Thoughts on the 1.3 changes

[chrisb]

So I took a look through the translation request, this of course outlines most of the changes being made to various abilities and mechanics that have text involved with them. Thought I would do a quick run through of them and share some thoughts. I'll do the strat stuff first then tactical.

Smash N Grab

For those who haven't seen the video yet, xwynns put up a preview here.

I really like the look of these missions. They provide some much needed resources and can really help eliminate being dirt poor if your not scumming supply raids. Will be interesting to see how much resources they end up giving and what sort of detection timers are on them.

Outpost Management
ADVENT will more rapidly lose interest in regions with numerous Resistance members in hiding, or with few Resistance members overall, and be less likely to move troops in.

We'll have to wait until the code hits steam, but this sort of sounds like ReinforceActivity is going to be influenced by resistance members working/hiding in some way? Currently only vigilance matters and it makes strength get 'stuck' in regions. Seems like advent will now 'move on' if you hide. Will be interesting to see how this works for sure.

Radio Relays
Note that capturing a regional tower will give the Resistance a working radio relay for the region.

This is very interesting. It plays well into the early game strat of not liberating your first region, but actually going for a region that is 2 away from the start region. Getting a free relay is a very nice reward for getting through liberation. And I also like the narritive aspect of it. I remember having the thought before, if we're taking down a broadcast tower, why can't we use it afterwards? Now we can!

Rupture
A Rupture shot grants a large bonus to critical hit chances and ensures that the target takes an additional +<Ability:RuptureAmount/> damage from all attacks in the future

Looks like this is changed from guaranteed critical to just a crit bonus? I guess that makes it more powerful, not sure ranger really needed a nerf on late game. Can only tell so much until the code is released though so we'll see what they did here soon.

Coup de Grace
Coup de Grâce grants +50 aim, +50 critical chance and +2 damage against stunned and panicking enemies

That's certainly an improvement. For the most part these numbers will go way over caps, but it should guarantee hits against things with innate defense. In case you really wanted to last hit that cyberball with a sword!

Chain Lightning
Cannot be used from concealment

This is only fair, concealment chain lightning was silly. See xwyyns #117 if you need any convincing that this was needing a fix.

Formidable
Your gear includes an extra layer of protection, granting 2 bonus ablative hit points

So +1 armor vs +2 ablative. I think this is better overall. If you only get hit once, this may eliminate wounds altogether, especially grazes. Being able to get 4-6 ablative through most of the campaign is really nice.

Trial By Fire
Any soldiers below the rank of sergeant will be automatically promoted after a successful mission with this officer.

Training Day! I remember some folks talking about something along these lines. I wonder what rank it will be and what got tossed out because of it? I'm betting it replaces Lead By Example, and good riddance if it does. That or Fall Back.

Snap Shot
You may take standard shots with your sniper rifle after moving, but you suffer severe range penalties beyond 5 tiles of squadsight range
The soldier may not enter overwatch with the sniper rifle after moving

I'm not really sure as to whether this is a buff or a nerf. If you don't move you get normal aim at squadsight. But then they removed overwatch from moving. Always seemed to me like the overwatch part was one of the good parts of this perk.

Soul Steal
Soulfire transfers half of the damage done back to the Psi Operative as health or grants an ablative HP if you are uninjured

Rise of the PsiTank!

Mind Merge
Grants bonus will, critical chance and ablative hit points to an ally

Adding crit chance is nice. If nothing else it helps push grazes down. Soul Merge seems to triple the amount of crit it gives. Lot's of ways this can be good.

Solace
The Psi Operative may immediately extinguish mental impairments for a squadmate

Basically a better version of Revival Protocol. I guess this is mostly aimed at fixing the weird FPS issue the AoE was causing. Probably better anyway that it can target at range instead of having to move the psi op closer.

Close Encounters
Cannot be used on the same turn as Run and Gun

I wonder if this is disabling Run N Gun if you take the CE shot. I think this mostly nerfs the assault pistol spam that very few people caught on to. Good Job JoINrbs!

