Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Portents
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:01 pm

Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Portents »

First I just want to say a big thanks to Pavonis for amazing work on LW2 (and LW1), probably the best mods of a game I've ever seen done. I know this has been brought up before, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in as to why I've abandoned LW2.

There's just simply not enough room to fight aliens - I appreciate how LW2 has really cultivated the outgunned, guerilla force feel (i.e. reinforcement spamming) but the emphasis that places on staying concealed for entire missions feels like it's trying to twist XCOM into some sort of stealth creeper game. At the end of the day XCOM is meant to be a tactical combat game, and that's what the engine is designed for. I found myself playing the majority of the missions trying not get into combat, creeping around watching out for little red eyes. If I wanted to play that sort of game, there's lots of great options out there (e.g. Invisible Inc). In playing XCOM, I wanted to shoot aliens and utilize squad level tactics and I just think LW2 has missed the point of what a tactical shooter is all about. Whats the point about agonizing over my soldiers' equipment and plethora of upgrade options if I spend most of my time trying not to use them? If most missions are just one shinobi trying not to get seen? The fact that the aliens can get 4, 5, or even more pods of reinforcements before the mission timer has even expired just seems a little ridiculous. I mean sure spam reinforcements once you're deep into the mission, that still gives the impression that there's a lot of ADVENT at their base 30 minutes away, but right now it seems like we only pick missions next to the enemy barracks.

Anyways, thanks for all the great work otherwise Pavonis. The infiltration mechanic is genius, the haven system is fantastic and really creates the feeling that you are managing a global resistance, the over-hauled intel/supply system is great, as is all the extra classes, aliens etc.
thejokerr
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2017 5:38 pm

Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by thejokerr »

Hey Portents, yes I can definately understand you. I do not really like this extreme focus on stealth either. But luckily you can mod almost everything in the ini Files. For example I delayed all reinforcements so it does not matter if I get caught early and can still enjoy the mission.
Fictitious1267
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2017 10:11 am

Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Fictitious1267 »

I'm in total agreement with you. The stealth mechanic was my least favorite part of Xcom2, and I am a bit disappointed with how much it is emphasized in the mod. I would much rather have 75% of my missions involve traditional combat, rather than sneaking. I also completely agree with you about pods being far too close to one another, given how large they can be. I would add that I didn't feel that there was enough mission variety for me either. It seemed as if I kept doing jailbreaks and faceless missions endlessly. The base game didn't feel that repetitive to me, despite spending much more time playing it than the last month that LW2 has been out.

Today I just started thinking about installing the separate mods, rather than playing the complete LW2 campaign, but it will probably be some time before I want to play Xcom2 again.

Unfortunately, I don't think the community will really see this being an issue until several months down the line, when the mod is pretty solidified. I don't see many people still playing this a year from now, compared to LW1.
JackDT
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Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 7:07 am

Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by JackDT »

You can choose to always fight and when you pick missions choose ones that facilitate this, although it is not optimal so you'll want to lower the difficulty if you do. And later in the campaign you do fewer stealth missions even playing optimally.

Also try putting everyone on Intel and just doing Supply Raids at like 0-50% Intel. Then always send the max number of people. Full on massive combat and it works well, you get a ton of resources this way. You can skip a lot of stealth missions if you do these, in fact, doing tons of supply raids at low infiltration kind of might be broken...
Last edited by JackDT on Fri Feb 10, 2017 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fictitious1267
Posts: 15
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Fictitious1267 »

That's not practical on most missions due to the turn timer and frequent reinforcements after exposure, at least on any difficulty that holds my interest.
brunodema
Posts: 39
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2017 10:45 pm

Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by brunodema »

Have you already got to the mid/late game? A lot of people complain about not having big gunfights on early game and end up missing the real warfare that happens on late game, where you have retaliations + invasions + golden path + HQ Assaults + etc missions.
Portents
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Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:01 pm

Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Portents »

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

@thejokerr
Which ini file and what line do you edit to delay the reinforcement times?

