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

[Thane Solus]

I don't think the tactical game has any problem in LW, if you have serious issues with it you probably didn't master the original XCOM tactical game as much as you thought you did. The only thing that's pretty dumb in LW from my perspective is the economic and interception game, it basically forces failure (interception more than economic) to make the rest of the game more "interesting".

Its my opinion mate... dont need to come with cheap replies. Poor tactical design is poor, but on their defense they didn't had much to work with. On that matter i finished UFO 1 once almost every year since its release on Ironman (self imposed).

Do you play on Ironman? Since most of the LW praisers. i noticed they play with save scumming... which is totally another game, which i dont want to play.

Like I said, yes, I played LW on Iron-Man. One playthrough was enough for me, game was already pretty damn repetitive after two playthroughs on vanilla, LW only dialed that up to 10 by having exponentially more missions per playthrough. The only thing I felt was out of line from that playthrough was the economic/interceptor aspect of the game. Of course, by the time I started Long War I could do Classic + Iron-Man or even Impossible + Iron-Man vanilla in my sleep, and I consider that the target audience of Long War. If people go in with the idea that it's just an improved version of Normal, I can understand the complaints.

The main thing I took away from LW was the various mechanical improvements (more classes, more perks, more soldiers per mission). If I criticized it as a commercial product I'd probably give it a C- or something, it's more useful as an illustration of all the ways XCOM could be improved. Really disappointed Firaxis didn't include at least the 8 soldier cap in XCOM 2. I guess that'll be the first mod everyone makes..

Well good for you. I see myself enjoying more, watching Beaglerush LW, than to play it myself. Somehow in 2 years i gathered 900 hours, in multiple walkthroughs (Classic), and played LW two times, but never finished it. The hp bloat and number of aliens didnt work for me, the improvements were great tho, even the weak Strategic Layer which received some love too. I appreciate that they did it, since Firaxis toke note of it and now they seem to fix some of the problems in XCOM 2.

 

[Jaedar]

The costs of all manufacturing are super high. But the biggest issue (at least the last time I played) is that the interception game has nonsensical changes that are a legitimate case of "artificial difficulty". Interceptors taking days to fuel just to force you to let UFOs through.

There is no fuel time for interceptors. However, the air game is fucked up. At start you will need 2-3 interceptors to take out small scouts(don't even try anything bigger), and the repair times are really long. So you can easily get overwhelmed in first month, spawning bigger ufos to shoot down your sattellites, preventing you from doing more interceptions or seeing landed ufos.

Weapon Fragments in particular are the worst, because the amount you get per mission is essentially constant over time (or even goes down) while enemies are always getting harder. At least for Elerium/Alloy you can economize your time by skipping small scouts that give 10 of each and doing big ship assaults that give hundreds (for only a moderate increase in the number of aliens you need to kill). Not so for Weapon Fragments, its just a pure grind through numbers.

I'm fairly sure higher tier aliens drop more fragments per kill in general.

I have not played LW to more than the midgame, but from what I've seen of the lategame its a complete grind. The last alien type shows up after like 8 in game months, but games seem to last 2-3 years. And you know, have fun raiding 3 alien bases for every firestorm you want to build.

Long war could have been really good if the developers hadn't been so hardset on making a superlong game.

 

[Zeriel]

There is no fuel time for interceptors.

I guess they addressed that then. Last time I played the interceptors definitely had a refuel time, and it was long enough to miss multiple UFOs as a result.

 

[Icewater]

I'd like to see an XCOM game with Frozen Synapse's combat system.

 

[Average Manatee]

I'm fairly sure higher tier aliens drop more fragments per kill in general.

