XCOM 2 Catch-All

I'm kind of mad at myself. I was doing the honor system of playing ironman. I was abiding by it for a while, even when I lost my 2 top guys in the first chosen mission. I lost another 1 or two soldiers after that and accepted them. The first time I reloaded was when I thought I could grenade from a location and couldn't. I reloaded that type of thing maybe 3 times. I guess that one isn't too bad. I reloaded once after that when I lost my favorite sniper because she was attacked and lost control of her hacked mec. I didn't think the enemy in question could reach her. I think I also reloaded one other time but I can't remember why.

It gets harder not to reload as I get further into the game because I'm about ready to wrap this one up. I think I'm doing the research for the final couple of missions. If I play again maybe I'll have to sect the ironman option. I think I could have survived the things I reloaded for but now I'll never know.

Ironman isn't impossible to reload. Just very tedious. You have to go to the file system and copy your save manually, or alt-f4 out the moment something goes wrong. So it doesn't make it impossible to back up your game, just very, very hard. This can keep you a lot more honest, just from how tedious it would be to rejigger your save files and then work 2 weeks back to where you got hammered.

LarryC wrote:

Ironman isn't impossible to reload. Just very tedious. You have to go to the file system and copy your save manually, or alt-f4 out the moment something goes wrong. So it doesn't make it impossible to back up your game, just very, very hard. This can keep you a lot more honest, just from how tedious it would be to rejigger your save files and then work 2 weeks back to where you got hammered.

Hah.

I remember doing this with the old X-Wing game. I set up batch files on the desktop that did a manual copy and a restore. Periodically between missions, I would go click the back up. If I died in some cheese-y collision, I would quit and restore. I think the Collector's Edition added that functionality. That game was HARD.

Chimalli wrote:
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

Believe me, I was throwing the things everywhere. Including two lures. The little Fecker was quite content to stay where he was. Must have been the only tile on the map I never drew a direct LoS on...............

Actually, I find the lost to be more of a chore than an interesting mechanic. Unfortunately, the dark event "The lost can appear on any map" is a total bind. You spend ages not moving to take out whatever advent force it is you are fighting plus the lost, by which time god knows how many swarms have swarmed in. Early game it's probably lethal, but once you have good aim snipers / rangers with bladestorm (in case they miss) It's mostly boring. I can see what firaxis were trying to do, but I'm not sure they've quite got the effect they were going for.

So, two questions:

  • Do all explosives create new swarms of Lost, or just lure existing mobs to you? Further, will an enemy mech's explosives draw the Lost to them, or both parties?
  • I was under the assumption that the aliens followed their own schedule, but I hadn't seen advanced aliens until the day after upgrading to beam weapons. Was it just a coincidence, or do harder enemies unlock as you progress down the tech tree?

Mordin Solus & Captain Kirrahe and a bunch of Male and Female Salarians are ready for the alien menace in WotC!

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A_Unicycle wrote:

So, two questions:

  • Do all explosives create new swarms of Lost, or just lure existing mobs to you? Further, will an enemy mech's explosives draw the Lost to them, or both parties?
  • I was under the assumption that the aliens followed their own schedule, but I hadn't seen advanced aliens until the day after upgrading to beam weapons. Was it just a coincidence, or do harder enemies unlock as you progress down the tech tree?

For #1 the amount of noise you make will create new swarms and send them at you, this includes gunshots etc as well. if you keep lobbing grenades new swarms will keep showing up.

For #2 i thought it had more to do with how far you are date-wise or story-beat-wise, i don't think the tech tree influenced it. if i remember correctly there is even an achievement for not researching anything and winning with regular guns. i assume in that case sectopods etc still show up.

sortimat wrote:
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.

Very much so. I have my Colonel Sniper with the Icarus Armour, Hunter Sniper Rifle and Pistol with Talon rounds and an armoured vest. Jump to high spot, rain death from above and watch the advent hit the floor.

I thought the new classes were OP, but that setup is just god mode on crack!

There's an unusual number of reviews and comments online that say that War of The Chosen firmly puts XCOM into supeheroic territory. Which game wasn't? Even Gollop's UFO Defense had flying power-suited Iron Man wanna bes flying out of Avengers.

If anything, War of the Chosen tones it down some because the aliens don't look quite so goofy.

Well f*ck it.

I've been putting off War of the Chosen due to my ongoing Long War 2 playthrough, but I after literally two hours of fruitlessly save-scumming numerous missions before aborting each one due to being hopelessly overpowered, I think I'm ready to accept the death-spiral.

Not sure if this means saying f*ck it to the game entirely, starting LW2 over (but by god, it took me so long to get this far already) or plumping for WotC.

EDIT - on the plus side, at least with the restart, the GWJ character pool has kicked in, so while I might have a half dozen green rookies, at least they're good people.

