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TheThunder · Aug 6, 2016

Well, almost 50 campaign starts later and I still can't get over the 3rd mission on Legend difficulty except for one campaign where I got all the way to the defend the avenger mission and was feeling good but got destroyed.

Feels like a lot of luck has to come your way in that second mission when it comes to what type it is (protect the device is the best) and your initial spawn and pod spawns/placements. Well its either luck or I suck.

Gothos · Aug 8, 2016

Came back to the game with a few mods and played whole weekend. My god, this game is so fucking good. My 2 favorite mods are defientely Gotcha and Long War Perk Pack.

Playing it on normal and just came back from the brink - had 3 days left on Avatar but after storming Advent facility I got it reduced to 2 bars. It was amazing mission and only my weakling sniper survived who carried away one unconcious friendly. Was fucking epic

A Sentient Keyboard · Aug 12, 2016

This game is currently 45% off on steam so I figured I'd pick it up. Before I do, here's two questions I would like some help with:

1. Should I get the deluxe edition (all dlc and soundtrack) for 5 euros more? I'm not really interested in the soundtrack and most of the dlcs have negative reviews, so I was wondering if its worth it even at that discount.

2. What mods would everyone recommend for a first playthrough? I'm mostly looking for rebalancing and finetuning, but great extra content is welcome too.

Thanks!

Kaffeemann · Aug 12, 2016

A Sentient Keyboard · Aug 12, 2016

Wow, thanks for the recommendations!

I spend the evening going through the highest rated mods (and now, kaffeemanns's list), and I came up with a list of the most appealing ones. I passed up on a bunch of quality of life ones because I'm already running so much of them and I don't want to risk incompatibility. I don't intend to use the Alien Hunter and Shen's Last Gift DLCs because some of these mods were released before those, and again, I'd like to avoid incompatibility (plus I'm adding more than enough content already). These are the mods I'm interested in:

- Gameplay:
Guerilla War [Alpha] - This sounds exactly like the reinforcement system in SteamWorld Heist (2d XCOM meets Worms, highly recommended), and that was one of my favorite things about that game. Sblargh's post sold me on this mod even more.
A Better Advent - It's mostly the AI changes that sound appealing to me.
Long War Perk Pack

- UI / quality of life:
Stop Wasting My Time
Perfect Information
Gotcha (Flank Preview Evolved)
True retroactive AWC

-Maps:
More Maps Pack - It seems these map packs don't interfere with other mods or eachother, and they're all highly rated. Shouldn't hurt, right?
World Expansion Project: ADVENT
Maps by Vozati

-Hats:
Capnbubs Accessories Pack
Military Camouflage Patterns
Ink And Paint
Free the Hood
Full Character Customization From Start

I went through all the descriptions and compared class changes when they were listed, and didn't spot any obvious incompatibilities. Does this list look alright to everyone else?

Also, do I need to worry about load order? And if so, how do I set it up correctly?

Erheller · Aug 12, 2016

Oh yeah, you should use the XCOM 2 mod manager. It warns you about incompatibilities between mods.

http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom2/mods/498

Kaffeemann · Aug 12, 2016

If you want only the AI changes from A Better Advent you can get A Better AI from the same author. For more enemy diversity there's also the Long War Alien Pack.

Action Camera is a better version of Stop Wasting my Time.

The Long War Perk Pack is great, but the classes are stronger than the vanilla classes. But it should balance out if you use A Better AI or one of the enemy packs.

Guerilla War doesn't look like a mod I'd use on my first playthrough but it's up to you.

A Sentient Keyboard · Aug 13, 2016

I see. I couldn't find an action camera mod, did you mean action queue?

I've installed modmanager, downloaded the mods I wanted (decided to pass up on Guerilla War for now), activated them through the official client, and launched the game. Now all the mods show up in the modmanager like this:

Am I good to go? I've installed the mods in order of most to least impactful, does that matter?

