Jump to content

Community Discussion - V7 Balance Thread


Chris

Recommended Posts

2 hours ago, Chris said:

Not sure. We'll probably either just speed up the drophip a little or put the X1 system in place where a ground mission will not despawn if there is a dropship enroute to it (unless it's a landed UFO).

Obviously if the landed UFO takes off that's a different scenario, and why you have a CAP around to make sure to shoot it down so you can then do the ground mission anyway. But having missions not despawn if there's a dropship on route would certainly be good. 

Also, and not sure if you're doing this in X2 since I haven't made it that far in the game, if it's possible to build faster dropships as well that would also be a possible solution, but getting that hit in the early game is a pain otherwise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh I'm sure there will be better and faster dropships, just as in Xen1 ;-). What I'd like to know is that when they get shot down, does a more advanced dropship provide more protection for the troops on it (so that there is more chance of them surviving). I think there should be an option to allow the dropship to land, whereby the troops scatter and are saved, but you loose the dropship. The troops turn up back at base later though!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On ‎9‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 11:51 PM, Chris said:

The other bases work pretty much exactly like they work in X1, don't they?

Not sure. We'll probably either just speed up the drophip a little or put the X1 system in place where a ground mission will not despawn if there is a dropship enroute to it (unless it's a landed UFO).

 

a) have the game acknowledge you couldn't get there in time (it's simple to calculate) and not give a penalty

b) actually allow more soldiers/dropships/bases, as it should be

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/6/2019 at 11:22 AM, Chris said:

Balance - due to one of the bugfixes below, UFO hulls are now much harder to destroy with small arms fire. Bring C4 if you want to easily breach a UFO!

Oh yeah where is the C4? Just started my first run with v7 and can't see it on the loadout screen. 

Since shooting hulls is out of the question so I've been going John Wick on these ayys with smoke grenades and knives. Seriously, just four grenadiers for smoke/suppression and six knife-only users with high TU. As long as regular squads remain equally viable, please don't nerf the knife. Meme loadouts are just so much fun (and they also don't destroy UFO components)

Ah, C4 is now behind UFO Design Analysis

Edited by ScottyWired
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A (possibly) unintended result of having a global pool of staff as opposed to a local pool is that I've developed a 3rd type of specialised base after the Factory and the Research Institute - the Habitation Dome. By sticking all the living quarters in one base, I can create some startling efficiencies within my main base. I think it would be worthwhile looking at the consequence of what happens if a whole lotta living quarters were suddenly destroyed by a base raid. I also think it's worthwhile looking at specialised bases more deeply. At the moment, a specialised base consists of the same thing done over and over - the factory for workshops, the research institute for labs, the hab dome for quarters. the efficiencies gained are the concentration of staff and facilities in one place, instead of spread out everywhere. I was wondering whether it might be worthwhile examining the pros and cons of specialised bases and possibly deepening and broadening both pros and cons (perhaps specialised bases generate lots of noise that ufos pick up on? Perhaps factories generate pollution, and research institutes need more resources?)

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Max_Caine said:

A (possibly) unintended result of having a global pool of staff as opposed to a local pool is that I've developed a 3rd type of specialised base after the Factory and the Research Institute - the Habitation Dome. By sticking all the living quarters in one base, I can create some startling efficiencies within my main base. I think it would be worthwhile looking at the consequence of what happens if a whole lotta living quarters were suddenly destroyed by a base raid. I also think it's worthwhile looking at specialised bases more deeply. At the moment, a specialised base consists of the same thing done over and over - the factory for workshops, the research institute for labs, the hab dome for quarters. the efficiencies gained are the concentration of staff and facilities in one place, instead of spread out everywhere. I was wondering whether it might be worthwhile examining the pros and cons of specialised bases and possibly deepening and broadening both pros and cons (perhaps specialised bases generate lots of noise that ufos pick up on? Perhaps factories generate pollution, and research institutes need more resources?)

