V21 Ex4 Balance Requests

[Chris]

It's been a bit manic over here at Goldhawk HQ, and I've not been able to give the balancing the thought it deserves. Aaron's been busy making maps, and I've been busy doing about a million other things (final mission and Kickstarter art book among them), so between that and illness I've basically lost my train of thought with regards to the balance changes I was going to make, both Geoscape and Ground Combat.

The last build didn't include many balance updates, but I'd like to do a quick balance update in the coming days. If there's balance changes I've either promised to make and not done yet, or you feel we should make, please post them here. A single post with bullet points and a quick explanation from each person with thoughts would be really helpful.

In general, I'm planning to reduce accuracy a little across the board and make the easier difficulty settings easier. Beyond that, it's a bit of blank. I will read the other posts tomorrow, but this thread will be the most reliable way to attempt to upload your ideas directly into my brain.

EDIT - no references to my additional proposed changes from the experimental balance patch thread, please. This is a thread to suggest changes to the existing balance and conflating the two will just confuse matters.

[StellarRat]

OK, here are some of my big ones:

1) Corsair needs a bit more firepower. IMO, as it currently stands, it's not much of an upgrade from the Condor. My suggestion is either dual cannons (or more ammo and higher ROF) or an additional missile.

2) Landed UFOs need to stay on the ground longer so we can actually get the Chinook to them. I don't mind variable landing times, but the range needs to be a bit wider so there is a chance you'll be able to get to them more often.

3) Lower cost, build speed and weight of Jackal armor. Most people skip this armor right now.

4) Aerial terror sites: Grossly unfair to the player particularly early in the game. Often times you simply can't get jets to them because you don't have bases in the region. This is counter to your thinking that air combat is too important because it encourages the player to build even more air bases/jets to counter them. I like the concept, but I think there ought a way to counter them other than sending your jets OR limitations on where/when they can appear. Maybe have a landed UFO directing the air terror (the equivalent of a forward air controller in the military) that can be killed by ground combat. This would also be a good use for Scouts and Light Scouts later in the game i.e. it would give them a "purpose".

5) Two small coding changes maybe not exactly balance: Make alien missiles more visible in AC and allow capture and hold of the control center in an alien bases to be a total victory.

Edited February 3, 2014 by StellarRat

[vaultdweller]

UFO's land more often and stay landed longer.

Allow UFO's on terror missions and base-building to reach their destinations much faster, so that some terror sites and alien bases are almost guaranteed.

[Skitso]

-Less ufo's spawned in general.

-Later advanced aliens (both ranks and species) should have tougher armor, better weapons and other stats to differentiate them more and add tougher challenge to experienced xenonaut teams.

--Directly tied to above: difficulty progression curve is too steep in AC and too gentle in GC

-bit more aliens in crash sites (smaller random variance?), especially larger ufo's

-Snap shots should be a lot less accurate bit cheaper to use

-Assault rifle's burst needs buffing.

-Jackal bit lighter, shield and first aid bit heavier

-Aliens should rush to recapture ufo/control room when a player holds it for 5 turn victory

-I'd really like the cover to... you know, COVER the units behind them once again.

--There are lots and lots of too tough cover sprites. Store shelves for example can take huge punishment before crumbling down. I think cover should break down more easily but cover more reliably. -> more dynamic combat experience.

-Can't agree more on lowering the accuracy across the board

-Agree that landed ufo's should stay grounded longer . Could even stay landed until -> terror site?

Non balance wish:

-I'd like to have a Jagged Alliance style system where every landed shot reduce target units AP's even if it isn't suppressed, and high one time damage numbers could render target unconscious for few turns

Edited February 4, 2014 by Skitso

[Khall]

-(Copied and pasted from other thread) I think putting cover percentages back up to their original values would be a good idea. Decreasing movement costs was meant to promote flanking, but there's no need for if cover isn't that effective anyway. The increase in overall accuracy punishes players that leave units exposed (good idea) and already more shots would be on target on a unit behind cover than the previous accuracy values, which would demolish the cover quicker than before, therefore I think decreasing the cover save of cover is a bit overkill. Entrenched units should be hard to take out without flanking, explosives or sniper rifles (the high accuracy of the upper aim levels would negate most of the cover bonus, which would also give them a niche beside hypervelocity). And it would bring back the firefight feelings of previous versions without decreasing the atmosphere of lethality be reducing accuracy.

