ysbreker

XCOM 2

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Anyone else finding their resistance fighters can see and shoot through solid walls, rocks, scenery with no problem at all? I'm all for having the advantage, but wallhacking?

I think there's a bit of grace allowed in that regard, like maybe the collision boxes are one tile smaller when calculating line of sight. Have only had the solid wall shoot through when there was a hole directly adjacent to it from what I've noticed.

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I think there's a bit of grace allowed in that regard, like maybe the collision boxes are one tile smaller when calculating line of sight. Have only had the solid wall shoot through when there was a hole directly adjacent to it from what I've noticed.

 

There's also some wonky collision stuff that I think is just a bug in the system. I've had windows explode before my soldier was even close to them.

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Also, five out of maybe a dozen missions have taken place in Kansas City for me. It makes me chuckle, in a good way.

 

I'm a bit jealous of that, my game started in Siberia. 

 

 

 

I'm about to get into whatever the first Black Site is.  So far it's been pretty smooth sailing (on Normal, or whatever that's called now).  No deaths, have had a couple of close calls where a shot could have finished someone, but they missed.  The Sectoids seem much more interested in raising the dead than in trying to mind control me.  I had to do the majority of missions without my only Ranger as well, as she got grievously wounded for a 17 day heal on like the second mission.  And then I pulled three snipers out of my rookies.  Going to try a pistol build on one of them to see how that works. 

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Finally got past the first two missions without a fatality, felt like I was doing all right after the first supply drop, then suddenly they dump a bunch of enemies with a bunch more life on me. So now none of my weapons can kill an enemy in one hit anymore and I'm sunk once again.

 

While I agree that XCOM 2 feels fairly brutal at times - possibly even more so than Enemy Unknown - I think you're going to be a lot happier if you stop trying to play the game with 0 fatalities, especially early on. My memorial wall already has at least a dozen names on it, but at this point I have a pretty solid core of Sergeant level soldiers, and even a couple of Lieutenants, and it definitely feels manageable.

 

I think the designers intended for us to accept the losses and keep rolling, and doing so is certainly not hurting my enjoyment of the game.

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Wow okay how's this for a bug. 

Was assaulting a landed UFO, tried sneaking in a ranger to disable the distress beacon. Was one turn off reaching it, but i thought hey, maybe i can destroy it instead. Went to throw a grenade and it gave the friendly fire warning. Made me think that you needed the control panel intact to disable it. Fortunately I thought well, what the heck, worth a try since I'm not going to reach it anyways. Turns out that despite the warning, destroying it disables the beacon, so it's actually a good thing to chuck a grenade at it. So yeah, heads up about that.

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I'm really enjoying it. It does feel more fair, usually, but the opportunity to get totally hosed is pretty unfun.

 

I had a Sniper in Full Cover get hit by two people who were in the worst possible position to hit with. I'm talking a sub-20% chance and both hit in the same turn, taking out one of my best.

 

Yeah, that's just how the rolls go, but it makes me feel really sad 'cause I worked so hard keeping everyone safe.

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Okay, there's lots of things I like about the new XCOM, not sure how I feel about how many enemy types just sort of bumrush you though.

 

A single hit from a stun lancer can knock one of your soldiers unconscious, effectively rendering them useless for the rest of the mission with just one hit, unless you got a medic to take care of it (think going into a kind of permanent bleedout state in XCOM 1). I had this happen twice really early into missions and it's super annoying.

 

The new Floater types also seem really keen to just fly past your cover and hit you in the face, and it's really hard to prevent that since they have such a high dodge chance. Also, I just ran into Chrysalids for the first time, and apparently these pop out of the ground now when you get close. So where previously you could at least sort of negate their charge by taking them on from a long range, now as soon as you see them they're already on top of you.

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How is everyone finding the load times? I've installed XCOM 2 on a solid state drive and loading when starting or finishing a mission is at least 45 seconds. How is it on a mechanical drive?

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How is everyone finding the load times? I've installed XCOM 2 on a solid state drive and loading when starting or finishing a mission is at least 45 seconds. How is it on a mechanical drive?