Laurentius · Aug 13, 2016

So, never played XCOM or XCOM 2, but have wanted to for awhile. Both are on sale on Steam this weekend. Was thinking of picking up XCOM w/all the DLC this weekend since it's a lot cheaper. However, I have heard from a few people that XCOM 2 improved on almost everything. Is that true? Should I just skip right to XCOM 2, or is the "first" still worth it? (I would rather grab the first because it's cheaper right now.)

TC McQueen · Aug 13, 2016

Laurentius said:
So, never played XCOM or XCOM 2, but have wanted to for awhile. Both are on sale on Steam this weekend. Was thinking of picking up XCOM w/all the DLC this weekend since it's a lot cheaper. However, I have heard from a few people that XCOM 2 improved on almost everything. Is that true? Should I just skip right to XCOM 2, or is the "first" still worth it? (I would rather grab the first because it's cheaper right now.)

The first one is better at teaching you the basics of the tactical game, but XCOM 2 is graphically, mechanically, and in terms of variety in the base game alone. If you do get XCOM, make sure you play it with Enemy Within and all the DLC enabled from the start, because that does improve the game a bit.

Erheller · Aug 13, 2016

A Sentient Keyboard said:
I see. I couldn't find an action camera mod, did you mean action queue?

I've installed modmanager, downloaded the mods I wanted (decided to pass up on Guerilla War for now), activated them through the official client, and launched the game. Now all the mods show up in the modmanager like this:

Am I good to go? I've installed the mods in order of most to least impactful, does that matter?

You should be fine. Just remember to actually launch the game from the mod manager, not the official launcher.

(Just a quick note - Gotcha very rarely gives inaccurate information about flanking enemies, so be careful)

Laurentius said:
So, never played XCOM or XCOM 2, but have wanted to for awhile. Both are on sale on Steam this weekend. Was thinking of picking up XCOM w/all the DLC this weekend since it's a lot cheaper. However, I have heard from a few people that XCOM 2 improved on almost everything. Is that true? Should I just skip right to XCOM 2, or is the "first" still worth it? (I would rather grab the first because it's cheaper right now.)

A lot of people prefer XCOM: EU/EW, and a lot of people prefer XCOM 2. I'd say that XCOM: EU/EW is worth picking up, especially if you just want to see if you like the game or not. Make sure to grab the expansion pack Enemy Within - it adds new features (like punching aliens into walls with large robots). And once you finish the game once or twice, you can check out the Long War mod, which is fantastic.

Laurentius · Aug 13, 2016

TC McQueen said:
The first one is better at teaching you the basics of the tactical game, but XCOM 2 is graphically, mechanically, and in terms of variety in the base game alone. If you do get XCOM, make sure you play it with Enemy Within and all the DLC enabled from the start, because that does improve the game a bit.

Erheller said:
A lot of people prefer XCOM: EU/EW, and a lot of people prefer XCOM 2. I'd say that XCOM: EU/EW is worth picking up, especially if you just want to see if you like the game or not. Make sure to grab the expansion pack Enemy Within - it adds new features (like punching aliens into walls with large robots). And once you finish the game once or twice, you can check out the Long War mod, which is fantastic.

Thanks. I'll probably pick up EU/EW then, and if I enjoy it I'll grab XCOM 2 sometime in the future.

TheThunder · Aug 13, 2016

Was checking the mods people were posting here to see if any of the ones I don't have would interest me and found out these gems browsing through the workshop:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=741549683
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=740901085

The other day I was thinking how great it would be if I was able to have Widowmaker as my sharpshooter but unfortunately the only thing that exist for here so far is a voice pack.

Icedburden · Aug 17, 2016

The game is on sale on Amazon, are the performance issues mostly sorted out? I have a 1070 so i have the horsepower.

TC McQueen · Aug 17, 2016

Icedburden said:
The game is on sale on Amazon, are the performance issues mostly sorted out? I have a 1070 so i have the horsepower.

