Discussion
Couldn't see a thread on this...
What do people think?
I loved the first one - played through on hard and enjoyed it. This, however, on easy on the first level, I am struggling. 5 attempts so far and no where close to winning.
The aliens seem to have a preternatural ability to hit my soldiers in cover despite when it's my turn they show as having a very low hit point percentage.
One of my soldiers has a mele attack, which, when you use unless you kill your foe in one hit, it leaves them standing next to the alien, which then obviously kills you.
The very first level has a 'grey' which can raise the dead. This would be fine but it takes at least two full barrages from your soldiers, which means you have to put them into harms to way to kill it before the zombie - which also require two kits to kill - can kill your soldiers. And by the way once you fire, that is that's soldiers turn over.
And all this is set against the clock, which means you have to take a lot of risks to get to your objective.
I have to say I think its s
t. I bloody loved the original, but this is terrible IMO. God knows how it got such good reviews.
What do people think?
I loved the first one - played through on hard and enjoyed it. This, however, on easy on the first level, I am struggling. 5 attempts so far and no where close to winning.
The aliens seem to have a preternatural ability to hit my soldiers in cover despite when it's my turn they show as having a very low hit point percentage.
One of my soldiers has a mele attack, which, when you use unless you kill your foe in one hit, it leaves them standing next to the alien, which then obviously kills you.
The very first level has a 'grey' which can raise the dead. This would be fine but it takes at least two full barrages from your soldiers, which means you have to put them into harms to way to kill it before the zombie - which also require two kits to kill - can kill your soldiers. And by the way once you fire, that is that's soldiers turn over.
And all this is set against the clock, which means you have to take a lot of risks to get to your objective.
I have to say I think its s
t. I bloody loved the original, but this is terrible IMO. God knows how it got such good reviews. Steam reviews seem to agree with you but put that in a positive light -
I missed my first shot and I'm on normal difficulty with a 89% chance to hit, plus flanking.
WELCOME BACK TO XCOM BABY!!
My entire squad was wiped out in the very first mission.
10/10
Also, I'm only just playing through the first one (I tried starting a few times but I'm really bad at the game...) from the quick synopsis of X-COM 2 it looks like I've spoilt the ending!
I missed my first shot and I'm on normal difficulty with a 89% chance to hit, plus flanking.
WELCOME BACK TO XCOM BABY!!
My entire squad was wiped out in the very first mission.
10/10
Also, I'm only just playing through the first one (I tried starting a few times but I'm really bad at the game...) from the quick synopsis of X-COM 2 it looks like I've spoilt the ending!
This is on my list of things to get but not for the time being. A friend is currently playing it and he's mentioned that his troops are missing a lot of high percentage shots whilst the aliens hit him often on low percentage shots, something which was apparent in the previous game. I also got angry at the fact that I had people dying to shots that physically could not have connected (standing on the corner of a building was a good example - alien would fire and his shot would go through the wall and hit the soldier. That's percentage games for you though I guess).
I'll pick it up later in the year though, really enjoyed the reboot even though I couldn't complete it due to what I think was a bug. (Final mission where you have to kill all the aliens in order for a door to open, I think an alien had somehow fallen off the map as there were none left but the door remained firmly closed)
I'll pick it up later in the year though, really enjoyed the reboot even though I couldn't complete it due to what I think was a bug. (Final mission where you have to kill all the aliens in order for a door to open, I think an alien had somehow fallen off the map as there were none left but the door remained firmly closed)
Bought this on Saturday (CJS Keys - £28!) and I absolutely love it!
Yes, it is a damn sight harder than XCOM:EU but I think that is why I'm enjoying it so much. The first few missions are a real trial by fire and there are no easy wins, but I reckon that is what makes it so good. The game is all about being a leader of a hidden resistance, where supplies and troops are insanely scarce. I've been completely drawn into that and celebrate every victorious mission as if I've just completed the game; even though I may have lost two soldiers and have another wounded for 18 days.
There are downsides though; I'm not keen on the mission turn limits, nor the impending doom from the Avatar project. The mission turn limits are forcing me to use tactics that are causing considerable losses to my roster, which is damn annoying. I think they should amend this so that the turn limit doesn't start counting down until you break concealment.
