An absurd ending...

Zarkis
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:37 pm

An absurd ending...

Post by Zarkis »

...of Marbozirs LW2 youtube campaign:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gITg6IB ... B&index=83

This was hilariously funny to watch. :lol: The avatar project mechanic in LW2 needs a major change! I had a similar experience in my campaign, where the pace of the avatar project progression suddenly became quicker around december/january and - like Marbozir - I couldn't get hold of any facility leads. Maybe rng related, but rng should not decide such an important game mechanic and therefore the fate of a whole playthrough.
marmac
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2017 10:21 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by marmac »

What might help is a deeper underground layer than resistance havens. Xcom receives some intel from resistance elements in all regions. These would be very small persistent percentages coming from distant sympathizers giving a chance to get an edge on the Avatar Project by revealing a site. Just a thought.
Veneficus
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri Jan 27, 2017 4:07 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Veneficus »

the general feel I am getting from my interactions with JoINrbs is that what the developers want to do is decided and that this feedback is pretty much a waste of time.

They seem to want you to spend hours figuring out how their code works and accept that at anytime a single RNG can end your game and that makes it fun.

Both Marbs and this guy have echoed my frustrations, and it just seems to me like nobody cares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e2okTP3_dQ&t=50s
RantingRodent
Posts: 32
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 12:01 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by RantingRodent »

Veneficus wrote:the general feel I am getting from my interactions with JoINrbs is that what the developers want to do is decided and that this feedback is pretty much a waste of time.

They seem to want you to spend hours figuring out how their code works and accept that at anytime a single RNG can end your game and that makes it fun.

Both Marbs and this guy have echoed my frustrations, and it just seems to me like nobody cares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e2okTP3_dQ&t=50s
Xwynns actually commented that he'd been proposing an Avatar Project-related change and felt that the end of Marbs campaign was the evidence he needed to convince everyone else, so there is at least someone who is concerned about this.
hewhoispale
Posts: 62
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2017 1:27 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by hewhoispale »

Veneficus wrote:the general feel I am getting from my interactions with JoINrbs is that what the developers want to do is decided and that this feedback is pretty much a waste of time.

They seem to want you to spend hours figuring out how their code works and accept that at anytime a single RNG can end your game and that makes it fun.

Both Marbs and this guy have echoed my frustrations, and it just seems to me like nobody cares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e2okTP3_dQ&t=50s
Every XCOM game I've every played, both classic and new, can generally have an entire campaign tailspin if you squadwipe on a high difficulty. When has the tipping point of ending a campaign in this series not come down to a single RNG roll when it has gone bad?

I'm not familiar with this Pete fellow, but it looks like he dove blind into a freshly released mod on the highest difficultly. Isn't that really just asking for things to go badly? Shouldn't one expect to fail (at least) the first go-around on the difficulty setting previously known as "impossible"? If the highest difficultly doesn't require mastery and exploitation of the system, why isn't there a harder setting? I've come to expect video game settings to roughly progress along: newbie, baseline, hard, this-is-bullshit. I would think that being able to blindly stumble through the hardest difficultly on the first try would be unsatisfying. After all, if you could pull that off, where do you go next?

The developers have explicitly stated that part of the design goal of LW2 is to simulate the imperfect information aspect of a guerrilla war by not spelling everything out in absolute terms. If you look at LW1, basically the entire strategic layer was undocumented and obscured from the player. LW2 is already way ahead by comparison and they appear to be attempting to update the documentation where it is having the most issues from what I'm seeing.
JoINrbs
Long War 2 Crew
Posts: 61
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2017 6:43 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by JoINrbs »

Veneficus wrote:the general feel I am getting from my interactions with JoINrbs is that what the developers want to do is decided and that this feedback is pretty much a waste of time.

They seem to want you to spend hours figuring out how their code works and accept that at anytime a single RNG can end your game and that makes it fun.

