Flanking meaning something = no more frstration.

[ShunBrokuSatsu]

So I have logged quite a lot of time in this game. I have beaten the game on all difficulties on vanilla and even using some mods. I've been through just about every scenario that anyone could dread (from pulling 3 pods at once to placing a soldier where I thought they would be safe only to have them flanked). After all of this time I can say that for me the MOST frustrating thing without a doubt is the way that flanking works in this game.

So in a game like this you would expect that in order to get into a flank position you would often have to go through hoops and hurdles (which you do in many cases after you run out of grenades). In these cases you may have to take the risk of taking some overwatch fire to get into that position (something that I think is high risk high reward). Doing this adds a lot to the strategy element to the game because you feel like you made a plan and executed it and if all of the conditions were met you are left with a situation where the enemy is exposed and now you can fire on them free of worry of cover.

Now you get this all done and set up and in some cases you even get multiple soldiers set up to take an exposed shot and then when you do..... all of your soldiers miss the exposed soldier back to back. This right here to me, of all of the time in my XCOM hours logged is the most frustrating thing. What this does is it basically just takes any element of strategy and just makes the game feel like a gigantic RNG snoozefest.

To that end I have actually gone through the INI files and changed around the aim bonuses on against flanked targets and made it so that shots against flanked targets has increased aim by 20%. This helps the early game SOOOO much because the early game is so binary, so hit or miss that actually landing a shot is the only real way to progress. Of course I have actually gone ahead and applied the same bonus to enemies as well and this has actually gotten me playing smarter because now I have to think even more before I make any plays that could potentially leave me flanked. This actually makes the game enjoyable in the early game.

I am still kind of tweaking the values a bit, I might go back down to 10% instead of 20% but believe it or not even with the +20% my soldiers will still sometimes miss their flank shots (which I am 100% ok with so long as it is not literally all of my remaining soldiers missing a completely wide opened flanked enemy, flanked shots should not be missing THAT often).

Note that I only play the game on legend now and that really is the ONLY thing that I find on legend to be unbearable. I actually enjoy playing the game now because I feel I have valid choices early game to mitigate damage and bad situations. Also before anyone asks I am actually ok with things like how often my units get killed by officers behind full cover, that is just one of those things where you just couldn't have done anything better and things just went bad anyway. Also I am a lot more ok with missing flank shots now because they miss so much less often.

[theworld]

Plays Legend.

Makes Legend Easier.

Makes Thread That Easier Legend is ZOMG COOL.

Next we'll see posts like: "ZOMG Iron Man is lame, now that I can savescum a mission to hit all shots I need to hit Legend is ZOMG COOL again."

[Tome]

Originally posted by TheWorld:

Plays Legend.

Makes Legend Easier.

Makes Thread That Easier Legend is ZOMG COOL.

Next we'll see posts like: "ZOMG Iron Man is lame, now that I can savescum a mission to hit all shots I need to hit Legend is ZOMG COOL again."

Cant really argue with you there, lol. But I also think that flanking shots should be easier to hit - late game they are 100%+ due to aim being better but early game, all these flanking misses just add to the idea that the xcom recruits are randoms with regular arm spasms...

[ShunBrokuSatsu]

Originally posted by TheWorld:

Plays Legend.

Makes Legend Easier.

Makes Thread That Easier Legend is ZOMG COOL.

Next we'll see posts like: "ZOMG Iron Man is lame, now that I can savescum a mission to hit all shots I need to hit Legend is ZOMG COOL again."

Well actually I applied the same bonus to the enemy as well, so if I get flanked I am equally ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Secondly you shouldn't be missing over 4 flanked shots in a row, on a completely open and out of cover enemy. That doesn't even come close to making sense.

Also this doesn't make legend easier (at least not that much easier), you still have to put in the effort to actually get the flank and sometimes that means you have to take even more risks to do so.

I mean hey if you find it fun to have literally all of your soldiers miss a flank shot back to back and think that is strategic then good for you, but that ♥♥♥♥ just doesn't make any sense and isn't fun at all. Vanilla behavior isn't strategic in the least, it's all just RNG.

Now I could see where you are coming from if I were to just boost my soldier base aim stats by 20, then yeah that would just be cheese. I think you should actually be rewarded for actually putting in the effort to set up a flank, even when it makes you take risks that wouldn't otherwise take.

