Milestone 5 - Official Feedback / Game Balance Thread

[gG-Unknown]

Aliens, probably Mantid and certainly Lizards, use gas grenade on unarmed friendly civilian.

FIX: Force  Aliens never use grenades on friendly civ  faction (or even civilians with weapons). Aliens should use grenades only against soldiers.

 

BTW: Amount of grenades available  to aliens is  just right. Grenade attack is surprise but not to often. Gas_grenade dmg is also set well, it  is not devastating but certainly an issue which need  to be solve quickly. Good work here.

 

Cleaners with gas mask have no gas based attack. I think that a short range spray weapon would be nice. A cone of gas 3 tiles long, 3 tiles wide (e.i. triangle shape in front of the cleaner) would fit the setting.

Edited March 4 by gG-Unknown

[Skitso]

2 hours ago, gG-Unknown said:

Aliens, probably Mantid and certainly Lizards, use gas grenade on unarmed friendly civilian.

FIX: Force  Aliens never use grenades on friendly civ  faction (or even civilians with weapons). Aliens should use grenades only against soldiers.

 

BTW: Amount of grenades available  to aliens is  just right. Grenade attack is surprise but not to often. Gas_grenade dmg is also set well, it  is not devastating but certainly an issue which need  to be solve quickly. Good work here.

 

Cleaners with gas mask have no gas based attack. I think that a short range spray weapon would be nice. A cone of gas 3 tiles long, 3 tiles wide (e.i. triangle shape in front of the cleaner) would fit the setting.

Yeah, I agree. Xenonauts' gas masks are underutilized as it is. Giving Cleaner soldiers some tear gas or smoke grenades would make sense. Crashed UFOs should also have fire, smoke or hazardous fumes to give me more reasons to equip soldiers with gas masks? Alien bases atmosphere could be poisonous in some rooms?

[gG-Unknown]

1 hour ago, Skitso said:

Yeah, I agree. Xenonauts' gas masks are underutilized as it is. Giving Cleaner soldiers some tear gas or smoke grenades would make sense. Crashed UFOs should also have fire, smoke or hazardous fumes to give me more reasons to equip soldiers with gas masks? Alien bases atmosphere could be poisonous in some rooms?

Before you add morre gases, Gas mask should get an overhaul towards SITUATIONAL defensive counter measure.

Otheerwise, Current mask is just a weight in the inventory. No gameplay, you either sacrifice the weight or not, that is all.

If you add more gases, include enviromental (rooms) then gas mask turns into a mandatory weight in backpack. No gameplay.

Proposal : Mask is ON-OFF equipment controlled by an icon in the grenade area. Soldier could have a mask in the inventory then take it on - off baseed on situation.

Mask ON gives bonus  - safe against gas, reduce radioactive dmg from burning UFO engine,

Mask ON give penalty - reduced sight range -2 tiles, reduced accuracy 1% per tile, reduced Reaction stat by 10%

These are quite severe penalty, so player have to balance, what is less harmful. Set mask on or offf ? Decision is SITUATIONAL.

Set mask on / off costs 20% TU

Edited March 4 by gG-Unknown

[Pietje666]

Never played the final mission, but gas masks are supposed to protect your soldiers from the air in the alien environment. 

In the past you could move your soldiers on top of the buildings in the missions where you would attack a Cleaner convoy, was there a reason that now you can't? 

During tactical missions you can't see what kind of medals a person already gained. So most of the times i gave the wrong person the kill. There's enough room in the inventory screen to show it.

Edited March 4 by Pietje666

[Rakiii]

I think the current implementation of Doomsday point system is a bit boring. It forces you to spam more or less the "reduce tension button".

I would prefer doing it through missions 90% of the time /the button should be one time per month thing or so/.

 

[gG-Unknown]

1 hour ago, Rakiii said:

I think the current implementation of Doomsday point system is a bit boring. It forces you to spam more or less the "reduce tension button".

I would prefer doing it through missions 90% of the time /the button should be one time per month thing or so/.

 

The main issue of Domsday clock is that force player save scum. Penalty for unsuccessful mission is so high that is equal to game over.

[Rakiii]

On 3/6/2025 at 11:49 AM, gG-Unknown said:

The main issue of Domsday clock is that force player save scum. Penalty for unsuccessful mission is so high that is equal to game over.

Yeah we need more missions with less harsh penalties aka eliminate VIP mission with infiltrators being involved etc.

[pwd]

In my playthrough on 5.5/5.6 on veteran I needed to spam reduce tension to stay alive. I didn't mind this, felt it provided tension, but I did wonder if the mechanic was too strong and I "should" have lost the game. 

