Ground Combat Balance Discussion V20 Experimental 7

[legit1337]

@STK

I'm sorry but i totally disagree with you. I actually LIKED the combat in EU, because it felt real and visceral. Weapons felt powerful, and you sucked in a breath every time one of your guys got shot at. You kept your guys in cover and advanced cautiously or half your squad would get wiped in 1 turn of shooting. Right now the game feels like star wars storm troopers shooting at each other. I've seen aliens and xenoauts CONSISTENTLY miss each other at 4-5 tiles range, and when you do hit it it takes 3-6 shots to take something down.

Is this more fun and "cinematic"? Arguably...

Is it also totally ridiculous, removes tenseness from ground combat, and makes weapons seem like toys? Unquestionably yes.

@assoonasitis

The absence of UFO destructibility really limits tactical options in this game. In EU if a bunch of aliens were holed up in a room chucking grenades at whoever came close you could blast a hole in the outer wall and take them out from the outside.

[StellarRat]

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.

Well, if you were an alien and had a grenade wouldn't that be what you'd do? I guess if you run out of supplies you screwed up. I mean, what if you ran out of laser batteries? The whole idea that there are ammo limits is that you can run out. I'm not so sure this is a problem, yet. If it proves impossible to take a leader alive then I'll re-evalulate the whole situation. We've waiting for aliens to use grenades for months now (like the OG.) Now, we'll have to balance them I guess or come up with new tactics. I've commented several times on here that alien grenades would make ground combat much harder, but my opinion was that it was way too easy for the humans most of the time. Maybe that has changed. Edited December 6, 2013 by StellarRat

[StellarRat]

@assoonasitis

The absence of UFO destructibility really limits tactical options in this game. In EU if a bunch of aliens were holed up in a room chucking grenades at whoever came close you could blast a hole in the outer wall and take them out from the outside.

Good point.

[StK]

@legit1337

I dont know which game you are talking about.. the remake or the original one.

The combat system of the remake is completely lazy and bogus as only the cover you are kneeling next to actually counts as cover nothing else counts. Ive seen people shoot through walls and cars to hit enemies that should be clearly behind the obstacle and next to impossible to hit from that angle. All in all i used a ton of snipers and assaulters and combat didnt feel real at all but rather gimmicky because many skills (like run and gun) made it that way.

The combat system of the old one (eu95) is very old.. which means really simple and was easily exploitable but if you didn't it was prone to a lot of rng bs because of the high dmg weapons. I remember several times killing a Muton with a lucky shot of a heavy laser over half the map. or getting a squad wiped because of a dmn sectoid shooting his plasma pistols over 2 fields.

(in my opinion still better then the remake mind you).

If you need a little more then one shot to take down someone its more likely to average out at the wanted to-hit percentage, if you oneshot stuff you will experience more rng-bs.

I'm not argueing the to hit chance or something.. I'm just fine with the way it is now that plasma pistols don't one shot everything on the field and want it to stay this way.

And usually if I blow up cover (in this game) and use my weapons correctly (like not moving snipers around as the xenopedia states). I get decent fire fights that don't look like starwars - stromtrooper shootfests.

Edited December 6, 2013 by StK

[legit1337]

@STK

I'm referring specifically to the old EU game in the 90s.

I also use my weapons correctly, IE: snipers post up in a high spot, LMGers grab cover and lay down suppressing fire while riflemen maneuver in for the kill.

Oneshotting people from FAR AWAY was a symptom of the accuracy system in the old EU and not about the damage system.

A plasma pistol SHOULD kill an unarmored xenonaut in one shot most of the time. If it didn't it wouldn't be any better then a ballistic pistol and wouldn't portray the massive technology advantage the aliens have at the start of the game. The purpose of this game is to show how the xenonauts advance over time to combat the alien threat while the aliens stay largely stagnant.

The "rng-bs" as you put it is a staple of the original game.

The long range combat in the game seems mostly fine accuracy-wise... it's just close range combat seems to make my soldiers derp out and give them the accuracy of cub scouts.