Other than that, I think it's a really good successor to XCOM:EU. The new enemies are decent and keep things mixed up; I'm quickly learning to hate the Sectoids and their ability to turn a mission on its head. I love the fact that you now only need to research and build one item for it to be available to the whole squad. The customisation for the soldiers is awesome and there are some really good creations on he steam workshop already.
I do get annoyed with some of the bugs; viper troops pulling characters through walls is a big one and hacking seems way too difficult. I haven't really experienced any issues with high hit percentages missing a lot; generally anything over 75% is a hit and I even regularly see my sniper hitting targets at around 50% probability.
I'm sure most of these will be fixed with a patch shortly and the modding community has already created a load of bolt-ons to remove mission/Avatar countdowns etc, which don't conflict with Steam achievements.
I'm playing on easy at the moment and I'm finding it difficult, but not impossible. I've downloaded a mod that adds +4 to the turn limits so I can play at my pace; but once completed I'm going to attempt a vanilla ironman run!
Yes, it is a damn sight harder than XCOM:EU but I think that is why I'm enjoying it so much. The first few missions are a real trial by fire and there are no easy wins, but I reckon that is what makes it so good. The game is all about being a leader of a hidden resistance, where supplies and troops are insanely scarce. I've been completely drawn into that and celebrate every victorious mission as if I've just completed the game; even though I may have lost two soldiers and have another wounded for 18 days.
There are downsides though; I'm not keen on the mission turn limits, nor the impending doom from the Avatar project. The mission turn limits are forcing me to use tactics that are causing considerable losses to my roster, which is damn annoying. I think they should amend this so that the turn limit doesn't start counting down until you break concealment.
Other than that, I think it's a really good successor to XCOM:EU. The new enemies are decent and keep things mixed up; I'm quickly learning to hate the Sectoids and their ability to turn a mission on its head. I love the fact that you now only need to research and build one item for it to be available to the whole squad. The customisation for the soldiers is awesome and there are some really good creations on he steam workshop already.
I do get annoyed with some of the bugs; viper troops pulling characters through walls is a big one and hacking seems way too difficult. I haven't really experienced any issues with high hit percentages missing a lot; generally anything over 75% is a hit and I even regularly see my sniper hitting targets at around 50% probability.
I'm sure most of these will be fixed with a patch shortly and the modding community has already created a load of bolt-ons to remove mission/Avatar countdowns etc, which don't conflict with Steam achievements.
I'm playing on easy at the moment and I'm finding it difficult, but not impossible. I've downloaded a mod that adds +4 to the turn limits so I can play at my pace; but once completed I'm going to attempt a vanilla ironman run!
But that's the problem, you're finding it very hard on easy. So am I and others and I'm a veteran of Laser Squad FFS. It will be unplayable by anyone who wants to give turn based shooters a go. Easy should be easy. If you want to test yourself that's what the other difficulty settings are for.
For me there is just too much outside of your control, or even ability to react to, that spoils what should be a great game.
I'm getting the hand of it now, but am finding some of the randomness of the game highly frustrating. It should be lack of planning or skill that makes you lose, not some roll of the virtual dice.
For me there is just too much outside of your control, or even ability to react to, that spoils what should be a great game.
I'm getting the hand of it now, but am finding some of the randomness of the game highly frustrating. It should be lack of planning or skill that makes you lose, not some roll of the virtual dice.
Don't get me wrong, I completely agree. I'm enjoying the difficulty as I like being challenged by strategy games; which is great for me, but not good for a casual/newcomer to the series.
2K haven't done themselves any favours by making the game so difficult and I think it will have a detrimental effect on its long term success.
A sensible option would be that easy difficulty removes the move limit cap and increases the levels for the Avatar completion rate. It could also increase the basic stats for rookies and reduce supply costs.
These tweaks would be removed as you progressed up the difficulty, with hard being the game as it is now.
2K haven't done themselves any favours by making the game so difficult and I think it will have a detrimental effect on its long term success.
A sensible option would be that easy difficulty removes the move limit cap and increases the levels for the Avatar completion rate. It could also increase the basic stats for rookies and reduce supply costs.
