My Long War of the Chosen ideas

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8wayz
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Re: My Long War of the Chosen ideas

Post by 8wayz »

Well, it is not random at all if you pay attention to what is happening during the mission. For example the Reaper can only take a shot or two during the whole mission, but takes a lot of fatigue due to revealing pods. It is actually the second most fatigue soldier, after the one who took most of the shots on that mission.

What is great is that the Focus PCS is of a lot of help. It can help you go on two missions back to back without having to rest a lot.
dethraker
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Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:17 pm

Re: My Long War of the Chosen ideas

Post by dethraker »

sarge945 wrote:Fatigue System

Currently, the fatigue system works in that if a soldier is tired after a mission, they must take a risk if they go on another mission which could result in them gaining a negative trait. The amount of fatigue a soldier gains during a mission seems to be mostly random. I know it is based on some factors, but they are so difficult to keep track of it can seem arbitrary.

Being able to risk a soldier by taking them on a mission while tired is actually a really great system though, however it clashes with the idea of infiltrating to a degree, as both systems serve to limit the amount of missions you can send an specific soldier on.

I think both systems could be merged. Halve the time needed to infiltrate, but require all soldiers to rest for the same amount of time after each mission, or risk a negative trait.

This allows emergencies where we can take more powerful troops along for a high-value mission, while risking having to put them in the tube for 10 days, which is actually a really good mechanic and could add a lot more depth.

Secondly, by splitting the waiting time for a squad (instead of front-loading it which is what the infiltration system does), it could reduce a lot of the empty time spent waiting around, which I know BeagleRush complained about a lot, and is probably annoying for a lot of people.

So basically, instead of being:

INFILTRATE for 8 days, then do a mission, then soldiers are good to go (assuming no wounds, etc)

It would be:

INFILTRATE for 4 days, do mission, all soldiers must rest for 4 days or risk negative traits. Obviously wounded soldiers would be able to rest and heal at the same time.

Since all soldiers would be tired at the end of a mission, and for a predetermined amount of time, this would effectively make the will bar completely useless. Enter...

Covert Missions

This system is fantastic and would fit into long war really well. I could see it being tied into the region management system a little more though. For example, instead of having faceless haven missions be effectively random based on the level of the haven advisor, I would instead have a covert operation, something along the lines of "Interrogations", which roots out faceless. I would have another one for tracking down Convoys (which would instantly create a convoy mission instead of having to roll the dice) etc.

The Pavinos team could do a lot with these.
I mentioned this in another thread but just want to touch on it with a bit more detail after getting some time to think on it. I feel that alone Infiltation and Fatigue CANNOT work well together, sure you can half the time for one and reduce the effects of the other...but that's not a solution, it's just a reduction in the problem. I also noticed another mention that you could just have fatigue be reduced while on Infiltration...but then Infiltration becomes easier and less of a punishment.

My suggestion is a merging of the Covert Ops and Infiltration systems and leaving the Fatigue system alone. The Fatigue system in XCom 2 is meaningful and well thought out, it doesn't artificially force soldiers out of missions but gives you reason to not want to take them in order to allow them to rest up and not risk panic, negative traits, and even possible soldiers losses due to bad timing on the panic. Infiltration is an interesting mechanic that never really felt complete, it always felt like it was just there to force you into getting more items and using more soldiers. Using the Covert Ops I feel that Infiltration could finally be something that feels complete.

Scenario:
1) A mission pops up, the time on the mission is available as usual and you can choose to go on the mission or do Infiltration, once again as usual.
2) You choose Infiltration because there's plenty of time - gearing out squad has a bigger impact though, gear can increase/decrease the chance that you are discovered [soldier is injured, etc.] and if discovered it spawns a mission
3) Mission Types hack or assassinate could be the types spawned if caught [better than the same exact map/mission type in vanilla already] so you either have to hack a terminal to prevent them from sending the alert or kill a person/squad that noticed you.
4) Assassinate could include a bunch of turrets and MECs that way it kinda makes sense that only this one person can alert others to your presence.
5) Depending on the success or failure of your Infiltration the readiness of the enemy is modified and you choose a new squad [or use the same one] to send on the mission.

This system still makes you require multiple items, multiple squads of soldiers to rotate, and even adds in the requirement of needing items/gear to suit 2 different playstyles if you want to maximize on benefits but doesn't require splitting in half the negatives of each of the systems. The Infiltration squad will gain fatigue and the Mission squad will gain fatigue respective to the amount of work they had to do. A successful Infiltration leads to less Fatigue for that squad and subsequently less Fatigue for the squad you send on the mission because you reduced the amount of enemies they'd run into.

This also removes one of my most hated things, being unable to equip your squad with the new gear that you got the day after you were forced to start the Infiltration. You still get to gear out the Mission squad right before launching on the mission and that gear doesn't get locked away for 5 days because for some idiotic reason we can't send in a fresh squad at the time that the Infiltration squad tells us is the best.

