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Dang, missed this thing for a week. I'll get to work on my application straight away, assuming you haven't decided to stop accepting them already.Jade Star posted:Also ergh I forgot how bad Heavy Aim growth is even on hidden potential. Guess that's why I really wanted a 80 aim rookie to go heavy and not a 65 Aim rookie.  Actually, Hidden Potential just straight up fucks Heavies' Aim, since regular Heavy Aim Growth is 2 points per rank (provided they didn't change that with EW). Obviously Hidden Potential's Heavy Aim Growth at 0-2 points per rank does not compare favorably.On occasion I've even had Heavies who ended up with the same Aim at Colonel as they had at Rookie.  Again assuming they didn't change things with EW, Hidden Potential is an obvious benefit to Assaults (1-5 should produce about evenly compared to a flat 3, but you can cherry-pick the people who get lucky) and to Psionics (the Psi Lab will cherry-pick high Will for you...mostly), but it runs a risk on Supports (2-6 vs. 5) and Snipers (3-9 vs. 7), and kicks Heavies in a spot that doesn't really need kicking.
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Feb 11, 2014 23:51
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Jade Star posted:These values are all wrong. Or at least they are for EW. Not a single class actually gets a flat growth rate. Listed stat growth by rank for EW. Huh. At first looking at Assault I thought maybe I simply hadn't noticed the points where it varied, but I'm fairly certain that the rest did not behave like that at all in my game (at least before I started using Hidden Potential). I checked most if not all of the ranks for each class before chalking it up to a flat rate, and I would have noticed supports or snipers getting only 3 Aim for the majority of their ranks. Which is all the more peculiar because the gamefaqs post it's taking all this from is dated more than a year before Enemy Within's release. The only thing I can think of is that maybe having Not Created Equally on shifts it somehow (since I always did and he didn't), but that would be rather silly to bother to code in. I'll have to test it again, I guess.
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Feb 12, 2014 01:09
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ulmont posted:Am I missing something - those are all flat growth ranks for aim for each class (and seem to track the flat scores below)? The latter. Fixed but not flat. Initial testing seems to confirm the listed growths rather than what I'd thought. I haven't the foggiest how my methodology could have slipped that badly when I looked into it back then. The snipers should have been bloody obvious. v  vThat said, if we look at the actual fixed growths, Heavies still take a small hit (1 average instead of 1.4 average), Assaults do too (3 average instead of 3.4 average), and it slightly benefits Supports and Snipers (4 vs. 3.6 support, 6 vs. 5.7 sniper). Looks nicely even for the most part. Heavies can still get majorly screwed over if they're unlucky, but on the upside, snipers can get their aim up a lot quicker since they don't have to go through that valley of 3s in their progression before spiking at the end.
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Feb 12, 2014 02:21
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Aim medal on Tony White to make him a ridiculous kill-stealer, and +Defense on any Support so they get shot at less since you like to put them in Titan instead of Ghost.
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Feb 12, 2014 02:47
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Alkydere posted:The memorization of "the boss alien will be here" has gotten me in trouble, especially on crashed large scouts. The last two or three large scout maps I've played on the Outsider has either been in one of the power rooms or in the otherwise empty room in the center. Which is really great when you think you're safe to set up for breaching the navigation room, dash a guy into position, only to discover that I dashed him into a flanked shot. Large scouts aren't the only ones that have alternate locations either. I've found sectoid commanders or the ethereal chilling in the cargo bays of a supply barge on occasion, and I forget whether there's a secondary for abductors when it sets you up to go in through the command center first. Battleships and small scouts are the only ones that for sure don't, but that's because the former is laid out as a linear level (admittedly with three start points, but they all lead into the same room), and the latter only has one room anyway.
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Feb 12, 2014 18:58
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Psion posted:more like Assplate of Terashell. Corporal Richard Jenkins? I always called him Corporal Colander Crotch, at least.
