I hate auto-assign

[Shining_Darkness]

The task assignment system is really bad, like sabotage levels. So sometimes you have to carry people, who does it assign? Your sergeant? How about a tech or a medic? NOPE the one recon you brought along specifically to stealth shot things. Can you reassign? Nope. That is simply the guy it has decided will carry that particular person for the mission.

I get it, they wanted a less hand-on style of tactical gameplay but FFS at least give us a micro management toggle that gives us the option to assign specific marines to specific tasks. I do not want my gunner or recon carrying people unless it is that rare occasion of having more than 2 people to carry (if that happens I have literally never seen it but I have not beaten it so I wouldn't put it past this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of an aliens game).

[Deepeye]

Yeah, seems like we have de-railed the thread and one of the reasons apparently was my medic mention. At the same time, think most people agree on sergeant being nr1 pick for suppressive not to be valid.

Returning to discussion overall.

Great point is that game has given a lot of options even with limited classes and people have a lot of different preferences, that is a huge plus.

Game has unbalanced traits that make some classes or traits potentially obsolete in specific playstyles.

I will allow myself to be brutal in regards of medic - +50% speed heal is on medic char, you don't need it if you play correctly, you should not get damaged or heal within fights anyways. +1 hp to everyone - same as previous point, why are you getting damaged so much that you need +1 hp which STILL make you recuperate more days after the mission? (in no particular address to anyone, take it as figure of speech). Coma recovery - same. Why are you playing in such a way that you marines go into coma? I haven't had it happen ONCE on 3 difficulties (completed full game on one though yet - medium). I did use medic a lot, I always tried to cycle classes and see how they perform, use their passives / weapons and talents to experience the game as much as possible. Only situation when medic felt truly useful was passive -30% recovery after a very tough mission I decided to force through. Where I did get damaged by WY shoota boys quite a lot. 10 days turned into 6-7 for some unlucky swiss cheese marines of mine.

And here I return to the first point - based on your playstyle, one char can be extremely nice or you can mitigate the issues you are having. Another feel not so necessary as you barely scout or feel the need for additional dps from drone, don't want to "waste" ammo clips on it, etc. And this is fine. That is how it should work.

Yet again this is obvious that some traits are too good. Smart-ass should not be there, imho. I get why it's put in the game, to save issues for more casual players to miss on content and make hacks more available. At the same time many other mechanics, and especially stress, is the one that can make completely casual player go nuts even on story difficulty. Don't want to force anything, I have enjoyed the game as it is and still do, but if something can be improved, considering that it's already a challenging game, is the difficulty options and attribute balance.

[OakenWall]

I did not hate it, I had a lvl 10 and lvl 8 tecker in my hard run but I think the Tecker would be more competetive if you did not have to use tools to repair the drone.

[Sir Fondlebottom]

Originally posted by phroZac:

The game defaults to auto-assign but you can manually select specific marines you want to perform any task as long as they have the right tools for the job.

Once you select the marine skill, you can press the L or R shoulder button(on gamepad obviously) to cycle through available marines. They'll be highlighted in blue. I only just recently discovered this a few days ago and I'm on my 3rd playthrough, lol.

Not having this explicitly in the tutorial is jaw dropping... I've played through twice and had no idea lol

Originally posted by Deepeye:

I will allow myself to be brutal in regards of medic - +50% speed heal is on medic char, you don't need it if you play correctly, you should not get damaged or heal within fights anyways. +1 hp to everyone - same as previous point, why are you getting damaged so much that you need +1 hp which STILL make you recuperate more days after the mission? (in no particular address to anyone, take it as figure of speech). Coma recovery - same. Why are you playing in such a way that you marines go into coma? I haven't had it happen ONCE on 3 difficulties (completed full game on one though yet - medium). I did use medic a lot, I always tried to cycle classes and see how they perform, use their passives / weapons and talents to experience the game as much as possible. Only situation when medic felt truly useful was passive -30% recovery after a very tough mission I decided to force through. Where I did get damaged by WY shoota boys quite a lot. 10 days turned into 6-7 for some unlucky swiss cheese marines of mine.

