Core design issues I have with xcom:eu

[Sgallaty]

I've been playing a bit - and have finally identified the issue I think I have with how the game is set up. I'd like to throw this out there and see how it's received.

 

after some real consideration I've sorted out what I think is 'wrong' with the new xcom

 

in the old xcom you would end up with a crew of experienced guys, you could kit out those guys as needed. They might have varied stats, but they were fungible - meaning if you had 10 veteran guys you could lose any 2 of them and you would have 8.

 

in the 'new' xcom however they have fallen down the 'preloaded decision' path where you have to decide permanently which skills a trooper has before you know if you'll need it or not, and those decisions are exclusive. Furthermore, that subcategorizes the class of the troop you're dealing with. E.G. Do you need a heavy with damaging suppression or two rockets?

 

So by end game, you may have 3 snipers with different skills - but losing one is a game-stopper since the difficulty is so exacting (on classic anyhow) that anything less than captain is not going to be useful. Furthermore, you 'outfit' a trooper - but the trooper keeps the gear on them when they are not loaded into a mission. It's not their 'away loadout' - it's their inventory, thus if you have 6 assault that you rotate in and out of missions depending on your specific needs, you have to juggle their armor or have 6 sets of whatever they have (which is difficult to unlikely depending on what you use especially with heavies and blaster bomb launchers)

 

The net result here for me is that even worse than xcom - you must savescum the game, because resources (troopers) are more varied so you have *more* rarity.

 

I really don't understand the need for 'classes' at all. it puts a huge layer of inconvenience and does nothing but interfere with playability. Having troops randomly promote to a class is a baffling design as well. As if some commander tasked with saving the world would desperately need assault troops and have 10 new troopers and just let them decide to be whatever they wanted to be. It doesn't feel right to recruit 10-20 at a time just to get 3 of one kind.

 

I look forward to mods - I think most of my beefs with the game can be corrected. Specifically :

 

I think that if I were to do it - I'd remove all classes, and let all troops use all weapons. Everyone would have the same accuracy bonus from level, and the special attacks would be granted by the weapons

I'd give all skill selections to all troops, and let the player pick and choose to go deep in one tree or spread it out.

 

That way by end game you would have the troops you chose to build, and instead of having to maintain 3-4 of every class (at least) at mid-late game (12-16 guys) you could get away much more managably with fewer and attrition would be possible.

 

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to other's thoughts.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Sgallaty

[Kaerar]

The only part I actually find annoying is the randomly chosen profession. I'd prefer to choose the professions of my squad.

 

The weapons/armour juggling is a separate issue and is a hard one to deal with in such a limited UI as XCOM's.

[Beknatok]

I look forward to mods - I think most of my beefs with the game can be corrected. Specifically :

 

I think that if I were to do it - I'd remove all classes, and let all troops use all weapons. Everyone would have the same accuracy bonus from level, and the special attacks would be granted by the weapons

I'd give all skill selections to all troops, and let the player pick and choose to go deep in one tree or spread it out.

 

I happen to disagree with your opinion. But that's the beauty of mods. Regardless of our differences, you can choose to play by your rules and I can choose to play by mine. :)

 

That being said, there's already some effort to allow all troops to use all weapons. But there are some hardcoded restrictions, specifically involving the Heavy class, that requires an additional attribute to be added to a given weapon. There's already an ongoing thread about this, so please go check that out if you have not already.

 

Removing the classes entirely brings two question/consequences. What do you do with the perks? Allow all soldiers access to all perks? That would require a non-trivial UI change. Additionally from what I've seen so far in the UnrealScript files, you will most likely have to rewrite portions of the combat engine, since I believe different classes/perks are handled in different ways.

 

Unfortunately, none of this is even possible until we can figure out how to either recook existing UPKs or inject/override existing UPKs.

[Sgallaty]

I look forward to mods - I think most of my beefs with the game can be corrected. Specifically :

 

I think that if I were to do it - I'd remove all classes, and let all troops use all weapons. Everyone would have the same accuracy bonus from level, and the special attacks would be granted by the weapons

I'd give all skill selections to all troops, and let the player pick and choose to go deep in one tree or spread it out.

 

I happen to disagree with your opinion. But that's the beauty of mods. Regardless of our differences, you can choose to play by your rules and I can choose to play by mine. :)

 

That being said, there's already some effort to allow all troops to use all weapons. But there are some hardcoded restrictions, specifically involving the Heavy class, that requires an additional attribute to be added to a given weapon. There's already an ongoing thread about this, so please go check that out if you have not already.

 

Removing the classes entirely brings two question/consequences. What do you do with the perks? Allow all soldiers access to all perks? That would require a non-trivial UI change. Additionally from what I've seen so far in the UnrealScript files, you will most likely have to rewrite portions of the combat engine, since I believe different classes/perks are handled in different ways.

 

Unfortunately, none of this is even possible until we can figure out how to either recook existing UPKs or inject/override existing UPKs.

