Difficulty level suggestions

[thothkins]

One thing I don't want is uber-aliens that hit 100% of the time or have a million hit points.

except for a Sebillian Predator quick battle mod surely?

"Get to da Choppa!"

you could combine it with suggestion 9 "Units death" ON\OFF and have it loop endlessly.

Like others, I'm just looking forward to a balanced Normal level, then see where that takes us. Hopefully, from there after the other levels are predefined, we can see some of rawcode's ideas.

[rowenstin]

IMHO!

First of all, this game not competitive, its sandbox and all settings shoud base off this fact.

There is no reason to hide actual effects from player, entire configuration shoud be opened, with predefined patterns like EASY and HARD.

More stuff

I was going to suggest pretty much the same, with other options being planetshot down are gone for good, are recoverable or are available immediately; soldiers are immortal, have a chance to survive but gravely wounded, or death is final period, initial number of bases, research takes more/less time, etc. Then make predefined bundles of those option into useful packages calles "easy" "normal" "hard" and "superhuman" for those who don't want to fiddle with too many options.

[GizmoGomez]

I do not thing a "Soldier immortality" option would ever, under any circumstances, be included, and I will argue against that.

As far as a list of options to "custom tailor" a difficulty, that's an interesting idea. Perhaps it'd work.

Anyway, my actual suggestion: on higher difficulties, make it take longer to rank up. This will lead to lower morale on average, giving you a harder time.

[ThunderGr]

I do not thing a "Soldier immortality" option would ever, under any circumstances, be included, and I will argue against that.

As if arguing against anything has any meaning at all. After the recent "arguments" from Chris about the interceptors, it was made obvious that any arguments can, and will, be dismissed under any excuse(or without necessarily any) whether it makes sense or not, as long as it is convenient to development. So, why bother, really?

[thothkins]

I do not thing a "Soldier immortality" option would ever, under any circumstances, be included, and I will argue against that.

I would have thought the same about the interceptors. I think only the utter slating that the other game got for going down that path saves other games from making the same mistake.

I imagine the logic goes something like:-

Losing soldiers late in the game is a blow

New recruits simply cannot cope as strength is a component of carrying later equipment.

Why not make soldiers immortal?

No, that is silly.

OK, why not have every wound not quite be fatal?

What, you mean take them out of commission for a few days, then have them heal as normal?

Yes, that's what we should do.

Can we use exactly the same mechanic for interceptors?

Don't be silly. How will they retrieve an interceptor from the bottom of an ocean?

You're right. It's madness.

[GizmoGomez]

',:-/

Those are two different scenarios, the air combat and the ground combat. The ground combat is the main focus of the game; no developer would cop out of balancing the main part of the game. A secondary, or even tertiary (considering the geoscape as a part) part of the game, however, is less important (going off of the current game design) and thus shouldn't be as important gameplay wise, and doesn't need to be as developed in every aspect as the primary part of the game. I see your point, however. I just don't think it's valid.

Anyway, back to actually discussing the Difficulty Level Suggestions...

[thothkins]

My point was to illustrate some possible thinking processes behind similar choices that have made there way into other games. So it's related to both ground and air combat, and in fact is the same mechanic.

We've had posts in the past about the difficulty in sending out new recruits in later missions (I lasted 5 turns in the final mission with my new recruits. Well 1 soldier lasted 5 turns, the others were dead in 3).

Immortal soldiers is one solution. I don't think for a second it would be considered. But part of the reason why, is that someone already tried it and it didn't turn out too well.

Not so much balancing of difficulty, as trying to solve a late game difficulty issue.

Having added the word "difficulty", and shown that it links to all parts of the game, thothkins nips off to find a little raspberry blowing emoticon for Gizmo.... it has to be better than the cryptic looking one that Gizmo used too... valid posts indeed... mutter...bloomin cheek...mutter... ah here we are...

>

[GizmoGomez]

It was me, raising my left eyebrow and looking perplexed. haha

(I invented it myself. )

[thothkins]

It was me, raising my left eyebrow and looking perplexed. haha

(I invented it myself. )

ahem...

As a poster I always admire and respect so recently said...

Anyway, back to actually discussing the Difficulty Level Suggestions...

tee, hee...

Something that's been popping into my mind is the BMan mod for UFO:Extraterrestrials. So good, they brought him on board for the sequel/prequel thingy that may one day be released.

