Ground Combat Balance Discussion V20 Experimental 7

[Aaron]

Some pretty significant balance changes in this build, so I am refreshing this thread to discuss them.

The main change for the ground combat portion of the game is the AI has been updated so that alien use grenades, and understand when and how to use them most effectively; there have also been a variety of additional under the hood AI changes that hopefully improve their behaviour in general too.

Additionally Xenonaut grenades now have a larger blast radius, and should be more reliable when throwing them in interior spaces (particularly UFOs). Stun grenades also got a bit of a buff again, while we search for their magical sweet spot.

Feedback appreciated!

[kozferatu]

Alien use of grenades certainly changes gameplay and some old tactics no longer (safely) apply. First mission in new build and lose 5 troopers to grenades while trying to storm UFO! Sebillian crew would run out, throw grenade, run back into UFO.

One thing though, it did appear that they had quite a few grenades - pretty sure they threw around 4 or 5...

Edit 1: Actually, on replay it appears as if the grenades are being thrown from inside the UFO.

Edit 2: Yep, definitely grenades being thrown through UFO walls. Also aliens shooting but shots not going through.

Edited November 28, 2013 by kozferatu
Additional info

[StellarRat]

Apparently they have unlimited grenades?? Just like unlimited ammo??

[Ol' Stinky]

Has anyone else seen fire have a strange effect when it does the killing blow? I could swear I saw a seb run into fire while low on health, die, and then a new seb ran out of the flames. I wasn't able to grab a save or screenie, sadly, and without proof I don't want to post a bug report. It might simply be me going mad.

The new seb had no equipment on him - no grenades, no gun, nothing - so it's not a gamebreaker. Unless it happens with a reaper, I guess...

[cb1987]

Has anyone else seen fire have a strange effect when it does the killing blow? I could swear I saw a seb run into fire while low on health' date=' die, and then a new seb ran out of the flames. I wasn't able to grab a save or screenie, sadly, and without proof I don't want to post a bug report. It might simply be me going mad.[/quote']

You aren't going mad, it happened to me too. I killed a sebilian with rifle fire while it was standing in flames, and the next turn it either got back up or a new sebilian spawned in on top of it (I wasn't quite sure what happened, so I didn't think to look for multiple corpses).

Also, with regards to alien grenade use, I've seen a lot of instances of aliens throwing grenades as soon as a xenonaut or civilian gets within their aggression/sight radius (whether the alien has line of sight or not) regardless of whether the grenade can actually reach the target. They seem to do this in preference to firing their weapon, which would make more sense at extreme ranges.

Edited November 29, 2013 by cb1987

[Aaron]

We will have to resume the discussion of this once we put the build back up with the necessary fixes - for now the old balance thread is available in the forum below so just continue posting feedback there.

[Aaron]

Ok, the new build is available - I have edited the thread title and we can just carry on discussion here. Aliens should be using grenades in a slightly more sane way now!

Keep in mind the grenade toting aliens don't appear until the Soldier tier (they start appearing with Corvettes).

[ventuswings]

I've seen uncombatant Caesan miss exposed and standing Xenonaut two tiles next to him three times already, and also have low probability shot show up on my end occasionally as well (~65%). Then there is everpresent shootout on V20 where unit completely out in the open keeps missing each other despite being about five tiles away; this is actually more advantageous to humans because we know to just walk right up up to the alien, instead of stupidly keeping four tiles of space between them, for greater accuracy. It is my opinion that accuracy formula be slightly adjusted that there is much greater chance of being hit overall for unimpeded-line-of-fire shots which come from less than about seven tiles. Being stupid should be punished for ala V19 stable, perhaps not always but often. I suspect higher accuracies will be acceptable considering the high endurance of Xenonauts.

Deleted to give precedence to other points, except to bring up that alien AI should really be adjusted to deal with blindfire that comes within the smoke, like retreating, throwing grenade into it, beelining straight into it if close enough, or even responding back with blind fire of their own.

Several props behave really strangely with the rockets, such as large square rock on the desert or tree climps on the Middle East map. More specifically, if they are not intended to be destructible, rocket should detonate on its surface instead of traveling and exploding within the prop.

