playable advent mod: details, feedback

[PepprmintButler]

re : alien vs human balance

I think you could possibly have an alien significantly better than a human if the player isn't given access to more than 1 or 2. But that would mean that doing the mission to get it and field it on your team every mission would clearly be the optimal way to go, which is not a desirable state (less choice) ; so even in limited numbers and/or with an expensive buy-in, the power level IMO needs to stay comparable. "One step up" is fine though - there's an investment involved after all.

 

re : Chrysalid

I like the panic inducing bit. Could sort of make sense on a muton too, but making enemies go "oh sht" is definitely what Chrysalids do. I' d much prefer a regular sized one to a gigantic 4-tile 2-slot monster.

I'm still not super hype about the thing, TBH ; headcannon and all that.

 

re : Viper

I think reintroducing more stealth is good. Danger's version seems wildly OP to me, but the general concept is cool. Note that there is at least 1 other mod I can think of that does precisely the "attack and stay concealed if the target dies" thing - it's the Rogue Class. I think in the case of the Viper, a "Tongue Pull does not break concealment" perk would be very cool (it does not need to instakill !). This does however raise the question of how practical it would be to get the viper in tongue range but outside of detection range ; it seems quite difficult to pull off with default values, actually. Adding a few tiles of range to tongue pull (or reducing detection range) in the same perk would help if that's too much of an issue. I'm not sure I like the primary weapon attack without breaking concealment deal (even hinging on a kill to proc) ; rifles do plenty of damage and kill easily. They're also quite loud. What I could see is a spit variant that doesn't break concealment either ; possibly something single-target and long-ish range. At any rate, especially with in-concealment abilities, the amount of access to concealing abilities should be watched closely ; I'd say there's a fine line to walk there for balance. If you can just pop back in whenever you mess up, and continue generate value from safety, there'll be an issue.

 

Muton

if Chrysalid is a heavy debuffer, Muton should be focused on buffing rather than a mix of the 2. That plus perks making him useful by himself makes a nice 2 sided tree. War Cry already exists in the LWS Centurion ; there's also inspiration to be found in the Leader mod ; and I do think they should be able to inject themselves with berserker serum as a perk (1 charge per mission ?). I would find it funny if that had a perk that let them shout at or even kick an ally to rid them of status ailments (panic, mind control, disorient, maybe even unconscious). They also badly need a buff to their base weapon and an upgrade to it. I do think the grenade focus is not a bad one, probably better than melee (which should be the Chrysalid's turf anyway).

[DangerM]

@ DangerM, thanks for the long posts. In your first post, you mention about the relative power level of the aliens vs humans. My goal is a hard one, but I think the right one. At both the mid game and end game, the units should be powerful enough that you want one in your team, but not so powerful that you want a whole team full of them. If they are equal in power to one human, many players may not bother with them, so they should be a little more powerful than a human or at least powerful enough in a particular, unique, interesting role. If somebody says, "Hey, I took a full squad of mecs and just stomped through L/I with no problem", then they are too powerful.

 

I think the mec, definitely, and the viper, maybe are in that sweet spot now. The viper poison spit is configurable in the ini file, but not many players probably bother with this. I definitely agree that more stealth abilities are a great idea. I can play around with this more.

 

For muton, I agree that your tree has some good ideas. I want to work on muton third, after chryssalid (#1) and improving viper a little more (#2).

 

For chryssalid, I was actually thinking the reverse of you, although I love the comment about "giant venomous dog". Rather than a juggernaut, I was actually thinking of a sprint melee approach: nimble and dangerous, but not stealthy. Not many people use ranger for melee because shotgun. So I was thinking of a unit that could spring out of a burrow, slash people up, and panic the survivors. I've almost got unburrowing and overwatch working, and I think we (mostly lucubration) have figured out why cocooning isn't working. I want to add some blademaster type abilities, including pierce so it's useful against late game armored targets. I want to see if I can have an attack panic the target and nearby enemies. If only I didn't have a fulltime job :-)

 

What do you think?

 

Hm, accidentally erased my post, so this one will be shorter.

 

I haven't been able to test the mod since my gaming computer has been dead the past few weeks. I should have the parts to fix it in a week or so though. I'll still gladly talk about the game design philosophy meanwhile. :)

 

First off, I don't think it needs to be a binary answer. Some aliens could be way stronger (and more expensive), others could be far more expendable and affordable. Making the Aliens varied will make them stand out.

 

The way the XCOM games are balanced we can think of XCOM a bit like an RPG with four basic classes: Assault, Grenadier, Sniper and Support. These four are all intended to be balanced for all possible team compositions without one coming out ahead too much. While there is some room for creativity, with the tools we have most new (alien) classes would likely end up being some combination.

