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Difficulty level suggestions


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Hey,

I just wanted to pop in and give a quick impression; I've restarted twice now on normal mode and the game feels too difficult to me.

I find myself resorting to saving before every room in alien base missions, for example.

I think part of the problem for me is I don't seem to have enough money to recover from losing a fight or even taking significant casualties.

I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong. I am starting with two bases, all my base development is in the first one but the second one ramps up and gets stocked with 3 condors. Is trying to get a second base up immediately a bad idea?

Also, I am probably using explosives too much, impacting the money I get from crash sites. I use two rocket launchers in a squad of 8. Is this too many?

It would be nice to know how other people's games progress. I get to a point where I am no longer able to shoot down the big UFOs (carriers, battleships, escorted cruisers) with the forces I have, and to where I get multiple alien bases popping up simultaenously that my wounded soldiers can't respond to quickly. At this point I have plasma and laser rifles and wolf armor, with mostly condors and one corsair and one marauder. I've just gotten the shrike dropship and the scimitar tank. I have 30 scientists and 25 engineers and 15 soldiers (of which 5 are corporal/private)...is this enough?

Uhm, some tips:

- Try starting with 1 base only and slowly upgrade it. Don't spend all money at once but keep maybe 300.000-400.000. Get a feel for the game pace.

- Play at a lower difficulty.

- During missions, use your soldiers carefully and move slowly forward. Designate imaginary "squads" (I have 2 Riflemen, 1 Sniper and 1 Assault in one of my "squads" and in the other "squad" I have 2 Riflemen, 1 Heavy and 1 Assault).

- Smoke Grenades and Flash Grenades are great. Explore what they do ;)

- Keep your Sniper waaaay back as you explore with the rest of the guys slowly forward. But don't forget to make sure your Sniper has a wide firing arc (as few obstacles as possible). He should always be furthest in the back.

- Consider where your cover is and what you have explored so that the aliens don't get a free shot at you.

- Play carefully, for instance, you might have a guy free to move but the rest of your squad don't have Time Units, wait a turn so that the rest of the guys can provide backup if needed.

- Try using the Rocket Launchers less, unless you really have to. They are really great for opening up holes in buildings too so that you can flank an enemy.

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I have to say that i also find it way harder to have enough money without save scumming that it was in the original xcom. Mostly because you could manufacture laser weapons constantly and sell them at a profit.

I would love if we had something like that in xenonauts. It just makes sense from a gameplay perspective. You don't really gain money, since your engineers are still really expensive each month, but at least they make some money for you, when i would otherwise pay them to just twiddle their thumps all day long.

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I have to say that i also find it way harder to have enough money without save scumming that it was in the original xcom. Mostly because you could manufacture laser weapons constantly and sell them at a profit.

I would love if we had something like that in xenonauts. It just makes sense from a gameplay perspective. You don't really gain money, since your engineers are still really expensive each month, but at least they make some money for you, when i would otherwise pay them to just twiddle their thumps all day long.

I both agree and disagree.

I don't mind the difficulty of money in Xenonauts, in fact I enjoy it. It makes me way more careful before I spend any money on anything. This is where I am in disagreement, my personal preference enjoys the harder money-management in Xenonauts.

However, engineers aren't doing anything in Xenonauts in comparison to the original XCOM (like you say). So I am curious if there is some way to give them more maintenance or macro-management, the question is what? Maybe they could make weapons and armor and give it to Local Forces?

I think I read something about the devs saying something about allowing the Player to tell Local Forces to handle alien crash sites by themselves (which would give the Player the cash reward, but in turn it wouldn't train the Players soldiers). Maybe the Local Forces can fail and you get nothing out of it? Giving them weapons and armor would be one way to help them succeed more often and in turn that'd give the Player money for it.

Maybe you'd start to see more and more Local Forces (less and less civilians, as they could "transform" into "Local Forces" due to investments) on missions and having better and better gear (Thus you'd get more reward points from countries as well, which would net more income every month as well). This would give the engineers a lot more work to do and more maintenance than they currently have.

EDIT: It's the alien race we're fighting here! If the Xenonaut division or whatnot would hand out weapons and armor to the civilians and/or the local forces, there'd be a bigger chance of fighting back together against the alien threat. Right?

Edited by Osvir
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I both agree and disagree.

I don't mind the difficulty of money in Xenonauts, in fact I enjoy it. It makes me way more careful before I spend any money on anything. This is where I am in disagreement, my personal preference enjoys the harder money-management in Xenonauts.

However, engineers aren't doing anything in Xenonauts in comparison to the original XCOM (like you say). So I am curious if there is some way to give them more maintenance or macro-management, the question is what? Maybe they could make weapons and armor and give it to Local Forces?

