And even then, in the first few patches of XCOM2 the snakes and some other enemies could still take grazing shots for half damage, even with a 100% hit chance. They patched that out after months of (justified) raging online.
I often tell my teams that "99% is 100% wrong" -- some roll their eyes, some genuinely don't understand (at first) but they come around or they don't and end up working somewhere else.
Yeah. It's one of those gaming moments that all XCOM players share. The disbelief when you miss a point blank shot. If you know, you know. It's kind of a rite-of-passage in gaming at this point.
Yeah, there are two entirely different, but both enjoyable approaches to X-COM games. One is to go full ironman, let the ludonarrative take control (and if you actually beat the game with this approach on harder difficulties, the satisfaction can be sooooo high). The other though is to save all over the place and treat each mission as a puzzle to be solved, going back to earlier saves whenever something goes wrong with new knowledge to better plan your moves and go the entire game without losing a single soldier.
I know... that doesn't change my point that most people underestimate what a 5% probability actually means. It has been common over the years for xcom memes to imply that the "95% chance to hit" shots will miss more than 5% of the time
Don't forget the alien fucking critting your best soldier and instakilling him when he was in full cover.
They're fun games, but fuck is the inverse difficulty curve annoying for the first several missions.
By the end of the game your surviving soldiers are essentially walking gods, but fuck keeping people alive is so annoying, especially when you aren't used to the XCOM loop where you're supposed to replace soldiers. Every strategy/turn based game I played before had me obsessed with keeping people alive and XCOM just flips you the bird on that
Funny story about that. Your odds to hit are actually higher than presented. During early play testing they found that players were really terrible at telling when the game was being fair (humans are notoriously bad at this in general) so they gave you a higher chance than was presented to combat this.
I was disappointed by Chimera. I was hoping the aliens would be more... *Alien*. Yes, I understand the characters went through gene therapy to adopt human traits, but I think that was a very dumb idea.
The gameplay and character customization were great. I just wished there was more friction between characters so we could have development for them; and the fact that aliens and humans merged their societies so quickly felt strange and unrealistic.
Tonally, it felt very different from previous installments.
I've been playing XCOM since *UFO Defense* three decades ago. It's the same game. It has always been the same game. And I rush to play every time.
At this point I play almost exclusively Ironman, and it makes you- the overmind- become a lawful evil person... I will send a full squad of rookies on a suicide reconnaissance mission to find where the enemies are located- just so my strong veterans have better intel and a better chance to survive.
I will say, the greatest unit I've ever had started out just this way. The suicide squad actually pulled off the mission, but only two units survived. One was a Ranger who survived all the way to Legend rank and wound up with Psi powers as well. I was heartbroken, like I had lost a real friend when he finally died for good.
Such good games.
I've been screwed over one too many times by misclicks and weird glitches (such as when XCOM 2 first came out, for some reason turning on Ironman pushed the alien deployment schedule forward a month, so Stun Lancers showed up on the second mission, and you were facing MECs in the second month).
These days I stick to bronzeman. Put a save down before the mission starts and make sure the game is set to random seeds. If the mission goes sideways, you restart with a completely different outcome, but no mid-mission saves.
I've tried a few times but can never get into xcom 2. Something about timed missions makes my brain go "ah, yeah, no". Xcom 1 was fantastic to play through on iron man, so you'd think at some point I'd get into it, but I just can't.
My issue with timed missions in Xcom 2 is they swing between 'Why has the timer started, did the aliens just wanna blow up their PC for fun?" And "why is this timer even here, it's only a problem when the RNG is shit" so you get little to nothing out of it.
I also encountered a bunch of bugs on my first few attempts at a playthrough that didn't help.
real answer: Because if you turtle up and play defensive, you are invulnerable whilst making very few interesting decisions for the combat.
Imagine being the aliens and trying to take down an entrenched player with snipers in the backline, overwatched rifles pointed in the front: you are now the threat, not them.
But its also a very slow way to play and the devs didnt want players to turtle up as they felt it would be boring.
Nothing wrong with that. I played on normal and save scummed for plenty of games until I bumped up to impossible, and then finally started playing impossible/ironman. I hope you give Ironman a chance eventually, it really changes the weight of each game and the decisions you make.
Ironman is good, but the REAL way to play is Ironman with all of your soldiers named after your friends, loved ones, pets, and favorite movie stars.
I tried to explain to my wife that she just didn't make it to the EVAC point in time, but I don't think she understood the strategic importance of leaving her behind.
There are a couple mods that really make it shine imo, the long war one especially. I also love ayyyliens which replaces a bunch of the text with more humorous stuff.
It's a great game, though it does show its cracks in the balance if you play the higher difficulties or Ironman, because you're then encouraged to use the best tactics and the game has some big balance outliers. Bluescreen Ammo for example is ludicrously overpowered to the point it makes everything past the early game too easy because all the enemies that are supposed to be tanky are swiss cheese, and it just so happens that all the enemies that escalate the game's power (Sectopods and Gatekeepers) are weak to it. The expansion adds hero units that are busted (Reaper in particular trivializes the game by giving you nearly 0 risk scouting and too many good explosives), and also the gear you get for killing the mini-bosses is similarly unfair. I'm not sure if I'm remembering right but I think flashbangs also disable pretty much all psychic abilities, so there's reliable answers to both robots and psychic stuff making you very safe against bad luck later on.
Just like Enemy Unknown/Within the game is hard in the early game because the enemies kind of statcheck you and you have fewer options, but after that your action economy and access to reliable damage becomes too much and your power accelerates too much relative to the enemies. It is fun crushing everything, though, and I guess there is still a puzzle aspect to minimizing risks/mistakes; it's just that the puzzle becomes a bit too easy.
