No more positive points from ground combat - implications?

[StellarRat]

I do in fact agree that we should not play hundreds of missions. I do not want that. I do not even want a hundred. But I'd like to point out that with my estimate numbers from a few posts up, a 6 UFO wave where you shoot down 1 and do its mission, and let 5 go, would increase your relations slightly. As long as you either shoot down 3 out of 6 UFOs without doing any missions, or do at least one crash site, your relations would go up.

Then again, I do not think the current balance is fine at all. I want nation relations to matter, among other things, and I want ground performance to be more important than air. You should have to have an air strategy, absolutely, but you shouldn't feel compelled to airstrike most crash sites because they only give you a small benefit. The air game is absolutely better than in X-Com. So is the whole funding scheme in fact, but it should not be possible to keep all nations happy just by having many interceptors.

I mainly do ground missions to advance my technology. I never feel compelled to do an airstrike I just do them because I don't want to be bothered with running a ground mission on a UFO type that I've already researched and it's nice to get some cash. By the third ship of the same type they get boring. If you like ground combat go for it.

My only other thought would be that maybe there should be some risk in calling an airstrike. Maybe there could a chance to cause cilivian casualities or property damage resulting in a negative nation relations outcome every once in a while. That would at least give players pause before they "push the button." It could even be based on where crash site is located. You're probably not going to hurt anyone dropping bombs in the Artic, but in the middle of Europe it's a lot riskier. Maybe a 1 in 10 chance that you'll get a negative 80 (two shoot downs cancelled) or something like that.

Edited December 18, 2013 by StellarRat

[StellarRat]

In truth, the very fact the player forgot about the Alenium and Alloys is not very promising. Ignoring the whole discussion about the national relationship points, I would recommend having early UFO - scout and light scout, possibly Corvette - give significantly less resources while later UFO - large and massive - give slightly more resources so player are encouraged to participate in bigger UFO more, rather than relying on easier, smaller UFO for Xenonaut training + resource collection.

In the OG the difference in resources between ship sizes was pretty proportional. A scout had hardly any, while a mothership had tons. It wasn't just a slight difference it was a huge difference. I nearly always wanted to do mothership missions because of all the loot.

[Ol' Stinky]

My only other thought would be that maybe there should be some risk in calling an airstrike. Maybe there could a chance to cause cilivian casualities or property damage resulting in a negative nation relations outcome every once in a while. That would at least give players pause before they "push the button." It could even be based on where crash site is located. You're probably not going to hurt anyone dropping bombs in the Artic, but in the middle of Europe it's a lot riskier. Maybe a 1 in 10 chance that you'll get a negative 80 (two shoot downs cancelled) or something like that.

I'd rather the risk lie in running out of resources by being overzealous with airstriking than getting randomly sucker punched. I want airstrikes to be the "safe" option, but too cautious play makes you fall behind.

[StellarRat]

I'd rather the risk lie in running out of resources by being overzealous with airstriking than getting randomly sucker punched. I want airstrikes to be the "safe" option' date=' but too cautious play makes you fall behind.[/quote']Me too, but I was trying to come up with a reasonable compromise in case Aaron actually decides to change something.

[smoitessier]

Call me nit picky but why would an airstrike that kills all the civilians on the map give you more relations points then if you did the mission your self and say lost 2 desk clerks out of a possible 4?

If anything airstrikes should give you a little less reputation, i.e. from the number of civilian lives lost. Even if symbolic, that little consolation to the player who just finished a 45 minute battle when they could have ended it in a click of a mouse, to know that they got a few extra relations points in addition to their loot, sound fair.

And yeah a better UI for knowing how much raw materials are needed to build stuff and how much is in stock would really help show if there are problems in that area

[StellarRat]

Call me nit picky but why would an airstrike that kills all the civilians on the map give you more relations points then if you did the mission your self and say lost 2 desk clerks out of a possible 4?

I would hope that the airstrikes aren't killing everyone in the area. If they were then I would imagine that would always be a terrible option. I keep think the term "airstrike" really isn't the best thing to call "it". I think "Local forces recovery" or something like that would be far more appropriate. Airstrike implies a massive jet bomdardment with lots of damage to me. I'm sure it's much more controlled than that. In my mind it would be more like, condon off the site and surround with local army/national guard and police, then move in with support from helicopter gunships. After all the aliens have been cutdown move in and salvage whatever you can find. Edited December 18, 2013 by StellarRat

[ventuswings]

I would hope that the airstrikes aren't killing everyone in the area. If they were then I would imagine that would always be a terrible option. I keep think the term "airstrike" really isn't the best thing to call "it". I think "Local forces recovery" or something like that would be far more appropriate. Airstrike implies a massive jet bomdardment with lots of damage to me. I'm sure it's much more controlled than that. In my mind it would be more like, condon off the site and surround with local army/national guard and police, then move in with support from helicopter gunships. After all the aliens have been cutdown move in and salvage whatever you can find.

