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I've seen that done before, and it tends to result in few using the auto-resolve if it's more than a token penalty. A somewhat repetitive mini-game vs time spent at reduced strength and the cost of replacements tend to make auto-resolve unattractive to anyone beyond the lowest difficulty.

That's not to say auto-resolve should never result in losses, just that there shouldn't be a heavy penalty to it.

We are of different minds then. The auto resolve shouldn't be the standard way to get through the game. If it was then what is the point of having the air battles in the game to begin with? Autoresolve if included should be discouraged, only if you really can't stand the minigame that is aircombat should you as a player be using that.

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As I was typing it, I was hoping that it wouldn't come across as too punative if you don't want to do everything manually. While I'm quite happy having it as it is (with possibly a few tweaks), if it was put in the game, it would have to serve a purpose.

That purpose would be that it should be able to carry a player through the game without completely running out of finances and being unable to complete the first month. Having an autoresolve where the pilots are the winners of regional village idiot competitions is simply going to make the game unplayable. That would make it a pointless feature, and very likely to attract lots of "waaaah" comments.

However, it shouldn't be as good as doing it yourself. And by a decent, but not ridiculous, margin. You should be rewarded for doing it yourself. It's a good part of the game and should be encouraged.

I think the balancing would be quite tricky.

The alternative is going to a format like the original/ something like the new EU2012/ you and the aliens play paper/scissors/stone for every intercept to resolve it.

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What’s worth considering is that the alpha doesn’t let the player see the full range of alien UFOs. We’re forever fighting the same battles with the first 5-6 UFOs, so people become jaded. Not, I believe, because of the game, but because of the limits of the alpha.

There’s a certain progression that we can see in the first UFOs:

  • The first UFO is easy to shoot down. But you don’t see it for very long.
  • The next UFO is tougher and faster.
  • The fighter craft UFO can dodge, and can fire missiles. As can every generation of fighter craft after it.
  • Defensive turrets were added as of v14 to larger UFOs.

Basic factors tail off after that. However, it’s possible to build complexity and variety into using basic components in novel ways without sacrificing the speed of the minigame. For example (and these are only examples):

  • [*]Permit certain UFOs to have 360 cannon.[*]Permit certain UFOs to fire more than one missile at once.[*]Permit certain UFOs/human aircraft to have more than one defensive roll [*]Permit defensive turrets on certain UFOs to fire on missiles.[*]Allow certain missiles, alien and human, to have a blast radius.[*]Allow some UFOs to have afterburners

By tweaking basic components, then by mixing up the main/escort craft, variety and complexity can be sustained, making air battles less repetitious.

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What’s worth considering is that the alpha doesn’t let the player see the full range of alien UFOs. We’re forever fighting the same battles with the first 5-6 UFOs, so people become jaded. Not, I believe, because of the game, but because of the limits of the alpha.

There’s a certain progression that we can see in the first UFOs:

  • The first UFO is easy to shoot down. But you don’t see it for very long.
  • The next UFO is tougher and faster.
  • The fighter craft UFO can dodge, and can fire missiles. As can every generation of fighter craft after it.
  • Defensive turrets were added as of v14 to larger UFOs.

Basic factors tail off after that. However, it’s possible to build complexity and variety into using basic components in novel ways without sacrificing the speed of the minigame. For example (and these are only examples):

  • [*]Permit certain UFOs to have 360 cannon.[*]Permit certain UFOs to fire more than one missile at once.[*]Permit certain UFOs/human aircraft to have more than one defensive roll [*]Permit defensive turrets on certain UFOs to fire on missiles.[*]Allow certain missiles, alien and human, to have a blast radius.[*]Allow some UFOs to have afterburners

By tweaking basic components, then by mixing up the main/escort craft, variety and complexity can be sustained, making air battles less repetitious.

How about autobattle for the easier difficulties as an option, and manual battles being forced in the higher difficulties. Or maybe have a formula to determine who wins in an autobattle (similar to the way they did in TW: SHOGUN 2)?

