Pavonis Interactive Forums

Is there still a final countdown after the Avatar Project Counter fills all the way up, as in the vanilla version? Or, due to the longer bar overall, does the game just end immediately after all the pips are filled?

There's still a countdown. I think it's 21 days, but I'm not sure.

There is yes, I believe Jadiel is correct on 21 days. A quick check of the ini would probably confirm this.
Be warned, it does not reset if you reduce the avatar progress unlike in vanilla. So if the clock gets halted at 1 day and they get some progress and reactivate the clock, it'll be 1 day left again.

Solitas wrote:There is yes, I believe Jadiel is correct on 21 days. A quick check of the ini would probably confirm this.
Be warned, it does not reset if you reduce the avatar progress unlike in vanilla. So if the clock gets halted at 1 day and they get some progress and reactivate the clock, it'll be 1 day left again.

What ?!?

So, if you force back Avatar progress, if the scale fills up again, that 21-day countdown isn't reset ?!? That's just wrong.

Jacke wrote: So, if you force back Avatar progress, if the scale fills up again, that 21-day countdown isn't reset ?!? That's just wrong.

Learnt the hard way on my first campaign I'm afraid, avatar bar ticked up 3 pips in the space of 10 hours and the doom clock still only had 9 hours left. Serves me right for trying to cheese it like in vanilla haha
That said this was on Legendary, so it's entirely possible it might still be possible in lower settings. Your gamble to take haha

Solitas wrote:Learnt the hard way on my first campaign I'm afraid, avatar bar ticked up 3 pips in the space of 10 hours and the doom clock still only had 9 hours left. Serves me right for trying to cheese it like in vanilla haha

That said this was on Legendary, so it's entirely possible it might still be possible in lower settings. Your gamble to take haha

I play on Legendary as well. Still, I think it's wrong. That 21-day countdown is the final steps once all is in place. XCOM creating setbacks that push down the AVATAR progress counter should force a reset of that countdown as well. I'm not familiar with the final story missions, but I don't know if you could launch at such short notice with any chance to succeed.

And is it another difference from stock XCOM 2 that's not mentioned to players until they lose a campaign to it? Kind of harsh.

It is the same in vainilla, was changed in a patch because "surfing" the countdown was, basically, an exploit. If you play vainilla before the patch probably didn't see it

Kharneth wrote:It is the same in vainilla, was changed in a patch because "surfing" the countdown was, basically, an exploit. If you play vainilla before the patch probably didn't see it

Wow, really? I only remember the surfing version. I feel like it was in the exploitative form for a long time, and that the new version is recent. When did it come out?

I really don't know, buy the game on sale at least 8-9 months from release and I think it's patch by this point

Kharneth wrote:It is the same in vainilla, was changed in a patch because "surfing" the countdown was, basically, an exploit. If you play vainilla before the patch probably didn't see it

Hehe, vainilla? Because vanilla XCOM 2 is so vain?

I guess I've gotten rather lucky in my campaign, on veteran. I'm around 7 months in and have managed to destroy, I believe, 4 blacksite facilities. I even managed to counter a "construction" mission, which I believe would have resulted in a new facility. Though in reality, when I learned that facility pips had a chance to transfer to waterworld, I got a bit paranoid and started investigating every facility lead I could, and expanded the resistance accordingly -- so maybe "luck" isn't the right word.

I've slowed Avatar progress to a crawl, and the aliens have been stuck at only two pips (one in waterworld, and another in an unknown location), for quite a long time.

Haha I had no idea they patched it out. Thinking on it, has been a while since I cheesed it. Normally I control the avatar pips, the campaign run I had just had a string of avatar DEs alongside regular progress, left me in the dust. Was more frustrating as I was two days away from golden path and getting the progress down.

Kharneth wrote:It is the same in vainilla, was changed in a patch because "surfing" the countdown was, basically, an exploit. If you play vainilla before the patch probably didn't see it

I think a more fair nerf would be to reset the counter to halfway between the current time and the full time. You _could_ cheese that... but given the need to infiltrate in LW2, it would be much more difficult.