Carrot or Stick? Fixing an XCOM Design Problem

The XCOM series reboot started with XCOM: Enemy Unknown, released in 2012. The game had a tightly-designed combat system with a big problem: all designed incentives led the player towards maximally conservative play. Instead of engaging deeply with the combat system, players found it more prudent to slowly and methodically creep forward through missions to expose themselves to as little risk as possible. Playing in this way is far less interesting than what the system could possibly support. Conservative play leads to few dangerous and complex situations–conservative play avoids the most interesting situations the game has to offer!