Free Aim is a terrible gimmick

[Drenus]

Sniper has clear line of sight to shoot

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1660105383873816410/CB9D050D8AA3B6E82C11C9A7C8BBD05794C02F77/

Going into Free aim, has my retarded sniper aiming at the railing

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1660105383873817814/3993F6D18C073F163B5C233CE2B2F0F14BC68E33/


and that's just one of many examples i noticed in my playtime sofar

and before any wise guy tries to claim working as intended, i used the normal shoot mode, and the sniper easily killed the enemy, instead of shooting the railing in the free aim mode


This game has potential, but is mirred by so many terrible mechanics, and bugs

side note: on the very same mission, my brilliant Heavy, manages to shoot himself in the face with a grenade, because there is no indication of it being safe or not to use grenades

[Cynical]

引用自 ViiK：

引用自 Cynical：

It's not the same at all, because you know what your shot could be hitting if you miss. If you've ever played one of the first two X-Coms (the '90s ones, not the reboots), Jagged Alliance 2, Silent Storm, Xenonauts, etc, you'll really appreciate how much information the free aim gives you about where your shot could end up.

@OP, the game is telling you that you're still hitting in your free-aim screenshot, so I don't know why you think that free-aim vs. normal shot is making any difference. It could be a camera glitch, but more likely is that your shot is able to go through the railing easily.

I agree that this way of aiming gives you more information but the same amount of information can be given you by a small UI window as 7,62 did it or how in Commanders you had sniper scope (assuming it's replaced with a perspective view and not just zoomed in).
Regardless, free aim itself is a good feature. The issue is bugs and the rest of mechanics that makes those glitches pop-out more than necessary. In early builds, a single bugged shot was not a problem, now it can be as you do need a reliable DPS to deal with bullet sponges and avoid dying in a single burst.

It's been many years (over a decade, I think) since I played Brigade E5 and 7.62 High Calibre, but I don't remember those games having a perspective UI window? A brief glance through Brigade's manual isn't turning up any reference to one.

[Dorok]

引用自 SpiteAndMalice：

引用自 Cynical：

It's not the same at all, because you know what your shot could be hitting if you miss. If you've ever played one of the first two X-Coms (the '90s ones, not the reboots), Jagged Alliance 2, Silent Storm, Xenonauts, etc, you'll really appreciate how much information the free aim gives you about where your shot could end up.

It's not free aim that allows you to do that, it's the fact that the game has a ballistics model which simulates physics of a shot being fired.

Without free aim this information would be very approximate. Play Wasteland 2&3 and say me burst weapons allow the same information level than PP free aim, nope and from far.

But for sure Free aim is firstly about aiming parts, even if in a few cases it can allow seeing the series of targets that can be hit with a burst or a missed shot.

[wortkarg]

引用自 Cynical：

引用自 wortkarg：

If you fire a single shot and outer circle covers 83% of the target it's the same as 83% chance to hit in XCOM. It's effectively the same "dice rolling" RNG despite a "realistic" ballistics system.

It's not the same at all, because you know what your shot could be hitting if you miss. If you've ever played one of the first two X-Coms (the '90s ones, not the reboots), Jagged Alliance 2, Silent Storm, Xenonauts, etc, you'll really appreciate how much information the free aim gives you about where your shot could end up.

What I mean by that is that you have some chance to hit in both cases and in both cases it's RNG. Ok, in PP you can hit something else if you miss, but 99% of the time it doesn't matter. Actually, XCOM 2 has a similar mechanic, but very simplified, e.g. you can hit a section of the wall behind the target and make a hole in the wall (full cover -> half cover). You can also accidentally hit an explosive barrel and it will explode. Such cases are rare, because of low environmental damage of most weapons, but still (friendly fire is impossible though).

PS: i have played first 3 original X-Coms, they are very good, but i like new XCOMs more, because they have more tactical variety despite the simplification of some mechanics.

