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[Sblargh]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/02/24/xcom-2-too-hard/

Jake Solomon talking about difficulty.
It's a funny topic, because a lot of people in this thread (me included) consider only Legend to be a challenge. Some consider only the beggining of Legend to be a challenge.

And I am no super-hardcore XCOM player, by any means. I finished EW on classic and that's it. Impossible was too much. But Commander here is too little. I can't help, but steamroll through Commander. And I already don't use flashbangs (don't like them for some reason. Every time I tried, people just shot and killed someone anyway) and my Ironman/Commander run, I made a total of one mimic beacon. It did made a difference, but replaying the game on Commander with the larger enemy squads mod showed me that, by the time I do get around to actually having a mimic beacon, I am already killing most pods in one turn.

I don't think I could have survived Legend without mimic beacons, tho. And I think there, they become a helpful, but not game-breaking tool. It makes me thing the game was balanced with Legend in mind, the other difficulties being the tutorial.

Anyway, my point is, and I hope I do not come across as arrogant, I don't know how people find Veteran to be too difficult. I just don't.
I can understand a newer player making mistakes like activating several pods at once, activating pods with the last units, prioritizing wrong enemies (I wanted to reach into the PC when I was watching the super best friends let's play and they were utterly convinced you have to kill the sectoid first, ignoring all the advent troopers around them). But that's skills you have to learn. How to properly position and scout to prevent stuff like that to happen is how you get better at the game; it's like parrying or walking through corners with your shield up in Dark Souls.

It's a game that punished mistakes quite heavily, but it is also turn based where you and the enemies share the same range of vision. As a very general rule, if your soldier who is the furthest can't see enemies, than everyone behind them, won't too. This is bent by corners and windows and general line of sight blockers, but by following that alone, I can't see how anyone can have a hard time on veteran. Move someone, is he safe? Then everyone you park behind him will generally be, too.

I didn't intended for this to be such a long rant. It's just that it is kind of weird how the community is reacting to difficulty. You have half the people frustrated at the game being too hard and the other half at the game being too easy. Now, if it is too easy, you can mod in additional enemies and pods and nerf to your heart content.

If it is too hard on veteran, then there is basic stuff you need to learn about the game. It is a turn-based game. You are not messing up combos or timings that need to be practiced, you are deliberately making decisions that end up with failure.

I kind of wanted to make a tutorial about how to play the game, but I don't think I'm that great of a player (several people in this thread seems to be simply better than me, given how their experience with legend seems to have been compared to mine).
I hate the "git gud" meme, which is why I am kind of fearful of how this post will be seen, but a lot of complaints about how the game is unfair or RNG based to me just sounds like people unwilling to learn how to learn the systems of a game that is always upfront about how it is going to kill you if you don't learn the systems.

Anyway, sorry to be a bad person and all that.

 

[cdyhybrid]

Yeah, Legend is the only difficulty that makes me feel like I'm playing Long War.

 

[Jintor]

I mean it's simple really. The game is hard if you don't know its mechanics and people like to get bogged down in hiding behind cover wars (which they tried to remedy with the move mechanics). And being honest the game doesn't necessarily surface all its mechanics in and of itself. I learned a lot from watching hours and hours of Beagle playing Long War and my game vastly improved after that, too.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I've never watched beaglerush (except 1 mission in the preview build) because I personally think this game is all about developing your own tactics and strategies.

 

[mbpm1]

Long war definitely helped me play this right

For one, I knew about them nades

 

[RandomSeed]

It's a game with snakes that have boobs. How hard can it be?

 

[Jintor]

I've never watched beaglerush (except 1 mission in the preview build) because I personally think this game is all about developing your own tactics and strategies.

i didn't start watching him until after i wrapped my veteran campaign, but i can't deny his games on long war 1 helped immensely with my general xcom strategy so long as firaxis sticks to the basic pod system since XCOM is currently a game mostly about threat management

 

[cdyhybrid]

I've never watched beaglerush (except 1 mission in the preview build) because I personally think this game is all about developing your own tactics and strategies.

Sure. There's some stuff that's objectively more effective than other stuff due to the way the game works, though.

It's a game with snakes that have boobs. How hard can it be?

