I Found XCOM 2 Disappointing

[3asytarg3t]

I'm about 2/3's through my first campaign and I think it's pretty damn good.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Turn timers on certain missions... was a deliberate design choice to prevent overwatch balls crawling around the map. They decided that they didn't want that to define high level gameplay, so they made specific and calculated design decisions to prevent that from happening. If you pay attention to class abilities lots of them are designed around being aggressive or moving quickly to facilitate the turn timer. I've never failed a mission because of the clock. Although one mission I finished on the last turn - but I took extra time to murder guys and I had a run of bad luck that slowed me a turn.

If you enjoy overwatch-balls and super slow methodical map clears that's perfectly fine. I'm not telling you how to enjoy your vidya games. But please remember that they made choices to encourage specific kinds of gameplay. They're features, not bugs.

Yes and no.

Having a mechanic in place to push the pace is necessary. They tried with meld and these simple hard timers are a refinement of that. It still needs some work, though. For one thing, too many timed missions is fatiguing for players, and too many of the timers are on the white-knuckle side of what is sensible. More pressingly, at higher difficulty levels the game is extremely unforgiving of tactical blunders, most prominently aggressive up screen movement into fog of war. Your average team of appropriate size and appropriate levels and skills will have the tools to handle one pod at a time without a cascade of wounds and casualties. One. Move your big toe an inch over the invisible line, and you'll be facing 2-3 at a time. In the early game, this could mean 2-3 sectoids running around, and on Legendary they have 10 HP each. You could have 50% or more of your squad mind controlled in a single turn. You could have 3-4 lancers full move-sprinting across the map to incapacitate your entire squad. Encounters rapidly turn from manageable to impossible with the addition of just a few enemies.

The solution to that is intelligent, methodical risk mitigation, which is XCOM is all about. However, the game demanding methodical risk mitigation on one hand and vim, brio and dash on the other because of unforgiving timers puts players in something of a no-win situation. I finished my play through on Commander in spite of this, but I wasn't playing Ironman, and saves can trivialize anything. On my few pokes at Legendary, I can already see half a dozen early missions that would seem unwinnable on their face.

Currently I'm playing Ironman Commander with +2/4 mission turn timers on via a mod, and +1 enemies per pod to balance it out. The extra turns afford me time to have a proper initiation/make use of the stealth mechanic without needing to blind-sprint up the map to beat a clock, the extra enemies makes each encounter 25-33% more challenging. And if I pop two pods, I can have as many as eight enemies running around. It's a good trade off.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

The excessive amount of timer limits totally kill the game. Stratergy has been traded for lazyness. I don't get why they just couldn't have added something like a "cramp" mechanic, where overwatch hit chances reduce on each subsequent turn.

Turn based missions are OK 10% of the time to add something fresh, but 80%? Nope, it just kills the enjoyment for me, since it eliminates choices and forces me to play in a very specific way.

 

[Zenja]

Turn timers on certain missions... was a deliberate design choice to prevent overwatch balls crawling around the map. They decided that they didn't want that to define high level gameplay, so they made specific and calculated design decisions to prevent that from happening. If you pay attention to class abilities lots of them are designed around being aggressive or moving quickly to facilitate the turn timer. I've never failed a mission because of the clock. Although one mission I finished on the last turn - but I took extra time to murder guys and I had a run of bad luck that slowed me a turn.

If you enjoy overwatch-balls and super slow methodical map clears that's perfectly fine. I'm not telling you how to enjoy your vidya games. But please remember that they made choices to encourage specific kinds of gameplay. They're features, not bugs.

First off, if you use demeaning terms like 'overwatch balls' and talk down on a specific type of gameplay, you are suggesting that enjoying their video games that way is wrong or inferior. Secon, Firaxis aren't the best designers in terms of gameplay balancing. All of their games since Civ 3 in the 90s has had popular and obvious flaws in the mechanics to allow the player obvious 'cheese' tactics.

However, focusing solely on Xcom 2, all you need to do is look at the concealment mechanic to understand the flaw in the turn timers. If what you say is true, and you haven't missed a single mission due to the timer, then you must be ignoring the conceal mechanic for the most part. As any mission with a turn timer of 8 doesn't allow the luxury of wasting a whole turn or two to ambush your first 2-3 enemies. As well, when you say you have never failed because of the clock, if you have had ever had a team wipe... this could easily have been due to the clock pushing you too far too fast. As the current design is, the concealment feature is at odds with the turn timer feature, which creates what one could assume is a bug, or just a very poor design flaw.