Right now its a bit frustrating to have troops regularly taken out with one shot behind cover, it seems like the only way to avoid casualties it to end turn out of alien LOS.

-Reduce TU cost of assault rifle burst fire to 30 and maybe increase its accuracy. This makes burst mode more mobile and viable in CQC

-Increase damage and radius of grenades, but make them less accurate (and maybe increase TU cost). They seem to be a crutch right now, where you can throw a grenade and be near certain it will land on the tile you were aiming for, for reliable damage. I think that you should be primarily relying on blast radius for damage, instead of accuracy and the grenade hitting point blank, but a grenade at your feet should instagib you. Increasing radius would also make them better for room clearing and against groups of enemies. Also, with the new reaction system, increasing TU costs would mean throwing grenades would leave you vulnerable to reaction fire.

-Reduce Jackal weight and manufacturing time, maybe slightly increase wolf weight

-Increase Scatter laser ammo to 30, or decrease reloading costs

-Just an idea, but make the burst mode on heavy plasma very inaccurate, but do loads of suppression. 9 plasma bolts coming at you should be scary, and my soldiers hardly ever get suppressed

-Not really balancing, but can you make suppression act like the damage falloff model, instead of no suppression outside the weapon range

Edited February 3, 2014 by Khall

[StellarRat]

• (Copied and pasted from other thread) I think putting cover percentages back up to their original values would be a good idea. Decreasing movement costs was meant to promote flanking, but there's no need for if cover isn't that effective anyway. The increase in overall accuracy punishes players that leave units exposed (good idea) and already more shots would be on target on a unit behind cover than the previous accuracy values, which would demolish the cover quicker than before, therefore I think decreasing the cover save of cover is a bit overkill. Entrenched units should be hard to take out without flanking, explosives or sniper rifles (the high accuracy of the upper aim levels would negate most of the cover bonus, which would also give them a niche beside hypervelocity). And it would bring back the firefight feelings of previous versions without decreasing the atmosphere of lethality be reducing accuracy.

  Right now its a bit frustrating to have troops regularly taken out with one shot behind cover, it seems like the only way to avoid casualties it to end turn out of alien LOS.

• Reduce TU cost of assault rifle burst fire to 30 and maybe increase its accuracy. This makes burst mode more mobile and viable in CQC

• Reduce Jackal weight and manufacturing time

• Increase Scatter laser ammo to 30, or decrease reloading costs

I like these with the exception of increasing Wolf weight.

[StellarRat]

No references to my additional proposed changes from the experimental balance patch thread, please. This is a thread to suggest changes to the existing balance and conflating the two will just confuse matters.

(i.e. I edited your post for a reason, StellarRat If you want to remove those points rather than recolour them then that's cool, but I don't want to kick off an unrelated discussion here.)

Oh sorry! LOL! I keep fixing it because I thought I was going crazy and added a color! I'll get rid of that section entirely. BTW, it didn't say YOU edited it, hence, my confusion. Edited February 3, 2014 by StellarRat

[Chris]

Yeah, sorry, my edits are invisible because I'm an admin. Probably should have pointed that out in a PM or something.

[ventuswings]

• Remove resource gain from the air combat interceptions.
  
• Increase the likelihood of UFO landing; landed UFO, upon departing, generates a event?
  
• Slightly increase dropship speed.
  -- Mechanic: If the landed UFO the dropship is heading toward departs, automatically slow the Geoscape.
  
• Balance starting region funds.
  
• Remove the effect of aerial terror sites, and just give bomber type UFO special events that cause more relation damage than average UFO.
  -- Otherwise, decrease its effect on national funding - success and failure - and have it appear later on the game.
  
