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I enjoyed Beta Strike too, though I'd hesitate to do it without starting with a faction ally. In general I found that it did a good job of making the game interesting and different without falling into the standard trap of simply making the beginning super difficult. Rerolling a game 8 times just so that I can make it to the end of the month, and then breezing on from there, just isn't my cup of tea.
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Oct 14, 2019 21:31
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Take the fight to space. Enjoy Xcom2 in a zero-g environment. What does that mean? I don't know.
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Oct 28, 2019 23:17
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I want a smoother difficulty curve that ramps up rather than ramping down.
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Oct 29, 2019 00:21
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bunnyofdoom posted:I really loving hate the RNG. 5 solid in game months, not a single Elerium Core drop. NOT A GODDAMNED ONE. I've had the rage suit sitting in the proving ground waiting. WAITING. I WANT MY RAGE SUIT BEFORE I TAKE OUT THE loving CHOSEN. Sounds like your rage suit is already working! 😂
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Nov 2, 2019 17:28
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For what it's worth, you should be able to get an opportunity to do an alien loot covert operation, seize a UFO, or do a supply mission at least once a month. You can also pick them up off dead aliens provided you aren't blowing them up, which can help. The Vulture resistance order can go a long ways to help with this. Also while the Rage Suit is certainly neat in a lot of ways, I don't like how it looks and have stopped investing in it without particularly missing it. WAR Armor is almost as good.
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Nov 3, 2019 03:24
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Fojar38 posted:I almost never find myself using the Rage Suit's melee ability to be honest because odds are I'm gonna give it to a Grenadier and the last place I want them is next to a bunch of aliens and it has one less armor than the WAR suit This is true, but the Rage Armor upgrade puts it back over the top of the WAR Suit. It has the same armor, more health and mobility, and has a useful ability. I typically gave it to my Rangers, and gave the Serpent Suit to my Specialists. All that being said, they make my dudes look like Trick or Treaters and I stopped using them after my first run.
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Nov 3, 2019 03:38
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It's certainly not one of their stronger DLCs. While it introduces some interesting mechanics and the unique maps are worth checking out, I think once you've done it once it's definitely fine to just jettison. As it is, I just cheese the bosses with Banish / Repeaters and ignore most of the armors (the Warden suit is neat to watch bounce around and doesn't look bizarre, so I keep it around).
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Nov 3, 2019 04:15
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BlazetheInferno posted:Yeah, the big thing to consider about the Rage Strike ability is that it's a free action. That alone gives it tons of value. Oh for sure, it's the best part of the ability. And the fact that it is replacing the absolute worse ability in the game (Shieldwall) really adds to the relative value.
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Nov 3, 2019 17:42
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Cpt_Obvious posted:So...ummm... decided to make a run again through the game and realized that I hated the WOTC and all the expansions. However, some of the quality of life improvements, such as the tactical preview, are super useful. Have you tried disabling all the various DLC? I believe there should be an option to start the game without it, and it might still have a lot of QoL updates.
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Dec 2, 2019 16:30
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Call Your Grandma posted:I didn't find anything in the OP about this, but I'm wondering how you guys would recommend starting out when you've already purchased the full collection? I'd say start with all the DLC non-integrated, so you can play the special missions. Since you've played before, play on Normal or Commander with Beta Strike for a good difficulty. Iron Man optional.
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Dec 5, 2019 17:05
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So I just had the toughest first Chosen encounter I've experienced: An Assassin with Kinetic Plating and Regeneration on Beta Strike. I tried taking advantage of her Shell-Shocked weakness, but after a round of grenades she proved extremely difficult to finish off, and just danced around until she was regenerated. At higher levels it probably wouldn't have been a problem since soldier accuracy and damage would be improved, but in the end I just had to throw in the towel. What are some of the other tough early combos?
