Grobobobo
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Posts posted by Grobobobo
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The alien changes make sense. By the way, can you increase servitor's TU but decrease suppression rating a little? At 70 x 10 suppression rating it suppresses regardless of distance and bravery, which is a bit silly. By comparison, laser lmg has 23 suppression damage, 3 times less.
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1 hour ago, Komandos said:
As soon as the player gets familiar with the game, the difficulty of the game for the player will change. (The game will become easy). Therefore, it is impossible to "find" the "perfect balance of the game" in advance.
That's not true. Xenonauts 1 on insane/ironman is difficult regardless of your knowledge of the game. People who can beat long war rebalance on impossible/ironman number in single digits despite most players being familiar with the mod.
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3 hours ago, ooey said:
Hmm. I don't know about this. Perhaps play on ironman mode if you find it easier
I AM playing on ironman (well, honestman, the ironman option is a bad idea for buggy, unfinished games that crash), that's already implied, the soldier replacability wouldn't matter as much if you can just savescum.
Hard to say if they get the balance "right", as that's subjective. But if they want to keep the difficulty the same as the first game, then there's a lot of work to do, the ai changes likely won't be enough.
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For the record, this is an observation first, complaint second. If the devs decided to make xenonauts 2 easier to cater to the lower skill players, that's fine by me, It's a good decision. You're gonna upset a lot of players by making a game uncompromisingly difficult, and most of the time, to appease the """hardcore""" playerbase you just need to make the game appear difficult. The skilled players are probably just gonna make a overhaul mod that caters to them, it's a compromise FiraXCOM went with, and it's a good compromise.
I've recently replayed xenonauts 1 on insane, and it hit like a whiplash. The game is so much harder it's really hard to compare. Seriously, playing X2 on Commander is like playing x1 on normal. There are so, so many important mechanical changes between the titles that I've felt like were overlooked, I'm gonna try to list the most important ones from most impactful to least:
1. LOS distance
This is by far the biggest fundamental change. Both games have an average effective weapon range of 20, but while in xenonauts 2 the soldier view range is 26, in xenonauts 1 it's 17. On top of that, in xenonauts 1 most of the alien sight range is 18, higher than xenonauts and well within the rifle range. This is massive, especially since the AI often abuses that fact. In x1, getting accurately shot from line of sight is very common, to the point where you have to paranoically smoke every possible angle the enemy can shoot you through. In xenonauts 2, it's switched. unless the aliens came out of a building, you will see them before they become a threat, and now YOU out-LOS them, because of sniper rifles. That makes overwatching in an open field a really effective strategy, especially since SR's no longer have a reaction fire penalty. The longer LOS is a good change, but it heavily benefits xenonauts.
2. LOS Symmetry
In xenonauts 1, there were some corners where a unit could see a different unit, but not the other way around. This could be used by both sides, but heavily benefited the aliens, first because of longer LOS, and second because catching an experienced soldier off-guard is a lot more rewarding than catching an alien off guard. In x2 sight is symmetric, which again, makes the game easier.
3. Alien AI
I mentioned earlier that in x1 aliens abused the hell out of their LOS advantages, but in general they were a lot more defensive. Alien AI in x1 makes you sometimes think they're cheating (they're not, but their sight advantages make them look like they do), and in general they camp a lot more, making them a lot more difficult to kill. in x2 they practically run in the open. X1 aliens sometimes were suicidal too, but only if they were sure that they could kill at least 1 of your soldiers. This is already in a roadmap to be changed, but it's still currently a significant factor towards a difficulty decrease4. Alien damage
in xenonauts 1, on insane the first enemy you fight deals 66 average damage. In xenonauts 2, the first enemy you fight deals 25 damage. Granted, armor values in xenonauts 1 are higher, but not that much higher. While in xenonauts 2 a soldier can still be one shot, in xenonauts 1 a soldier is usually one shot. Also, alien rifle does not currently have a burst function, meaning that they rarely suppress your soldiers outside of servitors, and making parking ballistic shields at melee range towards them a viable strategy. But even if they had it, burst in x1 is a lot better than burst in x2, but that's another topic.