• Increase block chance of some covers.
  
• Increase the chance of grenade "miss"
  

Edited February 3, 2014 by ventuswings

[StellarRat]

Yeah, sorry, my edits are invisible because I'm an admin. Probably should have pointed that out in a PM or something.

I had a great thought about air terror if you look at my post again. Kills two birds with one stone and adds a ground mission type!

[Max_Caine]

Oh boy, here we go...

Ground Combat suggestions

Shotgun weapons: I don't use shotgun weapons because while they fire three pellets, the spread effect is small and as it stands isn't as valuable as hitting with a "full strength" bullet. I.E. the only value I have from a shotgun-style weapon is when all three pellets strike a target. Could the number of pellets be increased or the cost to fire reduced so when I fire, either the spread effect is more pronouncedor I can make the spread effect useful by being able to fire more pellets?

Alien variety: Aliens don't feel as differentiated as they could be. For example, both the Sebillian and Andron feel bullet-spongy and while that's for different reasons, while playing in veteran you don't see why they're bullet spongy - just that they're bullet spongy. I'm sure everyone has their own idea of how each race should be represented (Stinky, for example, has had some success by making every Caesan psychic but limiting the psychic powers severely except for Psions and Officers/Leaders), but would it be possible to see a more marked, non-subtle difference in aliens? To go back to Stinky's example, if every Caesan has a psychic power, that's a very obvious way that Caesans are different to every other race.

Snap fire: Could snap fire be dramatically reduced in accuracy and AP cost in comparison to normal/aimed? Snap fire is so close to normal/aimed that it's not really worth my while to use normal/aimed, and because snap fire is a) the fire type used most by aliens and b) the fire type (other than burst) used in reaction fire, snap fire pretty much is king. I believe that a strong difference between snap and aimed/normal would provoke serious thought as to which one to use.

More grenade types for aliens: Aaron spoke a while back about giving Sebbies poison gas grenades. If each racial type had their own special kind of grenade as well as the standard grenade that would really help to differentiate the alien types. You have plenty of in-game assets that could be used (lots of types of smoke and explosions!). If it's a question of artwork that's holding you back, heck, I'll pay for it!

[Khall]

Alien variety: Aliens don't feel as differentiated as they could be. For example, both the Sebillian and Andron feel bullet-spongy and while that's for different reasons, while playing in veteran you don't see why they're bullet spongy - just that they're bullet spongy. I'm sure everyone has their own idea of how each race should be represented (Stinky, for example, has had some success by making every Caesan psychic but limiting the psychic powers severely except for Psions and Officers/Leaders), but would it be possible to see a more marked, non-subtle difference in aliens? To go back to Stinky's example, if every Caesan has a psychic power, that's a very obvious way that Caesans are different to every other race.

For sebillians, we could have the regenerating health appear above the alien (like when you heal a soldier) along with the healing effect. Maybe increase the regeneration (if its working at the moment?) and have slightly more health and less armour than androns, which should be pure tankiness. Would make them more obviously distinct, especially with damage numbers enabled. Makes it more clear why each are hard to kill, seeing hits on sebillians, with them just regenerating the health next turn, compared to seeing hits on androns for little damage.

More grenade types for aliens: Aaron spoke a while back about giving Sebbies poison gas grenades. If each racial type had their own special kind of grenade as well as the standard grenade that would really help to differentiate the alien types. You have plenty of in-game assets that could be used (lots of types of smoke and explosions!). If it's a question of artwork that's holding you back, heck, I'll pay for it!

On that note, can we have an upgraded version of the flashbang. Late game it becomes kinda useless and there's nothing else to fill that niche (apart from electroshock, but they explode end of turn). Maybe tie it in with an alien analysis research, like the sebillians and advanced medkits (its the only one that gives you something other than an 10% damage boost)

Edited February 3, 2014 by Khall

[StellarRat]

For sebillians, we could have the regenerating health appear above the alien (like when you heal a soldier) along with the healing effect. Maybe increase the regeneration (if its working at the moment?) and have slightly more health and less armour than androns, which should be pure tankiness. Would make them more obviously distinct, especially with damage numbers enabled. Makes it more clear why each are hard to kill, seeing hits on sebillians, with them just regenerating the health next turn, compared to seeing hits on androns for little damage.

