Ground Combat Balance Discussion V20 Experimental 7

[Assoonasitis]

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).

You seem to be confusing the concept of a non-combatant with a non-military entity. Light scout crews are non-combatant in that they're not intended to see ground combat. Their job is to cause a ruckus in their ships.

[Dranak]

A fun side-effect of aliens now having limited ammo is that during base assaults they run out of ammo from shooting at the scenery before they reach your soldiers. I just cleared a base defense mission with a single Corporal with a ballistic rifle and a Hunter because of this. I was really confused until I stood over a corpse and noticed their weapons all showed 0/X, with an unused magazine still in their inventory.

I also had 2 Reapers just stand in their pods and refuse to move until my Hunter hugged them to death. With bullets.

Were plasma pistols changed in 20.7? I can't find any mention of that in the patch notes, and nothing jumps out at me from the XML as being different.

[StellarRat]

A fun side-effect of aliens now having limited ammo is that during base assaults they run out of ammo from shooting at the scenery before they reach your soldiers. I just cleared a base defense mission with a single Corporal with a ballistic rifle and a Hunter because of this. I was really confused until I stood over a corpse and noticed their weapons all showed 0/X, with an unused magazine still in their inventory.

I also had 2 Reapers just stand in their pods and refuse to move until my Hunter hugged them to death. With bullets.

Were plasma pistols changed in 20.7? I can't find any mention of that in the patch notes, and nothing jumps out at me from the XML as being different.

That's pretty funny. Maybe the aliens should only expend ammo until they reach 50% "OUT" and reserve the rest for combat? You would think they use only grenades to destroy terrain and even then save one grenade for the Xenonaut defenders.

[Skitso]

Anyone else think that alien grenades are "a bit" overpowered atm? Half of my squad got slaughtered to tiny bloody bits (which was great btw) by a single grenade in my first alien base mission on easy difficulty setting...

[Assoonasitis]

Anyone else think that alien grenades are "a bit" overpowered atm? Half of my squad got slaughtered to tiny bloody bits (which was great btw) by a single grenade in my first alien base mission on easy difficulty setting...

I believe that I've complained about it a couple of times. Easiest thing to do is open a door, then close it before the end of the turn. Over and over and over until you win by attrition.

[ventuswings]

That's pretty funny. Maybe the aliens should only expend ammo until they reach 50% "OUT" and reserve the rest for combat? You would think they use only grenades to destroy terrain and even then save one grenade for the Xenonaut defenders.

It seems to be problem on other missions too (especially at one with lot of civilians) because they don't seem to reload. I don't know about removing alien infinite ammo before AI learns how to use their clips...

I also wonder if Aliens should be given twice as many magazines with selling price for magazines cut in half. Xenonauts rarely have ammo troubles and can bring lot of magazine along if necessary, so Alien at current state are at bit of a disadvantage when it comes to prolonged firefight.

Concur alien invaders should have ammo reserve threshold and that they should prioritize attacking Xenonauts if both destructible base structure and Xenonaut are within one's sight.

[lemm]

I think that the aliens should have infinite ammo. Or at the very least, recharging ammo.

[StellarRat]

Anyone else think that alien grenades are "a bit" overpowered atm? Half of my squad got slaughtered to tiny bloody bits (which was great btw) by a single grenade in my first alien base mission on easy difficulty setting...

I don't know. They devastating in the OG too. If you didn't have well armored troops you could lose an entire squad if they were bunched up. One of keys to success was to not let the aliens get too close to your squadies.

[legit1337]

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).

Quoted for truth.

Also think alien grenades should stay how they are. They are supposed to be devastating, but EVERY alien having one i agree is a little ridiculous. They should randomly be assigned 0-2 grenades at the beginning of the mission. Weighted so that there is a 50% chance of them NOT carrying one. Perhaps more elite aliens can have a higher chance of more. Also amounts maybe affected by difficulty?

I also don't think aliens should have infinite ammo. Depleting alien ammo my crouching behind cover and cowering like a little girl so you can kill them when their guns run dry should be a viable strategy.

IMO each alien should randomly spawn with 1-3 magazines in reserve, and should reload when necessary. They should save at least 1 magazine and 1 grenade (if they spawn with one) for use against xenonauts.

[StellarRat]

I'm with legit on all his points. Also, as a side point, the aliens deserve to run out of ammo as they tend to use full auto whenever they get a chance or so it seems.

Edited December 10, 2013 by StellarRat

[Assoonasitis]

Aliens should run out of ammo because my favoured tactic for clearing large ships and bases is to take out a few guys with my weapons, then grab the rifles the alien soldiers have to conserve ammo.

[Skitso]

I don't know. They devastating in the OG too. If you didn't have well armored troops you could lose an entire squad if they were bunched up. One of keys to success was to not let the aliens get too close to your squadies.

Yeah, but this was tossed across the whole first room in alien base. My guys were hiding behind the railing in bottom part and the grenade was thrown from the upper doorway maybe 15 tiles away...

I'm fine getting my whole squad gibbed with an alien grenade when I've made a clear tactical mistake (letting a grenade wielding alien come too close), but if it's thrown from across a huge room in a way that there's nothing I could have done to prevent it, is IMO bad game design...

