Even at $70 it's a value. You're going to get a ton of hours of fun out of it. Easily one of the best games I've played in the last 5 years.
I've been waiting to get XCOM 2, but it sounds like the new expansion is the bomb. I'm not ready to shell out 70+ bucks for both, is the Vanilla still worth playing?
Base XCOM2, especially at 60% off for the next few days, is absolutely worth it. Especially if you grab the free, Firaxis-sanctioned|backed LW2 'expansion' by Pavonis Interactive. The geoscape infiltration mechanic LW2 adds is a bit head-scratching at first (and it took a lot of flak) but with a bit of guide reading it's not bad. In short, you basically want to flip most folks on 'intel' to find missions in time before they expire. Later in the game, depending on enemy presence in an area, you may want to put haven folks for a region on other jobs (including the go-into-hiding one). You can get plenty of supply by rushing some engineers and excavating within the avenger.
Much like WoTC, it's a way to have a lot going on with the map, which forces you into decisions as generally can't do everything -- especially once you are managing multiple regions at once.
Personally, I'd still strike while the 60% off deal is on. You can always get WoTC sooner or later if you find you really dig base XCOM2. It's not like most of us here hated XCOM2 prior to WoTC. Base game stands up.
Is there a good beginner guide for vanilla XCOM 2 anyone knows of? I'm still early on in my first campaign, but I'm pretty sure I'm already hosed.I only have two soldiers at the third rank, one is wounded, I have two soldiers that just got their class rank, and haven't managed to research any upgraded weapons or armor sets. The robot enemies and vipers just got introduced, and the best squad I could field just got mangled in a medium difficulty mission.
i don't know that I'll have the stamina to run a bunch of failed campaigns just to feel like I have a clue what I'm doing, so any help along the lines of what I should be prioritizing would be good. I assume the tip of "save scum to avoid losing soldiers" goes without saying, even though I hate to do that.
There are almost TOO MANY guides to vanilla at this point. Many of them say "definitively do THIS," even though many of the choices in the game come down to playstyle and preference. There's not a ton of theorycrafting here, in my opinion.
That said, I really hit a wall when I went from veteran to commander - especially because I prefer ironman mode - and this guide helped me a lot: https://www.reddit.com/r/XCOM2/comme....
It has general tips, solider builds, and some clear direction about how to handle engineering and research decisions in the early game. I don't agree with everything in the guide - and it leads you to a playstyle that's probably more conservative than you need for easier difficulties - but I think it's a decent one-stop shop to getting robustly into a campaign without making irreversibly bad decisions. By that point, you should have enough experience to either make the decisions on your own or ask some more specific questions on Google.
As someone who has precious little time to play games these days and therefore rarely watches streamers, I also think there are some tactics to be learned from watching to good ones a little. The higher difficulties really require smart thinking about retreating, for example: both falling back within a mission to pull enemies out of cover, and abandoning missions where the benefits of winning don't justify the cost of further losses.
No sprinting?! That's half the fun!
Seriously though, mostly good tips in there. I would also advise building a Mimic Beacon as soon as you research a certain alien corpse (no spoilers). Even with the nerf they are still incredibly useful at keeping your soldiers alive and allowing more room for mistakes.
I also agree with Kazooka. Particularly in the strategic map, there's still a lot going on when you're getting into vanilla XCOM2 for the first time that takes some time to figure out (even for XCOM 1 vets), especially relative to long-term planning. Throwing in the WOTC content, I can see it being extremely overwhelming.
Holy sh*t, I thought I recognized several voices. It's a Star Trek Next Gen mini reunion.
Michael Dorn is Mox
Jonathan Frakes is Volk
Dwight Schultz is Jeriah
Marina Sirtis is Elena Dragunova
Legion and the Geth are finally live for WOTC!
Holy sh*t, I thought I recognized several voices. It's a Star Trek Next Gen mini reunion.
Michael Dorn is Mox
Jonathan Frakes is Volk
Dwight Schultz is Jeriah
Marina Sirtis is Elena Dragunova
Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar) is Betos.
