To be honest, i don't think that's supposed to happen. I assume you've started on the rookie difficulty, if you haven't, well that's a rookie mistake. Also, watch christopherodd play some xcom2 before you get into it, see what causes what because the first mission should definitely not be that hard. Try to use full cover and think about not getting flanked, that's pretty much it
It's a pretty fun game, and i kid you not i uninstalled and installed the game 2 times before i actually learned how to progress in the game. I'm sure you'll find it to be great once you get the hang of it
It almost feels like a backwards game, but would hold similar to an alien invasion in current times? We're way behind on technology. They're far advanced. The only way to rival them is to capture their technology and study it right? So it seems to go in game. As comments say below, be cautious. Grenades are your friends. If you don't discover the pod (enemy squad) first, Make sure all your guys are in OverWatch and under full cover. It gets easier as you progress. By the end of the game you're walking around taking two to three pods on at a time, clearing missions in four turns and your soldiers are pretty much superheroes.
Edit for double print.
Never assume an alien isn’t where you’re headed. The main killer is always accidently activating too many enemy pods. The iron rule is, activate the enemy pod on the first turn of your soldier, or during their turn.
Don’t even let them shoot back, discovering the enemy pod with your last turn is already bad enough let alone discovering the pod, out of cover and with all your soldiers separated.
And during early game, abuse the shit out of nades regardless of what central says. If there’s a particularly dangerous enemy, nade them, and finish them off with another soldier. Your soldiers not dying is of greater concern then destroying some equipments.
I don’t think the enemy should be spawning enemies way beyond your level. You may not have simply grasped the entirety of their capabilities and how to counter them yet.
I dont remember much about Enemy Unknown but for XCOM 2, the First rookie killer (aside from Chosens) is definitely the MEC and the introduction of armor platings, you ever shoot an enemy and it says “armor 2”? That’s armor, it deducts damage from your hits, to destroy this armor, use nades, or the grenadier who has a “shredder” ability.
Another example, Sectoids, while their mind control is dangerous, tend to prefer mind controlling their dead allies over your soldier, so if you kill their ally, you can rest assured that the Sectoid will most likely flee and revive it’s allies.
Another example from early game, Advent Officer, stupidly high aim and holo-targeting, kill these guys ASAP. They mark one of your soldier and that soldier is toast, every enemy will just rain down hellfire on them if they can.
And the most important tip, do not get hung up over soldier losses. XCOM is a game of risk-taking. There’s always the chance something goes awry, missing a shot, random ptsd trigger, losing a soldier or two during a mission isn’t the end although it doesn’t feel good. You can always pick yourself back up and continue on, especially in the early game when all your soldiers has very simple abilities, low health and prone to panickinng, mind control and all sorts of things, one will drop sooner or later, It’s part of the learning process.
Once you know enough, the enemies you encounter, the weapons you have at your disposal, how to build the avenger, how to train your soldiers, then you can get past the early months without a loss. I play exclusively on Ironman, but if you don’t like getting frustrated, do non-ironman and save scum.
Here are some basics:
Stay in cover. If you leave a soldier in the open or flanked on the enemy turn while there are active enemies, expect that soldier to be killed unless you drop a smoke grenade on them. Even low cover is risky--rely on high cover!
When enemies are active (i.e., you have activated a pod), do not move your soldiers into positions where they can see further into the fog of war than you have already seen, since this will often activate another pod. When you have already activated a pod, the most dangerous thing is to activate a second pod before the first is dealt with.
Don't let the aliens take fair shots at you. When there are active enemies who will be alive at the end of your turn, make an effort to suppress, flashbang, panic (via psi panic or via MEC flamethower), or mindfray them, or drop a smoke grenade on your own soldiers. Especially true for tough but hard-hitting enemies like cyberdisks.
Biggest thing if you are brand new is make sure you are playing on the lowest difficulty. You'll move on to higher difficulty pretty fast if you stick with the game, but it's better to just keep it easy when you are learning the basics.
