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Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

XCOM 2 is a direct sequel to Firaxis's smash hit XCOM: Enemy Unknown and an immense source of joy to all true neckbeards. Firaxis's last game proved to be a very faithful and quite solid modernization of the original game, so hopes are quite high that the sequel will rock as many faces as the EU did. It is slated for release Februray of 2016, so we don't even really have that long to wait!

The typical narrative is getting up-ended a little bit. At the end of Enemy Unknown, XCOM failed somehow. We're not clear on how. They were defeated, scattered, and the aliens took control of the general human population. We pick up twenty years after this failure. The aliens have erected massive cities and made grand promises of a bright future through cooperation to humanity at large, and, outwardly, they seem to deliver. However, the atmosphere is one of choking totalitarianism underneath the veneer. Enemies of the new order disappear, and only those on the fringes of society dare to think for themselves. Basically, aliens made 1984.

XCOM still exists as an insurgent organization, using a mobile base to launch a guerrilla campaign against the alien order. The fight is desperate and the goal is far, far off. But that goal is nothing less than the obliteration of the alien order and the extermination of every filthy xeno gently caress who thought it was a good idea to enslave Homo Superior.

The Geoscape has changed substantially. Now, instead of deploying ships around the world and building hangars to extend your reach, you are restricted to the Avenger, XCOM's mobile base, and short range drops from the Skyranger. Time mostly passes in transit on the Avenger, and distance is now important to access various missions. For example, to do the following mission:



One would actually have to BE in Western Europe.

There are also many mission types, varying from urban patrol combat, to full on invasion of a loving black site.

Furthermore, as the aliens are now in control of earth, they have numerous irons in the fire at any one time. These irons come out as "Dark Events", which manifest as projects that make your life harder in various ways. You will be warned about Dark Events as they come up, but don't expect to be able to prevent all of them.



In addition, the aliens have a cryptic win condition known as the "Avatar project," which will induce action on XCOM's side. We do not know what's up with this just yet.


The Battlescape is also very different. Each mission starts out in tactical concealment, during which time XCOM is undetected and can position themselves along the map without worrying about getting shot to pieces the first time a squad slides into view. It also gives you the crucial first shot in most situations.



Concealment can be broken early by a patrol bumbling into your squad, but their viewed squares are clearly marked. Also, once you shoot an enemy, the entire map goes loud. Soldier classes are also much updated from the original EU (and generally seem much better thought out this time around).

The Ranger

The Ranger generally replaces the Assault from XCOM EU, sporting shotguns and a lot of bloodlust. In addition, he also has a totally sweet machete that he uses for close combat attacks. His two upgrade paths either maximize his effectiveness with his machete, or make him a quieter operator, having special abilities like maintaining tactical concealment after the map goes loud.

The Specialist

The Specialist loosely equates to the Support from EU. He rolls around with an absolutely adorable autonomous drone called the Gremlin, which can be optimized for either hacking into ADVENT systems to mess with or control their mechanical allies and defense systems, or defense protocols to shield and heal teammates.

The Sharpshooter

The Sharpshooter is back, and largely unchanged from the EU incarnation as the Sniper. The biggest change is that Squad Sight is now the Squaddie promotion, but beyond that things haven't changed too much. The two upgrade paths focus on either making the Sharpshooter a better rifleman, or a better pistoleer. And before you think that pistol upgrades sound like they suck, imagine firing a massive gently caress-off revolver for free once a turn and getting free reaction shots with said revolver.

If you're getting Revolver Ocelot quotes in your head now, that's because you are a healthy gamer.

The Grenadier

The Grenadier is basically the Heavy from EU, having traded out the LMG for a minigun and a rocket launcher for an MGL. Both of these things are straight upgrades. Environmental destruction has been expanded, and the increased number of booms toted by your bomb boys is already making a spectacular showing.

GENERAL QUESTIONS
I never played any of these games. What's this all about?
XCOM, in general, puts you in charge of a secret extra-governmental organization tasked with intercepting and eliminating aliens that are tooling around Earth. Precisely what they're doing is unclear, but they're not friendly and you need to put them the hell down. It is one of the only games in history that incorporates both a grand strategic level (the Geoscape) and a fine tactical level (the Battlescape) as equally crucial elements. You must master both to win in XCOM, which makes it very unique, and very appealing for anyone who fancies themselves a fan of strategy.

All of the previous games are available on Steam and if you are a fan of strategy and haven't played them before, you owe it to yourself to give them a shot!

Wait, mobile base?
Yes! We no longer have a static base of operations, as a violent terroristfreedom fighting organization. However, we basically have the SHIELD superfortress, so no loss:


So this is going to play different from the other games?
We have every reason to think so! Tactical concealment is confirmed to be a major mechanic in the new game, and the game's official website spells out that we will be guerrillas. This is a radical departure from most of the main line XCOM games!

Are assets getting recycled from Enemy Unknown?
Not that we can tell! The iconic Sectoid has already been seen, but he's looking quite a bit more swole than we left him, and has grown a mouth. This is potentially due to gene therapy in the intervening 20 years, so who knows what the little fucks are capable of now!



As you can see, the environments have also gone a substantial overhaul and look a lot more impressive and detailed than before.

