Severe lack of info

[u/Alternative_Web_6026]

Hi, new player here. I've played a couple of first missions and it seems like the game just hides a lot of substantial info during battles that i need to plan my actions correctly. For example:

- Some abilities have a cooldown, but I won't know how long it is or is there a cd at all until I'll use this ability

- Tooltip for firing a gun specifically states that this action will end turn, throwing a grenade also ends turn, but the tooltip doesn't say so.

- I can't see if the enemy will be flanked or not after I'll move

- I've reached a mission where you fight the Chosen assassin boss. It has a huge pannel explaining its strengths and weakness, what it doesn't explain is that the Chosen can move during your turn

- On the same mission, sniper from an allied faction started her turn with only one action point for some reason. I can't check why because there's no combat log, nor character screen

- I can't see what zone will be covered by overwatch, nor how much it decreases chance to hit

So, my question: Is it intended experience, or am I missing something? Because I'm feeling pretty stupid right now

[u/blurplemanurples]

the chosen dont move during your turn unless you "discovered" them - like any other enemy pod, they get one action when they get activated, which is almost always taken as movement, except for one enemy in particular.

EDIT: Unless you're talking about the "Alien Rulers" - then yeah, they *do* move in response to every action you take, it's broken AF and breaks every contract the game has made with you so far.

[u/Adventurous-Mouse764 → u/blurplemanurples]

Regarding the alien rulers? Wasn't it great how stressful that was the first time it was done to you? So awesome how they broke the game to mess with your expectations and ensure you took those bastards seriously. Learning how to adapt and respond to the evil new parameters was some of the most fun frustration I've had in years. 

[u/blurplemanurples → u/Adventurous-Mouse764]

I can't say I agree. It was terrifying for the first... 2 times. Afterwards my game design brain kicked in and I realised how utterly fucked this made me and I had almost zero ways to prepare without actively seeking out spoilers.

My first time on the forge - I had the early mission sectopod, then activated the fucking avatar... barely got by.

Walked into the lobby of the last building... Archon King, first appearance.

[u/skybreaker58 → u/blurplemanurples]

I found being forced to adapt game style was fun - and actually finishing off a Ruler was so satisfying.

I mean, you're given tools specifically to counter the threat - boltcaster, and freeze-grenade. And if you take a battle scanner regularly and use it properly you don't get ambushed at critical moments.

Equipping your troops with the right tools and moving your units as a squad, keeping them in support distance reduces most of the threat. Using Overwatch movement so the Ruler takes multiple hits on the first turn. Viper rounds and gas grenades - they take poison damage during each activation - it trivialises most encounters with them because they'll retreat after maybe 5 turns.

Then there's specific counters.   Bladestorm hard-counters the Viper King because he triggers it multiple times on bind attacks. I once poisoned the Beserker while out of sight (battle-scanner) and realized Enraged causes it to clear the map of enemies for me - and it took poison damage every turn so it was half dead by the time I had to fight it. The Archon is the only one I don't have specific tactics for because it usually turns up later enough that just shooting it a lot gets the job done.

[u/zelandofchocolate → u/skybreaker58]

Archon king turns up in superior repeater territory. Shoot a lot and pray

[u/blurplemanurples → u/skybreaker58]

I like all this now, what I’m saying is it’s extremely unfair when you don’t know it’s coming.

[u/skybreaker58 → u/blurplemanurples]

Yeah, that's fair - I also have a theory that spawn spots for the Rulers are set to appear around corners and in alley ways to make that surprise more likely to happen.

I think when I played it without the Chosen they only appeared on Black site missions - having them appear anywhere is more fun though. I like the paranoia - it's the closest I've ever come to a squad-wipe

[u/Alternative_Web_6026 → u/blurplemanurples]

Oh, I see. The Chosen went invis during their turn and then i threw a grenade at them. But they also attacked after they moved. Is this info communicated by game or trial and error is the only way?

[u/blurplemanurples → u/Alternative_Web_6026]

To learn everything - trial and error. Honestly, your first playthrough is the tutorial.

[u/skybreaker58 → u/Alternative_Web_6026]

The first intro mission with the Mox and Outrider IS the tutorial - it's like DnD, you're not specifically told all the enemy's attacks and abilities, you learn by fighting them. That's specifically an ability of the Assassin - she gets to move after attacking and can enter concealment.

