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When you load up and the main menu's soldier is a brave LT who gave his life last mission. RIP
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Feb 7, 2016 16:52
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God damnit I never used mods because I thought I was wasting them because new weapons would get rid of them.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:52
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Frig, this might be too hard for me and I might have to turn down to easy mode. Or perhaps I'm just having a string of bad luck with activating every pod on the map at once, and then lancers pour in on me and KO two of my dudes right away for instance. What's a good priority of things to go for? I feel like maybe I'm rushing going for new rooms too fast because on this campaign I've been failing at I've got an AWC and Predator armour but no medkits or mag weapons or such like. I'm thinking going for mag weapons right away is the way to go, whereas in EW you could make arguments either way for lasers or carapace armour.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:55
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This game has gotten me to think a bit about recovery mechanisms, and that's a complaint I would've had for the original XCOM but it's definitely more severe with this one The way I see it, I've gotten used to the strict timer, and I've gotten used to the harder early-game enemies, and I'm at the point where I'm starting to crest over the power curve, but there's one thing that kinda bugs me about this game on a basic level and it's the lack of a catch-up mechanism. The entire game is essentially you being guided through a series of "oh gently caress not this not now" moments, which I think is really cool and fits the theme of the game perfectly but still at the end of the day, one bad mission can mean the start of the death of your entire campaign. I had a civilian rescue mission where my entire team was gravely wounded and I had to hire enough rookies just to fill out a squad and that meant I couldn't afford any upgrades so my next mission was just one captain ranger and 4 rookies and it went okay but then I realized that I had no specialists so I had to train up some specialists and all the while resources that I put into patching up my squad were resources that I could've spent making my current squad better, and therefore it feels almost like at the end of the day I'm going to lose the whole game. And it's broadcasted to me and I feel like my loss will be slow and frustrating. It's like there's just slightly not enough resources delivered to you and just slightly too many resources asked from you. The research is slow and even to get the supplies that you are promised as your main income you have to spend lots of time investigating for them, time that could be spent progressing in the metagame. This is all fine and good, but if I end up losing this game I'm left wondering if there is someway that the game could've found a way to toss me a bone when times were at their most dire. I like the whole thing thematically, and when it all comes together and you pull off a clinch victory it feels better than almost any other "hard moment" in any other "hard game", but I think it is surprisingly the difficulty of the metagame that really gets me, not necessarily the difficulty of the tactical game. I guess what I'm trying to say is that they really built the min-maxing into this one at a structural level, whereas maybe in the first XCOM min-maxing was more a way of making the game go by a little smoother and was not at all required? IDK. I'm not complaining, just trying to figure out why the difficulty of this one feels so much more oppressive to me than the last one.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:55
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Elliotw2 posted:Did you not play EU/EW? It's not a TU based game, you get two actions in a turn, usually moving once and then overwatch or firing. It's a lot better because gently caress counting time units. Seems my game was bugged, I just loaded in again today and now I can see the blue/yellow grids and the movement path. Also now I can see all the orders icons and the nationality patches. Yesterday all I had was a yellow movement cursor. Inadvertent custom difficulty, thanks xcom!
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Feb 7, 2016 16:55
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Dr Snofeld posted:What's a good priority of things to go for? I feel like maybe I'm rushing going for new rooms too fast because on this campaign I've been failing at I've got an AWC and Predator armour but no medkits or mag weapons or such like. I'm thinking going for mag weapons right away is the way to go, whereas in EW you could make arguments either way for lasers or carapace armour. If you don't have GTS built for increased squad size, do that immediately. Even just a fifth helps mitigate the catastrophic results of a bad roll or two that tends to happen with only 4 units.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:57
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Ahahahahahaha Can a squad of 6 recruits with mag weapons tackle an avatar facility guarded by two sectopods? Yes. Yes they can.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:57
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cheesetriangles posted:God damnit I never used mods because I thought I was wasting them because new weapons would get rid of them.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:58
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victrix posted:Can a squad of 6 recruits with mag weapons tackle an avatar facility guarded by two sectopods? Yes. Yes they can. Mag weapons can handle just about anything. Hell, there's even an achievement for beating the game with Tier-1 gear. Tier 3 equipment is almost excessive.
