malfred wrote: Huh. What's humanity's greatest weapon? The commander?
I hope he/we don't screw it up this time then.
Guessing yeah. I like the way the heavy weapons guy sounds when he was shooting the laser heavy weapon at the advent mech (or was it a laser he was shooting?). It also seems we'll get more than one type of melee weapon (god here's hoping for a light saber or something or something viciously painful looking) and a wrist mounted flamethrower. I'm super happy with the options. More ability to customize means it'll be easier to make your own guys esp. if they represent friends/online people somewhere. Dakka dakka xcom team go!!!! I'm also a huge sucker for explosions. Glad to see this trailer didn't disappoint with that esp. towards the end. I kinda prefer the head/skull sectoid face to the previous weird sectoid face but maybe that's just me. Still prefer the old xcom: enemy unknown cover but meh.
malfred wrote: Huh. What's humanity's greatest weapon? The commander?
The attempts at building up hype for this game have been arse-backwards for a while. They should have shown people the soldiers they get to use and let at least some of the aliens be a surprise, instead of spoiling the surprise while still not bloody telling us what the fifth (and now sixth) soldier class is.
Then again, I would be rather pissed if I bought the game and then found out how stupid some of their alien ideas were.
I started watching the first video, and then kept waiting for the guy who was talking to shut up about customization options and facial expressions, and move on to the actual gameplay. I gave up before he did.
malfred wrote: Huh. What's humanity's greatest weapon? The commander?
The attempts at building up hype for this game have been arse-backwards for a while. They should have shown people the soldiers they get to use and let at least some of the aliens be a surprise, instead of spoiling the surprise while still not bloody telling us what the fifth (and now sixth) soldier class is.
Then again, I would be rather pissed if I bought the game and then found out how stupid some of their alien ideas were.
The 6th in the additional content is probably something like the mech class. As far as the 5th class who knows? Maybe it's a demo-man like the person at the end of the trailer. It would fit the whole stealth and ambush role. Plant explosives, wait for an enemy patrol and then boom.
malfred wrote: Huh. What's humanity's greatest weapon? The commander?
I hope he/we don't screw it up this time then.
Does anyone else get the feeling that the Commander gets captured at the end of XCom1 and the first (possibly tutorial) mission is to rescue him? The 1st person POV getting stock struck by a muton, then having a thin man peering down... whole thing feels like someone got captured and experimented on.
The Commander's (i.e. your) capture, and subsequent rescue for XCom 2 were already confirmed in one of the earlier videos. The video showed the introductory tour of the base, where you meet your new staff, and the commander's rescue was one of the topics mentioned during the conversations.
Now whether it'll be the tutorial level, or will all be a cutscene, is anyone's guess at this point.
The cut scenes that I'd mentioned earlier talk about something that's minor spoilerish (I'm almost certain you learn about it very early in the game). So I won't say anything further.
In one of the gameplay videos they mention the aliens put a chip in his brain that xcom had to remove. There's also the possibility they wanted to learn about xcom in order to completely eradicate it. I mean he has information. Capturing a leader means they could more easily destroy xcom.
I will admit the person playing the game wasn't too hot at it. I'm not sure who he is in the team but possibly one that doesn't test gameplay. I realize maybe that's fine for casual play but when you've played 1300+ hours on enemy unknown and within like I have some of the moves are a bit frustrating to watch. I will admit this is a different game but there are things you should and shouldn't do. The 2nd viper and dude probably weren't activated yet. Also though the sword is fun and does lots of damage running in like that leaves them massively exposed esp. to enemy patrols that might be nearby (which might mean 1 or 2 guys in vision would turn into like 5 able to kill the swordsman) so doing that before taking out most of the rest of the baddies is a bad decision. Hiding around the car when you know your enemy has explosives is once again a bad idea. I dunno I'd have to watch it all again so I can pass decent judgment on all of this. Not sure how many grenades he had but he should use them often to destroy enemy cover where possible before shooting the exposed enemies. I realize it's a different game but still. I mean it's not like he's not using cover or doing really super bad moves but still.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I will admit the person playing the game wasn't too hot at it. I'm not sure who he is in the team but possibly one that doesn't test gameplay. I realize maybe that's fine for casual play but when you've played 1300+ hours on enemy unknown and within like I have some of the moves are a bit frustrating to watch.
Maybe that's intentional - to make everyone watching feel an instinctive need to play the game and show him how it's done.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I will admit the person playing the game wasn't too hot at it. I'm not sure who he is in the team but possibly one that doesn't test gameplay. I realize maybe that's fine for casual play but when you've played 1300+ hours on enemy unknown and within like I have some of the moves are a bit frustrating to watch.
Maybe that's intentional - to make everyone watching feel an instinctive need to play the game and show him how it's done.
Nothing is more boring than watching someone play XCOM optimally. Move one guy from full cover, to the spot with full cover that requires them to reveal the least amount of new FoW. Everyone else: Overwatch, end phase. Rinse/Repeat entire mission unless it's a bombing run.
flamingkillamajig wrote: I will admit the person playing the game wasn't too hot at it. I'm not sure who he is in the team but possibly one that doesn't test gameplay. I realize maybe that's fine for casual play but when you've played 1300+ hours on enemy unknown and within like I have some of the moves are a bit frustrating to watch.
Maybe that's intentional - to make everyone watching feel an instinctive need to play the game and show him how it's done.
Nothing is more boring than watching someone play XCOM optimally. Move one guy from full cover, to the spot with full cover that requires them to reveal the least amount of new FoW. Everyone else: Overwatch, end phase. Rinse/Repeat entire mission unless it's a bombing run.
For some of it yes. I also tend to throw 3 guys up on the rooftop in my plays and use one dude to spot while the other guys chuck grenades down from the roof out of sight of the enemy and then I hunker down in full cover with the remaining guy. So yeah totally different than that.
Not to mention I also blow up all cover and then shoot exposed enemies which works really well esp. when you have a sniper with 'in the zone' and you can finish off each guy adding up to 6 kills with one sniper finishing each one off. Possibly more if you have the ammo boost option.
My point is he didn't use things well together. Part of the point of xcom is combo'ing things up very well. If you fumble around like an idiot while playing it's not very fun to watch.
It's the same basic strategy, though, with the underlying doctrine of 'slow advance, clean them out one group at a time, don't get into an extended firefight'. Which is satisfying for the player, but a little less so for an audience.
I would guess that he's playing that way to drive home the point of XCOM for people who may not have played the last one. It's a difficult game that can and will see your characters dead. You don't play your demo to show off what an experienced player will do; that's something the customer should figure out for themselves.
Maybe now someone knows not to take shelter behind a car because they've seen what can happen.
Spinner wrote: It's the same basic strategy, though, with the underlying doctrine of 'slow advance, clean them out one group at a time, don't get into an extended firefight'. Which is satisfying for the player, but a little less so for an audience.
I would guess that he's playing that way to drive home the point of XCOM for people who may not have played the last one. It's a difficult game that can and will see your characters dead. You don't play your demo to show off what an experienced player will do; that's something the customer should figure out for themselves.
Maybe now someone knows not to take shelter behind a car because they've seen what can happen.
That and running out ahead can sometimes reveal more baddies which surround you and then you either have to run back or leave the soldier to die. It's the case of playing risky often means it will eventually fail and often in a big way. I have sometimes had the one soldier trying to flank to take a great shot and tried to save them only to have more people die as well. That's what tends to happen when you run for the flank. You often get flanked in return which is why grenades are your best friend for getting rid of cover and killing the now exposed enemies. This is also why assaults are often not used by me. They're fun sure but you have to think if your pathway is clear and won't expose new enemies for more ridiculous crap. Then again maybe I just should've played a defensive assault again and thrown down some smoke grenades.
I dunno I don't think they should've played fantastically but at the very least competently to show some interesting new tactics we could use.
Spinner wrote: It's the same basic strategy, though, with the underlying doctrine of 'slow advance, clean them out one group at a time, don't get into an extended firefight'. Which is satisfying for the player, but a little less so for an audience.
I would guess that he's playing that way to drive home the point of XCOM for people who may not have played the last one. It's a difficult game that can and will see your characters dead. You don't play your demo to show off what an experienced player will do; that's something the customer should figure out for themselves.
Maybe now someone knows not to take shelter behind a car because they've seen what can happen.
That and running out ahead can sometimes reveal more baddies which surround you and then you either have to run back or leave the soldier to die. It's the case of playing risky often means it will eventually fail and often in a big way. I have sometimes had the one soldier trying to flank to take a great shot and tried to save them only to have more people die as well. That's what tends to happen when you run for the flank. You often get flanked in return which is why grenades are your best friend for getting rid of cover and killing the now exposed enemies. This is also why assaults are often not used by me. They're fun sure but you have to think if your pathway is clear and won't expose new enemies for more ridiculous crap. Then again maybe I just should've played a defensive assault again and thrown down some smoke grenades.
I dunno I don't think they should've played fantastically but at the very least competently to show some interesting new tactics we could use.
Yup. A lone XCOM agent is usually a dead XCOM agent. I'd think most of the people in this thread know that...but a newbie might not, which is why the demo playthrough should showcase things like that.
I'd rather discover new tactics myself than have them show 'em all off in a demo video. It's a lot more fun that way!
Different people, different tastes. If I hadn't played enemy unknown and enemy within so much I might have felt differently. Not to mention there are all those people that hate what the re-vamp of 'enemy unknown' did to the game.
malfred wrote: I *almost* have Long War Mec troopers. I have sacrificed
all useful air game upgrades to get to this point.
I am so going to fail the big picture.
I always wanted to do an xcom: enemy unknown parody with a whole playthrough. Dunno how well dakka would take somewhat offensive cultural jokes. I'm guessing not at all (for the mods and some forumites).
malfred wrote: I *almost* have Long War Mec troopers. I have sacrificed
all useful air game upgrades to get to this point.
I am so going to fail the big picture.
Meh, I always just kinda ignored upgrading my aircraft till I had the 2nd gen fighter and then I'd research the plasma cannon. You can actually get away without upgrading your aircraft for a long time.
I didn't get to see the whole thing but this guy seems less annoying and more capable. Then again I only watched the early bit of the mission he was in.
malfred wrote: I *almost* have Long War Mec troopers. I have sacrificed
all useful air game upgrades to get to this point.
I am so going to fail the big picture.
I always wanted to do an xcom: enemy unknown parody with a whole playthrough. Dunno how well dakka would take somewhat offensive cultural jokes. I'm guessing not at all (for the mods and some forumites).
Please dont, OT has enough of that.
THis game is looking more and more like a easily forgetebal experience, Now hopefully I am wrong. But so far the story and overall bland gameplay/ designe looks to confirm my suspicions
malfred wrote: Have you managed it in Long War? I'm losing countries that I
thought I had on lock because I don't have enough airgame to
take down scouts.
Yeah. Though maybe I've just been lucky.
I do tend to hotswap my fighters. I'll send up one fighter, it'll do some damage, then I'll recall it and send up a fresh one and it will usually shoot the UFO down.
I dunno how it's lacking either. Only thing we haven't seen yet is the UFO hunting the avenger.
Far as the strategy layer goes hacking terminals allows you to gain worldwide abilities possibly which when you think about it is a great reward system.
Engineers and scientists also are more personal instead of being a bean counter.
You need to grab soldiers that are unconscious or dead to keep the soldier or gear.
Certain objectives and gear drops are timed and might be valuable.
I will admit some of the early gear add-ons that they showed looked a bit crappy except for extra ammo clip and maybe the auto-kill chance.
I feel mixed about the training school. It seems to take a while to train your soldiers even a basic soldier class. In enemy unknown unless you had the ability to make them all squaddies when recruited you had the unfortunate task of taking them on missions and getting the leveled up and seeing what class they end up being. If they're a class you don't want then too bad.
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Btw anybody else hoping the community mods for stuff like tattoos will be a thing? I can only hope mods really play with customization of soldiers.
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@malfred: Lol that video. I can't believe that guy's luck. He gets both the mech and the large alloy cache not to mention all the crits. In my experience luck normally lasts for only so long but we'll see.
A waterd down and simplified version for those gamers that needs to have their hand held more like it
Streamlined, intuitive controls is not "Watering down"
Having clearly defined and useful information on the game state be readily available is not "hand holding"
Simplification is not a bad thing and is not "watering down". In fact generally speaking a games are better off when they cut extraneous features and only include what's needed for to provide depth to the core play experience.
The original X-COM was a solid game but it lacked focus, controlled like a sedated hippo and frequently failed to make goals or relevant information clear. The new X-COM games are polished and provide an excellent tactical game play experience that demands good planning and an understanding of the game mechanics. That you don't need to go through 5 clicks and 2 menus just to throw a grenade does not make them a lesser games.
A waterd down and simplified version for those gamers that needs to have their hand held more like it
Streamlined, intuitive controls is not "Watering down"
Having clearly defined and useful information on the game state be readily available is not "hand holding"
Simplification is not a bad thing and is not "watering down". In fact generally speaking a games are better off when they cut extraneous features and only include what's needed for to provide depth to the core play experience.
