Vapourware Zodiac Legion - X-COM and dungeons

[Aemar]

Love the video. Great gameplay, and equally great Conan-esque soundtrack.

 

[Abu Antar]

Galdred I just wanted to say that the video posted looks super cool. Love the vibe and atmosphere present in that clip. I hope this delivers, and you get a

 

[Galdred]

Thank you! It took me a few tries to get it right, because I ran into unexpected bugs, or TPK. Our loremaster voiced it afterwards because he doesn't have my French accent, but he did a good job of rationalizing my actions :D

 

[Orud]

Wishlisted on steam the second I finished watching your trailer. Best of luck dude, it looks great.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Will the player get commander that they can name?

 

[Darth Canoli]

The video can now be seen here:

Looks even better than in the previous videos.
Wouldn't mind an option to speed-up combat animations though, it's not extremely slow but it's not exactly fast either, a 1.5x or 2x speed option would be nice.

 

[Galdred]

Will the player get commander that they can name?

The commander will just be one of your knights. The plan is to let you name all of them, and choose the new commander on death.
It was the best compromise we found between being a pure "laptop guy", and leading your men without being forbidden to ever die.

The video can now be seen here:

Looks even better than in the previous videos.
Wouldn't mind an option to speed-up combat animations though, it's not extremely slow but it's not exactly fast either, a 1.5x or 2x speed option would be nice.

Thanks! There are a lot of these on the trailers, so it is usually not as annoying in combat, but animation and movement speed can be configured now (via text menu). However, I will have to test to make sure they remain in synch with the sounds.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The commander will just be one of your knights. The plan is to let you name all of them, and choose the new commander on death.

I'm going to name every single one of my commanders "Lucy Heartfilia".


Joking aside, couple questions about gameplay video.
-Will there be option to make units Zone of Control visible?
-Do lighting for example from braziers have effect on change to hit? Or any gameplay effect at all?
-Level shown was a dungeon where party cleared a path to some objective, but what other mission and map types will be in? Any defensive missions?

 

[Galdred]

The commander will just be one of your knights. The plan is to let you name all of them, and choose the new commander on death.

I'm going to name every single one of my commanders "Lucy Heartfilia".


Joking aside, couple questions about gameplay video.
-Will there be option to make units Zone of Control visible?

Good point. I should definitely add it, especially if some abilities remove those.

-Do lighting for example from braziers have effect on change to hit? Or any gameplay effect at all??

I want to to this, but marking the light levels correctly without adding UI overload is difficult, but I cannot promise it will make it in the game: we would need good way to tell apart lit tiles from unlit ones from explored ones, that are no more in ZoC.
However, it would tie well into the them (with all the Zodiac characters having low light visions thanks to the stars), and Vlad Konung used it well in Warbanners, so I will definitely try to add it.

-Level shown was a dungeon where party cleared a path to some objective, but what other mission and map types will be in? Any defensive missions?

Definitely, but probably more take and hold, it make sure no enemy ever a large perimeter than camp the entrance point.

 

[rojay]

I wouldn't worry too much about the effects of lighting on chance-to-hit. The game looks like a good time already; get the core wrapped up and released, please.

 

[vazha]

Game looks neat, overall aesthetic is just perfect. The only complain I'd make is the narrator blabs way too much & isnt grimdarkey enuff.
In the grim darkness of far future, there is only war - one sentence, and already sets the tone & mood. Would be ideal if you could come up with something along those lines instead of over-detailing what Zodiac stands for & does.

 

[Galdred]

Game looks neat, overall aesthetic is just perfect. The only complain I'd make is the narrator blabs way too much & isnt grimdarkey enuff.
In the grim darkness of far future, there is only war - one sentence, and already sets the tone & mood. Would be ideal if you could come up with something along those lines instead of over-detailing what Zodiac stands for & does.

That is true. However, we were supposed to make a commented video of 2-3 minutes and not a trailer, so one sentence would not have been enough (that is also why narrator is telling what happens in the game), but we may have gone a bit overboard indeed.

 

[Galdred]

-Do lighting for example from braziers have effect on change to hit? Or any gameplay effect at all?

Actually, I would like to add 3 "levels":
- Pitch black or out of LoS
- Dark
- well lit
Because it would open "quasi stealth" a bit like in JA 2 (or Concealment in nuXCOM2), but I find it hard to make very dark from somewhat dark visually easy to distingusih.
X-COM made out of LoS tiles totally black at night iirc.
JA2 uses a lot of different nuances, but it is hard to tell direclty how much "light" is in each tile, but maybe it could be easy to tell a "brightness 100" from a 50 from a 20?
Solasta only uses 2 levels (and totally black for unexplored areas).
Do you have an exemple with party based RPG where lighting affects the gameplay, and is easy to tell without UI help?

 

[vazha]

I don't have an example, but I'd hope this aint one of your top priorities. Polish the core first and then add the fancy stuff.

 

[Galdred]

I don't have an example, but I'd hope this aint one of your top priorities. Polish the core first and then add the fancy stuff.

