Ground Combat Balance Discussion v18.51 Hotfix 3

[GizmoGomez]

Alright, so because the LMG will be less useful once temp squadsight is removed, should we leave it the way it is?

Also, I don't have the game installed at the moment (still waiting on v18 Stable Mac haha), is the Xenonauts LMG an M60? Technically it'd be a GPMG and not an LMG, then, but I think we've had that discussion before.

[GizmoGomez]

If it is an M60 (which I believe is correct, I just can't verify that atm) then a larger heavy penalty would make sense. However, then it should be more powerful than an assault rifle, shouldn't it? As far as damage goes, at least.

Now that I recognize that it's an M60 and not an M249 (or an earlier version of it, or whatever) I see the logic in your argument. It's a lot larger and heavier, and is therefore used differently. It would be more like a sniper, in that you don't rush with them, you keep them at the back.

Here's my thought. Perhaps we have two levels of inaccuracy for the M60:

Just after movement in that turn, firing from the hip = super inaccurate, mainly for suppressing.

If you've waited a turn (normal heavy penalty is gone) then it's up to your shoulder (or whatever) and is being fired more accurately.

If it's been two turns since movement, it's much more accurate, and therefore much more deadly, being able to accurately engage and dispatch hostiles at a distance.

A "very heavy" penalty can be added to this weapon to make it different from the regular heavy that DMRs and RLs use. (I use DMR rather than sniper rifle because honestly they are DMRs. Sniper rifles don't have as much of a place in this close of combat, imho.)

[StellarRat]

Alright, so because the LMG will be less useful once temp squadsight is removed, should we leave it the way it is?

Also, I don't have the game installed at the moment (still waiting on v18 Stable Mac haha), is the Xenonauts LMG an M60? Technically it'd be a GPMG and not an LMG, then, but I think we've had that discussion before.

It looks more like a SAW to me.

I think the heavy penalties on accuracy for moving and non-crouching fire should be increased even further and then we ought leave it alone until we see what effects the removal of temporary squad sight has on the game.

[StellarRat]

If it is an M60 (which I believe is correct, I just can't verify that atm) then a larger heavy penalty would make sense. However, then it should be more powerful than an assault rifle, shouldn't it? As far as damage goes, at least.

Now that I recognize that it's an M60 and not an M249 (or an earlier version of it, or whatever) I see the logic in your argument. It's a lot larger and heavier, and is therefore used differently. It would be more like a sniper, in that you don't rush with them, you keep them at the back.

Here's my thought. Perhaps we have two levels of inaccuracy for the M60:

Just after movement in that turn, firing from the hip = super inaccurate, mainly for suppressing.

If you've waited a turn (normal heavy penalty is gone) then it's up to your shoulder (or whatever) and is being fired more accurately.

If it's been two turns since movement, it's much more accurate, and therefore much more deadly, being able to accurately engage and dispatch hostiles at a distance.

A "very heavy" penalty can be added to this weapon to make it different from the regular heavy that DMRs and RLs use. (I use DMR rather than sniper rifle because honestly they are DMRs. Sniper rifles don't have as much of a place in this close of combat, imho.)

OK, our posts crossed. I like your suggestions. However, if it is an M60 every hit should be same damage and penetration as a sniper rifle. So, the people that want it less good are going to scream even more. LOL. I did mod it one time to be like a "real" M60 all setup. Man, it was fierce. Nothing survived. If you want to see what that is like just mod the damage and mitigation to equal the sniper rifle, give it about 50% more range than the assault rifle and watch the fireworks. Edited June 4, 2013 by StellarRat

[GizmoGomez]

OK, our posts crossed. I like you suggestions. However, if it is an M60 every hit should be same damage and penetration as a sniper rifle. So, the people that want it less good are going to scream even more. LOL. I did mod it one time to be like a "real" M60 all setup. Man, it was fierce. Nothing survived.

Haha, okay, fair enough.

So, what exactly do we want then?

Accuracy and damage in between an assault rifle and a DMR.

Accuracy penalties for two turns, so 0 turns after movement it's spray and pray, turn 1 it's pretty decent but still inaccurate, turn 2 it's accurate at a decent distance, longer than the assault rifle but shorter than the DMR.

Penetration in between the two as well.

There should be a larger than normal penalty for firing not crouched.

Can one fire while crouched over cover? This would be important to take into account.

[StellarRat]

Haha, okay, fair enough.

So, what exactly do we want then?

Accuracy and damage in between an assault rifle and a DMR.

Accuracy penalties for two turns, so 0 turns after movement it's spray and pray, turn 1 it's pretty decent but still inaccurate, turn 2 it's accurate at a decent distance, longer than the assault rifle but shorter than the DMR.

Penetration in between the two as well.

There should be a larger than normal penalty for firing not crouched.

Can one fire while crouched over cover? This would be important to take into account.

Well, my thought is that it is a SAW. (An M60 would almost always have a two man crew and would simply be too uber) If it is a SAW, then the damage and mitigation should be exactly the same as an assault rifle. It should have an effective range between the AR and Sniper and it should be horribly inaccurate if moving and/or not crouched. It definitely ought not to be nerfed in accuracy any further. There shouldn't be much of a problem firing it from half cover, in fact, the weapon itself provides some protection to the shooters head in that configuration. You see in your video that the bipod can easily be flipped down and it could have been fired that way from the ledge of the wall he was behind. That's my two cents.

[GizmoGomez]

Alright, cool. Sounds good to me.

Same as an assault rifle, just less mobility, more range, more accuracy after the heavy movement penalty is off.

[StellarRat]

Alright, cool. Sounds good to me.

Same as an assault rifle, just less mobility, more range, more accuracy after the heavy movement penalty is off.

More shots in each burst too, that's a BIG difference. Now that WE are in complete agreement, do you want to break the news to Aaron or should I? LOL.

[GizmoGomez]

Haha, I got a response from Chris about accuracy, you can talk to Aaron.

Oh, and more suppression than an assault rifle. Maybe two rounds, three rounds would be enough to suppress? What do you think suppression should be like? Or is it good as it stands?

[StellarRat]

Haha, I got a response from Chris about accuracy, you can talk to Aaron.

Oh, and more suppression than an assault rifle. Maybe two rounds, three rounds would be enough to suppress? What do you think suppression should be like? Or is it good as it stands?

I never understood how suppression worked completely. I think it goes by burst not by bullet. But I think it's OK as is.

As a side note: One thing I don't like about the suppression mechanics is that you can actually hit and wound someone (alien or human) and not suppress them. You'd think explosions and actual wounds would be the most suppressive of all things you can do to the enemy. I had the "opportunity" (long story) to be close to a dynamite explosion once and I couldn't do S#$% for about five minutes even though I wasn't really hurt (except for my ears). IMO, any hits that do damage from any weapon should have a very high suppression chance. I don't know about you, but when I get hurt that tends to immediately stop me from doing whatever it was I was engaged in.

[GizmoGomez]

Yeah, that would make sense. Maybe a fraction of the damage done is added on as suppressive damage? That way a 5.56mm round is more suppressive than a 9mm round (as it would be IRL, although either would make me drop to the ground.)

[Waladil]

Guys. Guys. I'm not sure why you're only talking about the actual LMG itself -- the ballistic one.

Yes, you can make a lot of realism points about whether it's an M60 or a Minimi and what the damage should be with a 5.56 or a 7.62x51 round, but you're forgetting a very very important point: For about 80% of the game, you will be using a FICTIONAL weapon of laser, plasma, or MAG type. There is no "realism" argument for those weapons. So we should be discussing LMG balance in general, and we can ignore things like relative bullet accuracy. There's no reason a plasma LMG has to follow the same rules a real LMG does.

So dropping a laser machine gun's damage to the same as the laser assault rifle's damage makes perfect sense. Making a plasma machine gun less accurate than a plasma carbine also makes sense, because we can MAKE IT ALL UP.

If you want to be a real stickler for realism, then we can implement a balance for ballistic weapons that gets changed to the "real" balance in the later tiers. Heck, it even makes sense that you'd want to bring lots of heavy weapons until you can advance tech. It wouldn't actually affect most of the game's balance because it'll be obsolete by end of month two.

[GizmoGomez]

If you have been reading the same thing I have, we're only using the real thing as a basis for how the LMG in game should be. We're not advocating making it exactly how it would work IRL.

Are we?

If we were, I didn't notice. I was just trying to make a logical weapon that is balanced against being too powerful, but without making it too weak at the same time.

It's a heavy weapon, therefore it's more powerful than regular assault rifles. This extra power comes from a longer range, extra suppression factor, more bullets fired per burst, and a higher number of bullets per magazine.

The trade off is that it's cumbersome to use, meaning that if you fire after moving in the same turn, you take a very large accuracy penalty. However, when you've "taken the time" to "set it up" by staying in the same place for a turn (or two turns would be cool, I think. Stellar's convinced me) it would lose the accuracy penalty and be very effective.

The two turns would allow us to make the accuracy penalty really high for moving and firing (so basically unless he's right in front of you you won't hit), moderately high for staying still for a turn (as you'd expect, moving up and staying still a moment you'd be more accurate) and the accuracy would be pretty darn good once you've stayed still long enough (to get a good position with the bipod and such). Does that sound good?

EDIT:

Also, all of these things would be extended to the later tiers as well. We're talking about balancing all the LMGs, not just ballistic.

Edited June 4, 2013 by GizmoGomez

[StellarRat]

Guys. Guys. I'm not sure why you're only talking about the actual LMG itself -- the ballistic one.

True, but the base mechanics of how heavy weapons work won't change. So, I think our discussion is relevant if bit off track. I think the main point is that heavy weapons shouldn't be very useful until they are set up properly. Both for balance and to have some link to reality. BTW, I'm still using ballistic weapons and I'm well into October on my game now. Two casualties so far for the entire game and both were bad mouse clicks. I've got one laser rifle built and Wolf armor on two guys.

I really like the idea of having a weapon that you can bring up, get ready, and blow the crap out of any aliens that are dumb enough to hang around in one spot too long. They've got their plasma cannons and we've got our launchers and scatter/LMG weapons. It adds another facet to the tactical thinking in the game.

Edited June 4, 2013 by StellarRat

[GizmoGomez]

Yeah, instead of just moving all of your guys up constantly like it is now, having a decently long range LMG (and sniper/DMR and rocket launcher) allows us to inflict heavy damage from a distance, but only if we take the time to set them up in a good position. Just like actual tactics used today are, I'd expect.

I mean, it makes no sense to rush your RL guy, does it? That's what ARs and shotguns/carbines are for.

Leave the heavy guys closer to the rear, move them into a good position that covers a decent area, and leave them. Since they're nice and set up, it makes sense that they would get really effective.

EDIT:

One question: Do plasma cannons (and any other relevant alien weapons, like maybe heavy plasma?) have the heavy tag on them? Stronger aliens might ignore that, though. Hmm...

[Sathra]

Yeah, they have the 'Heavy' tag. P-Cannons and HP.

Could also have the MG weapons have the same damage as rifles, but armour mitigation more in line with precision rifles. So they've good against armoured troops still, but only really as good as rifles against lightly armoured.

[GizmoGomez]

Sure, that'd work. I'd appreciate that.

[Snarks]

I'm a little worried that this might lead to squad composition where 1 or 2 guys scout (probably with a pistol) while everyone else sits back and bombards the enemy with machine gun fire, sniper fire, and rocket launchers, making assault rifles and shotguns even less appealing than they are now. The idea should be that assault rifles and shotguns should be the most versatile and thus more prevalent on the battlefield to account for changing conditions.

On another note, it does seem that LMGs boost stats more quickly than other weapons. I just ran a new game where the LMG troop had an increase in strength, TU, accuracy, and HP while everyone else only got accuracy and TU despite him not really doing that much more if any. This is a problem because our playtesting experience may be skewered by LMG troops being better baseline due to higher stat increases.

[Sathra]

I think it does suppression and accuracy gains per bullet, not per action. So they gain accuracy really fast.

The strength gains are due to MG's being really damn heavy so it takes much less equipment to go over the strength gain threshold.

And the HP gain is simply due to gaining more of the other stats.

[Andeerz]

I think a better solution than the two turn accuracy penalty would be to just make the moving accuracy penalty higher than normal and also make the standing accuracy penalty (or crouching accuracy bonus) higher than normal as well, as well as perhaps a bonus for firing while at low rise cover or the corner of high rise cover (to mimic bracing against something and/or setting on a tripod). Actually, these could be features for all weapons that can vary in degree depending on values moddable in the config files. So I propose adding three new properties for weapons (crouching accuracy bonus modifier, bracing accuracy modifier (maybe differentiate between high rise and low rise....), and moving penalty modifier) and doing away with the "is heavy" feature, which would be replaced with the moving penalty modifier.

For example; an AR would have the normal crouching bonus modifier, bracing accuracy modifier, and a low (or zero...) moving penalty modifier (perhaps we could do this to replace the "is heavy" tag)

Sniper rifle would have a higher moving penalty modifier, perhaps as high as for an LMG, but have normal crouching bonus modifier and bracing modifier.

LMG would have a high moving penalty modifier, lower base accuracy (while standing) than the other weapons, but have a higher crouching bonus modifier, which would bring a crouched (or "set up") LMG a bit past accuracy of, say, a crouched AR. The LMG would also have a higher bracing accuracy modifier.

This set up would also address Aaron's concern about "special rules". There would be no special rules unique to LMGs since all weapons would operate off of this framework, and their differences and niche they fill in battle would be defined in some part by these parameters. Having these kinds of things available for editing would allow for easier balancing, more versatile modding, and better modeling of different weapons, including perhaps some types that aren't in the game.

Perhaps this post is more appropriate as a start to a suggestions thread...

EDIT: actually, perhaps a "bracing modifier" would be superfluous. Benefits of bracing against cover should be the same for everything if it were to exist in this game.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Andeerz

[GizmoGomez]

Seems like a cool idea, if properly implemented. So long as it's balanced, and the LMG isn't just made super inaccurate to make the other weapons more useful by comparison, then I'm good.

[StellarRat]

Andreez,

Well, I think that's pretty much what Gomez and I are advocating. I guess my overall point is (and this is not directed at you) that if you aren't willing or able to make each class of weapon different in a major way why bother to put it in the game? We could just have all our troops equipped with Star Wars blaster pistols and rifles and call it good, but that would be boring, IMO. Some weapons have blast, some are mobile, some are like the LMG. Let's keep the twist on all of them. Fortunately, they have different characteristics in real life so doing this doesn't take a lot of imagination and it is not hard for the players to swallow.

[relkin43]

Is there a reason that the way stats are gained from LMG's can't be changed? My friend is currently pwr lvling his troops with a full LMG squad except for two scouts.

If you implement the two turn thing, it won't fix the root of the issue which is the absurd broken rate at which troops stats increase. The lethality ofc doesn't help the situation but the same tactics will be employed 2 turn setup or not This is autocannon/rocket squads from XCOM all over again lol

[StellarRat]

Is there a reason that the way stats are gained from LMG's can't be changed? My friend is currently pwr lvling his troops with a full LMG squad except for two scouts.

If you implement the two turn thing, it won't fix the root of the issue which is the absurd broken rate at which troops stats increase. The lethality ofc doesn't help the situation but the same tactics will be employed 2 turn setup or not This is autocannon/rocket squads from XCOM all over again lol

That is a slightly different subject and could possibly be a bug. Someone proposed that each round fired added to your experience instead of the burst counting as one instance of fire. Obviously, the LMG would give huge increases in accuracy if that is the case since it fire five rounds at a time. I think someone from Goldenhawk is going to look into this.

[Aaron]

The high rate of soldier stats increase isn't so much a bug as something we just haven't gotten around to tweaking yet - that will have to wait until after the first pass of Geoscape rebalancing, so we know roughly how many missions to expect in a "typical" game.

I think you guys are suggesting slightly over-wrought solutions for the LMG balancing. A multi-turn setup time would be a lot of work to implement, as not only do you need to alter the combat code but you also need to add UI elements to explain the system to the player.

I think probably the first thing I should tweak for LMGs is simply the for moving before firing a heavy weapon, as it seems very weak right now; they probably also need a buff in their effectiveness at suppression. I'm going to wait too hear back from Sergey if there is a bug causing to hit more often than they should before touching their accuracy.

Also do keep in mind the bulk of the game does not use the ballistic weapons - a big drawback to the LMG later in the game is simply that they cost significantly more per unit than other, less specialised weapons.

Can you guys give me some feedback on suppression in general right now? Is it too easy/hard? Do any weapons perform too well at it? How does it escalate with later types of alien?

How about reaction fire? Is it happening often enough? I feel a bit like it isn't reliable enough at the moment to be worth saving the AP for it instead of just using them during your turn.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Aaron