The original X-COM was solid game but it lacked focus, controlled like a sedated hippo and frequently failed to make goals or relevant information clear. The new X-COM games are polished and provide an excellent tactical game play experience that demands good planning and an understanding of the game mechanics. That you don't need to go through 5 clicks and 2 menus just to throw a grenade does no make it a lesser game.
This is exactly how I feel about starcraft and starcraft 2 honestly. StarCraft 2 was far too much like starcraft. Base building is fine but gathering minerals and gas is such a super old mechanic and was never integral to the story like it was with command and conquer. It could also probably use a better system for doing certain things. In total war you click a button and your dudes spread out. In starcraft 2 you have to click every guy away a gajillion times to get em to where you want (just to make AoE attacks less effective). But you know if clicking 100 million times in a more needlessly difficult system means that's skill vs pressing one or two buttons and getting the same result then I don't want that skill in my games.
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Apparently the Blacksite mission will be showcased tomorrow (technically later today). I'm actually pretty excited to see this. It seems to be more of an alien/advent stronghold type mission if the picture is anything to go on.
Still trying to get my mectroopers online in Long War.
I'm getting swarmed with battles. Taking too many injuries and
not bringing up enough recruits to fill the fatigue/healing gap.
Stay Frosty is helping, but it only helps so much. Having a blast.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Guess I missed there's a spring 2016 DLC for XCOM2 as well
About This Content
Bolster your ranks with three themed DLC packs available together for an amazing discounted value*. Each themed content pack will add unique new twists to the core game experience:
ANARCHY’S CHILDREN is a rebellion themed DLC featuring more dramatic soldier customizations. (To be released in Spring 2016)
ALIEN HUNTERS introduces new soldier customizations and gameplay themed around XCOM as an elite alien hunting unit. Face off against “Ruler” aliens with new, more powerful weapons and armor. Experience a new dramatic mission & confrontation. (To be released in Summer 2016)
SHEN’S LAST GIFT introduces a new soldier class with unique upgradeable weapons, armor and customization features, and a new narrative-driven mission and map. (To be released in Summer 2016)
Is it just me or does anybody else want to take even 2 hacking based specialists. I ask this because it seems that the specialist not only gives battlefield control (hacking mechs, terminals, objectives) but some of these provide resource bundles and global benefits. I'm actually heavily looking forward to putting a couple hacking based specialists on the team just so my global game succeeds heavily considering all the hack-able units and terminals.
I've also been curious about using the stealth ranger rather than the sword-swinging dude. I'm just curious how potent it can be and how long it can stay concealed. Perhaps it can stay concealed permanently in certain cases or perhaps conceals every time all activated non-patrolling enemy squads are killed. Some of the bonuses are making me heavily considering taking a stealth ranger with an assault rifle as well (you get hit and critical bonuses when concealed at corporal rank I think).
I'll probably play the game mostly like I did in enemy unknown though by having 2 grenadiers (heavies) and maybe the 2 specialists (supports) with the other soldier types filling out the other roles. We also have no idea what the 5th class will be if anything. Hopefully another concealment class based on demo charges. I say this because I'm guessing 'Shen's Last Gift' is some sort of robot or mech class.
Most of the new stuff I've seen comes from a youtube guy named Christopher Odd. He has a ton of gameplay videos including soldier class skill trees, gameplay and whatever else. It gives a lot away so consider it fairly spoiler heavy. Campaign details haven't really been shown though.
I subscribe to Christopher Odd, he has a ton of great content for a lot of games. As well as XCOM, I particularly enjoyed his Soma and Alien: Isolation playthroughs. I'm going through his Deus Ex one right now actually
Game comes out in about 3 days. Sadly I have to go to Arizona to celebrate my dad's 80th birthday with a bunch of family that give me a hard time. As I said we're more of one of those fighting families so whereas everybody will celebrate the release and loading of xcom 2 i'll be stuck in Arizona for a while. Maybe I can get enough steam cards and pre-order it but I dunno.
I hate the waiting for funds and increasing computer performance on top of the normal waiting for the game's release.
Grey Templar wrote: Man, forgot this was coming out already. Got distracted by BFG.
Gonna be an expensive month on steam
Dude even total biscuit really liked it.
"It's the original turned up to 12. An excellent iteration with a new theme and improvements all round. Feels like the game Enemy Unknown was meant to be"
Omg I want this game so bad right now. Why do I have to fly to Arizona? Ugh I need to buy this game soon as I can.
Grey Templar wrote: Man, forgot this was coming out already. Got distracted by BFG.
Gonna be an expensive month on steam
Dude even total biscuit really liked it.
"It's the original turned up to 12. An excellent iteration with a new theme and improvements all round. Feels like the game Enemy Unknown was meant to be"
Omg I want this game so bad right now. Why do I have to fly to Arizona? Ugh I need to buy this game soon as I can.
That's impressive. Enemy Unknown is a tough act to follow.
Grey Templar wrote: Man, forgot this was coming out already. Got distracted by BFG.
Gonna be an expensive month on steam
Dude even total biscuit really liked it.
"It's the original turned up to 12. An excellent iteration with a new theme and improvements all round. Feels like the game Enemy Unknown was meant to be"
Omg I want this game so bad right now. Why do I have to fly to Arizona? Ugh I need to buy this game soon as I can.
That's impressive. Enemy Unknown is a tough act to follow.
Enemy Unknown and its expasion pack was made good by the long war mod.
I think the final tier gunslinger skill (3 pistol shots) and the final tier heavy gunner skill (if you do damage every additional attack on an enemy does +3 damage) would work really well together. First do the heavy gunner ability then use pistols. As long as the enemy has no armor it should be insanely potent vs high hp enemies. I mean you'd get an extra 9 damage for the triple shot pistol skill. That's pretty freaking huge if you had both.
All that said it's relying on 2 top level class abilities and you have to choose those skills. Still it'd be awesome to watch. I mean if I recall the railgun pistol triple shot ability did like 9-12 damage if it hits and you'd stack on another 9 damage if everything syncs up (18-21 damage on one guy in one attack basically).
That said this is considering a fairly perfect world. Any of these shots could miss (though you could improve your chances of getting hits by destroying enemy cover and such) and you might not have those soldiers yet.
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On the subject of pistols I'm curious if you can add add-ons to them like scopes and such. I ask because there was one pistol ability where you shoot a crap ton of shots at all visible enemies and some of the abilities on add-ons are % based. I saw a guy hit or shoot at like 9 enemies in one playthrough since pistols don't need a reload. Could be super handle if one of those gave you a free action or free instant kill. For instant kill I'd imagine the final tier gunslinger ability would be nice (triple shot) if you can even customize that weapon.
Eumerin wrote: The pre-load has now started on Steam, and you can start downloading it if you've purchased it.
This is news I did not need to hear... why did my son have a hockey tournament out of town for this weekend?
X-com is my kind of strategy game, I have always been into creepy sci-fi strategy and this is it.
I like the guerrilla element of it, being the underdog and under pressure is my thing: making every resource count.
Now it is just the choice of buy all the bits now or later... not sure I want to reward withholding content but these guys deserve some credit.
I like this game so much I keep looking at how to make it a tabletop game (see a few people doing it) and yes I am aware of the board game.
About an hour remaining download, 1/2 hour unpack, then about 2 1/2 hour wait.
Nap now then couple hour play?
Oh yeah, got tomorrow and week off: happy days.
Only problem is hockey tournament for 3 days... ouch.
The chip in the commander has been feeding you simulated wargames. Is this the explanation for why a) you're such a badass tactical commander and b) you thought the first war with the aliens ended differently and c) why the heck you've played so many versions of the game
Got the game gifted to me, and I am pleased to see that the Developers did not sleep in class. Was very sceptical but there may still be hope for this game, something I am happy about.
The chip in the commander has been feeding you simulated wargames. Is this the explanation for why a) you're such a badass tactical commander and b) you thought the first war with the aliens ended differently and c) why the heck you've played so many versions of the game
Maybe.
But there's a practical reason for it, too.
Some thoughts -
Way to go tutorial guy!
Spoiler:
I realized who Central was about half a second before he identified himself.
I understand why the devs emphasized timed missions. But some of the time constraints have been *very* tight, with literally no margin for error. And this is not on the harder difficulty levels. Typically the problem is the size of the maps. You start on one end. You have to get to the other end. And there's an objective that you have to accomplish on the way, while also fighting off any aliens that you come across.
Aside from that, it looks like a good game so far.
Loaded my game from last night and one of my characters is different to how I created them. Different headgear, props and stance. Anyone else had this issue?
I did put them through the training school. Does this alter them in such a way?
Silent Puffin? wrote: Well its unlocked but takes about half an hour to unpack. Basically it seems that preloading was mostly a waste of time.
Think that's preloading in a nutshell. I wouldn't ever bother with it if you have good/decent internet as it'll probably just download before it finishes unpacking (or, at least it does for me)
There is a mission where you need to defend the Avenger from apparently never ending waves of Advent troops and a scarily large starting force of gribblies; to win the mission you need to destroy a beacon at the far end of the level and if you fail the mission its game over (probably at least as the advent would have control of the Avenger). There are so many enemy units the mission takes ages (over an hour for me) and the map is basically covered by corpses. This is an issue as after a while the game becomes increasingly choppy and eventually just dies under the strain.
Enemy reinforcements (who arrive nearly every turn) and on map enemies mean that you have to advance very (very) carefully so there isn't a way to quickly finish the mission and (for me at least) by the time I was even slightly close to the object the game was dying.
64 kills and 4 deaths, including my highest ranking heavy whose exo armour disappeared even though I carried her body to the extraction zone. I had 1 rookie get enough promotions to reach Sgt and then panicked in the final couple of rounds and ran outside the extraction zone so I was forced to leave him behind.
Not a single scrap of loot, a measly 2 advances and a roster full of gravely wounded troopers was all I got for that ridiculous mission. Don't let the UFO shoot you down!
Anyone know how staffing gremlins work? I built a workshop and put an engineer in there, it says I get 2 gremlins but I can't seem to assign them to adjacant rooms. Help?
Edit: Ah, you have to click on the room you want staffed with gremlins and then select them from the top menu. I was trying to do it from the ant farm view.
On a side note, Workshops don't seem to be able to send gremlins diagonally.
Nostromodamus wrote: Pre-order customization content only seems to work when making characters in the character pool, not modifying them "in-game".
I wanted one of my characters to take up smoking, but nooooo.....
Also it seems troops cannot get a tattoo unless they come with one. I guess The Avenger had no inking supplies on board.
They have to level up a little first; one of my specialists found cigarettes somewhere on board . Same with camo and scars (the last of these makes no sense to me, but I'd honestly prefer a scar system where you only get it after you get shot or during character creation )
Or their huge AOE poison, their blinding attack or, most annoyingly, their long ranged grab attack. I'm even less of a fan of the Codex things and their AoE weapon disabling/massive damage attack and I am sure that there are all kinds of 'interesting' things that I have yet to encounter.
Most of the enemies are formidable in some way, anything above the basic advent trooper can be annoying to deal with. It's a lot more pronounced than it was in XCOM 1.
I am finding the timer missions to be extremely annoying, many of them seem to be all but impossible to actually complete. In the last example I tired it twice, once by strength (ran out of time) and once by stealth (all the enemies on the map clustered around the VIP extraction site which made it impossible to actually extract the VIP and there wasn't enough time to kill them all). I am finding that this is really damaging my enjoyment of the game.
In this game, you typically get one enemy who drops something per mission. If you use explosives to kill that enemy, then you'll destroy the dropped items (there's a brief message that mentions you destroyed them). But since over 90% of the enemies *don't* drop anything, and the dropped items are just there to give you minor boosts to your troops...
LET THE GRENADES FLY!!!!
^_^
I wiped out a squad consisting of an Archon and two Mutons using nothing but explosives. It was glorious. ^_^
And I took out the other patrol I saw in that mission by hacking the Heavy Advent MEC, and used that to take out the other two members of the patrol. ^_^
Had an odd incident occur during the game. I finished research on something (Elerium, I think), and got a message popping up telling me that my troops had now fought enough Mutons to make the Muton research item instantaneous. I haven't seen that happen with anything else so far.
I haven't been shot down by the UFO yet, but I did have one close call. The UFO's flight path took it nearby, and Central called for evasive action. The Avenger ended up flying around the world before coming back to roughly where it had started.
Central's "helpful" mid-mission reminders are quickly assuming roughly the same level of dislike as Vahlen's messages in the first game. Yes, I *know* that I'm supposed to be saving the civilians. But it's kind of hard to do anything to help the ones on the opposite side of the map... And I don't need to be reminded every few turns that the clock is ticking on my current mission.
On the one hand, the Avenger mechanic is kind of neat. On the other, it gets annoying to constantly have to leave the area that you're currently scanning, in order to fly halfway around the world to deal with another mission in a far off location.
I notice a lot of people saying the difficulty has been seriously upped (this may be a good thing IMO compared to the game cheating for you in XCOM 1 - but then, it depends how far they've upped it!) - So! For someone who hasn't had a chance to buy it yet, how's the difficulty compared to the Long War mod specifically?
Well, I'd say that everything is 1 difficulty level higher than XCOM1.
I think the really annoying bit is that the aliens seem to be freakishly accurate.
