Air Combat auto-resolve idea

[catmorbid]

On the last dev update you mentioned you might be implementing an auto-resolve for air combat. I agree with the idea, since at some point engaging trivial combats is just annoying and pointless. Or if not, there might still be need for it. If not, then not.

However, I also have an idea regarding the auto-resolve to take the player's skill into account, and thought I'd post it here regardless of it an auto-resolve mechanisms will ever be implemented or not.

Make the success chance of the auto-resolve based on the ratio of how successful the player is in downing UFO's. Start the ratio at 50% for example and for each downed ufo increase it by 1% (up to 100%) and for each lost aircraft decrease it by 1% down to, let's say 5 or 10%. Then use this percentage to multiply a base auto-resolve chance for the final chance of a successful auto-resolve.

E.g. let's say the win/lose ratio is 75% and the base resolve chance of a light scout would be 110%, then the chance of successful auto-resolve mission would be (75% * 110%) = ~83%. Now let's say the player has a bad streak and loses 10 air crafts in a row, decreasing the win/lose ratio to 65%. Now the auto-resolve chance against the same craft would be 72%. You could also assign auto-resolve chance modifiers based on aircraft type and weaponry.

Max chance could be capped at, say 90-95% while there might not be need for a minimum chance.

I believe this would be a nice way to make player skill have an effect on auto-resolve.

To make it harsher, each lost aircraft could have more than 1%-unit impact on auto-resolve chance.

The win/lose ration can be called pilot morale or something, in order for it to make more sense than some ratio.

Edited January 29, 2013 by catmorbid

[Gorlom]

since at some point engaging trivial combats is just annoying and pointless.

Just pointing out that you assume there will be trivial combat based on your experience with X-com94 right? Chris has said that he wants to phase out weaker crafts as stronger crafts start appearing. There might not be any trivial combats.

[catmorbid]

True, just my assumption, but anyway that's trivial and not the point of the thread; the feature was presented as a future possibility, I got an idea, and wrote it down.

Edited the post to clear some of the confusion regarding my assumptions, though.

[Gorlom]

Right, sorry I shouldn't be so negative about others expressing their ideas for how a feature should be implemented. I apologize, I did not mean it to come off that way. Although I'm really hoping there will be no need for the auto resolve as I think it would have a negative impact on the gameplay.

(I've explained the dangers I personally believe is there in numerous other threads already, so I don't think we need to take that discussion again. Let's just leave it with that I don't like the idea and hope we will not need it )

[Buzzles]

While I share the same sentiments as Gorlom on auto resolve and am generally against it, the methods proposed for a system which is affected by both successes and failures is quite interesting.

Question:

Would successful auto-resolves increase the odds of winning?

If yes, I feel that's dangerous as it basically reduces the incentive to do more than a few manual combats as if you keep winning you'll just keep winning as the odds will stack in your favour.

However, if not and only manual combat victories improve the chances of auto-victory, than that could be quite good, providing that both manual and auto-resolve failures decrease the chances of winning.

It has to be both manual and auto losses having a negative outcome otherwise the odds would remain static if you simply auto-resolved every air battle.

Edited January 31, 2013 by Buzzles

[catmorbid]

Would successful auto-resolves increase the odds of winning?

If yes, I feel that's dangerous as it basically reduces the incentive to do more than a few manual combats as if you keep winning you'll just keep winning as the odds will stack in your favour.

However, if not and only manual combat victories improve the chances of auto-victory, than that could be quite good, providing that both manual and auto-resolve failures decrease the chances of winning.

It has to be both manual and auto losses having a negative outcome otherwise the odds would remain static if you simply auto-resolved every air battle.

Hmh, yeah that sounds like a valid point and what you suggested sounds about right to me as well

[Tacobandit]

While I share the same sentiments as Gorlom on auto resolve and are generally against it, the methods proposed for a system which is affected by both successes and failures is quite interesting.

Question:

Would successful auto-resolves increase the odds of winning?

If yes, I feel that's dangerous as it basically reduces the incentive to do more than a few manual combats as if you keep winning you'll just keep winning as the odds will stack in your favour.

However, if not and only manual combat victories improve the chances of auto-victory, than that could be quite good, providing that both manual and auto-resolve failures decrease the chances of winning.

It has to be both manual and auto losses having a negative outcome otherwise the odds would remain static if you simply auto-resolved every air battle.

It should be the opposite. If you suffer a giant string of losses, your auto resolve score should go up. If you have a giant string of victories, your auto resolve score will go down. It discourages auto resolve as a cheap way to beat aliens on top of your victories, and it encourages a few wins when the aliens have been destroying your little MiGs.

[Betuor]

After EU, I'm done with random computer dice roles to determine my success. That, and risk. (those cheating bastarders)

[Gorlom]

It should be the opposite. If you suffer a giant string of losses, your auto resolve score should go up. If you have a giant string of victories, your auto resolve score will go down. It discourages auto resolve as a cheap way to beat aliens on top of your victories, and it encourages a few wins when the aliens have been destroying your little MiGs.