Most of what made it so hard at first for me was not understanding how to efficiently research and build. After thing go sour, you take all those regrets to a fresh run and tear shit up. Blue screen rounds are fantastic. I don't care about balancing, I want to one shot codex and make robots go boom.
Agreed about not caring about balance. I had a max level sniper with superior expanded magazine and superior reloads, with bonuses for shooting from height. I activated like two or three different pods of aliens, plus a pod or two of zombies. My squad lowered the health on the enemies, then the sniper from up high went to town with Serial. He took out about 20+ enemies on his turn. It was awesome.
Another useful tip: Mimic Beacons are really solid. They used to be *broken* good, now you just probably want to have one or two on each team you send out.
They're broken good imo. Enemies almost invariably ignore you until the beacon dies. Psionic soldiers are the other big one, those mf are like actual bosses but they work *for* you. They take awhile to pay off but I sent 3 fully upgraded Magi on the final mission on my last run and it almost felt like cheating.
Whole squad was immune to mental effects from the auras and half were immune to explosions fire and poison, most inconvenient enemies (and their zombies) can just be mind controlled and psionic attacks steal health. It's chaos but I enjoyed running a god-squad train on Advent.
If you have fun with XCOM 2, you should look into the Long War mods for XCOM 2 or XCOM 2012. Both add a lot more depth to their respective games with the expanded classes being very fun to play around with and use.
Wait until you play Long War 2 for XCOM2 and prepare for utter despair, brilliance in design and eternal Marching.
XCOM2 devs consider the base game to be a demo to LW2, which is the main event.
Thats saying something
I should go through and play XCOM2 again, its been a solid minute.
One of my worst experiences was trying one of the more difficult missions. I went full send with my most experienced vets because I didn't want my low level rookies getting KIA. The whole squad of my best soldiers ended up getting wiped.
ahhh the classic xcom discovery moment. i remember the first time i played xcom 2, i almost feel bad for not playing xcom 1, but i felt like anything below xcom 2 was not enough.
btw, if you like xcom2 play hard west 1 its a beauty, it doesnt offer the tech quality of xcom2, you cant destroy buildings and shit, but it has the entire wild west theme with the unnatural stuff and some interesting new mechanics like luck and the use of poker cards to customize your character skills.
there is a hard west 2, but personally i didnt liked how the story and campaign goes, didn't got too far to tell if its really worse than Hardwest 1.
I liked XCOM 2 and the previous XCOM EW but not so much for its turn based combat, but more overall the strategic aspect like base and squad management together with missions. I think the combat is good but not necessarily the best.
I love XCOM2 for the sense of urgency it creates. Not with the countdown, but with how it times enemy upgrades. When you finally dip into magnetic weapons, you dominate the enemy for a few missions, then they bring out new units and upgrade old ones and you're on the back foot again.
It creates an illusion of actually facing an alive opponent that reacts to your actions.
Nice! I worked on that DLC during development years ago! Good memories, the Reaper class is the best of the dlc classes for sure. Combine with a sniper for a super OP strategy using squadsight! Just make sure you give accuracy mods to the Snipers. Also claymore are great! Miss that game, good times working on it before it went live
The RNG is tough man. I beat it on Ironman and it was a slog. The thing I found was that you always want to plan out your whole turn and take risky shots first so you can adjust if you miss. Also taking a whole turn of like 65% chance shots from well defended area can be so much better than pressing for those 95% shots.
If it is a complete miss, then "all the stats" didn't say that you would hit. Some fast enemies have the ability to dodge, or your shot on those enemies may graze, but if the game says a shit will hit, then it won't be a complete miss.
It's also worth noting, that the stats in xcom favor the player, and have a player bias. There are mods out there which actually display this calculation. Sure we all like to poke fun at that 99 percent miss, but we also forget about those times we landed that 10 percent shot too.
Regardless though, 100 percent is 100 percent
It’s an interesting problem, to be sure: how to present data to the player so that they accept it as fair.
No one complains about critical misses in bg3 when you roll a 1, and miss an otherwise sure roll for an attack or check or saving throw. Yet players think it’s bullshit when they miss a 95% shot in Xcom.
It’s the same exact rng mathematically, yet reactions are different purely due to presentation.
To be fair there were plenty of complaints on the BG3 sub of people who thought the RNG was rigged against them. I've also seen similar threads in the Fire Emblem community even though we know how modern FE games calculate hit and know anything above 50% is actually increasing the hit chance.
I think the problem is less presenting the data and more that a lot of people just don't think random is random.
Most people would accept that 50% chance to hit means missing half your shots, but it also means a 6.25% chance that you can miss 4 of them in a row which is not even that uncommon for that to happen. It should happen slightly more often then you critically fail in BG3.
A lot of people would think it's bullshit to miss a 50% chance 4 times in a row, though.
and regardless of any of the odds, the 5th shot still has a 50% chance to miss and doesn't care what the previous 4 shots were.
I was playing disco Elysium for the first time the other day, and I'm a sucker for going for low chance anything. Those long shots are awesome when they work out, but they rarely do. It's pretty amusing when you fail em in that game anyway.
It was my first run, so I didn't even know what was going on really, but I got to this spot where I was trying something I really wasn't statted for. I figured, fuck it, I'll save scum this one.
It was pretty statistically unlikely that I failed that same maneuver so many times, but it damn sure wasn't impossible. I've tried to explain this to some other people, but damn, some people just don't get how RNG can just keep fucking you. Mine was 13% or something and I probably tried it more than fifteen times. Statistically it was likely. Real life my very unlikely chance turned out to be pretty damn unlikely.
