Yellow Alert Offensive Action

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Manifest
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Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by Manifest »

Does nobody else think this is excessive? Perhaps you should be expected to be able to take some hits, but the fact that pods can run into you, scamper and THEN fire means that almost every pod can have 3 moves against you on activation. There's not always a way to cover against an attack from any angle, especially when squad size can run up to 10, you cannot always find enough cover to ever protect your units from being walked upon from any angle, especially if they can also scamper.

Rather than letting enemies get easy flanks in every dense mission, if this functionality must be kept in (3 actions) rather than forcing enemies to choose between scamper and shooting, at least make it so that shooting is done first, before scampers. This will still punish "poor" positioning, and force you to take shots, but will not make it so 240 degrees of your squad is unprotected from flanks.
azarga
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by azarga »

I find it absolutely excessive, but I'm just a Veteran scrub.
trihero
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by trihero »

xwynns famously asserts that yellow alert actions on legendary do not happen enough :?

I agree it's one of those things that takes the most getting used to.

It's totally manageable/not a big deal on untimed missions, but on timed missions we're just stealthing those on higher difficulties anyways so it's a bit hard to get the sense of balance.
wei270
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by wei270 »

well stealth mission are just that supposed to be stealth ed you should be in trouble once you lose the element of surprised i think it fits the theme of the game very well

at first i reduce the yellow alert reaction chance to 25 but now after a while i put it back ot 33
sacho
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by sacho »

There's several ways you can mitigate a yellow alert action:

- in concealment, don't just move your squad as a blob. Fan out your smg users to make sure there's no pods on your flanks.
- break concealment quietly - flamethrower preferred. The most dangerous way to break concealment is with a grenade.
- don't be afraid to aggressively close the distance between you and the engaged pod. If you activate from blue moving, the pod most likely was already alerted and would have walked into you anyway. Better to deal with them on your turn.
aimlessgun
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by aimlessgun »

Manifest wrote:Does nobody else think this is excessive? Perhaps you should be expected to be able to take some hits, but the fact that pods can run into you, scamper and THEN fire means that almost every pod can have 3 moves against you on activation.
The aliens and XCOM operate under asymmetrical rules, and this is just one more of them. For example the aliens are constrained to using all their blue moves simultaneously, and they are constrained into moving into the open with this blue move instead of taking cover. The aliens and XCOM do not operate in the same way and we can't really expect them to, unless Pavonis can figure out a way to scrap the pod system entirely.

The player needs to get shot at regularly otherwise the game is just target practice. Yellow alert is one way of doing this. Removing it would mean either giving the aliens some more HP/defense or nerfing player abilities so we get into back and forth firefights on a more regular basis.

As for flanks, I generally found that when this happened I could have prevented it, with better scouting or better positioning. I don't really recall running out of cover being a serious issue. Missions where you have 8-10 men are usually untimed missions anyways so can find a spot to camp with enough cover and little chance of flanks.
Izzy
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by Izzy »

I understand why yellow alert is a thing:
-to prevent cheesy tactics like bunching your entire team up in the open to create overwatch traps like in LW1
-to deepen the tactical level (can a yellow alert pod flank me here?)
-to make scout shinobis better

But when the RNG rolls bad on these it REALLY kicks you in the balls. Had 2 very disgusting things happening to me in the last few missions. First was a timed mission where I was forced to engage 2 pods sitting on the objective. It was really chaotic but I managed to crawl myself out of this engagement. But then yellow alert pod shows up and for the first time ever I saw a Sectoid mind controlling someone on yellow alert. My Squad was really spread out but _everyone had good cover in direction to yellow alert_ (so I actually accounted for yellow alert pods marching in). Sectoid was on max range and took control of my Specialist with a shotgun (for dronekilling). Noone could reach Sectoid with a flash bang and the rest of the pod was still there so I had to deal with the pod while avoiding my own guy. Managed to kill most of the pod in my turn without giving my spec close range shots with his shotgun. But he managed to crit my guys on midrange with his 59 aim anyway which eventually led to a squadwipe.
Second incident was a Ranger both barreling a Sectoid and ending his turn in half cover inside a building. Yellow alert pod managed to get exactly close enough to activate across the street through a window. 2 guys shot at him in half cover (again me accounting for the really slim chance of activating through that window) first 45% hit for max damage of 5, second 45% grazed for 2, exactly killing my 7 health guy and then he even managed to miss his bleed out roll (cant imagine that his chance to die there was high). Still cant believe the ranger died there.... So many things had to go wrong.

