|
Oh christ. I just realized. 734443 days.... is 2035 years. The game reads the in-game date as being the year 2035. Since Lily's not a proper soldier, apparently it sets her "recruitment" date to the start of year 0 - or something along those lines. That's hilarious.
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 06:37
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 06:33 |
|
|
Jesus. The jump in difficulty from veteran to legendary in LW2 is insane. That extra HP everything has-- two for these first-tier turrets-- and extra armor for drones? Just kill me. Also, the way you encounter a Viper instead of Sectoid in LW2-Gatecrasher? Gah.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 09:35
|
|
|
Well there's commander in between the two
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 09:40
|
|
|
IF XWYNNS CAN DO IT, I CAN TRY TO DO IT TOO!
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 09:42
|
|
|
I just loaded 5 saves to beat the temple ship from NA, SA, Europe, Africa and Asia. "A continental fellow" still won't loving unlock. Anyone has any idea? XCOM:EW, steam, no mods.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 18:50
|
|
|
Apoplexy posted:IF XWYNNS CAN DO IT, I CAN TRY TO DO IT TOO! The only thing xwynns demonstrated to me is why I never, ever want to try Legendary Long War. After a while things stop looking less "challenging" and more like "putting your dick in a vice."
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 19:32
|
|
|
Suspicious posted:I just loaded 5 saves to beat the temple ship from NA, SA, Europe, Africa and Asia. "A continental fellow" still won't loving unlock. Anyone has any idea? XCOM:EW, steam, no mods. You have to start the game with that continent. Why not just use Steam Achievement Manager to unlock it?
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 19:35
|
|
|
I take it Beagle dropped his LW2 playthrough?
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 19:36
|
|
|
monster on a stick posted:You have to start the game with that continent. Why not just use Steam Achievement Manager to unlock it? I know, hence the 5 saves for the 5 starting locations. I'd rather not use SAM.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 19:39
|
|
|
Rinkles posted:I take it Beagle dropped his LW2 playthrough? I think so, he wrote a bunch of stuff on Reddit criticizing LW2 a while ago.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 19:40
|
|
|
monster on a stick posted:I think so, he wrote a bunch of stuff on Reddit criticizing LW2 a while ago. He's written strategy articles about it since, so I just don't know. IMHO Xwynns started strong but he really seems to have burned out on it to me. Which is, well, understandable, considering the campaign's been going for months and he was a beta tester. I've been watching JolNrbs instead for my LW2 video fix.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 20:11
|
|
|
Bremen posted:He's written strategy articles about it since, so I just don't know. https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/5uhgq9/beaglerush_publishes_lw2_strategy_tips_on/dduu4gu/ beaglerush posted:I agreed to write these articles before I realised I didn't want to continue playing LW2. I wouldn't have taken the opportunity if I had known I wouldn't like it. I like the PCG guys and I didn't want to let them down, having already agreed to write these pieces for them. He has a few posts on his issues with LW2, see this and this.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 20:39
|
|
|
i wonder if johnnylump still has ambitions to take the pavonis team on to make their own original IP at this point like i said back when he made rumblings about that when LW1 was big that he had no idea what he was getting himself into, and imo LW2 has really borne that out. green field development is very liberating, but it's also frequently much, much harder than working within an existing framework. at the absolute least, XCOM 2 had art, flow, and structures that they'd spent thousands of man hours refining into something that works pretty well - productivity that you're going to need to match in some way with your own IP. the cowboy approach to design pavonis has tended to have is pretty fragile in green field development because if you make a bad assumption at any point along the line it skews a fair bit of your product; which is essentially what beagle (and other streamers who have gotten disaffected with LW2) are saying at this point. and that's happened with a pretty mature framework to operate from. LW2 is still a great success obviously, it's got thousands of subscribes and has likely been played for tens of thousands of hours collectively - that's a big achievement. but the cracks are really starting to show and it's non trivial to cement those cracks. i'm not confident that jl has the reflective nature to do that hard job efficiently. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Mar 23, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 21:02
|
|
|