[StK]

the xenopedia actually states the plasma pistols would loose a lot of punch with increasing range... which I would like..

If Aliens can close in on me and fire point-blank range, why not oneshot kills... I can prevent that from happening.

If they fire from far away.. well their weapon (mind you plasma pistol not rifle or anything later.. these should be powerful) lacks stopping power. This would not only save people from the rng-bs it would also allow newcomers to adapt to the game combat at least a little before everything gets really messy.

[legit1337]

the xenopedia actually states the plasma pistols would loose a lot of punch with increasing range... which I would like..

If Aliens can close in on me and fire point-blank range, why not oneshot kills... I can prevent that from happening.

If they fire from far away.. well their weapon (mind you plasma pistol not rifle or anything later.. these should be powerful) lacks stopping power. This would not only save people from the rng-bs it would also allow newcomers to adapt to the game combat at least a little before everything gets really messy.

Oh I agree with you on that point at least. Plasma pistols should lose power/accuracy with range.

I was specifically talking about point blank range engagements (<6 tiles range), which a plasma pistol would be designed for. In the current version I've had a soldiers storm UFOs and take 2 shots up close and live with 1/3 health. That is what I am complaining about.

[StK]

hmm... don't know..actually that never happend to me.. when I storm a UFO the AI usually _unloads_ into my guys and wreck em.. I dont think my soldiers ever survived a close range encounter .. maybe once, but I dont think so.. maybe you get really really lucky.. (^^,) or I'm really really unlucky.

[Aaron]

@Assoonasitis, are the aliens in the command room reaction firing with grenades? If so, we maybe shouldn't allow that. Have you tried using stun grenades? The aliens should flee from dangerous (i.e. gas filled) tiles now, so they might be a good way to flush them out - I'm thinking about implementing nerve gas grenades and/or incendiary grenades for the Xenonauts in future to help them out in this regard.

There probably is something wrong with the accuracy for the aliens - we are looking into it.

Also, Wraith are hilarious now they know how to move about a bit better - just had one teleport right infront of my squad and drop a nade at his feet (sadly, he did not teleport out, but he survived anyway).

[Gijs-Jan]

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.

*Proud moment for me*

[Assoonasitis]

*Proud moment for me*

GJ! :argh: Stop being so good at programming, darn you.

[superbob]

Stun gas grenades seem to work now, especially well against xenonaut soldiers. This... Actually saved a bunch of my guys. Accidentally I knocked out most of my team after unloading on the aliens and the surviving ones didn't shoot back.

I've yet to test this a bit more, but potentially, making a cornered soldier knock themselves out with gas might result in better chances of survival than trying to escape or throw grenades at the enemy.

[Brochacho]

The combat system of the old one (eu95) is very old.. which means really simple

Does Xenonauts literally model the path of every projectile like the original UFO:EU did? I'm a little confused as to how fired projectiles work in the wake of these accuracy changes.

The original game's system was great because it rewarded the player for actually looking at the battlefield and using his brain, not reading toHit percentages.

[Assoonasitis]

UFO Defence was always nice in that you could shoot clear across the map with autofire and have some rook thread the needle and blast a muton in the face three times in a row. That was good.

[lemm]

Plasma pistols are actually effective now. I don't see why they needed to lose effectiveness at range in the first place. They were totally ineffective.

[Sapare]

I preferred the old plasma pistols, it kept the early game from being too slow and grindy and allowed your soldiers to move more then 4 fields a turn because they would not get shot (effectively) out of visual range. Now an early night mission is a disaster because aliens seem to have further view in the night and better weapons, and you can't have armor at that point. It also makes it rather irrelevant if you fight the early aliens close ranger or long range. Overall I preferred the weaker plasma pistols, it gave you a soft(ish) start for the rather harsh difficulty ramp up that was to come.(on Insane that is)

The 2nd reason I feel the plasma pistols should be reverted to their original state(or closer to it) is the fact that it added an element of changing battlefield.

