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

[Zeriel]

Everything older than 5 years is objectively shit because its old, and while we arguing this we will never explain what makes modern games better, other than "production quality". :^)

Nostalgia glasses-kin truly are something special.

 

[Lambinou]

Another great advantage of TU is that you can interrupt movement when you spot an alien, with the action point system, you're forced to end the movement as originally planned, even if that puts you in a terrible condition.

Anyone knows if soldiers will be allowed to target environment directly ? It always bothered me that i could blow up a car on purpose without explosives. This both removes a good way to kill aliens but also prevents you from making cars safe cover for your guys.

 

[Zombra]

Anyone knows if soldiers will be allowed to target environment directly ? It always bothered me that i could blow up a car on purpose without explosives. This both removes a good way to kill aliens but also prevents you from making cars safe cover for your guys.

Yeah, I read they are going to allow manual targeting for all weapons now. That was a hotly requested feature for the 2012 game.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Another great advantage of TU is that you can interrupt movement when you spot an alien, with the action point system, you're forced to end the movement as originally planned, even if that puts you in a terrible condition.

Anyone knows if soldiers will be allowed to target environment directly ? It always bothered me that i could blow up a car on purpose without explosives. This both removes a good way to kill aliens but also prevents you from making cars safe cover for your guys.

I think that was the point. Being able to destroy cover at will would be too powerful in a system that relies on cover for survival.
MECs have that ability, and it is it one of the most powerful in the game.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Anyone knows if soldiers will be allowed to target environment directly ? It always bothered me that i could blow up a car on purpose without explosives. This both removes a good way to kill aliens but also prevents you from making cars safe cover for your guys.

Yeah, I read they are going to allow manual targeting for all weapons now. That was a hotly requested feature for the 2012 game.

Really? Oof, I hope they balance it by making terrain tougher than tissue paper.
I always preferred the 1994's mechanics for destructible environments than EUs. Partly because in the 1994 game, bullets can't break UFO hulls.

 

[Raghar]

Do you remember Silent storm, where bullets made nice holes in walls, especially these MMG bullets? UFO was limited by a strength check against tile. Newer games can use bit more RAM on x64 thus proper destruction of environment isn't that big problem.

 

[sser]

Silent Storm was the game of the future. That's how I saw it.


Sadly, a whole goddam decade later, that's how I continue to see it.

 

[Lambinou]

Another great advantage of TU is that you can interrupt movement when you spot an alien, with the action point system, you're forced to end the movement as originally planned, even if that puts you in a terrible condition.

Anyone knows if soldiers will be allowed to target environment directly ? It always bothered me that i could blow up a car on purpose without explosives. This both removes a good way to kill aliens but also prevents you from making cars safe cover for your guys.

I think that was the point. Being able to destroy cover at will would be too powerful in a system that relies on cover for survival.
MECs have that ability, and it is it one of the most powerful in the game.

meant couldn't. They brought this problem upon themselves. If there are environmental hazards on the field, activated by shooting them, the player should be able to aim at them to trigger them. Otherwise you have to take cover behind intact cars in some maps, and the aliens might make it explode by hitting them while aiming at your guys.


Pleasantly surprised they will address that. Didn't expect they would change it.


Now here's hoping the missions won't be too stupid and the maps will offer more choices. The gameplay trailer had you blow up a statue, but how does that help with anything ? And I also remember a few missions where the squad dropped into a location with little cover and being beset immediatly by all the aliens of the map

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Another great advantage of TU is that you can interrupt movement when you spot an alien, with the action point system, you're forced to end the movement as originally planned, even if that puts you in a terrible condition.

Anyone knows if soldiers will be allowed to target environment directly ? It always bothered me that i could blow up a car on purpose without explosives. This both removes a good way to kill aliens but also prevents you from making cars safe cover for your guys.

I think that was the point. Being able to destroy cover at will would be too powerful in a system that relies on cover for survival.
MECs have that ability, and it is it one of the most powerful in the game.

meant couldn't. They brought this problem upon themselves. If there are environmental hazards on the field, activated by shooting them, the player should be able to aim at them to trigger them. Otherwise you have to take cover behind intact cars in some maps, and the aliens might make it explode by hitting them while aiming at your guys.


Pleasantly surprised they will address that. Didn't expect they would change it.


