Jump to content

Ways to address the soldier skill gap


Recommended Posts

Idea 4 is great ... I usually take one rookie with my squad, and try to rotate who i take, so they all eventually gain some skill-ups, It is a little tedious, but works for the most part, but training them during their "off-time" would be great too, Maybe specific training so you can actually choose what skill to increase, but don't make it too easy, maybe 90% chance of 1 skill point, 50/50 of 2, 25/75 3 points or something ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If curved correctly, it would work well. Actually, it seems like the best idea proposed so far imho.

It would definitely be better than making training come back, I'm against having people gain skills outside of the battlefield. We can assume that while they're in the base, they're maintaining their current level of skill in every respect, but the only real way to get better is to actually fight the aliens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Problem with that is they're dependant on you actually winning a mission, but if you got to the point you only have rookies left, chances are you could never make a comeback at all.
That is a decent point, however, if the designers were to leave light scouts and scouts in the game, even rookies could make a come back. Granted not, a great chance to comeback but some hope. I tend to throw the towel in when my whole team gets slaughtered though.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Problem with that is they're dependant on you actually winning a mission, but if you got to the point you only have rookies left, chances are you could never make a comeback at all.

Isn't doing well in the game supposed to be dependent on winning missions in the first place? ;)

I agree, though, while losing your entire team is basically a game killer, it shouldn't be the end of the world. Only mostly the end of the world.

I like the idea of later waves containing earlier ships, this allows not only the leveling of rookies to replace skilled veterans, but also for creating new squads for new bases.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I remember correctly, people have managed to complete the final mission in X-Com with all rookie squads. That means while it was a hard game, it wasn't mandatory to have veteran squads to compete against the aliens.

Recently I've been playing a modded version of UFO:ET. In that game there are several tiers of aliens but unfortunately, the last 4 tiers are just better armed, armored and more accurate versions of their predecessors. By the latter half of the game this ends up putting the player in a situation that is no fun at all. Aliens require 6-9 hits to kill, they kill a soldier in 2-5 hits and they have 90% chance of hitting the player at maximum range. Using the latest and most accurate weaponry, the player will have about 60% chance of scoring a hit with a super elite soldier. A rookie will have about a 15% chance. Did I mention that the aliens outnumber the player troops?

Given the above situation, there's not much a player can do besides resort to save/load to protect the experienced troops from death because it takes 100+ missions to get an elite soldier.

Games like X-Com and Xenonauts are designed in such a way that the player is expected to lose soldiers. It therefore makes no sense to balance gameplay based upon the assumption that the player should have a full team of veterans.

Given the fact that death rates will likely be high in the game, the big gap between rookies and veterans should be closed but not necessarily in all aspects. I have some suggestions in this area.

1. Rookies should start with better stats in two areas: accuracy and strength. At least allow the player to give a rookie a decent equipment loadout. Soldiers shouldn't have to survive a dozen missions just to gain the ability to wear basic armor and carry a heavy weapon and some magazines without becoming turtles. Regarding accuracy, green soldiers don't need to be snipers but it's nice if they can get their fire close to the target instead of spraying it it willy nilly around the map. This means they can suppress or hurt aliens with AoE weaponry at the very least.

2. Skill progression should be fast for green troops but become slower as they gain experience. This way, a soldier with 100 missions wouldn't have 90% more skill progression than one with 10 missions.

3. Use the percentage of AP system for using weapons. This was in X-Com and it helped tone the gap alot. Rookies couldn't move as far but standing still, they could still shoot just as fast.

As a side note, please don't make all the late game aliens like those in UFO:ET(deadly accurate to the point where they all hit with every shot). It's yawn-inducing when the player knows how the dice will roll before clicking the end turn button. Plus, it's fun to see the terrain damage caused by missed shots.

Edited by Akavit
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, basically StellarRat's XP-on-a-curve idea, reworded.

One question: this all-rookie team that took Cydonia, did they use a ton of blaster bombs and psionic powers?

We don't have those here. ;)

It's a good point, however. If balanced correctly, do you think that stats on a curve would allow rookies to level up strength and TUs enough to use advanced armors and weapons? They'd start off weaker, which makes sense, but they would quickly get to the point where they are strong enough to use them, and then keep getting stronger more slowly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I won the final scenario in XCom with what basically was a massive artillery barrage of blaster bombs fired blind. I brought a ton of ammo and three or four blasters. I just blew the place up. Basically, I just walked down the devastated corridors and shot a few survivors afterwards. It was quite rewarding to hear them dying while I was safe around the corner drinking coffee. LOL. There were only three or four survivors to shoot (plus the big brain of course.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, Stellar Rat did say it first. I only read the first page before making my post though so I missed his input on that topic. All I can say is that great minds think alike.

I can't remember for sure on the all-rookie team but I seem to think they were armed with heavy plasma. I've also heard of players defeating the last mission with just heavy cannons but I don't think that was a rookie squad.

