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[XCOM] XCOM 2.5 is XCOPS

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    EvmaAlsarEvmaAlsar Birmingham, EnglandRegistered User regular
    edited November 2017
    Dunno if it was unique to my mission, but don't go putting Skulljacks on Templars.

    Ran up and skulljacked an ADVENT officer - objective updated to kill a Codex, but no Codex spawned... and the officer survived the skulljacking. Sort of.

    He ragdolled onto the floor, and stayed unresponsive but was still a viable, live target for my other soldiers. I killed him again to see if it would trigger the Codex after all, but no dice.
    Fix your game, Jake.

    EvmaAlsar on
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    CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    Skulljacks on specialists for the hacking bonus.

    If you get the -20 % hacking difficulty faction order, late game you can get 70+% to control heavy mechs and such. Sometimes better if you get some hacking bonuses from mission objectives or security towers.

    Add in a bluescreen shot against a sectopod and you can get to near certainty to hijack them.

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    DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    Cog wrote: »
    Skulljacks on specialists for the hacking bonus.

    If you get the -20 % hacking difficulty faction order, late game you can get 70+% to control heavy mechs and such. Sometimes better if you get some hacking bonuses from mission objectives or security towers.

    Add in a bluescreen shot against a sectopod and you can get to near certainty to hijack them.

    I have found that the bluescreen hack resistance penalty is pretty minimal.

    Other than Skullmining and the Enemy Protocols hacking bonus result, the big hacking buffs are Covert Ops hacking bonuses and the Skirmishers Resistance Order that subtracts 20 from hacking defenses across the board.

    But yeah, Skulljack on anything but a Specialist is kinda a waste, which is probably why it is buggy on Templars...it never occurred to them to test it.

    Though now I kinda want to try one on a Reaper with the GTS hacking bonus.

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    Mr RayMr Ray Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
    I don't know if anyone cares, but Pavonis have officially announced that they will not be updating Long War 2 for WOTC.

    http://www.pavonisinteractive.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=26982

    There's a community effort gaining momentum to take over where they left off, which will hopefully bear some fruit eventually. There's a Firaxis employee active in the community mod's sub-forum, so this has their blessing at least. As I understand it one of the biggest technical hurdles is that the Long War 2 classes all have multiple abilities at Squaddie level, which the WOTC ability trees don't currently support for some reason.

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    ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    At the very least, the LW2-adjacent mods (like the new alien variants) would be cool to have for base WOTC.

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    GoumindongGoumindong Registered User regular
    The problem with Blue Screen hack resistance reduction is that you just shot the thing for +5 damage so what do you need the hack resistance reduction for?

    Pretty much only sectopods and they're pretty damn hard to hack anyway.

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    EvmaAlsarEvmaAlsar Birmingham, EnglandRegistered User regular
    Cog wrote: »
    Skulljacks on specialists for the hacking bonus.

    If you get the -20 % hacking difficulty faction order, late game you can get 70+% to control heavy mechs and such. Sometimes better if you get some hacking bonuses from mission objectives or security towers.

    Add in a bluescreen shot against a sectopod and you can get to near certainty to hijack them.

    I hadn't gotten skullmining yet so there was no hack bonus for the skulljack. I only packed it for plot progression purposes for that one mission.

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    SirialisSirialis of the Halite Throne. Registered User regular
    So, I've given up on completing the "Ironman at Commander or Legendary" achievement on X1. Lost my third save this weekend due to a crash. Like, it's just impossible to get through until they patch up the console version.

    I have that one...

    It was the most tense shit ever near the end, didnt help that I did not know you got a "save" at the final mission, so I thought if I got some really unlucky spawns there, that it would be a complete do over from scratch.

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    UselesswarriorUselesswarrior Registered User regular
    Whats the verdict on War of the Chosen on PS4?

    I never got that deep into vanilla XCOM 2, but I've been tempted to pick this up in the Black Friday PSN sale.

