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

[Daedalos]

Surprisingly, I'm having an easier time restarting on Commander. Of course, I now know the better alot better, tech trees etc.

Game is awshum.

Performance still shit.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well performance will not fix itself, wait for a patch :D

I noticed that variety of missions is less in Xcom 2 than in XCom EW. You have Assault Facility that has no timer and the rest that has direct timers or soft timers (like Terror Missions).
Missions with timers come in 8 or 12 turns and all play the same. Only smaller exception is where you get to escort the VIP from round 1.
Even defend this device has you start far away from it and plays the same as Destroy Object in 8 turns and get away mission but timer is not turns but life of that device.
I prefered a lot more the defense missions in EW vs EXALT where you defend two positions and fight vs enemies coming from all sides.

Also since many council missions were not timer based, having timer based missions like bomb defusal made them interesting. Here it all feels the same. Even enemy reinforcement mechanic is worse than in Xcom EU and EW. The Thin men dropping from sky unannounced and all over was much more interesting and harder to deal with (especially in first play when you didn't know where they would drop).

I am not complaining about difficulty of timed mission, just that they all feel same after you done 20+ of them.

As the game is now, even with randomly generated levels I feel less drive to play it again after I finish it once than I did with Xcom EU.
I was afraid of this when they started coming out with details of the game and my fears came true.

 

[Parabalus]

I finished it on Commander today and it gets a bit too easy by the end. Psi is utterly overpowered - I had only 2 Magi and they pretty much did the last mission alone. Getting a pet Gatekeeper or 2 is gold though.

You have to dominate a Codex to realise just how ridiculous their teleport is - it has no range and LoS limit, you can zap from one map corner to the other.

One thing I didn't manage to get was a sectopod corpse, I only got them on evac missions. Do their autopsies give anything good?

How exactly do the random bonus abilities in the AWC work? Only a small amount of soldiers gets them automatically if they are of the required rank for their hidden bonus ability and you have an AWC built? I had 20 soldiers and only 3 got anything, and mostly useless stuff.

this entire page


also, starting a new campaign on commander, how long can you hold off on story research (like the key thing)? will the game fuck me over if I take too long?

I finished every other research project before starting anything shadow project related, I don't think you can run out of time on Commander - the AVATAR bar never went over 5 blocks for me.

You do understand that these guys are using Alien tech? This text of your means shit, zero, nothing.
And we even know aliens have direct communication with others through psionic neural implants. It would take them 1 second to make sure all troops on ground know you are there.
Actually that same system is also ignored in the game when packs happily let you murder other packs 1 screen away.

Well the entirety of XCOM plot rests upon the fact that the aliens are "herding" your resistance movement to "evolve" precisely along the lines they planned, ie. that's why you fight progressively tougher aliens instead of being genocided right off the bat. If you accept that, it's natural to assume they probably know you are there but just letting you do your thing thinking you are outsmarting them, while in essence they are playing you.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I finished it on Commander today and it gets a bit too easy by the end. Psi is utterly overpowered - I had only 2 Magi and they pretty much did the last mission alone. Getting a pet Gatekeeper or 2 is gold though.

You have to dominate a Codex to realise just how ridiculous their teleport is - it has no range and LoS limit, you can zap from one map corner to the other.

One thing I didn't manage to get was a sectopod corpse, I only got them on evac missions. Do their autopsies give anything good?

How exactly do the random bonus abilities in the AWC work? Only a small amount of soldiers gets them automatically if they are of the required rank for their hidden bonus ability and you have an AWC built? I had 20 soldiers and only 3 got anything, and mostly useless stuff.

this entire page


also, starting a new campaign on commander, how long can you hold off on story research (like the key thing)? will the game fuck me over if I take too long?

I finished every other research project before starting anything shadow project related, I don't think you can run out of time on Commander - the AVATAR bar never went over 5 blocks for me.

You do understand that these guys are using Alien tech? This text of your means shit, zero, nothing.
And we even know aliens have direct communication with others through psionic neural implants. It would take them 1 second to make sure all troops on ground know you are there.
Actually that same system is also ignored in the game when packs happily let you murder other packs 1 screen away.

