Please, change the balance so even I can play.

[BlorkTheOrk]

I do understand that  there are lot of for me to improve, that maybe I need to switch off self-imposed Ironman, etc, but I do believe that this mod is just too hard and in a bad, spongey way, rather than complicated hard.

A lot of missions are too grindy - dozens of mangorns, 30+ beetles, 50+ people at manors, lots of lengthy missions with dangerous enemies.
Lots of missions are too random - the Van may spawn inside a blob of people watching at it or it may spawn at the other side of the map from an outpost, so you may shoot them down while they run to you.
Lots of "Have to turn back" moments, like you are 10 turns inside a mission and suddenly a light vechicle appeared/some dudes spawn from black/some ganger threw a grenade.
Randomness of everything - I have alien power core, alien alloys, a sectoid corpse and a black lotus witch, I have mansion number 3 appeared, I fight terrorists armed with top notch gear - still no promotion 2 - my agents clown up in Bell's helicopter to try to fight light combat vechicles with some bootleg AKs.

I believe at the moment this mod just turns everything in a chore and grind. At least, it feels like this.

Some people may say that all of this adds up to atmosphere and suspens, and looks right. But I have a crew of tazzmasters who just steal people from their families, sects, outposts, zombie hordes... I once lost 5 good men to catch a girl in pink tights. She was the only one who looks suspisious there.

I'd suggest to make promotion system changes to cope at least with randomness. Or maybe some bigger transports early in game so rookie loses won't be so harsh. Maybe cult arms dealers empoverment or something. If I can't get a decent weapon, let me buy a bus or something.

Generally speaking, I hate agent number on a mission restriction - I can have a lot of vans and cars, but I can't have two of them on a mission. Give me a bus or something! There is a small fortress with dozens of armed and armored dudes in it - 6 people for it. And its even more weird that it's possible to have an 11 men APC from the start of the game.

So, please, please - change something towards easyness! 

The worst part of it is I still massively enjoy the mod and I will end up playing it later.

[Juku121]

Some of this criticism has been leveled at the mod for years. Solarius' answer is usually that you don't need to do all missions if you don't want to. I'm not sure if it's truly valid and you won't just shoot yourself in the foot like that, but then again, your Ironman rules mean you've set up a challenge for yourself and are now complaining that it's too hard.

One thing you can sorta do to alleviate the manpower shortage is setting up a temp base, shipping a Mudranger full of agents and equipment over, and using this as a staging ground. Works well for fixed strongholds like cult HQs and manors, not so much for the rest.

You can also change the mod for yourself if you really dislike some feature. I'm (well, was) playing with roughly continent-range Mudrangers, for example.

You can also try to beeline for the Osprey, keeping score up with milk runs and research, because that thing pretty much solves your manpower issue and then some. It's solidly Promo 2 territory, though.

Edit: Also, Kitsune, as suggested last time you posted about your woes. But since that's Promo 3, well...

Edit2: All the 32 beetle missions are not so bad once you get some men and firepower. Because the beasties tend to just mill around a lot.

If you have problems with spawning into enemies, Starving Poet's take on the decreased TU mod might be of interest.

[Rag]

My recommendation if you are thinking of not playing ironman anymore is to do so. As while in the Vanilla game losing people is mostly seen as a small money and point loss, with all the agent buffing treatments like the Gym and Gun Kata etc. it seems like this mod is designed around keeping your agents alive and losing them is much more costly than Vanilla. I've seen someone stream this mod who would accept a couple of deaths on a big mission but if things went badly would restart the mission, that feels like an ideal middle approach of my current playstyle of reloading if agents die and the full hardcore ironman approach.

As for enemy numbers, the thing that struck me the most odd was having just 1 cultist for the basic cult missions on Beginner. I've only played UFO Defence and Terror From the Deep once each so far on Beginner but due to outnumbering the cultists 2 to 1 on the first missions I restarted on Veteran difficulty only to discover later down the line HQ missions with 60-80 people. So that was a massive spike I wasn't expecting as a previously Beginner player.

Sadly it really does look like everything you need is locked behind promotion 2, I'm guessing its one of the cults not giving you a mission you need to capture someone for the Network? I remember Exalt and Dagon were delaying the promotion for me for a while. The good news is since you do have Alien Alloys already once you do get the promotion you can work towards Tritanium Vests which are amazing against cultists. Just waiting on the promotion...

[krautbernd]

I do understand that  there are lot of for me to improve, that maybe I need to switch off self-imposed Ironman, etc,

What difficulty are you playing at if I might ask?

[Vakrug]

I am playing now on Veteran level. I personally think this game is very well balanced. The main issue is that there are many obscure mechanics that player must know in order to succeed. If you are struggling much, then you probably do something wrong.

30+ beetles

30 beetles != 30 zombies. They will not come after you all at once. You can kill them one by one if have enough ammo.

50+ people at manors

Night + throwable light sources are your best weapon in such cases. This tactics also requires skills, but makes such missions doable.

