LW Rebalance - One of the Best Versions of XCOM
LWR is incredible and I love it. If you are an experienced XCOM commander, I bet you will love it too.
Before I start writing about strategy and tactics in LWR, I want to do something a little different with this post, and review the game first. I didn’t bother reviewing other versions of XCOM, because if you are reading an XCOM substack, you are probably already sold on the franchise.
With Long War Rebalance, I think a review may prove useful to those who haven’t tried it yet. And so here is the TLDR: If you are an experience commander, you should play Long War Rebalance. In a lot of ways it is better than Long War, but more importantly it is completely fresh. It is like XCOM 3 came out early, but only for the players who love XCOM the most. If that is you, then LWR is your reward: A less fair version of Long War, that is also somehow incredibly well-balanced despite all the new complicated mechanics, and with even more ridiculously overpowered adversaries, and with even longer, and more brutal firefights. Its so much fun!
Why Wait?
I wish I had started playing LWR sooner. The truth is that I was scared of the new pod activation mechanics, whereby an enemy pod that sees another active pod, will automatically activate as well. Terrifying. But in LWR this mechanic has been balanced by other new mechanics, such as cancelling the enemy’s scamper movement and sometimes even disabling their weapons. Also proximity matters a lot in LWR, so out of sight enemies are usually not a huge threat. Also, your soldiers are tougher, and defense actually works! Having cover will prevent your soldiers from being killed, rather than just reducing the odds. Activating the whole map is still a bad situation, but one that you can usually survive.
Another reason I postponed playing LWR was that it was still in active development. It seemed to me like a good idea to, you know, wait for it to be finished. But the game is ready to play now, and its fantastic. Its been in development for 5 years, and maybe it will still be in development 5 years from now. That wouldn’t surprise me. The developer, ucross, is a fanatic about game balance, which means that he is constantly tinkering and tweaking classes, abilities, game mechanics, starting bonuses, etc. He isn’t going to stop until he believes it is absolutely perfect. You could wait for that version of LWR, but you shouldn’t. You should play it now, and when ucross has completed his masterpiece, you should play it again. By then, it may even be a new game.
Quality of Life
LWR has some huge enhancements to the old XCOM: Enemy Unknown UI. The most significant improvement is a little bluish eye symbol that appears next to an enemy’s HP bar when you hover the mouse over a tile from which you can see that enemy. So now, just like in XCOM 2, you will know before you move, which enemies you can target from that new position. Oh god, thank you. Additionally, when those enemies are on overwatch that eye symbol again appears, but now its red, because red means danger. And for the soldiers affected by that overwatch, their action pips turn orange, and in their list of targetable enemies (the row of little red heads in the right corner) the overwatching enemy will have a target symbol on it. These UI improvements are not just helpful, but critical. They will prevent needless frustration, and make the game much more fun to play.
Another great UI tweak is a text popup that says “ammo spent” whenever an enemy runs dry. This is both fair and realistic. Even a rookie would realize a floater needs to reload when it starts frantically pawing at the compartments in its hover abdomen looking for a fresh plasma carbine battery.
There are many other improvements. The targeting HUD now computes the exact damage ranges for both regular and critical hits. Innate enemy DR is conveyed by grey colored HP pips. Action icons are green when they do not end the turn, and purple when they are free. HP pips change color depending on status. In the strategy layer there is an “Exalt Activity” notification so that you don’t forget intel scans, and there is a summary of your entire campaign so you can more easily compare one campaign to another. The expansion missions for Operation Slingshot and Operation Progeny have been improved, and spread out through the campaign. And there are more improvements, but you don’t need to hear all of them. LWR has incorporated any available UI tweak that improves the game, and this means players have access more information, and that makes the game better.
Defense Works
Consider the combat in XCOM 2 for a minute. The game is great, but it requires that you kill or control all the bad guys by the end of every turn, otherwise they are very likely to kill you. Figuring out how to kill them all is a fun puzzle, but it probably would have been more fun if the aliens got to shoot back more often. That is the main difference in LWR, the enemy gets a chance to attack. Every other mission will feature a prolonged firefight where the aliens are firing almost as many shots as your soldiers. Yes, this is what I want. Big and brutal firefights that span multiple turns. But how is this possible? In any other version of XCOM, that many shootouts would result in a lost campaign. It only works in LWR because of the numerous buffs to the defense of both XCOM and its adversaries.
