Hard West - tactical turn based + wild west setting

[Burning Bridges]

Sorry that missed this before, but is this a game that just progresses from mission to mission or is there some sort of metagame?

 

[Kacper Szymczak]

Sorry that missed this before, but is this a game that just progresses from mission to mission or is there some sort of metagame?

Yes.
There's a world map full of locations and encounters you explore, unlocking, adventuring, talking, trading etc. Think 80 Days/King of Dragon Pass/Banner Saga/Expeditions: Conquistador/FTL.

In addition, the game is divided into 8 scenarios and each of these has a different metagame. Presicely:

Spoiler

1. gold prospecting
2. a bloody inquisition investigation
3. revenge run based on racking up kills and demolishion
4. expedition into latin america jungle
5. inventing technology and crafting
6. clairvoyance
7. building an economy
8. forming the ultimate epic posse of gunslingers

 

[anus_pounder]

Yes.
There's a world map full of locations and encounters you explore, unlocking, adventuring, talking, trading etc. Think 80 Days/King of Dragon Pass/Banner Saga/Expeditions: Conquistador/FTL.

In addition, the game is divided into 8 scenarios and each of these has a different metagame. Presicely:

Spoiler

1. gold prospecting
2. a bloody inquisition investigation
3. revenge run based on racking up kills and demolishion
4. expedition into latin america jungle
5. inventing technology and crafting
6. clairvoyance
7. building an economy
8. forming the ultimate epic posse of gunslingers

I'm torn on buying your game, tbh. On one hand, more turn based goodness is never a bad thing, nuXcom style or otherwise. On the other hand, I'm a sucker for character creation/editor stuff no matter how minor.

 

[sser]

Of course encounter design can encourage or discourage movement. None of that has any impact on my argument ... when all else is equal, the granular 2AP system encourages movement more than a traditional AP system does.

The point is that neither system is flat out superior even from a strictly hard core viewpoint. A system that encourages a fluid battlefield is interesting in ways a static-incentivized one is not. I'm not saying Hard West will be better than Jagged Alliance - I'm just saying that a 2AP system doesn't automatically disqualify a game from realizing its potential, or even make it automatically "dumber".

It's a matter of giving the player options. 2AP simply has fewer of them. There is no snap shot, aimed shot, etc. Often, there is absolutely no crouching or going prone - both replaced by hugging walls. Stealth is largely nonexistent. Stealth 'runs' impossible. Because the 2AP restricts actions past a delimited point - usually 50% of the total potential move area - all aggressive actions are necessarily leashed and, therefore, obviously not all that 'aggressive.' The biggest thorn is that if you use the two full AP to close in on the enemy, you only give the initiative to them completely free of risk; whereas in a regular AP system you can frequently have enough to still be taking actions at the tail end of your AP usage. Nevermind the very basic adaptability AP gives you: imagine a bunch of 'if' statements from which you then make changes accordingly vs. 2AP which is largely all-in with every action you take. Large AP pools also require large playspaces to use them. So you get bigger maps with more stuff going on. 2AP requires smaller maps by necessity, so the action is compact and speedy. Neither one is inherently superior, but I generally feel as though bigger maps = more options. Personal opinion, though.

The above dev states that their system requires aggressive action, but frankly that seems like an uphill design approach when you use 2AP, which by its very nature is quite conservative. Just to get players to stop Overwatch spamming, XCOM introduced meld, magnets for aggressive plays. But watch any LP of it and people are still very tentative with how they move about. A big part of this is because HP is low and hits are often lethal. Again, the dev states that you can be insta-killed pretty easily in their game and that enemies will overwatch you if you try and close distance. This isn't something that promotes aggressive play, but quite the opposite. What promotes aggressive play is having lots of tools and expendable characters on hand. The biggest reason people are so conservative in XCOM is because you only have a handful of soldiers and losing one constitutes a huge loss in resources and firepower. That is the opposite of expendable, and the opposite of the impetus that drove the original X-Com's design where you could mix/match aggression/defense wholly based on how many resources (i.e., soldiers) you were willing to expend. (This also applies to the world map where X-Com focused on large organization-management with multiple bases, and XCOM focuses on one base with limited capacity and very limited funds.)

