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

[Disgruntled]

Gotta agree with TB on the loot, bit of a let down knowing theres only the 3 set tiers again and he didnt seem to be blown away with the number of other items you could unlock. Mods and dlcs might add a lot on that front and im now certain that ill add the submachinegun on day one.
Funny, out of everything im finding myself looking forward to soldier customization the most.

 

[Aaron Burr]

BTW Beagle was killed.

His channel ceased to exist because he streamed...

Eh? What? Is this a joke, because his youtube channel is there there.

I talked about his twitch channel. (www.twitch.tv/miss_jamball doesn't exist.)

The name was changed. It's something like beagsandjam now.

Interested to see how the geoscape building works out. I've been worried about stripping out complexity, but I've heard that the building process is significantly more flexible. I got tired of rushing satellites and making the same fucking build everytime in EU, allegedly XCOM2's system allows for (or requires) more strategic flexibility. We'll see.

 

[Zeriel]

BTW Beagle was killed.

His channel ceased to exist because he streamed...

Eh? What? Is this a joke, because his youtube channel is there there.

I talked about his twitch channel. (www.twitch.tv/miss_jamball doesn't exist.)

The name was changed. It's something like beagsandjam now.

Interested to see how the geoscape building works out. I've been worried about stripping out complexity, but I've heard that the building process is significantly more flexible. I got tired of rushing satellites and making the same fucking build everytime in EU, allegedly XCOM2's system allows for (or requires) more strategic flexibility. We'll see.

I think the primary thing is you have more angles to approach the geoscape now. In XCOM you were just building stuff in your base and waiting for missions to pop up. You have that in 2, but you also have maneuvering around the globe to pick up bounties and caches and etc, it's like they broadened your geoscape agency by about 50%.

 

[oldmanpaco]

...with way more XCOM soldiers on missions ... what we got with EU and XCOM 2 is the last thing they tried after everything else didn't satisfy them.

This was probably my biggest issue with nuXCom. Having only 4 soldiers was lame. Shit you could run with 14 soldiers right off the bat in the real game. Balancing for 4 soldiers just means they cannot balance for 6 or 8 or 10 or whatever.

Fake edit: I get the small squad sizes when they were designing for consoles. Gotta cater to the kids and all. But having a 4-6 person squad in an x-com game designed for the PC is just sad.

This is why you don't per-order. Wait 10 months until all the DLC is out and people have modded it into a proper x-com game then buy it for 75% off during the steam Christmas sale.

 

[Jasede]

Designed for consoles? They tried bigger squad-sizes in preview builds. And while I agree they could probably have gone up to eight (at max) the engine just isn't suitable for more than that. Just look at how Long War already struggles with the small maps, trying to compensate by having larger pods. If you made like 12 soldiers it'd just be a clusterfuck. Take one of those Long War Exalt missions. You can end up facing 20 enemies at once. Now put in 12 soldiers instead of 8. What, do you want them fighting 30 soldiers at the same time? How is that at all more challenging? The difficulty is still the same, only you now have to do more actions to accomplish the same thing, AND the maps would look -ridiculous-y with so many enemies swarming everywhere; it'd be Exalts in every trash can.

I don't see how drawing the turns out even longer (and they already take a long time on Impossible, at least with LW) is a good thing in any way. Yes, more things could go wrong, but the flow would suffer terribly.

Would you rather do 2 missions with 6 soldiers or one mission with 12? I'd rather be fighting two different missions than slog through a boring shooting gallery. In old X-Com this was no problem. Soldiers moved quickly, there was no overwatch, just reaction fire. The game was much more suited to controlling more soldiers in this regard.

This isn't classic X-Com, why force classic mechanics into a game not suited for them? What's wrong with smaller squads? Nobody complains about Jagged Alliance 2 only having so many slots, or any other small squad game. I understand that it has a legacy to uphold but that doesn't mean they should shoe-horn features into an engine it isn't designed to handle. Could they have designed it from the get-go with more soldiers in mind? Yes, they could have. Sadly it turned out turing game-testing that the testers absolutely hated having to control so many and they cut back on it - and if they hadn't the game would probably have sold fuck all and we wouldn't have XCOM 2 or Long War. This is for the best.