The turn timer is supposed to reflect ADVENT calling in reinforcements to thwart your attack. So why is it that they called for reinforcements as soon as you showed up when they didn't even know you were there? I was playing with the +4 turns timer tweak mod but have since switched to 'true concealment' because it fixes all this. Playing with timer tweaks, I found myself still rushing for the goalpost from turn one, ignoring concealment for the most part. Since playing with True Concealment, I have had missions where I played 10 turns on an 8 turn mission trying to stealth my way through the mission. It adds a whole new aspect to the game and I highly suggest it. In effect, it fixes the concealment feature making concealment a viable strategy by itself opposed to turning every mission into a firefight. When employing concealment you will be spamming overwatch probably as you hide though.

 

[DoPo]

The excessive amount of timer limits totally kill the game. Stratergy has been traded for lazyness. I don't get why they just couldn't have added something like a "cramp" mechanic, where overwatch hit chances reduce on each subsequent turn.

But they did change the game a lot in order to accommodate turn timers. The entire skill and item selection has been redone for a more aggressive gameplay. In the previous XCOM - yeah, creeping on overwatch was the way to play. I've heard that that wasn't Firaxis' intention but, if so, then, frankly, they fucked up presenting that. In XCOM 2 however, the changes hit right from the bat:

- rookies are not as useless, thanks to the Guerilla Training School. Sure, you don't have it immediately when you start (at least on Commander?) but you can build it almost right after. EU rookies would need to go on a mission or two to level up and they sucked so much at aiming, you'd almost have to get your entire squad to isolate an enemy, so the rookie can run up and shoot it from the next square, in order to have some chance to kill something. With the GTS, you get them past the rookie phase reliably and you get to choose exactly what class they get - EU rookies could also go and kill, like, 5 people and then get assigned support, when you actually really needed assault or whatever.

- squaddies get to DO STUFF. Now, let's compare them to EU squaddies. EU squaddies were dumb. Relatively. They were rookies with a different weapon. Mostly - they'd get a new ability but they'd be able to use it once per mission most of the time - Smoke Grenade and the Fire Rocker, for sure, Headshot and Run and Gun you could use more than once, but a lot of times, you wouldn't have the opportunity. XCOM 2 squaddies get abilities that are immediately available and can be used multiple times per round:
-- Rangers get Slash, which dominates early game aliens and can also be used after a double move
-- Sharpshooters get Squadsight which is amazing considering how vital it was for Snipers
-- Specialists get Aid which means you can better protect your squad, thus you can choose to go for half-cover more often. There is also Remote Hack which can do wonders on some timed missions - if you need to hack the objective, you can shave off a turn or two off it, via that skill. Some times even more, if there is an alien pod near the objective, which you'd need to fight.
-- grenadiers technically get an ability they can use once (extra grenade), however, they also improve the other grenade they lob. By itself, this is probably the weakest ability and the one which is the most similar to EU squaddie abilities, however there is the next point

- the utilility items have much more variety and are much more useful. From the very beginning. You can build a battle scanner. I'll let that one sink in. In EU, you'd only get it if you get a rank 4 sniper and even then, it was pitted against Disabling Shot. It was a hard sell, even if it was a useful ability. And that's the thing - it didn't need to be an ability. XCOM 2 has it as an item that anybody can use. It can be built before the first terror mission, as well (although, you probably wouldn't know you need it at that point), and it allows you to choose where to go and how to approach enemies - again, giving you an edge and the possibility to move faster. That's not the only useful item, either, the grenades are amazing and one of the, hands down, most potent weapons in the game. Which is what makes the grenadiers so awesome - lobbing an acid grenade in the midst of armoured enemies is just crazy effective. Flashbanfs, fire grenades, gas - they are all really useful. Normal grenades are also good for destroying cover. Mimic beacon is a trump card you can pull in any situation to get breathing room, if not outright win the encounter. The list of available tools is wider at the start, and the tools are also more versatile, allowing you to trivialize some encounters, assuming you're equipped well. Speaking of...

