X-COM XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen Expansion Thread

[veevoir]

7. From what I read this is true only if you insist on turning on everything like an idiot. It's not like the game will look awful if you turn the biggest performance hog down.

I lower my settings considerably below what the game is autodetecting (dumping AA, shadows, anisotropic filtering!) and still get hiccups during transition to and from mission as well as during overwatch attack. Aspecially since turning off action camera DOES NOT turn off action camera, just reduces how often it happens.
Add to that hang-ups and hiccups in strategic layer.

Oh and also most of the game taxes my card (GTX970) pretty bad (everything except for missions themselves, funny enough), it is constantly running hot in a fucking TB game.

This is a good game, but it has it's share of technical problems, seems like some things were bruteforced when they were coded.

6. Yes, sometimes there are minor LoS issues like this. They will never be fixed and they don't really matter since it hasn't happened to me in 30 hours myself. In fact I have hundreds of XCOM 1 hours and it hasn't happened a single time to me there. Oh, sure, sometimes in the animation people shoot through walls, but only in the animation. Before you take the shot or the enemy does it's clear that they did have line of sight.

All of LoS bugs involving suddenly see-through shot-through walls happened to me in the advent city tileset though, rest seems cool.
They do happen.

 

[Naraya]

I'll just leave it here: http://exlcom.jimdo.com

 

[veevoir]

I'll just leave it here: http://exlcom.jimdo.com

We will be vlookup-ing...


Commander.

 

[Jick Magger]

Rangers are very useful, but I wouldn't say they're a be-all-end-all for all your missions. An all-ranger squad would not be very viable when you're dealing with late-game enemies, especially the ones that're heavily armored. I always keep at least one specialist and one grenadier on my team, to deal with hacking (since you don't have to be directly next to a terminal to hack it) and robotic enemies, and to shred through armored enemies and damage clustered units with the grenade launcher, respectively.

They have nerfed snipers somewhat, so they're much more situational than they were in EU/EW. I find that a dedicated sniping sharpshooter can be very useful during compound raiding missions, but you have to be willing to use your grenades to blow holes in walls so that the sniper can see his targets.

I'd say the only class that I've found to be not very useful is the medic-focused specialist. This might be different on higher difficulties, but on normal it's generally far more useful to just use your specialist's turn to either shoot the enemy or get them in a better position, then shot the enemy, than it is to waste it healing your teammate for a fairly small amount.

As for UI, only issue I have is that the game has the same issue with grenades that EU/EW had, in that you have to have your hand perfectly still while confirming where you want it to land, because if you move it even slightly, then the AOE marker will wildly jerk in a different direction and occasionally miss your intended target because of it.

 

[veevoir]

There is actually a problem with having a specialist - AI seems to prioritize specialists if possible :D Go for the medic and such.
That's why I ran a squad of 2 specialists (both hackers, 2 combat protocols = free kill of a pesky enemy behind great cover), 2 grenadiers, 1 phantom ranger.

Phantom ranger with option to re-stealth is a must have. It is the greater thing in the universe. Not because he is a powerhouse (though with decent upgrades tactically breaking stealth is a dead alien), but because they give you so many tactical options.

Especially with squadsight overwatch sniper, which can be used to activate aliens during their turn just by taking the shot *and* have them move closer to you possibly triggering further overwatches. So basically what beaglerush used to do, albeit with a little less lethality.

 

[Cyberarmy]

IMHO late game powerhouse is grenadiers plus psi. Between heavy weapons and psi damage only ashes remains. Late game experimental heavy weapons are a blast, pun intended.

 

[veevoir]

Grenadiers as a class are the most consistent, imho. They give you 100% since they get their first ability and never stop being useful. Similar to specialists - while hacking bonuses are quite situational (but getting strategic resources is pretty sweet) they also always have skills that are useful - combat protocol, haywire, scanner (biggest FU to faceless and chryssalids ever, they dont activate after revealed by scan).

As for PSI - is it that useful? I mean, I have someone in training as a replacement for wounded but I'm not that fond of changing my squad dynamics.

 

[Jick Magger]

As for PSI - is it that useful? I mean, I have someone in training as a replacement for wounded but I'm not that fond of changing my squad dynamics.

I haven't experimented that much with PSI troopers, but I brought one on a mission who had the stasis ability, and though he couldn't shoot for shit, that ability was very useful in stopping the bigger and harder-hitting enemies from moving or taking any action for one turn while the rest of my squad re-positioned themselves to better deal with it.

 

[Jasede]

I'll just leave it here: http://exlcom.jimdo.com

As much as I love XCOM, X-COM and this game, I have to say this might be the more impressive achievement. Crikey.

 

[Cyberarmy]

As for PSI - is it that useful? I mean, I have someone in training as a replacement for wounded but I'm not that fond of changing my squad dynamics.

Very useful in every situtation I may say but you have to train them a bit before. Even the basic psi abilities like insanity or insipre saved my day a lot.
And then we have Null Lance, Void Rift, Fuse and Domination abilities.
But best part for me was Solace, it is a pasive aura that dispels negative mental cond.on nearyby members also protects them for mental atacks.

 

[baturinsky]

 

[bonescraper]

Snipers nerfed? WTF am i reading? Like i said before, my best sniper hast the biggest kill count of all my characters, by far. She can kill multiple enemies in one turn, one shot enemy MECs, move to higher ground without AP costs and reposition after each shot for free. Combined with a grenadier or a spotter (usually very mobile concealed ranger) she can shoot pretty much all across the map when placed somewhere up high. If you think snipers got nerfed, you never knew how to use them right.

 

[mutonizer]

Been having weird hacking results a couple times (which really fucked me up) but this time I managed to record it. Anyone know if that's a bug, or just me not understanding something?

