1.4 Legendary Timers for Missions and Reinforcements

[Jacke]

I'm interested in hearing what others think about the hard timers and reinforcement timers, especially on Legendary but also other difficulties.

I've been running a 1.4 Legendary campaign. I can just barely handle Legendary. To manage this, rather than drop down in difficulty, I prefer to mod XCOM to be stronger. Never had any map mods, no changes to ADVENT, and for 1.4 no changes to timers. Most of the toughest of ADVENT I can handle.

Except timers for missions and reinforcements. I think they're just too tight and forcing overly rapid squad movement leading to premature detection. There's barely enough time to fight without risking hard timer failure or excessive reinforcements.

It reminds me of a 1.1 Legendary rescue-VIP-from-jail mission I ran. I had a stealth team of 3 or 4 go in on Extremely Light. It was a huge urban map and 12 turns to complete. I ran the squad as fast as possible. Only saw ADVENT once, a pod off to the right for 1 turn. Avoided them and got to the jail and broke out the VIP and ran for the evac zone. Going as straight as possible on both legs, got out on the second to last turn. Without any fighting with ADVENT. Any firefight would have likely lost the whole team to timer expiration.

Well, it's not quite that tight for time in 1.4 but it's close. For the missions I've done, distances ingress to objective to evac can just be covered with a bit of time to spare. So my squads have to move move move. It's either hard timers or the progression of reinforcements I've got to stay ahead of.

But 1.3/1.4 has smaller and more pods. Which means when running across the map, I'm likely to get discovered before getting to the objective. And objectives often have pods right on top of them. Which makes it harder to keep ahead of the timers and reinforcements. One VIP jailbreak turned into a Benny Hill sequence with the VIP and my squad running as fast as possible to stay ahead of the now every-turn reinforcements. They barely got out.

Again, I've added no maps. I've not changed ADVENT in any way.

I've read a lot of controversy about features like DFA Snipers and timed versus untimed missions. I know getting this balance is hard and Pavonis wants to provide a good challenge. And that needs the pressure of timers and reinforcements for most missions.

But it feels to me the pressure is too high and it's taking all the fun out of the game. Looking at the UFOpaedia LW2 Difficulty page and the Mission Timers section of XComLW_Overhaul.ini , the timers get increase by 2 turns under Veteran and 4 under Rookie. I assume the reinforcement schedules in other missions get similar increases for those difficulties. I'd say the timers under Rookie are closer to what I'd want to face a reasonable challenge.

But otherwise I want to face the Legendary level challenge. I'm rewatching Xwynn's Season 2 video series from the start paying particular attention to his squad prepartions and tactical play to better learn what he does to face these challenges.

But for my own play, I'm adding the mod True Concealment for LW2 back in, adjusted to add about 50% to the timers and reinforcements by having a 50% chance at 100% infiltration to delay every turn. I think I'll enjoy that much more.

[stefan3iii]

Personally, I think the time pressure is too high in both vanilla Xcom2 and in LW2. The mission timers are generous now, but reinforcements are brutal which means speed is as important as ever. This makes any tactic outside of "kill everything as fast as possible" a bad idea, you can't really get into longer engagements.

I'd rather that the timers/reinforcements be there to prevent completely degenerate tactics (ex park your soldiers in a corner of the map, overwatch for 100 turns until everything is dead). They should be strict enough to encourage you to actually play the objective, but not so strict that it becomes the overriding concern for the mission.

Another option is the meld style of time pressure, where instead of being brutally punished for being slow (ie missions failure/squad wipe), you just get more rewards for being fast.

I've nearly completed my first L/I campaign in 1.4, and about 90% of the GOPs were done on extremely light, 10% maybe were very light. I refuse to do Light or higher, it's just too risky in L/I. A big reason for this is the time pressure, there is simply not enough time to safely clear 15 enemies using a 5 man squad. I would love to see this change in a future LW version:
1) Missions now spawn with some random variation on their base strength, not just directly correlated to the region strength. Example, could get a Moderate mission in a Strength 2 region.
2) Missions now have very generous timers/reinforcement schedules, making a Moderate GOP mission with 5 soldiers actually feasible. The mission takes longer to do and you'll have to be more careful with consumables, but it can be done.

This would introduce a lot more variety to the missions, I suspect the game would just be straight up more fun this way.

[Psieye]

Another option is the meld style of time pressure, where instead of being brutally punished for being slow (ie missions failure/squad wipe), you just get more rewards for being fast.

The pick-up loot is designed to achieve this. Though certainly meld had a better allure to it, what with being a unique resource and being visible from the start.

