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

[Raghar]

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!

Think about it as about mod made by developers. Of course it's much better than a normal mod.

 

[Zeriel]

Spoiler

THE SECTOPOD TOWERS OVER ALL IN XCOM 2
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PREV

ADVENT’s advanced technology has yielded a new unmanned threat in XCOM 2, Commander: the Sectopod. It’s an incredibly mobile, bipedal robot that is quite advanced when compared to the initial Sectopods seen in the first war. And, like other robotic units (such as the MEC and Andromedon), it is immune to fire, poison and mental attacks. Psi Operatives, take note!

Dangerous area-of-effect and focused attack capabilities make the Sectopod a formidable foe to all of XCOM. Its Lightning Field attack, automatically triggered once an enemy comes into melee attack range, emits a forceful blast in a circular area surrounding the unit. Its Wrath Cannon is an extremely high-energy weapon that deals damage in a long line, and can penetrate multiple targets, but must be charged first. When you see its emitters charging, run and hide!

The Sectopod is at its most dangerous when in High Stance mode – the Sectopod extends its legs and stands two stories tall, providing improved range and weapon reach. We should also note that buildings won’t necessarily protect you from the Sectopod, as it’s fully capable of simply walking through any obstacle in its path.

 

[KoolNoodles]

New Xcom was fun(and polished, after a while), if a little too simple. This should be more of the same, hopefully. Anything that ups the complexity is good in my book.

 

[Jaedar]

You know the devs are really bad at their own game when it takes a streamer to point out basic optimal gameplay styles.

 

[Zeriel]

It's not necessarily optimal since most missions have a timer. On the timer-less ones, sure.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Yeah, and it's a bit gamey/exploity of how LoS and enemy first encounters work. And as to the above it's a waste of time in a timed mission.

More of a bug that should have been fixed ( how enemy "squads" work). In original Xcom if one sectoid is alerted and blunders into an ambush, fine he's dead. The other two that might be around him? They probably aren't going to do the same thing that turn.

 

[Jaedar]

It's not necessarily optimal since most missions have a timer. On the timer-less ones, sure.

Yeah, and it's a bit gamey/exploity of how LoS and enemy first encounters work. And as to the above it's a waste of time in a timed mission.

Except it literally takes no more time than ambushing them any other way. Likely less since you don't need to be as careful taking out the survivors.

 

[Zeriel]

It's not necessarily optimal since most missions have a timer. On the timer-less ones, sure.

Yeah, and it's a bit gamey/exploity of how LoS and enemy first encounters work. And as to the above it's a waste of time in a timed mission.

Except it literally takes no more time than ambushing them any other way. Likely less since you don't need to be as careful taking out the survivors.

I'm assuming you didn't actually watch Beagle's videos if you believe it's 100% reliable. The pods can path the wrong direction. If this happens you are sacrificing entire turns for no reason, which can cause mission failure. The payoff certainly isn't worth it either unless you are ambushing a superhard pod or multiple pods at once in the same area, since the normal ambush will already kill most pods.

Apparently its good enough for Jake to want to address it, but I don't consider it a strictly optimal tactic, and it doesn't surprise me that developers who have the "everything should be done quickly" mindset wouldn't have thought of it.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's optimal in terms of survival even if it isn't optimal in terms of turns taken. Odd that they somehow overlooked this "exploit" until now when it was a staple of everyone playing above normal difficulty in XCOM.

 

[Raghar]

You know the devs are really bad at their own game when it takes a streamer to point out basic optimal gameplay styles.

What Beaglerush maneuver?

 

[KoolNoodles]

You know the devs are really bad at their own game when it takes a streamer to point out basic optimal gameplay styles.

What Beaglerush maneuver?

For the uninitiated, the Beaglerush Maneuver involves triggering overwatch from concealment during the enemy turn, so that they scatter and then pass the turn to you. You now have your whole turn to mop up survivors. Besides trivializing many opening encounters, this tactic felt exploitative because it requires leaving a soldier out of cover on purpose so that Advent spot them on their turn.

This tactic differs from a similar tactic employed in EU/EW in a few important ways.

1) XCOM 2 was designed and balanced for concealment to be broken on the player's turn.

2) Overwatch from concealment gets no aim penalty.

3) Your soldiers use smart overwatch, so they never waste shots, making overwatch traps devastatingly effective in XCOM 2.

4) Some abilities allow soldiers to remain in or re-enter concealment, allowing the player to use a slightly less effective version of this tactic for the entire mission.