Both Marbs and this guy have echoed my frustrations, and it just seems to me like nobody cares.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e2okTP3_dQ&t=50s
I've lost three campaigns since release in exactly this way and absolutely care.

I've also been working a lot on trying to make tactical lategame better and some of the stuff you've been interacting with me about which you may be getting the impression your feedback on is a waste of time with is stuff that we've spent a couple of months developing based on community feedback and which you're dismissing as bad without playing with or even fully knowing about.
Jadiel
Posts: 214
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:28 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Jadiel »

I think it's worth thinking about what a good 'End of Game' scenario does look like on the strategy layer. I guess the alternative is to make the game unloseable on the strategy layer, but I don't think that fits with the design goal of the mod. It seems to me that everyone wants a game which feels 'on the edge' up until the climax where you win, but doesn't want that to mean any actual losses.

I suppose you could argue that the game should revert to giving you 20 days every time the Avatar project hits full pips, but that incentivises staying close to the edge, and keeping a lot of pip reduction in your back pocket, which is both unrealistic and not as much fun to play. I feel in these cases that it's not really losing to RNG, but if you follow a risky strategy which chooses something else over prioritising generating vigilance (i.e. every one of those 'Attract ADVENT's attention' missions you decided not to take), you can't complain when the AVATAR project bites you at the end of the game. You can argue that the game doesn't communicate well to you the choices you're making, but that's a completely different issue to 'I lost due to bad RNG'.
Zyxpsilon
Posts: 274
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 1:26 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Zyxpsilon »

Honestly.. until JL & devs actually DECIDE to alter the current pace of the Doom Tracker, we still can fiddle a bit with the essential trajectory (or patterns) in various INI files.
The major component can be found in XComGameData;

Code: Select all

------------(From Line #261)-----------
;Days until first point of doom appears (set to half of doom interval)
MinFortressAppearDays[0]=25 ;Easy
MaxFortressAppearDays[0]=25
MinFortressAppearDays[1]=23 ;Normal
MaxFortressAppearDays[1]=23
MinFortressAppearDays[2]=21 ;Classic
MaxFortressAppearDays[2]=21
MinFortressAppearDays[3]=20 ;Impossible
MaxFortressAppearDays[3]=20

;Hours between subsequent points of doom appearing on fortress
MinFortressDoomInterval[0]=1200 ;Easy
MaxFortressDoomInterval[0]=1200
MinFortressDoomInterval[1]=1080 ;Normal
MaxFortressDoomInterval[1]=1080
MinFortressDoomInterval[2]=1020 ;Classic
MaxFortressDoomInterval[2]=1020
MinFortressDoomInterval[3]=960 ;Impossible
MaxFortressDoomInterval[3]=960
------------------
Essentially.. the Min/Max Intervals are what creates the "artificial" (but inevitable) late-game rush. Since the 1200/1080/1020/960 hours (RVCL difficulty levels) are equal to 50/45/42.5/40 days (ONLY!). Causing some guaranteed stacks overwhich we don't have control over even by Missions or other gameplay Events. It's a calculated wall -- almost unbreakable.

Many more factors play a role in the overall pile-up strikes (Dark-Events, etc)... but if the inherent calendar patterns are (presently) too tight after a few months there's nothing else a player can do than to hope some Facility-Leads would timely provide the minimal counter-pips before the auto-filling cycle coded above pushes the edge too soon & too far away -- most likely near the first two weeks of December in the common cases.

The trick to stopping (or delay it just enough) the Doom-Tracker is to actively pull a wacky gambit at the usual Storyline-Missions (amounts to about half the counter) and IF lucky -- just get to Waterworld within some highly variable time limits.

PS; Developping my GOTM (achievements) mod required to inspect such very tight limits within the somewhat predictable (( Yeah, right -- possibly impossible to evaluate precisely -- but i'm trying with some --theory-- help from JoInrbs & XWynns! :) )) calendar(s), btw!
chrisb
Pavonis Dev
Posts: 364
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2017 8:43 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by chrisb »

I don't know the specifics of his campaign since I haven't followed it. Based on some of the stats he showed from his final episode, he basically lost due to a lack of vigilance. 80 missions in 12 months is very low and it's likely his avatar progress was chugging away at full steam. In any campaign that I've run I would expect to hit 80 missions somewhere around August/September.

