LordYanaek wrote:It's ambiguous when you try to think too much about it. If you just accept that LW2 isn't trying to implement real physics and uses a simple dice roll instead to simulate the uncertainty of combat rather than simulate the combat i don't see why to-hit is ambiguous. It's just a representation of some enemies being more agile and some soldiers having better aim.
Sorry for the quotes but your post was pretty long so i mostly quoted parts to better show what part i was answering to. Since my post came immediately after your and both were pretty long i think people read both or none so hopefully everybody knew the context
It's ambiguous because it's just that...not because I'm trying to make it complicated in thought. I mean...I'm pretty sure I was pretty explanatory in a very straight forward way of why I thought anything was ambiguous. There seems to be a disconnect between what I'm arguing, and what you interpret my intentions as ( and arguing against that..instead of what I'm saying )
To accept that LW2 isn't trying to implement something realistic to the game, then we would have to ignore grazing as a mechanic, infiltration as a mechanic, reinforcements as a mechanic, etc. These are all changes to the base game because they explicitly state they are trying to make the game a more realistic guerrilla experience. One would then have to actually state that you'd need to make a case of accepting that LW2 isn't just trying to make an asymmetrical gaming experience, instead of saying they aren't trying to be realistic. It's the other way around to your claim.
On a side note, I get that you want to keep your post length down, but you can never assume or presume knowledge of context, especially when it comes to segmented conversations ( like posts in a thread, or tweeting about something someone said in an interview about what someone said in a briefing. ) At the very least, you should indicate that you are paraphrasing a quote, or omitting sections of it with "snip" comments or ellipsis "...." around parts that may not be contextually relevant, but still showing that something is missing. Not trying to turn this into an English lesson ( or otherwise ), just trying to be journalistic-ally responsible from my viewpoint.
Well, to me a 10% hit means a difficult shot. Once it hits it makes no difference of course whether it was 10% or 100% but when you're about to shoot it just means your soldier will have a hard time aiming. Sorry but i still don't see what's ambiguous
Because you're conflating to hit with grazing ( or vise verse ). A 10% or 100% chance to hit matters on the premise of hitting a target; grazing a target comes after a hit is concluded. You bake a cake before you decide whether it is going be covered in orange frosting or not, not before.
Choosing to graze a target intentionally is irrelevant to the point of hitting a target to begin with, other than adding chance to miss if you were aiming at specific parts of the body ( like the shoulder ) that would then give greater chance of miss. This is part of what makes "to hit" ambiguous, because there is no such distinction of selection in shot target other than the entity itself. If you've played any Fallout game you should totally get what I'm saying in that context, and why I'm not saying the to hit system is wrong, just that it's ambiguous, and why I believe the damage range already justifies / compensates for what grazing would already define given that ambiguity.
OK Let's see it this way with easy numbers.
Let's say you have a 80% chance to hit a target.
Let's say the target have 25% chance to dodge as it's agile, turning the hit into a graze.
You want graze to be a second roll so in order to graze you have to roll 0.8 for a hit *0.25 (the chance to dodge) : you will graze a total of 20% of the shots, 20% will be misses that are unaffected by dodge and the remaining 60% will be full hits.
How is this different from rolling a single roll where 0-60=hit, 61-80=dodge, 81-100=miss?
There is no difference at all except saving time by not rolling the second dice.
Because you've overly simplified something that is a tad bit more complex. A graze is not a 20% chance..its a 25% chance ( as per your dodge model ), which is why it needs another roll. The reason why you don't roll them all at the same time ( and why I hate how crit works ) is because you've diminished something at the same time. Rolling 0-60 for a hit and 61-80 for a graze is not the same thing as first rolling 0-80 for a hit and then 0-25 for a graze. It saves cycles for computing, but it's wrong. It's blatantly wrong by 6%.
It's the same thing with crit. If you have 60% chance to hit, and 30% chance to crit, you then don't have 20% chance to crit ( 0-40 hit, 41-60 crit ). People say the grazing issue is merely a problem with the UI ..but it's also a disconnect between trains of thought between the people making the formulas and logics. It's okay if you want to use a single roll system, but then you need to be completely upfront with the values in game, not just the UI itself. If a sniper ability gives you 10% additional chance to crit...it needs to actually give you 10% ..not 6 or 8% because of how the to hit roll works.
What's strange? I was just agreeing with the damage range part
I just consider graze as a more extreme end of the damage range where you don't even really wound the enemy. Sure it could be all bundled into a wider range of damage making assault rifles 1-5 rather than 3-5 with + graze. Why make it a different mechanic then rather than the old damage roulette? You would have to ask Pavonis but the way i see it is that it allows more subtle interactions with other mechanics such as crit and aim (since you can remove graze completely with high enough aim) (also agree with Thrombozyt here)
It was strange because you stated it as if I didn't, and had no idea how it worked or what it meant. So yes, if you were agreeing with me, It was really odd to basically teach the same lesson all over again right after someone else did..in order to agree with them ^.^ .
Making assault rifles 1-5 is precisely the point of the argument that damage range already does grazing.....
Am I speaking Chinese here? lol ( no offense )
I also think that what Throm said is backwards. How would defense allow you to avoid damage, while dodge allows you to mitigate it? I mean.... am I in a thread stuck in "Backwards Day" ? When you hit a tank with an 50 caliber round ....do you say that the tank's armor dodged the bullet? Or that the driver steering away from a landmine mitigated damage that was never actually done to it? Again, I'm not picking on anyone for a thought / comment like that...but it rather does indicate to me that I could be discussing a matter with folks that have a fairly lax grasp on logical / straight forward concepts and/or definitions.
"I have to disagree with the damage range based on your hit chance in turn, for the same reasons already presented..."
