Roobanguy posted:quick question, does ready for anything also apply to rocket shots? as in you shoot a rocket your first action, do you still go into overwatch? Hopefully with a rocket. 
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Dec 5, 2014 08:01
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Segmentation Fault posted:Hopefully with a rocket. I would love to see an overwatch rocket. Would they fire straight upwards? Shoot themselves? The comedy possibilities are high.
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Dec 5, 2014 08:33
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All that said though, the perk trust fund the aliens get is ridiculous, and isn't modified by difficulty. And on impossible the heavy floaters just get +10 aim +5 will +1 hp compared to normal, so the invincible heavy floater bullshit we saw today still would've happened on normal.
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Dec 5, 2014 08:42
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amanasleep posted:Nope. bummer
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Dec 5, 2014 08:45
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I have tomorrow off so I watched the whole stream this time (though I dozed off after the first mission and woke up in time for FRAG-E to eat it in the bomb disposal). I'll be honest I watch for when things hit the fan to see how he pulls out once the doom spiral starts but wow, that was pretty brutal! He could have avoided it by not scrapping all the older weapons last stream too.
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Dec 5, 2014 08:53
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RBA Starblade posted:I have tomorrow off so I watched the whole stream this time (though I dozed off after the first mission and woke up in time for FRAG-E to eat it in the bomb disposal). I'll be honest I watch for when things hit the fan to see how he pulls out once the doom spiral starts but wow, that was pretty brutal! He could have avoided it by not scrapping all the older weapons last stream too. Moddington posted:All that said though, the perk trust fund the aliens get is ridiculous, and isn't modified by difficulty. And on impossible the heavy floaters just get +10 aim +5 will +1 hp compared to normal, so the invincible heavy floater bullshit we saw today still would've happened on normal.
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Dec 5, 2014 09:05
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Moddington posted:All that said though, the perk trust fund the aliens get is ridiculous, and isn't modified by difficulty. And on impossible the heavy floaters just get +10 aim +5 will +1 hp compared to normal, so the invincible heavy floater bullshit we saw today still would've happened on normal.
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Dec 5, 2014 09:10
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I'm not even sure there isn't a difference in likelyhood and/or the list of possible perks on the different difficulty levels. It's been a while since I looked at those lines because the thread was trying to figure out /seinfeld "What's the deal with sectoids?!" and I looked their deal, and it's. You know. A sectoid deal. I think the perks are affected, it's just tuned to be likelyhood of seeing the perks at the moment. Ah well, hm, I guess what atilla is saying is right. Because all the 'research' amounts to timing on certain tech levels, and that's how the perks are configured. So what he said.
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Dec 5, 2014 10:02
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Aw, downloading the VOD via twitchtools does not bypass the mute anymore. Hopefully Beagle doesn't start playing too much more music.
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Dec 5, 2014 13:34
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Dongattack posted:Aw, downloading the VOD via twitchtools does not bypass the mute anymore. Hopefully Beagle doesn't start playing too much more music. He said he recorded it locally, and would post it (I'm assuming Youtube) at some point.
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Dec 5, 2014 14:31
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RBA Starblade posted:I have tomorrow off so I watched the whole stream this time (though I dozed off after the first mission and woke up in time for FRAG-E to eat it in the bomb disposal). I'll be honest I watch for when things hit the fan to see how he pulls out once the doom spiral starts but wow, that was pretty brutal! He could have avoided it by not scrapping all the older weapons last stream too. Beagle is a very good tactical player, but he makes some strategic decisions that hurt his campaign. Besides selling old weapons (which represents a significant unrecoverable investment in alloys), he neglected early Lab, Workshop and other base development in favor of maxing out investments in tactical equipment. In the short term this can result in fewer casualties and more successful missions, but in the long term it can cause you to fall behind the alien tech level. I don't think he built a single Lab in all of 2015. He also sometimes dismisses the effects of powerful/useful tech, before coming back to it later. Examples include Gene Mods which he's just starting, Gauss Weapons and associated tech which are just coming on line because he lost his Pulse equipment (and doesn't have enough Workshops to replace them cheaply), Psi development which came late, and even MECs which took a back seat to normal soldier development. By delaying his first successful Alien Base Assault, he missed out on a good source of Materials to deal with possible losses, as well as a game breaking piece of tech in Mimic Beacons (which cost zero alloys). All the other player criticisms of his play (including my own) are trivial compared to these. Ranger is a great and undervalued perk, but other choices can be perfectly serviceable. The only class where it's the obvious first choice is on traditional build Rocketeers. I have to say I was impressed with going for Basic SHIVs as his squad wipe low-alloys backup plan though, even though I thought it was bad at the time. Even basic autocannons do non-trivial damage in March 2016, and with Shaped Armor, Advanced Servomoters, and Sentinel Drone and the right equipment they seem to be at least as effective as a human SGT, but costing about $40 to replace and $15 to repair with zero panic, XP loss, etc. I think mid-late game Basic SHIVs look pretty useful now, particularly to smooth over the bumps caused by lots of Psi/Officer/Gene Mod/MEC training keeping your best units tied up.
