L/I Victory Campaign Summary

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stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

L/I Victory Campaign Summary

Post by stefan3iii »

This is crossposted from reddit. I do find forums more convenient for discussion, and some people don't read reddit at all.

http://imgur.com/a/ni14l
Summary
After failing my first 1.4 campaign due to avatar loss (https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/ ... atar_loss/) , I've succeeded in my second one.
The campaign got off to a really bad start, I kept getting terrible jailbreaks providing very few resistance members. On top of that, my home region kept recruiting faceless, and so it took a long time before I could generate any supplies in my havens. Normally I'd expect to be making my first ~500 supply drop in May, this time I didn't make supplies until July. The supply crunch made everything brutally hard, I basically could afford almost nothing.

Since I had no money, I chose to skip lasers and went straight to EXO Suits. I built 4 EXO suits which was enough to muddle through the missions for a while. After EXO I went to Mag, and then unlocked Coil in August. I also unlocked stiletto, incendiary, and skullmining.
These techs are basically all you need to win most of the game:

Weapons (laser/mag/coil/swords), EXO, stiletto, incendiary, skull mining

I had money for almost nothing else, I built the lab rather late, just enough to get Coils in august. My GTS was late which hurt. I didn't bother with an AWC until Sept, and even then I didn't bother unlocking a second slot until supplies were no longer an issue. I had 4 deaths up to Sept, excluding suicide missions. The worst disaster was a squad wipe on a Rendezvous mission, which I normally consider the easiest mission type, but in this case it was in August, and since I skipped lasers all my rebels were using ballistics even though I had unlocked coil. On top of that I had the unluckiest rolls I have seen in Xcom in a very long time.

I played nearly the same way as in my failing campaign, basically only doing Extremely Light GOPs, with the occasional Very Light for a strong team or critical mission. This time I focused on liberating quicker, and then building a shadow chamber asap. I only had 4 regions unlocked in August, which is ok I think, it was enough to generate missions to keep my roster busy. Instead of unlocking more regions, I banked intel, and then bee-lined for the Forge as soon as I liberated. The avatar timer is brutal in 1.4 Legendary, I had done the officer and codex skulljack, and I still would've lost in December if I didn't do the forge. Even then, I completed all the golden path missions, the campaign would end in mid January. I did a facility to give myself some time to research plasma, for funs in the final level.

Missions:
* I did many Ambush Troop missions.
* 0 supply raids
* 0 UFOs
* 1 avenger defense
* 1 facility construction mission
* 1 research facility. I tried to solo rookie suicide it 4 times, and failed every time. The map was tiny and so densely packed with enemies, I couldn't move ten tiles from the spawn.
* 3 liberations. The second two I did mostly to find a sectopod and andromedon corpse. Somehow found neither.
* 2 haven invasions. My favorite new tactic for these is to use SPARK's bombard. Since the transmitter is usually on the roof, bombard will destroy the roof and make the transmitter fall and be instantly destroyed. Bombard ability has squad sight range, and doesn't need line of sight, so just need a Shinobi to get sight on the transmitter to blow it up. Of course it's possible to get a map where the transmitter is not on the roof of a building, in which case the mission is going to be MUCH harder.
* And an endless stream of 5-6 man GOPs on Extremely or Very Light difficulty.

I had quite a few deaths in my campaign after Sept, but that's because of the weird effect where soldiers below a certain rank stop mattering in the end game. I started doing suicidal things with various SSGT soldiers, because I already had enough high level soldiers to do the missions I needed to win the game. Basically sending them on hard missions, or putting them out of cover to draw fire so soldiers I care about have no risk of taking wounds. Even then, I think I lost maybe 10 real soldiers over the entire campaign (ie non rookie/squaddie suicide). The only death in the entire campaign I really cared about, was a very high level Sharpshooter that died to a chrysallid, in typical Xcom bullshit fashion it didn't unburrow when I activated it, and then on its turn charged ridiculously far to one shot my SS.

