Milestone 2 (Prototype 1) - Balance Thread / Discussion

[Grobobobo]

Quote

 

Soldier Module System:
I've removed all the existing soldier "modules" which could be placed in the soldier tactical vest and these are now replaced by the following set up:

Extra Armour: all armour now weighs less and offers less protection, but there's a Heavy Armour toggle in the bottom right that will increase protection at the cost of extra weight. This is designed to make the armour more flexible rather than "heavy" armour like the Guardian being useless for low-Strength soldiers. The only gameplay consideration is "can the soldier carry the extra weight?"

Armour Module: you can now choose a single module from a second dropdown below the existing Armour dropdown. At the start you can either choose from a rebreather that provides smoke protection, a +3 Acc boost or a +5 Bravery boost, however almost all the modules from Milestone 1 reappear as you progress down the tech tree. Obviously the question is simply which one module you choose to use.

Jetpack: as previously, the jetpack is another toggled option. I just don't think it's useful enough that anyone would ever use it if we made it part of the Armour Module list.

My question here is simple - do you prefer this to the module system in Milestone 1 where your inventory was full of modules? There's scope to add extra artwork and improve the UI if people like the basic idea, but it'd be nice to know people's initial impression of the changes.

However, from a design perspective there's some overlap with the Item Upgrade system above. Some of the modules could potentially be folded into upgrades for the armour (particularly the Jetpack) - although then the danger is that you have soldiers that can do everything, and once your armour is upgraded you no longer have to choose between say a +TU boost, or a +ACC boost, or health regeneration, etc.

 

I really liked the milestone 1 module system - you had to think about managing inventory space, weight, and utility against passive upgrades. I think having to choose between a thermal charge or an armor module or life support module was a fun concept, and will probably make inventory management too easy without them taking inventory space. The fact that you could have ALL the modules if you sacrificed grenades and ammo and you had enough weight was neat too.

[Grobobobo]

18 hours ago, Twigg said:

I agree that it isn't too difficult to get 5 tubes, you can always change the mission to make that base level success harder or easier. What I think is more interesting is the extra tubes and what you get for them vs what you risk. I played an abduction mission a few nights ago and was able to get 9 of the 10 tubes, which offered very little other than the satisfaction of playing the mission in a more difficult way. I think the player should be given exponentially better rewards for more tubes to temp them into making riskier tactical decisions. 

 

I also think this mindset can be brought into other missions in the form of temporary side objectives. For example getting inside the downed UFO in 5 turns and living till the next turn gets you a large cache of alenium. Build in an incentive to player with higher risk so the best way to play isn't WW1 trench warfare but with better weapons. 

I 100% agree, currently the biggest flaw of the game is that camping is too good of a strategy. That said, the abduction change feels like QOL rather than anything else, it was pretty arbitrary that the mission straight up ended and aliens just vanished into the thin air. I'm fine with it continuing untill aliens are dead, but the mission reward should be a lot more dependent on how many pods you get (currently the reward for an individual pod is too low), so you get far less if you just sit on your ass after getting the 5 pods. maybe instead of a flat 100 000 in cash for passing a mission you get 10K for each pod, and the alloy reward is increased.

[endersblade]

I for one much prefer the current armor inventory system/modules.  It gives us more options than just a pull-down.  If anything, I'd say come up with MORE modules for us to choose from.

I love the idea of researching to make weapons/armor better/different.  The first Firaxis XCOM had a bit of this, and I loved it.  However, instead of just research, why not make it also something for the engineers to manufacture?  That way it's not just research - poof - everything's magically upgraded, you have to research the idea and then engineers will upgrade everything.  I haven't played X2 in a while, but aren't there already upgrade things like that?

I think I commented on Steam about stretching out the weapon tiers to make them more meaningful and not so easy to just skip, and to go along with that, the upgrades idea is just perfect to add new life to a weapon tier to make them useful longer.  I already like the accelerated weapons, it feels like a legit upgrade to your basic ballistics.  So I definitely agree with moving lasers up as much as is comfortable.  The upgrade tech can also just as easily be applied to armor as well, as mentioned. 

Having MORE options (i.e. for research, manufacturing, etc) is always better than having LESS.  It means we have a lot to pick from, but we need to make sure we pick correctly for the situation.  Our scientists and engineers need to be working round the clock to help us kick some alien butt in the most efficient way possible :-)

[Daniel Moody]

it seems like not everyone likes the Cleaner Network idea where the main way to advance is just to capture more Cleaner Data on missions. Feel free to throw ideas out on this topic.

