Nesrie
1642
Wouldn’t the reward be you got to play the game the way you wanted to; I got to play the game the way I wanted to, and no one was penalized for one strategy over the other? I mean if you want to be aggressive… what stops you from doing that?
What stops you in any game obviously is how it’s designed lends itself to how it gets optimally played.
I don’t understand this complaint at all.
Overlapping fields of fire and using cover seem to make sense to me. Especially in an xcom game. These are just smart strategies in game or in real life. You may as well complain about flanking and concentrating firepower too.
What does not make sense is the hard west style of turn based strategy where everyone just runs up to the target and shoots them.
The timers in xcom2 arent too bad, but they are overused. Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don’t. For example things like the enemy locking down the network in response to you should not happen until you’re discovered.
ShivaX
1645
In real life your enemy doesn’t stand in a group waiting for you to activate them while all their friends ignore the explosions and gunfire either.
Oh come on…
The game would break if that happened and you know it. In xcom2 there would need to be like an assassin’s creed style system where you do the objective and get out of there as the enemy closes in on you. In xcom1 they would have to explain why you can’t take an army and are restricted to like 6 people or whatever it was.
And really xcom2 faces the same logical problem that xcom1 does. The controlling force would vastly outnumber the attackers thus you would need special systems/rules to make things work.
I like hard west, but it never feels right to me to have people charge up to stationary targets that do nothing. Maybe that is why my favorite xcom was always the one that had real time with pausing.
ShivaX
1647
So we agree that it’s a game then. ;P
I’ll say it again. This is a bad strategy in XCOM2. Not sure why you keep repeating it.
Yes, the run-up-and-shoot-in-the-face strategy Murbella keeps mentioning is only really viable in the first 10% of the game with rookies. After that running up to the enemy is often a death sentence or a way to get your soldiers gravely wounded*.
*Unless we are talking about Ranger’s melee attacks.
-Todd
Miramon
1650
It’s pretty dumb with rangers too if the enemy isn’t right there in amongst you already, because odds are it will just activate yet another group of enemies further away. So far as I can tell after the first couple of missions where it’s really useful the sword is mainly there so you can forget that mutons have their own blademaster skill and get cut to pieces trying to finish one of them off that way :)
Of course you have to give and take certain odd tactical constraints if you’re going to have a turn-based game at all. But of all the XCOM oddities the activation feature seems the strangest to me, especially combined with team-wide stealth. This is a common situation: I have 6 guys in start-of-scenario cover mode and 5 of them see 1 enemy group and one sees 2 enemy groups. If I ambush enemy group 1 from this position of course both enemy groups will activate. But I move that one guy a step to the left so he can’t see enemy group 2 (ostrich head in the sand) now I can ambush group 1 with impunity because group 2 will just stand around in fog of war without hearing the gunfire or seeing their nearby friends exploding.
Quaro
1651
Well you’d have to restrict yourself and choose not use the most effective strategy that you know.
When any one strategy is too good I generally prefer if the game is balanced to encourage more variety.
Although accidental activation from flanking maneuvers or whatever still horrible in XCOM 2, for the most part. But sometimes that is a necessary risk when you only have 8 turns now, you can’t always wait it out to avoid taking those gambles.
I really remember thinking that bomb missions were super cool in the original game cause I was having to come up strategies I never would have bothered with otherwise, since my default could handle any situation.
Played it, finished it on my 4th playthrough. It is a modern classic. Easily my favorite squad based game since the original X-Com–and maybe ever.
Reading through the thread I admit I’m surprised that the time limit thing was an issue for some people. The amount of time always seemed fair to me, and the missions where it was a really tough fight didn’t have the constraint. Sometimes you are not going to ‘win’, and yes you can lose missions without the world ending. It’s a war, some days the bad guy is going to be drinking the champagne not your soldiers.
Playstyles- You can still sneak and crawl, but frankly it’s boring even if it is ‘the best way’. Rangers were built to run into trouble, and later on either by stealth, or by dodge ability do a hell of a good job of surviving being reckless. I always ran with two, one built fully for stealth , another built fully for crazyness/melee/runandgun exc. They do a hell of a job getting through enemy lines, even moreso if your main group has engaged the enemy and you do an end around with the rangers. I used this repeatably on any ‘get the thing’ or ‘blow up the thing’ missions not including base blowing up missions.