They're venom sacs, you filthy xeno lover.

 

[RandomSeed]

Sure. There's some stuff that's objectively more effective than other stuff due to the way the game works, though.



They're venom sacs, you filthy xeno lover.

Xeno lover? I'm like Rowdy Roddy Piper in the bank scene in They Live. In fact, he'll make a great ranger in my next run.

 

[vpance]

Interesting how they decided to have the escalating aim boosts on everything but legend. People must have complained about RNG a lot.

Now I know why that one time I missed 7 shots in a row was because they were all 49%ers. No aim boost helper, lol.

 

[Jintor]

Interesting how they decided to have the escalating aim boosts on everything but legend. People must have complained about RNG a lot.

I think if there's one thing reading a lot about dice rolly stuff has taught me it's that probability is extremely unintuitive and/or people are really subject to their own precog biases regarding it

 

[Aureon]

My thread on XCOM, DD, and expectation\punishment of failure, if anyone is interested.

 

[roadrunn3r]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/02/24/xcom-2-too-hard/

Jake Solomon talking about difficulty.
It's a funny topic, because a lot of people in this thread (me included) consider only Legend to be a challenge. Some consider only the beggining of Legend to be a challenge.

And I am no super-hardcore XCOM player, by any means. I finished EW on classic and that's it. Impossible was too much. But Commander here is too little. I can't help, but steamroll through Commander. And I already don't use flashbangs (don't like them for some reason. Every time I tried, people just shot and killed someone anyway) and my Ironman/Commander run, I made a total of one mimic beacon. It did made a difference, but replaying the game on Commander with the larger enemy squads mod showed me that, by the time I do get around to actually having a mimic beacon, I am already killing most pods in one turn.

I don't think I could have survived Legend without mimic beacons, tho. And I think there, they become a helpful, but not game-breaking tool. It makes me thing the game was balanced with Legend in mind, the other difficulties being the tutorial.

Anyway, my point is, and I hope I do not come across as arrogant, I don't know how people find Veteran to be too difficult. I just don't.
I can understand a newer player making mistakes like activating several pods at once, activating pods with the last units, prioritizing wrong enemies (I wanted to reach into the PC when I was watching the super best friends let's play and they were utterly convinced you have to kill the sectoid first, ignoring all the advent troopers around them). But that's skills you have to learn. How to properly position and scout to prevent stuff like that to happen is how you get better at the game; it's like parrying or walking through corners with your shield up in Dark Souls.

It's a game that punished mistakes quite heavily, but it is also turn based where you and the enemies share the same range of vision. As a very general rule, if your soldier who is the furthest can't see enemies, than everyone behind them, won't too. This is bent by corners and windows and general line of sight blockers, but by following that alone, I can't see how anyone can have a hard time on veteran. Move someone, is he safe? Then everyone you park behind him will generally be, too.

I didn't intended for this to be such a long rant. It's just that it is kind of weird how the community is reacting to difficulty. You have half the people frustrated at the game being too hard and the other half at the game being too easy. Now, if it is too easy, you can mod in additional enemies and pods and nerf to your heart content.

If it is too hard on veteran, then there is basic stuff you need to learn about the game. It is a turn-based game. You are not messing up combos or timings that need to be practiced, you are deliberately making decisions that end up with failure.

I kind of wanted to make a tutorial about how to play the game, but I don't think I'm that great of a player (several people in this thread seems to be simply better than me, given how their experience with legend seems to have been compared to mine).
I hate the "git gud" meme, which is why I am kind of fearful of how this post will be seen, but a lot of complaints about how the game is unfair or RNG based to me just sounds like people unwilling to learn how to learn the systems of a game that is always upfront about how it is going to kill you if you don't learn the systems.

Anyway, sorry to be a bad person and all that.