Both these cases are example of the really unfair side of this mechanic. But in most cases it is manageable. (Still would take mind control out of the yellow alert actions imo :D )
Jacke
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by Jacke »

trihero wrote:xwynns famously asserts that yellow alert actions on legendary do not happen enough :?
Then I am completely in favour of having a special LW2 config that detects when xwynns is playing and triples the chance of a Yelllow Alert action and selects from a more lethal set of actions, just to keep him pleased. And gently warmed by plasma blasts.
JackDT
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by JackDT »

My suggestion for the LW team is that enemy alert status should be added to the event log to make the user more aware of alert status changes.

The same log you already see stuff like "So and so is no longer disoriented." could say "So and so is now on yellow alert." New players aren't surprised and learn to stay aware of enemy alert status. They take an action, and then they see the enemy alert status respond. Good players already know these mechanics.

I just realized I'm not sure if the "no longer disoriented" message is part of base LW2 or part of a mod I'm using... but either case I think surfacing this information more would be an improvement and players would be more willing to accept the behavior and work to play around it.
Last edited by JackDT on Mon Feb 27, 2017 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Devon_v
Long War EU Crew
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by Devon_v »

Yellow Alert is a simulation of activated enemies. In OG XCOM once you started making noise any enemy on the map could just walk up and shoot you at any time. The pod mechanics makes this impossible as a unit is either active, or not. Yellow Alert (Itchy Trigger Tentacle) simulates an off-screen enemy taking a flanking action as if they had already been active. It's the same thing the player does all the time by activating with a front line, then attacking with additional units the AI couldn't see yet.

To avoid it, maintain good cover and/or scout well so you know what angles attacks can come from.
justdont
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by justdont »

To be honest, I find it little less powerful than it should be. Even on Legendary. It's still practically always favorable to activate pods on aliens' turn rather than your own. Even if they're alerted and some will shoot at you - you're still getting the benefit of unleashing some OW shots (if any) and having 100% squad actions to deal with them on your turn.

All you need to do is to position your soldiers in such a way that they won't be flanked by sudden activation & scamper - this doesn't save you entirely from possible hits via yellow alert, but it reduces danger to very acceptable levels. And it's almost always doable.
TerribleName
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by TerribleName »

I dont mind getting shot at, but it is irritating that they get a scamper move and then shoot. So a pod wanders in, a snake scampers forward six tiles into flank, and then it shoots me. It wouldnt have been able to pull off that move in a normal turn because it doesn't have the move speed. Its just another thing that makes the game favor boring overwatch strategies (damaged enemies can't take yellow alert actions) and punishes any kind of aggression.

The old system of move *or* shoot was significantly better. I could move forward to take a position and be reasonably certain that if I did get patrolled into, at least I wasn't exposed to a flank shot.
archangel
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by archangel »

Izzy wrote:
Both these cases are example of the really unfair side of this mechanic. But in most cases it is manageable. (Still would take mind control out of the yellow alert actions imo :D )
Sectoids don't have mind control. They got one ability that randomly choose between Mind control/disorient/panic. Your PSI soldiers can also train that ability.
So asking to remove MC from yellow alert is asking to remove Sectoid's only ability.

Could be done, but in that case I would like to see Sectoids get back their Mind Merge ability.
Jadiel
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by Jadiel »

TerribleName wrote:I dont mind getting shot at, but it is irritating that they get a scamper move and then shoot. So a pod wanders in, a snake scampers forward six tiles into flank, and then it shoots me. It wouldnt have been able to pull off that move in a normal turn because it doesn't have the move speed. Its just another thing that makes the game favor boring overwatch strategies (damaged enemies can't take yellow alert actions) and punishes any kind of aggression.
Damaged enemies can still shoot at you.

