Recovering from loss
Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 4:05 am
The most fun missions of all are the ones where you are badly outnumbered, but complete the object and then barely get out with all your soldiers alive, if badly wounded or unconscious. Like in a destroy the relay mission, where you sneak your 5 man squad to the objective, but then suddenly have every pod on the map down on you when you break concealment, and must hold the overwhelming horde off for 4 turns as you wait for Firebrand. There is so much excitement and adrenalin. and that is when lw2 is at its finest.
Now of course just using a 2 man stealth squad might make it easier. But let me say this.
Pure stealth squads are for wimps.
taking the max soldiers you can get away with and have 100% infilitration is the way to get the most out of the game.
But it does seem to cause a downward spiral. Most of that squad will be in the hospital bed for a month. Which means you are understaffed for later missions, which caused more loss, etc. In general lw2 is less forgiving then lw1 when it comes to recovering from loss. If you get a squad wipe, it is probably game over, even if it doesn't seem that way at first. it is the reason people need to resort to stealth. There is no room for risk. But I like the risk. The risk is for me what makes the game fun. Where your soldiers are always in danger and you never know what shot could connect. And you use tactics to keep finding ways to get out of tense situations. We should be able to lose half our force, but still find ways to recover. It is a war. It is what makes the most sense story wise. If you dominate or cheese your way through every encounter, it makes the game boring. At least for me. But currently it doesn't seem possible.
There should be ways to recover from loss. But There are 2 problems:
1) It is too hard to train up new troops.
2) resources for equipment are so scarce, if you lose your equipment you are in bad shape.
Here are some suggestions:
1) If research cost more resources and individual items cost less then we are able to buy into the technology, but can more easily reproduce once we are in. That matches real life. It is always producing that first laser that is the most expensive. Then you have your factory and equipment and it is easier after that. The balance will need to be right. We still want individual items costly enough that we want to carry a dead solider to the evac zone, but not so much that it is too hard too recover from the loss.
2) Have upgrades that allows the GTS to promote more then rookies to squaddies. With investments we can promote soldiers up higher ranks.. Maybe to a max of 2 levels behind the highest level character.
3) We all see those tv screens around the city that show the Xcom soldiers. It must make it harder for extremely wanted high ranking soldiers from doing infiltrations. What might make things easier is if they were able to take some less known soldiers along. In short have some sort of infiltration bonus in place for lower level soldiers. Every level difference between the soldier and the commanding officer of the mission, should provide more of a bonus. As things are right now, taking along lower levels is just deadly, as you need every high level that you can get. This will at least allow for bigger squads when you use lower levels to help even things out.
4) Always have some missions available that are suited to lower level soldiers. If you do missions in a new haven in an area where Advent has no reason at all to suspect XCOM actively, the aliens should be less dangerous. The aliens have been there for 20 years. So why do we see no Vipers at the beginning, but as the game progresses there is more and more of them. Why weren't they there all along? If they start showing up as a response to XCOM, why are they everywhere and not just in areas where they expect XCOM activity? Anyway, Advent strength should say something about the level of the soldiers needed. If you go back to strength 1, you should be able to use lower level characters there. Losing a power squad, should just set you back. You then have to go back to another area where things are easier, and train up lower levels again. Some missions where you need a power squad, and others where it seems okay to send lower levels will just make the game more interesting.
Of the above I would really like to see #3 the most. #4 would allow for where aliens appear to start making story sense.
I want a tense dynamic game. Recovering from loss better is necessary for that.
Now of course just using a 2 man stealth squad might make it easier. But let me say this.
Pure stealth squads are for wimps.
taking the max soldiers you can get away with and have 100% infilitration is the way to get the most out of the game.
But it does seem to cause a downward spiral. Most of that squad will be in the hospital bed for a month. Which means you are understaffed for later missions, which caused more loss, etc. In general lw2 is less forgiving then lw1 when it comes to recovering from loss. If you get a squad wipe, it is probably game over, even if it doesn't seem that way at first. it is the reason people need to resort to stealth. There is no room for risk. But I like the risk. The risk is for me what makes the game fun. Where your soldiers are always in danger and you never know what shot could connect. And you use tactics to keep finding ways to get out of tense situations. We should be able to lose half our force, but still find ways to recover. It is a war. It is what makes the most sense story wise. If you dominate or cheese your way through every encounter, it makes the game boring. At least for me. But currently it doesn't seem possible.
There should be ways to recover from loss. But There are 2 problems:
1) It is too hard to train up new troops.
2) resources for equipment are so scarce, if you lose your equipment you are in bad shape.
Here are some suggestions:
1) If research cost more resources and individual items cost less then we are able to buy into the technology, but can more easily reproduce once we are in. That matches real life. It is always producing that first laser that is the most expensive. Then you have your factory and equipment and it is easier after that. The balance will need to be right. We still want individual items costly enough that we want to carry a dead solider to the evac zone, but not so much that it is too hard too recover from the loss.
2) Have upgrades that allows the GTS to promote more then rookies to squaddies. With investments we can promote soldiers up higher ranks.. Maybe to a max of 2 levels behind the highest level character.
3) We all see those tv screens around the city that show the Xcom soldiers. It must make it harder for extremely wanted high ranking soldiers from doing infiltrations. What might make things easier is if they were able to take some less known soldiers along. In short have some sort of infiltration bonus in place for lower level soldiers. Every level difference between the soldier and the commanding officer of the mission, should provide more of a bonus. As things are right now, taking along lower levels is just deadly, as you need every high level that you can get. This will at least allow for bigger squads when you use lower levels to help even things out.
4) Always have some missions available that are suited to lower level soldiers. If you do missions in a new haven in an area where Advent has no reason at all to suspect XCOM actively, the aliens should be less dangerous. The aliens have been there for 20 years. So why do we see no Vipers at the beginning, but as the game progresses there is more and more of them. Why weren't they there all along? If they start showing up as a response to XCOM, why are they everywhere and not just in areas where they expect XCOM activity? Anyway, Advent strength should say something about the level of the soldiers needed. If you go back to strength 1, you should be able to use lower level characters there. Losing a power squad, should just set you back. You then have to go back to another area where things are easier, and train up lower levels again. Some missions where you need a power squad, and others where it seems okay to send lower levels will just make the game more interesting.
Of the above I would really like to see #3 the most. #4 would allow for where aliens appear to start making story sense.
I want a tense dynamic game. Recovering from loss better is necessary for that.