XCOM 2!

[leviath]

I'm seriously considering waiting for the first basic balance mods before playing the game as I did with EU back then.

[Inhuman One]

Yes that tongue ability from vipers seems very much bugged and overpowered. A viper pulled one of my soldiers back to her TWICE in a row when I tried to move him to the evac site.

It needs a cooldown and it needs to not go through walls. Had that happen once too, I had put my people on overwatch and stayed a bit away since I figured the viper would need to move first to be able to do anything since I couldnt shoot it either. I try to kill the vipers first.

Codex is a bit of a pain, but I only encountered it twice so cant say much about it. I am close to having plasma weapons so it should be easier to kill it in one shot then so it cant clone itself.
Ranger class is perfect against codex however since they still have their sword when their ammo is drained. I tend to have two rangers in my group.

[gastovski]

Is death from above bugged for the sharpshooter? Or am I not getting it? Was on top of a scafolding, fired, and my turn was over.

Death from above gives you extra action "only" for pistol attack i think.

[Inhuman One]

Well my ranger received it as an extra ability and he used it to kill two sectoids from above when he discovered it, and nearly killed a codex with his third shot. Thats a lot of attacks in one turn.

[Candy_Licker]

Yeah stun troopers can be frustrating but nothing beats those Vipers. Pulling squad mates from behind full cover at 50ft away through two walls to instantly constrict them where I can't even reach.

Yeah Vipers are really annoying. Promptly caused my first casualty when I met one. This tongue attack is nearly unavoidable with the extreme long range.

What bugs me the most is the pacing in the campaign. The project moves on so extremely fast, frankly I have to devote all my ressources into comm stations/power supply and barely anything else. Even picking up the supplies takes 3 full days ffs. I still don't have any real improvments in gear cause I can't build the workshops, yet I encounter new enemies all the time.
You really need engineers above anything else, but recruiting them is outrageously expensive. I hope I can pick one up in a mission soon, or I might get into real trouble soon.

[Inhuman One]

I made some small adjustments to the game files to counter the difficulty issues a bit. Its quite easy to do and I rather do that than get frustrated. Just made the game a bit easier on easy mode.

I cut research times in half, let me start with 500 power so I dont need to waste space on power stations and increased starting resources by a fair bit.
Made no changes to the avatar progression though, I wanted to fight against that timer but just wanted to give myself a better chance to prepare against it.

Managed to reduce it to three dots while it has been halfway at some point. And I still lost a complete team during a mission despite them having the predator armor likely a bit sooner than normal due to the reduced research time.

[eXistenZ]

Death from above gives you extra action "only" for pistol attack i think.

No, description mentions the sniper rifle.

Havent attacked the first blacksite yet and the avatar project is already at 8/12.....


And those stunners are a huge pain.

[gastovski]

No, description mentions the sniper rifle.

Havent attacked the first blacksite yet and the avatar project is already at 8/12.....


And those stunners are a huge pain.

You can do anything except using sniper rifle abilities when you elevated up, that's what it is.

[prithupaul]

I just finished easy mode through this four day weekend here . I will probably try veteran once its more balanced, and the first few expansions are released.

I did not loose any soldiers other than the scripted deaths in the tutorial, and the avatar counter never crossed 7 "marks". That is the only way I enjoy playing. Allowing fully developed soldiers getting killed due to RNG, just to be "hardcore", literally feels the killing off valuable time - something suitable only for jobless basement dwellers (IMHO). Call me a "carebear" or whatever, but I would rather play on easy and reload a turn if necessary than just throw away time.

But I still think some of the enemy abilities are ridiculously powerful. The only way I ensured 100% "flawless" or "excellent" victories was by basically killing off enemies (other than the occasional Advent infantry) before they even get a chance to attack.

My tactics inside spoilers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My most hated enemies ie the ones that I would absolutely try to kill or disable before they have a chance to act -
1. Codex with its weapon jamming over a large area.. which then explodes. They also teleport and clone when they get attacked. Ridiculous and annoying.
2. The gatekeeper with psychic reanimating explosions
3. The Sectopod with its one-shot-kill damage
4. The Andromedon with its double life
5. The annoyingly difficult to hit Archons
6. The puny Shield Trooper annoyingly giving shields to all enemies around.
7. Chryssalids that would gain an immediate free and surprise attack the moment they dig out of the ground. Usually I put a specialist on overwatch early in the turn when I learn of Chryssalids in the area.

