Making Ammo Interesting Again

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trihero
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Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by trihero »

I was watching joinrbs recent discussion about replayability which has a lot of topical issues we've seen lately about variety/reward of missions, balance, ini digging/meta analysis, etc, here at this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaDpFfSqIvU

I'm on board with most of what he says and in fact it's mostly a lot of what I've been thinking as well as I've played the game, but anyways one simple idea that struck my mind after watching this (loosely based on a dynamic tech tree which is a cool idea but I think is probably too much effort at this point in the game), is:

How about we go back to the vanilla system of ammo that is randomized?

I think this has some benefits compared to our current LW2 system:

1) Most of us have noticed by now that AP/tracers are essentially all you reasonably want/need because the upper tier ammo are quite expensive, quite situational, and not even particularly powerful except maybe dragon rounds, which is kind of distracting to talk about because it's such a late game tech. It's kind of boring that the best ammo are those two and they are unlocked quite early.

2) This gives the flavor of dynamic decisions where you're like "oh! I got this kind of ammo, maybe I will build my guys a little differently."

3) You can buff ammo to make it feel more impactful due to the randomization since you can't just depend on/mass produce the one that's the "best" for your situation

4) The base system is already implemented so it's very practical and not something that "should" take a lot of development time other than tweaking the research times/costs

I think adding this little bit of spice would be a good thing for both replayability as well as just to make ammo more relevant than it currently is.

I understand that in vanilla probably blue screen rounds were the most op thing ever because they allowed you to faceroll the hardest enemies (codex, gateekeper, sectopod), but in LW2 there are actually quite a few organic enemies now that aren't so trivial (20 hp elite officers, muton elites, chrysallid queens, etc), so I feel like ammo in LW2 has been kind of overly nerfed/ put on a leash due to the complaints about vanilla ammo, but we could see both a bit of a buff without being too direct a buff and a lot of fun/replayability if we go back to the system of you spend a core, you don't know what you're going to get, but it's has a good chance of being awesome if you are willing to find a way to use it properly.

I don't think we have to revert everything to randomization like heavy weapons, and I do like that you can build certain things like weapon parts, but I have a hunch randomized ammo is a pretty decent throwback to vanilla that would actually work for LW2. Thoughts?

edit: thinking about this some more, for whatever reason I feel the grenade system is actually ok the way it is in LW2 and wouldn't necessarily benefit from randomization as ammo would. Partially I think it's because grenades are pretty strong and "should" be gated behind certain fixed techs and it also just works with the system of basic/advanced explosives, whereas ammo could just see more use and variety in general.
Jacke
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by Jacke »

I think either randomizing ammo research or the kitting out of the squad verges on too much control being taken out of the hands of players just for the sake of making the game different. When faced by armoured enemies or enemies hard to hit, why wouldn't XCOM develop ammo specifically to deal with those issues if it could.

Haven't gotten far enough into my campaigns to see, but there may be a problem with the later ammos being too expensive, specific, and hard to use to justify research and production. Or that other demands pushes them so much later on the calendar that the campaign is either won or lost before it was worth developing them. Those sorts of issues should be addressed, else why bother having them in the game.
wobuffet
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by wobuffet »

I would randomize both ammo and grenades as in vanilla in the early game, but unlock individual ones (as it is now) behind mid-game techs (or maybe quick Proving Grounds projects).

Either way, the "exotic" ammo types could definitely use some love!
trihero
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by trihero »

I think either randomizing ammo research or the kitting out of the squad verges on too much control being taken out of the hands of players just for the sake of making the game different. When faced by armoured enemies or enemies hard to hit, why wouldn't XCOM develop ammo specifically to deal with those issues if it could.
Yeah, but why couldn't this argument be used to let us build all types of PCs that we wanted as well? When we're faced by enemies that are hard to hit, how come xcom can't manufactor aim pcs?
amgarrak1
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by amgarrak1 »

No. That system was terrible and I'm glad they got rid of it. The ammo is boring and mostly useless, but at least I can choose not to use it. The game has enough unnecessary RNG(Psi skill tree, AWC, continent bonuses, starting continent, etc).
trihero
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by trihero »