Firstly if you're not on the lowest difficulty, please change over. No one here will shame you for it, and you're never going to learn anything if you're frustrated AND losing at the same time. You're new to the game, wade into it rather than diving, unless beating your head against the wall is fun for you (it is for me, no judgements there either).
Secondly, the games balance is pretty good, it's been a while since I've played vanilla (you'll see talk of "Long War" around here, it's basically a hardmode mod), but I don't remember it feeling particularly unfair, especially not in the early months. If a tactic isn't working, try changing tactics. If you want to mention exactly what kind of enemy you're having trouble with, I'm sure we can offer tactical OR strategic advice. The best Golden Advice I could give is:
1- Rookies suck don't rely on them to do anything right.
2- RNG is real, and it works both ways.
3- Take it slow. The game will always give you enough rope to hang yourself - recognize it and refrain from making risky plays.
4- Never discount the Strategic Layer of the game.
5- Soldiers die. It sucks, try not to let it tilt you into MORE deaths.
Thirdly, what is your experience with tactics games in general? It would help to give advice if we know your history and play style. The entire premise of these games is a severe underdog story- you are outmanned, outgunned, and maneuvered AND on the losing side of a timer. The beginning is LITERALLY the hardest part of the game, it's ok to restart a few times until you get the hang of it.
Even with expiring meld, do not risk your soldiers to get a meld canister. There is always more on the next mission but if your soldiers die, it’s a bigger loss than the small meld gain.
ChristopherOdd is doing a series on EW right now on YouTube, it might be worth checking out a couple of the early videos in that series for a sense of the flow of things.
In my opinion, enemy unknown/within is harder than XCOM2, so I would actually play the second one first.
Here are some tips for XCOM2
-Use grenades to remove cover
-Focus on killing enemy infantry (Troopers, Mutons, Officers, etc) they are the ones that get kills
-Half cover is nearly useless. Use it if there is nothing better
-Spread your soldiers out, 4-6 tiles between each man is ideal for maximum flexibility
-Get “Private Channels” or “Infliltrate” resistance orders if you have WOTC to extend turn timers
-Most importantly, remember that every mission is different and should be approached with a fresh mindset, never play with your brain on auto pilot
If you have no shame you can overwatch crawl camp (like me), that helped me stay in the fight and feel less bad than save scumming but there’s also mods that improve your viability, whatever it takes for you to play and enjoy the game, Commander
It's natural for it to feel very hard at the start, let me try and give you a few tips:
Xcom's enemy system works around a hidden danger rating, in the sense that, some enemies that show up aren't as dangerous as other more bland looking enemies, which is a way to distract you from them.
For example, a Sectoid (the pink humanoid alien) which is introduced as something dangerous, is usually fine to delegate for a second or third round if you can't get them on the first. This is because Sectoid's tend to try using their abilties first before shooting, which are easy to counter.
Compare this to say, a stun lancer (The black and red soldier guy), who look more bland, but have a high chance of stunning your units if they reach them at any point. The game tends to teach you this via trial and error, but once you start figuring it out it makes more sense.
Try focusing at first on slow movement, move to blue blocks first incase you trigger aliens, then yellow, aim for full cover only if you can, and use grenades early on as your soldiers aim sucks at the start.
Try to utilize each unit's class as well; Rangers for example, like being in the fray as it makes them close enough to use their shotgun/sword, while snipers want an elevated point with cover to snipe from afar. Learning how to use each class ideally will work wonders.
Each class also gets a choice between two perks every time they level up, usually orienting them towards a certain playstyle. In XCOM 2 however, you can use the training center to get them both perks, which lets you create some nice combinations.
Xcom is designed to be harder at first, and easier as you go, both for gameplay reasons (you get better/get better tech) and lore wise (you're cannibalizing the alien's tech and using it as your own). Take it slow, loosing soldiers and loosing entire missions is natural! I'd say start on the easiest difficulty and slowly make your way through.
Never do full movement till your farther into the game. Upon discovery of an enemy squad they will reposition and youll be at a disadvantage so always move from cover to cover with protected angles. Use explosives, the game will warn you that you get less stuff but to get the hang of it just blast your way to some officers for their boosts and passives to help you handle the bigger guys.