Sectoids:
They are either fairly easy to kill or a total nightmare. This depends on which ability they try to use. If they go for mindcontrol and succeed, that's pretty much game over early on(though you can get the mind shield early on to prevent this). If they go for Terrify its manageabl. If they resurrect a corpse, which the AI seems to always do if there is a corpse around, they are sitting ducks.
Officers:
Not particularly dangerous except when dug in and spamming their Mark target ability then shooting in the same turn and benefiting from their own ability.
Vipers:
Just all around broken. Way too fast, too much range on their grab attack, it should NOT be able to pull you through freaking walls, and it auto does 3 points of damage the turn its applied.
Mecs:
Do a lot of damage, but if you have a decent specialist its fairly easy to shut it down or take it over for a few turns.
So far, the only ones that have stuck around long enough to be a major annoyance for me individually are Vipers. Everyone else isn't too bad to deal with individually, you just need to focus fire and try to disable or discourage secondary targets (flashbangs aren't as good as they are in Long War, so far as I can tell, but overwatch works nicely!) That's in a knock-down-drag-out fight, though, and those seem to be few and far between - for me, by far the biggest danger is biting off more than I can chew and getting swarmed while trying to book it to the Evac point.
I love it when sectoids waste a turn making a zombie. Usually I can have a ranger run up and bisect (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) them next turn, and then the zombie bites it too. Mind Control is far more annoying, but it's doable...Jane Kelly spent half the (first? I dunno, haven't gotten far!) Blacksite mission mind controlled because I was scouting with her, and I just left her there while the rest of the squad defended a building against the newly-activated pods. The AI just put her on overwatch until the mind control wore off...at which point the sectoid did it again. Rinse and repeat...after the second time, she hopped down to politely explain why that was a bad idea.
How's everyone's Jane Kelly doing, by the way? Mine got nicknamed Viking; I gave her eyeblack and tiger stripes on her armor, along with a couple of those sectoid tattoos; she's killed enough of them. The lady's kinda terrifying.
Not read any of the thread yet, maintly because of spoilers. I will read up later.
Just here to say I bought the game last night (actually early hours of this morning), had a sleep and left the computer on and its still only 75% downloaded at approx 550 KB/s.
My Jane Kelly has proven to be the bane of those shapeshifters and ever annoying vipers. Her nickname is havoc, somewhat fittingly as she generally causes very much havoc.
Also the darkness take those friking Mutons and their damned plasma grenades
I love it when sectoids waste a turn making a zombie.
Yeah, I've found the trick with Sectoids is to kill one of the chumps near them so they waste that turn making a zombie, giving me more time to take down the Sectoid.
How's everyone's Jane Kelly doing, by the way? Mine got nicknamed Viking; I gave her eyeblack and tiger stripes on her armor, along with a couple of those sectoid tattoos; she's killed enough of them. The lady's kinda terrifying.
Mine got the nickname "Stinger". She definitely earned it, with as many times as I've used her Slash ability.
Although, now that I've learned a bit more about how to play and what I should build and research first, I'm going to start a new game and see how things go now.
Sectoids can resurrect mimetic decoys, a full group will spend their entire activation killing one and then a survivor will resurrect it the following turn.
Vipers:
Just all around broken. Way too fast, too much range on their grab attack, it should NOT be able to pull you through freaking walls, and it auto does 3 points of damage the turn its applied.
They are certainly annoying but I don't find them particularly bothersome at the moment. Their grab attack is really buggy, if it hits sometimes they pull their target though walls, sometimes the targets stops at the wall and sometimes they are pulled towards their target only to stop half way and bug out. It only does 2 damage to me, on standard difficulty (veteran?) at least. It helps that my snipers can usually one shot them now
I have also had a viper disappear when its cover was destroyed only to reappear in the next alien phase after I forgot it was there, with unfortunate consequences.
I still find Codexs to be the most irritating enemy with their damn cloning and teleport abilities.
Overall I am finding it much harder to have an 'A team' as even minor damage means a lengthy rest period and it is easy to get damaged. High level snipers are still ridiculously OP though (I have had my colonel sniper kill an entire reinforcement wave by himself in one overwatch thanks to the killzone skill).
64 kills and 4 deaths, including my highest ranking heavy whose exo armour disappeared even though I carried her body to the extraction zone. I had 1 rookie get enough promotions to reach Sgt and then panicked in the final couple of rounds and ran outside the extraction zone so I was forced to leave him behind.
Not a single scrap of loot, a measly 2 advances and a roster full of gravely wounded troopers was all I got for that ridiculous mission. Don't let the UFO shoot you down!
Did you have a defense matrix? I have one built, but no UFO.
Which is fine I guess; I like having a precaution, even if it never really comes into play.
Did you have a defense matrix? I have one built, but no UFO.
Which is fine I guess; I like having a precaution, even if it never really comes into play.
No, this was fairly early in the campaign so I didn't have it researched. I also tried to evade but failed.
I took out the guys near the ramp, and then ran my team up the left-hand side of the map while the defense grid turrets guarded the ramp. About a turn and a half out, I spotted a mec, which I took control of with a hack. I then used my two snipers (with plasma lances) to snipe the mission target using squadsight off of the mec. Two hits, and it was gone. Fall back to the ramp, and lift off.
Most missions have groups of bad guys that patrol the map. I've come to the conclusion that if you're undercover, these patrols will invariably move directly toward you. This is despite the fact that the patrols have no clue that you're present. I'd had my suspicions. But what cemented it was the Alien Facility mission that I was running in which four patrols all "just happened" to simultaneously converge on the corner that my team had carefully advanced to - including two Sectopods, and an Andromedan (fortunately, I managed to take control of one of the Sectopods, which distracted three of the patrols, and I was up on a wide cliff top, which made it a bit harder for the Sectopods' patrols to reach me). If my conclusions are correct, then I'm disappointed.
Eumerin wrote: I didn't have much trouble with the UFO mission.
When I got it my highest rank was Lt (both of whom died on the mission) and I had little in the way of research so no turrets nor upgraded weapons/armour. I could hold ground ok (after the initial huge wave at least, which included my first Berserker) but I couldn't advance due to the near constant reinforcement waves. I finally managed to get close to the objective but the group guarding it forced a retreat which hugely lengthened the mission. In the end I had to sacrifice my highest ranking ranger to bring it down after RNGesus frowned on me and I was unable to clear a wave in a single round so they began to overwhelm me.
54/63 kills (I was getting swarmed at the end) and 31 turns......
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/311115421205733917/38DFEE827838F176F59B530D8D61D7A1EB0249BF/
Did you have a defense matrix? I have one built, but no UFO.
Which is fine I guess; I like having a precaution, even if it never really comes into play.
No, this was fairly early in the campaign so I didn't have it researched. I also tried to evade but failed.
Ouch. I did the guerilla ops that stops it from happening, so no UFO for me I guess.
The avenger defens mission happened to me too today, having researched magnetic rifles and the upgrade for the shotgun my troops where Well armed...... I thouhght. Until the beserker came along
Trondheim wrote: The avenger defens mission happened to me too today, having researched magnetic rifles and the upgrade for the shotgun my troops where Well armed...... I thouhght. Until the beserker came along
I just got Warden armor.
Still no defense mission
Codexes are jerks by the way. I found one that dodged everything I threw at it.
It then teleported and shot one of my heavies to death.
I finally just got home and I'm gonna get the game tomorrow. Chances are by the time it downloads I will have to go to sleep and then have my work week start. I also may have developed a cold on the trip. So basically yeah I'd have rather been playing xcom 2. What are ya gonna do though :( ?
-------
I feel like I should play the 2nd hardest difficulty in this game my first time through. I could play impossible ironman fairly easily and succeed a good number of the times (probably half the time I could win).
I think most people's issue with the game's difficulty is that they don't know the enemies, skill trees, tech trees, buildings or anything. It's a new game. I don't think it's harder than xcom: enemy unknown (though I haven't played xcom 2). I just think we're used to the earlier ones and have been for years whereas this is fairly new to us.
If thats the power armour I am about 3 days away from it
Yeah, that's what that research gives you. Keep in mind that it costs 300 supplies, a core, 40 alloys and some etherium though. Its an armor upgrade, so everyone gets it.
It provides +1 armor, and I forgot the rest. Only one item slot though.
Trondheim wrote: The avenger defens mission happened to me too today, having researched magnetic rifles and the upgrade for the shotgun my troops where Well armed...... I thouhght. Until the beserker came along
I just got Warden armor.
Still no defense mission
Codexes are jerks by the way. I found one that dodged everything I threw at it.
It then teleported and shot one of my heavies to death.
I slashed her gak in retaliation
I reloaded and rememberd to equip my new armour, and dragon fire rounds for my three snipers. Fifty aliens and one sligthly annoyed ranger later i loled AS the avenger zoomed of.
Codexes are pushovers, apparently they dislike getting a blade to the head Also the damned need for those signal things are reeeaaaalllyyy irritating, i should be Abel to fly to whatever region needs me to raid some facility of doom and gloom
Trondheim wrote: The avenger defens mission happened to me too today, having researched magnetic rifles and the upgrade for the shotgun my troops where Well armed...... I thouhght. Until the beserker came along
I just got Warden armor. Still no defense mission
Codexes are jerks by the way. I found one that dodged everything I threw at it. It then teleported and shot one of my heavies to death.
I slashed her gak in retaliation
I reloaded and rememberd to equip my new armour, and dragon fire rounds for my three snipers. Fifty aliens and one sligthly annoyed ranger later i loled AS the avenger zoomed of. Codexes are pushovers, apparently they dislike getting a blade to the head Also the damned need for those signal things are reeeaaaalllyyy irritating, i should be Abel to fly to whatever region needs me to raid some facility of doom and gloom
I think the idea is that you know its in that country, but you don't know where it is exactly. The resistance there does know, but they'll only tell if you do...something.
I guess they don't trust you enough, so you need leverage or something like that.
The fact that most enemies have a dodge stat is getting really old. So far I've had Commanders, Vipers, Archons and Codices dodge my attacks. Its annoying as feth.
It doesn't help that for whatever reason, the RNG decided to make most of my high percentage attacks miss. Maybe I should make Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and Arch Dornan so they can verbally abuse my squad into competence.
I'm actually very curious. There's a lot of complaints about 'turn timers' and performance issues in negative reviews. This sounds like a very iffy release. Perhaps this is based around the computers these people had or something and possible playing skill? Perhaps they enjoyed xcom: enemy unknown too much and didn't like this.
If the turn timers were 1 or 2 turns longer it would be ok, but they sometimes can cut the mission so fething close that the only way to even reach the objective is to dash almost every damn turn. And that's without taking into account the 2-3 mobs you'll typically have to dash through and expose your soldiers to in order to reach your objective.
I really like the tactics involved with the concealment and ambushing, but the other half of the missions consist of dashing and hoping RNGsus is good to you.
I kinda wonder if their semi-procedural map generation has resulted in this issue.
Yeah, the best margin I ever had on a timed mission was 2 turns. Usually its last second extraction or hacking of the terminal, and it is easy to leave someone behind.
Yeah, in some missions, the turn timer isn't a problem. In others, you're forced to cut it *extremely* close - particularly since some of the alien patrols appear to be actively tracking you despite the fact that you're "concealed". I foresee mods that adjust the timers coming out very quickly.
Sneaking around can be fun in some situations. But the timer frequently means that you have to go loud very quickly.
On another note, I beat it.
Minor spoilers -
Spoiler:
The end base - call back to Terror From the Deep? The stinger at the end of the victory video seemed to suggest something underwater as well.
'Avatar' is apparently quite literal in the final mission.
Very definite spoiler hooks in this ending. XCom 3 won't be assuming that the Commander lost the previous game (particularly since losing in XCom 2 means the extinction of humanity). It appears that the Ethereals were running from something, and by merging with human host bodies via the Avatar project, they hoped to be strong enough to stop whatever was pursuing them.
I took out the "living" form of the Andromedan in the broadcast room in the second to last mission. After reviving, it tried to get as close to me as possible, which meant that it went to the raised bridge and walked back and forth there instead of following the path that could actually be used to reach me. I killed it, and then during the Alien turn, the corpse fell off the bridge into the bottomless abyss - which is apparently quite bottomless, as the corpse kept falling and falling and falling. Eventually, it stopped making noise as it fell. But the game got stuck in a waiting state, presumably waiting for the corpse to hit the bottom of the map. Eventually I got tired of waiting, and reloaded. The same thing happened the next couple of times I killed the Andromedan on the raised bridge, so I eventually waited until it moved away to deal with it.
With the mentions of Doctor Vahlen in the comments in the game, I kept expecting her to show up (possibly working for Advent). I was somewhat surprised when she never appeared.
Null Lance is great fun, particularly when you have two people on your team who can use it, and there are two Sectopods marching in column formation. The two lances didn't take care of the Sectopods by themselves, but they came very close.
