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[Reverie]

You guys are weird. Leave Shen be :V

[Rolan7]

I went a bit far for comedy, but to be fair... competence is attractive.

[umiman]

Hey, that's a spoiler.

Nah, that's not a spoiler. This is a spoiler.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just joking, this is a spoiler.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So basically what the ending is is that we find out that the Avatar project is really about the unification of the human mind with the Ethereal hive network (or whatever it's called I don't remember). They need to do this so humanity can be properly subjugated into their armies and blah blah. It's cliched but what can you do. Additionally, the source of this global unification is another one of those guys inside the vat suits who now sits in a secret lab under the ocean.

With no way to access it conventionally, XCOM has to resort to accessing the transdimensional gate into the base of the Network Tower (after fighting the Gigasectopod and mind-controlling the Ethereal that was piloting it), Bradford pilots the Avenger into the gate and plows into the underwater lab from the inside out. The Avenger is critically damaged and now ocean water is flooding into the badly-damaged underwater lab. However, we find out the lab is actually an entire alien city that's been submerged underwater for who knows how long.

So the final XCOM challenge begins. Bradford has you assign all remaining XCOM troops to assault various parts of the city while you take a final group to push straight through the center where they think the last vat suit guy is. It's an incredible challenge as you fight Ethereals, Sectopods, multiple Overseers, etc. through a neverending gauntlet. As you fight you hear what happens to the rest of the teams you assigned and sent out (it's not good).

The team breaks into the underwater palace and fights all the way to the throne room. There the final vat stands, connected to a huge amount of pipes and wires and all sorts of things that make up the massive long room. In front of the vat stands Dr. Tygan. Bradford and Shen show up from behind your squad and slowly approach Tygan asking him stuff like "how did you get here?", "what are you doing?", and so on.

Tygan looks at you, his eyes glazed over, and then talks about how in the course of his research he discovered the true nature of humans and how what we're doing is tantamount of genetic treason. He goes on about how the Ethereals were right all along but because we were too malicious and blindly cruel, hating with no reason or purpose, and just acting out of pure blind paranoia, we didn't want to accept that perhaps we were in the wrong all along. He then says he was contacted shortly after the incident with the Index brain which told him the truth and what needed to be done. He had to guide XCOM into this underwater prison as they had to be stopped, for the good of mankind.

The vat opens, and lo and behold. There's no one in there. Bradford moves to shoot Tygan in rage but Tygan somehow reflects the bullet (kinda exactly like how an Ethereal does) and Bradford gets hit in his shoulder. Tygan then says goodbye and walks out of the room through a door in the back. Aliens come pouring in from every angle and every side and the squad returns to combat. Here you basically fight what seems to be a neverending battle, killing hordes upon hordes of aliens, all the while getting taunted by Tygan, Ethereals, as well as that alien speaker guy.

After about 10 turns suddenly massive crystaline but plant-type constructs blast through the room and slaughter the remaining aliens (and presumably the entire underwater city). Dr. Vahlen then speaks in your comms chiding you on your stupidity. Everyone is confused and Vahlen says she'll explain when you get to her. The screen cuts to the source of the crystaline / plant things... a massive glowing fault under the ocean.

[Egan_BW]

Spoiler: Spoiler about above spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's not actually what happens.

[Rince Wind]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just because he omits the part where van Doorn shows up in a pink uniform and a XCOM EW LMG in his hands.

[Egan_BW]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You saw Doorn there? True fans actually only see Soylent Green there.

[origamiscienceguy]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Obviously Fake: Etherials only reflect bullets when a soldier misses them. And Bradfod would never miss a shot. Especially at a big black and white target.

[BFEL]

Spoiler: Spoiler about above spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's not actually what happens.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It REALLY should be. I haven't gotten that far yet but I will be sorely disappointed if this isn't how it plays out.

[Flying Dice]

Why are people so reluctant to RULES OF NATURE anyways, it doesn't even do that much damage.

Spoiler: Case in point, this is on Legend. (click to show/hide)

[umiman]

Why are people so reluctant to RULES OF NATURE anyways, it doesn't even do that much damage.

Spoiler: Case in point, this is on Legend. (click to show/hide)

Weren't you the guy that modded swords to be overpowered?

[Man of Paper]

Hey, that's a spoiler.

Nah, that's not a spoiler. This is a spoiler.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just joking, this is a spoiler.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So basically what the ending is is that we find out that the Avatar project is really about the unification of the human mind with the Ethereal hive network (or whatever it's called I don't remember). They need to do this so humanity can be properly subjugated into their armies and blah blah. It's cliched but what can you do. Additionally, the source of this global unification is another one of those guys inside the vat suits who now sits in a secret lab under the ocean.

