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Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 7:36 am
by Autoclave
Dear Pavonis, please try to keep guaranteed alien upgrades away from Dark Events list.
Don't confuse the player. Dark events should be things that can actually be countered.

If a Dark Event has been completed, then the player will know that he did not detect it, or did no expand to enough regions to get a chance at countering it.

Don't make things confusing please.
Thank you.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 8:24 am
by Jadiel
Perhaps if you told us which DE is unavoidable, it would help everyone else understand your issue.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 8:44 am
by JackDT
I actually do think it would be helpful to rename Dark Events to Alien Progress or whatever, to reduce the confusion with vanilla. Over the course of the campaign it's expected the aliens will eventually get every dark event. Pretty different thing.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 12:17 pm
by Jacke
How about calling the Tactical DE's "Alien Threat Escalation".

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 12:47 pm
by LordYanaek
I don't think there is a single unavoidable DE, including the permanent ones (Tactical Upgrades and others), however it's expected you won't be able to counter all of them, only a (small) fraction. I don't know whether countered DE will come back later or they are gone for good.
Note that normal Dark Events can also go "under the radar" even with lots of guys on Intel.

The real issue is we are still reacting like it's Vanilla XCom2 and missing a Dark Event should be rare. LW2 is not XCom2 and we must unlearn our XCom2 strategies.

The other issue is that the DE are way more frightening than their real danger warrants. Most of those affect only 1-2 specific enemies (say Stun Lancers) and then only a fraction of those enemies will be affected. The wide spectrum DE are basic upgrades like +1HP running parallel to your weapon research and not a real issue unless you really lag in research.

So i would say that part of the "issue" comes from the way DE are presented to us, but another part of the issue (the biggest part) comes from us not really trying to understand that LW2 is not a mere mod but rather a different game with different rules and we must learn those rules.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 12:55 pm
by rakoon79
It's funny how human minds work.

Back in LW1, we had lots and lots of alien upgrades going on, arguably even a lot more than the current LW2's Tactical DEs. They had access to squadsight, Resilience, CCS, cover fire, grenade-related perks, purely stat-upgrades (at least 6 upgrades for each species), and too many perks that need mentioning. But when all of them were invisible and the aliens suddenly had increased stats and ridiculous perks, people didn't complain as much. At that time, we literally had 0 means of stopping the upgradees.

Now in LW2, very similar system takes place, but now is shown visibly through the concept of DE, and we can even stop the DEs with any luck. But for some reason, people start throwing complaints.

Not trying to argue the complaint is needless/invalid, but just something I realized last week that literally made me laugh.

ADD : For those who are not familiar with LW1, http://ufopaedia.org/index.php/Alien_Li ... (Long_War)
**Add a closing bracket to the link. For some reason, closing bracket is not being added to the link

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 2:08 pm
by darkerevent
I liked LW1's alien perk system a lot better because I could at least go around F1ing each enemy that I had autopsied and check their perks with no issue. No guesswork on who rolled what, as long as I could get vision of them before engaging. As far as I know, I cannot do that in LW2.

LW1's system was also more measuredly gated by time and overall alien research level, so it tended not to result in tediously un-fun things like a commonly occurring pod leader getting Tac Sense early on, as compared to LW2 where that can happen simply because the RNG decided that it was Tac Sense DE time and that my havens all running Intel weren't able to detect it properly.

The only time I ever felt like LW1's alien perk system became "un-fun" was in the very late game when there ended up being an excess of defense-stacked Heavy Floaters (by which point I just sort of felt like the game was nudging me to finish out my campaign -- which I did, and it was fine).

In contrast, LW2's alien perk system (via DEs) feels un-fun every time a dark event completes without being detected even though I had switched everybody to Intel to try to find it, and it feels Super Extra Unfun every time a dark event is detected with 12 hours left on the timer as if it's just there to troll me (because in that case, I'm either going to have to pass on the mission and just deal with that Viper Rounds upgrade coming online, or else I'm going to end up doing some kind of of immersion-breakingly gamey suicide run in order to try to stop it -- neither of which is something that I consider a fun or interesting outcome).

The 1.2 update has definitely helped with the detection times, but it still hasn't changed my core issue with DEs: despite how strategically interactive they look, they really aren't very interactive. Either I'm detecting them with plenty of time and I counter them, or I'm not detecting them and they're getting through, and half the time it still feels like a pure diceroll to determine whether I can do anything about it or not, despite the fact that I have an interface window where I can spend intel to learn about them before they happen. Some more interactive way to "target" specific dark events in exchange for further expenditure of Intel currency could be nice (and I'm making a post in a separate topic offering a suggestion to that effect).

It's also worth mentioning that LW2's aliens continue getting better even when Dark Events are being countered. One wants to try to counter the DEs because the core upgrades that arrive from month to month (additional types of aliens, better versions of aliens) are totally uncounterable and can stack with the DE bonuses to dangerous effect.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 3:09 pm
by josna238
I think the name Dark Event is appropiate. Player doesn't know when they occur, where they occur, what they do and how to counter them until they just happen. So, yes they are DARK events.

