Re: The X-Com Files - 3.5: Whispers In The Dark

[krautbernd]

Can the penalty for cult aprehension be toned down considerably ? In the early game, missions that spawn alot, have no meaningful reward beyond your first for each cult to unlock the cult and requires some time before you can make this mission type go away (given things like logistics and better weapons will take priority in research).

Like it is -200 point penalty a pop so early for a mission that spawns so often is quite excessive.
Like it wouldnt be such a big deal if the reward for this mission actually would be bigger than what... 60 ? 40 ? Meaning one missed apprehencion is like 4-6 successful apprehensions (casualty less) which is really harsh.
The only early game mission that has point reward larger than this is the mass creature hunt where you face like +20 creatures, then yep, that goes above that, but you wont get many of these per month and not all of them goes perfect, without troops dead.

I opened my geoscape safe to look how many missions have spawned in 2 months this campaign runs

  STR_CIVILIAN_CAR: 3
  STR_CROP_CIRCLES: 4
  STR_CULT_APPREHENSION: 15
  STR_DEAD_CATTLE: 2
  STR_MONSTER_HUNT: 10
  STR_SOLDIER: 13
  STR_UFO: 2
  STR_UFO_UNIQUE: 3
  STR_VAN: 3

Only 15 apprehensions in 2 months

I'd support this, there is no reason for these large penalties with little to no reward. Together with unpreventable random events also giving negative points and mission the player can't even reach in time they are unecessary gameplay elements early on (which is the reason why I have removed pretty much all random events to balance some of this out).

The penalties simply aren't in line. Why is the council more concerned with letting some random mafia goon slip away than with a hybrid cloning facility churning out alien agents?

[Rangerh]

Just got one of those apprehension mission and after tazing the target to capture him alive, and without any of my agent hurt ... here is the score :



And if i look in the ruleset for this kind of mission :
despawnPenalty: 200
abortPenalty: 150

And indeed that sounds overly harsh considering how many of those missions you then would have to successfully complete to counter the direct score loss.
Maybe an increase in the score reward instead of lowering the penalty could balance things better ?

Though fortunately since i am using 2 cars i haven't missed a single of those missions despite them popping up a lot, allowing me to get 2 months in a row with positive score despite the random events.

[krautbernd]

Maybe an increase in the score reward instead of lowering the penalty could balance things better ?

How would this balance things considering that other missions have (much) less of a penalty? There's simply no adequate reason as to why these mission should have such a high penalty, especially early on. Increasing the score for recovered enemies would, if anything, further unbalanced things down the line. Just reduce the penalty down to something halfway sane that's in line with later missions. Why is losing track of a single mafia goon more of a setback than losing track of a hybrid cloning facility?

[the nomad]

I think penalties do make sense realistically. Just like in real life, your task is set, and you have a boss. The Council already thinks your organization is a joke. Thus if you don't do your job, if you can't even catch a basic suspect then they will give you huge penalties. And when you do your job - well, what do you want a medal? It is just one suspect. Like in real life you'll be fired if you can't do your job but get paid little if you do it lol. I'm writing half-serious but it does make sense in my mind.

However about the balance and logic of penalties in relation to other ones, I don't know. I have no complaints personally.

[krautbernd]

I think penalties do make sense realistically. Just like in real life, your task is set, and you have a boss. The Council already thinks your organization is a joke. Thus if you don't do your job, if you can't even catch a basic suspect then they will give you huge penalties. And when you do your job - well, what do you want a medal? It is just one suspect. Like in real life you'll be fired if you can't do your job but get paid little if you do it lol. I'm writing half-serious but it does make sense in my mind.

However about the balance and logic of penalties in relation to other ones, I don't know. I have no complaints personally.

I might have missed something, but is anybody arguing that there should be no penalties? My point is that the penalties are kind of all over the place. Failing to tract down a cult goon gives a penalty of -200, while failing to investigate a Deep One village gives -5.

[the nomad]

You misunderstood, I didn't say you said there should be no penalties. It is normal for the penalty to be huge especially at the beginning, that is what I am saying, because X-Com is new and Council doesn't want it to go on. Quoting myself "..basic suspect then they will give you huge penalties". First sentence may be missing some wordings though.

Comparatively penalties seem indeed all over the place but it is fine imo. Later on terror missions have huge penalties which is obvious because civilians are dying, if you don't protect a Council VIP it has huge penalties because they are paying you. League Apprehension has considerate penalty iirc because they'll expose what's going on. Root of All Evil which is very tough has very little penalty because no civilian is in danger etc. I have no idea if Scorch's reasoning is the same of course but penalty amounts click in my mind.

