Balance of different difficulty levels

[SouthpawHare]

I've seen a lot of criticisms lately about the overall difficulty of missions in such a way that forces unfun stealth-based play. However, I think most of these cases are also being played on Legend difficulty, which I feel makes them less valid.

As I see it, Legend (which was previously known as Impossible in EU/EW) is intended to be brutal, unfair, and not even necessarily fun except in appealing to the masochists within us, i.e. we love it because we hate it. Meanwhile, my experiences on Veteran difficulty, which can best be described as the "Normal" difficulty, seem to lack these flaws. While certainly still challenging, I've been able to directly fight my way through all the tough story missions and have not needed to rely on stealth missions at all. I've been able to keep ahead in science and strength just by "playing the game normally" with some level of competence, which is what I would expect from this difficulty setting.

It seems to me that the game is actually quite balanced as intended around Veteran difficulty, and that the problems being experienced are only on the "purposely unfair" difficulty that is by its very nature designed to require using exploits and cheap tactics or otherwise attempting to break the game, and may not even be all that enjoyable to squeak out a victory in that manner. Normal should allow playing the game normally, while Impossible should force doing the impossible. All of this sounds like it's already just as it should be, and I feel as though complaints along the lines of, "I have to play Unfair Mode in this way I don't like" should largely be responded to with, "then don't play Unfair Mode." You don't have to play on the hardest difficulty, and I think people are doing it just due to the ego issue of needing to prove that they can.

Are people being unreasonable with what they expect from Legend difficulty? Or do you believe Legend should still have a somewhat similar feel and flow as the lower difficulties?

[stefan3iii]

I'm one of the "nerf stealth" proponents, and I don't think the problem is that playing the game without stealth is impossible or unfun or whatever. I don't think misison timers are too short, I think grazing is fine, I don't think infiltration times are too short, and I like permanent Dark Events.

The issue is that strategy games are about making interesting choices, and when one choice is so superior to others it effectively removes that choice. You might say "well, just don't do stealth!". But it's not binary like that, LW2 is obviously balanced around doing SOME stealth missions. How many? I have no idea. Balancing a game like LW2 is an immensely difficult task, I'm relying on the great folks at Pavonis to do it for me (thank guys!).

I want these choices to be interesting, without me having to impose untested house rules:
1) A mission that does not require me to kill everything just popped, should I stealth it with a small squad, or go in heavy? (Current answer is to stealth 99% of the time)
2) I brought a heavy squad to a mission with a timer, and am concealed. Do I go loud at the first good opportunity, or do I carefully stealth all the way to the objective? (Current Answer: Always stealth to the objective)

[SouthpawHare]

I'm one of the "nerf stealth" proponents, and I don't think the problem is that playing the game without stealth is impossible or unfun or whatever. I don't think misison timers are too short, I think grazing is fine, I don't think infiltration times are too short, and I like permanent Dark Events.

The issue is that strategy games are about making interesting choices, and when one choice is so superior to others it effectively removes that choice. You might say "well, just don't do stealth!". But it's not binary like that, LW2 is obviously balanced around doing SOME stealth missions. How many? I have no idea. Balancing a game like LW2 is an immensely difficult task, I'm relying on the great folks at Pavonis to do it for me (thank guys!).

I want these choices to be interesting, without me having to impose untested house rules:
1) A mission that does not require me to kill everything just popped, should I stealth it with a small squad, or go in heavy? (Current answer is to stealth 99% of the time)
2) I brought a heavy squad to a mission with a timer, and am concealed. Do I go loud at the first good opportunity, or do I carefully stealth all the way to the objective? (Current Answer: Always stealth to the objective)

This does not make mention which difficulty you feel these problems are present on, though, which is the crux of my comment.

Certainly, I agree with balancing a game around interesting and fun choices - that is the Sid Meier's school of thought, which I totally get behind. However, I don't think every difficulty level has to be balanced this way; really, only the core 1-to-3 difficulties need to be, and it is also okay for there to be difficulties completely outrageous and stupid. Civilization does this, and so does XCOM.

I think Veteran should be balanced in the way you say, and I also think that it is. I also think that Legend does not need to be, and also isn't.

