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Author Topic: X-Com Chimera Squad  (Read 731978 times)

misko27

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5205 on: February 29, 2016, 03:21:51 pm »

Well I understand a LOT more now about how mission difficulties work, and when they pop up.

Question: I'm making a mod, and this mod will include a (hopefully) rare chance to get a mission that is disproportionately more difficult then the regular missions. Instead of "Difficult" or "Very Difficult", the difficulty would be listed as "Suicidal" (Any ideas on a name other then this?). Currently I'm thinking that mission would come late-game, and would serve as challenge that might actually make the player rethink whether to take the mission or not (i.e. whether the risk is worth it). The idea behind my mod is to allow players more diversity in difficulty settings, so it would be possible for a player to encounter a easy or moderate mission later then they ordinarily would, and thus allow them to do stuff like train up rookies, or just take a breather in general. To balance it out (for now, at least; I might make easier missions provide less reward in the future), there is also the possibility of significantly harder missions, like the aforementioned "Suicidal" difficulty. As it stands, however, I could use some advice.
  • I don't know how much more difficult to make this mission, i.e. it would almost certainly have more units then any standard mission could have, but how many more? Three units more? Five? Ten? And should I consider potentially making the objective more difficult to complete (fewer turns to hack, or perhaps starting farther away)? This *is* supposed to be significantly more difficult, mind, and the player would have to strongly consider whether they even want to take it in the first place: right now it would only appear as a Guerrilla OP, so you could choose to take one of the regular difficulty missions at no penalty, unless you really wanted to counter that particular Dark Event. I might make it possible to appear in other contexts later (like a supply raid or council mission), but I would want to decrease the cost of not accepting first, and that is beyond the scope of this mod. A closely related issue is:
  • I don't know whether to make this mission the same level of (mission) difficulty for each game difficulty level, or if each should have its own. That is to say, if you were for example playing on Rookie, you wouldn't experience the same "Suicidal" mission as a Veteran or Commander, and a Legendary player might experience something significantly harder. The reason I bring this up is because mission difficulties are distinct between the (game) difficulty levels: the highest number of enemies Rookie can encounter in a normal, late-game Guerrilla-Op is 9, the most Veteran or Commander has is 11 enemies, and Legendary has 14. The other differences are Rookie missions stop increasing in difficulty starting month four (June), while all other difficulties continue to get more difficult until August; and Veteran and Commander share the same mission difficulty schedule. There are 6 different mission difficulties, but what they are called and whether you'll ever even see them depends on the Game difficulty (what is "Moderate" for one is "Difficult" for another). The six difficulties have different numbers of enemies *5, 6, 8, 9, 11, and 14), and each Game difficulty has four different (mission) difficulties, with the lowest being "Easy" and the most highest being "Very Difficult". Rookie has the first four, Vet+Com has the middle four, and Legendary has the last four (meaning Rookie's "Difficult" is Legendary's "Easy). Bearing all that in mind, should rookies receive a different "Suicidal" mission (would it even be called that?), or should they even be playing this mod? Should Legendary receive a tougher mission then the others, bearing in mind that their most difficult missions are probably already suicidal to a Rookie? It's worth noting that creating more then one (mission) difficulty level for each of the (game) difficulty levels isn't a very big leap in difficulty for me to make.
  • Should there be rewards for passing the mission (other then satisfaction, and the regular mission rewards)? What kind? I might not implement it right now, but it would at least be useful to think about what a player would be willing to risk stuff for.
  • Finally, how often should it be offered? This question is strongly intertwined with the previous one: big rewards mean it should be less often. But should I aim for roughly once per game? And, also related: when? Early-game? Mid? Late? Post August? Some combination of these? It shouldn't be *too* often, I think.


Any advice on this, or on something not directly related to my questions would be appreciated.
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4maskwolf

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5206 on: February 29, 2016, 09:54:48 pm »

Well that was...

I just got anti-beaglerush'd for the first time, and I wasn't even trying to pull the Beaglerush Maneuver.  I was actually hoping the bastards wouldn't see me, but they flanked one soldier who wasn't even supposed to be the one they spotted first but who I had advanced too far forwards.  I suppose I got what I deserved for trying to figure out a way to sneak into the UFO.

