What is the point of concealment?

[Dauntee]

Trying to sneak into an enemy base while concealed to see if it's possible and all of the enemies know exactly where my entire squad is at. Literally impossible to sneak around them. I even decided to test this theory in case it was just "coincidence"

So i reloaded the same save several times and tried moving my squad in every direction possible, sometimes different directions at the same time, and they constantly move to the perfect position to be able to spot my squad no matter what. I had 3 groups of enemies chasing me through their base while i was concealed, and i thought it would b a good idea to jump on top of the building to juke them. Great idea huh? Nope cuz 4 groups of enemies all came on top of the roof for no reason. Why in the world would everybody defending a compound all of a sudden just want to all get on the roof at the same time? so ridiculous....

[Fedorya]

Yes, ennemy move in direction of your concealed squad, game would be too easy if not.
I finished one mission in 100% conceal, but it was ubber hard and have to split my team.

But the main purpose of concealment, is to position yourself to be able to insta take down dangerous ennemy squad.

[taxicabmessiah]

It is a bit inconsistent, but if it works properly, you can deal some good damage to an unsuspecting enemy.

Also, reloading a save will always give you the same result. The game uses a seed (I think that's what it's called), which basically means that all of the possible outcomes are generated at the start of the mission... I think.

[vyrago]

Because if you could just sneak around them and win, you'd do that every time.

[Sevrun]

Concealment is meant to give you the chance to ambush one group and then play just like the old XCom EU/EW afterward. I've never had groups track me, they appeared to have set patrol patterns.

[Ghost of a Werewolf]

Concealment took a bit for me to get used to too because it was making me think the game could be played as a stealth game, and you kind of can't. It's really just there to let you choose where and when to initially engage. Sneaking up to an objective is a bad move because more often than not triggering it will drop your concealment anyway, and then you're dealing with instant reinforcements AND all the dudes you didn't mop up yet. Engage early and hard. Use concealment to have an early upper hand.

[Fedorya]

Originally posted by Sevrun:

Concealment is meant to give you the chance to ambush one group and then play just like the old XCom EU/EW afterward. I've never had groups track me, they appeared to have set patrol patterns.

Do some test and you'll se, for exemple try to infiltrate a facility using one road, and reload to try using all the others road, each time you'll see ennemy squads moving toward your position when you'r near the objective.

[Martial.Lore]

Concealment got my squad to the roof above the target of an enemy VIP extraction before a single shot was fired. They were in a perfect elevated position to take out all visible enemies in a single turn (including dropping a turret to the ground below), and drop down to deal with the rest the next.

[Galactic Origins]

you cannot sneak into the enemy base
concealment allows you to move closer to the enemy and set up your first hit

[Liro Raériyo]

"concealment" is best described as the period during a mission were you can set-up, this would be things like moving snipers to roof-tops and getting a squad as close as possible to the most dangerous bugger you can find, only to have them all shoot it at the same time and obliterate it.

It can also be a good time to scout and see WHAT you are facing before you find it, but as for actual sneaking? No, dont bother, just straight up get into position then fire everything.

That being said having one ranger remain in sneak is a pretty great way to spot for snipers, in appropriate positions they will deal crazy damage.

[Dorok]

Originally posted by Fedorya:

Yes, ennemy move in direction of your concealed squad...

Totally wrong you didn't played much or you never used much concealment, use it better and you'll see patrols not moving to your team including many moving further.

Patrols seems have a fixed path once the mission is generated.

Once the concealment is over yes enemies will tend focus on your team but it depends of the mission, some groups won't.

Originally posted by Liro Raeriyo:

That being said having one ranger remain in sneak is a pretty great way to spot for snipers, in appropriate positions they will deal crazy damage.

Cool to scout once more or twice more but for sneak attack I haven't get the trick yet.

[Dauntee]

Originally posted by Dorok:

Originally posted by Fedorya:

Yes, ennemy move Patrols seems have a fixed path once the mission is generated.

try this out for yourself, i've tested it by restarting the mission over from the same save and went a complete different direction and the same group of enemies that followed me on the left side of the map was now following me on the right side of the map in concealment

[Liro Raériyo]

Enemy movement is directly related to your position on the map, its not that they follow you its that your current positions dictates their movements, an example of this is when i had a ranger 2 squares away from this group that never moved so long as he stayed put, using that i was able to lock them in place far away while the rest of my team got rid of other patrol groups.

[Critical Mass]

It is disappointing that the game "cheats" to move enemies in different directions depending on what undetected xcom soldiers do. If concealment was done realistically the game would let people sneak past outer patrols but the risk would then be that some static units MUST be triggered in approaching the mission goal and when they are, the squad would be in the middle of all the enemy units which have not been touched yet. It would also be realistic if the game allowed pods which are out of range to be triggered by the sound of combat from XCom fighting other pods (not sure if it does that - seems to only take away concealment). It would need to avoid crushing xcom with no chance because of a huge number of enemies simultaneously reaching the squad but if they move towards the direction of the sound of combat but the squad has defeated the enemies then quickly moved to a new location the pods could return to positions or actively scout.

[Lionel23]

Watch Rambo, that's pretty much the idea of concealment. You are not meant to do the whole mission stealth, that's the Resistance's job that got you the info to hit the base. You are the strike team. You're sent in AFTER the stealth stuff has been done to ambush their patrols and take out the target.

[bukkie661]

Originally posted by Dorok:

Originally posted by Fedorya:

Yes, ennemy move in direction of your concealed squad...

Totally wrong you didn't played much or you never used much concealment, use it better and you'll see patrols not moving to your team including many moving further.

Patrols seems have a fixed path once the mission is generated.

Once the concealment is over yes enemies will tend focus on your team but it depends of the mission, some groups won't.

Originally posted by Liro Raeriyo:

That being said having one ranger remain in sneak is a pretty great way to spot for snipers, in appropriate positions they will deal crazy damage.

Cool to scout once more or twice more but for sneak attack I haven't get the trick yet.

Fedory is actually right. As long as you're in concealment, the AI moves towards you. The AI does this to force you to make the decision to engage.

Yes, the pods have patrolpaths, but within that system, they come ever closer to you.

Actually, the longer you stay in concealment, the bigger the danger is that you aggro multiple pods at once, mainly because they have been girating towards your general position.

Concealment merely gives you a free kill on a pod. But staying on concealment for more than two turns becomes an ever more unwise decision the longer that you keep it up.