I'll just say I hate Itchy Trigger Tentacle, at least how it was implemented in EW. It turns every robotic patrol into the equivalent of the Gangplank Cyberdisc, making such enemies no longer enjoyable to have in a map at all.
Well, the way I think it should work is only against exposed soldiers - not those moving into cover etc.
I'd honestly rather have the game allow for cheese that can trivialize it if you choose to do so rather than having bullshit enemies that attack on sight before you can do anything about it.
Bullshit deserves bullshit frankly. If people leave soldiers out in the open, they need to have the bodybags to facilitate it.
But doesn't that run counter to their messaging that the concealment system speeds up the "find some enemies" portion of each level? If concealment doesn't allow for more flexible movement prior to engagement then what's the point?
We're specifically talking about abusing the system to shoot the aliens when they see an *exposed* soldier on their turn (they patrol into them) and then you get a second entire turn (yours) to finish them off.
Remember the design intent was: Move into a position where you see aliens. Sneak up to them, in cover and prepare. Use overwatch on your soldiers and then hit them with your first one, they scatter and then you overwatch the rest to potentially kill all of them. What Beagle (and others in fairness, he wasn't the only one to realize this) figured out was you find aliens and watch their patrol. Stick everyone in cover, then put one guy in the middle of the road (or whatever) in front of them. Have the aliens patrol into him on THEIR turn, overwatch shoot the whole lot. Then on your turn finish them off.
One is intended and the other is abusing the system.
Bullshit deserves bullshit frankly. If people leave soldiers out in the open, they need to have the bodybags to facilitate it.
...But nuXCOM has always been that way. You congo-line out your guys and then go to cover once the fighting starts. I never take cover in EW, which does not have any kind of play-favoring ambush mechanic, until the shooting starts.
With Itchy Trigger Tentacle, you now need to crawl around the map constantly hunkering, because being spotted by certain enemies is certain death if you aren't hunkered behind high cover. This strikes me as being the exact opposite of what XCOM 2 ostensibly wanted to achieve.
I'll just say I hate Itchy Trigger Tentacle, at least how it was implemented in EW. It turns every robotic patrol into the equivalent of the Gangplank Cyberdisc, making such enemies no longer enjoyable to have in a map at all.
Well, the way I think it should work is only against exposed soldiers - not those moving into cover etc.
I'd honestly rather have the game allow for cheese that can trivialize it if you choose to do so rather than having bullshit enemies that attack on sight before you can do anything about it.
Bullshit deserves bullshit frankly. If people leave soldiers out in the open, they need to have the bodybags to facilitate it.
But doesn't that run counter to their messaging that the concealment system speeds up the "find some enemies" portion of each level? If concealment doesn't allow for more flexible movement prior to engagement then what's the point?
We're specifically talking about abusing the system to shoot the aliens when they see an *exposed* soldier on their turn (they patrol into them) and then you get a second entire turn (yours) to finish them off.
Right but if the fix fucks over a guy not in cover how does the game know if my whole squad is moving as a unit and one gets patrolled into versus setting up one of these traps? This seems like a thing that most people wouldn't think of while the fix will potentially hinder the experience of all players.
Or does "greater mobility before engagement" just translate into "you're probably okay to gold move, but still stay in cover because this is XCOM"?
You'd want to play with the percentage chance of ITT proccing. 50% feels like too much, drop it to 20-30% and you'll still have a good chance to lose the cheese when you spring your trap. Maybe even put in an increased Will penalty on the check against panic when losing a guy on the first shot of a match, so that you've got increased chance of a panic spiral.
I think the penalty for leaving a soldier exposed during stealth should be as severe as the penalty for leaving them exposed during normal play if they get caught. Which is to say, death. Total death.
I'll just say I hate Itchy Trigger Tentacle, at least how it was implemented in EW. It turns every robotic patrol into the equivalent of the Gangplank Cyberdisc, making such enemies no longer enjoyable to have in a map at all.
Well, the way I think it should work is only against exposed soldiers - not those moving into cover etc.
I'd honestly rather have the game allow for cheese that can trivialize it if you choose to do so rather than having bullshit enemies that attack on sight before you can do anything about it.
Bullshit deserves bullshit frankly. If people leave soldiers out in the open, they need to have the bodybags to facilitate it.