The thing is, a good part of our active props are light sources. It would be a real shame if these don't do anything in the game, and it would be easy to implement once we find a good way to do so.
On top of it, I really need to take care of lighting, because the current system does achieve neither objective (of being pretty, and of serving gameplay).

 

[Galdred]

Here is the way it looks in X-COM btw:

in JA2:

In Warbanners:

And in Solasta:

Solasta might be a good compromise (between looking good and practical) actually, with a very quick falloff on the border.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Do you have an exemple with party based RPG where lighting affects the gameplay, and is easy to tell without UI help?

You got pretty much every game covered with your previous post, but there's also ancient Shadowlands and Shadoworlds where lighting were part of puzzles and affected some enemy behaviour.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Gah!
I forgot Underrail,though the way lighting is handled there is probably out of scope of this game.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Here is the way it looks in X-COM btw:

in JA2:

In Warbanners:

And in Solasta:

Solasta might be a good compromise (between looking good and practical) actually, with a very quick falloff on the border.

I usually don't care about light sources in tactical games because either it's very well handled and you barely notice it (if you're not trying to asses it) or it's just not good enough and it's annoying.

UFO/JA2 are on the first category, it's perfectly handled, i played a lot of UFO and it was particularly well made there now i think about it.

In the Warbanners screen (i completed the game twice) you can clearly see 3 light level (dark, low light and close to a light source), i don't think you need anything more than this.
If you want to add unexplored tiles (is it necessary?), you can add a filter on top of unexplored tiles, be it a color or a blurred filter.

Solasta seems to have light or dark, honestly, i wouldn't take this game as an example of anything you have to replicate.

 

[Harthwain]

I would advise doing something about the colors to make the characters stand out more.

Look at The Iron Oath for comparison - despite the characters having a similar level of zoom, The Iron Oath uses bright colors for the characters, so there is no problem with dark or drab colors used in the background. In Zodiac Legion half of the screenshots are taken when lighting is poor, which makes everything difficult to see (and in the rest the colors are very drab). While I get the idea, I would argue that you should use the kind of "darkness" that doesn't hamper the actual visuals of the battlefield, because it causes an unnecessary eye strain on the player's part. Also, the monotone background - even in full light - causes characters to blend with the environment, so having brighter colors on the characters could help there too.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Or just add nightvision lol.

 

[Harthwain]

Or just add nightvision lol.

You mean as a toggleable view mode? This could work. All you need then is light indicator in that mode. Perhaps make background itself darker/lighter, not the character itself?

Game looks neat, overall aesthetic is just perfect. The only complain I'd make is the narrator blabs way too much & isnt grimdarkey enuff.

In the grim darkness of far future, there is only war - one sentence, and already sets the tone & mood. Would be ideal if you could come up with something along those lines instead of over-detailing what Zodiac stands for & does.

That is true. However, we were supposed to make a commented video of 2-3 minutes and not a trailer, so one sentence would not have been enough (that is also why narrator is telling what happens in the game), but we may have gone a bit overboard indeed.

I agree there is too much talk in that 3 minutes trailer, but one sentence is not enough for the whole video in my opinion. Try doing one sentence that highlights a specific feature: "You may be outnumbered, but never outmatched". Then another: "Explore ancient ruins, discover artifacts of the bygone era". I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Add to that the gameplay visuals matching the words and you should be set. Oh, and add a big-ish text in upper part of the screen whenever the narrator says the words. It's better to combine text with audio than use pure sound.

 

[rashiakas]

This looks great, the only thing I don't like is the delay when the damage indicator pops up. Looks really strange.

 

[Galdred]

This looks great, the only thing I don't like is the delay when the damage indicator pops up. Looks really strange.

Yes, it is because UI was not handled by the animation manager. For the same reason, the damage pips get updated at a time that can look random compared to the animation (usually before it even starts). I ned to address that for sure.

I would advise doing something about the colors to make the characters stand out more.

Look at The Iron Oath for comparison - despite the characters having a similar level of zoom, The Iron Oath uses bright colors for the characters, so there is no problem with dark or drab colors used in the background. In Zodiac Legion half of the screenshots are taken when lighting is poor, which makes everything difficult to see (and in the rest the colors are very drab). While I get the idea, I would argue that you should use the kind of "darkness" that doesn't hamper the actual visuals of the battlefield, because it causes an unnecessary eye strain on the player's part. Also, the monotone background - even in full light - causes characters to blend with the environment, so having brighter colors on the characters could help there too.

One of the former artists recommended using characters as light sources (graphically). I think it would help with that. As for the background, we definitely need to add some floor and wall decorations, but that would mean commissioning new things. Maybe a new different tileset would be better.

 

[mediocrepoet]

This looks fairly cool, but you might want to have a look at the colour palette to help ensure everything can be distinctly read. I basically couldn't make out the floating damage text while playing the video at 1080p whether in window or full screen, similarly, I was having issues reading any of the numbers and at times even telling the difference between the red enemy health bar and the grey section that indicated lost health. Having something to make these elements as well as the units pop instead of blending together in a "muddy" mass would be helpful. Otherwise, I liked the look of it.