Rookie Blackjack: how to manage RNG

[chrisb]

A lot of times I read about people struggling to grasp how to succeed in a game like Long War that is full of punishing RNG. Being able to manage negative RNG and taking advantage of positive RNG is what makes for a more fun and less frustrating campaign. This requires an amount of learning through external sources as well as playing the game itself and making mistakes. First you learn to walk, then you learn to run!

I'm going to use early game rookie promotion to show how to mitigate negative outcomes and possibly create some quite positive ones. And what is a strat without a name, let's call it...

Rookie Blackjack.

The name comes from a similar idea to card counting used by casino swindlers around the world! As the dealer removes the cards from the deck a player can track them determine a bias of what is left. This gives a gambler a means of shifting the odds in their favor by adjusting their bet based on this bias. If the deck becomes biased toward the house, then they play more conservatively. When the bias in the deck shifts towards the player, then they bet more aggressively. Really good card counters can take a casino for a ride, and many a movie/documentary has been made on the subject. What they are doing is biasing their bets towards the current likelyness of a positive outcome. We have a close analogue to this in rookie promotion.

When you start a new campaign you have this wonderful moment after Gatecrasher where you get to rank up your new squad of rookies. Well, at least those that survived at least (Damnit stop asking when does 1.3 come out!). By the time your done, your left with a 58 aim sharpshooter and a 72 aim grenadier. Not so wonderful huh? Well, there is a strategy that some more experienced players use that can help to avoid this often disappointing scenario.

For those unaware of how the game selects random rookies, I'll explain. When you start the campaign, your game creates a bucket with eight tickets in it, one for each class. As you promote rookies to squaddies, the game removes a ticket at random and the soldier is assigned that class. When the bucket is empty, it gets refilled with eight more tickets and the process repeats. This is where the analogy to blackjack comes in.

Great, but how do you stop getting those 50 aim snipers? There is some tactics to how you go about picking that can push the odds in your favor. It won't completely prevent mismatched stats, but you can at least apply a little bias that can often lead to getting quite a bit better soldiers than you would otherwise get if you simply promoted at random. What we want to do here is to optimize against negative outcomes. So let's try and remove as much random from this as possible. Here's how I like to go about it.

For the sake of simplicity, I'm only going to consider aim stat as the deciding factor. In practice you often want to take other stats into account, but that gets a lot more complicated and I want to keep the examples simple, so we'll just stick to aim. If your new to this, it's probably best to stick with aim, it's a pretty dominant stat overall and optimizing for multiple stats requires some experience and is more difficult to analyze. It also requires knowing which stats matter more for which classes. Aim tends to be the easiest to understand the value of for any given class. The more they rely on shots, the more aim matters. For me, this list in order is Sharpshooter = Assault > Ranger = Gunner = Technical > Shinobi = Specialist = Grenadier. This breaks everything up into three categories to which I assign 3 values, 1 / 0 / -1. With these values I have a range of possibilities where the most extreme cases are 2 and -3. The closer to these extremes I get, the more I want to pick a rookie matching those extremes.

When I make my first pick, I've got a full bucket so the class could be anything. I don't want this pick to be at either extreme, rather I want someone closer to average. This is because the soldier can be anything. If I'm picking with someone close to average, I'm not going to be disappointed in what comes up because they will be useful no matter what they are. They won't be great, but they won't be trash either. We're basically hedging our bet for now and allowing the bias to show itself. Once that soldier is picked, I'll do it a couple of more times. I now have only five classes left and I'm starting to get away from average towards my extremes. At this point, the choice I make is largely dependent on what my bias is and if I simply want to hold on for a bit until I get more rookies to promote.

Let's go with a simple example. Your down to three classes left. Assault, Technical and Sharpshooter, giving us a bias of 2. You have three rookies with 58, 64 and 73 aim. My personal preference here would want those to be Technical, Assault and Sharpshooter. I like aim on my assaults, and I would not be disappointed in the least if the Assault got 73 aim. I would be very disappointed if I landed a 58 aim Sharpshooter though. So I'm mostly trying to avoid that as much as possible. We know a limited number of possibilities exist. There are 6 combinations of classes, and 6 orders that I can pick my rookies in. This gives us 36 possible outcomes. I'm mostly concerned with getting a 58 aim Sharpshooter, so I want to remove those possibilities as much as possible. As long as the Sharpshooter is in the bucket, I'm not touching the 58 aim rookie.

