Current Events > I bought XCom 2 and it's like... real hard?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Even on easy. Is it supposed to be this hard or do I just suck?

Everyone misses their shots (but never the enemy!) There's usually a timer so I need to yeet across the map, rendering the stealth and ambushing mechanics mostly pointless. People are always getting panicked. Not sure why I'm so bad.

You need to go into options, and select "git gud"

just get good

problem solved.

that's xcom babie

Yeah it's hard, didnt play easy but even Normal is hard until you're used to how it plays

Make sure you're always in cover, use Overwatch, snipers are always pretty good, dont overextend

yup, harder than the first game. and yep, all those points are correct.

basically, anytime you think you're not playing way too safe, you're probably in danger. even if you're playing way too safe, you're probably in danger.

yep, that's xcom 2 alright. i think it's literally what they were striving for, too.

Thanks for all the input peeps. I uh, dont think this game is for me. Might uninstall.

If youre a fan of tactical rpgs you can also try the gears of war tactics game or fire emblem games

ZeroV2 posted...

If youre a fan of tactical rpgs you can also try the gears of war tactics game or fire emblem games

I like Fire Emblem, also Into the Breach.

Dont uninstall yet. The game actually has console commands which can make it easier. Because of that I ended up enjoying the game and buying the dlc.

Which makes me wish more games had console commands. But at least some indie developers these days give accessibility options.

edit: I thought I was on the pc board for some reason

apologies if you have a different version of the game

what do you mean by console commands

yeah I get real tilted when I lose my dudes to the point where I reload a save and found it hard to accept that sacrifices had to be made

discodancer77 posted...

what do you mean by console commands

sorry its for the PC version and I realised I have no idea what system TC is gaming on

i still cant lose my fire emblem instincts. both games have permadeath, but in fire emblem its named characters and in xcom its just randos that you can train up again. despite that, whenever i lose a soldier i despair and give up. i also tend to play badly and need to save scum. i dunno how to get good. i can beat fire emblem games fine but they are a bit easier. xcom would be the same roughly if you didnt get so punished for even taking a little bit of hp damage causing weeks of injury

Im playing it for the first time on Veteran. It was tough at first, but things get much easier once you level up your crew enough and start getting weapon/armor upgrades.

how to play xcom2

1. half cover is fucking useless
2. all your shots should be over 80%

now youre ready for legend difficulty

Back_Stabbath posted...

yeah I get real tilted when I lose my dudes to the point where I reload a save and found it hard to accept that sacrifices had to be made

This is a point too, TC. Your standard for success might be different from the game's.

Turtlebread posted...

how to play xcom2

1. half cover is fucking useless
2. all your shots should be over 80%

now youre ready for legend difficulty

full cover is exceedingly rare. what do you do when all you got is half cover and maybe one full cover

You're not. If you are doing too well, the game fudges your results so they are worse, and enemies are much much better despite what any onscreen numbers might tell you. You have not lived until you miss a 95% chance to hit from a flanking position.

Gotta think. This game really is not for everyone.

You get through levels by moving and acting carefully.

Big mistakes:

Taking shots with low odds (below 70%), ending turns where you can be shot at without full cover, triggering enemy pods (groups) with your last few moves in a turn (massive fail). Hunker down is often a better choice than attack or OW early game, when you should fish for flanking and use grenades smartly.

Kloe_Rinz posted...

full cover is exceedingly rare. what do you do when all you got is half cover and maybe one full cover

Its not that rare, most maps are urban sprawl with plenty of doors and walls.

Sometimes therell be wide open areas with shit cover which you definitely need to avoid.

If you have to use half cover make sure you have a height advantage, or that you wont get shot at during the enemys turn.

Turtlebread posted...

Its not that rare, most maps are urban sprawl with plenty of doors and walls.

Sometimes therell be wide open areas with shit cover which you definitely need to avoid.

If you have to use half cover make sure you have a height advantage, or that you wont get shot at during the enemys turn.

Most of the time my objective is on the other side of a half cover wasteland. And if I want to spend time going around it I lose the bonus objectives or even the primary objective

If you want a non-unfair version, that Mario+Rabbids game exists.

Kloe_Rinz posted...

Most of the time my objective is on the other side of a half cover wasteland. And if I want to spend time going around it I lose the bonus objectives or even the primary objective

sucks man
must be bad RNG

You need to learn how the game works then you can avoid the obvious mistakes.

Enemies are in groups called a pod. Depending on the difficulty /how far into the game you are this affects the number of pods and enemies in each pod. On low levels at the start on most missions they'll be 3 pods of 3 enemies. Look this info up (Google xcom 2 pod sizes and you'll find it). Once you know/understand this the game makes sense.

Only active one pod at a time. To do this advance your first soldier to decent high cover. If no enemies move everyone else, but don't risk exposing any more of the map.
If you find a pod you have 4 moves to kill everything or stop one enemy from shooting you. (ie use a flash bang so they'll miss). At the start use a grenade to destroy cover and damage the enemy. Then kill it with your left over shots. If possible try to flank (move your soldier for a direct shot) the enemy without exposing another pod.

When I play xcom I barely get shot at in most missions because every pod is killed before they can attack. Grenades are great at destroying cover so use them as much as possible.

I unfortunate got it in Switch, where in addition to being hard (which yes, it is. I lose people constantly and screw these snakes grabbing people through cover across a damn map especially)
But the performance is also a huge discouraging issue to even bother to play.

Not too mention that I retried from the start, turned OFF a mission that introduced this set of Super Bosses, thinking I wouldn't have them in the game.
They then showed up anyway randomly with no introduction necessary.
They get one turn every time you do anything and one can wreck a whole team.