I do agree that vigilance is a bit too hidden at the moment. It's not a stat that should be showed directly like strength as this would make breaking the game far too easy. I know some have commented that it should be simply shown like strength, and I thought this at first too. Then I learned how it works and I realize now that it would be very bad to show the raw stat on the map. Perhaps there are better ways to articulate to the player that vigilance is gained by doing missions and is lost every 7 days in each region. So doing lots of missions is very important.

I wouldn't really call it an absurd ending though, he simply lost because he let the ayys do their research.

As for the other guy's campaign. His mistake was thinking he could just walk into Legend with no knowledge and have any chance at all. Legend is not for new players. Veteran at most is where a new player should start with some XCOM experience. If you don't have that, then Rookie is really the best place to start. I play on Legend now but I started on Rookie. Mostly to get a feel for how the game progressed and what challenges I had to anticipate. Legend is hard, starting there and then complaining about difficulty is verging on moronic.
Zarkis
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 6:37 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Zarkis »

Can anybody explain to me why Marbozir lost his campaign (which was played on veteran btw)? I followed his playthrough. He hadn't any squad wipes or lost many soldiers (only 13 guys lost in total as you can see in the final stats). Tactically his gameplay was sound, but he still lost, and I don't get why.
chrisb
Pavonis Dev
Posts: 364
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2017 8:43 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by chrisb »

Zarkis wrote:Can anybody explain to me why Marbozir lost his campaign (which was played on veteran btw)? I followed his playthrough. He hadn't any squad wipes or lost many soldiers (only 13 guys lost in total as you can see in the final stats). Tactically his gameplay was sound, but he still lost, and I don't get why.
As I wrote above, he lost because of a lack of missions. He had 80 missions over 12 months which is a very low number of missions. Typically you would hit this within 6-7 months. He basically was not slowing down the avatar project at all and lost to it because of that.

JoINrbs 1.2 Campaign

If you look there you'll see a good example of this. By the end of August he had over 80 missions and finished the campaign with over 120 by November. This is typically of my own play as well. I'm trying for a minimum of 10 missions/month and hoping for more like 15.
Tuhalu
Posts: 433
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 9:02 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Tuhalu »

What chrisb said sounds right. In my winning Veteran campaign, I won 216 missions over 1 year. The avatar project was a non-event as the aliens struggled mightily to keep me from doing things (it was taking twice as long to generate pips). I think I had 4 pips as I went into the final missions in February (I took my time to gather a ton of resources for fun times end game gear).

My winning campaign was my fourth one. It takes time to get good at the strategy layer and misteps can definitely crush you.
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by LordYanaek »

Zarkis wrote:Tactically his gameplay was sound, but he still lost, and I don't get why.
Unlike XCom2, tactical game is only one aspect of LW2. Others already explained it, he ran way too few missions and probably didn't liberate enough regions. I won my second campaign (Commander diff) in March second year with something like 4 or 5 pips on the avatar progress! I actually started the Golden Path missions really late when the avatar progress started to worry me but i wasn't even in a real hurry. Avatar research was slowed by something like 115% at the end IIRC (more than 100%, of that i'm sure). The trick is to make ADVENT's life miserable by running lots of missions (increase vigilance), killing troops (decrease str) and liberate some regions (big drop of str).

Being able to find facility leads does help of course, if you really find none you might be in troubles but it appears very unlikely unless you ignore lots of "Intel Package" GoPs.

