General V24.6 Feedback

[Komandos]

1 hour ago, Grobobobo said:

where aliens and the player abuse squadsight and everything that's spotted dies.

squadsight can only be removed in two ways:

1. Each soldier has his own individual turn, which depends on the level of his "initiative". (Just like in "Heroes of Might and Magic").

2. Use a "phase-by-phase" turn. When all the soldiers receive a command for the nearest period of time and start moving all at the same time.

[Kamehamehayes]

57 minutes ago, Komandos said:

Anything that makes the game interesting for the player is a reasonable idea. We play for the sake of interest and a lot of unusual (diverse) opportunities (situations) that the game can create.

Sure, but just because something is interest doesn’t mean that it is a good thing for the game. Like some of the ballistic properties in the original xcom. Sure, it is cool that in burst fire if one hit a wall it would be destroyed and the other two shots would go through, but it does sacrifice balance in the process. Rifles are generally the strongest weapons in that game, and the heavy plasma is downright broken, and such a mechanic only goes further into into buffing them. If such a mechanic were implemented into Xen 1, then it would be even more powerful because 1 shot can destroy a wall the the 9 other shots can go past it if used with a machine gun. 
 

The inventory space is meant to be a restriction of what a soldier can take; you don’t want to give the player too much space in the inventory because it allows a soldier with enough strength to take however much they want. You don’t want to give the player an opportunity to fill a backpack full with smoke grenades and trivialize every mission because they alien cannot hit you. Does it give more interesting strategic and tactical options? Yes, but it can ruin balance and make restrictions less meaningful and may buff certain strategies that are undesirable. 

[Kamehamehayes]

Oops, sry for the double post.

Edited November 10, 2022 by Kamehamehayes
Double post on accident

[Komandos]

46 minutes ago, Kamehamehayes said:

You don’t want to give the player an opportunity to fill a backpack full with smoke grenades and trivialize every mission because they alien cannot hit you.

One person claims that adding aliens will complicate the game, and the game should be easy. Another person claims that expanding the inventory will simplify the game, and the game should be difficult. I agree with both:

1. The game should not tire and exhaust the player.

2. The game should set difficult and interesting tasks for the player.

But I am against the fact that the complexity of the game is achieved by artificially limiting the tactical capabilities of the player's soldiers, and not achieved by increasing the tactical capabilities of the enemy.

What prevents aliens from throwing grenades into the smoke screen? Or start firing a cloud of smoke from a machine gun? What prevents aliens from using a cloud of smoke?

And if, in order to complicate the game, it is permissible to limit soldiers to the number of smoke grenades, without paying attention to the physical strength of the soldier and the carrying capacity, then why can't the weapon be limited to the number of shots, without paying attention to the actual size of the clip?

The player ALWAYS defeats the opponent in a ground tactical battle.

And if the player ALWAYS wins, then why not make the battle itself: fun and interesting, and not tedious?

[Kamehamehayes]

13 minutes ago, Komandos said:

But I am against the fact that the complexity of the game is achieved by artificially limiting the tactical capabilities of the player's soldiers, and not achieved by increasing the tactical capabilities of the enemy.

What prevents aliens from throwing grenades into the smoke screen? Or start firing a cloud of smoke from a machine gun? What prevents aliens from using a cloud of smoke?

And if, in order to complicate the game, it is permissible to limit soldiers to the number of smoke grenades, without paying attention to the physical strength of the soldier and the carrying capacity, then why can't the weapon be limited to the number of shots, without paying attention to the actual size of the clip?

I also think that adding variance to the enemy is important to increasing tactical complexity; however, I think restricting the player is also extremely important. 

Strategy games give the player a very limited set of resources, and it is up to the player to make sacrifices and compromises to make best use of their limited resources. These resources range from time, money, materials, soldiers, and, yes, inventory space. 

Due to this system, you can't just have a sniper that has a shotgun for close quarters with a grenade launcher on the side. You have to choose between what you need and what you can leave behind. You have quite a few shotgun users, do you need the shotgun? Or maybe you really need a grenade launcher, can you build your kit in a way that keeps the grenade launcher and reloads while keeping a sniper rifle or shotgun? If you increase the inventory space, then you have no need to make those descisions. You can just have all of that in your bag, and each individual soldier can be built to deal with any situation, and most of them will end up similar. 

[Kamehamehayes]

41 minutes ago, Komandos said:

The player ALWAYS defeats the opponent in a ground tactical battle.

And if the player ALWAYS wins, then why not make the battle itself: fun and interesting, and not tedious?

