Maidens of the Kaleidoscope

~Beyond the Border~ => Akyu's Arcade => Topic started by: Raikaria on February 05, 2016, 10:57:43 AM

Title: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Raikaria on February 05, 2016, 10:57:43 AM
So yeah; XCom2 is out.

I brought it as soon as I found out and man I do not regret it. There's so many LITTLE THINGS which makes it such an excellent game and such an improvement to the origional. I've only done 3 missions + tutorial so far, but even then...

I mean after the first real mission, [I'm playing on Commander] I lost 1 solider and another survived with 1 HP. It shows your troops getting out of the Skyranger as they return to base for the mission results/promotions screen... and the injured character limped out of the Skyranger and collapsed to her knees when she made it to the front with the two who were not wounded. Wow. That is a touch and a half.

Share stories of soilders; tactics; ect. Any spoiler content should; obviously; be in spoiler tags.

It seems they've managed to make XCom1 both canon and non-canon; since the Commander is the same Commander; and was having massive amounts of combat simulations played in his head, siphoning his expertise off to the ADVENT commanders. So I guess while the 'canon' storyline of XCom 1 is 'you lost horribly Ironman Impossible style' SCom1 is also canon in the sense that successful campaigns were simulations run through the Commander's mind. Canon yet possibly happened. That's one way to go about the successful campaigns

Also my face when a Sectoid RAISED A ZOMBIE.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Tamer Anode/Cathode on February 05, 2016, 12:25:51 PM
man I want this game so bad but it's $80 CDN right now. Stupid exchange rate :/
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: commandercool on February 05, 2016, 01:49:35 PM
I'm conflicted about whether I want to buy this now or wait for a while for it to drop. Honestly I'm not a huge fan of the first one. It was a nearly-great game with a lot of significant flaws that really soured me to the whole experience. But if this one fixes those problem I might love it.

Probably my easiest-to-address question is this: Did they overhaul or at least rebalance air combat? I was given the impression at the beginning of Xcom that air units would, you know, matter, so I invested heavily in them gor a decent chunk of the beginning of the game. Little did I know that planes would rarely be used, snd when they were those inexpensive sattelite link things would matter a lot more than my fancy expensive units. So I don't know how I would want air combat to be tweaked exactly, but somehow.

And this isn't really probably a valid criticism since it falls more in the "I wish this was a different game" category, but I felt like the game wanted to have a significant espionage element that it didn't. A whole extra department for spies, detectives, and Fox Mulders would have made my department feel a lot less reactionary. Maybe it's explicitly supposed to feel that way, but I think spies to reveal enemy ground locations before they attack, sabotage enemies, or predict invasions would have been such a natural fit that it felt conspicuous that it was missing.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Raikaria on February 05, 2016, 07:50:23 PM
Quote from: commandercool on February 05, 2016, 01:49:35 PM
I'm conflicted about whether I want to buy this now or wait for a while for it to drop. Honestly I'm not a huge fan of the first one. It was a nearly-great game with a lot of significant flaws that really soured me to the whole experience. But if this one fixes those problem I might love it.

Probably my easiest-to-address question is this: Did they overhaul or at least rebalance air combat? I was given the impression at the beginning of Xcom that air units would, you know, matter, so I invested heavily in them gor a decent chunk of the beginning of the game. Little did I know that planes would rarely be used, snd when they were those inexpensive sattelite link things would matter a lot more than my fancy expensive units. So I don't know how I would want air combat to be tweaked exactly, but somehow.

And this isn't really probably a valid criticism since it falls more in the "I wish this was a different game" category, but I felt like the game wanted to have a significant espionage element that it didn't. A whole extra department for spies, detectives, and Fox Mulders would have made my department feel a lot less reactionary. Maybe it's explicitly supposed to feel that way, but I think spies to reveal enemy ground locations before they attack, sabotage enemies, or predict invasions would have been such a natural fit that it felt conspicuous that it was missing.

Air Combat - Not got that far
Espionage - You start missions in stealth and can hack enemy tech in the field like turrets and stuff since they're actually entrenched on Earth now. So you can certainly sabotage enemies.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: commandercool on February 05, 2016, 09:01:50 PM
That's a cool development although more combat skills doesn't sound like it probably scratches the itch I have. Ideally I'd like to see espionage be sort of like the research part of the game where you can invest money in it at your base to get a variety of effects. It does sound like a step in that direction though.