Now, my feeling is that their engine allowed for much, much more tweaking but I imagine that mods will eventually (and hopefully) provide something like...

Edited July 13, 2013 by thothkins
more screenies

[Rogueywon]

A few thoughts.

Easy difficulty (or Very Easy, or whatever the bottom option ends up being) needs to be accessible for people who either never played the old X-Com games, or who may have only played them in passing. This isn't the 1990s, when games were relatively few in number and expensive; if people who take a look at the game because they're just curious find it impossibly hard on their first attempt or two, they'll just move on to the next Steam Daily Deal game or whatever.

That said, I think there's also a valid point about catering to the hardcore. Beyond that lowest difficult level, I think all of the others needs to be tailored to more veteran players. In the rest of this post, I'll focus mainly on how I'd separate the lowest difficulty from the other difficulty levels (and I think this is actually quite a big gap).

I'll break my comments down between the different sections of the game: Geoscape, Ground Combat and Air Combat.

GEOSCAPE

There are three real axes here for difficulty that need to be considered; strategy, resources and politics.

On strategy, there are, at present, too many crucial make-or-break decisions to be made in the early months for novice players. I'm thinking particularly about the decisions you need to take early on around the siting of your base, how you develop that base, when to construct additional bases etc. I'd suggest that on the lowest difficulty setting, players be allowed to site a number of "freebie" bases at the beginning of their game. Not enough to get through the entire game with, of course - you want them to have to think about expansion when they've got a better feel for how the game works and how their choices shape it. Three feels about right. I'd also have these start out with a layout that is a good way along the path in which a veteran player will eventually develop their bases. So they've got a few hangars, a garage etc. They'll still need to build more facilities - but they've been given a steer as to the kind of direction they want to go. I'd also consider (and I'm not quite as settled in my views on this) having newly constructed bases later in the game spawn by default with a basic set of facilities already in place along with the command centre.

On the higher difficulty levels - fewer bases (probably just 1 at the top end) and less developed "blank slate" bases (all bar the first one being just a command centre to begin with). As a relatively veteran X-Com player, I prefer doing my layout from scratch anyway.

Still on strategy but switching to the invasion side of things, I'd have the balance of alien missions adjust differently depending on the difficulty setting. So on the lowest difficulty, you would be told right from the outset (in the difficulty descriptor) that the aliens will not attack your bases until later in the game. In practice, this would mean no alien assaults on your bases until around the Carriers stage - so you wouldn't need to invest in static defences until the plasma/MAG tech level. On the harder difficulty level, you'd get base assaults (albeit with smaller UFOs and fewer aliens) from much earlier on - meaning you need to invest in static defences and/or well-equipped defensive squads much earlier in the game.

I'd also make "friendly forces shot down a UFO" events much more common than they are at present on the easiest difficulty.

In terms of resources, it's quite simple; more on lower difficulties, less on higher. I'm not just talking about funding here, but also about alien alloy/alienium salvage yields from UFOs.

And in terms of politics; I'd like keeping sponsor nations happy to be harder than it is at present on the higher difficulty settings. However, the current level feels about right for the easier difficulties.

GROUND COMBAT

In some ways, I'd actually worry less about tweaking the difficulty of ground combat between the difficulty levels. I'm not sure I'd even bother with spending much time on things like alien stats. The real differences here should flow from the differences in difficulty on the Geoscape game. If you have more resources on the Geoscape, you'll have better equipped squads in ground combat.

In terms of what can be done, I think the key thing is to make sure that differences between the difficulty levels don't break immersion. That means making sure that aliens are never either improbably fragile or improbably resistant to damage (seriously, health adjustments aren't the way to do difficulty). It also means avoiding cheap tricks like letting aliens see through walls on higher difficulties.

I think there might be something to do here with the number of aliens per crash and with their deployment. On higher difficultly levels, you might have more live aliens to deal with per mission and those aliens might be more inclined to stick to defensible positions, rather than wandering around randomly in the open.

AIR COMBAT

I think there's quite a lot you can do here, both in the intercept minigame itself and also on the geoscape interception game. On the bottom difficulty level, you probably want lots of unescorted UFOs wandering around, with relatively "unthreatening" assignments like patrol or terror attacks. On harder difficulties, I think it might be worth making even getting to the intercept a challenge. So not only do you have to take care of the main UFO and its escorts, but you have to run through a gauntlet of aggressive alien squadrons trying to intercept your interceptors (or your dropships).

