|
Yeah, you get your first faction hero as soon as you make contact with that faction. Mox and Outrider have scripted storylines that override that, but the Templars still just kinda wait around for you to knock on their door.
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2021 17:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 14:54 |
|
|
In regard to the Special Classes, the Plot Tutorial missions introduce two, the Reapers and the Skirmishers that you've seen. The third one, the Templars, don't get a spot in any story-based tutorial, you just have to figure them out on your own. Note, without the Lost and Abandoned mission active (which is the Chosen/Factions Tutorial), you'll randomly start with one of the three unlocked to start (and in fact the faction soldier will be one of your four Operation Gatecrasher soldiers), then the other two must be unlocked via the Resistance Ring (which you can build from the start, and I usually build it first to get those ops rolling). With Lost and Abandoned, you can't build the Resistance Ring until after the Long & Abandoned mission itself. The tutorial pushes you toward the Ring as a way to do a Covert Op to rescue Mox from being captured, but it's also where you go to unlock the Templars. In regards to Integrated DLC, I'll give a quick rundown of the two affected by that: Alien Hunters; this one's kinda controversial due to how the enemies it introduces break the flow of combat, but regardless. If you do not integrate DLC (and have the mission checked off as active), then early on you'll get a quick 3-day scansite that will give you the special Alien Hunter weapons for free. A little bit after that, another scansite will appear that unlocks a mission that you can do immediately, or delay as long as you want. This mission will feature your first encounter with an Alien Ruler, who may or may not escape. After the mission, the Three Alien Rulers (or two if you killed the one in the mission; hard to do) will be active, and can randomly appear in any mission, though they will not appear in the same mission as a Chosen. If you *don't* activate the mission, I don't know how getting the weapons works, but the appearance of the Rulers isn't locked behind the "Alien Nest" mission, they're just active from the start; for this reason, it's strongly recommended you either integrate the DLC, or activate the mission. If you don't want them to show up at all, you need to uninstall the DLC entirely. However, if you do integrate it, the weapons are locked behind research from Tygan (available from the start), and after that become available as one-time projects per weapon in the Proving Grounds. The Rulers themselves show up as "A powerful Alien" guarding the Avatar Project Facilities that pop up around the globe. One ruler will be present at each of the first three facilities to be built - attack that facility, and that ruler activates. As opposed to one mission activating all three. And that's it. As for Shen's Last Gift, it's a lot simpler. Without DLC Integrated, you'll get a scansite for a mission, that mission is LONG (which plays merry hell with your units' will, meaning anyone you send on that mission is gonna be VERY tired, and basically be out of action for a while), but you also receive your first SPARK soldier for free, and get a feels moment and a hilarious antagonist, and then afterward you can build more SPARKs from the Proving Grounds. With the DLC integrated, the mission is skipped entirely, and you can simply build SPARKs from the Proving Ground as soon as it's up and running, though you don't get the free one. In summary, I'd say the missions are worth seeing at least once, but afterward I think it's better to integrate the DLC. BlazetheInferno fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Apr 10, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2021 22:27
|
|
|
imo, the main benefits of contacting the templar are the resistance slots and getting to listen to Q every now and then.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2021 23:01
|
|
|
Bogart posted:imo, the main benefits of contacting the templar are the resistance slots and getting to listen to Q every now and then. Commander Riker reigns supreme 
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2021 23:12
|
|
|
I'm still sad the android faction got cut during preproduction. It also would have been nice to have a heavy chosen weapon.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 01:26
|
|
|
BlazetheInferno posted:In regards to Integrated DLC, I'll give a quick rundown of the two affected by that: With the Alien Rulers as integrated DLC, the weapons are a normal research project unlocked at the start of the game. The alien rulers will be guarding the Alien Facilities (the optional ones that lower the avatar project counter), and when you look at the facility mission in the Geoscape it will tell you if one of the alien rulers is there. If you do the facility mission and the alien ruler escapes then that ruler will start appearing on regular missions. You won't encounter a different ruler unless you attack another facility where a ruler is there. Also, the Shen's Last Gift mission (without integrated DLC turned on) unlocks at the start of the game, but it's very hard bordering on impossible for a player just starting out in the game. It features a powered up version of an enemy which normally doesn't appear until late in the game. The game doesn't indicate this to you in any way and it screwed me over the first time I played the game. I haven't done a campaign without integrated DLC since then but I wouldn't recommend doing it until you start encountering Sectopods in the main game. Android faction would have been neat but I guess they already had SPARKs in the game so it would have been a bit redundant to have two kinds of androids.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 05:18
|
|
|
Yeah i went up against shen’s mission when i had gunpowder weapons haha that rooftop needed mopping down afterward 
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 05:30
|
|
|
Confusion about how the DLC works has to be one of the top questions about the game. Like I don't know if they could have done worse if they'd tried. Should have just had some checkboxes for each dlc to turn the dlc on or off, and to turn sparks/rulers/weapons only on or off, and then one for the full experience including missions.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 17:22
|
|
|
Red Oktober posted:Is the iOS port worth it then? I love EW on iOS but X2 is about 3 times the price (£24) Ended up buying it on Steam because it's like $5, if anyone is looking. (Through a third party key site).