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Dec 5, 2014 17:12
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amanasleep posted:I think mid-late game Basic SHIVs look pretty useful now, particularly to smooth over the bumps caused by lots of Psi/Officer/Gene Mod/MEC training keeping your best units tied up. I also try to get together enough SHIVs in the first year to use them on the otherwise suicidally tempting landed supply barge missions. Beagle can make that work with troops, but I inevitably run into some ridiculous double pull that calls in reinforcements, and a wad of SHIVs is my best option. You can pull a muton with them--run them up against a balcony down low and wait for stuff to fly over/walk up/jump down and survive several turns of bullshit odds fairly well. Having an alloy or two as your overwatch eaters is also useful.
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Dec 5, 2014 17:18
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Moddington posted:The campaign is far from over. Oh yeah?  amanasleep posted:Sorry, no numbers, but Beagle plays I/I, and the game is balanced around Normal. That's a copout. If Impossible is meant to be stupid, give sectoids 8 health in April and go from there. Vib Rib posted:Beagle is basically the best player I've ever seen. For him to eat it this hard is pretty good proof that the game needs some more rebalancing. Amanasleep can talk numbers all day but the proof is in the beaglepudding. It's silly to think that it doesn't need more balancing. LW devs have gotten into this weird sadistic streak where they want to make everything harder - bull rushing from 2nd move (basically from across the map), run and gun lids, floaters that overwatch after launch, 4 man exalt missions, etc Johnnylump sees everyone saying "this is to hard or needs to be nerfed" as a bunch of whining babies who need to just play on normal. If enough people complain about something, he'll see about using an ini setting, which is fantastic - but that's the most he'll compromise on his vision. I love that man for what he's given us, so there's no hate, but that's the situation. It actually reminds me of the attitude of the old EverQuest 1 devs back in the day when MMOs were meant to be soul crushing. "you're in our world now" edit: but now that the XCOM mascot himself has run into some of the shittier balance points maybe it'll get some attention oswald ownenstein fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 17:35
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Orgophlax posted:He said he recorded it locally, and would post it (I'm assuming Youtube) at some point. I caught the "catastrophic failure mission" live thankfully, but there was a period at the end of the stream that was muted also.
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Dec 5, 2014 17:39
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Dongattack posted:I caught the "catastrophic failure mission" live thankfully, but there was a period at the end of the stream that was muted also. The last of the mohicans theme he put on as his MEC made the run for it while the corporal rocketeer sacrificed himself was glorious
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Dec 5, 2014 17:50
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oswald ownenstein posted:The last of the mohicans theme he put on as his MEC made the run for it while the corporal rocketeer sacrificed himself was glorious Yeah! Nice to have someone that can make a show out of the game, i would have ragequit so hard so long ago and under no circumstance been able to see the entertainment in it, gone straight to this thread to proclaim that LW is utter poo poo and picked a fight with amanasleep in which i basically blubber like a baby.
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Dec 5, 2014 17:53
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oswald ownenstein posted:Oh yeah? Yeah, and it still is. There's a helluva lot of ground left that he can afford to lose while recovering his equipment losses. Though it is closer than I thought because I didn't realize just how much Beagle had compromised his strategic game in favor of the tactical. So lesson learned: don't sell your backup weapons, don't skimp on econ like workshops and the alloy project, and always maintain control of the LZ. And he's already been implementing these lessons in his Youtube campaign.
