|
First time I played Shen's gift I had the pre-LW2 LW mod that alters your squad sizes, letting me bring six people. Resulted in an extremely intense mission where by some miracle, no one died. It was fantastic  Also due to my extremely cautious play, I'm pretty sure the MEC death count was in the triple digits, and pretty much everyone has a "dude, you're taking too long, get a move on" line including Julian
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2017 22:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 17:45 |
|
|
That mission takes on a very different character when you know exactly what is coming and just blitz through the first 75% Shen does the majority of the damage though, between attack protocol and cap discharge. Also using haywire to fling suiciding mecs into the sectopod.
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2017 22:34
|
|
|
Yea, once you know Last Gift it becomes pretty darn cake. I just had it spawn on me twice in LW. I guess the second one is free promotions / another Spark? Will this stop the Nest from appearing?
|
|
#
?
Mar 8, 2017 22:59
|
|
|
Having the weirdest experience with this game. First x-com game ever, and apparently this Shen's Last Gift DLC mission you guys are talking about was one of the first missions I got, I just had a basic squad of 4 freshly promoted dudes. It gave me the next DLC mission pretty soon after and so I had all kinds of weird poo poo like the snake suit and sparks and hunter weapons and didn't even make the standard squad armor/magnetic weapons upgrade until WAY later. With the weirdness of learning x-com's highly arbitrary aggro rules, the really confusing aggro mechanics of having a concealed ranger but an unconcealed teams, it was all too much. The strong weapons and items from the DLC became a crutch. Restarted a vanilla campaign (by just ignoring the DLC missions) and having a lot more fun. I tried Legend a couple times though and good god, I barely understand how to play the game without specifically optimizing my tactics to aggro one squad at a time by watching what tiles I cross. Feels weird.
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 00:20
|
|
|
Party Plane Jones posted:Andromedons and Codexes and Archons are rare as gently caress in LW2. You're going to be fighting snakes and advent and Mutons forever. Ive seen it theorized that all the slightly upgraded Mutons, Sneks and ADVENT crowd the cool aliens out of the random pod construction functions. When you have three varieties of Muton, two varieties of Sectoid, nine varieties of snek and over a dozen varieties of ADVENT its hard for the lone Codex or Andromedon to get picked for a mission. One of my biggest complaints about LW2 is how stale the midgame is since pod variety never really improves until the very late game when boss pods featuring Sectopods or Gatekeepers start becoming common. I wish Long War hadn't tried to be so, well, long and had focused on delivering a tight, repeatable and enjoyable experience instead. The additional weapon and enemy tiers really feel more like filler material to artificially extend the game by a few months rather than well integrated components of the game experience. E: Coil tech looks and *sounds* incredibly sexy though. It feels like a downgrade in game experience to go from coil to plasma Nix Panicus fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Mar 9, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 00:38
|
|
|
Not a Step posted:
There's a mod that switches coil and plasma in the tech tree, allowing you to use coil til.the very end.
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 02:39
|
|
|
   Glad I invested in cover destruction on the grenadier
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 04:24
|
|
|
Charlotte of Oz posted:
Reloading often fixes bugs like that.
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 04:41
|
|
|
Thanks, a save-reload helped. So which value in which Long War 2 INI file do I go to, to turn off the Viper tongue grab? Because I have hit my limit of this bullshit. Never mind that it has a bonus to hit to the point it can reliably tag a soldier even when they're hunkered. (I have Perfect Information installed and Tongue Grab is typically 20% over the standard Viper shot.) Never mind that a grab from it is essentially an instant kill thanks to the soldier being out of cover. Never mind that attacking an immobilized soldier when there's non-immobilized soldiers on the field is the last thing the attacking enemy force would do if they were looking to beat your troops, but the first thing they'd do if they wanted to make sure you didn't get through the mission without losing a soldier, turning it into an arbitrary gently caress-you-you're-losing-a-soldier-you-can't-do-poo poo situation. Never mind that it's an attack whose lethality outstrips anything the other aliens bring (I would sooner face a muton, at least the squad officer can use Incoming to defuse their most dangerous attack.) Never mind that the only counter is "flashbang them before they take a turn," because that just turns the game into flashbang-a-thon moreso than it does already. Never mind that they can tongue grab and, if that doesn't work, shoot you anyways. It's that there are so many Goddamn snakes. Like it was posted upthread, we hope you like seeing palette swaps of the snakes and the ADVENT troops because you are gonna get a lot of them. If I'm going to have to slog through a hundred samey missions using the same basic tactics I at least want to not have to deal with the most consistently bullshit one.
