The players will create “best combos” whatever system you create.
Strict class only forces you to play fewer ways than possible.
Balancing with open perks from the start is much healthier in the long run.
Specially adopting a system like i suggested, where the perks are just small specializations per se and nothing like fireaxis almost x-com (i really hate that game in every way to call x-com) where 1 perk completely changes gameplay (firezone) or are totally useless (too many to list).
Equipable perks make you able to make a character the way you want: a melee specialist who doesnt panic easily, an auto fire speciallist with assault rifles, explosive speciallist who is also tough and resist wound penalties…
About classes and selection of skills. For me there can be classes which will make each soldier play in different, predefined style. But there also should be flexibility in which class we take next skill, so we can create multi-class character. We should not be restricted to single class which we pick at the beginning for each soldier or that class is restricting us what equipment we can use. I think that developers want to make it in this or similar way. You can call it narrow and shallow, but for me it brings some order and quick understanding what I’m dealing with. Really I don’t want to think if I have to use machine gun for 5 battles so my soldier will develop some perk which will allow him to shoot more accurately and bring a medkit with him for 10 battles to develop nurturing to level 3 to be able to revive his friends. I want to select heavy class, pick heavy weapon proficiency and then medic class and medkit proficiency. Or something like that.
About skill and attributes progression. I’m not a huge fan of skills or attributes developed by using them. I prefer Fallout 2 level up style (gain xp for reaching some goals to level up and then pick attributes and skills as you desire) over Morrowind level up style (use skills and attributes associated to them to develop them and gain xp and then level up just to confirm that you did something). Some would say it is less realistic. Well this is just a game and I want to have flexibility in creation of portrayed world rather than simulation of real life.
Interesting ideas there. Could be a good middle ground between classless progression and fixed classes.
How about having a hybrid system? Skills & attributes are leveled by using them. However, soldiers are not only improving their skills on missions but are also training between missions, earning XP for a set of skills player chose to train them in. That way you can make a rookie into a serviceable machinegunner or field medic before their first mission so that he will be able to use it in missions to earn further XP.
I think limiting factors should be in-game time(i.e. training takes weeks if not months), amount of skills/stats being trained simultaneously(no more than 1-2 stats and 2-3 skills at once, the more you pick the slower you progress) and maximum attainable skill & stat levels(cannot train past, say, 50% of the max attainable value). I don’t see training as a substitution for the actual combat XP gain but at the same time training is a crucial for all soldiers(and even more so for special forces) so I would like to see those things compliment each other.
Heh - I was reading that and thinking ‘that is exactly what I do want to be able to do!’
I think it comes down to how deep of a system you enjoy playing, I like to plunge time into the game that I play, to that end I will plan and plot out how I’m hoping to develop my characters if this kind of opportunity presents itself. I’ll play the lighter ‘pick x class for y skillset games’, I’ll rarely replay them however, and I’ll usually see them as a casual distraction whilst I’m waiting for a more robust tactics/strategy game to come along, and I’m hoping that PP will fall into that deeper category of game that I can keep going back to.
For replayability to happen for me, I need some more meat on the character development than a ‘class’ system usually provides.
To me that sort of a system would be horrible for this type of a game as that makes soldiers even more painful to lose much like the FiraXCOM soldiers. The stronger the abilities the more painful the loss and the less disposable the troops become.
1.The devs fully intend to have soldiers breakdown mentally as well as physically, so some “retirements” will come from that.
2. Your soldiers will be able to be infected with the virus, you’ll need to put some of them down.
3.According to the lore some strains of the virus don’t cause rampant mutation. There will likely be sleepers in Phoenix Point.
You may not be going to be able to simply buy new recruits, but this is still a human disassembly line that we’re talking about and it’s not going to be pretty no matter how soldier development works in the end.
Hopefully there will be ways to counteract this. We already know about some of them for the physical breakdowns. I can tell you that if there’s no way to “eventually” (and reasonably) counter the mental breakdown then there’s going to be a lot of complaints. FiraXCOM EU/EW had the mental breakdown thing and it was a very large complaint from many people, to the point that it was reworked for X2 (and then reworked again for WotC).
Yes but that isn’t much different from Chryssalids, Tentacaults, Brainsuckers, etc. We also know that this can simply lead to uncontrolled mutations (and potentially controlled later in the game) as opposed to simply being a death sentence.
While I wouldn’t be surprised I would be curious as to how they could reasonably do this and have it be balanced, meaningful, and feel fair.
Meh that depends. In the OG games there was a lot of loss but because even your “supersoldiers” generally weren’t THAT powerful over a soldier who had merely been on a few missions (mainly just for the Strength increase to be able to carry a reasonable pack).
The more “painful” the loss the larger the balance issue. This was EXACTLY why I voiced my opposition to the classes prior to FiraXCOM’s EU was released. If the soldier himself is too powerful (as opposed to most of it coming from research/training grounds/equipment) then it turns into a balance nightmare. The devs HAVE to pick a balance point. This in turn means that if you’re keeping more of these powerful soldiers than the game is balanced around then things are just going to snowball into staying “too easy” while if you lose too many then the game snowballs into “too hard” compared to the target difficulty.
