Are 'shots from the dark' still in the game?

[katscan]

Are our soldiers omnivorous and can see everything in their 'vision radius' (not vision arc) ??
;P Omnivorous or omnipotent.. same thing

Anyway, in the old game, there were MANY instances where you would see a shot coming out of no where, and would have no clue where it came from.. and then the tension that would occur as you tried to carefully scout out that area.

I'm not sure this still occurs?? Again, all we have to go on is the demos, but it seems that ALWAYS when the enemy attacks, you see them (or the glam cam zooms in and you can see the shot).

Are these tense, "shots from the dark" still in the game? That's certainly what made the first game much harder and tense.

[Inkidu]

I imagine it's entirely possible. You may not be able to see as well as the demo indicates (read support soldier's combat scanner). If the aliens see you they very well could shoot at you, but I'm all for seeing the, "Shoot where you people were uncannily" go.

[Wo1verine]

Firstly, I believe the term that you're looking for is omniscient (all seeing).

Secondly, I doubt they'd take something like this out. Anything that adds to the suspense of tactical missions is a must in my book. Seeing as how important overwatch is going to be, it makes sense that if you don't have any visibility of an area, the aliens are still going to be taking shots at you. Ideally, for aliens you can't see, they'll have some kind of indicator or place holder based on audibility of aliens or last know location.

It will be interesting on how the Glam-Cam will handle this though. As long as it doesn't show more than your troops can actually see, it won't spoil the immersion.

[Gen_Pho]

That is my biggest worry about the Glam-Cam. I don't really want it from the alien perspective. I could see it from the soldier's point of view, seeing the plasma fly toward you as your soldier runs for cover. That would be neat and enhance the feeling of shots coming out of the dark, as opposed to seeing over the alien's shoulder which just seems sort of bizzare.

[katscan]

Firstly, I know Wolverine, ;P just doing stupid stuff to get attention. I love attention.

Secondly, I agree, that was my concern about the Glam-Cam from the alien's perspective. May ruin immersion Anyway, did you guys listen to the entire PAX presentation ?? Wasn't there something mentioned about no longer having to worry about facing? Making me think that 'cones of vision' have been replaced by 'radii of vision' ?? I think he mentioned something about walking your soldiers and no longer having to worry about an alien standing right beside you, but you not knowing because you are facing the wrong way. ?? Or am I incorrect?

[Gen_Pho]

I'm not sure how I feel about the facing. It wasn't particularly difficult in X-Com and it added to the feeling of realism. It also made you mad about being shot in the back. I can see how it wouldn't work without TUs though. You don't want to make it free, or cost as much as shooting. Maybe removing it was an unfortunate necessity. Hopefully there remain plenty of ways to get snuck up on and surprised.

[b15h09]

I don't think there would be a problem with it working as a free action, similar to FFT. Something you can set at the end of movement. I mean, it's not like there's more time involved between running 10 feet, and running 10 feet and looking left. I suspect field of view be more of a radius, though. The way cover works, it looks like the troops are peeking around, and looking back, so there wouldn't be much of a blind spot. Also, fewer troops means you aren't likely to be using a guy just to keep lookout on a dark corner.

[SectoidSquisher]

That is my biggest worry about the Glam-Cam. I don't really want it from the alien perspective. I could see it from the soldier's point of view, seeing the plasma fly toward you as your soldier runs for cover. That would be neat and enhance the feeling of shots coming out of the dark, as opposed to seeing over the alien's shoulder which just seems sort of bizzare.

Agreed - it may also give you a clue as to where the shot came from. Shots from the dark should not involve glam-cam. If Firaxis are on the ball, they'll provide a few different checkboxes for glam-cam, such as all on, all off, friendly shots only and so on.

[katscan]

Ah .. true.. checkbox options for the glam-cam would work well in this regard.

[Akinaba]

If truly

'cones of vision' have been replaced by 'radii of vision'

it will be very painfull. Though I hope they haven't.

