Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

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FreedomFighterEx
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Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by FreedomFighterEx »

Some of them get pretty crazy once it stacking each other up. I got Viper round which make getting hit less forgivable. Formidable which make explosive damage useless. Iron Skin which make melee damage less useful. I would like if Tactical one will stay up until you raid one of their facility that making these upgrade possible for them. Would like a mission close to the Blacksite. It shouldn't be easy, but attemptable. With how many of DE coming up within single month, we will not be able to counter all of them but at lease, make it less severe or forbid some of those heavy hitter one to be TDE and make it DE only. I wouldn't mind if TDE will be small upgrade to them like +5 Aim or +5 Defense are understandable but give them permanent perk which render some of my tactic unusable is narrowing my hand to be tactical too much.
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johnnylump
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by johnnylump »

Are you actually encountering them in combat, or just reading the list in the dark events?
Clibanarius
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by Clibanarius »

The Tactical Research only affects a small percentage, usually around 20%, of a specific species or two. Like Stun Lancers or Sectoids or Vipers and their ilk. The only real exceptions are in the Alien Conditioning health-boosting ones, which are significantly more prevalent and applies to every ADVENT and Alien potentially.
Nemesis
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by Nemesis »

Ive been seeing this idea pop around alot, and with some tweaking I gotta say I love it. The TDEs can indeed get pretty nutso, but adding the element to scan/intel down a military/research base of some kind will add another misson type to the game allowing for greater diversity and a greater sense of "control" despite the "DOOM CLOCK" lol. Maybe TDEs could be more difficult to preemptively stop compared to Temporary DEs but remain in play until you halt the production of the "DE" at its given base. Though I will agree that could be an issue late game if you control so much territory, then where can the aliens place their upgrades without you able to defeat them? Perhaps the aliens should be allowed at least a baseline of upgrades that you simply cannot touch - while allowing you to defeat the further upgrades?

alot of ppl are suggesting mods to make the TDEs simply temporary, but with LW spirit in mind, I'd prefer to struggle through a harsh base assault or hack something crazy, essentially struggling may way to freedom.
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Valaska
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by Valaska »

Nemesis wrote:Ive been seeing this idea pop around alot, and with some tweaking I gotta say I love it. The TDEs can indeed get pretty nutso, but adding the element to scan/intel down a military/research base of some kind will add another misson type to the game allowing for greater diversity and a greater sense of "control" despite the "DOOM CLOCK" lol. Maybe TDEs could be more difficult to preemptively stop compared to Temporary DEs but remain in play until you halt the production of the "DE" at its given base. Though I will agree that could be an issue late game if you control so much territory, then where can the aliens place their upgrades without you able to defeat them? Perhaps the aliens should be allowed at least a baseline of upgrades that you simply cannot touch - while allowing you to defeat the further upgrades?

alot of ppl are suggesting mods to make the TDEs simply temporary, but with LW spirit in mind, I'd prefer to struggle through a harsh base assault or hack something crazy, essentially struggling may way to freedom.
That would be the perfect scenario for me. Something like the office for EXALT's last mission with a lot of verticality would be really fun.
wobuffet
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by wobuffet »

Clibanarius wrote:The Tactical Research only affects a small percentage, usually around 20%, of a specific species or two. Like Stun Lancers or Sectoids or Vipers and their ilk. The only real exceptions are in the Alien Conditioning health-boosting ones, which are significantly more prevalent and applies to every ADVENT and Alien potentially.
Any chance we could get more transparency about this in the in-game text?
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FreedomFighterEx
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by FreedomFighterEx »

wobuffet wrote:
Clibanarius wrote:The Tactical Research only affects a small percentage, usually around 20%, of a specific species or two. Like Stun Lancers or Sectoids or Vipers and their ilk. The only real exceptions are in the Alien Conditioning health-boosting ones, which are significantly more prevalent and applies to every ADVENT and Alien potentially.
Any chance we could get more transparency about this in the in-game text?
You could read them in Dark Event window. It state themselves quite clear on what it does and which unit get affect by it.
johnnylump wrote:Are you actually encountering them in combat, or just reading the list in the dark events?
Yes, been having them activated. Formidable is the first thing that i got and oh boy, does it make Technical and Grenadier less useful after that. The rocket itself couldn't even kill basic Advent trooper on direct hit anymore. All of my Grenadier need to switch to crowd control method instead of blasting Advent to oblivion. It take a lot of times to retrain them to the point i can't even use them anymore since they impair my overall damage output.