Edited March 9 by pwd

[Wont Tell]

I really enjoyed my experimental branch playthrough. I haven't clicked on "Launch Launch Operation Endgame" yet in order to play more tactical missions with my lads and lasses and the amount and frequency of UFOs still feels great at this state, with phases of days when nothing would happen and then the occasional three days with five UFOs in the sky at the same time - I dig it. Feels neatly organic and unpredictable and the claim-bounty feature doesn't make it feel bad to miss out on crash sites because there's sometimes too many at a time to get to them all with only one dropship. 

In my stable branch playthrough quite a while back, it seemed to happen the air superiority UFO squads would line up better with the aliens trying to do something big, like a terror mission or base building (might have been random chance) - I reckon the aliens could put more to hunt down our interceptor squadrons or keep interceptors as seperate squads near a big ship instead of as part of their air combat entity, so they can engage human interceptors while the main ship continues doing it's thing.

Would like to build a seventh base ^^

I like the supporter/infiltator/OP system a lot. Not entirely sure if it helps too much with the cash/resource management but I appreciated how much this alleviates some of the early and mid game struggles.

Still missing an RPG-type weapon, let alone a high-tech version with waypoints - I wouldn't even mind if it took a whole turns worth of TU to reload - but the grenade launcher, as much as I like that one too, simply doesn't cut it late game, doing some 40 dmg on an armoured alien even with the fusion explosives upgrade. The hover tanks do a much better job at terrain destruction and their accuracy at range (at least with the range finder equipped) seems well tuned as well, the risk of missing the mark gradually increasing at larger distances. I like those as well.

Actuator might be better suited as a checkbox like jetpack and heavy armor as a 2x2 module in the backpack/belt makes having more strength near useless as the character runs out of place to put anything that the additional strength could carry and there's already too many more useful modules to put in there.

I concur with the folks who pointed out that the different weapon families are too similar and agree that "shotgun" doesn't seem right for things like a laser. Even if it's meant as a short-range/scatter blaster kind of weapon - additionally, the squad member icon weapon schematic is near identical to a rifle - a sniper rifle is way easier to tell apart.

Point blank misses which hit a different adjacent tile at wild angles still feel odd, almost comical.

Two cases of wanting to use a ten short volley of a fusion mg to remove an piece of cover only for the first shot to obliterate it yet all following 9 shots turning into puffs of particles in thin air instead of hitting what's behing the no longer existant cover.

More chaos/environmental destruction/fires/smoke/debris inside crashes UFO and more damage and crash impact traceson their hulls would be highly appreciated. It would look awesome it they would really get torn open when hit by fusion torpedos or the hulls deformed from impact on the ground, maybe even whole sections separated and the near-by terrain scorched or on fire where the UFO slid over, or UFOs crashed into buildings, tearing them apart and setting them ablaze.

The bullet holes on the UFO hulls look good, the scratchy splashes not quite so much. Dig the layout of the late game, large UFOs.

Small ship hangar in Alien base is an awesome room. Dig it. Missing music in alien base missions on occasion though the environmental noise track has s nice feel to it too to set a mood.

Dig the fusion weapon designs. Despite longer range, Fusion Lance still seems weaker than Gauss gatling, maybe mostly on account of it being a heavier payload. 

Footstep stomps on Colossus armour are great. In general, the Colossus and Vanguard suits look fantastic in-game and in-menu.

 

[Wont Tell]

Oh, and, about the Actuator - it might be less useless if it would raise the strength of a strong person as well, as in, go above 100 - if i put it on a 95 STR solider, it has exactly 0 effect because the strength only goes up the 5 points until 100 and therefore the weight added  by the modules itself complete eats up the additional carry capacity, resulting in a net gain of 0 capacity while eating up space in the soldiers inventory

[gG-Unknown]

49 minutes ago, Wont Tell said:

Oh, and, about the Actuator - it might be less useless if it would raise the strength of a strong person as well, as in, go above 100 - if i put it on a 95 STR solider, it has exactly 0 effect because the strength only goes up the 5 points until 100 and therefore the weight added  by the modules itself complete eats up the additional carry capacity, resulting in a net gain of 0 capacity while eating up space in the soldiers inventory

Every stat for every soldier or robot or alien, is capped at 100. It is for balance reasons. Once you get into game designer shoes, you would understand that a stat cap makes more balanced games in general.

[Wont Tell]

4 hours ago, gG-Unknown said:

Every stat for every soldier or robot or alien, is capped at 100. It is for balance reasons. Once you get into game designer shoes, you would understand that a stat cap makes more balanced games in general.

TU aren't hard-capped like that. Vanguard armor lifts TU above 100. The Strength stat is way less impactful than the amount of TU available. Capping the less impactful value to a value doesn't make it "good balancing" by itself.