John de Lancie (Q) is Geist
There are some nice little appreciated touches in WotC:
• I played some missions of vanilla XCOM2 several days ago and WotC definitely runs a lot smoother and faster than that.
• The resistance forces in those rescue missions finally have weapons and they can shoot aliens, too.
• The fatigue stat (or whatever it's called) makes the game a lot more interesting. After 5 or so missions it feels like I've used more soldiers than in my last playthrough.
• The bonding mechanic seems interesting, but I guess I shouldn't expect any time travelling children from the future that join the fight... should I?
>> Is it technically possible for modders to add something like this? I have no idea how much modders can tinker with the game.
Whew those chosen are no joke. I ended up having to drop to easy to get through the assassin's base.
Broke open my piggy bank for this expansion (literally, paid the 7/11 guy $50 in $2 coins for a Steam card). Downloading right now, all this talk got me way too excited to wait!
WOOT! Musashi has 'WoTC Primary Pistols' up! Steam Workshop link . This gives me hope that he'll port over his pistoleering gunslinger custom class at some, sooner than later, point. It's just not an XCOM playthrough without the novelty duo of "Ulyssa 'Pistol Mamma' Grant" (she sports Roca's cavalry hat) and "Larry 'Baked' Roachburn" trying to make it through a campaign alive relying on pistols (as much as the game allows) and this certainly furthers that goal.
'DESCRIPTION
This mod adds pistols as primary weapons
Works for XCom 2 War of the Chosen.
The pistols must be bought separatly from normal pistols.
All pistols are fully upgradable.
So whats inside?
Primary Pistol
Primary Laser Pistol
Primary Mag Pistol
Primary Coil Pistol
Primary Plasma Pistol
Primary Sawed-Off Shotgun
Primary Mag Shorty
Primary Shadowkeeper
Enhanced Primary Shadowkeeper
Powered Primary Shadowkeeper
Why do i need a separate mod for this/What does this mod actually do?
It allows classes to define the pistol category as primary weapon category, without having a soldier with bare hands
It tweaks the pistols so that the default position is in the hands of your soldier and not in the holster.
It tweaks the left hand position so that its on the pistol grip and not in the air or on the barrel in tactical combat (not perfect but the best i am capable of).
In loadout this left hand can't be postioned atm so i recommend using the 'laid back' personality where the soldier holds the weapon upwards.
It tweaks the soldiers shooting animation so the soldier don't pull and put back the pistol. Its in his hand all the time.
Pistols give +3 mobility
Pistols have a clip size (6 per default) and pistol shots and perks consume ammo
Rangers and Specialist can use primary pistols out of the box.
How can my custom class use primary pistols?
You can modify any class using primary pistols by adding this to the class defintion in XComClassData.ini'
Posted this in the Mario + Rabbids thread too but thought it was really cool to see
Finished a run through the expanded game (on easy...what can I say, I like winning)
It's great...except, I wish that the new stuff was a bit more integrated into the original campaign. What ended up happening for me is that I focused almost entirely on the new stuff (dealing with the Chosen) first, whilst keeping the avatar project low (I was also running with the double-length timer, so this was partly my fault).
In the end, when I went back to the original stuff I kinda then just had to play through all the usual missions, albeit with a more colourful roster of squaddies which was.. a bit anticlimactic. You do get a few very scant seconds of extra cutscenes for each of the three factions at the end but they are rather blink and you'll miss them.
Overall, it's still a super fun game, I'm just slightly disappointed they didn't mix up the end-game content a bit more to suit the new material. (Especially if they could get more of the Lost in there somewhere - battling in lost-infested maps are some of the most fun encounters in the game...and I never thought I'd be saying that about zombies).
Moderate rant: oh XCOM2, why you so janky with keybindings after all this time? Sometimes you dump them after every mission--or not, sometimes I lose only some keybindings but not all, sometimes mwheel up and down will absolutely refuse to bind as zoom in and out, sometimes either Q or E will refuse to be swapped for camera rotation (though, oddly, I don't think I've ever had it refuse to swap at least one of them -- so I get Q-Q or E-E for both).
