UFO-Assault just convinced me.. by FAR!

[Zyxpsilon]

Ok -- JL.. ya know me right? How slightly biased i am with Balance concerns & difficulty level choices made with'n'by various acceptable gameplay rules. Your design & concept(s) are really cool while (re-)producing the intended effects; It IS a new but still brutal war out there.

Just got into my first UFO mission and it's mind boggling to say the least. Expectable and yet.. there are sooooooo many older XC2 elements missing, the plan of actions no longer fits the deal. I'm baffled, exposed to mysteries of great magnitude and -i'll be blunt-- feel terribly under-powered not only by wits (Not from the excellent AI.. it's my lack of intellectual tricks even at Rookie level) but by what sort of battle tools (insert your favorite "Quality vs Quantity" motto here) i have access to most of the time. It's as if the XC2 experience must/should be revised and reconsidered -- almost entirely.

Soooooo -- it simply .. works. You got it right. Spectacular Strategy immersion gimmicks stacking by the hours of struggling try-out(s) to Win Hopefully or Lose hard.

I will explore all of these INI fine-tuning probabilities (count on it, my sanity is at stake) you graciously inserted (again + more) for us all, thanks.
Middle of May currently.. limited Regions coverage (3, 2 more soon).. Heavy Advent threat numbers.. some success & failure. The fun is there -- spitting venom all over my brain.

Thus what's the damn point of this post.
Please.
Very small suggestions (or request) below.

-- Unless you can find rational or reasonable objections.. gimme back the wild magical Repeaters one way or another.
EDIT... -- Face-Off .. Fan-Fire are all but two pivotal XC2 Perks (specially for a "true" Sharpshooter) that i certainly will miss foverer if i don't get them both back. Vipers Nest Mission with extremely weak Bradford (now it seems) included. (Disregard.. I screwed up!)
-- Ruleset .. Buy Infiltration "time" with Intel should scale relatively to 100% max with a proportional Costs/Ratio. Say spend full 25 to go from 50/100% .. but only 15 when trying to gap 75/100%. This comes along with a new principle though.. we would get this kind of an offer at any time rather than having to wait for the proper Expiration stage.
-- I dunno yet what lies ahead.. if i discover anything else.. be back for more. **!

EDIT Next...
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-- HUD/UI .. The Soldiers stats lines (mostly appearing in the Barracks List & SquadManagement screens) could use some extra important Info(s).
Inserting two very specific things as smallish symbols straight into their individual Status ((possibly appended as prefix to the "Strings/Available+")) boxes; 1) Their SquadIcon & 2) Primary Weapon Tiers that could most likely be represented with five new 32x32 Texture2D (or Flash/sprites) that match as colors theme (Example -- Ballistic=Sand .. Laser=Red .. Magnetic=SkyBlue .. Coil=Violet .. Plasma=Green) or by whatever else your talented Art Staff should come up with. #2 could also be dropped to the right of the Dodge+GiftedPsi Stat entries, btw.

** Just adding a Mockup sample to somewhat visualize the idea -- click to see full-size;


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PS; Modding wise.. the stubborn XComGame.INT custom file doesn't dispatch stuff from my up-coming qUIck_LW2 mod as of today. I'm stuck with development -- Amineri might contact me later, no rush. Solution?

See ya!

[Arcalane]

-- Unless you can find rational or reasonable objections.. gimme back the wild magical Repeaters one way or another.

Repeaters were dumb and terrible and gimmicky. Feels like they made nice suppressor models, then had to find a new purpose for them when they couldn't get a good stealth mechanic down.

If you want something similar, try crits.

-- Face-Off .. Fan-Fire are all but two pivotal XC2 Perks (specially for a "true" Sharpshooter) that i certainly will miss foverer if i don't get them both back. Vipers Nest Mission with extremely weak Bradford (now it seems) included.

Any soldier can learn all pistol perks through Advanced Warfare Center training. Yes, any soldier and all of the perks. The order is randomized, but you can eventually get them all. It'll take about a month and a half of training to get there, but it can happen.

[Devon_v]

Stupid forum ate my post.

Anyway, intel boosts work fine. You can already do them at any time, and 100% is not the goal, it's the minimum objective.

[Zyxpsilon]

@Arcalane..
Gee -- you're right. I didn't realize what most "Crits" situations really allow & that the Pistols section in AWC can probably offer similar features.. but i'm not sure if the exact Face-Off principle of shooting at every visible enemies in sight consecutively has an alternate solution in LW2 - yet!

