Fixing and balancing door opening/closing

[llunak]

This is basically http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/10011-Opening-door-should-trigger-reaction-fire , except that now I can actually change that in the game. But I'd still like to run this past people, in case there's something that'd be a bad idea or too much.

In some old versions of the game opening door reportedly did trigger reaction fire, but it was eventually removed because players complained about that making UFO breaches too difficult. However, I can currently see these problems caused by it:

• a) (Not so) obviously, reaction fire when aliens open door does not work either. So players pointlessly position their soldiers for reaction fire in case door gets opened, and then they're surprised aliens get free shots first. Making things too easy works both ways.
  
• b) Breaching of UFOs, especially the small ones, is currently way too easy. After opening door, it's very easy to suppress opposing aliens with impunity before they get a shot, and then shoot them like kittens.
  
• c) Additionally, it is possible to close the door again at the end of the turn, making it possible to extend the situation to the next turn (since aliens will be suppressed or too far to open the door themselves). Repeating this open-fire-close trick makes breaching UFOs often just shooting fish in a barrel.
  
• d) While kicking out small door to open it can be a fast action, closing it (or even large gate) should take much longer, but it again actually takes only few TUs, so anyone shooting through open door can almost always close it, yet again making breaching very safe.
  

In short, the side that is hidden behind a door, has guns pointed at it, and is in cover, is in fact in a worse situation than the other side that tries to open the door and get through, even if the attacking side does not use any special breaching equipment like flashbangs.

So, what I intend to do:

• 1) Opening door will trigger reaction fire. Various difficulties will have a factor that'll reduce reaction fire chance for aliens (something like easy - 0, normal - 0.5, veteran - 0.75, insane - 1), which should make this chance acceptable for people who want an easy ride (in fact even on Veteran door opening should be still fairly safe). Players on Insane will need to breach properly (explosives, shields, smoke, whatever).
  
• 2) Door opening/closing currently costs 6 TU. Cost of opening large door will be doubled (or maybe even trippled). Cost of closing door will be again doubled or trippled. That'd make closing cost 12-54TU depending on the chosen factors and size of door, which seems adequate to me.
  
• 3) Opening large door will have a higher chance of reaction fire than opening small door (in line with the throught that normal door can be kicked in fast, but a large gate takes time to open). I'm not exactly sure on the numbers, given that this shouldn't make breaching UFO outer doors too hard on easier difficulties. I'm thinking that the factors for small/large door should be 0/0, 0.7/1, 0.7/1.2, 0.7/1.5 per difficulty, making the final factor for small/large door 0/0, 0.35/0.5, 0.5/0.9 and 0.7/1.5 per difficulty. Which again seems reasonable, with reaction fire triggering only rarely on easier difficulties, and only large door on Insane being worse than normal reaction fire (which means maybe the numbers should be even higher).
  
• 4) Autoclosing of the outer UFO door will be disabled. IIRC the current autoclosing is a result of the discussion linked above, and I consider it to be flawed, as it does not seem to really help anything or anybody. I'm not sure on autoclosing of inner UFO doors, but if it stays, I'll at least fix it to autoclose also at the end of player turn, not just alien turn.
  

These settings will be of course configurable and set by xcesettings.

Comments (please also state at what difficulty you play)?

[RichardEpsilonHughes]

I played through on Normal with extensive air war savescumming and moderate ground war savescumming. Point by point:

1) I agree that reaction fire on door opening makes a ton of sense and I endorse its addition. I'm unsure about your difficulty scaling. Is there an existing reaction fire scaling factor on various difficulties for other tasks? If not, this could be a strange asymmetry.

2) No strong opinion.

3) Makes sense. Unsure on specific numbers.

4) Disabling autoclosing on the big door would be fantastic.

[kabill]

Ugh, should be working, but: play on Veteran Ironman; never door-spam; and don't use shields.

Firstly: Auto-closing of external UFO doors should stay on, as the AI is currently unable to close doors itself (unless you fix that at the same time). Having the AI door-camp and take shots from inside the UFO is a legit strategy and one of the reasons why a UFO approach can be challenging at the moment. Losing that, in my opinion, would be a great loss.

Secondly: I don't especially have an objection to the proposal, but I'm not sure it's actually going to make much difference.