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 17:36
|
|
|
I couldn't even figure out what the "Enable Lost and Abandoned" checkbox meant without reading it somewhere on the internet, since it's easy to miss that it's the name of the mission. They could have just made the tool tip for it say that it's the introduction/tutorial mission for War of the Chosen. I used to think that that checkbox would disable the Lost, which would actually be a pretty nice thing to have since fighting them is tedious and they don't add much to the game.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 20:07
|
|
|
I've done both the DLC missions on Legendary a few times, I did Shen's one before I even got laser weapons. Somehow only one person died, but it was a LONG mission, spent quite a bit of time ducking out of sight ranges. Otherwise I would definitely say skip them in future playthroughs, they're fine, but you've got other things to do early game.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 20:12
|
|
|
Item Getter posted:I couldn't even figure out what the "Enable Lost and Abandoned" checkbox meant without reading it somewhere on the internet, since it's easy to miss that it's the name of the mission. They could have just made the tool tip for it say that it's the introduction/tutorial mission for War of the Chosen. I’ve been using a wotc without the lost mod for a long time
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 20:13
|
|
|
The Lost are fun Horde missions can get kinda tedious since there's often no real risk to your troops, but the Lost being present alongside Advent can really throw a wrench in the works, as well as opening up some interesting opportunities.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 20:25
|
|
|
What even ARE the lost? I remember theyre what the people turn into who were close to those glowing things from the other xcom but why would the aliens want to make them?
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 20:37
|
|
|
Kly posted:What even ARE the lost? I remember theyre what the people turn into who were close to those glowing things from the other xcom but why would the aliens want to make them? IIRC they didnt purposely make the lost, they just didnt clean up after themselves when they finished the Abduction phase and moved on to the actual conquering. Advent designed purifiers specifically to thin them down so they definitely arent happy with them
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 20:43
|
|
|
Kly posted:What even ARE the lost? I remember theyre what the people turn into who were close to those glowing things from the other xcom but why would the aliens want to make them? There's a mostly cut subplot that the alien invasion of Earth started terraforming in an unexpected way and created a lot of poo poo the aliens weren't expecting including the Lost. You can see this on some of the wilderness maps where there's the weird red fungus taking over most of the landscape and in the flavor text for some of the scans which describe horrific monsters created out of old earth wildlife which makes the areas outside of ADVENT control much more dangerous. Its a pretty background setting detail though.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 20:52
|
|
|
So I'm planning on getting back to the insanity that is Xcom2 modding. The main mod I'm curious about since it just started development when I quit the game is the Strategy Overhaul. From what I can tell it is still in Beta and only the Covert Infiltration part is done. Is it worth playing with it in its current form?
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2021 22:17
|
|
|
Yeah the Hunter also describes the Lost as being "one of the Elders' greatest mistakes". I am probably dumb but not entirely sure of the intended purpose of the green pods. They release sleeping/poison gas which makes it easier to abduct people? The lost mostly make the game a bit easier since they provide a distraction for Advent to waste their turns on, and the Horde missions are -mostly- guaranteed easy missions you can send a squad of lower ranked soldiers on. The exception to it being if a Chosen pops up on a Horde mission which makes them a bit more complicated. I had one of them recently where the Hunter showed up and summoned some Advent troops and one of them sniped the VIP I was supposed to rescue while I was busy dealing with them. Then later to add insult to injury I accidentally picked up the dead VIP instead of the unconscious soldier guarding them, and had to run back to that area where tons of lost had spawned in order to get the soldier. Crosspeice posted:I've done both the DLC missions on Legendary a few times, I did Shen's one before I even got laser weapons. Maybe if you're experienced and have gotten really good at the game, but not if it's literally your first time playing. Item Getter fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Apr 12, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2021 05:14
|
|
|
Bloody hell, for a pretty old game XCOM2 does not run well on a MacBook Pro. I know it’s a laptop but it’s a pretty good one. Any tips for not having it take a while at the end of each turn to move on, etc?
