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

[Jimmious]

Hmmmm interesting stuff. It seems it'll be worth a new playthrough at least.

 

[ArchAngel]

New infos on expansion, tbh is ton of stuff:

-Rulers are now facilities guards and they will trigger in every mission like they used to be only after being engaged once. Rulers and Chosen can't be in the same mission.

-Chosen: the hunter snipes you from out of sight, it's avoidable by movement tho. The warlock summons ghosts. The assassin teleport into soldiers to melee swings.

-The chosen have a resource called "knowledge" and they can increase it by interrogating xcom soldiers, after they have enough knowledge they can reach your base. They can also capture your soldiers and you may need to rescue them in a stealth mission.

-They can screw you up in the strategic layer too and there is also a new base defense mission involving the chosen attacking the avenger.

-Every chosen is independent and they have their own knowledge bars and they control different territories.

-Every chosen has a stronghold in which you have to go in to defeat them permanently (think like EU alien base missions).

-The chosen gain new procedural perks and abilities over time. Nemesis system from Mordor ispired Firaxis.

-Little fun details added like factions or alien speaker radio transmission about world events while in geoscape, just to add flavor

-You are not obliged to beat all chosen before beating the game, but the chosen u didn't kill will show up all at once for a final confrontation.

-Different ending cinematic

-New enemies: Priest, mind control, revive himself, and many buffs. Purifier, flamethrower and incendiary grenades. Spectre, who knockout you soldiers and create an active copy of them.

-The zombies are a lot and come in swarms, but if you kill one straight you have a free action, basically you can chain kill them.

-New mission system in tactical: lot of missions have random modifiers, example: lot of explosives in the map\you can bring only 3 soldiers\free conceleament skill for all soldiers\etc. etc

-You can have more heroes but after the first they will be very hard to get

-2 new facilities: training center, for new abilites for soldiers and Resistance ring, related to covert ops

-Covert ops in which you send ppl out looking for intelligence but they can trigger missions in which you need to rescue them

-Bonds between soldiers work in both strategical and tactical by adding new stuff, like if one close to other is immune to mental effects and so.

-New fatigue system

-If u bring fatigued soldiers in missions they may panic, or do bad stuff like reacing badly to many events so it's doable but very risky

-New item: Lost lure, who can make zombies attack where you want

-Every faction and chosen has new weapons you can get , so basically 6 new weapons.

-New research stuff called Breakthrough or Ispiration, they appear randomly and allow many buffs like increase sniper rifle damage or decrease a facility cost

-Improvements fixes on engine, such loading times and framerate

Underlined only true good stuff in that list which I hope is given as a patch to Xcom 2 as well.
The rest is lots of gamist bullshit that nuXcom already has enough of.

 

[Mazisky]

New infos on expansion, tbh is ton of stuff:

-Rulers are now facilities guards and they will trigger in every mission like they used to be only after being engaged once. Rulers and Chosen can't be in the same mission.

-Chosen: the hunter snipes you from out of sight, it's avoidable by movement tho. The warlock summons ghosts. The assassin teleport into soldiers to melee swings.

-The chosen have a resource called "knowledge" and they can increase it by interrogating xcom soldiers, after they have enough knowledge they can reach your base. They can also capture your soldiers and you may need to rescue them in a stealth mission.

-They can screw you up in the strategic layer too and there is also a new base defense mission involving the chosen attacking the avenger.

-Every chosen is independent and they have their own knowledge bars and they control different territories.

-Every chosen has a stronghold in which you have to go in to defeat them permanently (think like EU alien base missions).

-The chosen gain new procedural perks and abilities over time. Nemesis system from Mordor ispired Firaxis.

-Little fun details added like factions or alien speaker radio transmission about world events while in geoscape, just to add flavor

-You are not obliged to beat all chosen before beating the game, but the chosen u didn't kill will show up all at once for a final confrontation.

-Different ending cinematic

-New enemies: Priest, mind control, revive himself, and many buffs. Purifier, flamethrower and incendiary grenades. Spectre, who knockout you soldiers and create an active copy of them.

