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XCOM 2 |OT| Be Aggressive! Be Be Aggressive!

Do it early. I did it as soon as I hit Squad Size 5 and had a few free vets. If you do it early enough, enemy
You won't even get anything other than Advent and Sectoids

It was the same deal in Enemy Unknown. If you did the missions early you avoided a lot of nasty advanced monsters.
I did rush guerilla tactics school and got squad size 5, but I've yet to make contact with anywhere else and have no weapon upgrades, you sure this is a good idea?
 
I did rush guerilla tactics school and got squad size 5, but I've yet to make contact with anywhere else and have no weapon upgrades, you sure this is a good idea?

I would wait on the Black Site mission, to be honest. Use the time to build up your contacts and do research and the like and don't worry so much about the Avatar Project. Once it starts getting close to filling up you can do the Black Site to relieve some of that pressure, and by that time you should have Mag Weapons and Predator Armor.
 
Welp... I just missed a 99% shot for the first time and it got a guy killed...
What's so annoying about missing high percentage shots is you never compensate for them by taking low percentage shots. Who's going to take a 10% to hit? Or even a 20% let alone a 1%? You never make up for your misses even though technically you can. It's always against you.That said once or twice I've got sub 30% chances but that's still nearly one in three, I know I'll never take a one in ten shot.
 

dumbo

Member
Okay, so my first playthrough I failed nearly instantly. Like two missions in.

The *second* tutorial mission can be a complete nightmare depending on where the game spawns the enemies/cover. I restarted that mission 3 times on commander with 3 dead/4 dead (wipe)/1 minor injury.

The game isn't easy, but that mission is much harder than the mission you get if you choose to skip the tutorial. Personally, I'd suggest turning the difficulty down for that mission.
 

Carcetti

Member
What's so annoying about missing high percentage shots is you never compensate for them by taking low percentage shots. Who's going to take a 10% to hit? Or even a 20% let alone a 1%? You never make up for your misses even though technically you can. It's always against you.That said once or twice I've got sub 30% chances but that's still nearly one in three, I know I'll never take a one in ten shot.

That's why grenades are so good. Guaranteed hit and cover removal. The proper way to kill an alien is not to have a 85% shot at it, it's to shoot a grenade and have two different guys line up two 85% yellow shots. Suddenly the odds don't just matter anymore.
 
That's why grenades are so good. Guaranteed hit and cover removal. The proper way to kill an alien is not to have a 85% shot at it, it's to shoot a grenade and have two different guys line up two 85% yellow shots. Suddenly the odds don't just matter anymore.
Indeed. But I almost think it's cheating to rely on Grenadiers/grenades. Not by much though.
 

Carcetti

Member
Indeed. But I almost think it's cheating to rely on Grenadiers/grenades. Not by much though.

Sorta, but I feel it just make sense. Happily my attitude with theses things is that if it makes sense, I won't mind. If you got angry aliens on the loose, you'll probably want to just blow everything to hell with high explosives. That's how I even justify shooting bunch of clustered civilians with nades if I'm sure they got a faceless in there.
 

Jintor

Member
yeah speaking of which is so gosh darn easy to be a terrorist in this game. I hope somewhere is keeping track of 'civilians accidentally murdered'.

It doesn't help they don't run away from fire effects and so one burned to death when I started off combat with incendiary nades despite being 3 or 4 tiles away from fire
 

mercviper

Member
What's so annoying about missing high percentage shots is you never compensate for them by taking low percentage shots. Who's going to take a 10% to hit? Or even a 20% let alone a 1%? You never make up for your misses even though technically you can. It's always against you.That said once or twice I've got sub 30% chances but that's still nearly one in three, I know I'll never take a one in ten shot.

Yesterday I missed 88%, 84% followed by a 91% to finish off a sectoid to try and drop his zombie that would more than likely 1shot someone. Saved by the 34% when all that was over, but the initial chain of misses was unreal. On Legend too so no aim assists I think.