Some Strategy Thoughts
* Hack workstation missions continue to be ideal for rookie suicide. Much harder now though, with the solo drones.
* Once I've GTSed the soldier classes I needed, I started training all my terrible stat rookies into rangers. These would then be sent out to do suicide VIP assassinations. This is especially important, as Lib3 is always an assassination, and is normally a very hard mission.
*I'm more convinced then ever that research is critical. Pretty sure that a scientist is what you should spend your first money on. A good benchmark is 3-4 scientists by the end of April.
* Skipping lasers for EXO is viable, though I wouldn't say it's better. Saves you some elerium, and 1.5 fixes the issue where your rebels don't upgrade their weapons.
* Shredstorm Cannons, get them. They are still wildly OP. Need 7 engineers, 7 scientists, and Advanced Coilguns.
* Red screen rounds + full override is quite strong now in 1.4, since there are so many mecs and full override is available at GSGT. On WW I was able to do a 100% chance full override on a Sectopod. I think rapid fire applies it twice, so a ranger can red screen 3 times. Can command the ranger then to redscreen again.
* Psi is a trap. Psi soldiers are good, but the amount of resources and research time to get them is far too high. I don't think it's justifiable in a legendary campaign. By the time you have the breathing room to get them (September or so), it's too late to be training Psi soldiers.
* My general philosophy in Xcom is to kill everything as fast as possible, and CC the rest. That continues to be viable in 1.4. It means I generally ignore all perks that are defensive (ex fortify, formidable, hard target, etc), I don't use medkits, and I don't use armor other than EXO suits. I literally never built a predator or warden armor in the entire campaign. I found EXO + Alloy Plating + Hazmat for the most part allows me to tank a single hit for the entire game, which is enough.
* Every mission needs a grenadier with sting grenades and incendiaries, this puts Xcom into easy mode, allowing you to divide and conquer. Anytime you can't kill the activated pod, you start shutting things down with the grenadier and kill the rest on the following turn.
* In 1.2 specialists were really bad, there wasn't enough stuff to hack. In 1.4 they're fairly ok in combat, with every mission having something useful to hack. They're especially good when you get Full Override. Since it's worth bringing specialists now just for their combat abilities, skullmining is now an amazing upgrade. Not only does it provide a steady stream of intel on top of door hacks, it also gives the specialist a very powerful flech style attack, that does 20 damage to any advent unit (buffed to guranteed kill in 1.5). Get skullmining.
* More convinced than ever that AWC is rather bad. The healing effect is nice, but kind of a luxury. The random perks just don't have enough of an impact. Needs major buffs.

Overall Thoughts on LW2
I love LW2, but it can always be better. My current biggest issues are:

1) The economy is just too miserly, at least on legendary. I'm not saying I should be able to afford everything, but I would like to be able to afford more things. To make up some numbers, if LW2 has 20 different toys to unlock, I only have enough money to pick 3 of them. I wish I had money to pick 10 of them. Choosing 10 out of 20 is actually MORE choice than choosing 3 out of 20 (statistics), and it would just open up the tactical game more. The two big bottlenecks right now are supplies and research in the early game.

2) Lack of progression. This ties a bit into #1, but basically, besides weapons, I'm using the same tech for most of the game. This is mostly due to balance issues with ammo, grenades, vests, and various other items (battle scanners, medkits, etc). As an example, I unlock Alloy Plates and Nanovests fairly early in the campaign, and then I use them more or less the entire campaign. The vest upgrades are more like sidegrades, and are going to side track your research from the all important weapons. The plate upgrades are good, but are locked behind rare corpses that you won't accumulate until the game is over. Tech being locked until the game is nearly over is an issue for a lot of other stuff too, like the advanced grenades. All of this adds up to most of the progression in the game coming from your soldier level ups and weapons tech.

3) Some under-utilized content. I've played nearly two entire 1.4 campaigns, and didn't do a UFO. I didn't do a single supply raid. I only did 1 research facility. I think some of this could be fixed by making it more obvious that a mission is going to lead to a UFO or facility. Feel like I'm missing out on some good content.

4) Too many 5 man extremely light GOPs. This is nowhere near the problem that stealth was, because 5 man GOPs are actually fun. But, variety is the spice of life, and right now it generally feels like 90% of the missions are "how do I kill 6-9 enemies with these 5 dudes". The issue I believe is that reinforcements and/or turn timers, makes it far too difficult to take on missions with more enemies. A Very Light GOP on L/I is a very hard mission, a Light is nearly suicidal, you are going to have a very hard time clearing 13-15 enemies off a map before getting swarmed by RNFs. The fix to this is to drastically reduce the time pressure, make RNFs/timers punish bad behavior like squadsight camping, but still allow enough breathing room to have numerous long engagements. Would of course require quite a bit of rebalancing of mission detection chances and such, so could see how Pavonis wouldn't want to take on that much work :(

Anyways thanks again to Pavonis for building such a great game.
Dwarfling
Posts: 524
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 12:16 pm

Re: L/I Victory Campaign Summary

Post by Dwarfling »

Had the almost the same exact experience, except I went Laser instead of EXO first to get the Sharpshooters, Rangers and OW Specialists "online" quicker. Pretty convinced rush-buying Scientists is "the way" on Legendary, instead of rushing GTS/AWS, which you can go without.
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WanWhiteWolf
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Re: L/I Victory Campaign Summary

Post by WanWhiteWolf »

I am in November L/I and I pretty much had the same experience.

There is simply not enough income to support your troops with anything than weapons and maybe 1-2 guys / squad with basic armor.

All the extra vests / amo types ...etc are basically unused content. They are simply to expensive relative to how much income you have / how much they actually help you.

The only strategy is basically going full Scientiests and buy some weapons when you unlock them. Some vests for the Assaults - or whoever has the lowest defense.

I went lasers (SMGs only) -> Mags -> PSI -> Predator -> EXO

I think PSI after Mags is ok; because you can boost them and they are rather cheap for what they can do after 2-3 missions.

I don't really see the point of supply raids. They are between 4-5 days, which means you need to boost if you make to make them.

