Balance

stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

Balance

Post by stefan3iii »

I have here my brain dump on balance minutiae in 1.4. Some of these are already improved in 1.5, but I'm mostly pretending as though I haven't read those patch notes. You'll also notice that there are way more buffs than nerfs, this is generally because I'm comparing the equipment to just shooting with your gun. If using a limited consumable that you had to go out of your way to research, build, and equip isn't better than shooting your gun a reasonable portion of the time, then it's too weak.

I've tried to restrict myself to things that I think are really out of whack, since that's less likely to just be perceived balance issues due to my biases and playstyle.

Things to Nerf
Incendiary Grenade: Nothing needs to be said here, already long threads about it. Way OP.

Sting Grenade: Still too strong in my opinion. Can still shutdown end game monsters like M3 Mecs and Sectopods, and is basically stronger than any grenade that can be researched. Since grenades are balanced to be used by grenadiers, it crowds out all the other grenades in the game. My proposed nerf would be to make it not work against Mecs, and to give the stun chance a fall off. Grenadier should get other buffs in return though.

Shredstorm Cannon: This is a large cone attack that extends well beyond visual range, can hit unactivated pods easily. It shreds 4 armor, does high damage, destroys cover, can crit, and works with both Shadowstrike and Killer Instinct. It is unlocked at Advanced Coil with a proving ground project. This is the pen-ultimate tech in the game, I'd rather have these than plasma weapons if you made me choose. A good nerf might be to give them mobility penalties and require 2 actions to use. I think right now Warden Armor and Predator Armor are irrelevant, because you should just put these on every soldier.

Stiletto:
The no brainer ammo. Basically better than most ammo, and available early with easily available corpses. In 1.3 Stiletto was buffed to always give +1 damage. I think in hindsight this wasn't a good buff, it homogenized all the ammo types, making it a less interesting choice as to which you use. The only ammo that's as good or better, is late game stuff locked behind rare corpses. Might be more interesting to remove the +1 always damage, and buff it in some other way. Same deal with Needle and Flechette rounds. This would encourage us to bring a diversity of ammo to a mission, rather than just putting Stiletto on everyone because it's the only thing we bothered to research.

Things to Buff
War Suit: Extremely expensive to build, for +3 HP +1 armor over an EXO Suit, which you probably already have a horde of by the time you get this. The elerium cost is just very hard to justify. It has a special ability that is nearly useless, there is an opportunity to make the ability useful in some way to make this armor interesting.

Predator: Too weak compared to EXO Suit. I think EXO Suit is in a good place now, it's not insanely OP and falls off as the game progresses. Just giving it +4 HP +1 armor would be good, or reducing the cost.

Chameleon: Corpses compete with stiletto rounds, and have a major opportunity cost of vest HP. I'd like to see these have a tactical effect, perhaps reducing detection range.

Tac Vest: Needs to be better than Hazmat/Nanovest. I think Pavonis is scared of the return of the uber bio tank, but I feel like +2 HP +2 armor would be a more interesting change to differentiate it from other vests.

Hellweave: Nobody ever wants to get hit by melee attacks. What is the point of the reflect damage? Should at least get some sort of -melee hit chance or damage defensive.

Chitin Plate: The plates don't scale enough, with enemy damage. Should just be buffed to +5.

Carapace: Ridiculously expensive to build (muton elite corpse). Could be +7 ablative as uber end game ablative plate.

Plasma Grenade: Way too expensive to build. Probably fixed in 1.5.

Gas Grenade/Bomb: Does laughable damage. Bad CC compared to a flashbang. Half the enemies in the game are immune (viper, robots, codex, andromedon). If these were free I still wouldn't use them. I'm pretty sure JL is tired of hearing me whine about this so I'll stop here.

Acid Grenade\Bomb: Awful damage, awful radius, shred isn't even that impressive. They're supposed to do one thing, and a shredder gun or cannon does it better. Really even shredder ammo or perks does the same thing, and actually damages at the same time. My buff would be to give it amazing Rupture, like 5 rupture or something absurd. It's very late game tech, and competes for extremely valuable corpses (Archons).

Emp Grenade/Bomb: Bluescreen protocol sting grenades are better. Buffed in 1.5, hopefully does enough damage now to be worthwhile. Should guarantee a disorient at least.

