A few balance suggestions

[reluxor]

Hi,

first of all, I want to express how please I am with the game. I am playing Ironman veteran. So far I went to december 1979 and met battlefield ship and heavy fighter. I made a break due to battlefield elevator bug

Nevertheless I wished to express very easy changes that would -in my mind- positively affect the feeling of the game. Most of these concern the geoscape/gestion point of view of the game so it is nothing complicated to change I believe.

1) research should be 2 times slower. It would implies

a) choosing your research instead of doing everything when it comes available (less linearity feeling),

b) hire more scientist (more choices on where to spend money)

2) construction prices by engeneers should be changed.

a) so far I never understood if I require alenium or alien alloys, which is very sad

b) how in hell can a gun cost half the price of an air craft ? I would lower prices of gun by 50% (guns at 100 000 $ should cost 50 000 $) while I would higher over prices by 100 % (aircraft and even more importantly armors, jackall at 50 000 $ seems fine)

3) then, I would say aliens are too passive (just like in original x-com but since then I though this was a big flaw). Obviously alien will certainly be more susceptible to die with respect to staying in cover until they see something, but the game would be much less boring and less frustrating if they moved more aggressively. I know IA is a BIG deal but, even if they moved randomly it would be better for personal implication in the game. To counterbalance the fact that they will be over-exposed, they could be slightly buffed in stat (health, accuracy).

4) Also, it is unpleasant that they are almost everytime alones.

a) it is unrealistic

b) they are easier targets

c) area of effect weapons are less likely to be usefull. It is GREAT that sometimes aliens move back when they see your forces, but they should do so only to REGROUP. if no alien is next to them they should just stay in cover.

5) influence of moral is not drastic enough to have any gameplay influence.

a) I would say at the begining if one xenonauts die, a couple of the more psychologicaly fragile xenonauts should panic.

b)Moreover I would say that ANY xenonauts who is alone should lost 1 moral point per turn. a pair should have a stable moral per turn, and a group of three or more should earn one moral point per turn.

6) did you think about giving an extra action point to xenonauts that didn't move for one turn ?

7) I think 90 action point should be a maximum for xenonauts

Okay I think that's all, sorry guys for my english. Hope it will help.

[Sathra]

Most of this is being addressed.

The AI isn't finished yet, so it will get better.

Chris has said that the game is progressing a bit too fast, so as well as slowing down the invasion research time might be increased. Its already been noticeably increased from what it was a couple of weeks ago.

Losing half your team should cause your troops to panic, if it happens quickly and you don't kill any aliens. Also, higher ranked troops strengthen morale of nearby troops, as does having nearby Xenonaut soldiers.

The UI is being changed, and the new UI does have the material costs listed. Not sure if everyone would agree to have costs for stuff increased, since many have trouble with income. The first fighter you can build is a modification, not built from scratch. The next one is built from scratch, and has a hefty cost in workshop time.

[crusherven]

To me the problem with the morale system is that we have so few soldiers. In XCOM, you could send 14 rookies on a mission, lose half, and still have enough to finish. With the Avenger you could send 26. Losing a few men would only slightly hurt your ability to cover the map, but would badly harm morale. In Xeno, if you send 6 men and a tank, a few casualties is half your squad. Losing even one man can leave a critical gap in your lineup.

This leads to the situation where losing a few men is already catastrophic. If the rest panic, it feels a bit like gratuitous punishment for messing up. On the other hand, it's hard to lose enough men to cause panic and still have enough to finish the mission. I guess the only solution to the latter is to greatly increase the morale lost per casualty. For the first problem I'm not sure what to do short of increasing squad size.

[Sathra]

I did have a situation where I had only 1 trooper left out of 8 during a mission. I lost the other 7 over the course of about a dozen turns, and at no point did anyone panic. Partly due to their rank and various medals, partly due to killing aliens enough that the morale loss was counteracted.