From there XCOM 1 offered the ability to upgrade a class into a more potent one (let's call it hero class) such as MEC or PSI. There was reasons you did not do this to all soldiers. The first of which was that it was too resource demanding, upgrading a full team of MECs required more MELD and money than what it was worth, if at all even achievable. The second reason was that it led you to lose out on some tactical diversity and lock you out of possible PSIs. Some people never bothered with MECs and just bought satellites instead.

The advantages of asymmetric balance. (Hero-class)

1. The Aliens do not compete against, outclassing, or being outclassed by human classes. They are too expensive.

2. It leads the player to build tactics around a powerful alien they have invested in, which leads not only to a memorable experience, but can dramatically change a player's tactics. For example, Huge Chryssalid, it is essentially a death train, but it needs to be protected. This leads to tactics where you try to transport your cargo train of death into the enemy squad without it being turned into Swiss cheese.

I'm off to work now, but I'll try to write more later. :smile:

Edited March 29, 2016 by DangerM

[DangerM]

re : alien vs human balance

I think you could possibly have an alien significantly better than a human if the player isn't given access to more than 1 or 2. But that would mean that doing the mission to get it and field it on your team every mission would clearly be the optimal way to go, which is not a desirable state (less choice) ; so even in limited numbers and/or with an expensive buy-in, the power level IMO needs to stay comparable. "One step up" is fine though - there's an investment involved after all.

 

re : Chrysalid

I like the panic inducing bit. Could sort of make sense on a muton too, but making enemies go "oh sht" is definitely what Chrysalids do. I' d much prefer a regular sized one to a gigantic 4-tile 2-slot monster.

I'm still not super hype about the thing, TBH ; headcannon and all that.

 

 

 

The Chryssalid ideas need not be mutually exclusive though. The idea I wrote down describes a queen after all.

 

The reason I went with a Queen, with the option do go into a three intended to spawn the little guys is that Chryssalids are essentially cannon fodder (or at worst an unstoppable zergling swarm). I feel the Chryssalid "fantasy" scenario basically has tons of the little zerglings running around the map spreading their disease without the player actually caring too much about them dying all over the place.

 

It feels odd that little Eddy the Chryssalid would level up and become as much of a badass as Chuck Norris the Ranger, but perhaps it could be done. Would you really want him to be infectious though? In that case I think at the very least you'd want to make the original guy a different colour to tell him apart from his spawn. :smile:

 

 

re : Viper

I think reintroducing more stealth is good. Danger's version seems wildly OP to me, but the general concept is cool. Note that there is at least 1 other mod I can think of that does precisely the "attack and stay concealed if the target dies" thing - it's the Rogue Class. I think in the case of the Viper, a "Tongue Pull does not break concealment" perk would be very cool (it does not need to instakill !). This does however raise the question of how practical it would be to get the viper in tongue range but outside of detection range ; it seems quite difficult to pull off with default values, actually. Adding a few tiles of range to tongue pull (or reducing detection range) in the same perk would help if that's too much of an issue. I'm not sure I like the primary weapon attack without breaking concealment deal (even hinging on a kill to proc) ; rifles do plenty of damage and kill easily. They're also quite loud. What I could see is a spit variant that doesn't break concealment either ; possibly something single-target and long-ish range. At any rate, especially with in-concealment abilities, the amount of access to concealing abilities should be watched closely ; I'd say there's a fine line to walk there for balance. If you can just pop back in whenever you mess up, and continue generate value from safety, there'll be an issue.

I played at the middle difficulty where most ADVENT (not Alien) soldiers die in a hit or two regardless. Other creatures cannot be grabbed by the Viper afaik. I could see it being reduced to dealing a bit of extra damage and retaining concealment if a kill was made though. So the Viper isn't too strong at higher difficulties/vs strong ADVENT troops.

 

It was a few week since I played XCOM2, so I may not remember exactly how potent concealment is. To me firing of a shot, and the next turn running away and going into concealment doesn't sound any more broken than abilities like Killzone or PSI-Lance, Stasis, etc.

 

The way I figured it the Assassin type of Viper would be running around the flanks picking of vulnerable enemies, or finishing them of. When exposed the enemies would have about a turn or two to down her before she snakes back to stealth.

 

As for plasmas being loud. Sure, but I think the assumption is that the enemies spot her, but she quickly moves around and vanishes up a tree or something (not game mechanically, just as a narrative idea), thus regaining concealment.

 

 

Muton

if Chrysalid is a heavy debuffer, Muton should be focused on buffing rather than a mix of the 2. That plus perks making him useful by himself makes a nice 2 sided tree. War Cry already exists in the LWS Centurion ; there's also inspiration to be found in the Leader mod ; and I do think they should be able to inject themselves with berserker serum as a perk (1 charge per mission ?). I would find it funny if that had a perk that let them shout at or even kick an ally to rid them of status ailments (panic, mind control, disorient, maybe even unconscious). They also badly need a buff to their base weapon and an upgrade to it. I do think the grenade focus is not a bad one, probably better than melee (which should be the Chrysalid's turf anyway).

