Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

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Kwic
Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:13 pm

Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Kwic »

Hi,
I just finished my Legend run.

I had to reload maybe 5 missions that have would been a total wipe, reloaded 15ish for big mistake.
I use "2 perks" mod and "All soldier gain level". It means that the game is easier.

However, I had been able to build WAR suit at the very end of the game. I think I did 1 mission before the last one with WAR suits.
I had not enough Gatekeeper corpses tu buy the last tier of stunning pistols for all my assaults.
I had been able to build Fusion Blade very lately.

and I had to engage the last mission if I didnt want to be beaten by the avatar progress.

What I mean is, this game is so fun at the late game, but you can't access to the best stuff to have the best fun....
No time to train the soldiers with GTS or AWC.

Well, I think we should be able to play longer with high skilled soldiers for the fun, and not compelled to run for this fu...g avatar bar..

What do you think?
Last edited by Kwic on Tue Aug 08, 2017 7:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
JM01
Posts: 69
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 2:29 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by JM01 »

Kwic wrote:Hi,
I just finished my Legend run.

I had to reload maybe 5 missions taht have would been a total wipe, reloaded 15ish for big mistake.
I use "2 perks" mod and "All soldier gain level". It means that the gaim is easier.

However, I had been able to build WAR suit at the very end of the game. I think I did 1 mission before the lasr one with WAR suits.
I had not enough Gatekeeper corpses tu buy the last tier of stunning pisotl for all my assault.
I had been able to build Fusion Blade very lately.

and I had to engage the last mission if I didnt want to be beaten by the avatar progress.

What I mean is, this game is so fun at the late game, but you can't acces to the best stuff to have the best fun....
No time to train the soldiers with GTS or AWC.

Well, I think we should be able to play longer with high skilled soldiers for the fun, and not compelled to run for this fu...g avatar bar..

What do you think?
If anything the most frustrating part about XCOM is its super over reliance on RNG. The amount of RNG in this game is beyond dumb. Just about anything you do in the game has an RNG roll to it. Hell I'm surprised that the Geoscape navigation isn't an RNG roll to take you to a random place when you want to move to a location that is not the one you are currently at. The worst part is that when something is already too good they will balance it by just adding more RNG to it.

I really like XCOM but I REALLY wish the RNG would be cut down. We already have enough an d we don't need more. Funny enough though the things you mention are some of the few things you can actually control that aren't RNG (well except for the corpse distribution, that does kind of suck in its current state).
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Zork »

Kwic wrote:Hi,
I just finished my Legend run.

I had to reload maybe 5 missions taht have would been a total wipe, reloaded 15ish for big mistake.
I use "2 perks" mod and "All soldier gain level". It means that the gaim is easier.

However, I had been able to build WAR suit at the very end of the game. I think I did 1 mission before the lasr one with WAR suits.
I had not enough Gatekeeper corpses tu buy the last tier of stunning pisotl for all my assault.
I had been able to build Fusion Blade very lately.

and I had to engage the last mission if I didnt want to be beaten by the avatar progress.

What I mean is, this game is so fun at the late game, but you can't acces to the best stuff to have the best fun....
No time to train the soldiers with GTS or AWC.

Well, I think we should be able to play longer with high skilled soldiers for the fun, and not compelled to run for this fu...g avatar bar..

What do you think?
That's probably more a legend specific problem where you have to rush and even rush to finish the game. Is really at other difficulties you can't control enough the avatar bar to make the campaign longer even if you could finish it already?

Two points:
- The design is to avoid reach a state where you feel you have finish everything. For example for highest level equipment the price/scarcity of materiel is probably intended so you could build this stuff just for very few soldiers and slowly. I think it's important so for a player having the natural flow and pace, at end of game he shouldn't have done all.
- Some material can be rare to build some stuff that aren't final upgrade stuff. In my opinion it's a tuning flaw.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Zork »

JM01 wrote: If anything the most frustrating part about XCOM is its super over reliance on RNG. The amount of RNG in this game is beyond dumb. Just about anything you do in the game has an RNG roll to it. Hell I'm surprised that the Geoscape navigation isn't an RNG roll to take you to a random place when you want to move to a location that is not the one you are currently at. The worst part is that when something is already too good they will balance it by just adding more RNG to it.

