[Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

hairlessOrphan
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 4:36 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by hairlessOrphan »

LordYanaek wrote: Not quite. All Intel is only useful as long as you have enough squads to handle all the missions it throws at you. Detecting more missions than you can take (after discarding "bad" missions with too low timer or too high activity) is useless. All the subtlety of the strategic layer is to find the right balance of jobs so that you get enough missions but not too much. Intel is king of the jobs but other jobs are also useful because too much Intel is wasted especially if you can't field all your squads due to resources shortage (by not running any supply job). Finally in order to reliably detect those missions you'll need more than 4 guys in a haven which is why the recruit job exists.
I totally disagree with the idea of "wasted" Intel, but this leads us to a pretty good point. IMO no Intel is wasted until you've detected enough Hack the Box and Troop Column missions to maintain global vigilance.

Hack the Box is the easiest mission, Troop Columns the most rewarding. If you could, you would do only those two missions, ever, forever. Now, because you have to meet your Vigilance quota, sometimes you have to do other, less desirable missions, because you didn't detect enough Hack the Boxes and Troop Columns. Maybe you could have, with more Intel.

The main point here, though, is that "detecting more missions than you can take" is totally the wrong metric. In fact, using that metric is the reason Marbozir lost his campaign so spectacularly. If you are detecting more missions than you can take, but you are not maintaining Vigilance, then it's not that you are wasting Intel and should detect fewer missions. It's that you need to train more troops. Everything revolves around maintaining Vigilance.

Which brings us to the pretty good point. In the early game, it is not feasible (due to time it takes to contact regions) to maintain this. So in the run-up to a fully functional XCOM, you may want to liberate regions far away from each other to lower the Vigilance decay rate until you can train enough fire teams to operate in all regions forever. At which point (what we might call "mid-game"), you really want to start giving regions back to Advent (which will be easier if your temporarily liberated regions are all distant). There's some math here where we could probably figure out a formula that takes, as input, # of fire teams you can train up in a week and gives, as output, the # of regions you should liberate until you have 15 fire teams (probably 10 two-man stealthing teams and five actual, legit teams. ~40/45 active soldiers) in order to maximize Vigilance - Strength (minimize Avatar progression). Once you reach 15 fire teams, you really want to give all your regions back to Advent.

Something like that (obviously in need of refinements, but you get the idea) seems like the actual shape of the optimal strategy, and narratively speaking it's totally bonkers.
Jadiel
Posts: 214
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:28 am

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by Jadiel »

hairlessOrphan wrote:1) The problem with liberating regions is that "wiping 5 pts of Strength off the map" means nothing after 14 days and a secret space reinforcement. 14 days later, your "Strength" gains are lost, but that region is still liberated, so that's one less region to build Vigilance on. Which means to maintain your global Vigilance > Strength advantage (and hence your Avatar slowdown %), you need a bigger difference per region (because you have fewer regions to work with).
No, after 14 days, the aliens will still have 5 less Strength than they would have had if you hadn't liberated the region. Reinforcements come whether you liberate or not. Every region you liberate reduces strength by 5 for the rest of the game!

I'm not sure it makes sense to think about regional differences in vigilance and strength. The only think that matters is global vigilance - strength. Every time you win a mission, vigilance increases. Every 14/12/10/8 days strength goes up by 2 and every 21 days strength goes up by 4. The number of regions which remain unliberated is pretty irrelevant...
hairlessOrphan wrote:Also keep in mind that secret space reinforcement is a flat value of +4, not a value relative to Advent's global region count. So in the extreme case, where Advent is down to one region, the reinforcement is a flat +4 to regional strength. That is unmanageable. If you only have that one region to scan for troop columns? Yeah, you'll never get their Strength down again.

Whereas if Advent owns 15 regions, that space reinforcement is +~0.25 regional strength, which means nothing. It doesn't even blip your radar until ~56 days (four super reinforcements, which then achieves +~1 regional strength). You have 15 regions over those 56 days on which to look for opportunities to bring down their global strength again. You're much better off that way.
Actually, secret space reinforcement is only +2 strength. The other +2 goes to adjacent regions, so even in the super-unlikely "I managed to liberate 15 regions but am somehow still struggling to win the game" case, you're only getting +2 strength.

