Shots too random

RNG has it’s place, but when 5/6 bullets miss by hitting somewhere in the red zone that’s just not fun. I would suggest putting in some code that forces half of the bullets to land within the yellow zone. Or for the first bullet or two to have far less spread. Soldiers do aim down sights after all, so the first few shots before recoil kicks in should be fairly accurate.

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The red zone is your maximum spread. If you’re missing a lot then you’re too far away.

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I’m sorry, I wasn’t too clear there and you may have missed my point. The game says that roughly half of my shots should land within the yellow circle. I’ve lined up shots where the yellow circle is entirely full of enemy and the red circle has a few small parts of the enemy in it (or their less vulnerable parts like the shield and carapace) but then 5/6 bullets end up on the fringes of the red circle and only one bullet hits my target.
Now, I realise that I’m quite an unlucky person but even for me that’s beyond poor. Especially when it happens often.

And I can assure you that simply missing a lot doesn’t mean I’m too far away. You can see my other thread on enemies moving while stationary for an example.
In addition, if I’m too far away then how are the enemies able to land 1-2 shots consistently when all mine miss? Despite their guns having lower accuracy? (according to the stats. Though maybe the aliens have different stats for alien weapons?)

It’s because it’s too random. So people with poor luck end up missing all their shots while getting pelted by enemies way too far away. This might not be so much of an issue on a single mission where the soldiers don’t carry on to the next mission but in the final game I imagine having your squad wiped out because you had one unlucky mission out of hundreds where you couldn’t land any shots and the enemies were all trained as snipers, would be pretty frustrating. Honestly the circle sizes seem fair, it’s simply down to being unlucky and the shots landing in the red zone all the time.
(That being said though I think the sniper could be a bit more accurate. It’s a bit of a risk to use when it’s all or nothing like that and the enemies can reliably do 2 damage to your sniper on reaction fire every time you take a shot.)

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Actually, no. The game says there’s a 50% chance that shots will land within the yellow circle. Which means that all or none could land within it. Just like there’s a 50% chance a coin flip will be heads or tails, but you could flip it 10 times and you’d be unlikely to ever get 5 heads and 5 tails.

The spread within the cone works on a bell-curve with highly inaccurate shots being as unlike as highly accurate shots (meaning that most rounds will tend to fall somewhere close to halfway between the red circle and the bullseye).

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Right… That’s not the point I’m making. First of all, 50% is half. I added “roughly” because I’m aware that random chance can defy statistics.

Secondly, the fact that it runs on a bell curve and that highly inaccurate shots are as likely as accurate shots is the problem. What you’re telling me there is that almost no shots will land near the centre of the yellow circle. Instead I should pretend that the ring of the yellow circle is where the shots will likely land. So If I want to hit the head of an enemy I shouldn’t aim at the head I should aim below or above or to the side so that the ring of the circle lies on the head? Because that seems a bit silly.
If a soldier is aiming at the head from a reasonable distance then he should be most likely to hit the head, not around it. Similarly if a soldier is aiming generally at an alien from a reasonable distance he should be likely to hit it and not miss by shooting around it.

I’m sure a bell curve sounded like a good idea but perhaps a straight line would have been better. A flat chance across the board for the shots to land anywhere in the circles would be better than what you have now. Even better than that would be the same but with an exponential drop off curve beyond the yellow circle.

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Law of small numbers: Incredibly rare events are possible in small sample sizes.

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Hmm, I mean, as I said I am very unlucky so it’s possible that I was just being consistently unlucky, despite how unlikely that is. Even so, my point is more that when that kind of bad luck occurs the game becomes far less fun. So a ‘failsafe’ should activate that could cause at least some of the shots to land within the yellow circle. I mean, the yellow circle itself is actually fairly big so even with that it’d still be possible to miss unless you were at a fairly close range.

