Long War has a better difficulty curve than EU/EW - it actually gets harder for a few months before getting easier. The April to June period is always exciting, and often tragic.
April is an obscene difficulty increase from March - and it's really all due to floaters, and how the game spams floaters.
You go from sectoids/drones and possibly a few thin men to:
* 6 hp floaters - or more if leader/navigator
* elevation aim bonus
* unremovable half cover when your squad is still junior with piss poor aim, abilities, and weapons
* extreme mobility making flanks a serious problem
* you won't have squad size 7 yet for the first several missions
It can be a bit much, especially when RNG decides to throw you some heavy/swarming missions with 12-16 floaters in the first 15 days or so. And this WILL happen.
It starts to smooth out around May when your soldiers get better, and you can get better tactical upgrades
I’m actually far more worried about thin men. I find that steadied rockets go a long way toward softening up floaters, and they also make dumb decisions as often as not. Only the flying floater have high aim, whereas all thin men are deadly shooters. And their acid clouds can severely limit your defense by preventing the use of smoke and then clustering. But yeah, April is rough.
It is hardly worth mentioning, but I want to acknowledge that the equation above is a slapdash effort to show the principle at work here, and create a model to think about SHIVs and XP. Its not bad, just simplistic.
April is an obscene difficulty increase from March - and it's really all due to floaters, and how the game spams floaters.
You go from sectoids/drones and possibly a few thin men to:
* 6 hp floaters - or more if leader/navigator
* elevation aim bonus
* unremovable half cover when your squad is still junior with piss poor aim, abilities, and weapons
* extreme mobility making flanks a serious problem
* you won't have squad size 7 yet for the first several missions
It can be a bit much, especially when RNG decides to throw you some heavy/swarming missions with 12-16 floaters in the first 15 days or so. And this WILL happen.
It starts to smooth out around May when your soldiers get better, and you can get better tactical upgrades
I’m actually far more worried about thin men. I find that steadied rockets go a long way toward softening up floaters, and they also make dumb decisions as often as not. Only the flying floater have high aim, whereas all thin men are deadly shooters. And their acid clouds can severely limit your defense by preventing the use of smoke and then clustering. But yeah, April is rough.
It is hardly worth mentioning, but I want to acknowledge that the equation above is a slapdash effort to show the principle at work here, and create a model to think about SHIVs and XP. Its not bad, just simplistic.