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Feb 7, 2016 16:59
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Samopsa posted:Yup, install a mod on a rifle and you'll later get a magrifle with the same mods, replacing your tier-1 weapons. Holy poo poo! Is that mentioned out anywhere?
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Feb 7, 2016 16:59
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Kiggles posted:If you don't have GTS built for increased squad size, do that immediately. Even just a fifth helps mitigate the catastrophic results of a bad roll or two that tends to happen with only 4 units. That's always the first thing I build. Doesn't help when you're going on a mission with literally the last five guys in fighting shape, two get KO'd, and then sectoids spend three turns panicking the rest over and over. At least sometimes when soldiers panic they kill things.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:00
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Do completing these main story missions: Investigate the Codex Brain Coordinates and Investigate the Blacksite Vial Coordinates push back the Avatar Project?
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Feb 7, 2016 17:02
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I actually like the timers but I've just come from having my nose buried in Invisible Inc for a month or so (whoever kept pushing that recommendation in the steam thread, thank you! for all the lost time, I guess) and that game is all about racing timers. Divide, adapt, mitigate. I should probably keep a blood pressure cuff next to the keyboard. In fact, the GUI in InvInc is so information packed that I often find myself missing similar things in Xcom2. Where's the list of my soldiers on the side so I don't have to cycle through them to see their names, or a display showing how many aliens I've revealed and who can hit what from where. Is there a way to turn that on that I've missed? Or how long I have before something I've hacked expired, or an effect or ability wears off. I also like that I actually use secondary items a lot more now. Flashbangs, battle scanners, smoke all would have been mostly ignored in EW, but here they serve so many uses I gladly sacrifice a few grenades for their benefits. And I can't be the only one running a pair of blademasters down the front of my missions, picking off stragglers with the rest of the team until I whittle each pod down to two sliceable opponents. A couple of Agility+ stims and I'm set. I love the way teamwork + abilities + gear just click for me in this game. Constant geoscape interruptions are probably the biggest annoyance for me. Getting pulled from a scan for a crucial mission is one thing, but after three or four notifications about a new discovery or a completed room or needing to assign a scientist or running out of supplies etc my already frazzled brain is at a loss where I was when I started. So now it's just click click click and I guess the game steers me where it wants me to go, except I have to keep going back to get supplies - interrupted - flyover - go back to get supplies - interrupted ... Last, I have this on a SSD so everthing is really speedy, but I still more often than not just have the game completely stop during an enemy turn. Nobody is moving and there's no sound, it's just .. thinking?
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Feb 7, 2016 17:06
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Dr Snofeld posted:That's always the first thing I build. Doesn't help when you're going on a mission with literally the last five guys in fighting shape, two get KO'd, and then sectoids spend three turns panicking the rest over and over. At least sometimes when soldiers panic they kill things. For this, hit Sectoids with flashbangs. It (should) lock their specials, and should make their aim garbage/prevent criticals. I've seen it NOT do that sometimes, but whatever. If you haven't upgraded Ranger swords, even a non-sword spec Ranger should be able to one shot toids with the first sword upgrade; they take extra damage from blades. Get Battle Scanners up there as well, to see whether or not you can push for a flank. With the timelimits battle scanners are especially important. Naturally you don't want to give up grenades, so you can just destroy covered rather than worry about flanking, but sometimes that is counter productive if you still have a lot of map to cover.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:06
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I wish the later equipment was just as rigged up like the gauss tier Past that it seems too clean
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Feb 7, 2016 17:07
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Dongattack posted:Do completing these main story missions: Investigate the Codex Brain Coordinates and Investigate the Blacksite Vial Coordinates push back the Avatar Project?
