X-COM XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen Expansion Thread

[jackofshadows]

I haven't played WOTC so playing it now straight after Chimera and having a blast. The contrast is so immense: ultra grim tone, epic music, staggering difficulty (chose Legend but w/o ironman), soldiers are talking like... soldiers (holy shit!). Although with all thouse expantion fancy shit so far even too much cinematics etc I'm kinda starving for usual missions for now. Also I forgot about any proper build order (the fact that communication buildings is kinda priority for a beginning) so it can bite me in the ass later, will see.

Well, chosens does look somewhat anime, true, although by comparison to Chimera again... it's FINE.

 

[eXalted]

Although with all thouse expantion fancy shit so far even too much cinematics etc I'm kinda starving for usual missions for now..

This is true. Really hope that they don't push more in that direction after Chimera. More emergent narrative, less pre-scripted stuff, okay?

 

[Zanzoken]

XCOM 2 is 75% off so I finally caved. I just have the base game, no DLCs. Is there any reason to spend time playing vanilla, or should I just go straight to Long War?

I thought the first FiraXCOM was pretty meh, so hoping this one will be better.

 

[Zeriel]

You probably should do a playthrough on vanilla to understand how the mod changes the game. That's the advice I give for all games that have good mods, your experience and understanding of the game will be incredibly warped if you play only with mods.

 

[Alienman]

By the way, Long War 2 is stable for WOTC.

 

[eXalted]

By the way, Long War 2 is stable for WOTC.

Would be great if I can use the engine but disable chosens, factions and the Lost.

 

[Alienman]

Why?

I think you can ignore the chosen actually, there is an option in the beginning.

 

[cruelio]

It's called Long War because no one has made it to the end because it's so boring.

 

[Dickie]

Do mods fix the load times? That was the biggest difference for me when I turned on the expansion. Even if you have them both installed but choose the base game, the load times are at least twice as long.

 

[eXalted]

Mods increase load times.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

I just use an ssd for everything now. I've given up on games loading quickly from an hdd. that was a bygone era.

 

[Dickie]

I just use an ssd for everything now. I've given up on games loading quickly from an hdd. that was a bygone era.

I don't even know anybody who has used an HDD in the last six years or so. Is that still a thing?

There's something about the load times on the base game that I thought was weird that they only fixed in the expansion and never patched into the base game. I bought and installed the base game and expansion at the same time, but I decided to choose just the base game on the main menu. Later, when I had completed that and chose the expansion, the level load times dropped to probably under half what they were. I was just curious if that could have somehow been modded into the base game.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

I don't even know anybody who has used an HDD in the last six years or so. Is that still a thing?

a lot of laptop manufacturers still use them on low-end to justify charging insane amounts of money for higher end models.

just buy bargain models and then upgrade them though.

 

[Zanzoken]

XCOM 2 is 75% off so I finally caved. I just have the base game, no DLCs. Is there any reason to spend time playing vanilla, or should I just go straight to Long War?

I thought the first FiraXCOM was pretty meh, so hoping this one will be better.

I played quite a bit over the weekend and I feel about the same about this game as I did about the first FiraXCOM. I want to like it, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say the game is flat out bad, I find so many of the design choices to be frustrating and annoying. And I don't say this as someone who is a grog for the original X-Com games.

 

[Dickie]

A new game/mod launcher was added for all 2K Games, I guess, and now I can't change mods. Any mods I had before the new launcher load fine, but it doesn't load new mods I try to add to the list. I found a few threads about it on the Steam forums. Very interesting change.

 

[Ironmonk]

You should use this mod loader instead:

https://github.com/X2CommunityCore/xcom2-launcher

I used it in my last playthrough around january and its was perfect.

 

[Zeriel]

XCOM 2 is 75% off so I finally caved. I just have the base game, no DLCs. Is there any reason to spend time playing vanilla, or should I just go straight to Long War?

I thought the first FiraXCOM was pretty meh, so hoping this one will be better.

I played quite a bit over the weekend and I feel about the same about this game as I did about the first FiraXCOM. I want to like it, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say the game is flat out bad, I find so many of the design choices to be frustrating and annoying. And I don't say this as someone who is a grog for the original X-Com games.

The way I'd put it is that Firaxis made a pretty fun if modern game when they were slavishly devoting themselves to trying to replicate the magic of the original game. When they felt confident and decided to 100% do their own thing and "evolve", every change they made was shit. So it goes.

 

[desocupado]

Maybe I suck at this game, but I'm struggling a LOT on timed missions on legendary. Some seem straight up impossible without extreme casualties. Usually the objective is far enough that just moving towards it takes quite a few turns, and then there's the enemies to deal with.

Those who beat the game on legendary, how did you deal with those?

 

[Zeriel]

There's an option to double timers. All I can say is it was manageable before War of the Chosen, but I don't know how the expansion affected that balancing. It was always tight on some missions, to the point where you would have to give up on the "proper pack activation methods" from time to time. Best general advice that can be given is to always have plenty of options to destroy cover, so that you can effectively destroy any enemies you meet quickly and not rely on chances.

 

[turkishronin]

I haven't played any of the new X-COM games. Does this one also have destructible environment? Are all DLCs required?!

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I haven't played any of the new X-COM games. Does this one also have destructible environment? Are all DLCs required?!

All DLCs are optional, but they add some content and some gameplay changes that really should have been in a patch.
There is destructible environment, but much like in XCOM: EU you can't target it, unless you use certain abilities.

 

[eXalted]

Are all DLCs required?!

War of the Chosen - A pretty good expansion that changes the gameplay. You will like it if you dig the idea of your soldiers being a Power Rangers squad with many abilities.
Tactical Legacy Pack - Cosmetic additions. Pack with tactical story missions without any of the strategic gameplay.
Alien Hunters - Adds some OP enemies that spawn on some missions. Additional weapons targetted specifically for those enemies. I find them more annoying that challenging.
Anarchy's Children - Cosmetic additions to turn your team into Mad Max scavengers.
Resistance Warrior Pack - Cosmetic additions that should have been in the original game.

The main reason to have them installed is if some of the mods you want require them (most of the time, it's cosmetic mods once again).

 

[eXalted]

Forgot one:

Shen's Last Gift - This one adds mechs/robots on your side. They don't change gameplay that much. Nice addition but I find myself using them rarely if ever.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I do like the SPARK units that Last Gift introduces, but they are fairly lacklustre without mods.

 

[turkishronin]

Shen's Last Gift - This one adds mechs/robots on your side. They don't change gameplay that much. Nice addition but I find myself using them rarely if ever.

You mean it doesn't have tanks/robots by default?