My investigation into this topic:

http://forums.2k.com/showthread.php?4206366-Slowing-down-enemy-progression&p=14315471#post14315471

very quick, very awesome
thanks

I just happened to be working on this right this second, so just lucky timing. :P

good, always nice to have several people working on similar projects.
see ya around :)

ok, looks like we are both pionneers on that one.(read your thread)

i'll try your thing with different values.

considering sending you a steam friend invit, i am not registered on the other forum.

AlienHeadquarters_StartingForceLevel=19
AlienHeadquarters_MaxForceLevel=20

ForceLevelPowers[0]=220.0
ForceLevelPowers[1]=220.0


and

ForceLevelXP[0]=36
ForceLevelXP[0]=36

gives similar results to your experience.

you definitely are on the right path.

i'll fiddle with it tomorrow

Before I even started the test, I believe I was wrong.

By reducing ForceInterval, I was actually speeding up the alien ForceLevel.

Under the assumption that ForceInterval # = Hours

Then on most difficulties, the aliens increase their ForceLevel by 1 after 252 hours. Or once per 10.5 days. To get from level 1 to level 20 takes 20 Intervals, so 210 days for the aliens to max out their forces. From my experience completing the game, this seems to match with how fast the aliens progress. The game does not last a full 'year' in game time, I think my first Commander victory was in September or so.

Legend difficulty, which has the explicit tooltip that flat out says 'this is a longer game' has an Interval number of 360 by default, which is higher than all other difficulties, which means the aliens progress slower. In theory, this should create a longer game (slower progressing aliens doesn't mean they are easier of course).

360 divided by 24 (hours) is exactly 15 days, so on Legend they take 15 days to increment up one ForceLevel.

So if I want to slow down Alien growth, I actually need to increase!

AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelInterval[2]=252 ;Classic
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelIntervalVariance[2]=0

to

AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelInterval[2]=630 ;Classic
AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelIntervalVariance[2]=0

This number has now been increased by a factor of 2.5, which means alien growth should take 2.5 times as long as normal.

This is ALL based on the assumption that the value of ForceLevelInterval is 'hours'.

Slowing down, or speeding up, the alien progress rate by a factor of 2.5 should yield pretty obvious results one way or another!

i agree with the hypothesis though.

on legend, the xcom research rate is half the one on commander(and any other lvl), came across that tonight in my fiddling.

it only makes sense alien research is slower as well, otherwise legend would be called "stupid".

i was dubious about your first interpretation, so i didn t test the AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelInterval.

but i see you not only changed your mind but found a very valid interpretation i had yet to come up with.

it should work as you present it.I would bet on it.

if your hypothesis is correct,it looks like tweaking core stuff such as game progression is easier than what i expected.

good job.

tomorrow, i ll set variables to insure a significant increase in alien tech per time unit(will reduce to 50hrs) and run the test for a couple of weeks.
this should confirm or not.

At a value of 630, it took till April 26 before I saw my first Advent Lancer... this felt unusually long.

The start date for the game is March 1st, so it took about 50 days for the first new enemy to appear.

50 days is 1200 hours. Which is almost on the money for 2 Intervals of 630.

Will continue testing, but first indication seems to confirm!

Value 630 is pretty dramatically changing the game. With the pace of the enemy development so slowed, you really have time to research more things than rushing directly into tier 2 weapons and armor. I have also slowed my scientist recruitment and saved time and money getting scientists and put that effort elsewhere, like slowing that damn Avatar project!

I am actually taking the time to get a psi lab and train the psi class before I even have magnetic weaponry, something that would probably be a death sentence on default Commander difficulty.

There's also time to spread your promotions around and train up B and maybe even C teams instead of always just trying to get the smallest number of people the highest rank as quickly as possible.

