Ground Combat Balance - V21 Stable Candidate

[Chris]

Lots of changes here for you. Some key bugfixes in this patch, plus a slight rebalance of TU costs that means units can now only fire three snap shots a turn rather than four. MGs now have recoil, making them less effective killers until you get very strong soldiers / Predator battlesuits and, but can burst fire again and have an extra burst in their ammo box.

Additions / Balance-Affecting Bugfixes:

- Added "ground" images for all weapons and equipment in the game

- Aliens now have +25% accuracy on Insane, - 10% ACC on Normal and -25% ACC on Easy difficulty levels

- Added hovering animations for the Harridans

- Gave singularity cannon a better looking animation, projectile and blast

- Updated general unit shadows to be a little softer

- Fixed medical kits behaving strangely in diagonal healing- Grenade selector menu now shows correct grenade throw cost

- Shotguns now cause suppression

- Now in missions with the Valkyrie dropship the player gets the first turn the deployment phase

- Vehicles no longer gain TU when firing their weapons

- Flashbangs cause suppression again

- Aliens now use TU when moving if Xenonauts not in sight

Balance Changes:

- Predators now have 0.65x TU fire costs (MG burst costs 52% TU)

- Vehicle weapon fire costs doubled to account for % TU costs rather than static ones

- Snap shot costs for most weapons increased from 25% TU to 28% TU

- Made morale events less likely to occur and reduced the morale damage from some events (civilian death, wounded penalty)

- Reaction fire bonus of pistols and shotguns (humans and alien) reduced from 2x to 1.5x

- Nerfed the Reflexes scaling of Androns a bit.

- MG and MG derivatives now have 30 round capacity, but 75 recoil

- MGs and MG derivatives now have 0.5x Reaction Fire modifier

- Updated Singularity Cannon stats to be ludicrously powerful

- Disabled reaction fire on rocket launcher/singularity cannon

[legit1337]

Thank you chris. I'm glad the MGs have at least 30 rounds. It's not 50 but it's good enough.

Glad you took away reaction fire on rocket launchers too. This looks like a good patch all around.

Don't like the the .5x reaction modifier to MGs but you can't win 'em all I guess.

Aliens getting morale in the near future, and ballistic ammo capacity not nerfed to crap, things are definitely looking up!

Edited March 15, 2014 by legit1337

[Skitso]

Great to see legit having a bit more positive mood.

[Gauddlike]

The good thing about machine guns having a 0.5x modifier is that you can adjust it yourself to find the spot you feel is balanced and then report the findings back.

[legit1337]

Great to see legit having a bit more positive mood.

Yes. I was genuinely concerned for awhile. Chris was talking about 20 round LMGs, and 12 round assault rifles. *Shudders* Among other things.

[Chris]

Yes. I was genuinely concerned for awhile. Chris was talking about 20 round LMGs, and 12 round assault rifles. *Shudders* Among other things.

It may well still happen - but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it, eh?

[legit1337]

It may well still happen - but we'll cross that bridge if we come to it, eh?

Agreed. I'll keep complaining so long as you keep listening .

[frank_walls]

Other than the game freezing on a terror mission I like the balance so far. I had an epic battle on one terror mission with Caesans. It was a new map I hadn't seen too. Good job, Chris!

[Max_Caine]

Having read a post by Skitso getting frustrated over "psychic" aliens which can guess where his troops are, can FOV be reset at the end of the players/AI turn, rather than at the startof the next one? This stops either side from gaming FOV. Naturally I'd prefer real-time FOV, but that's too much to ask for this late in development.

[Skitso]

Uh, yeah... I accidentally unloaded my frustration in a wrong thread (you can read it >here<) but anyway, my point stands: something needs to change so surprising the AI units could be possible.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Skitso

[Ol' Stinky]

I'm going to use real-time FOV as a springboard for a question about game mechanics: do aliens have the same real-time FOV mechanics as player units at night time?

Right now with human units, moving out of the 18 vision range means you lose sight of the alien if there's low light, if no-one else can see the alien directly. While you can indirectly fire at the square the alien's on, there's a hefty aim penalty attached. Do aliens follow the same rules, or are they effectively playing in daytime?

For anyone who doesn't know, you can mod in the night LOS rules for daytime GC by editing config.xml: look for <LOSNightMultiplier>0.6</LOSNightMultiplier> and change that value to 1, and change <NightMission>0</NightMission> to a 1 as well.