[ShredZ]

I'm curious not only about shots coming out of the dark, but can you make shots into the dark? I think I've read that there will be a sniper perk that allows him to shoot at targets he cannot see. But what about the other classes?

With regard to aliens shooting from the dark you would assume any alien that has vision that extends further than the humans would be able to 'shoot from the dark', we've only seen a tiny couple demo levels so far so I still think there's a good chance for those suspenseful opportunities for a squadie death.

As for the vision of troops, it's no longer necessary to look left and look right as vision is now omni-directional.

[Akinaba]

The reason why you always wanted being awarned of what's going on behind your back in the first X-COM was not only in limited cones of vision of your squaddies.

This was provided also by the fact that aliens actually could be anywhere in the map and it were you, who was in it's middle, kind exposed to any possible threats. I always thought of it like aliens went off their downed sorcer and they were quiet spread out the terretory, busy by repairing their vehicle an harrasing locals by the time your X-COM unit arrived to the crash site.

On contrary all what we had seen in the demo (that wasn't actually a lot) was two small fights that followed one for another almost in step-by-step corriodor manner. This created a feeling of game being like closed and corridored what is one of the worst UFO-player nightmare.

Imgine aliens waiting your troops to "reveal" them and then only begin actually act and attack... :/

Now I will throw out some assumptions that I hope will appear true. First I hope the final game will not be so straightforward at the realease time. All this tacticool stuff is actually cool but only if we still will be able search through the whole battlefield expecting an alien appear in any possible corner.

Next. That "shoots from the dark" thing is actually interesting, but if we will have a random allien seed through the map and ourselves arrived to the damn middle of it we shurely can have those sudden shots if only our soldiers will not appear to see 360 degree around themselves.

shoot at targets he cannot see

Pls, people...

With regard to aliens shooting from the dark you would assume any alien that has vision that extends further than the humans would be able to 'shoot from the dark', we've only seen a tiny couple demo levels so far so I still think there's a good chance for those suspenseful opportunities for a squadie death.

Need to admit that majorty of the cases of such shots from the dark happened when you were actually standing your back to the alien. There were not a lot of cases when you can not spot the alien but he allready saw you. Unless it was night.... How do you think are the old players know that sectoids can see too damn good in the dark? He-he..

[katscan]

Akinaba actually brings up a very interesting point. If your troops always spawn on an edge, or close to the edge, of a map (in order to make small maps feel larger) then many of the battle end up being silly 'corridor' type affairs, where you know the enemy is generally somewhere in front, so you just move straight ahead, sweeping only left and right.

What was great about the prior, is you never knew where the heck you started out, where the edge of the map is, and in which direction to start scouting. You could be moving one way and have the aliens start behind you.

Not sure if we have seen any evidence of our troops starting in the middle of the map.

[Being]

Speaking of scouting: The entire terrain is revealed right off the bat in the new XCOM it seems?

[katscan]

Good point Being. Kinda of liked the 'unknown' of the first game, although its unrealistic (you are telling me I couldn't see that farmhouse from across the map???)

[Akinaba]

If your troops always spawn on an edge, or close to the edge, of a map (in order to make small maps feel larger) then many of the battle end up being silly 'corridor' type affairs, where you know the enemy is generally somewhere in front, so you just move straight ahead, sweeping only left and right.

It can be summarized in a following statement: In X-COM it's not you who seize, it's you being seized. Or something like that. You get it, I bellieve.
To add I always had a feeling that if I'll stay in landingcraft for too long the aliens will come and kill everyone, allthou it never happened.

What was great about the prior, is you never knew where the heck you started out, where the edge of the map is, and in which direction to start scouting. You could be moving one way and have the aliens start behind you.

Exactly

[SectoidSquisher]

Akinaba actually brings up a very interesting point. If your troops always spawn on an edge, or close to the edge, of a map (in order to make small maps feel larger) then many of the battle end up being silly 'corridor' type affairs, where you know the enemy is generally somewhere in front, so you just move straight ahead, sweeping only left and right.

What was great about the prior, is you never knew where the heck you started out, where the edge of the map is, and in which direction to start scouting. You could be moving one way and have the aliens start behind you.