Cutting the quote as it's not realistic to hope for something like this in LW2 so there's no point arguing about it.
Then why bring it up? I mean, this kinda goes counter to the entire back and forth in this thread, where seemingly nobody want's to actually change grazing, yet we still make opinion / quips about it none the less. It's not like your comment was off topic, off base, or outrageously unrealistic; quite the contrary to what I had said in reply to it in fact. So it seems rather odd to not want to talk about it and/or reply saying you wont talk about it. You could have just not quoted it and responded to it
. Kinda like how you snip parts of my comments when you quote me lol. ( bazinga! ) <3
I start to see where you're coming from but i'd say your view of the battlefield is static. Soldiers are never "standing still". People are not shooting at their enemies and then shouting "it's your turn". The turn based combat is an abstraction of real time action. When you shoot at someone behind full cover you're actually shooting at them the moment they peek their head to see where you are so you're not shooting through the cover, you're shooting "through" the short time when they are exposed and that's why it's harder to hit them. You don't always have 100 on that flanked sectoid because it's not a sitting duck and it's running towards another cover as soon as you flank it (or whatever other action you might imagine)
Now I feel like you are the one overthinking things. No, turn based games certainly do not behave like you present, nor are they subjective snapshots of combat that fits into abstract ways of rationalization. The point of a turn based game is to give you real time combat in "time outs" , where you typically each take turns making all your choices. Some games make it so both sides take their turn at the same time, and some make it so you can only make singular choices per turn ( instead of letting you make actions for all your units / structures / effects / etc. ).
When you shoot at someone when they are behind cover...you are shooting them when they are behind cover, that's it. A person peaking out would be an action on their turn, not the enemy turn; it's the entire principal behind the gameplay genre and mechanic. It's what also makes things like the a sectoid being flanked irrelevant on whether you perceive it to be still in motion, as at that time and moment it is not..it's flanked at that spot, at that particular angle of action. What you suggest is more ambiguity ...which sounds ironic considering the previous exchanges of dialogue.
I have no qualms with people "roleplaying" what they see as happening during a tactical fight, I mean...its video games...that's kinda the cherished point of it; but lets not confuse that for practicality of gameplay / realism.
If I was "shooting through" a short window of time where they were not in cover...then the entire mechanic of the game is created wrong. Actions would act with shorter walk / run distances to facilitate those moments, and there would never be a need for reaction fire from opposing teams. Reaction fire / overwatch, suppression fire, and ever tying that involves that...IS...what constitutes "shooting while getting into cover" as you explain. Once you are "in cover" ...you are in cover; you made the specific choice to stop there, otherwise you would have run past it onto a different spot during your turn.
I don't mean to demean your aesthetic / immersion with the game, but I seriously question any validity of that viewpoint in terms of gameplay and/or genre ( even for just this game in particular ). It's just literally untrue.
But there is a limit on how much realism you can put into the abstraction of a turn based tactical game which is what LW2 is unlike Call of Duty. Why do you think a game must be either totally realistic or not at all? There's plenty of shades of gray between black and white. Or maybe i should say.
Code: Select all
01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001
It's not about limitations, its about consistency; and it's not about whether they use one type or the other, but that they stick with it and not try and mix the two in ways that pulls from the aesthetic and/or gameplay itself.
Xcom games clearly do not go nearly as far into realism as they could, and I would say the same for "realistic" games like Call of Duty. Games after all always have some semblance of abstract "game" in it ( unless its a walking simulator ). I'm not saying that a game has to be completely realistic or completely unrealistic, and I'm pretty sure no game has ever achieved either spectrum. The point was that if you are going to cater to realism, then you need to be consistent in everything you do or present. If you add PhysX tech into your game...you can't just create parts of the world that don't use it; It's inconsistent, jarring, and generally puts players off if it pertains to important mechanics that are derived from having it.
Imagine if Breath of the Wild only had durability for swords, or Minecraft only had voxel blocks for digging, or only female soldiers in Xcom could be customized with gear / looks. It's not about whether a game is completely realistic or not ..it's about the consistency of the context in which it's being judged. If grazing is being added for realism ...then many other things that the damage range obscures should be added too. And if you're going to be adamant about weapon combat ( including abilities, utility items, etc. ) being as complex / realistic as it is now compared to before, then for consistency things like dodge, defense, cover, environmental damage / structure strength, etc. should be handled with the same scrutiny / enhancements.
If it's "not here yet", that's one thing, but what is already down the pipe should be a reflection of position.
I don't think the Graze Band is perfect but i think it does it's job well enough. In order to have the entirely realistic game you seem to crave for in XCOM2s engine would require rewriting the entire combat system to make it (quasi) real-time and using physics based projectiles. Than you would have to multiply the size of the maps dozens of times because with the current size everyone should be able to hear, see and shoot from one side of the map to the opposite one.
I fear you'll never be happy with XCOM2 or any of it's mods if you hope for something
totally realistic.
Oh, and no to THAC0 (BTW it's zero, not "o") because THAC0 is for d20 systems. XCOM is d100 system
Again, I believe you are trying to make an argument against what you perceive my intentions to be, rather than what I have actually stated / argued. I'm not arguing for Xcom 2 to be as realistic as possible, I'm simply pointing out inconsistency of design, and frankly just debating the parts of people's comments that I quote.
The initial argument was about grazing ....not whether Xcom should be more like Call of Duty or a real time 4x game. Just because I reference other things for examples..does not mean I'm campaigning for something like them. You can compare an apple to an orange...without making it sound like you want all grape vines to produce apple tasting grapes. ( yes, that was intentionally presented as a confusing statement, because this discussion is becoming just that with the things I feel I need to elaborate / defend points on )
Feeling the need to correct my usage of Thaco ...makes my head hurt.