So by having the soldier himself weaker and having most stuff coming from research/training grounds/equipment it means that the devs can better pick a balance point. They can do things like “the player should have X thing at or around Y time” and balance around that. Or go “once the enemy has seen the player use X thing then Y days after that they’ll automatically upgrade to keep the pressure up.” This isn’t to say that losses won’t be painful (enough minor increases “eventually” adds up to something large, and then there’s character attachment regardless of stats) but the more powerful the character himself is the larger the balance issue is when dealing with perma-death.
This system is good for RPGs where you have one (max 5) characters to develop. In game where you have more than 50 soldiers to train it would be mess and chaos. Just my opinion, but I want to play the game, not sit in excel seeking opportunities for my troops.
*not directed at you Yokes, but it seems I can’t figure out how to make a basic reply…heh *edit: seems like we’re on a similar standing on this so that’s nifty! What comes to mind for me is the distinction between emergent gameplay and mechanics that are plopped onto a game design, which threaten to just bog it down into a fiddly mess.
I would much rather a simpler system that had me make associations with soldiers with happenings on the missions and strategic decisions rather then menus and menus of perks, stats, level ups, needless logistics to factor in said strategic decisions, etc. I feel like the modern xcoms missed the point with alot of the new stuff they added (playing dress up with soldiers being one) I remember seeing an interview were they gushed over the emergent gameplay of the old game, how it had aged so well, etc. despite the clunky interface…i’m realizing my bias…heh
but the point is I feel the simplicity in the original xcom’s might still have its place today, despite all of the class based systems, excessive cosmetic customization, etc. I’d rather have the story stuff emerge from the actual gameplay (i know loading out squads and customizing particular soldiers is considered gameplay, but to me it’s more playing in menu screens or playing in excel spread sheets)
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Guys don’t get me wrong. I love Excel and games like EVE Online (called “Excel with visualization”). But in Phoenix Point I would rather focus on base development / resource management / Putting Bullets in Monsters rather than taking notes that ‘this soldier has to do this and this has to do that’.
EDIT. Speaking of that. It would be nice to have in-game Notepad!
I think you are missing the point of usage-based skill development. The while point of it is to simply pick what you want your greenhorn soldier to do and let it get gradually better at it by doing it. You want a new machine gunner? Give the guy an MG, let him shoot some crabmen and see him getting better at it. That’s it, no notepad is necessary. That is exactly why usage-based progression is at its best in a squad-based game, as proven by JA: you only need to pick what soldiers need to to, they will level up on their own.
The problem with that in PP is that if the enemy mutates to counter your tactics, you have to use relatively greenhorns again for the new tactic, which makes it… interesting to balance.
It works for “gradual” skills, for example +1-50% accuracy depending on usage time, but when you have “steps” in it, when you get something “big” after X usage (especially extra skills/effects on a skill), it will feel to me like “grinding” the usage to get the effect I want for my tactics rather than using my tactics and the soldiers getting better at it.
Now in PP, where you train your soldiers in the barrack to get the specialization you want, which means changing them should be possible (even if not easy or frequent), so your experienced Sniper could switch from one specialization to another (probably starting from zero in the new specialization and maybe losing some progress in the old one if you ever wanted to switch back if that’s possible at all), means that the “grind for skills” could be present almost continuously, and I would hate that so much…
A lot of people seem to assume that “class systems” means “each soldier is only able to use a single type of weapon, no exceptions.”
There’s no reason to think this. Long War stands as a counterpoint to this. Hell, Phoenix Point as it exists right now stands as a counterpoint to this. The sniper (Stoller) has a class-based skill that makes him much better with the pistol than anyone else…but the other NJ soldiers (Assault, Heavy) are still competent with the pistol and can use it if the situation calls for it.
I like classes because they promote diversity in skillset and gives soldiers unique strengths, as opposed to OG-COM’s soldiers, which simply tended to become good at everything if they survived long enough. And equipment/loadout diversity does not need to be sacrificed, no matter what some might say.
I think that’s expecting too much from the “enemies adapting” promise. At the core, it’s still a turn based tactical game and you have to shoot at enemies to kill them. I can see enemies adapting to damage types or broad tactics as it’s easy enough for the AI to quantify stuff like number of grenades used per mission, number of tiles moved in stealth, number of melee strikes, number of overwatch shots taken … but you’ll still have to shoot at them until they drop no matter what. I don’t expect your specialized soldiers are going to become totally useless just because some crabs evolved nastier limbs.
Truth be told, I’m curious about this entire “enemies adapting” concept as PP isn’t the first game to do so and, frankly, most of the time it’s a vastly oversold gimmick rather than an actual feature.
What comes to mind for me is the distinction between emergent gameplay and mechanics that are plopped onto a game design, which threaten to just bog it down into a fiddly mess.
