XCOM 2's Turn Countdown. A Story.

The dreaded turn timer counts down to failure.

One of the things I have noticed about XCOM 2 is that there is a lot of hate for the number of missions that have the dreaded countdown timer.  That little number ticking down to eventual mission failure is always reminding you that you have to push forward or risk losing everything.  The missions I struggled with the most were the ones that required my squad to rescue or capture VIP's.  In one of the more difficult timed missions the VIP was located in a building directly across from the evac zone.  I had to navigate my squad across a the entire map and managed to get to the general area with just three turns left.  And you just know that the toughest aliens are guarding the area near the VIP....  My group popped into the building to discover a heavy MEC, a shieldbearer, and a heavy stun lancer guarding the jail cell.  Could I risk tossing a grenade into the wall at the back of the cell thus allowing the VIP to escape through the back?  Probably not without reducing the VIP to little VIP chunks.  I decided for a more direct route and positioned my squad around the entrance to the cell.  The shieldbearer immediately shielded the entire group of aliens and the heavy MEC popped overwatch.  Then I had to really prioritize--stun lancers have to be taken out quickly or else they will melee the crap out of anyone remotely close...if I take out the shieldbearer then the shields will be gone but the stun lancer will still be up and free to smack people....the MEC will most likely use it's explosive attack to remove cover and it's too tough to take out quickly.  Ugh.  Then there was the issue of now only having 2 turns left.  Oh, and by the way, enemy reinforcements are incoming.

The limited number of turns forced me to settle on a suicidal choice--one of my squad was going to have to run forward (damn the torpedoes style) and hack open the jail cell thus allowing the VIP to (hopefully) run far enough away to reach cover close to the evac zone.  I would have my hacking specialist disable the heavy MEC and then my squad would really only need to focus on taking out the stun lancer.  It's go time!

I decided that my heavy weapons expert was going to have to be the guy who takes one for the team.  I ran him forward and into position to hack the cell door.  He hacked it and now the VIP was free to scamper off behind full cover right outside the evac zone. I didn't realize that in doing this he was now flanking the enemy position.  My hacking expert was next up and managed to disable the heavy MEC for two turns.  The rest of my squad focused fire on the stun lancer and managed to take it out before it had time to lance anyone.

Now I had to face the painful reality of watching my partially covered heavy get killed.  Luckily the remaining shieldbearer did not enjoy the fact that his position was now flanked and had fled to cover in the next room.  And the heavy MEC was still stunned!  One turn left and things were looking up.  But I forgot about the enemy reinforcements that were now landing slightly to the left of my position.  A stun lancer, another shieldbearer, and an elite soldier landed and took cover...but not before popping overwatch.  So now my choices were even more complicated...I couldn't risk my VIP getting capped by one of the overwatch idiots...I could move my one ranger who wasn't targetable by overwatch shots due to a talent...but the rest of my squad would have to face the veritable overwatch death squad lurking in the shadows.

The time had come to face the final consequences--my heavy could realistically face an overwatch shot and still survive.  I clicked the boxes and waited to see the outcome of his dash to freedom.  The overwatch triggered...and he was hit.  But not dead!  And he barely managed to make it into the evac zone!  Win!  Now it was a simple matter of moving the rest of my squad into the evac zone.

This was the one time that I got really lucky.  I've read a lot of complaints about the number of missions that feature the turn countdown timer and many who want it removed.  The countdown timer forces players, like me, to take risks that they otherwise wouldn't.  You have to keep pushing ahead while keeping your goal and the evac zone in mind.  You don't have time to find the perfect position or to creep cautiously toward your goal.  Without the timer those missions would be much easier but also much more boring.  Whether you love it or hate it, the countdown timer really changes the game.  I, for one, am glad that the timer is included on many missions.

Hotfix City. XCOM 2 Now Playable!

The good news is that XCOM 2 was patched on February 17th and now appears to be stable.  I loaded my previously corrupt save files and finished off the last aliens with no problems.  The hotfix promised to fix several of the larger problems that have been plaguing some players and to improve performance.  I did notice that certain parts of the game that had been running very slowly were running much more smoothly--notably the briefing scenes that take place on the Skyranger before/after missions.  I was thrilled to be able to continue playing but others were not and claimed that the performance tweaks didn't go far enough.

Back to alien slaying.

