|
Internet Kraken posted:EDIT: Have all you people complaining about the game being too easy beat ironman impossible? Not yet but that's not really the point. The point is that there's some cheesy strategies that by being so drat good, obselete other strategies from being worth considering, and which in themselves don't require a lot of cunning to use. So maybe we can make the game a bit more interesting instead of just dumping a pile of enemies and HP boosts on people's heads. If you just do the latter, you don't really make the cheesy strategies non-cheesy, you just make them more essential. Normal Adult Human posted:isn't the real risk of swords activating a new pack? That's the same situation with Run and Gun, really. Still, Rangers have a better time of it than other classes thanks to certain skills. Fangz fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Feb 13, 2016 |
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 00:55 |
|
|
Alright,I'm doing pretty good on the combat front-no deaths so far- but I can't do base management for poo poo. Any good tips for what I should build and in what order?
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:27
|
|
|
Fangz posted:Yeah, the idea is to make the game moderately harder on every difficulty in the mid to late game, avoiding just adding more enemies by instead adding complications to currently OP mechanics. This isn't really for you if you find the game very difficult already. I kinda disagree. I don't think the game needs to be "harder", but rather more consistent. There's things that are CRAZY powerful like mimic beacons and psi ops. Like they're just insanely good and stacking both of those things is like pushing the win button. Other things are probably a little stronger than they should be - grenades, abusing avatar timer, etc. On the other hand, some things are oddly weak. Swords as discussed are way weaker than shotguns past a very small and very short period of the game. Or hacking. Mind control is really easy, totally permanent, and a failure just means you lost an action. Hacking is way harder and temporary and has an enormous downside if you fail the RNG - which makes it pretty unique in XCOM, I think. Normally if RNG fails you've simply lost one potential tool for a turn - one less shot available for example. If you miss a shot the enemy doesn't instantly get a free shot back at you, but for some reason hacking has a distinct and powerful downside in an RNG failure. And hacking it relies on inconsistent boosts that you may or may not get throughout the campaign, boosts that make it more tempting than usual to savescum if you lose the RNG, or if you lose the soldier. Losing a soldier always sucks, but if you lose a grenadier for example, you can get another one. Put the same skills on and give the same equipment, and bam, you have a replacement. But you can never replace a specialist who had +20 bonuses. It's just an irreplaceable (but much needed) bonus. I think these things need to be brought together, so that the weak and unreliable things can be another tool that can stand next to the things that are right now simply *better*. Of course, the "victory lap" is another thing that could be changed, but that's more of an alteration to the style of the game, which is fine, but it's separate from what I feel are just big imbalances.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:31
|
|
|
Just lost my longest serving Grenadier. RIP Colonel Grace "Wildchild" Moore. The medic who should have healed you of that Chryssalid poison was vindictively hurled into the creatures' nest, after she finally stopped pissing herself behind a tiny little fence.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:32
|
|
|
VolticSurge posted:Alright,I'm doing pretty good on the combat front-no deaths so far- but I can't do base management for poo poo. Any good tips for what I should build and in what order? Guerilla Tactics School is really important, because it lets you increase your squad size. The Advanced Warfare Center speeds up your healing, lets you respec soldiers, and can give soldiers special extra skills from outside their class. You'll need Resistance Comms fairly early, and the earlier you get a Proving Ground, the earlier you get really cool special ammo and plasma grenades. I recommend building a Workshop somewhere central, like in the middle of the second level, because it can send GREMLINs to staff adjacent rooms in place of engineers. Also, don't build a Laboratory. You'll research plenty fast without one.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:32
|
|
|
There was someone earlier in the thread who had the problem of their mods menu in the launcher completely disappearing--how'd you fix that?
