I have occasionally expressed concerns about the place of RNG in LW2, especially when it's proc chance on consumables like the fire grenade (i won't revive that discussion, it's over, let the uber fire grenade R.I.P.). Those concerns were never motivated by a disagreement on item balance, but rather by a dislike of RNG as a balancing mechanism. To me an overpowered item is not better balanced if it procs with a random chance, it's just OP when it procs and useless the rest of the time which i consider bad, or at least imperfect, design ... like those stupid repeaters in vanilla XCOM2
Yeah, the point of this thread is that after coming back to XCOM2 from LW2, i now realize how much Pavonis managed to mitigate the effect of the RNG in their mod compared to the base game, especially in the early part of the campaign when you can typically loose to bad luck in Vanilla XCOM2 but will loose to bad moves in LW2
- They removed some of the biggest offenders from the base game (repeaters, hair triggers)
- They gave us (somewhat) reliable ways to deal with most aliens immediately after Gatecrasher (several soldiers are pretty reliable to remove T1 right from squadie level). A reason why the new heroes seem OP to some players is that they are more reliable (Templar has 100% to hit, Reaper comes close with easy flanks, Skirmisher has good to-hit bonus on Justice) while actually their raw power is lower than regular soldiers with a basic Assault Rifle and becomes worse with higher tech, but in LW2 we already had Assaults and Shinobi for (almost) guaranteed hits, Sharpshooters for high chance to hit from range, Rangers for 2 shots increasing our overall chance to hit, Needle grenades for auto-hit that doesn't destroy loot. All of this makes the early game much less reliant on luck than it is in Vanilla XCOM2 - unless you go kaboom all the way.
- The often vilified Graze Band (along with the modified dodge/crit) is actually a nice tool to keep the RNG under control. In vanilla XCOM2, when ADVENT hits you in full cover, you're dead because it's almost always a crit. 10% chance to be hit might not look like a lot but 1/10 chance of being outright killed is not something to laugh at. In LW2 this becomes 20% chance to suffer some light wounds instead which is much better - sure they are more likely to hit you but you'll probably not loose the mission (and the squad) due to that single low probability hit.
- AVATAR project is much more regular and controllable in LW2. I know a number of players complain about Facility Leads requiring luck but they mostly require planning to detect (and some understanding of the activity) while vanilla XCOM2 AVATAR is totally random. I almost lost my current campaign in later May when the doom clock went full for the second time (after i destroyed the Blacksite) while i was scanning to contact the nearest region with a facility as a chosen sabotaged the Avenger, causing that scan time to double. I was down to 11 h when i finally made contact (doom countdown is now shorter the second time it starts). Now OTOH AVATAR is a complete non-issue because i regularly spawn Covert Ops to sabotage it (something i didn't see during the first months) : that is total RNG. AVATAR in LW2 takes time to start, allowing you to develop and becomes an issue when you should be able to handle it with no luck involved at all.
I'll complain again next you'll add some proc chance of course but i'll try to remember how much LW2 improved over vanilla XCOM2, even when it comes to the place of the RNG, and i hope other players will also realize it because it's a critic i see a lot and one that's really unfounded if you compare them.