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Build V17.9 Balance Discussion


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But isnt that's rifles and sniper rifle are for?

I'm afraid that enhancing range of the shotgun would made it interfere with the rifle sphere of application.

Besides, every mission in early game contains an important part of ufo (and, in the future, buildings) breaching, which is, i believe, a best place to apply your shotgun barrel forward.

May be you can imagine some situations in which the long-shooting shotgun will not compete with the rifle? Assuming you've got a more or less balanced squad on the field, not a single Rambo.

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Low AP cost to fire on the shotgun can help balance out the lack of range - you can reaction fire a door, etc... or run up for that near guaranteed kill against a suppressed alien. High risk, high reward. :)

And yes, technically an AR is faster (especially over time), but hey it's a game!

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An assault rifle is as valuable in breaching a UFO as a shotgun. An assault rifle has the burst function, which a shotgun does not. At the short ranges inside the scout or the light scout, far more shots in a burst hit than in the open. The cost of a 3-shot burst is 35 AP. The cost of firing two snap shots from a shotgun is 32 AP or 38 AP for 2 aimed shots. Scaling up, it costs 48 AP to fire three snap shots, 57 AP with aimed shots in comparison to an assault rifle which costs 55 AP to fire a 3-round burst and a single snap shot. While a shotgun fires more powerful shots, it is less accurate even within range and it takes more than one shotgun shot to kill even non-coms.

You have to get from the dropship to the UFO to benefit from the short range of a shotgun. Even considering the newer maps such as the trainyard map, the maps in general favour longer-ranged weapons with firefights taking place (if the LPs that FWG and ClosetYeti have been posting are anything to go by) at 10 to 14 squares minimum. If it's to be the case that I only use shotguns in breeching situations, that's fine all the time I am wearing basic uniform. The moment I put Jackal armour the additional weight doesn't do me any favours if I try and keep a shotgun an ammo for it stowed in my backpack.

Therefore, whence the shotgun? The numbers stack up against it. It isn't a practical weapon.

Edited by Max_Caine
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That's correct. Thanks for the calculations. Shotgun is not practical and should be tuned, but should it be done via range?

Shotgun's real value usually lies in it's stopping power and the buckshot ability, and these are countered by the low armor penetration. But neither stopping power nor buckshot are to be realised in the xenonauts, and the armor system aren't that complicated.

I don't want it to be a pure cosmetic or roleplaying weapon. Maybe damage should be boosted instead, to allow for reliable one-shot killing from extremely close range?

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Having played for another hour and tried out some things, there seems to be two alterations that have worked.

1) I decreased the cost of snap shots to 13, and aimed shots to 16. This allowed a much higher rate of fire, and also allowed a shotgun-carrying Xenonaut to fire on targets of opportunity even if they presented themselves at the end of the Xenonaut's movement.

2) I inceased the range from 8 to 10. Now, bear in mind the range of the ass\ult rifle is 18, and the pistol is 12 that little extra range did help a lot.

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Having played for another hour and tried out some things, there seems to be two alterations that have worked.

1) I decreased the cost of snap shots to 13, and aimed shots to 16. This allowed a much higher rate of fire, and also allowed a shotgun-carrying Xenonaut to fire on targets of opportunity even if they presented themselves at the end of the Xenonaut's movement.

2) I inceased the range from 8 to 10. Now, bear in mind the range of the ass\ult rifle is 18, and the pistol is 12 that little extra range did help a lot.

First of all, the shotgun shouldn't need to "compete" with the rifle. If you think you'll do most of your fighting out in the open than it would be dumb to equip your soldiers with shotguns, right?

If you want a realistic shotgun that's "useful" set the damage to 60, decrease penetration to 5, decrease range to 6, make snapshot the same TU as the assualt rifle, change magazine size to 8, and set reload time to 45 TUs. You'll find it works like it's supposed to in real life. If you get into close combat it's devastating (one shot kills), perfect for clearing UFOs and buildings, but it still sucks in the open field. That's the way it should be. I didn't just pull those numbers out of my rear end either...I calculated them using the assault rifle as a base.

My suggestion is to only have one or two soldiers with shotguns in the early missions. Shotguns are very specialized weapons in the military, that's why you don't see them too often. In urban combat you might have ONE shotgun per squad. The assault rifle is really the weapon of choice for the average soldier since it can do most jobs fairly well. If you had to run out into combat you'd definitely pull the assault rifle off the gun rack unless you knew that you'd have to clear buildings all day.

