Patch 1.2

[trihero]

People expecting serious rebalancing are likely going to be disappointed. JL has already said that 1.2 is going to mostly be bugfixes, with serious balance work being deferred to 1.3. I fully support this, since I really, really want those bugs fixed, and balancing is always the slowest part of development.

But that's exactly why you should work on balance every chance you get; because it takes so long the more you delay it the longer it will take. And if the game is becoming fundamentally unfun due to balance, I don't see why that should be deferred.

I also wonder why xwynns says things like "oh we rebalanced close range aim recently" I wonder if that's for 1.3 or what?

Also out of all the bugfixes listed, only speaking for myself here, the only one that signficantly impacts gameplay would be the one where longbows/vipers do their special moves without having vision of you. I can easily do ini fixes to build incendiary bombs and improve flamethrower range.

I don't personally it's the bugfixes holding back the game at the moment, but the underlying philosophy of mission distribution.

[Antifringe]

I'm not sure you understood what I was getting at. LW1 took over a year to finish development, most of which was balancing and expansion. Balance isn't going to be done in 1.2. It isn't going to be done in 1.3. It probably won't be finished in 1.4. Of course they are doing some balancing work in 1.2, but the sensible thing is to do a quick release to fix bugs, because bug fixing is fast, and satisfactory balance is only going to be accomplished by major additions, subtractions, and overhauls of content. If we delay 1.2 until a final balance is found, well, it's probably gong to be a year before we get it.

Personally, the black market soldier bug and the Smoker/Flashbanger ones are driving me nuts, but everyone has their own pet peeves.

[trihero]

I'm not sure that what you understood what I was saying either.

I do not expect there to be a final balance in 1.2. I totally understand balance takes time, which is why I think it needs to be worked on continuously rather than delayed. It's like if you want to build a house, you do small things on a consistent schedule instead of hoping you get huge things done in a couple days.

I do think we need to start trying some moves (babysteps) to address big issues (mission distribution) rather than just bugfixes is all I'm saying. I think it's better to be a continual small process rather than remake the game every other patch.

But whatever, at the end of the day I'm not in charge and if the devs are more comfortable compartmenalizing one patch to bugs, then one patch to balance, then what can I do?

I just have a bad, bad feeling I won't find anything enjoyable about 1.2 since it's not going to try to address the big picture of fun/balance with mission distributions.

I'm already dreading my next playthrough because I know half of the missions I do will be stupid low man stealth missions, and either I will grind out the 0% raids (or avoid them entirely, both extremes are stupid outcomes). I'm already bored thinking about it. I don't see what other options there are, since it's not like I'm going to send a 4 man team with reasonable success on those super common 4-5 day duration timers either. I don't think some bugfixes alone in 1.2 is going to cut it for me, so maybe I should just take a breather and get RL stuff done until 1.3 is seriously under discussion/work.

[3tamatulg]

I'm waiting for 1.2 to come out before I start a new run.

I hope there's some serious balance changes in there, because otherwise next run I'm skipping Psi, skipping technicals and making half my team hail of bullets gunners.

You mean other than Hail requiring five ammo and Psis being reworked?

Technicals are a matter of playstyle. They work fine as rocketeers for me, and xwynns is a burnination master.

5 ammo is irrelevant - Autoloaders and Expanded Mags, plus many situations where it's part of an alpha strike (i.e. the reload happens with n ayys active) still make it a perk which I see as so dominant that I can't see myself not taking it. Grenades shred and are a guaranteed hit.

Worked on Psi Tree to 1) add more pre-reqs, with the effect of reducing the number of high-level perks that take an eternity to train appearing so early 2) ensure at least one perk from the top two levels can be trained if pre-reqs are fulfilled and 3) reduce training time overall. This is an issue we'll continue gathering feedback on and may make further changes for 1.3.

Psi I still feel like it's a massive investment and not worth it at all. For the cost (3 cores + 200 supplies for psi lab) and training time (sacrificing a scientist's time is a big opportunity cost too), they come out being able to do what, a single-target flashbang, an amount of guaranteed damage worse than Hail, an AoE just a little better than the basic grenade, a hack for organics (when hack is free on specialists) etc? Like trihero said, I think if they came out of 40 days in the psi chamber with every psi ability unlocked instead of just one, they'd still be not worth the investment or opportunity cost.

Are any of the high level players using Psi in any of their playthroughs?

Can you explain to me why you would make Techs over Grenadiers? The rocket scatter is terrible. If you want to burn stuff take a flame grenade and you're guaranteed to actually burn them, without cover getting in the way. Not saying you're wrong - maybe I'm doing something wrong? I know that I probably should have paid more attention to having higher aim on them, but I feel like high aim soldiers are priority Sharpshooters and Rangers. If you get a 78 aim recruit would you make him a Tech?

[trihero]

Are any of the high level players using Psi in any of their playthroughs?