If you're really that worried about concentration of ADVENT strength, I think you should still liberate regions if possible. Then when ADVENT sends an invasion, just let them have the region back. Run the invasion like a retaliation, and just try and evac out as many rebels as possible. But really, I think you're massively exaggerating the problem of concentrated strength. In practice, if you're liberating 15/16 regions, you should probably be looking doing golden path missions; I'm certainly not advocating that you try and liberate the whole map (or even most of it). But from your previous comment, I'm worried that new players might think that successfully liberating a second or third region somehow hurts your ability to win the game.
hairlessOrphan wrote:2) I totally agree that when vigilance is high, Supplies is a very reasonable task for your havens. But Intel is still better. The fact is, from a time-perspective, you are only racing against the clock if you can't manage Avatar progression. But if you can, then you *want to extend* the play time. Because that gives you more tech, more troops, more experience, more fire teams through which to slow Avatar progression even more.

In the end, when both teams are at peak - aliens are at full tier, but XCOM has all the tech, fully AWC'ed out, and huge numbers of MSGT troops - it's advantage XCOM in the tactical game. Avatar progression is the thing that keeps you from reaching that. If you can extend Avatar to the point where you can reach All The Toys, then all the pressure is off. All-Intel-All-The-Time will get you there.
No, for high vigilance regions, intel is terrible. Because once vigilance gets high enough (above 15), ADVENT won't do anything for you to run missions against, and intel does literally nothing.

I'm not sure about time necessarily favouring XCOM either. The best case scenario for finishing the game is you hit endgame (12 MSGT with best weapons/armor) when the aliens don't have all their dark events yet. Letting the game go longer past this point just allows the aliens to catch up, you want to finish the game when your strength has peaked but theirs hasn't.
hewhoispale
Posts: 62
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2017 1:27 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by hewhoispale »

hermescostell wrote:I'm seeing the version as above 0.x. It is no longer in beta and it's open to commentary AS A FINISHED PRODUCT.
Protip: version numbering is completely arbitrary and meaningless without context of the development roadmap. Version 1.0 does not at all imply "final version" or "development finalized". If it has any intrinsic meaning it is "initial release".
deaconivory
Long War 2 Crew
Posts: 167
Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2015 1:12 am

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by deaconivory »

It does a very terrible job of even indicating the context of a decision. Some of this is a carryover from the original game but I think Pavonis has just compounded on it by implementing very deep mechanics without also increasing player feedback.
This topic has been addressed this many times since the launch, so apologies if people get tired of me repeating it, however I feel like I need to say it again:

There were hard limits on the amount of text that could be created by PI, and since every single word had to be translated into every language supported by XCOM2 prior to the mod's launch (a requirement that no other mod is held to) there was a time limit as well. 2K was very generous and allowed PI to go over the word count multiple times, but in the end much of the information in the game was "simplified" to some degree.

Also, to put it simply, there was just no budget for a huge UI overhaul. Luckily modders like Soldier9, LeaderEnemyBoss, Robojumper and Bountygiver have taken up that torch and created an amazing collection of UI mods that get a great deal of information in front of the player where it does the most good.

Having said that, I've also noticed more than once that players vent their frustration about something being "obfuscated" when in fact the information exists in the XCOM Archives or in the in-game ? button for a specific topic.

The solution for the limitation of in-game documentation was for the volunteer testers and design consultants to create tutorials and guides to help players find their way.

To that end, I created Long War 201: http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB ... m.php?f=20

And a compendium of (hopefully) helpful here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4_jI6 ... dya3M/view

The ufopaedia has been, and will always be the go to location for Long War information: http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Long_War_2

The mod is challenging, and much like the first Long War mod it is based on a game system and environment, that has it's own limitations. Whether they are visible to the player or not, those technical limitations are real and all of the mod creators experience them. LW2 touches many facets of the core game and PI has attempted to keep the modding community informed and supported throughout the process with the hope that things that could not realistically be included in LW2 could be created by the other talented mod creators after launch.

Long War 2 has only been out for about 3 months, and so far the mods being created already are incredible: https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/ ... y_amazing/. I am sure that there will be many more to come.
MacroNova
Posts: 55
Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2017 3:53 am

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by MacroNova »

Dammit hairlessOrphan, you have me really worried now about my current Veteran campaign where I'm about to liberate my third region, and they are all adjacent.
hairlessOrphan
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 4:36 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by hairlessOrphan »

Jadiel wrote:No, after 14 days, the aliens will still have 5 less Strength than they would have had if you hadn't liberated the region. Reinforcements come whether you liberate or not. Every region you liberate reduces strength by 5 for the rest of the game!

I'm not sure it makes sense to think about regional differences in vigilance and strength. The only think that matters is global vigilance - strength. Every time you win a mission, vigilance increases. Every 14/12/10/8 days strength goes up by 2 and every 21 days strength goes up by 4. The number of regions which remain unliberated is pretty irrelevant...

