tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post4497019664912089211..comments2024-03-26T04:01:20.919-07:00Comments on Vigaroe: XCOM 2 Enemy Analysis: Chosen Tactical IntroVigaroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02405424233776571308noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-12796405380432891432024-03-08T18:29:17.901-08:002024-03-08T18:29:17.901-08:00I've never conclusively determined if there ar...I've never conclusively determined if there are individual mission types that don't increment the counter, so I don't actually know if there are missions that won't increment the counter. (I strongly suspect Covert Op Ambushes don't increment it, for example, but have never actually tested this theory)<br /><br />Territory, however, is not relevant to the counter. If you take out 2 Chosen, then do multiple missions in territories owned by the now-dead Chosen, the game will as soon as possible contrive to generate a mission in a territory the final Chosen owns to then have the Chosen appear there. The only extent territory matters to the counter is that if you do a mission in a territory owned by a dead Chosen when the counter says 'spawn a Chosen now', the game won't spawn a Chosen and will instead have to wait until you do a mission in which a Chosen is actually allowed to spawn.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-82925459719505724272024-03-08T03:48:14.211-08:002024-03-08T03:48:14.211-08:00Hi! I've noticed you're having trouble wit...Hi! I've noticed you're having trouble with moving and housing, hope it's turning out alright! But you're running the most extensive Xcom page info on the Internet, so I'd like to ask a question I just can't find the answer to: <br /><br />Does a Chosen's appearance counter increase with EVERY mission, or only those done in their territory? Laurishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08623695185616696569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-12108918595255685492022-10-30T22:13:38.198-07:002022-10-30T22:13:38.198-07:00Now that you mention it, I'm not sure I've...Now that you mention it, I'm not sure I've ever had Chosen Information spawn as loot outside of their summons. I assumed it had, but I don't actually know. I'll try to keep this in mind going forward.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-19458852814122032772022-10-30T21:11:34.584-07:002022-10-30T21:11:34.584-07:00"I actually historically thought Chosen summo..."I actually historically thought Chosen summons having loot was a glitch, same as how baby Chryssalids sometimes spawning with loot is almost certainly a glitch, but Chosen summons are too consistent about it, and this is different from other reinforcements/summons: I find it unlikely this is some oversight where a general routine is applying that wasn't intended to."<br /><br />In my experience, these loots are much more likely to contain Chosen Information than other loot drops. That strongly points to the loot being intentional, and a desire to have a place to "naturally" get Chosen Information might be the reason for the special loot drop existing at all. thesemicolonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17557640153715119433noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-80765490540915897682021-08-28T13:39:47.508-07:002021-08-28T13:39:47.508-07:00I'm pretty sure Supply Extraction's diffic...I'm pretty sure Supply Extraction's difficulty spike is purely a product of WotC being blatantly rushed, not any kind of deliberate trolling. So much of WotC's new content is a cool idea executed with less polish than base-game equivalents, and it varies heavily whether the lack of polish is to the player's benefit or detriment.<br /><br />It's also not really impossible to 100% Supply Extraction, Getting mostly-reliable at it requires some weird, unintuitive behaviors I'll be going into in a later post, but nowadays I only occasionally miss even one crate, and missing out on more than two generally means something unusual happened like an Alien Ruler jumped me and I either didn't bring a Reaper to spot them or things contrived so they stumbled into my squad before my Reaper found them. Nor is it actually an issue that the crates stop being Cover, given you want to keep moving regardless and crates you tag don't vanish until the start of your next turn; only Sharpshooters might care, and why are you having a Sharpshooter dash for a crate?<br /><br />It's also not actually the only mission type the game expects the player to partially fail. Regular Supply Raids clearly expect you to lose some supplies in the course of combat, and Retaliation missions CAN be perfected, but 'success' is achieved even if roughly 2/3rds of the civilians die. If you count the militia in the WotC-added mission type, it's entirely possible to suffer 80~% casualties and still have the game go 'yep, mission successful', and it's very rare -and basically completely outside the player's control- for every militia troop to survive.<br /><br />For that matter, Landed UFOs list 'stop the distress signal' as an objective, but it's completely fine to fail that objective -it just triggers a single pod of reinforcements. In the base game, you often WANT to fail this 'objective', because killing the pod is usually more value than whatever succeeding at the Hack might get you.<br /><br />So... no? XCOM 2 isn't as thorough about this as, say, Long War 2, where the majority of missions are designed around 'incomplete' victories, but there's a fair few missions in XCOM 2 you're expected to not get perfect.