Author Topic: Another balance thread  (Read 8394 times)

Offline Juku121

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #30 on: October 02, 2022, 04:52:12 pm »
I don't think it's that bad.
Well, as long as we both have fun. :)

Which one do you mean?
Sorry, that was just a non-weapon-specific remark about 'hard borders'. Should have been clearer, I suppose.

If yes, then TBH I should split the SMG category in two - one-handed machine pistols and two-handed, umm, I don't know how they're called in English - small carbines with pistol ammo.
'Small carbines with pistol ammo' are called submachine guns in English. :)

I don't think the MP-5 and the Mac are very similar.
Well, no, I don't have a particular problem with those. But machine guns are somewhat more weird. The mods lumps the Minimi and the PKM together, and makes the M60 and MG 3 separate, whereas IRL the M60, MG3 and PKM are all GPMGs firing a full rifle cartridge while the Minimi is an LMG firing an intermediate round. And '2-round auto' is a somewhat strange thing on a machine gun, anyway, though not inherently strange as a way to distinguish LMGs and GPMGs. Unfortunately, we then get the BO LMG line, which also has 2- and 3-round snap shots while being presented as 'heavy ... variant ... of rifles', i.e. an LMG.

In a word, consistency. And I've never managed to find a good role for the machine guns that isn't done better by another weapon.

I never felt the need to "reconcile the differences", whatever that means.
That's exactly why this thing tends to come up again and again, from different people.

If you don't like it, play something else.
But I like it! People criticise games they like all the time, because they want them to be 'even better'. Surely this is not the first time you've encountered this?

So are you saying that the balance is the same or different? Or that the overall philosophy is the same but particulars differ?
The particulars are somewhat different, the intentions - especially within the confines of OXCE - appear very similar.

This sentence had nothing to do with melee specifically. Quoting my words out of context again.
What exactly are you objecting to? That while generally borrowing a number of ideas from Piratez, you absolutely did not do this with melee weapons? Even when there are still melee weapons in the game that are about as close to an exact copy-paste as one can have between mods with different resources?

This is absolutely the right context, unless you're trying to say that ideas about melee weapons are somehow special and don't count. ??? Or you tried your damndest to make an XCF version of melee completely separate from that of Piratez, but long exposure to Dioxine means you have such a degree of design similarity that e.g. the Wrench ended up with the exact same stats totally by coincidence?

Actually a lot of people do, but they prefer to make their own mods.
Making your own mod is a significant boost in the 'mental endurance' department. I meant specifically in the context of XCF.

...what is wrong with that?
A hand cannon should be able to consistently kill a rock or penetrate an armoured car. A non-AM rifle should only do that rarely if at all.

Besides, didn't you say yourself that all weapons being the same was boring? As far as impact on target goes, the LC with AP rounds is very much the same as the Sniper Rifle, except less accurate. Well, and you get another snap shot.

In general, the OG cannons are very unrealistic weapons that are kind of like grenade launchers, and kind of like sniper rifles, and don't really mesh that well with a mod that already has both of the above.

Why?
A lot more charge to propel the projectile. A bigger projectile. Specialised AP rounds with comparatively larger steel (or perhaps even tungster or DU, which are almost unheard of for non-AM sniper rifles) cores. Special shapes like discarding sabots that are not practical in a 7-8mm round.

Thisd is not what "cannot be reasoned with" means. What you described is how normal social interaction works...
Reasoning is absolutely not normal social interaction. You start reasoning with a non-captive or non-enthusiastic audience and they bail or doze off.

I guess I can rephrase it as "You cannot convince Solarius of something. He either convinces himself or he doesn't." Better?

Spoiler" Throwing and knives":
It's a pretty complicatd thing; I haven't read any classical treaties on fencing...
You don't need any treatises. Get cleaver and a friend to swing a dead pig at you :D and see how well you do. Or find a HEMA group if you want the closest thing to first-hand we've got today. They've already done the treatise-reading (and translating, and translating to real life) for you.

Do you mean "stuck in the body"?
Penetrate. Not bounce off. Land with the business end first.