It does seem to take a while doesn't it? I'd say I'm having broadly the same amount of dead time when I'm flying too and from missions

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While I agree that XCOM 2 feels fairly brutal at times - possibly even more so than Enemy Unknown - I think you're going to be a lot happier if you stop trying to play the game with 0 fatalities, especially early on. My memorial wall already has at least a dozen names on it, but at this point I have a pretty solid core of Sergeant level soldiers, and even a couple of Lieutenants, and it definitely feels manageable.

 

I think the designers intended for us to accept the losses and keep rolling, and doing so is certainly not hurting my enjoyment of the game.

I was just trying to get through the tutorial with no fatalities. This time, I had a 3 person wipe followed by a full squad wipe back to back, due to those stun lancers that Deadpan is talking about, which, including injuries, left me exactly 4 rookies for my next mission. I'm a bit envious of people that have been able to make it so much further, but without being able to hire folks whenever I want, I can't even throw more people at the problem.

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It does seem to take a while doesn't it? I'd say I'm having broadly the same amount of dead time when I'm flying too and from missions

 

The load times at current are pretty ridiculous. I'm getting the same thing.

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Those load times sound basically what my loads on my regular drive are, like the SSD isn't really helping.  I didn't have enough space on my SSD to load it there, glad I didn't take the time to clean it up.

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Load times are rough on a hybrid drive also.

I think the battle scanner reveals faceless and chrysallids, so maybe thatll help getting bumrushed by those particular nasties.

Has anyone noticed a screen where its just a weird little light in the dark for like a second after they finish missions? it shows up just before the cutscene of the skyranger landing. Wonder if anyone else has gotten it/what the heck it is. Heres a screenshot http://puu.sh/mYcxs/954fd64ef3.png

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I was just trying to get through the tutorial with no fatalities. This time, I had a 3 person wipe followed by a full squad wipe back to back, due to those stun lancers that Deadpan is talking about, which, including injuries, left me exactly 4 rookies for my next mission. I'm a bit envious of people that have been able to make it so much further, but without being able to hire folks whenever I want, I can't even throw more people at the problem.

 

What are we counting as the tutorial? I mean obviously in the mission in which you rescue yourself, almost everyone dies and you have no choice about it. I don't really remember the next few missions, if I'm honest. Also, what difficulty are you playing on? I don't think I remember stun lancers for the first few missions.

 

 

Has anyone noticed a screen where its just a weird little light in the dark for like a second after they finish missions? it shows up just before the cutscene of the skyranger landing. Wonder if anyone else has gotten it/what the heck it is. Heres a screenshot http://puu.sh/mYcxs/954fd64ef3.png

 

Yeah, I get that all the time.

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What are we counting as the tutorial? I mean obviously in the mission in which you rescue yourself, almost everyone dies and you have no choice about it. I don't really remember the next few missions, if I'm honest. Also, what difficulty are you playing on? I don't think I remember stun lancers for the first few missions.

 

 

 

Yeah, I get that all the time.

I'm counting the tutorial as the first two missions that you get to steer yourself. Basically, until you can choose where to move the ship. I got far enough in now that skip tutorial is on by default, so I'd wager that's about where the line lays as far as the computer thinks too.

Stun Lancers were in the mission immediately after the first terror mission.

I had a run this morning that did a bit better, until I tried to hit up the first alien facility at the end of the second month. I lost 3/5 of my team, but still made it out with the vial. I felt pretty good about that, but then I didn't have enough troops to fill a full squad. Is there a way to recruit more rookies I'm missing? I've jumped at the only map search icons for rookies, and resistance HQ either has ground crew, or higher skilled soldiers, not just plain rooks.

Edit: Oh, and load times have been pretty lousy for me, but I'm kinda used to it.

Edit2: Oh, there's a recruit option in the Armory. Weird that the beginner VO kept yelling at me to back to resistance HQ and never told me about this :( I think I might be too late to recover, but I guess we'll see how it goes.

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I like this game a lot, I think that concealment gives you the tools to dictate your engagements in a way that makes it a lot less frustrating than the first XCOM.