Jokes appart what I miss is some more information. Players who try LW2 are players who previously played Vanilla, so if a mechanic is totally reworked and have nothing in common with vanillas mechanic but the name, would be helpful some info to figure how does it work now.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 3:25 pm
by Clibanarius
By the way, you can counter COINResearch, I do frequently. It's simply a matter of setting everyone in a region that can possibly house the mission to Intel the second you find out it's ongoing. Although I am cheating somewhat in having the Easier Dark Events mod that makes it so that they can't spawn outside of your contacted regions. I feel it's somewhat less unfair that way, and probably ought to be like that in LW2 itself.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 5:18 pm
by darkerevent
Clibanarius wrote:By the way, you can counter COINResearch, I do frequently. It's simply a matter of setting everyone in a region that can possibly house the mission to Intel the second you find out it's ongoing. Although I am cheating somewhat in having the Easier Dark Events mod that makes it so that they can't spawn outside of your contacted regions. I feel it's somewhat less unfair that way, and probably ought to be like that in LW2 itself.
The reason you're cheating is the same reason that the current implementation of DEs feels so awkward to me as someone who hasn't modded the game to change it.

In a sense, I don't mind DEs happening in places where I can't directly detect them, but I mind not having any means for finding out whether or not that's the case before I throw absolutely everyone in every un-liberated haven onto Intel to try to see if I can find the silly thing. Since I can't do any kind of directed intelligence gathering to find out whether the DE is even taking place in a region that I've made contact with, it makes the options for responding feel a bit too limited. I always seem to know more about where ADVENT does their most top-secret of all top-secret research (Avatar stuff with all of those facility leads) than I do about their minor-by-comparison and probably less-classified R&D, which just feels a bit silly to me.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 5:25 pm
by LordYanaek
darkerevent wrote:I liked LW1's alien perk system a lot better because I could at least go around F1ing each enemy that I had autopsied and check their perks with no issue. No guesswork on who rolled what, as long as I could get vision of them before engaging. As far as I know, I cannot do that in LW2.
Here you go!
Mouse over the green chevrons on the shot HuD to see the buffs affecting enemy units, including perks added by Dark Events.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 5:39 pm
by darkerevent
LordYanaek wrote:
darkerevent wrote:I liked LW1's alien perk system a lot better because I could at least go around F1ing each enemy that I had autopsied and check their perks with no issue. No guesswork on who rolled what, as long as I could get vision of them before engaging. As far as I know, I cannot do that in LW2.
Here you go!
Mouse over the green chevrons on the shot HuD to see the buffs affecting enemy units, including perks added by Dark Events.
Oh, thank you! I'll give this a try later today.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 5:46 pm
by Clibanarius
darkerevent wrote:
Clibanarius wrote:By the way, you can counter COINResearch, I do frequently. It's simply a matter of setting everyone in a region that can possibly house the mission to Intel the second you find out it's ongoing. Although I am cheating somewhat in having the Easier Dark Events mod that makes it so that they can't spawn outside of your contacted regions. I feel it's somewhat less unfair that way, and probably ought to be like that in LW2 itself.
The reason you're cheating is the same reason that the current implementation of DEs feels so awkward to me as someone who hasn't modded the game to change it.

In a sense, I don't mind DEs happening in places where I can't directly detect them, but I mind not having any means for finding out whether or not that's the case before I throw absolutely everyone in every un-liberated haven onto Intel to try to see if I can find the silly thing. Since I can't do any kind of directed intelligence gathering to find out whether the DE is even taking place in a region that I've made contact with, it makes the options for responding feel a bit too limited. I always seem to know more about where ADVENT does their most top-secret of all top-secret research (Avatar stuff with all of those facility leads) than I do about their minor-by-comparison and probably less-classified R&D, which just feels a bit silly to me.
I concur. There should undoubtedly be some more information given to the player in the form of 'X research is taking place in the New Australian region' or whatever.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 6:23 pm
by JulianSkies
darkerevent wrote:
LordYanaek wrote:
darkerevent wrote:I liked LW1's alien perk system a lot better because I could at least go around F1ing each enemy that I had autopsied and check their perks with no issue. No guesswork on who rolled what, as long as I could get vision of them before engaging. As far as I know, I cannot do that in LW2.
Here you go!
Mouse over the green chevrons on the shot HuD to see the buffs affecting enemy units, including perks added by Dark Events.
Oh, thank you! I'll give this a try later today.
You don't even need that mod! The mod adds additional information to buffs and debuffs (specifics of timer and stuff), in fact this mod is completely useless for the tactical dark events since they are permanent buffs and thus nothing this mod touches (I still run the mod, though, I like the timers).
The Tactical DEs still show up as buffs, however, just check the green chevrons and it'll tell you what upgrades the unit has.

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 6:56 pm
by LordYanaek
JulianSkies wrote: You don't even need that mod! The mod adds additional information to buffs and debuffs (specifics of timer and stuff), in fact this mod is completely useless for the tactical dark events since they are permanent buffs and thus nothing this mod touches (I still run the mod, though, I like the timers).
The Tactical DEs still show up as buffs, however, just check the green chevrons and it'll tell you what upgrades the unit has.
Oh. Sorry for the wrong answer then. I thought that information was coming from the mod as i never played without it since it's release :oops:

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 10:04 pm
by Plockets
I am actually incredibly happy with premise of the DE system being a kind of partially counterable Alien research progression. When I was playing Vanilla, I though the DE system would be an ingenious way to handle Alien progression, so I was happy to see Pavonis run with that idea.

Being able to counter all the DE's, or even to always know what the Aliens are researching or where, seems a bit absurd to me, from both reality and balance perspectives. The Aliens don't get to run missions to counter XCOM research or projects, and you don't hear them complaining! ;)

Re: Please don't call unavoidable alien upgrades Dark Events

Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2017 12:03 am
by Devon_v
I think the biggest offender is Tactical Senses, and xwynns keeps making veiled references to that being "fixed", so presumably it's being addressed.

Frankly I've never understood that perk, on either side. The more targets I have to keep track of, the BETTER I am at doing it!