Balance/difficulty

[syrant]

I thought I would put a post up about this, since I think it would be one of the more interesting things for players to give feedback and have discussion on. Basically, what things are making the game too hard or easy for you? 

 

The following is just my two cents for things that make it too easy:

1. Dr. Xu's ability is too strong -- imho the (by far) strongest in the game. Firewalls and daemons are suppose to be a large part of the difficulty, and he makes them trivial (especially on safes). Not to many how it interacts with drones. I would like to see it toned down a lot -- ex. multiple turn cooldown, have an additional (high) AP cost, only work on non-daemons, or only work on devices with less than 3 firewalls.

 

2. Late game scaling of items and skills. The game loses a lot (all?) of its difficulty when you are max skilled and have some key items (lvl 3 weapons, power generator, stim). You can fully clear a floor before the first guard, and what ends up taking the longest is time is inventory management (what to sell, juggling items).

 

3. Killing is too effective. Especially on harder modes, the game should basically spawn a new guard (or more) for each that you kill, not raise the tracker by two.

 

Too hard:

1. Incognita programs only available at server farms (and then, only a random sample). A lot of missions will fail just because players never had access to Hunter (if they didn't start with Xu, anyways..), or a second program to handle firewalls, etc. before doing level 3-4 missions.

 

 

[ViewThePhenom]

Agreed with the points about Xu and item scaling making the game easier. Not really agreeing with needing Hunter or an additional program to take down firewalls  (Fusion + Lockpick can go pretty far). You can roll with a basic setup and Daemon Sniffer, then decide whether or not you want to risk breaking through certain firewalls. 

[Wizard1200]

1.

I think Dr. Xu's ability is as strong as the abilty of Internationale and the abilities of the other agents should be improved to make every agent really unique.

 

2.

Perhaps level 3 items should be removed and level 2 items should be slightly stronger and much more expensive:

Standard Neural Disruptor (Armor Piercing: 0, KO: 2 turns, Cooldown: 3 turns, 500 $)

Improved Neural Disruptor (Armor Piercing: 1, KO: 3 turns, Cooldown: 3 turns, 1,000 $)

 

3.

Anatomy Analysis should reduce the alarm level only by 1 and the alarm level should increase the clean up cost by: (alarm level) x 50 $

 

4.

I think the first missions should be always:

1 x Vault (Guarded)

1 x Server Farm (Very guarded)

1 x Cybernetic Lab (Very guarded)

1 x Nanofab Vestibule (Very guarded)

1 x Executive Terminals (Guarded)

[HolyDeath]

Alarm level increasing the clean up cost doesn't make sense.

[Wizard1200]

It does, because the corporation learns more about the agents and Invisible, Inc. bribes security officers to remove the evidence.

[HolyDeath]

Assuming you left the evidence in the first place (like camera recoding one of your agents, etc.), which is not always the case.

[ViewThePhenom]

The only thing alarm level should be updated to affect is reputation, imo. Alarm level increasing clean-up cost doesn't really make any sense.

[InvisibleThunder]

1. I think Xu's ability is just fine. He still needs to get to that specific safe or device. If He's on the other side of the map, due to a split-up team, I'm not going through lengths to get him there, but that's personal. He shouldn't be nerved in any way like you suggest. This will make him utterly useless in later game. Using the ability at the expense of AP is a good idea and maybe even a 2 turn cooldown.

    

2. The costs to buy and upgrade should be much higher, doubled at least. Sell prices should stay the same. Maybe a Hard mode should be implemented to achieve a mode setting for every one's preference.

   The scaling of money should also change. You start with $80 from a guard and 3 or 4 days later you'll get 700-900 from a guard and 450-950 from safes. I'm literally swimming in money each game with nothing to spend it on.

    

3. Killing a guard should like cost $500 (maybe even more on later levels to counter the money scaling) or so. This will really make u think twice about killing someone, especially in the first half of the game. Clean-up costs for drones is BS, maybe it broke down by itself or got shot by another drone which malfunctioned.

   I get the penalty system and it should definitely stay, but I would send the clean-up crew for the missions, sins they do a better job at invisible infiltration than the Agents do Maybe an extra mission should be implemented to clean things up by dragging guards and drones all the way into the elevator (unseen of course or else we need a clean-up clean-up crew)

   If a KO'ed guard is found he should be revived by the guard(s) who found him and they should go in hunting mode. If a dead guard is found every guard should go in hunting mode (with reinforcements incoming in x turns). Maybe even a lockdown > all doors will be locked, passcards will still open them of course. And the elevator should always get 1 or 2 guards when the s@#$ has hit the fan. This will also introduce a hiding dead bodies tactic into the gameplay.

    

4. All mission types should be available on the first day and on the first day only. This way you can choose a somewhat tactical game play and would make Server missions available (not that you can stock-up due to the lack of money, especially with increased costs, but you do get a choice to spend it all on a backup program at the start).

