Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Maebalzurakin
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Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Maebalzurakin »

I played a lot of XCOM 2 when it came out and now I am back into it again with LW2.

I am 99% sure I remember that enemies did not shoot at my soldiers while they were bound by vipers. In my current game with LW2, I will get a soldier pulled out of cover and bound, then the entire enemy squad will shoot at him.

I really do not like this new game mechanic!

How is it that the viper is not also hit? All of the bullets are magically passing through the viper and hitting my guy.

If there anywhere in the ini files where this AI can be restored to original behavior? If it is kept this way, the viper should also take damage. A sacrifice move to take out one of my guys.
Clibanarius
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Clibanarius »

I, too, would be curious to know if this behavior can be easily addressed with an .ini tweak. That said, to answer your question, this behavior is new to LW2. POSSIBLY unintended. See the thread in the Bugs subforum on the subject. It might be getting changed, as such. It's a thing where all the other aliens are likely seeing the target as being not disabled and, thus, a flanked shot to easily take. It's bullshit, frankly, because it can not only activate more pods, but get someone killed before you even have a chance to react.
Maebalzurakin
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Maebalzurakin »

I just read the other thread you suggested. Looks like all of this has been discussed. Sad that they are aware of it and don't consider it a bug.

I am going to start pretending that they are magic ghost vipers and that is why Advent bullets don't hurt them. Fortunately, my xcom squad is fully equipped with magic bullets, so they can hit magic ghost vipers. Now I just need a reskin to make them a transparent blue color.

I just got the High Cover mod, that seems to be the best option available at the moment.
nightwyrm
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by nightwyrm »

Pretty sure the behaviour is intended. Vanilla actually had a restriction on the AI to prevent the enemies from shooting your bound soldier. LW2 had to have removed that restriction deliberately.
chrisb
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by chrisb »

This wasn't just to do with viper bind. From what I understand the AI in vanilla did not prioritize shooting at 'incapacitated' xcom. LW2 did away with this. It doesn't really make sense that having someone stunned suddenly makes them invulnerable to being targeted unless there's nothing else to shoot at.

Viper bind is part of the same category, and it's an all or nothing switch. So once stunned targets became valid, so too did bound. The downside is that bound targets have no cover where other impairments can still leave you with cover. This makes bound targets get focus fired as they are simply the highest chance to hit.

It's just one of those things you either kill or control, leaving them alive and uncontrolled is a bad time even if they don't grab you.
JulianSkies
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by JulianSkies »

chrisb wrote:This wasn't just to do with viper bind. From what I understand the AI in vanilla did not prioritize shooting at 'incapacitated' xcom. LW2 did away with this. It doesn't really make sense that having someone stunned suddenly makes them invulnerable to being targeted unless there's nothing else to shoot at
If you notice, this mimics player behaviour very closely. Players will prioritize targets that are not controlled to take then out of action over ones that can't act in order to reduce the number of enemy actions
Antigonos
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Antigonos »

The other issue aside the instant death of grabbed soldiers is that there's no cooldown on the ability. A single viper could get your entire squad wiped out if it wants it and gets lucky.
JM01
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by JM01 »

IMO I think that this is a nice change to the game as it makes the vipers an actual threat in the game instead of a joke as they are in vanilla. In fact LW2 fixes a lot of the "Derpy AI" issues as they AI is a lot smarter at the choices it makes (like purposely letting themselves be flanked to take a flank shot). The only exception to this is Sectopods, those are still easy mode to kill (though if you use the mod "A Better Advent 2" you get things called Sectopod Prime which have similar actions to rulers in that every time you damage them they take an action).