Talon Rounds: Kubikiri aside, does less expected damage (statistically) than stiletto most of the time. Make it +10% crit, +2 crit damage at least.

Venom: Far weaker than Stiletto, and similar tech tier. Too many enemies are unaffected by venom rounds compared to other ammo types. Buff poison chance to 100%, and make it always deal +1 damage regardless if the target is immune to venom.

Medkits: Only time I bring these is if I know chrysalids will be an issue. My buff would be to attach the Field Surgeon perk to these, the more you bring the less wounds you suffer. That could be the advanced medkit upgrade.

Battle Scanners: I really want to like these, but they're just so bad. I'd be scared of amplifying squadsight cheese by making these too strong. My buff would be simple, just make the radius way bigger.

Iron Skin PCS: One of the worst PCS, just give it something on top of the current effect.

Classes
Class balance is generally good, a few notes:

Grenadier:
Sapper/Combat Engineer: Both should passively give you a +Explosive Grenade charge. It's hard to use sapper engineers on longer missions, they just run out of juice too quickly, and crowds out other potentially interesting grenades.

Gunner:
Too weak in the early game. Not going to bother getting too much into it, since there are long threads on it already.
Flush: This perk is so god awful. I tried so hard to use it. 99% of the time it triggers the enemy to move back further away from your squad, which is the worst thing since it makes it harder to kill and risks activating more enemies as you move up to engage. Early game it's ok as a crappy combat protocol, but late game it doesn't even scale up in damage, becoming truly worthless.

Chain Shot: A really bad version of Rapid Fire. Just remove the -10% on the first hit.

Cyclic Fire: Bad version of Traverse + Rapid Fire. Just remove the aim penalty, given the cooldown, and the fact that it overkills nearly anything in the game anyway it's not going to be too strong.

Ranger:
Bring em On: Scales way too slowly with the number of visible enemies. Even crit builds often forgo this ability, which tells you how much it needs a buff.

Tac Sense: I don't understand why this is in the tier with Rapid Fire and Rapid Reaction. Those two abilities nearly double your damage output, while Tac Sense mostly makes AIs shoot your other teammates, on the rare occasion they get to shoot. Defense doesn't even help you against half of the most dangerous things in the game.

Shinobi:
Conceal: Could use 2 charges.

Specialist:
I think Full Override is an auto pick in its tier, but I also don't want to nerf it. It's a very fun ability, and it's the reason that the specialist scales reasonably well into the end game. Without it, I think the specialist would be back to being bad. If anything, buff the two competing perks to be much stronger (Rescue Protocol, Threat Assessment).

Technical:
Too strong early game, kind of weak end game. I feel like some of his rocket perks need to give +rocket charges, somewhere. A technical with +3 rockets suddenly becomes feasible to take on a long mission like Advent HQ. At least make EXO Suit give him +2 rockets.
Concussion Rocket: I know someone at Pavonis loves this design, but this perk is still completely awful. I really tried to make it work in 1.4, but nope. If the smoke cleared after 1 turn, then it might be useful.

Biggest Booms: Scales very poorly, could this be +50% damage instead?

Tac Sense: Same reasoning as I wrote in the ranger section.
Last edited by stefan3iii on Wed Jul 26, 2017 2:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Thrombozyt
Posts: 76
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 10:37 am

Re: Balance

Post by Thrombozyt »

Very good list. I disagree only on very few points, namely:
Buff to Predator
I'd rather nerf the EXO suit further by giving the EXO suit a -25 dodge modifier and increasing the supply cost by 10. Predator armor is already a significant jump in terms of durability and is in its state a good basic armor - just that the offense potential of the EXO suit is so much better. The -25 dodge is thematic as the chances of hitting something critical with all the servos and ammo stores of the EXO is much higher.

Buff to Plasma
With a later game economy, you can support a reasonable amount of plasma weapons. Their power feels right.

Talon Rounds:
I'd rather see a percentage bonus akin to Killer Instinct on them to allow them to scale. Drop the +crit modifier

Specialist:
The Medic tree is still completely horrible. Full Override is a strong a pick as it is, because all specialists regardless of their previous perks arrive at full override with the same hacking stat. The Medic tree should be thoroughly buffed, the general hacking stat reduced and bonus hack stat introduced to lesser hacking perks like interference. Full hackers should hack better than overwatch specialists that just pick up full override for added value. I'm still missing ready for anything on the specialist center line to give them a meaningful differentiation from OW rangers.