   The randomness is too random. I've played games where my 1st Server mission was spawned in day 5 or 6 (no matter how many Location missions I did) making gameplay super hard and when I finally, finally got a Server mission I died in that mission... ironically.

In the end any ideas are always personal preferences, but even the DEVs found that the late game was getting boring, and it is. So stuff should really get expanded and/or reviewed to keep the late game interesting. Most games however seem to fail at that stage unless they get a huge MOD community with innovating ideas like the "Long War MOD" eventually did for XCOM, which suffered from the same (boring) late game problem. But hé, that's why it's an Early Access, right?

 

On a side-note, did anyone get and Agent from a rescue mission? Sins update 3 I never got one, only couriers (with their annoying 5-tile AP) and other (faceless) characters (who have more AP).

[HolyDeath]

Killing a guard should like cost $500 (maybe even more on later levels to counter the money scaling) or so. This will really make u think twice about killing someone, especially in the first half of the game. Clean-up costs for drones is BS, maybe it broke down by itself or got shot by another drone which malfunctioned.

Why not 1000$? Ammo mags cost 500$ already. You're using money as bullets. If you throw in too high money cost you make killing not an option (when you have to spend 1000$ to do so). I agree killing should be discouraged, but not by increasing money penalty to levels that render using firearms useless.

[TheUglyStick]

 

 

If a KO'ed guard is found he should be revived by the guard(s) who found him and they should go in hunting mode. If a dead guard is found every guard should go in hunting mode (with reinforcements incoming in x turns). Maybe even a lockdown > all doors will be locked, passcards will still open them of course. And the elevator should always get 1 or 2 guards when the s@#$ has hit the fan. This will also introduce a hiding dead bodies tactic into the gameplay.

 

 

 

In other words, if they find a body then it's game over? And hiding bodies is very tedious, especially early game when you don't have high stealth. Enjoy spending six turns to move a body across a room two tiles at a time. 

[InvisibleThunder]

@HolyDeath

Why? because I currently don't care due to the very low penalty costs (or other kind of penalty). I just finished a level killing 3 drones > penalty cost: $204, really...? Besides that fact that I now have $58.000. Which was a lot more, but I found the answer to my own question just a few moments ago about not getting any new Agents. The very first mission (after posting it) I got my 1st Agent (Nika in day 9 and 7 detention missions, or so), jee!

This does however raise another question. Due to the abundance of money I was able to completely upgrade her. Maybe the skill points should be limited per turn to create a training a new agent feeling?

@TheUglyStick
Why would it be game over? I've finished plenty of missions with alert level 8 or 9 (the threat counter stops at 6). It is tough when all guards are on alert and hunting, but very rewarding when you successfully pull it off and get out safely. Hiding bodies can be tedious in early game, though you can run when dragging bodies which give you more AP. The same mechanic is already implemented when a guard spots you, all guards nearby will also come and look and will all go into hunting mode if you manage to get away.

 

In the game "Commandos", which was real-time, not turn-based, you really didn't want the enemy to find a dead body. The alert would cooldown, but the extra guards, which always came in groups of three would stay and also patrol the area. This could also be some kind of penalty option.

---

 

However a better implementation of difficulty levels could maybe accomplice this better > let the player choose. Or maybe some kind of "New Wave" option like in XCOM > set your own rules. I mean, Endless mode will really become short lived, no pun intended. Increasing guards or 10 levels of ICE will not solve this sins this will only make the wait times longer and thus more boring gameplay. With the creation of tension and more tactical gameplay endless mode will become more appeling and will stay somewhat fresh in late game.

 

[HolyDeath]

@HolyDeath

Why? because I currently don't care due to the very low penalty costs (or other kind of penalty). I just finished a level killing 3 drones > penalty cost: $204, really...? Besides that fact that I now have $58.000. Which was a lot more, but I found the answer to my own question just a few moments ago about not getting any new Agents. The very first mission (after posting it) I got my 1st Agent (Nika in day 9 and 7 detention missions, or so), jee!

This does however raise another question. Due to the abundance of money I was able to completely upgrade her. Maybe the skill points should be limited per turn to create a training a new agent feeling?

 

 

If you have 58 000$ then you're playing Endless Mode, which gets completely unbalanced at some point in favor of agents and proves nothing. In Story Mode your play time is limited and money are much more important, so spending it just to kill a few guards on the level is counter-productive as you have to sacrifice money to refill your ammo stockpile alone and not on improving your agents one way or the other.

[syrant]

The guaranteed start of having 1 of each type of mission kind of takes away from the surprise of a new game (and it won't be great if they have more mission types). Would prefer to have some code that guarantees the player will see 1 of each mission by the Xth mission and/or Nth day.