The player will not always win every tactical mission. Xcom games are fundamentally designed with ironman in mind, and allow the player to continue to play after losing a couple missions. 

Every mission has a risk of loss, so managing resources is crucial to the survival of soldiers on the battlefield. Restrictions, while arbitrary for the most part, allow for the tensity in missions to not let up because things can always go wrong. With too many things available to the player, that tensity will be much less and the game will not have as good of an atmoaphere.

Practically speaking, yes, the player will always win the mission and will likely do it without losing a single soldier, meaning the tense atmosphere is likely lost to begin with, but it is there for those that choose to fight past their mistakes and triumph and grow through hardship. 

[Komandos]

1 hour ago, Kamehamehayes said:

Due to this system, you can't just have a sniper that has a shotgun for close quarters with a grenade launcher on the side.

 

1 hour ago, Kamehamehayes said:

If you increase the inventory space, then you have no need to make those descisions. You can just have all of that in your bag, and each individual soldier can be built to deal with any situation, and most of them will end up similar.

If the game already has restrictions on the total weight of portable items (which depends on the individual strength of the soldier), then why make restrictions on the size of the inventory? After all, this leads to the fact that a physically strong soldier is able to carry exactly as many things as a physically weak soldier is able to carry.

It turns out that the physical strength of soldiers, from a certain level, does not give a physically strong soldier any advantages over a physically weak soldier. What is the point of such a role-playing system?

[Komandos]

1 hour ago, Kamehamehayes said:

Strategy games give the player a very limited set of resources, and it is up to the player to make sacrifices and compromises to make best use of their limited resources. These resources range from time, money, materials, soldiers, and, yes, inventory space. 

There is no strategic limit on the number of ballistic weapons and ammunition in the game. But the game prohibits soldiers from using this unlimited supply in battle, even if the soldier has enough physical strength to take more items with him.

[Grobobobo]

There is one key reason why Inventory Space needs restriction: In XDIV you used to just fill the soldier inventory with shields, rockets etc Dropped them turn 1 in the dropship, spammed those at the enemy, and retreated back to it to resupply. It was extremely tedious to play and made a misison last up to 3 hours. It both destroyed the resource management of the game AND made it more boring to play. To be honest, it's still kinda possible with X2, but 
a) The shields no longer act as consumable immunity, so there's not that much reason to bring them in bulk
b)The medikits no longer have an ammo counter so you don't need to bring them in bulk either
c) the game is easy enough to not need such a strategy in the first place
d) The extra turn spend is pretty bad for abductions

The point is, Options and decisions are about quality not quanity, just because you can do more doesn't mean that the game is better for it.

[Grobobobo]

4 hours ago, Komandos said:

squadsight can only be removed in two ways:

1. Each soldier has his own individual turn, which depends on the level of his "initiative". (Just like in "Heroes of Might and Magic").

2. Use a "phase-by-phase" turn. When all the soldiers receive a command for the nearest period of time and start moving all at the same time.

That just makes the whole game worse. Besides, why are you suggesting reworking a fundamental game system just to fix a relatively minor problem?

[Komandos]

1 hour ago, Kamehamehayes said:

Every mission has a risk of loss, so managing resources is crucial to the survival of soldiers on the battlefield. Restrictions, while arbitrary for the most part, allow for the tensity in missions to not let up because things can always go wrong. With too many things available to the player, that tensity will be much less and the game will not have as good of an atmoaphere.

The main risks of losses are associated with the unloading (deployment) of troops from the shuttle. The initial location of the aliens may be unsuccessful for the player's soldiers. Losses at the beginning of the battle are absolutely unrelated to the number of items in your soldiers' personal inventory.

The second main source of personnel losses is the attack on UFOs (UFO assault). Soldiers are forced to engage at close range, where individual reaction, rate of fire and power of weapons play a leading role. This fight is very fleeting and does not require a lot of equipment.

Whether the player loses the battle or wins depends on the initial alignment of forces, and on how correctly the player understood the main task of the mission. 

The number of items in the inventory only helps soldiers maintain combat capability longer during long missions or emergencies.

The aliens have no tactics that can defeat the player's soldiers. 

[Grobobobo]

5 hours ago, Komandos said:

the "squad's sight" exists regardless of the range of the weapon.

Squadsight itself yes, but the usage of it no. Just because you can see the enemy doesn't mean you're in range to attack it. That's why i seperated vision range from engagement range.