    Hey I made a game, check it out @ http://ifallingrobot.com/. (Or don't, your call)
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    CogCog What'd you expect? Registered User regular
    I couldn't tell you a thing about the console experience in general but War of the Chosen overall is pretty great.

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    UselesswarriorUselesswarrior Registered User regular
    Can I cut off the limbs of my troops and put them in a mech?

    Hey I made a game, check it out @ http://ifallingrobot.com/. (Or don't, your call)
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    WhiteZinfandelWhiteZinfandel Your insides Let me show you themRegistered User regular
    Sadly no.

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    Iron WeaselIron Weasel Dillon! You son of a bitch!Registered User regular
    Sadly no.
    Chen's Last Gift should have been a bonesaw.

    Currently Playing:
    The Division, Warframe (XB1)
    GT: Tanith 6227
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    DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    I've heard that there are some performance issues on console, which the PS4pro might not have.

    Also even on PC I had a ton of crashing before they patched it.

    Overall, though: very worthwhile. I'd say the character options are greater than Enemy Within, even if nothing is quite as satisfying as MECs.

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    NotoriusBENNotoriusBEN Registered User regular
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    AstharielAsthariel The Book Eater Registered User regular
    As I don't have much imagination or fashion sense, so I installed Random Appearance Button mod, which in combination with various others allows to quickly create some badass looking, or just batshit crazy appearance for my soldiers.

    Instead of playing something, I spent last 90 minutes creating new soldiers for my Character Pool - when I will have 50, I think it will be enough for my next Legendary playthrough.

    On the other hand, losing anyone will be much more hurtful, and let's be honest, Im propably gonna lose a lot of buys and girls...

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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Personally, I don't see the appeal of having only pre-made soldiers. I made a few before I started playing XCOM 2 but the majority of the soldiers saved to the character pool earned their place there.

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    DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    Personally, I don't see the appeal of having only pre-made soldiers. I made a few before I started playing XCOM 2 but the majority of the soldiers saved to the character pool earned their place there.

    I have a pretty big list of premades by now; between the PA list, the developer list, ascended randoms, and my own inclusions, but I always set premades to only comprise at most 50% of my soldier list. There always needs to be room for that weird random guy with hotpants and pigtails to show up like he fell down a hole at the rave and woke up with a gun on the Avenger.

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    Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    I have always thought that the randos you get every game were a big part of the fun; if the same guys were popping up game after game I think a lot of the ‘story’ of each run would be lost.

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    it was the smallest on the list but
    Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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    Evil MultifariousEvil Multifarious Registered User regular
    Whats the verdict on War of the Chosen on PS4?

    I never got that deep into vanilla XCOM 2, but I've been tempted to pick this up in the Black Friday PSN sale.

    You've probably already bought this game, but:

    The PS4 version of WOTC has pretty severe performance issues, worse than the vanilla game--interminable load times and chop during cutscenes/movement, mostly. It's not a death blow because it doesn't affect gameplay, really, but it hampers the atmosphere in places. Swarms of zombies pouring out of a building just don't have as much of an impact when they're moving at 3 frames per second.

    That said, it's an amazing game, one of my favorites ever, and it's totally worth playing despite those issues.

    Re: Ironman games, @morgan_coke on ps4 at least you can manually back up your ironman saves by uploading them to the cloud save storage. I lost three games before I figured this out, and then the one I backed up never crashed and I got the cheevo.

    I also just got the "beat Commander by July 1st" cheevo, which wasn't Ironman, but I only reloaded a couple of times due to misclicks and graphical glitches, and once because I didn't understand how wrath cannons worked. It was extremely tense and challenging, and probably my favorite game of XCOM I've ever played

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    DirtyboyDirtyboy Registered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    Personally, I don't see the appeal of having only pre-made soldiers. I made a few before I started playing XCOM 2 but the majority of the soldiers saved to the character pool earned their place there.

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    DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    Putting this here, since it is an XCOM-like.