-The zombies are a lot and come in swarms, but if you kill one straight you have a free action, basically you can chain kill them.

-New mission system in tactical: lot of missions have random modifiers, example: lot of explosives in the map\you can bring only 3 soldiers\free conceleament skill for all soldiers\etc. etc

-You can have more heroes but after the first they will be very hard to get

-2 new facilities: training center, for new abilites for soldiers and Resistance ring, related to covert ops

-Covert ops in which you send ppl out looking for intelligence but they can trigger missions in which you need to rescue them

-Bonds between soldiers work in both strategical and tactical by adding new stuff, like if one close to other is immune to mental effects and so.

-New fatigue system

-If u bring fatigued soldiers in missions they may panic, or do bad stuff like reacing badly to many events so it's doable but very risky

-New item: Lost lure, who can make zombies attack where you want

-Every faction and chosen has new weapons you can get , so basically 6 new weapons.

-New research stuff called Breakthrough or Ispiration, they appear randomly and allow many buffs like increase sniper rifle damage or decrease a facility cost

-Improvements fixes on engine, such loading times and framerate

Underlined only true good stuff in that list which I hope is given as a patch to Xcom 2 as well.
The rest is lots of gamist bullshit that nuXcom already has enough of.

I'm pretty sure that if this list would have taken from Phoenix Point or any other game, the "gaminst bullshit" would have turned magically into "best design decisions and features ever".

But this is Firaxis so gonna hate

 

[Jimmious]

No need for another game, if they were Long War 2 features that'd be enough

 

[Mazisky]

Btw, the expansion seems a true successor to Enemy within, a new vanilla playthrough is given considering how many features we got and how the vanilla campaign will be more interesting and pretty huge

 

[ArchAngel]

No need for another game, if they were Long War 2 features that'd be enough

Long War 2 is already enough. I seen nothing here that makes this a better game. But I seen plenty of shit design some of the things "stolen" from LW2.

 

[Mazisky]

No need for another game, if they were Long War 2 features that'd be enough

Long War 2 is already enough. I seen nothing here that makes this a better game. But I seen plenty of shit design some of the things "stolen" from LW2.

So, long war 2 was shit design? LOL

 

[ArchAngel]

No need for another game, if they were Long War 2 features that'd be enough

Long War 2 is already enough. I seen nothing here that makes this a better game. But I seen plenty of shit design some of the things "stolen" from LW2.

So, long war 2 was shit design? LOL

Explain this to us that don't speak Retard.

 

[Alienman]

I wonder what happened to the terror from the deep thing. Think that has been scrapped in favor of this?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I wonder what happened to the terror from the deep thing. Think that has been scrapped in favor of this?

That's probably for XCOM 3. This just looks like an expansion in the same vein as Enemy Within.

 

[Grotesque]

I wonder what happened to the terror from the deep thing. Think that has been scrapped in favor of this?

It's cumming. But quality takes time!
It will be marvelous!

It will be Terror From the Deep on steroids.

It will have in-depth bases management that will put games like Theme Hospital to shame and where harvesting kelp for your soldiers to have something to eat would be as important as harvesting that precious alien plastics that half your squad died for before retreating in disarray , outrageous flying subs that will hunt alien vehicles (that were untouchable at the start of the game because of their speed and firepower ) in an exquisite interactive and animated satellite battle view where maneuvering and dodging defensive fire will play a big role with a such detailed geoscape in the background that will let you wonder if you're watching a live feed from the Earth's orbit or not, tactical combat on the ocean floor at different elevations where even scratching between the butt cheeks will cost the soldier time units and where you would be able to bring an aquanaut as an ammo mule just to be able to shoot into oblivion that alien spacecraft hull section because the game would be too challenging and you as a player would have to resort to tactics like that just to survive, autopsies depicting strange and exotic aquatic alien creatures rendered in beautiful 2D artworks in such detail that would rival autistic obsession and research trees that fundamentally change the way you play the game because of the choices you had to make that will keep you awake at night because you're unsure if opting for that battle scanner for the sake of your battle hardened soldiers (that they're a miracle they're even alive to become veterans) is really better than choosing those more powerful base defensive gauss cannons because deep down you know it's a matter of time before THEY will find your base and even if you have a bunch of them that could mean disaster because your economic model is a finely tuned machine.