I completely agree with you, it's true that this is harder on veteran than the first game but not in absolute terms. EU was just really easy on normal difficulty and I still read comments about people finding it hard for all the wrong reasons. It's more about "get humble" than "get good" IMO as many just don't want or are too lazy to understand the mechanics behind the game and choose to shit on the game instead. (just read some steam reviews to get what I'm saying) These people are the ones being arrogant, not you for telling them to try to learn the rules. This is just something that happens in every other game that isn't completely brain dead though so there's that.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Mmm... I dunno. I like sidegrades as much as the next guy, but they need to be complemented with a real power progression; otherwise it's just... sort of unsatisfying. Maybe having Lasers and Plasma as a parallel to Ballaistic and Gauss could work, but then you're sort of shortening the tree while you widen it.

On the xenonauts 2 discussions GHI hosted late last year my proposal for a more interseting weapon tree was as above, but with some extra stuff tacked on. In essence, not only do the different weapon classes have different properties to make them attractive in different scenarios and make them used differently in practice, but they also have upgrades within weapon classes.

• Ballistic weapons don't get replaced for a while, but after doing preliminary autopsies on a tougher alien (like a Sebillian or Muton in xcom terms), you get "optimised ballistic weapons", which are higher caliber than the normal stuff with special ammunition designed to penetrate their armor more effectively and deal more damage to the heavy hitting aliens.

• Laser weapons start with "continuous beam" mode only. This is almost guaranteed to hit, but weak, and has accelerating firepower - it takes multiple shots with each subsequent shot having more penetration or possibly damage than the last. Xenonauts has Turn Units like old x-com, so it makes more sense there, in Xcom 2 language this might mean that you can fire with 1 or 2 actions, 2 actions does more damage than 1. So it can be used as a weak assault rifle, but is only really potent when using it as a sniper type weapon where you can't move and shoot.
• There is no "Laser shotgun"
• Lasers get upgraded after extra research with "pulse fire" mode, which has medium damage and penetration but does not require you to be stationary to use effectively.

• Gauss weapons don't have an autofire (xenonauts has autofire like old xcom), but has extremely high penetration, and above average damage. Only get a few shots before reload, although that doesn't make sense in X-com 2 anyway where you get 3-4 shots anyway and there's no such thing as different fire modes on guns.
• There are no "gauss machineguns"
• Gauss weapons get upgraded with deeper magazines thanks to improved batteries from alien tech.

• Plasma weapons, if included, would have poor range, average penetration, but high damage.
• There are no "Plasma sniper rifles"
• Plasma weapons get upgraded with extra range thanks to better understanding of magnetic control at a distance.

Basically, ballistic remains the most versatile, and is somewhat competitive with upgrades in some situations. The others eclipse it in their niche and get better in various ways with upgrades. It also introduces a significant amount of tactical variability, and a desire to mix and match different weapon techs. Some of those techs would later proliferate to other forces around the world, in X1 with the community mod at a certain point in the game laser tech spreads to other countries in the world and they start equipping the friendly soldiers on terror mission with lasers instead of ballistic weapons. That's a really cool feature, and a future game could definitely add mechanics to the strategic layer where part of your goal is to develop tech that can be mass produced to improve the rest of the world's fighting chances, not just your elite strike time. Makes it feel MUCH bigger and better, imo.

... but it's way too complex to mod into this game, and half of that stuff doesn't make sense in teh rules of nuCom anyway. Still, you could incorporate some of those ideas.

 

[Aureon]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/02/24/xcom-2-too-hard/

Jake Solomon talking about difficulty.
It's a funny topic, because a lot of people in this thread (me included) consider only Legend to be a challenge. Some consider only the beggining of Legend to be a challenge.

And I am no super-hardcore XCOM player, by any means. I finished EW on classic and that's it. Impossible was too much. But Commander here is too little. I can't help, but steamroll through Commander. And I already don't use flashbangs (don't like them for some reason. Every time I tried, people just shot and killed someone anyway) and my Ironman/Commander run, I made a total of one mimic beacon. It did made a difference, but replaying the game on Commander with the larger enemy squads mod showed me that, by the time I do get around to actually having a mimic beacon, I am already killing most pods in one turn.

I don't think I could have survived Legend without mimic beacons, tho. And I think there, they become a helpful, but not game-breaking tool. It makes me thing the game was balanced with Legend in mind, the other difficulties being the tutorial.

