I’d imagine most of the forum. Short summary: not a fan, especially not of the new training hall that just ruined any challenge in the game. It felt rushed and it did nothing but trivialize an already pretty easy game. And it did all this while highlighting all the failings of the original class system, which is some kind of performance. Not a good one necessarily.
But to this I’d respond with another question: anyone played and/or remembers UFO aftershock?
That game, well the UFO series in general but aftershock in particular is fresh in my mind due to a recent replay, had a very organic way of handling soldiers and “classes” with a natural sort of limitations built into it.
For people who don’t know/remember, the game nominally had no classes. What it had were a large number of specializations that every soldier could train in (at a cost of time and resources). Each spec came in 3 levels, each level granting progressively better perks/abilities based around a certain play-style/role the soldier could have, with some built in complementary skills with other specs to encourage mixing and matching. Crucially, each soldier could only ever train 3 specializations. Also crucially: soldier stats were decoupled from the spec system. While certain specs benefited from certain stats, and could even rarely buff those stats, the only legit way to increase the basic stats was having the soldier fight, earn XP and level up. It made for an interesting system of creating on the fly combos and unique classes while still having a structure to things AND preventing the super-soldier syndrome by simply not letting soldiers become masters of everything eventually. Granted, it could be abused, and some combos are almost disgusting in how powerful they are, but it’s an old game from an age where balance wasn’t something everyone got their panties in a twist about.
It also had the benefit of making soldiers useful outside very restricted skillets that normal class systems bring. A sniper in that game could have anything for his 2nd and 3rd spec, letting him adapt on the fly to the situation. He had a decent stealth score from his long range training, so he could easily if ammo ran out or his sniper was inefficient become a flanker/scout. And with some training in another stealth focused spec, commando, he could become very proficient with close range and melee weapons so he could use that stealth to engage or surprise any melee enemy who thought he bagged himself an easy sniper kill. As another interesting aspect of that system: soldiers did not need to have 3 level 3 specs to be effective even in the late game. If good stats were part of the deal when recruiting, and the soldier was leveled well, he could do just fine with a mono or dual-spec build. Or have 3 specs but all of them level 1. Training was a choice dictated by resources and the needs of your squad, but you never felt not training a guy made him useless.
Now there’s not much available to read about the class system PP has, much less a in-game demo of it to tinker around with, but from what little is there, it sounds like recruits come in 3 archetypes defined by/defining their stats, and then they can train/specialize in a particular branch of warfare? with their background serving to give each a unique approach to that chosen field of combat (so a heavy who later becomes a sharpshooter will bring something else to the table than a marksman who becomes one)? It sounds interesting, but also a bit more restrictive than the UFO system. Also no mentions of how the stats progression is handled, which I strongly believe should be decoupled from the class system to prevent veterans from becoming flat out much more powerful than lower level units (ideally, operating on the 8 level system on nuXCOM, being one or two levels behind on the class but having great stats should make that soldier a viable replacement for the veteran).
Which brings me to another point I want to make based on the UFO system: that system focused a lot on passive benefits in it’s training. From opening up new equipment proficiencies (like handling heavy armor/weapons or mastering combat with melee weapons) to training a soldier in how to remain hidden better or to instructing the soldier on how to evaluate the condition of enemies (thus opening up more detailed information about the state of the enemy beyond what you start with which is basically just a general “healthy” or “wounded” tag), that system had I think no ability tied to some magical rank in some magical class (wait no, sniper training let’s you target independent body parts, that counts, but it’s the only one I remember). Training simply allowed the soldier to use better or more varied gear opening up his tactical options. or use his gear in new ways (like psionics learning to use more fine tuned settings on their psi weapons beyond the basic “turn brain into soup” setting). While I don’t think having skills tied to a certain class is a bad thing automatically, I do think it needs great care in execution. Specifically, I don’t think a class should have it’s skills hidden behind a magical ding of the level-up bar. If this guy just finished sniper boot-camp, I expect him to be able to to everything a sniper can do. He’s just not going to be as effective at it like the guy who trained him, who by now has a few dozen sorties under his belt. Give a soldier all the skills of the class up-front, and make later levels of the class/more refined training let him use those skills better or even learn more unique variants of the skill. Say every sniper can focus and fire a very accurate shot as an ability (the aiming circle is practically non-existent). Well, a better trained and experienced sniper could, based on his background experience, enhance that skill. A marksman’s might be a “select body part and I hit it” sort of deal, while an assault, with his better dexterity and alacrity might learn to fire twice in the same breath and a heavy would pack a special round that is highly likely to knock a target prone on impact. Make these things interact is what I’m saying, potentially in less restrictive but more organic way than simply locking abilities behind random ranks and having the origin of the character manifest as a single unique ability. It’s still a class system, it’s just a less arbitrarily structured one and it gives more control to the player in designing his soldiers while still implementing limitations to prevent the super-soldier syndrome of a classless system.
