[mo' mod talk]
Just noticed that the WoTC version of '[WOTC] Peek From Concealment' is back in play.
Highlights:
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-You cannot be [visually] revealed by an enemy if you have high cover against it, or low cover with elevation (eg. [cover and] on a rooftop)
-Movement is slightly more forgiving. If the start and end of your move are hidden, you won't be revealed unless you are visible on at least 3 tiles of your movement path.*
-In exchange for these bonuses, enemy detection ranges have been buffed slightly, making open areas and roads a bit more dangerous.
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* As the 'peek' in the title applies, you can edge up to corner, skylights, etc then move back. I think the third is for technical reasons; actual line appears to be "NumGraceTiles=2". Anyways, I'll probably edit to 1 to tone it down. There's also a line where you can buff enemies detection range to offset more.
The high cover change addresses one of my standing gripes with the game: the occasional BS spotting through said [usually isolated bits; ie, not a wall of a building] of high cover it. While the reaper is fun, I'm tending to avoid her because she's a bit OP on the scouting front.
I find the game more enjoyable when I have to utilize, and bounce between, a handful of viable HC options, on the fly, that are precariously close to an enemy as opposed to a [mostly] flat 'you are identified at this range' or 'this class has literally no detection range even in broad daylight.
Plus, variety. Now you can park your ranger behind that one tile HC item and wait for that advent patrol to walk down the street to you. 'What's that? Oh, no thanks sniper buddy! You stay on concealed overwatch this time. Ima sit here and polish my shotgun till this advent patrol walks up to the other side of the kiosk.'
More than any other XCOM, I think War of the Chosen is the XCOM that gives you rewards for not doing well. Aside from a more interesting game narrative, you get to use the Memorial at the Bar, many of the save-death items and powers make a lot more sense, and you get interesting missions like Rescue, the new Avenger Defense type missions, and so on. Things like Hazmat Vests make a lot of sense to put on non-Medic troops when you're under Viper Rounds as a Dark Event. In a Psionic Storm incident, Mindshields are suddenly incredibly amazing (they cause Psionic attacks to auto-whiff). When your troops are dying, Stay With Me, Revival Protocol, and Field Medic are Phoenix Downs.
Being forced on the defensive also makes you use Line of Sight tactics and defensive tactics a lot more.
Guardian gets a bad rap, but on a Overwatched Specialist with a Perception PCS, an Advanced Scope, Full Cover, Aid Protocol, elevation advantage, Tracer rounds, and Covering Fire - it's pretty good. Covering Fire-Guardian isn't a very good attack combination. It's for holding ground and returning fire under severe duress.
Quick question for everyone. I haven't read every page in this thread so I apologize if this has already been answered.
Does anyone know if the Xbox One performance improves with the WOTC expansion? I heard that there were a ton of technical fixes with the expansion that 2K didn't put back into the base game. I finished the base game on Xbox One but the framerate and screen tearing were so bad and it made the game almost unplayable by the end. I really want to play this expansion but can't find anyone specifically talking about the console version. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks all!
First-ever complete run-through of XCOM2 for me (with ~200 hours invested pre-WOTC), so the DLC was definitely with it for me. Previously I would make it to a bit past having powered armor and beam weapons, then I'd lose interest or start a new game. The odd thing was the Beserker Queen was the only Alien Hunter's boss I ran into.
Such a good game, though, and I really felt like I had the old Xcom Fever back again. I had quite a few nights where I one-more-turned myself into a 4am bedtime, which I haven't done in a very long time.
Great job, Firaxis, and Tkyl!
That "one more turn" is damn more addictive than Civilization. I usually take my time with games, not being able to play more than an hour or two before moving onto some other title.
I'm pushing 35+ hours in a single week with WOTC. The constant stream of upgrades, excavations, build orders, all interrupted by the turn-based combat sections just hits that sweet spot for me. WOTC really upped all of that.
Basically it comes down to choice and pacing. I feel like early - mid game is where it's at. At the end, once you've got all the chosen weapons, all the ruler armour etc, the game is pretty much just a case of wrap up.
I want the lasers and coil weapons from long war. I feel like they could extend it out a little more. I find it too easy to get Plasma and then ruin the Xenos days.
