Long War is ridiculous ….

[Buggerup]

Long War is ridiculous ….

I've read this statement a lot in various threads in various forums.

 

It's hard … yes. (Not as hard as UFO Enemy Unknown.) Time consuming ... yes. Challenging … yes. Huge learning curve … my bloody oath yes. Floored masterpiece … yes. Ridiculous though? Well ... out with it then.

 

The makers are nearing the end of their beta stage and any further changes will be only for game balance or bug fixing, so let's let them know what we critically think. Most of my own problems with the mod are things inherited from vanilla that can't be modded like having no map editor restricting some of the maps, especially in size, etc., or can be easily edited in the DGC ini, but my word …... If you think something about Long War is actually “ridiculous” here is a format to vent your spleen so fire away. The Long War Team may or may not take your opinion on board … it's their mod after all … but who knows you might get lucky.

Ground rules, at least have a logical reason as to why you think which ever aspect of the mod is ridiculous and try to back it up with some relevant information or source material, i.e. game design theory, history, psychology, whatever explaining why.

 

As you may of guessed, I'll get the ball rolling ... I wouldn't of brought up the subject if something wasn't getting my goat mid game ... with a game mechanic that s****s me to tears no end.

Feel free to comment and to add what you believe to be "ridiculous" in Long War and why.

[Buggerup]

Long War is ridiculous because of “chain panic”.

Off the bat, yes, the game is about killing aliens in an invasion of the earth. Not a very likely scenario in reality so a level of suspension of belief is already involved. For me “chain panic” is the most ridiculous part of the mod as it is contrary to everything I know about proper military training, senior NCO's, special forces and how a professional soldiers flight/fight response is completely rewired via all their training.

I have PTSD, literally “shell shock” and have been seeing psychologist for 20 years and probably will be for the rest of my life. Wont talk about my own experiences but I'll use history, both family and military, to show why “chain panic”, even in a fictional top notch international special forces unit is … pretty ridiculous.

During the First Battle of Bull Run an incident occurred that changed military training for ever.

A Confederate regiment charged a Union position. The Union regiment opposite fired a volley. Neither unit had been in combat before. The Confederate regiment stopped dead in it's advance from the noise and smoke. The smoke cleared. Not one of them had been shot. It's not that easy for a normal human being to kill another for the first time. Since then proper military training has been solely designed to make this possibility psychologically easier. Today this is achieved by repetition in order to rewire a soldiers fight/flight response well before they even enter combat. Ever wonder why all recruits still do bayonet charges though you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times one has actually happened since elements of the 101st Airborne shorty after D-Day. It's part of the rewiring. A normal fight/flight response has three outcomes. Run away, charge, or a moment of panic standing there like a stunned mullet before deciding to actually charge or run away. Proper training rewires the brain to give one and only one of these responses. Charge. The various ways in which this charge occurs is down to further training, equipment and situation. This is the how and why the early 3D shooting trainers, of which I was lucky enough to be one of the first users in Australia, evolved eventually leading to modern FPS games.

How good is this rewiring?

My grandfather was in the 2/17th. On their way to North Africa to join the 8th Army the boat stopped off in what was then known as Bombay. Some Aussies got into an argument with a local vendor and one of them hit the bloke. The locals understandably got upset, and quickly formed a vengeful mob. My grandfather and several of his mates, unaware of this situation walked into one of these mobs who walked to wards them yelling obvious abuse. No weapons, not even a pocket knife they still did what they were trained to do. They charged. (“B Company Second Seventeenth Infantry.” by Sgt. H. D. Wells.) Some months later the men of that same platoon of infantry stopped the German Panzas outside of Tobruk the first day of the siege with rifles, grenades, a couple of Bren guns and sand shoes.

My father passed SAS training at seventeen. He had to to pass this course in order to qualify for Det 131 for his eventual deployment to Sth Vietnam in 1966 with the 1ATF. Most of that course, to this day, is about weeding out the mentally and physically unfit to find those few super humans who are level headed under extreme stress. People that fall to pieces don't pass. Amongst other duties Det.131 conducted three man patrols, with out a radio, and under strict orders not to use firearms in order to place microphones along VC trails without being noticed.

A few months in to my Dads tour The Battle of Long Tan occurred. My fathers younger brother was in the platoon of 6RAR that got hit. 6 dead, 20 wounded. The platoon that covered their initial retreat, 3 dead several wounded. (http://www.6rarassociation.com/battlelongtan.htm) No-one whinged. No one screamed for their mother. No one screamed to get them out of here. Though every man s*** themselves, being properly trained, their training took over and none of them panicked. Not even when their lieutenant was killed. The men who died, died facing the enemy, fingers on triggers still pointing their weapons at the enemy positions. On trooper, affectionately known as “Custard”, was left behind wounded presumed dead over night. Relief patrols after the engagement heard nothing but silence. All Custard said when found the next morning was, “You blokes took your f****** time didn't yous!”

