Thoughts on Chosen Weapons

[zeeter]

I think we can all agree that the Assassin's weapons are pretty well balanced. They do more damage, but are not game changing.

We can also all agree that the Hunter's weapons are decidedly unbalancing. To be able to pop off shot after shot for what - three reloads? - with DfA is just game changing. I think they shouldn't have given it the reloads. Between that and the single-action fire it is way too easy to get through missions. I give my sniper the Icarus armor and he can set down anyplace on the map where I might be in trouble. Essentially, once I get the Darklance the only time I take any damage is when I do something stupid or get hit by collateral damage from something exploding.

What about the Disruptor, though? To me, this makes specialists far more useful than they were previously. It is a mid-range rifle, bridging the gap between the sniper rifle and the shotgun. The key for me is being able to send my specialists on covert actions and get their mobility and aim increased.

I wonder if Firaxis will come up with an add-on for a Grenadier type Chosen.

[TamTroll]

all i know for sure is that there were plans for a grenadier-type chosen, as well as a fourth faction to oppose the Templars. they would have been some breed of Androids lead by some backup of Julian i think.

it was all cut for time unfortionately. hard to say if they'll impliment it as DLC... but yeah, it'd be nice.

[Rez Elwin]

What I would have like is a Chosen Psi amp. It would be carried by the Warlock and It would actually be balanced to give him one to bringing him in line with the other two who give you a primary and a secondary.

I know he is supposed to be a extremely powerful psionic second only to the Elders but it still would be nice to have.

[Abrakadabra]

Originally posted by michael_s_davis:

I think we can all agree that the Assassin's weapons are pretty well balanced. They do more damage, but are not game changing.

We can also all agree that the Hunter's weapons are decidedly unbalancing. To be able to pop off shot after shot for what - three reloads? - with DfA is just game changing. I think they shouldn't have given it the reloads. Between that and the single-action fire it is way too easy to get through missions. I give my sniper the Icarus armor and he can set down anyplace on the map where I might be in trouble. Essentially, once I get the Darklance the only time I take any damage is when I do something stupid or get hit by collateral damage from something exploding.

What about the Disruptor, though? To me, this makes specialists far more useful than they were previously. It is a mid-range rifle, bridging the gap between the sniper rifle and the shotgun. The key for me is being able to send my specialists on covert actions and get their mobility and aim increased.

I wonder if Firaxis will come up with an add-on for a Grenadier type Chosen.

I love the Assasins shotgun (arashi? always forget the name or was that the sword), it sounds awesome, it looks beautifully badass and it rocks and smahes. Its so satisfying to run your ranger up into ppl faces and than pound them with that evil rifle. BOOM BOOM BOOM. BIG (F*ucking) GUN. A gamers wet dream.

The disruptor rilfe is very good, but to me the reason why I cosider it the by far best weapon in the game:

Its the best sounding weapon in the entire game. In fact, I love that sound so much, and the way it fires and looks, that I always wait till I get a specialist with serial and preferably killzone, so that I can listen to that awesome, muffled, unique dududududummm. It sounds way too awesome.

The dark lance is very good, but honestly, I consider a standard plasma lance, fully upgraded with 4 weapon mods to be more powerful than the dark lance. Sure, it only uses one action. But with great mobility suits like icaraus armor (which I btw always give one of my serial gerenadiers or the) serpeant armor or wraith suite (which is what my sniper usually gets in the end) you can get to awesome positions with free grappling hook actions and with serial and killzone I think the one action cost of the dark lance is overrated.

The biggest drawback is that when you killzone, you can only ever hit 3 targest. An a late game sniper, fully upgraded, does obesene amounts of (shredding if skilled for that) dmg at ultra long ranges, basically never missing a hit. Granted, theres not many missions, where you get swarmed by huge numbers. Maybe only truely in the last mission. But in that last mission, the standard, fully upgraded plasma lance is actually better, more powerful, than the dark lance. That said, the dark lance looks pretty awesome when it fires.