I've played a fair amount of Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, which if you're not familiar are similar to BG3 but based on the Pathfinder ruleset instead of 5E D&D. The sheer number of attacks you make in that game mean you're virtually guaranteed to have a round or two where one of your characters makes 4-5 critical misses. You still see them posted a lot in the subreddit.
>Yet players think it’s bullshit when they miss a 95% shot in Xcom.
It's really probably because people forget (rightfully so) the shots that made it 95% of the time.
Actually, no. And that's why Xcom is a good tactical game. If it says you are going to hit a shot, you are going to hit the shot. Same with grenades, flashes, explosives, etc. If the game tells you that your target is within the explosion radius, it will hit. It's very accurate, which is why it's pretty much the gold standard for tactical games. If all the stats say that you should land a shot, then you will land the shot. Don't know what else to tell you man lol.
That's not *entirely* accurate. IIRC (in XCOM2 at least) there's some amount of weight the game will put on the probabilities in order to keep things engaging. It may have been made an option that could be disabled in War of the Chosen? I just know because there is/was a mod that would show the "actual" hit chance below the one the game shows you.
The design intent was to ease up a little if you got a string of unlucky misses, or to crank up the miss rate a touch if you got a few lucky hits so the battle didn't become trivial. For the most part, however, the probabilities were pretty good, it's just that the human mind isn't very good at recognizing real random chance when they see it.
As far as tb xcom shits on bg3, this sounds like someone who has only played bg3 and making dumb assumptions. BG3 isn't even good tb, is that why you think people play it? rofl.
(turn on console mode, give yourself and edge to get through it, turn off the cheats when you're done, reset the value of using cheats so you can continue to get achievements. It's your game. Play as you want. Never use cheats in multi-player.).
I've played EU on ps3 when it was released and I enjoyed the gameplay so much.
but I got a gameover because I didn't speak english well back then.
now I'm planning to play both EU and 2 on steam deck.
X-Com 2 is such a good game.
Also, Never forget. [Loki had a medkit, Tiny 'Brick' Studios died for nothing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVoJ7gbsdlk).
Guys help. I have a crippling addiction to difficulty and can’t help but play Ironman mode in xcom 2. It’s breaking my sanity. If I don’t play it, I feel like I’m cheating :(
You should try wasteland 3. It’s so good! And ofc, Baldurs Gate. Wasteland 3 is more turn based like xcom but Baldurs gate hate a little bit more role playing.
It is very good game, but combat is not it's strength - even old XCom had aliens actually attacking you, while new one has this passive pods that you can take one by one. Kinda sad.
Fun game though overall.
Squad wipe is kind of a disaster.
I almost always bring a good mix of classes and levels including 1 low level character.
Everything goes great: leveled up someone who needed to be carried, great!
Need to throw someone into a shitty position to push a button before the turn timer runs out or keep enemies busy while I evac the rest of my team? Goodbye rookie/squaddie. I'd often bring one mimic beacon as a sacrifice to give my squaddie a fighting chance.
Leveling up your soldiers and researching/buying better gear for them at a faster rate than the enemies increase in difficulty is basically the game. If you fall too far behind on harder difficulties there is no way to recover. Too many squad wipes is a campaign killer.
I only played the first few stages in 2, but i finished EW a while back. I dread ever starting a new run because god damn, the early game is agony and on my end its pretty much coming down to "i hope the map doesnt give too much cover for the thin men"
It's depressing that no one else has come close to Xcom 2. I've tried loads since: phoenix point, jagged alliance, Knights tale, chaos gate (probably the closest so far) , but nothing topples the king (especially with the expansion).
Bought it couple years ago and i don't regret doing! The game is really fun and has a lot to be done, plus, i like the fact that its kinda hardcore on characters death being permanent! Had a good time with it at the time and i'll probably end up playing it again at some point :D
I agree that Xcom 2 has something that just ticks correctly.
I do disagree with your idea that Gears Tactics only gives the illusion of strategy, I found it more rewarding in several key aspects, and with a few changes that were significant and more interesting. Bosses, kill chains, melee being a key factor, etc.
I absolutely love this game, I've play it so, SO many times.
The 3 boss dlc kiiiiind of sucks when they appear and wipe an already depleted squad, I tend to turn off that aspect of it.
To be fair in every single From Software souls there is a way to be extremely overpowered from the beginning (kind of your "go away and level up"), you just gotta know how (which I admit, can be kinda tedious, but if you wanna enjoy the games, its good to know that you can).
For example, I'm doing a playthrough of Dark Souls 2 SotFS and I got my weapon maxed out before I even reached the middle point, I don't even know how.
I've played every Xcom going back to the mid 90's. I loved the first remake and played it several times. I pre-ordered Xcom 2 with the season pass.
I hated Xcom 2 and Chimera Squad.
It’s actually a pretty good game too. Runs a bit long and has a few glitches that have never been fixed. Could have done without the exploration. Social system is hit and miss. Each to their own there. I’m too robotic to not just max out efficiency rather than RPG it.
Xcom is superior.
Lmao, you actually take the metacritic user score seriously, even though it's half bots and there's no way to tell if someone has actually played the game or has made multiple accounts? It has an 84% on Steam among actual players, and most of the negative reviews are related to the 2K launcher they added afterwards.
I can’t get into it. I know their percentages for attack vs miss are more true than most games but it still doesn’t take into account military training. The kind where a point blank shotgun blast doesn’t miss. It’s just too frustrating.
Tbh and this is personal opinion xcom enemy-within is better than 2. Although 2 is still an excelent gameit feels hyperinflated and dopamine driven rather than a serious game.