Since we don't want to pick the 58 while the Sharpshooter is in the bucket, we have to go with one of the other two. My first pick has a 1 in 3 chance of being the Sharpshooter, if it's not I then have a 1 in 2 chance of getting him. If I start with the 73 aim, I'm giving myself a 33% chance of my preferred outcome, followed by a 50% chance of him being average. If I start with the 64 aim, I have a 33% chance of him being average, followed by a 50% chance of him being great. So which do I go with? Does it matter? Don't I have a 33% chance of getting a 73 aim sharpshooter either way? Sort of.

The thing is, you don't have to make all the picks right away. In this situation I would roll the 73 aim to see what I get. If I get the sharpshooter great, If I don't, then I stop rolling altogether. At this point I'll go detect my first couple of missions, load up squads of 5-6 with 3 rookies each, and send them on their way. Because you can only have 2 GOPs in your starting region, there's nothing more you can do until they get back anyway. Once they are back, I can pick something high aim and have a 50% chance of getting the Sharpshooter. If that fails I now have a 100% chance and I can pick exactly the rookie I want.

Now of course when dealing with probabilities like this, there are so many variations that it can be hard to optimize for more than a couple of classes. And you can really only optimize the last 3-4 in the bucket. That's mostly why I start with the most average soldiers I have for my first 4-5 picks. If I get most of my aim dependent classes first, lowering my bias, then I may switch it up and save the high aim rookies from gatecrasher, until the bucket is refilled. If I had Technical, Grenadier, Shinobi left to pick with those same aim stats, I might roll the 58 and 64 aim, saving the 73 for the next round.

This might sound like a lot of work, but once you get the hang of it, it's actually not that hard. Your mostly using the fact that when you start scanning for missions, you can only get two, and at this point your probably fine sending 2 squaddies with 3 rookies. For my next two missions, I'll take one rookie with each squad, getting me to my full 16 and the end of the bucket. This gives me two opportunities to try to optimize my stats on at least a few of my soldiers. Sometimes it works out really well, sometimes it doesn't. The point is that it often works out better than if you had simply chosen disregarding the stats of your choices. Played correctly you can at least greatly eliminate getting low aim on classes that need it the most and maybe even manage to pick up a couple of really great squaddies.

Another part of why I do this is because it often decides whether I build the GTS or AWC first. If I end up with getting some really great picks out of my first bucket, I'm more inclined to go AWC first as I have less need to mitigate bad rookie match ups. The GTS is kind of slow, taking up to 24 days before the first pair of rookies comes out. Getting the AWC, especially on higher difficulty, can be really good mitigation against early wounds, which can often be high due to the low HP. What I'm doing here is using a positive RNG outcome to mitigate a possibly very negative RNG outcome. If your first four missions land you with six wounded soldiers, that's a large chunk of available soldiers for future missions that is unavailable. Having the AWC up and running when those wounds come in can really help mitigate this. It also gives you some opportunity to pick up some early 4 day perks. Even though the early game is busy, it's often not that hard to have one guy in the tube. And the earlier you get started the more advantage those soldiers will have. If you can end up with some good squaddies combined with early AWC perks, and not a lot of wounds, this can turn into a strong starting advantage. The more advantage you keep on your side the easier it becomes to deal with negative RNG when it happens.