I read those posts by Beagle and I dunno, I kind of agree. I don't want to stealth (at least, not in a game so poorly suited for it) and I don't want to bother with Haven management or infiltration -too- much. I mostly just want to fight and kill aliens, and LW2 is a little weak in that department. Not horrible, but it could be better. Stealth just isn't really fun except as the very infrequent gimmick, and is entirely binary - either you'll succeed brilliantly or die horrifically, with no real middle ground. Even when you do bring a squad and go loud, you're pretty well penalized for not being stealthy thanks to the reinforcement mechanic and the way the countdown starts as soon as you beak concealment. The infiltration mechanic seems like a really cool idea, but in practice all it seems to do is penalize the poo poo out of you for ever going in without 100% infiltration, since enemy numbers get ummanageably huge REAL quick without it (and the extra time required to clear pods is practically suicidal on timed missions.) Haven management is incredibly obtuse and just.... doesn't really seem to offer anything interesting. And yeah, it's all strategy-layer stuff that's bad. The combat seems fine for the most part, but you so rarely really get to cut loose with any of it. Backhand fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Mar 23, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 21:09
|
|
|
the strategy vs tactical balance is basically the words to the complaint i had on LW2 from the get-go and never quite found the language for. the mod felt 'wrong' to me but i could never quite articulate why. i'm glad beagle stuck with it for a couple hundred more hours than i did to figure out that language. like obviously the information presentation is a huge problem, but even if everything was perfectly communicated by bradford, shen, and tygan doing helpful voice overs explaining everything i still think i would not appreciate what LW2 is doing. the ideal balance for the geoscape is that it should set the context for your battlescape engagements, not govern whether you're able to do them in the first place. it kind of regresses to the main lose condition in og XCOM, where you would eventually have missions dry up if you did not build enough radars/hyper-wave decoders over the full geoscape, which was indisputably one of the major weaknesses of the original game.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2017 21:17
|
|
|
I'm in one of those camps where there are a lot of things about LW2 that I *do* think I would be interested to try. But there's enough that I don't want to deal with that I'm left unwilling to touch it with a ten-foot-pole. Just about everything about the strategy layer is one of those "don't want to deal with it" bits. I much prefer the old "pick a mission and GO" to having to split off teams and let them sit and cook for days, and having to watch carefully and make sure I don't miss any chances and time everything right to go to all these missions, wait for infiltration times... Not to mention just straight-up adding an entire extra LAYER of micromanagement to have to deal with in the Haven Management. And you don't have the option to just let them do their thing, carefully managing everything about these Havens is *mandatory*, or you get stuck with situations like Faceless draining away all your income, or god knows what else, since I couldn't stand to go more than a few weeks in-game in before I uninstalled. I honestly just don't like the idea of their mindset that "Not every mission is winnable." You technically have the ability to hit all these missions, except the reality is you still have to pick and choose which ones to do and which ones to skip just like the normal game, except this way it's setup to give you the illusion of being able to do them all, except then it turns out that WHOOPS, the guys you sent into that mission are 100% hosed and there's nothing you can do about it! Shouldn't have tried to go on that mission we gave you, rear end in a top hat! I've never been a fan of forced-loss scenarios, or when you're given the opportunity to go after something, but you're punished for attempting it, with no opportunity to actually benefit from the attempt. I like the way Vanilla handles it: you're given a selection of missions, but the game enforces the idea that your resources and time are limited, so you have to select one of these opportunities to go for. Long War basically lets you figure out for yourself that it's basically the same situation, except they're going to LET you gently caress yourself over by trying to hit more than one. It's the ILLUSION of opportunity, but beneath the illusion is just a deathtrap. Most games I'm familiar with that have a scenario where the player is put in a hard-coded unwinnable battle do so for a narrative purpose. Introducing a powerful enemy to overcome later, plot reasons to justify other quests or objectives you're given, etc. In Long War, it feels like the game will throw battles you're not intended to win by any stretch of the imagination, but they do it for no other reason than "game is hard lol, learn 2 pick your battles".
