Xcom - Enemy within... where do you draw the line as a player?

[happyninja42]

Hey so what is the name of the youtuber who everyone talks about being insanely good at XCOM, and Ironmanning the thing on Long War, or whatever the mods are called? I seem to recall people mentioning a particular person who is apparently insanely fucking good at it. I'm curious to watch his let's plays. Anyone know his username?

 

[Nielas]

Hey so what is the name of the youtuber who everyone talks about being insanely good at XCOM, and Ironmanning the thing on Long War, or whatever the mods are called? I seem to recall people mentioning a particular person who is apparently insanely fucking good at it. I'm curious to watch his let's plays. Anyone know his username?

Are you talking about Beaglerush?

I highly recommend Beaglerush's videos to any fan of the game. I used to essentially "brute force" the missions so I was taking serious casualties and was unable to play on higher difficulties. Beaglerush's videos taught me how to properly move my troops around and just how important flanking is. Most of his old stuff is still highly useful in XCom 2.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

By playing defensively, taking high percentage shots, and forcing your opponent to take low percentage shots (or ideally, not allowing your opponent to take shots at all) you dramatically minimize or even remove the effect "randomness" has on your game. It's not by accident that the best XCOM players run through entire campaigns without a single lost soldier. My first campaign, on Commander (with saving) ended with 75%+ flawless missions and zero soldiers lost. The second, Commander Ironman with +1 aliens per pod, finished ~50% flawless with a single dead soldier, lost to an untimely panic that saw him run into an overwatch crit. That was through 50+ missions. Almost half of those missions ended with none of my soldiers *ever even being fired on*. And I'm far from an XCOM savant. If anything, I'd argue the current incarnation of the game is far too easy, although it does share EU's problem of an inverted difficulty curve.

just a side bit, while you might not *feel* like a xcom savant, it's important to note, on both EU/EW and XCOM 2, only ~1% of the players have beat the game on commander+ difficulty with ironman mode, and I bring up both games because the first one has been out more than long enough to ramp that percentage up, yet it's still at a measly 1.7% (on steam at the very least). Plenty of other contextual things could make that number smaller/larger, so I'm not saying it's a perfect comparison.

So yes, while I wouldn't say the games are brutally difficult and you can do lots of things to mitigate RNG/bullshit errors, it's quite obvious that you (and others) are downplaying their own knowledge and skill in the game(s). I don't think x-com is special in that regard though, plenty of other "hard" games out there that are deemed "EZ, git gud scrub" by many gamers yet would share similar statistics on difficulty representation.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

just a side bit, while you might not *feel* like a xcom savant, it's important to note, on both EU/EW and XCOM 2, only ~1% of the players have beat the game on commander+ difficulty with ironman mode, and I bring up both games because the first one has been out more than long enough to ramp that percentage up, yet it's still at a measly 1.7% (on steam at the very least). Plenty of other contextual things could make that number smaller/larger, so I'm not saying it's a perfect comparison.

So yes, while I wouldn't say the games are brutally difficult and you can do lots of things to mitigate RNG/bullshit errors, it's quite obvious that you (and others) are downplaying their own knowledge and skill in the game(s). I don't think x-com is special in that regard though, plenty of other "hard" games out there that are deemed "EZ, git gud scrub" by many gamers yet would share similar statistics on difficulty representation.

It's not a case of "I beat the game on Commander Ironman with extra enemies, so you can too, or you stink". It's a case of "The game can be beaten on Commander Ironman with extra enemies, I watched myself do it, so your assertions that the game's strategic/tactical layer is fundamentally broken because of difficulties encountered on vanilla veteran might not be entirely rooted in sound analysis of the game's qualities".

There are certainly criticisms that can be brought against the game for some elements. Game play flow, binary outcomes, inverted curve (again), a too-short campaign, etc, etc. I know Firaxis is counting on modders to attend to some of these, although whether or not we ever see anything as grandiose as The Long War again remains to be seen. On a fundamental level, though, XCOM is not "too random", and people who find it "too random" are making errors that leave them vulnerable to said randomness. I do it, I'm sure you do it, a great many people do it. I'm trying to help illustrate that some problems can be mitigated by getting better at the game, and are not stemming from inherent problems in the game's design. Particularly when there are four difficulty levels to avail oneself of, all of which can be heavily modified to be made as hard or easy as one might desire.