I find it debatable - homo sapiens evolved specifically to throw stuff (rather than say, melee - that would be Neanderthals), and not to shoot with guns; on a short distance anyway.
The latter being the key words. You know what distances WKNL competitors throw their knives at static targets? 10 and 15 feet, or ~3 and ~5 meters, respectively. Getting a knife to reliably land in a - again, stationary - target at 10-15 meters takes years of practice. Records tend to be in the sub-25 meter range.

Rocks, axes and spears fly much better. Throwing knives (and shuriken) are mostly an affectation as far as being useful in combat goes.

And I advise you to try out throwing and shooting even a BB gun at 20 meters. Unless you riot for a living, there's just no comparison.

Well, do they train throwing?
Honestly, regardless of whether they do or don't. Being a knife thrower will just push them from 'completely useless' to 'mostly useless'.

I still don't know why it's "wrong". I know plenty of games...
I also know plenty of games that do this. Even my all-time favourite tactical combat sim, Jagged Alliance 2, has ridiculous long-range insta-death knives (from stealth).

Doesn't mean I don't mentally roll my eyes at them. And most of these games have some kind of limiter on knives to bring them down a little, whereas Piratez is a larger-than-life game that runs high on Rule of Cool.

And the biggest problem here is not 'realism', it's that a) the intention seems to be 'useless for an amateur', while in-game they really aren't; and b) they scale like crazy, similar to melee weapons, while not having the same amount of drawbacks.

...also some (minimal) real experience with throwing.
So, tell me, at what distance can you stick a knife into a static target and get it to stay there, with some reliability? I also played a bit with knives when I was young and stupid, and a few meters, a tree that stands still and practicing from a set distance were the best I could manage.




Like why can't all melee weapons use the same formula? It would lead to a more consistent  experience  and make balancing much more straightforward.
Read my lips: there is no balancing. :P

Current criteria seems to be completely arbitrary and I can't see a benefit in having some weapons being less consistent  than others.
Variety. IMO, the problem is not that there's a lot of variety, it's that there's no logic to the madness.

And the dodge formula means all melee weapons are inconsistent anyway. :)

Do we see modern militaries use throwing knifes as backups or use handguns?
Throwing knives, no. Handguns, yes, in specific roles (MPs, officers, pilots, sidearms).


...only advent of full plate armors make them lost this role.
Any kind of armour degrades cutting efficiency a lot. Even just a padded jacket/gambeson. Swords 'lost this role' already with chain mail, never mind full-body plate. Fortunately, armour was even more expensive than swords, and chain mail was probably the hardest of all armours to make and/or wear.

And twohanders remained useful even after munition plate became a thing, they just changed from "I will cut you!" to "I will beat you with this big metal stick, and stab you when you've had enough."



Edit: Clarified a few responses.

Edit2: I'm also sorry if you felt particularly targeted, especially when your health bar is low.

I'm an argumentative asshole and I like(d) it when people hit me with similar criticisms. You engage me in an internet argument at your own peril. :P Just ignore me if it causes you stress.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2022, 05:16:29 pm by Juku121 »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #31 on: October 02, 2022, 06:06:45 pm »
I honestly  don't know if you are trolling me or something of that vein when discussing with you. Don't get me wrong, I do think that your mod and the love given to it  is excellent  and it is peak gaming overall, but when I'm giving nonsensical  arguments to  (in my eyes) fair criticism , it is just vexing. Like why can't all melee weapons use the same formula? It would lead to a more consistent  experience  and make balancing much more straightforward. Current criteria seems to be completely arbitrary and I can't see a benefit in having some weapons being less consistent  than others.

Oh, so I'm trolling you now. Well this is what I get for actually trying to talk, instead of scrolling down like I admittedly really, really wanted to (mostly because I'm sick, but also because I'm really tired with this endless formula shit). I'm a goddamn modder, not your personal callgirl!

This argument doesn't  make sense at all. Do we see modern militaries use throwing knifes as backups or use handguns? And regardless, why bring some natural state argument when history shows the limits of thrown weapons.

Because atomic age weapons beat paleolithic weapons.
Which has nothing to do with the topic, I think, so let's move along.