Actually, secret space reinforcement is only +2 strength. The other +2 goes to adjacent regions, so even in the super-unlikely "I managed to liberate 15 regions but am somehow still struggling to win the game" case, you're only getting +2 strength.

If you're really that worried about concentration of ADVENT strength, I think you should still liberate regions if possible. Then when ADVENT sends an invasion, just let them have the region back. Run the invasion like a retaliation, and just try and evac out as many rebels as possible. But really, I think you're massively exaggerating the problem of concentrated strength. In practice, if you're liberating 15/16 regions, you should probably be looking doing golden path missions; I'm certainly not advocating that you try and liberate the whole map (or even most of it). But from your previous comment, I'm worried that new players might think that successfully liberating a second or third region somehow hurts your ability to win the game.

No, for high vigilance regions, intel is terrible. Because once vigilance gets high enough (above 15), ADVENT won't do anything for you to run missions against, and intel does literally nothing.

I'm not sure about time necessarily favouring XCOM either. The best case scenario for finishing the game is you hit endgame (12 MSGT with best weapons/armor) when the aliens don't have all their dark events yet. Letting the game go longer past this point just allows the aliens to catch up, you want to finish the game when your strength has peaked but theirs hasn't.
Yeah, I agree that liberating the second and third region won't ruin your game. The seventh or eight will definitely make things dicey, though (that's the situation I'm in right now). It's not that I'm worried about regional drop-ins of secret reinforcements. I am worried about their ability to cut me off from missionable regions, which generally means when they hit regional Strength 4 or 5. Once they're there, rapidly infiltrated stealth missions stop being guarantees. Which means I worry about their Global Strength reaching (# of regions * 5). If they have one one region, that's Global Strength 5, and I'm screwed anyway. If they have 15 regions, that's Global Strength 75, and I can keep them below that.

If there's a reliable way to coax them into retaking regions, then the optimal strategy would actually be liberating to wipe 5 strength off the map, then giving the region back ASAP to make them spread thinner.

I didn't know that missions won't pop at Vigilance 15. So that means there's a week where you should be on Supply, and then Vigilance will drop to 14, and you go back to Intel to pop the mission, and be back at 15? What happens if you get all Advent regions to 15? Do all missions just stop? Dark events, too?

I have not had a problem with Dark Events; I've managed to counter like 80% of them. This seems like an argument for Even More Intel, though... On the other hand, I have had a serious problem with Golden Path missions. I run overwatch-heavy squads, and Codices move first, and they instantly die to a withering hail of indiscriminate overwatch, and I can't skulljack their corpses. I'm content to play safe so long as I have time to eventually get lucky with a Codex, but that means I have to buy time.
fowlJ
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 1:45 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by fowlJ »

hermescostell wrote:... In order to "be challenging" the Pavonis team appears to have gone about actively nerfing any so-called "game breaking" builds or approaches which would make stealth and small-team missions "too easy". Making the solution to problems a moving target which changes with each patch release ...
I don't see a "beta" statement next to the title. I'm seeing the version as above 0.x. It is no longer in beta and it's open to commentary AS A FINISHED PRODUCT.
You seem to be in fact suggesting that we sit back and wait for the "finished product" which will happen when Pavonis "moves on to other projects" ... and is therefore no longer going to incorporate community feedback.
I may come back to the rest of what you said later (no time right now), but for now, lemme get this straight:

You don't like the fact that there are major changes to the game being made (based largely on user feedback), because it 'makes the solution to problems a moving target which changes with each patch'. You also don't like the explanation that it is because LW2 is still in active development, because you believe that it should be considered a finished product. You also don't like that at some point it may no longer be in active development, and at that point be a finished product, because it will no longer be undergoing significant changes based on user feedback.

Would you care to explain what you think the ideal way is for LW2's development to work, then? Because I can't help but feel like I'm missing something here.
hairlessOrphan
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 4:36 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by hairlessOrphan »

MacroNova wrote:Dammit hairlessOrphan, you have me really worried now about my current Veteran campaign where I'm about to liberate my third region, and they are all adjacent.
Just reroll, man. It's all over. #sickofwinning
Tuhalu
Posts: 433
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 9:02 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by Tuhalu »

hairlessOrphan wrote: If there's a reliable way to coax them into retaking regions, then the optimal strategy would actually be liberating to wipe 5 strength off the map, then giving the region back ASAP to make them spread thinner.
ADVENT taking a region back wipes out up to 13 rebels (assuming you don't try and rescue them while still losing!). It'll take months for you to build that region back up to the level where you can actually do enough missions to spike a worthwhile amount of vigilance again. Not to mention any Dark Events you miss because ADVENT ran them in the region with very low intel.

