Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Doctor Sticks
Posts: 68
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 5:40 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Doctor Sticks »

brunodema wrote:
Drogmyre wrote:I really don't like that aspect of the AI. I wish they'd suppress me more, make me think more about how to remove their overwatch or suppression, how to outmaneuver them when they're using special abilities.
I might be wrong, but I believe that in LW2 just a few enemies are actually capable of using suppression, while in LW1 almost everything had the ability (perk) to do so.
That is true, I recall being suppressed by sectoids in early mission. Indeed, it would be neat of there were more interesting abilities on both sides, so that there is less exchange of fire going on.
macharius39
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon May 22, 2017 7:03 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by macharius39 »

I don't want to submit to confirmation bias, but sometimes it seems like there's something off. The odd time being winged through full cover by disabled aliens is expected (it's RNG). But getting 3-4 hits in the same round vs someone in full cover with to-hit chances ranging from 5-25%, killing them outright is kind of much. Thankfully, I have the Save Scum mod for moments like this when the RNG system is just bollocks. The game does stuff like this just a little too often and it gives the middle finger to the concept of mathematical averages.

EDIT - I saw someone posting a log using a mod that shows the game actually cheating via "Aim Assist" to help ADVENT land hits. Ummm...what? That's just pure BS, I'm sorry :o

PS - Anyone else notice that Advanced Officers will almost always hit a target they marked in the same turn no matter how low their hit chance is? I am going to manually track this because it just seems off, or else the game is not properly calculating their hit chance.
Last edited by macharius39 on Mon May 22, 2017 8:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
kreken
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon May 22, 2017 7:21 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by kreken »

Does advent get an aim assist? I just got my specialist killed by a suppressed and disoriented gunner with a 10% to hit chance reported by Performed information. The
Customize UIEventNotice mod shows the phrase "aim assist modified hit chance to 101 using previous hit chance." (screenshot below)

Anyone have any idea what this means? Why was the hit chance modified after being reported by perfect information as being 10%??

Image
Jadiel
Posts: 214
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:28 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Jadiel »

Interesting. I also feel the AI could really do with some improvement, but for almost opposite reasons to you. As far as I'm concerned, it suppresses/overwatches way too often, as in most circumstances it's about as good as double moving. Especially late game, I have a ton of ways to disrupt either of those, and in most cases it would be far more likely to achieve it's objective (inflicting as much damage as it can on my soldiers and stopping me doing whatever I'm trying to do) by taking low percentage shots, or throwing grenades. The LW1 AI was really really bad at dealing with suppression, as it just fired at the unit suppressing it, when running the suppression would leave it in a much better tactical position. I think in LW2 the AI deals better with suppression, but it still doesn't seem to run suppression as often as it should.

I also find that they hunker quite intelligently, and often leave me in a difficult position where I need to advance and trigger other pods or remove their cover in order to deal with them. Hunkering is another mechanic that you need to be careful with though, as it's also pretty easy for it to become another 'do nothing' turn.

I don't have any problem with them being suicidal at all. They're being maneuvered by psionic overlords, who treat them like chess pieces.

Stuff that bothers me about the AI:

[*]Double moves still happen way too often
[*]Running into fire is dumb. Moving when you're standing in fire is also dumb
[*]Moving to a flanking position, then shoot at a soldier in cover.
[*]Prioritising moving into cover over dealing damage to the enemy. I shouldn't be able to stop a rocket just by flanking the rocketeer
[*]The AI is generally terrible at ordering it's turn. Shoot, then mark. Shoot then rocket/grenade/micromissile, etc.
[*]Marking in general - Advent officer moves to flank my soldier, then marks him, when he's the only enemy left on the map.
Severian
Posts: 28
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 2:23 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Severian »

Well, statistics aside, there is definitely something amiss. To be fair though, it might not be LW2 - it might be Perfect Information (possibly combined with LW2) or just my understanding.

