Ive experienced the same issue as the OP. I went to haven defense and there was a HUGE boss monster there as well as a Siren. I took one look at the boss monster, went NOPE and closed the game for the time being. It definitely feels like the game becomes arbitrarily hard out of the blue. My world wipe panic was only 10 percent, id done some research, and taken out two nests, and a lair, but I had not done msq beyond going to the retreat and getting that guys notes and suddenly I feel I am completely out gunned and outclassed on every mission.
Im also playing on easy to learn the game and such, but I think Im going to step back for a bit and wait to see what patches do. It doesnt feel like getting good would do much when my squad of 8 soldiers is facing down a Chiron (think that was its name, it was huge) in a haven defense, and it has multiple attacks that can do 100 damage each (and my 8 soldiers dont have the best equipment, as I said, since IM learning) but yeah, the difficulty is just…close to unmanageable for me right now and I dont think i passed any thresholds to see the spike.
but as I used to call and then I close the game for example before a serious opponent…it gives me time to think about where I did something wrong .I run the game and assessing their own mistakes move even on the game for me it’s fun…after all my head thinks the brain move.and means game something Yes develops in me)))
This is good news, imo.
Having read quite a bunch of topics on difficulty spikes always somebody posts sound advice on how to deal with specific situations. I get the impression that a broader set of tactics is needed to deal with this enemy.
And yes, the first time my A-squad encountered Sirens they all got wasted.
I suggest supporting the players to understand this. It will help reduce frustration spikes especially when difficulty, meaning required tactical adaption, is varying so much across missions.
I’m with OP here. Honestly I don’t mind the sirens that much. Your soldiers are pretty weak compared to a lot of the enemies, especially because they don’t shred armour. So while it’s a little bit of a bother losing a couple of guns you can skirt around them without them dealing too much damage to your own guys. Though, they will waste healing kits on enemies. Especially the siren controlling them if it’s health is getting low.
What really gets me is the Charons. There’s no good way to deal with them. They’re either launching goo, which stops you getting near the charon in the first place, or worms, which will take your party at least 3-4 shots to kill every round. Add in their small size and that you need to be right next to them to guarantee a hit and you’ve got to reserve 4 members of your 6 man squad to dealing with the worms alone.
If there are other enemies around then there’s just nothing you can do. Especially on a haven defence where the enemies will just slaughter the defence objectives while your party is stuck in place from goo or fighting worms.
I think the genuinely only good way of dealing with Charons is a stealth unit that takes 5-6 turns to get to it and then pumps it full of poison. Even then, it’s not exactly an ideal solution. You’re basically just not fighting the Charon instead of having a counter to it.
max deployment is 8, or 5+scarab
i have the same issue with sniper artillery and mind controllers army, just save before start e reload it spawn different enemy composition. Same issue with destroy Vulture project, with 6 people i was against 8 to 10 new jericho enemy and 4 frigging armadillos, c’mon!
Oof yeah, I just got the capture a Scylla quest too. After spending far too many rounds trying to just KILL the thing, I can’t even fathom how I’m supposed to CAPTURE one…
It’s not easy. You need to wait until you can isolate a siren alone at the end of a mission. Disable her head so she can’t mind control you, and the injector arm(s) if she’s got them. War Cry helps to reduce her actions as well.
If you disable their heads with snipers, it’s easy to get Chirons to panic. Against worms, keep moving and use grenades when they clump after chasing you; trying to kill all the new ones each turn is a losing proposition. Against goo, get under cover. Also, unless they’ve changed it, you can jump out of goo
Now that’s one mistery solved. Too bad that mission was not accounted as finished for me, nor was I able to try again.
I just though that thing ain’t seeing me an I had my hands full with the little crabs. Suddenly he was gone.
Actually, I think it has changed from BB5. All the enemies seem to have way more willpower, so they’re much harder to panic. They also seem to have more armour and health, and skills that let you sweep multiple enemies quickly like quick aim, dash and that ‘kills give 2AP’ skill have had their cost increased so that you can’t use them nearly as effectively.
Haven’t had a chance to play more than a few hours so far, but it’s already feeling more like a proper challenge on Heroic.
I’ll post my considered thoughts in a week or so’s time, when I’ve had the time to delve into it properly.
The problem in the Tutorial, the make you charge forward with you two soldiers everywhere, even in the recapture the base scenario. And most of their charging is to make the Tut; shorter. And its sucks since if you play like that you are out cold fast. Even getting one to shield guys shooting at the same guy in half cover could be deadly. So take care of your soldiers, replacing them is expensive. (to expensive in my liking. half would be fine or a third of the cost they have now.)
I have to agree the spike around the middle of the first month feels brutal in the release version of the game. The big problem I’m having is that the monsters beyond the basic early game stuff just have too much armour and firepower fr your soldiers to deal with effectively- the Siren, for instance, has so much armour I’m finding assault rifles next to useless for damaging them, and once the heavy support crabs show up I needed to start equipping every soldier with a pistol on the assumption half of the team will get several limbs totally disabled by volleys of bombs before they can kill the damn thing.
Basically, it feels like the “next wave” is showing up before I can reasonably have the weapons and armour to fight them effectively.