You could bump it up a notch. The reason WoTC might feel a little easier is because it looks like they've smoothed some of the bumpier difficulty curves around the middle. So you could conceivably go up a difficulty notch and not worry so much about a game-ending hurdle around mag weapons. I think those are due to three factors:
1. +1 damage Weapon Breakthrough is basically Laser Weapons.
2. +1 HP Vest Armor is basically half-step armor in addition to half-step weapons (Laser is a half-step upgrade)
3. + Weapon Mods Breakthroughs + Improved Weapon mods turn mag weapons into beasts.
The end game is always going to be a wrap-up so you could spend as much time as you like playing Avengers or you can just go for the jugular and end the campaign ASAP. I don't know about putting in the Ruler DLCs, though. It's not that the Rulers are that intimidating - it's that their armor really blows it over the top. Death From Above + Darklance is already fairly incredible. You put Icarus Armor on top of that and you're basically the God of Thunder.
I have to say that in the latter stages WotC does seem to shake thing up a lot more to retain the difficulty. I had a supply raid last night where I couldn't take anyone above Sargent rank - but still face andromedons and elite priests (f*ck those guys and their 'no I'm not actually dead' mechanic!) and the hunter showed up. I couldn't deal with all of them at the same time so he managed to mind probe one of my guys fairly easily.
On the other hand - some of my guys are so overpowered now. I have a gunslinger who, with blue screen rounds, can taken sectopods in one turn without even having to break a sweat. And the viper king was killed 'conventionally' (i.e. Without a repeater) in one turn. The assassin's shotgun with rapid fire and talon rounds will dish out 20hp damage a shot in the right circumstances.
There's some degree of caution you have to play with even in the latter stages. We do like to lay on the damage - the best defense is usually an overwhelming offense. But not always. With both sides overwhelming each other's defenses, tactical combat can devolve into a game of rocket tag where the first side to act or shoot always scores a kill. High level D&D also has this problem, so I'm very familiar with it.
Thankfully, WoTC also has a lot of defensive powers and items to mitigate this problem. The Templar does have the insanely good Parry and Deflect abilities, there's the classic Aid Another, and our Grenadiers can get up to 4 Armor with insane health. In addition, there's Sustaining Sphere, Mind Shield, Hazmat Vests, and so on.
I don't think the design of the end-game ought to be rocket-tag but I also don't think it ought to just be mid-game redux. It'd be nice if they can release another expansion that keeps the end-game interesting but fun in an OP "We're Alien Hunters now" sort of way. Kind of like turning the tables on the incumbent Aliens.
Grrr...Ran into another glitch today. Was absolutely nailing a lost escort mission, no damage, flipped off a chosen, almost back to evac -- all literally perfect.
Then a swarm of Lost appeared and the game just hung on that screen. They continued to sway, but it would not bring the view back to my soldiers. I had to exit to main menu. When I reloaded, I was straight back to the beginning of the mission.
I better not take any hits the second time through.
Edit: This time the Chosen almost took down 3 soldiers, and now I'm knee-deep in lost as I had to resort to explosives. BOOO!
Edit 2: IT'S HANGING AGAIN FFS. EXACT SAME TIMING.
i've hit something similar a few times. For me it tends to happen during overwatch. The enemy ends up moving in super slow motion and just hangs there. I wonder if it eventually catches up again, but i've never had the patience to wait long enough to find out, so I also just reload the last save from the menu. Luckily I always just lose the previous turn.
Edit 2: IT'S HANGING AGAIN FFS. EXACT SAME TIMING.
Sent you a PM.
As for bugs I abandoned my first Ironman game in anger due to one. I got a mission where you have to hit the little (transmitters) equipment piles with the spinning things to add a turn to the timer. I destroyed on, but then I couldn't target any more. I ended up losing the mission.
Had a great mission last night. I had a resistance defense mission and took my Templar and Skirmisher along for the ride. The mission was going splendidly, I saved the first resistance group with only a single loss. I move my team up, the Warlock shows up. He mind controls my Skirmisher; the resistance takes him out. Three turns later the Warlock mind controls my Templar, the Resistance takes him out. I beat the mission soon after - but that Resistance group better not call me for help again.