Can you explain to me why you would make Techs over Grenadiers? The rocket scatter is terrible. If you want to burn stuff take a flame grenade and you're guaranteed to actually burn them, without cover getting in the way. Not saying you're wrong - maybe I'm doing something wrong? I know that I probably should have paid more attention to having higher aim on them, but I feel like high aim soldiers are priority Sharpshooters and Rangers. If you get a 78 aim recruit would you make him a Tech?

Ironically no they aren't using psis. xwynns doesn't care about psis, and even joinrbs recently did a 180 and was like eh I probably shouldn't have made these.

Techs are stronger than grenadiers early in the game, and you can build them into tanks later in the game. Class balance is mostly not hurting the game at this point IMO besides psis.

[justdont]

Techs are stronger than grenadiers early in the game, and you can build them into tanks later in the game. Class balance is mostly not hurting the game at this point IMO besides psis.

Class balance isn't really good right now (neither are skill trees, in majority of cases it's only a choice between 2 perks and 1 filler which is pointless to take on any build), but there are bigger issues at hand that need addressing first.
Perks and classes will likely take a very long time to get all of them balanced into a sweet spot.

[trihero]

Class balance isn't really good right now (neither are skill trees, in majority of cases it's only a choice between 2 perks and 1 filler which is pointless to take on any build), but there are bigger issues at hand that need addressing first.
Perks and classes will likely take a very long time to get all of them balanced into a sweet spot.

Well at least we agree there are bigger issues. I think there are much fewer autopicks than people think. For instance, I don't think combat protocol, slug shot, walk fire, fire in the hole, revival protocol, are autopicks whatsoever despite people saying they are.

[Zloth]

Yeah, balance is horribly tricky because of the psychology going on. If people believe a power works too well and they use it badly then they assume they are messing up and change their tactics. If people believe a power is weak, though, they won't alter their tactics to try and make it work because they believe it's broken!

P.S. And thanks for the update!

[Devon_v]

Can you explain to me why you would make Techs over Grenadiers? The rocket scatter is terrible. If you want to burn stuff take a flame grenade and you're guaranteed to actually burn them, without cover getting in the way. Not saying you're wrong - maybe I'm doing something wrong? I know that I probably should have paid more attention to having higher aim on them, but I feel like high aim soldiers are priority Sharpshooters and Rangers. If you get a 78 aim recruit would you make him a Tech?

I'd say in addition to, not instead of. And it's cover destruction. Sapper is a pale shadow of its LW1 self, and I loath x% chance to proc abilities. (The cover might be degraded or destroyed, or maybe nothing will happen). I don't use grenades to shred, I just use AP ammo and ignore the issue outright. For me grenadiers are for flashing and auto-hitting annoying things with too much defense. Rockets, from day one, obliterate cover. They let your Rangers and Sharpshooters do their thing without issue. Once you get Javalin rockets you also get to blow up more pods even after breaking concralment. Fire in the Hole and using both actions to shoot makes the rockets accurate enough, the key is just to aim for the center of the terrian you wish to delete, not to try to overlap as many targets as you can.

The flamer also comes in way before you'll have Incendiaries at all, let alone with any meaningful AoE on them. Technicals do fall off late game when other tech and skills come into play, but nothing matches them in the early to mid game.

[3tamatulg]

The thing about the rocket cover destruction is yeah it's great - if you don't roll a scatter. Which is very likely at long range.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Meanwhile there's the Gunner perk 'Destruction' which I also consider a must-take. And that's included in a soldier who can do it multiple times per mission from the start, with no chance of failure. Or Sapper Grenadiers, who can AoE damage and shred the target, while nearly guaranteeing the destruction of cover if you center the grenade on it.

It's not that Technicals are inherently bad, it's just when it comes time to choose which class to put a soldier in, I find it really hard to argue in favour of them over the other classes. If they become much less useful as the game goes on, that's a problem from the start, since by using a soldier you're investing in them over another, and hoping for the payoff of an even better soldier later on. Technicals fundamentally contradict that.

High aim -> Ranger or Sharpshooter
High dodge + negative defence -> Gunner
High mobility -> Shinobi/Grenadier/Specialist
Poor all around -> Grenadier/Gunner

[Devon_v]

*shrug* 4 tiles off center still destroys what I'm aiming at. Demolition is mutually exclusive with Iron Curtain which, IMO, is a far superior perk because it actually hurts things and scales up as pod sizes increase, unlike destroying one tile of cover.

I use rockets to level buildings. I use them to make an instant no man's land. Demolition will literally never do that. If I have a Gunner, and there's a single enemy that needs to die, Hail of Bullets is happening anyway.

Some troops are going to become Technicals all on their own, you might as well make use of them.

[3tamatulg]

Some troops are going to become Technicals all on their own, you might as well make use of them.

They make good haven advisors.

[Devon_v]

Some troops are going to become Technicals all on their own, you might as well make use of them.

They make good haven advisors.

They tend to destroy all your freebie loot though.