CloudWolf

Member
Oct 26, 2017
16,559
Probably halfway through each investigation, you get a choice between two options. And I believe those affect what choices are available in the other investigations.

I had two different end missions for Gray Phoenix on each of those runs.
That's what I thought, but I did pick a different choice on The Progeny and the final mission was the same, and my choices for Sacred Coil weren't even the same choices as in my first playthrough. Will have to play it a third time I guess to see what happens with the final mission if I choose Progeny last.
 

Santos

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,245
My loadout on Torque just vanished and I can't equip anything on her, even on missions she can only move and use abilities. What a fucking mess and I was really loving the game too.
 

DeadPhoenix

Member
Oct 25, 2017
413
My loadout on Torque just vanished and I can't equip anything on her, even on missions she can only move and use abilities. What a fucking mess and I was really loving the game too.
yeah, i can load up the game so you can use console commands and add in the items that went missing. it works for me, except the part were it keeps happening and i had to load the dev version of the game after ever other mission or so to fix it...
 

RandomSeed

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,352
Yeah. JUST got the weapon bug where all my SMGs disappeared. Using the console to add them back seemed to work, but it would probably be smart to just watch for a patch.
 

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,704
Had one hard crash yesterday, thankfully the autosaving is generous and it just dumped me back to the beginning of the turn it crashed on.

I'm at 22 hours, about 2/3 through the Sacred Coil investigation, hoping my lagging is because I spent like 1-2 hours fucking around trying to get it working through remote play
 
Oct 30, 2017
712
Just started playing this and was wondering if the equipment like breaching charges and medkits are consumable? or are they buy once and you can equip them multiple times?
 

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,704
Well they are consumable per mission, it's better to think of them as charges.

If you buy a Breaching Charge, you'll always have a breaching charge, but you can only use it 1x per mission.
 

Mars People

Comics Council 2020
Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,494
Well suddenly all of my mesh armour has disappeared. I didn't realise it could be destroyed. Or is this a bug?
 

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,704
man giving everyone the +50 dodge is doing a lot of work for me since everybody is either totally dodging or just grazing shots all the time. good shit.

it's funny how the economy is kinda... geared to be a complete nothing by just past midgame when you are just rolling in credits or intel. And the elerium is almost no barrier at all as well.
 

Anustart

9 Million Scovilles
Avenger
Nov 12, 2017
9,328
Are MasterCraft shotguns a thing? I could have sworn I saw them but there no where to be found and my shotty Bois are stuck with enhanced.
 

lemming

Member
Oct 27, 2017
221
Finished it today.
Loved the two rounds of reinforcements on the roof-top section of the final mission. Wished the game would throw around more stuff like that during its course.

Overall I really enjoyed it!
Loved the puzzle-like turn order, where you are trying to deny (torque!) the next enemy's turn.
Mission design was a bit repetitive, but it is what it is.

I am, however, disappointed in the UI/UX of this game. I know it is a budget game, but what the hell happened here?
It is such a huge downgrade from the other xcoms. Do proper item-highlights! Why are there skill/item icons during the missions, while there is no highlight to show which is selected?

Take the field-upgrade screen, for example. There is a THICK green border showing the field type you have selected, right? Nope. That is actually just the TYPE of the upgrade you already have installed on the area, while the actual selected field is just a slightly-green shade hovering the smaller "upgrade" button.

The mechanism to select the characters you want doing research, APC, training is attrocious. The training screen where you have to manually select a char just to see if they have training available! Why?!

PS: The end-game stats screen bugged out for me. Only the numbers appeared, and no text. Tried to reload a couple of times, nope.
Had to go online to see what the numbers actually meant.
 

Katori

Member
Oct 30, 2017
313
I am, however, disappointed in the UI/UX of this game. I know it is a budget game, but what the hell happened here?
It is such a huge downgrade from the other xcoms. Do proper item-highlights! Why are there skill/item icons during the missions, while there is no highlight to show which is selected?

Take the field-upgrade screen, for example. There is a THICK green border showing the field type you have selected, right? Nope. That is actually just the TYPE of the upgrade you already have installed on the area, while the actual selected field is just a slightly-green shade hovering the smaller "upgrade" button.

