Dipsticks Rebalancing Thoughts

[[dipstick]]

Right, in addition to my thread in the workshop, in which I include any possible v1 changes, here are my suggestions for the future.

 

At the moment I can only recall the armour problem. It should be used as a first line of defense against being attacked; not reduce the probability of being damaged. I know there is a thread about it already; I plan to add to this meagre list when I play XCOM again, and find the problems

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Eh...Didn't you already have one of these topics in the labs?

[Puasonen]

Perfect example of how you shouldn't name your topic. Topic gives no clue whatsoever of what the topic includes. Dipstick, please, one topic for one idea? Not every user can make themselves a topic called "Nyyperoids thoughts" or "UserXs thoughts" That will give readers he11 trying to find something that is already discussed here. Sorry if I sound like a pain in the butt.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Try something like "rebalancing issues" or something.

[Robo Dojo 58]

"Dipstick's rebalancing issues?" It doesn't seem to settle in my stomach right, for some reason. At least Dipstick didn't start with a training topic.

 

I agree, no one should have a topic name that leaves you clueless. What if someone had a good idea? How would you find it again?

 

Oh, and to get back on topic, Dipstick is probably thinking about pizza, and easy girls. Now he's thinking: "WTH?" Now, he's thinking about eskimos and camel spit.

 

Hmm... maybe he's going to the fridge to get a sixpack and... no, the show came back.

[[dipstick]]

Several things:

1) who moved my thread?

2) I so wish I had mod priviledges in here

3) keep ON topic please

4) I keep remembering things as I play XCOM, but I forget as soon as I stop!! *takes out pad of paper*

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Moved it from where?

[[dipstick]]

cpl, you really seem as clueless as me

 

A few more to add to my thoughts:

 

1) a game without PSI! That would be so much easier to focus on other more important issues.

2) Back to the old armour issue. How 'bout not just using armour as a first line of defence for a soldier as I have already suggested, but using it in combination with my other idea of making everybody tougher. I mean having less one shot kill scenarios. Realistically, how many people die from one shot?? Not neccessarily everyone everytime, so how come it always happens in XCOM.

 

My idea is simple:

 

Sectoids become the single weakest race; they still have mediocre psi capabilites though.

Floaters get more health, and slightly more armour

etc

 

In this way, any alien/armour type can be made a lot stronger by increaaing the armour in this way. This is because you have to concentrate your firepower on one side of them to penetrate the armour, otherwise you will keep hitting the armour.

 

To make an alien slightly stronger, you increase the health; this will only slightly extend their life.

 

Therefore, mutons and chryssalids, as the strongest races, should get approx 100 armour on all sides with 150 health. The chryssalids should only get 20 under armour to compensate for their weakness to explosives.

 

If these factors were combined, then there would be a lot more injuries, but less deaths; I will accept any amount of injuries, but if I have even one death on a squad I am reluctant to continue. this would also rebalance the game, and make the medikit more useful. The medikie would also have to be revamped, with an added feature of replacing health (another medikit, gained from E115 or something else) at a rate of 1HP/2 or 3 Tus.

 

Finally, the aliens should also receive a medikit and should actively support each other, but to balance they should NOT be allowed to simply heal; maybe they can have the original medikit.

 

How 'bout that then? Definitely v2+, but that is why it is here

[[dipstick]]

Oh and another thing; to silence the 'there is less luck involved' people.

 

the specified X-Net damage values will not neccessarily be the true values. How about in the battlescape having between 50%-150% of those values, perhaps with modifiers for different species. This will keep an element of luck involved at all times.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Realistically, how many people die from one shot?? 

Most of the time, it only takes 1-3 shots to kill someone (with a normal HUMAN gun.) If someone was shot with a burst of superheated plasma then they would most likely die in one hit.

[Robo Dojo 58]

I thought talking about Dipstick's thoughts was on topic.

 

Yeah, I agree that having the 0%-200% damage in X-COM was very odd. But, there seems to be a good reason for it.

I think it was because of the difficulty bug- every alien was at beginner difficulty, with terrible aim- and aliens can only shoot 2-3 times a turn. Many shots miss, so they had to somehow be fatal. Otherwise, "superhuman" games were too easy.

