Milestone 1 Balance Thread

[SoftwareSimian]

7 hours ago, Skitso said:

The trend seems to be that the crash sites are all too easy compared to other missions in the game, especially the abductions.  

I can't say I've noticed I've noticed that in my playthroughs.

 

3 hours ago, Skitso said:

Modules still feel kinda OP as they weight so little and take so little space in the inventory. Feels almost cheating I can take both extra armor AND extra accuracy. I'd set the weight to something between 18-22 instead of the 12 that they seem to be currently.

Maybe this could be tied to difficulty scaling. Not just modules but all items could be scaled to 0.8-1.2 (or whatever) weight multiplier based on game difficulty (personally I'd prefer to see it broken out like the other custom-difficulty sliders on New Campaign). So people who want to punish themselves can make the modules heavier. But please don't forget that not everyone likes punishing difficulty level in their games, please at least leave the option for "very easy" for those who wish it.

[Kamehamehayes]

10 hours ago, Skitso said:

Observer UFO with wraiths felt too easy compared to missions before it and the abduction site after it. There was only 2 enemies alive inside the UFO which felt anticlimatic. Is wraiths' cloaking effect strong enough? Is Servitor sturdy enough?

EDIT: first abductor I downed seemed way too easy also. At that point I got relatively experienced full laser/warden team with 2 guardian armors and I could just run through the mission.

The trend seems to be that the crash sites are all too easy compared to other missions in the game, especially the abductions.  

That's a little funny because I considered Observers a big step up in difficulty when I inititally played v25. But since then, the aliens in that mission have been nerfed, bugs (like servitors being able to heal themselves) have been fixed, and the mission seems to take place farther in progression, so I am not shocked that Observers now seem easy compared to the difficult earlygame missions in this version.

6 hours ago, Skitso said:

Modules still feel kinda OP as they weight so little and take so little space in the inventory. Feels almost cheating I can take both extra armor AND extra accuracy. I'd set the weight to something between 18-22 instead of the 12 that they seem to be currently.

Honestly, I don't really agree with this. The boost most modules seem to give are pretty tiny stat wise (only 3 armor and 5 accuracy last I remember). I often think that the 12 weight can be better distributed on utility grenades or a stun weapon than on a small increase in stats. It just feels like a single flashbang, smoke grenade, or stun weapon adds so much utility that a meager 3 armor or 5 accuracy cannot give. Although, I assume this will drop off with time as soldiers don't really need more than 2 of each utility grenade and there is now more weight to be allocated to modules. 

[Chris]

Crash Site difficulty is a bit harder to balance than other missions, because there's a 25% chance each alien will have been killed on impact. But randomisation means on some missions the aliens will have lost more than 25% of the crew, and on other missions they'll have lost less. 

I'll have a look at the numbers of units involved compared to Abduction sites and see if the maths checks out. I'll also take a look at the distribution and see if the numbers inside the UFOs relative to those spawning outside potentially need increasing. But it is possible you just got lucky and had an unusally easy mission.

[SoftwareSimian]

On 6/24/2023 at 5:08 PM, Chris said:

I think buffing the Accelerated weapons and increasing the research time on Lasers, and maybe their Alloy construction cost, should even things out.

This playthrough I made an effort to aim quickly towards Accelerated weapons. But by the time I got Accelerated research done and ready to build, I had unlocked Laser research. Sure it'll take 10 days now, but Alloys are so precious that I'm not sure it's worth it to spend the alloys (and money) on weapons I'll use for 1-2 missions and then discard when I upgrade to laser, especially for a relatively minor boost over the free ballistic weapons. If they were cheaper (e.g. 2 alloys, $10k) I probably would.

[Skitso]

On 6/25/2023 at 12:08 AM, Chris said:

 

I think buffing the Accelerated weapons and increasing the research time on Lasers, and maybe their Alloy construction cost, should even things out.

What if you, instead of buffing the accelerated weapons, just make them quicker to research? So if one chooses to go that route, you get the (near) instant gratification out of it and it would space them further away from lasers. 

