Having a soldier shredded because of three enemies that would be dead if the game was working as it says is zero fun.
I've been fortunate enough not to have run into bugs like this, but I'll say this: even at the best of times, XCOM (Chimera Squad, but even the previous games) does not give nearly enough information in the UI, and/or it's not presented well.
The best thing about "Into the Breach", aside from the everything, is how meticulously it tells you exactly what's going to happen when you end your turn, in extremely clear and legible ways - and frankly, even that has a couple of edge-case bits that weren't obvious until I had them happen to me.
I think I used Terminal once on the tutorial mission and she has been locked up in the research room since; not using boring humans when you got weird aliens to choose from
Don't understand how you blow up enemies/cook curry without Claymore.
Weirdly enough I've never really had too many glitches/bugs with the XCOM series. The worst thing that happened to me was XCOM2: WotC eating my Ironman save cause Alt-F4ed out of a bad situation. Then again I never even had trouble with FO:NV.
So far Terminal/Zephyr/Verge/Torque is proving to be a devestating team against The Progeny. Terminal's cooperate action synergizes amazingly well with Torque, and let's Verge hang back and setup multi-mindfray madness. Torque ridiculous action economy means you can poison half the room, then tongue grab and squeeze the dangerous enemies, which in turn sets up Verge to one-shot unconscious everyone.
Though I've counted at least two occassions where it bugged and the selected enemy just shot someone else anyway
My understanding is:
1) Phalnax only forces the enemy you target to hit you. It only works if that enemy is tagged for that entry point. If the enemy is tagged for another entry point, even if they can shoot at the one you went into they will be unaffected
2) Phalnax negates all damage done to cherub on entry.
As a result Phalnax is best when Cherub can enter a point where there are lots of aggressive enemies and everyone else goes into places where enemies are surprised.
0
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Though I've counted at least two occassions where it bugged and the selected enemy just shot someone else anyway
My understanding is:
1) Phalnax only forces the enemy you target to hit you. It only works if that enemy is tagged for that entry point. If the enemy is tagged for another entry point, even if they can shoot at the one you went into they will be unaffected
2) Phalnax negates all damage done to cherub on entry.
As a result Phalnax is best when Cherub can enter a point where there are lots of aggressive enemies and everyone else goes into places where enemies are surprised.
Except I've had up to four enemies shoot at Cherub, and the text of the ability specifically says it forces multiple aggressive enemies to target Cherub, he nullifies all damage, and gets an additional charge for every nullified attack. It's very explicitly supposed to soak up excess aggro during a breach, except the enemy AI seems to target completely randomly within its LoS.
So either it's really bugged or the description is incredibly wrong. Either way, the ability is broken and unreliable.
Phalanx is definitely either bugged or the description was written poorly.
Also Terminal is the best healer and also has Cooperation which can be a life saver.
My one primary annoyance is, again, Firaxis made a stupid choice in that upgrading medkits does not upgrade her healing. I consider her increasingly indispensable as the game progresses, but I also really don't fucking want to have to slap medkits on everybody to keep up with the attrition from the stupid numbers of enemies.
Either give us another healer or give us more squadmates per battle, this four-person limit is extremely irritating.
Phalanx is definitely either bugged or the description was written poorly.
Also Terminal is the best healer and also has Cooperation which can be a life saver.
My one primary annoyance is, again, Firaxis made a stupid choice in that upgrading medkits does not upgrade her healing. I consider her increasingly indispensable as the game progresses, but I also really don't fucking want to have to slap medkits on everybody to keep up with the attrition from the stupid numbers of enemies.
Either give us another healer or give us more squadmates per battle, this four-person limit is extremely irritating.
One thing that still seems odd to me is that injuries don't matter at all. Unless you go down, it seems like there aren't any consequences for having your whole squad within an inch or two of death every time they go on a mission. I never got to a point where I felt that medkits were super critical for everyone...but then I also put this game on ice until it gets a little more time in the oven, so maybe it's a bigger deal as you go through the campaign.
Phalanx is definitely either bugged or the description was written poorly.
Also Terminal is the best healer and also has Cooperation which can be a life saver.
My one primary annoyance is, again, Firaxis made a stupid choice in that upgrading medkits does not upgrade her healing. I consider her increasingly indispensable as the game progresses, but I also really don't fucking want to have to slap medkits on everybody to keep up with the attrition from the stupid numbers of enemies.