I've seen someone stream this mod who would accept a couple of deaths on a big mission but if things went badly would restart the mission, that feels like an ideal middle approach of my current playstyle of reloading if agents die and the full hardcore ironman approach.

Reloading is fine when you made a mistake, realized that and promised to never repeat that. For example, when my agent died from a Sheep (!) it felt very unfair (since Sheep was not even marked as enemy unit), so I reloaded and never approached livestock again in real life. But if you reload because you was "unlucky", then you probably doing something wrong. Fine if you want to see finale at any cost, but you would probably miss something in the middle.


Don't even think about finishing a game during your first try. Even if you save yourself on tactical level using saving and reloading, you will probably make a lot of mistakes on strategic level, so this will not save you.

And also check this useful advices: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,8199

[Juku121]

But if you reload because you was "unlucky", then you probably doing something wrong.

Not necessarily. The damage model of the original game was very random, and Solarius both retained and reinforced this aspect. Melee is basically a game of death tag where even against moderately competent targets you swing and swing and swing... and then kill them in one hit. Or they do it to you. This is why dogs are considered useful in close combat situations, why Chupacabras are a terror and why a melee squad is going to take unpreventable casualties pretty much regardless of how well you play.

50 enemies, with a 20-25% snipers and a boatload of spotters can do something similar unless you manage to stick to hard cover all of the time.

This mod is out to get your men and not ashamed of it!

So you either reload, or tough it out like a real little grey man.

[mg2k22]

I've replayed the first year or so now for multiple times (because every time I feel overwhelmed or under-equipped I restart). So I can give some early game adive:

-Get Promotion 1 ASAP, e.g. in January 1997. You only need to research one starting tech, one dead animal and one lowest-tier cult member for that. Then you can get yourself smoke grenades (for daytime safehouse/outpost missions), kevlar vests and some good guns (I like the SKS a lot). But before you get distracted by these:

-Rush for bio lab and intelligence center. Fooling around with only 5 scientists wastes precious in-game time. Getting the small labs quickly means you'll have to make do with cars and starter weapons for the first 2-3 months, but it pays off by being able to get Promotion 2 as early as summer 1997, Osprey in fall and destroying the 4 cults by the end of the year if you so choose.

I'm aware that this thread and the criticism of the game is about other issues, grindy animal missions and cultist bases with very many enemies, but I think that having an efficient, well-planned first few months makes many of these things much more bearable.

[Rag]

-Rush for bio lab and intelligence center. Fooling around with only 5 scientists wastes precious in-game time. Getting the small labs quickly means you'll have to make do with cars and starter weapons for the first 2-3 months, but it pays off by being able to get Promotion 2 as early as summer 1997, Osprey in fall and destroying the 4 cults by the end of the year if you so choose.

When I first restarted I made sure to get the bio lab and intelligence centre ASAP, at this point I am starting 1998 with 3 bases with 35 scientists (40 for main due to expensive HQ). Not sure if I went overboard or not, but it still feels like I need more scientists but I am researching a lot of technology I will likely never use.

[Juku121]

Yeah, beelining for labs is a really powerful strategy that's easy to overlook. I think there ought to be some pestering from staff for more labs to make sure new players won't fall into the trap of being stuck with 5 scientists or worse, building another HQ! Both the medical and intel officer would want their own playgrounds, wouldn't they?

I'm in mid 1998 now, and I think I've had 75 scientists for all of 1998 now. One bad thing about it is that these guys want some serious salaries, and I'm playing a self-imposed 'start with 500k funding' run to see how it fits with the 'vanilla' mod. To compensate, I'm taking performance bonuses from score, but these are not permanent. Seems to work out OK so far, and I like the feeling of getting paid for actually doing my job well. Still, on paper my budget is horrendously unbalanced.

[wawerrewold]

If you do manors by now and while not having promotion 2 i think you are massively behind in research. Thats a big problem not because cultists but after alien invasion in 1999 you gonna get absolutely decimated. Ive been there and I had to start over cause i couldnt match alien technology in any way and for real high tech gear you have to catch aliens alive if course and you need to have some crafts to shoot them down

[BlorkTheOrk]

What difficulty are you playing at if I might ask?

It's the middle one.

If you do manors by now and while not having promotion 2 i think you are massively behind in research.

I guess I failed to communicate here. I had more than one run and I got promotions right at time in some of them. It's more about me being unable to get promotion 2 this one last time. And while I don't have it in this particular run I am starting to think about all of the chores waiting ahead and I don't want to play it further while not wanting to drop it yet while imagining all of cool opportunities if the mod was more freestyle friendly.

Night + throwable light sources are your best weapon in such cases. This tactics also requires skills, but makes such missions doable.

