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V21 Experimental 1 Available!


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could anyone tell me where to download this patch ? My steam only update vesion at “V20 Stable Hotfix 2 Released! ” and which version I should to paly v20 STABLE or V21 Experimental? I an really confuse between two vesion game,sorry my english skill,but I think V21 is a testing version right? And I relly don't want lost my save files。。。。。confused:

Play v20 stable. If you don't want to lose save files, do not play v21 experimental.

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Moonie, your shield dissolves because once it blocks 60+ HP of damage, it is destroyed. Which (incidently) is a single plasma rifle or plasma pistol shot. That's why Aaron originally jacked the HP value of shields because they were vanishing too quickly.

Oh, I see. Ty

I have to be truthful, this is the first build for ages that I don't find enjoyable.

Success now rely's to much on luck. Aliens don't have to move anymore, all they need do to kill me is to wait for me to shoot at them.

Aliens seem to be able to shoot me anywhere from any distance, and shields and cover is cotton wool.

Giving aliens a overwhelming advantage does not substitute good AI.

And if this wasn't enough I have had my first game stopping bug for ages.

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I feel like shields should have a better chance at taking more than one hit. Maybe things improve once you throw armour into the mix but for them to be useful at the start I think they need to be able to take around 80hp of damage. That should give them the chance to take one or two pistol hits but a rifle would a much better chance to one-shot.

I also feel that for 'normal' difficulty there should be a bigger element to back and forward gunfire exchanges. Just now it's very much kill or die when you see aliens. The only way to avoid losses is to abuse LOS with smokes and hiding around corners etc. It's going to lead to most people using one or two guys to scout (nothing wrong with that) and then guys further back to actually take the aliens out and if things go wrong then you just dump a smoke on the guys in the line of fire and have another go next turn.

I don't think there's anything you can do to counter the smoke/LOS abuse to be honest (at least nothing I can think of off the top of my head) but it shouldn't necessarily be the method of playing you push people toward.

Edited by Korgath
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Increasing the mobility of aliens would help with player LoS tactics. Right now they don't tend to move a whole lot, so scout'n'snipe is that much easier. Along with 30 range for both rifles and the LMG for random firing and suppression, it's not too hard to overwhelm guards at the start of the game. If the aliens did the same thing to the player, then the game would be harder and more tense. It's scarier to get shots out of the dark on the aliens' go then it is by bumbling into an alien's line of fire without realising it.

I think "kill or die" is what they're going for. The feeling I got from Chris' posts about making the balance patches was that back and forth was boring.

I'm sympathetic with gripes about shields, though. So far I've been lucky, but failing a bunch of 20% shield failure rolls would annoy me. I think the fact that they have 60hp in the light/regular scout phase of the game's fine.

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I think the sweet point in balance is when there are occasional firefights, too. Not when it's just that "kill aliens this turn or you die".

60HP shields are not fine if they have an 80% chance to block. 60 HP means that they can only block one shot anyway. If they're intended to be one-time like that, then at lest they need to work 100% of the time. Something that has a 80% chance of blocking one shot is too weak.

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I think the sweet point in balance is when there are occasional firefights, too. Not when it's just that "kill aliens this turn or you die".

I agree. Interestingly on OpenXcom there's a setting battleRangeBasedAccuracy for addressing the too high accuracy issue of the original game. With the setting soldiers benefit greatly from having vision to target themselves and unless they flank and advance on the enemy, firefights will emerge. Even soldiers shot at when moving from cover to cover have at least a theoretical chance of surviving. I think reduction to accuracy makes the OG more interesting at least.

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I think that setting makes accuracy range dependent, something that wasn't the case in the OG.

Then again I think accuracy is too high across the board in current Xeno builds. My starting soldiers get in the 40-50% range accuracy with snap shots. Aliens still typically need like 3 shots to go down, but the higher accuracy almost eliminates firefights and results just in concentrated fire against one alien at a time.

