[Suggestion] Switch the AP-costs of picking up and putting down when carrying

[zorigo]

First of all, great job with the mod. It has revitalized XCOM 2 for me enormously.

A suggestion that has been bugging me for long; it costs an action point to put people down when carrying and it's free to pick them up. I think it should be the other way around for two reasons.

1. Realism. It's much more of an effort to pick someone up than just drop'em to the ground.

2. Gameplay reasons.

Currently, if you decide to pick someone up you can do that for free and start running. Not fun, as there is no movement cost involved which it really should be when carrying someone. If you later find yourself in a bad situation where you need to drop the soldier that is carried, you can only drop and shoot without moving or move and drop but then you can't take any action until the next turn. This effectively renders the carrying soldier to be incapacitated for a turn when it should really only be to drop the damn body to the ground and take action. If you pick up a downed soldier, don't meet any enemies and don't put them down for the remainder of the mission, there is no cost whatsoever for the carrying soldier which I also find lacking from a gameplay perspective.

If this is changed according to my suggestion, carrying a downed soldier would instead have a "cost" in terms of movement when picking the body up. This creates situations where you have to choose; will I make it to EVAC in time if I waste this AP by carrying? If you then run into aliens you can quickly put the soldier down and take necessary action. However, by doing that you effectively waste another AP of movement if you want to pick him/her up again and try to bring them to EVAC. Thus again, this creates the possibility to choose; do I need this soldiers firepower this turn but to the risk of loosing the carried soldier?

To summarize, I think this change will create more movement based costs of carrying while at the same time opens up for decisions regarding firepower vs. the possibility to EVAC a downed soldier. As it is now, there is basically no movement penalty while the soldier at the same time doesn't really have a chance to choose if to engage in a firefight. Two negatives in my book.

I know there is another mod at Steam Workshop that aims to handle this, but the pick-up option contains a bug making it impossible to implement a pick-up AP cost.

[Garthor]

No. This would make it basically impossible to ever recover a downed soldier. Critically wounded soldiers tend to get launched out of cover so you're asking people to end their turn in the open? Ridiculous.

There's no need to heap penalties on top of already harsh penalties.

[nightwyrm]

This makes it even more difficult to kidnap VIPs though since knocking them out also takes an action. In my last Lib3 mission, I was able to move, punch, have my leader Command my puncher who then picks up VIP and run out of a sticky situation. Impossible to do if pick up isn't free.

[zorigo]

No. This would make it basically impossible to ever recover a downed soldier. Critically wounded soldiers tend to get launched out of cover so you're asking people to end their turn in the open? Ridiculous.

There's no need to heap penalties on top of already harsh penalties.

While I don't find it ridiculous, you still have a point regarding ending a turn in the open. However, a flashbang and a smoke (or a lot of other options) can solve the problem.

I also don't think I'm heaping penalties on already harsh penalties. The suggested change would be a penalty in one way, but free up the possible choices and solutions to other problems. In this case that you more easily can drop a soldier or a VIP to move and engage in a firefight if it's needed. Today this isn't possible due to dropping costing an AP, and I would consider this a huge improvement buffing XCOM.

In general and from how I have understood the devs, Long War is about creating situations and choices and giving the player the tools to handle these situations and choices. I think my suggestion creates just that while eliminating a situation where you earlier really had no choice (if you picked up a soldier or VIP, you are bascially dedicated to that without the possibility to react to what happens on the battlefield).

This makes it even more difficult to kidnap VIPs though since knocking them out also takes an action. In my last Lib3 mission, I was able to move, punch, have my leader Command my puncher who then picks up VIP and run out of a sticky situation. Impossible to do if pick up isn't free.

My suggestion wouldn't make this impossible, I don't suggest that picking up should take 2 AP. However, you would only have gotten one move instead of dash after picking up the VIP, which I find quite reasonable. Three moves, a knockout and a pickup in the same turn sounds a bit OP to me, even when using Command.

[nightwyrm]

This makes it even more difficult to kidnap VIPs though since knocking them out also takes an action. In my last Lib3 mission, I was able to move, punch, have my leader Command my puncher who then picks up VIP and run out of a sticky situation. Impossible to do if pick up isn't free.

My suggestion wouldn't make this impossible, I don't suggest that picking up should take 2 AP. However, you would only have gotten one move instead of dash after picking up the VIP, which I find quite reasonable. Three moves, a knockout and a pickup in the same turn sounds a bit OP to me, even when using Command.

Otherwise, you will either have a soldier end his turn next to the VIP or start his turn next to the VIP. Since VIP loves to stand out in the open, that's a death sentence for the soldier.