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Feb 13, 2014 05:43
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Sloober posted:Amusingly tactical sense and the +def armors later on usually mean your assault isn't going to get attacked at all, as with cover, tac sense and the +defense offered by a skeleton suit or ghost armor aliens usually pick softer targets in sight instead of them. This is why I refer to Tactical Sense as the shoot-at-the-heavy-instead ability, and why I like to put Ghost Armor on Supports. Manipulating who the aliens shoot at has saved more than a few soldiers over my playthroughs. (Though it has made like 40% of my casualties Heavies.) Jade also touched on indestructible cover during the video. While "corners" isn't quite right, I assume he just didn't want to get into the specifics at the time. Basically anything that's seen by the game as a building support is indestructible, and knowing where those are on a map is very valuable, especially when it's pillars inside a building. Being able to take cover and know it's not going to go away even if they lob a grenade at you is a big benefit, and on the other side it also saves you from wasting grenades or rockets trying to take out enemy cover that's just going to shrug it off (simply trying to kill them with explosives is another matter, of course). For medals and nicknames: Nittien "August" Stomperud. It's fitting and maybe something Jade can pronounce. Though we should still make him pronounce it 'oh-goost' or however else it should be in that language. Ragnar "Tiny" Turtle. Makes it a no-brainer to just start calling him Tiny. +Aim and Will medal. Looking at the endpoint, both will have +10 Aim, but one has +10 Will and works all the time, while one has +10 Crit and only works some of the time. I don't think that's even a contest. The former will take a few missions to get up to snuff, but at the rate missions are flooding in, it'll be done by the end of June, if not May. (Do missions you've already done count toward the medal's stats?) This will create a very good bonus for the rest of the game, and be a pretty nice bonus even as it's building too. E: Spelling Felinoid fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Feb 14, 2014 |
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Feb 14, 2014 16:33
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I always take Disabling Shot over Battle Scanner, because Battle Scanner has this thing where if it reveals a group that's just outside the edge of your sight range, they'll activate anyway. Enemies seem to have a slightly longer sight range than you do, maybe half a square. Ordinarily that doesn't seem like much of a problem - it's such a small window - but I kept getting really unlucky and it'd happen to me more times than not. So I ended up swearing it off not because it isn't useful, but because I could never make good use of it. I guess if the scanner detects seekers I might have to give it another go when I get EW.Fetucine posted:Enemy Unknown had a glitch where Disabling Shot actually gave a certain lategame enemy infinite overwatch shots, did EW fix that? Oh is that what happened to me once? Thing took 5 or 6 overwatch shots on my Lightning Reflexes Assault who was Run & Gunning straight at it, and LR only protects you from the first one. Got really lucky and only took 2 or 3 hits for 90% of the assault's health, but it made me swear a blue streak when it happened. 
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Feb 17, 2014 01:10
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Brainamp posted:Nope. Humans have one square more sight range than aliens. Then how the hell did they keep seeing me when I couldn't see them before the Battle Scanner?
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Feb 17, 2014 01:26
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SpRahl posted:Yeah he is saying that you dont have to switch back to the sniper as you activate overwatch, you can activate overwatch then gently caress around with other soldiers or something and then swap the sniper back to their rifle. No need to be quick about it. Unless the sniper is the last one to move, because then as soon as it deactivates them your turn ends. So it just becomes good practice to do it the quick way (plus it's not really twitch, so it gets really easy when you're used to it). It seems like more of a hassle to scroll back over to your sniper and click them to switch their weapon anyway. A Curvy Goonette posted:Did EW ever fix the fact that sniper overwatch shots take a super long time to fire? Given we've been watching Jade play EW, apparently they didn't. I have to assume that it's meant to make the sniper take their shot last in case there's an overwatch pileup, but the effects of that are variable at best, so I'm not sure why they'd bother.
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Feb 17, 2014 17:06
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Zore posted:No, its just that overwatch shots play out the full attack animation in slow motion. Snipers just have the longest attack animation. Yeah, but you'd think if it were simply an oversight they'd do something about it after everyone complained. Given that they haven't changed it, I have to at least hope that they've got some other reason for it, even if it's a daffy one.
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Feb 17, 2014 17:15
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A Curvy Goonette posted:That reason doesn't make any sense. It doesn't matter when the actual attack hits since they all commit to the attack at once and waste their reaction shot either way. The purpose wouldn't be to determine who shoots, but who kills. The idea potentially being to keep snipers from hogging all the kills with their high overwatch effectiveness by making sure everyone else gets their shot to kill the thing first. For low health stuff like thin men and floaters that might work, but for high health things later in the game, you're just as likely to start feeding the sniper because everyone else will soften it up for the sniper to finish off. It's probably a wash (or nearly) overall, which is why I said it was a bit daffy.
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Feb 17, 2014 18:38
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The Casualty posted:I can't believe I watched the whole thing.  I couldn't make it through 4 minutes without getting seriously depressed that people like him exist. If you watched all 43 minutes, I recommend you seek the counsel of a mental health professional at your earliest convenience.
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Feb 18, 2014 00:44
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The Casualty posted:The outcome of any given turn cannot be changed by loading a save. To a point. Moving shifts the seed (I think), and even if you can't do that, you can always take a shot you had no chance at to get another shot with who you really want to hit. Even if everyone's single-moved, if you miss a 90% shot, you can reload, take a 23% shot with someone else to eat that miss, and then give the 90% guy another shot at the RNG. If you were particularly persistent you could map out the minimum accuracy needed for each shot that turn and use it to get the maximum number of hits. It would be horribly boring to play that way, though. Reloading a save to take the exact same shot over and over again without varying action order is just an exercise in futility, though.
