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

[Ironmonk]

So I have been trying some mods to entertain myself while I wait for patches/DLCs/Bigger Mods...

First one was this: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=625780621 [IESS+] Increased Enemy Squad Size Plus

It increases the number of enemies per pod + the amount of enemies that you engage at the same time... so I tested on gatecrasher (legend) and man, you need to be a hardcore masochist to use this mod... you easily activate more than one pod at a time with 5 enemies per pod... I can see this been doable at end game, but at the beginning? hell no!

The other mod I tried that deserves a mention is: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=626617018 ADVENT Officer - Call Reinforcements

It allows Advent Officers to call for reinforcements when their buddies are killed... I went in game and then engaged on a pod with one officer, killed his pals and he called for reinforcements. I killed him next turn and set a trap for the reinforcements (another officer + 2 troopers), killed the troopers but couldn't get the officer and guess what? he calls reinforcement too lol... again, another mod that IMO is essential middle/end game, but at the beginning can be very annoying.

There is some mods that adds new units, three of these are Advent Sniper, Advent Psi Ops (Sectoid 2.0) and Advent Recon Unit (immune to overwatch and tries to flank the player with overwatch)... I didn't find them yet, but I think its gonna be fun.

TL;DR there is a lot of mods out there, some very useful for everybody... some for the players thinking its too easy and some for the players that think its too hard.

 

[Jaedar]

Even more absurd 1-die-roll consequences: If you have a hit chance over 100%, it actually begins to reduce your chance to get critical hits. With (say) 125% hit chance, and 100% critical chance, then 25% of your critical chance gets "truncated" and you'll only get a critical 75% of the time. If you want to get a critical, don't put the sniper on a roof that will give enough hit bonus to push the crit out.

On the upside that effect can actually make it impossible for enemies to dodge if you overshoot their defense enough to "absorb" their dodge off the end of the RNG.

Why would you do thissss

This is one of those things that is easy to mod but requires rebalancing the entire game, since it was presumably designed for the single roll.

Eh, it's not like the devs can into balancing anyway, so I doubt it could possibly do as much harm as say, vanilla mimic beacons

One of the more interesting mods from a simulationist pov is All Pods Active: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=631501691

This mod removes that from the game entirely. All pods start on the map awake on non-concealment maps.

Full squad concealment maps start normally so you can still setup the initial ambush and positioning. After you break concealment, the other enemies will activate and scamper at the start of your *next* turn (not during the turn you break concealment) so you do get a little more leeway on concealment maps.

That is, it pretty much negates the pod mechanic. Though the game is certainly not balanced for this.

This is interesting. I was pondering something like this, although I expect it makes the game incredibly difficult, having 10+ enemies beelining towards you. Would require some AI redesign to actually be fun I suspect (like instead of everyone beelining, some will stay behind and guard the objective).

 

[ArchAngel]

It would also require you start with 6 soldiers and go up to 8.

 

[typical user]

Is there a mod allowing you to choose your soldiers class after promotion? I know there is AWC but I mean if I level up rookie in the field. I have nice set of characters in the pool from current campaign which I will likely fail so I would like to have my current specialists, grenadiers, etc. to stay alike but I am concerned that after Gatecrasher they game will go lulzy and mix specializations up which are irreversible.

On a side note, it is pretty stupid you can level up psi operatives in psi labs and use them in missions at the same time but you can't train your soldiers in AWC to catch up to the same level as your main soldiers. I know there is a mod which fixes that and it should eliminate a problem in which I have 6 captains, 3 corporals and 6 or more squaddies. But it should be in vanilla game. Psi-ops are already broken, as I got for my first skill a psionic blast which was last perk in skill tree. And that soldier can stop and resume his training as he pleases. And it is rather hard to replace grenadiers with suppresion or specialist with high hacking skill and haywire protocol or rangers with phantom, run n' gun and implacable with blank slate squaddies especially at the point where you meet Andromedons and Archons.

 

[Galdred]

Shooting always ends your turn, unless it's a free action (which is a retarded and contradictory mechanic, but that's not the point). So you can either walk and shoot (2 actions) or shoot and end your turn because while walking & shooting is ok, shooting & walking is not, unless it's a special ability (which is another retarded and contradictory mechanic but again, not the point). Since Serial is not a free action, it's the last action you should be allowed to take (sniper shooting first always ends his turn; he can either walk and use a pistol or use a rifle which would end his turn). Instead you can reload, which is a very valuable action for a sniper as reloading during his next turn would not allow him to use the sniper rifle on that turn, and then shoot a pistol, which isn't something you can normally do.