How are the new enemies? Are there a lot of them or are they mostly the same as before. Even though enemy variety was pretty weak in the first one I didn't think it hurt the game that much because the scenarios were more important than the actual enemies. But more variety would be nice. Some very large enemies maybe.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Raikaria on February 06, 2016, 08:06:52 AM
Quote from: commandercool on February 05, 2016, 09:01:50 PM
That's a cool development although more combat skills doesn't sound like it probably scratches the itch I have. Ideally I'd like to see espionage be sort of like the research part of the game where you can invest money in it at your base to get a variety of effects. It does sound like a step in that direction though.

How are the new enemies? Are there a lot of them or are they mostly the same as before. Even though enemy variety was pretty weak in the first one I didn't think it hurt the game that much because the scenarios were more important than the actual enemies. But more variety would be nice. Some very large enemies maybe.

I have only found one new enemy type so far [Discounting ADVENT troopers; who are almost-human], but I've not made it very far. And this one new enemy is big.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Monarda on February 06, 2016, 02:55:37 PM
I checked Steam the other day for this.
255 bucks.... Ouch, better wait a bit more.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Iced Fairy on February 06, 2016, 06:00:15 PM
I'm enjoying it greatly myself as well.  It's considerably more polished.  Of course it's still a tactical battle game with background resource management, but they did a lot better with both sides.  Not to mention adding in the special missions that the first game was missing from the get go.  Just got shot down and had to fight off aliens attacking my ship.

There are still some bugs and issues.  I had a mission start with a vital item on a car that was on fire.  That was... problematic.  And loading times are nasty.

But the fact that my sniper apparently is Revolver Ocelot on the side makes up for that.  I need to make the pistol even more ridiculous.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Stuffman on February 07, 2016, 03:55:34 PM
Apparently the bugs are a really serious issue, which is the only reason I haven't picked this up yet.

I'll probably wait for summer sales when they've put more work into fixing the game.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Monarda on February 07, 2016, 08:44:37 PM
Is the game really that buggy ? I hope they fix them when i get it.
On a side note, Stuffman posted :0
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Iced Fairy on February 07, 2016, 09:30:01 PM
Most bugs I've run into are ignoreable.  I've had a few that were kinda trying, but nothing that was game breaking so far.

The most problematic thing I've encoutered is the pathing.  Units love to run into fire and will prioritize that route above all others it seems.  Also I've had at least two enemy mechs walk into a car, cause it to explode, and then get real mad about taking damage.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Raikaria on February 07, 2016, 09:39:34 PM
I had a fun series of events. I'm failing at Commander Ironman.

I have a rookie who does well in a mission, and ends up with 4 missions under his belt with 13 kills. He upgrades to Sargent; and gets a skill from the Advanced Warfare School; 'Chain Shot'. -15 Aim; but you get a 2nd shot if you hit.

Thing is; his Sargent skill I chose was Shadowstep; +25 Aim and +25 Crit when he ambushes. Which basically lets him mow things down from ambush. I also get my 5th trooper slot.

So I go do a storyline mission.

And get wrecked as I try to find a good ambush angle; miss 4 overwatch shots [The shotgun guy killed his target with his doubleshot]; my main guy gets unconscious [read: basically instakill but it's not actually a kill] by a stun lancer; and another important person gets stunned. 2 guys panic. Only my sniper can act and he gets rushed down by both stun lancers and killed the next turn.

I got wrecked. Horray for the rest of my squad being incompetent and a bunch of bad rolls. Best thing is if they didn't roll Unconscious on my shotgun guy he would have ripped them apart.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Monarda on February 08, 2016, 12:42:07 AM
I just realized.
My commanding ethics don't allow me to accept a unit's death, at the point i restart over to save him (Unless it's scripted, if so then fuck the game). Guess that will make things a little harder ? Not that a bit of pain or frustation are bad, so i'm kinda glad i have these ethics.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Raikaria on February 09, 2016, 08:56:08 PM
This escalated quickly...