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I'd prefer if people that dislike aircombat simply modded the player crafts to be fast and indestructible and the enemy crafts to be slow and and easy to kill. :)

Would nearly be the same thing as an autoresolve without punishment but wouldn't distract players that are susceptible to "path of least resistance" and take away from their enjoyment of that part of the game.

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Would nearly be the same thing as an autoresolve without punishment but wouldn't distract players that are susceptible to "path of least resistance" and take away from their enjoyment of that part of the game.

If they repeatedly go for avoiding that part of the game all together, I have a hard time believing they actually enjoyed it in the first place. I'm against pandering to those who need to be pressured by a penalty into doing something they supposedly enjoy anyway.

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I'd prefer if people that dislike aircombat simply modded the player crafts to be fast and indestructible and the enemy crafts to be slow and and easy to kill. :)

Would nearly be the same thing as an autoresolve without punishment but wouldn't distract players that are susceptible to "path of least resistance" and take away from their enjoyment of that part of the game.

The average consumer shouldn't be encouraged to "mod" the game to suit their needs IMO. This feature should be decided on its overall benefit to the game as a whole.

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I think everything that's been put forth makes some sense and auto-resolve sounds like a nice band-aid approach but also sounds like you would be ignoring the problem that if someone is choosing it, then an (important) feature of your game is just being ignored and might as well not be there. I assume you guys love your baby of a game and want people to enjoy everything in it, so just putting in a "skip" option seems like a sad thing to do. Couldn't the argument be made for adding an "auto" feature to Base management and Ground combat for the players that would find that repetitive too? Just playing the advocate here.

Off the top of my head, the only "skip/auto" battle options I can think of seeing has been in games like Total War or other RTS games that could end up with hour long battles, etc. A few minutes doing the Air Combat in Xenonauts won't kill a person but that being said, if you feel you can improve it or make it more fun, by all means go for it.

For what it's worth, I think the Air combat is the best version I've seen in an X-Com variation but I haven't (intentionally) played a lot of the Alpha, so I can't speak for how repetitive it would get.

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Mind you, that's not all people want automated. Almost seven months ago, there was a guy who loved air combat and wanted ground combat automated!

Yeah, I remember reading that and thinking. These air interception and ground missions just get in the way of the base resource management that I like best. Can't we autoresolve them :) (actually, I do quite like lots of base facility variety)

"I'd prefer if people that dislike aircombat simply modded the player crafts to be fast and indestructible and the enemy crafts to be slow and and easy to kill."

With that though, they would never lose a craft and there would be no element of risk (automated or not) in the game for them. A fair autoresolve, where losses are incurred would still give players the feeling that an air war was being truly fought. It would just be one they didn't really have to bother with.

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If they repeatedly go for avoiding that part of the game all together, I have a hard time believing they actually enjoyed it in the first place. I'm against pandering to those who need to be pressured by a penalty into doing something they supposedly enjoy anyway.

Well.. I myself occasionally ignored UFOs in the original X-com to see how long it takes to research something and what opens up after I've completed a project. OFC at that point I was screwed and needed to reload an earlier save to play the game again.

It is an extreme example. But just because you skip something doesn't mean you wouldn't actually enjoy it if you played it. Disliking something isn't the only reason for skipping. That is why I used the phrase "path of least resistance" to define a new category of players rather than lumping up everyone in the dislike category.

And even if you don't find some aspect of the game to be the best thing ever a less interesting aspect (by itself) may enhance the other aspects. In the same way simply hopping over something may diminish the rest of the experience. (without the player really realizing that it does unless he/she/someone start analyzing it)

Sometimes you need cooldown sequences in action movies to really accentuate and lift the action to new heights. Removing those cooldown parts because someone feels they are boring would lessen the overall quality of the movie. Sure if you simply make them skippable they will still be in there for others that doesn't feel they are boring, but word of mouth of the implication that they are skippable may cause people that aren't finding them boring to skip them just because they hear they aren't as exciting as the rest of the movie. (thereby lessening their experience).

I can't say if this is truely the case for air battles in Xenonauts. You'd need to do a psychological study about it to see (unless Chris and the others had all this in their minds when designing it).