- Shadow Chamber - being equipped well was one of the problems with EU. You could take good items for specific situations, but you were better off getting somewhat weaker items for more generic usages. In XCOM 2, you have the Shadow Chamber, which tells you what enemies you're going to encounter on a mission and what is the total number of enemies, as well. In that case, preparing is way easier - are there robotic enemies? Pack the blue screen rounds. More human ones? Get dragonfire rounds or other things that are good against them. And so on and so forth. Knowing your enemies makes it much easier to deal with them.

XCOM 2 is a different game than it's predecessor. It does allow, in fact, encourages a more aggressive play. The whole tactical layer is rebuild around that. Yes, they could have just added some penalties for slow play but that would have been laziness. What was done wasn't that and calling it "lazy" is doing a disservice to both yourself and the game design.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The excessive amount of timer limits totally kill the game. Stratergy has been traded for lazyness. I don't get why they just couldn't have added something like a "cramp" mechanic, where overwatch hit chances reduce on each subsequent turn.

Turn based missions are OK 10% of the time to add something fresh, but 80%? Nope, it just kills the enjoyment for me, since it eliminates choices and forces me to play in a very specific way.

"Kills your enjoyment" isn't something anyone can argue against. "Lazy" is not a substantiated argument. Strategy does not begin and end with 'appeals to Danbo Jambo's eclectic sensibilities'. If anything, XCOM 2 is a MUCH more tightly and intelligently designed game than its predecessor.

First off, if you use demeaning terms like 'overwatch balls' and talk down on a specific type of gameplay, you are suggesting that enjoying their video games that way is wrong or inferior. Secon, Firaxis aren't the best designers in terms of gameplay balancing. All of their games since Civ 3 in the 90s has had popular and obvious flaws in the mechanics to allow the player obvious 'cheese' tactics.

You are correct. There are definitely game play flaws and OP tactics in XCOM 2. None of them involve turn timers, though. If anything, there are a handful of player tactics that definitively need nerfing.

If what you say is true, and you haven't missed a single mission due to the timer, then you must be ignoring the conceal mechanic for the most part. As any mission with a turn timer of 8 doesn't allow the luxury of wasting a whole turn or two to ambush your first 2-3 enemies. As well, when you say you have never failed because of the clock, if you have had ever had a team wipe... this could easily have been due to the clock pushing you too far too fast. As the current design is, the concealment feature is at odds with the turn timer feature, which creates what one could assume is a bug, or just a very poor design flaw.

I had 100% mission completion and 100% soldier survival on Commander. Never missed anything due to a timer. Beaglerush finished on Ironman Legendary with 100% mission success. My current Commander Ironman game has +1 enemies per pod and I'm at 100% mission completion and one casualty through plasma tech (it was his own damn fault too, panicked at 4 damage and ran into a storm of overwatch fire...can't account for everything). When I played with a turn timer mod, I was finishing missions with 5+ turns left. It was ridiculously generous.

That said, I support the concept of "true concealment" if the mod can be made to work properly. I think it's probably overly generous to players and timers should be shortened to compensate in a properly balanced game, but thematically it feels on point.

 

[DoPo]

That said, I support the concept of "true concealment" if the mod can be made to work properly. I think it's probably overly generous to players and timers should be shortened to compensate in a properly balanced game, but thematically it feels on point.

The timers are reduced with True Concealment. Not a lot, mind you - it's 2 turns lest, last I checked. Which is probably around the time you'd normally encounter an enemy pod, so overall, if you just slap it on and engage the first group of enemies, there shouldn't be much of a difference. I suppose you could spend an extra turn getting into better position to engage them, so overall your net benefit is +1 turn.

However, if you're going to spend much more than that setting up, the mod kind of cheapens the game. If the turn limit is tight, under normal circumstances, you can avoid confrontation in the beginning. Don't ambush the first pod, but go for the objective and, if necessary, kill stuff there. With True Concealment, the turn limits become an entire non-issue - you can only ever engage a single pod in a mission, you really want to - that's assuming there is one pod at the objective. Well, occasionally there may be two and you may need to defeat an ADVENT drop but I'm not even sure if the drops are triggered by proximity to the evac zone or the turn counter. If it's the latter, then you wouldn't need to deal with them at all.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

But they did change the game a lot in order to accommodate turn timers. The entire skill and item selection has been redone for a more aggressive gameplay. In the previous XCOM - yeah, creeping on overwatch was the way to play. I've heard that that wasn't Firaxis' intention but, if so, then, frankly, they fucked up presenting that. In XCOM 2 however, the changes hit right from the bat:

- rookies are not as useless, thanks to the Guerilla Training School. Sure, you don't have it immediately when you start (at least on Commander?) but you can build it almost right after. EU rookies would need to go on a mission or two to level up and they sucked so much at aiming, you'd almost have to get your entire squad to isolate an enemy, so the rookie can run up and shoot it from the next square, in order to have some chance to kill something. With the GTS, you get them past the rookie phase reliably and you get to choose exactly what class they get - EU rookies could also go and kill, like, 5 people and then get assigned support, when you actually really needed assault or whatever.

