I agree with your points, but i don't think that it should be the job of an enemy expansion to fix the somewhat flawed gameplay mechanics. I am not trying to shoulder a complete game overhaul here on my own ;)

By pairing ABA with some other mods, you can get an experience where the alpha striking isn't as prevalent anymore. Cover Damage Reduction, EU Aim Rolls and the better AI from my mod are the three greatest contributors for that imo.

Not to advertise or anything but I'm planning to make a L/I playthrough of the game with ABA and a bunch of other mods myself. I will upload it on my Youtube channel for posterity. ;)
I'm holding off for now until some of the technical issues are ironed out... and until I feel confident enough. ;)

Back on topic: I'd say the best way to boost the difficulty would be to nerf some of the tools the player has at their disposal. This is beyond the scope of ABA, obviously, so it would be up to each player to work out how to do it.
The three biggest culprits for the relatively easy end-game are, in my opinion, explosives, psionics and special ammo types.

Explosives are way too effective in general (they never miss, with upgrades they have an enormous radius, they apply harmful effects and deal good damage) and can be spammed without a touch of tactical thinking or finesse. To deal with this, I'd suggest getting the Grenade Damage Falloff and Explosions Destroy Corpses mods. These two alone will make a big difference, no matter what stage of the game you're in.

Bluescreen rounds are really overpowered too, especially coupled with mutiple-shot abilities and the fact that robotic units lack any bonuses to defence (or the bonuses they do have, like Heavy MECs are negligible). Reducing the effectiveness of Bluescreens would go a long way to making robotic enemies more relevant.

As for psionics, this would be more complicated to deal with. I'd go for things like increasing the Will of late-game units and revamping certain abilities. For example, my version of Mind Control would not be permanent but channelled; every turn, the victim would automatically perform a saving throw which, if successful, would break the MC.

My own playthrough will come with tweaks of my own, both to vanilla and some ABA units. I've already worked most of them out so let me give a few examples, in case you decide to change some things yourself:

-I've increased the health of Sectopods to 45 (up from 40), their aim to 80 (up from 70), their defence to 30% (up from 0) and hack defence to 175 (up from 150). This way, they are just a threatening as they were in Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within.

-Bluescreen rounds deal an additional 2 damage to robotic enemies, down from 5.

-Shots fired with Faceoff can no longer crit.

-Fan Fire shots have a 20% penalty to aim.

-Squadsight no longer works with concealed units.

-Mimic Beacon's health reduced by 50%.

-Increased the Will and Psi Offence values of certain enemies (Sectoid Commanders, Adept Captains, Gatekeepers).

-Sectopods and Gatekeepers are immune to Stasis and Repeaters.

-Avatars take 50% less damage from psionic effects.

And more... At the end of the day, there is not one mod out there that can cover every aspect of the game so the best way to boost the difficulty is to get a few mods and complement them with tweaks of your own. Happy hunting!

I'll just pimp my current modlist here: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=697435356

That turned out to be quite the good mix of mods that turn the game into a more tactical experience. Cover Damage Reduction also works for grenades, something that has been relevant many times. At this point, the only thing that i'd want to see fixed is Volatile Mix applying its' bonus damage to DoTs from grenades. Acid Grenades shouldn't tick for 5-7 damage per turn, that's just stupid.

Well, that and Psi soldiers. I don't have a solution for those yet. I think the best way would be disabling the current psi training and make them normal soldiers that have to earn experience on the battlefield like any other troop. The Psi lab would just be the prerequisite before you can train or randomly get them, like Grimy did it with his Fury class.

There is a mod that nerfs Psi soldiers:
It does something like this. They now have to attend missions to continue their training.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=672100679&searchtext=psi

Yes, these nerfs look very reasonable! Great suggestion, thanks.

Very good timing for this suggestion, too. On my current campaign, i just started building the Psi Lab. Going to put my first soldier in there in a few ingame days.

I think i will subscribe to this mod right now and give it a try. It even has an ini so i can add my variants to the domination nerf!

From my experience at a C/I playthrough, still unfinished, I can say the changes are overwhelmingly positive, and it makes the game far more interesting. Combined with Better Pods Plus, Squad Notoriety and Six Man Starting Squad, I get a really good Long War vibe out of it, being forced to swap between various teams and fighting varied enemies to which I have to adapt.

My best experience so far was at the beggining, when I lost an Infantry to an ADVENT Wrecker after failing to take into account how aggressive he'd be in pursuing a flank, and how much damage their crits could be. It made me feel vulnerable and alert.