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Dec 5, 2014 17:55
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oswald ownenstein posted:The last of the mohicans theme he put on as his MEC made the run for it while the corporal rocketeer sacrificed himself was glorious That bit was worth the entire gear loss. I don't know how damaging to his campaign that ended up being, the fact all of that bizarrely fit into some character arc was amazing. Mec is mind controlled! Mec wants to make up for what he did! His friend sacrificing herself for him, and asking him to inform AlexD of her last words. AlexD continuing to be the bane of berserkers against all logical reason! Balance talk aside, I think missions like that are why this game can be fun. The small narratives that get build up as you play the game and change with every new campaign, those never get old to me.
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Dec 5, 2014 17:56
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Why are Mimic Beacons game-breaking by the way? Never used that particular equipment before.
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Dec 5, 2014 18:00
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Hopeford posted:That bit was worth the entire gear loss. I don't know how damaging to his campaign that ended up being, the fact all of that bizarrely fit into some character arc was amazing. Mec is mind controlled! Mec wants to make up for what he did! His friend sacrificing herself for him, and asking him to inform AlexD of her last words. AlexD continuing to be the bane of berserkers against all logical reason! I think those missions are totally fine when the losses are recoverable. I don't think b14 long war is very recoverable after that, though. Like Beagle said, he's loaded with cash now, but is alloy starved. It's the gear loss that does it. Just like if you do a landed UFO , take some losses, and oh crap you can't handle the 7 deep outsider pod anymore. Well gently caress, you can't grab your poo poo - so you abort and lose everything, and now your campaign might be hosed since you're back to ballistics in July. Dongattack posted:Why are Mimic Beacons game-breaking by the way? Never used that particular equipment before. Not sure about LW but in vanilla - and from what I've read also in LW - activated aliens will straight up abandon their assault on you, in cover, and go beelining for the mimic beacon. Especially nasties like berserkers and lids.
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Dec 5, 2014 18:07
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oswald ownenstein posted:Not sure about LW but in vanilla - and from what I've read also in LW - activated aliens will straight up abandon their assault on you, in cover, and go beelining for the mimic beacon. Especially nasties like berserkers and lids. I've seen some aliens do it in LW too.
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Dec 5, 2014 18:14
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Alien base assaults should be done how early in LW? I haven't even built my alien containment and it's almost the end of October! I'm so screwed aren't I? 
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Dec 5, 2014 18:22
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The amount of jerking off about how LW is too hard is wierding me out. Beagle seems to make the mistake of delaying labs for way too long, and largely ignoring gene mods for a long time too. Marbozir plays faster, looser and more aggressive and usually gets away with it. His LW Impossible campaign is basically in the bag. Also, June 2016 and taking no ghost grenades? That poo poo is OP as fuuuuuck and if you aren't carrying at least a couple then you're gonna get wrecked eventually. I have a handful of psi's that with a little will buffing can 100% panic muton elites and heavy floaters. Corvinus fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 18:24
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Marbozir doesn't play on Ironman and started out on some easy difficulty before switching to Impossible. I think that pretty much invalidates the whole thing. He's one of my favorite LPers of many games but until he straight up does Ironman Impossible it's not the same thing.
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Dec 5, 2014 18:26
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oswald ownenstein posted:Marbozir doesn't play on Ironman and started out on some easy difficulty before switching to Impossible. I think that pretty much invalidates the whole thing. I was about to object to this, but then I remembered XCOM lets you change difficulty mid-campaign. If that's what he did then hell yeah it's not comparable.
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Dec 5, 2014 18:31
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oswald ownenstein posted:Marbozir doesn't play on Ironman and started out on some easy difficulty before switching to Impossible. I think that pretty much invalidates the whole thing. For some reason I thought Marbozir started on Brutal, which is a substantial difficulty jump over Classic and only slightly below Impossible in terms of alien stats, but looking his first episode and he starts at Classic. Switches to Impossible at ep ~101 which is the end of October and comparing to Beagle they both are using Lasers and some MECs. Marb has more countries lost to aliens, but he already has psi labs and is starting on advanced pulse while Beagle has exactly 0 labs. Marb's advantage at this point is slightly more gear and being further along in tech, Beagle has more sats and income (Marb ~300 to Beagle ~480). After that they're both fighting the same aliens and Marb's aliens have more countries to run uncontested missions in. Still seems like Beagle shoots himself in the foot by waiting too long for labs.