XCOM's big hook in design is more meta - it's the design of the characters themselves. They are essentially classes with roles largely fleshed out by abilities they can use. It helps blend the 2AP into a very boardgame-like system where you use these abilities to tackle X-Y-Z enemies that are in your way. I'd even say it's kinda puzzle-esque. At least more obviously so, anyway.

Also, all this talk only tells me again that Silent Storm is pretty much the gold standard of modern turn-based combat. AP pools + low ally unit counts on fairly compact, non-grid-restricted maps that build themselves vertically (multiple stories, multiple entryways, etc.) with highly destructive terrain that forces you to adapt + many, many ways to actually approach any given map. The basic gameplay of Silent Storm totally tops anything I've played since.

 

[34scell]

It's a matter of giving the player options. 2AP simply has fewer of them. There is no snap shot, aimed shot, etc.

XCOM simulated both of these things, it just hid the mechanics behind the class/perk system.

 

[sser]

XCOM simulated both of these things, it just hid the mechanics behind the class/perk system.

They are fundamentally different.

Also, see:

XCOM's big hook in design is more meta - it's the design of the characters themselves. They are essentially classes with roles largely fleshed out by abilities they can use. It helps blend the 2AP into a very boardgame-like system where you use these abilities to tackle X-Y-Z enemies

 

[34scell]

They are fundamentally different.

They still allow you to do roughly the same things (use the whole turn for one shot, take multiple shots at lower accuracy, shoot after moving a lot, shoot beyond the unit's sight).

 

[sser]

They still allow you to do roughly the same things (use the whole turn for one shot, take multiple shots at lower accuracy, shoot after moving a lot, shoot beyond the unit's sight).

Oh, isolated into a vacuum they are pretty similar, but within the context of the actual gameplay I don't really think they're the same at all. I'll freely admit I may be exaggerating, but I do try to define key differences in games and I think this would be one. For example, X-Com's version is pinned to the battlescape; XCOM's version is pinned to your choices on the world map. This is what I'm referring to when I say XCOM's core design - as far as these features go - is fairly meta with an emphasis on classes and abilities. You're not taking 'snap shot' on the field, you're taking it at the level-up screen. I'm completely ignoring the functionality here, too, where a snap shot could be taken at any point time where allowed in an AP pool, but in 2AP is limited to at the most, either one or both of two junctures.

Kinda like the mobility/movement thing Zombra was talking about. Technically, both AP approaches let you move around, right? But it's pretty clear that 2AP is intended to be much faster getting you from point A to B. I disagree that it leads to mobile gameplay - in fact, the vast majority of XCOM is pretty static in my experience - but what it does do is get you to the action pretty damn fast. Fundamentally, though, movement is very different in either system, and a lot goes into that (map design most especially). One of the things I hate most about XCOM is the pod-popping. It just drives me crazy. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder, would it even be possible to have a podless XCOM that still utilizes a 2AP system? Remember, the 2AP system pegs the shooting action to one half of the turn or the other. But if enemies are moving freely about, being seen and unseen at various junctures, you're going to need far more tools than 2AP to handle what's going on. I imagine Silent Storm as 2AP, for example, and it just looks insane to me. The intricacies to make one system work or the other is entwined all the way up and down a lot of the design in general.

 

[34scell]

Oh, isolated into a vacuum they are pretty similar, but within the context of the actual gameplay I don't really think they're the same at all. I'll freely admit I may be exaggerating, but I do try to define key differences in games and I think this would be one. For example, X-Com's version is pinned to the battlescape; XCOM's version is pinned to your choices on the world map. This is what I'm referring to when I say XCOM's core design - as far as these features go - is fairly meta with an emphasis on classes and abilities. You're not taking 'snap shot' on the field, you're taking it at the level-up screen. I'm completely ignoring the functionality here, too, where a snap shot could be taken at any point time where allowed in an AP pool, but in 2AP is limited to at the most, either one or both of two junctures.

I don't see how the issue is fundamentally a problem with the 2AP system. You could take X-com and lock crouching, squad sight and different shot types behind a class system as well.

 

[veevoir]

Note the difference here in hard west - both AP can be used to shoot. in xcom it is always move+shoot or 2xmove.

That is if I tekeber playing the demo right :p

 

[anus_pounder]

Note the difference here in hard west - both AP can be used to shoot. in xcom it is always move+shoot or 2xmove.

That is if I tekeber playing the demo right :p

Holy shit. For real?