Edited June 26, 2023 by Skitso

[Chris]

3 hours ago, SoftwareSimian said:

This playthrough I made an effort to aim quickly towards Accelerated weapons. But by the time I got Accelerated research done and ready to build, I had unlocked Laser research. Sure it'll take 10 days now, but Alloys are so precious that I'm not sure it's worth it to spend the alloys (and money) on weapons I'll use for 1-2 missions and then discard when I upgrade to laser, especially for a relatively minor boost over the free ballistic weapons. If they were cheaper (e.g. 2 alloys, $10k) I probably would.

I'm guessing you prioritise armour research over weapon research, then? Because you can research accelerated weapons as your very first non-starting project, in which case you do get them pretty early. I think there's certainly arguments not to research Lasers as soon as they unlock either; Xenobiology and Quantum Teleportation give a funding increase that you really want to get ASAP and Alenium Power heads straight into the Dragonfly and Phantom.

I think you're right about the cost, though. I did the same on my own playthrough and I ended up short on Alloys - and I found the Warden a far more significant upgrade over the equivalent armour than Accelerated weapons were over the equivalent weapons. I think part of the issue is that Laser Weapons have the same Alloy cost as Lasers, so if Alloys are a bottleneck (and they probably will be given Warden Armour seems really solid) then there's no penalty to go for Lasers instead, whereas there should be because they're way more futureproof.

So I think I probably need to bump Lasers up in Alloy cost a bit, and reduce Accelerated weapons a bit too.

[Skitso]

@Chris, there is also the issue that you as a developer know your game and it's tech tree inside out and a LOT better than any of us ever will, and most certainly better than the average newbie that plays the game only once and just can't make such informed decision when you don't know the costs etc. until you've researched it. 

For an average player, they are just binary choices, not some "paths" to follow. I don't know... *shrug* I'm happy I'm not the developer haha

[SoftwareSimian]

1 hour ago, Chris said:

I'm guessing you prioritise armour research over weapon research...
I found the Warden a far more significant upgrade over the equivalent armour than Accelerated weapons were over the equivalent weapons.

Definitely. Nothing is more important than getting that upgraded armor ASAP. You can always shoot the alien several times with a lesser weapon, but only if you're not dead.

 

On another topic, I just played the 2x Cleaner Cell + 1x Cleaner Base missions, and the Cells were easy enough (by chance I captured the VIP both times although I wasn't really trying for that), but the base mission seems tougher than before. Partly because you can no longer avoid the sentry guns, but there also seemed more enemies than previous playthroughs. And going at it with ballistics vs plasma was tricky. But I got it done.

Edited June 26, 2023 by SoftwareSimian

[Solver]

I have no idea what's going on with air combat on the current build.

I send two Angels after a Scout. It has 275 HP. I hit it with four torpedoes, down to 211 HP. Back to base, rearm also with some missiles, hit the Scout again - it's back to full HP. I hit it with these four torpedoes again and two missiles, down to 160 HP. The UFO auto-repair still doesn't feel like a good mechanic to me, but on top of that, I no longer understand what the game wants me to do. Are torpedoes now just for destroying armour? Maybe so but missiles don't seem to do very much damage either. Is it the intention for me to always have to close in and use cannons? Maybe but then the UFO repair mechanic gets much worse because if I have to abort, my planes are damaged but the UFO will get back to full health straight away.

It's maybe better than the "you only ever need torpedoes" situation many builds had but the current air weapons don't feel especially balanced and, what's probably more important, it doesn't feel like the game is clear about what should be expected.

[DaviddesJ]

The game does explain that Scouts have no armor, and that missiles are more effective against unarmored targets while torpedoes are more effective against armored targets. Why is that not clear?

[Solver]

There's a difference between the information being available somewhere and the game explaining it. A good ingame explanation means you're shown in a way that will be pretty clear when you try to do the relevant action. Then there's elements like UFO auto-repair, which are unexplained entirely - seems to trigger after some time only but it's quite unclear.