Hit N Run
Once per turn, gain an additional action after taking a standard shot at a flanked or exposed target with your primary weapon

Yay, sanity is restored! Still not sure I'd take it over CE, but at least it's a viable double shot.

Flush
Target loses 10 defense and 10 dodge until the start of XCOM's next turn

Interesting change. If they just removed the 'makes the enemy run away to better cover' aspect of it then it might be useful.

Biggest Booms
Critical hits with grenades will grant +1 damage to ongoing damaging effects such as fire

I'm not sure how to read this. Does it mean if you hit something with a frag that is burning and crit it will burn for more? Will have to wait for the code to see exactly what this is up to. Either way it was always an autopick for me.

Covering Fire
In addition, having the Covering Fire ability confers a temporary aim penalty upon any units you take a reaction shot at, regardless of whether it was a covering fire shot or not.

Now that's an interesting change. Not sure it will ever get me to make an overwatcher but for those that swing that way it will be a little boost. Not sure why it doesn't include the aim penalty amount, never understood why some text is vague like this.

Serial
Each kill also reduces damage on future hits.

Well, you still get your near 100% crit chance, so shouldn't affect serial chains too much. Might not get 20 in a turn anymore though

Flashbang
Some powerful enemies may be able to resist their effects

ORLY? This should make for some interesting oh shit moments. Wonder what the list of 'powerful enemies' is.

Whirlwind
If you hit with a melee attack during your turn, gain a bonus move

Replacing implacable? Makes sword attacks less sketch. At least you can GTFO as you fail to kill everything.

Phosphorus
Flamethrower attacks shred 1 armor.

A small buff, does this really make it viable over the also buffed Formidable? Probably not.

----------

Most of the changes seem good overall. Some decent buffs and some expected nerfs. I'm mostly interested in how these strategy layer changes play out. Will make for some interesting code diving once it drops.

[Zyxpsilon]

I have pretty much the same opinions as you just wrote..

There's also this VERY juicy new thing;
--------
[QuickStudy X2AbilityTemplate]
LocFriendlyName="Quick Study"
LocLongDescription="Learn officer and AWC bonus abilities in half the time."
--------

Good.. less idle time(s) for them, more presence on any of the available missions!

[chrisb]

Ah, that was just added as I was writing this.

I wonder where that gets added to? A squaddie perk?

[hewhoispale]

Biggest Booms
Critical hits with grenades will grant +1 damage to ongoing damaging effects such as fire

I'm not sure how to read this. Does it mean if you hit something with a frag that is burning and crit it will burn for more? Will have to wait for the code to see exactly what this is up to. Either way it was always an autopick for me.

This might just be documentation, a lot of the grenade damage perks interact weirdly with DoTs that isn't documented in the system yet.

Flashbang
Some powerful enemies may be able to resist their effects

ORLY? This should make for some interesting oh shit moments. Wonder what the list of 'powerful enemies' is.

I'd suspect that this would be adding a really though will save for flashbangs such that only the high end aliens with like 130 will or whatever can resist it. Sort of like the concussion rocket, only with a difficultly check that makes it reliable on most targets.

[stefan3iii]

Buffs to a lot of weak perks are quite nice (formidable, snap shot, implacable, coup de grace, covering fire)
Nerfs look solid. RIP shadowstrike pistoliers.

I think Hit and Run will be too powerful now, it's an auto-pick at that tier, and probably any tier on any tree. It was one of the strongest perks in LW1, and I don't see why that will be any different in LW2. Hopefully assaults are going to have some other nerfs, because otherwise they're going to be super super strong. That's right Pavonis, we're going to argue about things being overpowered before you've even posted the patch notes, but you're probably not surprised.

I hope the radio relay change means the only way to get them is by doing network towers, that'd be a very interesting change to the strategic layer.

[Zedy]

Ah, that was just added as I was writing this.

