I had suggest a lot of things but a unique little bonus to one each country you control with a satellite so even you lose your continental bonus you got a reason to keep defending remain countries other than cash/panic/ufo shooting
First up: LWR is the only way to play XCOM. It's that insanely good. Here are some notes from my 5th playthrough (this time: Dynamic Classic Iron). I will come back to this and add / modify my notes so that end of April, they may be actually useful.
- Because of a mix of mods (LWR & SquU2) on my side, aliens shot down a lot of satellites and brought the mid-game to a back-and-forth of losing 2 countries and then winning them back via alien base assaults. Surprisingly, this "war for Brazil" turned out rather fun
Adding more base assaults into a campaign isn't a bad thing
Give the player more agency to decrease panic but increase the events that gradually build panic
Make Base Assaults more accessible (5->3 or 4 Outsider Shards per Key), maybe even have aliens build a base in a not-yet-panicked country which - if not raided - adds 2-5 panic per day
That being said, the total inability to hinder aliens from shooting down a satellite when all your fighters are in repair / too weak was just frustrating.
Intercepting a UFO on course to down a satellite should have a much larger impact on it aborting its search unsuccessfully, especially if it was hit in the encounter. XCOM hurting aliens without all-out defeat has almost no tangible impact both in air combat and in tactical missions -> it would be much more motivating and arguably tactical if it had almost the same effect at least after ~50% damage done (and gradually until then), just without XCOM gaining any resources.
Similarly, intentionally doing missions not to win them, but to damage the alien operation and retreating with all XCOM units would - had this a visible and tangible impact on the game - a very interesting new approach to doing ("sting") missions imho.
Airship downtimes are still very punishing, especially because damaged ones cannot be moved (even though repair teams do help) -> buff repair speed +10%, add second foundry project to reduce repair times ~ +20%, make ship transfer possible while repairing (perhaps for added days in repair, or only after a foundry project)
Panic increases on satellite take-downs are too brutal. A downed satellite always meant the country was unsavably lost and that felt too harsh on Classic -> reduce panic from lost satellite significantly (e.g. flat -20 or -2 by country defense level)
Why oh why does a country leaving XCOM automatically destroy the satellite above it even if it has not been shot down by an UFO? -> fix, this makes little sense (country just loses faith in XCOM, it does not become outright hostile to actively shoot down a satellite)
Fighters taking 12h to refuel is an odd mechanic in times where you have air-to-air refuelling irl. A fun way to make undamaged fighters usable twice against an UFO could be to make swapping weapons cost only 0-2h while rearming stays at 12h. Thus, if a player has other (e.g. old / worse) aircraft weapons in stock they could be swapped immediately for a second interception, otherwise the fighter would have to wait until rearmed. Alternatively, a "speed rearm" button much like the repair crew one for 25-50$ could be added.
- There is still a surpring amount of Meld around -> could get nerfed 20% (or by 1 turn) imho - The amount of Meld Canisters would be an interesting addition to the tactical mission prep screen after a foundry project etc. - Mind Control "coming to" is OP. Make soldiers whose mind control is broken panic or disoriented or idk what but don't let them be hostile for a full further turn. Assaults or MECs on Mind Control mean that you instantly know that one of your other soldiers is going to die 70% of the time with you idly standing by (if not by chance you land a disabling shot). At least let Inspire etc. be a way to make them come back without turning on their own friends. At worst, make them die themselves, not kill a random one of their squadmates. It's so **** frustrating. - This has probably been asked a few thousand times: will Squadron 2 be implemented...? (I know it's intentional I just love the strategic layer). - Explosives need to be buffed in environmental damage. Like, big time. A rocket flying straight into a building wall and letting it (and all the bookcases around it) stand is both not immersive and takes tactical joy out of them. I found Rocketeers, Engineers and Infantry to be much less useful in this playthrough. - The Scout hit-and-run ability is a bit lackluster imho. Give the guy a free shot on any, at least any flanked enemy. Double-tap and overwatch soldiers just outplay him later on. - Gunners and Medics on overwatch are fun again! - I still think it's a shame that most items won't be used during the average players campaign. They're just not good and especially - original - enough compared to the basic weapon types. While arc weapons are a tiny bit too punishingly bad when used against non-mechanics to take them on most missions, I love the tiktaktoe - approach of the specialised plasma weapons - this idea should be strongly used in weapons and weapon subtypes as well.