Overall, it's a good game. And perhaps more importantly, it's not just XCom with a new storyline (looking at you, TFTD! ). The enemies are different. You don't have as many "how many hit points does it have, and how am I going to get through it in a reasonable amount of time!?" moments. Not having the tier 3 weapons while running the final mission is definitely not a good thing. But running the final mission with tier 1 weapons in XCom 2 isn't as bad as running the final mission with tier 1 weapons would have been in the original game (in fact, there's an achievement for completing the game without researching any new weapons). The strategic mechanics are different. The end result is a game that's similar to its predecessor, but that plays differently. The tactical UI also seems to work better this time around. I didn't experience any of the "Wait! Don't move that way!" issues that I did in the first game. The UI also helpfully lets you know when your troops are about to pick a path that will have them doing stupid things such as moving too close to enemies while concealed, and moving through environmental hazards.
The enemies are different. You don't have as many "how many hit points does it have, and how am I going to get through it in a reasonable amount of time!?" moments.
Yeah, it's been...interesting, discovering all of their abilities. Muton bayonets were a nasty little surprise. So was everything about the Codex. I was expecting more of that from the Berserkers I encountered roughly one hour ago, especially when they didn't charge me when I shot one...and then it used its turn hammering an Advent goon into unconsciousness.
Has...has that happened for anyone else? What triggers that behavior? I like it and wish to see more of it.
The enemies are different. You don't have as many "how many hit points does it have, and how am I going to get through it in a reasonable amount of time!?" moments.
Yeah, it's been...interesting, discovering all of their abilities. Muton bayonets were a nasty little surprise. So was everything about the Codex. I was expecting more of that from the Berserkers I encountered roughly one hour ago, especially when they didn't charge me when I shot one...and then it used its turn hammering an Advent goon into unconsciousness.
Has...has that happened for anyone else? What triggers that behavior? I like it and wish to see more of it.
I've heard of it happening, but I've never seen it myself.
The enemies are different. You don't have as many "how many hit points does it have, and how am I going to get through it in a reasonable amount of time!?" moments.
Yeah, it's been...interesting, discovering all of their abilities. Muton bayonets were a nasty little surprise. So was everything about the Codex. I was expecting more of that from the Berserkers I encountered roughly one hour ago, especially when they didn't charge me when I shot one...and then it used its turn hammering an Advent goon into unconsciousness.
Has...has that happened for anyone else? What triggers that behavior? I like it and wish to see more of it.
Yeah, so many freaking surprises.
At first I was like,
"What! They have bayonets!"
Then I was like,
"WTF??? THEY HAVE A COUNTER ATTACK IF YOU MISS THEM?"
It doesn't load as fast as I'd like sometimes, but the design of the
load screens is downright creepy and immersive. I find the
music very compelling, too. When a friend told me he knew
someone who worked on the music I jokingly replied that I
never play with the music on.
But the music made a liar out of me. I haven't turned it off yet.
Yeah, I've had some loading time problems. And the general issue with time between actions sometimes taking too long. Once I had the game get permenantly stuck in a loading screen so I had to restart the mission.
I had long loading times, and Task Manager's graphs didn't think it was:
CPU,
Memory,
Hard drive.
So, it must be the programme causing it, but not being held up be resources.
But I did get a BSOD when loading, and it appeared to be the graphics memory manager.
After having spent considerable time with this game, it saddens me to see that many of the things that was wrong with Xcom Enemy Unknown still remains. The game is not optimized but as a turn based game this is something i can live with, Even if the framerate is all over the place.
Also the person who did not ensure that the cameras was checked before the game was launched should be flogged. I expect that a company like 2K knows this! Several times the camera has caused havoc when my troops moved indoors or under walkways or similar things.
Trondheim wrote: Several times the camera has caused havoc when my troops moved indoors or under walkways or similar things.
The worst I have seen is where the camera clipped into terrain when I was hacking something so that I couldn't actually see the Gremlin. I had to guess where to click.
Eumerin wrote: Sneaking around can be fun in some situations. But the timer frequently means that you have to go loud very quickly.
This is, perhaps, one of my biggest complaints (and I use that term as absolutely lightly as possible) about the game so far. (I am not very far in, mind you.) The concealment mechanic doesn't seem to mesh well with the turn limit. I realize there are mods to remove the turn limit, but I wanted my first play through to be vanilla. I also realize that not every mission is meant to be a "stealth" mission, as most require you to wipe out all aliens present.
I am currently investigating my first black site. Minor spoilers:
Spoiler:
As there is no time limit, I decided to try to avoid patrols and stealth it. Maybe hack a few panels or something along the way. My first mistake was going in with a full team (currently 5 soldiers). But in the end it doesn't matter, as it's basically not possible for several reasons:
1. There is an unmoving sectoid in the core room. You will always have to deal with it, and even with melee attacks from a Ranger, there is no silent kill (so far) that doesn't trigger the alert.
2. The patrols don't actually "patrol". I save scummed a bit and tried to move around the patrol path; but the patrol never went along the same route. They always move towards your closest soldier; always. I had one of my Rangers get separated from the group and run off in a separate direction. The snakeman/stunner patrol shifted course to follow. Sure, you can try to use that to lead patrols around by the nose, but they will follow you.
3. I forgot what my other points was.
I'm still having a blast, and I may try restarting the mission with just my ranger. Stealth to the end room and then melee down the sectoid (she can one-shot them in melee) and make a break for it. I suppose I could just kill everything I come across, but the concealment mechanic really makes me itch for stealth.
Yeah, I noted your second point as well. It's a big drawback to the stealth mechanic, imo. You might as well go loud early because at least then you control when it happens.
Eumerin wrote: Sneaking around can be fun in some situations. But the timer frequently means that you have to go loud very quickly.
I realize there are mods to remove the turn limit, but I wanted my first play through to be vanilla.
There is a mod that only starts the timer when you have been discovered, that would probably be of interest to you. Its the True concealment mod on the Steam workshop.
Eumerin wrote: Sneaking around can be fun in some situations. But the timer frequently means that you have to go loud very quickly.
This is, perhaps, one of my biggest complaints (and I use that term as absolutely lightly as possible) about the game so far. (I am not very far in, mind you.) The concealment mechanic doesn't seem to mesh well with the turn limit. I realize there are mods to remove the turn limit, but I wanted my first play through to be vanilla. I also realize that not every mission is meant to be a "stealth" mission, as most require you to wipe out all aliens present.
I am currently investigating my first black site. Minor spoilers:
Spoiler:
As there is no time limit, I decided to try to avoid patrols and stealth it. Maybe hack a few panels or something along the way. My first mistake was going in with a full team (currently 5 soldiers). But in the end it doesn't matter, as it's basically not possible for several reasons:
1. There is an unmoving sectoid in the core room. You will always have to deal with it, and even with melee attacks from a Ranger, there is no silent kill (so far) that doesn't trigger the alert.
2. The patrols don't actually "patrol". I save scummed a bit and tried to move around the patrol path; but the patrol never went along the same route. They always move towards your closest soldier; always. I had one of my Rangers get separated from the group and run off in a separate direction. The snakeman/stunner patrol shifted course to follow. Sure, you can try to use that to lead patrols around by the nose, but they will follow you.
3. I forgot what my other points was.
I'm still having a blast, and I may try restarting the mission with just my ranger. Stealth to the end room and then melee down the sectoid (she can one-shot them in melee) and make a break for it. I suppose I could just kill everything I come across, but the concealment mechanic really makes me itch for stealth.
I did not observe any of your points in my game. During the Black Site mission I
Spoiler:
stealthed up to the door and took out two pods of mutons milling back and forth across the front entrance (I waited about 3 months to do the blacksite and the skulljack at the same time, usually no mutons on it if you go early) before going inside. I used a Phantom ranger to scout it out beforehand and there was a pod stationed in there (two advent plus mec) but they were in the water, not guarding the vial itself. Grabbing the vial is an instant squad reveal, however.
As for future missions of that type such as
Spoiler:
Alien facility assaults
the patrols are generated randomly but are not dynamically random. A pod will follow a route back and forth, sometimes pausing. You can stealth these missions in their entirety because
Spoiler:
planting an x4 charge
does not take an action. If you use your turns correctly you can complete the objective and extract in the same turn, which I have done on some of the later, harder missions.
I agree that the stealth mechanic can seem pointless on some of the shorter turn based missions but if you use it more as a mechanic to assassinate a tough pod rather than try to avoid any combat it will work out better. On one of my recent missions I split my squad left and right, identified two pods and elected to avoid one entirely and ambush the tougher one. As long as none of the ambushed aliens get away, the pod you leave alone is not alerted. It's entirely possible to avoid pods if a mission doesn't require all of the aliens to be killed and if it does you can come back to them at a more advantageous angle later.
My biggest piece of advice though is to always have a Phantom ranger. Leave them in stealth the entire mission and use them only to scout pods. You can ambush infinitely if you take a squadsight shot at an unactivated pod using the ranger's sightlines. If they get shot but don't see any enemies they will always run towards whatever shot them and sometimes end up out of cover.
My crowning achievement was
Spoiler:
killing two Sectopods on the turn I activated them. There were two pods with them included patrolling around an alien facility. The stars aligned and they patrolled onto the same spot. Salvo grenadiers and emp bombs wiped them and their advent escorts out in a single turn.
Eumerin wrote: Sneaking around can be fun in some situations. But the timer frequently means that you have to go loud very quickly.
I realize there are mods to remove the turn limit, but I wanted my first play through to be vanilla.
There is a mod that only starts the timer when you have been discovered, that would probably be of interest to you. Its the True concealment mod on the Steam workshop.
That's a cool thing and more realistic. Definitely getting that.
Been enjoying the game so far, finally unlocked magnetic weapons, however the turn timers are a nuisance, out of the 20 or so missions I've played so far only 4 have been non-timed.
Playing on Commander difficulty makes the 8 turn timer missions a bit ridiculous, but I've managed to scrape by so far. My last mission I barely made it, only one turn left on the timer. I'm starting to consider getting that no-timer mod.
I've heard of massive performance issues, but after turning off v-sync and AA I'm getting pretty steady 50+ fps, hows everyone else's rigs holding up?
Hoyt wrote: I've heard of massive performance issues, but after turning off v-sync and AA I'm getting pretty steady 50+ fps, hows everyone else's rigs holding up?
My framerate is fine, but I get a lot of hangups. Issue an order and the game just hangs for a solid minute before executing the action. Had one hilarious bug where a soldier fell through a hole in a roof and was stuck in the prone position for the rest of the mission. Teleported around and had no attack animations or particles, it was really weird.
Hoyt wrote: I've heard of massive performance issues, but after turning off v-sync and AA I'm getting pretty steady 50+ fps, hows everyone else's rigs holding up?
My framerate is fine, but I get a lot of hangups. Issue an order and the game just hangs for a solid minute before executing the action. Had one hilarious bug where a soldier fell through a hole in a roof and was stuck in the prone position for the rest of the mission. Teleported around and had no attack animations or particles, it was really weird.
A whole minute for every order? That must get annoying fast. Worst hang ups I've experienced is in the Skyranger loading screen, audio plays fine, but the screen hang ups every couple of seconds.
My glitches are nowhere near as amusing unfortunately, I was making contact with China and the time remaining went into the minus. Had to reload an earlier save to fix that one.
AlexHolker wrote: Am I correct in thinking it is no longer possible to multiclass as both a regular class (like Ranger/Assault) and a Psion?
Correct as psions are their own separate class now. From what I hear they have their own tree and can come around early in the game. This doesn't sound like a bad thing. More than 5 abilities for psychics makes this interesting.
AlexHolker wrote: Am I correct in thinking it is no longer possible to multiclass as both a regular class (like Ranger/Assault) and a Psion?
Correct as psions are their own separate class now. From what I hear they have their own tree and can come around early in the game. This doesn't sound like a bad thing. More than 5 abilities for psychics makes this interesting.
Sort of. You can rush them, but only if you did a sectoid autopsy, iirc.
I got them pretty late. I went for more of a shooty approach.
I had access to the Psi lab after the first mission but I am only just building it now when I have a roster full of Colonels in power armour toting plasma weapons
You know when you think about it the mod that makes it so the countdown timers don't start until you're first found make a lot more sense. I mean why would the enemy lock-out a terminal if they don't even know that you're there? I could understand if there was a timer on something and you attacked them right away but in that case you wouldn't be in concealment anyway.
In fact this change would make so much sense to exist I don't see why it wasn't in there in the first place. It meshes well with the concealment aspect. It's really odd how simple of a fix this should be then. Hopefully Firaxis can get their **** together and implement it then.
Obrek wrote: As for future missions of that type such as
Spoiler:
Alien facility assaults
the patrols are generated randomly but are not dynamically random. A pod will follow a route back and forth, sometimes pausing. You can stealth these missions in their entirety because
Spoiler:
planting an x4 charge
does not take an action. If you use your turns correctly you can complete the objective and extract in the same turn, which I have done on some of the later, harder missions.
Some patrols use standard patrol routes. Others do not. As I mentioned above, I had one alien facility mission in which *four* different patrols were all on my screen following straight-line routes to reach me. One of the patrols had been following me practically from the start of the mission, but was unable to reach me because there was a ridge line in the way. The others only showed up as I reached a position alongside the base, so there may have been an unseen map trigger that caused them to more aggressively patrol after me.