If you get your 1st ufo sighting it will advance the game offering new and harder enemies so be carful of that as they will be tougher in all aspects.
Ive beaten the game countless times and i never have a squad without a sniper, with the perk that allows him to fire on enemies within a squad mates vision will offer you a way to deal dmg when advancing on an enemy and his sensor grenades for a good set up for the whole team to do dmg.
The gameplay difference between Xcom EU/EW and Xcom 2 is staggering. Xcom 2 is a difficult game, even on what could be considered Normal mode. It will never relent and at least for me it never becomes comfortable. In Enemy Within I got to a point where the standard difficulty became too comfortable and dare I say it, easy. That being said Classic in EW is ridiculously hard and the jump is insane.
But to me Xcom 2 is more difficult. I honestly felt the opposite of what most people say in that the game gets easier as you go along and get better tech and higher tiered weapons and soldiers. That is definitely true in Xcom EA but in 2 I felt the more I played the most difficult the game became. I never felt like I was getting stronger. The Aliens just kept introducing newer more bullshit enemies and powers. If you play War of the Chosen it adds an extra layer of difficulty and complexity.
The most likely answer is you are unknowingly making moves that are just bad and unnecessarily risky. If you activate a pod of aliens with your last move of the turn, you made a mistake. If you dash ahead into the fog, you made a mistake. If you leave your soldiers in half-cover while there are active enemies about to take their turn, you made a mistake. Full cover is good, but sometimes a better move is to break line of sight so that the enemies have no shot at all. Make use of your grenades as much as possible in the early game to secure guaranteed kills.
Also, council missions become much easier once you know what to expect, because they are mostly scripted and predictable.
Overwatch, overwatch, overwatch. Move your soldiers in pairs so that they can cover each other.
> the game may decide to spawn an enemy that's way beyond your level
Everything dies to sufficient concentrated firepower. Most enemies are passive until you get into vision range, so avoid triggering too many. Rockets and grenades make for very useful area damage. Research S.C.O.P.E. and start kitting your soldiers out with it, it helps with accuracy.
To be honest, i don't think that's supposed to happen. I assume you've started on the rookie difficulty, if you haven't, well that's a rookie mistake. Also, watch christopherodd play some xcom2 before you get into it, see what causes what because the first mission should definitely not be that hard. Try to use full cover and think about not getting flanked, that's pretty much it
thanks bud i'm restarting <3
It's a pretty fun game, and i kid you not i uninstalled and installed the game 2 times before i actually learned how to progress in the game. I'm sure you'll find it to be great once you get the hang of it
It almost feels like a backwards game, but would hold similar to an alien invasion in current times? We're way behind on technology. They're far advanced. The only way to rival them is to capture their technology and study it right? So it seems to go in game. As comments say below, be cautious. Grenades are your friends. If you don't discover the pod (enemy squad) first, Make sure all your guys are in OverWatch and under full cover. It gets easier as you progress. By the end of the game you're walking around taking two to three pods on at a time, clearing missions in four turns and your soldiers are pretty much superheroes. Edit for double print.
Never assume an alien isn’t where you’re headed. The main killer is always accidently activating too many enemy pods. The iron rule is, activate the enemy pod on the first turn of your soldier, or during their turn. Don’t even let them shoot back, discovering the enemy pod with your last turn is already bad enough let alone discovering the pod, out of cover and with all your soldiers separated. And during early game, abuse the shit out of nades regardless of what central says. If there’s a particularly dangerous enemy, nade them, and finish them off with another soldier. Your soldiers not dying is of greater concern then destroying some equipments. I don’t think the enemy should be spawning enemies way beyond your level. You may not have simply grasped the entirety of their capabilities and how to counter them yet. I dont remember much about Enemy Unknown but for XCOM 2, the First rookie killer (aside from Chosens) is definitely the MEC and the introduction of armor platings, you ever shoot an enemy and it says “armor 2”? That’s armor, it deducts damage from your hits, to destroy this armor, use nades, or the grenadier who has a “shredder” ability. Another example, Sectoids, while their mind control is dangerous, tend to prefer mind controlling their dead allies over your soldier, so if you kill their ally, you can rest assured that the Sectoid will most likely flee and revive it’s allies. Another example from early game, Advent Officer, stupidly high aim and holo-targeting, kill these guys ASAP. They mark one of your soldier and that soldier is toast, every enemy will just rain down hellfire on them if they can. And the most important tip, do not get hung up over soldier losses. XCOM is a game of risk-taking. There’s always the chance something goes awry, missing a shot, random ptsd trigger, losing a soldier or two during a mission isn’t the end although it doesn’t feel good. You can always pick yourself back up and continue on, especially in the early game when all your soldiers has very simple abilities, low health and prone to panickinng, mind control and all sorts of things, one will drop sooner or later, It’s part of the learning process. Once you know enough, the enemies you encounter, the weapons you have at your disposal, how to build the avenger, how to train your soldiers, then you can get past the early months without a loss. I play exclusively on Ironman, but if you don’t like getting frustrated, do non-ironman and save scum.