Edited December 10, 2013 by Skitso

[Gijs-Jan]

A fun side-effect of aliens now having limited ammo is that during base assaults they run out of ammo from shooting at the scenery before they reach your soldiers. I just cleared a base defense mission with a single Corporal with a ballistic rifle and a Hunter because of this. I was really confused until I stood over a corpse and noticed their weapons all showed 0/X, with an unused magazine still in their inventory.

I also had 2 Reapers just stand in their pods and refuse to move until my Hunter hugged them to death. With bullets.

Were plasma pistols changed in 20.7? I can't find any mention of that in the patch notes, and nothing jumps out at me from the XML as being different.

The Reapers AI is disabled in this build because of a bug in the zombification process whenever more than 2 victims were hit in a single turn. We needed some time to work it out as fixing it wasn't trivial. They should be in the next build.

As for grenades; it's strange that the grenade got thrown a distance of 15 tiles. Do you maybe have a save of that game?

Aliens running out of ammo should also be fixed in the next release.

[Aaron]

Alien grenades did have too long a range initially, I have reduced it in the internal version already which makes them a bit less a fearsome.

Aliens will eventually have infinite ammo for their main weapon - we haven't had the code implemented for it yet, but I had turned the ammo count for alien weapons up to 999 in the hopes that would compensate in the meantime, guess it wasn't enough...

I think I might make a change to alien loadouts so that only 1 in 2 alien have grenades, or maybe even 1 in 3 early on.

[legit1337]

@aaron

Why is aliens having unlimited ammo a necessity? I believe in the OG (UFO defense) they actually spawned with magazines and could run out if they fired too much.

Also, is there any plans for morale to affect aliens? So far I've never seen aliens panic or go beserk. It doesn't seem fair to subject a player to a mechanic that the AI simply ignores... Not to mention it's a little immersion breaking.

[superbob]

Aliens will eventually have infinite ammo for their main weapon - we haven't had the code implemented for it yet, but I had turned the ammo count for alien weapons up to 999 in the hopes that would compensate in the meantime, guess it wasn't enough...

I could see that ammo count after picking up an alien weapon, but only on main battle screen. On inventory screen weapon capacity was normal, and so was the amount of ammunition loaded with each cell. Reloading on the main battle screen however gave me 999 shots, and then I was like BURST FIRE ALL THE THINGS and the aliens were like OMG WTF RUN and... Well those heavy plasmas probably got kinda hot by the end of that battle.

So yeah, this had an effect that was probably opposite to what you were trying to do.

[Aaron]

We would only put in limited ammo for aliens if we also gave them a way to resupply - this was never considered in any of our design for the AI, and would probably be a pretty awkward feature to implement.

Morale doesn't affect aliens right now - the aliens aren't really exactly the same as humans, so I don't see it as obvious it should apply: many of the alien sub-races of described as barely sapient, almost being biological robots (or actual robots, in one case). In truth, it is something I would like to play with, but we've really got bigger fish to fry right now.

@superbob: Ack dammit, our split inventory system strikes again!

[llunak]

@aaron

Why is aliens having unlimited ammo a necessity? I believe in the OG (UFO defense) they actually spawned with magazines and could run out if they fired too much.

But there having a gun and one extra ammo clip meant having 50-70 shots. Here the same means 20 or less. Still, I myself would prefer if they carried enough ammo and could run out. Just give them enough batteries and make sure they know how to reload . And if they run out, well, they run out.

[Assoonasitis]

Alien grenades did have too long a range initially, I have reduced it in the internal version already which makes them a bit less a fearsome.

Aliens will eventually have infinite ammo for their main weapon - we haven't had the code implemented for it yet, but I had turned the ammo count for alien weapons up to 999 in the hopes that would compensate in the meantime, guess it wasn't enough...

I think I might make a change to alien loadouts so that only 1 in 2 alien have grenades, or maybe even 1 in 3 early on.

The problem is that alien weapons are spawning with only the "correct" max shots loaded. For example I loot an elite Harridan's corpse for its plasma cannon, which has been fired twice, and get a plasma cannon with 2/999 shots. Then I take the extra ammo and reload so I can use it for the rest of the mission.

[Aaron]

I've just pushed a tiny fix to the experimental branch that should correct that.

[Assoonasitis]

See? I knew it, you are perfect, Aaron.

[Aaron]

Assoonasitis is right you guys, and you cant improve on perfection so no more balance fixes k

[Assoonasitis]

Assoonasitis is right you guys, and you cant improve on perfection so no more balance fixes k

+1 Quoted for truth.

[StellarRat]

Assoonasitis is right you guys, and you cant improve on perfection so no more balance fixes k

Damnit Assoonasitis! Now look what you've done!

[Assoonasitis]

Disable reactions on precision weapons. Just get rid of it entirely. In the late game it is impossible to move anywhere without Harridans taking pot-shots with their absurdly accurate weapons any time they get in visual range. It is, like many of the balance things in this version, completely ridiculous; I say that in the angriest way possible.