LWOTC - First Thoughts
Squad composition is painfully complicated in LWOTC. Who cares. Dueling the Chosen absolutely rocks.
Let me start off by saying that LWOTC is a great version of XCOM. Its very similar to Long War 2, but with the Chosen; exactly what you would expect from the title of the mod, and exactly what I had been hoping for. After playing the game for a bit, it is clear that a lot of love and time and consideration went into this mod, and I am very impressed with the result. A lot of good decisions were made to bring out the best of LW2 and WOTC.
While I haven’t yet completed a full campaign, it feels about as fun as Long War 2, and also very similar to that game, but with a bunch of new mechanics, enemies, and strategic considerations to justify another run.
Overlapping Mechanics in LW2 and WOTC
When I first heard about Long War of the Chosen, I had concerns. Of course I was very hopeful that it would develop into a fine game, and it has, but I was very worried that the game mechanics in Long War 2 would clash with those of WOTC. This is because they implement different mechanics to accomplish similar goals; primarily for granting bonus actions to soldiers, and for placing strain upon your barracks.
Let’s talk about bonus actions. In LW2 officers grant bonus actions, while in WOTC bond mates do the same. If you just combined these systems together you could easily make XCOM way too powerful and throw off game balance. To resolve this problem the developers could pick one form of bonus action, and abandon the other. But if you abandon one system, you would lose much of what that version of XCOM had to offer, and so what would be the point of merging LW2 and WOTC?
Regarding barracks strain, LW2 added the infiltration mechanic which ties up an entire squad for a week or so, and this requires that the player maintain a deep barracks. In WOTC, soldiers become Tired or Shaken when sent on missions too frequently, and this requires a somewhat larger barracks. Using both of these systems seems redundant as they both accomplish the same task (straining the barracks) but in different ways. What is worse, combining these mechanics could compound the strain placed on your barracks, which could crush an otherwise sound campaign.
And so I’ve been wondering how the developers would manage these overlapping mechanics. Now that I’ve played the mod for a couple of weeks I have my answer. They chose to keep pretty much everything, tweaking stuff here and there for balance, but almost never choosing to abandon any significant component of either LW2 or WOTC (the exception being Resistance Orders which are currently disabled by default). And this results in a very complicated system for soldier development, with far more moving parts than would be ideal.
In my first attempt I felt as though my barracks was a bit of a mess actually; filled with soldiers with under utilized potential, or haphazard bonds, and who were often tossed into slap dash squads, and sent off on missions with only the hope that they wouldn’t get killed. It’s disorganized and chaotic, but whatever. The game is well balanced, with XCOM not too powerful, and barracks strain not too oppressive.
This all works because of the tweak to bond mate bonus actions; they’ve been nerfed. They do not grant bonus actions until rank 2 is achieved. At rank 1, bond mates can only grant a bonus move, which is still powerful but not overmuch. Before bond mates can grant bonus attacks, you must first build a training center and then commit each soldier to training for a week. The training center acts as a gateway; keeping the early game balanced. While I haven’t made it to the late game yet, I expect that the addition of bond mate bonus actions have been offset by the removal of Kubikuri and the nerf to Chain Lightning.
Infiltration and soldier fatigue do not always play nicely together, but fatigue is usually a minor issue given the large barracks. It can get frustrating though. Once, after a troop ambush mission, my entire team returned to the Avenger with the Tired status. I am not sure why that happened. My best guess is that the whole squad had been sent on two missions back to back. (EDIT: I’ve learned that soldiers suffer more fatigue on longer missions, which makes sense). Anyway, the Tired status was annoying but it didn’t prevent me from using those soldiers immediately, so not such a big deal.
The Chosen: Buffed, Balanced and Brutal
Now let’s talk about the good stuff. Fighting the Chosen is a hell of a lot of fun. These guys are incredibly hard to kill, and cannot be controlled, but if you fight smart you can beat them. On the other hand, if you play poorly or send in too many low ranked soldiers, they can tear your squad apart. In my first fight against the Hunter I sent a weakish squad on a haven defense mission. An hour later I was back at the gatecrasher. The Chosen are a perfectly balanced challenge; both brutal and rewarding.
These are not the enemies you faced in WOTC; they have been buffed up considerably. All three of them are more resilient, and possess new stronger abilities that make them trickier to fight - the first time you face each of them you will likely get an unpleasant surprise. They are very tough, each with a distinctive and dangerous set of skills that cannot be easily stopped. After several encounters, I’ve never had a flawless victory against any of the Chosen - somehow they always manage to draw blood.
And yet I do not feel overwhelmed. They are going to send a few soldiers to the infirmary, but now that I know their tricks I expect to win the fight. This is primarily because the Chosen only appear on Retaliation missions, for which I will have at least 9 soldiers. This is a brilliant improvement to Long War 2, in which the retaliations can be too easy and repetitive. The Chosen make these missions more challenging, and having 9 soldiers makes it a fair fight.
Another improvement is that the Chosen will not kill your soldiers, instead always causing them to bleed out. This is not mercy - its how the kidnapping mechanic works now. If you fail to revive a downed soldier (that means stabilizing them and also removing their unconscious state - getting them back on their feet) then on the next turn the Chosen will kidnap them. Kidnapping is a serious setback in LWOTC because the easy rescue missions you find at the Resistance Ring are much less common now. Instead you will probably end up rescuing your soldier on a jailbreak or VIP mission.
Hero Classes are Balanced and Cool
Early in the campaign you will only be able to acquire one Reaper, Skirmisher and Templar on the Avenger - which is important for balance because all three classes are extremely powerful. Eventually you will be able to get a second of each class as you progress in your hunt for each of the Chosen Strongholds. If one of your hero class soldiers dies, you can get a replacement. This is nice when a lucky crit from a disoriented Viper kills your Skirmisher.
Like the Chosen, the hero classes have been overhauled and improved dramatically. For the Reaper this meant a serious nerf. They no longer start off with Claymore and then acquire Remote Start at the first rank up. Both of those abilities were obscenely overpowered. Instead the Reaper can become a nasty sniper with the ability to regain concealment, and they can detect enemies without having direct line of sight, making them sort of a shooty-Shinobi.
The Skirmisher is awesome. In LWOTC they get Hit And Run, which combines very well with their high mobility via the grapple. They can also get some very nice grenade perks that create even more synchronicity. A Skirmisher with Total Combat can grapple to a flanking position, throw out an explosive, shoot the flanked target, which refunds an action point, then shoot again, perhaps with Chain Shot. They are very powerful in the early game and can carry a squad of rookies to victory.
The Templar is a true tank. They have the ability to generate temporary ablative armor each turn, making it safe for a Templar to stand right out in the open and draw fire, perhaps while also granting high cover to a squad mate. An important note is that Templars have decreased wound time, and so tanking is actually viable for this class. Templars can also do a lot of damage with their melee strikes, and have several other unique tricks such as swapping positions with an adversary. All very cool stuff.
Other Changes
There are a lot of new features in LWOTC. I can’t go over all of it but here are a few of the more significant improvements:
Psi Operatives have several new abilities and a whole new perk tree.
The Training Center has a bunch of new abilities - many of which were designed to enhance a specific class skill.
Several mission types have changed - in particular the ambush mission now requires that you send a rescue squad to aid the ambushed operatives.
Killing Lost zombies does not refund action points and so they are actually dangerous now.
You don’t need to complete the Lost Tower mission to get your Spark. The first Spark is cheap to buy, and you can get him early in the campaign, which is nice.
All of these changes add up to a fresh new XCOM experience that is worth playing even if you have already beaten LW2 half a dozen times.
Good Luck Commanders!