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Dec 5, 2019 20:53
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Do missed shots with a stock still cause shred? I have a heavy cannon I want to put an advanced stock onto. They do not. I like putting Hair Triggers, Expanded Magazines, and Scopes/Repeaters on my Grenadiers. Stocks are pretty good with Specialists though, because they still trigger Guardian. I actually put together a full cheat sheet for myself about this sort of thing, if anyone is interested in it. Kaal fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Dec 8, 2019 |
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Dec 7, 2019 22:05
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Serephina posted:I'm almost positive this was patched out? I've seen people say that online, but I could swear that the last time I played late game WoTC it was still working (a couple months ago). I was playing a bit today but in an earlier phase, I'll have to see if there's a save I can find to test it. I typically loaded my lategame Specialists with Laser Sights, Stocks, and Expanded Magazines to be overwatch machines. Edit: Wow yeah, I must have been misunderstanding that. I checked a save from a couple months ago, and my specialist with the Disrupter Rifle wouldn't proc a Guardian if she missed a shot, despite that having a Stock attached. It's possible that normal weapons are different, but I doubt it. That's so weird because I definitely have memories of it seemingly working. Thanks for the tip. If that's the case then a normal trifecta of Scope / Expanded Magazine / Repeater* would clearly be the way to go. That's a bummer because it was a good niche for the Laser Sight and Stock. *I know some folks don't use Repeaters because they're overly powerful at high difficulties. I'm not quite sure what I'd use in that case, maybe Hair Trigger. Kaal fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Dec 8, 2019 |
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Dec 8, 2019 06:35
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The real trick to rulers is recognizing that they react to soldiers taking actions within their sight. So for example if you overwatch half your squad out of view, lob a few grenades at the ruler over a building, or take a free action like throwing an axe, then the ruler won't do anything at all. And of course there's squadsight cheesing, where the ruler will never figure out where they're being shot from. Finally there's the usefulness of damage over time effects, the potency of Repeaters, and stun effects that can lock them in place when they're trying to portal out.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Dec 11, 2019 |
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Dec 11, 2019 04:24
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IronicDongz posted:
Maybe they were ... the real XCOM all along! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Against_Fire
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Dec 11, 2019 20:53
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Shooting Blanks posted:How much does WOTC improve the base XCOM 2? I couldn't get into the sequel as much as I did the first for some reason, thinking about picking up WOTC at some point and giving it another shot. If anyone here is a Civ fan, is it as drastic a change as the expansions are for that series, or ??? WOTC makes a lot of changes, but I'm not sure if it changes things fundamentally. It adds layers and changes pacing, but it's the same game. If it is a Civ expansion, then it's Rise and Fall rather than Gathering Storm. I'd say the biggest thing is what you weren't liking during your first go around.
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Dec 13, 2019 03:52
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Shooting Blanks posted:Part of it was the mission timers, which of course can be modded out. Part of it was external - I had some personal stuff come up shortly after I bought the game, and it got shelved and I never picked it back up. According to Steam I haven't fired it up since 2016, but I'm working through my backlog right now and figured it might be time to revisit this game, just trying to understand if WOTC is an out and out improvement or an overhaul that isn't required for a complete experience. I hear you on the mission timers, they're a huge pain. WoTC does add Second Wave options, including one that doubles all mission timers. There's also Beta Strike, which I quite like, that increases hit points across the board and extends mission timers by 50%. There's also a new Resistance Orders mechanic that can provide rewards like pausing mission timers until concealment is broken. If you're going to play XCOM2, then do it with WOTC. I think you'll enjoy it.
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Dec 13, 2019 05:22
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The new XCOM design has a lot of weird incentives that are not intuitive, and the whole pod activation element is definitely part of that. If they wanted to implement some sort of stealth element, they should have built it into concealment and given players feedback as to what actions could jeopardize that stealth.
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Dec 16, 2019 00:34
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demota posted:A friend of mine who used to love the UFO Defense can't play the new ones because the chrysalids set off her phobias. She couldn't even bring herself to say their name. I looked through the mods pretty thoroughly, but couldn't find anything. I was hoping that one of the big conversion mods would have replaced them (i.e. Advent to Galactic Empire) but there's apparently a great love for the Chryssalids and they're always exempted. I think that you'd probably have to do the mods yourself. Removing all the intro videos and audio referencing them might be a pretty significant effort, as you probably would need to go through all the clips to figure out which ones to remove. Getting rid of the units and ragdolls would probably be a lot easier than replacing them, so that's where I'd start. If you can get that done in a reasonable amount of time, then I'd go back and work on the more difficult tasks. I'd recommend Phoenix Point as a similar game, only it triples down on the space bug aesthetic so it's unlikely to be an improvement for your friend.
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Jan 24, 2020 16:49
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Cpt_Obvious posted:No, he is immune to all melee damage. I don't think this was the case at any point. You may be confusing it with Chitin Plating, which afforded soldiers bonus hitpoints and also halved melee damage.
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Jan 28, 2020 04:43
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Stefan Prodan posted:I keep having to start over doing ironman classic on the ipad, I basically skip every bomb disposal because my success rate in them is like probably <50%, my games tend to go bad either the first couple times I see thin men or floaters. I think on the ipad version there is no VIP escort or anything? The first council mission I get has been bomb disposal 100% of the time. Ironman Impossible just requires gimmick play and poo poo tons of time. If you're willing to focus most of your attention on which tiles are being unveiled, and slowboat each mission, then you're ready for impossible.