Anyway, my point is, and I hope I do not come across as arrogant, I don't know how people find Veteran to be too difficult. I just don't.
I can understand a newer player making mistakes like activating several pods at once, activating pods with the last units, prioritizing wrong enemies (I wanted to reach into the PC when I was watching the super best friends let's play and they were utterly convinced you have to kill the sectoid first, ignoring all the advent troopers around them). But that's skills you have to learn. How to properly position and scout to prevent stuff like that to happen is how you get better at the game; it's like parrying or walking through corners with your shield up in Dark Souls.

It's a game that punished mistakes quite heavily, but it is also turn based where you and the enemies share the same range of vision. As a very general rule, if your soldier who is the furthest can't see enemies, than everyone behind them, won't too. This is bent by corners and windows and general line of sight blockers, but by following that alone, I can't see how anyone can have a hard time on veteran. Move someone, is he safe? Then everyone you park behind him will generally be, too.

I didn't intended for this to be such a long rant. It's just that it is kind of weird how the community is reacting to difficulty. You have half the people frustrated at the game being too hard and the other half at the game being too easy. Now, if it is too easy, you can mod in additional enemies and pods and nerf to your heart content.

If it is too hard on veteran, then there is basic stuff you need to learn about the game. It is a turn-based game. You are not messing up combos or timings that need to be practiced, you are deliberately making decisions that end up with failure.

I kind of wanted to make a tutorial about how to play the game, but I don't think I'm that great of a player (several people in this thread seems to be simply better than me, given how their experience with legend seems to have been compared to mine).
I hate the "git gud" meme, which is why I am kind of fearful of how this post will be seen, but a lot of complaints about how the game is unfair or RNG based to me just sounds like people unwilling to learn how to learn the systems of a game that is always upfront about how it is going to kill you if you don't learn the systems.

Anyway, sorry to be a bad person and all that.

Honestly, i think the root issue is about enemy crits.

You can live through hits, but 1x crit (1x crit + 1x hit later in the game) result in a dead soldier.

High Cover giving you absolutely no defense against crits - the chance is still 20%, only the hit is pushed off the table - leads the game to kill or be killed, NOW. Giving a pod a turn to shoot is a double-digits chance of a dead soldier, even on Commander.
Cover or not. Flashbangs or not.
What should be a reasonable tool (Mimic beacons) is completely broken mainly due to that - you can't let the enemy shoot, and getting a extra turn is the difference between 4 and 0 enemies standing.

People mostly find xcom overly difficult because they don't realize 90% of the difficulty isn't in planning shoots, is in planning pod activation. Fightning two+ pods is risky, and activating pods at the wrong time is a death sentence higher up the chain.


One thing i wholeheartedly agree with Solomon, though, is that more difficulties wouldn't have hurt. One under Rookie, so people actually pick Rookie, and one between Commander and Legend, pushing Legend a bit up (remove mimic beacons), and creating a difficulty with a pretty punishing strategy layer, but not a extremely difficult tactical layer.

 

[vpance]

I think if there's one thing reading a lot about dice rolly stuff has taught me it's that probability is extremely unintuitive and/or people are really subject to their own precog biases regarding it

You remember the epic string of misses the most is all it is. Then you go and complain about it on a message board after a squad wipe.. So this was their fix.

I guess if you think about it those strings of 4 or 5 misses in a row can really fuck up most novice players game plan, and probably enough for them to say fuck this and stop playing. But in this game there's so much you can do to get damage in or avoid it 100% so I'm not sure they had to really do that.

 

[Sblargh]

Honestly, i think the root issue is about enemy crits.

You can live through hits, but 1x crit (1x crit + 1x hit later in the game) result in a dead soldier.

High Cover giving you absolutely no defense against crits - the chance is still 20%, only the hit is pushed off the table - leads the game to kill or be killed, NOW. Giving a pod a turn to shoot is a double-digits chance of a dead soldier, even on Commander.
Cover or not. Flashbangs or not.
What should be a reasonable tool (Mimic beacons) is completely broken mainly due to that - you can't let the enemy shoot, and getting a extra turn is the difference between 4 and 0 enemies standing.

People mostly find xcom overly difficult because they don't realize 90% of the difficulty isn't in planning shoots, is in planning pod activation. Fightning two+ pods is risky, and activating pods at the wrong time is a death sentence higher up the chain.


