V18.3 Ground Combat Balance Discussion

[Ol' Stinky]

It feels odd that the choice from old X-Com - more rookies or a tank? - isn't much of a choice, though. I like controlling eight guys instead of six and a vehicle. I don't mind the vehicle being a viable alternative, but that's all it should be.

To use a similar analogy to yours, if I don't give anyone sniper rifles then yes, I should miss out on a useful niche that gun fills. However, that's a choice because it allows me to bring a machinegun for even more suppression, or explosives to destroy cover, etc. If the devs see this and decide that the only way to win is to make the sniper rifle a vital gun that you can only take one of, that's a design failure: they've stripped out an option and it makes the game that little bit more shallow.

On another note, I wish soldiers that reaction fire wouldn't trigger on enemies out of range. This is going to be especially annoying if they crack down on out-of-range accuracy

[StellarRat]

It feels odd that the choice from old X-Com - more rookies or a tank? - isn't much of a choice' date=' though. I like controlling eight guys instead of six and a vehicle. I don't mind the vehicle being a viable alternative, but that's all it should be.

To use a similar analogy to yours, if I don't give anyone sniper rifles then yes, I should miss out on a useful niche that gun fills. However, that's a choice because it allows me to bring a machinegun for even more suppression, or explosives to destroy cover, etc. If the devs see this and decide that the only way to win is to make the sniper rifle a vital gun that you can only take one of, that's a design failure: they've stripped out an option and it makes the game that little bit more shallow.

On another note, I wish soldiers that reaction fire wouldn't trigger on enemies out of range. This is going to be especially annoying if they crack down on out-of-range accuracy[/quote']If I remember the correctly, the vehicle in the old XCom pretty much filled the same role as the Hunter and tended to keep your troops casualties down too. I don't see much difference here. You can certainly go in with a lot of infantry knowing a couple are going to get shot.

[erutan]

I think the main difference is that the hunter has a bonus to vision range, so there is a mechanic in place that actively encourages scouting with it and supporting with heavy weapons. Normalizing vision ranges should make it more of a genuine choice.

I personally find having small arms people with grenades more "fun/engaging" but there is definitely a punishment for taking that route (unavoidable reaction fire).

[StellarRat]

I think the main difference is that the hunter has a bonus to vision range, so there is a mechanic in place that actively encourages scouting with it and supporting with heavy weapons. Normalizing vision ranges should make it more of a genuine choice.

I personally find having small arms people with grenades more "fun/engaging" but there is definitely a punishment for taking that route (unavoidable reaction fire).

I think making good use of smoke would probably be helpful if you don't want to use a vehicle. You can always set up where you think the aliens are and wait for the smoke to clear.

[Ol' Stinky]

Yeah, there's a case for using tanks in X-Com, but using a handful of rookies to scout instead was fine. Rookies were a bit more adaptable (flares, smokes, stun rods), and cheap as hell. If all four of those rookies died, you'd break even from killing eight aliens, and turn a profit on plasma pistols etc. All X-Com forces had the same vision iirc? It's been a while, but I think it was around 18-20 squares.

If one approach was better, whether it was tank or four more soliders, it certainly wasn't as big of a deal as +1 vision is in Xenonauts.

[erutan]

Smoke is great situationally, but realistically you aren't going to carry enough smoke grenades to cover every single movement between cover, which is what you'd have to do with vision the way it is now.

[MikeV37]

I think the problem isn't the 1 extra sight tile, but the fact that a tank is just way better than two men. I think in the old xcom you could have 14? Guys run out of your skyhawk, so 4 going down wasn't as much of an issue. You cant really pull a human wave tactic with 8 guys. Maybe the tank should he the equivalent of 3-4 men? I mean, there's certainly enough space in the chinhook for 10-12 people if there's no tank.

[StellarRat]

Smoke is great situationally, but realistically you aren't going to carry enough smoke grenades to cover every single movement between cover, which is what you'd have to do with vision the way it is now.

If you use smoke between your troops and suspected enemy positions PLUS existing terrain and objects it's possible to go a long way without exposing them to too much reaction fire.

[erutan]

@Mike, I like that! Have the chinook start with 10 soldiers, tank takes up 4. Give the tank a little more armor, make the aim not so useless. I tend to like smaller squads in games (JA2, XCOM) but with 10 I could do two groups of 5 and could absorb a loss or two to reaction fire a bit more easily. The number of aliens could also be upped to make missions a little more interesting while not being overly punishing in the early game.

Given I tend to run with 4 HW, if I had 6 small arms people it'd give a nice balance. Then go to 12/14 I guess?

@Stellar - I'll have to give using it more precautionarily a try. I haven't played since 18.4, and didn't have as much time in 18.3 than 18.1, so my hunterless tactics didn't have a chance to fully evolve.

[Max_Caine]

I can why Chris was going with 8 soliders to start with. I can't find the posts atm, but there were a few complaints about how boring the early levels were, and that's partly (only partly!) down to the amount of time it takes to handle 8 soliders at once. If the number of soliders is cranked up, then the amount of time taken per turn is cranked up as well. Bear in mind there is a maximum number of solider (16), and we're going to need around 16 soliders come late-game to make the big BIG UFOs feel large by having adequate crew in them.

[erutan]

Fair point, hence me saying that the number of aliens should be upped a bit in earlier craft... I think that'd be more fun but it's an opinion. I'd rather take a bit longer if there are more encounters than move less soldiers around that don't engage in combat in often. Chris has mentioned somewhere possibly making it 8/10/12 instead of 8/12/16 or w/e it is now. I suppose we could keep it at 8 but have the hunter take 3 slots, but then you'd just be 4 HW and one backup spotter heh.