Also mind you I don't have any qualms with any of the other factors of the game on legend other than this, there are other things that people consider BS like stunned or frozen enemies dodging, disoriented enemies being more likely to crit because of how the game rolls for crits and hits and a crap ton of other things. The topic at hand is literally the only thing that makes the game frustrating and it isn't even a "challenge" in the fact that it is hard, again it's just lame ass RNG.

[theworld]

Says Early Game Vanilla is "all just RNG"

Plays a Game Where You can literally get 100% shots with Rangers on literally the 2nd mission eliminating the RNG completely...

[ShunBrokuSatsu]

Originally posted by TheWorld:

Says Early Game Vanilla is "all just RNG"

Plays a Game Where You can literally get 100% shots with Rangers on literally the 2nd mission eliminating the RNG completely...

Yeah but you make it sound like I have the option of rolling all rangers on that same 2nd mission of the game, also if you are doing that often in your games, your rangers are likely going to get flanked way easier since you have to be right next to the enemy for that to be the case (which again in my case makes it even worse for me).

Again if you find it fun for most of your soldiers early game to miss their flank shots then awesome, I'm glad you enjoy that.

I get the feeling you don't play legend at all, if you do then I'm glad RNG has been so favorable to you but from what I've seen of others reviews, I'm not the only one who is experiencing this.

Also I did use other mods to increase the difficulty as well to offset things like this such as A better advent, A Better Pods Plus (more enemies per pod) and a few others. Playing a resistance haven defense with a better advent is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell (having to deal with 4 pods at once plus reinforcements dropping in is crazy). Also using soldier fatigue forces me to rotate out soldiers more since I won't be able to take them on every mission, so I wouldn't even have a ranger available in the 2nd mission in the first place.

[drake_hound]

The whole problem is that early game is a pain in any mode.

Now mid game on legend is quite challenging so is the end game.
Where misses and hits doesn´t count that much anymore. but tactic of eliminating stuff.
Since almost all take like 2 shots to kill or more.

If you really like the early game style then just increase defense on all mid-late game enemy by 20-40 defense. and you have gambling roullete again.
Sorry if you really want that gambling roullete game from early game just instead of decreasing aim on soldiers. just increase enemy defense. (it is the same)

what works beter infact is damage roullette. where damage is variable.
The frustration of having damage short is quite funny :P especially if you put it on 100% with longwar toolbox.he but atleast you don´t miss you just sometimes do 1 damage. other times you one shot stuff.
But again not saying it is the best example of what works.
It is again gambling.

So far Xcom has the best system that feels fair. when I tried different approaches.
You gamble early on and late game you breeze trough stuff.
And feel rewarded for suffering the long gambles, which has a tactical component of direct damage without misses early on (grenades, perceptions focus and scopes, stocks and offensive protocols)

Now I am not saying change stuff, definetly not even with going trough a lot of ini editing and trying out different system. base game feels fair.

Ruler brings new kind of tactics definetly. and we should get more of those late game.
To spice things up. throw carefull planned stuff into a loop. (this is for the hardcore crowd offcourse) , but ruler early game is simply too hardcore.

Now for those who want things harder, it isn´t hard to make things harder.
Cause it is all based on increasing enemies to hit chance and damage output.
So anything that lives trough your tactics simply means one of your soldiers die.
Like chess game you lose pieces and keep on cascading so if you execute perfectly.
It stays easy, but if you make a mistake you get punished hard.
Is that fair ? I don´t think so cause it leads to one gameplay style. is eliminating pods before they can return fire (which is already very popular )

I understand the OP he wants somehow improvements. cause that is what we are all looking for. that is why he modded his ini. that is up to you OP.

Those who say Iove the early gamestyle. then just mod the enemies def to match your AIM increase. (Which I really don´t like, cause then it feels like you are not really progressing)
Or make it like there is always 5% chance to miss like the melee weapons have. (which for some of us feels like 50% misses)

Now I think with the Rulers there are definetly changing the gamestyle of early and mid game.
Now we need more of those to carry us trough late game. maybe something like facility eliminate it before they can create ruler types enemies. or a dark event card 1 month long a buffed up ruler type enemy squad is active.

But to the OP lets not mess with a winning formula. if it isn´t broke lets not change it.
Even now a lot of new players still find this game too hard to get to the mid game or late game. where they are overpowered.

[ShunBrokuSatsu]

Originally posted by drake_hound:

The whole problem is that early game is a pain in any mode.