One thing i wholeheartedly agree with Solomon, though, is that more difficulties wouldn't have hurt. One under Rookie, so people actually pick Rookie, and one between Commander and Legend, pushing Legend a bit up (remove mimic beacons), and creating a difficulty with a pretty punishing strategy layer, but not a extremely difficult tactical layer.

Thin men on EW instakilled soldiers on far worse and unavoidable situations than anything xcom 2 can throw at you. And, well, yeah, they were bullshit.

I wonder if they will patch in new difficulties. It's weird to hear a dev say "this is what we should have done, but oh well, that ship has sailed, it's not like we can send more files into your computer sonehow"

 

[Jintor]

Thin men on EW instakilled soldiers on far worse and unavoidable situations than anything xcom 2 can throw at you. And, well, yeah, they were bullshit.

I wonder if they will patch in new difficulties. It's weird to hear a dev say "this is what we should have done, but oh well, that ship has sailed, it's not like we can send more files into your computer sonehow"

that's not really what he said... it's more like, everything you do not only has to be implemented and distributed but then put through a bunch of bug fixing and testing and it's just easier to do so before they ship anything. (jokes about "Firaxis, bug testing? Hah!" aside)

 

[Hazaro]

Wow.

That's straight up crazy.

That honestly makes me want to go home, delete my save and start again on legend. I don't like the idea of the game cheating for me. The stacked miss chance % and the pods steering away from you honestly leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Legendary is so much harder than Commander though.

 

[Rentahamster]

My ranger just learned Kill Zone. I wonder if this will be useful.

Oh my god this guy can set up the sickest overwatch traps.

 

[Sblargh]

I would be in favor of a difficulty between commander and legend because that is the limbo I am stuck right now. I did my ironman legend run, but I lost.... Well, too much before that. And if I tried again, I think I would lose a lot before pulling it off again.

On the other hand, it is the difficulty that tests me. That dares me to do a lot of missions while making little to no mistakes and just holding out on giving me too much incredible tools too soon.

Some points:

-difficulty is front-loaded, meaning the start of the game is tougher than the end, but this is by design, it is a design philosophy where enjoyment comes from being frustrated and beaten and feeling like shit until you somehow turns into a god. Your reward for beating the game isn't the ending movie (because it crashes anyway), but the feeling of revenge and release you get when destroying those snakefuckers who gave you such a hard time long ago. You start afraid of two troopers and a sectoid and by the end you feel amazing for trampling mutons and worse like they were plastic toys under your elerium-powered magnifying lentes. And you are the sun.

As it can be deduced, I quite enjoy this philosophy.

-damage mitigation is essential. Mimic beacon gets singled out because of how they make the enemy act stupid, but flashbangs, non-bugged smoke grenades, aid protocol and so on is what allows the game to be hard. If you can't stack the odds enough in your favor when shooting, you should be able to do so while defending. This, in turn, justifies losing a soldier between a month and forever. Also, despite of your efforts, sometimes the game will just troll you and kill you anyway. And that is part of the game. If it becomes a far too common part of the game, though, then you are probably playing wrong.

So, I don't know if mimics should be nerfed or not, but "plan B" itens that allows you to be shot at without it ending in tragedy is necessary for balance.

- the game being more about proper activation than the actual encounter is something quickly drilled in when you die horribly enough times, but maybe the tutorial should hammer it, too. It is too important. You could begin the tutorial with a full squad who activates two pods and get wiped. Bradford could then be hysterical about it and properly explain how vision and fog of war works.

There is something very important about optimizing your turn, but even that is only a factor when you have actions available to be optimized. The danger of activation with your last unit is a feature, it isn't something to be fixed. What it could be fixed is proper communication to the player about it.

 

[evangd007]

Honestly, i think the root issue is about enemy crits.

You can live through hits, but 1x crit (1x crit + 1x hit later in the game) result in a dead soldier.

High Cover giving you absolutely no defense against crits - the chance is still 20%, only the hit is pushed off the table - leads the game to kill or be killed, NOW. Giving a pod a turn to shoot is a double-digits chance of a dead soldier, even on Commander.
Cover or not. Flashbangs or not.
What should be a reasonable tool (Mimic beacons) is completely broken mainly due to that - you can't let the enemy shoot, and getting a extra turn is the difference between 4 and 0 enemies standing.