I have been fairly lucky in that I have had few issues with games that I have pre-ordered.  I was upset that I couldn't play for awhile, but I am glad that Firaxis/2K was very responsive to complaints.  My support tickets were answered very promptly (which shocked me) and they gave me great advice about other things I could fix that might be causing problems.  Where ever you are Sean C. from 2K support, you have my thanks!

I'm not sure how to feel about this whole fiasco.  It was disappointing that the game had so many issues even after it was delayed.  Why are so many games released with issues that could possibly make them unplayable?  It has become so commonplace that games are released with these problems that we should just expect them (or we could rebel!  But I don't really see people--including myself--stopping pre-ordering or not buying any more games).  Maybe I will learn from this experience...but probably not.  Maybe the industry will change...probably not.

I know one thing...I will definitely be killing more aliens in XCOM 2.

Addendum 2/19/16:  I played quite awhile longer last night and had some issues with crashing.  The crashes would occur while loading in the middle of missions.  I haven't had another mission where I have encountered chrysalids.  My poor squad is struggling as I have had some soldiers who have gotten wounded and had long recovery times.  I am currently experiencing an acute shortage of rangers as my short-range warriors keep getting mauled.

XCOM 2: Lessons Learned

Chrysalids....now they kill your saves too!

Edit:  I started writing this post feeling really great about XCOM 2.  Last night that all changed when I encountered a huge bug that has ruined my first playthrough.  Sort of spoilers!  But important because it's related to the bug that is currently rendering my XCOM 2 unplayable.  I started a retaliation mission and things were actually going very well.  I had easily rescued 5 of the 6 civilians and had eliminated almost all of the aliens.  Then, I accidentally clicked on the wrong tile and sent one of my soldiers to a really bad location.  I decided to load up one of my previous saves only to have the game crash.  I tried it a few more times finding that every time I tried to load ANY game within that mission that the game would crash and I would get the Steam error 41 message.  I was very frustrated and took to the forums to see if anyone else was having this problem.  Lo and behold, there were several posts with many people describing a similar situation--they had played with almost no problems and then, suddenly, their saves wouldn't load.  The weird thing is that the problems seem to be linked to the appearance of chrysalids or the pods that they hatch from.  It is possible to play through the mission as long as you don't make any saves--no autosaves, no quicksaves, and even no manual saves--they will all become corrupted.  The downside is that any future missions that feature chrysalids and/or their pods will continue to corrupt your save files.  I could keep pressing on, but reading about people who got all the way to the last mission only to have their saves become corrupted...I think waiting for a patch would be the wise thing to do.  So, for now, my XCOM 2 experience is on hold.  22 hours played and now I'm on pause and slightly frustrated (not the kind of powerful nerdrage that I'm seeing from a lot of people--in the end it's just a game and it sounds like 2k/Firaxis is working on a patch)

The below was written pre-save corruption.  I do think that XCOM 2 is great fun, but am frustrated by the bugs.

I've been ravenously devouring XCOM 2 since it's release on February 5th and so far it has been a very enjoyable (if familiar) experience.  New classes, new aliens, new customizations...but with the same general tactical focus and random 85% shot misses as XCOM.  Ahhh, the comfortable feeling of swearing as one of my shotgunners misses a shot from 1 tile away.

I've learned some important lessons in my early XCOM 2 adventures.  The first lesson has nothing to do with the game itself, but more with my inability to resist pre-ordering.  I resisted almost till release this time!  I swear!  I made it a point to pre-load so that I could start playing almost immediately after I got home from work on Friday.  As I sat in front of my computer and eagerly mashed the "PLAY" button...and nothing happened.  The download said 100% but when I flipped to the download screen no data was being transmitted.  Ummm, it's broken!  I panicked and took to the forums to see if others were having similar problems--after some searching I stumbled across a post that stated that re-installing was probably the best option.  I promptly hit un-install (thinking that the download probably wouldn't take that long) and proceeded to re-download....only to realize that it would actually take four or more hours.  I continued reading the forum post only to discover that my game was "un-packing" and that if I had been patient that process should have only taken 30-45 minutes (although some people reported that this wasn't working either).  I didn't get to play quite as soon as I had anticipated but did manage to finally get it installed (I really feel like pre-loading never works--I should learn my lesson).  ...and now it's totally bugged.

Finally playing was very exciting.  I forgot how much I missed the challenge of XCOM.  After diving into the opening missions I learned about some of the changes to XCOM 2.

