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No more positive points from ground combat - implications?


StK

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Eh jeez Kraex I don't wanna read all that. I tried and got to 'the foxtrot is an upgrade that can't shoot down small UFOs' and stopped there since the foxtrot is obviously designed to take on large targets, not small maneuverable craft.

When I used to play x-com, I liked to add a bit of my imagination to the game. I'd set up three-four regular bases around the planet but also one in Antarctic that I used as a research station (lots of labs and scientists, few soldiers, no transport craft, two fighter craft for defense), and one in South Africa that would serve as my manufactory; creating weapons, armor, and planes for x-com around the world.

It was a totally wasteful strategy, I used lots of unnecessary money and time to get those set up but I still had a blast doing it. I just hope when xenonauts is finished it too will have some sort of flexibility where I can go off and do my own thing. (Though for the original I think it's less 'flexibility' and more shoddy game mechanics coming together in such a way that you could pretty much do anything and still win)

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Eh jeez Kraex I don't wanna read all that. I tried and got to 'the foxtrot is an upgrade that can't shoot down small UFOs' and stopped there since the foxtrot is obviously designed to take on large targets, not small maneuverable craft.

No worries. The game has changed a bit since then as well.

It was a totally wasteful strategy, I used lots of unnecessary money and time to get those set up but I still had a blast doing it. I just hope when xenonauts is finished it too will have some sort of flexibility where I can go off and do my own thing. (Though for the original I think it's less 'flexibility' and more shoddy game mechanics coming together in such a way that you could pretty much do anything and still win)

I get what you're saying, and it's the heart of my argument as well. Wasteful strategies can be fun, and add a ton of replay value to the game. Xenonauts doesn't support that much, and based on what I've read and comments that have been made, it doesn't seem to be in the cards. The devs, and part of the community, feel that the OG was "broken" which is why that stuff worked. Maybe it was, but that being broken is what made it fun to play through 10 different ways.

I suppose you can always just hack an XML file to make shooting down small scouts worth a bajillion favor and play however you want.

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In some ways, the game's less restrictive in base placement than the original: UFOs shot down over water still influence nation funding. So, while you'll lose out on the one time income from the airstrike or alien tech, shooting a Scout down over water could easily be a 50k/month funding swing (Preventing a couple events over water (20k) and the Scout itself (30k)).

Not quite sure what to say re: the rest of your complaints...Yea, your initial play will almost always include one or two hangers, but I fail to see what's wrong with that. In almost every game, a predetermined set of opening moves will eventually be found to be the most effective opening strategy. As it stands, there are probably two viable opening strategies: Immediate construction of a second base with two hangers and a radar array or research and hanger expansion of your main base with a focus on keeping upkeep low enough so that you'd be able to build two bases after the next month's bit of funding comes in.

The balance issue that needs to be addressed is the ease in which fail cascades can start on the geoscape level. A single bad wave can swing funding down a massive amount, enough such that my monthly income can no longer meet my maintenance costs. And without that monthly income, I can't afford to expand my force, despite that being the one thing that'd keep me afloat. Changing the balance such that ground combat has enough influence on nation rating such that you'd be able to hold on in situations where you lose air superiority is what I'd consider the core geoscape balance issue. UFOs landing more frequently, and landing for longer periods would go a long way towards that goal.

As far as pacing goes, perhaps that could be tied to difficulty level? Easy being heavily scaled to the player's level, normal being less so, and veteran and up being as they are now. It goes against what I consider to be the spirit of XCom, but I can at least understand how/why people find the lack of it frustrating.

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(There is a potentially very interesting debate to have as to whether UFO events should cause permanent relations damage, or just a temporary drop in funding for the next month.)

I think it should stay has it is, or close, the reason why is there is already an artificial feel with the monthly cycles (to my taste), bigger and bigger UFOs like clockwork. And why would the world governments (on a monthly basis) decide to forgive you your lack of effectiveness? Well I could think of one reason, but it's kind of stretching things, and it could favour ground combats a little more, at least for players that are low on relation points. It would be to account for every civilians you saved in the GG and just tally them up at the end of the month to count for a relations boost, but not a financial boost (for your balancing reasons). *cough* For airstrikes some or all civilians should be lost as well.

BTW I think if you balance this game to death it won't be so fun anymore

Also what is the accumulating civilian death toll for? is it just some visual numbers for the player to feel bad about? does it do anything?