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 04:42
|
|
|
Viper grab is basically just asking for you to run hellweave 24/7.
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 05:10
|
|
|
yeah I'm just over here dealing with the Viper King's bullshit  Almost polished him off that time but any time he shows up it's like "welp, guess you're just gonna have to deal with getting shot at out of cover by whatever other assholes are on the field, hope you don't die/luck in to a miss" Certainly an interesting dynamic. Well, got off with a mere two gravely wounded soldiers and no casualties, I ain't complaining.
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 06:16
|
|
|
Snakes. It had to be .... Snakes.
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 06:40
|
|
|
I have three regions, my two additional regions are collecting supplies while my initial one is gathering intel for missions. Its late April, ADVENT strength is four, and I'm still trying to find an alien nerve center. I haven't found anything for some time. Am I doing the right things to get it to show up?
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 06:55
|
|
|
Node posted:I have three regions, my two additional regions are collecting supplies while my initial one is gathering intel for missions. Its late April, ADVENT strength is four, and I'm still trying to find an alien nerve center. I haven't found anything for some time. Am I doing the right things to get it to show up? You need to pursue the liberation chain in one region. It always starts with an unmarked hacking mission with no 'intel package' reward. So exactly the kind of mission most players would skip over because the reward seems smaller than average, because Long War. From there you do a Rescue/Extract VIP and then a Kidnap/Destroy Relay to unlock the regional Network Tower - which is usually a pretty fun and tense mission - then finally the ADVENT regional HQ which liberates a region. That reveals the Avatar Project and Blacksite mission. You can get away with not liberating a region until mid summer, but much later than that and Avatar becomes a very real (hidden) time pressure.
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 14:52
|
|
|
Man, I love EW! I just had an Operation Unceasing Pipe, which rather well describes the erection this series gives me 
|
|
#
?
Mar 9, 2017 20:03
|
|
|
Not a Step posted:You need to pursue the liberation chain in one region. It always starts with an unmarked hacking mission with no 'intel package' reward. So exactly the kind of mission most players would skip over because the reward seems smaller than average, because Long War. From there you do a Rescue/Extract VIP and then a Kidnap/Destroy Relay to unlock the regional Network Tower - which is usually a pretty fun and tense mission - then finally the ADVENT regional HQ which liberates a region. That reveals the Avatar Project and Blacksite mission. You can get away with not liberating a region until mid summer, but much later than that and Avatar becomes a very real (hidden) time pressure. I just had a destroy relay that I had to evac from. It has four pods, reinforcements, and 14 turns. I only had enough infiltration time to have six soldiers in there. Will that mission come back? Advent strength is up to five now. e: I boosted intel so I get 175% infiltration and it didn't change the amount of enemies. Arguably they were stronger enemies. I don't get this mod. Node fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Mar 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2017 02:20
|
|
|
Node posted:e: I boosted intel so I get 175% infiltration and it didn't change the amount of enemies. Arguably they were stronger enemies. I don't get this mod. Because Long War, that's not a bug, the mission schedules are actually variable enough per infiltration level that if you've rolled well enough for a level, increasing infiltration will actually increase the number of enemies. Also I think I might just finally get around to making that "non-flanked soldiers in full cover are ineligible for tongue grab" mod I've been thinking about.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2017 06:44
|
|
|
"Storytime with Jake Solomon" at Pax today at 10.30 am ET. EW was announced at Pax so.. *crosses fingers*
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2017 07:08
|
|
|
Is there a mod for Enemy Within that let's you keep the appearance of tier 1 weapons and armor when you upgrade to higher tiers? Something like this mod for XCOM 2 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=707548632
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2017 12:45
|
|
|
Charlotte of Oz posted:So which value in which Long War 2 INI file do I go to, to turn off the Viper tongue grab? Because I have hit my limit of this bullshit. New mod out that makes snektongue not work if you're in high cover and not flanked. An awesome change.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2017 15:31
|
|
|
Exposure posted:Because Long War, that's not a bug, the mission schedules are actually variable enough per infiltration level that if you've rolled well enough for a level, increasing infiltration will actually increase the number of enemies. I think that's actually a bug, one they're working on/fixing in 1.3. If you push the intel boost, it'll sometimes not show you the correct number of enemies until you back out and re-examine the mission.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2017 15:35
|
|
|
Node posted:I just had a destroy relay that I had to evac from. It has four pods, reinforcements, and 14 turns. I only had enough infiltration time to have six soldiers in there. Will that mission come back? Advent strength is up to five now. To answer the first part of that, no, that exact mission won't come back. Something similar will come around, though. ADVENT Strength of 5 means you should start seeing troop column assaults to decrease ADVENT strength by a point. If you see one of those come up, they're good to do. Corpses and actually impacting the global ADVENT strength by a point isn't bad. Vigilance spike, though. By the way, go to the Commander's Quarters in the Avenger and go to Resistance Management, each region will display the current state of liberation they're at, the pips to the right of the name in the region column. Apoplexy fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Mar 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2017 15:40
|
|
|
The stream starts in a few minutes: https://www.twitch.tv/pax Great talk on how dumb and how much of a failure Jake is (his own words!) but no announcements. Lima fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Mar 10, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2017 16:23
|
|
|
Also, several jokes about dead sheep.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 15:10
|
|
|
"Honey, we didn't use gloves...". Was interesting seeing some of the prototypes for XCOM that were shot down.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 15:53
|
|
|
So I'm playing EW still, and in spite of excellent performance across the board, I lose countries from the Xcom pact. I like to think I build a lot of satellites, but apparently not enough - how can I get better?
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 18:03
|
|
|
Tias posted:So I'm playing EW still, and in spite of excellent performance across the board, I lose countries from the Xcom pact. I like to think I build a lot of satellites, but apparently not enough - how can I get better? You do launch the satellites? Launch them at the end of the month over countries that are about to leave and buy at least one fighter, pref two, for the region.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 18:48
|
|
|
Yeah, I do, but I still lost China at the council review, in spite of never failing a mission, and I can't help all places getting abductions at once :/
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 18:51
|
|
|
Do you build more than one satellite at a time? If not then you will lose a lot of countries.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 19:05
|
|
|
It's ok to lose a few countries. It actually takes a bit of luck to not lose one in the second or third month
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 19:09
|
|
|
Lima posted:It's ok to lose a few countries. It actually takes a bit of luck to not lose one in the second or third month Oh cool, then I won't worry. Thanks for the heads up <3 Sapozhnik posted:Do you build more than one satellite at a time? If not then you will lose a lot of countries. Yeah I usually set 2-3 to build at once, but I usually have a hard time building capacity to match. The satellite nexus takes forever to build, and I have the notion that I need it to have enough satellites.. Tias fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Mar 11, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 19:16
|
|
|
Tias posted:Oh cool, then I won't worry. Thanks for the heads up <3 Slight caveat, build them one at a time, but stack them all up. This way you can cancel one satellite if you need extra funds for something else and you don't lose your progress on the other satellites.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 20:35
|
|
|
FraudulentEconomics posted:Slight caveat, build them one at a time, but stack them all up. This way you can cancel one satellite if you need extra funds for something else and you don't lose your progress on the other satellites. This seems like good advice, but your account name, av and post combo makes me wary v  v
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2017 23:19
|
|
|
Tias posted:This seems like good advice, but your account name, av and post combo makes me wary v That part is actually Truthful (fictional game) Economics.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2017 03:44
|
|
|
I've been trying to take screenshots during cutscenes, but for some reason, pressing the screenshot button during the first half of them either cancels the cutscene or it doesn't allow me to screenshot it (usually until halfway through). Has anyone else had this problem and if so, how did you fix it? Also that final area of the final mission is a doozy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2017 08:25
|
|
|
Tias posted:Oh cool, then I won't worry. Thanks for the heads up <3 Satellite rushing is the best strategy in EU. Getting enough engineers to get the next nexus to get more sats up to get more money and control panic is the key to strategic layer. Dont worry about getting nexuses, build whatever the cheap one is called and take advantage of adjacency bonuses.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2017 10:37
|
|
|
So xwynns playthrough is turning into a pretty good example of why long war 2 is broken in its current state. He actually made an effort to stop relying on the overly easy and formulaic strategy of stealthing as many missions as possibly and as soon as he did he started getting crushed and his campaign started to fall apart. So it's back to this, which is like the epitome of why LW2 is broken by having an easy degenerate strategy. Vanilla un-nerfed mimic beacons have nothing on this.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2017 23:13
|
|
|
You can always choose to not play like that. I don't stealth anything but Jailbreak missions and I'm not encountering assrape at every corner. I also don't play on Legendary Ironman, though, which is maybe part of the issue moreso than 'game broke because best player vs hardest difficulty tuned almost entirely on his input on making it more difficult isn't a cakewalk AS MUCH ANYMORE' It's also worth noting that the Icky Icky Goo mission that started his sodomy streak was one where he got extraordinary 'xcom lol' rolls, including a 95% chance to hit after graze band + Grazing Fire shot missing entirely. Real dumb poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2017 23:26
|
|
|
I could not do it, true, but like the game is balanced around it and I think that's pretty much a fact because the balance testers are obviously relying on it. Like you kinda have to do it to get enough missions done because it's a huge struggle to equip enough six men combat squads in expensive combat gear to get poo poo done without stealth and on top of that with stealth squads you can infiltrate the low infiltration time missions that pop up that are literally impossible to adequately infiltrate with a full squad. And that doesn't really change if you turn the difficulty down.
|
|
#
?
Mar 12, 2017 23:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 12, 2024 17:45 |
|
|
Apoplexy posted:You can always choose to not play like that. I don't stealth anything but Jailbreak missions and I'm not encountering assrape at every corner. I also don't play on Legendary Ironman, though, which is maybe part of the issue moreso than 'game broke because best player vs hardest difficulty tuned almost entirely on his input on making it more difficult isn't a cakewalk AS MUCH ANYMORE' Okay, but there are a couple of things here: 1) people want to play ironman because it poses choices that are far more interesting in their permanence IF the game has stable and balanced design 2) this is one of the beta testers, in a very small testing team which has a lot of say in the balance of the game, essentially admitting that he only knows how to play campaigns one way successfully in Legend Ironman. Considering MOST difficulty tuning efforts occur at the highest difficulty, the fact that the testers have coalesced to singular strategies is a bad sign for the longevity of the mod for most people, repeating the exact same mistakes of vanilla in forcing repetitive strategies with tight constraints. Probably most damning is we're past initial release now, so I'd love to see them fix it but there are a great deal of tight constraints in the design right now in terms of enemy counts, timers, infiltration mechanics limiting economy, and so on. It'll be hard work for them to thread the needle and balance Legend difficulty for more than one optimal strategy, and while 'just play Commander' is an option, Legend is supposed to be possible (and fun, arguably). That's why they renamed it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2017 00:42
|
|