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 02:13
|
|
|
So I'm just really starting XCOM 2 after putting it down for a while and all I remember was my geoscape being hell to manage. Not sure if this was because my base was stupidly laid out or if I was just being bad at video games but do you all have any tips for base layout/geoscape management?
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 02:44
|
|
|
One thing I think is missing from the discussion about guerilla ops is how loot is much more likely. If you can spare some time to do combat runs on guerilla ops you will get a lot of loot. I wonder if it might be possible to make guerilla ops easier missions for more junior squads. In addition you could have loot drops possibly be leads and maybe make leads be less likely as mission rewards. This way you could have a dynamic where you could stealth guerilla missions if you only want the mission reward, but if you go loud you could possibly get 2 mission rewards and level up some junior guys at the same time.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 02:53
|
|
|
BlazetheInferno posted:Most games I'm familiar with that have a scenario where the player is put in a hard-coded unwinnable battle do so for a narrative purpose. Introducing a powerful enemy to overcome later, plot reasons to justify other quests or objectives you're given, etc. In Long War, it feels like the game will throw battles you're not intended to win by any stretch of the imagination, but they do it for no other reason than "game is hard lol, learn 2 pick your battles". problem there is the stakes on every battle. if not every battle is winnable, not every battle should carry the implicit threat of completely stalling out your strategic progress for so long that the stall may be irrevocable. battle brothers does the 'not every engagement is winnable' thing a lot better simply because no one battle is actually so important that you really must win it. if you fail a specific job or a specific mission, well, you might piss some people off and you won't get paid, but if you go to the next town you're probably going to find more work and be okay. if you fail a supply raid in LW2, there's little telling when you'll get another one, and in the mean time you're losing forward momentum that is absolutely vital for staying competitive.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 03:03
|
|
|
Also hardcoded-to-fail scenarios are often exceptionally frustrating for a player; either you fail to communicate it's impossible to win or you do so in a way which makes a player think "what's the point of even trying" and generally, they're bad design through and through. Leaving aside the momentum concerns - which are all real and true - the point of a game is for players to play it and have fun, and being put into a "this isn't your fault but we're going to cutscene force you to fail" is poo poo design. like there's a reason people routinely make fun of cutscene stupidity and the like, and it's not because they're good ideas
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 03:05
|
|
|
At least Long War 2 could be charitably praised for making the warning more clear. I did not know the first supply barge in LW1 was meant to be unwinnable. There was a lot of savescumming and it bit me in the arse hard later down the line.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 03:12
|
|
|
Thyrork posted:At least Long War 2 could be charitably praised for making the warning more clear. Maybe but "moderate" enemy size implies "moderate" difficulty. And there are still trap missions because gently caress you.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 03:28
|
|
|
Personally I think my biggest gripe is lowering the effectiveness of the Shadow Chamber down to "progresses the plot" room. Admittedly I've not completed a campaign so I don't know if they shuffled it down the road, but being able to see what you're going up against... really loving strikes me as gathering intel before an op guys. Like seriously, you're a resistance movement, someone is going to count heads to see what kind of garrison is in the region. Having the Shadow Chamber let you decode transmissions just seems fitting. The improvements to the strategy level I really like in Long War 2, but the finicky things (single weapon/armour manufacture, irksome corpse requirements with no out of the box way to increase your corpse supply, hiding the doom tracker even while its ticking...) just adds up. Are stealth-ops the go to for lower difficulties too, or is the "two man ops" a thing mostly reserved for legendary? Stealth ops is a thrilling variation on the norm but also a stressful one. I'd hate to have everything become one. Thyrork fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Mar 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 04:21
