How much harder is Legendary?

[Leg Day]

Curious after an epic fail saving mox. Had about 10 guys gun me down. Thought I could blow the wall with grenades oops. Are there more enemies in every mission or am I imagining that? I know legendary is longer with more battles. What's a correct easy way to save him? Blow the wall with reaper c4 then call your own airlift? Or do you have to sneak in?

[Perplex]

Not much, enemies have a bit more hp and there is usualy one extra pod on every mission.

[Aranador]

Legendary stops pulling punches and the game no longer cheats in your favour.

[KRON]

Originally posted by Perplex:

Not much, enemies have a bit more hp and there is usualy one extra pod on every mission.

You forget that Legendary has doube the research time, double the intel requirement for making contacts, double Covert Actions length(in WotC), double the time spent in the infirmary, higher cost of equipment and slower alien force level progression(the advanced aliens show up later than on other difficulties).

[Perplex]

Originally posted by KRON:

Originally posted by Perplex:

Not much, enemies have a bit more hp and there is usualy one extra pod on every mission.

You forget that Legendary has doube the research time, double the intel requirement for making contacts, double Covert Actions length(in WotC), double the time spent in the infirmary, higher cost of equipment and slower alien force level progression(the advanced aliens show up later than on other difficulties).

Yea but that is not mission effects.

[talemore]

If you play WotC, legend is a cakewalk because you won't have to fight the hordes of stunlancers in Xcom2 legend.

[fewerjungle]

Originally posted by Perplex:

Originally posted by KRON:

You forget that Legendary has doube the research time, double the intel requirement for making contacts, double Covert Actions length(in WotC), double the time spent in the infirmary, higher cost of equipment and slower alien force level progression(the advanced aliens show up later than on other difficulties).

Yea but that is not mission effects.

All those things affect missions with maybe the exception of double research and alien force level since it kinda balances out

[crayno]

I think only plasma grenades can do the job now. Otherwise, sneak in and let your Specialist hack the door for increased chance of staying hidden.

[ColorsFade]

IMO, the out-of-mission stuff for Legendary is not that big of a deal. Yeah, everything takes longer; no big deal. Legendary actually makes the out-of-combat strategy easier IMO, because you get SO many supplies from missions and such, that you can spend scanning time on other things.

Where Legendary beefs it up is the missions themselves.

First, yes, more enemies. On lower difficulty levels, the mission difficulties scale the enemies as 6/8/9/11. On Legendary, these scale as 8/9/11/13/. There's a decent reddit post on it here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/4bi0hz/is_there_a_way_to_know_how_many_pods_are_on_a/

On Commander or lower, if you miss a shot, the game gives you hidden bonuses until you hit. On Legendary, this bonus goes away.

Biggest thing is, on Commander or lower, if you engage two pods, the game tries to steer the other pods away from you (or they just sit tight where they are). On Legendary, not so. They will actively work toward your position.

So... bottom line: more enemies, more hit points, and they more-or-less aggressively seek you out on the map. It all adds up to a much tougher experience.

Personally, I can't do it on Ironman. I had to get my Legendary badge using the regular save system, and reloading some missions where things went really, really bad.

The first two missions determine how well you can probably get through the next 3rd of the game. Then, when Sectoids show up and you're under-gunned, there's another spike in difficulty.

But late game though, with all the gear, it levels out a bit. The final missions didn't feel much harder than Commander (though that last one was tough, and was the first time I ever lost a soldier on the final mission).

[fewerjungle]

I didn't even know covert ops take longer in legendary as I never tried commander on wotc.
It definitely matters though. There's a big difference in having having, say, two slots for resistance orders and 2 extra engineers as opposed to 1 slot 1 engineer after something like 2 months.
After all, 2 engineers might mean you have an early proving grounds pumping special ammo or anything really. Might mean you cleared a room and now have alloys to buy tier 2 weapons instead of having to wait another two or three missions.
Also, getting your best soldiers wounded for 40 days is a lot different than 20.

Everything thing you do in this game is supposed to be make life easier for your soldiers, baring some story missions, therefore everything is mission related.

Legendary is also where you have to keep playing without any major mistakes for longer. It's easy to get 5 consecutive missions without casualties/wounded, harder to get 10.

[Stardustfire]

@Colorsfade: "than the Sectoids show up" ???? sure you already played Legendary? because there you get your first right out of the Box in Gatecrasher....

[fewerjungle]

@OP

By the way, since no one mentioned it, the easiest way to save mox is to check the patrol routes, maybe with a reaper, get a specialist to unlock the door without triggering the alarm and move to evac without engaging anyone. When you pick up mox you will alert the base, but if nobody has eyes on you when you do it, they will react when you're already on your way out.

Last time I did it I messed up and tried to grenade the wall. It didn't break but the fire ended up taking care of it in the following turn. Got lucky so it's not very advisable.

[ColorsFade]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

@Colorsfade: "than the Sectoids show up" ???? sure you already played Legendary? because there you get your first right out of the Box in Gatecrasher....

I meant Sectopods, but mistyped.

[ColorsFade]

Originally posted by graystripe:

actually, the part you wrote about legendary difficulty where harder enemies appears later compare to other difficulties is wrong.

i'm going to quote this here.

1) Harder enemies will show up earlier on Legend than on any lower difficulty.

https://xcom.fandom.com/wiki/Game_difficulty_(XCOM_2)

This is correct. They show up earlier.

Which changes the difficulty curve a bit.

In a normal game, Commander or lower, basically the difficulty curve is a reverse curve over time. The game gets easier and easier the more tools you have, the better gear you get, even though the game is throwing harder enemies at you.

With Legendary, because the harder enemies come out sooner, the curve is kind of spiky. It bounces. You get through the first couple missions and think, "Okay, I got this," and then the next batch of enemies roll out and you're under-equipped and out-gunned and it's really difficult again.

And it goes on and on like that pretty much until you get all geared-out with Colonels. Then it finally feels normal.

But by then, it's the end, and it's over.

[KRON]

Originally posted by graystripe:

i'm going to quote this here.

1) Harder enemies will show up earlier on Legend than on any lower difficulty.

https://xcom.fandom.com/wiki/Game_difficulty_(XCOM_2)

This quote is strange, considering that in this same wiki pretty much every advanced enemy has something like "appear as pod leaders in late April (mid-May on Legend)" in their description and in the config file the aliens' force level is set to build up slower than on other difficulties. The only enemy this quote is applied to is sectoid, which does appear earlier than on other difficulties(on the first mission instead of a second).
The enemies feel like they start to show up sooner than on other difficulties, because your progression is slower, too.
I mean, XComGameData.ini doesn't lie

AlienHeadquarters_StartingForceLevel=1
AlienHeadquarters_MaxForceLevel=20
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelInterval[0]=252			;Easy
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelIntervalVariance[0]=0
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelInterval[1]=252			;Normal
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelIntervalVariance[1]=0
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelInterval[2]=252			;Classic
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelIntervalVariance[2]=0
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelInterval[3]=360			;Impossible
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelIntervalVariance[3]=0 

What that means is force level increases by 1 every 360 hours on Legendary and every 252 hours on every other difficulty(the names of difficulties in the code are the same as in EU because it's the same engine). And the force level is the metric which determines, well, the force of the aliens, mainly the composition of the aliens you encounter during the missions.