On another note, probably the worst part about restarting Legendary campaigns is relying on Long Watch when your new snipers are just squaddies lol.
 
yeah speaking of which is so gosh darn easy to be a terrorist in this game. I hope somewhere is keeping track of 'civilians accidentally murdered'.

It doesn't help they don't run away from fire effects and so one burned to death when I started off combat with incendiary nades despite being 3 or 4 tiles away from fire
There's also a (cosmetic) bug where they sometimes don't get "scared" when shit goes down, and instead walk through the firefight like they're taking an evening stroll.
 

ISee

Member
Honestly I'd pay money for a warhammer 40k total conversion mod. Starting with a 'weak' scout troop and developing your marines and unlocking better gear over time. Your goal: help defeating a tyranid, csm or ork invasion.

One can dream.
 

Sblargh

Banned
There's also a (cosmetic) bug where they sometimes don't get "scared" when shit goes down, and instead walk through the firefight like they're taking an evening stroll.

Oh, I hate that so much. Because you have to wait for them to stop walking before being control back from the game.
 
So, I decided to do a GAF run on legend ironman and will update y'all as to make me play to the end, be it my end or the alien's. No restarting until some ending movie plays.

No editing to make character pool more likely because I unshackled some stuff that prevents rookies from looking crazy, so I like my crazy rookies.

Some gifs of the first mission.
Mupod and Glitchesarecool are on my initial squad. The other two are generic rookies, but I hope everyone will learn to love them.

LikableUncomfortableHoopoe.gif


It's the first mission, so the plan is simple: find a building and cheese the height bonus. I set up my ambush and...

BlindLateKangaroo.gif


...the other people on the pod don't seem to notice their dead comrade, meaning that Mupod will have to go and be bait.

OldEnragedChanticleer.gif


The bait does his job and even manages to score a free kill with a grenade. His job is to die, but hey, if he wants to kill, that's cool, too.

Second pod, second building, this map is really good, btw, I should know, I've played this first mission *a lot*. A good building helps a bunch, two good buildings and we're all set.

WeepyPresentGilamonster.gif


Glitches does her job, Mupod the bait, fails, but it's ok. The real problem is that the overwatch rookie on the roof also misses, and the trooper escapes to find his friends, which helps, because he gives us their direction.

TenseInconsequentialDogfish.gif


And he doesn't even have a chance to join his pals, as my bait manages another kill.

A sectoid and a trooper when you have a godlike position are no threats at all. A little scare when both people on the roof missed their overwatch shots, allowing the trooper to shoot. But the trooper also misses, so all is cool.

EvilCriminalDodobird.gif


What else is cool is glitches, who decided to not miss twice.

Flawless first mission. It helps a lot going into the game with a full squad.
Glitchesarecool became a specialist because glitches are cool. Mupod, tired of being bait, decided to become a sharpshooter.

Yesss, Yesss!
 
I'm pissed off at this game right now, vent post


They added too much RNG shit. In EU, so much could be controlled. This shit like grazing/dodge and chryssalids getting free burrow attacks are just fucking unfair


There's a lot of borderline stuff too, like blazing pinions and codex splitting, that isn't 'random' but very obviously designed to fuck you over the first time you see it

It's why I happily bashed my face against Classic on EU but dropped to Veteran on this one. In Classic I could -always- trace losses to my own fault. This time I'm having to learn on an easier difficulty what shit to expect.

Andromodon falls into that category too. THere was zero reason for me to expect revival with like 10 hp and insta-kill melee. I was super super super careful, because nothing else in the game had led me to believe it might have 2 lives. They count on that.