The mechanism to select the characters you want doing research, APC, training is attrocious. The training screen where you have to manually select a char just to see if they have training available! Why?!
Agreed, this is a dope game with some serious UI problems. I never have all the info I need. On my first mission when asked to pick agents to breach - I don't know what their abilities are at the breach screen! Even after 10-20hrs I will forget so just put them there. Little stuff like this is all over the game.

And about your spoiler:
What difficulty are you on? I'm on a harder one and I regularly get 2 or even 3 waves of reinforcements when trying to GTFO of a room. Done 4 or 5 missions.
 

lemming

Member
Oct 27, 2017
221
I played on normal, so I guess that is on me! I also got the missions with 2-3 rounds of reinforcements, but they almost always consisted of easy/medium units. The last mission had one with two praetorians, berserkers and a few pythons who successfully did the pull/bind. Thinking about it, I guess it was the pressure of the pull/bind while managing the praetorians, that made the overall good impression on me.
 

rsfour

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,759
After playing WotC a bit more, yeah, I fucking hate missions where you have to kill everything, in big maps. I much prefer the mechanics in Chimera, and the smaller/medium sized maps, like the ones found in the last bit of the game.
 

Nif

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,716
I figured out my crashing issue (Windows Docker chewing through CPU) but now I've hit a mission where Cherub loses his ability to move no matter how many rounds take place. This wouldn't be a problem except I have to evac all of my units...

I may have to wait until there are patches.
 

Stoze

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,664
Jesus Claymore's last abilities from leveling and from training just turn him into a one-man bombing squad.
 

Buttzerker

Powerhouse Protector / Self-requested ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,017
HELL YEAH I FEEL SO CLUTCH THAT WAS CLOSE.

This is my first investigation, 20 fucking enemies lmao

a55f16540a29734a9ae3789e300d0bcd.jpg
 

Hella

Member
Oct 27, 2017
23,900
For the first time, I've beaten an XCOM game on ironman!

I really enjoyed the final mission, and not just because it made all of my investment into androids finally pay off (it was literally the only reason I could win). It had a real XCOM arc of
I got this >>> no, really, I got this >>> oh god it has all gone wrong pls god save me​
and I still managed to beat it, which felt great.

That final stretch of missions made investing in my full squad pay off. In the span of three missions, two of my core squad were gravely wounded with a mobility debuff that would take too long to heal. Fortunately Axiom and Torque were there, waiting in the wings. And then I lost Axiom and Cherub in the penultimate phase of the final mission--bringing in my faithful android, Shadow. (And, amazingly, that tough-ass final fight was doable while down an agent, somehow.)


XCOPS is a blast!
I figured out my crashing issue (Windows Docker chewing through CPU) but now I've hit a mission where Cherub loses his ability to move no matter how many rounds take place. This wouldn't be a problem except I have to evac all of my units...

I may have to wait until there are patches.
I had that bug too (fortunately it either never mattered or Torque was there to pull him out of it) and couldn't figure out what triggered it. Only ever happened to Cherub.

Does reloading the game (mid-mission) after that happens help? I never thought to try it.
man giving everyone the +50 dodge is doing a lot of work for me since everybody is either totally dodging or just grazing shots all the time. good shit.

it's funny how the economy is kinda... geared to be a complete nothing by just past midgame when you are just rolling in credits or intel. And the elerium is almost no barrier at all as well.
Oh wait... dodge negates a crits, doesn't it. That would explain a lot about my experiences with it.

My Torque had full dodge for almost the entire game, and in the end I think it was more effective than my Cherub's 2-4 armour. Being flanked and stripped of armour is a death sentence in a way that being flanked with dodge is not.
 
Oct 25, 2017
9,053
Finished this on the third difficulty. Absolutely fantastic game that addressed all of my complaints about XC2. Yes, it needs a big patch, and there will probably be mods for a shorter playthrough or a longer one with a level cap increase, but this was a fantastic game that mostly worked out of the box without a need for any mods.

I have War of the Chosen, but the thought of going back to that world map system depresses me. I had zero fun in the base XC2 flying around to pick up supply drops while getting spammed with interruptions.
 

