kraex

I didn't intend the remark to be flippant, it's a decision you've made. I don't think it's an arbitrary decision, you have your reasons, not everyone agrees with them. My point in response to Amaror's question as to "why does it have to be one or the other" is that it doesn't, but that's the decision you've made.

Neither did the OP's entire post. You can sum up the entire lengthy post by saying : "Ground combat is the most important. Ok, I might not think it's the most important. I think the game should be balanced. I don't have anything to contribute on how to balance it."

Because that's the design decision the implementor made. No other reason. And as for Jasmine Moldovia's entire post.... Do you actually have a suggestion? Your post seems to be: Step 1: Underpants! Step 2: <shrug> Step 3: Profit!

No worries. The game has changed a bit since then as well. I get what you're saying, and it's the heart of my argument as well. Wasteful strategies can be fun, and add a ton of replay value to the game. Xenonauts doesn't support that much, and based on what I've read and comments that have been made, it doesn't seem to be in the cards. The devs, and part of the community, feel that the OG was "broken" which is why that stuff worked. Maybe it was, but that being broken is what made it fun to play through 10 different ways. I suppose you can always just hack an XML file to make shooting down small scouts worth a bajillion favor and play however you want.

My first thread here: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/8416-Such-heavy-air-focus Was about the heavy air focus and tight UFO-shot-down based economy, and how it negated almost every alternative approach to gameplay. It devolved a little bit into a discussion about air combat tactics, so I let the thread die. A few things of value were discussed there, including the toning down of the number of UFOs per wave, which doesn't seem to have had a lot of effect, maybe it was pushed back up. So I heartily agree that more ways to play, or focus your play, would be nice. However, this isn't really feasible as the game is currently designed. The pacing of the invasion doesn't seem to be linked to anything other than the date, which means you can't really hold out forever. You're forced to focus research up to at least alenium explosives to be able to destroy larger UFOs effectively. Etc. As long as the econ is designed and tuned as it is now, you're forced into a whole lot of decisions that are absolutely required in order to maintain enough economy just to play the game. 1. Your initial base almost has to go in the middle east, with Cuba a fairly distant second. 2. Your initial purchases must include hangars and aircraft. 3. You must quickly expand to a second base, in either Cuba or the middle east, whichever you neglected. 4. You must find the right kind of UFO to research up through alenium explosives. If you fail to shoot it down, or the RNG screws you, you're done. 5. You must research alenium explosives and upgrade your interceptors by the second or third month. Failing to do so will render you unable to shoot down UFOs. There are probably a few other things, but the above decisions are basically on rails. I don't think you can play a feasible game without following this almost as a script.

Ok, so directed here from the "other" thread, I tend to agree with Max_Caine's suggestion. I had actually posted at one point in that thread that one of the things I think XEU got right is that landed UFOs don't take off one an interceptor is enroute. That may be an oversimple solution to the issue. Greatly increasing Chinook speed could be another. It's not really feasible to patrol around with the Chinook, since fuel is such a problem.

I was not aware of that. StellarRat made this very suggestion on the previous page and no one mentioned that it was already implemented as such.

Both, but apparently this is no longer true in the current build. Only crashes don't give any relation.

If this is now "fixed", great. Dranak is reporting that it's back in the current build.

None of those bases or terror sites improved your rating a bit (other than preventing you from the loss of rating you'd have incurred for ignoring the terror sites). The only thing you gain relation for is shooting down UFOs.

Meaning you would only lose favor (and only temporarily) for not shooting down aircraft, as opposed to gaining for shooting them down? How would your overall economy be increased? Would funding escalate on a schedule, or would there be some other way to increase your potential income?

I am. I understand completely what you're saying here. 100%. Now, quick question. Why do you feel this way about ground combat missions, and not this way about UFOs? Why is the third, fourth, and fifth "small scout" that you shoot down so vastly more important than the third, fourth, and fifth "small scout" that you face in ground combat? Same question, why is this OK to you for air missions but not OK for ground missions? If you want to throw realism on it, I'd say that a scouting mission flying around is actually far less important to governments than one that lands and taps citizens on the shoulder. Sure, you could make the gain from cleaning up small UFOs via ground mission asymptotically rewarded, but why should it be when air combat isn't? That's the part of you're thinking that I just don't quite grasp. I think it's because you think that players will get bored with ground combat, but won't get bored with air combat, because it's short. Have i inferred correctly? If so, I think the opportunity to airstrike these, despite the "optimal" approach being to fight them out, already offsets this.