The ammo is boring and mostly useless, but at least I can choose not to use it.
What changes would you make to ammo to make it less boring, and more useful?
Jacke
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by Jacke »

trihero wrote:
I think either randomizing ammo research or the kitting out of the squad verges on too much control being taken out of the hands of players just for the sake of making the game different. When faced by armoured enemies or enemies hard to hit, why wouldn't XCOM develop ammo specifically to deal with those issues if it could.
Yeah, but why couldn't this argument be used to let us build all types of PCs that we wanted as well? When we're faced by enemies that are hard to hit, how come xcom can't manufactor aim pcs?
Because armour-piercing and tracer bullets today are already over a century old. And proximity-explosive and guided rounds are over seventy years old. PCS of such as nature as in XCOM are yet to be developed. I can set XCOM 2 taking a while to get up and running, but considering the enemy and a need for AP and Tracer Rounds, getting their production started would be a priority.
Last edited by Jacke on Sun Feb 26, 2017 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Truefell
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by Truefell »

I don't think that Ammo needs that random system again. Remember also that LW1 and even EU-EW had such thing like early SCOPE to boost aim for your soldiers.

What I suggest is to change cost of Tracer(15 supplies and 2 elerium crystals) and give AP less penetration(about 1), but then give us a way to increase(AP 2 and 3) it through Proving Grounds projects locked behind some later armored enemies.
Another suggestion is a bit more radical: Tracer and AP ammo decrease damage by 1(or only top damage by 1), because their special bullets doesn't have the punch of your default ammunition.
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3tamatulg
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by 3tamatulg »

Shadow Ops LW2 Class Pack has a very cool class in the Infantry, whose basic perk allows them to carry two kinds of ammunition and swap between them. I very much look forward to sticking something like Redscreen and Venom on them.

As for randomization being fun - I agree to some extent, but LW2 forces an incredibly risk-averse playstyle, so forging random ammunition would mean that ammo would have to be so consistently good that it would probably want nerfing, or it would just not be worth investing in.

If you want randomization like that, you could have something like "ADVENT Lockboxes" or something from one of Grimy's mods and have it give you a random reward for some expense. Maybe it would be cool to have more scanning time popups where the reward is a random ammunition.

But yeah the last thing I would want to see added to LW2 is more strategy layer randomness.
amgarrak1
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by amgarrak1 »

trihero wrote:
The ammo is boring and mostly useless, but at least I can choose not to use it.
What changes would you make to ammo to make it less boring, and more useful?
Well, I'd remove the plain +2 damage vs certain targets ammunition, as it is too situational and almost never worth researching\building\equipping.
With other ammo types, I'd boost their effectiveness but add some downsides(kinda similar to Reaper pack ammo in LW1).
Without at least these changes, AP and tracer rounds just seem better at any point in the game and there is almost no reason not to use them.
trihero
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by trihero »

As for randomization being fun - I agree to some extent, but LW2 forces an incredibly risk-averse playstyle, so forging random ammunition would mean that ammo would have to be so consistently good that it would probably want nerfing, or it would just not be worth investing in.
I was actually fine with the way it turned out in vanilla. It didn't feel like ammo was so awesome it needed nerfing, but in fact the current state is ammo doesn't feel worth investing in, so the change can only both buff ammo. One of the benefits is that the buff is indirect, whereas if you just try to tweak the resource costs/effects of the current deterministic system it's easy to be overpowered, but you can "risk" going with slightly strong ammo when it's random because the downside is you can't rely on repeatedly getting the ammo that favors you the most (and also the "fatigue" mechanic should theoretically keep your good ammo on cooldown anyways).

Not arguing for increase rng in all aspects of the game, but it's kind of like having a randomized tech tree, it encourages you to experiment and play with what you have instead of going "oh well I know I have this ammo at this point in the game no I already decided beforehand it's garbage I would never make that ammo" which is what we have now. Rng is good when it asks you to play dynamically, and I think this is one small area where it would help the replayability of the game without really hurting the already defunct ammo system.
Ketchup4684
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by Ketchup4684 »

Truefell wrote:I don't think that Ammo needs that random system again. Remember also that LW1 and even EU-EW had such thing like early SCOPE to boost aim for your soldiers.

