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

[Jasede]

Any suggestions on how to not get fucked by RNG in this game. Trying to finish it on ironman commander but RNG is fucking me in every single playthrough. Most of the failures I get there's absolutely nothing I could have done differently to result in a better outcome.

I highly doubt that. If you are in a situation where RNG determines if you die or live, you already fucked up. Never be in a situation like that. Don't trigger multiple pods. Don't leave aliens alive. Be aware that taking a shot vs. throwing a grenade is a risk and only ever do so if you are comfortable with missing. Also, fleeing is a valid strategy. Some missions you should simply retreat from, for example when you stumble into 3 pods at the same time. That's what the Skyranger evac function is for.

 

[Mozg]

Figure out how to do the most important shit with guaranteed tools (e.g. have a plan to kill some alien that absolutely needs to die this turn using only grenades, have a tank that you know will survive one turn, etc), then save that plan for the end while you try non-guaranteed things first.

 

[Jimmious]

Being crit-shot behind full cover is not exactly a situation where rng determines if you die or live. That happened to me multiple times during my ironman playthroughs. On one of the missions in my last playthrough I had a sniper on the roof behind a chimmey with good LOS on all the aliens and an alien killed her with a crit from VERY far away. That made my grenadier panic and do stupid shit. In the same turn a sectoid got mind control on my ranger(from far away aswell, and the ranger was behind full cover), and in the next turn that ranger ran through the entire map to kill my specialist with a blade crit hit through the wall. There were 3 enemies(1 sectoid, 1 adv officer and 1 turret) against 4 of my highest ranked soldiers at the time(all 4 corporal if I'm not mistaken). The mission was considered easy and everything was under control. Like I said, absolutely nothing I could have done differently to change the outcome. That kind of thing happened atleast 3 times on my last commander playthroughs and it made me really mad at the game.

Well basically the issue is that you let 3 aliens take actions against you without taking any measures. The thing is that Lancers are a pain in the ass and not letting them come close is top priority. Of course you'll have a couple of unlucky deaths though, its XCOM after all..

 

[ArchAngel]

Why did you have only 4 characters?
Why have sniper in range of enemy fire?

 

[Jasede]

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but your problem in this situation you describe was that there was an alien left to take a shot. If you watch the really, really good players, like Beaglerush, for whom Legendary is too easy so that they modded it to be much more challenging, you will see that they almost never leave a single alien alive. (And they use mods that make them fight 4-5 aliens per pod, with beefed up AI, as opposed to your vanilla difficulty.)

What you must learn is that by leaving even a single alien alive you are consenting to taking the risk of losing a soldier or taking a hit. What could you have done? You could have killed the alien. You could have moved the solider further away. You could have suppressed the alien. You could have disoriented the alien. You could have hunkered the Sniper. You could have used Aid Protocol. You could have given them an item that gives them extra HP or armor. Do you see my point? This is a fundamental thing you must learn if you want to get good at ironman/XCOM. Stop blaming the game, and examine your tactics more closely.

You didn't have more shots / grenades to kill the alien? Then you wasted them earlier.
You couldn't move the solider away? Then you used his turn too early.
You didn't have anyone with suppression? You could have brought someone.
You didn't have any flashbangs? You could have taken some.
You didn't hunker the Sniper? You could have chosen not to take a shot and hunker instead.
You didn't have Aid Protocol? You could have brought a Specialist.
You didn't have armor or items that give HP/armor? You could have researched them sooner.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Why did you have only 4 characters?
Why have sniper in range of enemy fire?

She was behind full cover on a roof. The aliens were very, very far away. The adv officer got barely in range and hit her with a fucking crit behind full cover. There was a very, very low chance of that happening(theoretically), and had it not happened, I would probably have a clean shot on the sectoid. But she got killed, the sectoid who was supposed to die with a clean shot from my sniper got mind control over my ranger who killed my specialist.

 

[Jrpgfan]

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but your problem in this situation you describe was that there was an alien left to take a shot. If you watch the really, really good players, like Beaglerush, for whom Legendary is too easy so that they modded it to be much more challenging, you will see that they almost never leave a single alien alive. (And they use mods that make them fight 4-5 aliens per pod, with beefed up AI, as opposed to your vanilla difficulty.)

