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[Mobius and pet octopus]

Whatever.

One moment my guys were sitting alone in a small room. The next moment, three burly Mutons suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They took cover and BRRRRT!, most of my guys were dead and I couldn't do a thing.

It just seems like you're blaming the game for working as intended. Maybe it is a bit unfair from your perspective, but you need to position your soldiers in a way that you don't get wiped out by a patrol that happens to move into your squad.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Only filthy casuals. Probably play Fire Emblem without letting anyone die too. Disgusting!

The purpose of death in Fire Emblem is to kill the characters I never want to see again.

 

[Erheller]

Whatever.

One moment my guys were sitting alone in a small room. The next moment, three burly Mutons suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They took cover and BRRRRT!, most of my guys were dead and I couldn't do a thing.

Enemies can't move/warp into you and shoot on the same turn

Spoiler

unless you're playing Long War and have Itchy Trigger Tentacle enabled or are on an alien base assault

. If an enemy pod patrols into you, you'll have a turn to move your own troops into cover before the aliens start shooting.

 

[Lumination]

It just seems like you're blaming the game for working as intended. Maybe it is a bit unfair from your perspective, but you need to position your soldiers in a way that you don't get wiped out by a patrol that happens to move into your squad.

My biggest complaint with XCOM was that the optimal way to play was to leapfrog overwatch 10 turns before you even reach anything. This is bad design.

XCOM 2 seems to remedy this a bit by adding a time limit to most missions, but I'm not sure if it's just a bandaid over the underlying problem or not. Will have to play to judge it.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Enemies can't move/warp into you and shoot on the same turn

Spoiler

unless you're playing Long War and have Itchy Trigger Tentacle enabled or are on an alien base assault

. If an enemy pod patrols into you, you'll have a turn to move your own troops into cover before the aliens start shooting.

If the final move on your turn triggers the pod, you're up shit creek.

 

[Erheller]

If the final move on your turn triggers the pod, you're up shit creek.

Agreed. Accidental activations cause squad wipes. I dislike it and it's probably the most glaring flaw of the whole pod/scramble to cover system since it promotes super passive play.

That's not what he described, though.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

You should not be moving into unexplored areas with your last guy. A big part of your tactics is order of activating each soldier imo. You can avoid that accidental activation very often by smart planning.

I do agree, however, that sometimes these turns take long and drag out the game a bit too much too often. I am definitely in favor of the concealment system.

 

[AlimNassor]

I was playing X:EI and my guy accidentally activated a pod of muttons while trying to get the meld. Then when I threw a grenade I destroyed a wall activating another pod of muttons and a sectopod. Squad wipe if I've ever seen one.

 

[iosefe]

I was playing X:EI and my guy accidentally activated a pod of muttons while trying to get the meld. Then when I threw a grenade I destroyed a wall activating another pod of muttons and a sectopod. Squad wipe if I've ever seen one.

requiescant in pace

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

You should not be moving into unexplored areas with your last guy. A big part of your tactics is order of activating each soldier imo. You can avoid that accidental activation very often by smart planning.

I do agree, however, that sometimes these turns take long and drag out the game a bit too much too often. I am definitely in favor of the concealment system.

It's not just unexplored areas, sometimes you get unlucky and the specific path the guy takes sees or is seen by an alien through a specific angle that nobody else passed through. The game is full of intermittent minor frustrations.

 

[Sblargh]

I think the thing about Ironman shouldn't be "don't make mistakes", but "bounce back from your mistakes".

Horrible things happen, but believe in yourself with all your heart and you will survive. Or die again. But you can still savage that game.

 

[cephissus]

That's the problem with the last x:com. While playing ironman, the measures required to shift probabilities far enough in your favor were too tedious. Your preparations had to go well past fun tactics and into boredom.

 

[WanderingWind]

With regards to turn limits. From what I've seen of these missions it looks like yes, you have 8 turns to blowup/hack/find item but after that you have all the time in the world to kill the rest of the enemies on that map. There may be a few where the mission requires you to bug out after completing the timed turns (or mission failed) but most of the missions I've seen from Beaglerush and others has been a countdown and once succeeded you kill the rest of the enemies.

Hm. Got a link for this?