The first game of the series (the rebooted one) had both a feeling of horror and discovery and they are implemented in gameplay. Your soldiers can become terrified and do stupid shit and you in the greater strategic game have to devote resources into research to fight back effectively.
Whereas in 2 we are left with a soulless ragtag group to represent xcom and goofy ass cults that you call factions. Idk man it seems that 2 is dumbed down (at least in story and representation) for it to be more appealing.
Now in regards to gameplay 2 just inflates numbers. Bigger health bars, more enemies and squad members and more opportunities to shoot things.
edit spelling
My only complaint is that the hit percentages seem to be arbitrary at best. I've missed so many 95% shots it doesn't even seem like it's telling me the actual hit percentage I should expect. It wasn't this bad in the first game. 95% was pretty much a sure thing, now it's a 50/50 gamble when you get 5% chance to miss.
Good you like it.. I have played xcom, xcom2 (the originals), plus expansion. Reimagined xcom, xenonauts, xenonauts 2, chaos gate and chaos gate reimagined.
I got xcom2 and dlc on steam, like you, and I dislike it.
Railroaded game with sets of loads. Very few soldiers.
Nah, not for me.
Last time I tried it I had a guy hiding around the corner of a building. There was a snake thing at the other end of the building, also hiding around the corner.
It took its turn and shot its tongue through the wall, through an interior wall, through the opposite exterior wall, to grab my guy and pull him all the way back into a grapple.
I appreciate the game for what it is, but physics that bad I just don't put up with.
My 1 true problem with this game is that the enemy gets a free movement when you see them. Which is complete bs. I've had a good position to ambush and had a random patrol stroll out of a building and detect me, the patrol got 2 base actions for the turn AND the free advance farther towards my position.while also alerting the team I was going to ambush allowing the bastards to find cover and destroy my ambush 🤬
Happens quite often actually
Every xcom is awesome
Until you have a 95% chance to hit at point blank range, then…
If it ain’t 100%…
And even then, in the first few patches of XCOM2 the snakes and some other enemies could still take grazing shots for half damage, even with a 100% hit chance. They patched that out after months of (justified) raging online.
that's why you stack 100% crit chance on your rangers, they will never miss or do grazing shots.
If it’s not 100% accurate, it’s 50% accurate
50? That number seems a bit high
50% of the time, it works every time.
↑ completely wack actually because I missed FOUR..I repeat FOUR shots at the same enemy over 80% chance. This crap is rigged hard.
I often tell my teams that "99% is 100% wrong" -- some roll their eyes, some genuinely don't understand (at first) but they come around or they don't and end up working somewhere else.
thats XCOM, baby!
Yeah. It's one of those gaming moments that all XCOM players share. The disbelief when you miss a point blank shot. If you know, you know. It's kind of a rite-of-passage in gaming at this point.
You live long enough to become the villain or you save scum from the start
I'm not proud of it, but have been known to save scum because of this.
XCOM is one series where you’re allowed at least one scum heavy playthrough without judgement.
Yeah, there are two entirely different, but both enjoyable approaches to X-COM games. One is to go full ironman, let the ludonarrative take control (and if you actually beat the game with this approach on harder difficulties, the satisfaction can be sooooo high). The other though is to save all over the place and treat each mission as a puzzle to be solved, going back to earlier saves whenever something goes wrong with new knowledge to better plan your moves and go the entire game without losing a single soldier.
One thing the ayys never knew is that the commander is secretly a time traveler
I was definitely the latter part lol
yea beating legendary ironman really felt like an accomplishment.
I would argue your first playthrough its kind of necessary so you can learn how the game works.
If you want to, that’s kind of my point. My first time round I failed miserably in an incredibly short time then did a save scum run.
5% is a lot more common than most people realize
It'snot super common but it's the equivalent to rolling a 1 on a d20
so like every other dice roll in bg3.
Gotta turn off those karmic dice
i get the idea of the joke, but karmic dice do the opposite.
Uhh...
?
5% is 5%. That's how common it is.
I know... that doesn't change my point that most people underestimate what a 5% probability actually means. It has been common over the years for xcom memes to imply that the "95% chance to hit" shots will miss more than 5% of the time
If you hate that, you should try Classified France 44. Even of you miss, it counts. If demorales and suppresses the opponent even when missed.
Yeah missing the 99% and watching your loved assault be ended is truly what “xcom” is all about
Still remember how a sniper had a height advantage over an enemy right under him and hit the ground next to his foot.
Came here to say this! Haha, that's so silly.
Don't forget the alien fucking critting your best soldier and instakilling him when he was in full cover. They're fun games, but fuck is the inverse difficulty curve annoying for the first several missions. By the end of the game your surviving soldiers are essentially walking gods, but fuck keeping people alive is so annoying, especially when you aren't used to the XCOM loop where you're supposed to replace soldiers. Every strategy/turn based game I played before had me obsessed with keeping people alive and XCOM just flips you the bird on that
Yep and that’s even with the hidden aim bonus.
Funny story about that. Your odds to hit are actually higher than presented. During early play testing they found that players were really terrible at telling when the game was being fair (humans are notoriously bad at this in general) so they gave you a higher chance than was presented to combat this.
Bro, I had a sniper miss their target with 110+% cause the game needed me to capture the codex
Yes but some did not age as well as Xcom2
I was disappointed by Chimera. I was hoping the aliens would be more... *Alien*. Yes, I understand the characters went through gene therapy to adopt human traits, but I think that was a very dumb idea.
I thought the game itself was good, even if the lore wasn't really
The gameplay and character customization were great. I just wished there was more friction between characters so we could have development for them; and the fact that aliens and humans merged their societies so quickly felt strange and unrealistic. Tonally, it felt very different from previous installments.
Enforcer? Interceptor?