That's exactly  the problem with the current accuracy formula with thrown weapons- that with no that much training,you get a weapon that hits likes a truck and always hit. A pistol 5 titles away may miss half of his shoots from a 70 acc soldier. Throwing Knifes from 5 titles away will hit close to 100 of the time. Given thrown weapons sniper rifles accuracy  formulas would be a big improvement.  And to be clear , it's  not a matter to make them not effective weapons, is that they are too dominat with very little training.You can currently do some crazy things with Melee weapons for example but you need a trained agent, I don't see why thrown direct hit weapons can't be similar.

OK, so what would be a better formula? Asking seriously, because I don't exactly understand the problem with them. Their range is severely limited after all.
 
Maybe this is the crux of the issue that we play differently ? So the LC with BS shells seem fine but if you want to be more efficient it seems like a bad choice.

I'm not sure what you mean by "efficient", either the enemy drops or they don't. There is not third option. So efficient weapons are those that incapacitate the enemy quick enough, end of story.

I faced some Vampire knigths in a police monster raid in the first year  (without Promo III )and sniper rifles proved much more useful  against then than a LC. Well the real MC where incendiary  grenades to sap their morale, but even against tougher enemies there are better alternatives.  Also I didn't compare it to the TRSH due to weigth, but that's  indeed the most awesome shotgun 😎

Yeah, Vampire Knights are more of a puzzle to solve than anything, lol.
 
I find then very dominant , not only on spawn that are far away but as well in more medium ranges encounters bc there are always some priority enemies that need to be taken, and the high damage with guaranteed hitting is a deadly combo.

For me they're too specialist, I prefer assault weapons which grant me mobility. So 1 or 2 sniper rifles are fine, but that's it, and they can onlyt eliminate a certain portion of enemies. But of course it's a playstyle thing.

Do you find knifes useful  with untrained agents? Also that knifes are used by enemies as well. I'm not going to go about how swords ain't ceremonial,  or how even ceremonial weapons are somehow ineffective,  but knifes being easier to use than swords not only make sense from a gameplay sense, but also from a logical standpoint.

I was talking about historical use (or as much as I know about melee fighting, which is a great deal more than about guns), so also a bit off-topic.

BTW thanks for the effort writing the answers,  I know it takes time and effort  but I appreciate  it.

Yeah, frankly this is the hardest part of being a modder. :) But an important one, so I'm trying.

No, sword ARE martial weapons, even at some point a battle weapon, only advent of full plate armors make them lost this role.
Ceremonial aspect of sword now is more a side effect of its original usage that reason they exists.

Like I mentioned before, "swords" is such a catch-all term that you can say anything about them... I meant specifically the iconic longsword, which was mostly used for dueling.

Well, as long as we both have fun. :)

I don't, I'm desperate to understand whether my mod is shit or not! :P

'Small carbines with pistol ammo' are called submachine guns in English. :)


Well, no, I don't have a particular problem with those. But machine guns are somewhat more weird. The mods lumps the Minimi and the PKM together, and makes the M60 and MG 3 separate, whereas IRL the M60, MG3 and PKM are all GPMGs firing a full rifle cartridge while the Minimi is an LMG firing an intermediate round. And '2-round auto' is a somewhat strange thing on a machine gun, anyway, though not inherently strange as a way to distinguish LMGs and GPMGs. Unfortunately, we then get the BO LMG line, which also has 2- and 3-round snap shots while being presented as 'heavy ... variant ... of rifles', i.e. an LMG.

Not gonna lie, we could as well discuss nuclear physics. Except I know (and care) way more about nuclear physics than these cartridge thingies, "GPMGs" and all. Why does this matter at all? And more importantly, what are the "proper" formulas?

In a word, consistency. And I've never managed to find a good role for the machine guns that isn't done better by another weapon.


I did: it's more dakka, period. Whether it's actually the most efficient, I don't have strong opinions about. But they perform waaaaay better on a good soldier.

That's exactly why this thing tends to come up again and again, from different people.

People who have some problem I also don't care about in the slightest. And I read carefully. So either they make a poor job of justifying it, or it's unimportant.

But I like it! People criticise games they like all the time, because they want them to be 'even better'. Surely this is not the first time you've encountered this?

Surely not! That's why I am spending my 4th hour today on this thread, and it's the exact opposite of what I consider fun.