 

I'm pretty sure the mod will need to add scaling weapons, and probably armour to the aliens to avoid them "falling off" in terms of power.

 

The designs I made were all made with the assumption that a player would own no more than a few aliens (if the player didn't over-invest), so the overlap wouldn't be too much of a problem. Besides, I don't see a problem with a Muton, Chryssalid and Ranger all crashing through a wall together and turning an Advent squad into mince meat. :smile:

 

--------------------------

 

With this sort of I think nailing the "fantasy" of the aliens is very important, not just getting the balance right.

 

IMO.

 

A Muton should feel like a hulking adrenaline fuelled super warrior who crushes both the body and spirit of his enemies with overwhelming force.

 

A Viper should feel like an agile, stealthy predator who strikes without warning and slithers away before her foes can retaliate. (The other tree was mostly based around the fluff about Vipers/Thin-Men being extremely loyal)

 

etc.

Edited March 30, 2016 by DangerM

[hunterkiller33]

 

--------------------------

 

With this sort of I think nailing the "fantasy" of the aliens is very important, not just getting the balance right.

 

IMO.

 

A Muton should feel like a hulking adrenaline fuelled super warrior who crushes both the body and spirit of his enemies with overwhelming force.

 

A Viper should feel like an agile, stealthy predator who strikes without warning and slithers away before her foes can retaliate. (The other tree was mostly based around the fluff about Vipers/Thin-Men being extremely loyal)

 

etc.

 

I have to agree with this.

 

I believe I stated this previously in the discussion: Ask now whether they are Overpowered or balanced when compared to a regular soldier, ask if they provide a significant advantage. Ask if they are worth the time and effort to acquire them and ask if they are worth the resource costs.

 

In the current meta, how and when someone acquires one of these soldiers is luck of the draw. It took six in game months for me to encounter a MEC, and it was a heavy MEC. Another five weeks passed before I had enough to build a single MEC. In this regard, the Advent MEC feels worth the relatively low price. However, I haven't encountered enough other mecs to make a second one. On the other hand, I have more viper corpses than ADVENT troopers. I could have an army of them, yet I only have the one, named her after an original character of mine, and use her to rack up kills on Advent troops with her unaltered Enhanced Venom. I had enough corpses to start producing them far earlier than any other unit.

 

Yet in another playthrough, I hardly encountered enough of either in missions where I could actually collect the bodies at the end of the mission to have more than one of each by the mid game.

 

Mutons as they stand are not worth building past the early and mid game, and quickly fall off. They have no outstanding abilities and are a bit too close to the Ranger while lacking the firepower to truly compete.

 

As the guy above me said, these units should really feel like each race is unique, with strong abilities focused on their design. Because of this, they should be worth their weight in gold to the player when they are fielded. And thus they should be expensive, but not impossible to acquire.

[SwiftNimblefoot]

Really nice mod, was trying to make something like this for Vipers, but I frankly never got the time and the modding tool is not easy to use like it was for Titan Quest (the last game I modded).

 

If anyone can point me towards an editing options, I have a lot of ideas for the Vipers.

 

-Recruitment - I'd change this, as "cloning" seems rather unfeasible given the resources XCOM has. I'd put in a timed mission (available around end of early phase, when you start seeing Advanced Troopers) so that you don't get them too early and unbalance the game. This'd be a special mission where you have to save and escort a free-willed Viper VIP from an Advent prison. After this, you gain her as a recruit Rookie Viper.

Completing the mission would unlock research and Proving Ground Project that would let you modify the Skulljack so you can "hack" and free Vipers. Basically, you would get the opportunity to Skulljack Vipers, who would then become unconscious instead of dying - you can then either carry them or get them after mission completion as new recruits. :tongue:

 

-Skills: I'd not use the same skills as for soldiers, as that is kinda unbalanced, plus not really original. Of course I have no idea how much can be done with mods, so these are just suggestions.

I'd split the skill tree to two sides - "Anaconda" and "Adder", names can change, just to reflect the styles of the two different specializations.

 

-Base Skills: All Vipers would start out with 20 Dodge, Bind (and Release Bind of course), plus Immunity to Poison. By default they should only be able to use Rifles. They can equip and use any other items that regular soldiers can use (like Medikits, Grenades, etc). If possible, Bind should be modded to work against every human-sized enemy (Sectoids, Codices, possibly other Vipers) - though as it doesn't block abilities, Codices should be able to teleport out of the Bind the next turn. Maybe also Vipers should have a 50% miss chance when trying to bind enemy Vipers (and vice versa) ? Also not sure if Bind blocks PSI abilities, so Sectoids could potentially still be able to use them. Same should be done for Tongue Pull, I mean there is no reason why they could not use it on a Sectoid if they can use it on an much larger Advent Shieldbearer.

