Hi all, steam shows that I have logged over 200 hours in XCOM 2 now, and most of that is Long war - thought I would hop in and offer some feedback and see if the community could offer some suggestions on a few things that have come up through my time with the mod.
First off I want to say thank you for this amazing mod, I have gotten WAY more playtime out of long war than vanilla! With that said I am a fairly casual player and do not play at higher difficulties, or use iron man. I will save scum occasionally but I try to eat my mistakes instead of reloading. I also felt after playing for a while that certain aspects were simply not fun or too limiting, and either disabled or limited their effectiveness. This includes removing all mission timers, tweaking the rate of reinforcements, use of some easier war mods, etc. At the end of the day, I play games to have fun in my limited free time so take my rants accordingly!
The added game features in Long War 2 that emphasize the feeling of being a rag-tag guerrilla group that is fighting an uphill battle against an insurmountable enemy are its strongest feature, but combined with some of the built-in game mechanics of vanilla a few aspects seem over the top or force the player into a rigid play-style, even more so somewhat ironically the further the game progresses. This leads into my main reason for this post.
This community has been a great resource for learning the Long War 2 specific game mechanics, and "filling in the blanks" on certain aspects that aren't always made clear. I have noticed that a lot of the advice and tactics (and my own success in the game) boil down to using end-game abilities/combos. The problem is, with the sword of Damocles Avatar project hanging over your head, and the aliens constantly ramping up at the same time, by the time you start getting all the cool abilities, gear, and fleshed-out classes the game is over. After give or take a year of in-game time, the game forces you into a "do the final set of end-game missions, or lose". My first campaign I completed I didn't even have close to everything researched, let alone fully equip my squad for final mission with the best gear.
I've seen other users that also seem to be scratching their head as to why a so many of the vanilla and Long War 2 game mechanics go against what most XCOM fans would agree is a game about small unit tactics. Building up your squads, tricking them out, trying new builds and combos...the game is over right when all the cool stuff starts happening! I realize you can just effectively disable the Avatar project with mods or an easy .ini fix, but this doesn't feel like a real solution to what to me is a fundamental issue of underlying game mechanics being at odds with each other.
An often heard complaint is the repetitive missions/mission types. Could it be possible to add an "auto-battle" option, like what you see in the Total War series? If not an always available option, certain types of missions (like the infamous "root out the faceless" haven ones), give the option to get it over with then and there, with a rough % chance of success as the only indicator to decide. You would get less loot, and a higher chance for deaths or injuries, but I would find this a handy and attractive option.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far! This got a lot longer than I wanted already so I'll end here and try to post again with more thoughts/questions.