It’s been mentioned in a couple of threads (that I now can’t find) that some people find it annoying to have to hunt down that last alien on the map. I personally don’t mind it, I find it changes the pace of the game, and, to me, that’s always a good thing. But I think if there were to be a way of making it easier to find that last alien there’s a few possibilities of how to do it using equipment or skills in game, rather than via an overall game mechanic. Some examples:
Infra-red scopes, motion trackers would offer the possibility to detect some, it not all hidden aliens.
A soldier with tracker skills, that allows them to track aliens’, or detect smells, or sounds.
I’m sure that there could be other possibilities too, these are just by way of example. It could even be the case that different skills or equipment have effectiveness in revealing different alien types.
Either way, you’re then making the detection of that final alien a part of the game, which I think would be better than just arbitrarily saying ‘hey it’s turn 20, let’s reveal where everything is.’ If it’s going that way and it were to be a game mechanic, I actually think that it’s better to say, you’ve got 20 turns to clear the map, otherwise reinforcements are arriving, which means you then have to take risks to start finding that last alien, or otherwise start planning to retreat.
Its part of Xcom tradition. But somewhat last alien would panic n hide.
So it was always to save position, scatter the map and find him on blind
simply by running across, or focusing or unexplored areas.
There could be an opossite mechanism - kind of US " purple heart thing - Bravery.
Let say last living soldier (or per enemy in sight) can get “adrenaline shock”
a sudden death wish to berserk (like berserk panic, but better)
and has increased accuracy and damage?
Crazy aliens rampaging till dead is way more modern and funny
then chasing last one hidding.
I’d say that it’s certainly interesting if they behave in different ways. Type A hides, Type B rampages, Type C tries to leave the map, Type D goes high etc… maybe even the mutation system could determine how they choose to act based on past successes.
Okay I’ve got an insanely crazy theory. It just might be possible. What if most of your goals aren’t to eliminate every single enemy, but most often grabbing things and running out. This would include alien corpses. Where similarly to Firaxcom 2’s missions where you must evac without killing everything because there are just too many aliens. I think this type of mission would mostly be in the mist though. And maybe with giant monsters you can’t carry out their corpses. However it would be awesome if some missions had you bring in scientists to gather samples and study the anatomy of things like the behemoths and larger aliens. Sorry for going off on tangents.
one of the goals the devs have been aiming for is that not every mission should be about clearing out the map and that retreating if you need to isn’t a failure, just a change in story direction
Would some of them have kept their instinct of survival above the hive mind ?
I would say that the aliens should be able to flee the map rather than staying hidden the whole time. From what I’ve seen they usually come to you, unless they are stuck in a wall like in base defense missions.
For mission objectives, I do think that some won’t be to kill all aliens (a bit like in the nest).
That would be a nice escort mission. Go to the artifact with the scientist and come back to evac. That would mean putting a scientist in manticore ?
Please remember that their panic is more matter of situational pain after hive creatures’ deaths rather than reasonable calculation and fear for their lives for the rest of the battle. It also applies to rampage. They should not do such things unless told to do so by their Hive Mind or our mind controlling Priest.
In case of humans why not. It could be like that. But in case of lesser mutants they are more like cannon fodder and they just go and try to kill any opponent they encounter. Greater enemies like Chiron or Queen already try to run from battle if damaged too much, so maybe running state may be associated with number of aliens left on the map as well.
Map deployment for enemy and AI is still under development, so they should behave in more interesting ways. I hope there won’t be too many cases that we search for last hidden enemy.