As for timers on Veteran, the 10 turn timers are the only ones I feel are short. I do not know how reinforcement speeds are affected by difficulty - do you deal with more than 1 wave of reinforcements during an 8 turn hack mission in Legendary in a Str 3 region? Part of running degenerate 8-man GOp Heavy-ish missions (June onwards) is that the reinforcement timer no longer feels bad unless it's some Str 6 mission (in which case I'm asking for it). Huge squads have the manpower to spare to let someone achieve the objective while everyone else is having a prolonged firefight. I suspect Legendary won't ever let you get the tech/resource advantage necessary to do this sort of stunt.

[stefan3iii]

Another option is the meld style of time pressure, where instead of being brutally punished for being slow (ie missions failure/squad wipe), you just get more rewards for being fast.

The pick-up loot is designed to achieve this. Though certainly meld had a better allure to it, what with being a unique resource and being visible from the start.

As for timers on Veteran, the 10 turn timers are the only ones I feel are short. I do not know how reinforcement speeds are affected by difficulty - do you deal with more than 1 wave of reinforcements during an 8 turn hack mission in Legendary in a Str 3 region? Part of running degenerate 8-man GOp Heavy-ish missions (June onwards) is that the reinforcement timer no longer feels bad unless it's some Str 6 mission (in which case I'm asking for it). Huge squads have the manpower to spare to let someone achieve the objective while everyone else is having a prolonged firefight. I suspect Legendary won't ever let you get the tech/resource advantage necessary to do this sort of stunt.

Well hack missions are a bit special, in that usually you try to stealth as close to objective as possible before breaking concealment, since reinforcements don't start until after breaking stealth. Also I usually just rookie suicide hack missions. So yes reinforcements are rarely an issue on those missions.

But on jailbreaks, extracts, rescues, etc you have to haul ass or you'll be ruined by reinforcements. Ideally you clear the map before you get your first wave, as having reinforcements drop on top of you in the middle of a battle can be quite bad. At strength 1 they aren't too bad, but as strength climbs to 4+ reinforcements make missions very hard.

For example, I think a 6 man Moderate Ambush Troops is an easier mission than a 5 man extract VIP Extremely Light in a 5 strength region.

One thing I'm reading in patch notes for 1.5 is that reinforcements no longer drop on top of Xcom. I don't know exactly what that's going to look like, but this sounds like the biggest buff the aliens have gotten since LW2 was released. Aliens are much easier to kill when you're near them.

[WanWhiteWolf]

A 5 man squad can do pretty reliably Ex Light missions.

4 Man Ex Light / 5 Man V. Light is pretty risky and I only attempt them with my top soldiers & if the reward is worth the risk.

As long as you make sure not to trigger multiple pods on the same turn, you should be fine. You do have to play very aggressive / with the risk of wounds, rather than postpone the kill for next turn(s) and play it safe. You also need the right composition (e.g. no Snippers/ no Gunners)

As the others mentioned, you don't really have a choice of a play-style; other than going balls out. I would also love to see missions where the RNF drops after 20 turns, but with more enemies on the map. It would make a lot of builds / squad compositions more viable (e.g. Suppression Gunner).

[Jacke]

Thanks for all the feedback, guys.

A 5 man squad can do pretty reliably Ex Light missions.

4 Man Ex Light / 5 Man V. Light is pretty risky and I only attempt them with my top soldiers & if the reward is worth the risk.

As long as you make sure not to trigger multiple pods on the same turn, you should be fine. You do have to play very aggressive / with the risk of wounds, rather than postpone the kill for next turn(s) and play it safe. You also need the right composition (e.g. no Snippers/ no Gunners)

As the others mentioned, you don't really have a choice of a play-style; other than going balls out. I would also love to see missions where the RNF drops after 20 turns, but with more enemies on the map. It would make a lot of builds / squad compositions more viable (e.g. Suppression Gunner).

An apt brief summary of the situation. I think it really demands a lot and effectively cut out a lot of strategies and tactics that appear okay but will actually ruin a campaign. The wounds alone, or worse KIA's, especially early game, can snowball enough to derail a campaign.

I think it comes down to whether the squad can kill a pod in 1 turn. Even taking on average 1.5 turns per pod is going to hurt. 2 turns per pod will lead to way too many reinforcements before evac. And killing a pod in 1 turn is hard early game, even though killing ADVENT fast is key to avoiding wounds and KIA's.

...hack missions are a bit special, in that usually you try to stealth as close to objective as possible before breaking concealment, since reinforcements don't start until after breaking stealth. Also I usually just rookie suicide hack missions.

I don't want to do rookie suicide missions, because I feel it's wrong. And just as rookies can't hack lampposts, I can see Pavonis dropping them from hacking objectives. And eventually change those missions requiring soldiers to evac. A change I'd welcome.