There's a problem with the cleaners in the narrative, many of the actions on the campaign map relate to disappearances of people trying to expose the aliens and increase panic i.e. journalists or politicians speaking up about the threat. So panic in the game is bad, but the cleaners are trying to cover up the aliens, reducing panic - so why are the cleaners bad in the narrative?   

A better set of missions would be the cleaners being involved in regional actions to increase panic and division, for example the assassination of strong leaders, destruction of infrastructure, running misinformation centers - basically creating chaos to enable the alien take over. To counter these you could run missions to gather intel (similar to the existing ones), send covert operatives (a spying mechanic) into regions, discover Cleaners plans, have follow on missions to prevent assassinations/infrastructure attacks/misinformation campaigns. This would also allow you to "to reduce Panic in a specific region,"

The other issue with the Cleaners, is they don't feel entirely part of the game. Their purpose is unclear, their threat not entirely tangible. This is fine initially (when they're a shadowy group) but the story demands they become more opaque in motivation as you learn about them. A character or leader of the group would also help flesh them out. One massive benefit of the cleaners is you can have human foes and human conflict, but you need to have human characters (not faceless Agents) to do so. It felt a bit anti-climatic to find out the Cleaners were ALL just robots under alien control, at least have a few willing alien sycophants thrown into the mix, enemies we can empathise with but Characters (with traits, personalities and stories) we can hate all the more as a result. You want players to enjoy the Cleaners, make them something to be passionate about, not nameless foes. Make them the enemy within. 

Give us a story, not just a faction. 

[Raffik]

40 minutes ago, Daniel Moody said:

You want players to enjoy the Cleaners, make them something to be passionate about, not nameless foes. Make them the enemy within. 

Enemy within sounds interesting, like an infiltrator (impostor) into your organization, that would have to be located and eliminated (there could be more of them in the xenonaut ranks) - human collaborators.

Another idea in case a region is lost. Military forces of the surrendered region could attack xenonaut base in the region or send interceptors against xenonaut planes.

[Dragosh]

Well i mean the whole enemy within is a rather giant topic to which a whoooole standalone game could be made.

"There's a problem with the cleaners in the narrative,"

Now in context of now, what Daniel said, in context of the story, what are cleaners, what's their objective, are they actually part of the alien invasion or not or are they even a part of a different alien group.

"It felt a bit anti-climatic to find out the Cleaners were ALL just robots under alien control"  

This also feels quite anticlimactic.

Cleaners being either brainwashed/brain chipped/fanatics would be a way more scarier/dread thing, which could kind of make the abductions kind of fall in place here, most abductees were subjects to alien manipulation and get turned to cleaners.

So like in summary, Xenonauts wants less global panic, 

Cleaners want more global panic but they don't want to let everyone know that it's the aliens that are running the op because that will make them a focused target for the whole planet , a common enemy.
So in that context cleaners are a behind the scene shadow org that creates situations to make countries believe another country is behind incidents which would create miss trust between countries which would make conquering the planet easier.

 

On a crazy side note.

Super wacky idea, the cleaners could be part of another alien group wanting to thwart the conquering of the planet from the currently invading alien force just so that they could do it themselves later down the road just in a more slower behind the scenes operation (I am totally not setting this up for a sequel i promise *whistles*)

[Chris]

It's interesting reading people's abstract thoughts on the changes, but I'd really like to hear from people who have actually played the new version - particularly when it comes to the updated module system, or the way that the item upgrades now work. Those systems often feel much different in practice to how they sound on paper, which is why I've created a build where people can test them out and see.

Regarding the Cleaners - they exist to keep the alien invasion secret. If you've followed their story you'll know the world governments actually already know about the aliens, and have already had some contact with them. Governments just don't realise that Earth is effectively already under attack because the organisation tasked with protecting Earth against invasion (EXDEF/ the Cleaners) is under alien control and is telling the various governments that everything is fine, while in the background quietly eliminating anyone who tries to say different or organise any kind of resistance to the invasion. And if they can stir up panic so the world governments are more concerned with fighting each other than paying attention to alien activity, so much the better.

Perhaps it needs better explanation within the game, but I don't think there's any logic holes with their aims.