Not sure if we have seen any evidence of our troops starting in the middle of the map.

Hmmm. That's a good point you raise there and a slightly worrying one. It's much better to just be dropped anywhere on the map, not always close to the edge. Although now I think about it, I'm sure you were deployed close to the edge fairly frequently in the original games.

[ShredZ]

I'm confident that the gas station map was one, if not the smallest map size in the game, not to mention one of the flattest. Spawning on the side of a map can still work if the map is large enough, though I hope you they stick with the original.

As far as fog of war goes, the map is definitely black when you first arrive and must be revealed by exploring, just look at the gas station demo right at the very beginning. The thing I'm wondering about is how it used to be that if an alien went behind some cover it would vanish if no one could see it, I haven't seen that that is true yet...

[Akinaba]

As far as fog of war goes, the map is definitely black when you first arrive and must be revealed by exploring, just look at the gas station demo right at the very beginning.

That's sound sense and I just keep my fingers crossed.

Also, take a look at this screenshot. This map looks pretty straightforward. Terrifying. Hope it correct only for demo and/or couple or few starting-up/training missions...

[alienWhipper]

I hope glam cam are off turnable or settable, i don t wan t to get precise information of ennemies unseen by lousy camera game design. I think thats the sumarization of all fears here.

[katscan]

That's sound sense and I just keep my fingers crossed.

Also, take a look at this screenshot. This map looks pretty straightforward. Terrifying. Hope it correct only for demo and/or couple or few starting-up/training missions...

Yea.. that looks like another VERY straightforward map. The problem with these maps is it doesn't really matter where you start, the enemy is generally immediately in front of you as there is no where else for them to spawn. I remember, between the limited TUs on the original, and the small size of your soldiers, even the medium sized maps would take many turns to walk across.. it would be even slower if you are moving from cover to cover.

While I understand that the gas station map shows the potential of the stuff you can do with the map maker, it is a really really small, predictable little thing.

[Nosmirc]

That's sound sense and I just keep my fingers crossed.

Also, take a look at this screenshot. This map looks pretty straightforward. Terrifying. Hope it correct only for demo and/or couple or few starting-up/training missions...

....

Are you kidding? Please tell me you are kidding.

Look at the jungle/forest maps from the originals. That's about as straightforward as you can get. It's a friggin' square for crying out loud. Even the larger maps weren't particularly complex. Most terror missions were a couple of blocks.

You wanna know how an 8 map squad did forest maps? Two groups of two to sweep the outsides, the other four hit the ship.

And....and...you guys liked starting in the middle of the map? Geez, that was a massive pain in the rear for me. Depending on the situation, middle map landings is justification to bug out prematurely.

[psychoo]

i doubt you`ll have shots from the dark or shot into the darkness.

i think you will have packs of aliens. packs like in wow, and if you "pull" them, you`ll see a cutscene how scary they are and you will have to fgiht them. if you try to flee in an undiscovered location, you risk "pulling" in another group.

i really hope i`m wrong.

[Oathbreaker]

I, too, hope that the aliens will sometimes have a greater sight and firing range than the humans. Sure it sucks to lose soldiers and not even know what hit them, but that's part of the old X-Com that I knew. If you don't like it, play on Normal mode and re-load so you can have your precious veteran Rambo guy back with all his kills and experience.

There has to be danger in stepping off the aircraft into the unknown, otherwise it's just a fun little theme park thrill ride that will be boring in a week.

[Inkidu]

I, too, hope that the aliens will sometimes have a greater sight and firing range than the humans. Sure it sucks to lose soldiers and not even know what hit them, but that's part of the old X-Com that I knew. If you don't like it, play on Normal mode and re-load so you can have your precious veteran Rambo guy back with all his kills and experience.

There has to be danger in stepping off the aircraft into the unknown, otherwise it's just a fun little theme park thrill ride that will be boring in a week.

Actually, it's a pretty well accepted notion that the aliens in the original were no better at seeing you in any condition than you were them. Many people state that the aliens would walk forward, walk back, and then shoot at where you were or have been.