Speaking of, how does one get better weapons or armour for your soldiers? I’ve found a few ‘side-grades’ like shotguns, the grenade launcher and faction gear, but I haven’t really found any new equipment I’d describe as an upgrade.
I use explosives and sniper to kill the Mind Control unit, but not having a way to stop the mind control without killing the unit is really annoying. I have been pumping up my units willpower to the detriment of other abilities, and they are still getting controlled. Maybe have it roll to lose concentration if it gets hit, or when it’s head is disabled, or have it lose Mind Control when it’s WP drops below the controlled unit.
The Chiron with the Butt Bombs also suck. if you don’t have a vehicle to get in at mission start or some way to get cover you get annihilated (equipment smashed, limbs disabled, armor destroyed) in the first couple of rounds. Anyone have a workable strategy for these things? Maybe run a fast unit up using dash with warcry? I think the Chiron shot is 3 action points. Maybe use Viral damage on Viper?
I’ve yet to have ANY opponent break from low will … I can run through an entire mission, killing every single guy, not losing a single one of mine (again on the lowest difficulty) and I’ve yet to see even the weakest guys panic. My guys have panicked, like if a Chiron uses its scream to reduce your will, but it seems that the enemy don’t have a panic limit (anymore, I’ve not played before the release).
OK, met the siren, now I’m pissed and done playing tor today.
I just got a scarab, and first mission is a siren and 7 support units.
Siren is in a house, so can’t be shelled, took over my freaking assault with return fire.
Fwiw I was able to break the control and kill the siren, my second assault has the virus skill, adding 6 virus with each (fully connected volley). Sniper and scarab demoralizing by killing troops. Seems like a good tactic, don’t have weapons to hurt her otherwise
Of course, the fat scarab took every enemy attack meanwhile, and I just quit in anger
Bear in mind I get very little time to play this game, so I’ve only encountered Chirons in BB5 a handful of times - once when they were backed up by 3 Sirens and a swarm of grenade & AR-wielding Crabbies. But in my (limited experience), these tactics worked well:
Get under cover. Dash if you have to - expend all your APs on running if you have to - but take cover as fast as you can! These things are ARTILLERY, and in any war on any level, artillery will kill you very quickly if you don’t get under cover.
Try to get a line of sight to the Chiron with your Sniper. If you do, aim for the head. You want to knock down its Will - certainly in BB5, it needed WP to do its thing, so you want to get its Will down as fast as you can. In BB5, taking out Crabbies was also a great way to knock down its Will, but frankly it made disabling the Chiron so easy that I advised them to nerf it. A Sniper with RF at this point is sweet, because (s)he gets to shoot it when it lobs as well as on her/his turn. If you have Quick Aim, shoot it once, then set an OW cone at an angle which is most likely to be triggered by the Chiron as it ties to get out of the way rather than some random Crabbie.
Dash. Send a hit squad as fast as possible into range of the Chiron and hit it with everything you can bring to bear. On at least 2 missions in the BB, I was able to take the damn thing out before any other Crabbie had even moved, by massively abusing Dash (which they may also have nerfed now).
In a Haven Defence, get up onto a roof so that you can get a clear shot at the Chiron, then Dash back down into cover before it fires back. This is only a viable strategy if you can find angles that don’t expose you to other Crabbies’ RF, but most Havens have all kinds of weird angles that let you take pot shots without exposing yourself too much.
I hear they’ve nerfed them in 1.0, which is just as well cos they were massively OP in BB5, but Grenade Launchers certainly used to be the must-have tool of every discerning Squad. With those babies, you didn’t even have to expose yourself to LoS, you simply lobbed them over the buildings and squished things. Less useful on the heavily armed Chirons and Sirens than on the Crabbies surrounding them, but every Crabbie you killed knocked down the Will of the Big Nasties.
Not sure if any or all of that will work any more, because our consistent abuse of it in BB5 meant that you could take out the aforementioned 2 Howitzer Chirons & 3 Sirens without even taking a scratch. So I’m hoping they’ve made 1.0 a LOT more difficult. But see if any of that works for you.
It looks like they likely did nerf it a LOT … 1 siren and 1 howizter chiron is enough to (again at the lowest difficulty level) make me reload from the world map to get a ‘fairer’ composition.
One other poster said they had ‘rocket launchers’ (I think they meant grenade launchers) … but they’ve severely traded damage for AOE ability … a direct hit by a skilled up (the ‘big boom’ feat or whatever it is) heavy weapons guy, won’t kill even normal crabbies anymore … even multiple hits won’t kill them. Seems like grenade launchers have become ‘strip some armour, disable some limbs, do damage to multiple guys’ weapons rather than ‘destroy everything within this blast radius’.
And for the weird angles, you can’t be certain if the LOS that was promised will still be there when you move (there are other threads about this) … the game will say ‘yes there is a shot from there’ but when you get there … nope, no shot. So pot shots isn’t really reliable.
Finally, as I’ve noted elsewhere, enemy will doesn’t seem to be a ‘thing’ … I’ve wiped out an entire map of guys, not losing a single one of mine, so they should have been panicking by the end (if what other people have said is true) … but I’ve yet to see it. Enemies don’t seem to panic … perhaps their will stats are really high, perhaps they don’t panic if they run out of will, I don’t know … but it’s only happened to my guys, not the enemy.