Everything isn't perfect in LW2 right now and the strategic layer would benefit from a little more clarity and documentation but most of the issues comes from players trying to play LW2 like they would play XCom2. They don't realize it's closer to a different game than a mod.
DerAva
Posts: 94
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 8:46 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by DerAva »

I think Marbs mostly tried to play "proper" missions, so he had to skip a lot of the missions coming up. I'd say in the current state of 1.2 you have to either abuse Stealth missions or 0% Supply Raid/Troop Column missions to be successful, and he did neither of these.
Jacke
Posts: 623
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 1:10 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Jacke »

I'm personally waiting for 1.3 to release before starting another game, as I'm currently struggling with the operational facet of LW2, trying to learn how to deal with certain missions, even if I have to avoid or fail them, in a way not to greatly hurt my strategic progress. But I'm really appreciating this discussion on what's needed at the strategic layer to win the game. Even as that will change with revisions to LW2.

A lot of players often dive into games hoping to figure out what they need along the way, especially if it's similar to a game they already know. With LW2 or any long complex game, especially when you're not going to play it a lot of times, you need to pay attention and pick up a lot of details ASAP. Just playing the game may not be enough.

On the game developers' side, they have to provide the info to the players, both out of game and in game. Pavonis can't have Bradford or Tygan do this for them, so they've put them into XCOM Archives in the Commander's Quarters. Which everyone should read. Which so many haven't read.

Whether that's enough is another matter. It's a tall order and most games require you to do your research outside of the game to get good at it. I know most of my knowledge has come from reading these forums and watching JoINrbs and Xwynns videos.

And as so many have said, yet bears repeating, LW2 is still being developed. Considering how long it took LW1 to become polished, that's not surprising. We can all be impatient for changes. We can disagree on on fundamental parts of the game. And it is frustrating to experience that when playing a game that will take ~100 hours of your time to complete (on top of time out of game doing research).

But this is Pavonis's game and it's not as bad as frustrated players are saying. And I say that as someone who doesn't like some of the facets of the game, but can appreciate the work as a whole. And am thankful for it.

BTW, to get more information in the XCOM Archives, you could install the mod LAByrinth. :)
Halafu
Posts: 8
Joined: Sat Apr 15, 2017 2:53 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Halafu »

I'm in an extremely similar situation in my ironman campaign. I didn't do enough missions and the avatar progress jumped real quick after researching the psi gate. Fortunately, I have one pip left and the final missions revealed.

I have a question though. Can I initiate the final missions and win if the alien victory is imminent (ie) avatar bar full and the countdown is on?

I'm ready for the final missions, but I have no facility leads anymore and I'm waiting for a couple of helpful soldiers to heal. I'd hate to lose in that way.

Thanks!
wizard1200
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:22 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by wizard1200 »

chrisb wrote:I do agree that vigilance is a bit too hidden at the moment. It's not a stat that should be showed directly like strength as this would make breaking the game far too easy. I know some have commented that it should be simply shown like strength, and I thought this at first too. Then I learned how it works and I realize now that it would be very bad to show the raw stat on the map. Perhaps there are better ways to articulate to the player that vigilance is gained by doing missions and is lost every 7 days in each region. So doing lots of missions is very important.
I think important strategical information should be always visible, because otherwise the player has to use metagaming to win the game.
azarga
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:18 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by azarga »

wizard1200 wrote:
chrisb wrote:I do agree that vigilance is a bit too hidden at the moment. It's not a stat that should be showed directly like strength as this would make breaking the game far too easy. I know some have commented that it should be simply shown like strength, and I thought this at first too. Then I learned how it works and I realize now that it would be very bad to show the raw stat on the map. Perhaps there are better ways to articulate to the player that vigilance is gained by doing missions and is lost every 7 days in each region. So doing lots of missions is very important.
I think important strategical information should be always visible, because otherwise the player has to use metagaming to win the game.