[Crolynx]

So, I'm going to stick to the missions/story side of things as others have posted a lot of what I thought about the different weapons, gear, armor, etc.

The Cleaners feel superfluous to me at this time. At the start of the game they have been operating and working against us for a while. The Xenos have been controlling them and making life difficult according to what I'm following from the opening and later missions to clear their bases/HQ. They feel like they're not a big concern for most of my recent games. I've outright ignored them in 2 different saves.

I understand they're supposed to be a terrestrial counter to us. Maybe increasing the amount of Anti-Cleaner missions we need to complete would fix this.

Is their a way to do like a counter terror mission where instead of the Xenos we're fighting their Cleaner minions? Do the Cleaners have access to any special weapons or xeno tech? None of the missions I've run have had anything other than ballistic weapons and none of them were even upgraded to the accelerated weapons. Maybe creating some specialist units for them would be a way to go? Or having some elite units using Xeno Alien or Plasma tech?

In Xenonuats there was a research notification talking about a leak in the science team. Maybe something along those lines where we're trying to track down a mole in the science/engineering teams? Then you could have a mission where we have to subdue and capture the spy or their handler to stop the data leak.

This would also be able to be used to help increase funding later in the game because now instead of being able to get our information or research and supplies through the moles they have to deal with us so we could get more money to handle our construction projects and other expenses.

I hope this helps give you a different perspective or some ideas as requested. I'm loving the game so far and it has been worth the wait for it and the money I spent to get it when it came out on Steam. Keep up the great work!

[Twigg]

I have played for nearly 60 days in the new milestone 2 and have a hard crash preventing me from continuing. Definitely noticed some of the changes.

• I did not like the change to warden armor. I get the idea of giving the player a new baseline to act as a safety net but it winds up being more time and resource draining to get your squad up and running with a set of warden armor and that comes at the point at which the game is the most punishing, the start. I think the granularity of individual sets of armor was important as I could balance out engineering priorities (ie wanting enough armor for shield and shotgun dudes but making sure my snipers have lasers) where as now it is way too all or nothing.
• The new module system is fine but I do prefer the old version as I could load up soldiers with both the defense and accuracy modules to trade strength for combat effectiveness. I am sure this is circumstantial but I feel like I am taking more casualties than normal because my soldiers can either hit things or take a hit, but not both anymore.
• I haven't noticed the new non panic based economy at all. Built my second base at the start of the month and am in line to build the third at the start of the next. My worst area is currently at 45ish panic and I still have plenty of cleaner missions to do that can lower that no problem. Maybe you only need 2 bases now instead of 3 but this feels similar to the lab situation a few months ago where the best strategy was so clearly the best that it would require a radical approach to change that and it is probably not worth it.
• I don't remember if it was changed here or in a later patch but now that you can't medpack a MARS I don't think you can heal it. That combined with the fact that it and it's upgrades are so damn expensive and it's best gun has 6 shots means it doesn't feel worth it at all. 

 

This isn't directly related to milestone 2 but something that became very clear after starting a few new campaigns over the course a week. Arguably the worst part of the game is the setup before your first mission where you are creating your loadouts for soldiers, removing clearly shit ones, and hiring new recruits. Anything that can be done to speed this process up would be appreciated. It would be great to be able to bring in previous campaign soldier loadouts so I am not doing it from scratch but I would truly love it if I just didn't get soldiers with below 50 TU or strength. They might as well not exist and with new buildings taking so long to build I can't afford to let them take up valuable beds in the early game.

[SoftwareSimian]

6 hours ago, Chris said:

I'd really like to hear from people who have actually played the new version - particularly when it comes to the updated module system, or the way that the item upgrades now work.

I started a new M2.01 campaign and played up to Day 36 without any real issue (I noticed the Ironman save bug is still present, but no CTD or anything).

Research:
You finally have time to complete the first research project (vehicles) before you get flooded with other research projects from the first ground missions.
However, once the projects start coming in, the early ones still take far too long I think. You can't have more than 5 scientists before Day 20 at the earliest, and the early research projects take 8 days each mostly. I made a very deliberate effort to research accelerated weapons this playthrough since Laser has always become available before I get around to Accelerated in past playthroughs.  I think Accelerated research should come earlier, straight off the first Cleaner mission and maybe take a bit less time. But I really like the change from Accelerated weapons being a separate buildable weapon type to now being a Workshop upgrade, that's much much better, I'm actually using them this playthrough.
The unlocking of research projects seems chaotic though, I've currently got two new armour systems and two new weapons systems available in the research list at the end of the first month.