Since it's discussion about thematic problem of Airstrike, I feel justified on bringing up problems about this approach too. First, the very idea that local forces are capable of handling the ground mission diminishes the alien threat and importance of Xenonauts. That was one of the reason why I had problem with [LOCAL FORCES SHOT DOWN LIGHT SCOUT] message too, would have preferred it if that said [LOCAL FORCES REPORT LANDED LIGHT SCOUT AND REQUEST XENONAUT ASSISTANCE].

Besides the fact that the idea runs aground against theme of X-COM UFO Defense, idea about ground assault becomes ridiculous when it comes to larger UFO. If all countries are capable of handling every landed UFO, why is the assistance for Terror mission even needed?

Whatever 'realism' benefit regarding national modifier provided by this change would not be worth it, I think. Current dissonance could easily be explained by the fact that bombed area usually only seem to contain less than 5 NPC (on the ground combat), which is why airstrike is available for shot-down UFO which consists of small, isolated area but not for terror missions where there are lot of civilains. Also it's 1979! I do believe Soviet Union and China will give no thought about bombing the alien-infested down to the dust; they are the necessary sacrifice for sake of the humanity

Edited December 18, 2013 by ventuswings
last paragraph addition & typo

[StellarRat]

I always assume that the UFOs are very difficult to find, so XCom is the only group with the assets to detect them even when they crash land. Obviously, if you shoot one down, it's easy to tell the locals where to look. It's fairly obvious to me that nearly any national military could handle a recovery. I mean, even our wimpy level 1 weapons can kill the aliens and military have much bigger stuff. I really don't know how to address the suspension of disbelief for terror sites. A couple of M1's could clear one up in a few minutes.

[Aaron]

It's best not to think too hard about the realism implications of the XCOM formula - I see the advantage of the Xenonauts organisation as its global reach and information collection capacity, rather than any martial prowess. National militaries are hobbled because they are only going to be recovering the alien artefacts that they could shoot down in their own territory, and therefore would miss pieces of the "puzzle" the Xenonauts are able to solve in order to manufacture technologically superior weapons.

I think it would be an interesting project to take a more grognardian approach to an XCOM game - a Paradox style "Hearts of Alenium" or some such - where you are controlling vastly more military gear, and the game is about managing that grand strategic aspect rather than ground combat (Oh, think of the fun: AWACs vectoring Tomcats to intercept a wing of UFO bombers, Akula submarines tracking UUOs through the Marianas Trench etc...). That's not this game, though.

I don't think we should put some "gotcha" penalty on the airstrike monetary values - however randomising the value of them a bit would make sense.

I think I might take a Meier-ian approach to rebalancing the Alenium/Alloys received in the build later today, and see if you guys cry uncle.

[winterwolves]

I still think the crux of this thread is:

Not getting a relations boost of some kind from ground combat just feels wrong.

The whole point of playing the game is to set up reasons to play ground combats. If people get bored playing ground combats, maybe they are playing the wrong game?

I do admit that it would be better with way more maps, and I do plan to use the community maps once this is done (I am not using them to ensure I am bug checking just the core game). If you don't know a layout just by what is around the landing ship, then stepping around every corner is fun!

I shoot down alien ships, so I can assault them.

My agents find bases, so I can assault them.

Nations report terror sites, so I can stop the aliens, with an assault.

When the aliens find my base, I stop their assault.

I do research so I can better equip my assault teams.

I make bases, so I can have more assault teams and shoot down more ships. To assault.

Ground combat is the game. Not getting a relations boost from the core game is weird.

[Solver]

I played some more last night, and again, the benefits of land combat seemed underwhelming. I'm doing fine with the nations, except for Australia, all nations either increase my funding or keep it at the same level, most of the funding anyway goes towards the (now vastly larger) maintenance costs, and the payoff from ground combat remains limited.

Ground combat should remain interesting throughout the game for three reasons. One is map variety (where the original is unsurpassed), the other is progression of your and alien equipment/soldiers, and the third is overall pacing. This last point means that the amount of missions you do before reaching the endgame feels good. I'd say it is currently too high in Xeno.

[Solver]

I played some more last night, and again, the benefits of land combat seemed underwhelming. I'm doing fine with the nations, except for Australia, all nations either increase my funding or keep it at the same level, most of the funding anyway goes towards the (now vastly larger) maintenance costs, and the payoff from ground combat remains limited.