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-90473475673298161992021-08-28T13:15:40.246-07:002021-08-28T13:15:40.246-07:00I like to think that the tag-the-supply-crate miss...I like to think that the tag-the-supply-crate missions are clever trolling on the part of the creators. They're designed to make an inexperienced player over-extend in the pursuit of crates. Even with highly-ranked soldiers I can only manage to tag a couple of crates before I have to concentrate on the baddies - and then I can tag a couple more during the battle - but Bradford implies that you have to get all of them.<br /><br />Which is extremely hard if not impossible. And of course the moment you tag them you lose concealment, and shortly after that the crate vanishes and you no longer have cover!<br /><br />It stands out as the only mission type where you aren't expected to have a 100% clear victory at the end. The capture-or-kill-the-VIP mission lets you have a partial victory but doesn't expect it of the player.Ashley Pomeroyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09466311744358782337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-8111233237178641142021-08-01T12:44:01.750-07:002021-08-01T12:44:01.750-07:00I suspect the Chosen do normal kill-shots when fou...I suspect the Chosen do normal kill-shots when fought in their lairs or plot missions, and similarly suspect they refuse to Extract Knowledge or Kidnap in such conditions. Their dialogue in plot missions consistently has them claiming they're going to kill the squad, and the Chosen Stronghold design in particular would go very strange places if they could decide to disappear with someone during the final confrontation. I've yet to actually see them directly kill someone in such conditions, though, and the Chosen don't always take advantage of Daze, so I don't have a very high degree of confidence in such assertions.<br /><br />My default is to rate the Chosen as a lower priority than active pods. They tend to prioritize non-injurious actions, Dazing in particular gets prioritized heavily and its consequences are generally easy to minimize, vs most regular enemies can't do anything non-injurious or whatever they can do is pretty problematic. (eg Psionic Bomb on Codices) The Warlock is a notable exception very early in a run -his Mind Control is a huge problem, and initially you have zero fully reliable answers to it (Even with an early Frost Bomb, he could just target the soldier with the Frost Bomb), and he heavily prioritizes it, basically always using Mind Scorch as his first action and Mind Control as his second. You need to at minimum damage him enough you can readily push him into his 'danger zone', so he'll Stasis himself, breaking the Mind Control for you, which for an early squad tends to mean focusing on him pretty heavily.<br /><br />The Assassin is intimidating or misleading because she defaults to opening with a slice and can technically do it turn after turn, but the majority of the time she'll prioritize blinding the squad, mass-Dazing the squad, or Vanishing -which will always lead into a damaging action, but 'slice every other turn' is pretty underwhelming damage output even given it won't miss and ignores Armor and Dodge. Berserkers are generally a more urgent problem, or indeed any active enemy, and in Retaliation missions it may be best to focus on saving the civilians instead of running her down.<br /><br />The Hunter is defined primarily by the difficult-to-describe consideration of high ground distribution. If high ground is positioned so he can Grapple into a flanking position, he's the single most likely Chosen to do damage, because he's obsessed with his Grapple and is quick to take advantage of flanking shots if he discovers he has the opportunity. If no high ground is positioned to create that concern, though, he's really prone to prioritizing his non-lethal actions, or even backing out of sight and using Tracking Shot, which is rarely a problem.<br /><br />Yes, if you ignore a Supply Raid of any kind you lose contact with the region. I discovered this by virtue of completing a Rumor that generated a Supply Extraction, going 'ugh, I don't want to deal with a crate mission', and then the region left and I reloaded to before I'd finished scanning the Rumor and just didn't complete it, because yikes is that bad design.<br /><br />I hadn't really thought about the difficulty aspect, but now that you mention it I too have found Supply Extraction less infuriating on Legendary precisely due to the abundance of Supplies. But I still hate Supply Extraction more because it's a problematic design violation -that the game is tuned under the expectation that you'll get 90% of the goodies from each guaranteed Supply Raid, and then Supply Extraction is designed so you can easily miss out on most of the goodies. Psi Transmitter missions are badly-tuned in the sense of being too hard locally, but that's a less offensive design failing to me.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-55540294517026285742021-08-01T06:33:42.537-07:002021-08-01T06:33:42.537-07:00A more meta-commentary on merciful cruelty: In a n...A more meta-commentary on merciful cruelty: In a number of playthroughs, it's seemed like the Chosen weren't really playing for keeps. That's aside from the specific fact that their direct attacks can only inflict bleeding out status. And heck, the Hunter sort of alludes to that once you show up at his lair.