XCOM 2 Catch-All

pyxistyx wrote:

wow...ok. One of the chosen finally caught up to the Avenger. :O

That's quite the epic mission you get out of it. I'd recommend letting it happen at least once!

I'd agree, but then I'm still sour. I lost 5 of my top 10 soldiers in that mission with the other 5 being severely injured. Needless to say, it led to me losing my campaign!

Yeah my first attempt was such a disaster (literally EVERYTHING managed to go wrong) that I reloaded and tried again from scratch. Only lost one person this time! But I don't think I had any other characters with higher than half-health remaining though. I expected to lose at least three others but they managed to hang on in there!

Took down the Warlock tonight. I actually think he was easier than the Assassin, but it could be because my team is super OP now. Very nice Assault Rifle, but I was kinda hoping for something psiotic to use.

The Warlock seems easier to control without minions to help him.

I love this game, the only thing that would make it better is if there was some kind of co-op feature built in, where I control half the squad and a friend can control the other half in the campaign.

Chimalli wrote:

I love this game, the only thing that would make it better is if there was some kind of co-op feature built in, where I control half the squad and a friend can control the other half in the campaign.

Oh man. I'm completely with you. I would pay the cost of WOTC again if it meant I could get a co-op feature

Grenn wrote:

The Warlock seems easier to control without minions to help him.

Took down the Warlock as my first Chosen kill target. He was becoming problematic for two reasons:

1. Mind control.

2. His constant sermonizing. Seriously. We get it. You lourve the Space Pope. Now, get the f*ck off my porch and take your stupid pamphlets with you.

His death was sweet. I gave his silly rifle to my psi operative.

I had to take out one of the advent sites since I let my timer fill up. I let my reaper sneak all the way in and plant the explosives while the rest of the gang sat back and played some cards. I forgot that there was a 1 turn timer for her to use her shadow ability after coming out of shadow so she did take a little damage on her way hustling back.

She was under suppression and I think some overwatch when she disappeared back into the shadows and got evac'd. I'm working on discovering the 3rd chosen lair so I can get more cool weapons.

I can't take out the Hunter until the weekend so my daughter can watch. She's watched me take out the Assassin and Warlock and I'm under strict instructions that I'm not allowed to take out the hunter until she can watch.

I love raising mini gamers. It's so damn rewarding

Sorbicol wrote:

Was the terminal in a vehicle? This was a problem with LW2 as well, especially when coupled with the Gotcha Again mod (Which I consider essential) For whatever reason the game seems to allow you to see terminals in vehicles (The one that appears in the train carriage is notorious for this) but you cannot hack them unless you are in the vehicle. The same thing can happen when they are located in to trucks too, although that appears a little inconsistent. IF it's anywhere else I think it might be a bug.

I can only specifically remember the layout of a couple of specific instances, but yeah, one of them was in a train car (no mods at that point, though). The other was a building with what should have been a passable window (I think) with line of sight to the terminal. But I also know line of sight rules can get funky, so it's probably just bad luck in that case.

Thanks!

The only real criticism I have for War of the Chosen is that Firaxis didn't arrange for a narrative end beyond the Strongholds so that the momentum is carried into the final mission. Having said that, forging into the final mission without taking out the Chosen is possible, so you can get a nice pacing thing going throughout the campaign, if that's your thing. I've finally taken out the last Chosen - the Warlock was last for me. And I just unlocked Warden Power Armor so even my Squaddies are OP AF.

I just bought my third OP extra power for my Specialist - perhaps the least likely character to be a beastly damage machine. Rapid Fire, Holo-Targeting, and Shredder are true killer powers when present in the same soldier. I have to make a note to look for the same combo in Rangers and Grenadiers. They'd need lots of +Aim, though.

I must say, though, that the reworking and design of the regional powers and Resistance Orders is just inspired. Having varied regional advantages can significantly modify how you play your strategic and tactical game. They amped that up to the nines by giving you more. I have an Infiltration Resistance Order that delays the timer until after you break Concealment. With a Reaper leading the way, this RO changes everything. There's a very significant incentive to sneak all the way into near the objective and then spring an ambush right on top of it. The timer doesn't even matter at that point.

