Turn-Based Tactics This is the Police 2 - now with turn-based tactics

[Zombra]

A lot of reviews complain about the imbalanced difficulty and spiral of doom. Is it a real balance problem or is it just a L2P issue?

It's a real problem, at least in the early game, because any failure is punished by reduction of resources but the game is balanced on the assumption that you're succeeding and increasing your resources. So you can't "iron man" it - if a couple cops call in sick for example, you have to restart the day. Rich get richer, poor get poorer. Once you get "over the hump" though you can start hiring more personnel. I just made it to that point and am hopeful that I can start playing the "real" game now.

Incidentally, the first game was the exact same way, so I'm not surprised here.

The tipping point for me was getting to the first tactical mission ... arresting 5 guys at once got me a lot of $. (You should really make an effort to arrest guys instead of shooting them; it pays off.)

 

[Mark Richard]

Incidentally, the first game was the exact same way, so I'm not surprised here.

Yup, never hesitate to reload a checkpoint. In the second week of the first game its possible to lose half of all staff positions to a labour dispute and prosecutor's enquiry. Get out of that one, Rommel. The game is effectively over, but it'll let the player eke out a painful existence for a few more weeks if they really insist.

 

[Zombra]

Yeah, no handholding here.

Played through a day, did really well, was gonna rally my men for a tactical assault at the end of the day but one of my units was 1 second too late in getting back to HQ so they couldn't go. So I had to send 3 men against 11 perps. With a bomb timer. After three tries at the tac mission (you can restart a tac mission without starting the whole day over, which is nice) I gave it up as impossible. So I did end up restarting the entire day.

 

[Zombra]

They are patching the hell out of the game to deal with these balance concerns.

Patch 1.0.1 (yesterday)

Patch 1.0.1
JULY 31 - UNCLEPEYJ

Hello everyone. We're trying to fix issues people have with the game as soon as possible. Here's the first patch with fixes:

Patch Notes:

• Fixed a serious bug blocking the gameplay in the first investigation if played on Chinese or Japanese language
  
• Fixed mouse input on PCs with touchscreen
  
• Changes to game balance
  
• Fixed a glitch that would cause double items in storage
  
• Some fixes to Chinese, Japanese and Korean text rendering, like bigger font for tutorials

Balance Improvements:

• Your starting team of cops is better now
  
• Professionalism requirement for calls is lowered for the first week (and for some other portions of the game)
  
• The game punishes you less for escaped offenders, killed civilians and skipped tactical missions
  
• The game rewards you more for closed investigations and destroyed gangs

Patch 1.0.2 (today)

Big Balance Improvements: Patch 1.0.2
AUGUST 1 - UNCLEPEYJ

Hey guys!
Thank you all so much for your feedback. We’re working hard to address all the issues and to make the game more fun to play. In this update we’ve made a lot of balance improvements, we hope you’ll enjoy them.

• You get rewarded more for arresting criminals and punished less for missing them.
  
• Professionalism requirements are lower for all missions now
  
• You starting team of cops is much better now
  
• Your cops don’t lose stamina points just for coming in to work, only for actually doing something
  
• Your cops fully recover their stamina after a day off
  
• Your cops don’t lose stamina points for responding to false alarms
  
• Tab prices for cops and equipments are revised
  
• Your cops don’t come up with excuses and stay home as often as they used to
  
• Your cops don’t drink as much as they used to (weird, right?)

Bug Fixes:

• Fixes an issue in investigation screen that would result in duplicated frames and block progress
  
• Some fixes to text

Installing the update on macOS:
if you are getting an error message while launching the game, you need to remove and reinstall the game. This seems to be an issue caused by Steam client on macOS.

Looking forward to restarting again. (No, really!)

 

[Galdred]

Big Balance Improvements: Patch 1.0.2
AUGUST 1 - UNCLEPEYJ
Hey guys!
Thank you all so much for your feedback. We’re working hard to address all the issues and to make the game more fun to play. In this update we’ve made a lot of balance improvements, we hope you’ll enjoy them.