I really like XCOM but I REALLY wish the RNG would be cut down. We already have enough an d we don't need more. Funny enough though the things you mention are some of the few things you can actually control that aren't RNG (well except for the corpse distribution, that does kind of suck in its current state).
It's a gambling game, most of the fun comes from achieving a gambling.

Most of the frustration comes from not have defined some gambling as a gambling. There's so many gambling that any player build a frontier to consider it's not anymore a gambling, and do many gambling actions without thinking of them really as a gambling. For example a player consider that a 90% shot isn't anymore a gambling, for some other it could even be 80%, or some some three 60% shot should guaranty at least one hit so isn't a gambling, and so on.

But no matter how the player build the scale, the RNG can do weird thing and that's the major source of frustration. There's perhaps some players that really consider any single action is a gambling but I have yet to see any let's play showing it.

Removes the gambling? For a different game sure, not for this series that is designed around it.

In my whole life I never enjoyed gambling games, cards, dices, not for me, I was playing chess, go, checkers, sports, and so on. And then came computer games. In my opinion random is so popular in many tactical or strategical games also because very few players want bother compute and plan complex tactics and can have fun to do it. The point is tactic is quite different than strategy, a tactic is easily destroyed by a little detail, so they require much more precise and deep analysis. And this requires time and concentration.

The random (and most often complex rules) just make impossible to build long precises tactics, so you have to build tactics one move ahead, rarely two ahead. This suits much better the fun of many more players, it makes the game lighter, faster to play, and some more positives.

XCOM2 pushes the random usage to extreme and it works because there's a lot more margins to win a mission, so 5 impossible miss or even one soldier dead won't end the mission. And even more there's also a lot of margin to allow totally lost some missions.

It's deliberate because the designers certainly consider that it's the main source of fun of the game, win a gambling, at least for majority of players. Any action the player is considering a gambling is rising the adrenalin from the risk of the possible gambling loss, and the joy to have succeed the gambling.

So to summarize, it's heavy gambling because:
- It's main source of fun for most players.
- It avoids make efficient to build long deep precise tactics. So it makes the play lighter and faster, and make the gameplay more compatible with more players.

EDIT: Why when you discover the series it hurts to realize how this turn based game feels like an action game. It's a lot because of the constant gambling and adrenalin spikes from gambling. Not only that, but a lot.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
llll BlackFlag
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon May 29, 2017 4:12 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by llll BlackFlag »

If you are frustrated and want to play for fun just lower the difficulty
Dong101
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu May 12, 2016 1:03 am

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Dong101 »

No. Frustration is not intended, despair is.

But seriously, this is my 1st LW2 game, playing at Veteran and honestman. I totally enjoyjng it. I did my homework prior and come to this forum for inspiration and help as needed. Ufopedia is a good sources of information althought not much details game mechanic.

However I started the game fully expecting a good wacking from the game. Turn out I am doing better than expected. Many hairy moment and some table fliping scenario but somehow the game make up for it.

I play very aggresdive expansion game in the early stage as I did know much about the strategy layer. Just seem like a good ideal at that time that to reach the black site asap after my 1st lib region. And I did as many missions that I can managed with 5 men squad. Ended up having a vigilant level that sliw down the the Avatar project by 78% in Dec. Now Avatar is 6 pips with 3 facilities, black site, gate cooirdinate and 5 HQ waiting for assault.
Kwic
Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:13 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Kwic »

llll BlackFlag wrote:If you are frustrated and want to play for fun just lower the difficulty

I am playing with fun at highest difficulty. What I mean is : they created gear you can NOT use, they created perks you can NOT learn. What is the point ?

I just stared a new campaign. I made some reload (big mistake, misclicks, soldier dying). and I have just built my first WAR armor before being compelled to do the last mission. I dont think I will be able to delay the final assault before I can built fire bombs, last tier of gun and so on..

