LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

seananigans
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by seananigans »

People keep suggesting just upping the difficulty (for 0% infil supply raid type shenanigans) in the form of something like +force level, but this won't really solve the problem. People will find ways to win them regardless of "difficulty," and in many cases, it will just increase rewards as has been mentioned before, because higher force level will result in earlier sightings of newer enemies, giving you access to research/projects before you'd normally get them. This can and likely would snowball into solidifying "tech-skipping" strategies that just perpetuates the problem.

I'm not sure why people suggest zero infil/downtime for some of these raid-style missions. They're the biggest jackpots in the game -- if you can get in and get out in literally zero in-game time (i.e. no infil fatigue time), your Alpha squad just dominates even more. This, IMO, is the main reason why the 0% infil strategy is currently working for some skilled players. LW1 had an elegant balance in the fatigue timers requiring soldier rotation, and it was a keystone differentiation between vanilla and the mod. LW2's infiltration times are the way they're thematically mimicking this system. It needs to be maintained as much as possible, or you just end up in vanilla Alpha-Squad land, losing a large portion of that differentiation between vanilla and the mod.
Undershaft
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by Undershaft »

seananigans wrote: I'm not sure why people suggest zero infil/downtime for some of these raid-style missions. They're the biggest jackpots in the game -- if you can get in and get out in literally zero in-game time (i.e. no infil fatigue time), your Alpha squad just dominates even more. This, IMO, is the main reason why the 0% infil strategy is currently working for some skilled players. LW1 had an elegant balance in the fatigue timers requiring soldier rotation, and it was a keystone differentiation between vanilla and the mod. LW2's infiltration times are the way they're thematically mimicking this system. It needs to be maintained as much as possible, or you just end up in vanilla Alpha-Squad land, losing a large portion of that differentiation between vanilla and the mod.
Zero infiltration time for raids would not lead to a super-alpha-squad you bring on every mission, because there are indirect mechanisms which remedy the problems you're describing, in my opinion. Also, with infiltration being abortable, it doesn't really serve the same purpose as fatigue anyway.

1) Big all-in raid-style missions are and should be rare and special thing. They shouldn't happen much more than twice a month, so they are more the exception than the rule, which would then also be true for your alpha squad.

2) The very idea of a 10 person elite striketeam ready to go on a big mission at a momen't notice *prevents* them from going on any other kind of mission, which in turn encourages diversification. If your ten best guys (and their gear!) have to be ready for a super emergency at any time, you have to start relying on the lower ranks (and the lesser weapons) for the bread and butter missions which are still the majority of the game.

3) Realistic infiltration time for a ten person squad is too high and therefore insignificant. Nobody would invest all their best soldiers and gear in a mission that requires them to be unusable for three weeks, unless they absolutely have to, as is the case with the Golden Path missions. If you also had to invest that kind of time and manpower in every supply raid, you would be screwed when a retaliation comes up, or abort the supply raid for it, which would effectively stop you from doing them at all. They would be just some kind of waiting room you take your alpha squad out off in an emergency more often than not, with practically zero chance of ever actually happening. And let's be honest here: The two days of infiltration you usually *can* have on supply raids make no significant difference and do nothing to prevent alphafication, as you describe it.

4) No infiltration time would mean no infiltration time abuse. As it is, the existing mechanism rather supports using only one elite squad than discourage it, doen't it? If there were a set number of enemies depending on Advent strength, you would actually *consider* bringing lower ranks on a raid in safer regions for a change. With 0%-20% infiltration giving you swarming all the time anyway, you want to (and kind of have to) use alpha squad all the time.
Jacke
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by Jacke »

I'm thinking the issues of not enough "middle class" missions and the tendency for game-breaking with both full-stealth and full-raid 0% infiltration squads can be addressed by thinking about how an insurgency and its operations would work in the real world. I think effectively locking in a squad both before and after the mission can solve both problems with appropriate adjustments.

1. When missions are discovered, they should both have an expiry time and a minimum infiltration time. All missions allow at least some troops to start concealed, even if it's just the ones with Phantom. That shouldn't happen instantly and require a minimum infiltration time.

2. After a mission is completed, soldiers should not be immediately available for another mission without consequences, similar to LW1's fatigue.

The first change would require some changes to the infiltration settings as currently many missions like Supply Raids are almost impossible to infiltrate to any degree with a sufficiently sized squad due to their short expiry times.

I've tried to incorporate the second change in my current LW2 campaign by using Grimy's Moral Mod (which does require a new campaign start to work properly). Soldiers and ADVENT suffer damage to their Will stat when attacked. To recover lost Will, soldiers have to spend time out of action on the Avenger, including some doing R&R in the Bar. Promotions recover all Will, so it's not a big factor in the first few missions, but it soon will be. Running low Will soldiers on missions risks them breaking and just hunkering down, effectively out of action and perhaps even captured or killed.