Get War of the Chosen.

The criticisms of XCOM that Long War attempt to solve are: it's over too fast, the tech tree isn't extensive enough, and the entire campaign can feel linear without too much of a back-and-forth.

War of the Chosen puts paid to all those criticisms. I don't know yet if it still has the too-fragile death spiral problem, but it doesn't look like it. How so?

There are three critical resources in XCOM:

Supplies
Intel
Time

In the base game and the first game, the third most critical resource is inevitably tied to the first two. Once you're down enough, you can no longer dig yourself out of that hole. War of the Chosen changes that. You can trade Intel, supplies, research, and soldiers for time through the Resistance Ring. Instead of getting intel, supplies, more soldiers, or other option, you can always just choose the covert mission/s that takes away Avatar Project Progress. This gives you a solid way to hit the aliens where it hurts even when they're hitting your Resistance Cells and wiping them out (requiring new Contacts).

I'm not sure exactly how much back-and-forth can happen in a game before it gets hopeless, but the game feels like it's extremely forgiving. New Faction Hero recruits come online at your top rank so as long as you keep a top ranker alive (or maybe it's the time?), you can get fresh recruits at top rank. That also goes for Soldier pick ups. There's even a Regional Perk that allows you to train recruits up to Sergeant rank once you have the GTS, straight up.

TLDR: Play WoTC. One of us! One of us!

I just lost my 13-hour run assaulting a Chosen stronghold 4 of my soldiers missed their overwatch shots, and my ranger missed her auto melee attack against a chrysalid in the same turn. Absolutely ruined me.

Another thing, holy wow I'm oblivious. There's an EVAC OPTION? I've played close to 70 hours and only just noticed you can abort if things aren't going well. FML.

sortimat wrote:
A_Unicycle wrote:

So, two questions:

  • Do all explosives create new swarms of Lost, or just lure existing mobs to you? Further, will an enemy mech's explosives draw the Lost to them, or both parties?
  • I was under the assumption that the aliens followed their own schedule, but I hadn't seen advanced aliens until the day after upgrading to beam weapons. Was it just a coincidence, or do harder enemies unlock as you progress down the tech tree?

For #1 the amount of noise you make will create new swarms and send them at you, this includes gunshots etc as well. if you keep lobbing grenades new swarms will keep showing up.

For #2 i thought it had more to do with how far you are date-wise or story-beat-wise, i don't think the tech tree influenced it. if i remember correctly there is even an achievement for not researching anything and winning with regular guns. i assume in that case sectopods etc still show up.

Thanks! As assumed. Just wanted to clear it up.

conversely, I absolutely stormed my way through my second Chosen boss fight on 'normal' - Slaughtered the Warlock with overwatch the second he appeared with overwatch (the map layout with the central raised pillar is by FAR easier than the one without it) - focused everyone on taking out the regeneration device before he even managed to spawn in some reinforcements...then met him with my buddy Mox and a volley of pistol rounds to finish him off when he reappeared (that ability to fire three pistol shots at one target is insanely powerful with a damage boosted pistol!)

If i hadn't had lost someone in on the way to getting to the chamber this would have been an absolute walk in the park.

Two down, one to go!

Commanders:

Checking in on latest view of whether it's preferable to start Xcom 2 with the WoTC add on. I head overseas for six months so I may not have the chance to download once abroad. I played through the original Xcom but not enemy unknown. I would p,ah WoTC on PS4. Current thought is I'll play Xcom 2 with original DLC while I'm away and then when I return next year I'll play WoTC on my PC with mods. I do hate the timer aspect.
I know this is a personal call and I appreciate the opportunity to type out loud.

Thank you,
Chad

P.s. I picked up Dead by Daylight in the Humble Bundle deal a couple weeks ago. A fun guilty pleasure.

Weird. I think just had near a month with no missions outside of the the A vs B one where it has the bonus of countering a dark event(?) No faction request (have met all three), council-man\resistance etc wants this, or plain vanilla or alien or lost-shoot rodeo that I recall. I went around and scooped up like three POIs on the map and did a few research projects. I'm potentially missing one more msn, somewhere in there, but it was one big smoke break under the avenger for everyone. Mostly resistance ring 'missions' breaking up watch-the-clock magnetic and enhanced magnetic weapons research.

I think the game's much more fun with the Wotc expansion stuff, Chooka1. I only really played through vanilla once and then never really felt the need to go back to it, but I'm currently on my second run of WoTC and it's holding my interest much more than the base game ever did (there's a lot of subtle stuff added to help replayability and keeping things different each time).

On the other hand, it throws a LOT of stuff at you up-front which might be overwhelming if you've never run through the base game at least once before.