5. Air game
That's a huge topic on its own, but to avoid making an even bigger wall of text, let's just say that with the newest version x1 air game is significantly harder than x2, despite the foxtrot nonsense. UFOS damage your funding a lot more, they outspeed your basic interceptors much faster, and you have to actually sometimes maybe do some maneuvering. In x2 you can just facetank almost everything now with basic angels.
6. Cover destruction
It's a lot easier to destroy cover in x2 than it is in x1. Too easily in my opinion, the aliens just can't hide from you at all. This is also a good place to mention that throwables in this game cost less to throw, and can be thrown further, and more accurately.7. Training center
Xenonauts 1 units were deceptively not that replaceable. If your soldier died, you had to replace it with a private, and privates freaking sucked, sometimes weren't even able to carry the full gear. (until you get predator armor, which is a win condition) In xeno 2, you can easily train your soldiers up so they catch up to your own guys. Too easily too be honest, I think the training is too effective at its job, by mid game you have many 90-100 TU monsters. I think the diminishing returns from the training center should be increased.
8. Shot preview
This can appear as just a QOL, but being able to triangulate reliably if a shot from that position has clear LOS or not makes you significantly more lethal against aliens, In xenonauts 1 you had to practically guess, and a lot of times you were wrong, and when you were wrong you paid for it dearly. Sometimes you thought you were safe behind cover when it turned out the alien had a flanked shot, and sometimes you thought that position was a flank, when it actually wasn't. Now you don't have to take a risk like that.9. Vehicles
Xeno 1 vehicles sucked, MARS is amazing, and you can have TWO of them mid game. Enough said.10. Alien abilities
I know that xeno 2 has a lot more alien abilities, but nothing it has compares to xenonauts 1 psionics, not even the new wraiths.
To make it fair, there are areas where xeno 2 is harder:1. Higher enemy count
In xeno 1 the first mission contains 3-5 aliens, it's much more in xeno 2, but it doesn't compensate for the difficulty because they are a LOT less threatening individually.
2. Timed missions
A common complaint, but once you get used to it, the significantly longer LOS distance allows you to move quicker without being shot to death, so they're still more than manageable.
It's also worth noting that just because a game is more difficult, it doesn't mean that it's better. Xenonauts 2 is an overall better title than Xeno 1 despite the major difficulty drop, a lot of difficulty Xeno1 wasn't designed that well, and made the game tedious to play on insane. Xeno 2 is a lot more fun in its gameplay, it's just that a lack of challenge takes away a lot of spice from the game. A lot of the changes that make the game easier make the game better, but if the game is intended to be about as hard as xeno 1, It should have a bunch of balance passes.-
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15 minutes ago, Raffik said:
with 4 shots and the soldier carrying it is basically spent
4 is actually plenty for a mission, but i usually am able to carry 8. I recently re-played xenonauts 1 on insane to compare it to the rocket launcher, and imo HEVY is significantly stronger than it in a vacuum. Lower damage and range, but 4 times as much ammo, can fire twice per turn, does not suffer an accuracy penalty after moving, and is more effective at cover destruction. I think this is the case of other tools being too strong rather than that one tool being too weak.
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I mean, I did "buff" HEVY in my equipment rebalance mod, but I'd rather have other options nerfed before it being buffed. I don't use it as is, buf if shaped charges didn't exist, I would 100% use it.
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9 hours ago, Raffik said:
the HEVY seesms to be useless tactically still, as the damage output is ridiculously low at 25 only
The cover destruction HEVY is still pretty much op, it's just that the shaped charge is even more op.
