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X-COM Firaxis - XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within Expansion
- Thread starter Peter
- Start date
Misconnected
Savant
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Gozma, were you trying to argue that the system FiraX-Com uses is too simplistic?
- Universal event resolution concepts using non-uniform probability distributions are tools with a very specific purpose. Their purpose is to abstract already massively abstract kosmos* simulation systems to the point where human beings can memorise and apply them, and make reasonably well-informed decisions based on them.
The system ideal is the minimal theoretically possible degree of abstraction. But just like humans lack the capacity to operate complex game systems without universal event resolution concepts in real time, present-day computers lack the capacity to fully simulate most things.
However, computers don't lack the capacity to handle monstrously complex abstract game systems lacking universal event resolution concepts. They don't need dice pools. And as long as a system's user doesn't have to operate the system, the particulars of that system are inconsequential (as long as it does what it is supposed to, of course). All that matters to the user, is that any in-game predictions he makes have as high accuracy as the predictions he makes in the real world. And FiraX-Com provides far better information than the real world tends to do; it displays accurate percentages for the possible outcomes.
Point being that criticising the game for using a random number generator with a uniform probability distribution when resolving attacks is... Kind of meaningless. Different distribution types will certainly change how an attack mechanic does what it does, but there's no reason it would affect what the mechanic does. Whether you use 2+2 or 10-6, you still arrive at 4. The significant difference between uniform and non-uniform probability distributions is entirely on the systems design side of things (non-uniform distribution types are ridiculously much harder to process for human beings).
*Kosmos: in this context the totality of a more or less fictional reality.
- Universal event resolution concepts using non-uniform probability distributions are tools with a very specific purpose. Their purpose is to abstract already massively abstract kosmos* simulation systems to the point where human beings can memorise and apply them, and make reasonably well-informed decisions based on them.
The system ideal is the minimal theoretically possible degree of abstraction. But just like humans lack the capacity to operate complex game systems without universal event resolution concepts in real time, present-day computers lack the capacity to fully simulate most things.
However, computers don't lack the capacity to handle monstrously complex abstract game systems lacking universal event resolution concepts. They don't need dice pools. And as long as a system's user doesn't have to operate the system, the particulars of that system are inconsequential (as long as it does what it is supposed to, of course). All that matters to the user, is that any in-game predictions he makes have as high accuracy as the predictions he makes in the real world. And FiraX-Com provides far better information than the real world tends to do; it displays accurate percentages for the possible outcomes.
Point being that criticising the game for using a random number generator with a uniform probability distribution when resolving attacks is... Kind of meaningless. Different distribution types will certainly change how an attack mechanic does what it does, but there's no reason it would affect what the mechanic does. Whether you use 2+2 or 10-6, you still arrive at 4. The significant difference between uniform and non-uniform probability distributions is entirely on the systems design side of things (non-uniform distribution types are ridiculously much harder to process for human beings).
*Kosmos: in this context the totality of a more or less fictional reality.
20 GB HDD space? What the hell for? Does it come with a glorious HD alien porn movie?
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Gozma
Arcane
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The tactical difference between a 90 and a 100% hit rate, when you are only taking 2-3 shots with 2-3 units a turn, is huge. You can't rely on hitting all your shots at 90% but playing with a strategy where none of your tiny crop of shots is critically important each turn is also bad.
With a uniform probability distribution they are going to leave way too many gaps like that. It would be possible to design the hit system to target hit percentages so that the probability distribution doesn't matter, but in practice it does. There always has to be flexibility for the player to alter the probability of the shot, like taking an angle or using some consumable or cooldown - that means you need to leave a lot of "territory" in your probability distribution relevant. As an example a basic shot might be 70% and then you have an array of consumables and angle/height/whateverfucking that can raise it from there. That means the 30 is the relevant territory in the probability distribution, but the difference between a 70% and a 90% hit rate with only 2-3 shots per turn is very small and unreliable. From video evidence this is pretty much how they designed the game.