    I beat the second scenario in Hard West; the one where you are researching some Old West Lovecraftian madness, and I studiously avoided opportunities to go insane, since doing the priority missions contributed to madness.

    But I know for sure that there was a ton of good stuff locked behind insanity events, and now that I finished it without going crazy, I want to go back and just be all kinds of nuts.

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    WACriminalWACriminal Dying Is Easy, Young Man Living Is HarderRegistered User regular
    Putting this here, since it is an XCOM-like.

    I beat the second scenario in Hard West; the one where you are researching some Old West Lovecraftian madness, and I studiously avoided opportunities to go insane, since doing the priority missions contributed to madness.

    But I know for sure that there was a ton of good stuff locked behind insanity events, and now that I finished it without going crazy, I want to go back and just be all kinds of nuts.

    I need to go back and play this game for reals. I tried it out a little, but never felt like I really grok'd it fully. I liked what I saw, though.

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    DirtyboyDirtyboy Registered User regular
    It's pretty good and I enjoy the western/demon theme.

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    DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    WACriminal wrote: »
    Putting this here, since it is an XCOM-like.

    I beat the second scenario in Hard West; the one where you are researching some Old West Lovecraftian madness, and I studiously avoided opportunities to go insane, since doing the priority missions contributed to madness.

    But I know for sure that there was a ton of good stuff locked behind insanity events, and now that I finished it without going crazy, I want to go back and just be all kinds of nuts.

    I need to go back and play this game for reals. I tried it out a little, but never felt like I really grok'd it fully. I liked what I saw, though.

    It is definitely not quite the XCOM experience, but I need something to fill the void until Phoenix Point comes out, and this at least has good writing and flavor.

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    XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    Oh my Lord War of Chosen added so much babble. Shut up, everyone!

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    UselesswarriorUselesswarrior Registered User regular
    Playing War of the Chosen. How do I get gud?

    In original XCOM I watched a lot of Beaglerush and some other Youtubers and learned some high level tactical play. Sadly Beagle doesn’t seem to be playing much XCOM 2 beyond vanilla.

    Specially I am looking to get better at the strategic layer, which feels really overwhelming to me right now.

    Hey I made a game, check it out @ http://ifallingrobot.com/. (Or don't, your call)
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    WACriminalWACriminal Dying Is Easy, Young Man Living Is HarderRegistered User regular
    You might be interested in Xwynns and JoinRBs. They're both really good at the game, IIRC.

    Christopher Odd is fun, but probably not in the same tier as those two or Beagle.

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    UselesswarriorUselesswarrior Registered User regular
    It annoys me that you still can’t see the outcome of research before you research it. I understand it from a story perspective but from a gameplay perspective it’s dumb and forces players to pull up a wiki while they play.

    Hey I made a game, check it out @ http://ifallingrobot.com/. (Or don't, your call)
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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Beagle has done War of the Chosen, and it was incredible, but it was on his Twitch streams. He probably won't edit them for Youtube.

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    XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    edited January 2018
    I hated the Chosen in normal maps how they ran away, that irked me the firs time. Then they do it again and again. Then you get to the mission to kill them and...they fucking do it again and there's a bullet sponge to kill to kill them again!

    No thanks! I'll maybe come to terms with this later, but the Chosen are unfun atm.

    Xeddicus on
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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    I mean... that's the point. They fight you again and again and harass your troops in increasingly demanding ways, until you put a permanent end to them.

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    XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    Yeah, and I'll eventually probably get back to it but when I killed it's stupid regen thing it should have been DEAD, not pop back up yet again. It was just like the final "Are you kidding me?" to a mechanic I don't enjoy.

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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    Xeddicus wrote: »
    Yeah, and I'll eventually probably get back to it but when I killed it's stupid regen thing it should have been DEAD, not pop back up yet again. It was just like the final "Are you kidding me?" to a mechanic I don't enjoy.

    They come back with partial health, and the faster you destroy the magical resurrection box, the less health they have.Seems cut and dried to me, you can't finish them off until after the box is toast.