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If my posts yesterday were ill-tempered and offended some people, I apologise. It's just a combination of the fact that I'd just typed out a long polite post that disappeared when I clicked the quote button, and people love to create strawmen and exaggerate when they're telling us we've made bad decisions and being told you're wrong in a factually inaccurate way grinds after a while.

@Newfr - have you played V21 Experimental 1, or better still played V20 Experimental Balance Patch 2 on Veteran? The AI isn't dumb any more, and they'll probably wreck you unless you play very carefully. Also, it's not fair to say our choice of mechanics were bad because the game right now is not completely balanced or has bugs in it, that just means that the game is not completely finished. If you think we're not going to be able to finish the game properly, fine, but that's a different argument entirely.

@legit / kraex - the main problem with the system that you're suggesting is you're making the ground combat missions much more useful than the air combat missions, where as now they're somewhat better but not massively better.

There's never actually been a relations penalty or anything for not doing combat missions in the game, but even when we told people that some would still do all the missions even if they weren't enjoying them - because doing all the missions was by far the optimal way to play the game, as you got much more in the way of rewards for doing it. It was a chore, but it gave them by far the best chance of winning the game.

So if we're agreeing that having the UFO waves rather than the system in the OG is better (and for the purposes of this discussion, let's say that we are), then we either need to reduce the number of crash sites in some manner or make it so that not doing every ground combat mission is a valid choice in terms of game progression. Under what you're proposing, it is not.

TL;DR - relying purely on tedium to discourage people from doing crash sites is not a good idea. People will just say "this game is boring" and stop playing.

Regarding the point due to lack of consequences for failing ground combat missions, I do sort of see your point. It's true that losing a crash site mission doesn't give you much of a penalty...but losing a terror site gives you major penalties, and losing an alien base mission means the base is not destroyed. So you can't really ignore all the crash sites entirely, as you do need the soldier experience and in-game resources to be able to tackle the other types of mission. It's not just research.

EDIT - There is currently a situation where players can get so dominant in the air that they don't get alien bases or terror sites, and we're going to fix that so they'll still get some even if they shoot down every UFO (the bases are needed for the tech tree, so this isn't just to make the game harder).

Don't feel bad. We all lose our temper at some point. The fact that you feel strongly enough about this game to actually get mad is a good thing.

I just want the ground combat to feel more important, and less detached from the geoscape game. My idea was probably a little overboard, but I still maintain that ground combat needs SOMETHING as a reward for doing it. Nation rating, extra cash (more then now), or materials (they aren't so important so maybe not this.). Just something MORE then currently.

To be honest min-maxers are going to be min-maxers... The "optimal" way to play in the OG was to let alien bases sit there and farm the supply ships that went to them. But not everyone did that because it just felt wrong and grindy. I know I didn't farm, even though I knew I could have used the extra resources. My point is it's impossible to really design a game that CAN'T be min-maxed. I'm forced to agree with your point however that boredom isn't a strong enough deterrent to stop players from feeling like they have to do every single mission to get the extra money though under my "system".

You have a tough balancing act on your hands chris. IMO you need to:

-Increase the rewards of ground combat so that it feels like you are actually accomplishing something.

-But make sure the rewards aren't so great that a player feels the need to do every single ground mission to stay in the game. Or for that matter to be greedy and get all of the cash that he can possibly get. (But I honestly don't see a problem with making the player do more ground missions to cover his costs if he "screws up" on the geoscape)

-Make ground combat failure have greater consequences then it does currently. (Losing all of your soldiers isn't enough of a consequence. This could also be a "balance" to the rewards of ground combat. IE: making ground combat a risk of getting more rewards then just the shootdown relations boost + airstrike money, or screwing up and losing everything, including the shootdown relations boost and money)

-Balance the region funding so that a first base outside the middle east/cuba would actually be viable.

-Loosen the balance of the early game a bit so that there isn't one "right" strategy or research path.

-IMO there should be occasional UFOs outside of waves to spice things up a bit. Makes no sense when aliens only attack once a week. It doesn't have to be every 12 hours like the OG. But consistent 6-7 days of quiet between waves feels wrong and artificial.

Edited by legit1337
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To be honest min-maxers are going to be min-maxers... The "optimal" way to play in the OG was to let alien bases sit there and farm the supply ships that went to them. But not everyone did that because it just felt wrong and grindy.

