I agree, apparently “casual” players are experiencing a harsh final of the game.
And they don’t achieve REP 50 with NJ, unlocking Technician class and their healing / restoring limbs abilities. Neither virophage Kits, PP tech.
In short, difficulty levels should have this into account, Easy and Veteran being gentle with MoV power.
I don’t know if calling me “hardcore” is the sollution, I have played many campaigns, with MoV bugged (damage 0) and others with MoV activated , I never had problems completing that mission,
and of course I didn’t start playing Legend, I start Veteran months ago.
Yes, I should say veteran players not hardcore. When I play on beginner level, I expect to learn the game and be able to finish it as I learn so I can eventually get to the next level. When this game first came out I had to restart about 10 times on beginner’s until finally after several patches it was winnable on beginner. I put the game aside for a few months and let it cook. I came back and played another beginner game to see what had changed and I was loving it until the final mission where I have given up now because I don’t want to go back and start leveling up a technician when the strategy I like to use is no longer viable.
They need to add a research item that tells you “Hey, after studying all this other stuff we realize you’re going to need a highest level technician to heal all the wounds we’re going to take on the final mission.” That way you don’t have to play the game to the end to find out you’re screwed if you didn’t do that. I never leveled up a technician because I didn’t enjoy using them as much as other classes.
I love the mechanics of battle in PP but XCOM2 is still my game. I started on the easiest level and now play at the hardest level for a real challenge. And many combos of player classes can win the final mission.
I just completed my playthrough with the last patch on Legend… Took me forever because I play around an hour a day, or so. This is the first time Mark of the Void worked on any of my runs.
I don’t want to sound rude, or to offend anyone, but it seems to me the problems some players are having with this map is due to misunderstanding how Mark of the Void works, which is thusly:
The Yuggothian Entity (YE) starts applying MoV a little after the player crosses the “gates”. (So the sensible thing is to deal with the 3 explosive Chirons before crossing the gates, which is very easy since IME then they won’t even attack you)
The MoV is a marker (as you can read in the description of the attack/effect):
It does 40 damage to the soldier afflicted by the marker and friendlies within 5 tiles of him (seems to decrease with distance, as I had some soldiers receive only 20 damage). @mcarver2000 that’s what the 5 tiles refer to, not the distance to the YE.
If two soldiers have the marker and they are within 5 tiles of each other, they will each receive damage from their MoV and the MoV of the other soldier. @LouisdeFuines that’s why you saw some of your soldiers receive damage of more than 40, because you had a bunch of them each with a MoV all within 5 tiles of each other.
Each turn the YE applies the MoV once to a different soldier.
You can bring up to 9 soldiers on the mission. It takes 4 turns, or less to cover the distance from the gates to the YE (and that’s with SPD of around 20, no Frenzy or any stuff like that), so you might get 4 soldiers with the MoV before you reach the YE, and really only 1 or 2 will have taken any serious damage provided you soldiers don’t go in a closely packed turtle formation.
You don’t need Technicians, you don’t need to bring piles of medpacks, the YE is a poor artichoke stuck in a pit; there is no convoluted puzzle to deal with here, just have your guys keep some distance between them and keep a brisk pace…
I hope this helps, but if it doesn’t I think the solution there is to have the YE cast the MoV once every 2-3 turns on Rookie difficulty, instead of every turn.
(This notwithstanding my feelings towards this last mission, which I think merits a complete rework).
I planned a new strategy knowing that the Mark of the Void was more powerful than ever. My squad was composed of 3 Sniper/Infiltrators, 1 Assault/Sniper, 2 Heavy/Snipers, 2 Priest/Snipers and 1 Technician/Assault. All sniper trained were equipped with Gungnir SR-2’s. The Sniper/Infiltrators also had Arachni SP I’s. The plan was to clear out the first chamber, move up and take out the Explosive Abdomen Chirons. All with the aim to use Spider Drones to move forward into the final chamber, while keeping everyone out of the range of the Mark of the Void.
I never got a chance to test my theory. Will the spider drones make the boss open his protective shell and allow my snipers to take their shots? As it turned out, the shell would open even before I could send in my drones. I was able to start taking shots just as I entered the second chamber. Combining Mark of Death and Quick Aim I was able to finish the mission without a scratch from the Mark of the Void. Moving my way forward ever closer to the final chamber.
There are several tactics to complete final scenario, in my opinion MoV (if it is working properly, respecting those 5 tiles) is not a problem, 40 HP is a low amount.
Of course , if you need 10 turns, without technician that will hurt
IME, it works well, only the soldier with the MoV and those within 5 tiles of him receive damage, which is exactly what the description of the ability says.
My point is that it’s a feature, not bug, and that it seems to be working correctly.
So it’s a balance issue, and imo balance should be such that on the easiest difficulty any player could breeze through the game without giving much thought to what they are doing.
Which is why I’m very much against making a Priest’s skill provide immunity from the MoV. What about new casual players who don’t know about this skill, don’t research the technology, don’t have any Priests on their team, or choose not to bring them on that mission? Are they supposed to brief themselves online about the existence of an obscure remedy to an attack they have never before experienced in the game as part of their preparations for the final mission?
If need be, make the Final Artichoke have 1/4 of its HPs, have less barriers protecting it, and cast MoV once every 3, 4 or 5 turns. Don’t make the remedy to MoV to bring along a guy wearing a foil hat.
OK, but then make the attack directed, avoidable or on other way defendable. What about players not bringing tons of medpacks? Having no defence tacticts against it and hard to get to shot the boss at all makes it completely impossiple, priest or no priest(as well as very unclear mechanics to first time player how the attack works = makes it even worse to a new player).
I agree priest should not be necessity, but neither should be technician. More versatile attacks - spawning enemies or similar should be end game boss feature, not such undefendable one.
Only thing to salute to is another Lovecraftian reference (and its look)
