Is fog of war implemented in the tactical layer?
Because from what I’ve seen, you can see the whole map from the beginning, there are no “black tiles” anywhere here even inside buildings. Ok, I can assume you have a satellitepicture, but maybe put a minimap, not reveal the entire thing.
And please don’t leave the auto opening doors, maybe in some fancy synedrion buildings, but allow the players to open the doors manually to find what’s inside a room, opening doors was always something “special” in the Original.
There is no terrain FoW, as you arrive via aircraft.
There is an enemy FoW though. Those beacons showing where a sound occurred but you cannot see are in the FoW. The FoW system is incomplete though, so we might see a darkened area outside of our soldiers perception range later. At least I think that is what the plan is.
I think the actual “discover the layout of the map” type of FoW is strictly going to be a part of the alien bases with everything else being the “can see the map, just not the enemies” kind
I feel like you could at least have some sort of effect, like a light fog, as it might make the lack of fog less jarring, and would be a neat implication of stuff happening that is unknown (like buildings being destroyed while you reveal the map)
Making building interiors more mysterious would also be cool! Maybe have the fog removed for havens and places that you’ve already been to? That would be a cool little subtle detail, signifying your exploration of the world.
It seems that way. I would like a small, transparent fog to indicate what parts of the map we have in our rights.
Correct me if I am wrong, but if I understand it well, sniper’s helmet provides significant boost to perception allowing unit to spot pretty much enemies all over the map.
I don’t like it: I think I would preffer if such helmet would provide an ability allowing us spot enemies within certain lenghty, but limited vision cone for AP - essencially spotting enemies for other units to shoot at.
The perception provided by equipment could be the range at that you can see the “sound” indicators, If there was a minimap, I will compare this with the blips on the old motion scanner
Now I’ll link a random gameplay of the original XCOM that came out when you google it, the point is than interiors are utterly unknown until you scout it and the map is “black” before you have line of sight, agin in pp maybe you can know the layout of the map because you have a sattelite preview but it’s less threatening.
I don’t want any satellites preview to ruin my experience in any way, so would rather see fog of war of any kind. That couldn’t be so difficult to do and if we need any explanation for it (we don’t), we already have it as well: remember that PP is about hostile mist being one of the main features In other words mist could have play major role not only as combat feature for sentinels etc, but also as something less destructive like “common” fog-of-war feature.
I don’t necessarily object to not have fog-of-war be default. Mist seems to act as a fog of war with some extra mechanics on top, and I think that is a really interesting idea.
As a side note: has anyone with access to beta tried to do a mission within the mist? Is there a change to how the mission plays (like present mist?). If I remember well that is what was being planned early on, but I haven’t seen an “in mist” mission. If mist’s role was diminished to buffed smokescreen for enemies, that would be disappointing.
But having entire map reveal in detail and be able to spot enemies from such a far distances kills a lot of tension and makes enemy ambushes much less likely possibility. If anything, I would like to see distinction between terrain we currently have in our sight and one we don’t.
Modest vision range would be desirable. One can be able to scout ahead without ludicrous sight range: scans in Firaxis xcom weren’t a bad idea (I would even not go for full visual reveal but tag spots whenever it is a civ or enemy).
Overall, the map transparency feels to be counter intuitive to the theme of the game, and I can’t how it makes the game more fun to play.
Another idea that comes to mind: What if you used fog of war in more dangerous zones?
So, as you go into more “misty” areas, you have this tendency for this fog of war or mist to swallow the map. Mechanically, it could play out like the “unknown deep” and make it feel like you’re diving into this mysterious zone, as opposed to the easier levels were you can see the terrain.
Maybe even allow enemies to use said mist to track you down (or at least make them more sensitve, like a less concentrated version of the mist that the sentinels shoot out)
It might just make the thematic aspect of the game standout to.
Another cool effect could be mist covered outposts being banged up a bit, so you could reveal this old abandoned outpost after it’s glory days.
Very interesting, indeed. It would be the lost potential to not enhance the role of mist more - beyond its current role as an danger indicator on geoscape and smokescreens on tactical missions. Your idea of mist’s situational presence on the missions is great and definitely something to think about. I also thought about mist’s presence in missions increasing along with global threat escalation.
I’d personally love to see the mist as main enemy, so players could literally feel its unsettling presence and be afraid of it during whole playthrough.
Mist could also have different forms, so beside being “regular” fog of war it could sometimes creep low above the ground to hide some buried aliens waiting for the surprise attack opportunity, etc.
Ideally, mist could sometimes move slowly and act in various ways, but I guess some additional time-consuming algorithms would be needed.
In other words mist could have play major role not only as combat feature for sentinels etc, but also as something less destructive like “common” fog-of-war feature.