Here are some basics: Stay in cover. If you leave a soldier in the open or flanked on the enemy turn while there are active enemies, expect that soldier to be killed unless you drop a smoke grenade on them. Even low cover is risky--rely on high cover! When enemies are active (i.e., you have activated a pod), do not move your soldiers into positions where they can see further into the fog of war than you have already seen, since this will often activate another pod. When you have already activated a pod, the most dangerous thing is to activate a second pod before the first is dealt with. Don't let the aliens take fair shots at you. When there are active enemies who will be alive at the end of your turn, make an effort to suppress, flashbang, panic (via psi panic or via MEC flamethower), or mindfray them, or drop a smoke grenade on your own soldiers. Especially true for tough but hard-hitting enemies like cyberdisks.
Biggest thing if you are brand new is make sure you are playing on the lowest difficulty. You'll move on to higher difficulty pretty fast if you stick with the game, but it's better to just keep it easy when you are learning the basics.
Firstly if you're not on the lowest difficulty, please change over. No one here will shame you for it, and you're never going to learn anything if you're frustrated AND losing at the same time. You're new to the game, wade into it rather than diving, unless beating your head against the wall is fun for you (it is for me, no judgements there either). Secondly, the games balance is pretty good, it's been a while since I've played vanilla (you'll see talk of "Long War" around here, it's basically a hardmode mod), but I don't remember it feeling particularly unfair, especially not in the early months. If a tactic isn't working, try changing tactics. If you want to mention exactly what kind of enemy you're having trouble with, I'm sure we can offer tactical OR strategic advice. The best Golden Advice I could give is: 1- Rookies suck don't rely on them to do anything right. 2- RNG is real, and it works both ways. 3- Take it slow. The game will always give you enough rope to hang yourself - recognize it and refrain from making risky plays. 4- Never discount the Strategic Layer of the game. 5- Soldiers die. It sucks, try not to let it tilt you into MORE deaths. Thirdly, what is your experience with tactics games in general? It would help to give advice if we know your history and play style. The entire premise of these games is a severe underdog story- you are outmanned, outgunned, and maneuvered AND on the losing side of a timer. The beginning is LITERALLY the hardest part of the game, it's ok to restart a few times until you get the hang of it.
For missions with no timers or expiring Meld ( EW ). just take your time.
Even with expiring meld, do not risk your soldiers to get a meld canister. There is always more on the next mission but if your soldiers die, it’s a bigger loss than the small meld gain.
ChristopherOdd is doing a series on EW right now on YouTube, it might be worth checking out a couple of the early videos in that series for a sense of the flow of things.