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Dec 5, 2014 18:56
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oswald ownenstein posted:Not sure about LW but in vanilla - and from what I've read also in LW - activated aliens will straight up abandon their assault on you, in cover, and go beelining for the mimic beacon. Especially nasties like berserkers and lids. This, although Long War has nerfed them recently so that they no longer force an Alien double move, and the single move prompts a Will check vs. the User's will. They are still amazing. These plus Ghost Grenades can make the Aliens miss so many turns. Mimic Beacons are the real reason to rush Alien Base Assaults. A good tactical player can win tough missions in 2015 with ballistics and no armor. The real game breaking techs in LW are: 1. Chem Grenades. 2. Alien Grenades. 3. MECs (with Flamethrowers). 4. Ghost Grenades. 5. Mimic Beacons. 6. Flight (Armor and SHIVs). 7. Psi Panic. 8. Laser Cannons. 9. Psi Shadow and Shadow Armor. It's pretty easy to get Chem, Alien, and Ghost Grenades in the first 4-5 months of play. With just those you can do amazing things. Flamethrower MECs are also great, although one of the great things about your first MECs is getting your most injured high ranking troops back 3-4 weeks earlier. Aside from Laser Cannons the rest is late game tech but Mimic Beacons in particular can be rushed.
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Dec 5, 2014 19:58
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oswald ownenstein posted:Not sure about LW but in vanilla - and from what I've read also in LW - activated aliens will straight up abandon their assault on you, in cover, and go beelining for the mimic beacon. Especially nasties like berserkers and lids. Haha, seriously? That's amazing. I had no idea, never used them before, totally gonna start now.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:09
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Edit; never mind, too dumb to read the OP.
Chaltab fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 20:13
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Someone made a spreadsheet of pre-plasma air weapons at various upgrades, the tl;dr is that:quote:- Against Scouts and Raiders, Laser Cannons are just better. Mathematically. Always. Edit: amanasleep posted:9. Psi Shadow and Shadow Armor. I've noticed that running into a full-cover location with Psi Shadow, but being revealed by a unactivated pod that flanks the operative, doesn't trigger the pod's activation routine. If I end turn without further touching the alien pod they act like they were already activated (shooting and so on). Haven't used Shadow Armor to see if the same thing can happen. Corvinus fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Dec 5, 2014 |
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Dec 5, 2014 20:31
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Maybe Gauss and Pulse should share the same tier of damage or something instead, at least on the ground level, and give them better effects, while beam stays as it is as a early-mid game weapon or for if you absolutely need the aim, but will eventually get obsoleted. And plasma maybe should net a +2 damage over those two instead to make up for it. Air weapons though, yikes, especially if beam laser cannons seem to just do the trick right off the bat.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:48
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Corvinus posted:I've noticed that running into a full-cover location with Psi Shadow, but being revealed by a unactivated pod that flanks the operative, doesn't trigger the pod's activation routine. If I end turn without further touching the alien pod they act like they were already activated (shooting and so on). Haven't used Shadow Armor to see if the same thing can happen. Shadow Armor gives full invisibility like Ghost Grenade, so will not be revealed if flanked. In general, pods that have LOS on XCOM at the end of a player's turn will behave as "activated" from the start of the next alien turn. It's just that in some cases, like XCOM spawning in view of a pod, or a soldier running through a pod's LOS to a single tile only, the pod's activation sequence with movement, scatter, and/or overwatch will not trigger.
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Dec 5, 2014 20:57
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Sober posted:Alien base assaults should be done how early in LW? I haven't even built my alien containment and it's almost the end of October! I just pulled off my first base assault in LW on Normal difficulty in November. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting. There were 52 enemies, which were a combination of: Mutons Muton Elites Floaters Heavy Floaters Chrysalids 2 Zombies EXALT (with ballistic weapons, even though EXALT have been using laser weapons in my covert op missions for months) and the final pod, a Sectoid Commander with 4-5 Outsiders Due to the map layout you really only should be facing one pod at a time. However, I encountered several pairs of 4 enemy pods placed next to each other, so upon activation I would be facing 8 enemies. With Gauss, 2 Mecs, Carapace and a mix of Tech Sergeants and above, I was able to finish it without taking any losses (although I did end up putting half my squad in the med bay for a few weeks). I wish I would have brought a Rocketeer, and a Valkyrie instead of an Archer (I loaded up on HEAT because I figured there would be mechs, but there were no robotic enemies at all). Your result may vary, of course, depending on how your strategic game is going. I was getting about 5-6 Meld per container before the assault, so I was keeping pace with the aliens.
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Dec 5, 2014 21:04
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The only issue I have with 50 something odd enemies is that I start being stingy with my items, like nades that I could clearly use to blow up cover or smoke when I can't retreat and just need to suppress and stand my ground. Like after the first 2 dozen I would be afraid if I even had anything else, especially if there's gonna be like 4 or so outsiders and a commander at the end. I need to build another MEC suit with the 0 alloys I currently have. I almost exclusively save rockets for 4+ enemies though, but yikes anyway.
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Dec 5, 2014 21:09
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amanasleep posted:Shadow Armor gives full invisibility like Ghost Grenade, so will not be revealed if flanked. There also seem to be a TON of LOS bugs introduced in LW that I never saw on vanilla. I can't even count on one hand how many times I've seen plasma shots coming at me from completely out of LOS with my guys on overwatch. And I'm not far enough in where squadsight on aliens is a thing.
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Dec 5, 2014 21:27
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Sober posted:The only issue I have with 50 something odd enemies is that I start being stingy with my items, like nades that I could clearly use to blow up cover or smoke when I can't retreat and just need to suppress and stand my ground. Like after the first 2 dozen I would be afraid if I even had anything else, especially if there's gonna be like 4 or so outsiders and a commander at the end. I need to build another MEC suit with the 0 alloys I currently have. I'm the same way. I brought a Packmaster Engineer who carried 6 Dense Smoke grenades and 3 Chem grenades, 5 medkits and 2 smoke nades on my Medic, and had an Archer with 2 grenades. I ran out of medkits after about 30 enemies killed, ran out of smoke grenades by the end, used my Archer's grenades very early on despite not wanting to, and only used 1 Chem grenade. Next time I do a base assault I'll try 6 smoke and 3 flashbangs on the Engineer, 5 medkits and 2 smoke on the Medic, a Shogun with Collateral Damage and grenades, a Rocketeer with 2 of each rocket, and a Valkyrie for Shredder. I lacked reliable cover destruction, which would have definitely cut down on the wounds I received. The Commander pod was actually the easiest for me, due to the base layout. The final room has a ramp leading to an upper level in the center of the room, from which you can look down on enemies in cover. But there's only that one entrance, and it's right across from where XCOM enters the room. When I activated the pod, I pulled all my soldiers up the ramp and onto the overhang, used a Chem grenade on the commander and an outsider, and focused on the 8 floaters that spawned to the right. The outsiders basically ran back and forth to cover, triggering my overwatches until there were only 2 remaining, plus the commander. Once the floaters were gone I jumped my soldiers down, got flanks on all three, and killed them in one turn.
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Dec 5, 2014 21:27
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oswald ownenstein posted:There also seem to be a TON of LOS bugs introduced in LW that I never saw on vanilla. Can't say the same, but although I don't believe it's possible for the LW devs to actually change the LOS mechanics, it is possible that they could create more circumstances where alien units would be in a position to see XCOM without XCOM seeing the enemy. In addition, LW adds a lot more enemies and makes them more aggressive. In particular, elevation increases sight range, and LW generally increased the effective ranges of weapons, so Flying and leaping enemies may have better opportunities to do this. It often requires squad sight for this to happen, but I think there is a 2-3 tile distance between normal sight range (17-18 tiles) and the effective weapon max range (20 tiles). Elevation increases sight range by a few tiles, and possibly more at max height. So a non-squad sight Floater could theoretically target XCOM at 20 tiles when XCOM could only see 18 tiles. I believe the vanilla weapon range was 18 tiles, same as sight range.
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Dec 5, 2014 21:47
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Do you get alloys and various metal resources for taking a alien base in LW? Gotta be loads of alloys in there.
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Dec 5, 2014 21:55
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Dongattack posted:Do you get alloys and various metal resources for taking a alien base in LW? Gotta be loads of alloys in there. Tons. I forget exactly how much.
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Dec 5, 2014 22:12
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Dongattack posted:Do you get alloys and various metal resources for taking a alien base in LW? Gotta be loads of alloys in there. Yep. I wanna say about 80-90 alloys, maybe 40-50 meld and Elirium. I also got an Alien Entertainment which sold for $250, some Alien Foods, and a bunch of Alien Surgeries and containment pods.
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Dec 5, 2014 22:17
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