What you must learn is that by leaving even a single alien alive you are consenting to taking the risk of losing a soldier or taking a hit. What could you have done? You could have killed the alien. You could have moved the solider further away. You could have suppressed the alien. You could have disoriented the alien. You could have hunkered the Sniper. You could have used Aid Protocol. You could have given them an item that gives them extra HP or armor. Do you see my point? This is a fundamental thing you must learn if you want to get good at ironman/XCOM. Stop blaming the game, and examine your tactics more closely.

You didn't have more shots / grenades to kill the alien? Then you wasted them earlier.
You couldn't move the solider away? Then you used his turn too early.
You didn't have anyone with suppression? You could have brought someone.
You didn't have any flashbangs? You could have taken some.
You didn't hunker the Sniper? You could have chosen not to take a shot and hunker instead.
You didn't have Aid Protocol? You could have brought a Specialist.
You didn't have armor or items that give HP/armor? You could have researched them sooner.

It was early game. No better armors yet. No additional squad slots.

The mission was time attack. Did the best I could given the time I had in my hands. It was by the end of the mission aswell, apparently.

I specified on my last post what soldiers I had and what ranks they were at. All my soldiers had a good distance from the aliens and were behind full cover, but I had to rush a bit to get them at good positions without risking running out of time.


Maybe I suck at this game, maybe it's just that guy who's insanely good. Idk, idc. But RNG is there and it makes the game frustrating sometimes(to me atleast).

 

[Jasede]

It's hard to believe that when I have watched people mod Legendary Ironman to be much harder (5 aliens per pod with improved AI, nerfed random damage grenades, enemies no longer run around triggering overwatch for no reason) getting through mission after mission with no losses while you are struggling on Commander. Even my personal experience has been that Legendary is far easier than Impossible. No more 100% to hit Thin Men to ruin your early game is a blessing.

Look, I am just saying there might be certain strategies you aren't aware of yet or are as of yet overlooking. You might not be using height bonuses as well as you could; you might not understand the ranges of enemies intuitively yet, and you might as of yet underestimate enemy accuracy. What I am telling you is that blaming it on RNG is not helpful. Any game with an RNG component boils down to minimizing its influence. Let's say you did get shot and lost 2 soldiers. Nothing is stopping you from calling in an evac. Not every mission is meant to be won. It's X-Com, and just like classic X-Com, if the enemies shoot you often enough, they are bound to hit and crit once in a while. The best you can do is know this and play accordingly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

Just try to watch some good players, or keep playing and try to figure out exactly why you got hit. Yes, I can hear you protest: "Because of bad RNG!" - but that's not the point. Why was there an alien alive? Why wasn't that alien dead? Is my soldier on high ground to increase defense bonus? Should I run the soldier away to ensure his survival or take the risk of getting shot?

Games like these are about risk and reward management. If you had taken it more slowly you might have lost the mission because of the timer. Or you might not have. You have to decide what is more important: the objective or the life of your soldiers. Consider that if you do lose 2 soldiers when you only have 4, it might be better to just evac and abandon the mission completely. If you had gone more slowly, you might have ran out of time and failed the mission - but the difference between that and calling an evac is the difference between 4 alive and 2 alive soldiers.

 

[Monocause]

Almost finished my veteran non-ironman playthrough - figured it's way better to start there as there's lots of new things about the game and I really don't rate being shafted because I don't know what I'm doing.

Game is good and I enjoy it more than I did with the first NuXcom. Most of the problems I have with the game aren't fundamental design flaws but bugs/perf issues/minor annoyances that can be easily modded out. Even though the game struggles to run on my admittedly old PC I have no regrets about buying it at 40 euros.

Probably gonna wait with my commander/ironman playthrough til a patch or two comes out that improves loading times (the caps lock trick notwithstanding) and general performance. Also would like to see what the long war guys are going to come up with

Also, completely agree with what Jasede said about the RNG. Particularly since the AI doesn't like taking very low odd-shots. They go into overwatch instead, or try to flank you. If they took the shot and it crit it probably means that the odds of hitting your sniper were higher than you think.