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:33
|
|
|
I think swords and hacking are fine and I use them both pretty often, so nah. Edit: I just generally feel like if a player thinks something is overpowered, they are usually right and have used it pretty often and so know exactly how good it is. But if they think something is underpowered, then most likely they haven't tried it out much and maybe just don't understand how to best make use of it. Fangz fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Feb 13, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:33
|
|
|
Made it to the final mission, get the cutscene, ready to go - and then my guys just stand around in the choose-your-team screen, except with no options, and it never does anything. Is this a known bug? Not finding it via googling.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:33
|
|
|
Academician Nomad posted:Made it to the final mission, get the cutscene, ready to go - and then my guys just stand around in the choose-your-team screen, except with no options, and it never does anything. Is this a known bug? Not finding it via googling. I've had similar things trigger by pressing an action button while the game was switching between characters. Try saving and loading.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:36
|
|
|
Fangz posted:I think swords and hacking are fine and I use them both pretty often, so nah. Swords are great early, especially against sectoids. But they're useless when you're against large groups of tanky enemies, particularly ones with lots of armor. Hacking is cool but the fact that a 90% chance to stun can turn into the mech getting huge aim and defense boosts is crazy and makes it a far riskier option than pretty much anything else.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:36
|
|
|
Also, I'm really curious if I'm the only one who pure stealthed the advent tower mission.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:36
|
|
|
Fangz posted:Not yet but that's not really the point. The point is that there's some cheesy strategies that by being so drat good, obselete other strategies from being worth considering, and which in themselves don't require a lot of cunning to use. So maybe we can make the game a bit more interesting instead of just dumping a pile of enemies and HP boosts on people's heads. If you just do the latter, you don't really make the cheesy strategies non-cheesy, you just make them more essential. Okay I just find it weird to hear so many people say "this game is easy" and not be talking about the actual hardest difficulty. Personally I think the strength of grenadiers is exaggerated. They are good, but every class is good once they get their skills. Grenadiers can actually be more limited due to their main ability being tied to limited ammunition. Where they are definitely the strongest is the early game, due to the nature of grenades and your limited tools. Getting a second grenade alone makes them stronger than everyone there, because your best way of dealing with anything is to take away its cover and pump it full of bullets. But Xcom as a whole has this weird problem where the early game is hard as nails, then later on it gets significantly easier. Not because its actually easier but rather because now you actually have more tools to use and form strategies around. Early on you have to take what little you are given to work with. It sucks, I guess its that way so as to not overwhelm newer players with tons of options but for someone trying a harder difficulty its annoying. Realistically speaking there's only so much that can be done in those early missions. Anyways I bring this up because I don't think the late game actually needs to be harder. Late game poo poo can easily go wrong and enemies can gently caress you up quickly if you make a mistake. The early game just has this hugely disproportionate difficulty. Its not as bad as it was in EW but its still a problem. EDIT: I mean maybe the 6 grenadier squad can roll maps but 6 heavies did the same thing in EW and nobody seemed to think they needed a nerf there. Internet Kraken fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Feb 13, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:39
|
|
|
EvilSlug posted:Most of the problem people have with this game comes down to a lack of flexibility on their part. You should be letting the events and available resources dictate your approach throughout the game. On mission, use what you know to your advantage and don't be afraid to sacrifice. I just left my best sniper behind on a VIP mission because it was the only way I could absolutely ensure everyone else would make it out with VIP intact. I'm not even making it far enough where decisions like that come into play. Like I'm squad wiping with character who have only level up once. The fights are basically me in high cover vs. aliens in mid-high cover, and the aliens are just hitting more of their 50-70% shots than I am. Panic is consistently ruining my runs, as I feel like everytime I eat a shot, another solider panics, which starts a really bad downward spiral. I'm using grenades, flashbangs, and cover. I'll watch the videos, but similar to the first game, I'm starting to feel that early game just has a big pile of luck involved on whether you hit shots, get paniced, etc... in an otherwise equal firefight. The later the game goes, the better you aim/skills get to allow you to mitigate that. It was my least favorite thing about the first game, and it's quickly annoying me in this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:48
|
|
|
Well, I can certainly understand that perspective. But personally I sort of feel like the early game in Commander is 'pleasantly difficult', so I kinda want to retain that level for a bit longer. Controversial idea: what about nerfing ordinary grenades and making (special) grenades into single-use, deleted when activated items? Like berserker stim packs. Too painful?