The patches have done a lot, but to get the most out of the game, you have to allow Direct3D11 in the XComGame.ini (IIRC), and use a Steam Guide to tweak your BaseEngine.ini file, or use this modded BaseEngine.ini that's optimized for a 4 core CPU and a GPU with 3GB+ VRAM:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/6b98zbu11cus89b/BaseEngine.rar

Icedburden · Aug 18, 2016

TC McQueen said:
The patches have done a lot, but to get the most out of the game, you have to allow Direct3D11 in the XComGame.ini (IIRC), and use a Steam Guide to tweak your BaseEngine.ini file, or use this modded BaseEngine.ini that's optimized for a 4 core CPU and a GPU with 3GB+ VRAM:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/6b98zbu11cus89b/BaseEngine.rar

Thanks so much for the answer! Can't wait to play!

Shake Appeal · Aug 18, 2016

Is there a timeline for the remaining LWS stuff? I haven't played any of the new official stuff (haven't played much at all since a few weeks after lunch), but I'm looking to jump back in soon.

Sblargh · Aug 18, 2016

It's funny to come back to the game a month or two later and I can't even recognize it due to all I messed up the .ini

I think I doubled the ammount of enemies and I don't even know. lol

Also a bit bummed by the lack of Guerilla War updates; while the concept does make a lot of sense both in terms of gameplay and setting, I'm afraid it will demand a larger overhaul so you can actually play an entire campaign based on it.

Lime · Aug 20, 2016

Are there any more DLC packs planned?

Purkake4 · Aug 20, 2016

Just started replaying with all the Long War mods and it's pretty great so far.

Kaffeemann · Aug 21, 2016

Lime said:
Are there any more DLC packs planned?

A full expansion is likely but not announced yet.

illusionary · Aug 22, 2016

So, this is strange... I'm on a "Protect Data Interceptor Device" mission and have my third spawn of the Berserker Queen. My soldiers are still all concealed so it's not into its action-per-XCOM move phase and just moving in the normal alien activity phase... but rather than attacking the data interceptor, it seem to be going on a rampage amongst the ADVENT/alien forces, killing them off for me (the Queen doesn't seem to be attracting any fire from the other aliens).

I certainly can't complain about having some unexpected help here, but this is clearly very odd - has anyone else seen anything similar?

TC McQueen · Aug 23, 2016

illusionary said:
So, this is strange... I'm on a "Protect Data Interceptor Device" mission and have my third spawn of the Berserker Queen. My soldiers are still all concealed so it's not into its action-per-XCOM move phase and just moving in the normal alien activity phase... but rather than attacking the data interceptor, it seem to be going on a rampage amongst the ADVENT/alien forces, killing them off for me (the Queen doesn't seem to be attracting any fire from the other aliens).

I certainly can't complain about having some unexpected help here, but this is clearly very odd - has anyone else seen anything similar?

This is normal behavior, IIRC.

A Sentient Keyboard · Aug 23, 2016

I finally got around to playing with my modded game and something really weird happened; I just ran into the viper king. After being throroughly wiped, I looked up online what his deal was and apparently he's part of the alien hunters DLC. Now, two things are wrong here:

1. While I own alien hunters, I disabled it when I started my campaign.
2. When the viper king showed up, everyone was all like 'oh this is what vahlen has been working on!' and 'that must be subject gamma!'. However, before all this nobody mentioned her a single time. It sounded super apropos of nothing, like I broke the game's sequence or something.

So, is this a known bug? Is it because of the mods I installed? Will this mess up my campaign in any way (besides apparently enabling the alien hunters content)?

Grimsen · Aug 23, 2016

A Sentient Keyboard said:
I finally got around to playing with my modded game and something really weird happened; I just ran into the viper king. After being throroughly wiped, I looked up online what his deal was and apparently he's part of the alien hunters DLC. Now, two things are wrong here:

1. While I own alien hunters, I disabled it when I started my campaign.
2. When the viper king showed up, everyone was all like 'oh this is what vahlen has been working on!' and 'that must be subject gamma!'. However, before all this nobody mentioned her a single time. It sounded super apropos of nothing, like I broke the game's sequence or something.