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,704
Agreed, this is a dope game with some serious UI problems. I never have all the info I need. On my first mission when asked to pick agents to breach - I don't know what their abilities are at the breach screen! Even after 10-20hrs I will forget so just put them there. Little stuff like this is all over the game.

And about your spoiler:
What difficulty are you on? I'm on a harder one and I regularly get 2 or even 3 waves of reinforcements when trying to GTFO of a room. Done 4 or 5 missions.

I don't know if there's a status select option for enemies, so I can't see what debuffs are active if I don't remember the icons, nor what abilities they have unless I MC (I can't remember if xcom ever had this though)

And during breach you can't see what ammo is equipped, so you gotta manually remember who has the acid rounds, who has AP, who has tranqs (on a death ray cannon...)
 

Sulik2

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,168
Beat my first game, Blueblood and Claymore are so much better then anyone else I played with. And terminal basically seems like a necessity, especially on the last mission. Cherub and patchwork were useless by midgame for me, they simply can't do enough damage.

I wish you could play the full 10 characters in one game. Time to start a second play through to meet the muton and snake lady.
 

Hella

Member
Oct 27, 2017
23,900
Terminal was far and away my MvA (they're not players, but agents!). She was invaluable in every situation and I can't really imagine the game without her.

Favourite agent was Torque, though. Her attitude was always fun to hear, and her versatility in battle (offensively) was second-to-none.
 

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,704
Oh wait... dodge negates a crits, doesn't it. That would explain a lot about my experiences with it.

My Torque had full dodge for almost the entire game, and in the end I think it was more effective than my Cherub's 2-4 armour. Being flanked and stripped of armour is a death sentence in a way that being flanked with dodge is not.

Yeah dodge is kind of OP in a way because while you can get armour shredded pretty easily in this game almost nothing negates dodge, and there's almost nothing else in the armour slot worth it.

It's funny how Terminal's healing powers kind of get powerlevelled out of being useful by end of game (seriously 2 hp per breach point is absolutely useless by third investigation) but I gave her the Inducer and between Co-operate and Coordinate she was basically just my move dispensing machine that could shoot if needed. Her distant healing ability was always useful though just because it's basically gun range, removes debuffs, and it gives defence buffs.

I definitely had the hardest time whenever I had to rotate her out for training, whereas almost everybody else was more or less replaceable.

Patchwork with the near 100% chain stuns is absolutely amazing as well.
 

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,704
Fully levelled Claymore is amazing as well. Had at least one moment where he managed to stack like 4 grenades on an Andro and blow it up in one turn.
 

Hella

Member
Oct 27, 2017
23,900
I feel like either Axiom's status punch is bugged, or Patchwork's Gremlin is, because her dishing out 3 stuns while Axiom got one stun in the entire game feels wrong.
 

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,704
Patchwork kind of varies between disorient and stun but the fact that the attack chain lightnings makes it invaluable since she can mass stun/disorient and deal damage
 

Nif

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,716
I had that bug too (fortunately it either never mattered or Torque was there to pull him out of it) and couldn't figure out what triggered it. Only ever happened to Cherub.

Does reloading the game (mid-mission) after that happens help? I never thought to try it.

No, I thought it was due to Cherub being the character I chose to receive the "binding effect" or whatever it is from the breach mode, but I restored a save and chose Terminal instead and he still got stuck. It's after the first round, oddly.
 

DeadPhoenix

Member
Oct 25, 2017
413
My torque has apparently lost the ability to use poison spit in breach mode and during the encounter. I have no idea why, though its probably related to being one of my characters that losses equipment the most...
 

99humanity

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,085
I beat the game. It never got harder than the last Sacred Coil mission (as my first faction), the rest of the game for the most part was pretty easy. I had a lot of fun although I wound up using the same strategies over and over. My squad was built around Verge, with Terminal always giving the extra move to him, and Torque/Axiom setting up opportunities for him to mindflay more. He's a lot of fun. I didn't really mind the inverse difficulty curve (was only on normal anyway) because the power curve was satisfying.
 

Anustart

9 Million Scovilles
Avenger
Nov 12, 2017
9,328
Beat it tonight.

By the end of the game I have grown tired of the breach mechanic. Other than that I enjoyed my time with it. I think it might be best if they pepper in some breaching and maybe every once in a while the interspersed turns in xcom 3. But breaching 1-3 times every mission just got to be a slog.
 

