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

[Average Manatee]

Be careful, break LoS, exploit the sniper, stay on the outside where you're unlikely to activate multiple groups at once. You're looking at pods of thin men, sectoids, probably 1 chryssalid pod.

I had 2 assaults, 1 sniper, 1 rocketeer, 1 scout and IIRC the last was 1 engineer. Pretty sure that I had at least one assault and the sniper as Lance Corporals, maybe the engineer as well. Only damage I took was from the first thin man pod where an assault ran through acid. Chryssalids were a joke because that's just how they are on open maps. Most of the other pods were activated in a corner and spotting for the sniper who was flanking them did most of the work. Opened up with a shredder on the outsiders and my sniper just plinked away for around 30 turns to kill 2 (one suicided into the assaults in the first turn) then the rest of the team just mobbed their shit up. My sniper alone got probably two dozen of the kills.

Here's a screenshot which shows the specific place I used. Basically you use the fact that Outsiders are dirty cheaters that know your location and pursues the closest soldier against them, because they aren't going to move into a place that is out of cover relative to your soldiers. If there is no way to reach your soldiers and shoot them from cover (the corner on the stairs here isn't cover), they just wait till you come out. I also blew up the overlooking light cover on the other side. Close Combat specialist might be needed to prevent the outsiders from rushing into the same cover you use and shooting you that way, I'm not sure but my assault had it.

There's lots of places like this on these maps. Just be careful because they aren't hard-locked on to the nearest soldier, if they can move into cover that hits/threatens another soldier, they will probably do so.

Even if you can't find the perfect spot to block all 6 outsiders, or if you mess up in some way that leads to an outsider splitting off, you can usually tie up 3-4 of them with a single soldier while the rest of your team deals with the rest.

 

[Average Manatee]

Don't know of a video, I figured it on my own. If you throw me a LW save in a landed supply mission I can throw you one back with the Outsider AI being abused.

It's not hard to see. Outsiders clearly know and follow your position even when your entire squad is out of LoS, and most enemies (other than mutons, flyers, and mechs/chrys) simply refuse to move in a way that ends them out of cover, they'll only do so if your entire team is out of LoS. Since outsiders are special and are always trying to move towards you, but their AI blocks them from moving far enough to actually see you since it ends them out of cover, they bunch up and wait.

 

[Zombra]

OK, bored hearing about Long War.

 

[mutonizer]

It's highly possible that the current difficulty is not representative of the final game.
Also all the preview stops at around 10hrs in, which might be when a difficulty spike kicks in.
It's all speculative now to be honest..

True enough, especially since it seems quite simple to tweak number in pods, health value, loot drop %, research/building times and that's just from some known exposed data, so they can change things around even more on their side before and after release. One thing hard to change though is the core design of the game and clearly it's a massive power ramp up on all sides, but even more so on XCOM side. Some of the shit these late class abilities do seem a bit insane and borderline abusive with some upgrades and whatnot. I mean, a couple kill zone dudes with poison/burning ammo and upgraded stocks/ammo capacity come to mind, then you reaper through the entire map on auto-injured enemies.

In the end, especially nowadays with modding capabilities, we all have our own difficulty settings anyway, our very own sweet spot between what we're willing to put in and what we want to get out. As usual, no matter the preview and all that shit, I'll prolly try a vanilla run on mid/high difficulty, go through it, then never touch vanilla game again, only modded one. XCOM:EU at least provided me with enough interest through a vanilla classic ironman run on release, something most games lately can't even provide, but I never touched XCOM again after that until LW came out, and even more now that it's final.

 

[Zeriel]

Spoiler

For some reason, the moment when the player activates the legs slays me.

 

[Raghar]

Spoiler

For some reason, the moment when the player activates the legs slays me.

Leg BO? It slays everyone.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[felipepepe]

Either that's a very shitty video or half the cool things I heard from XCOM 2 - like random maps - have been cut.

 

[Raghar]

Look very carefully at the end of the video at the strategic map. That person who is talking is irrelevant, he misses half of the points and he's interested only in subscriptions/popularity.

But that strategy map is interesting, for example these available contacts part, or the bar at top right of the screen.

 

[Jaedar]

Either that's a very shitty video or half the cool things I heard from XCOM 2 - like random maps - have been cut.

Random maps seem to be a thing, but do you seriously expect journalists to play any game enough to notice the repetetiveness that comes from nonrandom maps?