 

[GarfunkeL]

I don't see how the issue is fundamentally a problem with the 2AP system. You could take X-com and lock crouching, squad sight and different shot types behind a class system as well.

You're blind as a bat then. Jeesus. Tell me how that would improve anything? Also, in 2AP system moving 1 hex/tile/square is the same as moving 5 hexes/tiles/squares because both cost 1 AP. That's brilliant.

The worst thing about nu X-Com is that now a bunch of games emulate its system because it's allegedly so much easier and more welcoming (hint: it's nto, it' just limited and simplistic). So we got SR with that system instead of proper usage of AP and now Hard West too. Sser is absolutely correct when he states that Firaxis went for a boardgame approach instead of tactics game.

 

[Dalek]

Somebody should probably remove the Decline tag from this thread, yeah. This is like Banner Saga where people got butthurt with the devs for some reason instead of going "Whatever, it's not JA2, but another turn-based game is always nice".

Every time a dev doing TB start saying shit like "it's not JA2", you know you will get boring simplistic combat, because it should be obvious and it's the closest to the truth they're willing to admit : combat ain't gonna be deep (wasteland2 being the latest example that springs to mind). Not sure for this one as I did see a few interesting mechanics, but this is certainly not a good sign imo. And I really dislike the xcom style 2AP, I feel like it restrict the possibilities and encourage too much defensive play.
Kinda sad because I was excited for this game when I first heard about it, but now I'm happy I didn't back it.

 

[34scell]

You're blind as a bat then. Jeesus. Tell me how that would improve anything? Also, in 2AP system moving 1 hex/tile/square is the same as moving 5 hexes/tiles/squares because both cost 1 AP. That's brilliant.

It wouldn't improve anything, I was just arguing that the limited attack types in XCOM wasn't inherent to 2AP, but rather the use of the class based system. And you could always implement a short move as a free action.

 

[ArchAngel]

Every time a dev doing TB start saying shit like "it's not JA2", you know you will get boring simplistic combat, because it should be obvious and it's the closest to the truth they're willing to admit : combat ain't gonna be deep (wasteland2 being the latest example that springs to mind). Not sure for this one as I did see a few interesting mechanics, but this is certainly not a good sign imo. And I really dislike the xcom style 2AP, I feel like it restrict the possibilities and encourage too much defensive play.
Kinda sad because I was excited for this game when I first heard about it, but now I'm happy I didn't back it.

I for one am happy that not all TB games are of JA2 complexity. Sometimes you just want to have fun playing a mid complex TB game instead of one like JA2. As long as we get all kinds of TB games it is good. For Xcom I have Open Xcom, Xenonauts and nuXcom and I was happy for that.

 

[sser]

I don't see how the issue is fundamentally a problem with the 2AP system. You could take X-com and lock crouching, squad sight and different shot types behind a class system as well.

There's not a fundamental problem with 2AP. Hell, within its own framework XCOM has pretty solid gameplay. It's fast and boardgame-like and the rules are very clear. Nothing wrong with that. It had a number of design flaws within that framework, some of which Long War fixed. Some can't really be fixed, but it's not like the AP pool games are immaculate either. It's just that some people prefer the larger AP pools and the sort of gameplay that springs up around those systems.

 

[Galdred]

Oh, isolated into a vacuum they are pretty similar, but within the context of the actual gameplay I don't really think they're the same at all. I'll freely admit I may be exaggerating, but I do try to define key differences in games and I think this would be one. For example, X-Com's version is pinned to the battlescape; XCOM's version is pinned to your choices on the world map. This is what I'm referring to when I say XCOM's core design - as far as these features go - is fairly meta with an emphasis on classes and abilities. You're not taking 'snap shot' on the field, you're taking it at the level-up screen. I'm completely ignoring the functionality here, too, where a snap shot could be taken at any point time where allowed in an AP pool, but in 2AP is limited to at the most, either one or both of two junctures.

Kinda like the mobility/movement thing Zombra was talking about. Technically, both AP approaches let you move around, right? But it's pretty clear that 2AP is intended to be much faster getting you from point A to B. I disagree that it leads to mobile gameplay - in fact, the vast majority of XCOM is pretty static in my experience - but what it does do is get you to the action pretty damn fast. Fundamentally, though, movement is very different in either system, and a lot goes into that (map design most especially). One of the things I hate most about XCOM is the pod-popping. It just drives me crazy. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder, would it even be possible to have a podless XCOM that still utilizes a 2AP system? Remember, the 2AP system pegs the shooting action to one half of the turn or the other. But if enemies are moving freely about, being seen and unseen at various junctures, you're going to need far more tools than 2AP to handle what's going on. I imagine Silent Storm as 2AP, for example, and it just looks insane to me. The intricacies to make one system work or the other is entwined all the way up and down a lot of the design in general.