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1 hour ago, Chris said:
The data is all anecdotal, but that's certainly the impression I get based on player feedback
I feel like that sample size is a bit biased, you're not gonna see people specifically demanding a more complex air game, because the air game improvements are an implied part of the roadmap. Those that are less patient probably wrapped the complaint under the umbrella of "it's just x1 with slightly better graphics", something that's a pretty common complaint on steam reviews right now. Anectodal data is usually fishes out a loud minority more than a silent majority.
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2 hours ago, Chris said:
A large portion of the playerbase uses autoresolve, I'd guess probably more than actually play the air combat manually.
That's... suprising, did you gather data for it? I thought air game was a major selling point for xenonauts, and expanding on the air game would have been a big deal for differentiating xen2 from 1. If the majority of players are autoresolving then the air game aspect of the game is a lot less important than I thought.
2 hours ago, Chris said:The game balance does need to account for autoresolve otherwise we'll run into major issues.
To some extent yes, autoresolve does need to be a viable option if you don't want to engage in the mechanics, but balancing a mechanic in favour of people who don't want to engage in a mechanic is really weird to say the least.
2 hours ago, Chris said:Have you actually played the new values though? The updates mostly make the air combat more forgiving if you get things wrong
Well, obviously, if you didn't get things wrong you steamrolled through the game no matter what, so it's not a suprise that making the game even easier doesn't affect playing well that much. But like, if you can win the game now by playing badly then what's even the point of playing well?
2 hours ago, Chris said:whereas a change like reducing the HP of UFOs would affect all players
That's true, that would have been even worse. But you DID decrease the hp of the observer, bomber and abductor.
2 hours ago, Chris said:Yes, we could add difficulty settings for the air combat as well if people want
Yes please. I still have no idea what you're actually planning for air game in the end, but if you want to make the system fleshed out in any way, that will be nescessary to make both types of players happy. Just make sure it's seperate from the main game difficulty, since there could be a commander-level tactical player who just wants to cruise through the air game. Personally, I don't care if the easiest air game difficulty cuts ufo hp by 90%, as long as we can have an interesting, challenging air game at high (air game) difficulty.
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3 hours ago, Chris said:
Lots of people were complaining the game air game was now way too hard, especially for people playing using autoresolve.
Ah, just saw the steam forums. While I don't believe that the game should be balanced around really good players, the air game shouldn't be balanced around players using autoresolve either. This is why i believe there should be a seperate difficulty for the air game aside from the main one, people who don't want to engage with the air game system shouldn't have to.
The main issue with the prototype balance was that the default loadout freaking sucked, if you switched weapons a little an angel could still solo an observer. The air game was still trivial if you engaged in the systems even a little, what's the point in having an air game at all if that's too high of a bar? Surely it's possible to do this in a way that satisfies both camps?
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Wait, what? What's with the sudden nerfs to the air game? The economy changes are somewhat understandable, but why did the ufo's get nerfed as well?
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Reducing the defence bonus would be good, sometimes suppressing someone is detrimental because it makes them harder to hit.
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On 10/17/2023 at 6:01 PM, Chris said:
- Crouching now provides a 10% Accuracy bonus.
I'm not sure how to feel about this, on one hand the flavor checks out, on the other crouching with its 20% defense was already very very good. maybe the TU for crouching should be increased to 5 or even 6.
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32 minutes ago, Komandos said:
There is no economic model in the game, even at the X-COM:1-2-3 level. Consequently, the economy in the game cannot be an effective regulating factor of the balance of power, since it itself constantly needs to be adjusted to resemble the economy.
This statement is incoherent. Are you using Google translate or any other translator app to communicate? Either way, please elaborate on it or rephrase it.
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However, I do recall split research being useful in X-division, but that mod had a completely different scaling and research tree.
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1 hour ago, Skitso said:
No. Micro managing your research queue by optimizing scientists between multiple projects to fight diminishing returns does indeed add major depth and interesting choices.
