XCOM 2 Catch-All

BNice wrote:

Holy sh*t. Mod support and procedural maps!!11!!one!1111!!!!

Mobile heli carrier base!

Melee!

PC only (for now) design! (Civ V vs Civ Rev)

IMAGE(http://i.minus.com/ibzJaMTuoeLEH3.gif)

Oh hell yes. Now how to make November come sooner

Cod wrote:

...and I just bought & installed Enemy Within this weekend.

IMAGE(http://i.minus.com/i8YuIlKqJUFNe.png)

A random map generator is literally the only thing I could think of to make the previous game better so this sounds perfect to me.

Edit: Beaten. Watching the video.

- Since you are taking the initiative, you usually get the first shot.
- Stealth system.
- Looting system.
- Secondary mission objectives where you don't have to kill all the aliens and still "win" the mission.

I am very happy for PC gamers, but am sad no console:( I bought at launch Enemy Within and Unknown as well as all the DLC. I loved it on console.

Oh well:(

Neat. Getting the canon ending in EU will be a synch now.

OK so I just read through all that as well, and a couple of things caught my eye:

- Squads are still 4 to 6. I would've bet money that the base defense proved the game can still be just as engaging with more. Long War as well. Even with 12 soldiers, it was tough!
- Loot system! Very interesting. 2 things though, items we loot we can't use in that same mission, leads me to think ammo will still be infinite (although must reload), and secondly, that items are gonna be far more important this time around for engineering and research.
- Love the enhanced customizing for soldiers. We can now choose gender and nationality, which is awesome. (Big Beards!)
- Seems we're still operating on 2 action turns. Personally I thought it worked really well in EU, so I'm all for it. Just crossing fingers the tech trees of the 5 classes allow for some interesting stuff, like in Long War, that allowed for a certain "3rd" turn. Paramedic (1 heal without action cost), Lock n Load (1 reload without action cost), etc.

I just can't believe we're getting this so soon. I'm dying here from excitement! I wanna know more!

So, this "ragtag group of veterans" idea is interesting, does that mean less expendable rookies? Does it mean I don't need to rotate from the bottom like I did in XCOM to keep everyone at roughly the same level?

Well, it's not based on oceanic themes, so that's good. Haven't watched the trailer yet. Maybe I should finish the first.

Huh, after watching the latest video I realize that I've always considered Procedurally generated and Randomly generated game content one in the same. They mention deep-diving into the nature of procedural map creation in the game further down the road. I can't wait to learn more.

Since it's PC only maybe we'll get TU's back?

SpaceDog wrote:

Since it's PC only maybe we'll get TU's back?

The IGN article mentions they're still using the two-move system, which I'm honestly thankful for, I'm hoping they don't fix what isn't broken with the XCOM tactical battles, the foundation they have in place from the first game is rock solid.

Redwing wrote:
SpaceDog wrote:

Since it's PC only maybe we'll get TU's back?

The IGN article mentions they're still using the two-move system, which I'm honestly thankful for, I'm hoping they don't fix what isn't broken with the XCOM tactical battles, the foundation they have in place from the first game is rock solid.

Except it didn't exactly work for XCOM since they lost.

I like the 2-action turns. It's very Sid. Simple without losing essential depth. In Xcom-EU, far too much time was spent deciding on minutia and executing them, when most of the time, you're moving someone a long way, moving then shooting, or just spending all the time shooting. The Bullet Storm class perk is very strong, though, so I get that only one class is allowed to max out its shooting all the time. Though technically, the Sniper's basic shot is a "shoot the entire turn" thing, and the Assault has its Run and Gun as well as Close and Personal as well as Rapid Fire.

LarryC wrote:

I like the 2-action turns. It's very Sid. Simple without losing essential depth.

How do you think the melee weapons are going to fit into the 2-action scheme? In EW with MEC melee you move up to a target and then attack them. But MECs have the durability to stay alive without getting into cover. If your other soldiers tried to do that they would end the turn just standing out in the open. The other big issue of melee attacks is if you fail to kill your opponent in one shot.

There are probably going to be a lot of conditions around the XCOM melee skills. Like if an alien tries to attack your guy in melee he gets a preemptive counter attack ala Close Quarters Specialist. Or perhaps the cover mechanics in the new game are not as black and white as they used to be.

Or could be a "hit and run" type move where you can strike, then move back out of the way. Maybe a combination of that and CCS so that, even though you're still pretty close after running away, if a unit moves too close you get a free shot at it.

Damn this game. I was thinking of making purchase or two during the Steam Summer Sale if there was a discount to my liking, but I'd rather save up and just get this on release. Given the amount of time I've put into Long War, I'm sure I'd get my money's worth.