Some bugs could be involved - missiles have an infinite range just like torpedoes, which I'm not sure they're meant to. The cannon hardpoint on aircraft can also be changed to missiles/torpedoes.

All in all though, I gather air combat will be getting a design pass during Early Access so these are not the most pressing issues.

[DaviddesJ]

Well, the in game display tells you that missiles do more damage when there’s no armor, while torpedoes can penetrate/destroy armor. In in-game terms it makes sense that you don’t know anything about how armored the various UFO types are until you shoot one down and investigate the crash site, which is exactly when the game gives you that information. So that’s all pretty consistent. Of course, if you have played before, or you read a guide, then you would know more.

[Emily_F]

That's a good point but it doesn't explain how the penetration makes a difference

[DaviddesJ]

If you’re trying to figure out, for a certain amount of armor, how effective different weapons would be, then there’s not really enough explanation of the system. Hopefully that kind of information will be added during early access, before full release.

[Skyfire]

100% agree that the air combat needs to be better tutorialised, but it can be reverse-engineered from what the game does tell you.

Reading off the actual weapon stats, there seems to be a fairly clear niche for each of the three weapons, and none of them can really be replaced. For anyone who needs it, here's what appears to be the intended role breakdown:

Cannons are your raw damage tool - total damage-per-weapon-slot on a cannon is much higher than on missiles/torps. Downsides are... pretty much everything else. They wast a lot of damage against even light armour, take a long time to actually output all of their theoretical damage, limited range/arc means you have to close in and take return fire.

Missiles are for air-superiority. They don't have the ammo-capacity to take down anything particularly hefty, but they give good burst-damage at range with chunky enough damage instances to defeat light armour. Best used when you're less worried about 'do I have the damage to kill this' than 'can I kill this before it kills me'.

Torpedos are now specialized anti-armour tools. You should probably never run an all-torpedo loadout (massive change from X1 here...) - instead, you want to hit the UFO with just the right number of torps to break through its armour, then finish it with missiles/guns. One important note - if you are using torps, they need to be the first attack that lands. If anything else is hitting first, either it's wasting potential damage on the armour, or the UFO doesn't have enough armour to justify torps in the first place. This means don't fire torps and missiles in a massed volley - they'll hit in the wrong order due to different speeds.

 

(Full disclosure: I'm basing this off watching streams till the early-access release tomorrow - I'm not part of the test group - but I'm pretty confident that the above is correct regardless)

[DaviddesJ]

I agree with most of that, but if you’re playing at higher difficulty levels then the game doesn’t display the damage you’re doing so it‘s hard to deduce much.

[Skyfire]

I did that based on info from the loadout screens, air-combat results were only used to double-check, so just as viable on high difficulties. Only other piece of info that's not on the weapon description is the basic mechanics for how armour works in this game (which, admittedly, the game could also be better at explaining...).

Again, 100% agree that the game should be better at teaching this stuff. I'm posting for two reasons: to note that the info is actually available in game, just requires some analysis, and to try to cover the gap so people can try out air-combat properly in the mean-time. (E.g. if you're ignoring guns because that made sense in X1, the balance is going to feel much worse than it actually is. I suspect @Solver had the capacity to kill that destroyer in both runs he mentioned if he'd closed in and finished it with guns - it would be quite useful for the devs to get feedback on whether he still feels the balance is totally off after trying that.)

In regards to the lack of damage displayed on higher difficulties: to be honest, if you're learning basic mechanics like this on higher difficulty levels, you signed up for an ass-kicking. I'd consider that to be working as intended.

[DaviddesJ]

4 hours ago, Skyfire said:

In regards to the lack of damage displayed on higher difficulties: to be honest, if you're learning basic mechanics like this on higher difficulty levels, you signed up for an ass-kicking. I'd consider that to be working as intended.

I'm certainly not complaining. I don't need my hand held. I'm just pointing out how it works.

 

I tried starting out at normal difficulty but the battles are just too easy.

[Komandos]

On 6/21/2023 at 12:16 PM, Skitso said:

So with less than optimal, 7 unit team, it still offered quite a bit of challenge. Not knowing where the target is and needing to comb through the relatively vast level with high number of enemies made it pretty much impossible to reach the target before the reinforcements arrived.