Now mid game on legend is quite challenging so is the end game.
Where misses and hits doesn´t count that much anymore. but tactic of eliminating stuff.
Since almost all take like 2 shots to kill or more.

If you really like the early game style then just increase defense on all mid-late game enemy by 20-40 defense. and you have gambling roullete again.
Sorry if you really want that gambling roullete game from early game just instead of decreasing aim on soldiers. just increase enemy defense. (it is the same)

what works beter infact is damage roullette. where damage is variable.
The frustration of having damage short is quite funny :P especially if you put it on 100% with longwar toolbox.he but atleast you don´t miss you just sometimes do 1 damage. other times you one shot stuff.
But again not saying it is the best example of what works.
It is again gambling.

So far Xcom has the best system that feels fair. when I tried different approaches.
You gamble early on and late game you breeze trough stuff.
And feel rewarded for suffering the long gambles, which has a tactical component of direct damage without misses early on (grenades, perceptions focus and scopes, stocks and offensive protocols)

Now I am not saying change stuff, definetly not even with going trough a lot of ini editing and trying out different system. base game feels fair.

Ruler brings new kind of tactics definetly. and we should get more of those late game.
To spice things up. throw carefull planned stuff into a loop. (this is for the hardcore crowd offcourse) , but ruler early game is simply too hardcore.

Now for those who want things harder, it isn´t hard to make things harder.
Cause it is all based on increasing enemies to hit chance and damage output.
So anything that lives trough your tactics simply means one of your soldiers die.
Like chess game you lose pieces and keep on cascading so if you execute perfectly.
It stays easy, but if you make a mistake you get punished hard.
Is that fair ? I don´t think so cause it leads to one gameplay style. is eliminating pods before they can return fire (which is already very popular )

I understand the OP he wants somehow improvements. cause that is what we are all looking for. that is why he modded his ini. that is up to you OP.

Those who say Iove the early gamestyle. then just mod the enemies def to match your AIM increase. (Which I really don´t like, cause then it feels like you are not really progressing)
Or make it like there is always 5% chance to miss like the melee weapons have. (which for some of us feels like 50% misses)

Now I think with the Rulers there are definetly changing the gamestyle of early and mid game.
Now we need more of those to carry us trough late game. maybe something like facility eliminate it before they can create ruler types enemies. or a dark event card 1 month long a buffed up ruler type enemy squad is active.

But to the OP lets not mess with a winning formula. if it isn´t broke lets not change it.
Even now a lot of new players still find this game too hard to get to the mid game or late game. where they are overpowered.

I definitely agree that the game is, for the most part, fair. I get There are risk vs reward aspects to the game that are there to simulate decision making and that not everything goes as expected but the aspect I'm talking about in the game is the only one I take issue with. It just feels way too binary. I mean you set up a really nice flank and to do so you have to expend resources and also take some risks at time for these flank shots. I am actually ok with missing a flank shot or two because hey, that happens from time to time, but the frequency as to which these flank shots miss just does not make any sense. This aspect of the game doesn't make it harder because it's actually more difficult, it just arbitrary rng screwing with you.

I'm not saying that my method is 100% better than what is in game because I think that it can be done better but I just don't think that RNG is strategy. This is why this game can't really be compared to something like chess. You can make moves to set up openings but then rng can screw you which is not how it would work in chess (not that I am saying I am good at chess at all but know how to play well enough to know that this doesn't work well).

I do think that every other aspect of the game is fair (even some of the other stuff that doesn't make sense like again, enemies dodging while incapacitated). It would be nice if there was a nice medium in between behavior from how it is in lower difficulties and what we have now. Example is in Commander or easier you get and aim bonus on a target when you have multiple misses on them but not in legend. In a new system make it so that you only get that aim bonus when missing a flanked enemy but not any others.

Again my main gripe is just the binary nature of just that one aspect of the game, I am ok with how difficult the early game is otherwise. This method just feels like you actually have options early game.

[drake_hound]

I understand what you are saying, it is what I am having with the Ranger Melee Attack.
Base game it was so horrible. the misses while only 5% chance missrate.

It feels like 50% chance missrate to a point. that I said forget it. not using melee attack anymore.
(the mod that takes it away is very popular for a reason. both spec op and others take it away)

It isn´t that I don´t understand you. what you want to say, same as when you are next to the enemey and 95% chance to hit and it misses.... or 99% chance to hit and it miss.
It is rare but it happens.