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,704
Damn the glowy shit in the first room of Sacred Coil's last minute is crash city
 

Jintor

Saw the truth behind the copied door
Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,704
No, I thought it was due to Cherub being the character I chose to receive the "binding effect" or whatever it is from the breach mode, but I restored a save and chose Terminal instead and he still got stuck. It's after the first round, oddly.

I just had this but a save and reload fixed it. Sorry it didn't work out for you :<
 

Thatguy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
6,207
Seattle WA
Beat it tonight.

By the end of the game I have grown tired of the breach mechanic. Other than that I enjoyed my time with it. I think it might be best if they pepper in some breaching and maybe every once in a while the interspersed turns in xcom 3. But breaching 1-3 times every mission just got to be a slog.
Breach eliminates those first few turns where you creep in and scout and set up your alpha strikes. It 'gets to the good part' right away. From a time-spent-in-deep-strategy perspective, breach is superior to the old way since you used to have several turns scouting and setting up. The downside is that it feels limited and you have less control over your approach which takes away some strategies and realism. I would prefer a mix too as you say, with some missions being breach and others being a more cautious sneak in and set up style. Probably about 70/30 for me, just because breach gets you to the good part sooner.
 
Oct 29, 2017
14,500
Oh that is cool - I did think, when doing the Sacred Coil final mission, that it was proper epic compared to the other two and it would be disappointing if you'd done that one first.
Well not "completely different". The first room of the mission when you do Sacred Coil last (The one with the portal) is the final room you of the mission when you do Sacred Coil First. I wonder if doing them second makes it the middle room instead, with one before, and one after.
 
Oct 27, 2017
499
Just finished the game! It's one of those things, I really liked it and would love to see more of the ideas here developed and given larger, deeper treatment in further games... Just not mainline XCOM games, which I prefer closer to the formula they already use. Whatever they do going forward, however, as a standalone game, I really enjoyed my time with this and will be back for multiple runs.
 

Anustart

9 Million Scovilles
Avenger
Nov 12, 2017
9,328
What was everyone's favorite unit in their first playthrough? Mine was definitely Axiom. He was a friggin beast who healed 4hp every turn and just straight up murdered. I had no qualms about pushing that guy deep into enemy territory.

Second fav was Claymore. Grenades for days and not too squishy either, I liked being able to toss some grenados then pop off a shot.

Torque was also invaluable for binding up a critical unit if I couldn't kill it before their turn came up.
 

Almeister

Member
Oct 25, 2017
974
Well not "completely different". The first room of the mission when you do Sacred Coil last (The one with the portal) is the final room you of the mission when you do Sacred Coil First. I wonder if doing them second makes it the middle room instead, with one before, and one after.

Interesting, that's a good way of doing it. Yeah I wonder.

What was everyone's favorite unit in their first playthrough?

Verge for sure. Building up his neural network over the course of the battle and then killing everyone with Mindflay at the end was always really satsifying. Zephyr was also fun, for the positioning challenge.
 
Oct 27, 2017
499
What was everyone's favorite unit in their first playthrough? Mine was definitely Axiom. He was a friggin beast who healed 4hp every turn and just straight up murdered. I had no qualms about pushing that guy deep into enemy territory.

Second fav was Claymore. Grenades for days and not too squishy either, I liked being able to toss some grenados then pop off a shot.

Torque was also invaluable for binding up a critical unit if I couldn't kill it before their turn came up.


Blueblood. Just became insanely powerful with upgrades.
 

benj

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,833
I haven't seen Claymore or Shelter, but Blueblood and Terminal easily outclass every other character.

The position of Blueblood in the game is sort of bewildering. A lot of characters are clearly intended to be counters to specific enemy types—Verge to organics, Torque to humanoids, Patchwork to androids. Blueblood is roundly better than each of those agents at fighting even the enemies that they're supposed to counter, is wildly versatile, and doesn't require any of the set-up that each of the others do. (Granted, I think Patchwork can pop off a little more than the others, but you still have to contrive to set up situations that work for her, which requires resource expenditure.) Not really sure what they thought his role would be, but as-is I think he's busted.