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Commander, with your permission we can begin research into a powerful technology to counter ADVENT's flying units: our scientists have given it the nickname "Graviga"
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Oct 4, 2015 01:50
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Archon looks like he got lost at a cosplay convention.
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Oct 4, 2015 02:00
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Did they reveal the fifth class yet?
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Oct 4, 2015 02:07
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Fifth class is Van Doorn
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Oct 4, 2015 02:12
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Litany Unheard posted:Fifth class is Van Doorn If Mutons get a counter-Van-Doorn move I'm going to LOSE MY poo poo
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Oct 4, 2015 02:23
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Archons get a sectopod-like artillery barrage and can get a flying bonus to defense. These enemies do not gently caress around holy poo poo, they're all like mini-bosses unto themselves. Can only imagine a Heavy Archon variant 
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Oct 4, 2015 02:38
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That Archon...Holy poo poo. Can you imagine the civilians living their lives and on the skies there is an angel of destruction and rage watching them... Pretty sick
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Oct 4, 2015 02:39
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Coolguye posted:the best early game i found in xenonauts is to pretend you're the LAPD and just give everyone a ton of shields, batons, and gas grenades The biggest hint that helps in the early game in Xenonauts is that there's a Melee button. Press M to have your guy beat the alien directly in front of him with his rifle butt. Does equal parts stun and melee damage. Between M for Melee and flashbangs you can totally capture aliens before you even research cattle prods. Also, the electrostun grenades you get later are the sexiest damned things. No end-of-turn explosion delay, they stun organics and do damage to robots (I think they even get a bonus against electronics).
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Oct 4, 2015 02:44
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I hope xcom 2 allows for something akin to the loadouts in xenonauts. That was a nice feature and I think about it every time I suit up for a mission in LW.
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Oct 4, 2015 04:05
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dyzzy posted:I hope xcom 2 allows for something akin to the loadouts in xenonauts. That was a nice feature and I think about it every time I suit up for a mission in LW. Even if there aren't actual loadouts, remember that you don't have to build individual weapons this time around. I don't think we'll be fumbling about trying to remember who gets this weapon and who gets that item.
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Oct 4, 2015 04:38
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Colapops posted:Even if there aren't actual loadouts, remember that you don't have to build individual weapons this time around. I don't think we'll be fumbling about trying to remember who gets this weapon and who gets that item. huh? so what do engineers do nowadays?
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Oct 4, 2015 05:02
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Doctor Schnabel posted:huh? so what do engineers do nowadays? Weapon projects apparently take longer to complete but in return you get infinite guns of that type (i.e. Xcom hired a wizard). You also only get one gun type (no more getting shotguns and sniper rifles from the same project). There's apparently a lot more projects added for a bajillion different things to even this out. Instead of trying to keep track of how many guns you have, you're supposed to worry about upgrading individual guns. You get loot off of enemy corpses (the new MELD) which you then attach to individual weapons to customize/improve them. If you lose a soldier and don't recover the body you lose the blinged out version of the gun, but you still have a billion generic Imperial Laser Rifles in the stores to equip the next rookie to shoot xenos with.
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Oct 4, 2015 05:19
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Colapops posted:Even if there aren't actual loadouts, remember that you don't have to build individual weapons this time around. I don't think we'll be fumbling about trying to remember who gets this weapon and who gets that item. I mean yeah I'll accept obviating the feature, too.
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Oct 4, 2015 05:26
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There's also apparently a million side projects. The examples they gave during the various panels and stuff used grenades. So you'd have the base grenade project from the engineers, then the salvage/R&D guys (I forgot what they actually called them) would develop new grenade types from there.
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Oct 4, 2015 05:37
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Colapops posted:Someone pointed it out, but in the video above, look at the top left image at 19:24.
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Oct 4, 2015 06:41
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Alkydere posted:Weapon projects apparently take longer to complete but in return you get infinite guns of that type (i.e. Xcom hired a wizard). You also only get one gun type (no more getting shotguns and sniper rifles from the same project). There's apparently a lot more projects added for a bajillion different things to even this out. I want to have Airsoft team levels of gear queer action. February can't come soon enough.