Early game you simply gotta keep distance do to the alien weakness in range, but once they get out those plasma rifles long range shootouts really become a loosing battle and you have to re-adabt your strategy. If you make all of the alien weapons good at range and do 1 hit kill damage on range the strategy for one might become the strategy for all.

It also walks the danger of simply being frustrating because early game you can't build armor and all the plasma pistol shots will amount to(in some cases) is simple luck/bad luck. Which if they 1 hit kill your guy from outside your field of view will simply make you throw your arms in the air and curse. While later game you can at least throw an armor on that forward scout and most likely have him tank a shot.

[jeon]

As a new player but a vet of x-com, I found the early ground game to be extremely easy. Then, upon reaching medium sized ships the enemy ground forces are way tougher... especially with their grenades. It does make sense that the initial non-combatants are fairly easy to take out, especially once you get the basic armor and some laser weapons. It does make sense that the soldiers will be better fighters, but the current balance is really frustrating because of the power of grenades. Maybe I need to wait around some more and finish research on next tier of armor? Although I'm not sure it will help the poor guy who gets the grenade directly at his feet. Perhaps soldiers should act like soldiers and roll out of the way when they see a grenade flying their way? Reactions based check of some kind? Even if it is abstracted and explained somewhere that soldiers/certain aliens are actually trying to avoid getting hit with grenades and that they don't always get killed if a grenade lands near them.

I am thankful that the Androns don't know how to throw their grenades when they invaded my base or I'd be toast. A lot of the time they also kinda wandered around like they were Borg looking for certain things to blow up in my base and ignored my soldiers. I thought it was pretty cool and it was genuinely creepy and troublesome that at any time they could turn around and mow down my soldiers if I got their attention.

Edit: On further observation I noticed that grenade accuracy for my soldiers is tied to strength so setting the aliens' strength values to 100 is probably what makes them 100% accurate with their throws.

Edited December 8, 2013 by jeon
Extra Thoughts

[Assoonasitis]

For the matter of grenades, they ought to all act the same way. By which I mean, why don't my frag/ Alenium/ plasma grenades (and probably whatever's beyond) explode until I end my turn when every other grenade, literally, explodes immediately?

[legit1337]

@Sapare

"Soft" plasma pistols are a bad idea imo. Alien technology is FAR superior to humans (at least at the start of the game) and the game should reflect that by making even alien noncoms a credible threat. Even when up again hardened human commandos. The technology disparity is THAT big.

As the game progresses the humans make tech advances, but the aliens also start getting more serious when they realize we can actually resist them. They start sending their actual soldiers and warships down instead of scout craft manned with armed "civilians". Thus the difficulty of the game remains roughly the same (maybe a bit tougher) as the game progresses.

If the aliens actually started out from the beginning going full force battleships + elite soldiers, earth would fall within a week, maybe less.

I guess what I'm trying to advocate is to keep the plasma weapons hard hitting to drive home the "wow that alien non-com just blew away three of the best soldiers earth has to offer... imagine what one of their real soldiers could do!" feeling of desperation.

Remember, at the start of the game you are supposed to feel outmatched.

[Assoonasitis]

Sure, the technology is great, legit, but the guys wielding the technology are kind of poo at fighting, and so they should reflect that by being truly awful at shooting their truly awful weapons which are just side arms and are meant to be more for the occasional native that drops by instead of actually fighting a dedicated uprising. Sure, a Glock is a great pistol, but you can't expect to go back in time and subjugate a native population with one, because it's not meant for that sort of conflict.

[Sapare]

@Sapare

"Soft" plasma pistols are a bad idea imo. Alien technology is FAR superior to humans (at least at the start of the game) and the game should reflect that by making even alien noncoms a credible threat. Even when up again hardened human commandos. The technology disparity is THAT big.

As the game progresses the humans make tech advances, but the aliens also start getting more serious when they realize we can actually resist them. They start sending their actual soldiers and warships down instead of scout craft manned with armed "civilians". Thus the difficulty of the game remains roughly the same (maybe a bit tougher) as the game progresses.