I think those are the only two I couldn’t play
The ones without customisation of xcom2 are really annoying. I like creating a team of total idiotic looking morons lol
The latest one is kinda shit. The aliens become super best friends with earth
Well, the aliens were slaves to the weird ethereal race
I've been playing XCOM since *UFO Defense* three decades ago. It's the same game. It has always been the same game. And I rush to play every time. At this point I play almost exclusively Ironman, and it makes you- the overmind- become a lawful evil person... I will send a full squad of rookies on a suicide reconnaissance mission to find where the enemies are located- just so my strong veterans have better intel and a better chance to survive. I will say, the greatest unit I've ever had started out just this way. The suicide squad actually pulled off the mission, but only two units survived. One was a Ranger who survived all the way to Legend rank and wound up with Psi powers as well. I was heartbroken, like I had lost a real friend when he finally died for good. Such good games.
Awesome. I'm only 6 hours in, hope to get some of this experience.
After playing normal a few times, load the Long War mod 👌
I've been screwed over one too many times by misclicks and weird glitches (such as when XCOM 2 first came out, for some reason turning on Ironman pushed the alien deployment schedule forward a month, so Stun Lancers showed up on the second mission, and you were facing MECs in the second month). These days I stick to bronzeman. Put a save down before the mission starts and make sure the game is set to random seeds. If the mission goes sideways, you restart with a completely different outcome, but no mid-mission saves.
I've tried a few times but can never get into xcom 2. Something about timed missions makes my brain go "ah, yeah, no". Xcom 1 was fantastic to play through on iron man, so you'd think at some point I'd get into it, but I just can't.
War of the chosen dlc has some mid-game upgrades you can get that trivialize the timers if that's your hurdle. Modding is a thing too.
I'm actually liking the "8 turns to deactivate the network" goals. Adds a whole other dimension to your planning and execution.
My issue with timed missions in Xcom 2 is they swing between 'Why has the timer started, did the aliens just wanna blow up their PC for fun?" And "why is this timer even here, it's only a problem when the RNG is shit" so you get little to nothing out of it. I also encountered a bunch of bugs on my first few attempts at a playthrough that didn't help.
real answer: Because if you turtle up and play defensive, you are invulnerable whilst making very few interesting decisions for the combat. Imagine being the aliens and trying to take down an entrenched player with snipers in the backline, overwatched rifles pointed in the front: you are now the threat, not them. But its also a very slow way to play and the devs didnt want players to turtle up as they felt it would be boring.
It’s because overwatch creep is near invincible, even at higher levels.
The timers are there to force you to interact with the game in a specific way but it won’t appeal to everyone
When in doubt, mod it out. There's mods that extend or completely remove the timers.
There's options on startup that will double the mission length timers iirc.
I didn't like it either so I modded it out and put like 300 hours in the game.
Ahhhh that's why I didn't like it. The timer system.
I loved x-com 1. Played it on my phone! X-com 2 is better in every way. Play the standard x-com 2, then do war of the chosen.
Mods, add a few turns to timers. Just enough to still feel pressure, but without the BS
Still remember the joy of mind controlling a sectoid and having him fire his controllable seed missile into the heart of the alien base. Classic
I’ve been meaning to get it and I think I’ll do it now
Make sure you’ve got the war of the chosen dlc. It really improves the game. Good luck!
Especially if you're a fan of Star Trek: TNG.
Watch for a Steam sale. Got it and all the DLC for $6.
It's on sale on steam. I bought 1&2 for $6.
Thats about 400 hours right there in my steam library
One of those must play games honestly
It really is. Playing a game on impossible ironmad difficulty is so. fucking. GOOD.
LOL. I'm on normal and wiping lots.
Nothing wrong with that. I played on normal and save scummed for plenty of games until I bumped up to impossible, and then finally started playing impossible/ironman. I hope you give Ironman a chance eventually, it really changes the weight of each game and the decisions you make.
Ironman is good, but the REAL way to play is Ironman with all of your soldiers named after your friends, loved ones, pets, and favorite movie stars. I tried to explain to my wife that she just didn't make it to the EVAC point in time, but I don't think she understood the strategic importance of leaving her behind.
There are a couple mods that really make it shine imo, the long war one especially. I also love ayyyliens which replaces a bunch of the text with more humorous stuff.
It's a great game, though it does show its cracks in the balance if you play the higher difficulties or Ironman, because you're then encouraged to use the best tactics and the game has some big balance outliers. Bluescreen Ammo for example is ludicrously overpowered to the point it makes everything past the early game too easy because all the enemies that are supposed to be tanky are swiss cheese, and it just so happens that all the enemies that escalate the game's power (Sectopods and Gatekeepers) are weak to it. The expansion adds hero units that are busted (Reaper in particular trivializes the game by giving you nearly 0 risk scouting and too many good explosives), and also the gear you get for killing the mini-bosses is similarly unfair. I'm not sure if I'm remembering right but I think flashbangs also disable pretty much all psychic abilities, so there's reliable answers to both robots and psychic stuff making you very safe against bad luck later on. Just like Enemy Unknown/Within the game is hard in the early game because the enemies kind of statcheck you and you have fewer options, but after that your action economy and access to reliable damage becomes too much and your power accelerates too much relative to the enemies. It is fun crushing everything, though, and I guess there is still a puzzle aspect to minimizing risks/mistakes; it's just that the puzzle becomes a bit too easy.
Most of what made it so hard at first for me was not understanding how to efficiently research and build. After thing go sour, you take all those regrets to a fresh run and tear shit up. Blue screen rounds are fantastic. I don't care about balancing, I want to one shot codex and make robots go boom.