I have just had a ranger shot through full cover, so let's check my understanding. The Advent in question was a disaoriented rocketeer who had (according to PI) an aim of 45 after disorient. My ranger has an innate defense of 10, and full cover gives 40 defence, for a total of 50 defence. Ignoring range, doesn't this mean that the rocketeer has a -5% chance of hitting my ranger? Or am I missing something? Is it something to do with a crit roll? (I thought not since I thought that role was only made after you hit, and my ranger has a dodge of +19.)
Last edited by Severian on Mon May 22, 2017 6:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Blathergut
Posts: 23
Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2017 2:16 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Blathergut »

I have yet to see an alien who is disoriented actually miss. I hurt them, w red fog on, but am at the point where I dread tossing a grenade to disorient them since even a sectoid w 1hp left will connect through full cover.

At least, that's how it feels! I can't say I've tried to track it, and I have no way of knowing the alien to hit numbers (no other mods running), but it sure seems like something is off.
JM01
Posts: 69
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 2:29 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by JM01 »

kreken wrote:Does advent get an aim assist? I just got my specialist killed by a suppressed and disoriented gunner with a 10% to hit chance reported by Performed information. The
Customize UIEventNotice mod shows the phrase "aim assist modified hit chance to 101 using previous hit chance." (screenshot below)

Anyone have any idea what this means? Why was the hit chance modified after being reported by perfect information as being 10%??

Image
I would like to know if this aim assist is working in Advent's favor as well. If the aim assist is indeed applying to Advent then that would explain why that is happening so much more often now than before. If the aim assist is actually granting advent 101% chance to hit then this would be a pretty bad bug.

It would also explain why perfect information isn't displaying it as I do not believe it displays percentages based off aim assists like that.

In fact I am starting to think that something is happening to advent aim when you debuff it past a certain point, as in I seem to see this a lot more often on SUPER low percentage shots. Do you think you could possibly test this by creating a test case where you debuff advent aim to a really low point and have them take shots at you?
RealityMachina
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon May 22, 2017 7:12 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by RealityMachina »

kreken wrote:Does advent get an aim assist? I just got my specialist killed by a suppressed and disoriented gunner with a 10% to hit chance reported by Performed information. The
Customize UIEventNotice mod shows the phrase "aim assist modified hit chance to 101 using previous hit chance." (screenshot below)

Anyone have any idea what this means? Why was the hit chance modified after being reported by perfect information as being 10%??

Image
Question: did you happen to lose a soldier before this incident?

EDIT: Actually I'm probably barking up the wrong tree with that question.

That said I remember someone mentioning the issues of trying to log exact shot values over several missions and Pavonis has actually done a lot of the leg work already: there's a bunch of disabled log statements for tracking the exact status of shots, how they break down to crit, dodge, etc, if a config option to re-enable them was added (and people were willing to deal with the log spam because there's a lot of statements), there would be a way to identify whether anything is wrong with seemingly wonky shots.
sacho
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:08 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by sacho »

Here's some inspirational RNG at work from a fellow LW1 streamer:

https://clips.twitch.tv/MoralMotionlessGrassRickroll
https://oddshot.tv/s/44TmSG
https://oddshot.tv/s/rwQC2y
https://gfycat.com/SpiritedClosedFantail
https://u.pomf.is/ximypz.webm

Getting shot through full cover happens. Not getting hit on your yolo shinobi in no cover also happens. Single cases don't mean the RNG is broken. We're predisposed to ignore all the times the RNG went in our favor, so you should always keep this in mind and be skeptical of your gut feeling.

It's really difficult to report a bug for the RNG, but not impossible. Use Perfect Information, log all shots in a mission. Do this for a couple of missions in a row, not just the one where you feel the aliens were hitting you "too often". Add up the expected hit chances and the actual hits/misses(as 100%/0%) and see if they're relatively close together.
sacho
Posts: 30
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:08 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by sacho »

Drogmyre wrote: In the first Long War, enemies were actually fairly unique depending on type. You could intimidate them in some cases, such as Floaters or Sectoids, you could keep them locked down as they respected suppression and knew that a 5% shot was significantly worse than using their own Suppression on you or running the Opportunist OW shot from your gunner/infantry/medic (your suppressor).
I hope you're not talking about XCOM 1 Long war, with its Floaters who have free shots on close range targets in low cover but instead decide to skip their turn. Or the other classic Floater move "let's all overwatch while XCOM shoots us from max range".