And all that will be all wrapped in a skeuomorphic user interface that will have color palette of TFTD with those beautiful cold shades of green an blue with an artistic direction reminiscent to the '20's sci-fi.
Even John Broomhall will be dug up for Xcom 3 to make another eerie and frightening sound score that will convey the player angst, tension and uneasiness.

 

[ArchAngel]

http://au.ign.com/articles/2017/06/14/e3-2017-extensive-details-on-xcom-2-war-of-the-chosen

this sounds a bit better than what we knew until now

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcgamer.com/xcom-2s-huge-war-of-the-chosen-expansion-detailed/

XCOM 2's huge War of the Chosen expansion detailed
Forge battlefield friendships and create clones from corpses.

At the PC Gaming Show creative director Jake Solomon outlined War of the Chosen, a massive expansion for XCOM 2 that adds three nemesis aliens, other resistance organisations, new soldiers, new abilities, new gear, zombies, cities full of zombies and too many other features to fit in one sentence. I spoke to Jake Solomon to learn more, and discovered that almost every aspect of the game has been retouched and expanded upon.

Let's start with the Chosen. The team saw the nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor and wondered how those persistent rivalries would work in the context of an XCOM 2 campaign. The result is three distinct alien heroes that will dog XCOM's efforts in battle and on the campaign map. They can run operations on the strategy layer to disrupt your campaign, and they will even taunt you in the command centre. Solomon felt that the strategy layer was a little cold in XCOM—"this is my fault," he says—so expect loads more chatter. In the ship between missions you'll hear Advent news reports spinning your missions. In the bar aboard the Avenger, if you zoom in there's a radio station playing with its own DJ.

Initially your alien nemeses are hunting 'knowledge', which they can acquire in a few different ways, including kidnapping yours soldiers from the battlefield and imprisoning them (you can break them out later). The more knowledge they gain, the more powerful they become. The Chosen ultimately want to find the Avenger, shoot it down with a huge gun and attack the wreckage to recapture the Commander and destroy the XCOM project. If the Chosen get the upper hand in a campaign you will have to play this mission to save yourself. If you manage to keep the Avenger safe, the Chosen will turn up in the game's final missions to make things especially hard. You're going to want to take at least one of them out.

To track down and kill the Chosen you need the assistance of the three new rebel groups— Templars, Reapers and a rebellious human-alien hybrid faction called the Skirmishers. Each Chosen is being hunted by a corresponding resistance faction. You send soldiers to aid resistance activities to improve your standing with a given resistance faction, unlocking leads on the Chosen along with strategic orders and resistance soldiers for hire.

Solomon likens orders to policies in Civ, you enact them to activate a particular effect on the strategy layer or the battlefield layer. One order reduces the Avatar Project count by one bar per turn. Another pauses the countdown timer in a stealth mission until your squad has been revealed. There are dozens of orders themed to fit their associated resistance faction. You can cosy up to multiple factions at once, but obviously it takes time and resources to do so.

Befriending the Templars, Reapers and Skirmishers gives you access to the best soldiers in the game. Resistance heroes are insane. The hybrid Skirmisher heroes are extremely quick, and can take multiple actions in a turn, for example, and they only get better as they level up and gain ability points to spend on powerful new skills. A low-level Reaper skill gives the hero a chance to remain concealed if they fire from stealth. A high level skill lets a hero fire their entire clip in one go, which is potentially amazing. A top-tier Templar skill lets them absorb corpses from the battlefield to create a clone of themselves. Solomon says it will take a long time to unlock the most powerful abilities, but they will be incredibly destructive.