This game takes too much pleasure in fucking you over in unexpected ways, new enemies always have some stupid shit they can pull

Thin Men having poison? Chryssalids spawning zombies? Mutons having grenades? Sectoid Commanders being able to mind control? There was plenty of crap in EU that you had to face-plant into your first time playing. And are you seriously complaining about Blazing Pinions? That's the single most easily and obviously avoidable attack in the game. Unlike the codex AoE ability, it doesn't even do anything to you unless you just stand there under the giant obviously bad lasers.
 

mbpm1

Member
And are you seriously complaining about Blazing Pinions? That's the single most easily and obviously avoidable attack in the game. Unlike the codex AoE ability, it doesn't even do anything to you unless you just stand there under the giant obviously bad lasers.

It's easily avoidable but it sucks if cover is not plentiful/you're using snipers who you need a good rifle shot to do damage/you're being overwatched.
 
It's easily avoidable but it sucks if cover is not plentiful/you're using snipers who you need a good rifle shot to do damage/you're being overwatched.

Sure, it's an annoying attack, but the complaint was that XCOM 2 has too much stuff that screws you over due to being unpredictable. Blazing Pinions is about as predictable as attacks come.
 

Klyka

Banned
Finished reading Psi Effect. It's still ongoing. No ending for me D:

For some reason Mass Effect + future XCOM works EXTREMELY well together. WTF really at that.
 

mbpm1

Member
I think I had a harder time with sectoids ay the start of the game than I've had with the big enemies much later.

Vipers and Mutons is the hardest part of the game for me.

Sectoids still has no idea how to shoot their gun in the beginning so you can gun them down in their 0th turn with grenades.
 
I think I had a harder time with sectoids ay the start of the game than I've had with the big enemies much later.

Vipers were tricky the first time around, but Mutons are the place where things start to get interesting for me.

Sectoids are just a non-factor, generally (at least until they start spawning in multiples, but that's post-Muton). Kill their podmates when they appear and you're basically buying a free turn to kill them because they're so damn zombie-happy. Effortless.
 

BeesEight

Member
What's so annoying about missing high percentage shots is you never compensate for them by taking low percentage shots. Who's going to take a 10% to hit? Or even a 20% let alone a 1%? You never make up for your misses even though technically you can. It's always against you.That said once or twice I've got sub 30% chances but that's still nearly one in three, I know I'll never take a one in ten shot.

Superior stocks, man! I started taking all kinds of low percent shots with those.

(Nothing like putting superior stock on your grenadiers so no matter what they're always doing damage!)
 
So you know what actually needs a buff? Swords

I'm using the 100% accurate swords mod this time, and I still don't want to use them. Way too much risk, for a small amount of damage. Fixed damage or bust I guess. It worked fine with a MEC in EW, and they have WAY more defensive options than a Ranger has, so the risk would still be nice and high for the guaranteed damage.

Someone told me that this game was fairer compared to the first one.
That person was talking out of their arse. Or comes from bizarro world.

I totally think commander difficulty is more "fair" than classic at the start. I have zero fears of a wipe when I start a game in 2, but I know if I get Murder Street, or Highway to Hell in EW, it's goodbye squad. Early Thin Men missions before upgrades are also a big old roll of the dice.
 

mbpm1

Member
I'm using the 100% accurate swords mod this time, and I still don't want to use them. Way too much risk, for a small amount of damage. Fixed damage or bust I guess. It worked fine with a MEC in EW, and they have WAY more defensive options than a Ranger has, so the risk would still be nice and high for the guaranteed damage.

That's why I have the Enhanced swords mod. I still am eh on them though.
 

samn

Member
I'm using the 100% accurate swords mod this time, and I still don't want to use them. Way too much risk, for a small amount of damage. Fixed damage or bust I guess. It worked fine with a MEC in EW, and they have WAY more defensive options than a Ranger has, so the risk would still be nice and high for the guaranteed damage.



I totally think commander difficulty is more "fair" than classic at the start. I have zero fears of a wipe when I start a game in 2, but I know if I get Murder Street, or Highway to Hell in EW, it's goodbye squad. Early Thin Men missions before upgrades are also a big old roll of the dice.