Tamren wrote:
LarryC wrote:

I like the 2-action turns. It's very Sid. Simple without losing essential depth.

How do you think the melee weapons are going to fit into the 2-action scheme? In EW with MEC melee you move up to a target and then attack them. But MECs have the durability to stay alive without getting into cover. If your other soldiers tried to do that they would end the turn just standing out in the open. The other big issue of melee attacks is if you fail to kill your opponent in one shot.

There are probably going to be a lot of conditions around the XCOM melee skills. Like if an alien tries to attack your guy in melee he gets a preemptive counter attack ala Close Quarters Specialist. Or perhaps the cover mechanics in the new game are not as black and white as they used to be.

It's not true that only the MECs have the durability to stay alive outside of cover. A Colonel Assault can get the Resilience perk to void greater critical hit chances when out of cover. Extra Conditioning grants an extra layer of HP, Tactical Sense grants as much as half-cover's worth in Defense if you have 4 Aliens in sight. This won't work well with Red Fog or in Classic, but it's okay enough in Normal - good enough to rely on it in Normal Ironman, even.

I imagine that a melee-focused Ranger might have even better perks to give him additional hardiness to focus firing and to other melee units. Melee vs Melee in XCOM EU was a nice graphical and tactical trick, but it was basically a MEC going in for a kill shot, or occasionally to serve as cannon fodder for a Sectopod. I'm not sure if they want to develop the turn-based melee game over that. Maybe they will. Yoma might be a good basis for that, but I'm not super-familiar with how turn-based melee is modeled in game design well.

Redwing wrote:
SpaceDog wrote:

Since it's PC only maybe we'll get TU's back?

The IGN article mentions they're still using the two-move system, which I'm honestly thankful for, I'm hoping they don't fix what isn't broken with the XCOM tactical battles, the foundation they have in place from the first game is rock solid.

I've been playing a bit of Xenonauts and I have to say it's got me loving TU's again.

I figured melee would work very similarly to the stunner. That only worked a space or two away which is about melee distance, particularly if you factor in a leap forward or something.

tanstaafl wrote:
Stele wrote:

Steam Workshop

Second try at paid mods?

I'm cool with that so long as it's in the game from the start (or at least known about from the start). From what I could see, the biggest problem with doing paid mods for Skyrim came from trying to transition an established community with tangled dependency webs. With a fresh start we could see a healthy market develop.

LiquidMantis wrote:

The first one has great controller support, hopefully that will still be the case with 2 being PC exclusive.

I loved the controller support on the last one, but if they say that dropping it allowed them to improve the interface and optimize it for keyboard and mouse I'll keep an open mind.

Vargen wrote:

I'm cool with that so long as it's in the game from the start (or at least known about from the start). From what I could see, the biggest problem with doing paid mods for Skyrim came from trying to transition an established community with tangled dependency webs. With a fresh start we could see a healthy market develop.

It could work. Especially if Firaxis uses the mod income to justify further work on the game in the form of bugsquashing and patches aimed specifically to support "AAA" mods. The cross-dependency is what made the Skyrim situation fall apart, XCOM is easier to divide into discrete content areas that complement each other. If I mod in a new hat for my soldiers it should not conflict with any other mod because it's just a visual change, any time the soldier shows up the hat shows up too.

I would have no issue dropping 5$ for a REALLY good map pack. If I added that to the game the maps would simply show up in the random queue. Most of the other mods I could add like voice packs, character skins and the like would all work fine with the new map without any extra work. A total conversion mod like Long War might require special coding to make maps work. However it's in the modders' best interests to work together. The Long War devs could put some files in place that trigger if you have that map pack installed. Or the makers of the map pack could do some extra work and make their maps Long War compatible.

Vargen wrote:

I loved the controller support on the last one, but if they say that dropping it allowed them to improve the interface and optimize it for keyboard and mouse I'll keep an open mind.

I would much rather have a UI that is 100% optimized for mouse. Once they accomplish that they can make a second UI that is 100% controller optimized. Shoehorning PC controls into a console interface never works well.

Nevin73 wrote:

I figured melee would work very similarly to the stunner. That only worked a space or two away which is about melee distance, particularly if you factor in a leap forward or something.

Targeted melee attacks would probably have some kind of "third-turn" movement ability attached to them. XCOM has huge penalties for being out of cover, so there would have to be some way for soldiers to return to cover after making an attack. You could also have a mechanic where melee units that end the turn beside an enemy are considered "locked in combat" with that enemy and have an evasion bonus, if fired upon the shots might even strike the wrong person.

If there are paid mods, I will make my long awaited Stargate tactical sim mod*.

