XCOM 2

Well I'm stuck on the last mission. I have no idea how you are supposed to do this.

Few days late, but sort of related.

Just got what might be the most fun/OP thing I've ever had in XCOM. My best sharpshooter leveled up to Major and got shredder ammo as an AWC extra perk when she leveled up. Next mission I went on, I had a double activation, each pod was a mech, an advent officer and stun lancer. I pulled everyone out of sight, setup a kill zone on that sniper and dropped her into overwatch. The aliens of course moved towards me as they had no LOS to any of my soldiers. End result, two shredded mechs with 2/5 hp left, 3 dead advent and the only reason the fourth survived is I only had a two extra shot clip on my sniper so she ran out of ammo before she could take the sixth shot. For those who have not tried it yet, kill zone on your sharpshooters is so much fun.

Having a sniper with innate shredder ammo is just in general kinda OP, I'm going to have fun with this soldier until the campaign is over. I'm even thinking that ability that shoots at everything with the pistol once might be good with her having shredder, but I haven't checked yet if pistol shots also shred and I would also have to give up kill zone to take that ability, and kill zone is too good.

Pyratec_sl said:

Just got what might be the most fun/OP thing I've ever had in XCOM. My best sharpshooter leveled up to Major and got shredder ammo as an AWC extra perk when she leveled up. Next mission I went on, I had a double activation, each pod was a mech, an advent officer and stun lancer. I pulled everyone out of sight, setup a kill zone on that sniper and dropped her into overwatch. The aliens of course moved towards me as they had no LOS to any of my soldiers. End result, two shredded mechs with 2/5 hp left, 3 dead advent and the only reason the fourth survived is I only had a two extra shot clip on my sniper so she ran out of ammo before she could take the sixth shot. For those who have not tried it yet, kill zone on your sharpshooters is so much fun.

Having a sniper with innate shredder ammo is just in general kinda OP, I'm going to have fun with this soldier until the campaign is over. I'm even thinking that ability that shoots at everything with the pistol once might be good with her having shredder, but I haven't checked yet if pistol shots also shred and I would also have to give up kill zone to take that ability, and kill zone is too good.

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Face off is amazing, combine with killzone on a different sniper I just run in my pistol dude to mop up.
Steam Community :: Screenshot

Bandwagon_sl said:

Jesus christ this game is fantastic.

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I'm sure it is, but it also looks difficult. I watched someone's livestream on Sat all day while playing Double Dragon Neon. Maybe I'll pick this up, but I'm not going to go nuts playing a videogame.

Lithose_sl said:

Man, Gremlin's not ending your turn on use AND being remote controlled makes support healing/aid so much more effective. In EW I only ever used supports for smoke during fights, and to heal up after fights; I almost never healed mid fight, was almost never worth losing an extra shot especially given I'd often have to make my support vulnerable by moving to the injured person or give up good flanking positions to fall back (Which also would force me to take a significantly impaired turn on the guy who was falling back--he'd have a much worse shot.)

Gremlins costing one action and not ending a turn, and remote function fixes all that. Super fucking powerful to heal someone then shoot or toss my specialist into overwatch to have her prevent flanking.

How potent are status effects later, stun, disorient ect? Wondering if I should take robotic hacking or the one that removes status effects. When you remove panic do you get that characters turn back? Status effect removal always seemed kind of week because you lost the removers turn and usually effects lasted one round anyway, and thus you didn't get a turn back by removing them. (Now at least, for sure, you don't lose the full turn from the remover).

Hacking robotics, I have a feeling, is going to be super powerful later--it's why I'm wondering if status effects are a massive PITA later.

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As you may have figured out by now and its been touched on after; hacking robotics is very strong. Hacking terminals has pretty much always seemed not worth it, but I imagine that changes with better hacking. But hacking robotics with the improved skulljack is very effective. I was just on a mission where I could have hacked a turret or a mec unit and for some reason it was easier to hack the mec unit. I had 100% to stun or 70% to hack the mech(the turret was like 90/60), got a successful hack on the mech and it drew a ton of fire and you can use all its abilities. It comes with suppression fire and a rocket barrage, which has an extremely far range/excellent for removing enemy cover. Left it in no cover so my marksman was able to put it down with a pistol shot without using an action after controlling it two turns.

