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ChickenHeart posted:
but does his bio make it clear that he is gordon freemans brother
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Aug 17, 2016 08:02
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Alkydere posted:Yes, the story is dumb as rocks, but as you said the game is fun as hell so it gets a pass. Thinking about it, I think Jake Solomon's stated goal of making the aliens the stars of the enemy show was, at best, a mixed bag. With two exceptions (gatekeepers and sectopods), I usually found myself targeting the aliens last because I felt the ADVENT were more dangerous aside from the troopers, especially the lancers and officers. Shieldbearers also extremely annoying. I also barely saw any mutons, berserkers, or chryssalids all game, I think I saw single digits of each all game and that's including the final mission. Archons and andromedans, on the other hand, were goddamn everywhere once they started showing up.
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Aug 17, 2016 14:32
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" Though the city maps EW introduced for UFO raids were baller as could be with the player picking through the rubble after a downed alien spacecraft plowed through a bunch of buildings. But yeah, game is vastly more replayable than EU/EW just for that, and that's before you add the modding.
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Cythereal posted:Thinking about it, I think Jake Solomon's stated goal of making the aliens the stars of the enemy show was, at best, a mixed bag. With two exceptions (gatekeepers and sectopods), I usually found myself targeting the aliens last because I felt the ADVENT were more dangerous aside from the troopers, especially the lancers and officers. Shieldbearers also extremely annoying. I feel that's partially because if you know what you're doing with XCOM you do your best to reduce the number of dice the AI can roll. So you've got the big "boss" alien that will take 2-3 shots to kill if you're lucky, or you've got his buddy ADVENT soldiers that you can take care in 1-2 shots each. If you kill the two ADVENT then that's 2 less shots coming at you and then you'll have 2 less shots being thrown at you. Also, the reason the 'Zerkers and 'Lids are so rare is because they're terror mission only units. They really should have the tail end of their window extended but it's understandable why ADVENT wouldn't just let those walk around in the big city. And the Andromedon I feel really is just the Muton 2.0 in the fact that it's both a normal (if up-sized) Muton and a Berserker mixed into a single enemy with an added acid theme. Basically, the Andromedon is is XCOM 2's version of the "Elite Muton" in XCOM EU. I hear you on the Archons though. At least you can override dodge chances now with 100% accuracy shots. Those fuckers were even more annoying back at launch.
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Aug 17, 2016 14:49
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Alkydere posted:I hear you on the Archons though. At least you can override dodge chances now with 100% accuracy shots. Those fuckers were even more annoying back at launch. Dodge, ugh. gently caress that mechanic, an extra layer of RNG on top of the existing dice roll to hit. Goddamn everything late in the game seemed to have Dodge bar gatekeepers and sectopods. Avatars being dodgy fuckers is why my Hail of Bullets sniper bagged two of the three in the final mission. The second one, though, did not pick a good way to go: first hit by my commander's dimensional rift, then teleported into a phenomenally stupid place and ate a point-blank plasma shotgun crit to the face, and finally on four HP and in an extremely inconvenient place got electrocuted by my last combat protocol.
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Aug 17, 2016 14:59
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 Why didn't anyone tell me
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Aug 18, 2016 05:39
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omar comin
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Aug 18, 2016 06:22
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Alkydere posted:And the Andromedon I feel really is just the Muton 2.0 in the fact that it's both a normal (if up-sized) Muton and a Berserker mixed into a single enemy with an added acid theme. Basically, the Andromedon is is XCOM 2's version of the "Elite Muton" in XCOM EU. Now now, it has a difference from the Muton that matters a whole lot. Its AOE attack is on a cooldown. Add good health+armour, cover destruction with movement, and you have the ideal domination target. It has low will, too!
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Aug 18, 2016 07:01
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Oh god yes, Andromedons are your stompy brother from an alien mother once you get a good psi with Domination. They smash through cover, shoot acid bombs, and are just generally fun to play with.
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Aug 18, 2016 18:59
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For the final mission I just played the other day I went with two full-rank psi troopers. Dominated two Gatekeepers solely because they have 25 hp and six armor and I figured I could just let them stand around and get shot horribly for turn after turn while I just casually wiped out the rest of the enemies without taking a single hit. Worked like a charm.
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Aug 18, 2016 19:23
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Psion posted:For the final mission I just played the other day I went with two full-rank psi troopers. Dominated two Gatekeepers solely because they have 25 hp and six armor and I figured I could just let them stand around and get shot horribly for turn after turn while I just casually wiped out the rest of the enemies without taking a single hit. Worked like a charm. My Gatekeeper re-animated a dead Avatar.