It's actually more effective to keep your first 3 or so liberated regions and just constantly hit troop columns. With enough contacted regions its pretty easy to tell where ADVENT is trying to build up for an invasion and farm them.
hermescostell
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 11, 2017 4:22 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by hermescostell »

fowlJ wrote:
hermescostell wrote:... In order to "be challenging" the Pavonis team appears to have gone about actively nerfing any so-called "game breaking" builds or approaches which would make stealth and small-team missions "too easy". Making the solution to problems a moving target which changes with each patch release ...
I don't see a "beta" statement next to the title. I'm seeing the version as above 0.x. It is no longer in beta and it's open to commentary AS A FINISHED PRODUCT.
You seem to be in fact suggesting that we sit back and wait for the "finished product" which will happen when Pavonis "moves on to other projects" ... and is therefore no longer going to incorporate community feedback.
I may come back to the rest of what you said later (no time right now), but for now, lemme get this straight:

You don't like the fact that there are major changes to the game being made (based largely on user feedback), because it 'makes the solution to problems a moving target which changes with each patch'. You also don't like the explanation that it is because LW2 is still in active development, because you believe that it should be considered a finished product. You also don't like that at some point it may no longer be in active development, and at that point be a finished product, because it will no longer be undergoing significant changes based on user feedback.

Would you care to explain what you think the ideal way is for LW2's development to work, then? Because I can't help but feel like I'm missing something here.
It appears that the meaning of my words has been missed. First when I spoke about the solution to problems being a moving target (and in some other parts of what I've written) I'm not talking simply about having issue with the game changing; I'm talking about having issue with the game changing seemingly only because the players found a solution which they favored, based upon the mechanic served up to them, and that solution is somehow distasteful for Pavonis, so they are changing things to force players to modify their playstyle to something Pavonis wants. Moving target.

The alternative which I am suggesting would be to modify the game to no longer punish some other alternative behaviors, so that other playstyles are viable. EXPANDING target.

Nerfing skeak and strengthening small-squad Guerilla ops = moving target. Keeping sneak essentially as-is while strengthening small-squad Guerilla ops = expanding target.

Moving target = bad. Expanding target = good. Obviously if the target expands too much, and you can do anything you want to beat a mission then it's no longer a challenge and the fun is lost, but I'm of the strong opinion that it's currently too punishing in these sneak missions.

Regarding the whole issue of my wanting to consider it "done" and also having issue with them considering it "done" and then walking from the project, and all of that - a few things:

Re: the use of the term "finished product" I get the sense that criticism isn't welcomed on the mod because it's "not finished yet". I absolutely get that it's still in active development, which I think is great that work is still being put into it. At the same time I understand the different life stages of a project to generally be that once it's past 1.0 that the developers consider it "done minus some minor bugs we might not have found yet, and it's ready for public use", and I'm speaking from that position. I get that there are some issues with semantics here between "finished" product versus "public yet evolving" product versus say "finished yet buggy" ... etc. My point is that I think it's appropriate for me to be commenting as though the mod were exactly what the developers intended it to be, as we currently see it at 1.2 (minus bugs). If my concerns here have been addressed with the next patch then great: problem solved, and I look forward to that patch. I get the sense that they haven't though, from what I'm hearing, so I will air my concerns.

Re: my not liking the idea of them considering it "done" and then moving on to other projects, plus the perceived contradiction with my also wanting to consider the project "done" when judging it: It's understood with LW2 that there's going to be some period of refinement, and then the refinement stops. I get that. With each release there are a variety of fixes such as game balance changes, bug fixes and QOL improvements and such. With each post 1.0 release it should be expected that in terms of game balance and gameplay that the game is "done", with bug fixes that it is "done" as far as game-breaking bugs but some small other ones may still exist, and QOL items may be in slight flux. So as I also touched upon in the prior paragraph, there are a whole series of "this is done" moments for all the game balance and gameplay elements, each occurring with each release. The final "this is really done" release will come some time down the line. Since there are obviously still game balance and gameplay changes being done to the mod then I think this is the appropriate time to voice concerns while changes can still be made. Waiting until it's too late, and the changes have stopped, to air my concerns is a mistake.
Icarus
Posts: 151
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:26 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by Icarus »

If it's not finished, then all the more important to give feedback, isn't it? Holding the feedback until the work is done makes no sense, he's right with that.
hermescostell
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Apr 11, 2017 4:22 pm

Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by hermescostell »

Title edited to better reflect the true nature of the thread
Dlareh
Posts: 125
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 9:41 pm

Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by Dlareh »

Agreed with that edit.. my general view:

Vanilla XCOM 2 was good enough to play through once. Heavily modded (ABA and such), it was good enough to play through a second time.