Although this may seem like a lot of work overall, this sort of exercise is valuable for more than just picking starting rookies. In fact this is how you generally mitigate getting really screwed by probability. This game is really not about getting all the best possible outcomes. It's much more about avoiding as many of the worst possible outcomes. Many of my campaigns have been lost simply because I got hit by a bad streak of negative RNG when I wasn't prepare for it. If you can learn to optimize the starting roster, then you can apply these same principles to many other choices you have to make. Should you buy an early scientist? If you build the AWC and don't get one in an early mission, and have a bunch of wounds, it's not going to help you if you can't staff it! Building the GTS first may seem like the logical choice to most players, but if you get 6 wounds in your first 4 missions, that GTS isn't helping you negate this situation and quickly leave you unable to deal with a follow-up streak of negative RNG. It's not so bad when this happens in March, but when it starts happening in mid to late game, you can easily end up tossing 50+ hours and having to start over. Learning how to optimize the RNG that you have control over can help you mitigate the RNG that does not go your way. On top of that when the RNG goes your way, you're in a better place to actually make use of it and can magnify how helpful that positive streak of RNG is.

I'm writing this for two reasons, as a resource for players to learn from and hopefully get more enjoyment out of the game instead of getting frustrated, and as a medium for more experienced players to share their thoughts and maybe even pick up some new tricks from someone else. A game like this only gets better when it's backed with a strong community. There are often many complaints of there not being enough info in the game, and some of them are valid. More often though, there is only so much the devs can do and rest is really up to us. We are the players, it's our game too!

[josna238]

Very Interesting, I haven't realized that. I only played 2 campaigns (first blindly just to realiza that it can't be done). But what I did was just use that unusual stats to do unusual soldiers. for example my first full holotargeter and full supressor were bad aim gunner/sniper and they ended having an important role.

I know that this odds game could seem very low help in terms of % but is a help though, who hasn't thought "I should throw a 100% to kill grenade instead of a 95% to kill shoot to THIS ROCKETER on my last action".

[chrisb]

Ya, that's basically it. It's not always going to work out, and that's what the GTS is for. When it does though, you can have the start of a good A-team right away, and it opens up the AWC as a 1st build, which is what I typically do on most starts.

Also once you get what's at play here, this pattern repeats itself throughout the game. In both the tactical and strategy layers. Sometimes it's not so simple, but the principal often remains the same. Mitigate negative RNG where you can, and when you roll some positive RNG, use that to help mitigate the next bit of negative RNG. The more you can keep that momentum going, the more successes you can have. You'll still get screwed now and then, but it gets much less common if you can keep ahead of it.

And of course, when you do get a bad roll for a class, there's typically some alternate build that can make them useful in some side missions.

[DonCrabio]

Nice topic, but this is band-aid for strange game design decision.

Last time I tried to start without Commanders Choice I ended with 6 useless soldiers from starting squad. Slow and low AIM Shinobi, Sharpshooter and Assault, low AIM but fast Gunner, slow and high AIM Technical and very slow (13) Ranger. As result, only 2 guys made to my A team, Spec and Grenadier, great start for masochist.

I really don't want to use any game changing mods, but I can't see any reason for this layer of RNG.

[chrisb]

I can see that, and I used to use Commander's Choice. The only time I use it now is when I do campaigns of all one class. Doing one now that is all Assaults. Much Crits, Many Fun!

The general point I wanted to get across is that this RNG is basically the whole game. If you can learn to manage this RNG, it will flow over into the rest of the game.

In my last real campaign out of my first 16 rookies I got 2 Snipers with 70+ aim and 1 Assault with 70+, the other 70 went to a Shinobi. I made the Shinobi a pistolier, that Assault hardly need a flank shot to kill.

[DonCrabio]

I just started new game today, again, only 3 soldiers will go to strike squads. Some will be usable as advisors and some will just waste oxygen in my barracks for the rest of the game. If I used Commanders Choice it will be 6 useful soldiers and two good advisors, feel the difference.

This is really bad for beginning of campaign, but in long term it mean nothing, I'm always have more good soldiers than I can adequately equip.

[darkerevent]

This is a good explanation of how to game the starting class RNG if one is using the default systems. It's the kind of card-counting thinking that is necessary if one is trying to optimize stuff of this nature.

Personally, I'm going to keep using Commander's Choice, because I cannot understand why picking rookies' promoted classes isn't the commander's choice to begin with. (I get to meticulously pick all of their fiddly little level-up perks later, but not which broad class of operations they're going to specialize in? Errrrm... what??)