That sounds counterintuitive and like something that forces the player to play the airbattles anyway? Or would failing an autoresolve (not just the manual air battle) result in a bigger chance to win next time?

I'm having trouble understanding what you want out of this function? Do you want to encourage (force) players to do it manually (assuming you need to lose manually to raise the win rate of autoresolve) or something that would enable you to NEVER play a manual airbattle? Because your suggestion strikes me as either something that is a bad compromise or something that is horrible to balance properly compared to playing manual airbattles.

[Buzzles]

I understand what Tacobandit is on about.

Basically, there's sort of five cases to a system like this:

1) Hopelessly losing.

2) Suffering Losses.

3) Doing Ok aka the 50/50 split.

4) Winning frequently.

5) *Dons gold baggy pants* "You Can't Touch This!".

What I proposed deals with 2,3 and 4. What Tacobandit proposes would deal with the cases at 1 and 5, and basically ensures that the player will always have a chance for victory that's not stupendously stacked against them, and will also ensure they always have a chance for failure as well.

It's just managing the tipping points.

[catmorbid]

I think 1) Hopelessly losing is part of the X-Com genre games' charm ^.^ Choose an easier difficulty, if you can't handle it, or restart and learn from your mistakes.

So while I understand as well what tacobandit meant, I think he's trying to counter for situations that don't need to be countered.

With case 5) we can take a look at my original proposition: Base Auto-resolve Chance (henceforth known as BARC) can be determined to vary according to the UFO type. What this would mean is that it can be set as low or as high as possible, ensuring that the chance never gets too good. Even with certain modifiers applied to BARC based on advanced crafts and weapons, it can be designed to never be 100% with the biggest ufos, but instead set to something that will always come with a risk.

Then again, once you got the best crafts and best weapons, the puniest ships shouldn't pose much threat, should they come around at all anyway.

I might add something to the original proposition however:

Since people would presumably only use auto-resolve if the chances are good enough, maybe it should be rethinked a bit - although the value can still be used in the background.

Any of the following scenarios are possible with each fight (correct me if there's any to add):

1) Win unscathed

2) Win, but get damaged

3) Win, get damage, one craft destroyed

4) Win, get damage, two crafts destroyed

5) Lose, get damaged (flee)

6) Lose, get damaged, one craft destroyed (flee)

7) Lose, get damaged, two crafts destroyed (flee)

8) Lose: all crafts destroyed

Instead of binary win-or-lose scenario, success or failure should be in degrees. You could determine that certain degrees are only possible if the chance is big enough. For example, scenario 8 could only occur if chance of failure is bigger than say, 50% and so on.

[Gorlom]

Any of the following scenarios are possible with each fight (correct me if there's any to add):

1) Win unscathed

2) Win, but get damaged

3) Win, get damage, one craft destroyed

4) Win, get damage, two crafts destroyed

5) Lose, get damaged (flee)

6) Lose, get damaged, one craft destroyed (flee)

7) Lose, get damaged, two crafts destroyed (flee)

8) Lose: all crafts destroyed

Technically a draw with mutual destruction is possible. As well as losses where you destroy one or two of the three alien ships (in any combination of own destructions/flee).

[Tacobandit]

I think 1) Hopelessly losing is part of the X-Com genre games' charm ^.^ Choose an easier difficulty, if you can't handle it, or restart and learn from your mistakes.

So while I understand as well what tacobandit meant, I think he's trying to counter for situations that don't need to be countered.

With case 5) we can take a look at my original proposition: Base Auto-resolve Chance (henceforth known as BARC) can be determined to vary according to the UFO type. What this would mean is that it can be set as low or as high as possible, ensuring that the chance never gets too good. Even with certain modifiers applied to BARC based on advanced crafts and weapons, it can be designed to never be 100% with the biggest ufos, but instead set to something that will always come with a risk.

Then again, once you got the best crafts and best weapons, the puniest ships shouldn't pose much threat, should they come around at all anyway.

I might add something to the original proposition however:

Since people would presumably only use auto-resolve if the chances are good enough, maybe it should be rethinked a bit - although the value can still be used in the background.

Any of the following scenarios are possible with each fight (correct me if there's any to add):

1) Win unscathed

2) Win, but get damaged

3) Win, get damage, one craft destroyed

4) Win, get damage, two crafts destroyed

5) Lose, get damaged (flee)

6) Lose, get damaged, one craft destroyed (flee)

7) Lose, get damaged, two crafts destroyed (flee)

8) Lose: all crafts destroyed

Instead of binary win-or-lose scenario, success or failure should be in degrees. You could determine that certain degrees are only possible if the chance is big enough. For example, scenario 8 could only occur if chance of failure is bigger than say, 50% and so on.

Except that you will never have air superiority like you did in the OG.

[Gauddlike]

Would your bonus for winning a few fights be permanent and consistent?