What exactly are you objecting to? That while generally borrowing a number of ideas from Piratez, you absolutely did not do this with melee weapons? Even when there are still melee weapons in the game that are about as close to an exact copy-paste as one can have between mods with different resources?

No, I meant to say that the approach I went with is much older than either Piratez or XCF.

A hand cannon should be able to consistently kill a rock or penetrate an armoured car. A non-AM rifle should only do that rarely if at all.

A hand cannon is a one-handed XVII - XVIII century weapon. Apparently you mean something else, but I don't get it.

Anyway, this is just masturbation. What is the proposed formula?

Besides, didn't you say yourself that all weapons being the same was boring? As far as impact on target goes, the LC with AP rounds is very much the same as the Sniper Rifle, except less accurate. Well, and you get another snap shot.

A bullet is similar to another bullet, oh what revelation.

In general, the OG cannons are very unrealistic weapons that are kind of like grenade launchers, and kind of like sniper rifles, and don't really mesh that well with a mod that already has both of the above.

Look at the entire X-Com community caring, lol.

A lot more charge to propel the projectile. A bigger projectile. Specialised AP rounds with comparatively larger steel (or perhaps even tungster or DU, which are almost unheard of for non-AM sniper rifles) cores. Special shapes like discarding sabots that are not practical in a 7-8mm round.

*Yawn*

I guess I can rephrase it as "You cannot convince Solarius of something. He either convinces himself or he doesn't." Better?

Yes. And that's how it works for everyone, I guess.

You don't need any treatises. Get cleaver and a friend to swing a dead pig at you :D and see how well you do. Or find a HEMA group if you want the closest thing to first-hand we've got today. They've already done the treatise-reading (and translating, and translating to real life) for you.

Well fuck you. I've been around HEMA groups before you were born.

OK, cutting this bullshit: formulas or GTFO.

Read my lips: there is no balancing. :P

Have I ever said the mod is balanced? Even once? I don't think so.

Balance only matters in competitive games, which X-Com is not, and I never cared about balance in it. Not in the 1%. So why are we even talking about it?

Edit2: I'm also sorry if you felt particularly targeted, especially when your health bar is low.

Well, it's my fault for coming here... :P But I felt that I should.

I'm an argumentative asshole and I like(d) it when people hit me with similar criticisms. You engage me in an internet argument at your own peril. :P

Thanks. I'll live ;)

Offline Juku121

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #32 on: October 02, 2022, 09:17:16 pm »
I don't, I'm desperate to understand whether my mod is shit or not!
Your mod is the shit! ;D

Because atomic age weapons beat paleolithic weapons.
Not in XCF they don't. :P

OK, so what would be a better formula? Asking seriously, because I don't exactly understand the problem with them.
Offhand, something like 25 + 0.01*THR^2, -5 accuracy per tile from tile 3. That would give you tile 2 accuracy comparable to a regular knife/combat knife in melee and less (much less for rank beginners) at range.

...formulas or GTFO.
Knives: 0.85*(50 + Melee/2). Swords: 1.25*Melee. You'll get rough parity at skill 50, which is the upper end for raw recruits; and something like a +50 accuracy advantage at skill 120, which is roughly the mid-game max without excessive commendations, Synthsuits or the like.

Why does this matter at all? And more importantly, what are the "proper" formulas?
Tactical gunplay 'realism' :D, which is what the "20 Minutes into the Future" genre tends to cater to. And there are no 'proper formulas' since we have a limited engine to work with. One can try to give machine guns a more distinct role that approximates RL somewhat more, though.

As I said, I would give all machine guns more and different burst fire modes to distinguish them from other weapons, because in a game with HP and no suppression, it's kinda hard to put machine guns into their RL role.

Perhaps make them burst-fire only and remove a part of the 'no LoS' penalty to simulate area fire/suppression. Give GPMGs and the HMG more spray waypoints. Better kneeling bonuses. Make all GPMGs behave similarly and more distinct from the LMGs. If that's what the BO ALMG, LMG and Smartgun are supposed to be. If not, I'd remove the L part from their name.

Not saying any of these is the definite way to go, but there are a lot more possibilities than 'more dakka' that tends to either miss too much or overkill.

