Ground Combat Balance Discussion V20 Experimental 1

[legit1337]

I'm not keen on the idea of preventing doors being opened/closed more than once a turn - I've seen lots of complaints from people who accidentally open doors by miss-clicking on them, imagine how annoying it would be if you accidentally closed a door you need to go through, and then were just screwed for that turn because you couldn't open it.

I will have a think about other options - I do like the idea of giving aliens a reaction shot attempt against door opening Xenonauts (by that I mean they would do a check to see if they can react, and do a reaction shot if they pass + have AP - I don't mean all aliens immediately hose opening doors regardless of AP).

Thank you for the reply Aaron

This would make opening a UFO door an insta-death for any xenonaut in visual range not armed with a combat shield/advanced armor/insane luck. (Like it was in the OG) Your thoughts?

Also, any plans to fix the grenade issues?

Edited October 30, 2013 by legit1337

[Saskali]

Thank you for the reply Aaron

This would make opening a UFO door an insta-death for any xenonaut in visual range not armed with a combat shield/advanced armor/insane luck. (Like it was in the OG) Your thoughts?

Also, any plans to fix the grenade issues?

Well if opening the door would trigger reacion fire the best option would then be to blast the door from far away, have some well placed snipers and heavilly armored soldiers that would reveal the fog of war so the snipers could do the job . There will always be a way to prevent too heavy casualties.

But there will always be casualties unless you reload.

Even with the system as it is actually after you open the door you can get reaction shots when firing at aliens so i dont really consider the open close door an exploit. Dont even remeber how many times i lost good soldiers to the last room of an alien base due to heavy plasma reacion fire after i failed killing the alien on the first shots (usually heavy weaponry).

My new "exploit" metod consist of sacrificing rookie soldiers in order to get rid of reaction fire by moving (as far away as possible of the door) in front of the door to trigger reaction shots and then going in with my experience fighters once the rookies are dead to clear the room. I usually loose 3-4 soldiers in the process but not the good ones . Peace to their souls. Some even survive the process.

[Selvhan]

Opening a door should give better chance of a reaction fire. Not automatic... And I agree that it should cost more AP if you slowly open the door to not trigger a reaction fire but if you open it normally, it should not cost too many AP.

[Max_Caine]

I can imagine the complaints if doors became unclosable.

"Hi, I can't close doors. Is this a bug?"

"Help! Doors wont close!!!!!!

"WHY CANT I CLOSE DOORS"

"It's completely unrealistic to be able to open a door, but not shut one."

"Just lost a soldier because I couldn't close the ******* door. Fix this!"

"They can't shoot, they can't throw, now they can't close doors. Genius!"

"Why can't soliders close doors??????"

"Why can't I close an building door? It's not rocket science to turn a handle!"

"This is why I now refuse to play beta games."

And so on.

And so forth.

(This is a repost but just as appropriate here as it is there.)

Edited October 30, 2013 by Max_Caine
added more complaints to the quote

[StellarRat]

I can imagine the complaints if doors became unclosable.

And so on.

And so forth.

(This is a repost but just as appropriate here as it is there.)

I'm with Max and Aaron on this one.

[kenmtraveller]

Doors shouldn't be unclosable.

But, if you change anything about this, make sure the optimal solution to 'how do I kill the aliens in that spaceship' doesn't become complicated, repetitive, and boring.

[Chilly]

I can imagine the complaints if doors became unclosable.

noone said that doors should be unclosable. You could still close it the next turn if you opened it, and if the aliens opend the door you can close it, no problem.

This is a difficult decision i guess, but while this game is in development you could try out a few options and see which is the best (or just code it the way you think will be best of course). There will always be the option of modding it the way one wants it, presuming this is possible.

Anyway, accidental opening of doors will always be a problem, so i suggest preventing that by some means.

so far

[Max_Caine]

If I click on a closed door, open it, then click on it again and I cannot reverse the action, that door is unclosable, even if I can close said door the next turn. It doesn't matter a fig to someone coming to this game if they can close the door the next turn, because in the turn, and indeed the action that person wants to take that door is unclosable.

