Balancing skill gains

[smoitessier]

There as been some complaints about how fast a soldier's skill increase in the projected 50-60 missions/6 months invasion timeline. Chris has said he would think about balancing the strength gains in particular, in future builds.

Now for the rest, i'm not at all sure what i propose will be fun, and or feasible given the short game duration, but here goes... food for though

BTW I'm pretty cool with the way things are now, but to liven the salad a bit.. let me dive down into that,

PREAMBLE:

1) Soldiers start as rookies because even if they are at the top of their games on Earth's batlefields they are new to the threat of the ET threat of invasion with grim consequences to human kind if the war goes pear shaped. So they start out scared if you will, to be simple. Conversely once they get their confidence back, they should be at the top of their game.

2) To play ironman we should have rapidly progressing rookie force to aliment the veteran fighting pools, yet curtail rapid gains when soldiers becomes an elites.

GAMEPLAY MECHANICS

1) Soldiers' COURAGE could be a yard stick to measure his potential for skill gains.

1b) Courage is a soldier's resistance against loosing willpower.

1c) The more a soldier's willpower is tested in battle, the faster he gains. Why? just because as a mechanic NO RISK NO GAINS.

1d) If a soldier PANICS he will gain no skill for the remainder of the battle, i.e. Shellshocked.

2) As a soldier completes ground battles, his Courage increase over time.

2b) As a soldier's Courage increase, his post-missions skill gains start to decrease.

DEFINITION OF RISK

1) Getting shot at.

2) Getting close to enemies.

3) Anything that lowers the soldier's MORAL, and conversely increases moral like the RANK of your soldiers.

CONCLUSION

The overall tendency for your forces would be;

Rookies because of their low starting COURAGE, will naturally skill up faster

Vets because of their high COURAGE, will naturally see a tapering of their skill gains, coinciding with their CAP.

All that said I would love to see random GIFTED soldiers that don't taper their progression gains despite having high courage.

So the end result should be that the more you put your soldiers in danger, the more they will skill up faster, i.e. NO RISK NO GAINS.

Also going out with you same 12 top rank Commanders since idk the whole game will probably be tougher for the final mission, than if you started out with a much larger pool and picked the best 12 from the lot at the end.

[Gazz]

Rookies because of their low starting COURAGE, will naturally skill up faster

Vets because of their high COURAGE, will naturally see a tapering of their skill gains, coinciding with their CAP.

That's the opposite of what you wrote above.

"The more a soldier's willpower is tested in battle, the faster he gains."

A soldier with higher courage/will can be tested for that more often without panicking.

The result is that experienced soldiers get more opportunities to gain skill.

All that said I would love to see random GIFTED soldiers that don't taper their progression gains despite having high courage.

So you're not basing this on courage after all.

You're basing it on "learning speed". A hidden stat that probably has some relation to courage.

Maybe = courage + rnd(30).

This stat would never increase so you'd have some slow and some fast learners.

Stat progression speed is much easier to cap with some sort of exponential falloff based on the stat value.

I still think that tying skill increase to morale checks is the right approach.

Scaling them with dangerous conditions is less awkward because not every action will necessarily result in a morale check.

Like I suggested here, the conditions under which a "skill check" is made could influence the result.

Also, with weapons granting "role-specific" skill-ups, the progression would appear to be far more logical.

Close-quarters people who have to run around a lot automatically gain more AP than snipers... just by shooting aliens.

Edited June 24, 2013 by Gazz

[Goetikmagus]

Speaking from personal experience, you learn stuff really fast when you're being shot at. I suppose it's a question of motivation.

[smoitessier]

That's the opposite of what you wrote above.

"The more a soldier's willpower is tested in battle, the faster he gains."

A soldier with higher courage/will can be tested for that more often without panicking.

The result is that experienced soldiers get more opportunities to gain skill.

I've only seen panic when I took heavy casualties, and that was in an v18.3 were I save scummed a lot and got to january.

In V19HF1 I've made it to Oct 1 without save scumming and only lost 1 good girl, and haven't seen any panic what's so ever, maybe that comes later tho when wolf armor get's torn to shreds.

here's my crew.

So you're not basing this on courage after all.

You're basing it on "learning speed". A hidden stat that probably has some relation to courage.

Maybe = courage + rnd(30).

This stat would never increase so you'd have some slow and some fast learners.

Stat progression speed is much easier to cap with some sort of exponential falloff based on the stat value.

I'm not sure what that calculation you mentioned is, but yeah there would be normal and fast learners or like you said, even better, a bigger mix of slow and fast learners, if it's not a hassle for the dev team.

This hidden stat if you want to call it that, is the byproduct of taking risk, more stressful engagements = more rewards. It's true that low bravery soldiers would be more in the red zone in regards to panicking but that's also what makes them learn faster, this red zone.

I still think that tying skill increase to morale checks is the right approach.

Scaling them with dangerous conditions is less awkward because not every action will necessarily result in a morale check.

Like I suggested here, the conditions under which a "skill check" is made could influence the result.

Also, with weapons granting "role-specific" skill-ups, the progression would appear to be far more logical.

Close-quarters people who have to run around a lot automatically gain more AP than snipers... just by shooting aliens.

I like your idea, but personally I see no problem with long range snipers learning at the status quo, while the assault team that do the dirty work gain faster, plus you can always change role if they need an extra boost down the road.

Also idk, but is Xeno using the same calculations for accuracy training as the OG, i.e. more aimed shots train faster then snap shots?

[Sathra]

The OG only gave accuracy SP for hitting aliens. Even with grenades.

Xenonauts gives accuracy XP for shooting at aliens, so you gain even if you miss. Though I think it does it on a per-bullet basis, so if you use lots of autofire you skill faster. Also helps to explain why machinegunners skill accuracy so fast.

[Goetikmagus]

That's interesting. I think I'll start using autofire more often.