tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post6468508326854750334..comments2024-03-28T10:31:45.644-07:00Comments on Vigaroe: XCOM 2 Analysis: Covert OperationsVigaroehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02405424233776571308noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-36519305455214212142021-07-08T15:32:11.992-07:002021-07-08T15:32:11.992-07:00I've honestly done rescue missions maybe five ...I've honestly done rescue missions maybe five or six times in total across all my runs. I probably should take advantage of skirmish mode to more thoroughly test them. But for the moment, it's one of the components of the game I'm actually pretty ignorant of.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-15208799054155599562021-07-08T07:05:41.874-07:002021-07-08T07:05:41.874-07:00Do you have any more thoughts on the rescue missio...Do you have any more thoughts on the rescue mission itself? My first WoTC playthrough on Commander, I left it a bit late, not considering that the game might scale the difficulty. I recall sneaking in and hacking the door successfully. I had a bunch of enemies loitering in the prison lobby, though, and they wouldn't leave. I may have taken a hit or two once I said never mind that and grabbed Mox, but I put the evac zone at the doorstep and got everyone out fine. The downside was that the Assassin got quite a bit of knowledge and launched an Avenger assault relatively early. Of course, that was an extra 5 AP for the pool.<br /><br />My current playthrough, I went in early. I think the Specialist I brought was a Sergeant and they had maybe 50-60% chance to successfully hack the door. There were no enemies in the prison lobby, so I chanced it, although I had brought multiple flashbangs just in case. The hack failed, and Bradford put an evac zone down ... only I tried hitting the evac zone button anyway, and I actually did manage to override his placement and put my zone at the door. So we didn't even take any fire. I know you can't override evac zone placement in some other missions like evac a VIP, mainly for narrative-ish reasons (there's limited access points for the Skyranger, so this is the zone you have). I'm not sure if the behavior was intended, but it sure was fine by me. All in all, I'd say rescue early, it's fine, and it does seem like the game scales the difficulty, probably by the overall force level. (So, don't wait until late and then send a couple sergeants and a corporal anyway, but that's obvious.)Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17851789276439393822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-5279454396598199182021-06-21T17:06:44.876-07:002021-06-21T17:06:44.876-07:00Really appreciate your tips! And yes, the Fatigue ...Really appreciate your tips! And yes, the Fatigue mechanic has radically changed my approach in the early game, I'll comment my thoughts on that on your Fatigue system analysis post.Carlos M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00724030488394241024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-90124616875024734792021-06-21T11:51:08.876-07:002021-06-21T11:51:08.876-07:00With the Psi Transmitter, the biggest tricky eleme...With the Psi Transmitter, the biggest tricky element in my experience is that sometimes that first pod isn't within a turn-and-a-half of your squad's initial position, where you're basically forced to prematurely give up the benefits of Concealment to avoid mission failure. (The second-biggest issue is that sometimes reinforcements trigger before you've gotten close to the transmitter, which can get really ugly if you're already tight on time) Balancing killing enemies vs hitting the relay nodes isn't too much of a balancing act, as you can catch them with explosives simultaneous to attacking enemies (Grenadiers help a lot here), Templar and Rangers can use melee to avoid bleeding time and ammo in the process of breaking them (Even a non-Blademaster Ranger is fine here, as you can't miss objects outside special abilities that penalize Aim like Rapid Fire), and Sharpshooters and Templar can use their (Auto)Pistol to take out nodes without spending ammo (Unless you have Beta Strike on, they'll destroy the nodes in one shot every time), avoiding further delays from needing a reload. (Again, you can't miss objects normally, so even though they have Aim penalties at long range they'll always hit) Still a very painful mission type, but that particular consideration is very manageable.<br /><br />I'm also pretty sure the lower difficulties directly modify timers, though I really need to get around to data-gathering to actually confirm that.<br /><br />And yeah, outside Psi Transmitter missions in particular, Time Turner is serious overkill even on Legendary. The unfortunate thing is that in the base game I might actually turn it on just to make the Alien Rulers popping into a timed mission not horrible, but in War of the Chosen the Alien Rulers are are made bearable though Integrated DLC, making it redundant.