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X2 Hotfix Balancing - Community Feedback Thread


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8 hours ago, Chris said:

It's a little lower in X2 but not game-breakingly so, and the Sebillians (except for the big bulky tank Sebillians) have less HP then they did before. In my experience regeneration is actually pretty meaningless in most cases.

My experience could not be further away from this. Of the two starter races, I consistently find Sebillians much, much more of a threat because of their regeneration. I have to concentrate firepower to ensure a kill, and don't really benefit from taking potshots. When storming the UFO, I also have to be much more aggressive to prevent them from regenerating too many times. This is compared to the early Psyons, who don't pose any threat.

Part of this could be due to the weapons balance though. In X1, I preferred heavy suppression tactics against Sebillians, whereas in X2 right now suppression is low, and the LMG is also terrible at dealing damage. So maybe fixing those issues would nerf Sebillians somewhat.

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12 hours ago, Chris said:

This already happens - remember that taking damage permanently loses units a portion of their max HP. In X1 this was set to 50%.

It's a little lower in X2 but not game-breakingly so, and the Sebillians (except for the big bulky tank Sebillians) have less HP then they did before. In my experience regeneration is actually pretty meaningless in most cases.

I think I disagree that cover should give a bigger defence bonus than it does given it costs 4 TU to crouch too. If pretty much any cover item is more than 2 tiles away it's more TU efficient to crouch then it is to walk to the cover, which already seems pretty OP given it already stacks with the cover.

Crouching stacks multiplicitively with cover already. But crouching behind low hard cover should stack additively; your profile is reduced by 40% from crouching, and 50% of your original profile is behind hard cover, all of which is part of you newly reduced profile, giving a 90% reduction in exposed vulnerable area.

Yeah, that's very OP, resulting in a need for flanking tactics, ways to neuter prepared positions (smoke their lines of fire), weapons that bypass hard cover (grenades, indirect fire), weapons that penetrate hard cover, and suppressive fire).

 

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11 hours ago, Solver said:

My experience could not be further away from this. Of the two starter races, I consistently find Sebillians much, much more of a threat because of their regeneration. I have to concentrate firepower to ensure a kill, and don't really benefit from taking potshots. When storming the UFO, I also have to be much more aggressive to prevent them from regenerating too many times. This is compared to the early Psyons, who don't pose any threat.

Part of this could be due to the weapons balance though. In X1, I preferred heavy suppression tactics against Sebillians, whereas in X2 right now suppression is low, and the LMG is also terrible at dealing damage. So maybe fixing those issues would nerf Sebillians somewhat.

Fair enough - but as part of my balancing pass the standard small Sebillians now have lower HP pools than they did before. They've now only got 70HP, down from 100HP in V6.2. Hopefully that'll make the average Sebillian a bit less threatening but make the big ones more of a mini-boss enounter.

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1 hour ago, Chris said:

Fair enough - but as part of my balancing pass the standard small Sebillians now have lower HP pools than they did before. They've now only got 70HP, down from 100HP in V6.2. Hopefully that'll make the average Sebillian a bit less threatening but make the big ones more of a mini-boss enounter.

What's the story on plans for the armor system? Will there be the same wear-down system? Will there be more of a Threshold system like XDiv? Will our rookies be able to outlive the average fruit fly?

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1 hour ago, Chris said:

Fair enough - but as part of my balancing pass the standard small Sebillians now have lower HP pools than they did before. They've now only got 70HP, down from 100HP in V6.2. Hopefully that'll make the average Sebillian a bit less threatening but make the big ones more of a mini-boss enounter.

Chris, would it be possible to just reduce the number of aliens, particularly the tough ones, on the small UFOs like probes and scouts rather than change the HPs too much?  There seems to be more aliens (and tougher ones) on the small craft than there were in X1. 

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20 hours ago, Chris said:

I think I disagree that cover should give a bigger defence bonus than it does given it costs 4 TU to crouch too. If pretty much any cover item is more than 2 tiles away it's more TU efficient to crouch then it is to walk to the cover, which already seems pretty OP given it already stacks with the cover.

I see what you're saying, but I would argue that if you're crouched behind hard cover, you expose less of yourself which a) makes you harder to see in the first place so it would be awesome if there was a chance that the aliens didn't even see a crouched soldier and b) makes you much harder to hit. Crouching behind a single bush shouldn't afford any defence bonus in terms of damage limitation as you can just shoot at the bush and probably hit something hidden behind it.  But if they can't see you and you're behind a big/long bush, they could take pot-shots at random at the bush knowing you're behind the bush somewhere. Does that make sense?

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On 7/11/2019 at 5:12 PM, Max_Caine said:

Alien Magnetic LMG:  (Burst) Accuracy: 60, (Burst) Shots Fired: 7, Damage: 30, TU Cost: 40

Alien Plasma Rifle: Damage: 50

Alien Magnetic Rifle: (Snap) Accuracy: 60, (Snap) Shots Fired: 3, (Snap) TU Cost: 20, (Normal) TU cost: 50, Damage: 45 

Ballistic LMG: (Burst) Shots Fired: 7

Ballistic Rifle: (Burst) TU Cost: 20

Been looking at this stuff myself now. For the Alien Magnetic LMG I broadly agree with you, and I've implemented your changes but shots fired is 6 and Accuracy is 50 and the TU cost is 35. The Sebillian now actually fires the gun though so the changes seem an improvement.

Alien Plasma Rifle: I've dropped the damage by 5 to 55. I think the danger of dropping it to 50 is that it stops being a reliable one-shot kill on unarmoured soldiers, and if the armour is functioning correctly then the average soldier should be able to take a single shot from a Plasma Rifle and survive if they are wearing Combat Armour (average damage is 44) - but then even prior to the change the average damage was 48, so a soldier should have already been able to survive a Plasma Rifle shot more often than not if they were wearing combat armour. If that wasn't happening we might have bigger problems.

Alien Magnetic Rifle: Yeah, I can get behind making this weapon fire 3 shots by default. I've halved the accuracy and dropped the damage to 30 instead of 45, and slightly increased the fire mode. This means the Magnetic Rifle actually does more raw damage per TU than the Plasma Rifle does, but it's got a lower instakill chance and kinetic damage tends to be easier to defend against early game.

Ballistic LMG: I'm reluctant to increase the number of shots fired simply because firing lots of shots is what made LMGs the dominant weapons in the mid-to-late game of X1. At close range they were ludicrously powerful. The close range bonus is actually set on a per-weapon basis now so I could just strip it off the LMGs and then increase the number of shots, but I'm not sure that makes logical sense. I think for now I'll keep the 5 shots but just turn the accuracy up a bit. I've increased it from 35 to 45, which is the same as the rifle but fires two additional shots.

Ballistic Rifle: I've dropped the TU fire cost on this weapon across the board. Single shots now cost 12/18/24 TU instead of 14/20/28 TU, with the most accurate fire mode dropping to 120 Accuracy from 130 Accuracy. Burst fire now costs 25TU instead of 30TU. I've also applied these updates to the SMG too.

The suppression fix is also going to be arriving in the hotfix and if all goes well the update will be out tomorrow and you guys can see how effective my balance pass has been. At that point I'll open up a fresh balance thread to continue the discussion afresh.

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An LMG going full rock and roll at short range should be an absolute killer, if an Alien is that stupid to either get that close or allow to get that close it should be toast. While a fully under stand it’s a game and there should be balance I think there should also be a bit of “realism”. And it also gives that poor trooper that has to lug the heavy thing around a big grin when it does happen!

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