enhancement: Easy mode or story mode

[mefistotelis]

Younger generation seem to have trouble playing this. Not that many of them even try.

Anyway, making this more accessible could happen in two ways:

1. Giving difficulty setting at start of the campaign (at login)
2. Giving difficulty setting in options (changeable between missions)

Since the first levels are easy and problems come later, the always available option makes sense. On the other hand, having a setting at start makes it possible to give the player bonuses to research - ie. twice the amount of scientists.

General ideas for bonuses:
a) Halved supershield for enemies
b) Doubled some or all bonuses from mods (ie. double increase of weapon energy from mods)
c) Double amount of scientists earned
d) Increased range of weapons (ie. in form of a special "eye mod")
e) "Corporate loan" in case player credits get to 0
f) Ability to buy Epidermises
g) Limit to the amount of enemies which can attack an agent at once

[geist22]

In my opinion most of the difficulty does not come from combat situations, but from surprise moments and unfair/cheap situations. A perfect example to illustrate my point is Church mission 14: when you advance too far into the complex in the middle, a single militia inconspicuously flies with an APC to your starting zone and places a High Explosive on the bridge. If you don't rush back ahead of time and pick it up, it will destroy the bridge you need to cross to reach the evac zone, leaving you unable to finish the mission after you've completed all the objectives. Church campain in particular has quite a few "trial & error" situations where buildings blow up if you approach them, but you also have important NPCs running into vehicles and escaping off the map. The hardest mission in the game is IMO Church mission 18, where large parts of the map are inaccessible due to the invisible land mines, and you're almost forced to do the Clone Shield + Persuadertron exploit to get access to enough civilians.

To change that, you'd have to edit the missions themselves, which seems like a lot of work. Just giving your agents more health or fire resistance so they don't die from unexpected explosions would probably mitigate a lot of those, leaving some trial & error stuff such as the aforementioned bridge or situations involving NPCs. I'm also very much not a fan of NPCs you have to escort or persuade dying the instant anyone caughs in their direction.

Scientists, I don't think would do much. I finish my games with around 30 scientists (thanks to reloading whenever the game decides to randomly kill them), and going past 10 barely does anything. Instead I'd look at research times and costs, and disable scientist deaths (which should be a global option available to anyone).

I don't think money is a problem past the first few missions, but I'm probably biased because I pick up most High Explosives and blow up all the banks. But I think one should normally be okay past mission 4. Selling Pulse Lasers and Electron Maces in the middle game is a good source of income, though it might not be if you use one of these weapons (I prefer the Minigun over them, except against vehicles).

For combat situations that are genuinely hard, I'd say it's EuroCorp mission 15, and the group with Miniguns in Colombo, if you don't use the Clone Shield. But they'd probably be mitigated too with more agent health and less enemy health.

I also often have trouble with securing the island in EuroCorp 18 (New Delhi), which I believe is one of the unfair situations and practically requires the Clone Shield. It's also the reason I've opened #51, because the enemies there also have Long Range Rifles and the APC is fragile and easily destroyed if you are not extremely careful or it takes too long to turn around and withdraw.

[mefistotelis]

I don't think editing missions is a good idea.

1. The general rules should be the same for everyone
2. The scripted encounters are enriching the game, even if they force you to redo the mission
3. There are frustrating missions - like the one with burried mines, or others with building getting destroyed - but such situations are just one time fails, the next try you know the place to avoid

The frustration doesn't come when you fail and get more understanding from that fail. It comes when you fail and you didn't get any further than in the last run, because you don't understand why you failed.

My experience when watching new players: They don't know how research works, they don't know which building is a bank, they don't know how to blow up banks. They notice the scientists missions have different color, but they can't figure out you can repeat these. They end up having unresearched weapons scavenged from missions, but they don't understand why these weapons drain energy so quickly. They learn most of the game mechanics easily, but have trouble connecting the dots for some complex ones. At some point, they're starting looking for help on the Internet, and that usually helps. But fails caused by enemy just being too strong adds to the frustration, often making them give up.

So above I've touched the problem of some mechanics not being explained well enough, and we should work on that as well, but that's out of scope of easy mode discussion (good idea for a new issue).

For specific levels:

The hardest mission in the game is IMO Church mission 18, where large parts of the map are inaccessible due to the invisible land mines

Ways to make this easier:
h) Decrease damage caused by such mines by half
i) Make the mines somewhat visible, ie. red glow every few seconds
j) Add a special sound when selected agent is near a mine

I guess that would help if someone doesn't like playing a memorization game.

Just giving your agents more health or fire resistance so they don't die from unexpected explosions would probably mitigate a lot of those

Yeah so I guess these previous propositions would help as well:
b) Doubled some or all bonuses from mods (ie. double increase of weapon energy from mods)
f) Ability to buy Epidermises

Scientists, I don't think would do much.

