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silentsnack posted:Yeah several game mechanics seem to have been designed with the assumption that the optimal tactic should be "never engage without high cover, and if you get a bad activation pull back to get average cover better than what the enemy can use; also spend at least half of your combat turns running away and/or hiding" but at some point someone remembered that would be really goddamn boring and spent the rest of development on giving the player reasons to take more risks instead of fewer, but those initial features never got reworked. It's actually the other way around: XCOM EW's meta, especially at higher levels, was built around slow careful movement overwatching after every blue move to catch out pods patrolling into you, since that would give you 2 turns of fire before your opponents got one. XCOM2 was heavily built around trying to combat that, both with hard timers that demanded you engage the enemy, sometiems on unfavourable terms, but also on enemy abilities that allow them to punish or lock down soldiers if you dont maintain enough pressure... like suppression, which might not prevent an enemy from moving but does lower aim and prevent things like Sectoids or Vipers from using their Mental Powers or Pull + Bind to force your soldiers into bad positions. As for Deep Cover, on paper it actually makes a lot of sense. Rangers have a limited range in terms of engagement, being armed only with a sword or shotgun, and outside of their preferred range, they're just... a body to get shot at. By providing a means to not get shot at while making their approach they allow you to position your Ranger more aggressively and make use of light cover much better. Of course... it's competing with a straight up 'become invincible to 1 shot per turn if you get a kill' and it turns out that the best form of control is Dead, which just about everyone can do in spades, but the heart is there.
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Mar 23, 2022 07:00
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Torchlighter posted:It's actually the other way around: XCOM EW's meta, especially at higher levels, was built around slow careful movement overwatching after every blue move to catch out pods patrolling into you, since that would give you 2 turns of fire before your opponents got one. XCOM2 was heavily built around trying to combat that, both with hard timers that demanded you engage the enemy, sometiems on unfavourable terms, but also on enemy abilities that allow them to punish or lock down soldiers if you dont maintain enough pressure... No disagreement there, I'm just saying some of the game mechanics don't mesh well with the rest of the game, which makes me suspect those features were coded (or design-by-committee'd or whatever) without a coherent image of how they would fit into with the finished game that actually did get released, possibly because that image had not been finalized yet. Especially in light of post-release patches tuning enemy AI getting to suicidally-aggressive stormtrooper levels (or am i completely misremembering that?) and the Anti-Beaglerush suckerpunch getting added; and how bonkers-overpowered Mimic Beacons were before The Nerf.
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Mar 23, 2022 16:52
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silentsnack posted:No disagreement there, I'm just saying some of the game mechanics don't mesh well with the rest of the game, which makes me suspect those features were coded (or design-by-committee'd or whatever) without a coherent image of how they would fit into with the finished game that actually did get released, possibly because that image had not been finalized yet. TBF, A lot of them were EW perks, and the genre as a whole naturally bends towards that style of play. I don't think the mechanics were designed at all, I think they're a function of the genre conventions itself, and Fireaxis was very much trying to design away from them. They have a number of GDC talks about the design of XCOM, in one of which they mention that they wanted to avoid creating a situation where players 'optimised the fun out of playing'.
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Mar 23, 2022 22:09
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Did Guzman even make a shot that mission? I don't think I've been more down on a soldier since the original James Dean
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Mar 23, 2022 22:14
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Torchlighter posted:They have a number of GDC talks about the design of XCOM, in one of which they mention that they wanted to avoid creating a situation where players 'optimised the fun out of playing'. In my opinion, the biggest hurdle there was giving the player too much information about enemies. My dream expansion for Enemy Unknown/Within would have done two things: hide enemy health (probably with an allowance for gauging the rough state, like untouched or near dead), and introduce randomization of enemy abilities and statistics. Meaningful randomization. I feel like the game would have felt a lot more tense and tactically compelling if I couldn't ever be completely confident about what the enemy could do, much less being able to perfectly call what the enemy is going to do on their turn.
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Mar 23, 2022 22:18
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Cythereal posted:In my opinion, the biggest hurdle there was giving the player too much information about enemies. My dream expansion for Enemy Unknown/Within would have done two things: hide enemy health (probably with an allowance for gauging the rough state, like untouched or near dead), and introduce randomization of enemy abilities and statistics. Meaningful randomization. I feel like the game would have felt a lot more tense and tactically compelling if I couldn't ever be completely confident about what the enemy could do, much less being able to perfectly call what the enemy is going to do on their turn. The Lost, Rulers, and Chosen are all meant to fill that same niche by spicing up missions with unpredictable involvement, but they tend to feel more like speed bumps instead of curveballs when you're even a little ahead when they decide to pop in I would have been happy with a few texture swapped mechs and troopers that had different AI or a slightly different gun, like Advent would have different military units for different things, spice up missions by running into a different unit than you expected. That and thematically you're fighting the ADVENT army, not just juiced up cops. I say that because not only do troopers not ever change from their beat cop uniforms we see in the opening, but there's a portion of the game where the most threatening guy on the map is a riot cop, and he is also never replaced with a soldier, just buffer riot cops
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Mar 23, 2022 22:44
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ADVENT won the war 20 years ago. Why do you expect to see an army? They're now the ruling government. So yeah, we're dealing with their police/swat/fbi whatever analogy.
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Mar 23, 2022 22:52
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Jade Star posted:ADVENT won the war 20 years ago. Why do you expect to see an army? They're now the ruling government. So yeah, we're dealing with their police/swat/fbi whatever analogy. Because giant uncontrollable meat monsters don't hang out in the local precinct  Partly, it's a because I imagine "ADVENT Peacekeeping Forces" on earth with active military revolutionaries to be like the US peacekeeping troops stationed in Baghdad in OEF, but also because of the Skirmishers, like I figured there was an army they defected from that's why they have their kit and not trooper equipment
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Mar 23, 2022 23:49
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Cythereal posted:In my opinion, the biggest hurdle there was giving the player too much information about enemies. My dream expansion for Enemy Unknown/Within would have done two things: hide enemy health (probably with an allowance for gauging the rough state, like untouched or near dead), and introduce randomization of enemy abilities and statistics. Meaningful randomization. I feel like the game would have felt a lot more tense and tactically compelling if I couldn't ever be completely confident about what the enemy could do, much less being able to perfectly call what the enemy is going to do on their turn. Not sure that would work these days. Original X-Com you couldn't see alien health, and it was non-trivial to find out how many hp aliens started with, so while most Sectoids died on one hit that occasional tough guy would take multiple shots without flinching and you couldn't see how. Now, there'd be a Steam Workshop "show alien health" mod within a week, and unless you introduced a wide variation of randomness in alien hp everyone else would look up how many hits they can take and be forced to track them themselves. Whereas casual gamers probably aren't paying much attention to the health bars anyway and, in the absence of a mod that turns them into numbers, might get surprised by an alien whose bar they misestimated.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:28
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Original X-Com alien health values didn't meaningfully change. The idea that 'one tough sectoid' could take multiple hits was because when a weapon hit someone the damage of the weapon was multiplied by a random value between 0 and 2, or in other words every shot did 0 to 200% the UFOpedia listed damage value. Sometimes you just rolled poorly and a plasma rifle shot does zero damage.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:56
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Narsham posted:Not sure that would work these days. Original X-Com you couldn't see alien health, and it was non-trivial to find out how many hp aliens started with, so while most Sectoids died on one hit that occasional tough guy would take multiple shots without flinching and you couldn't see how. I don't particularly care what people mod. They can mod games to be whatever they like. What I think Enemy Unknown/Within missed most was uncertainty beyond the dice. I thought it was a real shame that every enemy had one pre-set list of stats and abilities, if you see them you know what they'll do or at least what they're capable of. I think the game desperately needed a feeling that you could never be completely certain of what's in front of you and what the aliens can do. X-COM 2 also missed that, but it's a ways down my list of issues with the COMMANDER SOMEONE STUBBED HER TOE ON DECK FOUR YOU NEED TO GET DOWN THERE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
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Mar 24, 2022 01:06
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Cythereal posted:I don't particularly care what people mod. They can mod games to be whatever they like. Aside from specialist aliens in original xcom also had one preset list of skills and abilities. Ethereals and Sectoids could Mind Control. Crysalids could murder you in melee etc Though some variety to alien loadouts would have been a nice way to spice things up
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Mar 24, 2022 09:42
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XCOM Chimera squad was pretty clearly Firaxis streamlining the tactical gameplay even further. "What if we just took the map exploration out entirely and made the whole game basically overwatch traps + cleanup"
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Mar 24, 2022 13:29
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Wheany posted:XCOM Chimera squad was pretty clearly Firaxis streamlining the tactical gameplay even further. "What if we just took the map exploration out entirely and made the whole game basically overwatch traps + cleanup" And that was fantastic My favorite X-Com game by far
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Mar 24, 2022 17:31
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Jade Star posted:Operation Mystery Retirement  I personally love the stuff. https://northwoodssoda.com/product/espresso-root-beer/
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Mar 24, 2022 23:54
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Cythereal posted:What I think Enemy Unknown/Within missed most was uncertainty beyond the dice. I thought it was a real shame that every enemy had one pre-set list of stats and abilities, if you see them you know what they'll do or at least what they're capable of. I think the game desperately needed a feeling that you could never be completely certain of what's in front of you and what the aliens can do. quote:X-COM 2 also missed that, but it's a ways down my list of issues with the COMMANDER SOMEONE STUBBED HER TOE ON DECK FOUR YOU NEED TO GET DOWN THERE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE! Besides that, there's always too much to do with the tactical map but that's intentional: You have to make choices with your scanning time to balance between long-term benefits (scanning new regions, radio relays, etc) versus the instant benefit of spending those days scanning for supplies/rookies/whatever, all while also staring at the Avatar Project's slowly ticking doom timer.
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Mar 24, 2022 23:57
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Cythereal posted:I don't particularly care what people mod. They can mod games to be whatever they like. They did that in Long War. The issue there is that the entire thing becomes  when it turns out that thing you were trying to overwatch has Lightning Reflexes, so the game mostly just feels full of gotchas. That being said, the brilliance of turning the game moddable means there's a mod for that, although for XCOM2 this one doesn't hand out free perks for enemy units. There's also a reskinner for variation puttering around, although it's more cosmetic and won't have consistancy. But yes, increasing enemy variation is fairly easy via mods.
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Mar 25, 2022 00:18
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The Door Frame posted:The Lost, Rulers, and Chosen are all meant to fill that same niche by spicing up missions with unpredictable involvement, but they tend to feel more like speed bumps instead of curveballs when you're even a little ahead when they decide to pop in isn't that literally A Better Advent? i get the argument that it'd be nice in the base game / critiquing Jake for not doing it in the first place. just think it's okay for that to come with a good modding community. like, there's quite a few enemies for this kind of game already, especially when you add WOTC
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Mar 26, 2022 14:08
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 Almost an hour long video this time around, so get a snack, get comfortable and then watch. I get almost a week of scan time in to build needed things around the Avenger but still need more supplies to build everything I could get my hands on at this point, but it's a good start. The time allows me to reach New Mexico and establish contact there so I can assault the Avatar facility there. The one that previously warned us that a large and powerful alien was detected guarding the facility. Hurray! Well at least we know what we're getting into this time!   
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Mar 27, 2022 23:41
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History repeats itself!
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Mar 28, 2022 00:10
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Ciaphas Cain: "Hello boys, I'm baaaaaaaack!"
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Mar 28, 2022 00:43
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I like tracer rounds on pistoleers. Their damage is poo poo anyway, so using fanfire and whatnot to buff the team's accuracy is a good use for them.
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Mar 28, 2022 00:47
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Here's the strat - just roll a natural twenty at the best moment. Y'know how a lot of RPGs have bosses inexplicably immune to various specials?
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Mar 28, 2022 00:49
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...um, Guava? The Hoover Dam is between Nevada and Arizona, not New Mexico. But you got closer than most folks do to figuring out where we are..
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Mar 28, 2022 00:50
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Glad to see what we've been waiting for happen.
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Mar 28, 2022 00:51
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That is the only way it could have ended.
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Mar 28, 2022 00:55
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Bruceski posted:...um, Guava? The Hoover Dam is between Nevada and Arizona, not New Mexico. But you got closer than most folks do to figuring out where we are.. .... gently caress. I've been in Arizona for like 2 minutes, not NM. Good point.
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Mar 28, 2022 01:36
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Honestly can't tell if she is doing that because of ThirstMod or it is just a inexplicably horny default head-stomping pose
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Mar 28, 2022 01:52
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Bruceski posted:...um, Guava? The Hoover Dam is between Nevada and Arizona, not New Mexico. But you got closer than most folks do to figuring out where we are.. 
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Mar 28, 2022 01:58
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Slaan posted:Honestly can't tell if she is doing that because of ThirstMod or it is just a inexplicably horny default head-stomping pose Pretty sure it's thirst mod
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Mar 28, 2022 02:21
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GuavaMoment posted:.... We're not called the Memory Hole State for nothing. People think Arizona borders Texas.
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Mar 28, 2022 02:28
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The Kingslayer living up to his name.
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Mar 28, 2022 05:28
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A proud tradition upheld. 
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Mar 28, 2022 05:59
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Billy Bishop's Field Manual to the War of the Chosen
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Mar 28, 2022 06:47
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Jade I think the sky ranger customization is in the barracks somewhere. You know the menu that also lets you get a good look at all the skulls of ADVENT you've been gathering? Sorry, uninstalled xcom 2 so can't fire it up to get screenshots.  quote:Adds customization options to the skyranger. To access them, go to the armory and click "Skyranger Customization". The Community Highlander is required for this. If it helps it took me far too long to find it too. According to the thread. I assume you've already got CH since it's become a pretty key lib for a bunch of mods. I want to say the unlimited/unrestricted appearances mod you got is using it?
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Mar 28, 2022 09:49
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I thought it was through the armory but didnt find it. I am also fairly sure I do not have the community highlander, since I dont even know what it is.
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Mar 28, 2022 11:32
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Jade Star posted:I thought it was through the armory but didnt find it. I am also fairly sure I do not have the community highlander, since I dont even know what it is. It definitely doesn't show up in the armory tab in the video. As for the Highlander, the Skyranger mod literally has it listed as a required mod and when you attempt to download it wihtout the highlander, it should have put up a dialogue box, but the highlander is a rewrite of a bunch of the games code to make it more mod friendly and is basically baseline for a lot of mods. I wouldn't be surprised if not having the highlander simply means that the mod doesn't work, because it might be trying to alter code in the game that just doesn't exist. This is the current highlander that the mod has listed as a requirements, there's a few different versions floating around. https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1134256495
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Mar 28, 2022 11:49
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A green angry super star, eh? High quality animated png:  Old reliable gif:  New hotness, webp:  And no animation, if you're not into that:  edit:timg Wheany fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Mar 28, 2022 |
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Mar 28, 2022 14:22
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Leal posted:Hope you can top having the repeater activate on the Archon King 
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Mar 28, 2022 17:27
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The queen probably would have retreated after that shot anyways, but the important thing is that he's done it again! I disagree with y'all on chainshot. Poor man's rapid fire is still really drat good, and especially on rangers your hit rate is so high it's functionally that second rapid fire cooldown you mentioned. It's also really cheap skill point wise for what it does.I think it's 12 points to 25 for rapid fire?
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Mar 28, 2022 20:47
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