V18.3 Geoscape Balance Discussion

[Sathra]

Condor costs were heavily dropped in the latest hotfix. 50k for a Condor.

[StellarRat]

Condor costs were heavily dropped in the latest hotfix. 50k for a Condor.

They must be rentals now. The eco balance is kinda weird in the game. They have planes worth $10's of millions, but sometimes you can't afford a bulletproof vest. LOL. Anyway, it's fun.

[thothkins]

that would explain this, when I got to the desk to get a plane

[Cane]

After playing around a bit with the latest build ( V18.5) and about closer to 3 months in game I feel that I have to comment on the geoscape. Personally I find the gap between Foxtrot -> Corsair to be too long considering how fast the aliens tech up. Getting the alinum missiles is nice but the laser cannon hardly makes much of a difference since at close range your condors die immediately.

Also when you do actually get the corsair it takes a long time to build even with 2 workshops and that grace period where you are down one potential airplane just to build the first corsair is very painful.

Maybe change it so that you can actually research the corsair earlier, I can't remember what tech I needed off my head but I believe i needed the corpse of one of the android soldiers and they didn't show up for me until 2 months into the game, a point where the enemy already had a lot of corsairs and heavy fighters

[Hairyscreech]

^^ that would have been alien electronics, seems to be the current low tier bottle neck as either an andron or a light drone is needed minimum.

I think there may also be more time for corsair research once the ticker is adjusted to stop the brick wall difficulty curve after corvettes.

[Cane]

^^ that would have been alien electronics, seems to be the current low tier bottle neck as either an andron or a light drone is needed minimum.

I think there may also be more time for corsair research once the ticker is adjusted to stop the brick wall difficulty curve after corvettes.

Actually i encountered the light drones way earlier than the androns ( like a month at least) and I'm pretty sure the drones didn't give me the electronic research

Either way something has to change, it goes from a fair difficulty to having your ships torn up in less than a second if you get too close and the whole "fire missiles, retreat, rearm, repeat" is hardly any fun tactic either

[Dranak]

^^ that would have been alien electronics, seems to be the current low tier bottle neck as either an andron or a light drone is needed minimum.

I think there may also be more time for corsair research once the ticker is adjusted to stop the brick wall difficulty curve after corvettes.

The research for corsairs doesn't seem that bad itself (although the production time might be a bit long), but it's hard to say given how sharply the difficulty spikes as soon as we start moving past corvettes. I guess that brings the question of do the alien ships need to progress more slowly, or do the next tier of alien ships just need to be nerfed? I think either could smooth out that progression, but I haven't gotten far enough into late game to know which would be better.

[Lightzy]

I think the progression should be slower, but most importantly, that you keep getting ships of all sizes, and larger ships remain rare even in late game, while you still get mediums and smalls flying around a lot. like in the original xcom.

This is also incredibly important for balance, because you may one mission lose some fighters, and then if you don't have small aliens flying around you basically lost the game because you won't be able to intercept the heavier craft anymore

[Sathra]

You can also get Electronics from a Landing Ship (instead of Corvettes like the earlier builds). Best bet is to get them from Andron terror missions though.

Corsairs really need a manufacturing base to be produced in good time though, and with the funding increases (i.e funding working properly) its relatively simple to do so. Basically a base with 4-6 workshops (I also use it as another strike/intercept base with 2 Condors, 1 MiG and a Chinook, so 6 hangars.). I usually have 1 or 2 (I focus on my troops first) by the time Landing ships come round, with more on the way.

[Dranak]

You can also get Electronics from a Landing Ship (instead of Corvettes like the earlier builds). Best bet is to get them from Andron terror missions though.

Corsairs really need a manufacturing base to be produced in good time though, and with the funding increases (i.e funding working properly) its relatively simple to do so. Basically a base with 4-6 workshops (I also use it as another strike/intercept base with 2 Condors, 1 MiG and a Chinook, so 6 hangars.). I usually have 1 or 2 (I focus on my troops first) by the time Landing ships come round, with more on the way.

Right, but the question I'm trying to ask is if that's the way it should be. Currently corsairs take massively longer than anything else you have the ability to manufacture, and that jump feels a little too big to me. You should definitely need multiple workshops to build them in a timely manner, but currently a base with 3 workshops takes 10 days to make one, which feels a bit too much. I'd like to see that end up closer to six days, which to me feels like a much smoother progression in build times.