ETA: The whole point of the yellow alert action system is to encourage aggression. In Vanilla/LW1 it was always disadvantageous to activate pods during your turn, as you had fewer actions before the aliens could respond (and on activation you generally get OW shots as well). With yellow alert actions, activating with an early action on your own turn is advantageous, because you can probably kill enough aliens that the aliens get fewer shots than they would have had if they'd activated on the alien turn. This neglects OW shots, so most people still prefer to activate on the alien turn and get OW, but if they increase the probability a bit more then aggressive play might become more common.
fowlJ
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by fowlJ »

Jadiel wrote:
TerribleName wrote:I dont mind getting shot at, but it is irritating that they get a scamper move and then shoot. So a pod wanders in, a snake scampers forward six tiles into flank, and then it shoots me. It wouldnt have been able to pull off that move in a normal turn because it doesn't have the move speed. Its just another thing that makes the game favor boring overwatch strategies (damaged enemies can't take yellow alert actions) and punishes any kind of aggression.
Damaged enemies can still shoot at you.
If you're seeing that, it's a bug - damaged enemies should be drawing from the green alert reaction list, which doesn't include directly offensive actions.
Jadiel
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by Jadiel »

fowlJ wrote:
Jadiel wrote:
TerribleName wrote:I dont mind getting shot at, but it is irritating that they get a scamper move and then shoot. So a pod wanders in, a snake scampers forward six tiles into flank, and then it shoots me. It wouldnt have been able to pull off that move in a normal turn because it doesn't have the move speed. Its just another thing that makes the game favor boring overwatch strategies (damaged enemies can't take yellow alert actions) and punishes any kind of aggression.
Damaged enemies can still shoot at you.
If you're seeing that, it's a bug - damaged enemies should be drawing from the green alert reaction list, which doesn't include directly offensive actions.
Really? I didn't realise that. I'll keep an eye out in future. My apologies to @TerribleName then.
MacroNova
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by MacroNova »

Devon_v wrote:In OG XCOM once you started making noise any enemy on the map could just walk up and shoot you at any time.
Huh? In OG XCOM all enemies would start active, and they would often decimate your squads. But that didn't matter because it was acceptable and expected to lose entire squads routinely. You can beat the game with rookies if you have the right equipment.
archangel wrote:Sectoids don't have mind control. They got one ability that randomly choose between Mind control/disorient/panic. So asking to remove MC from yellow alert is asking to remove Sectoid's only ability.
Sectoids get Mindspin which, as I understand it, will disorient, panic or mind control depending on how well they roll against your will. It can be extremely obnoxious on yellow alert moves. And if you remove it, they can still raise a zombie or shoot their wrist laser. It's hardly their only ability.

I really think yellow alert needs to be toned down a little. Aliens shouldn't be able to crit without special abilities, just like we can't crit on overwatch. And if a Viper tongue grabs you into another pod, which is bad enough already, that pod should not get yellow alert shots against you "exposed" trooper.
archangel
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by archangel »

MacroNova wrote:
Devon_v wrote:In OG XCOM once you started making noise any enemy on the map could just walk up and shoot you at any time.
Huh? In OG XCOM all enemies would start active, and they would often decimate your squads. But that didn't matter because it was acceptable and expected to lose entire squads routinely. You can beat the game with rookies if you have the right equipment.
archangel wrote:Sectoids don't have mind control. They got one ability that randomly choose between Mind control/disorient/panic. So asking to remove MC from yellow alert is asking to remove Sectoid's only ability.
Sectoids get Mindspin which, as I understand it, will disorient, panic or mind control depending on how well they roll against your will. It can be extremely obnoxious on yellow alert moves. And if you remove it, they can still raise a zombie or shoot their wrist laser. It's hardly their only ability.

I really think yellow alert needs to be toned down a little. Aliens shouldn't be able to crit without special abilities, just like we can't crit on overwatch. And if a Viper tongue grabs you into another pod, which is bad enough already, that pod should not get yellow alert shots against you "exposed" trooper.
No, Mindspin should have one roll and its effect is chosen randomly.
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Devon_v
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by Devon_v »

MacroNova wrote: Huh? In OG XCOM all enemies would start active, and they would often decimate your squads. But that didn't matter because it was acceptable and expected to lose entire squads routinely. You can beat the game with rookies if you have the right equipment.
JohnnyLump always goes back to OG for inspiration. It's pretty much what LW1 was, OG in EU. The main difference is HP and armor aren't insanely random anymore like they were in OG, no 0-200% damage variance, no bleeding wounds, troops can take a hit far better than they ever could before. Heck, Red Fog is an option now, and not even on by default. From my experience LW expects you to lose squads temporarily to wounds, then get them back later since the way Firaxis set the game up puts far more power in class levels than equipment. At least in my campaign I often have troops out for two weeks or so, I've had some go into bleedout and spend extensive time in the infirmary, but only two have been outright killed.
MacroNova wrote: I really think yellow alert needs to be toned down a little. Aliens shouldn't be able to crit without special abilities, just like we can't crit on overwatch. And if a Viper tongue grabs you into another pod, which is bad enough already, that pod should not get yellow alert shots against you "exposed" trooper.
But the aliens aren't on overwatch. It's their turn. They're just doing exactly what you're doing, moving troops from out of visual range into the fight. The equivalent would be to lock out any member of the player's squad who wasn't visible to the aliens on contact because it's "not fair" for you to move to a flank and shoot with something they can't see yet.