 

[Mr. Pink]

Men, I installed the 100% accuracy on all swords mod.

This seriously improves swords and makes them worth using compared to the shotgun. The only time I feel that it is unbalanced is early game, when swords do more dmg than shotguns, but over time, shotguns become the better option for damage while swords stay viable.

Also, making swords 100% accurate has a side effect of making squaddies really strong. I completed a terror mission using 4 assault squaddies with only one casualty.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Also, the game cheats in your favour if you are doing bad on a mission. Check the hit chance modifiers:

 

[Jasede]

Talk about verbose code...

 

[Jrpgfan]

Bear in mind that this is my second playthrough. I played the first on veteran non-ironman and didn't have any issue at all.

Not saying the game is bad(it's a good game), just that I don't fully enjoy how RNG is implemented here.

 

[Renevent]

About 50% into my first play through, mostly really enjoying the game but there's things that really annoy me. The constant and unrelenting interruptions to what-ever-else-you-fucking-are-trying to-do during scans and whatnot is annoying as hell. Probably my biggest complaint, it's starting to get infuriating lol. In some ways it doesn't even make sense...in my current campaign (which I think I'm about to lose) I need to make contact to stop a Advent facility as the counter is about to fill up, but I keep getting interrupted every half day driving me crazy. They make it real clear you shouldn't skip shit, and even when I said fuck it going to skip anyways otherwise I'm going to loose more shit starts snowballing. Then the a-hole is all like "what about those civilians soldier" and I'm like "well if I don't take out this facility EVERYONE dies...leave me the fuck alone!"

Anyways got frustrated and alt-f4'd out last night, think I am going to try and load up an earlier save and see if there was something I could do better.

Other than that and minor technical issues game is great. Oh, and one thing I wish would change is they should just send you the fucking supplies instead of having to go pick them up. What a pain in the ass that is...especially with all the interruptions in the game.

 

[Zetor]

Also, the game cheats in your favour if you are doing bad on a mission. Check the hit chance modifiers:

Yea, the built-in cheat is amusing... however, keep in mind that most of the cheats only apply to rookie and veteran. (the numbers are in parentheses are for rookie diff). On Commander you "only" get a +15% hit chance after a miss streak, and it goes away after you hit, iirc.

At least this time around the cheating is configurable via ini instead of hardcoded. Check XComGameCore.ini's XComGame.X2AbilityToHitCalc_StandardAim section:

ReasonableShotMinimumToEnableAimAssist=50
MaxAimAssistScore=95
AimAssistDifficulties[0]=(      BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.2,      MissStreakChanceAdjustment=10,      HitStreakChanceAdjustment=-10,      SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=15,      SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=-10 )
AimAssistDifficulties[1]=(      BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.1,      MissStreakChanceAdjustment=10,      HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0,      SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=10,      SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=-10 )
AimAssistDifficulties[2]=(      BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0,      MissStreakChanceAdjustment=15,      HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0,      SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0,      SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=0 )
AimAssistDifficulties[3]=(      BaseXComHitChanceModifier=1.0,      MissStreakChanceAdjustment=0,      HitStreakChanceAdjustment=0,      SoldiersLostXComHitChanceAdjustment=0,      SoldiersLostAlienHitChanceAdjustment=0 )

 

[hivemind]

Also, making swords 100% accurate has a side effect of making squaddies really strong. I completed a terror mission using 4 assault squaddies with only one casualty.

Also, cheating makes the game easy. Who would have thought.

 

[Jasede]

No, hivemind, this is acceptable. There is 0 reason to use the sword without the 100% mod. Why would you ever use a 91% chance sword swing when you can do a 100% point blank shotgun shot for far more damage instead? Expect swords to get buffed next patch.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

So, your immersion requires enemies to politely stand still while other side moves? aAnd not jump to cover as soon as they see enemies?

