Closed Beta V27 Balance thread

[Chris]

I thought it’d be best to create a separate thread for the balance in V27 where people can post thoughts or questions.

[Flo]

Do Snipers get a penalty on reaction fire atm? I feel they should get one, otherwise too strong for holding ground, especially with the no-move bonus on ACC.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Flo

[CaptainSPrice]

@Chris Sadly yesterday you released 27.2 and i wasnt able to complete run on 27.1 but my personal opinion after experiencing last patch on Commander Run:

1. Cleaner Cells are the most abusive map ever created to farm soldier stats - Give everyone Sniper Riffles -> go 1 corner -> press End Turn button like 20 times = everyone +3 stats to everything. After 10 games = Early game Colonels because spawning 6 cleaners every 2 turn is broken.

2.  Aliens need more types of weapons because it feels like Riffle or pistol is the only existing weapon on alien race and Humans were able to develop Machine Guns/Snipers/Shotguns even Shields - Make Aliens great again.

3. After removing Alien alloys and Alenium research game kinda feels like - something is missing - humans instantly find out about purpose of alien alloys and alienium just by touch i guess.

4. Game needs more alien weapon types of research, because i can just simply press the button and skip the previous weapon tech without experiencing it. Who need accelerated weapons - lasers for the bros.

5. Game needs a lot of maps, because playing on same maps again and again can make people bored and if you guys gonna release on Alpha same amount of maps. People who gonna stream on Twitch this game gonna get bored or even laught at it. There is a lot of streamers/youtubers who likes to explore maps. Keep that in mind @Chris.

6. I feel like the inside walls/design of UFO need to be like 2-3 types, like in Xeno-1, it kinda feels like repeating process.

7. UFO inside walls need huge buff, because i give my entire Soldier Team Machine Guns - i press 1 button all walls gone = no need to walk inside UFO. When Laser Machine Guns unlock = Perfect 100% abuse wall remover.

8. Androns also need redesing because they look like a Pirates - 1 Hand / 1 Hook 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by CaptainSPrice

[CaptainSPrice]

@ChrisPlease only don't kill me for my previous post because i feel like you murder me for it. Please don't cut my water supplies.

Edited May 17, 2023 by CaptainSPrice

[Chris]

48 minutes ago, CaptainSPrice said:

@Chris Sadly yesterday you released 27.2 and i wasnt able to complete run on 27.1 but my personal opinion after experiencing last patch on Commander Run:

1. Cleaner Cells are the most abusive farm ever created to farm soldier stats - Give everyone Sniper Riffles -> go 1 corner -> press End Turn button like 20 times = everyone +3 stats to everything. After 10 games = Early game Colonels because spawning 6 cleaners every 2 turn is broken.

2.  Aliens need more types of weapons because it feels like Riffle or pistol is the only existing weapon on alien race and Humans were able to develop Machine Guns/Snipers/Shotguns even Shields - Make Aliens great again.

3. After removing Alien alloys and Alenium research game kinda feels like - something is missing - humans instantly find out about purpose of alien alloys and alienium just by touch i guess.

4. Game needs more alien weapon types of research, because i can just simply press the button and skip the previous weapon tech without experiencing it. Who need accelerated weapons - lasers for the bros.

5. Game needs a lot of maps, because playing on same maps again and again can make people bored and if you guys gonna release on Alpha same amount of maps. People who gonna stream on Twitch this game gonna get bored or even laught at it. There is a lot of streamers/youtubers who likes to explore maps. Keep that in mind @Chris.

6. I feel like the inside walls/design of UFO need to be like 2-3 types, like in Xeno-1, it kinda feels like repeating process.

7. UFO inside walls need huge buff, because i give my entire Soldier Team Machine Guns - i press 1 button all walls gone = no need to walk inside UFO. When Laser Machine Guns unlock = Perfect 100% abuse wall remover.

8. Androns also need redesing because they look like a Pirates - 1 Hand / 1 Hook 

Thanks.

1) Hmm, I'll have a think. You just sit in the corner and kill all the enemies with overwatch?

2) I'll have a look at this in Early Access. Rifles are the most versatile weapons, so they make the AI less abusable at the moment.

3) Fair enough, but it makes the research tree more interesting overall. I don't want to go into too much detail, but if you make them proper projects then the player has to research them because they're needed for pretty much everything. It's better to have actual choices imo.