Min-maxers will always min-max just like save scummers will always save scum, very true. If the point here is 'please don't try to balance the game so people can't min/max' then I agree entirely. While balance is very important, to me fun > balance. I attacked supply runs to alien bases in the original. I wouldn't always do the ground missions, but in my head it felt more...real. Of course I'm going to try to disrupt my enemies supply lines.

But make sure the rewards aren't so great that a player feels the need to do every single ground mission to stay in the game. Or for that matter to be greedy and get all of the cash that he can possibly get. (But I honestly don't see a problem with making the player do more ground missions to cover his costs if he "screws up" on the geoscape)

I like this idea actually. In fact could this maybe be a balance for out of reach terror bombings, or funding loss due to relations changing? In the first two months you're almost guaranteed to lose funding relations. Now imagine in the second month you step your game up and are able to shoot down every UFO that comes into your territory. You'll still lose funding from nations you're not covering but if you do enough ground missions you can cancel the loss, even maybe make a slight profit.

Make ground combat failure have greater consequences then it does currently

No please :( a squad wipe consisting of a commander, major, and couple of lieutenants is already heart breaking enough. Better yet get absolutely nothing (maybe slight relationship loss) and after combat failure the sight is destroyed by airstrike, for which you get no money because you failed the ground mission.

-Loosen the balance of the early game a bit so that there isn't one "right" strategy or research path.

-IMO there should be occasional UFOs outside of waves to spice things up a bit. Makes no sense when aliens only attack once a week.

And my main reason for quoting you are these two points right here. I support this! I'm fine with UFOs coming in waves, but do the scouts on scouting missions and landing ships on base supply missions only come out during these waves? If so I think that should be changed. Scouting and resupply missions (maybe others I can't think of right now) should be able to happen at any point in time.

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@Newfr - have you played V21 Experimental 1, or better still played V20 Experimental Balance Patch 2 on Veteran? The AI isn't dumb any more, and they'll probably wreck you unless you play very carefully. Also, it's not fair to say our choice of mechanics were bad because the game right now is not completely balanced or has bugs in it, that just means that the game is not completely finished. If you think we're not going to be able to finish the game properly, fine, but that's a different argument entirely.

Nope, since i'm also translating the game and need just a latest stable release for that purpose. And i didn't like what i saw in 20 stable. If things got better - great. Btw it's easy for AI to wreck human in most games because it has more calculating power behind it (aimbot anyone?). AI could just have an unfair advantage (like insane accuracy, tons of hp) and that will be a very hard opponent. Will it be interesting one? I don't think so (example - Berserker form EU2012: dumb like brick but can be very difficult to deal on high difficulty). Just saying that "hard" not always equal "good", nothing more.

I'll leave this discussion since there are guys like legit1337 and kraex who have same ideas (or close enough) as i do but can express their thoughts in English much better. So i'll silently support em :D Just a small thing before that. Look here or here. What do you see on screenshots or on that PC screens? Right, tactical combat. And there is a reason for that. That what sold your game to a lot of people, that's basically a first thing that most people imagine when they hear about games like XCOM. And that what in my opinion should be more important than shooting ufos down.

@Newfr ...
Should i as a consumer care about everything you said? Nope. Also you forgot that Xenonauts were in development for 3 years when Chris made a KS project.
And in the end what exactly Banner Saga has to do
And did i say it do? I could mention Wastland 2 (was made from a scratch also) that in Early Access now. It was there just as some thoughts on my "Duke Nukem Forever" theory.
In almost every game, a predetermined set of opening moves will eventually be found to be the most effective opening strategy.
Well, you see for example in SC2 timings for building your first worker are always the same no matter the strategy. But what you will do after is up to you and strategy you choose. That's ok. But when you know that MMM strategy is the best way (and mostly the only) to do things no matter what that isn't ok at all.

And right now air domination strategy (look at kraex post about what you need to do) is that way. And i don't think it's ok.

And actually there are lots of games where there is no such thing at all. Like chess, every sport game i know, all card games, all TCG and so on (what can you do with what you have).

Edited by Newfr
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  • 2 weeks later...

