How to Let the Ai Have a Turn Again in Xcom 2
In which Adam and I sit downwardly with XCOM ii atomic number 82 designer Jake Solomon to dissect the strategy sequel. Nosotros hash out what it does well and some of the complaints levelled at it, hear about ideas tried and discarded during development, why story had more of a focus this time effectually and the continued importance of the original 10-COM games.
Alec: Of import things first. How come y'all have the United Kingdom and Scotland as soldier nationalities, but non a separate Wales, England, Ireland or Northern Ireland?
Jake Solomon: That's a very good question. If you lot're request me if I'm some sort of Scottish Independence sympathiser, I will showtime have to ask how y'all feel about that. I don't know why. Y'all're right, I demand to add Wales and separately England in there, I take to. Merely at that point I think the voice actors would kill me, because nosotros'd need a Welsh accent. Nosotros've got English, Irish, Scottish and Australian already, which I'm very excited virtually.
Alec: How are you lot feeling about the game now it'due south out?
Jake Solomon: I recollect it is very nice when y'all work on something for a very, very long time and the relationship with the audience changes from showing you things and we can't evidence you lot everything that you want to come across but when it's finally in people's easily and they are enjoying it... Not much beats that feeling, when people tin start playing and they can share their stories with you. This is gonna sound corny, only I do think that you go to put a fiddling happiness into the world, and when y'all come across evidence of that it's something that I personally accept really seriously. You become older and you think well-nigh what is information technology that you're doing, what yous have committed to, and I e'er do become a particular pleasure that we become to put happiness into people's lives. When you first release a game and you lot get to hear some of the happy stories so I think that'south very, very gratifying and humbling. That'southward definitely the best function of the chore, for sure.
Alec: When I was reading about information technology in the run-upward I was confused by all this new stuff - concealment and the aliens having won. This isn't XCOM, I don't know what this is! Then but a few hours in it's 'this is my sometime friend, it'southward prissy that they're back.' What'southward the line between making the game everyone wants and making the same matter all over again?
Jake Solomon: It'due south certainly a very difficult balance. You make a sequel, then yous accept to ask yourself the question 'why?' Why am I making this?' In terms of am I doing right by people? If yous go out there in front of people equally a programmer and you say 'hey, we accept something new that nosotros'd like you to pay money for.' You lot do take to inquire yourself the question from their perspective, why a sequel? If people are still playing Enemy Unknown and so what's the betoken of making an XCOM 2. You have to add together in features that and then change it.
Plain, we don't make perfect games and so there's always, ever room to improve. You get the itch to say that these are things that, as a team, we think would make the game better. And so you add these changes then of course the balance is you want people to say 'this is new' but you don't want people to say 'what the hell is this, this isn't XCOM?'
Alec: The change I hear protested nearly the nearly - though by the way I don't feel like that myself - is that some people are concerned that information technology'due south also hard, too unforgiving.
Jake Solomon: The difficulty is actually one of those things that tin be traced to a item conversation pretty tardily - very late, actually - in development. I had been pushing the mantra for a long time that we need to make Normal or Veteran difficulty basically an 'I want to meet the cinematics' mode, an 'I desire to see the story' mode, and the player can go through it and it shouldn't be that hard. But very, very belatedly in development everybody was playing the game, all the team was playing the game and they were coming dorsum saying "yes... it's fun. Just information technology's pretty easy." And I started to get kinda worried. On the one hand you've got all these developers who are super-hardcore XCOM players, simply and then on the other paw I was 'if we don't make the game hard, a lot of the design systems don't appoint.' If the histrion isn't put under pressure, so on the strategy layer a lot of things don't kick in. The player just doesn't accept to engage with the systems.
Let'due south say the cost of recruits - that's a very small example, but there are a lot of things where the role player was just breezing through the game. A lot of things simply don't work, they don't engage. Then I remember thinking 'wow, actually this game would be improved if everybody had a much more challenging fourth dimension of things.' I remember having the conversation - nosotros take a pretty small design group and we come across every forenoon in my function, and I remember saying 'yous know what, nosotros're going to make the game a lot harder. Nosotros're going to get back and rebalance and make the game a lot harder on every level, because this game is not engaging people the mode it should.'
