Milestone 4 Balance & Feedback thead!

[Skitso]

6 minutes ago, Xeferah said:

Also, the way cover is currently set up, I got a question about that was well. I always assumed that if you aim at a 45 degree angle, you could aim (or get hit) around that corner. See screenshot 1.
But it appears the angle is even greater than that. Again, intentional or not? The second screenshot shows that you can't aim too far up, as the wall starts to block the shots.
And the third screenshot shows that the angle is greater than 45 degrees.

You are not aiming at 45° in any of the images

[Xeferah]

11 minutes ago, Skitso said:

You are not aiming at 45° in any of the images

Depends on how you define the grid. It's square based, so if you want to call it diagonal, be my guest. What's your take on it, intentional or not?

[Skitso]

6 minutes ago, Xeferah said:

Depends on how you define the grid. It's square based, so if you want to call it diagonal, be my guest. What's your take on it, intentional or not?

Every tile is split into 3x3 smaller tiles for aiming purposes. So if these smaller tiles go straight in a 45° line, you can shoot around the corner. Tighter than that, and the corner will block the aim. As far as I know, it works 99,9% of the time. I did report a bug concerning this a few days ago. But it was a single case in hunderds of hours of playtime.

[Chris]

50 minutes ago, Xeferah said:

I'm not convinced that commander does not need some minor tweaks though. I mean, sometimes soldiers die in 1 hit when an enemy shoots through 5 tiles of smoke, while being crouched. Now I'm sure that one tile of smoke reduces aim by 20%, so 5 tiles should be -100%. Add in the fact that even with the best armor, it's still possible to get 1-shot, this does not add a "fun" layer to the game. Sure, it happens, but it happens often. Not once every 10 battles, but more like once or more per battle, especially with sectiods and psyions. It even happened with wraiths one time, through 5 tiles of smoke. It could be a bug of course, but I think it has to do with the multiplier on commander (125% aim modifier). 

I think the calculation does something like this: aim at 100%, commander difficulty brings it to 100 x 1.25 = 125. Add in sectoid +50 bonus, now it's 175 aim. Add high cover at 40% and 5 tiles of smoke and you are still left with a 25% chance to be hit. Is this intentional, or should the calculation be like this:
100% aim, add +50 bonus, now at 150 aim. Add 40% cover and 5 tiles of smoke, that's 10% chance to hit. Commander difficulty would bring it to 10 x 1.25 = 12,5% chance to be hit.

I'm just curious, which one is correct and is it intentional? I see some alien shots where I think "This is bullshit", but I'm not sure if it's intentional.

Yeah, Commander may need some changes too. But given it is still clearly possible to win the game on Commander (even using only 12 soldiers apparently), I don't want to nerf the top-end experience without having played it much myself. So I'll hold fire on that for now.

However, the accuracy bonus affects the base stat of the alien - sectons only have like 45 Accuracy now. So it'd be 1.3 * 45 = 58.5, plus 50 for Psionic Triangulation gets you to 108.5, multiplied by whatever fire mode is being used on the weapon. Then you take off cover and smoke. So the values aren't quite as high as you're saying - but Psionic Triangulation may still need a bit of a nerf anyway. +50 might be a bit excessive.

As for the shooting paths, the cone is slightly wider than perfectly diagonal when shooting around a corner. It's just a quirk in the way the tile grid works.

[Rakiii]

Economy seems a bit better than before but still you cannot afford much (not even one extra radar on Commander)

There are some projects you need to research that grant you an extra 150k funding monthly (used to be 250k or?)

Yeah some aliens have pinpoint accuracy (on Commander)...

 

Btw those "jagged shadows" on picture above are quite disturbing.  It was a thing in X1 too but imo it felt less disruptive...

Edited July 24, 2024 by Rakiii

[Skitso]

6 minutes ago, Chris said:

Yeah, Commander may need some changes too. But given it is still clearly possible to win the game on Commander (even using only 12 soldiers apparently), I don't want to nerf the top-end experience without having played it much myself. So I'll hold fire on that for now.