LW2 1.x so far has been good enough to play through...about once in my view, plus watching some streamers if that's your thing.

Feeling "corralled" into doing so much stealth in 1.2 was a huge part of its anti-fun component. You could house rule and just not do it, skip or bring more soldiers and avoid the drag -- but then you felt like you were playing terribly sub-optimally. Because you would be.

I'm very hopeful that 1.3 will resolve most of the anti-fun issues being discussed in this thread. It's been looking positive. I really like the mission and class changes so far. Once finally out, we can see about INI editing or modding-away the few questionable things that remain and we'll have a pretty fun and enjoyably replayable game I think.

There'll be room to keep adding new dimensions, game mechanics, and QoL improvements, of course. I don't expect development to stop with 1.3 by any means. But I think 1.3 is going to be the milestone where fun replayability kicks in for many people (i.e. people outside the little club that's done like 6+ campaigns already. You know who you are.)
Excitement continues to build as city centers across the globe prepare for the latest incarnation of Groundhog Day.
fowlJ
Posts: 198
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 1:45 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by fowlJ »

hermescostell wrote: Re: the use of the term "finished product" I get the sense that criticism isn't welcomed on the mod because it's "not finished yet"
If it seemed like I was implying that, I apologise - that was not my intent. I'm not saying that your opinions are unwelcome, or trying to excuse any and all flaws in the mod, just trying to provide the explanations (as I understand them) for some of the specific criticisms that you raised.
... My point is that I think it's appropriate for me to be commenting as though the mod were exactly what the developers intended it to be, as we currently see it at 1.2 (minus bugs).
I think your understanding of the development is not quite right, here (which I don't consider to be your fault at all, I think labelling the mod '1.0' when it wasn't really at the level of completion one might associate with that was a strange choice). I do not believe that the mod is in the 'post 1.0' stage of development (in full awareness, again, of the fact that in name it literally is, but still) where major game-changing updates stop happening in favour of non-destructive balance tweaks. Things still aren't where the developers envisioned them being, and significant alterations to core mechanics are still taking place to address that.

This is also the reason why I don't think (at this point) that your suggestion of 'expanding targets' versus 'moving targets' is necessarily a good idea - the 'targets' in questions are not all the set-in-stone mechanics of a finished game; some of them (particularly stealth gameplay, which as I understand it became a part of the mod not that long before the initial release compared to other systems) are ideas. Ideas that may not be as good as the developers intended, or that may have been further refined since that point, or that just generally didn't work out like they were hoped to. I would much rather have such ideas reworked or removed than allowed to compromise the final product just because they were shown to the public before they were completely finished, even if it results in the game balance being somewhat unstable from patch to patch until everything gets nailed down.

As to some of your earlier comments:
...aided by under-the-hood knowledge about hidden mission rotation, using nuanced hints about pod placement off-screen in fog, carefully counting units and mathematically calculating where enemies probably are in order to guess whether or not to peek their shinobi around a corner... on ANY difficulty.
Those things are not even remotely necessary, and those that are even all that useful are not one tenth as arcane as you are presenting them as. Like, 'mathematically calculating where enemies probably are'? You can hear them. They make sound. I do not believe that there is one single player out there, not even among the Legend balance testers, who is using any kind of math to figure out where enemies are instead of just paying attention to the game audio and accounting for it in their movement.

As to 'hidden mission rotation', I don't know off the top of my head what you're even talking about, which should tell you a lot about how essential I personally have found it.
Saph7
Long War 2 Crew
Posts: 167
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2017 4:00 pm

Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by Saph7 »

hermescostell wrote:It appears that the meaning of my words has been missed. First when I spoke about the solution to problems being a moving target (and in some other parts of what I've written) I'm not talking simply about having issue with the game changing; I'm talking about having issue with the game changing seemingly only because the players found a solution which they favored, based upon the mechanic served up to them, and that solution is somehow distasteful for Pavonis, so they are changing things to force players to modify their playstyle to something Pavonis wants. Moving target.

The alternative which I am suggesting would be to modify the game to no longer punish some other alternative behaviors, so that other playstyles are viable. EXPANDING target.

Nerfing skeak and strengthening small-squad Guerilla ops = moving target. Keeping sneak essentially as-is while strengthening small-squad Guerilla ops = expanding target.
Stealth is getting nerfed because in its current 1.2 iteration it allows you to bypass a significant amount of the game and accumulate a vast amount of VIP, Intel, and POI rewards with very little investment or chance of failure. As a result, everyone has been spamming the hell out of stealth missions, because the risk-reward ratio is so lopsided. This is bad because (a) it makes the game too easy and (b) doing 50+ stealth missions is incredibly boring.