I have no idea yet for their ultimate abilties on Colonel, sorry... will think of something eventually!

 

Constrictor: This is a more melee-oriented, agressive Viper who will get up close and personal to the enemy.

- Squaddie: Tongue Grab -a free-action skill that would work much like the Grapple of a light armor, with a 2 turn reload - the Viper uses her tongue not to pull someone towards her, but to pull herself towards someone! The difference would be that you can target enemies with it too, not just vantage points, which would put the Viper right adjacent to the enemy, ready for a bind

- Corporal: Poison Spit - The current Poison Spit ability, don't think it needs altering. 2-3 turn reload time (forgot how many it is now), poisons all enemies in the cloud, lasts 1-3 turns.
- Sergeant: Rugged Scales: Gives the Viper +1 Armor and +1(2?) HP
- Lieutenant: Constrictor: Increases Bind damage by +3, Bind can now cause critical hits using the default Crit Chance of the Viper (dependent on her weapon)
- Captain: Cobra Strike: Every enemy who attacks the Viper in close combat or moves adjacent to her is automatically attacked by a Melee bite attack (2 Damage, 95% base hit chance) and is Poisoned on hit. This happens before the enemy delivers his melee attack, and can happen unlimited times per turn. Basically, a weaker Bladestorm that poisons enemies. Not enough to kill them, but to make them miss more likely and help the Viper survive while in the fray. (Maybe should work while Binding, not sure if that'd be unbalanced)
- Major: Barrel of Fangs - Gives the Viper the ability to equip Shotguns, and increases damage against flanked enemies by +3 (same as the Hunter's Instinct Guerilla tactics project)

- Colonel:

 

Adder: A more support-oriented Viper, who hangs back, debuffs enemies, and yoinks them out of cover for your rangers to kill.

- Squaddie: Tongue Pull - The current Tongue Pull, as it is - free action, no reload time. Only change I'd make is to remove the Auto-Bind that currently Dominated Vipers do.

- Corporal: Blinding Venom - The Viper spits venom right into the eye of one enemy with pinpoint accuracy (95% base accuracy) - (same distance as Poison Spit, but requires line of sight) - the enemy is Disoriented for 1-3 turns. This is a poison effect, hence it only works on enemies not immune to poison. Reload time is 3 turns.
- Sergeant: Slippery Scales - Gives the Viper +20(25?) Dodge and increases Movement by +1(2?).
- Lieutenant: Multitasssking - The Viper can divide her attention better - she can now use rifle attacks and Poison Spit/Blinding Venom even while Binding an enemy, but Accuracy is decreased by -30 (25?)%.
- Captain: Envenomed Rounds - The Viper poisons her ammuniton using her own venom. For the following three rounds, all her shots will Poison enemies. Reload time 5 (4?) Turns.
- Major: SWiper (sorry bad punny name)- Vipers can now equip Sniper Rifles, and gain the Squadsight Sharpshooter ability.
- Colonel:

Edited March 29, 2016 by SwiftNimblefoot

[davidlallen]

Please look in the proving grounds and build the aliens using the projects. They do not suddenly appear in the barracks.

[SwiftNimblefoot]

Please look in the proving grounds and build the aliens using the projects. They do not suddenly appear in the barracks.

 

I did, sorry - tried to delete my post but apparently cannot do that. So, I edited it instead with some mod ideas for the Vipers. :)

[DangerM]

Ops found an error.

The Chryssalid ideas need to be mutually exclusive though. The idea I wrote down describes a queen after all.

"need not to be mutually exclusive."

 

@dlallen

What are your thoughts on Aliens vs. later game units like XCOM1 MECs, SHIVs and XCOM2 Psi Operatives?

Edited March 30, 2016 by DangerM

[Mab17]

If you're still looking for ideas for Vipers--moves that work on squadmates in a somewhat more supporting role, perhaps? Like using Tongue Pull on them to get them out of a dangerous position, or an alternate Bind that causes the Viper to take any hits meant for them?

Possibly abilities to let them nullify Poison and/or similar debuffs on squadmates as well. Antivenom spit, maybe.

 

 

 

[davidlallen]

Thanks for all these ideas on vipers! If anybody wants to join the team and help implementing some, that would be great. Usually design ideas are easy to come by. Implementation is harder, and some great ideas turn out to be unimplementable. Then we have been lucky to have some good playtesters also.

 

You can download the full, current modbuddy zip from here:

 

http://jendaveallen.com/Temp/PlayableAdvent0326devel.zip

 

This is how the berserker was implemented. It's fun, and you can become famous. My youtube video has 137 views!