Hey so what is the name of the youtuber who everyone talks about being insanely good at XCOM, and Ironmanning the thing on Long War, or whatever the mods are called? I seem to recall people mentioning a particular person who is apparently insanely fucking good at it. I'm curious to watch his let's plays. Anyone know his username?

As others have noted, his name is Beaglerush.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

just a side bit, while you might not *feel* like a xcom savant, it's important to note, on both EU/EW and XCOM 2, only ~1% of the players have beat the game on commander+ difficulty with ironman mode, and I bring up both games because the first one has been out more than long enough to ramp that percentage up, yet it's still at a measly 1.7% (on steam at the very least). Plenty of other contextual things could make that number smaller/larger, so I'm not saying it's a perfect comparison.

So yes, while I wouldn't say the games are brutally difficult and you can do lots of things to mitigate RNG/bullshit errors, it's quite obvious that you (and others) are downplaying their own knowledge and skill in the game(s). I don't think x-com is special in that regard though, plenty of other "hard" games out there that are deemed "EZ, git gud scrub" by many gamers yet would share similar statistics on difficulty representation.

It's not a case of "I beat the game on Commander Ironman with extra enemies, so you can too, or you stink". It's a case of "The game can be beaten on Commander Ironman with extra enemies, I watched myself do it, so your assertions that the game's strategic/tactical layer is fundamentally broken because of difficulties encountered on vanilla veteran might not be entirely rooted in sound analysis of the game's qualities".

There are certainly criticisms that can be brought against the game for some elements. Game play flow, binary outcomes, inverted curve (again), a too-short campaign, etc, etc. I know Firaxis is counting on modders to attend to some of these, although whether or not we ever see anything as grandiose as The Long War again remains to be seen. On a fundamental level, though, XCOM is not "too random", and people who find it "too random" are making errors that leave them vulnerable to said randomness. I do it, I'm sure you do it, a great many people do it. I'm trying to help illustrate that some problems can be mitigated by getting better at the game, and are not stemming from inherent problems in the game's design. Particularly when there are four difficulty levels to avail oneself of, all of which can be heavily modified to be made as hard or easy as one might desire.

based off my original post I'm pretty much in agreement with what you are saying, (I didn't read the full argument the other guy was saying, so I'm not going to remotely try to defend that or know what he was talking about.) and I wasn't trying to say the game is broken, heck I know and understand that I steamroll the game on normal difficulty, and I'm fine with that. I was just speaking based on my point of how many people have actually beaten it on higher difficulties versus you saying you weren't an x-com savant, which is probably true, but you certainly aren't average if you're in that 1% who *actually* beat it.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I was just speaking based on my point of how many people have actually beaten it on higher difficulties versus you saying you weren't an x-com savant, which is probably true, but you certainly aren't average if you're in that 1% who *actually* beat it.

AND I beat it with an extra enemy in every pod! Look at me! I'm just going to preen myself into a coma now! =D

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I was just speaking based on my point of how many people have actually beaten it on higher difficulties versus you saying you weren't an x-com savant, which is probably true, but you certainly aren't average if you're in that 1% who *actually* beat it.

AND I beat it with an extra enemy in every pod! Look at me! I'm just going to preen myself into a coma now! =D

as someone who hasn't started x-com 2 yet (was waiting for mods/patches to come out to smooth out the issues people were having), would you recommend someone to stay off the higher difficulties the first time? I was thinking about trying the next one up from normal this time.

 

[KaraFang]

Getting a little back on track here....

had to share this.

Just had a mission to defend a transmitter.

So, my heavy is aiming at about three enemies and I decide, hey - lets use his rocket launcher. 90% hit chance. Good...