[zeeter]

Originally posted by iluvpumpum:

The dark lance is very good, but honestly, I consider a standard plasma lance, fully upgraded with 4 weapon mods to be more powerful than the dark lance. Sure, it only uses one action. But with great mobility suits like icaraus armor (which I btw always give one of my serial gerenadiers or the) serpeant armor or wraith suite (which is what my sniper usually gets in the end) you can get to awesome positions with free grappling hook actions and with serial and killzone I think the one action cost of the dark lance is overrated.

The biggest drawback is that when you killzone, you can only ever hit 3 targest. An a late game sniper, fully upgraded, does obesene amounts of (shredding if skilled for that) dmg at ultra long ranges, basically never missing a hit. Granted, theres not many missions, where you get swarmed by huge numbers. Maybe only truely in the last mission. But in that last mission, the standard, fully upgraded plasma lance is actually better, more powerful, than the dark lance. That said, the dark lance looks pretty awesome when it fires.

With a plasma lance you can only do one standard attack with DfA (not counting other skills that may add an action). You can only do a sniper rifle attack and a pistol shot. With the Darklance you can keep shooting until the free reloads are done, so long as you don't miss or fail to kill something. If the bigger enemies are suitably harmed by the rest of the squad this should never be a problem. Give the Icarus armor and the sniper can go almost anywhere on the map as a free move - not just within grappling hook range.

[zeeter]

Originally posted by Rez Elwin:

What I would have like is a Chosen Psi amp. It would be carried by the Warlock and It would actually be balanced to give him one to bringing him in line with the other two who give you a primary and a secondary.

I know he is supposed to be a extremely powerful psionic second only to the Elders but it still would be nice to have.

I wonder if they did this because a lot of people don't even bother with Psi ops. If Psi was more of a factor in the game I'd guess it would have been something like you mention.

[Abrakadabra]

Originally posted by michael_s_davis:

Originally posted by Rez Elwin:

What I would have like is a Chosen Psi amp. It would be carried by the Warlock and It would actually be balanced to give him one to bringing him in line with the other two who give you a primary and a secondary.

I know he is supposed to be a extremely powerful psionic second only to the Elders but it still would be nice to have.

I wonder if they did this because a lot of people don't even bother with Psi ops. If Psi was more of a factor in the game I'd guess it would have been something like you mention.

Psi operatives arent really relevant, because late game is just way too imba. Not a bit imba or moderately unbalanced. Its actually so obscenly unbalanced, that they would have to throw at the very least twice as many enemies your way. Pods of ten, only made up of gatekeepers and sectopods. Maybe that would be more fair. Cause even when you play with e.g. abc+, when you face pods of 5 and then pull 3 pods and face 15 enemies, with one or two andromedons, a sectopod and god knows what.....its simply not enough. The dmg output and precision, single and multi target dmg potential....its just way too strong.

So, psi ops are nice, but youre already way too powerful x 1000. So taking psi ops or not doesnt matter. Youd destroy everything with or without them.

Ive also tried out LEBs late game enemies but even they are no match for a late game squad with all the tools and pcs and chosen weapons. Youre too strong. So, that is the Nr. 1 thing I truely hope Firaxis will address in xcom 3. The basic gameplay of xcom 2, up until early late game, is a lot of fun and it looks beautiful and its ten out of ten. But they prolly didnt have enough time to find ways to keep it very challenging. Maybe that gets really hard with all the tools you have later on.

But im not as concerned with the setting of the game not even the story. Or new classes or skills. If I could allocate the ressources, id order all devs to address this very issue. Find ways to not turn very late game into something thats just not as emotional and as frustrating and rewarding anymore. Becuase thats what makes early game to early late game so addicting. Its threatening. YOu cant just wander about or pull many pods cause youll die. You truely feel overwhelmed and youre very happy when you barely made it out with multiple injured soldiers. Even carrying two that are half dead.