Edited by StellarRat
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But I don't want a realistic shotgun. I have never asked for a realistic shotgun in any of my posts. I want a close quarters weapon that doesn't compete with the assault rifle in it's own role class. Which the assault rifle does. In fact, I don't want realistic weapons. Anyone who wants realistic weapons should be playing a realistic war simulator, not Xenonauts. I mean, fuck*, the snap shot of an fucking** assault rifle only costs one point more than the fucking*** shotgun does! Giving the shotgun 2 more squares range doesn't edge out any of the other weapons in the slightest! But the more germaine point is making it cheaper to shoot. Even if the shotgun has 8 squares of range, the point is it's cheaper to shoot the assault rifle in all situations than it is to shoot the shotgun for the same number of shots. Yes, the shotgun is more powerful, but the assault rifle gets more shots off, which verses early game baddies is more potent than the shotgun. But, by making shotgun shots cheaper it sees off the competition for its own niche.

*sorry.

**really sorry.

***I'm on a roll.

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Don't get me wrong with the balancing, I dont want to have an easy game. As much as I used to get really annoyed with losing a team and skyranger in XCOM... it makes it a challenge. I just dont like it when I really think about what I am doing, get it all going properly and then get punked.

I will continue to play and see how I think the weapon balancing pans out. Maybe it was just that one mission and I was against a super soldier alien.

BTW - one thing that did get on my nerves yesterday was a local soldier blasting the hell out of an alien across the map (not sure how it knew the alien was there...?) and took out 1 guy and 1 heavily damaged Hunter vehicle. A single M-16 round shouldnt be able to take out an amoured car!!!!

Are there any laws around what a local soldier can see? There were 3 soldiers I could see left on the map and all 3 were on the same side as Rambo was yet they didnt shoot.... just him taking out everything in a 3 mile radius.

Also... should I be able to research the purple, 4 spikey armed things? I killed a few but nothing brought back to base with me to reserach. So far only caesian and sebilians.

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But I don't want a realistic shotgun. I have never asked for a realistic shotgun in any of my posts. I want a close quarters weapon that doesn't compete with the assault rifle in it's own role class. Which the assault rifle does. In fact, I don't want realistic weapons. Anyone who wants realistic weapons should be playing a realistic war simulator, not Xenonauts. I mean, fuck*, the snap shot of an fucking** assault rifle only costs one point more than the fucking*** shotgun does! Giving the shotgun 2 more squares range doesn't edge out any of the other weapons in the slightest! But the more germaine point is making it cheaper to shoot. Even if the shotgun has 8 squares of range, the point is it's cheaper to shoot the assault rifle in all situations than it is to shoot the shotgun for the same number of shots. Yes, the shotgun is more powerful, but the assault rifle gets more shots off, which verses early game baddies is more potent than the shotgun. But, by making shotgun shots cheaper it sees off the competition for its own niche.

*sorry.

**really sorry.

***I'm on a roll.

Wow you are on a roll! OK, look at it this way...I think your biggest complaint is that the shotgun isn't as good as a rifle even for close assaults, right? So, if you just raise the damage to 60 and reduce the penetration instead of increasing firing rate I think you'll be happy. It supposed to be a close range weapon. What would be the point in even having a shotgun if it worked even close to a rifle? Just to say you have one?
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BTW - one thing that did get on my nerves yesterday was a local soldier blasting the hell out of an alien across the map (not sure how it knew the alien was there...?) and took out 1 guy and 1 heavily damaged Hunter vehicle. A single M-16 round shouldnt be able to take out an amoured car!!!!
You're right. It could be a bug OR your armored car was already heavily damaged. Damage is progressive Xenonauts, not binary. Also, damage to armor is cumulative. So, even a heavily armored target can eventually be destroyed by enough light weapon hits.
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Just going to throw this out there - replace Shotgun with an SMG like a MP5 variant? Wouldn't be so useless in the open and would be the preferable breaching weapon due to tighter quarters. Just a suggestion.
I tried modding that once. The big problem is with the spread of autofire in this game and the wimpy 9mm round it fires it's not much better than a shotgun at med to long range, so you don't gain much except better suppression. The autofire sound is pretty awesome though. :) Besides it's highly unlikely Chris will want to add a brand new weapon at this stage of development. It will probably make into my Gunpowder mod though. I plan to put that out after beta is completed. No point in worrying about it now as the code may change how certain weapons work and what parameters will be available to modders. Don't want to do it twice.
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On other matters....

