The value of Conceal

[LordYanaek]

So i've read a lot of things about stealth missions and Conceal, including some rumors concerning Conceal being moved to MSgt.
I think this would be a terrible idea!

Conceal certainly helps in those pure stealth duo shinobi runs but moving it to MSgt would hurt more than just those stealth missions. In small squad missions - those 5-6 men missions a lot of players desperately want to see more frequent - Conceal is the only option for a Shinobi (apart from being an officer and using command) to help the squad without giving up his scouting function. Those missions usually have one round or two where you need to throw all the firepower you have at the enemies. You can't afford to have 1/5 of your squad sit idle doing some scouting (something you can easily do in 10 men raids and of course pure stealth missions). The real value of Conceal is in those 5 men missions, not in stealth runs and removing it or moving it all the way to MSgt would probably hurt those 5 men missions much more than the stealth runs or 10 men raids!

I don't even think Stealth missions are broken and need fixing, i think what we need is some incentive to do 5-6 men missions instead when infiltration timer allows it. However if really the developers want to "fix" the abuse of conceal on stealth hacking missions here is an alternative change that wouldn't hurt the normal use of conceal in fight missions. Change Conceal so that :

• It can't be used if an enemy has LoS on you (even if you have some cover) : no more vanishing in front of the enemy after you've done your job. In normal fighting missions you'll just conceal at the end of the battle and contribute to the fight as long as there are some enemies, it will only prevent using conceal for a second Shadowstrike shot in the same fight.
• It can't be used if you are carrying something : object from a chest, hacking data, unconscious dark VIP (last one is particularly silly). This would completely stop it from being the absolute answer to stealing something in the middle of several pods. From a realistic PoV just consider whatever object you stole has some tracer that can be removed easily in a couple of minutes inside the skyranger but not in the heat of action.
• It can't be used while an evac flare is "glowing" (during the time between calling evac and the skyranger arrival). This one would fix the issue explained by Jadiel in post #2 but would affect non stealth missions so would be a much harder hit on the ability as pre-placing the evac flare can be a good idea in fight heavy missions. Maybe simply prevent the guy who called for evac from concealing if it's possible (if calling for evac adds a flag to the soldier object that the game can access), otherwise maybe use a cooldown to prevent concealing immediately after someone calls for evac.

I don't really think changing or even removing conceal would make stealth runs much harder, it would probably simply shift the paradigm from duo shinobi to combo shinobi-specialist hacking from a distance to make up for not being able to run away with the prize but at least those changes wouldn't hurt other missions.

Nothing can be done for extraction missions as Conceal isn't even used in those. A shinobi could still conceal after hacking a cell door but the VIPs will never be concealed. Assassinating a VIP with a shinobi and then running away to conceal wouldn't be easy anyway and would be a really stylish approach to those missions compared to suicide runs. Even planting X-4 and running away would be harder as there is often a pod or 2 patrolling near the objective and being unable to re-conceal when they see you would hurt in those missions. Conceal really only seem OP on hacking guerilla missions but it's a valuable tool in missions we certainly don't want to hurt more than they already are - look at xwynns video#77 to see how badly a 5 men run can end if you don't quickly dispatch everything!

[Jadiel]

I think I probably have the opposite view point to you. I think that Conceal should be removed from the game entirely. I think moving it to MSGT is a reasonable compromise, as at least it delays making Hack/Recover Data missions trivial until slightly later in the game. It also fits better with the balance of the tree, because there isn't a compelling stealth pick at MSGT at the moment.

When you talk about 5-6 man missions, I'm not sure exactly what missions you're referring to. Are we talking about Light Troop Ambushes? VIP/rebel extractions? Hack missions where you've decided to bring a combat squad? Those are all quite different scenarios. Secondly, you seem to take for granted that it should be optimal to bring a Shinobi on small squad missions. I think it would be fine if the game incentivised you to bring soldiers on missions where they are most useful, and having a situation where you think "Hmmm, I'm not sure this mission is great for a Shinobi before MSGT, maybe I'll save him for a stealth op" is certainly not a bad thing, and might even be considered a good thing.

I don't think you understand why Conceal breaks the game so much. It's not because you can disappear in front of enemies - in fact, generally conceal is used before any enemies have been activated. The most difficult part of any stealth op are the turns between throwing the evac flare and evaccing - this is by design. For a standard Specialist/Shinobi duo, you sneak to the objective, and try to find somewhere to hide your specialist where they are a blue move (or a yellow move if your Shinobi is an officer) away from a tile where they can hack the objective. You toss the evac flare so that the evac zone covers your hacking tile, hide until the Skyranger arrives, and then the turn the evac zone appears, you move to the tile (usually activating aliens) and then evac before they can do anything.

Those turns between throwing the flare and the Skyranger arriving are the scary bits of stealth missions. If aliens patrol into a position where they can spot your Specialist, there's a good chance you lose the Specialist, and you're unlikely to complete the mission. This is why the game has a variable number of turns until evac arrives (and why it adds additional turns to those missions which are intended to be more challenging). A stealth mission with a 1-turn evac timer is usually trivial to complete, even with a large number of enemies. A stealth mission with a 4 or 5 turn evac can be very difficult (it also depends a lot on the map), even on Extremely Light.