If the timer is a major factor though then you definitely want WOTC. You can optionally double the timers both for the overall "doom clock" and on individual missions. You still have to keep one eye on it, but it's a MUCH less hectic and stressful experience.

Nova from Starcraft II Universe, ready for WotC!

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pyxistyx wrote:

I think the game's much more fun with the Wotc expansion stuff, Chooka1. I only really played through vanilla once and then never really felt the need to go back to it, but I'm currently on my second run of WoTC and it's holding my interest much more than the base game ever did (there's a lot of subtle stuff added to help replayability and keeping things different each time).

On the other hand, it throws a LOT of stuff at you up-front which might be overwhelming if you've never run through the base game at least once before.

If the timer is a major factor though then you definitely want WOTC. You can optionally double the timers both for the overall "doom clock" and on individual missions. You still have to keep one eye on it, but it's a MUCH less hectic and stressful experience.

Thank you. Not having mod support on PS4 makes 39.95 worth it for the timer doubler on WoTC. I suppose I can always play the base game for a bit and then restart.
Probably a good "basics" WoTC guide out there.
Thanks again!

Chad

I just defended my base from the Warlock. I'd had enough. Time to bring the fight to him. The only problem is most of my Colonels and Majors were tired or shaken and a few had adopted an unhealthy fear of the Chosen. So I just have to scan for a few days and get them on their feet and I'll do the covert mission to finally find the Warlock's base. Then a Guerrilla mission pops up. Which Dark Event should i block? Poison rounds for ADVENT soldiers, Tech and Psychic defenses doubled, or a hidden event I didn't want to waste the Intel on? I chose the poison rounds because it would also net me an Engineer. I win the mission, scan some more so my A and B teams are healed up, refreshed, and have negative traits removed. One day before I can reassign my covert action the Dark events go into effect. Tech and Psychic resistance doubled and that's fine. The hidden event?

The Chosen no longer have any weaknesses.

sh*t.

I again think cold starting with WotC might be a bit much. Especially know that I know that the Alien Hunter stuff is included in WotC. The Chosen themselves aren't that bad, but when you come up against the mother Berserker in the middle of an already difficult fight, that's an awful lot to throw at an Xcom rookie.

kazooka wrote:

I again think cold starting with WotC might be a bit much. Especially know that I know that the Alien Hunter stuff is included in WotC. The Chosen themselves aren't that bad, but when you come up against the mother Berserker in the middle of an already difficult fight, that's an awful lot to throw at an Xcom rookie.

Only if you already own the DLC for vanilla. I remain Alien Hunter free! I have my cool robot friendo though.

You can also disable the DLC when you start a campaign, if you so choose.

Agreed. I'd buy WotC, play a first game without DLC to get the feel of things, and then do WotC with the "integrated DLC" option.

I was going to sit on the sidelines for a little bit longer...but then GMG has WOTC at 25% off. That's enough incentive for me to jump in!

Kasumi Goto ready to face the Chosen!

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So I finished up last night and immediately started again. This time, same difficulty (Commander), but added in the Ironman mode. It's definitely a lot more intense and I enjoy it more. I lost an early soldier to a Sectoid which just came out of nowhere, but I've been doing well ever since.

One thing though, I picked some of the extended options, like double mission timers, double Avatar Project and start at Templar base... but I still started normally and had the lost mission to rescue Dragunova and Mox. Is it because I had that mission ticked? Should I have unticked that box and enabled the Rulers and Spark DLC?

Confused.

Thessia Update for WOTC is live!!

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Anyone else having a few bug issues? I was doing a supply raid last night (the one where you have to tag crates rather than just defeat everyone), and after being revealed tagging the first couple of crates eliminated all the visible pods, and then popped conceal back on my ranger. When she scouted forward she triggered two more pods (who then shot at her) like she was visible despite conceal still being active. Annoying.

Yikes, nothing like that. I had my first bug today, though, which incompletely locked up my PC. The game started stuttering for half an hour, just dipping in FPS every now end then. Suddenly frozen when I shot something. I had to physically reboot my computer.

I had a crash as I entered the final mission, but got in after a restart. I had consistent issues with the UI seeming to "forget" which element was on top / had priority. For example, if I had a grenade throw active, and tried to switch to another action by clicking the action button, the grenade would throw to that location instead. I think this happened most often with the extra buttons to the right that start appearing when the number of active abilities exceeds 10. I quickly learned to back completely out of any action before clicking another action. This also affected soldier selection, so sometimes I would click an action button for a soldier and it would switch to the soldier underneath the action button instead. I had a couple instances of psi storms being invisible, and a few other graphical glitches.

Overall, though, this is probably the least buggy version of X-Com ever. The issue with action button clicks not taking priority over targeting is probably the most serious, as it can cause horrible friendly fire incidents.