The situation was an unusual one. I had been aware of the first patrol, which literally followed me from the time I landed until I opened fire on it (I got sound notifications every single turn for that patrol). Despite the fact that I went from one corner of the map to the other, nothing stopped that patrol from following after me. It didn't dash, the members stayed close together, and it didn't shoot. But the AI controlling it knew *exactly* where my team was at all times. The only reason that it couldn't reach me right away was because there was a ridge separating me from the patrol for most of the mission. This kept it away long enough for me to open a lead on it.
Of the other three patrols, I'm not completely sure when the final one showed up. I think it showed up at the same time as the other two patrols, but I'm not 100% certain. It was there when the shooting started, though. The other two patrols each included one Sectopod, and it appears that Sectopods can't scale vertical surfaces. Their pop-up trick is presumably a way to make up for this. But popping up to see the top of a ridge line doesn't do much good if the ridge is big enough to keep your guys back far enough from the Sectopod to avoid getting spotted while you're still undercover. So the two patrols with Sectopods couldn't reach me (since the Sectopods couldn't climb the cliffs, and the other patrol members wouldn't leave the Sectopods behind). But at the same time, the Sectopods tried to stay as close to me as possible.
In short, I'm 100% confident of the following -
1.) There are static aliens that don't move at all so long as you don't move into their line of sight
2.) There are alien patrols on set routes that follow their designated movement pattern so long as you don't move into their line of sight
3.) There are alien patrols that know *exactly* where your squad is located while you're undercover, and constantly attempt to move close enough to blow your cover. There might be an unknown trigger that causes them to start this pursuit, though I don't know what it is.
AlexHolker wrote: Am I correct in thinking it is no longer possible to multiclass as both a regular class (like Ranger/Assault) and a Psion?
Correct as psions are their own separate class now. From what I hear they have their own tree and can come around early in the game. This doesn't sound like a bad thing. More than 5 abilities for psychics makes this interesting.
Adding psionics as a primary class is fine, removing it as a secondary class is what annoys me.
I've not even researched Psionics and I'm doing just fine nailing the likes of Andromedans, Avatars and Sectopods with my power armored, plasma-wielding squad of ultimate badasses.
I dug out a spot for a psi-lab, but it just sits there gathering cobwebs...
Hoyt wrote: I've heard of massive performance issues, but after turning off v-sync and AA I'm getting pretty steady 50+ fps, hows everyone else's rigs holding up?
My framerate is fine, but I get a lot of hangups. Issue an order and the game just hangs for a solid minute before executing the action. Had one hilarious bug where a soldier fell through a hole in a roof and was stuck in the prone position for the rest of the mission. Teleported around and had no attack animations or particles, it was really weird.
yeah, that has been my main problem. The game sometimes takes a long time to move on to the next action or switch the turn over, but when its moving everything is smooth(then again i have a new computer which easily runs it on max graphics).
I had hoped that problem would get fixed from Xcom 1.
Having all but completed the game, It dawned on me how on Earth Advent managed to keep control of earth for 20 years. Because the troops they use are with a few exception dumb AS nails.
A normal mission involves me kicking down the door and mowing down the first pod. Then the rest of the clowns comes running into the chrosshairs of my waiting squad
I am Well aware of that, but still. Should there not be at least SOMEONE capable of planing military operations beside that one? Or did they outrigth ban all manners of brain use?
Trondheim wrote: Having all but completed the game, It dawned on me how on Earth Advent managed to keep control of earth for 20 years. Because the troops they use are with a few exception dumb AS nails.
A normal mission involves me kicking down the door and mowing down the first pod. Then the rest of the clowns comes running into the chrosshairs of my waiting squad
Trondheim wrote: I am Well aware of that, but still. Should there not be at least SOMEONE capable of planing military operations beside that one? Or did they outrigth ban all manners of brain use?
Yes. Considering that Firaxes declared that they were good enough to beat humanity the first time, they certainly should.
Something they could have avoided by just not having the aliens thrash us by DM fiat. The aliens have both mind control and shapeshifters - why not just have them invade by pretending to be friendly in this timeline, while only being monstrously evil bastards when nobody's looking? And then you've got a perfectly good reason for them to be outmatched when a mothballed secret special forces project decides to take itself out of mothballs and start cutting them apart - because that's exactly the fight they were trying to avoid by being sneaky.
AlexHolker wrote: Am I correct in thinking it is no longer possible to multiclass as both a regular class (like Ranger/Assault) and a Psion?
Correct as psions are their own separate class now. From what I hear they have their own tree and can come around early in the game. This doesn't sound like a bad thing. More than 5 abilities for psychics makes this interesting.
Adding psionics as a primary class is fine, removing it as a secondary class is what annoys me.
There was a couple decent psychic powers in EU and EW but nothing that would make me rush for a psionics lab. Now they seem a legit thing to go for if you really, really want it. I almost wonder what awesome possibilities you can get depending on what you mind control. Mind controlling a shield bearer for instance might help keep your guys alive. Probably the last thing I'd go for mind control though. Wondering how good mind controlling a gate-keeper would be if it's possible.
flamingkillamajig wrote: There was a couple decent psychic powers in EU and EW but nothing that would make me rush for a psionics lab.
Two words: Mind Control. Psionics in EU and EW meant gaining access to a save-or-suck effect that doesn't just instantly incapacitate an enemy regardless of hit points, it also gives you a completely expendable meat shield to soak up enemy fire.
flamingkillamajig wrote: There was a couple decent psychic powers in EU and EW but nothing that would make me rush for a psionics lab.
Two words: Mind Control. Psionics in EU and EW meant gaining access to a save-or-suck effect that doesn't just instantly incapacitate an enemy regardless of hit points, it also gives you a completely expendable meat shield to soak up enemy fire.
I think that was only for 3 turns though. Meanwhile if you launched a couple rockets at some enemies and had 'in the zone' to finish off each one once they were out of cover you could take out about 6 muton elites easily. It was a very legit strategy. I did it frequently. Oh and a heavy with combat stims + the -2 vs enemy damage while in cover and not flanked skill rocked. Basically the combat stim bonus would have hp damage from all attacks and prevent criticals and the class ability would subtract 2 damage from that. Getting more than about 5 damage from anything that way even from muton elites and maybe sectopods was tough and combine all that with titan armor for massive hp and you'll watch 6 muton elites throw grenades at you ineffectually (provided cover is indestructible) until they've all run out. This is also considering impossible difficulty and yes he was the ultimate tank when you did that. At which point you could just sit back with snipers and snipe away while they couldn't do crap to you.
Speaking of snipers I will miss the nerf to squad-sight though. I suppose high ground could boost it though.
Trondheim wrote: I am Well aware of that, but still. Should there not be at least SOMEONE capable of planing military operations beside that one? Or did they outrigth ban all manners of brain use?
Endgame spoilers -
Spoiler:
The Ethereals were actively running the show in the first game. In the second game, they're all in hibernation pods trying to stay alive until the Avatar project is completed. So everyone responsible for their victory in the first war is unable to lead during the second war.
And that's why they relied exclusively on the Commander to lead their forces during the twenty year period.
The Ethereals were actively running the show in the first game. In the second game, they're all in hibernation pods trying to stay alive until the Avatar project is completed. So everyone responsible for their victory in the first war is unable to lead during the second war.
And that's why they relied exclusively on the Commander to lead their forces during the twenty year period.
So Firaxis won't even let the player have their hard-earned victory without some bs "Oh, the enemy was fighting with one hand tied behind its back"? Well that can feth right off.
The Ethereals were actively running the show in the first game. In the second game, they're all in hibernation pods trying to stay alive until the Avatar project is completed. So everyone responsible for their victory in the first war is unable to lead during the second war.
And that's why they relied exclusively on the Commander to lead their forces during the twenty year period.
So Firaxis won't even let the player have their hard-earned victory without some bs "Oh, the enemy was fighting with one hand tied behind its back"? Well that can feth right off.
I don't understand why you're so pissy about it. You're playing against a computer. It's pretty much automatic that you're going to be smarter than it is when it comes to tactical play, because computers simply aren't as good at tactical games if the developers don't include cheats for the computer. And Firaxis created in-universe explanations for why you're so much smarter than the aliens.
You're horribly outnumbered. You've got a tight turn limit on a number of tactical missions (tight enough that players have complained about it in this very thread). You're on a strategic time limit as well (take too long to win, and you'll lose). Your only advantage is that you're better at the tactical game than it is. And you're complaining because the developers added an in-game explanation for why you're better?
About 25 minutes left on my xcom 2 download. Lol it's been like 2 days since I started it and also experienced interruptions. I will be letting a friend watch me play through the steam app. Should be fun.
Edit:
XCOM 2 IS DONE!!! I'M SO HAPPY I COULD CRY!!! Well not quite that happy.
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Odd how the first thing I do once the game is loaded is go to the character creation pool. I added Keanu Reeves 'Neo' and also a friend. I may play xcom 2 later. I need rest.
It seems that the Ranger is the most deadly class so far (although my Sharpshooters have by far the highest number of kills).
I am starting to get a bit bored now, nothing left to research and I keep getting bothered by pointless missions which interrupt my campaign missions. Its also gotten to the point where my 'A' squad are death machines that are all but unkillable (unless I totally mong it).
Started playing and my god I'm shocked nobody mentioned how brutal the 'skull jack' is. You melee an advent officer or similar and hack their brain and you do it with what can best be described as impaling his head with ****ing predator claws.
Spoiler:
Was having a hard time with 2nd hardest difficulty at first (mostly losing the first mission a lot due to placement of the timed object). After that things were good until one fairly brutal mission (including a guy getting mind controlled and a bunch of stupid misses). Sometimes the random number generator is such a *****. Seriously often times I'd have my best hacker unable to hack anything.
I restarted the game and now have a bunch of soldiers, almost no deaths (1 or 2 maybe), one blacksite taken down and a lot of scientists for so early it seems (3 scientists compared to my pathetic 1 engineer). Starting with the equivalent to officer training school helped a bunch this time. My 2nd building will be the foundry equivalent.
Money seems fairly hard to get in this game but maybe it's just me.
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I should probably show malfred my custom characters to find out if they're dakka appropriate. I made a couple funny ones. I'll show you guys on here once I get the go ahead.
It's mostly just of my friends and they seemed to enjoy them.
I think maybe some of the difficulty might be due to the procedurally generated terrain and random enemy placement occasionally screwing you over, meaning you get exposed or have to expose your squad too early. Plus the timers don't help that either.
Dunno what happened but my computer screwed up a download. Probably had no effect I had to restart my computer manually in one case with small fixes it couldn't fix.
However now xcom 2 needs to be re-installed. That's right the 17+ hour download for the game. I am beyond pissed.
Wow, that really sucks. Does it normally take you that long to download steam games?
However, you might not have to redownload it completely. You might be able to Verify the Game cashe under the game options, which will reinstall only the corrupted files.
Downloaded the trooper class from the workshop last nigth and good grief! Alongside my ranger trio my two troopers and the obligatory heavy weapon trooper they wrecked face on the Codex origin mission and the following other black site strikes.
Just had a supreme WTF moment. I threw a mimic beacon out at the end of my turn. Andromedan kills it. Sectoid then RAISES IT FROM THE DEAD. Zombie mimic beacon then proceeds to die at the end of their turn.
Grey Templar wrote: Wow, that really sucks. Does it normally take you that long to download steam games?
However, you might not have to redownload it completely. You might be able to Verify the Game cashe under the game options, which will reinstall only the corrupted files.
Says they're all validated but the download is still just as bad.
Also yes all downloads this big are this slow. Internet sucks balls for me I guess.
I reloaded that turn to see if it would happen again. It did. Only this time the zombie mimic beacon remained!
The Mimic Beacon is a great way to deal with Sectoids.
I have also discovered another interesting bug. If you upgrade a weapon with a repeater (which grants a chance of instant kills) and also equip them with Venom shells their poison damage over time effect also benefits from the chance of instant death as an unfortunate Muton just discovered, presumably this also works with dragonshells (or what ever they are called).
So if a Viper uses its grab attack on a stunned soldier, it seems to bug out with the Viper moving a couple squares forward, showing its coiling animation and then the game gets stuck.
So many bugs, so little time to explore them all. Best bug of yesterday was when Viper pulled my Ranger. Ranger's blade storm triggered as he was suddenly in close combat, animation for strangle triggered, blade storm did damage which broke the strangle, however the trooper remained in strangled pose. He ran around until the end of the game in a rather awkward pose.
So i don't even know how I fixed the game on my computer but I did. I had to delete all local files and then tried to re-install. Oddly enough it did a first time setup and then just automatically worked like that. I'll take it. After days of not playing the ability to play now is glorious.
I'm doing ok right now. Will say the avatar project seems annoying. So basically you will lose period if you don't do the last mission. It's a bit crappy that even if you have all the best gear and all the world and take out the research facilities that if you don't do the end-game fast enough you will lose.
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Currently in the game I have Mag weapons, some grenades, some of the mid tier armor and that sort of thing. I think I almost lost because I left 2 facilities active (one I couldn't get to for a while) and the other I just had to deal with having enough intel to connect with local rebels and pray another mission didn't come along to distract my main goals (basically what always happens every few days).
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Anyway I'm not sure if it's effecting my head at all but I need sleep and I'm still sorta sick. Guess i'll play more xcom 2 later.