4) That's the point though. You don't need to use both. You can go straight for lasers, or just use Accelerated weapons until you get Gauss weapons a few months in.

5) Yes, there'll be more maps coming in Early Access.

6) Alternative UFO layouts are also planned, yeah.

7) Yeah, this is probably a good point. I'll take a look.

8) Androns aren't in the game any more, are they?

[CaptainSPrice]

29 minutes ago, Chris said:

Thanks.

1) Hmm, I'll have a think. You just sit in the corner and kill all the enemies with overwatch?

2) I'll have a look at this in Early Access. Rifles are the most versatile weapons, so they make the AI less abusable at the moment.

3) Fair enough, but it makes the research tree more interesting overall. I don't want to go into too much detail, but if you make them proper projects then the player has to research them because they're needed for pretty much everything. It's better to have actual choices imo.

4) That's the point though. You don't need to use both. You can go straight for lasers, or just use Accelerated weapons until you get Gauss weapons a few months in.

5) Yes, there'll be more maps coming in Early Access.

6) Alternative UFO layouts are also planned, yeah.

7) Yeah, this is probably a good point. I'll take a look.

8) Androns aren't in the game any more, are they?

Answer to 1) Camp 1 corner - press abort mission button - return, do it again - ez game. I am telling you @Chris you need to nerf things or = abuse 100%

                 3)  You can't think about tech as interesting or not - everything you create = content. I like the way how X1 tech tree was designed - you had to go step by step with unlocking everything. To be honest with you - i feel like you should create 2 or 3 types of tech tree:

a. Regular tech tree = For first campaing run.

b. Speedrun tech tree = for players who want achieve world record in beating xenonauts-2 (Twitch/Youtube Content) - encourage more players to buy the game.

https://www.speedrun.com/games

c. Long war tech tree - for player who finish campaing in the first run - they get unlock extra options and start new campaing with it. If you watch for example livestreams on Twitch or Youtube - there is a lot of people who watch and play this kind of gameplay - encourage players to play X2 campaing multiple times - more players buy the game.

                8) I forget the name of the giant walking robots but they look like androns from X1 no joke, but 1 Hand/1 Hook this time.

 

@Chris When you gonna have free time check twitch streamers like this dude when streams longwar with 300+ viewers always.:

https://www.twitch.tv/mexicandance/clip/BetterJollyClipsdadYouWHY-35W40VafWtB4fG9K?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time

https://www.twitch.tv/mexicandance/clip/DreamyNastyVelociraptorKevinTurtle-3RqE9LBeX0AlgY47?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time

Edited May 17, 2023 by CaptainSPrice

[Solver]

After a few missions, I'm finding burst fire from rifles to be very underpowered. I would expect it to be an effective tool if a rifleman closes in to within some 3 tiles of an enemy, but as it is, firing a burst is nearly suicidal. It remains inaccurate at such close ranges so you will not score a kill, and it also doesn't do enough suppression to suppress. You'll use up your TUs while scoring just one hit, if any, and your soldier is screwed. Burst should have a defined role - I think it would work well as an "oh crap" reliable short-range suppressor but anything really.

The Cleaner Cell missions feel like a massive trap. I don't know if it was randomness but I got the cells revealed early - the Intelligence Hub spawned before I shot down the first UFO, so I went there, got tons of intel, revealed the cells. The intelligence hub is not too hard, enemies have no armour mostly and you have time until reinforcements arrive. Then the Cells are revealed right after, which gives you the impression you may go after them, but they're much, much harder than the Intel Hub or early UFO crashes. All Cleaners have 15 armour, you have five or six turns until they turn into a horde and your objective is to kill a psyon who will mesmerize anyone that misses a shot. It's doable with the right squad of course but the mission appears so early that you expect it to be easier.

[Chris]

1 hour ago, Solver said:

After a few missions, I'm finding burst fire from rifles to be very underpowered. I would expect it to be an effective tool if a rifleman closes in to within some 3 tiles of an enemy, but as it is, firing a burst is nearly suicidal. It remains inaccurate at such close ranges so you will not score a kill, and it also doesn't do enough suppression to suppress. You'll use up your TUs while scoring just one hit, if any, and your soldier is screwed. Burst should have a defined role - I think it would work well as an "oh crap" reliable short-range suppressor but anything really.