Had a mission to take out the enemy commander. Last enemy was a priest who had frozen one soldier and had one HP left after a Ranger melee attack; all my other soldiers missed their shots but fortunately my grenadier had a stock on his weapon and despite missing he still finished the job. What a memorable finish
I had to disable all mods as my load up would crash if any were enabled; hope there's a patch coming soon or I won't be able to activate my fave mods like Kexx's ME models, evac all and Katana mod.
i've hit something similar a few times. For me it tends to happen during overwatch. The enemy ends up moving in super slow motion and just hangs there. I wonder if it eventually catches up again, but i've never had the patience to wait long enough to find out, so I also just reload the last save from the menu. Luckily I always just lose the previous turn.
I've seen this a couple of time as well. I've waited between 2-5 minutes for it to resolve itself without any luck. Fortunately, because I'm not playing Ironman, I just load up the most recent autosave and I haven't had it recur (within the same turn/mission).
I knocked out the psi Chosen last night night. Ended up being much easier than dealing with the assassin, but no doubt that's because my troops are higher level and better kitted out at this point. I love this expansion to pieces right now, and I think my total Steam hours in XCOM2 has now gone over 200. That is unheard of for me.
The thing I really appreciate about it right now is that the balance between time spent in missions and in the strategic layer feels so well-balanced. That was another item I was wary of going into WotC. That is, I was worried I'd get pinged with mission alerts all the time, while not being able to accomplish anything in the strategic layer. There have been ill-timed mission alerts, to be sure, but nothing that's made the core modes feel out of balance with each other. Kudos!
I was never much of a fan of Psi Ops in XCOM; however, I love love love the Templar. I really though the Skirmisher was going to be my favorite. I dig the expansion but mainly due to some of the new design choices (UI, mission changes, new feed after mission, photobooth, etc) so much so I really wish they had made these changes to vanilla. This is definitely more trollolol than the original XCOM2.
This game needs to work with Ansel.
Chosen Spoils
I assume all of the Chosen fights are going to be the same - fight the Chosen+Friends until their Sarcophagus is dead. I went to the Assassin's temple/hideout and that fight is probably worse than the original's end fight (I could be remembering wrong). I haven't been that frustrated in a while.
Whoever decided that the sarcophagus has 100+ HP and could only be attacked while the Chosen is "dead" plus having nasty enemies spawn in (two Andromedons and Beserker on Normal) the entire time , is just a real dickhead. I had to go to a previous save and now I am just waiting til I have Plasma Weapons.
I had to disable all mods as my load up would crash if any were enabled; hope there's a patch coming soon or I won't be able to activate my fave mods like Kexx's ME models, evac all and Katana mod.
It may be the Evac all mod FYI. I was reading how that was causing a lot of problems even though it was reedited for WOTC. I removed that MOD and the game has worked great.
i've hit something similar a few times. For me it tends to happen during overwatch. The enemy ends up moving in super slow motion and just hangs there. I wonder if it eventually catches up again, but i've never had the patience to wait long enough to find out, so I also just reload the last save from the menu. Luckily I always just lose the previous turn.
had this happen a bunch in current playthrough. it seems like it just gets stuck in a loop trying to figure out what all the lost are supposed to do. i've had it happen when a mec was clearly going to fire rockets in a lost mission and was going to spawn more lost. sometimes it'll catch up in 30-40 seconds, others it's just stuck (10-15mins in the longest i've waited)
I managed to perma-death the Assassin with mag-weapons. You know, with casualties.
Chosen Spoils
Spoiler:I assume all of the Chosen fights are going to be the same - fight the Chosen+Friends until their Sarcophagus is dead. I went to the Assassin's temple/hideout and that fight is probably worse than the original's end fight (I could be remembering wrong). I haven't been that frustrated in a while.
Whoever decided that the sarcophagus has 100+ HP and could only be attacked while the Chosen is "dead" plus having nasty enemies spawn in (two Andromedons and Beserker on Normal) the entire time , is just a real dickhead. I had to go to a previous save and now I am just waiting til I have Plasma Weapons.
yup, all the same.
the sarcophagus part is annoying, even with plasma i was only able to limit the chosen reviving to 60% health at best (usually 80%). the upside is the chosen are really easy to take out in one-shot or at least in 1 turn in their base. so if you can manage the adds for a turn or two it's fine.
Naterstein wrote:Chosen Spoils
Spoiler:I assume all of the Chosen fights are going to be the same - fight the Chosen+Friends until their Sarcophagus is dead. I went to the Assassin's temple/hideout and that fight is probably worse than the original's end fight (I could be remembering wrong). I haven't been that frustrated in a while.