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Feb 18, 2014 02:42
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Green Intern posted:There is a Second Wave option in Enemy Within called "Save Scum," which does shuffle up the RNG seed every time you reload. It doesn't help if you don't even play missions because they're tagged as *gasp* Very Difficult! (I read the Youtube comments. )Speaking of which, I hope Jade explains what the displayed difficulty levels of missions actually mean in a video. I've got a friend who thought the same thing as DSP, that Very Difficult actually means it's much harder. I was on the phone with her when she skipped a set of abduction missions entirely and was upset that 3 countries seceded afterward. I don't think I managed to hide how incredulous I was as I explained to her what she'd done. I'm sure there's plenty more like that who might come across the LP in the archive. Crigit posted:...That actually sounds interesting to me. I think I have a problem. Nah, there's a bit of me that wanted to do it too, back when I found out how the RNG worked. The ability to manipulate chance seems interesting. I stopped before I mapped even one turn. Just not worth it in the slightest. Felinoid fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Feb 18, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 03:45
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Rorahusky posted:If I remember correctly, Mission Difficulty determines how many enemy squads you'll encounter. The higher the difficulty of the mission, the more groups of aliens there are on the map to trigger. That was my understanding as well. I'm just hoping that he mentions it in a video for people who find the LP in the archive later.
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Feb 18, 2014 06:54
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From what I've seen so far, Seekers seem like they would be a great counter to The One in multiplayer, but the mentions of gene mods that counter them makes me think that's probably wrong. Also Close Combat Reflexes might neuter them, come to think of it (if they have that). I'm still sad I didn't have the chance to see if 3 chrys could run it down.Veloxyll posted:I thought it was meant to be the game of maximum offense v maximum defense. And one team won HARD (I was at work while the game was on, okay.) It was supposed to be, but it ended up being a game of maximum defense vs. minimum competence. DatonKallandor posted:Also the Titan enemy in the Bureau - it's so ridiculously easy: after you've beaten the fight once and you get the document that tells you how to fight Titans. But then they never show up ever again. Frankly I found it horribly annoying. I don't think I died to it, but the in-game advice of "take cover to protect yourself" was a complete red herring, as with a single shot it'd destroy a large swathe of cover and hit me anyway. It was easy enough after I realized I should just run around like a ninny whenever I thought it was going to fire, but that misdirection irked me, and the rest of the time whittling away its health made it feel like a very simple puzzle boss that had long overstayed its welcome.
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Feb 18, 2014 16:54
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I actually really like destroying power cores, especially in Battleships. The very last room has a power core in the center that Sectoid Commanders love to take cover behind, which can turn a Heavy's Suppression into a nearly guaranteed 10+ damage.  Also, is there any reason why you don't have subtitles turned on? I know the trio of talking heads don't have that much interesting to say, but it'd be nice to ensure we don't miss plot points. Mighty Dicktron posted:Heavies are useful. I like 'em. You know that achievement for clearing a UFO with one soldier on Classic+? I got that with a Captain-rank Heavy. Sure, he only had to deal with 2 pairs of floaters and the outsider (small scout), and he got shot in the face once by the outsider while in high cover, but that's just what outsiders do. Spiffo posted:I think the point was that UFOs stop carrying them once you do the alien base. Basically, they just needed a "boss" enemy for UFOs and didn't want to spoil Sectoid Commander or Ethereal. It's important to note that Sectoid Commanders don't stop appearing in the game once you encounter the Ethereal, because the commanders have a reason to exist. But you never see an outsider again. Really? I've never seen a Sectoid Commander after getting to Ethereals. Is this something they changed with EW, or do I just rush the endgame too hard?
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Feb 19, 2014 17:34
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Oh hey, missed this somehow.SilentW posted:Hi everyone, it's me. I only have one question: Are you aware that you helped make a good game and should be proud of yourself? Because you did and you should.  Okay, an actual question this time. Did you consider making the dispatch missions (where you send agents out to do a thing by themselves) possible to result in failure (either failing to recover the item, losing an agent, or both), and if so, what were your reasons for deciding against it?
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Feb 19, 2014 18:41
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Jade Star posted:You're not going to miss plot points, all those are in cutscenes which we won't talk over. Fair enough. If all they've got to offer outside of cutscenes is being their usual annoying selves, let 'em hang. Everyone will probably get to hear them when they're replaying the game armed with good tactics anyway.
