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 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

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

I just got Warden armor.

If thats the power armour I am about 3 days away from it

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.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

I just got Warden armor.

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.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 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:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 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've also had Heavy Lancers and Crysalids dodge.

All of the elite Advent troops can dodge.

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 -



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.

Eumerin wrote:

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.

 Spinner wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

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.

 Spinner wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

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?"

There is already a mod that removes turn timers. If it didn't exist I would have stopped playing by now.

This game would not have run well on my old box.

However, Diablo 3 did not run well on my old box.

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:



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.

 streamdragon wrote:

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.

 streamdragon wrote:

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

As for future missions of that type such as 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 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

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 streamdragon wrote:

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.

 Obrek wrote:

 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.

Am I correct in thinking it is no longer possible to multiclass as both a regular class (like Ranger/Assault) and a Psion?