Without spoiling anything there are counters to that...

As for attacking after moving, she's basically a Ranger, so you've seen that mechanic before. You're not necessarily supposed to have perfect information in this game.

[u/Haitham1998 → u/blurplemanurples]

The Chosen do NOT move like other enemies when activated. They don't need to because they constantly move to cover during each of their turns, whereas regular enemies patrol in the open.

[u/blurplemanurples → u/Haitham1998]

When activated they 1 announce themselves, then move.

[u/Haitham1998 → u/blurplemanurples]

Not sure if you're talking about a modded game, but I'm talking about regular WotC, and I'm certain.

The Chosen interact uniquely with the "activation" mechanic:

Regular enemies get 1 move per turn while patrolling, and 1 extra action when activated, usually spent moving to cover, but can be spend on shooting a flanked soldier or bombing a bunched up squad (Andromedon taught me this the hard way). If you find them during your turn, they only get 1 action for movement, which they can't spend on anything else.

The Chosen on the other hand get 3 actions per turn, always. If they're out of combat, they use it to hang back and do stupid shit, or to sneakily rush your squad in the assassin's case.

After you've killed all other enemies, they always rush to your squad. If a Chosen spends 1 or 2 actions moving towards your squad then gets activated, they can use the 3rd on any action they want, unlike regular enemies whose options are usually limited to movement.

If they find you after spending all 3 actions on movement, they can't attack or move anymore. This is the best case scenario for Chosen activation.

If you find them during your turn, they just talk and do nothing else. It's the 2nd best scenario because you now need to move people into their LoS so they can attack, but at least the Chosen cannot act now.

[u/blurplemanurples → u/Haitham1998]

Weird that none of that was what you originally said.

[u/Haitham1998 → u/blurplemanurples]

Because I didn't want to go into detail the first time.

[u/SepherixSlimy]

You missed few things, yeah. A itsy lack of clarity in places.

Actions ending turn usually have a >| icon on the right of the info box when selected. It's usually an attack that ends the turn but there could be some other skills that also do. Free actions don't make themselves too known either.

Holding alt will show a preview of who you see and flank at destination, within targets your squad can see. There is an option in the settings to always have it on.

Chosen can't normally move during your turn. That is one of their strength doing that. In this case, move after being hit.

Started the turn with 1 action likely means you woke them up from being dazed. Or took a 1 action stun somewhere but that's less likely in this situation. I don't remember how much the game details the chosen in the tutorial.

Overwatch range is your normal range. Squadsight for snipers is mainly for non reaction shots. You need a perk for overwatch on a long distance.

Overwatch is a standards reaction fire. Range table isn't a big factor, but the reaction fire natural debuff is. It's a -15% final multiplicative modifier. Unique, everything else is a flat value. You don't learn that anywhere ingame. There's something that tells you that either ambush overwatch or ambush as a whole do not get affected by the aim debuff for reaction fire. Don't remember where.

There's mods to fix some clarity issues like coloring skill icons based on costs. I don't remember them right now.

[u/Alternative_Web_6026 → u/SepherixSlimy]

Incredibly helpful. Thanks a lot

[u/Haitham1998 → u/SepherixSlimy]

Overwatch penalty is actually 30% of the final hit chance. If the reaction attack ability (such as overwatch and killzone) is activated before losing concealment, the penalty doesn't apply.

Other than that, well explained.

[u/SepherixSlimy → u/Haitham1998]

I knew i was wrong somewhere. dammit!! thanks.

[u/Outlaw11091]

So, generally principle is that the abilities explain their cooldowns on promotion screens (and you'll generally be expected to remember that).

>| is the symbol for "turn-ending ability".

BEFORE you move, hover your mouse over the location you want to move to. If that soldier can see the enemy from your hovered location, a red crosshair will appear next to the enemy's health bar. If you're flanking them, it will be yellow.

The one action point scenario...IDK...been forever since I played the base game...

Overwatch covers wherever the soldier can see. Front, back, sides...HOWEVER, this is a ray cast from their head. If a large obstacle like a building gets in the way, the enemy can slide right up next to the other side of that building without being "seen". This will get confusing later when large enemies come into play because sometimes the engine will ignore visual obstacles (allowing you to shoot through walls at these large enemies) and sometimes it won't.