I wonder where that gets added to? A squaddie perk?

It's a new base psi op perk, can also be gotten as a level 1 AWC perk

[LordYanaek]

Ah, that was just added as I was writing this.

I wonder where that gets added to? A squaddie perk?

It's a new base psi op perk, can also be gotten as a level 1 AWC perk

Do you have any real insight or is it some weird joke?
When i saw it i feared it would be a new (and totally unbalanced) continental bonus but if it's a Psi Op perk to help them catch up on tank time with other soldiers it would sure be nice.

Anybody else noticed the Jedi mind trick added to Psi Ops (reduced infiltration). That will sure make them easier to fit in squads.

I really like Trial By Fire BTW.

[Sax2514]

I don't like many of these nerfs.
No radius increase for advanced grenade launcher? So what's the point in upgrading it in the first place?
Flashbangs not always working on powerful enemies? Serial with reduced damage for every kill?
I sometimes don't understand why many players want nerfs for abilities which I think they are fine as they are. I mean, mimic beacons are pratically nerfed to the ground in lw2, is there a need to nerf also flashbangs and grenade launchers? How are we supposed to control powerful enemies who are far away from each other, in order to avoid acid bombs, plasma grenades and rockets which can demolish 1 squad in 1 single turn, if our support grenadier can't reliably control them with flashbangs? Area suppression was nerfed in patch 1.2 and is not wide enough to control large areas. So, it will be RNG which will determine if that plasma grenade launched by that nasty muton elite will execute my squad, and, possibly, the entire campaign I poured many hours into.
Also, was the nerf of Serial really necessary, with all the nerfs for cover destruction with the grenadier class? I never did a 0% supply raid so I never abused this ability (Instead, players who abused it for 0% supply raids want it nerfed) so for me was an "emergency" button for very dangerous situations, provided you had a rocket or bunker buster. But, since rockets are limited, I don't think the nerf was necessary. If a player, who maybe has many mods which make the game easier (such as commander's choice, true concealment, gotcha again etc.) find that an ability is too powerful for farming 0%supply raids (which not everyone do) it doesn't mean that he/she represents the majority of the playerbase; these players can simply stop abusing this particular ability and stop doing 0% supply raids, or at least don't whine about it, trying to convince the devs to nerf a particular ability, and let the other players enjoy the game as it is.
Sorry for the critique, I really, really liked LW2, especially its strategic layer overhaul ( only exception the stealth mechanics) but with all these unnecessary nerfs I don't know if I will make another campaign in 1.3

[stefan3iii]

I don't like many of these nerfs.
No radius increase for advanced grenade launcher? So what's the point in upgrading it in the first place?
Flashbangs not always working on powerful enemies? Serial with reduced damage for every kill?
I sometimes don't understand why many players want nerfs for abilities which I think they are fine as they are. I mean, mimic beacons are pratically nerfed to the ground in lw2, is there a need to nerf also flashbangs and grenade launchers? How are we supposed to control powerful enemies who are far away from each other, in order to avoid acid bombs, plasma grenades and rockets which can demolish 1 squad in 1 single turn, if our support grenadier can't reliably control them with flashbangs? Area suppression was nerfed in patch 1.2 and is not wide enough to control large areas. So, it will be RNG which will determine if that plasma grenade launched by that nasty muton elite will execute my squad, and, possibly, the entire campaign I poured many hours into.
Also, was the nerf of Serial really necessary, with all the nerfs for cover destruction with the grenadier class? I never did a 0% supply raid so I never abused this ability (Instead, players who abused it for 0% supply raids want it nerfed) so for me was an "emergency" button for very dangerous situations, provided you had a rocket or bunker buster. But, since rockets are limited, I don't think the nerf was necessary. If a player, who maybe has many mods which make the game easier (such as commander's choice, true concealment, gotcha again etc.) find that an ability is too powerful for farming 0%supply raids (which not everyone do) it doesn't mean that he/she represents the majority of the playerbase; these players can simply stop abusing this particular ability and stop doing 0% supply raids, or at least don't whine about it, trying to convince the devs to nerf a particular ability, and let the other players enjoy the game as it is.
Sorry for the critique, I really, really liked LW2, especially its strategic layer overhaul ( only exception the stealth mechanics) but with all these unnecessary nerfs I don't know if I will make another campaign in 1.3

