Funding seems to be way off

[kabill]

If I have to be perfectly honest my main complaint is that once you get decent coverage there is no way but upwards financially which kind of limits the challenge. The hard start is the only thing working in the opposite direction as it is and easing it would completely remove any sense of tension from the game, excluding ground combat. Which on its own is not enough for me personally.

I think the air combat difficulty is to blame for that. Once you know what you're doing, you can win just about any air combat with ease, which makes it fairly trivial to bring down UFOs.

[Chris]

I've spoke to Giovanni and we're going to put that funding damage modifier in the game with the next patch. Seems the most sensible way to handle all this.

[Solver]

Once you re-enable air superiority, you may want to tone down ground attack missions a bit. I'm playing with both enabled, and basically ground attack does so much damage in each event that you end up prioritizing those UFOs over all else. It is not quite gamebreaking, but I think it's not where you wanted it to be - the funding rebalancing in the last few builds came during the ground attack bug where those missions did nothing.

[KevinHann]

I think the air combat difficulty is to blame for that. Once you know what you're doing, you can win just about any air combat with ease, which makes it fairly trivial to bring down UFOs.

It does play a major factor but that must not be the sole reason. I'd like the game to challenge me in a more complex way outside GC than just "if you take all of 'em down, you have no problem". But perhaps that is in the realm of mods now and difficulty modifiers are the only plausible decisions from a dev POV at this stage.

[kabill]

It does play a major factor but that must not be the sole reason. I'd like the game to challenge me in a more complex way outside GC than just "if you take all of 'em down, you have no problem". But perhaps that is in the realm of mods now and difficulty modifiers are the only plausible decisions from a dev POV at this stage.

I don't disagree, but I'm not sure how you'd do that. Since funding is entirely tied to the air game, it pretty much necessitates changes to either air combat or things associated with it (UFO spawns, aircraft repair/rearm/reload times, etc.).

[dpelectric]

Yes, but the key point here is to not alienate (pun intended) new players like the OP. They will usually not be aware of the ease with which the game files can be modified, like veteran players are. They are going to base their impressions on the first few months of vanilla gameplay, and feel overwhelmed by the financial pressure while they're still trying to figure everything else out.

If experienced players like you, Kevin, desire more of a challenge, you have any number of options: increase UFO strength and frequency, increase alien health and accuracy, decrease funding levels and soldier stats, on and on and on. Newbies will not know about this and may walk away, disenchanted.

After years of effort GH needs to consider a wider market than the hardcore nucleus on this forum if they want to see any kind of reasonable return on their investment. Easy and normal should thus be considerably more forgiving than they are now, which will have no impact for the players on this forum anyhow, while potentially increasing Xenonauts' overall fan base.

[John Smith]

I absolutely love the game though; the ground tactics are superb, almost perfect. The weapon variation, the strategy, the AI's are nice, even the graphics are a great touch. It's sad to see such a great game marred by some weird finance balancing.

But, I realized how easy it it is to edit now that someone PM'ed me and told me how to edit the NOTEPAD, a word document, to change around funding and such. The customability has helped win this game back for me, imo.

I decreased event penalties by about 75%, and started off with 5 million moneysz instead of 2 million, and it seemed to work alright for me.

Still barely turning a profit but, that's to be expected. Still, the ground combat is AWESOME. Maybe doing well in ground combat should be more rewarding?

Perhaps say, more money, or even just a boost in morale and thus funding?

Since it's the core central aspect of the game, I think it should boost satisfaction rates or something. xP

[Irishguy117]

I think good ground combat missions are supposed to increase relations bonus, but only if the civvies and local yokels survive, and theres no way I'm putting a xenonaut at risk for that.

[John Smith]

lol, I know right?

Typically they survive for me though just cause I am fairly aggressive anyways. When the civvies run they tell me where the bad guys are (that is, by seeing their reaction). Also, I typically have a guy woth a shield usually who can absorb a few hits without taking damage. xP

Also I play easiesz.

But how much do you really boost your funding with that?

[Dranak]

I think good ground combat missions are supposed to increase relations bonus, but only if the civvies and local yokels survive, and theres no way I'm putting a xenonaut at risk for that.

No, they aren't (aside from terror missions, alien bases, and landed UFOs). The relations bonus was moved to shooting down the UFO for crash sites. Having relations given by crash sites encouraged people to do every crash site, which got very grindy fast.

