No more positive points from ground combat - implications?

[MrPyro]

You ignored my second point. Remember, all these governments are funding xenonauts. As someone who decides how much money to give the organization fighting the aliens if I saw: "We approached the UFO and then all our guys got slaughtered, mission failure" in a report I would be hesitant about increasing or maintaining funding, because what that tells me is that they CANT fight the aliens. If I saw "We secured the UFO and killed all the aliens, no casualties. We are reverse engineering the UFO now" on the mission report I would increase the funding because hey, they have proven they can fight and win, we really have a chance here.

That simple.

Shooting down a single UFOs is ultimately pointless. Eventually they are going to get all their ships converted and come down in force, and nobody will be able to stop it no matter what technology they have (evidenced by the hail mary final mission). If we can't beat them on the ground, and do it consistently then we have already lost the war.

One of the points that I was trying to make in my post (not very well stated, I admit) is that the governments are not making good or rational decisions in this game. That's the one of the reasons why the Xenonauts are doing better, even with their limited funding, than nations with vastly superior resources. There's a lot of panic and not a lot of clear thinking going on.

I'm not 100% on which UFOs generate which events, but I know a number of them generate things like "airliner shot down", an event that would result in a large number of deaths, all civilian. When the Xenonauts shoot down a UFO, they can effectively claim to have saved a large number of civilian lives by preventing that UFO from attacking civilian targets. Next to that, the loss of 8 soldiers (all military, primarily volunteers who have opted in to dangerous operations) is not going to be a large factor*. Therefore, if Xenonauts keep shooting down the UFOs and handling the terror missions, the governments will keep funding them.

*Sadly, politicians and the like have often seen servicemen as almost disposable resources.

[StellarRat]

Ground missions should in general be worth more than intercepting the UFO's because of public opinion.

I disagree. Although, ground combat victories (other than terror cleanup) MIGHT be worth something, I'm sure the public would be much happier knowing a UFO was shotdown BEFORE they managed to land aliens on the ground and kill a bunch of civilians and damage property in a firefight with the Xenonauts. As an historical example I cite the Battle of Britain. Better that the Nazis were destroyed in the air vs. try to stop a ground invasion. The public is going to feel much better about air superiority than ground superiority.

[legit1337]

One of the points that I was trying to make in my post (not very well stated, I admit) is that the governments are not making good or rational decisions in this game. That's the one of the reasons why the Xenonauts are doing better, even with their limited funding, than nations with vastly superior resources. There's a lot of panic and not a lot of clear thinking going on.

I'm not 100% on which UFOs generate which events, but I know a number of them generate things like "airliner shot down", an event that would result in a large number of deaths, all civilian. When the Xenonauts shoot down a UFO, they can effectively claim to have saved a large number of civilian lives by preventing that UFO from attacking civilian targets. Next to that, the loss of 8 soldiers (all military, primarily volunteers who have opted in to dangerous operations) is not going to be a large factor*. Therefore, if Xenonauts keep shooting down the UFOs and handling the terror missions, the governments will keep funding them.

*Sadly, politicians and the like have often seen servicemen as almost disposable resources.

Short term vs long term perspective.

Using my earlier example. If the xenonauts shot down a UFO and attempted to breach it on the ground, and failed utterly. What that shows is that they can't fight the aliens on any kind of real level. Is it a short term victory? Yes, now that UFO can't go around causing havok. But it is actually a strategic defeat. Remember it is a WAR against the aliens. Shooting down 1 UFO is a drop in a very large bucket.

The nations providing funding for the xenonauts want to see that they can actually combat the alien threat on a credible level. That means ground victories as well as air victories. You can have all the air victories you want but if the aliens maintain superiority on the ground they are just going to land en-masse and destroy us that way.

I highly doubt a nation is going to keep pouring money into an organization that can shoot down a few UFOs, and then promptly gets slaughtered when they attempt to secure the crash-site or procure any technology.

While the civilians may appreciate the momentary victory I doubt military strategists and generals (the ones calling the shots, lets be real here) would be so shortsighted. If the aliens win the war all of us die anyway, shooting down a UFO before it attacks an airliner full of civilians means nothing unless you can capitalize on it.