[smoitessier]

I really hope the Devs find the time to fix the situation where you can see enemies after you close a door that they are behind, in real time or at least at the end of your turn.

[Chris]

The FOV stuff should be discussed once V21 Stable is out, it's not something we're going to make changes to before then because it'll likely cause all kinds of trouble. Happy to look at it tho.

Skitso - this is a bit "damned if we do, damned if we don't". It makes sense for the aliens to check if there are units sneaking up on them, right? It's smart play. Spending a few TU looking behind them isn't really a hack.

[Skitso]

Yeah, Chris, but I feel the AI should maybe be a bit more human (alien?) and not always strive for the perfect and most optimal moves but rather be suitably challenging and at the same time provide as fun gameplay experience as possible. And for me atleast, sneaking and surprising aliens is fun!

Oh, and talking about haxorz, what about the automatically facing the closest threat - even if not visible and known?

Edited March 16, 2014 by Skitso

[legit1337]

Yeah, Chris, but I feel the AI should maybe be a bit more human (alien?) and not always strive for the perfect and most optimal moves but rather be suitably challenging and at the same time provide as fun gameplay experience as possible. And for me atleast, sneaking and surprising aliens is fun!

Oh, and talking about haxorz, what about the automatically facing the closest threat - even if not visible and known?

It is relatively "easy" to program an AI to make the most efficient moves possible. It is MUCH harder to make them do inefficient things. Mistakes and tactical blunders on the small scale have to be programmed into them. Although sometimes the most efficient moves on the small scale leads to mistakes and tactical blunders on the large scale.

[Gauddlike]

So would a chance to look around each turn be better or is that too arbitrary?

It relies on the rng falling in your favour rather than you doing anything right/wrong.

[Skitso]

The more organic, human... random the AI is, the better. Even if it sometimes leads to a less than optimal result.

[Gauddlike]

The different AI types could also have different chances to check.

Aggressive types are concentrating on what's in front of them so don't look back much, defensive types check more often and passive ones do... well whatever it is passive ones do.

Maybe even the angle they check could be random?

Sometimes they will just glance right a little (45 degrees right), sometimes they will have a good look over their left shoulder (90 degrees left), another time they might turn all the way round to have a good look behind.

It is just the feeling of relief when the enemy looks round but doesn't *quite* turn far enough to see you.

This could also be linked to AI type.

Aggressive will scan the ground in front more, defensive will watch their flanks more, passive will be paranoid and look behind them more.

[Skitso]

Exactly. In a sigle player game, the AI should not 100% mimic human player but rather provide as fun game play experience as possible.

[Chris]

Oh, I know. I'm just pointing out that people are also quick to damn a game if the AI isn't clever enough or doesn't do the "right" thing / punish player's mistakes.

[Gauddlike]

Yeah some people really don't like being at the mercy of the rng either.

If they are sneaking up on an enemy and don't do anything wrong why should the alien look round?

That is cause for some to reload and try for a better outcome.

[Max_Caine]

When determining end/start facing direction, it may be worthwhile having a "tunnel vision" weight, which positively weights either tiles or directions in which the alien is receiving incoming fire and can see targets. Maybe.

[Skitso]

Oh, I know. I'm just pointing out that people are also quick to damn a game if the AI isn't clever enough or doesn't do the "right" thing / punish player's mistakes.

AI needs to of course punish players mistakes but should also reward good plays. (E.g. flanking)

[Caaygun]

I always check behind, end turn with one guy facing back in the team etc. If the AI actually spends TUs for it, I think its fair game. But that them "psychically knowing who's on the other side of the wall" as was pointed out in another thread wouldn't be. They could move and check around the corner though, not to mention opening the door of the ufo to see if there are xenonauts lining up just outside as well. They could even "hide" around a corner as opposed to crouch behind a cover in LOS of Xenos, but perhaps this might be too much of a burden to implement.

[MrPyro]

AI needs to of course punish players mistakes but should also reward good plays. (E.g. flanking)

The reward for flanking is getting shots around the cover. I think it's actually good that the aliens are displaying basic situational awareness and checking around themselves for enemies, although I agree with an earlier commenter that it could be related to the AI role, with aggressive aliens being very focussed on the direction they are moving in, while defensive and passive aliens look around to make sure their position is safe.