I'm not, and I've tried to be clear about that, but maybe I haven't communicated effectively. I don't see why you're so opposed to giving players any kind of favor award for doing ground missions. It doesn't make sense to me in terms of realism, lore, basic gameplay, etc. The only way it makes sense to me is that it makes tweaking economy 3 dials for you. 1. how many UFOs show up each month 2. how much favor do you get for shooting down a UFO 3. how much does each country pay per favor 3a. what is the favor cap I see that adding in "possible" ground combat to the favor multiplier makes the economy tweaking more complex, but I think you could handle it. Right now, people don't give a shit about 2 alloy, and they won't do a ground mission for it. Yet you're so opposed to giving 2 favor for a ground mission because you assume that the majority will feel forced to do every ground mission. The evidence is already there that if tweaked appropriately, that's not the case. Think about it some.

In terms of pure importance, if you make an alien base or a terror site able to knock a country out of the alliance in a month, it becomes very important. Not necessarily the only priority, but a big priority, you can't ignore it. You don't mention at what cost the air combat bonuses are reduced. Are you simply making it more difficult to gain favor, but still gain it exclusively through shooting down UFOs? If so, that is not relevant to your rhetorical question. You'd focus on the thing that can permanently lose you a country regardless of the thing you can recover from. Exception may be if that terror site or alien base is in australia, and you're too early in the game to even consider wasting the resources on a base with air coverage in australia (illustrating another issue with the Geoscape, wtf to do about Australia, costs too much to keep them in the game) But in terms of "then it's just a number balance issue" it's not. People talk about the mentality of the player. If the only thing you can do with ground combat is lose favor, and not gain it, then you're forcing players to do a certain type of task, while rewarding them for another. It's much like the tech blocker. You do it because you absolutely have to. You may as well put in a 3 strikes rule, where if you don't deal with an alien base or terror site 3 times, the game automatically ends. Economically, it's probably equivalent.

Ok, that doesn't really change anything I posted, so read it when you get a chance. I'm not going to argue about airstrike, because that is not something I feel so strongly about, as some others do. However, if you think that having to actually have an army, put them at risk, spend the time to fight a ground combat mission, etc. should only be "slightly" more valuable than pushing an insta-win button, I guess there's not much more to say. I get why you believe it's necessary, to eliminate the need to grind out every combat mission, when your wave design introduces far more potential ground missions than the OG. I get it. I just don't agree. I refer back to legit's proposed change in economy balance where you could actually have a choice about doing a ground mission or not once you had acquired sufficient resources, and I think it's a far better system that introduces choice and benefits those who have some understanding of the needs of the economy. The system of airstrike isn't new, it existed in the UFO line, and was optional. It didn't have to have a ton of reward in order to use it. I used it when I couldn't get to a crash site (Due to only having one lander) or I just didn't feel like it.