But doesn't that run counter to their messaging that the concealment system speeds up the "find some enemies" portion of each level? If concealment doesn't allow for more flexible movement prior to engagement then what's the point?
We're specifically talking about abusing the system to shoot the aliens when they see an *exposed* soldier on their turn (they patrol into them) and then you get a second entire turn (yours) to finish them off.
Right but if the fix fucks over a guy not in cover how does the game know if my whole squad is moving as a unit and one gets patrolled into versus setting up one of these traps? This seems like a thing that most people wouldn't think of while the fix will potentially hinder the experience of all players.
That's your fault for not watching where you were going.
It's honestly not hard to see alien patrols and where they are going well in advance. Actually it seems REALLY hard to be blindsided by aliens (outside of a handful of examples). If you gold move into the middle of nowhere and end up being patrolled into then, well, enjoy the funeral I guess?
Or does "greater mobility before engagement" just translate into "you're probably okay to gold move, but still stay in cover because this is XCOM"?
Having watched a lot of XCOM 2 being played, these changes are not going to alter anything other than this specific tactic. These people have time to consistently set it up and do it just about every single mission, so I'm not thinking this is an issue.
Bullshit deserves bullshit frankly. If people leave soldiers out in the open, they need to have the bodybags to facilitate it.
...But nuXCOM has always been that way. You congo-line out your guys and then go to cover once the fighting starts. I never take cover in EW, which does not have any kind of play-favoring ambush mechanic, until the shooting starts.
With Itchy Trigger Tentacle, you now need to crawl around the map constantly hunkering, because being spotted by certain enemies is certain death if you aren't hunkered behind high cover. This strikes me as being the exact opposite of what XCOM 2 ostensibly wanted to achieve.
Again, you're not talking to someone sympathetic to the idea of "It should be perfectly fine to stand in the open". Aliens do not get a shot in my system when you're not standing in the open and it's specifically a concealment ambush countering mechanic to me. It shouldn't have much (if any) significant impact on anything else. The goal is to stop the broken 2 consecutive turns granted by deliberately letting aliens patrol into an equally deliberately left soldier right outside their detection range.
I think the penalty for leaving a soldier exposed during stealth should be as severe as the penalty for leaving them exposed during normal play if they get caught. Which is to say, death. Total death.
I absolutely agree. If you leave people in the open, you should fully accept the consequences.
I don't know how much people have been watching XCOM 2 footage/streams, but you're not exactly out of options in this game for cover or set up spaces. There are lots of vertical buildings, maps are not scripted hell holes with unwinnable situations (Graveyard ... oh god that Graveyard map...) and such.
We're talking about a game where less than a few weeks in, people figured out they could exploit this to never be shot at all. That's a pretty huge thing and probably needs a solution somewhere.
Would Advent just start shooting at any people they see in the street?
Sure they would, if the person they saw was sporting a big gun like every xcom operative does.
Actually I think they probably do try to hide their weapons or at least make them non-obvious. I think it's more not spending the resources to make this obvious vs. suspension of disbelief more than anything else.
wiltingI had fun once and it was awfulRegistered Userregular
I think it should be shoot or scatter, if the chance should be 50/50 or not I don't know. If they all shoot then they will be shooting before the ambushers get to, which makes no sense. Unless concealment overwatch is changed to have covering fire.
I'll just say I hate Itchy Trigger Tentacle, at least how it was implemented in EW. It turns every robotic patrol into the equivalent of the Gangplank Cyberdisc, making such enemies no longer enjoyable to have in a map at all.
Well, the way I think it should work is only against exposed soldiers - not those moving into cover etc.
I'd honestly rather have the game allow for cheese that can trivialize it if you choose to do so rather than having bullshit enemies that attack on sight before you can do anything about it.
Bullshit deserves bullshit frankly. If people leave soldiers out in the open, they need to have the bodybags to facilitate it.
But doesn't that run counter to their messaging that the concealment system speeds up the "find some enemies" portion of each level? If concealment doesn't allow for more flexible movement prior to engagement then what's the point?
We're specifically talking about abusing the system to shoot the aliens when they see an *exposed* soldier on their turn (they patrol into them) and then you get a second entire turn (yours) to finish them off.
