Balancing ground combat risks/rewards - discussion

[Solver]

Something that has been bothering me lately is the risk-reward ratio for ground combat missions, and the benefits overall of doing such missions. So I'd like to start a discussion here on the problems and possible ways of balancing it, also as it all relates to mods such as Dynamic UFOs.

The background is such that Goldhawk has reduced monetary rewards from ground missions, and implemented the airstrike mechanic, so that players would not necessarily feel compelled to grind 100 ground missions per playthrough. That is fair.

The problem arises, in my opinion, from the fact that it only works in the early game and, to an extend, the mid-game. In the late game, this philosophy seems to break down. This is perhaps not unexpected, as the late game has simply not been tested nearly as much.

In the late game, the risk in ground missions grows considerably. You probably have by then a bunch of elite soldiers. Losing any of them is a big setback. This is always the greatest danger in ground missions, but losing a Sergeant is nowhere near as bad as losing a Captain or higher ranked soldier. You cannot just train a replacement by doing another 2 easier missions. Easier missions do not necessarily happen often in the late game, and any training mission is in itself a risk.

The rewards, however, aren't that high. Of course, securing each type of UFO once is important - you get the tech. But beyond that? It seems like securing a second Cruiser or Carrier isn't a great idea. You get some resources, probably for building Marauders and MAG weapons, but while those resources aren't plentiful, there is also not a great shortage of them. And the monetary rewards are also not that significant - it's nice to have the cash, but probably not worth the risk of doing such a mission.

This also applies to alien bases. You want to do one base ASAP, thereby getting the base upgrade & quantum center, but subsequent bases offer little reward for the risk, and seem to be outright a bad idea to assault once they've grown to a larger size. Assaulting a large alien base is a grueling task and the rewards are barely there. Battleships are also problematic. You want one to capture a Praetor unless you get one from a base, but you certainly don't want to assault a second Battleship given that it's full of elite soldiers and has a very powerful Praetor.

So, what to do? I think inspiration can be drawn from the original game, where more difficult missions provided a lot of money, which would have been fine had the economy not been broken otherwise. I am thinking these steps might be good to improve the rewards from ground missions:

* Increase resource costs for late-game tech - Marauder/Valkyrie/MAG weaponry, thus perhaps encouraging the players more to go after UFOs to build this tech.

* Let more difficult UFOs (Cruiser and up) contribute significantly more financially compared to the earlier UFOs.

* I'm a bit lost on alien bases. Maybe let destroying an alien base also provide a relations boost, as opposed to just stopping the relations drain.

* Provide a somewhat significant relations bonus for saving civilians in terror missions, making the highest obtainable reward higher than now.

I am very open to suggestions here from some masters of balance.

[Mikhail Ragulin]

I've been looking at quite a simple way of doing this. It involves capturing more aliens - like in the OG.

At the the moment, we need only one alien officer. My plan is to restrict them to bases, and make it so that more than one is needed. This is done by adjusting the research tree - the first officer gives basic info, but we need more. So, one has to capture another one. Or two, or three, etc.

Same for battleships/cruisers etc - put an alien on there that the player needs in order to progress, but break it into stages again. Instead of one praetor, maybe two. Maybe three. Repeat ad nauseam.

[radek]

I totally agree.

Or maybe for example each captured commander (after the first one which is needed to end the game and up to certain amount in total) unlock additional tech?

Same for large bases.

Like for example (taken out of nowhere):

Ceasan commander --> +5% dmg against alliens

Sebilian Commander --> Even Better super extra medicpacks

And so on.

[Solver]

Let's note that the OG did not do this well. You needed: any alien, alien leader, alien commander. Just three aliens to enable the final mission, and also a psionic alien and a navigator for getting psilab and hyperwave decoder. The navigator could be the first alien you capture, and then your leader or commander could be a psionic alien, so you could unlock everything with just three captured aliens.

I am also looking for something that makes the player more powerful, not just progresses the tech tree. What I mean is, getting money or tech also adds power - you can do stuff with those. Capturing an Alien Leader progresses you towards the final mission but does in itself not make things easier so it's not a reward in the same sense as money/alenium/reactors.

[radek]

Yes and thats what Im talking about. Of course we can ommit Offiers cause up to this point in time, game is balanced already.