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Aug 18, 2016 19:25
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Psion posted:For the final mission I just played the other day I went with two full-rank psi troopers. Dominated two Gatekeepers solely because they have 25 hp and six armor and I figured I could just let them stand around and get shot horribly for turn after turn while I just casually wiped out the rest of the enemies without taking a single hit. Worked like a charm. Whatever you do with a Gatekeeper, never use its big psionic attack, annoyingly the zombies aren't under your control when you do that. Fix your game, Jake.
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Aug 18, 2016 19:25
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I never bothered opening the shell. I just had them sit in the center of the room and fire lasers at things. They usually missed. Good to know I was right not to do any of the psi zombie stuff; I had a suspicion it wouldn't work out in my favor.
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Aug 18, 2016 19:31
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I'm looking back at my completed first game of X-COM 2 and specifically how I picked skills and equipment for my a-team if anyone has any suggestions. Posted in order of kills: 1: Ranger Slash Phantom Shadowstep Run and Gun Implacable Untouchable Rapid Fire Shotgun: laser sight, hair trigger WAR Suit, plasma blaster, talon rounds Never picked up an AWC ability, but this guy lead the team on kills with good reason. I almost never used his sword, instead relying on his ability to simply delete hostiles with remarkable safety between Run and Gun, Rapid Fire, Implacable, and Untouchable. I gave him talon rounds and was never disappointed. The plasma blaster also came in handy on several occasions, giving him the ability to reach out and touch someone beyond shotgun range. 2. Grenadier Launch Grenade Shredder Suppression Holo Targeting Chain Shot Hail of Bullets Rupture Guardian (AWC) Cannon: scope, extended magazine WAR suit, blaster launcher, flashbang grenade, acid bomb The cannoneer build seems to be talked about much less than going for maximum boom, but she was priceless throughout the game and I think exceeded my ranger on kills in the final mission. From the start she excelled at making everyone else's jobs easier, then once she hit major and got a superior scope, she started turning aliens into swiss cheese, especially heavily armored enemies. The blaster was probably a little redundant on a grenadier, but it made a hell of an opening statement from concealment. Grabbed one of the avatars in the final mission thanks to Hail of Bullets saying "gently caress your dodge nonsense." 3. Specialist Aid Protocol Combat Protocol Haywire Protocol Scanning Protocol Covering Fire Ever Vigilant Capacitor Discharge Run and Gun (AWC) Rifle: stock, hair trigger Wraith suit, skulljack/battle scanner depending on mission I thought this lady was just kind of there for most of the game until I started handing out t3 armor and realized just how many kills she had. The way I was using her, the Covering Fire/Ever Vigilant combo was incredibly useful and accounted for a substantial number of kills throughout the game. Lots of valuable utility skills, too, there was always something for her to do and she bagged one of the avatars in the final mission with combat protocol. 4. Sharpshooter Squadsight Long Watch Lightning Hands Death From Above Killzone Steady Hands Serial Hail of Bullets (AWC) Sniper Rifle: scope, extended magazine Wraith suit, tracer rounds For reliable termination of low-health enemies, this was the man I called. Hail of Bullets was a great pickup due to the sniper rifle's innate damage and how it can function as a pseudo-snap shot if you have the ammo. He was much better on some missions than others, depending on terrain and line of sight availability. When he was good, he was great, but more often he was kind of mediocre. 5. Grenadier Launch Grenade Shredder Demolition Heavy Ordnance Volatile Mix Salvo Saturation Fire Untouchable (AWC) Cannon: stock, hair trigger Warden armor, plasma grenade, dragon rounds, acid bomb My second grenadier went for the boom-boom approach, and it paid off handsomely. He didn't get as many kills as the front three, but he excelled at softening up enemies and making holes for everyone else to exploit. Untouchable was nice when it happened (and it did happen a fair number of times), but it wouldn't have been my first choice for this guy. 6. Specialist Aid Protocol Medical Protocol Revival Protocol Field Medic Covering Fire Ever Vigilant Capacitor Discharge Rupture (AWC) Rifle: scope, stock Warden armor, medkit, battle scanner Like my sharpshooter, this lady was more useful on some missions than others and like my second grenadier, she was better at enhancing and helping the team than she was at scoring her own kills. Covering Fire and Ever Vigilant were just as good on her as on my other specialist and Rupture was a great pick-up that helped on many occasions, but by and large I felt she wasn't generally needed, but when she was needed, she was really, really needed. Any observations from the vets about what to do next time? I barely played with psi at all due to how late I got the lab up and running. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Aug 18, 2016 |
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Aug 18, 2016 19:55
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Psion posted:I never bothered opening the shell. I just had them sit in the center of the room and fire lasers at things. They usually missed. Good to know I was right not to do any of the psi zombie stuff; I had a suspicion it wouldn't work out in my favor. It works with Sectoids though. You can dominate a sectoid, then have it revive and you get to control the Zombie too.