XCOM turn-based model is one of the best approximation of real-time combat. It sees soldier's position as a superposition of his position throw a length of time, as he approaches the cover, look from out of it, shoot from out of it and actually hide behind it. Hit percentage reflects "average" chance to hit during the time he does all of this.

I understand the concept of 'Simultaneity' in regards to turn-based combat but if that's what Firaxis was going for here everyone would have shorter moves, not free extra moves. Like in Gladius where you could only move 1 or 2 squares before your movement would be delayed until the enemy's turn; that's a simultaneous turn-based model. XCOM doesn't do that at all.

Moreover targets in cover are most certainly not moving and there's no reason why a lamp post should provide better cover than a giant metal box just because you happen to be adjacent to the lamp post.

 

[Jimmious]

No, hivemind, this is acceptable. There is 0 reason to use the sword without the 100% mod. Why would you ever use a 91% chance sword swing when you can do a 100% point blank shotgun shot for far more damage instead? Expect swords to get buffed next patch.

There are a lot of reasons. Namely being out of bullets, not having run and gun, possibility to stun (with upgrades) and probably more. Sure though it should have like 95% all the time.

 

[Zetor]

Bear in mind that this is my second playthrough. I played the first on veteran non-ironman and didn't have any issue at all.

Not saying the game is bad(it's a good game), just that I don't fully enjoy how RNG is implemented here.

Honestly, all you posted is just part of the game. XCOM has always been an iteration of Risk Management Simulator 2016, and yes, that involves having a nonzero chance of the RNG deciding to fuck you and fuck you again until everything you love burns down around you and you're staring down a 20-day doomsday clock no matter how perfect you play (that said, most of the time it just shouldn't happen if you have enough guaranteed damage packets saved up). You can roll triple skulls and reroll them to triple skulls in Blood Bowl ending up with your star player perma-dying, shit happens. You can still recover from a disaster in XCOM2 as long as you can finish an alien facility mission before the timer is up. Maybe you'll lose your best soldiers / mods / regions, but eh. I seem to remember some Beaglerush videos where he got completely fucked by the RNG on some random mission, lost his best resources and only had a very narrow window to not lose to the doom timer, but persevered and built his forces up again for an eventual win.

That said, if you dislike games with a heavy focus on gaming the RNG, games with a deterministic core like Invisible Inc may be a better choice. (and that's not meant as a typical "lol git gud scrub" codexian response, I prefer the way those games handle randomness myself).

 

[Stompa]

possibility to stun

Is way too small to even consider. I do like using swords as ghetto Run'n'Gun almost every turn, but honestly those extra procs are just worthless.

 

[Zombra]

No, hivemind, this is acceptable. There is 0 reason to use the sword without the 100% mod. Why would you ever use a 91% chance sword swing when you can do a 100% point blank shotgun shot for far more damage instead? Expect swords to get buffed next patch.

There are a lot of reasons. Namely being out of bullets, not having run and gun, possibility to stun (with upgrades) and probably more. Sure though it should have like 95% all the time.

Also, Reaper. No shotgun guy ever killed 6 enemies in one turn.

 

[Mr. Pink]

No, hivemind, this is acceptable. There is 0 reason to use the sword without the 100% mod. Why would you ever use a 91% chance sword swing when you can do a 100% point blank shotgun shot for far more damage instead? Expect swords to get buffed next patch.

There are a lot of reasons. Namely being out of bullets, not having run and gun, possibility to stun (with upgrades) and probably more. Sure though it should have like 95% all the time.

Also, Reaper. No shotgun guy ever killed 6 enemies in one turn.

And no sword guy can shit out obscene amounts of damage for a negligible -15 accuracy every single turn.

Reaper is cool but if you have grenadiers, that AoE niche is already filled.

 

[Zombra]

Shrug. Sword may be suboptimal in many situations but there is not "zero" reason to use it.

 

[Mr. Pink]

Shrug. Sword may be suboptimal in many situations but there is not "zero" reason to use it.

There is "one" reason to use it.

Retaliation missions before you have someone with run and gun, swords are very useful in picking off the stragglers that try and shoot your civvies.