Right but if the fix fucks over a guy not in cover how does the game know if my whole squad is moving as a unit and one gets patrolled into versus setting up one of these traps? This seems like a thing that most people wouldn't think of while the fix will potentially hinder the experience of all players.
Or does "greater mobility before engagement" just translate into "you're probably okay to gold move, but still stay in cover because this is XCOM"?
I think the free shots should only be targetted at the unit that got caught, not the whole group. Getting caught on the enemy turn should carry a substantial punishment, which would be the spotted soldier getting filled with lead, but it shouldnt be SO severe as to be a potential wipe of the whole squad
Youd still have a lot of mobility during concealment though, because you can see much farther than the enemy and avoid their patrols. There's a danger of messing up, but the consequences arent world ending and theyre avoidable, so the mobility of concealment wouldnt be lost
Edit: I wonder if it would be effective to buy rookies to use as bait if theyre the only one at risk...
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I think it should be shoot or scatter, if the chance should be 50/50 or not I don't know. If they all shoot then they will be shooting before the ambushers get to, which makes no sense. Unless concealment overwatch is changed to have covering fire.
I would have the base chance that an alien might shoot or instantly use an ability be 25% and a +15% bonus for every other operative they see that's exposed as well. So if you have all 4 guys exposed - which I've seen some people do - they would have a 85% chance to shoot you instead of moving. Either way, the goal is to give the aliens a chance of firing at you instead of dying doing absolutely nothing - but I wouldn't want to make them always do it.
Edit: Rookies as bait would be hilarious, but then you're taking a crappy unit without many abilities/HP to a battle with higher level aliens who have some decent stuff. That in itself is a consequence and makes for an interesting choice of tactics. Anything that makes this a choice and gives it some kind of risk/reward automatically succeeds as a fix. Removing the "No brainer, you always want to do it this way" feel is the essential part.
I think it should be shoot or scatter, if the chance should be 50/50 or not I don't know. If they all shoot then they will be shooting before the ambushers get to, which makes no sense. Unless concealment overwatch is changed to have covering fire.
It makes sense in the sense that if you get caught on their turn they're not the ones getting ambushed, you are.
I continue to defend my proposal of if advent breaks your concealment on their turn, they get to shoot for free on the one they can see, then they scatter to cover provoking normal overwatch (covering fire still works normally during the free shot), then concealment is lost for the whole team as normal.
Either way, the goal is to give the aliens a chance of firing at you instead of dying doing absolutely nothing - but I wouldn't want to make them always do it.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to have them react to this situation in the same way every time. They're not making a strategic decision, the reaction is purely a punishment for failing the stealth. I mean I do understand why we all wouldn't want the alien strategy to be deterministic, but having some predictability is not bad.
Again, you're not talking to someone sympathetic to the idea of "It should be perfectly fine to stand in the open". Aliens do not get a shot in my system when you're not standing in the open and it's specifically a concealment ambush countering mechanic to me. It shouldn't have much (if any) significant impact on anything else. The goal is to stop the broken 2 consecutive turns granted by deliberately letting aliens patrol into an equally deliberately left soldier right outside their detection range.
Okay, but that's not Itchy Trigger Tentacle. Here's how Itchy Trigger Tentacle works:
You are in a fire fight and/or scouting the map. Sectopod patrols into your flank. Game flips a coin; if the game wins the flip, GG, squad wipe. If the game loses the flip, play continues as normal.
It certainly makes the game harder to win, but not by virtue of making it any more cerebral.
The system you're describing, which does not really resemble Itchy Trigger Tentacle, sounds alright to me - but does not gel with the design goal laid out by Solomon, which was to create an XCOM game where the player did not have a slow start constantly going move / hunker or move / overwatch. There's no point to the concealment mechanic at all if the only thing it does is encourage a player to ove even more slowly through a map than they would in EU/EW.
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wiltingI had fun once and it was awfulRegistered Userregular
edited January 2016
Jake is probably going to do something none of us have thought of.
Again, you're not talking to someone sympathetic to the idea of "It should be perfectly fine to stand in the open". Aliens do not get a shot in my system when you're not standing in the open and it's specifically a concealment ambush countering mechanic to me. It shouldn't have much (if any) significant impact on anything else. The goal is to stop the broken 2 consecutive turns granted by deliberately letting aliens patrol into an equally deliberately left soldier right outside their detection range.