The main reason for this is that I don't think the reaction fire is going to be very important. While aliens have moderate-high reflex scores, most aliens don't have a weapon reaction modifier higher than x1.0 (and many of them are lower). The AI also pointlessly wastes TUs wandering up and down*, so they very rarely have their full initiative value. Stacked with an initiative penalty for most doors/difficulties, initiative is going to be pretty low. Therefore I anticipate that most soldiers armed with a pistol or shotgun will be able to open the door without drawing reaction fire most of the time.

You could of course cure this with high reaction modifiers for door-opening, but then you have the second problem: there's not a lot you can do to deal with door-opening reaction fire. Basically, you need soldiers with shields, or you need to destroy the door from a distance and approach with smoke/shoot blindly into the UFO with heavy weapons fire until things are suppressed (depending on if you're fighting Sebillians or not). Neither of those things excites me very much, 1) because I hate shields; and 2) camping at range and lobbing explosives/heavy-weapons fire into the UFO as the only other effective solution seems dull to me.

A final problem is that reaction fire is automatically negated in any instance where you can open a door from the side. The only two doors that I can think of which fit that description and are also vaguely relevant are the main and rear door of the Scout and the first interior door of the Corvette. You could, however, fix this by calling reaction fire on *any* visible unit as someone suggested a while back, so you couldn't have people waiting in front of the door and have it opened by someone else.

As regards the door TU costs, I'm quite happy for them to change as I think they're too low now (I play with them modded higher already; 12 TUs I think). But again, that won't stop door-spamming, it'll just mean you can take one or two less shots per turn due to the larger number of TUs required to open and shut the door.

In sum, then, I'm not sure it will make much difference (assuming the objective is to get rid of door spamming, which now I read back isn't necessarily the central priority, but never mind). Personally, I'm still of the opinion that not being able to close a door which has been opened on the same turn remains the simplest and most effective solution.

EDIT: Actually, no reason for it to be an either/or. Having reaction fire *and* non-open-close doors would work. In fact, to clarify, I don't have any problems with the original outline (aside from the auto-close thing), I just don't think it fixes the thing I want it to fix (which possibly it was never supposed to).

--

*This said, if you can find a way to fix that without also breaking the AI, that would be amazing.

Edited September 8, 2014 by kabill

[Steelpoint]

Try Insane Ironman.

Breaching UFOs is a big task to preform, I still have nightmares trying to breach Corvette's, the layout that has a three way section with doors on each side is the hardest UFO to breach in the game for me, I would rather breach a Battleship than that Corvette.

Aside from using Shields, which I've never used, the only other alternative to breaching a UFO involves sending my men into the UFO, out of cover, to die. Opening and closing the door may well be cheesy, but there is no better alternative for me.

Funny thing is, my breaching strategy for clearing Carriers is to keep moving soldiers back and fourth on the teleporters to the third level, shoot out the doors and kill the aliens as they step into my line of fire.

[Skitso]

I've always thought opening doors without triggering reaction feels a bit odd, so I fully support the idea. You shouldn't remove auto closing though, but it should definitely only happen after alien turn. Also player shouldn't be able to close ufo doors at all. I think these 2 changes would go a long way in fixing these issues.

Edited September 8, 2014 by Skitso

[Solver]

I am completely against reaction fire on opening doors. The lack of reaction fire there is an intentional recreation of a mechanic in the original game, the mutual surprise rule. It's not a bug, and changing that would be a very big change, not a minor tweak, of the gameplay.

The whole variable TU per door size to open/close seems like a bunch of complexity that is not necessary. The goal is just to prevent door abuse, so make the player unable to close UFO outer doors. That's it, fixed. And this was a mechanic under consideration some time ago. Leaving the autoclosing (after alien turn) but disallowing humans from closing the door maintains a higher level of challenge.

[Skitso]

The whole variable TU per door size to open/close seems like a bunch of complexity that is not necessary. The goal is just to prevent door abuse, so make the player unable to close UFO outer doors. That's it, fixed. And this was a mechanic under consideration some time ago. Leaving the autoclosing (after alien turn) but disallowing humans from closing the door maintains a higher level of challenge.

This.

[Steelpoint]

Imagine this scenario.

