The XCOM Thread: HOW DOES SNEK KICK DOOR?!

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 29, 2016 12:05

Has it been confirmed there's Avatar progress not tied to onmap bases you can reset by attacking?

Even if not, I don't see why it's worse than EU's doomclock. Did that bother you too?

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Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 29, 2016 19:18

Thyrork posted:

Hey, the Swoletoid got buff and all that, thats pretty weird too! Honestly, "The Ethereals are incompetent" remains my handwave of choice.

The Ethereals whole thing is they want Psi powers and buff bodies and they keep experimenting on new races to try and perfect their mix. Sectoids had the same problem as the Eths - they could do Psi poo poo but their bodies sucked. In humans they finally found a race which could be Psi and pump iron, so it should not be a surprise they are blending in human genes to make them and the Sectoids buff.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 29, 2016 20:56

What kind of 3rd world hellhole do you live in?

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 30, 2016 00:05

It's a cookbook!

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 30, 2016 00:59

Sylphosaurus posted:

So, for the goons that read the book that handles what happens before the game itself, did the aliens start "culling" the human populace or have they gone for a relatively peacefull occupation?

People are vanishing, aliens blame it on XCOM terror-bombings.

The book is awful.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 30, 2016 09:29

Speaking of Van Dorn, he gets a bonus Steadfast perk in LW now - does it stay if I MEC him?

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 30, 2016 20:52

Exposure posted:

I have to say, Resurrection is not that bad.

Like yeah it isn't a work of art but...it's a video game tie-in book.

Like I'm not sure what people were expecting (well ok I know r/xcom seem to have been expecting Long War: The Novel and thus was surprised when the officially authorized book stuck to vanilla nuCOM's action movie logic), these things are designed to really only tide you over for a bit in an information drought as you wait for the release of the game, and just had the misfortune to have its release date delayed by quite a bit in time for a lot of stuff about XCOM 2 to be revealed.

I liked hearing about what Earth was like now, what happened to XCOM and the invasion, and the finding the Avenger and leading into XCOM2 stuff. What I disliked was that the plot was mostly advanced by people bumbling into each other/ADVENT/Aliens, and the horrible romance that took up about half of the book. And that fact that it has a military guy use "noncom" to mean "non-combatant" rather than "non-commissioned officer" in a military setting with no explanation of what it meant. I just stared at that page in anger for a while :argh:

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 31, 2016 21:26

Speedball posted:

The Codex is also a really bizarrely interesting enemy. It looks like it's made of pure data.

The aliens merged outsiders with the internet :ohdear:

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 1, 2016 13:42

Kanos posted:

This is the only part that seems odd to me. Weren't stuff like Archons deliberately developed to be visually appealing/non-terrifying to the general populace in order to facilitate occupation? If ADVENT troopers are the only thing the public sees regularly, why would they bother designing propaganda aliens instead of going full Monster Mash?

They probably trot out the Archons for "Victory day" parades etc. Going by the book, ADVENT is doing a decent job vs the resistance with their basic troops, and meeting a rare alien is a big deal for the resistance, so Vipers and Pectoids are probably used/seen very rarely. Towards the end of the book the aliens start finding out XCOM is still around and up to something so they start fielding more aliens so the number of aliens we see in the early game leading patrols and stuff is probably a new level of escalation on the alien's part where security starts to take precedence over the friendly face.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 1, 2016 19:29

I want to watch Beag's stream but it's so close to release I also want to wait and see the cinematics and stuff for the first time myself :sigh:

By the way, at least 2 aliens can raise Psi zombies, do we know that only "humans" (ADVENT aren't really...) can be raised? Because can you imagine a horde of Muton or Chryssalids zombies running at you with 3 times their normal HP? :iit:

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 1, 2016 22:56

Exposure posted:

Taking down the Blacksite removes two pips of avatar progress IIRC.

Each site generates Avatar progress and taking it out removes all that progress, it doesn't have to be 2 pips.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 1, 2016 23:11

LordNat posted:

So it is not a hard timer to the game then. As long as you can manage sites and don't get hosed over by dark events you are not in danger of a RNG loss?

As far as I know - although it's possible there's something that causes "offmap" progress that you can't reset.