In LWR, the weakest armor grants 5 HP, and plating items now provide DR right at the start of the game, but the most significant buff to defense is the percent DR provided by cover. Low cover grants 30 defense and 30% DR; high cover grants 50 defense and 50% DR. This is huge. The DR from armor and cover can cut damage by more than half. In the early game, soldiers will typically have about 12-15 HP and will take hits of 2-3 damage, when they are in low cover.
But that’s not all. Right from the start, your squad will get access to a SHIV that can tank for 2 turns in most early game firefights. With a little help from smoke it can tank even longer. And your medic can heal soldiers as a free action, enabling them to fight and heal simultaneously. Overwatching will not just discourage enemies from moving to a flanking position, but can also stagger them when they make such an attempt, which prevents them from following through with their attack. And if that is not enough to keep your guys alive, most soldier classes are offered additional defensive abilities that add DR, armor, defense, healing, etc.
A further advantage for XCOM is that the aliens will now charge your position most of the time. They almost never run backward into the fog of war, thus denying humanity of its birthright; the privilege of shooting first. Because of this tweak to the AI, the game plays much faster, and when multiple pods activate, you are much more capable of handling the second pod, because the first pod is often a slurry of orange goo.
No More Cheese
Another goal of the Rebalance mod was to remove all the cheesy tactics that would exploit overwatching, steadying rockets, concealment, disabling shot, mimic beacons, or the shadow device in order to pull off an easy victory. Those are all gone, or nerfed into the ground. Long War Rebalance is like a traditional Jewish deli; it has no cheese.
Most of these changes are huge improvements to the gameplay. For example in Long War, I would use motion trackers to set up overwatch traps and pre-steadied rockets a few tiles away from the nearest pod. 90% of the time this resulted in an easy victory. This tactic is not allowed in LWR. Overwatching only applies to those enemies that are in line of sight when overwatch begins, and soldiers are only allowed to steady their weapon if they have a targetable enemy. So overwatch traps and pre-steadied rockets are gone, and I don’t miss them at all.
But some of the other changes worry me. I am a big fan of disabling shot, and the shadow device in Long War, and I am not sure how I will be able to handle the tougher and deadlier versions of Sectopods and Ethereals in Rebalance, without those crutches. On the other hand, it should make that period of the campaign more interesting and exciting. I have limited experience with late game enemies, having encountered only two sectopods. The first time, my squad ran away, which was the right choice. The second time I chose to stand and fight, which did not go well, and I soon found myself back at the gatecrasher. That campaign was doomed anyway due to some poor choices in the research tree (you cannot skip laser and pulse technology) so no real harm done. But that one encounter with a sectopod left me a little rattled. I had no idea how to deal with it, and didn’t stand a chance.
I have another campaign going (at Impossible difficulty because I’m a veteran now!) and I am selecting abilities and planning my squads with the goal of beating a sectopod. I have learned a few tricks, and hopefully they will make a big difference. Perhaps the late game is as well balanced as the midgame, and I just haven’t learned enough to recognize that… but I have my doubts. In this version of XCOM, the campaign gets harder towards the end, rather than easier, and perhaps it is a bit too hard for me.
What all this means is that you should choose your difficulty level cautiously. Without those late game cheese tactics, Brutal difficulty is indeed brutal, and Impossible difficulty may well be impossible. I’ll have more to say about that in a month or two.
LW Rebalance is Balanced
The mod has earned its moniker. There are so many ways to play this game, and they all work. Every country has a huge and meaningful bonus, and every class has multiple builds, and every battle can be won in different ways, and every piece of equipment can prove useful, and every enemy has a unique strength, and every decision matters and is meaningful at every stage of the game. The wealth of possibilities and options is just plain ridiculous. In fact, it may be too balanced. I am often left staring at the screen indefinitely, because my brain is deadlocked with indecision. How can I choose a class build when all of the builds seem equally powerful?
Let’s take the engineer class as an example. A group of sectoids are behind cover at medium range, and with one of them on overwatch. There are three ways I can build my engineer to deal with this situation. As a grenadier, this soldier can throw a grenade to soften them up, and deactivate their countercharge ability, but this build cannot deactivate the overwatch, and will probably fail to destroy the cover. As a support build the engineer can drop a concussion grenade on them which will disable the overwatch without triggering it, and also make the sectoids easier targets, and less dangerous, but still capable of using countercharge. Or as a shooter the engineer can shoot twice and apply holo-target, but would again trigger the overwatch. All of these engineer builds work, and work well. In fact, you will want someone in every squad to perform these 3 roles (grenadier, support, shooter), and so instead of asking what build is the best for the engineer, you should instead be asking which class is the best grenadier, support, and shooter?
