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

Didn't get a chance to test it a bunch, but performance still seems like ass on a GTX970. Utilization is actually high now, rather than the 40-50% strange stuff from before, but the Geoscape was 40fps, and after getting into the second mission, it was 30fps. Very first mission was 60fps, so I don't know what's going on yet. I'll have to test it more later, but...yeah.

Oh, the fps on the Avenger was looking better.
 

Erheller

Member
Any difference in performance for those running a midtier system?

Running a 650M (so a less-than-mid-tier system), and I'm getting 30-40 fps on minimal in tactical, where I used to hover between 20-30 usually. Dips still occur, but I'm getting 15 fps instead of 10 during those (tons of particle effects on the screen, like whenever a grenade blows up).

Avenger map is significantly better, Avenger itself seems unchanged.
 
Some performance notes:

Tactical gameplay seems smoother, no longer seeing heavy drops when moving units. Still get frequent drops overall though, but not as bad as before. Then again, this is fairly early in the campaign. Could still be bad later on.

Everything feels snappier. Less delays during enemy turns.

Game crashed when I loaded up a save on the avenger. Seemed to be a GPU driver crash, which never happened before this patch.
 

Trey

Member
still crashes. this game uses a good chunk of ram. they should work on that. framerate doesn't seem much better but the game is smoother.

rip free rotation camera
 

Sblargh

Banned
Zip mode feels weird, like, it does what it says it does, but looks like something to be accompanied by the Benny Hill song.
 
Reinforcement pack DLC 1, Anarchy's Children, drops on the 17th:
lwIXoNM.jpg


There will also be a patch soon:
Blegh, not the type of customization options I would have hoped for.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Didn't get a chance to test it a bunch, but performance still seems like ass on a GTX970. Utilization is actually high now, rather than the 40-50% strange stuff from before, but the Geoscape was 40fps, and after getting into the second mission, it was 30fps. Very first mission was 60fps, so I don't know what's going on yet. I'll have to test it more later, but...yeah.

Oh, the fps on the Avenger was looking better.

Did you optimize your settings yourself before? Maybe the patch reset the settings back to default.
 
Some more notes:

Framerate smoothing seems to work opposite to how it did pre-patch. Made things smoother before, now it makes the avenger more stuttery when navigating around.

Avenger has less drops. But again, this is still early in my campaign so it'll likely get worse as I open up more rooms and develop facilities.

Transitions to armory and engineering have less heavy FPS drops than before.

Still get heavy drops during the squad selection menu.
 
Did you optimize your settings yourself before? Maybe the patch reset the settings back to default.

Yep, so I will be testing more later. I just had time to use the "high" settings the auto detect now selects.

At the same time, the initial performance with 99% GPU utilization on the world map continues to confuse me. There isn't a hell of a lot going on there.
 

Sblargh

Banned
Avenger stuff seems better. Tactical stuff was already good and world map stuff seems worse. (but my settings are on high and the game recommended me medium). I am on a gtx 760.
 
A real test will be if someone has a save from later in the game, and is on a mission with smoke and fire effects. Then blow up a building.
 
Looks like a damn good patch, at least on the bug fixes end. We'll have to see how much performance is improved.

I'm waiting until my new PC with a 980Ti arrives to install and play this again, though, so it'll have much-improved performance for me anyway. :D
 

Sblargh

Banned
Discovering new enemies is a lot smoother now. Went from "always hangs" to "almost never hangs".
The weird fog of war screen with alien activity written beneath as they were about to walk into your overwatch trap seems to be gone, too.
 

Sblargh

Banned
Oh, small but cool change. When an alien shoots from inside the fog of war (on civilians or the device), you now see exactly who did it and where it is.

It helps a bit.
 

GeoGonzo

Member
Oh, small but cool change. When an alien shoots from inside the fog of war (on civilians or the device), you now see exactly who did it and where it is.

It helps a bit.
Blah, its not a big deal but I don't like that. Mysterious shots from the dark are a staple of the series.
 

