In the late game, they really needed to introduce a new spin, like a new set of missions. Because by the late game you've already played every mission type.
The UFO landing mission, is a one of if that (I didn't see it once in my first play through). And the crashed avenger being a one of makes a lot of sense. But there needs to be more of this or different guerilla op objectives, for example.
I guess they held back some ideas for DLC, at which point we'll be playing what feels like a more fleshed out late game.
Yeah, I don't doubt that the game will benefit tremendously from expansions. I'd love to see the return of XCOM MEC troopers, but I can understand if they take another alternate route with that (due to the whole 'aliens are evil because they're fucking with humans' thing, or because they were so completely OP in the original, or whatever).
With the new map and terrain properties, I wonder if it would be able to have MECs (if they're indeed the Shen's Legacy DLC) pick up cars and throw them right into the faces of those motherfucking aliens. The catharsis would be so real.
I'm cool with Metal Gear Rising-style cyborgs, too. Though, that being said, those kinds of cyborgs in particular would literally just be better in every way to normal flesh-and-blood soldiers...
I'm cool with Metal Gear Rising-style cyborgs, too. Though, that being said, those kinds of cyborgs in particular would literally just be better in every way to normal flesh-and-blood soldiers...
You'd have to associate them with a cost - mandatory recovery time after missions, no XP gain or heavily reduced XP gain that leeches from the rest of the unit, etc.
True concealment mod is usually an advantage, but not when you sneak up on the objective and activate three pods around you while surrounded. Lost 4 soldiers, 1 seriously wounded in an already bad start to my Legend Ironman campaign. I also failed the mission objective and had to evac.
Down to mostly rookies now, a few weeks from mag weapons. Let's see how things go. One more mission like that and game over.
Well you can stand out in the open like 8 tiles from an Advent officer and he can't see you unless he walks towards you.
edit: lol just got a retailiation mission, with 3 rookies and a squaddie, having lost my flashbangs and most of my other equipment in the last mission.
Ideas to improve sword utility without just settling for generic stat increases. These can either be innate properties of all sword combat, or perhaps upgrades that you can get through adjustments to the ranger's skill tree, or tech research, or proving ground projects:
Kills (only kills) made with a sword by a concealed Ranger keep the Ranger in concealment.
Sword attacks made within blue movement range only consume one action point.
Sword attacks can push targets out of their current square, and fling them three squares away (so like, you can melee an alien and fling that fucker off a rooftop. Or, just push enemies out of cover)
Sword attacks can shred armor, or apply different kinds of DOTs or debuffs.
Each kill made with a sword gives the ranger a small buff that lasts until the end of a mission (stackable up to 3, we'll call it "bloodlust" or something like that).
Ideas to improve sword utility without just settling for generic stat increases. These can either be innate properties of all sword combat, or perhaps upgrades that you can get through adjustments to the ranger's skill tree, or tech research, or proving ground projects:
Kills (only kills) made with a sword by a concealed Ranger keep the Ranger in concealment.
Sword attacks made within blue movement range only consume one action point.
Sword attacks can push targets out of their current square, and fling them three squares away (so like, you can melee an alien and fling that fucker off a rooftop. Or, just push enemies out of cover)
Sword attacks can shred armor, or apply different kinds of DOTs or debuffs.
Each kill made with a sword gives the ranger a small buff that lasts until the end of a mission (stackable up to 3, we'll call it "bloodlust" or something like that).
Sword attacks can push targets out of their current square, and fling them three squares away (so like, you can melee an alien and fling that fucker off a rooftop. Or, just push enemies out of cover)
I think this would work really well as an ability, but it would have to be low-damage (or possibly even no damage) to balance the massive strategic advantage of pushing someone out of cover.
I think this would work really well as an ability, but it would have to be low-damage (or possibly even no damage) to balance the massive strategic advantage of pushing someone out of cover.
Grenades already do a ton of damage, destroy cover, and even debuff targets. Sure, they're limited, but they are the lowest risk weapons in the game too. No missing, long range with grenadiers, and grenadier still have a weapon better than assault rifle.