Drogmyre wrote: There is absolutely no excuse for ADVENT and the Ayys to be completely suicidal though, which they are. They will take a 5% to hit in low cover rather than hunkering, suppressing, doing literally ANYTHING ELSE. I'm not sure if this is intended behavior, and I hope it's not, because it's goddamn frustrating to lose a soldier to a VERY lucky shot through full cover when, by all logic, attempting that shot was a fucking terrible decision. They'll run a Suppression when they're 17 tiles away in full cover and are in absolutely no danger whatsoever, UNLESS they run the suppression like idiots to take a 5% to hit shot. Like, why would you do that, that's stupid!
I haven't seen this behavior from ADVENT, in fact, they're incredibly predictable - they will reliably hunker if they have no >10% shot, which makes it really easy for you to walk forward, suppress and hunker low cover and then flank them the following turn. Are you sure they didn't actually have a 10% shot, or that you weren't flanking them? In both cases even LW1 AI would have happily shot at you(in fact, LW1 AI regularly took <10% shots through suppression - the most common early game move by a controlled unit was to shoot a 1% shot at your gunner and miss).
Drogmyre wrote:
I really don't like that aspect of the AI. I wish they'd suppress me more, make me think more about how to remove their overwatch or suppression, how to outmaneuver them when they're using special abilities.

As it is, they just shoot at me, and I hope I don't get unlucky. There's really not that much interaction there, the AI is just really dumb.
Spamming suppression was usually good for XCOM in LW1 since it was easy to remove - the AI was pretty bad at choosing what to suppress and when. One of the most hilarious instances of this was intentionally getting flanked by a seeker or a drone, and then having the rest of the pod all suppress you so you don't "run away" instead of actually shooting at you in low cover.

Rainbow pods do use their abilities quite often, in fact they use them so much and the abilities are so effective that you need to keep them controlled. I think it's pretty telling when the only trooper you'd rather use their ability than shoot is the gunner. I'll take area suppression I can easily negate rather than getting shot by an LMG.

That means the AI is actually making the right choices, just suppression is really weak when used on XCOM, who usually have 5+ operatives online. Suppression is a useful tool to shut down low numbers of enemies. Do you ever actually suppress 1/5 aliens in a pod and call it a day? The rest will break your suppression and murder you. Why do you want the AI to use such a poor tactic?
Drogmyre
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:17 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Drogmyre »

sacho wrote: I hope you're not talking about XCOM 1 Long war, with its Floaters who have free shots on close range targets in low cover but instead decide to skip their turn. Or the other classic Floater move "let's all overwatch while XCOM shoots us from max range".

I haven't seen this behavior from ADVENT, in fact, they're incredibly predictable - they will reliably hunker if they have no >10% shot, which makes it really easy for you to walk forward, suppress and hunker low cover and then flank them the following turn. Are you sure they didn't actually have a 10% shot, or that you weren't flanking them? In both cases even LW1 AI would have happily shot at you(in fact, LW1 AI regularly took <10% shots through suppression - the most common early game move by a controlled unit was to shoot a 1% shot at your gunner and miss).

Spamming suppression was usually good for XCOM in LW1 since it was easy to remove - the AI was pretty bad at choosing what to suppress and when. One of the most hilarious instances of this was intentionally getting flanked by a seeker or a drone, and then having the rest of the pod all suppress you so you don't "run away" instead of actually shooting at you in low cover.

Rainbow pods do use their abilities quite often, in fact they use them so much and the abilities are so effective that you need to keep them controlled. I think it's pretty telling when the only trooper you'd rather use their ability than shoot is the gunner. I'll take area suppression I can easily negate rather than getting shot by an LMG.

That means the AI is actually making the right choices, just suppression is really weak when used on XCOM, who usually have 5+ operatives online. Suppression is a useful tool to shut down low numbers of enemies. Do you ever actually suppress 1/5 aliens in a pod and call it a day? The rest will break your suppression and murder you. Why do you want the AI to use such a poor tactic?
Yes, LW1's AI was also retarded in its own special ways, but good AI is hard to code. Fair point.

The only time ADVENT ever hunkers against me is if they're panicked or suppressed, and 90% of the time they'd rather just run the suppression and 2+ overwatches rather than hunker in a good position. I wish I was exaggerating, your game sounds like much more fun.