I'm not buying unless there are random maps. That was what made the first one so go--
Good news! That's a confirmed feature! Also full mod support! It's a great time to be an XCOM fan, so shut the gently caress up and get hype!

So what's this about snake tits, then?

Control Volume posted:

code:
       __
      (' <-<
       \ \
        | |8
        | |
 ______/ /
/_______/
god bless




also

Hopeford posted:

While on the topic of fanart, here's my interpretation of what Van Doorn has been doing those last 20 years




Happy Noodle Boy posted:



Don't kill the snakes.

Michaellaneous posted:

Your opinions are awful and if you think massive guns and rag-tag armors are stupid you should reconsider your life choices.






Captain Invictus posted:

Firaxis has announced its partnership with General Mills and included a free female snake with every purchase of a box of Cheerios.







              GOOD LORD. RUFFIANS.
                       \


              I SAY
                  \

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Dec 13, 2015

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Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

X-COM: Enemy Unknown is the FIRST Neu-XCOM game, and one that many of us still play regularly. The first 860-odd pages of this thread are all about Enemy Unknown, its expansion, Enemy Within, or the incredibly ambitious Long War mod that expounds upon EW. Talking about this game is still completely a-ok and on-topic while we all get loving hyped about XCOM 2!

GENERAL QUESTIONS
I never played the original. What's this all about?
First of all, the original is still an amazing game, and if you consider yourself at all a fan of strategy games, you should grab it on steam. It's a mere 5 dollars, and it runs in a specially configured DOSBox instance, so it is pretty much guaranteed to work on any modern machine.

That said, in X-COM: Enemy Unknown, you take the role of the commander of a secret, multinational military organization that is tasked with repelling an alien invasion. UFOs will crawl over the skies with an unknowable, inscrutable purpose. When they land, implacable aliens deploy with strange, powerful weaponry to follow the shadowy agenda. Your job, as the X-COM commander, is to stop as many alien operations as possible, develop your force, and eventually defeat the aliens for good.

In short, the movie Independence Day seems like it was inspired pretty heavily by X-COM.


How does it play?
Simple answer is: Great, if not for the bugs.

The game's design is very intuitive and smooth. It is very much a 'minute to learn, millenia to master' sort of game. The strategic map (known as the Geoscape) allows you to build your headquarters carefully to suit your needs, prioritize your research and manufacturing, customize your soldiers, and make decisions on where to focus your monitoring and air power assets on the globe. The tactical map (known as the Battlescape) is where individual combat takes place between your soldiers and the aliens. Soldiers need to be moved from cover to cover, put in tactical modes, and guided on how to make their attacks most effective. As soldiers gain experience, they gain special powers that help them be a more badass murderer, a bigger asset to the team, and more.

The game has a roughly 30 minute tutorial that is enabled by default when you first start the game. This will explain pretty much all the salient basics and is extremely effective overall. X-COM veterans probably won't even need it; simply read up on the new Cover mechanics and you're pretty much good to go.

However, the game has been plagued by a few extremely obnoxious and occasionally mood-killing bugs since release. It is probably best to simply read the last page of the thread to see current bugs; mileage and specifics seem to vary a lot from person to person, and X-COM is such an immersive, intense game that a bug is a serious downer. As a result, bugs tend to get posted about A LOT. Here are a few of the known ones though:

  • Teleporting enemies: When not 'activated' (e.g., the aliens haven't seen you yet), the game saves resources by simply teleporting enemies from one area to another as they move. Unfortunately, it doesn't always properly register what your squad can see and what it can't see while it does this. So, occasionally, you'll get a pack of aliens 'moving' right into the center of your squad, which is a real problem when the aliens tend to be so much stronger than you.
  • 100% 'miss': Occasionally, when a unit has a 100% chance to hit, the game will fail to allow the soldier to take his shot. The soldier will step out, look like s/he's about to fire, the game will seemingly freeze a moment, and then the soldier will step back into their cover with no shot taken and no damage done.
  • Berserker freeze: There is a certain enemy called the Muton Berserker that has a special animation and ability that triggers when it is shot. Sometimes this animation can bug out the game and cause it to hang.
  • animatorZed posted:

    Don't use disabling shot against sectopods.
    Or if you do, don't move or only move with ghost afterwards.

    Disabling shot is bugged and gives them infinite overwatch shots.
    Per person.
    Per tile moved.
    :suicide:


Aren't they fixing them? Isn't it getting supported?
Yes and no. Firaxis has released a few patches for the game, and also a few DLCs. However, every time they want to release a patch on the console platforms, they have to pay the owners of the various console marketplaces (Microsoft, Sony) to certify their patch before it is ever released. This is in stark contrast to PC, where Steam simply lets developers push out a patch without bothering them.

The release of Enemy Within saw a lot of attempted fixes for the above bugs. Some users report full fixes, with no real disruptions at all, at any time. Others report that there are still packs of teleporting enemies ruining your buzz. Your mileage may vary. However, it is generally accepted that the game is not really that terribly buggy, and the reason the bugs are considered such a big deal is precisely because this game sucks you in and does a great job of immersing you. So, bugs tend to feel like a real downer.


How detailed is everything? Especially compared to the original?
The Geoscape is mostly macro-management, and does not have a ton of detail. It lost a lot of its little semantics from the original. You only have one base now; all the rest are simply interceptor launch bases. However, certain buildings give bonuses if built next to eachother, so planning is still an important thing to do. UFO detection has also been simplified a lot. On the up side, you are now guaranteed at least one UFO to shoot down per month. On the downside, a lot of the mystery around hunting and killing UFOs is now gone.