@brunodema
Never made it to the mid/late game, got so tired of creeping around maps all the time... although that does sound better - makes me wonder why there aren't big gun fights throughout the game. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the occasional stealth mission but I feel like it's non-stop VIP rescues for the past 6 or 7 missions and most of the time I'm being punished for firing a shot.
marceror
Posts: 137
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2016 4:47 am

Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by marceror »

I can understand the OP's point, but thus far I don't feel likewise. The fact that I recently finished a non-LW2 Legend play through, which had plenty of combat, probably helps me in this regard. But even still, I feel like there's plenty of combat in LW2, and I love the realism that often the goal is to avoid it entirely -- which rarely works out as planned for me, so combat invariably happens. When I actually get through without any combat... the sense of accomplishment outweighs any potential loss of combat opportunities -- there will also be more of those, after all.

Add that there are a number of missions, many extremely challenging, that require killing all enemies on the map... and I'm just not feeling any strong lack of combat in my game. Further, the combats that do happen are more varied, often with underpowered squads, and this adds a whole new level of uncertainty and excitement to the game.

I'm still early in my game (June/July), and I hear it only escalates from here. I'm actually a little scared of what is to come! :shock:
dowd001
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by dowd001 »

I am with you. I find myself either in stealth or ambushing the reinforcements. Either way, a fight rarely lasts more than 2 rounds, even in the mid and late game. I think the problem with stealth and timers is that it prevents the dev team from creating pods that can be and should be fought in multiple rounds. So you stealth to push the timer, and then once visible, one shot a pod. Or maybe one survives wounded. I think the stealth and timers are driving a design decision that is resulting in limited play all around, even in later missions when the timer is gone. The aliens and pods seemed designed to keep Xcom on the move - finishing missions fast.

Sad for me, because I played a little vanilla Xcom 2 and then put it on the shelf because it was just too easy and, when modded, never balanced. Long War 2 got me soooo excited since I gladly blew much of my life on the original Long War. And here I am, putting Long War 2 on pause until this issue gets fixed by the devs or a mod figures out how to fix it.

I find myself not caring about skills, weapons and other upgrades since it doesn't seem to matter all that much, even on the highest level. I miss the fight.
Napalm292
Posts: 25
Joined: Tue Feb 07, 2017 6:45 pm

Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Napalm292 »

@ Portents:
Mission turns-

XcomLW_Overhaul.ini, lines 1078 through 1094. Lines 1080 through 1088 adjust the turns for individual missions. Lines 1091 through 1094 adjust the overall turns modification based on difficulty setting. I play on rookie and changed the bonus turns for rookie to 12.
Zyxpsilon
Posts: 274
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Zyxpsilon »

The real fun in gaming mostly begins when you start to realize that Winning & Loosing are equally satisfying even when optimal (or rational) gameplay conditions aren't perfectly matched with **someone's** idea of relative fairplay.

Give it time.. buddy, you won't regret it. :D
Daergar
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2015 7:47 pm

Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Daergar »

Different tastes. I have no problems what so ever with the current mechanics, once you get the hang of things you can bee-line for the objective with a few guys and get the mission done, feeling the reward of only breaking concealment at the very end.

Or you set up the perfect ambush on three pods, catching them in lethal cross-fires after softening them up with some flames or explosives. Haywire the big mech and mind control the andromedon (that's hilarious btw), crowd control everything else, clean up. Set up overwatch trap, pull things in with a sharpshooter and shinobi scout.

If all else fails, your officer can spend intel to boost your number of turns, and even jam reinforcements by one turn, letting you get set up. I've not failed a single mission due to lack of turns or the stealth aspect, so many tools to get around it, least of not all not killing everything when not needed.

You're really missing out if you don't give it a fresh go when 1.2 hits, not had this much fun in a game since LW1. ;)
GavinRuneblade
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by GavinRuneblade »

Zyxpsilon wrote:The real fun in gaming mostly begins when you start to realize that Winning & Loosing are equally satisfying even when optimal (or rational) gameplay conditions aren't perfectly matched with **someone's** idea of relative fairplay.

