Incentives for Ironman

[BuzuBuzu]

I was thinking that maybe there should be some sort of reward for playing on Ironman mode.

I remember when I played Fallout: Tactics in Ironman mode, your soldiers would get an xp boost and level up more quickly.

Something similar could be applied to the Ironman mode in Xenonauts. Those brave enough to play on that difficulty could expect their soldier's stats to increase more quickly. The degree to which they do would have to be balanced. I doubt it'd be fair to give them double the stat increase, but maybe a 25% increase over non-Ironman would be fair.

I guess how easy this is to do depends on how the counters for stat increases are implemented in Xenonauts. If counters are reset between missions and don't carry over from mission to mission, then a 25% increase wouldn't make a difference unless a soldier's stat increased 3 or more points (assuming you're rounding up) in a single mission, and more complicated mechanics would be needed to implement this. But if the counters do carry over from mission to mission, then adding a simple 1.25 multiplier for each counter in Ironman games would be pretty easy to do in my opinion.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BuzuBuzu

[Gorlom]

Since people sought out the ironman restriction on thir own in previous X-com games I really don't think any incentive is needed. People are playing ironman mode to have a greater challange (since you cant go back a save if things go really wrong) wouldn't giving people a bonus for going ironman be counter-productive in that case?

[BuzuBuzu]

You're absolutely right in that added incentive isn't needed for a segment of gamers. However, I think there's another segment (which I fall into) who would play on Ironman if there were some perks involved.

Going back to Fallout: Tactics as an example, the main reason why I played it on Ironman was that my soldiers leveled more quickly and that bonus counterbalanced the frustration of having to re-do some failed missions from scratch (a slightly different mechanic to what Xenonauts has).

You don't really need an Ironman mode for the sort of people who voluntarily played X-COM without reloading, I'm sure they would do the same thing in Xenonauts. My point is that if we're bothering to make a distinct Ironman mode, why not make it a little more distinct by adding some incentives that may get some who are on the proverbial Ironman fence to try and play the game with the added challenge.

Those incentives don't necessarily have to be increased stat gains for soldiers like I suggested. If anyone has any other ideas on how to make Ironman mode not just a purely ascetic experience, please feel free to share.

Edited April 4, 2012 by BuzuBuzu

[Gauddlike]

For me that would reduce the appeal of the ironman mode.

Ironman is a restriction on the player to increase the challenge.

The rest of the game is unchanged because that would dilute the difficulty spike of ironman mode.

It does fit into the custom difficulty setting that has been discussed previously though.

If you want a custom game that has ironman saves, tougher aliens but faster soldier progression then that should all be adjustable in the options.

Back to your suggestion though.

If something was added to the ironman mode maybe a slight increase to game speed across the board?

If soldiers progress faster then research and manufacturing could also have reduced timers.

The aliens could also progress a little faster.

This would turn ironman into a shorter, faster, but potentially more tense game as you gain more in a shorter time but HAVE to work faster when the enemy pushes harder.

[Chris]

Iron man is only intended to increase the challenge, so I don't really want to add benefits to encourage people to select it. Really, it's the way the game is meant to be played.

[The New Romance]

What about changing it 180 degrees, then, making Ironman Mode the standard game mode with a little box in the lower left corner saying "Wussie Mode"? Its functionally the same, but I believe it might change everything from a psychological point of view (plus, more people would probably experience the game as it's meant to be).

[Gorlom]

TNR that would turn some gamers away. They would feel insulted that they are beeing called wusses for likeing to play the game with manually set milestones they can go back to and replay from.

You might be able to pull it off if the overall game had a sillier theme or something that's already turned 180 degrees like the overlord series. But for Xenonauts that would just be a bad idea... imo.

[The New Romance]

Of course, you probably shouldn't call it "Sissie Mode" or something like that. That was just a joke

[Jean-Luc]

Yeah, Ironman is its own incentive. It's how many people think the game should be played, kinda like perma-death in roguelikes.

[Sathra]

With JL on this. Its an additional option. Its automatically on for the highest difficulty on anyways, and you would get faster trooper grouwth, mainly because you fight more. Like EU and Superhuman making cash-flow less of a problem (because of the sheer number of HP and corpses).

[Chris]

Most people seem to think Iron Man is a bug anyway. We need to add a warning telling people what it does if they try and start a game with it selected, because people frequently report being unable to save as a bug.

[The New Romance]

Most people seem to think Iron Man is a bug anyway. We need to add a warning telling people what it does if they try and start a game with it selected, because people frequently report being unable to save as a bug.

This might be aggravated by the fact that you are actually able to make a save, but you can't properly reload it. Might be worth to disable the save button and functionality in every case where Ironman doesn't allow for saving.

Edited April 7, 2012 by The New Romance

[Sathra]

Or make the Iron Man mode selector more obvious.