However, the accuracy bonus affects the base stat of the alien - sectons only have like 45 Accuracy now. So it'd be 1.3 * 45 = 58.5, plus 50 for Psionic Triangulation gets you to 108.5, multiplied by whatever fire mode is being used on the weapon. Then you take off cover and smoke. So the values aren't quite as high as you're saying - but Psionic Triangulation may still need a bit of a nerf anyway. +50 might be a bit excessive.

As for the shooting paths, the cone is slightly wider than perfectly diagonal when shooting around a corner. It's just a quirk in the way the tile grid works.

I'm fine with super accurate triangulation shots. I think it's just a case of making the triangulated shot look and sound like a special ability to communicate better why it connected through the smoke and cover.

Edited July 24, 2024 by Skitso

[Xeferah]

23 minutes ago, Chris said:

Yeah, Commander may need some changes too. But given it is still clearly possible to win the game on Commander (even using only 12 soldiers apparently), I don't want to nerf the top-end experience without having played it much myself. So I'll hold fire on that for now.

However, the accuracy bonus affects the base stat of the alien - sectons only have like 45 Accuracy now. So it'd be 1.3 * 45 = 58.5, plus 50 for Psionic Triangulation gets you to 108.5, multiplied by whatever fire mode is being used on the weapon. Then you take off cover and smoke. So the values aren't quite as high as you're saying - but Psionic Triangulation may still need a bit of a nerf anyway. +50 might be a bit excessive.

As for the shooting paths, the cone is slightly wider than perfectly diagonal when shooting around a corner. It's just a quirk in the way the tile grid works.

If the numbers are only that low, then I'm gonna look more into it. I mean, 108.5% accurate is completely doable on commander if I use cover and smoke. I'm gonna experiment a bit more with this, as again, only 110% accuracy is not bad at all. Maybe it stacks or so, I'll experiment a bit more.

[Xeferah]

33 minutes ago, Rakiii said:

Economy seems a bit better than before but still you cannot afford much (not even one extra radar on Commander)

There are some projects you need to research that grant you an extra 150k funding monthly (used to be 250k or?)

I also noticed a big lack in funding, so I started a new game. In the first month I had 4 labs and 4 engineering. Those 4 engineering really save me here, and I intend to expand that to much more soon. I hope to use one base for a massive 4 x 4 (=16) engineering, and see how that works with income :-)

So far, I'm on day 109, have 250K in cash, have two additional bases that both have a hangar and a radar array. My main base has:

- med bay
- 3 hangars
- 2 generators
- 5 engineering
- 4 labs
- 6 living quarters
- 1 storeroom
- 1 shaft

Engineering produces $2625 per hour, which is 1.89M a month if they are idle. So yeah, IMO, rush those labs and engineering.

Edited July 24, 2024 by Xeferah

[gG-Unknown]

1 hour ago, Chris said:

Psionic Triangulation may still need a bit of a nerf anyway. +50 might be a bit excessive.

If you change it, then make the same  change  to "no move bonus"  for snipers.  Idea is - keep  amount of  numbers of different bonuses low. Which mean, you can write  to wiki-guide:

List of  10 situations to get high bonus which is 50% to  hit

List of 15 situations/features/skills to get low bonus which 25% to  hit

Easy to remember. Baldurs gate3 has so precise and so complicated rules that  they needed a TEAM of people just to understand it. Do not fallow this path. Thanks

[Xeferah]

2 hours ago, Xeferah said:

If the numbers are only that low, then I'm gonna look more into it. I mean, 108.5% accurate is completely doable on commander if I use cover and smoke. I'm gonna experiment a bit more with this, as again, only 110% accuracy is not bad at all. Maybe it stacks or so, I'll experiment a bit more.

Maybe it's not the aim that annoys me, but the damage range? I have seen the same shot from aliens (with reloads) do damage ranging from 8 to 64. I have no idea how exactly armour works, but I do think the range in damage might be my issue? I also think that armour before the second upgrade 'feels' kinda useless, most likely due to the big damage range. Only after getting pretty high armour my soldiers will reliably survive an alien shot.

[skaianDestiny]

Just going to link my thread here too so it's in one place.

