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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Whites Of Your Eyes


shanu

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The only two strategys I've come across in the short while I've been playing ufo2000 are "nuke the entire map and hope you hit something", and "send a scout or two then pick off helpless men from the other side of the map with snipers"..

 

While this is effective I'm sure. Its just not fun. :(

 

 

The best game I've had so far we both agreed to not use explosives (because people overuse them) My opponent (I cant remember his name.. speak up if its you) at first started using the scouts and sniper method. I fairly quickly took out his scouts without too much damage to my men. And THEN the game got interesting. For both parties I might add.

 

We played in a city map and used the cover and buildings strategically, instead of blowing them away after the second turn.

 

We in most cases knew who our killer was and saw the whites of his eye as we got killed. As opposed to being victem of some lucky shot from a bunch of snipers miles away.

 

We wittled our men down slowly until it was down to my two men against his one..

He retreated into a 3 story building and my men pursued him up the stairs. We paused at an open door that led into a dead end. My opponant even tried bluffing me, saying he had escaped through a hole in the ground, But i went in anyway and found him cowering behind a table.

It was an awesome game.. Even with mind games being played :D

 

Once the initial "scouts and snipers" strategy was gone, both players agreed it got VERY interesting.

 

 

 

The point of this thread is..

 

I really could do with seeing less by the books "scouts and snipers" and "nuke the maps" and get some originallity in there.

 

I dont use explosives at all, only because people overuse them. And i dont use the scout sniper method, only because once again, PEOPLE OVERUSE THEM.

 

While i know there is counter attacks to these strategies. And I know they are the most effective attacks.

Seriously..

 

 

My challenge to you..

Let me see the whites of your eyes OMFG

 

by the way.. my name in the game is shaun not shanu

Edited by shanu
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The best game I've had so far we both agreed to not use explosives (because people overuse them) My opponent (I cant remember his name.. speak up if its you) at first started using the scouts and sniper method. I fairly quickly took out his scouts without too much damage to my men. And THEN the game got interesting. For both parties I might add.

 

Hey hey! Let me guess, you played btfx?

That was a very fun game indeed, even though I lost to a newbie. After looking at the server replay I realized I SHOULD have gone through that hole... Damnit!

And sorry about the 4x4 arctic game, I agree that it sucked.

Oh, and if you like no explosives games, challenge people to no explosives games. I do this a lot.

And like I told you in that game, when people nuke the map, sneak through the smoke, use it to your advantage. And since they are using High Explosives (most power) you can take them out with a measely frag grenade.

And speaking of frag grenades, you can make your own rules for each game, using the honor system. IE all humans, no armour, military issue weaponset. Now all HE you have is the rocket launcher (costs much), the grenade launcher (takes a million TUs to reload) and the frag grenade (weak) and you can't throw them around like toys anymore, you've got people to kill.

 

I tend not to overuse explosives. I suffer in games because of it.
Yeah, variety helps, but explosives are still slightly better than guns, IE an all-guns team would lose to an all-explosives team.
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the updated weapons pack gives each explosive a drawback - the demo pack goes off if you so much as sneeze on it, the alien grenade has a small blast radius but high damage, the breeching charge cannot be thrown, the frag grenade has a low a huge damage modifier but comparatively low damage and so on ...
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Doesn't say anything about the missile launchers though. That and the pk34 are the real culprits.

 

The problem isn't so much that the weapons are overpowered; it's the way explosives only hit under armour. Either we can increase under armour or decrease explosives damage as a stopgap measure until a proper damage allocation method is done.

 

And it wouldn't hurt if terrain was a wee bit tougher. As it is, the vast gap in anti-terrain effectiveness of explosives vs conventional weapons is too large. Yes the gap is supposed to be large, but this is just ridiculous, one shell tends to take out the majority of a house. And, well, there just ain't that many houses available on one map!

Edited by th15
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...the breeching charge cannot be thrown...
Never heard of it, what is it?
...one shell tends to take out the majority of a house...
Yes, this is too realistic. In reality explosives rule, in UFO2000 each weapon should have balanced advantages and drawbacks. More than just higher cost.
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Oh yes, I'd like to add that another glaring problem with powerful explosives is that it gives an unfair advantage to the player with first turn. A lucky missile and the games all over.