 

[bjaelke]

Hm. Got a link for this?

https://youtu.be/n7skEUKA-Wk?t=1383

 

[Shake Appeal]

If the final move on your turn triggers the pod, you're up shit creek.

This is within your control 99% of the time, though. A lot of XCOM on higher levels is managing fog of war and line of sight. When there are no active pods on the map, my first two moves are "tentpole" moves to establish a safe zone of LOS. Then I'll move all my other soldiers within that zone, and I'll check to make sure they're not pathing through tiles outside the zone. I don't even bother putting them in cover during that time; I just make sure all my guys are a blue move away from a good spot in case a reveal occurs during alien activity.

Is this a boring way to play? Sure, it can be, especially when using Overwatch/Hunker and even moving soldiers was so sluggish in vanilla. Like LW, XCOM 2 addresses this by making movement and actions far quicker and crisper, and by using Concealment to let you uncover a lot of the map quickly with lesser risk. And by forcing you to advance or lose, which is the biggest thing. Those are solid improvements that speed up the core gameplay loop without damaging it, I feel.

 

[Fishook]

Other games have removed overwatch, and then you get a very hit and miss style of game play, But then you would get people save-scumming even more. Or you ends up with a more JRPG style game with Buffs which was never what X-Com was about.

I am not a fan of time based game play, but as long its not punishing I do not mind, as it does give a risk or reward style a bit like gathering Wyrdstones in Mordihiem. I think they could introduce some Invisible Inc play style i.e peeking round corners or stealth based game play for certain missions. (I have'nt played much Invisible Inc as not a big fan of rogue based games or timed missions).

Xcom biggest flaw that it was simplified for the console market, and was improved with Long War. Hopefully they will rectify this with XCOM 2.

 

[Sober]

Skulljack?

Holy shit

Do not click this if you just changed into a new pair of underoos.

Or spoilers, I guess.

http://i.imgur.com/nG3KHKL.webm

 

[WanderingWind]

https://youtu.be/n7skEUKA-Wk?t=1383

Interesting. Still going to wait on reviews, but that looks promising.

 

[JJD]

Guys if my laptop can run Enemy Unknown and Within at the highest settings at above 30 fps will it be able to run Xcom 2 at least on medium?

Nvidia needs get their new cards out soon, I gotta buy a gaming PC!

 

[Tworak]

Skulljack?

Holy shit

Do not click this if you just changed into a new pair of underoos.

Or spoilers, I guess.

http://i.imgur.com/nG3KHKL.webm

Guys if my laptop can run Enemy Unknown and Within at the highest settings at above 30 fps will it be able to run Xcom 2 at least on medium?

Nvidia needs get their new cards out soon, I gotta buy a gaming PC!

difficult to say. xcom2 is more demanding, but it might not be a lot more so than xcom1.

 

[Sblargh]

Skulljack?

Holy shit

Do not click this if you just changed into a new pair of underoos.

Or spoilers, I guess.

http://i.imgur.com/nG3KHKL.webm

...oh what... my... but what... ? Goddamn XCom.

Is the fact that we don't give a fuck that Advent soldiers are actually human beings is going to be a thing?
Or are we just not caring?

 

[Tworak]

...oh what... my... but what... ? Goddamn XCom.

Is the fact that we don't give a fuck that Advent soldiers are actually human beings is going to be a thing?
Or are we just not caring?

their blood is like yellowish greenish and they babble in some strange alien language. human but not really.

kill or be killed I suppose.

 

[Tacitus_]

Skulljack?

Holy shit

Do not click this if you just changed into a new pair of underoos.

Or spoilers, I guess.

http://i.imgur.com/nG3KHKL.webm

They mentioned that you could do that in one of the videos. Didn't expect it to work quite like that however

 

[red731]

...oh what... my... but what... ? Goddamn XCom.

Is the fact that we don't give a fuck that Advent soldiers are actually human beings is going to be a thing?
Or are we just not caring?

lol what? I don't call genefreaks with mixed alien x human dna humans.

Playing EW again and not save scumming as much in preparation. I love it and am so freaking hyped.
Dear etherelals Jake, Garth and rest of the team. Pls giv.

ed: Guys.. it's in the name of the item. Skulljack and its skill, Skullmine.

 

[Sblargh]

Killing advent soldiers is fine, actually, since it's a war and they are the enemies and such, but man,

Spoiler

sticking a knife into someone's head to datamine its brain

cross some line for me, lol.

