[balancing suggestion] please make the game harder!

[Henry Jekyll]

hello folks,

i have played xcom 1,2 and apocalypse and i loved every game. by a fluke i saw this game and it was love at the first sight. after preordering and downloading the v16 alpha, i started playing on veteran. and now, after some hours of gameplay there are some things that confuses me:

* i shot with a sniper rifle on a large distance on an alien with 50% chance to hit. ->instand kill. this was happen everytime i used the sniper.

* assault rifle was the same: max. 50% chance to hit: one shot one kill. everytime.

* none of the alien-shots was a hit.

it seems, the weapons are too acurate and have to much power and the aliens shoots to inaccurate.

on easy this is ok, but veteran? another thing:

i won 15 of 16 aircraft fights with one f17 in a row against small ufos.

also, the ressources on the beginning are imho to big: 4 000 000$, armored vehicles and sniper-weapons?

btw. how can i buy things? i cant find any "buy"-button.

otherwise, the game is great, haven´t seen a better xcom-clone before. if the difficulty would be much harder, then the game was perfect.

henry

p.s. how can i add this "premium preoder"-badge?

[StellarRat]

We don't even have the upper level aliens in game yet. I think it's too early to say the game is too easy or too hard. Wait for the official beta when all the content is in.

[thothkins]

Ah my good Doctor! Welcome to these forums!

Claiming your pre order badge details are here.

There's a fair amount of balancing to be done, so enjoy it being this "easy" while you can.

Alas, the game isn't much of a shopper's paradise. Having infinite ballistic weapons to start with plays a part here. Additionally, it takes a little while to get manufacturing going, and even then it's only for a loss. There isn't any more advanced equipment that the world can offer you, a la apocalypse either. More of a sell/move screen than a buy/sell one really.

[Henry Jekyll]

ah ok. i will wait and hope the best. :-)

thanks.

[HWP]

By the way, if anyone thinks military guns are "too cheap to meter", here's a few to take a look at:

Submachinegun

Sniper rifle

Anti-materiel rifle

Semi-auto precision rifle

Long-range rifle

The dealer is legit, prices are pretty much about what the military pays, not inflated.

Note the "M" bits. M110 is actually being actively procured by USMC, not just as a special ops toy.

These aren't the cheapest guns, no, but it's not like Xenonauts would only want the cheapest.

[TheColonel]

By the way, if anyone thinks military guns are "too cheap to meter", here's a few to take a look at:

Submachinegun

Sniper rifle

Anti-materiel rifle

Semi-auto precision rifle

Long-range rifle

The dealer is legit, prices are pretty much about what the military pays, not inflated.

Note the "M" bits. M110 is actually being actively procured by USMC, not just as a special ops toy.

These aren't the cheapest guns, no, but it's not like Xenonauts would only want the cheapest.

Apparently that Anti-Materiel rifle would have cost $4,541.34 in 1979.

[TrashMan]

If you think the Barret is deadly, take a look at this:

http://world.guns.ru/sniper/large-caliber-sniper-rifles/hr/rt-20-e.html

20x110mm Hispoano shells. The kind you use in anti-aircraft guns!

[chacineiro]

I agree the game is far too easy right now, and I think there are some points that can be improved.

1) Sniper Rifles are overpowered. Thats it, snipers are just too strong, theres 0 reason to use anything else(except rocket launchers on certain situations), snipers cost way too few TUs to fire, have extremely good accuracy, and deal insane amounts of damage.

Proposed solution: Lower sniper accuracy or make it cost more TUs to fire.

2) Too few aliens on crash sites. I know the AI isnt ready yet, but still, there are too few aliens on crash-sites, I remember facing way more enemies on similar missions on TFTD, and they were much more competent, right now, Aliens early game cant hit shit, and die way to easily, especially to sniper armed xenonauts.

Proposed solution: Increase their number and make early-game Aliens more resistant or make them have better reaction chance and accuracy.

3) HMG is useless. I dont see any reason to use this weapon, at all, way too low accuracy, cost way to much TUs to fire and is way too heavy. Even assault rifles are superior to the HMG in any situation.

Proposed solution: Make them cost less TUs to fire, or make them fire more bullets per burst.

4) Friendly fire from initial weapons deals little damage. Now and again I end up hitting a friendly soldier by mistake, a strayed shot or a missed grenade, dosent matter, its never a problem since it deals almost no damage. I remember friendly fire being a big issue in X-Com, and that added to the difficulty of the game.

Proposed solution: Increase friendly fire damage.

Right now, I feel the game only becomes a challenge when Androns hit the field, but then it becomes very easy again when you have access to improved armor and laser weapons. I dont know how the late game aliens will be, but having a walk in the park on the first months isnt exactly fun anyway.

All my considerations were made based on what I saw on veteran difficulty, I didnt tried the hardest mode because I wont risk Iron Man mode with all those CTDs around, the danger of losing the entire campaign is too high.

Edited October 19, 2012 by chacineiro

[Gorlom]

chachino: on 3) are you considering the suppression values? I assume that if you make it better the assault rifle becomes utterly useless. and the suppression is there to prevent the HMG to be useless through balancing through another mechanic.

I don't know for sure so don't take my word for it.

Also I'm not sure veteran is really harder than normal yet.

[chacineiro]

chachino: on 3) are you considering the suppression values? I assume that if you make it better the assault rifle becomes utterly useless. and the suppression is there to prevent the HMG to be useless through balancing through another mechanic.

I don't know for sure so don't take my word for it.

Also I'm not sure veteran is really harder than normal yet.

I didnt factored the supression part, but mainly because its not even necessary, since aliens die easily, and flashbangs are way more reliable and less TU intensive, maybe HMGs are superior to flash bangs on large open field combat situations, but that dosent happen often. Balancing HMGs and Assault Rifles can be tricky indeed.