RIP Secondary Sniper.  Time to train someone else up because she was my go-to if I found myself down a soldier for a mission.

I'm actually amazed I didn't get completely wiped on that mission, or at least lose more than one soldier, because after I offed that pod I triggered two more trying to scout the inside of the craft and after one round of that battle the final pod (who I had seen much earlier and specifically moved to avoid) came at us from the side.  Thank god for high explosives.

Sensei

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5207 on: March 01, 2016, 04:17:32 am »

...the difficulty would be listed as "Suicidal" (Any ideas on a name other then this?).
"I Like It Rough"
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RAM

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5208 on: March 01, 2016, 05:15:31 am »

I would think of it more as an expansion to the difficulty range than an increase in difficulty, so would tend to offer compatibility with lower difficulty modes. I can imagine people wanting a bit more variation, and the opportunity to take an unusual risk(or an easier win), who do not feel comfortable playing a full game in the highest difficulties. But that is more of a preference thing, it is your mod...

17 and 20 seem like fairly obvious next steps, but can you do anything else? Like give Advent armour, and throw in a bonus faceless...

Perhaps it could be treated like a security review is taking place and they have some elite forces doing the inspection. So they have the effects of a couple of events to represent the elite training and equipment and they have better drop rates to go with it?

Just an idea though, you would know much better than I what you want to get out of your mod.
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Shadowgandor

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5209 on: March 01, 2016, 06:25:54 am »

@Misco

Suicidal missions should probably contain enemies that are normally met later in the game. Lets say you meet sectopods during midgame or Mutons during early game (normally only advent and sectoids). If you make these enemies only appear in missions that force you to evac, VIP for example, the research flow won't be interrupted.
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Puzzlemaker

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5210 on: March 01, 2016, 08:14:58 am »

So I had a fever-fueled dream that someone modded in the starcraft SCV into XCOM2, who had the ability to build cover and turrets.

Upon waking up, I thought, "Hey that would be pretty cool, someone should get on that", before going and sitting on the toilet some more.

thoughts?
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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5211 on: March 01, 2016, 10:47:09 am »

So I had a fever-fueled dream that someone modded in the starcraft SCV into XCOM2, who had the ability to build cover and turrets.

Upon waking up, I thought, "Hey that would be pretty cool, someone should get on that", before going and sitting on the toilet some more.

thoughts?
I think it's a cool idea, but I also think that for every one implemented awesome mod there are hundreds of "cool ideas" that never make it off the ground. Anyone can be an ideas man, but it takes a lot of dedication for someone to actually implement their ideas.
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Aklyon

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5212 on: March 01, 2016, 12:11:57 pm »

Dedication, and 40gb of hard drive space.
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Mephansteras

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5213 on: March 01, 2016, 12:20:57 pm »

40GB of hard drive space is cheap. Dedication is expensive. :P
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misko27

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5214 on: March 01, 2016, 03:36:36 pm »

40GB of hard drive space is cheap. Dedication is expensive. :P
I mean, 40GB is still a lot though. Let's not kid ourselves here, it's hardly a trivial part of this. :P