[Jacke]

This is a good explanation of how to game the starting class RNG if one is using the default systems. It's the kind of card-counting thinking that is necessary if one is trying to optimize stuff of this nature.

While I think it's amazing that this RNG can be gamed against, it's also a bit crazy. As if there isn't enough else going on that demands the player's attention and skill. This is just one step too far and has no correspondence to any facet of any actual or imagined real combat. While examining new soldiers and matching them appropriately to a specialty is common in any sort of military.

Personally, I'm going to keep using Commander's Choice, because I cannot understand why picking rookies' promoted classes isn't the commander's choice to begin with. (I get to meticulously pick all of their fiddly little level-up perks later, but not which broad class of operations they're going to specialize in? Errrrm... what??)

This.

I wouldn't play a game without Commander's Choice now. Even though after the first month or two I'm not sending Rookies on missions, just putting two of them through the GTS every 10 days. But getting that initial group of trained soldiers as I need them is important and I will send out 1 Rookie on each GOP mission for at least April and partly into May.

[JulianSkies]

This is a good explanation of how to game the starting class RNG if one is using the default systems. It's the kind of card-counting thinking that is necessary if one is trying to optimize stuff of this nature.

While I think it's amazing that this RNG can be gamed against, it's also a bit crazy. As if there isn't enough else going on that demands the player's attention and skill. This is just one step too far and has no correspondence to any facet of any actual or imagined real combat. While examining new soldiers and matching them appropriately to a specialty is common in any sort of military

It's... Not really something that requires the player attention. Almost always there are other builds other than what the one that requires the Perfect Stats. A Ranger with base 56 aim will still have an amazing 85, accuracy with an elite hair trigger on an overwatch build, a 56 aim sniper can still be an incredibly powerful spotter build. I'm not sure what kind of bad stat line can't be made workable (not Super Amazing, just workable enough) in a given class.

This kind of technique is more for those who enjoy this style of playing the odds

[darkerevent]

It's... Not really something that requires the player attention. Almost always there are other builds other than what the one that requires the Perfect Stats. A Ranger with base 56 aim will still have an amazing 85, accuracy with an elite hair trigger on an overwatch build, a 56 aim sniper can still be an incredibly powerful spotter build. I'm not sure what kind of bad stat line can't be made workable (not Super Amazing, just workable enough) in a given class.

This kind of technique is more for those who enjoy this style of playing the odds

For practical reasons, I would never deploy a ranger who had a base aim of 56 unless it was to equip an SMG and go be an expendable squaddie in a destroy the relay mission (by cheesing it with Both Barrels).

I don't see a point in taking a character with terrible base aim and leveling it up as the class that depends on its base aim more than any other. It's wiser to give that squad slot (and mission experience) to a character who will be a better investment in the long term. Unlike a sharpshooter, the ranger doesn't even have access to a build that doesn't require shooting things, so it's not like there's an aim-free alternative here.

I do agree that a holo spotter sharpshooter is perfectly viable with bad aim though, as long as one isn't looking to make it into a Lead By Example officer later.

[chrisb]

One of the things I do with some of my sub-optimal squaddies is actually to spec them out for Havens. A lot of people will do this as well but completely neglect the poor sap. What I actually do is put together a full haven defense squad. When a retal happens, I pull all the advisors and send them on the retal. In this way I can guarantee a soldier who is built specifically for guarding the relay, and a few others will always be available on the cavalry squad. I then top it off with the best I have available in the barracks.

For example with a Ranger with bad aim I would typically perk him straight down the middle, maybe going for Aggression to play well with CnP and the shotty. Basically making him super tanky so he can dive into the pod on the relay and give the rebels a chance to pickup flanks while he 1 shots a couple of things. I also like to build out Technicals and Assaults, usually 2 of each letting me cover intel retals on 5 havens. This not only gives me great uninterrupted operations due to the raid CD, but also great experience because of no infil time on them.

Of course it's not the optimal outcome, but there always seems to be some way you can make use of a less than optimal soldier. And having optimal people then becomes a treat, rather than the norm, which I kind of find boring.