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2021 09:43
|
|
|
Stop Wasting My Time mod does cut out a lot of extra poo poo. XCOM2 was known for being hot trash performance-wise at release unfortunately. FWIW you can press caps lock to skip the loading screens in the skyranger when entering/leaving missions. Yes, really.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2021 10:16
|
|
|
Serephina posted:Stop Wasting My Time mod does cut out a lot of extra poo poo. XCOM2 was known for being hot trash performance-wise at release unfortunately. FWIW you can press caps lock to skip the loading screens in the skyranger when entering/leaving missions. Yes, really. Just keep in mind that skipping the loading screen makes it load all assets instantly, which will crash the game if your hardware isn't beefy enough to handle that kind of load.
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2021 10:29
|
|
|
illectro posted:On my second play through on iOS, only disappointment is tactical legacy is not included. Thank you! Going to download now
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2021 14:20
|
|
|
Red Oktober posted:Bloody hell, for a pretty old game XCOM2 does not run well on a MacBook Pro. I know it’s a laptop but it’s a pretty good one. I play sometimes on my old 2017 MBP, and it runs so much better if you turn the resolution down. The default resolution of 2880x1800 is way too high for the lovely video cards that Apple puts in these things. 1680x1050 runs pretty well, but looks a bit janky at times. 1920x1200 isn't as smooth, but looks better.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2021 17:43
|
|
|
Red Oktober posted:Bloody hell, for a pretty old game XCOM2 does not run well on a MacBook Pro. I know it’s a laptop but it’s a pretty good one. Yeah its a mystery also to me how they managed to make XCOM run smoothly on 2015 Macbook Pro and then make XCOM2 on the same engine almost unplayable on the same laptop, because stuff just ceases to work every now and then, or UI goes unresponsive.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 08:55
|
|
|
Its probably all the destructible stuff. In xcom 1 it was huge chunks of wall with a broken/intact boolean. In 2 you can blast pretty much any shape into every piece of terrain and now ceilings are included. It's a ton more to be juggled by the computer. E: see my game locking up for a while every time I fired the shredstorm cannon as the game comically panicked about what the hell to do.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 13:16
|
|
|
That's only really relevant when something goes boom. X1 had low poly models with rather low res textures that used baked-in shadows. Basically, it was meant to look good under a performance budget, something Blizzard was renowned for doing 20 years ago. X2 took the same engine, added a zillion polys on both terrain and characters, requires AO to make any of the shadowing look right, and a bunch of other performance hogs which you can only appreciate when taking zoomed-in glamour shots for magazines. It runs like poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 13:22
|
|
|
I’ve now used boot camp to boot into windows on the Mac, and the game runs amazingly. So it’s not the hardware as such. My guys still can’t aim for poo poo though. Red Oktober fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Apr 16, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2021 13:38
|
|
|
I listened to a podcast about the first XCOM game the other day and have an itch to play some more. I haven’t played any since Enemy Unknown. What should I do? A) Play Xenonauts (I already own it but have barely played it) B) Play Enemy Unknown again (never finished it but put a lot of hours in) C) Pick up XCOM 2 D) Something else? I don’t have huge nostalgia for actually playing the originals but did love Enemy Unknown at the time.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2021 23:28
|
|
|
Red_Fred posted:I listened to a podcast about the first XCOM game the other day and have an itch to play some more. I haven’t played any since Enemy Unknown. What should I do? Fire up openxcom and give the original a shot. OXC has a lot of really nice quality of life features for the original game if you want to give it a go, and if you're enjoying that style, there's a lot of mods.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2021 23:32
|
|
|
Red_Fred posted:I listened to a podcast about the first XCOM game the other day and have an itch to play some more. I haven’t played any since Enemy Unknown. What should I do? You should 100% play XCOM 2. It's a great game that builds directly upon the best parts of XCOM:EU, it'll have the parts that you enjoy and new things too. And it's available on sale right now for a heavy discount. AllYouPlay has the basic version for $5 and the full XCOM 2 Collection with WOTC for $20. https://isthereanydeal.com/search/?q=XCOM+2 https://isthereanydeal.com/game/xcomiicollection/info/
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2021 23:48
|
|
|
I’ve sunk literally hundreds of hours into XCOM across all three remake games and their expansions, but I’ve only ever played significant amounts of time on the easiest skill levels. I’ve gotten easily frustrated the second difficulty level, but I also want to play without feeling like I’m godmoding everything. Is there any general advice/guides on how to step up the difficulty without getting too frustrated, or is frustration just a given on anything higher than Rookie/Story?