[Lightzy]

If the build times and costs of new items aren't gradually increased, then it might be failing the player.

I never imagined that after the 3 day mig, the next aircraft would require 30 (!!), so I never prepared, which means I lost.

And I imagine this is what will happen to every new player until they learn the 'metagame'... and I don't think that playing 'correctly' to the 'metagame' is a good experience.

It is however a deep design problem, that choosing something else over making more workshops may mean game-over, rather than simply be a tradeoff for something else.

Which is why I propose that ***game-critical*** projects not be so workshop dependent (like the condor which you purchase), while ***game-style*** decisions are workshop dependent (for example, vehicles, heavy/better weapons and armor etc. things that are good to have but that you don't automatically lose if you don't have)

Edited May 20, 2013 by Lightzy

[Sathra]

I don't mind it how it is. New craft are a major investment in both time and money (and unlike the MiG, a Corsair is built from scratch). And so you lose the first game, you can always start again, but now with more knowledge.

[Dranak]

I don't mind it how it is. New craft are a major investment in both time and money (and unlike the MiG, a Corsair is built from scratch). And so you lose the first game, you can always start again, but now with more knowledge.

Absolutely, they should be a major investment of time and money, but currently it's like running into a brick wall in terms of manufacturing time requirements. Before corsairs there's no reason to build more than (maybe) one additional workshop and then suddenly you run into a huge production roadblock, fall behind in the air, and then the game can spiral from there.

I agree that the game needs to be losable, but losing because you didn't make a choice that there was no reason to make (investing heavily in manufacturing infrastructure when there was no discernible need to do so) is just frustrating. For that reason, I think either corsairs themselves should take slightly less time to build (maybe going from 450 man-days to 350, which still requires 3ish workshops for reasonable production) or else making some of the items that come before them take longer to build, which would encourage increased workshop production.

That said, I have no objections to them taking longer to build on higher difficulties since those are designed for more experienced players already familiar with the game.

Edited May 20, 2013 by Dranak

[Max_Caine]

The key to getting making investment in manufacturing infrastructure more visible isn't to focus on "big ticket" items like corsairs, but to focus on things that are produced in-between new big-ticket items becoming researchable. As an excellent example, let's consider the gap in-between MiGs and Corsairs. The primary things that can be manufactured in-between these two are suits of Wolf/Jackal armour, laser weapons and Hunter scouts. If it was clear that producing adequate numbers of these items to equip a full crew would take an uncomfortable amount of time (edging towards too long, rather than actually being too long), then the encouragement is there to invest in more manufacturing to speed up the process. For example, (and these are only examples, jeez) say it took 5 days to manufacture a MiG, or 3 days per suit of wolf armour (making 18 days for a set of 6!) or 4 days for a Hunter for a fully staffed workshop, these manufacturing times are uncomfortable without being actually painful (for example, every three days you get a new suit of armour, so that reduces the pain of waiting), encouraging an organic growth of workshops and preparing the player against sudden increases.

That's not to say that the unbalanced and placeholder figures currently for big-ticket items don't need changing. They do. But as has been graphically demonstrated, manufacturing times will need to become more uncomfortable to encourage the player to improve his industrial base without forcing him.

[Gendar]

I`am with less speedy bump of alien tech there. Because first you can take anything in air with mig`s and condor`s and then suddenly your air force were slaughter, and yes you building new one (corsair) (also you building new manufacture plants) yet all it takes to much time so you lose. And as many say nothing preparing you for it.

So maybe losing air superiority must be not so fast that player can do something about that.

[Andeerz]

Dranak speaks da troof, y'all.

And Gendar, I think as soon as you get better at the mini-game, you will change your tune and find that air superiority is really easy to maintain with the game as it is now. One Foxtrot and two Condors per base, and you are set to take on just about anything if you can (meta)game the system. But I really can't think of a good way to fix this right now...

[StellarRat]

Dranak speaks da troof, y'all.

And Gendar, I think as soon as you get better at the mini-game, you will change your tune and find that air superiority is really easy to maintain with the game as it is now. One Foxtrot and two Condors per base, and you are set to take on just about anything if you can (meta)game the system. But I really can't think of a good way to fix this right now...