 

Maybe a guaranteed agent recovery mission every X.

 

Killing a guard should like cost $500 (maybe even more on later levels to counter the money scaling) or so. This will really make u think twice about killing someone, especially in the first half of the game. Clean-up costs for drones is BS, maybe it broke down by itself or got shot by another drone which malfunctioned.

 

 

I didn't mention it, but the money accumulation as you "go infinite" in the late-game is also an issue. At that point all the clean-up costs feels pointless, but trying to balance difficulty with it (ex. making killing less effective) needs to take into account the early game where money is still a concern. I would prefer for more in-mission deterrents (like alerted guards, or shutdown doors you mentioned). I could see costs raised by a small amount, like $100. 

 

Any method of balancing via money (clean-up costs, skill costs, item costs) won't really increase the late-game difficulty. Once you get all the items/skills/programs, the missions are just too easy (and you don't need to kill anything anyways). It would certainly raise mid-game difficulty (and prolong that stage), but not affect the late game at all.

 

Here are some ideas that would be interesting for harder late game missions:

Sniffer dog patrols (periodically alerts to check a location/room) 

Multiple floor missions

Single agent missions

(whatever happened to guards with x-ray vision, btw? I saw them in a previous patch, but haven't seen them again..)

 

 

 

On a side-note, did anyone get and Agent from a rescue mission? Sins update 3 I never got one, only couriers (with their annoying 5-tile AP) and other (faceless) characters (who have more AP).

 

 

I also haven't gotten any agents from my detention centers -- don't know if there's now just a really small chance, or been unlucky (or it's a bug).

 

 

[nrec]

Hi,

 

I didn't try every augment and item but so far, for story mode :

OP : the dart gun with unlimited ammo, 5 turns CD, armor break 1 for 1200$.

OP : the augment that gives you 2 AP for any hack (something like 750$). Mostly the fact it doesn't cap.

Too hard : I'm not even sure you can buy ammo darts for dart guns, if you can then the spawn rate in nanolabs is too low compared to lethal ammos.

Unfair : Guards patrolling in the spawn room at turn 1.

Not sure : Pinning down guards, basically infinite stun...

Useless : Running, Nika at start

 

 

 

I also haven't gotten any agents from my detention centers -- don't know if there's now just a really small chance, or been unlucky (or it's a bug).

 

Might depend on the difficulty of the level, but not sure. However, agents still spawn in lvl 1 detention centers iirc.

[5thHorseman]

Hi,

 

I didn't try every augment and item but so far, for story mode :

OP : the dart gun with unlimited ammo, 5 turns CD, armor break 1 for 1200$.

OP : the augment that gives you 2 AP for any hack (something like 750$). Mostly the fact it doesn't cap.

Too hard : I'm not even sure you can buy ammo darts for dart guns, if you can then the spawn rate in nanolabs is too low compared to lethal ammos.

Unfair : Guards patrolling in the spawn room at turn 1.

Not sure : Pinning down guards, basically infinite stun...

Useless : Running, Nika at start

 

 

Might depend on the difficulty of the level, but not sure. However, agents still spawn in lvl 1 detention centers iirc.

 

I had that dart gun once and like it but didn't feel it was OP. Frankly it was the only gun I was willing to keep because so far I've not had this problem that everybody else seems to have where they have 10 million dollars by the 3rd mission

A lot of the AP augments seem a bit OP but they do take a permanent inventory slot. AP does seem to be one of the most important parts of the game (as it so often is in games like these).

I like that guards can come into the first room on patrol. Adds to the sense of urgency on that first turn.

Pinning down guards is a GREAT tradeoff. You have 1 AP left and nothing to do with it, do you move or stay on him? What about 2 AP? 3? At what point do you leave the guy so you can move? These are the decisions I want to be making in this game.

Running is extremely useful, and Nika does seem to be worse in actuality than she is on paper. I am almost sure I've only used her 2-shots ability only once or twice in spite of having her on dozens of missions. Usually it's because 6 power is just too expensive (heck 3 power is too expensive sometimes) or I don't have 2 weapons for her. Though I just got a ND3 in my current game and I'm excited to try it out...

[IamWeasel]

@5thHorseman

 

Very off topic, but I'd like to ask: Are you the same "5thHorseman" from the KSP forum?

[5thHorseman]

@5thHorseman

 

Very off topic, but I'd like to ask: Are you the same "5thHorseman" from the KSP forum?

