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Autoresolve ground battles?


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Yes, I know this may sounds like an heresy, since this game is built around tactical phase. But I'd love a DEPTH strategic worldmap and auto-solve button for ground combat that just say the battle summary depending on individual soldier stats/gear vs aliens ones. This would allow to play this game as a 'management' strategy game. I know that there is a safe airstrike button, but it's not the same!

I didn't played too much yet to X2, I'm waiting for the final version, but here some suggestions for a strategic layer if they aren't already done:

- Paint zones in the map where there are rumours from alien activity (you must send an interceptor to investigate or similar).

- Some countries declares war to another (maybe because alien influence). Maybe one of them could request from you stop to support the other one.

- Some countries may be against you and all the countries that supports you.

- If you assist too much to one alliance (ie NATO) the other one may suspect you work for them.

- Another organization is performing activities against aliens. And maybe better than you. Some countries could start funding it, so you will be soon in problems.

- Being able to perform political influence on countries (break alliances, stop wars, start wars, increase funding, embargos, spy other countries, perform searchs in their territory for ufos or mutual enemies...)

- Having cheap units that you may place in some areas to look for alien activity or any evidence of their intentions (spy).

 

And one for the tactic layer:

- Being able to play these missions where you are rescuing an engineer or scientis, etc.

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Sounds to me like you want something that would make the sequel that wholy removes itself from the turn based tactics genre which that’s not the point of this game. Every game needs a core concept and just making that core completely skippable is indeed heresy:p.

But most of your other suggestions I can agree with. A deeper geoscape, research tree, air combat in conjunction with the ground combat would be great. But doing it in a nation vs nation basis would take it a little bit too far. I think having to sides of the Earth being the Warsaw Pact and NATO as  mentioned by some of my comments in other threads could be a good in the middle option.

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Yes, sometimes I want to play only in the strategic layer, and others I prefer micromanage the combat. It was just a suggestion, and I think it would be a nice addition with some risks (your soldiers may die). The autoresolve may have even some sliders about how you would wish your soldiers behave, agressive level, try to retreat as soon you have X casualities, etc.

The idea is you may still playing all the battles you want, in the same way we do with air combat now. Of course, the game should have a good strategic appeal to do this :)

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On 4/1/2020 at 5:25 AM, Juan said:

Yes, sometimes I want to play only in the strategic layer, and others I prefer micromanage the combat. It was just a suggestion, and I think it would be a nice addition with some risks (your soldiers may die). The autoresolve may have even some sliders about how you would wish your soldiers behave, agressive level, try to retreat as soon you have X casualities, etc.

The idea is you may still playing all the battles you want, in the same way we do with air combat now. Of course, the game should have a good strategic appeal to do this :)

Well without gound combat this game quite literally has no real content. The geoscape is just meant to be filler, as it should be. 

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Options are always good, what if you just want to auto-resolve the boring easy missions? What if the air game gets good enough to play on its own? What if you only want to play the lategame missions?

That said I have no idea what a decent auto-resolve algorithm would be. Way too complex to simplify without making it very unbalanced. Even air auto-resolve is hard to balance.

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I've found that there are no "easy" missions (at least when playing at veteran level iron man mode)! I think you've hit the nail on the head about the auto-resolve algorithms though. Why waste time on making a system where you are auto-resolving what is basically the core of the game (which is why and what we have bought the game for). I'd much rather the time was spent on game content, more complex alien AI etc.

When you think about it, no part of a game should get good enough to the point where it is a certainty that you will win. A game should always present a challenge, otherwise there is no point in playing it. I'll give you an analogy here. In War Thunder, there are people who have risen to the maximum level of rank 100, but they still use a mouse to fly. The mouse in this game basically lets you fly an aircraft like a UFO, but there is nothing much too it once you learn and have used a mouse for years - it becomes an on the rails shooter basically, with the nuances of different aircraft being sanitised. You cannot "feel" different fighters. Some may be faster than others and some may turn a little better, but you have no recoil in your weapons (even 50mm anti-tank guns) so you can always land shots with precision accuracy, partly thanks to your AI instructor flying the aircraft for you.

Compare this with a joypad or joystick, which I use. Sure, you are made to look like a mug when you stall and they can't. But a Spitfire feels different to a Hurricane to fly (less stable, more slippy etc.). Yet people don't step up to this more qualitative experience.

In Xenonauts, every mission I play is different and tense. I may get over-confident and get my best man killed in assaulting a small UFO simply because I want him to gain a bit more Reaction experience by standing him in front of a UFO entrance. Its a risk/reward thing. I'd never really see why you would want that to be taken away from you, otherwise what's the point in playing at all?

How would you feel if you sent your best man on a mission only for the auto-resolve algorithm to proclaim that he died on that mission through no fault of your own?

Edited by ooey
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On 4/3/2020 at 8:02 PM, ooey said:

Its a risk/reward thing. I'd never really see why you would want that to be taken away from you, otherwise what's the point in playing at all?

Playing two/three 30-hours campaigns with less tactical combat, instead a long 80-hours one with lots of combats. That, and being more strategic, are the points! 

I love ground combat, that's why I supported the game, however I wish the campaign would had less interruptions.

I don't know about you, but when I have already 40 hours in a campaign I start to cheat (loading / saving) because I don't want to lose all my progress or I am lazy to continue it with 'more of the same'. Ironman isn't the solution for me for a long campaign that you can lose in just one or two battles. Ironman is the solution for me for a short campaign, tho!. Airstrike is welcome, but doesn't risk your soldiers and it doesn't allow you to get some resources.

Of course, special missions like capture an alien should always be played.

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On 4/3/2020 at 2:02 PM, ooey said:

A game should always present a challenge, otherwise there is no point in playing it.