And yeah, Sectoids gotta be more willing to take shots when they have them instead of loving about with zombies all the time.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 2, 2016 10:18

Cyclomatic posted:

Sectoids do support stuff, which is super dangerous if they have units to support. Sectoids like to run away and link up with a new pod and activate them, which is really dangerous for the player, when the sectoid is the last ayy standing so ignoring them is actually dangerous.

Just because beagle makes it look easy in the openings ng months of the game doesn't mean something is wrong with the AI. Xcom would be total poo poo as a game if the ayys used killer AI that made optimal kill plays. They can suicide for kills because Firaxis Xcom isn't based on taking massive casualties, and the AI acts accordingly, and the game looks just fine, even on hard, because the AI threatens a squad wipe. Beagle wasn't shy about expressing concern about overwatch trapping. If he thought sectoid AI was a problem, it stands to reason he would flat out say it.

It's not a binary choice of "Ineffectually gently caress around" or "Hivemind deathswarm". When a Sectoid sits in easy flanking range and raises a zombie at the far side of the screen it's just signing its own death warrant. You're not going to run over and fight the zombie, who has to be in melee range and doesn't get to move until the next alien turn, you're just going to move slightly and kill the Sectoid and the zombie will despawn. It's stupid. They should use support moves when they have range and other troops they can support, but close up they need to start shooting or you can safely ignore them.

Personally, I want the AI to be playing optimally but "realistically" - by which I mean the aliens should want to fight well but preserve their life. No kamikazes for the smart aliens, although of course Zerkers and Zombies etc charge in, but other than that they should be doing their best to murder your dudes.

Cyclomatic posted:

Beagle wasn't shy about expressing concern about overwatch trapping. If he thought sectoid AI was a problem, it stands to reason he would flat out say it.

Beagle posted:

Sectoids should take good shots when they have them instead of ignoring flanking kill shots to raise a zombie

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 2, 2016 20:30

Judge Schnoopy posted:

Sectoids being bitches and avoiding gun combat isn't that surprising based on the end of EW. The uber ethereal complains that their minds were strong, but their combat skills were poo poo. This made them cowardly and cruel and unfit for the ethereal's purpose.

So when a sectoid pod is revealed and instead of shooting they all run for cover, and then on their action they don't shoot but instead use their mind powers to control a zombie, it's all well within canon for their personalities. That's just what sectoids do and is why ethereals use them as front-line fodder.

You have see the new Sectoids, right? People have been calling them Pectoids because they are now massive, buff, monstrosities. Now either the ethereal are total incompetents and somehow made them buff but still worthless in combat they should perhaps fire their guns once in a while. Sectoids in EU/EW sure did fairly often.

Sectoids are no longer the scrub tier enemy, that's the Advent trooper.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 2, 2016 22:54

Kanos posted:

Riding the doom clock like Beagle is seems a little too good.

Might be nice if high Avatar progress gave some bonuses to the aliens? Like Alien research in LW, high progress would spawn more/harder enemies in missions.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 4, 2016 23:11

^^^ Although one time I was doing the move-slash click and clicking it kept bringing up the "fire gun UI", worked fine before and after, it was really weird.

Fun so far, although the AI is still doing silly stiff on Veteran - An advent trooper ran into a close range flanking position against a wounded troop I had, easy kill, but decided to overwatch instead of firing. On the plus side, Sectoids have been staying at range and using Mind spin before raise zombie.

Darkrenown fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Feb 4, 2016

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 4, 2016 23:27

DreamShipWrecked posted:

I really wish that slash let you take a step into the place where the now dead enemy is, instead of leaving you standing out in the open like a moron.

Well you can't step into their place, but if there's cover by them you can certainly run into adjacent cover and slash from there. You can even slash from the other side of low cover. I pretty much always end my slashes in cover, although "always" is like 4 missions so far.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 5, 2016 10:48

Ravenfood posted:

I thought we were supposed to be able to see los on aliens from planned location movements. Am I an idiot, misremembering, or blind?

There's a target icon under the hp bar of anyone you'll have los on.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 7, 2016 16:04

^^^ Hopefully you are not playing ironman - and if you are this is exactly why you shouldn't with a new game - but when poo poo bugs out don't feel bad about reloading and working around it. Having said that, you know Faceless are a thing so you should try not to end turns near unscanned civies and especially not near a civ by a car or on a roof. Faceless shouldn't be able to one shot anyone unless there's explosion or fall damage added onto things.

