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

[ArchAngel]

Would say better advent mod also ruins balance or it ruins the missions with timers. Tight timers are balanced around enemy AI not stalling the players and making mistake here and there.

 

[ArchAngel]

As for timers mods, I would like to see a mod that does this: Once your timer runs out your skyranger says it is going to lead away enemy Air and try to come back for you in a bit. The effect is that it comes back in 3 rounds and stays for exactly one round (kind of a fast pickup). And in those 3 rounds enemy drop packs from transports every round. It would make timed mission 100% more interesting (it would only not work for a few where the package is going to explode in 8 turns or something)

 

[Zeriel]

I would advise to avoid any sort of mods which add new classes, edit perks, change tech tree or generally shift balance as the game is really tight in that manner. If you add new building with new tech like Officer School from Long War Studios or whatever that mod was then either it will be OP and you will rush it every time or you will avoid it as you will focus on more pressuring matters. Same goes for the timers, if you increase them then you will have old XCOM "no enemies after first actions spent, then overwatch all".

Best to tread carefully and only use mods which overhaul whole game like Long War mod as otherwise you will ruin the balance and make game trivial or impossible to play.

You're basically arguing against the point of modding. I do recommend playing through the vanilla game first to understand how it was built, but people mod specifically to get a different experience. For some people that will mean making the game more complex and more difficult, for others it will be mean making it easier. Believe it or not, but there are people for whom the base L+I game is too easy. They can have that opinion while not liking timers, too.

Now for most of us, I think it becomes less about making the game drastically harder or easier, but about seeking a "fresh" feeling to the game--through new enemies, tech, etc, while still maintaining whatever difficulty you found "balanced" originally.

By the way, "no enemies alive after actions spent" was a BIGGER problem in XCOM 2 than in EU/EW, with timers and everything else. The game is fundamentally easier than EU/EW on the highest difficulty levels.

 

[vmar]

I don't think adding new classes etc ruins the balance as long as you give Advent some buffs in return. I mean obviously if you're running around with a 10 soldier squad size using modded op classes playing on Veteran then it's gonna be too easy, but the game is so easy to tweak to your liking that you can balance it yourself even while using mods.

I think it becomes less about making the game drastically harder or easier, but about seeking a "fresh" feeling to the game

Exactly. Going from playing vanilla L/I to playing with ABA/IESS, or just manually editing the .inis to add more pods and aliens to each map makes it feel like a much different game. Suddenly pulling an extra pod is a lot more deadly when that means you're gonna be dealing with dozens of aliens at the same time. You can't just spam grenades and then let your sniper serial everyone to death as your get out of jail free card anymore.

 

[ArchAngel]

By the way, "no enemies alive after actions spent" was a BIGGER problem in XCOM 2 than in EU/EW, with timers and everything else. The game is fundamentally easier than EU/EW on the highest difficulty levels.

This has not been my experience in Xcom 2. EU was easier on Commander difficulty (or Classic as it was called there), and EW was a breeze with OP MECs and even more OP gene mods. Only hard parts of EW was 4 man missions vs those modded humans (or were 4 man missions only in LW?!).

Yea once you get to high level grenadiers and sniper with serial and well upgraded weapons it makes it super easy but in EU it was even easier with Archangel armor snipers flying at edge of map and criticaling everything through heavy cover on the other side of the map.
And even on other maps you never took encounters before setting up your snipers first (even last fight ended up by you killing main boss with snipers in round 1 :D).

Then I told myself OK snipers are OP, lets play without them. I took 2 assaults instead and they turned out just as OP and even more in EW.

 

[Zeriel]

The gulf between Classic and Impossible was huge. Hence "highest difficulty levels". Maybe I should have left out the plural there. I meant comparing Legend to Impossible. Legend is closer to Classic than it is to Impossible.

I found Impossible Iron-Man too brutal to play it every time I did EU/EW, I tended to default to C+I when I wanted to just have fun. On X2 I default to L+I, it feels about the same to me. Anecdotal experience, but that's been how it is for me.

However I WOULD argue at a high, design level, XCOM 2 favors offense over defense more than EU/EW. You either destroy everything instantly or bad things start to happen. Aliens are given powers that are more of a problem, seemingly to punish you for ever leaving them alive. Mimic beacons were a major cheesefest at release to combat this. They still are absurd, I'd argue, but they have kind of faded away as a hot topic because Legend just isn't that hard once you figure it out.