I feel like the issue is that people assume that playing on anything less than the hardest difficulty is as if "not playing the real game", and that all the lesser difficulties are just for practicing for the hardest or if you're not yet good enough to play the hardest. Rather, I see "Normal" as "the real game", and the hardest difficulty as a sort of silly joke that's not meant to be taken seriously.

[Jadiel]

I think you're right that it has something to do with difficulty levels. Legendary is supposed to be hard. Because of this, the enemies get a bunch of stat boosts - they hit more often, do more damage (I think?), and progress in difficulty more quickly than on lower difficulty levels.

The problem is that this has almost no effect on stealth missions at all. So while a combat mission on Legendary is significantly more difficult that the same mission on Veteran, a stealth mission on Legendary is basically the same a stealth mission on Veteran. So where on Veteran, the decision to take a combat squad or a stealth squad to do a mission might be balanced, on Legendary it's skewed by the fact that the combat squad will face major step-up in difficulty, whereas the stealth squad will find it relatively easy.

Unsurprisingly then, Legendary players tend to avoid the harder combat missions, and do easy stealth missions instead. The answer (it seems to me) is pretty straightforward. You make stealth missions harder on Legendary, without changing them too much on Veteran. It's pretty easy to implement as well - just increase the spotting distance by 1 for enemies on Commander, and by 2 for enemies on Legendary. That will up the challenge considerably, and might be enough to encourage min-maxing players (which almost all Legendary players are) to gear for small squad combat missions instead of stealthing everything. If you don't think that 2 extra spotting distance will make much difference, look at all the complaints about the Vigilance Dark Event...

To be honest, this isn't the only change I think should be made - there are other changes I'd like to see to all difficulty levels which might make stealth missions more difficult (or less frequent!). However, I think this lack of scaling could do a lot to fix the problem for Legendary players without affecting players on lower difficulty levels

[LordYanaek]

This does not make mention which difficulty you feel these problems are present on, though, which is the crux of my comment.

Unfortunately, this is independent of difficulty. Sure, on Veteran (or even Commander which is the difficulty i play) you can choose "sub-optimal" strategies and still win, but stealth is currently a bit too optimal in every situation and at every difficulty once you master it.
I agree the game should not be balanced primarily around Legend or Rookie, those are options for hard-core and casual gamers, but the "base" of the balance should be the middle ground difficulties. However stealth doesn't really depend on difficulty. People don't just stealth because they think they can't win the mission otherwise, they stealth because it's easier to win it this way and it gives you almost exactly the same rewards. Less risk, same reward, it's a no brainer! If stealth works on Legend, it's even easier on Veteran.

Off-topic note : i don't think stealth should be nerfed, or not hard anyway. What we need is some incentive to actually fight.

[stefan3iii]

I'm one of the "nerf stealth" proponents, and I don't think the problem is that playing the game without stealth is impossible or unfun or whatever. I don't think misison timers are too short, I think grazing is fine, I don't think infiltration times are too short, and I like permanent Dark Events.

The issue is that strategy games are about making interesting choices, and when one choice is so superior to others it effectively removes that choice. You might say "well, just don't do stealth!". But it's not binary like that, LW2 is obviously balanced around doing SOME stealth missions. How many? I have no idea. Balancing a game like LW2 is an immensely difficult task, I'm relying on the great folks at Pavonis to do it for me (thank guys!).

I want these choices to be interesting, without me having to impose untested house rules:
1) A mission that does not require me to kill everything just popped, should I stealth it with a small squad, or go in heavy? (Current answer is to stealth 99% of the time)
2) I brought a heavy squad to a mission with a timer, and am concealed. Do I go loud at the first good opportunity, or do I carefully stealth all the way to the objective? (Current Answer: Always stealth to the objective)

This does not make mention which difficulty you feel these problems are present on, though, which is the crux of my comment.

Certainly, I agree with balancing a game around interesting and fun choices - that is the Sid Meier's school of thought, which I totally get behind. However, I don't think every difficulty level has to be balanced this way; really, only the core 1-to-3 difficulties need to be, and it is also okay for there to be difficulties completely outrageous and stupid. Civilization does this, and so does XCOM.

I think Veteran should be balanced in the way you say, and I also think that it is. I also think that Legend does not need to be, and also isn't.

I feel like the issue is that people assume that playing on anything less than the hardest difficulty is as if "not playing the real game", and that all the lesser difficulties are just for practicing for the hardest or if you're not yet good enough to play the hardest. Rather, I see "Normal" as "the real game", and the hardest difficulty as a sort of silly joke that's not meant to be taken seriously.