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Feb 7, 2016 17:10
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Elliotw2 posted:The only missions that you get heavily penalized for are terror missions and council missions. Failing to do any others just gives a pretty minor penality like slightly reduced supplies and whatever the dark events are. I tried avoiding a minor mission and as a result lost contact with the respective region because they had to "go to ground". That's a real setback because it eats up time and Intel redoing it. ZenVulgarity posted:I wish the later equipment was just as rigged up like the gauss tier I still think the EXO suits should've been the Tier-3 armor instead of the Warden Suits. Still fancy power armor, but looking hand-rigged human tech like the Gauss guns.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:10
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 Hey heads up since I know a lot of people have been asking for it! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618347691 This mod just came out and it lets you make your Tier 2 and/or 3 armors look like Tier 1 armors, in case you don't like how they look, or you prefer the kevlar stuff's variety, or you just want to show off your sick arm tattoos, or whatever. Now you don't have to be stuck in the final tier visually. Also I'm not sure but maybe you can mix and match so you can have some guys in future armor and some guys in turtlenecks. I haven't tried that yet. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618316725 This is apparently a version that works for the Resistance Pack extra options, too.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:12
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Neddy Seagoon posted:I tried avoiding a minor mission and as a result lost contact with the respective region because they had to "go to ground". That's a real setback because it eats up time and Intel redoing it.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:13
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End of game spoilers I would like to think that resetting the timer on the doom clock repeatedly would have the Thin Man trudging back up on that stage and going "Uhhh... yknow, there has been another slight delay on saving all of humanity, if you all could wait another two week that would be great, thanks"
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Feb 7, 2016 17:13
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Rookersh posted:
quadrophrenic posted:This game has gotten me to think a bit about recovery mechanisms, and that's a complaint I would've had for the original XCOM but it's definitely more severe with this one Yep, this is basically how I'm feeling about it right now. I really want to love XCOM 2 as much as I do EU, but it's making it very difficult for me to do so right now. The worst part is that I'm pretty sure I'd be able to put up with all of it if there wasn't a fail-state time limit (Avatar Project, not the turn limits in missions, I'm okay with those). Or the Dark Events that pop up and need to be dealt with within a certain amount of time. If that wasn't there, and I didn't have to devote resources to trying to keep that meter down and putting out fires, I'd feel a lot less sore about the constant RNG failures. At least I'd have as much time as I wanted to get caught back up. Or at least wait until a little later in the game before I have to jet around putting out fires all day long, so that if I gently caress up once there's a chance I've built up at least some kind of cushion. Like, I get that's not the point of this game. On paper, I actually love the idea that there's some concrete thing that I have to get off my rear end at work to stop. It's just that mixed with everything else--and I can't even really blame bugs for the things that are pissing me off--it's just one step too far. It pushes the game from "tense" into "actually stressful" and that's no longer fun. Harrow fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 17:14
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that I agree with
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Iron Twinkie posted:Holy poo poo! Is that mentioned out anywhere? I didn't see it anywhere, but I just noticed it when I upgraded to T2. After that I went hog wild with the mods, there is really no reason not to use them asap.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:17
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Harrow posted:Yep, this is basically how I'm feeling about it right now. I really want to love XCOM 2 as much as I do EU, but it's making it very difficult for me to do so right now. I think what would really help is if the Avatar Project wasn't a hard ticking clock (at least as an option, or on lower difficulties), just a nebulous thing existing in the background. We don't know what it is, when it'll be done, just we'll probably arrive at the last second to stop it. It'd reduce a lot of the stress it puts on players to handhold everything constantly.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:18
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Can't believe no one has said how broken/OP mimic beacons are. They basically waste an entire alien turn. Also hilariously enough, those snake dudes try and bind/tongue the beacon...and it just passes through them doing 0 damage.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:21
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PSA for all of you: You can set waypoints for movement to go a specific route by holding down Ctrl.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:21