Now here's hoping the missions won't be too stupid and the maps will offer more choices. The gameplay trailer had you blow up a statue, but how does that help with anything ? And I also remember a few missions where the squad dropped into a location with little cover and being beset immediatly by all the aliens of the map

You do have a turn to run away from the car that's about to explode, so it isn't that dire.
Except for when your soldier sets the car he's hiding behind on fire. Then you have a problem >.<

 

[Zeriel]

Another great advantage of TU is that you can interrupt movement when you spot an alien, with the action point system, you're forced to end the movement as originally planned, even if that puts you in a terrible condition.

Anyone knows if soldiers will be allowed to target environment directly ? It always bothered me that i could blow up a car on purpose without explosives. This both removes a good way to kill aliens but also prevents you from making cars safe cover for your guys.

I think that was the point. Being able to destroy cover at will would be too powerful in a system that relies on cover for survival.
MECs have that ability, and it is it one of the most powerful in the game.

meant couldn't. They brought this problem upon themselves. If there are environmental hazards on the field, activated by shooting them, the player should be able to aim at them to trigger them. Otherwise you have to take cover behind intact cars in some maps, and the aliens might make it explode by hitting them while aiming at your guys.


Pleasantly surprised they will address that. Didn't expect they would change it.


Now here's hoping the missions won't be too stupid and the maps will offer more choices. The gameplay trailer had you blow up a statue, but how does that help with anything ? And I also remember a few missions where the squad dropped into a location with little cover and being beset immediatly by all the aliens of the map

You do have a turn to run away from the car that's about to explode, so it isn't that dire.
Except for when your soldier sets the car he's hiding behind on fire. Then you have a problem >.<

Sitting behind a full cover car. Use your action to shoot at the enemy. Miss, but somehow hit the car you're behind, causing it to light on fire. Turn is now over since you shot, can't move.

That's XCOM, baby!

 

[Zeriel]

Another great advantage of TU is that you can interrupt movement when you spot an alien, with the action point system, you're forced to end the movement as originally planned, even if that puts you in a terrible condition.

Anyone knows if soldiers will be allowed to target environment directly ? It always bothered me that i could blow up a car on purpose without explosives. This both removes a good way to kill aliens but also prevents you from making cars safe cover for your guys.

I think that was the point. Being able to destroy cover at will would be too powerful in a system that relies on cover for survival.
MECs have that ability, and it is it one of the most powerful in the game.

meant couldn't. They brought this problem upon themselves. If there are environmental hazards on the field, activated by shooting them, the player should be able to aim at them to trigger them. Otherwise you have to take cover behind intact cars in some maps, and the aliens might make it explode by hitting them while aiming at your guys.


Pleasantly surprised they will address that. Didn't expect they would change it.


Now here's hoping the missions won't be too stupid and the maps will offer more choices. The gameplay trailer had you blow up a statue, but how does that help with anything ? And I also remember a few missions where the squad dropped into a location with little cover and being beset immediatly by all the aliens of the map

You do have a turn to run away from the car that's about to explode, so it isn't that dire.
Except for when your soldier sets the car he's hiding behind on fire. Then you have a problem >.<

In LW, doing enough environmental damage (rockets, alien grenades, multiple regular grenades) will explode vehicles immediately, so car cover is just not a good idea if you're fighting mutons or exalt

It works that way in vanilla, too. They might have tweaked the amount it takes, but rockets for sure caused immediate explosions in vanilla.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, in vanilla rockets and collateral damage are the exception; detonation is immediate.
Everything else gives a one turn warning.

 

[Volrath]

Not really. Two action system actually makes you think what to do with it, how and where to maneuver. Instead of spamming whatever.

Anyone with half a brain actually played Xcom with a two action system by reserving movement points for kneeing and snapshot, but reason was actually not to shoot in your own turn. The reason was possible reaction fire which works best with TU left.

Xcom systems are broken beyond repair. Nucom is actually salvageable... though it wont happen.

Joined: Wednesday.

It seems the decline has reached strategy forum. Abandon all hope.

I am pretty sure I could own you and Roxor at Xcom and UT. I mean, if you click wrong, olofuckinglol.

Sup drog

 

[Mangoose]

Silent Storm was the game of the future. That's how I saw it.


