Because it’s a side project which Solomon worked on “off the side of his desk” during beta which was neither optimised, finished or balanced. Not exactly something you want to include in your release.
The base ideas were there. But he then further tweaked in, partly based on feedback on the mod. See the RPS interview for that info.
Wendelius
Thanks. I was wondering how a Minnesota Viking got into the game.
Ozion
4063
I’m just happy we’re getting it.
Pogo
4064
It wasn’t ready at launch. It also wasn’t ready when modders dug it up, because some of the options didn’t actually do anything.
Agreed. But Moar Stuff isn’t exactly what the game needs. The macro level needs to be a lot less predictable, but in a logically progressing manner that players can estimate based on in-game events, and which requires players to change their macro priorities and gives them time to do so.
The micro layer needs to be a lot less random. The game does not give you the tools to deal with most of the death trap situations the system allows for, and it punishes you hard and in a rapidly feedback-creating manner for having the misfortune of getting screwed by the RNG.
Moar Stuff (assuming it’s produced and integrated by someone other than Firaxis or Cyanide, because Moar Bugs is the last thing this bug farm of a game needs) is definitely part of the solution to both those issues. A functional motion tracker, for example. And an actual system running the alien invasion, instead of whatever half-assed script that’s currently used. And many, many more maps or even a gasp random map generator. All of those things would go an enormously - comparatively speaking - way towards giving the game some sort of play value past the half-way point of the campaign. Maybe even a little bit of replay value, which I’d have thought would be a major priority for a supposed X-Com re-imagining.
The DLC the game needs is an editor that lets players change the campaign progression, modify the base values for all the gear, critters, planes, UFOs and whatnot, and which contains a map editor. And, of course, lets players freely and easily rate and share their modifications with each other.
Oh and… a DLC that lets players get rid of the storyline crap, or at the very least build a guillotine and behead Bradford in a truly vicious, visceral and spectacular manner. Oh how I hated that creep. He truly is a lesson in why bad writing is bad.
Firaxis really needs to release a map editor. I’d say that’s the biggest need. More maps!
I’d also like to see the macro level shaken up a bit, but I’m not sure how you do that.
One of the things that is keeping me away from a playthrough on impossible is I really don’t want to play where the difficulty is ramped up by squeezing me on resources. Make the missions harder, sure, but I don’t want to be starved on resources.
Anyway, short of an editor a DLC pack with another 20 maps would be welcome. I’d snap that up.
From the RPS article:
Here are those details of the Second Wave DLC, that should have patched into your Steam version by now.
[ul]
[li]Damage Roulette: Weapons have a wider range of damage.
[/li]> [li]New Economy: Randomized council member funding.
[/li]> [li]Not Created Equally: Rookies will have random starting stats.
[/li]> [li]Hidden Potential: As a soldier is promoted, stats increase randomly.
[/li]> [li]Red Fog: Combat wounds will degrade the soldier’s mission stats.
[/li]> [li]Absolutely Critical: A flanking shot guarantees a critical hit.
[/li]> [li]The Greater Good: Psionics can only be learned from interrogating a psionic alien.
[/li]> [li]Marathon: The game takes considerably longer to complete.
[/li]> [li]Results Driven: A country offers less funding as its panic level increases.
[/li]> [li]High Stakes: Random rewards for stopping alien abductions.
[/li]> [li]Diminishing Returns: Increased cost of satellite construction.
[/li]> [li]More Than Human: The psionic gift is extremely rare.
[/li]> [/ul]
And once you’ve completed the game on Impossible difficulty (which seems something of a contradiction):
[ul]
[li]War Weariness: Funding goes down over time.
[/li]> [li]E-115: Elerium degrades over time.
[/li]> [li]Total Loss: Lose all soldier gear upon death.
[/li]> [li]Alternate Sources: The power source cost to build facilities increases dramatically.
[/li]> [/ul]
EDIT: Additionally, from a member the the 2K Games forums:
Results Driven through More than Human appear after Classic Win
[War Weariness] through Alternate Sources appear after Impossible Win
I have one final wish. Get rid of the lame final mission.
Also, none of the second wave stuff looks all that interesting. Absolutely Critical at least rewards the player for tactical play. Most of the other stuff looks like it adds more randomization – why do I want my gun damage to be more randomized? – or squeezes the player’s resources.
I read 2/3 of the interview and this is what happens!