Okay, but that's not Itchy Trigger Tentacle. Here's how Itchy Trigger Tentacle works:
You are in a fire fight and/or scouting the map. Sectopod patrols into your flank. Game flips a coin; if the game wins the flip, GG, squad wipe. If the game loses the flip, play continues as normal.
It certainly makes the game harder to win, but not by virtue of making it any more cerebral.
The system you're describing, which does not really resemble Itchy Trigger Tentacle, sounds alright to me - but does not gel with the design goal laid out by Solomon, which was to create an XCOM game where the player did not have a slow start constantly going move / hunker or move / overwatch. There's no point to the concealment mechanic at all if the only thing it does is encourage a player to ove even more slowly through a map than they would in EU/EW.
When in concealment, enemies dont move quickly and cant see far. The presense of a punishment for failing concealment doesnt mean you cant make good use of concealment anymore, as it's generally quite easy to avoid that failure. Just be a little wary of corners
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited January 2016
Also fun new fact of the day: This games new tentaculat doesn't lose its psi zombies after it dies.
The system you're describing, which does not really resemble Itchy Trigger Tentacle, sounds alright to me - but does not gel with the design goal laid out by Solomon, which was to create an XCOM game where the player did not have a slow start constantly going move / hunker or move / overwatch. There's no point to the concealment mechanic at all if the only thing it does is encourage a player to ove even more slowly through a map than they would in EU/EW.
You kind of have to *try* to be deliberately exposed and seen by aliens in XCOM2. It's actually very easy (too easy IMO) to entirely avoid them. Having watched a lot of this game, I can assure you this change would do absolutely zero to the vast majority of people playing the game "normally". It specifically counters people SPECIFICALLY leaving their soldiers out exposed to trigger OW on the aliens scatter move on their turn.
I would probably say most people wouldn't even notice it exists if you're not doing the Beagle Ambush.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited January 2016
Just to clarify concealment mechanics:
If you are behind ANY cover, unless the aliens move in such a way that they flank you they don't see you. Once behind cover you're only seen if you move or start shooting them.
If you're standing in the open, the aliens also don't see you and they have a clearly indicated sight range around them. If that crosses you the aliens see you though, but otherwise you're not automatically noticed even if you're standing in the middle of the road on a bright sunny day. They don't have a detection radius equal to their LOS like XCOM:EU/EW.
What we're talking about stopping is exploiting this system by moving everyone up to where the aliens are, watching their patrol route and then deliberately putting a guy in the open 1 tile out of their sight range. The aliens patrol into him, trigger OW, get shot and scatter. Then you just run up to them and kill the rest on your turn.
That's what needs fixing.
Also unless you move all the way into the middle of nowhere right off the bat with a gold move, it's IMMENSELY hard to get seen by the aliens while in the concealment phase. You really have to work at failing there and giving the aliens the initiative.
Jake is probably going to do something none of us have thought of.
The aliens pick up plaid shirts!
Please, we all know Sectoids wouldn't be caught dead wearing clothes. Then nobody would be mirin their gains.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I just realized another solution would be giving them a very high dodge chance against overwatch if they see an exposed soldier. Dodge is already a pretty tough skill to overcome.
The best damn support solider a squad could ask for. I'm sorry that Cyberdisk saw you.
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Another simple solution would be to make it so that concealed overwatch doesn't persist past the end of your turn. That may a bit heavy-handed though
That's what I was about to say. It's by far the fastest, easiest, safest solution, which completely resolves the problem without requiring any rebalancing of anything. It's also the easiest one to convey to the player, since it's a change to your own tooltip instead of some hidden AI behavior that you'd never know existed until it got somebody one-shotted. I don't know why they'd do anything else, given that it's a last-minute change two weeks from release.
Another simple solution would be to make it so that concealed overwatch doesn't persist past the end of your turn. That may a bit heavy-handed though
That's what I was about to say. It's by far the fastest, easiest, safest solution, which completely resolves the problem without requiring any rebalancing of anything. It's also the easiest one to convey to the player, since it's a change to your own tooltip instead of some hidden AI behavior that you'd never know existed until it got somebody one-shotted. I don't know why they'd do anything else, given that it's a last-minute change two weeks from release.
