Balance is geting worse by each built instead of geting better

[Knightpt]

So experimental build 4 instaled, new game.

First small alien spoted, one interceptor launched, alien combat pops up and here i go. My Missiles seem to have terrible short range now, so i am forced to go in for the kill agressively. I shoot missiles and the alien dodges, closes in and goes to slaughter my interceptor while i try to dogfight with no clue whats happening.

Fortunately it seems my interceptor is miraculously returned to base, so i launch my second interceptor and basicaly same thing happens, whatever...

A few days later Brazil downs an UFO and asks for my help and i go to ground combat. My xeno soldiers managed to fire around 60 shots at the 2 aliens outside of the downed aircraft and hitted 4 times, 1 of those shots were friendly fire in a seemingly impossible shot. Later i have 6 soldiers on the door of the alien craft with 2 aliens inside and i managed to fire 74 shots with 2 hits, and lost 4 soldiers. Yes i understand a grenade would solve most problems but realy... ?

I honestly believe that the game is terribly unbalanced atm. Not even on the original X-COM i found that things were "that" ridiculous in therms of balance. Sure it was hard and sad to see a trooper die without even seeing the alien first but that would make some sense, firing with less than 10% acuracy is just frustrating.

In sum, you are making air combat extremely frustrating and ground combat is just atrocious with this level of terrible acuracy. This is not dificulty this is just banging the head on the wall expecting the wall gets softer later on and i can have more fun.

I'm realy sorry but i'm not happy at all. If you think this post is abusive then please delete it, but i had to let it out.

[ThunderGr]

I would phrase it: "Game gets worst each build instead of getting better".

You are not the only one not being happy. But, no worries, they don't care

[Knightpt]

But, no worries, they don't care

Well that is going too far imho. I'm sure they care that at least the people who helped fund the game aren't terribly unhappy...

I know i'm not "entitled to be always pleased", but heck, for me the game is unplayable atm, unless you are a very little elite minority that likes extreme dificulty and sado-masochism.... I'm pretty sure i'll be swamped by posts of people saying "learn to play noob! game is balanced and you just suck!", but realy, i think a middle therm should be reached at least in the start game.

[thothkins]

First small alien spoted, one interceptor launched, alien combat pops up and here i go. My Missiles seem to have terrible short range now, so i am forced to go in for the kill agressively. I shoot missiles and the alien dodges, closes in and goes to slaughter my interceptor while i try to dogfight with no clue whats happening.

The air combat changes in a number of the builds. In this one my Foxtrot had to run away from a light scout. I find that I get thumped by it when I take preconceptions form previous builds in, and expect them always to work. This build has it's tips for success, just like the old one. In the final game...well it looks as though it will be much, much easier anyway But even if it's not "dumbed down", the tips and tricks will be a little more stable at least.

Fortunately it seems my interceptor is miraculously returned to base, so i launch my second interceptor and basicaly same thing happens, whatever...

The real alien war is between the Sebillian Inc and the Magic Salvage Pixies who live on Earth. Humanity is merely caught in the middle.

A few days later Brazil downs an UFO and asks for my help and i go to ground combat. My xeno soldiers managed to fire around 60 shots at the 2 aliens outside of the downed aircraft and hitted 4 times, 1 of those shots were friendly fire in a seemingly impossible shot. Later i have 6 soldiers on the door of the alien craft with 2 aliens inside and i managed to fire 74 shots with 2 hits, and lost 4 soldiers. Yes i understand a grenade would solve most problems but realy... ?

There's a very definite push for some weapons only to work if you can get inside the UFO, by the looks of it. I've had some simply daft encounters where the funding nations would have had to air drop in more ammo so I could keep firing from the door of a Light Scout. Sniper rifles work, even when they say they don't, but yeah, there are issues here. Grenades is the easiest option.

I honestly believe that the game is terribly unbalanced atm. Not even on the original X-COM i found that things were "that" ridiculous in therms of balance. Sure it was hard and sad to see a trooper die without even seeing the alien first but that would make some sense, firing with less than 10% acuracy is just frustrating.

I've found 19.4 to be decent, but decent when you know what the stumbling blocks are, which slightly defeats the purpose But it is making progress, even with that.Generally, I thought the aliens accuracy was even worse than my guys.

In sum, you are making air combat extremely frustrating and ground combat is just atrocious with this level of terrible acuracy. This is not difficulty this is just banging the head on the wall expecting the wall gets softer later on and i can have more fun.

Autoresolve and immortal aircraft should go some way to reducing the influence of air combat overall. Once I got used to the new changes, I didn't find it much more of a problem than previously though.

[Max_Caine]

Could I ask some questions about that situation in Brazil, please? What were the reported hit percentages? What weapons were you using? Were the aliens behind cover? Were they in the open outside of the UFO? Was it a light scout or a standard scout? If you say "around 60 shots", then that was.. what... 8 shots (rounding up) per solider? So with the AP costs as they are, were you firing snap shots, or were you investing more points in normal or aimed shots? Because at a miniumum, that must have been 4-6 turns of just shooting. Did the aliens just stand there, or did they move every turn?