Im not sure if it is possible but for example lets assume that capturing large base with super defense gives u something that u cannot normally get.

And now u have something like an additional objective. U dont need to fulfill that but if would u could cause it gives a very nice item (like i don't know better radars/walls/medicenters/whatever)

[Solver]

I could see putting some advanced tech into large alien bases, yeah. Like something that gives you advanced tech labs (single building for laboratory & workshop), or better medical centers. Perhaps large bases or Battleships could have some kind of "psionic relay" devices that would allow you to develop psi-defensive armour.

[kabill]

Ok, some thoughts:

- Shift relations modifiers from shooting down UFOs towards doing crash missions again, and have this scale by UFO type so that larger UFOs provide larger bonuses. Therefore, doing larger crash sites is more of an incentive in places you might be about to lose. (However, by late game you already control the skies, so this might not matter very much).

- Add in additional resource pre-requisites for late-game manufacturing (especially aircraft). For example, the Marauder could require an anti-gravity generator to build, meaning that for every Marauder you want to build, you need to bag a Cruiser+ in a ground mission. (This is better than simply increasing alloy/alenium costs as you can't just grind smaller crash-sites for resources).

- Add various penalties in for alien bases continuing to exist. For example, have ticker increases for completed supply missions; increase the funding damage they do; have them regularly increase the alien ticker merely by existing; (continue to) link them to maximum UFO spawn count. Also, have them build more often. And make them harder, at least the early ones.

- As an addition to that point, have the effects of alien bases scale with size. So small bases apply a x1 multiplier to all alien base effects, medium bases apply a x2 modifier and large bases a x3 modifier. That way, as the game goes on, the impact of bases increases making them more significant relative to their danger late-game.

- Unique tech drops for larger alien bases?

- Have some/all alien weapons destroy equipment/make it easier somehow for equipment to be lost. One of the main issues with the game at the moment is that there's no downward pressure on resources/no resource sink, so anything you spend resources on is a more or less permanent investment which you can't lose. If you needed some resources just to keep treading water, it would make the loot drops from larger UFOs more valuable as smaller ones won't cut it if you want to expand your stocks of stuff.

- Allow experience to scale with UFO type, so soldiers can gain more stat bonuses on harder missions.

Another thought, which is tangential to the original question but I think also addresses it is to make the special missions (base attacks, base defenses and terror missions; also landed UFO missions) more common.

For me, the issue isn't just that there's no incentive to do the toughest UFO ground missions but that it's generally easy to avoid all the difficult missions. Sufficient air control late-game means you never see any of the special missions, meaning that there are *only* crash sites to do. And since you can elect not to do the hardest crash missions, you don't really have to do many hard late-game missions at all.

Making the special missions more common, and making them difficult, would therefore help the issue by providing more top-level missions for the player to deal with. Sure, they can still skip many of the late game crash sites, but that's fine because they're doing other stuff instead. So while this idea doesn't directly address the original problem, it does indirectly relate to it and might work as an alternative or in conjunction with other changes.

[kabill]

Sorry, this might be a double-post.

I am also looking for something that makes the player more powerful, not just progresses the tech tree. What I mean is, getting money or tech also adds power - you can do stuff with those. Capturing an Alien Leader progresses you towards the final mission but does in itself not make things easier so it's not a reward in the same sense as money/alenium/reactors.

I'm not certain that simply putting in things that make the player more powerful is a good solution. This is because, late-game, the only use for more power is to make it easier to get more power. I.e. having all the best equipment only really helps you complete recovery missions which only really helps get you even more equipment... that you don't need other than to get more equipment!

In other words, any amount of loot on, say, a battleship is irrelevant. Because that loot is only going to be useful in making stuff so the next Battleship you attack is easier. But if you don't do any more battleships, you don't need the equipment.

(It's actually the same reason why a second strike team seems pointless to me. It allows you to collect more resources, but the only purpose of those resources is to help outfit the squad you created to collect them in the first place!)

For me, then, the solution needs to be combined with a strong *downward* pressure that makes that power useful or even necessary. For example, throwing around lots of very hard terror/base attack missions would provide a strong incentive for the player to rush for good equipment and grinding easier crash missions might be more costly in the long run by forcing more very tough missions without the proper gear.

[Solver]

As usual, I really like what you're thinking, kabill.

