XCOM 2

[Kinky Kel]

I'm actually enjoying the turn timers. It forced me to be smarter with my moves, which in turn helped me to preserve the life of my characters. I love the ambush mechanic, what a fantastic addition to the game.

The best thing I found to do Mythor is those 8 turn missions, I get as close as I can as quickly as I can using the stealth then doing the objective so then I have as long as I want to set up strategies to take down all the aliens.

One of the missions I did, my sharpshooter got left behind. I usually leave them in a high place across the map and they proved some seriously awesome cover fire. I left her too far back for too long and the mad dash to get her to the extraction failed by 5 or so squares. kicked myself for the stupidity (Because I honestly didn't need her to stay on point for that extra turn) I returned to base all sad. Four or so mission later I got a mission from the resistance to rescues an operative. They had located where my sniper was being held captive and set up the rescue mission. Oh it was ON! Geared up my best people, and in they went. Felt awesome to do the rescue. Smashed the holy hell out of that place.

Also a PSA, always bring a specialist to those 8 turn mission where you have to unlock or prevent something from blowing up because Engineers can remote hack the item with the gremlins. You just need line of sight, and someone to reveal the fog of war on it and you can hack from across the map.

Had a mission last night with a downed UFO. Went in with 3 Specialists, 2 with the hacking override skill. Had a pod spawn with three Mutons, and two ADVENT MECs. I hacked the two MECs and turned them on the Mutons, hilarity ensued.

[Mythor]

I hacked one of those security pillars and it let me gain control over an enemy.

It gave me control of the VIP I had to capture or kill. -_-

I get that you need to rush in as close as possible and that's what I do, but way too often because I'm having to rush in some random alien in an illogical place will spot my one guy up front and then everyone loses concealed and the fight turns ugly. Not a fan.

Pushing onwards though. They haven't managed to finish the Avatar project yet so I'm still in the fight, even with some bad personnel losses.

[Kinky Kel]

That's why I love the ranger class with the skill of "Remains concealed even when team gets revealed". Mean I still have a forward scout or two, depending on my tea makeup.

[kharis]

My guys got blown up in the first mission after the intro. Geez I'm good at this

[Kinky Kel]

about as good as me then Kharis

[Mini]

Finally got around to giving XCOM 2 a go...
Only got the tutorial done, but some more tonight hopefully...
Feels like the good old XCom formula, so that is good, will be interesting to see the missions where I can choose where to put my people, rather than having to put them in stupid locations to die...

[[URAUC]]

On my second campaign attempt now, both only on veteran to learn the game. I just completed my first UFO defence mission. Pretty much turtled up in the landing area for the majority of it and overwatched any aliens that moved into my killing field. Moved my Lieutenant Sniper out to destroy the objective over a couple of turns but unfortunately she didn't make it back to evac. The evac zone on those missions doesn't seem as intuitive as it should be or maybe my game was slightly bugged. Unfortunately I think the thing that is going to undo this play through is the decision of another power relay(instead of upgrading) over another resistance comms room. Overall I am enjoying it but I'm nowhere near confident for an ironman yet.

[Mythor]

There are a few bugs and improvements the game needs to fix too, I'm thinking about writing a mod that would let you get everyone into the exit point, click the button, and they all exit at once for one. Clicking each individually and waiting for the animation is a tad annoying, would be so simple to fix.

There's an item on the workshop that might do this: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =618669868
Haven't tried it, no guarantees, blah blah blah.

[storm84]

My guys got blown up in the first mission after the intro. Geez I'm good at this

Same. I thought I had the mechanics down from all the time I put into Enemy Unknown, but it looks like I'll have to skill up if I'm going to make any progress through it.

[Fireslide]

I like the turn timers a lot. Gives a sense of urgency to the mission and punishes the slow overwatch creep you'd do normally. Overwatch in general has been nerfed now that it can be cancelled by taking a hit from something else.

General strategy for most missions is run in concealment as close as you can to objective then drop an amazing overwatch trap to instantly wipe 1 or 2 pods of aliens. Specialists are amazing, since they let you hack the towers so you can go a more direct route sometimes. It's also really important to look at what enemies are on the mission before you choose who to send and what to equip them with, as well as what type of mission it is.

Someone on reddit posted that XCOM 2 is basically like XCOM 1 except you're playing as the aliens, having to dart around the globe and do missions where you can.

