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

Uhm, what?
12754974_10207205680033802_2089566282_o.jpg
 
I wish concealment were a more dynamic system, like enemies didn't magically know where all your troopers are if they get los on one guy. Maybe units that radioed in your position, or the possibility of killing all witnesses so they didn't know your precise location

It would be cool if characters don't get revealed if they are in full cover.
 

Steel

Banned
I thought maybe a crossbow or bow class could be something that kills from concealment. But there would be some complications you'd have to overcome to make it not OP.

Having to reload after every shot and/or limited ammo would do it. Additionally, if you don't kill the enemy the same turn you fire, then you get spotted.
 
I wish concealment were a more dynamic system, like enemies didn't magically know where all your troopers are if they get los on one guy. Maybe units that radioed in your position, or the possibility of killing all witnesses so they didn't know your precise location

I really like the idea of radio units. Atm there's something a little bit like it with the whole "last unit of a pod runs to get help" thing, but it could be more potent.

I'd also like to see all enemy pods start converging on the sound of gunfire, though you could potentially fall back and and avoid incoming hostiles.
 

JustinBB7

Member
Just beat it. That final mission was crazy. Can't believe I made it out with everybody. I savescum but it looked pretty bleak at some point with 1 bleeding out and like 20 enemies surrounding me.
 
Another question for you guys, what does the Psy-Ops do? On my first play through I skipped it entirely. Does it do more than just give you Psy Operatives?
 
I really like the idea of radio units. Atm there's something a little bit like it with the whole "last unit of a pod runs to get help" thing, but it could be more potent.

I'd also like to see all enemy pods start converging on the sound of gunfire, though you could potentially fall back and and avoid incoming hostiles.

The enemies would hear all the gunshots though, especially since the weapons aren't suppressed.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Another question for you guys, what does the Psy-Ops do? On my first play through I skipped it entirely. Does it do more than just give you Psy Operatives?

The building? It allows you to train a rookie to be a psi-op. It doesn't work like in EU, though, so keep that in mind on your next playthough. Just build one and play with it, I don't want to give away too much. You'll have fun figuring it out.
 
Also, still haven't got mimic beacons because I failed a retaliation mission, and don't have enough faceless corpses, the next month will be tough. Mimic beacons are OP though, any ideas on how to nerf them? I think maybe you have a chance that some enemies won't get fooled by the beacon and completely ignore it, with particularly strong units being especially tough to fool.
 
Yeah, I had this happen to me today, I got surrounded but only one enemy shot at my last soldier.

Gc9cbEs.jpg


Named this guy after Richard Jenkins from Mass Effect, even looks like him with the beret. Somehow he managed to survive because the 2 overwatching enemies both missed their shots. The ADVENT trooper fired but missed.
 
So apparently calling an evac zone changes the AI behavior so that they are more likely to overwatch instead of attack.

https://youtu.be/noeKFp_isNw?t=2h48m58s

Yeah, someone mentioned the evac zone bug earlier. Enemies will overwatch instead of their normal routines, which can lead to rampant abuse if you don't actually need the evac zone yet.

Changing the AI for that and for handling mimic beacons (since most enemies should know that something appearing out of nowhere is an obvious fake) would be a big improvement.
Uhm, what?
12754974_10207205680033802_2089566282_o.jpg

RIP Earth.
 

Vena

Member
Huh. Mutons ended my run on IronMan. Two point black shots miss, lose my best unit, and everything just collapses afterwards.

Great.
 
Mutons scare me so much and I don't even know why. They're always so intimidating, even though they go from BADASS to FODDER in like a month's time.

Mutons Die First--words to live by.
 
Mutons scare me so much and I don't even know why. They're always so intimidating, even though they go from BADASS to FODDER in like a month's time.

Mutons Die First--words to live by.

My first run I hardly saw any mutons in the first place. On my second run I did see a lot more but I also had an increased enemy size mod on. I saw a few muton only packs iirc. And I also had muton centuron on. I still feel like they are under-utilized. I don't want 8 pods of heavy mutons like LW had, that was a bit overboard, but I wouldn't mind seeing 5 pods of mutons. I feel like you should be afraid of these guys, but as you mentioned they aren't that intimidating.
 