Except basically no one agrees with your assessment that ground combat missions are currently somewhat better than air combat missions. The general consensus is that air combat missions are MASSIVELY better than ground combat missions currently. Even the people defending the game as it is currently balanced can only fall back on "But you have to do some ground combat missions in order to get the tech to maintain your aircraft" So the basic premise of your argument is, well, if not invalid, certainly not widely believed. If not for the need to get the tech research, an individual ground mission vs. an individual air mission is vastly less valuable. The reasons have been pointed out in this thread, but to restate a few of them: - no risk in air missions - every air mission is worth insanely more cash than a ground mission, considering for ever UFO you shoot down, you reap the rewards for the rest of the game - air striking (and air strike is not really MY issue) gives almost as much cash as you would have gotten actually doing the ground mission, if you performed "average" - secondary resources are currently not important enough to be considered as an advantage to ground missions (I'm aware this is a spreadsheet balance issue and can be fixed easily) There are only 3 good reasons to do ground combat: - You enjoy it. I haven't played a lot of the new build with the new AI, but I would say on v20 it wasn't that enjoyable, because the aliens were dumb. Also, having heavy plasma be able to teleport in and instagib your dudes is not fun. Also, dread as a mechanic is not fun. - You need a research item. You say you can't rely on tedium to discourage people from making the game a grind. I say you can't rely on research blockers as the only significant reward for doing ground combat. - You need experience. I suppose this is valid, you have to gain experience someday. But the risk of insta-death vs. the reward is questionable. It's really not balanced. And it's not a tweak away from balance like alloys is. It's a design decision that puts ground combat at a distinct disadvantage. You have other people in this thread saying "ground combat is just skirmishes, air is the war" Pretty much illustrates the point nicely. Trashman states "Why should ground combat be more important?" Because it's what the game is based on, basically. He also points out "Alien Bases, you need ground troops and they're big relations penalties" Right, so there's a downside to relations on the ground, but no upside. Makes even less sense.

I mostly agree with your comments. But this only addresses airstrike, and not the overall focus on air play.

This is only true of the research, which I will acknowledge. You need to do a bit of ground combat to get explosives. It has to be a certain ship type. Even then, the point remains, you're doing ground combat to support your airforce, not the other way around. This is "the wrong" focus. I know you don't agree. It's not that I don't get it, it's that I think it's flipped on its head. Geoscape and shootdowns should support ground combat and improving soldiers and weapons tech. Not the other way around.

No offense Chris, but this reply leads me to believe you've missed the point entirely. You're talking about the air combat mini game, and people here are talking about "The resources and research required to stay competitive in the air in order to have any kind of economy that will sustain you past the third month" No one (well, most people) aren't saying much about clicking waypoints and manually firing missiles. We're talking about the fact that you have to devote all of your resources, base expansion, and research on building up at least one secondary base and 5-7 interceptors in each location, just in order to scrape by. I assume this you either trying to be cheeky or just trolling. You're right that this is a bad argument. Doing that in the original game was entirely based on manufacturing for cash. You've removed that element entirely, so it's not a valid tactic. Was it really not clear from his post? He answered your question, I think you're just either too angry to see it, or not reading very carefully. The method he describes is an overall large net gain in funding over current balance if you actually do the ground missions. The result of this, at least without some balance tuning, would be a significant easing of the economy if you continued to effectively shoot down UFOs, AND performed well on ground operations. He's asking for a balance. His system would (if tuned properly) enable you to choose to airstrike if you wished, but continue to reward you if you did not. If you chose to grind every UFO crash site, you would likely have more money than you needed. But you can put in a system change and say "this is good, we need it" without addressing all of the concerns that haven't gone away after its been in place for two months? Yes, it's your game, you could. But you're really not being rational in this thread. You haven't done anything to explain why this is a good change. I think legit nailed it when he called it a lazy approach to economy balance. It makes ground combat less important by comparison when it becomes 100% mandatory to maintain an air fleet capable of shooting down as close to 100% as possible any UFOs. There's a no-risk button to deal with ground forces that does not require any kind of ground force. Do you even need to own a soldier to air-strike? Meanwhile in order to use auto-resolve to successfully manage the skies, you need a full fleet of upgraded and researched aircraft. It shouldn't be that hard to see. Easy fix to this problem: Allow a single base condor the ability to "airstrike" any UFO grouping. That would be the equivalent of the airstrike system. I'm guessing you're not going to entertain that suggestion.

I don't think it will. It's not the time spent in air combat that is the problem (rather air combat is actually kind of too short and too one-shot-wonder). The issue is rather how much early focus it requires to get up to speed to deal with UFOs before your economy is in shambles. You're forced to focus on expanding bases just to get more planes and radars down, to research aircraft and aircraft weapons, to save most of your early funding for hangars and aircraft, etc. Obviously in terms of real time, you'll spend far more in a single ground combat than in several UFO encounters. The number of people complaining about the difficulty of air combat that will be helped by auto-resolve seems very small.

