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Can someone give me a basic order of operations for the geomap aspect of the early campaign? I always feel like I'm not prioritizing correctly, and I wonder if that has anything to do with my always running out of combat-capable troops early on.
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Dec 28, 2017 03:07
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Zigmidge posted:There's a much finer line between any must-do build orders and alternatives in wotc because there are so many parallel avenues of progress now. This thread loves to prioritize mag weapons and t2 armor into plasma/t3 armor but that's not as big a leap over proving grounds and psi as it used to be. In general, though, should I be building relay links as first priority? I get the sense I’m not being aggressive enough with that, but there are so many timed resources and missions popping up. It feels a good bit more complex and easier to screw up than the previous game.
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Dec 28, 2017 16:05
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I tried to give XCOM2 another shake with the expansion pack installed, and while it seems to have improved the game in a huge number of ways and added a lot, the first mission it generated me had a 4-turn timer, and I did nothing but double-move my squad straight for the objective, and managed to encounter no pods, and was still a solid 2 double moves away from the marker. 
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Jan 4, 2018 04:54
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S.J. posted:It also doesn't matter at all if you win your first mission or two. Doesn’t build a lot of confidence in the game if it’s not actually even possible, though. And yeah, this was one of those purple psionic relay things. Anyhow, is it a bad idea to rush to rescue the skirmisher guy early on?
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Jan 4, 2018 15:07
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Jenny Angel posted:Hey everybody, I was thinking I'd pick up War of the Chosen soon. I watched a couple Let's Play missions of it and it seems like it's doubling down on 100% of the poo poo that I loved about vanilla XCOM 2, but I stopped watching because I figure it'll be cooler to go in blind about some of the changes. That said, I have a few questions, just to make sure I'm not walking into something that blindsides me in an unentertaining way: 1.) XCOM should always be played Ironman IMO. The game is designed and balanced around campaign-gradient difficulty, not encounter-level difficulty. The changes made in WOTC actually make the game easier, if anything. 2.) Yes integrate the DLC. The Shen’s Last Gift missions are removed from WOTC because they don’t play super nice with the fatigue system and weren’t incredible anyhow. You’re just given mech units as a research tree now. Do not research the “strange alien weapons” or whatever unlocks the Alien Hunters gear, because that spawns the Alien Lords, who suck rear end and are very unfun to fight. If you don’t research the dlc weapons that dlc will basically be kept off. 3. I don’t know about this stuff, I just build whatever. Seems like a good idea to rush Guerilla Tactics School to get a 5 man squad ASAP though. 3b) I don’t know about cross class skills, but all units now have randomized bonus skills that are unlocked using ability points, which are earned through certain combat achievements. 4.) The new factions are essentially new classes. You only get one of each, and they are treated by the narrative missions involving them like hero units, but if they die you can just recruit another, and they are customizable.
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Jan 18, 2018 01:06
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Ah goddamnit, I was struggling to put together a squad to assault the chosen assassin after suffering a full wipe on a supply run mission, and was one day away from healing my last guy up, when the chosen assaulted the Avenger.
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Jan 19, 2018 06:58
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drat, I finally managed to mount an assault on the first Chosen and had a squad wipe because i accidentally activated three pods. I can’t really recover from that and it sucks to lose a campaign because of pod distribution, but I guess I’ll just start over and apply what I’ve learned.
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Jan 25, 2018 21:21
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Does anyone have a video of what they’d consider a skilled mission playthrough on commander? I’d be interested to see what their play looks like compared to mine.
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Jan 29, 2018 17:48
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How tough are alien facilities compared to Chosen strongholds? When do you go on the offensive?
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Feb 8, 2018 18:47
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Thanks. I turned off the Alien Rulers DLC because I don’t like them, but I was nervous about going after the alien facilities because I had a lot of trouble with the Chosen strongholds. I lost my second campaign last night. Takeaways are: -Get more aggressive on the geoscape campaign -Prioritize infirmary -SPARKs are, tragically, a waste of time, xp and resources -Continents have set bonuses for unlocking them! -Psych soldiers own, and their non-traditional leveling mechanic is hugely beneficial -I know what UI element indicates turn ending actions now. (Anyone know if there’s a UI element that describes status effects?)
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Feb 8, 2018 19:12
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Bogart posted:Uh oh. "Turned off" as in uninstalled, or turned off as in didn't integrate them into Wotc? Those are two different things. Turned off in the Steam menu.
