That's great news indeed. After expereincing LW I just can't look at original XCOM the same way. You've done a really great job and basically turned the game in what I think it should've been in the first place (gameplay-wise), it's like a diamond for someone who really loves the plain brutal (but still pretty fair overall) challenge. While I wasn't expecting Firaxis to go in the same direction as LW I just can't enjoy playing XCOM2 even as a "warmup" experience. It's like... there are many good things about XCOM2 which I really appreciete, but there are also quite a lot of design descisions & shortcomings that completely threw me off. Sure there are some nice mods around but it's not a panacea. Game balance is a very fragile thing indeed, hard to establish and easy to mess up.
Well...
thank you guys for what you've already done, absolutely love your stuff and really looking forward for LW2 and whatever else you would come up with in the future.
I guess you've already got a pretty good understanding of what makes LW so great in the first place but I just feel like sharing some personal thoughts regarding LW highlights based on ~600h of almost excluesively I/I experience
.
-
Indepth soldier specialization in form of classes
The original game have a very few ways to define a distinct role of a class via perk selection and apart from utility choices they are pretty linear. Additional classes in LW are not there just for the sake of "more options", they take away some utility from original classes in exchange for more room to specialize in something particular. I really prefer the idea of doing less, but doing it better instead of having a jack of all trades. Specialization means more thoughtful and demanding approach to squad composing and it greatly raises your potential efficiency (if you're doing it right ofc) allowing for a higher difficulty cap without going completely unfair.
-
Power comes from synergy
Not to say that unmodded XCOM 1&2 completely missuse this concept, it just matters a whole lot more in LW. Most perks & stuff in LW are not that beneficial just by itself and have multiple synergies in mind. It takes effort to make a good use of them and figuring out the best combinations of perks/equipment/wepons/squadmembers is challenging and rewarding. With LW balance even seemingly OP stuff (i.e. perks that allow multiple shots per round) require a great deal of synergy to make a really good use of it. This concept adds a lot of depth to the game providing a huge room for different strategies & strategy optimisation, it's what makes people draw spreadsheads for perk builds & categorize their roster also allowing a fair increase in difficulty cap.
-
Resource deficit
It's just a best way to make things you've got feel valuable and make their management impactful. Your troops is a resource as well and you need to maintain a healthy roster to afford going on a mission. Struggle for resources & fatigue mechanics is a significant part of LW experience. I really like the idea of strategic decisions being depandent on what you can and can not afford at the moment. It's a better way to enforce tough choices than presenting straight-up mutually exclusive options.
-
Risk vs reward balance
Playing around risk & reward counterweight is a pretty basic concept on which all XCOM games are based regardless, LW just provides extra fine-tuning to the whole system through the balance of gameplay mechanics. For example the meld mechanics in vanilla EW (one of the main points of which was providing a reward for more agressive & risky play) failed to achieve it's purpose due to meld just not being that valuable and once you've gain a certain amount there was no real benefit to collect more (unless you want to chop/genemod every living being in your barracks). In LW it just works gameplay-wise because of resource deficit and extended field of use as well as the ability to sell the orange stuff, effectively making successful risky advancements more profitable but leaving the option for a safe play. I mean... there nothing wrong in having some timed missions but the sheer amount of them in XCOM2 feels like fixing the problem of slow/safe play in a somewhat wrong way. I just hope to see some more "risk vs reward" workaround than "risk or fail".
-
Game difficulty & scaling over time
Apart from having a high difficulty cap I mostly mean enemies not drastically falling behind once you get your hands on some powerful stuff and presenting good or even sometimes pretty brutal challenge regardless of how good your in-game situation looks like. XCOM is one of those games where the snowball effect is real (more wins = easier to win more) and failing to compensate for it result in reverse difficulty curve. I'm one of those people who would say that LW on impossible difficulty is still a pretty fair game overall and in some ways even more fair than vanilla. It's just not tolerant for mistakes and bad descisions (which is the whole point of highest difficulty in a game) and the challenge provided is a good match for a player who tends to maximize his efficiency, please keep it that way.
Well, those I think are the main points. I just really want to mention a few more things regarding uppcoming LW2...
I beg you, can we please have an assault class without mandatory sword thingy? And some adequate range aim bonuses & penalties for everyone?
C'mon, am I the only one who hates the idea of giving a secondary
melee weapon (and a sword of all things!) to a class that already have a
close-range weapon as a primary? I just can't watch a shotgun trooper putting away his gun to draw a sword from his back just in front of the enemy instead of shooting it in the face! It would make a lot more sense to give a sword option to a class that suffer a close range
penalty (LW scout with marksman rifle is kinda the best candidate). Assault is a class that benefits a lot from having a mid-range sidearm, if only aim modifier wasn't so messed up in XCOM 2 apparently turning shotgun into a mid-range weapon. I also can't see the point of crippling the aim for pont-blank shots. That's
not XCOM, baby! In XCOM despite the common belief you don't miss point-blank shots unless you're being under some aim decreasing status effects.
And by the way, if LW2 is going to decrease the overall pace of the game, maybe we shouldn't have a legit free lock'n load perk for basically all troops?
Damn, there are so much things I wanna ask about and feel like they're pretty important as well... I guess I'll just trust that you guys know what you're doing and gonna wait for further news
Well, thanks for reading this anyway.