• You get rewarded more for arresting criminals and punished less for missing them.
• Your cops don’t lose stamina points just for coming in to work, only for actually doing something

That might make the game closer from a Corsica police simulator (Corsica has had roughly 20 homicides a year for the last 20 years, and less than 4% resulted in a conviction).

 

[Jimmious]

This or Star Traders ? Where to give my 10 jewros? So that I can play 5 hours in the next 3 weeks?

 

[Zombra]

This or Star Traders ?

I can't compare as I never heard of ST until this moment. (Looks good!)

Did you play the first TITP? Might look into that before considering this. TITP 1 is good and the story here is a continuation. I guess there are no true spoilers here though, you can play them out of order.

Play this if you want to:

• Watch excruciatingly long, drawn-out cutscenes that establish an anxious, desperate noir world (watch the trailer with the psychotic cop. That's just one cutscene, there are hours and hours of meandering scenes like this)
• Do XCOM-style missions with no level scaling whatsoever and no pod system [incline]. Gameplay here is good by the way.
• Manage dispatching an insufficient force to respond to a wide variety of bizarre emergency calls
• Sit there and take it when your employees disobey orders to your face, because what are you gonna do? Fire them all?
• Pick CYOA-style solutions (with hidden stat checks) [incline] to every call, and be prepared to fuck things up badly (I had an officer killed by an old woman with a scythe because he was stealthy ... but not stealthy enough)
• 'Fail forward' and keep playing even after getting guys killed, screwing up critical missions etc. - the save system does not handhold and you have to lose a lot of progress if you want to scum a mistake
• Shoot fleeing misdemeanor suspects dead because it's better than letting them get away
• Get to know your team of drunks, racists, sexists, junkies and (gasp) the occasional good cop
• Investigate cold trails and assemble clues ... and use your brain to pick the correct suspect (detective missions now have multiple solutions a la Crimes and Punishments, you can get it wrong if you're stupid) [incline]

-----------

By the way, is anyone else playing this yet? Mark Richard?

One thing I figured out that's important to know: "Disloyal" officers can't be controlled in tactical missions, they just run on homicidal AI. The AI isn't bad except it has no concept of stealth, guys will take cover and shoot anything they see. So only use disloyal guys on straight up assault missions, and maybe not even then. You can tell your loyal guys because they wear the cop hat; disloyal guys go bareheaded or wear headbands, hairpins etc.

 

[Jimmious]

Can't have anyone better to analyze a game than Zombra ! Thanks man

 

[Haba]

That first tactical mission with hostages is such fucking bullshit. Stunned perps triggering alarm or then they see through walls. Either way, fucking bullshit.

And the fact that restarting mission means you have to do the perks all over again...

 

[Zombra]

Well that was fast. Haba

 

[Haba]

Nice.

The sequel is still more than a bit annoying in the sense that meta knowledge seems almost a requirement in certain parts. Since the events are linear and predetermined, knowing which calls to ignore and which result in wounds/death seems almost a must.

 

[Mark Richard]

By the way, is anyone else playing this yet?

I shan't be very helpful from this point. Seeing how fast the patches are coming out, I went back to the first game with the intention of refreshing myself on Jack's story and playing through the additional free content. Rest assured I will be playing the sequel right afterwards instead of waiting in perpetuity for a mythical best version. In the meantime, the ball is yours.

 

[veevoir]

Play this if you want to:

• Get to know your team of drunks, racists, sexists, junkies and
• Investigate cold trails and assemble clues ... and use your brain to pick the correct suspect (detective missions now have multiple solutions a la Crimes and Punishments, you can get it wrong if you're stupid) [incline]

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Those racist sexist never go wothout backup cops you talk about - I call them detectives.

Seriously, pump them full of Int and use in investigations, they dont want to be a part of any teamups or disrespect orders - desk duty forever.

 

[Zombra]

Those racist sexist never go wothout backup cops you talk about - I call them detectives.
Seriously, pump them full of Int and use in investigations, they dont want to be a part of any teamups or disrespect orders - desk duty forever.

Totally, it's a great use for them. An interesting result that emerges from this is that assholes and prima donnas tend to become more intelligent.

It's also interesting that since detectives always leave their desks an hour or two before the end of the day, they usually end up being on the assault force for tactical missions.