The Battlescape is generally more detailed than its predecessor. Most things on the battlescape are destructable like the original. The new Cover mechanics (nearby terrain can reduce your chance to be hit) make planned demolitions even more important. Soldiers evolve into specific classes now, and you have a number of choices for the development of each soldier. Using your soldiers' skills properly is key to success. This is significantly different from the original, where you simply gave everyone Heavy Plasmas and sent some poor, clueless rookie out to spot aliens while everyone else shot at it from a mile away.

The salient point here is, Jake Solomon is a huge X-COM fan. He's described working on this game as 'his life's dream job'. He knew what he was doing, and it shows in the design.


So what exactly was changed from UFO on the Battlescape?
  • Instead of TUs, units have two actions per turn that allow them to move, shoot, or take other actions. Shooting normally ends a unit's turn immediately, but some classes have skills that allow them to get around this a bit.
  • Squads are now smaller. It starts at 4 soldiers, and with research can go up to 6.
  • Soldiers are now promoted purely based on the number of kills they have, instead of the cryptic way they were promoted in UFO. Classes are assigned completely randomly.
  • Alien weapons now explode into fragments when they are killed. To retrieve weapons whole, you must capture the alien alive. This is done by a researched stun gun called the Arc Thrower, and it is generally a pretty big deal to get a weapon back. Plasma weaponry is among the best in the game, and tends to be very expensive to manufacture.
  • There's a lot more stuff you can customize now. Out of the box, you can customize everything about a soldier's face, voice, etc. You can still customize their name as well. When they reach Sergeant rank they also get a nickname that you can assign or leave to one of the defaults. The random nickname generator knocks it out of the park more often than not.
  • Classes use very different weapons now - no more outfitting everyone with the 12 of the same rifle. Only the Heavy class can use the larger guns such as LMGs, Heavy Lasers, and Heavy Plasmas. Heavies also carry rocket launchers. Snipers are the only ones who can carry sniper rifles, and are the only class that can shoot outside of their visual radius (and even then they require a skill to do it). Assaults can optionally wield shotguns. Supports only use assault rifles, but come with powerful defensive abilities that are critical to the long term survival of the team.
  • There are a few more mission types now. Occasionally you will be asked to retrieve a VIP or something similar. Terror missions are also still a thing. However, all missions can still be won by butchering all aliens in the area, so the difference here is almost academic.


What about the Geoscape?
  • You only have one base now; Interceptor hangars are alloted for free by continent. You cannot have an Interceptor in Europe respond to a UFO sighting in northern Africa, even though it might technically be in range.
  • Monthly funding is not directly tied to your performance as it once was; now you simply get a fixed amount of money if you have a satellite over a member nation. You only start with a single satellite deployed, so supporting more is a very high priority indeed.
  • Member nations no longer withdraw due to arbitrary alien missions in their airspace. Member nations have a 'panic level' that indicates how unstable the population is. Panic is raised by alien activity not being stopped (particularly abduction and terror activity) and lowered by efficient X-COM responses and satellite deployments. If panic is maxed out at the end of a month, the game rolls some dice to see if they will withdraw from the X-COM project. If 8 of the 16 original countries withdraw, the game ends in defeat.
  • In addition to money, fully covering an entire continent gives you a unique bonus. For example, fully covering Africa gives you a 30% increase to your gross funding every month, across the board. If a country on the continent leaves the Council, that bonus is lost forever. The only exception to this is the bonus from the continent your headquarters is on; you will always have this bonus.
  • Interceptor combat is generally more simple now. There is no types of attacks, the interceptor merely engages to the best of its abilities. You can still help it by activating one-use equipment back at base, but generally you have less involvement.


So, just straight up: is the game fun?
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times, yes. This game is fun the first time you play it. It's fun the 5th time you play it. I am up to ~75 games as of the time of this posting and I'm still having a ton of fun tweaking my macro strategy and shaking my fist as aliens pull off seemingly impossible shots to murder the poo poo out of my most promising soldiers. And this is just with the basic options. The game also has an Ironman mode that restricts your saving, and Second Wave options that let you turn optional rules on and off at will. The craftsmanship of this game is generally very good, and it's obvious that Jake Solomon loves the poo poo out of this game.

That's cool. So what about Enemy Within?
Enemy Within is much like an expansion in the late 90s and early 2000s style. It is fundamentally the same game, but the game has been refined, polished, and improved. There is really no sense in getting the game without Enemy Within. It is a fundamentally better and more interesting experience than vanilla. It is worth it.

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Jun 2, 2015

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN

:siren: Before doing anything else, you should enable the Autosave. Go to the Options and look for it. Trust me, when you're learning the game it saves you all sorts of heartache. :siren:

We want to encourage discussion of XCOM 1 for those of you who are just finding the game. It's a great game and it's still very worth playing, even years after its release. To do this, we have a reasonably well populated FAQ. However, in order to not bury this post in a deluge of words that nobody will get any value from, I've moved it to a pastebin.