If I understand New Economy correctly, it could change the game up on subsequent plays a little by promoting starting in different continents. But there isn’t really enough differentiation between countries either, so it’s pretty marginal at best.
Random soldier stats could be kind of interesting I guess, but it seems like it would just make losing your best soldiers more punishing, and there’s already too many elements that do that.
My problem with those options is they don’t change the game enough, and the change isn’t obviously an improvement, for me to see a strong reason to go out of my way to enable them to replay the game.
It sounds like you missunderstand their function - they were always a way to make the game a bit harder or to modify the difficulty to make things more interesting, not to change the way the game is played.
For example, consider a gamer who thinks Normal is way to easy, but Classic is way to brutal. Now that player can select a few options for Normal to make it a bit harder, but not as tough as Classic without options. Though this latest development of having to unlock some of them at higher play throughs does seem to contradict that, but it was what we were told at launch when the modders found them, anyway. I think it would better if they were unlocked all at the start for anyone to play around with, personally.
I like what you are getting at though - we need more game mode options that aren’t just difficulty bumps (by and large) but rather some cool ways to change the game up completely. Random is good - I’d love an option that changes up things, anything to improve the game’s “board game” feel, which is a little lacking, sadly.
Savillo
4073
I played a few games with several of these options using the second wave mod. Things like Damage Roulette absolutely make a positive difference on the higher difficulties. Remember that this option not only affects the player but also enemies. You’re less likely to get one-shot by Thin Men in an early Council mission. It makes the A.I. crit and aim bonuses easier to bear.
I like Not Created Equally and Hidden Potential a lot, too, because they both lead to a more diverse set of soldiers. With the vanilla stat leveling, members of a class all end up being nearly the same aside from skill choices. (But then again, you’ll choose the same skills often as certain ones become much more useful on higher difficulties.)
I’m happy to see Red Fog working. That’s one I’d wanted to try out. Too bad those other four are locked behind impossible (War Weariness, E-115, and Total Loss could go far in keeping the pressure up in the late game) … I don’t have the patience to sit through the A.I. tactical bonuses. In fact, these should all be options from the get go. You don’t see these kinds of similar tweaks locked behind difficulties in a Civ game, do you? I just don’t quite understand the logic in gating them like this.
I agree with everything Disconnected wrote. The strategy layer needs to be more unpredictable, more random. And we need more (and larger) maps for the tactical layer.
Yes!
flyinj
4074
A few of these are exactly what I want to get me back into the game.
Unfortunately, I find Normal difficulty to be a pure cakewalk, and Classic to be far too punishing, thus I’ve never completed either difficulty.
Now they’re forcing me to play through an entire Normal campaign to get the options I want to make the game actually fun to play at Normal?
Just unlock these from the get-go. Why the hell are they gated?
This is so Diablo 3.
I’m thinking normal plus the damage and character randomizations will be the sweet spot for another playthrough.
Pogo
4076
Aetius Classic Rebalanced Mod
flyinj
4077
I just loaded the game up, and actually, the first four second wave options are available even if you haven’t won the game on any difficulty setting.
Those were the ones I wanted to use, so I’m actually kind of stoked to go in for a Normal playthrough now.
Quaro
4078
Diminishing Returns: Increased cost of satellite construction.
Some are design ideas I had that didn’t make it into the final game for whatever reason, like there’s one called Diminishing Returns and what that does is, with every satellite you build the next satellite is much more expensive. So it creates this really escalating cost. I wanted that in the game because I think that’s a great, solid design mechanic, but the thematics are terrible. It doesn’t make any fucking sense. Why would all of a sudden satellites get more expensive? I probably could have handwaved to make it work, but that seemed very punishing. But I thought the mechanic worked well, because there’s no way to build all the satellites that you need
I wonder if this fixes the endgame?
I loved Classic Ironman, but somewhere after the Alien Base you stop worrying about losing countries because you have satellites everywhere which really takes the sting out of any mistakes. They just slow you down. I wonder if escalating satellite coverage would have kept the wonderful early game tension throughout the endgame.
The problem is that satellites are the one and only way to go. There isn’t an alternative spending path to success. You’re cooked if you don’t get enough satellites up there.
Making satellites more expensive makes the game more difficult but not in any interesting way. I am still going to be buying satellites and spending money to power them just like I did before. I’ll just be sweating the cost more.
