Wow and I thought a only primary weapon might have been hard. Congratulations for completing this challenge allow me to do the time stamps 0:00 Patreon members 0:18 Intro 0:38 Patreon plug in 0:59 Rules for the challenge 2:01 First run begin (Time for the pain) 3:30 First run ended(Second pod activated) 3:47 Run two (Lets hope this goes better) 3:58 Reason why civilians are the most annoying thing in xcom 2 4:55 First Pod done (Progress achieved) 5:08 Pod 2 ft Advant officer (oh no) 6:00 Drifter down (RIP) 6:24 Revenge for Drifter achieved 6:30 Gatecrasher complete (57 turns WOW) 7:28 Mission 2 (Go in Get out) 8:25 Bob and Bobette Bond level 8:57 Class usefulness for the run 10:20 Mission 3 ft Medic the sharpshooter 11:15 Retaliation Mission 1(Whole squad can finally attack!) 11:52 Hunter's debut (with shellshock) 12:30 Bad Pod activation(2 grenades down 2 left) 13:15 Faceless down(no more grenades) 13:55 Evac out (Trooper taken down) 14:25 Chosen knowledge perk(No shredding for now) 15:02 Concealment blown on first turn(ouch) 15:31 Medic no overwatch(visible confusion) 15:58 Mission 3 failed 16:15 Reaper debut(with claymore grenades combo) 16:44 Supply raid aborted (2 pods) 16:51 Council mission no evac till end(oh no) 18:04 First Pod down all grenades used(great 19:00 Holdout round(here we go) 20:35 Mission success zero casulties(3 succesful missions🎉) 21:07 Blast padding finally being more useful than shredder 21:24 Black Market time 22:00 Next Mission More bad concealment blown(👏👏) with hunter 22:22 Another Pod 23:18 Enemy reinforcements have arrived (wonderful) 24:00 Clutch shots by Medic and Bob 24:30 Mission success 25:01 Retaliation Mission 2 (oh its over...ok) 25:51 Time to sell all these useless weapon mods 26:15 Surgucal sitrep(thank you squadsize upgrade) 26:56 Suicide squad(Thank you for your sacrifice) 27:24 Close Range? 28:39 Proving ground built. No elerium cores(AAAAHHHHH) 28:51 Supply raid 2(Captains have frag grenades you know) 29:44 RIP Doctor Bob 30:22 Bobette continuing Bob's legacy 30:43 Time for Psi resear..(AAAAAHHHHHHH) 31:04 Next Mission (things are getting dicey) 32:05 Time to finish the hunter of.....(internal screaming) 33:20 Christmas's redemption arc(hunter down) 33:50 Psi research at last time for the Psi operatives 35:26 Mission success Christmas shenanigans part 2 (no story progress yet) 36:10 Actually usable specialist acquired 36:42 Retaliation Mission 3 (*Sees berserker* NOPE) 37:05 Full squad at last and Psi labs complete (YES YES) 37:45 Muton shuffle 38:15 Muton blitzkrieg 39:31 ITS AN AMBUSH( Achievement unlocked get a unit killed in an ambush Mission RIP Viperbait) 41:08 Time for something crazy 42:00 Big explosion no captain skulljacked(oh right the hunter is here) 43:10 Axe used 43:33 Time to fight the hunter(Welp time to put our faith in Christmas) 45:20 Christmas final redemption arc(Call the pun police) 46:03 Retaliation Mission 4(oh wait we are actually doing this mission) 46:37 Chrysallid buddy acquired 47:00 Sharpshooter really? 47:40 Lancer the invisible (till a grenade walks in) 48:30 Wild officer has brought in some friends 49:52 Retaliation Mission success 🙌 👌 (Story has been progressed) 50:11 Oh its a sectopod welp time to leave 51:16 New skirmisher acquired(Welcome sleep walker) 51:33 Supply raid with sectopd (oh look 3 heavy mecs 52:41 3rd Pod found Codex buddy acquired 56:21 Mecs gotten bluscreen available (🎉🎉) 56:56 Mistakes were made annoyance were caused 58:13 Real annoyance cause courtesy of the hunter 58:57 Blacksite time 59:53 Triple explosive shellshock combo something all xcom players must experience (mine was with a claymore rocket and car on the hunter