Ooh gives me an idea. What if in-base labs and workshops were massively more expensive, and early-game has you relying on civilian facilities? Factories and universities that are semi-randomly scattered on the world map that you send your engineers and scientists to be overseers at, with very minor decreases in efficiency depending on distance from a base.

This would create another factor to think about when placing bases, rather than just pure radar coverage. UFOs would also actively target the facilities being used by the player, so it creates an actual choice when confronted by multiple UFOs in a region. Which one is performing a terror mission? Which one is targeting my civilian factory? My shiny new dropship is going to be destroyed while it's still being built, but is protecting it worth my relations with the region?

Edited by ScottyWired
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Max_Caine said:

A (possibly) unintended result of having a global pool of staff as opposed to a local pool is that I've developed a 3rd type of specialised base after the Factory and the Research Institute - the Habitation Dome. By sticking all the living quarters in one base, I can create some startling efficiencies within my main base. I think it would be worthwhile looking at the consequence of what happens if a whole lotta living quarters were suddenly destroyed by a base raid. I also think it's worthwhile looking at specialised bases more deeply. At the moment, a specialised base consists of the same thing done over and over - the factory for workshops, the research institute for labs, the hab dome for quarters. the efficiencies gained are the concentration of staff and facilities in one place, instead of spread out everywhere. I was wondering whether it might be worthwhile examining the pros and cons of specialised bases and possibly deepening and broadening both pros and cons (perhaps specialised bases generate lots of noise that ufos pick up on? Perhaps factories generate pollution, and research institutes need more resources?)

The only case where specialized bases could have an advantage is workshops/production. And even then only for big items.

Scientists can easily work in a distributed fashion, cooperating via remote communications.

Putting all habitation in one base makes no sense whatsoever (traveling to a different base to work would be grossly inefficient)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

Putting all habitation in one base makes no sense whatsoever (traveling to a different base to work would be grossly inefficient)

Commuting doesn't exist then. Especially when the organisation they work for has teleportation.

Quote

The only case where specialized bases could have an advantage is workshops/production. And even then only for big items.

Foxconn doesn't exist then. 

Quote

Scientists can easily work in a distributed fashion, cooperating via remote communications.

Research institutes/centers don't exist then. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe losing your habitation dome should make people slowly start leaving the organisation until the current population reaches your maximum. Unless you were really unlucky losing the building wouldn't immediately make you lose all of the people who lived there, especially if they all worked on other bases or had time to evacuate. It would give you time to start rebuilding your housing without absolutely flattening your production and research instantly.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

V7 first time notes:

Loving the operation name randomizer. It's small, but I love it. Also that's what she said.

No back button on equip menu

Odds of an auto-assign button for missions?

Will there be a Codename slot?

How come we can't see out of those windows?

Glad to see scaling TUs again, this feels...right.

5 TUs is not enough to take a diagonal step?

Smoke feels amazing after the rebalance, though it can be cheesed by Ctrl-firing behind stuff, while the aliens don't seem to have the means to blind fire.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Opinions on Ballistic weapons in V7

In general, I like the ballistic weapons i V7. The assault rifle in particular seems the standout weapon. I can use it long, I can use it close up. It's very versatile. However, there are a few points I'd like to make.

LMG: I think the LMG needs a few more pros and cons. In the hands of a skilled operator, the LMG is a dangerous weapon. In my captain-rank or better, the LMG usually lands enough hits to kill whatever was targetted. However, in the hands of a rookie (e,g, starting soldier), the LMG can feel somethig of a liability. I understand that LMG was always intended to be more a suppression weapon than a killing weapon. Well, I don't believe it suppresses enough. I've been fiddling with the supression scores and a value between 30-40 (there doesn't seem to be a sweet spot) seems to make the LMG suffciently suppressive, even in the hands of a newb. Back to killyness. I've seriously considered kitting out a lot more of my best people with LMGs because they can get hits on target and the have the TUs to manhandle it into position. If I remember correctly, in X1 weapons with the heavy tag would have a malus to-hit if you moved and shot, unless you were in preadator armour. I think that might be something worthwhile resurrecting for X2, because LMgs are super effective in the right hands.

