Higher weapon accuracy test

[Aaron]

Lots of people seem dissatisfied with current level of weapon accuracy in the ground combat missions. I'm not necessarily convinced this is a problem, but I would like to have a play with the accuracy values and see how higher ones feel in the game - in order to test this I have made the following changes: all alien weapons and the human ballistic weapons have had their accuracy level increased fairly significantly, and the "close range" accuracy bonus has been doubled.

I am testing these changes locally (note they will NOT be in the next experimental, they are just a test) but I have also uploaded them in an archive [LINK REMOVED AS THIS IS NOW VERY OUT OF DATE]

To try these changes extract the contents of the above archive to the "assets" folder within your Xenonauts directory, overwriting 2 files when asked. Then give the game a play (don't go too far as I have only changed the ballistic weapons for humans) and post up how you feel the altered accuracy changes the fun/pace/challenge of the ground combat.

(I would suggest you only do this if you are on experimental build 4 and know how to use Steam to verify your game cache to revert to the old files when you are finished testing the changes)

So, thoughts?

Edited September 30, 2013 by Aaron

[GizmoGomez]

Are there any other changes? Longer sight ranges, for example, or longer effective weapon ranges?

[StellarRat]

One "good" side effect might be that the grenades become less desirable.

[kabill]

Played 6-7 missions earlier (most of Month 1). It probably wasn't the best test, since I was deliberately trying to break the game with Precision Rifles, but thoughts so far:

- Precision Rifles are very good, though not quite as good as I expected. I tried outfitting the entire squad with them and was getting along well (too well?). My hypothesis was that they would destroy everything, since the high % to hit and hypervelocity should be handing out 90+% shots pretty much all the time. This was pretty much true - on open maps they dominated. They did cause problems when I encountered full LOS blockers and the UFO (although the latter due to the bug which stops those rifles shooting over the UFO door threshold). Overall, the Precision Rifle does what it does now exceptionally well, but it does suffer in situations where there's no LOS.

- Close combat now feels quite brutal and lost a number of soldiers in a close range engagement with an alien that got the drop on me (I'll not count on aliens not opening doors again!). Shooting at point-blank range with burst fire now feels reliably powerful with ~50% to hit with each shot. Overall, I like these changes because it feels like it raises the stakes in close combat. But I can see how this might advantage the player more since they'll be better equipped to take advantage of it.

When I have time I'll go back and try a more balanced approach but overall I think I prefer the higher accuracy, at least in terms of its effects on close-range fighting. Thinking about it, I think this is where the low accuracy mattered most to me previously - not only is it frustrating to move in close around cover to be presented with a mediocre shot, but shoot-outs at 3-5 squares where there's misses everywhere look a little odd (to me). I'm thus wondering now what the game would be like with the old accuracies but the higher close-range bonus (which, actually, would have the added benefit of not making the Precision Rifle any better).

[StellarRat]

Played 6-7 missions earlier (most of Month 1). It probably wasn't the best test, since I was deliberately trying to break the game with Precision Rifles, but thoughts so far:

- Precision Rifles are very good, though not quite as good as I expected. I tried outfitting the entire squad with them and was getting along well (too well?). My hypothesis was that they would destroy everything, since the high % to hit and hypervelocity should be handing out 90+% shots pretty much all the time. This was pretty much true - on open maps they dominated. They did cause problems when I encountered full LOS blockers and the UFO (although the latter due to the bug which stops those rifles shooting over the UFO door threshold). Overall, the Precision Rifle does what it does now exceptionally well, but it does suffer in situations where there's no LOS.

- Close combat now feels quite brutal and lost a number of soldiers in a close range engagement with an alien that got the drop on me (I'll not count on aliens not opening doors again!). Shooting at point-blank range with burst fire now feels reliably powerful with ~50% to hit with each shot. Overall, I like these changes because it feels like it raises the stakes in close combat. But I can see how this might advantage the player more since they'll be better equipped to take advantage of it.

When I have time I'll go back and try a more balanced approach but overall I think I prefer the higher accuracy, at least in terms of its effects on close-range fighting. Thinking about it, I think this is where the low accuracy mattered most to me previously - not only is it frustrating to move in close around cover to be presented with a mediocre shot, but shoot-outs at 3-5 squares where there's misses everywhere look a little odd (to me). I'm thus wondering now what the game would be like with the old accuracies but the higher close-range bonus (which, actually, would have the added benefit of not making the Precision Rifle any better).

Did you find grenades were less of an option because the guns were better? Or are you not the grenade happy type?

[kabill]

I've never really used grenades much (mostly because I assumed they damaged equipment like rockets!) and didn't use any when I was playing with the above, so I can't really compare.

The only time I can think that they would have been particularly useful was when attacking into Small Scouts, but as I indicated this was partially because of the fact that I can't use Precision Rifles at all because of the bug.