Give it time.. buddy, you won't regret it. :D
In essence when playing is truly playing, not competing.
Sir_Dr_D
Posts: 84
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2017 2:28 am

Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Sir_Dr_D »

I don't really think the purpose of stealth in the base game or long war is so you can avoid all combat in missions. If you are able to stealth though a large number of missions, you are finding exploits that weren't intentional. In other words you are just getting too good at stealth. ;) The purpose of stealth in the game is so you can choose the terms of your first engagement. I find if I am able to successfully ambush the proper pod , the whole mission is easier. But if somehow I am spotted before I can set up the ambush, the mission seems to go south really fast. The reason why there are things like the turn timer, sensor droids everywhere, your squad being revealed when you make your hack or you call the skyranger, delayed skyranger evacuation, and civilians in surprise random locations is so that combat is often unavoidable.

I have yet to learn how to do stealth at that level. I do try to stealth missions, and when I pull it off it feels rewarding. But something unavoidably usually goes wrong. For one, there always seems to be some pod that is close to the mission objective. Which means as soon as you hack, they are going to spot you. And the pods tend to start moving in your direction. Small squads can easily get slaughtered do to mind control, being stunned from droids, suppression, and a lot of other things.

I haven't gotten more then a few months into the game, but for me sectoids, and droids, are terrifying for small squads. A small squad seems like such a risk. I will take a Shinobi and a specialist on these missions if I can, and have them be on point and try to do stealth. But I need three or four others to protect them once the mission objective is reached and the squad is waiting for the skyranger, or for just when some pods wander to close to my path . Sometimes if the map and pod patrols work out well, I can do the mission without being detected. Sometimes I just need to ambush one pod, and able to avoid the others. Sometimes I end up killing everything on the map. Most of the time though I end up completing the objective but end up frantically trying to hold the enemy off long enough for the sky ranger to get there, (or racing for the evac zone) and escaping in the nick of time. That last one is what I think the design intent of those missions are.

Usually success for me in a mission depends on choosing which squad to properly ambush. Completely stealthing through a majority of missions is probably not the games/mods intention. It should be a tool to help you succeed, but not the only one. It may mean some stealth exploits need to get addressed. LIke maybe you should need to hack the main doors into a prison ( not just the jail cells), and doing so breaks stealth. Or after a few successful stealth missions, Advent starts learning and starts positioning stationary guards, right by the mission objective.
umie214
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by umie214 »

if you want to fight aliens just play on Rookie. During my first playthrough I did not use Concealment AT ALL (other than for wiping the first pod). I will attempt to manfight aliens on Veteran as well, as it was relatively easy on Rookie. Not sure if it's people's egos or whatnot, but there's nothing wrong playing LW2 on Rookie - it's still much more challenging than vanilla.
Portents
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Portents »

Thanks Napal292! I think I will try that out. You may have saved LW2 for me. And thanks for the other responses, I'm glad other people are enjoying the stealth mechanic, I just did not find it satisfying after the first couple stealth runs. And it sounds like there's more fighting in the later game, so that's something to look forward to if I pick it up again. I really enjoyed everything else about the mod.
xmd1997
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by xmd1997 »

I really do find it hard to believe when people claim that the best way to do Hack and Vip rescure missions early on is to stealth it with 1-3 shinobis. I find that I usually cant succeed at stealth missions unless I save scummed like 2 times. All it takes is a single mistake( I had a random drone come from atop a building and automaticly spoted them, my guys didn't even see it coming.)and you'll have half the the pods on the map converging on you shinobis position, at which case its time to throw the evac flare and pray that they'll surivive the turns unless they infiltrate 200%.
Sir_Dr_D
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Sir_Dr_D »

xmd1997 wrote:I really do find it hard to believe when people claim that the best way to do Hack and Vip rescure missions early on is to stealth it with 1-3 shinobis. I find that I usually cant succeed at stealth missions unless I save scummed like 2 times. All it takes is a single mistake( I had a random drone come from atop a building and automaticly spoted them, my guys didn't even see it coming.)and you'll have half the the pods on the map converging on you shinobis position, at which case its time to throw the evac flare and pray that they'll surivive the turns unless they infiltrate 200%.
Yes, and if any of your guys get mind controlled, stunned or strangled, then you are dead. And I have found that when I try to go around pods that are in my way the mission takes longer.It is fastes to just take the most direct route and just take that pod out. Stealth is there to ambush the first pod. If I succeed at mopping up the first pod quickly, I have control of the battlefield after that. When I try to avoid I end up rushing against the turn timer even more, and things can so easily end in disaster.
CyanideParadox
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by CyanideParadox »

I think the problem you're having is not the lack of firefight missions, but the lack of any Dynamic War option causing the game to feel too long for you and therefore the majority of missions feels like stealth only when those who have already completed their campaigns (On legend no less), have proven that it is certainly not the case.
knrp
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by knrp »

I might lose my current game because I can't find any facility leads, but I got to fairly stable situation midgame with 2 regions liberated at ~10 avatar pips without ever doing a stealth guerilla op, on commander ironman.