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:51
|
|
|
You have grenades, and aggressive flanks, and all sorts of other ways to solve problems. If you're playing well, "luck" is the difference between getting out of a map cleanly or taking a few scrapes along the way - you're probably making mistakes somewhere if hitting a single 70% shot is going to be the difference between winning and squad-wiping.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:53
|
|
|
Jabor posted:You have grenades, and aggressive flanks, and all sorts of other ways to solve problems. If you're playing well, "luck" is the difference between getting out of a map cleanly or taking a few scrapes along the way - you're probably making mistakes somewhere if hitting a single 70% shot is going to be the difference between winning and squad-wiping. I think his point is that it's NOT a single 70% shot, it's about fifteen of them. In short, he has done a great many things in his life to anger RNGesus, and is being severely punished for it, and that sounds like the long and short of his problems. In a game where every shot is determined by RNG, if the numbers are against you, the game is against you. Period. (still trying to figure out how to expand the initial roster of rookies. No idea what line I'm looking for in these .ini's T_T)
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:58
|
|
|
Fangz posted:Well, I can certainly understand that perspective. But personally I sort of feel like the early game in Commander is 'pleasantly difficult', so I kinda want to retain that level for a bit longer. You'd have to cut the resource cost by like a 1/4th. A tenth of your income every time you lob an incendiary grenade would suck real loving hard Internet Kraken posted:EDIT: I mean maybe the 6 grenadier squad can roll maps but 6 heavies did the same thing in EW and nobody seemed to think they needed a nerf there. Salvo is a pretty big game changer and the Grenade Launcher is much more versatile than the rocket launcher. If we're talking OP poo poo, the Shredstorm Cannon is insane, you can level an entire building and it has an absurdly long range. Whereas the Plasma Blaster is just a steaming pile of poo poo not worth the elerium core you wasted on it
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 03:59
|
|
|
Fangz posted:Well, I can certainly understand that perspective. But personally I sort of feel like the early game in Commander is 'pleasantly difficult', so I kinda want to retain that level for a bit longer. lol, special grenades take 5-10 days to make and are completely random. they also cost a ton of resources. they also prevent you from making things like exosuits, skeleton suits, skulljacks, heavy weapons and upgrades. that's insanely punishing. especially since they're barely better than regular grenades, worse if you actually want to destroy cover during the turn since acid/fire grenades tend to take two turns to burn poo poo down.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:00
|
|
|
Sometimes, your 3 rookies run up to a sectoid and unload clips into his head at point blank range. Sometimes, one of those shots misses, one doesn't crit, and the other only crit for like 5 damage. So the sectoid lives and then the zombie he reanimated clonks a soldier for an instant kill. I guessBolow posted:Salvo is a pretty big game changer and the Grenade Launcher is much more versatile than the rocket launcher. If we're talking OP poo poo, the Shredstorm Cannon is insane, you can level an entire building and it has an absurdly long range. Whereas the Plasma Blaster is just a steaming pile of poo poo not worth the elerium core you wasted on it I'll admit I didn't mess around with heavy weapons much since I got barely any elerium cores and the one power weapon that actually got built was a plasma blaster. EDIT: Also berserker stim packs are one use, gone forever? That's dumb as hell. I saw two berserkers in the entire campaign outside of the final mission.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:01
|
|
|
Internet Kraken posted:EDIT: Also berserker stim packs are one use, gone forever? That's dumb as hell. I saw two berserkers in the entire campaign outside of the final mission. Same.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:04
|
|
|
counterfeitsaint posted:Does anyone have any advice for the final mission? This is completely stupid. There are literally 30 dudes in here now. You should've saved all your resources for the last battle. Hope this helped.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:06
|
|
|
Zore posted:lol, special grenades take 5-10 days to make and are completely random. they also cost a ton of resources. they also prevent you from making things like exosuits, skeleton suits, skulljacks, heavy weapons and upgrades. I'd probably halve the time and resource cost, and couple it with a nerf to plasma grenades. The basic idea is that you'd probably build up a stock of them and only bring them with you on the really difficult missions. And even in those missions you'll have to think carefully how much you need to use them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:07
|
|
|