Either give us another healer or give us more squadmates per battle, this four-person limit is extremely irritating.
One thing that still seems odd to me is that injuries don't matter at all. Unless you go down, it seems like there aren't any consequences for having your whole squad within an inch or two of death every time they go on a mission. I never got to a point where I felt that medkits were super critical for everyone...but then I also put this game on ice until it gets a little more time in the oven, so maybe it's a bigger deal as you go through the campaign.
Have you not been gaining scars? Or are you just extra vigilant about training them away?
I have been playing XCOM: EW as a prep for XCOM2 switch release.
First run through was on normal, and I mostly breezed through the campaign. Lost one soldier, on the very last level.
Now I'm replaying on classic, and my troops keep getting killed. Only played three mission, but already lost something like 4-5. Is this an expected burnrate of soldiers given this setting, or am I doing something wrong? Is half cover much more useless on classic compared to normal? Should I neglect all meld and just grenade every event while keeping in good cover?
OK so... Classic is definitely a lot harder.
Always keep in mind the hierarchy of defense
Cannot be targeted = Dead Enemies > Smoked and Hunkered in High Cover > Smoked in High cover> Hunkered in Low Cover > Smoked in Low-Cover -> High Cover > Smoked in the Open > Low Cover = No Cover.
In general "High Cover" is the minimum you want to shoot for and you also need to aggressively NOT have enemies alive. Assaults and Snipers are best at making enemies dead(assaults the more guaranteed until very late) and heavies and supports the best at making sure you're not dead. An assault bias (especially in EW) is therefore a little bit preferable and you can never have too many smoke grenades on a mission.
Some things to note
1) MEC's are hella good. This probably shouldn't be number one but MECS are hella good. Punchfist is one of the best abilities in the game and all the rest of the stuff is great too. I think heavies are the best followed by assaults. Heavies get body shield (nearest enemy gets -20 aim and cannot crit the MEC). Bodyshield is super good because the -aim applies to everyone. So you go and 12 guaranteed damage punchfist someone into the stratosphere and then the next guy closest to you is effectively suppressed. (snipers are the worst MEC imo). Punchfist also knocks enemies back and will destroy any cover that they impact... including cars. So you can punch an enemy into the cover of their allies and two for one em. Assaults are some of the best EW non-MEC classes because they synergize with MEC's so well. It is entirely worth getting a MEC early (especially from a heavy).
2) Speaking of Suppression... -aim abilities and +defense abilities stack linearly in %probability to hit. As a result they stack beyond exponentially in expected damage taken. Suppression is very good but sneakily NOT the best ability. That is "hunker down". Hunkering Down doubles the defensive bonus from cover and makes you immune to crits so long as you're not flanked. This turns light cover into heavy cover. In general if you have a trooper in light cover and you didn't just use that trooper to kill something and the entire remaining enemies aren't debuffed with additional -aim then you're better off hunkering them. You can hunker forward scouts(and the end of your round since the vision debuff occurs immediately) and so long as they cannot be flanked they will have 80 defense and immunity to crits. This can allow you to easily shoot from outside of enemy vision range and/or do other things with units that are not in positions to be shot.
3) The AI will shoot troopers with the lowest defense(sometimes there is some kill bias to hit higher defense lower HP units) so if you have 3 guys in heavy cover and 1 guy in light cover the guy in light cover pretty much must be hunkered (until you get abilities to give +def).
4) understanding how to run overwatch is very valuable. High Cover generally cannot be used as a defensive tool but low cover and smoke can. Moving confers a .7 multiple to enemy aim and dashing confers a .49 multiple to enemy aim. And THEN defense starts. Overwatch will not trigger on two(wiki says two for EW! i am used to one) tile movements and will not trigger if you only just enter an enemies sight line. So if you have two overwatching sectoids (65 aim) and need to run them if you can dash along a line of low cover (or in smoke) each hit chance will only be 12%.
You can do without Terminal if you use stuff like Axioms/Verges regen talents, Regen weave on your armor (I think regen weave unlocks after you defeat grey phoenix?), a medkit or two (Zephyr is an amazing medikit carrier) and/or use talents that lockdown enemies. But Terminals defensive abilities are IMHO a step above most other characters.
That said. Once you get the improved stuff Terminal is very optional for 1-2 room missions.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Phalanx is definitely either bugged or the description was written poorly.
Also Terminal is the best healer and also has Cooperation which can be a life saver.