Kiggles posted:

Having said that, I haven't tried slapping two workshops side by side. If it is possible to staff a workshop with a gremlins, it may actually be preferable to daisy chain workshops straight down the middle. It wouldn't be a huge bonus, especially considering the resource cost/space/time cost, but I guess it could be a thing if you are seriously hurting for engineers.

You can only have one workshop. This confused me, had my layout planned around 2 and that rather disappointed me.

Darkrenown fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Feb 7, 2016

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 7, 2016 16:13

Pipski posted:

Agreed. I'm enjoying the actual missions though, so far - except for the hacking, which is stupid as hell. Hacking Exalt poo poo in the first one was really nicely done and useful. In this one, it's just aggravating frigging nonsense.

The new geoscape is an absolute dog as well. Who came up with this wretched 'float around, start scanning a thing, get interrupted by your researcher, get interrupted by your engineers, get interrupted by the resistance, do a mission somewhere else, fly back, start scanning again, get some numbers, start scanning something else' concept? It's just awful. They seem to have decided to complicate the front end of the game wherever they can, even if it adds absolutely nothing. I'm also not sure why I'm flying around in something the aliens have apparently been using as a dumpster for 20 years.

The actual missions, though, when you get to them, are fun, and I really like the loading screens.

Xcom shot the ship down in the first invasion, that's why it's hosed up.

I agree hacking is a pain in the rear end though, I hope a mod or something can cut out the long-rear end animations. It's the kind of poo poo that looks great in trailers but quickly becomes annoying when actually playing, especially considering Xcom is meant to be replayable.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Feb 25, 2016 14:41

Operant posted:

I have to say - does anyone else feel a little disillusioned by what this game boils down to near the end game?

It sort of feels very flat, tactically. Granted it's been a while since my last Enemy Unknown playthrough, and I know that Long War screwed around with things significantly, but I feel like in EU there was actually a lot more decisions to make, and firefights seemed to last longer than a round. In this game I barely used suppression, and never really had to contend with overwatch (played on Commander).

My basic strategy for dealing with every pod was to shower it in grenades, then mop up what was left with any number of my significantly powerful soldier abilities. It felt like almost every single pod died the turn I encountered it. This seems kind of like a new focus for the game, and I'm not sure I like it. There's actually very little value in defensive stuff like smoke grenades now, since you just end up alpha striking every single enemy contact.

Maybe I've just gotten a lot better at xcom and I'm playing 'optimally' so to speak, but I felt a lot more tension in my EU classic ironman/long war playthroughs since contact tended to survive longer than a round.

Pretty much. I had some nice fights when cockups or aggression pulled 2-3 pods, but once the initial shine wore off I found myself looking forward to finishing the game so I could get back to my Long War campaign. The final battle was pretty good though, more stuff like that would've been good. I'll come back it it when patches/DLC switch stuff up or if any good mods appear though.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 24, 2017 10:04

Phrosphor posted:

They could even use the X4 model and placing animation, it is all already there.

I think they plan to, on their forum they are looking for voiceovers for "Shaped charges", which I assume to be a placed demolition charge because they wouldn't need new VO for just a rocket bonus.

I kind of miss the HE grenades from LW1, I used those a lot ear;y on before I ranked up people in cover destruction.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 24, 2017 20:15

ZenVulgarity posted:

Are any of their older mod packs necessary or are they rolled into this

dyzzy posted:

They're rolled in.

Most mods aren't rolled into LW, and the LW devs have said they don't plan to include many since Xcom2 is very modular with mods. There's some reccomended mods here:
http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=23558&sid=029cc87eb3f4123a38b5fee026a1b985#p25865
I think the flank previewer is especially useful

Exposure posted:

I'm ~~kinda~~ ~~pretty~~ incredibly annoyed that graze banding not only applies to normal weapon shots, but to shots from weapons that have "Undodgeable" active like the Bolt Caster.