But in late game, you just steam roll eveyrthing. I dont even take cover anymore. I just run right into the middle of all pods, you even face 30 enemeis but you destroy them easily. Not even using all actions. You just kill them and you dont even have to think anymore. I dont even take a reaper anymore in my late game squads. Not because reapers are bad but because scouting is completly irrelevant. Not even mods helped. I tried all difficulty increasing mods with l/i and I just killed everyhing. Not because im so good, but because you just get waaaaay too strong or enemies are too weak.

That is what I want for xcom 3. That is what I really want them to 'fix' and focus on.

Pls devs, find a solution for that, xcom 2 wotc is fantastic and it would be 12 out of 10 if the very late game wasnt so insanely imba. Its not even funny. Very late game l/i with all diffculty mods, even with this friggin very angry sectopod (2 of them) is easier, way easier, then rooki noniroman. Its just too eassy.

Wheres the challenge.

Why have a cover system and scouts and all of that when all of that becomes utterly meaningless in late game. You become gods of destruction and your enemies are little ducklings that have no weapons and dont even know what to do. I feel bad for advent. I truely feel bad because I want my enemies in a game to have a good chance. I dont want to be a Commander that is given nuclear boms facing little ducklings. I simply dont want that kind of fight.

I want the enemies to be smart, über threatening, powerful and very very dangerous. If thats not the case then I just dont feel nothing. If I cant die or loose.....then theres no sense of accomplisment.

XCom 2 wtoc is still one of the best games I ever played but this one thing is a major disappointment.

Is there any chance that any dev will comment here and talk abotu this issue? Does anybody know of an interview or thread somewhere where this is disucussed? A podcast maybe?

In my opinion this is the most relevant issue, the one thing that needs to be dealth with. Its the one flaw this game has. It looses all the excietment in very late game. Basically 99 % of it.

[Aranador]

The orignial design of the game was that you start out struggling, then you overcome, then you win. Many players want to 'play forever' though, which the game was not designed for, so yeah, the whole 'end of the game is too easy' is actually intentional, as you are supposed to go win the game, then start a new one.

Fortunately, there are all manner of mods out there to change the game experience.

[zeeter]

Originally posted by iluvpumpum:

But in late game, you just steam roll eveyrthing. I dont even take cover anymore. I just run right into the middle of all pods, you even face 30 enemeis but you destroy them easily. Not even using all actions. You just kill them and you dont even have to think anymore. I dont even take a reaper anymore in my late game squads. Not because reapers are bad but because scouting is completly irrelevant. Not even mods helped. I tried all difficulty increasing mods with l/i and I just killed everyhing. Not because im so good, but because you just get waaaaay too strong or enemies are too weak.

I found myself doing this lately in the late game. Yeah, cover if it's there, but if it's not then whatever. I have three soldiers who can go on effective multi-kill streaks and a couple others who have multiple attacks with heavy weapons or can do serial kills but not as well. Then throw the Psi in there and what's the point of tactical cover anymore?

I mean, with three blaster bombs in a mission (2 war suits and the berserker armor) it's pretty simple to blast a pod and then send a ranger in on reaper-mode and wipe them up. Or put a sniper up high and take out six or seven enemies if the ranger can't get to all of them.

I just had a mission where I accidentally triggered two sectapods at once. I'd never seen two in the same mission before, not to mention being active at the same time. Throw in an andromedon and there's two 2-shots (if I'm lucky) and one 3 or 4 shot (depending on my luck). And that's on top of everything else that was spawned. 9 active enemies at once, including a heavy mech, a couple of codex, and three or four grunts.

Yet even with this formidable show of Advent force I managed to take them all out in one turn. In fact I can't remember the last time Advent had a turn against me. The only time I get hit is when I forget that a recently spawned Mech is on overwatch.

Like you, I'm not saying this because I think I'm great. Just that the game gets way easy in the end. Even more so with WOTC.

[zeeter]

Originally posted by Aranador:

The orignial design of the game was that you start out struggling, then you overcome, then you win. Many players want to 'play forever' though, which the game was not designed for, so yeah, the whole 'end of the game is too easy' is actually intentional, as you are supposed to go win the game, then start a new one.