I think I read something about the devs saying something about allowing the Player to tell Local Forces to handle alien crash sites by themselves (which would give the Player the cash reward, but in turn it wouldn't train the Players soldiers). Maybe the Local Forces can fail and you get nothing out of it? Giving them weapons and armor would be one way to help them succeed more often and in turn that'd give the Player money for it.

Maybe you'd start to see more and more Local Forces (less and less civilians, as they could "transform" into "Local Forces" due to investments) on missions and having better and better gear (Thus you'd get more reward points from countries as well, which would net more income every month as well). This would give the engineers a lot more work to do and more maintenance than they currently have.

EDIT: It's the alien race we're fighting here! If the Xenonaut division or whatnot would hand out weapons and armor to the civilians and/or the local forces, there'd be a bigger chance of fighting back together against the alien threat. Right?

What if countries gave us requests for equipment, in return for money or personell, like in The new XCOM? That would give us a reason to keep producing equipment and keepour engineers busy.

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Hey, yes I played all 3 of the original XComs (XCom, Terror from the Deep, and Apocalypse. I won all three. I also played/won Jagged Alliance and Jagged Alliance 2; I'm familiar with this type of game. I've been playing on normal mode; it doesn't seem to me that someone with my history should play 'easy' mode.

Thanks for the feedback. The squad thing is interesting..it sounds like you don't use heavy weapons? I have not been using snipers at all; my squads have been all heavy weapons and riflemen. I found that the guys with shotguns were in firefights at long range too often; Not sure why I didn't use snipers more, I should give that a try.

I do use stun grenades in the small window where they are effective, and smoke grenades.

Sticking with one base for awhile is something I haven't tried. It feels like it would fill up but I guess by the time it does it would be time for a second base regardless. I had been worried that I would lose too much funding too quickly with only one base.

I had also been delaying buying the support vehicles, but I did finally do so late in my current game and they really make the terror missions much easier. It feels like an exploit though, because the Aliens don't really shoot at them.

So, for people who don't play ironman, what is your trigger for loading a saved game in a fight? Losing 3 guys? Losing 1 guy who is highly experienced? Likewise for air intercepts...I like it that getting planes shot down doesn't result in them being permanently gone, but it leaves a very long window where you can't intercept UFOs.

kenmtraveller: Have you played any previous X-com? I'm wondering because I want to know your experience with this type of game. It sounds like you got ideas on how to refine and improve your gameplay so the game probably isn't too hard. You just need to get a feel for the game.

There are lots of lets play videos out there that can help you out with seeing how other peoples games are progressing. Try searching youtube for Xenonauts.

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I hit the reload button once there's no chance of me finishing the mission. You know, in EU2012, if I lost a skilled soldier I would RAGEQUIT so hard my future self would duck the monitor, but in Xenonauts, I don't feel the need to quit until I can't do the mission any more.

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really, so if it's early game and you take in a squad of eight to your first terror mission and end up with just two rookies surviving, the game allows you to recover from that? I may be giving up too early; it feels to me at that point like there will be a domino effect where I can't complete future missions because my guys suck too much.

XCom Enemy unknown has a nice mechanic where you can earn experienced guys as rewards for responding to terror missions. Maybe xenonauts could have something similar to help mitigate squad near-wipeouts?

Also, when you guys play do you do so with knowledge of what to do to get to certain research paths? For example, I only upgrade Charlie->Shrike, I am thinking that there was an intermediate craft that I probably never saw and that building it would have benefitted me.

I hit the reload button once there's no chance of me finishing the mission. You know, in EU2012, if I lost a skilled soldier I would RAGEQUIT so hard my future self would duck the monitor, but in Xenonauts, I don't feel the need to quit until I can't do the mission any more.
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by the way the advanced planes seem really expensive! For a corsair I need 400000 (cost of the plane plus cost of the hangar) plus the time of the guys who make it, for a condor I just need 200000, with no engineer time. And I get better speed/survivability, but firepower remains constant b/c hardpoints don't increase and I have to buy the upgraded weapons separately anyway. Is it really better to have a corsair than two condors, especially given that your engineers could have been building stuff for your ground forces?

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@kemmtraveller, I hire enough troops to have 15 to start with, and I up that to 20 when I get the chance. I have a huge roster I rotate through. I have had some near TPKs but I've been able to continue playing. I don't really care that much about an individual trooper. I may sigh as my experienced major bites it, and I certainly wouldn't do a base without having soliders of a certain degree of experience, but a TPK isn't the Fall From Heaven that an experienced, perk'd-up TPK in EU2012 is. The amount of "work" one puts into a solider in Xenonauts depends on performing certain actions which you will very likely perform anyway. The "work" you put into levelling up a soldier in EU2012 depends totally on kills, so tbh it's f***ing hard work in comparison to Xenonauts, and I feel the loss of that work a lot more when a guy dies in EU2012.