And like I mentioned in item 1, I dont see any reason to use anything but Sniper Rifles, they are so much better than anything else, you can fire 2 snap shots from a sniper for the "TU price" of a burst fire from an assault rifle, hitting way more reliably and doing much more damage, even Androns fall relatively easy to snipers.

Edited October 19, 2012 by chacineiro

[Gorlom]

well the game hasn't been balanced at all really. they have just thrown in some numbers to make it playable so we can test out some features. you can edit the xml files and try out differnt things. lower accuracy, damage, supression or give the aliens more hp.

(I think snipers, and HMGs, are supposed to have lower accuracy if they have moved before firing that turn. might be possible to increase this penalty somewhere.)

[chacineiro]

Yeah, I know proper balance hasnt been done yet, but since I dont know exactly what they are planning to change, I felt I could give some input on this.

[Henry Jekyll]

if a game is too easy, then the game is completely worthless for me -it doesn´t matter how perfect it is in all other aspects (graphics gameplay, sound, depth ...). it´s only a routine piece of work to finish the game. like i mentioned in another thread: it has a reason that sniper rifles doesn´t appear in the original xcom games, in fallout tactics they will only be available very late, also in jagged alliance 2.

if a game is really challenging and the other stuff is also perfect, then it will be a diamond like demons souls.

this game has the potential to get a diamond if the difficulty issue is proper resolved otherwise it gets garbage -sorry but that´s the truth!

Edited October 19, 2012 by Henry Jekyll

[GoodGuyEddy]

Yeah, I know proper balance hasnt been done yet, but since I dont know exactly what they are planning to change, I felt I could give some input on this.

Just repost all of your suggestions during beta(balancing phase), if Chris posts a topic in the "Announcements & Progress" with the name "Beta starts now" or something then it's a beta.

[Gribbstar]

I'd really like it to be a case of no aimed (and possibly no normal) shot if you even moved with the sniper. I'm all for really powerful weapons but they should have an equally balanced downside. So I agree that a large TU increase for normal and aimed would maybe bring things in line.

[Gorlom]

if a game is too easy, then the game is completely worthless for me -it doesn´t matter how perfect it is in all other aspects (graphics gameplay, sound, depth ...). it´s only a routine piece of work to finish the game. like i mentioned in another thread: it has a reason that sniper rifles doesn´t appear in the original xcom games, in fallout tactics they will only be available very late, also in jagged alliance 2.

if a game is really challenging and the other stuff is also perfect, then it will be a diamond like demons souls.

this game has the potential to get a diamond if the difficulty issue is proper resolved otherwise it gets garbage -sorry but that´s the truth!

Yeah, no problem. Test some numbers out and report your findings. But you should probably expect to not find normal to be your prefered difficulty.

[smith350]

To a point I can agree with this as things stand.

Which is to say that a very cautious, slow, using the goliath-1/2 as cover, and keeping everyone grouped together basically meant that I was never in any real danger of losing people. Barring the RNG just outright deciding to try and kill me, of course

However, the air-game still needs to be balanced in the beta. Three weeks in, and getting six different contacts at the same time, on the same continent... yeah, didn't end well.

Although, if what I've read is right, the AI for the game has yet to be finalized and is still being finished up. So that may make the aliens a little bit smarter than just rush or retreat.

[chacineiro]

A nice way to increase challenge while the game is still unbalanced, is using only agents(no vehicles) and use no snipers. Im playing this way at its much more fun.

[StellarRat]

if a game is too easy, then the game is completely worthless for me -it doesn´t matter how perfect it is in all other aspects (graphics gameplay, sound, depth ...). it´s only a routine piece of work to finish the game. like i mentioned in another thread: it has a reason that sniper rifles doesn´t appear in the original xcom games, in fallout tactics they will only be available very late, also in jagged alliance 2.

if a game is really challenging and the other stuff is also perfect, then it will be a diamond like demons souls.

this game has the potential to get a diamond if the difficulty issue is proper resolved otherwise it gets garbage -sorry but that´s the truth!

Don't worry yet. Like I said we haven't even seen the upper level aliens, the big alien weapons or any of the big UFOs yet. Also the alien AI isn't finished. It will be much smarter therefore more dangerous when complete. We don't know the full effect the difficulty settings will have when they are full implemented. AND the game hasn't even been balanced yet. That is supposed to happen in the beta. I wouldn't be surprised if some things actually have to be made easier not harder. I guess I'm saying just be patient. I'm pretty confident the game will be a tough as you can handle by the time it's done. Even if all that fails you always have the option of modding stuff to make the game harder.

[Zinn]

Yeah, it definitely needs some balance but that has always been the case. Quite a while back, I remember the HMG being the go-to gun because it had near perfect accuracy (due to the many bullets, one would almost always hit) and extremely high damage, meaning aliens would go down in a single bullet most of the time. Now it's snipers that cost way too little to use.

High accuracy and damage makes perfect sense, IMO, because that's exactly what sniper rifles are desgined for: A very accurate and probable instant kill, assuming you are a good shot and have a good spotter. They fire nasty bullets that are designed to wreck your body so you'll bleed out even if the sniper "misses" a critical location. The problem in the current build is that there shouldn't be enough AP to both move a long distance and fire the rifle. IMO, it should still be very strong and accurate but have a fairly prohibitive cost, like 45-50 AP or something along those lines. You could possibly design it so snapshots have absolutely terrible accuracy, since a sniper rifle isn't designed to whip around like shotguns, assult rifles and pistols, but spending more AP for an aimed shot improves accuracy much beyond what standard weapons can hit at those ranges.

Just my 2 cents anyway.

[TrashMan]

Starting human weapons are weak, so no boosting of damage just to make friendly fire deadlier. NO.