ironically) 1:00:52 Warlock debut (wow those stregthens) 1:02:01 Line of sight shenanigans electric boogaloo 1:03:25 Time for a true fight 1:05:00 Lesson learn Bladestorm before Solace 1:07:24 Mission success Casualty rate decreasing 1:08:18 Retaliation Mission 5 with lucifier 1:09:31 Aggressive codex and random chrysallid( Great now there is a cocoon) 1:10:27 Avatar knifed out of existence 1:10:40 weird shenanigans occur with running operatives( Thank you Killzone for the explanation) 1:12:26 Resistance operatives actually being useful 1:12:47 First Colonel for the run(Congratulations kindness) 1:13:37 Gatekeeper corpse acquired 1:13:55 Colonel grenadier received with new swords 1:14:23 Found the moment Mission began(Welcome new recrui-- is that a sectopod) 1:15:32 oh great now there are like 20 enemies 1:15:57 Mission Success difficulty increasing 1:16:37 Stronghold assault sniper Psi combo (OOORRAA) 1:20:06 Sniper Psi combo showcase 1:22:12 Hunter defeated Darkclaw received 1:22:43 Council Mission( Warlock has arrived 1:23:21 Initiating music montage ft the power of reaper with ace(ability not the unit) 1:25:31 Retaliation Mission 6(Ah finally a second gatekeeper to add to the collection) 1:26:00 Where are the enemi-- oh there they are 1:26:40 Wait why is the skirmishes dealing so little damage 1:27:09 Here comes the gatekeeper with archon 1:28:12 Gatekeeper acquired Psi 3 amps available 1:29:02 Chosen sabotage (well this one is new) 1:29:53 Time to hunt the Warlock 1:30:08 Lazyboy's world uses Psi ability 1:30:34 WHAT IN TARNATION IS THAT 1:31:02 Fanfire works on sarcophagus( not totally confirmed) 1:32:35 Warlock eliminated 1:32:42 Psi gate Mission time 1:33:08 Chrysallid bate acquired 1:34:30 Chrysallid taught a proper lesson 1:35:07 Psi gate acquired 1:35:32 Time for some UFO misfortune 1:36:00 Concealment broken ( how surprising) 1:36:31 Assassin's arrival 1:37:02 Invisible unit shenanigans 1:38:38 Shout-out to Skerkrov for your work on discord (Not in the game tho at least right now) 1:40:40 Return fire kill count: 1 1:40:57 Great Now she is on the roof 1:41:50 Time for assasin roof and Non-functioning Solace garbage 1:42:50 Assasin taken out (FINALLY) 1:43:08 OH GREAT now its the avenger defence Mission wonderful 1:43:50 Device taken out thanks to new advant recruits 1:44:40 Alright everything is going to pl---OH are you kidding me Welp time to leave 1:45:26 Supply mission Welp 3 pods time to leave 1:46:05 Alpha squad rested Time to hunt the assasin 1:47:10 Activation trigger shenanigans 1:48:02 Assasin Eliminated Courtesy of Bobette in remeberence of Bob Katana received 1:49:16 Retaliation Mission 7 Flawless victory 1:50:08 Time for the forge 1:50:30 Haywire protocol shenanigans 1:50:55 Window jumping team building exercises ft codex xcom and sheildbearer 1:52:45 Bobette Farkclaw showcase (She probably is still holding a grudge on Bob death) 1:53:35 Network tower Mission( Crit go brrrrrrr) 1:54:03 Time to alert evryone on the map (Featuring high crit damage) 1:55:16 The FINAL mission with the only specialist 1:55:46 Commander avatar showcase 1:56:56 Dimensional rift shenanigans 1:58:07 Avatar fight time 1:58:26 1st Avatar taken out courtesy of panick Archin 1:58:40 Round one reinforcements 1:59:05 Avatar 2 appears 1:59:26 Avatar 2 down in one fanfire thanks to Bobette 2:00:05 round 4 reinforcements 2:00:26 FINAL Avatar appears Sees a sectoid Christmas decorations 2:01:45 Avatar taken out by kindness CHALLENGE COMPLETE 2:01:52 Credits
@@matthewjones39 That mission counts as a tutorial, if you select to skip the tutorials when starting a campaign, you won't get the mission and your first Chosen will be random.
