Why is Xcom 2 So Hard on Easy

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• #1

I'm thinking of picking it up on console but keep hearing its damn hard, even on easy mode. I'm not usually one for playing hard games as I tend to give up easily, lol.

I've got the itch for some turn based strategy, so what's the consensus?

• #2

Was tempted to start the first one on PS3 the other day but ended up going with something else. Any thoughts on that anybody?

• #3

It's hard if you want it to be hard, it's far less challenging on the easier difficulty setting. There are also a ton of mods on Steam that make the game easier if you want.

• #4

Very doable on easy. For higher difficulties, you have to know how the game wants you to play.
That's actually part of the fun. Start on easy and figure out the basics. Then move up to the next difficulty and learn some more advanced tactics.
Then move up to the third difficulty and play again.

• #5

I'm curious about it, too. How's the console port? I remember hearing the game launched pretty rough on PC.

• #6

Turn off dlc.

FOR GODS SAKE TURN OFF THE DLC!

• #7

expect very long loading times and annoying hitches on PS4. I skipped war of the chosen because of that, despite xcom2 being my favorite tactics game ever.

• #8

Yes and no. It's a challenging game but it auto saves so often that any mistake you make can be erased by loading one of several minute old saves.

I'm curious about it, too. How's the console port? I remember hearing the game launched pretty rough on PC.

They work but there is a lot of hitching and slowdown at strange times like the mission loading screen. Still worth it though. I assume PS4 has these problems as well(played on XB1).

Last edited: Jan 13, 2018

• #9

Yes and no. It's a challenging game but it auto saves so often that any mistake you make can be erased by loading one of several minute old saves.

Well, that kind of takes the fun out of the game. I'd rather go for Easy Ironman than a higher difficulty without Ironman.

• #10

Tech issues aside, it's a wonderful game. I adore XCOM 2, but not blind to its problems. Game is just so damn good it barely matters.

XCOM 2 is a decent challenge on Easy for newcomers. You can learn on the fly and get away with more. Plus, reloaded saves can give you a second shot at doing things right.

Failure in XCOM is part of the appeal though, because you're up against a futile situation constantly.

Once it's done on easy, cranking it up a level each time you succeed is one of the most satisfying challenges I've encountered in video games.

• #11

Its easier to make costly mistakes early on in your campaign than in the first game. Choosing the wrong upgrade and stuff like that can be fatal to your success. This made me have to restart the game a few times when i first started playing it. That said, I think overall its superior to the first game in most ways.

I love it and I have replayed it several times. The expansion is also really good, but its probably best saved for a second playthrough.

I played it on PC.

• #12

Well, that kind of takes the fun out of the game. I'd rather go for Easy Ironman than a higher difficulty without Ironman.

I have a strange need to never lose a squadmate. It eats at me. Playing on way probably is a good path for me.

• #13

That's what the difficulty levels are for.

Easy is basically impossible to fail unless you're deliberately sabotaging yourself.
Normal is still piss easy so long as you have have a basic understanding of how the game works.
Classic is pretty hard. You have to know what you're doing and you'll still occasionally get screwed by the RNG.
Impossible, is... well, not impossible but virtually requires you to know how to cheese the game.

• #14

Not terribly, but hey, just switch the difficulty. Easy isn't bad.

• #15

It's a very poorly balanced game: the story is that at the eleventh hour, they decided that it was too easy, but they didn't have enough time to re-balance the right way; so for the back third of the game, it throws a positively absurd number of enemies at the player, to the point where every time the screen scrolls you get these "you have got to be kidding me" kinds of situations. You can't possibly kill everything, but the mandatory timers mean you can't bull rush things either.

You can find interviews online where the developers explain the hell that was the final couple weeks of development.

The other aspect of the last-second changes they made were to drastically decrease the applied hit percentages (so, not the guesstimate it shows you on the screen, but how they are seeded into the level as it initially loads). So you routinely get these inadvertently hilarious, "75% chance to hit", player model gun geometry is literally intersecting with the enemy's head, point-blank misses.

There are tons of mods via the Steam Workshop that restore the hit percentage seeding to a more reasonable level, and also to disable the mission timers. But I don't know if mods are available with the console version.

It was a real shame for me too, because I loved absolutely everything else about XCOM 2: the base building was great, the graphics engine looked really sharp, and the stage layouts were always varied and interesting. But I eventually just set it aside without finishing it, and moved on to other games.

If you can get it on sale, I'd almost recommend buying it anyway despite the balancing; maybe you're more skilled than I am, or maybe the game has better balancing now than it did way back when I played it, or maybe you'd get your money's worth in the first half of the campaign anyway.

• #16

Well, that kind of takes the fun out of the game. I'd rather go for Easy Ironman than a higher difficulty without Ironman.

Ironman is fun and all, but the game is too janky for it. It will lead to occasionally getting screwed through no fault of your own, and I don't mean the RNG.

For example, the interface will sometimes outright lie to you. "Oh yes, you totally have line of sight on that enemy from that position. Go for it." *click* "Haha, fuck you! You actually don't!"

