Long War mod discussion

[Amineri]

We're aware of this bug, and it's been fixed for beta 10. It was a problem in the way some Seeker AI code was recognizing situations under which it was preventing from stealthing.

 

During pod reveal seekers that canstealth loop until the stealth is complete. Since the AI code thought they could, but the couldn't this resulted in an infinite loop condition. During their active turn they would repeatedly attempt to stealth until they ran out of actions (for seekers stealthing is a move-action)

[ElementUK]

I like the mod for sure. It just seems a shame you've made it for people that can beat Impossible/Ironman in the normal game. And that's only 'Normal' Mode.

[johnnylump]

 

I like the mod for sure. It just seems a shame you've made it for people that can beat Impossible/Ironman in the normal game. And that's only 'Normal' Mode.

 

From the FAQ

 

Q: Say what? Ten HP Outsiders with regeneration in the first downed UFO mission? I love all the new XCOM options but don't like the difficulty. Why did you make a mod that is so hard?

A: This mod was made by people who loved the vanilla game but found it a bit underdeveloped in a few areas and saw lots of opportunities within the engine for much deeper strategic and tactical play and a greater variety of problems to throw at the player. When someone tells us it is too hard, there might be any of three things going on:

1) The player hasn't adapted to the changes in the mod and expects their suboptimal strategies to succeed (we believe this is the case with outsiders). We have a Long War Strategy subforum you can go to for advice.

2) The player's definition of fun is different from ours; they expect the game to provide them easier situations, make solutions more readily available or be geared to provide the illusion of challenge but actually make it pretty easy to win. In this case the player should play an easier difficulty setting, mod Long War to their personal preferences or play another mod. Long War isn't for everyone.

3) The mod really is unreasonably hard (or bugged in a way that makes it too hard) and should be changed. Specific feedback about the situation and how you attempted to address helps us; general complaints about difficulty really won't induce us to make any changes.

[ElementUK]

It's got nothing to do with 'adapting'. It's to do with the low hit points of soldiers, the high hit points of aliens, the speed which you can get upgrades like armour and weapons and having to take time to actually make all the weapons and armour etc. I just tried 'Confounding Light' and got all my best troops wiped out! It was very hard before, but add in Thin men that are rarely killed in one shot, seekers etc. The only way this can be played successfully is exactly the same way as Impossible/Ironman. Never get your soldiers hit because the length of time wounded and fatigued is way to high for the so-called 'Elite that the world has to offer'. Take 'ultimate great care in everything you do etc. That's ok for people who actually like Impossible/Iron but not the 'normal' player. Fatigue is a step to far imo as is the length of time from wounds. Sectoids having low profile and adding two hp's per mind meld is bad enough but making your soldiers panic for 2 rounds! At least the 'alien trophy' should make you immune to 'all' panic including psionic. There is absolutely no way this can be enjoyed, due to the mental stress involved in losing so many troops. As for trying to bring up PFC's in the 3rd month onwards, forget it. Having 5/6 Interceptors out of action purely because it takes all of them to simply shoot down the first two craft types and then having to watch UFO's galore raid your airspace whilst they take 20 days to repair is just silly. I'd expect the Brutal difficulty to be like this but the very first level..come on. Maybe you won the game on Impossible/Ironman and expect everyone else to be able to play like you, but it just makes your great work....sadly practically impossible to enjoy for any length of time. Games should be fun not mentally impairing due to stress.

 

I'm not looking for EASY, just a survivable challenge. Forced to try the 'Not so Long war' version. Shame I wanted a long game ) btw I've over 1300 hrs.

Edited May 27, 2014 by ElementUK

[hoogley]

I, like ElementUK, got the sh*ts with this mod not too far in. The first time I encountered the Thin Men in the 'Friends in Low Places' mission, and one picked off Chiliong (or however you spell it) from the other side of the field, I rage quit.

 

Then I started a new campaign.

 

Hit that mission again not too long down the track. I left Chiliong at the very back of the field, hiding behind a full size tombstone. Figured that'd be the safest.

 

I think in the end I faced a total of 10-12 Thin Men, and there were up to 6 or 8 of them on the field at any one time; spitting acid over all my guys, forcing me to hunker down, running all over the place, and generally making me swear my head off at you guys for being such bastards. Possibly the hardest mission I've played in XCOM to date.

 

Managed to finish with only a trashed SHIV. Somehow, I pulled all five of my guys through alive. Oh, and the Chili Man. Most elated I've ever been from playing any XCOM mission. Of course, I know it's only going to get harder.

 

Thanks guys. This mod is brilliant.