It was an illusion of depth. In x1, At 30 scientists, splitting your scientists across 2 projects gave you around 7%(lol) more efficiency (assuming the diminishing return was additive and not multiplicative, It'd be even less at multiplicative), at the cost of doubling the time total to get the upgrade you needed. Once you did get the important upgrades the efficiency stopped mattering. Split research was a noobtrap, which is probably why chris removed it (assuming the diminishing returns were even implemented, can't tell without looking in the code).
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22 minutes ago, Komandos said:
It's like making the services of an electrician very expensive, so that the player cannot hire thousands of electricians and thereby unscrew a light bulb at superluminal speed. The financial limit for limiting the speed of scientific research is a "crutch" to maintain the lame mechanics of research.
This is an inaccurate analogy, and you're acting like money isn't a main limiting factor IRL as well. The current system gameplay-wise works best with the kind of research tree xenonauts 2 currently has, and any kind of overcomplication to make the system more "realistic" is a waste of time. There's already almost no way xenonauts 2 will come out in 9 months from EA as planned, overhauling a research tree just to justify a more complicated scientist system is stupid.
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1 hour ago, Komandos said:
Without this, it is impossible to regulate the permissible speed of projects in the game.
It's already done by
A) Making recruiting scientists barely worth it, and really expensive. You don't have infinite scientists, you're limited by funding you could spend on other things.
B) Gating the most important projects behind missions. For example in x1 alienium explosives were not gated behind a terror mission.
The autopsies and interrogations are very much worth it, the damage increases are basically a new weapon tier, and the training rate stacks up fast.
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On 9/18/2023 at 5:14 PM, Skitso said:
If I remember correctly, @Chris once justified the new system by saying that splitting your scientists to multiple projects just postpones everything and it's always the most optimal to focus to one one project at a time
And chris was right. The new system does not lose out on any depth.
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On 10/9/2023 at 3:19 PM, SoulFilcher said:
I wonder how much can be done before we get our hands on the official tools.
Currently it's just basic JSON editing. You can only edit stats of stuff, and some very very basic AI profile tweaks, but I haven't figured out how to add new items yet.
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1 hour ago, Komandos said:
Wouldn't it have been easier: to increase the viewing range (visibility) by 150-200%, as a result of which the battle would have started from long distances and the probability of being hit from a weapon would have been significantly less.
No.
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v0.2 UPDATE: Fixed the problem where rockets and HEVY still dealt thermal damage
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This is a simple mod that significantly changes how each weapon operates.
I didn't create this to fix some glaring balance issue or anything, I just felt like each firefight wasn't very firefight-y, both sides just didn't shoot much. Because everything dealt so much damage with such high accuracy, things were a bit too ammo efficient.
This mod primarily makes (almost) every weapon have much better action economy at the cost of damage and long range accuracy. I've also tried nerfing cover destruction because it made encounters a bit too easy.
I have no idea how balanced this is, I haven't tried a full campaign with it yet, but I'll be balancing it further based on experience.
