Improve Tactical/Strategic Combat Gameplay

[Sun of Beaches]

Hi Devs, please improve the tactical combat gameplay to something close with Man of War series or similar to Company of Heroes (just my humble opinion). For instance, current combat gameplay is very hard to have some cover while tons of environment objects could be used as a full/half cover.

The combat gameplay has cone sight, this could have been more deep of strategic/tactical combat gameplay...something similar with commandos, desperados, shadow tactic blade of the shogun etc. for reference.

The core game idea are awesome but the current state needs more improvement especially in combat gameplay

[The Mighty Mulletman]

Personally I'd like it if there were more enemies in general, that enemies had longer dection ranges and that enemies remain alerted after detecting you.
Reds roaming the map have a serious case of "must have been the wind" when it comes to spotting Legionnaires. The stealth is rather forgiving.

[Sun of Beaches]

Originally posted by The Mighty Mulletman:

Personally I'd like it if there were more enemies in general, that enemies had longer dection ranges and that enemies remain alerted after detecting you.
Reds roaming the map have a serious case of "must have been the wind" when it comes to spotting Legionnaires. The stealth is rather forgiving.

Love the idea, can be really more fun and challenging if they add more depth in cone sight detection which is affecting their visibility to spot *for the sake of balance-punishing. The weather, day and night, elevation including tons of props could be used as their advantage/disadvantage in combat gameplay. Meaning can help elevate more in-game depth to choose

[wery]

Hello, as for the objects that you think should serve as a cover, which ones did you mean? Could you provide some examples/screenshots? :)

And I don't know if you've noticed, but thanks to the latest update, the enemy behavior can now be made more aggressive by adjusting the ranges for Information Sharing, Proximity Awareness, and Loud Noise perception via the Mission Modifiers in the Options Menu.

[Medium]

Originally posted by wery:

Hello, as for the objects that you think should serve as a cover, which ones did you mean?

The half/full cover system is ok in principle and familiar from most other games, but how it maps to the actual visible environment in Last Train Home is often unexpected. The fact that the corners of buildings do not count as half cover at least feels bizarre. Sorry, that brick wall won't save you, how about you take cover behind this rickety railing instead?

[OrangeLark]

Originally posted by The Mighty Mulletman:

Personally I'd like it if there were more enemies in general, that enemies had longer dection ranges and that enemies remain alerted after detecting you.
Reds roaming the map have a serious case of "must have been the wind" when it comes to spotting Legionnaires. The stealth is rather forgiving.

They always behave like:
"must have been the wind"
or, not my business,

instead of "every slip I have on the banana peel is a conspiracy of Trotskyist" as in Tintin

[Sun of Beaches]

Originally posted by wery:

Hello, as for the objects that you think should serve as a cover, which ones did you mean? Could you provide some examples/screenshots? :)

https://imgur.com/g7xTvF7
Hi Dev, these objects (marked green) could be used as half/full cover, and I think 'active' unoccupied vehicles/destroyed vehicles could be used as cover as well

Originally posted by Medium:

The half/full cover system is ok in principle and familiar from most other games, but how it maps to the actual visible environment in Last Train Home is often unexpected. The fact that the corners of buildings do not count as half cover at least feels bizarre. Sorry, that brick wall won't save you, how about you take cover behind this rickety railing instead?

+1

Devs, I wish players could use unoccupied buildings or watch towers to be used for hide and defense perhaps give some advantage in combat such as boost shooting range for a specific treat of soldier type. Currently, I don't feel much benefits to capturing a watch tower in combat except for gaining exp. as a side quest instead, I can deploy one or two snipers to scout

https://imgur.com/zMxDYPV

[Sun of Beaches]

Last one but not least, I think would be better if we can swap soldier position (driver - gunner - spotter) inside armored vehicles. Thanks Devs, love the game!