I got a Breakthrough that adds +1 damage to Assault Rifles and another for Shotguns. That makes my Mag weapons into Light Plasma equivalents, but without the straight tech dive into Plasma. There's another Breakthrough that adds +1 HP to light armor variants (Spider Suit and Wraith Armor) and another tech that adds +1 HP to Vests. Together, these allow you to field almost-Power Armor sets, first with Nanoscale Vests, then with Hazmat Vests, but again without being as OP as actual Power Armor.

These randomized bonuses don't just alter the texture of the strategic and tactical game, they also prolong the portion of the game that presents a balanced challenge, your crew being neither constantly at risk of a wipe, but also not facerolling every mission. The added enemy types and powers also extend that part and provide a rich variety of encounters.

There are enough Breakthroughs and Regional Powers and Resistance Orders that you won't see all of them in one game. Christopher Odd has a Resistance Contacts RO that allows him to half-step his Resistance Comms infrastructure. He also has a Between the Eyes RO that allows his soldiers to kill Lost with every hit. That's amazing.

There's a Resistance Order that improves Weapon Mods. And a Breakthrough that adds Mod spaces to weapons. So you could acquire a Mag Rifle with +15% Aim, +3 magazine, and 4 damage on a miss in the mid game. Imagine that on a Ranger with Rapid Fire and Shredder.

So, Pro tip.

If you are in a mission where the only enemy you face is the Lost, and one of the objectives is "neutralise all enemies", make sure you really scout around the map. I Had this last night - I'd planted X4 on the "psionic transmitter" by the end of the 5th turn. I then couldn't figure out why the mission wasn't completing, and just bringing in a new swarm every 3 turns. By the 40th turn I had an inkling that something was up (call me slow) and I had a perfect Overwatch trap set up for each swarm, seeing as they spawned in the same spot each time.
Turns out there was one lost left who was not part of each swarm, tucked away in the corner of the building I had practically levelled in destroying each swarm (Flamethrower on an EXO Suit is fantastic against the lost) who, remarkably, hadn't been spotted by the rest of team despite spending 15 turns scouting every inch of the map.

In the end it took 56 turns, 160 lost killed, with one very minor injury for my grenadier (I like to think this was RSI from pulling the trigger so often): Screenshot

It's clearly WotC's equivalent to finding that last sectoid hidden in a locker on a crusie ship in Terror from the Deep. It's all over except for that last little bastard who refuses to come out. I never even got the indicator that someone was still on the map

Sarah Kerrigan of Starcraft II fame, is ready for WotC.

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/866236641736867245/D0E9A25EE9E158C937C8192A539E41AF048D714C/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|637:358&composite-to%3D%2A%2C%2A%7C637%3A358&background-color=black)

First, kexx's work is AMAZING. That needs to be put our front and center as it can't be said enough.
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Curious what folks think on beefing up the lost? Especially those that have done an entire playthrough. In missions where you put down 60-80 of the things the zombie hoarde initially feels amazing, but with a proper setup they aren't as much of a serious threat. I'm thinking of modding|editing said mod values (or from stock) so that they pop ~10ish tiles further out on initial sighting, but do ~ 2x the damage. Also, for more chaos, probably setting them to 50/50 aggro on the player so that, in an equidistance situation, they evenly target advent|aliens as much as the player. I'm wondering if that's just asking for too much trouble late game though.

The new retaliation missions are fun. The Resistance fighters are so effective!

I'm late game now and out of a retaliation with like 14 enemies, I only killed 4. Those fighters were just smoking the xenos.

^ HAH, I actually edited down their aim a little. I was like, resistance bros, save some alien-kill XP for my low level squaddies! I was doing three to four turns of full dash to get a last shot in on a pod that popped far-map near a cluster of the locals.

I imagine them staring slack-jawed as my guys came huffing and puffing onto the scene -- 'Yeah XCOM, we got this... Go back to your coffee break.' Ranking on-scene soldier, Sergeant Swanson, just shook his head in shame. Oh well, at least he got that faceless early mission..