But what about your normal soldiers? XCOM has its own pool of ability points. Clever tactical moves such as successful flank shots in combat have a chance of generating points. If you build a training facility, you can then spend these points on your standard XCOM-trained soldiers. You have to be careful with them, though. In War of the Chosen soldiers become tired if you use them in multiple successive missions. You can send a tired soldier into battle, but there's a chance they will earn quirky traits. Jake Solomon gave the 'obsessive' trait as an example. If an obsessive soldier's clip is empty there's a chance they will use their first action in a turn to reload—anyone who mashes the reload key constantly in an FPS will sympathise. The system is designed to add more character-forming foibles to your squads, and to encourage you to diversify by benching tired soldiers to develop others.

Perhaps my favourite addition in War of the Chosen is the soldier bonds system. As your soldiers fight alongside one another in battle, pairs will be flagged as 'compatible'. If you nurture this compatibility your squaddies can form bonds that come with battlefield effects. Superfriends can potentially fire simultaneously on targets. If one goes down to panic, the other can run over and remove that status effect (Jake also mentioned new types of panic, but we'll have to wait and see what those are). The expansion also adds covert missions that let you send scientists, engineers and soldiers off to a location for a while to earn resources and help out resistance factions, and bonded soldiers will complete these more quickly. The system makes your soldiers more effective and realises the sort of battlefield dramas XCOM players have been crafting for years. I know what you're thinking, are these soldiers just friends, or something more? "It's up to players to decide what a bond represents" says Jake Solomon, diplomatically.

After all that I feel like I've only learned about a fraction of what the full expansion has to offer. The Chosen and the new resistance factions sound like an interesting challenge to manage, but I'm especially glad to hear about the smaller features—crew bonds, soldier traits, alien banter—that should bring more personality into the game. Firaxis says War of the Chosen is their biggest XCOM expansion yet. It already sounds essential.

 

[Mazisky]

a little tidbit about environments:

In vanilla we had:

-Cities
-Slums
-Small towns
-Shanty towns
-Wilderness

In expansion we'll have in addition:

-Abandoned cities
-Underground (subway, sewers, etc.)
-Alien wilderness
-Alien Bases

Plus they said they added lot more "parcels" into vanilla maps for more variety

 

[Space Satan]

I don't like the concept of supersoldiers for hire. Because end game will devolve to mandatory supersoldiers in a group to kill overbloated aliens with three dozens of hp. Also, this will push one of the main flaws of X-Com series even further - you got unlucky and got your heroes wiped - restart. If you look at most of X-Com, X-Com2 legendary ironman playthroughs it usually the same - you kill enemy stacks from best possible position and when things go wrong and you lose a lot then most simply restart their try.
I could lose my entire team during horrible mission in original X-Com on late stages but still carry the fight due to manufacturing powers and assembling a team of rookies. Losing momentum of high-leveled team in nuX-com means restarting because you won't hit or kill aliens, who got huge defense and armor buffs.

 

[Zombra]

Also not happy about the supersoldiers thing. Even if you can rename them, it's weak to play through a campaign and build up your guys and then have the Gary Stu soldiers added at the end.

 

[Raghar]

Face it boys, if they were able to do it right, they would do it right in expansion of the first game. They didn't.

You can put only so much lipstick on a pig before it would crumble under lipstick's weight.

 

[Jimmious]

EW was a good expansion though.

 

[Raghar]

EW was polished version of original game. If original game looked like that at release nobody would complain.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

EW was a good expansion though.

It was ok. Exalt could have been expanded upon.
They were more of a training exercise than a threat. Which is fine, I guess, but they really needed some sort of plasma or MEC equivalent, because you can easily get to a point where they just get decimated. Especially if you abuse the communication jamming mechanic.

 

[Jimmious]

That's true the EXALT were very weak. Nice distraction the first couple of times though.
The meld mechanic was interesting though, as well the whole mechs/psychic abilities thing

 

[ArchAngel]

EW was polished version of original game. If original game looked like that at release nobody would complain.

EW still had a terrible geoscape, we would complain a lot. And combat was still pod system with 6 max soldier per squad that become supersoldiers you cannot lose so we would still complain about that as well.

 

[rashiakas]

so what mods do you recommend for a new playtrough? Havent played since release.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Jimmious]

Are there any mods you don't recommend oasis789 ?