The only problems I have with the viper bind are that as everyone has stated it has no cooldown and the chance for it to succeed is way too high. Even if your unit is behind full cover it can have an over 50% chance to succeed. And on top of all of this it only costs them one action point. The ability either needs a lower chance to hit, an actual cooldown or make it cost 2 action points. As it stands it is a little broken.
archangel
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by archangel »

Because of this behaviour Vipers have become my #1 target in all battles. I tend to either kill or Flashbang all vipers at end of turn. I lost two guys to this and learned my lesson.
Mutons will grenade some guys, micro missiles cannot break cover anymore, drone's stun only removes 2 turns and can be fixed with revive, sectoid abilities can be survived or fixed, but Viper with some other troops around that is left to tongue grab is basically death. Also they seem to have a good attack % with it, I had it get my guys through smoke and heavy cover or through heavy cover + Aid Protocol.
Viper's death or Flashbang is only sure way to survive this.
josna238
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by josna238 »

To me is terrible, that perk usually means instadeatch. So at the end of the turn with vipers we must have at least a chance to dissable them if everithing went wrong (snd they dodge a lot). like suppresion, flashbang, nails, explosive or anithing but never let the last chance to a XX % action. As said before, even with red fog and through cover they can pull and kill.
LordYanaek
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by LordYanaek »

Well, i don't really have issues with this :
  • They fit the LW1 Thin Men role (surprise, they are the Thin Men true form) : an extremely dangerous but squishy enemy that need to die or be controlled now! Once you know this, it's simply a matter of setting your priorities correctly and of course having some ways to deal with them but all of this is correct pre-mission and in-mission planning.
  • We have options to deal with Vipers that don't even rely on RNG so we can prevent shit from happening. They won't tongue grab you out of Yellow alert (unlike Archons who love to rain Blazing Pinions on your head). If i let an uncontrolled Viper running around, i know i'm taking some risks.
  • A bound soldier is not totally enveloped, there are still parts of him exposed so i really don't understand the argument that you have to shoot through the viper. And please don't start arguing it's like cover, the guy is helpless. Cover doesn't protect you simply because it's there, cover protects you because you are actually trying to hide behind. You can't hide behind the viper when you're bound and even if the head is the only part that sticks out, a shot in the head should be enough to kill a soldier : for most people the brain is actually a vital organ ;) . Of course it would be fun if a missed shot on your soldier had a chance to hit the viper, but really it would be a lot of coding for little effect.
I understand discussions around the precision of the tongue grab, it sure seem to connect often even behind full cover. I looked in the LW directory, the Vipers are equipped with an "item" called Viper_Tongue_WPN but nowhere did i find values indicating how much aim bonus this "weapon" gives them. In fact i haven't found any mention of Viper_Tongue_WPN apart from the Vipers loadout (either in ini or source code) so i guess its still coded as it was in Vanilla XCom2 but sometimes i can miss something totally obvious in config files.
MacroNova
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by MacroNova »

LordYanaek wrote: A bound soldier is not totally enveloped, there are still parts of him exposed so i really don't understand the argument that you have to shoot through the viper
Are you kidding with this? Advent has a 60-80% chance to hit nearby flanked units standing in the open. They should get huge hit penalties if they are trying to aim at the little gaps in the snake that is wrapped around the target, and the snake should have a high chance to take damage at the bare minimum.

Honestly tongue grab was fine as it was. It disabled your soldier and usually activated more pods. It doesn't need to give those pods a free target too. That is the same binary nonsense that people complained about when the game came out - control snakes or squadwipe.
Alketi
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Alketi »

I agree with MacroNova. Tongue Grab was terrifying enough and still required immediate attention before it became an instant death sentence.
LordYanaek
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by LordYanaek »

You're reasoning with static targets in mind but even a flanked soldier right next to an ADVENT trooper is not static. He's running away or trying to dodge or doing any action that can't be displayed in a turn based representation.
However, someone immobilized with his entire head visible is extremely easy to hit for anyone with slightly better than stormtrooper training.
If they wanted for the bound condition to be realistic it should give a bonus to hit (i'm not suggesting it ;) )

Tongue grab was terrifying in Vanilla XCom2 because it removed 1/4 of your squad (at the time vipers showed up) and with only 1 item per soldier you could easily be unable to actually free the soldier before he died of constriction.
With the (usually) larger squads and plentiful equipment in LW2 a bound soldier is free as soon as you get to act.
Maebalzurakin
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Maebalzurakin »

So basically, you are saying that you would have no problem shooting a bound soldier in the head and not hitting the viper? Take a look at the picture below and tell me you can make that shot. :lol: Even then, chances are the shot goes through and hits the snake on the way out the other side.Maybe from 2 yards away. The only way I am buying this argument is if the aliens all have 100% accuracy from 10 tiles or greater..... and they don't.

