I'm on my tenth campaign attempt now with Ironman, but it's getting better every time. I've done the blacksite but then tend to get crushed immediately afterwards. I think I need to do it earlier while tech is still low or something. A lot of the enemies feel like they have so much health.
I feel ya.
I am in a constant spiral of "but I neeeeeed this first!" before reducing avatar pips.
and then I get them building the third site and I'm like "brah, we might want to tango now? oh shit, oh shit. halp! brah!"
Another option would be to have them spawn and get a free move into cover without triggering overwatch, kind of like Shadowstep. That way reinforcement pods are at least as tough as pods you encounter on the map. Removing the red flare so they show up at an unknown location could also work pretty well, but it might force you to waste a whole turn just moving people to safety, which usually ends poorly for the player. A major design point of the game seems to be the decision to pretty much always let the player shoot before the enemy, because with wounded time and limited soldiers/resources, the player needs to be able to win engagements with no damage as much as possible. I do agree that on Legendary, they should get to move + shoot on the first turn.
I had a VIP mission where I got the VIP to the evac with 3 turns to spare, and they called in reinforcements right next to the evac zone. So I figured I'd stick around and get some free XP for my dudes.
I dropped an Acid Grenade on the flare, and killzoned it.
When they dropped in they just refused to move. 2 went into overwatch, the 3rd just did nothing. Was kind of disappointed I had to kill them regular style.
It was probably the acid grenade, the AI is smart enough not run into status effects they aren't immune to, but dumb enough to not notice that it doesn't matter because they're already affected.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
You generally don't write a strategy guide with "Look, just take grenadiers, mimic beacons and explode everything. Have fun." I think the idea is that the advice is for people who probably won't want to just take the easiest possible option.
For example, when I get my new computer I am playing with only 1 grenadier and 1 mimic beacon allowed.
The true XCOM souls begins.
Yeah. The idea is "if you want to take this type of character, there's two primary ways you can build them, here is the best version of each way".
Regardless of how powerful grenadiers are, for example, when your blademaster built ranger is set up properly and used with skill, the enemies are just as dead and you are just as not hurt. That's all that actually matters in the end.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I'm not super far so I don't want to wade through all of the spoilers in case of, well, spoilers, but does the Specialist's Combat Protocol ability do extra damage to
that jerkface that shows up when you do the story-required Skulljack
I'm not super far so I don't want to wade through all of the spoilers in case of, well, spoilers, but does the Specialist's Combat Protocol ability do extra damage to
that jerkface that shows up when you do the story-required Skulljack
Also, on reinforcements. I think they should either be set to spawn out of squad LoS, possibly with no beacon, or the dropship needs to drop a smokebomb for the pod they brought in before taking off.
I'm not super far so I don't want to wade through all of the spoilers in case of, well, spoilers, but does the Specialist's Combat Protocol ability do extra damage to
that jerkface that shows up when you do the story-required Skulljack
?
No, don't think so.
Nope, they're biological units, despite their appearance, so no extra damage from Specialist skills.
On they other hand, that does mean they can be flashbang'd to eliminate 95% of their BS abilities, including that thing they do when you hit them.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
But I like it when they do that because then my sniper gets to have some serial fun.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I think it's alright as is in terms of how they drop in, it's just too easy to guarantee a total kill with 6 v 4. 6 v 8 you 100% will not get a total kill on Overwatch shots, at which point even the best case scenario of leaving two enemies alive is a bit more of a pickle than just 4 down, on to the next 4.
They're more problematic on some maps and missions than others. I had one pod drop in right to the side of my squad within 3 turns of a timed mission once. I burned a turn killing them instead of advancing to prevent a flank and came really close to failing that mission but had an Lieutenant level Ranger sacrifice herself to take out the target just in time.
I feel like I've done every single thing wrong, but still alive and kicking on Veteran. I've:
Made some sword Rangers, including one of my best. Shotgun is so much more important.
Taken blast padding on my top grenadier. Shred is really important in late game.
Not yet built the AWC. Probably why everyone is always wounded and I routinely have to recruit new rookies for missions.
Did not build a workshop yet, and already have something in the 'spot' the workshop should ideally go in.
Have yet to use a flashbang. I've brought them on missions and forgotten to use them.
Just now realized the potential of mimic beacons.
Built a bunch of vests and put them on guys.
Spent a bunch on intel buying supplies on the black market (oops!)
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited February 2016
If you are beating the game you aren't doing anything wrong. You could be doing some things better. None of those build related things are necessarily wrong though, you can make powerful versions of that class using the abilities you've taken. It really depends on what else you've taken on those builds and what the rest of your squad setup is.