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-46859440091389742112021-06-21T11:50:43.450-07:002021-06-21T11:50:43.450-07:00Yeah, that 'oh, I can get a better ambush'...Yeah, that 'oh, I can get a better ambush' optimizing behavior once I was modestly experienced with the game bit me, too., in exactly the same 'if I'd attacked LAST turn, I'd have had a turn to deal with one pod then another turn to deal with another pod' way. And it was something of a habit inculcated by the power of a late game squad, where I would screw up and pull two pods and then kill them all anyway, and so I wasn't experientially dissuaded, where for an early-game squad taking out two pods in one turn ranges from 'doable, with luck' to 'literally impossible'. I didn't manage to break this habit until I really internalized that actually Overwatch ambushes are often literally worthless in the late game. (Well, high-level Specialists should still try to take advantage thanks to Cool Under Pressure, Threat Assessment, and Guardian, even against targets that don't use Cover, but that's the primary exception)<br /><br />War of the Chosen's changes do also tend to lead to effectively tighter timers, before the extreme late game. The effect that gives the squad +3 Mobility while Concealed is now a Resistance Order instead of a fairly accessible GTS upgrade, your soldiers effectively level slower thanks to Fatigue and so mid-early missions your squad could stomp thanks to key abilities are actually challenging -a really stand-out example is Blademaster on Rangers, where in the base game you'll get a Ranger with Blademaster no later than mission 3 if you don't get them killed or seriously injured, whereas in War of the Chosen it can take 5 or more missions to get that first Corporal Ranger, and then even LONGER to actually FIELD them due to Fatigue, when Blademaster is a hugely powerful, important ability that speeds up your squad's movement a lot- and while War of the Chosen actually has a fair amount of power creep for the player, it's heavily slanted toward stacking up late in a run. (eg you'll only be able to slot in one Resistance Order to start, and you'll have to complete the first month before even that much, the Training Center doesn't really pull ahead of the AWC until you've accumulated enough points to buy either a same-level skill that matters a lot or buy TWO bonus abilities, the bonus stats from Covert Ops spend a while offset by slower leveling...)Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-57068479405244994052021-06-21T05:58:49.628-07:002021-06-21T05:58:49.628-07:00Thank you!
I have another data point on the issue...Thank you!<br /><br />I have another data point on the issue of timers. Having started a new run, WOTC on Veteran this time, I actually find that I'm doing _worse_ on the early game timed missions than on my first run. For one, I'm still getting used to the Psi Transmitter missions, where it currently seems difficult to juggle shooting to extend the timer vs. moving forward, I'm consistently cutting it close even with the mission objectives that were carried over from the vanilla XCOM 2. Whereas I used to have 3-4 turns left on my first run, I now often find myself having only 2 turns left and even having to rush to the objective on the last turn just to make sure I got it.<br /><br />Granted, I moved the difficulty up a notch, but it seems like having a little more experience in the game made me perform less optimally in such missions in the early game. My last Guerilla Op, for example, I got to the "hack the container" objective with just one turn remaining. I mentally debriefed myself and concluded I was playing too cautiously; when I encountered the first pod, I thought hey there's high ground over there so I can try to advance my point person over there to see if there are any enemies and maybe the ambush will turn out more optimally. Seemed to work out just fine but when I was about to start the ambush, a second pod patrolled into sight range in the direction of the objective. I ended up fighting two pods anyway and ended up taking a couple of Stun Lancer hits.<br /><br />In hindsight if I just threw a grenade at the first pod after the entire team finished blue moving I would have taken at least the same amount of time to clear them out vs. the other pod appearing in sight. I also probably wouldn't have needed to seek cover as much which sidetracked my advance towards the objective. Seems like in the process of learning the game, I've developed some sub-optimal, overly cautious habits that were masked by my late-game squad having enough firepower to quickly dispatch any incoming pod regardless.