L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

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Dahrak
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Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:09 pm

L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by Dahrak »

http://i.imgur.com/W4kR0NQ.jpg

Game number 23, 235 hours logged in steam after release of LW2, not sure how much of it AFK. 7th actual attempt (not counting several late march/early april restarts due to poor scientist/engineer RNG). Initially i wanted to have completely blind playthrough but gave up. Didnt touch the DLC items/content

1st try
Blind attempt, lasted only few hours and was a trainwreck that ended in mid-april.

2nd try
(still relatively blind), made it to early may and lost campaign due to trying sub-50% infiltration rescue engineer VIP, had 4 scientists and only 1 engineer.

3rd try
Actually looked up stuff about infiltration mechanics etc. and found out that "moderate" actually means swarming^2 in LW1 terms if you count the reinforcements. Also started stealthing prisoner rescues. This story ended entirely due to early reinforcement DE in june/july, absolutely fucked up several missions and i gave up after losing 10+ guys during the month (this was still during the yellow alert reinforcement "feature").

4th try
First "actual attempt" (as in progressed in liberations or main storyline). Made it to mid or late july, half of A-team utterly destroyed by trying to take my time with first network tower... shortly after that the rest were wiped by 0% infiltration supply raid gone wrong (a guy flanked and killed by yellow alert pod, lead to 2 panics and rest is predictable).

5th try
Absolutely awful campaign that ended in august, terrible luck with DEs... had the intel one, faceless one, venom rounds and several others back to back. Took me over 3 months to gather intel to progress to blacksite location, lost the entirety of B-team and 2 regions during 30d infiltration and upon starting the mission i proceeded to safely camp in a corner. When i eventually begun moving towards the vial the HIDDEN TIMER expired and pods of 8 started raining upon me, needless to say i lost everyone before i saw the vial and took a 2 day break from LW2.

Before starting my next campaign i researched absolutely everything i could about the game and watched severals hours of streams and vods (shoutouts especially to JoINrbs)

6th try
Started abusing the hell out of stealthing and threw enjoyment into the garbage bin, also stopped completely using technicals and only had a couple assaults early on for specific missions (like network tower rush with lasers). In addition i found out the hard way that liberating regions early on is completely pointless since the region defense missions are nigh-impossible without getting lucky with civilian placement. At this point i was heavily abusing supply raids and rarely bothered with unstealthable combat missions after the laser-rush momentum wore off. Arguably my best run but i lost it all in october Forge, tried to stealth my 10man team across the bridge when things "looked" quiet and got ambushed by half of the map in 2 turns, including archon king, one of the most painful losses of my long war career.

7th and final attempt
- 0 (zero) (none) random combat missions with infiltration requirement after the early exo-suit+laser momentum wore off, only sustained 1 fully decked out A-team.

- Manned practically 100% of infiltrateable stealth missions (except VIP escorts that didnt have scientist/engineer reward). A lot of them failed or had too dangerous container/whatever location and therein lies the reason for my 20% failure rate of missions.

- Ran ridiculous amounts of supply raids with cheesy 2-3 sharpshooter 3 gunner, 2 ranger comps.

- More than 50% of my very high casualty count was shinobis, with 20ish-% being specialists and rest normal combat losses. I also had only 1 living Msgt shinobi officer for the last mission (who was powerleveled by 3 man stealthing 3 facilities).

- None of my technicals saw any use outside haven missions. Assaults (except 1 assault with amazing AWC perks) saw also relatively little use after network tower and laser/exo powerup. Unless you count the 2 black market suicide-smg-tank-assaults for risky stealthing purposes.

- Was still missing andromedon corpse by the end of the game.

- Supply gathering is a waste of resources unless you have capped rebels in haven, you are going to need a lot of rookies and a lot of intel.
breaching charges are incrediby useful.

- Did not invest any resources into PSI during my last 2 runs.


Compared to long war 1 this left me with a sour taste in my mouth. While long war 1 has its small issues like the endgame farm that drags on for a bit too long... Long war 2 just seems to have more fundamental issues and i dont see myself replaying this again unless more tactical combat-oriented approach gets heavily incentivized.