My one primary annoyance is, again, Firaxis made a stupid choice in that upgrading medkits does not upgrade her healing. I consider her increasingly indispensable as the game progresses, but I also really don't fucking want to have to slap medkits on everybody to keep up with the attrition from the stupid numbers of enemies.
Either give us another healer or give us more squadmates per battle, this four-person limit is extremely irritating.
One thing that still seems odd to me is that injuries don't matter at all. Unless you go down, it seems like there aren't any consequences for having your whole squad within an inch or two of death every time they go on a mission. I never got to a point where I felt that medkits were super critical for everyone...but then I also put this game on ice until it gets a little more time in the oven, so maybe it's a bigger deal as you go through the campaign.
Have you not been gaining scars? Or are you just extra vigilant about training them away?
I've gotten the odd scar (and am super vigilant about training them away), but it seems like you only get one when someone goes down (starts bleeding out). Or can you get them even if everyone stays upright the whole time, and I've just not noticed that?
Have you not been gaining scars? Or are you just extra vigilant about training them away?
I've gotten the odd scar (and am super vigilant about training them away), but it seems like you only get one when someone goes down (starts bleeding out). Or can you get them even if everyone stays upright the whole time, and I've just not noticed that?
I've definitely had at least one instance where someone got a scar without ever fully going down (they came out of the mission on 1 hp). It does feel weird to have someone take 80% damage on a mission and then be full health and ready to deploy the next day, though.
Have you not been gaining scars? Or are you just extra vigilant about training them away?
I've gotten the odd scar (and am super vigilant about training them away), but it seems like you only get one when someone goes down (starts bleeding out). Or can you get them even if everyone stays upright the whole time, and I've just not noticed that?
I've definitely had at least one instance where someone got a scar without ever fully going down (they came out of the mission on 1 hp). It does feel weird to have someone take 80% damage on a mission and then be full health and ready to deploy the next day, though.
It's the future and they demonstratedly have superefficient regenerative technology? It would be weird if elite military officers in the middle of an advanced city didn't have access to that stuff.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Yeah, some of these guys can also self regenerate within a matter of minutes. It doesn't seem too crazy to me. X Com 1 & 2 were much scrappier organisations with less access to super advanced alien technology.
1) If you don't end gravely wounded then you don't have any cost of taking HP damage. Terminal very much isn't needed. For me her most used abilities are her extra utility item slot and cooperation.
2) Breach Med-Kits are pretty great especially since breach has few good options most of the time(especially late). A single medkit and a breach med-kit is 12 to 14 healing. Which is about as much or more than Terminal usually does.
3) A lot of missions are one encounter long. If they last 3 rounds you barely even have time to do healing.
4) Some units(like Torque and Verge) gets self heals and so don't need as much healing support. Or have stupid dodge amounts so they take less damage.
Goumindong on
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
I love the difference in feeling between missions depending on how many encounters they have. Single-encounter missions are a blast, just getting to pop all your consumables and single-use abilities all at once.
I love the difference in feeling between missions depending on how many encounters they have. Single-encounter missions are a blast, just getting to pop all your consumables and single-use abilities all at once.
Single room Claymore is like this, except with explosives.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Also, going from normal to classic means the game is no longer cheating in your favor. On normal and easy, missing several high percentage shots or getting hit by several low percentage ones makes you more likely to hit and enemies more likely to miss, respectively. On classic and impossible, what you see is what you get, so you'll need to unlearn some of the feel for percentages that easy and normal taught you.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I think I used Terminal once on the tutorial mission and she has been locked up in the research room since; not using boring humans when you got weird aliens to choose from
One thing that really jumped out at me about this game is kind of subtle and a me-thing: the music in the squad room.
The Deus Ex games are comfort food for me, they're something that I can't really judge objectively anymore because I love them like an old, threadbare sweater. One of the strongest emotional associations I have with them is the feeling of safety and comfort that I feel when I listen to the "back at home base" music. Deus Ex was kind of revolutionary for me (and maybe in general?) in that it was a first-person game with gunshoots, but it wasn't like "OK, now you're in the Navy Yard Level, everyone here is hostile". The zones had safe areas and hostile areas, depending on location and depending on your progress in the story. The one zone that was entirely non-hostile, and therefore one where you could completely let your guard down, was the UNATCO headquarters (...well, up until a point). So, I just deeply associate that music with safe spaces. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBPK_oXeJgA
With the breach event that lets shots stun, am I right that it only stuns them during the breach? I.e. it only stops them taking an action for the breach event?