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When it comes to firefights, let's consider the AI's approach. From my observations, the AI appears to maximise the number of shots whenever possible, probably working on the theory that stastically, the more shots you fire, the more likely you are to hit. The AI will favour a burst shot over any other type of shot and when it cannot fire a burst shot it will always favour a snap shot. This is probably related to the minimum shot accuracy setting, but that's not important right now. If the AI is always going to favour burst and snap then those two types of shot are what should be addressed in relation to cover, as it's the accuracy of the shots that are most favoured that turns a firefight into a firefight or a instant kill.

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60HP shields are not fine if they have an 80% chance to block. 60 HP means that they can only block one shot anyway. If they're intended to be one-time like that, then at lest they need to work 100% of the time. Something that has a 80% chance of blocking one shot is too weak.

Maybe the penalty for shield block failure shouldn't be a straight up death sentence. A shot that goes through could take a soldier down to at most 10hp, for example, but never kill outright unless the soldier's already at 10hp.

I agree. Interestingly on OpenXcom there's a setting battleRangeBasedAccuracy for addressing the too high accuracy issue of the original game. With the setting soldiers benefit greatly from having vision to target themselves and unless they flank and advance on the enemy, firefights will emerge. Even soldiers shot at when moving from cover to cover have at least a theoretical chance of surviving. I think reduction to accuracy makes the OG more interesting at least.

Going the opposite direction to the current range of 30 for most guns is an interesting thought but can't really happen at the moment: while damage and accuracy gradually trail off, suppression is binary. Shots in the green zone suppress, shots at aliens in the yellow zone don't.

Having said that, disableDamageScaling was created to solve the suppression-range issue for grenades. You'd find it in weapons_gc.xml. It might make for an interesting mod to play about with that for conventional weapons and limit their range to at most 18 (Xenonaut LoS). I've never really messed with it.

(Bear in mind that OpenXcom setting only applies to X-Com units last time I looked. The aliens have the same accuracy as always, unless they changed that. I haven't been following it for a while, admittedly.)

Edited by Ol' Stinky
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I do agree with the most people in this thread regarding the accuracy boost and the shield nerf.

Too much accuracy forces you to play the game in one fashion: scout and snipe - use smoke if you haven`t killed aliens this turn. Especially with the combat shield got nerfed - it cuts out just another strategy. And that is not good. The game is supposed to be harsh and scary, but it should allow you to choose different approach.

Honestly, it reminds me TFTD times with it INSANE accurate aliens.

However, I do not agree with the new stats range randomisation: because it makes some soldiers almost useless and other are just uber (or at least WAY more preferable to pick). So you just spend some time and money picking up ones with the best rolls. It`s wrong: you should love them all.

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I do agree with the most people in this thread regarding the accuracy boost and the shield nerf.

Too much accuracy forces you to play the game in one fashion: scout and snipe - use smoke if you haven`t killed aliens this turn. Especially with the combat shield got nerfed - it cuts out just another strategy. And that is not good. The game is supposed to be harsh and scary, but it should allow you to choose different approach.

Honestly, it reminds me TFTD times with it INSANE accurate aliens.

However, I do not agree with the new stats range randomisation: because it makes some soldiers almost useless and other are just uber (or at least WAY more preferable to pick). So you just spend some time and money picking up ones with the best rolls. It`s wrong: you should love them all.

'INSANE accurate aliens'.

Yeah, what he said.

Also..... locked up on me while I was viewing my soldiers.

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However, I do not agree with the new stats range randomisation: because it makes some soldiers almost useless and other are just uber (or at least WAY more preferable to pick). So you just spend some time and money picking up ones with the best rolls. It`s wrong: you should love them all.

One alternative to level out the distribution a bit: Most soldiers could start with two stats in the 55-70 range with the rest 45-60. Or something similar. Could also mix things up and throw in different distributions (ie three 55-70, but one 30-45). This would keep the random element and cut down the number of terrible (and overpowered) recruits.