What is the proposed formula?
One or more of: move some sniper rifle damage to toHealth; make LC AP rounds have a better ArmorEffectiveness, something like 60% or less (the big bad sniper rifle, TSR, has 65%); make LC AP rounds degrade armour.

A hand cannon is a one-handed XVII - XVIII century weapon. Apparently you mean something else, but I don't get it.
The Light Cannon. And firing one of the original handgonnes with one hand is something along the lines of shooting a shotgun one-handed. You can do it if you really want to, but why would you?

No, I meant to say that the approach I went with is much older than either Piratez or XCF.
Okay, fair enough. What's the original source of the lots-of-dodging, flat TU, damage scales really high with stats melee model?

A bullet is similar to another bullet, oh what revelation.
So, are you or are you not advocating for all bullets being the same, no matter their size or shape? I'm getting mixed messages here.

*Yawn*
Don't ask questions if you don't know what to do with answers.

Balance only matters in competitive games, which X-Com is not, and I never cared about balance in it.
So, which one is it? The above or the below?
...Solarius doesn't particularly care about weapon balance or 'realism'.
Bullshit. My life would be so easy if it was true.


I've been around HEMA groups before you were born.
Doubt that unless you count SCA. Modern HEMA is younger than me, and not by a year or two.

So why are we even talking about it?
Not sure. On your part, some sort of unconscious desire to please others? :P

Me, I'm constitutionally incapable of dropping an argument mid-way. :D

Surely not! That's why I am spending my 4th hour today on this thread, and it's the exact opposite of what I consider fun.
Then don't. No sane developer does it. I used to, but I'm not.

Spoiler" Swords":
I meant specifically the iconic longsword, which was mostly used for dueling.
The 'knightly longsword'/arming sword evolved out of the spatha, which was certainly not a dueling-exclusive weapon.

Offline termidor

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #33 on: October 02, 2022, 09:17:39 pm »
By throwing weapons like the throwing knifes I suggest going from 0.025*acc ^2 to 0.01*acc^2. So the snap is less accurate and can miss, and needs a +100 acc soldier to be a guarantee hit with aimed.

Offline Dioxine

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #34 on: October 02, 2022, 09:21:42 pm »
Excuse me Juku, but you've started this whole thread with false premises. Solar doesn't outsource weapon design to me (although I did give him lots of advice). Most of XCF weapons do not exist in XPZ and if they do, it was often the other way around (lifting a particular weapon). Also, I had nothing to do with G-11 at all, nor its "mind bullets" (whatever their are, I only seen standard ammo), which you choose as uber-example.
From what I know G-11 is actually a trap weapon for spreadsheet heads, but I think it's coincidence (these people have insane talent in walking into obvious traps).

Offline MistarRed

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #35 on: October 02, 2022, 09:27:23 pm »
I honestly  don't know if you are trolling me or something of that vein when discussing with you. Don't get me wrong, I do think that your mod and the love given to it  is excellent  and it is peak gaming overall, but when I'm giving nonsensical  arguments to  (in my eyes) fair criticism , it is just vexing. Like why can't all melee weapons use the same formula? It would lead to a more consistent  experience  and make balancing much more straightforward. Current criteria seems to be completely arbitrary and I can't see a benefit in having some weapons being less consistent  than others.
With that attitude, you are headed for "Final Destination", a flat-map with mirror match ups.  Why are you even playing this mod then or any game more complex than staring at yourself in the mirror?

Context: https://supersmashbros.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Destination_(Super_Smash_Bros._Brawl)

You expect Solar to sit there, go through every melee weapon in the game, by hand, and change it all to the same exact formula?  Why not do it yourself and release a "melee rebalance sub-mod" for the game?  All the files are unencrypted plain text.  A monkey trained in human speech could do it.  Why can't you?

Yeah I kinda of agree with this statement,  I do modding in other games (paradox games) and in a team we may have different preferences,  same for the player's. That being said my concerns related mostly to making tactical combat better.

You are obviously more than capable, if you mod other games.

