Vigilance and the Avatar Project
Posted: Thu Apr 27, 2017 2:08 pm
One of the things that seems very mysterious to me in LW2 is the connection between vigilance and the avatar project. Indeed the link between them is something that I would never have got if I have not come to the Pavonis forums to seek LW2 strategies. While I like the notion of vigilance itself (i.e. that performing successful missions should provoke Advent into committing more troops to a region) I don't think its link to the Avatar Project makes sense, from neither a narrative point of view nor from the desire to provoke interesting gameplay.
One the first point, it really doesn't make sense that Xcom being successful in standard missions would delay the Avatar project. Why would blowing up a monument, say, to attract Advent's attention, delay Avatar? The Advent ground troops are presumably not involved in the Avatar project itself - those contributing to Avatar will presumably be research scientists in the Avatar facilities. That is not to say that no successful missions would delay Avatar. I imagine, for example, killing a VIP scientist might if they had a significant role in Avatar.
On the second point, as LW2 stands, it is essential for XCom to perform lots and lots of missions (including things like troop ambushes) to slow down the Avatar project. In other words, the optimal strategy is to be as noisy as possible to attract Advent's attention and then move on to new regions that are quieter to perform easier missions. This is undesirable on a statical layer because it is linking together things that would be better kept separate. Would it not make must more sense for XCom to have a multi-pronged strategy? On the one hand they need to gain supplies and resources (via havens or missions) to build up their forces while staying under the Advent radar; on the other hand they have to perform missions to sabotage the Avatar Project, which unfortunately will gain Advents attention. Separating the two out makes for more interesting and strategic gameplay.
So I have some suggestions:
1. Remove the link between vigilance and Avatar progression. In other words XCom activity (in a general sense) would not slow down the Avatar project.
2. Give us more realistic ways to slow down the Avatar project. This system actually exists in vanilla, so why not use it and expand on it? The most obvious example is that we can remove Avatar pips by destroying facilities. This was easier in vanilla since (iirc) we didn't need presence in a region to perform a mission there. But I can think of plenty of other ways. For example...
2a. Allow us to find facility leads via missions (as usual) by hacking or finding Advent data pads, and allow us to raid them irrespective of where they are on the map. This makes sense narratively. (This may mean that we need more facilities with fewer avatar pips each.)
2b. To encourage liberating regions, reveal any Avatar facilities within, say, 2 region steps away from the liberated region. This also makes sense narratively since a liberated region might gather rumours of nearby activity. If this is too much, you could allow intel gathering in a liberated region to provide a chance of finding a facility within say 3 region steps distance (this would give an extra reason for setting your liberated region rebels to intel).
2c. Allow certain missions to remove Avatar progress. For example, as suggested above, a VIP kill mission could remove an avatar pip from the nearest facility. A UFO raid could remove pips too. In fact, I can think of many new mission types you could introduce to do this.
3. Link vigilance to the number of Advent killed, region liberation and ironically the number of Avatar pips removed. If you go on a 0% supply raid raid and kill dozens of Advent, they should get pissed at you. Similarly, liberating a region should get them worried. Also, inverting the current causation of vigilance -> slowing down Avatar to become slowing down Avatar -> raises vigilance makes much more sense. Raising vigilance would then no longer be a deliberate intention, be an undesirable side effect of your other activities. You would need to balance the benefit of 0% supply raids against the vigilance cost. Quietly gathering supplies in some remote location would not cause so much attention but is much slower.
In summary, I think separating vigilance from avatar makes sense narratively and provides extra gameplay opportunities. I realise this is a bit radical and not something that could be done quickly, so I am just throwing this out as a suggestion. Any comments?
One the first point, it really doesn't make sense that Xcom being successful in standard missions would delay the Avatar project. Why would blowing up a monument, say, to attract Advent's attention, delay Avatar? The Advent ground troops are presumably not involved in the Avatar project itself - those contributing to Avatar will presumably be research scientists in the Avatar facilities. That is not to say that no successful missions would delay Avatar. I imagine, for example, killing a VIP scientist might if they had a significant role in Avatar.
On the second point, as LW2 stands, it is essential for XCom to perform lots and lots of missions (including things like troop ambushes) to slow down the Avatar project. In other words, the optimal strategy is to be as noisy as possible to attract Advent's attention and then move on to new regions that are quieter to perform easier missions. This is undesirable on a statical layer because it is linking together things that would be better kept separate. Would it not make must more sense for XCom to have a multi-pronged strategy? On the one hand they need to gain supplies and resources (via havens or missions) to build up their forces while staying under the Advent radar; on the other hand they have to perform missions to sabotage the Avatar Project, which unfortunately will gain Advents attention. Separating the two out makes for more interesting and strategic gameplay.
So I have some suggestions:
1. Remove the link between vigilance and Avatar progression. In other words XCom activity (in a general sense) would not slow down the Avatar project.
2. Give us more realistic ways to slow down the Avatar project. This system actually exists in vanilla, so why not use it and expand on it? The most obvious example is that we can remove Avatar pips by destroying facilities. This was easier in vanilla since (iirc) we didn't need presence in a region to perform a mission there. But I can think of plenty of other ways. For example...
2a. Allow us to find facility leads via missions (as usual) by hacking or finding Advent data pads, and allow us to raid them irrespective of where they are on the map. This makes sense narratively. (This may mean that we need more facilities with fewer avatar pips each.)
2b. To encourage liberating regions, reveal any Avatar facilities within, say, 2 region steps away from the liberated region. This also makes sense narratively since a liberated region might gather rumours of nearby activity. If this is too much, you could allow intel gathering in a liberated region to provide a chance of finding a facility within say 3 region steps distance (this would give an extra reason for setting your liberated region rebels to intel).
2c. Allow certain missions to remove Avatar progress. For example, as suggested above, a VIP kill mission could remove an avatar pip from the nearest facility. A UFO raid could remove pips too. In fact, I can think of many new mission types you could introduce to do this.
3. Link vigilance to the number of Advent killed, region liberation and ironically the number of Avatar pips removed. If you go on a 0% supply raid raid and kill dozens of Advent, they should get pissed at you. Similarly, liberating a region should get them worried. Also, inverting the current causation of vigilance -> slowing down Avatar to become slowing down Avatar -> raises vigilance makes much more sense. Raising vigilance would then no longer be a deliberate intention, be an undesirable side effect of your other activities. You would need to balance the benefit of 0% supply raids against the vigilance cost. Quietly gathering supplies in some remote location would not cause so much attention but is much slower.
In summary, I think separating vigilance from avatar makes sense narratively and provides extra gameplay opportunities. I realise this is a bit radical and not something that could be done quickly, so I am just throwing this out as a suggestion. Any comments?