Then again, EU2012 never gives players the option to close any door they opened. There's lots of sighing in the 2K boards over "I wish I could close doors" but not rabid hate.

[Chilly]

If I click on a closed door, open it, then click on it again and I cannot reverse the action, that door is unclosable, even if I can close said door the next turn. It doesn't matter a fig to someone coming to this game if they can close the door the next turn, because in the turn, and indeed the action that person wants to take that door is unclosable.

Then again, EU2012 never gives players the option to close any door they opened. There's lots of sighing in the 2K boards over "I wish I could close doors" but not rabid hate.

sometimes i wish i had 100 millions of funds, you know what i do then? i just cheat

but well, i'm happy with whatever the majority of people wants. you can't be sure about that on forums though. Also, It's not THAT big of an issue. is it?

Edited October 30, 2013 by Chilly

[legit1337]

I can imagine the complaints if doors became unclosable.

I'm with Max and Aaron on this one.

Maybe... But how is "lol aliens can't return fire at me because I just close the door in their faces at the end of every turn" any better?

It's an exploit that needs to be fixed imo. I discovered and use it in my game, and I'm not even a min/max powergamer that looks for that kind of thing. It makes breaching UFOs practically zero risk.

What we need is a solution that makes breaching a risk like it should be, without making it a death sentence.

[Max_Caine]

Oh, I don't say it's any better, just that there would be lots of complaints. Perhaps GH should do what EU2012 did. After all, people didn't really complain as such on the 2K forums, there was just lots of whistful sighing.

Let's break the problem down. In a real-time game, if you open a door it's hard to close it again because any opponents on the other side of the door can hose the door and anything they can see through it, so if a door opens inwards, reaching for it is a death sentence, if a door opens outwards and pushing it shut can mean losing an arm. Even if the door closes Star-Wars style, there's a distinct period of time between manipulating the door command and the door shutting, in which time the opponent can respond. In an IGOUGO game like Xenonauts, time is much more granular, which is exploitable. When it's my turn, I can do whatever I like and the capbility of my opponent to be able to respond is signficantly reduced in comparison to a real-time game.

As I see it, it's this granularity of time that is the exploitable issue: I can have a squaddie run literal rings around an Andron, and if that Andron has spent all his TUs that turn, tough! So in reference to the issue of the door, there are two ways (as I see it) that he door exploit can be lessened. The players options can be decreased, and the opponents options can be increased. Here are some examples that I could think of (please note these are only examples, they are not fully fleshed out ideas, rather they are demonstrative of the two sides of the coin):

Player options decreased

1) Door remains open: Total removal of player option to use door exploit.

2) Only squaddies in front of door can open door: Removes "safe" options for opening door

3) High cost to opening/closing door: Removes ability to open/close multiple times

4) Cannot use normal or aimed shot for first shot through just opened door: Removes option for "quickscope"/"noscope" shots

Opponent options increase

1) ETs use door exploit: playing field levelled

2) ETs reaction fire when door opens: Allows response to opening door

3) ETs shoot doors: Removes player option to use doors

4) ETs hide behind doors: nothing for player to shoot at

5) ETs reaction fire with grenades through doors: Prevents "stacking" at door

6) ETs use smoke grenades: see 4) and 5)

[smoitessier]

b]Player options decreased[/b]

1) Door remains open: Total removal of player option to use door exploit.

2) Only squaddies in front of door can open door: Removes "safe" options for opening door

3) High cost to opening/closing door: Removes ability to open/close multiple times

4) Cannot use normal or aimed shot for first shot through just opened door: Removes option for "quickscope"/"noscope" shots

Opponent options increase

1) ETs use door exploit: playing field levelled

2) ETs reaction fire when door opens: Allows response to opening door

3) ETs shoot doors: Removes player option to use doors

4) ETs hide behind doors: nothing for player to shoot at

5) ETs reaction fire with grenades through doors: Prevents "stacking" at door

6) ETs use smoke grenades: see 4) and 5)

Interesting, I like player's decrease # 4 and think it should work for both sides (if you could surprise them), and AI increase #5-6

and I thought this

2) ETs reaction fire when door opens: Allows response to opening door

, was already in

[StellarRat]

It would be best if all doors were simply locked and could not be opened by the Xenonauts. You just have to blow them and deal with anyone in the room. If you really think about it the aliens would have to be pretty inept technologically if they didn't have doors that weren't secure from intruders at least for the length of time a battle would last. Even a moronic drug dealer can keep the cops out of his house for a while.