And a video of it in action. Very very gamey.

 

[Average Manatee]

XCOM is a gamey game. If they didn't want it to be gamey it should have been a simulation like X-Com. It was the dominant tactic for everyone in classic or impossible difficulty in XCOM, so apparently we know all Firaxis playtesters and designers play normal.

Hope these last minute changes don't fuck up the difficulty curve or something.

 

[Zeriel]

XCOM is a gamey game. If they didn't want it to be gamey it should have been a simulation like X-Com. It was the dominant tactic for everyone in classic or impossible difficulty in XCOM, so apparently we know all Firaxis playtesters and designers play normal.

Hope these last minute changes don't fuck up the difficulty curve or something.

That tactic didn't exist in EU/EW because the concealment system didn't exist in the previous games. You are very confused.

 

[Jaedar]

XCOM is a gamey game. If they didn't want it to be gamey it should have been a simulation like X-Com. It was the dominant tactic for everyone in classic or impossible difficulty in XCOM, so apparently we know all Firaxis playtesters and designers play normal.

Hope these last minute changes don't fuck up the difficulty curve or something.

That tactic didn't exist in EU/EW because the concealment system didn't exist in the previous games. You are very confused.

People used the exact same tactic, only it was harder and the benefit was smaller. Getting the enemy to walk into your entire team overwatching was always the best way to start a fight.

 

[Jasede]

Yeah, not sure what you are talking about.

Though classic/impossible XCOM is pretty easy once I learned to embrace the SHIVs, even on Ironman, if you can survive until you rush alloy SHIVs and the base defense. Can't wait to try Long War. Though I guess I'll play XCOM 2 first. And I won't lie, using 4-6 SHIVs felt very, very gamey. It was the dominant strategy for me so there was really no reason to do anything else. I know it's gonna be different on Long War, been watching it on YouTube. Gonna be a lot harder and soldiers will have more meaning.

 

[Raghar]

You know the devs are really bad at their own game when it takes a streamer to point out basic optimal gameplay styles.

What Beaglerush maneuver?

For the uninitiated, the Beaglerush Maneuver involves triggering overwatch from concealment during the enemy turn, so that they scatter and then pass the turn to you. You now have your whole turn to mop up survivors. Besides trivializing many opening encounters, this tactic felt exploitative because it requires leaving a soldier out of cover on purpose so that Advent spot them on their turn.

This tactic differs from a similar tactic employed in EU/EW in a few important ways.

1) XCOM 2 was designed and balanced for concealment to be broken on the player's turn.

2) Overwatch from concealment gets no aim penalty.

3) Your soldiers use smart overwatch, so they never waste shots, making overwatch traps devastatingly effective in XCOM 2.

4) Some abilities allow soldiers to remain in or re-enter concealment, allowing the player to use a slightly less effective version of this tactic for the entire mission.

And a video of it in action. Very very gamey.

So main tactic is. Prepare overwatch and attack high value target/granade. Then everyone shoots from concealment on overwatch. That was replaced by one soldier would be spotted on purpose, they would scatter/purue him and everyone gets overwatch fire from concealment. On next turn there is not any concealment and stuff works and overwatches have penalties.

Thus in first case they have theirs turn, they scaters and whatever. In second case they have theirs turn and... What's differnce? They still have theirs turn.

 

[Average Manatee]

XCOM is a gamey game. If they didn't want it to be gamey it should have been a simulation like X-Com. It was the dominant tactic for everyone in classic or impossible difficulty in XCOM, so apparently we know all Firaxis playtesters and designers play normal.

Hope these last minute changes don't fuck up the difficulty curve or something.

That tactic didn't exist in EU/EW because the concealment system didn't exist in the previous games. You are very confused.

People used the exact same tactic, only it was harder and the benefit was smaller. Getting the enemy to walk into your entire team overwatching was always the best way to start a fight.

In XCOM 1 you could do it for every single group, not just the first one on the map. So I can't really say the benefit is smaller. And it was very easy to do on any mission without a timer, just spam overwatch until something walks into you. Meld was the incentive to "fix" this but it never really accomplished this since Meld was rather unimportant compared to not getting wiped.

If anything I'd say that XCOM 2's system at the moment works better than XCOM 1's. Its more intuitive to ambush people from concealment and since you can only do it once without specialized builds its less of a dominant strategy for everything and more of a good opener to use on the mob that looks the toughest.