[zorigo]

This makes it even more difficult to kidnap VIPs though since knocking them out also takes an action. In my last Lib3 mission, I was able to move, punch, have my leader Command my puncher who then picks up VIP and run out of a sticky situation. Impossible to do if pick up isn't free.

My suggestion wouldn't make this impossible, I don't suggest that picking up should take 2 AP. However, you would only have gotten one move instead of dash after picking up the VIP, which I find quite reasonable. Three moves, a knockout and a pickup in the same turn sounds a bit OP to me, even when using Command.

Otherwise, you will either have a soldier end his turn next to the VIP or start his turn next to the VIP. Since VIP loves to stand out in the open, that's a death sentence for the soldier.

Hmm, maybe I misunderstood something, but you could still move in, knockout, command, pick up and move again. Basically the same as your situation except you could move double as far in your example as would be possible in my example. The only reason to be left standing in the open in your example is that knockout costs 1 AP, which it already does. My suggestion doesn't affect it.

[nightwyrm]

My suggestion wouldn't make this impossible, I don't suggest that picking up should take 2 AP. However, you would only have gotten one move instead of dash after picking up the VIP, which I find quite reasonable. Three moves, a knockout and a pickup in the same turn sounds a bit OP to me, even when using Command.

Otherwise, you will either have a soldier end his turn next to the VIP or start his turn next to the VIP. Since VIP loves to stand out in the open, that's a death sentence for the soldier.

Hmm, maybe I misunderstood something, but you could still move in, knockout, command, pick up and move again. Basically the same as your situation except you could move double as far in your example as would be possible in my example. The only reason to be left standing in the open in your example is that knockout costs 1 AP, which it already does. My suggestion doesn't affect it.

If picking up requires an action then:

Move In - 1 action
Knock Out - 1 action
Pick Up - 1 action
Move Out - 1 action

4 actions total. And even with Command, the most actions you can take is 3 actions. Since the actions have to be taken in sequence, you can either do Move In, Knock Out, Pick Up which leaves you standing in a square beside the VIP, or you can do Knock Out, Pick Up and Move Out which requires you to have Moved In previously and started your turn next to the VIP

[Postmaster]

More logical, maybe. But the current system is better gameplay. As other people have stated better than I, it's stacking penalties on top of penalties.

[Pawnman]

I do agree with you first point about realism! Hard to argue against picking someone up is harder than putting someone down...

But for your balance argument first;

Currently, if you decide to pick someone up you can do that for free and start running. Not fun, as there is no movement cost involved which it really should be when carrying someone.

I think our definitions of "fun" are quite different first off. Let's consider a sticky situation where on the last alien turn before my Evac arrives I have a soldier outside of the flare zone get crit wounded and enter bleed out state! I'd find it ridiculous from a balance perspective if I would have to dedicate an action point to picking up the soldier, meaning if I didn't have another soldier sitting right next to the crit wounded soldier when he got hit (which is risky bunching up vs enemies with AOE attacks, so there are many situations where this would be ill advised) or if said crit wounded soldier isn't in blue move (single AP) range from the evac flare etc... I just can't see myself enjoying/finding it very fun to either have to risk the rest of my squad staying the extra turn it would take to evac a crit wounded soldier with the added AP cost or leave a veteran soldier behind (plus his gear) sense I don't find it worth the risk. I would actually hate that decision tbh...

If this is changed according to my suggestion, carrying a downed soldier would instead have a "cost" in terms of movement when picking the body up.

I'd be alright with this... have a mobility debuff for carrying a VIP/Wounded soldier. If I had to decide between carrying a body costing an action point vs Mobility penalty for carrying a body! I'd choose the latter. But certainly not both! Again, IMO that would be to gamebreaking balance-wise.

To summarize, I think this change will create more movement based costs of carrying while at the same time opens up for decisions regarding firepower vs. the possibility to EVAC a downed soldier. As it is now, there is basically no movement penalty while the soldier at the same time doesn't really have a chance to choose if to engage in a firefight. Two negatives in my book.

I'm not really sure how often you find yourself in a situation where you really feel the necessity to be able to drop a carried body and still have both action points on the soldier remaining... But I've only come across this situation (where I'd wish I could do this) only once!! In all my vanilla Xcom 2 + Long war 2 experience thus far! I don't see this as a negative at all mostly because I find these situations far too rare! especially if I imagine all the opposite situations where having the "Carry body" costing an action would utterly ruin many lives of veteran soldiers. Especially in Long war 2!

I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with this change. As I feel, even though realistic, it would do more harm than good for most players.

[zorigo]

While I still think it would be a suitable change, It's quite obvious even from just four persons answering that I don't have the majority with me. I'll have to solve this by personal modding

Thank you for your input!