@Devon_v..
What i'm more after with the relative Intel/Costs idea is that you could either spend a lot less or much more *BY* decisions rather than strict values.

[Arcalane]

@Arcalane..
Gee -- you're right. I didn't realize what most "Crits" situations really allow & that the Pistols section in AWC can probably offer similar features.. but i'm not sure if the exact Face-Off principle of shooting at every visible enemies in sight consecutively has an alternate solution in LW2 - yet!

I can assure you that the Faceoff perk still exists and is perfectly unlockable through AWC training. AWC training contains the core pistol perks with very few changes.

Screenshot proof with AWC lines deobfuscated; http://i.imgur.com/FcmsRoz.jpg

[Zyxpsilon]

Cool... i'm re-assured. (And certainly feels quite silly for mentionning that stuff in the OP --duh)

Quick follow-up questions though -- How did you "reveal" that tree? Rarely used (or new for LW2) Console command or yet another trick not everyone knows about?
TBH, i wish the LW-ToolBox Menu-Option that allow for regular combat Perk Trees to *NOT* show as locked -- should also be hooked to both the Officers + PsiOps and certainly, these new AWC details.

[Arcalane]

LW mod's config directory (steam modid: 844674609), XComLW_AWCPack.ini, line 3;

Code: Select all

ALWAYSSHOW=true			;display all future abilities instead of displaying "locked" 

Defaults to false. Setting it to 'true' reveals the whole AWC tree.

However, do not change line 4;

Code: Select all

ALLOWTRAININGINARMORY=false	;allows training of abilities when UI accessed from Armory, not just from AWC

...to true. The proper functionality for this will be implemented in 1.1; as it stands, it's a debug option and using it is functionally cheating, as it instantly adds the selected AWC perk to your soldier. Besides that it doesn't seem to properly unlock the perk in the tree anyway, so you're just gonna soft-break your save and make the AWC very confused about training, I think.

The XComLW_OfficerPack.ini has a similar third line for revealing all of the officer perks, although it's less significant since as far as I can tell all of the officer perks are preset/locked.

[Zyxpsilon]

Yeah.. all we really need now is to prevent our Officers & AWC trainies to stop losing their "LoadOut Inventories" (Items & Primary Weapons) when going in-&-out of these places.

[Zyxpsilon]

Updated the HUD/UI suggestion in Post #1 with a mockup sample. My Gunner Magnus Hagen's primary weapon is Plasma, etc!

[Zyxpsilon]

EDIT Next...

-- Ruleset; The Defend Resistance Supply Convoy special missions have no EVAC zone or Call-for.. thus, when it was completed i just expected to receive rewards or proper loot for such an epic battle along side cool local Haven support soldiers. Zero-nada-ziltch.

More than dissapointing.. it simply isn't within rational gameplay principles (those that are already there .. at least by LW2 rules).
Suggestion then... either give us some Corpses & Artifacts or outright offer the current Monthly Supply amount of that Region as immediate Bonus.
We were able to defend it -- might as well earn something for the task.

[Zyxpsilon]

oooppss.. just realized the right side margin of the Stats section is already "occupied" by the Promote/Psi symbol(s) which means that area can't really be used for other elements.

Although.. the extra space/box (where i inserted SquadIcons as reminders) could be designed as a multi-toggle Morphshape GFX asset. Maybe with self-filling pie-slices into pentagon or star placeholders of these five colored tier references for Weapons. And another (Shield?) with three triangular sections for Armors.
Then players would have access to a variety of important details simply through the usual parser/banner clicks.

I remember XMTS could create cool Morphshape stuff for Flash.. if need be he might be interested by this idea -- assuming LW2 staff agrees to implement it though.

[Zyxpsilon]

Okay.. i've given much deeper thoughts to my mockup suggestion for the "Weapons & Armors" tiers and how we could manage to provide direct hints in the SoldierList(s) and SquadManagement screen(s).

I've also dug out the generic LW_Toobox structure and its scripted (by UIPersonnel_SoldierListItem_LW.uc Class) processing involved only to discover how exactly you insert (via pre-determined UILibrary_LWToolbox.UPK assets) the stats (36x36) "symbols" beside their respective values. Case in point, the Aim-CrossHair & the Defense-Shield Icons.

I feel both of these could be programmatically (UC code really allows for such dynamic elements, AFAIC) made to host some self-coloring variations of the basic Sprite/Shapes. Without having to steal extra space on these HUD sections as per my initial assumption and its silly set of five dots.

