latest commercial UFO-game made the auto-mission button look like you left the mission for regular military. Something to adapt? I'm not being overly original.. *sigh* I'd love some stats though :).

Storyline

- I read in some post about the need for an explanation why the player, the 'elite' group has to worry about funding and why they go on relatively easy CCQ missions to protect civilians. Couldn't the ordinary army do that?
My suggestion is letting the viral infection-event which is supposed to happen later in the game, happen at the beginning. PHALANX is simply the only viral-immune humans  who can fight that are still alive. Hopefully this would give more of a Fallout-feel in the game and explain why we fly half across the globe to save 6 civilians; the rest are dead!


I'll write more suggestions as I stumble across them, if this post is something you appreciate.

Love
Luceat

Offline EuchreJack

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Re: A few suggestions and thoughts.
« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2008, 05:01:36 am »
Quote
- Statistics: I can never get enough of them, I'd love to see more of them, especially interception-stats.

Unfortunately, 65% of players hate stats, and 98% of programmers hate programing stats.  Sorry, no stats for you.   :'(

Quote
*sigh* I'd love some stats though

Luckily, just like 80% of all stats, those stats I gave previously were totally made up.   ;D

Seriously, I would like to at least see a count of how many civilians died under my watch, if the game over due to exceeding maximum civilian death limit is a permanent part of the game.   :)

Quote
especially interception-stats.
Actually, I have wondered a little bit about the stats involved with the interceptions also.  At least, I could tell it that heavy polymer armor does anything...

Offline kracken

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Re: A few suggestions and thoughts.
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2008, 08:30:57 am »
At least, I could tell it that heavy polymer armor does anything...

I can answer this question: a bug made every aircraft armor useless in 2.2. This should be fixed in next release.

Luceat

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Re: A few suggestions and thoughts.
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2008, 11:50:22 pm »
Unfortunately, 65% of players hate stats, and 98% of programmers hate programing stats.  Sorry, no stats for you.   :'(

Luckily, just like 80% of all stats, those stats I gave previously were totally made up.   ;D

Seriously, I would like to at least see a count of how many civilians died under my watch, if the game over due to exceeding maximum civilian death limit is a permanent part of the game.   :)
Actually, I have wondered a little bit about the stats involved with the interceptions also.  At least, I could tell it that heavy polymer armor does anything...

It is commonly accepted that 95% of the above post is true!


now then, all my ideas weren't about stats, only 2.4% of all ideas i've ever come up with is about stats or manipulating them!

Offline eleazar

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Re: A few suggestions and thoughts.
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2008, 12:47:48 am »
- In UFO:Enemy Unknown, the effect of civilian casualties was reflected in the amount of funding you receive.

It's generally agreed that the current civilian loss counting in 2.2 doesn't work.  The plan is to go with something like you described.

Offline Psawhn

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Re: A few suggestions and thoughts.
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2008, 07:36:26 pm »
I also agree that the mouseover-hidden buttons for Base, Statistics, and Ufopaedia are very bad design. In fact, many parts of the game need a UI makeover.

nemchenk

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Re: A few suggestions and thoughts.
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2008, 07:43:56 pm »
Check out 2.3? :)