[OrangeLark]

Originally posted by Sun of Beaches:

Originally posted by wery:

Hello, as for the objects that you think should serve as a cover, which ones did you mean? Could you provide some examples/screenshots? :)

https://imgur.com/g7xTvF7
Hi Dev, these objects (marked green) could be used as half/full cover, and I think 'active' unoccupied vehicles/destroyed vehicles could be used as cover as well

Originally posted by Medium:

The half/full cover system is ok in principle and familiar from most other games, but how it maps to the actual visible environment in Last Train Home is often unexpected. The fact that the corners of buildings do not count as half cover at least feels bizarre. Sorry, that brick wall won't save you, how about you take cover behind this rickety railing instead?

+1

Devs, I wish players could use unoccupied buildings or watch towers to be used for hide and defense perhaps give some advantage in combat such as boost shooting range for a specific treat of soldier type. Currently, I don't feel much benefits to capturing a watch tower in combat except for gaining exp. as a side quest instead, I can deploy one or two snipers to scout

https://imgur.com/zMxDYPV

What is that thing in the window? I cannot understand,

also, why everyone in your squad is hungry? My squad is usually full, or they eat too much, drink too much

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3159693768

[Sun of Beaches]

That's sniper occupying the building, just for reference.

Nice, guess I have bad management lol, I hope they could survive...currently I'm still around chapter 4. Which route do you take there? mine is south

[wery]

Originally posted by Sun of Beaches:

Originally posted by wery:

Hello, as for the objects that you think should serve as a cover, which ones did you mean? Could you provide some examples/screenshots? :)

https://imgur.com/g7xTvF7
Hi Dev, these objects (marked green) could be used as half/full cover, and I think 'active' unoccupied vehicles/destroyed vehicles could be used as cover as well

Originally posted by Medium:

The half/full cover system is ok in principle and familiar from most other games, but how it maps to the actual visible environment in Last Train Home is often unexpected. The fact that the corners of buildings do not count as half cover at least feels bizarre. Sorry, that brick wall won't save you, how about you take cover behind this rickety railing instead?

+1

Devs, I wish players could use unoccupied buildings or watch towers to be used for hide and defense perhaps give some advantage in combat such as boost shooting range for a specific treat of soldier type. Currently, I don't feel much benefits to capturing a watch tower in combat except for gaining exp. as a side quest instead, I can deploy one or two snipers to scout

https://imgur.com/zMxDYPV

Thank you! Most of the things you highlighted are walls or high fences - by design, only objects that the soldiers can see and shoot over are supposed to provide cover. As for the corners of the buildings, we're unable to surround them with covers due to technical limitations. Sorry if it causes you inconvenience.

[Medium]

Originally posted by wery:

As for the corners of the buildings, we're unable to surround them with covers due to technical limitations. Sorry if it causes you inconvenience.

It's not so much an inconvenience as the game provides enough cover to get by, but that is one of the areas where what the game shows you on screen is not representative of whats happening in the system under the hood.

Line of sight is a similar issue, where some elements don't block an enemies line of sight like vehicles and some (not all) train cars. Example: An enemy appears to be working on a tank in crouched position but when you hover over them you see their view cone indicates they have uninterrupted vision through the tank that is twice their height. Scout crouching to tie their shoe? No vision penalty whatsoever. You thought crouching and focusing on a task was an intricate aspect of the enemies attention/vision system? Nope sorry, just a purely cosmetic animation.

On the flip side I sometimes have my scouts get out of cover and run towards the enemy before trying to take their critical shot. They were in range when I gave the command and the enemies vision cone didn't indicate any obstacle but for some reason my scout couldn't take the shot from where they were. The distract skill on the other hand lets you throw stones through brick houses.

Another example: you can climb over fences that are 3/4th of your soldiers height but jumping down into or climbing out of trenches is impossible, you only get to enter exit at certain spots. Visually they have the same height ratio as the fence.

Long story short: Typically you learn a games rules, build an intuition around that after which the gameplay experience becomes more fluid. But in this game the rules seem the be all over the place and so you find yourself pausing & double checking a lot more.

Edit: and just for completeness sake here is a case where the enemy view cones indicates that they can see through the barrels when they actually can't: https://i.imgur.com/Ra3bNmK.jpeg
This is one of the last missions, so the game keeps you guessing till the very end (and not in a good way).