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Ground Combat Balance Discussion - V21 Experimental Balance Patch!


Chris

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Your experience of the game is your own experience. There's no "new player experience" bell curve you have to fit in to. What might be helpful to know is the environment you have have had these experiences. I.E. What difficulty you selected? (as there's a small difference now in how each diffculty level works). How far you have progressed in the game - what have you researched, what UFOs have you encountered? Which lizardmen kill you - the ones with pistols or the ones with rifles?

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Your experience of the game is your own experience. There's no "new player experience" bell curve you have to fit in to. What might be helpful to know is the environment you have have had these experiences. I.E. What difficulty you selected? (as there's a small difference now in how each diffculty level works). How far you have progressed in the game - what have you researched, what UFOs have you encountered? Which lizardmen kill you - the ones with pistols or the ones with rifles?

What I meant by experience is whether the game is in fact supposed to be very hard and if it is nearly unavoidable to lose many soldiers; at least in the beginning?

I think I selected the default(normal?) difficulty and I am about 2-3 weeks into the game. I found out it was the reptilian Sebilians which I read in the xenopedia should have poor accuracy at anything but small distance due to their small brain. I think I have met both those with plasma rifles and pistols, but haven't been able to notice a difference, probably because I need to play more. Compared to how much my own troops miss even at 30-60% hit chance I feel that these Sebilians hit much more accurate even at above medium range, but maybe I could have been unlucky. I will play more :)

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Oh, it certainly is unavoidable unless you're good at the game, or know the mechanics well enough to know how to avoid loosing troopers. It's expected you loose some troopers to start with, and as you progress and learn how the game works, you can develop tactics and strategies to minimise losses. That;s why troopers don't have special mechinaics or rules like in XCOM 2012, so you're not ragequitting when you loose a valuable trooper.

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Oh, it certainly is unavoidable unless you're good at the game, or know the mechanics well enough to know how to avoid loosing troopers. It's expected you loose some troopers to start with, and as you progress and learn how the game works, you can develop tactics and strategies to minimise losses. That;s why troopers don't have special mechinaics or rules like in XCOM 2012, so you're not ragequitting when you loose a valuable trooper.

I have actually already begun to alter my tactics (after I posted last). I now equip two or three soldiers with three shields and pistol to function as spearhead when advancing. The other soldiers with heaver/sniper weapons stay behind and/or hide behind 100% cover only popping out to shoot once and pop in cover again. This seems to work quite well now.

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I have actually already begun to alter my tactics (after I posted last). I now equip two or three soldiers with three shields and pistol to function as spearhead when advancing. The other soldiers with heaver/sniper weapons stay behind and/or hide behind 100% cover only popping out to shoot once and pop in cover again. This seems to work quite well now.
The main secret is to find the enemy then wait to engage until YOU'RE ready. If you send your troops in piecemeal to fight you'll get slaughtered. Always leave enough TU to get back around a corner or behind some cover after you spot the enemy. That means you need to move slowly and deliberately across the battlefield. Always make sure the guys in the back are able to cover the guys up front scouting the enemy. Popping around a corner, firing, then going back around the corner all the same turn is an excellent tactic. (If watch news footage of real battles that's how the "smart" guys avoid getting killed.) One of the advantages you have in the game is that there is no time limit to finish a ground mission. So, hurrying will eliminate one of your biggest advantages. Edited by StellarRat
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  • 2 weeks later...

I found that combat shields are perhaps a tad bit OP. Maybe there should be a limit to how many combat shields can be carried by one soldier? Is it realistic that one soldier can carry four shields, and is this huge advantage this offers intended by the devs?
Are you sure you are playing the newest experimental version? Shields got heavier recently and later in the game shields still have their use but are severely limited by stun damage of plasma cannons in the open.
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The main secret is to find the enemy then wait to engage until YOU'RE ready. If you send your troops in piecemeal to fight you'll get slaughtered. Always leave enough TU to get back around a corner or behind some cover after you spot the enemy. That means you need to move slowly and deliberately across the battlefield. Always make sure the guys in the back are able to cover the guys up front scouting the enemy. Popping around a corner, firing, then going back around the corner all the same turn is an excellent tactic. (If watch news footage of real battles that's how the "smart" guys avoid getting killed.) One of the advantages you have in the game is that there is no time limit to finish a ground mission. So, hurrying will eliminate one of your biggest advantages.