Strategic layer feels mostly fine and pacing of the campaign is good but the endless one-dimensional stealthing minigame gets extremely tiresome after few dozens of hours. I completed the Blacksite and Forge missions both with 3 shinobis and assuming you take your time, have breaching charges and have the conceal perk on all of them, its practically impossible to fail. Those 2 missions + the liberation-chain network towers (these are largely depend on pod-RNG) also seem to be the only 3 "necessary" extremely difficult missions in the game, all thanks to HIDDEN TIMERS that ruined 2 of my earlier attempts. The rest of the missions can be safely skipped at will. And I absolutely have to point out that i do think the timer fits the Blacksite and Forge missions since they are essentially covert operations, it just MUST BE MADE OBVIOUS that you are working against a timer after breaking concealment.

During my victorious run i completed 0 troop columns, 0 protect device or destroy relay missions (after laser/exo advantage expired) and 2 or 3 sabotage monument missions (in specific regions). I also captured 0 enemy VIP's (easiest missions to stealth with sharpshooter+shinobi+specialist) and i saw 0 landed UFO-missions during my campaigns, are they even a thing anymore? And thanks to late game avatar progression barrage and endless crippling DEs its both impossible and stupid to even attempt researching plasma weapons.

Last but not least, sound mechanics often lead to entire map being pulled which largely renders offensive grenadiers a very situational class after early game and makes technical even more more awful option than it already was. Plus i think the yellow alert is the most infuriating and unfair mechanic ive ever experienced in a turn-based strategy game.

All that being said i still greatly enjoyed LW2 for close to 200 hours and the infiltration mechanics conceptually feel truly unique. The majority of issues can be fixed by careful rebalancing and 0% supply raids need to be radically changed, maybe slightly buffing the rewards and making them comparable to LW1 landed larges in rarity... so that they become a calculated risk that might require infiltration abortions instead of being your bread and butter that takes half of your campaign gameplay time.
trihero
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by trihero »

breaching charges are incrediby useful.
Cool, how did you use them to good effect?
Compared to long war 1 this left me with a sour taste in my mouth. While long war 1 has its small issues like the endgame farm that drags on for a bit too long... Long war 2 just seems to have more fundamental issues and i dont see myself replaying this again unless more tactical combat-oriented approach gets heavily incentivized.
Thank God this sentiment seems widespread. I'm pretty sure (and disappointed) they won't be trying to address this issue in 1.2, but in time perhaps.
Dahrak
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by Dahrak »

Cool, how did you use them to good effect?
When thrown by a conceal shinobi supported by officer specialist, you can almost always open safe hack path a blue move from evac. They also completely trivialize Blacksite and Forge when used by shinobi squad featuring officer.
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Postmaster
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by Postmaster »

FYI for forge, you can also put wraith armor on your shinobi and carry the body straight through walls. I think I went into the building and back out to the evac in one turn.
Goumindong
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by Goumindong »

Dahrak wrote:
Cool, how did you use them to good effect?
When thrown by a conceal shinobi supported by officer specialist, you can almost always open safe hack path a blue move from evac. They also completely trivialize Blacksite and Forge when used by shinobi squad featuring officer.
You can also use them on a grenadier (from the evac zone if its close, or ideally from a place where you will not reveal) if you don't have conceal.

Generally the "ideal" hack set goes like so.

Specialist, Grenadier, Shinobi. Grenadier brings only the breaching charge. Shinobi is the officer.

You place the evac in a position where your grenadier and specialist are not seen. Then wait until the evac comes up. The Grenadier blows a hole in the wall next to the exit granting vision of the objective. Then the specialist hacks and then everyone leaves with the shinobi granting a command to whomever needs to get out.

Sometimes you can actually move to the objective, hack, and then come back in one move (even without sight from the officer as command will stack actions to 3 just fine) if you're trying to get an item and so might get loot.
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3tamatulg
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by 3tamatulg »

Would like to echo your experience generally. I did the same thing but over 4 runs, about 130 hours total (using "bind F slomo 2" "bind G slomo 4" to keep animation speed really high)

Run 1: Blind, messed up completely due to haven mechanics, didn't use intel enough, build order was stupid (workshop first), was not stealthing any missions. Ended around July when Dark Events were stacking up making the tactical battles impossible.

Run 2: Still mostly blind, similar mess ups. Was still spending intel on boosting most missions.

Run 3: Went pretty well, AWC first, started stealthing missions some of the time. Ended in October due to hidden Avatar progress and a lack of progressing the 'golden path'. Only pulled off one supply raid, still underusing intel.

