General > Discussion
Balancing smoke grenades
vuser:
A lot of people have criticized the smoke grenades, but how would it be possible to balance the game without altering it too much?
The biggest problem with smoke grenades is that they are totally unbalanced. If you spend most of your time in smoke, every mission is a cakewalk. If you don't use smoke, especially in late game, the game becomes literally impossible to win. Even winning a single mission (having best troops and equipment) with at least 50% survivors is a huge and rare accomplishment. This fits the definition of a game-breaker: a tactic which is so much better than every other, that it never ever becomes an option to use any other tactic. If every mission requires exactly the same recipe, and no other recipe works, the game becomes dull.
So, how to make the game more balanced? Let's see how to reduce the advantage of smoke grenades:
1 - Applying a penalty to every shot which doesn't have a clear sight. It's reasonable, as you can aim much better if you see your target then if only someone tells you in which direction to fire. If you make a step forward, notice a target, make a step back, you can hit your target better if you still see it.
2 - Making the AI a bit smarter, by giving them a small chance to fire a random shot at a smoke cloud if they don't see any other target, or don't have anything better to do. Make this chance a bit higher if they have seen a human enter that cloud last turn. Make it rare enough to not be too effective, and aliens shouldn't actively seek out smoke, just maybe fire a blind shot at them if they happen to encounter one. Of course, only with a low probability, to prevent it from being abused. This way smoke still offers a great protection, but doesn't make you 100% invulnerable.
This, of course, will make the game harder, so other parts might have to be made a little bit easier (or aliens a little bit weaker) to compensate it.
Another way would be to offer viable alternatives, for example, situations where a tactic other than smoke might also be at least somewhat useful.
3 - implementing a possibility to fire from cover. It still troubles me to see that my soldier cannot shoot past a thin lamp post directly in front of him. Even games made freaking 20 years ago (like Jagged Alliance) managed to do it! This way, shooting from a crouched position from behind low cover or from around corners would provide a significant protection, by drastically reducing the chance to be hit. This would make the game more tactical, as you will have to find a way to flank those who are using cover. This might make a game a bit easier as humans might be able to use it better than the AI, so it can be compensated by other factors, or by points 1 and 2 which make the game harder.
While point 3 would be quite difficult to implement, I guess 1 and 2 would be fairly easy.
TBeholder:
--- Quote from: vuser on September 24, 2014, 07:12:31 pm --- The biggest problem with smoke grenades is that they are totally unbalanced. If you spend most of your time in smoke, every mission is a cakewalk. If you don't use smoke, especially in late game, the game becomes literally impossible to win. Even winning a single mission (having best troops and equipment) with at least 50% survivors is a huge and rare accomplishment.
--- End quote ---
Early missions are fairly easy to do without smokes with 1-2 light wounds tops - bar very bad luck (or moderately bad luck plus plasma grenades). The problem is, civilians are there like fish in the barrel (running around in panic without having evacuation areas on different edges like in Apocalypse) and aliens are cllairvoyant, so on a big map aliens tend to mow down a lot of civilians simply because they are already there and you will need time to get there. Thus, smoke is necessary to protect civilians.
--- Quote from: vuser on September 24, 2014, 07:12:31 pm --- This fits the definition of a game-breaker: a tactic which is so much better than every other, that it never ever becomes an option to use any other tactic.
--- End quote ---
It would if use of smokes in itself constitued "a tactic" - just one ay, and mutually exclusive with others. Which isn't the case, so it doesn't fit. Just like "using armor" - yes, it is nearly impossible to play without using armor at all, but that's not what "game-breaker" means...
--- Quote from: vuser on September 24, 2014, 07:12:31 pm --- If every mission requires exactly the same recipe, and no other recipe works, the game becomes dull.
--- End quote ---
There are at very least labyrintine vs. open terrain.
--- Quote from: vuser on September 24, 2014, 07:12:31 pm --- So, how to make the game more balanced?
--- End quote ---
When you put some articulate meaning into this word, please define it. Because in computer games (and even more so in RPG) "balance" is used mostly as a meaningless word supposed to denote superiority of concepts that are too vague to actually phrase them.
--- Quote from: vuser on September 24, 2014, 07:12:31 pm --- 1 - Applying a penalty to every shot which doesn't have a clear sight. It's reasonable, as you can aim much better if you see your target then if only someone tells you in which direction to fire.
--- End quote ---
Good point.
Technically, this can be done using a common targetting/positioning system. Which should be a separate piece of hardware with cost and weight (and destructible, when equipment will be), of course. Though it still can't be as precise as when people see "vhat ze hell zhey are doing"(c).
Also, a better model for sniping could involve reducing the value of cover, which cannot be done well without seeing that cover from the shooter's own point of view.
--- Quote from: vuser on September 24, 2014, 07:12:31 pm --- If you make a step forward, notice a target, make a step back, you can hit your target better if you still see it.