1/ He fires.
2/ the rocket pops out of the rocket launcher
3/does a 180 in mid air
4/ flies UNDER his scrotum and heads into the middle of the room BEHIND him.
5/Hits the transmitter, destroying it
6/ Triggers a set of explosions due to explosive barrels near it.
7 Kills my ENTIRE squad.

After I stopped laughing at the sheer SILLINESS of this set of events, I had to reload. Twas genuinely funny as heck.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

as someone who hasn't started x-com 2 yet (was waiting for mods/patches to come out to smooth out the issues people were having), would you recommend someone to stay off the higher difficulties the first time? I was thinking about trying the next one up from normal this time.

Much as I felt Classic was the true "normal" difficulty for EU/EW, I feel Commander is the normal difficulty for XCOM 2. Legendary is a bit more balanced/fair than Impossible was at launch, but would still be excessively brutal for new players.

Like EU/EW, XCOM 2 is a very snowbally game, so success will breed more success and failure more failure. Your hardest two missions will be the very first one, and the first retaliation mission. Come out of those with a bushel of casualties/serious injuries, and you're in for a grueling campaign and might want to consider a restart.

Something to keep in mind is that XCOM 2 is even less forgiving of protracted pot shot battles with aliens than the first game. Just as half-cover was an illusion in XCOM, so is full cover something of an illusion in XCOM 2. Your best defense is "don't get shot at". Early campaigns will live/die based on your ability to manage one pod at a time and exterminate threatening aliens expeditiously, most particularly Advent Captains and Stun Lancers.

 

[DoPo]

Did you or did you not complain about a bunch of situations? Did I or did I not say they are preventable?

With no context, stun lancers, 3 drop in at once located at different points do I stick with your bullshit stun nade them or do I throw down a mimic nade, your 'tactic' requires three separate moves and mitigates one type of attack on each enemy, mine requires 1 move and mitigates all attacks as long as the mimic is on the field.

First of all, you shouldn't be able to get into a situation where you're facing three ADVENT lancers at once and you simply cannot flashbang at least two of them at once. I've never even seen a pod that consists of three lancers. Did you trigger two pods at once? Solution - don't trigger two pods at once. Did you let them move around first (not the skitter to cover but actual moves)? Solution - don't let them do that.

Second, your mimic strategy is flimsy if that's all you rely on to take on three lancers without disabling any of them. One lancer could very well oneshot your mimic with a crit so you're left with two running straight at your soldiers. Best case scenario, one lancer misses, the other only injures a soldier but doesn't inflict ant further statuses. Worst case scenario - you get two dead or effectively dead soldiers and the rest of your squad panics as the lancers continue chopping them to pieces.

But sure, let me indulge you - a better solution:

Assumptions - facing three ADVENT lancers at the same time; no two are in the range of a flashbang grenade (somehow); there are no other aliens (somehow); you have a team of 5 soldiers who aren't squaddies but certainly no higher than lieutenants (+1 squad size is available very early on - this is an early game scenario); you have a flashbang and a mimic beacon;

Solutions:

1) you try to kill as many lancers as possible. Grenade them out of cover, if needed, blow up vehicles if you have to. The goal is to kill two using four soldiers' actions. Your final soldier throws a flashbang to make the rest of your squad safe.
2) you got incredibly aggressive - disregard cover, if the lancers get to act, it won't help you - move in as close as possible to get the maximum proximity aim bonus and try to kill as many as possible. Assuming this is the first pod you meet, you will need to go aggressive with four soldiers - final one would throw the mimic beacon, assuming that there are lancers left and that the soldier is not able to reliably kill them, otherwise the soldier would finish off the last one. Assuming this is the last pod on the map - you can go aggressive with all five soldiers if the last lancer standing can be finished off relatively easily. Worst case scenario is one soldier dieing to a crit but it's not that likely, second to last worst case scenario is one soldier being rendered unconscious through the ADVENT lancer extra effect proc - given that's the last pod, it should not be a problem.
3) if possible, you fall back as far as possible and engage the lancers next turn on better conditions - chances are they'll be better grouped together so area effect abilities (mostly grenades at this point in the game) would be much more effective.
4) you sacrifice a soldier for the greater good. Move everybody back (while still trying to take down a lancer or two) and one soldier is left within reach. The surviving lancer(s) would go for that one. It's very preferable that the soldier gets the Aid buff from a specialist