Soldier Loadout:
Heavy Armour checkbox: that's fine, I don't mind this in place of the armour plate system.
Module dropdown: Terrible. Only picking one upgrade feels overly limiting. 2/3 starting upgrades are useless (gas mask, morale booster). No visual cue as to whether you have your soldier equipped correctly.
I still much prefer the freeform previous system where I can pack as many modules as I want at the expense of other equipment. But if you do really want to go with forcing the player to pick an artificially-limited number of modules, I would suggest making a "module" section in the loadout, possibly tied to the armour. Tactical Suit gets no module slots, Defender Armor gets 1 module slot, Warden get 2, Guardian get 3, etc.

[Jorlem]

On 9/4/2023 at 11:55 AM, Chris said:

 

We've then slightly slowed down the progression over the next three months, and in particular we've moved the Cleaner Intel Hub mission back a couple of weeks so it comes after the first UFO crash site. We're open to ideas about how we can make the Cleaner mission sequence a bit more interesting, as it seems like not everyone likes the Cleaner Network idea where the main way to advance is just to capture more Cleaner Data on missions. Feel free to throw ideas out on this topic.

I’ll second (third?) what was said about having the Cleaners get involved in other missions. Once they start showing up elsewhere, we could get Cleaner progress by recovering Cleaner corpses or capturing them, to replace the automatic uptick?

 

Also, if they are meant to be the official response, while we are the rogue element actually getting things done, they should be showing up to fight the aliens occasionally to maintain their cover. Sometimes they might show up undercover at a crash site, replacing some civilian spawns, while other times they might show in force with a squad equivalent to the player’s, armed and armored like their reinforcements on the base missions. In those situations, the mission could turn into a three way battle. They should also show up in terror missions, as their cover as the official anti-alien response force should completely collapse if they don’t respond to that. 
 

Maybe we could research and build a radio interceptor (that later upgrades into the quantum decoder), that would allow us to detect Cleaner ops and try to intercept them. That could in turn allow for more defensive style missions, in addition to the current “rout the enemy” and “raid” style missions. For example, a VIP might be taking cover in a building, with its AI set to not leave, and the player needs to prevent the Cleaners from entering the building to kill the VIP. Or substitute the vip with a radar station they want to destroy, Heck, you could even get the chance to arrive early, and set up traps with remotely detonated explosives. That could be fun, and would be a very different play style than most missions. 

[Chris]

I should have mentioned this earlier, but if we did keep the new module system then we’d get art done for each armour / module combination. But one of the reasons we’ve done these test builds is there’s no reason wasting time and money on it if the system isn’t as good as the previous system.

However, this new system could actually have much better art than the old system because if there’s only one module you can reflect that on the soldier paperdoll.

[Pietje666]

About the modules, is there a reason why you can't have both? For example you start with the new ones and later on you unlock the old modules? Or would it be overwhelming the players? 

Btw: Is the prototype version only available on steam or also on GOG? i am asking cause I can't access the prototype version 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Pietje666
Can't find prototype version

[Raffik]

The bug with selling unlimited amounts of items is back in the 2.01 prototype version...

Also (and that is valid also in the orig game), if you build 6 bases up to certain point, the funding becomes negative, so the regions are actually taking funds from you. In late stage of the game you do not need any external funding anyway, but its still annoying. Is that intentional or just not yet finished in design?

As shown in the screenshot below, the funding turned negative - the high amount of money that early was made via selling the unlimited supply of accelerated weapons.

[Chris]

I've released a patch for this branch that fixes the unlimited selling of the Accelerated Weapons and the crash bug. I'll do proper patch notes once we start putting this build on the Experimental branches.

Funding increases throughout the game as a result of completing plot research, so it should increase throughout the game as you make progress. Having six bases at the start of month 2 is way ahead of way the player should be so it makes sense for your income to be negative at that point. But I'm not sure how well balanced the game is in the mid-game with the new income model tbh, that might need some tweaks.

[Raffik]

56 minutes ago, Chris said:

I've released a patch for this branch that fixes the unlimited selling of the Accelerated Weapons and the crash bug. I'll do proper patch notes once we start putting this build on the Experimental branches.

thank you, much apreciated!