I play on L/I, but I don't see why stealth wouldn't be the most powerful option on every difficulty?

[SouthpawHare]

I play on L/I, but I don't see why stealth wouldn't be the most powerful option on every difficulty?

Well, for me, I think it's the fact that I'm already in the middle of my campaign. I've been playing this single save slowly over the last few months, and through multiple version updates. I started playing in a non-stealth manner before I read any of the info about how strong stealth is, and perhaps even before people decided that was the meta-game. As such, I am more prepared for heavy combat play, both as a player and with my character builds. I have absolutely no stealth-spec shinobi or hacking-spec specialists, having gone 100% with swords and healers (which I thought were great at the time, and have not let me down yet). I rarely took Oscar Mike on officers because it looked weak. I also have no experience actually doing a successful stealth mission, and am afraid I'd get my guys killed if I tried.

So, in my position, it certainly seems like continuing at what I've started, am good at, and am spec'd for is the most powerful option. Perhaps if I started a new game and made an active effort to learn the new way of playing, this would be different.

[stefan3iii]

I play on L/I, but I don't see why stealth wouldn't be the most powerful option on every difficulty?

Well, for me, I think it's the fact that I'm already in the middle of my campaign. I've been playing this single save slowly over the last few months, and through multiple version updates. I started playing in a non-stealth manner before I read any of the info about how strong stealth is, and perhaps even before people decided that was the meta-game. As such, I am more prepared for heavy combat play, both as a player and with my character builds. I have absolutely no stealth-spec shinobi or hacking-spec specialists, having gone 100% with swords and healers (which I thought were great at the time, and have not let me down yet). I rarely took Oscar Mike on officers because it looked weak. I also have no experience actually doing a successful stealth mission, and am afraid I'd get my guys killed if I tried.

So, in my position, it certainly seems like continuing at what I've started, am good at, and am spec'd for is the most powerful option. Perhaps if I started a new game and made an active effort to learn the new way of playing, this would be different.

There is definitely a learning curve to it, but once you know how to do it that's no longer a good reason. But for example, even in your current mission, next time you get a hack workstation mission with 3 days left, send in a solo rookie to hack it, and let him die. Stealth suicide though is a problem even beyond ordinary stealth cheese.

[SouthpawHare]

I play on L/I, but I don't see why stealth wouldn't be the most powerful option on every difficulty?

Well, for me, I think it's the fact that I'm already in the middle of my campaign. I've been playing this single save slowly over the last few months, and through multiple version updates. I started playing in a non-stealth manner before I read any of the info about how strong stealth is, and perhaps even before people decided that was the meta-game. As such, I am more prepared for heavy combat play, both as a player and with my character builds. I have absolutely no stealth-spec shinobi or hacking-spec specialists, having gone 100% with swords and healers (which I thought were great at the time, and have not let me down yet). I rarely took Oscar Mike on officers because it looked weak. I also have no experience actually doing a successful stealth mission, and am afraid I'd get my guys killed if I tried.

So, in my position, it certainly seems like continuing at what I've started, am good at, and am spec'd for is the most powerful option. Perhaps if I started a new game and made an active effort to learn the new way of playing, this would be different.

There is definitely a learning curve to it, but once you know how to do it that's no longer a good reason. But for example, even in your current mission, next time you get a hack workstation mission with 3 days left, send in a solo rookie to hack it, and let him die. Stealth suicide though is a problem even beyond ordinary stealth cheese.

I... don't deliberately sacrifice my soldiers like that. I simply refuse to play that way, more for roleplaying reasons than anything. What kind of a terrible Commander would I be if I did that? I've never even considered a suicide mission as an option. Keeping my honor and the respect of my troops (fictional as they may be) is pretty important and worth something you may not be considering.

[LordYanaek]

There is definitely a learning curve to it, but once you know how to do it that's no longer a good reason. But for example, even in your current mission, next time you get a hack workstation mission with 3 days left, send in a solo rookie to hack it, and let him die. Stealth suicide though is a problem even beyond ordinary stealth cheese.