[Krazyguy75]

It's got nothing to do with 'adapting'. It's to do with the low hit points of soldiers, the high hit points of aliens, the speed which you can get upgrades like armour and weapons and having to take time to actually make all the weapons and armour etc. I just tried 'Confounding Light' and got all my best troops wiped out! It was very hard before, but add in Thin men that are rarely killed in one shot, seekers etc. The only way this can be played successfully is exactly the same way as Impossible/Ironman. Never get your soldiers hit because the length of time wounded and fatigued is way to high for the so-called 'Elite that the world has to offer'. Take 'ultimate great care in everything you do etc. That's ok for people who actually like Impossible/Iron but not the 'normal' player. Fatigue is a step to far imo as is the length of time from wounds. Sectoids having low profile and adding two hp's per mind meld is bad enough but making your soldiers panic for 2 rounds! At least the 'alien trophy' should make you immune to 'all' panic including psionic. There is absolutely no way this can be enjoyed, due to the mental stress involved in losing so many troops. As for trying to bring up PFC's in the 3rd month onwards, forget it. Having 5/6 Interceptors out of action purely because it takes all of them to simply shoot down the first two craft types and then having to watch UFO's galore raid your airspace whilst they take 20 days to repair is just silly. I'd expect the Brutal difficulty to be like this but the very first level..come on. Maybe you won the game on Impossible/Ironman and expect everyone else to be able to play like you, but it just makes your great work....sadly practically impossible to enjoy for any length of time. Games should be fun not mentally impairing due to stress.

 

I'm not looking for EASY, just a survivable challenge. Forced to try the 'Not so Long war' version. Shame I wanted a long game ) btw I've over 1300 hrs.

 

Long war is survivable. But you aren't playing it like Long War. You are still trying to play it with EU in mind. You don't try to face a sectopod with the same strategies as a sectoid, and you don't face Long War with the same strategies as EU.

 

One of the things about Long War is that, at times, it is necessary to avoid taking missions, or to give up on ones that are going sour. In EU, this would mean you are already past the losing point. In Long War, it just means you lost the battle, but need to continue with the war. Long War features losses, but it also eases up on the lose conditions, and overall makes the strategy layer more patient. Losing at Long War is like losing at solitaire: If you are going to lose from it, you might have to play through the whole game to find out; but, like solitaire, should you be experienced enough, you might see the patterns that lead in a downward spiral towards an lost game.

[2000AD]

It seems an obvious question but I figure I should check. I want to play the Enemy Within version, do I need both the EU and EW mod files or just the EW one?

[johnnylump]

Just the EW one.

[BaneOfHumanity009]

Ok I just purchased the digital version of EU & EW (got the complete pac) I have played it through on Xbox but I heard of this mod and decided to get it on PC.

 

Anyway, everytime I try to install the latest beta for EW ( Long war 3 beta 9a) Following the instructions laid out in this thread and in the read me. And repeating this process many times over thinking I made a mistake.

 

I get an error message whenever I try to boot up the game after installing the mod. It says "Xcom has stopped working, Window is trying to find a solution" The game itself starts fine before the mod and I open each one twice to ensure that its installed.

 

I have Java 7 up to date and NET framework 4.5 I am also using Windows 7 64 bit.

 

Im I missing something?

[Hobbes77]

This is going to be a long post so I apologize in advance but I've given a lot of thought in the past days about the class/ability system on Long War, which has been one of the features that in the past had made this mod less appetizing. But now that I'm playing LW and really enjoying the other features I might as well share what I think about the class system, even though I realize I might be in the minority here.

 

In short this is the idea I'll try to show: the 8 class system is good for playability, but the amount/type of ability choices for each class/rank is confusing.

 

Now getting into detail, the 8 class system roughly follows the division present in vanilla, where you'd have left/right side abilities. Choosing all left side abilities for a vanilla Heavy would make it a Rocketeer class build, while picking the right side turned it into a Gunner build. You'd also have the straight forward builds, like Sniper, Medic or Assault but some roles were deliberately split up between classes. A Sniper with Battlescanner, an Assault with Lightning Reflexes or a Support with Sprinter could all be Scouts but this role wasn't as straight forward when choosing and using those units. The same applied to an Infantry/Marksman role: usually it was done by Snap Shot Snipers but it could also be assigned to an Assault with mostly left side abilities or a Support with mostly right side perks. There would be variations according to personal preference but the design into left/right builds made the choice very straightforward.

