Ground Combat Balance Discussion v19 Experimental Build 7

[Aaron]

A pretty long list of changes for this build (viewable here). The most noteworthy being the changes to the Xenonaut vehicles (hopefully a pretty big buff), the rework of the carbines into shotguns and - a minor change that may have a big impact - changing the damage randomisation from a +/- 20% spread to a 50% spread (to give an idea the original Xcom had +/- 100%).

Thoughts away!

[Dranak]

After trying them for a few missions, I'm putting shotguns back in storage. The final kicker for me was opening a door and being adjacent to a cesean non-combatant, hitting it with 3 pellets and then watching it reaction fire my soldier in the face. If he had been armed with an AR, he would have killed his target and survived. I may be having terrible luck with damage RNG, but there doesn't seem to be much point in using a close combat weapon that is inferior to a general use weapon (AR) at close range.

Also, there was no mention of changes to flashbangs, but their range isn't shown in the UI (only one square highlights) and I dropped one in the middle of a light scout and it failed to suppress either ceasan non-combatant inside it.

[GizmoGomez]

I've not played it yet, but how close together are the pellets? What kind of spread is there?

Just saying; a single slug would be much preferable to a bunch of pellets in this kind of situation.

[EchoFourDelta]

Loving the shotgun pellets, absolutely loving it; it's nice to see it actually represented in a game of this sort. That said... it would probably be useful to tighten the spread a good bit along with increasing their damage some, and have the chance of pellets missing used as a randomizer to keep the weapon from being too overpowered in close quarters.

There's a fine line between "worthless" and "overpowered" here, which I think the suggestion I made there would do a good job toward correcting, but it deserves the fine-tuning necessary to keep the new representation. Gives you something novel and interesting, rather than what is essentially a low-capacity, high-power rifle that the old design gave us. Here's a case where presentation is just excellent; just needs some work.

Edited August 17, 2013 by EchoFourDelta

[Dranak]

I've not played it yet, but how close together are the pellets? What kind of spread is there?

Just saying; a single slug would be much preferable to a bunch of pellets in this kind of situation.

It's comparable to the full scatter of any other weapon. I've seen pellets travel almost 90% to each other.

[Josip Broz Tito]

With the change to multiple projectiles, only use for shotguns is up close/melee. I think the shots need a TU reduction. As it is, I need to run next to an enemy, shoot it, then probably shoot it again to kill it.

With an assault rifle, I have had better results going for that up-close full auto to kill an enemy.

A close-range weapon absolutely needs to one to two hit kill (preferably close to one). This is what makes stun batons useable. As it is, the shotgun is more dangerous to use than the baton because I will likely not kill my target. This leads to either reaction, or a next turn soldier death.

I feel it needs either, a TU reduction, more damage, or a modifier to damage based on range (so that up close the shot hits harder, but not as hard further away.

All that said- I absolutely love the way you're taking shotguns. It'll really distinguish them from the other weapon classes when you guys balance them.

To bad you guys didn't model the ballistic shotgun after the Saiga semi-auto shotgun the Soviets (and now russians) use. Would be a good excuse to add a burst mode back to it (rapid trigger firing), and at the first tier too. Contrary to belief, it's a very controllable weapon when firing rapidly, and it's based off the AK.

[EchoFourDelta]

This is set about 20 years before the Saiga ever graced an assembly line.

[Josip Broz Tito]

Ah, so it is- misremembered. That's what I get for not looking facts up prior to posting They had already used the AK design for machine guns and precision rifles, thought a shotgun would've been designed then too.

Regardless, there are many other semi's that would be 1979 appropriate.

Alien aggression: Did you guys tweak Alien AI? I've had sebillians and caesan's charging at my soldiers left and right. Great change, and it will make jackal armor a priority on my list now.

The damage spread feels good initially too. There's that familiar TFTD tension with every shot and alien turn.

[Max_Caine]

Pretty pretty please with sugar on top can combat shields have a 100% blocking chance to the front of them (possibly to the diagonal as well?). They are pretty fricken vital now when breaching a UFO (if you want to keep all the loot, anyway) and it is extra annoying to have a solider properly oriented towards a bad guy only for a shot to bypass the shield and the solider to croak.

[DNK]

Why not have both carbines and shotguns?

[Ol' Stinky]

Carbines didn't really seem to have a role. I don't think I've ever made one other than to see what they're like.

Also, there was no mention of changes to flashbangs, but their range isn't shown in the UI (only one square highlights) and I dropped one in the middle of a light scout and it failed to suppress either ceasan non-combatant inside it.

I don't think it's an FB suppression issue - I couldn't suppress a seb non-com inside a lightscout on my first v19.7 mission just now, despite throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him. Maybe it's some sort of bug with firing into a UFO from the outside?

[Max_Caine]

The change to smoke has made combat a lot more interesting. Last night, I needed to cross a road to get into cover and flank a dug in Caesan. Normally, the Caesan would have a field day. His buddy threw a smoke grenade in the middle of the road, and the solider made it across and into cover before the Caesan reacted and shot at him. I can see smoke being very important in the desert maps.