Like I know the dev I talked to about it just tried to play it off as "it's undodgeable, not ungrazeable" but I'm pretty sure nobody in the world took that meaning like that, and honestly it kinda wrecks the Boltcaster's shtick since it's one thing minus the aim bonus is that when it hits, it hits like a goddamn freight train to make up for its vanilla one round magazine.

Why not just down Graze down/off? It's in the options menu, along with a bunch of Second Wave options.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 24, 2017 20:36

This thread is kinda handy (tactical changes):
http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=23382

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 26, 2017 16:22

jfood posted:

Looking at the outpost ini, that's like three or four faceless.

What if there are no rebels in the bases, it's just faceless all the way down?

All of XCOM are Faceless, just none of them realise that everyone else is. The entire rebellion is aliens trying to set up the remaining human forces for a fall, not knowing there are literally no humans still fighting :wow:

I don't think Faceless should be there from the start either. The % change planned for 1.1 helps with the effect not being so bad, but just thematically it seems like it should be an alien response to a growing Xcom threat. It would let you get your feet under you at the start of the game, make some progress, and then the aliens push back. It seems like maybe you should eventually learn how to stop the Faceless infiltration, I mean Battle scanners are still a thing, right? Just scan people who join up, or take a blood sample like in DS9/The Thing once you learn about the problem. Then maybe you could actually use the other adviser types and free up your troops for offensive missions.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 27, 2017 11:58

Apoplexy posted:

No, they can loving use grenade launcher flashbangs. AKA: Worse than just flashbangs.

I don't know for sure, but it seems like they affect a smaller area than Xcom's. Or they are bad/nerfed at targeting, because they seem to hit less people than I think I would.

Kennel posted:

<great comic>

Exactly!

YoungSexualNorton posted:

-one turn after breaking stealth it seems like most of the other pods on the map barrel into me from every direction without being directly alerted

-countdown timer and the sheer number of pods means that losing concealment early on a mission has gone from "extra challenge" to "instantly scrub the mission"

There's a bug that is meant to be fixed for 1.1 where enemy pods move towards you when they shouldn't know where you are.

You might want to look at the various stealth-mods on the Workshop. E.g. True Concealment stops timers from ticking before you are discovered, there's other things like tactical suppressors which allow you to make stealth kills if you want to do that way too.

Bholder posted:

Somebody confrim if this is true or wrong:

At first I thought Advent strength just comes out of nowhere, but apparently they are mostly coming from neighbouring zones so if they increase the strength in one zone they reduce it in another, so the "taking Advent's attention" missions might have a point other than getting more rookies.

This is true, besides rarer air-dropped reinforcements. As you contact more regions you can fly about where Advent is weaker or do stuff like focus on several widely separated regions and let Advent's forces ping-pong about trying to catch you. Or just say gently caress it and try to murder all who come against you in one area.

Bacarruda posted:

Kills for everyone!

Just in case people don't know, Kills are a pretty small part of XP gain now. Instead, most of it comes from the number of enemies on the map and is split between all the Xcom soldiers present and reduced if you fail objectives. So soldiers not making many kills won't be far behind your rampaging murder-bots.

Lunethex posted:

I:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\workshop\content\268500\844674609\Config\XComLW_AWCPack.ini

You just flip

This: ALWAYSSHOW=false
to this: ALWAYSSHOW=true

You can just toggle this in the LW options (maybe only while in a mission, not sure), no need to edit the ini. You can also change things like Red Fog or Not created Equal etc. in there. Kinda surprised it defaults to hiding them, since LW1 enabled it and it's really just a noob-trap or forces you to use the wiki, but it's simple to change.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 27, 2017 12:06

True, my mistake!

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 30, 2017 11:00

Gyshall posted:

also one thing to note for LW2:

http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=23951&sid=4ab030f3e0987cd3677cc2f305f23fe8#p28378

apparently rebels can get melee perks, which is not intended and is generally useless - add the following to XCOMLW_Outposts.ini:
code:
;Perks the rebels aren't allowed to gain
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Ghostwalker"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Tradecraft"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Phantom"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Covert"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Shadowstrike_LW"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="FieldMedic"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="SaturationFire"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Fleche"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Combatives"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Bladestorm"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Reaper"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Blademaster"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="SwordSlice_LW"
+DisallowedAWCAbilities="Cutthroat"

Where is this file? I feel like I've browsed every subfolder in the xcom2 directory without finding it.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jan 30, 2017 12:14

Apoplexy posted:

Because it's not there. You have to go to Steam\SteamApps\WORKSHOP\content\268500\844674609 to get to LW2's mod folder.

