3tamatulg wrote:2. Rein in the silly hyperbolic rewards of maximum squad size supply raids (
ideas here).
I keep reading this, and some people keep implying these missions are exploitable when in truth it's a risky two-hour slog with proportional rewards. It
is an option to infiltrate with a smaller squad, trading rewards for safety.
So on the one hand you have a select group of Legend players who can reliably tackle these missions largely unscathed. Just because a tiny elite can do so doesn't mean they're broken. Especially in the case of joinrbs, an LW2 tester with hundreds of hours played and inside-out knowledge of the mod. If there's
really an issue and the majority of Legend players think this is a walk in the park (I doubt it), the solution is to tweak things for Legend and Legend only.
If it's really necessary, a finite amount of large reinforcements to mess up your positioning would spike the difficulty: even if some would have an easy-ish time, dealing with many enemies at once means maintaining control, riding the knife's edge knowing that if you allow the enemy to act you expose yourself to losses. Dropping a pod on your flank while you're engaging another one on your front should lead to some hair-tearing experiences.
If there's lower difficulty players routinely wiping the floor with 45-50 enemies with little consequence, then they're probably playing on the wrong level and can't really complain things are too easy. 45-50 enemies are going to be 45-50 enemies no matter the mission type, and if the opposition consequently needed a buff (I don't think so), it'd have to be across the board.
If save-scumming is involved in any capacity, any criticism in said context is largely invalidated given you can cheese most anything with it.
3tamatulg wrote:Idea B: There's a chance that the mission will "turn hot" - when you go in the aliens are at full alert, but there will be no timer. Maybe based on vigilance or strength in the region. Fluffwise, the aliens have decided that the thing they're guarding is too valuable to deny you by destroying it so they're going to fight you instead.
If the aliens are on full alert, you can expect frequent reinforcements, to the point a handful of operatives just wouldn't make it. The whole idea of infiltration is that ADVENT's an overwhelming enemy and you have to hit them when they're relatively weak and unaware. Might as well just abort if they're tipped off.
3tamatulg wrote:Idea C: There's a chance of bonus objectives which only get given to you after landing, such as killing a specific alien or blowing up specific piece of terrain. Doing these objectives could extend the timer/delay reinforcements making them viable only if the squad's big enough.
This I like. It'd require some balancing, but it'd be nice if calling for reinforcements were an actual action by some unit types instead of an automatic, timed thing. Or sensor objects, too. Say, a "lamp post" could technically keep its detection range even past the concealment phase: stepping on it once you've been spotted either draws on-map enemies to your location or calls for reinforcements if there's no ADVENT currently on-site.
There could also be a hacking challenge somewhere in there (not necessarily on the lamp posts), which could either delay or disable reinforcements for the mission entirely.
However, I don't see how squad size would have anything to do with these options being available or not. It's not unreasonable to have these mechanics at all times. In small infiltrations, they just wouldn't be necessary for the most part, but would be an interesting wrinkle if things go sour and you need some breathing room.