XCOM 2

[ktchong]

XCOM 2's overall user review score at Steam is currently at 72% (mostly positive).   Highlights from the first few "most recommended" negative reviews on Steam:

Salient Soldier:

 

It is unacceptable to release a AAA game in such a buggy and unoptimized state.  

Majin no Kuragari:
 

two very annoying issues drive the fun out very quickly... The first one is the mission timers... The second issue is the ridicoulous low performance and memory leaks.

Kryogeneva:
 

Bugs.

Otakuoverlord:
 

Serious balance issues, buggy, performance is really below where it should be.

Mazrim:
 

I will list some of the issues that I have found while playing the game for about 24 hrs: Loading times of combat missions will last somewhere from 40 seconds up to 3 minutes... Even on low or minimal video settings your computer will struggle with the graphics... All cutscenes look like they are scaled up from a 1366*720 resolution and are fixed at a framerate of 30 fps... etc., etc.

machcio:
 

Timers, timers everywhere... Then there is performance issues.

 

I pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe version... and refunded the game after about an hour of suffering its performance and technical problems.  I left a negative review due to glitches and lack of polish.   I do not want to support a buggy releases or a developer that releases a buggy games.  I do not want to embolden and encourage game developers/publishers to continue to release buggy games.  

XCOM 2 was the first game I pre-ordered.  I will never pre-order another game again, ever.  Certainly never again from Faraxis and 2K Games.   Both Firaxis and 2K are now on my "never buy on first day" and "do not buy until fully patched" ****list.    A developer/publisher who disrespects its customers by releasing buggy games does not deserve my money and support.

Edited February 8, 2016 by ktchong

[melkathi]

Firaxis. With an "i"

 

And yeah, I get the memory leaks as well

 

 

Also, whenever someone complains about companies, I have my favourite Firaxis Dev quote (though from the Civilization team, not the XCOM one):

"Every product is iterative with us. I think our audience, and rightfully so, has a pretty short memory. When Civ V came out it was pretty rough and it took two expansions to get that game to the place that people have in their heads. The game that people have in their heads is the result of lots of patches, lots of iteration and two expansions."

It is part of their business model to make games that need two expansions to be a finished product

Edited February 8, 2016 by melkathi

[ktchong]

Firaxis. With an "i"

 

And yeah, I get the memory leaks as well

 

 

Also, whenever someone complains about companies, I have my favourite Firaxis Dev quote (though from the Civilization team, not the XCOM one):

"Every product is iterative with us. I think our audience, and rightfully so, has a pretty short memory. When Civ V came out it was pretty rough and it took two expansions to get that game to the place that people have in their heads. The game that people have in their heads is the result of lots of patches, lots of iteration and two expansions."

It is part of their business model to make games that need two expansions to be a finished product

 

Not a Civ fan.  I have never played any Civ game after Civ 2.  XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within was really the first game I bought from Firaxis, and I bought the game a year after it had been released.

 

Well, now that I know Firaxis' business practice, I will know how to deal with their releases: do not buy their games until after two expansions.

Edited February 8, 2016 by ktchong

[Vaeliorin]

I've had only a couple bugs so far, and as previously mentioned, I'm playing on a machine that at best meets the minimum specs. I had one mission hang when an Advent soldier shot a civilian who then turned into a Faceless, and I had a crash loading one mission. That's it in 32 hours.

 

Anyway, I'm coming to love my gunslinger. I don't know if there's any sort of armor piercing ammo (only got tracer, poison and extra crit ammo on my first run), but if there is, that would be an awesome combo. I've started taking some other picks on a couple other classes as well (took Volatile Mix instead of chain shot on a grenadier...not sure I could ever pick Holo Targeting over Heavy Ordinance, though.)

 

Second attempt is going well. I held off on building power until I hit a coil (again in the same place...I wonder if it has something to do with difficulty or the tutorial...I've noticed the rewards from excavating can very wildly between playthroughs, anywhere from ~20 on this playthrough for the top row, to almost 80 last playthrough.) Now I've got 4 or 5 buildings that should be done within the next couple days. I still haven't scanned the Black Market even though I'm in late May. Got +8 power from continent bonus and scanning, so doing well there. Just finished the Black Site (flawlessly ) to knock the Avatar Project out of the countdown. I kind of wish the Avatar Project bar was about 50% bigger so I didn't feel so rushed.

 

There are a couple things I'd like a mod for, though. One is the ability to reload without using the free reload from an autoloader, and the other is to disable Return Fire against mind-controlled squad members. The first time it went off was against a mind-controlled squad mate, and luckily it hit for 2 and not 3 or I'd have had my first friendly fire casualty.