People mostly find xcom overly difficult because they don't realize 90% of the difficulty isn't in planning shoots, is in planning pod activation. Fightning two+ pods is risky, and activating pods at the wrong time is a death sentence higher up the chain.


One thing i wholeheartedly agree with Solomon, though, is that more difficulties wouldn't have hurt. One under Rookie, so people actually pick Rookie, and one between Commander and Legend, pushing Legend a bit up (remove mimic beacons), and creating a difficulty with a pretty punishing strategy layer, but not a extremely difficult tactical layer.

Perhaps cover should offer protection from crits at half the value of the defense, but it's odd, because the biggest "That's X-Com baby!" moments happen due to things like being crit through high cover, so sometimes I feel the community wants things like that. I, on the other hand, would rather like to be able to have a sustained firefight without worrying that my Colonel will be randomed out by something like that. Right now, there is too much incentive to not let your opponents fight you. Hell, some of my friends who have completed the game don't even know what a Gatekeeper does because they Stasis or kill it whenever it gets activated.

 

[Jintor]

pack it up guys best mod of all time has been created

 

[LurkerPrime]

pack it up guys best mod of all time has been created

But that's not the cat ear mod...

Even Jake Solomon cannot deny its greatness.

 

[Falk]

Just had a sniper set herself on fire and fall through the roof while chain-sniping with Killzone. At targets about a block away.

First time for everything!

 

[mbpm1]

Just had a sniper set herself on fire and fall through the roof while chain-sniping with Killzone. At targets about a block away.

First time for everything!

It's XCOM baby

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Just had a sniper set herself on fire and fall through the roof while chain-sniping with Killzone. At targets about a block away.

First time for everything!

I love stupid crap like that.

I once blew up a ceiling with 3 advents on top. They fell down to the bottom floor and I think fell directly on top of an operative and she took damage. I think that is how it went down at least, because I didn't get a friendly fire warning on the grenade.

 

[Kaffeemann]

Oh boy, are in-app purchases coming?
https://steamdb.info/app/268500/history/

 

[Sblargh]

Oh boy, are in-app purchases coming?
https://steamdb.info/app/268500/history/

Where is that information there?

 

[CMDBob]

Oh boy, are in-app purchases coming?
https://steamdb.info/app/268500/history/

...no? It seems Firaxis is just getting the DLC depots setup. Nothing to worry about.

 

[Kaffeemann]

Just search for In-App Purchases.
I thought DLC is not the same as in-app purchases?

 

[Atraveller]

Is the Psi-ops ability training completely random? Does it mean I could pick two skills on the same tier? I don't get it.

 

[Slackbladder]

You start with a random (I think) but then get to chose from 3. However they are random. Ultimately a Psi-op can learn all their skills.

 

[Sblargh]

Is the Psi-ops ability training completely random? Does it mean I could pick two skills on the same tier? I don't get it.

Psi OPs don't level up by fighting, but by staying locked down on their box (tho going into missions during it is totally ok, something it took me a while to figure out).

So, when you train your psycho the first time, it gets a random skill, keep training him, and every time, you will get a choice of three skills.

To clarify, they don't have tiers, they just have their big pool of skills.

 

[HiResDes]

I'm probably super late on this, but is that a Babycakes reference in the title, big ups if so : )

 

[Ont]

Veteran Ironman did not really test me at all, there were bad moments when my squad would have been wiped completely had I been playing on Commander. It actually made the game less interesting to play.

Commander seems just about right, but after learning the tech tree and everything I will probably end up playing Legend Ironman only.

 

[TC McQueen]

Just search for In-App Purchases.
I thought DLC is not the same as in-app purchases?

Maybe it's related to the multiplayer or something, but it seems like they added it at some point, then deleted it, if I'm interpreting the color coding right.

It's entirely possible that someone from 2K was going around making sure the game pages/whatever were all consistent, then had to delete the microtransactions thing because they found out that XCOM 2 doesn't have any.