<br /><br />So I'm wondering again whether that's part of the backlash with the timers. I mean, I'm literally playing the same game (same mission type, squad composition, etc.) and finding myself going from "I'm a noob at this srsly what's the big deal" to "hey, these things seem tougher that I remember." It's not any less fun, but that "turns remaining" number got ominously smaller at the end of missions. But then going back looking at how I perform the missions now I could see some poor tactics. That said, having Time Turner on would seem rather overkill, that would have me go from just about finishing the mission to having like 9+ turns left even in my current "a bit too smart for his own good" phase of the learning curve and that seems rather ridiculous and trivializing.Carlos M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00724030488394241024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-79564451163669435712021-06-14T12:05:45.192-07:002021-06-14T12:05:45.192-07:00Glad to be of service, and congrats on your first ...Glad to be of service, and congrats on your first win!Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-12418540105154115322021-06-14T04:13:32.612-07:002021-06-14T04:13:32.612-07:00Thanks for your replies, once again you show you a...Thanks for your replies, once again you show you are extremely well-versed and articulate about XCOM 2 and this is why this entire blog series is so good. Your comments here are the most informed discussion I've had on XCOM 2's timers I've seen on the entire Internet. All the other chatter can be basically summed up as "XCOM 2 introduced mission timers, and now half the playerbase hates it."<br /><br />I've just finished my Rookie run of the base game, and the non-timed missions were for me mostly either way too easy (e.g. facility missions, particularly after you've defeated the Alien rulers), or still not particularly hard but rather quite tedious (most of the story missions, especially the DLC ones).Carlos M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00724030488394241024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-43841059130201333792021-06-11T10:46:48.986-07:002021-06-11T10:46:48.986-07:00I mean, the Enemy Within timers are less 'opti...I mean, the Enemy Within timers are less 'optional' and more 'very restricted/rare' -Enemy Unknown got a DLC (Slingshot) that added a three-mission chain that would trigger exactly once in a run and only had one mission in it timed, and then Enemy Within added EXALT missions (Which you'll do a handful of and then be done with them forever, and they're ludicrously easy anyway), Site Recon (Which only has a timer at the end of the mission and, again, occurs exactly once in a run), and a new three-mission chain (Progeny) that once again triggers exactly once in a run and only two of them are timed. (These, plus Slingshot's one timed mission, are the horrible missions) The only repeating missions with time pressure are Terror missions (ie Retaliation missions; save civilians while enemies try to kill them) and a specific type of Council Request mission that only rarely occurs. (Bomb defusal)<br /><br />Whereas in XCOM 2, time pressure is a default element of mission design, particularly in the base game, with the 'only have to do this once' missions being where most of the zero-time-pressure missions are at. So in Enemy Within once you've done just a few timed missions, you're basically free and clear (There's still Terror missions, but I suspect they get a pass because they're supposed to be horrible and stressful, and they don't dominate mission rotation regardless) unless you intend to play the game again. (And game reviewers tend to play a given game less than one full run, on average) vs in XCOM 2 there's no point you're far enough to permanently 'escape' time pressure missions.<br /><br />So if time pressure missions stress someone out, in Enemy Within they can reassure themselves that it's a thing they only have to put up with a few times and then they're done. That's probably why there's people who think timers were 'better' in Enemy Within -because they largely go away partway into a run, not because they're better-tuned or something. (They're not. They're really, REALLY not)<br /><br />I tend to play in larger blocks, but honestly the more predictable timeframe helps me too. I hate interrupting missions because there's so much you need to mentally juggle that gets lost, and starting a mission on the idea it'll be done in twenty minutes and then having it drag for an hour is Not Fun even before the 'whoops, need to interrupt this to tend other responsibilities' concern.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-50632646486309062222021-06-11T05:52:32.591-07:002021-06-11T05:52:32.591-07:00Interesting, because pretty much all the griping a...Interesting, because pretty much all the griping about the XCOM 2 timers are accompanied by comments along the lines of "...but Enemy Within had them and it was better!" And no one could seem to explain _why_ EW timers were somehow "better", other than the fact that they were optional and XCOM 2's (mostly) aren't.