In over 200 hours of LW2 I've never been rocketed a single time. I've been grenaded a grand total of 4 times, all of which were flashbangs, I've never been incendiaried before, despite playing the game all the way through a dozen times. The only enemies that consistently use abilities are the Aliens and the mechanized units, who spam the hell out of them, which is fine by me, and Officers using Mark, and oddly never their grenades. Mutons on the other hand use them a lot, which is scary as hell and fun to play against (not sarcasm, I really like mutons as an enemy, they're a lot more in line with how I wish ADVENT's AI worked.)

I'm not saying they should ALWAYS overwatch or suppress rather than shoot or use an ability, but the way you're saying the AI plays is not my experience with it. I don't apply any AI .ini tweaks or have any AI altering mods, I don't know why ADVENT doesn't use their stuff properly, they just DON'T, at all, which is annoying when I try and play around it and they just shoot at me instead for sub-10% while disoriented, or run a suppression when they're on 1 hp and red fogged with nowhere to go... The AI just does really dumb things.
Nicklopez2005@gmail.com
Posts: 33
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2017 12:56 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Nicklopez2005@gmail.com »

I spoke earlier in this thread about getting hit critically behind full cover as if I do not have cover... most examples didn't indicate they were out of cover, but had a stance as though they were. Here's a different type of example that actually shows me flanked, although it's not possible to be flanked in this position. It didn't show the position as being flanked before moving to the spot... the character is stance is like the other situations where the animation of the character looks as though it's standing out in the open instead of putting her back to the cover. This is the last enemy on the map too.

Below the first screenshot is another screenshot right before moving to that spot where it clearly shows i'm not going to be flanked from that position
Attachments
20170523024922_1.jpg
20170523024922_1.jpg (135.25 KiB) Viewed 36506 times
20170523025708_1.jpg
20170523025708_1.jpg (110.83 KiB) Viewed 36506 times
Kyrsoh
Posts: 50
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 8:53 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Kyrsoh »

Interesting conversation!

I suggest a few things to all of you:

- Use the Perfect Information mod with healthy caution,
- Install the excellent Additional Icons mod, it always displays all the aim stats for the AI opponents as well (you can see the debuff effects above their head in the aim and movement stats such as Red Fog, poison, flashbang, etc.),
- Never forget the proximity bonus added to close-range shots for both sides,
- Never forget the weapon aim modifiers (such as the penalty for close-range shots with a cannon for an ADVENT gunner or the bonus aim for shotguns in a similar case),
- ALWAYS TURN OFF (set to 0) the Graze Band which can ruin your calculations badly,
- ALWAYS TURN OFF (set to 0) the Graze Band because it is a stupid, useless mechanic (I liked the damage reductions from cover a way more in LW1),
- Never forget the Defense stats of your soldiers, it can make a huge difference (even 10% more chance to die horribly),
- Never forget the Dodge stats of your soldiers, negative Dodge can make a single low-chance hit into a deadly CRIT,
- Never forget that the cover values are: low cover 30, high cover 45 (not 20 and 40 like in vanilla),
- Never forget that ADVENT has a plenty of troops with average aim: a plenty of low-chance shots against XCOM agents in high cover means a fair amount of hits anyway!

I display an "average Joe" situation below (WITHOUT GRAZE BAND):

Two ADVENT Troopers and an Officer are your enemies in an urban fight. You have a soldier in high cover with a Defense stat of -4. ADVENT are taking shots against him because he is the easiest target for them, so they are all firing at him in their turn.

ADVENT Troopers have 65 Aim. Hit chance: 65 Aim - 45 High Cover + 4 from your negative Defense = 24% (one in four)
ADVENT Officer has 75 Aim. Hit chance: 75 Aim - 45 High Cover + 4 from your negative Defense = 34% (one in three)

ADVENT Officer can mark your soldier for +15% hit chance. They can come closer to you for another +2-30% hit chance. They can have high ground bonus for another +10-20% hit chance. Your soldier can have a negative Dodge stat as well, so can be killed by a crit shot even without being flanked. Awful, isn't it?