SRG01

Member
Did they up the health of a mimic beacon to compensate for the nerf? This means that mimic beacons will be worthless near the end-game as they'd only last two hits at the very most.

I mean, I already toss two mimics for insurance, but this is ridiculous. It means that mind control and haywire are even more critical for getting additional damage sponges.
 

Salsa

Member
please tell me the patch makes this playable

performance improvements at all? still havent fuckin touched the thingggg
 

Robert7lee

Neo Member
I edited my max squad size to 8, post patch did a retaliation mission had 8 squad members, now just chose to do a sabotage mission and I can only pick 6 squad members. What's changed?
 

Nete

Member
A couple annoying things post-patch:

-It doesn't autotarget anymore the enemy with the highest % to hit when you want to shot.

-The fucking camera centering to the "next" soldier when the previous ends his action... even if you already had him selected (and messing around deciding what to do). Stahp, please.
 
A couple annoying things post-patch:

-It doesn't autotarget anymore the enemy with the highest % to hit when you want to shot.

-The fucking camera centering to the "next" soldier when the previous ends his action... even if you already had him selected (and messing around deciding what to do). Stahp, please.

Was going to spend a little time in the game now to test things out, and YES, this right here is going to cause so many misclicks. 2 steps forward (speeding up animations), 1 step back.
 

Dsyndrome

Member
Patch made everything run slower with the same settings on my 980M; turning on and off VSYNC doesn't affect FPS anymore, Simple DoF and Tile AO don't give me anything consistent, with FPS going anywhere between 20 to 60.
 

melli

Neo Member
I've been holding out on playing XCOM 2 till they patched the worst performance problems. After today's patch it seems to be more stable on my rig. while testing a level my whole team got wasted without me killing a single enemy. I just ran into the action without much planning since i was just testing fps during combat, so i know it wasn't optimal in any way, but it got me questioning certain gameplay elements.

Most of the shot possibilities i got from certain positions on certain (most) enemies had a 20-30% hit chance. Both me and the enemy had half-cover, same height, no flanking. I didn't take those low % shots, but the enemy did, and he hit about 9/10 times, which leads me to believe the enemy's got hit chance of about 70-90% on the same shots i got 20-30% (depending on my weapons and range).

So my questions are:

1. Is there a way to see the enemy's hit % on his shots?
2. Does it just mean the enemies early in the game have much better weapons/skills than my rookies?
3. Does the accuracy of the soldiers increase dramatically during the game, like getting those 95% with sniper rifles from good positions, or am i stuck atleast the first 5-10 hours with low % shots?

I've played XCOM:EU (aswell as the original XCOM from the early 90's) a couple of times, so i have some ideas how these games works, but i don't remember them being this brutal early on.

edit: annoying how edge-cam/panning with WASD is jerky while doing it with the mouse is ultra smooth (60fps vsync).
 
1. Is there a way to see the enemy's hit % on his shots?
2. Does it just mean the enemies early in the game have much better weapons/skills than my rookies?
3. Does the accuracy of the soldiers increase dramatically during the game, like getting those 95% with sniper rifles from good positions, or am i stuck atleast the first 5-10 hours with low % shots?
1. No, AFAIK.
2. The rookies are just ultra shitty.
3. You can get up to 100% accuracy with PCS, Tracer Rounds, scopes, and accuracy increases from ranking up soldiers.
 

melli

Neo Member
@TC McQueen
Thanks. Good to know as i got a little worried. I still have to adjust to having a timer and not just overwatch-pulling all the time.

@Nete
Great! Just what i was looking for. :)
 

Erheller

Member
I've been holding out on playing XCOM 2 till they patched the worst performance problems. After today's patch it seems to be more stable on my rig. while testing a level my whole team got wasted without me killing a single enemy. I just ran into the action without much planning since i was just testing fps during combat, so i know it wasn't optimal in any way, but it got me questioning certain gameplay elements.