Add late-game foundry projects to make it worthwhile to bring e. g. (even more armour piercing) Gauss against CDisks and pulse lasers against Mutons even on the last mission. Let LMGs shred psionics, SMG hits block the Thin Men acid ability or Pin Grenades disorient Cryssalids and so on. Having a team with diverse weapon subtypesshould be an advantage!
Add effects that under-used weapon subtypes only get when used by a specialised class: e.g. SMGs on Medics = first Med-Gel application is a free action, Acid Grenades on Rocketeers and Engis double environmental damage; Carbines on Engineers add +10 to their Mech heal, SMGs give them +1 grenade, just taking a pistol weapon gives +1 item use and / or double tap (making a pistol build viable and buffing "alien catchers")...
- Thank god for 100% capture chances again at low health - even though this could be nerfed since there is Maim -> 100% only on 1-2 health (instead of 3-4) but instead no Charge lost on unsuccessful stun (the latter effect could be another item) - alternatively, unsuccessful stuns could disorient instead - Champion plasma shields are... well. Probably working as intended. Still, they prolong fights to a point that they get tedious. Maybe let them be shattered by explosive or shred damage or add an item to at least circumvent them. The mechtoid-sectoid synergy is generally more fun than this. - Soldier downtimes are still high, even though Meld infusion helps somewhat. Give the player an (expensive) foundry project (as with aircraft, an expensive "stage 2" of the existing project would be enough) to further reduce fatigue and especially injury downtimes. If nescessary, increase the chance of soldier and pilot (SU2) deaths, but don't let the midgame be a waiting game. I'm running an XCOM operation, not a scrap yard and an infirmary.
You don't need to take the time to answer here, I'm just happy if you read this and give it any thought. Your continued support for this project makes XCOM worthwhile, Commander; and this is not a statement this Council makes lightly.
TYVM for continuing with this top notch mod! I'd like to see a fix in the future: the save/load loadout buttons for shivs are disabled. Can they work? Please?
That's a mod that was added in (loadout manager by tracktwo). I don't understand the code but from what I've read he could never get loadouts working for the SHIVs (and he's a better programmer than I am). So I don't think I'd be able to either. You could ask @szmind on the discord though as he's REALLY good at programming and might be able to add it if you asked him nicely.
Please, may we know what are the perk numbers (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Dev_Console_(Long_War)#Other_commands) in the ufopedia page (https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php/Abilities_List_(LWR))? They could be posted right after the Perk name. E.g.: Absorption Fields #142. That would be the extremely useful when dealing with perks renamed in LWR. Currently, it require searching DGC.ini for a few cases, such as "Acid Tech" and "Tinker".
Many don't have perk numbers as they are hardcoded new perks. Some do though, so anyone could go through the wiki and add this. I'm not adding it to my todo list though as anyway could register on the wiki and add the info after searching through the dgc.ini - I have lots of other things on my plate.
When SW "Super Soldiers #20" is enabled, in the Barracks, the PSI XP is omitted when a psi soldier is made officer. Can you please fix that, so that we know an officer PSI XP? TYVM!