- Mission going very well. VIP extraction. Only 2 guys got hurt so far; one Grenadier who got Viper-hooked and one soilder who ate a Pistol Overwatch from a Mind Controlled Sniper as he killed the Sectoid Mind Controlling her. I'm near Evac on a roof. I get out next turn.
- Stun Lancer dodges all the overwatch shots and rolls an unconcious on my best Grenadier.
- Neaby Ranger panics; jumps down a level of the building; and lobs his grenade at 2 of my other troops.
- This destroys the floor under them. They are on a rooftop. They fall and both die due to the combination of fall damage and grenade damage.
- My sniper panics and runs at a Muton. She gets meleed for 9 and dies next turn
- The VIP gets out, but then Ranger [rightfully] dies next turn.

From a near-flawless mission to 4 dead 1 captured. 3 of my best guys were on that mission. I'm on Ironman. The Avatar Project is nearing completion [Facilities spawned really, really badly] so I'm almost out of time. The only solace I have is that
My best Grenadier was captured; meaning there's a chance he can appear as a VIP in a VIP extraction mission to get him back

Unless my Specialist can carry me, I think I just got completely screwed over. And I can't see anything I could have done to stop it. The Stun L:ancer was behind full cover that my nades wouldn't even take out [It was a support of a building and it didn't turn red indicateing it would be destroyed. Also I was standing on said building so taking it down... eh not a good idea]; and the % to hit him was insanely low, which is why I just had to Overwatch. But I missed them all.

(http://t.qkme.me/3qx7t3.jpg)
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Aya Reiko on February 15, 2016, 10:17:12 PM
So, those of you who have it.  How many of you have been adding custom characters through customization on the main menu?

I've added Alice, though I should make Satori next...
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Raikaria on February 17, 2016, 11:25:18 AM
I got pretty far in my Ironman Commander campaign; but got wrecked when a certain lategame enemy showed up that I was completely unprepared for.

But I feel like mentioning something I discovered during this:

Gunslinger is actually good. Like; really; really good.

Pistols don't deal that great damage in themselves; but Gunslingers:
- Removes the downsides of Snipers in the many cases where you have to run across the map to evac against a timer or you need to go indoors. You just can't sit at the back of the map and sniper 24/7 like XCom1.
- You get free shots [Lightning Hands]
- Makes your Snipers not dead if a Stun Lancer breaks Overwatches and runs at them.
- Due to the sheer amount of shots you can get off in one turn, you can really; really; really quickly spread around Dragon/Viper rounds.

Seriously; Dragon/Viper rounds on a Gunslinger is particularly awesome. Dragon and Viper rounds add +1 damage to your shots [A significant amount on a Pistol; and effectively +3 on Fan Fire]. They also both apply a DoT, which both tick at the start of the alien's turn.

But where it really shines is this:
Being on fire prevents you from using any ability that is not moveing; shooting; melee or Overwatch. No Psi. No Grenades. No Snake Tongues.
Being Poisoned gives you a move penalty and an aim penalty

I was doing a particular storyline mission on Commander Ironman and had 2 more pods walk in while I was already fighting one pod. I would have died there; if not for my Viper-Rounds armed Gunslinger doing the following:
Lightning Hands on MEC [Dosen't cost an action]
Normal [Quickdraw] Shot on MEC [Dosen't end turn; only 1 action]
Faceoff [Hits all visible enemy targets with pistol] on all visible enemies in his range [Killed the MEC and poisoned everything else that wasn't a Viper since those guys are immune]. Which meant a large amount of the guys who walked in during the fight suddenly had heavy movement and aim penalties and proceeded to be Stormtoopers.

Seriously; if you grab some Viper [Poison] or Dragon [Fire] rounds; and give them to a Sniper and make them a Gunslinger. The rounds even still help out their actual sniping. It's still +1 [At least +2 if the target is not immune to the status] damage and still applies the status effect. Just not in such an absurd manner as pistol abilities can. Even from when you get Quickdraw you can apply status to 3 targets in one turn. Faceoff comes later and gives you another cooldown and a 'OH GOD I JUST WALKED IN ON 2 PODS NEXT TO EACH OTHER' button.

I guess you could go for maximum hilarity and have two Gunslingers; one with Viper and one with Dragon. So you can stop all special abilities while also heavily nerfing what little enemies have left. I never had a 2nd gunslinger or Dragon rounds that game so I just used Fire Grenades for when this sort of debuffing was required.