<br /><br />There's actually one side benefit for me, personally, regarding the timed missions. I'm pretty much a casual gamer nowadays with 5 or so hours of gaming time a week. Maybe 10 if I really had lots of free time. I usually sit down to play 1-2 hour sessions, which gets me to play around 2-3 _complete_ missions. I usually like to save either on the strategic layer or at the beginning of a mission, and end a session at the end or start of one. I mean, I can save in the middle of a mission if I really have to, but then next time around I'd be spending minutes just trying to figure out what was going on, who did I take, what did they have on them, etc. For me, the timers have the side benefit of making the mission lengths (in real world terms) be more or less predictable. I mean, it's not really in favor of the mechanic, and different strokes for different folks, but they end up giving my own gameplay schedule a nice rhythm.Carlos M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00724030488394241024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-1955723389795030402021-06-11T00:45:52.671-07:002021-06-11T00:45:52.671-07:00Yeah, 'game is undecided in-universe, and neve...Yeah, 'game is undecided in-universe, and never mentions mechanics' is a broad recurring issue, and actually problematic; cinematics acting like your crew was working fine mid-air was precisely why I assumed projects advanced mid-air. And glad to hear my obsessive attention to detail is actually appreciated!<br /><br />And yeah, nearly two years of posts. Plus... six months, I think it was, of post prep work? So I've actually been at this over two years. Lots to document.<br /><br />I probably should do stuff for missions. I'd not intended to do so historically, but I probably should, and I've already changed my mind on similar topics I'd intended to ignore.<br /><br />Timers-wise, this is very much an EW-derived issue. EU and EW are (accidentally) designed to be EXTREMELY punishing to advancing; ideally you'll have every pod trigger in the form of walking into your Overwatch fire. High-level play involves a lot of inching forward on maps, perpetually Overwatching; Enemy Within experimented with trying to discourage these tactics by adding some missions with tight timers that force you to advance pretty recklessly to be able to complete the mission, and the result is absolutely miserable, unfun, horrible design. My immediate response to running into timers in XCOM 2 was absolute horror, a "They didn't realize how awful that was in Enemy Within? HOW?" reaction. When I saw Time Turner as an option in War of the Chosen, I honestly thought that would become one of my defaults, as I was still regularly cutting it close with the timers.<br /><br />At this point, though, I think XCOM 2 would be a much worse game if you removed its time pressure mechanics. (Or even just... reduced the pressure by 4 turns across the board, or something) I've gotten to the point that on Commander and Legendary I usually don't see timers drop below 3 turns without something like Alien Ruler interference, and I feel that most missions with zero time pressure (eg Avatar Project Facilities) are Too Easy. Much of my early difficulties grew out of wanting to do slow Overwatch advances once Concealment was broken, trying to get The Perfect Overwatch Ambush, and otherwise playing things slowly and safely in a way XCOM 2 genuinely doesn't reward the way its predecessor does. I turned on Time Turner once, purely to test its mechanics, and am unlikely to do so again outside Beta Strike runs. (And even there mostly because of Psi Transmitter missions being poorly-tuned -if I knew how to tweak the files so Psi Transmitter missions had just 2 more turns base, I'd do that and never consider touching Time Turner)Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-26675724439659713832021-06-10T17:15:15.714-07:002021-06-10T17:15:15.714-07:00Projects onboard the Avenger pausing while flying ...Projects onboard the Avenger pausing while flying is one of those little details the game never tells you about, and it kinda makes sense even if the game is inconsistent in its presentation about it (cutscene presentation vs. idle banter in this case). Which is probably something you can say about 80% of the game: it's just _there_, it kinda makes sense, but the game can't seem to decide one way or another how to present it (narrative/environment wise) and in any case never really seriously attempts to tell you about it (gameplay wise). Your extensive documentation of all the little details makes it stand out from all the Youtube series, Reddit guides, and articles on UFOpedia and XCOM Wiki.<br /><br />And what an effort it is, really; based on your earliest post on the XCOM 2 index you've been at it for just a couple of months shy of two years now!