That's not a bad solution, but there'd be some less-simple case interactions when you consider phantom rangers. It would be pretty bad to make it so that a phantom ranger was never able to overwatch.
Another simple solution would be to make it so that concealed overwatch doesn't persist past the end of your turn. That may a bit heavy-handed though
That's what I was about to say. It's by far the fastest, easiest, safest solution, which completely resolves the problem without requiring any rebalancing of anything. It's also the easiest one to convey to the player, since it's a change to your own tooltip instead of some hidden AI behavior that you'd never know existed until it got somebody one-shotted. I don't know why they'd do anything else, given that it's a last-minute change two weeks from release.
That's not a bad solution, but there'd be some less-simple case interactions when you consider phantom rangers. It would be pretty bad to make it so that a phantom ranger was never able to overwatch.
Is Phantom ranger concealed overwatch useful? It seems extremely situational.
Another simple solution would be to make it so that concealed overwatch doesn't persist past the end of your turn. That may a bit heavy-handed though
That's what I was about to say. It's by far the fastest, easiest, safest solution, which completely resolves the problem without requiring any rebalancing of anything. It's also the easiest one to convey to the player, since it's a change to your own tooltip instead of some hidden AI behavior that you'd never know existed until it got somebody one-shotted. I don't know why they'd do anything else, given that it's a last-minute change two weeks from release.
That's not a bad solution, but there'd be some less-simple case interactions when you consider phantom rangers. It would be pretty bad to make it so that a phantom ranger was never able to overwatch.
Is Phantom ranger concealed overwatch useful? It seems extremely situational.
Maybe? I mean if your choices are to take a really subprime shot or overwatch in case an enemy moves from cover, then your ranger remaining in concealment would be a disadvantage since he'd be losing the option to normally overwatch.
This isn't what I'd call an edge case (that seems like it would be fairly common if you use phantom) but it also certainly isn't a showstopper for the suggestion.
Beaglebushes seem like such an obvious extension of the game mechanics that I'd think that whatever Solomon was referring to was something they already have implemented. They definitely knew that was a thing you could do.
Beaglebushes seem like such an obvious extension of the game mechanics that I'd think that whatever Solomon was referring to was something they already have implemented. They definitely knew that was a thing you could do.
Maybe obvious to anyone that's read up on how aliens spend their discovery turn but not necessarily to the average player. People that don't know that aliens won't immediately fire that first sighting aren't going to make the connection to leave someone where they'll be discovered.
Another simple solution would be to make it so that concealed overwatch doesn't persist past the end of your turn. That may a bit heavy-handed though
That's what I was about to say. It's by far the fastest, easiest, safest solution, which completely resolves the problem without requiring any rebalancing of anything. It's also the easiest one to convey to the player, since it's a change to your own tooltip instead of some hidden AI behavior that you'd never know existed until it got somebody one-shotted. I don't know why they'd do anything else, given that it's a last-minute change two weeks from release.
That's not a bad solution, but there'd be some less-simple case interactions when you consider phantom rangers. It would be pretty bad to make it so that a phantom ranger was never able to overwatch.
Is Phantom ranger concealed overwatch useful? It seems extremely situational.
Maybe? I mean if your choices are to take a really subprime shot or overwatch in case an enemy moves from cover, then your ranger remaining in concealment would be a disadvantage since he'd be losing the option to normally overwatch.
This isn't what I'd call an edge case (that seems like it would be fairly common if you use phantom) but it also certainly isn't a showstopper for the suggestion.
Does phantom concealed overwatch function differently from normal concealed overwatch? Because normally, a concealed soldier won't take overwatch shots unless they're revealed. So an enemy would have to spot the ranger first. And I believe that the enemy finishes their current movement before the reveal occurs, so the overwatch wouldn't trigger on the enemy that caused the reveal, who would now have a flanking shot on the ranger.
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Beaglebushes seem like such an obvious extension of the game mechanics that I'd think that whatever Solomon was referring to was something they already have implemented. They definitely knew that was a thing you could do.
I was 100% sure of that when it first came up in the thread.
But after Solomon's tweet, I am actually not sure Firaxis realized how abusable doing this was (or thought anyone would do it). It's surprisingly easy to miss the most obvious exploits when you're designing a game.
