Thoughts on revealing the AWC soldier perks?

[brunodema]

So, I like testing crazy or unused builds on soldiers and I believe that perfect class balance means that every single perk should be useful at some point, but ofc that extremely hard to accomplish. I heard on Joinrbs stream that during testing, some testers played with AWC perks revealed but it didn't make to the final version, due to some skills like serial being too good to know in advance. I just want to know the feedback on it, because I believe that knowing the perks would make some unused builds way better, since you would be able to plan better your future soldier perks.

[Manifest]

Any RNG, (in this case, hiding the tree makes the ultimate fruits of your labor random, and not hiding them would make it guaranteed.) in the game is there to replace a spike in difficulty (of enemies) or lack of effectiveness (in players). In other words, if they took out the randomness of hiding the tree, since you could easily get the best abilities, they'd likely pull out the best abilities from the pool or make them take much longer to get.

[brunodema]

Thanks for the feedback. In the mean time, I just realized that you can retrain soldiers on the AWC, so my argument kinda has no point

Maybe lock the topic, delete it, etc

[nightwyrm]

I like having it revealed. Does it make the game easier? Yeah, a bit. But what perks you get is still random and the training time is significant. You're not suddenly going to have teams of super soldiers. Maybe 1 or 2 dudes would be better than otherwise but most of your roster would still be the same. You'd still train smokers and flashbangers and then stop coz the other perks are shit or not worth the 8-12 days training time coz they need to be out on the field.

You can't re-train AWC perks though.

[wadeanthony]

I like having it not hidden cause it allows me to build more unique characters. That 58 aim/13 mob Ranger that I was going to give up on ended up having Damn good ground and +2 damage perk as his tier 1/3 skills. If I didn't know it was there I would have stuck him in and heaven and never bothered but because I saw it I invested in him with a PCS and early game missions when he was a hindrance. Maybe you have a character that has a lot AWC perks that would allow you to take a path you normally wouldn't. Specialist with dead shot/light them up? I'd make that guy an overwatcher.

[Mooncabbage]

I like having the AWC perks hidden. I play with the fixed class perks shown, because they're the same for everyone so it's just pointless and frustrating otherwise. Finishing an AWC perk and seeing what's next is like Christmas morning

The way I play though, to make best use of the officers, is with more or less static squads. Thus, when a squad is rendered ineffective due to injuries, I will take the time to train AWC perks on the idle troopers. Thus for me it's not a core strategy, so much as a nice little bonus to make veteran squads more unique.

[LordYanaek]

I prefer to reveal them because i like to plan my soldiers build and suddenly realizing a TSGT Sharpshooter would be better specced as a Crit Sniper because of his (previously hidden) AWC perks annoys me. And no, retraining is not an option with current crazy times on high level soldiers so i just made them visible and upped the normal rank to get the lvl2 and lvl3 perks to balance. No OP early soldiers due to sheer luck, better planning for my soldiers builds, looks perfect to me.

And i would rather have the OP perks removed completely rather then relying on RNG to allow those perks only for lucky players

In case anyone wants to show them in advance, just edit XComLW_AWCPack.ini and change the 3rd line to

Code: Select all

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

[Randal Miser]

I heard on Joinrbs stream that during testing, some testers played with AWC perks revealed but it didn't make to the final version, due to some skills like serial being too good to know in advance.

This is the most insane balance reasoning I have ever heard for anything in my entire life.

This is like saying "Yea we had to hide your aim percentage chance, because it would be too good to know in advance how good your chance to hit is".

[brunodema]

so i just made them visible and upped the normal rank to get the lvl2 and lvl3 perks to balance. No OP early soldiers due to sheer luck, better planning for my soldiers builds, looks perfect to me.

And i would rather have the OP perks removed completely rather then relying on RNG to allow those perks only for lucky players

That's sound like a good tweak for balancing it, and I'll probably try it for my next campaign. Even if that makes the game easier, I'll focus on having fun on my next run

[Zloth]

Thanks LordYanaek!

Actually, that reminds me - why are soldiers' main abilities hidden? Seems like those should definitely be revealed both in LW2 and the Perk Pack. It would have saved me a lot of UFOPedia checks.

[nightwyrm]

Thanks LordYanaek!

Actually, that reminds me - why are soldiers' main abilities hidden? Seems like those should definitely be revealed both in LW2 and the Perk Pack. It would have saved me a lot of UFOPedia checks.

There's an option to reveal perk trees in the Options menu.

[Jacke]

Actually, that reminds me - why are soldiers' main abilities hidden? Seems like those should definitely be revealed both in LW2 and the Perk Pack. It would have saved me a lot of UFOPedia checks.

