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nu-XCOM combat
Does it have pods?Played about 20 minutes so far.
Game is pretty much nu-XCOM combat with FTL-style campaign map.
Not afraid to kill of players characters (also permadeath).
UI could do with some options for additional confirmations.
Now it is quite easy to throw a grenade to wrong place or evacuate sub while your whole team is on mission area (which causes game over).
Yes.Does it have pods?
I've seen encounters start with or without enemies getting free movement to cover. Change for that might be influenced by difficulty of level (foes don't seem to do it on easy levels.)Enemy Pod Spawning
Enemy pods also changed a good bit in these builds. We now have three different types of pods and determine enemy “roles” to make sure that a pod has a “primary” enemy and secondary enemies.
Full pod - this will 3-4 enemies depending on the difficulty level. It has a primary enemy and 2-3 secondary enemies. Will be two of these pods spawned in the level.
Small pod - this will have 2-3 enemies depending on the difficulty level. It will not have the primary enemy. Will be two of these pods spawned in the level.
Boss pod - this will have 4-5 enemies, with the boss added to the full pod. Should only be in enemy “boss” encounters and “final” missions and will be in the level at most one time.
Speaking of bosses, now the “final” mission on objective always has a boss in the objective (loot, sub, etc) room.
Crew customization is in. 10 classes you can upgrade your rookies from, though 4 of those are unlockables.Is there some kind of sub/crew customization outside of combat? Or just FTL events?
Those are in.Some dev blog claimed that characters class should affect choices and outcomes, but I haven't spotted yet anything like that.
Why would anyone willingly copy the worst element of nuXCOM system is beyond me.Yes.Does it have pods?
From their earlier development update:
Enemy Pod Spawning
Enemy pods also changed a good bit in these builds. We now have three different types of pods and determine enemy “roles” to make sure that a pod has a “primary” enemy and secondary enemies.
Full pod - this will 3-4 enemies depending on the difficulty level. It has a primary enemy and 2-3 secondary enemies. Will be two of these pods spawned in the level.
Small pod - this will have 2-3 enemies depending on the difficulty level. It will not have the primary enemy. Will be two of these pods spawned in the level.
Boss pod - this will have 4-5 enemies, with the boss added to the full pod. Should only be in enemy “boss” encounters and “final” missions and will be in the level at most one time.
Overwatch fests belong in the trash and their supporters should be humanely euthanized.
It needed to be said, and I'm glad I was the one to do it.
If you can't tell the difference between JA2-style overwatch and nuXCOM-style overwatch, then you're a strong candidate for being humanely euthanized.
I haven't played JA2, what's the difference between the two style?
Balancing Update and Addressing Feedback in Build 48
3 October - HOF Studios
Thanks so much for all the feedback we have received through reviews, forum posts and on our Discord (https://discord.gg/ThN65yS) over the last few days since DOE launched on Steam/GOG/Humble/itch.io. We went (pre-release) from having about 100 people play the launch build and about 15 give us detailed feedback to having thousands play it and hundreds giving feedback. Of course, that means a lot of stuff we just missed prior to launch. This includes major balancing problems and lots of bugs (big and small). With a super small team (only 1 full time developer and a few part timers) we probably can’t get everything fixed as quickly as you would like, but we are committed to making the game a fun and enjoyable experience. Clearly we don’t have this right yet, since many reviewers are not happy with the game, but we are going to keep working on it.
For Build 48, the goal is to address as many of these problems as we can. Luckily, I don’t think the game is that far off from being a more balanced experience and there is now a plan.
Active Skill Adjustments
This is one of the main imbalanced parts of the game. Many people have found some over powered skill combos and while these are kind of cool to find, they make the game less of a fun experience for many late game players. So, starting in Build 48, Active Skills (that you enable) will now have a “uses” stat, meaning they can only be used a finite number of times during a mission. So your skills will be another resource to manage and you’ll have to be careful about how you employ them.
We’ll also make some other adjustments to specific skills:
- Boost Aim damage will be split up amongst the shots fired. So for a Wildcat that means getting only +1 per hit for instance.
- Close Combat (Assault skill) will only grant a free shot within two tiles once per turn.
- Flip the field will multiply movement by 1.5 times rather than 2.
Additional Map Types
Another feedback I have seen quite a lot is a lack of variety to the battle maps. I understand that this is a problem and I had two more map types hat were almost ready at launch but just ran out of time to polish them and get them ready to ship. One of them will be added in Build 48 that is a hybrid between “interior rooms” and the more open “platform” maps. These will have some small rooms but also larger more open areas.
Here's an example of one, and though this is not a finished product yet I think you can get an idea about how this might add a lot of combat scenarios.
Additional Story Cutscenes
DOE has a nice cutscene system in place (used in the prologue) and a writer who already put together some great scenes to use throughout the game. I just ran out of time to get them all implemented prior to launch, and of course the story totally suffers as a result. I’ll try to get these all in the game as soon as we can in Build 48.