For example, blast padding + War suit + PCS Conditioning = 4 armor. You've got yourself a serious tank. In contrast, with all the high enemy defense end game, you need Perception and Superior Scopes on a grenadier to get a lot out of shred cos it has to hit, and if you are using your grenadier mostly to, you know, shoot grenades and fire off rockets, there isn't too much point to having shred on that grenadier. Unless its the only one you bring.
Reaper is very powerful used properly with PCS Perception aim bonuses. Having a shotgun ranger as well wouldn't hurt though, so I'd respec one of your rangers.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Is there any way to evacuate only unconscious soldier, or do i have to carry them to evac zone and evacuate them with the one carrying him? During AVATAR facility mission my Specialist was bleeding out, so i had to finish 60 % of the mission with only 4 people if i wanted to save her life.
But i did that, with no casualties! Im kinda proud of myself.
Is there any way to evacuate only unconscious soldier, or do i have to carry them to evac zone and evacuate them with the one carrying him? During AVATAR facility mission my Specialist was bleeding out, so i had to finish 60 % of the mission with only 6 people to save her life.
But i did that, with no casualties! Im kinda proud of myself.
Have to carry them out. Someone needs to keep them company and yell for them to "Stay with us" etc.
does it take an action to drop and pick them up? The carrier will be slower, but they can drop, shoot, and pick them back up and move next turn I'm pretty sure
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
You generally don't write a strategy guide with "Look, just take grenadiers, mimic beacons and explode everything. Have fun." I think the idea is that the advice is for people who probably won't want to just take the easiest possible option.
For example, when I get my new computer I am playing with only 1 grenadier and 1 mimic beacon allowed.
The true XCOM souls begins.
Yeah. The idea is "if you want to take this type of character, there's two primary ways you can build them, here is the best version of each way".
Regardless of how powerful grenadiers are, for example, when your blademaster built ranger is set up properly and used with skill, the enemies are just as dead and you are just as not hurt. That's all that actually matters in the end.
Honestly that's kind of why the soldier personality ideas are so interesting to me.
I want an arbitrary, random reason to not be able to have all my boom squad all the time. Well, besides wound time. It'd be fun to juggle!
A fatigue system would also help. Maybe not exactly the Long War style, but perhaps escalating such that maybe you don't want to do 3 missions in a row with the exact same A-Team.
I don't know if it's real but I saw a screenshot of 'Operation: Half-eaten Chicken' too
like come on central, you're not even trying anymore
Operation: Fuck, What's In The Fridge
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited February 2016
I'd just rather use what interests me anyway.
There's the required level of power you need to beat this games head in.
It's about a 5, cos the AI is brain dead and crippled.
Grenadiers and phantom traps are a 20
Everything else is between 10-15.
The only thing that makes the grenadiers more powerful is the lack of tactical thought required. Phantom traps range in effectiveness based on your squad.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I don't know that I'd say the AI is too bad, actually. At least on Commander I'm seeing mostly alright plays? Bit too much psi stuff with Sectoids, and the Mimic Beacon is borked since it doesn't allow them to be like "I literally licked it and it is literally air, let's focus on the other ones!"
I don't know that I'd say the AI is too bad, actually. At least on Commander I'm seeing mostly alright plays? Bit too much psi stuff with Sectoids, and the Mimic Beacon is borked since it doesn't allow them to be like "I literally licked it and it is literally air, let's focus on the other ones!"
It can pull off a lot of unpleasant things as we regularly see in this thread but by design it's not going to have as many options as the player because being outnumbered, often outgunned, and then swarmed by high accuracy units wouldn't make for the funnest game. Some level of crippling is necessary to make 6 vs. 12 fights playable.
As much as we sometimes complain about pods scampering for free on detection, if the aliens were really forced to follow the same rules as the player aliens would never be out of cover and would always be on overwatch when we came across them.
I don't know that I'd say the AI is too bad, actually. At least on Commander I'm seeing mostly alright plays? Bit too much psi stuff with Sectoids, and the Mimic Beacon is borked since it doesn't allow them to be like "I literally licked it and it is literally air, let's focus on the other ones!"
Having looked through the the AI files, the AI is pretty dumb. Anything with abilities tends to use them in a rigid priority list with minimal regard to its situation, and aliens who aren't the designated leader of a pod barely acknowledge the existence of high cover. Most of it looks pretty easy to adjust, though. I don't think a truly optimized AI would actually be very fun to play against, but there are some tweaks here and there that I'd enjoy making.