Sadly, a whole goddam decade later, that's how I continue to see it.

Don't forget Hammer & Sickle now.

Silent Storm for masochists

 

[Infinitron]

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2015/06/05/why-xcom-2-had-to-be-pc-exclusive

WHY XCOM 2 HAD TO BE PC EXCLUSIVE – IGN FIRST
Firaxis is leveraging all its expertise on the platform where Enemy Unknown found its audience.
BY DAN STAPLETON

This November, XCOM 2 will appear exclusively on PC (Windows, Mac OS, and Linux), delivered through Steam.

“Yeah, we figured that would surprise some people,” said Lead Producer Garth DeAngelis.

It certainly surprised us. Considering XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within initially came out on PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, and have since even been ported to iOS and Android, narrowing focus to a single platform for the sequel seems to defy conventional game-development wisdom. But if there’s a developer out there that knows how to be successful making PC games, it’s Firaxis. The Maryland-based studio is best known for the Sid Meier’s Civilization series, which (other than the Civilization: Revolution console and mobile spinoffs) has resolutely stuck to its PC roots for 20 years.

A focus on PC was the only way to make the XCOM 2 that Creative Director Jake Solomon and his team envisioned when they sat down to talk after completing Enemy Unknown. “When we looked at what we wanted to do with the sequel, we had all these very, very ambitious goals,” said Solomon. On his must-have list were high-fidelity characters and environments, better-looking destruction, physically based rendering, and the crown jewel he’d wanted to get into Enemy Unknown but couldn’t: procedurally generated maps. “To do that, we had to use all of our studio expertise … and our expertise here is PC. That's our home, and that's where we're really comfortable.”

Focusing all of Firaxis’ efforts on the PC made logistical sense to DeAngelis, too. “Internally, with a relatively small team for the size of the game that we are, to be able to say we can focus on our platform that the studio has a pedigree for, and that X-COM: UFO Defense has a pedigree for, as PC-only... it just made a lot of sense, and that's how we wanted to dedicate our time.” XCOM 2 runs on a heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3.5 (Firaxis’ customizations are too extensive to easily move to Unreal 4), which in some ways has been rewritten to the point of being “unrecognizable,” and it’s much simpler to make that work on one platform than three or more at once.

“When we have our meetings, when we talk about stuff, we only talk about PC,” said Solomon. “We talk about ‘What is the experience like on PC? What does the mouse feel like in this experience?’” The most obvious change resulting from those conversations is how the team is optimizing the interface to be mouse-and-keyboard friendly, moving UI elements and grouping them logically so that buttons we’re likely to press one after the other aren’t placed on opposite sides of the screen. “It will certainly be recognizable, but there isn't one UI widget that's the same,” said Solomon. We’ll also see more tactical information (such as detailed explanations of why your chance to hit is increased or decreased) displayed on the tactical interface, since Firaxis can now count on players sitting closer to their PC monitors and being able to read smaller text. And though Firaxis plans to add it in the future, the current plan is to launch without gamepad support.

Running The Numbers

Does this decision make business sense for XCOM’s future? 2K isn’t sharing sales figures for XCOM: Enemy Unknown or Enemy Within, or how sales broke down across the PC and console versions, so it’s impossible to say for sure. However, using publicly available Steam data, third-party siteSteamSpy unofficially estimates 2.6 million PC copies sold since October of 2012. (That figure does factor in numerous deep Steam sales where it’s sold for as little as five dollars, and its inclusion in HumbleBundles.) Reliable console version sales numbers are difficult to come by, though based onfailing to chart in the NPD top 10 retail games for October 2012, it’s safe to speculate that console audiences didn’t flock to XCOM.

Meanwhile, XCOM: Enemy Unknown’s popularity has endured on Steam. It’s maintained a spot in the Top 100 Steam games ever since day one, initially peaking at 70,000 concurrent players, and still averages between 3,000 and 4,000 peak concurrent players more than 18 months after its Enemy Within expansion came out. (Note: Steam’s peak concurrent players figure is the number of people playing simultaneously; daily total player numbers would be considerably higher, but are not publicly available.) Redirecting the resources that would’ve been necessary to release XCOM 2 on multiple platforms toward making the PC version better and more replayable makes a certain amount of sense – especially if Firaxis can turn XCOM into a game that rivals Civilization in bang-for-the-buck longevity.