The problem is that Conceal completely breaks all this balance. If you have a Shinobi duo and one of them has Conceal, you simply throw the flare out of sight of any enemies, and Conceal. Then all that tension and difficulty vanishes entirely, as keeping 2 concealed Shinobis from being discovered is child's play, even on a Heavy mission. It doesn't really matter if it's a 1-turn or a 5-turn evac (you might need to intervene for a 5-turn I guess).

So if you're going to fix conceal, you need a solution which stops players from being able to avoid all the difficult bits of stealth missions. Unfortunately, yours does not.

[LordYanaek]

When you talk about 5-6 man missions, I'm not sure exactly what missions you're referring to.

Any and none since in the current setup those 5-6 men missions are the one players rarely attempt (see how it ended for xwynns when he actually tried to do a Dark VIP mission with a 5 men team).

Secondly, you seem to take for granted that it should be optimal to bring a Shinobi on small squad missions.

Not at all, but it's an option, one with pros (scouting) and cons (low firepower with rifle, risk of more activations with sword). Without conceal a shinobi isn't low firepower, it's no firepower at all and you remove a choice from the player. Removing choices is never a good thing.

I don't think you understand why Conceal breaks the game so much. It's not because you can disappear in front of enemies - in fact, generally conceal is used before any enemies have been activated. The most difficult part of any stealth op are the turns between throwing the evac flare and evaccing - this is by design. For a standard Specialist/Shinobi duo, you sneak to the objective, and try to find somewhere to hide your specialist where they are a blue move (or a yellow move if your Shinobi is an officer) away from a tile where they can hack the objective. You toss the evac flare so that the evac zone covers your hacking tile, hide until the Skyranger arrives, and then the turn the evac zone appears, you move to the tile (usually activating aliens) and then evac before they can do anything.

OK, i do most of my stealth runs with a combo specialist-shinobi and only hack with the shinobi if i can't find a way to get close enough with the specialist so conceal is used after the hack to get back to safety so you're right i didn't consider that option.

Those turns between throwing the flare and the Skyranger arriving are the scary bits of stealth missions. If aliens patrol into a position where they can spot your Specialist, there's a good chance you lose the Specialist, and you're unlikely to complete the mission. This is why the game has a variable number of turns until evac arrives (and why it adds additional turns to those missions which are intended to be more challenging). A stealth mission with a 1-turn evac timer is usually trivial to complete, even with a large number of enemies. A stealth mission with a 4 or 5 turn evac can be very difficult (it also depends a lot on the map), even on Extremely Light.

I had an alien pod spot my specialist on a 2-turns evac mission, Fortify (thanks AWC)+Smoke allowed me to last that additional turn but of course being concealed is far safer. I've never so far encountered a mission with more than 2 turns evac. Is it even possible with 200% infiltration? (the base for a good stealth mission in my opinion, and faster to reach with a 2 men team than 100% with a small squad).

The problem is that Conceal completely breaks all this balance. If you have a Shinobi duo and one of them has Conceal, you simply throw the flare out of sight of any enemies, and Conceal. Then all that tension and difficulty vanishes entirely, as keeping 2 concealed Shinobis from being discovered is child's play, even on a Heavy mission. It doesn't really matter if it's a 1-turn or a 5-turn evac (you might need to intervene for a 5-turn I guess).

So if you're going to fix conceal, you need a solution which stops players from being able to avoid all the difficult bits of stealth missions. Unfortunately, yours does not.

Then just add to the restrictions : can't be used while an evac flare is casting some bright light It's definitely possible to keep it in the game and fix only the abuses.

[Alketi]

I took Conceal on my sword-spec Shinobi, who's normally my team's scout until the last group is revealed.

This allows her to attack early, if necessary, and then re-conceal and continue scouting for the rest of the team. It's the same way I used it on a Ranger in vanilla.

It's unfortunate that all the impossibly short mission timers, high enemy counts, and lack of kill XP have pushed people into stealthing everything and suddenly made this skill super-powerful. In vanilla, the identical skill was the 3rd one you could pick up.

[Jacke]

I've never so far encountered a mission with more than 2 turns evac. Is it even possible with 200% infiltration? (the base for a good stealth mission in my opinion, and faster to reach with a 2 men team than 100% with a small squad).

I believe one of the changes planned for 1.3 is to make 3 the minimum evac timer.

[LordYanaek]

It's unfortunate that all the impossibly short mission timers, high enemy counts, and lack of kill XP have pushed people into stealthing everything and suddenly made this skill super-powerful. In vanilla, the identical skill was the 3rd one you could pick up.

Super powerful in some very specific situations. Otherwise it's a good skill to avoid loosing all scouting ability when you need some extra power but that's it, it's far from overpowered and already comes quite late. Moving it all the way to MSgt would (so far it's only rumors) hurt "legit" uses as well as abuses, maybe even more. It would be "chainsaw surgery".

I believe one of the changes planned for 1.3 is to make 3 the minimum evac timer.

Well, this would definitely hurt combo shinobi-specialist stealth missions.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Conceal should be reworked so it only turns you invisible again if no enemies can see you at the begging of your turn. As in you use it after defeating one group of enemies, so you can act as a scout again. But you cannot use it to disappear out of trouble. Do it that way, and could be made into a rechargeable ability.