The biggest downside of a Gunslinger is you don't get Kill Zone. Serial is still an option over Fan Fire; but if you're going for a sort of crowd control build you NEED Faceoff. But Killzone can show up in the Advanced Warfare school. In fact my current campaign just had it roll on a Specialist. Or you can just run a Kill Zone Sniper and a Dragon or Viper rounds Gunslinger. You have uyp to 6 squad slots and there's only 5 classes... you have to double up on at least one.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Tamer Anode/Cathode on February 17, 2016, 04:07:27 PM
So finished the campaign on Veteran, not sure if I want to go back in and farm a few achievements or start over again on Commander difficulty.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Monarda on February 17, 2016, 05:14:14 PM
Quote from: Raikaria on February 17, 2016, 11:25:18 AM
I got pretty far in my Ironman Commander campaign; but got wrecked when a certain lategame enemy showed up that I was completely unprepared for.
Even though i haven't played yet i think i know what it is.
http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1746 (http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1746)

Also is it technically possible to beat the game without losing soldiers besides the tutorial ones ?
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Tamer Anode/Cathode on February 17, 2016, 06:02:32 PM
Quote from: Starlighthawk on February 17, 2016, 05:14:14 PM
Also is it technically possible to beat the game without losing soldiers besides the tutorial ones ?
It's not just technically possible, there's also an achievement for doing so on the higher difficulties. Doing so likely takes a lot of familiarity with what you're going to be facing, however.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Monarda on February 17, 2016, 08:07:15 PM
Quote from: Tokiko, Ancillary Character on February 17, 2016, 06:02:32 PM
It's not just technically possible, there's also an achievement for doing so on the higher difficulties. Doing so likely takes a lot of familiarity with what you're going to be facing, however.
Then that is my objective.
I don't care how long it will take, i vow as a strategist/tactician that i will beat the game without losing any soldiers that aren't going to be forced to die..... Now i need to get the money to buy it.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Raikaria on February 17, 2016, 10:18:26 PM
Quote from: Tokiko, Ancillary Character on February 17, 2016, 06:02:32 PM
It's not just technically possible, there's also an achievement for doing so on the higher difficulties. Doing so likely takes a lot of familiarity with what you're going to be facing, however.

Beat the game on Commander + Difficulty without losing a solider. [Note a lot of challenge achievements require Commander+. Only 2.2% of players have even beaten Commander. 0.5% in Ironman].

It shouldn't be too difficult; more an exercise in tedium; since the acheivement doesn't require Ironman so you can just save scum if you really want it.

Personally these sorts of games I always play in Ironman if it allows so I do not even have the temptation to save scum.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: commandercool on February 17, 2016, 10:40:27 PM
I didn't really feel like the original Xcom's mechanics were stable enough for me to want to play on Ironman. I only reloaded twice in my playthrough, and both of them were following near-party wipes where I didn't feel like the carnage was at all related to the decisions I made.

One was a situation where the game just wouldn't let me have line of sight for an elaborate killbox I set up even though the enemy had line of sight to me. The other was due to the reflection mechanic on those psychic alien leader guys, which the game never explained and that I still don't understand. I made a safe attack against him that should have ended the match but the guy who attacked him just inexplicably dropped dead, the rest of my team panicked, and I lost a bunch of units.

I'm all for Ironman-type modes in games where my losses are due to informed risks I took or just straight-up bad choices, but when the game kills my guys and I don't feel responsible I'm not that okay with it. I have a similar problem with Fire Emblem: Awakening and its stupid boner for spawning swarms of enemies directly on top of my position and letting them move the same turn. Getting sucker punched by secret enemies or broken mechanics, or even non-broken mechanics that are just never explained, isn't really fun for me.
Title: Re: Meet new Aliens... and Kill them [XCom2]
Post by: Aya Reiko on February 21, 2016, 09:51:56 AM
Quote from: Starlighthawk on February 17, 2016, 05:14:14 PM
Even though i haven't played yet i think i know what it is.
http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1746 (http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1746)
I'm guessing it's the late game enemy that's even worse than that.  "Ball of Doom" would be a good descriptor.