I actually do have a guess for that, and it’s story time for the new Templar faction. Which I don’t really care about (the story bit, not the gameplay bit!). But anyway, that’s my guess :)
They said on the AMA one feature they wanted but couldn’t get into the schedule was banter between the XCOM agents. They got in the banter between the Chosen and the player though, which was something they wanted for some time, but they always felt it would be nice to have agents shout stuff out procedurally to each other. Which probably would be cool, I think.
“You mother%$#^! How could you miss that shot?”
It would be frustrating to constantly have the game take my words out of my mouth! :)
Just want to say, if you are or know an XCOM 2 modder… update your mods ASAP, please. I’m dying here.
When Xcom 2 was initially released i was heartbroken. It was a broken game with very poor performance, crashes, and a ton of bugs. I put the game down in disgust and even left an angry user review on metacritic.
Yet, after some patches the game runs much better and with less trouble, and all i hear is praise for this add on. I really hope the hype is legitimate, because i really wanted to like this game, as i loved the first 2k XCOM.
Is this expansion like Enemy Within? One of the reasons l loved the original so much was because of Enemy Within and the mechs it had. I just loved turning agents into huge mechs, i never invested in bio abilities in any playthrough. Without Enemy Within Xcom was a much poorer game in my opinion.
WTF - Mac version isn’t out. I’ve been enjoying playing this on airplanes on my Mac via Steam Cloud sync.
Me too. I absolutely adore MECs and that upgrade path in the first game. Well, more specifically, Long War 1. It’s just difficult to revisit LW1 now that LW2 is out and provides much of what LW1 did with all of the quality of life improvements that the 2nd game brought. Except I’ll always miss the MECs.
I was bitching about GMG not giving me the code last night, but I’m tempted to just wait until at least Grimy updates his loot mod for WoTC. It’s such an awesome mod with the added diablo-style loot in it.
Damn. Those Chosen are nasty bastards.
I just had a 3+ sided battle between X-COM, Advent, The Lost, and a Chosen. I “won” the mission after I had claimed a piddly amount of stolen supplies, the Chosen pillaged my Reaper’s mind, and I had to use emergency evac to get a bleeding out sniper back home. Everyone was either seriously or gravely wounded. GOTY.
Had to check. Chosen and alien bosses will never both be on a mission together.
As long as the game design takes into consideration this sort of thing happening and affords you the ability to recruit and train multiple squads (which with their new fatigue system built in I assume they are) to manage it I’m fine with it.
If I get the sense they’re just piling on again like the Alien Hunters DLC, which at least in my view doesn’t make the game more interesting, it just throws super aliens with cheats and a lot more HP at you, then I’ll be a bit disappointed. Guess I’ll see for myself tonight.
I’ve often wondered if Firaxis ever bother looking at their own steam stats and come away puzzled by the disconnect between the never ending drum beat in the steam forums for making it ever harder and the fact that 68% of those who’ve played Xcom 2 never beat it on any difficulty…
It’s a necessity. I hate it. :)
Edit: On the whole though?
Well, one mission in and a hundred to go. Nice little touch with the bonding thing, and I was highly amused by the picture taking addition, that made me laugh because one of my random recruits on the mission looked like someone from the 70’s so taking a propaganda shot with him was a laugh.
I wonder if those port to anywhere? Can you dump them into steam to show others?
The new retaliation missions are a serious improvement. Instead of just getting shot, they fight back. And actually kill Advent. Brilliant!
Missing 5 70% shots in a row. I did so miss firaxis xcom.
Question: this new fatigue element, does that automatically sideline that soldier? I don’t see an option to pull them off the line, but I’ve got a heavy who is now listed in yellow with 9 days showing up by his name, does that then mean he’s out of commission automatically for 9 days?
Edit: going to assume since my heavy wasn’t on the next mission where you meet the factions that fatigue does indeed take people off the line
btw, that meet the factions (well two of them anyway) mission with the zombies, that was tense…and fun.
Damn. That Challenge mission is not messing around.
During my last tour as leader of the resistance forces, many of my troops were kept safe. That’s not to say they walked away uninjured, but they almost always kept their lives. The resistance has been called upon again in this… War of the Chosen.
Our operatives discovered an Advent power converted, not heavily guarded. Squaddie Kelly (Ranger), and Rookies Mazibuko, Schmidt and Sidorova were tasked with recovering the power converter and eliminating all targets.