I'm not a Pavonis dev, but the point of nerfs is to restore interesting strategic and tactical decisions. When something is too strong relative to other things, it reduces the depth of the game. Like serial for example, why even have the other two perks on a MSgt SS if the correct decision is to always choose Serial? Sting grenades are the strongest grenade in the game, which is a bit ridiculous given how cheap and early you can get them. Loading up every grenadier with flashbangs isn't very interesting, it crowds out all the other options.

Someone is going to say "well they should just buff everything else to make it compete!", but that person has never built a game, because nerfing 3 overpowered things is a lot easier than buffing 20 normally powered things, and then redoing all the stats on the aliens. You make the smallest change you can to restore balance.

The game has difficulty settings, if the game will be too hard after some nerfs, you always have the option of playing the game at a difficulty that is fun. Unless Rookie is too challenging, then that's a problem that should be addressed.

[Jacke]

Coup de Grace
Coup de Grâce grants +50 aim, +50 critical chance and +2 damage against stunned and panicking enemies

That's certainly an improvement. For the most part these numbers will go way over caps, but it should guarantee hits against things with innate defense. In case you really wanted to last hit that cyberball with a sword!

Is it still its own attack or a passive that applies to all other attacks? As a passive it might be worth it, depending on what it's up against in the revised skill trees. Especially combined with Reaper and following up a Chain Lightning attack. Okay, that would be so powerful I don't think it's likely. As its own attack with a cooldown, it might still be worth it, again depending on what will have to be passed up.

Formidable
Your gear includes an extra layer of protection, granting 2 bonus ablative hit points

So +1 armor vs +2 ablative. I think this is better overall. If you only get hit once, this may eliminate wounds altogether, especially grazes. Being able to get 4-6 ablative through most of the campaign is really nice.

This one I think is a real knife-edge, both a buff and a nerf. Combined with a vest providing other ablative armour, it can help your soldier avoid any injury and healing time. However, it just takes about 2 good hits for the 1.2 version to be equal and 3 to be better. I think what might have partly motivated this is the synergy of carrying more armour, including the PCS that adds 2 temp points after hits, and taking Formidable out as a source to amplify that. I remember one Xwynns video where one of his soldiers had a ridiculous amount of armour after a couple of hits and was crazy tanking the entire enemy.

I don't like many of these nerfs.
No radius increase for advanced grenade launcher? So what's the point in upgrading it in the first place?
Flashbangs not always working on powerful enemies? Serial with reduced damage for every kill?

I thought the big point of the Advanced Grenade Launcher was the greater range.

And to some degree the nerfs are due to the great skill in JoINrbs and Xwynns playing LW2 well and finding the powerful synergies, whether it's in squad makeup, when to use what perk attacks, or others. It's to prevent the full runaway of powerful combos to defeat strong challenges. On the face of it, some of the perks are kind of crazy and unrealistic, so giving them limitations is legitimate.

However, some of those nerfs I think would be better as a mechanism rather than blanket for some beasties. Say for Flashbang, have it be a roll against Will - 40 or so.

[johnnylump]

New CGD is a passive.

Formidable was changed to disallow extreme armor-stacking.

[Jacke]

Formidable was changed to disallow extreme armor-stacking.

Called it!

New CGD is a passive.

Whoa.

Are you sure about a Shinobi with CGD and Reaper following up an Assault Chain Lightning attack? Can't use it as a pod cracker and Reaper already scales off per attack, but the possibilities....

