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343iCommunity Plays XCom 2!


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*twiddles thumbs aboard the Avenger*

 

Gotta say, though, RNG was not on your side in that mission... up until the end, that is. I can only imagine the game's going to get nastier from here on. D:

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Continuing in the vein of my inability to make sensible decisions, here's part six, in which we take on an ADVENT blacksite in order to discover our first clues about the aliens' ultimate plan!

 

 

 

Barring a few issues with recording software and my voice (I have a cold, and it's somewhat noticeable), things went pretty well here... right up until the last third or so, where I suddenly completely lost my head and starting making one stupid decision after another. This is worsened by the fact that just prior to the second stupid move with Morrigan, I actually outright discuss the tactical options available to me, so I can't even hide behind the excuse that I hadn't thought it through or failed to notice an option, and basically any other decision would have been better than the choice I eventually made. Choosing to then go for a second overwatch ambush was just the crowning moment of stupidity, given I had a guaranteed way of taking out the only enemy who could actually threaten me and instead decided to go for a hugely risky play. Fortunately some of my tactical sense comes back after this particular encounter ends, but without Keko pulling out yet another fantastic overwatch shot, we could potentially have ended up with even more injured squadmates.

 

Lesson here? Take my time, don't try to be clever when there's the option of caution, and stick to the plans I've already formulated rather than just acting on wild impulses!

 

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Also Red, a little theory here...But say a soldier has the ability to trigger a critical hit in Overwatch fire, would your 300% critical hit mod (Improved Criticals? I forgot the name, sorry) also activate?

 

Or was double-critting via Overwatch just a chance of pure luck Twam intervention?

 

 

EDIT: Added the spoiler thingo, just in case. 

Edited by Halo6 Follower
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Today's episode shows something of a return to form as we launch Operation Choking Tome, in search of the supplies we so desperately need!

 

 

 

I'm generally quite happy with this one. Barring one unfortunate moment, where there weren't really any 'good' decisions to be made, and briefly needing to ride our luck a little toward the end of the mission, everything went pretty well throughout. Obviously I'm disappointed with the injury, but we'll hopefully start an Advanced Warfare centre before the end of the next video, which should help get any further wounded back into the fight sooner!

 

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I don't think I've ever done a play-through where I didn't give all of my grenadiers Shredder. The armor penetration is just too valuable to pass up.


 

Also Red, a little theory here...But say a soldier has the ability to trigger a critical hit in Overwatch fire, would your 300% critical hit mod (Improved Criticals? I forgot the name, sorry) also activate?

 

Or was double-critting via Overwatch just a chance of pure luck Twam intervention?

 

 

EDIT: Added the spoiler thingo, just in case. 

 

I can answer for this. "Absolutely Critical" activates when a target is flanked, or in the open entirely (Therefore; flanked, since there's no cover between shooter and target) and overwatch shots don't count flanking in their crit calculations; since the target is usually just leaving cover when you fire. For the most part, I think they're actually incapable of criticals.

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Also Red, a little theory here...But say a soldier has the ability to trigger a critical hit in Overwatch fire, would your 300% critical hit mod (Improved Criticals? I forgot the name, sorry) also activate?

 

Or was double-critting via Overwatch just a chance of pure luck Twam intervention?

 

No need for spoiler tags, it's a question of mechanics, not discussing how Drizzy got shot ;)

 

Most Overwatch shots, as Boss says, can't score critical hits: however, certain perks (such as Keko's special Overwatch ability) allow them to do so. That said, I'm not certain whether enemies attacked via reaction fire actually count as flanked or not: I could be wrong on this, but I think provided they start or end their move in cover relative to the attacker, while they could be hit critically it would only be based on non-flanking crit chance, such as special ammunition, innate weapon critical hit chance, etc.

 

In any case, Keko is suffering that unfortunate glitch, so in his case - yes, it's just the blessings of Twam :)

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Today's mission, though I didn't realise it at the time, apparently involved a side-mission to capture an important member of ADVENT, or something, which we completed wholly by accident: however on the bright side, I'm happy to report that we successfully completed our primary objective of jumping through as many windows as possible!

 

 

 

Barring one moment where we had to ride our luck a little (and even that was probably due to being unsure of an ability's range rather than making bad decisions), I'm really happy with how this part went. We made progress quickly across the map and made it to evac with time to spare, we didn't end up needing to take any excessive risks during engagements, and we avoided getting anyone injured, all while getting full results from the mission. Of concern going forward is just how far away that alien facility we need to raid is, as well as our low levels of intel and supplies, but if necessary we can sacrifice our Advanced Warfare Centre to go for a Proving Ground and then a story-advancing item if need be, which will help alleviate the Avatar Project's progress.

 

In any case - lots to feel positive about on the tactical level at the moment, let's hope that continues!

 

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Y'all still haven't gotten a medkit to me. I'd expedite that if you're going to take me on missions, Especially with medical protocol. Not to mention the boost to medkits you can get after you do the Viper Autopsy.

Also, you put my voice pack on! YAY! AND IT CAN BE AS LOUD AS IT WANTS. (You can change to The Scout pack I linked to you if it becomes an issue)

 

Also, HOW DARE YOU NOT UPGRADE MY SMG.
 

If you'd like any kind of editing done on these that you don't want to do yourself, let me know. I basically do nothing when I'm not working.

