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Topic: XCOM 2 (Read 179850 times)
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9167
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Holy shit, this has been substantially improved and I ain't even that far yet.
Also, loading times are blazing fast now ; is that just me ?
Optimization improvements are like the main feature of the expansion. This game is so much fun right now, and it was already pretty good before.
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I am the .00000001428%
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Ironwood
Terracotta Army
Posts: 28240
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Ok, so that's my first game pretty much over already. Sure, I could continue, but I know a loser when I see it.
These fuckers are hard as nails and all the new stuff really piles on the already existing Avatar Pressure. Jesus wept, time to start over.
I really, really do love all these changes so far though. Not met one yet that I've not thought 'yeah, that's a neat addition'. What I would say is the main game is now Sooooo very BUSY at all points, but I guess that's good. I'm also constantly struck by the fact that outside the combat, this is really showing some serious boardgame mechanics. It's odd.
Fuck those chosen in the fucking earhole.
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"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9167
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The assassin specially, man that fucker just wrecks your squad even when you beat him. The warlock on the other hand is a complete pushover, just finished him off for good. Six mindshields made him unable to hurt anyone.
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I am the .00000001428%
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Ironwood
Terracotta Army
Posts: 28240
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I disagree. He made a lot of those exploding fucking ghosts on one map and pushed my shit in.
It was evil.
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"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9167
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I am the .00000001428%
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Ironwood
Terracotta Army
Posts: 28240
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"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Ironwood
Terracotta Army
Posts: 28240
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Annnnnd you can send scientists and engineers on covert missions to offset risks to your soldiers, which is another fantastic little boardgame mechanic that makes the whole thing a lot more thinky.
Love it.
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"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449
Badge Whore
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Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, and Jonathan Frakes are the voices of the champs and faction leaders, right? I'm not the only one hearing that. (but haven't Googled) ed: IMDB Confirmed. Hah. Also: John de Lancie Denise Crosby Jake Busey http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7297456/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_1
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« Last Edit: September 02, 2017, 05:13:45 AM by Merusk »
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The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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Ah, good, I kept meaning to IMDB it because I was *sure* that was Sirtis and Dorn. I hadn't picked up on it being Frakes too. Hilarious.
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9167
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Between covert operations and resistance orders I can keep the avatar clock going forever. Meanwhile my soldiers are turning into literal super heroes.
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I am the .00000001428%
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Ironwood
Terracotta Army
Posts: 28240
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On the one hand, once you get the hunters weapons, you just feel Godlike.
Other hand, this game really, really makes you care about your soldiers once again ; Losing one is like losing a limb. Especially watching the other grieving wank on the screen because her partner of 180 missions just eat plasma.
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"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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This is a great expansion. Good god it becomes an utter clusterfuck however at times.
Like, getting a The Lost sitrep, the Chosen showing up, and a mission with a lot of stupid shit going on (like a retaliation mission) results in an absolute conflagration of shit.
Hordes of zombies, random civvies, friendly armed NPCs, the Chosen, all the regular pods, and faceless. All at once.
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9167
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Continent bonuses are no joke this time around. I have a chance to get a pet advent and a bad ass rebel on each mission, and both of them own.
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I am the .00000001428%
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Phildo
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Haven't played Xcom in a while, booted this up today and promptly got my ass handed to me twice in the first mission. Good to be back.
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lamaros
Terracotta Army
Posts: 8021
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This will be my jetlag cure tonight. Why didn't I think of it this morning? I should go home early to download.
Any need for any mods at all at this point?
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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This will be my jetlag cure tonight. Why didn't I think of it this morning? I should go home early to download.
Any need for any mods at all at this point?
There's some bugs and dumb decisions regarding the factions- like you should be able to get a second squadmate from each faction at the appropriate faction rating but you can't, and there's some bugs I think with how some of the chosen events apply. There's mods to fix this. Also all of the quality-of-life mods, like numeric health display, Evac-All, Overwatch-All, etc.