Uh, suicide works on dark VIP elimination but in order to get the reward for a "hack" mission you need to evac the soldier carrying the data/object/whatever you came for.
At least, it's how it worked in Vanilla and AFAIK how it's supposed to work in LW2. If you can suicide hack i would consider it a bug or an oversight.

[nightwyrm]

There is definitely a learning curve to it, but once you know how to do it that's no longer a good reason. But for example, even in your current mission, next time you get a hack workstation mission with 3 days left, send in a solo rookie to hack it, and let him die. Stealth suicide though is a problem even beyond ordinary stealth cheese.

Uh, suicide works on dark VIP elimination but in order to get the reward for a "hack" mission you need to evac the soldier carrying the data/object/whatever you came for.
At least, it's how it worked in Vanilla and AFAIK how it's supposed to work in LW2. If you can suicide hack i would consider it a bug or an oversight.

Certain hacks are "retrieve object from container" and those you need to evac to win, but other hacks are just "hack the terminal" and those you can win even if the hacker dies.

[stefan3iii]

There is definitely a learning curve to it, but once you know how to do it that's no longer a good reason. But for example, even in your current mission, next time you get a hack workstation mission with 3 days left, send in a solo rookie to hack it, and let him die. Stealth suicide though is a problem even beyond ordinary stealth cheese.

Uh, suicide works on dark VIP elimination but in order to get the reward for a "hack" mission you need to evac the soldier carrying the data/object/whatever you came for.
At least, it's how it worked in Vanilla and AFAIK how it's supposed to work in LW2. If you can suicide hack i would consider it a bug or an oversight.

Certain hacks are "retrieve object from container" and those you need to evac to win, but other hacks are just "hack the terminal" and those you can win even if the hacker dies.

Indeed.
You can suicide the following missions:
Hack Workstation
Dark VIP
Destroy Relay

I think you can suicide the destroy alien facility missions with X4 as well, but I've never tried. Maybe someone else can confirm/deny.

[chrisb]

I think one aspect that currently unbalances stealth missions is the fact that you are getting most of the XP whether you kill the aliens or not. On most missions there are only 2 reasons to kill aliens, loot drops and xp. Otherwise you want to avoid conflict at all costs, which is very odd to be saying about something like XCOM. It seemed rather a bad idea from the moment I started playing that you would get so much xp just for aliens spawning and so little from actually engaging.

I think if they were to rework the ratios so that kills accounted for half or more of the xp per alien, you might at least try to pick a fight with some of the aliens on the map, otherwise you would fall behind on the xp curve and not have the perks in time to tackle the tougher missions.

You would still probably stealth a few missions. Mostly those with critical rewards like engineers and scientists or Liberations that are more important than the XP. But you would then have to make that "interesting choice". Do I prioritize the reward or the XP.

I'm thinking for my next campaign I might actually figure out how the XP system can be tweaked and try to find some balance for this myself. I don't know why the devs chose to do it this way, and they may have no interest in tweaking XP in this way, but I see it as one of the only knobs that can be adjusted that will actually tilt thing in favor of fighting without screwing with too many other balances.

[LordYanaek]

OK, i knew there were different "hacks" but thought that apart from the added loot, they worked similarly and i knew from personal experience that loosing the hacker left a package that had to be recovered to complete the mission.

On Suicide running a "Destroy the relay", well you need to do enough damage quickly. Does a relay count as environment object for a Shaped Charge? This would be interesting

[stefan3iii]

OK, i knew there were different "hacks" but thought that apart from the added loot, they worked similarly and i knew from personal experience that loosing the hacker left a package that had to be recovered to complete the mission.

On Suicide running a "Destroy the relay", well you need to do enough damage quickly. Does a relay count as environment object for a Shaped Charge? This would be interesting

Nope shaped charge doesn't work, but 2-3 squaddie rangers with both barrels does.

[stefan3iii]

I think one aspect that currently unbalances stealth missions is the fact that you are getting most of the XP whether you kill the aliens or not. On most missions there are only 2 reasons to kill aliens, loot drops and xp. Otherwise you want to avoid conflict at all costs, which is very odd to be saying about something like XCOM. It seemed rather a bad idea from the moment I started playing that you would get so much xp just for aliens spawning and so little from actually engaging.

I think if they were to rework the ratios so that kills accounted for half or more of the xp per alien, you might at least try to pick a fight with some of the aliens on the map, otherwise you would fall behind on the xp curve and not have the perks in time to tackle the tougher missions.