Regarding Jackal Armour. It's useful verses plasma pistols (as in, OMG I'm at 6HP), but useless verses plasma rifles mostly because plasma rifles have 12 mitigation. I found that reducing the plasma rifles' mitigation to 0 still made plasma rifles still very nasty (because it reduces a squaddies HP to almost 0) and every so often the random damage portion of a plasma rifle will kill a jackal armoured squaddie outright, but won't leave the player scratching his heading thinking "I spent 50 grand for this?".

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Interestingly enough, I've been shot (my troops, that is) by plasma bolts several times, from both pistols and at least one rifle, and none of them have died. I'm sure they were lucky, glancing blows, but considering they were wearing nothing but the blue uniform that's pretty good. Ha, one of them even got the crimson heart, which I thought was a really nice touch. Kudos to whoever put that in the game.

Also, 50 grand is, imho, a very large sum of money for some body armor (which apparently isn't super useful, based on previous posts). Maybe reduce it by 10K or something, or even by 15 perhaps. That'd be more manageable, so I wouldn't have to bankrupt myself to protect my two shotgun-toting breachers. (Who have both taken at least one plasma bolt in their blues, no armor, yet still insist on continuing to fight. Why they do is beyond me.)

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Part of the problem IMO is that the aliens seem to have plasma rifles from the beginning now. That's makes them a lot more dangerous. Specially, since the AI is now smart enough to use autofire when appropiate and make smart choices about who to shoot at. However, I think we all might have got a bit lazy in our tactics since the AI was useless just a couple months ago. I wouldn't expect the Jackel armor to stop much. It's better than a shirt cotton though. Remember in the old XCom the first level of alien alloy armor didn't stop much either. It was mostly only good against blast fragments and alien pistols. It is bit expensive though. I wouldn't expect it to cost more than 5 grand. 50 is pretty out there. All that said, I'm not certain I'm ready to make a definite statement since I haven't really played too much with 17.9 when the patch comes out Friday I'll get some more gaming time in and release a statement, LOL. :)

Edited by StellarRat
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It's is interesting you mention that, GizmoGomez. Plasma rifles have a damage of 75, with armour mitigation of 12. Jackal armour has an energy armour rating of 25, so the non-random damage portion of a plasma rifle should do 62HP of damage, which should be enough even without the random damage portion to kill a jackal armoured squaddie dead, dead, dead. (At least, in my case before I reduced the mitigation to 0 I always had a dead jackal squaddie).

Personally I think plasma rifles should kill basic armour squaddies in a single hit, but not-quite kill a jackal armoured squaddie. The player then needs to trade off the speed and weight-carrying capacity of basic armour verses the "I won't from a single shot" of jackal armour. This would then mirror the tradeoffs between Wolf and Buzzard armour and the tier 3 armours.

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Some of my latest observations:

[shotguns] – close combat and deadly – I would only suggest to improve its accuracy via a spread of shells for maybe 6 tiles, but then drop instantly for greater distances.

Usage: over watch ufo entrance and stuff like that. Also make lighter to be a second weapon for rifleman.

Combat observations: xenos with shotgun managed to kill sebilans trying to run out ufos with a single shot in back – I liked these moments. But some missions later casean trying to do the same took me 2 shots – logic?

[pistols] – second weapon for snipers and rocketeers – due to low damage are almost useless, should make them faster to shoot: 5 TU not aimed and 7TU for aimed (and increase +1 for each tire). Have you seen how in RL trained guy shoot pistols? – they unload magazine with blink of an eye.

Usage: kind of a last stand weapon for snipers or support for grenadiers

Combat observations: took out cesean with three shots another mission, but think he was injured already, because later unloaded total five shots and he was still alive (guard guy), so making pistols weak but fast will create their own niche and not making them useless like in original EU and current reincarnation.

[riffles] – not much to say, as they serve as middle point for the rest of weapons, though as mentioned before make the burst fire arc narrow, as now it looks silly and causes friendly fire often (maybe, I repeat maybe should make them more usable by making burst fire more accurate and couple TUs less).

[precise rifles] – seem to be ok with 50% accuracy penalty, though 95% possibility shots miss pretty often , also missed shots should land closer to target, otherwise looks silly too.

[hunter`s 0,50 browning gun] – the same issue with arc of fire. Also looks too unrealistic when three shots hit the sebilian and he`s still alive, while for hand MG which is maybe at least twice weaker in RL three shots is enough to kill him. Suggestion – assign it armor negating feature or increase damage if not possible.