As I said, the ending mission is a great example of this. We start to realize that no matter what we do the aliens will eventually come down in force and overwhelm us and that we have no realistic chance of victory. The final mission is a last ditch effort to damage the alien war effort as much as we can to give us a real chance at a military victory.

Edited January 14, 2014 by legit1337

[MrPyro]

Just to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with your analysis of the situation. My argument is that the people in charge of funding are not always making good decisions.

I highly doubt a nation is going to keep pouring money into an organization that can shoot down a few UFOs, and then promptly gets slaughtered when they attempt to secure the crash-site or procure any technology.

But that is still doing better than any other organisation on Earth is doing at this point. No other group has managed to down a UFO, so you would keep funding the organisation that is at least managing that much.

While the civilians may appreciate the momentary victory I doubt military strategists and generals (the ones calling the shots, lets be real here) would be so shortsighted.

Actually, as this is a fiscal transfer it would generally be in the hands of politicians, not military. Given that the militaries of all nations are currently failing even to shoot down UFOs, politicians may be more inclined to listen to the organisation that is actually doing something effective.

Short term vs long term perspective.

Absolutely. The politicians making the decision to keep funding are driven by trying to prevent their population from storming the central government and demanding that they surrender to the aliens to prevent further casualties. Therefore they are focused on short-term, and also by victories that make for good propaganda. A crashed UFO burning on the ground makes for excellent photo-ops; a failed ground assault can be easily brushed under the carpet.

[Gorlom]

From a psychological perspective I'd rather have the trigger and reward come from Ground Combat as that is imo THE core element of the game.

[StellarRat]

You can have the best Xenonaut air force and shoot down everything, but you can't win the game without doing a lot of ground combat to get the alien technology. I fail to understand why anyone would think that ground combat isn't important enough in Xenonauts. It is the core of everything. All good air play does for the player is keep him alive long enough for the final mission (which is GROUND COMBAT.)

[kraex]

You can play the game (not win) without ground combat. You cannot play the game at all without air combat. It's also been well documented in the "intercept only" thread (which became the intercept mostly thread) just how much more important air combat is over ground combat. You say it is the "core of everything", but that's really an opinion you have that is not supported by mechanics. The core of everything is not having your base over-run, and having enough money to keep playing the game. That's achieved through air superiority.

[StellarRat]

You can play the game (not win) without ground combat. You cannot play the game at all without air combat. It's also been well documented in the "intercept only" thread (which became the intercept mostly thread) just how much more important air combat is over ground combat. You say it is the "core of everything", but that's really an opinion you have that is not supported by mechanics. The core of everything is not having your base over-run, and having enough money to keep playing the game. That's achieved through air superiority.

But if you don't want to win why are you playing the game in the first place? As far as I know you will eventually be overwelmed by the UFOs no matter how many you shoot down. Air combat only staves off the inevitable. You have to run the ground combats to get to the final mission and win otherwise you will lose eventually. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here. I've never played long enough before the next build came out to see what happens if you don't run the final mission in a reasonable amount of time. Edited January 14, 2014 by StellarRat

[kraex]

But if you don't want to win why are you playing the game in the first place? As far as I know you will eventually be overwelmed by the UFOs no matter how many you shoot down. Air combat only staves off the inevitable. You have to run the ground combats to get to the final mission and win otherwise you will lose eventually. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here. I've never played long enough before the next build came out to see what happens if you don't run the final mission in a reasonable amount of time.

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/8405-Interception-Only-Play-through

You could just read the thread, it's still here. You were an active participant in it.

The point of the post you responded to isn't that ground combat is non-existent. The interceptor only playthrough was a dramatic example to prove a point. The point of the discussion was that it's not important enough or focused on.

I don't intend to offend you, or anyone, by this next statement. There are quite a few very active posters on this forum that have obviously been playing the game for a long time, and they're content or even happy with how it is. I think to an extent they've forgotten that this is a game in development (albeit close to completion) and this is a discussion forum for suggestions. To me, personally, the most important opinions are not from people who have figured out how to modify xml files to make the game playable, or know the (undocumented) tech tree well enough to know that you have to rush explosives first or your ships can't win air combats, or any of the other things that someone who has been playing for months knows.