By requiring time to run missions by requiring time both before and after action, that means it matters how many troops are being sent out. Stealth is still important, but combat gives more experience. This should both make 5-6 troop Squads useful as well as reducing the impact of low infiltration large squad missions by forcing a minimal time to operations.
trihero
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by trihero »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMgyInLV96o

xwynns mentions something starting at 5:30 which is really common sense; when pods are size 4 you want a minimum squad of 6 to engage without significant risk of wound/death. This was something you learned in vanilla (by the time size 4 pods showed up, you had squad size 6).

Yet on extremely light, the max pod size from the very beginning of the game is already 4. This is one of the big contributors why we don't take mid man missions because infiltrating with 6 men feels pretty mandatory to counter size 4 pods, but the time isn't enough to get to 100% usually, and in the later game you fight size 8 pods and it gets pretty icky.

At 8:00 minute mark, he say "I'm disappointed by how easy this was." Awww yiss.

14:06 "I'm sick of these silly little missions" (in reference to hack/stealth). Preach it brotha.

46:00 makes legitimate complaint about sabotage alien facility being a stupid 60 turn stealth mission that is easy, and comments how it would be fun to these kinds of missions to be sweeps.

I really really think LW2 swung the pendulum WAYYYYYYY too far away from sweeps and it just hurts the game.
Manifest
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by Manifest »

trihero wrote: I really really think LW2 swung the pendulum WAYYYYYYY too far away from sweeps and it just hurts the game.
No way. At least half of my ingame time is spent on supply raids that occur nonstop, more than any other mission type. In its current state I don't want any more 40+ enemy sweeps that take several hours at a time. I at least want to do something else with my life.
xmd1997
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by xmd1997 »

trihero wrote:

I really really think LW2 swung the pendulum WAYYYYYYY too far away from sweeps and it just hurts the game.
Look on the bright side, at least this means that they're taking these types of feedback's(Stealth missions too easy) into consideration, and may have plans in the future for how to correct them.
aimlessgun
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by aimlessgun »

I don't really like the idea of just removing infiltration from some missions, or putting some missions into set categories. Infiltration is an interesting mechanic in that the player gets to make several decisions to get to what they want. How many soldiers, how long to keep them infiltrating for, all the gear and class choices that affect infiltration, etc.

I feel like it would be better to balance the incentives rather than give up on it altogether. Middle class missions should come back not because of an artificial forcing, but because the incentives and risks support them.

Possibly balancing for soldier and equipment time as a limited resource was missing from the construction of this system. Infiltrating 6 guys for 6 days 'costs' 36 soldier days, while sending a 2 man stealth team for 4 days only costs only 8 soldier days. Also the 6 mean team probably has real equipment, so you're spending 36 days of good gear time vs 0. These huge expenditures of limited resources need to be rewarded.

However when I think about it this way, to properly account for the vast disparity missions would likely need to be made nearly impossible with a 2 man stealth team. If you're spending 4.5 times fewer soldier days to accomplish the goal, should it be 4.5 times harder? That's a pretty crude way to look at it, but I think the incentives and risks can be adjusted (probably over several iterations) to produce a system where all infiltration and squadsize levels have some place, and player choice is left intact.

Also the idea that a 0% supply raid cannot be made hard enough I think is totally false. Even a perfect player cannot beat everything without losses. Start every 0% supply raid surrounded by 30 active aliens and people will not 'figure it out'. Sure it will be beaten, but not consistently, not with low rank soldiers, and not without severe costs of your 'soldier time' resource in the form of wounds or dead men.
Manifest wrote:
trihero wrote: I really really think LW2 swung the pendulum WAYYYYYYY too far away from sweeps and it just hurts the game.
No way. At least half of my ingame time is spent on supply raids that occur nonstop, more than any other mission type. In its current state I don't want any more 40+ enemy sweeps that take several hours at a time. I at least want to do something else with my life.
Would you like more sweeps of 15 enemies that take 30 minutes instead? I think that's the kind of thing people are asking for in this thread.
trihero
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by trihero »

No way. At least half of my ingame time is spent on supply raids that occur nonstop, more than any other mission type. In its current state I don't want any more 40+ enemy sweeps that take several hours at a time. I at least want to do something else with my life.
To be clear I'm not asking for more 0% supply raid sweeps. Those are equally as bad as the other half of the game (stealth missions).
xmd1997
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by xmd1997 »

Just thought I should leave this hear. This is from the 1.3 unreleased notes.
"We're planning to focus more on balancing and gameplay changes in this patch. Among the things we will be focusing on incentivizing using mid-sized squads more often, in part by reigning in the relative utility of tiny and huge squads in some situations"