Lesson #1--Injuries hurt.  In XCOM I was willing to let some of my soldiers soak up some damage because I knew that they wouldn't be out of action for too long.  I even went so far as to outfit my heavies with extra armor so they could play a sort of tanking role.  This strategy is not particularly viable in XCOM 2.  After the first mission several of my soldiers had taken enemy fire.  I didn't think much of it until I scrolled to the soldier list and saw that they would be out of action for almost 30 days.  Now my most experienced soldiers were recovering on the Avenger rather than leading the next few missions.  My list of injured soldiers quickly became quite large...which brings me to my second lesson.

Lesson #2--Recruit!  Eventually over half my roster was injured and I was faced with the reality that I had barely enough soldiers to field a full squad.  In XCOM I had a very reliable A-team who were my best soldiers.  They went out on almost every mission...kicking ass and taking names and if one of them went down the only replacements I had were rookies.  XCOM 2 require players to have a much more robust roster and, at least in the early missions, taking a rookie along doesn't feel like taking along someone who is completely useless.  My current XCOM 2 roster features at least 2 backups for each possible role--this is a good idea in case your squad takes a lot of damage.  I also find myself trying to avoid damage altogether and frequently re-load one turn several times (save scumming ftw--maybe someday I'll grow up to the challenge of Ironman).

Lesson #3--Pistol skills for snipers aren't totally useless.  In XCOM 2 snipers are equipped with a cool revolver that is a huge improvement over the pea-shooter pistols in XCOM.  One other thing I've noticed about snipers is that they don't seem as dominant as they were in XCOM.  My double-tap snipers were killing machines!  Now, snipers don't seem as overpowered and I've enjoyed the lightning hands ability that allows them to take two shots with their pistol (at targets in short range).  These two shots can be useful for finishing off injured foes who with just a few bars of health left and conserving sniper shots for more distant enemies.

XCOM 2 has the promise of being a great game but not until it is optimized and patched to fix current bugs.  If you're reading this without having purchased the game...hold off!  Wait for a sale, wait for a patch, but don't run out and buy it until it's fixed.  

XCOM 2 and Breaking my New Years Resolution

One more day until alien mayhem!

The only reason to make resolutions for the New Year is to see how long it takes before you finally break them.  I'm proud to report that it took one month and one day before I officially broke my resolution.  After reading some very favorable reviews for XCOM 2, I decided that pre-ordering (with just 3 days left until release!) would be fine.  My lack of willpower is discouraging.  But, on a positive note, I can now look longingly at XCOM 2 in my Steam library and anticipate zapping some aliens in just a few days time.

What am I most excited about?  New aliens?  New weapons?  New maps?  New strategies?  Those....kind of.  I'm actually more excited about the ability to personalize my squad of ultimate badasses (that's an Aliens reference...in case you missed that....yeah).  Sometimes it's silly little parts of a game that can be exciting.  Making up fictional biographies for my future soldiers and designing them in that role is ridiculously exciting to me.

One of the things I liked best about the XCOM re-boot was that it centered on an organization that truly reflected a worldwide effort to fend off the alien threat.  It wasn't just an effort of western countries, it was truly everyone.  My squad had soldiers from all over the world--a sniper from Germany, a heavy machine-gunner from Nigeria, a Canadian medic, a Mexican shotgunner, and a Japanese mech-warrior who specialized in punching aliens in the face.  Adding in language support for the various nationalities in the game made it feel very authentic.  I liked that my German sniper responded to commands in actual German.  I'm banking on XCOM 2 continuing this theme of a united worldwide effort.

Coming up with biography stories is more challenging than I thought it would be.  I want to make up stories that are believable, but not rote.  (I fully realize that I am likely wasting my time as both of the reviews that I have read mentioned that losing soldiers is much more common than in the first game).  It's the feeling of investment in your soldiers that makes you want to re-play a mission in order to try to save everyone.  Losing those rookies isn't a big deal but when one of your longtime vets goes down....nope.

I have some ideas for my characters--an American who participated in the militia takeover of wildlife refuge (yep, reflecting current events in Oregon) and then joined the effort to resist the aliens, an ex-Mexican gangster who decided to use his street skills to cap aliens, a Chinese doctor who left a busy medical practice to become a medic, an African national (I'm not sure what African countries will be included in XCOM 2) who fought for a warlord and has sketchy motivations...there are so many possibilities.

Pre-loading became available last night and I made sure to fully load the game so I can rush home and start creating my new XCOM squad.  My lack of willpower in pre-ordering also meant that I can recruit one survivor from the original XCOM and that I get a few cosmetic items to deck out my soldiers.  I'm so excited for XCOM 2!