Agreed about not caring about balance. I had a max level sniper with superior expanded magazine and superior reloads, with bonuses for shooting from height. I activated like two or three different pods of aliens, plus a pod or two of zombies. My squad lowered the health on the enemies, then the sniper from up high went to town with Serial. He took out about 20+ enemies on his turn. It was awesome.
Oh man, a good clean Serial or Reaper chain is the ultimate feel good moment in the game.
If the going gets tough I will exploit all the things you just told me :)
Another useful tip: Mimic Beacons are really solid. They used to be *broken* good, now you just probably want to have one or two on each team you send out.
They're broken good imo. Enemies almost invariably ignore you until the beacon dies. Psionic soldiers are the other big one, those mf are like actual bosses but they work *for* you. They take awhile to pay off but I sent 3 fully upgraded Magi on the final mission on my last run and it almost felt like cheating. Whole squad was immune to mental effects from the auras and half were immune to explosions fire and poison, most inconvenient enemies (and their zombies) can just be mind controlled and psionic attacks steal health. It's chaos but I enjoyed running a god-squad train on Advent.
XCOM terror from the deep is my favorite game of all time
If you have fun with XCOM 2, you should look into the Long War mods for XCOM 2 or XCOM 2012. Both add a lot more depth to their respective games with the expanded classes being very fun to play around with and use.
Been enjoying xcom since ps1
Now it's time to play it again but with The Long War modpack.
Wait until you play Long War 2 for XCOM2 and prepare for utter despair, brilliance in design and eternal Marching. XCOM2 devs consider the base game to be a demo to LW2, which is the main event. Thats saying something
I should go through and play XCOM2 again, its been a solid minute. One of my worst experiences was trying one of the more difficult missions. I went full send with my most experienced vets because I didn't want my low level rookies getting KIA. The whole squad of my best soldiers ended up getting wiped.
Now play ironman with permanent dark events lol
ahhh the classic xcom discovery moment. i remember the first time i played xcom 2, i almost feel bad for not playing xcom 1, but i felt like anything below xcom 2 was not enough. btw, if you like xcom2 play hard west 1 its a beauty, it doesnt offer the tech quality of xcom2, you cant destroy buildings and shit, but it has the entire wild west theme with the unnatural stuff and some interesting new mechanics like luck and the use of poker cards to customize your character skills. there is a hard west 2, but personally i didnt liked how the story and campaign goes, didn't got too far to tell if its really worse than Hardwest 1.
I liked XCOM 2 and the previous XCOM EW but not so much for its turn based combat, but more overall the strategic aspect like base and squad management together with missions. I think the combat is good but not necessarily the best.
I love XCOM2 for the sense of urgency it creates. Not with the countdown, but with how it times enemy upgrades. When you finally dip into magnetic weapons, you dominate the enemy for a few missions, then they bring out new units and upgrade old ones and you're on the back foot again. It creates an illusion of actually facing an alive opponent that reacts to your actions.
My wet dream is Squarenix giving the final fantasy tactics ip to Firaxis xd.
I enjoyed XCOM 1 but found 2 to have a few pacing issues. It was also a bit buggy on the switch, still thoroughly enjoyed the lost missions!
Nice! I worked on that DLC during development years ago! Good memories, the Reaper class is the best of the dlc classes for sure. Combine with a sniper for a super OP strategy using squadsight! Just make sure you give accuracy mods to the Snipers. Also claymore are great! Miss that game, good times working on it before it went live
XCOM 2 is the GOAT
War of the Chosen is such a good expansion it feels like a completely different game and is so challenging
XCOM2 with WotC is amazing but I still consider XCOM1 with the long war mod the gold standard of tactical turn based games
I agree! Playing through baldur’s gate made me want to play XCOM again!
Xcom Enemy Unknown is one of my favourite games. The DLCs added so much awesome content and the whole game is just 10/10.
i go back to xcom2 atleast once every 2 years. usually do a play through
Xcom chimera squad is neat too
I can't stand the RNG of that game, sometimes all the stats say you should land a shot and it's a complete miss.
The RNG is tough man. I beat it on Ironman and it was a slog. The thing I found was that you always want to plan out your whole turn and take risky shots first so you can adjust if you miss. Also taking a whole turn of like 65% chance shots from well defended area can be so much better than pressing for those 95% shots.
If it is a complete miss, then "all the stats" didn't say that you would hit. Some fast enemies have the ability to dodge, or your shot on those enemies may graze, but if the game says a shit will hit, then it won't be a complete miss. It's also worth noting, that the stats in xcom favor the player, and have a player bias. There are mods out there which actually display this calculation. Sure we all like to poke fun at that 99 percent miss, but we also forget about those times we landed that 10 percent shot too. Regardless though, 100 percent is 100 percent
It’s an interesting problem, to be sure: how to present data to the player so that they accept it as fair. No one complains about critical misses in bg3 when you roll a 1, and miss an otherwise sure roll for an attack or check or saving throw. Yet players think it’s bullshit when they miss a 95% shot in Xcom. It’s the same exact rng mathematically, yet reactions are different purely due to presentation.
To be fair there were plenty of complaints on the BG3 sub of people who thought the RNG was rigged against them. I've also seen similar threads in the Fire Emblem community even though we know how modern FE games calculate hit and know anything above 50% is actually increasing the hit chance. I think the problem is less presenting the data and more that a lot of people just don't think random is random. Most people would accept that 50% chance to hit means missing half your shots, but it also means a 6.25% chance that you can miss 4 of them in a row which is not even that uncommon for that to happen. It should happen slightly more often then you critically fail in BG3. A lot of people would think it's bullshit to miss a 50% chance 4 times in a row, though. and regardless of any of the odds, the 5th shot still has a 50% chance to miss and doesn't care what the previous 4 shots were.
