X-Com 2 - Announced

[Terminal_Boy]

Playing on Commander difficulty and am really enjoying it. Feels similar to EU/EW on Classic difficulty in that putting a trooper in a poor location is usually fatally punished.

Occasional wig-out by the action cam, but running smoothly so far. Backed the graphics off from Max slightly to hold a steady 40-50 fps.

I avoided spoiler videos on YT and am enjoying the panic that the different enemy types cause when you've only got the starter weapons and armour.

 

[FoxEye]

It means Random Number Generator... but is just used as a catch-all term to mean any element of randomness in the game (it's pretty stupid, "this game is too Random Number Generator" - what? but it seems to have stuck )

Using the RNG is fine. But you should include ways to mitigate the RNG, or stack the odds in your favour. This should obviously involve the player learning the mechanics, and what works well and what doesn't.

But some games make outcomes 99% dependent on the RNG, whilst at the same time giving little or no ways to mitigate it. These are the games where people have every right to moan about the randomness.

Eg, let's say your game has a mechanic where every minute you have a 1/1,000,000 chance to just lose the game. There is no way to stop this happening. You beat 75% of the game and then you get "Game Over" because you got unlucky.

That would obviously be a terrible thing to put in a game. But sometimes it happens - not that exact example - but some games have random elements that you simply cannot mitigate, and they do lead to "game over" situations.

 

[Lunatic Dreyfus]

Finally beat my first Retaliation mission on Commander. Nice map, suicidal rushing bad guys, two scouts and no stun lancers. 10/13 civvies saved.

There's a bit too much "luck of the draw" for my liking, but no doubt the Stunlancer bang bus will turn up next mission and I'll get wiped!

 

[VincentHanna]

I ran in to a bug earlier in which two abilities (soldier and alien) didn't seem to interact very well.

I'll spoiler it, but it's not that far in to the game

Spoiler

My ranger had the Bladestorm ability - 'Free sword attacks on enemies that enter or attack from melee range'. One of the Alien Vipers used their Tongue Pull and Bind abilities on him, but then the Bladestorm kicked in. The game seemed to be thinking about what it was doing for 30 seconds and then the ranger was free, the Viper was stunned on the floor but then the Ranger was stuck in the 'Bind' animation and when you moved him he would just teleport around the map (within his Range of movement). He could still attack but none of the animations worked and the game took a while to do anything when using him.

He got killed on the mission but I wasn't protecting him like normal because I was worried he wouldn't be able to Evac or something.

 

[breadturbo]

It's very easy once you have domination and 6 guys.

The only annoying things for me now are the camera that has a mind of it's own, and the 98% shots from 1 square that miss 75% of the time heh.

 

[DEL 707]

Too many games to play, but I loved Enemy Unknow/Within, so I caved in and bought it.

Any recommendations on which rooms to build 1st? So far all I've added is a power room.

 

[Jonny2284]

The first few you need imo

Resistance Comms - Unless you get phenominally lucky with investigations that grant extra contact spots you'll need a couple of these.
Advanced Warfare Centre (with an engineer in it double the healing rate)
Proving Ground (those ammo's it spits out are invaluable)

 

[cadmunkey]

Games these days are silly, completing stuff on day of release. Madness

Just the way a lot of PC games are going these days. Console games have been like this for years!

 

[Panos]

People beating the game so soon is alarming to me. I've even seen someone claim to have completed it on release day.

Anyway, my frame rate issues were due to MSAA. I read that it's geared for AMD cards and I'm in the green. Once I changed that to FXAA I went from 4 to 7 fps on the menu screen to 50-55fps.

The only way to do so, only when someone edits the config files.
And they have to provide

a) Proof that they completed it.
b) They haven't edit the config files.
c) They has original not hacked pirated version with cheats.

I for one, I am 25h into it in Commander difficulty, goes well have used the load function only once, when I didn't realise how the antennas work :/

And the R9 Nano dishing almost constant 60fps with everything maxed out, without AA at 2560x1440

 

[Rifte]

So many games to play, and I keep on reading this thread trying to convince myself....not yet. Not sure how much longer I can hold out though.

 

[Reppyboyo]

Not sure how anyone is completing this so quickly.

I used to play xcom 1 on highest difficulty ironman, xcom 2 im barely keeping things together. Failed 2 campaigns already on veteran.

 

[robmol]

I assume the chance to hit gets better as you go on? Bloody ridiculous at these early levels even the 70%+ miss every time. New to the series but I've never played a game so frustrating tactics go out the window when your whole squad can be wiped out in a few bad dice rolls. Quickly running out of soldiers and patience tbh! I don't want to play on easier difficulty just because of bad luck

 

[mark43]

I assume the chance to hit gets better as you go on? Bloody ridiculous at these early levels even the 70%+ miss every time. New to the series but I've never played a game so frustrating tactics go out the window when your whole squad can be wiped out in a few bad dice rolls. Quickly running out of soldiers and patience tbh! I don't want to play on easier difficulty just because of bad luck

It can be frustrating, but I think we're all apt to remember the bad rolls and not the good. Sometimes it goes the other way.

 

[Jonny2284]

Yeah, they get better aim as they level up. Once they get to 85 or there abouts missing a shot becomes a rare occurrence except at extreme range.

Look for weapon mods that can help for your rookies, a weapon with a decent sight and a stock means even a rookie is fairly capable in the field. PCS can help as well, not that I'd put it on a rookie but I found a +11 aim last mission I did.

 

[mark43]

Too many games to play, but I loved Enemy Unknow/Within, so I caved in and bought it.

Any recommendations on which rooms to build 1st? So far all I've added is a power room.

The first few you need imo

Resistance Comms - Unless you get phenominally lucky with investigations that grant extra contact spots you'll need a couple of these.
Advanced Warfare Centre (with an engineer in it double the healing rate)
Proving Ground (those ammo's it spits out are invaluable)

I'd add Guerilla tactics school to the list as it allows you to increase squad size, which I always see as a big upgrade and something I like to get done early.

 

[Jonny2284]

True, can't believe I forgot that. Personally in all future games I'll be prioritising AWC over the GTS school but both are pretty essential early on.

 

[PinkFloyd]

I'm really struggling on my playthrough. Maybe 10 hours played, only just starting to get armour for my full squad. Not sure whether I've missed something or whether jumping straight to exo-suits is normal!

Like in the original I'm liking all the classes bar the Heavy guy. The main gun accuracy is woeful and it doesn't do enough damage to make up for that most of the time. Usually tend to keep one with me for the extra grenades but that's it.

 

[GDL]

Did they remove the locked in outcome of the rolls for 2? - I hated not being able to reload a save mid mission to change the outcome of a shot in the first one.

 

[Jonny2284]

I thought the first one had an option for that, but pretty sure I saw on reddit that's it's locked here so no save scumming.

 

[PinkFloyd]

I can't fathom why they'd lock it in. I don't see what it gains. If people want to save scum (I do it a little) so be it. Anyone who doesn't do it is completely unaffected by it as they aren't going to reload things anyway!