- squaddies get to DO STUFF. Now, let's compare them to EU squaddies. EU squaddies were dumb. Relatively. They were rookies with a different weapon. Mostly - they'd get a new ability but they'd be able to use it once per mission most of the time - Smoke Grenade and the Fire Rocker, for sure, Headshot and Run and Gun you could use more than once, but a lot of times, you wouldn't have the opportunity. XCOM 2 squaddies get abilities that are immediately available and can be used multiple times per round:
-- Rangers get Slash, which dominates early game aliens and can also be used after a double move
-- Sharpshooters get Squadsight which is amazing considering how vital it was for Snipers
-- Specialists get Aid which means you can better protect your squad, thus you can choose to go for half-cover more often. There is also Remote Hack which can do wonders on some timed missions - if you need to hack the objective, you can shave off a turn or two off it, via that skill. Some times even more, if there is an alien pod near the objective, which you'd need to fight.
-- grenadiers technically get an ability they can use once (extra grenade), however, they also improve the other grenade they lob. By itself, this is probably the weakest ability and the one which is the most similar to EU squaddie abilities, however there is the next point

- the utilility items have much more variety and are much more useful. From the very beginning. You can build a battle scanner. I'll let that one sink in. In EU, you'd only get it if you get a rank 4 sniper and even then, it was pitted against Disabling Shot. It was a hard sell, even if it was a useful ability. And that's the thing - it didn't need to be an ability. XCOM 2 has it as an item that anybody can use. It can be built before the first terror mission, as well (although, you probably wouldn't know you need it at that point), and it allows you to choose where to go and how to approach enemies - again, giving you an edge and the possibility to move faster. That's not the only useful item, either, the grenades are amazing and one of the, hands down, most potent weapons in the game. Which is what makes the grenadiers so awesome - lobbing an acid grenade in the midst of armoured enemies is just crazy effective. Flashbanfs, fire grenades, gas - they are all really useful. Normal grenades are also good for destroying cover. Mimic beacon is a trump card you can pull in any situation to get breathing room, if not outright win the encounter. The list of available tools is wider at the start, and the tools are also more versatile, allowing you to trivialize some encounters, assuming you're equipped well. Speaking of...

- Shadow Chamber - being equipped well was one of the problems with EU. You could take good items for specific situations, but you were better off getting somewhat weaker items for more generic usages. In XCOM 2, you have the Shadow Chamber, which tells you what enemies you're going to encounter on a mission and what is the total number of enemies, as well. In that case, preparing is way easier - are there robotic enemies? Pack the blue screen rounds. More human ones? Get dragonfire rounds or other things that are good against them. And so on and so forth. Knowing your enemies makes it much easier to deal with them.

XCOM 2 is a different game than it's predecessor. It does allow, in fact, encourages a more aggressive play. The whole tactical layer is rebuild around that. Yes, they could have just added some penalties for slow play but that would have been laziness. What was done wasn't that and calling it "lazy" is doing a disservice to both yourself and the game design.

The reason I see it as lazy is just because I think there were many other options, such as the "cramp" one I mentioned, which could have still encouraged agressive play, but at the same time maintained that sense of tension & stratergy from the original.

Despite all the extras and game changes you mention, you're still too often forced to think "bugger it, I'll plough on and hope for the best" as opposed to "if I do X then Y and Z should happen, so A could then B etc." It all becomes a bit irrelevant as you're conditioned by the excessive amount of timer based missions to accept losses. This de-values your connection with squad mates as they become more disposable, and also just makes the whole thing feel rather "forced" and less delibrate.

I rarely feel satisfied anymore because I feel forced into the decisions I make because of elements out of my control.

I hope a GOTY edition sees a big rebalance to this, and a significant reduction in the amount of timer based missiosn there are.