I think possibility of lower ranked aliens showing up with more advanced weapons after that particular type of the weapon has already been 'unlocked' would be amazing change, as at current point with the fixed alien loadout, earlier UFO type missions loses all threat with advanced armor. For example, once you get to Wolf armor, you know you can just grind light scout missions without any risk because plasma pistol basically does nothing to them.

I wrote this on another thread but just posting it here so this doesn't go unnoticed. I can't see a reason not to do this given the armor is permanent, and usually earlier tier alien stats are bad anyway.

Edited December 5, 2013 by ventuswings

[StellarRat]

I suggest that there should be absolutely no chance for even the stray shot to hit other units if chance to hit is 0%. This is to remove the exploit where one blindfire from the smoke, while still being able to successfully hit the desired target by just clicking the tile behind him. Actually alien should really learn how to deal with the smoke, like throwing grenade into the smoky area where there are bunch of shots coming out or something.

I disagree. People get hit all the time in close combat by completely unaimed area fire.

[Brochacho]

I suggest that there should be absolutely no chance for even the stray shot to hit other units if chance to hit is 0%. This is to remove the exploit where one blindfire from the smoke, while still being able to successfully hit the desired target by just clicking the tile behind him.

Please god no. The risk of friendly fire adds a lot to the game, as does the ability to blind fire at targets you cannot see.

[ventuswings]

Please god no. The risk of friendly fire adds a lot to the game, as does the ability to blind fire at targets you cannot see.

Does firing at square not visible give 0% chance? I thought it had been only exclusive to when line-of-fire is completely blocked by full-height block or smoke. I am all for friendly fires (I love how accuracy turned out in V19) but what I wanted to say was that the projectile fired when the chances of hitting the targeted square is 0% should do nothing, not that any stray shots shouldn't happen to hit anything else nearby. More accurately, what I probably want to say is that once the projectile goes through the smoke tile, it shouldn't hit anything.

It's really strange that when you decide to fire at alien while standing in midst of smoke, it won't hit at all due to the chance to hit being 0%, but when you actually target the tile right behind him, now they do. In fact V20 system makes it even worse now since it's tactic only human can utilize, making the job of adjusting AI for the 'fire past the smoke tactic' even harder:

I proposed the idea to shut down the concept but I guess it can lead to other unforeseen consequences.

Perhaps the upcoming LOS changes might alleviate this problem since one actually have to scout to see where alien moved to, I don't know.

EDIT: Ignore my suggestion written here, think I found much better way.

Edited December 8, 2013 by ventuswings

[legit1337]

The idea that simply targeting a square behind an alien would give a better chance to hit then targeting the alien itself IS pretty dumb... If this is actually happening this needs to be fixed.

I have no suggestions on how to fix this however, as I don't know enough about how accuracy and deviation is calculated in this game... Perhaps targeting an alien through smoke gives a to hit chance equal to targeting the square he is standing in?

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Issues:

I still think close range fire is too inaccurate, and the burst option on rifles is completely useless unless the alien is standing in an adjacent square, or you are shooting to suppress.

Health is still too high all around. A caesian non-com shouldn't take 4 hits before going down (perhaps a sebillian would). A plasma hit on an unarmored xenonaut should result in an instakill roughly 75% of the time, and a critical wound 20% of the time, with a 5% chance to still be wounded and standing. I just pulled those values out of the air but they sound about right. I have early game soldiers regularly living through 2 plasma pistol shots in a row (veteran).

Not sure about the health levels later in the game, but they are totally unbalanced early game imo.

Edited December 5, 2013 by legit1337

[StK]

@legit1337:

I disagree on the "too high health" issue, because it stopps the EU95 rng-bs of anything getting in a longshot and kill an alien/soldier. And this happend a lot.

It didn't make the game more strategic or fun or difficult, it just made it prone to rng-bs.

[ventuswings]

I thought about it too and found probably much better way of decreasing effectiveness of the smoke giving AI way of handling the smoke:

* Smoke tiles block LoS but NOT possibility to hit.

