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Percentage based shot balance


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I have just been playing with the experimental build introducing the proposed percentage AP cost for shots (to replace the flat cost in the current stable build).

Chris mentioned that the current percentage values per shot were picked to match the old flat costs for the average starting AP soldier.

I am curious to see how people feel about changing these values to make the choices between shot types more situational.

Mainly this is about making more of the less accurate shots available if you don't move.

For example the ballistic assault rifle costs are:

<Set1 ap="40" accuracy="80" />

<Set2 ap="48" accuracy="100" />

<Set3 ap="56" accuracy="120" />

That means you can always fire at most two snap or normal shots and at most one aimed shot if you didn't move.

There is no real choice between snap and normal shot in there when standing still, although moving may obviously cause the higher AP shots to be unavailable.

Would it make sense to change those to something like:

<Set1 ap="32" accuracy="80" />

<Set2 ap="41" accuracy="100" />

<Set3 ap="49" accuracy="120" />

This would mean you would be able to always fire three snap, two normal, or two aimed shots and also leaves more AP free for movement before you lose access to one of your shot options.

Accuracy values can be adjusted accordingly for balance.

*edit*

Using the spreadsheet below these values appear to mean that 3 snap shots have the same damage potential as 2 aimed shots so there is a choice, do you feel lucky?

Increasing the accuracy of the aimed shot slightly makes that the best option, closely followed by 3 snap shots.

When you do more than turn slightly to take your shot you are reduced to a single aimed shot or 2 snap shots, both of which are inferior to firing 2 normal shots.

After moving more than 4 tiles then you are reduced to a single aimed shot, single normal shot or 2 snap shots which become your best option.

Basically I am saying all shot types are useful, depending on how much you want to do in a turn and the progression is fairly clear.

Similarly burst shots with the assault rifle can be reduced from the current 80% to 50% so that if completely stationary you can fire two bursts or you can move a fair distance to improve your chance of hitting with a single burst.

The shotgun is another good example.

Currently:

<Set1 ap="44" accuracy="65" />

<Set2 ap="56" accuracy="100" />

To follow the theme of the changes maybe more like:

<Set1 ap="32" accuracy="65" />

<Set2 ap="48" accuracy="100" />

*edit* Changed some values after having another look at the accuracy spreadsheet posted here:

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/8992-Ground-Combat-Balance-Discussion-Build-V21-Experimental-4%21?p=100263&viewfull=1#post100263

Edited by Gauddlike
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I think the change would be very good except for :

The other problem is that you need to make alien TUs cheaper too. Otherwise aliens are going to get 3 reaction fire shots a turn. They get 2 per turn right now and that's annoying already.

3 reaction shots is too deadly. Especially if 2 or more aliens get to take it. Actually what would be great is if reaction shots were only allowed 1 at a time. So maybe they could still take 3 but only if you give them 3 chances! Not sure if that is possible, but I think it is a bit more realistic too:

1)Soldier steps around corner

2)Alien reaction fires at him

3)Soldier shoots at him

4)Alien reaction fires

5)Soldier evaluates his chances and opts to throw a grenade.

6)Alien never gets his 3rd reaction fire

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Since Gauddlike asked (elsewhere), here's some numbers I've been playing around with:

Rifle:

Snap: 32% TU; 50% Aim

Normal: 45% TU; 75% Aim

Aimed: 70% TU; 125% Aim

Burst: 70% TU; 50% Aim

Shotgun:

Snap: 37% TU; 50% Aim

Normal: 52% TU; 75% Aim

Aimed: 75% TU; 125% Aim

Sniper Rifle:

Snap: 45% TU; 50% Aim

Normal: 65% TU; 80% Aim

Aimed: 85% TU; 150% Aim

(I also removed the heavy weapons penalty. The penalty for moving is now represented by the level of shot, since the lower level shot accuracies are not much if at all better than other weapons for an inflated TU cost.)

LMG:

Burst: 80% TU; 25% Aim; 8 shots

Rocket Launcher

Snap: 60% TU; 50% Aim

Normal: 80% TU; 85% Aim

Grenades

Throw increased from 40% TU to 60% TU (to avoid multiple grenade spam).

The numbers above largely mimic the old 20/30/40 TU system before the v21 Experimental builds. I have a spreadsheet that looks at the likelihood of scoring a hit with each weapon at five different levels of soldier accuracy (40; 50; 60; 70; and 80): this shows that taking multiple low-level shots is (almost) always worse for scoring a single hit compared with taking fewer high level shots which was the intended design. For example, it is better to take a single Aimed shot with a rifle than three Snap shots for the purposes of scoring a single hit. Obviously, this does not apply at close range, and taking multiple low-level shots is still useful if you need to gamble on getting multiple hits or for the purposes of suppression.

Overall, accuracy levels are down compared with the current Experimental build, but I've found alien reaction fire to still be dangerous (I just lost two soldiers to long-range reaction fire :(). The lower cost snap shots aid with moving and firing and support close-assault tactics. Generally, this feels quite balanced for me. But this may well be because it suits my play-style/what I want the game to be like, so I'm not sure that counts for much!

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Thanks for posting these. I'm going to have a look at them today and try posting up an alternative balance patch for our existing builds that makes a bit more use of the new % TU system. It gives us a bit more flexibility to carve out a niche for the various shot types.

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Hm...being only able to throw one grenade per turn is going to seriously suck. Grenades are pretty much the life-saver in this game.

And during night missions, being limited to 1 glow stick would slow down the already slow gameplay.

Yes, grenades are good (I have a growing appreciation of this; I never used to use them very much). But, for me, that's a good reason to only be able to use one per turn! (And I can't reconcile throwing grenades almost as fast as you can take shots with a rifle.)

On flares, though: I didn't mention it in my post above, but I'd actually set them to 40% TUs (since they were always a lower TU action than grenade throwing). So you could throw two a turn, or one and still have a good amount of movement.

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