I finished Gray Phoenix ( I just now realized the apparent X-men reference ) and went on to Sacred Coil anyway. I’m too curious to see how that end mission is.
I like that you can sometimes find attachments and equipment as rewards. I just got a rifle that grants Banish ( continue to shoot until target dies or out of ammo ) around the same time I recruited Zephyr, so hooray for two WotC elements at once.
Also, Terminal is crazy, I think she’s been on literally every mission so far.
Banish is great when you also have a +3 ammo mod. You fire 7 shots in a row, which is great for bosses.
+3
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
With the breach event that lets shots stun, am I right that it only stuns them during the breach? I.e. it only stops them taking an action for the breach event?
Stun removes an Action, not a Turn. Took me forever to figure that out.
I really wish the game were just more transparent with everything.
With the breach event that lets shots stun, am I right that it only stuns them during the breach? I.e. it only stops them taking an action for the breach event?
Yes. All breach items only apply during the breach. One reason why smoke is better than a flashbang
0
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
With the breach event that lets shots stun, am I right that it only stuns them during the breach? I.e. it only stops them taking an action for the breach event?
Stun removes an Action, not a Turn. Took me forever to figure that out.
I really wish the game were just more transparent with everything.
Yeah when you stun an enemy you want Stunned: 2, which removes both actions in their upcoming activation.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
With the breach event that lets shots stun, am I right that it only stuns them during the breach? I.e. it only stops them taking an action for the breach event?
Stun removes an Action, not a Turn. Took me forever to figure that out.
I really wish the game were just more transparent with everything.
Yeah when you stun an enemy you want Stunned: 2, which removes both actions in their upcoming activation.
Ugh, that is just the most obtuse shit. Why can't Firaxis figure out that it is not good to make this stuff uncertain? I thought Stun was bugged or something, turns out it works as designed but they just don't bother to explain what it means.
+1
mastertheheroProfessional Video Editor & Book AuthorRegistered Userregular
Huh... so stun just removes an action huh? Well now that makes a lot of sense.
Obviously, Firaxis is testing the waters with this game which is why it seems that there's a few things in here that are a little off. But I only spent 10 dollars and I'm having a blast playing it on normal. I figured I would play it on an easier difficulty to have an understanding of how the game works then increase the difficulty once I complete one playthrough. Very interested to know what kind of mods are going to come for this.
+2
WhiteZinfandelYour insidesLet me show you themRegistered Userregular
With the breach event that lets shots stun, am I right that it only stuns them during the breach? I.e. it only stops them taking an action for the breach event?
Yes. All breach items only apply during the breach. One reason why smoke is better than a flashbang
Wait wait wait. Are you certain about that? I feel like I've seen enemies remain disoriented past the initial breach.
+1
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Stunned: 1 is still good. With only a single action I find the AI has difficulty figuring out what to do, and randomly decides to fire on the spot (good if you’ve got everyone in cover), move (but tends to move with the assumption it gets to shoot and positions badly) or just uses Prepare.
This game is so fucking buggy. I honestly can't recommend it even at $10 if bugs bother you at all. These are permanent, campaign-altering bugs
At this point, I now have
- a character who permanently can't equip weapons or armour
- an extra epic weapon that I can't equip and that took the spot of the item I actually wanted to buy
- epic weapons of that variety are now locked to a character
- a mastercrafted pistol upgrade that DISAPPEARED when purchased, and now I can never have mastercrafted pistols for the rest of the campaign
None of these go away with reloads or restarts. They're part of my save file, it seems.
I love the actual game but holy shit they must have rushed this out. Menu navigation doesn't even work!
0
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
Three things I feel added to the state of the game.
First, it really feels like it was something thrown together out of XCOM 3 ideas they wanted to try out before committing their next big game to them. After all, XCOM 2 was a refinement on EW, while this is a pretty drastic shift.
Second, COVID-19. Lots of shifting to work from home likely had an impact on the quality of work. They probably should have moved the release date back for some polish. However...
Third, they wanted to beat Gears Tactics to release.
Three things I feel added to the state of the game.
First, it really feels like it was something thrown together out of XCOM 3 ideas they wanted to try out before committing their next big game to them. After all, XCOM 2 was a refinement on EW, while this is a pretty drastic shift.
Second, COVID-19. Lots of shifting to work from home likely had an impact on the quality of work. They probably should have moved the release date back for some polish. However...