LarryC wrote:

The only real criticism I have for War of the Chosen is that Firaxis didn't arrange for a narrative end beyond the Strongholds so that the momentum is carried into the final mission. Having said that, forging into the final mission without taking out the Chosen is possible, so you can get a nice pacing thing going throughout the campaign, if that's your thing.

thats been my only real complaint. i finished off the 3 chosen because they were the most pressing issue i had at the time, i basically took them out when they got to the point where they were each hunting the avenger. having come out the other side it's just silly how OP I am. And with the forced rotation from the new tired mechanic and i ended up with over 2 full squads of colonels. xcom2 always had a problem with the difficulty curve going way down in the end game, i think the expansion made it worse.

Sorbicol wrote:

So, Pro tip.

If you are in a mission where the only enemy you face is the Lost, and one of the objectives is "neutralise all enemies", make sure you really scout around the map. I Had this last night - I'd planted X4 on the "psionic transmitter" by the end of the 5th turn. I then couldn't figure out why the mission wasn't completing, and just bringing in a new swarm every 3 turns. By the 40th turn I had an inkling that something was up (call me slow) and I had a perfect Overwatch trap set up for each swarm, seeing as they spawned in the same spot each time.
Turns out there was one lost left who was not part of each swarm, tucked away in the corner of the building I had practically levelled in destroying each swarm (Flamethrower on an EXO Suit is fantastic against the lost) who, remarkably, hadn't been spotted by the rest of team despite spending 15 turns scouting every inch of the map.

In the end it took 56 turns, 160 lost killed, with one very minor injury for my grenadier (I like to think this was RSI from pulling the trigger so often): Screenshot

It's clearly WotC's equivalent to finding that last sectoid hidden in a locker on a crusie ship in Terror from the Deep. It's all over except for that last little bastard who refuses to come out. I never even got the indicator that someone was still on the map

Use explosives to draw the lost to you

I thought that just spawned new pods, not necessarily pulled any existing mobs to you.

First, I am loving a lot of the changes they've made to UI and how missions work, especially retaliations and supply runs; however, this expansion feels like the most "That's XCOM, Baby!" of XCOMs.

I think I was on my mission 6, maybe 7. It was a supply run against Advent and The Lost... and yay, the Assassin. Initially I thought I had a pretty good handle on it, then the Assassin kept dazing people, running away, shrouding, rinse and repeat. Swarm after swarm kept showing up (apparently Flashbangs attract them too). I decided I really didn't need the supplies that much, so I tried to get everyone up and extracted... in that process - I killed the Assassin and cleared the map somehow.

Spoilered for bandwidth.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/869614342757711140/BA74AF0006ABE373591901CE03C6E34CCC4DB7C8/)

Naterstein wrote:

I think I was on my mission 6, maybe 7. It was a supply run against Advent and The Lost... and yay, the Assassin. Initially I thought I had a pretty good handle on it, then the Assassin kept dazing people, running away, shrouding, rinse and repeat. Swarm after swarm kept showing up (apparently Flashbangs attract them too). I decided I really didn't need the supplies that much, so I tried to get everyone up and extracted... in that process - I killed the Assassin and cleared the map somehow.

Spoilered for bandwidth.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/869614342757711140/BA74AF0006ABE373591901CE03C6E34CCC4DB7C8/)

i had a similar one, but it was a resistance mission where i had to rescue 2 survivors and the assassin showed up. this is the mission where the reaper really clicked for me, think she had like 50 kills herself.

Spoiler:

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/865110340433842163/1D1D3F2EA593F57F0689BE205F18573B46DF711C/)

Ok, I thought I was having a pretty good time with the DLC, then a resistance mission popped to rescue an engineer, Major Grenadier, Major Specialist and 71 Intel. Whaaaaat?

I load in and see my squad looking a bit larger than usual. Turns out my resistance orders for an extra resistance soldier and advent trooper to occasionally join my squad both triggered. Nice. Feeling much better with 8 soldiers!

Secured the engineer no trouble and got the grenadier without much issue. But got sloppy and had a bad activate on a lost swarm & sectopod pod that gave my top grenadier a nasty wound. But with 9 troopers it wasn't much trouble to mop up and bring everybody home safe.

I wasn't expecting some Long War squad sizes and body counts to show up in my WotC, but I very much like. Walking out of there with 10 soldiers shooting back towards the lost swarm while protecting an engineer certainly felt badass. Can't wait to see what shows up next.