The success of this game may well be determined by the people who are not early adopters. The first impressions of those new to the game, especially those who are fans of the X-Com genre/line, are likely to have a huge impact on sales after initial release. And the heavy focus on air (in particular the shifting of the entire economy to air control) is something that people who haven't played this game for a year or two find befuddling. You can make arguments for it based on realism, but in terms of "does this feel like a tactical turn-based alien game", that part of the game stands out as anomalous. It "should" (opinion) be a minor secondary part of the game, and instead it's a primary driver.

So we get that you like the game the way it is. You make it clear in every thread. Got it. But take a step back and realize that some of the people making suggestions are intelligent, reasonable game players, that have a preconception about how this game should be, and their viewpoint is valid. This game is being marketed as a successor to X-Com. You can say it's not a remake, but it's being marketed as one, and no one is discouraging those comparisons. That obligates you to at least listen to those who come here and say what feels wrong about it.

Just a reminder, this is the main headline/point on xenonauts.com:

"I’ve been waiting a long time for an X-COM remake that actually feels anything like X-COM. It is not in my nature to believe that dreams can come true."

So those who expect this game to feel like X-Com are not wrong. Take liberties, improve systems, make changes. But don't devalue what really is the core of the game.

[StellarRat]

No offense taken.

Maybe some people will be put off by the importance of air combat/strategy. Anything is possible, on the other hand, I don't think Chris ever intended to make a fancier "clone" of XCom. Some people will probably like the increased air combat strategy. Considering how much of the actual design of the game it was even in the original I think it was probably a missed opportunity back then to make a deeper game. I always thought the air combat was cheesy in that one and had missed the mark. Having seen the video the original games' designer made about the process it appears that was one of the major design changes and really didn't get developed as much as it could have been. Why did they need a fancy world map and placing bases around the world if air combat hadn't been intended to play a large role?

Personally, I love the game in it's present form. Obviously, some balancing still needs to happen. My personal feeling is that there is plenty of ground combat to do as is.

Also, one has to remember that taking an optimized path through the game to get to the end with the least possible amount of ground combat is not something most players will probably do unless they've played a lot of games and possibly studied a strategy guide (i.e. cheated.) They're going to blunder around, make mistakes, develop techs in the "wrong" order, etc...

I really wouldn't want to play a game that was much closer to the original because I've already done that in essence. The AC complexity and play adds something the OG didn't have that makes it more interesting and therefore "fresher" to me.

So, I guess we can disagree on this one and see what happens, right?

Edited January 14, 2014 by StellarRat

[kraex]

Aye, we can. I just hope that you and others can be sensitive to the fact that there's nothing wrong with people who come here expecting to find things much like X-Com and having suggestions. Some people tend to get a bit brow-beaten for making recommendations by people who like it the way it is or have a workaround they've figured out. Maybe Chris didn't intend to make a fancier clone of X-Com, but he's also not discouraging reporting that says that's what it is. It's one thing for rock-paper-shotgun to make the claim, but when you feature it as the main page of your website, it certainly looks like you're concurring with the assessment.

Economy doesn't have to be solely based off air combat. Relations can absolutely be gained by ground operations. That's what this thread is about, and I've seen no good argument to discredit that position. If ground combat is what this game is about, and even you claim it is, then it makes no sense game-wise that there is no relations bump for taking out aliens on the ground.

[kraex]

Let me add one more thing.

Key Features:

Ground Combat:

Strategic Management:

Research Tree:

Persistent Soldiers:

Detailed, Emergent Simulation:

Air combat is not listed as a key feature of Xenonauts. It is mentioned under Strategic Management, so let's look at that:

You will also be managing the defence of the planet, dealing with the invading alien UFOs with your customisable interceptors. You need to balance the needs of your funding nations with your own. Your funds are limited – are you going to spend them on battlefield equipment, more scientists, or expanding your coverage of the planet? Your priorities must be balanced carefully if you are to win the war.