 

(I wrote this message as I was watching, which is why it came out weird.)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Once again, I'm in the slightly embarrassing position of needing to preface today's video with an apology: I'm aware it's been far too long since my last upload, and a big part of this has been due to the fact that I've been getting ready to move house over the past few weeks, which combined with my increasingly irregular work schedule has meant I just haven't been able to find a time to sit and record that wouldn't involve doing so late at night and disturbing the rest of my house. Better late than never though, I guess?

 

 

 

By and large I'm happy with today's mission: even the muck-up with the flanking indicators, while frustrating, was something I feel like I dealt with pretty sensibly. Obviously it's nice when my UI doesn't lie to me and I needed to ride my luck a bit with the line-of-sight around the door and the potential for the Officer to have grenades on him, but since he didn't, giving him only one hunkered target to deal with was definitely the right choice, and the enemies up until that point were dealt with pretty comfortably, too.

 

Also, confession time: while I do normally try to show raw, unbroken gameplay as much as possible (barring breaks at 20 mins to avoid file size limit issues and drink some water), I've cut out about 2/3 days' worth of in-game time toward the end of the video. This is done purely for the sake of narrative flow, to set up a more exciting cliffhanger: nothing actually happens during this time except for the various world map timers advancing, but in the sake of maintaining integrity, those who really want to see the footage of Bradford's fantastically elaborate and high-energy attempt to evade the attacking UFO can find it here.

 

As a brighter aside: while my new internet has been giving me problems, it is SIGNIFICANTLY faster than my old one. Previously I was having to encode videos at comparatively low settings simply to get them onto YouTube in a remotely reasonable amount of time, with part 6 in particular coming from a 5.5GB file and taking fourteen hours to upload: this video clocks in at about 13GB, and took just over half an hour to upload. While I'm still trying to figure out a way to get less distortion on the audio, at least I can now provide slightly better visual quality in future uploads!

 

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Picking up where last week's video left off, we're getting straight into the action today as our Spartans are forced into a desperate defense of the Avenger. With alien forces on the ground closing in, ADVENT reinforcements arriving every turn, and the might of their fleet converging on our location, the situation has never been more dire.

 

 

 

This is the earliest that I've ever done an Avenger Defence mission. I do mention it in the video, but normally you wouldn't expect to be running into this mission type until about your twentieth mission at the earliest, with the average seeming to be closer to about mission forty. Certainly this is the earliest in the campaign that a quick search on YouTube revealed, and given that we haven't even finished fully upgrading to tier-2 weaponry yet, without a single proving ground project or even armour upgrade to our name, to say that we're woefully underprepared is an understatement.

 

Fortunately, the upgrades we did have were just enough to tip the scales in our favour and allow everyone to come out unscathed: while we were also generally pretty lucky with enemy composition (they seem to be toned down in nastiness compared to the stuff I normally end up fighting, which is an unexpected mercy), barring one very, very silly decision toward the end of the video where I let my ego get the best of me despite having literally said out loud what a stupid idea it was a minute or so earlier, I'm really happy with how I played here. Enemies continuously spawn in on these missions, so if you want you can stay as long as you want in order to keep getting XP for your soldiers, but while I was really tempted to do so, by the end I knew I'd be doing it just for my own vanity rather than because it was the right tactical decision.

 

I'm still really worried about the progress that's being made on the AVATAR Project at this point, as we're a long way from being able to set it back, and we're very short on supplies to do so. But for now, we do at least have a plan to deal with it, and since the Dark Event was kind enough to add the extra block to the on-map facility rather than the overall counter, it's not as disastrous as it could have been.

 

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Despite the success of last episode's Avenger defence mission, we're still in real trouble with needing to make progress toward the next of ADVENT's blacksite facilities in order to set back their progress on the AVATAR project and avoid losing the game. First, however, we need to make a trip to a resistance outpost where, perhaps upset by XCom's daring escape last time, have decided to take out their anger on the civilians therein.

 

 

 

Dealing with the Faceless is often a matter of luck, and that's definitely true here. In general I really don't like retaliation missions simply because there's so much going on, and such a short timeframe: effectively you have seven turns to find and eliminate all enemies on the map before you lose (sometimes less, given the AI will sometimes target more than one civilian per turn if there are active pods or it causes collateral damage), and combined with the enemy's ability to launch sneak attacks against you, I find them more stressful than fun. That said, I think I coped with the mission pretty well overall, especially given how unlucky we were on the first turn, and it's always great to see perk choices vindicated: at this point it's fair to say I've completely misjudged the power of overwatch, which has proved to be a surprisingly effective and reliable strategy and one I might well start using in my future campaigns!

 

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In an attempt to solve some of the ongoing issues with the poor quality of the audio, this week I'm trying out a new video editor: while I think today's episode definitely sounds a lot nicer than previous instalments (as it's a lot cleaner and less compressed-sounding), there may be a slight reduction in visual quality. Please let me know if this is noticeable for you, and if you consider it to be an acceptable tradeoff as we embark on today's operation!

 

 

 

It's always really great when a mission goes well, and that's what we had today. Barring one poor decision in the opening engagement, which I rushed into without thinking through and so had to spend our meme beacon on a pod of enemies far weaker than I would have liked, everything went more or less by the book, and now that we're finally ready to knock a few blocks off the Avatar project I'm feeling a lot less stressed out going forward.

 

Also, special shout-out to D-38 Boss and his regular reminders of the power of Overwatch. The last engagement is dedicated to your sound advice!

 

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