Will there be any Special Aliens

[Iskander]

I vote for bigger variety of alien abilities.
e.g:
-An alien able to mutate humans into Zombies or whatever you call them. I see a pattern in Chrysalids.
-An alien consisting of two or more parts. Killing one part triggers activating other part of it so it can continue to fight.
-An alien - miniboss type. I see a pattern in the Butcher from Diablo I. When chasing me with his brutal cleaver I was scared like I can't tell you.

[Immhotep]

Hello, thank you for your proposal. It is worth some consideration. Developers agree with Immhotep that some special alien – a rare miniboss type would be fine spice for the gameplay. Iskander, your suggestion could be fitting for the game

I'm glad that you took my suggestion into consideration, as for now it's quite hard to discuss what type of miniobosses will be included to the game as we do not actually know what type of aliens we will meet yet but I hope we can get some heads up if it's possible...

[Jessie Black]

Dear players,

thank you for your proposals. Developers have considered what you have suggested and they decided to extend the enemy crew as you can see below:

- Rarach - He turns humans into poor creatures which are neither humans nor aliens. He is an intermediate stage between human and alien and he can evolve into full alien. He moves slowly but he is strong and steadfast. He attacks on a short distance.

- Special Guardien - There will be some importand places guarded by them in alien wessels and bases.

- Commander - His qualities and abilities are challenge to the player.

[sergioreynel]

Dear players,

thank you for your proposals. Developers have considered what you have suggested and they decided to extend the enemy crew as you can see below:

- Rarach - He turns humans into poor creatures which are neither humans nor aliens. He is an intermediate stage between human and alien and he can evolve into full alien. He moves slowly but he is strong and steadfast. He attacks on a short distance.

- Special Guardien - There will be some importand places guarded by them in alien wessels and bases.

- Commander - His qualities and abilities are challenge to the player.

sounds great

[UfoYo]

What this game needs is good level design and enemy spawning algorithms and AI ofcourse to exploit the terrain. These can pile up almost endless combination keeping the game fresh and fun each mission.

UFO ET 1 had a "mini-boss" in the last mission and it was pretty bad in all manner of ways. Let me point out a few flaws having a boss.
1. Massive health. Throwing bullets to an enemy or other harmfull things is just eating your ammunition up, and you will quickly decide that you don't have other choice but to use the best damage / shot item and stick with it, leaving the boss nothing else but a sink for a specific weapon-ammo combination that you have to bring you every damn mission in case the mini-boss pops up.
2.Mini-Boss damage. Since the mini-boss cannot drop from harsh words throw at it, it must not have serious damage or if it does it must have a telegraph so obvious and easilly avoidable that in both cases it becomes borring, in all other cenarios it would be just straight annoying since you bound to lose a trooper or two for certain and you end up bringing specificly designed throw away units just in case it pops up.
3.Game pacing. 110% chance that if this mini-boss cannot be captured and researched you guys would whine on the forums so much it would probably crash drowning Jessie in the process and if you do research it, it would need to drop something so epic that it would be either overpowered or essential to beat the game wich would automaticly turn any non regular encounter into a boss farming process where you just leave if it didn't spawn or so easy you would just not bother in the first place. And lastly any fight without a mini-boss will completly make the whole fight dull, beacuse you know it would had been much cooler if a mini-boss spawn.

This concept cannot fly.

Mini-boss have to be something that you know for certain that there is going to be one, it is a must to avoid problem 3.
Problem 2 and 1: Mini-boss have to be a very slight enchancement to the original and every extra ability or properties it get must have a counter ability wich encourage co-ordinated attacks, and not just bumrushing it down. This is the hardest beacuse you would need to program a lot of specific AI behavior for these properties in other cases a simple stat increase or decrease would less likelly to add a challange or flavor. I could list up a few ideas but it would boil down to what algorithms they already have and what they can do with it.

Commanders were fine. Make one for most of the types and that should be more then enough.

If anyone else thinks a boss fight is needed just think back to Baldurs Gate 2 "mini-bosses" all of them were just either a counter his bullshit (wich was the better ones) or just pop everything and pray it dropes first (wich was most of it the bad ones)

I don't know what you're smoking, but will you share with the rest of the class? BG2 has won more awards than almost any other game, ever. So if there were problems with the bosses/minibosses in the game, I'm guessing they were problems situated between the keyboard and the chair....

As for mini bosses in a game like this, I agree wholeheartedly that it's a great idea. Slightly tougher, slightly faster maybe, slightly more accurate. They don't have to be universe ending incarnations of doooom Think a sergeant in a squad. He's not god, just not as useless as the rest of his squad. Despite the incredibly one eyed view of the guy who's post I've quoted.

I also think it would be a sensational idea to have some of these "Mini bosses" drop unique items. Again nothing ground breaking or balance destroying. A plasma rifle that has a slightly higher damage rating. A gun that never needs to be reloaded. Just little things like that, it doesn't matter how dinky they are, players LOVE that sh*t. If you want examples, check out a little known game called: Warhammer40k Chaos Gate. It's squad and turn based, just like these games and there are heaps of unique weapons and melee items that you have to beat heroes/commanders/leaders/bosses etc to get your hands on. It's a brilliant feeling and the items add a heap of flavour to the game.

As for mr Csatrad, if you don't have suggestions to make then take a long walk off a short pier. Don't just shoot down ideas based on your personal experience in a completely unrelated game, which just happens to be critically acclaimed at every damned level. You simply look foolish. Offer solutions or stay quiet.