 

[Skitso]

1 hour ago, Xeferah said:

Maybe it's not the aim that annoys me, but the damage range? I have seen the same shot from aliens (with reloads) do damage ranging from 8 to 64. I have no idea how exactly armour works, but I do think the range in damage might be my issue? I also think that armour before the second upgrade 'feels' kinda useless, most likely due to the big damage range. Only after getting pretty high armour my soldiers will reliably survive an alien shot.

Damage can be anything between 50% to 200% of the base damage. You can think of it as some kind of a damage location model. (Leg vs. Head for example)

@Chris, I think it would be a good idea to communicate these "critical hits" with unique hit sfx and particles (more blood etc) and maybe larger damage numbers to really drive home the fact that this shot really hit where it hurt.

Edited July 24, 2024 by Skitso

[Xeferah]

2 hours ago, Skitso said:

Damage can be anything between 50% to 200% of the base damage. You can think of it as some kind of a damage location model. (Leg vs. Head for example)

@Chris, I think it would be a good idea to communicate these "critical hits" with unique hit sfx and particles (more blood etc) and maybe larger damage numbers to really drive home the fact that this shot really hit where it hurt.

I know the damage range from 50 to 200%, but that is "only" a factor of 4. I would swear I got factors of 8 in difference.
And I totally agree, make critical hit SFX and particles! Including for when you don't see the numbers or health of the enemy, it's still always fun to know you scored a critical hit. And it also helps rationalise if you lose a soldier when it was through a critical hit.

[Xeferah]

1 hour ago, Xeferah said:

I know the damage range from 50 to 200%, but that is "only" a factor of 4. I would swear I got factors of 8 in difference.
And I totally agree, make critical hit SFX and particles! Including for when you don't see the numbers or health of the enemy, it's still always fun to know you scored a critical hit. And it also helps rationalise if you lose a soldier when it was through a critical hit.

This is an example of random damage: my shield guy gets a barrage of fire. This shield is destroyed, he has Warden Armor with 30 armour. He takes: 0 damage, 0 damage, and 3 damage from three shots.
My assault also has 30 armour, and takes 40 damage from one shot. I just don't know how the damage mitigation works in this game, because to me this seems like really, really random damage and in no way in the 50%-200% range.

[Rakiii]

15 hours ago, Xeferah said:

This is an example of random damage: my shield guy gets a barrage of fire. This shield is destroyed, he has Warden Armor with 30 armour. He takes: 0 damage, 0 damage, and 3 damage from three shots.
My assault also has 30 armour, and takes 40 damage from one shot. I just don't know how the damage mitigation works in this game, because to me this seems like really, really random damage and in no way in the 50%-200% range.

Lets take a look at alien with plasma rifle (we can ignore penetration for now)

It does 56 base damage so damage dealt may differ from 28 to 112 (50-200% of the base)

Armor works as flat reduction

So if you have guardian with 30 armor it means you can take 28-30 = 0 damage taken up to 112-30 = 82 damage taken (or anything between those numbers)

Just note that alien weapons have also armor destruction so the next hit will be more deadly (in average)

[Rakiii]

22 hours ago, Xeferah said:

I also noticed a big lack in funding, so I started a new game. In the first month I had 4 labs and 4 engineering. Those 4 engineering really save me here, and I intend to expand that to much more soon. I hope to use one base for a massive 4 x 4 (=16) engineering, and see how that works with income :-)

So far, I'm on day 109, have 250K in cash, have two additional bases that both have a hangar and a radar array. My main base has:

- med bay
- 3 hangars
- 2 generators
- 5 engineering
- 4 labs
- 6 living quarters
- 1 storeroom
- 1 shaft

Engineering produces $2625 per hour, which is 1.89M a month if they are idle. So yeah, IMO, rush those labs and engineering.

These structures produce $ per hour yes  but only if idle  but you want to research / produce things especially early on and you also need to pay for building them and upkeep per month (both for building and sallary for workers) + for an extra living

It´s not really that good without upgrade early on.