Grenadiers are initially a little less powerful in X2, but quickly become more powerful than heavies ever were in EU. And that "well, this shit is broken" moment is a few months into the game, not at tier 3 tech. Proving grounds to get advanced grenades + advanced grenade launcher, which is essentially tier 2 tech, and grenadiers instantly become gods that have your squad standing out into the open 100% of the time because you never leave anyone alive so cover is meaningless.

 

[ArchAngel]

The gulf between Commander and Impossible was huge. Hence "highest difficulty levels". Maybe I should have left out the plural there. I meant comparing Legend to Impossible. Legend is closer to Classic than it is to Impossible.

I found Impossible Iron-Man too brutal to play it every time I did EU/EW, I tended to default to C+I when I wanted to just have fun. On X2 I default to L+I, it feels about the same to me. Anecdotal experience, but that's been how it is for me.

Not to me. I have same level problems on both difficulty in both games. But in EU/EW you had overwatch traps and hunker down tactics followed by blowing up cover from enemies. In Xcom 2 that rarely works because of damn timers. If you are moving backwards to set up overwatch traps you are lessening your chances to get to your objective in 8 or 12 rounds. If you are hunkering down you are inviting Sectoid psi attacks or Stun Lancers to come rape you.

 

[Zeriel]

That's probably the biggest sea change for people from EU and what they have to adjust to. The game is now not very much about optimizing your cover defense, and much more about killing the enemy before they get to fire. Overwatch spam happens a lot less on timered missions--but to be fair there are still missions without timers where you WILL overwatch all day long, and of course some later abilities that turn 1 guy into 6 for the purposes of overwatch (kill zone, threat assessment, guardian, and repeaters).

Overall, I found EU/EW more interesting tactically. X2 replaces overwatch spam with destructability spam. At least in EU you smoked yourself and had standoffs.

 

[vmar]

I think X2 was a lot more fun if you increased the timers a little, and increased enemy counts by a lot. Made the game feel more tactical rather than having to rush and praying you don't trigger another pod that's gonna kill half your squad as you beeline for the evac.

I didn't mind the timers during my first vanilla game, I kinda do prefer more action as opposed to move 1 tile overwatch creep, but sometimes the timers can be ridiculous if you get a shitty map with 8 turns to go down like 6 city blocks, grab a VIP off a 3rd floor building, then hop over a few more blocks to the evac. I'm sure some people would say that makes me casual trash, but to each his own. The game is easily moddable for a reason.

 

[Zeriel]

Timers were added LATE in development to jack up difficulty, so it's even debatable whether they're really balanced. Some of the VIP map generations would imply not so much. I've seen maps where you literally would have to full dash every turn to reach the objective in time, but eh, you can justify that by saying its rare.

 

[Raghar]

I think X2 was a lot more fun if you increased the timers a little, and increased enemy counts by a lot.

The problem isn't enemy counts. The problem is they are not moving and doing theirs stuff. When you have pods that spawns, you can effectively deal with them one after another, and because the game is balanced to deal with one after another, you are screwed up when you activate three.

In UFO:ET when there is more enemies on map than soldiers, they try to flank you, and defend. When there is less, they dig in and try to surprise you.

 

[Zombra]

Best to tread carefully and only use mods which overhaul whole game like Long War mod as otherwise you will ruin the balance and make game trivial or impossible to play.

Well - Long War mod also ruined balance. Don't get me wrong, it improved a lot of things, but balance went out the window pretty fast when I tried it.

 

[ArchAngel]

I'm still waiting for a mod that eliminates the pod system entirely (all enemies converge once concealment breaks) _and_ still feels playable. Obviously 16 advent vs 4 xcom isn't going to be balanced.

It is super easy to increase Xcom squads. LW toolkit mod lets you do that easily.

 

[vmar]

There's a mod called All Pods Active or something that does that once you break concealment. Haven't tried it yet but it might be fun with LWT to increase squad size

 

[not an artichoke]

Maybe I just need to git gud, but I find myself missing Bronzeman terribly.

ABA + Better pods makes the early game brutally unforgiving of mistakes.

 

[vmar]

Yea I haven't tried it cause I'm guessing it just makes every pod bumrush you the second you break concealment which doesn't really sound that great

 

[Raghar]

I'm still waiting for a mod that eliminates the pod system entirely (all enemies converge once concealment breaks) _and_ still feels playable. Obviously 16 advent vs 4 xcom isn't going to be balanced.