If you were sowing potentially dozens of shots per turn, like UFOD/TFTD with a full team, the difference between two hit rates becomes reliable. In single player of EU it's probably fine because getting your badass RPG character fried because you missed multiple high likelyhood shots in a turn can be chalked up to being part of the experience. In multiplayer it's gonna be dicebangin
EG
Nullified
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is almost none?
Misconnected
Savant
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That sounds strange to me.
If you use a 3d6-like distribution, individual points of modifiers are not worth the same. Say you need to roll 9+. That's about a 74% chance. Add a +1 modifier, and your chances jump by 10%. A +2 modifier ups your chances by 17%. A +3 modifier ups them by 22%. You can do the exact same thing with a d% by scaling the combined modifier: +10%, +17%, +22%. Though I have to admit I can't think of a reason why you'd want to. The greater granularity of a 1-100 scale gives you room less abstract and more intuitive modifiers; easier for users to understand in real time, and closer to how the real world works. Why would you not want that?
However, I'm not seeing how this relates to whether a given rate of success/failure is too high or low. Additionally, the way damage is handled is hugely significant to the to-hit rate. A difference in hit rates of 10% may very well even out if there's also a 10% difference in damage values.
That's kind of what I was getting at above. The type of probability distribution your random number generator uses is just one of several factors, any single one of which is pretty meaningless to consider in isolation.
Do you know the specifics of the system FiraX-Com uses? Because if so I encourage you to post it, or at least post the specifics you dislike. I can't promise I'll be able to understand your argument in the proper context, but the lack of context certainly isn't helping.
If you use a 3d6-like distribution, individual points of modifiers are not worth the same. Say you need to roll 9+. That's about a 74% chance. Add a +1 modifier, and your chances jump by 10%. A +2 modifier ups your chances by 17%. A +3 modifier ups them by 22%. You can do the exact same thing with a d% by scaling the combined modifier: +10%, +17%, +22%. Though I have to admit I can't think of a reason why you'd want to. The greater granularity of a 1-100 scale gives you room less abstract and more intuitive modifiers; easier for users to understand in real time, and closer to how the real world works. Why would you not want that?
However, I'm not seeing how this relates to whether a given rate of success/failure is too high or low. Additionally, the way damage is handled is hugely significant to the to-hit rate. A difference in hit rates of 10% may very well even out if there's also a 10% difference in damage values.
That's kind of what I was getting at above. The type of probability distribution your random number generator uses is just one of several factors, any single one of which is pretty meaningless to consider in isolation.
Do you know the specifics of the system FiraX-Com uses? Because if so I encourage you to post it, or at least post the specifics you dislike. I can't promise I'll be able to understand your argument in the proper context, but the lack of context certainly isn't helping.
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It's huge actually. If you can guarantee enough hits for a kill, you put your troops into very exposed positions, certain that the enemy will be gone before it's their turn. Even a 10% chance of the enemy surviving and getting to shoot back at your vulnerable troops means such a tactic is unviable in the long run, only to be used in desperate circumstances.
EG
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Oh, the minor unpredictability! it's terrible! I don't want to play this game anymore!
Why won't they just remove probability entirely and let me win?
Misconnected
Savant
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Well, battlefield design and movement mechanics might still make losing possible. It could also prevent one side from bringing enough firepower to bear against a single target in a single turn to kill it. You don't actually need to involve random number generators to have a strategy game. Again: looking at a single factor in isolation is kind of meaningless.
Gozma
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The way that small unit SRPGs usually handle it is either when you attack the "correct" way, like from behind with melee or a very elevated position with an archer, they give overkilled 100% hit and/or they just make it so your troops always or almost always hit and only the enemy ever misses.
It's also obviously a qualitative, player consideration thing - it's technically possible in X-Com for every one of 40 shots to whiff, but it's so unlikely you don't make tactical considerations for it. But 90% three times a turn or so will definitely cause some pain. And like I said, in multiplayer it will seriously damage methods - for single player it might just be cute.
Maybe the streamed gameplay isn't indicative of how it will actually be, I dunno.
It's also obviously a qualitative, player consideration thing - it's technically possible in X-Com for every one of 40 shots to whiff, but it's so unlikely you don't make tactical considerations for it. But 90% three times a turn or so will definitely cause some pain. And like I said, in multiplayer it will seriously damage methods - for single player it might just be cute.