That happened fairly late in development, and then of class information technology triggered a fairly mad blitz to balance things out.
It definitely happened past belatedly, merely I think when the game got more difficult and so you started to meet people engaging, you felt that spark of life. 'Ok, I do want to try over again.'
I think XCOM ii is definitely more than difficult than XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but it's interesting because there are multiple ways that people approach XCOM. Some of them think that the right way to play is to beat the mission without losing anybody. That'south fine, it'south certainly fine to think that's the way y'all want to play the game, but that I think has led to some frustration in people. If they view XCOM as a puzzle, that missions are a puzzle and in that location is an optimal path so that if y'all do things right nobody dies. XCOM is not really a puzzle, it has all these much more unpredictable elements to information technology. There are cases where information technology's difficult to imagine getting through a mission without somebody dying. Some players tin can get frustrated by that, and that's something that we've been thinking most quite a flake afterwards. Patently some people respond really positively to the difficulty and others say 'it's too much', and that'due south something we're thinking about. How practise we delight both players, basically?
Alec: I read some particular complaints that you lot can't accept everything all the time in base manner, you e'er have to spend more than you lot tin earn. I don't concord, but the business organisation was that in that location wasn't enough pay-off for your struggles.
Jake Solomon: Personally as a designer my experience is that all feedback is factual, so when yous do hear feedback like that my instinct is non to say 'you are incorrect.' My reaction is ever to say 'ok, does that take to be at odds with the other people who are enjoying the difficulty, and if not, how exercise we find a fashion to make both people happy?'
It's interesting, because apparently if yous're not spending more you're bringing in... information technology'due south a standard strategy blueprint, it's in XCOM especially only Sid [Meier] does this too. You give the player v all options, all of which seem viable and seem cool and seem necessary, just you only let them choice 1. And then by the time they buy that ane, we've added two more than which are 'these are too cool.' You're trying to offer the player things that are all beneficial things that the player wants, they merely tin can't afford all of them at once.
Alec: how do you communicate that a difficulty setting is harder than information technology might be in other games without making actor experience like a wimp for not picking information technology?
Jake Solomon: You're absolutely right. That's a conversation that we had once the game was taking shape. I made a fault, I think, past calling the lowest difficulty 'Rookie'. I don't know how you lot get around that. I should probably accept put in a faux difficulty below the everyman difficulty. As I get older I give less of a shit about my ego every bit I play games, but at that place is something about clicking on the bottom difficulty in a game that purportedly is about claiming. I think that mayhap that is a hard pill for people to swallow. 'I'm non going to take the easy fashion out', simply then I chosen information technology 'Rookie' which is, y'know. All these other difficulties have crawly names, and then y'all've got that...
Just the claiming too was... and you don't desire to overthink this stuff only we had a very large audience for Enemy Unknown, and it'due south a strategy game. And you've got to presume that a actually big portion of your audience is gonna come back and they're going to be familiar with Enemy Unknown. What does that mean for difficulty? You couldn't possibly just requite people the aforementioned difficulty as Enemy Unknown if they're experienced with the production, but at the same time how exercise you cater to people who have never played an XCOM game?
I remember I was talking to Ed Beach, who's one of our designers, he works on the Civ franchise. He was playing the game and he was saying 'y'know, it's pretty tough, I don't know. I similar it, I like information technology but it feels really, really hard.' And I was similar 'jeez.' That was my beginning moment of 'uh-oh, what if nosotros have rebalanced this affair in such a way that most of the reactions volition exist that it's actually painfully difficult?'
I think there's a wide spectrum there, but there were definitely moments of 'is this too much?' and how do we cater people that maybe don't want that experience?
Actually after that I realised that why on World did nosotros do four difficulty levels? Civ have six or something like that. We just need more difficulty levels, that's what it is.
At that place'southward null like coming upwards with the answers subsequently you ship. Genius at piece of work here, people!
On page ii, the evolution of XCOM 2'south story and what series creator Julian Gollop thinks of the sequel.
Or for other articles on XCOM 2, skip to our XCOM 2 guide hub.
Alec: There'southward e'er terminology like some of the Bioware games - 'I just want the story.'