Spoiler

Edit:
Or just graphical display being wrong and the hack actually failed?

 

[veevoir]

Lol. The progress bar is a lie!

 

[ArchAngel]

Thanks for the reply! So you would still recommend a buy?

Not yet, the game is super buggy atm and has terrible performance. Kind of like PoE at release

That said I had a Muton melee me through the wall yesterday and twice my concealed ranger got spotted by enemies although he didn't walk into a red square.

Also after my ranger got spotted in such a way he had to find nearest high cover which was the Van that had the VIP I had to rescue. Then a near by civilian turned into a Faceless, went to hit my ranger but also hit the Van that exploded and killed the VIP

 

[bonescraper]

Also, if you don't care about post-battle loot (corpses, mods etc.), you can just attempt one man stealth missions. It certainly can work in hacking missions (take your dedicated hacker with scanning protocol), demolition missions (ranger who can re-stealth) or even VIP assassination missions (move your sniper close to the extraction point, then take one good shot at the VIP).

 

[ArchAngel]

Grenadiers as a class are the most consistent, imho. They give you 100% since they get their first ability and never stop being useful. Similar to specialists - while hacking bonuses are quite situational (but getting strategic resources is pretty sweet) they also always have skills that are useful - combat protocol, haywire, scanner (biggest FU to faceless and chryssalids ever, they dont activate after revealed by scan).

As for PSI - is it that useful? I mean, I have someone in training as a replacement for wounded but I'm not that fond of changing my squad dynamics.

Yup, grenadiers are stars of this show like snipers were in nuXcom. As for Specialist I went the full healbot route and that guy saved my team members more than once. Revive ability now also removes negative effects like Panic and his super long range healing is incredibly good (and +30 defense from Aid is always good).

I got one PSI now that replaced the 2nd sniper, I only got Stasis, Insanity and Null Lance abilities but they are good (well Insanity is not because his PSI skill is still not good enough for high enough hit chance but Stasis and Null Lance are insane). Training the PSI now to survive being killed
I want to make sure that person survives anything

 

[Jasede]

"super buggy" lolz
Meanwhile most of us played all of it just fine. It hardly has more or less bugs than any other big release.

 

[Jimmious]

Nah its not that buggy. Most of the bugs are visual and not functional. The game is amazing imo, I'm having great fun.

Also I urge everyone to resist the temptation to remove the timers. If you get used to them and play with their rules you'll get great, adrenaline pumped results.

An example:
Had a mission with a VIP capture/kill, got the dude with 5 turns remaining and the extraction point 2 turns away. Same turn reinforcements arrive and catch my team without grenades and one of them carrying the VIP. We had to battle taking great risks, like no cover shots from roofs etc to finish them off within 2-3 turns and run like hell to the extraction, only to finish the mission in the last turn. Felt like playing a good action movie of some sort :D

 

[ArchAngel]

"super buggy" lolz
Meanwhile most of us played all of it just fine. It hardly has more or less bugs than any other big release.

Which is why I don't buy big releases. For 60$ (or 60euro) they better produce a better release.

 

[ArchAngel]

Nah its not that buggy. Most of the bugs are visual and not functional. The game is amazing imo, I'm having great fun.

Also I urge everyone to resist the temptation to remove the timers. If you get used to them and play with their rules you'll get great, adrenaline pumped results.

An example:
Had a mission with a VIP capture/kill, got the dude with 5 turns remaining and the extraction point 2 turns away. Same turn reinforcements arrive and catch my team without grenades and one of them carrying the VIP. We had to battle taking great risks, like no cover shots from roofs etc to finish them off within 2-3 turns and run like hell to the extraction, only to finish the mission in the last turn. Felt like playing a good action movie of some sort :D

- they melee you through walls
- you lose concealment even we you should not
- often fiddly grenade targeting
- random fps drops (one example is when trying to throw some grenades my fps suddenly drops to 11)
- LOS issues
- everything is super slow (not talking about fps problems)
- game sometimes locks up on one soldier and you have to fiddle around until it lets you continue playing
- and many others....
- then some minor irritating things like everyone is on extraction zone but you have to manually extract each soldier/VIP... wtf...
- no way to have the geospace pause when your soldiers are healed (which long war had for example, I have no idea why they didn't give us an option for this in Xcom 2) - why is this important? So we can take that engineer that gives a boost to healing and put him/her somewhere else.

 

[Jasede]

I don't think you realize how software development works. Complaining a complex game has bugs at release is like complaining that rain is wet. It's going to happen. I am not saying it's good or desirable but it's practically impossible to catch all the bugs in a complex or big game. It'd take an extra year of testing and that's absolutely not worth it.

- melee through walls never happened to me
- never lost concealment unintentionally
- grenade targeting is a feature, not a bug. free targeting used to be OP
- performance issues are not bugs
- LOS issues only occur in very specific maps
- game being slow is not a bug
- that could be a bug or it could be shoddy coding.

I am not convinced.

 

[ArchAngel]

So if you didn't experience it, it does not exist? Are you dumb or retarded?

 

[Jimmious]

Yeah I only got a couple of LOS issues, so I can't confirm this list. I agree with the couple small improvements you propose though, like pausing when someone is healed, but I don't find it so important. You can just pres Esc or sth

 

[bonescraper]

Been having weird hacking results a couple times (which really fucked me up) but this time I managed to record it. Anyone know if that's a bug, or just me not understanding something?

Spoiler

Edit:
Or just graphical display being wrong and the hack actually failed?

You reloaded a save, didn't you? It's a visual glitch, but you will always fail if you failed once. Just like in EU/EW, the RNG seed has ben pre-generated for you before you saved the game, and you will always fail if you failed before. It's an anti-savescum feature.