After thinking about this a lot, I think I am fine with the tongue grab, although I did mod it so they can't do it if your guy is in high cover. I am also fine with all of the enemies getting easy crit shots on my guy. I just think the snake should take damage too.

Image
Jacke
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Jacke »

MacroNova wrote:Honestly tongue grab was fine as it was. It disabled your soldier and usually activated more pods. It doesn't need to give those pods a free target too. That is the same binary nonsense that people complained about when the game came out - control snakes or squadwipe.
Damn right, completely agree.

I use the mod No Full Cover Grabs to prevent tongue-grabs in high cover. I'd extend that to low cover if I could.
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johnnylump
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by johnnylump »

Just a bit of background, this was not specifically enabled, but instead enabled when we removed some shackles from the AI to not shoot at impaired units. Previously the AI was ignoring easy kills on things like flanked, stunned units in favor of shooting somebody in cover. That actually made impairing units possibly a bad move for the aliens.

Also, if we're going to have shots at the bound unit damage the snake or confer some kind of malus, then we need shots at the binding snake to do the same.

Not saying the status quo is perfect, just offering up how we got here.
Zyxpsilon
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Zyxpsilon »

I think a good alternate principle to "fix" this controversial situation would be to simply ADD some relatively high inherent defense/or/dodge points (25..50?) to the Still_While_Binded Soldiers.
Soooo -- then, **IF** you do get hit by any nearby enemies we can all start blaming the RNG again but for better reasons than ever.

Yet.. if you really don't want to try repairing that gimmicky stuff (insta-kills while in a bind) -- i feel you'd certainly now be obligated to supply us with a true counter worth MUCH more than just burrying the oldish pretty cool Mimic Beacons that far away from gameplay flow patterns, for example.
Jeckhyl
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Jeckhyl »

Maebalzurakin wrote:I just read the other thread you suggested. Looks like all of this has been discussed. Sad that they are aware of it and don't consider it a bug.

I am going to start pretending that they are magic ghost vipers and that is why Advent bullets don't hurt them. Fortunately, my xcom squad is fully equipped with magic bullets, so they can hit magic ghost vipers. Now I just need a reskin to make them a transparent blue color.

I just got the High Cover mod, that seems to be the best option available at the moment.
On the other hand it doesn't bother you YOU can shoot the viper without shooting your guy. Here is a cool feature to implement. Every time we shoot the viper our soldier also take damages.
Frei_Ninjesus
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Frei_Ninjesus »

Well, there is a good portion of the snake's body that is not entangled with the soldier, so it´s not that crazy to think you can hit it without hitting your man.
azarga
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by azarga »

Personally I'd prefer a more complex solution to that situation.

Let's say, by default all normal shots against binding viper that connect have an additional roll with -20 aim to wound a bound soldier. And vice versa shots against bound soldiers that connect have additional roll with -20 aim to wound a Viper.

Aim penalty represents the fact that a combatants taking a shot put some effort into preferably avoiding damaging allies.

Additionally xcom soldiers get a context specific ability akin to VIP beatdown that is only available against Vipers binding a soldier. Instead of normal shot a soldier performs a Cautious Shot which confers -20 aim penalty but never rolls on hitting a bound soldier.