Well, no, I don't have a particular problem with those. But machine guns are somewhat more weird. The mods lumps the Minimi and the PKM together, and makes the M60 and MG 3 separate, whereas IRL the M60, MG3 and PKM are all GPMGs firing a full rifle cartridge while the Minimi is an LMG firing an intermediate round. And '2-round auto' is a somewhat strange thing on a machine gun, anyway, though not inherently strange as a way to distinguish LMGs and GPMGs. Unfortunately, we then get the BO LMG line, which also has 2- and 3-round snap shots while being presented as 'heavy ... variant ... of rifles', i.e. an LMG.

You as well.  If you are such a firearms expert, why not leverage said expertise and make your own "rebalance sub-mod"?  Or are you scared of text files?

Put up or shut up, people.  Stop wasting the man's time with your incessant nit-picking.  Make your own sub-mods, and release them.  If they are good enough to have lots of people agree that they are a VAST improvement over the base mod, petition Solar to incorporate your rebalance sub-mod into the game.  He is far too polite and patient with you.

If you want full blown firearms-everything simulation, I suggest you play Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 instead.  OXCE is great and all, but not as conducive to the gun porn you require.  That said, don't expect anything exotic outside the gun porn in JA2 1.13 either.  OXCE + mods has them beat by a million miles.

As far as simulations are concerned in general, the best games ever made combine simulation with arcade aspects.  OXCE + mods does exactly that.  If you want simulation only or to have simulation in OXCE somehow improved, it's an open source project.  Hop to it.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2022, 09:46:40 pm by MistarRed »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #36 on: October 02, 2022, 09:29:48 pm »
@Juku regarding HEMA: they've been around here since 1980s, and were actually what sparked the fandom scene in Poland. (Dioxine and I did a lecture on it topic in Finland once, lol)

Offline Juku121

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #37 on: October 02, 2022, 11:31:51 pm »
Solar doesn't outsource weapon design to me (although I did give him lots of advice).
I'll pass your suggestions over to Dioxine, who is pretty much responsible for real firearms balance.
So, this was not quite true?

Most of XCF weapons do not exist in XPZ and if they do, it was often the other way around (lifting a particular weapon).
While that's true, it looks to me that the general design philosophy is coming from you, and Solarius largely just takes the patterns and applies them to his own mod. He's professed his disinterest in firearms and balancing several times now.

Also, I had nothing to do with G-11 at all, nor its "mind bullets" (whatever their are, I only seen standard ammo), which you choose as uber-example.
The 'mind bullets' is the bravery damage bonus, something only the G11 and some UAC weapons have. G-11 is the only 'normal' gun with this feature in the entire mod and was released around Dec 2017. There are a number of such weapons in Piratez, from Linux SMGs to Hand Cannons (heh). The earliest versions I know date to 0.99, a time when XCF was just starting to become a release and had no 'mind bullets' at all.

I don't know of another mod that uses bravery for bullet damage (though I haven't looked very hard). So it was pretty easy to conclude that the inspiration, if not the stats themselves, came from you. Are you saying Solarius just randomly came up with it on his own, no Piratez influence at all?

From what I know G-11 is actually a trap weapon for spreadsheet heads, but I think it's coincidence (these people have insane talent in walking into obvious traps).
I know very little about the in-game performance of the G-11 since I seriously dislike the sprite and tend to banish it into the 'hidden' category. But at a glance, it certainly has a more accurate and flexible autoshot than even the Smartrifle, and does comparable damage in the hands of a high-bravery soldier (80+ bravery). Maybe even a bit better due to slightly lower ArmorEffectiveness. And it isn't ruinously expensive, either. No clue what the trap is here, unless all ballistic assault rifles are traps.



[Pulls the old "How dare you criticise this piece of charred steak if you don't cook yourself!"]
Fanboys, fanboys never change. :(

If you are such a firearms expert, why not leverage said expertise and make your own "rebalance sub-mod"?  Or are you scared of text files?
You should do some research before getting on your high horse. I did it once. Was a lot of work to get it even playable. Not many cared to even try, and making an alternate XCF was kinda iffy anyway. A couple of general ideas made it into XCF.

I have been thinking about trying again for at least four years now. Never found enough time nor enthusiasm. There are always other games to mod with a bigger appeal when I try. I admire Solarius for sticking with XCF for so long, and for his mapping. Some of his other choices, not so much.