Or how the mouse pointer gets really twitchy when dealing with multiple floors. In a game where a single misclick can easily screw up a mission. "Ohh, you wanted to put your gunner in the high cover overwatch location? Nah, fuck you, he's going to jump off the roof straight into the arms of that berserker."

Then there's shit like how unpredictable the grenade arcs and AoEs are.

• #17

also interested in starting this. loved the first one, but heard the second doesn't have controller support. has this been added on PC?

• #18

also interested in starting this. loved the first one, but heard the second doesn't have controller support. has this been added on PC?

Yep. And the pc offers load times that are a fraction of what they are on consoles.

• #19

I played a good 20 hours at launch and didn't have an issue and I had to restart 1 a few times. I need to go back and finish it.

How is the big expansion?

• #20

play on easy, but play on ironman

save scumming is fun at first, but it ruins the spirit of the game

• #21

It is very hard imo. I still love it but there are times when it feels nigh on impossible to win.

• #22

I only played it on PC at launch and found it very difficult. I did start on normal Ironman and got pretty far before losing, switched to normal and finish and still had to save scum a couple of fights, particularly the last mission.

• #23

War for the Chosen has some modifiers to make it easier, stuff like doubling the number of turns you can take per match and doubling the time it takes to make Avatar project.

Plus stuff that makes it trickier as well like making grenade damage fall of the further away they are from the centre and making Dark Events Permanent. Have fun.

• #24

Depends on how familiar you get with the system. Once you know what to do, even beating Impossible reliably is feasible barring series of stupid RNG rolls.

• #25

Yep. And the pc offers load times that are a fraction of what they are on consoles.

Maybe neither of these points apply to you, but I'll mention them anyway: the game has a native Linux version, and it runs in native 4K (as does the Windows version of course).

I also found the controller support to be fabulous. I'm assuming that they just lifted that code from the console ports, because it had Xbox prompts if I remember correctly.

• #26

It's pretty flexible in how hard you want to make it. But there are some nasty tricks that the game does pull. It's worth putting in the time.

• #27

It's really good. Highly recommend getting the War of the Chosen expansion for it; adds quite a lot and fixes a number of issues as well.

I play on Hard // Ironman mode, so any mistake can fuck my game up pretty bad and there's no going back but I enjoy the challenge and come back to it when i'm sick of other games.

• #28

It's too difficult for me, and I was a fanatic of the first game, beating that one on hard mode with iron man on.

I can't even get past the second mission, even if I change the difficulty.

• #29

Turn off dlc.

FOR GODS SAKE TURN OFF THE DLC!

100% this.

• #30

If it's your first xcom I'd suggest starting on easy then once you get the hang of it just restarting on normal. There's some stuff with concealment and the strategic layer that could be confusing at first and you'll make some mistakes but once you get it you'll want to do it right.

• #31

It's easy but extremely inflexible without mods. It straight up disallows certain playstyles in many missions.

You'll be fine for sure, but XCOM EU is more open in design.

• #32

Last edited: Apr 24, 2019

• #33

XCOM 2 was my GOTY the year it came out, and War of the Chosen would also be GOTY if it weren't for Nier: Automata, so you'd be correct in calling me an XCOM aficionado.

I think the way people can make it more difficult than it has to be, is if they are too brash in the placement of their soldiers; perhaps they sprint too often into unknown areas and risk going somewhere with no good cover. Another thing is making use of all your characters' abilities, so that you can get those extra attacks or string together pragmatic attack combos. This also relies on knowing you can switch between you soldiers at any time, even between using one action and using another with the same soldier. I find it very useful to think of each turn as a combat puzzle -- your squad can optimize the amount of damage it can output and spread it so that there's just enough over here to kill off one more enemy that might attack next turn, but still do maximal damage to that enemy powerhouse over there, etc. -- you just have to weigh the risks involved and mitigate if things aren't going your way.

I do recommend War of the Chosen in any case, since it really is halfway to XCOM 3 with the features they add. It does add some difficult enemies, but it also gives XCOM awesome new abilities, and plus, all of the additions seem to be calibrated to making the most cool encounters you can think of.

• #34

XCOM 2 was my GOTY the year it came out, and War of the Chosen would also be GOTY if it weren't for Nier: Automata, so you'd be correct in calling me an XCOM aficionado.

I think the way people can make it more difficult than it has to be, is if they are too brash in the placement of their soldiers; perhaps they sprint too often into unknown areas and risk going somewhere with no good cover. Another thing is making use of all your characters' abilities, so that you can get those extra attacks or string together pragmatic attack combos. This also relies on knowing you can switch between you soldiers at any time, even between using one action and using another with the same soldier. I find it very useful to think of each turn as a combat puzzle -- your squad can optimize the amount of damage it can output and spread it so that there's just enough over here to kill off one more enemy that might attack next turn, but still do maximal damage to that enemy powerhouse over there, etc. -- you just have to weigh the risks involved and mitigate if things aren't going your way.