 

I actually thought Return Fire didn't work against melee, because it didn't go off when a Faceless attacked my Gunslinger (serves me right for trying to rescue the dang civilians) but later I killed a Stun Lancer with it (while disoriented.) So maybe it doesn't work with AoE attacks? I'd say I need to get my gunslinger grenaded, but that's not going to happen (on purpose, anyway.)

[Gorgon]

I never do one or the other all the way because there always seems to be a better choice. Arguably the last sniper skill is the best, it's the one where you get an action for every kill, but you really need diversity as well. I have been saved a number of times by being able to move and use fan shot.  Pistols also never run out of ammo.

[Vaeliorin]

Well, I won't go all the way down gunslinger because I'm definitely taking the +10 aim and crit if you didn't move over the +aim if you hunker, since I think I've hunkered once in 32 hours. But there are definitely skills that I find more useful than others, in particular I'm avoiding sword skills other than Bladestorm (and only because the other choice is pretty terrible) because I found the sword not super useful against later enemies (and I'm honestly tempted to stick with the tier 2 sword, as I find stunning more useful than burning.)

 

Sniper side of sharpshooter is about the only place where I'm likely to go purely with one side, and that's mostly because I found my sniper was almost never in range to use his pistol on my first attempt. I took Lightning Hands, but I only used it maybe 3 or 4 times due to range. Codexes (codices? I'm not sure what the proper plural would be) and the angel things whose name I forget (guardians?) were about the only things that got too close to snipe, and those are generally high priority enemies that don't get a chance to do much before I've killed them.

[melkathi]

What really ruins the whole "guerrilla" atmosphere is that too many missions have a Neutralize All Enemies objective. If my objective is to steal some datafiles or something similar, then once I have what I came for, I should just be able to extract, not have to hunt around the map and risk jeopardizing the mission.

[melkathi]

Anyway, I'm coming to love my gunslinger. I don't know if there's any sort of armor piercing ammo (only got tracer, poison and extra crit ammo on my first run), but if there is, that would be an awesome combo.

 

My Ammo so far is:

Tracer (aim +10)

Talon (crit chance +20, crit damage +1)

Venom (damage +1, poison organics)

Dragon (damage +1, burn enemies)

[Gorgon]

you just get a random one though. So far I've never had two of the same kind. Or can you build them. I forget. 

[Vaeliorin]

They're random, just like grenades, vests (both of which I've gotten were awesome, one made the wearer immune to environmental damage and the other had an auto-medkit) and heavy weapons. I've seen fire, acid and poison grenades so far. The only heavy weapon I've gotten was a flamethrower, which I never ended up using (the rocket blows up cover and shreds, awesome to have on my assault.)

 

I kind of wish there was a way to get more elerium cores. Even killing everything it was reasonable to kill (and some it was unreasonable), it seems rare to get more than 1 per mission. The randomness is neat, but it would get really frustrating not being able to get a particular thing you wanted.

[melkathi]

I am giving up on making ammo and grenades. I use the acid one I got, as it is nice for shredding. The rest of the cores are better used elsewhere though.

[Vaeliorin]

The fire ones are really nice too. Burning enemies apparently can't use all of their abilities, so they help out in more than just damage and shredding. Also, there's at least one pain in the butt enemy immune to acid and poison (don't know about fire, didn't get a chance to test.) Given that I never built any of the fancy armor (outside of one of each exosuit variation) I'm not sure what else I'd use the cores on (admittedly on my current campaign I've got predator armor but the only non-frag grenade items I have are 2 medkits, so I've been pretty bad about getting secondary items...but I'm all tier 2 except snipers.)

[melkathi]

I use a grappling hook armour on my dedicated sniper. The hook does not count as an action, so she can get onto a roof and start sniping right away.

[Darkpriest]

There is an AP ammo that ignores 5 pts of armor. It is just random roll on experimental ammo though

[Darkpriest]

You need vulture and some luck

[melkathi]

You need vulture and some luck

 

I completely forgot about the Guerrilla Training thingie!

 

 

Also, I think I just hit the point where difficulty dibs. While trying to sneak past one patrol, I got caught out in the open by another. Both groups activated and came rushing towards me. One MEC went on overwatch, the other fired at my sniper and missed (lucky!). The rest of them moved to surround me.

Queue: Melkathi's turn!

1) Specialist haywires the overwatching MEC - stupidly high chance to take control. Success. Bonus: MEC stays in overwatch!

2) Psi Ops attempts to Dominate the Archon on the hill above us - 64% chance to succeed. Success

3) Grenadier starts shredding armor of the second MEC.

4) Sniper shoots the MEC and gets the action points refunded because of her hair trigger. Shoots him a second time and kills him.

5) Gunslinger fires on the Shieldbearer. And again, and again, and again.