With no way to access it conventionally, XCOM has to resort to accessing the transdimensional gate into the base of the Network Tower (after fighting the Gigasectopod and mind-controlling the Ethereal that was piloting it), Bradford pilots the Avenger into the gate and plows into the underwater lab from the inside out. The Avenger is critically damaged and now ocean water is flooding into the badly-damaged underwater lab. However, we find out the lab is actually an entire alien city that's been submerged underwater for who knows how long.

So the final XCOM challenge begins. Bradford has you assign all remaining XCOM troops to assault various parts of the city while you take a final group to push straight through the center where they think the last vat suit guy is. It's an incredible challenge as you fight Ethereals, Sectopods, multiple Overseers, etc. through a neverending gauntlet. As you fight you hear what happens to the rest of the teams you assigned and sent out (it's not good).

The team breaks into the underwater palace and fights all the way to the throne room. There the final vat stands, connected to a huge amount of pipes and wires and all sorts of things that make up the massive long room. In front of the vat stands Dr. Tygan. Bradford and Shen show up from behind your squad and slowly approach Tygan asking him stuff like "how did you get here?", "what are you doing?", and so on.

Tygan looks at you, his eyes glazed over, and then talks about how in the course of his research he discovered the true nature of humans and how what we're doing is tantamount of genetic treason. He goes on about how the Ethereals were right all along but because we were too malicious and blindly cruel, hating with no reason or purpose, and just acting out of pure blind paranoia, we didn't want to accept that perhaps we were in the wrong all along. He then says he was contacted shortly after the incident with the Index brain which told him the truth and what needed to be done. He had to guide XCOM into this underwater prison as they had to be stopped, for the good of mankind.

The vat opens, and lo and behold. There's no one in there. Bradford moves to shoot Tygan in rage but Tygan somehow reflects the bullet (kinda exactly like how an Ethereal does) and Bradford gets hit in his shoulder. Tygan then says goodbye and walks out of the room through a door in the back. Aliens come pouring in from every angle and every side and the squad returns to combat. Here you basically fight what seems to be a neverending battle, killing hordes upon hordes of aliens, all the while getting taunted by Tygan, Ethereals, as well as that alien speaker guy.

After about 10 turns suddenly massive crystaline but plant-type constructs blast through the room and slaughter the remaining aliens (and presumably the entire underwater city). Dr. Vahlen then speaks in your comms chiding you on your stupidity. Everyone is confused and Vahlen says she'll explain when you get to her. The screen cuts to the source of the crystaline / plant things... a massive glowing fault under the ocean.

So you're going to write the ending for the next XCOM, right?

[Twinwolf]

Why are people so reluctant to RULES OF NATURE anyways, it doesn't even do that much damage.

Spoiler: Case in point, this is on Legend. (click to show/hide)

Weren't you the guy that modded swords to be overpowered?

I think the point they were making was the sectopod death-explosion doesn't do much damage.

[Flying Dice]

Why are people so reluctant to RULES OF NATURE anyways, it doesn't even do that much damage.

Spoiler: Case in point, this is on Legend. (click to show/hide)

Weren't you the guy that modded swords to be overpowered?

What does that have to do with the explosive damage from destroyed Sectopods? That sucker was on two health, even a pistol would have killed it. 

But yeah, sort of. I gave the second and third one perfect accuracy and slightly higher crit chance, and gave the third one a bit of armor shred. Basically enough that you can feasibly use them in Legend difficulty against weaker enemies. Buuut then I also tweaked the pod spawn pools so that there's more of everything and they're guaranteed to spawn nastier things, up to and including Psi Witches.

It's a nice medium ground. They still don't compare to vanilla shotguns in terms of raw damage (I'm seeing 19-damage crits on those with the right setup), but the damage is just high enough to combo Colonel Rangers with a grenade to wipe pods of weaker enemies (instead of doing the same thing with a second heavy weapon), insta-kill a medium-weak enemy (Sectoids, weaker ADVENT), or to finish off a larger enemy after it takes 1-2 shots. It's also balanced out by the fact that they're tricky to train up to Colonel without them dying, since they don't get their survival tool for a while.

Basically I balanced them to match sniper/pistoleers for cleaning up crowds of weak enemies and dealing very high single-target damage, with a tad more strength because they're inherently much riskier to use. The chain-killing is really good if the damage holds out, but I've nearly lost one Colonel doing that already when they got stuck in the middle of an open space after their damage fell off too much.

[SOLDIER First]

The accuracy bonus makes sense, because how could you possibly miss a sword against, say, a Muton? Or said enormous fucking robot?

[umiman]

Hey, that's a spoiler.

Nah, that's not a spoiler. This is a spoiler.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just joking, this is a spoiler.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So basically what the ending is is that we find out that the Avatar project is really about the unification of the human mind with the Ethereal hive network (or whatever it's called I don't remember). They need to do this so humanity can be properly subjugated into their armies and blah blah. It's cliched but what can you do. Additionally, the source of this global unification is another one of those guys inside the vat suits who now sits in a secret lab under the ocean.