Had to restart. I didn't know that buying guns now in XCom2 meant everyone got the new guns. I looked at the prices initially and thought it was absurd but now it makes a ton more sense. It also feels like to really get rolling in the early game you need to rush out a GTS to get that squad capacity and the perks. It also feels like SMG rangers are the business since the SMG gives you bonus movement so you can facestab aliens more effectively.

Overall I really like the game. Tons of logical improvements. I like how they also made it so with the ammo/nade research lab there is a bit of RNG playing for how each campaign will play out.

Well I need more regular advent soldier bodies.. wutdo

SMGs are terrible. The extra movement is mostly irrelevant because if you actually need that extra mobility when slash lets you use both your blue and yellow move, you're either running way too far forward and risking extra pod activation or your blademaster was way out of position in the first place. Same for skullmining. I'd also rather have the oomph of a shotgun when, say, I'm shooting a Muton to avoid the melee counterattack. Maybe if the squad size was larger it would be worth it to have a dedicated scout who just stays concealed the whole mission. Spending most fights down 1 wouldn't be as big a deal if if was 1 out of 8 instead of 1 out of 6. SMGs had a lot more value in Long War since you could only blue move when using an arc thrower and constant live captures were much more important since live captures could be traded for high value stuff and crafting tier 5 weapons required a captured alien weapon for each one you were building. Additionally, the game isn't balanced around the cost of SMGs. Tier 2 isn't such a big deal, but Tier 3 weapons are expensive enough when you have 5 weapons to build, let alone 6. I suppose you could ignore pistols if you don't have a pistol specced sharpshooter, but pistols are the cheapest one anyway. I would occasionally swap an SMG in for specific missions on certain soldiers, but the weapon upgrade system locks your soldier to a single weapon type the entire game.

Similarly, leaders seem like a bust as well. The abilities are pretty trivial considering the opportunity cost of the soldier missing missions while he's taking leader classes. Scavenger, from the first tier of abilities, seems quite good since it's a passive that doesn't require command range and would add up to a significant amount of extra intel, crystals, and alloys over the course of a campaign and only requires 4 days of training. On the other hand, that requires the supplies and more importantly the Avenger power to upgrade your GTS. The supplies aren't as big a deal, you have to make a lot of choices anyway, but the power could be a big deal considering how strapped you are for power until you get a relay built on a power coil. Officer abilities in Long War were small but significant, and officers could be advanced after leading 5 missions in their current rank instead of being unavailable while they trained. Officers and SMGs were part of an incredibly complex system, whereas here presumably time constraints required the LW devs to implement extremely rudimentary mods to ensure they were bug free in time for release.

Don't get me wrong, XCom 2 is a fantastic game and a major step forward from EU/EW, and it's unfair to compare a base game to an incredibly complex and detailed mod when a dev studio has to adhere to a schedule and a budget while modders don't. But there's still a LOT of room for improvement and 6 months down the road I suspect the right mods could elevate the game from fantastic to masterpiece.

I must play differently because SMGs feel like god mode to me. More so when I get:

Implacable
If you score one or more kills on your turn, you are granted a single bonus move.
Grants a move, not an action (cannot attack or use items)

and a Mobility PCS for chuckles

So good when a Psi user gets it as a bonus, but mainly I use it to run up blast a dude in the face hoping to chain all the enemies I can and then run away to my overwatch/killzone guys that they all run towards and get wiped out.

I feel you get way more milage out of going GTS first. But I haven't even really began to dig into the game that deep.

Proving ground. You have enough starting power for two facilities before you need to build a relay, and you won't even be able to buy the first squad size upgrade for a couple weeks anyway since it requires a SGT. Facility order for a basic opening should be proving, gts, power, radio

*edit*

Has anyone beaten it yet? Curious to see if there are second wave options again.