Actually, 2 AP doesn't allow as much flexibility as X-COM system by construction :
It is the eternal question of simulation vs abstraction. A 2 AP system assumes that each action is abstracted (ie shooting is not just pointing your gun at your opponent and pressing the trigger, it also covers looking around for target, trying not to be too easy to shoot back at the same time, and maybe shooting several times).
It is the same as in most PnP RPG actually, where an attack is not a single melee strike, but several moves over the course of a fixed timeframe that can result in your opponent being wounded or killed.
2 AP does not require a simplistic Pod Activation system. There are a lot of games using something similar to 2 AP actually : most RPG do after all (DnD is pretty close to a 2 AP system), and as you pointed out, many board games do too. Descent uses a 2 AP system, and is much more complex than Space Hulk, which uses a more flexible one (4 AP per marine and 6 per Alien).
2 AP being abstract allows for more things being abstracted into an action :
Charging and firing on the move are easier to represent with a 2 AP system (it can still be done, as in Space Hulk, but SH manages to do it by having both cost 1 AP).
You are right that XCOM (and X-COM for this matter) promote a defensive gameplay for different reasons : It is mostly an issue of mission design, as you have little incentive to do the mission quickly (except for terror mission in X-COM, and for meld in XCOM), the best move is to crawl and overwatch.
The Pod activations system makes matter worse, as moving too much would give a greater chance to activate two pods at once.
Both Space Hulk and Descent (and its cousins Doom, Star Wars : Imperial Assault) manage to avoid this issue by having one side getting reinforcements over time, and it works rather well, so it can work with both systems.

 

[sser]

The reason I question the viability of going podless (heh) in the 2AP system is because, well, just go bust a bunch of pods in XCOM and see what happens. A lot of the ability design focus is in having the answer on a 1-to-1 basis. You pop a pod, you use our toolkit to take care of the problems. You bust too many pods, and suddenly you simply do not have the turn-to-turn resources to take care of problems because a lot of answers are behind a wall of being unable to efficiently expend AP to solve an issue, instead being forced to use that AP for a preordained ability or movement. All those simulacrums of abstractions suddenly go from being user friendly to prohibitive. It's why Thinmen dropping mid-fight out of the sky behind you can be a huge spike in difficulty. It's largely artificial, but the basics are more or less the same: they take advantage of your limitations in being able to respond to many issues at once.

I haven't played it, but I'm assuming Space Hulk works better because the maps are shaped by corridors instead of wide expanses. In many ways, that is what XCOM is with the pod system - you are on a corridor going from one pod to the next. When you bust too many pods, the game jumps in difficulty because you're no longer meeting threats head on, but being overwhelmed from many points while still being forced to use abilities that were designed for the corridor you just abandoned.

 

[Galdred]

The reason I question the viability of going podless (heh) in the 2AP system is because, well, just go bust a bunch of pods in XCOM and see what happens. A lot of the ability design focus is in having the answer on a 1-to-1 basis. You pop a pod, you use our toolkit to take care of the problems. You bust too many pods, and suddenly you simply do not have the turn-to-turn resources to take care of problems because a lot of answers are behind a wall of being unable to efficiently expend AP to solve an issue, instead being forced to use that AP for a preordained ability or movement. All those simulacrums of abstractions suddenly go from being user friendly to prohibitive. It's why Thinmen dropping mid-fight out of the sky behind you can be a huge spike in difficulty. It's largely artificial, but the basics are more or less the same: they take advantage of your limitations in being able to respond to many issues at once.

I haven't played it, but I'm assuming Space Hulk works better because the maps are shaped by corridors instead of wide expanses. In many ways, that is what XCOM is with the pod system - you are on a corridor going from one pod to the next. When you bust too many pods, the game jumps in difficulty because you're no longer meeting threats head on, but being overwhelmed from many points while still being forced to use abilities that were designed for the corridor you just abandoned.