[LordYanaek]

I don't see a point in taking a character with terrible base aim and leveling it up as the class that depends on its base aim more than any other. It's wiser to give that squad slot (and mission experience) to a character who will be a better investment in the long term. Unlike a sharpshooter, the ranger doesn't even have access to a build that doesn't require shooting things, so it's not like there's an aim-free alternative here.

Not an Aim-free alternative, but an Overwatch build will suffer less from sub-par aim than other builds.
A MSgt Ranger starting with 58 aim will have 78 to become 55 on OW shots. One starting with 75 will go to 95 to become 67. Your 17 aim difference is reduced to only 9 for OW shots. With CuP, a Superior Hair Trigger and Fire Discipline you're still looking at a solid 83% chance to hit on clear OW shots compared to 92% for the best possible aim (an aim you probably wanted on your Sharpshooter rather than OW Ranger). In practice you'll rarely have such extremes so even a low aim (in the 60-64 range) Ranger can become a valuable soldier if you go the OW route.
Alternatively, your high aim Grenadier could go the Center Mass-Chain Shot route and either provide some control with Sting Grenades (robots are usually easier to hit) and Rapid Deployment-Protector or some guaranteed damage with Needle-Heavy Ordinance and later Salvo to throw a grenade and shoot.

[darkerevent]

Not an Aim-free alternative, but an Overwatch build will suffer less from sub-par aim than other builds.
A MSgt Ranger starting with 58 aim will have 78 to become 55 on OW shots. One starting with 75 will go to 95 to become 67. Your 17 aim difference is reduced to only 9 for OW shots. With CuP, a Superior Hair Trigger and Fire Discipline you're still looking at a solid 83% chance to hit on clear OW shots compared to 92% for the best possible aim (an aim you probably wanted on your Sharpshooter rather than OW Ranger). In practice you'll rarely have such extremes so even a low aim (in the 60-64 range) Ranger can become a valuable soldier if you go the OW route.
Alternatively, your high aim Grenadier could go the Center Mass-Chain Shot route and either provide some control with Sting Grenades (robots are usually easier to hit) and Rapid Deployment-Protector or some guaranteed damage with Needle-Heavy Ordinance and later Salvo to throw a grenade and shoot.

Oh, I agree that an OW ranger is the most viable option for a ranger with bad aim. Even so, I still wouldn't build it.

You're focusing on MSGT level theoretical power, but the practical fact of the matter is that I don't want the burden of carrying a low-aim ranger through enough early missions to get it to SGT for CUP, let alone taking it all the way to MSGT. Doing that isn't exactly trivial, especially when it comes at the opportunity cost of not having leveled up a character who would've been both more immediately useful at squaddie and more powerful later on (e.g. a damaging grenadier).

I certainly agree that a grenadier who happened to get high aim has some nice options (chain shot is definitely nice to have in that situation), but it's also a pretty basic reality of the game that grenadiers don't need a speck of aim to do their primary job, so most of my low aim rolls are going to end up being grenadiers if I have my preference.

[Flintrok]

Excellent RNG analysis/post chrisb! Some questions - if a soldier receives a Promotion but I don't immediately promote him, can that soldier receive a second promotion if he goes on further missions (i.e. bank his first promotion)? I think there's a cap on soldiers only receiving 1 promotion per mission, so not sure if banking a promotion works. Also, what if i put an earned promotion soldier (but not promoted) into the GWS? Or maybe I can't because they're technically not a Rookie anymore...

Will play with your analysis in mind on next campaign, thank you!

[darkerevent]

Also, what if i put an earned promotion soldier (but not promoted) into the GWS? Or maybe I can't because they're technically not a Rookie anymore...

If I recall correctly, the game won't let you put a rookie who has a promotion pending into the GTS.

[Jacke]

It's... Not really something that requires the player attention. Almost always there are other builds other than what the one that requires the Perfect Stats. A Ranger with base 56 aim will still have an amazing 85, accuracy with an elite hair trigger on an overwatch build, a 56 aim sniper can still be an incredibly powerful spotter build. I'm not sure what kind of bad stat line can't be made workable (not Super Amazing, just workable enough) in a given class.