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Aug 18, 2016 20:31
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Kwyndig posted:Whatever you do with a Gatekeeper, never use its big psionic attack, annoyingly the zombies aren't under your control when you do that. Are you using a mod that changes that? Because they've always been under my control in every game I've played, and as recently as yesterday I dropped the gateway on a pile of civvies in a VIP mission, picking up 5 zombies in one go.
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Aug 18, 2016 21:32
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Last time I tried was three patches ago at least. Maybe they changed it.
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Aug 18, 2016 21:50
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The upgrade to sword rangers is definitely welcome. +2 damage AND +10 Accuracy so you almost always hit what you slash at.
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Aug 18, 2016 22:21
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Agreed. Blade rangers still aren't amazing, but that humble little +10 goes a long way towards making them at least a viable option with some distinct advantages over shotguns. That's also one of the things Alien Rulers did right; giving blade rangers a new weapon type that makes them just a little bit more effective. Again, it's not a huge difference, but over the long run it makes a blade ranger a lot more viable and gives them a nice 'clutch' move to help pull you out of a bad situation.
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Aug 19, 2016 13:37
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Speaking of Xcom 2 dissapointments, on of my few (non technical) problems with the game is how non-threatening chrysslids are now. On paper they should be worse but they're super rare and I've never been in a situation where I couldn't just melt them.
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Aug 19, 2016 15:40
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Cythereal posted:I'm looking back at my completed first game of X-COM 2 and specifically how I picked skills and equipment for my a-team if anyone has any suggestions. Posted in order of kills: YES, but these are just suggestions. Nothing wrong with what you have going on there. 1. You should try a 2nd ranger build around blademaster/bladestorm with Hellweave. I'd still take rapid fire over reaper, simply because I could never get reaper to work well. But, if you can commit one ranger to melee focus, haven raid missions become a chryssalid slaughterhouse and it's glorious. Shadowstrike is worthless because your crit chance is so high anyway that you're almost always going to crit...unless you use a rifle instead of a shotgun. I've never actually tried that. Maybe I'll give it a shot to see if that has some utility. hmm... It also may be preferable to go with expanded magazine over hair trigger when you get rapid fire. 2. For your specialist listed at #3, swap out bluescreen rounds for the battle scanner. You already have scanning protocol, which is only marginally less useful. Go with extended magazine instead of stock for overwatch reasons. I'd also use armor with 2 utility slots so that you can ALWAYS SKULLJACK. 3. For your other specialist, as long as you are going the healer route, the restoration ability is actually quite useful. For both specialist types, though, ever vigilant is always better than guardian and covering fire is always better than threat assessment. Hair trigger or repeater > stock. 4. Having another sniper (in addition to the one you have set up) with quickdraw / faceoff / fan fire is a lot more fun that you would think. For this sniper...DRAGON ROUNDS. WAR suit. Hellfire flamethrower. huehuehue 5. You already have two grenadiers set up nicely, but going with stock at higher levels is not really helpful over other, more powerful options. You won't be missing too much so that 2-3 points of damage is useful on a miss (except for shredding armor). And this is my preference, but I never go with holo targeting. If I use it early, I AWC it out later. 6. I also tend to go Wraith suit on Ranger rather than WAR, because the extra defense isn't needed when you one-shot everything you shoot and dodge everything else. Talon rounds are great with shotguns, but on those missions where you know you're going up against multiple mecs Bluescreen rounds in shotguns are hilarious. 7. For the missions mentioned in the previous tip with a bunch of mecs...bluescreen snipers. Having both "flavors" of each of the four core classes allows for some really fun squad compositions. Since Psi troops don't really benefit from combat experience too much I only bring them along for Dominating gatekeepers or to counteract strong enemy psi presence. With andromedons I just kill them the first time and then Haywire them for lulz. I almost always bring both specialists, sometimes 3 if there are a lot of mecs. Double ranger is of course fun and standard, but three grenadier / ranger / 2 specialist is very lol when two of the grenadiers are of the heavy ordinance/ volatile mix variety. Haven rescue missions with 2 snipers / 2 rangers / 2 specialists are really, really easy when you can use the hell out of overwatch, kill zone, fan fire (with DRAGON ROUNDS, hee), and bladestorm. And always have 2 flashbangs. Always. Between Flashbangs, DRAGON ROUNDS, and bluescreen bullets, you're always going to be ready. KaiserSchnitzel fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Aug 19, 2016 |
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Aug 19, 2016 17:25
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Threat Assessment is great, what are you talking about? Pop that on your Ranger or whatever and you can do unnecessarily mean things to the aliens like have them flank, rapid-fire, use implacable to move to another flanking position, and then Threat Assessment on them for a great overwatch shot on a flanked enemy (so you know they'll move). I think I get a lot more out of a more flexible extra overwatch shot on a character with a more powerful gun and often more accuracy than I would from an overwatch shot into cover.