 

Of course the problem lies in the smallish deployment zones of regular deathmatch but a 5x5 map doesnt leave very much space for deployment or the two squads would be too close together. Search and Destroy is interesting and makes for really quick games but its also prone to excessive randomness.

 

My suggestion is to tone down blast radius across the board. Heavy missiles with a radius of 3, medium power explosives, 2 and small explosives affecting only the adjacent squares. Terrain as a whole could use a slight upgrade such that theres a 50% chance a laser won't demolish an entire wall.

 

Also, the deployment zones could be changed to a diagonal arrangement to make encounters more interesting. See badly drawn picture below:

 

11100

10000

10002

00002

00222

 

Where 1s are the map tiles that player 1 can deploy and 2s are the map tiles that player 2 can deploy.

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its not the blast radii that is the problem, its the fact that walls cant sheild you from the blasts. Generally, the wall health is fairly low on Xcom maps too which doesnt help at all. ALSO dont underestimate the chaining! if you like explosives make sure your carefull on deployment! excessive explosives chain excessively - i myself lost my squad thanks to chaining on one occasion.

 

As for first turn kills: agree on a map that removes the ability for player one to get a clear shot! the problem has never bothered me at all and very few players whom i have nailed first turn have complained either. Its all about cunning unit placement, those who place their men in groups are asking for it!

Edited by Sporb
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I dunno, it doesn't look like a realistic explosion algorithm is anywhere near so in the mean time I think it would be a good idea to tone down the explosives.

 

However, I maintain that blast radius has to be smaller. As it is explosives simply clear out waaay too much foilage. It is entirely possible to completely level half the map in only one or two turns.

 

I believe that UFO2k uses the same movement costs as the original game, if it does, damaged terrain incurs a movement penalty (it costs more to move over damage terrain) so it's difficult to escape from the blast zone too!

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i doubt the old terrains have such support for different movement values - again, the removal of so much foliage is mainly due to the original maps doing things differently.
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I think the culprits are shabby walls, and the multi-level explosions, as opposed to the original UFO. The walls are pretty unrealistic, bullets should go through some walls, losing damage as they do so, and eventually walls would be see-through, and only after A LOT of damage disappear. Maybe only plasma could take down a wall in one shot, but I'm no plasma expert. HE would be the only effective anti-wall ammo. Also, in reality, in the spotter-sniper system, you don't have snipers carrying anything EXCEPT sniper rifles. Since some guy with a pistol or rifle 200 metres away can't actually shoot into a location he can't see with hopes of hitting something there.

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About accurate explosion algorithms, did anyone try firing a child-shot at each square within the radius and just capping the max damage? Actually if the damage wasn't capped it'd be more realistic.

 

This wouldn't be overly difficult to do since it'd just use the existing scripts for firing.

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the damage deviation allows a weapon to do a random amount of damage. Again th15, making walls that can be damamged in varying amounts is easy with the new maps but quite impossible with the old maps bar changing the Xcom files
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  • 3 weeks later...
carrying anything EXCEPT sniper rifles. Since some guy with a pistol or rifle 200 metres away can't actually shoot into a location he can't see with hopes of hitting something there.

 

And there it is right there. You can fire a pistol all the way across the map. Now I'm not knocking X-Com or UFO at all, but take a game like Jagged Alliance for instance. Everything had a set range (in fact pistols are almost too frustratingly short range in that game- especially Unfinished Business). Now I know I've seen one of you mention that something is in the long range plan to work on the rockets dropping eventually or something but gun ranges would deal with a WHOLE lot of this problem. Might even solve it once and for all really- without taking away the player's freedom to use HE or not.

 

I had made a suggestion on this topic in another thread with a more half-baked "speed" system but as I think about it, if that XAAS could only fire 20 or so squares the problem of blindly firing across the board would end immediately. Maybe the heavier stuff like a rocket or that magnetic fusion thingy would still have that sort of distance, but little else. End of story. I also realize I know nothing of the new code that kind of thing would require but in the end the game balance it would add would be monumental. Not to mention that it would actually make more sense to spend the extra money on a sniper rifle if you really wanted to play the scout/sniper scenario more accurately.