Well, taking grenadier as an example, that role can be filled by the engineer, rocketeer, or infantry, and each class gets something special. The engineer will get Sapper at GSGT making this class the best grenadier for destroying cover (but not until the late game), while the rocketeer gets Bombard at CPL rank which allows them to throw grenades farther than any other class, and the Infantry gets Mayhem which means their grenades will do much more damage. A lot of players prefer the Infantry grenadier, but that class is also very strong at overwatching. If you use your infantry to lob grenades, then you will need to find another overwatcher, which could be your medic, but then who is throwing support grenades? The Rocketeer can do it. That will work. But is it better than a grenadier rocketeer, paired with overwatching infantry, and support medic? That is much harder to say because it means weighing the different build options for 3 different classes. You can go around and around on this question, and end up right back where you started from. Even if there is an optimal set of builds, with different attributes on each soldier, and during different periods in the campaign, that optimal set of builds will change.
Oh and one more thing. If all the LWR players agree that one build is the best, ucross will nerf that offending build, and restore balance to the LWR.
It is better not to worry too much about the optimal class builds and instead focus on having numerous options with every squad so you can handle every situation that pops up. You will need a lot of options, because there is no killer tactic that solves every problem. For example, in the early game, there are four primary ways to defeat enemies behind cover. You can flank them, steady your shots, throw grenades, or overwatch. All of these tactics work, but not in every situation. Flanking is not always possible and it can get your assault killed, steadying your shots requires that you buy your shooter some time with smoke or suppression, grenades have range limitations and rarely destroy cover, and overwatching doesn’t always trigger, and doesn’t always hit unless you pair it with holo-targeting or concussion grenades. So every tactic has potential and limitations. In practice, you will probably be able to use all of these tactics on every mission, and will play better if you figure out when each one is the most effective.
If you find any of the abilities or class builds unappealing it is probably because you have not considered them fully. At first I was puzzled by the fact that only the gunner has the suppression ability whereas three different classes can perform other important roles, such as overwatcher, grenadier, or support. Furthermore the gunner has terrible aim and will progression. Is suppression really so strong that it can only be given to one class which also has terrible stats? No, this is a weak class I thought. Then after getting ruined by a sectopod, I gave the gunner a second look and reconsidered what suppression can do against enemies that can attack twice.
Each type of enemy has been designed to present a different threat, and is vulnerable to a different styles of attack. Sectoids will target weak willed soldiers and mindfray them into jelly. Thin men will corrode your SHIV, and can evade your overwatch fire. Drones have holo-targeting and healing. Floaters are hard to hit. Mutons throw high damage grenades that destroy cover. Seekers do serious damage with strangulation. Chryssalids have damage reduction. And so on. Every enemy species is uniquely awful and murderous. You will need to be prepared for all of them, or they will end your campaign.
A few Caveats
Of course the game is not perfect, and can feel more than a little frustrating at times. Abduction rewards can be either paltry, or enormous. Small map missions, and bomb disposals can be brutal, whereas as large map missions can be too easy. You are outgunned in the air game, for most of the campaign, and there is no way to keep the aliens from shooting down your satellites every now and again. There is plenty of bullshit, and you will have many opportunities to recite our mantra, and remind yourself of what kind of game you are playing. This feels like the least fair version of XCOM I have played, and I have played most of them.
Still, I am not opposed to failure or difficulty. I am a veteran of the Long War after all. The fact that sometimes disaster is unavoidable is less important to me than the fact that it is very difficult to recover from those disasters. This is because the cost of everything in LWR is so high that replacing satellites, interceptors, soldiers, and equipment after a disaster, can seem more challenging than just restarting the campaign. Ucross has managed to balance the soldier classes, battlefield tactics, and economy extremely well. The next logical step, it seems to me, should be balancing disaster recovery through some sort of reduced replacement cost.
Its not a far fetched idea, as this is how SHIVs currently work. After being destroyed, their hulls can be sold for about one third of their purchase price. And the XTP projects do a good job of providing back up soldiers should you lose your best guys.
Perhaps each successive armor or weapon that you purchase, on a given tier, should cost less than the previous one, so that lost equipment can be replaced for less than its original price. And when your satellites and interceptors are shot down, they should cost half as much to rebuild.
I’m sure most players would still want to restart a campaign after a painful squad wipe, or a series of air game disasters. I know I would, because I’ve been there. Anything that can help us power through these dark times, would help us become better players, and instill in us the spirit of XCOM, which is the ability to endure failure, and keep playing.