So this is in regard to:
c) Double amount of scientists earned

This:
k) Disable the scientists death
would have similar effect. But we could just give double initial amount of scientists, and keep the next additions at 1x. The initial ones would have noticeable impact.

I don't think money is a problem past the first few missions

That refers:
e) "Corporate loan" in case player credits get to 0

These few missions prolong if people don't know about banks. And they usually don't, unless someone told them before. (I've heard people explaining what the game is in few sentences and including "you're supposed to blow up banks").

Anyway if the "corporate loan" would only trigger when you're at 0, then it would never trigger for players who have the cash.

For combat situations that are genuinely hard, I'd say it's EuroCorp mission 15, and the group with Miniguns in Colombo, if you don't use the Clone Shield. But they'd probably be mitigated too with more agent health and less enemy health.

So this looks like an argument for:
a) Halved supershield for enemies
b) Doubled some or all bonuses from mods (ie. double increase of weapon energy from mods)

I also often have trouble with securing the island in EuroCorp 18

Hm, I'd have to play that one again. I remember there's a military base on your side, so your firepower is not a problem. The problem is trigger wire being planted after you visit the island?

I never found that level frustrating. You need to understand what is going to happen - so repeat a few times and watch closely.
Looking at what you wrote, this seem to be an argument for:
d) Increased range of weapons (ie. in form of a special "eye mod")

[geist22]

I believe a lot of stuff you mentioned, such as research and energy, is explained in the manual. Even digital copies of the game usually include the manual nowadays, though I find it's quite intuitive. As for the banks, many missions let you buy info that reveals the location of a bank on the map during the briefing, and these missions often include enemies that carry High Explosives.

Trying to think back to when I first played, I believe the only real problem I had was on the space station. I didn't know you could disable the time portals by placing your agents next to these device things in the corners, so I went through them the hard way - just run through and wait. Enemy groups were rarely a problem, hiding behind a corner with 4 Miniguns worked very well for me until the Plasma Lance levels, and I didn't even use the Long Range Rifle which trivializes most encounters. Obviously Honolulu was a problem (and still is without the Clone Shield, which I think is kind of cheap), because you can only use 3 agents and the zealot base with the epidermis is quite well defended.

I do like simple ideas like increasing bonuses from mods (basically just more health for your agents) and/or buyable/researchable epidermis. From my experience, the agent with lv2 epidermis usually survives getting caught in explosions, while lv3 is good against Plasma Lances and lv1 against Long Range Rifles.

I don't like the idea of earning more scientists through persuasion because it just doesn't make sense, but starting the game with more to help new players during the early game doesn't sound bad. Remember that as of now, research in the port is slower/more expensive than in the original (#47), though I haven't tested how it behaves during a full playthrough yet.

Church mission 18 is actually one of my favorites now (after hating it when I first played) because there's so much going on and you need flawless execution on many different things if you want everything perfectly (like the scientists which your agents will kill if you drug them). I'm not really a fan big gameplay changes like making mines visible (even if they're cheap), so my idea for easy mode would just be giving your agents more health. I usually abuse the Clone Shield + Persuadertron exploit or stick to the outside of the map, might try a playthrough with giving the agent with lv2 epidermis the persuadertron and see how it works out.

In New Delhi (EuroCorp 18) the problem is you have two options. One is to take the that elevator tube thing. Your agents arrive slowly 1 by 1, are surrounded and instantly attacked by enemies with heavy weaponry (Launcher, Long Range Rifles, Plasma Lances), and one drops an explosive which will blow up the entire thing. The other way is to go with the flying APC, but it's fragile and many enemies have Long Range Rifles as well and run away depending on distance. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I believe the only safe way to do this is to go through that elevator with the Clone Shield and move to a safe position before attacking.

d) Increased range of weapons (ie. in form of a special "eye mod")

I don't like this because it's sounds like a drastic change that would change the way you play the game and approach certain situations. The Long Range Rifle is already the best weapon for most of the game, because you can hit & run so well with it if you have enough space.

-edit
As for "Corporate loan", I don't like this either because it sounds like shooting birds with cannons. If you feel money is too tight, you could just increase the sell price of weapons, and/or lower the cost of research and weapons, right?

[mefistotelis]

I don't like the idea of earning more scientists through persuasion because it just doesn't make sense

You can find a plausable explanation for anything. In corporations, there are sometimes programs like "donate to charity, and we will donate the same amount". The same way, we could have "find a scientist, and our corporation/church will send you one more".

Though initial doubling would probably be enough.

my idea for easy mode would just be giving your agents more health

I think the health would actually be least helpful. I'd give them more shield, speed and weapon energy.

I'm not really a fan big gameplay changes like making mines visible

For me it feels like one of the better ideas. Remember, the easy mode is not for someone like you. It's for someone who seeing how the level plays now, would just give up and move to a "better game".

