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RBA Starblade posted:Definitely, the big secret about XCOM 1 and 2 is that the "death spiral" is actually super hard to actually enter; they just do a good job at getting you to think that losing a couple missions is going to gently caress you, outside of losing a few in a row right at the start of the campaign. It's not really that hard to enter, especially in 1 on impossible, where the insane satellite pressure inevitably puts you behind on tech requiring to rely on a leveled squad. Enough of that squad goes down vs the first mutons you face and you're not killing the next batch. 2 is a lot more generous though, with squad upgrades, reliable replacement soldiers from the black market and no significant additional strategic resource drain on legendary. And WOTC adds basically free fully leveled replacement 'hero' units (which makes them way more disposable than your regular troops). I wish this wasn't such a big secret in general, the most fun I had in XCOM 2 was coming back from a couple of significant failures mid-summer of a legendary run. That and trying to get as many people out as I could from council missions gone wrong. LW2 gets a lot of flak for its insanely tedious geoscape and haven management, but making the default guerilla ops end with a fighting retreat from endless reinforcements was an amazing change. I'm glad CS took that even if meshes a lot worse with both the setting of CS and the interleaved turns.
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May 28, 2020 13:39
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:18 |
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The game still has an inverse difficulty curve despite the much more controlled environment. Maybe the difficulty keeps up if your squad is something like Axiom, Verge, Zephyr, Shelter. But I feel that Sacred Coil is the hardest faction in each slot because they have a really disproportionate amount of the games most dangerous enemies. They've got ronins, which can output infinite damage if left unchecked (versus sorcerers, who do nothing most of the time, and a single null lance at worst, and praetorians which are just slabs of meat that do nothing). Andromedons, which are both the tankiest unit in the game and have a dangerous aoe attack (vs codices and archons with way less hp and only forced move aoes, though a forced move is costlier in CS than in XCOM 2 since you almost always have other uses for your actions). Add to that purifiers which can throw out 6+ damage unavoidable nades, mecs doing their usual aoe rockets and lids converting civilians into more enemies. And I think that's pretty much also a list of the games most dangerous enemies, not counting some shrike units.
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May 29, 2020 22:36
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Actually, I remembered a single time a sorcerer actually did something. They popped tyranny on an Archon that moved right before them, turns out burnout fires when the archon next has an action. Only hit 2 people for not that much damage, but it's a neat combo that really caught me off guard.
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May 29, 2020 23:29
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I think you're generally underestimating damage over cc, and severely underestimating Godmother in particular. Terminal is good but the heal basically just saves you some utility slots and really falls off once you get the armor upgrade, teamwork is great but just means transferring her action to a better character. And besides countering robots patchwork just does a tiny bit of damage once per round up until you get both the cc and range upgrades on jolt. Meanwhile, even on impossible Claymore can consistently kill 2-4 enemies for his opening move every encounter (more for the first encounter lategame when he gets 2 plasmas), and that's before getting into doubled motile cheese. And Godmother can clean up the rest with alpha strike and overtime, though only once per mission. I cleared multiple encounters on impossible like this with the other 2 characters not even getting a move, let alone the enemies.
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Jun 1, 2020 12:22
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Base EU without EW was a lot more barebones than 2 is without wotc, but I'd say EW is definitely worth playing. Its combat is slower paced and more difficult than 2; even if you still get op by endgame, the action economy doesn't go anywhere near the ridiculousness of 2 or Chimera. And I greatly preferred its aesthetics to 2. The biggest mechanical change besides the overall power creep in 2 is the lack of timers+concealment, two mechanics there to combat overwatch creeping while waiting for pods to patrol into you. Judge from how you played supply raids and facilities in 2 how big a drawback that is. The other common complaint was the small pool of fixed maps, but for a first playthrough I'd say the first games maps are a lot more tactically varied and interesting than 2, especially before wotc's sewer and lost city tilesets added some actual los blocking walls. KNR fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Sep 27, 2020 |
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Sep 27, 2020 18:38
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It's ok to leave the avatar project one pip short of full, as long you have a plan to reduce it when it fills up. In the base game, that means access to a facility mission or a story mission. If you don't have any, working towards a territory with one should be among your top priorities. Beyond that there's no need to push the story forward. AWC extra skills range from useless to broken good, but you get them on a random levelup and they aren't retroactive so it's good to have it up early. No extra concealment gimmicks beyond the ranger skills (which non-rangers can also get through the AWC) without WotC.
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Sep 29, 2020 18:32
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OzFactor posted:You get a random skill on level up (i.e. one per level), or one skill on a random level up? Basically should I make another A-Team entirely when it's finished? One skill on a random levelup, a good skill might push a lower level soldier into your A-team but a bad/missed skill is nothing to drop a soldier over.
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Sep 29, 2020 19:48
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Every time I feel that way I have to remind myself that LW1 also features landed larges where you start on a 3-4 tile strip of land alongside the ship with no cover and multiple alien bases which end with a dozen high level enemies jamming their way through a single door with broken line of sight.
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Nov 16, 2021 01:33
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The thing about Firaxis XCOM superheroes is that high level soldiers are important but they're also replaceable, especially in 2. You can get pre-leveled soldiers on the black market, at scan points and as mission rewards. The WotC heroes are extra replaceable as you're guaranteed a recruit hero mission if you lose the previous one (I've fired skirmishers just to do this when they fall behind in xp because low level skirmishers are awful). All of these options have opportunity costs if nothing else so you need to be doing decent in the strategic game and can't throw away people constantly, but with a big enough buffer you can buy your way out of the occasional loss or a single wipe. Whereas in Files any replacement soldier is going to be permanently worse than a veteran as the commendations keep stacking effectively forever.
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Oct 26, 2022 20:56
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Dire Lemming posted:The problem I have with Xenonauts air combat is that the tactic is conceptually very simple but very fiddly to actually pull off, and I say tactic because baiting the enemy aircraft then getting behind them is the only tactic that consistently works and it works on everything. So the first few air combats can be fun but it eventually just becomes the rote micromanagement you have to do to get to the actual game. Losing an air battle in Xenonauts has the same feel as sending a skyranger to a mission with no equipment in OG Xcom. It's not a tactical failing, just a dumb micromanagement mistake that loses you a mission.
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Jan 13, 2023 14:50
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Serephina posted:Yea I feel that 2's base game has the mood all over the place, so the Chosen didn't bother me. I still prefer XCOM1's mood and visual style, especially with the armour designs. And a lot of those armor designs require a mod to ever really see them nowadays. EW replaces them all with different textured sleeveless breastplates, as all your non-mecs get genemods by midgame.
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Feb 2, 2023 12:19
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I'd add in Show Health Values (or Additional Icons, but that one includes a loot indicator by default).
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Apr 15, 2023 13:21
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:18 |
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I think the writing is pretty dire in XCOM 2 as well, especially WotC. But the game overall doesn't suffer that much from this. It looks a lot harder to ignore in MS.
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Jun 2, 2023 00:05
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