After this one I read up on the forums and watched a lot of JoINrbs.

Run 4: Went far better, stealth cheese and supply raid cheese everywhere. OTS first to get stop fielding rookies who promote into inappropriate classes. Invested in Psi and feel like it was a complete waste as I am preferring to bring Sq Grenadiers over my Sgt-equivalent ranked Psi Operatives. Promoted too many Technicals.

I'm trying to bring myself to start a 5th run but I keep getting put off remembering how many of the missions I'm incentivised to cheese with 2 or 3 soldiers, how Psi are so bad they're basically unimplemented and how the fights when you do have them turn into slow slogging matches where R&G assaults are a liability outside of very specific circumstances due to pod popping/yellow alert/noise mechanics.
wei270
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by wei270 »

i find Technicals very useful for 3 man stealth mission i bring 1 ninja, 1 specialist, and 1 technical. if you are force in to a fight the technical can either wipe or control most of the pod with flamer can best of all it has almost no sounds, then you can proceed to either combat protocol and flesh the remain uncontrolled element for almost 0 sounds

if you get quick burn and Capacitor Discharge and reaper then it is gg enemy pod
aimlessgun
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by aimlessgun »

Dahrak wrote:Arguably my best run but i lost it all in october Forge, tried to stealth my 10man team across the bridge when things "looked" quiet and got ambushed by half of the map in 2 turns, including archon king, one of the most painful losses of my long war career.
Damn that's brutal. And I agree that the 'doom clock' on those missions needs to be told to the player. And that stealthing them should not be the optimal strategy.
Dahrak wrote: During my victorious run i completed 0 troop columns, 0 protect device or destroy relay missions (after laser/exo advantage expired) and 2 or 3 sabotage monument missions (in specific regions). I also captured 0 enemy VIP's (easiest missions to stealth with sharpshooter+shinobi+specialist) and i saw 0 landed UFO-missions during my campaigns, are they even a thing anymore? And thanks to late game avatar progression barrage and endless crippling DEs its both impossible and stupid to even attempt researching plasma weapons.
Hrm I'm curious about this. If you're doing supply raids, troop columns are like 8 man easier versions of supply raids, why do none of those? (also might have contributed to no andro corpses but it's still insane you didn't get one in a supply raid) Destroy relay is easily cheesed with spotter Shinobi + 2 Sharps, yay more cheese :D Why no protect device? It takes no infiltration and often is very easy (though sometimes stupidly difficult but you can leave).

I'm not sure what you mean about Plasma. Yes, they come pretty late, I only got the first tech in November, but I believe most people finish the game later than that. There is some debate as to their cost vs. how big of an upgrade they are though.
Dahrak
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by Dahrak »

Hrm I'm curious about this. If you're doing supply raids, troop columns are like 8 man easier versions of supply raids, why do none of those? (also might have contributed to no andro corpses but it's still insane you didn't get one in a supply raid) Destroy relay is easily cheesed with spotter Shinobi + 2 Sharps, yay more cheese :D Why no protect device? It takes no infiltration and often is very easy (though sometimes stupidly difficult but you can leave).
I did do those missions, just not after the early laser/exo advantage wore off. I tried cheesing destroy relays during some of my earlier runs but gave up after failing more often than not due to awkward angles required to hit them (for several turns in a row), just unnecessary risk and i only had 5 sharpshooters during the campaign (1 of whom died). They were very valuable and first ones to reach Msgt since they barely took wounds, majority of my high aim soldiers went to rangers/gunners due to casualties and the rest into stealthing. Protect device is often very unnecessary risk, one of the more dangerous mission types imo. No concealment and Ayys are often clamped tightly in small areas due to 2 xcom spawnpoints with spawn-proximity-rules. Just mass-recruit after losing few haven guys. Not to mention that these become practically impossible in later months.

Troop columns though? I just couldnt be bothered, you rarely have large enough infiltration window to make them relatively safe with big squad and even then you more often than not get a supply raid or some haven popup during the infiltration. The downside was that by the end 3-4 of my regions were so high strength (13-14+) that i practically skipped even all the stealth missions on said regions. and just recruited/gathered supplies.