Switch: SW-2431-2728-9604 || 3DS: 0817-4948-1650
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Zxerolfor the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't doso i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered Userregular
I don't know that I'd say the AI is too bad, actually. At least on Commander I'm seeing mostly alright plays? Bit too much psi stuff with Sectoids, and the Mimic Beacon is borked since it doesn't allow them to be like "I literally licked it and it is literally air, let's focus on the other ones!"
It can pull off a lot of unpleasant things as we regularly see in this thread but by design it's not going to have as many options as the player because being outnumbered, often outgunned, and then swarmed by high accuracy units wouldn't make for the funnest game. Some level of crippling is necessary to make 6 vs. 12 fights playable.
As much as we sometimes complain about pods scampering for free on detection, if the aliens were really forced to follow the same rules as the player aliens would never be out of cover and would always be on overwatch when we came across them.
And, of course, you now have something that people bitched about in the 1994 game, which is why I never buy the "free move" complaint.
There's the required level of power you need to beat this games head in.
It's about a 5, cos the AI is brain dead and crippled.
Grenadiers and phantom traps are a 20
Everything else is between 10-15.
The only thing that makes the grenadiers more powerful is the lack of tactical thought required. Phantom traps range in effectiveness based on your squad.
Yeah, I think you captured what I was trying to say the other day. There's some things in this game that are clearly moer powerful than others, and some things that are probably more powerful than others, but so far nothing that isn't sufficiently powerful to do what needs done.
Wow I have this terrible bug where my specialist will drop dead when I hack an andromedon, even if he's not the one doing the hacking. Which basically gg on this mission, because its absolutely critical I get control
You know you're in for a rough afternoon when the Retaliation mission you're dropping into is codenamed Operation Faceless Horde
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
I ran Operation War Stank earlier. It of course featured multiple Andromedans because you can't spell "Stank" without leaving a trail of acid blood behind you.
Well just had an extract VIP mission where the extraction zone didn't appear. I got there. Tried to extract. Nope. Then we died.
So yeah not gonna do Ironman anymore I guess. Sigh.
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
I was thinking about the enemies that are gone from the earlier games, and I'm not sure any of them really leave gaps in the enemy force...except Seekers. We need Seekers back.
I'm not sure if anyone here has looked into this type of mod, but I'll ask anyway:
In XComMissions.ini, missions profiles are generally arranged in groups from D1 to D7. I'm assuming that the number corresponds to difficulty in some sense or another, based on the encounter lists, but I'm not sure when each is used, because as far as I know there aren't seven difficulty levels. It's just Easy, Moderate, Difficult, Very Difficult, right? I'm not sure if there's more granularity under the hood or if Rookie and Legendary pull from different ranges or what. Anybody know? Do certain campaign difficulty levels consistently produce larger or smaller pods?
EDIT: The simplest explanation I can think of would be that Rookie uses 1-4, Veteran uses 2-5, Commander 3-6, and Legendary 4-7. Has anybody playing on Veteran ever seen a two-enemy pod at anything above Easy on a guerrilla mission?
Wyvern on
Switch: SW-2431-2728-9604 || 3DS: 0817-4948-1650
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
The problem with an instant spawn is they'd have to come from farther away or they'd just massacre your squad. You would lose at least one soldier guaranteed every time one of those fuckers dropped in.
No you wouldn't. Aliens aim/damage isn't really that good and in some cases, like my legendary game that I will resume next week (NEW COMPUTER TIME zOMG) it will be the first turn I'll have been shot at in the first place that mission. I really want to see them give reinforcements a boost on Legendary, because they are the single most comfortable "Who do I have that needs experience" mechanic in XCOM 2 that I've seen.
Also it's really easy to edit the .ini to remove the flare.
And Beagle finishing over 50% of the missions flawlessly is hilarious, but there are people actually doing better. I've seen one result that had 80% of missions flawless on Legendary. 4 grenadiers and a bunch of mimic beacons is turning Legendary into the original games easy difficulty. I was able to show one of my friends this "strategy" yesterday.
10 flawless missions in a row, including an alien facility.
You generally don't write a strategy guide with "Look, just take grenadiers, mimic beacons and explode everything. Have fun." I think the idea is that the advice is for people who probably won't want to just take the easiest possible option.
For example, when I get my new computer I am playing with only 1 grenadier and 1 mimic beacon allowed.
The true XCOM souls begins.
Yeah. The idea is "if you want to take this type of character, there's two primary ways you can build them, here is the best version of each way".
Regardless of how powerful grenadiers are, for example, when your blademaster built ranger is set up properly and used with skill, the enemies are just as dead and you are just as not hurt. That's all that actually matters in the end.