That doesn't need mod, it needs proper game design, and competent game developer who knows about guerila warfare. When these troops are at that position ONLY to create opponents for player, of course they converge and make it unwinable. But in real combat stuff like that doesn't happen. Can they prove it's not a trap, and XCOM2 craft will not arrive and fire heavy bombs at them when they'd concentrate? Can they know it's not a diversion, while real target would attack them from behind? Or worse would get to its target without firing a single riffle shot because all troops were on opposite side.

And why would XCOM attack at strong point and not at weak point and didn't soften them before deployment? The problem is lack of missions with relatively weak targets, to make easier more dangerous missions. Look at Alpha Protocol, you could do a mission which then make things "easier" in another mission.


Warning spoilers.

 

[typical user]

You're basically arguing against the point of modding. I do recommend playing through the vanilla game first to understand how it was built, but people mod specifically to get a different experience. For some people that will mean making the game more complex and more difficult, for others it will be mean making it easier. Believe it or not, but there are people for whom the base L+I game is too easy. They can have that opinion while not liking timers, too.

Now for most of us, I think it becomes less about making the game drastically harder or easier, but about seeking a "fresh" feeling to the game--through new enemies, tech, etc, while still maintaining whatever difficulty you found "balanced" originally.

By the way, "no enemies alive after actions spent" was a BIGGER problem in XCOM 2 than in EU/EW, with timers and everything else. The game is fundamentally easier than EU/EW on the highest difficulty levels.

Well - Long War mod also ruined balance. Don't get me wrong, it improved a lot of things, but balance went out the window pretty fast when I tried it.

I meant that if you use mods which alter the game for the sake of modyfing it then you risk having worse experience. You can make impossible early game while rest will be trivial or you can have mods which bloat your options and provide no alternative. When I've played the game I saw little room for different techs or soldier classes.

Like I said, do what you want but this game is a tough call when you want to balance things out on your own.

 

[Raghar]

Can they know it's not a diversion, while real target would attack them from behind? Or worse would get to its target without firing a single riffle shot because all troops were on opposite side.

As far as I know, neither the base game nor All Pods Active can do that. When concealment is broken, the enemies know where you are, so they know if you have one guy just waiting for them to leave the prison and cross the map to your diversion so you can break your guy out. I suppose you could make that one guy a phantom ranger so they still don't know, but that feels like a workaround rather than a proper solution.

JA2 from decades ago was able to do this though I don't remember if diversions really gave you any tactical advantage there.

Really primitive guerila tactic with advantage in air and vertical movement. Find isolated group, kill them. Go back to your transport. Wait until all enemies start to attack your suspected position. Move behind them, kill enemies near your target, get target, kill enemies that managed to return and move away with loot.

You just need to plan it properly and when enemy runs towards your point of original attack with all his soldiers, he makes stuff incredibly easy.

 

[vdweller]

As for timers mods, I would like to see a mod that does this: Once your timer runs out your skyranger says it is going to lead away enemy Air and try to come back for you in a bit. The effect is that it comes back in 3 rounds and stays for exactly one round (kind of a fast pickup). And in those 3 rounds enemy drop packs from transports every round. It would make timed mission 100% more interesting (it would only not work for a few where the package is going to explode in 8 turns or something)

That's nice idea! However on most missions time wasn't a problem. Which brings me to a general evaluation of X2.

The game is quite enjoyable so far, I'm in the late phase (just encountered an avatar). It's also quite easy. The hardest part was mid-game with the Alien Kings present. I'm playing on Veteran and there is very little save scumming, mostly on a few hack attempts or missing a 90% to-hit shot in a critical situation, so the game is pretty straightforward until now.

Only lost one rookie in a very hard mission where the Berserker Queen popped out of nowhere, my team was quite weakened and I was carrying a VIP. So overall no casualties.

The DLC's SPARK unit is pretty powerful, but at this point my squad can carve through any 2 given enemy groups (3 groups at the same time is another story).

I have to say I miss the air combat of X1, in general I can't say they have nailed down the geoscape part, sometimes it feels like one of those browser games where you build and wait, but X1 suffered from that, too. Thankfully there's some variety to spend your time on.

I like how every class is important for filling a role, assaults are OP as usual, medics can heal the entire team, snipers can mess aliens up even with a pistol, heavies shred armor and blast cover.