Keeping stealth as-is is not going to happen because of the lopsided risk-reward ratio. At the moment, stealthing a mission allows you to achieve around an 80% success rate at a very low resource cost. There is no way to make a combat approach a competitive choice against that without drastically lowering the game's difficulty across the board. So yes, stealth is getting nerfed, and yes, this means that the players who've come to rely on stealth as a crutch are going to have to change their playstyle. This isn't going to be a comfortable change for them, but it's a necessary one.
hermescostell wrote:Re: the use of the term "finished product" I get the sense that criticism isn't welcomed on the mod because it's "not finished yet".
Constructive criticism on the mod is welcome. However, starting off your post with I know how things go, and there's going to eventually be a little club of a few hundred players who all continue to exclaim that "it's fun - and if you don't think it's fun, then don't play it" is a very bad way to make people listen to you.
Last edited by Saph7 on Thu Apr 27, 2017 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
ShockmasterFred
Posts: 52
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2017 5:01 am

Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by ShockmasterFred »

hermescostell wrote:I know how things go, and there's going to eventually be a little club of a few hundred players who all continue to exclaim that "it's fun - and if you don't think it's fun, then don't play it"... while the many other thousands of players who started playing the game initially finally gave up and wandered off to other games which were fun. Rather quickly I see all the work that Pavonis put into this mod going towards the enjoyment of that handful of a few hundred (admittedly dedicated) fans, and nobody else.

The learning curve is simply too steep, the risk/reward isn't clearly communicated before the choices made in the game, the smackdown which occurs due to things going badly seems to come out of nowhere rather than due to mistakes which the player made (and sees how to do better next time). The only people we are looking to for examples of "how to do it right" are playtesters with a zillion hours of gameplay under their belts, who are held up as examples of "how doable it is" (xwynns, joINrbs).

Gameplay isn't so much a matter of a "rich experience which can be solved in numerous ways" as it is a feeling of being corralled into stealthing the great majority of missions - and now I hear that's being "nerfed" with 1.3. Great.