Spoiler" JA2":
If you want full blown firearms-everything simulation, I suggest you play Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 instead.
Again, why do you think I haven't played (and modded) the hell out of JA2 and its mods, v1.13 or not? But it doesn't have Sectoids to shoot in the face or crop circles to investigate.

That said, don't expect anything exotic outside the gun porn in JA2 1.13 either.  OXCE + mods has them beat by a million miles.
JA2 has pretty much any turn-based squad-level tactical game beat hands down. It could have exactly one weapon per category instead of the insane gun porn, and that would still be true.

Come back preaching the engine superiority of OXCE when we get crawling, suppression fire, terrain-piercing bullets and stealth, and maybe I'll listen to such a claim then.

It's outright sad how the peak of turn-based shooter tactics is a quarter century old and there's no successor in sight. 1.13 has been slowly petering out for a while now, the heydays of the source code reveal are over.

X-Com is unquestionably the better planetary spec-ops simulator.

Spoiler" HEMA":
@Juku regarding HEMA: they've been around here since 1980s, and were actually what sparked the fandom scene in Poland. (Dioxine and I did a lecture on it topic in Finland once, lol)
Er, which fandom? SF fandom? Football fans? Star Trek? :P

You sure we're talking about the same treatise-translating, cautious-practice, historical-authenticity HEMA that had a large part of its origins in SCA heavy combat and not some adjacent group like hardcore historical re-enactors or proto-bohurt?

In that case, would be interested in a reference if you've got one handy.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2022, 11:51:24 pm by Juku121 »

Offline termidor

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #38 on: October 02, 2022, 11:56:25 pm »
With that attitude, you are headed for "Final Destination", a flat-map with mirror match ups.  Why are you even playing this mod then or any game more complex than staring at yourself in the mirror?

Context: https://supersmashbros.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Destination_(Super_Smash_Bros._Brawl)

You expect Solar to sit there, go through every melee weapon in the game, by hand, and change it all to the same exact formula?  Why not do it yourself and release a "melee rebalance sub-mod" for the game?  All the files are unencrypted plain text.  A monkey trained in human speech could do it.  Why can't you?

You are obviously more than capable, if you mod other games.


Wtf is even this comment. I did initially ask as to why there was a lack of consistency and I'm still waiting an answer (maybe you who seem so illuminated by divine wisdom ) as to why having conssitency is somehow bad. The weapons would still be different between then due to damage, accuracy and TU cost while at the same time not adding unnecessary calculation in regards to weapon damage spread and average desviation.

And yes you are rigth making my personal modifications is the most straigthfoward. That doesn't mean however that can't suggest things to improve a mod. If the author of the mod disagrees so be it, my partial impressions may be wrong.

Offline Vakrug

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #39 on: October 03, 2022, 12:03:10 pm »
I think the actual issue might be lack of sufficiently tough enemies to let the LC shine. DB is usually sufficient, and the Trasher is a thing.
Does that means that you no longer think that "The Light Cannon is the most OP weapon in the first part of the game."? That is good, because now we can discuss ways for improvement. If not, then I am still waiting at least some example situations where Light Cannon performs at least decently.
And no, the problem is not in lack of tough enemies. The problem is that if you are facing Red Dawn's Armored Car, then BlackOps Sniper Rifle or even PSG-1 would deal with it better that Light Cannon.

Another problematic pair: Heavy Turbolaser and Turbolaser Sniper Rifle. Same tech level, but Turbolaser Sniper Rifle outperforms Heavy Turbolaser in EVERY aspect: accuracy, rate of fire, price, weight and most notably DAMAGE! Come on, tell me that Heavy Turbolaser is OP now...

What else would it do, laser???

OK, seriously: you want me to make several damage types depending on the bullet? That would mean we'd also have several different types for different kinds of laser. And at least 10 types of Chem damage. And so on. (And the limit is 20 damage types, of which we are already using 16.)
Sniper rifles should not be effective against armored vehicles. And not only vehicles. At least those that are used to pop heads. Adding another damage type (naming is not critical issue) is one of the possible solutions.