As usual, cover and overwatch are to be abused, but sending a Ranger with Bladestorm and Untouchable to slash an enemy can lead to great win and lulz.

Hacking and controlling enemy mechs is nice, but when you reach the point where you can pop a sectopod in 4 shots, do you even bother?

 

[Zeriel]

Maybe I just need to git gud, but I find myself missing Bronzeman terribly.

ABA + Better pods makes the early game brutally unforgiving of mistakes.

Better pods is probably best used with a squad size increase for XCOM, unless you just find ABA too easy. The guy who made ABA only plays on Veteran, so keep that in mind, it may or may not actually be balanced on default squad sizes on Legend.

 

[ArchAngel]

As for timers mods, I would like to see a mod that does this: Once your timer runs out your skyranger says it is going to lead away enemy Air and try to come back for you in a bit. The effect is that it comes back in 3 rounds and stays for exactly one round (kind of a fast pickup). And in those 3 rounds enemy drop packs from transports every round. It would make timed mission 100% more interesting (it would only not work for a few where the package is going to explode in 8 turns or something)

That's nice idea! However on most missions time wasn't a problem. Which brings me to a general evaluation of X2.

The game is quite enjoyable so far, I'm in the late phase (just encountered an avatar). It's also quite easy. The hardest part was mid-game with the Alien Kings present. I'm playing on Veteran and there is very little save scumming, mostly on a few hack attempts or missing a 90% to-hit shot in a critical situation, so the game is pretty straightforward until now.

Only lost one rookie in a very hard mission where the Berserker Queen popped out of nowhere, my team was quite weakened and I was carrying a VIP. So overall no casualties.

The DLC's SPARK unit is pretty powerful, but at this point my squad can carve through any 2 given enemy groups (3 groups at the same time is another story).

I have to say I miss the air combat of X1, in general I can't say they have nailed down the geoscape part, sometimes it feels like one of those browser games where you build and wait, but X1 suffered from that, too. Thankfully there's some variety to spend your time on.

I like how every class is important for filling a role, assaults are OP as usual, medics can heal the entire team, snipers can mess aliens up even with a pistol, heavies shred armor and blast cover.

As usual, cover and overwatch are to be abused, but sending a Ranger with Bladestorm and Untouchable to slash an enemy can lead to great win and lulz.

Hacking and controlling enemy mechs is nice, but when you reach the point where you can pop a sectopod in 4 shots, do you even bother?

My suggestion is for proper difficulties, not your noob one

 

[ArchAngel]

This game trolls me so much. I was able to get pretty far on L/I (got full magnetic weapons, was half research to plated armor) but they kept oneshotting my top level guys in mission where they would be promoted and I could not make captain no matter how much I tried. So I could not get to 6 squad members. Then I could not delay anymore and needed to do the story mission that reduces Avatar progress and got owned there. Again two of my guys get one shot through cover

Then I start over and now I am dying in 2nd mission constantly. There are 3 packs of enemies on the map + 1 reinforcement and you only got 8 turns to do it. I it is basically impossible. I am not sure if something was changed in this 2nd mission because of Long War mods but this shit is crazy.

At this point it seems 2nd mission expects you to restart 200 times until RNG goes your way enough so you stop missing half 70% shots like I seem to do...

 

[vdweller]

This game trolls me so much. I was able to get pretty far on L/I (got full magnetic weapons, was half research to plated armor) but they kept oneshotting my top level guys in mission where they would be promoted and I could not make captain no matter how much I tried. So I could not get to 6 squad members. Then I could not delay anymore and needed to do the story mission that reduces Avatar progress and got owned there. Again two of my guys get one shot through cover

Then I start over and now I am dying in 2nd mission constantly. There are 3 packs of enemies on the map + 1 reinforcement and you only got 8 turns to do it. I it is basically impossible. I am not sure if something was changed in this 2nd mission because of Long War mods but this shit is crazy.

At this point it seems 2nd mission expects you to restart 200 times until RNG goes your way enough so you stop missing half 70% shots like I seem to do...

Dude obviously a mod fucked up game balance. Find which one or tone down the difficulty to make things more fair. Hard is OK, plain unfair and unbeatable unless you reload 100 times is stupid.

 

[Zombra]

Good, I'm sick of hearing about people laughing off the highest difficulty.