How to tone down mission difficulty

[belhedler]

Hi,

First of all thanks for this redesign. The game feel fresh and much closer to its theme. That's great. However, this level of difficulty is unplayable for me even on Rookie. Btw I play casually XCOM 2 on Commander difficulty as I have done with XCOM.

I have a fair knowledge of the configuration file XComMissions.ini but I don't know how to change the effect of infiltration on the result.

If my analysis is correct the file says that ennemy number should be less or equal than 10 on level 1 normal infiltration (100%), or so I guess it is. And then it can reach 36 ennemies on level 20 and higher.

Point is, I don't understand why all of my 180% infiltration extremely light mission throws 28 ennemies at my poor 2 rookies / 1 caporal, not considering the reinforcements.

Is something wrong or is it per design?

Whatever, please tell me how to modify the overall number of ennemies the game throws at me. I could probably replace all pods definitions in the file but that would certainly be quite inefficient. Better would be to tune the infiltration effect. How do I do this?

[johnnylump]

Point is, I don't understand why all of my 180% infiltration extremely light mission throws 28 ennemies at my poor 2 rookies / 1 caporal, not considering the reinforcements.

Can you post a screencap of the infiltration UI (on the geoscape) right before you launch?

[belhedler]

I don't have the screenshots for this one but I do have a save and the screenshots for the previous mission I can describe in details.

I'm going to describe what I faced on this mission:
The mission I faced was likely Guerilla_D1_1_LW aka destroy relay ADVENT force 1:
- ADVENT threat level 1
- Infiltration rate 150%
- The relay had arround 20 HP
- There were 3 pods of 3 ennemies each: sectoid(3), ADVENT officer (1), ADVENT soldier (5); organized from left to right (P1, P2, P3)
- P2 and P3 pods were patrolling at less than 15 tiles of each other most of the time.
- P1 was stationary in the building closed to the objective and had most often LOS on second pod.
- Map was about 60 tiles large. Contact with P3 was immediate on first dashing move.
- Final ennemy count, including two reinforcements 17. Kills: 11. 1 lightly wounded. I don't have the screenshot for that though but I could replay the mission should it spawn the same way (what I'm unsure)
- 2 Reinforcments: 3 + 5
- Game difficulty: Rookie.

Launching screen:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... 3481449294

Squad composition:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... 3481447961

Is it a normal thing that pods are as large as what the mission is designed for even with higher infiltration rate? For reference here is the code of that mission:

+arrMissions=(MissionName="DestroyRelay_LW", sType="DestroyRelay_LW", \\
MissionFamily="DestroyObject_LW", \\
MapNames[0]="Obj_LWDestroyObject", \\
MapNames[1]="SubSystem_ContinuousRNF", \\
RequiredPlotObjectiveTags[0]="GuerillaOps", \\
RequiredParcelObjectiveTags[0]="DestroyRelay", \\
MissionObjectives[0]=(ObjectiveName="DestroyRelay", \\
bIsTacticalObjective=false, bIsStrategyObjective=true, bIsTriadObjective=false), \\
MissionSchedules[0]="Guerilla_D1_1_LW", \\
MissionSchedules[1]="Guerilla_D1_2_LW", \\
MissionSchedules[49]="Guerilla_D1_3_LW", \\
MissionSchedules[50]="Guerilla_D1_4_LW", \\
... etc
MaxSoldiers=10 \\
)

;----------------------------------------------------------------

; Guerilla Ops -- Hack and Recover
;-----------------------------------------------------------------

+MissionSchedules=(ScheduleID="Guerilla_D1_1_LW", \\
MinRequiredAlertLevel=0, MaxRequiredAlertLevel=1, \\
IdealXComSpawnDistance=48, \\
MinXComSpawnDistance=40, \\
EncounterZonePatrolDepth=14.0, \\
PrePlacedEncounters[0]=(EncounterID="OPNx3_Weak_LW", EncounterZoneOffsetAlongLOP=12.0, EncounterZoneWidth=36.0), \\
PrePlacedEncounters[1]=(EncounterID="ADVx3_Standard_LW", EncounterZoneOffsetAlongLOP=-7.0, EncounterZoneWidth=36.0), \\
PrePlacedEncounters[2]=(EncounterID="DKVx1_Chryssalid", EncounterZoneOffsetAlongLOP=-11.0, EncounterZoneWidth=10.0, \\
EncounterZoneDepthOverride=36.0, EncounterZoneOffsetFromLOP=0.0, IncludeTacticalTag="DarkEvent_InfiltratorChryssalid"), \\
PrePlacedEncounters[3]=(EncounterID="DKVx2_FacelessAndCivilians", EncounterZoneOffsetAlongLOP=5.0, IncludeTacticalTag="DarkEvent_Infiltrator"), \\
PrePlacedEncounters[4]=(EncounterID="Lone_Drone_LW", EncounterZoneOffsetAlongLOP=20.0, EncounterZoneWidth=45.0, EncounterZoneDepthOverride=45.0), \\
PrePlacedEncounters[5]=(EncounterID="Lone_Drone_LW", EncounterZoneOffsetAlongLOP=-10.0, EncounterZoneWidth=45.0, EncounterZoneDepthOverride=45.0) \\
)

+ConfigurableEncounters=(EncounterID="OPNx3_Weak_LW", \\
MaxSpawnCount=3, \\
OffsetForceLevel=-1, \\
LeaderInclusionExclusionCharacterTypes="NoTerrorOrBosses_LW", \\
FollowerInclusionExclusionCharacterTypes="NoTerrorOrBosses_LW")

Also is it normal for the mission type DestroyRelay_LW to use Guerilla_DX_Y_LW in its template?