We still have old X-Com and Apocalypse if we want that fix; this is an entirely different game, and there's nothing wrong with that. Also XCOM 2 isn't on consoles.

 

[veevoir]

You're thinking in terms of world logic, not game logic. Firaxis thinks of gameplay first every time. They don't care about anything else--the pod system is almost certainly the way it is to control the number of enemies you face at any given time. They've talked about this before, incidentally. They've done prototypes with time units, with way more XCOM soldiers on missions, with more enemies, what we got with EU and XCOM 2 is the last thing they tried after everything else didn't satisfy them.

To add to this - there is no world logic here, this game is not a simulation.
It embraces being a game and, like most Sid Meyer-related stuff (as well Gollop related!), it is a board game for all intents and purposes. An elaborate one, but still stemming from that school of design.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

So it's 2016 and people still pretend that nuXCOM isn't basically a console "tactical" jrpg rule-wise? Well, it is. nuXCOM is a Disgaea with a "strategic" layer tacked on and weaboo inanity exchanged for a UFO theme.

Actually, scratch that. nuXCOM is a declined Disgaea. Despite ripping off absolute basics like move/action instead of ap or iron 4 items "inventory", Disgaea at least allowed for decent squad sizes and didn't need dumb, arbitrary special rules for enemy ai to operate on in order for the game to not fall apart completely as soon as the first engagement starts.

 

[Jimmious]

Yeah whatever.
2 days to go!

 

[Mazisky]

Yeah whatever.
2 days to go!

Mate , if they lied to us about that Geoscape feature being fixed, i'll shitstorm in every place. We'll see

 

[Jasede]

So it's 2016 and people still pretend that nuXCOM isn't basically a console "tactical" jrpg rule-wise? Well, it is. nuXCOM is a Disgaea with a "strategic" layer tacked on and weaboo inanity exchanged for a UFO theme.

Actually, scratch that. nuXCOM is a declined Disgaea. Despite ripping off absolute basics like move/action instead of ap or iron 4 items "inventory", Disgaea at least allowed for decent squad sizes and didn't need dumb, arbitrary special rules for enemy ai to operate on in order for the game to not fall apart completely as soon as the first engagement starts.

My nigger

 

[Inspectah]

So, when's the fucking pre-load? If I have to download 45gb, might as well start soon so I don't have to wait till next month to play

 

[Mazisky]

Btw, for all those interested, game unlocks at 00:00 CET, tomorrow.

 

[bonescraper]

Btw, for all those interested, game unlocks at 00:00 CET, tomorrow.

 

[Raghar]

We still have old X-Com and Apocalypse if we want that fix; this is an entirely different game, and there's nothing wrong with that.

And don't forget Afterlight, that game on Mars.

 

[Leechmonger]

We still have old X-Com and Apocalypse if we want that fix; this is an entirely different game, and there's nothing wrong with that. Also XCOM 2 isn't on consoles.

The issue boils down to (as usual) "we're not competent enough to make a 90's complexity game with a modern sleek UI that minimizes any learning curve issues, so instead we'll simplify the game to match our level of UI-design incompetence." Sure, that's probably preferable to making a more complex game with a shitty UI. But it's like if a firefighter became paralyzed at the sight of fire and therefore refused to walk into a burning building. Yeah you probably saved your own life by not going in but you're still a shitty firefighter. I'm not gonna congratulate you for it.

Actually, scratch that. nuXCOM is a declined Disgaea. Despite ripping off absolute basics like move/action instead of ap or iron 4 items "inventory", Disgaea at least allowed for decent squad sizes and didn't need dumb, arbitrary special rules for enemy ai to operate on in order for the game to not fall apart completely as soon as the first engagement starts.

Grinding in Disgaea pales in comparison to what awaits you in LongWar.

