Mod- Dynamic Stat Adjustment

[Yzaxtol]

Ahhhh Good, I pity the fool that hasn't assaulted the base before July as the Outsiders get ridiculously powerful.

 

Another note: are these days affected by the Marathon variable?

Edited May 11, 2013 by Yzaxtol

[Amineri]

Hmmm.... good point there.

 

They are NOT affected by Marathon. So right now poor Marathon players are really going to take it in the face @_@.

 

I'll have to poke at my helper function and see if I can squeeze in the call to the Marathon multiplier and apply it to the Day-count if the SW option is selected. I'm not sure if I have the room in there, though.

 

In the mean time Marathon players will have to suffer.

[Yzaxtol]

Hehehe

[Amineri]

Here's even MORE dynamic adjustments.

 

I call it "Not All Sectoids Are Created Equal"

 

http://wiki.tesnexus.com/images/8/80/Not_All_Sectoids_Created_Equal.jpg

 

What I did in this case was to give SquadMember(0) in the alien squad +4 HP. He would be the only upgraded alien in the bunch. (even including those that were out-of-sight).

 

[Yzaxtol]

-Deleted due to being unable to re-create bug-

Edited May 15, 2013 by Yzaxtol

[Amineri]

So I've been seeing some feedback that some people aren't big fans of upgraded aliens...

 

Thanks Yzaxtol, I would like to, but I don't think I would like aliens that heal themselves, they are bloody hard enough as it is. http://forums.2kgames.com/images/dark/smilies/smile.gif

 

Nope, absolutely hate the buffed aliens, I modded the game to get away from these elite type kill you anytime/anywhere aliens (no fun). Strategy becomes a shambles. :(

Absolutely love everything else about the merciless mod, it's a shame it had to go down this path, but never mind, I still have my v1.1
Maybe if you have time you can make a mod containing all the good new stuff without the alien buffing.

 

Outsider had 10 hp and was regenerating 3 hp per turn. Is that intended so early in the game ? Is the player expected to take him ? Or is the idea that unless you are ready to suffer casualty, you better clear the trash to farm exp then abort the mission ? Because this guy single handed killed my whole team although I was steamrolling sectoids (quickly lost one operative, so my whole squad fire damage per turn wasn't keeping up with the regen, combined with the fact that walls wouldn't provide cover for more than one round due to being easily destroid, so half of my team had to dash around to stay in full cover). I'll admit I wasn't expecting that, so maybe I could have taken it out with better preparation (or pulling off cheap tactics like throwing all 4 grenades during the same turn). But I felt that the difficulty discrepancy was too much.

 

I feel the regen on the Outsiders is a bit much in a early game when you have 4 soldiers that can hardly hit anything and or their weapons don't do that much damage. 1 Outsider should not be able to run off regen and be able to take out a full squad by himself.

 

I'm not sure if this is the discontent of a vocal minority or what.

 

However, my question is this: Is there anything I can do to alter the mod to make it better for you "big mod" designers to integrate and balance?

 

Would an adjustment that allowed changing the upgrade times based on difficulty be of help?

 

I'm currently working on adding some new items into the game, which should help a bit with powering up XCOM. (soldiers mostly in the early-game, SHIVs more so in the mid/late-game)

 

Is it time to start looking into increasing squad sizes? Would the ability to have a squad of 8 or 10 help with balancing things out?

 

There is still the increased pod size and "elite alien" mod that I've been working on that can be used to increase difficulty again, but from the look of things it really isn't needed.

 

Would a mod that allowed soldier to increase their stats (independently of rank) based on in-game actions be helpful? I'm thinking about the OG, where your HP and aim, etc had a small chance to increase as a result of in-game actions.

 

Alternatively, I still had plans to use the bottom four columns of the perk tree as "selectable" stat increases. I had held off on that because I thought the balance was still in favor of XCOM.

 

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Any feedback is most welcome!

[Yzaxtol]

Probably just my mod suddenly jumping in difficulty that people aren't ready for or it least expect it to be a bit easier. Serves me right for tweaking values alot.

[Amineri]

Probably just my mod suddenly jumping in difficulty that people aren't ready for or it least expect it to be a bit easier. Serves me right for tweaking values a lot.

 

The comments were from both Long War and Merciless. I realize that the modlet allows for a much wider range of difficulties that have to be balanced -- no easy task! :D

 

I'm just wondering if there are any tweaks I can make in the mod itself to make your job easier.

[johnnylump]

Well, based on how you've defined your role (modlets, enhancements and new options) versus Y's and mine, I wouldn't worry. The feedback above is not about the tools you've made but instead how we've decided to implement them. We've got a zillion things (pre-existing and added) we can do to balance things, now, and we're going off the feedback of the very few who decide to post substantive material, plus our own impressions. Five-alien pods and alien officer mods don't mean an absolute increase in difficulty; it just means we have to implement them when the time is right, or get some better-timed advantages to the player to deal with it.

 

From the things you posted, I'm interested in trying an 8-soldier squad. I'm worried eight turns in a row for X-Com simply allows too many things to happen without any meaningful alien response, but it's worth testing, and, frankly, it's a way to draw some more players into trying our mods out.