Drifter: "Losing health on our avatar is obviously not ideal" My rookies only no squad size upgrades run: "Losing health on our avatar is a dream come true"
Imagine being in the resistance camp, fearing for your life. All of a sudden you see the Sky Ranger swoop in. A squad of armor clad soldiers zip down lines, raise their weapons and heroically start to march forward save you and your friends. You start to feel like there's hope. All of a sudden the brave saviors catch sight of one of the large alien creatures. It roars in their direction and starts to run towards them. You see the squad stop in there tracks, turn back to the drop ship and fly away, leaving you to your fate.
Good news Drifter! At 34:50, the "save scum" you did was in fact not save scumming; you could clearly see the HP bar of the sectiod closer to you before moving, then you moved up and saw the further sectoid and the detection radius of the closer sectiod became waaaay bigger than it originally was. Soooo, you were shown thw detection radius of the further sectoid whilst only seeing the closer sectoid, ergo, not your fault :D
One thing I appreciate about Drifter is that he's uploaded videos of failed runs before, so every time a new one comes out there's actual tension since you don't know if he'll beat it or not.
If you’ve got the time I highly recommend his archive channel if you can’t catch the twitch stream. Generally 4-6 hours of entertainment and the stress/tension is great.
Plot twist: Drifter actually is a masochist and deeply enjoys putting himself through this. ...at least that's my attempt at comprehending Drifter's madlad-ness
Funny thing is that in standard WoTC most high level strategies are based on the fact that specialists are useless. This run reached to the same conclusion but under special circumstences.
@@zacheymczachface Assault rifle is very weak compared to the other options and their abilities, especially at lower level are almost irrelevant. What can a specialist do? 1. Healing/support - Usually you're better off by giving a medikit to a grenadier for example. You still have the option to heal but you have an otherwise more useful soldier. 2. Hacking - Guaranteed mech damage is nice but situational, hacking is actually bad. You have a percentual chance to stun or take over (temporarily) a machine. It's better to go for a guaranteed kill. Shredding and later bluescreen rounds do the trick. If you compare hacking stun with stasis, the whole thing is laughably situational and unreliable. At colonel level that aoe is nice but we are talking about a once usable ability. 3. Overwatch skills. They come later and they are underwhelming. At the point in the game when you have soldiers at ranks which would enable those overwatch tricks, you'd rather just alfa-strike the pod. Overwatch trap is nice in the beginning but is bad later because your soldiers will have so many better things to do than just performing a standard shooting. In short: you rarely need more than one medicit. If you get injured too often, it's worthy to rethink your strategy. Are you moving too baldly etc. Your early game mech destroyers are grenadiers. Later anything with a bluescreen round can do the job. Hacking is fun but it's bad. Overwatch skills are not worth it. When you add a specialist to your team, you have to think about it this way: you are leaving one ranger, templar whatever at home, who are more useful under more scenarios. Colonel specialist with the Warlock weapon is kinda fine but I think it's better to give it to the psy ops guy. Lastly, there are some situational advantages of having a specialist like remote healing, removing Chosen's daze or remote hacking the objective. But these things are mostly way too situational. With a specialist, you give up on shot accuracy and firepower.
@@akoskovacs6830 Makes sense, in Beta strike though dps is strongly nerfed due to enemies having double health. Every pod will have survivors after the first turn so damage from grenades and lucky shots is kinda inevitable.
@@zacheymczachface The premise is that if you never take damage, you don’t need healing. And a lot of the time having a soldier who does more damage than a specialist instead prevents you from taking that additional damage in the first place.
As much as this was a horrific run to do, there were a great deal of hype moments. Getting to see the Sharpshooter-Psi Operative Bond Wombo Combo was amazing, as it showed off layers to the game we don’t typically get to see in these runs, not to mention their necessity to this run’s success. As always, fantastic video and great work. You never fail to impress. Cheers.