What would be cool is that you'd have to apply a certain amount of overkill to Selllians or they "come back to life" after a while.

[KateMicucci]

-Jackal armor should be reduced to 4 or 5kg of weight. Wolf is pretty expensive and time consuming to make, so I disagree that it needs a nerf.

-Burst fire needs to be buffed. Every time I use a burst instead of snap shots I regret my stupid decision as the bullets go flying everywhere but near the target.

-Agreed that the scatter laser needs more ammo. Maybe even remove the "recoil", if only because the line about spinning barrels simulating recoil is a little silly.

-The Corsair needs more than just a 3rd missile or a 2nd cannon. It costs three times as much as a Condor and requires significant research. Money never becomes available enough that corsairs are affordable. A 2nd cannon would be fine if that's paired with a reduction in price/research.

-Ariel bombardment needs to be pushed back until later months, when the player has a realistic chance of being able to respond to it if he's done a good job on getting global air coverage. Ariel bombardments in New Zealand and the north pole are lame.

On that note, can we have an upgraded version of the flashbang. Late game it becomes kinda useless and there's nothing else to fill that niche (apart from electroshock, but they explode end of turn)

Then electroshock should be made to explode instantly. This has been suggested before.

Right now I don't have any use at all for flashbangs. Suppression in general is unreliable, while smoke, frags, and weapons that give reflex bonuses are not.

What would be cool is that you'd have to apply a certain amount of overkill to Selllians or they "come back to life" after a while.

That wouldn't be cool at all.

[StellarRat]

1) Ariel bombardments in New Zealand and the north pole are lame.

2) That wouldn't be cool at all.

#1 Yeah, I've had them bomb Greenland and Siberia. Wooppy-doo! There's an accomplishment, but you still take a full relations hit. Aerial terror should be concentrated on medium to large cities.

#2 - Not required, but I still think it would be cool specially for the beginners.

[Ol' Stinky]

Alien variety: Aliens don't feel as differentiated as they could be. For example, both the Sebillian and Andron feel bullet-spongy and while that's for different reasons, while playing in veteran you don't see why they're bullet spongy - just that they're bullet spongy. I'm sure everyone has their own idea of how each race should be represented (Stinky, for example, has had some success by making every Caesan psychic but limiting the psychic powers severely except for Psions and Officers/Leaders), but would it be possible to see a more marked, non-subtle difference in aliens? To go back to Stinky's example, if every Caesan has a psychic power, that's a very obvious way that Caesans are different to every other race.

What Max said. Variety among the aliens is probably my biggest beef with ground combat.

I'm gonna type out a whole bunch of words now. Watch out!

• Alien heavy plasma guns shouldn't be a default weapon for alien soldiers+. By all means have an assault rank (so Andron WarriorAssault or what have you), but the "standard" weapon should be an alien plasma rifle style gun. Otherwise, outside of base missions, too many aliens are sitting ducks.

• I'm gonna support the cause to remove the end of turn detonation on electroshocks, if not all grenades. The end of turn nerf was one of the measures to rein in grenades, along with throw range reduction (since reverted). Grenades were too good because cover was too good. Cover has been nerfed, so it's safe to scrap the end of turn explosion. In the case of electroshocks, they're worse than FBs at suppressing, worse than stun gas at stunning, and worse than gunfire at taking out robots. That last point leads nicely into...

• Increase splash damage. Right now I believe it's 25%. That's not an impressive amount. It means that, say, an electroshock only does significant damage if it lands at the feet of an Andron. Any Andron buddies around will hardly feel it. Grenades being a mostly single target weapon seems odd.

