WotC - Worse End-Game?

[Sines]

So, I'm thinking that while WotC made the game a lot more interesting for most of the run, it actually made the end-game even worse. This comes down to two factors.

Power. You are simply just so much stronger in WotC at the end, while the Golden Path missions are no more difficult. The Chosen weapons, the Training Center allowing your soldiers to have 6 or so more abilities than they would in Vanilla, Covert Ops allowing your soldiers to rack up extra stats, and breakthroughs improving your weapons and armor. While these advantages are off-set by the threats of the Chosen and the soldier cycling of Fatigue for most of the game, once you're at the end, those problems go away and you're left with only the upsides.

I think this point is uncontested though, so I'll move onto another one...

The Golden Path and story progression have been discouraged even more. Normally, in Vanilla, I'd only do GP missions as a way to reduce the AVATAR timer when I didn't have access to a facility to wreck. Though I would do the Blacksite and the Officer Skulljack (as Blacksite is obtained naturally by getting your starting continent bonus and the Skulljack is useful on it's own once you get Skullmine), I'd only occassionally hit up the other objectives, since you had to dedicate research time to unlocking them, and all you got was a mission that knocked off an AVATAR Point or two and maybe gave you some supplies.

When this was the only way to combat the 'absolute' AVATAR timer that wasn't dedicated to facilities, this was occassionally a good idea, especially if going for AVATAR Facilities wasn't an ideal strategy (bad continent bonuses in the way, or if you wanted to delay building/expanding/staffing a Resistance Com).

But with Covert Ops to reduce the AVATAR Timer (as well as the Sabotage Order), keeping AVATAR down is much less reliant on completing the main story missions. Sure, it's better to dedicate Covert Ops time to something other than reducing AVATAR Progress, but better Covert Ops time than Research time.

Secondarily to that, however, is that the Blacksite, Forge and Gateway all require you to spend your precious soldier Fatigue on them. They're 'extra' missions outside of the normal loop, and can result in both your A and B teams being too tired the next time a regular mission comes up. So not only do you have to spend research time on them, you also have to spend fatigue on them. Again, compare this to Covert Ops to reduce the Timer and... it's no competition.

Throw in the added difficulty of the mid-game, and tiring yourself out is a bad idea. In the end, you just save every story mission for the end, except for the Skulljack and maybe the Blacksite.

And, as a last small insult, the fatigue mechanic encourages you to not do the GP missions as soon as you can unlock them. Though this is a fairly minor consideration, as even your B-Team are demi-gods at this point, and your C-Team is perfectly capable of handling itself. As such, it can take several hours to burn through those final missions that are already a foregone conclusion.

I'm at the end of my C/I playthrough. The Chosen are dead, and the AVATAR Clock is under control. At this point... there really is no challenge left, just a series of easy missions to complete until I beat the game. After checking to see if there were any achievements I might get for completion, and seeing there were none, I see no reason to actually move on and beat the game.

I think I'll just start my Beta Strike playthrough now. And once I defeat the final Chosen, and my soldiers aren't too tired and the AVATAR Clock is under control... I might just stop right there. Because that's when you've beaten the game. Everything else is just a formailty.

[Sines]

As far as a solution goes, I think it'll be a lot better if you're encouraged more to do story missions earlier. It's one thing to go through Waterworld as a formality, it's another entirely to go through several story missions, and all the stuff between them, as a formality.

I think this could be achieved by making the Shadow Chamber research independent from the main research (so it doesn't slow down your tech progression), and by upping the rewards for completing the story missions (to justify 'spending' fatigue on them). Blacksite and Forge could provide a large intel dump (you did learn a lot while doing them) and the Gateway mission could provide Supply Raid rewards (since it's not an extract mission, and it seems odd that there would just be a gateway and literally nothing else in the area).

The Shadow Chamber can still require research and build time, as it's mission projections does provide valuable information on it's own, apart from being necessary for story progression.