[ViiK]

引用自 Cynical：

引用自 ViiK：

I agree that this way of aiming gives you more information but the same amount of information can be given you by a small UI window as 7,62 did it or how in Commanders you had sniper scope (assuming it's replaced with a perspective view and not just zoomed in).
Regardless, free aim itself is a good feature. The issue is bugs and the rest of mechanics that makes those glitches pop-out more than necessary. In early builds, a single bugged shot was not a problem, now it can be as you do need a reliable DPS to deal with bullet sponges and avoid dying in a single burst.

It's been many years (over a decade, I think) since I played Brigade E5 and 7.62 High Calibre, but I don't remember those games having a perspective UI window? A brief glance through Brigade's manual isn't turning up any reference to one.

In 7,62 I think it's called "Aim View" and "FP View" buttons, they are next to the fire modes on the right.

[ViiK]

引用自 wortkarg：

引用自 Cynical：

It's not the same at all, because you know what your shot could be hitting if you miss. If you've ever played one of the first two X-Coms (the '90s ones, not the reboots), Jagged Alliance 2, Silent Storm, Xenonauts, etc, you'll really appreciate how much information the free aim gives you about where your shot could end up.

What I mean by that is that you have some chance to hit in both cases and in both cases it's RNG. Ok, in PP you can hit something else if you miss, but 99% of the time it doesn't matter. Actually, XCOM 2 has a similar mechanic, but very simplified, e.g. you can hit a section of the wall behind the target and make a hole in the wall (full cover -> half cover). You can also accidentally hit an explosive barrel and it will explode. Such cases are rare, because of low environmental damage of most weapons, but still (friendly fire is impossible though).

PS: i have played first 3 original X-Coms, they are very good, but i like new XCOMs more, because they have more tactical variety despite the simplification of some mechanics.

Practically yes. I personally prefer the ballistics way, when it actually works. I'm not a fan of XCom meta shooting but there is always a middle ground. Like for example Xenonauts 2 and JA2 have a proper bullet tracing in the world with a very simple and effective representation of hit chances on the screen. In JA2 1.13 you can even see the shape of the bullet spread changing depending on weapon mods and stance, it doesn't tell you any hit chances, just shows the same aiming reticle as in PP but overlayed isometrically. In Xenonauts 2 it tells you a percentage hit for target, obstacles and friedlies on the line of fire and doesn't have accuracy capped to 95%.

[Cynical]

引用自 wortkarg：

PS: i have played first 3 original X-Coms, they are very good, but i like new XCOMs more, because they have more tactical variety despite the simplification of some mechanics.

The "activiation" mechanics of the new XCOMs lead to the games having literally 0 depth at all regardless of everything else that's bad about them, because there's one optimal play at all times -- move one guy, if he sees someone alpha-strike it, if not then overwatch everyone else. All that matters is how much you can concentrate firepower when you discover an enemy (or an enemy discovers you, in the first game, since they won't ever shoot on their first turn). There's no tactical variety at all; just "how much damage can I put out in one turn?"

[SpiteAndMalice]

引用自 Dorok：

引用自 SpiteAndMalice：

It's not free aim that allows you to do that, it's the fact that the game has a ballistics model which simulates physics of a shot being fired.

Without free aim this information would be very approximate. Play Wasteland 2&3 and say me burst weapons allow the same information level than PP free aim, nope and from far.

But for sure Free aim is firstly about aiming parts, even if in a few cases it can allow seeing the series of targets that can be hit with a burst or a missed shot.

Please forgive me if I'm wrong, it's a good few years since I played these, but I don't think Wasteland 2 uses a ballistics model does it? From what I remember you either hit something or you don't. And I think Silent Storm does allows you to target body parts, but does it via percentages, Silent Storm also used a ballistics model which meant that you could hit other units/cause environmental damage if you missed.

Beyond the fact that you had a more accurate idea of how likely your shot was to succeed, the other advantage of a percentage system such as that used in Silent Storm was that you can make head shots suitably difficult to pull of and therefore make a successful head shot have the realistic effect of killing your target as opposed to just reducing it's movement points or some such which PP is having to resort to.

I seem to remember that Silent Storm also had a really nice sniping mechanic in it whereby you could focus your aim over multiple turns in order to increased your chances of making a shot, basically the more APs you invested in your shot the more likely you were to make it.