The Cleaner Cell missions feel like a massive trap. I don't know if it was randomness but I got the cells revealed early - the Intelligence Hub spawned before I shot down the first UFO, so I went there, got tons of intel, revealed the cells. The intelligence hub is not too hard, enemies have no armour mostly and you have time until reinforcements arrive. Then the Cells are revealed right after, which gives you the impression you may go after them, but they're much, much harder than the Intel Hub or early UFO crashes. All Cleaners have 15 armour, you have five or six turns until they turn into a horde and your objective is to kill a psyon who will mesmerize anyone that misses a shot. It's doable with the right squad of course but the mission appears so early that you expect it to be easier.

Yeah, it's possible the Cleaner Cells need more balancing. Note that each Cell has a unique bonus; only one of the cells has armoured enemies.

In previous versions of the game the Psyon was extremely aggressive due to a bug so it went down pretty quickly most times I played it. That might mean I've set the reinforcements to turn up a turn or two early. And maybe the 15 armour could be nerfed down to 12, or maybe there's just too many enemies. There's plenty of balancing levers to pull but I guess I just need a bit more community feedback on it.

EDIT - also, what difficulty are you playing on?

[Solver]

I went with Veteran but with enabled health indicators because they help me give better feedback.

I'm not saying the mission is too hard in itself - it's a challenge but it's a fine mission that rewards speed. The problem seems to be that it appears too early. When a mission appears, I assume that it's somewhat appropriate for what I have at the time. But the Cells appear so early they could be your third tactical mission and then you're on starting equipment with little-experienced soldiers, and then it's too hard.

Depending on what others think, a reduction in enemy count or reinforce rate may be warranted, but my suggestion would be to make the Cells show up when your Cleaner network progress hits 50%, just to delay that initial appearance a bit.

[Chris]

2 minutes ago, Solver said:

I went with Veteran but with enabled health indicators because they help me give better feedback.

I'm not saying the mission is too hard in itself - it's a challenge but it's a fine mission that rewards speed. The problem seems to be that it appears too early. When a mission appears, I assume that it's somewhat appropriate for what I have at the time. But the Cells appear so early they could be your third tactical mission and then you're on starting equipment with little-experienced soldiers, and then it's too hard.

Depending on what others think, a reduction in enemy count or reinforce rate may be warranted, but my suggestion would be to make the Cells show up when your Cleaner network progress hits 50%, just to delay that initial appearance a bit.

Yeah. The pacing question is difficult, really. You're right that you're not meant to go for the Cleaner Cells immediately, unless it's part of some crazy elite strat.

But if the player does a bad job on the Cleaner Intel Hub mission, they might come out with only 20% progress - which means it'll be a long time before those Cells appear. And there's nothing they can do to speed it up, because the data required to do that is in the missions they've not yet revealed. Whereas other players might manage to reveal the Cells almost immediately if they do well at the Intel Hub mission.

I guess it's self-solving to some extent - only the good players capable of dealing with the mission would get it early. But it doesn't fully solve it. Might still be an improvement though.

[Solver]

I think it'd be an improvement mostly because of how it affects player perception. I did very well in the Intel Hub, grabbed over 20 data sticks so I think I started with 42% cleaner network progress. So if Cells showed up at 50, I'd still see them after only a week. But even a short delay conveys a sense of, hey look, here's the next level of the Cleaner story, it's probably more difficult. When the Cells pop up right after you do the Intel Hub, the feeling it invokes is more like, okay, you did that mission, now go here. And that's the wrong feeling because you're not meant to tackle the Cells with Sergeants and ballistics.

Besides, it'd make more narrative sense at 50% - the Xenonaut organisation should need at least a bit of time with the captured data to figure out how the Cleaner cells work and where they are exactly.

[Alienkiller]

Interesting Points Solver and CaptianSPrice.

I will beginn form Top to Bottom:

1. That Maps I haven´t played yet, because I begunn the new Version with V.27.2 first yesterday evening. I will check both Feedbacks as an Beta-Tester from Day 1 on.

2. Aliens have differnt Weapons, Shields and Armors. The normal Aliens (Secton, Psyon, Mantid) have very often Pistols & Rifles, which get realy fast upgraded to Plasma-Versions and the other Aliens get Alien-MGs later on (Reptilian) or have already integrated and strong Plasma Weapon (Tentacle-Brain, Robots), while you work still with an Combination of Laser-Weapons Type I (LMG, Sniper) and Accelerated Weapons (Pistols, Rifles, Shotguns, Accelerated Cannon) for your Infantry / Fighters and Warden Combat Armor / Steel Plates (Infantery).

