XCOM 2

[TheVampire100]

23 enemies on the fourth mission? What kind of mission was this? oO
I never had so many enemies and I'm further into the game than you.

[Mick]

23 enemies on the fourth mission? What kind of mission was this? oO
I never had so many enemies and I'm further into the game than you.

Black site missions have a lot more dudes in them. Kind of odd to do it four missions in (you can put it off quite a while to become stronger) but it looks like it ended well anyway.

[keith.lamothe]

I assume the XCOM sniper went into a martial trance.

[Coppermantis]

This was awesome.

I started the ambush with a rocket launcher that hit all of them, killing two codexes and one clone with the overwatch. Flashbanged the rest. My ranger then killed everything else in one go thanks to Reaper. A Chryssalid unburrowed and tried to attack her after that, but she took off half its health on its turn with bladestorm allowing another one of my troops to take it out.

That ranger then took out three chryssalids by the psi gate, again in one turn thanks to Reaper. Since she killed the last one, she was entitled to another attack, which she made with her shotgun against the gatekeeper. The hair trigger then activated and gave her another free shot. The gatekeeper then hit most of my squad (Except for the ranger, who I'm convinced by now is immortal) with an AOE attack, but thankfully I have the medic ability that heals the whole team, so that was no biggie.

The abilities like Reaper and Killzone that let you take more shots than you otherwise would are amazing. I had a specialist take three shots against one enemy in overwatch, sadly he didn't kill it because Dodge is BS.

[keith.lamothe]

The abilities like Reaper and Killzone that let you take more shots than you otherwise would are amazing. I had a specialist take three shots against one enemy in overwatch, sadly he didn't kill it because Dodge is BS.

Yea, that's the AI's ultimate counter to any human ability: BullShot!

There was one time in XCOM:EU where a chryssalid ran up to a tile directly adjacent to my highest level soldier, who was a machine gunner. He had a 99% chance to hit. With a machine gun. At point blank range. As the greatest veteran of the war. And he missed. Didn't hit the thing with a single point of damage.

I lost something that day.

(which is why humans have the meta-ultimate-counter: reload!)

[Coppermantis]

There was one time in XCOM:EU where a chryssalid ran up to a tile directly adjacent to my highest level soldier, who was a machine gunner. He had a 99% chance to hit. With a machine gun. At point blank range. As the greatest veteran of the war. And he missed. Didn't hit the thing with a single point of damage.

I missed two >90% hits yesterday. At that point I was feeling like my soldiers deserved to die if they were failing that badly. I know that 90% is no guarantee, but it sure *feels* like one.

I've been save-scumming a shameful amount, largely because it's my first playthrough and I want to see it to the end if possible. Plus I like approaching the tactical gameplay like a puzzle, trying different methods until something works. Losing a single guy is usually tolerable, but squadwipes or certain irreplaceable soldiers I'll reload for.

[keith.lamothe]

I missed two >90% hits yesterday. At that point I was feeling like my soldiers deserved to die if they were failing that badly. I know that 90% is no guarantee, but it sure *feels* like one.

I prefer the determinism of something like Bionic Dues, but in general I'm ok with my guys missing even well-set-up shots.

But I would like tools/weapons/perk-choices/research-choices/whatever that let me better prepare for the contingency of a missed shot, and to be able to bend without breaking. If I'm commanding a company and only have one guy covering a spot, and he's got a bolt-action rifle then I deserve what I get if he misses (no matter how incredibly awesome a shot he is).

But if I've got a squad of six guys (so putting one guy on something is one sixth my total resources), and a dude with a fully automatic cannon at point blank range, I expect him to do something other than get turned into worm food because of one coin flip. Alternatively, if they're going to roll me a critical failure that hard, then give me the amusement of having said cannon blow up in the guy's face. Because the probability is similar. Bonus points if the explosion AOE takes out the chryssalid anyway.

I'd like to not savescum so much, but when so much is riding on individual rng rolls, it's my only natural defense mechanism

Perhaps the grenades and shotguns and whatever else address this; I haven't played this game yet.

[crazyroosterman]

There was one time in XCOM:EU where a chryssalid ran up to a tile directly adjacent to my highest level soldier, who was a machine gunner. He had a 99% chance to hit. With a machine gun. At point blank range. As the greatest veteran of the war. And he missed. Didn't hit the thing with a single point of damage.

I missed two >90% hits yesterday. At that point I was feeling like my soldiers deserved to die if they were failing that badly. I know that 90% is no guarantee, but it sure *feels* like one.