Whoever decided that the sarcophagus has 100+ HP and could only be attacked while the Chosen is "dead" plus having nasty enemies spawn in (two Andromedons and Beserker on Normal) the entire time , is just a real dickhead. I had to go to a previous save and now I am just waiting til I have Plasma Weapons.
Spoiler:yup, all the same.
the sarcophagus part is annoying, even with plasma i was only able to limit the chosen reviving to 60% health at best (usually 80%). the upside is the chosen are really easy to take out in one-shot or at least in 1 turn in their base. so if you can manage the adds for a turn or two it's fine.
The big thing for me against the psi Chosen was that I was able to mind dominate an Andromedon in the first wave after you start targeting the sarcophagus. From there I was able to use my asashi(?) shotgun with rapid fire, and my sniper, to do some serious, fast damage to the thing while also fending off reinforcements. Was able to take it out before the Chosen respawned even once, making the whole encounter much simpler. Having high-level troops and equipment is a huge godsend on these missions.
Since you can't miss the Sarcophagus, what I did was I brought along the soldiers that had multi-shot damage powers, especially extra ones. So the Specialist had Rapid Fire, the Sniper had Chain Shot, and the Grenadier had both Rapid Fire and Chain Shot, and so on.
Mind Shields are mandatory equipment for any mission in the Warlock's territory.
Mind Shields are mandatory equipment for any mission in the Warlock's territory.
maybe i just encountered him late enough in game (2nd chosen i took out) or i was just lucky, but i think he mind controlled one solider, one time. reaper banish + expanded mag = win
Since you can't miss the Sarcophagus, what I did was I brought along the soldiers that had multi-shot damage powers, especially extra ones. So the Specialist had Rapid Fire, the Sniper had Chain Shot, and the Grenadier had both Rapid Fire and Chain Shot, and so on.
Mind Shields are mandatory equipment for any mission in the Warlock's territory.
Don't forget the bonded Dual Shot.
Since you can't miss the Sarcophagus, what I did was I brought along the soldiers that had multi-shot damage powers, especially extra ones. So the Specialist had Rapid Fire, the Sniper had Chain Shot, and the Grenadier had both Rapid Fire and Chain Shot, and so on.
Mind Shields are mandatory equipment for any mission in the Warlock's territory.
That's some damn good advice, I'll make sure to bring along a few of those skills this time (I'm close!). I didn't get far before being slaughtered before, does the mission end when you destroy the sarcophagus?
Since you can't miss the Sarcophagus, what I did was I brought along the soldiers that had multi-shot damage powers, especially extra ones. So the Specialist had Rapid Fire, the Sniper had Chain Shot, and the Grenadier had both Rapid Fire and Chain Shot, and so on.
Mind Shields are mandatory equipment for any mission in the Warlock's territory.
You CAN miss the sarcophogi. I had a Dead-eye shot that missed the Warlock's. Luckily, I had a teamwork buff left and was able to put an extra chainshot out from my grenadier.
I beat two chosen now without save scumming or losing anyone on Normal. The first time (Assassin) I rushed up with the reaper not knowing what I was supposed to do. This ended up being a benefit because my entire team was within running distance between at least two others and it split my team up. So when AoE attack happened, they really only hit one or two soldiers. I also got lucky to only have 3 waves spawn mostly of elite humanoids. I dropped the Assassin before she could re spawn the second time.
The hunter was way easier. My hunter was immune to melee and teleported every time he was hit. I was again lucky enough and dispersed enough, from my previous experience to be able to hit with all 6 of my soldiers, and took down the sarcophagus after the hunter burnt to death.
I haven't even encounter the warlock yet...
I was never much of a fan of Psi Ops in XCOM; however, I love love love the Templar.
Have to agree here. Templar was easily my favourite in my first playthrough and already a powerhouse in my current playthrough. I really want another one but I can only seem to get a second Reaper. No one else offers missions to recruit another Templar or Skirmisher. Reaper seems capped at 2 as well.
So how does Alien Hunters work with the new DLC? Are they even compatible?
So how does Alien Hunters work with the new DLC? Are they even compatible?
Built right in. No mission to unlock the content. Weapons are researched and then built through the proving ground. Rulers are nerfed and are assigned to a random facility.
Also, SPARK weapons can get weapon mods... which is really nice.
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