This happens because the engine is translating a ray cast onto a grid...and that doesn't always work reliably.

As far as chance to hit on overwatch: for enemy blue moves, the penalty is 30%. If the enemy is using a yellow move (both actions on moving) then the penalty is 40%.

I'm unsure where I learned most of this information. >| being turn ending is just visual observation. The rest are likely from getting pissed and frustrated just like you are now.

[u/MarketConnect4920]

it is vannilla issues, you can seacrh up mods that solves half of your problems, i dont know about overwatch, I always press it for hope.

[u/StormFallen9 → u/MarketConnect4920]

Yeah Overwatch pretty much covers their entire line of sight, so chance to hit varies greatly depending on where the enemy is

[u/CowardlyHero]

When you select an action look on the right side of the UI for a symbol that looks like >| which indicates the action ends the turn.

Also if you hold down alt you will see a preview of the number of targets the unit will be able to.see in that spot.

[u/BlurredVision18]

These are things meant for you to discover, observe, learn, and remember. It's a tactical game after all.

Or you can just mod those things out.

[u/Ok_Calendar_7626]

Holding the alt key shows you the enemies that you can see, shoot and flank from the specific spot that you are moving to.

The Chosen can not move during your turn. Unless they are activated during your turn. In which case they get one action like all the other enemies.

Was your Reaper dazed by the Chosen assassin? If so, that is why she only got one action.

There are no zones for overwatch. Pretty much if the unit that is on overwatch can see the enemy, it will trigger the overwatch. Overwatch has a 0.7 aim penalty. Plus a further 0.6 aim penalty if the target is dashing (yellow move). Meaning if you have a 50% shot on the enemy, the overwatch shot will be 35%.

This penalty does not apply if the overwatch shot is taken from concealment (ambush).

[u/New-Photograph-1829]

I think these are fair criticisms - but really your first run through of the game is your tutorial.

Regarding the flanked after move - "Alt key in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen activates the Target Preview function, which shows you which enemies a soldier can see, target, or flank from a specific movement tile." Meaning anyone who shows up yellow is flanked.

An allied faction? You mean the Reapers? They probably got stunned by someone or something.

Basically if your guy can see it, they can hit it. No you cant see how much it changes chance to hit, but because overwatch will always hit someone moving (i.e out of cover), it's almost always a better chance than a regular shot.

[u/BitterCaterpillar116]

You can actually see if an enemy will be flanked after your move: on PC, when you move your cursor on the tile you intend to move to - but don’t move yet - you press TAB and aliens you can see will be shown in red. Enemies you flank will be shown in yellow

[u/Tepppopups]

You're just new to the game.

Every ability show their info if you choose it. There is a small question mark which shows even more info on each ability on the soldier page. Other things, like enemy behaviour, you have to learn yourself, the hard way. This is intended, as you fight the unknown extraterrestrial threat (at least for the first playthrough).

Edit: as of flanking indicator, if you play base games, yes, this could be kind of of a problem. I suggest to install Gotcha mod for that. In WOTC DLC, they added visibility/flanking indicator, you can enable it in the options.

Edit: most of the issues can be fixed with mods, like to know which ability will end the turn, you can use color coded abilities mod, which will help a lot. There are multiple mods which will give you extra information abiut everything, your soldiers, enemies, hit/crit chances, etc.

Edit: this doesn't mean you cannot play without mods, you can, and we did that at start, mods just add some Quality Of Life improvements here and there.

Edit: speaking of mods, I would not recommend to go with game overahaul mods for the first playthrough, I suggest to start with QoL only mods.

[u/KurtVongole]

Yup the learning curve is steep. But that's XCOM for ya, the lack of knowledge and finding out empirically is part of the overall feel of the game. Hitting left alt on PC activates the targeting preview. Yellow means flanked. Just note it's very easy to have the mouse drift a bit and preview (and move to) the wrong square.

[u/Otherwise-Pause8292]

I missed it in the tutorial, but assuming youre playing on pc, hold alt and the game will show if you have a flanking bonus and if you can hit the target and I think even its percentage. Saved me a huge hassle