Showing those are under the control of an option. Look under Options - Abilities for View Locked Perks and turn it on. Then save your options.

Then save your game. Had no end of trouble restarting my campaign when I kept forgetting to save the game after changing the options.

[cerebrawl]

It's a fairly easy edit, but I really think this should be in the options menu, to each their own, people have different preferences on how they want to play, let them play their way.

[Sines]

Personally, I think it's better to show all the options. IIRC, a soldiers AWC list doesn't show up until they get a class (because it has to know which abilities to ban from the list), so you can't plan based on that. If the only justification is because some abilities are too powerful... well yah, then those abilities shouldn't be on there, or maybe just have much longer training times.

Showing the abilities ahead of time will promote more varied builds, simply because even generally underpowered builds can become much better with the right skills. While some perk choices are underwhelming, I don't think any perk choice is so poor that I wouldn't change my mind with the right AWC perks backing it up. I'm not a huge fan of the Rocketeer Build, but if I saw my Technical had Full Kit and/or Volatile Mix, I'd take them down a Rocketeer build because of the talents that also effect grenades.

While keeping it hidden discourages you from just looking through random soldiers for the 'perfect' AWC skill set, I don't think this outweighs the benefit to being able to plan out unusual builds on a character early. Throw in the fact that by the time you get the AWC you'll probably already be invested in a number of soldiers, and the AWC gives incentive to mix in certain new soldiers with interesting AWC options, and I feel that revealing the talents ahead of time is a net gain. Of course, I'll be turning on the option myself, but I think it should be set to be on by default. At the very least, 'upgrade' it to a menu option, rather than a .ini option.

=== P.S.

Having just turns on the game after editing it, the VERY first soldier I checked had a rather interesting loadout. HEAT Warheads, Salvo and Full Kit. Now, Rangers don't make the best supplementary Grenadiers, and Salvo is a bit redundant with Light 'Em Up in most cases. That he's my best Officer gives him even fewer actions. But still, imagine how differently I would have built him if I had known all this in advance. A Ranger specialized in Grenade usage. None of my other soldiers have quite that level of AWC synergy, but there are plenty others where I might have thought of going for far more atypical builds knowing their full AWC tree ahead of time.

While I haven't played a game from scratch with all this info, I can see it adding a lot more variety to different games, as you might never get that Grenade spec Ranger in any other game again.

Also, saw Shadowstrike a number of times. Unless the soldier has Phantom or Conceal, this ability is ridiculously limited. Covert and Ghostwalker are of limited use, but I can seem some use out of extra early game scouts, especially to try to get them into flanking positions. But Shadowstrike requires the unit using it to be the unit you break Concealment with. Without Phantom or Conceal to improve it, we're talking a single shot out of your whole team that qualifies. And given that you're usually opening that shot on someone already out in the open, it feels like overkill. Shadowstrike should be removed from the AWC pool.

[trihero]

Also, saw Shadowstrike a number of times. Unless the soldier has Phantom or Conceal, this ability is ridiculously limited. Covert and Ghostwalker are of limited use, but I can seem some use out of extra early game scouts, especially to try to get them into flanking positions. But Shadowstrike requires the unit using it to be the unit you break Concealment with. Without Phantom or Conceal to improve it, we're talking a single shot out of your whole team that qualifies. And given that you're usually opening that shot on someone already out in the open, it feels like overkill. Shadowstrike should be removed from the AWC pool.

I suggest you rethink shadowstrike - it applies to abilities like saturation fire, iron curtain, as well as grenadier/technical grenades/rockets if you got biggest booms taking them to 100% critical on that initial explosion....it is easily one of the BEST awc perks. My shadow striking iron curtain does about 10 damage at magnetic weapon tier (!) meaning I rek six out of 8 men in one iron curtain...better than any explosives at my level of tech.

[Sines]

I suggest you rethink shadowstrike - it applies to abilities like saturation fire, iron curtain, as well as grenadier/technical grenades/rockets if you got biggest booms taking them to 100% critical on that initial explosion....it is easily one of the BEST awc perks. My shadow striking iron curtain does about 10 damage at magnetic weapon tier (!) meaning I rek six out of 8 men in one iron curtain...better than any explosives at my level of tech.

Fair enough, but even then, unless you get it on a Sniper (or use the Shadowkeeper pistol), it's a one-use per mission ability, for the whole squad. And usually, you open from stealth with some kind of heavy weapons (grenades or Technical), if you're not just killing a single enemy with squadsight (although Snipers do get Phantom and Conceal, and are particularly good choices for Gunslingers).