Grenadier:
Sapper Grenadiers have their niche currently on shorter GOPs and even lighter troop columns in case you have an air drop specialist to feed them more grenades. Grenadier at Staff Sergeant level lacks an option for a shooty grenadier (in case you end up with a high aim grenadier). Scrap Boosted Cores, move Tandem Warheads in its place and place Shredder Rounds into the Center Tree at Staff Sergeant.
Oh.. and Bombadier is completely useless.
Monochrome
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri May 05, 2017 3:53 pm

Re: Balance

Post by Monochrome »

Flush : I thought the main point of it was to pair it with an overwatch shot, and so get that shot when the enemy's not in cover. Admittedly this can be very difficult to set up, which makes this a very situational skill, but it can still be a useful thing to have in your bag of tricks. If it needs buffing (which it may well do), what about increasing its +to hit, but increasing its ammo usage to 2 to account for that?

Chameleon suit : out of curiousity I tried equipping one on a soldier, and found that it reduced my infiltration time by a whopping 1 (one) hour. I was expecting something more like 3 - 4 hours to make it worthwhile; even if they were free I wouldn't use them just for a 1-hour reduction.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Balance

Post by Psieye »

Gas greande: This wants to be terrain denial. I feel Pavonis is afraid to really go down that route because the AI doesn't think about avoiding "debuff puddles". My personal preference would be to make them -move grenades and guarantee the poison lasts at least 1 turn.

Full Override: The way to 'nerf' this would be to adjust the Mec density. The other abilities would then be attractive if there were some missions where Full Override finds nothing significant to hack.

EXO: I could agree to a -25 Dodge nerf. Since the shred goes through cover you can kill pods across walls/floors if you have a spotter or scan.

Flush: If it applied -move while forcing a Fallback, it'd be competitive.

Concussion Rocket: It has a few weird use cases: kill the last pod-member that's at 1 HP then move up to take advantage of smoke; bait the AI into a tight formation before going full ham with mass AoE; slow down pursuit while running to/waiting for evac. If anything, give me 2 uses of this when I pick it over other perks.

Rocket Technical: Past the earlygame, are rockets meant to actually kill things? I'm thinking Biggest Booms can be kicked out and a perk inserted way down for "extra rocket ammo". That or let Air Drop also give extra rockets when used on a technical.

Air Drop: Speaking of which, bumping this up to 3 charges would solve the sapper issue.

Flechette/Needle/Stiletto: Is there a need for 3 separate ammo for +1 dmg (with situational extra +dmg)? I'd rather they be redesigned as "passive Hunter's Instinct", "passive Grazing Fire" and "extra chance to destroy cover on miss".

Nanomedkits: Passive field surgeon for bringing these sounds good. Though if "no biotank" is the Pavonis policy then we'd need to think of some other way to make people feel Alpha Strike isn't the only option.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
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Thrombozyt
Posts: 76
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 10:37 am

Re: Balance

Post by Thrombozyt »

Psieye wrote:Full Override: The way to 'nerf' this would be to adjust the Mec density. The other abilities would then be attractive if there were some missions where Full Override finds nothing significant to hack.

Air Drop: Speaking of which, bumping this up to 3 charges would solve the sapper issue.

Nanomedkits: Passive field surgeon for bringing these sounds good. Though if "no biotank" is the Pavonis policy then we'd need to think of some other way to make people feel Alpha Strike isn't the only option.
Full Override is just as good if there are limited targets to hack. One of the best things you can do on GOPs is to hack hunter drones as they are decent tanks, can be controlled reliably, have an extremely useful ability with their stunner and - this is the important part - can be hacked from concealment. You don't have to give up combat actions that could be spend on something else.

Air Drop should simply scale with Gremlin tech. Either 1/2/3 or 2/3/4 or 2/3/3.

Simply allow the healing of ablative with Nanomedkits - problem solved AND the medic specialist suddenly becomes useful.
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Balance

Post by Antifringe »

What about making the shredstorm cannon require the WAR suit? Kills two birds with one stone.
merkmerk
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed Jul 05, 2017 3:29 pm

Re: Balance

Post by merkmerk »

I like this thread.

