TL; DR. Summaries for people who want to catch up on the Beta balance conversations.

[Max_Caine]

With the Ground Combat Balance list currently on page 16, and the Geoscape balance list now on page 10, it can be a little difficult to keep up with everything that has been discussed so far. Therefore! I've made up a bullet-pointed list of what has been discussed in both threads, and present them here for your persual. These lists are as accurate as I can make them, but they will as off necessity lag behind the actual discussion itself.

Ground Combat Balance Discussion

(Up to page 20, top of page)

• Make flares more accurate (Page 1)
  
• Allow flares to be picked up (Page 1)
  
• Grenade arc need polishing (Page 1)
  
• Grenades hit cover they should fly over too often (Page 1)
  
• Pre-prepared crash mission too far from base (Page 1)
  
• Possbility to throw medkits+other items to soliders (Page 1)
  
• Give borders of map 1/8 black border of nothingness (Page 1)
  
• Aliens seem to be able to shoot a lot+have APs for reaction fire (Page 1)
  
• Autotarget aliens spotted within visual during night mission (Page 2)
  
• Sebillians feel too much like tanky Caesans (Page 3)
  
• Give Sebillians either poor accuracy or smaller sight range (Page 3)
  
• Make Sebillians more aggressive (Page 4/5)
  
• Buzzard armour: Vertical movement too restricted (Page 4)
  
• Buzzard armour: Make horizontal movement cheaper? (Page 4)
  
• Scimitar perhaps too strong (Page 5)
  
• Alien placement fairly predictable (Page 5)
  
• Better synergy between different racial types (Page 5/6)
  
• 8 troops in Chinook or 6+1 vehicle don't seem enough for Terror missions (Page 6)
  
• Heavy plasma too long range and too accurate for research description (Page 6/7)
  
• Plasma Cannon too accurate for an instant death weapon (Page 6/13)
  
• Tie grenade range to strength (Page 6/7/8)
  
• Improve grenade accuracy (Page 6/7/8)
  
• Too easy to skillup soliders (Page 7)
  
• Really easy to skillup soliders carrying LMGs (Page 7)
  
• Aliens all huddle in control room in base assault mission (Page 8)
  
• You get flares in a base assault mission at night, but not during the day? (Page 8)
  
• Demo charges underpowered (Page 8/9/10)
  
• Alien Alloys+Alienium should be loot from completed alien base (Page 8)
  
• Rocket launcher always has normal rocket even after upgrading rockets
  
• C4 seems to work with: 145 damage, 1.5 tiles radius, 5 tiles range, 80 accuracy. (Page 10)
  
• Predator armour dissapointing (not nearly protective enough) (Page 10/11)
  
• Teleporting wraiths a real PITA - very hard to track down. (Page 10)
  
• Rifles seem to be pea-shooters (Page 11)
  
• Increase effectiveness of stun grenades (Page 12)
  
• Decrease effective of stun effect of smoke grenades (Page 12)
  
• Smoke should apply damage for each tile walked into (Page 12)
  
• C4 should be incediary provided fire/smoke is set to 0% (Page 14)
  
• Solider survived after being turned into zombie (Page 14)
  
• Ammo usage quite low (Page 15)
  
• Androns feel the same as Sebillians (when at tier 2), but with more Plasma Cannons (Page 15)
  
• Researched Plasma weapons (tier 3) before lasers (tier 2)! (Page 16)
  
• Aliens seem to have unlimited sight range, constantly superior reactions and flawless accuracy (Page 16)
  
• Sentinel armour doesn’t seem to give superior sight range (Page 16)
  
• Aliens feel too accurate (Page 17/18)
  
• 8 different changes possible to adjust alien superiority (# aliens, weapon damage, hit points, vision range, weapon TU costs, weapon accuracy, shooting skills, dumb AI) (Page 17)
  
• Benefits of heavy weapons far outweigh cons. (Page 17)
  
• Increase weight of MG/RPG (Page 17)
  
• Updated accuracy formulae proposed to address extreme range/short range issues (Page 18/19)
  
• Aliens will shoot regardless of whether they can hit, regardless of what the percent chance to hit is (Page 19)
  
• If an alien can see one squaddie, they can see all squaddies (Page 19)
  
• Resisted reaction check, target reaction score verses shooter reaction (see Mutual Surprise and You!) (Page 20)
  
• Some expectation that aliens would reaction fire more because they are in a defensive role most missions (Page 20)
  
• Certain groups of aliens to attack in aggressive groups on dropship landing (Page 20)

Geoscape Balance Discussion

(Up to page 13, top of page)

• Adjust ticker so we see more smaller middle-sized craft (Page 1)
  
• Adjust alien waves so they appear more frequently (Page 1)
  
• Increase number of cities present on Geoscape (Page 2)
  
• Alien bases perhaps TOO influential on if you loose a country or not (Page 3)
  
