Anyone else think the Chosen show up a bit too early when playing on Legendary?

[KeenCritter]

I'm grade-a screwed in my ironman mission. There's no way for me to retreat, it's a rescue, and of course the Chosen I just sent packing shows up when I can't leave.

I'm not even a month and a half in. What's up with that? It's a bit screwed up that the campaign posits itself as a 'longer' experience, but then the Chosen just... you know, pop up for no reason and start cheesing my troops to death in a mission I can't get out of.

I mean, if I'd known that this mission was one of those 'you can't retreat,' then I'd have been like: Hey, yeah, no. Let's turn that down for now. With a Chosen running around on the field, there's no way my soldiers with literally no armor are going to survive that, no matter HOW good my tactics are.

Especially when one of my soldiers gets hit by a stun-lancer that makes them unconcious after doing only 2 damage. Do what? Are you serious? You're going to pile on a Chosen to add to that, and the fact that I can't retreat?

It's a little messed up, is all I'm saying. If the game is going to say "longer game" it should mean "Longer game" and not "just more difficult because more stuff happens faster than before." That's kind of the opposite of the definition that's on display in the difficulty selection screen. That and apparently XCOM's intel sucks so bad that they can't even tell that there's going to be no extraction zone before getting into the mix of things.

Come on guys, I was in the military. I know how bad military intel can be, and I know how bad intel can be from people in a 'resistance.' But this just kind of takes the cake on all that and eats it right up.

EDIT: Even more hilarious is the fact that it was a resistance mission for the Reapers. On the debrief screen he even said: "Never reveal yourself when you don't have a safe escape, Commander."

Well, gee. If you guys had done even basic intel, and Firaxis had half a mind to put that kind of information in some kind of report for me to read before I accepted the mission, then maybe I'd have declined that mission, just like the Reaper leader suggested I should have, in his own cheeky, backwards way.

[Freedom's Flame]

Sometimes you just have to sacrifice a few soldiers in order to complete the mission. Do you have a reaper or scout ranger with you? Just stealth them all the way to the objective and then have them find a safe path to evac the target.

This should only be done as a last resort, however. It's much better to just methodically drop pods and then take on the Chosen by themselves. You'd be surprised at how quickly you can put them down. It sounds like you've made some serious strategy layer errors if you don't have Mag Weapons 1-1/2 months in.

[KeenCritter]

Nah, I didn't bring my Reaper with me. She was tired, so I left her at home. Maybe I have made a mistake with the weapons research. Either that, or I'm not as far in as I thought. In any case, I always drop pods one by one. It's the only way to win at this level. What doesn't work is when the pods retreat, or refuse to attack or move, and the Chosen just sits in the middle of them, which I'm pretty sure I can safely assume happened... since the Chosen didn't enter combat until the third, final pod activated, which wasn't far from either my position, or the pod itself.

Again, the issue isn't my handling of the mission. It's that I shouldn't have accepted, and wouldn't have accepted it, if I'd known that we couldn't retreat. My guys weren't ready for it, and I knew it, or would have, the moment I'd seen a half-smacked-together intel report on the mission itself.

Games like this really should have them. Just basics. Just enough to let me know "Hey buddy, you're kinda stuck when you go in there, since there's no way to call Skyranger once you're inside."

[Freedom's Flame]

Yeah, I agree that they could signal when you can and can't evac a bit better, but that's just something you eventually learn, there's only so many mission types. My other suggestion for you here is that you just let the Chosen capture/interrogate one of your soldiers and then finish off the final pod with your remaining troops and finish the mission.

EDIT: In case you didn't know, the Chosen retreat after they capture/interrogate.

[Eyal]

In all of the faction missions and council missions you can't call an evac zone yourself.

In the early game, if you find that you are ill equipped to deal with Chosen, it's often best to just let them gain knowledge from your soldiers and leave, like Freedom's Flame said. Once you have a dazed soldier, the Chosen will use the next turn to extract knowledge from them.

The Assasin will slash one of your soldiers right away and daze him/her.

The Warlock usually uses mind scorch right away to daze your soldiers. You can put 2 soldiers together and it'll almost gurantee that he will use it instead of mind control.

The Hunter will use a daze grenade if you have 2 soldiers grouped, otherwise he doesn't always use his daze attack right away like the other two Chosen.

Some of the fun (at least for me) with the game is having a crappy mission, but still managing to pick yourself up after it and rising back to power. But yeah, sometimes the RNG leans heavily on your bad side.

[Aranador]

Chosen turn up at the same time every time. If you are playing on legendary, you should be able to handle them - remeber that a valid tactic is to *let* the chosen capture someone and bug out.

[Greb]

You don't have to kill them if they're too strong. Try to bait a daze and let them have at them, and they'll go away.

The Assassin will daze someone without a doubt, she's the worst for it. The Hunter will throw his grenade or tranq you if you get too close to him. The Warlock will usually open up with a mind fray or whatever. Retreat from the soldier that is dazed so encourage them to extract or capture the dazed guy.