I do like a lot of those TDE but dislike how strong it is and it is permanent without a way to counter it. We have no guarantee way to detect and counter all of them before they come into effect so i would like some way to at lease shut them down after it launched.
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johnnylump
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by johnnylump »

wobuffet wrote:
Clibanarius wrote:The Tactical Research only affects a small percentage, usually around 20%, of a specific species or two. Like Stun Lancers or Sectoids or Vipers and their ilk. The only real exceptions are in the Alien Conditioning health-boosting ones, which are significantly more prevalent and applies to every ADVENT and Alien potentially.
Any chance we could get more transparency about this in the in-game text?
It's not being withheld to keep it a secret; it's just that that kind of specificity adds a huge overhead in managing in-game text and translations. Any future changes I made to a particular TDE would require re-translation in 10 languages. We just don't have the resources to manage that.
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johnnylump
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by johnnylump »

FreedomFighterEx wrote:
wobuffet wrote:
Clibanarius wrote:The Tactical Research only affects a small percentage, usually around 20%, of a specific species or two. Like Stun Lancers or Sectoids or Vipers and their ilk. The only real exceptions are in the Alien Conditioning health-boosting ones, which are significantly more prevalent and applies to every ADVENT and Alien potentially.
Any chance we could get more transparency about this in the in-game text?
You could read them in Dark Event window. It state themselves quite clear on what it does and which unit get affect by it.
johnnylump wrote:Are you actually encountering them in combat, or just reading the list in the dark events?
Yes, been having them activated. Formidable is the first thing that i got and oh boy, does it make Technical and Grenadier less useful after that. The rocket itself couldn't even kill basic Advent trooper on direct hit anymore. All of my Grenadier need to switch to crowd control method instead of blasting Advent to oblivion. It take a lot of times to retrain them to the point i can't even use them anymore since they impair my overall damage output.

I do like a lot of those TDE but dislike how strong it is and it is permanent without a way to counter it. We have no guarantee way to detect and counter all of them before they come into effect so i would like some way to at lease shut them down after it launched.
Unless there's a bug, Advent troopers can't get Formidable. Here's the application config:

FormidableApplicationChance=15
FormidableApplicationRules=eAR_CustomList
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvCaptainM1"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvCaptainM2"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvCaptainM3"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvShieldbearerM2"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvShieldbearerM3"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvRocketeerM2"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvRocketeerM3"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="MutonM2_LW"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="MutonM3_LW"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvGrenadierM1"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvGrenadierM2"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvGrenadierM3"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvPsiWitchM3"

That means 15% of those unit types will get Formidable after the DE is active.
GavinRuneblade
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by GavinRuneblade »

johnnylump wrote:
Unless there's a bug, Advent troopers can't get Formidable. Here's the application config:

FormidableApplicationChance=15
FormidableApplicationRules=eAR_CustomList
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvCaptainM1"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvCaptainM2"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvCaptainM3"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvShieldbearerM2"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvShieldbearerM3"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvRocketeerM2"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvRocketeerM3"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="MutonM2_LW"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="MutonM3_LW"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvGrenadierM1"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvGrenadierM2"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvGrenadierM3"
+FormidableApplicationTargetArray="AdvPsiWitchM3"

That means 15% of those unit types will get Formidable after the DE is active.
Does it mean 15% i.e. 2 of 13 types get it, or a separate roll for each one with a 15% chance meaning potentially much more than two of them? Or does it check for each dude on each mission?

And what about units that haven't spawned yet are they buffed proactively for when they do start showing up?
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johnnylump
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by johnnylump »

It means that every unit on the list rolls a d100 for that ability. I think it applies to reinforcements too but I'm at my limits on what rules I can keep in my head.
GavinRuneblade
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by GavinRuneblade »

Cool, thanks for the explanation!
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3tamatulg
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by 3tamatulg »

I'll explain my point super quick:

There's a wide distribution in the power level of DEs. Some are tolerable, some are crazy compared to the others.

Particularly the bonus HP, bonus defence and Rapid Reinforcement ones I see complained about a lot.

Being given a choice as in the base game allowed you to at least filter out the harshest.

With the current system, we have no choice of which DE we get the opportunity to counter.

Further suggestion here: http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... =75#p31075
Surrealistik
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by Surrealistik »

Excellent idea.
gimrah
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by gimrah »

Particularly the bonus HP, bonus defence and Rapid Reinforcement ones I see complained about a lot.
Wait, rapid reinforcement is temporary right? RIGHT?

