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

Sub Zero

his body's cold as ice, but he's got a heart of gold
I was actually afraid that the game was going to be too easy after watching all the youtubers that got early access play it. ChristopherOdd was acing missions with ease on the highest difficulty and I can barely complete a mission on normal without my squad getting messed up
 
Oh god, Flashbangs make the beginning so much easier. Thats my main tip for the first missions in higher difficulties: bring at least one flashbang. It WILL save your ass.

I'm playing on commander and not finding it any more difficult than classic from the first one.

Yeah it's about the same. But to be fair: Classic in the first one was pretty hard. As is Commander in Xcom2. The first three to four missions are really rough.
 
What difficulty are you playing on? I've done four missions so far (three of you don't include the tutorial) and haven't lost a guy nor have I had to restart a mission on Veteran.

I'm on Vetern. I went with that because it's what the game suggested, but I am definitely not an expert at the game. This is only my second turn based strategy game to date, after the last XCOM. I think part of my struggle is tied to just not being in any sort of strategy game mindset for many years now. I'm probably going to restart on Vetern again now that I've found my sea legs so to say.
 
Man this game seems pretty hard if you make the wrong moves. Veteran please.

It's not just about your moves, but about the opposition you face. The kind of enemies you encounter in your first missions here are the kind you didn't encounter in XCOM:EU until after at least 1/3 of the game, and they have timers from the start.
 

robotrock

Banned
I'm playing on Rookie and I think I probably made a mistake, despite rarely playing strategy games. Might bump it up to veteran, but I'm only about four missions in at this point. Dunno if it's going to get way harder.
 

mjc

Member
What in the holy fuck.

This game has crashed on me three times today, twice in the last half hour on the exact same mission. What gives?
 
Quoting cause I can not figure this out and I had to start a new campaign to get around it.

Can someone help me explain why, on the strategic layer, while scanning I'm going into negative days? For example, scanning for supplies and the 6 day countdown hits zero, then starts counting -1,-2,-3. Meanwhile, Advent is advancing the Avatar project and I can't seem to progress.
 
Can I skip the tutorial to go straight to ironman mode or is it inadvisable?

Controls practically the same, you just need to be really aggressive with the timers being around and what not. Like, super aggressive, as in like sprinting towards the objective and covering advances with overwatch. That approach netted me flawless on my first three missions so far. (Only on Veteran, though).
 
Nope. The first time it completely froze, the other two times I was able to restart the computer from the start menu.

Okay that is weird, maybe it is your setup?
Freezes sometimes happen when the GPU or CPU is overheating.
Man Fireaxis has a lot to do with fixing stuff. Hope they soon give an ETA for a patch.
 

mjc

Member
Okay that is weird, maybe it is your setup?
Freezes sometimes happen when the GPU or CPU is overheating.
Man Fireaxis has a lot to do with fixing stuff. Hope they soon give an ETA for a patch.

Hmm not sure. I have an MSI laptop that's about half a year old at this point. It could be running a little hot, but I've never had a problem like this with any other game.
 

Random17

Member
There's a mod on the Workshop that increases timer length that just went up very recently. Hasn't even been rating it. I'm testing it now...
 
Hmm not sure. I have an MSI laptop that's about half a year old at this point. It could be running a little hot, but I've never had a problem like this with any other game.

I see, could also have something to do with the game itself.
I hope Fireaxis can patch that. Has your Laptop an nVidia or AMD GPU?
 

Lanrutcon

Member
The game's difficulty is weird.

Pretty far on Veteran atm and I'm starting to get a sense of where the real challenges lie.

I think the timers are a wee bit tight on missions where you need to extract after doing <whatever>. There's a bit too much RNG in terms of enemy composition and placement. Get a bad set of spawns and the timer becomes unreasonable. This is more pronounced every time the enemy 'ups' their technology level, bringing more badass enemies to bear.