Maybe you are right just my pov.

[Mrvex]

You misunderstood, I didn't say you said there should be no penalties. It is normal for the penalty to be huge especially at the beginning, that is what I am saying, because X-Com is new and Council doesn't want it to go on. Quoting myself "..basic suspect then they will give you huge penalties". First sentence may be missing some wordings though.

There is a big chunk of problems with missions that :
1) Spawn often
2) Have large penalty
3) Are in early game where you dont have many sources of points
4) Itself are pointless beyond your first cultists per cult, for dossiders you will get boatloads of the same cultists you get from doing these missions from every anti cult mission from then on given they will often surrender once you kill most of their friends or your men will stabilize those on the ground and nick them and off to the "playground" of your inteligence officer.
5) Themselves give crap rewards, the only good thing you get from these are weapons and most of the cultists here are armed with crap weapons or weapons you can buy anyway, the only exception being Red Dawn which can give you some early assault rifles.

For this reason i just started cheating victory on this mission once i beat it twice for each cult and that was BEFORE i got rubber shells for shotgun.

Like my biggest problem is simply that are not enough other sources of points so early in the game and that it spawns so much.

[Rangerh]

The "get a 2nd car" was really the best early game advice for a "x-com files" beginner, what a difference it made in my monthly score despite the random events.

I then added a 3rd hangar to my base to make a van (as it can transport 4 agents) for bigger missions that aren't too far from my base (as the van while having long range is really slow, so forget about reaching a mission location in the other side of the world before it disappear) so there's simply no way i could have a disappearing mission anymore.


This first april i reached a very good score, but i don't know why exactly (considering how low positive score you get from those apprehension and life form mission)
Though i got an undercover (in work suit) "capture the leader" mission but unfortunately my crowbars killed that leader (without much choice as he and his goons were all armed so i had not time to try to knock him out with how bad all the agents are at melee at that point of the game) so it probably didn't scored as good as it could have.
I think i probably got a positive random event, but i doubt it was a big positive score.
Maybe all the researches and interrogation are increasing the score like that ?




edit : after checking more closely it seems "life forms" mission score more than 100 points each at least, i haven't done such mission that ended with a capture only in killing the monster(s) . So looks like they're very good missions for the scoring.

[the nomad]

Yes, the research projects do give scores when completed. I don't know how much though, or if various projects give different scores.

[Solarius Scorch]

Can the penalty for cult aprehension be toned down considerably ?

No, since the easier a mission is, the more penalized it is if you skip it. And these are the easiest missions.

I could rescale all missions, but haha, no

[krautbernd]

No, since the easier a mission is, the more penalized it is if you skip it. And these are the easiest missions.

I could rescale all missions, but haha, no

So terror missions are among the easiest in the game then and the MIB outpost is basically a cakewalk? And preventing a bank robbery by the assassin clans is as easy as aprehending a lone cult goon? What about Natasha's hideout - do you consider that mission more or less difficult than shooting some spiders in the woods? How are the zombie catacombs and vampire castle even comparable - or for that matter easier to tackle than raiding a deep one village? etc.

"the easier a mission is, the more penalized it is if you skip it"?
Solarius, no offense, but that statement is simply wrong. From what I can tell the difficulty of a mission really hasn't all that much to do with how penalized it is. That might be your intention, but looking at the actual penalties your intention and reality are two different things. Even setting terror missions and other base/story missions aside the penalties don't really line up and seem kind of arbitrary in parts.

[Mrvex]

No, since the easier a mission is, the more penalized it is if you skip it. And these are the easiest missions.

I could rescale all missions, but haha, no

Oh great, fine i will do it myself for my playtime and my sanity, having one skipped mission for any reason (wounded men, your vehicles having other missions) have penalty of 15-20 succesful missions of the same type is completely unreasonable game design.

[Solarius Scorch]

This is getting ridiculous. Feel free to not play if you don't like it, I have better things to do than justify every goddamn choice all the time. Stop whining and deal with it, or go the hell away.

There is a difference between feedback and whining. And this is 100% whining. (Combined with being a PITA - since obviously my statement of penalty vs. mission difficulty was related to the cult arcs and not the entire mod.)

I play this too, you know? And I'm not even a good player, I know that. Stop trying to sell me BS about my own game.

[Bonakva]

What happens if you let the reptiloids put up a terraforming tower? Just the impact on the bill?

[Solarius Scorch]

What happens if you let the reptiloids put up a terraforming tower? Just the impact on the bill?

Yes; I had some big plans for the Reptoid arc, but ultimately I decided that it would detract way too much from the base theme, so their missions are just a slap on the wrist. I personally think it's good enough.