Tsuyoi3 posted...

I unfortunate got it in Switch, where in addition to being hard (which yes, it is. I lose people constantly and screw these snakes grabbing people through cover across a damn map especially)
But the performance is also a huge discouraging issue to even bother to play.

Im having fun playing it on Switch. Aside from the occasional frame rate drops, I dont have any performance problems. And even thats not a big issue for this type of game.

The boss battles are hard as fuck, though. I literally just killed the Archon King a few minutes ago - such a dickhead.

Okay Ive given it more time and did a few side missions. Thanks for the pointers guys.

You havent really played X-com until u miss a 99% shot.....seriously....

Not to mention when a Berserker shows up and you unleash your entire team on it and manage to leave its Hp one off lethal at which point it comes at you and ask would you like it to apply Vaseline.

Its unplayable on PS4/5 due to load times

KiwiTerraRizing posted...

Its unplayable on PS4/5 due to load times

Yeah I'm on PS5. It's not unplayable but it's pretty damn bad.

Stalolin posted...

Yeah I'm on PS5. It's not unplayable but it's pretty damn bad.

I enjoyed the game but you have to reload so much its a chore.

au_gold posted...

Im having fun playing it on Switch. Aside from the occasional frame rate drops, I dont have any performance problems. And even thats not a big issue for this type of game.

The boss battles are hard as fuck, though. I literally just killed the Archon King a few minutes ago - such a dickhead.

That damn Beserker Queen...
Load times got bad for me, stutter issues so bad that I was cueing up moves, but the game was still trying to cue up animations for the enemy to growl and point at the end of every turn.

Game locked up.
Oddly there were turns where enemies ran around doing nothing to the robot partner as well, those Mole Men especially seems unsure what to do besides run around him lol.
And of course I turned that mission off too like an idiot.

That mission was...weird. And badly written.
Clearly a trap just going in the building, could have just left since we determined what it was before going deep in, but nooooo let's go all the way in and risk our lives rather than blow up the building from a safe distance.

I would highly recommend playing the first game before second, it's easier but still teaches you a lot of the basic strats.

2 is a real ball-buster early game, I kinda felt like the DLC/War of the Chosen helped with that a tiny bit though.

Yeah, the game can be brutal. I beat it, but I never save-scummed my way through a game like that before or since.

KiwiTerraRizing posted...

I enjoyed the game but you have to reload so much its a chore.

I pretty much never reload in xcom2. Ruins the fun imo

I watched someone solo that game

Uninstalled lmao. Fuck this game.

Throw your pride away
Save scum

ye lol I was barely struggling along with the basic enemy units so when the big fuck off elite tank looking units started hitting the field with like quadruple the health of what I was used to fighting I nope'd right outta that game.

Yeah, Xcom 2 is brutal. I played it when it was a PS Plus game and I was not expecting it to be as hard as it was. I beat the main campaign, but I lost a lot of great soldiers along the way.

The most annoying part for me was the timer for the Avatar Project. It really rushed my progress on the map.

As others have said, the game is all about how you take an engagement. If you just advance forward and try to shoot everything, you're going to be at a huge disadvantage. You want to mitigate the role RNG plays as much as possible.

One major thing I think to add that I didn't see yet is that you really want a Ranger with the Phantom ability as a scout. Your Ranger not breaking concealment with the rest of your squad is huge, and it allows you to be aggressive when the turn timer is looming in the corner of a mission.

Oh and speaking of XCom 2, I just saw that it will be free on the Epic Games Store from 4/14 to 4/21. I know people don't like Epic, but it's a good chance to give this a try for PC players that never played it.

You are expected to lose units and territory. You cant please everyone

I finally beat XCOM Enemy Unknown on normal difficulty or whatever it's called.

One thing I will highly recommend is that you get the War of the Chosen expansion. Adds a lot of content including three faction soldiers that will make your life so much easier.

Grant_Danasty posted...

I finally beat XCOM Enemy Unknown on normal difficulty or whatever it's called.

Pissed me off that the canonical ending to that game was the world losing the war.

008Zulu posted...

Pissed me off that the canonical ending to that game was the world losing the war.

I already spoiled myself about that by watching Angry Joe's review for XCOM 2 lol. I have Enemy Within and XCOM 2. I just need a break from the XCOM games for a bit, so I've been playing Okami.

Haven't played in awhile but I did beat it on Commander+ Ironman.

1) Elevation is key and gives you certain modifiers that will aid you both in defense and offense.

2) Flanking is key and gives you certain modifiers that will aid you.

3) The game is not about running and gunning, it is about positioning and timing. Where your squad is and when they engage the enemy is more important than what they have equipped.

4) Information is power, slowly move your forces forward, do not go the max distance they can run on every turn. Do not reveal yourself until you have stacked as many advantages as you possibly can.

5) Enemy types increase in difficulty and number, this punishes people who get caught by enemy patrols HARD. Don't get spotted by enemy patrols. Also see #4.

6) Don't be afraid of losing some people early on, it is very difficult to keep all recruits alive.

7) Prioritize unit size increase in research.

8) A well placed grenade can turn the tide. Use them, but don't use them when not necessary.

There are a lot more but those are some of the important ones off the top of my head. The game has a stiff learning curve at the start but once you figure out movement, the classes strengths and weaknesses, and engagement it is pretty intuitive.

xcom 3 should be about taking the fight to the aliens. pilot the helicarrier into space, launch assaults on planets and such and colonise them. let it be the aliens turn to defend.