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Feb 8, 2018 19:23
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Coolguye posted:SPARKs are more a priority for the middle game after you've carved a niche for yourself than a straight waste. i wouldn't recommend hitting them up before you're rocking at least plasma rifles, though, yeah. I love robots and think their skill tree is cool, but I ran three SPARKs now between two campaigns. One had rocket and one had flamer and both of those were lackluster. The armor shredding cannon is ill, but you’re rolling the proving grounds dice to get it. Overdrive is a great skill but not good enough to justify em. Plus, their armor points try to position them as tanks, but “tanking” is a strategy that works for the enemy and not for you based on the campaign nature of the game. They can’t use cover, right? It’s not just that they don’t show the cover indicator for them. To note, I was only using them before getting plasma rifles, the last one was just after getting warden armor.
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Feb 8, 2018 19:30
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Yeah, I don’t think they’re especially bad on the field, it’s just that I don’t think they’re worth the investment of R&D resources to fund separate upgrade trees for all their gear. I can see how that sunk cost would be better spent if you’re fielding two, though. Their inability to take cover also keeps getting mine prioritized and shredded by the enemy (I had one on its last tick of health, so I had it hang back in an cleared room in a Chosen HQ, and a codex still decided to teleport into that distant room and kill it at the expense of engaging units actually in the combat!)
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Feb 8, 2018 19:47
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The Biggest Jerk posted:They're great if you can get one but too often I find I don't have enough resources to get one, lest I lose out on a vital weapon upgrade (although this may be because I try to make use of all three faction units) Is conventional wisdom against this? Skirmisher is a little single-utility, but I quite like the grapple hook for moving around. Also, being able to recruit a major right off the bat via cover op (if your unit was a major when it died, for example) is a huge benefit to keep you off the ropes after a wipe.
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Feb 10, 2018 23:03
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Personally, I probably won’t bother with Templars in my next campaign. I don’t really like the stealth mechanic, though I have been underutilizing scouting and visibility to detect pods and in general (I haven’t used mimic beacons or battle scanners yet either.) Detection/concealment seems too cludgy to depend on as a combat mechanic, and only having one charge of Shadow makes me far less liable to use it. I’m one of those “what if I need this potion later!!” types.
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Feb 11, 2018 18:55
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They’re sorta nasty. They seem to have crazy accuracy.
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Mar 1, 2018 00:57
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Iron Crowned posted:That would be my hope. Being XCOM, I would also hope that in each campaign you'd only get 3 randomly selected chosen and 3 randomly selected factions. Yeah, a really cool and functional way to do another expansion for X2 would be to add as much content as WOTC did (whether that just be more chosens, map assets etc or also new mechanics,) but rather than bloating the campaign, just use them to increase the amount of variability when generating campaigns.
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Mar 8, 2018 15:24
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So, enemy tech progression is based purely on the game clock, right? There isn’t a scaling element? Meaning, if I sacrifice a bit to rush magnetic weapons immediately, I can enjoy a month of steamrolling advent beat cops.
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Mar 27, 2018 18:20
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What does Gotcha Again actually add in terms of UI elements? I just started a campaign with it enabled and I don’t notice anything different.
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Mar 28, 2018 15:52
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Yeah, that is something I haven’t had cause to encounter yet, but that’s immensely helpful.
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Mar 28, 2018 16:27
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Is there a way to actually see what enemy abilities do? I’m always just sort of mystified by what the numerical effects of Mark Target (like, I know it’s either a damage or accuracy modifier, but idk which based on the graphic and skill name) or some of the weirder poisons etc do. I never could find a UI element that told me what was happening to the effected target. I had to look on a wiki to find out that hunkering down negated burning.
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Apr 3, 2018 15:45
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Looking at the numbers behind status effects has made me realize I’ve really been sleeping on flashbangs.
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Apr 3, 2018 17:41
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I just found a landed ufo, XCOM 1 style, for the first time ever in X2. I didn’t even know that was possible; does it have something to do with having radio relays in the region, or is it the UFO that was hunting me from the dark event? Or maybe I’ve just been unlucky until now.
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Apr 4, 2018 23:31
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One of my biggest flaws in this game is just forgetting what people are carrying or how they’re spec’d, especially given that I tend to save and quit after deploying for a mission because I like to see what’s happening next on the geoscape. I wish there was a way to check skills and loadouts in mission.