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Aug 19, 2016 17:37
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Cythereal posted:
The terrarium before the portal room is pretty interesting if you zoom in and rotate around it in it, you can learn quite a bit about the inhabitants that lived there, especially from the child's crayon drawings of the aliens.
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Aug 19, 2016 22:33
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So I beat Impossible Bronzeman, which was a lot of fun. Now adding a Better Advent to see what it does. On the flip side, is there anyway to make a Spark stomp through walls permanently like the Sectopods do? I know about the Wrecking Ball talent, but it requires overdrive, and I want to stompstomp all the time  edit: First trip report: The endless reinforcements from either the 'VIP rescue mission' mod or the 'reinforcements every 4 turns' mod are just empty shuttles. Very strange. Loel fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Aug 20, 2016 |
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Aug 20, 2016 05:43
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monster on a stick posted:My Gatekeeper re-animated a dead Avatar. i had a sectoid do this during the final mission and it felt awkward seeing the worst enemy in the game manipulate the corpse of the elders that rule over the sectoids poor dude even lost his hair when he got reanimated
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Aug 20, 2016 10:18
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Just beat the game for the first time tonight. Right before the last mission the retaliation mission was called "Fire Stank". The last avatar ran into the overwatch of a heavy that had a chance to completely execute someone. Full health and I see "Executed!" From behind a wall. 
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Aug 20, 2016 15:43
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ptier posted:Just beat the game for the first time tonight. Right before the last mission the retaliation mission was called "Fire Stank". I just played the game for the first time and the first tutorial mission was called Knife Stank. Anyone have some general, spoiler-free tips on what to focus on strategic-wise for a first time player? I've beaten xcom enemy within on normal difficulty and am playing 2 on normal as well. The resistance comms thing is kind of confusing me. Any good tips on managing avatar project progress? If it makes out is it instant game over or does it just mean that you have to face a very tough mission? I just finished the first retaliation mission and I'm basically sure I just finished the initial tutorial. About to grab magnetic weapons.
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Aug 20, 2016 18:25
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prussian advisor posted:I just played the game for the first time and the first tutorial mission was called Knife Stank. The first couple months are a lot more open-ended than EU, but you want to build either a Guerilla Training School or Advanced Warfare Center really early on, based on how you're doing. If you've got a soldier who's getting promoted at a decent clip, get the GTS so you can get Squad Size 1. If you're bringing home a bunch of poor injured sods each mission, get the Advanced Warfare Center so you can staff it to halve the recovery times of wounded soldiers. Resistance comms is just the new Satellites, but they're way less important early on than they were in EU. Just expand when you can but don't worry too much about it; if you have an ADVENT facility marked on your map work towards that. To manage Avatar Project progress, you can reduce it by completing main objectives or by assaulting ADVENT facilities. When you reach full Avatar bubs, a timer will begin and count down from 15 days, during which you have to reduce avatar progress by at least one to cancel the timer. Since the aliens have ways to add multiple bubs at a time, you want to have one facility in reach as an emergency tool to get out of the doomsday timer if you need to. ADVENT facilities are not particularly hard-- they have a decent amount of tough enemies, but they also generally have terrain favorable to you and no time limit. The main risk with them is that's an extra mission in your schedule, so anyone who gets injured in one is pretty much guaranteed to still be injured for the next one or two missions. Oh yeah, build a flashbang or two. If an enemy has annoying special abilities, the flashbang will keep them from using it. The rest of the equipment you should figure out on your own, but flashbangs are a super important tool in the game and a lot of people unknowingly skip them. If you have the DLC, don't disable them, but don't do the DLC missions unless you feel like you want to tackle them (Both of them have special icons and are pretty obvious that they're from the DLC). Count Uvula fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Aug 20, 2016 |
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Aug 20, 2016 19:34
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Play Last Gift dlc once when you hit 6 soldiers and magnetic weapons, because it's a fascinating, long mission, and then skip it on subsequent playthroughs.
