October 29th, 2012, 13:35
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(October 29th, 2012, 07:31)dazedroyalty Wrote: Just to clarify, what do you mean "doorway of doom"? You mean the bottle neck at the end?
Yes. Once the final boss activates and you get the cut scene and narration, that doorway seals and you can no longer move through it. So if you move a soldier through it far enough to activate the final boss (as I did initially, with a sprint support), the rest of your squad is trapped outside and unable to advance. Your forward soldier (or two or three, depending on how you moved) are trapped and get MC-ed, then sent back to kill the rest of your squad.
No other doorway in the entire game works like this, and there is (as far as I could tell) no warning that this would happen. Very, very cheap ploy by Firaxis -- extreme cheese. The rest of the final battle set up is bad enough, but the doorway is just gratuitous garbage.
October 29th, 2012, 13:50
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I never noticed that. I've always been particular about not open doors until my full squad is ready to go thru. That's good to know tho!
October 29th, 2012, 17:15
(This post was last modified: October 29th, 2012, 17:17 by Ug the Barbarian.)
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(October 29th, 2012, 13:35)haphazard1 Wrote: (October 29th, 2012, 07:31)dazedroyalty Wrote: Just to clarify, what do you mean "doorway of doom"? You mean the bottle neck at the end?
Yes. Once the final boss activates and you get the cut scene and narration, that doorway seals and you can no longer move through it. So if you move a soldier through it far enough to activate the final boss (as I did initially, with a sprint support), the rest of your squad is trapped outside and unable to advance. Your forward soldier (or two or three, depending on how you moved) are trapped and get MC-ed, then sent back to kill the rest of your squad.
No other doorway in the entire game works like this, and there is (as far as I could tell) no warning that this would happen. Very, very cheap ploy by Firaxis -- extreme cheese. The rest of the final battle set up is bad enough, but the doorway is just gratuitous garbage.
I'm intrigued by this as I haven't encountered it at all. Finished the game on Classic and then Classic Ironman and both times I've had team members (read sniper/support) outside the final narrow passage and shooting through it. I can't remember if I tried to run anyone through after triggering the encounter though - only shooting through.
After losing two Classic/Ironman saves to corruption crashes (one on Geoscape; one in mission) I figured the best way is to take my own backup - basically take a copy of the profile.bin and specific save file from your My Games/Xcom - Enemy Unknown/XComGame/SaveData directory every day or so. In the event it corrupts, put them back and it sets you back to that point in Ironman. You need to use an honour system here though as that could be used to beat Ironman principle.
October 29th, 2012, 17:22
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Ug, you can definitely shoot through the doorway/archway. But you can no longer move through it once the big boss triggers. At least I could not, and this was consistent through several reloads.
I have not played Ironman, given the many reports of people losing their games due to crashes/hangs/corruption. As you note, it is better to have backups and work on an honor system, and it is easier to not have to mess around with files. Just play without Ironman turned on. If Firaxis eventually gets the stability issues corrected then Ironman could be worth trying, but until then I have no interest in it.
October 29th, 2012, 17:26
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Yeah there are plenty of ways to get around ironman if you want to. Someone's tipped that on the 2K forums and everyone freaked out about cheating. Fortunately the honor system means a little more here at RB!!
October 29th, 2012, 17:35
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(October 29th, 2012, 17:26)dazedroyalty Wrote: Yeah there are plenty of ways to get around ironman if you want to. Someone's tipped that on the 2K forums and everyone freaked out about cheating. Fortunately the honor system means a little more here at RB!!
Indeed - it saved me the frustration of losing a third game to bugs so I only lost 2-3 missions progress. I'd definitely suggest playing Ironman though - its a different experience. I found myself being much more cautious about my moves and losses really hurt (37 soldiers on last playthrough before final mission - including my first three majors)
October 29th, 2012, 17:45
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Yeah if you aren't playing Ironman style at least for your second time through, you're missing out on a lot of the experience of this game IMO.
October 29th, 2012, 20:23
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Ironman style does not require Ironman setting. And given the bugs, it is better to avoid the Ironman setting.
Ug, was that 37 soldiers on the roster? 37 lost? Other? My roster started expanding at the end as I hired rookies (well, squaddies) for mass Psi testing. But for most of my game I tried to keep my roster with full main squad, plus a complete back up squad, plus however many wounded I had in hospital. Plus a SHIV or two later on. That was enough to have a full team ready to go if I had a complete squad wipe (which I managed to avoid, just barely a couple times but avoided). With an occasional reward soldier from missions I rarely needed to hire more than one or two new guys even after a bad mission.
October 30th, 2012, 03:00
(This post was last modified: October 30th, 2012, 03:13 by Ug the Barbarian.)
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(October 29th, 2012, 20:23)haphazard1 Wrote: Ironman style does not require Ironman setting. And given the bugs, it is better to avoid the Ironman setting.
Ug, was that 37 soldiers on the roster? 37 lost? Other? My roster started expanding at the end as I hired rookies (well, squaddies) for mass Psi testing. But for most of my game I tried to keep my roster with full main squad, plus a complete back up squad, plus however many wounded I had in hospital. Plus a SHIV or two later on. That was enough to have a full team ready to go if I had a complete squad wipe (which I managed to avoid, just barely a couple times but avoided). With an occasional reward soldier from missions I rarely needed to hire more than one or two new guys even after a bad mission.
Thats 37 dead on Classic Ironman - plus a couple of SHIVs (the hover one bugged out in a mission so that it couldn't shoot or fly so was used as a suicide scout). Worst loss in 1 mission was 4 dead (1 Heavy Major, 1 Sniper Capt, 1 Assault Sgt and 1 Heavy Squaddie) - it was a terror mission where I started next to building full of civillians - and first turn revealed two Cyberdisk/drone groups and 2x3 Chrysalids all close. That was with short moves and overwatch! The two survivors (Majors) pulled out on the Skyranger after three turns and the panic cost me three countries support & nearly the game. By end game, I had six colonels (1 Sniper, 2 Heavy, 1 Assault, 2 Support) as first team and then a second team of Cpts/Lts/Sgts as backup.
Losses mostly tended to be early on or when trying to bring through inexperienced replacements - except for that 'disaster mission'.
November 1st, 2012, 14:51
(This post was last modified: November 1st, 2012, 14:52 by uberfish.)
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Ug was that map the one with a few vehicles in the starting corner and a building with first room full of books behind? Because this is what just happened to me on Impossible:
my turn 1: wake up 2 mutons and a berserker, kill one muton
alien turn 1: every alien on the map activates and most of them come screaming at me (3 berserkers + 5 regular mutons + 6 chryssalids...) and I thought I was going to wipe
fortunately I'd just finished titan armour and heavy plasma and managed to survive, because my troops could survive a berserker hit and my heavy could reliably spit out 18 damage per turn on the berserkers
Well, that and allowing the berserkers to hit me a couple of times while I nuked all the regular mutons in sight of my main force on the first turn, so I could ignore cover while dealing with the melee aliens.
Total death count is 15 including a captain and 6 lieutenants. Two missions that ended with one hero super medic survivor (the same guy and the only colonel on my roster - it's month 5) accounted for most of the carnage.
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