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Infiltration could be a good mechanic on a game entirely designed around the geoscape. If all the battlescape stuff was somehow abstracted into a few autoresolved RNG rolls it would be ok. It's the disconnect between outfitting and planning everything and then waiting several real-time hours to play the mission. On top of that the UI doesn't really support that kind of delayed mission start. What type of mission am I going on again? How infiltrated was I? Etc.
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Aug 11, 2021 20:56
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Ravenfood posted:Infiltration could be a good mechanic on a game entirely designed around the geoscape. If all the battlescape stuff was somehow abstracted into a few autoresolved RNG rolls it would be ok. It's the disconnect between outfitting and planning everything and then waiting several real-time hours to play the mission. On top of that the UI doesn't really support that kind of delayed mission start. What type of mission am I going on again? How infiltrated was I? Etc. Despite defending it earlier (or at least, saying I thought a system that didn't tie up troops defeated the point), I actually agree with this wholeheartedly. Infiltration was one of my least favorite aspects of LW2, and I honestly think I liked fatigue from LW1 better, as much as people complained about it being unrealistic. It's just one more example of how realism is often a really bad rationale for gameplay changes. I like the idea of multiple squads and managing production a lot, but delaying missions until I've forgotten what I was doing is bad gameplay. I was honestly pretty shocked to see it introduced as a standalone mod.
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Aug 11, 2021 21:50
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I know a really easy way to make sure every game of xcom makes use of multiple squads. Just make it so you need more bases for more radar coverage and your A team can't make it in time to that mission on the other side of the earth.
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Aug 11, 2021 21:51
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reignofevil posted:I know a really easy way to make sure every game of xcom makes use of multiple squads. Cut down the range of your response craft, and you’ve got the OG XCOM mod that was “let the Interceptor/Barracuda carry 6 people” 
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Aug 11, 2021 23:33
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The X-piratez mod (for open-xcom) has a nice take on fatigue. All soldiers have a "freshness" stat. At high levels, it gives a bonus to morale and stamina, but you by default lose 1pt a turn. Once freshness drops to half, those bonuses turn into Maluses. What the dev does well is give you meaningful ways to interact with the freshness stat at both the battlescape level (take a swig of beer to increase freshness) and geo-scape level (certain base buildings improve freshness recovery rate.) Another interesting facet is that as your soldiers receive commendations for hitting certain thresholds in missions, you tend to receive primary stat bonuses but with a negative permanent freshness attached. You can end up with some super-op units that are old and do not have much freshness to work with. It made me feel better having both a gameplay and story reason to bench my grizzled vets after a tough raid.
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Aug 12, 2021 01:01
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IMO the vanilla fatigue and wound system works well enough at getting you to rotate soldiers... at the start of the game. Everyone knows vanilla Xcom suffers from a lopsided power curve where your soldiers get so strong that the lategame can be easier than the early game. Something people don't mention often though is how the Infirmary contributes to this. Early game when a soldier gets wounded, they can be out for over a month! That's at least a few missions where you can't use them. Combine that with fatigue and you'll probably be rotating soldiers out pretty often. However, later you go, the more HP you have to work with and the less likely you take grave wounds that require a lengthy absence. But compounding this issue further is the infirmary. The infirmary is CRAZY powerful! It can more than double your healing rate! Soldiers can be brought to the brink of death and only be out for one mission, or even not at all. Late game can just have you rolling the same power squad of soldiers who barely get wounded and even when they do, the infirmary patches them up so fast it doesn't matter. Having done several modded runs now, I find the vanilla mechanics can actually work just fine for rotating soldiers IF you nerf the infirmary and have made the game sufficiently hard enough that injuries are likely to occur. If the infirmary is less powerful and you are taking more wounds, you'll have no choice but to have a deeper bench of soldiers to draw from. And it will feel a lot less clunky than a whole new mechanic that requires micromanaging tons of different squads and equipment.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:13
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There's also the fact that as you get more powerful and gain more abilities/equipment, its way less common to be shot at, period. Let alone be wounded; let alone take casualties. Nu-XCOM eventually becomes something like Into the Breach where the enemy only gets to move if you make a mistake.
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Aug 12, 2021 21:35
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Internet Kraken posted:IMO the vanilla fatigue and wound system works well enough at getting you to rotate soldiers... at the start of the game. amusingly it also works ok on legend. the twitch game we've had going has had multiple characters out for 40-ish days at a time - combined with a scuffed supply raid out the gate that kept us from doing some of the usual slingshots, we got our colonels and stuff VERY late because people were just rolled up in the barracks watching Days of Our Lives for actual months on end.