You would still probably stealth a few missions. Mostly those with critical rewards like engineers and scientists or Liberations that are more important than the XP. But you would then have to make that "interesting choice". Do I prioritize the reward or the XP.

I'm thinking for my next campaign I might actually figure out how the XP system can be tweaked and try to find some balance for this myself. I don't know why the devs chose to do it this way, and they may have no interest in tweaking XP in this way, but I see it as one of the only knobs that can be adjusted that will actually tilt thing in favor of fighting without screwing with too many other balances.

The reason it's good to stealth missions is that beyond the early game, there are too many missions for full squads to do. You simply don't have enough experienced soldiers with good equipment to be sending 5-6 soldiers out. Stealth missions can be done by cheap rookies and squaddies using zero items, so even if the reward for stealth missions was miniscule, or the reward for actually fighting in them was huge, you'd still stealth the missions because stealthing a mission for a small reward is better than not doing it at all.

I think at best, you could currently support 2 big teams infiltrating Ambush Troops/Supply Raids/Story Missions/Network Tower/HQ/etc, and have 1 big team on standby for retaliations. How are you going to do the left over flood of guerilla ops except with stealth? Doesn't matter how good the rewards are for fighting through them if I don't have the soldiers to do it, still going to stealth them for some smaller reward using whatever dregs I have in the barracks.

[Tuhalu]

I'm playing on Veteran too (non-ironman) and on my 4th serious attempt. I've been fighting my way through almost every mission with 5 or 6 men. There are some 3,4,7,8 and 9 man outliers for rare occasions but very much the exception rather than the rule. 3 and 4 man groups were mostly stealth attempts (sometimes I killed a pod with burst fire on the way out). 7,8 and 9 man groups were almost entirely for the untimered firefights. I've just reached August.

Since I've been focusing on primary weapons and armor and rushing up the tech tree, I've been very able to fight through every mission with a 5 day timer. Some I've also boosted. I haven't done a single 0% supply raid or troop column (some have gotten down to as little as Light all by themselves!). I've done 3 HQ Assaults with 9 men (saves 6 days of infiltration and really doesn't hurt your chances) and have liberated all of Africa.

I've probably boosted about 30% of all my missions to make them possible, which is something not so easy to do on Legendary. I've researched 7 or 8 intel items to keep the intel high for expansion.

Right now, I'm on Coil weapons with Archons only just turning up. I invested only very minimally in Laser and Mag tier weapons (1 or 2 of most types with 3 or 4 Rifles).

I have 11 scientists and 9 engineers and have spread to 8 regions. I only have the Continent Bonus for my starting region as there was no compelling reason to get it for other regions.

There is one Strength 9 region where I simply am not doing many missions. I have to infiltrate to 200% to have a serious go there and even then it's more to counter Dark Events than to try and progress a liberation. The Blacksite Region is at 6 strength, but I'm stalling there until I get Shadow Armor researched (just a few more days) so I can attempt to wraith my way in and out of the vault.

I've gathered over 70 Elerium Cores over the course of the campaign so far due to killing most enemies in timed missions, vulture GTS and increasing my force size to about 40 trained troops (I have about 15 rookies from prison breaks and POIs). I actually sold 20 cores at one point when they were double value. I still have 33 in the vault to spend on Plasma weapons.

As far as not playing in ironman goes, I've only rarely had to savescum. I'm not the kind of player that wants to throw away a whole campaign just because I did something stupid once in every 10 missions or so.

All in all, now that I have a handle on how the strategy game should be played, the tactical game feels like it is in a really good place. I may wind up having to stall to see all the end-game techs though.

[chrisb]

The reason it's good to stealth missions is that beyond the early game, there are too many missions for full squads to do. You simply don't have enough experienced soldiers with good equipment to be sending 5-6 soldiers out. Stealth missions can be done by cheap rookies and squaddies using zero items, so even if the reward for stealth missions was miniscule, or the reward for actually fighting in them was huge, you'd still stealth the missions because stealthing a mission for a small reward is better than not doing it at all.

I think at best, you could currently support 2 big teams infiltrating Ambush Troops/Supply Raids/Story Missions/Network Tower/HQ/etc, and have 1 big team on standby for retaliations. How are you going to do the left over flood of guerilla ops except with stealth? Doesn't matter how good the rewards are for fighting through them if I don't have the soldiers to do it, still going to stealth them for some smaller reward using whatever dregs I have in the barracks.