Fortunately, there are all manner of mods out there to change the game experience.

I'm doing this in my current game. Goal is to have a squad entirely filled with savant colonels. Right now I think I have 25 of them which should indicate how long I've been playing. But it gets pretty boring really fast. I can usually only do 2 or 3 months at a time before I get tired of it. Avatar meter never gets above 5 with all of the reduce progress covert ops. I haven't attacked an alien facility in over two years game time.

[Perplex]

The Katana and Hunter Rifle are OP as hell. Katana on a bladestormer makes a huge difference. Being able to make sniper shots with death from above over and over is also a huge thing. Both these weapons are just too good. Also it seems like the Warlock rifle is bugged (atleast on my client without any outside mods) as it does crit damage every time on everything and not just psi-units.

The only weapons that are "meh" is the Hunter pistol and the Assassin Shotgun. Nothing special with these tbh.

Originally posted by michael_s_davis:

Originally posted by Rez Elwin:

What I would have like is a Chosen Psi amp. It would be carried by the Warlock and It would actually be balanced to give him one to bringing him in line with the other two who give you a primary and a secondary.

I know he is supposed to be a extremely powerful psionic second only to the Elders but it still would be nice to have.

I wonder if they did this because a lot of people don't even bother with Psi ops. If Psi was more of a factor in the game I'd guess it would have been something like you mention.

You get the Psi-Ops too late in the campain for them to be of any signifigant use. When you finaly have one that is decent everyone else is basicly colonels already. And random colonel of any class is way better than a decked out Psi-Op.

[Abrakadabra]

Originally posted by michael_s_davis:

Originally posted by iluvpumpum:

But in late game, you just steam roll eveyrthing. I dont even take cover anymore. I just run right into the middle of all pods, you even face 30 enemeis but you destroy them easily. Not even using all actions. You just kill them and you dont even have to think anymore. I dont even take a reaper anymore in my late game squads. Not because reapers are bad but because scouting is completly irrelevant. Not even mods helped. I tried all difficulty increasing mods with l/i and I just killed everyhing. Not because im so good, but because you just get waaaaay too strong or enemies are too weak.

I found myself doing this lately in the late game. Yeah, cover if it's there, but if it's not then whatever. I have three soldiers who can go on effective multi-kill streaks and a couple others who have multiple attacks with heavy weapons or can do serial kills but not as well. Then throw the Psi in there and what's the point of tactical cover anymore?

I mean, with three blaster bombs in a mission (2 war suits and the berserker armor) it's pretty simple to blast a pod and then send a ranger in on reaper-mode and wipe them up. Or put a sniper up high and take out six or seven enemies if the ranger can't get to all of them.

I just had a mission where I accidentally triggered two sectapods at once. I'd never seen two in the same mission before, not to mention being active at the same time. Throw in an andromedon and there's two 2-shots (if I'm lucky) and one 3 or 4 shot (depending on my luck). And that's on top of everything else that was spawned. 9 active enemies at once, including a heavy mech, a couple of codex, and three or four grunts.

Yet even with this formidable show of Advent force I managed to take them all out in one turn. In fact I can't remember the last time Advent had a turn against me. The only time I get hit is when I forget that a recently spawned Mech is on overwatch.

Like you, I'm not saying this because I think I'm great. Just that the game gets way easy in the end. Even more so with WOTC.

Yeah, that was my experience. Im not that great either, im not even a good strategist or multi tasker. I sucked hard at math in school. I had to restart many many times till I got better and could beat l/i other ppl prolly only needed half the attempts or less even.

But as you said, you can easily stack multiple serial soldiers in a squad. Combine that with carpet bombing capabilities of 3 max aim, superior perception, scopes and magazines grenaiers, that just blaster bomb, shredstorm or frag vast amounts of enemies, to then hit them with serial......damn, and thats just 3 grenadiers. I havent even touched my sniper, specialist, ranger or psi op at that point.