Jake Solomon: Bluntly when I play allow'southward say shooters, there is no way I'one thousand putting on difficult because typically for me I'1000 not interested in reloading all the fourth dimension. If the game is more experiential, if the experience is a big role of the reward, and so for me claiming is... I was playing Shadow of Mordor really, and I had a lot of fun playing and being badass and seeing where the story goes, and that's bully, but I don't want... Then I when I play strategy games, to me information technology'south a claiming and I do want to reload. Once I've played information technology through once then definitely I step difficulty up. Just peculiarly at my age, I have very express fourth dimension.
Adam: I know a lot of people who are playing XCOM 2, most of whom played XCOM 1 and the original way back when. And a lot of them are playing information technology on rookie get-go time through because they desire to savour the story. It's odd to me, I'd never thought that I'd be playing an XCOM game where I wanted to savor the story, but I did get actually concerned most spoilers which was not something I was expecting. Which to me makes that lower difficulty more than legitimate.
Jake Solomon: In that location is a lot more story. We have these awesome writers and it's funny because at Firaxis we're always mechanics first. The shape of the earth and the directions of the strategy layer, that builds a scaffolding then our writers come in and say "ok, what about this?" and I'll be like "no, that's impossible". But they've done a really good task, and what we were surprised by with the story in XCOM 2 is you have to do a lot more than. Something we similar to do with Firaxis games and I recall we were able to practise on Enemy Unknown is you actually want the actor to bring their backstory with them. If you lot fix in the modern world, and Enemy Unknown is 'it's modernistic world but aliens are invading' and so we don't have to exercise a lot of work to gear up the state of the world.
It's modernistic world, await out your window. But if you push button the story twenty years into the future and information technology's ruled past aliens, then you're like "oh shit, we demand to explicate this." If nosotros desire whatsoever sort of attachment by our players to Earth and the world so we have to a lot more piece of work to say that information technology'due south Earth but it'due south different, and these are the reasons y'all should care, this the style y'all can get information technology dorsum, these are the changes that are happening. Nosotros actually had to do a lot more work just based on the fact that players couldn't bringing nearly as much backstory to a world that's twenty years in the hereafter.
Alec: Can you tell the states what's going on with tech problems - what's incorrect and when will information technology be fixed?
Jake Solomon: It's the kickoff thing we talk almost about when we come in in the morning time. We take it incredibly seriously. Me and all the leads, that's what we work on all 24-hour interval and that's what we're committed to right at present. Possibly it was our optimism about our new deferred renderer and MSAA – a lot of niggling things like that. To people who are suffering them, if they're frustrated, I'm equally frustrated and more. We volition continue to update the game, and nosotros do have some workarounds – heck, y'all guys even posted some workarounds – but we definitely have fixes coming soon. I tin't say dates, just I would say that we're working very furiously. Nosotros already have a lot of those bug in our sights."
Alec: Did y'all know nearly the problems earlier the game was released?
Jake Solomon: No, I can honestly say that nosotros didn't know it would be this way at launch. Maybe this is damning on me, but I'm sitting here talking to you at present on the laptop I use to play it on and I didn't see these issues. It's non across the lath, the issues are kind of myriad, sporadic. We didn't catch this stuff in compatibility testing. But make no mistake, nosotros're fully, fully accountable for the product in people's hands, then nosotros certainly have responsibility for it.
Alec: What near those pauses after deportment that really annoys some people, are they deliberate?
Jake Solomon: Some, particularly the Sectoid reanimate blitheness, take too damn long, I totally concord. And in fact we're going to change that. I am personally looking into that stuff correct now, any gameplay pauses. Camera pauses after kills and stuff like that, I am evaluating all those things to make certain that's non egregious.
And that stuff's on me. I do a lot of the camera rules in terms of it moving and staying and pausing and and so on. Taking into account the flyovers and making sure the player has all the context they need for their actions. If things can be sped up they certainly will."
Adam: Did you lot encounter that tweet from Julian Gollop?
Jake Solomon: No, what's he said, Oh God...
Finally getting somewhere on my 5th attempt at an #XCOM2 campaign - awesome game - merely roughshod, unforgiving, stressful!