So, is this a known bug? Is it because of the mods I installed? Will this mess up my campaign in any way (besides apparently enabling the alien hunters content)?

Not a bug.

Disabling the dlc in the new game menu only disables the dlc story missions, not the dlc content. The tooltip in the menu mentions it IIRC.

I don't know why you can't disable them outright.

Purkake4 · Aug 23, 2016

Grimsen said:
Not a bug.

Disabling the dlc in the new game menu only disables the dlc story missions, not the dlc content. The tooltip in the menu mentions it IIRC.

I don't know why you can't disable them outright.

Amazing design, I think you can probably disable them whole in the steam game properties, but still dumb af.

I never got the Alien Hunters because it was supposed to be super OP.

illusionary · Aug 23, 2016

TC McQueen said:
This is normal behavior, IIRC.

Ah, okay. Is there anywhere with any further detail on this, as it does still seem strange? What's the rationale - that Berserkers are out of control, to an extent?

A Sentient Keyboard · Aug 23, 2016

Grimsen said:
Not a bug.

Disabling the dlc in the new game menu only disables the dlc story missions, not the dlc content. The tooltip in the menu mentions it IIRC.

I don't know why you can't disable them outright.

Oh, I must have missed that, thanks for clearing that up.

Vex_ · Sep 23, 2016

Now that the console versions are almost out, any news on a controller patch? I like my setup, but I am really just waiting on official controller support to jump in.

Skunkers · Sep 24, 2016

Vex_ said:
Now that the console versions are almost out, any news on a controller patch? I like my setup, but I am really just waiting on official controller support to jump in.

Just came in here to post this. It's time Firaxis, you cashed in your "built ground up for PC first" chips, now it's time for the damn controller patch.

Unity2012 · Sep 25, 2016

Vex_ said:
Now that the console versions are almost out, any news on a controller patch? I like my setup, but I am really just waiting on official controller support to jump in.

That would be... Amazing. I cant get used to the Steam controller. I tried but is not the same. Please give us controller support.

Vex_ · Sep 25, 2016

Skunkers said:
Just came in here to post this. It's time Firaxis, you cashed in your "built ground up for PC first" chips, now it's time for the damn controller patch.

Yea, it is time for them to stop stalling. We're not fucking around here.

Lol!

Shake Appeal · Oct 2, 2016

Currently can't get any mods to work, even though they appear in the launcher. I've tried reinstalling the game twice after nuking every XCOM2 file I can find on my computer (after unsubscribing from every item in the workshop), but it still seems to be remembering my settings from somewhere and not activating the mods.

Erheller · Oct 2, 2016

Shake Appeal said:
Currently can't get any mods to work, even though they appear in the launcher. I've tried reinstalling the game twice after nuking every XCOM2 file I can find on my computer (after unsubscribing from every item in the workshop), but it still seems to be remembering my settings from somewhere and not activating the mods.

I had this issue a few days ago when I reinstalled XCOM 2. I was using the alternative mod launcher, but I think it'll work even if you're not using it.

If the game does not correctly load mods, try deleting XComEngine.ini and XComModOptions.ini and starting the game normally to rebuild them.
These files are located in Documents/My Games/XCOM 2/XComGame/Config

Shake Appeal · Oct 2, 2016

Yeah, I tried that and every known solution I could find online and it fixed all mods except LW Toolbox, which just will not work despite everything I've tried. Reading their discussion threads, seems others are having this issue.

Drillary Clinton · Oct 5, 2016

Man is there a particular reason they make it where enemies have a hint as to where's your location is? I'm trying to do this VIP mission and the only feasible way is to mostly stealth it up until I can get the VIP. I did it when I blew up my first alien base. Did it completely stealth. But for whatever reason the enemies have some sort of "hunch" as to where I am after so many turns.