• Credit goes to Jeon for this one: the frag grenade family currently do kinetic and not incendiary damage. Unless that was an intentional change I missed along the way, and not a temporary measure for the incendiary damage multiplier bug.

• I think it was Skitso that raised this more recently in the Ground Combat Feedback thread, but the variety in alien guns is lacking. This can be used to promote alien variety as well, but doesn't have to be. Aliens get pistols, rifles, snipers, shotguns and a rocket launcher, or whatever you want to classify the plasma cannon as. You see all of this around, what, landing ships? Maybe even corvettes?

  Where's the exotic weaponry? Right now it's possible to mod in guns that spew fire (NOT FLAMETHROWERS), gas guns, stun weapons, explosive ammo, kamikaze units, suppression weapons, fear inducers, weapons that screw with line of fire, weapons that are more likely to cause bleeding...

  Granted that for modders, some of those are as exciting as "make the weapon hit for small amounts but multiple times" (that'd be the frequent-bleeding one), but you have more power over this. Also, you can get away with re-using the same assets and putting a justification in the Xenopedia. I don't care if there's more than one type of alien plasma rifle and you can't tell by the graphic alone, or if you use recoloured sprites. I don't know if I'm the only one that feels that way, though.

[legit1337]

-Decrease weight of jackal armor... it should be a low weight alternative for heavier armors on scouts or low strength soldiers, and should help a gradual introduction to armor weight. Also maybe a price or build time decrease.

-Faster chinook. Not sure on other dropships' speed as I haven't gotten them yet.

-UFOs need to stay landed longer.

-Different funding for different regions to balance starting locations.

-Increase splash damage on grenades to 50% so they don't hit like wet noodles outside of their target square.

-Assault rifle burst accuracy improved so it isn't useless outside of 4 tiles. Would also help balance them with sniper rifles. It should be:

Long range: Aimed shot is best

Mid Range/Close range: Burst is best, followed by aimed shot (you shouldnt use it in mid range combat unless you are trying to conserve ammo because burst is better for the same TU cost ), normal shot, and then snap shot.

-If it isn't already... Rebalancing of snapshot accuracy so it isn't more TU efficient to take multiple snapshots instead of one aimed shot. A snapshot should be a shot of last resort if you have moved to far to take an aimed or normal shot.

-If it isn't already... Make it so that taking a wounded soldier on a mission means you can't heal him to full health with medkits.

-Human traitors spawn among the enemies once at least one country surrenders. (this is more of a wish then a balance suggestion).

-If you have the time... more alien guns that have interesting effects for greater variety. Ideas:

-Neural Shredder

-Disintegrator

-Plasma Burst Projector (like an alien flamethrower only with plasma 'fire')

-Phase Disruptor

That's all I can think of right now.

Edited February 4, 2014 by legit1337

[Skitso]

I updated my list a bit

[Gauddlike]

My only real suggestions are ones that will probably make balancing harder but I think it is worthwhile.

They have already been covered in detail as well by other posts so I will try not to cover old ground.

Alien types need to be more varied and their weapons also could be more varied.

Some aliens relying on physical toughness while others have better armour is a good start.

I think that racial variations on alien weapons are worth considering.

A Ceasan plasma rifle doesn't need to have identical stats to a Sebillian plasma rifle for example, even if they look the same on the ground sprites.

The clue the player needs to differentiate would be the great big lizard carrying it.

Sebillian plasmas could be modified to fire cheaper bursts while Ceasans have cheaper single shots to play to the strengths of their AI as an example.

I think that could make balance easier as races would have more fine tweaks available that are independent of the other races.

If Ceasans are too powerful make them able to fire less shots per round without affecting other races, if Sebillians are too weak then boost their burst fire damage without affecting the Androns using similar weapons and so on.

I also like the idea of racial grenade types as well but have no idea what would suit each race..

[Khall]

I would like to see a "concussive" type grenade for caesans, that is non lethal, but does a lot of stun damage and suppression. Having your soldiers stunned by aliens would make the medkits' new ability to revive them more important. Plus you can justify it lore-wise by saying it is a tool used primarily for abductions.