[Ol' Stinky]

I can't seem to download it, the link times out for me. I'm guessing it's just a modified weapons_gc.xml, though? If that's the case, could anyone who's downloaded it simply copy and paste it here (in a spoiler tag to avoid making the thread annoying to read, I guess)?

[lightgemini]

You can have the 2 xml files here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/62mgl4m5n6wmw0k/No%20more%20Pew%20Pew%20-Xenonauts-.zip

Config.xml has the close range bonus and maybe some other changes I didnt notice.

[Ol' Stinky]

Cheers for the help!

[GizmoGomez]

Hey, now that v19.5 is out, what's up with this? Will a new version of the higher accuracy test be released to fit the new exp. build? Or does the new exp. build incorporate what this did?

[StellarRat]

Hey, now that v19.5 is out, what's up with this? Will a new version of the higher accuracy test be released to fit the new exp. build? Or does the new exp. build incorporate what this did?

I was just wondering the same thing. Aaron???

[Ol' Stinky]

I only got to play ~5 maps to test this out in 19.4 after lightgemini was kind enough to reupload the mod. So it's not exactly exhaustive feedback, but I hope it's a wee bit helpful. I might as well put it up since 19.5's landed now anyway.

I played the maps without frag grenades, because that seemed to defeat the object, although I did take smokes and flashbangs. My 8 man squad was split into two teams of four: a shieldbearer with pistol, an LMG, and two part time snipers (sniper rifle with a shotty or assault rifle in the bag). I played pretty sloppily, but got no deaths, despite a friendly AI's best efforts. Thanks for unloading your shotgun into the back of a xenonaut's head, you idiot. No wonder you were reassaigned to that artcic outpost.

Snipers are still good. The aimed mode was pretty much always 95% chance to hit, but I guess with hypervelocity temporarily disabled it's no harm having that in there. Bearing in mind I only had rookies, they were getting 80% on normal shots.

Reaction fire for single shots still uses snap shots, right? I think that's going to be a bummer for the shotgun. The normal shot now seems to have a chance to hit them at max range, if the enemy's not behind any cover. Snap shot, on the other hand, seems to be ~25%, which is fine as an option for a low TU, close range blast, but bad for reaction fire.

I'm still undecided on assault rifles. I've tried them, but my riflemen haven't had much success so far. That could be down to plain bad luck, what with the few games I played.

On the whole, the changes are for the best.

Edited July 26, 2013 by Ol' Stinky

[lightgemini]

I dont know if Aaron will have an update for 19.5, but just in case im posting a 19.5 update for this test.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e7stb1hl77gjtp3/weapons_gc.xml

Only weapons_gc.xml needed editing. All accuracy settigns remain the same, but I took the liberty of adding a bit more to it.

Changelog or "what is not the same":

-All Laser and plasma weapons have the new accuracy too. Its the same as balistics.

-Carabine uses the accuracy of the shotgun.

-Alien drones use the new accuracy too.(they were left behind before) Light and Medium had the stats of a Machinegun, so they get the same buff as that weapon. Heavy drone had S1=30 / S2=60 , now have 40 / 90.

- The speed of the shots are faster as this is how I was using it. Couldnt get to set it to vanilla speeds for now, but will post a new edit with vanilla speeds if it bothers people. The speed has no effect at all in anything, its only visual.

So you can continue testing new accuracys with last beta, and keep testing till plasma weapons. So you should be getting in pretty big battles with the new settings wre it will better show if its overkill or good, since testing it on puny NC with pistols against MGs and Snipers doesnt show the big picture.

Note: This update is only a placeholder untill a new official update shows up.

***New update that fixes missing burst fire buffs to accuracy.****

Edited July 29, 2013 by lightgemini

[Aaron]

Thanks lightgemini, saved me a bit of work there - anyone waiting for me please just go ahead and use that file in 19.5 to continue evaluation the accuracy changes.

[smoitessier]

I used your original files on v19.5 and i get a targeting bug with the sniper riffle only, the targeting line will cease at a bunch of places like so, also chance to hit becomes very bad or impossible

edit: i should add that i'm playing on a saved game from 19.4 on a fresh ground battle.

Edited July 29, 2013 by smoitessier

[lightgemini]

I have seen this problem before. Im sure its not caused by this files, and its the UI failing due to some bug. It goes away and fixes itself but not sure how exactly you do it.

[lightgemini]

Posted new link to a new updated file that fixes some burst fire missing its accuracy buff. Use the link in the post above to download it again.

Guess you cant avoid leaving something behind when going fast.

[xcomnaut]

New accuracy is an improvement for sure. Game became much more enjoyable and deadlier at same time. I hope this will be released officially.

[Aaron]

I used your original files on v19.5 and i get a targeting bug with the sniper riffle only, the targeting line will cease at a bunch of places like so, also chance to hit becomes very bad or impossible

edit: i should add that i'm playing on a saved game from 19.4 on a fresh ground battle.

That's the hypervelocity bug, the reason they are disabled in 19.5 - if you update with lightgemini's modded weapons_gc it will fix it.