Or you know, you could try and not save scum the game on Hard or Nightmare instead and see where that theoretical perfect run ends up? Lets see how the Medic is redundant when that Warrior that has dodged two shotgun blasts and 5 marines going for it end up exploding acid all over your squad? Lets see how the Medic is redundant when getting lit up by human enemies and that drone that just spawned in the same room triggering a hunt?

As for it not happening ONCE lol:
"Damn Dude, You Gotta Lose Some Weight!
Secure an unconscious marine.
Unlocked 26 Jun @ 7:41pm"

[Deepeye]

Originally posted by Sir Fondlebottom:

Originally posted by phroZac:

The game defaults to auto-assign but you can manually select specific marines you want to perform any task as long as they have the right tools for the job.

Once you select the marine skill, you can press the L or R shoulder button(on gamepad obviously) to cycle through available marines. They'll be highlighted in blue. I only just recently discovered this a few days ago and I'm on my 3rd playthrough, lol.

Not having this explicitly in the tutorial is jaw dropping... I've played through twice and had no idea lol

Originally posted by Deepeye:

I will allow myself to be brutal in regards of medic - +50% speed heal is on medic char, you don't need it if you play correctly, you should not get damaged or heal within fights anyways. +1 hp to everyone - same as previous point, why are you getting damaged so much that you need +1 hp which STILL make you recuperate more days after the mission? (in no particular address to anyone, take it as figure of speech). Coma recovery - same. Why are you playing in such a way that you marines go into coma? I haven't had it happen ONCE on 3 difficulties (completed full game on one though yet - medium). I did use medic a lot, I always tried to cycle classes and see how they perform, use their passives / weapons and talents to experience the game as much as possible. Only situation when medic felt truly useful was passive -30% recovery after a very tough mission I decided to force through. Where I did get damaged by WY shoota boys quite a lot. 10 days turned into 6-7 for some unlucky swiss cheese marines of mine.

Or you know, you could try and not save scum the game on Hard or Nightmare instead and see where that theoretical perfect run ends up? Lets see how the Medic is redundant when that Warrior that has dodged two shotgun blasts and 5 marines going for it end up exploding acid all over your squad? Lets see how the Medic is redundant when getting lit up by human enemies and that drone that just spawned in the same room triggering a hunt?

As for it not happening ONCE lol:
"Damn Dude, You Gotta Lose Some Weight!
Secure an unconscious marine.
Unlocked 26 Jun @ 7:41pm"

To be honest I got it from carrying someone else, not my marine, think it was the scientist from the hive. Seriously. Don't have to believe me, was surprised about it either.

With the same logic you can approach the achievement of doing objectives with one marine. Something done on purpose to get the achievement point.

Regardless of above. Why is it that when I play on nightmare it's still ok without medic for me? And why are you so defensive about it?

[Sir Fondlebottom]

Because it's an unrealistic take that has no bearing on reality? You've not even completed the game on Medium, so I'll take your statements with a grain of salt.

Now, if you happened to be god's gift to Aliens: Dark Descent gaming, the game and the Medic should still not be balanced around you since you'd be a statistical outlier. Your argument about "simply not taking any damage lol" is asinine.

[Deepeye]

Originally posted by Sir Fondlebottom:

Because it's an unrealistic take that has no bearing on reality? You've not even completed the game on Medium, so I'll take your statements with a grain of salt.

Now, if you happened to be god's gift to Aliens: Dark Descent gaming, the game and the Medic should still not be balanced around you since you'd be a statistical outlier. Your argument about "simply not taking any damage lol" is asinine.

Sure take as much grains of salt or whatever else, man. This doesn't change validity of my points or my experience.