[stefan3iii]

Formidable
Your gear includes an extra layer of protection, granting 2 bonus ablative hit points

So +1 armor vs +2 ablative. I think this is better overall. If you only get hit once, this may eliminate wounds altogether, especially grazes. Being able to get 4-6 ablative through most of the campaign is really nice.

This one I think is a real knife-edge, both a buff and a nerf. Combined with a vest providing other ablative armour, it can help your soldier avoid any injury and healing time. However, it just takes about 2 good hits for the 1.2 version to be equal and 3 to be better. I think what might have partly motivated this is the synergy of carrying more armour, including the PCS that adds 2 temp points after hits, and taking Formidable out as a source to amplify that. I remember one Xwynns video where one of his soldiers had a ridiculous amount of armour after a couple of hits and was crazy tanking the entire enemy.

I think armor stacking is more of a mid-late game tactic, when the game is usually won and it doesn't matter much what you're doing. The extra ablative HP is going to be better for most of the game, preventing wounds, especially when stacked with Alloy Plating.

It is a nerf to SPARKs though, which don't really care about wounds, and have lots of HP, the armor was just straight up better.

[ndessell]

This one I think is a real knife-edge, both a buff and a nerf. Combined with a vest providing other ablative armour, it can help your soldier avoid any injury and healing time. However, it just takes about 2 good hits for the 1.2 version to be equal and 3 to be better. I think what might have partly motivated this is the synergy of carrying more armour, including the PCS that adds 2 temp points after hits, and taking Formidable out as a source to amplify that. I remember one Xwynns video where one of his soldiers had a ridiculous amount of armour after a couple of hits and was crazy tanking the entire enemy.

I think armor stacking is more of a mid-late game tactic, when the game is usually won and it doesn't matter much what you're doing. The extra ablative HP is going to be better for most of the game, preventing wounds, especially when stacked with Alloy Plating.

It is a nerf to SPARKs though, which don't really care about wounds, and have lots of HP, the armor was just straight up better.

No its a nerf at any point in the game. you can be hit 3 times during gate crasher.

[johnnylump]

Are you sure about a Shinobi with CGD and Reaper following up an Assault Chain Lightning attack? Can't use it as a pod cracker and Reaper already scales off per attack, but the possibilities....

Reaper's damage falloff is increased (didn't require a loc change because the damage falloff isn't specified), but, yes, I'm watching feedback from the team on the power of the sword build. Right now the balance is they are properly powerful but very risky and injury prone to use.
The good news is it's easy enough to change numeric values in all languages, so I can continue to tweak things as feedback comes in.

[Tuhalu]

The change to Advanced Grenade Launcher sounds interesting, so long as you can get it early enough to be relevant before waterworld. An extra 2 or 3 tiles can be all the difference between a grenade use that hits everything you were hoping for from a safe place and not doing so.

If it stacks with Bombardier, you may wind up with a build that allows you to squadsight grenade.

The increased radius was badly overpowered as it stacked with Volatile Mix and Bomb technology to give a huge radius on the most powerful of weapons. The first time you Incendiary Bomb an entire rainbow pod of enemies and shut them down, you realise how OP it is. It was also a direct buff to flashbang/sting grenade, which they really didn't need.

Hopefully grenades are receiving a balance pass in their values as many of them are either a little too weak or a little too powerful towards the end of the game.

[Alketi]

Xavier hinted at most of these changes in his commentary, and I think there are some nice little buffs including the leveling perk and AWC time re-tuning.

I'm fine with almost all of them. The worst thing I see on the list (by far) is the Flashbang nerf.

Depending on what is considered a "strong" enemy, this has the possibility to be absolutely horrible. If you can no longer count on flashbang working, what then -- just eat grenades because you rolled the wrong random number? In my opinion this is entirely the wrong way to achieve "replayability", which seems to be the unofficial goal of adding randomness everywhere. Randomness of circumstance is one thing. Randomness of outcome is another. Let's all just remember that the vanilla Gatecrasher mission absolutely sucked because it was an RNG &#*@-fest, and, in so being, also achieved it's (unintended) goal of replayability. Most of us restarted it dozens of times. Let's go for a different kind of replayability, eh? There's something to be said in favor of enjoyable replayability. I'll withhold final judgment until I see what's considered "strong", but based on the description, I'm concerned that randomizing flashbangs may bring about a great many unintended consequences.