Advent doesn't need that, because they simply don't care.
LordYanaek
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by LordYanaek »

Maebalzurakin wrote:Take a look at the picture below and tell me you can make that shot.
I sure can't. I'm sure someone with good military training has a good "chance to hit".
Anyway, OK on that picture the soldier is pretty well enveloped. I'm too early in my new campaign to see if Sneks always envelop soldiers like this or if you got the good picture at the exact moment the enveloping is at it's maximum and frankly i don't care enough to check it :lol:
I'm staying with my idea that the head stick out and is (relatively) easy to hit because the soldier is helpless. What we see is a turn based abstraction of real time action anyway so your mind have to fill the gap between the animations. I have no troubles accepting the situation with my reasoning. I offered a reasonable way to rationalize it, accept it or fill the gap with your own imagination to explain why it's possible and try to enjoy the game. Trying to rationalize game mechanisms too much will only lead to frustrations because no game comes close to simulating the real world, not even simulation games (and XCom is not a simulation game).
johnnylump wrote:Previously the AI was ignoring easy kills on things like flanked, stunned units in favor of shooting somebody in cover. That actually made impairing units possibly a bad move for the aliens.
To be fair, both systems can be defended.
Trying to kill what's not controlled and controlling what can't be killed is what we usually do. A stunned enemy is no immediate threat so it perfectly makes sense for ADVENT to attempt to kill immediate targets, even if it's not a guaranteed kill, if ADVENT is actually trying to win the engagement (as long as they don't shoot at some guy in full cover with dense smoke on top).
However, it's perfectly possible to consider that ADVENT soldiers are closer to well programmed biological machines than living beings and that they are not trying to survive or even win engagements but simply trying to crush the rebellion as they know they have limitless troops unlike the rebels. In this case trying to kill incapacitated targets is a smart move.
This have a direct impact on the difficulty of the missions of course. A possible approach (if it's possible) would be to use the actual merciless behavior only on commander/legend and keep the old behavior on rookie/veteran. The downside is that players trying to progress in difficulty rather than just playing at their favorite difficulty must unlearn their strategies when moving to higher difficulties but different enemy behavior is one way of increasing difficulty that can be more interesting then just adding more HP/Armor/Damage/Enemies and hopefully this would please everyone.

Finally, some cooldown on the tongue grab wouldn't hurt. I don't have issues accepting the tongue grab but i understand someone loosing 3 guys in a row to a single Snek's tongue does.
bearmans
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by bearmans »

I think it's worth mentioning (since few people usually seem to care) that this is probably The Most Dangerous Thing that can happen on Veteran. I recognize that many people play commander and legendary here and expect to lose soldiers as the cost of any given mistake or misstep, but it seems absolutely unreasonable on vet where virtually nothing else can penalize you as hard for so little.

Tongue grab's base aim is very high and in situations where you're fighting many enemies a successful tongue grab is a dead solider almost every time. And maybe that's fine for people on legendary or comm, but for me, who enjoys playing a relatively lower stress game, I hate tongue grab doing what it does right now.
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Zloth
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by Zloth »

johnnylump wrote:Also, if we're going to have shots at the bound unit damage the snake or confer some kind of malus, then we need shots at the binding snake to do the same.
That seems like a good thing to me. It always seemed weird to me that I could blaze away at the snake with no chance of hitting my soldier.

If a viper wraps up one of my soldiers then I should be trying to free him with flashbangs or stun attacks on the viper (a stun attack that might just hit the soldier instead of the snake). Perhaps I would try with a sniper that has a very high to-hit chance. Maybe if the shot hits then it works like normal but a graze acts as a graze on both and a miss by more than X% means you hit the soldier?

Similarly for the enemy. The best thing they could do is spit poison to make it even worse for the soldier. Enemies that have exceptionally high chances to hit (maybe after the soldier gets targeted by a commander) might risk hitting the snake. Bezerkers would probably try and not care if they hit the "friendly." Survey drones might try a stun.

Neither side should be thinking explosives!
The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common: instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views…
-- Doctor Who in "Face of Evil"
MacroNova
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Re: Enemies shooting at Xcom while bound by Vipers

Post by MacroNova »

LordYanaek wrote:You're reasoning with static targets in mind but even a flanked soldier right next to an ADVENT trooper is not static. He's running away or trying to dodge or doing any action that can't be displayed in a turn based representation.
However, someone immobilized with his entire head visible is extremely easy to hit for anyone with slightly better than stormtrooper training.
Actually you are the one reasoning with static targets in mind. Obviously the xcom soldier is going to be struggling against the snake and not provide a static target.
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