Ironman Insane, your inside a Large Alien Base. Your squad consists of eight soldiers, three Predators, five Sentinals, cross of MAG/Plasma weapons. You have to capture a Praetor. Your just outside the control room, the control room door is a long hallway with no cover. Inside the control room is about six to seven Elite Ceasans with Battle Rifles (Tend to one shot my soldiers), three Elite Wraiths, all of which are carrying a Plasma Cannon, and a Praetor.

The question is, if you could not close the entry door, and your soldier opening the door would draw reaction fire, how do you breach and clear that room?

Don't forget the constant barragment of Mind Control attempts and Dread.

In my opinion, I think this feature would just be making the game even more unneededly hard.

[Solver]

Let's not forget also that smoke is useless against Sebillians. Storming their UFOs, especially with the annoying layouts, is already highly dangerous.

Where UFOs are too easy to storm, it's a problem of UFO layouts, not game mechanics (except the door closing).

[llunak]

1) I agree that reaction fire on door opening makes a ton of sense and I endorse its addition. I'm unsure about your difficulty scaling. Is there an existing reaction fire scaling factor on various difficulties for other tasks? If not, this could be a strange asymmetry.

No. It strictly speaking shouldn't exist, but then the game is already hard enough for some people as it is. It also wouldn't be the only thing to scale with difficulty.

[llunak]

Firstly: Auto-closing of external UFO doors should stay on, as the AI is currently unable to close doors itself (unless you fix that at the same time). Having the AI door-camp and take shots from inside the UFO is a legit strategy and one of the reasons why a UFO approach can be challenging at the moment. Losing that, in my opinion, would be a great loss.

Could you elaborate a bit more on this? I don't see how aliens sitting inside UFO with closed doors and waiting to get killed makes anything better. Or do you mean when they sometimes open the door and peek out? If that, I think I'd rather teach the AI to close the door (or handle it in some other way).

Secondly: I don't especially have an objection to the proposal, but I'm not sure it's actually going to make much difference.

The main reason for this is that I don't think the reaction fire is going to be very important.

Well, explain that to all the people complaining here . But the basic idea is that I do not intend to make it perfect, just slightly better. I consider door spamming very cheap (and effective, to the point of it being an exploit) and if a player replaces that by e.g. using explosives, that has its downsides, while door spamming has practically none. Not being able to close a door which has been opened on the same turn would be an effective solution too, but I consider that one to be too artificial (and confusing for newcomers).

[llunak]

I've always thought opening doors without triggering reaction feels a bit odd, so I fully support the idea. You shouldn't remove auto closing though, but it should definitely only happen after alien turn.

Is this because of the same reason as I expect kabill wants this to stay (i.e. so that aliens can peek out)?

Also player shouldn't be able to close ufo doors at all. I think these 2 changes would go a long way in fixing these issues.

Door spamming works (and is used) with any doors, not just UFO doors.

[StellarRat]

My opinion is that opening doors should cause a full reaction fire calculation to take place, be it the UFO outer doors or interior doors of any kind, no bonuses or modifiers except below Veteran level. Blowing the doors should only trigger "normal" reaction fire calculations i.e. the reaction fire is triggered after the door is blown and a Xenonaut or alien moves/shoots within LOS during same turn. Proper beaching tactics should always be needed i.e. by using a person with very high reflexes to make the entry or using a combination of explosives, smoke and stun/flash weapons. (Grenade throwing attempts should probably also trigger reaction fire i.e. you could be cut down in mid-throw, but I'm afraid that would require a complete rewrite of the reaction system.)

I think putting in the code than allowing some extended play testing would be the best approach. I have a feeling it would be good change, but you never know.

Edited September 8, 2014 by StellarRat

[llunak]

I am completely against reaction fire on opening doors. The lack of reaction fire there is an intentional recreation of a mechanic in the original game, the mutual surprise rule. It's not a bug, and changing that would be a very big change, not a minor tweak, of the gameplay.

Huh? Xenonauts does not implement the mutual surprise rule at all. And while not having reaction fire on door opening may kind of emulate it, it's practically the only case when it happens, so it's inconsistent with the rest of the game. Also, the OG actually did have reaction fire on door opening (since it was technically walking through it), so the OG argument works the other way around.

