LW Rebalance - I have suggestions
Commander, you may want to instruct your men to exercise restraint when using explosives.
After completing my first playthrough, I have accumulated a considerable number of suggestions for Long War Rebalance. While blogging my campaign, I’ve made a few off hand comments, but I’ve been setting aside some complicated issues and suggestions, wanting to give them more consideration. After having mulled things over for awhile I think I’ve come up with some good ideas.
Problem: The ethereal corpse and capture requirements can draw out the end game and are especially problematic when playing a shortened NSLW campaign.
Ethereals are rare, even in the late game, and this is necessary given how dangerous they are. Unfortunately, their absence can draw out a campaign for months longer than it would otherwise take to complete.
In my campaign blog, I suggested that the 3rd ABA should perhaps guarantee an ethereal, or that overseers should follow a strict continent rotation. Either of these changes would probably be enough to fix the problem. However there is a more novel solution, which I like better: Making interrogation research independent of autopsy research, and then switching the captured alien into a corpse upon completion. This way a single capture of each species is all that is needed for research. This wouldn’t decrease difficulty much, as the capture is the harder step anyway, and it would prevent all research bottlenecks related to alien captures and corpses, rather than only those related to ethereals.
This would have the side effect of making all autopsies optional, which means players could speed up research by skipping autopsies. This wouldn’t save that much research time, because autopsies are all pretty fast, but it would still throw off game balance somewhat. I have a couple suggestions for dealing with that.
First, I would suggest that the autopsy act as a research credit for the interrogation, and that interrogation times should take twice as long as they do now, unless the autopsy has been completed, in which case it would be unchanged. And so skipping autopsies would only make sense when the campaign has hit a research bottleneck, and in that case, it would cost the player research time.
Second, I would suggest that every bio-autopsy should unlock something highly valuable. Right now, most of them do, the exceptions being these 4 autopsies: sectoid, sectoid commander, muton elite, and ethereal.
Problem: Psi Soldiers are more vulnerable to Psi Attacks.
Its always felt weird to me that the will defense of psi soldiers is lower than that of other soldiers. Averaging the will defense (with perk bonuses included) for all my GSGT+ soldiers I get these results for each category.
AVERAGE WILL DEFENSE (GSGT+)
Psi: 76
MEC: 87
Officer: 87
Genemods: 69 *no mind control
My psi soldiers are the worst. Only the genemod soldiers have lower will defense, but they have the advantage on not being susceptible to mind control.
Shouldn’t psi soldiers have an advantage here? While psi soldiers can use some equipment to boost their will, most of these items only offer an underwhelming +10 will. Psi soldiers could use the alien trophy item, but that just feels wrong.
Perhaps psi soldiers could gain a small amount of will for each psi level attained. This would require some rebalancing of psi powers. Alternatively, psi soldiers could just be given +20 will defense against psi attacks, or a +20 will defense bonus could be added to psi equipment, such as the conduit, which has recently been overhauled, and is weaker than it once was. I would prefer that all psi equipment have this bonus, because that would give players more flexibility with their psi soldier builds and loadouts.
And regarding those psi builds…
Problem: Every soldier class is balanced for using psi powers, but not for obtaining them.
I don’t think psi powers work very well on snipers or gunners. But if players want to give those builds a try, why not let them? It doesn’t make sense to me that the sniper and gunner class get such poor will progression. In a previous version of LWR, when soldiers could combine psi powers with genemods, this was probably necessary for balance, but that is no longer the case. Each soldier must choose between psi and genemods now, and for that reason it makes sense to allow more soldiers the option of going psi.
Another reason to open up psi abilities to more classes is because they don’t enhance class skills all that much, and are not significantly better at enhancing class skills than their genemod counterparts. Psi soldiers have access to equipment that boosts aim and crit defense, but genemods can grant a bonus to reaction fire and flat DR. The big advantages of psi powers occur outside of class builds, as an additional set of abilities that help the squad as a whole, much like officers.
Giving every soldier an equal opportunity of going psi would mean granting every class the same will progression, perhaps at 15. This would result in an overall buff to XCOM will defense against panic and psi attacks, and that would require some rebalancing.
Problem: When % DR is high, standard damage is nullified, and penetration damage is all that matters, and there are only a few effective ways to obtain high penetration.
To illustrate the dominance of %DR, let’s consider 2 enemies: a regular mechtoid that has hardened and damage control vs. a leader mechtoid that also has hardened and damage control, plus absorption fields and sentry overwatch. The regular mechtoid is going to have 30% DR from hardened and 20% DR from damage control, which combine multiplicatively for 44% DR1. The second mechtoid is going to get an additional 30% DR from absorption fields, and 50% DR from sentry, resulting in a total of about 80% DR2.