Early game one of my gatecrasher none modded mission I had three soldiers flanking that last 1 HP advent.
What are the chances of missing him ? but let say all three missed... >.< all above 65% chance.
Luckily he decided to run away. (legendary difficulty so no bonus to hit to count on.)

So it isn´t that I do not understand you. but that is the early game.
And also early game. especially with enemies on legend easily flanking you. sectoid and others with higher then normal movement. or stun lancers (who have nowadays a even bigger missrate it seems. or maybe other mods made them miss more. cause I can´t remember they missing so often, but my games are not reliable at the moment. for comparison too heavily mod usage)

[ShunBrokuSatsu]

yep that is exactly it. Again I am ok with missing a flank shot here and there, I understand it is not meant for you to hit every flank. I just think that if you set up the time to get that flank shot, putting your soldiers at risk and using resources like grenades then you should be rewarded.

I've been thinking maybe I should just make the mod myself that applies the aim bonus only to flanked enemies you miss on. If you think about it in real life that is the scenario that makes sense. You can flank an enemy in the open and have multiple soldiers have a shot on the open enemy. One of them misses forcing the enemy being shot at to move in a certain direction, this gives your other soldiers a better chance of hitting because now they know where the target is going so they can adjust their aim to take advantage.

I think I may drop this boost down to 10% though but after I do some more extensive testing, either that or I may just keep adding more mods that make other aspects of combat harder. At the end of the day I just feel like the tactics needed to open an enemy up for flanks should be better rewarded than they are now in the early game. The early game just does not give you enough options, I understand that the game is supposed to be hard but not in such an arbitrary way.

[talemore]

One way to balance is to give 2shred to all alien plasma and 2 pierce to advent magnetic weapons. Early in the game you don't have armor, while later on you do.

[ShunBrokuSatsu]

Originally posted by talemore:

One way to balance is to give 2shred to all alien plasma and 2 pierce to advent magnetic weapons. Early in the game you don't have armor, while later on you do.

This is actually a consideration. I will have to look into that. I'm also thinking of adding even more enemies to missions but things like haven defense (a mission type from additional mission types) makes me hesitant on that.

[drake_hound]

Originally posted by JM001:

Originally posted by talemore:

One way to balance is to give 2shred to all alien plasma and 2 pierce to advent magnetic weapons. Early in the game you don't have armor, while later on you do.

This is actually a consideration. I will have to look into that. I'm also thinking of adding even more enemies to missions but things like haven defense (a mission type from additional mission types) makes me hesitant on that.

Yeah those missions are long and fun, I am glad I didn´t added additional enemies but used second wave enhanced to boost up the enemies HP Armor and random stats.

But then again I have too soon. either find a forced rotation of troops.
Or something that gives more pods. it is fun playing 12 troops but it seems am just rushing mission and making tons of mistakes. like just popping all the pods to just provide a bit of difference.

Anybody got a good fatigue system that simply reduces your soldiers stats. if you take them out ?
Like 25% 50% 75% stats reduction. till they recuperate ?

[ShunBrokuSatsu]

Originally posted by drake_hound:

Originally posted by JM001:

This is actually a consideration. I will have to look into that. I'm also thinking of adding even more enemies to missions but things like haven defense (a mission type from additional mission types) makes me hesitant on that.

Yeah those missions are long and fun, I am glad I didn´t added additional enemies but used second wave enhanced to boost up the enemies HP Armor and random stats.

But then again I have too soon. either find a forced rotation of troops.
Or something that gives more pods. it is fun playing 12 troops but it seems am just rushing mission and making tons of mistakes. like just popping all the pods to just provide a bit of difference.

Anybody got a good fatigue system that simply reduces your soldiers stats. if you take them out ?
Like 25% 50% 75% stats reduction. till they recuperate ?

The only thing I know of fatigue wise is soldier fatigue which all it really does is makes your soldiers hurt if you take them out while fatigued (does not lower their stats, I am on the lookout for one of these though). I actually went and lowered the fatigue values in this mod a slight bit though because I use Grimmy's additional scan sites which has your soldiers go out on WAY more missions which means you will do even more rotating. I lowered it a bit so that soldiers will be out for the missions acquired from scan sites and also hostile territory so it is possible to have an entire 3 squads be fatigued which forces me to take more rookies out on more missions (definitely a challenge).