As for the chances of XCOM 2 making its way to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 at some point in the future, Solomon wouldn’t rule it out, but it won’t happen any time soon. “We're certainly not opposed to that, but I can assure that's something we're not even discussing yet,” he said. He added that the PS4 and Xbox One would likely be technically capable of running XCOM 2, but developing all of these features for multiple platforms simultaneously would be impossible for Firaxis to do.

Of course, the one thing that a console version of XCOM 2 wouldn’t be able to handle at all is modding, which Solomon and DeAngelis consider to be one of it’s biggest features and key to offering the kind of long-term replayablity and value people have come to expect from the makers of Sid Meier’s Civilization. We’ll have more on how Firaxis is embracing modders in XCOM 2 next week.

http://www.pcgamer.com/xcom-2-creative-director-pc-gaming-is-in-a-golden-age/

XCOM 2 creative director: "PC gaming is in a golden age"
Phil Savage Jul 7, 2015
XCOM 2 will be exclusive to PC for a variety of reasons. For one thing, focusing on a single platform gives Firaxis the chance to fully optimise their controls and interface around that specific experience. There's also another factor, which XCOM 2 creative director Jake Solomon revealed when we asked him what it was that appealed about PC-exclusive development.

"PC gaming is in a golden age," Solomon tells PC Gamer. "It’s the tip of the spear in terms of innovation, in types of gameplay being explored, in relationships between developers and their audience, and for Firaxis, it’s our home. It’s where we want to be."

The relationship between developer and audience will be further strengthened through XCOM 2's mod support. "Modding is one of those elements that brings people together in the community through their own creative expression of the franchise and this and helps our game live on over time," Solomon says, praising the long-standing mod communities of the Civilization series and XCOM's own The Long War mod.

"The Long War is awesome," Solomon says. "It definitely energized us to see XCOM going in different directions, and seeing people respond to it. That’s always reassuring as a developer because it means that the underlying systems are flexible and there is still lots of ground to mine in terms of gameplay."

But did The Long War have an effect on the sequel's development? "For XCOM 2 we aren't looking to add more as much as we are looking to improve the systems that make XCOM what it is," Solomon says. "Of course, that does end up adding a lot of depth in many areas, like procedural maps, more enemies, more soldier classes, etc."

For more on XCOM 2, including a longer interview with Jake Solomon, look out the next issue of PC Gamer magazine.

 

[Cyberarmy]

"PC gaming is in a golden age"

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah I keep hearing that and I'm not seeing it.
The 90s were the golden age, full of mechanical experimentation and actual effort.
You don't see that very often nowadays.

 

[Zeriel]

It's a gilded age, not a golden age. Looks pretty good from the boardroom, but that's about it.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Its not the nineties, but its definitively better than the last decade, which was decline from 2002 and beyond.

Well yeah, last decade was all about the consoles.
It shows.

 

[Raghar]

Yeah I keep hearing that and I'm not seeing it.
The 90s were the golden age, full of mechanical experimentation and actual effort.
You don't see that very often nowadays.

That's because it was garage games era, where even high school dropouts could get high level job according to theirs self-educated skills. (Also when you can acquire skills in schools, you kinda care about what you learned from people in the field, free of charge and without school debts.)

 

[ArchAngel]

Yeah I keep hearing that and I'm not seeing it.
The 90s were the golden age, full of mechanical experimentation and actual effort.
You don't see that very often nowadays.

I think he is talking overall, and numbers of PC users says differently than you. Between WoW, LoL, Dota 2, CS:GO PC gamers are dominating. If we add to this Minecraft which was PC first and I am sure more people play it on PC than on Xbox it becomes even bigger.
Resurgence of cRPG has happened and experimentation with games like No Man Sky is a good sign as well as coming back of old space sims in form of new Elite and Star Citizen. I would even say that zombie survival games are a good experiment for PC gaming which is still waiting for that one game to rule them all. And here Evolve needs to get an honorable mention as first successful 4vs1 game.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Ah that may be why.
I tend to focus more on singleplayer than multiplayer.
Yes, you have a point there.