[svidangel]

Above Normal difficulty, crashed ships/terror sites you are en-route to will behave as expected, and not just stick around until you arrive. This should force more night-time missions, giving an increased difficulty to the game overall without just changing numbers.

[lemm]

XComUtil had a neat setting which modified the game so that research on alien technology would progress at a glacial pace unless a captured alien was interrogated. Maybe on higher difficulty levels, the default research pace would be slower, but the research reward granted from captured aliens (in particular, officers) would be higher.

In general, I think that the difficulty increase should be prioritized by increasing the number of features that appear at higher difficulty, then by making the AI more challenging, then by making the the enemy units stronger or the new technology more expensive, and then finally by adding more things to kill. Make the game "broader, not longer".

Edited August 2, 2013 by lemm

[GizmoGomez]

Agreed, good ideas on the post above. Also, please, don't do anything to the HP of the aliens; just making them basically immune to damage is a weak way to make the game harder.

[Mermel]

Yes, good ideas up there, especially the interrogation of aliens and associated research boni concept is a taker for me.

It's closely tied to stun mechanic and so makes the game as a whole harder, not only research.

It's generally more dangerous to stun an alien instead of simply killing it. So increasing the need to catch aliens rises the difficulty of ground combat in an interesting way, without the need to make the AI harder or tweak the Numbers.

So setting the research pace to low on difficulty level high and insane, will promote the live capture of aliens to get all technologies in a relevant time.

On normal things stay as they are. Basically just a few key aliens have to be captured alive, while the research boni stay in tact.

And finally on low difficulty all research that would normally require a live captured alien, is available with a corpse. This way a player can safely ignore the complete stun mechanic without having any problems on the lowest difficulty setting.

It's difficulty setting via a feature, like lemm mentioned before.

Besides that I would like to see more stress on the phoenix like fighters. Getting them from ashes should be on normal and easy only. Let them die on hard, be reborn on medium and even faster on easy. It's a nice way to make the game less forgiving.

[svidangel]

Kinda the opposite right now, with regard to stunning. That seems to be the go-to method for people to take care of most of their aliens. Maybe when they make it easier to kill than to stun it will make more of a difference. Or just much later in the game and hope you don't get a lot of Androns.

[Mermel]

If stunning really is the most effective way to deal with enemies, something is wrong.

Capturing life aliens is, and should be even more, a secondary mission objective with it's own rewards. Making it more difficult than killing is an absolute no brainer.

That said I also want to raise an important point.

The whole game should be balanced around the hard mode. Standart and easy are for first timers in strategy or just XCOM like games. The most long term fun can only be provided by balancing the game around the abilities of an advanced player. So, the most time and effort should be put into thinking how hard hard should be. Changing some numbers to decrease difficulty feels a lot less cheap than rising some to make it harder.

When you play the first time, Graphics, Lore and general gameplay are important. Is the whole thing nice to look at and does it keep me with goodies and new things to see.

But the more you play, the more the game itself becomes important. Is it challenging? Do I bleed if I fail? Are there real decisions to make or is there just one golden path?

So in the end it is best for the game to put as much manhours as possible into making a challenge out of the hard mode and just choose simple and cheap ways to make it easier from there.

[Queamin]

If stunning really is the most effective way to deal with enemies, something is wrong.

Capturing life aliens is, and should be even more, a secondary mission objective with it's own rewards. Making it more difficult than killing is an absolute no brainer.

That said I also want to raise an important point.

The whole game should be balanced around the hard mode. Standart and easy are for first timers in strategy or just XCOM like games. The most long term fun can only be provided by balancing the game around the abilities of an advanced player. So, the most time and effort should be put into thinking how hard hard should be. Changing some numbers to decrease difficulty feels a lot less cheap than rising some to make it harder.

When you play the first time, Graphics, Lore and general gameplay are important. Is the whole thing nice to look at and does it keep me with goodies and new things to see.

But the more you play, the more the game itself becomes important. Is it challenging? Do I bleed if I fail? Are there real decisions to make or is there just one golden path?

So in the end it is best for the game to put as much manhours as possible into making a challenge out of the hard mode and just choose simple and cheap ways to make it easier from there.

I agree with this as it would help with replayability.