 

[Jimmious]

https://xcom.com/news/en-the-art-of-xcom-2-now-available

 

[DeepOcean]

 

[Mazisky]

Am i wrong or graphically is a lot better than the E3 gameplay?

 

[Zombra]

Am i wrong or graphically is a lot better than the E3 gameplay?

I didn't watch that last video but the graphics have indeed come a long way since the original previews.

 

[Space Satan]

I have a slight hope that all this "detection" stuff would be tuned by units like chryssalids and faceless, with their ability to mimic and burrow. And there won't be a constant free movement around red zones for best shots.

 

[Jasede]

Kinda excited about this. One of my friends will get it for me on release so I'll report back then.

But watching the videos and YouTubers play the pre-release build I have to tell you this seems like a good improvement over X-Com 1. Yes, it's still dumbed down in a way compared to the old one, and that won't change. It'll always be a small squad game. But it's apparent they added a lot of depths to make it more interesting - there's hacking, far more resources and items to manage, more dynamic paths through the campaign, more choices to be made. So it's still not as 'broad' as the old games, but what there is has more in it now, and honestly, that's pretty good and I am pretty excited about it. Not hyped but I look forward to playing it.

I really like how most missions are now objective-driven so you can no longer abuse the game by overwatching 40 turns on Impossible. I always liked to play aggressive and for speed so I like to be rewarded for it.
I also like the whole "resistance" theme. Makes me feel like I am going to be playing "V - the game." Anyone remember V? It was a mini series about lizard aliens taking over the world, and humans organizing to fight them in a scifi analogue to the nazi regime.

 

[Jimmious]

What I'm definitely sure of, is that XCOM2 will have a lot of replay-ability, since it seems that many of the factors will be different in each game since their outcomes are not set in stone.
Tech progress, alien progress, all these stuff will vary per play-through and I find that awesome

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Anyone see the Avenger assault gameplay?
Looks pretty brutal. About 12 enemies on the map to start with + reinforcements every turn after the first couple of turns that gradually increase in squad size, and it only ends when you destroy the objective.
And then you have to extract all soldiers.

 

[Mazisky]

Guys, this is THE BEST VIDEO i've seen so far.

It is pretty intense, expecially at end, look how sometimes it is better go straight for the objective and leave enemies alive.

Also, city maps seems pretty articulate and full of buildings

 

[Raghar]

I just discovered the pain when you want to have your leader to be positively tested for PSI. You first need to have a full negative round of testing, then place him/her into correct place for second round of testing.

There is always at least one positive test in two full round of testing... (which is hinted by...)

 

[spectre]

I just discovered the pain when you want to have your leader to be positively tested for HIV. You first need to have a full negative round of testing, then place him/her into correct place for second round of testing.

There is always at least one positive test in two full round of testing... (which is hinted by...)

Wrong thread bro. Also, since it's quite early here, I somehow managed to misread PSI which gave me the giggles.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Guys, this is THE BEST VIDEO i've seen so far.

It is pretty intense, expecially at end, look how sometimes it is better go straight for the objective and leave enemies alive.

Also, city maps seems pretty articulate and full of buildings

Yeah, it was pretty intense.
I don't understand though why you'd want to break concealment so early in these sort of missions.
Like, I understand that one soldier was in a bad position, so he might as well, but in other gameplay vids the player goes out of his way to break concealment.
Wouldn't be wiser to remain concealed until close to the VIP, and just haul ass over to the extraction point?

 

[Zeriel]

Guys, this is THE BEST VIDEO i've seen so far.

It is pretty intense, expecially at end, look how sometimes it is better go straight for the objective and leave enemies alive.

Also, city maps seems pretty articulate and full of buildings

Yeah, it was pretty intense.
I don't understand though why you'd want to break concealment so early in these sort of missions.
Like, I understand that one soldier was in a bad position, so he might as well, but in other gameplay vids the player goes out of his way to break concealment.
Wouldn't be wiser to remain concealed until close to the VIP?

You want to use it to kill a pod of aliens. It makes most sense to use that early as possible since skirting around enemies drastically raises the chances you'll be cornered by multiple packs and either have to activate multiple pods on your concealment break, or have concealment broken accidentally by enemies seeing you.

 

[Doktor Best]

This preview stuff looks god damn great man. Been avoiding gathering infos on the game because i wanted to see first receptions on it first before i hand out money, but im getting more and more optimistic about this!

 

[KoolNoodles]

Does everyone doing LPs drink like 15 Mountain Dews before they shoot? Camera movements are always so damn jerky.