 

[Infinitron]

XCOM: EW declared NON-CANNON: http://www.pcgamer.com/xcom-enemy-within-isnt-part-of-xcom-2s-timeline/

XCOM: Enemy Within isn't part of XCOM 2's timeline
Phil Savage Jul 8, 2015

The timeline of XCOM 2 assumes that your XCOM: Enemy Unknown playthrough didn't go well. After all, the odds on chances are that it didn't. I mean, who'd have thought satellites would be so essential to the continued survival of the human race? Not me, it turns out.

There's a secondary effect of that fail-state assumption. "It's funny, because we talk about lore in Firaxis games, and the narrative isn't exactly what compels us forwards," XCOM 2 senior producer Garth DeAngelis tells PC Gamer. "But when we do talk about this timeline, again, it's like Enemy Within never happened. Because you lost. You lost within the first third of the game."

Mechs? Genetically modified super-soldiers? Nope. In this world, the XCOM unit didn't reach any of that. "We wanted a clean slate with that," DeAngelis says, "and just build off of. If XCOM had to go underground pretty early in the Enemy Unknown game, how would that be handled?"

Despite this, some of the design philosophies of Enemy Within will be carried across. "We really liked how meld worked in Enemy Within," DeAngelis says. "We thought that was a cool wrinkle. Narratively it doesn't make sense to have meld in XCOM 2 because the scientists haven't advanced to that stage, nor have they found the resource. But, we liked that mechanic a lot.

"We have a whole new weapon upgrade mechanic in XCOM 2, and there's looting," DeAngelis says. "You can now pick up loot from fallen enemies. Weapon fragments self-destructed after a certain time, so we're building off the meld mechanic—you have X number of turns to get there, where you can pick up a specific item from a fallen Advent captain for instance. It might be a laser sight or a stock or something for your gun, but it'll self-destruct if you don't get there within a certain amount of time. If you get it, it's an optional thing, you can bring it back to base and do some cool things with it."

XCOM 2 is out this November. For more details, look out for the next issue of PC Gamer magazine.

 

[Zeriel]

Just in case people are wondering, all these new articles are just rehashes of info they've already put out there.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Aliens can psi attack any xcom operative on the field. XCOM cannot do that, they need vision.
Aliens are immune to fatal wounds.
Aliens can see in the dark. XCOM still haven't figured out what flash lights are.

Not sure what version of the game you played, but it's possible to PSI aliens if you know where it was situated and if it didn't move, they don't attack any operatives, they just have much better vision, hide your toons better. I personally saw several sectoid <insert profession> dying from 'grey' wounds, one even died in flight to the base, i think. The problem with PSI was that it had fixed TU cost (it was somewhat alleviated in Pocket PC remake, where it's % based), which made your psykers infiitely more powerful with each 'levelup'.

Small arms cannot shoot through walls without destroying the intervening cover, at least not normally.
What you may be seeing is a graphical bug.

There were several screenshots published in 2012 xcom thread here on the Codex where the player toon shot through a solid wall and killed an alien standing behind it.

The XCOM unit with psi does not have to see the alien himself, but you still need vision.
The aliens don't really follow that same restriction, in fact its the opposite; seeing 1 member of the squad is enough for them to target everyone. I had lost soldiers to mind control when there was no possible way that an alien could see them.

Alien only get fatal wounds if you mind control them, because they then count as XCOM soldiers. After mind control ends they do still take damage from the wound. They never get fatal wounds normally, hence the option to give make them susceptible to those in openXcom.

Yeah, that shooting through the wall thing is a bug.
Apparently the game doesn't check for walls when the hit animation happens, and only occasionally notices that there's intervening terrain.
Of course, the terrain is so absurdly fragile it doesn't really matter.

I thought the vision/psi rule applied to aliens as well, its just that aliens could get vision more easily b/c of their better night vision and, in the case of ethereals, the ability to fly to get good spotting positions. Once they've gotten an initial mind control off its pretty trivial for them to get vision of a good chunk of the rest of your squad. Then if you don't move people they just need to remember where everyone was. Even when I can't figure out how they are getting vision, it always seems like the aliens can only target some of my troops with psi - one or two troops within sight of each other will get hammered while others are untouched. Although that might just be an OpenXcom thing changing psi rules from the original. At this point I have trouble remembering what is vanilla and what is OpenXCom.