 

Yup, and I make videos for both (and I agree it's off topic, if you want to know anything feel free to pm me in either forum or comment on YouTube)

[Shirsh]

Nika at start is ok now: her custom volt disruptor consume only 2pwr that nicely playable at least with emergency drip/rapier combination (so if you stuck with 4pwr when every firewall require at least five, Nika really can save the day on the way to elevator)

she could take greatest benefits from any melee augment and don't forget that you can gave her any gun for shooting/paralizing 2 guards per turn that's really nice to have when those enforcers guys keeps coming and running everywhere

I think there is a sense with little harder start, because she is one of the last targets to unlock by amount of xp, and at time when player can chose her at start he supposed to play a lot, and probably may look for some new experience and harder challenge

[IamWeasel]

Yup, and I make videos for both (and I agree it's off topic, if you want to know anything feel free to pm me in either forum or comment on YouTube)

 

Nice to see you here too! I really like your contributions to the KSP community.

 

I haven't checked out your videos on this game, but I will... sometime

 

Good to have you here man.

[uncop]

Xu's ability is indeed crazy. Not so much early game, but it really shows when you start negating 3-4fw + a daemon regularly. It's a scaling issue. I'd actually nerf it to only work on stuff with 1 firewall but change nothing else. The reason is to keep Xu separate from Internationale, which is to say Internationale should be the one you take to get more power and Xu should be the one you take to circumvent daemons and disable drones. IMO the trap alone makes Xu nearly worth taking, obviously not over Banks&co, but an ability-less Xu would be nearly on par with pre-buff Shalem.

 

Another thing that scales too well is post-buff Shalem's gun. 2 shots, 2 penetration with the ability. There aren't many reasons to buy another gun ever, which saves you something like $1250 for other stuff, unlike other agents' equipment which you tend to replace. So, Shalem is basically a free $1000 along with guaranteed safety from bad armored guard spawns, drones and your own mistakes. I think it should be nerfed to either zero penetration (the lore now says that guard ballistic armor is so good that energy weapons are used) or to single shot with a bonus reload item to make the start equal.

 

Xu and Shalem currently make a team I can see easily beating the game without ever buying an item. They aren't the best team to start with, but the scaling is obscene. They just have an answer to nearly every endgame situation right from the beginning of the game. All you need is anarchy and something to get a bit of extra power to keep that lockpick 1.0 going.

[wilsonismyboss]

I agree with pretty much everything. Not to sound douchy, but after the update I just cant lose every time I pick Shalem and Xu as a team. I just can't.

I believe one nice touch is to have anarchy have a percentage chance or something. It is pretty overpowered as of now, since you can just check a guard's route in two turns, steal his stuff and he'll never know you ever existed. I think a nice nerf for that is that you have to spend an atack action to do that, such as Xu using his disabling ability, and it has a chance to not work, based on your anarchy level.

Also, on Endless, level 4 missions are almost allways "Story" missions. One or two per day are ok, I'm getting like 6, and it's just boring after that.

[TheUglyStick]

I believe one nice touch is to have anarchy have a percentage chance or something. It is pretty overpowered as of now, since you can just check a guard's route in two turns, steal his stuff and he'll never know you ever existed. I think a nice nerf for that is that you have to spend an atack action to do that, such as Xu using his disabling ability, and it has a chance to not work, based on your anarchy level.

 

 

I think one of the best parts of the game is that there are no percentage chances. Making it a small chance to fail won't change anyone's strategy, it just means sometimes you lose because of a bad die roll, and that is not fun. The worst part of a game like XCOM is when you lose because you failed a 97% success rate shot. It's great that things like that aren't in Invisible Inc.

 

The balancing part of checking a guard's route like you describe is that it takes two turns of time to do it, and you still need to avoid being seen. Random die rolls are not a positive thing. 

[wilsonismyboss]

I think one of the best parts of the game is that there are no percentage chances. Making it a small chance to fail won't change anyone's strategy, it just means sometimes you lose because of a bad die roll, and that is not fun. The worst part of a game like XCOM is when you lose because you failed a 97% success rate shot. It's great that things like that aren't in Invisible Inc.

 

The balancing part of checking a guard's route like you describe is that it takes two turns of time to do it, and you still need to avoid being seen. Random die rolls are not a positive thing. 

 

Thaaaat's a pretty personal opinion . . . some people (like me) like the gamble factor. Don't be so quick as to judge your opinion over something as a fact

[Sirouhei]

Thaaaat's a pretty personal opinion . . . some people (like me) like the gamble factor. Don't be so quick as to judge your opinion over something as a fact

 

What are you talking about? You're having an pretty personal opinion yourself, the only fact that you've brought up is enjoying the gambling factor.

 

We're all exchanging here, and right you're the one who's overvaluing their own opinion over that of others. Everyone gets to talk and be heard, and sometimes we disagree. That's the beauty of it.

[hatem]

Thaaaat's a pretty personal opinion . . . some people (like me) like th egamble factor. Don't be so quick as to judge your opinion over something as a fact

he started his comment with "I think" (which qualifies as an opinion) and I have to agree with him. The game had those luck and percentage based elements in the alpha and the developers chose to take them out.

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, try not to take it personally