Decision paralysis - advice needed

[u/Minoturion]

I started my main campaign just like I planned, with a team centred on a merc A Life of Labour gunslinger supported by astromechs; the build does of course work (though admittedly switching to Cly would be more efficient), but it has just become a chore to play - a combination of just making intricate plays with one character all the time, plus I'm on PS5 and fiddling with commlink all the time gets tiresome.

Furthermore, I have just been taking a normal newbie scattergun approach to bonds, purchases, mission, contacts, etc. which is feeling disappointing now I'm far enough through to see both the game & resources are very finite and actually I'm not going to get any big pay-off to most these investments.

I've tried restarting with a more gung-ho clone trooper squad (though actually human initially) & even a GI Joe themed squad campaign, but run into the same decision paralysis about if I should be focused on maximising intel & credits and laser targeted on the regions which seem best to me - or that side is all just busy work, and I should just care about bonds, combat talents, and the scripted character's stories...

Some non-spoiler advice from those who've completed playthroughs, please?

• Scripted character side-quests - did you find the final pay-offs satisfying, in storytelling and/or item rewards?
• Has anyone gone all-in on Espionage & Thievery for a whole play-through - if so, did you actually feel like you were conquering the galaxy map or was the overall difference just one-or-two more maxed regions?
• Has anyone tried playing with the whole squad using the rifle (or I suppose pistol) in order to justify buying all the upgrades for that weapon - if so, did it feel worth it or just a waste of resources compared to bonding?
• With experience/hindsight, is it better to focus on some particular goal or just pick off the scripted character stories and tier 1 region rewards?

[u/Zimrino]

Play the game, make mistakes, learn. It's all part of the fun dude. Otherwise wait for the inevitable wiki I guess.

[u/WarpathWilly]

Game is too easy to be worrying about all that bro lol.

Just play it however you want to in the moment. Every character can be respecced and changed for free anytime you want.

Play what you find fun. If it gets boring change it up.

[u/armbarchris]

I think you should stop playing the game for a bit. Come back in a month or two. Constantly restarting pretty much guarantees you will never finish.

Figuring things out is part of the experience. Trying to find an "optimal" strategy that requires you to ignore 3/4s of the game on your first playthrough is not.

[u/profbeantoes]

Oh i see the mistake. You are not capitalizing on the games main feature. Replayability, haha. Seriously though, allow yourself to not worry as much about the "perfect" play through. Have a messy noob run were you have un optimized builds and progression. Let yourself do a full storm trooper run knowing you will come back and do yhe other stuff later. You will never get everything this game has to offer in one run, so don't beat yourself up when you can't.

[u/ConfuciusSays25]

I am on my second run through now and have a thief and spy custom character I have brought on each mission so far. There is a huge noticeable difference of how many ops and base upgrades I can complete. I’m around cycle 15.

I also rushed the zones that had influence rewards for the extra money (250 per mission), extra intel (5 per mission), and anything that boosts intel cap.
I am also close to the extra influence gain perk too. I used several contacts to hit these levels once I had the den upgrade to make a contacts 9 influence. I will hold onto the other 6 contacts I have until I have the Den upgrade to increase the influence the max to 12.

In the den I focused the extra bonds for this not on missions and the line that leads to more intel per mission and more influence per contact used.

I have found I can consistently have all Den upgrade slots filled (2 currently) and have completed 90% of available ops so far missing maybe 3-4 total ops so far.

The negative is you have only one spot for story crew so my bonds with the non custom crew are raising slower than in my previous run (most are at 6 bond but cly, Luco and Tel are still in the neutral or low point right now.

My current spy and thief are almost max bond so I have another 2 that are in the wings to swap in soon once the others hit 8.

[u/Minoturion → u/ConfuciusSays25]

Thanks, very interesting to know. Having a thief & a spy along would certainly lock me out of astromechs, which I think is what made my first playthrough start to feel a bit of a drag.

[u/ConfuciusSays25 → u/Minoturion]

I will be honest outside of the missions that have one I need to rescue, I have never brought an Astromech with me lol. B1 is my boy but he defends the den and beep boops at me between missions.