— Julian Gollop (@julian_gollop) February 18, 2016
Jake Solomon: [laughs] With XCOM ii we felt a little freer. Obviously a big part of Enemy Unknown was being reverent to the source and making sure that people understood that we were reverent. That was a big function of what nosotros talked virtually for that year when nosotros released. A big part of that chat was 'what does this mean for the actual, original X-COM and what are the parallels?' It was interesting to then make a game when that didn't actually come up whatsoever more. That stopped being a question, and people instead asked 'what is the relationship of this to Enemy Unknown?' That was strange, but at the same time I estimate a lot of the things that we tried to bring into XCOM 2 even so come from the very original game. Procedural maps, a greater sense of unpredictability in the strategy layer and non being quite as much of a railroad. Nosotros nevertheless go back to the source cloth of the original XCOM games. They are still the heart of the series.
We do all these things, and at present we even change the narrative. We feel much more gratuitous to do that, we have our own audience, it'southward not being held upward against the original anymore. But at the same time we withal look at it and remember this is all based on the original series. I would never in a million years think that this game would come together on its own without the originals existing or that I as a designer could possibly take thought of this. This is still Julian'south idea that birthed all of this. It'south not an idea would I have come up with on my own - having this relationship with the original is still office of it.
But I'yard happy that Julian likes it. A lot of the ways we improved XCOM 2 was integrating more than things from the original.
On page iii, more than on what XCOM 2 could learn from UFO: Enemy Unknown.
Alec: is at that place all the same more stuff to take from the original?
Jake Solomon: I wrote something for PC Gamer about the original X-COM. I had to stop and think nigh it, 'what is it well-nigh the original 10-COM?' And information technology think it was the fact that it was then apparently uncaring nigh yous every bit a actor, that it felt similar, and information technology even so feels like, a little world through your monitor. Certainly more than the games we brand, which do accept more than crafted elements to them, it feels similar a little terrarium. Because it doesn't care if you're doing well, it doesn't care if you're doing poorly, it doesn't communicate it to you if you are, you're just existing in its footling earth.
Alec Fifty-fifty narratively you start somewhere in the centre, not the beginning of the tale.
Jake Solomon: And the music doesn't change, you don't get dissimilar graphics - there's no hint almost how you lot're doing or if you should restart. It's "I guess they're leaving the Council and I don't know why only..." Because of that it manages to generate more of an atmosphere. It has this very common cold and alone atmosphere that works then, then well with the subject matter. I call back that magic is probably incommunicable to recreate.
Adam: X-COM Apocalypse to me is the forgotten masterpiece of the X-COM series. Information technology has so many bug which are well-documented by Julian, but I adore it.
Jake Solomon: If yous're a major, major player of the 10-COM serial, as all of us are, I feel like I can become some sense of you if you say that Apocalypse is this forgotten masterpiece. I'm not proverb I disagree, I'thousand only saying information technology'south telling me something nearly you.
Adam: well, the word forgotten is important there, because the other ones are remembered. I don't recollect it'southward the greatest 10-COM game but I want to play what that game was supposed to exist. I'one thousand yet in awe of some of the ideas in it: the simulated city. I don't call up anyone's made that game yet. What does admiring information technology say about me?
Jake Solomon: Well, I experience the same way, in the sense of what information technology was striving for. When I played it, and I oasis't played it in a long time, it worked considering to me at to the lowest degree the simulation seemed to be working in terms of the factions, and you go in and you lot accident all kinds of stuff upward and it but felt so big. I mean, talk virtually moving parts. Apocalypse had so many moving parts that frankly even the parts I didn't understand I could tell were part of some sort of grander design.
Syndicate'southward great, simply to me Apocalypse is the ideal - if I could have a Syndicate that goes as far as Apocalypse does in terms of the simulation, or feeling like my decisions have that much significant to the game world. I loved it. I didn't care for the existent-fourth dimension stuff or the massive team that you lot had to apply, simply I loved the factions and you could read into them based on the things they did and the ideas they were based around. Apocalypse I remember as existence overwhelming in both a practiced and a bad way.
Alec: Information technology's the only time another X-COM game was made with the spirit of the original, which was to throw everything in and see what works as opposed to having a fixed commercial plan.