Well the entirety of XCOM plot rests upon the fact that the aliens are "herding" your resistance movement to "evolve" precisely along the lines they planned, ie. that's why you fight progressively tougher aliens instead of being genocided right off the bat. If you accept that, it's natural to assume they probably know you are there but just letting you do your thing thinking you are outsmarting them, while in essence they are playing you.

Sectopod autopsies give you access to mark III Gremlins, iirc.
Which are godlike. they give something like +60 to hack skill.

 

[Jimmious]

You guys are all pros or something. I'm at 9 bars in Commander now and I'm afraid it will go bad soon if I don't hurry

 

[Raghar]

Oh boy, we've got the enemy dead to rights! Let's take 4 85% shots in a row! Oh. They all missed.

With 0.00050625 probability. Probability with 1/2000 is still possible.
Congratullation. I assume you had your share of butthurt,
(Which is one of reason why http://www.dungeoncrawl.org/ uses three rolls and average results.)

 

[ArchAngel]

You guys are all pros or something. I'm at 9 bars in Commander now and I'm afraid it will go bad soon if I don't hurry

There is no advantage in not waiting until all bars are filled and then when you got your 14 days do one facility. For example if you are one pip away from 14 day timer and avatar project gets two pips you just saved yourself one extra pip when compared with the avatar progress being half way.

 

[baturinsky]

Does not answer any of my point. We understood fighters attack your dropship, does not explain mission where it is not about fighters or why aliens don't have communication devices that say to troops on ground that Xcom transport has been spotted.

OMG, you really have to be taken through this step by step, don't you?

No, fighters don't attack your dropship. They're scrambled to intercept it. They only see your Avenger, cause there are no radars that detect living creatures. That's why your dropship has a limited time window to operate, regardless of your guys being detected or not. When the time is up, your dropship must escape or it will be intercepted and shot down. This way you'd lose not only your guys, but the only dropship in your possession. It makes perfect sense.

OK lets do this like you are a 5 year old.
1. Enemy detects your transport over their controlled area.
2. Enemy scrambles fighters to intercept
3. Enemy contacts troops on ground and tells them Xcom is around and to be careful and look for them
4. Xcom still gets to start in Concealment?
5. ....

I am not claiming turn timer is bad in this situation but that you should not start in Concealment.

One turn can't be much more than ten seconds real time, so it usually takes less than minute between deploying and firefight starting, and less than five minutes for whole mission.
Also, you have spies on Advent side and hacked deep into their network. Which can be why it takes time for them to pinpoint your location and inform ground troops that enemy is not just in their area, but right where they are and is likely to shoot at them right now.

 

[Zombra]

Yeah, it's kind of a long way from "An unidentified aircraft was detected over the city" to "There are six armed men in the alley at the southwest corner of 4th and Oak Street, hiding behind the dumpster back of that really good tandoori place, and they will be attacking the transmission station we have hidden above the nail shop 3 blocks to the west of that so be ready".

 

[ArchAngel]

OK, that can be one explanation. Why Firaxis offers none for these missions to make sense?

Another example of bad turn timer with no lore backup. You need to hack and steal some viral information from advent train. When you arrive you are stealthed and have 8 turns because container is going to be destroyed after 8 turns.
Why are they destroying container with important stuff inside that they need to accomplish a dark event?
Why is the timer there if you are stealthed and they don't know you are around. This is not even the Interceptors are coming so hurry up kind of mission.
Turn timer is randomly set with no sense.

 

[ArchAngel]

Xcom 2 is far more gamist design than even Xcom 1. Both missions make no sense and soldier abilities (as previously discussed) border on superhuman.

 

[Zombra]

OK, that can be one explanation. Why Firaxis offers none for these missions to make sense?

What you're not getting is that there is a middle ground between "There they are! Shoot them!" and "All's quiet, let's disarm and sit around in our underwear".

Listen to the briefing next time. On the train/data scenario, the train isn't stopped because the engineer had to take a leak; it's stopped because the Resistance blocked the tracks. This is told to you explicitly.

From there, the rest is pretty obvious. This is clearly a deliberate attack on a very specific target. ADVENT knows their mission is already fucked because they can't deliver the package before the train is fixed, they know that the Resistance is coming for the data long before the repair crew will get there (because there's no other reason to stop the train), they know that the smart move is to not let the files fall into enemy hands. It doesn't matter that they don't know exactly where you are, which is all that Concealment means. It doesn't even matter whether they saw the Skyranger. It's easily deduced that you are there, somewhere, and that you're probably coming with enough strength to take out the guards.