--- End quote ---
Speaking of which, there's no "step back" and suchlike...
Perhaps skill such as "spatial sense" or "coordination" could be useful? That would affect things like sidesteps, throws, blind shots and wide-angle (outside the "forward" arc, but still in sight) reaction fire.
--- Quote from: vuser on September 24, 2014, 07:12:31 pm --- 2 - Making the AI a bit smarter, by giving them a small chance to fire a random shot at a smoke cloud if they don't see any other target, or don't have anything better to do.
Make this chance a bit higher if they have seen a human enter that cloud last turn.
--- End quote ---
Or rather "anything that the current weapon counts as soft cover and is close enough to be a possible threat".
Also, if an opponent using cover invites an attack, so could an invisible attacker: a combatant not seeing the attacker of one's ally, but seeing the attack may try to area-attack the apparent origin: "a grenade flies out of the door, a grenade flies into the door, maybe it'll bounce right" sort of thing, same for soft cover (more with needlers than plasma, though). That's where splash damage and Sweep modes should be used.
--- Quote from: vuser on September 24, 2014, 07:12:31 pm --- 3 - implementing a possibility to fire from cover. It still troubles me to see that my soldier cannot shoot past a thin lamp post directly in front of him. Even games made freaking 20 years ago (like Jagged Alliance) managed to do it! This way, shooting from a crouched position from behind low cover or from around corners would provide a significant protection
--- End quote ---
So true. In part, a side effect of grid movement, but still obviously needs improvement.
Also, with vertical cover having the weapon in one or other hand would make difference, and thus left/right handness would be worth adding.
For low cover - if certain weapons are normally (MG, sniper) or optionally (AR, rocket) used with bipod, it could be set on the cover if the height is more or less right, which would make value of different firing positions more situational.
--- Quote from: vuser on September 24, 2014, 07:12:31 pm --- This might make a game a bit easier as humans might be able to use it better than the AI
--- End quote ---
Depends on whether they expect an attack from a specific direction - but so does RF.
vuser:
Maybe using the terms "game-breaker" and "balance" were not that clear, so I'll try to explain what I meant:
I was referring to the tactic where all your soldiers end their turns inside smoke, they only fire from inside of smoke (to avoid RF), so at the beginning of each turn you briefly step outside of smoke, notice the aliens, return to the smoke, and fire away.
In the early game you don't necessarily need it, but in the late game this is the only way to reliably win missions without casualties, or even win missions at all. It's such a game-breaking tactic that I can have my team of 12 elites with full weapon stats in the best armor and best weapons massacred by late game aliens, while a couple of rookies using the above tactic win the mission without a single wound.
By balance I was meaning to reduce the superiority of the above tactic by at least a little bit, and increase the viability of other tactics.
By step back I meant that I step outside the smoke, notice an alien, step back into the smoke to the exact location I was at the beginning of my turn, but now the alien is revealed, so I can shoot it. Imagine yourself in that situation, when would your accuracy better: if you know there is an alien somewhere at that location, or if you actually see that alien at that location?
anonymissimus:
This game-breaking thing is only true for missions without civilians. You need to be outside of smoke (cannon fodder) or aliens turn them to shreds.
In 2.6 smoke causes suffocation, I've not yet checked it out a lot, but every time units without nanocomposite amor or better spend a turn in smoke or move through it they get some stun damage. At some point they get stunned then I'm assuming, probably once stun damage is higher than HPs. I hope it can be healed (truly healed, as the medkit did for hitpoints in 2.4). I need to completely rethink strategy for some maps. Attacks on alien bases especially.
So this suffocation already makes smoke less useful to some extent.
Without any save scumming I lost exactly 2 non cannon fodder units in my campaign in 2.5 (and tons of cannon fodder) thanks to smoke grenades. Both losses to plasma blade Sheevars. However, once I get to know all the spawn points it should be possible to do with zero.
zollac:
--- Quote from: anonymissimus on September 25, 2014, 12:06:22 am ---This game-breaking thing is only true for missions without civilians. You need to be outside of smoke (cannon fodder) or aliens turn them to shreds.
--- End quote ---
Well, I don't try to save any civilians at all in my games (normal difficulty). I just hide my whole team in smoke and let the civilians die. All the nations are still happy with me.
Anyway, I think the smoke thing indeed need some balance, or the whole game mechanic needs some tweaks. Right now even with smoke spamming I have to retry a mission most of the time to make sure none of my veterans dies. The alien shoots extremely accurate that it discourages players from leaving any soldiers in alien's sight. And since there's not many cover you can stay behind and shoot, players are forced to spam smoke grenades to preserve his team. Maybe a "limited vision" like the new XCOM game should be introduced, so the aliens (and you too) cant see your troops from the other side of the map and snipe your whole squad. Cover that you can stay behind and shoot would most likely enough to eliminate the need to spam smoke grenades though.
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