Edited October 31, 2013 by StellarRat

[GlyphGryph]

Why not just have doors (at least base doors, the big sliding types) open and close at the end of turn, same way grenades explode at end-of-turn? It would make sense since they are supposed to be automatic, and make them a lot less abusable, since moving into the doorway would actually give aliens reaction fire, and leaving your guys in front of it when it opens would mean the enemy just plain gets free shots on them. Would be a LOT more tactically interesting, I think.

For regular doors, it just needs to trigger reaction fire, which I think it doesn't right now, and require your guy to stand directly in front of them.

[Max_Caine]

Alien doors did auto-close at one point. StellarRat, help me out here... wasn't that changed v...13? 14? There was a bunch of complaints about auto-close, so it got changed.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Max_Caine

[StellarRat]

Alien doors did auto-close at one point. StellarRat, help me out here... wasn't that changed v...13? 14? There was a bunch of complaints about that, so it got changed.

Yes, they have been through various iterations, from "open only", "close automatically", "open and close", and "locked/sealed" and all of those have brought complaints of various kinds. From "unrealistic" to "gamey" to "it's a bug". I don't know what the best solution is to make EVERYONE happy. Personally, I think just sealing them and forcing the player to open them with gunfire or explosives makes the most sense and will cause the least amount of complaints. The aliens would be nuts to allow anyone to just open the door from the outside. Only aliens should able to pass through them. The biggest problem I can see with having to blast every door is people would whine that they forgot/didn't have enough explosives/ammo to complete the map, but really that's a dumb argument. It's like saying, "I forgot to wear pants this morning." Who's fault is that? The game isn't suppose to compensate for you being an idiot, right? Edited October 31, 2013 by StellarRat

[Selvhan]

How about allowing the player to use some action when opening a door ? That would make the grenade more useful ( even if I find them good ATM ).

If the player open a door, fire, then close it, the AI should try to open that door and then reach the player.

ATM, v20, the AI seem to know that been behind cover is a good idea. Now if they could defend their position or advance to crush the player, they could use grenade.

The goal in a strategic game is to think 1st, act after. It's not an action game. AI should not be harder only because they have better stats, they should be harder because they have/adapt a strategy. Do you prefer to always clean a mission without thinking or getting out of an impossible situation ? Maybe both of them ?

I understand that an alien crew, defending their ship will most likely try to defend their position. But in a terror mission, the alien should be much more aggressive !

[Anon_Spartan]

I'd really like to see doors opening only via gunfire and damage, especially in base defense, to keep those little bastards from spreading so quickly.

[legit1337]

Player options decreased

1) Door remains open: Total removal of player option to use door exploit.

2) Only squaddies in front of door can open door: Removes "safe" options for opening door

3) High cost to opening/closing door: Removes ability to open/close multiple times

4) Cannot use normal or aimed shot for first shot through just opened door: Removes option for "quickscope"/"noscope" shots

Opponent options increase

1) ETs use door exploit: playing field levelled

2) ETs reaction fire when door opens: Allows response to opening door

3) ETs shoot doors: Removes player option to use doors

4) ETs hide behind doors: nothing for player to shoot at

5) ETs reaction fire with grenades through doors: Prevents "stacking" at door

6) ETs use smoke grenades: see 4) and 5)

My opinions on these:

Player Options Decreased

1. Probably the simplest to implement and best imo. The door can then be manipulated again once on the next turn.

2. This should be implemented as well.

3. Not viable imo... why would opening a door take many TUs? Squaddie running from aliens? Have to get around a corner before their turn? Lolnope, suddenly door! It also makes one man of your breaching team useless as he gets relegated to "door opener" duties.