Maybe an alien version of C4, that does more damage and has a larger radius than a grenade, but gives you a turn to get away (or throw it back?), either way you have to react to it. Could be for harridans or wraiths?

And I agree about heavy plasma, by mid game all aliens ever seem to carry is the alien shotguns, which is a specialised weapon, making them useless outside close range. Plasma Rifles need to stick around longer, maybe make them scale better by increasing their armour penetration and slightly decreasing damage, so they are still a threat to later armours

And the alien plasma cannon, can we make as lethal as the xenopedia says, many times my soldiers wearing wolf have survived a direct hit. Increase damage and armour penetration, but make it very inaccurate and increase TU cost. Most of the time you'll still take damage from the blast, but a direct hit will happen rarely (but will instagib you if you're not wearing predator)

Edited February 4, 2014 by Khall

[AgentFransis]

In the case of electroshocks' date=' they're worse than FBs at suppressing, worse than stun gas at stunning, and worse than gunfire at taking out robots.

[/quote']

No they're not, no they're not, true but who cares. FB does 100 suppression while ES does 150. Stun grenade does 15 stun and generates stun gas which does 40 stun. I don't know if gas is applied at the end of turn or whether gas stacks but an ES does 60 stun which is superior in any case. I play with ES on instant explosion and they are remarkably effective at stunning aliens. 2, sometimes 3 nades is usually sufficient. A strongly agree that they need to be on instant explosion by default and that otherwise they are perfectly fine.

[StellarRat]

No they're not, no they're not, true but who cares. FB does 100 suppression while ES does 150. Stun grenade does 15 stun and generates stun gas which does 40 stun. I don't know if gas is applied at the end of turn or whether gas stacks but an ES does 60 stun which is superior in any case. I play with ES on instant explosion and they are remarkably effective at stunning aliens. 2, sometimes 3 nades is usually sufficient. A strongly agree that they need to be on instant explosion by default and that otherwise they are perfectly fine.

I too believe the ES is plenty good at stunning/suppressing aliens. I don't have much preference about instant or end of turn detonation.

[Gauddlike]

The flashbang does have a larger radius though so it could well be true that in cases where you don't get a direct hit they are more effective than an electroshock at suppression.

Stun gas used to apply its damage whenever someone walked through a tile with the gas on it.

You could apply multiple stun 'hits' on a target if the enemy was moving around so the stun gas would be much more effective than a single hit.

It seems to depend on the situation which is better but in general having all of the effects on a single weapon and instant damage would be the stronger approach.

Less need to worry about having the right weapon for the job if you have one that can do any of those jobs effectively.

*edit* Apologies I hadn't realised this was the balance request thread which is not for discussion of the items others post.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Gauddlike

[StellarRat]

I've noticed a lot of people asking for new features here instead of balance changes.

[Ol' Stinky]

No they're not, no they're not, true but who cares. FB does 100 suppression while ES does 150. Stun grenade does 15 stun and generates stun gas which does 40 stun. I don't know if gas is applied at the end of turn or whether gas stacks but an ES does 60 stun which is superior in any case. I play with ES on instant explosion and they are remarkably effective at stunning aliens. 2, sometimes 3 nades is usually sufficient. A strongly agree that they need to be on instant explosion by default and that otherwise they are perfectly fine.

In terms of numbers, yes, ESs are a straight upgrade. But the end of turn detonation makes them worse than FBs for suppressing - most of the time if I'm using grenades to suppress it's to stop reaction fire - and naff splash damage makes them worse for stunning. ES only does 60 stun damage on a direct hit, you're looking at ~15 stun damage to anyone else. That's just sad. The stun gas making aliens waste APs on movement's a nice extra perk.

We both agree that giving ESs instant explosion's the only buff they really need.

Edit: I worded my original post (and initial response) poorly. I guess I shouldn't have said they're worse than FBs at suppressing, but that they're less useful than FBs. Sorry about that.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Ol' Stinky