Jake Solomon: Aye, that'due south correct. I suppose that's the only two that Julian and his brother were involved in, right? Just Apocalypse and Enemy Unknown. Alec, yous like Terror From The Deep, don't you lot?
Alec: Yeah, it's kind of my favourite even though it's basically the same every bit the first and it'south not every bit skilful in many ways. I just love the temper of it, the loneliness and the dread and the strangeness. X-COM has all these astonishing memorable scenes like the corn-field information technology can be quite disconnected mission to mission, whereas TFTD always feels like y'all're in the same place fighting this huge and endless war.
Jake Solomon: For me it'due south the juxtaposition that'southward terrifying in X-COM Enemy Unknown, and that's why Terror From The Deep had far less affect on me. It was but straight horror and straight weird all the time. Past the fashion, in XCOM ii that was something was a thematic struggle. Again it's a Firaxis matter, but I love things that are sort of rooted. Whether information technology's Pirates! or Civ or XCOM: Enemy Unknown being modernistic 24-hour interval, it was interesting to then go into the future and not have equally strange of a juxtaposition when you're fighting in these environments that aren't ever every bit recognisable as mod earth. That was a petty strange to find ways to make that still have some sort of emotional meaning for players. I of the core tenets of XCOM/X-COM, established in the original game, is that information technology's scary because it's juxtaposed with things that are familiar.
I tried to make a phrase about the original X-COM: 'it's like a shark in your living room'. That's what's scary near it. But that phrase never caught on.
Adam: The biggest deviation in XCOM 2 is the classes, the soldiers feel much more similar a toolset in themselves. Y'all said early on that XCOM isn't a puzzle, and I concord, it almost feels more like an RPG besides every bit a strategy and tactical. In that location are some many points where I wait at the situation and I've got so many options, whereas in the original it was which guy isn't going to shoot now? Information technology'south a more than intricate strategy game.
Jake Solomon: That is definitely a distinct thing. Making all of the soldier abilities do something not big, but obvious, then that the player can mentally map them out, so y'all can look at your soldiers and their abilities, and they always exercise something that is elementary and the tactical benefit of it is obvious. It's not like +15% to something, information technology's you get a free move when this happens or the ability Untouchable - if you impale someone, the next attack confronting you is guaranteed to miss. People were like "fifty-fifty explosives?" and I said "yes, just brand information technology simple considering that's the merely way that as a player you can manage all these dissimilar characters and their abilities."
In that sense it is kind of like a Tetris puzzle where yous can slot things together. In some senses it becomes a challenge because you only have so many knobs you can plough: you lot've got moves, you've got actions, yous've got aim percentages, you've got comprehend. They all slot together in adequately interesting ways, hopefully, no matter who information technology is you've brought on your squad. In that sense it does sometimes feel puzzle-ish.
Adam: Information technology feels similar what you did design-wise was to constantly disrupt the battlefield and tactical ideas. Everything that I used to do, the gradual Overwatch creep, y'all meet an alien that says 'no, y'all tin't do that anymore' and take y'all to switch around your thinking.
Jake Solomon: That's correct. It comes out of the thought that when y'all design a game, yous build these spaces and then when you go looking for room, a lot of the time the only place you can find room for new ideas is by breaking the rules y'all simply established. Certainly you lot run into that a lot in the expansion packs, but even with sequels you make these rules because you lot take to give the histrion the rubber of these rules in which to operate, so when you go looking for a way to brand a new experience there's all this room to manoeuvre.
Adam: That simplicity in Enemy Unknown in terms of throwing out time units, you've got simply two portions yous tin can employ, and so many of the abilities in XCOM 2 basically mess with that. I've seen videos where people end upward with like five moves by chaining the correct stuff together.
Jake Solomon: There'southward an objective value in simplicity, particularly equally it relates to time units. A uncomplicated blueprint that achieves the same thing is considerately improve. That doesn't hateful that movement/activity arrangement achieves the same thing equally time units - information technology doesn't. I'thousand simply proverb that, abstractly, if y'all had two design systems and one is simpler than the other and they achieve the aforementioned matter, and so the simpler 1 is objectively better. With that in listen, the bones system of using abilities has to be simple. Something we really tried and moved away from was, at the start of XCOM two, in that location wasn't movement/action - in that location was do whatever you desire twice.