Overall I prefer your version over Long War and I want to see Squadron Unleashed 2 integrated even if it is a semplified version of the mod, I hope there will be more feature that make the game more replayable I dont want now to subscribe to Discord now (too much social media accounts)
Now the stuff that frustrate me in the gameplay I played with no second wave options and Classic difficulty I build the gollop chamber and I after one month I was forced to do the alien temple mission because alien attacks were every day (level 9 alien tech alien) and I was bored to lose countries maybe I shouldn't build earlier and made the alien advance the games dosen't reward enough with panic reduction, Countries remain in the edge of leaving because their panic doesn't reduce faster no mention, how protected are the satellites, how shoot down ufos,respond to terror mission or spend too much fucking credits on air patrols(why cost that much and there is no cost limit?) try to liberate a country 3 times and you will be pissed off ,I had 25 firestorm and 4 fusion lances and other plasma/EMP and shooting down every UFO e preventing terror mission is not rewarding as resolve them or assault alien bases over and over. Fatigue time for the soldiers are still atrocious, 3 week vacation for a mission without a scratch? MEC soldiers are deploable 1/3 of the time in confront of non MEC soldiers and with those alien bosses with plasma shield get 3shotted to death your lazy MECs if you aren't careful enough
I suggest to fix this Air Patrol must have a fixed cost like repairs 6 elerium generator costs me more than 1000 credits every month it is too much and you need that energy for the gollop chamber is it too much cost me more than a full fleet of interceptors Titan armor need more mobility,as LMGs weapons try both in a soldier and you play with a crippled, no mention the grenade launchers on MEC that are ridiculous short range The Red Fog maluses should be applied when a unit is injured not when has lost only armor HP so there is not aim/mobility/throw range reduction Gene mods should be buffed, looks like the gene soldiers are the discarded recruit from psy/MEC modification 500 meld for a Vortex armor is too much meld is more difficult to obtain because you want your troops to avoid get wounded because fatigue times especially in later game All units should have another item slot SHIV should have 2 more, there are too much items and MEC and SHIV units without armor item and aim item are too frail and can't hit anithing
Have you considered the option to add small single country bonuses? It's like those starting bonuses I suggested some posts ago For example deploy a satellite to Germany it give you a MEC soldier, or in US gives you a LT Interceptor or +1 aim bonus for all standard soldiers, or your first gene mod is free
I was thinking about more MEC Classes and names(without confonding names already take by items and perks) and I wished there was a Psionic MEC that will be unlocked with Second Wave options named MEC Mage,Magus,Mystic,Merlin,Sorcerer or something else Some cool MEC name classes suggestions: ARTIFICER BANDIT BARBARIAN BOWMAN CATAPHRACT CHEVALIER CLERIC COMMANDO CONQUISTADOR COSSACK CRUSADER CUIRASSIER DRAGOON GLADIATOR GUNSLINGER HIGHLANDER HOPLITE HERSIR HUNTER HUSSAR HUNTER JARL LANCER KNIGHT MUSKETEER PELTAST RAIDER RONIN SHADOW SHIELDBEARER SLINGER VANGUARD WARLORD WARRIOR WIZARD
Squadron Unleashed 2 is already part of this mod
That is not true. LWR has SU1, not SU2. It was deemed that SU2 was not as enjoyable as it expanded the strategic layer a lot and added a lot more... micromanagement?
It's a controversial opinion though as some really like that and some don't.
Just my two cents about the latest update as of February 20th, v1.52.13.
The reworked distribution of soldier country makes it that 95% of rookies start in top-eleven countries, making the roster significantly less varied. So I keep a copy of LW 1.1 dgc.ini and replace the country chance manually with each upgrade, it feels more diverse. Like it's supposed to feel when an entire planet fights a war of survival. This way I constantly see non-mainstream guys in my barracks, while also full of your normal dudes you would expect (no offense to anyone).
As always, your work is very much appreciated! A few things i have nothiced playing the christmas release:
1. I think editing the soldier country values in DefaultGameCore no longer does anything when selecting "Fresh Recruits". This has never been the case before for me.
2. A) I *love* what you did with the stats, no longer gaining attributes on rank up but by playing missions feels super immersive. The more missions my soldiers join the better they get, 10/10 change.
2. B) I played like 30 missions over two campaigns over the past few days, but the stats-increase-event is very rare. I have never seen mobility or HP and even my snipers gained only like 0-5 aim while ranking up to TechSergeant.
2. C) Not sure how we are supposed to get these attributes anyway? Running alot = Chance to get mobility? Feels kinda game-y (for the lack of a better word). I'd rather take a simple random chance to gain a random attribute you had implemented before. I prefer to play the mission and not around some mechanic that could result in my soldies getting better.
4. What about adding a flat shred value to Mayhem suppression? Makes the Tech Sergeant skill for suppression gunners less awkward (not sure if that is even possible).
5. The luck swing you can get from pack abductions is insane. I just got 11 engineers from one abduction! Thats a whole month worth of requests! Maybe smooth them out a bit more? 75 dollars vs 11 engineers seems a bit too crazy. Almost makes me fish for these and restart campaigns until i get one (while not losing all soldiers trying to win the actual mission).
1) Great spot. That is a bug. Will be fixed next version.
2) Nice :)
2b) Agreed. Patch released today doubled it (triple for MSGT).