This is no longer true at all. There is no choice. You HAVE to expand your coverage of the planet. None of the rest of the decisions matter if you don't do that. The focus on air combat has removed one of the primary choices of the game, which is listed as a key feature of the game. One of the things that XEU got right is that landed UFOs do not take off while a skyranger is in transit to them. Having landers take off while a ground force is en route adds very little to gameplay. Meanwhile, not allowing favor to be recovered or gained from ground combat takes away a facet of gameplay.

[StellarRat]

Economy doesn't have to be solely based off air combat. Relations can absolutely be gained by ground operations. That's what this thread is about, and I've seen no good argument to discredit that position. If ground combat is what this game is about, and even you claim it is, then it makes no sense game-wise that there is no relations bump for taking out aliens on the ground.

Absolutely, but you have to keep in mind that if you don't defend your bases, wipe out enemy bases, and clean up terror sites your economy will tank eventually. Those are all ground combat missions in addition to the recovery missions. I spend far more "real" time actually playing ground combat vs. any other game module.

I have no problem with people expressing their opinion about the games path. I hope I'm not brow beating anyone. I just support the current implementation and would be less happy if air combat was significantly reduced in importance. I'm hoping that auto-resolve will somewhat alleviate the people that think AC is too much. It needs a little work though.

[kraex]

I'm hoping that auto-resolve will somewhat alleviate the people that think AC is too much. It needs a little work though.

I don't think it will. It's not the time spent in air combat that is the problem (rather air combat is actually kind of too short and too one-shot-wonder). The issue is rather how much early focus it requires to get up to speed to deal with UFOs before your economy is in shambles. You're forced to focus on expanding bases just to get more planes and radars down, to research aircraft and aircraft weapons, to save most of your early funding for hangars and aircraft, etc. Obviously in terms of real time, you'll spend far more in a single ground combat than in several UFO encounters. The number of people complaining about the difficulty of air combat that will be helped by auto-resolve seems very small.

[StellarRat]

You will also be managing the defence of the planet, dealing with the invading alien UFOs with your customisable interceptors. You need to balance the needs of your funding nations with your own. Your funds are limited – are you going to spend them on battlefield equipment, more scientists, or expanding your coverage of the planet? Your priorities must be balanced carefully if you are to win the war.

This is no longer true at all. There is no choice. You HAVE to expand your coverage of the planet. None of the rest of the decisions matter if you don't do that.

Sure, but there are other "no choice" options too, like you'll lose if you do no research, and you'll lose if you don't do any ground combat. Also, you still have the option of trying to defend 1/3 of the planet or the whole thing. I think it's possible to win with only Europe and Asia under your air umbrella (two bases.) It seems to work for me at least through Jan. I've never been able to play past that point before a new build arrived so maybe someone else can comment on that on.

Anyway, my point is I think ALL the branches of the game are important.

[StellarRat]

The issue is rather how much early focus it requires to get up to speed to deal with UFOs before your economy is in shambles. You're forced to focus on expanding bases just to get more planes and radars down, to research aircraft and aircraft weapons, to save most of your early funding for hangars and aircraft, etc.

I agree, but a lot of GREAT games are like this. Look at Civilization. The first part of the game is nearly 100% expansion, then you develop your techs and grow your cities, etc... you don't truly have 100% flexibility with what you do if you expect to win. Hmm...that just gave me a thought though, I wonder what this would be like if there were multiple ways to achieve victory like Civ...interesting.

[legit1337]

I have to agree with everything kraex has said.

There really is no reason to move the nation relations boosts purely to the geoscape. In my opinion it is a lazy balancing decision by the devs. Half of the fun of the original x-com games was to see how well I could do the ground missions so that I could maximize my loot/relations. I also don't buy the 'realism' argument, as that is subjective at BEST.

I'm still glad I got in on the beta, and the guys at goldhawk have my wallet and my support. But I also call it how I see it.

The core focus of this game is supposed to be the ground combat. The geoscape is only supposed to serve as a story backdrop for those ground combats, and as a financial/management minigame that affects the resources you have in ground combat. Once you can go through the entire game only doing 5 or so ground missions and airstriking everything else, you have taken the emphasis out of the core gameplay and moved it to something that is really only supposed to be a minigame.

Imo this is how airstriking should be balanced:

-Shooting down a UFO should give 50% relations boost (down from what it gives now).