And plasma just feels completely unnecessary and not at all worth the resources. Luckily enough i did my research and read stuff about how other peoples campaigns had failed... so i spent the last 2 months spamming datapad research and lo and behold, the 300 intel and spare resistance comm capacity i had amassed actually enabled me to finish the campaign, the last network tower was in worst possible location. I had to build tower in east europe and to rush through 2 areas in order to barely beat the avatar timer. http://imgur.com/a/DDlBW
shhfiftyfive
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by shhfiftyfive »

missions get old, because contrary to belief, EU/EW/LW1 overwatch spam with no mission timers and just meld incentive and non-cheating ai.... that didn't get old as fast as the narrow way you have to play LW2. the fun from EW/LW1 has been removed. instead LW2 totally focusing on keeping every new (bad) thing xcom2 added, and nerfing vanilla xcom2 imbalances (mimic/serial), instead of just removing xcom2's gimmicks completely. pavonis just added more problems.

EW had meld to combat overwatch... xcom2 added loot and mission timers. instead of walking this back, pavonis kept both of these and made no changes (problematic at best)

EW had exalt, and spent intel monthly, had a monthly mission you had to do... LW2 has a ton of new things that are not as interesting or as fun... you're flooded with these side mission in LW2, so much that the entire LW2 feels like no story, just endless side quests.

LW1: fun versatile classes. LW2 boring one trick pony classes.

LW2: yellow alerts and sound = all pods on top of you in 2 turns... jaw hits floor...

LW2: reinforcements dropping right on top of you about 98% of the time... no simple mimic beacon cheese this time to keep them in check. (reminds me of dragon age 2, super garbage, no player control here for positioning)

way too many dark events, all firing at once

way too dependent on "full intel" havens to combat the otherwise completely hidden or short expirations on very important missions.

more than 4 staff per haven = agro, less than 4 staff = ineffective. hiding staff contributes nothing...

agro. retaliation missions imba, bad spawns, too many aliens, unwinnable. gets old....



hidden avatar progress (until you liberate a region or take out a black site??), for unknown reasons. there needs to be more emphasis on needing to do this (or just show the damn doom meter from the beginning. its not like it will ruin immersion any worse than having endless random meaningless missions shoved in your face, with no story...

just give us a doom meter to start, so we do not waste time with all the other missions the game throws at you. the devs/game ASSUMES you know you should do x and avoid y. but the player doesn't know that. 100 hours later, and a hidden avatar bar gets full and credits roll.. because? not logical.

when EU/EW/LW1 had massive warning (do not lose 8 countries or game over...) you didn't need to progress 3/4 the way through the main questline to get that warning!!!



assault and shinobi useless on avenger defense. too many aliens/pods on the football field here. sniper kinda useless too with no squad sight on objective.. might as well bring all the specialists, gunners, grenadiers, and technicals you can, and exo suits/heavy weapons.




with all the glaring problems/mechanics in vanilla xcom2 (compared to EW/LW1), i was hoping pavonis would have the foresight to create a LW2, not an "xcom2: version 2"... Not adopt every issue wholesale and then just add more layers to it.
amgarrak1
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by amgarrak1 »

shhfiftyfive wrote:with all the glaring problems/mechanics in vanilla xcom2 (compared to EW/LW1), i was hoping pavonis would have the foresight to create a LW2, not an "xcom2: version 2"... Not adopt every issue wholesale and then just add more layers to it.
Well, despite the version stating 1.1, it's pretty much still an alpha version. I'd compare it to some early alphas of LW1. Those weren't so perfect either, eh? Although I agree with a lot of things you mentioned, I think you need to give them some time to balance things out.
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3tamatulg
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Re: L/I post-gampaign report + some feedback

Post by 3tamatulg »

shhfiftyfive wrote:just give us a doom meter to start, so we do not waste time with all the other missions the game throws at you. the devs/game ASSUMES you know you should do x and avoid y. but the player doesn't know that. 100 hours later, and a hidden avatar bar gets full and credits roll.. because? not logical.

when EU/EW/LW1 had massive warning (do not lose 8 countries or game over...) you didn't need to progress 3/4 the way through the main questline to get that warning!!!
The rest of this post is a mixed bag for me, but I absolutely agree with this. There's absolutely no rational reason I can come up with for hiding this from the player, considering how sidelined the flow of the story gets with the massive number of missions between the narrative scenes.
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