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    XeddicusXeddicus Registered User regular
    I need more DPS to take out the infinite spawning guys and the box it seems. Not thrilled with the entire Chosen mechanic from start to finish it seems!

    Oh well, I had a contact button hiding under a supply drop button for awhile and didn't work it out for awhile so go that going against me too.

    Time for a restart!

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    DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    They needed enemies that could have recurring personality but could also be killed instantly with a Repeater and not be super anticlimactic.

    If you review a Chosen's weaknesses, it is possible to ice them so fast. Like in the story missions I think the assassin is always weak to Reapers and Explosives... which means that the Reaper's Claymore does over 20 damage to her.

    So ending their threat has to be an ordeal over several rounds.

    You know, now that I think about it, the "end the Chosen" missions are a little too dull.
    It's a map with normal enemies and the only real challenge is scouting it so you don't activate an unnecessary pods on the way to the teleporter. They should have had the Chosen active on the first map, you kill them, and they teleport back to their stasis pod, setting up the final showdown.

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    UselesswarriorUselesswarrior Registered User regular
    edited January 2018
    I think I dislike the infinite spawning enemies thing for the same reason I dislike the research not showing the outcome. If you are going to ask the player to make a choice, you need to give them the information to make it.

    My first time through I focused on the spawns versus the magic box. Big mistake because they keep spawning until the box is down. I saw the error of my ways quickly and reloaded, but back when I was playing Ironman nearly exclusively on XCOM 1 choices and missions like these drove me crazy because one bad choice, that I didn’t have enough information to make, lead to a squad wipe.

    Uselesswarrior on
    Hey I made a game, check it out @ http://ifallingrobot.com/. (Or don't, your call)
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    DarkPrimusDarkPrimus Registered User regular
    I mean, there's a certain amount of learning that goes into strategy games, and I think complete transparency isn't as necessary for a game with limited randomization of the meta. Like, you might not know for sure what you get out of research the first playthrough you get it, but then you know what it gives you for every subsequent playthrough.

    And throw me in the corner of "the threat of the Chosen is more threatening than the actual appearance of them." I always check to make sure which Chosen has a possibility to appear in a mission and try to bring some people along to counter if they show up... which mean I don't have them available for other missions because they will be tired or wounded. It's part of the system of WotC that encourages you to rotate lots of soldiers into squads instead of just having one A-team of elites like in vanilla.

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    NotoriusBENNotoriusBEN Registered User regular
    They needed enemies that could have recurring personality but could also be killed instantly with a Repeater and not be super anticlimactic.

    If you review a Chosen's weaknesses, it is possible to ice them so fast. Like in the story missions I think the assassin is always weak to Reapers and Explosives... which means that the Reaper's Claymore does over 20 damage to her.

    So ending their threat has to be an ordeal over several rounds.

    You know, now that I think about it, the "end the Chosen" missions are a little too dull.
    It's a map with normal enemies and the only real challenge is scouting it so you don't activate an unnecessary pods on the way to the teleporter. They should have had the Chosen active on the first map, you kill them, and they teleport back to their stasis pod, setting up the final showdown.

    negative, the only given for story Assassin is being weak to reapers. I've had many assassins strong/immune to explosives and also combo'd with being harder to hit after the first shot.
    Really infuriating to spend a frag for demolition in order for one guy to have a chance of doing work against them.

    But reapers are need. need. needed to fight Assassin, if only because they can range very far and wide to find where Assassin is hiding without worry of retaliation. Which is another person that cannot fight or do a flank shot because they need to be invisible for subsequent turns.

    Story mission can be a real foot slogger.

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    DracomicronDracomicron Registered User regular
    But reapers are need. need. needed to fight Assassin, if only because they can range very far and wide to find where Assassin is hiding without worry of retaliation.

    Heh. Unless she has the ability to spot people in stealth with simple line of sight. I lost a Reaper like that once.

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