-You can either airstrike the site for a small amount of cash OR

-Do a recovery mission where you can get 3-4x the amount of resources AND MONEY you would get by airstriking AND

-Depending on how well you do the mission, a extra -75 to +75% nation boost. Resulting in a net of -25% relations if you totally screw up and get lots of civilians killed or wipe your team, or 125% if you pull off a flawless operation with no casualties.

This way you can still airstrike the shitty light scout missions in the mid/lategame if you want to feel less grindy, but at the same time it is not viable to do it for EVERYTHING. And it adds tenseness to the missions because you know if you mess up not only are all your guys going to get killed, but you will lose nation rating too. It will also make you care about civilians more.

I'm not saying to nerf the importance of air combat (as it was arguably not as important as it should have been in the original x-com). I'm saying ground combat needs to have more weight in the game besides acquiring research and leveling your men.

Edited January 15, 2014 by legit1337

[Newfr]

I can't even describe how i'm disappointed in such change. I backed this game because it was like good old UFO: Defence with some twist (air combat). Some quotes from KS page: "A blend of turn-based ground combat and strategic command", "Xenonauts is a spiritual successor to the classic X-Com strategy games". And Xenonauts was like that in that time. And what are you trying to do now? A tactical air combat game with some twist (ground combat that you can COMPLETELY IGNORE). FFS, should i even say that ground combat WAS THE MAIN FOCUS of all three X-Com games (i can't care less how 2k ruining X-Com name now)?

"The nation wouldn't care" my ass! No one care about aliens running rampart on your backyard. Ever. "Jenny, go throw that pesky Sebillian a cheeseburger, maybe he will go away then". They don't care how much civs and/or their soldiers will be killed in action? They don't care how much aliens will get away?

- Sir, we are done, but two Reapers run away in direction of a city over there.

- Relax, soldier, it absolutely fine and safe.

Really? Yeah and carpet bombing a village (some mid east maps are clearly looks like a village) instead of ground operation doesn't look bad at all! They even give you money for that.

- Jenkins, how you feel about bombing out your home town? Not to mention that civilians are still there.

- I'm excited! It's such a good practice for me, sir!

This deserves an etalon facepalm from International Bureau of Weights and Measures.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Newfr

[Dranak]

You can unlock every piece of tech on time by doing 7 ground missions (just abort if a crash site isn't lightly damaged), with a slight chance of having to do an extra mission or two to unlock the final mission if the RNG is against you. If you're good enough (and dump enough resources into it, which currently means 3 bases and 15 aircraft) you can totally avoid terror missions, alien bases, and base assaults.

There's a difference between having an optimal strategy (which will happen in any game), and having one strategy that is so overwhelmingly optimal that anything else feels like gimping yourself. Currently it feels like spending the first few months focusing purely on Foxtrots/air upgrades is by far the optimal approach, and doing anything else will pretty much run you hard into a wall after a few months.

The added complexity in air combat currently feels more like an illusion of choice than an actual one. You build Foxtrots and a few Condors, and then you build Marauders (with a Corsair or two if you feel like wasting Alenium). You have the same four fights (solo UFO, escorted UFO, fighter patrol, UFO escorted by Interceptors) over and over with basically no variation aside from bigger numbers and repeat the same tactics accordingly.

[Ol' Stinky]

So was I the only one to commit war crimes in OG X-Com? The rating loss wasn't that severe for killing them. If I knew there were chryssalids around, well, sorry Mr. Civ, but it's you or me. Nothing personal. (Well, sometimes it was personal.)

I even seem to remember for terror sites that it'd be much better, relations-wise, if I went to one and then immediately aborted the mission. It wouldn't be a happy result for sure but a better one than not showing up at all.

There's a difference between having an optimal strategy (which will happen in any game), and having one strategy that is so overwhelmingly optimal that anything else feels like gimping yourself. Currently it feels like spending the first few months focusing purely on Foxtrots/air upgrades is by far the optimal approach, and doing anything else will pretty much run you hard into a wall after a few months.