 

[DoPo]

Despite all the extras and game changes you mention, you're still too often forced to think "bugger it, I'll plough on and hope for the best" as opposed to "if I do X then Y and Z should happen, so A could then B etc."

Well, that's avoidable already. You can scout ahead before engaging - you also have tools like battle scanners, as I mentioned. Other than that, there is the specialists' Scan which also works. Other than that, scout rangers can also serve as great lookouts. Other than that, you can also avoid confrontations until you reach your objective.

The tools are there. If you're not using them, don't blame the game.

It all becomes a bit irrelevant as you're conditioned by the excessive amount of timer based missions to accept losses. This de-values your connection with squad mates as they become more disposable

Umm, having disposable soldiers is one of the core things in XCOM. In both EU and here the tutorial tries to hammer it in by having you lose half your squad in your first mission. Heck, in EU you lost 3 out of the 4 people and those are trained soldiers. Then throughout the game you would keep losing soldiers. It's normal. It's a staple of the game.

I don't see how that's a criticism against timers of all things, in the second game[footnote]in recent years, that is[/footnote] where the gameplay is unofficially known as a meatgrinder for soldiers.

And even then - losing a timed mission isn't as bad as you make it out to be. In some cases, it just means that you don't get the mission bonus - sort of sucks, but you keep your squad. In other cases it leads to your soldiers being captured, rather than killed. And this is an important distinction - you get to free your captured soldiers. It'd be a random VIP extraction mission at a random point later in time, but you can get them back.

I hope a GOTY edition sees a big rebalance to this, and a significant reduction in the amount of timer based missiosn there are.

Well I'm mid-game now (I think?) and the timed missions are way less than before. Sure, they crop up fairly often, but not as often as in the beginning.

However, even then - you can already change the timers if you want.

- Another problem saddly are the timed missions and the EVAC specificaly...
You must think fast and smart if you want to complete the mission in the time limit and without lot of casualties. Which of course cause a problem if you don't have a chance to kill a target most of the time [you know, to have a 89% shoot chance and miss like a boss...].

There are mods to fix that already:

TimerTweaks [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616857663] is straight forward - it increases each timer by a bit. It's +4 for most missions, +2 for main ones.

True Concealment [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618077830] changes the mission timer so it only starts ticking after you've been exposed. In addition it very slightly decreases the timers to account for that.

And there is also Disable Timers [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616964599] which does exactly what it says.

I use TimerTweaks myself since I heard the "horror stories" of how evil the turn timers were. And I feel it a bit wasted. I often finish missions with 6 or so turns to spare. Which is more than what TimerTweaks adds. I don't even really "rush", either - I play normally[footnote]usual tactic - scout ahead with a soldier, when I encounter the first pod, I spend the rest of the turn getting the rest of my soldiers into ambush positions and either attack the same turn, if possible, or leave it for the next one. Engagements usually start on turn 2-3 with me wiping out, or mostly wiping out, a pod, and then continue fighting forward[/footnote]. There were two missions where I would have overrun the normal timers, though - both times it was not due to the timer itself but the randomly generated map. One of them had the extraction point at the top of a building and I had to spend 2-3 turns just climbing it, but to make matters worse, there was an alien pod I had to fight at the bottom, as well - I managed to escape at exactly 0 turns remaining. The other time there were two pods that appeared at the very end of the level. I could have prevented the second one, however, I had just gotten really used to the extended timers and I didn't really rush - if I had been slightly faster, I'd have escaped sooner, as opposed to at 3 turns remaining.

 

[kiri3tsubasa]

Out of curiosity does the game still have that problem of not knowing which tile you want to go to when you are going up a level?

 

[kurupt87]

Most of it is good.

Best thing: Can't agree with @Jandau more with the satellite vs Avatar timer. MUCH more freedom, that tunnel was by far the worst thing about the original.

Worst thing: Lot's more timers on missions. Early game and late game it's a real pain, early because everything is terrifying and it forces you to rush. Late because everything has so much bloody health.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Well, that's avoidable already. You can scout ahead before engaging - you also have tools like battle scanners, as I mentioned. Other than that, there is the specialists' Scan which also works. Other than that, scout rangers can also serve as great lookouts. Other than that, you can also avoid confrontations until you reach your objective.

The tools are there. If you're not using them, don't blame the game.