[Xeferah]

  

13 minutes ago, Rakiii said:

Lets take a look at alien with plasma rifle (we can ignore penetration for now)

It does 56 base damage so damage dealt may differ from 28 to 112 (50-200% of the base)

Armor works as flat reduction

So if you have guardian with 30 armor it means you can take 28-30 = 0 damage taken up to 112-30 = 82 damage taken (or anything between those numbers)

Just note that alien weapons have also armor destruction so the next hit will be more deadly (in average)

Thanks, I was looking through the Xeno wiki and I came to the same conclusion. That sure is a massive difference, taking 0 damage or 82 damage. Most soldiers don't have that kind of hitpoints, which explains the one-shots.

4 minutes ago, Rakiii said:

These structures produce $ per hour yes  but only if idle  but you want to research / produce things especially early on and you also need to pay for building them and upkeep per month (both for building and sallary for workers) + for an extra living

It´s not really that good without upgrade early on.

I made a short Excel with the numbers. You can get the advanced versions of the lab/engi the moment you do the cleaner base, which in my case was around day 60. As it takes 20 days to build, I would recommend having at least 4 ready to start building around day 40. Below are the numbers. The max adjacency is base off a 2 x 4 grid of engineering or lab. Short version: every engi lab pays itself back in around 90 days, the moment you upgrade to the advanced version.

The Max profit per month is based off the following: most left number: 1 engineering. Middle number: 1 engineering with +2 adjacency. Right number: 8 engineering total.

Advanced
	Engineering	With +2 adjacency	Max adjacency
Cost to build	500000	500000	500000
Personnel extra	5	7	7,5
Money per hour per engi	75	75	75
Cost per month per engi	25000	25000	25000
Revenue per month	270000	378000	405000
Time to build	20	20	20
Cost per hour per engi	34,72	34,72	34,72
Profit per hour	40,27	40,27	40,27
Days to break even	123,4	93,9	89,0
Max profit per month:	€ 145.000,00	€ 203.000,00	€ 1.740.000,00
Basic
	Engineering	With +2 adjacency	Max adjacency
Cost to build	500000	500000	500000
Personnel extra	5	7	7,5
Money per hour per engi	50	50	50
Cost per month per engi	25000	25000	25000
Revenue per month	180000	252000	270000
Time to build	20	20	20
Cost per hour per engi	34,72	34,72	34,72
Profit per hour	15,27	15,27	15,27
Days to break even	292,7	214,8	201,8
Max profit per month:	€ 55.000,00	€ 77.000,00	€ 660.000,00

[MartinSGill]

For me playing the most recent playthrough felt a bit surreal; felt like I ran straight into a wall.

I'm playing on soldier and always auto-complete fighter engagements (just not interested in them).

I felt as though I was constantly short of money, but my research was shooting along at a massive pace. Before I even managed to build accelerated rifles, I already had laser weapons researched. I was constantly having to stop engineering production because I had no money. I was selling as much stuff as I could but still never had enough money to keep up with the aliens.

At turn 155ish all hell broke loose.

• I had 2 bases (was building a third),
• lost the soviet union as a member.
• Had just found/eliminated an alien base in South America to bring Latin America back under 100 panic
• Had 4 interceptors and 2 phantoms (was slowly replacing the interceptors when I had money)

Suddenly I was swarmed with UFOs, all my fighters were wiped out in the first few engagements (sending out in 3 ship flights) and then I was just watching the panic levels skyrocket as all my fighters were being rebuilt. I managed to get another flight of fighters rebuilt and engaging, but they were just immediately wiped out again. Then the game ended with most of the work over 100 panic.

From my perspective the aliens escalated far too quickly and totally outpaced me. I could keep up technologically (research) but I had zero money to build that technology and once I could no longer out-number them (by adding more fighters to flights) I got wiped out.

I also never really felt that the game was warning me that things were spiralling out of control. I'd lost the odd fighter, but suddenly I just lost it all.

I doubt I'm the best player out there (hence soldier level) but that sudden wipe was demoralising. Can you get regions back? That's what I was trying to do with my new base when I got nuked.

[Rakiii]

My last playthrough went ok (commander IM). I think I had the most trouble with the second? abduction mission with lots of the wraiths near my ship.