Brutal run, I'm surprised how well you did. I had a few comments/clarifications: Mission experience: your soldiers do get experience just for being on missions, but it is based on the total number of kills done on the mission. So a mission with 0 kills gives 0 experience. Losing guys in ambushes: yeah, it is super rare in vanilla, although I think I've managed it once or twice. Usually I only lose them in ambushes when the "wrong" mods are installed... Hack objective on landed UFO: don't worry too much about the timer on a landed UFO mission. If you fail it, you get one pod of reinforcements. That's it, nothing else happens. Take care of the original enemies and the extra pod and you'll still win the mission and get all the loot.
I'm honestly considering programming a game on Scratch where Drifter, after having his cover blown by civilians so many times decides in a fit of rage that he will eliminate every civilian that dares to cross his path. Would be a fun concept.
11:14 "The retaliation mission is up next." Retaliation? For what? By this point the only interaction you've had with Advent is one guy killing 6 dudes, that's not a revolution, that's just a rampaging madman :P
Looking at the title, I thought initially: "Ooh, the first level enemies have so much HP that pistols take several turns to kill them? Ouch." Now I learn that rookies don't even have secondary weapons! I imagine that doing this challenge would be MUCH easier in XCOM 1.
Regarding the Andromedon, the acid bomb seems to me to come from a launcher on the underside of it’s rifle, like underslung grenade launcher attachments for assault rifles. Now I’d still think that counts more as a mod for it’s primary rather then a truly separate weapon, but interesting to note.
1:24:16 when I realized what the overlay showed I couldn't help but to hear "CLOSE RANGE" in the back of my mind and it made me laugh. This is why I watch these, these silly little jokes like that.
Great video! Glad to see Christmas finally be a highlight in a run. I got to experience both the ironic joy of seeing him botch everything Leeson-style, AND the genuine excitement of seeing him kick ass by soloing the hunter with just his pistol! My boy did me proud.
See the early game where you're constantly getting in, getting what few kills/loot/civs you can and getting out without even going for the objective makes me wish for an XCOM 2 balanced like that deliberately; you're not even expected to COMPLETE most missions, your real success is tracked in how much equipment damage you deal, how many units you kill, their value, structure and economic damage, etc. Make it really like an insurrectionist game style where you bleed ADVENT dry, one papercut at a time until you get strong enough to start WINNING missions
been following since the first XCOM challenge run was posted and i am in absolute awe here. this is the most arduous and relentless challenge yet and i tip my hat to you good sir. also love the thematic that bobette was destined for something else, her fate was clear and her & Bob were going to do great things together. and then her bob is snatched from her. inspired me to do abit of writing for this insane run ! "Sing o muse, the rage of bobette , Death of Chosen and Advent's woe ! Sing of her Rage and Fury, Sing of the talon of the reaper she plucked from the hands of those devils and turned against them. Sing of the Woe brought upon the Ethereals for their transgressions and folly. - and let us whisper of the last tones echoed amidst the dying hive of those most psionic of beings their fear, their regret, and their utter confusion at how naught but blades, pistols and the minds of humanity laid them all low" yes i will shameless steal inspiration from homeric epics, as the only individual more beleaguered after a journey then drifter after this run was Odysseus as he flopped onto the shores of his home
Been watching your challenge runs and also your stream vods for quite a while now and forking over 2 point something Euros for that entertainment, doesn't seem so bad. You earned yourself a patron.
One of the reasons I love these edits. Beyond being top entertainment, you cut some of the pain of witnessing it. It is painful enough to watch, I can only imagine the pain on himself.
I for some reason never got new uploads in my subscription box. So im catching up on videos I missed out on. Nice to see my character in a video and turn out to be my favorite base game class in the Ranger. Very nice video!
At 11 minutes into the video I had to say this. Would have said it on stream if I was there to see it. Finishing successful missions do give XP, but its only half the xp needed to level from rookie to squaddie. Or basically the same amount of xp as you get from a single kill (that is why rookies that get a kill on a successful mission is always promoted). So two successful missions with the same rookie would end in promotions.
not quite. A soldier is only promoted when they kill an enemy, and have enough experience to rank up. This requires them to get a kill, however, which is impossible for rookies. One alternative could be to send rookies on covert ops, which should get them promoted, but it's a far better alternative to go for the GTS straight away instead.