Beaglebushes seem like such an obvious extension of the game mechanics that I'd think that whatever Solomon was referring to was something they already have implemented. They definitely knew that was a thing you could do.
OK we're definitely calling them Beaglebushes now.
Personally, solutions like Itchy Trigger Tentacle or even my preference - aliens with grenades can chuck them at exposed soldiers before moving - would completely negate this being a viable strategy late game..
The problem is that pods which activate on their patrol turn don't get a full turn. ITT is bad because it punishes normal gameplay where you move to a position to proc them and then play your turn since it will randomly be taking shots at exposed soldiers many times.
Oddly enough, I don't know why nobody thought of this in the first place. I honestly thought that what would happen if you were out of cover with aliens around, would be that they would instantly see you anyway. Apparently the concealment system isn't coded that way and you can't be seen standing in the middle of a street while outside of the aliens 5 tiles or so..
well that makes sense to me. Both because its hard to differentiate between "standing in an area" and "moving through an area". And you don't want to penalize players for not being in cover the entire time.
The vision you can just chalk up to not being able to tell the difference between xcom and advent.
I'll just say I hate Itchy Trigger Tentacle, at least how it was implemented in EW. It turns every robotic patrol into the equivalent of the Gangplank Cyberdisc, making such enemies no longer enjoyable to have in a map at all.
Well, the way I think it should work is only against exposed soldiers - not those moving into cover etc.
The purpose of the ambush and vision mechanics is that you're not punished for leaving people in the open. Such that you can move more quickly through the map and get to encounters.
Even the "best" solution of giving the enemy its full turn if it finds you on its turn is problematic in this sense because any flanked ally will simply die. And that is the only thing that can cause aliens to react on their turn.
Thinking about it again, i would disable ambush overwatch occurring on the enemies turn and/or give aliens who break for cover on their turn a full move run bonus. Such that if you want to pull the overwatch ambush on their turn without sparking it, they get high defense bonuses as they bolt for cover as if they were already in combat.
This way that type of ambush has some advantage, but not nearly as much. It also feels correct under the explanation that the ambush overwatch action is the operative prepared to fire when his ally fires. When he ally doesn't and moves instead the operative has stopped being ready and is getting ready to move.
Shooting exposed people on the first turn of combat simply is not an acceptable solution to me.
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We're specifically talking about abusing the system to shoot the aliens when they see an *exposed* soldier on their turn (they patrol into them) and then you get a second entire turn (yours) to finish them off.
Remember the design intent was: Move into a position where you see aliens. Sneak up to them, in cover and prepare. Use overwatch on your soldiers and then hit them with your first one, they scatter and then you overwatch the rest to potentially kill all of them. What Beagle (and others in fairness, he wasn't the only one to realize this) figured out was you find aliens and watch their patrol. Stick everyone in cover, then put one guy in the middle of the road (or whatever) in front of them. Have the aliens patrol into him on THEIR turn, overwatch shoot the whole lot. Then on your turn finish them off.
One is intended and the other is abusing the system.
...But nuXCOM has always been that way. You congo-line out your guys and then go to cover once the fighting starts. I never take cover in EW, which does not have any kind of play-favoring ambush mechanic, until the shooting starts.
With Itchy Trigger Tentacle, you now need to crawl around the map constantly hunkering, because being spotted by certain enemies is certain death if you aren't hunkered behind high cover. This strikes me as being the exact opposite of what XCOM 2 ostensibly wanted to achieve.
Right but if the fix fucks over a guy not in cover how does the game know if my whole squad is moving as a unit and one gets patrolled into versus setting up one of these traps? This seems like a thing that most people wouldn't think of while the fix will potentially hinder the experience of all players.
Or does "greater mobility before engagement" just translate into "you're probably okay to gold move, but still stay in cover because this is XCOM"?
Sure they would, if the person they saw was sporting a big gun like every xcom operative does.
That's your fault for not watching where you were going.
It's honestly not hard to see alien patrols and where they are going well in advance. Actually it seems REALLY hard to be blindsided by aliens (outside of a handful of examples). If you gold move into the middle of nowhere and end up being patrolled into then, well, enjoy the funeral I guess?
Having watched a lot of XCOM 2 being played, these changes are not going to alter anything other than this specific tactic. These people have time to consistently set it up and do it just about every single mission, so I'm not thinking this is an issue.