It's not ideal, sure, but it saves you getting squad wiped because of the situation. Remember it's not running away, it's tactically withdrawing.

I feel your pain though. The first two months is hell on Earth. I'd sooner fight a Chosen than a Lancer though, lol.

Sounds like you were doing one of those extraction missions where you can't retreat until you complete the objective. They're very evil on Legend, two reinforcement waves dropping every turn for like what, seven turns, before finally ending with a huge wave of like eight Advent troopers. Evil, evil! The idea of a Chosen spawning in with all of that is horrifying!

[LeftPaw]

I often wish there could be a way to slow the whole campaign down, make it more relaxed, as if the whole fight went on for years rather than days. As the game stand everything is to rushed, you can't settle into one thing before another is pushed on you.

Think of it as a official long war. Double the length of the campaign, slow it down.

[Aranador]

Part of the joy, the challenge of XCOM is the fact that you are under the thumb the whole first 2/3 of the game. Consider just how easy the last few missions become - do you think the game would be worth playing if the whole thing was a cake walk?

Anyway, it is possible to mod in a slower pace by tinkering with the INI files, although I kinda do the exact opposite and change things so even more stuff happens even more often. After all, the joy of this game - for me - is the tactical battles - so more more more!! I find legendary to be just too looooong to research anything, or like 90 days to clear a room, or a soldier in hospital for 40 days. For me, slower longer is less exciting. But for you, I encourage checking out the INI files, and seeing the parts where the game defines the progress of things, and making those times longer and slower.

[Charmiskit]

It's funny, I actually kinda agree. I think WotC's biggest problem is its terrible difficulty curve. Everything and everyone curbstomps you in the first 2 months, then you have researched mag weapons and some armour, got a power relay, some contacts... and suddenly the game turns into a cakewalk. One factor indeed is the chosen showing up very, VERY early. Aside from the assassin, they're a joke sure, but if they're coupled with the (at that point) strong enemy pods, it's a nightmare. If I was any good at modding or programming, I'd probably make the first 2 months of the game not as stupidly punishing, make the chosen weaker in the beginning (or make them appear later) and ramp up the difficulty of the enemies later on, be it by just buffing them or making more or whatever could be done to not make the game so easy after the first 2 months.

[KeenCritter]

Honestly I just gave up on playing. I don't like the new factions, or the Chosen at all. There's not really a compelling reason for me to continue. I liked XCOM: Enemy Within so much more. This game just doesn't quite feel right for some reason. Maybe it's the fact that you're a resistance faction or something. I don't know.

I think I'll just play Xenonauts from now on, honestly. Either that, or go back to Enemy Within and do that on Legendary. At least things made a little sense there (sometimes), and the story was much more interesting and relatable for me for some reason.

Thanks for all the advice, though. If for some reason I get stupid again and decide that, with all the XCOM-esque games that are coming out this year, that I want to go ahead and play THIS game again, I'll look back on this and take the advice then.

TL;DR: Let the Chosen take someone. Got it.

[Stardustfire]

in my last l/i attempt the arival of the second choosen completly screwed me. got my second faction mission, it was the lostmap one where you can get one ingi/egghead and one soldier with the 4 turn timer. sended in 3 rookies and the only nonerookie not in sickbay without recognicing i entered second choosen land. made my first turn, sniper tped in, my guys turned 180 degree and hoped back in the skyranger.... so early in a timed lostmap a choosen will only destroy the team AND let you loose the mission, specially because the sniper tend to use his rifle what sends every soldier in the first months to the ground bleeding to death in legendary instantly, and he only extract intel/capture soldiers that are not completly downed.

[red255]

unless the chosen has a debilitating weakness (shell shock and reapers for example, claymore + remote detonate it by a car)

you probably are best off just letting a soldier get stunned and drained of intel.

[Reason]

All those words because you got angry that you couldn't fight the chosen the first time you encounter one?

I think you went into this game with a lack of... will.

Hf doing legendary runs in EW o/

[Mr. Nice]

First Chosen encounter on the Retaliation in Legendary, I pretty much always just let them brain suck a soldier unless a golden oppotunity like red255 suggested. Like here https://steamcommunity.com/id/MrNiceUK/screenshot/948472271335683295 for example, cost a dead Civ, but a claymore + remote start + the fall damage killed the Warlock (who did have Shell Shocked too), didn't even need to finish him off with the SharpShooter who had squad slight LOS on the area.

[Stardustfire]

the first choosen encounter at the first retalation is nearly ever winable (yes i talk legendary difficulty here) there must be a real bad combo of cons and pros in the choosen skills or a lack of ready nonesquaddy soldiers to loose (or concede) the first fight vs them.
depends a lot if you have a templar ready or not in the first encounter. if you have one its choosen autodeath.