[Amineri]

I'm doing the design for an upgraded version of the dynamic stat adjustment modlet.

 

New planned features:

• Support configuration of all four difficulty settings
• Alien stat progression over time is defined separately for each difficulty
• Allow any number of upgrades for each alien -- each alien has a separate number
• Maintain setting / upgrading of new Damage Reduction and Regeneration stats
• Add iCritHit back to configurable/upgradable stats

Basically I'm re-designing the whole ModifyStatsByDifficulty function to take advantage of the BalanceMods arrays being dynamic arrays. In the vanilla code the eType field was never used as a part of the stat-setting process. This modlet changes that -- lines with no alterations will be no longer necessary.

 

The new DefaultGameCore.ini lines would look something like this:

 

 

Rules for setting parameters:
Stat		  Field
iHP 		: iHP
iAim 		: iAim % 100
iDefense 	: iDefense % 100
iMobility 	: iMobility % 100
iDR		: iWill (may be negative)
iRegen		: iDefense / 100
iWill		: iAim / 100
iDamage		: iDamage (may be negative)
iCritHit	: iMobility / 100
iDays		: iCritHit (maybe three digits)


// Classic difficulty configuration
// omit lines with no adjustments
//BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_None, iDamage=0, iCritHit=0,iAim=0,iDefense=0,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0)
//BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Civilian, iDamage=0, iCritHit=0, iAim=0, iDefense=0, iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0)
//BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Soldier, iDamage=0, iCritHit=0, iAim=0, iDefense=0, iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0)
//BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Tank, iDamage=0, iCritHit=0, iAim=0, iDefense=0, iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0)

// Sectoid config
// multiple lines per unit, for configuration -- any number of upgrades per alien allowed
// iCritHit = 0 sets stats at beginning
BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Sectoid,			iDamage=0, iCritHit=0,iAim=0,iDefense=0,iHP=1, iMobility=0,iWill=0)
// iCritHit > 0 applies stats on iCritHit day
BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Sectoid,			iDamage=1, iCritHit=15,iAim=0,iDefense=5,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0)
BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Sectoid,			iDamage=0, iCritHit=45,iAim=0,iDefense=0,iHP=1, iMobility=1,iWill=10)
BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Sectoid,			iDamage=1, iCritHit=90,iAim=10,iDefense=5,iHP=0, iMobility=0,iWill=0)
BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Sectoid,			iDamage=0, iCritHit=150,iAim=0,iDefense=0,iHP=1, iMobility=0,iWill=10)
BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Sectoid,			iDamage=1, iCritHit=300,iAim=10,iDefense=10,iHP=1, iMobility=0,iWill=10)

//Floater config
BalanceMods_Hard=(eType=eChar_Floater,			iDamage=0, iCritHit=60,iAim=0,iDefense=0,iHP=1, iMobility=0,iWill=0)
etc...

 

 

 

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Since there are 10 quantities of interest (the 7 values previously defined + day-trigger + DR + Regen), I've had to digit-pack three of the numbers.

 

These are:

iAim : holds Aim in lower 2 digits, holds Will in upper 2 digits

iDefense : holds Defense in lower 2 digits, holds Regen in upper 2 digits

iMobility : holds Mobility in lower 2 digits, holds iCritHit in upper 2 digits

Examples:

 

 

iAim = 510 : adds +10 to Aim and +5 to Will

iAim = 5 : adds +5 to Aim and +0 to Will

iDefense = 205 : adds +5 to Defense and +2 Regen

iMobility = 1001 : adds +1 to Mobility and +10 to CritHit

 

 

 

Three values are completely redefined:

iCritHit now holds the day-trigger -- a value of 0 now assigns the stats as the starting 'difficulty' adjustment

iWill now holds DR -- this can be a negative value

 

Two values remain as defined:

iHP -- only defines delta HP (so that negative values can be assigned)

iDamage -- only defines delta damage (so that negative values can be assigned)

 

I tried to put the less used stat adjustments in the upper digits (Will, CritHit, Regen).

 

Because of the digit-packing the stats (Aim, Defense, Mobility, Regen, Will, and CritHit) cannot have negative values assigned.

 

This means that the Character= array should define the lowest possible value for these stats so that only positive values are added for difficulty adjustments.

 

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All told, for all four difficulty settings, there are nine stats being adjusted -- the original 7 + DR + regen.

 

The original function had 28 such stat assignments; the new version has 36. Or rather, it would have 36 if there were room for all 36 calls. Through a few tricks I've been able to squeeze stuff down to allow room for 29 stat assignments in addition to all of the new loop code.

 

This means that 7 of the stat assignments have to be dropped. I'm thinking of dropping most of the stat assignments for the Easy difficulty range in order to have the ability to set all 9 stats for the harder three difficulties.

 

Easy -- drop DR, Regen, CritHit, Mobility, Aim, Will, Defense

-- keeping HP, Damage

 

HP allows a little bit of scaling of the early aliens for the later game

Damage is preserved so that alien weapon damage can be reduced compared to XCOM weaponry.

 

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Any feedback, thoughts or suggestions are, as always, appreciated