Spoiler:

*that I just came up with

Tamren wrote:
Vargen wrote:

I'm cool with that so long as it's in the game from the start (or at least known about from the start). From what I could see, the biggest problem with doing paid mods for Skyrim came from trying to transition an established community with tangled dependency webs. With a fresh start we could see a healthy market develop.

It could work. Especially if Firaxis uses the mod income to justify further work on the game in the form of bugsquashing and patches aimed specifically to support "AAA" mods. The cross-dependency is what made the Skyrim situation fall apart, XCOM is easier to divide into discrete content areas that complement each other. If I mod in a new hat for my soldiers it should not conflict with any other mod because it's just a visual change, any time the soldier shows up the hat shows up too.

I would have no issue dropping 5$ for a REALLY good map pack. If I added that to the game the maps would simply show up in the random queue. Most of the other mods I could add like voice packs, character skins and the like would all work fine with the new map without any extra work. A total conversion mod like Long War might require special coding to make maps work. However it's in the modders' best interests to work together. The Long War devs could put some files in place that trigger if you have that map pack installed. Or the makers of the map pack could do some extra work and make their maps Long War compatible.

Vargen wrote:

I loved the controller support on the last one, but if they say that dropping it allowed them to improve the interface and optimize it for keyboard and mouse I'll keep an open mind.

I would much rather have a UI that is 100% optimized for mouse. Once they accomplish that they can make a second UI that is 100% controller optimized. Shoehorning PC controls into a console interface never works well.

Nevin73 wrote:

I figured melee would work very similarly to the stunner. That only worked a space or two away which is about melee distance, particularly if you factor in a leap forward or something.

Targeted melee attacks would probably have some kind of "third-turn" movement ability attached to them. XCOM has huge penalties for being out of cover, so there would have to be some way for soldiers to return to cover after making an attack. You could also have a mechanic where melee units that end the turn beside an enemy are considered "locked in combat" with that enemy and have an evasion bonus, if fired upon the shots might even strike the wrong person.

And the XCom mod scene is way different right now. How much would you have paid for The Long War? I think I would have dropped $15-20 easily.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/04/xcom-2s-procedurally-generated-maps-ign-first

Here’s how the metaphor works: imagine a map in XCOM 2 as a quilt, with holes where a pre-constructed modular building will be placed – those are the parcels. The holes are big, small, and medium-sized, with a range of unique buildings that could fit into each size. These buildings, and the holes in which they’re socketed, are the parcels of the system.
Though modular in nature, buildings in XCOM 2 aren’t procedurally generated, but crafted set pieces, and almost entirely destructible – including their ceilings and floors.
However, with the addition of mod support in XCOM 2 -- which we’ll be diving into next week -- and the modular nature of building design and creation, there’s no telling how many different variations and original buildings you’ll soon be blowing holes through

Man, this sounds great but this dribbling of info is killing me.

The thing I hated with the mouse was failing to get your unit to move to/on a elevated position... sometimes it was just impossible, even though it was a perfectly valid move.

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

The thing I hated with the mouse was failing to get your unit to move to/on a elevated position... sometimes it was just impossible, even though it was a perfectly valid move.

This is a failing of the game being too sticky with the mouse cursor. I'm sure everyone remembers how we used to click through terrain and send soldiers to the wrong elevation? IIRC they fixed that bug, maybe not totally but it used to be much worse. That shipping container on the flaming bridge mission where you find Van Doorn was especially notorious.

A simple idea for solving that problem would be to press SHIFT to freeze the cursor on a specific map tile and using the scroll wheel to set the elevation. This would allow you to move flying units with pinpoint precision and also make it impossible to send units to the wrong level.

The real test will be if the fps drops to a halt when a Beserker charges.... assuming they're still in the game.

BlackSabre wrote:

The real test will be if the fps drops to a halt when a Beserker charges.... assuming they're still in the game.

I really liked the Berserker, but seeing how the Snakeman (now woman) made a comeback, I'm crossing fingers we'll get to see the Reaper back as well, which basically served the same function, heavy melee hitter.

Also, just for kicks, Celatids and Silacoids need to come back!!

BlackSabre wrote:

The real test will be if the fps drops to a halt when a Beserker charges.... assuming they're still in the game.

The charge wasn't the issue for me, it was the regular movement. Instant tank to <5 FPS.

The charge move wasn't all that great either, it was supposed to bust your guys out of cover and have the zerker charge through walls to get at you. In practice it almost never used that move, I saw it maybe less than 5 times over MANY full campaigns. Sometimes I even tried to use it myself by mind controlling the zerker first, and in those cases the charge was bugged as all hell. If you targeted an enemy he might run up and punch empty air, or stop short and bump his head on walls he should have been able to bust down. I never managed to use it successfully, which is a shame because the zerker was one of the aliens that really changed the formula up.