2c) Running more and stuff does NOT affect amount of stats you get, only the distribution, and there are caps. So if you've run (I think it's 30 tiles) you've already passed the cap for influencing the post-mission attributes. Same for other attributes.
4) [Where did 3 go?] We used to have flat, I actually think %works better. Mayhem gunners are one of the most used classes all games across all difficulties so don't think they need any help.
5) They were toned down as well in the last patch. Great minds. =D
Let me start by saying that this is my first LWR campaign, and I love the mod. I'm using 1.50.12, and nearing the end of my campaign. There are so many new mechanics I heavily agree with - overwatch, steadying, pod activation, and so on.
I say that because I'm now about to heavily criticize one decision in particular, the consequences of which render lategame incredibly degenerate, and that's the implementation of Sectoid Commanders. Sectoid Commanders have 100% success rate on Mind Control, and this doesn't even take their whole turn. They can do this from 18 tiles away and in fact even run further away after this. They come in giant pods with other Sectoids/Commanders (I've never been quite sure if two Commanders can be in the same pod or not, but activating 2 at once is very common), who all shield each other and provide distortion targets. They also have TK field, further increasing how difficult they are to kill. Concussion, Suppression, Acid, Smoke, etc. all do essentially nothing against them as their will is designed to be so high that they usually have 100% rates with Psi abilities even against things like combat drugs/officers. Obviously Concussion or Grenades can be used to "break" Mind Control if you can get close enough, but your soldier is still controlled for 2 turns (disoriented next turn) and takes a shot at your own team unless they all run and take cover from him even if you do. Psi inspire can't even break "Coming to," let alone Mind Control... and is laughably bad.
Sectoid Commanders themselves (even excluding the effects of Mind Merge and other creatures tanking for them via distortion) still have perhaps the largest effective health pools of any mob. 80 crit resist and 70% damage reduction that cannot be bypassed (and rounds down) effectively multiplies their health pools by 5+, and of course mind merge shields render them effectively invulnerable for a turn because the shield also gets this damage reduction. Penetration does nothing.
Tactically speaking, there are no good options against them. You cannot disable them - they don't rely on aim and concussion/combat drugs only swing will by 30, which is not nearly enough to discourage let alone disable their Psi attacks/abilities. You cannot alpha strike them with their insane effective health pools, and swarms of friends to share damage with. You cannot even sustain against them, since Mind Control does huge damage and controls your soldier even if you do break it, as well as either forcing your entire team to choose between doing nothing or being crit by the soldier you already "broke" the mind control on.
From a design perspective, here is the list of things Sectoid Commanders have - and they need about two less of these things to even approach reasonable: 1.) Mind Control chance to hit 100% (why in the world is it based on 150% will?) 2.) Mind Control is a guaranteed 2 turn CC (with the potential for an incredibly dangerous team shot) even when "countered." 3.) Has distortion. 4.) Comes in a large pod. 5.) Does not care about being concussed or suppressed, and (effectively) can't be hit by psi. 6.) Can have more than one on a mission, especially a 6-soldier mission.
Most players consider sectoid commanders reasonable. Even on the hardest difficulty (Ironman Impossible) players do not find them the most dangerous enemies.
There are strategy channels, advice channels, and lots of playthroughs (on all difficulties) list on the discord. You might want to check them out to see how others deal with commanders.
If I took your advice, and removed two of those aspects, sectoid commanders would probably be too easy.
I appreciate you responding. I suppose you must have a better understanding of what "most players" think than I, so I'll have to take your word for it.
It's hard for me to imagine what they do find to be the most dangerous enemies, though; ethereals, sectopods, heavy floaters, muton elites, etc all seem like a joke by comparison. But I'm admittedly unwilling to start combing through hundreds of thousands of words on a discord to find out. I think at the end of the day I just find this implementation of mind control to be a tedium tax rather than an interesting tactical puzzle, and I just need to either always bring only gene-modded bio soldiers on 6 person missions or go back to a different long war. Thanks anyway.
I want to voice that I also agree Mind Control is too unfair in how it works right now.
I understand the desire to keep the challenge, but I think fairness is also important. Good game design needs to give the player agency to tackle the challenges, provide options that allow them to counter enemy actions, especially for the circumstances that they can't control. Right now Mind control cannot be prevented, because it pretty much always succeeds. Killing them quickly is often not possible. The option of breaking mind control isn't good enough, since it still leaves your soldier mind controlled for one more turn and there are too many situations where you're screwed and there's nothing you can do. It relies too much on your good luck. If we have the same ability, it would have been way overpowered. Perhaps it doesn't need to change as suggested, but I do think it needs to be tweaked.