These tweaks would be removed as you progressed up the difficulty, with hard being the game as it is now.
Remember there are mods out there to tweak to your needs already.
And yes, that first mission was a motherfker. Not ACTUALLY all that nasty so much as a very unexpected difficulty for a "welcome to the game" mission.
By the way, it gets worse too, before it gets better.
There is a LOT more of this going on than I'm happy about
But I'm getting into the swing of it now, about halfway through my first blacksite with reloads getting less frequent - but still far, far too frequent.
And yes, that first mission was a motherf
ker. Not ACTUALLY all that nasty so much as a very unexpected difficulty for a "welcome to the game" mission.By the way, it gets worse too, before it gets better.
There is a LOT more of this going on than I'm happy about
But I'm getting into the swing of it now, about halfway through my first blacksite with reloads getting less frequent - but still far, far too frequent.
The more you dig in the game as well the re is quite a lot of depth to what you can do.
Took me a bit to work out the customized weapons, but they are essential (free shot chance + insta kill chance on a sniper rifle).
lost of room for tactics, the overwatch game just doesnt work now and it shouldn't do either.
Took me a bit to work out the customized weapons, but they are essential (free shot chance + insta kill chance on a sniper rifle).
lost of room for tactics, the overwatch game just doesnt work now and it shouldn't do either.
Just picked this up on Xbox One. No mod support for consoles unfortunately, but as a big fan of Enemy Unknown and Within this has been a very pleasant experience. Yes, it's still bd hard in places (and getting your squad massacred when one of your soldiers misses a point blank shot with 85% hit chance still feels like a kick in the balls) but the new concealment mechanic and the way the classes now have much more clearly defined roles means it feels very much like the sequel we all wanted but perhaps didn't expect.
Oh, and I'm only playing on Veteran for the moment, and the game is still brutal in places. I'll save the IronMan run for later, once I've gotten the hang of things again!
d hard in places (and getting your squad massacred when one of your soldiers misses a point blank shot with 85% hit chance still feels like a kick in the balls) but the new concealment mechanic and the way the classes now have much more clearly defined roles means it feels very much like the sequel we all wanted but perhaps didn't expect.Oh, and I'm only playing on Veteran for the moment, and the game is still brutal in places. I'll save the IronMan run for later, once I've gotten the hang of things again!
This game is the absolute fking worst for RNG. I wanted to guarantee the death of a stun trooper and put all my other squad members on overwatch, I must have reloaded the same save about 20 times in order to wipe the trooper out from about 3 squares with an assault rifle, 67% chance with him in half-cover. Not once did I actually kill him. If I reloaded it 20 times, at least 6 of those times I should have killed him. Total bks.
I'd think the game was a lot more fun if it didn't rely so heavily on the whole "Squad member is injured" thing. I know the idea is to create several teams and rotate them through missions, but in XCOM 1 I was able to create one super-squad to smash the game. This time round, the missions seem to come round so thick and fast that anyone who gets hurt in a mission will automatically miss at least the next mission, if not two. I'd happily settle for harder missions if the game was focused more on in-mission difficulty rather than grinding your resources down and forcing you to use less and less experienced squad members to complete missions. The lengthy sections in between the missions are just dull, the missions are where the fun is, when the game isn't being too blatant in it's attempts to fk you over.
In that way, I think RNG games are always frustrating in that the game can crunch the numbers to avoid having to play fair. I love hard games, don't get me wrong, but in games like Dark Souls you can learn and get better, in RNG games the AI can simply decide you're never making that critical action if it doesn't want you to.