If your "Average Joe" is cornered by three ADVENT soldiers without hunkering down behind a high cover wall he will be dead or badly injured for sure! ADVENT always try to KILL one of your soldiers, they will concentrate their fire against your low-defense, low-HP characters, murdering wounded, panicked, poisoned units with pleasure. This is their job and they like this shit!

According to these things YOU HAVE TO use Aid Protocol, Fortify, Hunker Down, Body Shield, etc. methods to prevent a certain death even when you are in High Cover. You will run out of luck after a few shots if you think that High Cover is enough. If they can shoot you, you can die, so prepare your firefights properly!
macroman247
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue May 23, 2017 5:31 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by macroman247 »

Created an account just to post that this new update has changed things in a way that are no longer as fun for me. I'm not sure this falls under confirmation bias because I realized I was getting hit through cover so much more now long before I saw this thread.

I thought the close range accuracy bonus was the main culprit but I'm getting hit left and right from far ranges. Flashbang changes were so minor that it can't account for such a drastic experience either. So what gives? I can hunker down and aid protocol only so much and it just means advent will target someone who isn't protected anyways.
Sikhtar
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue May 23, 2017 9:03 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Sikhtar »

macroman247 wrote:Created an account just to post that this new update has changed things in a way that are no longer as fun for me. I'm not sure this falls under confirmation bias because I realized I was getting hit through cover so much more now long before I saw this thread.

I thought the close range accuracy bonus was the main culprit but I'm getting hit left and right from far ranges. Flashbang changes were so minor that it can't account for such a drastic experience either. So what gives? I can hunker down and aid protocol only so much and it just means advent will target someone who isn't protected anyways.
This is happening to me as well. Starting with 1.3 my soldiers have been hit consistently in full cover, even at extreme range. I love lw2, I really do, but until next version I guess I'll put it on ice (1.4 didn't change anything in this regard, at least for me).
fowlJ
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 1:45 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by fowlJ »

I would strongly recommend anyone experiencing this to install a mod like Perfect Information (or EU Aim Rolls, which is more accurate but requires some .ini editing to work correctly with LW2) and start tracking shots (% to hit + result) that happen in their game, both by XCOM and the aliens. If there is actually something going on, having sufficient data to identify it would be an important step to figuring out how to address it.
kreken
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon May 22, 2017 7:21 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by kreken »

sacho wrote:Here's some inspirational RNG at work from a fellow LW1 streamer:

https://clips.twitch.tv/MoralMotionlessGrassRickroll
https://oddshot.tv/s/44TmSG
https://oddshot.tv/s/rwQC2y
https://gfycat.com/SpiritedClosedFantail
https://u.pomf.is/ximypz.webm

Getting shot through full cover happens. Not getting hit on your yolo shinobi in no cover also happens. Single cases don't mean the RNG is broken. We're predisposed to ignore all the times the RNG went in our favor, so you should always keep this in mind and be skeptical of your gut feeling.

It's really difficult to report a bug for the RNG, but not impossible. Use Perfect Information, log all shots in a mission. Do this for a couple of missions in a row, not just the one where you feel the aliens were hitting you "too often". Add up the expected hit chances and the actual hits/misses(as 100%/0%) and see if they're relatively close together.

I have reason to suspect that this could be an aim assist in Advent's favor

I dug through the .ini file and found the following:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\268500\844674609\Config\XComGameCore.ini:

MaxAimAssistScore=101 ; so does this

; Rookies
AimAssistDifficulties[0]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=100 ); so do these

; Veteran
AimAssistDifficulties[1]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=100 )

; Commander
AimAssistDifficulties[2]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=100 )

; Legend
AimAssistDifficulties[3]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=100 )


SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment is the value i'm questioning here. Seems like its aim assist set to kick in when a soldier (alien?) dies. This is set to 0 in the default game .ini as well as LW 1.2.

Any thoughts from the LW devs?
JM01
Posts: 69
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 2:29 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by JM01 »

kreken wrote:
sacho wrote:Here's some inspirational RNG at work from a fellow LW1 streamer:

https://clips.twitch.tv/MoralMotionlessGrassRickroll
https://oddshot.tv/s/44TmSG
https://oddshot.tv/s/rwQC2y
https://gfycat.com/SpiritedClosedFantail
https://u.pomf.is/ximypz.webm

Getting shot through full cover happens. Not getting hit on your yolo shinobi in no cover also happens. Single cases don't mean the RNG is broken. We're predisposed to ignore all the times the RNG went in our favor, so you should always keep this in mind and be skeptical of your gut feeling.