Although I don't get why you think Ethereals aren't as dangerous, they also have Mind Control and Distortion, and have much more health and even more dangerous abilities.
Ethereals come in smaller pods and often use damage spells rather than mind control, making them both easier to kill (less targets for distortion damage sharing, no mind merge shielding) and less dangerous (mind control is several times more dangerous than rift or lance).
It's a very reasonable point. However, you have to understand that hundreds of players of completed campaigns of LWR and left feedback. Some players have literally completed hundreds of campaigns. Each player will have a very different campaign than others; some due to chance, some due to playstyle.
One player may find thinmen the worst enemy in the game. Others might find it's sectopods are just so unfair and horrible to play. One (recently) said it was outsiders.
That being said, I've definitely listened to your feedback and will keep it in mind in the future and when I read other campaign summary feedback. I also really appreciate the time you took to write it as I can tell you were really trying to help.
Give Feedback
LW Rebalance Feedback and Suggestions (4919 comments)
so even you lose your continental bonus you got a reason to keep defending remain countries other than cash/panic/ufo shooting
- Because of a mix of mods (LWR & SquU2) on my side, aliens shot down a lot of satellites and brought the mid-game to a back-and-forth of losing 2 countries and then winning them back via alien base assaults. Surprisingly, this "war for Brazil" turned out rather fun
- Adding more base assaults into a campaign isn't a bad thing
- Give the player more agency to decrease panic but increase the events that gradually build panic
- Make Base Assaults more accessible (5->3 or 4 Outsider Shards per Key), maybe even have aliens build a base in a not-yet-panicked country which - if not raided - adds 2-5 panic per day
That being said, the total inability to hinder aliens from shooting down a satellite when all your fighters are in repair / too weak was just frustrating.
- Intercepting a UFO on course to down a satellite should have a much larger impact on it aborting its search unsuccessfully, especially if it was hit in the encounter. XCOM hurting aliens without all-out defeat has almost no tangible impact both in air combat and in tactical missions -> it would be much more motivating and arguably tactical if it had almost the same effect at least after ~50% damage done (and gradually until then), just without XCOM gaining any resources.
- Similarly, intentionally doing missions not to win them, but to damage the alien operation and retreating with all XCOM units would - had this a visible and tangible impact on the game - a very interesting new approach to doing ("sting") missions imho.
- Airship downtimes are still very punishing, especially because damaged ones cannot be moved (even though repair teams do help) -> buff repair speed +10%, add second foundry project to reduce repair times ~ +20%, make ship transfer possible while repairing (perhaps for added days in repair, or only after a foundry project)
- Panic increases on satellite take-downs are too brutal. A downed satellite always meant the country was unsavably lost and that felt too harsh on Classic -> reduce panic from lost satellite significantly (e.g. flat -20 or -2 by country defense level)
- Why oh why does a country leaving XCOM automatically destroy the satellite above it even if it has not been shot down by an UFO? -> fix, this makes little sense (country just loses faith in XCOM, it does not become outright hostile to actively shoot down a satellite)
- Fighters taking 12h to refuel is an odd mechanic in times where you have air-to-air refuelling irl. A fun way to make undamaged fighters usable twice against an UFO could be to make swapping weapons cost only 0-2h while rearming stays at 12h. Thus, if a player has other (e.g. old / worse) aircraft weapons in stock they could be swapped immediately for a second interception, otherwise the fighter would have to wait until rearmed. Alternatively, a "speed rearm" button much like the repair crew one for 25-50$ could be added.
- There is still a surpring amount of Meld around -> could get nerfed 20% (or by 1 turn) imho- The amount of Meld Canisters would be an interesting addition to the tactical mission prep screen after a foundry project etc.
- Mind Control "coming to" is OP. Make soldiers whose mind control is broken panic or disoriented or idk what but don't let them be hostile for a full further turn. Assaults or MECs on Mind Control mean that you instantly know that one of your other soldiers is going to die 70% of the time with you idly standing by (if not by chance you land a disabling shot). At least let Inspire etc. be a way to make them come back without turning on their own friends. At worst, make them die themselves, not kill a random one of their squadmates. It's so **** frustrating.
