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XCOM 2 >  Workshop > Pavonis Interactive's Workshop > Long War 2 > Discussions
Long War 2
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Mega 11 Mar, 2017 @ 2:25pm
Balance Feedback
Alright, I started this thread for two main reasons. First, I wanted to thank Pavonis for an excellent mod that I am sure took an incredible amount of passion and dedication to put together, and that enabled us players to take another stab at a game that we loved so much but got tired of so far as "Vanilla" goes.

Second, and that being said, I wanted to vent my frustration with a mod that I believed could have been a masterpiece, but unfortunately turned my life into a frustrating hell the past few weeks.

Let me start by saying that I am 30+ of age, lead a professional life (except for the 10s of hours I put in gaming over the weekend), and have 20+ years of experience playing strategy games. I have spent 1000+ hours on XCOM (all games combined), and play exclusively on Ironman. My goal is to give honest, and balanced feedback of what my experience felt like.

Over the course of the past month, I have played multiple campaigns with the aim of winning fair & square, while endorsing the "spirit of LWS". Understandably, this would include different expectations from Vanilla. For example,
1. Do not expect to be able to go on all missions.
2. Some missions are expected to be stealth-ed (mostly early on).
3. War will be long and at times there will be some grinding.
4. You are expected to, and will lose soldiers. This is reality.
5. There will be frustration at certain times as long wars are not about winning every time.
etc...

Unfortunately, and even after embracing all of the above, I found myself being frustrated way too much, often cursing at the screen, and at times feeling horrible (for example, after I lose a top soldier to a random 5% crit (one-shot through half-cover) which inevitably (and repetetively happens, or have one die as they are gunned down by a disoriented enemy across the screen). Especially late game, and as Dark Events stack up, confrontations become more intense (i.e much more HP, armor, crit chance to Advent), and longer this becomes almost the norm. Every mission, I will lose one soldier or rack up 2-4 casualties, and that is only on "Veteran" difficulty, when I used to win almost every game I played on Vanilla, Iron Man "Commander" difficulty.

I know some people will say that this is what LW2 is aiming for, to be "real", but I don't believe that to be true. LW2 is about having fun first and foremost, with occasional hiccups or losing soldiers. However, to play an almost perfect game, and still walk away with losses and frustration because balance is broken at times, and randomness is too much - in my opinion - breaks the game. I believe LW2 was meant to be about having fun, in a higher depth, longer, more immersive experience. Pavonis, in order to do that, you need a more strict balance, where good play is rewarded, and where the player is protected from absolute randomness (i.e where you lose soldiers mostly because you made a tactical or strategic mistake, not because it is an "unlucky roll", or because that is the expectation).

I have ideas to improve balance, but I wrote too much already, and I don't want to take more space. Sorry for the long post! Regardless, thanks for a great mod and all your hard work.
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Showing 1-7 of 7 comments
ThugSnugmeat 11 Mar, 2017 @ 11:51pm 
THAT'S XCOM BABY
#1
AlienObserver 12 Mar, 2017 @ 1:28am 
I concur and have posted similar post allready. Frustration level is too high and there is no positive feedback for doing things right. Playing games IS about fun and and having a rewarding experience.

I am also approaching 50 and have played Computer games pretty much since they exist, starting with Pong. Make it difficult, thats ok, but random "You loose, game over" events may have happened in very early computer games but since then it has been figured out that this is not how games should be. The problems of LW2 are such basic game design failures that it should be very embarrasing for any game designer to be reminded of those issues.
#2
Mega 12 Mar, 2017 @ 4:34pm 
Thank you. I read your posts as well, and agree very much. Difficulty can be adjusted based on player preference (i.e. Rookie LW2 is too easy for me, even on Iron Man, so I increased difficulty to Veteran. At the same time, Commander would be impossibly frustrating for me, so I don't even want to go there). On the other hand, balance is about the ability to produce consistent results, based on the player's skill or mistakes regardless of what level of difficulty he chooses depending on his mastery of the game. This is what we mean by "balance". It's a system that protects good performance, and punishes blunders in a reliable (by default non-random) manner.

Current fixes to LW2 balance in my opinion do not need to change the mechanics of the game. I actually enjoy them very much, and find Veteran Ironman to be fair 95% of the time. What would improve it would be introducing a fix to reduce absolute/extreme randomness that ruin the game that 5% of the time.

You can introduce a system similar to Vanilla that would modify rolls depending on the degree of luck the player is experiencing. For examplle, if the player misses two 85% rolls, the game can internally increase his chance to hit on the next shot. On the other hand, if Advent hits a 15% crit, it could reduce the aim of their following shot to prevent clustering of extremely bad luck in one jolt. Those extremely unlucky rolls are what usually produces sudden soldier deaths, or the loss of a 50+ hr campaign without the player actually having made any major mistakes.