Stuff like "center mass" triggering text centering is lolzstastic (ok, actually, I hope this one is still a thing) but the bindings song and dance is getting old at this point.. Anyways, based on past experience, it will eventually stick but I have no idea what order of assigning them, or clearing the secondary keys first, or in mission vs main menu, or hard setting default then assigning them does the trick. It's being particularly fussy this time around despite an uninstall, purge of remaining loose files, and full DL and re-install. Also wishlist for XCOM3: for the love of putting high velocity rounds into alien skulls please work on geometry cutaway (or whatevs is the proper term). It's still, situationally, cumbersome inside certain buildings or levels with multiple Z levels -- especially when enemies are at a distance.
Aside from that, congratulations to Firaxis, this game is damn near digital coke at this point.
It's great...except, I wish that the new stuff was a bit more integrated into the original campaign. What ended up happening for me is that I focused almost entirely on the new stuff (dealing with the Chosen) first, whilst keeping the avatar project low (I was also running with the double-length timer, so this was partly my fault).
Yeah, I was interested to see all the modifiers they built into the game for tailoring your experience but I had a feeling doubling timers would be murder on the pacing. I'm playing Ironman 'normal' mode and so far I'm finding it slots the new in with the old pretty well, but they definitely let you focus in hard on the new content if you want to ignore the 'old' stuff.
Would have been cool if they re-mixed or played with the original quest line a bit more.
Warning, angry rant ahead.
Man, the amount of bullsh*t I've run across in the first few months of this campaign is getting silly. There's the expected "miss a 99% point blank shot" stuff that I can deal with. Then there's stuff like a disoriented enemy critting and one shotting one of my guys. Or I finally build a mindjack, use it, and oops, big tough mob spawns. Or I've got two people in and on a truck, which was apparently invisibly on fire, and it explodes unexpectedly, taking out one outright and panicking the other.
It really seems like the game's insisting that I save scum my way through this thing, and holy hell, am I super not interested in doing that.
There are bonuses from the new factions, one of which pauses the timers until the squad is revealed. I believe this is a great middle ground because it allows for a stealthy beginning but, still shorter timers.
Filthy skimmer, I know, but is there an update to the GWJ Character Pools? I have an older GWJCC one, but I've lost the rest. Links in OP don't work anymore. Sorry if this has been discussed already.
Just a note I don't think dropbox links are persistent so every time I upload a new version there may be a new URL. Not sure, haven't tested. At any rate that would mean changing the OP link every time.
The git repository will stay consistent, of course, which is half the reason for using it. I'd recommend adding that to the OP as well: https://github.com/markbrereton/gwj-...
This is the latest link that I know of.
For real, is this the kind of game that early losses are really hard to deal with? I didn't feel that way about the first game, but I'm definitely getting that vibe about this one. I just lost someone on the second mission because the only available cover was just one tile ahead, which was just barely within the sight range of the next pod. Of course, I'm only feeling pressured to push ahead because of the timers, which just get my guys killed.
Maybe I need a relaxed/no timer mod. The existing ones are just frustrating the hell out of me.
First "Lost" mission was fantastic, chaining headshots just feels so good! And the 2 new hero classes are quite nice. I really enjoyed the alien dude.
I was surprised by how well my sharpshooter was doing with her pistol. I've never really touched that skill-tree, but if the lost are going to be a prevalent part of this new game, I'm very tempted to go all in on the pistols. Any thoughts?
For real, is this the kind of game that early losses are really hard to deal with? I didn't feel that way about the first game, but I'm definitely getting that vibe about this one. I just lost someone on the second mission because the only available cover was just one tile ahead, which was just barely within the sight range of the next pod. Of course, I'm only feeling pressured to push ahead because of the timers, which just get my guys killed.
Maybe I need a relaxed/no timer mod. The existing ones are just frustrating the hell out of me.
It helps to not mind the timers that much. In general, so long as you're always pushing with the movement and the combat, you have plenty of time. By "pushing," I mean not Overwatch-crawling when moving, and not "Overwatch waiting" for combat. Actively move, actively engage. So long as you do that, most of the default timers are pretty generous.