Oh of course. With an intuitive path like that, how can you blame them for not spelling it out?

Thanks!

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jun 13, 2017 01:09

Oh, zombies and more unkillable boss type dudes. Exactly what I wanted.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jun 25, 2017 04:47

PiCroft posted:

If I wanted to play LW2, what tweaks, additional mods, or general tips and tactics would people suggest? I had a love/hate thing with LW1 because it added some really neat stuff while making certain parts of the game truly intolerable, such as the air war and some missions' enemy numbers. I'd like tog et a grasp of what people feel about it before I commit to a full game of it.

Depending on how you feel about timers you might want to get True Concealment for LW or some other timer mod because timed missions are a big part of LW too. On the other hand, you get officer abilities to extend timers for a cost, so a mod is vital only if you really hate timers.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jul 29, 2017 01:49

Alkydere posted:

Well, they still have fatigue, but they made it less BS.

Basically a fatigued soldier suffers a will penalty and has a chance of picking up negative "quirks" such as "has a chance to spend an action point reloading any time he starts a turn without full ammo." However the UI has been changed to make fatigue levels very, very clear.

Speaking of ammo, I really wish they would change autoloaders to only use their free reloads when in combat. Or change it so the free reloads are a different button than costly reload. I hate wasting autoloader charges when I don't actually need the free reload.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Jul 29, 2017 11:05

Tricky Ed posted:

There's a mod for that, somewhat misleadingly called Free Reload Anytime. Any soldier with an autoloader gets an additional Reload button that will use an action instead of an autoloader charge.

That's real handy, thanks!

Darkrenown · # ¿ Aug 9, 2017 11:29

Cream-of-Plenty posted:

EDIT: drat it looks like the additional 15% off voucher code for Greenman Gaming no longer works. You can still preorder a copy on GMG for like $34 but there are no additional discounts that I can find.

Enhanced Steam says: "Current Lowest Price: 30,64� at WinGameStore after coupon code pcgames5off"

Darkrenown · # ¿ Aug 9, 2017 19:18

I hear Sparks are getting some updates in WotC, but have they been detailed anywhere?

Darkrenown · # ¿ Aug 10, 2017 22:41

I really liked the LW1 MECs, there were a number of cool types to build. Others were kinda bad, but could at least fill in gaps in your quads when certain people died or got sent to sickbay for a month.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Aug 10, 2017 23:41

monster on a stick posted:

I think you mean "got sent to get cut up by Vahlen and turned into robots"

Well yeah, Robocopping terribly wounded troops was a great theme too, and I miss that in 2, but I can't chop everyone who eats a plasma round to the face. Like now troops just want to die when they get horribly maimed? Slackers! Even in death they should still serve. Especially since we can carry people off the map, you should be able to Evac corpses within X turns and Dreadnought them.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Aug 17, 2017 04:38

I'm watching a stream:
https://www.twitch.tv/admiralbahroo
The Warlock chosen is on a Lost map, two lost have got into melee range of the Warlock but all he does is Overwatch over and over. Since the Lost next to him don't have to move they just punch him every turn while he sometimes Overwatctes distant moving Lost. Not the greatest enemy AI.

Darkrenown · # ¿ Aug 21, 2017 16:40

marshmallow creep posted:

There is so much going on that Christopher Odd needed something like three videos just to unlock his second region. Also he got a bonus that turns any rookie trained in the GTS into an instant sergeant. Given several ops require sergeants and above to even run, that's a super good bonus to get even without the power boost.

He didn't get that bonus, it's the continent bonus for Asia, but he's still working towards getting it.

vvv Ah OK. Nah, they are still random per game as far as I know.

Darkrenown fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Aug 21, 2017

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Darkrenown · # ¿ Aug 22, 2017 00:56

I would really doubt saves would work in the xpac.

Unrelated, but pro-click:
https://clips.twitch.tv/MoralBillowingLettucePunchTrees