- This has
probablybeen asked afewthousand times: will Squadron 2 be implemented...? (I know it's intentional I just love the strategic layer).- Explosives need to be buffed in environmental damage. Like, big time. A rocket flying straight into a building wall and letting it (and all the bookcases around it) stand is both not immersive and takes tactical joy out of them. I found Rocketeers, Engineers and Infantry to be much less useful in this playthrough.
- The Scout hit-and-run ability is a bit lackluster imho. Give the guy a free shot on any, at least any flanked enemy. Double-tap and overwatch soldiers just outplay him later on.
- Gunners and Medics on overwatch are fun again!
- I still think it's a shame that most items won't be used during the average players campaign. They're just not good and especially - original - enough compared to the basic weapon types. While arc weapons are a tiny bit too punishingly bad when used against non-mechanics to take them on most missions, I love the tiktaktoe - approach of the specialised plasma weapons - this idea should be strongly used in weapons and weapon subtypes as well.
- Add late-game foundry projects to make it worthwhile to bring e. g. (even more armour piercing) Gauss against CDisks and pulse lasers against Mutons even on the last mission. Let LMGs shred psionics, SMG hits block the Thin Men acid ability or Pin Grenades disorient Cryssalids and so on. Having a team with diverse weapon subtypesshould be an advantage!
- Add effects that under-used weapon subtypes only get when used by a specialised class: e.g. SMGs on Medics = first Med-Gel application is a free action, Acid Grenades on Rocketeers and Engis double environmental damage; Carbines on Engineers add +10 to their Mech heal, SMGs give them +1 grenade, just taking a pistol weapon gives +1 item use and / or double tap (making a pistol build viable and buffing "alien catchers")...
- Thank god for 100% capture chances again at low health - even though this could be nerfed since there is Maim -> 100% only on 1-2 health (instead of 3-4) but instead no Charge lost on unsuccessful stun (the latter effect could be another item) - alternatively, unsuccessful stuns could disorient instead- Champion plasma shields are... well. Probably working as intended. Still, they prolong fights to a point that they get tedious. Maybe let them be shattered by explosive or shred damage or add an item to at least circumvent them. The mechtoid-sectoid synergy is generally more fun than this.
- Soldier downtimes are still high, even though Meld infusion helps somewhat. Give the player an (expensive) foundry project (as with aircraft, an expensive "stage 2" of the existing project would be enough) to further reduce fatigue and especially injury downtimes. If nescessary, increase the chance of soldier and pilot (SU2) deaths, but don't let the midgame be a waiting game.
I'm running an XCOM operation, not a scrap yard and an infirmary.
You don't need to take the time to answer here, I'm just happy if you read this and give it any thought.
Your continued support for this project makes XCOM worthwhile, Commander; and this is not a statement this Council makes lightly.
I'd like to see a fix in the future: the save/load loadout buttons for shivs are disabled. Can they work? Please?
I dont want now to subscribe to Discord now (too much social media accounts)
Now the stuff that frustrate me in the gameplay
I played with no second wave options and Classic difficulty
I build the gollop chamber and I after one month I was forced to do the alien temple mission because alien attacks were every day (level 9 alien tech alien) and I was bored to lose countries
maybe I shouldn't build earlier and made the alien advance
the games dosen't reward enough with panic reduction, Countries remain in the edge of leaving
because their panic doesn't reduce faster no mention, how protected are the satellites, how shoot down ufos,respond to terror mission or spend too much fucking credits on air patrols(why cost that much and there is no cost limit?) try to liberate a country 3 times and you will be pissed off ,I had 25 firestorm and 4 fusion lances and other plasma/EMP and shooting down every UFO e preventing terror mission is not rewarding as resolve them or assault alien bases over and over.
Fatigue time for the soldiers are still atrocious, 3 week vacation for a mission without a scratch?