I have not played LW to more than the midgame, but from what I've seen of the lategame its a complete grind. The last alien type shows up after like 8 in game months, but games seem to last 2-3 years. And you know, have fun raiding 3 alien bases for every firestorm you want to build.

http://ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Weapon_Fragment_(EU2012)

At least in vanilla weapon fragments are strictly linked to weapon drops, and things like Muton Berserkers and Crysallids don't give any. So your weapon fragments per kill tends to be pretty much constant, maybe slightly climbing after the first month. It's nothing like Elerium where your income per mission (/enemies killed) goes up considerably the more advanced UFOs are being sent out/you can kill. And there's nothing like EMP weapons for weapon fragments, that can bring down a UFO without harming it.

At least Firestorms aren't entirely needed, you can just swarm with interceptors (and in the end game you have enough money to just load up 6 per continent and even if all 6 have to be repaired for a month you can swap them out with others).

 

[Zombra]

LONG WAR its ok, brings a new features to fix the limitations of the vanilla EW, but its unplayable. I like to play classic Iron Man in EW, in LW, on normal iron man from month 3 or 4, everything goes overboard, due to a huge number of aliens and exalt, and HP Bloat. So no thanks, still, love many of the features, but just to fight a huge number of aliens with XXX hp, its just no fun for me. And those Exalt missions? yeah.

Dont care about pressure and making more aliens more powerful, make them more smart, not increase the number and go for the cheapest HP bloat route.

Thane Solus is echoing what I've heard: that LW falls apart in the endgame due to really poor balancing. I guess this is still the case?

For whatever it's worth, I just quit a LW game after about 10 hours? because the balance just goes to shit and I didn't do all my research and investment in the exact right order so I was facing Elite Mutons, Heavy Floaters, and Sectoid Commanders with little more than Laser Rifles and Phalanx Armor. So I went on the mod board and found out about the .ini variable that controls the rate at which they "level up". Started a new game and it's a lot more fun so far.

 

[Average Manatee]

Heavy Floaters are seriously the worst shit ever. Everything else in LW is quasi-fair (assuming the map isn't going to fuck you), but when the best CTH you can get on a Heavy Floater is 65%, average 40%, and you need half your team to hit to take it down, god damn. Rockets exist but that hardly helps much when there's multiple in a group and they all split up. Floaters are almost as bad early on, both would probably be better if they were pushed back a month/half month respectively.

 

[Perkel]

Wow so many people saying LW is unbalanced.

101 of LW:

- If you see that you have really really hard mission once you landed. FUCK IT. RUN AWAY.
LW gives you ability to recover panic countries for one so even if it is important mission there will be a chance to recover.
Secondly Character class and abilities are far more important than mission. So making sure your veterans survive is priority !
- Above is important because if you loose somebody and you will run away Aliens will disect your dead soldier and make themselves better. If you leave someone who lives then they will get better even faster.
- Always take one rookie on mission with your veterans and keep him safe in back. Only on really important missions you are allowed not to take rookies. Give him best armor and equipment so he will survive it as long as you will succedd in mission.
- Never under any circumstance try to set up front for longer combat. You are rebel fighters not fucking army. 5-6 dudes won't stand a chance against 20 or 30 on map if you start to fight each of them. Set traps, use buildings, items everything you have to minimalize even a chance to shoot you without full cover. This means that you often play Golder Horde aproach. Hit and run away set up sniper and overwatch and wait for motherfuckers so that again you can hit and run away.
- Stop using every class and create strike teams that have more than 1 of same class. That is the main difference between normal XCOM and LW. In XCOM you didn't need to fiddle with classes so much where in LW depending on mission you need to set up squad right.
3 gunners, 1 sniper, 2 recons with medkits is really good combo. Gunners suppress anyone so they can't hit you or run away. Snipers pick up anyone from safe position and 2 recon untis flank supressed enemies for easy kill and in case shit happens thanks to speed they can move away quickly and whole team can regroup. In case of Gunners meet something really hard to kill they have rocket launchers as a "oh fuck" button.
If you have mission where you need resque people then don't use Sniper or Engineer. You need heavy weapons and recon and ton of medkits. So 3-4 gunners and rest recon or 1 medic is really good combo.
- don't try to tackle every UFO with you airforce. Pick up only targets you think you will have a chance to shoot down. Attacking battleship is idiotic idea.
- Abilities, items etc. in normal XCOM they were additions to normal gameplay. IN LW they are critical. Each class has really powerful bonuses and you need to know how to use them. If your recon has double granades then use those granades in mission. If your recon has chance to run past enemies with overwatch then use it. Research what each bonus gives and use them in gameplay. Like i said in sqads point using combos and working out best aproach with them is crux of LW combat. Use granades. If you don't have huge advantage don't wait for someone death. Use them.
- Always use higher buildings even when you think you don't need it. You never know if something happens and your situation will change 180degree. Having someone with rocket launcher or Sniper can save whole mission because AI will try not to get into line of fire or outflanked position which gives you 2-3 turns before they will hit your ground troops instead of just 1 where they move in into building and fuck up your plans. This also means that for example if your combat party will enconter huge resistance then they can fall back and be protected while they are falling back.
- Always check your flanks before progressing. If you are going into bulding and you don't know what is on left or right side of building you are asking for trouble.
- LW is merciless. It never forgives fuckups. So if you are doing something and you are not under timer it is better to take additional turn or two to fiddle with formation before progressing. If you don't do it, it is always 1-2 turns less you can do something other and 1-2 turns in which situation from good can quickly go to very bad. Proper formation before entering building is needed in almost every situation.
Gunners with suppression ability in windows, Recons with "run past overwatch" as a knife, sniper as backup in case of fall back order.
- Never use Run for moving. Run only if you know you won't get hit and you will run to safe location. Not doing so means you will die sooner or later. Even when you fall back from position don't abuse Run because shooting while running back is great tactic when you are covered by Sniper fire.
- Never go into LW with thought that you will win that mode and reach ending. Whole point of LW is to set you up against impossible odds and see how far you can go. Ending is something that should reward you for perfection and your abilities and not because you played game. So yes losing is fun. When you will fail campaign you have experience and you can start a new and use that experience to be better.

Those are just things out top of my head for LW. I agree with people that later there is HP bloat but imo it is not that bad considering damage dealt still you die a lot and enemies are easy to kill.

Still my best experience was failed mission in which i had escort dude to point of extraction. I played mission perfectly till the end but at the end i did one fatal mistake. I removed my Gunner with rocket launcher from building which was securing flanks where my soildier moved through supermarket I literally had like 10 squares to the extraction point. First stick man spawned from behind so i had move up pace. Secondly 2 pack of greys spawned just when i jumped from roof in near building. They quickly outflanked me and killed escorted person. I leaved two dead people on that mission.
It was my mistake and it was awesome.

 

[Gozma]

Play LW on normal even if you think you are really good at TBS AND you know the shit out of nuxcom. Do normal + cinematic mode in the second wave options if you haven't played nuxcom.

The air game stops feeling so bad when you have laser cannons and you have expanded to cover multiple continents, because when one continent is getting hit hard you can transfer interceptors around to shore it up.

The large HP pools and large group sizes are totally necessary and it would be almost as shit as vanilla without them.

That said the latest patch where they have the stupid drop-ins on static missions always fall into cover (which means your overwatch on them is shit) AND still go into overwatch themselves hey man fuck that. Fuck you.

 

[Zombra]

Cool advice Perkel, thanks for putting that together. However -

- If you see that you have really really hard mission once you landed. FUCK IT. RUN AWAY.

Once you get three abduction missions in a row that are super impossible like this, game is over and there's no way to recover. Kind of sucks.

Never go into LW with thought that you will win that mode and reach ending. Whole point of LW is to set you up against impossible odds and see how far you can go.

OK, my previous complaint fades a bit in that light, but ... eh. I guess I'm a product of "modern" games. When I fuck up, I expect a game over, go back and try again. Not really cool to find out 20 hours later that I did the research in imperfect order and get a "fuck you" from the game.