Again, you're not talking to someone sympathetic to the idea of "It should be perfectly fine to stand in the open". Aliens do not get a shot in my system when you're not standing in the open and it's specifically a concealment ambush countering mechanic to me. It shouldn't have much (if any) significant impact on anything else. The goal is to stop the broken 2 consecutive turns granted by deliberately letting aliens patrol into an equally deliberately left soldier right outside their detection range.
I absolutely agree. If you leave people in the open, you should fully accept the consequences.
I don't know how much people have been watching XCOM 2 footage/streams, but you're not exactly out of options in this game for cover or set up spaces. There are lots of vertical buildings, maps are not scripted hell holes with unwinnable situations (Graveyard ... oh god that Graveyard map...) and such.
We're talking about a game where less than a few weeks in, people figured out they could exploit this to never be shot at all. That's a pretty huge thing and probably needs a solution somewhere.
Actually I think they probably do try to hide their weapons or at least make them non-obvious. I think it's more not spending the resources to make this obvious vs. suspension of disbelief more than anything else.
I think the free shots should only be targetted at the unit that got caught, not the whole group. Getting caught on the enemy turn should carry a substantial punishment, which would be the spotted soldier getting filled with lead, but it shouldnt be SO severe as to be a potential wipe of the whole squad
Youd still have a lot of mobility during concealment though, because you can see much farther than the enemy and avoid their patrols. There's a danger of messing up, but the consequences arent world ending and theyre avoidable, so the mobility of concealment wouldnt be lost
Edit: I wonder if it would be effective to buy rookies to use as bait if theyre the only one at risk...
I would have the base chance that an alien might shoot or instantly use an ability be 25% and a +15% bonus for every other operative they see that's exposed as well. So if you have all 4 guys exposed - which I've seen some people do - they would have a 85% chance to shoot you instead of moving. Either way, the goal is to give the aliens a chance of firing at you instead of dying doing absolutely nothing - but I wouldn't want to make them always do it.
Edit: Rookies as bait would be hilarious, but then you're taking a crappy unit without many abilities/HP to a battle with higher level aliens who have some decent stuff. That in itself is a consequence and makes for an interesting choice of tactics. Anything that makes this a choice and gives it some kind of risk/reward automatically succeeds as a fix. Removing the "No brainer, you always want to do it this way" feel is the essential part.
It makes sense in the sense that if you get caught on their turn they're not the ones getting ambushed, you are.
I continue to defend my proposal of if advent breaks your concealment on their turn, they get to shoot for free on the one they can see, then they scatter to cover provoking normal overwatch (covering fire still works normally during the free shot), then concealment is lost for the whole team as normal.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to have them react to this situation in the same way every time. They're not making a strategic decision, the reaction is purely a punishment for failing the stealth. I mean I do understand why we all wouldn't want the alien strategy to be deterministic, but having some predictability is not bad.
Okay, but that's not Itchy Trigger Tentacle. Here's how Itchy Trigger Tentacle works:
You are in a fire fight and/or scouting the map. Sectopod patrols into your flank. Game flips a coin; if the game wins the flip, GG, squad wipe. If the game loses the flip, play continues as normal.
It certainly makes the game harder to win, but not by virtue of making it any more cerebral.
The system you're describing, which does not really resemble Itchy Trigger Tentacle, sounds alright to me - but does not gel with the design goal laid out by Solomon, which was to create an XCOM game where the player did not have a slow start constantly going move / hunker or move / overwatch. There's no point to the concealment mechanic at all if the only thing it does is encourage a player to ove even more slowly through a map than they would in EU/EW.
When in concealment, enemies dont move quickly and cant see far. The presense of a punishment for failing concealment doesnt mean you cant make good use of concealment anymore, as it's generally quite easy to avoid that failure. Just be a little wary of corners
You kind of have to *try* to be deliberately exposed and seen by aliens in XCOM2. It's actually very easy (too easy IMO) to entirely avoid them. Having watched a lot of this game, I can assure you this change would do absolutely zero to the vast majority of people playing the game "normally". It specifically counters people SPECIFICALLY leaving their soldiers out exposed to trigger OW on the aliens scatter move on their turn.
I would probably say most people wouldn't even notice it exists if you're not doing the Beagle Ambush.