 

 

- Playing Seek and Destroy does help quite a bit. I think I read that Natchwolf added this mission type. Thanks a load man, I really like the added deployment variations. Makes the game far more interesting.

Edited by Longshot
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Still, I quite like the idea of a weapon range. Shouldn't be exaggerated of course. Also, somebody will have to code it :P

 

Since we're talking about map size, I find ufo2000 maps a little too small. I usually play 6x6 and only 5x5 if my opponent keeps complaining. Usually I get bombed to bits after I agreed on 5x5 though.

Maybe we could have an additional size 7x7 ? or custom? Or will that cause problems with the current map format?

 

Voller

 

PS: JA is a kick arse game :D it's a shame that they didn't offer a multiplayer option for it :-( Ah well, I suppose UFO2000 is as close as it will get to that one ;)

Edited by Voller
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yea, range drop off would give us another way to balance the weapons better but i still think the levels would be too small for it to be really effective
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as long as it stops rockets from flying diagonally across a 6x6 map and killing half of my team, I'm happy :)

 

As a matter of interest: do weapons wich different types of ammo have different stats, depending on the type of ammo used? Some types of ammo should maybe have a different chance of hitting their target successfully.

 

Or maybe add a small chance of weapons loaded with explosive amunition exploding in your face :P

 

May I raise the issue of weight penalty. Don't know how often this has been discussed, I'm afraid I didn't read through all of this thoroughly. If this idea has come up already, please excuse.

 

Let's ask a basic question: What are TUs?

 

TU's merely determine the speed of a unit, or how many actions a unit can perform in a given amount of time.

Now I think that a unit equipped with nothing but a pistol would be way faster and more agile than one holding a loaded rocket launcher. Maybe it would be a good idea to lower the weight penalty threshold and make these penalties less severe? Maybe even to an extent that a person carrying a two handed weopon is penalised already, but not by much. That way, (nearly) every unit would have a weight penalty (so it doesn't feel like a bad thing anymore ;) ), and the equipment carried determines how big this penalty is.

 

Fair?

 

Voller

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I don't know. Unlimited weapon range was one thing that set Xcom apart. Even TFTD had only very arbitrary range restrictions. The truth is, Xcom maps really are quite small. A trooper can move, on average, about 4/5 of a full map tile each turn. Possibly further.

 

Now, we assume that he's slightly bogged down by his equipment (Xcom troops dont carry a lot and their armour does not hinder them in any way). A decently fit fighter could do a 100 metre sprint unhindered in at most 15 seconds. Say he's hindered and moving slowly. Maybe 50 metres in that time. I'd say that each Xcom turn is about 5 seconds long. So, by this comparison, a 4x4 map would be about 150 metres? With the effective range of most modern assault rifles already twice that length, it's not hard to see that weapons have essentially unlimited range in the close confines of the xcom setting. I'd also add that adding a range restriction on weapons is futile. If I wanted to hit something 20 tiles away but was limited to a 10 tile range, I'd just shoot 10 tiles in the target's direction. The bullet would still score. As for true ballistic arcs for projectiles, that'd be a major pain in the donkey to code and would not really solve the problem since I'd just start shooting 10 tiles in my target's direction and a few levels up.

 

True, having scouts that can somehow, telepathically share the position of spotted enemies to everyone on his team is rather impossible to justify, but that's just the way xcom plays.

 

I would say that the problem doesn't lie in the way weapons or sight works. Even within that framework, there's plenty of strategy to work out. You could hide cheap anti-scouts around corners with high reaction to shoot down those pesky sectoid scouts. You could smoke the area up and hinder his exploration.

 

The thing about explosives is that they don't even need a visual sighting to do damage. You just need to know the general direction that your enemy is coming from and a bit of luck. This is further compounded by the fact that the entire minimap is revealed to you at the start of the game. This allows a shrewd opponent to simply memorize where the major obstacles in the middle of the map are and avoid shooting into the map tile (this is made even easier by using the minimap to aim shots).

 

The ratio of explosive power to points cost is still too high! It's too easy for a team to pack enough explosive to completely level half the map. What's the use of strategy in an open field? There is simply no opportunity for "duck and cover" in a blasted, empty plain. On top of that, explosives essentially ignore most of a trooper's armour making armour rather ineffective at combating explosives.