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The problem I think is that there is a large jump in Difficulty when doing a terror missions or bases to the rest and it can take you by surprise and even end your game.

I think they need to be balanced a bit like a terror mission, and 10 to 15 aliens rushing you or not knowing when to do a alien base mission and doing it to early, although my last home base mission I wiped, wasn't ready for all those reapers.

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But if you wipe a lot of time you need to restart unless you are at a early stage, once you get behind the ticker you fighting a uphill battle which isn't that bad sometimes, I had a massive ufo land and I had to do a base defense I had no chance at 1 stage I had about 8 to 10 reapers and one by one they turned my men into zombies it was painful to say the least, I was not ready, I needed at least lasers and also needed more men only had 10.

My first alien base haha i opened the door and about 5 men died and then 1 alien got among us and killed and wounded 1 or 2 more and the rest panicked and that was the same round as opening the door I learned my lesson.

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That sounds like a great thing to me. It should be possible to lose the game. Even the Firaxis remake maintained that possibility.

You can definitely survive a full squad wipe. Rotate your soldiers. Even if you get wiped, you should still have a few experienced ones back home. Later on, I have two strike teams operating from two different bases. If one gets wiped, the other team can take over temporarily while the first one rebuilds. Now, losing a base defense mission is usually fatal unless you have several strong bases, but that is also as it should be. Makes those missions feel more dramatic and important.

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That sounds like a great thing to me. It should be possible to lose the game. Even the Firaxis remake maintained that possibility.

You can definitely survive a full squad wipe. Rotate your soldiers. Even if you get wiped, you should still have a few experienced ones back home. Later on, I have two strike teams operating from two different bases. If one gets wiped, the other team can take over temporarily while the first one rebuilds. Now, losing a base defense mission is usually fatal unless you have several strong bases, but that is also as it should be. Makes those missions feel more dramatic and important.

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I would not necessarily say it's more brutal. At least not yet. Maybe after psionics and morale are properly implemented it can match the original. Thus far the sheer horror of your best soldier getting mind controlled or panicked in the Skyranger and slaughtering half the crew is unmatched. Or losing 3 soldiers to a well-placed alien grenade. But as some of my soldiers (their ghosts, rather) could attest, your troops are still perfectly capable of one-shotting their comrades with stray shots.

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Technically, that depends - I find that even the Jackal armor simply makes my soldiers go "Heehee! That tickles!" when they take stray ballistic damage. (Well, maybe not if it was the sniper, but then, if my sniper is so lousy they're missing that badly, I frag them, myself.) It's more of a problem for higher-level weapons.

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However, engineers aren't doing anything in Xenonauts in comparison to the original XCOM (like you say). So I am curious if there is some way to give them more maintenance or macro-management, the question is what? Maybe they could make weapons and armor and give it to Local Forces?

Does number of engineers affect the time it takes to repair the plane & facility at the moment? It could be nice to have engineers after reaching certain number cut off certain percentage of such repair times (72h recovery time for lost plane should always be fixed though). This reduction could be applied to facility construction time as well.

So for like rudimentary example,

If >X engineers, 10% reduction on airplane/facility damage repair + 5% reduction on facility construction time

If >Y engineers, 20% reduction on airplane/facility damage repair + 10% reduction on facility construction time etc.

I personally like this idea than manufacturing for donation example which is somewhat of an commercial manufacturing which is what developers are trying to avoid. More importantly, this constant bonus for having lot of engineers feels better than random requests which feel RNG based and only rewards player for having lot of enginners only at that time.

Speaking of facility repair, does anyone have had their facility damaged during the base defense, because it seems like quite a rare occurrence to me. I propose at higher difficulties at least one squadron of aliens should have 'destruction AI' where they move room-to-room, firing at the equipments with explicit aim of destroying the facility until they directly engage the enemy.

This should force the player to be proactive during base defense, and reduce effectiveness of camping tactics where one sit all his troops within the command center relying on reaction fire to wipe out all the aliens without even stepping out of the room.

Edited by ventuswings
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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Insane difficulty suggestion

If the decision to give lower ranked aliens better weapons depending on state of progression ticker are implemented, have the likelihood of alien coming out with advanced weaponry much higher (or always in Insane?)

Decrease the amount of alien alloy given for every UFO.

Edited by ventuswings
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