Ground combat should remain interesting throughout the game for three reasons. One is map variety (where the original is unsurpassed), the other is progression of your and alien equipment/soldiers, and the third is overall pacing. This last point means that the amount of missions you do before reaching the endgame feels good. I'd say it is currently too high in Xeno.

[Alturys]

I still think the crux of this thread is:

Not getting a relations boost of some kind from ground combat just feels wrong.

The whole point of playing the game is to set up reasons to play ground combats. If people get bored playing ground combats, maybe they are playing the wrong game?

I do admit that it would be better with way more maps, and I do plan to use the community maps once this is done (I am not using them to ensure I am bug checking just the core game). If you don't know a layout just by what is around the landing ship, then stepping around every corner is fun!

I shoot down alien ships, so I can assault them.

My agents find bases, so I can assault them.

Nations report terror sites, so I can stop the aliens, with an assault.

When the aliens find my base, I stop their assault.

I do research so I can better equip my assault teams.

I make bases, so I can have more assault teams and shoot down more ships. To assault.

Ground combat is the game. Not getting a relations boost from the core game is weird.

I have to agree with that

The actual system is ok for the game balance (as soon as you will have fix the bug: assault on grounded ufo don't give relation boost ^^). But it's strange...

I think that relation boost should come from removing the alien threat completly. Shooting down ufo only completly remove alien threat in one case: When the ufo crash into seas. Otherwise, grounded assault or airstrike are required for UFO, ground defense for terror, ground assault for alien base.

As i have suggested previously i think the relation boost should come from ground combat OR Airstrike and should be roughly the same with the two options (maybe you can link the mission score to relation boost, but for balance goal you should stay in a 90%/110% range between Airstrike and mission).

Other ground mission should also provide relation boost.

Exept in case of UFO shot over the seas, in that very specific case, the actual system is perfect.

The actual system isn't that bad, it is far superior to the previous grindfeist ground combat. I love the fact that you can choose between ground combat (high risk, high reward, time consuming) and airstrike (no risk, less reward, fast). It is a very good change.

The relation boost on UFO interception... It's just... weird and maybe a little bit hard to understand for new players.

Edited December 19, 2013 by Alturys

[StellarRat]

The relation boost on UFO interception... It's just... weird and maybe a little bit hard to understand for new players.

If you had never played any of the original XComs I think this wouldn't be as hard to grasp. Edited December 20, 2013 by StellarRat

[Alturys]

If you had never played any of the original XComs I think think this wouldn't be as hard to grasp.

Good point

But i think that if the actual system is kept for release, the relation boost should be mentioned somewhere. Now there no information about it. No pop up, no message in console... nothing.

You have to check funding in the right corner of the screen, or pass the mouse over the country. Not sure that new player will make the relationship between shooting down UFO and the funding boost.

[StellarRat]

Good point

But i think that if the actual system is kept for release, the relation boost should be mentioned somewhere. Now there no information about it. No pop up, no message in console... nothing.

I tend to agree with this, but I probably wouldn't want to see a pop every single time. Obviously, it ought to be prominently explained in the manual and UFOpedia. Each end of month report should have a column or mention of shootdowns, alien bases destroyed, terror thwarted (and UFOs that "got through") and/or maybe a message that generates when you shoot down a UFO that says, "Local politicians praise XCom for destroying alien ship." just like the ones they get that say, "Dead zone detected" or "Sailors refuse to put to sea." Edited December 19, 2013 by StellarRat

[Hairyscreech]

Ok, I'm further through this build than any of the previous so feel I can at least make balanced comments here.

The current balance is working fine with possibly just a slight too much of a lean to the air side, its no way near as bad as in some of the previous versions where it was win in the air or die on the ground and with the recent changes to the air combat your much less likely to get left behind by the pace of the invasion.

Yes it is possible to beat a lone interceptor with a pair of condors (plasma cannon and plasma explosives) but a wave of 3 heavy fighters will leave you a condor down and its not something you can keep up wave on wave and still keep a reasonable number of birds in the air.

Corsairs are actually of use in 20.8, the seriously short range of the condors and their lack of speed is really what makes that one, however agreed it probably isn't worth going for more than 3 before the jump to marauders as the research would be done by then and getting up the tech tree is do of die.

Alloys and E115 is a limiting factor, I was spending a little too much time nukeing the site from orbit just to be sure and found I was a bit short on E115, so it was back to doing some ground missions to get the number up. I have found I am doing about 1 in 3 which feels about right.

Nation rating makes sense for downing the ships, by shooting them down your A) stopping them from carrying out there evil plans and B) killing all the aliens as they will die within a few hours in our atmosphere anyway. Thus as far as the conventional military handling them all they would have to do is seal off the area and with until they began to die off, simply mopping up the groggy ones.

