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Sibillians overpowered.


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Insane difficulty. Alien races are totally unbalanced:

1. Caesians. Balanced well in the early phase of game, but later became too survivable for their constitution.

2. Sibillians. Totally overpowered. Especially in later phase, especially officers, especially inside of UFO. My 8 soldiers were unable to kill one sibillian for 10 turns shooting him from 5-6 tiles.

3. Androns. Too weak for their terminator-like look. Much weaken than sibillian. Сoupled with ignorance of covers and low accuracy they are simplest targets in the game.

4. Harradians. They have exaggerated vision range.

5. Reapers. All OK.

6. Light Drones. Absolutely useless.

Weapons balanced good, but Jackal and Wolf armor practically useless - my soldiers die in one alien plasma rifle shot.

Draw your conclusions, gentlemen. Half-year balance work has left too many flaws in the game. As before, insane level not challenging - it is notorious and labor-like. Series of similar missions in the middle of the game cause irritation rather than interest. Yes, many of bugs and balance holes fixed. This is great. But game did not become a tactical or economic simulator worthy of its predecessor. This is simulator of expectations, of hopeless waiting the moment when the game will show me something that I have not seen half an hour ago.

P.S. Aerial fight really rocks. For some reason, it generates more adrenaline than the rest of the gameplay together.

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The Jackal armors might be a little bit on the weak side.

The wolf armors on the other hand seems quite good, in my experience they offer good resistance to enemy fire.

If my soldiers has full HP and either Jackal or wolf armor I cant say I have ever had my soldiers die in a single shot.

Cant say anything about the sibillans as I have not come that far yet.

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Perhaps there are a couple armor tiers missing to make the defensive side of the battle more balanced; I'd guess there is a missing link between Wolf and Predator/Sentinel (more defence but no other goodies) and probably a Mind Control shielding one, buffing up your psi resistance (which could come in early and upgraded version, sort of like Buzzard and Sentinel).

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Sebillians are my favorite alien foes!

Yes, the officers are tough but that's why God gave shotguns to mankind. I just gang up on them with boomsticks. You should also try what crusherven suggested and get a machine gunner in position to fill them with 10 rounds of FMJ (or lazers!).

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What type of weapon were you using that you couldn't kill the Sebillian officer with? They're tough, no doubt about it, but 10 rounds? Do you have a LMG?

2x laser rifles, 1x scatter laser, 2x precision rifles, 1x alenium missiles, 2x ballistic rifles + grenades. Why 10 rounds? Because if you don't kill it in one round, it regens to 100% on the next. Yep, regen is root of all evil.

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Yes, the officers are tough but that's why God gave shotguns to mankind. I just gang up on them with boomsticks. You should also try what crusherven suggested and get a machine gunner in position to fill them with 10 rounds of FMJ (or lazers!).

Yes, there is a way to kill Sebillian. You can stun it with several stun grenades or blow up with 10 rocket launchers e.t.c. But imagine you playing ironman mode, you wiped out area around UFO and you lost half of your squad. Now you breaching UFO and you don't have gunner, boomsticks, 10 stun greandes and missiles. You have several riflemans and a sniper. Sebillian hidden somewhere inside UFO and you can not kill him from the distance. Only you enter inside Sebillian counterattacks you and one-shot one or two your soldiers. Your reaction fire, covers? No, Sebillian knows nothing about it. He just penetrate all your defense and then hide somewhere again. And again, and again.

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2x laser rifles, 1x scatter laser, 2x precision rifles, 1x alenium missiles, 2x ballistic rifles + grenades. Why 10 rounds? Because if you don't kill it in one round, it regens to 100% on the next. Yep, regen is root of all evil.

Unless the regeneration rate for Sebs was changed so that it scales with rank, a Sebillian should only regenerate half its HP in a single turn.

In any case, I can't see how you failed to kill it quickly with that squad. Getting the Scatter Laser up close should allow you to shred the Sebillian alone, let alone the rest of the squad as well. And, for what it's worth, I'll reiterate the point about shotguns/carbines: they're very useful in UFO assaults and especially against sebs due to their toughness.

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In any case, I can't see how you failed to kill it quickly with that squad. Getting the Scatter Laser up close should allow you to shred the Sebillian alone, let alone the rest of the squad as well. And, for what it's worth, I'll reiterate the point about shotguns/carbines: they're very useful in UFO assaults and especially against sebs due to their toughness.

How I can get Scatter Laser up close to alien when he counterattack and one-shot kill anyone in range? Scatter takes about 80% TU's to fire. And don't forget - we play ironman mode and have only one chance. Shotguns? Imagine your carabeneer is dead :)

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Suppress the sebillian and move the scatter laser soldier close to the target behind cover (say, 5-6 tiles away like you said you were). Following turn, move as close as you can and fire. Even a soldier with 50 TUs can move a couple of tiles forwards, which within with short-range bonus gives you +24% to hit. You should be hitting with between 1/3 and 1/2 of your hits in total, more than enough to seriously deplete the Sebillians health and get someone else finish it off.