I think Vipers are an entirely different issue. I've never liked the range and accuracy of the tongue grab, not even in vanilla. In Long War it's basically a death sentence and just makes Vipers kill on sight or lose guys. I wouldn't mind the shooting at the bound trooper so much if they could hit the Viper by accident. Hell, the Viper has a larger target area the way they constrict.
MacroNova
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by MacroNova »

Devon_v wrote:But the aliens aren't on overwatch. It's their turn. They're just doing exactly what you're doing, moving troops from out of visual range into the fight. The equivalent would be to lock out any member of the player's squad who wasn't visible to the aliens on contact because it's "not fair" for you to move to a flank and shoot with something they can't see yet.
There are way too may examples of asymmetry between XCOM and Advent to insist on symmetry here. XCOM brings fewer troops to a mission, is actually set back by having soldiers wounded or killed, has lower hp, etc. And there are already reasons not to go for flanks, like triggering more pods which Advent never has to worry about. Furthermore, Advent GETS A FUCKING REVEAL MOVE when we spot them, and they are allowed to scamper for cover. When they patrol into us, we are frozen in place.

Disallowing crits and the more obnoxious special abilities is like the perfect compromise for nerfing the yellow alert system while keeping all the thematic and gameplay reasons for its existence.
TerribleName
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by TerribleName »

Again, my main complaint is that a yellow alert activation can give the AI flank shots it wouldnt be able to get if it had taken a normal turn. They reveal, scamper, then act, and the reveal move + scamper move can put AI units in places I can't defend against. If I send a shinobi or assault forward to take a position I can have a yellow alert pod patrol in, take up positions *behind* the forward soldier, and then shoot him to death from flank. The only counterplay is to always stick together as a blob and overwatch creep the map.

Yellow alert doesnt make the game more dynamic, it makes overwatch creeping (or pure stealth) even more optimal.

The original system of move *or* shoot did increase the dynamics of the game. It punished overwatch blobbing while not punishing aggressive forward movement so long as you respected cover.
Izzy
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by Izzy »

archangel wrote:
Izzy wrote:
Both these cases are example of the really unfair side of this mechanic. But in most cases it is manageable. (Still would take mind control out of the yellow alert actions imo :D )
Sectoids don't have mind control. They got one ability that randomly choose between Mind control/disorient/panic. Your PSI soldiers can also train that ability.
So asking to remove MC from yellow alert is asking to remove Sectoid's only ability.

Could be done, but in that case I would like to see Sectoids get back their Mind Merge ability.
When you take control of a Sectoid, Mindspin and Mind Control are actually 2 different buttons. So I assumed AI has 2 buttons there too. :)
archangel
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Re: Yellow Alert Offensive Action

Post by archangel »

Izzy wrote:
archangel wrote:
Izzy wrote:
Both these cases are example of the really unfair side of this mechanic. But in most cases it is manageable. (Still would take mind control out of the yellow alert actions imo :D )
Sectoids don't have mind control. They got one ability that randomly choose between Mind control/disorient/panic. Your PSI soldiers can also train that ability.
So asking to remove MC from yellow alert is asking to remove Sectoid's only ability.

Could be done, but in that case I would like to see Sectoids get back their Mind Merge ability.
When you take control of a Sectoid, Mindspin and Mind Control are actually 2 different buttons. So I assumed AI has 2 buttons there too. :)
Ok, I have not tried that. So it could be that they got Mind Control as a different skill, but Mindspin also gives mind control... but than I don't understand why Sectoids would not open every battle with mind control. There is no point in using Mindspin first if you got a stronger version...
Well in that case I am all for removing Mind Control from Yellow Alert actions but leave it for Sectoid Commanders, they should be a scarier version after all
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