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Re: "Forgiving" Merc Incapacitation mechanic[message #354888 is a reply to message #354882] Fri, 14 September 2018 22:03 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Morbo513 is currently offline Morbo513

 
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Registered:February 2015
Location: West Yorkshire, United Ki...
 townltu wrote on Fri, 14 September 2018 18:29
I'm glad sevenfm made it an optional switch, where is the thrill if sudden death is excluded,
JA2 is a strategy game which imo should penalize weak tactical approaches,
(and playstyle causing many casualties is weak for specific game if low loss IM runs @insane are doable)
so keep the game unforgiving, else it will become boring for players who want a challenge.

The "thrill" is in an incapacitated merc being tactically the same as a dead one - or even more punishing in that you now have to occupy another merc in preventing them from bleeding out. Now that's two guns down instead of just the one.
It encourages riskier play, the failure of which is just as - if not more - punishing in the tactical layer, but if you still succeed in the battle overall there's a better chance of coming out of it with everyone alive, therefore encouraging continued play past poor performances.

To relate it to the video I posted, it changes JA2's "Failure spectrum", adding several more degrees of failure between the squad taking no deaths and taking any casualties, and taking any casualties and the entire squad dying together. I imagine it will have those fights where because one guy went down, everyone else starts getting picked off too, result in the majority of them being taken captive because they were still alive but unconscious (With maybe a death here or there depending on how long the battle goes on for), as opposed to just straight up dying. It makes the game more elastic and interesting, because with a few exceptions, most of the time you'll be able to recover those losses and regain those characters instead of having to play on without them for the rest of the game. For that reason too, it encourages retreating early - You stupidly sent one guy too far forward and can't get to him without taking a huge risk, so now you're more often faced with the choice of taking that risk, or pulling the rest of your squad out so he's taken prisoner instead of bleeding out, and the rest of your squad retains the capacity to rescue him later. It also makes your strategic objectives more dynamic in rescuing your captive mercs and having that be a more likely occurrence. Don't get me wrong - a squad-wipe can still be practically game-over whether they're all dead or all captive, but it reduces the number of instances where that's the case.

Bottom line, it means you have to fail worse and more consistently to render a playthrough unsalvageable (reloading saves notwithstanding).

I've not played in a while and don't know how the last 1.13 version I played differs from 7609, but one thing I hope has been or can be resolved is captured mercs bleeding out. I'm not sure if it's something that happened specifically when the player initiates surrender, or if it's always behaved that way.

@sevenfm
After having played a couple battles with your sub-mod, I'd like to request an extension of this mechanic; Ideally imo, an incapacitated merc would remain as such for several turns after being treated, instead of getting back up almost immediately after. Also the battle that happened in, they stood up after being bandaged without the APs to go prone again which I find kinda silly, but I think that's normal JA2 behaviour. Is there any way that these can be changed? The two birds could be killed with one stone, assuming this plays well with how this stuff's coded: For X turns after a merc's health has been increased past (less than OKLIFE), force merc prone and AP 0.

[Updated on: Fri, 14 September 2018 22:11]

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