However, 30 intel is arguably more valuable than a few corpses - which are only used to make gear that you cannot afford anyway.

I think they should be changed to have the same timers as troop columns. If the "0% supply raid" is a concern, simply make a limit infiltration (e.g. 80%) before you can take the mission.
caseywills
Posts: 28
Joined: Sun Apr 02, 2017 1:45 am

Re: L/I Victory Campaign Summary

Post by caseywills »

I am in August of a Legendary/Honest campaign. Here are some thoughts...
1. Incendiary is indeed amazing. Single most important tech but hard to rush it since each item requires officer corpse.
2. Psi is amazing. With the trial by fire officer perk you absolutely can get them up and effective by August. It will slow down gun tech, but i researched psi fairly early and I will have coil guns in mid Sept despite not having any scientist rewards in first 2 months of campaign (ugh).
3. Yes, definitely buy a scientist early, in march if possible. Buy another in April. I am wondering if having a scientist reduces the likelihood of scientist rewards... still would recommend it if it did. Lab is not cheaper than buying scientists. And takes longer.
4. Gunner is not nearly as good in 1.4. Problem is discussed at length elsewhere but I would simply propose that you adjust roster by training fewer gunners, and getting extra rangers (which are great for haven duty) and looking for shred on rangers in the AWC. always get the 1st offensive perk on every ranger. Shred can come up as the 1st or 2nd offensive perk. Find the shred ranger(s) and she can sub for shred gunner. Hacking, psi skills and incendiary grenades are preferable control options to lockdown. Gunners are just ok.
5. Slow, considered play is key. You can do it, if you think through every move and are cautious. The commander is the best weapon xcom has against advent.
Last edited by caseywills on Mon Jul 24, 2017 12:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
llll BlackFlag
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon May 29, 2017 4:12 pm

Re: L/I Victory Campaign Summary

Post by llll BlackFlag »

Congrats! :D

And thanks for the write up. How did the avenger defense go? What troops and tactics did you use? My last 2 L/I campaigns were lost due to UFOs popping while most of my troops were deployed.
stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

Re: L/I Victory Campaign Summary

Post by stefan3iii »

llll BlackFlag wrote:Congrats! :D

And thanks for the write up. How did the avenger defense go? What troops and tactics did you use? My last 2 L/I campaigns were lost due to UFOs popping while most of my troops were deployed.
It was my C team, but I did have a lot of shredstorm cannons available, so it was very simple. Don't think the enemies even fired a shot. Fought a pod on the right, moved up a bit with a shinobi to find the big blob of enemies on top of the transmitter thingy, and then fired 4 shredstorms to kill the enemies and the transmitter itself. I didn't even fight an RNF.

Shredstorms are particularly effective on that map, because of the density of enemies and the way they all come from one direction.
Skyro
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 4:13 pm

Re: L/I Victory Campaign Summary

Post by Skyro »

Yeah the lack of balance between various tech options becomes readily apparent on legendary where you are forced down the optimal path. Everybody pretty much agrees with scientist first, early basic research, Exos, Incin nades, etc. Really hurts replayability.

edit: Also the end game feels very lackluster. It's basically beeline through the golden path and make sure you have coils once M3s start to show up. Avoiding missions is optimal to prevent wounds to your A/B/C teams. The higher level gear isn't worth it to get as you can never get the resources/corpses for them to gear up your squad to any significant degree and thus it actually hurts you as you get outpaced by advent tech. Also the power spike between M2 and M3s, and fact that M3s just show up suddenly (assuming you weren't intimately familiar of the timing from numerous playthroughs) also does not feel like great game design. It is telling that you can tell from most campaign summaries is that people don't really enjoy going through the golden path missions. You know if you've won or not by Aug. I know I always get an itch to restart my campaign at that point.

I kind of wish the story progression was paced differently. Perhaps make each story mission big boss fights, which can serve as soft tech gates. This would basically force the player to continue to gather resources throughout the campaign, and could also serve as a mechanism to make use of more niche tech (e.g. some fire boss so you need to equip everyone with hazard vests or something). Might be too late for such a dramatic design change though.
Last edited by Skyro on Mon Jul 24, 2017 5:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Thrombozyt
Posts: 76
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 10:37 am

Re: L/I Victory Campaign Summary

Post by Thrombozyt »

So we are looking at EXO-Shredders jamming 20% of the time expending their use for nothing? ;)

Maybe each EXO suit could be more costly in terms of infiltration the the previous one....
stefan3iii
Posts: 319
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 3:49 am

Re: L/I Victory Campaign Summary

Post by stefan3iii »

Thrombozyt wrote:So we are looking at EXO-Shredders jamming 20% of the time expending their use for nothing? ;)

Maybe each EXO suit could be more costly in terms of infiltration the the previous one....
I actually think EXOs themselves are fine now, balance wise. I think they're a strong upgrade, but they don't just auto-win the game.

Shredder Cannons are the upgraded Shredder Gun, which unlocks at Advanced Coil, those are still OP. Their AOE is just insanely large. Virtually any mission is trivialized if you just bring enough Shredder Cannons.
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