 

Destructible terrain is nice, but being able to level the entire map in a few turns just doesn't make sense. I propose that the explosives in the weapon sets be toned down significantly until a proper explosive algorithm is figured out. It's a stopgap measure, but until a proper volumetric explosives algorithm is done, there's no choice.

Edited by th15
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Im all for a new stat that causes weapons to jam once in awhile. A large chunky weapon like the AC or the HC would jam far more than a smaller more reliable pistol. There would be a % likelyhood of the weapon jamming (somthing like 2% chance) and TUS required to un-jam the weapon before it can be used again (would perhaps unload the weapon too so you have to un-jam and reload etc)

 

I also wanna see the walls protecting men for damage soon too - this would put most of these problems to bed by increasing the effective blast-teh-whole-map method by several hundred points and turns

Edited by Sporb
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Once the initial "scouts and snipers" strategy was gone, both players agreed it got VERY interesting.

 

I dont use explosives at all, only because people overuse them. And i dont use the scout sniper method, only because once again, PEOPLE OVERUSE THEM.

 

Like you said, the difference resides between the use of those tactics: if a player places its strategy upon them or he follows different tactics, depending on the terrain, etc.

 

And if a player overuses them....well, in that case there are weaknesses that you can use to your advantage.

 

With the 50% tu usage for arming, the efficiency of grenades has been reduced, together with the reduced weapons for flying units. But another problem is the UFO2K weapon set: it is designed to reduce long range sniping (the weapons for it are too especialized) and it has explosive weapons that can make horrendous damage. Use the old X-COM sets and you will find out that it is not so easy to win games using only explosives.

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B)

remembering that Jagged alliance has better graphics and more squares per map than ufo

 

Well sure, and I'm not knocking this game at all, nor am I here to babble on about JA2- I was only using it as a reference to consider.

 

I am immune to being in awe of graphics. Games are great (like these two) because of great gameplay, not great graphics. In this way the gaming industry as a whole seems a lot like the music industry. THey like to hype these no-talent morons who can't really sing, and can't write their own songs, but the industry believes they look good and put on a good show so all we get are the same carbon copies of the same talentless morons we despised when they person they are emulating first made the big show...

 

Meh...sorry for ranting...these types of games are close to my heart, not just because of how good they are-but also because of how few they've become.

 

*begs God that UFO: Extraterrestrials is real, and good...*

 

Also, somebody will have to code it

 

There is always that...easy for us to dream up, a pain in the arse for someone else to have do all the work on... <_<

 

I find ufo2000 maps a little too small. I usually play 6x6

 

As do I. I rarely play 5X5 and have resolved not to play anything smaller than 6X6 regardless of whether or not I can find many opponents this way.

 

May I raise the issue of weight penalty. Don't know how often this has been discussed, I'm afraid I didn't read through all of this thoroughly. If this idea has come up already, please excuse.

 

I don't like the idea of a weight penalty. That's what I invest points in strength for. There is already a huge weight penalty if you don't invest in strength- I think that essentially does what you are talking about already.

 

 

yea, range drop off would give us another way to balance the weapons better but i still think the levels would be too small for it to be really effective

 

I don't think so. If you think about it, a pistol should not realistically be able to fire outside a 1X1 square. This would work on any size map. A rifle should at most reach 3X3, maybe even 2X2.The heavy stuff I can see being at least 5X5, but that XAAS SHOTGUN??? No way it should fire more than 2X2 unless I'm misunderstanding what exactly it's supposed to be.

 

I don't think it'd be that hard to implement the concept at all. The coiding...well I have no idea and could be off my rocker for all I know. B)

 

I don't know. Unlimited weapon range was one thing that set Xcom apart.

 

I'm not sure it really set it apart from anything. It more seems like...it was soemthing that just wasn't accounted for back then. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. In X-COM it just didn't seem like it was necessary to aid game balance, in UFO 2000 I wonder...

 

Im all for a new stat that causes weapons to jam once in awhile

 

Especially if the XAAS were notorious for jamming...

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  • 1 month later...
PS: JA is a kick arse game :D it's a shame that they didn't offer a multiplayer option for it :-( Ah well, I suppose UFO2000 is as close as it will get to that one ;)

 

Sorry to dig up an old thread....

 

Google...

Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games

 

Cheers.

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