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A blademaster ranger isn't really about competing for damage with a rapid fire shotgunner who's chosen to use run and gun that turn. It's more about having conceal, cutting up the occasional mook when it's safe to conserve ammo/move up, and the insane mobility that comes out of triggering reaper, double move killing someone, proc implacable/untouchable, then single move and then shotgunning someone in the face. If you've lost count, that's a three move run and gun with a free kill thrown in.
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Feb 10, 2016 20:57
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Koorisch posted:So what's everyone's general research and building priorities? I tend to go GTS, proving ground, power relay, resistance comms, AWC.
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Feb 10, 2016 22:06
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Fojar38 posted:*a single civilian dies* Bradford cares about these guys. He went and nodded at them personally.
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Feb 10, 2016 22:11
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So, does it feel like the Bureau is still canon? The visual representation of the avatars look a lot like how ethereal control looks, and the whole control chip thing is very Mosaic.
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Feb 10, 2016 22:17
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RBA Starblade posted:They reference the XCOM project being drafted up in 1999 so it's more just nods towards other games in the franchise than anything specific. In at least one ending (which I picked), you can choose to get the XCOM boss killed, cold bloodedly murder the one guy who knows everything, then gently caress over humanity by erasing all trace of alien technology, shutting down XCOM, and running off to signal the ethereals to come invade.
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Feb 10, 2016 22:35
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You definitely need to display max health, at least for allied characters. You need to decide whether it's worth using a medkit or not.
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Feb 11, 2016 11:37
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TopHatGenius posted:Next I'm gonna try a harder run before getting into a Legendary Ironman run. From what I've seen in the thread, Mimic Beacons are pretty good so I'll have to finally give them a shot. Also someone else asked earlier in the thread but is there a tier 3 version of the grenade launcher? No there isn't. OTOH you do upgrade their range, damage, and damage spread individually so maybe it's less of a deal.
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Feb 11, 2016 12:58
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Peewi posted:I uploaded a new better looking version Honestly, just keep the armour pips the way they are as standard. Units get so few of them that it doesn't matter, and it's actually easier to see in the current system whether an unit has heavy or light armour. If it was me I would just display the HP as a number, no symbol, nothing. Have armour pips next to it as dots. Finally add shields if they are present as a (+X) figure. So you might see Andromedon 30/30 [][][] (+20) Be sure to colour the block to indicate allied or enemy.
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Feb 11, 2016 13:05
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Peewi posted:Andromedon's also don't have 30 health. I'm pretty sure he was just writing random numbers as examples. Yeah, XCOM 2 Long War isn't out yet. Mega shield turrets, say, would make for an interesting mod idea though.
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Feb 11, 2016 13:53
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I'd suggest that the solution to 'gently caress hacking' is to add a permanent +10 or so to hacking skill to all feedback effects. The more you fail, the better you get in future hacks, so the problem self corrects.
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Feb 11, 2016 13:59
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Jabor posted:That would kind of make "fail hacks to get more reinforcements to kill for xp/loot" even better, and it's a bit of a gamey strategy to be encouraging. It's certainly gamey, but it might be fun? The main point is that it's more of an interesting decision. Maybe you'd only add this to the more painful feedback effects. Fangz fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 14:05
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Kitchner posted:That particular example is pretty stupid though, as haywire is basically just mind control, and yet you can easily get 100% mind control against most things. Robots can't be mind controlled. Mind control is one-time per mission. High level psi-troopers are much harder to get.
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Feb 11, 2016 15:12
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Broken Cog posted:Eh, Psi troops just takes time. You don't even have to bring them on missions to level them, so I'd say they're almost easier, or at least safer, to get to max rank. They take time, money, elerium, facility space, research tech... Meanwhile Haywire protocol is a level 2 perk, and the game will eventually throw colonel level soldiers at you in the black market or in resistance HQ. Fangz fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 15:17
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If you think you can replace specialists with Psi troopers because Psi troopers are better, then go ahead and try, I guess. But saying every perk needs to be as good as Dominate is *rather* silly.
Fangz fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 15:30
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Well, Serial might combo well with Salvo, at least. Grenade them, then bam, bam, bam.
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Feb 11, 2016 16:13
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Kitchner posted:Hey yeah, isn't it really silly to say that a perk that takes control of a biological enemy for 3 turns should have the same chance to fire as a perk that takes control of a mechanical enemy for 3 turns despite both needing similar levels of investment! Yes, it is really silly. Like, why pick on Haywire protocol? Why not moan that Suppression is less good than Dominate? Or Deadeye is less good than Dominate? Or insert-skill-there is less good than dominate? The thing to compare Haywire protocol to is Revival protocol, because that's what you're giving up to get it. Haywire is a nice bonus on a class that will be fully 1/4 of your army, with most of its upgrades plot critical (you *have* to get a Skulljack), or which give you significant other upsides than improving haywire chances. It's absurd to compare it to a class that you'll most likely only get one soldier of, which needs you to redirect midgame investment, which has shitloads of other important things to be doing most turns, which steals XP points from the rest of the party if you eliminate enemies with it, which has Dominate as a random roll so you can't even guarantee getting it until waay into the late game. It's already silly enough to ask that every class be as good as a psi-trooper. Are you seriously asking that every *skill* be as good as one of the best skill psi-troopers get? The purpose of game balance is to have that Haywire skill be worth getting sometimes, that specialists are worth bringing sometimes, that haywire button is worth clicking in combat sometimes. It's not to make literally everything of the same value. Just try and not invest in specialists. Good luck. Fangz fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 17:03
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dogstile posted:The reason haywire is being compared to mind control is because both can give you control of an enemy except one of them only does it for a limited amount of turns and can gently caress you over more than "oh dear, he's lost his turn" due to hacking penalties. It's still a bullshit comparison. If you still use haywire then there is no problem.
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Feb 11, 2016 17:23
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The Foundry mission is a bitch though, even when I did that with (partial) plasma.
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Feb 11, 2016 17:33
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Segmentation Fault posted:You can haywire andromedon shells? Yes. I think it's a pretty easy hack too.
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Feb 11, 2016 18:16
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Christ, you're a moron.
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Feb 11, 2016 18:21
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Yeah, the Control is generally the thing you turn to when you are basically looking at a squad wipe anyway, then suddenly you start looking in your entire toolset for any small chance of turning the situation around. Or yeah, you use it speculatively when it's safe (for example, when your squad is across the map from a turret, say, and you want visibility). Dominate is a tool for you to have an alien buddy on every map scouting ahead for you. EDIT: But even if they both did literally the exact same thing, as long as you pick it sometimes there no problem balancewise, because sometimes you'll have a specialist around to do healing or whatever and your psi-operative will already have used his dominate. Fangz fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 18:37
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Caidin posted:The thing about the sequal thats starting to bug me is that someone on the design team is a disciple of the random number god. You want to hack? Better get that +20 bonus if it ever shows up. You wanna have a dragon round sniper? Hope that proving grounds gives you the right bullets and the aliens dropped enough slot machine tokens to fund the effort. Are you getting enough engineers to get the ship up and running? What continent set bonus are on the map and where did you even start? Game design tip - the more random elements there are, the less it matters. The point is that while an individual roll is dicey, it all averages out overall. Don't get that +20 hacking? Maybe you'll get lucky elsewhere with dragon rounds or a serial ranger. Miss out on engineers? Maybe you'll get the continent bonus that makes this trivial. The game gives you lots of mechanics to deal with this variance. For example, you can respec into out of haywire protocol depending on whether you get the +20 hack or not. If proving ground doesn't give you what you want, you can directly buy stuff from the black market or the build item screen. This is all different ways of redirecting being lucky in one area to cover being screwed in another. You'd have to be REALLY UNLUCKY to be screwed in every single area. If you get ten laser sights, sell that stuff for money.
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Feb 11, 2016 18:53
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RBA Starblade posted:I've never even seen it as a possibility. In my game I got a couple of it and my hackers ruled. I was totally screwed on PCS though. Literally the only PCS I ever got was two +2 HP ones. I also only got one basic scope.  Just deal with it.
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Feb 11, 2016 18:57
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Whoops Fangz fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 22:06
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The Iron Rose posted:I've actually never allowed a berserker to have an action. Andromedons will gently caress you up if they use their acid bomb attack. Seriously.
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Feb 12, 2016 01:43
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Beagle claims that dashing while in Concealment is what attracts pods towards you. I guess that explains why me and that other guy were having totally different experiences with respect to the AI 'cheating'.
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Feb 12, 2016 02:30
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Danaru posted:Folks weren't sure last time I asked, but I ran a mission to confirm: Now I'm wondering what an XCOM speedrun would look like.
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Feb 12, 2016 03:52
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It'll look bad but gently caress it, I need my A-team for this Avatar Facility strike and I'm not getting anyone wounded over some dork sending a UFO after me.
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Internet Kraken posted:I can't think of a dark event more harmless than that one. It kinda makes me feel like a jerk though.
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Feb 12, 2016 03:55
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Look at the pips under the alien facilities. Hit the ones with the most.
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Feb 12, 2016 18:15
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I've already said that I think swords are fine as long as you realise they are an occasional thing, not a replacement for guns. Even if they aren't absolutely accurate, remember that you can always check their hit chance before hand and so only use if you are certain to kill the enemy. If you stick to that they make a nice supplement to your ranger that improves their mobility, especially if you didn't take Run and Gun.
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Feb 12, 2016 18:20
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SpookyLizard posted:Hit the loving slash button that's right next to the shoot button that also tells your chance to hit. Also in case people have the wrong impression, reaper is actually great on non-sword focused rangers, because the action point it gives you stacks with implacable and can be used for any purpose. In other words, if you sword kill someone with it, it's at a minimum a double move + kill for completely free.
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Feb 12, 2016 18:41
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necrobobsledder posted:I can't agree that an autohit sword would be overpowered because making a sword attack in itself tends to mean taking a risk in terms of movement and proximity typically away from the squad. A ranger within the squad's ranks should be absolutely suicidal to an attacker and could act a little like a melee form of overwatch (although bladestorm is supposed to serve that function). 100% shots from a distance are substantially more overpowered because they have reduced chances of retaliation, which is why snipers were so insane in XCOM EU/EW. There's no way to make swords do enough damage to keep up with shotguns at present without arguably taking Blademaster instead of Phantom. But given how powerful concealment is I think guaranteed hit chance from a end-game viable blade is balanced with concealment loss. Again, I think people are wrong to insist that swords be balanced against shotguns, because a ranger will probably get both. If you make swords too good, the Concealment vs Run and Gun choice becomes a no-brainer. Sword attacks can also at least sometimes be made very safely thanks to implacable and untouchable. Early game they are great vs sectoids etc Midgame they are something there to compensate for getting concealment instead of Run and Gun Lategame they are used to either ameliorate the high ammo consumption of rapid fire, or for Reaper Fangz fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Feb 12, 2016 |
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Feb 12, 2016 18:50
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SpookyLizard posted:Untouchable protects you from a single attack. I honestly only find it potentially disgusting with reaper, which also lowers your damage output, so that kind of evens out. If you're asking swords be as good as shotguns, wouldn't shotguns then suck as being simply swords that you have to reload, and which can only do a dash attack once every four turns - and that's if you skip Run and Gun?
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Feb 12, 2016 19:15
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Bolow posted:As it exists, the sword is just a really poo poo version of run and gun. With run and gun and implacable you can flank a dude, blow him away with a 100% chance and like +50% crit chance then retreat. At late game you have untouchable and goddamn rapid fire with no turn cooldown as well. The sword on the other hand stops being useful the instant advent start rolling out elite tier enemies and is pretty much relegated to loving up the errant sectoid/viper. Yes, swords are a weaker version of Run and Gun, and Run and Gun competes with Conceal, the best skill in the game. The situation where Reaper is useful (and by almost dead, we really mean less than about 8 hp) comes up pretty drat often because of the availability of grenades, Face Off, Void rift, the fact that killzone stops one shotting enemies, and so on. There's a lot abilities that practically fill your screen with reaperable enemies.
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Feb 12, 2016 19:22
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SpookyLizard posted:The high risk high reward thing is how I look at swords. They can definitely put out damage, but doing so leaves you vulnerable unless you have one or two perks that require kills. And your dash attack requires you to be next to an enemy and potentially activating another pod. Shotguns retain their usefulness of not needing to leave cover and being able to over watch. My ranger still blasts dudes, just not as often. And Rules of NatureCom is incredible fun too. If you're using shotguns like that, why not just use a rifle instead?
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Feb 12, 2016 19:41
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Bolow posted:Conceal has like 4 neat little gimmicks to it and that's it. About the only thing it really excels at is trivializing Blacksite missions and honestly run and gun is better at that once you get the Wraith suit. Killing those weak enemies is still predicated on actually hitting them in the first place, one gently caress up and your rear end is left hanging out in the open and at best you'll be able to complete negate one attack. Otherwise you'll need to burn a mimic beacon or stasis to keep him alive. That's not what you use conceal for. I also literally cannot understand how someone would think phantom is better than conceal, unless they've never used the latter and are functioning under grave misunderstandings. quote:Because a Rifle doesn't hit for 15 damage crits with 100% hit rate and a 50% crit rate at point blank range
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Feb 12, 2016 19:52
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AlternateAccount posted:Phantom actually means they won't pop on overwatch ambushes, which kind of sucks, I think? Exactly. Phantom is the same as conceal, except that with conceal you decide when to use it. If you always use it the first ambush, then it becomes the same except that your guy gets to participate in that ambush, and you don't lose it instantly if you are in an exposed spot. It's 100% an inferior version.
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Feb 12, 2016 19:57
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Bolow posted:Phantom lets your dude start concealed at the start of every mission. Concealment just means you can do it later, which if you're actively engaged means gently caress all because detection ranges are like 12 tiles in range, or it grants you +25 Aim/Crit once a mission, which you're giving Shadowstep up to do it Um, no? A concealed scout lets you cruise around the map in essentially total safety and always initiate with say, the one two combo of a grenade launcher strike and killzone. Kin33 posted:They are both amazing. Conceal is just a more flexible phantom with some niche extra uses. Its just phantom is against a garbage skill while conceal is vs the other best skill in the tree. I take both but you can get by with just phantom and run and gun if that's your style. The +2 sword will help you through the early game, so it's hardly garbage, and if you have multiple phantoms it sucks rear end. My basic point though is that you are giving up something substantial by not picking conceal, so it can't be assumed every ranger has Run and Gun. Fangz fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Feb 12, 2016 |
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Feb 12, 2016 20:01
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Yami Fenrir posted:They were replying to someone who doesn't seem to understand what you use phantom for. I.E. Scouting, not initiating overwatch traps. Nah, I was talking about how Bolow seems to think 'Phantom is the best skill in the game', while 'Conceal is a gimmick good only for solo stealth runs and occasionally getting the shadowstrike bonus', when Conceal is literally the same skill as Phantom except better.
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Feb 12, 2016 20:08
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Megasabin posted:Can someone explain alien line of sight to me? When I'm concealed sometimes they see me and get activated on my turn without me stepping on a space with a red square. What's the deal? Red squares are displayed only for aliens in your current line of sight. If you haven't seen the alien in the first place, or if you've moved the unit that was seeing the enemy to a spot where they can't, you can blunder into an area they can see and get revealed. Be very careful in built up areas for this reason.
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Feb 12, 2016 21:38
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