<br /><br />Will you be going into a series (or at least a couple of articles) on the various mission types? I'm really curious as to what your opinion is of timers. Like I said, I'm a total noob and one of the things that struck me was when I was looking at the reviews (professional or otherwise), I hear constant complaining about them. And yet based on my own experience, I've never found the timers to be that much of a big deal. Granted, I am playing on Rookie difficulty at the moment, but perhaps XCOM 2 and XCOM:EU/EW are too different from each other that people who got used to the latter are having a much harder time with the timer element because of habits that don't really translate to good gameplay for the former?<br /><br />I mean, I've never played EU/EW so I don't have a comparison, but even in my first playthrough I've worked out the action economy sufficiently to find a nice balance between aggressively moving forward and a sufficiently defensive approach such that I'd still have a handful of actions left even if I accidentally trigger some enemies. And some of your other posts indicate that XCOM 2 is tuned well-enough to allow for more generally aggressive play compared to EU/EW. So I'm curious as to what you think of the timer mechanics in general.Carlos M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00724030488394241024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-1606636201077795642021-06-09T23:50:50.605-07:002021-06-09T23:50:50.605-07:00I'm aware of the bit of banter regarding Bradf...I'm aware of the bit of banter regarding Bradford's flying; it's why I specified 'in cinematics'.<br /><br />But yeah, I'm not surprised this catches out streamers. I literally only noticed it because of Covert Ops breaking the rule, leading to Covert Ops finishing before other projects that had started out being listed as finishing sooner. I spent dozens of play-hours certain projects did advance while flying, and even when, in the base game, I had stuff happen like a project finish after the month rollover while I was sure the project was supposed to finish first, I just shrugged and figured I must've misremembered or something.<br /><br />Anyway, glad to be of service! A big part of what motivated this series is precisely the lack of documentation you're talking about, especially since nobody else online had taken up the slack. I personally enjoyed playing/learning the game blind, but there's so many important things that don't get communicated and can decide whether soldiers live or die and sometimes even decide whether you get a game over... yeah, its learning curve could definitely be better.Ghoul Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15165232279081041131noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3656428975201272042.post-33301699035123861292021-06-09T15:44:31.872-07:002021-06-09T15:44:31.872-07:00"If you have a Research project that will fin..."If you have a Research project that will finish in 7 days, and at any point you fly somewhere? The hours it took to fly delayed the Research project, and so it will take longer than the 7 days you were expecting. Apparently the Avenger is a really bad environment to get much of anything done in while flying... which doesn't really mesh with how it's presented in cinematics, mind, but eh."<br /><br />One bit of idle banter between the Avenger staff has Shen and Tygan complaining about Bradford's flying skills and how they couldn't get anything done while in the air; Bradford will snarkily reply that everyone complains about his flying but no one is stepping up to take over besides the autopilot. Unfortunately, as with much of the rest of the game, this mechanic isn't otherwise documented anywhere else.<br /><br />I've actually seen a few streamers go "oh I only have 4 hours to finish this build/research/training" on the Geoscape, decide the best way to burn those hours was to fly between scanning sites, and be surprised that the progress didn't move relative to the game time. I've never noticed this in my own play, but I tend to obsessively scan things on the map and mostly only go back to the Avenger when prompted anyway.<br /><br />BTW, I really appreciate this series and would like to thank you for it. I am not just a XCOM 2 noob, I'm a turn-based tactics game noob and this game was my introduction to it. I am aware that the series is notorious for early-game difficulty and heavily punishing players by snowballing their mistakes. That said, as a newcomer to the game and the genre for me the main difficulty is really the total lack of tutorial or documentation on pretty much all the mechanics. Like say, if your soldier gets promoted, you get to pick one of two skills, _permanently_, (or at least before you get AWC/Training Center) with a brief one or two sentence description and without an opportunity to actually see how it works. Or the game introduces a new enemy and how you're expected to just deal with it. And so on. This is one of those games that I wouldn't actually hesitate to tell people to just outright consult a strategy guide or some videos on the Internet to learn, there's just way too much that you don't get otherwise.Carlos M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/00724030488394241024noreply@blogger.com