Third, they wanted to beat Gears Tactics to release.
Word of mouth is that Gears Tactics is real good, apparently. I'm interested to give it a spin when it's lesss.. stratospheric, cost wise.
Three things I feel added to the state of the game.
First, it really feels like it was something thrown together out of XCOM 3 ideas they wanted to try out before committing their next big game to them. After all, XCOM 2 was a refinement on EW, while this is a pretty drastic shift.
Second, COVID-19. Lots of shifting to work from home likely had an impact on the quality of work. They probably should have moved the release date back for some polish. However...
Third, they wanted to beat Gears Tactics to release.
Word of mouth is that Gears Tactics is real good, apparently. I'm interested to give it a spin when it's lesss.. stratospheric, cost wise.
Xbox gamepass for Windows... $5 a month, $1 for the first
I haven't downloaded it yet but like.. its basically free
+3
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Stunned worked the same way in XCOM 2. Enemies have 2+ actions per turn. Stun abilities (in this game, that I've seen so far) remove 1-2 of those actions.
As an aside I keep making the same mistake in my game, and I can't break myself out of it. I've done it like 4 times now! Cease fire grenade to unload enemy weapons, followed by Battle Madness where they're just like "oh thanks, I'll just reload this gun..." >_<
With the breach event that lets shots stun, am I right that it only stuns them during the breach? I.e. it only stops them taking an action for the breach event?
This game is so fucking buggy. I honestly can't recommend it even at $10 if bugs bother you at all. These are permanent, campaign-altering bugs
At this point, I now have
- a character who permanently can't equip weapons or armour
- an extra epic weapon that I can't equip and that took the spot of the item I actually wanted to buy
- epic weapons of that variety are now locked to a character
- a mastercrafted pistol upgrade that DISAPPEARED when purchased, and now I can never have mastercrafted pistols for the rest of the campaign
None of these go away with reloads or restarts. They're part of my save file, it seems.
I love the actual game but holy shit they must have rushed this out. Menu navigation doesn't even work!
Aren’t all the master crafted upgrades like that? They’re a one and done and it applies to all weapons/Armor of that type.
Three things I feel added to the state of the game.
First, it really feels like it was something thrown together out of XCOM 3 ideas they wanted to try out before committing their next big game to them. After all, XCOM 2 was a refinement on EW, while this is a pretty drastic shift.
Second, COVID-19. Lots of shifting to work from home likely had an impact on the quality of work. They probably should have moved the release date back for some polish. However...
Third, they wanted to beat Gears Tactics to release.
Word of mouth is that Gears Tactics is real good, apparently. I'm interested to give it a spin when it's lesss.. stratospheric, cost wise.
Xbox gamepass for Windows... $5 a month, $1 for the first
I haven't downloaded it yet but like.. its basically free
...Huh, i didnt know. Got too used to having Windows 7 until just recently. Thanks for the heads up, @Goumindong
Posts
The best thing about "Into the Breach", aside from the everything, is how meticulously it tells you exactly what's going to happen when you end your turn, in extremely clear and legible ways - and frankly, even that has a couple of edge-case bits that weren't obvious until I had them happen to me.
Don't understand how you blow up enemies/cook curry without Claymore.
Weirdly enough I've never really had too many glitches/bugs with the XCOM series. The worst thing that happened to me was XCOM2: WotC eating my Ironman save cause Alt-F4ed out of a bad situation. Then again I never even had trouble with FO:NV.
Steam: CavilatRest
Also totally shipping Terminal/Zephyr.
My understanding is:
1) Phalnax only forces the enemy you target to hit you. It only works if that enemy is tagged for that entry point. If the enemy is tagged for another entry point, even if they can shoot at the one you went into they will be unaffected
2) Phalnax negates all damage done to cherub on entry.
As a result Phalnax is best when Cherub can enter a point where there are lots of aggressive enemies and everyone else goes into places where enemies are surprised.
Except I've had up to four enemies shoot at Cherub, and the text of the ability specifically says it forces multiple aggressive enemies to target Cherub, he nullifies all damage, and gets an additional charge for every nullified attack. It's very explicitly supposed to soak up excess aggro during a breach, except the enemy AI seems to target completely randomly within its LoS.
So either it's really bugged or the description is incredibly wrong. Either way, the ability is broken and unreliable.
Also Terminal is the best healer and also has Cooperation which can be a life saver.