The whole variable TU per door size to open/close seems like a bunch of complexity that is not necessary. The goal is just to prevent door abuse, so make the player unable to close UFO outer doors. That's it, fixed. And this was a mechanic under consideration some time ago. Leaving the autoclosing (after alien turn) but disallowing humans from closing the door maintains a higher level of challenge.

No, it's not fixed. Door spamming can be (and is) used with any door.

EDIT: But I don't see a big problem with having just one higher TU cost for all door operations, although I think at least door open and close should be distinguished.

Let's not forget also that smoke is useless against Sebillians. Storming their UFOs, especially with the annoying layouts, is already highly dangerous.

Where UFOs are too easy to storm, it's a problem of UFO layouts, not game mechanics (except the door closing).

Who said anything about storming? With door spamming, there's absolutely no need to storm anything.

Edited September 8, 2014 by llunak

[kabill]

Or do you mean when they sometimes open the door and peek out? If that, I think I'd rather teach the AI to close the door (or handle it in some other way).

That's the one. If the AI can be taught to close the door after opening it, that's fine. But at the moment it's the mechanism which allows the AI to door-spam back at the player and also the mechanism which means the UFO door isn't open most of the time when you approach the UFO (which, as an aside, would invalidate part of the point of adding the door-reaction-fire thing anyway).

Well, explain that to all the people complaining here . But the basic idea is that I do not intend to make it perfect, just slightly better. I consider door spamming very cheap (and effective, to the point of it being an exploit) and if a player replaces that by e.g. using explosives, that has its downsides, while door spamming has practically none.

I think the problem I have is that it will either be so weak as to be negligible (which I'm happy with, but it won't solve the problem I want it to solve) or it'll be too powerful and it'll make dealing with doors a chore/frustration.

Not being able to close a door which has been opened on the same turn would be an effective solution too, but I consider that one to be too artificial (and confusing for newcomers).

Personally, I don't find it any more artificial than the current setup whereby you can open and close a door with impunity.

As for confusing newcomers, I've seen that argument before and I'm still not convinced. At worst, it's something that can be solved by a GC loading tip. "You cannot close a door in the same turn that you open it". Job done!

(For what it's worth, it's more or less irrelevant to me as a player since I just don't door-spam. But it breaks my heart a little to think of the trouble that I've gone to in FitH to try and make the UFO layouts a bit more challenging in places but knowing that players can just circumvent that challenge by door-spamming. Although, strictly speaking there's a way I could solve that if I really cared to. Might not even take that much effort.)

Edited September 8, 2014 by kabill

[llunak]

Imagine this scenario.

Ironman Insane, your inside a Large Alien Base. Your squad consists of eight soldiers, three Predators, five Sentinals, cross of MAG/Plasma weapons. You have to capture a Praetor. Your just outside the control room, the control room door is a long hallway with no cover. Inside the control room is about six to seven Elite Ceasans with Battle Rifles (Tend to one shot my soldiers), three Elite Wraiths, all of which are carrying a Plasma Cannon, and a Praetor.

I can image it, no problem, but since such a base does not actually exist (yes, I checked), what's your point?

Also, if such a base existed, since the "it's a problem of UFO layouts, not game mechanics" argument has already been used against, let me now use it for.

The question is, if you could not close the entry door, and your soldier opening the door would draw reaction fire, how do you breach and clear that room?

How do I do that? Hmm ... I can think of at least 2 ways right now, but I don't want to spoil it for you.

In my opinion, I think this feature would just be making the game even more unneededly hard.

The difficulty you are talking about is called Insane. 'Insane'. Which it is not, far from it.

[vaultdweller]

I'm inclined to agree with Solver.

Possibly the CE could be made to support reaction fire on opening doors, with the option to enable this behaviour through an XML value?

[llunak]

Oh, and one more thing: If door opening triggering reaction fire would really be so bad, how do players that do not door spam manage? Not every room can be breached within just one turn, so unless I'm making this up, there is a way.