So in order to have shots in the dark in the new one they would have to have greater range.

[Aknazer]

I'm going to put this into bullet format as it will be easier for me to respond to various things.

1) I always found the aliens to have much better night vision, though using electro-flares killed that alien advantage most of the time.
2) I'm cautious about the removal of the "cone of vision." I hated how it worked sometimes in the original, but I also hope that they don't allow you to see enemies that are directly behind you either. I think it should be closer to a 180 degree cone in front of you, with the closer it is to the left/right edges the harder it is to react to it. I feel that this would better simulate one's field of vision than the original game.
3) I don't mind if one can see the overall map from the start, but have it covered in the fog of war. I don't think you should be able to see the interior of buildings from the start though. While some of the fun of the original was finding out what was on the map, once you had played it enough you would effectively know what to expect on each map. Also it makes more sense to know the layout of the land, as you should see it while flying in and do a once-over just to know what to expect. This one is definately one that could go either way since it can be more fun to find it out on your own, but it makes more sense tactically (as in, in real life you would at least have a general idea of the area) to have the map at least partially revealed.
4) Starting in the middle of a map was interesting and more challenging, but it pretty much never happened. You almost always had at least one side of the map within 10 squares of your ship, if not starting out in a corner or with the second side pretty close to your ship. Though given how the original maps were all squares it still meant that depending on which direction you started moving in at the start you could end up with aliens behind you (which is much less likely in a rectangular map).
5) Shots from the dark should still be possible. If shot from the dark then I think on the player's screen it should simply originate from the "general area" of the alien and not the exact line from the alien when possible. For example, if the shot comes from an empty field and you can't see any of the field, then the line of the shot on your screen should originate from any square in like a 5 square radius of the actual alien. But if the alien is down a corridor or you can partially see the field you already know roughly where the shot couldn't come from and the shot would originate much closer to the actual alien (basically still the 5square radius, but with sight/objects narrowing down where the shot can originate from).

[katscan]

By shots from the dark, I should state that I am including ALL shots where you cannot see your attacker.. ie- this includes shots from BEHIND you where you just hear/see the shot and your guy dies.

My worry is that I have not seen anything like this .. the enemy appears always visible, including behind you.

[Inkidu]

I always thought the hit and run tactics (or at least the heavy reliance on them) to be a shortfall in the programing, personally. I'm all for hit and run tactics, mind you; the thing is that it gets annoying when it's the only tactic besides guard an area that Classic XCOM seemed to posses. There was also die on my killzones when you invade my base, but that was rarer.

I'm itching for a few up front firefights. Some flanking and maneuvering. In Classic it really gets to you when you realize the computers entire strategy is to get you to expend yourself against a clearly superior force.

[Guesswho]

I don’t think the “shots from the dark” was an intentional game designs, but really just byproducts due to programming/processing limitations. In the original, if you took enough time at start, you could see where all the enemies are just by moving the mouse of the grid. The Fog of war was only a limiting factor to the player’s sight range. The enemy however did not have sight range. The enemy can shoot across the map because they had an unlimited site range.

Should there be shots in the dark type scenarios? Absolutely. But it should be due to an alien spotter for an alien sniper rather than gamey AI.

[b15h09]

Should there be shots in the dark type scenarios? Absolutely. But it should be due to an alien spotter for an alien sniper rather than gamey AI.

Sectoids are psychic, no? Personally, I hate the idea of alien snipers. It's too mundane. I have no problems with aliens having complete battlefield awareness due to psychic powers, though.

[Gen_Pho]

I think losing 2-3 soldiers to an enemy you couldn't even see was one of the most "X-Com" parts of X-Com.

[b15h09]

Definitely made for that whole 'enemy unknown' thing.

[katscan]

I think losing 2-3 soldiers to an enemy you couldn't even see was one of the most "X-Com" parts of X-Com.

First off, let me say a good morning to you, Gen_Pho. I hope you slept well.