Jabor posted:You have grenades, and aggressive flanks, and all sorts of other ways to solve problems. If you're playing well, "luck" is the difference between getting out of a map cleanly or taking a few scrapes along the way - you're probably making mistakes somewhere if hitting a single 70% shot is going to be the difference between winning and squad-wiping. It's what the guy below you says. It's an issue with the very early game, and I feel like I've just head the bad luck jackpot today. When you only have 4 soldiers, if 2 of them miss 60-70% shots, the alien then hit 2 of their shots, which results in damage/death/panic, the fight can quickly go to poo poo. The time limits only exacerbate this issue-- if you miss 2 shots, you've just wasted an entire turn off the timer. This is an even larger problem if you go for a flank, and the miss your shot. If I was mid game I'd have an easier time believing I was making some grave misplays with my skill usage, but within the first 3 missions your soldiers can basically move, shoot, throw grenade.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:07
|
|
|
The final mission would be really cool if it was just the last battle and not the extended slog through 30+ enemies beforehand that you might be tricked into using resources on. EDIT: I don't think nerfing grenades like that would solve anything. I never even used the special grenades because I valued cover destruction more. Internet Kraken fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Feb 13, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:07
|
|
|
Fangz posted:I'd probably halve the time and resource cost, and couple it with a nerf to plasma grenades. The basic idea is that you'd probably build up a stock of them and only bring them with you on the really difficult missions. And even in those missions you'll have to think carefully how much you need to use them. Yeah, that still sounds loving awful. One grenade would never be worth that, I'd just bring another Psi-Op and make all my grenadiers Gunners because lol having one class/spec be the only one to cost a bunch of resources for regular use. Also makes things like the final mission or Avenger defenses awful. Grenade Grenadiers are already kinda mediocre/bad in the late-game and you want to make them infinitely worse.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:09
|
|
|
poptart_fairy posted:Just lost my longest serving Grenadier. RIP Colonel Grace "Wildchild" Moore. The medic who should have healed you of that Chryssalid poison was vindictively hurled into the creatures' nest, after she finally stopped pissing herself behind a tiny little fence. FYI you can save soldiers now from dying to dots by putting an evac zone under their feet...
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:09
|
|
|
Megasabin posted:It's what the guy below you says. It's an issue with the very early game, and I feel like I've just head the bad luck jackpot today. When you only have 4 soldiers, if 2 of them miss 60-70% shots, the alien then hit 2 of their shots, which results in damage/death/panic, the fight can quickly go to poo poo. This is an even larger problem if you go for a flank, and the miss your shot. If I was mid game I'd have an easier time believing I was making some grave misplays with my skill usage, but within the first 3 missions your soldiers can basically move, shoot, throw grenade. It's not really luck - well not luck alone anyway. You can go watch beaglerush and how his tactics achieve him flawless missions on impossible ironman *with bonus numbers of enemies*, and in front of a live audience to boot.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:10
|
|
|
Fangz posted:It's not really luck - well not luck alone anyway. You can go watch beaglerush and how his tactics achieve him flawless missions on impossible ironman *with bonus numbers of enemies*, and in front of a live audience to boot. I've watched Beagle squad wipe on the opening mission of Xcom 2 (modded) countless times though so its not really a good example for countering the early game having a lot of RNG. If he can pull off the opening mission reliably unmodded I'd love to see how, but I don't think he has any Xcom 2 videos up yet of it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:12
|
|
|
Megasabin posted:It's what the guy below you says. It's an issue with the very early game, and I feel like I've just head the bad luck jackpot today. When you only have 4 soldiers, if 2 of them miss 60-70% shots, the alien then hit 2 of their shots, which results in damage/death/panic, the fight can quickly go to poo poo. The time limits only exacerbate this issue-- if you miss 2 shots, you've just wasted an entire turn off the timer. This is an even larger problem if you go for a flank, and the miss your shot. If I was mid game I'd have an easier time believing I was making some grave misplays with my skill usage, but within the first 3 missions your soldiers can basically move, shoot, throw grenade. The point is if you're hoping to win a protracted firefight with 60% shots, you're already making a mistake. Grenades are 100% accurate. Close-range rifle shots are 85% accurate for rookies, and get better from there. A point-blank shotgun shot is 100% accurate even with a Squaddie ranger. Not to mention that on anything below Legendary, you get gambler's fallacy bonuses after every miss! It's literally impossible to miss three shots in a row!