On the other hand being forced to advance TOO slowly gets boring. Some thoughts on this one:

1) I prefer to make cover more relevant. You can progress much faster (on some maps) by moving from cover to cover leaving just enough TUs to reaction fire. This certainly is a very sound strategy in theory, but right now cover seems to do little to save you, and reaction fire for humans seems far less effective than aliens. So yes right now you are forced to do much more hiding and that is much slower and more boring.

2) I think it is good to apply some time pressure. DO NOT implement turn limits. But maybe a higher incentive to save civilians. Right now I am not clear if this has any impact... maybe only a minimal one, but when I first started playing I did alot more charging across the field to save them and that made for a very interesting game. As a second point to this one, it would be nice if you could take over a civilian you meet, or somehow order them to a certain area you have already cleared out (only would work if they are not actively panicked). Civilian rescue could add a lot of depth to missions where they are present and add variety of strategy overall.

3) Not sure what people think of this one. But if aliens in the ship never leave (which seems to be the case) then a message showing that the outer map is cleared would be nice. Immersion breaking? maybe a little... but it would eliminate a lot of slow & boring map exploring when there is nothing left out there.

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.... As a second point to this one, it would be nice if you could take over a civilian you meet, or somehow order them to a certain area you have already cleared out (only would work if they are not actively panicked). Civilian rescue could add a lot of depth to missions where they are present and add variety of strategy overall....

Definitely agree. I realize it might be somewhat costly developmentwise though to add new AI and Game scripts.

Not sure what people think of this one. But if aliens in the ship never leave (which seems to be the case) then a message showing that the outer map is cleared would be nice. Immersion breaking? maybe a little... but it would eliminate a lot of slow & boring map exploring when there is nothing left out there.

In the current stable V20, aliens not only really never leave their ship, but also never even check what is there out the front door of the ship. What you do is you just line your men up in front of the door, open it, barrage inside, close the door back, and repeat. This is also true of bases. I think this partly stems from an AI problem as follows: The enemy AI doesn't know it can stand in front of the door and open it, it tries to open the door by moving to the tile on the other side but since those are blocked by your men, it just stands in front of the door which you can open the next turn and annihilate them.

Also when you move inside the ship, go upstairs, peek into the command room, where the ships command team never moves one tile, you note their positions and throw in some gas grenades without risking one man.

So the crashsite mission unfolds as follows:

1-Defend the area around your dropship where most enemies in the field come to attack sooner or later. Then advance very slowly.

2-When you believe you have eliminated most enemies pretty much without leaving your dropship much behind, find enemy ufo and line up your men in front of the front door. Clear first room by open-closing the door.

3-Move up to the command room and gas inside.

These could I think be resolved by adding more positive incentive to save civilians. Also the aliens could more or less stay near their ship and really, check their doors once in a while.

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Why are you talking about problems in V20 stable? Aliens in V21 will pop out to attack you if you stack outside doors.
Correct, the aliens are more aggressive in the current experimental builds. Luckily for me, the ones that would charge out the door are usually dead before I attempt to enter. Either by explosives on the door or simply because they tried to charge out and were gunned down in the doorway. The AI does leave a few aliens in both levels of most ships to garrison, but that seems sensible to me.
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On the other hand being forced to advance TOO slowly gets boring. Some thoughts on this one:

1) I prefer to make cover more relevant. You can progress much faster (on some maps) by moving from cover to cover leaving just enough TUs to reaction fire. This certainly is a very sound strategy in theory, but right now cover seems to do little to save you, and reaction fire for humans seems far less effective than aliens. So yes right now you are forced to do much more hiding and that is much slower and more boring.

2) I think it is good to apply some time pressure. DO NOT implement turn limits. But maybe a higher incentive to save civilians. Right now I am not clear if this has any impact... maybe only a minimal one, but when I first started playing I did alot more charging across the field to save them and that made for a very interesting game. As a second point to this one, it would be nice if you could take over a civilian you meet, or somehow order them to a certain area you have already cleared out (only would work if they are not actively panicked). Civilian rescue could add a lot of depth to missions where they are present and add variety of strategy overall.

3) Not sure what people think of this one. But if aliens in the ship never leave (which seems to be the case) then a message showing that the outer map is cleared would be nice. Immersion breaking? maybe a little... but it would eliminate a lot of slow & boring map exploring when there is nothing left out there.

I agree that cover has been toned down way too much. Chris thought it led to prolonged firefights. I don't agree with that. As far as time pressure, well, in real all this "careful" advance would be really quick. So I'm not sure I'd be favor of trying to speed things up. After all, it is supposed to be a strategy game not a shooter. The aliens do leave the ship BTW. They usually leave a few people behind as a garrison, but I'd say more half are out on the battlefield when you arrive.
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