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So with soldier classes my impressions are to confirm that Grenadiers are kings of the mountain, and everyone else trying to be as cool as them. Rangers are very good, but I just am not seeing the utility of Phantom. I guess if you get it in the early months, and can play good enough that you can deal with pods a soldier down. It probably is one of those things where you get better it gets better. However, Blademaster and Bladestorm are /amazing/ and I feel invaluable. Implacable is really good, don't let me wrong, but Bladestorm is one of the ways to deal out multiple attacks on multiple targets, assuming you are positioned right and it helped me deal with melee enemies. In general you are right that the shotgun is a better use weapon, and outside of being  I use it more than the sword but those two perks are great. I haven't felt I've been in a place where I've had to use Run and Gun while using Conceal either, partly because Shotguns have more range this time around. Rapid Fire is better than Reaper overall because late game enemies have long war style hp bars. Grenadiers just so amazing, and I've just been taking two because both demo man and heavy are amazing builds. Not that this is new to anyone, but grenade launchers are good. The fact that they can aim is a huge improvement. I still haven't tried a sniper rifle sniper. Gunslinger is too good and plays nice with how this game was designed. Also in the original sniper rifles were really THE way to take out high hp targets, but in this game everyone but the specialist has a way to chew through a massive target so it's less valuable to me. And oddly the sniper skills seem to take that into account, to where its better at chaining shots at weakened enemies than a high value target deleter. Specialist is the other class where I feel like I want two, but of course squadsize prevents that. I prefer the medic version, as while controlling robot is nice, the best control is dead and two grenadiers do dead very well. Further Haywire comperes with the utterly invaluable Revival Protocall. Cannot stress how great that skill is. And while if you play well you shouldn't need the medkits, it's a nice buffer to have, even if just to remove poison boobos. I hate the Guardian is only a chance to proc. Psi Ops are bullshit good. Probably too good. Tons of fun. I hate the random training order as that's part of what makes them insane. If you had to go through the tree normally and then got random trees maybe they'd feel less broken? Either way I totally love them.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:23
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Eimi posted:So with soldier classes my impressions are to confirm that Grenadiers are kings of the mountain, and everyone else trying to be as cool as them. Is Phantom the one that puts the Ranger back in Concealed? Because I'm pretty sure you could use that to solo an Advent Facility with a single Ranger if it is.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:26
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Is Phantom the one that puts the Ranger back in Concealed? Because I'm pretty sure you could use that to solo an Advent Facility with a single Ranger if it is. First perk that lets them remain concealed. The one that puts them back into Concealment is called Conceal.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:27
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Phantom is great for seeing where and where pods of enemies are, and stacks with some other class abilities.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:27
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Harrow posted:The worst part is that I'm pretty sure I'd be able to put up with all of it if there wasn't a fail-state time limit (Avatar Project, not the turn limits in missions, I'm okay with those). There's a mod that removes the avatar project clock entirely but it's not quite working as intended yet, apparently the author messed something up but it should be an easy fix. I'd give it another few days. I'm probably going to use it on my second playthrough. I don't think removing the doom clock going to actually change how I play the game. I'm still going to assault facilities to stop enemies from growing out of control in power, I'm still going to have to choose my targets carefully, and the tactical game is still going to be just the same. It's just a little less sword of damocles hanging over my head, and knowing my fuckups are more direct. Hell, this is the most spineless player thing I could probably say, but I like the idea of an XCOM2 that has no hard fail state. That no matter how badly you gently caress up on the larger metagame, you can always claw your way back up. That would be part of the fun of it, if anything. But you'd really have to work for it.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:27
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If we're speaking of the Avatar Project and mods, there do exist ones to make it less stressful and also the ability to just straight up remove it Someone also uploaded a mod to let you customize the mission timers, and also a button to strip weapons.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:28
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SergZpartan posted:Untouchable for rangers is a really fun skill. What the gently caress
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Feb 7, 2016 17:29
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It seems what a lot of people want is all tactical combat and no metagame outside of research progression. I'm not even saying that is a bad opinion, maybe a modder can do that: create a version that just has you doing a series of missions and has the metagame done automatically based solely on your tactical performance.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:29
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The Devil Tesla posted:Phantom is great for seeing where and where pods of enemies are, and stacks with some other class abilities. Oh that one. Yeah, Phantom's well worth taking just for keeping a guy hidden as backup. So long as you can keep them concealed, you've got a safe shotgun to the face ready to go when you need it most. Or indeed just to go poke for pods. Underwhelmed posted:It seems what a lot of people want is all tactical combat and no metagame outside of research progression. It's not a desire for no metagame, it's just for one that isn't as stressful. The Geoscape gives you no breathing room whatsoever for letting time pass to just collect resources or do anything without almost certainly getting interrupted by some mission or other. Which you can't say no to without facing major setbacks in one form or other that makes it even more stressful. Not to mention that most or all of your best guys are still wounded from the last time a mission came up, so now you're stuck in a cycle of trying to eke out a single team of healthy soldiers to go poke an Advent Facility because the counter just slapped on yet another two tiles while you were stuck playing catch-up. XCOM let you blow off the occasional mission without any real consequences for a decent while just so you could let your wounded recover and actually research/build stuff in relative peace. Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 17:30