The average consumer shouldn't be encouraged to "mod" the game to suit their needs IMO. This feature should be decided on its overall benefit to the game as a whole.
I agree. And I'm hoping that the overall experience for the average consumer is enhanced by playing the aircombat, in which case they shouldn't be encouraged by being offered the counter intuitive option to skip it.

The player themselves doesn't neccessarily need to mod themselves. If Goldhawk releases it as an official mod ("for those that can't enjoy the game as intended there is a simplified version of airbattles available here in this mod" kind of thing) it wouldn't be troublesome, but it would still not persuade those on the fence the same way.

With that though, they would never lose a craft and there would be no element of risk (automated or not) in the game for them. A fair autoresolve, where losses are incurred would still give players the feeling that an air war was being truly fought. It would just be one they didn't really have to bother with.
True, I did jump to the assumption that the people advocating autoresolve option did not care for any aspect of the airbattle and just wanted to jump to the base management and ground battle parts.

I don't see what the point of an autoresolve without any or with small token penalties (such as Rebask suggested) over the invincible modification.

Edited by Gorlom
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I would suggest a different approach that I feel is better than an auto resolve.

Maybe an alternative air combat that mimics the original.

A quick checkbox for basic or full air combat (maybe even on the intercept window) so you can pick for each combat to allow you to skip the 20th light scout but still fight against the new corvettes if you want to.

Basic air combat can be a single screen with similar options to the original x-com.

It would still need more work than not having an alternative but it is a nice nod to the original as well as giving a quicker option.

Pictures to represent each craft, a set of options for range/aggressiveness and target etc.

The difficulty would be keeping the weapons and craft balanced in both game modes.

Who knows, it may even be less work than deciding on an algorithm that gives the right risk/reward balance for an auto resolve system.

If auto resolve is too random then save scumming for the best result becomes ever more attractive, after all you have lost craft through an rng not through your own fault.

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An excellent idea...

Wouldn't it (possibly) require different loadouts compared to the current airbattle though? a bit more hp and ammo to reduce any impact random numbers generators has on the fight.. It could possibly feel way to random if it's "whoever hits first wins" and theres no aiming, skill or tactics involved in who gets the first hit.

Edit: heh I didn't read the whole post before I responded :P

Edited by Gorlom
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i could handle auto resolve for those battles where ive sent overwhelming forces out to shoot down that light scout .

as for more difficult /balanced battles if only my pilots had experince to go with the cool names i give them ..experince that gives them+ X% dam inflict or avoided or small percentage to speed or afterburner etc ..then the air battles which at the moment only matter for me because of money gained from shot down ufos or money lost from shot down fighters,become just as important as deciding which of my favourite troopers is walking through that door first

ps when someone writes that invincible fighter mod let me know ....i really dont want diablo my fav pilot too die....

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Personally, I'd much rather the time was spent putting in other features, and tweaking the existing air interception, than coming up with a parallel interception system. But hey, perhaps the interception part of the game, comes from a different resource pool than everything else...

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I don't see what the point of an autoresolve without any or with small token penalties (such as Rebask suggested) over the invincible modification.

The difference between the two being the auto-resolve I was suggesting would give reasonable losses that a so-called "average" player would receive if they had done the air combat manually, where invincibility would result in no losses ever. I'm not advocating an outright cheat here.

By 'penalty', I'm referring to losses above and beyond what playing it through would give. I've seen games where auto-resolve results in fights having moderate to heavy losses that, if the player had told it to play out manually but didn't actually do anything but watch, would have resulted in no losses at all. At that point there's not much reason to even have auto-resolve.

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The difference between the two being the auto-resolve I was suggesting would give reasonable losses that a so-called "average" player would receive if they had done the air combat manually, where invincibility would result in no losses ever. I'm not advocating an outright cheat here.

By 'penalty', I'm referring to losses above and beyond what playing it through would give. I've seen games where auto-resolve results in fights having moderate to heavy losses that, if the player had told it to play out manually but didn't actually do anything but watch, would have resulted in no losses at all. At that point there's not much reason to even have auto-resolve.

An interesting example. it's probably meant as an extreme example but that is what I think it should be like.. I don't think it should be an equated alternative to doing it yourself.