 

That said, the (first?) Codex fight is bullshit. There's no preparation for all the random powers that it busts out and, if you're taking your cues from the first game, it's fully possible for it to spawn with your squad exhausted and totally out of position. Maybe it's an authentic experience for aliens to slaughter your squad because you had no idea what they were capable of, but it wasn't particularly fun. Good thing it was the B team, but still...

 

Also, five out of maybe a dozen missions have taken place in Kansas City for me. It makes me chuckle, in a good way.

 

That happened to me as well. I went right up to the officer, the last remaining enemy almost assuredly, and jammed my probething into it assuming it would end the mission like if you stun an alien. I went from having 3/4 squad members to a wipe.

 

That was my first tired ragequit.

 

I'm in South Africa. Just knowing that the geography changes is pretty fun.

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I had a run this morning that did a bit better, until I tried to hit up the first alien facility at the end of the second month. I lost 3/5 of my team, but still made it out with the vial. I felt pretty good about that, but then I didn't have enough troops to fill a full squad. Is there a way to recruit more rookies I'm missing? I've jumped at the only map search icons for rookies, and resistance HQ either has ground crew, or higher skilled soldiers, not just plain rooks.

Edit2: Oh, there's a recruit option in the Armory. Weird that the beginner VO kept yelling at me to back to resistance HQ and never told me about this :( I think I might be too late to recover, but I guess we'll see how it goes.

 

Oh I totally didn't pick up that that's what you had meant by not being able to refill your team whenever you wanted. I thought you'd just run out of supplies or something. Yeah, it would definitely be hard to do anything without buying new recruits at the start of the game.

 

I haven't done this Codex thing you guys are talking about because I've kind of been stalling the main missions a bit, but now I'm kinda scared. I already let the Avatar project get into countdown to apocalypse mode once! I'm still scraping by in missions but I think I may be headed for a campaign loss if things keep going this way. I never have enough supplies to get the equipment I need at this point, so I think even my missions are going to go south soon.

 

Also I failed my last mission to act against a Dark Event so I think I'm going to have 2-3 dark event results this month.  :unsure:

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Has anyone ignored one of the angry red missions yet? i feel obligated to do All The Missions because that's how I play video games, but it's probably healthier for all my soldiers to maybe let one pass ever.

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Has anyone ignored one of the angry red missions yet? i feel obligated to do All The Missions because that's how I play video games, but it's probably healthier for all my soldiers to maybe let one pass ever.

I have, I was really close to a raid on a blacksite so i ignored doing one of the three missions that blocks Dark Events. The three events didn't sound that bad so I didn't really care. Everything turned out fine.*

 

 

*Results May Vary.

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That happened to me as well. I went right up to the officer, the last remaining enemy almost assuredly, and jammed my probething into it assuming it would end the mission like if you stun an alien. I went from having 3/4 squad members to a wipe.

 

That was my first tired ragequit.

 

Yeah... As much as I am not usually prone to ragging on a game for its tutorial philosophy, so long as I have the tools to teach myself the game, XCOM 2's biggest flaw, as far as I've seen, is that the different ways it tries to educate you on how to play it are often at cross purposes. It's a little galling to have the designers rely so heavily on my knowledge of the previous game for how rebel comms ought to work, while also using that knowledge to fuck me over with the Codex. Sure, the talking heads warned me that something unexpected could happen, but I started to tune that out several missions before, after seeing that the desire of the narrative to instill awe in me meant that every fuckin' thing that happens is the most unpredictable and mind-blowing thing that Tygan and Shen have seen in twenty years of alien invasion and occupation. It's even Tygan's bark for finishing a research assignment! Meanwhile, the game regularly spits out useless warnings about nothing, foremost among them being Shen's comment about having unassigned engineers, which comes off as maybe 25% "You have an engineer unassigned, make sure to put them somewhere" and 75% "You have too many engineers and that's bad because reasons." Mercifully, this is not a problem with the game itself (although I'm not sure I'll ever understand how the number for my soldier's hacking ability interacts with the number for the hacked system's difficulty to produce the percentage chance of success... Maybe it's the bar that fills up, but it's a total black box to me right now), just with how the game explains itself to first-time players.

 

Actually, what's really the biggest flaw is that, in cutscenes, the camera does all these dramatic upward pans and swoops, but then occasionally it remembers that it's supposed to be the Commander's point of view when the talking heads turn to say something to it, so I repeatedly imagine my guy being this bizarre Mr. Bean of a military leader leaning over and ducking under everything, right in everyone's way.

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Got to the Codex thingy tonight, and I dug how that played out.  Of course, it didn't cost me a squad wipe, so that helps. 

 

I feel like the surprises 2 is throwing at me so far are working a lot better than anything 1 ever tried, likely because 1 was far more tied to the enemy types of the original game. 

 

I got my first "Shaken" soldier tonight, and that's tense as hell taking one of them back out to try and get them over their shit, knowing that they're ready to panic or get mind controlled at the drop of a hat (because that's how PTSD works folks, you go kill more things and experience more horrors of war and it all gets better).  Apparently if you can get them out of it though, it ultimately increases their Will. 

 

I'm also feeling desperate for cash non-stop, and my Avatar meter is creeping up as I can't reach some site in another country, because I keep getting distracted away from expanding out by having missions pop up.  And if one of the little "Wait 3 days for free shit happens", it's always supplies I can put to use immediately. 

 

From what I've seen so far, the world map stuff is a much better idea than the remake's version.  You've got shit to do besides just hit the button and wait for something to happen (even though in some ways it's just flying around and hitting the button in different places, it still feels more engaging). 

 

Probably the worst I've faced so far was having all but 3 soldiers gravely injured, and out of cash to recruit more.  Thankfully the black market popped up shortly thereafter, but I ended up selling some things I would have preferred to keep just to make sure I could have a full squad.  Then my new recruits both got killed in the next mission.  Ah well, 50 supplies to keep my veterans alive, I can live with that.  Sorry cannon fodder rookies. 

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I'm about 5 hours into XCOM 2 at the moment, and I'm enjoying it for the most part, but the combat is really starting to grate on me.  Similar to the first game, the first couple hours are pretty uninteresting, mainly since you only have 4 carbon copy soldiers with no abilities but I suppose that is to be expected.  I'm really enjoying the concealment mechanic, and the classes have all been refined nicely from what I've encountered.  What is starting to frustrate me is that they haven't come up or worked in any kind of change in how missed shots affect the game.  Most of the missions so far are timed in some way or another, and this can lead to some incredibly frustrating situations where I lose the mission because I had to spend 2 turns killing a single enemy due to all the missed shots.  I suppose missed shots are just part of the XCOM design aesthetic, but given all the extra mechanics, especially all the new one shot kills/disables, it seems like the design would really benefit from a miss being more than just a lost action.  

 

Generally so far I'm enjoying most parts of the game with reservations.  I like the new focus on the story, but often the chatterbox NPCs end up making me sit there doing nothing while they finish their diatribe.  The new Avenger idea is cool for the campaign map, but the notification spam is a bit annoying.  In most respects I feel like the game took two steps forward, and one step back as compared to the remake.  The one thing I am really enjoying without qualification is how much more of a board game it feels like.  From the Avatar project victory clock and so on, XCOM 2 feels like a fantastic video game adaptation of a board game.

 

By the way what difficulty are y'all playing on?  I'm on normal currently, but even there I'm rarely getting shots with a greater than 50% chance to hit without really exploiting the mechanics, and have lost 1 or more soldiers on almost every mission.

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Well my first campaign ended in abject failure last night, I don't want to spoil anything but a scripted mission happened and I was overwhelmed in 3 turns despite attempting that mission about 7 times. I gave up, dialled the difficultly down to veteran and started again. It doesn't gate quite like XCOM 1 I don't think, but clearly hanging around to do the black site mission is not a good idea.

You get a hell of a lot engineers and scientists on veteran too. Hopefully this play through will give me a much better idea on what I should be doing and we can progress through

It wasn't quite as brutal as the Long War but let those aliens get too far ahead and it's all over very fast.

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