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Oct 4, 2015 09:06
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 The sun never sets on the British Empire  Fraud, I've found that the "medic" Heavy build is almost perfect for babysitting duties; she can shoot a rocket to clear cover/soften up enemies, and heal when needed.. Brought Android and Black Widow up from mere squaddies, she did. (and yes, I did hide one guy from this list - Zhang - but he failed psi training so gently caress him.)
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Oct 4, 2015 09:30
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Here's hoping that the modding stuff is easy to use, because I fully intend to edit the base campaign to be about a bunch of racist Human supremacists attacking a peaceful, cooperative Alien/Human civilization.
Kokoro Wish fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Oct 4, 2015 |
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Oct 4, 2015 09:35
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Kokoro Wish posted:Here's hoping that the modding stuff is easy to use, because I fully intend to edit the base campaign to be about a bunch of racist Human supremacists attacking a peace, cooperative Alien/Human civilization. Speaking of modding stuff that isn't at all easy to use, because gently caress you thats why, Medium War B1f is out! http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/636 A few perk trees got adjusted, abductions are back to a 4 hour timer and the Skyranger is a little bit slower (but can be sped up with the Super Skyranger project). I was consistently able to hit 2 abductions almost every cycle, which wasn't intended. Now it should only be possible to hit two if you get lucky and one is pretty close to your home base (from XCOM Asia the edge of India is a possibility, but Germany takes too long to travel). SHIVs also lost 2 HP, but gain it back from the SHIV Suppression project. Also Japan's Ghost in the Machine bonus gets you an additional 4 SHIVs on top of the 2 SHIVs everyone gets, so hey SHIVcom out of the gate. Keep some meatbags around for capture duty and guarding the base though. I'm going to see how panic plays out now that I can't consistently stop two abductions, and I'll probably look at how panic from terror missions works in the future and make them 'winnable' again. I also need to look at base power in the near future, because an idea I had isn't working the way I want it to. Thinking of giving less 'free' power at the start and making power generators better in general so you can afford one of the power hungry (but cheap!) soldier augmentation buildings, but not two easily, without giving away enough power to build an uplink and a lab in month 1 because why not.
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Oct 4, 2015 10:22
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Lunethex posted:These enemies do not gently caress around holy poo poo, they're all like mini-bosses unto themselves. from previous videos and earlier in the thread, i kinda got the impression that this was explicitly the point. the aliens have levelled up and begun to take off most of their clothing to signify their elite status - you have one weird skimpy sectoid, or a single nude berserker, supported by comparatively chaff-like and fully-clothed ADVENT troops i assume all the different lancers/shielders/regular/mec advent types are to ensure the different pods fight differently
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Oct 4, 2015 10:47
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dyzzy posted:I hope xcom 2 allows for something akin to the loadouts in xenonauts. That was a nice feature and I think about it every time I suit up for a mission in LW. I'm not sure xenonauts did, but I would love if you could save your favourite accessory loadouts (i.e. not weapons) once they've been researched. If the setup is saved from previous game, then the loadout should be marked unavailable until it's been unlocked. Unsure where Xcom 2's weapons legacy is heading. In Xcom EU, you want your best weapons on the field, but in reality soldiers wouldn't really swap weapons around like that. After watching the procedural generation part of the video, which was good, Firaxis should really put in an unit camouflage option during loadout screen. Default is none and then you have pre-defined and custom schemes that applies to the whole squad (which can be toggled off for individual soldiers). This way you can easily switch from night insertion ops to jungle fighting to urban fighting to your favourite football team without wasting much time. Was too much a hassle in EU for me and couldn't be bothered, but saw streamers like Beagle spent time on it.
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Oct 4, 2015 11:36
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This is going to be a log post, so I apologise for that. Recently, I've been thinking about the game design of 4th edition D&D. Being a massive nerd, I've also been applying it to various things around me, including XCOM. And I want to share my findings, because it's both interesting and surprisingly easy. XCOM, has, in particular, a large similarity to 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons , which focused heavily on providing tactical combat, flexible approaches to combat and role specialisation. In particular:
When 4th edition was first released, one of its larger ideas was the concept of character roles, They defined 4 particular roles that a character could fill. For example, Paladins and Fighters both serve in the same role as Defenders, while still being separate classes. In no particular order, they are:
Some of you may have already made the connection, but these roles correspond to the Assault, Support, Heavies, and Snipers, respectively.