|
|
|
You know, sometimes people put a lot of effort into customizing their soldiers. But sometimes, the randomizer manages to spit out someone who manages to look pretty badass all on their own. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 06:28
|
|
|
BlazetheInferno posted:Most games I'm familiar with that have a scenario where the player is put in a hard-coded unwinnable battle do so for a narrative purpose. Introducing a powerful enemy to overcome later, plot reasons to justify other quests or objectives you're given, etc. In Long War, it feels like the game will throw battles you're not intended to win by any stretch of the imagination, but they do it for no other reason than "game is hard lol, learn 2 pick your battles". Am I missing something? The only unwinnable fights I know in LW2 are when you get a mission with like a day or less left on the timer, and those are both clearly labeled and winnable if you really try. Though I admit the game needs to do a better job of warning you how important infiltration is. Thyrork posted:Are stealth-ops the go to for lower difficulties too, or is the "two man ops" a thing mostly reserved for legendary? Stealth ops is a thrilling variation on the norm but also a stressful one. I'd hate to have everything become one. As far as I can tell, stealth ops are a way to make you campaign go a little better, but not essential on any difficulty except maybe legendary. I did fine on commander without them, anyways. Bremen fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Mar 24, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 06:40
|
|
|
Well, robojumper made a squad selection UI that's about 50x better than even Show Me The Skills, complete with one-click PCS slot access, weapon upgrade slots, armor changing, Show Me The Skills integration, all of it. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=889469383
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 09:46
|
|
|
Cant Ride A Bus posted:So I'm just really starting XCOM 2 after putting it down for a while and all I remember was my geoscape being hell to manage. Not sure if this was because my base was stupidly laid out or if I was just being bad at video games but do you all have any tips for base layout/geoscape management? Vanilla or LW2?
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 10:14
|
|
|
Vanilla, I'm not gonna mess with LW2 for a while.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 14:57
|
|
|
there are only two major considerations for base management in vanilla: 1) place your workshop such that it has two things that benefit from constant crewing adjacent to it. resistance comms are a top candidate. 2) place either very power hungry things such as psi labs or power relays over shielded power conduits. geoscape management is a little more in depth and i am on my way out so i will have to get back to that if someone else doesn't beat me to it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 17:28
|
|
|
Big fan of the series, gave myself this game as a gift for acing an exam. Holy balls, it's harder than the first. I could manage Enemy Within Classic difficulty with only the occasional stumble, but this feels like trying to hold back the tide with a teacup and harsh language. I can deal with the combat alright (though I swear the hit% info is still actively trolling me.), and base management as well. It's the map and mission management that is murdering me. It feels like I am always three steps behind on everything while the Avatar Project ticks by. Short in intel, which I can no longer get base because I switched the HQ bonus to faster healing after a mission benched my whole main team. New events pop up in region twice removed from my contacted area, which I can't reach due to having no intel, so I basically sit and watch the timer tick hoping a mission with Intel rewards appears. And every time I am picking up badly needed resources or personnel, some emergency requires me to fly halfway around the world to put out the fire, but doesn't set the Avatar timer back when solved. I know it's a whole new dynamic of being a stretched guerilla taking on a larger force, but drat, it's being a rough adjustment. Is there a point in which I can bounce back properly, or have I already borked my game and should restart? This feels like Darkest Dungeon on crack.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 17:30
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:geoscape management is a little more in depth and i am on my way out so i will have to get back to that if someone else doesn't beat me to it. Really? I thought it was just "beeline regions right the gently caress to the next Avatar site, drop down radios every 2 nodes, collect supplies every month?"
