It has come to my attention, following another thread, that Phoenix Point won’t feature that many map types, we will have environments for each faction, our bases, alien nests and scavenging sites. While it’s understandable that Snapshot doesn’t have that many resources to design more map types, well, it’s a fun topic to discuss. And I’m no programmer, so no idea if this can work with PP’s code.
I would suggest:
Desert Maps (which can be applied to faction’s havens or scavenging sites): searing heat will drain our squad’s Willpower, every skill requiring +1 WP to work;
Swamp maps (scavenging sites only): land movement TU’s reduced by 25%, take your speediest troops to compensate, flying units and enemies with no penalty;
Tundra maps (faction’s havens with snowfall, and scavenging sites): chance for every mechanical object, weapons, armors and items, to fumble, due to ice formation. Enemy gets reduced movement and willpower;
Lake forest maps (scavenging sites - RARE): no penalty of any kind, but factions will marvel at the findings of a nature’s beauty they felt was lost to the past, granting a +20% in near haven’s attitude
Lost city maps (scavenging sites - RARE): not a lost city like El Dorado, but human cities that were abandoned after World War III. Every crate recovered will have +30% resources, but seeing what once was will take an emotional toll in the soldiers that fight there, and they will take a -25% penalty in their mental health, which won’t be recovered until ending of the next battle.
Lol you know that I have something similar in my feedback? Just I forgot about swamps. And lake forest is also nice idea. I suppose I will need to post those 15 pages of feedback, because soon it will look like I just gatered other people ideas (some for sure are).
I’ll maybe get a few extra ideas after a good night sleep. But you know, @Yokes, you should really just release your feedback, you’ve been promising for some time now
Creating new maps would be a massive udertaking I gather - from game design (planning layouts, and buildings from gameplay perspective) to art. It would be nice to see new bioms released with DLCs, if it is possible. I feel just different layouts, vertical characteristics would make a big difference (not to mention astetic variation). Having the map represent more or less the envirement we would expect to fight in would be a big boon.
Modifiers can make things more interesting (see War of the Chosen), though I don’t feel like any that you came up with really add much. None of them encourage specialised builds or change in roster composition (unlike those those from WorC: “savage” or “automated defences” encourage specialised teams, “lost” punish use of granadiers which dominate most of the encounters, low profile grant mission which allow to train up lower level soldiers).
I like the idea of different map types, having unique mechanics, but none that you suggested sound particularly interesting. Granting more or less resources, making abilities cost more or units more slower just doesn’t sound like something that would vary up the gameplay - but have potential to be annoying. Problems with gimmics like that, is that they need to be carefully designed and interact with and enrich existing mechanics.
and to entire algorithm as maps are procedural generated, which means the programme would have to learn how to connect the nature objects (and I think that in this case havens could be easier to implement)
Doesn’t PP use XCOM2-like generation system? Meaning map layouts with pre-made buildings inserted into them, and only major procedural generation are smaller objects throughout the layout?
While Phoenix Point makes use of procedurally generated maps, some people felt like they were often seeing the same map or very similar maps. We’re now making some changes to the procedural generation algorithms to give more visual variety to all levels.
It’s OT but too funny; fount that opening the link
The name Vanessa is an italian one and i can assure that, unless parents have a weird sense of humor, it is a 100% female one
Back in topic, it’s not easy to make an AI able to adapt to many different kinds of areas and avoid funny things like ostrichs ‘hiding’ themselves putting their head in a hole
In Xpiratez you have those, hot desert maps, cold pole maps, acid rain maps, subacuatic maps, (night maps are a thing too, but here your ladies have the nightvision advantage) and in each map you need special equipement to mitigate the “weather” conditions.
Oh, and missions where you are only allowed to wear some aoutfits and weapons to infiltrate in them.
For PP i don’t expect different conditions in maps, but at least different tilesets like in OGxcom.
Neber played XPiratez, but that does seem a cool concept. Maybe Snapshot didn’t had to develop new map algorithms or tilesets, just add some layers showing the weather effect. Just for the sake of diversity. And acid rain does match up quite well with PP’ setting
And lake forest is also nice idea. I suppose I will need to post those 15 pages of feedback, because soon it will look like I just gatered other people ideas (some for sure are). 