<br /><br />Do you have a more general sense of how high a priority the Chosen are if you have to engage them with other enemies, or is it purely situational? I don't know that this happens super often, but it can be unavoidable. The Assassin showed up to an early retaliation mission once, and because she came to me and I had civilians dying ... I lost that mission. I focused on the Assassin, but Berserkers were rampaging around and it didn't seem safe to hit them while the Assassin was up. The Warlock showed up in a retaliation mission twice in my last playthrough. Early game, he was alone when I engaged him, and I think we beat the retaliation mission (but no mindshields, and he extracted knowledge). Late game, I could similarly leave him alone until I cleared out all the active combatants. Then he got curb stomped.<br /><br />I started off hating the crate raids as well. On Legendary, I typically go in with the knowledge that I'm not that short of supplies, and I tell myself that if I just mark one crate, the Spokesman will be placated. (You lose contact with the region if you ignore the mission, I believe.) And yes, if the Chosen show up, I completely abandon the rest of the crates if I have to. On Commander, it's higher supply pressure, and I suspect I'd like those raids less. Either way, I hate the psi transmitter missions (assuming none of the extend timer resistance orders are up) more than the crates for sure.Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04211323948963508722noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-46077672888326201062021-07-13T07:59:30.781-07:002021-07-13T07:59:30.781-07:00Well TIL. I’ll thank my lucky stars that that Arch...Well TIL. I’ll thank my lucky stars that that Archon missed twice because I definitely would have failed otherwise. And yeah, the crates are super buggy. The mission type is super annoying at the best of times so the lack of interaction with the Chosen really hurts it more than other missions. Always disappointed to see it show up instead of the other supply raid. At least the Lost make it easier I guess.Saxonraehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02510943323789319026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-39249182357063182642021-07-12T18:26:06.142-07:002021-07-12T18:26:06.142-07:00Enemy units just don't get the guarantee-to-hi...Enemy units just don't get the guarantee-to-hit semi-secret modifier player units get when targeting objects. (This is about faction ownership, to be clear: if you have a Stun Lancer from Double Agent or through Mind Control, that Stun Lancer can't miss objects, whereas Stun Lancers in AI hands can miss) They're unlikely to miss objects because objects don't have Defense and don't use Cover and most enemy base Aim is high enough they'll hit 2/3rds of the time or more, but they can always miss. Chosen presence has no affect on this.<br /><br />The Supply Extraction crates are a bit glitchy in general. I've had crates fail to extract in a turn with no Chosen presence for no clear reason -including I once marked a crate and had it sit there, marked but not getting picked up, for the next five turns. Conversely, I've had multiple horrible, hectic experiences where I was scrambling to extract some crates even as a Chosen harried my forces -their presence did nothing to block ADVENT from marking and picking up crates. (Supply Extraction is, in fact, easily my least favorite of the new mission types at this point, even more so than psi transmitter missions, in large part due to how miserable and campaign-hurting it is for the Chosen to drop into them)<br /><br />Chosen don't prevent civilians from being shot, but they do in practice reduce the odds of there being a pod in range of any civilians on any given turn, since the Chosen straight-up replace a pod. This is especially impactful in the first Retaliation mission, where it's easy to end up with one pod activating on the first turn (Because you stumbled into it, or because it stumbled into you), at which point there will be exactly one pod that MIGHT be in position to shoot someone, or might be in a dead zone. (I've had cases where 0 civilians died in my first Retaliation mission because of exactly this situation occurring followed by the second pod activating on turn 2, leaving no inactive pods to hunt civilians)<br /><br />Glad to be appreciated.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-65158183553500827492021-07-12T12:00:55.357-07:002021-07-12T12:00:55.357-07:00I’m pretty sure that on Protect the Device mission...I’m pretty sure that on Protect the Device missions, the aliens will miss the device when you’re battling the Chosen. I had an Archon miss the device twice when I was fighting the Warlock the other day, and I’ve never seen them miss in any other situation so I assume it was intentional. <br /><br />Similarly, I believe Supply Extraction prevents crates from being marked or lifted while fighting a Chosen, a mission I played yesterday had one chest marked for two consecutive turns, where the Warlock showed during the first turn. I also assumed Retaliations stopped civvies getting shot (assuming any active pods don’t try to shoot them) during Chosen combat but I’ve not tested that one at all recently so I can’t verify.<br /><br />By the way, love these posts. Very thorough and good clear descriptions. You’re doing great work for the XCOMmunity.Saxonraehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02510943323789319026noreply@blogger.com