Right. History lesson done.

Got no problem with the game concept of psionically “induced panic” … I'm already accepting n alien invasion of earth for Pete's sake. Got no problems with a unit being hit and momentarily panicking and hunkering down, quite natural and understandable. Got heaps of problems with units panicking just because the unit next to them gets hit. As my dad told me about this happening to him in Vietnam after I asked him about war when I was six, “You don't have time to think. Your training takes over.” Got heaps of problems with this leading to a sole destroying chain reaction that cripples your squad elite soldiers and gets them all killed as this is exactly the diametrically opposite goal of all that bloody basic, advanced and special forces training and discipline in the first place. I've been using the No Chain Panic mod but it still isn't quite right.

The way “chain panic” works in Long War is how civilians with guns shoved in their hands just before a battle reacts to s**** hitting the fan. It's how poorly trained militias react. It's basically how s*** soldiers, in s*** armies who don't properly train their men and use them only as cannon fodder, react.

It is not how members of an international elite special forces unit should react under extreme pressure... even if everything has gone pear shaped. They're generally in a special forces unit exactly because they have already demonstrated they don't act like that under pressure.

 

This is why I believe the “chain panic” and trooper panic mechanisms in Long War to be ridiculous.

[Krazyguy75]

To be fair, this isn't taking into account the situation. The XCOM soldiers didn't know that they were going to fight aliens till the aliens showed up. Most have never seen plasma tech before. On top of that, a 33% death rate isn't actually that unusual for a rookie mission in Long War. Troop morale would be very low, as they are outmanned, outgunned, and facing a foe beyond their normal realm. On top of that, it is likely they have seen the troop memorial for the dead rookies and heard stories of the terrible death rate of rookies. If your commander told you to hold with a squad of 5 other rookies against 20 alien monstrosities wielding technology vastly superior to yours, you might question the motives of the XCOM commander, and act rashly for self survival.

[Dethraker]

A good thought, honestly a great OTS upgrade, research tech, or foundry project would be something that reduces panic chances. Would work by simply changing the pannic threshold that is based off will. Could probably even be modified to where if there's a rookie they still use the same will threshold for panic but all other classes use the modified threshold.

 

Add it as a mod request, maybe someone would pick it up.

[Krazyguy75]

Ummm... isn't that a thing?

[Dethraker]

Not sure personally, haven't combed through all the mods. I just know this can be modified pretty easily for Buggerup if someone wants to take the time to do it. If it already exists give a link so he can have this issue resolved lol.

 

From what they have stated there are no plans to make any more changes or additions to LW, only bug fixes going forward. So if you're hoping for the LW team to release an "official" version changing this it is highly unlikely.

[wastehound33]

what I think is ridiculous is the overall difficulty changes to the game. don't get me wrong, I love a difficult/challenging game. I played and beat the dark souls series for f*#@s sakes. although I did rage out a few times I beat them and really loved them.

long war though.....you really have to hate yourself to play through that crap....

here is why I think this,

I was sooo excited when I read about long war. sounded like a really good idea. and then I played it and was severely disappointed. I played through quite a few grueling missions until I got to one where one of my men (who wasn't even a rookie....was like lvl 3 or 4...) was standing literally right in front of an enemy not in cover, shot and missed. (how do you miss someone whose skull is in contact with your barrel...?) and immediately after this one of those previously useless hover drones scored a critical from across the map and killed him with one shot.

after this I just uninstalled the mod.

the main thing that really ruined it was the fact that the aliens scale with you. what the hell is the point of upgrading my weapons if the enemy just keeps getting better defenses??? what the hell is the point of researching new armors if the enemy can still one shot kill me??? I realize that with the additions to your capabilities you have to rebalance the enemy to fit but the way they did it truly was ridiculous......

 

[Vangar]

@wastehound33 You adress two separate points here. The "how could you miss someone like this" line ignores a very important fact: XCOM and Long War is not a simulation, it is a game. It is closer to a game as a shooter or something like this, it is actually more like a tabletop game you play on the computer. What all those hit chances, even if they are 99%, mean is that you roll dice. And you can get bad rolls, even ten in a row. That's the nature of a game.

 

Now the alien upgrading indeed seems too steep but there's a mod on nexus making only enemy commanders improve via research, the grunts might get more health but they don't upgrade how much damage they do. Because it really is a bit ludicrous to invest so much time and resources into better body armour when that merely restores the status quo at the games' beginning.