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Greatly enjoying this so far, hoping that the blind part remains in place for a long time, so much more hilarious hearing and seeing the reactions to what the game throws at you  Especially looking forward to when certain aliens turn up on the scene.
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Jan 22, 2019 17:21
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Yeah the fact is that this is a blind run and you're really doing quite well! Iron man blind run without even having played the previous game you're doing so much better then I would've!
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Jan 22, 2019 18:26
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Natural 20 posted:In our defence it is tremendously unclear that there's a active mission available from the UI, or at the very least when they are going to fail. I think one of the biggest failings I have with XCOM is how unfriendly it is to people just dipping in to do one mission and stopping after that. this game's utter refusal to have 20 seconds of popups highlighting different parts of the screen as needed outside of combat is utterly absurd. It's indefensibly terrible design to make your main gameplay mechanics more intuitive than your means of actually accessing said gameplay. I've never played an xcom and I'm right with you two on your confusion.
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Jan 23, 2019 07:59
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Yeah, it's fairly easy to get ready to start a mission, realise it's gonna take a while to even equip everyone the right way, call it quits for the night, then load up the game the next day not remembering at all what you were doing. They will give you one warning the first time you go to scan something else, but after that you're screwed. I just make it a habit now to check the mission bar before doing anything when I first load up a game, but in the early game they should really explain the concept more.
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Jan 23, 2019 08:14
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XCOM1 had the same issue where the tutorial teaches you that things can go wrong, but doesn't give good info on WHY things went wrong or even that it's showing "what not to do" in the first place (Ramirez charges forward and gets flanked, the other guy tries to hold a point while outnumbered without good cover). It's part of the blind LP learning curve, and a frustrating bit.
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Jan 23, 2019 08:15
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Bifauxnen posted:I just make it a habit now to check the mission bar before doing anything when I first load up a game, but in the early game they should really explain the concept more. When I sign off for the night I name my savefiles with hints of what I want to do next, like "main team are all hurt" "good position, go after [thing]" or "TERROR MISSION UP"
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Jan 23, 2019 08:18
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Jan 24, 2019 00:34
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Woah. Blast was lucky to have survived (twice), since flanking shots can and will crit you (same as you have critted the aliens - yellow "damage box" around the number, higher damage number) and can easily kill a full health fresh character. The first time the lone advent has retreated, the second time Blast just dodged the proverbial bullet.
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Jan 24, 2019 01:42
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What you called the "enemy counter" near the end of the video is not the number of enemies left on the map. It's the number of dead civilians. So you can gauge progress as you're competing with the aliens to reach 6 rescued/killed.
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Jan 24, 2019 02:17
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Each solider has a hidden XP stat, so don't worry about losing anything by having someone who already got a promotion do something.
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Jan 24, 2019 02:28
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That Italian Guy posted:Woah. Blast was lucky to have survived (twice), since flanking shots can and will crit you (same as you have critted the aliens - yellow "damage box" around the number, higher damage number) and can easily kill a full health fresh character. The first time the lone advent has retreated, the second time Blast just dodged the proverbial bullet. I was about to complain somehow about flanks not being as good in X2 because it's "only" 40% crit ("it's not even 1/2 what's the big deal")... but then I remembered Nat20 isn't even playing with EU/EW damage rolls, and my brain legit has no idea how to work with those numbers. I'm just hard-wired for 40% crit to actually mean "40% of hits are crits". I guess regular hits are extra deadly because they're more likely to crit in the first place? Flanks are somehow... equally bad?