king worst for RNG. I wanted to guarantee the death of a stun trooper and put all my other squad members on overwatch, I must have reloaded the same save about 20 times in order to wipe the trooper out from about 3 squares with an assault rifle, 67% chance with him in half-cover. Not once did I actually kill him. If I reloaded it 20 times, at least 6 of those times I should have killed him. Total bks.I'd think the game was a lot more fun if it didn't rely so heavily on the whole "Squad member is injured" thing. I know the idea is to create several teams and rotate them through missions, but in XCOM 1 I was able to create one super-squad to smash the game. This time round, the missions seem to come round so thick and fast that anyone who gets hurt in a mission will automatically miss at least the next mission, if not two. I'd happily settle for harder missions if the game was focused more on in-mission difficulty rather than grinding your resources down and forcing you to use less and less experienced squad members to complete missions. The lengthy sections in between the missions are just dull, the missions are where the fun is, when the game isn't being too blatant in it's attempts to f
k you over.In that way, I think RNG games are always frustrating in that the game can crunch the numbers to avoid having to play fair. I love hard games, don't get me wrong, but in games like Dark Souls you can learn and get better, in RNG games the AI can simply decide you're never making that critical action if it doesn't want you to.
As a fan and seasoned veteran of the last one, I picked it up on the Steam sale - and refunded after playing one hour.
I think Firaxis lacks the skills to make proper AI (all the reviews I read about Civ VI so far also highlighted the bad AI), so they make the game hard by making RNG unbearable.
I will rather wait for Xenonauts 2.
I think Firaxis lacks the skills to make proper AI (all the reviews I read about Civ VI so far also highlighted the bad AI), so they make the game hard by making RNG unbearable.
I will rather wait for Xenonauts 2.
I'm loving every minute of the Xbox One release.
I've got no idea how far through the story I am (not very far would be my guess, only just beaten a couple of the facility missions related to the Codex decoding) but I've managed to upgrade the majority of the squad with top-tier plasma weapons and have a few squad members at Colonel rank.
I'm in early august and just came across my first Sectopod, which caused a little bit of a panic. The next mission, I encountered another one only this time it was destroyed in a single turn by my main squad. It's nice to finally feel a bit overpowered!
I've got no idea how far through the story I am (not very far would be my guess, only just beaten a couple of the facility missions related to the Codex decoding) but I've managed to upgrade the majority of the squad with top-tier plasma weapons and have a few squad members at Colonel rank.
I'm in early august and just came across my first Sectopod, which caused a little bit of a panic. The next mission, I encountered another one only this time it was destroyed in a single turn by my main squad. It's nice to finally feel a bit overpowered!
All my main squad are now Colonel ranked, and I've had a couple of missions where my sniper has managed to kill off five or six enemies in a single turn with ruthless use of skills and I've got the squad set up to the point where everyone has their own role. Thing is, I've now deployed my first Psi agent into the field after spending months in training and he's an absolute monster as well.
Whilst I've had the Avatar counter actually reach max a few times I've always got a few facilities close by to swiftly knock it down again, so I've essentially made myself as strong as is humanly possible by the midgame and I'm starting to see the benefit. That is to say, steam rollering mostly anything that isn't a sectopod or gatekeeper. Even then, they are lucky to last more than a single turn, a few grenades (flashbangs and EMP bombs are indispensable here) then the squad bursts them down with their strongest skills.
Whilst I've had the Avatar counter actually reach max a few times I've always got a few facilities close by to swiftly knock it down again, so I've essentially made myself as strong as is humanly possible by the midgame and I'm starting to see the benefit. That is to say, steam rollering mostly anything that isn't a sectopod or gatekeeper. Even then, they are lucky to last more than a single turn, a few grenades (flashbangs and EMP bombs are indispensable here) then the squad bursts them down with their strongest skills.
Just had my first month where I've got literally nothing to spend my supplies on. Did a VIP escort mission for the Councilman and steamrollered everything, including a Gatekeeper and Sectopod that were revealed on the same turn.
Some games have a weird difficulty curve where they start off punishingly tough then get easier as time goes by and your own resources build. Xcom 2 appears to be one of those, though Ironman on higher difficulties may prove me wrong!
Some games have a weird difficulty curve where they start off punishingly tough then get easier as time goes by and your own resources build. Xcom 2 appears to be one of those, though Ironman on higher difficulties may prove me wrong!
Just bought this game and I'm loving it. I had to adapt my playstyle though. The countdown forces you to move a lot quicker than I used to in XCOM:EU. The concealment however is usefull in the adapted tactic. I usually have one squad member spend half their points, then let two others move their entire AP, and use the sniper last for any encounter accidents. Then last move is to put the first squad member on overwatch.
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