X-Ray Pecs fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Apr 19, 2021 |
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 00:25
|
|
|
For stepping up to Veteran it's just a matter of realising that your 90% shots can and will miss. (You take way more than 10 of them over the course of a game, you would have to be very lucky if you came out of it hitting them all). Don't have a 100% shot? If you have a grenade that will kill as a backup then you can roll the dice. If they're too healthy for that, maybe you can use the grenade to take out their cover and make the shot 100%. Worst case, consider what they can do if they're not dead and make sure that if they do live this turn, they're not going to get any flank crits on any of your soldiers. The other thing you'll need to do is learning how to play with the pod system to avoid taking bad engagements (while still reaching your objectives on time). Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 00:46
|
|
|
It always bugs me when I miss a 95%+ shot with the invisible “you feel like you should hit” percentage baked into lower skill levels. I already try my best to have a grenade backup for shooting engagements, but my positioning is, quite frankly, lovely. I’m not even talking about veteran, moving up to the second-easiest skill without ragequitting be nice.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 02:04
|
|
|
Veteran is the second-easiest difficulty in xcom 2. It's hard to offer more concrete advice than "position better" - have you tried watching other players playing at high difficulty levels? One thing you could try is pausing the video at the start of their turn, then deciding what move you would make in that position. Then unpause, and see what they do - if it's different, try to figure out why they made that particular move, instead of the one you were going for. Alternatively, you could record some of your own missions, and have other people critique your moves - which might be a faster way to narrow down where exactly you're going wrong.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 03:10
|
|
|
Jabor posted:Veteran is the second-easiest difficulty in xcom 2. Shows how much I know about the difficulty levels. I haven’t considered either option, but I’d definitely be interested in watching the high-level gameplay and learning the positioning from that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 04:31
|
|
|
I’m new to XCOM as well (only started with EW a couple of months back or so), and the “slow is fast” mantra is the absolute truth. Your troops should never be out of cover (ideally full, but certainly half) after the first couple of moves - that’s what’s made the huge difference to me. Honestly cover makes a huge huge difference- try to avoid shooting at enemies in full cover - better to spend a turn flanking them or destroying it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 04:35
|
|
|
Xcom 3 when
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 05:06
|
|
|
Eason the Fifth posted:Xcom 3 when When technology has advanced far enough to craft sniddies such that can finally heal humanities wounded soul.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 05:08
|
|
|
Some of this might be obvious advice but hope that some of it helps. A lot of advice for higher difficulty ironman favors aiming to destroy enemies with 100% (or close) hit chance attacks before they have the chance to do much of anything. A reaper's remote start when enemies are standing next to something explosive, or a claymore set and blown up by a grenade will destroy or come close to destroying most enemy pods. Bring at least 2 grenadiers on every mission. In general any attack which can't fail is useful, like explosives, templar or higher level ranger's melee attack, any psi operative damage skill, specialist's combat protocol etc. Outside of that of course it's a matter of positioning, stay in cover and try to flank or destroy the enemy's cover to get better hit and critical chance. By the way if there is only one enemy left it's sometimes fine to move out of cover to flank them to get the good hit chance/critical bonus. And when you are not able to defeat the enemies quickly, try to use something like the mimic beacon or templar's parry skill to tank hits for you. Also turn on target preview in the options if you haven't already, not sure why it is not turned on by default. I didn't know it even existed when I first played the game. It will show you what enemies you can hit and flank when you are making a move, and (if you are out of concealment) will also tell you if enemies can see you. (But if you are trying not to be seen, stay a couple extra tiles away from the range where the target preview icons start appearing because often the enemies can see a bit further than you.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 06:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 20, 2024 14:54 |
|
|
Red Oktober posted:I’m new to XCOM as well (only started with EW a couple of months back or so), and the “slow is fast” mantra is the absolute truth. This is good advice, but remember full cover is only a +40 defense so it's not a guarantee by any means. If you can, it's even better to park your guys so they aren't in the line of fire at all. And don't sleep on hunker down, if you have a move left. Overwatch is fine, but you take a hit penalty so a lot of the time you were probably better just trying to shoot them. And hunker down makes you immune to crits, which makes it a bit easier to know your guy will survive a hit if it comes to that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 19, 2021 08:43
|
|