[Feynman]

I started a new game now that the initial base cost has been lowered and it makes a huge difference. Instead of waiting for a giant pile of cash I can build the "core" of the second base early, then start adding hangars/radar/quarters/whatever immediately once I get my first batch of funding after month 1. This allowed me to get an operational second base much faster, allowing for stable funding to be secured without a hassle.

Of course, part of it is just that now I know how the first few months play out and I can better gauge what to prioritize with my funding, but by making radar more expensive and the base "core" cheaper it makes the base construction process much smoother.

[legit1337]

I started a new game now that the initial base cost has been lowered and it makes a huge difference. Instead of waiting for a giant pile of cash I can build the "core" of the second base early, then start adding hangars/radar/quarters/whatever immediately once I get my first batch of funding after month 1. This allowed me to get an operational second base much faster, allowing for stable funding to be secured without a hassle.

Of course, part of it is just that now I know how the first few months play out and I can better gauge what to prioritize with my funding, but by making radar more expensive and the base "core" cheaper it makes the base construction process much smoother.

Agreed.

[John Smith]

Alright,g lad to see cheap bases are making it easier.

I figured it would, but I didn't know how much. Seems neat!

Well, it's kind of a minor issue.

Really important to you know, not losing the game (you can't have six nations drop and such) but, overall a minor issue compared to the excellent ground combat. I don't mind losing at the 3rd month I suppose or just changing funding to 10 million or 1000 million dollars and forgoing the issue of finances virtually all together.

Ground combat is amazing and incredibly well polished. There are some minor issues but I don't consider them too important.

[John Smith]

No, they aren't (aside from terror missions, alien bases, and landed UFOs). The relations bonus was moved to shooting down the UFO for crash sites. Having relations given by crash sites encouraged people to do every crash site, which got very grindy fast.

The game seems kind of grindy as is doh. xP

[Irishguy117]

It feels much more rushed than I remember. There was a time where I could relax slightly after researching laser weapons, but now its a constant race for plasma instead. I usually still am building laser weapons when I finish researching plasma, and find that I need them very quickly. It makes it much harder to budget things.

[StellarRat]

I'm not have any funding problems with the current parameters. In fact, I have a large amount in reserve right now. Playing on Veteran, BTW. It's early Jan, I've got two Corsairs online, three bases, Wolf and plasma on my troops and jets. I've lost Australia, but everyone else seems OK, so far. IMO, is that a lot of people buy too much at the beginning. One base and 15 scientists is fine for the first month of the game then I go to two bases and by November I usually have three bases.

[ntalas]

I am playing on normal, and I tend to agree with John Smith. It took me a while to grasp the politics and to get over the fact that I will loose a few regions without losing the game.

Nevertheless funding seems to be way off. Now that I've lost three regions (for the rest their funding is almost maxed out), I have to do almost every ground mission for keeping my workshops and hangars running. It means playing for HOURS before getting to use my new toys from the workshop. It becomes a bit frustrating.

A modifier for easy/ normal would be the first thing to do. I wander if the modifier could be more-and-more punishing as the game progresses. I.e., ok we forgive you for the first month, but not for long!

[Big Z]

I think good ground combat missions are supposed to increase relations bonus, but only if the civvies and local yokels survive, and theres no way I'm putting a xenonaut at risk for that.

This brings up a fair point; considering this hasn't been the case in eons, why is it that the end of battle state screen still bothers to list non-Xenonaut casualties? They mean absolutely nothing anymore as far as I'm aware, and I was under the impression that the old stat screen with the nifty background art was removed because it was too cluttered. What is clutter if not completely useless, arbitrary information?

[alienman]

The situation in my game is kinda funny. So my main base is in Europe. In the second month I decided to place a base in north america, since they have been having a bit of a UFO problem... and well, they are one of the founders for Xenonauts so they do deserve some coverage. So I'm getting closer to the end of the month and even after shooting down some UFOs north america still isn't happy with me. I'm thinking well, they have a base now so I can turn it around, and I'm also having it in my mind, that well, they are one of the founders of the project and it would be silly if they decided to withhold the money.

Third month comes and... North america gives up / surrender / pulls out of the project... I couldn't help but laugh. So now I have a useless base (almost) that are bleeding money like crazy. I'm minus around 500k, since Australia and South America have decided to pull out as well. South America in the second month, and Australia in the third. I'm feeling a bit screwed at the moment. I don't have any money, so I can't build more bases to provide cover for Asia / Russia and I can only afford to loose 1 more continent. The thing though that really gets me is that I have shot down every UFO that has come up. I might have missed a few, like 2-3 but that was in Europe and Europe loves me. So the missed UFOs there don't matter.