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 17:44
|
|
|
ulmont posted:Really? I thought it was just "beeline regions right the gently caress to the next Avatar site, drop down radios every 2 nodes, collect supplies every month?" prioritizing Rumors and spending is a little squishy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 17:46
|
|
|
Veteran (normal) difficulty on xcom 2 is classic difficulty on eu/ew. Commander is like implassic or something.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 18:32
|
|
|
Sephyr posted:Big fan of the series, gave myself this game as a gift for acing an exam. It's only harder because it's different than every other xcom, once you get used to it, the difficulty is similar, the curves can be a little different due to new enemies (vipers@!@*(@@*@!!!!) but once you get used to the timed missions you'll be good.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 20:19
|
|
|
Cant Ride A Bus posted:Vanilla, I'm not gonna mess with LW2 for a while. Get a GTS as fast as possible, squad size 1 and training rookies is a huge power spike. Then something like comms or AWS > power > AWS or comms > (staff the power) proving grounds > another power (unstaff the power). Once you've got the big four facilities you're pretty much set so you want to get them quickly, in the second month you can get the rapid construction bonus from the HQ and when you don't have anything to do other than minor points on interest (supplies, intel etc) on the map spend time speeding up construction. Like getting an extra room cleared is more supplies than a supplies POI and it gets your vital facilities up faster. Once you've got that done, start digging out the power coils so you can put the psi lab and and shadow chamber on them. There's no real reason to bother with a workshop, between the cost and upkeep and power requirement and space taken up it's more valuable and flexible to just buy an engineer if you think you need one. Labs are pretty much unnecessary as well. On the map, keep expanding towards the alien facilities and build radio towers out so you don't have to pay double intel costs and you have more income, spend excess intel and sell corpses at the black market and as needed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 21:07
|
|
|
Sephyr posted:Big fan of the series, gave myself this game as a gift for acing an exam. Don't worry too much about the avatar project timer, it's going to tick up fast at the start but even when it maxes out you don't lose, it just starts a timer than gives you even more time to reduce the avatar project. You can go all the way to the full avatar bar and most of the extra timer, do the blacksite story mission to reduce avatar progress and they'll have to fill up two more bars all over again and restart the timer. In the early mid game it always looks like you're going to lose to the timer but you usually don't unless you fail a critical mission.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 21:14
|
|
|
I'm still very much getting the hang of vanilla x2, but my preference is to research the brain chip first and then immediately slap down an AWC prior to building GTS. I suck at the game and get people injured a lot, and also want to start getting those bonus abilities as soon as possible. After that I'll rush to accumulate investment capital (i.e. resistance contacts) at all costs more or less. Take a little bit of pain in the first two months so that I can build momentum going into the midgame. My first playthrough was extremely cash-starved. That and I powered through the plotline far too aggressively, although at least you don't get punished for building the Shadow Chamber like you got punished for building the Hyperwave Relay. Getting psionics immediately after bringing tier-2 weapons and armor fully online, so this should be an exciting playthrough. I didn't realize that the change from Steam Vents to Power Coils was more than cosmetic though, would have been good to know that before I plunked down a power relay instead of a psi lab on top of one.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 22:27
|
|
|
I thought I was coasting through my Ironman Commander game until the avatar bar just boosted a whole load of progress really quickly and left me in big trouble. I ended up doing the Codex Brain mission to reduce the bar and it went quite badly so I had to evac. So instead I tried to rush contact my way to the nearest facility and it was going to work out a day short, so I had to go back to the Codex Brain mission with about a day left on the counter and attempt it with a loving weird squad setup due to the injuries picked up the last time. I ended up skulljacking the Codex then lost my best Grenadier to a mind controlled Specialist because my other moronic Specialist couldn't hit a 51% chance when it counted. I luckily killed the Avatar on the next turn and then also killed the Gatekeeper after. Now I'm sitting pretty again, but Jesus Christ that was a stressful loving evening. The lesson here is not to neglect contacting regions. It takes longer than you think.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2017 22:56
|
|
|
lazorexplosion posted:You can go all the way to the full avatar bar and most of the extra timer, do the blacksite story mission to reduce avatar progress and they'll have to fill up two more bars all over again and restart the timer. No longer true - you only get one timer's worth of extra time now, I think. Leyburn posted:Now I'm sitting pretty again, but Jesus Christ that was a stressful loving evening. The lesson here is not to neglect contacting regions. It takes longer than you think. Yup. Contact Contact Contact.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2017 00:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 06:33 |
|
|
ulmont posted:No longer true - you only get one timer's worth of extra time now, I think. Good to know, I've never had to dip into the timer more than once on a campaign so I have no idea that it had changed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2017 01:26
|
|