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Jan 24, 2019 02:53
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For some reason the previous update (previously video 7) now links to video 8 as well. You mention there never being a reason to double move. That's a good assessment because it normally is a bad idea, but it's not quite true. Movement range has some rounding, so if a soldier could normally move 7.5 spaces, they can move 15 on a double move but 14 with two normal moves. Also overwatch shots against a dashing target have a (small) penalty to hit. While you only need to rescue 6 civilians to win, there is a bonus for saving more. It's not worth risking your soldiers for, IMHO. Bremen fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Jan 24, 2019 |
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Jan 24, 2019 04:09
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Bremen posted:While you only need to rescue 6 civilians to win, there is a bonus for saving more. It's not worth risking your soldiers for, IMHO. Also if you take out all the enemies, the remaining civilians all count as rescued. Hunter Noventa fucked around with this message at 13:03 on Jan 24, 2019 |
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Jan 24, 2019 12:29
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Hunter Noventa posted:Something they probably discovered the moment the mission ended I get that xcom has a lot of poorly explained mechanics that everyone will be happier off with a proper explanation being given (*cough. flanking rules. cough. pod activation), but there's also a lot of stuff than can be figured out easily and we should probably let them do that on their own.
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Jan 24, 2019 12:47
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Well played round from your side there. Lots of good calls (sniper perching) and a few crazy ones too (leaving hard without cover) This isn’t a spoiler even: Check the cars too. You can almost always tell which will explode and which ones won’t. Snipers can overwatch with their rifle if they haven’t moved you don’t have to use their pistol for that. ______ I actually started up a campaign myself on Ironman and hosed up badly on my first terror mission. For some reason All the civilians were on the enemy side so it was basically impossible to reach them before the aliens killed them all.
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Jan 24, 2019 13:50
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I'm glad you're enjoying Wordy "Early" Bird so far. It's been fun to see your learning the game and figuring out some of the less clear aspects of the game. I'm also glad that Bird lucked into Sniper, greatly increasing her chances of NOT getting shot in the face!
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Jan 24, 2019 17:14
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Affi posted:Check the cars too. You can almost always tell which will explode and which ones won’t. One trick you can do, and I consider this more interface than tactic or I'd spoil it, is to target it with a grenade (don't actually throw it!) - if the car turns red, it means it's cover that can be damaged, if it doesn't, then it's not destructible and won't explode. quote:Snipers can overwatch with their rifle if they haven’t moved you don’t have to use their pistol for that. Alternately, you can reload the rifle (which takes 1 TU) and then overwatch with the pistol. There actually is an XCOM 2 manual, but I checked it and it wouldn't really help. I think one reason you're finding things so rough is you're playing it iron man style - they probably expect that a player new to X-Com and similar games would try something and then reload if it doesn't work, until they have a better idea of the mechanics.
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Jan 24, 2019 21:33
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 https://www.strawpoll.me/17301883 Another poll!
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Jan 26, 2019 00:08
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You are spot-on in your assumption that the faceless is a "trap civilian" that becomes an enemy upon rescue, and then reveals when everyone else is dead just to save you the trouble of walking around the map checking. Also, when you do the Blast Hardcheese maneuver and point-blank flank, you can do that around a corner. You don't have to actually be out of cover for that. Voted Supply Drop but that's a really quick pickup so if there's a tie count me for Contact Mexico. Edit: Return Fire says "with your pistol", and those don't have ammo limits in this game. (You may be confusing "Shadowfall", which is a pistol-using skill you can use only once per mission, with ammunition generally? But you can shoot your pistol without reloading indefinitely.) Akratic Method fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Jan 26, 2019 |
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Jan 26, 2019 00:31
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I'm not sure if you want an explanation of the Avatar project or not. Eh, I'll spoiler it. It's a countdown to losing, yes, but one you can manipulate. Over time, Advent will build Avatar facilities which periodically increase the counter, and you can destroy those facilities to stop them. There are a few things you can do to reduce the counter, as well. You also seem to feel that there's too much going on, which I would say is a deliberate design choice. I've always felt a lot of Tactical strategy games feel like they're "on rails" in the strategic layer - basically you go from mission to mission with maybe a few choices between them that might give you bonuses in the tactical missions but you always end up in the same place. XCom 2 tries to change that up, and has major decisions to make on both the strategic and tactical level. Like the current situation where you have a lot of choices over what to do next.