And as someone already mentioned autoresolve actually encourages savescumming (saving and reloading until it works) more than trying it yourself.

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An interesting example. it's probably meant as an extreme example but that is what I think it should be like.. I don't think it should be an equated alternative to doing it yourself.

And as someone already mentioned autoresolve actually encourages savescumming (saving and reloading until it works) more than trying it yourself.

Except that autoresolve would probably be based around a formula. So if you just reloaded, the exact same thing would happen.

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Except that autoresolve would probably be based around a formula. So if you just reloaded, the exact same thing would happen.
How do you mean? What would be the base of that formula? the players crafts HP + armaments vs the enemy UFOs HP and armaments? No random element at all? (The UFO spawn is already random so that would effectively mean the algorithm isn't the same every time, assuming you save before the UFO appears rather than before intercepting)

What do you envision to make 2 separate incidents (no reloading a previous save) with the same aircraft setups to turn out differently? or do you envision the fights with the same circumstances always turning out the same?

I can't imagine this to be a good idea to have X player setup always beats Y UFOs. As I understand it would remove all notion of

giving reasonable losses that a so-called "average" player would receive if they had done the air combat manually.
as Rebask puts it since the player would (soon) know before hand if they win or not when auto resolving.. it would potentially be even more boring than my suggestion about invincibility mod. Edited by Gorlom
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How do you mean? What would be the base of that formula? the players crafts HP + armaments vs the enemy UFOs HP and armaments? No random element at all? (The UFO spawn is already random so that would effectively mean the algorithm isn't the same every time, assuming you save before the UFO appears rather than before intercepting)

What do you envision to make 2 separate incidents (no reloading a previous save) with the same aircraft setups to turn out differently? or do you envision the fights with the same circumstances always turning out the same?

I can't imagine this to be a good idea to have X player setup always beats Y UFOs. As I understand it would remove all notion of as Rebask puts it since the player would (soon) know before hand if they win or not when auto resolving.. it would potentially be even more boring than my suggestion about invincibility mod.

The way I see it, it would take the most untactical fight possible (both craft going head to head, kind of like a game of chicken) and then the formula would be based on craft HP, weapons, and fuel. The way I see it, this will cause the most damage to your craft. However, if you were to do it manually, you could use tactics that could potentially leave you with no casualties. Autoresolve could let you always beat the aliens, but at the expense of worse casualties and down time for the crafts.

I mentioned TW because they had a system like that (and I don't know their formula) and it was based around your troops and their ranks (maybe # of craft, HP, weapons, alien craft type, etc.).

And in the original, once you had plasma beam cannons, you could basically beat any craft in the game save battleships. I doubt you'll have that much inbalance, but my point is that I think the new air combat system is ( in my opinion ) tedious and does not add to the game. I find it boring, as I do not feel air combat was ever a key part in x-com to begin with.

Edited by Tacobandit
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how can air combat not be key part of original game ?

dont shoot down alien scout it finds your base you get expensive invasion

dont keep up with shooting ufos in countrys far from your bases ..alien pacts

dont shoot aliens dont find nice shinny new stuff...etc etc etc

the new fighter system is good (not great i want pilots to get xp so i mourn them not there planes) and any auto resolve would be opitional so relax those who dont like it..

if its put in dont use it ..i wont but why not have it for those who want it

( if chris finds DR Octo harness im sure he'll find the time :D..pilot exp first chris)

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The way I see it, it would take the most untactical fight possible (both craft going head to head, kind of like a game of chicken) and then the formula would be based on craft HP, weapons, and fuel. The way I see it, this will cause the most damage to your craft. However, if you were to do it manually, you could use tactics that could potentially leave you with no casualties. Autoresolve could let you always beat the aliens, but at the expense of worse casualties and down time for the crafts.

I mentioned TW because they had a system like that (and I don't know their formula) and it was based around your troops and their ranks (maybe # of craft, HP, weapons, alien craft type, etc.).

And in the original, once you had plasma beam cannons, you could basically beat any craft in the game save battleships. I doubt you'll have that much inbalance, but my point is that I think the new air combat system is ( in my opinion ) tedious and does not add to the game. I find it boring, as I do not feel air combat was ever a key part in x-com to begin with.