EDIT: Stinky, Sebs now have improved resistance to suppression. Androns are completely immune.

[Ol' Stinky]

It's 50% resistance to suppression, right? The FB alone, which deals 100 suppression, should have been alone to suppress a seb non-com with his 40 bravery. There was also at least one shotgun blast after the FB which didn't suppress him. Just something to keep an eye on, it could have been a fluke.

And I tried out smoke just now. I figured it'd be a boring ol' -2 to vision or something, but instead it completely blocks LoS. A very interesting change! I'm guessing I wasn't meant to spam it everywhere and at all times. I'm guessing it does, but does it block aliens' LoS entirely, too?

Also, I'm glad that smoke seems to have a higher chance of generating stacks of smoke. It was annoying to have to throw multiple smoke grenades because of bad luck with smoke generation.

Oh, yeah, and I agree with you about combat shields, both the 20% chance of failure and awkwardness of always facing the enemy without a sidestep or somesuch.

[Max_Caine]

Don't forget to deduct armour (8pts, I think, for noncoms), as well as deduct (quite steeply) every tile it detonates away from the target. But if that's all be taken into account, then something is screwy.

[Ol' Stinky]

Don't forget to deduct armour (8pts, I think, for noncoms), as well as deduct (quite steeply) every tile it detonates away from the target. But if that's all be taken into account, then something is screwy.

Is suppression affected by the same rules for damage? I figured it was a straight-up "if the unit is in range, the flashbang's going to do 100 suppression".

Anyway, something's up, because loading from the same save and throwing FBs into a lightscout, I get inconsistent results. Sometimes the two non-coms squatting inside are suppressed from one FB, sometimes it takes more than one FB. I'll mosey on over to the bug forum and post the save, I guess.

[lemm]

And I tried out smoke just now. I figured it'd be a boring ol' -2 to vision or something' date=' but instead it completely blocks LoS. A very interesting change! I'm guessing I wasn't meant to spam it everywhere and at all times. I'm guessing it does, but does it block aliens' LoS entirely, too?

[/quote']

Although it's an experimental build, I don't think this a change for the better. The smoke grenades in v6 worked as marginal concealment to help you get across an open space, but you couldn't just stand in them and go undetected by the aliens. Now we have XCOM-style invisibility cloaks, which allow you to move a small group of soldiers anywhere on the battlefield via smoke grenade relay. If the smoke is going to be this thick, then the cloud should probably take a couple of turns to reach maximum size.

I'd like to see an experimental build in which smoke grenades act similarly to how they did in v6, but they can be thrown about 50% farther and the smoke cloud drastically reduces reaction fire accuracy or reaction fire triggering, making the grenades more useful for getting soldiers from cover-to-cover.

[Dranak]

It's 50% resistance to suppression' date=' right? The FB alone, which deals 100 suppression, should have been alone to suppress a seb non-com with his 40 bravery. There was also at least one shotgun blast after the FB which didn't suppress him. Just something to keep an eye on, it could have been a fluke.

And I tried out smoke just now. I figured it'd be a boring ol' -2 to vision or something, but instead it completely blocks LoS. A very interesting change! I'm guessing I wasn't meant to spam it everywhere and at all times. I'm guessing it does, but does it block aliens' LoS entirely, too?

Also, I'm glad that smoke seems to have a higher chance of generating stacks of smoke. It was annoying to have to throw multiple smoke grenades because of bad luck with smoke generation.

Oh, yeah, and I agree with you about combat shields, both the 20% chance of failure and awkwardness of always facing the enemy without a sidestep or somesuch.[/quote']

Yes, smoke now seems to block LOS, which makes it a total got out of jail free card.

[Max_Caine]

Stinkster, here's the Suppression model. Other than the suppression multiplier, it doesn't seem to have changed. Let's see.. the grenade is kinetic type damage, so that's 5pts. So, 100 less 50% less 5 is 45, which would be enough. Unless the range is outside of 2.5 tiles, where it would drop to 22.5, and I'm guess that in the confines of a light scout, that ain't happening. So there must be a third factor, but what?

EDIT: I'll use the debug version and take a look.

[Ol' Stinky]

Stinkster, here's the Suppression model. Other than the suppression multiplier, it doesn't seem to have changed. Let's see.. the grenade is kinetic type damage, so that's 5pts. So, 100 less 50% less 5 is 45, which would be enough. Unless the range is outside of 2.5 tiles, where it would drop to 22.5, and I'm guess that in the confines of a light scout, that ain't happening. So there must be a third factor, but what?

EDIT: I'll use the debug version and take a look.

Oh, cool, I haven't seen that before. Cheers!

Maybe the third factor's the random damage variable? So the flashbang's not actually always doing 100 suppression before modifiers, but 50-150, which is why it works on some reloads, but not others. (And it's always both non-coms ending up suppressed or none of them being suppressed, no halfway house.)

Edited August 17, 2013 by Ol' Stinky

[Dranak]

Sebs seem way more than 50% more resistant to supression than ceseans. I just had a direct hit with a flashbang, a rifle burst, and two single rifle shots fail to surpress a seb noncom. That's more than double the firepower it takes to surpess a cesean noncom. If it continues to scale up from here, it'll make sebs effectively immune.