The ethics of skulljacking, I guess.

 

[red731]

One more thing regarding Skulljack. This is the "og" Skulljack from Turok 2 -

The Cerebral Bore is a weapon first featured in Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. It is a weapon of unknown origin that consists of a homing projectile capable of latching onto its victim's heads, killing them by drilling into their skulls and exploding.

Why haven't I played XCOM EU and EW when I bought them three years ago(exp later ofcourse). I am having so much fun. Cursing to no end at high percentage missed shots.

All of the QoL stuff that is in XCOM2 is amazing.

 

[xChildOfHatex]

Skulljack?

Holy shit

Do not click this if you just changed into a new pair of underoos.

Or spoilers, I guess.

http://i.imgur.com/nG3KHKL.webm

GOD DAMN! Though the really high Tech Score of the opposing trooper has me worried that aside from the cool animation this Skulljack might just be worthless, unless you can overcome the high opposing tech score by some kind of upgrades and shit.

 

[Sblargh]

GOD DAMN! Though the really high Tech Score of the opposing trooper has me worried that aside from the cool animation this Skulljack might just be worthless, unless you can overcome the high opposing tech score by some kind of upgrades and shit.

It is an upgredeable stat, yeah.

 

[Sblargh]

The hype tho. Please release.

 

[Frimaire]

Skulljack?

Holy shit

Do not click this if you just changed into a new pair of underoos.

Or spoilers, I guess.

http://i.imgur.com/nG3KHKL.webm

YOOOOOOOO! I was wondering what the Skulljack was.

 

[BigTnaples]

One more thing regarding Skulljack. This is the "og" Skulljack from Turok 2 -

BEWAREOBLIVIONISATHAND.

 

[Clevinger]

I was watching one of Beagle's streams and saw that

Spoiler

the Advent banned (and obviously killed) all pets and livestock.

I am totally making a John Wick soldier. Character bio:

Spoiler

The aliens killed his puppy!

 

[Slackbladder]

Hm. Got a link for this?

In this YouTube vid by ChristopherOdd he has 8 turns to Hack the objective and then kill all enemy targets.
And in this one by Northernlion the target is being attacked and you have to defend it but there's no timer.

 

[Remachinate]

I can't help but wonder if the devs accounted for this technique when balancing the game. All the preview material focused on player-turn overwatch ambushes coming out of stealth, rather than on the enemy turn. The latter is directly more effective as the aliens spend their turn scrambling and you get another full turn after, and is probably the reason Beagle was able to snowball so hard on vanilla Legend.

Sure enough: https://twitter.com/SolomonJake/status/689827110668668928

 

[Metroidvania]

Sure enough: https://twitter.com/SolomonJake/status/689827110668668928

I'm curious/unsure about how you could 'fix' this without flaunting the 'rules' that make up the game's systems in favor of the AI, or reworking the concealment/ambush mechanic, at least in part. Or at least, without feeling cheap to the player.

Could make its way in as a dark event as part of the aliens' evolving strategy, instead of it being an always/never thing, I suppose?

 

[Remachinate]

I'm curious/unsure about how you could 'fix' this without flaunting the 'rules' that make up the game's systems in favor of the AI, or reworking the concealment/ambush mechanic, at least in part. Or at least, without feeling cheap to the player.

Could make its way in as a dark event as part of the aliens' evolving strategy, instead of it being an always/never thing, I suppose?

I wouldn't be surprised if they further complicate the scamper mechanic, such as the aliens getting an overwatch after moving into cover if a pod is activated on the alien turn. It's just further evidence that the scamper is a needlessly fiddly way to balance the player getting the first shot. Just let the player get a full round of shots on uncovered targets on the first turn, and make the pods bigger/more durable to compensate.

 

[Tworak]

not surprised at the changes. it made the first encounter way too easy. I'm quite happy they chose to change it now, instead of in a few months or in an expansion pack.

 

[NandyRewman]

Apologies for the rather off topic post, but this seems to be the most active XCOM thread around.

I recently picked up XCOM Enemy Within, but I'm having technical problems preventing me from playing the game at all. Any and all help would be appreciated.