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Jan 28, 2020 21:34
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Serephina posted:It's been a while since I've played EW, but wouldn't that be approximately more Meld than there are stars in the galaxy? You get a bit more than 60 meld per month, and a T1 MEC costs 25 meld. Making a MEC trooper costs an additional 10 meld. So you could have a full squad by the third month. T2 costs 29 meld and you could probably fully upgrade the squad by the sixth month. T3 costs 110 meld each so that probably isn't viable, but frankly the T3 upgrade isn't that great in the first place. Of course this assumes that you're able to recover both the meld canisters in each mission. You'd want to rely heavily on the sniper's Battle Scanner in order to find each canister at the beginning of each mission. Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Jan 29, 2020 |
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Jan 29, 2020 20:25
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S.J. posted:I hate that I would pay money for them to redo XCOM with the XCOM 2 gameplay improvements and such, but I would. Yeah it's really hard to go back to XCOM from XCOM 2, even though the themes are much stronger. In a game where so much of the difficulty lays in divining what tiles a unit will be able to see, the absence of even the limited information provided in XCOM 2 becomes very apparent. The addition of all the new gameplay features is of course much appreciated as well, but it's the UI changes that are critically important.
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Jan 30, 2020 16:11
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Alchenar posted:Here's a question for you all: in all the time I've played XCOM 2 I'm managed to make every unit 'work' except for Sparks. The lack of ability to take cover means that inevitably mine explode and die and I've never quite landed on how I'm supposed to use them safely, which seems important given the enormous resource investment they are. No you're not alone. They're not nearly good enough to merit their cost, and their one-at-a-time repair mechanic means that you can't really replace your squad with them. If you can afford to dump a bunch of resources building and kitting them out, then you probably have already effectively won the game. When I play with the Shen DLC I'll use the free one for a while to keep things fresh, but it's not doing anything that a Grenadier couldn't do. An XCOM MEC was an early-game beast that remained quite viable through to the end - a SPARK is an expensive victory lap that is unaffordable in the beginning and ineffective by the end. You'll see this complaint repeated throughout XCOM2 forums, and I think it's telling that the folks defending them tend to have modded them to be better.
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Feb 15, 2020 21:37
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FoolyCharged posted:XCOM1 mechs were monsters for the entire game. 18 guaranteed damage with the upgrade, monster movement, and the ability to soak 2 hits without dying regardless of tier or enemy. Yeah I just played the first half of an XCOM game where I went hard into MECs. It was pretty easy once I got my feet under me, and the only time I had trouble was when I got overconfident against a bunch of Thin Men in a Bomb Defusal mission.
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Feb 17, 2020 02:22
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zenguitarman posted:Is XCom still good fun? I've been playing through Xenonauts and now I'm jonesin for some XCom. I finished XCom 2 once and bounced off of XCom 2 Long War soon after that. I never got around to finishing my XCom Long War campaign so I was thinking I'd jump back in. I had fun replaying it recently. I definitely missed some of the UI improvements from XCOM2 though.
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Feb 17, 2020 19:34
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PantsBandit posted:What would you guys want out of an XCOM 3? The obvious thing for me is a new setting, I thought they did an amazing job varying the aesthetics for XCOM 2 missions and I am excited to see where they go from there. But mechanically XCOM 2 is really good and pretty much bursting at the seams with content. I think that the earlier comments about wanting an XCOM 3 to be similar to Stargate were a pretty good one. I want a return to the military themes of XCOM 1 - where you're commanding a secret special operations unit, not a band of rebels. I like the mechs versus gene splicing idea, and the idea of choosing between human and alien technology. XCOM 2 has a lot of great stuff in it, though I agree that a continual improvement on the UI would be appreciated. The critical importance of knowing when you're going to extend your vision just isn't communicated to the player, and I think the game would be much improved if pod management was both easier and less central to gameplay.
