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Author Topic: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4  (Read 7101 times)

Offline anonymissimus

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Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« on: May 21, 2014, 10:18:45 pm »
sick bay:
Why is it now so that all hired soldiers are always displayed ? In 2.4 it was a quick overview how many and which soldiers are wounded.

equipping soldiers:
Being able to equip via the employees menu is of course very useful, but removing a soldier from the dropship should still auto-unequip that soldier, as that's what's needed, most of the time, since the equipment is needed for the soldier replacing him/her. If he/she is reequipped through the employees menu, that equipment should of course be kept then. At least it should be configurable with an option; or, for instance, what about assigning the "remove all equipment for this soldier" action to the right-click menu in the menu where soldiers are assigned to the dropship (aircraft menu) ? Both functionalities are already present elsewhere, so supposedly an easy task, and that way it's also possible to keep equipment based on the soldier and current situation. Alternatively, add a "remove all" button in the aircraft menu. The way it's now, I always need to switch to the equipment screen before or after removing soldiers just to remove all of their equipment.

bleeding and increasing needed TUs:
I actually like this change, as it's more realistic, and aliens (Taman at least, probably all biologic ones) bleed as well, but don't seem to have any medikits, so it's actually more an advantage for Phalanx than something increasing the difficulty, and makes wounding an alien much more valuable than it used to be.
I hope the sick bay is more efficient in healing than in 2.4 though, where I sometimes take heavily wounded soldiers onto the battlefield and immediately heal them with a medikit because it's so much faster.

soldier clothing styles (urban, arctic and so on):
The choices got removed, supposedly because they don't have effect ? Good.

the weight system:
While optimizing the carried weight, the popup informing about not enough time units is very annoying. It needs to be clicked away all the time. The flashing red warning below the soldier image is perfectly sufficient. Please make this configurable. (show this popup ? yes/no)
I mean, the carried weight should be arranged so, that it is as close as possible to half the maximum carrying capacity, but doesn't go above that, thus there's no TU penalty. Unless the goal is to get a speed boost, of course.
Also, the weight display would be more useful if it displayed (in addition) the weight the soldier is able to carry in addition without suffering a TU penalty. And perhaps the maximum carrying capacity displayed should instead be the half of that, since that's the value the player is more interested in.
Perhaps like so
15.5 (+1) / 33 (16.5) Kg
where the numbers in brackets are the additional possible weight and the de-facto maximum weight.

EDIT
I just discovered that the popup is non-modal, permanently placing it in one corner seems a way to go.

money:
I haven't played 2.5 enough to really comment on it, but if there are less UFOs, there is much less money from selling those, or their parts, and the loot from the resulting missions. Thus nations should pay a lot more, to have the same money, since costs for buildings and equipment as well as maintenance costs seem to be the same.

map design:
This is the worst part. There are less UFOs to make the game less tedious and more map variation to make it interesting I suppose. *But* even for scouts and so on, there are now huge maps, such as the "mansion", which is a pure pain in the ass. I suppose these maps are designed to be visually attractive, not fun to play (Table tennis on a balcony is nonsense though, the ball would fall to the ground all the time.) This map is huge, one can keep searching for hours (real time) just for that one moment when you spot an enemy. Thus, playing a few such maps is more tedious in the end than playing a lot of those small maps in 2.4 - fighter crash, bridge, scout crash and the generic crashed UFO which appears in variations. On those maps it is often so that one can see all enemies right from the start and kill 2 or 3 in the first turn. This often leads to ideal battle results. I don't complain about most or all weapons being deadlier, just about that it's not fun to search large maps (in particular, maps with a lot of levels).
Also, the crashed UFO is seldom (never ?) visible. In 2.4 one can detect the remaining number of enemies from the UFO type. Say, it's a scout, you already killed 1 and see 2, thus there can none be hiding somewhere and ambush you. That's a huge tactical advantage. In 2.5 it is necessary to somehow track the UFO type by out-of-game means...
« Last Edit: May 21, 2014, 10:23:30 pm by anonymissimus »

Offline Grug

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #1 on: May 24, 2014, 10:02:59 am »
sick bay:
Why is it now so that all hired soldiers are always displayed ? In 2.4 it was a quick overview how many and which soldiers are wounded.
This is for when implants are implemented.