Currently in the game I have Mag weapons, some grenades, some of the mid tier armor and that sort of thing. I think I almost lost because I left 2 facilities active (one I couldn't get to for a while) and the other I just had to deal with having enough intel to connect with local rebels and pray another mission didn't come along to distract my main goals (basically what always happens every few days).
If the Advent meter fills up you have about 3 weeks to bring it down again so its not the end of the world.
Is it just me or have more people expecrienced the bug, that causes your heavies to launch grenades or missiles into the blue yonder, when you try to use them? That and the stability of this game is ass when you run it with mods
Currently in the game I have Mag weapons, some grenades, some of the mid tier armor and that sort of thing. I think I almost lost because I left 2 facilities active (one I couldn't get to for a while) and the other I just had to deal with having enough intel to connect with local rebels and pray another mission didn't come along to distract my main goals (basically what always happens every few days).
If the Advent meter fills up you have about 3 weeks to bring it down again so its not the end of the world.
Yeah, if you hit a facility during the last 21 days count-down you knock the meter down 1 square.
Its still annoying how fast the damn thing fills up. On veteran difficulty by the time I have predator armor and mag weapons, and North America and Brazil, they've filled it up and I'm desperately trying to get across the Atlantic so I can hit more facilities.
Trondheim wrote: Is it just me or have more people expecrienced the bug, that causes your heavies to launch grenades or missiles into the blue yonder, when you try to use them? That and the stability of this game is ass when you run it with mods
It's not just heavies, it's anyone afaik, happened a few times trying to select a nade/rocket.
Currently in the game I have Mag weapons, some grenades, some of the mid tier armor and that sort of thing. I think I almost lost because I left 2 facilities active (one I couldn't get to for a while) and the other I just had to deal with having enough intel to connect with local rebels and pray another mission didn't come along to distract my main goals (basically what always happens every few days).
If the Advent meter fills up you have about 3 weeks to bring it down again so its not the end of the world.
Yeah, if you hit a facility during the last 21 days count-down you knock the meter down 1 square.
Its still annoying how fast the damn thing fills up. On veteran difficulty by the time I have predator armor and mag weapons, and North America and Brazil, they've filled it up and I'm desperately trying to get across the Atlantic so I can hit more facilities.
The amount it goes down seems to be based on how many blocks the facility has accrued (i.e. taking down a facility with 2 blocks under it reduces the progress by 2)
Well in case anybody wants to know how much alien progress goes down the blacksites show how much you can knock down for destroying them with dots under the blacksites. If there are 1, 2 or 3 dots under a blacksite that's how much goes down for destroying it.
Also yeah xcom became ineffective in my 2nd playthrough so I have to try for a 3rd. Fairly hard for the 2nd difficulty but the thing is I didn't realize how similar the tech tree was in some ways. I'll have to learn some of it as finding out who gives access to what weapons and equipment is a big deal. Some are probably gonna be more obvious than others like sectoids giving psionics.
I have had a bug where a soldier gets shot, he lays down for a bit, and the floor drops from under him.
But, he stay where he was, and cannot move, as it thinks he fell through and is really below him.
I reloaded from the last autosave, and he was OK, standing below where he was, and able to move.
Grey Templar wrote: I also found out, much to my amusement, that you can destroy floors with explosives!
And sweet mercy, Andromodons are STUPID strong!.
Yeah, explosives are amazing, they're pretty much the cure all to any situation. 3 Elite advents on the highest floor possible? Blow up the floor, let 'em die from fall damage! Armor? Explosives! Groups? Explosives! Heavy cover? Explosives!
Tempted to drop my ranger actually and get a 2nd heavy for more explosive fun.
Just get everyone exo-suits/war suits. Then everyone has a rocket(which seems to have infinite range).
One thing I am finding frustrating now is that it seems like no enemies are dropping Elerium Cores anymore. So I can't do any projects in the Proving Grounds. I was able to make 1 war suit, but then suddenly I stopped having cores. And I'm collecting all the drops.
By the way, weapon upgrades are actually super useful.
The floor bug happened to me once with an andromedon smashing it I think.
Btw did you guys know that not only can you blow up a 2nd floor with explosives but also use them on turrets on said floors and have them drop all the way to first floor? I'm pretty sure the fall damage goes through armor too as one I did it to was destroyed instantly.
Exo-suits are fun. Did you ever get experimental heavy weapons? The shredder cannon is amazing. It tears through cover, a crap ton of armor and does like 7-8 damage in a cone.
I also found out what burning does to you. Apparently it disables special abilities meaning if you face plenty of bio units with special abilities (like psychics) then you can pretty much deny all their abilities and force them to use their guns. I'm not entirely sure if codexes are immune but I'm hoping this helps vs avatars which I still can't kill on 2nd hardest difficulty before getting squad wiped.
Does anybody else hate facing stun lancers early? Holy crap do they have range with their runs and the damage, disorient, stun or worse incapacitate is the worst. Meanwhile the faceless and some other aliens suck in comparison. I have yet to lose a guy to a berserker but those freaking 3-4 stun lancers can really kill. Same can be said for vipers. If you have a guy low on health they will pick him out and usually manage the strangle.
Perhaps this game is so hard for me because it's 2nd hardest difficulty (commander) and I play it like it's ironman mode.
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I have mixed feelings about hacking. Sometimes I hack a terminal or something and a freaking advent patrol gets called down on me. All the while I have to march forward and complete the mission in a time limit and that sandwiches me between both opponents. I'm wondering if I should leave the terminals alone and yet some rewards are alright. Still I dunno if it's worth it. Usually the random number generator and the mostly low percentages really hurt.
That said I absolutely love the random loot drops from enemies. Sometimes they drop elerium cores (fairly awesome), data caches (which can be great), weapon upgrades and PCS boosts. Normally the loot drops are nice. The only thing I fear is letting them expire when fighting the enemy and the fact explosives can destroy them or at least if you kill an enemy that has a loot drop then the loot is destroyed. Could be useful for people that like finishing off enemies with explosives.
So I have gotten to the last stage, and by Odin how disapointed I am. I wonder if Fireaxis even botherd to conisder something else than this sorry excuse for a end level.
That and I really, really find these damned rinse and repeat levels of Xcom 2 boring, and worse they feel lazy and rushed. Something I find sad as the combat is smooth, the enemies have some manner of varity between them and I really liked the stage leading up to the final assult.
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Stun lancers are a real pain I can agree with, same with Andromedons. Althougth I find that equiping repeaters helps as they offer a chance to excecute the devils. Had my sniper do that to two in a row, much lolzs where had
I'm getting too old for RNG. Endlessly annoyed by aliens standing right in front of my guys, close enough to...well, here's a 9gag picture that perfectly sums up my main gripe of the game:
For me 'Dodges' are the new 'Failed to Crit'. Hey nice to know you hit and did critical damage but wait you only grazed him for 3-4 damage tops *sigh*.
I enjoy the new ammo types. One that improves aim by 10, dragon rounds and one I had that did +20% crit. chance. I think I had an enemy flanked with a shotgun with those rounds and was around 80-90+% to crit. though sadly the hit chance was god awful. The rounds do help though. Only thing more annoying than failing to crit. is failing to hit (esp. doing the least damage you can with an attack) and grazing the enemy.
Yeah, the new rounds are great, I like bluescreen rounds the best though, put those in a gunslinger sniper with fan fire, and he can pretty much take down a sectopod by himself (fan fire, the skill that allows him to fire a pistol and not the end the turn, + lightning hands = 5 shots that deal 8 to 11 damage each to machines!)
I have mixed feelings about hacking. Sometimes I hack a terminal or something and a freaking advent patrol gets called down on me. All the while I have to march forward and complete the mission in a time limit and that sandwiches me between both opponents. I'm wondering if I should leave the terminals alone and yet some rewards are alright. Still I dunno if it's worth it. Usually the random number generator and the mostly low percentages really hurt.
I'm of the opinion that there's no point even trying to hack a terminal until you get the Gremlin II.
I enjoy the new ammo types. One that improves aim by 10, dragon rounds and one I had that did +20% crit. chance. I think I had an enemy flanked with a shotgun with those rounds and was around 80-90+% to crit. though sadly the hit chance was god awful. The rounds do help though. Only thing more annoying than failing to crit. is failing to hit (esp. doing the least damage you can with an attack) and grazing the enemy.
I have a sniper with an 80% crit chance and very high aim. He has a lot of kills.
Terminals aren't worth hacking, the chances of getting a buff are generally pretty small and the usefulness of the buff is heavily outweighed by the (much more likely) consequences of failure. When you have colonel specialists with Gremlin IIIs they become quite easy but by that stage its not exactly difficult to just sweep the mission the old fashioned way. The only worthwhile hacks are mission objectives as they generally have permanent stat boosts or strategic map bonuses.
I am about to go wild with fire.
There is the flamethrower I got from the proving ground. A range 24 cone of roasty goodness.
And, there's the spiky flame vest. I'm waiting to use it with a Ranger, and to get a Muton to hit me back.
I'm torn on explosives.
They are guaranteed hits, but negate accessory drops, IIRC.
They negate a drop if the mob is killed by a blast, thats not that common outside of certain proving grounds items. Explosives are great at removing cover, shredding armour and doing a bit of damage.
I love the autokill upgrade on the guns.
It is like this huge gift when that percentage comes up.
I tend to put that on my Specialists since they seem to do the most shooting while everyone else needs every little bit of the other upgrades.
I have a particular dislike for Andromedans just for them making me load up on protection for acid... there are so many projects I would rather have running.
I have a specialist that I use specifically to take on Andromedans: He has the acid protection, he is Gordon Freeman, he wears an orange suit... he has no crowbar though.
I think my sniper has done more kills with his side arm than the rifle (He tends to get that last shot in after they took a couple hits). I changed his name to "Tex", maybe it should be "Vulture".
This game is HARD, I love it so.
Never have I been so rewarded and punished all in one game.
If I have another "what now?" moment, I will have a strong sense of paranoia for the rest of the game.
Proving grounds research is deadly slow, I mean literally if I do not get my stuff fast enough.
Anyway, yes, explosives are the go-to for when it all goes bad.
I'd imagine having the weapon upgrade where you always hit for low damage even if you miss would be good for any sort of specialty weapons like poison or dragon rounds.
@Silent Puffin: I think I could one up that one. I heard there's an ability where you take your pistol out and shoot at every available target. Basically have your squad ambush a ton of guys and open up with a pistol wielding sharpshooter with a repeater (instant kill % or a free action %). Suddenly that percentage skyrockets the more enemies are there. That said you'd probably get overwhelmed but anything with lots of attacks would be good for that.
Btw I have mostly stuck to one path per skill tree myself. I run specialists as medics mostly because of stun lancers and because hacking a mech tends to not work for me. I may use it again but I generally don't have the hacking skill for it. My sharpshooters are always snipers so far. My heavies are normally on the grenadier side of the tree (except for suppression). Lastly my rangers are usually the concealed variety.
You'd be surprised the usefulness of a concealed ranger. In missions where you begin outside of concealment they are super helpful with one or two of em. Very great spotters so you can be in the right position wherever you go.
Proving grounds research is deadly slow, I mean literally if I do not get my stuff fast enough.
There's a continent bonus just for that giving you instant 'proving grounds' items. The bonuses are the same each game but change continents every game. Find out where it is and get full coverage on it.
Skinnereal wrote: I am about to go wild with fire.
There is the flamethrower I got from the proving ground. A range 24 cone of roasty goodness.
And, there's the spiky flame vest. I'm waiting to use it with a Ranger, and to get a Muton to hit me back.
I'm torn on explosives.
They are guaranteed hits, but negate accessory drops, IIRC.
Get the experimental heavy weapons at the proving ground. The first I got was a junky flamethrower but the 2nd was a shredder gun/cannon. It is possibly one of the most amazing guns I've seen in the proving ground (up till now anyway). One shot but it does like 7-9 damage, removes all cover in a cone and takes off a lot of armor as well. Basically you can approach dudes in cover with it and hit them even if they're behind a wall for full damage and armor peeling. In fact I'm willing to say it puts the flamethrower to shame with the exception of making enemies take burning damage or perhaps prevent some from moving through a wall of fire (if they're melee or have bad cover (or were ambushed).
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Maybe it's just me and sometimes heavy cover can ruin 'line of sight' but normally I'm not finding being spotted to be as bad as it could be. The concealed turns work very well if you know how to do it and the terrain is ok. The trick is you generally want to find cover that is cover on 2 of the 4 sides. I basically had an enemy patrol move right passed one of my rangers in concealment just because of his cover and they walked right near him so that if I moved they'd spot him. So yeah sometimes losing concealment can suck but there are some tricks to it. It's just very different because you don't always need to worry about hard cover in concealment to my knowledge.
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Is it me or is 'intel' possibly one of the most important resources in the game? With intel you can get weapon upgrades, PCS, alloys, elerium, rush research, supplies (money), get scientists and engineers and get new experienced soldiers all on the black market. Also you need 'intel' just to get from one country to another. It's almost as important as money but in some cases more so. The only way to get 'intel' is with some mission rewards, hacking rewards, possibly supply drops in some areas and esp. enemy loot drops (you need to research it but alien data caches and advent data caches). Seriously high amounts of 'intel' means you probably can get about half or a third of what you'll need in a game.
