I love the obsession with the adjacency bonuses they have, they've spent probably 20-30 minutes over all the videos agonizing over those for the relatively small bonus they give and destroying/rebuilding facilities to get a slightly better layout. Then they forget that reloading ends your turn or that you can't fire the rocket launcher after moving. Classic.
Are the mechtoids only showing up now cause they captured the Outsider? Didn't know that was the trigger but was wondering where they were, I remember fighting them a bit earlier than Mutons or encountering Exalt I'm pretty sure.
I'd have been fine with it if he'd just made a rookie into neo Dan Ryckert, back from the dead but replacing the sniper who had a bunch of kills already is a bit much. Abby and Alex should get to bring back their dudes now that everyone is on a bit more of an even keel with the game but if any of them get killed from now on, that's that IMO.
Of course, in truth we all know that the cowardly Dan Ryckert, as a double bluff, actually put his consciousness into the rookie and just called him a "double" and assumed that nobody would bother to target a rookie. Which obviously means that the Sniper Langzone brain replacement is the actual double. Langzones uh... advanced, unique brain and personality will probably also reject the crude surgery performed by Dan and retake control in the next episode. Or the terror mission will be the end of them all, tune in next week!
Solid two missions there, missing out on meld isn't a huge deal when you just need some successful missions to get some money and guys promoted. Bit too much overwatch creep, I kept expecting the aliens to just blast you when they had multiple open turns to be honest but it worked out so hey. Got the satellites percolating and that'll help, you might be able to straighten out this run after this as long as you don't have another squad wipe.
Abby, I won't bother @ing you because that seems weird but you did pretty great with the decision making in this episode, don't let anyone get you down. You were on track to win that mission like you said but that little mistake on healing (I don't think you were in range to heal Ben but the character was totally in the circle visually so I think that's a mistake anyone could have made) and taking the advice of Vinny to retreat when you couldn't see if the Thin Men were on overwatch or not were what sealed it for you, generally Vinny seems pretty risk averse, there were a lot of times you could have moved up and gotten a good shot but didn't cause he made you second guess yourself.
I think you need to embrace your instincts regarding taking the fight to the aliens, aggressive flanking can really help kill them before they get to take a shot and with rookies it's best to just bring a grenade so they can get easy kills. Just in general overwatch has its place but shots with it are less accurate (and rookies have bad aim, as you've noticed) and aliens won't move generally when they'll get shot at so by overwatching you're encouraging them to stay and take shots, Thin Men are the worst regarding this because at this point in the game every shot they take is deadly and they have the best aim of any enemy for a long time.
Giant Bomb is notorious for not doing their homework before playing something and this series might be the best example of that. I don't expect you to be pros at the games but man, do even a token semblance of research and know what you're doing because otherwise it's just painful to watch.
Don't even have to do research really, just play the game and take notice of outcomes/try to avoid making the same mistakes again and again. Or take notice of UI elements like "oh, this cover icon is deep red as opposed to the usual calm blue. What could that mean?"
Gonna stop you right there. Even if you're not doing overwatch spam, the timers fucking suck in XCOM 2. I'd have no problem if they only existed for missions where there's a reason for a time limit, but that game slaps them on any old thing as a cheap shortcut to increasing the difficulty.
If you have to patch in an option to double the amount of turns you get because the audience reaction was so negative, you made a bad design decision, end of story.
Nah they're fine. Adding a time component to any game makes people lose their minds but the timers were perfectly manageable. The complainers were the loudest about it but the overwhelming reaction to the game was pretty positive. Personally, I agree with you about it being a mistake to put them on every mission type, just for variety sake it would have been good to have a few without. They're hardly a "cheap shortcut" though, it forced you to actually make decisions, engage with the enemies and not just overwatch creep.
Saying that adding options to negate or ameliorate a design decision means it was a bad design decision is just silly though, by that logic adding difficulty options because the game is too hard for some people means making a game hard is a bad design decision. It's there to activate if you really hate the timers but it's not part of the designed experience, just like all the second wave options.
@tehrevel: Doesn't failing this mission stop that new enemy faction from existing, since that guy was the spark that gets the chain reaction going?
Hmm, I don't know to be honest. I've never failed that mission because it's not really hard. Maybe? I would assume the set of three missions just trigger the next one with the final reward being the psychic soldiers. I think Exalt are too big a part of the expansion to be something that doesn't show up based on you winning an early mission or not. The other set of DLC missions will be pretty tough as well, they'll be showing up soon no doubt.
Also like others have said, by failing this you've lost a whole string of missions that make this game 'enemy within' rather than 'enemy unknown'. GOOD JOB DAN.
That's a bit of an exaggeration, the Enemy Within part of the expansion is all the meld research unlocks and the new enemy faction that they probably won't even see because they're going to lose before they get close to it.
Not sure why Vinny was focusing so much on the swapping of the shotgun for the rifle, legit choice in my opinion, the rifle lets you do more at range and that early on you don't have a lot of the crazy skills that make the shotgun truly shine. It's pointless if you aren't going to sprint out and take good flanking shots though I guess.
More silly was bringing the arc thrower when you've just gotten rid of the containment pod (you get to keep the weapon and save some money if you knock guys out but the GB guys are not thinking on that level), Alex probably could have used that second medkit or a grenade for some guaranteed damage.
It wouldn't be as entertaining if they were playing perfectly though, so whatever. Looking forward to seeing Abby try and manage with a bunch of rookies in the next one. Floaters and Thin Men are pretty savage without a few perks. First terror mission should be soon as well.
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