Vena

Member
Mutons scare me so much and I don't even know why. They're always so intimidating, even though they go from BADASS to FODDER in like a month's time.

Mutons Die First--words to live by.

They are the first armored unit, and they are melee proof. Basically have to have either fire or acid to really make dealing with them straight forward without huge bullet investments.
 
Are mutons actually melee-proof? I'd swear I've killed them with melee before. But maybe it was a flanked shot...

I've generally always had grenades handy for shredding, so armor's never been a big deal. It's not like I wasn't going to destroy their cover anyways, so it just kills two birds with one stone now.
My first run I hardly saw any mutons in the first place. On my second run I did see a lot more but I also had an increased enemy size mod on. I saw a few muton only packs iirc. And I also had muton centuron on. I still feel like they are under-utilized. I don't want 8 pods of heavy mutons like LW had, that was a bit overboard, but I wouldn't mind seeing 5 pods of mutons. I feel like you should be afraid of these guys, but as you mentioned they aren't that intimidating.

The whole difficulty curve of XCOM 2 would benefit so much from a Long War second wave option. Not even a full mod, just the extended timeframe.

Faceless, Chrysallids, Mutons, and Berserkers go from game-ending to jokes by the time you see them again.

...I still haven't seen berserkers again, after the first time.
 
They are the first armored unit, and they are melee proof. Basically have to have either fire or acid to really make dealing with them straight forward without huge bullet investments.

The first armored enemy is the advent mec.

...I still haven't seen berserkers again, after the first time.

Yeah, berserkers are another extremely under-utilized enemy. But they also made them super weak I think. I say I think because I've just never been hit by one. One you get poison rounds or grenades, and you should have them by that point, one hit makes him really slow and miss. First time I saw a berserker I thought I was screwed. But then I dropped a gas grenade on him and he didn't even move to attack.

They could be deadly if they are immune to slows and disorients I guess. Maybe an upgraded version for someone to mod in. They look badass... they need to be badass.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
After putting back my save a month and making a Comms, run on Legendary has been pretty solid.

Jintor is clutch as hell.
 
Yeah, berserkers are another extremely under-utilized enemy. But they also made them super weak I think. I say I think because I've just never been hit by one. One you get poison rounds or grenades, and you should have them by that point, one hit makes him really slow and miss. First time I saw a berserker I thought I was screwed. But then I dropped a gas grenade on him and he didn't even move to attack.

They could be deadly if they are immune to slows and disorients I guess. Maybe an upgraded version for someone to mod in. They look badass... they need to be badass.

It's probably for the best that Berserkers are so rare--my only encounter with them was an incredibly bugged retaliation mission where enemies didn't attack once a Berserker KOed one of its allies.

The core issue for some enemy types is that they're seemingly bound to retaliation missions, which are... uncommon, at best.
 

Sblargh

Banned
Playing on legend, I am ok with the way mimic beacons are. Lol
The thing is that a lot of enemies kill them in one or two shots. This is a game where getting shot is bad even if the soldier is still alive. Damage mitigation is a must.

On commander most pods would dia in the same turn. Beacons were there to save me from my own mistakes. On legend, a lot of times, you have to decide what will be alive next turn. No beacons or nerfed beacons and you're facing a lot of unavoidable damage.
 

eek5

Member
My game has been really glitchly lately. When the turn changes nothing will move for like 3-4 seconds then stuff will happen. Sometimes cars will randomly explode or roofs will randomly collapse but I won't see the animations just 3 seconds of nothing then my dudes will take damage. Not sure what is going on but it isn't very fun :(
 

Machina

Banned
Sorry guys, that's it for me.

The nature of the first downed UFO mission just does my head in. The odds are already stacked against you enough already that having to cop shithouse dice rolls over and over again until your plan is completely fucked is just not fun. Those snake soldiers are just insanely OP. From their contortion up close to their poison shot to their bullshit grapple and pull move that can apparently pull physical human soldiers THROUGH walls.

Yeah no, not for me. Sorry XCOM, I tried to love you.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Right now it feels like Legend/Ironman is essentially getting a good start till you get 2 grenadiers with 3 nades each and mimic beacons out the wazoo, then it's simply not making any mistakes. Those first few months are the roughest. Psi Op or 3rd Grenadier (feels like former would be better for final mission because cooldowns > consumables) for 6th slot.

