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Ground Combat Balance Discussion V19 Stable Candidate 1


Aaron

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Not a huge number of balance changes for ground combat in this build:

- Reduced AP cost of Hunter MG to 30, slightly increased damage and increased suppression significantly

- Increased Hunter rocket count from 4 to 8 (the rockets are stacked like matroshka dolls, before anyone says anything)

- Reduced spread radius of smoke grenades from 4 to 3, and reduced the longevity of smoke clouds

- The alien heavy plasma rifle has been given 50 armour mitigation to boosts its performance versus later Xenonaut armours

- Hypervelocity weapons have all been disabled; long term they may be re-enabled, but they were taking too much dev time right now

- Sniper rifles have received a 25% damage increase (to counter the loss of HV properties)

The biggest change is probably the resolution of the bug where aliens could cheat and shoot using more TUs while suppressed - basically what was happening was if an alien had enough TUs to perform even a simple attack, like a 15 TU snap shot, they could for "free" upgrade it to the highest tier (burst fire). Hopefully there aren't any more issues like that, but if there are I'm sure you will let me know :)

Oh also, I'd be really interested to hear feedback on the alien base missions - aliens should now be better distributed in them (not all in the command room). Also the later UFOs should have the correct number of aliens (a lot).

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Strictly speaking from 19.7, but since you ask about alien base missions and I did was yesterday -

It was a small Sibellian base. It was quite linear, which I'm not so fussed with, but given that it was basically 3x3 rooms there's not a lot you can do about that. I liked the addition of the 'locked' door and blowing that open creates a useful tactical advantage. However, I almost missed it - if I didn't know that there were supposed to be explodable locked doors, I probably would have ignored it. Not sure what you can do about that to make it more obvious, though.

Distribution was reasonable. I quite liked that two guards in the anti-chamber to the command centre retreated into the command room when I approached; if I'd have been more aggressive I might have been able to kill them and make the final room less difficult.

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It looks a little bit odd when the aliens turn 180 degrees away from me and then fire through themselves at me. Amusing, but odd.

Haven't played in a few builds, is two single plasma pistol shots usually enough to suppress a soldier?

Does seem to be much less of a "freeze hang" time at the end of combat now. Good improvement there.

Edited by svidangel
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Initial impressions after a few lightscouts:

- Is the smoke super accuracy reduction a stopgap measure? I only ask because with the way it is, you can use the line of fire indicator to check whether you can see out of the smoke or not. Sometimes it could be a bit ambiguous in 19.7, but in SC1 I can check, and I like that a lot.

- LoS doesn't always update when smoke dissipates, so at the start of the xenonauts' turn I have to turn soldiers/move a soldier to get the proper LoS. (It's the same problem as LoS not updating after destroying a wall or somesuch, I s'pose.)

- I'm not sure if I ever said it in a 19.7 thread, but I like the new farm maps.

- Damn, snipers pack a punch now! I've one-shot two Sebillian non-coms so far. I probably shouldn't mention this since I like to complain about bad luck.

- Thank God the extra TU bug seems to have been sorted. It really makes a huge difference.

I really wish I hadn't agreed to babysit over the weekend, ground combat is really fun to play right now.

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Was going to post about this from 19.7, if it's still the same in stable= this is applicable:

The pulse laser is extremely powerful. I'm not sure if it needs to be toned down or not. It's not the most accurate weapon in the game, but it's blast radius is high enough to where it doesn't matter within a screens distance.

Using a soldier wielding a alenium rocket as a barometer, the pulse laser can deal close to 2x as much damage in one turn. I was in a terror mission and had 5 sebillian warriors attacking my troops. They were all within 2-3 tiles of each other. One turn, 2 shots= 4 of them dead, one wounded badly.

I lost out on their equipment...but even being able to one-shot most aliens at that stage of the game...twice per turn seems excessive compared to what infantry could do. Although, to be fair if I had brought 2 rocket infantry, I would've likely had a similar result.

I will play with them more this build. The pulse laser is definitely effective though.

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The fixed alien TU's are immediately noticeable in the first mission compared to that of the last build. It's dangerous and tense, but it's lost that hopeless 'meat-grinder' feel.

The ability to make hunters at the beginning of the game without research is a good change. I didn't check, but did we also get a free hunter too? I could select one in the vehicles tab, but my garage wasn't finished yet. Didn't try loading it on the Chinook.

Didn't lose any troops on the first or second mission and no wounds (bring 2 sticks of C4 on each rifleman in case of hard-to-reach aliens). This was possible w/ careful play in the OG and TFTD too. So far, the initial feel is better. Suppressing aliens with auto-fire/machine guns and flanking them is now much more effective.

I do strongly recommend that Goldhawk include a detailed manual with basic tactics so that newer players don't get to frustrated and give up before they learn how awesome this game is. The aim of the game is to get X-Com vets to buy it- but it'd be great to convert some of the new generation of players too. If you can devote time to a tutorial mission= even better.