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The key point, I believe, is snap shots. Snap shots are SUPER EFFECTIVE. Take aliens, for example. Snap shots for a plasma rifle have an accuracy value of 85. That means (unmodified) a Caesan guard has a base to-hit of .595, a Sebbie guard has a base to-hit of .51 and an Andron guard a base to-hit of .425. Snapping costs 25AP. Ceasans have 50AP, Sebbies 60 and Androns 45. So it's entirely reasonable for the main races to use nothing but snap shots, because (unmodified) they stand in general a 1 in 2 chance of hitting the target and for Caesans and Sebbies, they have enough AP to maximise the number of 1-in-2 snap shots they make. This is probably why reaction fire from aliens is so deadly. Reaction fire is based off snap shots, snap shots are extremely accurate, alien weapons are extremely deadly.

This of course works the other way, but you don't get to technological parity untill late-game, so you can't play the same kind of shenanigans until then, really. I would say make snap shots far less accurate across the board. Human, alien, everyone. Leave the other levels as they are, but hit snap with the nerf bat something HARD.

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That explains a lot of the observations, yes. I go around mostly snap shooting because 2 snap shots is always better than 1 aimed shot. Aliens hit a lot with snap shots. Aliens still take 3 rifle shots on average I think, so smoke is absolutely king. Also make the precision rifles distinguish even more between zoom levels! Those should be awesome for aimed shots and suck for snap shots.

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On veteran difficulty I have found the best way for me to play with these changes is for all my soldiers to be riflemen equipped with combat shields. All use the shields as I sweep through the level which saves them from initial enemy fire if the enemy shoots me before I see it. When I encounter an alien I get the soldiers who are not in los to throw flashbangs to suppress the alien and then I kill it with the rest. If I do not kill it in that turn then I use smoke grenades.

Using these tactics I generally don't lose anyone unless I make a mistake. When I was not using the shields I was losing on average roughly 1.5 soldiers per mission. One of the big times for the loss was when an alien was standing outside my ship when I started the mission. In that situation I had no cover and I couldn't get off any grenades without reaction fire killing men. Now if that happens at least I have the cover of my shields which have a good chance of keeping my men alive long enough for me to throw a grenade.

I am a new player but so far I like the way the missions are played out. Having to rely on flashbangs and smoke makes sense because I am technologically inferior to the aliens so I need to try and prevent a firefight where possible. The combat shields are awesome, possibly overpowered as they have reduced my deaths to near zero, unless I make a mistake, so I don't agree with the comments in this thread about them being poor now.

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Being intrigued by Falesh's strategy, I decided to try it out. I found some problems.

1) Shields still let through shots. In the three missions I played, I lost two guys to shots which got through the shields.

2) Wearing armour is no good. You need the trooper to be unarmoured or you have only enough carrying room for a shield, a rifle, and two grenades of any type. After that, you start loosing APs. So I adjusted, wore the armour and took a pack mule.

3) It needs a lot of people to work. 4 at a minimum, but preferably up to your whole squad.

4) It depends on there being very few aliens to let a trooper get close enough to throw a flash bang. Even two aliens in different locations screw the plan up.

I found that totally ditching shields and rifles and using ccrunners' strategy works ever so much better. Grenade+smoke is way more reliable, way more accessable, and I can have lots of 'em. Grenades FTW.

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This build is frustrating. Leaving soldiers in alien LOS is a sure death sentence. Partial cover doesn't help. Ducking behind corners and coming out again is the only way to keep soldiers safe. Aliens can just spam autoshots at me from halfway across the map and consistently get one shot kills. Xenonauts would have 10-20% accuracy if they tried to hit aliens at the same distance and in the same kind of cover. Are aliens ignoring block chance or something? Plasma seemingly doing a lot more damage than before isn't helping either.

How are aliens so accurate with burst fire when my own bursts are so inaccurate compared to single shots? Human burst fire is so inaccurate its pretty much useless. The burst should be as accurate as a snap shot. If its harder to hit something with a burst than with 2 snap shots then there's no point.

The change to pacing with the TU reduction is a big improvement. The reduction in the effectiveness of cover is not. I actually found it a lot of fun to try and route out aliens in cover since all of your equipment was useful for that purpose. Reducing cover effectiveness just means that cheesing with smoke grenade and corner ducking is mandatory.

Edited by KateMicucci
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