Simple change that should be effective since alien AI already have squad sight implemented; if there is spotter which sees Xenonaut standing, other units can now shoot at it even though there is smoke between them. Most importantly, this gives the alien ability to fire into the smoke, instead of it being tactic exclusive to us. I don't know if developers intended for smoke to kill possibility of hitting to 0% but it is clearly not working with the force-fire command anyway.

* Have Psionic units immediately cast 'Locate Enemies' at start of the turn if one of the aliens spot a smoke tile. (change it to 'if that Psionic unit spot a smoke tile' if locate enemies ability is only for that unit, not universal)

Saw this ability on Xenonauts wiki, seems straight-forward and intuitive for aliens so they can squad sight at the unit revealed.

* Give Drone units ability to see through smoke?

It fits with the lore because they are robotic scout units, and gives Light Scout etc desperately needed buff (give reason for players to actually prioritize taking them out over other combatants).

Seems less intrusive way of alleviating the problem than changing how weapon projectiles work.

EDIT: Actually, why doesn't smoke grenade work like original XCOM?

Edited December 8, 2013 by ventuswings

[StK]

@venutswings:

Wait.. what?

How did this go from "There is an exploit that needs to be fixed" to "the whole smokegrenade is op and needs to be nerfed"?

Edited December 5, 2013 by StK

[ventuswings]

@ StK:

Not necessarily OP, just give alien the ability to do the same if they have spotter up instead of them being helpless, since I'm not sure alien will be able to hit anyone through the smoke if that tile forces 0% accuracy. Actually removing the 0% accuracy should make firing through the smoke stronger, as one do not have to rely on "random projectile miss" to cause a hit.

According to response of other people I am not sure people are that unfavourable to the tactic of firing through the smoke. My problem with it is that alien AI just couldn't deal with it, but by allowing alien to do the same thing would much improve the situation. It seems more elegant than "once the projectile goes through the smoke tile, it shouldn't hit anything" which other people rightfully criticized. Of course, developers can take both suggestions into account before making their decision.

Perhaps the drone thing is maybe going too overboard.

Edited December 5, 2013 by ventuswings

[Rooney]

please explain how you miss a 135% shot hit 101% and miss a 101% shouldnt this be 33% chance to hit the square in front of you with a pistol on 20TU and 2 x 10 TU

[StellarRat]

please explain how you miss a 135% shot hit 101% and miss a 101% shouldnt this be 33% chance to hit the square in front of you with a pistol on 20TU and 2 x 10 TU

I believe that no matter what the numbers say there is always a 5% chance to miss a target. Aaron, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Rooney]

the random number generation is seriously flawed or what its telling you is completely wrong this isnt a 1 off event it actually happens quite often

[Rooney]

then again hit 1 of 5 shots at 71% and hit 1 of 3 shots at 63% this is not bad luck as it constantly happens.

could it be that its not the % chance to hit but the % chance to miss. ever noticed how many 20,30,40 % chances you hit with

[Assoonasitis]

Alien bases are truly obnoxious to complete. It's fine until you get to the last room with four dudes hunkered down facing the door, never leaving and ready to lob a grenade right in your face. Don't group up your units? The one guy you sent to open the door get blasted and the aliens laugh at how big a chump you are for sending more and more dudes in to die. Seriously consider making aliens less awesome at throwing grenades or take the grenades away from the jerks in the final room in alien bases.

[Assoonasitis]

Double-post to emphasise how truly, truly obnoxious alien base missions are. Completely. They ruin my fun.

[Assoonasitis]

Triple post:

SERIOUSLY ALIEN BASES AUUUGH.

[StellarRat]

Triple post:

SERIOUSLY ALIEN BASES AUUUGH.

Just blow the door down with C4 and fire a bunch of rockets at them!

[Assoonasitis]

Just blow the door down with C4 and fire a bunch of rockets at them!

I should not have to resort to one singular strategy to win in any given mission. What happens if I don't have C4, what if I have no rockets? What if I HAD rockets but now I'm out? I want to walk in, shoot things with guns and not get a grenade up 7/8 of my squad's butts.