What's interesting, and has already been pointed out by Not a Step, is that Long War has an overcomplicated perk system that doesn't use the original design principles to their best effect, and as a result, creates a number of classes that are less effective, in particular Scouts and Medics. Tactical, Scout-Sniper,Weapons and Support stand in for Defenders, Strikers, Controllers and Leaders respectively. But a problem arises with the Scout class, who takes the Lightning Reflexes skill from the Assault Class, and as a result, stands in more as the Defender role than the new Assault class, whose Run-'n'-Gun serves them in more of a Striker role. But every perk that Scouts get that increase their survivability also decreases the chance for aliens to hit the Scout, and thus make the Scout less likely to be shot at in the first place, a poor method of fulfilling the Defender role. By the same token, Medics are simply difficult to take early, especially when compared to their counterparts, the engineer. This is a function of the game design more than the choices of the Long War devs. In 4th edition, every leader has a healing ability, but this occurs as a minor action, something that isn't true of XCOM. This means that the medics original ability to use medkits more effectively is wasted, as they more often are used as another attack on the line, rather than for they're healing. That's really all I have for now, but is this something that gives someone ideas about the class system? Are there other examples of this design being ignored in Long War? Torchlighter fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Oct 4, 2015 |
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Oct 4, 2015 13:49
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drawing parallels between two nerd activities centred around the number four is an interesting thought experiment but i strongly suspect you are reaching quite far on these you could easily say assaults are the single target specialist strikers, supports are the ones that control the battlefield via smoke grenades and combat drugs, heavies are the leaders that make it easier for allies to fight via shredder ammo and holotargeting, and snipers... well, in fairness, they're pretty obviously damage specialists not to mention your "similarities" are a little on the generic side. maps? levelling up!? different classes? xcom is secretly a turn-based tactics game!?
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Oct 4, 2015 14:17
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DOWN JACKET FETISH posted:you could easily say assaults are the single target specialist strikers, supports are the ones that control the battlefield via smoke grenades and combat drugs, heavies are the leaders that make it easier for allies to fight via shredder ammo and holotargeting, and snipers... well, in fairness, they're pretty obviously damage specialists To begin with, I'd like to state that you are quite right. I originally thought that there was no defender role covered by XCOM, as both assaults and snipers seemed to fill the striker role. My argument for the Assault being the Defender is obviously described above, but notably a lot of people point out that the striker role, can often be folded into the other roles by giving them increased damage. (In my mind, all of roles have a certain amount of overlap n their design to begin with, and can best be described as offensive vs defensive) Notably, the Support using Smoke or Combat Drugs is actually a perfect example of their use as Leaders, since these are designed around helping your team, rather than controlling the opponents. Yes, it does make an opponent less likely to hit, but it's very passive and doesn't force the opponent to expend resources. Heavies having access to Leader perks is actually an example of class mixing, as each class has two trees in vanilla: one that emphasises their beginning role and one that allows them to dip into pne of the others. thus, assaults can become defenders with some striker traits, snipers gain controller perks in disabling shot and opportunist, Heavies, as you have stated ,gain some leader traits, and Supports get some pseudo-defender traits. Again, the distinctions are very blurred, so feel free to disagree there. As for the similarities, thy might stem from me. I'm coming at this from the tabletop perspective, where some of these are things that many tabletop nerds don't want to admit about their games, namely, D&D is a turn-based tactical wargame, that has some roleplay elements. Notably, 4th and XCOM place a heavy emphasis on actions, movement and using terrain, which was less prevalent in other editions. But thank you for the prompt feedback.