Patch 1.3 cant come soon enough!!! :D
trihero
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by trihero »

xmd1997 wrote:Just thought I should leave this hear. This is from the 1.3 unreleased notes.
"We're planning to focus more on balancing and gameplay changes in this patch. Among the things we will be focusing on incentivizing using mid-sized squads more often, in part by reigning in the relative utility of tiny and huge squads in some situations"

Patch 1.3 cant come soon enough!!! :D
We getting there boyz. I'm still considering taking a break until then, wouldn't be a bad thing for the Real Life simulator I'm playing right now.
Sines
Posts: 159
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by Sines »

trihero wrote:We getting there boyz. I'm still considering taking a break until then, wouldn't be a bad thing for the Real Life simulator I'm playing right now.
Heh. I've just picked up Skyrim again, so I've been keeping myself occupied. Not sure whether I'll continue my existing game, or start a new one. My current game is more than a little bit save-scummed, due to me not wanting to have trial and error periods lasting several days. I've pretty much done everything but facility sabotage and the golden path (infiltrating blacksite right now), and from what I understand, that's not much different, except that Blacksite and Forge have cavalry reinforcements. Reinforcements that are likely going to go away in patch 1.3 if they're trying to discourage the heavy reliance on stealth.

What do you guys think? Once you've liberated a few regions, and gotten up to Coil weapons, is there anything new for an experienced Vanilla player to learn? From what I understand, Codex Coordinates / Psi-Gate , True Network Tower and Waterworld play pretty much the same as they do in Vanilla? And that Sectopods and Gatekeepers are about the same as well?

If not, I'm thinking I might 'relax' with a Vanilla C/I campaign in between the dragon-slaying. Sure, there's a lot to miss, but not having to manage god knows how many soldiers and rebels, and having far fewer 2-3 hour missions will be nice as well :D. Not to mention, I really miss Gunslingers. Holo-targetter is nice, but relegating Gunslingers to the AWC makes them of really questionable use.

Also, and this is a bit ironic, LW2 has given me a new appreciate for stealth. And I've never actually run a dedicated stealth Ranger before.

And lastly, according to the wiki, there seems to have been a few noteworthy gameplay changes. Deep Cover causes Rangers to Hunker as long as they end their turn in cover? The Hunters Axe (and presumably the other weapons) get upgraded alongside their more common counterparts, instead of as a separate purchase? I can't confirm these on Firaxis patch notes, but if true, it's worth replaying the game just to enjoy these new changes.
trihero
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by trihero »

And lastly, according to the wiki, there seems to have been a few noteworthy gameplay changes. Deep Cover causes Rangers to Hunker as long as they end their turn in cover? The Hunters Axe (and presumably the other weapons) get upgraded alongside their more common counterparts, instead of as a separate purchase? I can't confirm these on Firaxis patch notes, but if true, it's worth replaying the game just to enjoy these new changes.
Wait what? I thought deep cover always worked like that in vanilla. I'm a little clueless to what you're referring to here. R
What do you guys think? Once you've liberated a few regions, and gotten up to Coil weapons, is there anything new for an experienced Vanilla player to learn? From what I understand, Codex Coordinates / Psi-Gate , True Network Tower and Waterworld play pretty much the same as they do in Vanilla? And that Sectopods and Gatekeepers are about the same as well?
I'd just hold off. 1.3 is going to introduce a new mission type that is going to be very frequent apparently. It looks like Complete Override still doesn't work to capture mecs in 1.2.

The psi gate mission is similar to the original except it has like 30+ enemies in it, so treat it seriously like an HQ raid. The true network actually allows you 10 people, and has like 30+ mobs in it. Waterworld is about the same, but with 12 people + the commander. Sectopods/gatekeepers have a little bit more armor I think than vanilla, and definitely more hp, but don't feel that different. Gatekeepers are asshats that can cast their mass rez on corpses when unactivated, so don't get surprised by that when doing UFO missions (i.e. dont stand on corpses). Sectopods also have a dark event tactical upgrade that gives a certain % of them damage control lol (i.e. they get 2 armor, but thankfully only duration stacks, when they take damage)! So expect to do a lot of armor shredding or go home in tears.
Sines
Posts: 159
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Re: LW2 needs more "middle class" missions

Post by Sines »

trihero wrote:Wait what? I thought deep cover always worked like that in vanilla. I'm a little clueless to what you're referring to here. R
I recall it being that it was basically the Ever-Vigilant version of Hunker Down. That is to say, you couldn't attack and then get the free Hunker. Some of the edit history on that page of the wiki suggests that either that was true, and it got changed, or else the description of the ability in game was incorrect. It might just be my bad memory though.

And yah, it does sound like I've seen everything. And I might see it all anyway, if Xwynns doesn't lose his current campaign. I might still finish this run up once 1.3 hits, but we'll see.
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