I've been save-scumming a shameful amount, largely because it's my first playthrough and I want to see it to the end if possible. Plus I like approaching the tactical gameplay like a puzzle, trying different methods until something works. Losing a single guy is usually tolerable, but squadwipes or certain irreplaceable soldiers I'll reload for.

1 to be fair in real life hitting something skilled in melee  at point blank before it when for you would probably fail I think the better question would be why didn't he shoot it as it was running at him
 but still that definitely stings at least it wasn't to the magic of anti wall rounds that just accrued in my current xenonauts game
2 I usually only do that (at least I try to save scummings a bit of a bad habit for me) at the start of a mission and then use it if something super bullshity happened.

[Misery]

[I prefer the determinism of something like Bionic Dues

Yeah, same here.

Though, to be fair, something like BD tends to stuff everything ELSE with RNG to make up for it...

[keith.lamothe]

Though, to be fair, something like BD tends to stuff everything ELSE with RNG to make up for it...

Very true. AIW can be even nastier.

I just prefer situations where the giant steaming piles form the terrain, and you can see them coming and adapt (either your strategy, to win, or your expectations, to enjoy losing), versus "everything was going great until your guy forgot which end to point at the alien" situations

[Coppermantis]

I prefer the determinism of something like Bionic Dues, but in general I'm ok with my guys missing even well-set-up shots.

But I would like tools/weapons/perk-choices/research-choices/whatever that let me better prepare for the contingency of a missed shot, and to be able to bend without breaking. If I'm commanding a company and only have one guy covering a spot, and he's got a bolt-action rifle then I deserve what I get if he misses (no matter how incredibly awesome a shot he is).

But if I've got a squad of six guys (so putting one guy on something is one sixth my total resources), and a dude with a fully automatic cannon at point blank range, I expect him to do something other than get turned into worm food because of one coin flip. Alternatively, if they're going to roll me a critical failure that hard, then give me the amusement of having said cannon blow up in the guy's face. Because the probability is similar. Bonus points if the explosion AOE takes out the chryssalid anyway.

I'd like to not savescum so much, but when so much is riding on individual rng rolls, it's my only natural defense mechanism

Perhaps the grenades and shotguns and whatever else address this; I haven't played this game yet.

That's what I like about XCOM 2, as it does indeed address this by providing ways to guarantee some kind of damage. The new grenadiers make explosives and heavy AOE weapons much more available, which will always do damage. Specialists can do pretty significant, 100% full damage via combat protocol* . Stocks on your weapons can add 1-2 damage even when you miss. Combine this with a repeater and you have a chance to instantly kill any enemy on a missed shot (heard this even works on final bosses, though I haven't gotten that far yet).

Generally these are best saved for finishing off low-health enemies, for when you absolutely need that guy dead and don't want to risk someone screwing up their effort at taking out the last few bars of health. Using them to remove overwatch or suppression is also a good option.

*without upgrades, this is 4-5 guaranteed damage vs. Robots, 2 vs. biological. I think it gets somewhere near eight to ten vs. robotic when you get advanced Gremlins.

[keith.lamothe]

That's what I like about XCOM 2, as it does indeed address this by providing ways to guarantee some kind of damage.

Excellent! Definitely looking forward to playing this when I get time.

[TheVampire100]

There is an item that grants you at least 1 damage even if you miss. Perfect to finish off aliens that have only 1 hp left. There is no way you could screw this up.

I had a faceless (if this is the name in the english version) who attacked one of my soldiers. he killed the soldier and the nearby stun lance with the same AoE attack. Bonus points, this was on the upper floor, so he destroyed this as well and crashed down two floors, getting 4 damage for falling. I laughed really hard about this even if I lost one of my soldiers.

[Coppermantis]

I had a faceless (if this is the name in the english version) who attacked one of my soldiers. he killed the soldier and the nearby stun lance with the same AoE attack. Bonus points, this was on the upper floor, so he destroyed this as well and crashed down two floors, getting 4 damage for falling. I laughed really hard about this even if I lost one of my soldiers.

I remember when I found falling damage. A codex teleported to the top of a 2-story building so I lobbed a grenade at it. It broke the floor and caused the codex to fall all the way to the ground, killing it in one go. I'm glad I got that pleasant surprise instead of seeing it in action on my guys.

[keith.lamothe]

Sounds like the terrain deformation is a lot better in this one too.

Brings back memories of the original, where I translated "stop the aliens from terrorizing City X" to "rocket launchers for everyone, leave a huge glass crater in the middle of City X".