Score Balance is off?

[Slaughter]

This is a bit of a premature thread, as I'm so far in the beginning of December 1997, althrough I'm playing Superhuman.

Alright, so the issue is - points are too easy to come by, while hard to lose.

Just a example - try shooting the same number of cultists/animals as you have of agents, and then get your agents rekt. You will be likely in the positive, because dead cultists/animals are worth more than what you lose from dead agents.

In vanilla, you also lose a LOT of points for losing the vehicle. The car and the van are pretty much valueless*, through - which does make sense, but still.

I think I only went into or near the negatives twice, in bad months. Briefly. Yet I quickly recovered. Pretty sure most of my scores were above a thousand, which is ok when one is sucessful but its a bit strange to get 1360 points in a month after failing not one but two cult investigations.

Its quite easy to go aboe 3k if you play a month well (and since the last patches you don't get as much money so balance kept!), which is ok but its quite hard to go negative.

Anyone else thinks the same?

*I bet X-COM just steal cars and vans, that one hour time sure looks suspicious to me.

[Drasnighta]

They Rent.

And are VERY[/i] good at filling out Damage and Loss Waivers beforehand.




...  I wish I was joking, but that's what I feel is actually happening with the Car / Van available anywhere...

[Solarius Scorch]

Yes, points aren't really a problem - to a point. Then there is more ships, worse alien missions etc., so you should be a little more proactive.

But in the early game it's not much of a problem. You're supposed to be learning at this point and honing your men, so there is no need to put extra pressure on the player.

[JeyP]

It depends on what you want to achieve, but losing agent and craft/transporter should always hit hard the score. This prowide risk/reward to the missions, should you try to finish it and get the loot or better to save agents life and retreat. Right now with low negative score and gym you don't care about agents life at all. Beside something is wrong with scoring system i was doing only research without any missions and in one month had -1300 score but in next one it was +500.

[Solarius Scorch]

It depends on what you want to achieve, but losing agent and craft/transporter should always hit hard the score. This prowide risk/reward to the missions, should you try to finish it and get the loot or better to save agents life and retreat. Right now with low negative score and gym you don't care about agents life at all.

I'm still deciding how much of it is really true, since you need trained agents anyway - if you keep losing them, you'll have a hard time on later missions.
The problem however is that it's hard to conceive a scenario where you lose many points just like that... It's not like you have to deal with alien bases and such. I'll think of some missions which can give you negative points if lost, but then again, why would you lose them?
Any ideas on how to generate negative points other than by unwinnable missions?

Beside something is wrong with scoring system i was doing only research without any missions and in one month had -1300 score but in next one it was +500.

This depends wildly on various circumstances, like UFOs you missed. Check if there's a region which is particularly affected by this and search it if you can - could be a MiB base.

[Slaughter]

Maybe add more civvies to Strange Creatures missions?

Another fix might be making basic level 1 cultist scrubs less-valuable, points-wise, to prevent the bizarre 4v4 TPK that still ends in net score for X-COM. X-COM really should't care much about killing cultist scrubs as it does aliens.

I wonder if one could make unconcious civvies "rescuable" same way we can capture enemies, and then score points with that. Especially if combined with smarter civvies. That could Strange Creatures missions more interesting and civilian stunning less cheaty - imagine stunning two civvies for their own good, throwing them into the van and getting the hell out.

[Solarius Scorch]

Maybe add more civvies to Strange Creatures missions?

Hmmm... If it could be a random thing, I would. I will talk to Meridian and Ohartenstein.

Another fix might be making basic level 1 cultist scrubs less-valuable, points-wise, to prevent the bizarre 4v4 TPK that still ends in net score for X-COM. X-COM really should't care much about killing cultist scrubs as it does aliens.

Good point... I think I left this part fucked up and then completely erased it from memory. I'll go back to this model and think again.

I wonder if one could make unconcious civvies "rescuable" same way we can capture enemies, and then score points with that. Especially if combined with smarter civvies. That could Strange Creatures missions more interesting and civilian stunning less cheaty - imagine stunning two civvies for their own good, throwing them into the van and getting the hell out.

I have requested something like this already, we'll see if/when it happens.

[JeyP]

I'll think of some missions which can give you negative points if lost, but then again, why would you lose them?
Any ideas on how to generate negative points other than by unwinnable missions?

Don't know what you can and can not do when building a mission so it's hard to give good example i just say that agent life should be far more important than killing one or two monsters or some low rank cultist. If the score for the death of the agent is not constant and can be adjust for specific mission than you can make missions with priorities for example when killing zombies in north pole or other terrain with low population density agents life should have priority and when they die you will get big - to the score but failing mission not so much (btw can you even get - just for failing or leave mission?)
opposite to the mission when horde of zombies moving towards city than compleate the mission have priority more than agents life. Rescue mission would be nice but whit AI could easy be quite frustrating. It would need to be time mission when you must rescue someone (stun>bacpack>leave) for example scientist or engineer when you fail you get big - hit on score but when you succeed half (or less) of the negative score or 0 score but free scientist/engineer. In brefing you can write that if he would not want to leave his lifetime achievements than you can use "coercive measures". czyli pałką po nerach

This depends wildly on various circumstances, like UFOs you missed. Check if there's a region which is particularly affected by this and search it if you can - could be a MiB base.

Don't understand, at the end of the month (Jan 1998) i had +500 score without doing any mission. So what give us possitive score without even playing ?

[Solarius Scorch]

Don't know what you can and can not do when building a mission so it's hard to give good example i just say that agent life should be far more important than killing one or two monsters or some low rank cultist. If the score for the death of the agent is not constant and can be adjust for specific mission than you can make missions with priorities for example when killing zombies in north pole or other terrain with low population density agents life should have priority and when they die you will get big - to the score but failing mission not so much (btw can you even get - just for failing or leave mission?)
opposite to the mission when horde of zombies moving towards city than compleate the mission have priority more than agents life. Rescue mission would be nice but whit AI could easy be quite frustrating. It would need to be time mission when you must rescue someone (stun>bacpack>leave) for example scientist or engineer when you fail you get big - hit on score but when you succeed half (or less) of the negative score or 0 score but free scientist/engineer. In brefing you can write that if he would not want to leave his lifetime achievements than you can use "coercive measures". czyli pałką po nerach

OK, I took some steps to make player's life harder. Namely rebalanced value for many units. We'll see how it is balanced now.

Don't understand, at the end of the month (Jan 1998) i had +500 score without doing any mission. So what give us possitive score without even playing ?

Hmm... Maybe research?