The shredder is amazing. That's all that can be said. In the game I'm currently doing very well. I have about 4 territories and the avatar level is at about 3 or 4 now.
I liked all the various ammo types but I have to say AP rounds are amazing! Seriously it avoids 5 armor so I put in on my snipers so I could snipe some jerks. It's ridiculously potent and helpful for what I took it with. Dunno if I even need stuff like bluescreen ammo or anything. Speaking of all the armor these bullets avoid it pretty much instant kills turrets since it goes through all their armor. Turrets can't move so if you need you can use the ranger to spot and the sniper to shoot.
Also I may be wrong but I think only one enemy on the map drops loot per mission you're on. I could be wrong though. I haven't seen it enough. Oddly I haven't seen much in the way of data caches if at all in my 5th game. I did get a ridiculous number of elerium cores though and coupled with some ability I must have (country bonus perhaps?) that lets me make experimental ammo and grenades instantly it has been awesome. I'm wondering what I managed to unlock to get this actually. I made at least 4 ammos and 4 grenades and then exo suit armor and 3 experimental heavy weapons (sadly 2 rolled up flamer but one was shredder gun).
flamingkillamajig wrote: Also I may be wrong but I think only one enemy on the map drops loot per mission you're on. I could be wrong though. I haven't seen it enough. Oddly I haven't seen much in the way of data caches if at all in my 5th game. I did get a ridiculous number of elerium cores though and coupled with some ability I must have (country bonus perhaps?) that lets me make experimental ammo and grenades instantly it has been awesome. I'm wondering what I managed to unlock to get this actually. I made at least 4 ammos and 4 grenades and then exo suit armor and 3 experimental heavy weapons (sadly 2 rolled up flamer but one was shredder gun).
It's a bonus for having scouted out all of the resistance groups on a particular continent.
Heh yeah I see it was the one I mentioned before. I thought it used to be all of the 'proving grounds' gear not just grenades, ammo and weapons. Guess it leaves out some things then. Oh well it's still a super great bonus to get.
@Silent Puffin: I think I could one up that one. I heard there's an ability where you take your pistol out and shoot at every available target. Basically have your squad ambush a ton of guys and open up with a pistol wielding sharpshooter with a repeater (instant kill % or a free action %). Suddenly that percentage skyrockets the more enemies are there. That said you'd probably get overwhelmed but anything with lots of attacks would be good for that.
I prefer the Killzone skill due to its ability to wipe out entire reinforcement waves at once. A dedicated gunslinger may be quite useful with the right ammo though due to all the extra shot skills they have.
Poison damage triggers the firing weapons repeater kill chance so its possible to execute enemies with poison damage (probably a bug but its funny).
EM ammo and grenades are my friend. Effective stop of codex mirrors, gatekeepers, sectopods and mechs. A grenade can in a need also remove shields, ammo can make a mech easier to hack.
Armed to the teeth must be my favourite bonus. Adding another upgrade to the weapon is very beneficial. Had some luck with hair triggers.
The last level was rather underwhelming, I've re-loaded few times to get the most out of shots or better angle on the boss, simply because I wanted to be done with it as soon as possible. Wonder when the sequel will be announced.
Has anybody seen a gif of the glitch or gotten the glitch where when you skulljack an advent soldier they hover over above the normal spot they're in and your soldier uppercuts them in the balls with the skulljack and lifts them up with a hack system popping up over it?
I saw the gif and wasn't sure if it was a glitch till it happened in my game. It's too ****ing hilarious but it's very real.
OMG are they really going to do a remake of Terror from the Deep? Squee!
I liked that sequel.
It seemed even harder and scarier.
Though I am already calling Andromedans "BigDaddies", they just need a more appropriate diving helmet (I know, different game).
That's because it was.
Fun little story - the original version of XCOM : UFO defense had a bug where all the difficulty settings defaulted to the easiest difficulty. As such, Superhuman difficulty, the hardest difficulty, ended up being easier than it should have been.
This resulted in complaints that the game was too easy after a certain point, so for the sequel Microprose took steps to up the ante, which is why in TFTD you start off with gakky weapons (even by xcom standards the harpoon weapons are rubbish), a harsher damage system, a convoluted research system and lobstermen.
Fortunately, this bug has been corrected in the steam and modded versions, but these did not exist back then.
On Terror From The Deep:
What I would very much like to see is not Terror From The Deep as a standalone game, it's an expanded version of EW. Make a new XCOM game, but with support for simulating submerged and half-submerged terrain, generating levels with same, and with some added equipment for operating in those environments. So you'd basically be playing XCOM: Enemy Within, but sometimes you'd have to wade across a stream to get to your target, and sometimes you'd shoot down a UFO and have it crash in a lake, so you have to kit up with scuba suits and underwater rifles (or Titan Armour and sonic cannons) to go get it.
I think it would be helpful if people mentioned tech trees, item costs (or at least requirements to make an item like advent trooper corpses) and other helpful tips so we can all benefit.
It seems the advent mech autopsy increases gremlins to tier 2 and sectopod autopsy increases gremlins to tier 3. Turret research gave the building for the turrets. Mutons give upgraded grenade launcher and plasma grenades (have to build plasma grenades in proving ground and the launcher is a straight up buy in items). Sectoid of course gives psychics and that sort of thing. Not sure what viper gives other than venom rounds. Same goes for chryssalids. Most make sense but it's a little different like to upgrade all your armor to tier 2 you need advent trooper corpses.
Anyway it's fairly the same but a lot more complicated and fairly different too. It's gonna take some getting used to and time to learn everything.
The viper allows you an upgrade to a battlefield medicine.
Curious thought, on the first play I preferred taking shredder on my gunners. Now I see a merit in taking the alternative perk, doing damage is all well, however there will be times where you cannot kill everything within your LoS. Having some extra protection did make a difference between a soldier seeing another day or not. You do need to find an alternative solution for the enemy armour. I'd guess this is why the game gives "proving grounds" as one of the early buildings to build.
Building a workshop was one of better early game decisions I've made. Considering how starved you are for manpower at the beginning it seemed like a good idea. For an attached operator you get three drones that you can assign to adjacent buildings or order them to excavate adjacent room.
Just got it a few days ago, I'm amazed it can run on my toaster of a laptop, although I use a lot of mods to make it possible.
The "stop wasting my time" mods pack is amazing for upping performance. It cuts out a lot of unnecessary camera effects, pauses, and pans like switching rooms in the avenger. In addition, theres a ton of amazing great customization packs out there like the military camo pack and a ton with special ops helmets, baklavas', hats, etc. Also found a mod that lets me set up default uniforms for all classes and even save presets for different environments, which is awesome.
Also, I got the "balljack" glitch too, absolutely hilarious. I run the skulljack on my assault all the time now just to see if I can do it again.
Not very far into the game, I've been putting off the blacksite missions for a long time so I can get captains, mag weapons, exo suits, etc. I've got maybe 3 ticks left to go and I'm just now getting around to my second blacksite.
Also, the spider suit is incredible on snipers, to the point of feeling disgusting. The grapple doesn't count as a move, so I've pulled crazy stuff like grapple, lightning hands, then headshot some scrub across the map or even set up a killzone on all the guys I just flanked. A guy specced into pistols would be insane with it. Even without pistol skills, I once grappled, ran across a roof, and popped two pistol shots into a viper from above. He made it further than my run and gun ranger could!
Finally, specialists are OP as hell, I love them. I've got two excellent ones already and they just cannot be stopped when you go all combat abilities. Combat protocol alone is incredibly useful, I swear my capt specialist has as many kills on his gremlin as he does his main weapons
MrMoustaffa wrote: Just got it a few days ago, I'm amazed it can run on my toaster of a laptop, although I use a lot of mods to make it possible.
The "stop wasting my time" mods pack is amazing for upping performance. It cuts out a lot of unnecessary camera effects, pauses, and pans like switching rooms in the avenger. In addition, theres a ton of amazing great customization packs out there like the military camo pack and a ton with special ops helmets, baklavas', hats, etc. Also found a mod that lets me set up default uniforms for all classes and even save presets for different environments, which is awesome.
Also, I got the "balljack" glitch too, absolutely hilarious. I run the skulljack on my assault all the time now just to see if I can do it again.
Not very far into the game, I've been putting off the blacksite missions for a long time so I can get captains, mag weapons, exo suits, etc. I've got maybe 3 ticks left to go and I'm just now getting around to my second blacksite.
Also, the spider suit is incredible on snipers, to the point of feeling disgusting. The grapple doesn't count as a move, so I've pulled crazy stuff like grapple, lightning hands, then headshot some scrub across the map or even set up a killzone on all the guys I just flanked. A guy specced into pistols would be insane with it. Even without pistol skills, I once grappled, ran across a roof, and popped two pistol shots into a viper from above. He made it further than my run and gun ranger could!
Finally, specialists are OP as hell, I love them. I've got two excellent ones already and they just cannot be stopped when you go all combat abilities. Combat protocol alone is incredibly useful, I swear my capt specialist has as many kills on his gremlin as he does his main weapons
If you think grapple is amazing on snipers it is but it's even more godly on rangers. If you combine it with 'implacable' and 'untouchable' your ranger becomes godly. You use the grapple to grapple onto a building far in front of you where enemies are, then you move to flank them from the high ground, shoot one dead, get a free move to go hide with implacable and then in their turn get untouchable so the first attack on that ranger fails even if a sectopod shoots at him. Sometimes I just kill off weak dudes when a sectopod is around and bait the sectopod to shoot at the ranger as the only one that can shoot at it.
Currently I'm trying for the 4 man commander run and doing so on ironman mode. I honestly am getting too frustrated doing it. Somewhere in july or august in the game it just gets too hard. It's usually about when you start facing the archon. They just do too much damage with just 4 guys fighting them and the fact 4 men can't handle more than one pod/patrol at a time late game is just frustrating. Once the sectopod comes around though it's just too tough. Farthest I got was having to face down 2 sectopods. I managed to kill both but then the reinforcements that came in on that alien base were just too tough.
This resulted in complaints that the game was too easy after a certain point, so for the sequel Microprose took steps to up the ante, which is why in TFTD you start off with gakky weapons (even by xcom standards the harpoon weapons are rubbish), a harsher damage system, a convoluted research system and lobstermen.
Lobstermen! I had totally forgotten those guys. I actually missed XCom originally and started with From the Deep. Lobstermen were awesome. Later on I went back and played the original XCom.
The first DLC came out recently. It's strictly cosmetic options for the troops, though. There are at least two additional DLC still planned, and they should have non-cosmetic stuff.
Apparently Xcom 2 just got 10 new Steam achievements and seem to be doing their 2nd of 3 DLC (the first being 'anarchy's children').
ALIEN HUNTERS introduces new soldier customizations and gameplay themed around XCOM as an elite alien hunting unit. Face off against “Ruler” aliens with new, more powerful weapons and armor. Experience a new dramatic mission & confrontation. (To be released in Summer 2016)
Considering the new achievements are based around killing ruler aliens (viper king, berserker and archon) and there are ruler armors apparently with abilities you can wear. Also sounds like there will be hunter weapons whatever that is. I'm guessing they're a new specialist weapon to take down ruler aliens but it may just be a new tier of weaponry or just special weapons.
Anyway I'm somewhat interested. It sounds like a it'll have more content than the xcom: eu Slingshot DLC had.
flamingkillamajig wrote: Anyway I'm somewhat interested. It sounds like a it'll have more content than the xcom: eu Slingshot DLC had.
Slingshot was originally supposed to be the first of multiple DLCs. But Slingshot's poor reception led the developers to abandon that plan. The only things known about the other DLCs are the descriptions that were in the Achievements that were posted up on Steam when XCom was released... and then removed shortly after Slingshot's release.
So I think it's safe to say that Firaxis learned from Slingshot.
Now that this has had time to marinate in some sweet sweet DLC/mods...anyone else still playing? I've gotten way more mileage out of it than Total Warhammer, which surprised me a bit, but not unpleasantly so.
Alien Hunters was a bit of a disappointment for me. The new story mission was great and all (anyone else catch those hissed sibilants in one of the recorded messages? SOMEONE'S taken alien gene-tech maybe a bit too far...), but I'm not a huge fan of the weapons - especially how they totally eclipse regular weapons - and I can't stand the art direction. The rulers themselves are kinda hit and miss. I like the base mechanic, but I hate how their appearance can all but automatically mean a squadwipe on some missions. I think I would have preferred toned-down versions that showed up more frequently and weren't expected to last more than a mission or two. Alien commanders, if you will. Seriously considered uninstalling it for my next playthrough, but decided to go for it anyway. If Anarchy's Children gets to stick around...
Shen's Last Gift has been great so far; the voice acting on the new mission is awesome, and it's good to see another little salute to Julian Gollop. I'm not sure if I like the SPARKS more than I like MECs; the MECs had a great flavor to them, especially because I usually 'volunteered' soldiers who were really badly injured just to get them back in the field. The SPARKS are a lot of fun, though, and they provide a similar dynamic on the field.