That is only what I am saying, you have to do the final assault before you can research for all, except maybe if you are lucky enough to find facility leads that would reduce the avatar bar.
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Psieye »

Kwic wrote:That is only what I am saying, you have to do the final assault before you can research for all, except maybe if you are lucky enough to find facility leads that would reduce the avatar bar.
You don't need luck for that. Facility leads are really easy to find if you can do a timed mission with 1 day of infiltration. That means either a tiny stealth squad or a loud 8-man squad.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
hamds28
Posts: 37
Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:36 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by hamds28 »

Kwic wrote:
llll BlackFlag wrote:If you are frustrated and want to play for fun just lower the difficulty

I am playing with fun at highest difficulty. What I mean is : they created gear you can NOT use, they created perks you can NOT learn. What is the point ?

I just stared a new campaign. I made some reload (big mistake, misclicks, soldier dying). and I have just built my first WAR armor before being compelled to do the last mission. I dont think I will be able to delay the final assault before I can built fire bombs, last tier of gun and so on..

That is only what I am saying, you have to do the final assault before you can research for all, except maybe if you are lucky enough to find facility leads that would reduce the avatar bar.
1.5 includes some changes to bring some gear forward. The Adv Grenade Launcher at Mag tier was a good change.
Steve-O
Posts: 124
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:00 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Steve-O »

Kwic wrote: That is only what I am saying, you have to do the final assault before you can research for all, except maybe if you are lucky enough to find facility leads that would reduce the avatar bar.
If all you want to do is stop the Avatar Project so you can take your time at high levels, there is this mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =618935868
There's a thread in the mod's discussions with some ini changes to make it work with LW2.

I had similar experiences; I barely got WAR suits and plasma guns out the door before I was on the last mission. I was actually surprised, considering how much time I felt like I was spending in the early game, that it all came to a conclusion so quickly. That being said, I didn't mind too much, as I did have time enough to get my A-Team up to the top of their skill trees and kitted out with good weapons, just barely.
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by LordYanaek »

Also, 1.5 patch notes have this :
- Fixed code preventing facility construction throttling from firing
Not sure exactly how to understand it (English is a foreign language) but there is still something wrong with facilities so maybe AVATAR is increasing too fast (or too slowly ... i'm unsure of throttling meaning, looks like it can have several ...) :?
lumber-chick
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 8:03 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by lumber-chick »

I'm confused about all this moaning about Facility Leads being hard to find. In my games (veteran) by the tine i hit 8 regions unlocked, I gave 3-4 on Intel with scientist and 10+ rebels. The lead missions, some of which deliver Facility Lead, pop up freauently with 3 and 4 days left. With boost thats plenty of time. You can add some suppressors.

You just cannot rely on single region for all your intel, I wonder if this is what peopleare doing? Just optimize for long term number of regions active and you are good to go.
Kwic
Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:13 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Kwic »

Psieye wrote:
Kwic wrote:That is only what I am saying, you have to do the final assault before you can research for all, except maybe if you are lucky enough to find facility leads that would reduce the avatar bar.
You don't need luck for that. Facility leads are really easy to find if you can do a timed mission with 1 day of infiltration. That means either a tiny stealth squad or a loud 8-man squad.

How do you recognize mission that will give a facility lead ? I did a loooot of mission where the reward included "find a lead", but I never had a lead to research... Maybe not never , but I never knew where my lead came from when I discovered it in the research tree.
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by LordYanaek »

You can't recognize them for sure but you can guess which mission might be a facility lead.