I feel like 8 balanced soldiers is a more enjoyable playstyle than scout + 6 (mostly HW), but it's less effective - being able to absorb attrition due to reaction fire a little easier would balance things out a bit. That could/should also be modified by making all friendly vision ranges the same, increasing the TUs/accuracy penalty for HW, changing weapon accuracy/range, etc, so it's not a "necessary" thing though.

[StellarRat]

Fair point, hence me saying that the number of aliens should be upped a bit in earlier craft... I think that'd be more fun but it's an opinion.

I thought the Hunter took the place of 4 troops. Am I wrong? Or do you think 10 soldiers early on is not enough?

As far as more aliens go...I like the idea more than I like the idea of "better" aliens. It's always more fun to blow more stuff up! I think we could use more aliens in general. Mathematically, more aliens vs. better aliens makes little difference as far as the end result, but from a fun perspective I think more is better.

[Ol' Stinky]

Fair point, hence me saying that the number of aliens should be upped a bit in earlier craft... I think that'd be more fun but it's an opinion. I'd rather take a bit longer if there are more encounters than move less soldiers around that don't engage in combat in often. Chris has mentioned somewhere possibly making it 8/10/12 instead of 8/12/16 or w/e it is now. I suppose we could keep it at 8 but have the hunter take 3 slots, but then you'd just be 4 HW and one backup spotter heh.

I feel like 8 balanced soldiers is a more enjoyable playstyle than scout + 6 (mostly HW), but it's less effective - being able to absorb attrition due to reaction fire a little easier would balance things out a bit. That could/should also be modified by making all friendly vision ranges the same, increasing the TUs/accuracy penalty for HW, changing weapon accuracy/range, etc, so it's not a "necessary" thing though.

Maybe there could be a hidden modifier, based on difficulty level, affecting the number of aliens on light scout/normal scouts. So for the first number of fights against a lightscout, you only face four or five aliens. Something like:

Easy: 3 low number alien encounters

Normal: 2

Hard: 1

Insane: 0

I've increased the number of aliens you get in the scouts because otherwise, the game gets boring really fast.

[erutan]

Hunters take the place of 2 troops. Right now it's 8 troops or 6 + hunter in the charlie. As is the game favors scouting with the hunter due to sight range and plunking away at whatever it sees with heavy weapons...

[Sathra]

I just made the number of aliens in the first 3 UFO types random. It can get pretty crazy at times (16 aliens in a corvette) but the maps are no longer boring because there are aliens everywhere.

Flanking is damn important, since you really don't want to run out of ammo and it can take alot of shots to down a single alien (damn you weak AP lasers!)

[Jaran]

So how many spots does a hunter take? 2 or 4? If only 2, then wouldn't it be an okay compromise to increase starting personnel slots to 10 and increase hunter's size to 4? This would leave tank+soldiers combo the same but would make only soldiers strategy bit more manageable.

[Sathra]

There was something odd with how the game does things that made the tank work the way it is. Not sure what it is now.

[Shoggoth]

A suggestion I would make is to alter the Wraith's crazy teleporting behavior as soon as possible--I get that teleporting is their 'thing' but they might do it less often, or in a less cowardly way. Chasing one of those things down on a large map with only a few xenonauts alive is maddening.

[Lightzy]

I think maybe allow the wraith it 4-5 teleports max in combat. teleporting must cost some energy or something

[Omots]

When only two flares per soldier were issued, I thought I'd like to have unlimited flares. In hindsight, this might have been over reaction because they couldn't be thrown over objects, and provided inadequate illumination - making night missions a near certainty men would return in body bags. I absolutely dreaded night missions to the point that I was waiting for daylight before starting a crash-site mission.

Now that they can be thrown over objects, and are providing adequate illumination, I realize I just had a huge frustration level. I'm disappointed to discover that I no longer feel a bit of terror gnawing at me throughout a night mission. I don't mean they're no longer risky, but being able to throw as many flares as I want without having to give a thought to judicious use of a limited resource goes against the essence of the game.

It seems appropriate to make flares a choice just as with frag, smoke, flashbang, etc. I enjoy having to make decisions about how much and what to outfit for a mission.

[erutan]

Maybe have 3 of them show up in your quick grenade slot, but still take no space/weight? It'd be annoying to have to change every roles loadout between night/day.

[Omots]

IMHO, having to adapt the loadout to the mission at hand is an integral layer of planning/decision making, and flares are part of the mission kit.

That said, I could live with 3 in the quick grenade slot, even though I would prefer to change the loadout as needed. Two flares was definitely too few; by adding 6 to 8 more flares, they would no longer be a major source of frustration, yet they would still require resource management in the field - especially with the larger terrain maps.

In any case, having Tardis like storage that allows a soldier to carry an unlimited supply of anything diminishes the 'based in reality' element.

I do like the size of the illuminated area, and the duration of the flare; just wish the problem with intervening objects sometimes cutting short the throw distance was fully resolved.

[erutan]

Flares are pretty lightweight - as much as I enjoy equipping my soldiers I don't want to go down each one (especially late game when there are larger dropships) every time I have a night mission and take out a grenade and drop in a few flares, then go back and remove them for a daylight mission.

It'd also suck if you mistimed when your transport got somewhere and did a night mission without flares.

[Hairyscreech]

Erutan - That is exactly what I was just about to type, nothing more frustrating than mistiming a mission and if that meant no flares then it would really suck.

[Dranak]

I think 3-4 flares would be a pretty good balance of having enough to be able to use them liberally, but still limited enough that you still have to be slightly cautious about throwing them everywhere or risk running out.