If you win your first five fights using three F17s against single light scouts would that bonus continue even though you were using Migs against heavy fighters, or even all the way through to your highest tier interceptors against battleships?

That could prevent a player from attempting any air combat at all as it may break the win streak that was making their auto resolved fights easier.

[Gorlom]

Gauddlike: remember that each UFO type has in this suggestion a multiplier that would decrease the chance as the UFOs become more difficult, so in the end you probably would have to do some manual battles to get the sucess rate up a bit to counter that multiplier.

[Gauddlike]

Or just use a bigger fighter to balance the higher modifier of the enemy.

Safer bet than risking playing the fight yourself and potentially worsening your future autoresolve chances.

I would prefer previous performance to have no bearing on the results if it was to be added.

If you are struggling to win for some reason so decide to auto resolve you are penalised which encourages you to struggle on with the part of the game you are not doing well at and likely not enjoying.

If you don't need to auto resolve because you are quite skilled/ lucky at air combat then you are given a bonus which encourages you to use it.

Why not just keep it simple, and the same for all players, by keeping the calculation based on the craft and weapons involved?

[Tacobandit]

Or just use a bigger fighter to balance the higher modifier of the enemy.

Safer bet than risking playing the fight yourself and potentially worsening your future autoresolve chances.

I would prefer previous performance to have no bearing on the results if it was to be added.

If you are struggling to win for some reason so decide to auto resolve you are penalised which encourages you to struggle on with the part of the game you are not doing well at and likely not enjoying.

If you don't need to auto resolve because you are quite skilled/ lucky at air combat then you are given a bonus which encourages you to use it.

Why not just keep it simple, and the same for all players, by keeping the calculation based on the craft and weapons involved?

Or you could just consider who likes the aircombat and who doesn't. Why add such an unwanted feature in the first place? Although I'd assume I'm the minority in that respect. I haven't heard too many opinions about it however.

It depends on how you want people to play the game. At this point I am assuming that you guys plan for players to mod the game to their tastes. If it's going to be that way, you shouldn't be worried by this. Just leave the aircombat as it is and people can tailor it later. The only problem with that is there needs to be some interception as collecting loot from UFOs is crucial. And despite me not liking that you will actually need to use tactics in the aircombat, I still want there to be certain constraints in the way that you fight aircraft, even if it's in the form of unlocked technology. Like for example, you would never engage a terror ship, abductor, supply ship, or battle ship with stingray missiles or a cannon. You'd need massed avalanche missiles or a plasma beam. And the battleship wasn't very safe to engage in the first place. That's what I mean by "simplified". Not removing the air combat altogether. Just not worrying about using actual tactics there (or maybe I should say "OG style" tactics).

If however, you plan to make this a "game" in the way that it should generally be played a certain way, then you guys might want to consider... simplifying the aircombat. Or making it possible to eventually beat the aliens in air superiority through technology (see above). Because I know when I'm playing a game, the more stuff I do and "experience" I get should be noticeable. This was evident in the OG and in EU. I think you guys were planning to have this game slowly make the aliens start killing you off strategically the longer you play, and that they'll have superior craft than you even when you have your top craft.

Edited February 2, 2013 by Tacobandit

[Gorlom]

Just leave the aircombat as it is and people can tailor it later. The only problem with that is there needs to be some interception as collecting loot from UFOs is crucial. And despite me not liking that you will actually need to use tactics in the aircombat, I still want there to be certain constraints in the way that you fight aircraft, even if it's in the form of unlocked technology. Like for example, you would never engage a terror ship, abductor, supply ship, or battle ship with stingray missiles or a cannon. You'd need massed avalanche missiles or a plasma beam. And the battleship wasn't very safe to engage in the first place. That's what I mean by "simplified". Not removing the air combat altogether. Just not worrying about using actual tactics there (or maybe I should say "OG style" tactics).

Easily (but tediously) fixed. Tailor the UFOs hp to player weapons damage output (set it as low as possible for the tier 1 playercrafts). make it so that a squadron of 3 tier 1 ships can never kill a tier 2 UFO (by tier 2 UFO I mean a UFO that you would not attack with tier 1 player crafts, use your own definition to figure out which UFOs are tier 2) if they unload all their stuff. maybe even 2-3 squadron buffer on the HP.

Balance the tier 2 player crafts damage so that they can kill Tier 2 UFOs and increase Tier 3 UFOs HP enough so that they can't be killed by Tier 2 player crafts squadrons.

Balance player crafts hp and UFO weapons damage either for invincibility or whatever is enough for you to not need to use tactics.

[Gauddlike]

Why add such an unwanted feature in the first place? Although I'd assume I'm the minority in that respect. I haven't heard too many opinions about it however.

I did say 'if it was to be added' because the point of the thread was a possible technique for the auto resolve if it makes it into the game, not a discussion about whether or not it should be done.

Personally I would prefer not to see it at all but that has been covered in another thread.

This suggestion doesn't make it clear to me why you would want to make auto resolve easier for those who don't need to use it and harder for the people who may not be able to progress without using it.