It's okay for some missions to only be challenging if you go for "extra credit" such as taking hostages, training experience. It's not the vanilla approach but it still makes for an interesting fight, and it means that missions don't have to involve random oneshots against otherwise easy enemies (see: xDiv phase1 seb flamers) to stay interesting.

You're probably right though, it would be better to adjust campaign length/difficulty from the start than to later decide it's not worth playing.

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The Ground Battles are a Main Part of such Games. It´s hard, what it should be in all tactical Games. There you need Brain, Patience etc. It´s not a stupid forward-going like in a Shooter.

Everyone of us have played tatcical Games like Commando, C & C, X-Com etc. In Xenonauts it isn´t changed. Use the Defenes you have, make a mix of your Soldiers (Sharpshooters, Grenadiers with Launchers, Shield-Solders, Heavys etc.). Then you will win the Groundfights and if you get lucky with no Losess.

If someone would like to have Autoresolve he / she dosen´t use one of the importand things. They can play Ponyhof then.

Edited by Alienkiller
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With this option, Ground battles would be still be the main part of the game. You would play more quality and significant ground combats, instead lots of bland missions without other purpose that recollecting some materials. That's the only difference. And it would be optional, you may choose to play any combat you want, in the same way we currently do with air interception missions.

Edited by Juan
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Has no one mentioned that there already is an autoreolve for ground battles? It's called the airstrike, it pays money 100% of the time and you never risk losing any soldiers. The airstrike was designed for low tier ufos into the late game.

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Yes I know the Airstrike-Button. Have used it 2 or 3 Times where my Soldiers were so damaged that they could not do Ressource Collecting Missions. The Money is good, but collected Ressources are better. Without them you can´t upgrade the Human Technology and Humanity will lose.

Juan means Ground Battles which win automatically with your Soldiers. He / She wont use the Brain and controll the Soldiers manually, but that´s what makes such Strategy-Games very interessting. If someone wanna have only automatic Fights get Brainless.

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

Yes I know the Airstrike-Button. Have used it 2 or 3 Times where my Soldiers were so damaged that they could not do Ressource Collecting Missions. The Money is good, but collected Ressources are better. Without them you can´t upgrade the Human Technology and Humanity will lose.

Juan means Ground Battles which win automatically with your Soldiers. He / She wont use the Brain and controll the Soldiers manually, but that´s what makes such Strategy-Games very interessting. If someone wanna have only automatic Fights get Brainless.

Sorry double. But that´s the thing you see very often, esp. we old Gamers. Games from today are to easy and have no challange anymore. Such Games like Xenonauts / Xeononauts 2 / XCom etc. need Challanges and no Automatic Ground Fights like the automated Airbattles. So no automated Ground Battles to train the Brain. :)

Edited by Alienkiller
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43 minutes ago, Alienkiller said:

Sorry double. But that´s the thing you see very often, esp. we old Gamers. Games from today are to easy and have no challange anymore. Such Games like Xenonauts / Xeononauts 2 / XCom etc. need Challanges and no Automatic Ground Fights like the automated Airbattles. So no automated Ground Battles to train the Brain. :)

This is exactly what I was talking about with regard to War Thunder funnily enough. If you are fighting others that also use a joystick they can actually miss too - just like in real air combat! Actually I've played WT against other stickers in practice matches and they really are a thing of beauty. War Thunder comes into its own there, and air combat maneuvers actually work.

I'd love to see what young gamers make of things like Pacman and Defender. Such games probably wouldn't hold their attention for more than 5 minutes. They weren't games of tactical skill like Xenonauts, but they were games of skill nonetheless - especially Defender.

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With all due respect, I'm not here to discuss if you use the brain more than other people or you are older or prove anything. I'm doing this suggestion because I prefer spend my time in quality moments instead in lose countless hours in something that doesn't provide enough satisfaction.

In War Thunder you don't lose your "campaign" (there isn't) if you lose a battle. In Xenonauts you do. That's why I ask for a shortest campaign being able to optionally autoresolve any unimaginative ground fight with some basic parameters. Any person which appreciate quality over quantity will understand this.

Optional means you may do or not do it.

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I would just like to restate that it's better to start a short campaign than decide later some missions should be skipped. Length should  be handled in the campaign start screen options.

Edited by Bobit
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On 4/8/2020 at 9:48 AM, Juan said:

Optional means you may do or not do it.

Did you get my point about taking away the valuable resources and time to put the AI in place to do this? Goldhawk are a small team. Players are already chomping at the bit for them to release Xen2 soon, because they are beginning to get restless. I'm afraid that all things considered, I disagree entirely with making the core of the game an optional auto-resolve for so many reasons.

This reminds me of my nephew playing that Yu-Gi-Oh card game on line with his friends. It ceases to actually become a game because he flicks through everything so fast just because he wants to get to the end result, win or lose.

I am a programmer myself, and I know that AI is very tricky to get right. You have to throw a lot of resources and testing at it. It's just not worth doing the auto resolve thing for a small programming team. Do you know what Julian Gollop did for the AI with Rebelstar one player game? It was an easy strategy to figure out. When attacking the moonbase, if you only entered via one airlock the computer would rush all its units to that airlock to defend it, only for you to then later go in the back door and win. Every time. Cheap and dirty I know, and this was in another era. But the fact remains the same - good AI is resource-hungry in so many ways, and I'd much prefer that effort to go into making Alien AI more intelligent and cunning WHILST fighting them on the tactical map!

However, if the team find they have more resources to do so later then why not? But I would bet they would want to move on to another project by then. This is why Goldhawks plan of releasing community editions is so promising for mods though. Someone may feel it's a good idea and take you up on it.

Edited by ooey
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