Technical garbage ahead!
Facility Leads are rewards for missions generated by the Protect Data activity while regular Intel Package GOps are generated by the Protect Research activity. Here are the ini entries for those activities :

Code: Select all

[ProtectResearch X2LWAlienActivityTemplate]
iPriority=50
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=120.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=17
MaxAlert=10
MaxVigilance=10

MissionTree[0] =	(	MissionFamilies[0]="Hack_LW", \\
						MissionFamilies[1]="Recover_LW", \\
						MissionFamilies[2]="Rescue_LW", \\
						MissionFamilies[3]="Extract_LW", \\
						Duration_Hours=216, \\
						DurationRand_Hours=72 \\
					)

[ProtectData X2LWAlienActivityTemplate]
iPriority=55
RequiredRebelMissionIncome=5.0
DiscoveryPctChancePerDayPerHundredMissionIncome=35
MaxVigilance=12

MissionTree[0] =	(	MissionFamilies[0]="Hack_LW", \\
						MissionFamilies[1]="Recover_LW", \\
						MissionFamilies[2]="DestroyObject_LW", \\
						MissionFamilies[3]="Rescue_LW", \\
						MissionFamilies[4]="Extract_LW", \\
						Duration_Hours=216, \\
						DurationRand_Hours=96 \\
					)
As you can see, both can generate Recover and Hack missions (8-turn timer to "hack an objective") as well as Rescue or Extract (VIP missions - in the case of Facility Leads it seems like it's always a scientist). Facility Leads can never come from Destroy the Relay missions so you can rule those out.
Both have approximately the same duration (Protect Research is 9-12 days Protect Data is 9-13) but the former is much harder to detect!
With a very reasonable duration of 10 days, a size 10 haven (with 2 level 2 rebels) and a radio relay or scientist advisor would have the following detection chances (assuming no faceless and no facility in the region).
Protect Data
Protect Data
ProtectDataDetectionSimulation.png (18.14 KiB) Viewed 44344 times
Protect Research
Protect Research
ProtectResearchDetectionSimulation.png (18.52 KiB) Viewed 44344 times
As you can see, Protect Research is much harder to detect with a good infiltration timer.

Detection chance is better in regions with a Facility already present, which you can learn from the pop-up that shows when a new point is added to the doom clock. My simulator still doesn't consider this which is why i didn't have a graph for it but it can definitely help you detect them.
You can also see that the max vigilance for Protect Data is 10 which means that you probably won't see that mission in old havens where you already completed a lot of missions, especially if you took the network tower (which is annoying if you were planning to use the free tower to help you detect that mission).

TL-DR
Missions that give you facility lead are hard to detect. As a result they will usually be detected with low to very low infiltration timer. If you see a "bad" Intel Package mission with a short timer that you want to skip, it has a high chance of being a Facility Lead!
The best regions to fish for Facility Leads are relatively recent regions but with a large enough haven, especially if there's a facility (visible or hidden) in that region. Pay attention to the pop-ups when a new point is added to learn where facilities are.
lumber-chick
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Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by lumber-chick »

If I read the 2nd graph correctly, you are saying that there is 50% chance to detect that with 4.5 days to infiltrate. That is not hard at all if you look at large scale. I don't know where these spawn, but if you have 7 regions and just 2 spawn this mission, you get 75% chance to catch at least one. I don't know how many can spawn at once (assuming no more than Facilities, is that true?) but it's not really low if you consider they are independent from one another in terms of your chance to uncover them.

Also, you can have scientist AND relay AND avenger AND many more than 10 intel rebels AND more than 2 can be x2 value. That is huge, no?
Psieye
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Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Psieye »

lumber-chick wrote:That is not hard at all if you look at large scale.
Agreed, but it's another newbie trap that must be learned through experience or outside-game-reading. I once read a newbie complain he died to Avatar without ever seeing the doom bar because he never did a single Lib 1 anywhere: "why should I do a Find a Lead mission that doesn't offer an intel package?"

In that same way, by midgame you have not-quite-newbies who think they're getting a grasp of LW2. They're stretched and think "why should I risk doing this 4-ish day mission for just an intel package?" Then their campaign ends quickly because Golden Path alone can't stop the Avatar project if there's lots of facilities up.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
Kwic
Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:13 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Kwic »

Another question :

let's assume that you got the correct mission for the facility lead.

When the mission ends, do you directly have the facility research in the tree or you have to research a datapad or data cache ?