Umm, having disposable soldiers is one of the core things in XCOM. In both EU and here the tutorial tries to hammer it in by having you lose half your squad in your first mission. Heck, in EU you lost 3 out of the 4 people and those are trained soldiers. Then throughout the game you would keep losing soldiers. It's normal. It's a staple of the game.

I don't see how that's a criticism against timers of all things, in the second game[footnote]in recent years, that is[/footnote] where the gameplay is unofficially known as a meatgrinder for soldiers.

And even then - losing a timed mission isn't as bad as you make it out to be. In some cases, it just means that you don't get the mission bonus - sort of sucks, but you keep your squad. In other cases it leads to your soldiers being captured, rather than killed. And this is an important distinction - you get to free your captured soldiers. It'd be a random VIP extraction mission at a random point later in time, but you can get them back.

Well I'm mid-game now (I think?) and the timed missions are way less than before. Sure, they crop up fairly often, but not as often as in the beginning.

However, even then - you can already change the timers if you want.

Nah. You're strategic thinking on the whole is railroaded far more than previous games. Yes you lost troops, yes you accepted that, but you never felt as if you were ever entering a mission where you knew you'd lose troops before it began. Whereas most timed mission give you that feeling regardless of actions.

Fair play, the concequences of failing are often liveable, but it still makes the game feel a bit "unfair" in a sense.

It's just how the whole game has evolved/devolved which I don't like. It's not awful, but IMO it's a step backwards and I don't enjoy playing it as much as the original. I play it on a friends PC, so will wait to see what happens with later releases before purchasing. Almost anyone I know who is enjoying it has TimerTweaks installed, and I don't want to have to mess about modding the game if I buy it as I simply don't enjoy modding.

Xcom was always about stratergy & tension for me, and now it feels "off" with so many timer based missions. Hopefully they adjust this.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Xcom was always about stratergy & tension for me, and now it feels "off" with so many timer based missions. Hopefully they adjust this.

I don't want to sound like an ass or anything, but XCOM2 has far more strategy and tactics involved then XCOM ever did. What you've been asking for in all your replies in this thread is a game that allows you the ability to formulate a consistent, flawless approach to every mission, which isn't very strategic or tactical at all.

Let me give you an example: The optimal build in XCOM was to have one Support with the Sprint ability, at least 2 snipers with Squad Sight and Overwatch improvements and the rest of the team also focused on reaction fire. The you ran your support up to its' maximum allowance for one action. If you triggered enemies, the Support fell back to its' original position and everyone else went into overwatch. If no enemies were triggered, everyone moved up just short of the Supports position. This was the XCOM "Overwatch Creep" and it was the absolutely optimal way to play the game. By using it you could almost guarantee zero losses.

XCOM 2 does away with the Overwatch Creep, because it was an incredibly boring way to play the game and it made a lot of gear, skills and even classes pointless (the only reason to have an Assault was so that you occasionally triggered its' Close Combat Specialist against melee enemies). XCOM 2 instead opts to put you in scenarios that will always be somewhat unpredictable and which will force you to get out of your comfort zone if you want to win. XCOM 2 thus is more strategic, because you get more options on how to approach the missions, by letting you fine tune your troop compositions (through the Rookie Training in the GWC), by giving you a lot more gear to choose from and by making all classes have two distinct and very different skill trees that can be mixed and matched for all classes. It is also more tactical because it puts a higher strain on your tactical thinking and requires you to actually engage in tactical concepts like risk/reward trade-offs, casualty mitigation and improvisation.

Yes, the timers in XCOM 2 can occasionally be almost punishingly short, but I've never lost a mission to time in some 40 hours of playing. The timers forces you to work with tactics like they are actually employed by military forces, by improvising and adapting to battlefield circumstances. All these reasons are why XCOM 2 is the better strategy and tactics game. If you prefer XCOM that's fine, to each their own, but there's absolutely no way you can claim that it is a better strategy or tactics game, when it is a game that rewards formulaic approaches to both its strategy part ("Satellite Spam") and its tactical part ("Overwatch Creep").