Yep, I remember reading a classic difficulty guide that started by saying 'if you get these maps then restart because you'll just wipe'.
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
This is a wee bit late, but I'm uncertain of how mimc beacons can be nerfed.

If they make them less of an attractive target that's an extremely thin line on how to balance priority, as that's the entire point.

But if they double the resource cost of faceless needed to get one, or make them one-time use only, that's also (moreso the latter, to be fair), that's also potentially a huge cost/investment change.
 
That's why I have the Enhanced swords mod. I still am eh on them though.

Hmm, I think I tried the rebalance one, didn't notice any changes, so I just went with the accurate one. I can already agree with your "eh" comment, though, since the same damage as a shotgun is still...just...why not use a shotgun? Firaxis must really have been worried about making swords so strong that people would just use them all the time, but it seems to fit so well with their idea of risk vs reward. Even if you're 100% sure you can get a kill, if you activate a new pod, or his buddy decides to flank you, you're toast. Maybe untouchable would need to be tweaked I guess.

Yep, I remember reading a classic difficulty guide that started by saying 'if you get these maps then restart because you'll just wipe'.

Flashbangs (huge radius) and aid protocol are also much better for defense early on than having 1 use of smoke in EW, and I think the maps in 2 generally give you much better cover to work with.
 

Weebos

Banned
This is a wee bit late, but I'm uncertain of how mimc beacons can be nerfed.

If they make them less of an attractive target that's an extremely thin line on how to balance priority, as that's the entire point.

But if they double the resource cost of faceless needed to get one, or make them one-time use only, that's also (moreso the latter, to be fair), that's also potentially a huge cost/investment change.

I think giving them less health/defense would be a simple nerf.
 
This is a wee bit late, but I'm uncertain of how mimc beacons can be nerfed.

If they make them less of an attractive target that's an extremely thin line on how to balance priority, as that's the entire point.

But if they double the resource cost of faceless needed to get one, or make them one-time use only, that's also (moreso the latter, to be fair), that's also potentially a huge cost/investment change.

I'd say make them the first thing an alien shoots at, but only on the first turn they see it.
 
Honestly even though there's a whole load of cheap enemies on the game there's only 2 that really piss me off. First is the floating ball. Raising the dead is not an issue but an entire squad wounding AOE is just bullshit. The range on it is absolutely ridiculous to the point that half the time it fires it the opposite way from my team and still manages to hit 4 of them.

The real bitch though is the guy with the stun baton. I mean it's bad enough when one comes into view just near the end of a turn and decides to run half the map to stun or paralyze you, but what really takes the cake is when one decides to stun baton the only one with a line of sight on the 'spike' when you're attacked in your ship. Or worse yet stun baton the last one out of range from the evac on the same mission turning them into a mandatory sacrifice.
 

Klyka

Banned
i wish i was into modding and modeling and such.

I'd make a "Psi Effect" mod in a heart beat.

flying around citadel space with the eclipse ship.
having asari and salarians and secret humans in your Team
biotics and psionics together
WREX

it would be pretty sweet
 
Vipers were tricky the first time around, but Mutons are the place where things start to get interesting for me.

Sectoids are just a non-factor, generally (at least until they start spawning in multiples, but that's post-Muton). Kill their podmates when they appear and you're basically buying a free turn to kill them because they're so damn zombie-happy. Effortless.

Actually yeah the vipers when they first appeared were really annoying. It took be way too long to upgrade my armor so the bind attack was painful on top of being a nuisance.

I was commenting moreso on how ridiculously OP I've gotten. I did the UFO mission and had to deal with a trio of archons and another pod with an andromedon and couple troopers. Melted everything in the one turn. I've only seen chryssalids a couple times. Those things were awful.
 

BeesEight

Member
This is a wee bit late, but I'm uncertain of how mimc beacons can be nerfed.