I've been sending in at least 5 people on them and killed pods as encountered, vanilla style. There was plenty of evacing with enemies alive, but that's lot different (and more enjoyable for me) than trying to sneak to the objective in concealment.

The one mission type where I have done some stealth cheese are single shinobi vip extracts/rescues that don't have the time for a real squad. It's mostly luck whether the vip makes it, but the risk to the shinobi is quite low, and you don't need a high level shinobi for it. When I tried more stealth in my first campaign, it was both not very fun and way too unreliable to risk experienced soldiers on.

I think the importance of stealth is currently overstated, because people are talking about its newfound viability compared to vanilla. Lots of people talking about stealthing the blacksite, I just blitzed through it with 38 kills in 15 turns or so, had just two 3 man RNF pods, both after taking the vial.
Jacke
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Jacke »

Portents wrote:Thanks Napal292! I think I will try that out. You may have saved LW2 for me. And thanks for the other responses, I'm glad other people are enjoying the stealth mechanic, I just did not find it satisfying after the first couple stealth runs. And it sounds like there's more fighting in the later game, so that's something to look forward to if I pick it up again. I really enjoyed everything else about the mod.
I tried manual timer adjustment in the INI's and it did take off the crazy pressure (like on large maps where a Jailbreak without any interaction with ADVENT troops can still take 11 of 12 turns going from ingress to jailbreak to evac). But I was still mostly stealthing, just with less time pressure. I think if I made it long enough to comfortably fight, the time limit may not mean anything. And it would still be hard to infiltrate with larger squads. I think more is needed.

Like trihero, I want to be able to move more away from stealth and allow for fighting as well as larger squads more often. So I''m trying to find a set of mods and configuration to do that. I'm still testing things and the combination will likely need tuning. The key mod is the last one.

A number of effective resources mods to pay for the troops and the casualties:

Extract Corpses
XCOM can pull out their own wounded and dead, why not ADVENT's. Editted to exclude carrying heavy ADVENT like MECs, Mutons, Berserkers, and Andromedons. Also has a utility device, the Fulton Harness, with 2 charges to pull out any dead beastie. Risky to evac corpses under fire.

Guerilla Job
Resistance members in the zone stir up ADVENT and arrange for more Ambush Troops missions and their rewards.

Elerium Grounds
Late game make Elerium Cores from a lot of parts, as well as upgrade earlier armours using ECores into the later models without needing another ECore.

And mods for infiltration and timers.

An Easier War: Infiltration
Shifts infiltration to make it easier to field larger squads, shifting the stock LW2 performance at 5 troops up to 6, as well as making going partways under not so back and going partways over better.

An Easier War: Timers
Increases mission timers at all difficulty levels to their Rookie level value, 4 more turns than Legendary. Can be adjusted in its INI file.

As suggested to allow for running into the Allien Rulers, I did this myself by INI edits. I found that 4 more turns makes stealthing rather comfortable, perhaps allowing for taking out at least one pod near the evac.

But using this mod below instead of AEW:Timers may be the real game changer.

True Concealment for LW2
Mission timers don't go down while the whole squad is concealed. By default applied to missions where the Officer perk Intervention can be used. Can be adjusted for which missions are affected and whether certain levels of infiltration are needed to halt the mission timers. Can also have a chance for the timer not to tick down this turn based upon infiltration--but the roll could fail and the timer go down anyhoo--which could be very cool.

This means during the initial stealth portion of a mission, while scouting and positioning, the timer either won't go down, won't go down if infiltrated to 100%, or will mostly not go down if infiltrated enough. That means when the squad is revealed, there's almost all of timer left to fight and then evac. Of course, ADVENT will be getting reinforcements.