Let me add one more thing. Key Features: Ground Combat: Strategic Management: Research Tree: Persistent Soldiers: Detailed, Emergent Simulation: Air combat is not listed as a key feature of Xenonauts. It is mentioned under Strategic Management, so let's look at that: You will also be managing the defence of the planet, dealing with the invading alien UFOs with your customisable interceptors. You need to balance the needs of your funding nations with your own. Your funds are limited – are you going to spend them on battlefield equipment, more scientists, or expanding your coverage of the planet? Your priorities must be balanced carefully if you are to win the war. This is no longer true at all. There is no choice. You HAVE to expand your coverage of the planet. None of the rest of the decisions matter if you don't do that. The focus on air combat has removed one of the primary choices of the game, which is listed as a key feature of the game. One of the things that XEU got right is that landed UFOs do not take off while a skyranger is in transit to them. Having landers take off while a ground force is en route adds very little to gameplay. Meanwhile, not allowing favor to be recovered or gained from ground combat takes away a facet of gameplay.

Aye, we can. I just hope that you and others can be sensitive to the fact that there's nothing wrong with people who come here expecting to find things much like X-Com and having suggestions. Some people tend to get a bit brow-beaten for making recommendations by people who like it the way it is or have a workaround they've figured out. Maybe Chris didn't intend to make a fancier clone of X-Com, but he's also not discouraging reporting that says that's what it is. It's one thing for rock-paper-shotgun to make the claim, but when you feature it as the main page of your website, it certainly looks like you're concurring with the assessment. Economy doesn't have to be solely based off air combat. Relations can absolutely be gained by ground operations. That's what this thread is about, and I've seen no good argument to discredit that position. If ground combat is what this game is about, and even you claim it is, then it makes no sense game-wise that there is no relations bump for taking out aliens on the ground.

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/8405-Interception-Only-Play-through You could just read the thread, it's still here. You were an active participant in it. The point of the post you responded to isn't that ground combat is non-existent. The interceptor only playthrough was a dramatic example to prove a point. The point of the discussion was that it's not important enough or focused on. I don't intend to offend you, or anyone, by this next statement. There are quite a few very active posters on this forum that have obviously been playing the game for a long time, and they're content or even happy with how it is. I think to an extent they've forgotten that this is a game in development (albeit close to completion) and this is a discussion forum for suggestions. To me, personally, the most important opinions are not from people who have figured out how to modify xml files to make the game playable, or know the (undocumented) tech tree well enough to know that you have to rush explosives first or your ships can't win air combats, or any of the other things that someone who has been playing for months knows. The success of this game may well be determined by the people who are not early adopters. The first impressions of those new to the game, especially those who are fans of the X-Com genre/line, are likely to have a huge impact on sales after initial release. And the heavy focus on air (in particular the shifting of the entire economy to air control) is something that people who haven't played this game for a year or two find befuddling. You can make arguments for it based on realism, but in terms of "does this feel like a tactical turn-based alien game", that part of the game stands out as anomalous. It "should" (opinion) be a minor secondary part of the game, and instead it's a primary driver. So we get that you like the game the way it is. You make it clear in every thread. Got it. But take a step back and realize that some of the people making suggestions are intelligent, reasonable game players, that have a preconception about how this game should be, and their viewpoint is valid. This game is being marketed as a successor to X-Com. You can say it's not a remake, but it's being marketed as one, and no one is discouraging those comparisons. That obligates you to at least listen to those who come here and say what feels wrong about it. Just a reminder, this is the main headline/point on xenonauts.com: "I’ve been waiting a long time for an X-COM remake that actually feels anything like X-COM. It is not in my nature to believe that dreams can come true." So those who expect this game to feel like X-Com are not wrong. Take liberties, improve systems, make changes. But don't devalue what really is the core of the game.

You can play the game (not win) without ground combat. You cannot play the game at all without air combat. It's also been well documented in the "intercept only" thread (which became the intercept mostly thread) just how much more important air combat is over ground combat. You say it is the "core of everything", but that's really an opinion you have that is not supported by mechanics. The core of everything is not having your base over-run, and having enough money to keep playing the game. That's achieved through air superiority.

FYI, I have never mentioned mules. I don't use mules.