I haven't played enough Xenonauts yet to have a good sense for the underlying numbers but properly balanced, the xp curve system should permit soldiers with just a few missions of experience to use the heavier armor. I don't mind losing soldiers and I don't mind the fact that a rookie team has a harder time winning than a crack team. I do however, find it counter-productive to expect a player to maintain a squad of soldiers with 100 missions of experience to have a chance of winning yet also balance the game so that it's hard to survive more than 20. The curved XP system allows players a chance to recoup losses.

Another idea would be to redo the weight of gear a bit and make armors lighter and weapons and ammo a little heavier. Armor is kind of a staple piece of equipment in the later stages of the game but it's not necessary for rookies to have heavy weapons and backpacks full of ammo for them. The latter is nice but not mandatory for survival.

Edited by Akavit
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only way to counter a loss is the ability to train your soldiers while in the base, because once you lost all your elites, you're left with the rookies not able to handle the current affairs outside the base. Well, perhaps able, but unlikely.

With the ability to train rookies up to a certain level where they are useful, they could then step in and while having it hard, they could do it.

A curve wouldn't do the trick, a curve would rather prevent it happened in the first place. The question is what to do if you lost all good soldiers. That's when you really need a way to get your soldiers good enough to handle the state of the world at the point in the game you are.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, but since the rookies only level up AFTER the mission, they have to have the skills to handle, by most certainly hanging by a thread, the current situation if the main soldiers should happen to be wiped BEFORE they enter the mission. If that makes sense?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I honestly like the way soldiers work now. Keeping them alive is an important consideration during ground combat and if they die it has serious consequences. This was one of the things I LOVED about the original X-Com. It makes overcoming adversity all the more rewarding. I could save scum to prevent high level soldier deaths, but I prefer to roll with the punches and see if I can survive with the decisions I make. It's more entertaining and is much more fun to imagine the stories associated with the loss of each character rather than simply never have them die. Remembering how your favorite Colonel went down in a blaze of glory to save his fellow soldiers really humanizes what would otherwise be just a bunch of sprites and skill numbers on a screen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A curve wouldn't do the trick, a curve would rather prevent it happened in the first place.

This is kind of the point. Preventing a problem is usually better than fixing one. If getting rookies up to a decent level is faster, it's no longer necessary for players to send the same squad on every mission in order to get an elite squad capable of beating the aliens. Instead, players can send 100mission Joe out with a bunch of 5mission soldiers and a couple rookies and put up a good fight. 100mission Jane can be left at base with a handful of 5mission troopers as backups.

Rotating troopers for ground strikes is a good tactic and one that most X-Com players who play iron-man mode use. It's only when a game puts undue emphasis upon the continual need for a full squad of elite soldier that the risk of losing them in one mission comes into play.

The question is what to do if you lost all good soldiers. That's when you really need a way to get your soldiers good enough to handle the state of the world at the point in the game you are.

Assuming that a player did lose everything (shouldn't happen often if troop rotations were used) getting a new start would be very tough but not nearly as impossible as before. If greenhorns became passable soldiers in about 5 missions there's some chance of success for rebuilding. If it takes 15 missions there's not much chance at all.

The main reason I don't like training is because it's in UFO:ET (at least in the modded version I play) and it hasn't added any fun to the game. I just end up hiring large numbers of recruits then automatically stick them in training for a month before they are strong enough to put on basic gear. New soldiers don't need to be very skilled but they should be usable when they are recruited.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's not that I'm against the system, I like it. But it sort of requires you to play a certain way, if possible I'd like both that curve and a training facility as well, because not everyone will be aware of what happens if you lose your squad, or if you don't rotate your soldiers. With them both, there's a twin backup. Covers more than one playstyle.

The curve brings them up to a higher level than the training facility could do, yet the facility works as a backup when you really failed or if you want to build a sort of pre-service base where you train all rookies and send them out to the different bases as required.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you kidding? Who isn't going to know that leaving your soldiers sitting in their bunks is not going to level them up, and that taking them out and having them kill hostiles is?

Maybe it's not that simple, and it should be added to the tutorial when that's in (if it is made ha), because I am against having a training program or whatever that levels people up for doing nothing. Sure, you can make it cost money, but then you're just paying money for better guys instead of actually earning it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, what I would recommend is curving skill ups and also having "easier" smaller craft show up throughout the game. This will allow players to take on easy missions with green recruits, and have those recruits level up more quickly to reach a decent place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I feel it is fine the way it is... its your own fault if you don't train new recruits on a regular basis. I always try to have 1-2 recruits per mission at any time that way if I loose a bunch of troops or my Chinook gets shot down, I'll have some people readily able to step up. With that being said, if you are thinking about adding a way to increase recruit stats, just make it the same way you already do with you basic training... make the player spend money on it but make it so it takes time (say 7-14 days) to train them and costs enough where it might just be easier to train them up the normal way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, what I would recommend is curving skill ups and also having "easier" smaller craft show up throughout the game. This will allow players to take on easy missions with green recruits, and have those recruits level up more quickly to reach a decent place.
I'm in this camp. As you probably all know, I'm more in the realistic camp, and rotating your soldiers is a smart tactic, etc...it is very realistic plus it solves a game concern. So, we kill two birds with one stone. I hate to say this because it's so brutal, but people are like machines, they need down time for maintenance and rebuild, you can't run them constantly and expect them to perform well.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...