Any chance The Long War 2 mod will be made available for consoles?
Certainly not anytime soon, but since 2K was involved in this mod it’s not impossible in the long run. I doubt it though, I bet adding hooks for mods is a certification nightmare.
I use all of these. Great list.
Those look nice, thanks.
Is it worth me even playing the game without the long war mod initially? I’ve had it for a while but never played it.
No.
I haven’t played much of LW2, but based on xcom1 vs LW1 and available information for LW2 vs playing xcom2, No.
I’d disagree just as I always do with this same question for Total War games.
For whatever reason most mod makers think making a game harder necessarily makes it more interesting.
I don’t happen to agree with that sentiment. I want decisions that are enhanced due to deeper layers or more nuanced, not just harder (or as in the case of LW1, excruciatingly long).
Where LW2 makes for deeper decisions, it’ll be great, but if it’s like every other mod for me at least, I’ll find it to be a case of 2 steps forward followed by one step back in terms of game modification decisions. For example, I’m not interested at all in playing xcom2 as a stealth game. So that game design modification alone means I’m never likely to think much of LW2.
Well, YMMV, but i don’t think LW 1 or 2 falls in to that category, in my humble opinion. Both mods add a lot of new features and change the game in ways beyond the typical “every enemy now has twice the health and does twice the damage” that you see in some lazy difficulty mods (such as you’re talking about).
From what i’ve seen as far as stealth goes, the main thing is just the pre mission infiltration period where your soldiers setup for the battle.
I would. It’s a good game. I like to play the game as the developer intended unless there is something horrible that really needs to be fixed. There are probably some quality of life mods that don’t change the basic game play that may be worth it - people talk about them above, but I don’t think the game needs a re haul to enjoy it. Not everyone thought the Long War 1 changed the game for the better.
Playing with The Long War 2 later kinda makes it seem like a game with a new expansion pack. Then you can decide if it is better for you.
It’s a very different game with LW2 and the original is great in its own right. Well worth playing through once. It’s up to you, of course, if you don’t have much time, but you won’t be “losing” if you play the original.
If someone was deep into tactical strategy games generally, I would have no problem recommending they jump straight into Long War 2 over vanilla XCOM. Just go on Rookie. Rookie is normal difficulty. If they just dabble in that genre I’d recommend XCOM 1 unmodded, then going to XCOM 2 Long War 2 when you want more.
So strange… I started up a game last night with LW2. Out of my entire initial pool of characters (counting those not in the initial squad, the available recruits, and all three characters in the black market), all but two were female. I wonder if one of my mods has messed something up. I’m not using that many, and none say anything about changing the gender balance. Has anyone seen something like this? I’m going to run out of names on my friends and family list way too fast at this rate…
I think each character is just 50/50 without any regard to the rest of your squad, so, while unlikely, it is still possible that someone would occasional roll a squad just like this.
@AStott That doesn’t sound like a mess up. Sounds like fate needs a medal!
Btw, one of the great things about Perfect Information is that it gives the Hack information when you hover over a hackable item. No longer do you have to send out the Gremlin.
Edit: I’ve never used Cost Based Abilities. Wow, that could really help. Thanks @AStott. (double mention!)
So, what’s the average game run length with LW2? That’s something no one has mentioned, but it’s an important factor to know if to use it or not.
It’s been mentioned that an average game is at least twice as long as “vanilla”, but no one here, to my knowledge, has finished one and thus can’t verify. The LW2 folks (Pavonis Interactive) have stated that they are aware that LW1 went on longer than most people cared for – prompting a selectable gameplay option to reduce that time – and that they kept that in mind when designing LW2.
This is the best site I’ve seen yet for LW2. He was one of the testers for the mod and obviously has a lot of experience with the details of it. He also edits his vids so that they are full of information and not random musings and line of sight checks. I’ve been following his LW2 campaign and it has improved my understanding of xcom2 in more ways than I can list.
I have heard to expect about 100-120 missions in total. However there are quite a few mission types that you often want to at least attempt to do without even engaging in combat, and can sometimes complete in just 4 or 5 minutes.
I might never finish it but whatever, I never finished vanilla!
From what I’m seeing in howlongtobeat.com, Xcom 2 was already around 1/3 longer than Xcom1, which imo it was already ‘enough’, in the sweet point (Xcom1 was a bit short). I wouldn’t want to play twice that amount.
How it works the gameplay option you mention? It makes the game just 50% longer instead of 100%?