JoINrbs said in one of his recent videos that LW2 is mainly aimed at players who are "intelligent enough to dig info they need from game files or at least read the wiki" - something along those lines. Players are expected to read wikis/forums/reddits/etc - work as a community - when they play this mod and get all the essential info and cookie-cutter strategies from there.
wizard1200
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:22 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by wizard1200 »

azarga wrote:JoINrbs said in one of his recent videos that LW2 is mainly aimed at players who are "intelligent enough to dig info they need from game files or at least read the wiki" - something along those lines. Players are expected to read wikis/forums/reddits/etc - work as a community - when they play this mod and get all the essential info and cookie-cutter strategies from there.
Ok, but if it is expected that the player has this information why would the game suddenly be easier if the player would be able to see the information in the game?
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by LordYanaek »

I usually don't care much what someone "more or less" said because it's usually less rather than more and out of context so i'd like to know where he actually said that :roll:

As for Vigilance level, there is a big difference between knowing how it works (be it from an official manual or community documentation) and actually having the numbers visible.
A good compromise would probably be to have some sort of indicator but not the direct number. Something along the lines of Low(1-4))/Medium(4-8)/High(9+) would give us an indication without making abusing it easy. Of course calculative players would be able to tell that the moment vigilance goes from low to medium it's exactly at 5 but those are probably already counting missions/week for an even more efficient control of the vigilance level so they won't really be affected.
Zyxpsilon
Posts: 274
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 1:26 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Zyxpsilon »

Jacke wrote:BTW, to get more information in the XCOM Archives, you could install the mod LAByrinth. :)
Thanks for the swift reminder about that highly complex work of mine.. it's a good tool to have in anyone's arsenal of known facts! ;)

PS; The upcoming version (just waiting for their v1.3) will expand a few more things further. Stay tuned. :D
JulianSkies
Posts: 301
Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:17 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by JulianSkies »

LordYanaek wrote:I usually don't care much what someone "more or less" said because it's usually less rather than more and out of context so i'd like to know where he actually said that :roll:

As for Vigilance level, there is a big difference between knowing how it works (be it from an official manual or community documentation) and actually having the numbers visible.
A good compromise would probably be to have some sort of indicator but not the direct number. Something along the lines of Low(1-4))/Medium(4-8)/High(9+) would give us an indication without making abusing it easy. Of course calculative players would be able to tell that the moment vigilance goes from low to medium it's exactly at 5 but those are probably already counting missions/week for an even more efficient control of the vigilance level so they won't really be affected.
For what it's worth, global vigilance, what slows down avatar progress, is shown in the haven management menu
wizard1200
Posts: 39
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:22 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by wizard1200 »

LordYanaek wrote:A good compromise would probably be to have some sort of indicator but not the direct number. Something along the lines of Low(1-4))/Medium(4-8)/High(9+) would give us an indication without making abusing it easy.
That would be a very good solution.
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by LordYanaek »

JulianSkies wrote: For what it's worth, global vigilance, what slows down avatar progress, is shown in the haven management menu
I know that but having some similar clue for each region might help players, or at least avoid the feeling that important information is hidden due to bad design or sadistic design decisions ;)
nightwyrm
Posts: 260
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2017 4:52 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by nightwyrm »

JulianSkies wrote:
LordYanaek wrote:I usually don't care much what someone "more or less" said because it's usually less rather than more and out of context so i'd like to know where he actually said that :roll:

As for Vigilance level, there is a big difference between knowing how it works (be it from an official manual or community documentation) and actually having the numbers visible.
A good compromise would probably be to have some sort of indicator but not the direct number. Something along the lines of Low(1-4))/Medium(4-8)/High(9+) would give us an indication without making abusing it easy. Of course calculative players would be able to tell that the moment vigilance goes from low to medium it's exactly at 5 but those are probably already counting missions/week for an even more efficient control of the vigilance level so they won't really be affected.
For what it's worth, global vigilance, what slows down avatar progress, is shown in the haven management menu
However, there is little to no indication that Global Threat Level is linked to how many missions you're completing. For someone with no in-depth knowledge of the game, it would not be unreasonable for them to think it could be linked to how many regions you've contacted or how many rebels you have or how far along you were on the Golden Path or how many mission of a specific type you're doing, etc.
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