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Ironwood
Terracotta Army
Posts: 28240
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So turns out the Assassin was pissed off that I ended the Hunter, so she decided to attack the Avenger. Interestingly, they've taken the previous X-Com defend the Avenger mission and turned it up to 11. Now, you can't just turtle and let everyone come to your house because the Chosen have multiple trucks and a BIG FUCK OFF GUN that will just wreck the hull if you don't shift your arse. Previously, you'd send 1 chap up front to wreck the power tower holding you down and away you go; now you have two squads and they have 8 tanks and a cannon. So, you need to get people moving.
Which would be fine, but she would appear to have brought Advent with her. All of them. Thus began the long and drawn out affair of watching 4 of my nicest guys get utterly wrecked in a squad of 12, with almost everyone else taking some forms of damage, ranging from a month in the hospital to deep and abiding trauma due to a partner getting literally turned into a Chrysalid farm.
So that was nice.
On a not entirely unrelated note, those new Spectre guys are just pure fucking baws. I get they needed to make a new unit to stop the endgame being so easy, but they're op as fuck.
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"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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The Spectre guys have to be taken down superhard the moment they appear, yeah.
I like the way the game forces you to be mobile in new ways but also gives you some interesting ways to deal with the consequences. Those ruined city maps where the Lost tend to be can be really interesting in terms of dealing with hidden Advents as well. Those grenades that ring the dinner bell for the Lost are really fun if you can tag some Advent with them and then pin the Advent guys down in one place.
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Ironwood
Terracotta Army
Posts: 28240
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Yes. Way and I were chatting over Steam that you can totally get the Lost to EAT THE CHOSEN if you do it right. It is glorious.
Edited to Add : Also, that Chosen that takes more damage from the Reapers becomes just a lol fest when your Reaper gets that 'unload weapon into target till it dies' ability.
You literally stealth up to the bitch and pump all your rounds into her and she 'dies'. I can't wait to do that in her base.
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« Last Edit: September 04, 2017, 05:14:52 AM by Ironwood »
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"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9167
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Killing the Chosen during their base attacks is the easy part of that fight I've found, dealing with the endless spawns while they are dead is a lot harder. Specially when they start spawning two adromedons per turn that need to be killed twice.
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I am the .00000001428%
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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I like the research breakthroughs a lot since it really makes research a proper decision. Some are nobrainers however- getting the next tier of weapons/armor in a fraction of the time, or a permanent damage boost to a weapon type is a complete nobrainer.
The doom-ticker also seems way the fuck faster. I'm halfway to the end even after knocking out the first blacksite and succeeding on a covert op to knock 2 pips off the meter.
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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The thing on the Chosen base missions is if you can just lock down bad shit with suppression or other abilities after you've blown up the resurrection thing, then if you can take down the Chosen on its last respawn, all the bad shit on the map disappears. That makes a bit easier knowing you don't have to kill it all.
Andromedons remain fucking terrible, though--they are one of the few things after you have peak armor and weapons that can still kill a trooper with one blow and where you can't cheese them as easily as some of the other bad stuff.
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9167
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I keep checking for updated "everyone STFU goddamnit" and "speed the fuck up everything" mods with no luck.
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I am the .00000001428%
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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I think they built a bit of the STFU mod into it, though. Bradford doesn't constantly tell you to save the civilians every time one gets ganked in a retaliation mission, for example. Most of what he says now is at least somewhat relevant--ADVENT took a crate; ok, now go over there and rescue those civilians because you freed up the Resistance fighters at that location.
I do like the Resistance fighters being at the Retaliation sites, by the way--that's a nice improvement of those missions. It even explains why the civilians might not move or run.
I wish the Ascension bases for the Chosen were a bit more varied according to their powers/personalities.
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Jade Falcon
Terracotta Army
Posts: 175
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Now his new annoying monologue is that you've built the ring now and we should have any free operatives running missions, every time you return to the ship after a covert op.
The ability for this game to go from pure rage inducing moments to wow I can't believe that just happened moments is pretty impressive. Sectopod appears with advent cronies,Sectopod stops next to a gas station,cronies take cover around pumps and cars. Reaper is stealthed and in perfect flank position on Sectopod so I hit with Banish. First shots rolls a 5% and executes, Sectopod detonates and the entire gas station and cars detonates. Was pretty impressive watching that whole corner of the map go up in flames and everything with it. Next map chosen,lost I detonated something with a missed shot spawning a pile of lost,I had decent position tho sitting on a roof top figuring it was going to be fun shooting fish in a barrel........3 90+ to hit in a row all missed,chosen swoops in stuns 2, lost swarm, total wipe.