 

[Sblargh]

$0,99 lazarus canister - ressurect your favorite soldier!

 

[Atraveller]

The mission name generator has the weirdest names.

 

[RandomSeed]

Here's something new to me. I did a supply raid, and when targeting two enemies with a grenade, it gave me a friendly fire warning. There wasn't a supply crate around, my guy was far enough back, and I really couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. I went ahead and made a quicksave to see if I couldn't test it and see. I use the grenade, and I get a "loot destroyed" message on one of the kills. I reload, kill him normally, and yep, he drops loot. I have NEVER seen that before. Just...what? Maybe something else was glitched, or did I really get a warning that I would destroy the loot on an enemy? I can't think of any mod I have installed that would do such a thing, and I'm 95% sure I've blown up loot this run without getting a warning message.

That seriously has me thinking a warning that you're about to blow up loot is a good idea.

 

[mbpm1]

Here's something new to me. I did a supply raid, and when targeting two enemies with a grenade, it gave me a friendly fire warning. There wasn't a supply crate around, my guy was far enough back, and I really couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. I went ahead and made a quicksave to see if I couldn't test it and see. I use the grenade, and I get a "loot destroyed" message on one of the kills. I reload, kill him normally, and yep, he drops loot. I have NEVER seen that before. Just...what? Maybe something else was glitched, or did I really get a warning that I would destroy the loot on an enemy? I can't think of any mod I have installed that would do such a thing, and I'm 95% sure I've blown up loot this run without getting a warning message.

That seriously has me thinking a warning that you're about to blow up loot is a good idea.

This is supposed to happen all the time I thought

 

[Camp Freddie]

Psi OPs don't level up by fighting, but by staying locked down on their box (tho going into missions during it is totally ok, something it took me a while to figure out).

So, when you train your psycho the first time, it gets a random skill, keep training him, and every time, you will get a choice of three skills.

To clarify, they don't have tiers, they just have their big pool of skills.

Minor nitpick: Just in case anyone is wondering why some skills take longer to train than others. The skills are listed in tiers on the soldier ability screen, just like for normal soldiers. The "high-tier" skills take longer to train, but you can randomly get them at any soldier level. And unlike normal soldiers, you can also get both skills in each tier.

Warning, long post ahead! There will be no TL;DR because that's XCOM baby!

I like Jake's comment that they made a mistake by having 4 difficulties. Having 3 extra options in between the current 4 would be good. The best possible situation would be to have an 'advanced' difficulty menu, where you could configure some of the basic differences (like XCOM/Alien probability 'cheating' or strategic map costs). I think a lot of people would like to independently set the strategic and tactical difficulties.

I also like the XCOM probability cheating. It's a great way of balancing the raw probabilities and preserving the danger of losses while preventing squad-wipe/restart moments.

I think that cover should give some critical protection (mods pls!) It's currently just too dangerous to let aliens get a shot, leading to the mimic beacon being so OP. I'm good with using cover, so about 50% of the alien hits are criticals. Getting hit so often with criticals makes the game feel a bit unfair - while getting hit by normal shots feels like a bit of bad luck.

I think the mimic beacon should only have 1 hitpoint. It's not just the effect it has on distracting fire, but also the effect it has on making enemies abandon their cover to get the best possible shot at the beacon. Mimic beacons are often better than grenades for 'cover destruction'.

As for balance on veteran, I think it's great for a first playthrough. You can make a lot of mistakes while discovering how all the systems/enemies/abilities/items work, and veteran allows you to play the game without having to read a wiki on how "resistance comms" works, or whatever.
Veteran is also great for giving situations where you think it's more dangerous than it really is (so you feel good when you survive).

I just tried to stealth in to a "destroy alien antenna" mission, thinking I'd take it down in a few turns then overwatch-camp the remaining enemies. However, I fucked up and triggered 3 pods, which had me completely flanked. Somehow I made it with no losses, but lots of major injuries - but I know that I got lucky on a couple of shots that could have caused a squad-wipe. So despite getting a near-flawless victory I actually feel like I nearly lost.
IMO, that is the way a game should make you feel. You don't lose, but the possibility of loss feels real and ever-present. I think that very few people (xcomGAF being some of those few) actually enjoy playing a long game and restarting several times when they run into a squad-wipe and/or inevitable loss-spiral. However, most people DO enjoy the tension when the possibility of a serious fuckup exists.