This kind of technique is more for those who enjoy this style of playing the odds

For practical reasons, I would never deploy a ranger who had a base aim of 56 unless it was to equip an SMG and go be an expendable squaddie in a destroy the relay mission (by cheesing it with Both Barrels).

I also don't get ever training up from Rookie anyone with 56 aim (and I don't send out troops on suicide missions). Doesn't matter what their Aim will be when they get to MSgt, they're still going to be missing too many shots and likely leading to wounds, deaths, and defeats on missions on the way. And every soldier class needs Aim as some of their actions will be making some shots either opportunity, clutch, or resources expended.

The whole point of Rookie Blackjack is working around the silliness of random soldier class selection producing mismatches between class and the soldier's attributes. I say the whole problem is due to a design choice that puts a silly randomness into the game that Commander's Choice fixes.

As for what to do with low aim soldiers, if it was possible, why can't this person so unsuited for special military ops be slated as a region rebel where they could do better. I feel so strongly about this I adapt the mod A Better Rookie for LW2 (LITE) to up the average Aim from 65 to at least 75.

[LordYanaek]

You're focusing on MSGT level theoretical power, but the practical fact of the matter is that I don't want the burden of carrying a low-aim ranger through enough early missions to get it to SGT for CUP, let alone taking it all the way to MSGT. Doing that isn't exactly trivial, especially when it comes at the opportunity cost of not having leveled up a character who would've been both more immediately useful at squaddie and more powerful later on (e.g. a damaging grenadier).

I certainly agree that a grenadier who happened to get high aim has some nice options (chain shot is definitely nice to have in that situation), but it's also a pretty basic reality of the game that grenadiers don't need a speck of aim to do their primary job, so most of my low aim rolls are going to end up being grenadiers if I have my preference.

I wasn't really focusing on anything but an arbitrary level for comparison. As to leveling them, well in the early game (Sgt isn't that far away) if you got them from an early mission, they can still do some job or just tag along some (mostly) stealth missions and you might not have better soldiers available because even a low aim Cpl or LCpl Ranger will be slightly better than a Rookie. Later you won't have such a soldier anyway because of course you shouldn't build one on purpose

I wasn't suggesting building either on purpose, but if you draw one of them you can still make them useful. Or just leave them in a Haven if you prefer (but they won't be very useful in case of retaliations). No soldier is useless or "wasting oxygen in the barracks" and that's why i don't bother too much about what those Gatecrasher soldiers become, except for the veterans from my character pool

Of course, playing on Commander i probably don't need every single digit of optimization either.

[Dwarfling]

I don't really play roulette with my rookies: after a perfect or semi-perfect Gatecrasher I check the soldier list and see how many edge cases I got (both the ones with excelent stats for certain classes and the ones that just won't succeed as anything but on a specific class) and I save them for GTS. The rest of the close to average rookies I take on the initial missions, specially the prison breaks.

If I get a very low aim Ranger from Gatecrasher I restart. Honestly, the tank/sawed-off build just ain't good enough and I'd rather have a soldier that can pull its weight. Any other class you can work around weird stats either with a different build or with a PCS. In fact, my usual routine when starting a Gatecrasher is to check the rookies' stats: I see a 56-60aim low mobility rookie and I just restart right away. I can make them work as assault bio-tanks (+speed PCS) or Shinobis if I get them in the soldier pool after Gatecrasher, but I ain't risking getting them as any other class with those stats.

[Jacke]

If I get a very low aim Ranger from Gatecrasher I restart. .... In fact, my usual routine when starting a Gatecrasher is to check the rookies' stats: I see a 56-60aim low mobility rookie and I just restart right away.

This is why I use Commander's Choice and up Rookie's average stats in Aim (75), HP (5), and Mobility (18 because everyone gets a Grenade Pouch and most run with 4 items) with a metamodded A Better Rookie for LW2 LITE. There's no room for dead weight soldiers in XCOM. It just snowballs into tactical and strategic frustration and failure.

[JulianSkies]

If I get a very low aim Ranger from Gatecrasher I restart. .... In fact, my usual routine when starting a Gatecrasher is to check the rookies' stats: I see a 56-60aim low mobility rookie and I just restart right away.