30 beetles != 30 zombies.

i managed manors before and managed beetles. The tech behind is not a problem. I'm crying about the othere thing. The way I see the problem: there is a point in any mission when you just did it right and then there is no point in more enemyes after this point. I killed 25 of opposition - time to stop, but no - its time to search for the last one moron, but there are 5-25 of them. So, it becomes boring and stupid mistakes follows. It's a chore and it feels like a job. in this case beetle, zombie, cultist - all the same if they can one shot your guys. Beetles, animals in general, are the worst - they don't beeline like zombies seem to do and they never surrender. While being worth grinding.

So, I want tools to allow me to move on if I score enough of something. I suggest more liberal promotions, so I don't wait till the right mission appear so I can gather the right fancy hats dudes. Or allow me to autopass promotions when I have dead, or at least living aliens. Or maybe if I score some great number in mission.  I suggest maybe political/industrial way to do things - allow me to pay someone else to catch at least some fancyhats and allow me to do industry in general. Atmosphere-wise, I want more obvious in-game suggestions about what to catch. Not tech-tree suggestion, but in game. Again, when I got an alien corpse, Council, we maybe can move on from the cultists plot. Lastly, I suggest to add ability to buy veteran troops like you may do it in Xpiratez.

TLDR: generally speaking I want the mod to be more flexible and more clear in promotion department. I want industrial/economical/political ways to expand XCOM organisation. And the last, but not least: less grindy and less obligatory missions (more of my dudes, less of their dudes will be my suggestion).

[Juku121]

Well, there are things you can already do to make the mod more palatable, things that could be done but might get disputed or ignored by Solarius because they're work for little benefit from his POV, and stuff that will definitely not get the green light or are straight up impossible.

I'm afraid in quite a few cases your choice is between doing some additional modding yourself, or taking/leaving the mod as it is. Fundamental changes to Solarius' core vision have been few and far between.

In no particular order:

• The feeling of doing 'chores' will be inevitable in such a long mod, no way around it.
  
• 'Freestyle' will clash with the performance-oriented nature of a tactical game. Granted, XCF is quite a bit more of an adventure game than a tactical one now, so it's basically up to Solarius. He is in a kinda tough spot where 1) he wants the missions to be relatively random so you don't get the 'chores' feeling so quickly, and to improve replayability in general; and 2) he wants things to happen in a manner that makes sense to him, and thus mandates that you must hit a whole bunch of these random encounters. This can all be changed, but presumes that he considers this lack of easy promotion access an actual problem.
  
  I imagine the most 'lore-friendly' way to address this would be to let the 'friends on the Council' mail you some of the fellas with fancy hats if it's starting to look like you're starting to fall behind really badly.
  
• If you feel that you're behind on Promotion II, it's not likely the fault of the 'fancy hats'. Disciples, Footmen, Goons and Lads should be really plentiful. The most likely thing holding you back is the cool alien gadget.
  
• If you consider the Ufopedia articles on promotion strategies too vague, you can always suggest better ones.
  
• A mission being 'won' but there being 25 enemies left is not a "its time to search for the last one moron" situation. There are 25 of them left!
  
  What might work is getting them to surrender, but I've personally had a lot of trouble with Solarius's hardcore cultists who all prefer a fight to the death to being kidnapped by dudes from black white helicopters. I've suggested lowering their bravery scores before, but Solarius either wants you to not use surrendering when facing a lot of cultist types, or doesn't really understand how panic-proof even an 80-bravery enemy actually is and how hard it is to get enough opponents to panic at the same time. Basically, 'Piratez surrender mode' is practically tailor-made for your tastes, but it's neither used nor will kick in early enough to make you happy with the current vision for XCF. So your choice is to change the surrender mode and perhaps lower some units' bravery, too; or suffer.
  
• "Its time to search for the last one moron" is a different thing, and you might want to take a look at this submod. Or, again, tweak the bughunt values to suit yourself.
  
• Cryptids not leeroying is something I've brought up before, and it got ignored. I do have this active for myself, and the monster hunts are shorter, and a lot more tense and fun if all the 30 beetles (or apemen, or Chupacabras! ) charge your 4 dudes in a van straight off the bat.
  
• Buying veterans is already sort of in (soldier transformations) and can never be fully accomplished (since a lot of what makes a soldier a veteran are the commendation boosts). Pure stats are not much of a problem since the gym exists and gets everyone up to speed relatively quickly.
  
• Regarding bypassing or buying promotions, that's a fluff thing. The whole premise of the mod is that the NWO is fucking you over with red tape, so however justified you may be in wanting this, it doesn't make much sense from an internal consistency POV.
  
• Not sure what kind of industry you want that's not in the game. I doubt Solarius will budge on the 'no profit from manufacturing' stance, if for no other reason than it being a massive amount of rework.
  

[Rag]

On the note of Promotion requirements, while it likely isn't relevent to the OP's question, remember you only need 1 of the "promotion prerequesties", not all of them. So don't be like me and think "I will have Alien Origins on slow research while I wait for the other 3 things to appear" and end up getting promotion 3 about 4 months after I could have first gotten it...

Even when following the research trees on the wiki things still end up confusing me...