- Add in additional resource pre-requisites for late-game manufacturing (especially aircraft). For example, the Marauder could require an anti-gravity generator to build, meaning that for every Marauder you want to build, you need to bag a Cruiser+ in a ground mission. (This is better than simply increasing alloy/alenium costs as you can't just grind smaller crash-sites for resources).

This is simple, and it's brilliant. Now that I reached late-game in my playthrough, for the first time in a while, I note that the resource costs for Marauders aren't even a factor. By the time I got them researched, I have enough alenium and alloys to significantly boost my air force. Requiring advanced tech for these most advanced aircraft is great.

- Add various penalties in for alien bases continuing to exist. For example, have ticker increases for completed supply missions; increase the funding damage they do; have them regularly increase the alien ticker merely by existing; (continue to) link them to maximum UFO spawn count. Also, have them build more often. And make them harder, at least the early ones.

Given that I have made alien base funding damage moddable, that can work. However, I prefer increasing rewards to increasing the potential penalties. Or at least mostly. This is where I'm thinking to provide a relations boost for destroying an alien base, much like how terror sites work.

- Unique tech drops for larger alien bases?

If I can refactor how the game handles buildings without going nuts, that would be great.

- Have some/all alien weapons destroy equipment/make it easier somehow for equipment to be lost. One of the main issues with the game at the moment is that there's no downward pressure on resources/no resource sink, so anything you spend resources on is a more or less permanent investment which you can't lose. If you needed some resources just to keep treading water, it would make the loot drops from larger UFOs more valuable as smaller ones won't cut it if you want to expand your stocks of stuff.

A very fair point again. Do you think this is as simple as adding overdamage to a few of the more powerful alien weapons? This might though have the opposite effect - it increases the risk from ground missions, not the reward. Overdamage also prevents soldiers from having the critically wounded survival chance.

Another thought, which is tangential to the original question but I think also addresses it is to make the special missions (base attacks, base defenses and terror missions; also landed UFO missions) more common.

The lack of base defense missions is a bug. Terror could probably be made a bit more common still. But the missions themselves hardly need to be more difficult - terror missions actually are really difficult (especially with darn Androns), it's just that they are again unlikely to happen due to the other issues.

(It's actually the same reason why a second strike team seems pointless to me. It allows you to collect more resources, but the only purpose of those resources is to help outfit the squad you created to collect them in the first place!)

That is also something I'd like to address, by the way. I really, really like the idea of a second strike team as a good investment. But it's never really paid off for me. Doing the math, it is also unlikely to. It takes several successful missions just to pay back the initial investment in soldiers, hangars and the dropship, and that's not considering the fact that the second team also needs equipment, even if they do partially rely on hand-me-downs from the main team.

I'd love to put a mod together with you addressing these issues, perhaps bundling with Dynamic UFOs.

[kahvipannu]

I agree. I think putting more emphasis to resources gained from missions would balance things out, in terms of building and research, as people have suggested. During my first normal playthru I pretty much never had any problems with resources, currently playing with veteran, but not far enough to give input if things are more balanced there.

I would love to see more emphasis on resource gathering, maybe making things cost more in terms of production, or less gain from ufos, no resources from non groundable ufos, or do repairing/replacing of planes cost any resources atm? If not, that would be strange. Make us gather more parts from UFOs to build those fighters, powersources, navigation systems, and so on. Also I never seemed to lose any equipment, not even when my guys got blown to pieces, so producing replacements were not a thing.

Making things non auto-upgradable would help too I think, like new med packs, could require alien resources + production. Not all of them ofcourse, but things like that. Same goes for base-upgrade stuff, like new labs etc.

Edited June 30, 2014 by kahvipannu

[kabill]

Regarding the second strike team issue: for me the best solution would simply be to utterly nerf the range of dropships so that you *need* multiple bases to get to additional crash sites/terror missions.

The problem with this is that you get a situation as with aerial terror sites where RNG determines whether or not you can actually reach them. You could address this by making it fairly simply to get multiple bases down before those kinds of missions start popping up, but then you're pretty much forcing that as an opening move.

I do still think it could work, but you're getting dangerously close to an overhaul mod which I don't think is what you're looking for. (Although I have an overhaul idea which actually might address a lot of these issues. Might be a bit hard-core, though!).

