Are there no aiming angles in LW2?

[Tyranniac]

So, I started up my first LW2 campaign yesterday, and quickly realized that even when I was only 1 tile away from flanking an enemy I was getting zero bonus to hit chance. Are Aiming Angles not a thing in LW2? Even vanilla XCOM 2 had a reduced version of the system, which was something at least, although not on par with EW's version.

[JLtheking]

Yep, the aiming angles settings have been removed from vanilla. I believe you can get it back from going into LW2's XComGameCore.ini and removing the relevant lines, or changing it to ones you desire. Search for "HIGH_COVER" and it should be a few lines down.

Perhaps someone from the team could chime in on why they removed it? I for one loved Aiming Angles from LW1. Now not only are you punished by free actions from accidental pod reveals, but you aren't rewarded for even attempting to flank.

[Tyranniac]

Yep, the aiming angles settings have been removed from vanilla. I believe you can get it back from going into LW2's XComGameCore.ini and removing the relevant lines, or changing it to ones you desire. Search for "HIGH_COVER" and it should be a few lines down.

Perhaps someone from the team could chime in on why they removed it? I for one loved Aiming Angles from LW1. Now not only are you punished by free actions from accidental pod reveals, but you aren't rewarded for even attempting to flank.

Yeah, I managed to find the relevant lines and re-add it manually (after a couple of missteps). I'd also like to know why it was removed in the first place, seems like a strange design decision. The game becomes very "all or nothing" without it.

EDIT: accidentally a word

[johnnylump]

We had a lively internal discussion over aiming angles. I've never been a big fan of them to begin with. I don't recall the particulars, but we noted there are some wonky edge cases when they are turned on, so I made the call to turn them off entirely.

[Arcalane]

http://i.imgur.com/luNWhVy.jpg wonky edge cases are unavoidable either way. Without it, you'll get dumb situations like this where a target should be almost completely exposed but isn't.

[JLtheking]

Exactly. Pisses me off so much sometimes, especially because of XCOM2's wonky step-out mechanics. Lost me many a soldier.

Thankfully, aiming angles can all be configured in the base XCOM2 ini.

(With regards to your sniper screenshot, you can increase the tile range of when aiming angles can apply!) I just set mine to 999 tiles as I always thought it was arbitrary.

[xwynns]

I wouldn't play lw1 without AA on and I was the #1 proponent behind keeping them on in lw2, yet despite this I'm mostly glad they are off.
Reasons:
1) I *think* they do not apply for enemy units as they did in lw1, so it's just an xcom buff
2) Always wonky. Much frustration.
3) They interfered with aim scaling through a campaign. Nerfing the AA bonus to account for this just made AA so marginal as to not be worth caring about.
4) Generally speaking I ended up not caring about AA that much, except for when I needed it desperately and then it was either overpowered or wonky and ended in frustration.

In a perfect world they could be made symmetrical, could work consistently and wouldn't affect aim scaling and then they could be turned on again but this is far too much work for the return compared to other stuff so I'd recommend leaving them off, though they are easily enabled should you disagree.

[Hazelnut]

I wouldn't play lw1 without AA on and I was the #1 proponent behind keeping them on in lw2, yet despite this I'm mostly glad they are off.
Reasons:
1) I *think* they do not apply for enemy units as they did in lw1, so it's just an xcom buff
2) Always wonky. Much frustration.
3) They interfered with aim scaling through a campaign. Nerfing the AA bonus to account for this just made AA so marginal as to not be worth caring about.
4) Generally speaking I ended up not caring about AA that much, except for when I needed it desperately and then it was either overpowered or wonky and ended in frustration.

In a perfect world they could be made symmetrical, could work consistently and wouldn't affect aim scaling and then they could be turned on again but this is far too much work for the return compared to other stuff so I'd recommend leaving them off, though they are easily enabled should you disagree.

I would prefer to have AA switched on, I found it a fantastic mechanic change in LW1 where I thought it affected both sides the same. If AA cannot apply to both sides then I will leave it off, anyone know for sure?

[Gallion]

http://i.imgur.com/luNWhVy.jpg wonky edge cases are unavoidable either way. Without it, you'll get dumb situations like this where a target should be almost completely exposed but isn't.

That might be gamey but it's not wonky, it makes perfect sense for the rules of the game and is consistent and easy to predict. It's no wonkier than horses not being able to move in a straight line in chess.

[Fizpez]

Took me a little while to get used to the change as well but I think I prefer the clarity of knowing its a binary. The models and positioning (as shown in the image) certainly make it look worse than it would be in reality for most objects which are not a perfectly square low profile object.

The solution to the frustration (if you havent already done so) is to install the Gotcha mod - no question at all about if you will achieve flank position or not.