[Twigg]

6 minutes ago, Grobobobo said:

a) The shields no longer act as consumable immunity, so there's not that much reason to bring them in bulk

 

Have you found shields to be effective? in X1 I normally had 2 shield users who acted as scouts and overwatch absorbers, which was particularly useful in taking alien bases/large ufos with teleporters. In X2 they aren't nearly as useful and I can't tell if I am using them poorly or not. It is incredibly frustrating to enter the command center of an alien base and take overwatch fire from 4-5 aliens with zero counterplay available.

[Komandos]

12 minutes ago, Grobobobo said:

In XDIV you used to just fill the soldier inventory with shields, rockets etc Dropped them turn 1 in the dropship, spammed those at the enemy, and retreated back to it to resupply. It was extremely tedious to play and made a misison last up to 3 hours.

X-DIV" had the problem that there were a lot of aliens, and the player had few soldiers. And in order to quickly defeat the aliens, there were not enough supplies of equipment. If the player did not take an additional amount of equipment with him, the match would have lasted not 3 hours, but 6 hours. Additional supplies did not increase the fight to 3 hours, but on the contrary reduced the fight to 3 hours.

[Komandos]

21 minutes ago, Grobobobo said:

a) The shields no longer act as consumable immunity, so there's not that much reason to bring them in bulk
b)The medikits no longer have an ammo counter so you don't need to bring them in bulk either
c) the game is easy enough to not need such a strategy in the first place
d) The extra turn spend is pretty bad for abductions

If you think that there is enough space in your inventory to store basic supplies, then why worry that some player will want to take more with him than he needs?

Moreover, the soldiers have a limit of carrying capacity in terms of physical strength.

[Komandos]

27 minutes ago, Grobobobo said:

That just makes the whole game worse. Besides, why are you suggesting reworking a fundamental game system just to fix a relatively minor problem?

I'm not suggesting reworking the game mechanics. I just point out that the game is not able to get rid of "squadsight" in principle. Due to the game mechanics that the game already has. Changing the range of the weapon will only change the density of the formation of soldiers and the range of defeat by your soldiers of enemy soldiers.

[Komandos]

36 minutes ago, Grobobobo said:

Squadsight itself yes, but the usage of it no. Just because you can see the enemy doesn't mean you're in range to attack it. That's why i seperated vision range from engagement range.

It was meant that the range of the weapon does not affect whether the "squadsight" effect will work in the game or it will disappear completely.

Even if the range of the weapon is equal to one tile, the soldiers still have the opportunity to move themselves to 33 tiles (maximum), which means to approach the detected alien (by all soldiers in turn) and destroy the alien in hand-to-hand combat.

[Komandos]

9 hours ago, Grobobobo said:

That just makes the whole game worse. Besides, why are you suggesting reworking a fundamental game system just to fix a relatively minor problem?

In X1, parameters such as: "range of weapons", "radius of visibility of soldiers" were easily changed in special files and each player could set such conditions of tactical battles that he liked the most. I hope it will be the same in X2.

[Komandos]

10 hours ago, Twigg said:

It is incredibly frustrating to enter the command center of an alien base and take overwatch fire from 4-5 aliens with zero counterplay available.

Before entering the alien lair, in which your soldier is 99% likely to be shot, it is necessary to initiate explosives several turns ahead. If a soldier is killed, the explosives will explode.

[Grobobobo]

17 hours ago, Twigg said:

 

Have you found shields to be effective? in X1 I normally had 2 shield users who acted as scouts and overwatch absorbers, which was particularly useful in taking alien bases/large ufos with teleporters. In X2 they aren't nearly as useful and I can't tell if I am using them poorly or not. It is incredibly frustrating to enter the command center of an alien base and take overwatch fire from 4-5 aliens with zero counterplay available.

I gave my thoughts about shields in the main post. I don't think the change is fundamentally bad, but it needs tweaks.
although, there IS counterplay against aliens camping in command center, and it involves explosives.

[Chris]

Regarding the increased squad size - I'm unsure if I'll keep it or not. The original reason is that alien weapons were meant to be more lethal than in Xenonauts 1, so a single shot would often kill a soldier like would happen in the classic X-Com games. In that situation having a couple of extra soldiers makes sense so the player doesn't get put in an extremely difficult situation due to a couple of lucky alien shots at the start of the mission.

But I suspect I've probably revised the balance a bit to reduce the lethality of the alien weapons (particularly against soldiers with armour) since I made that change. And yes, vehicles now only fill a single slot in the dropship too. So it might be worth moving it back down to 8.