Armor stripping is far, far too essential. Specialty grenades are insanely good. Combine those two facts and suddenly Grenadiers are the obvious backbone to any squad. Without the multiple flashbangs and acid grenades they bring life gets a LOT harder later on.

Snipers are terrible. In a game where you're pressured to advance and stay mobile to deal with cover (both yours and the enemy's) they make a class that's essentially a turret. I feel that sniper rifles need to do way more damage than assault rifles to be worth anything, especially given that all sniper rifles require separate research and resources. When it comes to assassinating problematic targets, you'd think a sniper would be the weapon of choice...but they gave Rangers that job.

I don't think the game explains the Project Avatar track well enough. If you don't actively fight it by researching and building specific things you end up with an unwinnable game. It's far too easy to ignore the contact/Avatar stuff in favor in combat upgrades and resources. It's a trap, basically.
 

vpance

Member
It's not just about your moves, but about the opposition you face. The kind of enemies you encounter in your first missions here are the kind you didn't encounter in XCOM:EU until after at least 1/3 of the game, and they have timers from the start.

Difficulty progression is V shaped I guess?

Gonna scum around the first few missions or so to see if it's not too unfair. Started on veteran.

The game's difficulty is weird.

Pretty far on Veteran atm and I'm starting to get a sense of where the real challenges lie.

I think the timers are a wee bit tight on missions where you need to extract after doing <whatever>. There's a bit too much RNG in terms of enemy composition and placement. Get a bad set of spawns and the timer becomes unreasonable. This is more pronounced every time the enemy 'ups' their technology level, bringing more badass enemies to bear.

Ugh, that sounds shitty.
 
I'm on Vetern. I went with that because it's what the game suggested, but I am definitely not an expert at the game. This is only my second turn based strategy game to date, after the last XCOM. I think part of my struggle is tied to just not being in any sort of strategy game mindset for many years now. I'm probably going to restart on Vetern again now that I've found my sea legs so to say.

Yeah, strategy games/SRPGs are one of my favorite types of games, so that could be why I adjusted quicker to this. This is definitely a lot different from the first XCOM in terms of how you approach everything. My strategy so far has been to advance in pairs - have one guy go forward a little and overwatch, then a second guy leapfrog over and sprint, and if he activates you have an overwatch attack to cover. Also grenades are much more useful for blowing away alien's cover than doing damage/killing in this game. I've pretty much exclusively used grenades to blow up Sectoid's cover so I have a clear flanking shot to wipe them out.

I think you also need to play a bit riskier with the way this is set up. I put my ranger into several disadvantageous positions by running up and slashing an alien, but every time I've gotten the kill - usually a much more dangerous alien goes down and then my ranger takes fire from an Advent Trooper or something. It sucks to take damage, but an 88% chance of slicing up a Sectoid and dissolving a zombie is worth it.
 

Steel

Banned
Spent a couple hours making a huge pool of characters last night.

Most of them will probably die, so, with that in mind, my first two characters were named Leroy and Lisa Jenkins. My hope is that these two will be the first to go, as I made their armor hot pink to make sure no one can miss them.

Of course, the first real mission I play, Leroy Jenkins is the sole survivor. Of course. Despite the fact that I used him as bait and he was in the open to get shot at plenty of times he doesn't take a shot, while my other custom characters all get murdered.... *Sigh*

Then Lisa Jenkins goes on to become my best sniper.

This game.
 

Koutsoubas

Member
I dont know if im gonna be able to keep up with the increased focus this game demands. I think im gonna drop it for the moment, life is pressuring and i would really like to enjoy it in all its glory and not through a rushed playthrough
 

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
going with veteran (aka normal) as I did in the first one. good enough for me, I dont need to be frustrated at every turn to enjoy myself, and I like feeling OP late in a game from getting all the upgrades and whatnot. I still lost a ton of ppl in the first one on normal and im sure its going to be the same in this one.