You can continue desperately arguing like an internet warrior trying to downgrade someone just because it doesn't fit your views. For me it's valid that you see and apply things your way with your playstyle. At the same time, the medic seems the least useful as explained above. Is that such a big deal in context of opinion sharing? Apparently yes. Did I anywhere state that medic has to be adjusted for my taste? I barely care as stated above, as game is great as it is already. If anything, reiterating - some balance changes perk wise would be perfect (repeating specifically for you now, Sir Fondlebottom, as you clearly don't get it from previous message).

EDIT:
P.S. Entertain my curiosity, Sir Fondlebottom, since you like checking my achievements as some proof of validity and be so adamant about your judgments. Shouldn't I have the bleeding marine achievement by now if I get everyone comatose so easily? Or is it just completed nightmare game achievement that makes all the other points graceful enough for your elitism? :)

[Shining_Darkness]

Originally posted by Daliena:

Originally posted by Deepeye:

Regarding tecker looks like a lot of people are either disliking the class due to availability of Smart-ass perk on others or underestimate the additional dps of the drone. It's a late bloomer for sure as it gives free hacks @ lvl 10.

Obviously a lot of choices depend on personal preference, difficulty played on, how it is played, etc. Yet tecker isn't bad in any way. I would say that the most undervalued class is medic if we go really deep and strict. His only reasonable bonus is @ lvl 10 the -30% recuperation time after tough missions.

Sir Fondlebottom already spoke of the Medic's benefits and I agree.

As for the Tecker, the drone feels.. Pretty meh. What exactly am I meant to be getting as a benefit from most of it - interactions done slightly faster? Give it it's third upgrade, and sure, that's an additional SMG on the field - but it costs one unit of ammo to reload, for what, 48 bullets? That's gonna be a hard nope on all but the most generous maps.

Smart-ass covers hacking just as well as a level 3-9 Tecker, and even if you got hax for free, I honestly don't feel it's worth taking a Tecker over a Sarge or Gunner or even another medic just for those irritating cases where your one medic decides to end up in a coma and needs a specialized resuscitation.

Besides, hack-locked doors aren't that very common, feels like half the time you can just get around them if you have the patience so they're more convenience than necessity (well, insomuch as you want what's behind them or want a shortcut), and tools are common enough as long as you're not constantly welding 2-3 door rooms for rests.

Yeah I try to make my sergeant(s) have smartass since I am for sure always going to deploy a sergeant so that instantly fills two roles with one slot. My typical team is Sgt, 2 gunner, medic but for some missions I swap a gunner for a recon (often for boss missions since the sniper hits harder than a mine and can crit for even more so it is very ammo efficient since it cost command points. For the memes I brought 3 recon on a queen mission and it worked surprisingly well.

[Deepeye]

Originally posted by Daliena:

Originally posted by Deepeye:

Yeah, the sarge char doing suppression is extremely irritating... would make sense that gunner is doing that. Not sure if THIS choice can be manually chosen, because it happens on special pause menu where no character cards are visible :(

I didn't specifically try activating it (I was in the middle of escorting a power loader at the time and then forgot about it) yet, but when I selected suppressing fire and hit tab, it did seem to flick through which character the cone originated from.

Can confirm this - you can TAB through marines when choosing who will use suppression. Game actually shows TAB button in the left bottom corner same as when choosing the other options (who heals, who enters powerloader, etc)

[Shining_Darkness]

Originally posted by Deepeye:

Originally posted by Daliena:

I didn't specifically try activating it (I was in the middle of escorting a power loader at the time and then forgot about it) yet, but when I selected suppressing fire and hit tab, it did seem to flick through which character the cone originated from.

Can confirm this - you can TAB through marines when choosing who will use suppression. Game actually shows TAB button in the left bottom corner same as when choosing the other options (who heals, who enters powerloader, etc)

This game really should have just committed to macro instead of this half-assed in-between nonsense.

[Swato85]

This does NOT allways work, more than once the game cancels the chosen unit for a task and again assigns like a true simpleton the nearest unit. Motion sensors and ordinary doors, there is no specialisation required for that Omg.