Once in, HQ warned us that the power core was unstable and we had to move quickly. In roughly 8 minutes that things was going to blow. Quickly doesn’t mean carelessly, and our troops didn’t want to squander their concealment. It wasn’t long before an Advent Trooper and Commander were spotted. 2 minutes off the clock.
We quickly laid an ambush and the two enemies fell running for cover after the initial shot hit its mark. On schedule and on the move once again.
Another commander and trooper were spotted close to our target. As they jumped into cover the commander must have thought Ranger Kelly was a threat, because he barked orders to the trooper to take her out. The trooper injured Kelly but she wasn’t out. Rookie Mazibuko read the terrain incorrectly moving to a position that let the enemy stay in full cover. Mazibuko later said he though he’d have a flanking shot, but his position led to a miss. Fortunately Rookie Schmidt got into a better position and landed his own shot on the commander. Ranger Kelly rushed in for a melee kill - she likes to get up close and personal, which freaks out her squad mates - but they know she has their backs. Sidorova didn’t want to leave things to chance with her mates out in the open and lets just say the Advent trooper ended up in more than just a couple pieces one grenade later.
With 2 minutes left before the melt down, we moved into position and hacked the power converter. We weren’t out of danger because HQ informed us there were troops left before we could be evaluated. Confidence was running pretty high at that point after making easy work of the enemy - even after moving to the incorrect position.
With the immediate threat eliminated, we moved north to locate the remaining enemies. A sectoid and 2 more troopers were spotted fairly far away. From my prior tour I remembered and feared the sectoid’s ability to take over the mind of an ally. What I didn’t recall was how far away they can do it from. After letting my guard down and ordering the squad to sit in overwatch the damn sectoid invaded Mazibuko’s mind.
With the distance that needed to be covered I didn’t think we could take out the sectoid, who was in full cover - especially with one less gun on our side. What made things particularly precarious was that Sidorova didn’t have any great choices to move to. Don’t move far enough and her squad mate may shoot her in the back. Move too far and she gets close to the troopers and can’t get a shot off. Sidorova moves up and towards partial cover, not realizing 1 trooper was in overwatch. She takes a shot in the side which must have rattled her. She didn’t have a high percentage shot at the sectoid but took in anyways as we needed Mazibuko back on our side. She missed.
Luckily Schmidt was able to close some distance and take out one of the troopers. Kelly, still feeling her injuries didn’t want to be caught out of cover took out trooper 2. I wish I hadn’t spent the extra time training Mazibuko on the range, because his shot was true, ending Rookie Sidorova’s life. Not time to shed a tear because things were about to get worse.
While I had recalled the sectoid’s mind control, I hadn’t remembered their ability to reanimate a fallen comrade, much less be able to manage a mind controlled victim and reanimated corpse at the same time. One of the troopers got back to their feet. Things moved quickly at this point and my memory of the events that followed are a bit hazy. Kelly mistook just how ‘healthy’ the zombie was and thought she landed a killing blow, but it wasn’t enough. He survived and later put her down. She wasn’t dead but was bleeding rapidly.
We landed some shots on the sectoid and Mazibuko was able to fight off the mind control. I’m not sure if it was due to the sectoid taking damage, time passed, or it couldn’t manage the corpse along with Mazibuko. In any case, within a couple minutes out enemies lay dead. Kelly was stabilized back on the copter.
Losing 1 soldier this early in the war was definitely 1 too many.
While both Mazibuko and Schmidt were promoted, Kelly kept mumbling about missed shots and lost lives. Even though I’m no psychologist, I can tell that her resolve is going to be tested is she missed some shots in the field. I hope she doesn’t panic when we need her most.
Haven’t played XCOM 2 yet and received in a Humble Bundle a few months back. Eurogamer’s review of War of the Chosen said:
Don’t let the first mission fool you, this is a wildly different beast to the core XCOM 2 experience. So much so, that I really wouldn’t advise playing War of the Chosen without having already completed the original game - I think you’d find it too overwhelming, too busy. However, if you have defeated the Avatar Project before now, there’s now a fantastic reason to do it once again.
How seriously should I take that? Is it really not advisable to play with the DLC? I rarely if ever play through a game more than once (too many games to play!) so not sure playing through twice makes sense for me