[Skitso]

One thing I'm also worried about is not seeing the ufo hull graphics any more if the auto close is removed from ufo doors. I know it's a minor thing and not at all gameplay related, but as a visual guy, these things matter to me. As a matter of fact, I would love if you could fix the ufo hull visibility to work with same logic as other buildings (If roof toggle is on, hull should be removed only if there's units inside) and not like it's now (hull is removed if there's any LoS inside)

Edited September 8, 2014 by Skitso

[ventuswings]

Merits of reaction fire capabilities aside, I disagree with reaction fire variable change across difficulties as well. The reflex penalties or boosts alien get should already account for what you are aiming for (other indirect variables such as accuracy, weapon damage etc. exist as well) so it is just needless changing the fundamental battle-scape mechanics.

I am also against introducing multiple complex changes at once to solve a problem as well - introduce them one by one and see how the game play changes first.

If I'm to get my personal opinion in, I was and still am advocate of not being able to close a door opened on the same turn as well; the confusion can be avoided simply by having a crossed out door symbol show up upon mouse over.

[ventuswings]

Alternatively perhaps consider exporting "transparent" internal UFO doors of the XNT ITD mod as well? Their aggressive AI which always opens external doors for pop shot, reminiscent of good old original game, combined with this change strongly discourage door spam strategy even under the current system. It's probably too much of radical change though.

Edited September 8, 2014 by ventuswings

[LordJulian]

Hmm, I think I'm going to throw out my fifty cents worth of opinion here:

I believe that...:

- The complaint of balance when charging in the UFO is more of a thin wire issue where the first person to open the door wins the spam fest, rather than a use of tactics required to beat enemies in breaching scenario.

- Illunak wanted a door opening reaction system that would make it challenging and fair, but somehow that proposal faces the problem growth issue for it's ambition and scale of the tweak.

- Kabill suggested that we should keep the vanilla state of the doors, and made an argument that due to AI constraints, adding a reaction system will break the AI and unbalance the game. Although the vanilla way feels very cheap, and less fair.

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Wot I think can be done:

- On the idea of having a reaction system would ask players whether they have more options to breaching than simply door opening. Rocket Launcher and C4 now provide more valuable emphasis of the term "Anti-Door". Which changes the tactical loadouts of soldiers. Although mods like breaching charges to blow things up accurately without mass destruction and the Dynamic UFO hulls helped to make this even more feasible albeit not being in the vanilla game.

- The idea of soldiers having the best reflexes to combat against reactionary fire when breaching seems like a viable choice. So reflexes are more important than just retaliation fire, they are more valuable for the sake of breaching UFOs. If reactionary fire should be triggered when opening doors, the high reflex guys would have a very high chance of not getting walloped to the face immediately.

Although this would mean that if the threshold to stop reactionary fire to get squashed is too high, then we can see a vicious cycle where the player with a lack of good reflex soldiers will suck very badly at breaching UFOs.

- The suggestion to not being able to close UFO doors within opening it at the same turn might be the simplest solution to the issue here.

[blackwolf]

i like this feature, and why not make it more "switch dependant"?

new doors system enabled : 1/0.

make this xml editable so if you want to keep vainilla system..you can disable it right?

[Solver]

Oh, and one more thing: If door opening triggering reaction fire would really be so bad, how do players that do not door spam manage? Not every room can be breached within just one turn, so unless I'm making this up, there is a way.

On this point, and your point about other doors.

I don't see door spamming as common or important except for UFO outer doors and command room doors on small alien bases. That is where door spamming is useful. Anywhere else is uncommon, or dangerous. You can try to exploit the door in a Corvette for instance, but the aliens can just as well walk up to it and shoot you point-blank during their turn. No gain for you there.

That just highlights again that in many cases (small alien base!) door spam is a problem of the mapping. Look at modular UFOs to see examples of where it is not a problem.

Without door spam of course, tactics like smoke, well-positioned snipers, explosives, and other things work. The only reason why door spamming is powerful is the ability to close the door immediately. Without that ability, you'd be left wide open for any aliens shooting back at you during their turn. It will make the tactic of lining up at the door, opening and shooting a very risky one.

Making the big doors impossible to close and only close automatically during the alien turn is sufficient, and that is in fact a solution preferred by Goldhawk, and was planned before the game's release. Some of the other proposals here so far are acceptable but "engineered" solutions - they will work, but they are crap game design.

[silencer]

Will you also fix aliens opening doors from 2 tiles away?