Why do we play games? Because they're fun. What makes them fun? The feeling of euphoria which occurs when we successfully navigate and conquer a challenge that we felt was compelling, and feel that we have gained some mastery due to it.
  • Successfully nagivate: Being able to know what to do, given the challenge before us. In LW2 we are presented with a multitude of minefields we can waltz our soldiers across to their doom, and the instant doom of our campaign, with complex and inscrutable hints as to which minefields are doable, and which aren't. Moreover in order to push the campaign forwards you MUST go across enough of these minefields, and at a rather good pace otherwise Advent wins. Good luck.
  • Conquer a challenge: Sometimes LW2 expects you to evac out without having achieved the objective, we are told. Some missions aren't winnable. Back in LW1 it was understood that this was part of the deal, sure - however back then it felt like it was better balanced and made more sense somehow, when the mission fell apart and we needed to run. It felt like we'd been given a challenge which we did indeed screw up somehow and, had we played things right, would probably have been winnable. In LW2 the only missions I feel that way about still are the large-squad combat missions; I still feel that sense that when I lose one of those that it was truly a series of tactical mistakes on my part which made it occur, and the sense that I CAN conquer the challenge remains alive. The stealth missions however, which are the mainstay of missions now in LW2, feel like when things go well it was due to pure luck, and when they went poorly it was due to my not having had luck on my side. Earlier in the campaign when enemies weren't as punishing, sneaking around to the objective, hacking and then getting out felt like skill. Now midway through, when faceless and chryssalids sprint over and jump on my face the moment the hack occurs ... it simply isn't fun anymore. I basically look at the objective spot, see that it's swarming with crap, and realize that the only way I'm going to do the mission is if I'm blessed with luck ... and that I'll need to be lucky to even get that far. And no, it doesn't feel like skill (even though yes of course there is a skill in being patient enough to walk a path that has zero chance of being spotted, while still keeping the timer in check), it feels like luck. And pure luck just isn't fun. Luck COMBINED with skill is fun. Being unlucky and then having that unluckiness make a person have to be skillful to survive is great. Being unlucky and then swarmed and murdered without chance of survival isn't fun.
  • Compelling: Lack of clarity on what the risk/reward is for a mission, so we can judge its worth (having to cross-reference various tables online sucks). Crappy loot sucks. Unclear how XP works, and how much we are getting for a particular mission. Unsure which missions are going to be ok to skip (see the cross-referencing above). Just simply feeling like the mission had some effect or ramification. Yes, yes, yes I know that "it's totally clear in the mission description" - and I'm talking about Guerilla Ops missions here mainly, rather than Golden Path or Supply Lines type stuff. Try asking someone who isn't in the LW2 Fanboy Club to look at the mission selection screen what the effect of the mission is going to be, based on the description, and take note of their response. Notice the silence and the confused look on their face. And then ask them "should you go on that mission?" I usually absolutely don't know whether a mission is important to go on, or is a distraction, or is worth it, based on the information given, so I generally try to go on every one that I can (just like I bet the vast majority of players are) and end up being punished for it. And sure, I get it that "the idea is you're supposed to choose which ones to go on" but the level of complexity, combined with the degree of inscrutability, plus the sheer volume of missions, is such that I haven't developed a solid sense of that after a few hundred hours of gameplay. This inability to discern the importance or effect of going on missions diminishes the compelling aspect of the "fun" equation.
  • Gained some mastery: I do have a feeling of mastery in regard to combat-intensive mission types. I don't have a major issue with LW2 in the late Liberation, Golden Path, Defend type missions in this regard. Any stealth or small-team missions however I absolutely do not have a sense of "mastery" with. That is: I don't feel that I have more than a few repeatable lessons or behaviors learned which I can reliably apply to future missions, and they are very little help. In order to "be challenging" the Pavonis team appears to have gone about actively nerfing any so-called "game breaking" builds or approaches which would make stealth and small-team missions "too easy". Making the solution to problems a moving target which changes with each patch release while keeping the difficulty ratcheted up to a level which necessitates the highest level of gameplay in order to succeed is turning the mod into a sort of arms race between the player and the developer. I can only speculate as to why this is happening on the Pavonis end, but the bottom line is that it simply ends up not being fun on the player's end (oops - again: excepting the LW2 Inner Club). Allowing the players to find and keep tactics which usually work is perfectly fine, and is an integral part of the "fun" equation. The other part of the game which I don't feel I have a mastery of is the interrelation of Intel gathering/spending, squad size, chameleon suit/suppressors, activity level, vigilance, Advent strength in the zone, and expiration time. This is a murky and complex mess which at the moment doesn't offer much chance for mastery other than "put everyone in the haven on Intel, and fiddle with the soldier choosing/loadout until it looks like you'll get 100%". It feels like I'm fumbling around every time I encounter it, and I suspect it could all be streamlined WAAAAY down and be far more fun while still maintaining the core gameplay elements.
Again - I'm putting this forth as suggestions for making the mod appeal to more players, based on my own take on it. Pavonis has put a ton of work into this and I think it's sad how few people will be playing this in the weeks to come if nothing changes to address these issues.

This entire post is, to me, useless. The dishonesty and bad faith in which you wrote this invalidates your arguments and in truth, must makes you come off like a jerk. According to you, all of your criticisms are truth, and anyone who disagrees with you is just a "fanboy" or part of the "LW2 Club". So, before you even present your case, you try to poison the well on anyone who would rebut your arguments or simply say they enjoy the mod. The arrogant tone you use on top of that makes this more an exercise in you stroking your ego (or, in reality, it's you stroking something else, except without the clean up afterwards.) than a genuine critique. Maybe next time your going to spend a bunch of time crafting a long critique of something, try not starting it with the equivalent of "This is absolute truth! All who disagree have drank the Kool aid! I have spoken!". You come off as laughable and with zero credibility. Go away, there is some great discussion about improving this mod on these forums, you just aren't part of it.
Dlareh
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Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by Dlareh »

"Zero credibility" ? It's someone's rant about how they feel about the state of the mod and how they don't understand or agree with people who feel differently.

Take it for what it's worth, not everything has to be an objectively-argued critique.
Excitement continues to build as city centers across the globe prepare for the latest incarnation of Groundhog Day.
fowlJ
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Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by fowlJ »

ShockmasterFred wrote:Go away, there is some great discussion about improving this mod on these forums, you just aren't part of it.
This is not your forum. You have absolutely no business declaring that people are unwelcome here. I do agree that hermescostell was unnecessarily aggressive in some of the things they said, and made some generalisations that I do not think are accurate, but that does not mean that everything they said is automatically invalid, and it definitely does not mean that they should not be able to continue participating in discussion.
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johnnylump
Site Admin
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Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by johnnylump »

Let's all be nice please.
Goofych
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Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by Goofych »

The reason i am playing this mod is because i have played LW1, and LW1 was a mod where vast majority of missions had only one "objective" - kill all the aliens. For some reason both Firaxis and PI decided what this needs to be changed and made a game about moving from point A to point B and pushing a button in the process. Stealth missions so popular because they are the perfect form of operations in XCom2 - most effective time and resources -wise without unnecessary actions - like fighting aliens for example. As long as all these "objectives" are still in game PI would need to employ some sort of "carrot and stick" to _force_ players to actually play em. Solution is a s simple as unachievable - to throw all these objectives, timers, rnf's out of the window and make a game about _fighting_ aliens, not sulking in the shadows.