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Aug 12, 2021 22:06
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Vengarr posted:There's also the fact that as you get more powerful and gain more abilities/equipment, its way less common to be shot at, period. Let alone be wounded; let alone take casualties. Well yeah, that's why you need to balance the tactical layer to be sufficiently difficult for you. If you can flawless almost every mission on legend then the vanilla system won't work because its reliant on people getting hurt. However, even if people do get hurt, the infirmary gets them back out so quickly its barely an issue. Its just another factor that contributes to the snowball effect that lets Xcom dominate mid to late game. Coolguye posted:amusingly it also works ok on legend. the twitch game we've had going has had multiple characters out for 40-ish days at a time - combined with a scuffed supply raid out the gate that kept us from doing some of the usual slingshots, we got our colonels and stuff VERY late because people were just rolled up in the barracks watching Days of Our Lives for actual months on end. As someone who plays on legend and has watched multiple different people play various legend campaigns, I don't agree. It feels like with the vanilla infirmary even a soldier on 1 HP will only be out for one mission tops. Cutting healing times in half is really absurd. What I'm trying to say is if you balance the tactical layer to be very difficult for you and remove one of the big snowball elements, you'll be forced to rotate soldiers a lot more. Honestly not sure why the infirmary even exists. I guess the basic idea of it is that the devs thought the late game enemies would be hard enough to incur more wounds, and that's somewhat true, but they underestimated just how powerful the healing rate of infirmary ends up being relative to how often you deploy troops. You can nerf the healing rate of it and its suddenly a lot more reasonable, still useful but not allowing you to get away with having troops constantly wounded.
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Aug 12, 2021 22:29
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a staffed infirmary makes out times max out at around 15-ish days on legend. it's possible you can have 2 weeks of relative peace but you better not count on it. without it, you will have people out for 6-7 weeks and you better believe something hot is happening in that timeframe.
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Aug 12, 2021 22:33
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I think 15 days is often an "out for one mission" kind of thing in practice - maybe two if you're unlucky on mission spawn variance. Unless you're actively choosing to push the tempo and do extra base raids or story missions, but you wouldn't do that if you're relying on a team member that's currently wounded.
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Aug 12, 2021 22:47
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Internet Kraken posted:IMO the vanilla fatigue and wound system works well enough at getting you to rotate soldiers... at the start of the game. Adding to this, because wounds take priority over fatigue, a soldier will actually be out for less time if they're shot than if they just get tired. Playing modded games with double or triple enemies, it's not unusually to completely drain a soldier's will over the course of a mission. Even a soldier with will in the 90's (through playing with RPGO) can end up needed to wait two weeks for another mission if they are fatigued, but if that same soldier took a bullet they can be back in two days.
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Aug 12, 2021 23:11
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Unless those mods also change the maximums, a single soldier can only lose about a third of their will on a single mission - this is what keeps them from going from Ready to Shaken for one particularly grueling mission In this way the point of tiredness versus woundedness don’t compete
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Aug 12, 2021 23:18
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Hm. It wasn't an advertised feature, but I definitely lose more than 1/3 will in one mission. Soldiers will go from fresh to Shaken in one mission regularly.
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Aug 12, 2021 23:24
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Yeah in the base game that isn’t possible. That was actually relevant because we have grim horizon on and it was important for considering whether or not Dark Tower was bad. It kinda wasn’t because we were already losing max will on a lot of missions anyway.
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Aug 13, 2021 01:42
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Where can I find a good guide on vanilla xcom2 classes and recommended abilities? I’m especially curious about reaper and skirmisher. Templar I kinda got figured but also would love advice on. Thank you.
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Aug 13, 2021 04:47
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TheWeedNumber posted:Where can I find a good guide on vanilla xcom2 classes and recommended abilities? I’m especially curious about reaper and skirmisher. Templar I kinda got figured but also would love advice on. Thank you. There's lots of decent guides out there on the Steam Community pages. Here's how I like to set them up. I can talk more about my choices if you're interested in anything in particular. The Reaper is intended to scout ahead for enemy pods and deliver killing blows to exposed enemies. The Skirmisher is good at softening up bad guys and reacting to surprises. The Templar is excellent at shutting down hard targets. quote:Note: On Beta Strike the doubled HP levels reward Repeaters when available, as indicated by * Kaal fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Aug 13, 2021 |
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Aug 13, 2021 04:55
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I've been playing Covert Infiltration and I'm really digging the changes it makes to the geoscape, if for no other reason than the menus are so much more convenient to use. I haven't done much modding before this, but I'd be interested to pick up something that adds some variety/randomization to the base classes, what are some good options to look at? I like the direction Musashi's RPG Overhaul goes in, but I don't like the idea of futzing with stats or how Skirmisher/Reaper abilities get rolled in with everything else.