One idea is to have player airstrikes kill civilians too. I haven't played in awhile and never done them so maybe they do this already. In a perfect world with unlimited development time you might then include pilot skill ratings or rate munitions accuracy for close air support to give players a choice of holding back their best pilots / most tailored gear for airstrikes or just sending Joe McPilot with big dumb bombs knowing that many will die. This could open up a research line for improved close air support munitions so in order to efficiently run this you'd need to focus more research time on an air strategy.

Edited by magoo
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Just a thought but how about if air combat gave a relations boost to the region you shot the enemy craft down over but ground combat gave a smaller boost to ALL regions relations?

That gives a slightly different reason to do the two different types of missions and could also reward a more ground combat heavy approach.

Terror missions could work the same way I guess.

Rather than purely affecting the region that gets hit they could also have an effect on the other regions.

Successfully kicking the aliens out of the city shows the whole planet that they are not without some protection.

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For now I'd settle for removing all that fluff from air combat, toning it down to a more X-com format.

From what we have today I'd say I've seen either extremely difficult battles (where a light scout cannot be brought down by a single jet), or extremely easy ones (where two planes kill 1 scout). But the whole system, while novel, is a bit meh, gameplay-wise.

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I guess that is one difficulty of having multiple aircraft in a single engagement.

When both sides don't have full numbers then balance will be off.

Or at least balance will depend on the player having the proper tools for the job and using them in the expected way.

And to think some were requesting making the number of craft unlimited in air combat.

How would you like your two or three fighters coming up against 20 heavy fighters and how interesting would a fight be where you had six fighters against a single light scout?

Guess it would make auto resolving more appealing if you knew you could always throw five times the number of craft at the enemy for a higher win percentage.

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For now I'd settle for removing all that fluff from air combat, toning it down to a more X-com format.

From what we have today I'd say I've seen either extremely difficult battles (where a light scout cannot be brought down by a single jet), or extremely easy ones (where two planes kill 1 scout). But the whole system, while novel, is a bit meh, gameplay-wise.

Light scouts can be killed by a single Condor with no weapon upgrades. You could do the same with a Foxtrot, but it would be a real pain in the ass to pull off.

It does feel like there's a huge gulf in difficulty that depends largely on your skill at air combat.

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I try to kill all aircraft and missions. A relations boost should be given regardless of result. But not turning up for a mission should have a negitive score.

Now a bonus should be given for every civ saved on top of doing the mission score. And removed with killed civ.

Civs and soldiers should interactable.. Ie. Call them over. Ask them to hide in chopper. Or hide in chosen location.

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OK I read through up to page 8, but having actually broken down and bought the game, I feel I need to state something.

Yes ground combat is the the Meat and Soul of the game, but am I the only Player on the planet who has gone through a marathon session, am Really hoping for that new tech upgrade to roll out and be to damned tired to deal with ground fight after ground fight? While waiting for the last few minutes of a production timer?

I like the fact we can Airstrike and still get reasonable rewards, I haven't been because I didn't think we would!

To many ground combats become tedious, not enough ufos make for a pathetic invasion. We really need both options to be a Viable strategy.

And thinking on it, maybe I don't perfectly agree that the ground combat is the heart and soul of the game, the game should imho have two play styles, the Micro manger who is all about the ground combat, and the Xenonaught's base commander. Whose focused on building and managing the over all picture. I like both playstyles myself, there are times I want to focus on building bases and not be bothered with the minutia of telling my soldiers what direction their pants should be facing when worn... I mean these are trained combat professionals why should I be expected to hand hold them 24/7 when I've got Berlin calling on the red phone, China sending diplomats to my command center, the USA threatening to drop out entirely because the president's dog got hit by a stray plasma bolt. and the entire middle east wanting to declare Jihad on every nation with a ufo sighting?

As the man/woman in charge of the world's ultimate defense. We need to make sure ground combat is rewarding enough to go through it, but Not so rewarding we feel we can Never take a Break and focus on other tasks the game puts before us. I think Chris understands that, I think at least after reading the first 8 pages of the thread that people are getting a little to worried about things.

My ideas:

1) Yes air combat should be important stopping a UFO from landing should be a primary goal... unless you need a PR boost and are willing to risk it. (See Terror missions. Letting them happen and fighting them while a bastard move psychologically is a damned good way to get a PR boost because John Q public will likely never know you knew and could of acted otherwise.)

2) Ground combat should also be important, Field experience always trumps mock combat.