Performance- I had no issues, I do have a slightly older machine and dialed the details back slightly, but ran great except for a few cutscenes. I had 0 issues on the last mission.
I haven’t tried any mods–next play through. This game will live in my rotation for a long time, like Civ games and Company of Heroes.
I got to do a smash and grab on a VIP with a ranger, a wraith suit, and the psionic inspire ability. It was awesome.
And then a car blew up and killed the VIP while I was carrying him.
Nesrie
1654
I hated those bomb missions the most. I understand what you’re saying but I guess since I play games that purposefully unbalanced, like Paradox games, that let you essentially pick a style or your challenge… I am just not on the same page.
I’m still doing it very often.
I’m not super sure what section of the game i’m in.
Started seeing a lot of archons, heavy mechs, mutons centurions and berserkers, but nothing stronger
Playing on commander.
Once you have people next to an activated group, with very few exceptions, running your guys up to the 4ish activated enemies will allow you to kill them in a single turn. Then you also have the various forms of crowd control, so even if one enemy is too strong for this, you just control the strong one so that you can line up a firing squad for them on the next turn.
It is an extremely viable strategy and the game strongly encourages it for a very decent amount of the game. Maybe this changes later, but it hasn’t yet.
Obviously this depends on your tech level, troop setups, etc etc.
The main reason i started doing this was because i was tired of missing shots that you would think were easy. It also helps that the computer almost never uses overwatch in xcom2.
Fair enough. :-)
Though I’m not sure if the game strongly encourages that tactic since it isn’t an approach I have been using (and others here it seems). I’m also playing on Commander.
-Todd
KiloOhm
1657
I now have 3 mimic beacons on ironman commander, that coupled with my gunslinger with Blue Screen rounds means I can completely wreck a pod of 2 archons and a gatekeeper. It feels good to be over the “hump” but I miss the tension of the early game. If I beat it at this difficulty I’m looking forward to trying some of the mods to increase the difficulty.
Running and gunning is probably one of the few moves that might wreck my game. The only time I lose anyone or really take any wounds at this point is when I accidentally activate a pod. I try not to move any more forward than I have to once I’m in combat.
The nature of turn based encourages behavior like this in general without special checks and balances. If you know your chance to hit gets higher as you get closer to your target, that if you flank the enemy it raises your chance to hit and that your enemy won’t do anything to you during your turn, the logical conclusion is to run up behind them and shoot them in the back. Obviously you will still use cover at longer range, but then due to the enemy group triggering mechanics in firaxis xcom, most fights tend to be close to mid range.
Overwatch is a counter to this behavior but its importance is severely decreased in xcom2 for both player and computer.
If you like the combat in xcom2, i recommend checking out hard west. At the time of playing it i thought it was a unique and interesting take on a turn based strategy game. Then of course there was xcom2 and i used some of the strategies i learned in hard west while playing it.
Thanks for the recommendation. Hard West did look interesting to me. I own it but haven’t started it yet. Will fire it up soon based on your comments.
-Todd
Got the game working again. I took a week and a half or so away from the game to allow my Frustration Points to convert back into Game Startup Optimism Resources and that seemed to do the trick. Updating my video card driver may have also been a factor. But now I can 1) Start the Game and 2) Play the Game. Plus my broken saved game is working again. To that I say YES! And also, HOORAY!
Hotfreak
1661
I made a soldier avatar of you, in honor of your success. Any class preferences? (warning: my Rangers take a beating; just ask Papageno and Scott Lufkin)
Murbella, I’m glad you clarified, and would be interested in seeing how you play, but my feeling, especially on Legend now, is that, once past the early sections where your soldiers can’t hit the broadside of a barn, the game encourages grenade-centric gameplay, popping enemy cover and being careful to avoid triggering additional pods. I can’t stress the last point enough. Obviously, you also want to close in for better shots and natural flanks, but not at the expense of over-extension. Flanking is really important and popping cover is a fantastic way to get safe flanks.
There a few enemies still to come in your game that make me wonder how your tactics will adjust, if at all. On the other hand, shotgun Rangers can get some really sick damage from in close by late game. I would also suggest looking into developing a gunslinger sharpshooter. Once they get Faceoff, they transform into a close combat force.