You can find the XCOM 1 FAQ here: http://pastebin.com/aTBa19MD

MODDING
The Nexus has opened a subsite for Enemy Unknown here. The main mod people talk about, though, is The Long War.
http://web.archive.org/web/20150612103541/http://a.pomf.se/tjmrzr.webm
The Long War - :siren: Be sure to read ALL the instructions on their releases! :siren:

It is difficult to even call this a mod since it changes pretty much everything about the original game. There are now 8 soldier classes, with 8 MEC classes, a swarm of new equipment, a completely overhauled tech tree, and much, much more. Pretty much everything about the base game got changed in Long War, some for weal (larger squad sizes, difficulty curve fixed to make the early game generally harder than the late one, fatigue requirements to encourage the use of more than a half-dozen soldiers) and some for woe (there are now a lot of time sinks and development traps that are almost completely nonfunctional for the overall game, many things are completely inscrutable without a guide).

Will you like the mod? That's hard to say. There are certainly a ton of things to be very excited about with Long War. It gives an experience that's much like the old UFO Defense - the game is asymmetric, and each mission is pretty unique with the sheer amount of content that the developers have installed. You will be unable to go on an eternal victory streak. Just stop trying, it is practically impossible. This makes the game, at its soul, much more interesting than vanilla. The difficulty is also ratcheted up several notches, with each month more harrowing than the last. This is refreshing for those of us that have beaten Impossible/Ironman and are now looking for an even greater challenge. However, the mod is highly unpolished and has a lot of extraneous niches in it. "Fixes" were applied to items that were never broken in the first place. New, kludgy features were added to systems that already worked very well. Other systems that were perfectly functional before have been expanded to the point of being overwrought. The improvements that were added are rarely tested in conjunction with one another, so even if two things are objectively a huge improvement over vanilla, when taken together they can sometimes create a very bad experience.

All that said, if you have beaten the vanilla game an enjoyed it, you owe it to yourself to at least give Long War a try. It's a wild ride and a definite work of love on the part of some extremely devoted developers. It's a free download, so even if you end up hating it, it's a fun way to spend a weekend.

It's worth noting that Long War, like Skyrim, gets better the more you customize it to your taste. Many of the mods for Long War get rid of some of the jank and cruft that drags down the experience. Most mods require PatcherGUI to install. There's also the user-configurable DefaultGameCore.ini with a number of settings you can adjust.

The Iron Rose, a goon modder for Long War, has helpfully compiled a list of recommended mods and settings for a first playthrough of Long War that improve the playing experience.

Her nexus profile with all her mods is here. If you need advice, help, or just have something you want to change about Long War you can PM her on SA or the nexus.

Her list includes a couple of bugfixes, some UI improvements, and her own re-balance of Long War.

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 28, 2016

Cleretic
Feb 3, 2010


Ignore my posts!
I'm aggressively wrong about everything!
Oh cool, I didn't know Otto Zander was an LP reference. In fairness I haven't read the LP, I got this game completely blind.

Re-asking a question I asked right before this thread went online: I finished this game on Normal, what should be my next step? Turning on Ironman, Classic, or some Second Wave options?

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Cleretic posted:

Re-asking a question I asked right before this thread went online: I finished this game on Normal, what should be my next step? Turning on Ironman, Classic, or some Second Wave options?
Of these three I'd probably recommend stepping it up to Classic. Classic is where the game really starts to come into its own as one that punches you in the face and leaves you asking for more. The wikia only claimed that Easy has the stealth cheating, but from my limited experience in Normal I suspect it's in force there as well.

darthbob88
Oct 13, 2011

YOSPOS

Coolguye posted:

GAMEPLAY QUESTIONS
[*]Chris Kluwe (PC only) - I have no idea who the gently caress this is supposed to be, Google claims he's a punter for the Vikings who's a gay rights activist and plays too much World of Warcraft.

Apparently he's also quite fond of XCOM, and got added to the list of heroes after he beat one of the XCOM devs in a multiplayer match.

Mirdini
Jan 14, 2012

Nice to have a new thread, solid OP Coolguye.

Now to continue waiting for Firaxis to get around to making map DLC :argh:

Eediot Jedi
Dec 25, 2007

This is where I begin to speculate what being a
man of my word costs me

Nice work on the OP!

Coolguye posted:

Of these three I'd probably recommend stepping it up to Classic. Classic is where the game really starts to come into its own as one that punches you in the face and leaves you asking for more. The wikia only claimed that Easy has the stealth cheating, but from my limited experience in Normal I suspect it's in force there as well.

I can never find the link but it is confirmed that normal gives you a stealth bump to your to rolls (due to players having problems understanding random chance with their PRIMITIVE MONKEY BRAIN). The AI is also handicapped on Normal and below.

Also, the PGS thread for the Xcom multiplayer is closed.

Eediot Jedi fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Jan 19, 2013

Brainamp
Sep 4, 2011

More Zen than Zenyatta

Not sure if it's :files:, but plague dynasty found a fix for people that didn't pre-order the game so they could get the armor colors a while back.

Here's the post in question.

Rap Game Goku
Apr 2, 2008

Word to your moms, I came to drop spirit bombs


Brainamp posted:

Not sure if it's :files:, but plague dynasty found a fix for people that didn't pre-order the game so they could get the armor colors a while back.

Here's the post in question.