3. You have Alien Alloys and Alenium in the Research. They are automatic Researches now, but the Elemtens thereafter are normal Researches (like the Warden Combat Armor and new Power-Reactors)

4. The Game is not 08/15 anymore like X1. You have to make a Mix of Weapons, esp. for the Infantry / MARS & ARES-Vehicles. The accelerated Weapons avoid Armor and make Armor Destruction, while Lasers have an better Arming, a little more Damage and are lighter. Therefore you can´t bypass Armor and destory Armor (the last one I´m not sure anymore)

5. Yeah, that was announced to from other Beta-Testers which are further then I was in the Game. That is from the Devs and Freelancers in WIP. There more Maps will come, but first it´s important to fill all the Gaps (Researach, Geoscape, Airbattles etc.) and fixing remaing and new Bugs from Gamestart to Gamefinal before Early Access beginns.

6. Haven´t noticed that Problem for the UFO Hull. If there were an Problem the other Betatesters from beginning on would have reported already. Only with C4 you can make new UFO Hull Entrys if the normal Entry is heayly defended.

7. Same as Point 6. Tryed it with LMGs and Laser LMGs (UFO Hull). There is so much Spreading, that the Walls can´t get destroyed. Only the Equipment in the UFO and the lighter Alloys (Doors, internal Walls) get damaged or destroyed, there I give you right. But that´s an Feature, which you had in old X-COM-Series and have the UFO-ET-Series too.

8. Androns get atm. out of the Game as Alien Foes. That Robots get an big Refit for the tactical Maps before Early Access starts (the Research from them is very cool and important to get more Alien-Resources later on).

 

OK, now what I have noticed in the little Beta-Test from yesterday (im at Day 35 or so now):

1. The existing Defender Armor are sadly not upgradeable to Warden Combat Armor for the in Storage and used Defender Armors from your Troopers [7 or 8] at the Beginning (that´s an must have Feature to reduce Upgrade-Time, esp. in the beginning) 

2. After the Research from the X-3 Dropship (the Advanced Helicopter) you can build it in the Workshop, but the Outcome is something complete differnt (you get the Pegasus instead)

3. An Mix from both Weapon-Types (accelerated and Lasers) for the Infantry / Vehicles get needed, which is very good. I like that, because it´s not the 08/15-Playstile anymore.

4. To get more Materials (Magnets, Alloys etc.) it would be cool to dismantle Alien-Weapons etc. again. That would outweight the appeal from your Command Officer, Chief Scientist and Chief Engineer.

5. The new Options to set the Difficulty are great. More you don´t need to make longtime Individual Games possible.

6. The Integration from your Chief Personal (Chief Scientist, Chief Engineer, Command Officer and Commander) in the Geoscape and Missions are great. Keep up that integration.

7. Sadly you still have the Square Waste with 3 Radars. Radar-Upgrades with new Techs would be the solution to use the 2 remaining Squares much better. You can do that already with Defensive-Upgrades, Power-Generator-Upgrades, Lab- and Workshop-Upgrades etc.

8. The much better Special-Mission-Integrations on the Geoscape (like the 3 integrated Cleaner-Cell-Missions, Abduction-Missions etc.) are great. More of that (like Rescue ecjeted Pilots etc.) would make the Game more fascinating.

9. An very nice Feature is now, that the UFOs on the Geoscape get nuch lesser, therfore later harder to beat. Keep up that ballancing between Fighters and UFOs.

10. That more advancements to the existing Stuff is comming sounds great. Keep up the good work.

11. Yeah, Solver is right. After the Intel Hub Mission more time should pass, until the Cells show up at 50% from the Analysis-Informations about the Network, Cells and what belongs to that. That would outweight the appeal from your Command Officer. After the 50% are reached you only get more Analys-Informations with the seperate Cells.

12. Integrated to Point 11 you get some more R & D (like MPs etc.) from the Cleaners and more Background-Information from them (linked Storyline).

