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

[CthuluIsSpy]

I'd say the only really bullshit enemy I've fought so far are the codexs. Not because of the cloning, that's manageable enough, just that when they're around, all you can really do in the Alien activity phase is hope to god one of them doesn't teleport directly behind one of your soldiers and sodomize them with flanking critical damage.

Other than that and the performance, I don't really have much of an issue with the game.

Andromedons are worse.
It takes the whole squad to kill one, and then it turns into a unit that can move in its next turn, leaves behind acid and deals 8 damage in melee.

Fine if you can get one by itself. Not so fine when it has friends.

You can use Haywire Protocol to take the suit over though (it's a fairly easy hack in my experience)... it's pretty good for getting an extra meatshield to distract everything else in the pod.

Only if you don't fail the role.
But yeah, specialists are a life saver.

 

[Heresiarch]

So yesterday I have cleared my first Blacksite, after getting both Plate and Magnetic weapons. It was a blast.

I REALLY like what I see in the game so far. Sure the graphics and the engine looks like exactly the same as 1 (and for some reason run WORSE), but the gameplay has lots of new surprises and feels refreshing. Unfortunately this means I cannot hope I can beat my first game by going blind or ironman, because there are a lot of quirks that without save/load can really screw up the game, sometimes even not of your own fault (examples: did you know that you can evac after spending both actions? And tons of unexplained things).

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah, the AI has a few nasty surprises

-Commanders have grenades
-Codices can teleport and shoot
-Chrysallids can unburrow, move and melee on your turn.
-Mutons have a melee attack and can counter your melee attacks. They also have a chance of knocking a soldier out
-Archons have a melee attack and dodge
-MECs can shred
-Faceless melee attacks have range.

 

[mutonizer]

Commander difficulty is pretty easy so far with liberal use of grenades for everything.
Going with two grenadiers payoff really well early game.

Grenade IS 100% the name of the game, even more than in EU/EW. Can't miss, AE, shred, leave effects, destroy any cover (which includes floor, aka fall damage), don't even require LOS. Really finding it hard to bring anything but Grenadiers sometimes since they get a great main weapon, insane secondary, and gain boost from tons of techs/research because of it.

Commanders have grenades

Any and all ADVENT troops but lancers got grenades in my game, can see them attached to their belt. Having any two people in throw range within 3-4 squares of each other is a 100% guaranteed grenade in the face so far, even if they pretty much suicide to do it but otherwise they never ever use them.

Archons have a melee attack and dodge

Don't forget massive uninterruptible (even if you kill them) "Pignon" attack (sp?) which is a massive (8sq radius?) PBAoE.

MECs can shred

And unload massive long range missile barrage if you got people bunch up.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Commander difficulty is pretty easy so far with liberal use of grenades for everything.
Going with two grenadiers payoff really well early game.

Grenade IS 100% the name of the game, even more than in EU/EW. Can't miss, AE, shred, leave effects, destroy any cover (which includes floor, aka fall damage), don't even require LOS. Really finding it hard to bring anything but Grenadiers sometimes since they get a great main weapon, insane secondary, and gain boost from tons of techs/research because of it.

Commanders have grenades

Any and all ADVENT troops but lancers got grenades in my game, can see them attached to their belt. Having any two people in throw range within 3-4 squares of each other is a 100% guaranteed grenade in the face so far, even if they pretty much suicide to do it but otherwise they never ever use them.

Archons have a melee attack and dodge

Don't forget massive uninterruptible (even if you kill them) "Pignon" attack (sp?) which is a massive (8sq radius?) PBAoE.

MECs can shred

And unload massive long range missile barrage if you got people bunch up.

I knew about the Archon AoE (never gave him a chance to use it, fortunately) and the MEC barrage, but not about the melee and the shred.

 

[Zetor]

Archon barrage is also easily avoidable, though it does cost a move action on all your targeted dudes.

It turns out I've been cheating the whole time:

Currently on Commander and below:
> Added aim for Xcom after consecutive misses.
> Reduced aim for aliens after consecutive hits.
> Added aim for Xcom if squad reduced to <4 soldiers.
> Reduced aim for aliens if Xcom is reduced to <4 soldiers.
> Extra hit chance multiplier on all Xcom shots (not on Commander difficulty).

So apparently cheats in the two lowest difficulties weren't enough, they had to add them to the "hard" difficulty as well. hahaohwow.jpg How big are the modifiers?

I suppose it makes for better youtube fodder, though. "Check out this amazing comeback by my two heroic soldiers and their fudged dice rolls who prevailed against the aliens getting invisible to-hit penalties who killed their buddies due to tactical fuck-ups by the player"!

 

[bonescraper]

Sure the graphics and the engine looks like exactly the same as 1

 

[Jimmious]

Yeah I didn't get that too. The backgrounds and props especially look much much better and detailed, at least in my machine

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Archon barrage is also easily avoidable, though it does cost a move action on all your targeted dudes.

It turns out I've been cheating the whole time:

Currently on Commander and below:
> Added aim for Xcom after consecutive misses.
> Reduced aim for aliens after consecutive hits.
> Added aim for Xcom if squad reduced to <4 soldiers.
> Reduced aim for aliens if Xcom is reduced to <4 soldiers.
> Extra hit chance multiplier on all Xcom shots (not on Commander difficulty).