[Dorok]

引用自 SpiteAndMalice：

引用自 Dorok：

Without free aim this information would be very approximate. Play Wasteland 2&3 and say me burst weapons allow the same information level than PP free aim, nope and from far.

But for sure Free aim is firstly about aiming parts, even if in a few cases it can allow seeing the series of targets that can be hit with a burst or a missed shot.

Please forgive me if I'm wrong, it's a good few years since I played these, but I don't think Wasteland 2 uses a ballistics model does it? From what I remember you either hit something or you don't.

Nope, it's a sort of ballistic model in the sense that for weapons burst it's "life" of each bullet that is managed. That's a major feature for burst weapons, aim a pack of enemies will allow bullets missing target have a chance hit target more in back, and it's more enemies a bit in a line if the spread is low.

I don't remind for other weapons with one bullet. For the shotgun it's very special and only an AOE or sort of.

For environment and damages, I don't think cover can be destroyed, but you can aim explosive stuff. It not because the bullets are managed, more because it's not destroyable environment. I don't consider paper cover as XCOM as a better design, only different. In WL1&2 combats don't lost their mobility and don't result in endless shooting from covers (a la old xcom), because AI getting better angles or range is common.

引用自 SpiteAndMalice：

And I think Silent Storm does allows you to target body parts, but does it via percentages, Silent Storm also used a ballistics model which meant that you could hit other units/cause environmental damage if you missed.

For Silent Storm it should be closer to a physic model.

引用自 SpiteAndMalice：

Beyond the fact that you had a more accurate idea of how likely your shot was to succeed, the other advantage of a percentage system such as that used in Silent Storm was that you can make head shots suitably difficult to pull of and therefore make a successful head shot have the realistic effect of killing your target as opposed to just reducing it's movement points or some such which PP is having to resort to.

I seem to remember that Silent Storm also had a really nice sniping mechanic in it whereby you could focus your aim over multiple turns in order to increased your chances of making a shot, basically the more APs you invested in your shot the more likely you were to make it.

For sure a percentage system is very different, but in general it also means that aim a part and miss it doesn't hit another part, that's the deal of percentage systems with aiming parts.

The paradox of PP system is it is more interesting for burst weapons, but more powerful for precision weapons. It's an interesting system but it is missing something balancing better long and close range, precision and burst spreading.

Sure cumulate turns to get a fair chance of head shot is sort of balanced and even a bit realistic, but it's borderline slow, and still favoring static camping which is hardly generating sophisticated gameplay. I don't know well Silent Storm, it was working very well, for sure it's captivating but then I get a bit tired of doors and windows management, and I started have bugs, certainly because of running it with wine, and gave up.

[ViiK]

引用自 SpiteAndMalice：

引用自 Dorok：

Without free aim this information would be very approximate. Play Wasteland 2&3 and say me burst weapons allow the same information level than PP free aim, nope and from far.

But for sure Free aim is firstly about aiming parts, even if in a few cases it can allow seeing the series of targets that can be hit with a burst or a missed shot.

Please forgive me if I'm wrong, it's a good few years since I played these, but I don't think Wasteland 2 uses a ballistics model does it? From what I remember you either hit something or you don't. And I think Silent Storm does allows you to target body parts, but does it via percentages, Silent Storm also used a ballistics model which meant that you could hit other units/cause environmental damage if you missed.

Beyond the fact that you had a more accurate idea of how likely your shot was to succeed, the other advantage of a percentage system such as that used in Silent Storm was that you can make head shots suitably difficult to pull of and therefore make a successful head shot have the realistic effect of killing your target as opposed to just reducing it's movement points or some such which PP is having to resort to.

I seem to remember that Silent Storm also had a really nice sniping mechanic in it whereby you could focus your aim over multiple turns in order to increased your chances of making a shot, basically the more APs you invested in your shot the more likely you were to make it.

Yes, and missed headshot could still hit torso or other body part. Just as in PP default aim is at the center of mass in SS it aims at the torso by default or other body parts if selected. Later in the game, enemies have body armor and targeting limbs was one of the ways to dispatch them faster or cause limb injury.