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Rasix
Moderator
Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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Is the base game worth playing (got it in a Humble Bundle) now that this expansion exists?
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-Rasix
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Khaldun
Terracotta Army
Posts: 15158
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I would say no--just play this. It's a better version of the base experience, which was already pretty good.
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9167
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The base game was pretty fun, but the expansion is massive improvement.
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I am the .00000001428%
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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Is the base game worth playing (got it in a Humble Bundle) now that this expansion exists?
The expansion thickens the overall amount of stuff going on to a ridiculous degree. After you got used to the strategic and battlescape layers in XCOM2 base (minus all the DLC before this expansion even) it was more substantial than Enemy Within but still felt like something you could easy get your hands around even on Impossible difficulty if you REALLY understood the action economy and battlescape in general. There's a LOT of fucking variables now. But it doesn't kick you in the balls- there's not a lot of "lol fuck you" in there- while the missions got way more complicated, and there's now a fucking host of really powerful units you can unexpectedly deal with you're given a lot of extremely powerful tools in response and ways to buff your soldiers up to an even more ridiculous degree. I think XCOM+Expansion+All the DLC might be pretty daunting right off to someone new though.
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Father mike
Terracotta Army
Posts: 533
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I would be sorta screwed without the "Shen's Gift " DLC. SPARKs don't get fatigued. This has allowed me to get a non-rookie into the field on many occasions when I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
On the other hand, Alien Hunters is complete crap.
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I would like to thank Vladimir Putin for ensuring that every member of the NPR news staff has had to say "Pussy Riot" on the air multiple times.
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9167
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The armor you get is so goofy and awesome though, great to pair up with the super awesome slick chosen weapons.
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I am the .00000001428%
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Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449
Badge Whore
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I'm pretty sure that because I keep clicking "I Disagree" to the T2 TOS that lets them sell my info the game is conspiring to fuck me. Only on my fourth or fifth mission over-all and the Assassin always shows along with 9-12 Advent bastards ands sectoids. I also miss a ridiculous amount of high-percentage shots.. I had a 93, 95, and 97% miss in the same round.
I should keep track
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The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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They nerfed the Alien Rulers a bit. They're still assholes but they don't get free actions for EVERYTHING now. Granted I haven't fought them yet in WOTC- I didn't have much trouble with any of the rulers minus the Archon however pre-nerf.
Frost Grenades solve a lot of problems with annoying special units. If you suspect fuckery is afoot, make sure you have an explosives-specced Grenadier with the extra primary nade and the frost grenade equipped and you can generally teabag an Alien Ruler enough to make it retreat. Also mindshields are actually super useful now.
The answer to most insanely obnoxious units are rangers with shotguns+laser sights and Talon Rounds. Basically nothing but the strongest mechanized units and bosses survive 2 point-blank shots to the face from a shotgun at 100% crit rate. As long as your shots connect there's nothing a pair of rangers with tricked out shotguns cannot one-round.
For mass crowd-control and debuffing, throw venom rounds on a pistol-specced sharpshooter and use faceoff to poison every unit that can be poisoned within shooting range.
For sniper-focused sharpshooters you can either try to get them shredder and then use whatever strikes your fancy, or use AP rounds so they can remain relevant for whittling down Sectopods and the like.
And that's not even getting into the utterly busted new faction soldiers.
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« Last Edit: September 05, 2017, 08:19:22 PM by Fabricated »
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449
Badge Whore
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All that sounds awesome. Now tell me how to get it when you've only got two sergeants and are still researching magnetic weapons.
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The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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Megrim
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2512
Whenever an opponent discards a card, Megrim deals 2 damage to that player.
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All that sounds awesome. Now tell me how to get it when you've only got two sergeants and are still researching magnetic weapons. Grenades solve all problems.
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One must bow to offer aid to a fallen man - The Tao of Shinsei.
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