Suppression Feels One-sided

[Serious Sponge]

I feel like suppression is a bit too one-sided against the player. When my soldiers get suppressed, they pretty much can't do anything on their turn. They have only enough Time Units to either move a few tiles or shoot a single shot. When I suppress alien units, they act like it means nothing and they often move several tiles and then take a shot that often hits, which feels like the effort to suppress them with like a flashbang could have better been diverted to simply trying to shoot them or throw a regular grenade in order to deal damage.

In my opinion, if a unit, friendly or enemy, isn't going to meaningfully suffer from being "suppressed", then they probably shouldn't be able to be suppressed in the first place because it otherwise will give a false sense that the player can hinder them so.

[Conductiv]

I have to disagree, 

the activation after they have been suppressed: they can move and shoot, but they cannot move very far if they do so, we are talking 2 maybe 3 tiles if armed with a pistol. they can basically never shoot twice as the AI greatly prefers the firing options that it can only perform twice per turn tops. they can't use grenades atoll in the turn after they have been suppressed. if they can't get a shot on the player with that puny amount of movement, they generally just sit there and save their TU for a reaction

the main benefit from suppression is that it stops enemy reactions, all enemies that can be suppressed lose all their TU the moment they get suppressed. this allows you to run up and perform a shotgun lobotomy without much resistance. it also allows ready-and-waiting machineguns to reflex suppress enemies and basically trap them in the open.

the exact same goes for the player, if the player gets suppressed..he loses all TU and cannot react until its next activation, at the next activation you have half TU..so your movement is limited if you still want to land a accurate shot. 

[Mr.Xia]

If you suppress the alien, it gives you a reaction free environment so your troops are safe to act, but you have to rush in and kill it before the end of turn, thats the mentality of suppression tactics, they arent to lockdown aliens not to act, but for you to rush in for the kill safely.

And for aliens that could still kill your soldiers effectively even after suppression..... well I would blame turn-based RNG for that.....sometimes.

[doubleskulls]

Suppressing aliens is great - you know they don't have reaction fire and, I think Aliens use 40% of their TUs to shoot, so they've got 10% left for walking to line up a shot. 

If your soldiers get suppressed it can be bad. Particularly losing the 50% TU next turn. If you've a 51% TU weapons (e.g. LMG) you may not be able to shoot at all. 

[Serious Sponge]

I mean, I guess? I suppose I'm just used to X1 where suppression was far more punishing for both sides, or at least it certainly felt like it. Where it was almost like getting that unit's turn skipped in terms of what they could do. Rarely did I see aliens being able to move and shoot at the same time after getting suppressed and being able to get off consistent shots that could hit at the same time.

[Serious Sponge]

I know that it blocks reaction fire but that's half of the battle in trying to suppress the enemy. There's been too many times where I've had situations where I took advantage of them not being able to reaction fire, only for them to take a those 'few steps' and get off a shot that kills the guy I just moved into position. I like to consider myself a more cautious player too, and my guys were not like exposed or way out of position. If they can just push out anyway and get success, I feel that makes trying to suppress them not worth it in a great many cases.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Serious Sponge

[doubleskulls]

Suppression is a tactical option to use when you need it. I rarely try and suppress with anything other than flashbangs too. If I get it from shoot its great, but I rarely have that as a goal. Its too unpredictable to rely on and I'd rather just shoot to kill. 

Generally I'll look at the level of risk I think I have if the alien shoots - if I've got a shield I may use that soldier to generate reaction fire rather than trying to suppress, and also it can be worth checking your reflexes too. High reflex soldiers are less likely to generate reaction fire. 

[Serious Sponge]

To be clear, I'm not saying that this kind of suppression is bad, I quite like the idea. What I am saying is that I think there's an unfairly disproportionate effect when it comes to the player being suppressed. The aliens don't have to put nearly as much effort to exploit my guys being suppressed as I have to in order to exploit them being suppressed. If anything gets suppressed, it should be, well, suppressed. And something like this I feel should be consistent across everything.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Serious Sponge

[Ogilvy the Astronomer]

1 hour ago, Conductiv said:

the activation after they have been suppressed: they can move and shoot, but they cannot move very far if they do so, we are talking 2 maybe 3 tiles if armed with a pistol. they can basically never shoot twice as the AI greatly prefers the firing options that it can only perform twice per turn tops. they can't use grenades atoll in the turn after they have been suppressed. if they can't get a shot on the player with that puny amount of movement, they generally just sit there and save their TU for a reaction

the main benefit from suppression is that it stops enemy reactions, all enemies that can be suppressed lose all their TU the moment they get suppressed. this allows you to run up and perform a shotgun lobotomy without much resistance. it also allows ready-and-waiting machineguns to reflex suppress enemies and basically trap them in the open.

the exact same goes for the player, if the player gets suppressed..he loses all TU and cannot react until its next activation, at the next activation you have half TU..so your movement is limited if you still want to land a accurate shot. 