 

[cathou]

Yes, the timers in XCOM 2 can occasionally be almost punishingly short, but I've never lost a mission to time in some 40 hours of playing. The timers forces you to work with tactics like they are actually employed by military forces, by improvising and adapting to battlefield circumstances. All these reasons are why XCOM 2 is the better strategy and tactics game. If you prefer XCOM that's fine, to each their own, but there's absolutely no way you can claim that it is a better strategy or tactics game, when it is a game that rewards formulaic approaches to both its strategy part ("Satellite Spam") and its tactical part ("Overwatch Creep").

honestly, the timer dont really bother me much. in my last 2 missions i had 5 soldier captured. in one case the timer expired with two soldiers(with one of them carring an incounscious soldier on his back) but i still win the mission because i rushed the VIP to the escape zone while the others where fighting. the other case it was one inconscious soldier with a mind controled soldier that i left behind. And the hiding mechanism make it less punishable to rush in the first turns, so unless you go full overwatch in the first few turns, the timer is not really a problem. and let's face it, the maps are much smaller than in EU.

which lead me to talk about the escape mecanism. it give you far more options when things go bad. in that mission i

Spoiler

i use the jack on a codex for the first time, but in a very difficult mission with 2 codex, 2 muton, one shield and one lancer active, 2 snakemen, one archon and a turret not activated in the fog. i didnt know that an avatar would pop out of the codex, and it destroyed my strategy. the avatar teleport into the snakeman/archon pod to activate them, and i was stuck in a crossfire

so with a situation like that in EU, i would have lost all my squad. however when i realised i was a turn away from a squad swipe, i activated the evac, and save 2 of my men. and so far retreive another one in another mission.

 

[omega 616]

I am playing through now and the avatar project doesn't seem like a big hassle to me. I let it build up to a point where it got to the countdown timer thing, which says I had 20 days to sort it out, went and did a mission which knocked it down 2 pips and now they just seem to be throwing missions at me that drop it down further.

So I have gone from "OH SHIT, RUSH THE MISSIONS!" to "the avatar what now?". I also ignored the first yellow mission, which shows you the factory where people are in green gunk, for MONTHS! I was past mag weapons (which I skipped) before doing that mission ... I should say that I am playing on the second easiest and have save scummed a little, mainly for hacks.

 

[fury]

download the mod to remove time on missions!

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Xcom was always about stratergy & tension for me, and now it feels "off" with so many timer based missions. Hopefully they adjust this.

I don't want to sound like an ass or anything, but XCOM2 has far more strategy and tactics involved then XCOM ever did. What you've been asking for in all your replies in this thread is a game that allows you the ability to formulate a consistent, flawless approach to every mission, which isn't very strategic or tactical at all.

Let me give you an example: The optimal build in XCOM was to have one Support with the Sprint ability, at least 2 snipers with Squad Sight and Overwatch improvements and the rest of the team also focused on reaction fire. The you ran your support up to its' maximum allowance for one action. If you triggered enemies, the Support fell back to its' original position and everyone else went into overwatch. If no enemies were triggered, everyone moved up just short of the Supports position. This was the XCOM "Overwatch Creep" and it was the absolutely optimal way to play the game. By using it you could almost guarantee zero losses.

XCOM 2 does away with the Overwatch Creep, because it was an incredibly boring way to play the game and it made a lot of gear, skills and even classes pointless (the only reason to have an Assault was so that you occasionally triggered its' Close Combat Specialist against melee enemies). XCOM 2 instead opts to put you in scenarios that will always be somewhat unpredictable and which will force you to get out of your comfort zone if you want to win. XCOM 2 thus is more strategic, because you get more options on how to approach the missions, by letting you fine tune your troop compositions (through the Rookie Training in the GWC), by giving you a lot more gear to choose from and by making all classes have two distinct and very different skill trees that can be mixed and matched for all classes. It is also more tactical because it puts a higher strain on your tactical thinking and requires you to actually engage in tactical concepts like risk/reward trade-offs, casualty mitigation and improvisation.

Yes, the timers in XCOM 2 can occasionally be almost punishingly short, but I've never lost a mission to time in some 40 hours of playing. The timers forces you to work with tactics like they are actually employed by military forces, by improvising and adapting to battlefield circumstances. All these reasons are why XCOM 2 is the better strategy and tactics game. If you prefer XCOM that's fine, to each their own, but there's absolutely no way you can claim that it is a better strategy or tactics game, when it is a game that rewards formulaic approaches to both its strategy part ("Satellite Spam") and its tactical part ("Overwatch Creep").

Ok, maybe I shouldn't have used the word stratergy.

Tension has definitely gone out the window to a large degree though, and that kills a lot of the feel and joy of the game for me.