...the difficulty would be listed as "Suicidal" (Any ideas on a name other then this?).
"I Like It Rough"
I will keep that one in mind.
I would think of it more as an expansion to the difficulty range than an increase in difficulty, so would tend to offer compatibility with lower difficulty modes. I can imagine people wanting a bit more variation, and the opportunity to take an unusual risk(or an easier win), who do not feel comfortable playing a full game in the highest difficulties. But that is more of a preference thing, it is your mod...
Yeah, that's a good way of describing it, an "expansion the the difficulty range". I'll be compatible with all difficulties. The only thing is how difficult the new mission will be, especially for rookies, who, as I said, have a maximum of 9 units for a regular mission. I mean, if 14 units is a sufficiently difficult challenge for rookies, well those missions are already in the code! It might make sense (and save time) to make the rookie's special challenge the normal "Very Difficult" mission on Legendary.
Quote
17 and 20 seem like fairly obvious next steps, but can you do anything else? Like give Advent armour, and throw in a bonus faceless...
Hmm. Each of those numbers would be an extra pod. That makes a lot of sense, but I'm tempted to give Legendary an extra challenge... What else can I do? Technically anything, but certain things are easier then others. Faceless would be trivially difficult to include; in fact I really like the idea of just tossing in the faceless in addition to anything else I come up with. Faceless are really easy to do because the code for adding faceless to a mission is already in nearly every single damn mission, it just comes with a bit of code that basically says "only if a dark event is active" (this is also true for Chrysallids, so they are also easy to include if I choose).  Armor? You mean, like extra armor pips? Like that "Alloy Plating" dark event? That's doable I think, but I'd have to look into some stuff first to see how doable it is. Presumably if I can make that work, I could also add other dark events like Venom Rounds and stuff. I'd have to let the player know ahead of time though (at least for something like venom rounds; adding Faceless or Chrysalids is so much more fun if I don't warn the player). In any case, I'll look into that stuff, its a nice idea.
Quote
Perhaps it could be treated like a security review is taking place and they have some elite forces doing the inspection. So they have the effects of a couple of events to represent the elite training and equipment and they have better drop rates to go with it?

Just an idea though, you would know much better than I what you want to get out of your mod.
Hmm. Again, while I like the security review thing, it means I would have to find a way of telling the player that (maybe pre-mission commentary?). And don't worry: I need ideas, I asked for ideas, and if I don't like yours I simply won't include them.  :P

@Misco

Suicidal missions should probably contain enemies that are normally met later in the game. Lets say you meet sectopods during midgame or Mutons during early game (normally only advent and sectoids). If you make these enemies only appear in missions that force you to evac, VIP for example, the research flow won't be interrupted.
Oh yeah. Thanks for reminding me about research. Oh yes, thats very important to remember: messing up the flow of research could be bad (although I guess it would be a good reward for success.) Hmm. Maybe different suicidal missions based on how far you are in the game. That wouldn't be too difficult to do (that is, all the work needed to do this is already needed to do anything.), so thats a nice idea.

I still don't know how often to make the missions. Hmm. I guess I can focus on making the missions first, and then see about that.
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LordPorkins

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5215 on: March 01, 2016, 03:50:16 pm »

Ooh! I got one! Add a "sticky" feature to chryssalids melee attack. Slowd movement due to, well, the parasotes devouring you. Also have their be a level where its like a post-bomb scene, and all enemies are damaged, and like theres 5 busted andromenons coming at you. Yah! The resistance dropped a bomb on a production center for the Andromenons, or maybe a "training facility" for the berserkers and Chryssalids! So all of the things that the aliens normally have under "control" are just pouring out of the destroyed ruins. It would be awesome! And if you win, you get to convince the public the aliens dont have things under control. But of they win, they say "oh look, rebels blowing up our shit!"


Also make an alternate ending where you get to kill Thomas H. Innman. He annoys me.

((Thats the speaker for you rubes out there))
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4maskwolf

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5216 on: March 02, 2016, 11:14:31 am »

Also make an alternate ending where you get to kill Thomas H. Innman. He annoys me.

((Thats the speaker for you rubes out there))
I still don't understand why people hate the speaker so much.  All of my irritation with him from the first game evaporated when he was the only council member to stay loyal to the cause, and any ill-will he'd built up during the game was removed during the last time you see him.

Rolan7

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5217 on: March 02, 2016, 11:20:49 am »

You're thinking of the Councilman, the speaker is the slightly-better-disguised Thinman working for Advent.  Hence that name :P
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4maskwolf

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5218 on: March 02, 2016, 11:21:37 am »

You're thinking of the Councilman, the speaker is the slightly-better-disguised Thinman working for Advent.  Hence that name :P
Deeeeeeeerp yeah I want to kill that fucker, the speaker is an asshole.

Furtuka

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Re: X-Com 2: Welcome Back, Commander.
« Reply #5219 on: March 02, 2016, 12:56:37 pm »

Hmm I'm afraid of using up the storage space for the dev tools, but after hearing the mad max easter egg i really want to make a councilman voice pack. Not sure if there's enough total clips though. Definitely would have to slice up his lines in both games plus the honest trailers vid to pull it off at the bery least.
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