-Agree predator armor is too expensive per suit
-Acid / Gas grenades definitely do suck
-Need better balance of burning/poison/etc. effects in general - just adding RNG sucks
-Grenadiers definitely need something - maybe a free grenade on a 4 turn cooldown or something. Shooty grenadieres need something. Needle Grenades is a bad perk that needs to roll into something else
--The old AP vs HE debate was kind of fun in long war 1 - one did damage through cover but less damage, the other did more damage but didn't go through cover
--Still think combat protocol should be baseline with haywire the hacker path pick
stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

Re: Balance

Post by stefan3iii »

Thrombozyt wrote: Buff to Plasma
With a later game economy, you can support a reasonable amount of plasma weapons. Their power feels right.
Oops, I meant Plasma Grenade, edited the original post. Plasma weapons are fine.
Antifringe wrote: What about making the shredstorm cannon require the WAR suit? Kills two birds with one stone.
I agree it makes sense, but on the other hand it would be kind of sad because it would almost remove them from the game. They'd come so late in the campaign that you'd barely get to use them. That feels like the wrong direction for LW2, I'd rather be moving the end game tech sooner into the campaign, and just buffing the aliens to compensate as needed.

Similar argument with making EXO Suits more expensive. Instead of making certain tech options way more expensive, I'd much rather there be some trade-offs, with different reasons to use tech on certain missions or with certain builds. Making the best option more expensive, just amplifies the problem in LW2 where we unlock the best things that work most of the time, and ignore all the niche options because we can't afford them. So for EXO the -dodge penalty or a mobility penalty would be interesting, if people think they're OP.

Finally regarding grenadiers. One of the issues with the unused grenades right now is that it can be difficult to justify sacrificing a slot on the grenadier to bring one. I KNOW that 4 frag grenades will be very useful on sapper grenadier for a Light Troop Column, and so bringing some niche grenade (ex EMP Bomb) is hard to justify. The loss in power doesn't feel worth the gain in flexibility. Same deal with a sting grenadier, who is going to load up on flashbangs. But, if I had a bunch of free frags or flashbangs, then that trade-off suddenly becomes much more appealing. If I already have 2 free frag grenades, I might bring 2 more, and then use my other two slots for some sort of niche use. I might put in an Acid Grenade and a EMP Bomb in case I run into a tough boss or a big mec pod. It would make the grenadier more interesting to play in the tactical layer, and if Pavonis really does nerf Sting/Incendiary, it would be a good compensatory buff.
nmkaplan
Posts: 207
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2017 5:14 pm

Re: Balance

Post by nmkaplan »

merkmerk wrote:Needle Grenades is a bad perk that needs to roll into something else
I used to think Needle Grenades was a bad perk, but I'm experimenting with it for the first time and I've found it to be incredibly useful. Needle + Heavy Ordinance + Boosted Cores is proving quite useful in the early game. I can blow up drones, pick off low hp enemies behind cover, and hammer clustered enemies and still have my loot. It's really liberating to feel like I can actually use my grenades to kill stuff.

It's not super obvious in the perk description, but Needle grenades also don't destroy corpses on missions where you get them. This was really nice when I did an early supply raid and 5 advent clumped up behind 1 log.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Balance

Post by Psieye »

Is the current 'tech tree' optimal? Certain sub-par items are gated behind lategame corpses. What if we just make them demand multiple midgame corpses instead?
stefan3iii wrote:One of the issues with the unused grenades right now is that it can be difficult to justify sacrificing a slot on the grenadier to bring one. I KNOW that 4 frag grenades will be very useful on sapper grenadier for a Light Troop Column, and so bringing some niche grenade (ex EMP Bomb) is hard to justify. The loss in power doesn't feel worth the gain in flexibility. Same deal with a sting grenadier, who is going to load up on flashbangs. But, if I had a bunch of free frags or flashbangs, then that trade-off suddenly becomes much more appealing. If I already have 2 free frag grenades, I might bring 2 more, and then use my other two slots for some sort of niche use. I might put in an Acid Grenade and a EMP Bomb in case I run into a tough boss or a big mec pod. It would make the grenadier more interesting to play in the tactical layer, and if Pavonis really does nerf Sting/Incendiary, it would be a good compensatory buff.
Hmm, there's an idea - Air Drop giving either an explosive or a flashbang. Because "already have 2 free frags" is in the game by having a non-OW SSgt spec.
nmkaplan wrote:
merkmerk wrote:Needle Grenades is a bad perk that needs to roll into something else
I used to think Needle Grenades was a bad perk, but I'm experimenting with it for the first time and I've found it to be incredibly useful. Needle + Heavy Ordinance + Boosted Cores is proving quite useful in the early game. I can blow up drones, pick off low hp enemies behind cover, and hammer clustered enemies and still have my loot. It's really liberating to feel like I can actually use my grenades to kill stuff.