Actually that's definitely not true. A blademaster can fail to hit, they can be in a poor position and so forth. Grenadiers break every single mechanic in the entire game. Cover? Irrelevant, all that effort and design making cover based mechanics no longer exists. Enemies with armor? Everyone can shred armor or do massive damage. Alien activation? With a phantom scout (IMO the lynchpin behind why some of this works) you greet every new pod by blowing them up with grenades. Something annoying? Grenades! Then shoot it. Codex or other dangerous enemies? There's flashbangs or you throw a mimic beacon and laugh as the aliens can't do *anything* about it.
The grenadier is god tier from beginning to the end of the game. Having four of them in the same squad literally trivializes all of the games mechanics, concepts and renders the tactical combat "How many explosions can we have every mission?". When I resume my game, it's 1 of these only, because otherwise I'm just going to stroll through legendary without ever being shot.
WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
Would the game be sufficiently difficult again if Mimic Beacons had only 1 HP?
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited February 2016
I'm not planning to start any ironman games until they've ironed out some of the worst bugs.
I'll just save scum my heart out till then! <-has no pride at all
There's an alien AI improvement mod out already on the workshop. I don't agree with all of it, but it does at least give them their aim and flanking back. It's all very Long War level AI modding, many of you will not like it at all. I totally understand btw. I'm just warning.
...Hey guys I think this might be a p. good video game.
Solid 7.5/10.
With Love and Courage
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FairchildRabbit used short words that were easy to understand, like "Hello Pooh, how about Lunch ?"Registered Userregular
Is the "Aliens drop more loot" perk bugged ? I bought it in the Guerilla School and since then loot drops have stopped altogether, which means no Elirium Cores...
Is the "Aliens drop more loot" perk bugged ? I bought it in the Guerilla School and since then loot drops have stopped altogether, which means no Elirium Cores...
The perk doesn't increase how many aliens drop loot, it just adds one item to the loot drop you get, and it feels like there's only one alien per mission that is carrying loot.
Also if you kill that one alien with explosives, that destroys the loot.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Would the game be sufficiently difficult again if Mimic Beacons had only 1 HP?
No.
Personally the simplest thing for me is to just "honor" limit grenadiers. After seeing what 4 do to legendary, I've decided that the simplest fix would be to do that. Looking over the AI mod that Morninglord linked, it looks like it could potentially solve a lot of the issues without doing anything about explosives though.
Posts
I feel ya.
I am in a constant spiral of "but I neeeeeed this first!" before reducing avatar pips.
and then I get them building the third site and I'm like "brah, we might want to tango now? oh shit, oh shit. halp! brah!"
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It was probably the acid grenade, the AI is smart enough not run into status effects they aren't immune to, but dumb enough to not notice that it doesn't matter because they're already affected.
Yeah. The idea is "if you want to take this type of character, there's two primary ways you can build them, here is the best version of each way".
Regardless of how powerful grenadiers are, for example, when your blademaster built ranger is set up properly and used with skill, the enemies are just as dead and you are just as not hurt. That's all that actually matters in the end.
No, don't think so.
Nope, they're biological units, despite their appearance, so no extra damage from Specialist skills.
On they other hand, that does mean they can be flashbang'd to eliminate 95% of their BS abilities, including that thing they do when you hit them.
They're more problematic on some maps and missions than others. I had one pod drop in right to the side of my squad within 3 turns of a timed mission once. I burned a turn killing them instead of advancing to prevent a flank and came really close to failing that mission but had an Lieutenant level Ranger sacrifice herself to take out the target just in time.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
For example, blast padding + War suit + PCS Conditioning = 4 armor. You've got yourself a serious tank. In contrast, with all the high enemy defense end game, you need Perception and Superior Scopes on a grenadier to get a lot out of shred cos it has to hit, and if you are using your grenadier mostly to, you know, shoot grenades and fire off rockets, there isn't too much point to having shred on that grenadier. Unless its the only one you bring.
Reaper is very powerful used properly with PCS Perception aim bonuses. Having a shotgun ranger as well wouldn't hurt though, so I'd respec one of your rangers.
But i did that, with no casualties! Im kinda proud of myself.
Have to carry them out. Someone needs to keep them company and yell for them to "Stay with us" etc.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Honestly that's kind of why the soldier personality ideas are so interesting to me.
I want an arbitrary, random reason to not be able to have all my boom squad all the time. Well, besides wound time. It'd be fun to juggle!