A less risky solution might be to draw fire with someone with a shield (i.e. leave them out in the open to draw the shot from the sebillian).

As for "Imagine your carbiner is dead" - that's not really a strong argument for saying that something is OP, since you could make anything OP by that logic. Furthermore, there's perfectly good solutions to that problem: 1) don't get hurt; and 2) get another soldier to recover the dead soldier's weapon.

For what it's worth, I do agree that high-level Sebillians are pretty tough. But I'm not at all convinced that they're too tough or that there's no good ways of handling them.

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Suppress the sebillian and move the scatter laser soldier close to the target behind cover (say, 5-6 tiles away like you said you were).

Yes, I did this. And next turn supressed sebillian just one-shoted my soldier covered behind some obstacle. But, of course, I admit that sebillian is quite killable. Shields, plasmas, MAGs and atomic bombs will work too.

When I say "sebillian is OP", I make this in the comparison with other enemies. I kill all other enemies easily and getting fun from this process :) I like to fight with Caesians, Androns, Reapers. But Sebillians make my butt to burn. They just sitting behind covers and eat my ammo and time. This is balance problem. It would be great if a wounded sebillian retreat and hide from the player to recover his health, but not stood as unwavering statue, shrugging off all attempts to kill him.

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It would be great if a wounded sebillian retreat and hide from the player to recover his health, but not stood as unwavering statue, shrugging off all attempts to kill him.

In fairness, I have seen them do this. I think the main issue there is that the Officers are almost always in the UFO command rooms where there's nowhere to retreat to.

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In fairness, I have seen them do this. I think the main issue there is that the Officers are almost always in the UFO command rooms where there's nowhere to retreat to.

Sorry, but never seen this. Also, if they unable to retreat, they must just attack and die like officer, but not sit and cry behind UFO cumputer. All alien AI now aimed to slow down the game, make the completion of the mission as long as possible. This is wrong. Opponent player must attempt to inflict the most damage in less time. Then the fight will be dynamic and exciting. Something like is implemented in urban terror missions.

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It's only a balance problem in insane, where health values are jacked up massively. Sebs in Veteran, Normal or Easy work as intended.

I'm sure you're right. May be health bonus not an evil itself. But in the conjunction with regeneration it make sebillians boring and uninteresting opponent.

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I tried Insane Ironman today. Sebillians on an Industrial Site is the Stuff of Nightmares. Breaching a UFO with several Sebillians is ridiculous too, it's extremely hard to concentrate enough damage to take one out.

Then again, it's supposed to be Insane, so I guess working as intended.

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Sorry, but never seen this. Also, if they unable to retreat, they must just attack and die like officer, but not sit and cry behind UFO cumputer. All alien AI now aimed to slow down the game, make the completion of the mission as long as possible. This is wrong. Opponent player must attempt to inflict the most damage in less time. Then the fight will be dynamic and exciting. Something like is implemented in urban terror missions.

But why should the Sebillian come and attack you when apparently it's doing a good enough job killing your soldiers from where it's sat. You seem to be complaining that the AI is playing too well. Given the choice between an AI that plays smart and an AI that wantonly throws itself on my guns for the sake of a 'quick' fight, I'd personally much prefer the former.

(Ultimately, if you want fights to be over quicker, why not throw your own soldiers at the aliens? If a Sebillian officer is camping out and holding you off for too long, rush it down. Yes, it will be costly, but if the reverse were implemented it would be costly for the AI, and that's something I'd find terribly dull.)

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In my opinion sebs are regenning too much health ATM. Although come to think of it... BRB must perform SCIENCE and exploit game mechanics.

Sebillian regeneration is ludicrous, I tossed two plasma charges into the bridge of a UFO, hit everything, killed nothing, by the time I stormed in next turn they were all back at nearly-full health like I hadn't done anything. You could probably halve the regeneration rate and the game would be better for it.

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But why should the Sebillian come and attack you when apparently it's doing a good enough job killing your soldiers from where it's sat. You seem to be complaining that the AI is playing too well.

I have predicted such answer :) No, it's not, AI is foolish as hell. Seb (or several of sebs) sit behind the pilot chair, but my troops stand behind door in 4-5 tiles. I can "open door - shoot - close door" until on some turn (10th or 20th) I will be at last so lucky to kill him in one round. So current AI dooms seb to be flawlessly killed and me to be flawlessly bored. However, the enemy would come to the door, open it and kill 2-3 soldiers at point blank range.

(Ultimately, if you want fights to be over quicker, why not throw your own soldiers at the aliens? If a Sebillian officer is camping out and holding you off for too long, rush it down. Yes, it will be costly, but if the reverse were implemented it would be costly for the AI, and that's something I'd find terribly dull.)

This is too costly for insane level. I tried play in this manner (no reloads, fair play, avoiding of use AI bugs e.t.c.) and after second month lost 2 of 4 regions.

It would be much more interesting if on insane difficulty we would have the same rules as on normal, but hard money limit. The need to choose between wages and save money a lot more interesting than necessity to thresh one lizard a dozen rounds in a row.

Edited by Went
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