Another targeting system similar to Phoenix Point’s that might be worth looking into is the one used in Valkyria Chronicles. It only has a single circle but the principle is the same. http://valkyria.wikia.com/wiki/Accuracy

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It is one of that “realism vs fiction” thing, I guess. Sometimes part of realism must be sacrificed to simply have more fun out of game (and by “fun” I don’t mean making game easier or dumbed down). Balancing those two factors appropriately was always crucial in games with any realistic elements - and never easy to do.
I think there will be less noise about targeting system and hitting chance when each unit could only shoot once per one fire action (like sniper do). It would be easier to grasp and easier to implement that way: so my soldier spend one action to shoot once and I know there is (approximately) 50% chances to hit enemy within the yellow zone or (approximately) 75% to hit within red zone. Thanks to the ballistic system even missed shot still hits something on the map (unless aimed to the sky).

Or leave bursts of few shots but line them up rather than spread each one of them, as @Duskmare suggested.
I think it wouldn’t stand in opposition to the ballistics system idea, but needs additional tweaking and testing.

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I feel it would be better to have burst work like in the old XCOM games, firing 3-4 shots but with really low accuracy to hit (or a big penalty to the accuracy of the soldier.) I mean it was mostly useful for close quarters back in the old games, and most late game weapons like Sonic Cannons never even had this mode. What I mean is, it would be better to instead calculate the chances to hit for each shot separately, not via this rather nebulous method.

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To be honest the shot spread felt fine to me. You have to use the sniper for long range shots because that’s what it’s good at.

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@bartekb8 actually 100% of shots will land in the red circle. The odds for the yellow circle are 50%

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Here’s another thought: Should different weapons have different spread patterns? Assault rifles, for example, would have upward recoil so the spread of an assault rifle should be vertical more-so than horizontal, creating an oblong shape rather than a circular one. The circular shape would work well with the heavy gun because it’s fired from the hip. I think for shotguns you should have something similar to the Player Unknown Battlegrounds mechanics, (now, hear me out for this one) where the red and orange circles are where the shot can go but the spread all lands in that area. In other words, if the shotgun is aiming slightly left of the circle then all the pellets will go slightly left of the circle. Mechanics wise, a single point would be decided and then a set pattern of shotgun pellets would be fired in a circle around that point.

Finally, the sniper rifle should be more accurate than other guns by quite a ways and while it’s already fairly accurate it’s pretty difficult to hit enemies at long range, as the sniper rifle is designed to do. Especially if you’re aiming for particular body parts. So I would suggest having just a single circle for the sniper rifle, either the size of the yellow circle or 75% the size of the current red circle. That being said, the sight range for soldiers is very far at the moment and even further for aliens. If this is reduced significantly in future the sniper rifle should be fine as is, since all confrontations will be at a much shorter range.

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Interesting, but does it really add to the gameplay and depth of the tactical layer or it is just a fancy gimmick?

I’d much prefer to get back OGXcom’s firing mode (single shot, burst, full auto) that can be selected depending on your needs.

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Damn, that was a hard shoot down, hahaha. Totally fair though. I think it would have small impacts on gameplay since you’d aim slightly differently depending on the spread pattern but ultimately it wouldn’t impact it enough to be more than a gimmick…

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Wait, what?

So you’re saying that, essentially, the game rolls two six-sided die when determining accuracy, and the yellow line represents a 7, with 2s and 12s being the center and the outer red edge?

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That is a wonderful analogy! That’s certainly how I understand it.

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I’d like to see aimed/snap/auto shots back to favour. It was nice and clear system which needed no additional explanation and was clear enough. You had full control over your ammunition and TUs to spend. It could be nicely blended with PP’s likely/supposed damage system.

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@Kings_Rook, I’m lost here. How could it be 100% when you have no 100% chance for every shot to hit the mark?

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if the red circle completely covers the enemy, like a sniper shot on the queen, then it’ll hit because no matter where in the red circle the roll lands, it’ll hit the enemy. It is only when part of the circle is no longer on the target that you start getting misses.

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Oh, true. Thanks for clarification.

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