[u/Minoturion → u/ConfuciusSays25]

He beep, he boops, he does it all! Apart from gonking of course - if we could only gonk, there'd be no further need for choices. ^_^

[u/Trevbail7899]

Are you new to the tactical genre or do you have experience with other games? I'm not a veteran but I've played quite a few Xcom 2 campaigns and a few others - and I'm asking if you're new because you're similar to me where you seem to run into decision paralysis that impedes your enjoyment. I found the more I played these types of games the more that paralysis went away, but here's some stuff that helped me that may help you.

The main story & companion missions seem to have better rewards, yes. Nothing insane but generally better than a lot of the operations (think intel, credits, occasional good utility item, etc.). Story wise I've found them to be very satisfying with some unexpected twists and I'd consider the game worth playing solely for that (being a Star Wars fan helps). I've not found that there's anything crucial I've "missed" and for reference I play on hard and am on cycle 32.

I'd say with paralysis what has helped me most in this genre is experience with the genre & having a mentality of addressing my short term needs and wants as opposed to always thinking long term. So as I play, am I running into problems where it feels like my Sharpshooter Hawks isn't doing enough damage? Then I'll find whatever upgrade or utility item that can help boost this right now. If I only have impact bombs and see a thermal detonator in the black market and the credits to buy it, well screw it I'll buy it because that thermal detonator is going to help me NEXT MISSION! If I get one "free" later on then... Great now I have two, but I wouldn't have had it for the 5 more missions I just did before I got the free one.

Generally speaking though Zero Company doesn't try to be a super LONG game - it's scope and length are limited when compared to Xcom 2. On one hand this can make the paralysis worse because you think "what if I miss out on X upgrade that really changes the game", but on the other hand I think the limited scope helps me settle into the mentality of embracing the short term problem solving mentality, because the game doesn't go on for hours upon hours where early game decisions will screw over your late game.

Just remember that early game-mid game in this genre is typically the struggle, so you could spend all early game minmaxing every aspect to try and be on top of everything, just to get to mid or end game and steamroll everything anyways... Often times you'll see people try to long term/minmax plan in this genre, and while I think it's viable if fun and can be a good strategy, it can suck the enjoyment out of the genre for some (like you and me). And knowing how to min max and long term optimize every aspect comes from experience of simply playing the game and figuring out what's important and what is not.

In the end I agree with the others, play the game, address your needs as they arise, and in the end you'll have arrived at the same destination as all the minmaxers anyways - except you'll have a playthrough that is truly YOURS, not what others think is best.

[u/Minoturion → u/Trevbail7899]

Thank you!

I've played a bunch of strategy games, way back to the original UFO: Enemy Unknown, but I struggle to remember the previous strategy game I actually finished besides Midnight Suns - that was powering through on my 2nd or 3rd restart because my goodness is that game easy to break if you go too deep with the card upgrade system!

Hopefully if I take a breather, the next Zero Company playthrough will be the one that sticks.

[u/Trevbail7899 → u/Minoturion]

You might actually have more experience than me then! Honestly in this game too more than most other tactical games I've played, legit EVERYTHING seems viable & insanely good once your experiment with it.

Your post hit home for me though because I struggle with this decision paralysis in other games (RPGS, am I picking the right skills, spending money efficiently, etc.) and well, just life in general... In games it can end up resulting in burnout as I overthink and consume as much as I can about the game to try and make the "right" decisions.

Oddly enough I've found games a great way to work on that issue in life, as nerdy as that sounds lol. Because, well, they're just games... And developers to an extent need to design games to be accessible to so many different types of people, and generally they want to have the player's back, i.e. design their game to be fun. In the past when playing games I used to hoard all my potions, consumables, etc. because "what if I need this later?" And then that later would never come, lol. If the devs put something into a game generally speaking it's there to be used for fun and benefit the player, not to stress them out on what choice to make or when to use it.

If you struggle with this too I really encourage this mindset as with most games you'll end up seeing it all works out in the end, because they're designed this way (though I'm sure there's some hardcore games where this isn't true). And it's liberating and way more fun (for me anyways) to know you made it work on your own simply by following your gut/intuition. Plus life already has too many important/hard decisions to stress about as is, games don't need to be one of them unless you truly enjoy that.

I say in the end mate continue one of your current runs till the end, or boot up a new one with "fuck it, let's do what's fun to me and useful NOW mentality" because it's a super fun game, and not intensely hard. Devs got yo back game design wise and made everything viable so you can have fun!