This is the most optimal way to offer a good QoL feature without too much coding leg-work, IMHO. Besides.. everything necessary would then be neatly aligned with the "Classes" details straight up where most people would tend to seek out the Info.

Opinions from Pavonis staff or even, some other modders interested by the idea?

[Zyxpsilon]

EDIT Next...

-- Ruleset/Balance: The Suppressors & Chameleon Suits are waaaayyyy short of their inherent (or intended) values both in terms of LootAcquisition, PG projects, overall Costs & more importantly.. how many Inflitration/Cut (default) hours they have to offer.

Logically and for me to ever consider bothering use some, they'd have to be re-calibrated like this or whatever else you might accept to adjust;
Basic == 4/6 .. Advanced == 8/12 .. Elite == 12/16 .. worthy (of a WUP slot) hours.
Chameleon Suits == Half or Full Day.

OP? Yes.. probably. As of now though, they're all cluttering my micro-managing devices for nada -- even when discarded via pretty rare BlackMarket premium-sellout opportunities.

-- QoL/Info: I get that you wanted to set a mystery gimmick by "hiding" the Facility reveals when they've been almost shown by a VERY rapid banner hint below the Doom Tracker.. but about two months ago i got one such swift Info -- and i just can't recall what Region that precise counter-reaction to alien activities attempt should be either scanned for or skulljacked to obtain a *random* Lead/Pad.

Thus.. once the hint(s) start to appear officially -- please try adding a few HUD ways to help us take the right decisions at the most optimal times by;

-- 1) Coloring that Region red and/or (still, early if you must) dump the Red/Triangular 3d Model on the Geoscape, or
-- 2) Put a small symbol (mini-triangles? Remember the EU radar!) in the Haven-Management list. We got two cool Cyan dots for the Liberation steps, didn't we?
-- 3) Drop a dedicated Tag in any of the affected Region Banner(s) somewhere.. but more obvious than those minuscule HA rank Icons.

Please?!

[Zyxpsilon]

EDIT Next...

-- Ruleset/Storyline: The major missions (BlackSite, PsiGate & TheForge.. and i suspect, the real NetworkTower + Waterworld too) now have high Infiltration times to deal with. IMHO, this extra step is artificial delays for nothing absolutely "important" at that point. It certainly puts the best Squad away for a long while & frankly.. stalls gameplay progress (that encompassing win or lose condition) where it shouldn't matter all that much anymore.
XCom2 had it perfectly right in that case.. you got ready & strong enough to face the inevitable & just went there as soon as you wished or decided to!

Sooooooo.. please remove those 10/12+ days obstacles for such authentic Storyline related missions. We have plenty enough concerns to handle everywhere else already (even simultaneously to the above.. three times only!) to feed the regular gathering of resources, Tech+Engineering flows & Resistance build-up.

[Zyxpsilon]

EDIT Next...

-- HUD/QoL: The Haven management screen (aka-Resistance Overview) could really use some additional ways to inspect various (other) details. I could have done some mockup to better visualize such possible enhancements (maybe i will later) but here goes the essentials;

1) Although it would probably require to be sligthly wider to insert a few new columns or "buffer spacing" to make it less crowded, i feel a number of special elements should be added to the current framework..

____ REGION ____ ADVENT STRENGTH ____ HAVEN ____ HA ____ INCOME ____

Could be altered with...

_#__ REGION __**__ ADVENT STRENGTH __&__ HAVEN __$__ HA __!__ INCOME _%%%___

Where individual columns are filled with such values or related symbols (centered or aligned, btw)..

# == Tower-Relays or HQ symbol -- might be more stuff. Squads presently deployed in that region?
** == Liberation/Chain Pips (remember my tiny red triangles too?)
& == Rebels count.. followed by the usual Tasks/Formula under "HAVEN" (Heck, even RealityMachina has modded new custom jobs like "Manufacture" & "Facility Hunt", etc)..
$ == Mecs
HA == Maybe add a Tooltip that reveals the HA names or pictures here.
! == Clickable/Toggle for the new last column below..
%%% == INCOME is somewhat nice to know at a glance but full status of other important things like "Intelligence" (stacked Points/expected Missions), "Recruiting" (cumulative Impacts/Time gaps) or whatever else you might want to present us there.

2) I'd suggest using formal Icons (many cool choices to pick from Vanilla assets) to limit the impact on Localization strings where it matters most. INCOME=§...

3) There's ample UI space in each Haven headers area also. Aside from the HA picture box.. a lot of special details might be allocated there as well.

Such a tight summary feature would go a long way towards providing the straight facts where we (already) intuitively expect them to be. Please!?