My suggestion would be a message pop-up from your intelligence service every month end that advises you about trends they are seeing for the next month. If you're too pigheaded to adapt after that then you deserve to lose. That would certainly help to guide new players along. It works in CIV (the advisors). Also, don't forget that it could help experienced players too. The status of the war (don't forget positive news is possible too) is something EVERY player could use and highly realistic. We have nothing like this now. It could be as simple as some of those new flashes that pop up on the geoscape having useful info from time to time. It would give players a reason to read them too. Right now, I pretty much ignore them. Edited June 5, 2013 by StellarRat

[relkin43]

I think this is the right thread for this - funding. It seems like you need at least two bases to keep your largest funding blocks (americas + USSR + Indochina) and yet the initial capital+upkeep with the current funding rates are almost crippling. In order to even build a corsair with only one lab and one workshop I've had to forgot most all ground upgrades. I do every ground mission I can (losing a condor screws me for a few days its replaced =__=) so I'm getting a little income from that but it kind of feels like whats the point of even having lazors and plasma and armor and tanks if you can never afford to build it?

How do you all feel about funding atm? I know in page 6 somebody said it was working correctly now which I hope isn't the case because given how expensive everything is (50k for armor or weapon T__T) it seems like you couldn't hope to kit out more than a few squaddies and still keep your airpowah up given the way things escalate there coupled with the attrition rate on glass condors.

[StellarRat]

How do you all feel about funding atm?

I think there is general agreement among even the experienced player that the ongoing funding is too low right now. Either the month end money needs to be higher or we need more loot $$ from our successful ground mission and shoot downs.

[relkin43]

I think there is general agreement among even the experienced player that the ongoing funding is too low right now. Either the month end money needs to be higher or we need more loot $$ from our successful ground mission and shoot downs.

PHEW! Glad its not just me lol my kneejerk reaction is "give us more monthly funding" but I think I like more loot $ from ground missions and shoot downs (didn't know we got $ for those!).

Why do I feel this way? 1. It's earned, and frankly that just makes it better and compels me to shoot more ships down and run more ground missions as well. 2. Less reliance on countries, getting bases up and running is batcrap expensive and slow - losing nations seems practically inevitable so if you increase monthly funding (I presume it wouldn't be enough to make bases cheap and disposable) you get hit extra hard from losing nations.

[StellarRat]

...I think I like more loot $ from ground missions and shoot downs (didn't know we got $ for those!)...

This is my feeling too. As far as shoot downs go, I think it raises your nation rating and therefore your general budget at month end, but right now there isn't a direct $$ amount or supplies given to you, but I've suggested it, so maybe they can put it in.

[Sathra]

Mission income has dropped recently with the drop in alien numbers.

I still support increasing the sell price per alien weapon (not grenades/clips) by 5k. Its working pretty well.

[Aaron]

Just to let you guys know I am currently working on a first pass at the Geoscape rebalancing. So far I've basically made a simple model of the Geoscape economy and progression throughout a game, and it was immediately obvious that national funding levels are totally inadequate for late game equipment in the numbers you will need it.

I guess you might be able to make up some of the shortfall by doing as many missions as you possibly can to get extra money, but I've no idea if those would give you even vaguely enough money to survive currently.

The thing is, we also don't want the player to have to rely on their income from missions for funding - it encourages players to send troops to every single UFO they shoot down just to grind cash, even if they are totally over-powered for the mission. Mission income should basically be a nice bonus on top of national funding.

The problem then is that we still want escalating costs for each tier of equipment, as this is important to the feeling of escalation, but the current national funding system just doesn't work in that case as your income from it actually drops throughout the game. To solve this we are going to introduce a new system of rewards for shooting down enemy UFOs over a nations territory, so that a successful interception will cause that nations funding level to increase at the end of the month; we will then balance these funding increases against the escalation of costs in the invasion.

[StellarRat]

To solve this we are going to introduce a new system of rewards for shooting down enemy UFOs over a nations territory, so that a successful interception will cause that nations funding level to increase at the end of the month; we will then balance these funding increases against the escalation of costs in the invasion.

Great! That was my thinking too!

Also, could you please continue Lt. Scout and Scout missions throughout the game? The reason being that if your team gets wiped out there needs to be a supply of "easy" missions to send the rookies on until they are ready for the big ships AND we need a way to build second teams in new bases.

[relkin43]

Great! That was my thinking too!

Also, could you please continue Lt. Scout and Scout missions throughout the game? The reason being that if your team gets wiped out there needs to be a supply of "easy" missions to send the rookies on until they are ready for the big ships AND we need a way to build second teams in new bases.

That's a really good point, it hasn't happened to me yet but its only a matter of time....