Yes it's really tough. I am managing so far but on some missions it could make things unwinnable, e.g. if you had this active and got one of those recruiter retaliations (cool mission btw) with reinforcements every third turn, which presumably would become every second turn.
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8wayz
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by 8wayz »

The Bonus HP is really bad in my opinion, both as implementation and presentation.

The actual Dark Event states something like "ADVENT have found better techniques to clone their troops."

What actually happens is that any adversary will get +1 HP - including aliens, MECs and even turrets (!).

I would suggest that this event is separated into 3 smaller ones, which give 1 point of HP to one of the following groups:
- ADVENT troops;
- MECs, Drones and turrets;
- Aliens;

The HP event currently does way too much, too fast, and has no in-game explanation how exactly they manage a full increase all across the board.

A separate event for each category of adversaries will make it a lot more tolerable and sensible. This principle could be applied for the other events as well, when and where appropriate.

This is also the way it worked in Long War 1 - after a certain threshold in Alien Research only specific adversaries received an upgrade, not each and every one of them.
Hazelnut
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by Hazelnut »

8wayz wrote:The Bonus HP is really bad in my opinion, both as implementation and presentation.

The actual Dark Event states something like "ADVENT have found better techniques to clone their troops."

What actually happens is that any adversary will get +1 HP - including aliens, MECs and even turrets (!).

I would suggest that this event is separated into 3 smaller ones, which give 1 point of HP to one of the following groups:
- ADVENT troops;
- MECs, Drones and turrets;
- Aliens;

The HP event currently does way too much, too fast, and has no in-game explanation how exactly they manage a full increase all across the board.

A separate event for each category of adversaries will make it a lot more tolerable and sensible. This principle could be applied for the other events as well, when and where appropriate.

This is also the way it worked in Long War 1 - after a certain threshold in Alien Research only specific adversaries received an upgrade, not each and every one of them.
+1

I feel like I am fighting bullet sponges now where even very light @ 100% are tough for my B team to handle. I'm wearing best armour and the enemies have now mostly got way more HP than my squads due to DEs. Plus the perks etc.
nightwyrm
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by nightwyrm »

gimrah wrote:
Particularly the bonus HP, bonus defence and Rapid Reinforcement ones I see complained about a lot.
Wait, rapid reinforcement is temporary right? RIGHT?
RR is temporary, but 1 month is a very long time in LW2. More than a dozen missions could be affected.

I don't want to cross-post and here's an after-action report on another thread of what was suppose to be an easy mission gone bad:
http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... 234#p31234

My conclusion is that hard to kill Advents are making mid-size squads and certain approaches (try to sneak but enough guys as an insurance to fight if you must) to missions to be unfeasible. You either go all-in with 2-3 men stealth team or 8+ men firefight team.
Darkrenown
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by Darkrenown »

johnnylump wrote:
wobuffet wrote:
Clibanarius wrote:The Tactical Research only affects a small percentage, usually around 20%, of a specific species or two. Like Stun Lancers or Sectoids or Vipers and their ilk. The only real exceptions are in the Alien Conditioning health-boosting ones, which are significantly more prevalent and applies to every ADVENT and Alien potentially.
Any chance we could get more transparency about this in the in-game text?
It's not being withheld to keep it a secret; it's just that that kind of specificity adds a huge overhead in managing in-game text and translations. Any future changes I made to a particular TDE would require re-translation in 10 languages. We just don't have the resources to manage that.
Do you have to support all languages? I mean, it's good you have so far, but if it's hampering you maybe you just have to say LW2 only fully supports English and maybe whatever native speakers you have in your team. We only translate into Spanish/German/French, for example, and 90+% of players play in English anyway.
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johnnylump
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Re: Allow Tactical Dark Event to be shutdownable

Post by johnnylump »

Darkrenown wrote:
johnnylump wrote:
wobuffet wrote: Any chance we could get more transparency about this in the in-game text?
It's not being withheld to keep it a secret; it's just that that kind of specificity adds a huge overhead in managing in-game text and translations. Any future changes I made to a particular TDE would require re-translation in 10 languages. We just don't have the resources to manage that.
Do you have to support all languages? I mean, it's good you have so far, but if it's hampering you maybe you just have to say LW2 only fully supports English and maybe whatever native speakers you have in your team. We only translate into Spanish/German/French, for example, and 90+% of players play in English anyway.
"Have to" is a little fuzzy as we've completed our contract, but the standard I'm going to set is to support all languages as best we can. If necessary, I can live with providing more detail in English than the other languages, but I'm not going to change anything that contradicts established loc.
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