People might still skip it, but at least there will be enough incentive to consider doing them, which would go a long way to preventing that end-game slog.

[theworld]

6 PSI with War Suits (Or Ruler armors) is still the strongest squad.

The only thing that makes them a tiny bit stronger is Warlock's Rifle and Skirmisher Improved Attachments Order.

There's an argument to be made that you don't need to shoot, just use PSI, so you are exactly as strong as you were.

[Sines]

Originally posted by KaneBlackHand:

6 PSI with War Suits (Or Ruler armors) is still the strongest squad.

Even if true, 6 Psi Ops takes a long time to train. I suppose 6 isn't too bad if you skip the more boring skills for them, but even then, by the time you have 6 of them, you could have finished the game ages ago, and are probably already dragging out the end-game. If you're okay with that, then you're probably not worried about the length of the end-game phase.

[TheMishthra]

I agree with OP's points, finishing the game IS a formality, no real challenge involved if you've reached the end of power curve. While that may be different compared to other games, and no one is celebrating this difference in difficulty scaling, it's not without gains in the early and midgame (challenge/difficulty/risk). Try finishing the game within the "Exquisite Timing" Achievement if you're after an end game challenge, because that's where it was designed to be difficult.

[Sines]

Originally posted by TheMishthra:

it's not without gains in the early and midgame (challenge/difficulty/risk).

Oh yah, definitely. I feel the game is on edge until I can kill the first Chosen, usually when I'm somewhere between T2 and T3. That keep things challenging for much longer than Vanilla, and the game is still a bit tricky until they're all dead. Avenger Defense (whether from UFO or Chosen) is a lot more threatening when you tire out so many soldiers doing it. So I'd say the game is overall improved in difficulty, and the expansion is an improvement compared to Vanilla.

I just think I'd be much happier with a mod to encourage mid-game playing of GP missions. I actually kind of wish the Gateway mission had two Gatekeepers, simply so you could build a T3 Psi Amp from doing it. Would give you incentive to do it ASAP. Also, they could rebalance it by removing the Chyrsallids, which are more unfair and annoying than challenging.

I think of XCOM Enemy Within here, where the Alien Base was a part of the story, but since you needed to complete it to get Psionic Soldiers (which were simply a flat upgrade to regular soldiers) you had plenty of reason to do it right away. There's just no incentive like that anywhere in XCOM 2 story progression.

[Shandor]

Originally posted by KaneBlackHand:

6 PSI with War Suits (Or Ruler armors) is still the strongest squad.

The only thing that makes them a tiny bit stronger is Warlock's Rifle and Skirmisher Improved Attachments Order.

There's an argument to be made that you don't need to shoot, just use PSI, so you are exactly as strong as you were.

I dont think they can beat Templer+Ranger Teams.
If there is a reinforcement point fot eh enemy i usualy move a ranger and a Templer at exactly this point and they kill everything that lands in the enemys Turn.

@ Topic: I think part of the problem are the new classes. I love the new Classes. They are cool and badass and all that. But they also make the game to easy. You have an Invisible scout that can sitz between 100 Aliens 2 steps away.
You have a Templer that can teleport your Boss Enemys in the middle of your Waiting Squad to kill it.
Once i got the teleport the Chosen are a joke.. they appear.. i teleport them into my team and the whole team killed them. You can even have Rangers, Skirmishers and other Templers stand right next to the teleporting Templar and as soon he teleported the melee skills all start to slash him the moment he appears.

[talemore]

it's after all firaxis and why not have victory conditions.

[theworld]

Originally posted by Shandor:

If there is a reinforcement point fot eh enemy i usualy move a ranger and a Templer at exactly this point and they kill everything that lands in the enemys Turn.

Cool story bro. Until Purifier blows up in your face and gives you Gravely Wounded for lotsa days.

[Gaz O'D]

Originally posted by KaneBlackHand:

Originally posted by Shandor:

If there is a reinforcement point fot eh enemy i usualy move a ranger and a Templer at exactly this point and they kill everything that lands in the enemys Turn.