[GizmoGomez]

Definitely an improvement.

Ideally, if you are within range, you should have good accuracy regardless of your weapon (pistol would be the lowest of them all, but if you are within effective range you should still hit).

This means that weapons should have good accuracy scores, and that the limiting factor should generally be the effective engagement range.

[Rogueywon]

Some thoughts after trying this:

Overall, mixed feelings (and yes, I was one of those asking for higher weapon accuracy). In many ways, it does indeed feel better with higher accuracy. Close-to-mid-quarters combat flows more naturally with the modification in place and it definitely replicates the feel of the original X-Com much better.

However...

What the changes seem to me to highlight are the extent to which the game is, at present, balanced quite fundamentally around low weapon accuracy. To explain what I mean by that properly, I'm going to need to step back a bit.

In the original X-Com (and Terror from the Deep), combat has extremely high "lethality". Both human and alien troops die quickly and easily - and in large numbers. Once you're past the early missions and the smallest UFOs, you expect casualties - often heavy casualties - pretty much every time you deploy. Losing veteran units can be painful (particularly once they're psyonics trained), but it's going to happen and it isn't game-endingly catastrophic. Losing rookies is going to happen constantly and the inconvenience is generally limited the (pretty small) cost of replacing them after each mission.

In both Xenonauts and the Firaxis XCom reboot, there's a definite push towards making casualties matter more. The improvement in stats - and the importance of that improvement - as soldiers gain experience is much more pronounced. The costs of replacing them (in both economic and tactical terms) are much higher. Keeping your troops alive is much more important - particularly if you're playing in Ironman mode. So if combat is as "lethal" as in the old X-Com, the player's life will very quickly become impossible.

Firaxis's way of getting around this was to increase soldier health relative to weapon damage. Once you've got a veteran squad with decent armour in the XCom reboot, it is very, very rare (almost unknown) that you will lose a full-health soldier to a single enemy hit. It's fairly rare, unless you leave some poor sucker out exposed on his own, that you'll lose a soldier from full-health in a single enemy turn.

The top armour in Xenonauts does provide more protection than the top armour in the old X-Com generally did - but even in Predator suits, soldiers are generally not the walking-tanks that they quite quickly become in Firaxis's XCom. This is amplified by the very large number of TUs that aliens get, which enables them to make many reflex shots, and make many, many shots on their own turns (particularly in the late game). With the default accuracy settings, the fact that a large portion of alien shots will miss mitigates this. Turn close quarters accuracy up, and suddenly you're back to lethality levels close to those of the original X-Com, but in a game that's generally less forviging of losses.

[lightgemini]

The idea of "losing few soldiers" is just a balance that can be easily adjusted to fit high accuracy, massive loses or both. What really matters INMHO right now is if high % to hit makes the game too hard/painful. Not talking you firing at aliens, more like aliens firing at you.

Theres also the point of what will happen when noobs get to veteran status with over 80 accu skill. Will a 95% to hit party unbalance things too much? How you balance that while letting noobs have a decent (around 70%) accuracy?

Since in Original XCOM there was no cover system, accuracy needed to be rather low or face impossible odds early game because almost all time the units were in the open.The high lethaly came from the fact that aliens did 1 hit you like crazy even with the first armour you got. Had they also used high accu then your team would get wiped out in 2 turns. Xenonauts has a cover system that works really well even with 73% to hit, so it can naturally adapt better to high accu. What seems to happen is that people expect cover to work , wich does, and being out of cover be lethal wich doesnt happen with vanilla accuracy.

Im thinking a setting to balance high accu, but I need more time to test and post a 20m high text wall lol.

Edited July 31, 2013 by lightgemini

[Ishantil]

I prefer the higher lethality to the "movie style" of the new X-COM. The reboot feels like you've got four guys who are killing every alien in the invasion. I didn't like that.

You're waging a war, not a skirmish. And that didn't suit the game well, I don't think.

There's nothing wrong with your soldiers being unique and hard to kill, but the lethality of the game should mean that you are expecting to lose people. It's a war for Earth, after all.

So my vote is increased lethality.

[Rogueywon]

I think on balance I'd also like higher lethality - but my point was that this probably needs to be off-set by some changes to the game-economy and the soldier advancement system so that losing a veteran soldier or two isn't as catastrophic as it is at the moment.

[xcomnaut]

It may sound very unpopular but I'd give increased accuracy for humans only.

Aliens already have too many advantages:

1) They have numbers;

2) They use mostly automatic weapons;

3) They use defensive tactic and use cover very well;

4) They see better at night

5) They are not affected with "replace dead veterans with rookies";

6) They are not affected with lost funding;

7) I think they stole our indestructible fighter technology. Did you notice they attack ~every 72 hours?;

Next step is to increase human weapon damage to be closer to 1 hit = 1 dead. Because of implemented cover system, even with increased damage Xenonauts will be very far from 1 shot = 1 hit = 1 dead of Xcom1994.