The trouble with that was you go "well, then I'll just shoot twice." And we don't want you to just shoot twice every time because we never want the player to not move. Nosotros always want moving to be almost every turn. So the manner we do it, and I'm nonetheless looking for maybe a more elegant solution, is you take these two actions. 1 of them probably is gonna exist a move, information technology's almost ever better to move, and the AI puts a premium on moving to always jumble up the role player'south shot percentages and jumble upwards the battle geography every turn then movement for the player seems like a better idea.
So when we had two deportment at the kickoff and said exercise whatever you lot desire, the best thing by far ofttimes was I have iv to six soldiers and they can practice 2 things, well I'll just shoot. In that location's no fashion to overcome the numbers in that situation. Alright, well we'll put in a recoil punishment, and and so nosotros started doing a agglomeration of stuff before nosotros went "this is not proficient, this creates a very static feel." If you don't almost forcefulness soldiers to move, it'southward a surprisingly boring, boring feel. And then we back off of that, simply it was fully implemented and it played that style for a while. What we found was nosotros just kept tweaking it and tweaking information technology because it wasn't right, and so finally we were "OK, nope, we're going back to move/action" because that gets us what we desire, which is the soldiers moving around the battlefield and in that location being a sort of trip the light fantastic at the starting time of every turn.
It gives the actor an interesting determination, which is what'due south my new cover spot gonna be. If the player's not moving they're not even making those decisions. You basically don't have any decisions in forepart of you on a particular turn. That was i of those things which seemed like a good idea, but we didn't come up with an elegant solution for it so we went dorsum to move/action.
Alec: Did you lot ever try letting people take their two actions in any order - and so you lot could shoot then move?
Jake Solomon: No, I don't remember we have that. I'g trying to think through what the ramifications of something like that would be. I think the way that the game currently works, you'd have to redesign stuff like the AI and things, because with the AI constantly moving to flank or get a better position, we're trying to force the player to motility so that they had a better shot. And so if y'all could take a shot and and so could motion, yous could potentially... Yeah, I don't know how that would piece of work exactly. [audibly thinks]
Alec: to what extent were yous handicapped past what you already had in manus from XCOM i?
Jake Solomon: When we fabricated Enemy Unknown, obviously we wanted to be true to the spirit of UFO Defence. Male child, this must exist confusing when we say Enemy Unknown, considering you probably think we mean UFO Defence. So what should I call the commencement one? XCOM 1 is too pretentious because information technology's not actually X-COM 1. I'll just telephone call information technology EU.
Alec: It'south all virtually the hyphen. The hyphen game.
Jake Solomon: Yeah. And so when we were making Enemy Unknown, nosotros were trying to spiritually reverent to Hyphen, just mechanically we obviously took liberties. And that is probably the almost ownership you lot take as a development team, is when y'all're making a game for the starting time fourth dimension. Because the minute you beginning selling, ownership transfers to the audience, in terms of what the game should be and where information technology should go. We don't view what nosotros do as an creative statement, we're doing it to entertain people.
When you have an audience, obviously they're a big factor. They have more than ownership over the championship than I think the developers exercise. And then it becomes a matter of OK, nosotros're sort of curating this franchise owned by the audience. Information technology's a weird state of affairs to exist in where you lot have to be respectful of your own decisions that you lot fabricated before. I shouldn't speak of it in any sort of negative terms. Information technology's so much easier, like when y'all're making an expansion pack or something, to say 'OK, let's build on something that we know people are happy with, for the most part?' And the things that they're not happy with, they actually told us very clearly about. That is such a better position to starting time development from then when you're making something that nobody knows virtually and they can't give yous feedback on.
Yeah, man, I think we had a very clear idea of what people enjoyed and didn't savour, so we definitely worked inside those boxes, I suppose, when you lot're making a sequel.
On page 4, the decision to build more missions around turn limits.
Adam: The turn limits have been controversial - some people really don't get on with them. Did yous expect that?