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Feb 24, 2020 18:07
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ColonelJohnMatrix posted:I haven't played XCom 2 since vanilla release (sank a lot of hours into it) but I'm needing a fix and have some time to kill before animal crossing comes out in a month so I took advantage of the steam sale and purchased all of the DLC for it to give it another go round. War of the Chosen for sure, and then you can't really go wrong. If you haven't played the Alien Hunters DLC before, I'd suggest enabling it. Same with the Shen's Gift DLC and Lost and Abandoned. The reason being that when they are enabled you play the special missions that are associated with each of them. And they're fun missions that are worth playing, especially the first time you're being introduced to their mechanics. On subsequent playthroughs I disable them because I already know how they're going to play out, I prefer the variability, and the game is probably better-balanced without them. Getting rid of Alien Hunters altogether seems unnecessary to me. They're certainly a different feel from the other enemies, but that's sort of the point. I'm glad there's only three, but by the time you're fighting them you're already well on your way to beating the game. Defeating them is mostly a matter of figuring out how they work - and they go down to a repeater the same as any alien. Kaal fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Feb 24, 2020 |
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Feb 24, 2020 23:01
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I believe the colors are broadly related to the source of the abilities. Not really useful information, and not consistently applied either.
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Feb 28, 2020 20:02
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Hwurmp posted:Kind of wish the legacy missions had a baby mode where you could turn off Ironman in exchange for tanking your score or something. You can restart a mission in exchange for a 5000 pt penalty.
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Mar 3, 2020 18:37
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I maintain the worst starting Assassin has Regeneration and Kinetic Plating - she's just absolutely brutal at the higher difficulties because she just will not go down. Late game you have the accuracy and damage to deliver an alphastrike, but early on it's just an absolute meat grinder.
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Mar 12, 2020 22:11
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Yeah I've seen people warn about Shen's Last Gift, but frankly I think if there ever were actual fatigue issues with it then they've been patched out. I've never had a soldier get a phobia from that DLC, and I don't do anything in particular to prevent it. Don't send in fatigued soldiers and you'll be fine. Basically play with the DLC enabled until you get bored of it, then integrate.
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Mar 13, 2020 13:46
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PastaBakeWizard posted:Every time I try to play this thing it's great fun until the alien rulers show up, at which point everybody dies and Christmas is cancelled. Should I just be disabling that DLC as a newbie? One thing to remember is that Alien Rulers only react to soldier actions that they can see. So for example if you fire a grenade from out of their view, they won't react even if you hit them. They also don't react to free actions, like the Axe Throw. Finally, they go down to a Repeater just like anyone. Damage over Time effects and such are of course useful to an extent, but the best way of fighting them is to recognize when you can prevent them from acting at all.
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Mar 15, 2020 21:11
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:Can i grab WOTC off there to use with my Steam copy of XCOM2? No. GOG doesn't work with any other platform.
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Mar 29, 2020 15:40
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Dr Christmas posted:If I’m coming back to this game after a while, would anyone say there’s a “definitive” way to start this game with all the DLC and minimal mods? Like which special missions should I enable or disable? If you want to play all the special missions, then enable everything and disable Integrated DLC.
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Apr 4, 2020 20:06
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Tom Tucker posted:Might I recommend to you a Reaper with Banish and superior extended magazine and superior repeater? This has been my solution as well. Basically Reapers just generally, really. Scout out the Ruler, isolate them, lay an Overwatch trap, and then just unload on them with anything that can avoid causing reactions as much as possible. Load up your squad with Repeaters and they'll eventually trigger.
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Apr 4, 2020 20:30
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Mike N Eich posted:Wait, do I actively have to change settings? I thought it was just a random probability thing! Ok whoops, I've definitely been the culprit here, hahahah The randomize seed is set at the beginning of a mission, so reloading won't change outcomes unless the Save Scum option is selected from the Second Wave settings.
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Apr 4, 2020 21:06
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Mike N Eich posted:i have been doing this wrong all campaign. incredible, feel like a total dumbass. Oh, hah, I see now. Well at least you know the computer isn't out to get you! 
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Apr 5, 2020 00:03
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BlazetheInferno posted:Wait wait wait. Mexico is part of North America. You're telling me there's no connection between the other two regions in North America and the third? The connections are always randomized, so it can be very possible for this sort of thing to happen.
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Apr 10, 2020 00:24
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Floodixor posted:Yeah, I know I need to bang him up a bit so hell leave. I DID manage to kill the first Avatar we met which took 3 pips away from the avatar project, which was a big deal, but yeah, this guy is a world-class bastard. Some things to keep in mind: An activated alien ruler will not react to a preset Overwatch being triggered - so opening up with an Overwatch trap can be a good way to start. Also, the bodyslam (Icarus Drop) can be interrupted by any amount of damage - including fire or acid burn, or guaranteed damage like a weapon with a Stock. The area attack (Devastate) has a radius of 5 tiles, so keep that in mind when maneuvering your troops. And finally, remember that a Repeater can kill an Alien Ruler in one hit.
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Apr 12, 2020 02:53
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