An alternative way of handling infiltration and mission types
Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2017 4:10 pm
The problem with overpowered stealth missions and 0% supply raids mainly lies with the infiltration system.
Apart from the fact that it is easier and faster to stealth a mission than to do it "properly" (e.g. because of reinforcements), there are way too many missions your intel guys catch too late for proper infiltration, so you either send in the usual ninja duo, or skip them (or abuse the intended punishment for going in guns blazing to your favor in the case of 0% loot-orgies).
In my opinion, the game would be more interesting, controllable and diverse if mission types were more clearly defined, arranged and seperated from each other, and most importantly, not mostly based on the current infiltration mechanic.
At the moment, (especially at the beginning) almost *every* mission is a stealth mission, a) because it is not only possible, but preferable to do it the stealthy way, and b) because a large chunk of missions is only detected with so few days left that stealth is your only option. So, to no small degree, the random element of mission detection time decides wether the game offers you a pure stealth mission or at least the possibilty of a more traditional one. Instead of occasionally giving you missions you should pass on due to low infiltration time and the resulting difficulty (as is intended, I assume), the game involuntartily keeps offering you an overabundance of stealth missions.
I would prefer the following alternative:
1) Missions should be more clearly defined as to how many soldiers you can and must bring (I propopse three sets of mission types: 1-3,4-6,7-10), which would allow more proper level design and balancing.
2) Mission types should be more restrictive in the way they can be solved. Missions intended for 4-6 people must have mechanisms that make them unstealthable, missions designed for 1-3 people must have mechanisms that would make them hard to complete by brute force alone, missions designed for 7-10 could now be designed in a way that encourages going beyond just holing up in one corner of the map.
3) Missions would now always have a fixed number of enemies based on Advent strength in the region alone (with some randomness built in, of course). The value of the intel gatherers would now lie in detecting a mission either early enough to bring the maximum number of people (and not punish you for doing so) or so late that you can only bring the minimum for a particular mission type. This way, every mission type would work just as intended, and there would be no more reward for storming in totally unprepared.
4) When missions are detected, their expiration date on the globe and the "fatigue"-time needed for a squad of the intended size to infiltrate them should be at least roughly equal, within a reasonable margin. If you detected them early, you could bring the pre-defined maximum number of soldiers (or you could afford to wait some days instead); if you detected them late, you would have to start infiltration immediately and bring only the bare minimum intended for the mission type. If you don't do or detect the mission in time for the defined minimum squad to infiltrate it, however, the mission vanishes or is never shown at all. This would a) make the involuntary overabundance of "stealth"-missions go away and b) stop the annoying mission spam, when you keep getting offered guerilla missions with one day or one hour left that you would never do.
5) This way, you could more easily find the optimal ratio between combat and stealth missions, since you could just decide how many of the respective type will be spawned in a region.
Apart from the fact that it is easier and faster to stealth a mission than to do it "properly" (e.g. because of reinforcements), there are way too many missions your intel guys catch too late for proper infiltration, so you either send in the usual ninja duo, or skip them (or abuse the intended punishment for going in guns blazing to your favor in the case of 0% loot-orgies).
In my opinion, the game would be more interesting, controllable and diverse if mission types were more clearly defined, arranged and seperated from each other, and most importantly, not mostly based on the current infiltration mechanic.
At the moment, (especially at the beginning) almost *every* mission is a stealth mission, a) because it is not only possible, but preferable to do it the stealthy way, and b) because a large chunk of missions is only detected with so few days left that stealth is your only option. So, to no small degree, the random element of mission detection time decides wether the game offers you a pure stealth mission or at least the possibilty of a more traditional one. Instead of occasionally giving you missions you should pass on due to low infiltration time and the resulting difficulty (as is intended, I assume), the game involuntartily keeps offering you an overabundance of stealth missions.
I would prefer the following alternative:
1) Missions should be more clearly defined as to how many soldiers you can and must bring (I propopse three sets of mission types: 1-3,4-6,7-10), which would allow more proper level design and balancing.
2) Mission types should be more restrictive in the way they can be solved. Missions intended for 4-6 people must have mechanisms that make them unstealthable, missions designed for 1-3 people must have mechanisms that would make them hard to complete by brute force alone, missions designed for 7-10 could now be designed in a way that encourages going beyond just holing up in one corner of the map.
3) Missions would now always have a fixed number of enemies based on Advent strength in the region alone (with some randomness built in, of course). The value of the intel gatherers would now lie in detecting a mission either early enough to bring the maximum number of people (and not punish you for doing so) or so late that you can only bring the minimum for a particular mission type. This way, every mission type would work just as intended, and there would be no more reward for storming in totally unprepared.
4) When missions are detected, their expiration date on the globe and the "fatigue"-time needed for a squad of the intended size to infiltrate them should be at least roughly equal, within a reasonable margin. If you detected them early, you could bring the pre-defined maximum number of soldiers (or you could afford to wait some days instead); if you detected them late, you would have to start infiltration immediately and bring only the bare minimum intended for the mission type. If you don't do or detect the mission in time for the defined minimum squad to infiltrate it, however, the mission vanishes or is never shown at all. This would a) make the involuntary overabundance of "stealth"-missions go away and b) stop the annoying mission spam, when you keep getting offered guerilla missions with one day or one hour left that you would never do.
5) This way, you could more easily find the optimal ratio between combat and stealth missions, since you could just decide how many of the respective type will be spawned in a region.