I put one character on a roof and I can attest that this is an issue as every single time I do it, a pack of 3 mutons who are otherwise immobile walk up to check out the roof. I have loaded and tested not going on the roof and they do not move.

This is piss poor game design man

Edit: Oh and the Codex's AOE ability is fucking ridiculous and game breaking

TheThunder · Oct 7, 2016

Fucking finally!!

I think I started and restarted the campaign over 60 times to get there (most of the time not being able to get past the 3rd mission).

Surprisingly the last mission was not as hard as I thought, for one I expected that I would have to at least take down 5 avatars but to my surprise I only needed to take 3 just like in Commander. I also used my psi ops fully this time around and mind controlled a Gatekeeper which took care of the entire right side of the final room by itself which let most of my squad to focus on the avatars as they popped. Ironic thing is that the last mission is the only mission in my entire campaign that I did not use any explosive or grenades, I was saving them for the final room but ended up not needing them.

TheSadRanger · Oct 22, 2016

Quick question, I got Shen's Last Gift and enabled it.

Can I only play the missions if I start a new campaign or will they pop up at some point?

Kaffeemann · Oct 23, 2016

I think you need a new campaign to play the new mission.

TheSadRanger · Oct 28, 2016

I kind of feel like upgrading the radio towers is kind of not worth it except for the "spy ring" perk for Asia.

IMO your better off spending your scanning time by broadening your network or scanning sites for engis/scientists/supplies.

Unless I only have crap sites to scan (alien alloys), I rarely find myself in a right spot to upgrade the radio towers.

Lady Gaia · Oct 28, 2016

I absolutely love XCOM 2. It's a deep, immersive experience that goes well beyond anything the series has touched before. This would be the worthy sequel the series deserves except...

I absolutely loathe XCOM 2. I haven't played a game this buggy in a very long time. From VIP missions where you suddenly hear "we've lost the package" after a successful retrieval (I've never had one survive), to quirky behavior including enemies that none of your people can see for one turn despite standing right beside them, to repeated cut scenes and dialog. This game has it all. Crashes? Oh yes, left and right. I've crashed three times during the end game so far and I finally had to stop to write this.

PS4, in case that matters. I just gave it a two star rating on PSN.

Shadow Broker · Nov 2, 2016

Lady Gaia said:
I absolutely love XCOM 2. It's a deep, immersive experience that goes well beyond anything the series has touched before. This would be the worthy sequel the series deserves except...

I absolutely loathe XCOM 2. I haven't played a game this buggy in a very long time. From VIP missions where you suddenly hear "we've lost the package" after a successful retrieval (I've never had one survive), to quirky behavior including enemies that none of your people can see for one turn despite standing right beside them, to repeated cut scenes and dialog. This game has it all. Crashes? Oh yes, left and right. I've crashed three times during the end game so far and I finally had to stop to write this.

PS4, in case that matters. I just gave it a two star rating on PSN.

Looks like I'll wait for a price drop or flash sale on PSN. I'm really interested in this game but won't bite at 60$.

I was going to come in here and ask for opinions on if I should get Valkyria Chronicles (30$) and The Technomancer (30$) or Xcom 2 (60$). I need something to hold me over until Sun and Moon release but at the same time don't want to waste money.

TC McQueen · Nov 3, 2016

Gridlock said:
Looks like I'll wait for a price drop or flash sale on PSN. I'm really interested in this game but won't bite at 60$.

I was going to come in here and ask for opinions on if I should get Valkyria Chronicles (30$) and The Technomancer (30$) or Xcom 2 (60$). I need something to hold me over until Sun and Moon release but at the same time don't want to waste money.

Valkyria Chronicles is the safest bet if you're on PS4. If Technomancer is what I think it is, it's not very good.