Alternatively, add a "remove all" button in the aircraft menu. The way it's now, I always need to switch to the equipment screen before or after removing soldiers just to remove all of their equipment.
I agree, that an easy remove all button would be nice. Not sure I'd ever use it though. :-P

I actually like this change, as it's more realistic,
Yep, I agree. The hospital does seem far better than in 2.4, possibly even a little too efficient? (either that or I'm lucky that I put my soldiers in and wait for the next wave of UFO's)

soldier clothing styles (urban, arctic and so on):
The choices got removed, supposedly because they don't have effect ? Good.
I vaguely recall still seeing this option, but in a different place. *shrug*

While optimizing the carried weight, the popup informing about not enough time units is very annoying. It needs to be clicked away all the time. The flashing red warning below the soldier image is perfectly sufficient.
I disagree with this. I like the popup saying that I was dumb, but configurable would be an option. Unfortunately I frequently? don't notice that it has gone yellow and so my soldiers have degraded TU's when I start a map. Good thing I save lots! :-P

Also, the weight display would be more useful if it displayed (in addition) the weight the soldier is able to carry in addition without suffering a TU penalty. And perhaps the maximum carrying capacity displayed should instead be the half of that, since that's the value the player is more interested in.
A "weight remaining" value might be a good idea, but you don't want to make numbers too confusing.

I haven't played 2.5 enough to really comment on it, but if there are less UFOs, there is much less money from selling those, or their parts, and the loot from the resulting missions. Thus nations should pay a lot more, to have the same money, since costs for buildings and equipment as well as maintenance costs seem to be the same.
Seems like no problem to me. I've only had a couple of times where I was hanging out for the next UFO so I could start the next upgrade or whatever.

This is the worst part. There are less UFOs to make the game less tedious and more map variation to make it interesting I suppose. *But* even for scouts and so on, there are now huge maps, such as the "mansion", which is a pure pain in the ass.
Hahaha, I completely disagree with this. I love the bigger maps. I much prefer mansion when it is full size to when it is only half the map. Yeah, it can take a while to find all the aliens, but I personally enjoy it.

Maybe it is the short attention span that people have these days and the need for instant gratification. The game should take a while, that's the kind of game it is!

Also, the crashed UFO is seldom (never ?) visible.
Hmmm, that's different to me. I'd say I get the crashed remains of a ship almost all the time. I get surprised if I don't see the crashed remains.

In 2.4 one can detect the remaining number of enemies from the UFO type. Say, it's a scout, you already killed 1 and see 2, thus there can none be hiding somewhere and ambush you. That's a huge tactical advantage. In 2.5 it is necessary to somehow track the UFO type by out-of-game means...
I don't like this at all. Personally I think the number of aliens in each ship should be random but within limits based on the size of the ship. You should never know everything about your enemies before you even start, that is simply boring. The game should be a challenge, it should be unpredictable.

Offline ShipIt

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #2 on: May 25, 2014, 11:42:52 am »
I don't like this at all. Personally I think the number of aliens in each ship should be random but within limits based on the size of the ship.

That´s basically how it works in 2.6-dev now.

Offline H-Hour

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #3 on: May 26, 2014, 02:53:09 pm »
anonymissimus, are you the Wesnoth dev of the same name? If so, nice to see you over here. Would be great to have you involved if you're looking for another open-source game project to work on. :)

Offline H-Hour

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #4 on: May 26, 2014, 04:17:52 pm »
I hope the sick bay is more efficient in healing than in 2.4 though, where I sometimes take heavily wounded soldiers onto the battlefield and immediately heal them with a medikit because it's so much faster.

Medikits no longer heal your soldiers much, just stop the blood loss (wound damage), so you'll need to put them in the sick bay.

soldier clothing styles (urban, arctic and so on):
The choices got removed, supposedly because they don't have effect ? Good.