My favorite and apparently very successful tactics -
1. Heavies, or any unit with powered armor (all of them in my teams), for explosions and shredding damage, to weaken crowds and strip armor. I would usually start my attack with a literal blast, preferably one from a guided missile.
2. Sniper sharpshooter, with Serial, which can wipe out hordes of weakened enemies in one turn. I reinforce this using ammo clip size and free reload upgrades. Once killed 8 enemies in one turn.
3. Sniper sharpshooter, with Cone of Fire (not sure about the name), which can kill or damage three enemies during overwatch.
4. Gunslinging sharpshooter, with Quickdraw + the "shoot once at all visible enemies" skills for multiple attacks in half-a-turn. The Fanfire (three shots at the same target) is great for killing giants as well.
5. Rangers. with increased dodge (via sims), and Untouchable skill, who will bait overpowered enemies (if they survive my turn) and absorb those extreme high damage attacks without a scratch.
6. Melee ranger, with the Reaper skill, to go on a melee chain-kill ramapage on weakened enemies. Similar to Serial, but with some penalties.
7. Stealth ranger, with individual concealment, are invaluable for secretly scouting enemies, and blasting them unawares.
8. Specialists, with Haywire Protocol, to hack Gatekeepers and Sectopods, and then send them on suicide blast on to their company.
9. Psychic, with Rift (especially with Insanity + Schism) will kill or mind-control organic crowds. You can also over-train psychics to have ALL possible skills currently, which I suspect is a bug.
10. Specialists, with the double overwatch skill. I would use specialists for only overwatch and hacking, as opposed to direct attacks unless absolutely necessary.

Regarding the strategic layer, I just did what seemed right at the moment. May be I just got lucky. I focused on military upgrades and research early on, and basically prioritized contacting regions that would lead me to the Alien facilities. I chose missions with intel / supply rewards, and even encouraged dark events that put more enemies on the map for more XP and loot.

Long live the resistance.

[Markas]

I just finished easy mode through this four day weekend here . I will probably try veteran once its more balanced, and the first few expansions are released.

I did not loose any soldiers other than the scripted deaths in the tutorial, and the avatar counter never crossed 7 "marks". That is the only way I enjoy playing. Allowing fully developed soldiers getting killed due to RNG, just to be "hardcore", literally feels the killing off valuable time - something suitable only for jobless basement dwellers (IMHO). Call me a "carebear" or whatever, but I would rather play on easy and reload a turn if necessary than just throw away time.

Sounds like a pretty tension and challenge-free game tbh.

[Manco]

I made some small adjustments to the game files to counter the difficulty issues a bit. Its quite easy to do and I rather do that than get frustrated. Just made the game a bit easier on easy mode.

I cut research times in half, let me start with 500 power so I dont need to waste space on power stations and increased starting resources by a fair bit.
Made no changes to the avatar progression though, I wanted to fight against that timer but just wanted to give myself a better chance to prepare against it.

Managed to reduce it to three dots while it has been halfway at some point. And I still lost a complete team during a mission despite them having the predator armor likely a bit sooner than normal due to the reduced research time.

Seriously? Even normal isn't much of a challenge, and I'm not some hardcore player (I even save scum when the RNG is being ridiculous or I've made avoidable mistakes like forgetting overwatches (I forget 2/3 enemy overwatches, I might need some neurochemical help)). The whole point of XCOM is that tension, I perfectly understand going through the motions once, to get the story and get a hang for the mechanics and abilities, but you're turning it into an interactive comicbook. The actual game part is gone.

Don't worry about the avatar counter btw, it's not an insta gameover (10-20 days after all pips are filled out). If you keep tabs on a single advent blacksite in an accessible region at all times, you basically can't lose the game until much further in the campaign.

Some more tips:
-panicked rangers bladestorm your own troops, and meleeing mutons is potentially suicide, their counter nullifies your attack and does a lot of damage.
-Keep gatekeepers away from masses of civilians. Had one turn half a dozen civvies and a bunch of ADVENT corpses into zombies with one attack. If it wasn't for some lucky crits, that would've been a whipe.
-Flashbangs are life. They cancel overwatches and deny the most powerful abilities to some of the scariest enemies (no stuns and no mind control are the two big ones, the latter iirc even works when the mind control is already active)
-get a specialist with bluescreen rounds. Sectopods and MECs will die by the dozen suddenly.
-hack 2nd stage andromedons. Fairly easy hack, and enemies love shooting a huge wide open target.
-Big melee enemies like the faceless have a melee range of multiple tiles and will wreck everything around you. So don't stand near cars.
-Blade rangers become underpowered fairly quickly, reaper is good for clearing trash but in most cases 2 shotgun blasts will be more useful.

[Inhuman One]

I do play on ironmode, combat is not a problem for me. Outside of that one total team wipe I only lost one other soldier early on. (In an ironic twist of fate it was the remade version of my most succesfull and beloved X-com 1 character)
Oh, and I did lose another one later.. in total that's five deaths since two where unconcious and not dead during the team whipe. And one of those two I even resqued later when he appeared as a VIP.

I just don't like to worry about resources and prefer to just be concerned about combat.