All together, these mods could shift things from a whole lot of stealth to something more interesting.
Napalm292
Posts: 25
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Napalm292 »

Portents,

One warning about adding more turns to complete a mission. The reinforcement timer is still going during the extra turns. If the reinforcements get to be more than your liking, they can be adjusted as well. In the same file (XcomLW_Overhaul) starting at line 945. The devs were kind enough to provide a description of how it functions there.
Sir_Dr_D
Posts: 84
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Sir_Dr_D »

I have a question. Those of you saying the game is heavily stealthed based, do you have the extra map packs installed? My understanding is that Longwar is unbalanced for those, as a lot of those maps are bigger. And if the number of pods are the same it would make the map less dense. That would not only make stealth easier but the strategy that makes the most sense.

I would like to see the team balance things for the map packs, but that would be hard. The timer would need to adjust depending on the map size. But more then that, for any mission that involves doing a task and then getting out, the number of pods would need to be increased to keep the enemy density the same. At the least there would need to be more drones flying around on the larger maps.
Jacke
Posts: 623
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by Jacke »

Sir_Dr_D wrote:I have a question. Those of you saying the game is heavily stealthed based, do you have the extra map packs installed?
No map packs installed. LW2 has barely balanced timers of certain missions against the larger LW2 stock maps. I keep giving this example because it was at the limit and I was damn lucky nothing went wrong.

Jailbreak from Legendary campaign. My 3 soldiers Shinobi, Specialist, Gunner. Infiltrated to Extremely Light Vulnerable. Large modern urban map. I have no control on ingress location nor jail location nor evac locatioin. 12 turns. I saw the size of the map and started running. Shinobi made blue moves and yellow moves, but the other 2 dashed to keep up. Just saw one ADVENT pod well off to the right down a street. Could keep going forward and then to the right to get to the jail. Went in, saw no other pods around the near, left, and far sides of the building. Specialist hacked the lock to release the VIP. All 4 took off left and a bit forward for the evac. Made it there on turn 11 of 12.

Anything could have gone wrong to frustrate this mission. Even the placement of civilians could have delayed my squad a turn or more and more would have led to failure and losing all 3 soldiers. Just seeing a pod near the jail would have likely led to an abort as there was no time for any sort of firefight.

Further to this, I present the ADVENT Vehicle missions. Either rescue VIP or loot container. VIP versions have fixed evac and a hard deadline of 12 turns, the other has evac by flare and a recover-by deadline of 8 turns. Even at Extremely Light Vulnerable they will have 1 or 2 pods lurking around the vehicle. If there's not enough time before the deadline, can only send 3 or less troops and will need to do fast and furious stealth hit-and-run. Need to scout out the pods and around the vehicle pronto. Unless ADVENT conveniently groups together at the right moment for the Grenadier or Technical, I suspect the best way to do these is to smoke the truck and flashbang the pod and either get the VIP or the MacGuffin and go. Some fighting is necessary but with luck have been done by a single Shinobi. If there's enough time, can sometimes manage 4 or 5 soldiers with an infiltration of 100% or more; then possible to kill all the pods if they are close enough to investigate but don't all arrive together.

Even when there is fighting in these missions, you have to have used the stealth to carefully find most if not all of the pods and when action is sprung, you want only one pod to active. You will often have less troops than the pod you are fighting, thus the reliance on explosive AoE. If you try to send more to fight for the objective, in most cases the infiltration won't be 100%, the enemy will see farther to break concealment, and there will be many many more enemy. Including such source of joy as single Drones hanging out waiting for your squad to stumble across them.
deducter
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Re: Why I stopped LW2 - but thanks for everything

Post by deducter »

Xwynns recently uploaded two LW1-style videos involving epic firefights. No stealth beyond the issue setup, no timers, just misisons to sweep and kill everything.

The first was an HQ assault over 2 hours and had to be split into two parts.
HQ Assault Part 1
HQ Assault Part 2

The second was a 6-man squad troop column mission where the objective was to kill everything. The ensuing 1-hour battle was basically one continuous engagement from beginning to end.
Nigthmare on K Street

I think Legend is as difficult as it is because it is tuned based on feedback provided by at least two very experienced players with over a thousand hundreds of playtime between them.
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