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Jan 26, 2019 01:18
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The red number in the Retaliation Mission wasn't an enemy counter, it was how many dead civilians you had. Green was saved, red was dead, white was still in play. As far as what to do next, grab the Supplies, gear up, then hit the Towers.
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Jan 26, 2019 01:46
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Bremen posted:
That, however, is why well-designed games open up over time, instead of giving players a shitload of options (and importantly: dangers) asap. It is also why tutorials exist, something this game desperately needs for the out of mission stuff
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Jan 26, 2019 02:50
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I voted for: 1) Supply drop, because you'll need those sooner than later, 2) Heat Signature, because the reward from that is pretty good; Resistance Contacts means it'll permanently increase the amount of regions you can have contacted by 1, giving you a bit of leeway before you need to build your first Comms facility, and 3) Contact with Mexico, because even if you won't do the Blacksite mission just yet (up to you), it's good to have the option open beforehand.
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Jan 26, 2019 05:05
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Nordick posted:3) Contact with Mexico, because even if you won't do the Blacksite mission just yet (up to you), it's good to have the option open beforehand. Also New Mexico is home to Black Mesa, maybe we can go ask them for advice fighting aliens.
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Jan 26, 2019 05:17
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Bruceski posted:Also New Mexico is home to Black Mesa, maybe we can go ask them for advice fighting aliens. I'm sure there is a fully silent voice pack on the Steam Workshop.... just sayin'
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Jan 26, 2019 05:34
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GeneX posted:That, however, is why well-designed games open up over time, instead of giving players a shitload of options (and importantly: dangers) asap. It normally wouldn't all be happening at once, this is a result of a combination of (bad) luck and them skipping one of the first missions. Also having the DLC on.
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Jan 26, 2019 05:36
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Nordick posted:3) Contact with Mexico, because even if you won't do the Blacksite mission just yet (up to you), it's good to have the option open beforehand. Ma is so ready to blow the poo poo out of everything in Mexico ...or Texas, but also Mexico.
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Jan 26, 2019 08:30
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I forget, was this intended to be a vanilla playthrough without any of the DLC? Because I'm pretty certain one of the options right now leads into DLC territory.
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Jan 26, 2019 11:48
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Mr. Vile posted:I forget, was this intended to be a vanilla playthrough without any of the DLC? Because I'm pretty certain one of the options right now leads into DLC territory. This was discussed a little earlier in the thread. We intended to play with all cosmetics in the game and to that extent the Robot class counted as a cosmetic. You can't have the cosmetic parts of DLC activated without also activating the entire DLC. We didn't know that little fact before we aired episode 1, so I guess we're playing with DLC on.
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Jan 26, 2019 13:19
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The failed mission was the mission you guys accidentally skipped.Bremen posted:You also seem to feel that there's too much going on, which I would say is a deliberate design choice. I've always felt a lot of Tactical strategy games feel like they're "on rails" in the strategic layer - basically you go from mission to mission with maybe a few choices between them that might give you bonuses in the tactical missions but you always end up in the same place. XCom 2 tries to change that up, and has major decisions to make on both the strategic and tactical level. Like the current situation where you have a lot of choices over what to do next. The strategic layer not giving you enough time to pursue everything and forcing you to decide between a and b and c is something the lead designer was very open about as a goal all the way back to the first game. GeneX posted:That, however, is why well-designed games open up over time, instead of giving players a shitload of options (and importantly: dangers) asap. I mean, xcom 2 does do this. (something nat20 seems to have missed)The first guerilla op had 1 dark event to counter, but this month announced two of them for instance. There's also the fact that the doomsday counter doesn't appear until after a month and terror missions are introduced fairly late in month 1 so that the player can figure out sectoids, commanders and troopers before a new alien appears. But the devs are REALLY bad at tutorials so someone going in blind usually winds up overwhelmed in a bad way anyway.