Trust me, even if you tried bigger pods, you might find that a bit more challenging in early game (but early game was already good in terms of challenge and no push over and with frost grenade and claymore/early reaper its actually not so hard to kill some of the early pods of 5 sometimes two pods even stack somewhere and you can kill like 8 enemies at the same time) but once you reached very late game, you get too powerful. Serial is one major reason. Having multiple serial soldiers is force multiplier.

We could of course just ingore serial, but I hate to not use all tools and skills in a game. You want to build the best soldiers possible. I love giving all my soldiers either superior perception or speed and the best weapon mods and best armor and skills. Find the best elite soldiers with the best skill combos. It just feels weird to choose not to take the best skills.

For a time its nice to give advent some pay back an steam roll them. That lasts for maybe 5 missions or so. I have to admit though, that LEBs late game enemies (that riftkeeper and also that kamikaze codex) actually did provide more of a challenge. That riftkeeper keeps spwaning in pretty big pods over and over again and there were moments when I actually worried for a few moments.

There were two particular fights, where you get this typcial 'I dont fear nothing anymore' attitude in late game and I 'accidentally' pulled basically all the pods around the facility. There was this rifkeeper, a sectopod, andromedon and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of normal enemies. And that rifkeeper couldnt be psi hacked cause it has very strong psi defenses and I actaully took some dmg on almost all soldiers I think.

So, those mods are a step in teh right direction. Though I still think that pulling an entire (labeled very difficult) map's worth of pods should be very very risky, no matter if early or mid or late game.

I think enemy units that are well armored, that stay a bit in the back and that can warp in or call in reinforcements, basically in every turn, just like the riftkeeper and that you cant focus on that well when theres also many offensive and aggressive units that you need to take care of first.....thats a pretty good way to keep it challenging. I also always liked advent calling reinforcements. Facilities and priority targest would have a lot of units in the immediate vicinity but also the potential to drop in a small army.

Its okay to be a very powerful strike force, but you shouldnt be able to hanle vast armies that easily.

[Abrakadabra]

Originally posted by Aranador:

The orignial design of the game was that you start out struggling, then you overcome, then you win. Many players want to 'play forever' though, which the game was not designed for, so yeah, the whole 'end of the game is too easy' is actually intentional, as you are supposed to go win the game, then start a new one.

Fortunately, there are all manner of mods out there to change the game experience.

Hey,

no, im not really among the faction that wants to play forever. I also never liked sandbox style games where you have no real purpose. I like a good strong story a lot more than any wannebe open world or sandbox game with less focus on story.

Playing forever with advent just doing.....nothing or with advent being completly powerless, a civilization invading alien space force that is helpless vs a small guerilla force and you can just delay their plans indefinitely, nah I dont like that.

And I dont mind that you get pretty powerful and that you might be able to handle many situations way easier with all the tools you get and colonel level soldiers that are war veterans. But at the same time, there should still be a considerable number of situations that you cannot just steam roll. I get that they wanted you to be the dominator and terminator after you feared advent for the longest ime. I get that but I think they overdid it.

Because if you play well you can beat early advent. But advent has no chance vs a late game squad with all the tools. So, its a bit imba or pretty imba if you ask me.

And they also failed to give credit to the very thing they created, the very thing which is imo the greatest addicitive feature of xcom 2:

The emotional and thus frustrating and infuriating but also very rewarding connection to your soldiers. This dimension is only relevant though, for as long as youre facing strong opposition and you need to feel the threat and that you can just die easily. once that is gone, you actually start to immediately miss the tension, the glorious feeling when you barely made it out. The moment you think:

OH MY GOD ♥♥♥♥

Because you just pulled three pods and youre running out of turns and all those situations. Thats what makes it so good to then barely make it out, and look at your injured but very much alive soldiers that got great loot and that got promotions. Thats what I love about the game.

Take that away, an the game looses over 90 % of its appeal.