 

1 hour ago, Mr.Xia said:

If you suppress the alien, it gives you a reaction free environment so your troops are safe to act, but you have to rush in and kill it before the end of turn, thats the mentality of suppression tactics, they arent to lockdown aliens not to act, but for you to rush in for the kill safely.

And for aliens that could still kill your soldiers effectively even after suppression..... well I would blame turn-based RNG for that.....sometimes.

Thanks both for explaining how suppression works in the game, I didn't really understand it before but it seems pretty simple now.

[Vitruviansquid]

I actually thought suppression was a mechanic that favored players too much.

Most aliens don't have machine guns and can't burst fire their rifles to make suppression easy to get. Aliens don't have shotguns to go instant kill people that are suppressed. Aliens tend to fight alone and not be able to capitalize on suppress if they achieve it.

[Skyfire]

On 8/6/2023 at 6:40 AM, Serious Sponge said:

To be clear, I'm not saying that this kind of suppression is bad, I quite like the idea. What I am saying is that I think there's an unfairly disproportionate effect when it comes to the player being suppressed. The aliens don't have to put nearly as much effort to exploit my guys being suppressed as I have to in order to exploit them being suppressed. If anything gets suppressed, it should be, well, suppressed. And something like this I feel should be consistent across everything.

I'm pretty sure the suppression mechanic itself is 100% symmetrical: lose all remaining TUs on the turn a unit gets suppressed, and only regain half next time the unit regains TUs at the start of the turn. An alien being suppressed is losing at least one shot, and probably being forced onto a less accurate shot mode even if they do shoot. The shot they do get is equivalent to a middle-accuracy assault rifle shot. Try checking a random normal shot through cover with your guys a few times - it's probably around a 30% chance to hit. If they weren't suppressed, that one 30% shot would have been one 30% shot plus one 50% shot (2x 50% with a pistol), or a longer move into a flanking 70% shot, so they definitely are becoming less dangerous.

The feeling of an alien advantage is basically coming from the fact that they're expected to die, so they have nothing to lose by rolling the dice.

If an alien takes a 30% shot, misses, and gets killed, it's just kind of 'eh, that was the expected result anyway', but if it lands the shot then it's a significant win - it hurt or killed a soldier that is a long-term asset for the player, while even if it gets blown up immediately afterwards itself, it was only ever a short-term asset for the alien side.

On the flip side, if the player takes a risky 30% shot, the situation is pretty much reversed. A hit is just 'OK, things are on track' whereas a miss could cost a soldier death (and therefore weaken your force for the rest of the mission, lose experience/stats on the strategic level, etc).

[Serious Sponge]

12 hours ago, Skyfire said:

I'm pretty sure the suppression mechanic itself is 100% symmetrical: lose all remaining TUs on the turn a unit gets suppressed, and only regain half next time the unit regains TUs at the start of the turn. An alien being suppressed is losing at least one shot, and probably being forced onto a less accurate shot mode even if they do shoot. The shot they do get is equivalent to a middle-accuracy assault rifle shot. Try checking a random normal shot through cover with your guys a few times - it's probably around a 30% chance to hit. If they weren't suppressed, that one 30% shot would have been one 30% shot plus one 50% shot (2x 50% with a pistol), or a longer move into a flanking 70% shot, so they definitely are becoming less dangerous.

The feeling of an alien advantage is basically coming from the fact that they're expected to die, so they have nothing to lose by rolling the dice.

If an alien takes a 30% shot, misses, and gets killed, it's just kind of 'eh, that was the expected result anyway', but if it lands the shot then it's a significant win - it hurt or killed a soldier that is a long-term asset for the player, while even if it gets blown up immediately afterwards itself, it was only ever a short-term asset for the alien side.

On the flip side, if the player takes a risky 30% shot, the situation is pretty much reversed. A hit is just 'OK, things are on track' whereas a miss could cost a soldier death (and therefore weaken your force for the rest of the mission, lose experience/stats on the strategic level, etc).

Yeah, after thinking about it some more I guess it really is fair, but I don't know. Something about the difference from the first game feels like it favors the aliens more than it favors the player here. Where the AI from X1 generally chose to either shoot or move and more often than not they would retreat further back after being suppressed. Strictly comparing this from the original, it seems on paper that there may not be any huge differences but there's definitely something different. Playing both games side by side, suppression feels like it punishes the aliens more in X1 than in X2 and it's the same level of bad for your soldiers in both games.

I am playing on Veteran difficulty, which does say it confers an accuracy bonus to enemies which can explain why they can take a crap shot and it succeeds more often...Maybe the aliens should lose their difficulty-specific accuracy bonus when suppressed to equalize it better?