3) But ground combat should not be SO much better than Air that you can't use auto resolve, (Face it what Airstrike is)

4) Air combat should not be something you can't afford to Auto resolve.

5) You should be fine auto resolving both, If only for a short term.

6) this allows you to focus on building up and act as a Commander, rather than a Sargent.

7) Do I have ANY idea how to balance this, Hell no, but I trust Chris, so long as he doesn't cave to peer pressure, which is what I'm afraid of.

Edit:

On a completely unrelated note, do Steam backers get a Forum badge or not, don't really care either way, just want to prove I own the game.

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The point is, the game is remake or re-image (what ever you call it) of x-com which is classed as a classic,which I agree with, 20+ years on and people still play it and talk about it, every game like it will be judged how good it is and comparing it to x-com there isn't that many games like this about and each one if any good have to be cherished.

In x-com ground combat was the main part of the game and as such it is in this game as well but with this game they made air combat more interesting as there wasn't a lot to do in the first game with air combat.

Ground combat is a large part of the game, it is the biggest part and rightly so if you going to do a x-com clone, remake you do what x-com did well and try and improve the parts that wasn't done so well, which I think Chris and his team have done very well considering the small team and the engine they using.

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I feel like I want to toss in my 2 cents.

I am a strong believer that You should upon completion of a ground mission should get the following:

Cash Bonus from the Country you did the "work" in.

Items to sell and research (including corpses and gear from dead military civilians for instance if they are wearing armor? Probably good early on to wear or to sell for a bit of $.)

Corpses should be recoverable to be sold or used in perhaps some sort of construction later on?

And you should get points for Civies still alive, depending on the mission for dealing with it get reward based on difficulty and number of aliens and type of aliens encountered. Perhaps +2-5 for baby missions and +50 relations for alien base type of deal?

Or if you choose to do the airstrike you should also get a little bit of + relations to the country where airstrike occurred since its a positive for that nation they get new tech + get rid of a pest and you "let" them do it.

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Wow, this really sucks.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can't i just get a certain amount of relationship boost form shooting down ufos AND fighting them on the ground?

Both are recognisable acts of fighting the alien threat, they should both be acknowledged.

Besides the fact that Terror missions don't give any relationship boost is just retarded. These are ultra hard missions and they don't give you any benefit whatsoever for beating them.

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Items to sell and research (including corpses and gear from dead military civilians for instance if they are wearing armor? Probably good early on to wear or to sell for a bit of $.)

You want the player to scavange the gear from allied npcs? 0.o Why?? Isn't that pretty much a warcrime?
Corpses should be recoverable to be sold or used in perhaps some sort of construction later on?
... that's kind of sick ... :S
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Wow, this really sucks.

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can't i just get a certain amount of relationship boost form shooting down ufos AND fighting them on the ground?

Because that's the design decision the implementor made. No other reason.

And as for Jasmine Moldovia's entire post.... Do you actually have a suggestion? Your post seems to be:

Step 1: Underpants!

Step 2: <shrug>

Step 3: Profit!

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Besides the fact that Terror missions don't give any relationship boost is just retarded. These are ultra hard missions and they don't give you any benefit whatsoever for beating them.

I'm not 100% certain on how it works in the current experimental build, but Chris has been extremely clear on this point on multiple occasions throughout this discussion. Terror sites will get relation bonuses for the ground combat. I'm going to repeat that a second time, because this misunderstanding persists despite being repeatedly repudiated: Terror sites will get relation bonuses from ground combat. The debate is about relationship modifiers from crash site recovery missions only. Other ground combat missions still get a relationship bonus.

And as for Jasmine Moldovia's entire post.... Do you actually have a suggestion? Your post seems to be:

Step 1: Underpants!

Step 2: <shrug>

Step 3: Profit!

The attitude does not contribute to the discussion in any way. I'm not a moderator here or associated with GH in any way, but I'll still ask you not to insult people (and yes, the quoted comment is insulting).

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The attitude does not contribute to the discussion in any way. I'm not a moderator here or associated with GH in any way, but I'll still ask you not to insult people (and yes, the quoted comment is insulting).

Neither did the OP's entire post. You can sum up the entire lengthy post by saying : "Ground combat is the most important. Ok, I might not think it's the most important. I think the game should be balanced. I don't have anything to contribute on how to balance it."

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