This concept could be taken further by removing the timer completely and not always allowing Infiltration, the Infiltration will be similar to Covert Ops that it tells you how many days it is going to take if you choose to do the Infiltration the mission remains up until its over otherwise you must do the mission or it disappears. If the option doesn't appear that just means there wouldn't be enough time to make any meaningful changes before opportunity would no longer be available.
cryptc
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2017 8:35 am

Re: My Long War of the Chosen ideas

Post by cryptc »

dethraker wrote:
sarge945 wrote: This also removes one of my most hated things, being unable to equip your squad with the new gear that you got the day after you were forced to start the Infiltration. You still get to gear out the Mission squad right before launching on the mission and that gear doesn't get locked away for 5 days because for some idiotic reason we can't send in a fresh squad at the time that the Infiltration squad tells us is the best.
Really? I find when I have to infiltrate with one tier of weapons and get upgrades while infiltrating, maybe even doing other missions with the new gear before I get the old mission (especially with liberation missions), some of the most fun missions I play.

It's like "well atleast I have laser weapons... oh right, this squad was sent before I got that", a bit like in Ender's Game if you've read the book (I can't remember if the point got across as clearly in the movie). Having the game have some peaks and valleys in difficulty is what makes it engaging to me, since when you get to endgame and have everything you need, every mission is basically about the same difficulty, which is kinda dull.

And generally I like any system that forces me to forgo micromanagement of gear back and forth, since that's some of the least engaging part of xcom (I only grudgingly accept it as good that there is limited weapon numbers because this gives excellent strategic depth, even though it increases micromanagement).
Jacke
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Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 1:10 am

Re: My Long War of the Chosen ideas

Post by Jacke »

The one thing no one mentions is that the WotC fatigue system doesn't seem to affect ADVENT. Guess it's not necessary. In Darkest Dungeon, the cultists and beasties never break down the way your adventurers do. Nor do the cultists and Eldritch horrors fought in Call of Cthulhu go mad the way PC's and NPC's can.

That is an interesting parts of Grimy's. Also Grimy's Moral Mod isn't just a strategic issue, it's a tactics one too. In WotC, do XCOM soldiers fully rested ever break in the middle of their next deployment?

EDIT: And I see from reading @dethraker's post above that XCOM soldiers apparently can break even from fully rested.

As for requiring Infiltration, I like it. The stock behaviour of sending out troops right now and having them instantly in combat just doesn't feel right. In the real world, even if in the position of superiority that ADVENT is, deciding to deploy doesn't get forces into action immediately. And even moreso for an insurgency like XCOM, which needs to deploy its forces in secrecy, get them close to the mission area, strike quickly, then break contact and exfiltrate without revealing the location of other hidden XCOM forces and allies.

And improving things in a hidden mobile lab like the Avenger isn't delivering the new toys to the troops already out in the bush and towns sneaking and fighting.
LordYanaek
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Re: My Long War of the Chosen ideas

Post by LordYanaek »

Soldiers loose Will during the mission so if by "breaking up" you mean getting low will and panic, yes they can.
They can't OTOH gain a negative trait during the mission, it always appears when you get back to the Avenger. However a soldier can gain a negative trait even if he was "green" (not tired) when you deployed him if he lost a lot of will during the mission (such as by being shot a lot), this somewhat replaces the "shaken" condition.
Shaken is now a temporary effect when Will gets really low. Unlike tired soldiers, shaken soldiers are treated like wounded soldiers and are totally unavailable for deployment.

I don't have issues with the current infiltration system but as i said in another discussion, switching the main rotation mechanism to fatigue would allow infiltration to become an interesting strategic option that would make the tactical missions easier at the cost of doing less of those. It would also completely solve the issue of spamming missions with large squads for those who can win them as the fatigue would still force you to rotate soldiers.

Using covert ops to simulate infiltration might be an interesting idea but would probably complicate infiltration a lot and if you risk having to fight 2 missions rather than one, it might actually make infiltrating missions rather than go loud a bad idea. I don't like the idea of switching squads after the "covert" mission. I think it should remove the infiltration bonus as you're actually bringing an unprepared squad rather the one who carefully infiltrated the area.
sarge945
Posts: 124
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 1:47 am

Re: My Long War of the Chosen ideas

Post by sarge945 »

Just one quick thing to add.

If you guys keep the ability that lets you recruit a random Advent on a mission, I'd like to see that expanded in a few ways. Firstly, they are expendable, so if they die it shouldn't count towards your mission rating. Secondly, maybe keeping them alive could have some benefits, like a small Intel boost at the end of the mission.

Lastly, their loot tables are silly. I rushed in an Advent sanic (stun Lancer) and when he died he dropped a superior scope and information on the chosen. If they are capable of dropping loot, I'm incentivised to kill them every mission, which isn't in the spirit of Xcom. I know they are expendable, but purposely killing them is something else
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