The complexity of combat missions and the difficulty of finding an opponent on the battlefield - it is easy to adjust the number of player units and enemy units. Systematically check the map with the help of 7 soldiers - much harder and longer than using (for example) 14 soldiers. If there are many levels on the map, then 7-8 soldiers (at the beginning of the game) this is very little.

[Solver]

This may not be a problem but a surprising outcome, to me, was that money recovered from UFO crash sites eventually drops to approximately the bounty amount due to item depreciation. After I started suspecting so, I verified with a Destroyer crash site. Offered bounty was 125k. I did the crash site and the sum of items I'd recovered (except Alloys and Alenium) was just over 120k. So with items gradually getting cheaper, crash sites become a source of alloys and alenium but do not offer an advantage in purely monetary terms. Perhaps worth keeping in mind for subsequent economy balance passes.

[Pun Pundit]

As a complete newbie to the Xenonauts games, playing today's release version blind, I have a couple of notes:

- Accelerated Weapons feels like a trap to me, because I unlocked Laser Weapons research right after. This is very confusing and not knowing which is better (and that the tech tree looks like this) feels pretty bad for a new player. I also didn't have the money to make any mag weapons because,

- It's very unclear whether it is safe to sell corpses. In XCOM 2 WOTC, a game many people are likely to come from into Xenonauts 2, alien corpses are important resources to build items and structures (even more so in Long War), but from the posts in this thread it seems like they exist to be sold in this game (like in OG XCOM UFO Defense). This could probably be made explicit.

Xenonauts 2 is of course not XCOM 2, it is its own separate game - but I think the context in which these games exist is important.

[DaviddesJ]

I feel like part of the idea of games like this is that you don't know everything in advance, like the entire tech tree.

If you want, there is a wiki, you can look it up. But you can also just discover it over the course of the first runthrough.

If you were an actual alien-fighting organization, you wouldn't know the relative advantages of accelerated weapons or laser weapons until after you research them.

Do you really insist on knowing everything in advance even in your first run through the game?

[Kaien]

I will use this thread for give my feedback as a total new player (but a old one from UFO from 90') :
 

Page for recruting the soldiers : There is lot of numbers under PV, UT, PRC, FOR, RFL, CRG.
We should have a explanation. The tooltip exist, but only on the page about your soldiers ! Not on the page about buying news soldiers ! So it is a kind a small ''bug''.
And we have the opposite : We have a tooltip with the picture of the face of the recrut when you put the mouse on the name, but we dont have it when you put the mouse on the face on the name of your soldier : Not consistant, we should have it everywhere or nowhere.

Page of warehouse : No tooltip of the equipement we have in the base. I know its exist because I can find it in the page of factory.

Page of equipement for soldiers : The heavy shield in french is call ''fusil balistique''. fusil = shootgun. There is lot of missing text in the french translation. Here is just an obvious mistake. The french translation need some polish.

Edited July 18, 2023 by Kaien

[Pun Pundit]

2 hours ago, DaviddesJ said:

I feel like part of the idea of games like this is that you don't know everything in advance, like the entire tech tree.

If you want, there is a wiki, you can look it up. But you can also just discover it over the course of the first runthrough.

If you were an actual alien-fighting organization, you wouldn't know the relative advantages of accelerated weapons or laser weapons until after you research them.

Do you really insist on knowing everything in advance even in your first run through the game?

No, but this game is not real life. A weapon progression where it is a no-brainer to skip the first stage may make some sense in real life, but it makes no sense in a game. It only serves to muddle and confuse new players, which was my point.

If I was an actual alien-fighting organisation, I would not be doing this for fun.

[DaviddesJ]

I don't think it's a "no-brainer to skip the first stage". If you mean that it would be dumb to research accelerated weapons. It's not. You said you literally don't even know which is better, so why are you so certain you've been "trapped"? In any case, if you want this kind of information on your first playthrough, it's all on the wiki. Not everyone wants to know everything before they play, though.