With flat DR of 6 this would result in the following average damage results for various attacks (excluding crit chance):
ATTACK PEN M1 M2
---------------------------------------
Gauss Autorifle 0 1.7 1.0
+ CST 0 4.2 1.5
+ 30 shred 0 6.5 2.3
+ 60 shred 0 8.7 3.1
Gauss Long Rifle 3 4.7 4.0
+ Mayhem 3 7.2 4.4
Gauss Cannon 0 1.2 1.0
+ Breach 0/2 2.4 1.0
Gauss Railgun 0 3.4 1.2
+ AP Ammo 2 5.4 3.2
upg. Arc Rifle 6 8.8 7.0
Kinetic Strike 8 13.6 10.0
+ Thumper 12 22.1 15.6
My goodness, look at that crap damage. You just can’t hurt the second mechtoid. The first MEC is resilient, but at least there is some hope of killing it with bullets. Whereas the second MEC is only vulnerable to penetration, and the effectiveness of each attack is directly proportional to the amount of penetration. This is because % DR reduces not only the base damage that is applied, but bonus damage as well.
To make this point extremely clear, let me give one more simplified example: An attack that does +50% damage, against a target with 50% DR, in the absence of penetration, will actually do only 75% damage, because the modifiers (+50% and -50%) do not cancel each other out. Instead, % DR has primacy, because the bonuses are applied multiplicatively.
The only mechanism which can defeat %DR is penetration because it is applied after % DR and not multiplicatively.
But this isn’t really the problem; its how it should be. There should be a few enemies that are extremely dangerous and difficult to kill and that require a special approach. The actual problem is that there are so few ways to obtain high levels of penetration. Unlike % DR, penetration is not obtained as a percentage of your attack but rather as a fixed value which is typically very low.
There are a few modest sources of penetration: Holo has 1, AP ammo has 2, Sniper Rifles have 2-4, and engineers 2-4.
There are a couple sources of high penetration that come with severe limitations: arc rifles have 6 penetration but are only useful against mechanicals, and flamethrowers ignore DR completely but are only useful against bio targets. A few highly armored enemies are vulnerable to psi attacks, but that is more about control.
Then there is the Kinetic Strike Module, which does huge damage, and has 8 penetration, and works against everything (as long as you can reach it). Once I saw the KSM in action, it very quickly became my primary method of dealing with highly armored targets, which is mostly fine.
The problem is that players should have more options here. We don’t want the marauder to be superior to every other kind of MEC. The effectiveness of the KSM can make the game one dimensional, and so I would suggest overhauling the mechanics that sound as though they would be great against highly armored targets, but instead are just okay, and those are shredding, AP ammo, and breaching ammo.
Oddly enough, shredding is far more effective against targets that don’t have a lot of DR because it acts like any other damage bonus. There are a lot of ways to rework shredding so that it works better against armored enemies, but that’s not really what I want. I want shredding to work much better against heavily armored enemies than it does against lightly armored ones.
The first two ideas I considered were for shredding to remove flat DR, or to remove the effects of the hardened trait. And so 20% shredding might remove 2 points of flat DR, or alternatively reduce the % DR of the hardened trait from 30% to 10%. But I found that these options would have an outsized impact on mechtoid #1, and far less impact on mechtoid #2. In essence they would make modestly armored enemies far easier, while having a negligible effect on heavily armored enemies. This is because completely removing flat DR, would still mean the 2nd mechtoid reduces damage by 80%. And completely removing the % DR from the hardened trait would still leave the 2nd mechtoid with 6 flat DR and 72% DR.
I think a better solution would be for shredding to add penetration, like holo rounds, but proportional to the quantity of shredding done. Perhaps for every 10% shred, 1 point of penetration is added.
For AP ammo, I would suggest that in addition to +2 penetration, % DR is capped at 40%. For enemies with modest amounts of % DR this will be almost no change in damage, but for heavily armored enemies it will have a bit more punch.
For Breaching ammo, I would suggest that +2 penetration is added, in order to deliver some value against enemies that have DR from sources other than the hardened trait.
With those changes in place, let’s re-examine the 2 mechtoid example, but with the revised damage values denoted as R1 for the first, and R2 for the second.