It's really difficult to report a bug for the RNG, but not impossible. Use Perfect Information, log all shots in a mission. Do this for a couple of missions in a row, not just the one where you feel the aliens were hitting you "too often". Add up the expected hit chances and the actual hits/misses(as 100%/0%) and see if they're relatively close together.

I have reason to suspect that this could be an aim assist in Advent's favor

I dug through the .ini file and found the following:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\268500\844674609\Config\XComGameCore.ini:

MaxAimAssistScore=101 ; so does this

; Rookies
AimAssistDifficulties[0]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=100 ); so do these

; Veteran
AimAssistDifficulties[1]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=100 )

; Commander
AimAssistDifficulties[2]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=100 )

; Legend
AimAssistDifficulties[3]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=100 )


SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment is the value i'm questioning here. Seems like its aim assist set to kick in when a soldier (alien?) dies. This is set to 0 in the default game .ini as well as LW 1.2.

Any thoughts from the LW devs?

I think you might actually be on to something. Here is what the DefaultGameCore.ini file has for those:

; Rookie
AimAssistDifficulties[0]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.2, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=10, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=-10, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=15, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=-10 )

; Veteran
AimAssistDifficulties[1]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.1, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=10, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=10, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=-10 )

; Commander
AimAssistDifficulties[2]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=15, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=0 )

; Legend
AimAssistDifficulties[3]=( \\
BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0, \\
MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0, \\
SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=0 )

What is odd is that the comments in there state that those adjustments help disable some buggy behavior with Graze band. I don't know if this has been there since the start of LW but I would suspect that it might be causing this and could be the reason that Perfect Information is not displaying this. I would def like the long war devs to chime in here.
RealityMachina
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon May 22, 2017 7:12 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by RealityMachina »

I initially thought so too, but as explained to me by both a fellow modder and the LW2 devs, the reason it's like that is to prevent aim assist from interfering with LW2's roll system.

Code: Select all

	//  reaction  fire shots and guaranteed hits do not get adjusted for difficulty
	if( UnitState != None &&
		!bReactionFire &&
		!bGuaranteedHit)
	{
		PlayerState = XComGameState_Player(History.GetGameStateForObjectID(UnitState.GetAssociatedPlayerID()));
		
		if( bRolledResultIsAMiss && PlayerState.GetTeam() == eTeam_XCom )
		{
			ModifiedHitChance = GetModifiedHitChanceForCurrentDifficulty(PlayerState, HitChance);

			if( RandRoll < ModifiedHitChance )
			{
				Result = eHit_Success;
				bModHitRoll = true;
				`log("*** AIM ASSIST forcing an XCom MISS to become a HIT!", true, 'XCom_HitRolls');
			}
		}
		else if( !bRolledResultIsAMiss && PlayerState.GetTeam() == eTeam_Alien )
		{
			ModifiedHitChance = GetModifiedHitChanceForCurrentDifficulty(PlayerState, HitChance);

			if( RandRoll >= ModifiedHitChance )
			{
				Result = eHit_Miss;
				bModHitRoll = true;
				`log("*** AIM ASSIST forcing an Alien HIT to become a MISS!", true, 'XCom_HitRolls');
			}
		}
	}
Alien adjustment chances being set to 101 make sure aliens never get their shots forced to miss (since the RandRoll is out of 100). XCOM adjustment chances at 0 will make sure XCOM shots will never be forced to hit.