I'm keeping myself dark in this thread to avoid spoilers, but I just wanted to say this game is amazing. I never played long war, I just didn't have it in me to invest that much time in the game. If the long war helped influence what X-Com 2 is, then those guys need some major kudos. I literally knew/know almost nothing about progression tech etc, I even kept myself in the dark about class skills. The world map is massively compelling, the fact that each region of the globe has its own thematic environments is absolutely incredible. Its really satisfying blowing the roof off your average American residential home. The small touches are absolutely amazing.

I love how missed shots just blow the crap out of the environment. The three most hilarious environmental moments thus far are. Mission 1, I have my troops on a 1 story with simple railing in the corner. They fail miserably at overwatch shots. Two troopers return fire - both miss but they miss in a such a way that the railing all came off - and my soldier fell and died from environmental misses. The second was my sniper from an overpass - blowing a 80% shot against an enemy sitting next to a burning car+ 1 more alien at the trunk. The shot missed into the car instantly exploding it into a double kill. The third was in a retaliation mission where the resistance camp had this massive area of fuel tanks. Shooting it created a massive explosion killed or maimed 3 enemies - in a situation I am certain I would have failed without the dps help.

I'm probably terrible at this game, I don't know. I've only played on Commander/Ironman, and I have restarted far more times than I care to count learning the game systems and then dying miserably to mechanics I didn't know exited until the punishment was just too much to continue. I have yet to get through more than 4 months of the game, but it has been a blast. Rare is a game that gives you this kind of experience, I just love the challenge. I've died to tactical errors in combat, and strategic errors in my ship, but I've never felt cheated and always been able to reflect on things I could have improved. If you are a PC gamer with even half a heart for X-Com. This game is beyond worth a buy. Given the massive quantity of restarts I have done, the first mission - for all that is the same every time, the environment has yet to feel absolutely identical in my mind, which is an astounding accomplishment. The variety of enemies is astounding, at times I feel like I am forced to deal with a new one every single mission, and that first reveal often leaves me struggling to cope and often losing.

Haven't beaten it. I tried at least 6 times with the squad I have taken in and I can't figure out how to do it and gave up for the night. I may have to reload a save from earlier and take a different squad and equipment in. Honestly I was so pissed that I might just watch a video of the ending and not care about beating it anymore.

The rest of the game is great but the final mission is fucking lame.

Legendary is fucking brutal. So far, it's less difficult in terms of RNG and numbers than EW, but it is a lot more difficult overall I think. The extra pod in each mission essentially means it is almost alwaysverydifficult to fight and move without a double activation. However, the extra HP and countdown timer make it so if you don't go for flanks during a fight there is a good chance you'll get bogged down and won't finish the mission. (You need to bring two grenadiers honestly to get rid of cover. Later on once Exo suits come into play it won't be as big a deal but early game is so fucked with this limited space thanks to the extra patrol.)

I haven't got mimetic beacon yet, about to do the first terror mission. But I only plan on letting myself use one per mission. Honest, I don't often say this? But mimic beacon needs a nerf, it is the only utility item anyone should be using, ever. It is better than anything else by a huge margin. You toss that shit behind full cover and it is hilarious how much fire it draws.

All these people loving snipers, but I've never figured out how to make them work, personally.

I think I'm playing a differant game from Gavin. SMG on my hacker has been clutch for beating the timer/skull mining the last Soldier before they kill off an exposed Soldier. Then at higher levels dumping them into a pack to trigger it and getting off some quick shots before being told to retreat by my Ranger (my leaders) and setting up a Serial kill zone has been effective. Also, buffing the squad before an ambush or before a secto barrage had made some later missions pretty easy with far fewer Soldiers ever getting hit.

My understanding they were supposed to be minor and unobtrusive but still significant. I think they accomplished that and gave you more stuff to juggle time/supplies with making it a stronger game as a result. It's not LW nor was it supposed to be. It was an advertisement for how simple it is to mod the game and turn it into the next Skyrim, where presumably along the way someone will make a LW overhaul.