I actually think they’re pretty neat mechanically and add a nice little extra bit of depth, since sometimes making loud noises to spawn them as enemy distractions can turn into a win condition—it’s just a shame my whole game visibly struggles and often just hard crashes when too many spawn (at least on PS5, have heard PC is similar?).

Was running a mission with Eric "Daywalker" Brooks, a custom character I created recently (and am having an absolute blast with). I equipped him with a Skulljack, and managed to tag an Advent Officer with it - totally reminded me of this part in the opening fight scene of Blade.

I was like "Heh (¬‿¬)"

(Original link to the 2nd screenshot)

Today, I fought the greatest advent lancer that ever was.

It all started with an unlucky reaper getting spotted by a civilian jumping off a building on the first move of the combat, revealing a pod of 1 lancer + 1 priest. This is mid-April; I’m 3 days away from magnetic weapons and only have squad 1 upgrade purchased.

In all 5 rounds that this combat lasted, all attacks against the lancer failed, including a flanking shotgun attack at 95% hit. I managed to deal 5 damage from stocks, but not enough to kill him. All attacked of the lancer landed, obviously, dealing little damage but each time sending a soldier unconscious regardless of its health. Result: a failed mission with 5 surviving but captured soldiers.

This guy is a menace! Watch your back out there, commanders!

I'll start, a rookie was taking cover behind a car, he got shot and panicked so he run up to the sectoid to shoot it and missed, when the panick ended he was still next to the car, then my sniper shot at the sectoid, missed and hit the car instead, since the guy was in a panic I couldn't move him away and the explosion killed him.

Almost 65 hours in and finally finished the game (vanilla). I did my playthrough blind (saw maybe a Streamer, Cohhcarnage, play it and watched at most 10 mins and lost interest in watching). The game came on sale and I remember that streamer raving about the game and so I bought it, not knowing what I was in for. The only thing I knew was that 95% to hit was as good as 0%, often. 🤷 All surprises were fun to discover.

Did my fair share of save scumming after my first 7 heroes died... But for the last missions (by which point I felt overpowered), I didn't allow myself to reload mid-mission; if I died I had to start from the beginning and finish it in 1 go. Boy, what a good decision, it became so thrilling and I felt I was scraping every bit of technique I had learned just to get through! Did the trio mission with hunter + sniper + grenadier (who was almost useless) in 2 tries.

But the finale **\*chef's kiss**\, as I blindly told myself I had to push through until I died... I pushed, and pushed, lost 1 soldier on the way to the last room (felt horrible). No heals left, underprepared, no clue what's ahead, most of the team was half health (except Commander who I realized very late he regenerated)... The avatars started popping up, the first wave with archons and codex severely hurt my team, and suddenly 2 more Avatars (and 3 more waves of abominable big bad enemies showed up). *I was at a loss**, I was so far from my "no man left behind-playthrough"... "gather yourself up, that game is made to be won, so keep pushing and win dammit! To hell with the fallen soldiers, just finish this!" I ended up telling myself! My guys kept missing, an avatar mind controls my hunter on the right, . 2nd sniper clutches the 2nd avatar and frees my hunter, who now run and guns (best feat ever) to finish off a Codex. 2 beserkers walk up face to face with my 1st sniper and downs her right after she had killed 3 codex/clones in 1 round (RIP Leah Dumont). No more codex, 1 more Avatar left to kill, and 2 beserkers and 2 other green things coming for me... My remaining 3 soldiers were clumped up in the middle of the room as if fighting a king of the hill battle. My Commander kills one more green things (forgot name). The enemy Avatar creates a gigantic vortex, hitting all 3 clumped soldiers - 2 die... The Commander is alone. OR SO I THOUGHT! I had forgot about Rory Gallagher my hunter far across on the other side of the room. As I'm facing certain defeat, it hits me : the objective is kill the Avatars... It doesn't say anything about killing all creatures 🤔 Rory has a Run & Gun up and a 2x attack... If I could run up to the Avatar's face and clutch 2 crits, maybe I could have the satisfaction of killing it before losing. Rory books it - the overwatch animation starts for the enemy - FUCK!! COME ON!! - it hits, 6dmg, 4 life left, Rory's close to the Avatar by it has full cover, 68% chance to hit... But one hit isn't enough, I swap to 2x attack. 54% chance to hit... "Eeessh" I think. That's like less than 20% chance of both hitting and both critting to take it down. Well. That's all there is left to do, here goes nothing... I see red, it hit! Wait what's that!? EXECUTION TRIGGERED!! HE DIED IN THE FIRST SHOT!! The 15% that barely ever happens!!! The video rolls... MY MIND IS COMPLETELY BLOWN ON HOW EPIC THAT ENDING WAS!!! It could not have been scripted better. Holy cow. What a game. What an ending.