Cool story bro. Until Purifier blows up in your face and gives you Gravely Wounded for lotsa days.

My Templar has bladestorm and that other ability that psi ops have (the one that makes you immune to explosions etc)

Hes my go to guy when i see a flare.

[Shandor]

Originally posted by KaneBlackHand:

Originally posted by Shandor:

If there is a reinforcement point fot eh enemy i usualy move a ranger and a Templer at exactly this point and they kill everything that lands in the enemys Turn.

Cool story bro. Until Purifier blows up in your face and gives you Gravely Wounded for lotsa days.

That would be Hard if they would not be immune or even go through the Armor. At some point of the game a explosion right next to a Ranger is 2 days Hospital maximum. The same time they are tired.

[Sines]

Got thinking about story progression in Enemy Within, and how much better that flowed, in terms of cost and incentives.

The first step was Outsider Shard, which could be obtained through the normal course of play, since you already had plenty of incentive to obtain the Arc Thrower. You would then spend time researching the Outsider Shard to be able to access the Alien Base. The Alien Base was necessary to complete in order to learn Psionics, and gave you a guaranteed chance at capturing the Sectoid Commander in order to hasten that research. You could also recover a number of items here that were reasonably valuable on the Black Market.

While this would be followed up by the Base Defense, this mission was best done sooner rather than later, since the extra soldiers you got were using T1 gear. The earlier you did it, the more useful those bonus soldiers would be.

Next was to install the Hyperwave Beacon, which functioned like the Shadow Chamber in giving you pre-mission information. Useful on it's own.

It also unlocked the Overseer, the next story mission, which besides being another valuable UFO Capture mission, allows you to access the Ethereal, who can be autopsied for a Mind Shield (which also boosts Psionic power of the wearer) and interrogated for halving all of your remaining research.

Every step along the way provided some boost to your tech progression. Psionics, mission previews, and Mind Shield. You also had a very controlled circumstance under which to capture a usually difficult to capture enemy for getting a hold of the Ethereal and Sectoid Commander, who both provided very good Interrogation rewards.

While you could put off these missions, and there was reason to do so, there was incentive to do them early. Furthermore, unlike the Shadow Chamber, which will eat up around a month of research time over the course of a game, Enemy Within only required you to research one thing for purely story progression. After that, all story critical research and buildings have their own use. Psionics and Psi Armor are necessary to beat the game, but are useful on their own. The Hyperwave Relay is needed to beat the game, but is useful on it's own, and the story mission it unlocks is not without valuable spoils.

The sole exception is the Gollop Chamber, which unlocks the final mission, but that doesn't distract you from research like the Outsider Shard did (and the Outsider Shard provided non-story bonuses to it as well).

I think XCOM 2 always needed it's story missions to provide some tech progression rewards, and the reduced threat of the AVATAR Project in WotC has only made this problem more obvious.

[Juravis]

The Covert Ops removes 2 pips of Avatar which is too much IMHO, change it to 1.

Also, you should install a Pod Increase mod. It'll make your endgame a lot harder.

[Negotiator7]

One thing i learned is covert oops missions every time you do one send lesser soldiers in the extra spots to and they gain a rank. Right now i am to about 10 soldiers at the highest rank and all of them gained rank from starting at rookies.

I planned things out from previous partial play thrus. So overtime i got as many recruits early as i could. I ended up with like 30 total. I did not build psy opps to chese thru it till recently and now its tuff even with that. with 60 enemys each mision and all chosen in play it makes many missions brutal. I don't have enough medkits.

[Uncle Fester]

This all is exactly why im going to try the Grim Horizon advanced option

[Sines]

Originally posted by fede1989:

This all is exactly why im going to try the Grim Horizon advanced option

I like the idea of Grim Horizon, but some Dark Events are DEVASTATING if they become permanent. Black Market shuts down? Ouch. Still might try it out sometime, and just make absolute certain that some Dark Events never come to pass.