If they make them less of an attractive target that's an extremely thin line on how to balance priority, as that's the entire point.

But if they double the resource cost of faceless needed to get one, or make them one-time use only, that's also (moreso the latter, to be fair), that's also potentially a huge cost/investment change.

Bigger pods would be nice. Have the first one or two aliens kill the beacon so the other two or so still have a regular response. Three pod max is kind of irrelevant when you get to late game and your squad outnumbers theirs (on top of all the ambush options you have).
 
Man, them bluescreen rounds and EMP bombs make Gateways and Sectopods so less threatening.

AWC Gave my best Sharpshooter the ability to shred armor, so giving her some bluescreen rounds makes her a nightmare for Gateways, Heavy MECs, and Sectopods.
 
I just learned a very dear lesson in not meleeing a muton.... ever. Almost lost my highest level guy that way

Happened to me as well! Never going to make that mistake again, ended up losing the mission because of it... 5 KIa 1 captured :(. Thought that might actually end my ironman campaign but I have recovered somewhat from it... still was a big blow though
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
I think giving them less health/defense would be a simple nerf.

Possibly, but aside from some craaaazy miss sprees, they usually die to any pod once the aliens reach midgame (admittedly moreso if it's not an all-advent pod)

I'd say make them the first thing an alien shoots at, but only on the first turn they see it.

Do you mean that a mimic beacon only works once per map? I could see that working, somewhat, even if it does limit its usefulness somewhat.
 
This is a wee bit late, but I'm uncertain of how mimc beacons can be nerfed.

If they make them less of an attractive target that's an extremely thin line on how to balance priority, as that's the entire point.

But if they double the resource cost of faceless needed to get one, or make them one-time use only, that's also (moreso the latter, to be fair), that's also potentially a huge cost/investment change.
There are lots of options. I'd so some combination of this, with 1. being key to any nerf.

1. Reduce their priority when AI is selecting targets (no alien should be giving up easy flank shot for a mimic).
2. Reduce their HP so they die in a shot or two from normal enemies, and in one shot from anything powerful.
3. Make them die when attacked or fired on, regardless of whether the attack hits; this basically means the Mimics save you from one attack, making their use and placement much more situational.
4. Up the Faceless/Supplies requirement (I'm less in favor of this, because I think it doesn't really solve anything; one mimic beacon is still overpowered, and I like giving people tactical options).
5. Make them a Proving Grounds project with the added cost of an Elerium core.
6. Make them a consumable.
 
What else is cool is glitches, who decided to not miss twice.

Flawless first mission. It helps a lot going into the game with a full squad.
Glitchesarecool became a specialist because glitches are cool. Mupod, tired of being bait, decided to become a sharpshooter.

I love these stories also I love being good in someone else's game. Also I hadn't realized how appropriate a specialist would be for my name.
 

Aureon

Please do not let me serve on a jury. I am actually a crazy person.
So you know what actually needs a buff? Swords.

Those stun lancers are pretty nasty at times, especially with the potential to inflict Unconscious.
I've never seen a Slash ever really produce a worthwhile effect, and burning damage isn't the most useful when you're face to face with an enemy, probably in terrible cover, or no cover at all.

Can we get some lightsabers in here? Some progressive knives? Least give me that stun baton.

Honestly Swordin' around comes down to Bladestorm.
Bladestorm reads: "Every time a enemy in melee range tries to move or attack, you get a free attack".
What it doesn't specify is that you get said attack BEFORE their attack\move: So, with a Tracer rounds or a AIM implant, you can get a >70% chance to hit on the bladestorm, and of course, you're invulnerable due to Untouchable anyway.

Bladestorm is a completely free hit after you go in melee range of something, be it to shotgun or sword.
Can work either with Blademaster\Conceal or Phantom\Run&Gun, depending on what you like the most.

Honestly, swords need to stop missing. Grazing only. Then we're done on that.
 
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