I think this would work really well as an ability, but it would have to be low-damage (or possibly even no damage) to balance the massive strategic advantage of pushing someone out of cover.
Sharpshooter on top of a building. Faceless attack him and destroy the roof.
Sharpshooter falls on top of civilians, damages one of them (1hp), gets up, saves the two civilians, take the fall damage and dies.
Sharpshooter on top of a building. Faceless attack him and destroy the roof.
Sharpshooter falls on top of civilians, damages one of them (1hp), gets up, saves the two civilians, take the fall damage and dies.
Anyone else really pissed of about the final mission? Bad enough I had performance issues, lost sound at 1 point and had to save reload and then in the heat of the final battle I had artifacting thingy issues, thought my graphics card was dying. Saving and reloading seemed to solve it.
My main gripe is
the endless respawning enemies in he final room, I Absolutely HATE this lazy ass design in games. Endless respawning enemies iis my biggest gripe in any game It's 2016 and developers are this pulling this shit.
I absolutely love this game too which rmakes me more sore. Mass effect 3 pulled the same move especially in one of the final missions, that to me was a bigger offense than the story.
Look at mugs 5, an open world game style game and it doesn't do this and I applaud it.
Click on workshop on game page, look up BROWSE and click it, select SUBSCRIBED ITEMS from there and then when you see your subd. items, look right and select sort by date of change. image in moonlanguage to guide you somewhat
If I knew there a maximum number I'd be fine with that, the fact it's endless feels so cheap, just seems a half arsed way of making the final part difficult. I expected more.
I found the ODST helmet in the Steam Workshop and now all I want is for Powered Armor to just be Mjolnir armor with all the customization options of the Halo games.
Hopefully there's an enterprising modder with the same idea.
So, beat it finally after like 3 weeks. Liked it, final battle was pretty good IMO with the right amount of tension, wasn't feeling the soft-locks that happened constantly though.
But I'm kinda disappointed in the package as a whole relative to what Firaxis tried to sell XCOM 2 to us as early in the hype-cycle. This was supposed to be something where you picked your targets - Where, when, and what to attack - But that only seems to be true for the trio of story missions (
Blacksite, Vial Coords, Codex Coords
), and otherwise it's the same old Enemy Unknown formula of scan in the geoscape until the game throws a mission at you - Of which your only real choice is to pick WHICH mission to do IF they're Guerilla Ops, rather than making the decision of whether or not you want to hit a target or if this is even the time. And Guerilla Ops themselves in reality are essentially just a remix of the Abductions formula from EU.
Honestly, I think Apocalypse represents better what I was expecting out of XCOM 2 than what XCOM 2 is in reality. THAT was a game where you picked your targets and when and where to strike, rather than the game throwing missions at you with no real choice at play. Many of which end up playing the same way with slight variables.
Sharpshooter on top of a building. Faceless attack him and destroy the roof.
Sharpshooter falls on top of civilians, damages one of them (1hp), gets up, saves the two civilians, take the fall damage and dies.
So, beat it finally after like 3 weeks. Liked it, final battle was pretty good IMO with the right amount of tension, wasn't feeling the soft-locks that happened constantly though.
But I'm kinda disappointed in the package as a whole relative to what Firaxis tried to sell XCOM 2 to us as early in the hype-cycle. This was supposed to be something where you picked your targets - Where, when, and what to attack - But that only seems to be true for the trio of story missions (
Blacksite, Vial Coords, Codex Coords
), and otherwise it's the same old Enemy Unknown formula of scan in the geoscape until the game throws a mission at you - Of which your only real choice is to pick WHICH mission to do IF they're Guerilla Ops, rather than making the decision of whether or not you want to hit a target or if this is even the time. And Guerilla Ops themselves in reality are essentially just a remix of the Abductions formula from EU.
Honestly, I think Apocalypse represents better what I was expecting out of XCOM 2 than what XCOM 2 is in reality. THAT was a game where you picked your targets and when and where to strike, rather than the game throwing missions at you with no real choice at play. Many of which end up playing the same way with slight variables.