Joe Spangle · Nov 6, 2016

Skunkers said:
Just came in here to post this. It's time Firaxis, you cashed in your "built ground up for PC first" chips, now it's time for the damn controller patch.

Yep i agree. Started re-playing this yesterday expecting joypad support by now. Nope. Ive cobbled together a solution using the ps4pc controller thing but its not perfect.

TC McQueen · Nov 6, 2016

Joe Spangle said:
Yep i agree. Started re-playing this yesterday expecting joypad support by now. Nope. Ive cobbled together a solution using the ps4pc controller thing but its not perfect.

Yeah, I've been trying to whip together a DS4 control setup via Steam's DS4 support, but man, is it hard to handle the tactical layer. It also doesn't help that sometimes you need the mouse to click things on the other layers, which doesn't make mapping easier.

If Firaxis patched in controller support, that would be the default option through Steam, and there wouldn't be any problems.

Joe Spangle · Nov 6, 2016

TC McQueen said:
Yeah, I've been trying to whip together a DS4 control setup via Steam's DS4 support, but man, is it hard to handle the tactical layer. It also doesn't help that sometimes you need the mouse to click things on the other layers, which doesn't make mapping easier.

If Firaxis patched in controller support, that would be the default option through Steam, and there wouldn't be any problems.

Yeah. I tend to use the mouse when im back on the ship and the controller when on a mission. Ive got it set up mostly ok but there are a few things that it wont do. The touch pad on the ps4 pad is cool - ive set it as a mouse so can use it for selecting things.

TC McQueen · Nov 8, 2016

Guess what! We got controller support now!
twitter.com/XCOM/status/796004389395656704
It's based on the Xbox 360 controller, but if you're in the Steam Beta and have a DS4, you can use the DS4 as a Steam Controller and tweak the profile.

While controller support adds a new way for Commanders playing on PC to experience XCOM 2, were excited to show you how combining it with the games versatile modding capabilities can open up an interesting new view into the Resistance, you may not have seen before.

Learn how PC players can utilize full camera control to experience XCOM from a new perspective.

See the complete list of PATCH 7 changes below:

Adds traditional (non-Steam Controller) controller support to the PC
Fix config/upk file issues that prevent full conversion mods from being possible on the Steam Workshop and also allow mods to have Bink files.
In Alien Hunters, the "Ruler Reaction" notification will stay on the screen after a unit fires at the Archon King while he is using Icarus Drop during combat.
SPARKS cannot be healed by Medikits
Additional minor bug fixes

Grimsen · Nov 8, 2016

LurkerPrime · Nov 8, 2016

Oh... didn't realise the patch changed stuff on top of controller support. Going to have to wait for mod updates before I play, gotta dive into Long War at long last.

(And I just discovered the other wonderful world of mods with the Wrex squaddie.)

Gator86 · Nov 20, 2016

Lady Gaia said:
I absolutely love XCOM 2. It's a deep, immersive experience that goes well beyond anything the series has touched before. This would be the worthy sequel the series deserves except...

I absolutely loathe XCOM 2. I haven't played a game this buggy in a very long time. From VIP missions where you suddenly hear "we've lost the package" after a successful retrieval (I've never had one survive), to quirky behavior including enemies that none of your people can see for one turn despite standing right beside them, to repeated cut scenes and dialog. This game has it all. Crashes? Oh yes, left and right. I've crashed three times during the end game so far and I finally had to stop to write this.

PS4, in case that matters. I just gave it a two star rating on PSN.

I'm playing it now on PS4 for the first time. The performance is atrocious all around, from the game performance to loading to everything else. I don't know how such an unimpressive game can run like such a dog.

Having fun so far, but it seems like it kept most of the irritating quirks from 1. Activated an objective with a squaddie which spawned enemies who got a free turn and flanked her. Activation was the last action of my turn so they immediately got a free second turn and killed her. Sure, XCOM, why not. Gotta remember some of my old XCOM cheese techniques.

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