This thread reminded me that umodded nuXcom has a squad limit of 4 instead of 6. Has this changed in nuXcom 2: Electric Boogaloo?

 

[Mustawd]

So it's 2016 and people still pretend that nuXCOM isn't basically a console "tactical" jrpg rule-wise? Well, it is. nuXCOM is a Disgaea with a "strategic" layer tacked on and weaboo inanity exchanged for a UFO theme.

Actually, scratch that. nuXCOM is a declined Disgaea. Despite ripping off absolute basics like move/action instead of ap or iron 4 items "inventory", Disgaea at least allowed for decent squad sizes and didn't need dumb, arbitrary special rules for enemy ai to operate on in order for the game to not fall apart completely as soon as the first engagement starts.

When there's only one dealer of crack, you won't ever hear the crackheads complain about the quality of said crack.

 

[Jasede]

Of course not.
And can you stop comparing XCOM and X-COM? They are two completely different games. One is a fast-paced board-game with fun, tactical combat, the other is a more complex strategy/tactics hybrid with a completely different, absolutely incomparable combat system.

The squad size is completely irrelevant unless you view it alongside the way the enemies are placed, the abilities the squad has and can get, the possible options for mitigating damage, the weapons at your disposal, the size of the maps, the tech tree, the flow of the game.

Look, I don't even particularly like XCOM the new one, even though it's fun and I really want to play the sequel, but you are barking up the wrong tree here. What you are doing is comparing Diablo III and Fallout and complaining that Diablo III has no ending slides and not enough dialogue choices. Sure, they're both RPGs, but they do very different things. The combat in the new one is completely different than the old one; comparing them is apples and bananas.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Btw, for all those interested, game unlocks at 00:00 CET, tomorrow.

This'll only took 48 hours for me to download, happy third forth worlder!

 

[Zombra]

This thread reminded me that umodded nuXcom has a squad limit of 4 instead of 6. Has this changed in nuXcom 2: Electric Boogaloo?

Uh, no it doesn't. The limit increases to 6 if you play past the first 2 days. If you want to be an edgelord, at least do your research.

 

[bonescraper]

So it's 2016 and people still pretend that nuXCOM isn't basically a console "tactical" jrpg rule-wise? Well, it is. nuXCOM is a Disgaea with a "strategic" layer tacked on and weaboo inanity exchanged for a UFO theme.

Actually, scratch that. nuXCOM is a declined Disgaea. Despite ripping off absolute basics like move/action instead of ap or iron 4 items "inventory", Disgaea at least allowed for decent squad sizes and didn't need dumb, arbitrary special rules for enemy ai to operate on in order for the game to not fall apart completely as soon as the first engagement starts.

Your mum is a declined Disgaea.

 

[Jimmious]

So, when's the fucking pre-load? If I have to download 45gb, might as well start soon so I don't have to wait till next month to play

Pre-load is live

 

[Leechmonger]

Of course not.

Shame. Given LongWar's popularity I would have expected the devs to compromise by increasing the squad limit (6/8 instead of 4/6) and enemy count, while still getting away with not redesigning the game. Guess not.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

And can you stop comparing XCOM and X-COM? They are two completely different games.

Excuse me, but that's just straight popamole decline talk, and dumb to boot. Don't compare Fallout 3 to previous Fallouts, it's a completely different game! One is fast paced action crpg with nice exploration and emotionally engaging liam neeson dad, the others more classic crpgs. yada yada yada

One is a fast-paced board-game with fun, tactical combat

I find that debatable. While it being a rather uninspired tactical jrpg with less offensive (=/= good) aesthetics is, unfortunately, a fact.

And codex has changed a lot, hasn't it? People attacking a declined, consolized clone of an absolute PC classic being called edgelords

 

[Jimmious]

Νο one called you anything, we just don't care about your crap a couple of days before we get our game.
Go play UFO Defense or Xenonauts, they're there if you don't like the "consolized clone(lol)"

 

[Jasede]

My face when I beat Open X-COM recently on Superhuman to prepare while edgelords whine about how this game is different.