@@fernando47180 Ah alright. I guess I am just too used to how Long War works where a successful mission gives 3 xp, and a kill gives 2xp, and you need 5xp to level up to Squaddie. They don't need a kill to level up in there IIRC. Especially noticable during my Shinobi solo soldier missions is anything to go by, where they sneak by the guarda, hack the objective, and bug out without attacking anything, for a successful mission. Ending in them reaching max rank some 8ish solo runs down the line.
Hey drifter love your xcom playthroughs. this was another entertaining one. i like the creativity of the different types of rules you have to keep in mind on a playthrough. i also like laughing at the painful moments 🤣 Speaking of playthroughs i had an idea for one you could do in the future. i recall you saying in a previous vid you never do chosen avenger defense missions. what about a commander difficulty playthrough where you cant assault a chosen's stronghold until that chosen has attacked the avenger at least once?
here's a comment for the algorithm overlods. This man is absolutely insane. And by the flying spaghetti monster: I'd have quit it in mission 1. Your tenacity is truly something to behold, my man. Cheers!
Now this is an underdog story you love to hear about. Though in hindsight I should have known that Psionics would be the turning point. However I would have argued that since mind control over an enemy unit is achieved with a soldier's secondary abilities, using the controlled enemy unit's gun wouldn't count as failing the challenge. But I guess leaving that "loophole" would have resulted in you trying to bumrush Psi research as soon as possible. Either way, good stuff!
I just found your channel bro your hilarious i love these runs personally it always cracks me up when you say "this is awful" there's always atletast 1
Love these challenge runs! I had a crazy idea for one- alien hunter dlc only. You’re only allowed to use the four alien hunter weapons and the three alien ruler armors. I know base-game only lets you have one of each, but maybe you could use a mod to have duplicate weapons since only four total weapons could be near impossible.
Hey Drifter! I love your channel and have watched all your XCOM episodes. Keep up the good work! I had some ideas for good runs: Two soldiers only for every mission; Melee only; Explosives only. Anyway, keep up the good work mate!
1:12:38 This has been my universal experience with resistance allies. The AI mostly ignores them, and I swear they're at least as effective as my people are.
Hey man, I always struggle with falling asleep, but your videos are always so methodical and calm. Just wanted to thank you for putting so much effort on the huge amount of voiceover you have to write and perform.
Somehow this run took less resets than the Psi Ops run lmao. I was expecting you'd lose the campaign at some point tbh, but kudos on beating this run, you didn't even need to build SPARKs to tank hits, but the Psi Ops abilities are really powerfull after all anyway.
There was an xcom like game for the 3ds called ghost recon shadow wars. (Super fun, btw. Worth checking out.) In it, you could press the x button on a square to show every square in its line of sight. Xcom could probably use that.
Better you than me, brother. This is the stupidest challenge and I would have rage-quit on gatecrasher. You have WAY more patience and skill than I do.
Right, I was thinking "Doesn't every class get a pistol anyhow as a secondary?" and then I remembered that is in Enemy Unknown, not XCOM 2, so that makes this run hell, good job anyhow!
Drifter, you may have made this the longest video yet but the 'War' wasn't quite 'Long' enough. *Winks* Edit: Oh hey, I'm actually in this one. For a bit anyway.
considering he switched to Veteran difficulty from Commander to streamline the video making process, going for a Long War run would just take too long, and not be an effective way to make videos.
It's more of a joke at this point, I don't expect drifter to listen or do anything I ask, as he doesn't have too. I keep asking because I said on stream after the character pool release that I would have to find something else to ask for. I'd like to see it but I know how long the campaigns are.
Philosophical conundrum: would it be cheating to have your Specialist use Threat Assessment on a Heavy to make them take an overwatch shot? You're using a secondary item to set all this up, but it does involve a primary weapon at some point in the chain.
Technically, yeah, but since it starts with a secondary skill it might be fine. However that also opens the question of whether the bond double strike ability counts as a secondary, given that it's a secondary ability
He reloaded a save when a mind-controlled andromedon shot an acid bomb from his primary weapon. Anything that causes the character to use the primary is off limits (except from animation glitches), even if its not that primary weapon shot itself
New challenge: No upgrades! You can upgrade your soldiers' abilities, so you don't have to go with a full squad of rookies, but do not upgrade their gear, ever. Is it possible? XD These vids are my entertainment during this week. I went down with a nasty cold a few days ago, needed something to put my mind off of it, so I have been binge watching your vids since I have found your channel a few days ago. Thank you. Cheers from Hungary.