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:17
|
|
|
Megasabin posted:I'm not even making it far enough where decisions like that come into play. Like I'm squad wiping with character who have only level up once. The fights are basically me in high cover vs. aliens in mid-high cover, and the aliens are just hitting more of their 50-70% shots than I am. Panic is consistently ruining my runs, as I feel like everytime I eat a shot, another solider panics, which starts a really bad downward spiral. I'm using grenades, flashbangs, and cover. This happened to me last weekend (you can go back and see my posts, I was insanely whiny about it). The key to getting past the early-game RNG fuckery is to do everything you can to bend that RNG in your favor. That means don't let the enemies have cover at all. Don't park behind high cover and shoot at enemies in medium cover. Blow up their cover with frag grenades. Flank them. Flanking can be a big risk, but it pays off when you take out all the enemies before they get a chance to retaliate. It's remarkable how much easier the game got for me once I started playing aggressively. XCOM: EU is to Dark Souls as XCOM 2 is to Bloodborne, really: it gets easier when you start going on full attack. It also helps to always have an answer to the question, "What if this shot misses?" Save a grenade or two as a "this enemy absolutely must die" guaranteed damage button, for example.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:23
|
|
|
Jabor posted:The point is if you're hoping to win a protracted firefight with 60% shots, you're already making a mistake. Grenades are 100% accurate. Close-range rifle shots are 85% accurate for rookies, and get better from there. A point-blank shotgun shot is 100% accurate even with a Squaddie ranger. Yeah, the secret to the first mission is overwatch trap the first pod with a grenade, then spread out wide and encircle the second pod so you can flank em. The hard part is getting through it unwounded and with a kill for each, so you get a full squad. Is there an explanation anywhere of EXACTLY what the differences are for each difficulty level? All I see are approximate statements like "harder" and I hate that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:25
|
|
|
Did you know there are pillars in the opening mission that can't be destroyed? At least, I threw two grenades at a sectoid in high cover last night and ayy lmao still got it no flank for you  VVV Honestly its one of the things that frustrates me. Some cover being more durable than others would be fine if there was any sort of indication as to what that cover is. There sure as hell isn't any consistent logic behind it. Walls of alien alloy go down like cardboard but this lamppost is indestructible. Internet Kraken fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Feb 13, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:27
|
|
|
The number 1 rule of XCOM 2 is grenades solve every problem.Internet Kraken posted:Did you know there are pillars in the opening mission that can't be destroyed? At least, I threw two grenades at a sectoid in high cover last night and ayy lmao still got it no flank for you It seems like some cover is more durable and requires more hits to break or something?
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:27
|
|
|
Grenades make every problem solvable, their damage is so low that you'll always need to finish things up with rifles.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:30
|
|
|
Still can't get any mods to work now. Tried un/resubscribing, verifying the game cache, etc. Nada. So, that chrysalid load bug not only corrupted every single one of my saves, it also somehow left me unable to use any mods at all. Even mods I subscribed to for the first time after it happened do not work.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:31
|
|
|
So did anyone else's game go loving nuts on the last mission? Specifically in the last room? Everything started rapidly flashing green and yellow and purple, the screen got tinted dark blue for a turn, etc?
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:33
|
|
|
Serious Frolicking posted:Still can't get any mods to work now. Tried un/resubscribing, verifying the game cache, etc. Nada. So, that chrysalid load bug not only corrupted every single one of my saves, it also somehow left me unable to use any mods at all. Even mods I subscribed to for the first time after it happened do not work. Also try installing mods manually rather than using the workshop.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:33
|
|
|
InequalityGodzilla posted:So did anyone else's game go loving nuts on the last mission? Specifically in the last room? Everything started rapidly flashing green and yellow and purple, the screen got tinted dark blue for a turn, etc? Contrary to what people tell you when first seeing the codex, that sounds like your graphics card is indeed wigging out.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:34
|
|
|
Just did a Blacksite mission where I cleared out everything up to the vial and assumed the map was clear, so I started running my squad toward the extraction zone. Well, my last guy sprinted outside the building and revealed a pod of a snake, 3 stun lancers and 2 troopers. My turn ended, all three stun lancers ran in and hit various soldiers, all three fell unconscious. One more panicked and missed a shot, the snake bound someone and both troopers murdered the guy outside who revealed the pod. I grabbed the vial and sprinted for extraction with all three active soldiers, the stun lancers managed to all miss the panicked soldier, the snake kept choking its victim. The troopers shot at my three escapees and killed one. I escaped that mission with 2 out of 8 starting soldiers, both squaddies that I had just trained in the GWS. Then the bald Council guy made fun of me the next day. This game is rude.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 00:55 |
|
|
InequalityGodzilla posted:So did anyone else's game go loving nuts on the last mission? Specifically in the last room? Everything started rapidly flashing green and yellow and purple, the screen got tinted dark blue for a turn, etc? This happened to me when I shot the last witch and for a bit I was left wondering if it was intentional fuckery or just the game glitching out again.
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2016 04:34
|
|