That seems inevitable to me, since the only way to down UFOs is by aircraft. With or without airstrikes, I can wing ground combat with ballistic weapons and pyjamas for a long time, but the same can't be said of a minimal airforce. I've prioritised air dominance on the geoscape for as long as I've played Xenonauts.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Ol' Stinky

[MrPyro]

So was I the only one to commit war crimes in OG X-Com? The rating loss wasn't that severe for killing them. If I knew there were chryssalids around' date=' well, sorry Mr. Civ, but it's you or me. Nothing personal. (Well, sometimes it was personal.)

[/quote']

I just hit them with stun rods. Same effect but isn't classed as a kill at the end.

[Chris]

The forum ate my reply and I'm not going to write another long one (it's also put me in a bad mood). There's a lot of melodrama about this change.

Newfr, see how far you get in the game if you "COMPLETELY IGNORE" the ground combat. You can literally completely ignore the air combat due to the autoresolve system for that, but you're still forced to play the ground combat missions...so you're either confused or exaggerating wildly.

Legit1337, you can still do the ground combat missions to maximise your loot and be better off than if you'd just airstruck the crash site. (Also, why so desperate to maximise funding on the Geoscape if it's just a little minigame?)

The original game can be completed with one crash site mission. Please stop telling us be more like the original game, but then telling us we've made the ground combat irrelevant by only forcing a skilled player to do seven missions. Shouldn't we reduce that down to one mission so we're keeping the spirit of X-Com, then?

Legit, you're also saying we shouldn't nerf the importance of the air combat because it wasn't important enough in the original game, but then you're also saying we should make the ground combat so important people should have to do almost every mission (giving 4x the resources means the only optimal way to play the game is to play EVERY crash site, not airstrike it). But then what do you do about the increased number of UFOs in the waves we use to make the air combat more interesting? More UFOs = more crash sites = even more grind, and X-Com vets would think it was a bug if shooting down a UFO didn't generate a crash site.

So, as is frequently the case, people seem to want to have their cake and eat it. You can't just pull out individual system changes and then say "this is bad, change it back" and want to keep the other upgrades that caused us to make that change in the first place. More challenging air combat = more UFOs = more crash sites, so we need a way to deal with them.

It doesn't even make ground combat less important, as you still get increased money from doing a crash site, it's just in the form of loot rather than country relations.

[Solver]

Chris, on the subject of losing long typed replies (been there!), just use this:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/lazarus-form-recovery/

[Newfr]

Newfr, see how far you get in the game if you "COMPLETELY IGNORE" the ground combat. You can literally completely ignore the air combat due to the autoresolve system for that, but you're still forced to play the ground combat missions...so you're either confused or exaggerating wildly.

It was already said and confirmed that you can beat the game doing about 10 ground missions while i can't find any proof that you can beat original X-COM with just one ground combat as you say. Probably you will need the same ammount of missions just to get needed tech, but you will run out of money before you can get to Mars. So i don't know who "exaggerating wildly" here.

You are trying to shift focus from tactical turn based combat to that real time air combat mini game, make it less important. Yes, you do. Stop deny that. Ground combat was everything for XCOM: your reputation, money, materials and tech came from that. And now? Just some extra money, materials and tech. Looks like about 1/3 of that "everything" moved to air combat. But for me XCOM is like 90% tactic battles + 10% management. And i'm perfectly fine with that.

So, as is frequently the case, people seem to want to have their cake and eat it. You can't just pull out individual system changes and then say "this is bad, change it back" and want to keep the other upgrades that caused us to make that change in the first place. More challenging air combat = more UFOs = more crash sites, so we need a way to deal with them.

So you just making a cake for propeller-heads and telling "screw you, guys" to those who prefer ground combat? I don't want that "more challenging air combat", never asked that and can't understand why game have to change for that. "A blend of turn-based ground combat and strategic command" that's my thing, that what i ask and that's why i supported Xenonauts in a first place. And now you telling me that i'm asking too much, everything changed and etc.?

[StellarRat]

It was already said and confirmed that you can beat the game doing about 10 ground missions while i can't find any proof that you can beat original X-COM with just one ground combat as you say.

I believe Chris is right. I read the same thing somewhere. I just can't remember where. My question is: If you were looking for just an updated clone of XCom why did you get Xenonauts? It should be fairly obvious that it wasn't going to be exactly the same.