A fatigue system would also help. Maybe not exactly the Long War style, but perhaps escalating such that maybe you don't want to do 3 missions in a row with the exact same A-Team.
like come on central, you're not even trying anymore
Operation: Fuck, What's In The Fridge
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
There's the required level of power you need to beat this games head in.
It's about a 5, cos the AI is brain dead and crippled.
Grenadiers and phantom traps are a 20
Everything else is between 10-15.
The only thing that makes the grenadiers more powerful is the lack of tactical thought required. Phantom traps range in effectiveness based on your squad.
I had Half-eaten Claw as an op name and I haven't edited anything in.
Did you guys know injuries on Legendary can put you in the medbay for 49 days?
Everyone should play legendary ironman so you can know my despair.
It can pull off a lot of unpleasant things as we regularly see in this thread but by design it's not going to have as many options as the player because being outnumbered, often outgunned, and then swarmed by high accuracy units wouldn't make for the funnest game. Some level of crippling is necessary to make 6 vs. 12 fights playable.
As much as we sometimes complain about pods scampering for free on detection, if the aliens were really forced to follow the same rules as the player aliens would never be out of cover and would always be on overwatch when we came across them.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
And, of course, you now have something that people bitched about in the 1994 game, which is why I never buy the "free move" complaint.
Yeah, I think you captured what I was trying to say the other day. There's some things in this game that are clearly moer powerful than others, and some things that are probably more powerful than others, but so far nothing that isn't sufficiently powerful to do what needs done.
So yeah not gonna do Ironman anymore I guess. Sigh.
In XComMissions.ini, missions profiles are generally arranged in groups from D1 to D7. I'm assuming that the number corresponds to difficulty in some sense or another, based on the encounter lists, but I'm not sure when each is used, because as far as I know there aren't seven difficulty levels. It's just Easy, Moderate, Difficult, Very Difficult, right? I'm not sure if there's more granularity under the hood or if Rookie and Legendary pull from different ranges or what. Anybody know? Do certain campaign difficulty levels consistently produce larger or smaller pods?
EDIT: The simplest explanation I can think of would be that Rookie uses 1-4, Veteran uses 2-5, Commander 3-6, and Legendary 4-7. Has anybody playing on Veteran ever seen a two-enemy pod at anything above Easy on a guerrilla mission?
No you wouldn't. Aliens aim/damage isn't really that good and in some cases, like my legendary game that I will resume next week (NEW COMPUTER TIME zOMG) it will be the first turn I'll have been shot at in the first place that mission. I really want to see them give reinforcements a boost on Legendary, because they are the single most comfortable "Who do I have that needs experience" mechanic in XCOM 2 that I've seen.
Also it's really easy to edit the .ini to remove the flare.
And Beagle finishing over 50% of the missions flawlessly is hilarious, but there are people actually doing better. I've seen one result that had 80% of missions flawless on Legendary. 4 grenadiers and a bunch of mimic beacons is turning Legendary into the original games easy difficulty. I was able to show one of my friends this "strategy" yesterday.
10 flawless missions in a row, including an alien facility.
Actually that's definitely not true. A blademaster can fail to hit, they can be in a poor position and so forth. Grenadiers break every single mechanic in the entire game. Cover? Irrelevant, all that effort and design making cover based mechanics no longer exists. Enemies with armor? Everyone can shred armor or do massive damage. Alien activation? With a phantom scout (IMO the lynchpin behind why some of this works) you greet every new pod by blowing them up with grenades. Something annoying? Grenades! Then shoot it. Codex or other dangerous enemies? There's flashbangs or you throw a mimic beacon and laugh as the aliens can't do *anything* about it.
The grenadier is god tier from beginning to the end of the game. Having four of them in the same squad literally trivializes all of the games mechanics, concepts and renders the tactical combat "How many explosions can we have every mission?". When I resume my game, it's 1 of these only, because otherwise I'm just going to stroll through legendary without ever being shot.
And where is the fun in that?
I'll just save scum my heart out till then!
There's an alien AI improvement mod out already on the workshop. I don't agree with all of it, but it does at least give them their aim and flanking back. It's all very Long War level AI modding, many of you will not like it at all. I totally understand btw. I'm just warning.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618390218
...Hey guys I think this might be a p. good video game.
Solid 7.5/10.
Also if you kill that one alien with explosives, that destroys the loot.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
No.
Personally the simplest thing for me is to just "honor" limit grenadiers. After seeing what 4 do to legendary, I've decided that the simplest fix would be to do that. Looking over the AI mod that Morninglord linked, it looks like it could potentially solve a lot of the issues without doing anything about explosives though.