Installation instructions:
1. Make sure you're on the prototype branch, specifically prototype v2.06
2. Open the game's folder, create a backup of the assets folder (although if something goes wrong or you want to uninstall the mod verifying the game files should be enough)
3. Paste the contents of the mod into the game folder (if you're prompted to replace around 337 files you've done it correctly)
4. Launch the game
Patch Notes:
Global:
- Slightly increased accuracy falloff for all weapons except shotguns which already had a pretty high one- All alien rifles deal significantly reduced damage, and slightly lower suppression damage but they can now burst
Pistol:
- 15 base damage (from 28)
- Magazine capacity to 9 (from 15)- Firing modes have been rebalanced To:
Snap shot: 70% acc - 15% Tu
Normal shot: 100% acc - 20% Tu- Reload cost to 20 from 18
- Short range bonus to 4% from 2.25%
(note - alien pistols are balanced like hand cannons, they have more damage and higher TU costs so you don't see a single alien shooting 5 times)Shotgun
- 10 base damage (from 25) 6 pellets (from 3)
- range: 10 tiles
- Bonus: +6.25 per tile- Firing modes have been rebalanced To:
Snap shot : 40% acc: 15% Tu
Normal shot: 75% acc 28% tu- Weight to 15 from 20
- Reload cost to 30 from 24
- Clip Size down to 6 from 8Rifle:
- 25 base damage (from 33)
- Firing modes have been rebalanced To:
Snap shot: 60% acc - 20% tu
Normal shot: 100% acc - 30% tu
Aimed Shot: 120% acc - 35% tu
Burst: 60% acc - 49% tu
- Suppression damage: 12 (from 15)
- Reload TU cost to 35 from 30
Sniper rifle:
- 35 base damage, 10 armor pen
- Aimed shot: 70% acc, 49% tu
- Scoped shot: 135% acc, 70% tu
- Weight to 25 from 20Machine gun:
- 25 damage, 5 armor pen
- Firing modes have been rebalanced To:
Burst: 5x 40% acc, 55% tu
Burst: 10x 50% acc, 75% tu
- Reload cost to 45 from 30
- Suppression damage to 15 from 25
- Weight to 30 from 26HEVY:
- 35 damage (from 25)
- No longer deals thermal damage
- Now uses percentage time units for its shots:
Snap shot: 40% acc: 33% Tu
Normal shot: 80% acc: 49% Tu
Aimed shot: 120% acc: 65% Tu
- Reload cost up to 30 TU From 25
- Weight down to 35 from 40
- Short range bonus increased to 2% per tile from 1.25%
- Range increased to 20 from 16
- Worth noting that HEVY has base armor destruction of 12, it just doesn't show that in the popup for some reasonExplosives:
- Throw grenade Cost to 60% TU from 51%
- Changed the scaling of all explosives scaling to 1/1.25/1.5x damage.Demolition charge:
- Damage nerfed to 20
- Armor strip to -5 from -12MARS cannon:
- Ammo capacity decreased to 10 from 20MARS rocket:
- Damage increased to 45 from 36 but is no longer thermal and firing modes from 120% accuracy to 100%LASERS:
- Nerfed base armor strip per hit From -8 to -4. Laser snipers and MG have more strip at the cost of no longer having any pen.
- Buffed the accuracy bonus from half til 65 to half till 70
- Laser rifle has now 10 shots instead of 5Accelerated:
Now should consistently weigh 1.25x weight of ballistic weaponsGAUSS:
- Damage modifier from 1.75x down to 1.5x - by the time you have all these interrogations, your damage gets very high, and gauss already has a gimmick of having both laser AND accelerated weapon upsides
- Suppression damage is now around 1.5x of ballistic weapons instead of like 3x (wtf)
- Weight is now 1.5x of ballistic weapons from 1xSERVITORS:
- Nerfed the gun's suppression value from 70(!) to 25(which is still higher per shot than even the new gauss LMG)Electroshock Rifle:
- Stun damage is now 1.3x of ballistics
- EMP damage is now 1.75x of ballistics
- clip size to 5
- Range extended to 16 from 12
- Weight is 1.25x of ballisticsElectroshock Pistol:
- Stun damage is now 1.3x of ballistics
- EMP damage is now 1.75x of ballistics
- clip size to 5
- Range extended to 10 from 8
- Weight is 1.25x of ballistics- Electroshock grenade stun damage to 15
- Armors have been changed to 6/9 for tactical, 10/15 for warden, 12/18 for stealth suit, 16/24 for guardian, and 24/36 for exosuit.
- The heavy armor option for mars now increases armor by 50% from arount 66%
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Of course, I'm fully aware of that.
Milestone 2.11 Released! (Experimental)
in Xenonauts-2 Releases & Patch Notes
Posted · Edited by Grobobobo
Actually, How does bravery interact with suppression? That's never really explained anywhere. Is bravery your suppression hp and every time a shot goes by you it gets decreased by the suppression value of the projectile? Is it more like a % reduction? What exactly does it mean to have 70 bravery?