57 minutes ago, Chris said:

Funding increases throughout the game as a result of completing plot research, so it should increase throughout the game as you make progress. Having six bases at the start of month 2 is way ahead of way the player should be so it makes sense for your income to be negative at that point. But I'm not sure how well balanced the game is in the mid-game with the new income model tbh, that might need some tweaks.

in the original game and experimental branches the funding went to negative around day 500 or so, when the bases were well developed.

[Rob4590]

With regard to the cleaners - how about a bunch of 'mini' terror missions that you have to complete?

So Xenonauts get intel that a terrorist is about to hit a location (town) - can be either someone setting off a bomb in a public building, someone assassinating a politician, or someone about to simply start shooting up the town (and residents)!

You then have to deploy a team to scout it out and take the terrorist out. So that's just pretty standard - but what about if the terrorist (Cleaner) isn't identifiable (ie he/she is/appears human - exactly the same as the other civilians)? So you have to wait around (not for long!) in the combat map (with a 'likely target area' to generally go towards) till they do something (set off the bomb / shoot the politician). To get progress in the cleaner network - you have to then kill / stun the terrorist before they can escape (stunning them gives higher progress as you can then 'interrogate them' to learn more of the reasons for their activity)

But to make it different - your agents have to be 'undercover' because you don't want to panic the civilians in the town with a full scale military presence - so your agents are restricted in what they can use / wear - so no armour (just civilian clothes), only pistols (so they can have them hidden in a shoulder holster / tucked in the back of trousers) - pretty much the same (no armour / only pistols etc) would apply to the Cleaner(s) as well though - as they don't want to be discovered before completing their objective.

Again - to keep the missions different to normal ones - and more 'undercover' - maybe you can only take a smaller team (4-6) as well?

Sometimes the cleaner would succeed in their mission to blow something up / kill someone - sometimes they would miss - either way they are then going to try and escape. So then maybe if they only injure (or miss) the politician, you need to escort the politician to a safe house as well as trying to kill / capture the terrorist(s)? Or maybe you don't have enough manpower to do both - so you have to choose which is more important (which might give better progress on the cleaner counter)?

Perhaps have the Cleaners trying to steal something (intelligence materials?)? You have to stop them making it to their escape vehicle / safe house, and recover the item.

 

Could also have double / triple missions like this - 2 or 3 targets - and your agents can be deployed in multiple locations (if you ever played Fantasy General - the original - you had scenarios where you had to split your forces in spots all over the map) - so do you deploy all together - and guarantee picking off one/two targets, while failing at 1/2 others. Or do you send 3 small teams to try and complete all the missions?

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Rob4590

[Emily_F]

On 9/6/2023 at 8:31 PM, Chris said:

Always happy to consider other people's opinions but it was never particularly difficult to get enough Abduction tubes to win the mission, in my experience. The real question was always "how many extra can you get?" which would still be the case now. Indeed, in an ideal world we'd provide a Panic reduction for each surviving civilian (as well as the Alloys from the tube itself) so there's a definite reason to try and rescue as many civilians as possible.

The reason for the change is having a hard loss condition in the second mission the player encounters is perhaps a bit harsh, but at the same time we do want to show one of the new mission types early to clearly signal that the game isn't just Xenonauts 1 with nicer graphics.

I've always wondered what the point of the surviving civilian score was as it never did anything. It should definitely count for something in some way (a panic reduction or cash bonus etc). Maybe the answer to the abduction mission is to have fewer pods, but the aliens have to capture live people and carry them to the pods (maybe one species of alien is a designated catcher and doesn't have lethal weapons but has a high stun and armour rating, and can carry one or two civilians, and is defended by the other aliens)?

[billsarason]

Why do I start with 7 pieces of defender armor. it feels like you should either start with none 1-2 or 9.  also if you would start with some on lower difficulties you should have none on commander.

[billsarason]

also the scroll down gets in the way of the weight so you can barly see it.

[billsarason]

So far I like the hevey armor toggle but I feel that the others 3 would be cooler as items partly because I don't see why a soldier couldn't have all three. 

[billsarason]

Although I really like that it adds a rebreather on the soldier. 

[billsarason]

are these supposed to look like fire traps becaes that was my first thought. Is it just me?

[billsarason]

that first fight with the cleaners is damn hard.

[billsarason]

is it posible to allow to check the cost of moving,shooting and then moving again rather then just the moving and shooting.