The aliens pick up plaid shirts!
If you are behind ANY cover, unless the aliens move in such a way that they flank you they don't see you. Once behind cover you're only seen if you move or start shooting them.
If you're standing in the open, the aliens also don't see you and they have a clearly indicated sight range around them. If that crosses you the aliens see you though, but otherwise you're not automatically noticed even if you're standing in the middle of the road on a bright sunny day. They don't have a detection radius equal to their LOS like XCOM:EU/EW.
What we're talking about stopping is exploiting this system by moving everyone up to where the aliens are, watching their patrol route and then deliberately putting a guy in the open 1 tile out of their sight range. The aliens patrol into him, trigger OW, get shot and scatter. Then you just run up to them and kill the rest on your turn.
That's what needs fixing.
Also unless you move all the way into the middle of nowhere right off the bat with a gold move, it's IMMENSELY hard to get seen by the aliens while in the concealment phase. You really have to work at failing there and giving the aliens the initiative.
The Johnny Lump Solution: If concealment is broken on the Advent turn, a pod of Chryssalids is immediately airdropped in.
"We've got XCOM operatives! Quick, get the Chryssalid Cannon spun up!"
Please, we all know Sectoids wouldn't be caught dead wearing clothes. Then nobody would be mirin their gains.
The best damn support solider a squad could ask for. I'm sorry that Cyberdisk saw you.
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That's not a bad solution, but there'd be some less-simple case interactions when you consider phantom rangers. It would be pretty bad to make it so that a phantom ranger was never able to overwatch.
Is Phantom ranger concealed overwatch useful? It seems extremely situational.
Maybe? I mean if your choices are to take a really subprime shot or overwatch in case an enemy moves from cover, then your ranger remaining in concealment would be a disadvantage since he'd be losing the option to normally overwatch.
This isn't what I'd call an edge case (that seems like it would be fairly common if you use phantom) but it also certainly isn't a showstopper for the suggestion.
Maybe obvious to anyone that's read up on how aliens spend their discovery turn but not necessarily to the average player. People that don't know that aliens won't immediately fire that first sighting aren't going to make the connection to leave someone where they'll be discovered.
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fix it in an expansion pack?
Does phantom concealed overwatch function differently from normal concealed overwatch? Because normally, a concealed soldier won't take overwatch shots unless they're revealed. So an enemy would have to spot the ranger first. And I believe that the enemy finishes their current movement before the reveal occurs, so the overwatch wouldn't trigger on the enemy that caused the reveal, who would now have a flanking shot on the ranger.
I was 100% sure of that when it first came up in the thread.
But after Solomon's tweet, I am actually not sure Firaxis realized how abusable doing this was (or thought anyone would do it). It's surprisingly easy to miss the most obvious exploits when you're designing a game.
OK we're definitely calling them Beaglebushes now.
The problem is that pods which activate on their patrol turn don't get a full turn. ITT is bad because it punishes normal gameplay where you move to a position to proc them and then play your turn since it will randomly be taking shots at exposed soldiers many times.
well that makes sense to me. Both because its hard to differentiate between "standing in an area" and "moving through an area". And you don't want to penalize players for not being in cover the entire time.
The vision you can just chalk up to not being able to tell the difference between xcom and advent.
The purpose of the ambush and vision mechanics is that you're not punished for leaving people in the open. Such that you can move more quickly through the map and get to encounters.
Even the "best" solution of giving the enemy its full turn if it finds you on its turn is problematic in this sense because any flanked ally will simply die. And that is the only thing that can cause aliens to react on their turn.
Thinking about it again, i would disable ambush overwatch occurring on the enemies turn and/or give aliens who break for cover on their turn a full move run bonus. Such that if you want to pull the overwatch ambush on their turn without sparking it, they get high defense bonuses as they bolt for cover as if they were already in combat.
This way that type of ambush has some advantage, but not nearly as much. It also feels correct under the explanation that the ambush overwatch action is the operative prepared to fire when his ally fires. When he ally doesn't and moves instead the operative has stopped being ready and is getting ready to move.
Shooting exposed people on the first turn of combat simply is not an acceptable solution to me.
Once I saw beagle doing that in a stream I was ok man that seems silly but is so powerful I have to do it. So now I am no longer torn.
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