 

[Zombra]

Now you can get rid of cops you hate!
AUGUST 3 - UNCLEPEYJ

Patch 1.0.4 Changes

• Now you are able to send cops that drive you crazy back to Lilly, but be careful: you won't get free substitutes!
  
• Added a new SAFE mode for video playback, to solve the crashes some players had - available through the settings in the main menu.
  
• Fixed an issue with assault that has been forfeited
  
• Fixed an issue with putting lootboxes on the safezone
  
• Fixed an issue in torture screen
  
• Music in tactics will respect volume set in the options
  
• Changed volume curve in options to better represent the changes in loudness
  
• Fixed a rare crash that would block the progress on morning shift screen
  
• Some other minor fixes and improvements

 

[Got bored and left]

Do you guys get situations where one of your cops asks you for a day off (because grandma is in town or whatever), you agree, and they lose loyalty as a result? That seems... counter-intuitive.

 

[Zombra]

Do you guys get situations where one of your cops asks you for a day off (because grandma is in town or whatever), you agree, and they lose loyalty as a result? That seems... counter-intuitive.

Maybe, but it isn't unrealistic.

"Boss, can I take the day off from catching murderers and rapists to watch cartoons?"

"Sure buddy"

"Gosh I respect your strong leadership"

 

[Haba]

The only time I've seen respect lost on accepting day off is when you ask for the reason before. It is definitely not a trait.

I'm starting to hate the RNG in the game... when it picks a random cop for its RNG gang retaliation... it picks the one with maxed stats and 1k auth.

Also, protip for anyone who is getting fed up with the tactical missions, use speedhack. It makes retrying them much more tolerable. Remember to turn it off tho :D

 

[Got bored and left]

Do you guys get situations where one of your cops asks you for a day off (because grandma is in town or whatever), you agree, and they lose loyalty as a result? That seems... counter-intuitive.

Maybe, but it isn't unrealistic.

"Boss, can I take the day off from catching murderers and rapists to watch cartoons?"

"Sure buddy"

"Gosh I respect your strong leadership"

Sure, but it was really arbitrary - for the first few days, whenever I refused anyone, they'd go all FUCK YOUUUUU, but accepting anything made them happy - and then, on day 4(ish) everyone I agreed to (I got curious and tried a few times, it was always just one person asking, always different, always with a different request) flipped me the bird. I found that a bit odd.

Anyway, the game's good fun so far, so I'm just nitpickig.

 

[Haba]

All of those require 2000+ professionalism. Only one of them is bogus.

 

[Zombra]

I better get smarter about spending my tabs!

 

[veevoir]

By December 17 it shouldn't be that much of a problem. Also in legal version of the game tehre were balancing day 1,2,3,4 patches

 

[veevoir]

I wonder how exactly is the reactivity in the game.

For example, very early in the game when you start earning on the side there is a mission to do a shakedown, or to be exact:

Spoiler

Shake down an old lady for rare coins

If you do it - Lilly calls at the end of the day about it.

In simliar vein - an competition with Carter be won? And if no - does it always have the further cutscene with Carter & Jack? For me it ended

Spoiler

With Carter going "I know who you are get out of town nau!" to which Jack responded with a call to the smuggler dude. Jack got very dark & criminal very fast, unlike 1 when you can still pretend to be a nice guy

. The scene itself was very cool, but it would be 300% cooler if it was result of the character creation letter in the beginning + other actions of yours.

 

[Zombra]

I wonder how exactly is the reactivity in the game.

Me too. I'd like to think that everything has a consequence. Actually I don't want to know the exact mechanics for everything. We know there are mechanics for some of this stuff. I don't need to know where the line is or how to "game the system". I'm super into it when a game blurs my expectations like this.

 

[Haba]

I think the game is best played without a clear understanding on what the consequences are.

Spoiler

There is some reactivity, but way less than you think there is.

A really big word of caution: DON'T SEND GANG MEMBERS TO COURT!

You have to complete the entire gang investigation. Even if you successfully interrogate the gang members, sending even one of them to court automatically terminates the gang investigation.

If you have fucked up, you can edit your save game to return them to lockup, but if you're noticing this too late, you probably won't have enough time to do all of the investigation.