It's not super obvious in the perk description, but Needle grenades also don't destroy corpses on missions where you get them. This was really nice when I did an early supply raid and 5 advent clumped up behind 1 log.
EXO needle grenadier.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
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2nd
3rd
Skyro
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 4:13 pm

Re: Balance

Post by Skyro »

Incendiary Grenade: Fine with the 1.5 change, but I think it could use even more nerfs. I think you can even tweak it so Fire Grenades have a lower % chance than Fire Bombs and remove Bombs additional radius, as well as make it a Grenadier only item.

Sting Grenade: Agreed. I think a change where the stun only affects biological would make a whole lot of sense.

Shredstorm Cannon: Agreed with above poster a War Suit should be required to equip.

Stiletto: I kind of agree with the homogenized ammo choices due to corpses and all ammo types giving base +1 damage. I think the +1 base damage should be reverted and remove the corpse costs (and possibly increase cost on the other materials) to increase variety here. Removing the corpse cost also helps promote variety with the armors. Also a bigger issue is simply enemy distribution. Every single campaign you are flooded with Faceless and Viper corpses.

Predator: I think Predator is fine, it is just that Exo's are too strong. Spider Armor definitely needs to be buffed. I think Exo and Spider research should be combined, and Spider Armor stats/costs adjusted.

Chameleon: I could've sworn in some patch notes somewhere Chameleon suits were supposed to reduce detection range. Did this get removed?

Tac Vest: I believe this is getting +1 HP? I think it's ok. +2 armor I think is a bit too much at the point you can get it in the game.

Iron Skin PCS/Hellweave: Anti-melee skills/item in general in this game feel so gimmicky. Perhaps make it so Iron Skin also prevents any negative status effects from melee skills, and make Hellweave causes burn and prevents only the first melee attack occurring? Muton AI has to be fixed first though.

Chitin Plate/Carapace: Agreed on the advanced abalative armors. Either up the abalative or remove the corpse cost and adjust the other material costs.

Plasma Grenade: Cost probably can be adjusted somewhat. The only issue is this also upgrades Airdrop, so it can't be too cheap.

Gas Grenade/Bomb: Poison damage needs to change, period. The effect is both too weak and inconsistent. IMO the % to remove poison debuff each turn should be tweaked to scale down, i.e. 0% on the first turn, 40% turn two, 80% turn three, etc., and the aim and movement penalties should remain for the turn it is removed. Furthermore it makes absolutely no sense how enemies (and your own soldiers) can stay in the gas cloud and not get repoisoned unless they move. Turning these into area-control grenades adds a tactical element to it as well.

Acid Grenade\Bomb: These should be the go-to grenade to bring down big, heavily armored M3 targets. Increase the shred, make the DoT shred, and up the rupture.

Emp Grenade/Bomb: Agreed a guarantee a disorient would be a very nice change. I would also like to see the hack debuff increased (-10 hack defense is negligible by the time you get this grenade).

Venom/Talon Rounds: I think this is fine as is if you remove base +1 damage on other ammo types and the corpse cost.

Medkits: Honestly I would like to see this also remove things like unconscious and disorient. Having to move next to the affected soldier and wasting an action point (thus effectively using both action points for a turn) to cure an unconscious soldier seems a big enough penalty as is. It would step on a big on the medic specs but that whole tree is underpowered as is and needs to be looked at anyway.

Battle Scanners: I think these are fine. Nice to scout rooftops and stuff. I forget do these unstealth you if you uncover faceless/bugs with these (and same with Scanning Protocol)? If they do that should be changed.
aedn
Posts: 71
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 2:12 am

Re: Balance

Post by aedn »

Predator armor is fine as it is, it's half the cost of an exo suit, allowing you to improve more soldiers for the same resource cost.