Can you beat Xcom 2 only completing plot progression missions + resistance ring ... that's not a run siggestion that's a legitimate question :), also wow you actually beat my challenge ... I have no words mate, you're a legitimate masochist
1:37:12 Yes it is true that this mission has a timer but its not as bad as ppl may think it is. U can ignore that timer if u dont think u can get to it safely, all that timer does is call in 1 reinforcement wave and stopping the timer avoids that reinforcement from spawning its not mission critical like many other timers. 11:00 The reson u dident get any xp is most likly becouse u dident kill anything or performed any offensive action on that mission. Normally in the basegame when i am send to rescue Mox i send out 2 rookies and 1 specalist. Run around the building and blow a hole in the wall to get Mox out and evac that way. There was no kills in that run but the rookies still rank up so i can only assume that using 1 grenade assuming the wall start to burn and get destroyed in a turn or 2 that 1 offensive action caused them to lvl up. It could also be the Specalist hacking the door but i only do that if the reward is a really good 1 if not i just evac him with the rest and even if i dont hack the rookies still rank up. So while u did the objectives the game might have thought that becouse there was no kills or offensive actions atall no xp was awarded. If no kills would mean no xp then your rookies on gatecrasher shouldent have gain any either becouse only 1 soldier got kills. My understanding is that aslong as 1 kill is made or 1 offensive action is taken then xp is awarded in the end. The soldier that got the kill obviously get more xp then the rest but they all get some. I´m sure u have done many gatecrasher missions where 1 rookie never got a kill but becouse rookies only need 1xp to rank up so aslong as some1 got a kill or did an offensive action they got the 1 xp they needed even if it was just from completing the mission. This would be easy to test out by using 1 of the information mods that lets u se soldier will, xp, kills and so on when u prep your squad for a mission. Note that with the latest patch update a month ago using these mods that displayed this information in the soldier list caused my game to crash every time. I tested this with only that type of mod active and they were definatly the cause of the crash so unless mods like (Perfect information, Extended Personnel Info, ShowMeTheSkills) and simular mods have been fixed and updated they will most likly still crash the game. 34:39 save scumming there is would say was warranted. That stack of boxes should not have been enough to obstruct that Sectoid.
I have an awesome idea for a new run for you. You know those Mario Party videos where Luigi wins by doing absolutely nothing? Yeah, that! I'm sure this will be completely fun to do and not at all impossibe.
Another awesome video as always! If I may make a game suggestion, I'd suggest you try warhammer 40k daemonhunters. It's a very similar game to xcom, using a lot of similar mechanics and solving a lot of issues with xcom 2 to make a more fluid game while still having a very strong sense of self identity. It's tough and the game doesn't exactly require you to have all too much knowledge of the 40k universe. I'd high reccomend that you give it a go some time!
57:48 If you had destroyed the lightpost before doing the evac the tiles would have worked. What tiles you can and can't evac from is decided when the evac is placed.
15:00 - Honestly, the turret was placed where it should be (behind a barrier). The civs might be garbagely placed but that turret is actually places nicely.
Maybe a playthrough where you randomly roll for which classes and / or abilities to use (as A team)? The last couple challenges seem brutal to the point where they can't even have been that fun for you to play.
I've got a couple ideas for challenge runs. You'll probably hate at least one Utility only - Can't use anything except utility items or abilities that use utility items (i.e. grenadier's grenade launcher) Ability only - Can't fire normally (primary or secondary) unless an ability does, or use a utility unless an ability uses the utility
Utility only would be impossible I think, as you wouldn't be able to get past gate crasher. 6 enemies, with only 4 grenades. And the Captain would take two grenades just by himself. Abilities only could be interesting. Early game would be pure nightmare fuel.
what if you did a challenge where the only way to shoot your gun is through overwatch? (items and whatnot are allowed, bladestorm would also be allowed. however, it's your challenge, you make the rules)