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I think the free Hunter isn't really required. I know it was a error, but really we don't need to keep that "error". The updated Hunter itself even with just the MG is perfect IMO. It reminds me a lot of the starting AFV in the OG. I actually use them a lot now. Good work there. I haven't tried it with rockets or the pulse laser. Although, I think the pulse laser should be devastating (unlike Tito) since it is a top tier vehicle weapon. It's always been quite powerful even in the early iterations.

Other observations on the GC balance: Alien plasma shotgun vs. Jackal - Devastating. Don't even want to think what would happen to unarmored Xenonauts. Haven't tried it against Wolf. I will have a healthy respect for plasma shotgun in the future. Also, I noticed the PS can hit multiple soldiers with a single blast. Is that intentional? I don't remember the Xenonauts shotgun having the same capability, but then again, maybe I haven't had two aliens close together.

The suppressed TU fix has been a godsend on getting the GC balance correct, BTW. That was VERY important. Thank you.

There are timing issues with smoke, grenades, etc... You toss a smoker, but you can still see the bad guys moving around. Also, I think LOS/LOF update isn't happening in the right order sometimes. I'm sure you're aware of these issues.

Edited by StellarRat
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How heavy/light should they be? Like, Jackal armor light? I forget how much they weigh now, but even my strongest hired soldiers can barely carry the shield and a pistol. Nothing else, even a pistol mag is too much too often.

Well, over the weight limit, at least. I'll take a hit on TUs to have an extra mag, but I shouldn't have to.

Maybe balance it so that a soldier wearing jackal armor and carrying a shield can only have a pistol and an extra mag at an average starting strength. At the moment my highest strength soldiers go into carrying a measly three items, shield, pistol, extra mag. That shouldn't be the case.

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How heavy/light should they be? Like, Jackal armor light? I forget how much they weigh now, but even my strongest hired soldiers can barely carry the shield and a pistol. Nothing else, even a pistol mag is too much too often.

Well, over the weight limit, at least. I'll take a hit on TUs to have an extra mag, but I shouldn't have to.

Maybe balance it so that a soldier wearing jackal armor and carrying a shield can only have a pistol and an extra mag at an average starting strength. At the moment my highest strength soldiers go into carrying a measly three items, shield, pistol, extra mag. That shouldn't be the case.

I don't know. Honestly, I haven't worked with the numbers. I would hope a strong soldier (60 strength) could carry a shield, Jackal, a pistol, a couple grenades, and one spare clip, without being encumbered to less than 55 TUs.
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The aliens in the scout can still shoot through the corner of the door whereas my soldiers cannot, giving them a huge advantage. I suspect that this is a residue of the "shooting through walls" bug. If n alien can shoot my soldier, he should be able to shoot the alien, i.e. line of sight should be symmetrical. It happened twice on my first mission, and my sniper died from a one-shot in one case. It happened on both corner entrances of the scout entrance.

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The aliens in the scout can still shoot through the corner of the door whereas my soldiers cannot, giving them a huge advantage. I suspect that this is a residue of the "shooting through walls" bug. If n alien can shoot my soldier, he should be able to shoot the alien, i.e. line of sight should be symmetrical. It happened twice on my first mission, and my sniper died from a one-shot in one case. It happened on both corner entrances of the scout entrance.
Agree. This also happens in bases with some of the corners and doorways.
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Even in the original xcom there were situations where one person could shoot at the other, but the other could not return fire. Some of it might be the engine.

Oh, and on the combat shield... I'm fine with the weight as long as the functionality is changed so that it mitigates 80% of the damage every shot, rather than an 80% chance of mitigating any given shot.

Edited by svidangel
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I like the new Hunter; it has a role as a scout that can provide suppressing fire in a pinch, and the head lights are incredibly useful at night. I bring one along with me at all times now. I think the MG hunter could have a lot more ammo, however; 100 rounds would be good. As a balance, it could have two firing modes: a 30 TU spray for area suppression (make it less accurate than it is now) and a 60 TU aimed burst for focused fire. I don't ever use the rocket hunter, so I can't comment on it.

The door mechanics are great too; breaching the UFOs is a lot more difficult now than it used to be. You might even want to require UFO doors to be blown open (as I don't know how you would open one from the outside anyway) so that players need to bring C4 with them.

Shields are still sorta useless for open field combat. I tried a mission where I just left them in the dropship on the first turn and then came back to get them before breaching the UFO, but that took way too long, and I don't think it would have provided much benefit anyway. Perhaps the Hunter could have a storage compartment? Idk. I think shields would be useful in alien base missions, and that's about it.

Edited by lemm
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Well, if you prefer the random chance of the shield directly in front of you simply not stopping anything and gibbing your guy... but I thought that was what we were trying to avoid.

20% bleed through of the plasma discharge means that instead of a 20% chance of gibbing the guy he'll only die if the shield dies or he takes enough shots (which the shield probably wouldn't block all of anyway due to HP). It wasn't intended to make in game sense any more than any number of ridiculous things like weapon ranges or sight ranges, but to make the play and usage of shields more balanced and fun. At least to me, that 20% gib wasn't very fun when I had a guy kneeling, behind cover, with a shield.

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