MEC soldiers are deploable 1/3 of the time in confront of non MEC soldiers and with those alien bosses with plasma shield get 3shotted to death your lazy MECs if you aren't careful enough
I suggest to fix this
Air Patrol must have a fixed cost like repairs
6 elerium generator costs me more than 1000 credits every month it is too much and you need that energy for the gollop chamber is it too much cost me more than a full fleet of interceptors
Titan armor need more mobility,as LMGs weapons try both in a soldier and you play with a crippled, no mention the grenade launchers on MEC that are ridiculous short range
The Red Fog maluses should be applied when a unit is injured not when has lost only armor HP
so there is not aim/mobility/throw range reduction
Gene mods should be buffed, looks like the gene soldiers are the discarded recruit from psy/MEC modification
500 meld for a Vortex armor is too much meld is more difficult to obtain because you want your troops to avoid get wounded because fatigue times especially in later game
All units should have another item slot SHIV should have 2 more, there are too much items and MEC and SHIV units without armor item and aim item are too frail and can't hit anithing
Have you considered the option to add small single country bonuses? It's like those starting bonuses I suggested some posts ago
For example deploy a satellite to Germany it give you a MEC soldier, or in US gives you a LT Interceptor
or +1 aim bonus for all standard soldiers, or your first gene mod is free
I was thinking about more MEC Classes and names(without confonding names already take by items and perks)
and I wished there was a Psionic MEC that will be unlocked with Second Wave options
named MEC Mage,Magus,Mystic,Merlin,Sorcerer or something else
Some cool MEC name classes suggestions:
ARTIFICER
BANDIT
BARBARIAN
BOWMAN
CATAPHRACT
CHEVALIER
CLERIC
COMMANDO
CONQUISTADOR
COSSACK
CRUSADER
CUIRASSIER
DRAGOON
GLADIATOR
GUNSLINGER
HIGHLANDER
HOPLITE
HERSIR
HUNTER
HUSSAR
HUNTER
JARL
LANCER
KNIGHT
MUSKETEER
PELTAST
RAIDER
RONIN
SHADOW
SHIELDBEARER
SLINGER
VANGUARD
WARLORD
WARRIOR
WIZARD
arrStrategicMutators=SquadronUnleashed.SquadronUnleashed
That is not true. LWR has SU1, not SU2. It was deemed that SU2 was not as enjoyable as it expanded the strategic layer a lot and added a lot more... micromanagement?
It's a controversial opinion though as some really like that and some don't.
The reworked distribution of soldier country makes it that 95% of rookies start in top-eleven countries, making the roster significantly less varied. So I keep a copy of LW 1.1 dgc.ini and replace the country chance manually with each upgrade, it feels more diverse. Like it's supposed to feel when an entire planet fights a war of survival. This way I constantly see non-mainstream guys in my barracks, while also full of your normal dudes you would expect (no offense to anyone).
1. I think editing the soldier country values in DefaultGameCore no longer does anything when selecting "Fresh Recruits". This has never been the case before for me.
2. A) I *love* what you did with the stats, no longer gaining attributes on rank up but by playing missions feels super immersive. The more missions my soldiers join the better they get, 10/10 change.
2. B) I played like 30 missions over two campaigns over the past few days, but the stats-increase-event is very rare. I have never seen mobility or HP and even my snipers gained only like 0-5 aim while ranking up to TechSergeant.
2. C) Not sure how we are supposed to get these attributes anyway? Running alot = Chance to get mobility? Feels kinda game-y (for the lack of a better word). I'd rather take a simple random chance to gain a random attribute you had implemented before. I prefer to play the mission and not around some mechanic that could result in my soldies getting better.
4. What about adding a flat shred value to Mayhem suppression? Makes the Tech Sergeant skill for suppression gunners less awkward (not sure if that is even possible).
5. The luck swing you can get from pack abductions is insane. I just got 11 engineers from one abduction! Thats a whole month worth of requests! Maybe smooth them out a bit more? 75 dollars vs 11 engineers seems a bit too crazy. Almost makes me fish for these and restart campaigns until i get one (while not losing all soldiers trying to win the actual mission).
Also, f*#@ purple chryssalids.
1) Great spot. That is a bug. Will be fixed next version.
2) Nice :)
2b) Agreed. Patch released today doubled it (triple for MSGT).
2c) Running more and stuff does NOT affect amount of stats you get, only the distribution, and there are caps. So if you've run (I think it's 30 tiles) you've already passed the cap for influencing the post-mission attributes. Same for other attributes.
4) [Where did 3 go?] We used to have flat, I actually think %works better. Mayhem gunners are one of the most used classes all games across all difficulties so don't think they need any help.