Most of the shot possibilities i got from certain positions on certain (most) enemies had a 20-30% hit chance. Both me and the enemy had half-cover, same height, no flanking. I didn't take those low % shots, but the enemy did, and he hit about 9/10 times, which leads me to believe the enemy's got hit chance of about 70-90% on the same shots i got 20-30% (depending on my weapons and range).

So my questions are:

1. Is there a way to see the enemy's hit % on his shots?
2. Does it just mean the enemies early in the game have much better weapons/skills than my rookies?
3. Does the accuracy of the soldiers increase dramatically during the game, like getting those 95% with sniper rifles from good positions, or am i stuck atleast the first 5-10 hours with low % shots?

I've played XCOM:EU (aswell as the original XCOM from the early 90's) a couple of times, so i have some ideas how these games works, but i don't remember them being this brutal early on.

edit: annoying how edge-cam/panning with WASD is jerky while doing it with the mouse is ultra smooth (60fps vsync).

ADVENT troopers have 65 aim, same as your rookies, and don't benefit from weapon range bonuses. Sectiods have 70 aim, Vipers have 75, and so on. More advanced aliens generally get better aim as well. No aliens get weapon range bonuses.

You should be getting 45% shots with rookies against enemies in low cover (65% - 20%). There are some arrows under the hit chance number - press it to see a more detailed breakdown of the stat. It helps a lot when you're trying to figure out how to hit an enemy.

The way to succeed early-game is to remove cover so you get high percentage shots. XCOM 2 punishes you for trying to plink multiple low% shots - you're going to miss, and that will let the enemy take potshots at you, and those hurt when they hit. Guaranteed damage is essential early-game, and the need for it never diminishes.
 

Erheller

Member

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
I returned finally. Patch was coincidence. Learned Killzone in Conceal itsn't OP anymore :(
My Legendary run got a little bit harder. (But not because of that)

I saw 1 pod, then 3 patrolled into my vision on the same turn. There was 1 I killed and another one at the (new) evac point. I rocketed the roof point in hopes of a closer one, but no luck. Can't call evac on 'evac' missions.

With 2 old Mimic Beacons + Aid Protocol I could have gotten 1 or 2 out alive, but 3 Archons is too much beef.

Current plan is to build a second Psi Lab.
 

Menthuss

Member
Recently finished my first playthrough on Veteran. Ended up making loads of mistakes and lost like 10 soldiers (world average is 3 apparently). I have to say, I like 2 much, MUCH more than 1 (considering I actually bothered to finish this one).

Overall, I think I like the older X-COM/Xenonauts mechanics more. Having total control over your soldier's equipment is much better than the class system IMO. You can make your own custom soldier loadouts that best suit the soldier's stats (and your playstyle).

On the other hand, I like how the combat in XCOM2 is much faster than the old-style. When I'm well into a playthrough in X-COM or Xenonauts I kind of start avoiding the actual combat as it is very slow and simply takes too long. I hope that Xenonauts 2 does take some pointers from XCOM 2 when it comes to this.
 

r1chard

Member
Had to remove and reinstall all the mods through the Steam workshop interface (disabling and re-enabling in the XCOM interface didn't work) but got there in the end.


And I just ragequit. Retaliation missions are apparently a lot harder now. Each turn two resistance were killed rather than just one previously. And the map was littered with Chryssalids, so I couldn't rush, every time I did I'd pop a chryssalid out of the ground and my soldiers are turned into cocoons for more chryssalids. Not to mention the chryssalid pod that popped right next to my spawn. WTF?? Time limit + forced slow advance == bad game designer, no cookie.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Each turn two resistance were killed rather than just one previously.

This seems unintentional as it's too huge a change to not be documented in the otherwise rather comprehensive patch notes?

It cuts the 'turn timer' on Retaliation from roughly 8 turns to half of that.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
I always thought the AI was like, "for each pod, if civvies killed this alien phase <1, take a potshot". (can miss)
 
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