[Komandos]

18 minutes ago, Chris said:

The original reason is that alien weapons were meant to be more lethal than in Xenonauts 1, so a single shot would often kill a soldier like would happen in the classic X-Com games.

Death by one shot was the main source of adrenaline and excitement in the original UFO: 1-2. With the invention of thick armor, and after the discovery of "heavy plasma", combat missions became less dangerous and emotional.

[Chris]

3 minutes ago, Komandos said:

Death by one shot was the main source of adrenaline and excitement in the original UFO: 1-2. With the invention of thick armor, and after the discovery of "heavy plasma", combat missions became less dangerous and emotional.

I think aliens equipped with heavy plasmas could still one-shot soldiers even through Flying Armour in X-Com, but it was a low chance. That's where I want things to be with the combat in Xenonauts 2.

I think an Alien Magnetic Rifle has a 60% chance of killing an average unarmoured soldier, a 20% chance of killing one with combat armour, and the Warden will always survive one hit until alien Plasma weapons start turning up.

[Komandos]

59 minutes ago, Chris said:

I think an Alien Magnetic Rifle has a 60% chance of killing an average unarmoured soldier, a 20% chance of killing one with combat armour, and the Warden will always survive one hit until alien Plasma weapons start turning up.

I agree that the lethality of alien weapons should not be 100%, so that the player has the opportunity to get a situation (game experience) with wounded soldiers and providing medical care to these soldiers.

As for the losses among soldiers: I would suggest introducing three (3) types of units into the game (on the player's side):

1 - robots. Cheap units that a player can lose on the battlefield in very large quantities.

2 - Soldiers. The units that the player tries to save, but to win the battle, he can sacrifice them.

3. Commanders. Units with a lot of different properties and characteristics that the player will try to develop in the same way as characters are developed in RPG games. Commanders have additional (compared to soldiers) functions and abilities. The loss of a commander is a very serious loss, and for the sake of saving the lives of commanders, it is better for the player to lose the battle (evacuate).

For one battle, I would suggest 2-3-4 commanders. The rest are robots and soldiers.

 

The player's task is to educate a whole team of commanders (officers) for the final.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Komandos

[Chris]

@Grobobobo As I'm drawing up a list of balancing changes to make as we begin work on V25, I've finally had a chance to properly read your post and reply with a few thoughts.

• Yes, health bars are planned to be an optional thing for the reasons you describe. Some people like them, others find them immersion breaking.
• As we've discussed already, I think I'm going to experiment with reverting the initial dropship down to 8 soldiers. You're not the only person who has mentioned they preferred the smaller teams at the start of X1.
• Yeah, I'll increase the rewards on the abduction tubes. Several people have mentioned the rewards feel a bit stingy atm.
• Interesting that you think shotguns are weak. Again, you're not the only one saying that, but I've always considered them extremely strong. Albeit this has to be balanced against the fact that my shotgunners never live very long, but to some extent they don't have to because accuracy isn't particularly relevant for them. But maybe I'll give them a small buff to their accuracy.
• The MAG weapons you're referring to are the Accelerated weapons, right? One thing to be conscious of here is that they're permanent upgrades to the starting unlimited quantity items, so they provide extra value say in base defence missions if you have extra soldiers that don't have "proper" guns. But I'll take a look during my playthrough to see if their cost is a bit too high. Thoughts from other players would be welcome here too!
• You're right about the Lasers having inconsistent stats. The Laser Sniper isn't meant to have a massive accuracy bonus relative to the normal sniper rifle, that's a data entry bug I need to fix. I'll have a think about the ammo capacity of the weapons; the reasons lasers rifles and snipers have the same ammo capacity is because they use the same ammo battery but you're right it ends up being an indirect buff for the Laser Sniper.
• For Armour Destruction vs Armour Mitigation - the thing to remember here is that AD is applied after the shot, not before. So a weapon with low mitigation but high destruction will do less damage with the first shot but then leaves the armour totally wrecked, so follow up shots are more effective from the entire team. It may not be reflected in the numbers right now but the idea is that a laser doesn't have as much chance of killing an enemy in one shot but remain viable as the game progresses because they give an accuracy bonus, destroy armour effectively, and (once upgraded) have unlimited ammo. Note that in the V24 builds the Gauss / MAG weapons are missing from the game and they're the next upgrade after Lasers, which probably changes things.
• What makes you say the shield has a 20% chance of not working? That mechanic has been removed, so is there an out of date tooltip floating around somewhere?