I didn't take the clip unfortunately, I was too in the moment... So I share here as no one I know plays games or would care about that story - feels good to share my hype 😁

/uninstall and float on this epic climatic high note.

My thoughts :

- Customization of characters was awesome, at first it felt trivial until I gave in to customizing a few characters for fun - made my Canadian team, gave them notable names, it was funny and made it more enjoyable! The soldiers had a face now, no longer just generic. Some were a bit silly, but I tried making them unique.

- Music was underwhelming, I realized there were big moments without music during fights and it didn't hype me much, so I turned it off and put my own epic music playlist. Made it much better for me.

- Diversity of playability was very good. Especially as soldiers level up and gain new abilities, it creates many interesting mixes between what felt more than just 4 classes (I barely used the Psion as she didn't need to fight to level, just training days... Which didn't incentivize me to play her). 3 snipers? Yah. 2 hunters 2 specialists? Yah! Make it work, different approaches. Hack the planet!

- Progression is great. Of enemies (I thought I had seen them all, the a Sectopod showed up 🫪 then a mechanical beholder 😵‍💫), and of soldiers (new abilities until late game, even new customization items).

- I had never played a similar game, and played on veteran difficulty. There came a time where it felt like grinding redundant missions, but it wasn't too bad. Did feel rather overpowered and unstoppable in very late game. I guess it's part of the progression.

- 5/5 would recommend especially if someone never played this genre of game!

And that's XCOM BABY!

loved the game since it came out in 2016 maybe?
but never had a machine powerful enough to run it at good graphics, then I upgraded to good fps, now I will hate the game in full HD and max fps possible.

I somehow completely missed this game. Got it on steam sale in the spring and out 100 hours into it immediately beating enemy unknown and wotc twice. Are there DLC’s that are must play?

Every mission has a new enemy type and a boost in difficulty.

The rate at which I am upgrading soldiers or equipment is way slower.

I am facing pods now that I try to avoid fighting altogether as I know I would lose 2 soldiers and eventually lose mission.

I load previous saved games a ton. I am not enjoying it anymore.

Should I start over with what I learned?

Should I go for an easier difficulty?

I keep reading it gets easier, but I don't see where or how

I hate seeing civilians get killed, and for the first time I was able to save them all! Though it's only Veteran difficulty, I'm still proud hehe

This is my tier list for how annoying the enemies are in xcom2 wotc.

I play xcom2 wotc and I like it. Here's a tier list on how annoying I think each enemy is. Tier 6 are the least annoying enemies and tier 1 is the most annoying enemy.

Tier 6, Noob (not the hardest enemies): ADVENT Mecs, ADVENT turrets, ADVENT troopers

Tier 5, I can handle you: ADVENT officers, The hunter chosen (I find him the easiest chosen to deal with), Sectoids (Melee vulnerability), Beserkers, Facless

Tier 4, Annoying if it's bad timing: Archons, Chrysalids, The Warlock chosen, Spectres, Mutons, Vipers, ADVENT purifiers (especially their chance to explode and destroy the objective), ADVENT priest, ADVENT heavy Mecs

Tier 3, NO! WHY!: Andromedons, Gatekeepers, Codexes, Sectopods

Tier 2, Kill on sight!: ADVENT generals (because they are the objective), Archon king, ADVENT stun lancers, Beserker queen, Avatars, ADVENT shieldbearers, Viper king, The Chosen assassin

Tier 1, greatest power: game lag and game prolonging: The lost (I play xcom2 wotc on the PS4)

These enemies can be very hard when you're still upgrading your soldiers or if you're really unlucky. I'm never playing xcom2 on ironman mode, I don't have the patience nor will for it. Once you upgraded your soldiers and obtain all the powerful goods (armor from alien rulers and weapons from the chosen) some of these enemies are more tolerable.