EU Aim Rolls as shown from a screenshot another user posted is picking up on that (and honestly it's kicking in too soon since the game hasn't actually decided whether the aim's been truly adjusted at the point it notifies you), but it's not catching the whole story.
User avatar
johnnylump
Site Admin
Posts: 1262
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2015 4:12 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by johnnylump »

Specifically, we made that change in 1.3 so the Graze band works properly for the alien team, but no, we are not intentionally cheating in favor of the AI with those settings. Players should definitely be seeing more grazes against XCOM, because the upper half of the graze band was being reverted to a miss in 1.2 and earlier. Anyway, we're keeping an eye on this thread.
kreken
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon May 22, 2017 7:21 am

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by kreken »

could this simply be a conflict with the EU aim rolls mod then?
(i set it up per the instructions to use LW2 aim rolls and just log the info)
JM01
Posts: 69
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 2:29 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by JM01 »

johnnylump wrote:Specifically, we made that change in 1.3 so the Graze band works properly for the alien team, but no, we are not intentionally cheating in favor of the AI with those settings. Players should definitely be seeing more grazes against XCOM, because the upper half of the graze band was being reverted to a miss in 1.2 and earlier. Anyway, we're keeping an eye on this thread.
Ahh good to know. Also I don't think anyone was saying that there were any intentional cheats occurring in favor of aliens. Just looking to see if there was not something changed by mistake that was not intended maybe causing a situation where advent was hitting so much behind full cover.

That being said it looks more and more like it's just been bad luck on our end (and a lot of it too). We'll just have to learn to deal with situations like that more.
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Antifringe »

So I did a controlled test run just to see. I used the console to create a soldier with 10,000 health, zero defense and zero dodge, set graze band to zero, and then set up a Rendezvous mission. I had the rebels grenades themselves to death, then cleared out all the aliens except for a trooper. I put my soldier behind high cover and let him shoot at me 100 times. Perfect Information lists the to hit odds as 20%, which makes sense, since the trooper has an Aim of 65 and high cover is 45 defense.

The trooper hit 21 times and missed 79 times, which is way, way, way within expected bounds of error. It's only 100 trials, but for people to be noticing an effect during natural play and without taking notes, the effect would have to be huge, and 100 trials without even a whisper of a real effect isn't very encouraging.

Also, if aliens get the same range bonuses that XCOM does, the trooper should have been getting a +6% to hit from where he was firing from. There aren't not enough trials to be sure, but this at least suggests that aliens don't get range bonuses at all, and that Perfect Information doesn't list such a bonus because it knows what it is doing.

People are welcome to add more data to the pile, but it's tedious work even with high slomo values, and this is as far as I'm willing to go.
JM01
Posts: 69
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 2:29 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by JM01 »

Antifringe wrote:So I did a controlled test run just to see. I used the console to create a soldier with 10,000 health, zero defense and zero dodge, set graze band to zero, and then set up a Rendezvous mission. I had the rebels grenades themselves to death, then cleared out all the aliens except for a trooper. I put my soldier behind high cover and let him shoot at me 100 times. Perfect Information lists the to hit odds as 20%, which makes sense, since the trooper has an Aim of 65 and high cover is 45 defense.

The trooper hit 21 times and missed 79 times, which is way, way, way within expected bounds of error. It's only 100 trials, but for people to be noticing an effect during natural play and without taking notes, the effect would have to be huge, and 100 trials without even a whisper of a real effect isn't very encouraging.

Also, if aliens get the same range bonuses that XCOM does, the trooper should have been getting a +6% to hit from where he was firing from. There aren't not enough trials to be sure, but this at least suggests that aliens don't get range bonuses at all, and that Perfect Information doesn't list such a bonus because it knows what it is doing.

People are welcome to add more data to the pile, but it's tedious work even with high slomo values, and this is as far as I'm willing to go.
It's pretty well appreciated that you did that work (at least by me). The sample size is a little small but I doubt it would deviate much from there. The only thing is that seems more that aliens hit more after a certain event (like a soldier dying or something). Granted that has not been proven and I don't think it will be so I am just going to chalk it up as to us just being super unlucky. I have noticed that my xcom soldiers do also seem to hit a larger number of shots that are fairly low percentage too as I have been playing more. I started taking low percentage shots a while ago because I figured sometimes it's better to just try a shot than to waste a turn. This is likely more to do with my luck being good on those shots.

Either way I am just glad that people have done some work to investigate this.
Antifringe
Posts: 226
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:52 pm

Re: Aliens hitting me frequently through full cover

Post by Antifringe »

I want to modify something I said earlier. It looks like aliens do get range bonuses, but only against flanked targets, which is different from how XCOM aim rules work. Perfect Information correctly displays this bonus when it is relevant.
Post Reply