Just finished my playthrough on Veteran. Man, what a ride. I was one of the ones affected by the performance issues in the previous game, and I hadn't gone back to it - this update fixed everything, and I really enjoyed getting back into the X-Com world.

I felt like the Hunter was the weakest of the Chosen, primarily because it was too easy to get out of the impact zone of his main ability. Could be that's harder on higher difficulty levels. The Assassin started as the strongest of the three - I had an early squad wipe because of her. Once you figure out how to find her, though, she becomes a lot easier.

The Warlock, on the other hand, started off easy but eventually came close to causing a late-game squad wipe for one of my secondary teams. He mind-controlled my reaper, who then used Banish on my medic. I ended up having to take out the Reaper in order to get to the Warlock without everyone being killed, though I was able to stabilize and carry him out after the Warlock was down. Mindshields for everyone in Warlock territory.

The Resistance Order that keeps the timer from starting until you are discovered is ... well, really critical in the early game, when you don't have absurdly powerful soldiers like Reaper Templars. Also, getting an early hack that has the 50% reduced scan timer on the strategic map is really incredible.

Most fun moment - waiting for ADVENT reinforcements to arrive with my Ranger, Reaper Templar, and Skirmisher standing on the flare. Four up, four down, not a single one of them made it one step.

I just had the

Spoiler:

Avenger defense

mission and it worked out almost perfectly.

I needed to destroy a beacon with was a good distance away. The first wave of enemies to approach contained a heavy mech. I sent my specialist out thereto deal with it, which triggered some more enemies to move closer. I had 100% chance to disable and a 47% chance to take command of it. I went for the 47% and got it.

This gave my team squadsight and I was able to shoot out the beacon without getting close. We got back to evacuate and took off. It was sad to see my poor big mec buddy get destroyed as I left. He really helped us out, but in a couple turns it would have tried to kill us, so I guess it worked out OK.

Aetius wrote:

Most fun moment - waiting for ADVENT reinforcements to arrive with my Ranger, Reaper Templar, and Skirmisher standing on the flare. Four up, four down, not a single one of them made it one step. :)

I've stopped doing this because I'm terrified of a purifier dropping in and proccing his death roll.

Planting X4 explosive missions are super easy with the Reaper. While I could send her in alone, I still keep the others around if I want to mop up before I leave.

I've never played with the Alien Hunters DLC before now, and it seems tremendously annoying. The freaking Archon King shows up randomly and takes a bazillion actions. Is there some way this is actually fun? Does it come with other things that are fun? Should I disable it being integrated? Or should I just turn it off next time I play?

The little SPARK guy is fun though.

ChrisGwinn wrote:

The freaking Archon King shows up randomly and takes a bazillion actions. Is there some way this is actually fun? Does it come with other things that are fun? Should I disable it being integrated? Or should I just turn it off next time I play?

I think so - it's yet another way to keep things from getting boring, and you get some pretty cool loot for taking them out.

Spoiler:

He only gets an action when someone visible to him does something - it's very similar to the Skirmisher Battlelord ability. Pop him a few times with troops he can't see and set everyone on Overwatch if you can - he'll go away pretty quick. He doesn't have as much health as the others, so he goes down after only two or three fights. He provides the Icarus armor, which is basically a long-range teleport.

ChrisGwinn wrote:

I've never played with the Alien Hunters DLC before now, and it seems tremendously annoying. The freaking Archon King shows up randomly and takes a bazillion actions. Is there some way this is actually fun? Does it come with other things that are fun? Should I disable it being integrated? Or should I just turn it off next time I play?

the armor sets you get from bringing them down can be nice. if you are prepared for them you can deal, but if they pop at the wrong time they can wipe you out pretty quickly.

i played through the original alien hunters dlc once just to do it, but after that i left it off, i don't find the fights fun at all. thankfully it warns you in wotc when they're going to be in the level.

robc wrote:

It was sad to see my poor big mec buddy get destroyed as I left. He really helped us out, but in a couple turns it would have tried to kill us, so I guess it worked out OK.

The Full Override ability in LW2 was one of my favorite little additions. The MECs were really useful in those faceless missions too.