[bug] The primitive ways of making the game more difficult

[Myszon]

Those are not technically bugs but sloppy game design. I know games used to work like this, but it's 2023. We can do better.

Mines

Mines get depleted a few weeks after you capture them. They operated for years and would continue working for years if you ignored them, but because you decided to capture the sector, they will run out of diamonds in 2 weeks. 

Alternative idea:
Instead of depleting the mine, the Mayor could ramp up the security of remaining mines so every subsequent mine would be way more challenging to capture. Additionally, the enemy could launch a massive counterattack that would be impossible to stop with militia alone.

If you insist on taking the mine away from the player, there is a better way than announcing they ran out of diamonds.
After a successful counterattack, the enemy could mine the mine (with explosives, I mean). So when you attempt to recapture it, you have eight turns to kill a person with the detonator or the entrance to the mine gets destroyed, and you won't get any income from it ever again. 
The destruction may happen in the section not visible to the player, so it doesn't require updating the graphics.

Militia

They run back and forth along fences because they cannot plan their movement for more than one turn. Could the friendly units get the same AI as the enemy but be less skilled? 

Somehow, shooting friendlies in the back instantly gives them 40 IQ points when they turn into your enemy.

Alternative idea:

Give the player a way to choose deployment spots for friendly units before the combat, so we can put them in places where they won't get stuck.

Or even better, make controlling militia a skill. A mercenary with a radio could have a skill that costs 10 AP but lets them control friendly units for one turn.

Backpack

Slots make no sense. You can choose whether you carry a stack of 10 grenades or one lockpick.

Alternative idea:

Limiting the weight of items makes no sense either because you get to the point where you can't carry one more bullet, but it is still a better idea than item slots. Let's switch to a weight-based item limit.

Loot

Making loot disappear is just a lazy design.

Alternative idea:

Killed enemies drop all items they had, but all of those items are poor quality, and you get only 1 (or 0) scrap parts when you destroy them (so you can't use it for scrap part farming either).

[sandman25dcsss]

Your "solution" for mines is worse than current situation. The idea is to make highly skilled players to play with less money than less skilled players, while you do quite the opposite. I don't see a problem to fix, there are many mods to "fix" the depletion if wanted.

Regarding backpack, no, thanks, many players including me don't want to spend more time in inventory.

Regarding loot it is how game controls what players get. We don't want the highest difficulty give player better weapons just because enemies are tougher.

I like your idea about militia, though I suspect it is fixed by sharing vision between all allies.

 

Edited August 7, 2023 by sandman25dcsss

[5Cents]

1 hour ago, Myszon said:

Making loot disappear is just a lazy design.

Its only a setting, if you can wait for editor, you could set that for your own needs. Or just get one of the existing mods for that.

2 hours ago, Myszon said:

Or even better, make controlling militia a skill. A mercenary with a radio could have a skill that costs 10 AP but lets them control friendly units for one turn.

👍

The best idea for modding i think would be, controllable militia (like in 1.13). Its just a pain for my brain too, watch their tactical movements. Autoresults also gave me better results, anyway, so i dont have to watch this mess.

(One could think about completly controlable enemy, as a multiplayer-enemy faction, with that kind of existing AI!?)

[Raeven]

I don't really think any of these changes are necessary or would make the game more fun. I suppose better AI is always good. I think the other things are just fine as is.

[Raeven]

Also putting bug in the subject header is just asinine and diverts attention from people actually submitting bugs.

[Myszon]

8 hours ago, 5Cents said:

just get one of the existing mods for that.

Of course, we can fix all of those issues with mods. But should it be like this? Should we need community-made mods to make a game fun or fix annoying design decisions?

When did it become normal that a volunteer who creates a mod for free does a better job than the game developers who take our money?

[Jaywalker]

None of what you suggest "fixes" any "problem".

Militia being dumb is series tradition, and while they could stand to be a bit smarter, the same can be said about the enemy and they more than adequately provide the most vital service they exist for: defend sectors in auto-resolve.

Mines running out is intended to stop you from camping a single one forever as you train up all your mercenaries to 90+ in all stats, it does exactly what it should in exactly the way that is necessary.

The inventory is hardly restrictive if you have even ONE strength based character which while unfortunate is how they decided to make that attribute valuable to have.
Even on this you are merely swapping one problem for another, and Strength is a bad enough attribute as it is.

Dropping tons of gear you cannot use over some gear that may hold value is stupid, almost no game does this, because it's pointless busywork clicking away through all the trash instead of being excited about the one good item you might get. This is ultimately an RPG, and one where you won't find a "Rifle +1", so you may well not drown in a sea of garbage.
The economy is nowhere near stringent enough for this to be necessary either.