Edited May 19, 2023 by Alienkiller

[Chris]

1 hour ago, Solver said:

I think it'd be an improvement mostly because of how it affects player perception. I did very well in the Intel Hub, grabbed over 20 data sticks so I think I started with 42% cleaner network progress. So if Cells showed up at 50, I'd still see them after only a week. But even a short delay conveys a sense of, hey look, here's the next level of the Cleaner story, it's probably more difficult. When the Cells pop up right after you do the Intel Hub, the feeling it invokes is more like, okay, you did that mission, now go here. And that's the wrong feeling because you're not meant to tackle the Cells with Sergeants and ballistics.

Besides, it'd make more narrative sense at 50% - the Xenonaut organisation should need at least a bit of time with the captured data to figure out how the Cleaner cells work and where they are exactly.

Yeah, that's fair. I'll give that a try in the upcoming hotfix.

[Alienkiller]

Chris, don´t forgett with your Team to look at this for the Hotfix. I will check it up today evening again too. An Bugfix-Report I have done for that incl. done Process. Sadly I´m not on my Home-PC to Add Pictures and relevant Logs for that.

"2. After the Research from the X-3 Dropship (the Advanced Helicopter) you can build it in the Workshop, but the Outcome is something complete differnt (you get the Pegasus instead)"

Edited May 19, 2023 by Alienkiller

[Chris]

6 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

Chris, don´t forgett with your Team to look at this for the Hotfix. I will check it up today evening again too. An Bugfix-Report I have done for that incl. done Process. Sadly I´m not on my Home-PC to Add Pictures and relevant Logs for that.

"2. After the Research from the X-3 Dropship (the Advanced Helicopter) you can build it in the Workshop, but the Outcome is something complete differnt (you get the Pegasus instead)"

Yeah, I saw your message and fixed it, don't worry. Thanks 

[Solver]

Not an issue new to V27 but the game has a problem with smoke. I accidentally captured two Sebillians on one mission after throwing a smoke into the UFO to protect my exposed breachers. The problem is a known one I'm pretty sure - smoke deals stun damage and being in the middle of a smoke cloud can add up to a lot while moving out of it.

I'm bringing it up because I think I have a decent suggestion. It would be unsatisfying to remove smoke stun but I think the solution is to apply smoke stun at the end of the unit's turn, if the unit is standing in smoke. Then get rid of smoke if moving into / through a smoke tile. That would be a simple rule that players can understand, as it would be similar to bleeding wounds, and it would let smoke retain its secondary stun function without being some kind of super-effective stun gas.

[Chris]

21 hours ago, Solver said:

Not an issue new to V27 but the game has a problem with smoke. I accidentally captured two Sebillians on one mission after throwing a smoke into the UFO to protect my exposed breachers. The problem is a known one I'm pretty sure - smoke deals stun damage and being in the middle of a smoke cloud can add up to a lot while moving out of it.

I'm bringing it up because I think I have a decent suggestion. It would be unsatisfying to remove smoke stun but I think the solution is to apply smoke stun at the end of the unit's turn, if the unit is standing in smoke. Then get rid of smoke if moving into / through a smoke tile. That would be a simple rule that players can understand, as it would be similar to bleeding wounds, and it would let smoke retain its secondary stun function without being some kind of super-effective stun gas.

So smoke deals a small amount of stun damage if you start the turn in it, or move through it - I think it's like 2 per tile. But it deals a LOT more if you end your turn in it, something like 20. I think the AI units getting stunned is usually because they stay in the smoke rather than because they try to leave it.

It'd be easy to change or zero out those values, but I think fundamentally the issue is just that at present the AI isn't really aware of smoke so happily just stands there until it passes out from smoke inhalation.

[CaptainSPrice]

@Chris i forget to ask about 1 more thing - are there plans for more types of medals for soldiers? And kinda rework of them where they dont give +1 all to all atributes instead +1 for reflex or aim or bravery or HP. Why i am asking this? When i look and think about the future -> youtubers and streamers when they gonna stream Xenonauts-2. When they enter Armory they gonna see:

1. Soldiers Stats

2. Soldier Armor

3. Soldier Weapon Types

4. Medals

When people gonna spend time grinding missions and notice soldier stats are growing, they all gonna get same armor, nearly same weapons. But there is 1 unique part what people always gonna be Late game grinding = Medals. I feel like Medals are gonna be late game unique part of the game that gonna show trully character progression.

Edited May 21, 2023 by CaptainSPrice

[Old Doggy Bastard]

Uh, so I guess this falls under balance.