On the negative side (which note might be longer than the positives only because the positives are "almost everything), I've got mostly peeves:

- One or two units feel redudant and steal space that could go for more interesting ones.
The ADVENT Guardian, for example, is one of them. The AI doesn't reliably make the pod is in give him the high cover and far away position he desperately needs, he ends up dying quickly with no armor, and he'll almost never get the chance to use his sniper rifle thanks to being a target of focus with low health and armor AND prioritizing his shield. Contrary to the Tech Commando, who becomes a real danger if let live, the Guardian is easily ignored even in the best conditions for him.
The Warden is promising, however, in my experience, he never makes use of his unique ability. In fact, all Stun Lancers have become less likely to charge you, and as such I feel they've become substancially less dangerous. Sure, a Lancer shouldn't suicide through a wall of Overwatch, but in my campaign they've perhaps hit my troops twice in total. Weirdly enough they seem to always go for mimic beacons, so giving them a lower minimum percentage melee priority while still being higher than vanilla could fix this.

- The Pods, even with BP, aren't varied enough. This is probably an issue with that forcelevel Captain bug that's being introduced with Alien Hunters, but it feels like I'm fighting the same types of pod over and over. And in that note, Sectoid variants have been increasingly rare. Didn't see a single non-vanilla sectoid since month three, which is weird, because vanilla sectoids come in truckloads, usually occupying three positions in the follower cue (and when they don't, they don't come at all).

- Speaking of Alien Hunters, is it your mod that makes the Rulers not appear for a long time, if at all, after their mission, or is it the fact I've got too many enemy mods installed? It's weird, the Rulers have a separate pod system and should take priority above all else.

Good feedback, thanks. Your "peeves" are more than just that imo, mostly i agree that there's certainly real potential for improvement for my mod in these areas.

--> Guardian: When i introduced the Guardian, i was having a lot of negative feedback about the Sniper Captain, who routinely oneshot soldiers left and right. I kept him a bit underpowered on purpose because of that. I guess he could use some slight buffs here and there. Nothing large, but some life and/or armor. You are right about how the Shield makes him less likely to use the rifle, but at least that part is fine by me.

--> Warden: I noticed that about him as well and raising his chance to charge has been on my list of things that i wanted to do, but then i forgot about it again :P The challenge here is making it so that his ability doesn't feel like a drawback.

--> Stunlancer AI: I am very satisfied with the Stunlancers. Yes, they are pretty much a completely different unit. But that's why we have Chryssalids now, they fill the suicidal melee slot quite nicely! Lancers will use their gun only when they have a priority shot (Flank, Killshot, etc) or when they can't reach someone with melee, else they will use the Stunlance. Of course, their high mobility means that they have an easy time flanking the player...

--> Pod variance: It's a combination of that bug and the limitations to alien pods. Personally, i think that Advent pods have great variance currently, but aliens are lacking.
As for Sectoids not spawning enough, i noticed that too and made some adjustments with yesterdays patch already. More detailed tweaks are planned. You are seeing lots of vanilla Sectoids, because i enabled my units as leaders only. The alien pod limitation pretty much forces me to do that - i don't want pods with a Muton and 4 Negators.

--> Missing rulers: Better Pods restricts them from Council missions and Avenger Defense. Other then that, no mod of mine changes anything about rulers.

One thing I like about you DerBK is that you're humble and engaged with the people who like the stuff you create. It's pretty cool to be able to talk to the mod author about their "product" and have them reply like you. Just wanted to put that out there.


As for suggestions I have two:

- I don't think anyone would mind if you started messing a bit with the vanilla enemies. Maybe removing the basic Codex, since she feels a lackluster jack-of-all-trades compared with its variants, or making so the Andromedon Shell is given one immediate action after it activates, considering it's little more than a hp buffer to experienced players. It's the type of thing it'd be best to ask around before, but it's one that could enrich the experience.

- As for the pods, I remember having a modder friend telling me it was in theory possible to "hardcode" pods, IE, making such some pods are forced to spawn as is. Making a good variety of these pods could solve the "4 Negators 1 Muton" problem. It is, however, a lot of work. I'll check with my friend when I can and tell you something soon, if you'd like.

Thanks. My goal is making the mod that i personally want to see, but that doesn't mean that input from others isn't welcome. This is my first mod, i would be stupid not to at least consider what other players have to say. Everyone of you is basically a free playtester for me :)
Also, i genuinely enjoy making ABA, so that helps with the morale :P

Anyways...
I don't want to fiddle with the basic enemies for several reasons. Compatibility is a big one. But i also like them. Usually you will first meet a vanilla unit and then, one forcelevel later the variants. Establishing the baseline is important to make the variants shine, imo. They have great value for flavor and feel of the campaign.

I know how to "hardcode" pods, the problem is that i'd have to link them into mission schedules somehow. These schedules are lists of the enemy pods that spawn in a mission. Basically, i could make a hardcoded pod, but then it would always appear on that mission. There's no random delivery system behind it.
The modder Fireborn (the guy behind the Hive Overlord and the Friendly AI) is currently working on one - once that is in place i can go nuts with muuuuch better pods, something i am looking forward to.