• Air combat: Too many battles forgone conclusion (e.g. Scout vs. Foxtrot, light scout vs. anything) (Page 3)
  
• Air combat: Reduce hp or overkill on light scout to encourage use of autocannon (Page 3)
  
• Air combat: Introduce evade function to light scout (Page 3)
  
• Air combat: Improve AI on UFOs to incorporate more tactical thought (Page 3)
  
• Air combat: Boost speed and length of evade (fighters can't evade missiles) (Page 3)
  
• Air combat: Give heavy fighter missiles more fuel so they can complete a second pass (Page 4)
  
• Nation funding not significant enough to justify a second base (Page 4)
  
• Cruisers give too much alienium and alloys (Page 5)
  
• Smaller terror missions to start with (Page 6)
  
• Radar range shortened a little (Page 7)
  
• More global attrition (Page 7)
  
• Alien should be able to work where Xenonaut bases are from external sources rather than just flying over it (Page 7)
  
• More reasons to build bases elsewhere (Page 8)
  
• Escort fighters to keep current range (Page 8)
  
• Research times too short (Page 8)
  
• Ramp up terror missions later in game (Page 9)
  
• Crashed UFOs to generate "crashed UFO" events (Page 9)
  
• Missions to occur simultaneously more often (i.e. one base cant cover them all) (Page 9)
  
• Increase number of air superiority missions (Page 9)
  
• Squadrons to follow behind dropships rather than directly attached (Page 9)
  
• Slower speed when aircraft hits "outer band" of aircraft range (Page 9)
  
• Have multiple missions on occasion (not all the time) (Page 10)
  
• A single team should not be able to cover everywhere (Page 10)
  
• Allow instead of global range, aircraft to refuel at stopping points across map (Page 10)
  
• It should be more efficient to have multiple strike bases than just one (Page 11)
  
• By the time additional bases become available, aliens are much tougher than starting aliens. Squaddies in new bases are not as strong, or well equipped as first base. (Page 11)
  
• Decrease production time for advanced aircraft (Page 12)

Edited April 18, 2013 by Max_Caine

[Max_Caine]

Summaries updated, now with page numbers added.

[GizmoGomez]

You're a boss, Max_Caine, just saying.

[Sathra]

Androns feel the same as Sebillians, but with more Plasma Cannons (Page 15)

With lasers​. Otherwise they're goddamn terrifying.

[Max_Caine]

Edited. Anything else that I have missed, or have not portrayed accurately (as accurately as a one-line bullet point can permit) please put up here. And thanks GG!

[Assoonasitis]

Androns feel the same as Sebillians, but with more Plasma Cannons (Page 15)

With lasers​. Otherwise they're goddamn terrifying.

Yeah, WTH is this, some NES game just with fancy palette swaps?

[StellarRat]

Edited. Anything else that I have missed, or have not portrayed accurately (as accurately as a one-line bullet point can permit) please put up here. And thanks GG!

There was a discussion about decreasing the LMG range somewhat, making it's damage equal to AR, and upping the suppression of AR's somewhat i.e. LMG too good, AR not good enough. You sort of covered that in separate bullet points. Also, a request for more flares on night and base missions. Or allowing the player to take more if they want to. Edited April 16, 2013 by StellarRat

[tirlimpimpim]

One issue with medals, my guys stopped receiving them after 20 kills and 30 mission, though some have 47missions and over 30 kills - need more medals for my heroes!

[Max_Caine]

Guys, I know that you want to banter, but could I ask for the purpose of this thread could comments please be kept in reference to the OP - whether it be requests for edits (I've yet to do!), or improvements to the format, or anything else that refers to the OP. Thank-you for your understanding.

[Max_Caine]

Edited up to current pages. StellarRat, I can't find the pages for the things you have pointed out. Which pages are they on?

[Pinetree]

You might want to change the page numbers to post numbers as you can set the number of posts per page in the forum settings so page numbers are relative to each user.

[StellarRat]

There was a discussion about decreasing the LMG range somewhat, making it's damage equal to AR, and upping the suppression of AR's somewhat i.e. LMG too good, AR not good enough. You sort of covered that in separate bullet points. Also, a request for more flares on night and base missions. Or allowing the player to take more if they want to.

Now that I'm thinking it I think they were covered in different threads and probably should been put in the two balancing threads. But you've pretty much got the jist of them anyway. We really need a way to organized this balancing discussion better as it's scattered all over the place. Thanks for summarizing at least what's in the main threads.

[Chris]

Thanks for doing this. However tomorrow I'm going to dump the stickies in the "Old Thread" subforum when the new build comes out and then ask people to re-post summaries of their opinions (new or old) in the new threads, if they are still valid.

[Max_Caine]

Fair doos. Can I do somethng like this again, if the threads become too bulky?

[thothkins]

yup. great effort Max_Caine. I'll certainly be using your list to compare against future builds. It'll kick me into remembering to comment on them.