Yeah, I can see that.
I wonder how it would be if guerrilla ops stayed on the map like rumors do, eventually they would go away and their dark event trigger, but you would have the possibility to do them all if feeling up to it.
Yeah, I can see that.
I wonder how it would be if guerrilla ops stayed on the map like rumors do, eventually they would go away and their dark event trigger, but you would have the possibility to do them all if feeling up to it.
I would like to see mods/dlc open up more options for picking targets to attack. More optional stuff. Different mission types than what we have already. I've been brainstorming ideas myself but I have little experience in developing mods so it probably isn't going to happen by my hands.
One idea I had are to have strike missions that reward light events. As you can imagine, they'd be like dark events but benefits for you or disadvantages for the aliens. Such as... faster scan time, reduced hack difficulty, research bonuses... These would last a month just like dark events.
And a mission reward that can unlock a research path that isn't accessible otherwise. There really are a ton of possible mission rewards that could be feasible.
I think these strike missions would come about from randomly from skullmining, randomly from the passage of time, and randomly from researching the intel drops.
And I've said it before, but I'd love to see a prison break mission, to recover captured soldiers.
Yeah, I can see that.
I wonder how it would be if guerrilla ops stayed on the map like rumors do, eventually they would go away and their dark event trigger, but you would have the possibility to do them all if feeling up to it.
Someone earlier brought up a good point about how some aliens could perhaps regress later on in the campaign as their facilities are getting blown up. That would strengthen the feel of weakening the opponent, which I agree is not present in the game right now. Of course there's the regular balance problems that come with that, but they could always up the squad sizes in return (and still mix in regular tougher enemies for contrast).
I think the geoscape is better than in EU, but it still doesn't really excite me at all which was a bit of a disappointment with the guerilla theming.
Someone earlier brought up a good point about how some aliens could perhaps regress later on in the campaign as their facilities are getting blown up. That would strengthen the feel of weakening the opponent, which I agree is not present in the game right now. Of course there's the regular balance problems that come with that, but they could always up the squad sizes in return (and still mix in regular tougher enemies for contrast).
I think the geoscape is better than in EU, but it still doesn't really excite me at all which was a bit of a disappointment with the guerilla theming.
The main thing I don't like about the geoscape is what you pointed out. You're mostly waiting for things to happen, and not doing enough to make things happen yourself.
Being the "aggressor" should not be about responding to things, it should be about making those things happen. Technically, missions are aggressive acts. The resistance is making things happen and you're often taking advantage of things. Like a resistance member sets up a hack and you need to defend the relay. Or with the supply raids, the resistance attacked a train and now its dead in the water, waiting for you to ambush it.
Despite that, it doesn't really feel like you're calling the shots, and therefore it feels like you're always responding... outside of facility attacks and some of the story stuff.
IMO one option would maybe be to use the black market to spend intel to get a headsup on guerilla ops locations or something. But again in that case you'd have to either make it so you have more dark events to counter in the first place or make dark events much stronger that you have to pick and choose if you want to clear the board of them by risking a ton of intel and your soldiers on the tactical side for an advantage for the month or something to that effect.
Once or twice there were a few times you could investigate a rumour and it led to an extra set of guerilla ops for the month which was nice.
My idea right now is to find that specific rumor and make it the standard.
Edit: Well, I am making progress, the problem is that without the SDK, it is a pain to test stuff as I have to actually play the game and wait for stuff to happen, lol.
I have also been thinking about the prison break mission and while I have an idea as to how make it work, I don't know if I will be able to do without the SDK. This is my idea:
Create a facility-like mission, but that unlocks only with its special facility lead item. The mission itself would be a regular rescue mission. Just maybe with more people to rescue.
At the start of the game, create a pool of captured rookies so you have someone to rescue in case nobody got left behind.
Stop Wasting My Time, It Will Take Many Bullets (personal cosmetic thing), Sassy Viper, Wound Recalibration, Experimental Item Unlock, Show Health Values, True Concealment.
Personal preferences, some have a minor effect on game balance so take that into consideration for your personal game.