3DS Friend Code: 2165-6448-8348 www.Twitch.TV/cooljammer00
Battle.Net: JohnDarc#1203 Origin/UPlay: CoolJammer00
My one primary annoyance is, again, Firaxis made a stupid choice in that upgrading medkits does not upgrade her healing. I consider her increasingly indispensable as the game progresses, but I also really don't fucking want to have to slap medkits on everybody to keep up with the attrition from the stupid numbers of enemies.
Either give us another healer or give us more squadmates per battle, this four-person limit is extremely irritating.
One thing that still seems odd to me is that injuries don't matter at all. Unless you go down, it seems like there aren't any consequences for having your whole squad within an inch or two of death every time they go on a mission. I never got to a point where I felt that medkits were super critical for everyone...but then I also put this game on ice until it gets a little more time in the oven, so maybe it's a bigger deal as you go through the campaign.
Have you not been gaining scars? Or are you just extra vigilant about training them away?
OK so... Classic is definitely a lot harder.
Always keep in mind the hierarchy of defense
Cannot be targeted = Dead Enemies > Smoked and Hunkered in High Cover > Smoked in High cover> Hunkered in Low Cover > Smoked in Low-Cover -> High Cover > Smoked in the Open > Low Cover = No Cover.
In general "High Cover" is the minimum you want to shoot for and you also need to aggressively NOT have enemies alive. Assaults and Snipers are best at making enemies dead(assaults the more guaranteed until very late) and heavies and supports the best at making sure you're not dead. An assault bias (especially in EW) is therefore a little bit preferable and you can never have too many smoke grenades on a mission.
Some things to note
1) MEC's are hella good. This probably shouldn't be number one but MECS are hella good. Punchfist is one of the best abilities in the game and all the rest of the stuff is great too. I think heavies are the best followed by assaults. Heavies get body shield (nearest enemy gets -20 aim and cannot crit the MEC). Bodyshield is super good because the -aim applies to everyone. So you go and 12 guaranteed damage punchfist someone into the stratosphere and then the next guy closest to you is effectively suppressed. (snipers are the worst MEC imo). Punchfist also knocks enemies back and will destroy any cover that they impact... including cars. So you can punch an enemy into the cover of their allies and two for one em. Assaults are some of the best EW non-MEC classes because they synergize with MEC's so well. It is entirely worth getting a MEC early (especially from a heavy).
2) Speaking of Suppression... -aim abilities and +defense abilities stack linearly in %probability to hit. As a result they stack beyond exponentially in expected damage taken. Suppression is very good but sneakily NOT the best ability. That is "hunker down". Hunkering Down doubles the defensive bonus from cover and makes you immune to crits so long as you're not flanked. This turns light cover into heavy cover. In general if you have a trooper in light cover and you didn't just use that trooper to kill something and the entire remaining enemies aren't debuffed with additional -aim then you're better off hunkering them. You can hunker forward scouts(and the end of your round since the vision debuff occurs immediately) and so long as they cannot be flanked they will have 80 defense and immunity to crits. This can allow you to easily shoot from outside of enemy vision range and/or do other things with units that are not in positions to be shot.
3) The AI will shoot troopers with the lowest defense(sometimes there is some kill bias to hit higher defense lower HP units) so if you have 3 guys in heavy cover and 1 guy in light cover the guy in light cover pretty much must be hunkered (until you get abilities to give +def).
4) understanding how to run overwatch is very valuable. High Cover generally cannot be used as a defensive tool but low cover and smoke can. Moving confers a .7 multiple to enemy aim and dashing confers a .49 multiple to enemy aim. And THEN defense starts. Overwatch will not trigger on two(wiki says two for EW! i am used to one) tile movements and will not trigger if you only just enter an enemies sight line. So if you have two overwatching sectoids (65 aim) and need to run them if you can dash along a line of low cover (or in smoke) each hit chance will only be 12%.
--
That said. Once you get the improved stuff Terminal is very optional for 1-2 room missions.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
I've gotten the odd scar (and am super vigilant about training them away), but it seems like you only get one when someone goes down (starts bleeding out). Or can you get them even if everyone stays upright the whole time, and I've just not noticed that?
I've definitely had at least one instance where someone got a scar without ever fully going down (they came out of the mission on 1 hp). It does feel weird to have someone take 80% damage on a mission and then be full health and ready to deploy the next day, though.
