X-COM XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen Expansion Thread

Ever heard of Jagged Alliance?

 

This is not Jagged Alliance or even close to that greatness. Don't sully the name by bringing it up in this topic.

 

I see. So if one tactical game series you like has personality interaction among its units, it's great. If another series you don't like tries to do something similar, they're stupid and should stop.
I guess that's whatcha call incline.

 

The last time I played nuXCOM I distinctly remember thinking "You know what this game needs? More human enemies to take full advantage of the sci-fi theme."

 

Gross. Civilization leaders are lame. Let's assume he meant Alpha Centauri.

Overall, his whole take on the geoscape's flaws makes me wonder if he just doesn't really get what the charm of the geoscape/battlefied combination in the original was. Switching between grand strategy and battlefield tactics was like chocolate and peanut butter. The XCOM2 geoscape doesn't lack "warmth"; it lacks any sense of strategic decision-making and base/organization building. You're just responding to random things that pop up on the map and clicking scan on the best one, like a skinnerbox boardgame. So instead of looking to Civilization (and similar games) for ways to deepen the strategy, they add the one feature that will not help.

Even the geoscape in 2012 was better. Sure it was boardgamey and had only one viable strategy (i.e. satellite rush), but one strategy is better than zero!

Hopefully the "warmth" thing is a marketing hook and the mechanics of Chosen operations are more interesting than this interview lets on. The interviewer didn't seem particularly interested in teasing out what "knowledge" means in terms of gameplay, so perhaps there are complexities we haven't heard about. Luckily the interviewer did make sure to include the fact that Jake Solomon thinks his banal take on the Terror from the Deep reference is "exactly right".

Maybe don't do a guy with medieval armor and magic on his hands? Ethereals are perfectly good wielders of space magic already. In fact, I might like a mod that just replaces the Chosen with differentiated Ethereals.

In other words, let's make sure people think a specific product is in the pipeline on the off chance we decide to make it. All of the hype without any of the development or marketing costs!

 

So, kinda disgusting and way too sweet?

 

Peanut butter cups man, peanut butter cups.

Are you European? I think there's a cross atlantic difference of opinion on what to eat peanut butter with. I once knew a Dutchman who thought peanut butter and jelly was disgusting. I told him to go back to speaking German and slapped him across the face.

 

I am European indeed. Tbh I was more joking than anything else. I...kinda like anything with chocolate and the combination with peanut butter reminds me of Snickers which is one of my favorites so... no real complaints there. It can be too much sometimes though

 

Isn't peanut butter the fattest food on earth?

 

If you look at the abandoned cities at 0:30, they look like Eu maps

 

is that a tranny in this video, or just a butt ugly chick?

 

Who cares?

More important question is what her thoughts are about the guy she's sitting next to and she cannot take her eyes off.
And... having just skipped the video without audio, I'd also ask what her role is, since she doesn't seem to say a single word. She just stares at the guy all the time, which is kinda hilarious

 

Overbloated with HP aliens and promoting timer shit, good old Firaxis. Because putting more pressure on player for the sake of putting pressure is SO FUN!

 

people think lw2 is fun.

 

I'm as interested in watching freshmen talk about games as I am in watching them play them so didn't watch the video, but was the guy being interviewed and was he talking a lot? It is good manners to look at people talking.

 

Pressure creates tension and tension and worry adds to the reward. Why would I want to play a game that is so challengless that I feel no pressure to perform well during combat? I'm just wasting my time if there is no constant pressure of losing. If winning is a foregone conclusion there is no pressure and it really isn't winning.

Gambling with big money is exciting because of the pressure. Big risk = pressure. Big reward equals the reason to subject yourself to the pressure.

 

Thing is, you don't need timers for pressure.
None of the old games had that, and the risk and pressure was still there. IMO, the pressure to need to advance on the strategy layer is more than enough. You can't really play it safe there and need to take riskier missions (that are risky without timers). Hell, BB doesn't have timers and I'd say there's quite a bit of pressure going on anyway.
Having timers every now and then isn't bad as it is a mechanic that spices things up when used sometimes. But in XCom 2, I cannot even remember missions without one. It's just the same, always. And always the same just becomes annoying as hell.

 

Convoy raids, sabotage missions and story missions don't have them.
Every other mission does though. Technically retaliation missions, ship defense and device protection missions don't have timers either, but there's still a hidden time limit where if you don't act fast enough the game either fucks you over or fails the mission.

 

Actually, the lack of lose condition in BB could be a slight problem in earlier versions (when you started further away from the opponent):
If both sides decide to camp a hill, then what? The player would have to attack because he would get bored?
Almost every wargame has a time limit to force the attacker to take action.
The problem with XCOM 2 timer, if any, is that they feel forced, and are too central to the gameplay (even if you had 20 turns more, you would have to take the offensive and not wait forever for a patrol to enter into your overwatch ambush).
The problem with the way timers are implemented in XCOM2 is that removing them also makes the missions trivially easy.

There are timers too in Total War, and nobody complains about them, so I think it is a matter of implementation (not having enough time to position your sniper can get odd indeed), not that timers are bad by themselves.

 

qed
Didn't even remember the non-timer ones because the timed ones were so annoying.

 

Would you recommend any specific larger overhaul mods, oasis789 or do you find a bunch of smaller mods works better?

I'm hoping WotC addresses my complaints but I'm kinda keen on a replay before it releases.

 

I disagree. One of the Buck Rogers, early on, had a mission in which your party members would get a brain disease or something. You had to explore the whole ship with a constant pressure of it getting worse, spreading, and who knows what. You had to find a medical station to remove it and it really wasn't that clear what was going on. This part is burned into my mind and solidified my love of the Buck Rogers games. Also, the first QfG had various timers, all hidden for the most part. If I am remembering right so did Dark Suns with certain events, like times into the gladiator pit before shit happens, etc. I have never beat FO1 and FO2 because of the timers on both. I have an OCD need to clear everything and the game makes it impossible with the time limits given. All the RoA games had certain timers if I am remembering right. All these examples are pre-internet (or pre-internet for the vast majority of all people) so there was no guides to check or easy solutions. Most games had a hint line you could call for money, and would be expensive even in today's dollars.

 

That's nice. But we're talking about XCom and comparable games here (that's what I meant with old games, the old X-Com ones). A game where losing a few missions (or even one) can cost you too much to be able to continue, timers or not.
Hence, timers are simply not needed. And if they are only there to make missions hard enough to be challenging, there's something seriously wrong with the mission and game design. As proven by all similar games not requiring timers.

Besides, the FO1 timer was patched out (and for good reason, timers like that simply don't work for games that demand exploration) and... FO2 never had a timer to begin with. Or did it? I certainly cannot remember one.