Special rules contradicting the general rules has been in games since the beginning :
You can only move one piece in chess, unless you are castling.
You must land on the piece you take, unless your pawn is taking another one en passant
You cannot go over other pieces unless you are moving a knight
Taking a piece works the same as moving it, except for pawns
and so on.
I don't see any problem there, the idea being that all these exceptions are introduced later on, and are usually self contained.
It is actually a pretty common board game design principle (Magic : The Gathering uses this a lot) : Simple rules, with many elements contradicting one or a few points of these rules.

It would also require you start with 6 soldiers and go up to 8.

Actually, that sounds amazing!
Not sure the timed missions would be doable then,though, unless you bring 16 mimic beacons...

Is there a mod allowing you to choose your soldiers class after promotion? I know there is AWC but I mean if I level up rookie in the field. I have nice set of characters in the pool from current campaign which I will likely fail so I would like to have my current specialists, grenadiers, etc. to stay alike but I am concerned that after Gatecrasher they game will go lulzy and mix specializations up which are irreversible.

On a side note, it is pretty stupid you can level up psi operatives in psi labs and use them in missions at the same time but you can't train your soldiers in AWC to catch up to the same level as your main soldiers. I know there is a mod which fixes that and it should eliminate a problem in which I have 6 captains, 3 corporals and 6 or more squaddies. But it should be in vanilla game. Psi-ops are already broken, as I got for my first skill a psionic blast which was last perk in skill tree. And that soldier can stop and resume his training as he pleases. And it is rather hard to replace grenadiers with suppresion or specialist with high hacking skill and haywire protocol or rangers with phantom, run n' gun and implacable with blank slate squaddies especially at the point where you meet Andromedons and Archons.

As the game goes on, you get to recruit skilled soldiers instead of squaddie ones (through scans, at the HQ or black market, or as mission rewards). A colonel late game costs almost the same as a squaddie early on.
It is not as good as training them yourselves, but it allowed me to replace the loss of my Alpha team (I had a tense mission where only the sniper made it, after a duel with a MEC and one with a faceless).

 

[typical user]

As the game goes on, you get to recruit skilled soldiers instead of squaddie ones (through scans, at the HQ or black market, or as mission rewards). A colonel late game costs almost the same as a squaddie early on. It is not as good as training them yourselves, but it allowed me to replace the loss of my Alpha team (I had a tense mission where only the sniper made it, after a duel with a MEC and one with a faceless).

But you have to give up countering one of Dark Events in most cases, you often have to put lot of supplies to buy them or in worse case intel which you should use to gain access to AVATAR facilitie and getting scanning event is RNG. You better off saving one or two rookies in your initial roaster so you can put them right away into washing machine as they will be rank up rather quickly and their starter stasis ability in right situation is get out of jail for free card.

This mod http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom2/mods/361/? fixes the problem. You have to pay customizable fee for each rank and you can get only second to highest rank. It makes acquiring new high ranking soldiers somewhat redundant but you have to pay for that and it brings it on par with training psi-operatives who are OP but take their time to train up (which makes rushing psi lab a good starting choice).

 

[Jimmious]

I've gotta say, I got "lucky" and got Serial on two specialists. Ho-boy does that ability rule or what? Love it

 

[Galdred]

I've gotta say, I got "lucky" and got Serial on two specialists. Ho-boy does that ability rule or what? Love it

death from above is also wonderful on anything but a sniper. It is like a serial without cooldown on everyone else.

 

[Jimmious]

I've gotta say, I got "lucky" and got Serial on two specialists. Ho-boy does that ability rule or what? Love it

death from above is also wonderful on anything but a sniper. It is like a serial without cooldown on everyone else.

Hah true, got that on a ranger also very good.
I generally like the idea of random bonus abilities a lot. Was good thinking from their part.

 

[Zombra]

I generally like the idea of random bonus abilities a lot. Was good thinking from their part.

I want Second Wave Training Roulette to come back

 

[Jimmious]

I generally like the idea of random bonus abilities a lot. Was good thinking from their part.

I want Second Wave Training Roulette to come back

I'm pretty sure it will. Be it a mod or a future addition, it will.
But the AWC thing is a bit more smooth imo, the Training Roulette was a tad bit too chaotic

 

[Zombra]

I thrive on the chaos.

 

[Jimmious]

I feel ya man

 

[orcinator]

Got bored during late game and eventually uninstalled once I realized I'll never come back to it until all the DLC is out or someone mods in a proper projectile system.