With more difficulty added to the game by other means, such as increase enemy pod sizes, this is a really fun way to play!

i see we clearly aim at the same gameplay.

long and challenging, personally i enjoy dying in a very hard campaign(only makes sense) while not having to restart if i lose a top notch soldier.

i have a pretty good experience of tweaking long war, including wastelandghost's alternate Ai mod, probably spent over 100hrs in total.
i eventually made what beaglerush tried to do, with a bit more success(i m stubborn) but always came across the same issue down the line.

the hardest thing to balance is the character progression. the skill system is very rigid.
i suspect xcom2's to be as rigid.


the real challenge lies there.

did you know that legend was the only diff fair to aliens?
on all others they apparently have hidden mali and xcom hidden boni after streaks of misses/hits.

so legend should be the base to work on.

btw

it is fun as hell!

i m having a blast on legend with a value of 999.
i totally cheated ressources and xp, i wanted no hassle to test

i must admit legend is harder than impossible longwar was, i fail half the missions, yet it s so fun to actually succeed without the stress of falling behind anyways.

playing without the doom timer and research rush is very enjoyable.

for now it s totally broken and unbalanced, tactically it's legend, strategically it's easier than rookie diff.I ve always thought xcom strategic layer to be dull and just a way to keep you on rails.

i think the idea i want to work on is recruits availability.
remove the doom timer, make the game more guerilla that it is.
some kind of guerilla mod.

recruits should be more treated as a ressource.
i see a game where failing is OK, as long as you manage to get most people back alive, guerilla style.
no point in trying to win a war when you're not an army, staying alive and spreading the revolution is more important than head on combat.
so i ve got work concerning missions types.
the tactical diff should be really punishing, winning should be something to celebrate, but losing should be soft.After all, no one really cares if you blew the statue up or not.
winning with 3 casualties should be as bad as losing with only one.

but for now it all comes down to me cheating legend.

Yup we definitely seem to be on the same wavelength. I also decreased the difficulty of the strategic layer. It's just not all that fun and certainly not interactive like the tactical combat is.

I think the biggest thing that I'm noticing is that as soldiers rank up, they really reach super soldier status. Psi class is especially broken. Every psi soldier gets access to every single psi ability, provided you train them enough. Not even put them into combat, just spend time training them. It's a nice way to catch up a class that lags behind because you don't have access to it immediately though.

I have some mod ideas in mind, but for the gameplay I prefer to see larger, but simpler squads. Instead of 6 super soldiers each with so many abilities they don't all have hotkey assignments (more than 10) I would rather have 8-10 soldiers with maybe 2-3 abilities each.

For aliens, the occasional super unit like a Sectopod is awesome, but it should be occasional and accompanied by legions of lesser units. In late game x-com 2, there's very few opportunities to rank up new people because all enemies are so crazy beefy.

wasteland ghost did release a mod for longwar that allowed you to pick what units would appear in pods, when and which pods showed up at given times.

so i m fairly confident it s totally doable in xcom2

concerning soldiers becoming OP...i fear the only choice we have to to nerf the hell out of the classes, which is not a ideal solution as it amputates part of the fun.
tweaking the xp gain is ok(ish) but again can lower player's interest in mid term.

but since we can surgically determine the pacing, and change the research rate at any given time, maybe the ideal solution would be to combine all these ideas:

start slow, slightly higher XP requirement(or not) for low classes to balance out AlienHeadquarters_ForceLevelInterval >666, intelligent minor class tree reworking(switching some perks to make progression smoother), then somewhere down the line, increase alien research gains to catch up with soldiers becoming more efficient.Plus later pods tweaking(maybe make sectopods and the like nastier but limited to one and always fielding a bunch of puny sidekicks).

odds are it all can be done and the ideal balance may exist. it will just take time.

on a personal note, my guerilla idea could be good if i make recruits rarer and implement missions that allow to find recruits/ressources at the cost of monthly income loss per region:

understand: guerilla propaganda/ Poppy, Cannabis agriculture.
you convince more guys and get income boosts, but the regions where you run these operations in lose confidence in xcom thus lowering their monthly donations.(stackable, to eventually reach a point where they turn over and become advent again)