Secondly, I agree completely. Which is part of my worry that stems from the glam-cam, 360degree vision radii, and linear appearing maps.

[Brian Damage]

I think losing 2-3 soldiers to an enemy you couldn't even see was one of the most "X-Com" parts of X-Com.

Agreed. Anyone attempting a worthy successor would be well-advised to keep those desperate "Oh ☺☺☺☺!" moments and the whole follow-on sniper-hunting element.

[ShredZ]

I think having 360degree vision there won't be any 'aliens hiding behind you' anymore, and even if there was, there's a 'hearing' system in the game so you'd know otherwise - though this does open up an opportunity to have an alien that is cloaked? Or maybe moves silently? Should be interesting...

[Inkidu]

I think having 360degree vision there won't be any 'aliens hiding behind you' anymore, and even if there was, there's a 'hearing' system in the game so you'd know otherwise - though this does open up an opportunity to have an alien that is cloaked? Or maybe moves silently? Should be interesting...

Actually, I think this would depend more on the AI programing than any vision thing. Think about it:

You go up to a box and cover behind it, but let's say there's a lot of front fire, so you hunker the guy down. Then some alien still in the fog (I think they might have peeled back the fog a lot and take double moves for the demo) uses a nearby boxcar to skirt around your guy's position and he comes out behind you from nowhere and slaughters the guy. It's still possible.

[katscan]

Well its possible.. its just that in the original you would have no idea that the alien just flanked you as all you would see is a shot coming in and your guy dying. The new game theoretically would 'show' you the alien when he pops out from around the boxcar and shoots your guy.

The difference is knowing the exact location of the killing enemy when you are not facing them, vs knowing that they are in that general direction.

[Akinaba]

....

Are you kidding? Please tell me you are kidding.

Look at the jungle/forest maps from the originals. That's about as straightforward as you can get. It's a friggin' square for crying out loud. Even the larger maps weren't particularly complex. Most terror missions were a couple of blocks.

I hope you understood that by "straightforward map" I meant "corridored" or "predictable" map where you moove from encounter to encounter etc., etc. If not -- that's, pehaps, my mistake for choosing inpropper word I'm sorry then.

You wanna know how an 8 map squad did forest maps? Two groups of two to sweep the outsides, the other four hit the ship.

But you still had to check those outsides, didn't you? Unless you wanted one of your soldiers exposed under plasma fire. Whasn't that a part of what made this game fun?

Not saying that when you started you rarely know where the ship actually was, so you had to scout the hood anyway to start with.

4) Starting in the middle of a map was interesting and more challenging, but it pretty much never happened. You almost always had at least one side of the map within 10 squares of your ship, if not starting out in a corner or with the second side pretty close to your ship. Though given how the original maps were all squares it still meant that depending on which direction you started moving in at the start you could end up with aliens behind you (which is much less likely in a rectangular map).

Well allright. Let's state that the field of batlle just shouldn't be rectangular, or of any other shape streched greatly in one direction.

there's a 'hearing' system in the game so you'd know otherwise

Unfortunately they have not showed any signs of this "hearing" system yet. Hope they will.

though this does open up an opportunity to have an alien that is cloaked? Or maybe moves silently? Should be interesting...

No one can hear the floaters...

[Inkidu]

Well its possible.. its just that in the original you would have no idea that the alien just flanked you as all you would see is a shot coming in and your guy dying. The new game theoretically would 'show' you the alien when he pops out from around the boxcar and shoots your guy.

The difference is knowing the exact location of the killing enemy when you are not facing them, vs knowing that they are in that general direction.

I think you're giving the glam-cam just a little too much credit. They're showing it off a lot, but I mean even in the demos there were times it didn't come in a lot. Any shots that were glammed were from aliens that were already in the field of view, and aliens only got glammed when they were discovered (beats a big read 1). No shots in the demos actually came from the fog of war, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. Plus I've only ever seen glam shots from your soldier's actions. They show the alien shooting, but you knew he was there already, and it was just shots at a moving troop.

[SectoidSquisher]

Yes you can - don't they make that muted humming sound as they move?