With no way to access it conventionally, XCOM has to resort to accessing the transdimensional gate into the base of the Network Tower (after fighting the Gigasectopod and mind-controlling the Ethereal that was piloting it), Bradford pilots the Avenger into the gate and plows into the underwater lab from the inside out. The Avenger is critically damaged and now ocean water is flooding into the badly-damaged underwater lab. However, we find out the lab is actually an entire alien city that's been submerged underwater for who knows how long.

So the final XCOM challenge begins. Bradford has you assign all remaining XCOM troops to assault various parts of the city while you take a final group to push straight through the center where they think the last vat suit guy is. It's an incredible challenge as you fight Ethereals, Sectopods, multiple Overseers, etc. through a neverending gauntlet. As you fight you hear what happens to the rest of the teams you assigned and sent out (it's not good).

The team breaks into the underwater palace and fights all the way to the throne room. There the final vat stands, connected to a huge amount of pipes and wires and all sorts of things that make up the massive long room. In front of the vat stands Dr. Tygan. Bradford and Shen show up from behind your squad and slowly approach Tygan asking him stuff like "how did you get here?", "what are you doing?", and so on.

Tygan looks at you, his eyes glazed over, and then talks about how in the course of his research he discovered the true nature of humans and how what we're doing is tantamount of genetic treason. He goes on about how the Ethereals were right all along but because we were too malicious and blindly cruel, hating with no reason or purpose, and just acting out of pure blind paranoia, we didn't want to accept that perhaps we were in the wrong all along. He then says he was contacted shortly after the incident with the Index brain which told him the truth and what needed to be done. He had to guide XCOM into this underwater prison as they had to be stopped, for the good of mankind.

The vat opens, and lo and behold. There's no one in there. Bradford moves to shoot Tygan in rage but Tygan somehow reflects the bullet (kinda exactly like how an Ethereal does) and Bradford gets hit in his shoulder. Tygan then says goodbye and walks out of the room through a door in the back. Aliens come pouring in from every angle and every side and the squad returns to combat. Here you basically fight what seems to be a neverending battle, killing hordes upon hordes of aliens, all the while getting taunted by Tygan, Ethereals, as well as that alien speaker guy.

After about 10 turns suddenly massive crystaline but plant-type constructs blast through the room and slaughter the remaining aliens (and presumably the entire underwater city). Dr. Vahlen then speaks in your comms chiding you on your stupidity. Everyone is confused and Vahlen says she'll explain when you get to her. The screen cuts to the source of the crystaline / plant things... a massive glowing fault under the ocean.

So you're going to write the ending for the next XCOM, right?

If I actually wrote the ending for the next XCOM, people would rage over how futile their game was.

It'd probably be something like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. Despite the events of the previous game, Advent is just as powerful as it was originally due to how they completely dismantled all of humanity's existing militaries after the initial invasion.
2. The resistance, without the infrastructure and logistics of a powerful standing military of any sort backing them (other than the pathetic ragtag group called XCOM that literally consists of a few dozen people) get completely annihilated by the millions-strong army that is Advent (now unbound).
3. Additionally, after realizing how worthless humanity is and without having to rely on the shackles that bound them in the previous campaign, Advent actually grows in both power and brutality. No longer do they actually have to care about casualties or PR, they unleash their full power upon the hapless humans. Orbital bombardments, viral devastation targeting expectant mothers and newborns, latent genetic bombs within past clinic-goers, nothing is off limits.
4. Every day, thousands upon thousands of humans are culled and disposed of. Entire cities are burned to the ground. The aliens develop atrocity upon atrocity, becoming more and more efficient in the slaughter.
5. XCOM, completely understaffed and incapable of preventing this nightmare, attempt to conduct clandestine raids upon key Alien personnel and infrastructure in the hope they can stem the rising tide.
6. Unfortunately, they realize the futility of their actions as since the Alien numbers are simply too large and even if they assassinated a hundred leaders, there are tens of thousands of leaders across the entire globe. The Advent having evolved into a multi-celled organization which is only united in its purpose of annihilating the human race as revenge for the previous game.
7. Eventually, the Aliens bring in the entirety of their fleet. They obliterate what remains of humanity from orbit while making preparations for departure. They take the genetic information they needed as well as a few hundred thousand test samples with them.
8. As a last gift, the Aliens seed the planet with millions of dormant Chrysalid eggs and massive psi-beacon towers that vaporize any living thing attempting to use psionic ability. Should mankind or life in general ever resurface, the Chrysalids would merely slaughter them all.

Edit:

Though that being said, I think it'd be kinda cool if they did something with saving and loading, and made it a part of the story. I mean, it already is an integral part to everyone's XCOM experience.