Grenades in general are poorly balanced. Incendiary grenades should not have both the best damage in game,and best status effect in the game. Front loaded damage on grenades should be cut by 50-70%,, and around 30% for bombs. Possibly increase aoe radius by a half tile.

Plasma grenades need a half point increase in damage, or higher damage on the low end of the scale.

Acid grenades should have the 2nd best damage in the game with better rupture effects, making them more useful.

Poison grenades need to be re-classed as support grenades, with the same damage, increased duration of the dot by one turn,and a decent boost to aim malus and mobility when poisoned making them a viable alternative to flashbangs.
Jacke
Posts: 623
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 1:10 am

Re: Balance

Post by Jacke »

stefan3iii wrote:Technical:
Too strong early game, kind of weak end game. I feel like some of his rocket perks need to give +rocket charges, somewhere. A technical with +3 rockets suddenly becomes feasible to take on a long mission like Advent HQ. At least make EXO Suit give him +2 rockets.
Concussion Rocket: I know someone at Pavonis loves this design, but this perk is still completely awful. I really tried to make it work in 1.4, but nope. If the smoke cleared after 1 turn, then it might be useful.

Biggest Booms: Scales very poorly, could this be +50% damage instead?

Tac Sense: Same reasoning as I wrote in the ranger section.
I agree with all 4, maybe not so much Technicals being too powerful early game. I think that's mostly a reflection of how weak some classes are without higher-rank perks.

The mod More Technical Rockets points to a possible solution for Technicals later game. MTR provides a number of extra rockets later in the game (I've not been able to test them yet) but the one item available from the start really matters: a 2-shot Micro Missile Package that has -2 Mobility. It can get crazy carrying 2 or 3 of these, but those extra shots often just don't get used. With just 1 it still ups the Technical's power, adding 2 rocket-range shots of about grenade strength and size that will scatter at most 1 tile.

Now the Technical doesn't really need more power early game (although firing micro-missiles at ADVENT is fun :) ), but including in standard LW2 some extra rocket shots like micro-missiles could help the Technical later game, especially if their damage was upped for later Gauntlets. Perhaps a Micro-Missile perk with 2 shots could replace Concussion Rocket.
xmd1997
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2017 5:15 pm

Re: Balance

Post by xmd1997 »

Skyro wrote:Acid Grenade\Bomb: These should be the go-to grenade to bring down big, heavily armored M3 targets. Increase the shred, make the DoT shred, and up the rupture..
The latest changes to the patch notes indicates that they're actually buffing the acid bomb to 5 shreds. Its a good start at least.

They're also increasing the AOE and damage of EMP grenades.
aedn
Posts: 71
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 2:12 am

Re: Balance

Post by aedn »

Jacke wrote:
stefan3iii wrote:Technical:
Too strong early game, kind of weak end game. I feel like some of his rocket perks need to give +rocket charges, somewhere. A technical with +3 rockets suddenly becomes feasible to take on a long mission like Advent HQ. At least make EXO Suit give him +2 rockets.
Concussion Rocket: I know someone at Pavonis loves this design, but this perk is still completely awful. I really tried to make it work in 1.4, but nope. If the smoke cleared after 1 turn, then it might be useful.

Biggest Booms: Scales very poorly, could this be +50% damage instead?

Tac Sense: Same reasoning as I wrote in the ranger section.
I agree with all 4, maybe not so much Technicals being too powerful early game. I think that's mostly a reflection of how weak some classes are without higher-rank perks.

The mod More Technical Rockets points to a possible solution for Technicals later game. MTR provides a number of extra rockets later in the game (I've not been able to test them yet) but the one item available from the start really matters: a 2-shot Micro Missile Package that has -2 Mobility. It can get crazy carrying 2 or 3 of these, but those extra shots often just don't get used. With just 1 it still ups the Technical's power, adding 2 rocket-range shots of about grenade strength and size that will scatter at most 1 tile.