Thank you
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by LordYanaek »

lumber-chick wrote:If I read the 2nd graph correctly, you are saying that there is 50% chance to detect that with 4.5 days to infiltrate.
Provided my formulas are correct, yes.
That is not hard at all if you look at large scale.
I didn't really say they are hard to detect, i said they are much harder than regular hack/VIP missions. Look at the first graph, if you're interested in 50% chance (personally i prefer to look at something a little less random), you're looking at 7 days and a half.
I don't know where these spawn, but if you have 7 regions and just 2 spawn this mission, you get 75% chance to catch at least one. I don't know how many can spawn at once (assuming no more than Facilities, is that true?) but it's not really low if you consider they are independent from one another in terms of your chance to uncover them.
There can be max 2 in the world at any given moment and 1/region. In order to spawn you need to have less Facility Leads in storage (including those currently under research) than the number of hidden facilities.
Also, you can have scientist AND relay AND avenger AND many more than 10 intel rebels AND more than 2 can be x2 value. That is huge, no?
Sure you can, but you can also have a pair of faceless messing with your intel in a small size 5 haven! That example was actually pretty optimistic considering that :
  • the activity won't appear in regions with vigilance > 10, which means most of those old, full grown havens where you got a free relay from the liberation chain.
  • you're not likely to put a scientist advisor in every region and certainly can't scan with the Avenger everywhere. Without knowing where the activity will be created (it's not more likely to appear in regions with a facility, it's just easier to detect there), the chances to have all stars align is rather small.
Running the same test on the same size 10 haven but without a relay and with a faceless (in a size 10 haven you're more likely to have 2 of those than 1 until you got a rendezvous) puts the 50% mark down at 3d18h, the 80% mark at 1d18h and you can't reach the significant level of 95% to sort of "guarantee" you'll detect it. (once again, provided i got all the modifiers correctly).
Kwic wrote:Another question :

let's assume that you got the correct mission for the facility lead.

When the mission ends, do you directly have the facility research in the tree or you have to research a datapad or data cache ?

Thank you
You can research it immediately but it costs some intel to do the research so you might have to crack a datapad before.

I'm not saying it's impossible, my experience (on commander) is that it's quite possible to get a good amount of those leads during a campaign and i'm surprised when players say they can't find any. However my experience is also that most of my Leads came from ~3 days infiltration missions which are hard to correctly infiltrate with a normal GOp squad and that might explain why some players don't find any (and is coherent with those results).
The reason i was able to acquire a good amount of Leads was that i had a dedicated stealth squad for low infiltration "hack style" missions. I got one from a lucky Sci extraction i boosted to infiltrate with a real squad (i wanted the scientist, didn't even consider it could be a facility lead) but the rest of the 4-5 (not sure) i got came from stealth missions due to low timers.
lumber-chick
Posts: 24
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 8:03 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by lumber-chick »

Right. So we broadly agree it's definitely not that hard, I was just hearing lots of statements in the forums of the type "they are super hard to get otehr than with like 1-2 days to infiltrate", which was counter to my experience. Thank you for all the details!
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Zork »

In my opinion one more bad design detail pushing to tedious stealth missions. I can't understand how players find them fun past have tried a few. But ok at least at Easy, there's no problem and no need to do any Stealth mission.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by LordYanaek »

There's certainly other ways to approach those missions. Psieye will brute-force them with 8 guys for instance. I did a lot of 0% missions in my 1.2 campaign and didn't want to repeat this in my 1.4 run so i went for stealth since they are quite different from 1.2 stealth. I might try again 8-man in 1.5. It might also be possible to go for semi-stealth runs with a 4 guys squad with lot of infiltration reduction (Psi trooper, Shinobi, Camelon Suit ...) and try to control enemies (entirely control them and turn them against their camp).