From two choices: Make the mines survivable, or make the mines slightly visible - I think making them visible is a lesser change of how the level is played. If you can survive the blast - the new tactic is instantly to detonate all the mines at start of the level.

In New Delhi (EuroCorp 18) [...] The other way is to go with the flying APC, but it's fragile and many enemies have Long Range Rifles as well and run away depending on distance.

So the range increase would fix that, then?

Increased range [...] I don't like this because it's sounds like a drastic change

Even a slight increase would have large influence on gameplay - you would basically always shoot first. And this is what I'm proposing - 7%-10% increase, rather than 50%.

As for "Corporate loan", I don't like this either because it sounds like shooting birds with cannons

I proposed that because I've seen such mechanic in other games - if you're doing poorly, you're getting a lucky bonus one or two times. Only if after that you still can't straighten things up, it's game over.
Can't remember which games had that though..

[Moburma]

To be honest I think a lot of this is a generational thing - modern gamers either want a hand-holding tutorial, or have very specific ideas about how a game "should" work, and then get upset when older games don't (there have been issues logged on here making the latter clear).
I'm not sure an easy mode would help that, it sounds like more of a tutorial thing (as they refuse to read the manual so don't understand the game mechanics). I suppose one possibility that might help would be to port the bank design from the Playstation version, they were redesigned there with big red and yellow dollar signs in them to make it clearer what they are/what you can get out of them. Not sure how easy that would be though.
Maybe even a "tutorial" campaign with new easy levels with specific briefings that make clear how parts of the game work?

[geist22]

I think the health would actually be least helpful. I'd give them more shield, speed and weapon energy.

What's the practical difference between shield and health? They're two different mechanics working together, but whether an enemy has 100 health and 900 shield or 900 health and 100 shield, you'd need to deal 1000 damage to kill them in both cases, right? It sounds like the same result achieved with different methods. I know there are two types of shields, the passive one that automatically activates when you get hit once and has a time limit as well as a damage limit, and the "super shield" that you can manually activate that protects you for as long as you have energy but seems to be bypassed by certain damage types.

For me it feels like one of the better ideas. Remember, the easy mode is not for someone like you. It's for someone who seeing how the level plays now, would just give up and move to a "better game".

Do you think someone who's almost finished with the game (assuming they did EuroCorp campaign first) would quit so close to the end, after all the other difficult situations they've overcome in all the previous missions? As Moburma said, I don't think many "modern" gamers end up playing classic games, and those who do have an interest in retro games generally have a rough idea what they're getting themselves into.
I don't know what to do - when I first played Church mission 18, it was very frustrating for me, but at the same time I believe taking away the dangers of that "dead zone" would take away an important part of the indentity of the mission.

So the range increase would fix that, then?

It most likely would. I've replayed the mission a few times, and going with the flying APC, picking off a few enemies with the Long Range Rifle then landing when the vehicle is almost destroyed seems to be the best choice, but it's not too reliable. With the game running much faster than the original speed, it's also hard to get the first shot without drugs, which won't work in this case.

Changing the red drug might be worth another issue I've though about. From my experience, enemies are split into multiple groups, like the Unguided on the island belong to a different group than the Unguided in other parts of the level, and your agents won't recognize them as enemies even if they've recognized the other groups as enemies after getting shot at by one of them. Also, attacks against vehicles don't make groups hostile (both your agents and NPCs).

I proposed that because I've seen such mechanic in other games - if you're doing poorly, you're getting a lucky bonus one or two times. Only if after that you still can't straighten things up, it's game over.
Can't remember which games had that though..

When I think about it, preventing your research from stalling by hitting 0 credits before your first bank assault in mission 4 does not sound like a bad idea. I just tought an additional mechanic for this is overkill when you can just lower research costs.

[mefistotelis]

To be honest I think a lot of this is a generational thing

Definitely there is a huge change. Gaming became easier, so players became more casual.
Also, most kids want to only play games they've seen on YouTube, rather than testing everything.
When i was in primary school, I would install and test every game I could get. And the amount was substantial, as there was no copyright law in Poland (and then there was, but everyone was used to pirating everything, so things continued until courts started giving out huge fines and jail sentences).

But still, all the above is a generalization. There are people who like various different games. What we should go for is expand the range of people who would like this project.

taking away the dangers of that "dead zone" would take away an important part of the indentity of the mission.

Yeah, that is kind of true. Then again, normal mode would remain.

[Moburma]

Out of interest, where have you seen people playing it? I looked on Twitch but can only see some thing from 4 years ago. Would like to see what problems they have with it.

[mefistotelis]

I started the thread after skimming a stream recording on YT, didn't checked how old it was. But I started thinking about it earlier, after kids were playing the game on one of my PCs.