I was surprised by how well my sharpshooter was doing with her pistol. I've never really touched that skill-tree, but if the lost are going to be a prevalent part of this new game, I'm very tempted to go all in on the pistols. Any thoughts?
that tree is pretty good when you get up the tree and get better pistols, can do some pretty good damage. i prefer using them as snipers myself, hard to beat death from above + serial. the only thing i usually take out of the gunslinger tree is lightning hands.
Gunslinger and Sniper Sharpshooters play differently and have different strengths. Gunslingers are excellent at short to medium range, with some utility at zone defense at close range plus significant support power at longer ranges. They're basically short range soldiers with support capabilities at the longer ranges. They're meant to move with the team, and good at tunnels, buildings, and such areas. Snipers are almost exclusively long range specialists, and function at a significant disadvantage for short to medium range engagements. They're great to equip with grapple hooks because they tend to rush into position and then shoot from there for several turns. Putting grappling equipment on them allows you to reposition them within a turn whereas you may otherwise take two turns. They do well on maps with elevated positions and clear sight lines.
Okay just beat the game and overall had a blast. There we're some annoying interface bugs and two crashes but overall nothing that stopped my game entirely. I think there was a decent speed boost though. Seems like all the levels loaded in a second.
My only issue is the end game becomes a lot easier once the chosen are down. It's not really any more difficult then it was original. While you become a decent more powerful then vanilla. I basically slaughtered my way to the end.
Reapers are amazing. Not in pure power but the stealth mechanics. I had a nearly fully upgrade one and she could basically say in stealth the whole mission. While scouting for my team and letting us get tons of ambushes. Couple that with a world bonus that removes a groups first action when ambushed. It was slaughter. I loved it.
Skirmishers are the most meh I'd say. They are good, but just in an overall way. They do get a ton of actions and options. If you ever want to kill an annoying out of the way enemy they are the guy. Excellent for skulljacking too.
The Templars start slow but are pretty amazing on a high level. They can just slaughter groups of enemies at the end. Not mention some of their skills make them super mobile with some really flashy moves to boot.
Everything else added into the game add so much neat flexibility. The faction powers, covert actions, bonds, mission twists, etc. It adds so many options to it. Overall I can't think of a single thing they added that I didn't like. Definitely would be overwhelming for a new player though.
I'm so glad I kept a media blackout on the DLC (other than the trailer). I've just started 3-4 hours in, and I've already seen so many awesome additions, updates, modifications and features. For example, when Advent attacks a settlement, I thought "here we go again, saving the sheep".
But now they're armed! They finally have weapons to defend themselves! The game has completely reinvented himself!
So I think Banished is bugged on the reaper. I hadn't moved, had a full rifle and used Banished and she only shot once. I've done it a couple of times now and it's not working for me.
On the plus side, I just took down the Assassin for good. That was damn hard! I'm playing on Commander difficulty and yeah, had to do a couple of reloads because sh*t got real. In the end, thanks to savescumming, I beat her and now researching her weapons!
I love my Templar. She's so damn awesome. Got her at max level and she just wrecks sh*t... except the Assassin who was immune to Melee. Got my heavy gunner to finally put her down.
Commander Shepard for WOTC is live!!!
So I think Banished is bugged on the reaper. I hadn't moved, had a full rifle and used Banished and she only shot once. I've done it a couple of times now and it's not working for me.
On the plus side, I just took down the Assassin for good. That was damn hard! I'm playing on Commander difficulty and yeah, had to do a couple of reloads because sh*t got real. In the end, thanks to savescumming, I beat her and now researching her weapons!
I love my Templar. She's so damn awesome. Got her at max level and she just wrecks sh*t... except the Assassin who was immune to Melee. Got my heavy gunner to finally put her down.
Banished worked for me but it tended to be very buggy in it's animation. Sometimes it would look like it fired only once and skip the rest of the attacks. Got worse with the upgrade. Still it was still so stupidly powerful with a gun with an extended clip though. It could basically wipe out any single unit.
The other consistent bug that happen was the end of the month report was broken. Every single time the councilman talked it would warp to the avatar project on the map. Cutting him off.
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