The design is to push you to a number of different approaches (squad size, fight or stealth ...) rather then just use the same approach on every mission and i think it's a good thing. Having some stealth missions creates variety. It was tedious when stealth was the dominant strategy and every mission apart from HQ/Supply Raid/Troop Column was a stealth mission but now i think it's fine.
Zork
Posts: 151
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2017 3:58 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Zork »

Looks a bit out of topic but ok why not. I stopped watch most let's play because of the boredom of excessive number of stealth missions. If it's really that much balanced between 8 Squads and 1-3 Squads then quote me the let's play so I see it.

For my own experience, so play it myself, do Stealth mission is just total boredom, too basic, too many mechanisms I don't like at all (enemies knowing where everybody is, very long range sights, boredom civilians, lack of stealth options, many more).

So I can't argue about the squad sizes / infiltration mechanism / campaign management balances. Still I don't see what math balance it:
- Equipment to buy favor small squads.
- Wounds favor small squads.
- Mission XP favor small squads.
- More missions done favor small squads, there's no true bonus to do less missions overall.
- Bigger squad allows more enemies but not more XP per soldier.
- Infiltration favor small squads by providing much more flexibility.

This is counter balanced only by:
- On few missions types you get corpse and drops and then benefit of facing more enemies.

I don't see the Math explaining the balance you suggest.

EDIT: The infiltration mechanism provides to player a lot of flexibility, and that's a very good aspect, but that's probably why you feel it's balanced, but nope it's not balanced and clearly it wasn't the goal to balance anything, smallest quad is the goal, flexibility is coming from players choices not from mechanisms.
NOT a tactical/strategy expert player, playing LW2 at Easy. Rather old so I appreciate not be bothered by excessive familiarity, I'm not your friend and will never be. Refuse to learn English well so don't attempt learn it to me, thank you. :-)
hamds28
Posts: 37
Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:36 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by hamds28 »

I don't see how wound mechanics favour small squads. They seem to favour instead bringing enough soldiers to take as few wounds as possible, given that each wound is so expensive in terms of mission time lost. Having one soldier more infiltrating costs about 4+ soldier-mission days, and can save you 15-20 mission days. In the long run, the additional missions you can do by distributing your soldiers into bigger squads will exceed the temporary burst of infiltrations you can do by choosing the minimum number of soldiers that can survive that mission.
LordYanaek
Posts: 940
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 1:34 pm

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by LordYanaek »