6) Ranger shoots her grappling hook to get onto the hill, then empties her shotgun into the Trooper still crouching up there.

This leaves one stun lancer. Enemy turn triggers, he moves and gets taken out by the hacked MEC's overwatch.

 

Upgrade equipment and try the next mission. Let's see if last time was a fluke!

Spawn almost next to 3 Archons.

1) Psi Ops attempts to Dominate the furthest away Archon. With the new Psi Amp: 85% chance!

2) Mind Controlled Archon reveals the next patrol: a Sectopod.

3) Haywire the Sectopod. 43% Chance to take control. Let's live dangerously! Success!

4) The rest of the squad empties all their guns into the remaining two Archons, while the ADVENT troops try to seek cover from their Sectopod.

5) Sectopod rampages towards the extraction point and my team strolls after it.

 

I can't shake the feeling that I'm in for a nasty surprise...

Edited February 8, 2016 by melkathi

[Darkpriest]

What sacrifice to the god of RNG did you make?!

[melkathi]

I play Mordheim. I think that counts

 

And I got very lucky: managed to get a permanent +20 hacking for my specialist while hacking a mission objective early on. It made hacking very easy.

[Hurlshort]

Going back to work today after 3 days of solid play has been difficult.  I need my fix!

[Darkpriest]

I know what you mean... it's a disastah!!!

[melkathi]

3 crashes since yesterday. Performance of the game is getting worse even as the performance of my squad is getting even better.

[Vaeliorin]

Also, I think I just hit the point where difficulty dibs.

Yeah, I've hit this point to. Really, it was acid bombs and a highly trained Psi Op that did it for me. I just beat an alien facility that had 2 sectopods and an andromedan without my ranger ever breaking stealth, and the only injury I took was because I was an idiot and forgot the mech that dropped in went on overwatch. I could have easily damaged it to remove the overwatch, it just slipped my mind as I was trying to get the soldier away from a car before I used Fuse (just for chuckles) from my Psi Op.

 

A couple missions before that, the "Most Under Fire" award for the mission went to an Archon. Opening with Void Rift on a pack of 3 Archons really worked out for me that mission, and Inspire let me dash my grenadier into position and still acid bomb a sectopod that got triggered when I hacked the objective. Acid bomb plus 5 pistol shots from my Sharpshooter plus Capacitor Discharge equals dead sectopod (with the Elite Shieldbearer and Elite Trooper from the same pod as a bonus.)

 

I did get lucky and get AP Ammo from my first ammo research, which made my gunslinger Sharpshooter happy.

 

I need to take over North America now, as the continent bonus is an extra mod slot in weapons, which is going to be awesome. It's too bad the pistol doesn't take mods, because 5 shots each with 15% to kill and 15% chance at an extra turn would be incredible.

 

Edit: I wish I'd taken a screenshot of it, but I had an enemy VIP mission a couple missions ago where the enemy VIP was in a building along with a sectopod and, eventually, basically every enemy on the map. At the end the building was basically demolished, there was fire everywhere, and there were big pools of acid where the side of the building towards the evac point had been. It was glorious.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Vaeliorin

[melkathi]

Last VIP mission I ran a Sectopod into the building, past the VIP and out the other side to the EVAC zone. All my squad had to do was run through the holes it had opened, grab the VIP and leave

 

My Psi Ops is currently training Schism - her last ability - she has all the rest. Her chance to Mind Control enemies is now at 100% for Archons and Andromedas.

Played a story mission earlier were only my ranger ever got shot at (and wounded), and that only because I was careless. Hacked a Sectopod on turn 2 and mind-controlled an Andromeda. Ran the Sectopod across the bridge, past two ADVENT patrols and into a Black Site Facility and the arms of a waiting trio of Archons. They all were very surprised when their Sectopod started charging up its cannon. The survivor was probably less surprised when he found himself being chased by the Andromeda

 

 

But game has become unplayable now. Crashes, graphic corruption during cut scenes, negative day counters (which result in Dark Events triggering right away instead of the 3-4 week warning), etc etc.

[Darkpriest]

Ouch... you broke the game with cheese ;p dark gods unimpressed

 

Does it persist through save and load?

[Vaeliorin]

I haven't managed to take control of a sectopod yet (not for lack of trying), but my backup specialist picked up +20 hacking on a mission, so he's now my main specialist. Unfortunately, he's a level or two below my main specialist (who's max rank) and he's currently being treated for me being an idiot.

 

I've got so many engineers at this point I have some sitting idle (they can staff my eventual second relay and comms) and the only thing I haven't built (afaik) is a lab, but given I literally have nothing but intel items left to research (until I advance the story) I don't see much point in that (though if I've ever got extra supplies lying around I suppose I'll build one just to see what it looks like.)