So apparently cheats in the two lowest difficulties weren't enough, they had to add them to the "hard" difficulty as well. hahaohwow.jpg How big are the modifiers?

I suppose it makes for better youtube fodder, though. "Check out this amazing comeback by my two heroic soldiers and their fudged dice rolls who prevailed against the aliens getting invisible to-hit penalties who killed their buddies due to tactical fuck-ups by the player"!

To be fair, the AI does have some bullshit abilities this time.

Commanders can mark and shoot on the same turn

Lancers can 1hko your soldiers

Andromedons, Archons, codices and MECs have AoE abilities, and either have a high dodge stat or armor

Chrysallids can unburrow, move and melee on the same turn.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Experimantal heavy weapons are really fun. Plasma blast right after psi lance leave nothing but ashes its wake. Even the might sectopods fall before this combo.

 

[bonescraper]

Yeah, the AI has some crazy abilities.

Spoiler

So do you.

 

[mutonizer]

It's really not XCOM though this time around. With everything cranked up to 11, on both sides, it's X-MEN & friends against a super villain invasion or something and really not "human soldiers fight for freedom against a superior alien invader". Not bad, just different and really nothing to do with XCOM/UFO whatsoever now.
Superhero games are rare, especially with RPG/tactical/strategic elements so it's a welcome sight, just don't call it XCOM.

Hoping some mods will tune the whole shit down again though, and bring back normal human soldiers doing normal shits, against "normal" (teched up) aliens.


Edit:
Hmmmm, hang on a second....There are a lot of mechanic to make one hell of a superhero tactical game actually. Can do fly, can do super speed with multiple action boosts, can do big strength, invulnerable, super jumps, beams, explosions....holy fuck...
Any artists to do spandex costume, capes, superhero masks, wrist rifles and eye beams mods?

 

[Zombra]

Damn, I had a guy I wanted to make a Psi Op but didn't realize that only Rookies can go into psi training. Anyone have an idea how to mod a save file to demote a soldier?

 

[Sranchammer]

This is the best strategy game since Alpha Centauri

 

[vdweller]

I get 5 FPS on my Radeon 6700M with 1.4Ghz AMD quadcore and 8 GB Ram.
Oh, and it takes 3 minutes to load or end a mission.

Hell, it's why I am waiting for the new notebook to ship. (Yeah, bitch all you want, but I need a notebook for work/school/travel.)

Just because it's a greater model number doesn't mean it's better.

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/ATI-HD-4870-vs-AMD-Radeon-HD-6700M/m7788vsm7769

Not saying that I would get 60 fps but I was able to run relatively recent games like Dark Souls 2 or SOMA (who came out last year) flawlessly. In general the 4870 used to be a very good card for many years but now it doesn't even support DX 11.

 

[Jasede]

I'm aware, it's a seven year old computer.

 

[veevoir]

I must say - I appreciate the references to EU/EW and usual community jokes.

 

[Jasede]

Is there a Dr. Vahlen reference? There should be. Bitch never shut up.

 

[Ulminati]

Enjoying it so far. The trick for me was to stop thinking of it as an x-com game. When you think of it as a G.I. Joe vs alien invaders flick, the game is pretty amusing. Destructible environments and new objectives and alien special abilities have kept the game from going stale so far. Geoscape is still meh - especially compared to xenonauts - but better than what the predecessor had

 

[Kem0sabe]

Enjoying it so far. The trick for me was to stop thinking of it as an x-com game. When you think of it as a G.I. Joe vs alien invaders flick, the game is pretty amusing. Destructible environments and new objectives and alien special abilities have kept the game from going stale so far. Geoscape is still meh - especially compared to xenonauts - but better than what the predecessor had

Xenonauts set the bar for any other xcom clone/remake/re-imagining. This crap pales in comparison.

 

[mutonizer]

Xenonauts set the bar for any other xcom clone/remake/re-imagining. This crap pales in comparison.

It doesn't really pale since it has nothing whatsoever in common with it.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Is there a Dr. Vahlen reference? There should be. Bitch never shut up.

Kind of. Shen mentions something about old notes in English and broken German.
I think the implication was that Bradford had a thing for Vahlen.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Enjoying it so far. The trick for me was to stop thinking of it as an x-com game. When you think of it as a G.I. Joe vs alien invaders flick, the game is pretty amusing. Destructible environments and new objectives and alien special abilities have kept the game from going stale so far. Geoscape is still meh - especially compared to xenonauts - but better than what the predecessor had

Funnily enough, XCOM Ufo Defense was originally a deconstruction of GI Joe.
You have a bunch of soldiers, out to heroically save the world with their awesome gear...and then get horribly killed within 5 seconds of deployment.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Is there a Dr. Vahlen reference? There should be. Bitch never shut up.

Braford talks about her brutal alien interrogation methods.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Xenonauts set the bar for any other xcom clone/remake/re-imagining. This crap pales in comparison.

It doesn't really pale since it has nothing whatsoever in common with it.

It shares the same humans vs aliens scenario, it shares turn based squad combat, it shares a base building and geoscape gameplay element, it shares research and equipment building...