 

In LW these roles are clearly defined as the 8 class system: Sniper, Scout, Infantry, Assault, Rocketeer, Gunner, Medic and Engineer, making it easier to choose which to bring for every mission (on vanilla usually I gave them specific call signs to know their skills). One could wonder why there isn't a Marksman in LW (left side abilities Sniper on Vanilla) or if there's a real difference between an Infantry or a Gunner but there's only 8 classes and more you add, the harder it is for each to have a meaningful distinctiveness. Taking the example of the Sniper, with the LW changes made into Squadsight keeping it on the back of the map isn't as effective anymore so it makes more sense to only have 1 type, and also give to the Scout the possibility of using a Sniper Rifle and giving it exclusively the In The Zone ability for those who like dropping mobile Snipers.

 

However, regarding the different abilities for each class, the LW system has two aspects that need to be improved.

 

The first is the amount of possible builds for each class in LW. In vanilla, for each class you'd make a total of 5 choices between 2 abilities by the time it reached the last rank. That's 2*2*2*2*2 or 32 possible final builds for each class, with a total of 160 (4 vanilla classes + MEC) possible configurations in the whole class system. However, of those 32 theoretical choices only a minority of 50% or less were optimal (I actually have made before a spreadsheet listing all 32 possible configurations to mark the most effective for each class), so the player choice is made simple by practice and design.

 

But in LW, for each class you can made 6 choices between mostly 3 abilities, so you have a total of 2*3*3*3*3*3 or 486 for each class. Multiply the 486 value by the 16 existing classes on LW (8 + 8 MEC classes) and you get a staggering total of 7776 possible class builds. So, in vanilla there's a total of 160 builds for each class and around 80 are the most effective and used, and me as player I'll have 2-6 favorite ones per class that I'll easily choose from memory since those are the ones I use. In LW there's a total of 486 builds for each class... bu then how do I even know/remember which ones are the most effective when promoting soldiers, not to mention how to quickly choose a soldier with a critical skill just by looking at the available Soldier list?

The design makes the choice confusing so you end up choosing by practice, which brings me to the 2nd point regarding the abilities available for each class: since they are so much repeated the redundancy built into the system reduces both the importance of the class and the value of choosing that ability.

 

Example: Infantry and Gunner classes have a total of 19 possible abilities each. Of those, Covering Fire, Executioner, Ranger, Suppression, Tactical Sense, Will To Survive, Sentinel, Extra Conditioning, Bring 'Em On, Rapid Fire and Resilience are shared between both classes (a total of 11). How much is a Gunner different from an Infantry then? Does it make sense to have 2 separate classes if they share so much? Gunner by itself has no unique ability that isn't available on other classes, unless it is the only class that can use a LMG (btw, it would be nice to have listed the weapons available for each class). Scout and Infantry have almost the same problem since they only have 1 unique ability each (In The Zone and Light 'Em Up, respectively).

 

I suspect here it will be said: "but the amount of missions/fatigue/casualties makes it important to distribute important abilities to more than one class". Well, but isn't the whole point of the added missions/fatigue/casualties to make the player to take hard choices and sometimes not be able to bring what he/she wants, rather than helping the player out? And, isn't it possible for the player to train more soldiers to a specific class so that he'll have a chance of always having 1 soldier of that class available?

 

And regarding the value of each ability, in total there are 58 class abilities (excluding MECs, I haven't considered them) and of those, 18 are unique to a class, 15 are shared by 2 classes, 13 are shared by 3 classes and 12 are shared by 4 or more classes. If I want to bring a Battlescanner, I can either pick a Scout or Engineer or equip 1, if I want Smoke Grenades I either bring a Medic/Engineer/Rocketeer or equip them, Lone Wolf would be really nice on my Assault, wait it's only available for Snipers or Scouts, oh by my Assault actually has Grenadier but none of the other classes have it except Engineer? And my Sniper can actually choose Mayhem? (unless Mayhem has been changed, I'm still scratching my head to understand this one).

 

Quoting from the Modders Guide to Civilization regarding the 'Danger of More': "Is it needed? Would it be missed if it was taken out? Is it functionaly unique? If the answer to these is no, it should be considered for removal."

 

To end this post, I think at least a few tweaks are necessary to address the questions I raised on this post, if you consider them important. But IMO, it would be better to rework this whole system to make it more practical for players by using a version based on vanilla's Training Roulette: I think it's possible for each of the 8 classes to have 4-6 unique abilities, and the rest of the choices for the class being between abilities that complement their unique ones (unlike Training Roulette where you can gets lemons like Snipers with Grenadier), and these general abilities are shared with some other classes but not all. If you're interested, I'm working on a draft system for this.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Hobbes77