I'm not asking these questions to belittle you. I'd like to understand the situation regarding that particular map, and try and work out why it took as reported 60 shots.

[C. jejuni]

The air combat changes in a number of the builds. In this one my Foxtrot had to run away from a light scout.

The new Foxtrots are a downgrade from the Condor really. I mean their HP is worse than the Condor (I hope this was a bloody typo), maneuverability is that of a grandma on narcotics (why can't it even roll anymore?), the raw firepower numbers are negated by the fact that there's just two projectiles it can fire.

[Ol' Stinky]

Did you know that you can hold missiles in air combat back? Left click on one of them so that they go red. Then when the light scout dodges the first missile, you can launch the second and it'll hit him, since rolling has a cooldown. You'll still have to close in for the kill if you send only one condor, but you'll take less damage this way.

As far as ground combat goes, there's a problem with stray shots at the moment. You'll notice that misses tend to hit the ground right by the alien's feet; when the problem's sorted those missed shots should scatter correctly, giving you a chance to hit even with a missed shot. This'll help with those moments when you close in with a shotgun, have a 75% chance to hit, and, bam, you blast the floor tile in front of the enemy. For now, stick with snipers in ranged combat.

[Max_Caine]

C. jejuni, erm, Foxtrots could never roll. As in, they have never been able to roll since they were first introoduced.

[lightgemini]

Not to bash anyone but I think you are exagerating things. Foxtrot is supposed to be an interceptor, shoot and flee and it is superior to condors at it cause it uses torpedoes you will need for corvetters. As for light scout, it takes 2 missiles to kill so if it always dodge 1 then you need to bring 2 condors not one. Face it, superior technology is superior period.

As for the ground combat I find first ufos like light scout to be too easy. The poor 3 or 4 clueless aliens inside have no chance against a squad of 10 with heavy weapons. If you shoot 60 rounds and get no effect, it means you should have changed tactic when 20 rounds were already fired. Cover can work too well for the retarded level of inacuraccy weapons have now, untill it gets fixed or modded you are better nuking the ufo with grenades or use tons of flash bangs and rush inside for the point blank kill, or use shields, or just open run and fire rockets inside or whatever. Its the normal scout with the alenium reactor what really matters.

[C. jejuni]

C. jejuni, erm, Foxtrots could never roll. As in, they have never been able to roll since they were first introoduced.

Hmmmm. I must have misremembered.

[Daringunicorn]

Well...Beta is Beta

That's the name of the industry

[ThunderGr]

Well...Beta is Beta

Only, this is still an alpha, advertised as beta but, hell, only a bunch of people knows the difference, right?

[RawCode]

game must be hard, accuracy is not issue when you position your units in proper order and give proper weapons (3 snipers with grenades 3 shotguns with grenades able to deal with any threat, including adrons and terror missions (not at nigh).

Only rifles or only snipers or only guns wont work, they suck in some specific situation without any hope (shotguns wont work outside in most cases)

[GizmoGomez]

Only, this is still an alpha, advertised as beta but, hell, only a bunch of people knows the difference, right?

What is your definition of beta?

[ThunderGr]

What is your definition of beta?

As illustrated here. I do not expect you to agree anyway. This is the actual definition of beta, which seems to have lost its meaning nowadays.

Of course, not everyone has forgotten about it.

Edited July 14, 2013 by ThunderGr

[xcomnaut]

I think game still miss some fun factor. Lets take weapons for example. Upgrading them gives increased damage only. No better aim, no better reload time, no faster usage time, no bigger range. Some stats are even worse; weight, clip size. So after 4-5 play months, our soldiers have no advantage over aliens. It take same number of shots to kill target, cause aliens gets more health/armor.

Dont want to reapeat what others said, but close range aim is ridiculous, really. Not being able to hit someone in a few tiles form you is very very bad and not fun. What I do, is target next tile behind enemy, then I get 100% accuracy(works at close range mostly).

Anyway I say, we need more fun and less realism/artificial "hard" level.

[Ol' Stinky]

The lack of variety between weapon tiers is so that they can get a better idea of balance. Flavour can be added later. The same deal with aliens and their stats, although there's movement on that now.

Hopefully in time we'll get some differences between tiers. Stuff like: lasers don't get the damage jump and have a smaller suppression radius, but get armour penetration to make up the difference, and better accuracy than other tiers. All plasma weapons have an explosive effect at the cost of some range. MAG weapons get hypervelocity if they don't have it already. But putting that type of stuff in now would muddy the waters.