I wasn't saying it would, or even should, remove all stealth completely. Right now the risk reward is completely messed up. Here's how I look at the 2 scenarios.

With a stealth op you have very little risk if you are patient, prepared and don't try to overextend. Also once you learn the AI routines it gets quite easy. The reward is ~85% of the xp allocated evenly across all soldiers, the mission reward, and almost never any wounds. If the infil time allows, you can even have 1-2 extras tag along and help do recon making it even easier and more free xp on soldiers that matter.

The other scenario is fighting. Here you risk alot. With forced evacs if you dont get out in time, you just lost a whole squad. Even if you do get out, the chance of wounds/deaths is much higher because your actually being shot at. This is made worse by the fact that with a 5-6 man squad, CC becomes much more dangerous. And the reward? ~15% more xp, ~22% more xp with wet work which is a joke because of this ratio of xp. There is also the loot drops which are nice with vulture, but are often not reachable in time or get blown up. Either way, the risk is not worth the reward.

At least if the kill xp was 80%+ of the xp, you'd actually have to fight to even level up your main squads.

[IslamDunk]

Aside from the topic being derailed from "Difficulty Level Balance" to "Stealth and Suicide", I totally agree with OP's opinion. And on top of it, "Difficulty of Hard or above should not be a primary play-testing difficulty and not become a standard experience for everyone".


This is a random question approaching to essence. What is a game? How do you define "game"?
"A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal." Said Greg Costikyan, an american game designer and science fiction writer. There are many other definitions, but this is the one I prefer.

But I want to slight change it; "A game is a product that requires participants to pay money, and delivers direct / indirect experience they expected from.
Notice the blod texts "product and "experience".


Flow Channel States indicating "Flow", which occurs when both challenge and player skill are matching together.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Theory, players are most comforted and immersed when two parameters "challenge" and "player skill" match. This flow segment is what game developers should aim for, to deliver the best experience and get good ratings from as many players as possible, and thus to hit the highest sales record.

However every single person has their own pros and cons. Like how some have fast reflexes, while others are good at thinking. One can be gifted both, while the other may lack all.
So this is why most games provide multiple difficulty levels and focus on game balance, to maintain the highest immersion for each individual player so a large portion of players get the best experience.
One can make an feedback of a certain difficulty level. If enough feedback are gained and something is turned out to be wrong, balance designer should fix it. So players playing on said difficulty level can enjoy their finest moments again.


But it seems that some X2 community members only accept "Legendary" players' opinion, and even recognize lower difficulty level feedback as useless. So I will say the same phrase again; Difficulty Levels are there to deliver the best experience to as many customers as possible, not to "train" and put them into the most brutal "trial" so you can distinguish which real-life person is respectable or not. Lower difficulty levels are not some kind of "prep phase" for the most deadliest ordeal. Most people who play game just want to have fun.

If you are playing a game not for your happiness but for a "performance-test", I am not to judge, but you are stressing yourself out which is not good for your own mental health. And if you are dismissing feedback of the others who failed to pass said performance test set by your extremely subject view, then think again.

[seananigans]

This does not make mention which difficulty you feel these problems are present on, though, which is the crux of my comment.

Unfortunately, this is independent of difficulty. Sure, on Veteran (or even Commander which is the difficulty i play) you can choose "sub-optimal" strategies and still win, but stealth is currently a bit too optimal in every situation and at every difficulty once you master it.
I agree the game should not be balanced primarily around Legend or Rookie, those are options for hard-core and casual gamers, but the "base" of the balance should be the middle ground difficulties. However stealth doesn't really depend on difficulty. People don't just stealth because they think they can't win the mission otherwise, they stealth because it's easier to win it this way and it gives you almost exactly the same rewards. Less risk, same reward, it's a no brainer! If stealth works on Legend, it's even easier on Veteran.

Off-topic note : i don't think stealth should be nerfed, or not hard anyway. What we need is some incentive to actually fight.

Bolding mine -- Corpse retrieval on every mission, theme/realism be damned. One of the most fun parts of LW1 was that mission completion screen where you get to see all the cool things you're bringing home. Balance costs/pricing/requirements accordingly.