This is why I use Commander's Choice and up Rookie's average stats in Aim (75), HP (5), and Mobility (18 because everyone gets a Grenade Pouch and most run with 4 items) with a metamodded A Better Rookie for LW2 LITE. There's no room for dead weight soldiers in XCOM. It just snowballs into tactical and strategic frustration and failure.

I'm of the opinion that a dead weight soldier is the sign of a bad commander, not a bad soldier. Of course, that's a matter of how the game should be designed, and I think it is pretty close to that.

[Jacke]

I'm of the opinion that a dead weight soldier is the sign of a bad commander, not a bad soldier. Of course, that's a matter of how the game should be designed, and I think it is pretty close to that.

Well, I like to think everyone can be trained to be useful in the military, but that's in standard units, where there's a lot of 2nd line and echelon troops. XCOM however, is a small-force insurgency and that's very much special forces, where the best 10% or less of soldiers will be good enough.

I really do think the ratings of stock XCOM 2 and LW2 are a bit low, especially for LW2 where the whole of the barracks needs to be employed for multiple missions and advisors as well as substitutes for wounded and killed soldiers. If low rated troops could be used as rebel forces and the best of rebel used as soldiers, it would be another matter. But the Rookies the game gives are what have to be used. And far too many of them with the default attribute averages are so weak in one or more attributes that they can be a tactical burden.

[chrisb]

I don't really play roulette with my rookies: after a perfect or semi-perfect Gatecrasher I check the soldier list and see how many edge cases I got (both the ones with excelent stats for certain classes and the ones that just won't succeed as anything but on a specific class) and I save them for GTS. The rest of the close to average rookies I take on the initial missions, specially the prison breaks.

If I get a very low aim Ranger from Gatecrasher I restart. Honestly, the tank/sawed-off build just ain't good enough and I'd rather have a soldier that can pull its weight. Any other class you can work around weird stats either with a different build or with a PCS. In fact, my usual routine when starting a Gatecrasher is to check the rookies' stats: I see a 56-60aim low mobility rookie and I just restart right away. I can make them work as assault bio-tanks (+speed PCS) or Shinobis if I get them in the soldier pool after Gatecrasher, but I ain't risking getting them as any other class with those stats.

This is exactly why I didn't call it Rookie Roulette. It was the name I thought of first since it sounds better, but the idea was to 'not' play roulette, but rather to game it like a card counter in blackjack And yes this is basically what I'll do as well, typically I roll around 5 of my gatecrashers to see what I have left in the deck. If I have say Sniper/Assault/Ranger left to pick, then sending out some of those good aim rookies that are left will get you some decent picks. I don't roll all 8 gatecrashers right away ever.

For a low aim ranger I will perk him down the middle of the tree going for aggression over center mass. I'll make him part of my Haven Defense squad and try to pick up defense perks in the AWC if there's anything good for him. Give them good ablative and nano vest and they can be really tanky on the relays while being able to 1 shot most things in a turn. Backed up with rebels he can allow them to get good flanks within the first 2 turns. It does require a little bit of carry initially, but being able to have that 80%+ crit chance on flanks is really nice.

[hewhoispale]

To everyone that saying that they can't play without commander's choice to prevent bad stats-class match ups on soldiers because it makes the game unplayable and not fun: Why don't you just turn NCE and HP off?

For reals, if having to deal with sub-optimal stat lines isn't fun for you, why do you play with the stat randomizer on?

[Frei_Ninjesus]

In my case I play with both NCE and HP off and Commander´s Choice installed because I have my character pool with characters meant to play a specific role. I couldn't stand to have my mock-up Predator be anything other than a Shinobi for example.

[Jacke]

To everyone that saying that they can't play without commander's choice to prevent bad stats-class match ups on soldiers because it makes the game unplayable and not fun: Why don't you just turn NCE and HP off?

Because we want to deal with varied troops but have control on who becomes what soldier class. For example, in the real world, you don't get very far if training to be a sniper if you're not a very very good shot.