[Tuhalu]

We don't know the details of the Flashbang nerf yet. It may be a will based thing... or it could just be wording that allows them some wiggle room.

Maybe we'll have some specific enemies that are always immune to flashbangs. Maybe there will be a few new Tactical Dark Events that make certain enemies immune to Flashbangs. That last idea could enhance replayability by changing up target prioritisation in each game (depending on the order of TDEs and which ones you counter).

[rakoon79]

For those who are discussing on the Adv Grenade Launcher nerf,

Bilfdoffle's comment in the reddit :

"The mk2 launcher was made available a lot earlier (now at mag weapons), and was frankly something we wanted to do in pre-release (but couldn't due to loc lock)."

[Tuhalu]

For those not yet aware, xwynns has done a 1.3 Perks and Perk Trees Preview that gives some pretty great insight into the ongoing changes in 1.3.

Looks like some impressive improvements and one or two possibly controversial ones (see Specialists in particular).

One side note from the video. Guerilla Ops are going to have smaller pods (2-3 enemies each usually), with the same numbers. This makes them harder for pure stealth, but much more viable for 3-4 man teams. Instead of 3 or 4 pods with size 4-5 on a light mission, you might see 5 or 6 pods with size 2-3 (maybe more solo drones?).

[Valaska]

Well it looks like I am turning automatic updates off for XCOM2, these changes look pretty dumb. "Lets make Specialist even more pathetic/worthless" "Good deal!"

The strategic stuff sounds awesome but this class changup just... Its a buzzkill patch. Its not even making things harder its just screwing you over and making things less interesting and fun trading it for frustration instead of making a smart and tactical game. Ugh... Another random chance addition to the game like missing point blank shots... Flashbang changes are the largest flop in this bout. Pretty close to reaper changes. So what, I'm supposed to WANT to bring a reaper in now that they are even MORE at risk? Already the most at risk class in the game just... Remove their effectiveness basically.

Meh...

Any chance of 1.3 strat update without class changes?

[Autoclave]

Well it looks like I am turning automatic updates off for XCOM2, these changes look pretty dumb. "Lets make Specialist even more pathetic/worthless" "Good deal!"

The strategic stuff sounds awesome but this class changup just... Its a buzzkill patch. Its not even making things harder its just screwing you over and making things less interesting and fun trading it for frustration instead of making a smart and tactical game. Ugh... Another random chance addition to the game like missing point blank shots... Flashbang changes are the largest flop in this bout. Pretty close to reaper changes. So what, I'm supposed to WANT to bring a reaper in now that they are even MORE at risk? Already the most at risk class in the game just... Remove their effectiveness basically.

Meh...

Any chance of 1.3 strat update without class changes?

Would someone rather tell me how to disable updating in steam? It looks like this option is completely gone and forces me to play latest version regardless. I really don't want to deal with all these 1.3 changes in my current campaign.

[burns]

Why the change to Formidable? WHY!?

And, yeah, it would really be nice to know if there is a way to avoid current campaigns to be affected by 1.3
Or will it only affect new campaigns started after the patch is up?

[Clibanarius]

Any chance of 1.3 strat update without class changes?

Nope! Either update or don't. And don't post on Reddit with such illuminating points as 'uegh these changes are shit', it doesn't make you seem intelligent.

[HerrDoktorMencus]

Well it looks like I am turning automatic updates off for XCOM2, these changes look pretty dumb.

I just want to say that I am extremely impressed by your ability to so confidently assess the value of these changes on the basis of a text description without ever seeing them in action and without even needing all data provided by other, yet to be disclosed, changes.

You Sir, are truly one of the great minds of your generation!