Now the Technical doesn't really need more power early game (although firing micro-missiles at ADVENT is fun :) ), but including in standard LW2 some extra rocket shots like micro-missiles could help the Technical later game, especially if their damage was upped for later Gauntlets. Perhaps a Micro-Missile perk with 2 shots could replace Concussion Rocket.
Damage fall off and the number of consumables can be fixed by making the tier 3 gauntlet obtainable and adjusting the war suit. Rocket technicals get 2 rockets, the bunker buster, and 2 flamethrower charges with exo suit.
Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Re: Balance

Post by Icarus »

I don't think this 'nerf' will be particularly noticeable to gamers not farming RNFs. After all, you have to kill everyone else first, and kill xp aren't particularly noticeable in the first place. In a mission where I kill all 12 legit enemies and 3 enemies I now get no xp for, I will still get 12 enemy xp and mission xp for all soldiers, only missing out on those 3 more.

Does anyone know if xp carries over, i. E. my soldier needs 100 xp for next level and gets 120, what happens with the rest?
JulianSkies
Posts: 301
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:17 am

Re: Balance

Post by JulianSkies »

Icarus wrote:Does anyone know if xp carries over, i. E. my soldier needs 100 xp for next level and gets 120, what happens with the rest?
You get to keep all 120 xp. Basically you get to keep all the XP you earn after gaining a level, but if you earn more than one level in the mission then it prevents you from gaining two levels, instead you end one XP short of the second level.
stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

Re: Balance

Post by stefan3iii »

xmd1997 wrote:
Skyro wrote:Acid Grenade\Bomb: These should be the go-to grenade to bring down big, heavily armored M3 targets. Increase the shred, make the DoT shred, and up the rupture..
The latest changes to the patch notes indicates that they're actually buffing the acid bomb to 5 shreds. Its a good start at least.

They're also increasing the AOE and damage of EMP grenades.
The acid buffs aren't nearly strong enough. They were buffed in 1.3 as well, getting 1 rupture. The acid grenade itself needs a strong buff. For example if it was:
Acid Grenade: Shreds 4 armor, Applies 3 Rupture - I would consider bringing it on a mission if I had it. I probably still wouldn't research\build it, because I need Archon corpses for swords and there are cheaper ways to strip armor anyway. If it was something like strips 5 armor and applies 4 rupture, I would definitely invest in unlocking it, would be a good tool against singular powerful enemies. Anyways, there are a million ways you could buff it, doesn't matter to me how, just want to illustrate how far off I think it is right now.

Acid bomb is barely relevant to the game. By the time you get the advanced grenades the campaign is wrapping up. You'll mostly get to use them on some golden path missions.
Psieye
Posts: 829
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Re: Balance

Post by Psieye »

stefan3iii wrote: The acid buffs aren't nearly strong enough. They were buffed in 1.3 as well, getting 1 rupture. The acid grenade itself needs a strong buff. For example if it was:
Acid Grenade: Shreds 4 armor, Applies 3 Rupture - I would consider bringing it on a mission if I had it. I probably still wouldn't research\build it, because I need Archon corpses for swords and there are cheaper ways to strip armor anyway. If it was something like strips 5 armor and applies 4 rupture, I would definitely invest in unlocking it, would be a good tool against singular powerful enemies. Anyways, there are a million ways you could buff it, doesn't matter to me how, just want to illustrate how far off I think it is right now.
What if the corpse requirement was different? To go for an extreme example, say it cost 3 viper corpses to make 1 acid grenade.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
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stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

Re: Balance

Post by stefan3iii »

Psieye wrote:
stefan3iii wrote: The acid buffs aren't nearly strong enough. They were buffed in 1.3 as well, getting 1 rupture. The acid grenade itself needs a strong buff. For example if it was:
Acid Grenade: Shreds 4 armor, Applies 3 Rupture - I would consider bringing it on a mission if I had it. I probably still wouldn't research\build it, because I need Archon corpses for swords and there are cheaper ways to strip armor anyway. If it was something like strips 5 armor and applies 4 rupture, I would definitely invest in unlocking it, would be a good tool against singular powerful enemies. Anyways, there are a million ways you could buff it, doesn't matter to me how, just want to illustrate how far off I think it is right now.
What if the corpse requirement was different? To go for an extreme example, say it cost 3 viper corpses to make 1 acid grenade.
Wouldn't use it as it is, even if it was free. Honestly a frag grenade is better than the acid grenade right now. Better damage in a bigger AOE, can destroy cover, shreds a bit. It's worse than an acid against a sectopod or m3, but that's the rarer situation, and in that situation I'd rather just fire a sting grenade in an attempt to shut it down.
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Balance

Post by Zork »

Conceal 2 charges? Looks wrong.