If the aliens actually started out from the beginning going full force battleships + elite soldiers, earth would fall within a week, maybe less.

I guess what I'm trying to advocate is to keep the plasma weapons hard hitting to drive home the "wow that alien non-com just blew away three of the best soldiers earth has to offer... imagine what one of their real soldiers could do!" feeling of desperation.

Remember, at the start of the game you are supposed to feel outmatched.

I understand the feeling outmatched factor, but you can have that without throwing away the notion of a difficulty curve. The player will not start as experienced as he will end the game. Halfway through the game he will know a lot more of the quirks of how things work and as such the game SHOULD ease him in more then simply murdering two squadmembers in one turn from outside his viewdistance.

Plasma pistols were fine in V19 stable, in 20.7 they are extremely unpredictable. They seem to have no(or almost no) damage/accuracy drop-of over range.

[superbob]

I think alien reaction shots need another look, specifically reaction shots after having the door to their room blown up. Twice now, the soldier with the rocket launcher got shot up, behind cover, by a plasma pistol wielding lizard. This might just be extremely bad luck, but in general, I think blowing up doors should not evoke reaction shots, or at least less than opening doors does, which right now should be zero.

Also suppression seems a bit sketchy now, I've repeatedly seen these jumpsuit wearing sectoids cower in fear because someone over at the opposite side of the corridor was getting shot at, and I mean the main corridor in a landing ship. Unless they're supposed to be scared of loud noises, in which case it's fine.

[Sapare]

Not 100% sure if this is the correct place to put this but another thing I want to bring up is the fact that Xenonauts do not seem to be calculate FF in correctly.(which is not new with the beta to my knowledge, but this seems the closest to the relevant place to put it). I just had a sniper(in 20.7) try to shoot past 4 Xenonaut troopers, she shot the first one in the back and almost killed him. In 19 I had a heavy machine gunner once take out 2 of my own guys. Somewhere I read they wouldn't do reaction shots if the chance to hit an ally was above 10% but I feel that must be broken.

[superbob]

Can confirm, so far two of my soldiers were executed by a shot to the back of the head, by fellow team members trying to be helpful.

[ventuswings]

Sure, the technology is great, legit, but the guys wielding the technology are kind of poo at fighting, and so they should reflect that by being truly awful at shooting their truly awful weapons which are just side arms and are meant to be more for the occasional native that drops by instead of actually fighting a dedicated uprising. Sure, a Glock is a great pistol, but you can't expect to go back in time and subjugate a native population with one, because it's not meant for that sort of conflict.

I really don't think light scout needs further weakening. Light scout missions are already far more easier than other UFO. If we actually go on to make non-combatants more awful, we are going to grind the difficulty curve we currently have into the difficulty cliff, while making already boring light scout missions more of a chore. Are you advocating rookies with initial technology should charge in and kick ass ala XCOM Enemy Within? Their threat level already decreases dramatically once the new equipments start rolling in. Stat of non-combatnat alien are also notably inferior compared to their armed kinds.

Also the usage of the word non-combatant is clearly bit of a misnomer; it is obvious that crew of the light scout are NOT civilians as they trigger harmful Geoscape events as they fly by, unless alien military brass are so incompetent that they allow random teenagers to fly into hostile planet to kidnap and shoot at random fisherman for lols. The purpose of light scout is to scout (military operation). I assume the crew member to be engineers, navigators, researchers etc. who are part of military but without specialized combat training. Finally, I wouldn't really compare effectiveness of "alien" pistol to the pistol on Earth... If you must make Earth analogy stick, I myself wouldn't have problem taking down bunch of soldiers down with the Glock after traveling to the Middle Ages. I believe the very horror of piss-poor alien with piss-poor pistol wiping out your squad is the point of X-COM.

If necessary, decreasing the number of alien on light scout is much better thematic way of reducing the light scout 'difficulty' without further gimping already weakest weapon (besides those of light scouts but that's another matter).