I Play All dlc. Started a game in the late may after Festering Skies release.
I have 1000+ hours experience playing xcom games since 1995.
Prelude:
I would say there is a problem with intelligence on heaven defence missions.
One mission i came at a time when heaven have almost won: pandora strength showed 1 heaven strength showed 8. Circle showed that pandoras have almost lost. However when i started the mission there were plenty of pandorans. Ok.
12/02/2047:
I send my full tiamat with the best squad i have + vehicle to assist heaven. I have lost only 2 or 3 soldiers since the game start so my best squad has many maxed soldiers that can not get experience any further. I have various lasers and and my heavy has a machinegun that has a good demage output 12 ruounds x 35 that is good vs big enemies. Heaven defence is expected to be easy as heaven strength is equal to pandora strenth. Smth like 8 / 8. When i start the mission there is a huge alien that is found at pandora citadels. I shoot it from the max distance where my squad has respawned expecting it to be dangerous but it jumps and kills 1 person from my squad every turn including turn 1! Even as i try to spread out and try to kill it’s legs use my vehicle as a shield. Heaven that i defend only has only 2 soldiers and they both get mind controlled by sirena that assists the huge bug.
So i find this ridiculous. Why heaven defence status showed 8/8 force comparsion when it is more like 16/2? Heaven could defend on its own probably as a circle was equal. I dont see this as a good game design. How they supposed to win the def on their own with 2 soldiers? Also this bug instalkills 1 maxed out soldier every turn starting from the turn 1!
I always played without using savegames. But i think this game gives unsatisfying experience. Like ok why not to make this bug kill all the maxed out squad on the 1st turn on a mission? Or better instakill the whole squad even without the mission. Show weak enemy force and then instakill the player. This is a challenging game right?
Basically, the forces numbers reflect the strength of both sides. It’s an indicator a to whether one needs to defend a haven and what forces to bring. As the force numbers reduce, it’s an indicator on whether one can make it to the heaven in time. The actual forces do not change over that time. If one gets there early or late makes no difference. However, later may cause the haven to have less defenders for the next attack.
This information is never fully true. On harder levels, and as Pandas evolve, they use brute force to destroy heavens way more, and non-PP interventions means one less ally on map.
Circle showed equal forces before i arrived. They were not losing. This did not reflect their actual strength and the strength of the enemy. Meh. The game is not fun for me. Im ok with pandoras killing the heavens and bieng strong. But the game showed that heaven is doing fine with it’s defence but when i arrived they had nothing at all while it was shown that they were equally strong all the time. So the game has no correlation between strategic and tactical modes.
I suppose Gallop is long gone to rest rinding on a cutter, yacht, golf etc. This game is a crap. It was a total crap 1 year ago and it is still crap. Just used the name of a Gallop to get money and for a good pension. Giving a game to some uninterested game developers. Who are not interested at what they are doing.
Yes, I can understand your logic.
However it is not how Haven Defence missions work. In my experience they are always set up to provide at least some challenge for player’s squad, so they have a number of pandorans equal or bigger than his squad.
Because circle shows overall forces and it acts more like a timer. Real forces in place where you deploy may differ. And imagine if you land there and there are big allied forces… Will you enjoy such fight? You would struggle to get even one kill and some experience - wouldn’t you consider it as a waste of time?
It is possible make circle to disappear if ratio is too good for heaven defence. Like if it starts:
heaven 8:9 pandora
heaven 8:6 pandora
heaven 8:3 pandora — here circle disappears and mission is no longer available as heavens have already squashed invaders
So it is false info
Yeah there is no correlation between strategic and tactical game
Well, you would get what you have expected, right? The forces ratio isn’t hidden or something so if you decide to join 300:1 fight you could expect 1/300 fun
I still have an autosave.
See. This is a mission briefing. Heaven strength 9. Pandora strength 7. Heaven is winning already.
This briefing is for the tactical part of the game right? This is not a strategic briefing this is a tactical briefing. Mission complexity is medium. This is just broken.
This is a link to my autosave at the when i arrive:
This is the link to what actually happened in battle - my maxed snipers got instakilled 1 each turn starting from turn 1. And there is no win for this mission.
You will at some point realise this game is full of different “progress bars”, hidden behind something that you would expect have deeper meaning. Here’s one. These numbers are absolutely useless, and they only show how soon defense mission will disappear and what will be result. They don’t reflect battlescape situation. (As far as I know, Threat Level is the only thing that matters here)
As far as I know, Threat Level is the only thing that matters here
Even threat level is broken. This mission was the hardest i’ve encountered so far (with turn 1 and turn 2 instakills of top soldiers) + now way to win. And i’ve acomplished extemely hard missions before. This mission is specified as medium.
I didn’t say it accurate. But it is the only thing that matters and is somehow reflected in tactical battles. Strength numbers have absolutely no meaning to the battlescape.
But it is the only thing that matters and is somehow reflected in tactical battles
Yes but i say this is wrong. Bad gamedesign. Just imitation. Like you know lets make an expansion. 3 unique weapons and 2 new quests with a non-autogenerated map. Just commercial stuff without an effort to make a game. Or interest in developers in the game itself. Thy don’t bother playing it or understanding it systems. Just throw bunch of stuff take money close the project.
I did not mension here that i’ve played same missions like 2 or 4 times each map already ie repeating maps. etc.
For Pandas yes, but with the Pure and Forsaken it does. An attack strength of 1-3 = 3-5 enemies.
For Pandas it is mostly about low/medium/high/extreme. Extreme = 90% chance of a Scalia, but at a lower attack strength there might not be much support. The min number is higher than the other factions, and for Hero seems to be around 10.
There do seem to be ambushes as well where the force is unexpectedly strong and you start surrounded.
But it is the only thing that matters and is somehow reflected in tactical battles. Strength numbers have absolutely no meaning to the battlescape.