XCOM 2

Oh I don't know why this wasn't covered in the tactical tutorial (I always play the tutorial once just to see it) but there is also a waypoint system for movement. Hold down ctrl and you can dictate the exact path your soldier takes if you're trying to avoid being spotted.

*edit*

Also for those who weren't following the thread when the press version was being streamed, if your concealment is broken by the enemy uncovering a flanked or exposed soldier, there is a chance that they will shoot at that soldier instead of scattering to cover. They implemented this because the Beagle maneuver, where you set up an overwatch trap then leave an exposed soldier to guarantee the ambush triggers was considered too powerful, since you would get all your overwatch shots and then you would get your followup turn to mop up the pod without ever being shot at.

Slightly confused i'm on mission 4 or 5 i think and the aliens won't attack me.....is this a bug?

Also it seems like the alien activity portion is wonky, it doesn't show anyone doing anything and takes a long time even though there is like 2 aliens alive.

Other then that great so far except i wasted abunch of money early buying my special made recruits thinking they get the classes you assign them at creation but apparently that isn't the case. I thought i read somewhere you had a choice of what your recruits became but i guess not.

I went ahead and started over. Campaign might have been fine since I hadn't taken any soldier losses yet, but whatever. I've decided the warfare center rush was a huge waste. Beagle was either getting incredibly lucky or else he modded the random ability list, because he was pretty consistently getting some great stuff whereas I was consistently getting shit. So this time I rushed straight to proving ground, which I'll follow up with the GTS, the probably a radio dealie, then warfare center. I'd like to build the psi facility before the warfare center but I figure by that point I'll really be wanting the accelerated healing.

Steadily churning out experimental grenades/ammo as soon as possible with the proving ground seems like the best starting option, along with taking your first ranger along to every mission to unlock squad size upgrades asap. As any XCom veteran knows, squad size upgrades are critical, not just for making missions easier but also for getting more total xp per mission.

Turbo_sl said:

Other then that great so far except i wasted abunch of money early buying my special made recruits thinking they get the classes you assign them at creation but apparently that isn't the case. I thought i read somewhere you had a choice of what your recruits became but i guess not.

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GTS allows you to spend 5 days training a rookie to squaddie and picking their class.

TJT_sl said:

Playing through on Veteran dicking around a bit just to I understand how shit works before starting Ironman. So far I absolutely love the Specialist and Ranger. Sniper is as valuable as usual. Been rushing tech to heal faster because it seems the threshold for gravely wounded is a bit lower than I remember it.

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Threshold is the same, just aliens are consistently hitting harder. Definitely makes you feel like an underdog risking everything to find an advantage. What is the pathway to faster healing though? Feels like I can't escape without one Soldier taking a random hit from across the map that even my sniper would miss.

Any comments on them not attacking me? About to finish the first ADvent blacksite mission and still have been yet to be fired on since the initial mission......something is seriously wrong.

TJT_sl said:

Advanced Warfare Center speeds up the heals. But from what Gavin says its not worth going for first. Seems to be the first thing to hit is the Proving Ground for +bonus mods and GWC. Going for the HQ bonuses for faster heals too when I get them. Really digging how the map/base works this time around.

Created a pool of my Office/random friends to lead into the fray in Ironman mode today. Not sure why I got so much pleasure from doing that.

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Advanced Warfare WITH an engineer staffing it speeds up heals. It also allows you to respec soldiers, and gives you a chance to get a random free perk on ranking up. The perks are super random, often useless, and not terribly common. The proving ground is the first facility you have to build to progress the story (just like alien containment in EU/EW), but even without any other research it immediately lets you start working on experimental ammo/grenade projects using elerium cores. Having an engineer staff it speeds up the project, but the proving ground still functions without staff.

Commander/Ironman from the start, lets just say the Earth has lost quite a few times already learning the systems. Great fun, great feel.

I'm also playing it entirely with the steam controller - Firaxis provided a config. Outside of learning the buttons and missing clicks - like when I hit move instead of ability accessing. I'm not as proficient or fast as with kb mouse - but I am slowly getting there. I have yet to feel like the steam controller or the UI are fighting me. I just don't quite have my brain around some of the button presses just yet. The config really shows off what the controller can do - and I'm sure there are ways to improve it potentially, I just want to play right now vs dick with configs though.

Took a few restarts but finally got enemies to start fighting back; kind of makes abit of difference Now i can start enjoying the game. Seems early on ranger with sword goes ape shit; aiming for a sniper X 2, grenadier, ranger, and specialist team of 5 soon as my group expands. I always ran duo snipers in Xcom and just love the long range bombs. Seems like on vet difficulty its kind of dumb to use a grendier much because you blow your loot up right? Maybe needed on harder difficulty to survive but rather not loose my bling

You'd go proving before GTS? I just began playing. You unlock proving from the autopsy, right? The GTS school is only a 7 day build, that extra squad member is pretty powerful, is it locked behind rank like in EW? (And the ability to push a rookie from Rook to SQ is also huge.)

Also, I'm not sure why they did the character pool thing. You can change gender and nationality after you get recruits now. However, if you make your character pool before hand, and get them as a recruit, it's possible you won't get the class you wanted.

I have fucking a pasty white dude named Charles Xavier, "Professor X" who was supposed to be Psi Ops but is now a grenadier, meanwhile my huge bearded scared and tatted guy who was supposed to be a grenadier is my support. lol.

Like the random starting locations , thats very cool. Started in Asia and that bonus +1 to weapon mod slots is awesome and grabbed the extra loot drop and shit is great. Man such a huge improvement over the 1st game. Enjoying this game so much , really hope they support this with some awesome DLC/Expansions. But the downsides for me have been performance. Get stutters when they drop into a map and a freeze after they return to base just prior to my squad walking towards the screen.Then have a sound crackle when the map is being loaded and it happens at the same time on every map. Things im sure will be fixed with a patch , hopefully soon too.

Turbo_sl said:

Took a few restarts but finally got enemies to start fighting back; kind of makes abit of difference

Now i can start enjoying the game. Seems early on ranger with sword goes ape shit; aiming for a sniper X 2, grenadier, ranger, and specialist team of 5 soon as my group expands. I always ran duo snipers in Xcom and just love the long range bombs. Seems like on vet difficulty its kind of dumb to use a grendier much because you blow your loot up right? Maybe needed on harder difficulty to survive but rather not loose my bling

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In my experience only one enemy per mission can drop loot and it's only destroyed if an explosive deals the death blow. I pretty much always take two grenadiers, between the cover destruction, longer range on the launcher, and experimental grenades, I think they're probably the best all around class. Rangers are incredibly potent in the early game, so I usually field a second one of those for a while when I get my second squad size upgrade. Sharpshooters seem rather mediocre early on, I'm assuming they power up significantly in higher ranks.

Lithose_sl said:

You'd go proving before GTS? I just began playing. You unlock proving from the autopsy, right? The GTS school is only a 7 day build, that extra squad member is pretty powerful, is it locked behind rank like in EW? (And the ability to push a rookie from Rook to SQ is also huge.)

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Rank locked to SGT. I build GTS immediately after proving, so at worst I'm missing the first squad size upgrade for a mission, maybe two. Meanwhile I get my first experimental grenade finished and the skulljack started before the GTS even finishes. No point doing any ammo projects until you're about ready to switch to predator armor, you won't have the loadout space.

Gavinmad_sl said:

In my experience only one enemy per mission can drop loot and it's only destroyed if an explosive deals the death blow. I pretty much always take two grenadiers, between the cover destruction, longer range on the launcher, and experimental grenades, I think they're probably the best all around class. Rangers are incredibly potent in the early game, so I usually field a second one of those for a while when I get my second squad size upgrade. Sharpshooters seem rather mediocre early on, I'm assuming they power up significantly in higher ranks.



Rank locked to SGT. I build GTS immediately after proving, so at worst I'm missing the first squad size upgrade for a mission, maybe two. Meanwhile I get my first experimental grenade finished and the skulljack started before the GTS even finishes. No point doing any ammo projects until you're about ready to switch to predator armor, you won't have the loadout space.

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Oh i was under the impression the items you got from killing them (not the pick up loot but just general stuff) got destoyed as well but i'll have to test. If i don't lose those (you get something on about every kill) then fuck those guys would be awesome. Money is so tight though if it costs you the auto dropped stuff that you can sell in a pinch it doesn't seem worth it.

What general stuff? I haven't seen anything aside from corpses, which still drop when you use explosives. I did see a 'such and such has been destroyed' message once early in my last campaign that I assume was the pick up gear that would have dropped when he died.