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Aug 13, 2021 06:06
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Fenn the Fool! posted:I've been playing Covert Infiltration and I'm really digging the changes it makes to the geoscape, if for no other reason than the menus are so much more convenient to use. You're in luck, we had a discussion on this a couple of pages back! I also didn't like the idea of levelling up stats, so I went for the Proficiency pack. You can summarize it as 'splits Specialist and Grenadier into two classes each', but it also changes up pretty much every perk plus adds a lot of new ones. Also the Stormrider, which boils down to 'do you want a ludicrous anime swordsman in your squad Y/N?'
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Aug 13, 2021 06:37
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And Akimbo.
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Aug 13, 2021 07:54
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I poked around some previous pages, somebody mentioned Almagamation Classes and that looks perfect, I'll be trying that one out. How is A Better Advent? I know it's popular, but I'm not sold on the prime enemies. I uninstalled Alien Hunters, partially because the rulers are so different from everything else, but mostly because the armor and weapons you get are just so drat tacky. Any alternatives I should look at for enemy variety?
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Aug 13, 2021 15:25
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Fenn the Fool! posted:mostly because the armor and weapons you get are just so drat tacky.
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Aug 13, 2021 17:17
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Playing a new game on... I thought it was veteran, I've finished vanilla wotc on commander, but I'm getting my rear end whooped? It might still be veteran  With all of the mods, or at least a lot of them mentioned by the nice people who suggested mods to me. Fromw hat I can remember I have a better advent, yellow alert mark 2, raider factions, and a ton of other changes. I didn't configure any of them though, I just installed them and made a new game? I've noticed a few new units and that my classes are totally different, but also I am so used to the xcom 1 classes that I keep on forgetting the xcom 2 class differences. I haven't noticed any way for the marksmen to use pistols though? I gave everyone a pistol upgrade and am not sure how to even shoot with a pistol at all.Anyway, it's very very hard and I've had about 2 squad wipes and 1 'gently caress, time to extract RIGHT NOW' and I don't know if I can really recover. I'm up to mag weapons and just researched armour but don't have enough stuff to buy it. I used the new templar guy in one mission after using covert missions to bump up his health, and he get iced instantly by overwatch fire. I think maybe the enemies are using overwatch a bit more or overwatch is more deadly or something. And it's crazy how it's like 'ok I'm doing fine' to '3 people are dead', I don't remember that happening much in vanilla. Overall, it looks like I got what I asked for which was 'a way to enjoy xcom 2 again'. Thanks everyone!
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Aug 13, 2021 17:47
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Fenn the Fool! posted:I poked around some previous pages, somebody mentioned Almagamation Classes and that looks perfect, I'll be trying that one out. The Primes feel a lot fairer than Rulers in that their gimmick goes off on damage, not on any action, and they don't interrupt your turn or so I've experienced. It makes them a priority to worry about, but I definitely wouldn't consider them as gamebreaking. And if the major issue with the Rulers is the tacky suits which are super powerful, you're in luck (I know it's also like the whole Ruler Reactions thing, but you know, I like talking about mods)! Recently someone built Tactical Gear Slots as support for Better Alien Ruler Rewards, which lets you ignore the cosmetic suits to instead grab the abilities via a slot item. As for enemies, The CreativeXenos team has made a number of really solid ones, probably most well known for the Bio Division and the Hive, although the Hive comes with yet another Alien Ruler, so maybe not your speed. Check out a guy named Claus, he's got a few enemies that play fairly standardly, but also provide some interesting tactical decision. Big fan of his Pathfinder enemies.
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Aug 13, 2021 18:18
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Is this your first XCOM2 campaign? If so, I'd personally play a few vanilla games before adding game changing mods. Just use QoL stuff maybe (like A Better Avenger and Stop Wasting my time) but that's it.
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Aug 13, 2021 18:28
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Furism posted:Is this your first XCOM2 campaign? If so, I'd personally play a few vanilla games before adding game changing mods. Just use QoL stuff maybe (like A Better Avenger and Stop Wasting my time) but that's it. I've finished vanilla WOTC on commander. I just don't post in this thread.
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Aug 13, 2021 18:40
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Kaal posted:There's lots of decent guides out there on the Steam Community pages. Here's how I like to set them up. I can talk more about my choices if you're interested in anything in particular. The Reaper is intended to scout ahead for enemy pods and deliver killing blows to exposed enemies. The Skirmisher is good at softening up bad guys and reacting to surprises. The Templar is excellent at shutting down hard targets. I appreciated this list for sure. Skirmisher was the only playstyle I was a bit unsure of.
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Aug 13, 2021 18:53
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TheWeedNumber posted:I appreciated this list for sure. Skirmisher was the only playstyle I was a bit unsure of. Skirmishers are often considered the weakest of the three classes, because they don't really have the same potential for controlling the battlefield. They do well in pitched battles where their flexibility, movement abilities, and single-use powers can turn the tide. But obviously you're trying to avoid those situations rather than encourage them. I set them up to basically be a quick-reaction force on the field, though some players prefer using their movement abilities to be a combat initiator that pulls enemies out of cover. Arming them with ammo like Dragon Rounds is generally a very good idea, and I like pairing them with Rangers as both classes tend to do well being in the thick of combat. I generally find that I relegate my Skirmishers towards the end of a campaign, but they can do pretty well on Covert Actions where their jack-of-all-trades nature can be an asset. Kaal fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Aug 13, 2021 |
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Aug 13, 2021 19:12
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Skirmishers are great, but they're not very flashy about it. Being able to grapple to a fire escape and dump two bursts into a guy is a lot less memorable than being literally invisible or bouncing away bullets with your mind swords Also the ripjack never quite seems to do as much damage as I expect it to, which is sad because it looks loving awesome
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Aug 13, 2021 19:19
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The skirmisher with Retribution and an assault with Blademaster are outright hilarious on maps full of Lost and/or chrysallids* *as long as you can 1-hit kill them 
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Aug 13, 2021 19:37
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The issue with skirmishers is that the game seriously prioritizes emphasizing specialization and the entire tactical challenge is arranging situations where those specializations can be used to greatest effect. Skirmishers have no real specialization, so they are marginalized by that.
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Aug 13, 2021 20:06
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Coolguye posted:The issue with skirmishers is that the game seriously prioritizes emphasizing specialization and the entire tactical challenge is arranging situations where those specializations can be used to greatest effect. Skirmishers have no real specialization, so they are marginalized by that. They also seem to have been pre-emptively nerfed before release based on how several of their abilities are much worse than described (Reflex, Battlelord etc).
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Aug 13, 2021 20:11
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Danaru posted:Skirmishers are great, but they're not very flashy about it. Being able to grapple to a fire escape and dump two bursts into a guy is a lot less memorable than being literally invisible or bouncing away bullets with your mind swords It's true, they end up being very effective despite not really being part of a set piece. The Ripjack is tricky because it isn't nearly as reliable as it was in earlier patches where the conditions were much more likely to trigger. Meleeing an enemy is better when they're guaranteed to be stunned even if you don't kill them. Older guides often predate this change and don't reflect this fairly significant nerf. Otherwise they're certainly cool, and I often pick up Wrath after grabbing Zero In as a core trait. Zore posted:They also seem to have been pre-emptively nerfed before release based on how several of their abilities are much worse than described (Reflex, Battlelord etc). Reflex and Battlelord definitely struggle to be relevant, particularly when not playing with Beta Strike. I still grab the former since it will probably trigger most missions and be useful, unlike Total Combat where it's pretty rare to trigger on a class that is already swimming in flexibility. Battlelord just ends up being too much of a risk to use though. Either you wait and prepare for some insane situation where you've got seven baddies in view that you really should have avoided, or you blow it on a minor pod that you could have easily taken without the ability at all. Either way it ends up being a poor outcome. Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Aug 13, 2021 |
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Aug 13, 2021 20:14
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Icon Of Sin posted:The skirmisher with Retribution and an assault with Blademaster are outright hilarious on maps full of Lost and/or chrysallids* This is what pistol-sharpshooters and explosives-grenadiers are for  e: i thought you were talking about Reaper but honestly it still applies
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Aug 13, 2021 20:17
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I also think Skirmishers should get a free skulljack use, the first thing you see of a skirmiaher is Mox skulljacking a dude, and then they're never able to do that in game  that's just mean
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Aug 13, 2021 20:18
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Coolguye posted:lmfao i have never seen this put better I like the concept of wearing their skin as a fancy ballroom dress, but the execution leaves something to be desired.
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Aug 13, 2021 20:33
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Yeah I tend to love tacky bullshit in the middle of a serious battlefield, the first thing I did when I picked up ARMA 3 with my buddies was find a white lab coat and a balaclava and said I was doctor mcninja now. But if you think the guy wearing a clown suit to the business meeting is just a fool and not a lovable joker then yeah you’re going to be better off from the exclusion
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Aug 13, 2021 20:43
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Skirmishers kinda missed their entrance for me when the very first thing I did with one was grapple one of those fire exploding enemies into my team only to learn that they explode when killed.
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Aug 13, 2021 21:40
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Yeah... Mutons are a similar trap. Melee is a trap in general unless you have 100% certainty you won’t trigger another pod. Hope they fix that next game. I hate having to bite my fingers every time I reveal a square of FOW.
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Aug 13, 2021 21:44
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Danaru posted:Skirmishers are great, but they're not very flashy about it. Being able to grapple to a fire escape and dump two bursts into a guy is a lot less memorable than being literally invisible or bouncing away bullets with your mind swords The ripjack isn't for doing damage, it's for grabbing people out of half cover so your squad can flank-murder them without activating any pods further ahead on the map!
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Aug 13, 2021 21:48
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