 

[veevoir]

Thus in first case they have theirs turn, they scaters and whatever. In second case they have theirs turn and... What's differnce? They still have theirs turn.

In normal scenario - you fire in your turn to break concealment, they scatter in your turn, get overwatched, you end your turn - aliens turn.

In beagle maneuver - they spot one of your guises during alien turn - they scatter, take overwatch from everyone, alien turns end. Your turn.



And yes, it was also used in xcom on harder difficulties if you knew a pod is coming your way.

 

[Raghar]

Are you saying aliens are not firing on theirs own turn, or at least going for overwatch? Basically it looks like aliens are forfeiting turn when they run into your guys...

And what would happen to these aliens too far away to trigger overwatch, and still seeing your guy?

They could still get Overwatched on patrol movement, just not on the free-move. The Beaglerush hinges on overwatching that free move they get when they trigger, and then that it hands-off to the Player's turn.

This is better description. Basically they created special case in original game, added concealment rules and this created bug which allows attack aliens on theirs bonus move, and then handle turn correctly. (Because it thinks theirs bonus move is theirs turn.)

 

[Jaedar]

If anything I'd say that XCOM 2's system at the moment works better than XCOM 1's. Its more intuitive to ambush people from concealment and since you can only do it once without specialized builds its less of a dominant strategy for everything and more of a good opener to use on the mob that looks the toughest.

Except after concealment is lost, the game literally reverts to exactly xcom1 rules. Granted a lot more missions are timed so you can't sit still as much.

Are you saying aliens are not firing on theirs own turn, or at least going for overwatch? Basically it looks like aliens are forfeiting turn when they run into your guys...

Welcome to firaxcom.

 

[Average Manatee]

If anything I'd say that XCOM 2's system at the moment works better than XCOM 1's. Its more intuitive to ambush people from concealment and since you can only do it once without specialized builds its less of a dominant strategy for everything and more of a good opener to use on the mob that looks the toughest.

Except after concealment is lost, the game literally reverts to exactly xcom1 rules. Granted a lot more missions are timed so you can't sit still as much.

Isn't it designed so that once you activate one pod, the rest of the map is aware and zeroes in on your position? Or is that only some missions? I haven't watched a ton of XCOM 2 gameplay.

Either way more mission timers or optional goods timers like meld are the only good way to force players to be more aggressive with XCOM's system.

 

[!godspeed]

If anything I'd say that XCOM 2's system at the moment works better than XCOM 1's. Its more intuitive to ambush people from concealment and since you can only do it once without specialized builds its less of a dominant strategy for everything and more of a good opener to use on the mob that looks the toughest.

Except after concealment is lost, the game literally reverts to exactly xcom1 rules. Granted a lot more missions are timed so you can't sit still as much.

Isn't it designed so that once you activate one pod, the rest of the map is aware and zeroes in on your position?

As far as I can tell, no. Same as EU/EW, the pods don't communicate, the game isn't balanced for 10-15 aliens against 4 soldiers at once.

Two exceptions: Reinforcements, if they land outside your squad's visual range, they still have a general idea of where you are and move to find you. Runaways, which lead the new pod back to your last known position.

A further exception are Outsiders. Their call for backup is heard by all aliens on the map, and if you stumble upon them early on during a big UFO mission, shit massively hits the fan.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

You know the devs are really bad at their own game when it takes a streamer to point out basic optimal gameplay styles.

Considering how the nuXCom tutorial mission encouraged you to use the least optimal tactics of seeking out cover even if it risks activation, this is might be a recurring theme in the series.

 

[Jasede]

I'd argue that Overwatch spamming in the first one was different from the maneuver because there was no smart firing and aliens would scatter after the shot into cover. So with some luck you might kill 2 out of maybe 3 or 4 aliens, and that's if you are lucky; often you would have everyone fire at a single alien, leaving 2-3 alive. That's quite different from the current maneuver where you can basically annihilate an entire pod from just the fire, and if you don't you kill them for certain right after without being hit. It's good they address this.

By the way, this has made me check out beagle's videos. I hate his European accent but that guy is amazing at Long War Ironman Impossible; learning a lot.
(Unless this is some Australian accent I never heard before. I don't like it.)

 

[ArchAngel]

Now this is very interesting: https://xcom.com/news/en-long-war-studios-preparing-xcom-2-content-for-launch

We are happy to announce Long War Studios, the developers behind the Long War total-conversion mod for XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM: Enemy Within, has partnered with Firaxis Games and 2K for XCOM 2.