XCOM 2

Gavinmad_sl said:

lmfao THAT'S XCOM BABY

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Haha, that is almost exactly what happened to me the other day when I rage-posted. I started a new game and am doing much better. I realized that moving to flank is almost never a good idea unless you've more than cleared the angle of attack. It is kind of a shame that the game pretty actively discourages using a basic gameplay element on higher difficulties where the pod density is so high. You are almost always better off just blowing up the cover.

Denaut_sl said:

You are almost always better off just blowing up the cover.

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Yep. 2 Grenadiers with a total of 8 explosives between them, my MO on the current playthrough is;

1) Move in straight line to objective while scanning flanks
2) If wall, scan with gremlin and explode strategically (soften a pack near the wall / give the sniper LOS to shoot / give the specialist LOS to hack / make a door for the concealed ranger)
3) Proceed to blow up the rest of the building as activations occur
4) Clean up with sniper and specialist

Of course, if I have too many injured grenadiers life becomes a little shitty for a week or two. But that doesn't really happen now that the top two have Salvo and can clean up or clear out after tossing ordnance.

Mist_sl said:

It'll be hard to make Terror from the Deep anywhere near as good as this game. I'm absolutely loving the thematic/aesthetic elements of X-com as an insurgent resistance force in this game. Very few games have managed to match thematic elements to gameplay mechanics as well as this game has.

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I didn't know they were making Terror...

If so, it'll be great if they focus on the Geoscape strategy game and base building. Those are sorely missed from this game. This game is far more linear and keeps you on the path compared to previous X-Com games. Not complaining one bit, it matches the story and flows perfectly, but it's not really the game I was expecting. I really hope they use the opportunity to scratch the Strategy itch and move back towards 4X-5X (bad use of the term).

So many 4x games out there, don't really need another. Glad new x-com focuses on the combat.

Gonna put so many hours into this game. I never dicked around with the multiplayer at all in the last one, but I can see myself putting a lot of time into this time. I played a private match against a friend yesterday and it was a good time even though it does take awhile between turns. My friend was saying he heard something about co-op missions, maybe as a mod? Anyone hear anything about that? Also, I didn't try, but I wonder if you can make a private match with more than 2 ppl?, if not a mod that would allow you to do so would be nice.

mures_sl said:

So many 4x games out there, don't really need another. Glad new x-com focuses on the combat.

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Yeah we are all very glad about the new game. I'm talking about the next one. This series always focused on squad combat, but we also used to get another game on top of that. I just hope they don't entirely scrap what made the series great, and what made Interceptor and Bureau suck ass. Terror being a remake, I'd expect more something along the lines of the previous game. This one is very much like Apoc in story, without all that bullshit corporation stuff. I just hope they don't completely drop underwater bases, interceptors, water combat tech, etc... because we are all so very glad about this game they assume we want the exact same game again. There is so much "illusion of choice" in this game that it's the only thing keeping it from near perfect. Fortunately it's so highly moddable I imagine over the next couple years myself and every other person can get exactly what they want out of it.

Also if there's an abundance of 4x squad combat games comparable to Xcom I'm completely out of the loop.

I never finished EW due to game crashing bugs constantly on my save(s), and didn't have time to restart again... I'm tempted by this but worried about the whole tons-of-time-limit-missions thing though. I normally hate that, is it pretty obnoxious here or does it mostly end up not mattering?

I realized something about that video right before I went to bed last night. What really went wrong was when that soldier got critically hit and killed by the viper that wasn't even flanking her, which is when the failure cascade actually started. I realize hindsight is 20/20 but instead of overwatching she should have hunkered down. If she survives the shot from the Viper, the AI priorities force the MEC to shoot at an exposed target rather than grenade the high ground. Even if the soldier on the ground still dies, and the one soldier panics and reveals yet another pod, the mission could still maybe be completed or at least call down evac on those two soldiers and salvage something instead of having a total disaster.

Amzin_sl said:

I never finished EW due to game crashing bugs constantly on my save(s), and didn't have time to restart again... I'm tempted by this but worried about the whole tons-of-time-limit-missions thing though. I normally hate that, is it pretty obnoxious here or does it mostly end up not mattering?

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For the most part concealment makes the timers not a big deal, the timers are just there to keep you moving at a reasonably brisk pace. If it weren't for the timers, concealment would make the missions too easy since it would be very easy to engage and pick pods apart one by one.

Just finished my first game (Commander/a few instances of save scumming in the early game). Candidate for game of the year already. The final fight ended in a epic fashion for me, but was spoiled by the Steam achievements popping up before the actions are played out:

Not as great as some of the repeater stories I've read on reddit but that's pretty awesome.

Gavinmad_sl said:

Not as great as some of the repeater stories I've read on reddit but that's pretty awesome.

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Heh yeah I can imagine, had a few fun moments with repeater too.

Some overall thoughts:
- Melee Ranger needs some boosts. I guess the Sword hit chance caps at 90%? With a shotgun you can get 100% plenty, plus you can chose your position better and do more damage.
- Stealth ambush loses its importance further in the game, but having a Phantom character who doesn't reveal himself throughout the mission is gold. Had my Healer Specialist pick up Phantom through the AWC. Healing and buffing doesn't break stealth.
- Talking about the AWC, I didn't realize at all how it worked giving extra skills and built is way too late (actually my healer was the only char to puck up an extra skill from it).
- Proving Grounds are a lottery (which I can live with) and time is the restraining factor, not resources.
- Avatar project is easy to counter even when it's full.
- I will definitely take a better look at the continent bonuses before I start expanding my influence.
- Mind Control and robot hacking are great for providing decoys and cannon fodder scouts.
- The Mimic Beacon is OP indeed. Only carried one around though, but it was an 'oh shit' button I kept at hand.
- Pistols: great early game, but later respeced my gunslinger to a sniper.
- Ranger Untouchable skill is excellent, as is Implacable. Move into flanking position (don't mind being in cover yourself), shotgun to the face with Rapid Fire to be sure, move out into cover and tank 1 free attack.

DiddleySquat_sl said:

- Talking about the AWC, I didn't realize at all how it worked giving extra skills and built is way too late (actually my healer was the only char to puck up an extra skill from it).

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All you need to do is build it before your soldier gets colonel. (From the developers)

The AWC doesn't give a random chance to gain an ability on each level-up.

What happens is that each soldier gets a single AWC ability rolled for either when the AWC is built (for existing soldiers) or when the soldier is obtained (AWC already built).

The AWC ability is randomly pulled from "cross class abilities" -- not a list, but configured with a boolean in each ability.

The AWC is stored along with the level at which it will unlock. When the soldier reaches that level (or returning from first mission if already there), then the ability will be unlocked.

Source: I looked at the code, and the LW Officer mod stores the officer abilities in the same AWCAbilities array.

However, in legendary I know I'm going to need to replace proving grounds with AWC in my build order. Wounds on legendary can take 35+ days to heal, all wound timers are doubled. You essentially need this facility earlier. (My build order for commander is, if the first place I have is an excavated corner, is GTS-->Power Relay-->Proving grounds. Then the next floor Radio Comms---Work Shop---AWC. This matrix lets me turn 2 engineers into 4, it also lets you use gremlins to dig out the adjacent facilities. So I actually dig down the center column below the power relay first, and build the work shop first, then have one engineer dig out both the side alien materials--which speeds up overall construction a great deal. It seems kind of counter intuitive to build a power relay second, when you're desperately rushing other facilities, but it ends up being a small delay and provides you with a huge amount more flexibility later.)

I think the only thing melee ranger really needs to keep up with end game is for blademaster to scale with tech level. So +4 damage with arc blade, +6 damage with fusion blade. Also, Shadowstrike works on melee attacks (i.e. guarantees 100% hit rate) if your target can't see the ranger when you start your turn. Maybe even when you start the attack, so if your target is close enough, you might be able to blue move to break los, then yellow move back in with the benefit of Shadowstrike.

With the nerf to the beagle maneuver, stealth ambushes are pointless because you're putting too great a risk on the soldier who triggers the ambush. I just use the initial concealment to set up a favorable engagement on the first pod I encounter, or even intentionally engage two pods at once if I can break concealment with something like face off or a really favorable heavy weapon/acid/incendiary.

According to the folks on reddit who dug into the code, when AWC is built it randomly determines a rank that each soldier you have gets his bonus perk, with a 1 in 8 chance that a soldier doesn't get a perk at all. The problem is if a soldier is already past the rank that he would have gotten the perk, he never gets it. This would be reasonably balanced as an incentive to build the AWC early if it weren't for the very high chance that the bonus perk is total garbage. Sure you win the lottery every now and then, but for every ranger who gets serial or sharpshooter that gets run & gun, you get 10 specialists with salvo.

Proving Grounds aren't much of a lottery. There is only one bad special ammo and no bad grenades.

I think there needs to be a mod where the timer you get when the avatar progress bar fills up doesn't reset every time you knock the progress back. So you get X days per campaign at full avatar progress before the game is over, and any time you spend dicking around without immediately hitting a black site is lost for good.

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@Lithose it was confirmed by people checking the way it works that the devs are wrong. If your soldier is past the rank he would have gotten a perk from the AWC, he never gets it. I can tentatively confirm this from my veteran playthrough where my regular soldiers were mostly majors and colonels when I built the AWC and I only ever had 2 people get perks. So unless I got incredibly unlucky and most of my soldiers rolled the 'never get a perk', you don't get the perk if you're past the rank that the AWC determines you should get it.

Sounds like a mod will be out shortly to alert you to when a toon will get its AWC perk

Gavinmad_sl said:

@Lithose it was confirmed by people checking the way it works that the devs are wrong. If your soldier is past the rank he would have gotten a perk from the AWC, he never gets it. I can tentatively confirm this from my veteran playthrough where my regular soldiers were mostly majors and colonels when I built the AWC and I only ever had 2 people get perks. So unless I got incredibly unlucky and most of my soldiers rolled the 'never get a perk', you don't get the perk if you're past the rank that the AWC determines you should get it.

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Edit: It appears it's not the case that if you retrain you get hiddens. Apparently it might reroll the rank, but you don't just automatically get it. Hmm. I wonder if this is intentional given what the developers wanted. There is a mod that auto-grants you the ability, makes it retroactive, but not sure if I want to mod the game if the developers intended this to be a perk for building the AWC early.

I can go doublecheck from my save before I started the end game, but I definitely respecced multiple soldiers and never got the bonus perk.

Gavinmad_sl said:

I can go doublecheck from my save before I started the end game, but I definitely respecced multiple soldiers and never got the bonus perk.

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Yeah, it is looking like that's not the case. There isalready a mod out for it though.To make it retroactive, it does not mess with achievements, and given what the developer said and how often you get dog shit abilities, I'm thinking this was unintentional.

Also, I was kind of cold toward phantom rangers before but after growing more comfortable with how concealment works, I'm pretty convinced they are the most useful class in the game. Early game, I agree with Gav, blade master for the first ranger is probably better to finish things off, since your snipers still have shit aim. But once you have a sniper above Sgt, using phantom rangers as spotters and setting up your guys outside of site range on overwatch is a brutal trap mechanic. (Normally overwatch traps are dog shit. But in this case, if you're far enough away, the mobs will expend both movement points getting to your sniper. Since they don't "see" the rest of your guys, they won't save turns to fire or move cautiously, so you get to shoot and then get your turn. Doing this with heavy weapons later, like a rocket launcher is even better. In both these cases you don't need to wait for pathing either so you can do it with count down timers.)

Not to mention phantom rangers getting to start in concealment on retaliation missions or anything else without concealment.

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I think I'll try the dedicated SMG scout ranger on my next playthrough just to see how it plays out.

I highly suggest against SMG ranger until t2/3. T1 is extremely punishing where you're hurting for dmg/skills/stats/items to compensate and compliment the low dmg/bonus mob. Pound for pound you're better off with an AR/SG Ranger until t2. I have one dedicated as a Skulker and it didn't work at all until she had a PCS boost, skeleton armor and I could actually handle the level designer randomly fucking her.

IMHO, the only person that should take an SMG from t1/squaddie is your specialist as keeping them safe but being able to make the clutch hack/stabilize sprint.

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I don't know if I'm close to finishing or not, but has anyone gotten the OP - achievement yet? Thinking of starting an easy campaign and running Team Delta - All Phantom/Conceal Rangers to unlock it then see how far I can go without anyone else except maybe 1 sniper.

I'm hardly deep in the game but so far hilarity generally abounds with 3-4 rangers, a spec, a grenadier and a sniper if theres room, plus a couple of mimics and a battlefield scanner. Gives me a very wanton fast and loose style.