Perhaps the answer to the air strikes making things a bit too easy is to reduce their cash value to make them less financially viable and give say 5-10 relation points for doing the mission.

This would put a double pressure on, as there would be cash, relations, tech and resources at stake.

I know this is straying a little from the main point here but with so much stake in the speed of research would it be worthwhile doubling the size and cost of the research lab, doubling its capacity and starting the base with 15 of 30 scientists?

30 is really the minimum number you need to keep pace with the invasion and get through the amount of research topics in the game, this change would make that much more obvious to inexperienced players without overtly pointing it out in a tool tip.

"Hey that lab takes 30 techs and I only have 15, better hire some more to help with the research."

I don't think its clear that there is a need in the first month to get a second lab up and running really and without it your in real danger of being swamped before you have the guns to fight back.

[Alturys]

I tend to agree with this, but I probably wouldn't want to see a pop every single time. Obviously, it ought to be prominently explained in the manual and UFOpedia. Each end of month report should have a column or mention of shootdowns, alien bases destroyed, terror thwarted (and UFOs that "got through") and/or maybe a message that generates when you shoot down a UFO that says, "Local politicians praise XCom for destroying alien ship." just like the ones they get that say, "Dead zone detected" or "Sailors refuse to put to sea."

I agree with the end month report.

Regarding pop up, you are probably right.

I would like to see message in the geoscape "console" in the bottom of screen. I suggest to have red message when relation decrease and green when relation increase. Not very hard to code i think and probably enough to give nescessary information to player. I have always find that this "console" wasn't very useful, and it could be a way to use it...

[Solver]

Any new design decisions on this front?

It still does not sit right with me how nation relations are almost exclusively based on the air combat minigame and not the game's main element, ground combat.

[Solver]

Any new design decisions on this front?

It still does not sit right with me how nation relations are almost exclusively based on the air combat minigame and not the game's main element, ground combat.

[MrPyro]

Any new design decisions on this front?

It still does not sit right with me how nation relations are almost exclusively based on the air combat minigame and not the game's main element, ground combat.

Actually it makes a lot of sense to me from a fluff point of view, if not a game balance one.

Governments are interested in making sure that their civilians are safe. That means UFOs zooming around shooting things, bombing things, or dropping troops for ground assaults are their primary worries. Once the threat is neutralised they don't care what happens next; if the Xenonauts commander wants to send in ground troops to salvage the UFO that's their decision, and the governments don't really care either way. That explains why the Xenonauts are doing better against the invasion than the governments; the governments haven't understood the potential benefits of salvaging the UFO contents and reverse-engineering the tech.

[legit1337]

Actually it makes a lot of sense to me from a fluff point of view, if not a game balance one.

Governments are interested in making sure that their civilians are safe. That means UFOs zooming around shooting things, bombing things, or dropping troops for ground assaults are their primary worries. Once the threat is neutralised they don't care what happens next; if the Xenonauts commander wants to send in ground troops to salvage the UFO that's their decision, and the governments don't really care either way. That explains why the Xenonauts are doing better against the invasion than the governments; the governments haven't understood the potential benefits of salvaging the UFO contents and reverse-engineering the tech.

No it doesn't. Terror sites are ground combat... Are you seriously telling me that governments don't care how many civilians die in terror sites? Or that continually losing/winning ground combats would affect their funding given to xenonauts?

[MrPyro]

No it doesn't. Terror sites are ground combat... Are you seriously telling me that governments don't care how many civilians die in terror sites? Or that continually losing/winning ground combats would affect their funding given to xenonauts?

Terror missions do give relationship bonus for completion though, so I wasn't including those; was only talking about assaulting UFO's down by Xenonaut's aircraft.

[BaxterRicketts]

After having not played for a few months, coming back and seeing no scores for killing the aliens at the end of each mission was a bit of a shock. To be honest, I thought it was a bug. If I hadn't popped onto the forums tonight, I would never have found out about all these changes to scores and would have been pretty content to keep playing.

I guess I'm obligated to throw my bit of fuel onto this fire, though. Ground missions should in general be worth more than intercepting the UFO's because of public opinion. The aliens will succumb to our atmosphere given time, but the majority of the populace probably doesn't know that. If the local military is slow or inefficient and some aliens escape to do a little havoc, a lot of panic could result, especially in population-dense areas. So public opinion turns against whoever is in charge of the country, forcing a change in power to a less friendly head of state or simply causing the money that would be given to you to instead be used on riot police. This idea isn't without it's own holes, but I didn't see anyone mention citizen unsatisfaction so here it is.

[legit1337]

Terror missions do give relationship bonus for completion though, so I wasn't including those; was only talking about assaulting UFO's down by Xenonaut's aircraft.

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.