[wortkarg]

引用自 Cynical：

The "activiation" mechanics of the new XCOMs lead to the games having literally 0 depth at all regardless of everything else that's bad about them, because there's one optimal play at all times -- move one guy, if he sees someone alpha-strike it, if not then overwatch everyone else. All that matters is how much you can concentrate firepower when you discover an enemy (or an enemy discovers you, in the first game, since they won't ever shoot on their first turn). There's no tactical variety at all; just "how much damage can I put out in one turn?"

I completely disagree. "Move one guy, reveal the enemy and concentrate firepower" is the PP way, not the XCOM way. If you play LW2/LWOTC on high difficulty levels, you will lose if you just "concentrate firepower". Depth implies thinking and planning and without pods and activation you have one less thing to think about. In LW2 you must carefully plan a route, scout the area, choose the optimal time and place to attack. Some missions must be completed without a single shot being fired. You must heavily use buffs/debuffs, control, positional maneuvers etc, otherwise you won't survive. "Concentrate firepower" is the worst tactic ever, this might partially work for vanilla, especially at low difficulty levels, but not for LW2/LWOTC.

[Robo]

Just dont use Free Aim when you do not need to disable specific part.

Now I am pretty sure there is bug in Free Aim where the game does not recognise where you are actually aiming.
Just had a mission where I have "missed" 4 free aim pistol shots in a row where the worm was 1 square away and the whole circle was safely inside his body hitbox.

Basicaly I am getting much better outcome by ignoring Free Aim - I have just stopped.
I have noticed earlier that it was strangely too common missing 2 sniper shots where maybe 10% of the circles were outside of the body. I think it was the same problem, the game does not recognize where I am aiming.

Also using free aim I have hit lamp post yesterday - which I was hiding behind ... and was not even in my view while free aiming.

I have just accepted that it is bugged - and ignore it where possible.

///

Also I have finally built all the archaeology weapons - they are OP and fun to use :)
But - the scyther is bugged (anyone still surprised?) and you cannot hit worm with it and more importantly ... you cannot hit spawnery with it. Just WOW :D

[Dorok]

@Robo:
If you can have the time, and even better if you have a save to reproduce the bug, you should submit it. If there's no obstacles and no holes in the large circle it should be a 100% hit. if not it's a big bug.

引用自 wortkarg：

引用自 Cynical：

The "activiation" mechanics of the new XCOMs lead to the games having literally 0 depth at all regardless of everything else that's bad about them, because there's one optimal play at all times -- move one guy, if he sees someone alpha-strike it, if not then overwatch everyone else. All that matters is how much you can concentrate firepower when you discover an enemy (or an enemy discovers you, in the first game, since they won't ever shoot on their first turn). There's no tactical variety at all; just "how much damage can I put out in one turn?"

I completely disagree. "Move one guy, reveal the enemy and concentrate firepower" is the PP way, not the XCOM way. If you play LW2/LWOTC on high difficulty levels, you will lose if you just "concentrate firepower". Depth implies thinking and planning and without pods and activation you have one less thing to think about. In LW2 you must carefully plan a route, scout the area, choose the optimal time and place to attack. Some missions must be completed without a single shot being fired. You must heavily use buffs/debuffs, control, positional maneuvers etc, otherwise you won't survive. "Concentrate firepower" is the worst tactic ever, this might partially work for vanilla, especially at low difficulty levels, but not for LW2/LWOTC.

With the part system PP offers a lot of options to not bother kill enemies. You can consider some like alternate kill, but that's questionable and some aren't that. Some example:
- Target legs can make the enemy so slow that you often can ignore him, at least during some turns.
- Target arm can disable weapon usage. Ok often it's like a little death but in those cases, it's even better than a kill because such an enemy will take time to leave the combat, often this will delay reinforcement/replacement.
- Target weapon is an aternative to remove a weapon to an enemy.
- Target some parts to disable a rather dangerous skill can allow put the target in a second priority. For sure the Siren case and head to disable mental control or some other skill is an example but there are many other cases.

Generate panic, there's multiple cases where panic an enemy will allow focus another. For sure kills does help, but head shots often does it, moreover the under-evaluated virus weapons can be a very effective tool against that.