But it is the other places that I have no chance to provide cover for that destroys me, and there is no way right now to prevent that if you don't build bases all over the world from the get go, and that is not something I want to do. I will continue playing of course and see if I can save earth still, it just kinda takes me out of the immersion that nations / continents are giving up that fast... 3 months in. Come on, we have a hostile alien presence on earth and nobody cares!?

Edit.

I'm playing on normal difficulty.

Edited June 10, 2014 by alienman

[Max_Caine]

Reading threads like this one and reading similar threads on the steam forums has lead me to believe is that new players have a strong disconnect between the actions they perform and the reception their actions have. I have read over and over posts which have the following lines: "I've shot down every ufo" and/or "I've done every ground mission". (Seriously, those two lines are damn near universal). I hypthothesise there is a disconnect between the global, overall view afforded to the player, and the local view afforded to funding blocs. The unspoken comment behind these two lines seems to be "I've done all this work, why don't you all recognise and reward me for it?"

Well, in a sense, a player is recognised and rewarded for shooting down ufos and doing ground missions,but the recognition and reward is communicated on a local, rather than global level. If a player shoots down all the ufos on a funding bloc then that funding bloc is happy but the other funding blocs are not happy because you have shot down ufos on another funding bloc. They are only happy when you shoot down ufos on their funding bloc. It seems that time after time this, for whatever reason, does not sink into a new player's mind. So a new player dutifully "shoots down all the ufos" then is surprised and unhappy when funding blocs cut funding because it seems to the new player that all funding blocs should recognise the value of the players activities, even though only certain funding blocs will benefit from a player (esp. in the early game).

If this hypothesis is correct, then I don't know what to say. I come from an X-Com background, so I know inherantly that a) I can't save 'em all (it's a bonus when I do) and b) that if I focus on one area, another will suffer as a consequence. This doesn't seem to be true for new players. Doing work seems to mean that everyone in the world should recognise that work, rather than the people who directly benefit form it. (I know this is a generalisation, but with the number of posts cropping up that have the same wording I think it's a very real generalisation).

[alienman]

max caine, I think most of us know that you can't save them all, even the arcade-like version of Xcom makes this a pretty big point. The problem I'm having is that nations are abandoning the project after one month and basically screws up the playthrough from the get-go. And there is nothing you can do about it, except praying to the gods that the alien will concentrate thier activity in the region you placed your base in. Not even the classic X-com was this brutal.

[kabill]

@Max_Caine: That goes back to the point I made a while back (possibly on another thread) that there's not much positive feedback for new players early in the game to tell them that what they're doing is fine and that it's all normal.

At the beginning of the game, numbers go down. There's literally nothing you can do to stop this. The only difference between playing well and playing badly is that numbers go down slightly less or, perhaps better, that mid -way through the game the numbers won't have all fallen to catastrophic levels. You need to have a reasonable understanding of the way the game pans out in the long run to know that numbers going down at the beginning of the game isn't a problem and that, in fact, it's par for the course.

I'm not convinced there's anything that can be done about this now, mind. There's a number of possible solutions, but they'd all require changes which aren't going to happen days before final lockdown. I guess the easiest solution would be to make it really clear in one of the hint boxes/quick-start guide that funding decline is to be expected in the short run (if it isn't already; I've never taken the time to read them myself).

[Phoenix]

Hmm, I've started the game recently, and was a bit surprised by the pace of funds dropping. I mean, sure the old X-Com was similarly unforgiving on the global funding levels, BUT it allowed you to become self sufficient with manufacturing and selling items for profit... In this game it is not a viable macro strategy.

I believe some things should be changed in regards to the funding and the drop rates. As it is, you have to be playing each game basically in the same way.

1st base EU (Alps), 2nd base central NA (in the first month you build the core), 3rd base set up in Indochina (northern China/Mongolia) in the 2nd month and then you start upgrading your bases and catch up on research which you were running from one lab only by this point. You basically can sack South America and Australia and possibly South Africa, because if you have good coverage in interceptors of those areas, you will be getting enough cash from ground missions (3 teams needed, only skeleton replacement soldier crews)

I personally do not like this. There is little to no freedom in the Sandbox aspect of the game. I am inclined to say that the Firaxi's X-Com did the Goescape better, just because of that. It given you freedom in starting location and gameplay was deciding about your expansions placements.