(sorry for of topic, but where the hell is hunter`s rocket launcher? I don`t have it – may be a bug)

[xeno`s rank/stats progress] – currently it’s too fast, 30 missions and you have maxed up team of commanders and colonels. As for me I like this game for long play and progress, and I like the way Chris took away some toys in the beginning, like armor and tank. But currently in 2+ months you can gain xenos with ~90 for TU, strength, health. Please slow this process, and if possible add some new ranks, limit stats progression per mission (or decrease this limit).

Think bravery should increase with rank or something, because didn`t get it grow for a single xeno, and if you want to say it should be trained via panicking on terror missions – I`d say if this happened then only third of your team is still alive and you probably lost this mission.

Could be also trained via combat experience, seeing dead bodies of civilians and not just their own team.

[reaction fire/line of sight] – once again my favorite issue which IMHO make this game boring (I went to bed at 2 AM though). Give the aliens super health, armor and weapons, fine. But making them shot few times before you come close enough just to spott`em – its ubbercheat.

Combat experience: xeno in jackal went on scouting, one tile step – reaction fire from two disc drones, missed; another one tile step, again both fire and one hits, another step – one miss one hit, but cesean joined them with plasma riffle, lucky that he missed, another step – discs fire again, but finally spotted. It took another couple of steps to spot that cesean with riffle, while still getting reaction shots from discs.

Of course this can be explained by bad luck etc. But it just ruins the feel of the game.

Also noticed that aliens can reaction fire multiple times in the same xeno target every time he performs action, while xenos reaction fire few time if only new target arrives to their line of sight. Think should make it just one time to reaction fire in a single target but with maybe all TUs at least for xenos (if every next shot is considered to have accuracy penalty aka shooting moving target, seem not injuring balance, but will make you reload more often and thus use this feature, take more ammo…)

And it also seems alien reaction fire tank far less than xeno soldiers.

[AI] – noticed aliens always run in the direction, opposite from xenos and ambush then. Only once witnessed something that can be called an assault and aliens moving into my positions, but by this time only 3 xenos were alive. Think they should be more aggressive against my troops. If combined with my reaction fire/line of sight notes, could become more interesting and bring more action to the battles.

(If alien detects my positions and thinks he`s out gunned, he then retreats, ambushes and waits for backup, then they assault together – can something like this be done?)

Also noticed adrons becoming idle, after they shoot all targets in their range, just sitting between walls and fences, shouldn`t they go on patrol or something? The same for local forces, maybe they should gather and protect civs, taking them to cover? (and no xeno-megaphone needed, as suggested in other thread)

[air combat] – corvette with escort was shot down with torpedo interceptors, which retreated promptly after that, escort was still alive though. Dropship was sent to crash site, but the crash site itself began to move to intercept my dropship and did it. When dropship was sent in a wing with fighters and reached crash site – window popuped with standard buttons like patrol etc. So I suggest the escort to become the new ufo target or escape to space when main vessel in down and make dropship possible to start mission when in wing, or make it impossible dropships to be a part of wing.

[game scale] – IMO having the original EU scale was ok: 50 scientists/engineers is more adequate. Just compare how many F22 raptors Boing produces per month with 15 guys assembling Mig in 3 days. But this should still leave player before choice to explore or to construct faster especially in early game.

Would be also nice to have general financing increase via ground or air missions, when part of points goes to ALL counties, as it is difficult, for example, to shot down ufo in central America and get bonus, but easy to lose support when ufo performs its mission above the sea. This should help to withstand ONLY occasional loss of support.

[battlemap general] when too many stuff on the ground, it is impossible to thow anything more on that tile, adding a scroll bar or something is needed.

I understand that its far too long for a post and difficult to read, especially with my English, but it describes pretty much I`ve noticed so far.

Edited by flanker84
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When discussing the balance we should always see the game as a whole, and how changes suit the game in general, not just "inefficient shotgun here & now" discussed for a few pages. So follows my understanding in pictures. The other point is how it would be distributed though tires/new alien types & ranks. I just see this progress slow and smooth, allowing not fans to get used to, while still leaving it a challenge for experienced ones. I`m just against super weapons and super armor (at least for xenos), you should face loses, but one turn reaction fire (sorry for that again), wiping out half of team and a tank is a little too much.

Maybe it would be possible to connect difficulty progress to the players` performance (who evolves long, get corvettes in 2 month, for example), again this could work for early game mainly.