Maybe the streamed gameplay isn't indicative of how it will actually be, I dunno.
EG
Nullified
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Really? You mean . . . the possibility you could fail to use terrain (and what ever else) correctly doesn't cripple you, like a 90% chance to hit?
Gozma
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Imagine two dudes are playing a 3 vs 3 unit game in this multiplayer, with game length of about 3-4 turns (not counting garbage turns when the game is really over). One guy plays balls out strategy like all of his 90% are going to hit, the other guy builds in contingency plans because he plans on having a cogent strategy even if some 90s miss. The balls out guy will win a very significant percentage of the time just because his 90s didn't happen to miss, and contingency guy will win the rest. Never mind the 60% hit rate overwatches and so on. That is a retarded dynamic.
EG
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Vault Dweller
Commissar, Red Star Studio
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I'll just leave it here:
Micmu
Magister
Ahahahaha... kiddies love these kinds of things.
Misconnected
Savant
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In the old X-Coms you generally use the troopers in groups of 3-5. How likely individual troopers are to hit their targets depends on a minor pile of factors, but even if you're an extremely proficient player whose been very lucky and are near the end of the campaign, such a group of troopers is extremely unlikely to have a 75% chance of succeeding at every attack they attempt in a turn. Which is just about equivalent to what you're complaining about in FiraX-Com.
Even in that scenario, whether the balls-out strategy actually does have a better chance of succeeding depends on more than just hit percentages. Stat differences, damage, movement, battlefield design and LoS/F all have the potential to drastically chance the significance of hit percentages - just to name a few obvious examples.
Further, it doesn't seem to reflect FiraX-Com at all. Wouldn't such a match typically involve teams of about 4-6 troopers and run 2-3 times longer before the mop-up phase?
- Like Spectacle said, there's no particular reason whiff or the lack of it should have an impact on how strategic the game is. Chess and Go have auto-hit-insta-kill mechanics, for examples, while tabletop wargames typically have hit rates in between 20-40% and may or may not have insta-kill mechanics. To the best of my knowledge, Chess and tabletop wargaming (obviously not all of them, but seen as a whole) are pretty much universally considered to be the pinnacle of strategy gaming.
Gozma
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This is a really unpleasantly obvious attempt to transform the "enthusiast" players that pre-order into little platoons of guerrilla marketers recruiting their e-friends so they can get their tier N rewards
That's not the way I play at all honestly. In exteriors I do lone scouts looking around in service of a blob or long line of snipers, meaning they scout for a huge bank of TUs worth of shots. If there is a case where I can't overkill anything a scout spots easily three or four times over (and I am not fighting Lobstermen before stun bombs), I have made fucked up a spatial decision (sometimes legit, sometimes because I can't grasp the pseudo-3D shape and LOS of isometric terrain with Z-levels). That is a method of conservative play in a game where you can never count on one guy to hit his shot. In tight spaces I usually use expendable units with stunrods/TFTD melee weapons, stun bomb launchers (so they can open a door, see a bunch of aliens looking at them ready to reaction fire, and shoot themselves plus some aliens unconscious so they don't die), or quasi-suicidally rushing rookies with autofire weapons because they are cheaper than blowing up alien loot. And in TFTD abuse the autoclosing doors.
Do I really have to insert "ceteris paribus" into every statement like that?
The streamed matches have been showing builds where there are 1, 2 or 3 units that seriously shoot, plus a couple of cheap throwaway scouts/ablative armor, and I haven't counted turns but it seems like the decisive part is over very quick. Maybe there are huge things hiding in the whole metagame but I haven't seen it.
Multi-headed Cow
Guest
I dunno about this. I just dunno.
Astral Rag
Arcane
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x-com: Terror from the Derp
Impressions after watching first 10 minutes of the vid: Derpy OTS view when shooting, derpy amounts of hitpoints (the tank-robot-thingie surviving a plasma autoshot? SERIOUSLY?) and derpy small squad. The cover markers are just help for retards, kinda like quest compass. They don't bother me THAT much. The engine looks decent-ish. Here's to hoping modders will fix it M:
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