Use your damn imagination a little, man. We don't need a 3-minute cutscene to explain every mechanic in the game.

 

[typical user]

Xcom 2 is far more gamist design than even Xcom 1. Both missions make no sense and soldier abilities (as previously discussed) border on superhuman.

Add the fact XCOM is technologically behind ADVENT which makes no sense. Imagine a resistance in today's America fighting US goverment with muskets when they could smuggle some AK-47s. ADVENT is present for 20 years at least and guerilla groups have access to alien technology. You can buy upgrades in Black Market and learn about AVATAR project from ex-member of League of Nations who is high ranking figure in ADVENT goverment.

And that's why I don't mind slight RNG cheating as players are placed in losing position at the start of the game. At least Mutons and Sectopods aren't appearing in first missions when they should. Previously you could rationalize aliens bringing small forces because they expected little to no resistance and to send heavier forces required more time, but in XCOM 2 aliens have all their forces on Earth for 2 decades + previous stuff was happening in commander's head.

 

[ArchAngel]

OK, that can be one explanation. Why Firaxis offers none for these missions to make sense?

What you're not getting is that there is a middle ground between "There they are! Shoot them!" and "All's quiet, let's disarm and sit around in our underwear".

Listen to the briefing next time. On the train/data scenario, the train isn't stopped because the engineer had to take a leak; it's stopped because the Resistance blocked the tracks. This is clearly a deliberate attack on a very specific target. ADVENT knows their mission is already fucked because they can't deliver the package before the train is fixed, they know that the Resistance is coming for the data long before the repair crew will get there (because there's no other reason to stop the train), they know that the smart move is to not let the files fall into enemy hands. It doesn't matter that they don't know exactly where you are, which is all that Concealment means. It doesn't even matter whether they saw the Skyranger. It's easily deduced that you are there, somewhere, and that you're probably coming with enough strength to take out the guards.

Use your damn imagination a little, man. We don't need a 3-minute cutscene to explain every mechanic in the game.

That does not explain why you start in Concealment. They expect an attack so there should be no concealment.
Compare this with Terror missions where they say everyone came in hot so you cannot conceal but it does not look any different. Sorry but I don't buy it. They are breaking their own rules between different missions.

Add the fact XCOM is technologically behind ADVENT which makes no sense. Imagine a resistance in today's America fighting US goverment with muskets when they could smuggle some AK-47s. ADVENT is present for 20 years at least and guerilla groups have access to alien technology. You can buy upgrades in Black Market and learn about AVATAR project from ex-member of League of Nations who is high ranking figure in ADVENT goverment.

And that's why I don't mind slight RNG cheating as players are placed in losing position at the start of the game. At least Mutons and Sectopods aren't appearing in first missions when they should. Previously you could rationalize aliens bringing small forces because they expected little to no resistance and to send heavier forces required more time, but in XCOM 2 aliens have all their forces on Earth for 2 decades + previous stuff was happening in commander's head.

There is no logical explanation for lack of some better technology but for lack of better aliens there is explanation. They are not needed to keep peace on Earth, 20 years nobody did anything to hurt the alien agenda. I didn't finish the game yet but I can guess they are kept somewhere or waiting to be created. So when your resistance grows tougher and more bothersome they bring in bigger guns to try and stop you.

 

[Zombra]

That does not explain why you start in Concealment. They expect an attack so there should be no concealment.
Compare this with Terror missions where they say everyone came in hot so you cannot conceal. Sorry but I don't buy it. They are breaking their own rules between different missions.

Of course it does, and of course they aren't.

Look. When you're in Concealment, the enemies are still on "Yellow Alert". They don't have their thumbs up their asses. They're not asleep. Something is up and they are combat ready but not "in combat". They are "expecting an attack", but they don't have a freaking target.

When you're not in concealment, the enemies are on "Red Alert". Their weapons are drawn. They're ready to dive into cover the instant they see anyone suspicious. On terror missions they are already shooting everything in sight when you show up and are expecting violent retaliation at every moment. On "kidnap the VIP missions", by contrast, they got a report that the Skyranger was seen near the area so they are watching out, but they aren't knocking over tables to crouch behind with their fingers on the triggers. When you get a report that enemies may be coming some time in the next 3 hours, it's different from seeing a dude shooting at you.