We'll see how it pans out if/when those essentials are nerfed.
 

NIN90

Member
Did anyone ever build laboratories in this game? The seem pretty useless with how you are more likely to be gated by engineers instead of scientists.
 

Sblargh

Banned
Right now it feels like Legend/Ironman is essentially getting a good start till you get 2 grenadiers with 3 nades each and mimic beacons out the wazoo, then it's simply not making any mistakes. Those first few months are the roughest. Psi Op or 3rd Grenadier (feels like former would be better for final mission because cooldowns > consumables) for 6th slot.

We'll see how it pans out if/when those essentials are nerfed.

Yeah, but that is a lot harder than it sounds. Leveling up takes a long time as well as research. Your first mimic beacon comes on the second retaliation mission and then another one on the third and so on.

Research and build times and costs all double, so even with grenadiers and your first and second mimic beacon, you are still fighting stuff while not quite prepapred, either for lack of rankings, tech, GS stuff or a mix of all.

It really didn't feel like I was breezing through until the very end.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Feels like the 'last hurdle' for me was dealing with a couple of Muton pods before Mag weapons.

Disclaimer: I've gotten up to skulljacking a codex and getting roflstomped by the Avatar because I didn't know what it did (first/first Legendary playthrough) and a brainfart costing me both my top grenadiers on the codex coordinates mission (second Legendary playthrough) in both cases I decided to start over (because Honestman etc) and I've done a complete Veteran Ironman run, so I could very well be talking out my ass since I haven't done Tower/Alien Fortress on Legendary, but I don't see how it'd be significantly harder than mid-game Legendary after the initial humps.

The duration scaling honestly feels a lot more like increasing the game length in Civilization than it has to do with difficulty/arms race balancing. Granted, more missions means more chances to mess up which is part of the difficulty of an ironman run.
 

Nete

Member
So... if I change the game language (Spanish -> English), I can't load any save not created with that language.

Firaxis pls.

At least don't show up the "Some save games were not displayed because they were created in another language" message each fucking time I want to load a game. I ALREADY KNOW THAT.
 

Maledict

Member
Definitely agree on more uses for scientists. They seem utterly useless given research times anyway, and I've never gone out of my way to pick one up. Everything being engineer gated really restricts you ever building a laboratory to use scientist.

(Does it even have any uses beyond speeding up research even more?)
 

Jintor

Member
So... if I change the game language (Spanish -> English), I can't load any save not created with that language.

Firaxis pls.

At least don't show up the "Some save games were not displayed because they were created in another language" message each fucking time I want to load a game. I ALREADY KNOW THAT.

lol wut?
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Don't get me wrong, unless you're doing black market slingshots, Mag and Predator armor milestones are significantly different when you have 1 scientist vs when you have 3, but that's pretty much the only hurdle. Engineers are still far more important considering they need to both staff and spelunk for income.

By the time it's time to go from t2->t3, the difference between 3 and 5 scientists isn't anywhere near as pronounced, and it really doesn't even matter anymore at that point anyway.

Maybe they also need a more reliable way to generate Intel the way Engineers generate supplies. Datapads seem to want to fulfill that role, except 1) it's too unpredictable/unreliable 2) it delays your teching, regardless if you have 1 scientist or 7 scientists, which generally relegates that method of Intel income to a luxury.

Fixing both these problems alongside giving them more things to staff would go a long way to making engineers vs scientists a little bit more of a debate. Tweak mission rewards to e.g. always give a couple Datapads, tone down the amount of intel per datapad and that will solve 1), Make datapad decryption a separate timeline that doesn't affect your research timer (heck, make it a laboratory staffing thing), bingo, solves 2)
 
I've researched everything, just waiting for some gravely wounded guys to heal before the final mission, yet I'm still hearing "Commander, we need more scientists!" No we don't, we really don't.

Scientists were useless in EU too sadly.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
At least you had aircraft and aircraft parts to research!

edit


Trooper managed to run himself into fire and burn to death on a retaliation mission.

This game is the gift that keeps on giving.
 
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