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Oct 4, 2015 14:44
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Would also like to add that I consider both medic and scout - to use your example - both just as important as any other class, and I rarely hop into a dropship without one or both. My scouts act exactly as they sound - they provide spotter support for my snipers (I always pick very high movement troops, and focus on movement items for them). They are light troops who can run into objectives and survey terrain, especially with concealment. They are wonderful at breaking overwatch traps so that your assaults and infantry can get into position to lay down some damage. Depending on how you build them they are also great at light flanking duties - again their speed and difficulty to target or hit must be the key strengths to focus on. I wouldn't say they're a weak class if you can't jam them into a D&D archetype - particularly since the role of scouting is far less important in most D&D games than it is when you are trying to manoeuvre to use the terrain and positioning (and first strike capability; let's not forget that) to your advantage in this particular game. And when you finally have a full slate of them and are a bit scout heavy, or one obligingly fails a reflex roll and chews a large ball of plasma, you can whip off his arms and legs and end up with a wonderful MEC that can do largely the same thing but with a bloody huge gun and the ability to run in from across the map, blast a fool in the back, spot the others for sniper fire and get the hell out in one turn. As for medics, I always seem to build mine in one of two ways; they're either PSI support medics who can throw PSI flashes and smokes as far as they need to, or combat medics who can quickly get to wounded soldiers and pin down the bastard who did it after a squirt of go juice. In both cases they also drop or entirely eliminate wound recovery time (making your entire force on average more useful at a strategic level) meaning mistakes are minimized. This on a unit that also brings general healing duties (thus freeing up everyone elses' equipment slots), is tailor made for keeping tanky units topped up from the biggest hits in late game, and generally has (and should always be built from) the very highest will units, bringing a rack of support abilities such as inspiration, using a spare turn to ruin some chump's move and aim or outright panicking them, or just providing a little more passive defence and then optionally a bloody huge safety net. Or sometimes making them an officer (since you'll never really be chopping them up if you can help it) goes a step further with the will and ensures those around you will all be nicely hard-headed, provided you're covering psi with a different unit, for example rocketeers or engineers. It's tough to cram that into an archetype as well, since it's really not just a healer, and a lot of the effects - both in reducing wound time and preventing people from taking it in the first place - extend beyond the map you're currently playing on. I have to say after playing Long War so much - I kinda love it to pieces - I have a really hard time dismissing any of the classes. If you held a gun to my head I would say the least useful ones in my campaigns tend to be rocketeers and infantry, but even so the rocketeer is a master of ranged robot routing, or putting shreds on clouds of bad guys in a way the bullet wizard can't quite pull off, and the infantry is obviously a drat useful unit that doesn't even need talking up (particularly the overwatchers), it's just a playstyle thing. Also worth noting is the endless joy of putting a blaster launcher into the hands of a seasoned rocketeer with, say, javelin and fire in the hole, and watching him fire a rocket that basically asks around for directions, walks up to the pack and taps politely on the shoulder before removing their faces. But yeah, long story short I don't think you can dismiss the classes that don't quite fit onto the tabletop, as they exploit aspects that aren't really featured on a tabletop game. Salt n Reba McEntire fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Oct 4, 2015 |
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Oct 4, 2015 16:09
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DOWN JACKET FETISH posted:drawing parallels between two nerd activities centred around the number four is an interesting thought experiment but i strongly suspect you are reaching quite far on these Well, I mean, yeah, but on the other hand 4e and XCOM:EU/EW actually are remarkably similar. Like, when people ask if there are any 4e-style computer games the response is invariably "well, there's the new XCOM game..." Additional obvious similarities:
Iny fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Oct 4, 2015 |
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Oct 4, 2015 16:38
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Moogle posted:I have to say after playing Long War so much - I kinda love it to pieces - I have a really hard time dismissing any of the classes. If you held a gun to my head I would say the least useful ones in my campaigns tend to be rocketeers and infantry, but even so the rocketeer is a master of ranged robot routing, or putting shreds on clouds of bad guys in a way the bullet wizard can't quite pull off, and the infantry is obviously a drat useful unit that doesn't even need talking up (particularly the overwatchers), it's just a playstyle thing. Also worth noting is the endless joy of putting a blaster launcher into the hands of a seasoned rocketeer with, say, javelin and fire in the hole, and watching him fire a rocket that basically asks around for directions, walks up to the pack and taps politely on the shoulder before removing their faces. It is tough, but you need to make room for MEC troopers! I agree with the rocketeer, the archer makes a pretty good upgrade. Infantry are definitely an early game carry, but taper off a bit later on. I tend to replace an assault before infantry though.
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Oct 4, 2015 18:45
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I do find that pretty hard, but it really depends on the type of map/mission for me. For close quarters or maps without decent lines of fire I'll ditch the scout for a pathfinder, and the infantry for a valkyrie - and then usually a rocketeer for an archer. For longer range maps (especially things like roadways, deluge or small ufos where you can lure ayys into the open) I'll tend to instead keep the scout and rocketeer, and pick a jaeger. It's usually the infantry and/or rocketeer who end up warming the bench (or the scout/pathfinder choice which feels like a pretty binary one to me) depending on the situation. I always tend to keep assaults around - either the bio tank flavour when there's nothing heavier on the team or a lightning reflex guy with crit options for a kind of heavy scouting/blockade buster since they seem to me to be great whether at range or in close quarters thanks to, well, CCS and Run n' Gun. For expanded squad missions I've got the room to play around, so it's jaegers, marauders and archers all the way. Maybe a rocket dude if I'm feeling frisky and he's suitably PSI'd up so when he runs out of rockets half way through he's still useful. Feels different in this beta though; previously you could get away with having a Goliath tank and doing what the hell you like with everything else, now it feels like you still have to build a rounded squad and distribute tanking duties between assaults and/or medium heavy MECs. Do you find yourself taking many MECs along? And do you get any use out of the other mecs, like guardian, goliath, shogun etc nowadays? I can't seem to fit them anywhere since b15.
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Oct 4, 2015 19:13
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Are rockets actually 10% chance to miss and I've just been ridiculously lucky up until now? All my other playthroughs I'd have maybe 1 missed rocket, this run I'm already up to 4. edit:    
Sanctum fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Oct 5, 2015 |
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Oct 5, 2015 07:39
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Sanctum posted:Are rockets actually 10% chance to miss and I've just been ridiculously lucky up until now? All my other playthroughs I'd have maybe 1 missed rocket, this run I'm already up to 4. yes, you've been very lucky
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Oct 5, 2015 07:41
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that being said, explosions are still key to winning at XCOM
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Oct 5, 2015 14:17
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Captain Foo posted:that being said, explosions are still key to winning at XCOM I will murder every advent soldier and every alien with my cool ninja swordsmen (and women), no explosions needed!
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Oct 5, 2015 14:21
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Why are people so upset about mutons counterattacking. Surely they realise the muton won't counterattack if it dies and it is a mechanic to punish stupid play.
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Oct 5, 2015 15:36
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The muton counterattack ability isn't just a counterattack, or at least that's not how it was advertised; what we were told was that the muton would have a chance to completely negate your soldier's melee attack AND respond with a counter. Meaning that generally speaking, you're never going to melee mutons because the chance of both losing a turn on one of your soldiers and giving the aliens an off-turn attack, as well, is way too loving risky to ever be reasonable.
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Oct 5, 2015 16:11
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Backhand posted:The muton counterattack ability isn't just a counterattack, or at least that's not how it was advertised; what we were told was that the muton would have a chance to completely negate your soldier's melee attack AND respond with a counter. Meaning that generally speaking, you're never going to melee mutons because the chance of both losing a turn on one of your soldiers and giving the aliens an off-turn attack, as well, is way too loving risky to ever be reasonable. Then don't do it
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Oct 5, 2015 16:25
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What? You mean I shouldn't send my fragile shinobi against the 8ft hulking power armour wearing fish monster? You don't saaaay.
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Oct 5, 2015 16:52
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Oh no, an enemy type is immune or strong to a specific attack. This is unheard of in video games.
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Oct 5, 2015 16:59
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I understand if mutons can counter frontal attacks, but I had hoped they would have worked further on combat mechanics such as rear attacks. Sneak behind them or pin them down. However, seems hopes have been dashed with the shieldbearer. Annoying that first strike principle seems key again.
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Oct 5, 2015 17:00
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I was hoping to put second strike tactics into play, where my guys get shot in the face before attacking
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Oct 5, 2015 17:23
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Mechtoids are hard, but if you load a save when they get shields they're not so bad.
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Oct 5, 2015 18:01
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