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Apr 10, 2018 18:41
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Yeah, I have all my guys colored the same and wearing different headgear depending on their build, but there’s no headgear for like, “has venom rounds,” or, “hacker build but doesn’t have x passive yet.” Maybe I’ll have to get more specific.
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Apr 10, 2018 19:18
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Y’all might be good at the game but yer uglier than sin.
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Apr 10, 2018 19:43
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God drat, does the chosen hunter's grappling hook have unlimited range? I would've rez'd my guy if I'd realized he wasn't two full turns of movement away.
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Apr 11, 2018 03:38
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People have been mentioning gunslingers with bluescreen rounds. I take it that special ammo actually does function with pistols, then?
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Apr 11, 2018 17:32
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What are folks’ feelings on exo armor with heavy weapons? I wasn’t super impressed with heavy weapons back when i was running SPARKs. Seems like a lot of resources to roll the dice on getting a good one.
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Apr 11, 2018 17:38
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I have like 8 elerium cores and the resistance order that makes experimental ammo complete instantly. Time to roll em out. Edit: oh wait i forgot you can just build bluescreen rounds in engineering
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Apr 11, 2018 17:47
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I fuckin love when I get a dude with the lovely combover. What an absolute thug.
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Apr 12, 2018 13:37
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The hunter rules. I just did the blacksite mission where he appeared and he had some good dialogue about how the bosses’ weirdo scheme was all sideways now.
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Apr 12, 2018 22:51
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The warlock’s lever action plasma rifle is the dopest weapon, though.
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Apr 12, 2018 22:52
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It’s horseshit that you can’t target a hacked enemy. I just lost two units because I didn’t want to sit around waiting for turret control to flip back, then of course it did so at the worst possible moment, flanked me and vaped two dudes.
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Apr 13, 2018 14:33
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Zore posted:You can totally target a hacked enemy though? I thought you could? But, I had my guys lined up in front of a turret, on the same elevation plane as it, and they were unable to target it until it flipped control and drilled them in the backs.
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Apr 13, 2018 15:55
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My latest campaign has officially failed. This time I played too fast and loose with the avatar clock, which forced my hand and left me vulnerable to a few bad RNG's in tandem. I was pressed to assault a facility, which would have been fine if the Warlock hadn't showed up, which probably also would've been manageable if the Warlock hadn't gained the ability to summon priests. A hacked turret flipped back to the enemy at a really inopportune time, killing two of my units, while the warlock and priest each mind controlled another unit. I almost escaped this one with a clock rollback and two surviving units, but the priest decided to stasis one unit, putting them in range of enemy reinforcements instead of escaping, and the last surviving unit was mind controlled and killed themselves with their own gremlin. Nice. I'd already planted the charges, but that gets weird: command says the aliens disabled the charges, but when you go back to the geoscape everyone has dialogue about how you lost everyone but managed to force back the avatar clock. However, the avatar clock does not actually roll back. I lost contact with the region, and all other facilities were in uncontacted regions. I attempted to stop the tailspin by doing a guerilla op for intel so that I could contact a new region, but it didn't save me. Lessons learned: -Don't gently caress around with the avatar clock. -Manufacture mindshields and carry them in the warlock's area of control. -Don't bother with reapers or stealth-spec rangers. This one is personal taste; I just don't like the stealth mechanic and am not good at exploiting it, so my resources are better put elsewhere. -Gunslinger spec snipers find far more utility than sniper spec. I'm on the fence about this one but the fact is that I always liked when I had a gunslinger at my disposal and found snipers pretty situational. -Manufacture extra medkits early; the cost doubles when they get upgraded. -Special ammo kicks rear end.
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Apr 15, 2018 18:14
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Also, why are Advent generals always chillin in the sewers
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Apr 15, 2018 18:40
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God, supply raid missions are so brutal.
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Apr 17, 2018 02:57
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Would you drop smoke over a mimic beacon? That item seems to work weirdly, does it basically just drop a fake soldier but the enemy AI still deliberates between available targets like normal?
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Apr 18, 2018 23:59
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See, that “suicidally focused” part isn’t my experience. But maybe I’m placing them wrong; I always sort of put them behind cover and out of sight to draw the enemy away, but perhaps that makes them less appealing targets.
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Apr 19, 2018 00:06
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