No effect + no art assets for the new soldier models.

the weight system:
There's a whole bunch of unorganized discussion on the talk page in our wiki that you might find interesting. I think you need to be logged in to view talk pages.

even for scouts and so on, there are now huge maps
I have not contributed much to 2.6, but I do believe this is one of the issues to be addressed in the Map Revision Project (another Talk page in the wiki).

Offline anonymissimus

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #5 on: May 27, 2014, 04:55:39 pm »
anonymissimus, are you the Wesnoth dev of the same name? If so, nice to see you over here. Would be great to have you involved if you're looking for another open-source game project to work on. :)
Uh-oh. Indeed I am. I'm into open source games, absolutely.
Well, it seems that it cannot be compiled in Visual C++.

Offline Noordung

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #6 on: May 27, 2014, 05:29:50 pm »
AI is also problem in huge maps. they just wander around. if they would try to hunt you down playing time would be shorter. but to change than one would have to improve AI...

Offline dmi3

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #7 on: June 04, 2014, 02:47:30 pm »
Also, the crashed UFO is seldom (never ?) visible. In 2.4 one can detect the remaining number of enemies from the UFO type. Say, it's a scout, you already killed 1 and see 2, thus there can none be hiding somewhere and ambush you. That's a huge tactical advantage. In 2.5 it is necessary to somehow track the UFO type by out-of-game means...

Consider it cheating, but you can hit the console button at the start of the map and see the alien entities placed by the engine, together with their names (and derive the type of alien by naming convention, even).

Offline anonymissimus

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #8 on: June 04, 2014, 04:10:19 pm »
And "the console button" is...what ?
Launching from console is better however. By watching the messages, you always know the exact number of enemies and their types, civilians and who's bleeding. There are messages about creation and whenever someone dies.

Offline mikehg

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #9 on: June 04, 2014, 04:49:33 pm »
Shit-Esc by default.

Offline DattMuffinMan

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Re: Impressions on 2.5 vs 2.4
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2014, 08:58:37 pm »
Personally I found the camo to be useful. Allowed me to colour code my troops as if they were a bag of skittles ready to be eaten. Only some colours were more dangerous to eat. Also to put some design behind the entire camo section wouldn't be hard(even though coding it might be). If adjacent to the outside of a building/inside one Urban camo gives you a stealth bonus I.E the Aliens have to move in closer to see you. If adjacent to a plant with Jungle Camo the same applies and so on.
I don't know how much reduced vision the Aliens would have per camo as it would have to depend on their current stats(which I haven't seen). But the effects would differ from race to race. The Taman will have only 50% the effect of sight reduction, the Hoverdisks would have none, etc.

Also in 2.5 on very hard, I found the difficulty lacking, due to the fact smoke is Jesus incarnate on the battlefield. Perhaps some hard counters should apply such as the Hover disks and so on. However keeping the happiness up of all the nations is ludicrous, you have to kill 3 alien missions/objects in order to get even a few to pleased(Not enough come around so, even then if they did have enough you would run out of soldiers unless you exploited smoke). And I lost the game mid-way in(sad I couldn't test all the features) when about 4-5 countries weren't pleased, instead content/neutral. How does that make all the nations want to disband X-com!?

However I did have one mission wherein my LZ was invaded by those oversized ticks and had two dead to begin with, then point blank by a Taman another fell. Then another by friendly fire(the bullets shredded through a shazzar and hit him). The last one just got side shot while sitting in an alleyway. Those 3 bastards were lucky to get out alive on that one(Was using smoke the entire mission), and I felt as if I was playing X-com again huddling in my concrete hidey holes as I sent out soldiers to take Alien Plasma fire so I could watch another episode of Farscape. Perhaps more close quarters urban maps are needed as the AI just can't do that on open maps when encountering regular overuse of smoke.

All in all, I enjoyed the 2.5 build with no bugs(aside from the graphical glitch posted in Windows TechS). I enjoyed the aesthetic overhaul greatly, as in 2.4 felt like you were commanding a bunch of bobble-heads taken out of storage(it wasn't that bad, but nevertheless it was a bit goofy). All that needs to be worked on mostly is the AI really, and the writing. I can help with the writing so I'll send some PM's :D.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2014, 09:01:58 pm by DattMuffinMan »