 

Consequences of actions that you know the outcome is one thing. Permanent consequences of actions that you DO NOT is specifically what I am referring to. Choosing to give a trooper a sniper rifle for one mission is a choice with a consequence. Choosing one perk over another without knowing the mechanics of the perks, and that being an irrevocable decision is altogether different.

 

The point I am making is that the existing design is good where it sticks to the tenets established by the original game, but there appears to be a lot of poorly-thought out, contrived and akward gameplay heaped on it that works really poorly in the end-game.

 

I want the game to have consequences too, but not at the expensive of player choices and playability. I want the player to be able to adapt per-mission.

 

The current design is optimized for playing based on spoilers (since inoptimal choices are permanent), and save scumming (because losses are not affordable).

 

I don't think that your disagreement exactly lines up with my criticisms or proposed changes. I'm not out to remove consequence - I'm out to remove awkward contrivances that create a tedious endgame and even diminish accomplishment because you are forced to reload on losses (or forfeit the game)

[acky1]

I'm in total agreement

[Anbar]

Furthermore, you 'outfit' a trooper - but the trooper keeps the gear on them when they are not loaded into a mission. It's not their 'away loadout' - it's their inventory, thus if you have 6 assault that you rotate in and out of missions depending on your specific needs, you have to juggle their armor or have 6 sets of whatever they have (which is difficult to unlikely depending on what you use especially with heavies and blaster bomb launchers)

 

not entirely accurate....

 

any wounded trooper's equipment is always available and if you dont equip a soldier outside of the mission-choice screen then their equipment is always available.

 

Problem is that the game encourages you to customise your soldiers, which means choosing equipment for them outside of the mission screen....

 

its kinda half-arsed, as though 2 different people worked on it and could never agree.

 

"OK, so if a guy gets wounded all of his kit becomes vailable?"

"Great Idea (but i wont use the same theory)!"

 

odd

[Beknatok]

Consequences of actions that you know the outcome is one thing. Permanent consequences of actions that you DO NOT is specifically what I am referring to. Choosing to give a trooper a sniper rifle for one mission is a choice with a consequence. Choosing one perk over another without knowing the mechanics of the perks, and that being an irrevocable decision is altogether different.

 

The point I am making is that the existing design is good where it sticks to the tenets established by the original game, but there appears to be a lot of poorly-thought out, contrived and akward gameplay heaped on it that works really poorly in the end-game.

 

I want the game to have consequences too, but not at the expensive of player choices and playability. I want the player to be able to adapt per-mission.

 

The current design is optimized for playing based on spoilers (since inoptimal choices are permanent), and save scumming (because losses are not affordable).

 

I don't think that your disagreement exactly lines up with my criticisms or proposed changes. I'm not out to remove consequence - I'm out to remove awkward contrivances that create a tedious endgame and even diminish accomplishment because you are forced to reload on losses (or forfeit the game)

 

I have absolutely no interest in debating the pros and cons of the current game mechanics with you. Hence my statement of "Regardless of our differences, you can choose to play by your rules and I can choose to play by mine." I'm respecting your opinion and leaving it alone. I'm here to talk about the "how." I don't care about the "why."

 

In the remainder of my response, I attempt to address the "how can it be done" knowing what we know at this time. And you are unclear on what your desired soldier mechanic would be. Removal of classes entirely? How would you implement perks, if at all? Can you please communicate your vision & goals more clearly?

[Sgallaty]

I'm think that each soldier would have all 4 advancement trees available to them, and the player can choose which to advance in. If someone were really hell bent on having a smoke grenade throwing guy with run and gun, they can do that.

 

Special attacks would be tied to weapons.

 

Aim bonuses and other corrections would be tied to weapons or innate to a given tree rather than classes. by innate to the tree - I mean that selecting a rank of skill in a given tree would confer the appropriate hp/aim bonuses.

 

Knowing what we know at this time? I don't think that deep mechanics changes can be done. I'd like to see if other people have come to similar conclusions and gauge the reception.

Edited October 19, 2012 by Sgallaty

[Beknatok]

Knowing what we know at this time? I don't think that deep mechanics changes can be done. I'd like to see if other people have come to similar conclusions and gauge the reception.

 

I'm happy to say that as of today, you're wrong about that.

 

We've already had access to the internal game scripts - I have a separate thread about that. And Daemonjax finally figured out how we can override them with our own (see the First Steps thread).

 

So your next steps would involve studying the class & perk code, and rewriting it to suit your vision. You would also need to modify the UI files, such that you could display and show all perks instead of just the ones associated with each class.

 

Anything is possible now... it'll just take a lot of work.

[Caiman]

Anything is possible now... it'll just take a lot of work.

And I´m very happy to tag along and see how much progress is made each day. :thumbsup:

 

If we get modding tools at some point... we´ll already have so much indepth knowledge that it will be a breeze(at least thats what I hope for ;) ). :cool: