Ground Combat Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 3

[Ol' Stinky]

True, but not everyone is a grenadier or an assault troop. With an AR you can do anything, just not as well as a specialist weapon. So, it is a good all around weapon. If your grenade guy bites the dust an AR can still finish the job. Also, most slightly experience soldiers can get off a burst and one snapshot, so that's more like 120 points of damage. Plus the AR carries a lot more "ammo" than a grenadier can carry.

I don't have just one grenade guy, though. Most of my squad can be grenadiers on demand, all they have to do is hurl the sniper rifle to the floor.

Even if we allow the rifleman to burst fire and have a snap shot, he only equals the grenadier's damage, for more TUs spent.

[kabill]

Shotguns

I think there is a lacking element of risk vs reward in using closer range weapons, the risk should be higher but so should the rewards.

Problem - If the shotgun works like you assume it would (0-5ish tiles away = massive damage and high accuracy) then you would simply suppress and slaughter.

2-3 soldiers could do what it takes 5-8 to do now, which = bad.

Suppression is generally the problem as a Suppressed Alien = Harmless.

So you cant make shotguns work the way you would assume because they'd be seriously OP.

Add different levels of suppression that take away varying amounts of TU?

So you couldnt just "suppress and shotgun and Alien" You'd have to REALLY suppress an Alien before you could walk up and punch it to death.

Maybe even have "Panicked" if you over suppress them? In which case they might run away, or start shooting blindly?

Here is an idea.

Put a "Suppression" bar over the Alien's heads that fills up showing how suppressed the Alien is, and when it maxes out they become Panicked?

I'm not sure the shotgun would be any more overpowered in that situation than the precision rifle is at the moment, and probably still less so since if you miss you'll be exposed to a close range snap shot from an alien which will still have a fair chance of wounding/killing. Furthermore, I'd argue that if you've set up one or two soldiers to lay down suppressive fire and gotten another couple of soldiers close enough that they can move in for a kill, then you've earned it. Ans, in any case, if a suppressed alien is truly 'harmless' it doesn't matter what you're attacking it with afterwards (since it's harmless).

All this said, I do agree (ideally) with your point about suppression. Before I played the game, I assumed suppression would work basically as TU damage for being shot at (so the more you're shot at, the more TUs you lose) rather than a straight suppressed/not-suppressed. Personally, I think this would work better by making it less 'all-or-nothing'. But I can imagine changing mechanics like that isn't likely to happen at this point

In which case (some more feedback), suppression feels a bit too easy at the moment - it's very rare for me to encounter an alien and *not* be able to suppress it (because usually there's four+ soldiers all shooting against a single target, and burst fire seems to almost guarantee suppression if no one else can). This is against earlier aliens, mind, so maybe it drops off.

[Dranak]

I'm not sure the shotgun would be any more overpowered in that situation than the precision rifle is at the moment, and probably still less so since if you miss you'll be exposed to a close range snap shot from an alien which will still have a fair chance of wounding/killing. Furthermore, I'd argue that if you've set up one or two soldiers to lay down suppressive fire and gotten another couple of soldiers close enough that they can move in for a kill, then you've earned it. Ans, in any case, if a suppressed alien is truly 'harmless' it doesn't matter what you're attacking it with afterwards (since it's harmless).

All this said, I do agree (ideally) with your point about suppression. Before I played the game, I assumed suppression would work basically as TU damage for being shot at (so the more you're shot at, the more TUs you lose) rather than a straight suppressed/not-suppressed. Personally, I think this would work better by making it less 'all-or-nothing'. But I can imagine changing mechanics like that isn't likely to happen at this point

In which case (some more feedback), suppression feels a bit too easy at the moment - it's very rare for me to encounter an alien and *not* be able to suppress it (because usually there's four+ soldiers all shooting against a single target, and burst fire seems to almost guarantee suppression if no one else can). This is against earlier aliens, mind, so maybe it drops off.

Supressing early aliens is very easy, but it is quite difficult against later aliens unless you're dropping rockets near them. It could probably stand to be slightly harder for early aliens, and slightly easier for later ones.

[Mytheos]

I'm not sure the shotgun would be any more overpowered in that situation than the precision rifle is at the moment, and probably still less so since if you miss you'll be exposed to a close range snap shot from an alien which will still have a fair chance of wounding/killing. Furthermore, I'd argue that if you've set up one or two soldiers to lay down suppressive fire and gotten another couple of soldiers close enough that they can move in for a kill, then you've earned it. Ans, in any case, if a suppressed alien is truly 'harmless' it doesn't matter what you're attacking it with afterwards (since it's harmless).

All this said, I do agree (ideally) with your point about suppression. Before I played the game, I assumed suppression would work basically as TU damage for being shot at (so the more you're shot at, the more TUs you lose) rather than a straight suppressed/not-suppressed. Personally, I think this would work better by making it less 'all-or-nothing'. But I can imagine changing mechanics like that isn't likely to happen at this point

In which case (some more feedback), suppression feels a bit too easy at the moment - it's very rare for me to encounter an alien and *not* be able to suppress it (because usually there's four+ soldiers all shooting against a single target, and burst fire seems to almost guarantee suppression if no one else can). This is against earlier aliens, mind, so maybe it drops off.

This has nothing to do with the Sniper riffle.

If the shotgun works like you think it would = Shotgun do low damage at long range, but do High damage at close range and Shotguns are more accurate at close range.

This means if you suppressed an enemy, which we both agree is cake, you could simply use 1 soldier beyond Reaction Fire range to Suppress, and then afterwards, run in with a shotgun and murder the Alien.

As it is now, the shotgun's accuracy isnt that much higher, if it is even higher at all than a riffle at close range. Yes it does more damage but when combined with TU loss from moving into position and low accuracy, it's not likely to not kill the Alien...in which case it murders the guy with a shotgun.

I mean 20-30% chance point blank with a shotgun? Crazy low, and too low to risk over-extending your soldier with a shotgun.

If you bumped it up to as soon as suppression was achieved you were promised to hit and deal heavy damage...it would unbalance the whole game.

It would turn into half riffle / half shotgun, suppress and then run in and pop.

I was just saying if it were not so easy to suppress them, or it wasnt so static (you're suppressed? ok you cant hurt me) then you would be taking a greater risk, and therefore it "might" be ok to make shotguns more powerful.

I mean they still function ok as a breach weapon, but their use other than that is very limited.

[Mytheos]

But generally I feel its too easy to suppress them as it is, they dont panic, but neither do we yet...

And I would rather "Bleed" away their TUs vs shooting them at range and maybe getting lucky on the 1st shot and suppressing them, followed by 7 other soldiers just taking turns walking up to them and shooting them point blank...which seems dumb...

[kabill]

This has nothing to do with the Sniper riffle.

Sorry, wasn't clear. At the moment, you can do precisely what you are saying the problem would be with high damage shotguns. Only you do it with a sniper rifle. From across the map. Since they ignore cover, their hit chance is high, and they have a comparable damage with the shotgun. Only, the risk is smaller, since if you miss/fail to kill, you don't have any of your soldiers exposed or at close range. And, you don't have to have gotten a soldier close enough on previous turns to make sure they can get in close to make the kill-shot. That was the comparison I was drawing.

In other words, making shotguns more powerful would only seem, to me, to make them equivalent (there-abouts) to an already powerful combo (suppression + snipers) which, if snipers retain hypervelocity would seem fair. If snipers lose this, perhaps buffed shoguns would replace them as being the single viable strategy. Though, I'd still argue you'd have to work more for it than shooting aliens across the map.

In any case, I think we mostly agree - it's suppression that's the main issue since it overwhelmingly advantages the player over the AI. I have a hypothesis that more aliens (which I'm sure I've seen are on the cards, somewhere) and a more aggressive AI might resolve this, however (more aliens = harder to suppress them all; more aggressive AI = more likely to be attacked first and therefore *be* suppressed).

[Mytheos]

@kabill

I was just trying to keep our conversation focused on shotguns.

Sniper riffles have there own situation that needs to be balanced.

And I understand your point of why use them if sniper riffles are better in all cases...

But you have to balance things individually first and then balance them further as a whole.

If shotguns are pointless when compared to everything else, they are the problem.

If shotguns are pointless because Sniper Riffles are OP, sniper riffles are the problem.

Right now shotguns are Underpowered and Sniper Riffles are overpowered, so thats two different problems, and I was just wanting to talk about one.

[DNK]

What I'd like to see for weapons:

1. More weight tradeoffs. Currently, you get 'free weight' up to about half your soldier's strength rating. That's a bit silly. Strength should simply reduce the loss of TUs for each kg rather than giving you free weight. This would make weapon weights far more important for roles because you're always losing TUs for added weight.
   
2. A distinction (and weapon type addition) between carbines and a low accuracy/high power weapon (like a shotgun). So, a carbine is a quite low weight, low TU weapon with lowered accuracy and slightly lower power than a rifle, yet a shotgun is a normal TU, slightly higher weight, and much higher power/lower range version of a rifle. The "shotguns" have high accuracy but low range, so they are useless outside of like 10-12 tiles. "Plasma shotgun" just sounds so awesome anyway.
   
3. Making the MGs similar in power to rifles. They're for suppression, ultimately, but I use them more for breaching because of how powerful they are and how they dominate in CQC.
   
4. Adding higher power MGs that have only 3-shot bursts and are super heavy with lowered ammo per "canister".
   
5. Reducing the peak stats across the board. 100TUs and strength are just ridiculous. Most topped out in the low 80s effectively for XCOM. That was reasonable.
   

So, for weapon classes, I'd like: MG, LMG, 'shotgun', carbine, rifle, (battle rifle?), sniper. If you redo the weight and significantly lower the stat caps, this would make soldier customization and loadout decisions a lot more important and interesting I think.

Edited July 10, 2013 by DNK

[shabowie]

Just some random thoughts on this build, I've redownloaded the game to see where things are.

1. I like the idea of the ballistic shield but feels a little OP.

2. Most powerful character is easily a guy holding a pistol in one hand and grenades in the other. That just feels wrong. Grenades should be used to soften up targets in cover or to pre treat unknown rooms in close quarters combat. Pistols should mostly be a back up weapon. Right now they dominate together as a weapon system in a way I don't think they should.

3. Assault rifle is useless. I see another guy saying that in this thread. He is spot on. No reason to use anything but precision rifles, pistols, grenades and machine guns for suppression right now. The assault rifle should have a larger magazine, shoot more rounds on burst, and generally be tweaked to make it viable. The goal should be that it can switch between being a so so precision rifle or a so so machine gun. Right now it is too weak at either task.

4. On night missions I frequently see a weird bug where you throw a flare to light up an area, but it requires you move to "update" that you can now see that area. Very weird.

I'll post some more later

Edited July 10, 2013 by shabowie

[DNK]

Another way to tweak the rifles so they are more useful than precision rifles is to alter the accuracy formula so that it penalizes soldiers for having their own accuracy lower than the weapons (by some degree).

Or just adjust TUs so that rifles can shoot more semi-accurate shots that are optimal at medium ranges, while leaving high-TU high-range accuracy shots for the snipers. Really, for the same TUs the two rifles should be roughly the same in accuracy at medium range, the sniper rifle far worse at short range, and the sniper far better at long range.

[ThunderGr]

Hypervelocity: If it must stay in then 50% damage after hitting each obstacle, sounds good. Having a lower chance to penetrate after each penetration would be nice, as well. Remove close range bonus from sniper rifles sounds good, as well. Imposing a close range penalty would be even nicer, IMHO. As it is, there is no reason for the snipers to carry a secondary weapon.

UFO doors: I agree that the doors should act in favor of the UFO controller. That is, the aliens should be the only ones to open them at will but, when they do so, the doors should remain open during the player's turn as well. If the player has control of a UFO with intact doors, though, the reverse should happen. If this can't happen, I am in favor of the doors closing each turn, but the aliens must start opening the door and shooting at the assaulting troops during their turn.

[RawCode]

snipers carry pistols to pool accuracy....

[Khall]

What I'd like to see for weapons:

1. A distinction (and weapon type addition) between carbines and a low accuracy/high power weapon (like a shotgun). So, a carbine is a quite low weight, low TU weapon with lowered accuracy and slightly lower power than a rifle, yet a shotgun is a normal TU, slightly higher weight, and much higher power/lower range version of a rifle. The "shotguns" have high accuracy but low range, so they are useless outside of like 10-12 tiles. "Plasma shotgun" just sounds so awesome anyway.

Here's link to a mod you might like with some very nice images for higher tier shotguns

http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/4680-Mod-More-Shotguns

[smoitessier]

I'd like to see carbines and shotguns prices go down, and need less TU to fire a snap shot compared to it's lager cousins.

[Mytheos]

Does anyone have a link to an additive probability calculator? I looked but didnt find one that would work the way I wanted...

I would like to run some numbers, and compare the hit percentage between say a 50% chance and a 30% chance with a sniper riffle and 4, 20% chances with a Riffle.

[StellarRat]

Does anyone have a link to an additive probability calculator? I looked but didnt find one that would work the way I wanted...

I would like to run some numbers, and compare the hit percentage between say a 50% chance and a 30% chance with a sniper riffle and 4, 20% chances with a Riffle.

You just multiply the chance of MISSING times the number of shots and subtract from the 100% if I remember correctly. So, four 20% shots = 1.00 - ( .8 x .8 x .8 x .8) which gives you about a 60% chance of getting at least one hit. Now needless to say if you get lucky you could have 4 hits, but there is only a 1.6% chance of that happening.

For the sniper rifle with two shots at 50% and 30%, you get a 65% chance of one hit and a 15% chance of two hits.

Someone correct me if my math is wrong.

Edited July 10, 2013 by StellarRat

[Mytheos]

You just multiply the chance of MISSING times the number of shots and subtract from the 100% if I remember correctly. So, four 20% shots = 1.00 - ( .8 x .8 x .8 x .8) which gives you about a 60% chance of getting at least one hit. Now needless to say if you get lucky you could have 4 hits, but there is only a 1.6% chance of that happening.

For the sniper rifle with two shots at 50% and 30%, you get a 65% chance of one hit and a 15% chance of two hits.

Someone correct me if my math is wrong.

Yeah I somewhat remember the math from dice rolling when I was playing board games.

But I was thinking of calculating the different chances with different TUs, using different weapons, in different fire modes, having not moved and having moved...

Was looking for a quicker way to do it...

[StellarRat]

Yeah I somewhat remember the math from dice rolling when I was playing board games.

But I was thinking of calculating the different chances with different TUs, using different weapons, in different fire modes, having not moved and having moved...

Was looking for a quicker way to do it...

You could do this relatively easily with a spreadsheet. I could write a program to do it too, but it would take a lot longer. Also, a programmable calculator could do this.

[kabill]

You just multiply the chance of MISSING times the number of shots and subtract from the 100% if I remember correctly. So, four 20% shots = 1.00 - ( .8 x .8 x .8 x .8) which gives you about a 60% chance of getting at least one hit. Now needless to say if you get lucky you could have 4 hits, but there is only a 1.6% chance of that happening.

For the sniper rifle with two shots at 50% and 30%, you get a 65% chance of one hit and a 15% chance of two hits.

Someone correct me if my math is wrong.

Yeah, that's right. I was doing this before I made the alterations I'm presently playing with. I did it by hand (with a calculator!), but a spreadsheet would, as StellaRat says, be quicker.

This is one of the things that, all other things being aside, I think is spot on with the game balance at the moment - the fact that high TU shots have a better chance to hit than multiple low-level shots. Much better than UFO: EU!

[Mytheos]

You could do this relatively easily with a spreadsheet. I could write a program to do it too, but it would take a lot longer. Also, a programmable calculator could do this.

I know, I was just hoping for a quick webpage one...

I have a REALLY slow internet speed, we're talking 60k down...and I just put together a new computer a month ago and I havent gotten around to downloading a copy of Office 2010 yet...been storming here, like everyday for almost two weeks now it seems.

So I havent felt comfortable leaving my computer on overnight to download it.

Its not a big deal, just figured I'd ask, cant hurt right? 8-)

[StellarRat]

I know, I was just hoping for a quick webpage one...

I have a REALLY slow internet speed, we're talking 60k down...and I just put together a new computer a month ago and I havent gotten around to downloading a copy of Office 2010 yet...been storming here, like everyday for almost two weeks now it seems.

So I havent felt comfortable leaving my computer on overnight to download it.

Its not a big deal, just figured I'd ask, cant hurt right? 8-)

Open Office is free, smaller and has almost all the same abilities.

[Mytheos]

@StellarRat

I can get office for free too, I just need to go over to my friend's house who has internet that isnt via carrier pigeon and download it 8-)

[Aaron]

@Myhteos: Where do you live, if you don't mind my asking? That sounds like some wicked weather.

[StellarRat]

@StellarRat

I can get office for free too, I just need to go over to my friend's house who has internet that isnt via carrier pigeon and download it 8-)

By now they could have mailed you a USB key with the install! LOL!

[DNK]

Not sure this is the best place to ask, but anyway:

Why are the weapon config files in two different places (weapons.xml and weapons_gc.xml)? And why do these two different places have contradicting values? Wouldn't it make more sense to just put them in one spreadsheet (the non-gc one is much easier for modding)?