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Jan 26, 2019 14:43
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So one very core thing about XCOM 2 that I'm not 100% sure you guys have realized yet is that most of the levels are procedurally generated and the game will constantly throw random missions and events at you as well as story ones.
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Jan 26, 2019 20:44
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Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Jan 29, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2019 00:01
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FYI hacking takes a turn but it doesn't take a turn to check hack odds, for exactly that "I don't want to take the risk" situation.
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Jan 29, 2019 00:38
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Since Tygan mentions that the sectoids used to be smaller, this link has an image of how they looked in XCOM:EU. They were hunched over to about waist height and skittered on all fours. They were that game's weakest enemy and almost verged on a weird version of cute at times. Growing to seven foot tall snaggle-toothed naked shiny dudes with distorted facial features was honestly a major upgrade in terms of intimidation. That ! in a yellow hexagon that you noticed by the Proving Ground build option is the "plot-advancing objective" icon. Keep an eye on anything that has those. You don't necessarily need to do them urgently, but anything that has that icon, you must do sooner or later. The "counters dark event" note on a guerilla operation refers back to that pop-up of red-text things that you tried to click on or interact with an episode back. Basically those are bad things that will happen in the near future, but if you can finish a guerilla op that counters a particular one, it won't. Read them and consider them when the game shows you the list, because sometimes you may need to balance "oh this op says Difficult, and the reward isn't that great... but also it counters this thing that sounds horrible." Nothing you've been able to do yet has to do with the Avatar project directly, that I recall. edit, spoilered only because it's about the video ending: she's standing straight up at the edge of a rooftop! That's like the most obvious place you could possibly be on a house! (In game terms, you only get the warning about "this tile reveals you" if someone has sight on the enemy that will see and reveal you.) Akratic Method fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jan 29, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2019 01:35
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Also standing out in the open makes you visible and enemies can see up on rooftops.
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Jan 29, 2019 02:04
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While we're talking XCOM:EU/EW, the game also assumes you know about the mechanical genius and black comedian Raymond Shen, that games chief engineer. (Edit- where the gently caress did I get 'Marcus' from?) He died in the XCOM2 backstory while securing parts to repair the Avenger, hence his daughter Lily takes over.  As for concealment, enemies will never spot someone behind any form of cover, no matter how close. So remember 
Paingod556 fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jan 29, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2019 03:08
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Paingod556 posted:While we're talking XCOM:EU/EW, the game also assumes you know about the mechanical genius and black comedian Marcus Shen, that games chief engineer.  Raymond. His name was Raymond Shen.
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Jan 29, 2019 04:14
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Paingod556 posted:As for concealment, enemies will never spot someone behind any form of cover, no matter how close. So remember Note that they may spot you as you move into or out of that cover, though. But yeah, if you're sitting still you can be one tile away if there's a fence or something between. edit: vv: Honestly it usually still is, because if the pod moves such that they start flanking you, which at that point is very very little movement, then you're starting the fight in a bad position. Akratic Method fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Jan 29, 2019 |
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Jan 29, 2019 08:02
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Akratic Method posted:Note that they may spot you as you move into or out of that cover, though. But yeah, if you're sitting still you can be one tile away if there's a fence or something between. Jesus gently caress I didn't know that. I thought it was a "they will see you next turn so pull of that ambush now " sort of thing.
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Jan 29, 2019 11:33
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Affi posted:Jesus gently caress I didn't know that. I thought it was a "they will see you next turn so pull of that ambush now " sort of thing. If you are in cover, an enemy will spot you (when you already are in a tile marked with the red eye) only if they scamper in a flanking position. Also, as we have seen in the video, you don't get a preview of the enemy detection tile if it is the outer limits of it and you can't see the enemy. As a general rule of thumb, roof edges are the schoolcase for this kind of things unless the tile is behind high cover; half cover won't protect you from detection in that case
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Jan 29, 2019 12:06
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