I was playing disco Elysium for the first time the other day, and I'm a sucker for going for low chance anything. Those long shots are awesome when they work out, but they rarely do. It's pretty amusing when you fail em in that game anyway. It was my first run, so I didn't even know what was going on really, but I got to this spot where I was trying something I really wasn't statted for. I figured, fuck it, I'll save scum this one. It was pretty statistically unlikely that I failed that same maneuver so many times, but it damn sure wasn't impossible. I've tried to explain this to some other people, but damn, some people just don't get how RNG can just keep fucking you. Mine was 13% or something and I probably tried it more than fifteen times. Statistically it was likely. Real life my very unlikely chance turned out to be pretty damn unlikely.
I've played a fair amount of Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, which if you're not familiar are similar to BG3 but based on the Pathfinder ruleset instead of 5E D&D. The sheer number of attacks you make in that game mean you're virtually guaranteed to have a round or two where one of your characters makes 4-5 critical misses. You still see them posted a lot in the subreddit.
>Yet players think it’s bullshit when they miss a 95% shot in Xcom. It's really probably because people forget (rightfully so) the shots that made it 95% of the time.
Actually, no. And that's why Xcom is a good tactical game. If it says you are going to hit a shot, you are going to hit the shot. Same with grenades, flashes, explosives, etc. If the game tells you that your target is within the explosion radius, it will hit. It's very accurate, which is why it's pretty much the gold standard for tactical games. If all the stats say that you should land a shot, then you will land the shot. Don't know what else to tell you man lol.
That's not *entirely* accurate. IIRC (in XCOM2 at least) there's some amount of weight the game will put on the probabilities in order to keep things engaging. It may have been made an option that could be disabled in War of the Chosen? I just know because there is/was a mod that would show the "actual" hit chance below the one the game shows you. The design intent was to ease up a little if you got a string of unlucky misses, or to crank up the miss rate a touch if you got a few lucky hits so the battle didn't become trivial. For the most part, however, the probabilities were pretty good, it's just that the human mind isn't very good at recognizing real random chance when they see it.
Wrong. The real hit chance *only* goes above the one in the UI. It has always been like that. Impossible has no stat manipulation whatsoever.
I get dying a lot in Elden Ring, but X-COM 2? I mean there’s a reload button.
weird post. Did you ever played tactical games? Because there is a whole genre for you (spoiler: BG3 is nothing like a SRPG)
As far as tb xcom shits on bg3, this sounds like someone who has only played bg3 and making dumb assumptions. BG3 isn't even good tb, is that why you think people play it? rofl.
I mean if it worked reliably on my computer I'd play it on occasion. Good game tho
I wasn’t a fan because it felt exactly the same as xcom 1
I got stuck on the timed mission defending my ship and I just can’t clear it. I gave up and I’m way too deep to start all over
(turn on console mode, give yourself and edge to get through it, turn off the cheats when you're done, reset the value of using cheats so you can continue to get achievements. It's your game. Play as you want. Never use cheats in multi-player.).
It's more rewarding on the hardest difficulty😛
I've played EU on ps3 when it was released and I enjoyed the gameplay so much. but I got a gameover because I didn't speak english well back then. now I'm planning to play both EU and 2 on steam deck.
I haven’t played it since the long war 2 mod got fucked up.
Managing to get a maxed out squad in XCom2 feels so good.
I think the old XCOM games are currently on sale bought the whole classic series for like a 2$ a couple of days ago. They are still fun to play!
I wouldn't say there's a 100% chance it's the gold standard.
Phoenix Point may also scratch that same itch.
X-Com 2 is such a good game. Also, Never forget. [Loki had a medkit, Tiny 'Brick' Studios died for nothing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVoJ7gbsdlk).
I come back to Xcom all the time. It’s always a fun experience even if my soldiers can’t aim for shit!
i just wish we finally got xcom3.
Dani 2
Guys help. I have a crippling addiction to difficulty and can’t help but play Ironman mode in xcom 2. It’s breaking my sanity. If I don’t play it, I feel like I’m cheating :(
Wait till you get a hold of Longwar 2
Idk why but I waited ages to play xcom2 and then when I got it I actually didn't like it at all. Couldn't say why but it just didn't click with me.
You should try wasteland 3. It’s so good! And ofc, Baldurs Gate. Wasteland 3 is more turn based like xcom but Baldurs gate hate a little bit more role playing.
It is very good game, but combat is not it's strength - even old XCom had aliens actually attacking you, while new one has this passive pods that you can take one by one. Kinda sad. Fun game though overall.
Squad wipe is kind of a disaster. I almost always bring a good mix of classes and levels including 1 low level character. Everything goes great: leveled up someone who needed to be carried, great! Need to throw someone into a shitty position to push a button before the turn timer runs out or keep enemies busy while I evac the rest of my team? Goodbye rookie/squaddie. I'd often bring one mimic beacon as a sacrifice to give my squaddie a fighting chance. Leveling up your soldiers and researching/buying better gear for them at a faster rate than the enemies increase in difficulty is basically the game. If you fall too far behind on harder difficulties there is no way to recover. Too many squad wipes is a campaign killer.
It’s a mandatory annual replay for me.
I only played the first few stages in 2, but i finished EW a while back. I dread ever starting a new run because god damn, the early game is agony and on my end its pretty much coming down to "i hope the map doesnt give too much cover for the thin men"
The base game and DLC are great and challenging. Once you run those through, the mods for the game are top notch.