 

Since Xenocide is going to fix this bug, many more alien shots will connect at higher difficulties. So, shots should injure more, and be less fatal.

Apoc took that to the extreme- it could take a ton of shots to down an alien, so you had to be able to fire a ton of shots in one turn.

 

Maybe instead of only changing the weapon damage, changing the armor system would work as well. The old armor damage was like the model T car; it would easily survive a crash, but the driver was a goner. It would be nice if armor was damaged alot more from weapons, to show that it was sacrificing itself for the agent. I wanna see those crumple zones in action!

[[dipstick]]

I prefered the Apoc style - that was great!! One particular greatness of it was that you could equip a machine gun for everyone, and not worry about accuracy. Just put everyone on auto fire, and the bullets couldn't even get through normal armour Just try it on a downed ship It was so FUN. Alien spo... never mind.

[Formerly MQ]

one might go too far with this issue...I remember thinking in UFO Aftermath (Altar Interactive) that the aliens were really hard, which was good, but that unfortunately led to no tactics being used and just marching your whole group of guys around in a glob and when they see an enemy they allllll open up on him. It could lead to that type of strategy which would really ruin the game. If there could be a happy medium, like if a guy saw an alien, there was maybe a 50 percent chance he could be able to kill the alien, which would force most people to use 2 man teams when searching the map. In aftermath, if you pitted one of your guys up against an alien, he would only have like a 25 percent to 15 percent chance of winning that faceoff, which forced most people to bum rush aliens with their whole team at the same time.

[[dipstick]]

This is what I tend to do on XCOM 1, I use 2-4 man teams and take out each alien individually, but when it close quarters, ie in UFOs, I usually get slaughtered by one-shot kills! :@

[Guest drewid]

This is all good speculation, but we aren't going to know for sure until we play it.

That's the best way to balance the feel of it in the end.

 

Don't stop the ideas though.

 

I think changing actual weapons strength would be a good way to change difficulty levels. So that would mean having a multiplier based on the x-net values.

[[Blehm 98]]

cpl, you really seem as clueless as me

 

A few more to add to my thoughts:

 

1) a game without PSI!  That would be so much easier to focus on other more important issues.

2) Back to the old armour issue.  How 'bout not just using armour as a first line of defence for a soldier as I have already suggested, but using it in combination with my other idea of making everybody tougher.  I mean having less one shot kill scenarios.  Realistically, how many people die from one shot??  Not neccessarily everyone everytime, so how come it always happens in XCOM.

 

My idea is simple:

 

Sectoids become the single weakest race; they still have mediocre psi capabilites though.

Floaters get more health, and slightly more armour

etc

 

In this way, any alien/armour type can be made a lot stronger by increaaing the armour in this way.  This is because you have to concentrate your firepower on one side of them to penetrate the armour, otherwise you will keep hitting the armour.

 

To make an alien slightly stronger, you increase the health; this will only slightly extend their life.

 

Therefore, mutons and chryssalids, as the strongest races, should get approx 100 armour on all sides with 150 health.  The chryssalids should only get 20 under armour to compensate for their weakness to explosives.

 

If these factors were combined, then there would be a lot more injuries, but less deaths; I will accept any amount of injuries, but if I have even one death on a squad I am reluctant to continue.  this would also rebalance the game, and make the medikit more useful. The medikie would also have to be revamped, with an added feature of replacing health (another medikit, gained from E115 or something else)  at a rate of 1HP/2 or 3 Tus.

 

Finally, the aliens should also receive a medikit and should actively support each other, but to balance they should NOT be allowed to simply heal; maybe they can have the original medikit.

 

How 'bout that then?  Definitely v2+, but that is why it is here

I think he is right abot floaters. I got a floater navigator in th first month, an now am ready to get avengers and cydonia or bust, and i have been playing for less than a year

[XcomVic]

cpl, you really seem as clueless as me

 

A few more to add to my thoughts:

 

1) a game without PSI!  That would be so much easier to focus on other more important issues.

umm, it wouldnt be xcom without psi... how uncool would it be NOT to be able to freaking mind control a damn alien.... though i would assume you mean the aliens dont have PSI either, which would suck, because that added more to the intensity of the game, had to watch out for mind control or berserk, added more strategy to the game.... had to pick them higher psi guy off first or have your team turn on each other....