Other Changes
A “turn start” marker will be established to ensure that status effects (like burning and regen) don’t trigger continuously when using Defer.
A new panel will be added to the character modal in battle to show all current effects the characters (including enemies) have so you can better plan your attacks.
Hostages won’t need to be led back to the evac zone when the level is empty anymore.
Expected damage will be displayed in the action area to make it clear how much damage will be done if you fire. This is mostly to address the issues with the shotgun damage falloff not being clear but i think this will help players in general.
Adjust the voice overs. I’m not sure exactly what will be done yet as I am getting a bit of mixed feedback here. Yes, some of the voices are poor quality but it seems like the voice feedback is very helpful for knowing when a character is low on health or ammo for instance. Most likely, the number of voice clips will be reduced and disabled completely during follow mode. The critical ones will stay in and trigger each time as the goal will be to keep the usefulness of the voices but lower the annoyance factor. I will look into getting some additional voices recorded but probably there will not be time to get that organized for Build 48.
A few more smaller items
- Filters in the merchant inventory (type/tier)
- Set Swashbuckler weapons to not be drop only (so the merchants will stock them)
And some Quality of Life settings
- Enable/Disable the moving lines on the map screens
- Enable/Disable the text barks
- Cinematic time (enemy spotted, loot spotted, etc)
I know there are a lot of other requests that many of you have mentioned, and I am sorry if the thing you want is not on the list. With the size of our team (only 1 full time developer), choices had to be made for Build 48 that would impact the most players. Rest assured that all requests have been heard and logged and I will try to make all reasonable adjustments eventually. The plan (at the moment) is to do at least 2 more builds (49 and 50) to add in even more content and address more concerns. I will share more details on them after we completely deliver Build 48.
Implementation Plan
I will be pushing builds to the beta branch on Steam and GOG very soon (possibly this weekend) with fixes as we make them. How those builds will be integrated into the "default" Steam/GOG/itch versions is to be determined. I will need to make the sure the changes are ready by having players try them out and give feedback, and I will try to get some of my internal testers to spend time on them at some point.
The goal would be to completely deliver Build 48 by early November. I'll have more updates on this as we get closer.
Why would anyone willingly copy the worst element of nuXCOM system is beyond me.
What this has to do with pod activation system of XCOM? Incubation combat was very different that nuXCOM, almost puzzle like. I don't even remember pods being activated like in nuXCOM. Certainly not the - "explore the map slowly to only activate one pod a time" routine. And even if it had something similar to pods, it also had in many encounters "spawning points" from which new enemies appeared for several turns during combat. Incubation was nothing like nuXCOM in that regard.Why would anyone willingly copy the worst element of nuXCOM system is beyond me.
It worked out very well in Incubation, this game was all about the ambient and the stress level of being constantly surrounded by the enemy, having to manage weapons to avoid them over-heating.
Incubation had opponents spawn regularly, not pods. They sure didn't wait for you to find them in many maps.What this has to do with pod activation system of XCOM? Incubation combat was very different that nuXCOM, almost puzzle like. I don't even remember pods being activated like in nuXCOM. Certainly not the - "explore the map slowly to only activate one pod a time" routine. And even if it had something similar to pods, it also had in many encounters "spawning points" from which new enemies appeared for several turns during combat. Incubation was nothing like nuXCOM in that regard.Why would anyone willingly copy the worst element of nuXCOM system is beyond me.
It worked out very well in Incubation, this game was all about the ambient and the stress level of being constantly surrounded by the enemy, having to manage weapons to avoid them over-heating.
If you can't tell the difference between JA2-style overwatch and nuXCOM-style overwatch, then you're a strong candidate for being humanely euthanized.
If you can't see that some sort of interrupt or overwatch system makes all kinds of sense in a ranged-combat game with cover mechanics, and want it to be removed....
What this has to do with pod activation system of XCOM? Incubation combat was very different that nuXCOM, almost puzzle like. I don't even remember pods being activated like in nuXCOM. Certainly not the - "explore the map slowly to only activate one pod a time" routine. And even if it had something similar to pods, it also had in many encounters "spawning points" from which new enemies appeared for several turns during combat. Incubation was nothing like nuXCOM in that regard.
Actually, it was totally unecessary here, because you already have doors that the opponents won't open, like in many RPG.What this has to do with pod activation system of XCOM? Incubation combat was very different that nuXCOM, almost puzzle like. I don't even remember pods being activated like in nuXCOM. Certainly not the - "explore the map slowly to only activate one pod a time" routine. And even if it had something similar to pods, it also had in many encounters "spawning points" from which new enemies appeared for several turns during combat. Incubation was nothing like nuXCOM in that regard.
Many games have similar mechanism, monsters appearing when you open a door / chest or when triggering a trap or just spawning out of nowhere.
If it's well balanced, it's not a problem, this games has certainly bigger problems than that.
But i get it, you're POD-phobic ?