Hack missions are still on hard timers, as are Loot Container and a few others. Leading to pushing the squad and likely premature breaking of concealment. Unlikely to clear the map before the objective and will likely have to deal with the pod on the objective without concealment. After the objective waiting for evac incoming pods will likely clear the map for you if you can kill them fast enough.

...on jailbreaks, extracts, rescues, etc you have to haul ass or you'll be ruined by reinforcements. Ideally you clear the map before you get your first wave, as having reinforcements drop on top of you in the middle of a battle can be quite bad. At strength 1 they aren't too bad, but as strength climbs to 4+ reinforcements make missions very hard.

Even on strength 1 or 2, there's not a lot of time before those reinforcements start dropping. On a midling size map, I found it takes about 4 to 5 turns dashing from ingress to objective and 3 to 4 more from objective to evac. Fighting is extra. The first reinforcements drops on turn 9 and the rest I think about turn 13, 15, 16, and on.

On approach to the objective, you can usually tackle ADVENT a pod at a time. But that's concealment gone now. Then there's a pod on the objective. If you fought before the objective, the objective is harder and you'll likely get the first reinforcements while you're there. But if you avoided pods before the objective, you're now likely to active 2 or more while heading to the evac. And receiving reinforcements to boot. And with 4 to 6 soldiers, you don't want to fight more than 1 pod at a time. But with all the rushing needed, there's likely no concealed Shinobis and fighting multiple pods is likely.

And I find early game strength 1 and 2 zone pods are tough enough. Killing them fast enough and clearing the mission before reinforcements builds up is hard. Just the time on the dead run from ingress to objective, fighting the objective, then to evac, including time fighting other pods, and there's reinforcements dropping while you're still fighting.

For example, I think a 6 man Moderate Ambush Troops is an easier mission than a 5 man extract VIP Extremely Light in a 5 strength region.

I don't want to even think about the ADVENT forces in a strength 5 region right now. One of the reasons I'm rewatching Xwynn's videos is to better understand how he handles these challenges throughout the campaign on stock LW2.

One thing I'm reading in patch notes for 1.5 is that reinforcements no longer drop on top of Xcom. I don't know exactly what that's going to look like, but this sounds like the biggest buff the aliens have gotten since LW2 was released. Aliens are much easier to kill when you're near them.

I agree. If you have controlled the map so far (hard to do under time pressure), having ADVENT drop right on you actually helps most of the time. But if they're out of sight and you likely don't have any Shinobi concealed anymore, having 2 or 3 pods out there and hitting 2 of them at the same time, with another likely showing up soon, is going to be bad.

[galith]

I've found that 4 Man extremely light timed evac GOPs are usually fine on legend until FL4, which is when Sectoids & Vipers can appear as pod followers (not just leaders) and you first start to encounter MECs. Killing a pod of 4-5 hp mostly advent is usually doable in 1.25 turns regardless of squad composition, killing a pod of 7-8 hp sneks/sectoids or a pod of Advent + MEC is a completely different matter (unless you have a well positioned technical).

It was my understanding that reinforcement timing was based on effective strength of the mission (i.e., modified by infiltration), not on the strength of the region. For example, if I do a 125% infiltrated mission in a strength 3 region (-1 alert) then I'm using the strength 2 reinforcement bucket. But if I do Lib 3 (+2 alert) at 125% infiltration I'm using the strength 4 reinforcement bucket, just as I would if I do a regular mission at 92% infiltration (+1 alert). Is this wrong?

Also, I had initially thought that Alert 1 corresponded to "Ex. Light," Alert 2 corresponded to "V. Light," Alert 3 corresponded to "Light," etc, but that doesn't match my play experience. However, it seems like Alert 1-2 is base "Ex. Light," Alert 3 is base "V. Light," Alert 4 is base "light," etc. Sometimes it seems like Alert 1-3 is base "Ex. Light," Alert 4 is base "V. Light," Alert 5 is base "light," etc. Does this match other people's experiences? Also, do people know if there is any difference between Ex. Light (1) and Ex. Light (2), and whether there is any benefit (beyond detection radius) to continuing to over-infiltrate once the number of enemies is extremely light?

I think it's fine that doing "Dash to Evac" above Ex. light (4-5 man) or V. Light (5-6 man) is a bad idea. Xcom is supposed to be a band of guerrilla operatives, striking from the shadows and then retreating before Advent can mobilize a proper response. Being a successful guerrilla means picking your targets carefully and not sticking around any longer than absolutely necessary.
The reinforcement pressure makes these missions tactically distinct from Troop Columns & Supply Raids, where you are fighting more enemies but can afford to be methodical. I find that Destroy Relay and Hack objectives are somewhere in between, since you only have half as much ground to cover.