Jake Solomon: I've obviously heard that too. This is the honest-to-God truth, I was very surprised. I hadn't had an inkling of that yet. That was not something that was actually on our radar as something that would irritate some people. Then when it does happen, manifestly a designer can't ever or nor should they ever, defend the decisions they've made. You get "OK, some people really don't like the plough timers." And so you call up first of all, 'why don't they like it, what tin nosotros do to make it better, what tin can nosotros do to make everybody happy.' I think it's blind fidelity to mechanics that probably led u.s.a. to that, considering I retrieve the experience is ameliorate for turn-timers. I'thou talking in a very abstract sense, because I think that the game is at its best when the player is taking risks.
Risks are what atomic number 82 to loss and what lead to triumph, even so the downside is that if you feel the game is just pushing yous into risk, then it'south how you perceive the necessity of the risk. Some of them, peradventure there'southward a clumsy thematic wrapper on the turn-timer. There's a mod correct now where the plough timer doesn't start until darkening is broken. Thematically, that's much stronger, no question.
Definitely, definitely that was the kickoff idea that we had, simply mechanically in that location are number of issues with that, I would say. Information technology can be seriously exploited, and it also leads to the player use stealth instead of using Darkening as an deadfall system. That'due south what we saw, is that people thought that "if a turn-timer popped up at the end of stealth, that means I just fucked upwardly. If I get detected, I actually fucked things upward." And we could not go past that mindset; "no, no, you didn't fuck upward. We don't desire you lot to play this equally a stealth game." We didn't build this as a stealth game, it doesn't piece of work as a stealth game, but when players were Concealed and then the plow-timer didn't outset until they'd lost Concealment, and so obviously it felt like falling off a cliff when you lot lost Darkening. It just felt like, "fuck this, I'm reloading. I didn't want to get seen and so because I don't desire the force per unit area of this turn-timer."
And then instead, the mechanical solution was that turn-timers start from the beginning of the friction match. Employ Concealment however you desire, don't feel similar y'all fell off a cliff when you lose it. Mechanically, I think it'south a much amend system, all the same thematically perchance it sticks in some people's craw, coupled with the fact that some people just don't similar plow-timers. They don't want to be pushed into risk, which I certainly understand, so now the question is how to accost that in a way that doesn't lose the fact of pressure and risk, forcing the actor to brand suboptimal decisions, possibly. And at the same time not just beating them over the head with a turn-timer. And so I volition say that one surprised me, but information technology doesn't mean it's in any mode wrong.
Alec: I like it equally a dramatic system, it makes a map into an action mission rather than rinse and repeat but I agree that the countdown feels too arbitrary. Perhaps it needs a large pay-off rather than just a mission neglect: a large dropship total of reinforcements arrives if you're not quick enough or something?
Jake Solomon: Now that we have the game out in the wild perhaps we can make more educated guesses. I retrieve this falls on me, because I tend to be very conservative. So what we did was the safest solution. Nosotros did recollect "what if it's reinforcements?" but then nosotros thought are people just going to think "fuck it, I'm gonna merely fight through these reinforcements?" How big could these reinforcements be before players went "ohhhh, you are suddenly telling me that I practice non want this happen instead of this is a scripted thing and I have to kill everything?"
And so conservatively nosotros went with the 'pattern-safest' approach, simply now that it'south out in the wild I think that people are having intelligent conversations virtually perchance this or that is better, and maybe mechanically users do understand how this is supposed to work and they do respond well. Thank God for the mod system, because I do similar beingness able to say "oops, sorry if y'all don't like that, but hey there'due south a modern already that fixes that!" Obviously nosotros should not fall back on that, but information technology does at least help to some extent.
Alec: which came first, XCOM 2 or the XCOM boardgame? They share a few ideas, like the Night Events and the Avatar countdown.
Jake Solomon: Definitely XCOM two. Information technology's no secret that me personally as a systems designer, only also the team, nosotros take a lot of inspiration from boardgames. If yous look at the original X-COMs, they're more than simulation-rooted whereas we're more boardgame mechanics-rooted. I lean on a lot of boardgame-way mechanics and our UI kind of reflects that. So it's not a surprise that those two things exist, but there wasn't any cross-pollination that I'm aware of.
Alec: Were you lot involved in the making of the boardgame?
