Well done, so what did you think of this one?
I liked it but there is something missing in it that prevents it from being great to me. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars. For sure I liked the game better with the Chosen in it. Any battle where they showed up was instantly made more entertaining and complex. There was a measure of personality in it that helped drive the story. Once they were dead much of the air went out of the balloon. The game was well executed, colorful and had great tactical richness. I also greatly enjoyed the missions with the zombies which also added flavor. Graphics and sound are top notch. The UI is perfect. So from a production value standpoint the game is great and most all the systems in it are quite solid.
Note that I turned off the mission timers. I absolutely hate those. I also tend to be a save-scummer which I know is not the right way to play this game. But at times it feels so cheap that I do so anyway. I have never liked the Firaxis method of triggering groups when you first see them and having them dash into cover. It has always felt “gamey” to me. I much preferred the older X-COM method where you could be shot from across the map and had no idea what just killed your soldier.
It fell a bit short for me in the following areas:
(1) Attachment to my soldiers. Because I do not get to choose what class they are, I did not get as attached to my soldiers as I did in the previous games. I know that the infirmary allows you to do this but that was quite literally the last building I built. I simply did not care much about my soldiers so long as I had enough to have the right mix on missions.
(2) I would have enjoyed more options and more rooms to build the base. At the end I had over 3,000 supplies but could not spend them on anything.
(3) One thing that XCOM (Firaxis) #1 did was the expansion added in some new classes that with Enemy Within you could really create some interesting stuff, like a walking tank you shield the rest of your troops behind. I did not have the same tactical options in this game and as a result the tactics boil down to hide, aim and hope.
(4) I ranted about impossible missions earlier. I had one more before it was all over. I was supposed to protect some transmitter or something. I ended up spawning across the map from it. Alien MECs ended up spawning on top of it. The mission was over in two turns as quite literally there was nothing I could do to save it from being destroyed. That should not happen.
(5) Even after almost 3 years the game still has weird quirks and stability issues. A number of times the enemy was considered in cover when they should not have been (flanking at angles more than 90 degrees). Plus I had numerous crashes - a common complaint about this title - and other weird oddities. They were nothing I could not overcome but after two years these issues should not happen.
So 8 out of 10 for me. I might look for some additional mods before playing it again.
So, in my current WoTC campaign I had a genius recruit and I stuck him in my new Psi Lab thinking that his being a genius would pay off. I was disappointed to find out that combat intelligence has no effect whatsoever on Psi Operatives. They get no AP and can’t use the Training Center. This is one area where I think Firaxis dropped the ball a little bit.
Do we have any XCOM 2 modders here in the thread? If so, is it technically feasible to create a small mod to the Psi Lab that reduces training time for a Psi troop by an additional 5% for every intelligence level they are above above standard intelligence? This would stack with the scientist deduction if you have one staffed in the lab.
Above Average - 5% training time reduction
Gifted - 10% training time reduction
Genius - 15% training time reduction
Savant - 20% training time reduction
Anyone know how hard this would be to do (or if it’s even possible)?
How do you turn off mission timers?
I agree about this mission timers. They make no sense about 98% of the time.
Don’t beat yourself up about being a save scummer. I frequently do that because of the absolute bullshit the game throws at you. One shotting a full health dude = reload. Or the ridiculous missions it can throw at you. For example, I had to defend a transmitter, which was in the middle of the map. It was surrounded by at least 8 chrysalids and there were also a bunch of those giant berserkers around it with a mix of other advent troops. Also the map has swarms of lost to boot. It just was fucking stupid.
Then “the spokesmen” is like, you suck, step it up. And then fucking Bradford is like we got to do better.
I just want to take both of them throw them in the middle of a map full of enemies.
Someone said that they added an option that will get Bradford to STFU, but I have not seen that option. There is one about less tutorial stuff, which is enabled, but Bradford is constantly bitching about stuff.
in their next game, I would very much appreciate it if the game never criticizes the player and doesn’t fucking nag them about shit. Its ok to tell me something ONCE, but don’t fucking go on about it at every available opportunity. “We really should have some covert operations going on”. Well I am the fucking commander Bradford, so maybe I have my own god damn reasons why I am not running one. Perhaps is that I know a random event will happen where Ill need my better soldiers or perhaps I am letting everyone heal or rest so I can attack a large target. Shen annoying as well. Build this or that. Maybe I do not have any fucking money you stupid bitch. Maybe I am waiting on a certain tech. Maybe I have no use for that extra engineer. Tygen is the only one I like because he doesn’t say shit.
I’m assuming mods, I ran one that changed the timer so it didn’t start till you came out of concealment, that worked pretty well. As for the strategic map counter, there are a few ways to lengthen that one built into the game design, but I’ve also seen a mod that doubles it if you just don’t want it ever to be a problem.
Lower difficulty, but with Ironman, is a fun way to play XCom 2. It’s not brutally punishing, but you can lose people and actually have to pay attention.
Holy crap - WotC is so much better than XCOM2. I thought it would just be a Long War style addition that was XCOM2 with “more stuff” but it is a whole new game with so much more added to it. I am so so impressed.
Yup! I loved XCOM 2, but WotC just kicks it up even higher.
I wonder if I have a problem with my video driver. When I’m looking at soldier stats the image keeps going wonky.
I’m running the latest version of the NVIDIA driver for my card, so not sure what’s going on. Any ideas?
That is an in game screen distortion effect. I believe there is a way to turn this off via ini tweaking. However, there is a mod called Disable Ui Distortion Effect Wotc that will do this for you.
Cool. Thanks, I’ll give it a try.
Ive started playing the new content as well, and I don’t like that you lose 5000 points if you reload a game, I get what the intent is, but the design is a stark departure to the play that made XCOM 1 and 2 so great.
The voice over and back story I was originally excited about and now… I largely ignore it, he just drones on about nothing a LOT. I would like to see how we went from winning XCOM 1, to utterly on the run and I’ve not seen any info on that yet.
I’ll play it, but it really is just making me want to play XCOM 2 again more than anything.
XCOM plot explanation:
You didn’t win in XCOM. The “historical” end is that XCOM was defeated fairly early in a base invasion. The events of the XCOM expansion were a simulation run in the captured commander’s mind. XCOM 2 takes place in the real world, after the commander is liberated.
Thanks Mark, I somehow missed this. Now several of the references in the game make a lot more sense.
Why I wonder has no one taken the xcom concept and made a stargate version of it. I’d throw money at that as a kickstart with reckless abandon.
Excellent idea. It would have to be the original series though cause the follow-ons were all a bit so so.
Finally getting around to giving this a proper go.
What are the must-have mods to WotC?
I try not to change the fundamental game, just quality of life improvements. These are my essentials:
Evac All - WOTC
Stop Wasting My Time - WOTC
Instant Avenger Menus - WOTC
[WOTC] Quick Solider Info
[WOTC] Gotcha Again
Make sure you get the WOTC or NON WOTC version for each of these depending on what you are playing.
Finally, another good tip is if you are only planning on playing WOTC, you can delete everything out of the XCOMGame folder EXCEPT for Movies to save yourself something like 40Gb.
Ta. There sure seems to be going on a whole lot of shit in this game. Gonna take some time wrapping my head around all this.