I was complaining about some very specific points, for example the stun lancer and one certain debuff chance percentage

But you got hit by them. A lot. Enough to even have an opinion on the debuff chances. I didn't even KNOW they could render somebody unconscious before your post - I've seen disorient and stun and that's it. I've been hit by lancers a total of, like, ten times when I first started on Commanders then the stopped being a problem when I learned how to handle them. In my new Ironman game, I've been hit a total of twice - both were a calculated risk and neither would have amounted to much of a problem if a nasty debuff was procced (I did get a soldier disoriented one of the times but whatever - not nasty enough).

I was not AT ANY POINT looking for hints and tips on how to over come or mitigate those effects

You complained about stuff that was really easy to counter. I simply pointed some ways to deal with the situations. And now you are sitting there fuming that I DARED do that. Yes, how DARE I do this unspeakable horrible thing.

without having the context or ANY of the actual battle field tactical information is frankly stunning.

Every situations can be countered. The ones you described very obviously could. Oh, poor you - the e-e-e-evil stun lancers don't stop hitting you? Yes, it's because you've let them hit you. Either kill on sight or retreat and regroup. Or deploy one of the many toys available for countering them. Oh the e-e-e-evil muton counter attacked you? Well, tough luck. Sure, I didn't know they could do that the first time I met them. Whatever - soldiers grow on trees (figuratively speaking) at that point in the game - big deal that you've lost one. You should lose only one at most, since you'd know about this afterwards.

Now jog on mate I am bored of listening to your 'superior' inferior tactics.

Too bad. I'll keep giving you advice. You can leave yourself, you know.

Not not equally viable but it would be nice if the actual hit chance was calculated on the fly, if it says 90% hit chance and I reload 100 times and do the exact same thing every time it would be nice if 90 of those hit and 10 missed but because the game generates the seed on load it means if I miss first time and then load and do the same thing 100 times over it will miss every single time.

Why? What does that accomplish? What's the difference between hitting a 90% shot and reloading until it's a hit? If all you want is to hit every time - feel free to mod the game.

Also - "generates the seed on load" is completely wrong. I shall educate you on how RNG works:

The "seed" is the initial state of the RNG. Same initial state, means you get the same results back. Change the seed (if done on an initialised RNG, that's called "reseeding") you get a different results back. If the game did exactly what you said, then the results would not be set. XCOM preserves the state of the RNG used, hence why there aren't any rerolls.

It's a weird situation, in the real world if someone told you you had a 90% hit chance you would way up the shot and then take it with the outcome being determined there and then, Xcom tries to give that impression but the concept that the outcome has been determined before you even take the shot actually irks me, the idea that you are making decisions based on the facts given to you but the outcome was determined before you even decided what action to take always plays at the back of my mind when playing.

What does it matter? A 90% shot is something that, if you have the same situation 10 times, you'd miss once and hit nine times. If you really want to reload, feel free to just consume that roll with a different action, then you'd have the 90% chance to hit again - highly likely you would actually hit.

If the game calculated the hit using the percentage and some other variances on the fly and showed it happening, on screen, I dunno how say some sort of number scroller showing the fore and against hit weighed alongside factors such as location, weapon, enemy, defensive, offensive bonus, etc then I would be far less likely to save scum if a 90% hit chance missed, actually seeing why it missed as it happens would be much better than the 90% chance but it's already been determined that you miss situation the game uses now.