Is this any different than having both of the DLCs?

jfjnpxmy
Feb 23, 2011

by Lowtax
To add to the list of bugs in the OP, there's also the thing just now where activating one group of enemies activates them all, and invisible Chrysalids wandering around mauling civilians in terror missions.

Awesome game, but holy jeez what a hot mess of programming.

DrManiac
Feb 29, 2012

I remember in the last thread somebody posted a mod that removed the Hit percentage and crit bump enemies got on classic, anyone got that?

Hellburger99
Jan 24, 2006

"I don't like that mooch...
or her pooch!
"
Anyone else like playing dress-up with their soldiers? Here's a couple of mods for that:

Customizable Special Soldiers: I'm assuming most people are familiar with this mod already, but throwing out there just in case. This allows you to customize Zhang and the special soldier from the next DLC, assuming they haven't scrapped it based on the backlash from Slingshot. It seems to undo a lot of the ill will towards Zhang, as now you can have your super bad-rear end heavy character and personalize him, too. Just know that if you alter his face (and maybe his voice) it won't give you the achievement for taking him on the final mission.

There's also this thing: 23 Additional Heads, which adds in heads from NPCs, etc. Nothing super noticeable, until you get a RNG soldier with Sid Meiers' face, Guile's hair and a neon handlebar mustache. :getin:

coffeetable
Feb 5, 2006

TELL ME AGAIN HOW GREAT BRITAIN WOULD BE IF IT WAS RULED BY THE MERCILESS JACKBOOT OF PRINCE CHARLES

YES I DO TALK TO PLANTS ACTUALLY
Getting this in on page one:

ANY ISSUES WITH THE PRNG ARE IN FACT ISSUES WITH YOUR lovely MONKEY-BRAIN PATTERN RECOGNITION ABILITIES

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Tommofork posted:

I can never find the link but it is confirmed that normal gives you a stealth bump to your to rolls (due to players having problems understanding random chance with their PRIMITIVE MONKEY BRAIN). The AI is also handicapped on Normal and below.

Also, the PGS thread for the Xcom multiplayer is closed.
Updated both posts, thanks for the help!

Azzip
Oct 22, 2006
Something really profound
Great new OP, answers to questions that people ask all the time.

Might be worth linking to or quoting the best post in the other thread, afaik this stuff is all still valid. The overwatch stuff in particular is something I think many people will not realise.

ulmont
Sep 15, 2010

IF I EVER MISS VOTING IN AN ELECTION (EVEN AMERICAN IDOL) ,OR HAVE UNPAID PARKING TICKETS, PLEASE TAKE AWAY MY FRANCHISE

Coolguye posted:

Updated both posts, thanks for the help!

I think you should copy the "quick satellite guide" from the previous thread here...

veni veni veni
Jun 5, 2005


The #1 player on Xbox "Rockstar Chris" is seriously the biggest oval office I have ever seen in a video game. 300 wins, 24 losses, 105 disconnects. He is an absolutely terrible player, and I have literally beat him every single time I have played him and he pulls some loving disconnect right before he gets killed that doesn't count as a loss, every single loving time. Naturally, being the mature adult that I am, I called him out on it last night and got into a half hour long flame war with him. The toolbag literally put "#1" as the first word of every message to me. Rot in hell Rockstar Chris you absolutely worthless no skill cheater.

Dush
Jan 23, 2011

Mo' Money

NESguerilla posted:

The #1 player on Xbox "Rockstar Chris" is seriously the biggest oval office I have ever seen in a video game. 300 wins, 24 losses, 105 disconnects. He is an absolutely terrible player, and I have literally beat him every single time I have played him and he pulls some loving disconnect right before he gets killed that doesn't count as a loss, every single loving time. Naturally, being the mature adult that I am, I called him out on it last night and got into a half hour long flame war with him. The toolbag literally put "#1" as the first word of every message to me. Rot in hell Rockstar Chris you absolutely worthless no skill cheater.

Friends and fun await you in XCom Enemy Unknown Multiplayer!

So, soldiers don't get experience just for completing a mission, do they? It's based purely on kills? I've been wondering about that. I've also been wondering about why heavies seem to kind of suck a lot. Bulletstorm is okay, but you tend to need to move your guys before you fire on anyone. Suppression chews through ammo (and combat support can do it anyway), and my heavies seem to always loving miss. The rocket is nice, but you only get one of them until the heavy is Colonel (iirc), so it's not *that* useful. I dunno. I think they're less useful than Assault, who are tough as nails and complete loving slayers, but I am an idiot.

Pomp
Apr 3, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
Holotargetting will do more for you than a second 40% chance to hit. Come mid-late, Heavies become irreplaceable with Heat Ammo, and at that point I start taking two on every mission. The 2-4 rockets that come with them work as a nice "reset" button as well. 2 support/1 support+rookie, 1 assault, 1 sniper, 2 heavies got me through end-game.

Brainamp
Sep 4, 2011

More Zen than Zenyatta

Athenry posted:

Is this any different than having both of the DLCs?

It's only the armor colors, so the DLC's would give you more.

ChronoReverse
Oct 1, 2009

coffeetable posted:

Getting this in on page one:

ANY ISSUES WITH THE PRNG ARE IN FACT ISSUES WITH YOUR lovely MONKEY-BRAIN PATTERN RECOGNITION ABILITIES

Anyone who has issues with the PRNG simply are Pattern Recognition Not Good types.

*rimshot*

Okay I'll show myself out now.

POLICE CAR AUCTION
Dec 1, 2003

I'm not a princess



Dush posted:

Friends and fun await you in XCom Enemy Unknown Multiplayer!

So, soldiers don't get experience just for completing a mission, do they? It's based purely on kills? I've been wondering about that. I've also been wondering about why heavies seem to kind of suck a lot. Bulletstorm is okay, but you tend to need to move your guys before you fire on anyone. Suppression chews through ammo (and combat support can do it anyway), and my heavies seem to always loving miss. The rocket is nice, but you only get one of them until the heavy is Colonel (iirc), so it's not *that* useful. I dunno. I think they're less useful than Assault, who are tough as nails and complete loving slayers, but I am an idiot.

I've seen rookies with no kills rank up a couple times after like two missions, but they tend to start racking up kills for me after that.

Heavies tend to have lovely aim so a lot of people throw a SCOPE on them. Suppression is extremely useful for keeping your other guys safe at the end of a turn; I look at the high ammo use as the cost of that safety. Yeah the small clip they have blows, but the Foundry's ammo conservation project negates that once you get it. The rocket makes for a fantastic 'oh poo poo' buffer -- a 90% chance to do 6 damage to a fairly large area is huge on classic mode. Heavies kick rear end if used properly, I like to roll with two of them. One with suppression, one with shredder rocket and you've got three rockets a mission. I've found exploding the poo poo out of everything you come across is probably the safest (and most fun) way to go through classic mode. Only downside is that you lose out on some of those precious weapon fragments.

Slashrat
Jun 6, 2011

YOSPOS
IIRC, if you dont have any casulties on a mission, every soldier gets some bonus xp regardless of whether they killed anything or not.

amanasleep
May 21, 2008
Another great include is http://www.thatgoblin.com/xcom_calculator.php. This is an MP calculater that is great for theorycrafting MP builds out of game. It has a few bugs and doesn't reflect the most recent changes to MP point costs, but I find it very useful.

Also, FWIW I find MP incredibly fun even though I agree that it is a buggy, unbalanced mess.

Dr. VooDoo
May 4, 2006


So I haven't had a chance to play multiplayer since the game came out. Is it really that unbalanced and buggy? I was hoping for something that'd be really intense and not boiling down to One True Build. Was hoping it'd be my next Dawn of War II :(

amanasleep
May 21, 2008

NESguerilla posted:

The #1 player on Xbox "Rockstar Chris" is seriously the biggest oval office I have ever seen in a video game. 300 wins, 24 losses, 105 disconnects. He is an absolutely terrible player, and I have literally beat him every single time I have played him and he pulls some loving disconnect right before he gets killed that doesn't count as a loss, every single loving time. Naturally, being the mature adult that I am, I called him out on it last night and got into a half hour long flame war with him. The toolbag literally put "#1" as the first word of every message to me. Rot in hell Rockstar Chris you absolutely worthless no skill cheater.

He keeps registering new profiles on the 2k forums, shitposting, then getting immediately slammed/banned by the mods. To avoid derailing onto some well deserved hate for that guy, I will try and draw you into an erudite discussion of the merits of XCOM multiplayer for the benefit of goons who haven't tried it out yet.

What are your top 5 favorite things about XCOM MP?

veni veni veni
Jun 5, 2005


Dr. VooDoo posted:

So I haven't had a chance to play multiplayer since the game came out. Is it really that unbalanced and buggy? I was hoping for something that'd be really intense and not boiling down to One True Build. Was hoping it'd be my next Dawn of War II :(

I don't even know where to start. It's really fun but completely hosed.

amanasleep posted:

He keeps registering new profiles on the 2k forums, shitposting, then getting immediately slammed/banned by the mods. To avoid derailing onto some well deserved hate for that guy, I will try and draw you into an erudite discussion of the merits of XCOM multiplayer for the benefit of goons who haven't tried it out yet.

What are your top 5 favorite things about XCOM MP?

I'm glad someone else is aware of that poo poo head.

In regards to your question, The MP is just fun. It's broken but drat fun.

veni veni veni fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Jan 19, 2013

Kermit The Grog
Mar 29, 2010
^ just put a scope on your heavies and that fixes it pretty well

Dush
Jan 23, 2011

Mo' Money

ulmont posted:

I think you should copy the "quick satellite guide" from the previous thread here...

I'd really like to see this, if anyone has it. In my last game I managed to lose like four countries and it was only on normal :gonk:

Skyl3lazer
Aug 27, 2007

[Dooting Stealthily]



I'm glad to see that this game got a new OP, it deserves it :unsmith:

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

DrManiac posted:

I remember in the last thread somebody posted a mod that removed the Hit percentage and crit bump enemies got on classic, anyone got that?
Those would be Normal .2 or Normal .5 at xcom nexus, but they haven't been updated for any of the subsequent patches. It wouldn't be difficult to recreate those tweaks though.


Dush posted:

I've also been wondering about why heavies seem to kind of suck a lot. <snip> I think they're less useful than Assault, who are tough as nails and complete loving slayers, but I am an idiot.
The problem people have with heavies is they see the big guns and think that the heavy is a big damage dealer. He's not. The guys you want shooting aliens are the assaults and snipers. A heavy is more of a utility class, and that's where holo-targeting starts to make sense. Don't get me wrong, bullet swarm is also a very good skill. But Holo combos with suppression and his rocket launcher. That's right, shoot a group of aliens with a rocket and everyone else gets the aim bonus. Using your heavies as a guy with a LMG who shoots a lot, needs a scope to hit anything, and fires a rocket once per mission is missing the purpose of the class, and you might as well use a rifle assault instead.

XCOM Classes, in MMO terms:
Assault = Tank / DPS
Sniper = Artillery DPS
Support = Healer / Buffs
Heavy = CC / Debuffs


Here's a thing I wrote about scopes on heavies in the last thread:

Klyith posted:

Heavies definitely appreciate the scope if you want to hit things more consistently with their guns. On the other hand, if you use suppression a lot with your heavy, a scope is not very valuable. AI won't move when suppressed, so an aim bonus is useless in that circumstance. Basically, a scope makes a heavy into an assault with no run and gun and no item slot. The way I'd describe it is a completely reasonable option that should never be an unthinking default, because you are compensating for the heavies' weaknesses instead of playing to their strength.

I put scopes on heavies not infrequently myself, but I always keep in mind the purpose (mostly trying to get more kills for leveling). In the mission I think: this guy is a shooty-heavy, I'm going to keep his gun hot and have him take as many shots as I can. Then I take the scope off when the mission's done.

1stGear
Jan 16, 2010

Here's to the new us.

Azzip posted:

Great new OP, answers to questions that people ask all the time.

Might be worth linking to or quoting the best post in the other thread, afaik this stuff is all still valid. The overwatch stuff in particular is something I think many people will not realise.

I'll go ahead and post this on the first page with a slight addition so its easy to find.

Overwatch and You or How You Are loving Up Playing XCOM

This post is about Overwatch and using it properly. This is because Overwatching correctly is one of the most fundamentally important parts of playing this game on Classic and Impossible and the aliens will destroy you every single time if you don't do it right.

What is Overwatch?

Just so we're on the same page, Overwatching is the act of having your soldier reaction fire on any enemy that makes a move action within their field of view. Overwatch shots cannot crit, are made at an Aim penalty, and the Overwatcher must have line-of-sight on the victim. Overwatch shots do not trigger on any action except for movement. Choosing to Overwatch ends your soldier's turn entirely, regardless of how many actions they had left. I'll interchangeably refer to Overwatch shots as reaction fire.

I know that and I use it all the time, what's the problem?

The using it all the time is the problem. Its a common refrain in this thread that should always end your turn on Overwatch and that's a false statement that will result in the death of a lot of soldiers. This is because of something incredibly, unbelievably important that the game does not directly tell you:

An alien that knows it is being Overwatched will not move for any reason (Short of panic). This is for the same reason that you try to avoid moving when you're being Overwatched: the AI doesn't want to give you the free shot and potential kill. However, a human player has the capacity to judge the risk of taking reaction fire against other potential risks, like being flanked or a car about to explode. The AI does not. Again, if the AI knows a unit is being Overwatched, it will not move that unit under any circumstance. Instead, it will fire at one of your units. On unmodded Classic, this is super-bad because the aliens receive bonuses to their Aim and Crit chance, meaning their chances of hitting and killing one of your soldiers is significantly higher.

This is why you are loving up using Overwatch. By always choosing to Overwatch if you can't think of anything else, you are essentially forcing the AI to make more shots on your soldiers, significantly increasing the chance of those soldiers dying.

So Overwatch is useless then.

No, Overwatch still has two primary uses:

1)The AI in XCOM is not omnipotent. If it doesn't have line-of-sight on you, it legitimately does not know where you are and what you are doing (This appears to extend even further than a human player's lack of knowledge in that the AI doesn't seem to cohesively use all of its units' vision, meaning that the AI might move Sectoid A into an Overwatching soldier's LOS even though Sectoid B already had LOS on the Overwatcher). This means the AI will walk into Overwatch fire if the Overwatcher was in the fog of war. This is why, when you are in the initial scouting phase, you should be ending every turn on Overwatch in case an alien pack runs into view. This is also useful for Overwatch traps, where you pull your soldiers back, Overwatch them, then let Muton Berserkers charge in and get hosed up by a criss-crossing plasma disco.

2) The refusal of the AI to move while it is Overwatched is as much as a risk to them as it is a risk to you. This means they won't shift out of half-cover, they won't run from being flanked, and they won't move from an exploding car. Using Overwatch is a way of 'fixing' an alien in place if that alien is in an advantageous place for you or if you are moving soldiers to flank it. Keep in mind that the pinned alien will continue to shoot at your people, so make sure that the potential gain of pinning it is higher than the potential risk of injury or death. Its honestly better to use Suppression for this particular use.

An alien ran into my field of view while I was Overwatching and didn't get shot! SOLOMONNNNNNNNN!

There's like a one-tile space at the edge of a unit's LOS where you can see them, but Overwatch fire doesn't trigger. This applies for both the player and the AI, but the AI is a lot better at exploiting it. It doesn't happen that often, its just super loving annoying when it does. :xcom:

Also this:

coyo7e posted:

That's a lot of words to never mention that when you move forward soldiers while scouting in the beginning of a mission or when opening up new map areas, you shouldn't be overwatching until you've already gained an advantageous field of fire and you're ready to send that final rookie out a few squares ahead into the "risky" area. Overwatching just because you used your first move phase is really a bad habit to get into, until/unless you've moved most/all of your other squadmates halfway or fully as well.

To say it an a different manner: layering your troops' movement is just as important as fields of fire and overwatch order.

I'm a goon, break it down into bullet points

- Overwatch when you are scouting and not certain what you'll run into.
- Overwatch when you want to keep an alien pinned down to flank it/shoot it/whatever.
- Overwatch when you know the AI doesn't have LOS on you and thus doesn't know what you're doing.
- DO NOT Overwatch if you will gain nothing from this alien's current position. Either take the shot if its >40% or Hunker Down.
- AVOID Overwatching while in half-cover. Half-cover is not hugely useful on Classic and it is almost always better to Hunker Down than doing anything else.

People who say you should always end by Overwatching are straight-up wrong. I followed that particular advice and was losing 1+ soldiers every mission. When I learned how the AI responded to Overwatch and began thinking about my use of it in that context, I started using it a lot less while using Hunker Down or taking shots I wouldn't have taken before. Abruptly, I start winning more missions with no casualties. Overwatch is a very powerful ability when used correctly and its is an anchor around your neck if you use it without thought.

1stGear fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Jan 19, 2013

1337JiveTurkey
Feb 17, 2005

So if aliens won't move when they know a soldier is overwatching, does this make Rapid Reaction and Sentinel comparatively worthless? Or does Covering Fire + Sentinel make some sort of sense?

ChronoReverse
Oct 1, 2009

1337JiveTurkey posted:

So if aliens won't move when they know a soldier is overwatching

Luckily the aliens don't share information. So if one ran in and got killed, then the next one will run in and get killed too.

Sentinel still kinda isn't worth it.


Plus Chryssalids don't care and just run in anyway.

ChronoReverse fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jan 19, 2013

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

You should probably mention in the gameplay section that you can build more than one satellite at a time, since that seems to be a big stumbling block for new players.

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

1337JiveTurkey posted:

So if aliens won't move when they know a soldier is overwatching, does this make Rapid Reaction and Sentinel comparatively worthless? Or does Covering Fire + Sentinel make some sort of sense?
A little bit. It's not like you will never fire an overwatch shot. Aliens will still move into overwatch shots, they just have to not see the soldier that shoots them before they take the move. The AI is fair, it only makes that decision based on what the the aliens can see. Overwatch traps are a great tool to wipe out a pod quickly (shoot them on their turn as they advance, clean up on your turn).

Rapid Reaction is pretty meh just because heavies have low aim and they have to hit the first shot in order to get a second. I never take it because HEAT ammo is just so good against the two bitchiest enemies in the game. I'd put Sentinel on a pure tactical/scout support who doesn't have either of the other medkit skills. I've built guys for that, but never leveled one all the way to Colonel level though.


1stGear posted:

An alien ran into my field of view while I was Overwatching and didn't get shot! SOLOMONNNNNNNNN!

There's like a one-tile space at the edge of a unit's LOS where you can see them, but Overwatch fire doesn't trigger. This applies for both the player and the AI, but the AI is a lot better at exploiting it. It doesn't happen that often, its just super loving annoying when it does. :xcom:
Since that was originally written people found out why this works: to take an overwatch shot, your unit has to see at least two squares of movement. Things that frustrate overwatch include showing up on the last square of sight range, moving to the corner of a full-cover object that blocks LOS, and moving one square at a time while in full view. It's a bigger deal in multiplayer, but you can exploit this yourself against AI aliens in overwatch.

This is also why you frequently don't get an overwatch reaction shot on thin men in council missions, who drop from the sky into nasty flanking positions. The thinman is spawned on a square at max elevation, then moves 1 space and drops to the ground level. Quite often that initial square is out of LOS unless your units are out in the open.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jan 19, 2013

Operant
Apr 1, 2010

LET THERE BE NO GENESIS
Xcom tip: gently caress suppression, take 2 heavies with HEAT ammo and shredder rocket, make it rain every battle. Heavies are MASSIVE damage dealers with bullet swarm, a heavy plasma and two rockets (like 20 damage a turn massive).

Also half cover is a death sentence and your soldiers should not go within a mile of it without hunkering down.

teethgrinder
Oct 9, 2002

You know what really sucks? Having your full-cover crumble away between your turn and the aliens. I didn't need that assault anyway.

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RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Is there any way to handle supply barges that doesn't suck? It's one big open area. I inch forward, and trigger 3 heavy mutons, cyberdiscs, and drones at the same time, moving one tile. I have 6% chance to hit anything. They one shot my sniper. This was my one shot at getting more alloys in two loving months so I can maybe, possibly, build a firestorm or anything that is better than carapace armor and lasers because God knows my ravens aren't doing poo poo against the apparent fleet of battleships that flew down at the same time I saw the overseer. I'm swimming in cash, but alloys are nowhere, and I can't shoot anything down because its nothing but battleships or the rare barge which beats my rear end down. Looks like I'm finding out what aborting does!

e: Oh, good, I need to be at the skyranger. Sorry Vampire, turns out my support doesn't have revive any more for some reason!

e: Thank God a small scout.

RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jan 19, 2013

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