XCOM 2 doesn't feel right because XCOM is, except for maybe the first few missions, stronger than ADVENT and Alien Forces. The guerrilla force somehow has better weaponry, and the capability to control a battlefield.
This mod aims to make the gameplay reflect the narrative better, and also resolve issues in the gameplay that limit the amount of optimal options available.
The core issue that makes tactics limited is the pod activation system combined with a limited number of enemies in the map. This boils down tactics to a fairly predictable approach where you scout, activate and kill pods in single turns. Timers help but don't resolve this issue, as you just get better at scouting, activating and killing in 1-2 turns. There is no impetus to go faster than that because it actually slows you down - cleaning up a bad engagement takes more turns than activating and killing in one turn.
So, what are we aiming to do:
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never allow the player to feel like they can outright win a fight, they must focus on primary objectives and self determined secondaries (collecting bodies, loot, etc) and then escape when they feel the risk is too great.
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avoid clear upgrade paths for the player, research and development should open up more gameplay options rather than just incrementing numbers to keep up with enemy numbers
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counter snowballing with systems that make thematic sense and force interesting choices
How do we do that:
We're going to start off with the assumption that maybe class and combat balance is alright, it's just the context that invalidates suppression, smoke, etc in favour of phantom scouting with grenadiers. With that in mind, we start off by changing the context:
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after breaking concealment, reinforcements start arriving at exponentially growing rates. The only way to succeed at a mission is to complete its objective and then leave.
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Bodies and Loot can only be recovered by carrying them off the mission site, or equipping and using a Fulton Harness for extraction.
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Evacuation is delayed to make it more of a conscious decision with risks rather than a reactive one turn evac. There is also an argument for forcing the call down to be a minimum distance from enemy troops.
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All missions are changed to support this objective focus, and notably supply raids become a proper smash and grab rather than a no time limit bug hunt.
I believe this to be enough for a play testing alpha, which sets the stage for deciding just how much of the strategy layer needs to change to still have a fair game.
From there, we start to look at changes which give you more meaningful choices to make rather than clear upgrades.
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XCOM Threat Level - at the moment force level progresses linearly. If you fall behind you lose, if you pull ahead you snowball. XCOM Threat Level exposes how seriously the aliens are taking you, their speed of reinforcement, the size of garrison, potentially we can have that reach into more resistance retaliation and UFOs hunting you. The threat level spikes when you do well, flawless missions, lots of kills, deployment of good technology, rapid regional expansion - it tapers off when you skip/fail missions, lose soldiers, regions are lost. We operate under the presumption that the aliens have comparatively limitless resources, you just need to do well to attract their wrath.
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Squad Size Concealment - rather than forcing squad size for missions arbitrarily, have it be a conscious choice that affects your tactical position. Deploy a small squad and you keep squad wide concealment. Deploy a large squad and sacrifice concealment, maybe even activate all pods on first sighting
Now from here I haven't concreted much more thinking, it'd be nice for the weapon tiers to have more competition by being better at certain enemy types, sort of like Long War had, but I feel like that tinkering would have wide ranging consequences, it's too far ahead for me to see.
That's why I focus on the core ideas rather than implementation, again:
- never allow the player to feel like they can outright win a fight, they must focus on primary objectives and self determined secondaries (collecting bodies, loot, etc) and then escape when they feel the risk is too great.