So, Enemy Within will either crash and hang at a black screen during startup or if it does manage to launch, it will seemingly crash whenever I try to save the game. I've tried verifying the files, installing on different hard drives, and deleting config files. This problem doesn't seem to plague Enemy Unknown, which is even stranger.

Any ideas on what might be causing my woes?

 

[Akronis]

Apologies for the rather off topic post, but this seems to be the most active XCOM thread around.

I recently picked up XCOM Enemy Within, but I'm having technical problems preventing me from playing the game at all. Any and all help would be appreciated.

So, Enemy Within will either crash and hang at a black screen during startup or if it does manage to launch, it will seemingly crash whenever I try to save the game. I've tried verifying the files, installing on different hard drives, and deleting config files. This problem doesn't seem to plague Enemy Unknown, which is even stranger.

Any ideas on what might be causing my woes?

Turn off Steam Cloud and Steam Community in-game and see what happens.

 

[Sblargh]

I'm curious/unsure about how you could 'fix' this without flaunting the 'rules' that make up the game's systems in favor of the AI, or reworking the concealment/ambush mechanic, at least in part. Or at least, without feeling cheap to the player.

Could make its way in as a dark event as part of the aliens' evolving strategy, instead of it being an always/never thing, I suppose?

I wouldn't be surprised if they further complicate the scamper mechanic, such as the aliens getting an overwatch after moving into cover if a pod is activated on the alien turn. It's just further evidence that the scamper is a needlessly fiddly way to balance the player getting the first shot. Just let the player get a full round of shots on uncovered targets on the first turn, and make the pods bigger/more durable to compensate.

My guess is that the aliens will either fire or overwatch *instead* of scampering if they have vision of anyone outside of cover.
Moving, then overwatching, seem like too much.

Off-topicish: I can finish XCOM: EW on normal and ironman pretty much whenever I want now. That mode holds no challenge whatsoever to me. So I upped the difficulty to classic, the one above.

Holy shit, everything kills me a lot. I hate when I'm at this limbo where I'm too good for one difficulty and not nearly good enough for the one next.

 

[xChildOfHatex]

My guess is that the aliens will either fire or overwatch *instead* of scampering if they have vision of anyone outside of cover.
Moving, then overwatching, seem like too much.

Off-topicish: I can finish XCOM: EW on normal and ironman pretty much whenever I want now. That mode holds no challenge whatsoever to me. So I upped the difficulty to classic, the one above.

Holy shit, everything kills me a lot. I hate when I'm at this limbo where I'm too good for one difficulty and not nearly good enough for the one next.

Same thing happened to me when I switched to Classic Ironman. I think I screwed AT LEAST half a dozen playthroughs before I was finally able to complete Classic Ironman. I still haven't completed Classic Ironman without taking a casualty or without losing a XCOM member nation which is something I can comfortably do on Normal Ironman.

I think the biggest difference is that in Classic mode, you HAVE to be in full cover 99% of the times or you're screwed and you need to have AT LEAST 2 (I'd recommend 3) soldiers of each class type ready to go at any time because injuries happen regularly and with Enemy Within you have to go on a mission almost every day till you take care of Advent.

 

[Falk]

Heh, that's me for Classic -> Impossible, although I've managed to get through Alien Base once on Impossible Ironman (felt the hard part really is getting past the rookie and initial country panic spam)

Wondering if a Civ-style spread of more difficulty settings would be a good thing.

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-01-21-long-war-team-are-making-mods-for-xcom-2

Good news for XCOM 2, as developers, Firaxis Games, have announced a partnership with recently formed Long War Studios, the team behind XCOM: Enemy Unknown's incredible Long War mod.

The reveal comes via the official XCOM blog, which states that Long War Studios is "currently hard at work on multiple mods for XCOM 2". We imagine one of those projects has to be another ridiculous (in the very best way) overhaul mod, but what else are they working on?

Noice

 

[Tworak]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-01-21-long-war-team-are-making-mods-for-xcom-2

Noice

the question is if "we're not making an xcom2 mod" from a while back was the whole truth and nothing but the truth or not. as in, were they already making something, or did something change recently.

 

[Sblargh]

Same thing happened to me when I switched to Classic Ironman. I think I screwed AT LEAST half a dozen playthroughs before I was finally able to complete Classic Ironman. I still haven't completed Classic Ironman without taking a casualty or without losing a XCOM member nation which is something I can comfortably do on Normal Ironman.