Paralyze or slow down. Paralyze to slow down or full paralysis are effective too to ignore kill an enemy.

Enemies healing, when enemies or one enemy has healing ability, hurt and not kill is a good tool to take busy one or two enemy.

And I could continue the list quite more. To temper I admit that often most of those cases are useful when there's a strong pressure during the combat, if not, often kill is simpler and still effective plus does morale damages to enemies. But still, PP has a lot of mechanisms allowing better actions than focus kill one enemy then next.

I played Long War 2 and don't remind anything 25% as close and I'm gentle for LW2. So I have two questions, an example of let's play campaign showing it rather often. Cases explaining the reasons to not kill one enemy, the repeat with next.

[wortkarg]

引用自 Dorok：

But still, PP has a lot of mechanisms allowing better actions than focus kill one enemy then next.

I'm not saying there aren't such options in PP, what I am saying is that XCOM 2 has more such options and they are used more often. XCOM 2 has a lot of unique abilities and you can combine them in a myriad of ways. You can make use of "Untouchable" and use your assault as bait, you can use "Justice" to pull an enemy to you or "Grapple" to change the position. You have a lot of buff/debuff variants. You can disable some abilities of the enemy or the enemy itself. You have many mind control options. You can do a tactical retreat to make a "Kill Zone" trap.

The options in PP are primarily based on body parts and there's not a lot of variety, you shoot at the part of the body that weakens the particular enemy type the best, e.g. for sniper it can be the arm, but it's still a shot, you have not a choice between shooting and disabling/debuffs. PP lacks a variety of interesting tactical abilities imho.

The success formula of XCOM 2 for me: many unique abilities + mission type and map vatiety + enemy vatiety + concealment system + hacking system + ...

引用自 Dorok：

I played Long War 2 and don't remind anything 25% as close and I'm gentle for LW2

In context of difficulty or variety? As for difficulty, i've seen a lot of let's plays of both games and LW2 on Legend is noticeably harder than PP on Legend for an experienced player (PP is harder than vanilla XCOM 2 though).
As for tactical variety, it all depends on the play style. If you only use direct damage options and don't bother with routing, scouting, positioning and non-damaging abilities then you won't see much tactical variety.

引用自 Dorok：

So I have two questions, an example of let's play campaign showing it rather often. Cases explaining the reasons to not kill one enemy, the repeat with next.

As an example you can have a look on some xwynns LW2 let's play on Legend (especially hard missions).

As for reasons to not kill one enemy, it's pretty simple: we either don't have enough firepower or we can't flank the enemy. It's a normal case on Legend. When you can't reliably kill all enemies until end of this turn, it's a way better to disable some enemies or to use buffs/debuffs/control or some tactical retreat or repositioning. If someone tries to solve a problem by shooting enemies in such situations until he run out of APs, and then complaining that the game heavily depends on RNG, i would say, that not the game is bad, but the used tactic.

[Dorok]

Well for LW2 that's short and vague for reasons to not kill one enemy, then pick another and repeat. It's no match and from very far to the list I provided for PP. Argue a lot is coming from parts change nothing that there's many efficient tactics involving not kill an enemy pick another and repeat.

I have watch LW2 let's play including from xwynns if I remember well, and sorry but nope I don't remind LW2 is designed against pick any enemy kill pick another and repeat.

That your list of reasons is so short and vague is saying a lot. And argue that can't kill one enemy in a turn is an example isn't a good case at all.

For the rest for sure it's pretty obvious PP Legend is less hard than LW2 but also XCOM2, all the whining on that is very bizarre. Otherwise no I don't buy most of your other comments. And quote the hacking gambling lol. But let agree to disagree.

[Elevrai]

引用自 wortkarg：

The options in PP are primarily based on body parts and there's not a lot of variety, you shoot at the part of the body that weakens the particular enemy type the best, e.g. for sniper it can be the arm, but it's still a shot, you have not a choice between shooting and disabling/debuffs. PP lacks a variety of interesting tactical abilities imho.

Agreed and it totally shows up when you want to check defense options (ie, smoke grenades or reposition units which already moved) or altenatives beside you shoot, shoot or shoot.