ATTACK PEN M1 M2 R1 R2
--------------------------------------------------------
Gauss Autorifle 0 1.7 1.0
+ CST 0 4.2 1.5
+ 30 shred 0/3 6.5 2.3 9.5 5.3
+ 60 shred 0/6 8.7 3.1 14.7 9.1
Gauss Long Rifle 3 4.7 4.0
+ Mayhem 3 7.2 4.4
Gauss Cannon 0 1.2 1.0
+ Breach 0/2 2.4 1.0 4.4 3.0
Gauss Railgun 0 3.4 1.2
+ AP Ammo 2 5.4 3.2 5.6 5.6
upg. Arc Rifle 6 8.8 7.0
Kinetic Strike 8 13.6 10.0
+ Thumper 12 22.1 15.6
These changes will make shredding better in both situations, but more significant against heavily armored enemies. This probably makes shredding a bit too powerful given that it already provides a solid damage bonus. To restore balance shred should accrue more slowly, perhaps at 10% + 2% per point of damage. This in turn would make shredding less significant against unarmored enemies, which is better I think, making shred mostly a counter against armored foes.
The change to AP ammo probably doesn’t need balancing, as it will only have a significant effect against the most heavily armored enemies, and it will simply bring damage to where it would be against a modestly armored enemy.
Against mechtoids, breaching ammo is a little better with +2 penetration. If this makes breaching ammo too powerful against chryssalids or seekers or other lightly armored foes, then maybe it should have a penalty to base damage of -1 or -2.
Problem: The LMEC-2 suit is Weakish.
During my campaign I was very disappointed in both MEC-2 suits. They provide an extra secondary weapon slot, which is great, but comes with big disadvantages; either lower health or defense depending on which version you build. I didn’t bother to build a MEC-2 suit until the MEC-3 suits were in reach, and even then I only built one because I thought it was a requirement for the MEC-3 suits.
Some of this problem was resolved with version 1.36.12, in which the penetrator perk was removed from numerous enemies. This is a buff to flat DR, and that makes the HMEC-2 pretty good because it has 2 more points of DR than the MEC-1.
However, the LMEC-2 is still a weak upgrade. Compared to the MEC-1 it is actually a survivability downgrade, as it loses 4 HP and only gains 5 defense. Relative to the HMEC-2 it looks pretty shabby, having +2 mobility and +25 defense, compared with +8 HP, and 2 points of DR. All that defense becomes less relevant when you charge in and stand right next to your enemy, which is most of the reason why you would want high mobility. What good is it for your MEC to be fast, if it can’t stand and bang? It seems very lopsided to me, or I am just completely missing something.
Body Shield vs. Damage Control seem appropriate on each version of the suit, and about equally valuable.
Neither of the MEC-2 suits are sufficiently better than the MEC-1 to warrant any enthusiasm. A small buff to the HMEC-2 might be in order. I think the LMEC-2 needs a serious buff; I would give it +4 HP (same as MEC-1) and a point of DR, and do the same for the ULMEC-3 and the LMEC-3. Even with these buffs I probably wouldn’t build the light suits, but they would look more compelling.
Impossible to solve Problem: The Temple Ship requires too much foreknowledge and hackery.
Most players who reach the Temple Ship already know the layout and script. We know which enemies spawn where, and we are ready for them. The only way to make this mission challenging for experienced players is to make those enemies incredibly strong. This in turn forces us to use hackery to defeat them. Its a bit of a conundrum.
I don’t have a solution here; just wanted to point it out.
Problem: The last room of the Temple Ship is too hard.
I am glad that the LWR version of the Temple Ship mission is very challenging, whereas every other version is a cake walk. But the last room is extremely difficult, and it could be toned back a bit.
Another Suggestion: Switching the class of Specialists for a modest large fee.
Recent versions of LWR have increased the cost of soldier purchases to balance out the reduction in fatigue. This mostly works. Soldiers are less susceptible to fatigue, so you need fewer of them.
The problem is that with fewer soldiers, it is more difficult to match skills to the appropriate class and also obtain enough soldiers for every class. In my most recent campaign I had gaping holes in multiple classes through April, even when playing with Commander’s Choice and also ignoring the gunner class entirely. There just aren’t enough dice rolls to even out the stat/class distribution.
It would be really nice if we could pay some money to switch specialists into another class. For balance, it could be a lot of money, maybe $90. Or it could scale with rookie recruit costs at 60% of that cost.
Another Suggestion: With Corrosion removing 20% of armor HP each turn, the engineer should be able to remove it.
The new acid mechanics look very scary for SHIVs, which are mostly armor HP, and currently cannot have corrosion removed, whereas biosoldiers and MECs can be cleansed by the medic. It’s only fair to give our little metal tank babies a way to remove corrosion before it strips all of their armor HP away.
(1 - 0.3) * (1 - 0.2) = 0.7 * 0.8 = 0.56 or 44% DR.
(1 - 0.3) * (1 - 0.2) * (1 - 0.7) * (1 - 0.5) = 0.7 * 0.8 * 0.7 * 0.5 = 0.196 or ~ 80% DR.