1802

Wow, Jason, you have a connection to 2K? How did you do that? It’s always unavailable for me.

1803

Like the 2k servers? God only knows. They have the worst network for most everything.

1804

I’m really enjoying the late game equipment. If I was asked what my GOTY for 2016 is, right now, it would be XCOM2 hands down.

1805

This is where I’m at as well so far. That said, there is a lot of cool stuff coming I’m excited for that could knock it out of place. Maybe that just means it’s a great year for gaming?

1806

So, I’ve only been able to watch through the first disastrous mission so far. Sounds like things got better after that, so my suggestions might just be “duh” for you. Unfortunately, in the early game, one has so few tools to hand, it’s hard to really get a feel for things. I guess just a couple of tips:

  1. try to keep your team near each other for support.
  2. try to play so that you “wake” as few enemies as possible at a time.
  3. concealment is precious and can get blown with horrifically unfortunate results if you dash your soldiers to edges that you can’t see beyond. This includes edges of ridges and roofs, but also big juicy full cover spots on trucks and buildings. Often it’s safer to stack your team in the open rather than take the cover when you are concealed.
  4. from XCOM 1, make your first move(s) the dangerous ones, e.g. uncovering new ground or risking a dash to save a civilian, etc., so that if things go screwy, you have options.
  5. when you have no more time limits, you can afford to be extra cautious – only blue moves and “safe” dashes.

What you and Rich said, for sure. I wonder if we’ll still remember it so fondly in December… I hope so.

1807

Finally finished a game on veteran, no Ironman. Completed final mission with one of each base class and two magi in late September. Could have been earlier but I was messing around hoping the second psi would learn domination. I kept getting random other powers I didn’t care about so eventually I decided to finish without it.

Not a bad game at all. At the tactical level I agree with all the faults everyone talks about, but all in all there was nothing unbearable about it. Of course I also like Valkyria Chronicles with its silly super-scouts, so what the heck. I built mimic thingies but never actually used them because I always forgot they were there :)

At the strategic level the rigidity of the mission structure showed its bare bones after a while. No doubt it’s more of a challenge at higher difficulty, but at Veteran I had plenty of all needed resources, and only had to make some supply-expenditure choices a couple of times.

As regards stability, on a pretty clean year-old machine I think I had a CTD every 15 missions or so.

1808

Ugh, just lost my Ironman Commander campaign. I actually haven’t beat the game yet due to a few restarts. I was far into this campaign and was playing the cat and mouse game with the Avatar project clock: letting it run down and then doing an Avatar mission and backing the clock off a few ticks. Well I didn’t plan well tonight and I didn’t have Intel in hand to make contact with a new area to get to the new Avatar project site. I was racing against the clock and I lost though it was close!

Well this gives me a chance to start over and try some different skills and builds I feel like I missed out on. I now realize that armor shredding is a valuable skill and none of my guys had anything like that. My rangers were also not that great at staying cloaked or re-cloaking so I might dabble with more of that.

45 hours in this game and I am starting a new campaign and not tired of it at all which is rare for me. What a great game.

-Todd

1809

I did the same thing in my first Commander run. Started feeling cavalier after a string of flawlessness and didn’t focus on expansion.

1810

I haven’t won a game yet, either. In fact the game I’m playing now may just be a wipe. I’m in a destroy the transmitter mission and am outclassed. Three codexes, so six and teleporting. As well as several other groups. I don’t see any way clear to finishing this with two snipers, two rangers a heavy and a specialist. Two of my best people are not along due to wounds from the last mission.

Even stealthed it seems like the codexes just happen to decide to saunter over to my group after standing around for two turns doing nothing.

Just in case

And if I skulljack a codex I get the super-codex or whatever it is and that makes things that much worse.

So yeah. Time to start again with a different strategy. and as others have said, I don’t mind. Still really enjoying the game, warts and all.

1811

I ran into this on my last run that ended in defeat, mid campaign a couple missions in a row my guys simply weren’t up for it or those that were were out due to injuries. I probably could have handled the missions if I’d had the luxury of pulling off some of the pods and dealing with them separately, but both missions were timed (and I’m talking short timed as in 8 turns and 1-2 of them are taken up just getting in range of the objective even if sprinting), which meant if I was to accomplish the goal I had to wade into and simultaneously trigger more than my guys could handle.

No matter, I’m enjoying it as well, hope on the next one to have a better result. It’s just that occasionally I get a mission I feel I’d be better off just abandoning and I need to consider that as a real option instead of just sticking it out and getting wiped or close to wiped.

1812

May I point out that using flash-bangs on a codex is the best strategy? They can’t use any of their skills and won’t clone when hit.

1813

You may point it out, but he’ll likely respond there were three of them and he didn’t bring three flashbangs along, at a guess.

But I do like the idea of discussing possible solutions to certain enemies, so to continue discussing ways to deal with codex with a flashbang, how long does this effect last? Is it one turn, couple turns? I’ve never paid attention enough I’ll admit to take notice and would like to know.

Also, aren’t codex treated as mechanical and therefore capable of being stunned or hacked by the specialist?

And wouldn’t bluescreen ammo do some pretty good damage for the same reason?

1814

Nope.

1815

The effect lasts for a turn or two and prevents them from using active or passive special skills (same for ethereals- it works wonders on them too). It never occurred to me that a tier 1 piece of equipment could be so useful until a friend recommended them. Codexes become much easier when you can focus fire on them and they don’t teleport away with the first hit.

1816

That is very interesting indeed if the effects lasts more than one turn. In my current campaign I’m going to make sure I’ve got at least one if not two of them with me so I can use one on a codex and see how many turns it affects them, it really would be quite handy if it’s 2 turns.

I know early on I’ve used one on a couple occasions to break mind control of one of my troops, since the flash bang is available right from the start it was the only thing handy initially to break a sectoids control.

Shame about the codex not being capable of being hacked, still going to research some bluescreen ammo (since I need them for mecs anyway) and put a couple rounds in one to find out what that does (it’s so handy that pistols get the ammo too as I recall, which means you can effectively fire for free at them with a sniper).

1817

I like the flashbang idea. Thanks. I actually had two on that mission and they started clumped together. OTOH I’ve already started a new game. So next time.

Edit for clarity: Two FB grenades. Three codexes started in a group.

1818

Finally checked out the recent dlc.

Meh, very meh. This is a lazy cash grab. Is it worth $5? Maybe, but probably not.

You’re paying for:
[ul]
[li]Around 8 extra hair styles, mostly goth focused[/li][li]Around 10ish new helmets, mostly goth focused but some are decent, lore friendly ones[/li][li]A very small number of unique armor proc textures[/li][li]A medium number of reskins of existing options. Mostly these are just the previous ones with painted on gang signs or less gloss[/li][li]Note that options for the armor that the vast majority of your troops will use in the later game has basically no new options from this pack[/li][/ul]

Wait until this is $0.99 if you don’t have the season pass.

I hope this isn’t a sign to come of the quality of future DLC for XCom2. Please firaxis, forget the early shitty dlc for xcom and instead think of how you redeemed yourself in enemy within. At the moment i’m afraid enemy within was just firaxis getting lucky and not them realizing what they did wrong.

1819

Seriously. Especially considering all the cosmetic mods already out there. Absolutely no point.

1820

Just the other day I got a couple of the free cosmetic mods and the mod that allows you to fully customize your troops without waiting for them to level up. Great stuff. No way I’m paying for that DLC.

1821

I don’t mind paying for cosmetic stuff at all, but it has to be worth it. This means that most of the cosmetic things I’m buying cant just be quick reskins of existing stuff.