I still find them rather situational, and it took some serious work to make them viable in the first place. X-Com focuses on close combat, yet I wanted to have sniper rifles in it, which required a lot of tweaking.
You made them very powerful by giving to an opponent short range weapons in open space maps. OK, Sniper Rifles are not overpowered, but in that case cannons definitely are underpowered.

In a word, consistency. And I've never managed to find a good role for the machine guns that isn't done better by another weapon.
Really? Even BlackOps Smartgun? I think this is the most powerful weapon before turbolasers with single downside it's small clip.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2022, 12:05:19 pm by Vakrug »

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #40 on: October 03, 2022, 12:54:38 pm »
So, this was not quite true?

Depends on context. Not for individual weapons.

Er, which fandom? SF fandom? Football fans? Star Trek? :P

All of them, doh. ::)

You sure we're talking about the same treatise-translating, cautious-practice, historical-authenticity HEMA that had a large part of its origins in SCA heavy combat and not some adjacent group like hardcore historical re-enactors or proto-bohurt?

I don't know, all these are probably American-related stuff which I know little to nothing about (unsurprisingly). Even the term "HEMA" I'veo nly seen in English sources from the US and Canada; we call them either "knight brotherhoods" or "barbarian brotherhoods", depending whether they care for the historical aspect or ar in there just for combat. How exactly they function depends on the organisation (and there are dozens of them), but they are also quite competitive in terms of historical accuracy (I mean the knights; barbarians openly don't care).

In that case, would be interested in a reference if you've got one handy.

A good starter would be Eric Lowe's articles on Quora. (Also the only reference I have on hand; my other sources are mostly old books in Polish I read 20 years ago.)

Does that means that you no longer think that "The Light Cannon is the most OP weapon in the first part of the game."?

Hell no.

That is good, because now we can discuss ways for improvement. If not, then I am still waiting at least some example situations where Light Cannon performs at least decently.

Good luck, lol.

And no, the problem is not in lack of tough enemies. The problem is that if you are facing Red Dawn's Armored Car, then BlackOps Sniper Rifle or even PSG-1 would deal with it better that Light Cannon.

Agreed - and fork is bad for soup.

Look, I don't care whether you think the LC is good or not. I think it is. Do you really feel the need to fight me over this? Don't like, don't use. This is not helping.

Another problematic pair: Heavy Turbolaser and Turbolaser Sniper Rifle. Same tech level, but Turbolaser Sniper Rifle outperforms Heavy Turbolaser in EVERY aspect: accuracy, rate of fire, price, weight and most notably DAMAGE! Come on, tell me that Heavy Turbolaser is OP now...

And?

Sniper rifles should not be effective against armored vehicles. And not only vehicles. At least those that are used to pop heads. Adding another damage type (naming is not critical issue) is one of the possible solutions.

What? lol

You made them very powerful by giving to an opponent short range weapons in open space maps. OK, Sniper Rifles are not overpowered, but in that case cannons definitely are underpowered.

'kay.

Offline mikKoi

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #41 on: October 03, 2022, 02:26:22 pm »
Hey, sorry, but just need to ask in between (again), does anybody know is AI capable of knowing armor damageModifiers? Like, if I block armor piercing, then AI would use explosives or some other damage type.

Offline Yankes

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #42 on: October 03, 2022, 02:38:36 pm »
If I recall correctly AI only know accuracy and dodge noting else.

Offline Solarius Scorch

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #43 on: October 03, 2022, 03:45:32 pm »
It is indeed a bit of a problem - if you add concepts like EMP (to fight robotic units), the enemies will fire it on the wrong target... I don't know what should be done about this, though.

Offline mikKoi

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Re: Another balance thread
« Reply #44 on: October 03, 2022, 05:06:32 pm »
Maybe AI's weapons should always cause at least some damage regardless of whatever armor the player wears (and with the right kind of tool a lot). I think I will use this simple solution. It just needs different enemy type assemblies in every map - at least when they are all armed with non-scifi weapons (or/and teeths and claws :D), but still supposed to be able to fight against armored vehicles and walking tanks at least somehow. Anti-tank mines would give a nice assistance :P

An AI unit using wrong weapons to wrong targets is suitable if it just doesn't carry anything else, I think.