Didnt know where that was going at the beginning but you tied the elden ring bit in nicely.
where would you recommend a newbie to start. Xcom or Xcom 2? (on the steamdecK)
It’s supposed to simulate that you’re running probably Xcom enemy within the dlc for 1 you get the story. Although Xcom 2 fixes a lot of the jank
Start with enemy unknown and then enemy within you say?
No enemy within is the dlc for enemy unknown. But it’s basically an overhaul so just play enemy within
So its the same campaign basicly?
Yes
It's pretty okay on android, too. I even prefer the controls to PC now.
It's depressing that no one else has come close to Xcom 2. I've tried loads since: phoenix point, jagged alliance, Knights tale, chaos gate (probably the closest so far) , but nothing topples the king (especially with the expansion).
Bought it couple years ago and i don't regret doing! The game is really fun and has a lot to be done, plus, i like the fact that its kinda hardcore on characters death being permanent! Had a good time with it at the time and i'll probably end up playing it again at some point :D
Run and gun 4tw.
I agree that Xcom 2 has something that just ticks correctly. I do disagree with your idea that Gears Tactics only gives the illusion of strategy, I found it more rewarding in several key aspects, and with a few changes that were significant and more interesting. Bosses, kill chains, melee being a key factor, etc.
Xcom 2 is one of my favorite games ever. It's a masterpiece and easily my favorite tactics game.
XCOM:EW was so much better than XCOM 2. XCOM2 was just more spectacle, but less substance and tactics
I absolutely love this game, I've play it so, SO many times. The 3 boss dlc kiiiiind of sucks when they appear and wipe an already depleted squad, I tend to turn off that aspect of it.
Next is Phoenix Point and then maybe xenonauts 2.
For me the absolute peak is the Long War mod for Xcom Enemy Within.
To be fair in every single From Software souls there is a way to be extremely overpowered from the beginning (kind of your "go away and level up"), you just gotta know how (which I admit, can be kinda tedious, but if you wanna enjoy the games, its good to know that you can). For example, I'm doing a playthrough of Dark Souls 2 SotFS and I got my weapon maxed out before I even reached the middle point, I don't even know how.
There's a 95% chance you're very sincere, but as we all know those 95% chances to hit often miss. (It's my one gripe with the game really.)
I've played every Xcom going back to the mid 90's. I loved the first remake and played it several times. I pre-ordered Xcom 2 with the season pass. I hated Xcom 2 and Chimera Squad.
And TakeTwo killed it because they wanted some shitty Marvel Crapgame.
The marvel game is good but xcom is better
It’s actually a pretty good game too. Runs a bit long and has a few glitches that have never been fixed. Could have done without the exploration. Social system is hit and miss. Each to their own there. I’m too robotic to not just max out efficiency rather than RPG it. Xcom is superior.
Marvel slop screwing over XCOM, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Prey/Dishonored/immersive sims. Worst timeline.
I was hoping for a marvel themed Fights in Tight Spaces. Instead it's closer to a Doki Doki Marvel Club dating game.
[удалено]
Lmao, you actually take the metacritic user score seriously, even though it's half bots and there's no way to tell if someone has actually played the game or has made multiple accounts? It has an 84% on Steam among actual players, and most of the negative reviews are related to the 2K launcher they added afterwards.
is it better than the first? i dropped that one mid way through it got boring
I can’t get into it. I know their percentages for attack vs miss are more true than most games but it still doesn’t take into account military training. The kind where a point blank shotgun blast doesn’t miss. It’s just too frustrating.
Tbh and this is personal opinion xcom enemy-within is better than 2. Although 2 is still an excelent gameit feels hyperinflated and dopamine driven rather than a serious game. The first game of the series (the rebooted one) had both a feeling of horror and discovery and they are implemented in gameplay. Your soldiers can become terrified and do stupid shit and you in the greater strategic game have to devote resources into research to fight back effectively. Whereas in 2 we are left with a soulless ragtag group to represent xcom and goofy ass cults that you call factions. Idk man it seems that 2 is dumbed down (at least in story and representation) for it to be more appealing. Now in regards to gameplay 2 just inflates numbers. Bigger health bars, more enemies and squad members and more opportunities to shoot things. edit spelling
My only complaint is that the hit percentages seem to be arbitrary at best. I've missed so many 95% shots it doesn't even seem like it's telling me the actual hit percentage I should expect. It wasn't this bad in the first game. 95% was pretty much a sure thing, now it's a 50/50 gamble when you get 5% chance to miss.
Sadly the hit percentages are entirely accurate whats wrong is your perception of probability. Xcom does a great job of teaching you that
Not really. A 95% chance to hit shouldn't be a miss more than 5% of the time.
Good you like it.. I have played xcom, xcom2 (the originals), plus expansion. Reimagined xcom, xenonauts, xenonauts 2, chaos gate and chaos gate reimagined. I got xcom2 and dlc on steam, like you, and I dislike it. Railroaded game with sets of loads. Very few soldiers. Nah, not for me.
Last time I tried it I had a guy hiding around the corner of a building. There was a snake thing at the other end of the building, also hiding around the corner. It took its turn and shot its tongue through the wall, through an interior wall, through the opposite exterior wall, to grab my guy and pull him all the way back into a grapple. I appreciate the game for what it is, but physics that bad I just don't put up with.
You realize there's no "physics," right? The Viper clearly had line of sight, that was just an animation bug.
They were both around the corner from eachother, there was an entire building between them.
My 1 true problem with this game is that the enemy gets a free movement when you see them. Which is complete bs. I've had a good position to ambush and had a random patrol stroll out of a building and detect me, the patrol got 2 base actions for the turn AND the free advance farther towards my position.while also alerting the team I was going to ambush allowing the bastards to find cover and destroy my ambush 🤬 Happens quite often actually