Tactical vest, 2HP 1 Armor, I wonder what vest is better for my psy than that? Is there too many enemies shredding armor? Is the critical chance reduction more important?

EDIT: Why stiletto is OP? The only ammo I use are AP, blue, red. Because armored stuff and mechanical need extra management in my point of view. I get one as prototype but didn't check it much. I understood it was 2hp damages against stuff without armor, 1HP damages against other types.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

Re: Balance

Post by stefan3iii »

Zork wrote:Conceal 2 charges? Looks wrong.

Tactical vest, 2HP 1 Armor, I wonder what vest is better for my psy than that? Is there too many enemies shredding armor? Is the critical chance reduction more important?

EDIT: Why stiletto is OP? The only ammo I use are AP, blue, red. Because armored stuff and mechanical need extra management in my point of view. I get one as prototype but didn't check it much. I understood it was 2hp damages against stuff without armor, 1HP damages against other types.
Tac vests are probably about equally strong as nanovest\hazmat now, or pretty close. The issue is they're much more expensive to research and build, so why bother?

AP ammo does nothing against unarmored targets. It gives you an effective +2 damage against targets with 2 or more armor. Stiletto gives you +1 damage against everything, and +2 damage against Mutons, Vipers, Faceless, Berserkers, Andromedons, and Chrysallids. Stiletto is vastly more effective in the average case.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Balance

Post by Psieye »

stefan3iii wrote: Tac vests are probably about equally strong as nanovest\hazmat now, or pretty close. The issue is they're much more expensive to research and build, so why bother?
It's definitely a luxury for the Legendary economy (I presume, never tried L myself). It's nice when combined with Predator, Will to Survive and a lot of +Def/Dodge to enable the graze tank. My 20 graze-band campaign would love to have them once I get to them. But in a world of "I'm always poor, I must always alpha strike, if I can tank any 1 hit I'm good" then yeah tac vests have no ground to stand on.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Skyro
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 4:13 pm

Re: Balance

Post by Skyro »

Psieye wrote:
stefan3iii wrote: Tac vests are probably about equally strong as nanovest\hazmat now, or pretty close. The issue is they're much more expensive to research and build, so why bother?
It's definitely a luxury for the Legendary economy (I presume, never tried L myself). It's nice when combined with Predator, Will to Survive and a lot of +Def/Dodge to enable the graze tank. My 20 graze-band campaign would love to have them once I get to them. But in a world of "I'm always poor, I must always alpha strike, if I can tank any 1 hit I'm good" then yeah tac vests have no ground to stand on.
It's actually not that great since optimally you don't want to take any non-abalative damage at all to reduce injury times, and armor doesn't affect abalative damage. TBH the only time I've really found an armor stacked dodge tank useful is on big supply raids/HQs where I somehow got myself stuck in some multi-pod engagement where I needed the tanking.

IMO better to increase accessibility than buff it to any significant degree.
JulianSkies
Posts: 301
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:17 am

Re: Balance

Post by JulianSkies »

Skyro wrote:
Psieye wrote:
stefan3iii wrote: Tac vests are probably about equally strong as nanovest\hazmat now, or pretty close. The issue is they're much more expensive to research and build, so why bother?
It's definitely a luxury for the Legendary economy (I presume, never tried L myself). It's nice when combined with Predator, Will to Survive and a lot of +Def/Dodge to enable the graze tank. My 20 graze-band campaign would love to have them once I get to them. But in a world of "I'm always poor, I must always alpha strike, if I can tank any 1 hit I'm good" then yeah tac vests have no ground to stand on.
It's actually not that great since optimally you don't want to take any non-abalative damage at all to reduce injury times, and armor doesn't affect abalative damage. TBH the only time I've really found an armor stacked dodge tank useful is on big supply raids/HQs where I somehow got myself stuck in some multi-pod engagement where I needed the tanking.

IMO better to increase accessibility than buff it to any significant degree.
You should read Psieye's posts about his campaign. Not sure how it'd hold up on Legendary but as it is he basically has almost an entire barracks just of people that are there to take damage and rotate on role of tank.
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