Anyway, the creators say right up front, please mod our mod to your taste, so I don't feel bad at all about cranking down alien research machine.
For anyone who wants to know the variable, go to \Steam\SteamApps\common\XCom-Enemy-Unknown\XEW\XComGame\Config\DefaultGameCore.ini
and edit

; Multiplier for timing of alien upgrades (%, lower slower later alien upgrades)
MaxActiveAIUnits=70 ; Normal ←this line
MaxActiveAIUnits=100 ; Classic
MaxActiveAIUnits=110 ; Brutal
MaxActiveAIUnits=130 ; Impossible

 

[Perkel]

Never go into LW with thought that you will win that mode and reach ending. Whole point of LW is to set you up against impossible odds and see how far you can go.

OK, my previous complaint fades a bit in that light, but ... eh. I guess I'm a product of "modern" games. When I fuck up, I expect a game over, go back and try again. Not really cool to find out 20 hours later that I did the research in imperfect order and get a "fuck you" from the game.

Dwarf Fortress i think is game that made me this way. Loosing is as awesome as winning as long as there is something to learn from it.

LW also changes dramatically from beta to beta. For example, the new Command ability totally changes officer class decisions.

This too. If some of you played earlier version you need to actually play newer one. Changes are quite big from beta to beta.

 

[Gozma]

You can stretch out carapace armor + a crissalid plate and lasers a really long damn time. MSGTs can make a lot of things work. Although I say that partly because old betas always had something really overpowered you could get in the midgame that could carry you deep into the time you should probably actually have better stuff, like: large stocks of ghost grenades, old MECs, old mimic beacons, earlier psi-panic, probably other things I'm forgetting.

Titan armor is really good and a gigantic step up in b15 from carapace and can covereth a multitude of sins. If you want to look at the wiki and count your research pennies that would be a prime target for a "this game feels much more under control now" feeling. Extra conditioning + titan is 16 armor HP, it has built in DR, and it gives the damage control perk.

 

[Average Manatee]

Heavy Floater in LW is a psi check. You need to have at least mindfray or psi panic to lock it down enough that your squad can focus fire.

Yeah I don't use Psi because its stupid.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Yeah I don't use Psi because its stupid.

That's pretty funny.

 

[PeachPlumage]

If released on gog I might be tempted to part with some money.

 

[thesheeep]

Hmmm.... much Apocalypse in this one.

Good, I always thought XCOM:Apocalypse was not the best part, but the one with the greatest potential.

 

[Luka-boy]

IN SUMMARY:

- they will be releasing everything what hey have to moders, udktools, their custom devkit, all assets and every script used in making Xcom2
- everything in game will be modable more or less. Don't like 2 phase system ? Change it to time units ala UFO

Isn't this the most important thing we got from that interview? Way more than them mentioning The Long War?

 

[Perkel]

IN SUMMARY:

- they will be releasing everything what hey have to moders, udktools, their custom devkit, all assets and every script used in making Xcom2
- everything in game will be modable more or less. Don't like 2 phase system ? Change it to time units ala UFO

Isn't this the most important thing we got from that interview? Way more than them mentioning The Long War?

Both of those are the most important things for LW.

Imagine LW if devs would have full tools at their disposal.

 

[Zombra]

Sounds a lot like a very lazy "mods will fix" from the devs, no less.
Why do all the good work, when someone can do that work and you can laugh all the to the bank?

This just in from Satan: you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.

 

[Zombra]

Good mod support is sort of a obvious feature nowdays, like having a game that doesn't glitch every five minutes.

So announcing the intent to have good mod support = bad, lazy devs. Got it

 

[SerratedBiz]

Everyone can tell when someone has tripped over themselves and started making dumb arguments. Be a good sport and let him go, Zombra .

 

[Space Satan]

 

[ArchAngel]

http://www.twitch.tv/ign gameplay from E3 in 1 minute

 

[Jimmious]

That was gud.

 

[SerratedBiz]

http://www.twitch.tv/ign/v/6218650

Xcom stuff begins at 1:31:00