Zork wrote:Looks a bit out of topic but ok why not. I stopped watch most let's play because of the boredom of excessive number of stealth missions. If it's really that much balanced between 8 Squads and 1-3 Squads then quote me the let's play so I see it.
What was the version of those LPs? In 1.2 3 men stealth was the norm on every GOp and 8/10 men 0% infiltration the norm on every Troop Column / Supply Train missions.
1.3 changed this so that medium sized squads (5-6) are usually the best for most missions, but smaller stealth is still an option and larger underinfiltrated another.
For my own experience, so play it myself, do Stealth mission is just total boredom, too basic, too many mechanisms I don't like at all (enemies knowing where everybody is, very long range sights, boredom civilians, lack of stealth options, many more).
Enemies don't know where everybody is in LW2 (with the exception of hack missions after you hack the objective and that will be fixed for 1.5).
I suggest you give the mod "Peek from Concealment" a try. You can change the effect of the mod (by editing the ini) so that it only changes 1 simple thing : you are not revealed when you reach the corner of a high cover (or any cover at elevation) even if you end up within reveal range of an enemy. Basically it allows you to sneak around a building, statue, whatever ... have a look at the street and see whether it's safe rather than having to "stealth" by walking in the middle of the road because corners are so dangerous. It's a single change that makes stealth much more realistic and enjoyable for me.
- Equipment to buy favor small squads.
I don't see how. If you can equip 12 soldiers, you can spread them in 4 tiny squads or 2 6-men squads, you still paid the same amount of money. Larger squads can live with part of the soldiers using outdated gear more easily than small ones so you could also spread the 12 soldiers with good gear in 4 squads without being forced to deploy 3-men squads.
- Wounds favor small squads.
Only if every soldier is wounded every battle. Larger squads are actually less likely yo suffer from wounds because they can remove threats faster. The specialists from my stealth squad were frequently down for several weeks due to the critical wounds suffered (i had 2 so i could deploy one while the other was in the medbay), something that was quite rare for the soldiers of my regular 5-6 men squads.
- Mission XP favor small squads.
Yes, provided you actually win the mission and survive which isn't really guaranteed.
I've done stealth missions with a heavily specialized squad but was never sure i would be able to finish them. I had to evac before completion more than once and even had a stealth mission where i had to abandon and suffered wounds. I did those pure stealth missions not because they were an easy way to win those missions but because they gave me some chance to complete missions i wouldn't even have been able to attempt with a regular squad. I certainly wouldn't field small stealth squads regularly when i have time to properly infiltrate a 5-6 men squad.
- More missions done favor small squads, there's no true bonus to do less missions overall.
Of course there's no bonus to doing less missions, but it doesn't mean you need small squads, it means you need enough soldiers to field the correct number of squads. If you only attempt tiny squads stealth missions you're also loosing the loot (not the corpses, but the weapon enhancements, elerium cores, datapads ...)
- Bigger squad allows more enemies but not more XP per soldier.
Except that bigger squads actually allow you to kill enemies rather than just hide in a corner, and you get XP for killing stuff (even if it's less than the Mission XP)
- Infiltration favor small squads by providing much more flexibility.
Only if you want to infiltrate as much as possible. Psieye is doing a lot of under-infiltrated missions and wins them because he's bringing large squads. I used smaller squads (mostly 5 or 6 guys but sometimes as little as 2 guys) and tried to infiltrate as much as possible. To me it's a perfect example of balance when 2 radically different strategies can be successful.
EDIT: The infiltration mechanism provides to player a lot of flexibility, and that's a very good aspect, but that's probably why you feel it's balanced, but nope it's not balanced and clearly it wasn't the goal to balance anything, smallest quad is the goal, flexibility is coming from players choices not from mechanisms.
Glad to see you can so clearly read the developer's mind even when they stated the exact opposite!
Sorry for being snarky but have you even tried to bring larger squads? You're saying yourself that players have a lot of flexibility but then you say that it doesn't come from the mechanisms, but those mechanisms are what allows the flexibility. If the mechanisms weren't what they are, we couldn't make choices, we would play like vanilla XCOM2, always bringing as many soldiers (if 6 can really be considered many) as our current research allows (as if we had to research special training to have more than 4 guys work as a team).
Psieye
Posts: 829
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:27 am

Re: Is frustration intended for XCOM 2

Post by Psieye »

LordYanaek wrote:
- Equipment to buy favor small squads.
I don't see how.
Because it's wrong. Equipment favours large squads. The important thing is for equipment to get used as often as possible - high tech equipment does nothing while the squad infiltrates. If you go with the stubborn insistence that every mission must be 100% infiltrated, then you'd favour small squads as you do missions faster. But large squads can win with less infiltration time than small squads - you're just outnumbered 3 or 4 times over. Provided you don't fuck up, your equipment comes back so even if you have to replace the users of the equipment, the equipment keeps being used frequently.

Now, you don't have to under-infiltrate to use this principle. Retals, both full and mini, don't require infiltration. Farming for retal missions lets you get excellent return-on-investment for expensive gear.
LordYanaek wrote:
- Mission XP favor small squads.
Yes, provided you actually win the mission and survive which isn't really guaranteed.
- Bigger squad allows more enemies but not more XP per soldier.
Except that bigger squads actually allow you to kill enemies rather than just hide in a corner, and you get XP for killing stuff (even if it's less than the Mission XP)
Again, if you can win flawlessly while outnumbered up to 4 times over, mission XP favours large squads. Mission XP is 4 times higher when winning a Swarming mission than an E.Light mission. Your squad is twice as large but each soldier still gets twice as much mission XP. That's before considering the scary amount of kill XP that comes through: my snipers hit MSGT in June unless I'm making them officers.
My three 8-man GOp squad Commander campaigns:
1st
2nd
3rd
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