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Aug 20, 2016 20:32
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Don't have any non-cosmetic DLCs so no worries there. When would it be reasonable to assault the first black site in Africa? I just got mag weapons and squad size five, my A squad is at sergeant level overall. EDIT: Do flashbangs stop enemies from acting altogether or just using special abilities? Because I can think of at least one type of alien (cough neo-sectoids cough) where their special abilities are significantly less dangerous than their normal shooting attack. prussian advisor fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Aug 20, 2016 |
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Aug 20, 2016 21:43
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prussian advisor posted:Don't have any non-cosmetic DLCs so no worries there. When would it be reasonable to assault the first black site in Africa? I just got mag weapons and squad size five, my A squad is at sergeant level overall. Flashbangs usually stop melee, specials (and I think overwatch), and reduce mobility. This means if you're concerned about an enemy's standard fire you shouldn't flashbang them. Keep in mind if you leave a flank open and in range they may just go for it anyway.
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Aug 20, 2016 22:01
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Disoriented enemies do lose 25 aim, which in the case of Pectoids and even low cover becomes a chance to hit of "lol"
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Aug 20, 2016 22:20
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But with default to-hit roll mechanics, if they do hit you in cover and when they're flashed it's going to be a crit.
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Aug 20, 2016 22:37
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I was about to say, yeah, get the "EU Aim Rolls" mod, or else manually edit the config to make Disoriented give like -50% crit, unless you want really stupid and unintuitive crits from aliens doing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK85OXiValM&t=18s
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Aug 20, 2016 22:41
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Apropos of nothing, I want to give Sparks the 'wallsmash' 'wallbreaker' abilities of Andromedons. I've found the file for Sparks, anyone know where Andromedons are saved? (Or just listing them?) My guess is that it would look like (AbilityName="Wallsmash", ApplyToWeaponSlot=eInvSlot_Uknown), \\ (AbilityName="Wallbreaker", ApplyToWeaponSlot=eInvSlot_Uknown), \\ ), \\ Am I correct in thinking that?
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Aug 20, 2016 23:10
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Andromedon abilities are defined in Unrealscript, X2CharacterTemplate_DefaultCharacters.uc I believe.
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Aug 20, 2016 23:18
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Why is the DLC such shovel ware?
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Aug 21, 2016 00:53
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A BIG loving BLUNT posted:Why is the DLC such shovel ware? Unfortunately expansion packs more or less died out in favour of piece meal season pass DLC with 1/4 of the content. Fallout 4 has a season pass that costs as much as the base game but will end up with about half the content of previous season passes. The less mainstream genres still get expansion packs so if we are lucky we will see one. Carecat fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Aug 21, 2016 |
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Aug 21, 2016 01:08
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DLC can't do as much as expansion packs. By making them small and sold separately, one can't do a lot to overhaul gameplay, just double down on existing content with a couple of outlying pieces. DLC carries the same fundamental flaws and strengths as the base game, for better or worse.
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Aug 21, 2016 01:14
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There's also the incredibly active workshop. Firaxis saw how interested people were in modding XCOM with the Long War mod that was pretty popular. Even if many people disagreed with some (or a lot of it), they would still download it and give it a spin, and generally everyone who tried it would find *something* they liked. So Firaxis purposely created incredibly powerful tools to mod a game that was designed to be easily moddable (unlike EU/EW, the Long War people had to do some amazing loving contortions to do the poo poo they did) and gave it Workshop Integration. It's been proposed that part of the purpose of the DLCs were to serve as subtle tutorials to modders on how to do things. First off was cosmetics (obviously not really needed considering how common cosmetic mods are but better safe than sorry). Followed up by how to screw with how turns worked among other things the bosses could do. Finally we have an example of how to create especially exotic soldiers that work on different rules than standard flesh and blood soldiers, mixed with how to make a multi-part mission.
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Aug 21, 2016 10:28
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Alkydere posted:There's also the incredibly active workshop. Firaxis saw how interested people were in modding XCOM with the Long War mod that was pretty popular. Even if many people disagreed with some (or a lot of it), they would still download it and give it a spin, and generally everyone who tried it would find *something* they liked. Is the actual source code for DLC features viewable somewhere though?
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Aug 21, 2016 11:21
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