What I suggest is to change cost of Tracer(15 supplies and 2 elerium crystals) and give AP less penetration(about 1), but then give us a way to increase(AP 2 and 3) it through Proving Grounds projects locked behind some later armored enemies.
Another suggestion is a bit more radical: Tracer and AP ammo decrease damage by 1(or only top damage by 1), because their special bullets doesn't have the punch of your default ammunition.
Traces Rounds only give a 5% aim boost, nerfing the damage by one would turn the rounds from "Rounds to take if no other option is available" to "Rounds that will never be used."

I think Venom Rounds aren't given enough credit, honestly. +1 damage on hit, and the poison effect lasts at least one turn, if not more, so a 2 damage minimum. The target still gets poisoned even if the shot was a graze. On their turn they have aim/mobility penalties, which are especially good on targets such as Sentries or Lancers. They aren't as good as AP rounds late game, but they're still pretty good. If it didn't have that Elerium Core cost tagged onto it I would've built more.
trihero
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by trihero »

The boring approach is we could try to adjust the stats of the "useless" ammo types. For instance, I think the bluescreen nerf is overboard. It was indeed overpowered in vanilla because the hardest enemies were mechanical typess, but LW2 has introduced so many new organic threats (muton elite, advent general, advent vanguard) that bluescreen nerfed itself. I don't really see a reason for +3 instead of +5, for instance, for such a situational type of round, which also requires a corpse. I'd still be inclined to bring redscreen to make hacking the mech a thing.
wei270
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by wei270 »

yeah i don't know why all the ammo are nerfed over all seems unnecessary
seananigans
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by seananigans »

Personally I like the idea of a per-soldier ammo slot (with no weight), with ammo production costs adjusted if necessary. That way resources are the limiter, and your soldiers can carry whatever ammo type you want them to carry for that mission so they can specialize. I can't see any mechanical or thematic holes in this scenario... as long as production costs are tuned properly, it should still be impossible or extremely prohibitive to have enough special ammo for as many soldiers as are usually out on duty. And perhaps a particular scrutiny toward AP and Tracer so they're not the default and you don't just spam 30 of those and now your entire platoon has +5% aim or whatever.
xmd1997
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by xmd1997 »

seananigans wrote:Personally I like the idea of a per-soldier ammo slot (with no weight), with ammo production costs adjusted if necessary. That way resources are the limiter, and your soldiers can carry whatever ammo type you want them to carry for that mission so they can specialize. I can't see any mechanical or thematic holes in this scenario... as long as production costs are tuned properly, it should still be impossible or extremely prohibitive to have enough special ammo for as many soldiers as are usually out on duty. And perhaps a particular scrutiny toward AP and Tracer so they're not the default and you don't just spam 30 of those and now your entire platoon has +5% aim or whatever.
I agree, Ammo should be a weapon upgrade slot, it doesn't make alot of sense for it to take up inventory space or have a weight penalty.
Jacke
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by Jacke »

seananigans wrote:Personally I like the idea of a per-soldier ammo slot (with no weight), with ammo production costs adjusted if necessary. That way resources are the limiter, and your soldiers can carry whatever ammo type you want them to carry for that mission so they can specialize.
All non-Rookie soldiers should get Ammo pouches, maybe also Grenade pouches, as done with the mod Tactical Rigging: Ammo and Grenades, along with fixes from mod Ammo Pocket Fix and TONS of Utility Items (note this last mod needs a minor config adjustment for LW2 described in its Steam Workshop page).

Life's short and XCOM has plenty of stuff for its troops to use, give the pockets to carry them. They already have unlimited ammo, let them change its type. By default they will all still add weight and cut into Mobility.

And maybe the different ammos shouldn't add any extra Mobility penalty. A soldier can only carry one type and it would just be substituting for their regular ammo.

So right now, I'm using the mods Tactical Rigging: Ammo and Grenades, Ammo Pocket Fix, and TONS of Utility Items. I've also modded all the rounds to have 0 weight.
trihero
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Re: Making Ammo Interesting Again

Post by trihero »

I think adding one more damage to all specialized rounds would be a step in the right direction. This could apply to

-bluescreen rounds
-needle rounds
-flechette rounds
-stiletto rounds

It doesn't need to apply to venom/dragon rounds.

As it stands, I'm super bored by always using AP (and maybe tracer) rounds. They are just too much the obvious choice since otherwise you "choke" on units with insane armor ratings.
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