It's the future and they demonstratedly have superefficient regenerative technology? It would be weird if elite military officers in the middle of an advanced city didn't have access to that stuff.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
2) Breach Med-Kits are pretty great especially since breach has few good options most of the time(especially late). A single medkit and a breach med-kit is 12 to 14 healing. Which is about as much or more than Terminal usually does.
3) A lot of missions are one encounter long. If they last 3 rounds you barely even have time to do healing.
4) Some units(like Torque and Verge) gets self heals and so don't need as much healing support. Or have stupid dodge amounts so they take less damage.
Single room Claymore is like this, except with explosives.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Racist.
The Deus Ex games are comfort food for me, they're something that I can't really judge objectively anymore because I love them like an old, threadbare sweater. One of the strongest emotional associations I have with them is the feeling of safety and comfort that I feel when I listen to the "back at home base" music. Deus Ex was kind of revolutionary for me (and maybe in general?) in that it was a first-person game with gunshoots, but it wasn't like "OK, now you're in the Navy Yard Level, everyone here is hostile". The zones had safe areas and hostile areas, depending on location and depending on your progress in the story. The one zone that was entirely non-hostile, and therefore one where you could completely let your guard down, was the UNATCO headquarters (...well, up until a point). So, I just deeply associate that music with safe spaces. Here it is:
The other games carry on the tradition of having some soothing, moody future-music in the home-base zone; I almost feel like there's an unbroken tradition of it. Here are some tracks:
(I can't remember what the equivalent was for Invisible War, but there must have been one - for all the flaws the game had, the soundtrack was a Deus Ex Soundtrack, which means it was impeccable)
Anyway, the point is, I feel like the Chimera Squad in-between-missions music sits in this same tradition:
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
Banish is great when you also have a +3 ammo mod. You fire 7 shots in a row, which is great for bosses.
Stun removes an Action, not a Turn. Took me forever to figure that out.
I really wish the game were just more transparent with everything.
Yes. All breach items only apply during the breach. One reason why smoke is better than a flashbang
Yeah when you stun an enemy you want Stunned: 2, which removes both actions in their upcoming activation.
Ugh, that is just the most obtuse shit. Why can't Firaxis figure out that it is not good to make this stuff uncertain? I thought Stun was bugged or something, turns out it works as designed but they just don't bother to explain what it means.
Obviously, Firaxis is testing the waters with this game which is why it seems that there's a few things in here that are a little off. But I only spent 10 dollars and I'm having a blast playing it on normal. I figured I would play it on an easier difficulty to have an understanding of how the game works then increase the difficulty once I complete one playthrough. Very interested to know what kind of mods are going to come for this.
Wait wait wait. Are you certain about that? I feel like I've seen enemies remain disoriented past the initial breach.
At this point, I now have
- a character who permanently can't equip weapons or armour
- an extra epic weapon that I can't equip and that took the spot of the item I actually wanted to buy
- epic weapons of that variety are now locked to a character
- a mastercrafted pistol upgrade that DISAPPEARED when purchased, and now I can never have mastercrafted pistols for the rest of the campaign
None of these go away with reloads or restarts. They're part of my save file, it seems.
I love the actual game but holy shit they must have rushed this out. Menu navigation doesn't even work!
First, it really feels like it was something thrown together out of XCOM 3 ideas they wanted to try out before committing their next big game to them. After all, XCOM 2 was a refinement on EW, while this is a pretty drastic shift.
Second, COVID-19. Lots of shifting to work from home likely had an impact on the quality of work. They probably should have moved the release date back for some polish. However...
Third, they wanted to beat Gears Tactics to release.
Word of mouth is that Gears Tactics is real good, apparently. I'm interested to give it a spin when it's lesss.. stratospheric, cost wise.
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891
What?
For the record i have not experienced any bugs except Cherubs phalanx being wonky
Xbox gamepass for Windows... $5 a month, $1 for the first
I haven't downloaded it yet but like.. its basically free
As an aside I keep making the same mistake in my game, and I can't break myself out of it. I've done it like 4 times now! Cease fire grenade to unload enemy weapons, followed by Battle Madness where they're just like "oh thanks, I'll just reload this gun..." >_<
Aren’t all the master crafted upgrades like that? They’re a one and done and it applies to all weapons/Armor of that type.
Origin: KafkaAU B-Net: Kafka#1778
...Huh, i didnt know. Got too used to having Windows 7 until just recently. Thanks for the heads up, @Goumindong
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
Switch: 0293 6817 9891