Currently trying to wrap my head around a Classic/Ironman campaign (my standard) with the new Long War classes. It's not easy. I added the Long War toolbox and bumped squad size up to 6 for the full LW experience...and then I decided to balance things out...was already playing with A Better Advent, so I figured why not add Better Pods Plus and Additional Dark Events (casual! Not looking for triple sectopod groups!) to make things more interesting?
That was early this morning. I might be about to lose my third campaign since then. That's XCOM, baby!
Also using True Concealment (it just makes more sense and lets me set up a proper ambush), EU Crit Rolls (to make flashbangs useful and combat in general feel less swingy), various map, quality of life, and cosmetic mods (Capnbubs is a fashion god!), the new Laser pack from the Long War guys as well as their Muton Centurion and SMG (which I'm finally getting mileage out of with their melee class rebalances, Shinobi with SMG seems to do some serious work), Heavy Weapons Tweak (a reason to use the flamethrower would be nice, right?), Engineer2Scientist (why would an engineer be helping people unlock their psychic potential), BleedOutMod (I like to make the hard choices), Squad Cohesion (for that truly tragic feel when they die), and Additional Mission Types. That last one seems determined to kick my ass this campaign. In the past, I've used the Rioting City extraction and Haven Siege to get new rookies.
Just left a rioting city with three surviving members of the deployed six and no new recruits, except for the scientist we grabbed. Now I have to defend a haven with four rookies and two people who are actually useful. I hope you all like eating Advent burgers, because I think this might be it for the Resistance.
I think i played a little recently. Keep in mind i've been playing lots of other games 'total war: warhammer', vermintide and skyrim. I think this is what i played when i got bored of the first two. I may go back but have no dlc yet.
I will see about shen's gift. The first dlc is the one i cared least for but the rest seem ok. That special freeze grenade sounds like something that should be in the base game though as another type of grenade rather than one grenade that when you lose it it's gone.
Long War 2 is out! Anyone else shoving rookies into the meat grinder? There's got to be one or two other die-hard commanders out there...
I cleared out all my non-cosmetic/QoL mods to do a vanilla run that hopefully gets completed. So far, it's been a blast. I love the Infiltration mechanics and the way you have to manage Resistance havens; it feels like you're playing more with the strategic layer now. Prison break missions are a blast, as are the Rendezvous missions you get if you have a guy keeping an eye on your Resistance cells. Taking armed Resistance volunteers to tag along with your XCOM advisor really makes it feel like your guys are the best humanity has to offer, after it's all been said and done.
And then you miss an 80% shot and you realize they just get better gear than the rest of the rebels
Things I've learned so far: being bound by a Viper doesn't mean you won't get shot, but does mean you won't have cover; under no circumstances should you accept a mission if you can't infiltrate your squad in the required amount of time; sectoids will zombify people from offscreen; drones are and always will be Satan Incarnate.
Oh! I'm a big fan of the new loading screens and updated artwork.
Not yet playing Long War 2 but never completely stopped playing xcom 2 which is rather impressive i think. I'm doing a bunch of Twitch streams of xcom 2 and have most of the achievements.
Trust me when i say this the game is insane. The first mission is totally unlike much of the game. Far as i can tell you have to remain hidden until you get to the objective then do that objective and maybe kill a few guys and get the **** out. That's the best way to put it. It's ridiculously hard. That is the only way i can imagine winning the turn based missions.
The other interesting thing to note is that, since you have to evac out of the vast majority of missions, you aren't going to collect corpses or other resources.
This means there's really no reason not to blanket the area in explosions.
The missions where you get to keep that sort of stuff typically aren't timed, but also have a lot more enemies, so it's a give and take. Sniper/shinobi combo works well there; have the shinobi stealth up while the sniper hangs back and pops heads.
malfred wrote: Yikes. I might have to dial back the difficulty to "not veteran"
I'm doing it on 2nd hardest difficulty on ironman but i had no idea it was so hard.
You have no clue. I just played a mission where my one shinobi decided to pass right by a window with some civvies next to it (after i knew they were there i thought said soldier would maneuver around the sight range but no). At the start of the mission. That mission is f'ed. Also if a mission has too short of an expiration time DON'T do it. The less concealed your squad the more enemies and the harder it is to maneuver around the patrols. It's just not fun. I need a break. Seriously i think i'll have to turn off ironman mode. Once the shinobi did that in my game i quit out of game and dropped my headphones on the floor. I'm not trying that specific campaign again. Maybe a new game of it but i dunno.
On the subject of drones i hate them too. They're like a robot version of a stun lancer except it's a gun rather than a melee beat stick and if you're flanked it almost always stuns you 1-2 turns which generally equals death with the heavily outnumbered xcom soldiers.
Pardon the stupid question, but what is Long War 2? I'm assuming it's a mod since I don't recall 3/4 of the stuff a lot of people are discussing about Xcom 2 here from when last played it
It is indeed a mod. Long War was a popular xcom: enemy unknown mod. Not entirely sure why the gaming outlets were so thrilled about it though. I'm just guessing they're all full of **** again.
flamingkillamajig wrote: It is indeed a mod. Long War was a popular xcom: enemy unknown mod. Not entirely sure why the gaming outlets were so thrilled about it though. I'm just guessing they're all full of **** again.
Because it's not just hard; it's deep.
Seriously, though, it's a difficult mod, just like the predecessor, but it's a truly impressive piece of work that gives you the tools you need to succeed once you work out how the game plays. You won't win every mission, but it's incredibly immersive, and for the most part, the game's not super unfair -
Long War 2 Patch 1.1 Notes wrote:- Removed possibility you can spawn two of the same ruler on black site mission
flamingkillamajig wrote: It is indeed a mod. Long War was a popular xcom: enemy unknown mod. Not entirely sure why the gaming outlets were so thrilled about it though. I'm just guessing they're all full of **** again.
Because it's not just hard; it's deep.
Seriously, though, it's a difficult mod, just like the predecessor, but it's a truly impressive piece of work that gives you the tools you need to succeed once you work out how the game plays. You won't win every mission, but it's incredibly immersive, and for the most part, the game's not super unfair -
Long War 2 Patch 1.1 Notes wrote:- Removed possibility you can spawn two of the same ruler on black site mission
Dear and fluffy Lord, that was a thing?
I'm starting to see what you mean now that i'm getting the hang of it.
It's actually not a stealth game but in some cases you can free some contacts and evac them while going the stealth route with just a few rookies.
There's a class with a sawed off shotgun (secondary weapon) and another (technical) with a flamethrower. I'm finding both classes do well when given smg's as the primary weapon and given only armor upgrades. Same goes for the shinobi (sword dudes) with their smg's. The point behind this is it makes them super fast so they can get to where they need to be and melee, shotgun or flamethrower some fools. Shame the smg is crap damage-wise but it's nice for mobility.
You also have to work the game globally (get hard on intel to increase mission expiration time and making a mission have less enemies) and make sure you get plenty of loot drops. Suppressors are really nice esp. when you have several in your squad as it decreases mission time a lot. Some of the global rewards are also pretty good (more staff or rebel base recruits).
Still having a massively hard time esp. at the first supply raid. I always get trashed in it.
Ugh if i didn't have to sleep i'd keep trying to play it as i think i'm starting to get it. It's massively complex though probably a lot more than xcom 2's normal game.
Stupid Question again (vanilla Xcom 2), but in the final mission all your soldiers make it through the exit portal right? I got rather attached to most of these men and women
War Kitten wrote: Stupid Question again (vanilla Xcom 2), but in the final mission all your soldiers make it through the exit portal right? I got rather attached to most of these men and women
Spoiler:
IIRC the dialogue explicitly states at one point that the Commander is the only one who hasn't come back through the portal yet. So yeah, the while team makes it back.
The video is on YouTube if you want to rewatch it.
War Kitten wrote: Stupid Question again (vanilla Xcom 2), but in the final mission all your soldiers make it through the exit portal right? I got rather attached to most of these men and women
That's what I really like about this game. You want your guys to make it, even though you're playing a game where odds are...they won't. The character pool (or Valhalla, as I prefer to call it) is one of their best design choices.
I'm starting to see what you mean now that i'm getting the hang of it.
It's actually not a stealth game but in some cases you can free some contacts and evac them while going the stealth route with just a few rookies.
There's a class with a sawed off shotgun (secondary weapon) and another (technical) with a flamethrower. I'm finding both classes do well when given smg's as the primary weapon and given only armor upgrades. Same goes for the shinobi (sword dudes) with their smg's. The point behind this is it makes them super fast so they can get to where they need to be and melee, shotgun or flamethrower some fools. Shame the smg is crap damage-wise but it's nice for mobility.
You also have to work the game globally (get hard on intel to increase mission expiration time and making a mission have less enemies) and make sure you get plenty of loot drops. Suppressors are really nice esp. when you have several in your squad as it decreases mission time a lot. Some of the global rewards are also pretty good (more staff or rebel base recruits).
Still having a massively hard time esp. at the first supply raid. I always get trashed in it.
Ugh if i didn't have to sleep i'd keep trying to play it as i think i'm starting to get it. It's massively complex though probably a lot more than xcom 2's normal game.
Hadn't thought about giving the rangers SMGs, since so much of their build is focused on firing their primary weapon, but it might be worth it if they need to support someone on a 'stealth' mission! Their secondary is incredibly nasty against close-range enemies. Shinobi always get SMGs from me, though; the synergy they have with Phantom and Fleche is intense. The current thought I had was to train one as a gunslinger in the AWC, have them stealth up to an enemy pod, and then use Faceoff.
Since so much is changing in the new patch, I'm just kinda sitting here waiting for it to launch before I start a new campaign. It is...frustrating.
I asked because I sent all my best (aka favorite) soldiers on the mission and it would have sucked to have lost them. Especially my Ranger, Colonel Cassandra "Ice" Taylor who killed the last Avatar with a lucky axe throw
War Kitten wrote: I asked because I sent all my best (aka favorite) soldiers on the mission and it would have sucked to have lost them. Especially my Ranger, Colonel Cassandra "Ice" Taylor who killed the last Avatar with a lucky axe throw
I just rewatched the win video. It's not explicitly stated, but imo it's implied that they all survived.
Been playing long war. My previous game i lost due to some hidden campaign timer or something. It was rather stupid. I'm kinda getting the hang of the game more. I will need more land grabs though and a lot of this is still really hard. Right now i'm in a solid game.
Apparently you need to scan supply bases on resistance havens to gain income (the issue with people only having a few credits is explained here). Intel sites gain more missions with slight intel boosts. The more intel resistance sites the more missions and the more rolls for good missions (ones with super long infiltration times). Recruit sites just mostly add more recruits but more importantly more resistance members which can make a site more valuable. Finally you gotta watch out for advent defense ratings of certain areas as the higher it gets the more chance they will attack a resistance haven and these fights are usually super hard and you will lose guys and possibly resistance members. The type of defense is usually based around what you gather or what you gather most at a site.
Anyway not sure what all else to say. Having a good amount of intel sites is good for several reasons. The more you have the more types of missions you need (alien material, intel, staff, etc. type missions). Right now i could use all of them but alien material is probably one of the most valuable as of the moment as these alloy you to collect enemy supplies and corpses which is super needed to progress in the game.
Just got the game, having an XCOM itch and finding that Enemy Unknown won't work on my computer. Bladestorm seems like a completely busted trait, the first Berserker I ran into ran through a door flanked by my two assaults and got cut down instantly. Did I just luck out?
Bladestorm is really nice against injured or lower-tier melee-focused enemies, especially when you get sword upgrades. Doesn't do a thing against people shooting at you, though, unless you're up in their face already!
XCOM 2 Berserkers are actually your best friend. All you need to do is shoot them enough to make them mad, then make sure some poor Advent goon is standing closest to them and watch the fireworks...
On my third try at Long War 2. This time I've got it. MECs are the devil. Send rookies.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Isn't there that other trait that increases melee hit chance though? I don't think I've seen a less than 100% melee hit chance the entire game so far.
there is a skill that increases crit and hit while concealed, and there's reaper which makes the first attack in a chain of attacks a 100% hit chance.
Spinner wrote: Bladestorm is really nice against injured or lower-tier melee-focused enemies, especially when you get sword upgrades. Doesn't do a thing against people shooting at you, though, unless you're up in their face already!
XCOM 2 Berserkers are actually your best friend. All you need to do is shoot them enough to make them mad, then make sure some poor Advent goon is standing closest to them and watch the fireworks...
On my third try at Long War 2. This time I've got it. MECs are the devil. Send rookies.
Guessing you haven't fought the muton centurion yet.
I think i'm doing better but i will be gone 2 weeks to a month so today is the last day i get to play the game. I'm sure you'll have all the chances in the world to surpass what i've done in the mean time. I'm doing ok in 2nd highest difficulty on ironman so far.
I thought stun grenades will mess up berserkers? I don't remember shooting doing that to them but something like disorient seems to.
Bladestorm is kinda nice period. If you put the gremlin shield up (where you expect your enemies to melee you) generally melee enemies suck at hitting you. In fact you will find melee opponents chance to hit you plummets with any kind of defense boosts even the smaller tier 1 gremlins having an effect on this.
