geggis
2911
I mean, once I’ve finished it, I doubt I’ll return. If I lose a game or two, I’ll keep on trucking.
I’m like you most of the time. I rarely replay a game. I’ve got over 500 hours in xcom 2 and I just bought it on switch.
Ragan
2913
The times I’ve replayed Xcom2 I’ve had specific goals in mind (achievements, next level of difficulty, etc). One of my most fun play through was when I built a full squad of Sparks. It was so liberating to not have to worry about finding cover. Flanking shots galore.
None
2914
Same here. The only games I seem to replay with any regularity are turn-based strategy games like the Jagged Alliance and the X-COM & XCOM games. Despite having played XCOM2 vanilla on PS4, I picked up the complete pack on Humble recently and I’m so excited to jump back in with all the new stuff I haven’t experienced yet. Download just completed and away we go!
None
2915
Goddamn, this game makes me so mad. Who the hell are these alien bosses that randomly show up? Then they run away when they get hit a few times? Punks! And that Chosen lady! Doesn’t trigger Overwatch? What?!
Yeah the only point of the game is to kill the 3 chosen then use their weapons. The actual end mission is weak. :p
Ragan
2917
My first time ever saving all the civilians on a retaliation mission, playing on Legendary (non-ironman) no less. My squad was four fully upgraded SPARKs, a reaper, and a sharpshooter with the Chosen Hunter rifle.
All the alien pods were far enough away from the civilians that they didn’t aggro or shoot at them until I activated them.
I finally (I know, late to the party) got around to seriously trying to play this, even though I’ve owned it for quite a while.
Man this is hard. Not quite XCOM (the immediately preceding game) hard, but geez, I keep getting missions that I have to take that kick my ass. I can’t build up enough good troops or good gear because I keep getting forced into mandatory missions that are way harder than I can handle.
If you have War of the Chosen there is an option to extend the turn timers (e.g. have to get to random thing in 5 turns). If you do not have WotC then there are some mods that will allow you to extend the turn timers I would suggest trying. This will allow you to move methodically through the map, never over extending one of your troops.
Your goal with every pod you encounter should be to kill/disable the whole pod before their turn. They should never get a shot off. Move slow, spot a pod and set up. Your turn before “pod activation” should be 3 troops set up on overwatch and the 4th trooper activating the pod. This makes it so you have two turns of fire before they fire back.
Heh. For one, yes, I have WOTC , but forgot to run that version. So there’s that. I do understand the overwatch/spawn system, but so many missions are on such tight timers that if I go the methodical route the whatzit blows up/is hacked/whatever before I can get there.
Luckily, there is a ton of variability, and the combat is fun, so I don’t mind fiddling around til I get it.
I mostly really like this game until it rolls a mission that’s seemingly impossible to complete . I got a few rescue the VIP missions with very low turn timers, and I wasn’t able to cross the map in time, and then my dumb perfectionist brain got overly frustrated.
I guess I should buy WOTC and start over at some point. Aside from that bit of randomness, the game is pretty great.
In my opinion, in order to get the full experience of the game, the player needs to allow some failures to happen. However, in WoTC, there are research trees that help with timers that make them more manageable so you don’t feel like you lost before you started the mission.
The game is really addictive, and frustrating at the same time. I immediately slotted the resistance order that doesn’t start the timer until you break stealth, which helps immensely with timed missions (WOTC). I always try to do the covert missions that reduce Avatar Project progress too, and that’s been manageable.
It’s the retaliation missions, which you pretty much have to take, and the Resistance faction missions which you pretty much have to take, that tend to get me. It’s like, ok, I’ve made it to the macguffin, I’ve killed several spawns of bad guys…oops, a Sectopod and his friends! At least the Lost make good cannon fodder and distractions, if you can get them to aggro the aliens instead of XCOM.
I’m currently at a mission where the Avenger was forced down and I have to go out and destroy some pylon thingy. It happened because I did not choose to divert this particular event, but chose to thwart another one of the three possibilities. So yeah, you have to pretty much be prepared to have things go sideways.
My only real frustration though is the abysmal aim of my troops. Apparently XCOM sent them all to Imperial Stormtrooper Academy, as even with 91% to hit they often whiff. And usually when that one hit would win the mission, but missing it leads to a wipe…
Everybody notices this but defenders of the game will berate your knowledge of statistics if you mention it. Apparently the game actually biases the results to reduce this sort of thing but it sure feels like it happens more than it should.
I will say that sometimes I’ll hit with a 30% chance so maybe it balances out.
But damned if Xcom is not the only game where a 70% chance makes me say “cool I’ll take it” but a 90% chance makes me start sweating.
Yep, one of the main strategies to learn is carpentry to reinforce your desk as you will need to pound on it from time-to-time :)
Ragan
2926
This has bugged me also. So I created a small app that I could save all my hit % and whether it was a hit or miss. Then I did a Legendary Iron man play through. Legendary level because the game doesn’t tweak the percentages and Ironman so I didn’t try save scumming and screw up my dataset.
But, I couldn’t get much data if my squads kept on getting killed, so I turned on console commands and made my troops nearly invincible for each combat mission. Then I played the game as I normally would, going to cover, trying to not get hit, flanking, & height shots.
By the time I beat the play through, I had taken around 1100 shots. Now I need to collate the data and see what the averages are.
Heh, I realize that of course there’s always a chance to miss if it’s not 100%. It’s just that subjectively it feels weird, and probably because the shots I remember are those crucial misses, and not the majority of hits. And I would not necessarily change it, though how you miss, say, a Berserker or Sectopod at three meters with a shotgun is sort of beyond me!
I always assumed that what happened was that the gun jammed or the ammo was a dud (maybe not for a shotgun, but whatever) or something like that. Though I agree it’s not what the graphics show. Similarly for the spearman-defeats-tank in Civ I assume it’s that one time when they lay the perfect ambush that you see in the action movies.
Honestly, this is the biggest reason of all to recommend Phoenix Point. The active aiming system in that makes it very, very difficult to return to this sort of abstraction for me. And I didn’t really see myself saying that prior to playing it.
Yeah, I’m actually good with it, for all of my complaining. It’s necessary to avoid the game being too predictable. It is hilarious though.