Any, just wanted to make this tier list.

Bagged the Valhalla trophy 💪

Sadly missed the July deadline....looks like I will have to start again (oh no! 🤣)

Only that trophy and the legendary one to go 😅

Ice bombs are handy to pin down those pesky avatars!

Hi, hello, I was wondering if anyone knew why some crates could not be marked by either ADVENT or XCOM in the smash and dash missions where you evecuate crates by air ?

Don't have screenshots, I don't have access to my laptop currently but pressing "mark crate" does nothing

I really enjoy XCOM but I’m just curious if anyone played this other game.

Is it any good? Is it good on PS4?

no crashes bugs etc?

Heads up: this is early access, so there will be bugs. It’s playable, but I’m still working on it.

AI disclosure: AI tools were used during development of this mod (bug testing, debugging, etc). If you’re not okay with that, please don’t download it.

XCOM 2 never got real upscaling support, so I spent way too long adding it lol.

What it does
The game renders the 3D scene at a lower resolution, then FSR 4, XeSS or DLSS upscales it back up. You get more FPS and it still looks sharp. Menus, text and the HUD stay at full native resolution.

The game has none of the data upscalers need, so the mod generates all of it itself: camera jitter, motion vectors (including tracked motion for animated soldiers, aliens and weapons) and masks. It also fixes a bunch of the engine’s own bugs at lower res:

• Lighting, reflections and shadows
• HUD and overlay issues
• Mouse picking being off, and edge scrolling
• Flickering around lights, shadows and glow
• XCOM’s checkerboard glass, now blended into real transparency
• Movement grid and cover icons now hide properly behind soldiers and weapons

Features

• Three upscalers: FSR 4 (falls back to FSR 3.1 on unsupported cards), XeSS and DLSS. You can switch between them live in game.
• Six quality modes: from Native (AA only) down to Ultra Performance. Defaults to Quality, and you can change it in xcom2-upscaler.ini.

GPU support

• FSR 4: Radeon RX 9000, or RX 7000 with a recent driver. Other cards get FSR 3.1.
• XeSS: any DirectX 12 card.
• DLSS: GeForce RTX. Untested. I don’t have an NVIDIA card, so if you have an RTX card please let me know if it works!

Install

1. In the game’s graphics options, set Anti-Aliasing to FXAA. MSAA doesn’t work, depth of field and Bloom must also be on for now
2. Go to ...\steamapps\common\XCOM 2\XCom2-WarOfTheChosen\Binaries\Win64\
3. Copy all the files from the download into it.
4. Launch the game.

In game
Press Numpad . (Num Lock on) to open the menu. From there you can swap between FSR / XeSS / DLSS, see which one is actually running, or turn upscaling off to compare.

Requirements

• XCOM 2: War of the Chosen (Steam, Windows)
• DirectX 12 graphics card
• FXAA enabled

Download: https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom2/mods/863

Found a bug?
Please tell me! Bug reports help a ton. If you can, include:

• Your GPU, driver version, and the active upscaler and quality mode from the menu
• What went wrong and how to make it happen
• xcom2-upscaler.log from Binaries\Win64 (use xcom2-upscaler.prev.log if you’ve restarted since)

For visual problems, press F10 while the problem is on screen, then zip the dumps folder next to the log and share a link.

New player who got hard enough the project's countdown is like 2 squares away. The opps are too strong for me and the alien facilities are hard. I feel like I'm out of time

I think I need more contracts slot and time to reach them but the Warlock is kinda crazy for me ro face and handle while he dazes everyone in an area.

Wanted to toggle on Reaper Ally, not sure if it disables the achivments. Thanks.

How does character pool work

assassin spawned, i calculated she would need two turns to reach my squad. i positioned everyone with one squad member ready to try and reveal her.

she never reached the squad after 5 turns.

eventually we found her and let’s just say she didn’t seem too pleased with her spawn point