Pistol: The pistol needs somethig of a rework. I only ever really used the pistol when I got shields, and all the time I had the pistol I was praying for the converted mag pistol to finish manufacturing to I could ditch this piece of crap and get something with decent stopping power. On a shieldman, it doesn't fire enugh shots to justify using it. You fire 1-2 shots, then that;s it, you sit and take it in the next turn and hope the shield doesn't buckle uner the weight of plasma death. I reduced the TU cost of snaps to 13%, just so the shield guy can crack off shots with the pistol in the hopes of wounding/killing a target. 

 

Opinions of laser weapons in V7

The only laser weapon I've really used is the laser rifle. It felt distinctly underwhelming. Because there's such a small power cell and because it regenerates so slowly I never used autofire because if I missd I would have an almost-empty power cell for the next turn. I almost always used aimed shots whenever I could. Anything else felt a waste. I reworked it a lot and ended up Xcom 1994'ing it. I set the regenerate to 3, that meant you would have 3 shots to play with each turn. I took out the normal shot because there didn't seem any point to it. You either would zap cheaply, or you'd spend the time to take an aimed shot. Finally, I played around with the TU and accuracy values of the weapon. Snap is 24% and 45, Aimed is 40% and 130, and burst is 60% and 80. that seemed to make it feel a lot better, but I'm a little unsure about the costs for aimed and burst. I've included a copy below if anyone wants to take a closer look. 

laser_rifle.json

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/28/2019 at 6:49 PM, Max_Caine said:

Pistol: The pistol needs somethig of a rework. I only ever really used the pistol when I got shields, and all the time I had the pistol I was praying for the converted mag pistol to finish manufacturing to I could ditch this piece of crap and get something with decent stopping power. On a shieldman, it doesn't fire enugh shots to justify using it. You fire 1-2 shots, then that;s it, you sit and take it in the next turn and hope the shield doesn't buckle uner the weight of plasma death. I reduced the TU cost of snaps to 13%, just so the shield guy can crack off shots with the pistol in the hopes of wounding/killing a target.

Have yet to play the beta (though I bought it). But that is also what is my experience with pistols in X1 (X-Division), so how does that compare to X1 in your opinion? To me, it never makes sense to send a soldier with just a pistol. The reflex bonus is too low to risk it, and you don't get more TUs or Reflexes when carrying less than 100% of capacity (which, btw., is something I'd love to see, because then light builds could actually be good). Instead I'd naturally give them shields or longer range/harder hitting weapons like rifles or LMGs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bad luck or balance need?

In my ground combats it always happens the same. I move the first soldier to the closest cover I can see (see circled red soldier) and some allien react killing or hitting him. Since he was still alive, I tried saving him returning the fire, they were pretty close to the transport and I should have a lot of fire power. However, after moving a couple of soldiers they almost depleted their TUs, and I only could shot fast shots with a 20/50% accuracy (depending on the shot mode).

In this moment I should have released a couple of smoke grenade and let them die since aliens seems to have a greater accuracy. But I tried to save them, after all, they were 10 soldiers vs 2 aliens, they should be able to hit at least twice each enemy.

 

Result: 2 hits from 10 shots, alien were still alive. Next turn results: 4 soldiers die, one still wound.

I wish I could walk a bit more to reach a cover and fire or get a bit close before firing... 4x-5x TUs soldiers seems pretty useless, and in my games, they won't survive the whole game to trust a team with 7x-8x TUs.

die.jpg

Edited by Juan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Ruggerman said:

Since V7 the drop ship can carry 10 personal, but on some of the missions you still get the old 8 personal capacity, with the last two stuck and can not move. This is to be fixed in V8, so we are told.

But when did V7 came out? Like is Steam activated build is already on V7?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...