It's really, really, really easy to see this distinction and why it makes sense. Not sure how you're still not getting it unless ...

 

[ArchAngel]

So you ran out of arguments and are now also using old Codex trick. Good for you.. you didn't even answer my point, only selectively choose what you wanted.

I noticed Codex is full of people like you. It is why I mostly don't bother having these conversations but just throw insults around for fun of trolling like 99% of codex does.

 

[Zombra]

So you ran out of arguments and are now also using old Codex trick.

Don't skip to the end. I didn't reference the tag because I had nothing else to say. The arguments are there and I responded directly to your point. I spelled out exactly why the train mission makes sense, exactly why kidnap missions make sense, exactly why retaliation missions make sense. The insult was just frosting.

Seems to me you're using the old Codex trick of ignoring the substance because the tag gives you an excuse to play victim. That's also

by the way.

 

[baturinsky]

Add the fact XCOM is technologically behind ADVENT which makes no sense. Imagine a resistance in today's America fighting US goverment with muskets when they could smuggle some AK-47s. ADVENT is present for 20 years at least and guerilla groups have access to alien technology. You can buy upgrades in Black Market and learn about AVATAR project from ex-member of League of Nations who is high ranking figure in ADVENT goverment.

You don't need high tech weapons for guerilla warfare.

2016's technologies does not let US win easily against Taliban with 1947's AKs. And even with 1888 Mosin-Nagant skilled and determined enough group could well do against modern paramilitaries.

 

[typical user]

Add the fact XCOM is technologically behind ADVENT which makes no sense. Imagine a resistance in today's America fighting US goverment with muskets when they could smuggle some AK-47s. ADVENT is present for 20 years at least and guerilla groups have access to alien technology. You can buy upgrades in Black Market and learn about AVATAR project from ex-member of League of Nations who is high ranking figure in ADVENT goverment.

You don't need high tech weapons for guerilla warfare.

2016's technologies does not let US win easily against Taliban with 1947's AKs. And even with 1888 Mosin-Nagant skilled and determined enough group could well do against modern paramilitaries.

No, you don't understand. Why use primitive weapons when you clearly have access to modern technology?

 

[Raghar]

Add the fact XCOM is technologically behind ADVENT which makes no sense. Imagine a resistance in today's America fighting US goverment with muskets when they could smuggle some AK-47s. ADVENT is present for 20 years at least and guerilla groups have access to alien technology. You can buy upgrades in Black Market and learn about AVATAR project from ex-member of League of Nations who is high ranking figure in ADVENT goverment.

You don't need high tech weapons for guerilla warfare.

2016's technologies does not let US win easily against Taliban with 1947's AKs. And even with 1888 Mosin-Nagant skilled and determined enough group could well do against modern paramilitaries.

No, you don't understand. Why use primitive weapons when you clearly have access to modern technology?

Why didn't you asked me who is local expert in "gorila warfare"?

 

[Zombra]

Why use primitive weapons when you clearly have access to modern technology?

Eh, that's easily handwaved. Plasma rifles are hard to come by when the aliens have all this bio-recognition self-destruct shit built into their tech. They probably can't take a dump without their space toilet verifying their DNA. And maybe all their weapons are built to fall apart after 6 months to make illegal stockpiling nonviable, or maybe high-energy projectors simply can't keep functioning over long periods of time; that's why you don't have any from the first war. Plus they pretty much control all the elerium.

 

[Mazisky]

Somebody forgot this is a game with ALIENS, HUMANOID VIPERS, PSI POWERS, not Swat real life tactical simulator. Lmao

 

[Bubbles]

Somebody forgot this is a game with ALIENS, HUMANOID VIPERS, PSI POWERS, not Swat real life tactical simulator.

All of the things you list may very well exist in real life.

 

[Raghar]

Somebody forgot this is a game with ALIENS, HUMANOID VIPERS, PSI POWERS, not Swat real life tactical simulator. Lmao

Not SWAT you are playing as terrorists.

 

[typical user]

This is ISIS simulator.