The first X-Com allowed for various expansion routes, because of the funding mechanics and manufacturing being also a viable way of getting funds. You still needed to respond to global threats and various alien activities, but it was again more gameplay driven, here you do exactly the same moves from the start in each playthrough. If you will divert, or delay the first expansion or place bases in less than optimal way, you will have much harder time if not actually doom yourself in the long run, but newer players will not see that until like 5-6 months of in game time (on normal), when they will be fund starved to get upgrades up and the larger UFOs will start to appear. The first X-COM was not that unforgiving.

[StellarRat]

Reading threads like this one and reading similar threads on the steam forums has lead me to believe is that new players have a strong disconnect between the actions they perform and the reception their actions have. I have read over and over posts which have the following lines: "I've shot down every ufo" and/or "I've done every ground mission". (Seriously, those two lines are damn near universal). I hypthothesise there is a disconnect between the global, overall view afforded to the player, and the local view afforded to funding blocs. The unspoken comment behind these two lines seems to be "I've done all this work, why don't you all recognise and reward me for it?"

Well, in a sense, a player is recognised and rewarded for shooting down ufos and doing ground missions,but the recognition and reward is communicated on a local, rather than global level. If a player shoots down all the ufos on a funding bloc then that funding bloc is happy but the other funding blocs are not happy because you have shot down ufos on another funding bloc. They are only happy when you shoot down ufos on their funding bloc. It seems that time after time this, for whatever reason, does not sink into a new player's mind. So a new player dutifully "shoots down all the ufos" then is surprised and unhappy when funding blocs cut funding because it seems to the new player that all funding blocs should recognise the value of the players activities, even though only certain funding blocs will benefit from a player (esp. in the early game).

If this hypothesis is correct, then I don't know what to say. I come from an X-Com background, so I know inherently that a) I can't save 'em all (it's a bonus when I do) and b) that if I focus on one area, another will suffer as a consequence. This doesn't seem to be true for new players. Doing work seems to mean that everyone in the world should recognise that work, rather than the people who directly benefit form it. (I know this is a generalisation, but with the number of posts cropping up that have the same wording I think it's a very real generalization).

I agree. So far the strategy that seems to be working best for me is getting to three AIR bases each with three radars trying to maintain air superiority over North America, Europe and as much of Asia as I can, thereby positively influencing as much land mass as I can. By airbase I mean only hangers, radar, and missile defenses with a couple of Foxtrots and Condors (or their upgrades) at each base. I'm wondering if the beginners are spending way too many resources on research and building fancy ground combat weapons at the start? If you think ground combat is the only thing that really matters I could see that would take you down a path where you'd have grind every mission to survive. Nation funding/relations is FAR more important selling alien artifacts on eBay. That was not true in the OG. Edited June 10, 2014 by StellarRat

[Cryonist]

I agree. So far the strategy that seems to be working best for me is getting to three AIR bases each with three radars trying to maintain air superiority over North America, Europe and as much of Asia as I can, thereby positively influencing as much land mass as I can. By airbase I mean only hangers, radar, and missile defenses with a couple of Foxtrots and Condors (or their upgrades) at each base. I'm wondering if the beginners are spending way too many resources on research and building fancy ground combat weapons at the start? If you think ground combat is the only thing that really matters I could see that would take you down a path where you'd have grind every mission to survive. Nation funding/relations is FAR more important selling alien artifacts on eBay. That was not true in the OG.

I can't agree more. The earth was overrun in my previous run but by changing my tactic to focus on air combat, not expanding research and manufacturing (the starting labs are more then enough for a while) made a huge difference in my current run. Initially I did not realize that shooting down the ufo's and preventing the events they create is the most important way to improve relations and ground combat is mainly for the money and research unlocks. I was approaching the game the other way around . The profit you gain from funding increase (millions each month) is way more then then you could possibly make up for with ground missions. I think people do not realize this and that is why they run into funding problems. It is easy to focus on the ground combat missions to got the little immediate reward instead of going for the big monthly paycheck by keeping overhead low and focussing on air coverage. It feels to me like in the old xcom and firaxis xcom the ground combat was a much bigger part of the funding you received so it requires changing some assumptions if you are used to that gameplay as i was.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Cryonist