Was wishing that they could at least fix the difficulty curve, but it seems even easier now with no thin men to ruin early game and no penalty for using explosives.

 

[ArchAngel]

Got bored during late game and eventually uninstalled once I realized I'll never come back to it until all the DLC is out or someone mods in a proper projectile system.


Was wishing that they could at least fix the difficulty curve, but it seems even easier now with no thin men to ruin early game and no penalty for using explosives.

It is much easier. I had way more problems and lost way more people on Classic/Ironman in Xcom EU and EW

 

[Bliblablubb]

This game can be so aaaaaargh at times...

Gorilla Mission #1. Protect the device. First round someone shoots it for 14 damage already. Doubletime! Went towards it without trouble (as much as meeting your first big daddy counts as "no trouble"), but got delayed by dark event's reinforcements. Arrived with about 10 hps on the device left, hacked the bot, killed all except one, but both grenadiers can't hit the last one thanks to the high cover reducing range bug. So I threw a baconmimic, that should be enough distraction. AMIRITE? Nope, enemy ignores him and continues to shoot the device. For a criit. Fission mailed.
Restarted mission and made a crooked beeline to the device, ignoring the enemies. Lession learned.

Gorilla Mission #2. Hack the device. "Very difficult". Bring it on, my body is ready!
Second turn revealed a floating hood ornament, snaketits, several elite troopers, two heavy turrets and my first Sucktopod having an illegal LAN party at the terminal. Problem?
Nope, hacked the Sucky and two snipers with killzone busted the party with a bunch of Plasma RAAAANCE attacks. Every enemy focused on the bot and completely ignored me until only the pod was left. More like "Very easy" instead.
Still had to reload the last turn, since the bot was still alive, denying me the corpse and tarnishing my statistics with him being wounded.
"Crispy" is still shaken even after killing 3 enemies. Must be old age.

Considering all the bugs I encountered so far, I would never do a real ironman with this game. Bronzeman at best.

Question: can you still remove pips from the avaturd facility itself after doing the forge/codex location when you have run out of dork facilities, or is it impossible to extend the game much longer after that?

 

[veevoir]

You obviously didnt have a protection device mission yet where sectopod tramples the device :D

 

[ArchAngel]

Or he didn't have where burning scenery instantly takes out the device even with it still having half hp :D

 

[Bliblablubb]

Nope, the Sucktopod had his big reveal only after that mission. The device one brought Big Daddy in the game (and he was the one shooting it for 14 damage in the first round). Not sure what I am going to do if the AT-ST tramples it. Enemies seem to be hardcoded to shoot the device once per turn, so even rushing to the device and hacking the bot may not be enough to solve that. Even his shitty aim at point blank range won't help, since shooting the device seems to be an auto hit. We'll see...

Protect the device missions are the worst so far. I used to think the civilian missions were, but hacking a bot and pulling half of the map makes them pretty lulzy instead. Sure little Chryslerids, be my guest and nibble on the bot, take your time and stay close together for my grenadiers.

As long as the burning secenery can be prevented I am up for the challenge. Although I usually avoid it, but this one was an "avaturd project major breakthrough" and I just had blown up a factory, so I had to take this one.

So, what do YOU do if the device blows up halfway in? Deal with it or reload?

 

[veevoir]

Deal with this shit. Sanity is for the weak

 

[veevoir]

Ok, what the fuck is this post rating retardation. Did DU go on a bender again?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Wait, where are the brofists? What heresy is this?

Also, what is the meaning of the walking parrot? I do not understand.

 

[Disgruntled]

I went from playing the game to modding it.
I think I was too excited with the prospects of an sdk, doing anything outside a template is like smacking my head against a wall. Mind you I have non-existent coding experience, leaves me begging for simple 'if' 'then' statements instead of bouncing back and forth from abilities, effects, inis and gamestates.
But by god I aint quitting after investing so many hours staring at lines and playing build lottery.

 

[ArchAngel]

I went from playing the game to modding it.
I think I was too excited with the prospects of an sdk, doing anything outside a template is like smacking my head against a wall. Mind you I have non-existent coding experience, leaves me begging for simple 'if' 'then' statements instead of bouncing back and forth from abilities, effects, inis and gamestates.
But by god I aint quitting after investing so many hours staring at lines and playing build lottery.

Makes us a Xcom 1994 in Xcom 2 engine pls :D

 

[Bliblablubb]

I kinda miss capturing and researching live aliens to be honest. It made you feel a lot more badass watching them raging through a glass window. Come to think of it, I ended up bringing home mostly live aliens in the 1994 version, since they were worth moah points.:D