PS And stealth would really be better off on PSI operatives, that's an only way to make psi lab competitive with AWC/GWS/lab right from the early game.
hermescostell
Posts: 21
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Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by hermescostell »

Saph7 wrote:Constructive criticism on the mod is welcome. However, starting off your post with I know how things go, and there's going to eventually be a little club of a few hundred players who all continue to exclaim that "it's fun - and if you don't think it's fun, then don't play it" is a very bad way to make people listen to you.
No one is listening, obviously. That's why there are so many posts on the thread. ;)
ShockmasterFred wrote:This entire post is, to me, useless. The dishonesty and bad faith in which you wrote this invalidates your arguments and in truth, must makes you come off like a jerk.
All new truths are first ignored, then ridiculed(the stage you're in), then opposed, finally they accepted as something "we always knew". The sooner you pass through these phases, the better. I speak with confidence because I am confident that I am correct. I am also confident that it is eventually only going to be a community of fanboys shouting down people who attempt to bring fresh direction and creativity to a project by criticizing it. It's an easy prediction to make because it's as sure a thing as the sun coming up tomorrow - for better or worse, without an artificially, radically inclusive angle of inviting criticism (criticism of the game/software itself) in a forum it devolves into a homogeneous ecosystem which unilaterally favors the game. Just fanboys. It happens. These fanboys then sit around looking forward to giving sagely advice on the product/game to newcomers (which gives them a sense of accomplishment) while decrying any suggestion that the underlying product (game/software) has any problems, otherwise it would undercut the legitimacy of their sitting around giving sagely advice on it.

It's okay about the whole sage-on-the-forum thing - everyone needs something to make them feel better about themselves. The problem is just that I really like LW2. I just played it last night for another 8 hours or so. I want it to be better - I like a lot of it, but I want to like ALL of it. I know that there's a window right now to make that happen, and that ideas from outside need to run the gauntlet of the fanboy to get through to the other side of possibly being heard before that window closes.
Saph7
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: LW2 just isn't fun

Post by Saph7 »

hermescostell wrote:No one is listening, obviously. That's why there are so many posts on the thread. ;)
Provoking people and convincing people are very different things.
hermescostell wrote:I know that there's a window right now to make that happen, and that ideas from outside need to run the gauntlet of the fanboy to get through to the other side of possibly being heard before that window closes.
A bunch of new playtesters were recruited a while ago. These playtesters did, in fact, have a large amount of new ideas and feedback. However, translating said new ideas and feedback into a finished product takes a significant amount of time, effort, playtesting, and bug hunting. This process is still ongoing.
deaconivory
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by deaconivory »

All new truths are first ignored, then ridiculed(the stage you're in), then opposed, finally they accepted as something "we always knew". The sooner you pass through these phases, the better. I speak with confidence because I am confident that I am correct.
It's worth noting that the latest group of people invited by JL to be playtesters came from these very forums, including people you are currently insulting with your hyperbolic and hilariously ill-informed comments. In the end if you are the least bit interested in why those individuals were chosen over you, when you clearly have such a mastery of the game, it would be because they provide fact-based, thoughtful, and well considered feedback (both positive and negative) free from hyperbole and exaggeration, something that you are clearly unable to do.
hairlessOrphan
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Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by hairlessOrphan »

Alright, let's all take five.

@hermescostell, there were some good points that you were almost able to make, but don't take credit for the discussion. A lot of the discussion here is really a continuation of criticisms made elsewhere by others. You had two complaints: too much stealthing, not enough Strategic layer info. It took you like 8,000 words to say it. Don't be too proud, man.

@everyone else (aside from ShockmasterFred), I suggest we actively extract whatever valid criticism we can from every post and talk about those bits and just ignore the rest. Especially for those of us who really want to love the shit out of LW2, aggressive and assertive criticism is important. Don't be distracted by grandstanding randos, don't make the discussion about them. They don't matter.
Dlareh
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Re: [Edit]LW2 v1.2 just isn't fun YET

Post by Dlareh »

^This is quite pleasantly correct.
Excitement continues to build as city centers across the globe prepare for the latest incarnation of Groundhog Day.
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