TECH progress.jpg

TECH progress.jpg

TECH progress.jpg

TECH progress.jpg

577e7ca97222f_TECHprogress.jpg.da29d6391

577e7ca9e43ff_TECHprogress.jpg.2db169b4e

Edited by flanker84
bad picture attached/my bad English
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When discussing the balance we should always see the game as a whole, and how changes suit the game in general, not just "inefficient shotgun here & now" discussed for a few pages.
Yes, I'm not 100% sure that we should even comment too much right now. It's hard to comment on the game balance when we don't even have certain ships and maps working yet. Your comment about how the AI always retreats is hard to say much about because if I was outnumbered 3 to 1 I'd retreat too. Fighting a delaying action and trying inflict the most casualties is the best course of action in that situation. We don't know what the AI will do if it has more troops i.e. bigger ships. My guess is that Jiis-Jan has calculated a ratio that will make them more aggressive when they have more resources. Edited by StellarRat
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I agree that these are pure speculations right now, but who knows, maybe Chris would take some into account... Isn`t what`s it all about?

As for retreating outnumbered aliens, I`m not sure if it was due to my superiority in numbers, as I described my "tactical approach" before, I scout with a hunter (mostly) or a single soldier just to spot enemy units, the backup team of couple snipers is very far away, even 4 time zoom gives only ~60-70% in the open field, so don't think it is the issue. Besides my scout after spotting tries to make his way back, in order not to stay in enemy line of sight. I see enemy ambushing in the following "hiden movement phase". And running from "tank" isn`t also obvious, as it can be destroyed with few plasma pistol shots.

AI just tends to ambush, that`s all I can say for now (only refers to noncombatants and guards, maybe soldiers, but not 100% sure). Would be nicer if it would be:

1) more mobile (flanking, patrolling, etc.);

2) had ability to combine forces and act aggressive an assault concentrated in one direction, but after being softened would retreat, regroup with additional forces and attack again from other flank may be. Behave more the way the player would. Battle would become more dynamic with a lot of back and forth maneuvers. And now imagine that freaky teleporting alien materialized behind your lines - such things would ruin your previous plan completely.

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I agree that these are pure speculations right now, but who knows, maybe Chris would take some into account... Isn`t what`s it all about?

As for retreating outnumbered aliens, I`m not sure if it was due to my superiority in numbers, as I described my "tactical approach" before, I scout with a hunter (mostly) or a single soldier just to spot enemy units, the backup team of couple snipers is very far away, even 4 time zoom gives only ~60-70% in the open field, so don't think it is the issue. Besides my scout after spotting tries to make his way back, in order not to stay in enemy line of sight. I see enemy ambushing in the following "hiden movement phase". And running from "tank" isn`t also obvious, as it can be destroyed with few plasma pistol shots.

AI just tends to ambush, that`s all I can say for now (only refers to noncombatants and guards, maybe soldiers, but not 100% sure). Would be nicer if it would be:

1) more mobile (flanking, patrolling, etc.);

2) had ability to combine forces and act aggressive an assault concentrated in one direction, but after being softened would retreat, regroup with additional forces and attack again from other flank may be. Behave more the way the player would. Battle would become more dynamic with a lot of back and forth maneuvers. And now imagine that freaky teleporting alien materialized behind your lines - such things would ruin your previous plan completely.

Good comments. I noticed that the AI will stand it's ground if it doesn't know it's outnumbered. That's good because that means it's not cheating. I had a Sebillan engage my Hunter (and destroy) for two turns without retreating (it also use auto fire because the range was short.) It only moved off when some of my troops became visible. That seems like an intelligent move to me.

Your comment about group tactics is valid right now, but Jiis-Jan has not completed the group "planning" module of the AI yet, so it has no ability in that area yet. I think we're going to be unpleasantly surprised when that is operational. :D That being said, I'd much rather have a tough opponent that can be tuned "down" for beginners then a cheating AI that can only give you a game because it has ridiculous amounts of resources and sees everything 100% of the time, something that sadly seems to be the trend in AI programming for most games.

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Thanks for approval, actually I`ve just finished looking through Jiis-Jan`s comments. A lot of people asked "AI team behavior". May be should move this discussion there?

Oh, and my hunter they don`t usually destroy because it runs away after spotting, but sometimes happens...maybe too far for AI to pursue when civs are close.

And I totally agree to make A.I. and not a cheating computer. It doesn`t have to be a genius (but highly expected), but should behave in different patterns and by this become unpredictable (read interesting to play)

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