I love to unclock the stun gun and stun baton. In fact, one thing I really consider an improvement to the genre that Xenonauts makes ( and most others don't seem to ) humans possess the ability to stun creatures availible relatively early, which seems fitting for a species who already stuns other creatures. Later on the upgraded stun pistol and stun rifle are cool, if not less useful by the time I unlocked them, but the lack of upgraded baton was a let down. I'm not saying you need to go in the full on antimatter zhanmadao samurai direction, or saying not to give us pulse katanas, but some sort of improved melee weapon like a stun polearm would be nice. It's always a moment that feels good to work towards unlocking, like when these sort of games let me upgrade the basic grenade launcher to an advanced grenade launcher.

[CaptainSPrice]

On 5/20/2023 at 8:02 PM, Solver said:

Not an issue new to V27 but the game has a problem with smoke. I accidentally captured two Sebillians on one mission after throwing a smoke into the UFO to protect my exposed breachers. The problem is a known one I'm pretty sure - smoke deals stun damage and being in the middle of a smoke cloud can add up to a lot while moving out of it.

I'm bringing it up because I think I have a decent suggestion. It would be unsatisfying to remove smoke stun but I think the solution is to apply smoke stun at the end of the unit's turn, if the unit is standing in smoke. Then get rid of smoke if moving into / through a smoke tile. That would be a simple rule that players can understand, as it would be similar to bleeding wounds, and it would let smoke retain its secondary stun function without being some kind of super-effective stun gas.

For me with smoke should be done 2 things:

1. Increase Alien Stun HP  -> Then boost stun damage made by Melee/Pistol/Riffle Stun Weapons

2. Remove vision behind smoke - less abusive/exploitable

Edited May 22, 2023 by CaptainSPrice

[Alienkiller]

The existing Stun HPs are great enough. Have you tried to Stun an Alien with 80+ HPs directly at the Beginning. You need minimum 2 Stun-Baton-Soldiers. If you don´t Stun him / her very fast, the 2 Stun-Soldiers are Dead. The Upgrades for Stun-Boost you get later on with Tech-Advances, but I agree that they comes in the Middle of the Game. 

Therefore you should have catched the lighter to catch Aliens and Enemys (Cleaners, Secton, Reptilian, Crabby and evtl. an Mentarch) already.

With the Smoke I understand your Thinking. You can´t see good inside / outside it. The Game is showing that very good so far (best tested with an Sniper or an Shotgunner). The most Aliens which get affected from that don´t hit you and you have if you don´t have an lucky Shooter the same. So I personaly don´t see why that should get an another Refit / Rework again to scare of the Early Access Buyers.

Edited May 22, 2023 by Alienkiller

[Chris]

15 hours ago, CaptainSPrice said:

@Chris i forget to ask about 1 more thing - are there plans for more types of medals for soldiers? And kinda rework of them where they dont give +1 all to all atributes instead +1 for reflex or aim or bravery or HP. Why i am asking this? When i look and think about the future -> youtubers and streamers when they gonna stream Xenonauts-2. When they enter Armory they gonna see:

1. Soldiers Stats

2. Soldier Armor

3. Soldier Weapon Types

4. Medals

When people gonna spend time grinding missions and notice soldier stats are growing, they all gonna get same armor, nearly same weapons. But there is 1 unique part what people always gonna be Late game grinding = Medals. I feel like Medals are gonna be late game unique part of the game that gonna show trully character progression.

Yeah, I'm potentially interested in this - it's not something I'm planning on doing before Early Access though.

 

6 hours ago, Old Doggy Bastard said:

Uh, so I guess this falls under balance.

I love to unclock the stun gun and stun baton. In fact, one thing I really consider an improvement to the genre that Xenonauts makes ( and most others don't seem to ) humans possess the ability to stun creatures availible relatively early, which seems fitting for a species who already stuns other creatures. Later on the upgraded stun pistol and stun rifle are cool, if not less useful by the time I unlocked them, but the lack of upgraded baton was a let down. I'm not saying you need to go in the full on antimatter zhanmadao samurai direction, or saying not to give us pulse katanas, but some sort of improved melee weapon like a stun polearm would be nice. It's always a moment that feels good to work towards unlocking, like when these sort of games let me upgrade the basic grenade launcher to an advanced grenade launcher.

Fair enough, I guess an upgraded stun melee weapon could be cool. I'll make a note of it, but there's quite a few different moving parts required to add a new weapon to the game so I'm not going to give it serious consideration until after the Early Access launch.