Jake Solomon: No, they brought it over here once it was pretty put-together mechanics-wise and I got to play it. And so I played it a couple of times and I didn't have also much feedback, they did an incredible job. It was fascinating to see how they achieved the same sort of end experience as a actor but with completely unlike mechanics. I'k in awe of boardgame designers, considering they definitely accept different restrictions on them. I always read rulebooks, even if I don't play all the games themselves I read all the rulebooks.
I want to play it with Julian Gollop sometime. Nosotros should definitely do that, we should stream ourselves playing the XCOM boardgame, then if he yells at me I'll probably start crying.
Adam: There is lots of picayune environment storytelling stuff - incidental dialogue, solar panels everywhere, information technology looks similar a world that has been lived in. What stuff similar that are you most pleased by?Adam: it'due south the aforementioned with the nicknames, they're not as weird but when a soldier gets i in that location's no way I'chiliad changing information technology. It makes me think about them differently, 'why is he called Ragtime?'
Jake Solomon: That'due south right. The nicknames are also something that I do. I basically only come up upwards with them. That's what I would utilise when information technology was super, super belatedly at night and I'chiliad feeling burned out, probably in the depths of despair, I would always then take 15 minutes and go add more nicknames or more functioning names. I would get into that surface area of the codebase and showtime throwing them in, similar today I'm going to add together nicknames for female Rangers or male person Rangers. Every once in a while you'd put one in and it'd be a little flake silly, just you lot'd get 'ah, I'm going to keep that 1' because that'southward the experience you hope for. You want someone going 'what the hell are they named 'Socks' for? Who is this guy?'
Towards the end of the project I could play and shut my developer mind off, just feel it equally a player, and develop these sort of back stories. 'This guy'southward a erstwhile male stripper' or whatever. That nickname must mean 10,Y,Z...
Adam: There were iii things I didn't like in XCOM 1. One was no proc-gen maps, 2d was the satellite organisation, the linearity of the campaign, it didn't feel you were making decisions plenty, and the tertiary was that XCOM operatives all looked a sure style fifty-fifty though it was thematically correct that they would. Now it's squeamish that they don't have to, some of them await like soldiers and some don't.
Jake Solomon: Towards the end of development everybody was coming in with everything chosen randomly and you lot had all these circus freaks coming upward, and I was like "ok, let's tone it down." Nosotros need percentages for facial hair and percentages for helmets, because information technology looked insane, these people with all this shit on. But then when you tone it down, your recruits come in mostly clean simply every once in a while someone will bear witness up in a bandana and a fedora and you'll be "who's this fucking guy?"
Adam: Does the randomisation allow for anything that's in in that location to be on a new recruit just it'south just a percentage chance of it?
Jake Solomon: Yeah. They don't put on veteran-level gear, but nigh of them the numbers are low enough that they usually will stay away from facial hair and props on their face but in your starting squad mayhap one or two will take some sort of prop. I had some great ones: I had a guy come in with a pencil moustache, a fedora and a ponytail. I was similar "this guy!" He'southward like a nightclub owner who took up arms. Anybody once in a while yous'll become a mix just right, so that you think you lot know what their story is.
Adam: The nerdiest thing almost my XCOM 2 experience is that I refused to give them injuries scars unless they really got wounded. That'south how I play. Burns had to come from being burned or plasma. And they're non allowed tattoos unless they get the impale that earned them.
Jake Solomon: Yep, they're basically like medals for resistance groups: scars and tattoos. I'm definitely the same style. It's funny because y'all're under such pressure when you lot're trying to cease developing the game and I'm playing through once again and once again for residual purposes, merely I couldn't' do without doing some customisation because after x missions I had this sniper that I fell in beloved with. I was "I'm non customising anybody else, but I just have to requite her the appropriate badass outfit that fits her stature." That was question, "if you lot customise this much, is that OK in a game where you're going to lose all this people?" I think it worked out.
Adam: Where do you go from here?
Jake Solomon: I have no idea. Upwards! Up! Onward.
RPS: Thanks for your time.
For more in-depth articles about XCOM 2, visit our XCOM ii guide hub.
Source: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/making-of-xcom-2
0 Response to "How to Let the Ai Have a Turn Again in Xcom 2"
Post a Comment