I dont know if im gonna be able to keep up with the increased focus this game demands. I think im gonna drop it for the moment, life is pressuring and i would really like to enjoy it in all its glory and not through a rushed playthrough

I know what you mean. I did the tutorial and then the first mission after that when you have 4 soldiers (still the tutorial I guess?) this morning and then stopped, I want to play this with some proper free time, not having to worry that I need to go to work in half an hour etc. Ill jump into it proper this weekend hopefully
 
Snipers are terrible. In a game where you're pressured to advance and stay mobile to deal with cover (both yours and the enemy's) they make a class that's essentially a turret. I feel that sniper rifles need to do way more damage than assault rifles to be worth anything, especially given that all sniper rifles require separate research and resources.
.

The Gunslinger Sniper is pretty great. Get's a lot of attacks per turn to finish off low health enemies nearbie or just take the long range shot depending on the situation.

In a perfect world you would have two different sniper builds: The classic sniper for missions without timelimit and the gunslinger for missions with limits. But thats more feasible for a possible 'long war' mod where you have more time to train.
 

Dsyndrome

Member
Man, 45% might as well be zero percent; three people in a row on overwatch missing the Advent Officer, chance of that is 16%. I didn't want to have to pray to RNGesus so soon.
 

SRG01

Member
Snipers are terrible. In a game where you're pressured to advance and stay mobile to deal with cover (both yours and the enemy's) they make a class that's essentially a turret. I feel that sniper rifles need to do way more damage than assault rifles to be worth anything, especially given that all sniper rifles require separate research and resources. When it comes to assassinating problematic targets, you'd think a sniper would be the weapon of choice...but they gave Rangers that job.

TBF, Snipers aren't supposed to be mowing machines like in the previous XCOM games. They've occupied the overwatch spots on my squads, and typically pull RNG shots from across the map -- which really help in retaliation missions.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
The Gunslinger Sniper is pretty great. Get's a lot of attacks per turn to finish off low health enemies nearbie or just take the long range shot depending on the situation.

In a perfect world you would have two different sniper builds: The classic sniper for missions without timelimit and the gunslinger for missions with limits. But thats more feasible for a possible 'long war' mod where you have more time to train.

omg

Reddit says Killzone works from concealment as if you weren't concealed.

I think I just found a use for my Sniper.
 
Any one playing on a surface pro 3 i5 8gb RAM and getting average surface-y performance? I want a decent game to play when waiting between classes and Civ would turn my surface into a stovetop with a keyboard. I would ask in the performance thread but I feel like that's more for the big boys.
 

masterkajo

Member
A friend and I just tried multiplayer and boy is there a delay... When I see my soldier killing one of his it takes up to 10 to 15 seconds before he sees it too. And When I end my turn it takes 10 to 15 seconds until he can start his...

EDIT: It got worse and worse as time goes on. It took us about and hour and 15 minutes to complete this mutliplayer match and we were making our moves pretty fast. At the end it took 2-3 minutes after I ended my turn before he could start his.
 

Koutsoubas

Member
going with veteran (aka normal) as I did in the first one. good enough for me, I dont need to be frustrated at every turn to enjoy myself, and I like feeling OP late in a game from getting all the upgrades and whatnot. I still lost a ton of ppl in the first one on normal and im sure its going to be the same in this one.



I know what you mean. I did the tutorial and then the first mission after that when you have 4 soldiers (still the tutorial I guess?) this morning and then stopped, I want to play this with some proper free time, not having to worry that I need to go to work in half an hour etc. Ill jump into it proper this weekend hopefully

Totally feel you! This game is too deep! Im really surprised to say the truth
 

GRaider81

Member
Loving it.

The presentation, customisation, visuals all great.

Finding it difficult too which is good.

Performance though sketchy at times not as bad as I was expecting from early reports.
 

studyguy

Member
Honestly what this game needed is the ability to stick a stun baton and a primed grenade on a rookie from the getgo like the original.

Listen if I'm going to be aggressive, I'm going for broke.
PRIME GRENADE, THROW ROOKIE.
 
Loving it.

The presentation, customisation, visuals all great.

Finding it difficult too which is good.

Performance though sketchy at times not as bad as I was expecting from early reports.

I find it definitely runs well enough, even on lower machines, to have a good time. I think a lot of the reports are based off of those expecting their pricier computers to run it perfectly (as it should).

They definitely need to optimize, but the game isn't unplayable by any means.
 

mbpm1

Member
about to dive into this

strange that people are saying the difficulty is higher. I recall people saying in the reviews that it was easier

either way I've played Long War so I know what I'm about

I hope
 

Echoplx

Member
I wish the game design was flexible enough to allow the rangers to really shine, I just infiltrated and planted X4 on a facility without being detected, problem being as soon as you plant the X4 you are somehow magically detected and the evac point is arbitrarily set on the other side of the map so you have to move your entire squad through there anyway, really disappointing.
 
Anybody else finds the 12 turn extraction mission the hardest? The one where you have to find the person first.
Almost all of the other timed missions are no problem, but (ironically) the the longest one of them seems to be the hardest. Sometimes the generated map is huge and the extract point is really far away. Seems to be far more RNG than the other missions. Sometimes it's ok, and sometimes you have to dash basically every turn to make it in time.
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
Honestly, I'm close to scrapping my first run, just because the strategic layer 'fooled me' into thinking there wouldn't be a satellite equivalent.

Should have read the small type by the new regions to realize that intel would be 'relatively' so valuable.

Seems like the 'strategic' layer is the more starved for time, this time around, what with the missions popping up every couple of days - which means that Engineers are worth their weight in gold.

One annoyance I've found is that healing with medkits no longer 'tricks' the no wound post-mission screen.
 

peakish

Member
Another squad wiped ._. Really wasn't prepared for enemies packing grenades and half my squad taking two floors of fall damage on top of that. Goodbye most of my elites, hello remaining rookies and squaddies.

Really, went from "what a great start of this ambush!" to "... oh" in two seconds.
 

Steel

Banned
Another squad wiped ._. Really wasn't prepared for enemies packing grenades and half my squad taking two floors of fall damage on top of that. Goodbye most of my elites, hello remaining rookies and squaddies.

Really, went from "what a great start of this ambush!" to "... oh" in two seconds.

Yeah... My first blacksite run was going great.
I killed the mech almost as soon as it appeared with a couple of lucky crits and hadn't lost a squad member. Then a freaking sectoid mind controls my only healthy squad member, who then proceeds to murder everyone.
 

Zeliard

Member
Anybody else finds the 12 turn extraction mission the hardest? The one where you have to find the person first.
Almost all of the other timed missions are no problem, but (ironically) the the longest one of them seems to be the hardest. Sometimes the generated map is huge and the extract point is really far away. Seems to be far more RNG than the other missions. Sometimes it's ok, and sometimes you have to dash basically every turn to make it in time.

Yeah I shared a similar sentiment earlier. Those missions can be rough because the VIP can be a good distance away, and then once you get to him you still have to get everyone to the fixed extraction point.

I had a particularly cruel one of these where I had my full squad and the VIP up on the roof but couldn't quite cover the distance to the extraction point on the final turn. Came within just a tile or two with everyone, so they were all captured.
 

GRaider81

Member
I find it definitely runs well enough, even on lower machines, to have a good time. I think a lot of the reports are based off of those expecting their pricier computers to run it perfectly (as it should).

They definitely need to optimize, but the game isn't unplayable by any means.

yeah , I have an 980 ti rig and have it running at a 90 % solid 60fps (gameplay) after turning a couple of things down. More than happy with the way it looks and runs at the moment.

Obviously still needs optimized but gameplay > ultra settings
 
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