4. How would this be implemented? Is it only for the soldier that opened the door? If so it doesn't fix the exploit of "squaddie leeroy opens the door, entire squad unloads weapons into room, squaddie leeroy shuts the door again preventing enemy return fire."

Opponent options increase

1. Not viable. AI would have to be rewritten significantly, and it would just feel cheap anyway. I can see lots of complaints about this. It would force players to use the exploit to keep up with the aliens. Remember we are trying to fix it, not encourage its use.

2. A possible solution, but would make breaching for the point man almost a guaranteed suicide mission unless he had a combat shield or something. "Squaddie leeroy opens door, squaddie leeroy gets sprayed by 15 full auto plasma shots instantly with no time to react." Now imagine that every time you open a door...

3. Would make sense, if the human soldiers tried the door-closing exploit in real life, most likely the aliens would just unload on the door until it was molten slag. Not sure how hard this will be to implement because it might take significant changes to the AI.

4. A possible solution, but would make aliens almost intractable from a room without using flashbangs/grenades, and would make taking a room "intact" unreasonably expensive. Ran out of grenades/flashbangs earlier? Too bad! You now have to throw bodies into the room until you exhaust the TUs of the corner camping aliens just so you can get a man inside to turn 90 degrees and finish one off.

5. Not viable. Would make standard "breaching" techniques suicidal. The result? The player moves his gunline back futher, limiting his field of fire into the room but changing practically nothing about the door exploiting situation.

6. Not viable. Tactically speaking this is a terrible idea. When protecting a choke point (door) from superior forces, the last thing you want to do is limit your field of view/fire and allow the enemy to close with you.

[Max_Caine]

While those are examples of a larger concept rather than ideas in themselves, I will note that boosting the cost of opening/closing a door was already done, Aaron is already leaning towards reaction tests/reaction shots and breaching from a distance is already reccommended.

[Aaron]

I'm really against anything that adds weird hidden stuff like "Oh, you can open the door yeah, but not close it (until next turn when you can [and open it again??])" - anything like that will lead to mass confusion and just look like bugs to the average player. We are also not going to implement a complicated door status notification system, before that gets suggested.

To be clear reaction fire should already happen when opening a door, what I am going to look at is making it even more likely.

Also, we plan on making a change to the defensive AI so that once they enter combat against a Xenonaut they are no longer limited to staying inside the UFO - so if you open the door then close it and end turn, next turn you might just get heavy plasma surprise bursting out the door.

[StellarRat]

To be clear reaction fire should already happen when opening a door, what I am going to look at is making it even more likely.

Also, we plan on making a change to the defensive AI so that once they enter combat against a Xenonaut they are no longer limited to staying inside the UFO - so if you open the door then close it and end turn, next turn you might just get heavy plasma surprise bursting out the door.

Both of these are good ideas.

[legit1337]

To be clear reaction fire should already happen when opening a door, what I am going to look at is making it even more likely.

Also, we plan on making a change to the defensive AI so that once they enter combat against a Xenonaut they are no longer limited to staying inside the UFO - so if you open the door then close it and end turn, next turn you might just get heavy plasma surprise bursting out the door.

I think this is a reasonable solution. I was under the impression that there was no reaction fire to opening doors (never seen it happen), and that extensive AI modifications were out of the question due to the late stage of the game.

This still makes being a point man more dangerous then it currently is though.

[GlyphGryph]

Specifically, it's important they get reaction fire against people who are NOT the guy opening the door.

Honestly, though, I think the solution here isn't going to end up in a mechanics change, but an AI change. If the Aliens didn't immediately forget you were behind the door the moment it closed, except through their magical detecto-ability, it would be a lot less useful as a strategy.

[Max_Caine]

This is post is for v20Ex2. Could the stopping chance for crouched troops be increased from 60% to 75%? Or a figure close to that? It's painful to watch the comedy circus that is a firefight between aliens and humans where both sides miss, miss and miss some more.