[Josip Broz Tito]

An advanced version of the flashbang might be good to add in. Change the purple on the item picture to blue to indicate plasma= good to go; ) That is, as long as sebs aren't bugged in some way.

On Snipers: This version I've started using sniper rifles again because it's now very dangerous to get close to aliens. I still seem to be getting consistent 40 dmg hits with the ballistic version. I don't know if that's intended, or if the random number gen likes to roll 40's for me currently.

[Dranak]

I can confirm snipers still doing 40 damage per shot. Also I have been able to supress seb guards with flashbangs, so maybe there is an issue with noncoms or smalls scouts?

Edit: And now I was able to supress one outside of a light scout with a flashbang. Still only able to replicate it not working inside a light scout. Additionally, I am not a fan of the delayed gas grenades. I would much rather be punished for a bad throw/positioning than have this system. Also the order of operations seems weird as I just had a seb run into gas, fire at me, and then collapse.

Edited August 17, 2013 by Dranak

[Max_Caine]

Hmm.. I can confirm that too. I suspect it has somethig to do with hyperveolcity.

[Josip Broz Tito]

I've been losing 1-3 soldiers per mission (used to be none usually in v6). This is pretty brutal (but I like it). Huge part of that is the increased aggression from aliens, especially their habit of melee bursts.

What are the ramifications for me early game?

1. Spending more geoscape money on replacement soldiers.

2. Using 1-2 snipers per squad.

3. Bringing 1 rocketeer just to deal with the UFO interior. I can't risk sending soldiers into them, or taking potshots= I just blow the insides up. This has led me to taking home $30K+ less mission money. Alternately, have chucked C4 into the UFO's too.

4. Made a garage + a hunter. Been pairing the hunter sight range w/ machine gun and sniper fire. Safer than advancing with riflemen atm.

5. Prioritizing the manufacture of jackal suits. I will see how well this fares with the new dmg spread. If it lets me take people back home after a mission= you've just solved the 'nobody is making jackal armor' problem.

As far as Sciencing goes:

1. Beginning of game= built an additional lab.

2. Hired 15 more scientists as lab space opened.

Resulted in approximately the same research pace as v6, I just had less $ to spend anywhere else. I don't feel I can skimp on research as the armor, foxtrot, and alenium explosives are vital early game.

Overall: I have less money to work with at the beginning of the game.

[kabill]

Have played to mid-November again. Some thoughts:

- Overall, quite happy with the weapon balance. I've made use of every starting item in the game except the rocket launcher (which is a matter of choice more than anything) and combat shields (I used one once, but it made no difference. Again, this is a matter of choice and if I new I was going to be assaulting an Andron ship I'd totally bring some along, since my usual assault tactics don't work so well). Shotguns are the only thing I'm slightly uncertain of, but I think this is because they're more difficult to use/have less opportunities to do what they're good at compared with other weapons (because they're so short range).

- For the first time, I was sending a Hunter along on missions. I never used one before, but I've not been disappointed the times I've used them and they were a great help on a couple of night-time terror missions. The headlights are awesome and really useful. The weapons feel a little off, though. The rocket launcher is ok, but I've found it's limited ammunition problematic and for this reason I think I have a preference for the standard gun. The gun has a surprisingly small suppression value (or, it feels that way); I would have expected it to be similar to a LMG but it seems less.

- I got some armour early and am very glad of that. I've not really played with armour much since the vision penalties were removed, but I'm finding the weight of the armour alone a good balancing factor (though I could see how this could change with super-strong soldiers).

- Smoke grenades are amazing. I'm not sure there's a single mission I've not used them and can safely say they've averted a number of deaths. I'm ambivalent about whether I think they're overpowered now. On the one hand, they're in no way stopping me from taking casualties. They're also not necessarily very good on their own, since you need to combine them with suppression (so you can assault through the smoke without getting hit by reaction fire) or spotters from another direction (so you can shoot through the smoke). So they work well in synergy rather than just dominating everything. On the other hand, they've been the lynch pin of my play-through so far and I can't decide if that indicates that they're too good.

- I like the new grenade delay. I'm aware others don't, but for me it makes them less easy to finesse and also makes them more distinct from direct-fire weapons. I can't decide whether smoke grenades would be good to work like that, so you can't use them to easily negate reaction fire (although at the moment they don't do that; I put this in over in bug reports).

- I like the suppression resistance on Sibellians and Androns. For Sibellians, it's nice to have to work for suppression but also have the option of things like flash bombs for when it's really needed. On Androns, it has forced me to fight them completely differently, at least when assaulting a UFO (since I usually rely on suppression to break reaction fire).

- Can't say I've noticed the new damage spread, but in principle it's a good thing I think (makes non-coms more deadly, but I don't think that's a bad thing).

- Increased alien numbers on the Light Scouts makes those missions more interesting. The mix of UFOs was also much better this game from the last (I've had a nice mix of Light Scouts, Scouts, a couple of Corvettes and a couple of Terror Missions). The early game for me therefore has been livened up considerably.

All in all, then, I think the GC balance is pretty good where it is now.