I might use the .ini files to make it a restricted ability except for Snipers and Gunners, who are the only ones who can really use it all that well.

[trihero]

Fair enough, but even then, unless you get it on a Sniper (or use the Shadowkeeper pistol), it's a one-use per mission ability, for the whole squad. And usually, you open from stealth with some kind of heavy weapons (grenades or Technical), if you're not just killing a single enemy with squadsight (although Snipers do get Phantom and Conceal, and are particularly good choices for Gunslingers).

I might use the .ini files to make it a restricted ability except for Snipers and Gunners, who are the only ones who can really use it all that well.

At least it has exciting impact, in contrast to a lot of grenadier perks which are garbage for my troops that don't use grenades. I don't care about biggest booms on a shinobi, or covering fire on an assault. There are a lot of garbo perks out there, I haven't the faintest idea why you would pick on shadow strike considering it has absolutely *amazing* impact on certain classes (grenadier, technical, gunner, even assault with streetsweeper).

[Jacke]

I suggest you rethink shadowstrike - it applies to abilities like saturation fire, iron curtain, as well as grenadier/technical grenades/rockets if you got biggest booms taking them to 100% critical on that initial explosion....it is easily one of the BEST awc perks. My shadow striking iron curtain does about 10 damage at magnetic weapon tier (!) meaning I rek six out of 8 men in one iron curtain...better than any explosives at my level of tech.

Fair enough, but even then, unless you get it on a Sniper (or use the Shadowkeeper pistol), it's a one-use per mission ability, for the whole squad.

Or reading again what trihero wrote, any soldier with an AoE attack that crits, not just Gunners but also Grenadiers and Technicals with Biggest Booms, including those who have BB from AWC skills and throw grenades. And Assaults with Trench Gun or Street Sweeper. Maybe your Support Grenadier has Ghost Grenade. And as you point out, anyone who also takes the Shadowkeeper pistol might get double duty out of it.

And imagine that first pod having a single real tough target, like a Sectopod or worse. Set up others on overwatch to take out the trash and use Shadowstrike on the Big Bad, preferably Rupture from a Ranger or Gunner or someone with it as an AWC perk. Nice if they had Shredder too.

[NoDebate]

I play with zero class deck weighting and require soldiers be Sergeant, or higher, to receive Officer and AWC training. I also play with NCE and Hidden Potential.

As a compromise, I've allowed AWC perks to be visible. It hasn't felt terribly broken. I also find myself investing in more T2/T3 perks than previous campaigns where I had hidden the AWC perks.

[DerAva]

XCOM2 is at its best when you as the player are making interesting and meaningful decisions. You can only do that if you have enough information to make that decision. You obviously can't train all the AWC perks with all your soldiers, so deciding who and what gets trained is important. Seeing a terrible level one AWC perk like Deadeye with the other perks hidden would usually mean that you either don't waste your time or gamble, which is not an interesting way to make a decision. With the tree unhidden you might see that the soldier gets decent/good level 2 or 3 perks, so at that point you can actually decide whether or not you want to invest in training something awful to unlock something good further down the road, or if you don't want to waste your time with that. I prefer making informed decisions rather than gambling, so I play with the perks revealed.

[Sines]

Seeing a terrible level one AWC perk like Deadeye...

Deadeye is a terrible perk? It's a bit boring, but a flat +10% crit chance is useful on just about anybody. I'd say that the worst perks are the stealth ones. While they can occasionally be useful, for Specialists doing stealth missions or to help Technicals setup flamethrower ambushes, they are often not worth the training time. A much better example for 'terrible level one AWC perk' than Deadeye.

[Zyrrashijn]

You mean Deadshot. Deadeye is the perk that grants you a powerful attack with reduced aim.

[nightwyrm]

You mean Deadshot. Deadeye is the perk that grants you a powerful attack with reduced aim.

Deadeye wouldn't be so bad if it took only 1 action. My Assault with a shotgun in your face won't mind an aim penalty for massive damage.

ps. They should rename the perk Dead Ayyy.

[DerAva]

Yeah, Deadeye is the one the reduces your aim by 25% for a damage boost, and that is not a flat -25 but rather an actual percentage reduction, so you would need a pre-Deadeye aim of 133 to end up with a 100% chance to hit post Deadeye.

[cerebrawl]

And imagine that first pod having a single real tough target, like a Sectopod or worse. Set up others on overwatch to take out the trash and use Shadowstrike on the Big Bad, preferably Rupture from a Ranger or Gunner or someone with it as an AWC perk. Nice if they had Shredder too.

Rupture is an auto-crit, so then shadowstrike is only making sure it hits. I wonder how it interacts with cyclic fire though, will it affect all three shots?