And I think Vanguard armor is great while the Actuator module is near useless. But thank you anyway for your opinionated superciliousness. I've spent quite some time as game designer, team lead, vision keep, creative director and lead programmer on numerous projects.  You could have argued that the module is meant for early game and is meant to be useless near the endgame. That would have been a reasonable stance. What you said however, is not. And it's objectively false as far as hard-capped 100s are concerned.

[gG-Unknown]

After  battle  table need to use distinct colours

1. Survived use same colour as Wounded

Status Survived must be clear different to anything  else.  Those are  the dead but revived. Those have to shine above all.

FIX : For sake of consistency, Use similar scale (shades) of red colour as you use for wounded soldiers in Armoury screen.

It means, injured soldiers are light pink, wounded  orange, survived red

2. On top, the gray hatching pattern as background of health status makes information UNREADABLE !

I dont understand your graphic language, it looks to me that someone has an idea, then push it everywhere no matter what. You also ue same Gray hatching pattern  in armoury as background for items makes all items loose details,  looks horrible. You also use this toxic pattern as background for button like crouch(tactical panel), which is the exact opposite of visual standard. I mean,  standard since Xerox invented GUI in about 1980 says : If it is gray, with low contrast  it means "not readable = not active". Your GUI designer is truly revolutionary. He  said, fuck it - I make the revolution - gray and low contrast means active now. OMG.

 

FIX: Would you be so kind, make your game READABLE, remove all those gray hatching background from active buttons AND info panels AND item background?

Thank you a lot.

Edited March 23 by gG-Unknown

[gG-Unknown]

Consistency complain :

Some are naked numbers like 80    FIX: 80% Soldier Accuracy

some are % like Crouched bonus +10% >> Correct

Heavy armour is naked number, without any info. Perhaps it is penalty ? FIX : -5% Heavy Armour penalty

Range modifier +26 is probably Range Hit Bonus 4% per tile. FIX: +26% Range Hit Bonus

Why is Range Modifier gray if it is a bonus of same level as Crouched bonus ? I dont know, probably mistake.

x 0,90 Target Crouched >>  again lets be consistent FIX : -10% Target Crouched

Why is Taget Crouched gray if it is a bonus of same level as Crouched bonus ? I dont know, probably mistake.

x 0.95 Shot Accuracy >> It is cryptic, actually it is WEAPON accuracy  FIX : x 95% Weapon accuracy

-----------------

I tryed to  make result by my own, but cant   get same final number.  I made SUM all bonuses, then it is multiplicated by weapon acc.

It is  nice that you expose numbers to a player, but it does not have information value.

Edited March 23 by gG-Unknown

[ih8california]

regarding gas masks, my suggestion would be that there either be a separate "head" inventory that only mind shield or gas mask could occupy or it be a selectable option (ala the current implementation of the jetpack)

[Chris]

On 3/23/2025 at 3:18 PM, gG-Unknown said:

Consistency complain :

Some are naked numbers like 80    FIX: 80% Soldier Accuracy

some are % like Crouched bonus +10% >> Correct

Heavy armour is naked number, without any info. Perhaps it is penalty ? FIX : -5% Heavy Armour penalty

Range modifier +26 is probably Range Hit Bonus 4% per tile. FIX: +26% Range Hit Bonus

Why is Range Modifier gray if it is a bonus of same level as Crouched bonus ? I dont know, probably mistake.

x 0,90 Target Crouched >>  again lets be consistent FIX : -10% Target Crouched

Why is Taget Crouched gray if it is a bonus of same level as Crouched bonus ? I dont know, probably mistake.

x 0.95 Shot Accuracy >> It is cryptic, actually it is WEAPON accuracy  FIX : x 95% Weapon accuracy

-----------------

I tryed to  make result by my own, but cant   get same final number.  I made SUM all bonuses, then it is multiplicated by weapon acc.

It is  nice that you expose numbers to a player, but it does not have information value.

In general the display works fine here, the reason why some of the lines are displayed differently from others is because they're doing different things.

The soldier accuracy stat is 80. Displaying that as a percentage would be incorrect. Same with the -5 for armour; that's a flat reduction that takes it down to 75. If you displayed it as -5% then that would imply the number would vary based on the accuracy of the soldier (which it doesn't), However, the +10% crouch bonus is a percentage.

Similarly, the shot accuracy is dependent on the fire mode, not the weapon itself.

The maths works fine though, it's as follows:

80

-5 (75)

+10% (82.5) - btw you're right here that this is inconsistent with the other lines, this should say x1.1

x0.95 (78.375)

+26 (104.375)

x0.9 (93.9375)

= 94%

I'll look into the colours as well. I'm not sure why they're set up like they are.

[Chris]

I'm going to lock this thread now, just to prevent confusion. Any further discussion should be in the new thread here: