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XCOM 2 |OT| Be Aggressive! Be Be Aggressive!
- Thread starter Sober
- Start date
Moff
Member
finifshed my first run after 30 hours and I think it was a lot of fun
I wrote earlier that I loved the skills and destroyable environments, that alone made the game tons of fun
but playing the last mission, which was very long, made me realize how much I appreciated that most missions were in small environments and very fast paced.
Usually I despide time limits, but in this game they made a lot of sense.
advancding slowly with overwatch, reloading as much as you like and waiting for psi cooldowns takes out a lot of tactical thinking in this game and make it tedious and honestly boring. the turn limits solved that and made the game better, period.
really a great game and I can't wait what mods and the expansion will bring.
I have to say I did not love the global strategy part of the game a lot, just like the avenger research/upgrades it was serviceable, but lacked something really exciting.
I wrote earlier that I loved the skills and destroyable environments, that alone made the game tons of fun
but playing the last mission, which was very long, made me realize how much I appreciated that most missions were in small environments and very fast paced.
Usually I despide time limits, but in this game they made a lot of sense.
advancding slowly with overwatch, reloading as much as you like and waiting for psi cooldowns takes out a lot of tactical thinking in this game and make it tedious and honestly boring. the turn limits solved that and made the game better, period.
really a great game and I can't wait what mods and the expansion will bring.
I have to say I did not love the global strategy part of the game a lot, just like the avenger research/upgrades it was serviceable, but lacked something really exciting.
LurkerPrime
Member
If I'm spending hundreds of nebulous credits to make this stuff, it better look absolutely beautiful.
I'll pay real money if I want cobbled together armour, thank you very much.
Glitchesarecool
Member
is there a good overall guide for this game somewhere? Something that details how to know what kinds of things take priority and how to understand the underlying mechanics? I want to enjoy playing this, I really liked EW, but I'm getting steamrolled at the start even when putting guys into full cover and moving carefully. I'm not sure what's really going wrong with my playstyle, I thought I was following Beaglerush's/ChristopherOdd's playstyle but I must not be if they can ace legendary and I'm sucking on veteran.
Sorry for my attitude earlier. It's the frustration of spending several hours on a game and suddenly going completely fucked.
Sorry for my attitude earlier. It's the frustration of spending several hours on a game and suddenly going completely fucked.
I guess options are nice. I want a chryssalid head on one shoulder, ADVENT helmet on the other and a berserker headpiece.
Don't have it on my current save to get a full body shot, but here's my crew in the Skyranger from my last game:
All about finding the right color schemes.
LurkerPrime
Member
I don't know any guides, but what's killing you?
XCOM 2 strikes a careful balance between defensiveness and recklessness. The former can be too slow and reactive, but the latter can lead to dire situations where you're outgunned and outmaneuvered. Half the battle is positioning and knowing your enemy, and the other half of that is RNG--so be 100% ready at all times for the worst possible outcome.
As a general tip, itility items, especially grenades, make for a good panic button when everything goes pear-shaped.
Holy shit what the hell is this last mission. Who thought spawning 6 codexes on the field at the same time is fun? I've thought the game is fair up to this point, but chasing down these damn codexes that clone and make you waste a turn reloading is just tedious. On top of that there are like 10 other enemies on the field.
I've liked the game throughout but fighting codexes is the worst fucking thing. They aren't fun or satisfying to fight at all.
I've liked the game throughout but fighting codexes is the worst fucking thing. They aren't fun or satisfying to fight at all.
post up some vids of your play and I'll take a look.
RandomSeed
Member
Pure garbage. Like they didn't test it at all. I've run into more bugs, glitches, performance problems, and just WTF moments than the rest of the game put together. I'm like a salty pretzel right now.
Performance is janky. Single digit FPS, back up, and back down. Long pauses. Game hanging due to so many spawns at once. I misclicked more than once due to the camera jerking back and forth.
My grenadiers couldn't toss anything past 4 tiles. I have no clue what was going on there. I knew I'd face Codex enemies there, so I took a flashbang, but couldn't even use it. I also couldn't toss it around the cover my soldier was standing it. It was like EU/EW again.
I had a corrupt save my first trip through, had to redo the entire mission.
Funky LOS on that map.
This game...is fantastic, but I don't think I'll ever do that mission again. Beating it on commander difficulty is enough for me, and now when I replay it, I'll just stop at this part. I thought the story missions in EW were a little boring, but I'd gladly take boring over whatever this is. Shame too, since I was pretty pumped going into it.
Slackbladder
Member
Glitchesarecool
Member
My internet won't allow it, sorry.
Like I said, I don't really know what ends up happening, I guess I'm trying to be a little too forward but even when I have a bunch of dudes carefully positioned, I seem to get caught off guard anyway. RNG is a cruel mistress with those 70+% shots.
Oopsie. Fixed, uploaded a new file (thanks Firaxis for not letting us to delete characters inside a Pool file)
ISee
Member
I'm following this thread from the beginning and some people tend to underplay this games difficulty. Do not give up.
The early game is challenging because you are under equipped and your soldiers do not have enough abilities to give you more than a certain way to handle situations. In general I follow a simple kill order during the early game Viper>Lance>Officer>Trooper>Sectoid. Full cover, flashbangs (even during full cover) and normal grenades are a must do and even than you'll get hit from time to time, that's just how it is. It's sometimes also more important to destroy cover with your grenades than dealing damage. Also do not forget to hack a tower from time to time to increase your hacking skill (normally at the end of a mission).
Once you get better weapons, armor and you start to increase your squad size and soldier skills the game becomes more easy and the mid game isn't too difficult. The late game on the other side is again a step up. Without the right tech and equipment (especially proving ground items) missions can get incredibly hard.
When reaching the mid game, go asap for PSI ops to get their crowd control and guaranteed damage abilities, spend most of your rare Elerium Cores to develop grenades and ammunition etc. (more important than exo or war suits in the beginning, ignore experimental armor completly) and do not forget to train and develope some B team soldiers. The shadow chamber will later show you what kind of enemy composition you are going to face off against during a mission. Use that information to adjust your grenade types, ammunition, rockets and other kind of equipment and always bring one or two mimic beacons with you. They're your later 'oh shit' buttons.
Felix Lighter
Member
Getting plasma grenades has been a big turning point for me.
toastyToast
Member
I think I fucked up. It's June and I've still got units with 8 health. I'm having to save scum my ass off because the big enemies introduced can easily wipe my squad.
Is the plated armor research the one that bumps everyone up?
Is the plated armor research the one that bumps everyone up?
RandomSeed
Member
I didn't realize the middle mouse button zooms the camera out. I am dumbass.
roadrunn3r
Member
It's all about calculated risk, don't let the % system fool you. You can manage bad RNG with redundancy. Which soldier has to attack which enemy and what's the backup plan if it fails. This one ranger can only attack one enemy, start with him as he can't do anything else. The sharpshooter can take out 3 of them with serial if you soften them up first etc etc. It's almost never a fool proof thing but you can minimize risk which is what you want. Last thing, use mimic beacons as your oh shit button as they are really effective at that. Sounds more complicated than it really is but you will do all these things instinctively when you get used to it.
Aztechnology
Member
Depends on who you're using it on. It's ungodly say on a gunslinger, and still very good on a late game sniper. Generally low level ones aren't worth it though I agree.
ISee
Member
Gunslingers sound like a good idea thx. I was only thinking about rangers with rapid fire, extended mags, scopes + psi troops with inspire.
Basically when the shit hits the fan, the game stops being a tactical SRPG and becomes a puzzle game. How exactly do you optimise the turn so you deal the most damage and put everything you have at the least amount of risk when you end your turn.
I think most people do the thing where they get control of a character then run their turn out instead of cycling through. I totally stopped doing that when I started watching Beaglerush. Sure he acts like a hilarious goof but at high level play there's quite a lot to consider and yes I am playing on Vet only but I find myself using the same things I learned while watching Beagle playing LW and my experience in LW and I'm doing things like ending many missions either flawless or only 2 wounded soldiers and generally blowing up pods on reveal or on the following turn rather than trying to draw out a firefight and trying to get ahead through accuracy by volume or other suboptimal tactics.
And yeah, having redundancies or re-evaluating what you will do when a shot misses, or grenade doesn't roll top end damage that would kill that enemy, is required.
Unless you mod it you can't put repeaters on pistols, so...
weapon upgrades on your sniper count for your pistol.
Aztechnology
Member
Edit: read below.
Apparently not, just ammo. Unless you have a DOT effect from poison rounds or Dragon rounds. Which is probably a bug, but can proc it the repeater. That must of been what was proccing from my gunslinger.
Sounds like a crime when it doesn't apply to the ranger sword though?
RandomSeed
Member
Pretty sure mods do not effect the pistol, but ammo types certainly do.
Aztechnology
Member
Ranger swords outside of early game are completely useless. Especially on harder difficulties. That's the real crime.
That's my take, too.
The soldier mod thing (like, advanced focus, perception and agility) affect everything you do, tho.
LurkerPrime
Member
I have an execution mod on one dude's sniper rifle and it's definitely triggered on his pistol... from a fire effect.
Might just be a bug, I guess. It's a piddly 5% chance, and I've never seen it trigger from a direct pistol shot.
Might just be a bug, I guess. It's a piddly 5% chance, and I've never seen it trigger from a direct pistol shot.
RandomSeed
Member
Yeah, aim PCS on my gunslinger really helped.
Speaking about ammo and stuff, the description for bluescreen rounds says it bypasses mech armor, but it seems to me armor is still soaking up some of the damage?
roadrunn3r
Member
Yup the "puzzle" thing it's one of the reasons I like the game. I feel no shame that I've learned mostly by save scumming on difficult situations. How can I do this differently combining the limited skills and make them work together. Triggering that overwatch with Flush in EW was eye opening.
I watched also quite some Beagle vids so I know what you mean. Still waiting for him to upload his run on youtube, don't have time to follow the stream unfortunately.You guys were right about gunslinger. Fuck my gunslinger is clutch. Right now, I have him and my sniper in my main party.
Main thing now is I'm wondering if there's any point to having a ranger. Yeah mine is shadow specced and all he's good for is scouting, which is great in missions where I'm concealed in the beginning. I don't have him shooting much though.
Also, I'm still on magnetic weapons and only two of my soldiers have any major armor upgrades. Just finished the Shadow Center and now I'm fighting Archons. I'm researching Plasma Weapons with 10 days on its clock.
At the moment, I have 2 blocks remaining on the Avatar Project. I had let it go all the way to the end while grinding my soldiers to be capable.
Any tips from this point on into the game?
Main thing now is I'm wondering if there's any point to having a ranger. Yeah mine is shadow specced and all he's good for is scouting, which is great in missions where I'm concealed in the beginning. I don't have him shooting much though.
Also, I'm still on magnetic weapons and only two of my soldiers have any major armor upgrades. Just finished the Shadow Center and now I'm fighting Archons. I'm researching Plasma Weapons with 10 days on its clock.
At the moment, I have 2 blocks remaining on the Avatar Project. I had let it go all the way to the end while grinding my soldiers to be capable.
Any tips from this point on into the game?
Yay, victory!
That last mission was interesting.
All in all, good fun, will play again when the DLC comes out, but Street Fighter V is too close to launch to start a new game immediately.
And final cutscene spoilers:
That last mission was interesting.
I didn't expect it to be underwater, and the human habitat was fantastic. "Is that... a kitchen? Why is there a kitchen here?"
All in all, good fun, will play again when the DLC comes out, but Street Fighter V is too close to launch to start a new game immediately.
And final cutscene spoilers:
When's Terror from the Deep coming? Or is it a Pacific Rim thing and they're setting up for Kaiju vs. XCOM? Because I'd buy the hell out of that.
I find the ranger useful for getting 2 massive damage flank shots from concealment in per mission. Position them behind the enemy when the rest of the squad is revealed, take the shot, conceal again, pincer another pod (or sneak behind to the objective while you distract the guards).
My other tip would be to research experimental grenades. Acid bombs are fantastic. Bluescreen rounds and nades are also very good I hear.
Finished the campaign on normal today. That last mission is a pain. Mind control all over the place. Lost two troopers in the final room and had to reload once after the guy who has to live got potshotted by a muton. Run & Gun + Rapid Fire + Scoped Shotgun is still the best unit in the game.My grenade launchers were all buggy and refused to aim in some directions that map which was weird too.
Ranger killed all four Avatars I faced with that combo in my game.
Oh yeah he's a great scout, but I'm not seeing how to effectively get kills with him compared to everyone else except for a gunslinger, who I probably have too far back tbqh.
Question: How are you attacking twice with 2 massive damage flanks? Also, how are you concealing again?
Poodlestrike
Banned
It might end up being Terror from the Deep esque, but I really really doubt it'll be anything like TFTD, since Jake Solomon is apparently not much of a fan.
roadrunn3r
Member
I have my rangers shadow specced too except Run&gun and Untouchable which I like better for how I play. They are quite versatile imo, activate pods on my own terms, damage dealing is not bad at all especially with special ammo and crit.mods. Very high mobility is a life saver when I screw up and you can train them to +3 dmg when you flank which is huge. One of my rangers has the second most kills (after a sharpshooter) so a lot of shooting too.
Second. You can bring wounded troops on the next mission, so just don't get them killed.
Dick Justice
Banned
The one I linked to pretty much is a re-skin (well, re-model). It adds another variant of the normal assault rifle to the game with the same stats (which can be modified via an .ini file).
Also.