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Serious Frolicking posted:Is there a trick to killing archons or are they always a slog until you get plasma? I'm only playing on normal but a single archon in a pod fucks up the overwatch ambushes that worked just fine previously. I guess it is also possible that I have just been consistently unlucky with the rng, but only with archons. Same as Floaters, they have a decent defense, so your less accurate troops will have a hard time hitting them. Try hitting them with auto-hit attacks like Combat Protocol or stock-equipped guns. Or just use the old fallback of explosives. Or if you have a Psi-Ops, try hitting them with Stasis to start the ambush. Takes them out of the fight and makes sure your overwatch doesn't target them.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:31
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Eimi posted:So with soldier classes my impressions are to confirm that Grenadiers are kings of the mountain, and everyone else trying to be as cool as them. Sniper is odd because he gets squad sight immediately but his biggest damage-dealing ability, Chain Shot, relies on him being close enough for direct LOS. So you can leave him at the back of the map but if you want to do really good damage he has to be in the mess with everyone else. I do agree that Grenadiers are amazing because they have the most explosives which in turn means the most cover-destroying abilities. Especially considering that explosions rarely destroy items, it's a great thing to have. Psi Ops are great but I agree that you should be able to level them through a tree in the fight rather than leaving them at base. The issue for me is that I don't want to bring them on missions half the time because throwing away all that delicious unit XP on someone that can't use it is just such a waste.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:32
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Vib Rib posted:Hell, this is the most spineless player thing I could probably say, but I like the idea of an XCOM2 that has no hard fail state. That no matter how badly you gently caress up on the larger metagame, you can always claw your way back up. That would be part of the fun of it, if anything. But you'd really have to work for it. I think they would have to completely redesign how the metagame works to make no hard fail state work, as it would result in folks grinding forever. But yea, an xcom without it would absolutely work.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:33
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DreamShipWrecked posted:Sniper is odd because he gets squad sight immediately but his biggest damage-dealing ability, Chain Shot, relies on him being close enough for direct LOS. So you can leave him at the back of the map but if you want to do really good damage he has to be in the mess with everyone else. I do agree that Grenadiers are amazing because they have the most explosives which in turn means the most cover-destroying abilities. Especially considering that explosions rarely destroy items, it's a great thing to have. I think you got Chain Shot from your random perk, as that's a grenadier ability normally. Snipers just have Deadeye for extra damage.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:34
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Oh that one. Yeah, Phantom's well worth taking just for keeping a guy hidden as backup. So long as you can keep them concealed, you've got a safe shotgun to the face ready to go when you need it most. Or indeed just to go poke for pods. Phantom very nicely with a sniper or two. I've had a few missions which were meant to be tremendous uphill slogs to destroy an object that have been vastly simplified by a phantom ranger running the gauntlet while the main group holds down the fort, culminating in across map sniper shots taking out the objective. It's also nice for discovering the stealthiest unit in the game: Turrets. Next time I have a ranger who reaches the point I might invest in the ability to re-conceal just to try it out.
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Feb 7, 2016 17:34
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Underwhelmed posted:It seems what a lot of people want is all tactical combat and no metagame outside of research progression. I think I just want a slightly more forgiving metagame. I'm cool with the idea that the aliens are going to do things whether I act or not, and that many of those things will be super bad for me, but the balance right now feels like a couple of total disasters in the early game means you might as well just restart. I also think the rate at which things pop up during the base management/scanning stuff is frequent enough that it's kind of unpleasant to deal with as a player. Crucial missions or pop-ups letting me know about things I can go scan are just frequent enough that it starts to tax my ability to focus on what I'm doing. Maybe that's the point, to simulate how stressful being the Commander would actually be, but I wonder how many of those things could be little messages in the corner of the screen and not a "stop what you're doing and read this!" pop-up. I work with medical software so the first thing I think about is the concept of "alert fatigue." You'd be surprised how low the threshold is for someone to just want the software to shut up and start ignoring important things. Harrow fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 7, 2016 17:35
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