Actually, Space Hulk's corridors are mostly there to shorten Lines of sight, so they give the aliens a fighting chance (and force the marine to rush past them towards his objectives).
In XCOM, the designers wanted to have an even match between one pod and the whole squad, but felt such an encounter would make for too short a mission, so ended up with a system where alien groups don't support each other, except on rare occasions.
I think it is mostly an issue of challenge level : If you want to have a single group be slightly inferior to the player, you cannot have several at once assisting each other regardless of the underlying system.
The cover system may also make numerical inferiority even worse, as it is much harder to flank for the smaller group, but even in X-COM, if the aliens had been bunched up together, and actively supporting each other, it would have spelled murder for the player (if you were to give the aliens to a human player, I doubt they would lose very often).

 

[Kacper Szymczak]

uhh. well. I don't want to be whining too, but I sense a lost battle if I get contradicted with 'seemingly it should work the other way round'.


You're all often correct on what Hard West isn't, I can tell you guys have really impressive indepth knowledge of the selected titles you love. And correct - Hard West isn't like xcom, XCOM, SS, JA, put whatever here. It really isn't. It's actually way worse! If assumed and compared to be of same genre and target; if you assume that micromanaging every step is what you want to be doing on the rare occasion of your spare time, or want the possibility to work out the intricate logistics of unloading an avenger full with 26 gun-toting agents - Hard West is definitely not for you. (although, judging from the time you must have invested in turn-based tacticals, you must love the genre, and if I were you, I'd buy every single one)

But HW has it's own merits, like no random rolls in combat. So what I'm getting at is: HW is faster than XCOM (or xcom or ja or whatever) and it actually works swell to push the players to play aggressively (while theory fails us here, luckily playtest data mostly proves it).

I'd really love to use your feedback, because your expertise in the genre makes it invaluable in the nuts and bolts of the game mechanics. But it wouldn't hurt to see how the machine actually works first, and followup on the discussion once both parties are equally informed.

 

[Zombra]

Well you can be sure there will be a good deal of feedback after release

 

[anus_pounder]

Well you can be sure there will be a good deal of feedback after release

fix'd

This IS the codex after all. With all the pros and cons that entails.

 

[ArchAngel]

Two questions:
1. What is max number of character you can control in your party? Eurogamer video was mentioning 3, that sounds so low.
2. If we finish the game and want to play again, what in the game is made to give us a different experience?
Like xcom has random maps, in JA2 you can get different mercenaries and go in a different direction while liberating the island and so on.

Another one, which difficulty is recommended for people that have lots of experience with TB but are playing HW for first time. You know, like how for nuXcom they said to play on Classic difficulty for people like that.

 

[Kacper Szymczak]

What is max number of character you can control in your party? Eurogamer video was mentioning 3, that sounds so low.

It's 4.
Again, it's based on the decision to keep the pace somewhat fast. Above that the rate at which the game moved forward got sluggish.

I've decided to drop the save/load during combat encounters at all, to keep the players on the edge. So it can't take too long, otherwise frustration would kick in. So the combat takes usually 10-15 minutes, so the number of controllable characters had to be small.

2. If we finish the game and want to play again, what in the game is made to give us a different experience?

To name a few:
World exploration choices have gameplay consequences, some of which carry over to different points in time.
The abilities you get are random (you get a booster of random skill cards). But you get to choose who uses what. So starting from combat number 2, it can take a lot of different turns.
There's a time travelling salesman who sells unique stuff that you unlock throughout the game. So for example you killed the last enemy, unlock his gun at this shop, and can buy it at the beginning of the game.

which difficulty is recommended for people that have lots of experience with TB but are playing HW for first time. You know, like how for nuXcom they said to play on Classic difficulty for people like that.

Hard to tell, really. I've seen experienced people getting their asses handed back to them on medium. I get whacked on hard on 2nd combat encounter (my own design) if I'm not careful.
I'd say start with medium, switch to hard whenever you feel the ropes. The thing is: it looks similar, but works really different, so unless you get used to that, you'll get hurt. But once you do, you should up the ante.

 

[ArchAngel]

Tnx, awesome info here.
Is hard hardest difficulty? Is there ironman/hardcore mode in the game?
Can you retreat from missions or is that game over? If you lose all your guys in a mission is that game over or can you get new guys and try again or continue the story?
Is there any connection between these 8 scenarios or does each have characters and story that does not continue from the previous one?