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Feb 19, 2014 23:51
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heenato posted:Going back to the talk about enemies being phased out, I've never seen your bog standard floater after around 2/3rds of the way through the game. They get replaced with the heavy variant, and then the original ones just don't seem to spawn anymore. Which is really annoying, because those dicks can be hard to taze. Regular sectoids also disappear, which can be a problem for both of them if you like the interceptor bonuses. However, they don't disappear entirely (at least in base EU). If you go for around a year, both types of aliens will just randomly pop up every now and then. One or two groups of each a year, but still.
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Feb 20, 2014 05:22
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I assume when this LP gets archived you'll have a section for everyone's applications, right?
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Feb 20, 2014 08:52
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The Casualty posted:Whoever manages to capture your first alien, nickname him The Shocker my dad posted:Rickey "Gunnerkrigg" Gunnerson PlaceholderPigeon posted:I suggest Pentakill for James Dean - it's predictable, but when a guy gets a great rocket like that one can't resist. Maybe there are more clever variations on it. though I'm not terribly creative, so I'm just going to second these. Especially Pentakill, or a better variation. That's how nicknames are usually born anyway.
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Feb 21, 2014 01:51
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Dr Snofeld posted:Catalina "Urban" Sprahl Thirded so hard.
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Feb 21, 2014 03:44
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Piell posted:Go with Tiny Turtle, he's our worst heavy and aim doesn't matter for punching dudes. Can a punchy MEC also explode things? If so this is the best option.
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Feb 22, 2014 03:28
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Haiku for Jade Star Not sure what to put in it Try again later 
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Feb 22, 2014 15:30
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Relating to the "tanks can blow up" discussion, I discovered that on the same mission that I first discovered what a late game enemy can do (Sectopod barrage). After discovery, I retreated and set up an overwatch trap. It happened a couple turns later, and then I went from "Okay, he survived whatever the gently caress that was" to "oh COME ON" in an instant when the tank my guy was taking cover behind immediately blew up and finished him off. I've rushed the fuckers ever since. Also I'm surprised you didn't comment on the clones saving each other during that cutscene. While I understand not wanting to make too many models, they could have at least picked two different ones if they were going to be the focus of the scene and right next to each other. 
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Feb 24, 2014 01:44
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Not that zombies aren't easy enough to down, but I kinda liked being able to shred the corpse pre-zombie. It has just the right amount of "sorry dude, but this is for the good of humanity".
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Feb 24, 2014 02:39
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Teledahn posted:I didn't recall how much damage a zombie punch does, but it strikes me as very odd they can inflict more damage than a Chrysallid. On the whole they do about the same, since the poison will tick a few times (while loving the Aim of the poisoned person), and noone else has the "make another me" ability. It's a good balance.
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Feb 24, 2014 03:21
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Zomborgon posted:I would guess that the civilians' deaths off-camera were only in EU, seeing as the teleporting enemy pods were removed for EW. Personally, that's my favorite mechanical change. Considering that in the video, 2 civvies die off-camera for no visible reason immediately after the first turn (~5:20), I'm pretty sure you guess wrong.
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Feb 24, 2014 04:11
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Ceebees posted:Lightning Reflexes Not totally. Taking damage on purpose is always a risky proposition because if the damage range falls unfavorably you can end up wounded. That's a soldier out for however long that could be easily avoided with Lightning Reflexes. Sure, you can pile Titan Armor and Chitin Plating on your Assault with a bunch of medkits sitting on other dudes to keep him topped up, or you can just pick the defensive skill and use all that other stuff to key for more damage instead. A better minus would be: -Only protects against the first overwatch shot each turn. If you run through two or more overwatch zones you can still be hit. SeaTard posted:They were probably just shot in the face by that other floater group. The other floater group existing is why they died, but the floaters didn't shoot them personally. Otherwise a damage number would have popped up like later in the video when the floaters were active but hosed off to shoot civilians instead of bothering Jade's squad. E: FoolyCharged posted:All this talk about civvies dying made me wonder something. Are alien shots on them not actual shots, or given some massive boost to aim? Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I can't think of a single case of an alien having missed a civy in god knows how many run throughs I've done. I think I've seen them miss maybe once in all my playthroughs, cover or no. Civvies must have a negative innate defense value or something. Also only 1 health; I've seen drones drop them with a single point of damage. Felinoid fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Feb 24, 2014 |
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Feb 24, 2014 04:39
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Tzarnal posted:To be honest I really want the ability to recruit/permanently mind control/hack certain enemies and take them with you on missions. I wouldn't mind have a cryssalid or a cyberdisk along every now and then. Have you tried the multiplayer? Mixing aliens and XCOM is one of its main features. 
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Feb 25, 2014 17:52
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Watching Jade run Zhang to the goal at the end reminded me of something I like to do with escorts and extractions. When I've got the VIP within dash range of the goal, I like to run an assault (or dash anyone if I don't have Lightning Reflexes yet) though the area of the VIP's intended path first, just on the off chance that I've forgotten an active enemy somewhere that might be sitting on overwatch. And if I know there's an active alien unaccounted for it's pretty much a requirement. A soldier can eat an overwatch shot a lot better than a 3 health civvie can if it comes down to it, especially in lategame council missions where a 6 damage hit from a Thin Man's LPR won't even break the top tier armors.limp_cheese posted:Before Enemy Within there was no Portent. Slingshot used to come near the end of the first month so a Muton drop would just be stupid hard. The Chrysalid that dropped was still an rear end in a top hat. Playing that mission with a 4 man squad with base everything and maybe a couple of guys with a few promotions made for There's a reason Jade knows where all the spawns in that mission are. It was basically required learning on Classic+.
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Feb 26, 2014 18:05
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Does anybody have a weapon they always skip? I'm not terribly fond of the laser shotguns, so my assaults always go Shotgun -> Laser Rifle -> LPR -> best shotgun. The other three classes I just climb the tree one branch at a time.
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Feb 26, 2014 18:41
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Relating to the bit at the end where Guava says "it's like it loads them standing up and then remembers that they're supposed to be stunned", that's exactly what the game does (you even get the little messages that you've stunned a dude). It also does this with any walls, windows, doors, or explodables in the mission, so loading a save at the end of a mission where you've blown the poo poo out of buildings and cars results in a hilarious cacophony of simultaneous destruction. 
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Feb 27, 2014 17:06
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Zudrag posted:Needs to be a goo grenade to throw at an alien to make them move less and have decreased aim or something. Non-random damage plus decreased movement and aim? Sounds like Mindfray to me! Unsurprisingly one of my favorite methods of whittling something down for a capture...if you still want captures by the time someone gets it. An earlier option is naturally Suppression. While it doesn't strictly have reduced movement, the aliens get really reticent to move when under Suppression, especially if they're in high cover. Shame that Jade [didn't think of it / didn't have it on his guys in the squad / couldn't get the one who had it close enough to use it]. E: Ooh, that sounds really nice. \/\/\/\/\/\/ Felinoid fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 27, 2014 18:35
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Zudrag posted:I tried Suppression at first but aliens kept dying to it like jerks, so I stopped using that. That's rather peculiar. I always find Suppression, sometimes with an Overwatch or two as well, will make them sit tight and either not do anything or take a shot at the suppressor (often despite other soldiers being much better targets, since it values the suppressing person higher as a threat to free tactics, even if there are no other aliens to free up), or use special abilities instead if they have them.
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Feb 27, 2014 18:57
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:Man, this is a fun eye-opener in a lot of ways... For instance, did anybody know about this: Hitting the Soldier Info button (F1 hotkey, I think) after a thing is done to you takes the mystery out of a lot of things like that. I don't remember if it tells you it's 20, but the entry will mention the aim penalty. It's how I learned about the aim and movement penalties on Mindfray back when, after I noticed a Mindfrayed soldier could barely move. Also helps with learning each soldier's skills the first time too, since it's slightly more in-depth than the very brief descriptions you get when picking them. It's quite handy all around. Felinoid fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 17:15
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Jade Star posted:No one, actually. Do you mean you're out of submissions? Because I think I sent one around two weeks ago. Green Intern posted:Is it possible that Tony White decided to enter through that window because the cloaked seeker was taking up the doorway? Nah, XCOM and the aliens both just love unnecessary property damage. It's a fun little unintended consequence of the pathing code and lack of difficult terrain modifiers. When hopping up or down a level or diving through a window doesn't cost you anything (or at least so little as to be negligible), you get some very straightforward pathing regardless of obstacles. I've seen them hop up and down levels 4 times in one move when they could've just pathed a square to the left and run flat. 
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Mar 1, 2014 05:12
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InwardChaos posted:Actually, it is the cloaked seeker. Right at 5:30, Sammantha is selected. You can see right beside Tony that she is unable to move into the doorway, despite her movement range being far enough for her to move into Tony's spot (if he wasn't there at that moment). Ah, yeah. Looking at the video again, it's a quicker path through the door than the window, so he would've taken that if he'd had the option. My point about them loving to jump through windows under normal circumstances stands, though. There's just something about broken glass in their face that they can't resist. 
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Mar 1, 2014 06:58
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