Ground Combat Balance Discussion Build V21 Experimental 1!

[Chris]

Lots of changes, here's the place to discuss them.

[Max_Caine]

Well, I've played 5 missions now. All light scout stuff, so nothing too spectacular. Impressions:

1) Shields are crap. They let through shots which will insta-kill the shield guy and when they are hit, they vanish in a puff of smoke. My shield men carried two extra shields in their backpacks as spares when their primary shield was destroyed by a single hit from any alien weapon. Not that they will need them, because I'm permanently retiring shields. A 1 in 5 chance of dying without a chance for my shield guy to shoot back at guard-class Sebbies or Caesans on light scouts is, sorry to say, fucking ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as me equipping my shield guys with two spare shields.

2) The reduced APs for almost all actions makes a big difference on play, especially on the opening turn. If I'm caught out by a Caesan standing nearby, I can react far more effectively than I ever had previously.

3) Caesan guards seem a bit weedy, tbh. I can get behind noncoms dying to a single shot, but guards? They should have some armour, something to state why the armies of the world are having so much difficulty with the aliens.

4) For that matter, weren't guards supposed to be nixed for light scouts?

5) Haven't got Jackal armour yet, but I'm already feeling the pinch for weapon weight in unarmoured troops. Will report back when I start wearing that stuff.

6) Has the stat variance been taken out? All my recruits are pretty much the same, with stats hovering around the 50's (and I recruit around 20-30 soliders at a time).

7) For that matter, are soliders free now? Not that I don't mind so much - I loose enough soliders that recruits are always welcome, but it seems incongruous that I pay for scientists and engineers, but not soliders. Could a hire cost (even if it's only a token cost) be reinstated?

8) Not certain if 1 guard and 1 noncom is really enough for a light scout. Don't get me wrong, a guard is one scary SOB, but it's pretty easy to zerg the guard out in the open (esp. Caesans), then prep to breach the UFO.

[Solver]

I can confirm some of that from a few missions.

Shields suck. Maybe 100% frontal mitigation but 100 HP is the way to go. I've had shield bearers killed directly by a bypassing shot, and if not, shields are usually destroyed by the first shot.

Burst fire on rifles is useless now due to even snap shots being so accurate.

On Max's point #8 though, my first light scout (Caesan) had 3 guards and 1 noncom. Not a cakewalk.

Soldier stat variance didn't make it into this build, presumably by error, so I am fixing it on my end manually.

[Ol' Stinky]

Soldiers have been free for a good while now. I wasn't around for the mid-v20 experimentals so I assumed it was a deliberate change: soldiers cost nothing but should, in time, have a higher penalty for dying. I first noticed it in v20exp7 I think? I figured the reasoning was that someone short of cash can afford recruits and pay for them later, to encourage spending on the geoscape. /shrug

Can you fix the variance, Solver? I've looked for min stats in the .xmls before without any luck. Stat caps are in gameconfig.xml, but not the minimum ones. Keep us updated!

Edit: I keep forgetting to post this, and every time I breach a UFO I think, "Right, this time I will bring it up on the forums." Could you please remove the ability to shoot at the UFO? We can't damage it, even if we wanted to, and it makes it awkward to target the door/someone standing around the door at times. Also, the UFO top comes back on if you can't see a UFO interior tile at the start of the turn. This means that you can't throw in grenades/fire suppression shots inside without having someone put themselves at risk, which is annoying and encourages door-scumming.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Ol' Stinky

[Skitso]

Soldier stat variance is all set in gameconfig, and seems like they are all in old default settings for some reason?

[Ol' Stinky]

Soldier stat variance is all set in gameconfig, and seems like they are all in old default settings for some reason?

Heyyyyyy, you're right. Nice! That's new, it only used to be min/max age and the ever controversial ~*female soldier chance*~ in those soldier generation variables.

Mind you, with the current carrying weights, it's just as well we can't get 30 strength soldiers or whatever the minimum was.

Edit: I'm going to start again, then try and upload vids of me doing ground combat.

the first one. Apologies for crap video etc., I've not recorded games before. Edited January 11, 2014 by Ol' Stinky

[Solver]

About decreased effectiveness for cover. I find it is good, but for strong cover. Could it be boosted to previous values perhaps for low cover? I find that low cover now makes almost no difference, a 3-round alien burst hits with at least 1 shot.

[harrythevet]

I'm not a big fan of many of the balance changes. It seems the aliens can see for miles, shoot amazingly accurately (even with reaction fire, which they seem to do abundantly; even the sebbies, who are meant to be a bit slow) and slaughter my hapless troops before I've finished getting them off the chopper. The reduced APs are ok, but TBH I much preferred the previous iteration. Also, the weight thing sucks; as soon as I put Jackal armour on anyone, all they can carry is one weapon and one magazine. Lame.

Oh, one other thing - if you're behind a bit of cover, you should be able to stay behind it and shoot around it from in cover (ie not have it be 100% blocked).

[Max_Caine]

Just a quick update. I never thought I'd be so glad to wear Jackal armour! Jackal armour basically saves my ass from certain death. It's not much good beyond a single shot, but right now, I'm glad for all the help I can get!

ccrunner's strategy works really well. Too well. I'm thinking that if the GH devs are still intending to implement zero LOS persistency, better to do that sooner than later. The persistent LOS is what makes flinging grenades out of smoke possible, because you know where you're throwing the grenade.

[Solver]

I think the solution there is not zero LOS persistence but rather just making aliens target smoke. Fire into it randomly, throw the occasional grenade.