But this is what's happening. You factor in all the soldier's bonuses - aim, skills, other advantages, then subtract negatives - enemy defence, debuffs, other penalties. You can expand the chance to hit and you'll see all relevant modifiers - stuff like 75 aim + 10 scope -20 enemy cover -10 enemy defence = 55% chance to hit. The game then makes a roll against that and if it's within those 55% you hit, otherwise - you don't. It's slightly more complex, since the game actually keeps track of decimals but hides that from you [footnote]hence why you could miss an 100% shot - it's actually 99.6 or something[/footnote] but the principle is the same. The roll is predetermined because of the stateful RNG but so what - you literally just said that if you get the roll, it'd be fine but that's not the game works. Yet it is. Reload a thousand times and you'd just see the same number being rolled, if the game was showing you that. It didn't actually predetermine that your 90% shot would always fail - as I said, consume that number with a different action and you can now make that 90% shot with the next one in the sequence.

I mean how do you mitigate a 95% hit chance that then misses because it was determine to miss before you even took the shot?

Easy - don't rely on it. If it's not 100% just always have a backup plan. If it fails, then have another soldier shoot at the enemy. That's why I keep my sharpshooters around - they are very good at hitting things - if somebody fucks up, they would usually pick up the kill. Grenadiers and psi ops can also work. If your ranger (for example) hits an enemy, your other soldiers would attack other targets, if the ranger misses, the rest would finish off that enemy. Hence the tactics with dealing with pods start with the biggest threat - early game, that would be lancers and you'd pick them off ASAP. If you leave them for last with a 95% chance to kill them off, then it's actually 5% chance for you to fail and things to get ugly. So, prioritise targets and leave the least harmful for last - early game those would be sectoids and ADVENT troops, because if they survive they are very unlikely to ever kill any of your soldiers. At most, you'd get one hurt (by an ADVENT trooper) or mind controlled/panicked (by a sectoid) but whatever - wounded soldiers heal - dead don't, soldiers affected by sectoids would, at most, skip a turn - you should be able to deal with the sectoid in the mean time.

Late game, it's pretty much the same - go after biggest threaths first, leave the small ones for later. In the case of really big treaths, like sectopods and gatekeepers, you could take them out of combat for a turn using stasis/haywire and then deal with their buddies. Next turn, you should be completely free to nuke them to bits.

It is about making the most out of the moves and tactics that you can employ that do not require the RNG, use of nades and the very rare 100% hit chance shots.

*shrug* 100% chance is not that rare. It might be in the beginning, but nearing mid-game it is really plentiful. Holo Targeting can give you a boost, as could height advantage. Both stack for a total of +35% chance. Then there are weapon mods and PCS to help out as well. Rangers going up close and personal with a shotgun are almost always guaranteed a hit - once they get Run and Gun they are really good at going close and personal.

 

[Zenja]

I quit playing Ironman on the original game on Enemy Within because there are actual game breaking bugs for me. Like the mission with the bomb on the train. It can bug and there is no way to disarm it. There are issues where the game freezes after missions and Ironman will result in you reloading the same save only to have it always freeze on you. When your Ironman game is ruined by one of these kinds of bugs, it can be very frustrating.

I play Ironman rules, but I don't dare tick the Ironman box anymore. Some losses just aren't meant to be "part of the Ironman experience". Losing a soldier because an alien shot through illegal terrain isn't part of the game nor is losing an objective with 3 turns to spare because the game decided this time it is impossible. I will reload on bugs like this as they are breaking the rules of the game we are playing. Ironman is supposed to be there to discourage "cheating", by allowing myself to reload, I figure I hold the computer to the same standard.

That said I mostly reload on bugs. I wouldn't doubt I have let a soldier die due to it because I didn't want to reload over a rookie getting shot through 2 steel walls of a subway car, but I have also played save scum games. If a bug happens and it frustrates me, I reload. Or if I am in the mood to play a save scum campaign, I will reload whenever I feel like it. I remember a time where I save scummed about 12 times to make sure I captured a landed large UFO on the second month because I wanted my soldiers to capture it despite not having near the needed equiptment for such a mission. I could easily have let it go but I was playing a "XCOM is unstoppable" campaign and save scummed quite a bit. Lost hardly any soldiers - not that it is a boastful accomplishment but stating it to show I enjoyed it enough to tell someone about it.