I do recommend War of the Chosen in any case, since it really is halfway to XCOM 3 with the features they add. It does add some difficult enemies, but it also gives XCOM awesome new abilities, and plus, all of the additions seem to be calibrated to making the most cool encounters you can think of.

This is great advice, War of the Chosen is high up on my GOTY list it's an incredible game that really pushes the genre forward in some interesting ways

• #35

I always play on Ironman(perma-death mode) because I'm stubborn and dumb, so it's almost always a nightmare for me. It's a really rewarding game when things go well though. If you're playing it for the first time, there's no shame at all in picking the easiest difficulty to ease yourself into things. Your first campaign will be challenging to begin with, but will get easier as you get more advance tech to play around with. It's a really fun game when you're doing well, like I said earlier.

• #36

On Rookie difficulty as long as you take your time with all the base management and learn how it all works, you'll do fine. Unfortunately the game runs like shit on console, so be prepared for terrible frame rates and bad loading times, even suffering through all that I still loved playing it.

• #37

It's a very poorly balanced game: the story is that at the eleventh hour, they decided that it was too easy, but they didn't have enough time to re-balance the right way; so for the back third of the game, it throws a positively absurd number of enemies at the player, to the point where every time the screen scrolls you get these "you have got to be kidding me" kinds of situations. You can't possibly kill everything, but the mandatory timers mean you can't bull rush things either.

You can find interviews online where the developers explain the hell that was the final couple weeks of development.

The other aspect of the last-second changes they made were to drastically decrease the applied hit percentages (so, not the guesstimate it shows you on the screen, but how they are seeded into the level as it initially loads). So you routinely get these inadvertently hilarious, "75% chance to hit", player model gun geometry is literally intersecting with the enemy's head, point-blank misses.

There are tons of mods via the Steam Workshop that restore the hit percentage seeding to a more reasonable level, and also to disable the mission timers. But I don't know if mods are available with the console version.

Thanks for the breakdown. I didn't realize that console players were so screwed.

• #38

Guys I have Xcom with Enemy Unknow but never really played it, I think I got it for free or something. Is it worth it playing that one or jumping into Xcom 2 right away?

• #39

It's challenging. I played the Vanilla version on PC when it released and as a veteran player of this style of game I didn't find it unbeatable on hard, but I can see how the mechanics and general gameplay might make someone give up if playing on normal and not up for the challenge.

I didn't mod anything on the PC version and still had a great experience.

• #40

Even on easy I'd say it's difficult, but still very enjoyable.

I didn't finish either of the new XCOMs but love the shit out of them. I always enjoy the narrative that unfolds as I fail to manage things properly and slowly lose my best troops and the aliens end up winning.

Now I want to go play XCOM.

• #41

Get the War of the Chosen expansion it exceeds on what Xcom 2 was and made it Xcom 3.

• #42

I always have to say I find these kind of threads difficult (NO PUN INTENDED) to answer. Difficulty is such a subjective thing. For example, when I first played Dark Souls I thought it was the hardest genre of current game. Now after playing the entire trilogy, Bloodborne, Nioh, etc, I find them enjoyably and challenging but not at all as insanely hard as some people make it out to be.

• #43

Difficulty should not dissuade you from buying XCOM2. As others have said, you can jump in on the lower difficulty settings and get your bearings. Easy is quite easy. No need to start with Classic Ironman (let alone Impossible).

To the extent you are worried about timed missions: don't. I was worried about them before the game's release, but I found they sharpened the tactical situation and were not a source of stress. The time limits are usually quite generous.

• #44

On the easiest difficulty, it's not hard at all.

That's why I love games with different difficulty settings. The Souls series should think about that.

• #45

It felt incredibly unfair on harder difficulties. They gave low level opponents ways to render all of your squad uncontrollable very quickly if you get unlucky. You get these death spirals early where someone gets mind controlled, someone gets feared, and another person gets disoriented. Your only controllable person dies. And to add insult to injury, you only had 10 turns to reach a certain point.

One of the few games I've uninstalled without any regret.

• #46

I'm thinking of picking it up on console but keep hearing its damn hard, even on easy mode. I'm not usually one for playing hard games as I tend to give up easily, lol.

I've got the itch for some turn based strategy, so what's the consensus?

Yes.

• #47

Generally it depends on how willing you are to be save scummy.

If you dont mind reloading whenever disaster strikes (and it doesnt strike very often, especially on lower difficulties with some settings fine tuned) you will be fine.

• #48

If you get it just remember to not get mad at missing those 99% percent shots. There's a 1% chance to miss after all.

• #49

It will in certain cases kick your ass but the beauty is to try to power through some of these troop losses in order to create your own unique story

• #50

It's rather difficult in the beginning and having any shot that is 75 percent or better missing is incredibly frustrating. Make sure to save scum your way to victory a lot. It gets progressively easier once psi abilities come into play.

Missing at 90+ percent may lead to a new keyboard.

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Source: https://www.resetera.com/threads/is-xcom-2-difficult.16281/