5) They were toned down as well in the last patch. Great minds. =D
v1.50.32
I say that because I'm now about to heavily criticize one decision in particular, the consequences of which render lategame incredibly degenerate, and that's the implementation of Sectoid Commanders. Sectoid Commanders have 100% success rate on Mind Control, and this doesn't even take their whole turn. They can do this from 18 tiles away and in fact even run further away after this. They come in giant pods with other Sectoids/Commanders (I've never been quite sure if two Commanders can be in the same pod or not, but activating 2 at once is very common), who all shield each other and provide distortion targets. They also have TK field, further increasing how difficult they are to kill. Concussion, Suppression, Acid, Smoke, etc. all do essentially nothing against them as their will is designed to be so high that they usually have 100% rates with Psi abilities even against things like combat drugs/officers. Obviously Concussion or Grenades can be used to "break" Mind Control if you can get close enough, but your soldier is still controlled for 2 turns (disoriented next turn) and takes a shot at your own team unless they all run and take cover from him even if you do. Psi inspire can't even break "Coming to," let alone Mind Control... and is laughably bad.
Sectoid Commanders themselves (even excluding the effects of Mind Merge and other creatures tanking for them via distortion) still have perhaps the largest effective health pools of any mob. 80 crit resist and 70% damage reduction that cannot be bypassed (and rounds down) effectively multiplies their health pools by 5+, and of course mind merge shields render them effectively invulnerable for a turn because the shield also gets this damage reduction. Penetration does nothing.
Tactically speaking, there are no good options against them. You cannot disable them - they don't rely on aim and concussion/combat drugs only swing will by 30, which is not nearly enough to discourage let alone disable their Psi attacks/abilities. You cannot alpha strike them with their insane effective health pools, and swarms of friends to share damage with. You cannot even sustain against them, since Mind Control does huge damage and controls your soldier even if you do break it, as well as either forcing your entire team to choose between doing nothing or being crit by the soldier you already "broke" the mind control on.
From a design perspective, here is the list of things Sectoid Commanders have - and they need about two less of these things to even approach reasonable:
1.) Mind Control chance to hit 100% (why in the world is it based on 150% will?)
2.) Mind Control is a guaranteed 2 turn CC (with the potential for an incredibly dangerous team shot) even when "countered."
3.) Has distortion.
4.) Comes in a large pod.
5.) Does not care about being concussed or suppressed, and (effectively) can't be hit by psi.
6.) Can have more than one on a mission, especially a 6-soldier mission.
There are strategy channels, advice channels, and lots of playthroughs (on all difficulties) list on the discord. You might want to check them out to see how others deal with commanders.
If I took your advice, and removed two of those aspects, sectoid commanders would probably be too easy.
It's hard for me to imagine what they do find to be the most dangerous enemies, though; ethereals, sectopods, heavy floaters, muton elites, etc all seem like a joke by comparison. But I'm admittedly unwilling to start combing through hundreds of thousands of words on a discord to find out. I think at the end of the day I just find this implementation of mind control to be a tedium tax rather than an interesting tactical puzzle, and I just need to either always bring only gene-modded bio soldiers on 6 person missions or go back to a different long war. Thanks anyway.
I understand the desire to keep the challenge, but I think fairness is also important. Good game design needs to give the player agency to tackle the challenges, provide options that allow them to counter enemy actions, especially for the circumstances that they can't control. Right now Mind control cannot be prevented, because it pretty much always succeeds. Killing them quickly is often not possible. The option of breaking mind control isn't good enough, since it still leaves your soldier mind controlled for one more turn and there are too many situations where you're screwed and there's nothing you can do. It relies too much on your good luck. If we have the same ability, it would have been way overpowered. Perhaps it doesn't need to change as suggested, but I do think it needs to be tweaked.
Although I don't get why you think Ethereals aren't as dangerous, they also have Mind Control and Distortion, and have much more health and even more dangerous abilities.
One player may find thinmen the worst enemy in the game. Others might find it's sectopods are just so unfair and horrible to play. One (recently) said it was outsiders.
That being said, I've definitely listened to your feedback and will keep it in mind in the future and when I read other campaign summary feedback. I also really appreciate the time you took to write it as I can tell you were really trying to help.