[Max_Caine]

Persistent LOS has more issues than just that, but no persistent LOS would, as a consequence of not being peristent, help resolve that particular issue.

[Ashery]

I think the solution there is not zero LOS persistence but rather just making aliens target smoke. Fire into it randomly, throw the occasional grenade.

But then that can be exploited in the other direction and smoke becomes a very effective distraction mechanism. Hell, just smoke an alien and let its buddies kill it, heh. The kind of situational awareness required to properly (without cheating) counter smoke seems like it'd be really difficult for an AI to pull off.

You'd also have to tie up the loose end of the AI knowing where your troops are and facing towards the soldier closest to them, even if the soldier's inside a building and outside line of sight, while the alien's taking sniper fire from its rear.

[Falesh]

I'm still very new to the game so I can't compare most things but I can say that I really like the new lower AP cost. Previously I felt the game was too slow as it took so long to move my troops around making sure they were crouching at the end of the turn to present a smaller target. Now missions last a nice length of time, not too quick but not too long that they drag on.

[Korgath]

I feel like the strength nerf needs toned down slightly. I think making it half the difference between the old and new value would be spot on. Putting armour on my guys pretty much means either no grenades or no ability to do more than one mission (or longer missions that need multiple reloads) and I don't see how having a pack mule carrying ammo for everyone should be the done thing but it's going to have to be at this point imo, especially early on when we only have 8 guys to use.

[EDIT]

Also, I didn't play last night because I was busy with other things but the last light scout I done I had a grand total of 2 alien alloys from it, why even bother? I don't feel like I need to do these missions unless I want my squad to have better stats because I can just choose the airstrike option now and get pretty much the same money regardless, only missing out on those two alloys. Generally once Scouts show I only do those and just airstrike the light scouts because they're a waste of time. (unless i really need more alloys)

I think there needs to be a bit more incentive to do the ground combat for these smaller ships. I think reintroducing some relationship bonus for doing them yourself should be there, similar to the old score system. It doesn't need to make a huge difference but just a small one so that doing those 5 light scouts that appeared in the month might net you an extra little boost in funding.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Korgath

[legit1337]

I still maintain relation boosts from performance in ground missions needs to come back.

Either that or a MUCH bigger financial/materials incentive. Like 3-4x what you would get by airstriking.

[Ol' Stinky]

I don't like the strength nerf either. If it wasn't for the +grenade range, strength would feel like a naff stat right now. Before when I gained a couple of STR it'd mean something, since I could carry an extra grenade or ammo. Now I don't look at it.

I'm fine with the system being a long term boost with the airstrike and an up front payout with ground combat. Without any overdamage and no payment for new soldiers, the only time you're going to lose money is if you lose a tank. If that's what annoys you then fair enough, but if you're rolling with all soldiers you might as well do ground combat unless you're bored of it.

You also get secondary resources (alloys, alenium) which you don't get at all if you airstrike. Secondary resources are meant to be important and if they're not, they should be made more valuable.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Ol' Stinky

[Max_Caine]

I'll reiterate what I said over on the Announcement board regarding 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 considered to be deadly. Reaction fire is based off snap shots, snap shots are accurate, alien weapons are extremely deadly.

[Solver]

I'm not a fan of the removed overdamage, I think it perfectly fits the punishing nature of X-Com. Why shouldn't losing a soldier you heavily invested in hurt?

[Ol' Stinky]

It's fine as long as weapon/armour costs are balanced around it, but they weren't.

[legit1337]

I think soldier costs need to come back too... If I'm losing a lot of soldiers in the ground combat it should cost me financially.

[Skitso]

I don't like the strength nerf either. If it wasn't for the +grenade range' date=' strength would feel like a naff stat right now. Before when I gained a couple of STR it'd mean something, since I could carry an extra grenade or ammo.[/quote']

Actually the new carrying capacity formula (10 + STR x 0.25) gives more importance to strength than the old one (20 + STR x 0.2). I kinda agree the change is too much though, but maybe 10 + STR x 0.27 could be the sweet spot?

Edited January 12, 2014 by Skitso

[Korgath]

Yeah I think either 0.27 or 0.28 might be the ticket. I'll need to go back and see how much str my guys have and see what is reasonable. I think unless the soldiers are super high stats then it should be around 27/28Kg - that should be enough for armour + rifle and 2 clips and 2/3 grenades or so. If shields and other stuff can be abused because of that allowance then perhaps the weights for those items should be adjusted instead of changing the formula?

[Ol' Stinky]

Actually the new carrying capacity formula (10 + STR x 0.25) gives more importance to strength than the old one (20 + STR x 0.2). I kinda agree the change is too much though, but maybe 10 + STR x 0.27 could be the sweet spot?

Oh, my mistake.

[nailertn]

Not a huge fan of the reduced TU cost and cover bonus. Ground combat has always been a ponderous chess game, there is airstrike or the Firaxis game for those that have no patience to play the way the franchise has always played. It feels way too easy now to just rush through big open grounds without having to solve the puzzle of how to advance from cover to cover with minimal risk while maintaining cover fire. Diminishing the importance of cover is also problematic, this issue is very prominent in the Firaxis version: playing ironamn in a game where RNG is king is not much joy.

[Max_Caine]

I've played eight missions (6 light scout, 2 scout) with a modified burst and snap. I dropped the snap to 50 across the board, and the burst to 35 for aliens (previously it was 45). 50 seems to be the point where reaction shots don't appear to be a death sentence, and 35 for burst seems to be the point where burst is scary, but again, not auto-killy. I'll play a lot more (8 missions is a vanishingly small sample to base that kind of opinion on), but I think those two values are good starting points.