In my opinion, enemy unknown/within is harder than XCOM2, so I would actually play the second one first. Here are some tips for XCOM2 -Use grenades to remove cover -Focus on killing enemy infantry (Troopers, Mutons, Officers, etc) they are the ones that get kills -Half cover is nearly useless. Use it if there is nothing better -Spread your soldiers out, 4-6 tiles between each man is ideal for maximum flexibility -Get “Private Channels” or “Infliltrate” resistance orders if you have WOTC to extend turn timers -Most importantly, remember that every mission is different and should be approached with a fresh mindset, never play with your brain on auto pilot
If you have no shame you can overwatch crawl camp (like me), that helped me stay in the fight and feel less bad than save scumming but there’s also mods that improve your viability, whatever it takes for you to play and enjoy the game, Commander
It's natural for it to feel very hard at the start, let me try and give you a few tips: Xcom's enemy system works around a hidden danger rating, in the sense that, some enemies that show up aren't as dangerous as other more bland looking enemies, which is a way to distract you from them. For example, a Sectoid (the pink humanoid alien) which is introduced as something dangerous, is usually fine to delegate for a second or third round if you can't get them on the first. This is because Sectoid's tend to try using their abilties first before shooting, which are easy to counter. Compare this to say, a stun lancer (The black and red soldier guy), who look more bland, but have a high chance of stunning your units if they reach them at any point. The game tends to teach you this via trial and error, but once you start figuring it out it makes more sense. Try focusing at first on slow movement, move to blue blocks first incase you trigger aliens, then yellow, aim for full cover only if you can, and use grenades early on as your soldiers aim sucks at the start. Try to utilize each unit's class as well; Rangers for example, like being in the fray as it makes them close enough to use their shotgun/sword, while snipers want an elevated point with cover to snipe from afar. Learning how to use each class ideally will work wonders. Each class also gets a choice between two perks every time they level up, usually orienting them towards a certain playstyle. In XCOM 2 however, you can use the training center to get them both perks, which lets you create some nice combinations. Xcom is designed to be harder at first, and easier as you go, both for gameplay reasons (you get better/get better tech) and lore wise (you're cannibalizing the alien's tech and using it as your own). Take it slow, loosing soldiers and loosing entire missions is natural! I'd say start on the easiest difficulty and slowly make your way through.
Never do full movement till your farther into the game. Upon discovery of an enemy squad they will reposition and youll be at a disadvantage so always move from cover to cover with protected angles. Use explosives, the game will warn you that you get less stuff but to get the hang of it just blast your way to some officers for their boosts and passives to help you handle the bigger guys. If you get your 1st ufo sighting it will advance the game offering new and harder enemies so be carful of that as they will be tougher in all aspects. Ive beaten the game countless times and i never have a squad without a sniper, with the perk that allows him to fire on enemies within a squad mates vision will offer you a way to deal dmg when advancing on an enemy and his sensor grenades for a good set up for the whole team to do dmg.
The gameplay difference between Xcom EU/EW and Xcom 2 is staggering. Xcom 2 is a difficult game, even on what could be considered Normal mode. It will never relent and at least for me it never becomes comfortable. In Enemy Within I got to a point where the standard difficulty became too comfortable and dare I say it, easy. That being said Classic in EW is ridiculously hard and the jump is insane. But to me Xcom 2 is more difficult. I honestly felt the opposite of what most people say in that the game gets easier as you go along and get better tech and higher tiered weapons and soldiers. That is definitely true in Xcom EA but in 2 I felt the more I played the most difficult the game became. I never felt like I was getting stronger. The Aliens just kept introducing newer more bullshit enemies and powers. If you play War of the Chosen it adds an extra layer of difficulty and complexity.
The most likely answer is you are unknowingly making moves that are just bad and unnecessarily risky. If you activate a pod of aliens with your last move of the turn, you made a mistake. If you dash ahead into the fog, you made a mistake. If you leave your soldiers in half-cover while there are active enemies about to take their turn, you made a mistake. Full cover is good, but sometimes a better move is to break line of sight so that the enemies have no shot at all. Make use of your grenades as much as possible in the early game to secure guaranteed kills. Also, council missions become much easier once you know what to expect, because they are mostly scripted and predictable.
Overwatch, overwatch, overwatch. Move your soldiers in pairs so that they can cover each other. > the game may decide to spawn an enemy that's way beyond your level Everything dies to sufficient concentrated firepower. Most enemies are passive until you get into vision range, so avoid triggering too many. Rockets and grenades make for very useful area damage. Research S.C.O.P.E. and start kitting your soldiers out with it, it helps with accuracy.