Grenadiers are key, I usually want 1 or 2 on every mission because they can shred so much armour and do plenty of AoE to pods on ambush. The only missions where I don't want lots of them are the ones where you're trying to recover supplies and they'll likely destroy them.

Sharpshooters are nerfed. They are good, but you don't need to set up overwatch traps with squadsight snipers anymore, also since you often have to move to an evac zone, they can't sit too far back away from your squad or you'll not be able to save them.

Rangers are good, once you get bladestorm perk they are brilliant in tight maps and against chrysallids. Extra concealment is also pretty handy for advanced scouting.

I'm really enjoying the way the base side works, the fact that you don't need to build x number of advanced weapons to equip your squad, it's just a once off cost and they all get equipped. The weapon mods are amazing. Getting an extra ammo mod on a heavy or a sniper is really good, especially if they get a free reload one as well.

One thing I haven't done yet is Psi Ops. I've been meaning to but I've been researching and building everything else first, so I'm not sure how that will go.

I am sad about the performance of the game. It desperately needs optimisation. I've got a 4770k@4.2ghz and 980 Ti x 2. It should run pretty damn smooth but it hovers around 40 fps most missions or lower and has major stuttering on scene changes even with many of the options turned down.

[Kinky Kel]

I agree with everything Fireslide said.

As for Psi Ops, I imagine if you rang a full squad of psi ops, nothing could hurt you except mechanical units. I've got 3 and they're like gods walking on the battlefield. Exceptionally powerful, with a heck of a lot of damage and utility.

[Fireslide]

You'd probably go 3 Psi Ops, 3 specialists kitted out into combat and hacking. Though I guess things like Chrysallids don't care about psi ops.

[Kinky Kel]

psi ops mince Chrysallids. All the psi ops damage ignores cover and armour rating. And they carry regular guns too for those off occasions they feel like slumming it with the rest. They also get good passive aoe skills that help out those in the radius, anyone who is panicked or what not can be calmed just by walking next to them. I'm going to be rushing psi in my next run.

[Mythor]

Haven't even seen any chrysallids yet. Or sectopods.

Have started encountering those more heavily armoured muton looking things I've forgotten the name of. The ones where the suit continues fighting after you kill the alien inside. Used a shredder round from my ranger to blow away a bunch of cover around one and mash its armour, then fired two grenades in from my grenadiers and still hadn't cracked the shell.
Had broken enough of the walls and roof/floor of the next room over that the evac point was no longer usable and it got relocated.

I want to prioritise the EXO suits and put everyone in each mission into one and just blow everything up with rockets on missions where that's okay. Just like the old days!

[Kinky Kel]

Ahh the Andromedon. Nasty little bugger.

The Sectopods though, are utterly terrifying.

[Mythor]

Very next mission, chrysallids. Everywhere. Had my current best squad on deck, fortunately. Wonder what monstrosity they'll introduce next!

[Mini]

Looking forward to getting a few more missions in tonight... and working out how my base works...
Managed to only kill a few people last night... annoyingly, one was the chick from the tutorial mission (Ooops)

[kharis]

Yeah I kill her too. Hopefully my rage quitting meant it didn't save

[Kinky Kel]

Oh god. From what I faced tonight.. all I can say is get Psi troops .. get lots of them.

[kharis]

had a good run tonight

[storm84]

Managed to only kill a few people last night... annoyingly, one was the chick from the tutorial mission (Ooops)

Same. Finally got through that first mission with only one alien shot hitting me. Unfortunately that shot was a critical and killed my ranger. So annoying.

At least I'm through. Now to start grinding through the campaign.

[Mini]

OK Tonight I need to focus...
Last night I wasn't quite in the mood and my first mission everything went wrong... I managed to completely balls up an ambush, which ended up with 2 people dying quickly and the other 2 about to die... a turn later another guy was down and I rage quit...

Tonight I need to focus and get that scientist..

[Kinky Kel]

They definitely made the AI smarter this time around. I just lost half of my a team last night on a mission because the AI out smarted me. I love the new challenge. Going to be doing a commander run next and see how I go there. All my awesome soldiers this run will get added to the Character Pool so I can maybe recruit them next run

[kharis]

best bit so far is chopping aliens in half with Kelly, will definately have to get the evac all mod installed and maybe change the blade to a katana

[Mythor]

Forum fell over while I was trying to reply.

There's some cooler looking blades later on. Hoping people make some alternatives rather than just replacements. Would be cool to have different models for different characters, or maybe some different kinds of weaponry. Like hammers!