The reason I'm giving this suggestion is because I truly believe LW2 can be one of the best mods/games ever made. It just needs to keep its current mechanics (maybe with some future tweaks) and reduce patient frustration by creating an internal anti-randomness counter. Players will still lose soldiers and campaigns, but only if they play badly, but it will eleminate the occurence of extremely unlucky series of rolls resulting in more consistency and with that more fun for the player.
#3
AlienObserver 13 Mar, 2017 @ 5:25am 
My wish would be to have some more strategic control of the game. Right now it does not feel like a strategy game, as I dont have (much) control over key mechanics like dark events, advent strength and the mission finding process. The game designers announced proudly, that early decisions will have an impact much later. Right now this statement is far from the truth. I want my decisions to matter, but right now this game feels like post-democracy, its all fake choices and you allways loose.

The reason is that "bad luck" adds up. If chance has you finding an important mission late, even with ten rebels and a scientist on intel gathering, there is not much you can do to stop its effects from happening, that in turn can initiate worse effects. Bad luck, in the currrent state of the game, can be like an avalanche, snowballing you out of the game no matter what you do. As there is no game mechanic to stop that avalanche, I consider the game broken.
Last edited by AlienObserver; 13 Mar, 2017 @ 5:25am
#4
AlienObserver 13 Mar, 2017 @ 8:46am 
The magic change, that would be very easy to implement, and solve lots of issues for me, would be to do away with impossible missions with close to zero infiltration time. From a meta game design point of view, they are really a "no go". Dangling the mission that would prevent the dark event in front of you with 3 hours infiltration time is so stupid. It serves no purpose other than showing that whoever designed this messed it up.

Make mission detection 100% 2.5 days before the event expires. Make it a tough choice to do a mission with short infiltration time, but make it a choice. Showing the gamer the things he can't do, because some random dice roll in the game fell against him, is just bad game design beyond compare. I really cant think of a game in the recent decades that did something equally annoying, and annoying, is what games really should not be.
#5
TRJoker 13 Mar, 2017 @ 11:15am 
Pavonis works on it, they will make an excellent mod out of this masterpiece by the time ...
I trust in them ...
I meanwhile play on Rookie ... with tactical supressor mod ... and ... on this difficulty you can counter the flaws the mod has, cause its not so hard if you loose a squad ... you get plenty of resources in any way on Rookie. Much more then you really need, so its still frustrating some times, but ... it does not end your campaign when you get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by the balancing or luck.
And i have fun with it, more then frustration.
Will win my campaign within the next days ... and after I will start a new try on Veteran, with tactical supressor mod (this mod gives you really a lot of tatical extra options) .. and perhaps, with all I did learn meanwhile and my new way to play this kind of games ... more stealthy ... I will have a chance ... smile.
If not ... ok, I wait for a balance patch ... hehe.
#6
Mega 13 Mar, 2017 @ 2:17pm 
But the problem with playing at Rookie is that it's too easy for some people, and as such, poses no challenge. What I am hoping for is a Rookie/Veteran/Commander/Legend Difficulty that can reproduce varying level of challenge but in a consistent/balanced manner. This would mean less randomness & more control for the player at whatever difficulty he chooses.

So far, from my own thoughts, and from what I've read, here are some ideas that don't revampe the game mechanics completely but can decrease frustration by a lot for most players.

1. Adding an internal "anti-luck" mechanism (at least for Rookie & Veteran) that adjusts for XCOM misses (at least on high chance shots), and for enemy hits (especially crits on low chance shots!) by making the enemy less likely to hit on subsequent shots. If the player made some terrible decisions he will still lose (i.e flanked soldier attacked with 3 x 70% shots will still die), but it would be fair then.
2. When the Dark Events monthly report appears, allow the player to "focus/pick" one of them to make it much easier to detect. This will give players choice, and allows them to reliably counter (or otherwise suffer the consequences) at least one nasty event a month.
3. Alternatively, and what might be a better idea, allow the player to research a current Dark Event. At the end, they can go on a mission to remove it! That would add a great deal of control, and is fair and gratifying. It also makes sense for a commander. You would want to actively gain intel on the most dangerous current enemy activity, and sabotage it. Naturally, this should be too resource intensive/time demanding to do too often, but remains viable to remove the most annoying of Dark Events.
4. Stop the automatic "Emergency Off-World reinforcements" that increase Advent STR dramatically if XCOM is doing well (i.e Vigilance > Severe). Reward good play by slowing Advent STR ramping up, not by increasing their STR anyway.

If anyone can think of more ideas, put them out. Randomness (i.e cheap shots), and having no control of Dark events are current balance breakers. I believe that if they start by fixing those, then balance will improve significantly.
#7
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