I had no time (5 turns was really low) to save more than 1-2 civs. Besides that it went quite ok.

The economy was a bit better but still too tight. I wouldn´t mind more $ to fight (maybe research projects that offer 150k would be changed to 250k as before?).

For 5.0 I would aim not only for the final content but also for better art/map design and overall atmosphere of the game.

Changing weather, the sounds of creeping aliens, walking slowly to you, moaning and crying civils and all these ambient sounds that makes cramped atmosphere would be really cool.

Different sounds for normal and critical hits (both for aliens and troops) with special animations and things like that.

Also maps feel a bit flat, void and hollow compared to many CE maps from X1. All little details such as "tufts of grass flying in the wind" that creates right atmosphere are missing.

Thank you for reading and making the game better:)

Edited July 27, 2024 by Rakiii

[kyu bey]

Automed Module now heals +5HP a turn (previously +25HP). It is therefore still excellent for healing Bleeding Wounds, but it does not make Medikits completely redundant.

^this is at best: a motivation to move even slower after taking damage at mission like ufo crash / alien base (TLDR no turn limit).
At worst: soldier death rate up.

[Xeferah]

On 7/28/2024 at 10:56 AM, kyu bey said:

Automed Module now heals +5HP a turn (previously +25HP). It is therefore still excellent for healing Bleeding Wounds, but it does not make Medikits completely redundant.

^this is at best: a motivation to move even slower after taking damage at mission like ufo crash / alien base (TLDR no turn limit).
At worst: soldier death rate up.

I played a bit with this, and it's actually a good thing. As it was, I never ever used medkits after I got the automed. I mean, why would I? All soldiers are strong enough to carry one, why waste TU on heals? Even with +5 healing, I'm still not inclined to bring medkits really. I probably would if medkits could heal more (in total) as automeds, but as it's now, I don't really see a reason. The biggest use is stopping bleeds (4 bleeds when a soldier with a medkit is JUST out of reach is BRUTAL!). If I don't have to worry about bleeds, I can bring a soldier safely to safety, by just running back as far as possible.

[Xeferah]

About grenades: I noticed today, for the first time in 100+ hours of play, that enemies can use grenades. I think grenades are great, enemies should certainly use them, but the amount of times they are used are way too low. Once per 100 hours of gameplay is not nearly enough. Can the rate be increased?

[Skitso]

39 minutes ago, Xeferah said:

About grenades: I noticed today, for the first time in 100+ hours of play, that enemies can use grenades. I think grenades are great, enemies should certainly use them, but the amount of times they are used are way too low. Once per 100 hours of gameplay is not nearly enough. Can the rate be increased?

I agree, but as far as I know, only wraiths are currently able to throw grenades. I hope GH will add grenades later to other enemy types as well. Imagine cyberdrone spreading burst fire of grenades around it once a turn, sebillian burning it's surroundings with incendiary grenades etc.

Alien grenades are also currently a bit dull and too similar to human grenades. The game desperately needs something to push player to change tactics. So maybe slowly moving homing grenades, spreading poison gas etc.

[Xeferah]

4 hours ago, Skitso said:

I agree, but as far as I know, only wraiths are currently able to throw grenades. I hope GH will add grenades later to other enemy types as well. Imagine cyberdrone spreading burst fire of grenades around it once a turn, sebillian burning it's surroundings with incendiary grenades etc.

Alien grenades are also currently a bit dull and too similar to human grenades. The game desperately needs something to push player to change tactics. So maybe slowly moving homing grenades, spreading poison gas etc.

Oh, wow, just imagine gas grenades used by sectoids, to force you out of cover (or bring breathing masks) against those buggers with perfect aim! I love it!

[Rakiii]

4 hours ago, Xeferah said:

Oh, wow, just imagine gas grenades used by sectoids, to force you out of cover (or bring breathing masks) against those buggers with perfect aim! I love it!

I think that aliens could use more different type of weapons. The weapons with burst fire that can suppress your troops, Cannon that deals area damage so you are not 100% safe with shield. Maybe alien versions of smoke/frag/poison grenades etc. Aliens could also bring some Vehicles or Mechs to support their forces ..