[Khall]

Yeah I think adding overdamage to the alien grenades, plasma cannon, the medium and heavy drone cannon, and praetor gun would be a good idea. If overdamage could also only occur at -20 hp (putting the "over" in "overdamage" ) when you have no chance of survival anyway that would be great.

The only point of having a second strike team right now is to do ground missions and collect resources, which has already been pointed out as a resource sink in itself. Shifting the relationship boost away slightly from purely air interceptions to ground missions will make it more worthwhile.

Another way of making a resource sink throughout the game apart from replacing lost equipment is to not make advanced aircraft missiles and weapons upgradeable, instead you have to produce them yourself (for a very small cost in alenium/alloys, don't want to make them too scarce). Apart from the resource sink, it will add some more complexity and micromanagement in the geoscape and aircraft loadouts, however it will require some rebalancing and is a pretty big change in itself, which some people might not like.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Khall

[radek]

- Add various penalties in for alien bases continuing to exist. For example, have ticker increases for completed supply missions; increase the funding damage they do; have them regularly increase the alien ticker merely by existing; (continue to) link them to maximum UFO spawn count. Also, have them build more often. And make them harder, at least the early ones.

I dont agree with that. It means that either u will win at ease or lose completely. Just imagine the situation where player A controls all the skies and player B has some problems. You are not making the game more difficult for the first one but for the second. This is not our point.

- As an addition to that point, have the effects of alien bases scale with size. So small bases apply a x1 multiplier to all alien base effects, medium bases apply a x2 modifier and large bases a x3 modifier. That way, as the game goes on, the impact of bases increases making them more significant relative to their danger late-game.

Pretty much the same thing as above. But slightly better.

[KevinHann]

I am glad to see you guys cover a lot of points I was thinking about when I saw Solver's thread (had to go out and kabill beat me to it, thankfully as he is as always great with expressing and motivating his points).

Perhaps you would entertain an old thought of mine about unique alien guns - bear with me for a second before discarding it as too hard to code with little reward. I feel it or some variation of it could also address the complaints of linear weapon upgrades.

Let's say every once in a while, but not too often, GC spawns an alien equipped with an unique weapon. Instead of going to the research division if captured at the end of the mission, this weapon goes towards the workshop, where it's disassembled and turns into a specific "part", which then goes in your storage. Combining these parts then allows you to construct several unique weapons which vary in range, splash damage, damage range, etc. factors which make them unique compared to the "standard" categories.

Ammo for these weapons could also be unique, forcing you to use them carefully until you clear more crash sites and stockpile it.

Long and long-winded idea over.

I'm strongly for consumable rather than permanent equipment. Armor could simply "vanish" when it has absorbed the amount of damage it can absorb, forcing you to produce more of the same if you want to keep using it.

One of the major "complaints" I share is that the current ticker system is predictable and - what is worse - punishes successful players. I love kabill's Dynamic UFOs concept but perhaps you will agree it is treating the symptoms rather than the general problem causing them. Has anyone considered reworking it into something more complex? Let's for a second accept the invasion doesn't have to be as straightforward and is more flexible, taking into account what the player does. It could lead to a much more varied gameplay in a fluent way. You shoot down ten UFOs in a row - the aliens locate your base with a scouting mission, and then unleash a base assault mission. They attempt multiple terror missions (say 2) to get your attention while committing a construction mission in the same time - the suicide manner of those terror mission would make more sense then. Tl;dr they respond with altered behaviour on the geoscape after specific mission of theirs has failed or succeeded.

I'd also suggest altering base assault UFOs - the fact they must reach your base to execute the assault makes them much more vulnerable than the ordinary UFOs flying around. Thus spawning more often might and will most likely still result in few base assaults actually happening. Although if they can't be shot down or require multiple squadrons to do so it would be different. This would also add much more substance to building defensive missiles.

Although I have an overhaul idea which actually might address a lot of these issues. Might be a bit hard-core, though!

My friend, sharing is a virtue!

Edited June 30, 2014 by KevinHann

[Beltorn]

Currently, i would advise to focus on breaking the tedium of crash-sites with alien missions and putting in several object requirements for late-game tech - like the aforementioned anti-gravity generator for the Marauder(btw, if it is a req for the marauder it should be same for Valkyrie too). Though in current game you can build marauder only with hardened alloys, no cruiser-related tech required. Also alien reactors look most certainly to be another viable item too.