 

i thought x-com 1 had a great balance to the gameplay with both the combat and the psi at later stages...

 

just a thought...

[[dipstick]]

I knew at least five people would say this. I did not mean as the main game to eradicate it, maybe a patch later on. This would alter the stats of the aliens to make them tougher - and morale would still play a part, so that blasterbomb heading to your troops will still make the rest kill each other.

[XcomVic]

not xcom without psi..of course this isnt suppose to be xcom, but still...

 

then this would be like any other turn based game cept with aliens....

[Cpl. Facehugger]

We should keep psi, but limit its effectiveness. The psi user should need line of sight between himself and the target.

[XcomVic]

thats an idea..but in real life psi powers can go through anything....hehe i said IRL .. anyway... if someone can see him then his buddy can channel through his buddies eyes to the target as happens in RL...

[Robo Dojo 58]

In that case, would his buddy need a PSI amp, and extra TUs? It might be possible to reaction-shoot the guy, as well.

 

--Edit: IRL?? What are you doing there in Japan, XComVic? --

Edited February 22, 2004 by Robo Dojo 58

[XcomVic]

well, about amp, most people are not powerful enough to just focus their psi to someone/thing, instead they need a medium to focus on and channel their psi to powerup and deliver it in one blast, hence why a psi amp would be needed for at least the lower level psi guys....

 

 

this is based on mages in the past that needed staffs or books to channel their spells...

[Cpl. Facehugger]

IIRC the idea was that the user needed a familiar object to focus on. The user's mind had a symbolic link with the object (ex: An alien psionic paralyzer would feel electric to the touch, to allow the user's mind to better focus on the desired effect.

[Robo Dojo 58]

So, the PSIamp would be akin to a mage's staff?

[Judge_Deadd]

1) a game without PSI!  That would be so much easier to focus on other more important issues.

...........

Sectoids become the single weakest race; they still have mediocre psi capabilites though.

So, psi or not psi?!

[ATeX]

it's just a matter of equilibrating the psi part of the game. Don't overdo it, but also don't let it out of the game because that would make the aliens less alien like. -_-

[mad menno]

Maybe something like when both units made eyecontact they can psy eachother?

 

greets

[[Blehm 98]]

I say that no psi is like no weapons. You need it to make the game harder. It might ruin the players first couple of etherial(cloaks) mission, but who could really care?

[54x]

How about saying that the psi attacker has to have a visual of their target to perform mind control attacks, but can try and do a "general" panic attack without ANY visual at all, and a stronger "directed" panic attack if they know where the target is? (ie. if any team member can see the target) That way, you still get really high-level psionic attackers being creepy and dangerous, (and there is a justification for rookies panicing inside their skyrangers ) but you still balance out the issue of being able to mindcontrol the enemy using psionic attackers safe in their crafts while having rookie scouts.

 

Alternatively, you could also add a sort of "accuracy" kind of control to psi... so it would be less effective over long distances, while still being able to "channel" the attacker through a scout.

[Paladin]

How about saying that the psi attacker has to have a visual of their target to perform mind control attacks, but can try and do a "general" panic attack without ANY visual at all, and a stronger "directed" panic attack if they know where the target is? (ie. if any team member can see the target) That way, you still get really high-level psionic attackers being creepy and dangerous, (and there is a justification for rookies panicing inside their skyrangers ) but you still balance out the issue of being able to mindcontrol the enemy using psionic attackers safe in their crafts while having rookie scouts.

 

Alternatively, you could also add a sort of "accuracy" kind of control to psi... so it would be less effective over long distances, while still being able to "channel" the attacker through a scout.

I think the proposed to the psis, ie: make it less effective with longer range AND keep the MC control to ONE target at a time do all teh job neede to rebalance psi... it's still fun, VERY dangerous to your own units, difficult to master but it's not overpowering anymore in the later stages of the game...

 

Oh, and Medkits DO restore some health, just a little bit, wich is to be expected... Painkillers restore a bit of accuracy, wich is also normal. IMO, their're just great the way they are...

 

BTW, we'd need to get a few more live aliens to be able to research some techs (à la TFTD, but more logical and bug-free), like, say, we'd need a live technician to study UFO power source