[lemm]

At higher difficulties, soldier stat increases could be less uniform so that experienced soldiers excel in one category while they are less remarkable in another. In particular, TU, strength (throwing) and accuracy would be the most critical determinants of a soldier's role.

[Dranak]

I can't remember if this was mentioned or not, but on lower difficulties have only one escort spawn instead of two (and possibly a lower chance of having escorts at all). It would make a huge difference on air combat difficulty.

[Josip Broz Tito]

*cracks knuckles* *points at lemm's suggestions and nods*

I like lemm's suggestions. Unfortunately, since the ticker won't/can't be fiddled with= the Marshal of Yugoslavia has this to suggest:

Ground Combat: On difficulties higher than normal, you will encounter higher-ranked aliens in a pyramid format sooner. Ex.

Light Scout= All non-combatants as it is now since that's logical.

Scout= 1-2 warriors as officers, rest non-combatants. Small chance for a droid, psion, or reaper to be on board (aliens testing them against humans in small-scale experiments)

The gist is that you get a mix of crew ranks and species on ships with a more logical progression instead of ships with all of one rank. The weapons equipped will stay the same to maintain progression, but you get a few aliens better able to use them to increase the difficulty.

Terror units on a few smaller ships add spice and tension to harder difficulty missions AND they don't affect research progression. Light droids do a bit, but you still need Wolf to get Buzzard.

When you get psionics working= include a few caesan psions on all larger ships to support the crew regardless of race! I see absolutely no reason why we can't have mixed crew ships and bases, with each race playing to its strengths. Sebillians closing in with shotguns, androns slowly advancing with cannons, harridans sniping, wraiths harassing, and caesans playing midfield.

Challenge me by making the aliens truly distinct from one another, then tweak their AI to capitalize on their strengths, mix them together...and poof: diverse and interesting gameplay.

Throwing more aliens at me will not make it harder really when they tend to be uniform in the mission (same rank, weapons, race). I diversify my squad's roles= do the same for the aliens. This is one area where it doesn't pay to stick with the OG's formula, IMO.

I may make a species by species breakdown of suggestions for behavior, stats/unique characteristics, and dmg resistance changes later on when I have time.

2nd suggestion: I assume you guys are working on the alien's ability to move in the Z-Axis (up and down). This would go a LONG way to making the game harder/more interesting. Aliens taking advantage of the high ground and tight spaces in buildings is what's really needed in Xenonauts.

Humans have the advantage in the open, aliens have the advantage in tight spaces w/ short range= play on that. If we want to fight on our terms= we have c4 and rockets to open these spaces up. Take a page out of TFTD on this one. Reapers+Pack movement+buildings= please : )

[Dranak]

What do people think of not having the "Bomb the site" (or whatever the final text turns out to be) be available on the highest difficulty? It would make you play "the hard way" and remove the free rewards that come with it. We could also make that option give lesser rewards on all difficulties above normal.

[Osvir]

Ironman suggestion:

- Never auto-save after a mission.

- Only save when I exit the game (Save & Quit).

- When I enter the game and have loaded the save file. Delete it.

Otherwise if that's not possible, can I go into some config file and put "Auto-Save" to "0" or "False"? I want to crank up the risk factor a bit.

[Aaron]

I see what you are getting at, but auto-saving after a mission is also intended to cover the player in situations where the game crashes (hopefully not!) or their laptop runs out of batteries or whatever - too many things could go wrong for us to abandon a safety feature like that.

[NoirWolf]

I see what you are getting at, but auto-saving after a mission is also intended to cover the player in situations where the game crashes (hopefully not!) or their laptop runs out of batteries or whatever - too many things could go wrong for us to abandon a safety feature like that.

The Omnissiah has blessed me brotha with a STC printout for what is called a... separate post battle autosave slot (it might be a bit more exploitable but only if you get into multiple fights in short succession, otherwise it really doesn't play into the save scumming thing).

[Osvir]

I see what you are getting at, but auto-saving after a mission is also intended to cover the player in situations where the game crashes (hopefully not!) or their laptop runs out of batteries or whatever - too many things could go wrong for us to abandon a safety feature like that.

But that contradicts "Ironman", it is not meant to be a "safety" feature. I'll just do the manual version of it then.

By the way, I think the game is awesome thus far very intriguing. The only thing I've really got an issue with is the amount of maps, but I am sure this is something that will grow with time.