I think the biggest difference is that in Classic mode, you HAVE to be in full cover 99% of the times or you're screwed and you need to have AT LEAST 2 (I'd recommend 3) soldiers of each class type ready to go at any time because injuries happen regularly and with Enemy Within you have to go on a mission almost every day till you take care of Advent.

My current game is going... well... I mean, lol, I had to skip a mission because I literally had no soldiers available and Mexico was gone. But now my first nexus is being built and the 5 satellites are already on the way. Laser rifles are a thing and the rest are being swiftly researched.

If the base defense mission doesn't come at the worst time possible (I just ruined it, didn't I?), I think I can survive enough to stabilize myself into infinite money and then just hold on until plasma weapons give me the win.

But yeah, deciding to shoot while in half-cover is such a difficult call. You have your soldier at half-cover, 65% chance to hit the alien, you can't move to full cover. It's such a hard call.

Heh, that's me for Classic -> Impossible, although I've managed to get through Alien Base once on Impossible Ironman (felt the hard part really is getting past the rookie and initial country panic spam)

Wondering if a Civ-style spread of more difficulty settings would be a good thing.

Edditing the .ini of Long War a bit showed me that while being able to do a modular difficulty setting might be useful and fun, it's also a kind of gateway drug to just making the game too easy on you all over again.

But my ideal difficulty seeting right now would be Classic, but with normal Thin Men.
Every time I miss a shot on a Thin Men, I look at the soldier who missed and kiss the screen.

You were brave, my flower, but you failed. And you're probably dead now.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-01-21-long-war-team-are-making-mods-for-xcom-2



Noice

Oh yeah, that's nice. It's crazy how much firaxis have come to respect those people.
Really nice stuff happening here.

 

[xChildOfHatex]

But my ideal difficulty seeting right now would be Classic, but with normal Thin Men.
Every time I miss a shot on a Thin Men, I look at the soldier who missed and kiss the screen.

You were brave, my flower, but you failed. And you're probably dead now.

LMAO.... Never thought of it that way, but yeah, Thin Men are BRUTAL in the early going for Classic Ironman mode. I don't know if it's just my bad luck, but they ALWAYS seem to hit the guy who missed them, with a critical hit on Classic difficulty. Fuckin' pricks.

 

[Shake Appeal]

One of the best things Long War did was take away aliens' bullshit aim bonuses on higher difficulties.

 

[Skunkers]

My guess is that the aliens will either fire or overwatch *instead* of scampering if they have vision of anyone outside of cover.
Moving, then overwatching, seem like too much.

Off-topicish: I can finish XCOM: EW on normal and ironman pretty much whenever I want now. That mode holds no challenge whatsoever to me. So I upped the difficulty to classic, the one above.

Holy shit, everything kills me a lot. I hate when I'm at this limbo where I'm too good for one difficulty and not nearly good enough for the one next.

Yes, it is known lol. There is a difficulty gap there; normal is like a harder version of easy, and impossible is a harder version of classic, but there is a sizable jump in difficulty between normal and classic.

IMO classic/impossible is the real sweet spot, X-COM should almost be like a roguelike; even if you're an expert at it, you're not immune to getting wiped or losing.

 

[TC McQueen]

Same thing happened to me when I switched to Classic Ironman. I think I screwed AT LEAST half a dozen playthroughs before I was finally able to complete Classic Ironman. I still haven't completed Classic Ironman without taking a casualty or without losing a XCOM member nation which is something I can comfortably do on Normal Ironman.

I think the biggest difference is that in Classic mode, you HAVE to be in full cover 99% of the times or you're screwed and you need to have AT LEAST 2 (I'd recommend 3) soldiers of each class type ready to go at any time because injuries happen regularly and with Enemy Within you have to go on a mission almost every day till you take care of Advent.

Honestly, I feel like just modding suppression on to all of the rifles, LMGs, & pistols would do a lot to keep Crit Men from being as stupidly OP as they are, although tweaking their aim bonuses helps too.

Also, modding Heavies to have Support's aim progression does wonders.

 

[Sblargh]

Well, thin men are gone now. We can all breathe easily knowing that they were replaced with a unit that can phisically move your character out of cover.

Yes, that should make us all feel safer.