[Candy_Licker]

Some more tips:
-panicked rangers bladestorm your own troops, and meleeing mutons is potentially suicide, their counter nullifies your attack and does a lot of damage.
-Keep gatekeepers away from masses of civilians. Had one turn half a dozen civvies and a bunch of ADVENT corpses into zombies with one attack. If it wasn't for some lucky crits, that would've been a whipe.
-Flashbangs are life. They cancel overwatches and deny the most powerful abilities to some of the scariest enemies (no stuns and no mind control are the two big ones, the latter iirc even works when the mind control is already active)
-get a specialist with bluescreen rounds. Sectopods and MECs will die by the dozen suddenly.
-hack 2nd stage andromedons. Fairly easy hack, and enemies love shooting a huge wide open target.
-Big melee enemies like the faceless have a melee range of multiple tiles and will wreck everything around you. So don't stand near cars.
-Blade rangers become underpowered fairly quickly, reaper is good for clearing trash but in most cases 2 shotgun blasts will be more useful.

Thanks for the tips. Unfortunately I went the Blademaster route with nearly all my Rangers so far
Flashangs are really expensive though, 35 supplies just to equip one soldier with it I find it really difficult managing the ressources.
Hacking spec. seems really useless or am I doing it wrong? Even if I go the hacker route, chances are 60% at best, with severe drawbacks if it fails. And mechs/robots are no big deal for me (yet], and it's not that I could put it to use that often, usually I come across one per mission.

What does PCS stand for again? There's a thing called Integrated Warfare in the Guerilla Tactics School, but I don't know what the abbrev. stands for.

[gastovski]

Thanks for the tips. Unfortunately I went the Blademaster route with nearly all my Rangers so far
Flashangs are really expensive though, 35 supplies just to equip one soldier with it I find it really difficult managing the ressources.
Hacking spec. seems really useless or am I doing it wrong? Even if I go the hacker route, chances are 60% at best, with severe drawbacks if it fails. And mechs/robots are no big deal for me (yet], and it's not that I could put it to use that often, usually I come across one per mission.

What does PCS stand for again? There's a thing called Integrated Warfare in the Guerilla Tactics School, but I don't know what the abbrev. stands for.

http://xcom.wikia.com/wiki/Personal_Combat_Sims

Integrated Warfare enhances PCS buffs.

[prithupaul]

Sounds like a pretty tension and challenge-free game tbh.

Indeed. I have enough tension and stress in my actual job. I prefer my rec time to be free of that. And my challenge in XCOM2 was not to loose a single soldier, and prevent the enemy from acting whenever possible, which was fun enough for me.

[Inhuman One]

It's pretty fun to make characters though, I made the entire commando team from the movie predator the other day. They all pretty much look the part. Very far in my current playthrough so dont know if they will show up but am hoping to see some in my next playthrough. In their biography I described them as being presumed to have died during first contact with a predator but having survived somehow. Exept for Dutch of course.

These guys just seem like such a perfect fit for this game, now we just need a Predator alien added through a mod.

[Twido]

Yes that tongue ability from vipers seems very much bugged and overpowered. A viper pulled one of my soldiers back to her TWICE in a row when I tried to move him to the evac site.

I feel your pain.

I had a soldier plucked out of full cover by a viper. I move my two guys up to shoot the viper, first misses an 80% shot, the second misses a 75% shot. In the alien turn my guy is killed by constriction sending one of my guys into a panic and he hunkers down. The snake plucks the other guy out of cover and begins constriction. Because my guy panicked, I don't get a turn an the soldier died. The snake then plucks the last guy out of cover.... I know the game has rng and that sometimes it will screw you over for no fault of your own, but that really pissed me off because I had no control over anything for several turns.

At least your soldiers don't turn around and shoot their friends every time they panic anymore.

I'm still enjoying the game though. Its interesting because they didn't really fix the underlying problems from the first game but they provided so many extra and interesting features in a really interesting setting so I don't focus on those problems so much.

If you are thinking of buying this, I would hold out until there is some sort of performance patch though.

[Candy_Licker]

It's pretty fun to make characters though, I made the entire commando team from the movie predator the other day. They all pretty much look the part. Very far in my current playthrough so dont know if they will show up but am hoping to see some in my next playthrough. In their biography I described them as being presumed to have died during first contact with a predator but having survived somehow. Exept for Dutch of course.

These guys just seem like such a perfect fit for this game, now we just need a Predator alien added through a mod.

I created the Firefly crew, only have Inara as scientist so far, but I can also recruit Jayne now. Hair and faces leave a lot to be desired though, especially compared to gear. Voices also sound too much alike, but I really like it that soldiers have different attitudes.

[Zeion]

I really like the new XCOM. I feel like they took all cool elements from XCOM 1 and made them better, and also removed some minor problems about the old game. Certainly a 90% game.

[Candy_Licker]

Ist it important to build the shadow chamber fast or can I take my time?