In this vein - please make "hyperdrive" a requirement for Operation:Endgame - otherwise it seems rather disconnected how they can make an anti-hyperdrive device without studying hyperdrives first.

About second strike teams - i suggest looking at the solution by long war mod - combat fatigue mechanic - i.e an increasing penalty for using a soldier in more than one combat mission. My current longest streak is 5 crash sites and one terror mission during 30 hours. I suggest to consider 2 missions as reasonable amount to complete in one go, especially if there is a rather long time (10-12 hours - a travel between continents basically) delay in-between. To compansate the player we can increase the starting roster to 15-20 soldiers.

Edited June 30, 2014 by Beltorn

[radek]

I'm strongly for consumable rather than permanent equipment. Armor could simply "vanish" when it has absorbed the amount of damage it can absorb, forcing you to produce more of the same if you want to keep using it.

This mechanism already exist. When soldier dies his armor is lost.

[KevinHann]

This mechanism already exist. When soldier dies his armor is lost.

Not at all. I'm suggesting the armor could disappear when it is penetrated, absorbed all the damage it can. That doesn't mean the soldier will die.

[kabill]

@radek: for sure, there's an issue with snowballing difficulty that's quite hard to deal with balance wise. I think this is why the ticker increases for UFO missions were removed, because they just made the failure to shoot down UFOs even more punishing.

Ideally, as Kevin implies, some kind of self-regulating difficulty system would be best. However, without some (serious?) code rewrites, I don't know how that would be possible.

That said, I still think it could work, but I think it might also require many other tweaks to work well and again it's moving towards overhaul territory.

re: armour being destroyed - I'm not sure that's 100% true. Or at least, I've recovered plenty of armour from ground missions before. I *think* there is (still?) a bug that sometimes results in equipment being eaten, but I'm fairly certain equipment recovery is the default.

[radek]

Not at all. I'm suggesting the armor could disappear when it is penetrated, absorbed all the damage it can. That doesn't mean the soldier will die.

I just mean that, in my opinion, it makes just a slightly difference in the game. Each ground mission normally cost you something which means that from time to time u will have to send weaker forces due to lack of supplies right?

Cause u can lose weapons, can lose armors, can lose soldiers right? Difference is only in the fact that you you separate "amor lose event" with "soldier lose event".

But it wont change our late game balance problem which was this topic about.

@kabil

I know it is very difficult I understand. My suggestion is just to focus on those mechanisms and concepts that are not invasive. Even if they are just a small improvements.

But u know in general u guys have great ideas. I just not convinced to all of them. ;]

Edited June 30, 2014 by radek

[KevinHann]

Yes, it would require serious code rewrites and I have no idea how hard it would be. Perhaps someone experienced with coding could at least comment on the expected amount of work and how tough it would be.

[kabill]

@kabil

I know it is very difficult I understand. My suggestion is just to focus on those mechanisms and concepts that are not invasive. Even if they are just a small improvements.

Ah, sorry, wasn't especially clear. I was, more or less, agreeing with you. While I do think the suggestions you highlighted as problematic could work, the complexity in making them work is an issue. Thus, for what is being discussed here, I agree that less radical changes might be best.

[Solver]

Great discussion

I think balancing late-game rewards and extra strike teams can work as merely a Geoscape mod, without changing combat mechanics like adding combat fatigue. There should be some economical adjustment that can make second teams viable, though it eludes me for the moment. But extra requirements on late-game tech sound great.

Did armour in the original game disappear for any killed soldier? I think it did, but can somebody confirm for me?

[kabill]

Yes, when a soldier died armour was always destroyed. I really like that as a feature as it actually makes a lot of sense (if you took enough damage to get killed, the armour was probably ruined in the process).

[KevinHann]

Would it be significantly harder to make armor disappearing when absorbing X damage rather than just when a soldier is killed?

[Solver]

Do you think that in itself would create enough downwards pressure with resources? Given that more advanced armours cost alloys. It could then also use a slight funding boost overall to compensate for the possible losses, but it could put resources at a slightly higher importance. Then again, it punishes you even more for losing good soldiers, so armour destruction can only be combined with higher incentives for ground combat.

I'm thinking overdamage on Plasma Cannons and Assault Plasmas at least, for the resource drain.

What do you also think about giving a slight - some 10% - funding boost for ground missions?