Edited July 14, 2013 by Ol' Stinky

[thothkins]

I certainly hope this is the case with the weapons. I'm aware of a certain assumption that each tier should simply be a power up. So, if it were to be more nuanced, then it would have to be made fairly clear in the Xenopaedia/ forum posts.

[DNK]

Not being able to hit someone in a few tiles form you is very very...

...realistic. Check US FBI/police reports on officer accuracy in live fire situations at close (<25m) ranges. It's like 15-25% hits. Military stats are harder to come by, but at farther distances 1-10% hit rates are roughly the case, based on my own research for other games. I think highly-trained snipers are the only ones with high hit rates - something like 80% or so, but they seem to operate on different tactical concerns. Namely, their use of fire is not primarily suppression but immediate kills, while it's generally reversed for other troops, where establishing and maintaining the superiority of fire is tantamount to success.

Perhaps this makes for dull gameplay (I highly disagree, it's just more drawn out and action-packed), but it also would increase the need for proper tactics and ammunition concerns. Personally, I will mod my games to take this into account, and I've always found it to be far more interesting and exciting, forcing me to take up additional tactics (flanking, etc). Obviously, snipers in this game should be treated more like "designated marksmen", having higher hit rates but not the ridiculous ones of actual snipers.

[Aaron]

@ThunderGr: Your definition of beta is hilarious; so all of a beta is just for polishing and minor bug bashing? Chuckles aside, you seem to have dropped into this thread, and a few others, with the primary intention of stirring up trouble and no real desire to engage with the rest of the community or us developers in a constructive way. Is that how you intend to come across? If so, we can fix that.

About accuracy: I think accuracy while firing inside UFOs is currently badly bugged so you always get an extremely reduced chance to hit when inside UFOs (and possibly also on the tiles around them). This is getting looked at by our ground combat coder, fixing that should give us a better indication of if accuracy is really working as we intended or not.

[ThunderGr]

@ThunderGr: Your definition of beta is hilarious; so all of a beta is just for polishing and minor bug bashing? Chuckles aside, you seem to have dropped into this thread, and a few others, with the primary intention of stirring up trouble and no real desire to engage with the rest of the community or us developers in a constructive way. Is that how you intend to come across? If so, we can fix that.

It hasn't come to my intention that I said anything about polishing and minor bug bashing.

If you want to threaten me for voicing my opinion, go ahead. Make your threats. If you are so confident in your ability of judging others and you want to classify me as a trouble maker, suit yourself. You only show what kind of person you are and how well you treat your customers.

Looks like the labeling as trouble makers for those that say their opinion loud(and it is not the one the authorities like to hear) is not confined to the governments, but to game discussion forums as well...No wonder why everything is going to hell.

EDIT: Hell, I really was not expecting that. This was an outrage, really. Damn people, you should have thought before posting that. You pompous brat.

Edited July 15, 2013 by ThunderGr

[Skitso]

It hasn't come to my intention that I said anything about polishing and minor bug bashing.

If you want to threaten me for voicing my opinion, go ahead. Make your threats. If you are so confident in your ability of judging others and you want to classify me as a trouble maker, suit yourself. You only show what kind of person you are and how well you treat your customers.

Looks like the labeling as trouble makers for those that say their opinion loud(and it is not the one the authorities like to hear) is not confined to the governments, but to game discussion forums as well...No wonder why everything is going to hell.

EDIT: Hell, I really was not expecting that. This was an outrage, really. Damn people, you should have thought before posting that. You pompous brat.

I'm a long time lurker and have read these forums for a really long time, I just need to say that as a matter of fact, you have been acting like an ass lately... and I say this without wanting to take any sides. You just need to calm down and learn to behave like the rest of us, mmkay?

[ThunderGr]

I'm a long time lurker and have read these forums for a really long time, I just need to say that as a matter of fact, you have been acting like an ass lately... and I say this without wanting to take any sides. You just need to calm down and learn to behave like the rest of us, mmkay?

Seriously? I have never insulted anyone for their opinion. I have always used acceptable phrasing being sharp at times but never insulting. Since when my complains have become a problem of behavior? There are members that have been outright insulting and never got a warning and, here it is, I got a threat by a developer and an insult by you.

If you want everyone to be like "the rest of you"(I do not know who is "the rest of you"), clone yourself. Now, I am sure you all have better things to do that trying to judge me as a person for saying my opinion. I have not insulted anyone(except, maybe, the one that threatened me and personally judged me) and I have kept all my posts within context. I have not broken any forum rules, and the threats and judgements from Aaron are unacceptable.

[Skitso]

Over react much? And btw, I have not insulted you as a person. I just told how i have percieved your behavior on these forums. And I have pondered your hostility towards this project way eatlier than today...

[GizmoGomez]

Ha, unacceptable?

He's a moderator, and a game developer. He works for goldhawk, the forums are basically his and he can basically play god on these forums. What he says, goes. If he thinks you are acting up, not being constructive, or acting like an ass, then he can do whatever he pleases.