Disregarding the assumptions we are both making about the aircombat later in the game: I don't think the static chance to win through a formula is a good idea. It seems very boring and could possibly completley screw over the balance of aicombat.

I find it boring, as I do not feel air combat was ever a key part in x-com to begin with.
Could you then explain specifically what the problem with my suggested invincible mod is for you personally? It's only cheating if you consider it as such and quite frankly you just told me you don't care about that part of the game so I don't understand how that could be it. Your current solution simply seems to be... not exactly what you want, but some sort of compromise to sell the idea. It feels like you realize that you could never get your true wish (of possibly removing aircombat altogether), so you settle for a compromise that severely effects the aircombat for everyone else (not just the people that doesn't like air combat) on many levels.

Is it convenience? You wouldn't have to mod it yourself. (Even if it is not very hard to do. just alter a few numbers in a text file) I'm sure someone else would gladly do it. I could even do it myself (after I take a look in the modding section to see how to do it) if no one else does.

Then all you'd have to do is download a file and put it in the right directory or follow the instructions on how to edit the textfile yourself (assuming those are provided).

Reversely creating a new algorithm and balancing it towards all the mechanics, tactics and stats etc of the full aircombat would be a hassle for the development team and take resources they could easily spend on other things. I consider the mod to be far more convenient than pressuring the devs to implement an autoresolve "cheat". (Yes, I consider it a form of cheating. That might explain my opinion on the invincibility mod.)

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Disregarding the assumptions we are both making about the aircombat later in the game: I don't think the static chance to win through a formula is a good idea. It seems very boring and could possibly completley screw over the balance of aicombat.

Could you then explain specifically what the problem with my suggested invincible mod is for you personally? It's only cheating if you consider it as such and quite frankly you just told me you don't care about that part of the game so I don't understand how that could be it. Your current solution simply seems to be... not exactly what you want, but some sort of compromise to sell the idea. It feels like you realize that you could never get your true wish (of possibly removing aircombat altogether), so you settle for a compromise that severely effects the aircombat for everyone else (not just the people that doesn't like air combat) on many levels.

Is it convenience? You wouldn't have to mod it yourself. (Even if it is not very hard to do. just alter a few numbers in a text file) I'm sure someone else would gladly do it. I could even do it myself (after I take a look in the modding section to see how to do it) if no one else does.

Then all you'd have to do is download a file and put it in the right directory or follow the instructions on how to edit the textfile yourself (assuming those are provided).

Reversely creating a new algorithm and balancing it towards all the mechanics, tactics and stats etc of the full aircombat would be a hassle for the development team and take resources they could easily spend on other things. I consider the mod to be far more convenient than pressuring the devs to implement an autoresolve "cheat". (Yes, I consider it a form of cheating. That might explain my opinion on the invincibility mod.)

All I'm saying is that I didn't play X-COM for the air combat. I played it to kill aliens on the ground. Now I know people like the current air combat, but my point is that it's going to be tedious to constantly be doing the same thing over and over again. Especially with the number of UFOs in the air I've seen in the first month.

I guess I'll just be one of the ones sending in three interceptors in every engagement head on.

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I have a few ideas about this. Maybe assign your pilots with a Passive or Aggressive Role (Thinking back to Baulders Gate lol)

Give the fighter pilots their own AI, which gradually increases after getting kills. Passive or Aggressive AI.

And then you have the ability to select a particular AI for each pilot, soon as the air-combat starts (Maybe add the ability to save the pilots chosen AI so it automatically carries out the chosen path, until you pick otherwise)

Passive: Pilot will either Flank or use a standard approach, depending on the situation. Pilot will auto-fire missles at the first second of missle lock. Pilot will auto-roll when fired upon with missles.

Aggressive: Pilot will use Afterburners to quickly make a head on attack, firing missles when close enough and moving in to use guns (if available) Pilot will auto-roll the aircraft when shot at, but only after firing his missles first.

Custom: You control everything for that parcitular pilot or pilots.

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