For a second playthrough, Commander is probably essential if you want a challenge, since you'll have good ideas for the build order and the aliens can't throw a surprise codex at you.

 

[mbpm1]

For a second playthrough, Commander is probably essential if you want a challenge, since you'll have good ideas for the build order and the aliens can't throw a surprise codex at you.

Wish they could tho

 

[Glitchesarecool]

Is there a way to force an event? I'd like to play a UFO defense mission again but in my endgame save, I haven't gotten lucky enough to roll that UFO hunting (nor do I actually know what entails getting caught/shot down).

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Is there a way to force an event? I'd like to play a UFO defense mission again but in my endgame save, I haven't gotten lucky enough to roll that UFO hunting (nor do I actually know what entails getting caught/shot down).

I don't think you can force a UFO event, aside from maybe modding the game. I had a run that did have 2 UFO events but only once was I shot down.

I remember reading in their faq that they purposefully made UFO events rare, as in only once per game.

 

[RandomSeed]

This is supposed to happen all the time I thought

Seriously? This is the first time I've got that message, and I know I've blown up loot. You @^*&ed me again, Jake!!!!


I just remembered something else. Some of the maps I get seem to be very, very similar. This supply raid map has a winter setting, with the trucks on a road down the middle, with high cover on the side overlooking a cemetery area with a wood shack. I've seen that same layout a ton (yeah, I've played too much, heh). I really do want to say it's exactly the same. I have to say I like the maps, but they have less variety than I was expecting. I understand the plot and parcel system is limited (assets, overall template map), but it almost seems like the randomization isn't great enough on my end.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

Seriously? This is the first time I've got that message, and I know I've blown up loot. You @^*&ed me again, Jake!!!!


I just remembered something else. Some of the maps I get seem to be very, very similar. This supply raid map has a winter setting, with the trucks on a road down the middle, with high cover on the side overlooking a cemetery area with a wood shack. I've seen that same layout a ton (yeah, I've played too much, heh). I really do want to say it's exactly the same. I have to say I like the maps, but they have less variety than I was expecting. I understand the plot and parcel system is limited (assets, overall template map), but it almost seems like the randomization isn't great enough on my end.

I thought it was becoming that way for me, but then I started paying a bit more attention and I kinda think they are a bit more random than I expected.

 

[Spirited]

So my PC shuts down when the opening cinematic for the last mission plays -_-

That's a new one.

Edit: guess I'll take a long break from this game.

 

[Glitchesarecool]

I don't think you can force a UFO event, aside from maybe modding the game. I had a run that did have 2 UFO events but only once was I shot down.

I remember reading in their faq that they purposefully made UFO events rare, as in only once per game.

Oh, damnit. I really wanted to see how that mission goes with turret defenses.

 

[dumbo]

Seriously? This is the first time I've got that message, and I know I've blown up loot. You @^*&ed me again, Jake!!!!

No, he's wrong - you do not get warned about destroying loot. The message is probably caused by a "mimic beacon corpse" (if the mimic beacon is killed rather than despawned, it leaves a corpse and you get warned about damaging it).

I just remembered something else. Some of the maps I get seem to be very, very similar. This supply raid map has a winter setting, with the trucks on a road down the middle, with high cover on the side overlooking a cemetery area with a wood shack. I've seen that same layout a ton (yeah, I've played too much, heh). I really do want to say it's exactly the same. I have to say I like the maps, but they have less variety than I was expecting. I understand the plot and parcel system is limited (assets, overall template map), but it almost seems like the randomization isn't great enough on my end.

You've started in North Asia probably, so most of your missions have been in that region (which is snowy). But the 'snowy bit' is just a theme which is applied to the map after it's been generated. (there's a great video showing the same map in different biomes somewhere)

In terms of the shack & cemetary? I'm approaching the end of my second playthrough and I've only seen that once (on a campaign map).

The randomization seems to work well, although it would be nice to see more assets in the workshop suitable for those maps.