Alien activity too intense?

[paziek]

Hello,

So I've come back to UFO:AI recently and now it has noticeably more content, so its playable for longer. But I find its very exhausting to progress any longer. When I started with just one base it was still cool - didn't see much, didn't act too much. But now that I have more than half of the land covered suddenly I'm doing around 2 missions per day, most of with I already remember where will be aliens and what to do to kill them easily. Its getting repetitive slow grind just to get some new research or maybe new alien on the scene. Its been over 100 missions and I didn't finish all laser weapons yet, made just one alien body dissection and I'm yet to catch a living one.
Maybe beside difficulty setting, there should be "alien activity" setting, that would give us opportunity to choose how often (more or less) we want to go into action.

What do you think?

[Siim]

I guess you are playing the 2.3 version. 2.4 dev version maps have a lot more different alien starting locations so you can't always win the maps with the same strategy. Also, if you get tired of doing missions, just use mission autoresolving.

[paziek]

I guess you are playing the 2.3 version. 2.4 dev version maps have a lot more different alien starting locations so you can't always win the maps with the same strategy. Also, if you get tired of doing missions, just use mission autoresolving.

I would use auto-resolving if I had more soldiers, with I don't. I'm on latest 2.4, maybe some maps have more than 1 starting positions, alas there are also those that I don't even need to wonder where aliens are, since they are always in the same place. But... thats not the point. Even if each and every mission would have random starting positions, then it still would tire me too much. Right now I have 5 UFOs hovering over my radar range, not including 2 others that I intercepted - thats really putting me off this game.

[MCR]

paziek, I agree with you.

The whole game balance has to be revised, one important point is the one you mentioned:

TOO MANY UFOS ARE SPAWNED

[TallTroll]

>> The whole game balance has to be revised

I don't think anyone would disagree with that, but there's little point trying to balance a game which still has major gameplay elements missing. Introducing psionics will no doubt radically change the balance, as will a true visibility system, and any changes to the PHALANX equipment lists, and so on.

If the introduction of some element totally breaks the game, and makes it unplayable, then that would need attention, presumably, but other than that, trying to balance an unfinished game is a diversion of effort from actually implenting new content.

>> TOO MANY UFOS ARE SPAWNED

Then again, you can equally argue that the UFO appearances are what fund PHALANX expansion (in my current game, expenses outstrip funding by a considerable margin, so I depend on alien tech sales not just for keeping what I have going, but for any future expansion. I still need at least 2 more bases).

I know what you mean though, it can be frustrating watching the research figures creeping up so slowly because of the frequency of missions and the need to handle them manually. I think it's likely that research will be one of the areas that gets a lot of attention during balancing though, because it is so critical to the development of the gameplay.

The rate of UFO appearance is also clearly a critcal part, but if it was turned down too low it could also be a problem, due to loss of funds from tech sales, less experienced soldiers and less loot generally. Until the game is more complete, it is impossible to say what the "right" level of UFO activity might be, and personally, I'd rather the dev effort went on adding shiny new toy than crippling my economy 

[paziek]

it is impossible to say what the "right" level of UFO activity might be, and personally, I'd rather the dev effort went on adding shiny new toy than crippling my economy 

I agree, thats why I asked for option to set that activity myself - just like I do with "general game difficulty". Like you said, a lot of UFOs doesn't really mean its more difficult to play; on contrary - it could be easier, but at the same time more boring. But if it takes too much time to code, then so be it, nonetheless I can't play this game in its current state and that leads to little bit less testing.

[jc73]

But now that I have more than half of the land covered suddenly I'm doing around 2 missions per day, most of with I already remember where will be aliens and what to do to kill them easily.

What difficulty level are you on?

On normal, I did two missions on my current in-game day and now have 4 more in the pipe (including two crashes).

[jerm]

I started ignoring UFO crash sites and just focusing on Terror sites.
I only land on crash sites when there are no terror sites around and I feel like taking on a mission.

Speaking of terror sites, why are scouts and fighters also launching terror missions? According to the UFOpedia, they don't have landing gear and are meant to be scouts/interceptors.

[geever]

Speaking of terror sites, why are scouts and fighters also launching terror missions? According to the UFOpedia, they don't have landing gear and are meant to be scouts/interceptors.

They don't. What you see is probably a recon or other mission, not a terror.

About UFOPaedia: it may need to be changed, or not... I'll ask BTAxis.

-geever

[Tamanfodder]

How about this! In lower difficulties less UFO's and missions would appear and expenses would be smaller to compensate the impact on your economy (AND due to  easier difficulty) and on higher difficulties you would be swarmed like nowdays?

[TallTroll]

>> How about this! In lower difficulties less UFO's and missions would appear and expenses would be smaller to compensate the impact on your economy (AND due to  easier difficulty) and on higher difficulties you would be swarmed like nowdays?

Balancing a game is rarely that simple. For instance, one of the key differences between difficulty levels is the initial and extra numbers of soldiers (and other employees) - on the hardest difficulty level, in the first month you cannot even fill a Firebird, but under this scheme, you would *also* be expected to deal with the highest number of tactical missions.

I know it's called "very hard" for a reason, but it would be preferable not to push players into feeling that they have no choice but to stick to "perfect" missions, by abusing save/load. Both too many and too few UFOs can be a problem, but again, it's impossible to even begin to balance that while entire gameplay mechanisms are missing or incomplete.

You don't *have* to respond to every alien incursion though. Indeed, you might argue in a well balanced future version, that it might be an explicit design intention that at certain times, PHALANX may be better advised to leave some missions alone, until they can improve their equipment, for instance.

[jerm]

Hmm... scouting missions? Mebbe I'll try to screenshot it next time I see one. But still, should scouts and fighters be landing anyway?

In response to the thread, it's quite possible to run perfect missions even with just combat armor. If you play it safe, your guys shouldn't be getting hit TOO much anyway. Just keep the aliens at a distance and pepper them with sniper fire or lasers if you got them.

[TallTroll]

>> it's quite possible to run perfect missions even with just combat armor

Absolutely. But if you've only got 6 guys in total, and 2 get seriously wounded in the first mission, say, it's getting pretty risky to expect the team to do more missions, because you have to either take wounded with you, or leave them behind...

Ultimately, I'd like to see the balance pitched such that leaving missions alone sometimes is a viable option, at higher difficulty settings at least.

[jerm]

Or make use of the broken medikit system. 
Just have the wounded guys heal each other and their as good as new.

[TallTroll]

>> Or make use of the broken medikit system

1) Doesn't work well if you spawn next to a UFO, with aliens facing you. They get their shots before the medkit goes off
2) Relying on broken mechanics is dangerous because they get fixed eventually