By making you too powerful in endgame, they take away taht which makes xcom 2 so addicting. It can be forgiven, as you will literally play hundreds of hours when going from rookie to l/i and youll have vast periods of many many hours and days and weeks, where you will not feel overpowered at all haha.

So, im aware thats high level criticism. But I think it is one major aspect they should take a look at again, a very close look when it comes to xcom 3. At least thats what I would definitely do. Have a more balanced end game and always play into the major strength of the game:

The emotional rollercoaster, loss, accomplishment, threat and reward, risk and and punishment and all of that. That is xcom 2's greatest asset. This emotional roller coaster.

[sandman25dcsss]

Different players like different things. I like to stall xcom forever, I don't care about story, I like solving puzzles "how to kill them all without getting even wounds on my soldiers" infinitely times more than "how to reach evacuation point in time".

[Abrakadabra]

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

Different players like different things. I like to stall xcom forever, I don't care about story, I like solving puzzles "how to kill them all without getting even wounds on my soldiers" infinitely times more than "how to reach evacuation point in time".

Thats the thing though. Do you really even struggle much anymore, once you have colonels, any pcs you want, even improved pcs with + 20 aim via perception and antoher +20 via improved superior scopes and skills like killzone and serial on multiple soldiers and all have either mobility suits or heavy weapons like blasterboms.

Whats there to solve in that phase of the game?

If there was still challenge in the end, I wouldnt mind if the game went longer.

But there are no more puzzles to solve in the end, I dont have to think anymore. In midgame, just when reaching mag/gauss and then also, when about to transition to plasma theres 2 phases, where you ahve to be very careful. Where I sometimes think even a few minutes on where excatly I shoul move a soldier or what targets I have to prioritize, trying to anticipate if one soldier might get flanked. Trying to anticipate all possible moves of advent, trying to find the safest option in terms of moves and actions.

But yeah, thats the thing....theres no more puzzles to solve, and thus, delaying the game indefinitely wouldnt make any sense for me at least. Thats just one more way to kill immersion and pull the tigers (advent's) teeth. You can just delay a force forever that is already no threat at all anymore.

[sandman25dcsss]

Originally posted by iluvpumpum:

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

Different players like different things. I like to stall xcom forever, I don't care about story, I like solving puzzles "how to kill them all without getting even wounds on my soldiers" infinitely times more than "how to reach evacuation point in time".

Thats the thing though. Do you really even struggle much anymore, once you have colonels, any pcs you want, even improved pcs with + 20 aim via perception and antoher +20 via improved superior scopes and skills like killzone and serial on multiple soldiers and all have either mobility suits or heavy weapons like blasterboms.

Whats there to solve in that phase of the game?

If there was still challenge in the end, I wouldnt mind if the game went longer.

But there are no more puzzles to solve in the end, I dont have to think anymore. In midgame, just when reaching mag/gauss and then also, when about to transition to plasma theres 2 phases, where you ahve to be very careful. Where I sometimes think even a few minutes on where excatly I shoul move a soldier or what targets I have to prioritize, trying to anticipate if one soldier might get flanked. Trying to anticipate all possible moves of advent, trying to find the safest option in terms of moves and actions.

But yeah, thats the thing....theres no more puzzles to solve, and thus, delaying the game indefinitely wouldnt make any sense for me at least. Thats just one more way to kill immersion and pull the tigers (advent's) teeth. You can just delay a force forever that is already no threat at all anymore.

Let me answer this with my current game example. When I killed last chosen in its citadel, I had just 2 colonels and only tier 2 weapons and armour (playing on normal to relax). I don't want to finish the game now, it would mean I won't see last tier weapon/armour, I won't see psi ops, I won't see sectopods, my skirmisher is still something like captain etc. Basically I want to experience everything I can. If it becomes too easy, I can change difficulty of the campaign without restarting it but currently it is ok because I give chosen's rifle to squaddies and it is not that OP. Finally I can see 2 psi ops in one mission after 400+ hours of xcom :)