ashecitism
Member
That will be during E3 on IGN.
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XCOM 2 (PC/Mac/Linux, Firaxis, November 2015) announced [Up: New info/screens in OP]
- Thread starter dex3108
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That will be during E3 on IGN.
I wonder if Polygon will attack XCOM 2 because it's basically a tale about terrorist group bent on homo sapiens supremacy fighting against an inclusive multicultural society.
In the trailer, XCOM soldiers are basically staging a terrorist attack in a crowded square with many civilians caught in a cross-fire. And that's something they've hated Hatred for.
In the trailer, XCOM soldiers are basically staging a terrorist attack in a crowded square with many civilians caught in a cross-fire. And that's something they've hated Hatred for.
I'm OBVIOUSLY joking, don't kill me.
You're really going on this, and it got old a long time ago
You don't know why they did either yet you feel confident to call the choice stupid.
Shake Appeal
Member
Probably no new media or information, but I'll watch it anyway.
Remachinate
Member
I get that you're being facetious, but I think an in-game thematic exploration of the motivations and morality of an insurgent group against an ostensibly benevolent invading force would be a would be a worthwhile endeavor, and a natural fit for an XCOM-type game. Firaxis is not the studio to do it, of course--they're a systems-first developer--but I feel like strategy games are underexplored when it comes to a literary elevation of the genre.
Well, it makes for a better game because in original XCOM your resources are far too limited for the saviour of mankind. This time they have a good excuse for this.
But still, I wonder how long will it take until someone overreacts because from the trailer XCOM team doesn't look like they're the good guys here. You know, they've started a firefight on a crowded square and killed a naked alien hobo just because he looked different.
Remachinate
Member
If there were civilian casualties as a result of XCOM's activities, wouldn't it be a reasonable question to ask how good the good guys are?
Shake Appeal
Member
Watching the trailer breakdown with Solomon and DeAngelis on IGN.
- Civilians and the red scanners tie into the concealment gameplay.
- Weapons shown in the trailer are a mix of weapon types, tiers and scavenged upgrades.
- Gremlin is like a "pet" class with buffs and debuffs.
- Firaxis "heard the scampering thing loud and clear"; there are lots of ways around it.
- Advent use "magnetic" weapons, an entirely different weapon tier.
- The Viper is the "true form" of the Thin Men.
- Floors and ceilings are destructible; "you can really wreck the environment."
- Aliens have become much stronger; Advent are the fodder.
- Models in the trailer are in-game models.
- Sectoids can mind control you from the beginning.
- On evac missions, you have to carry out dead soldiers to retain their gear.
- You can designate evac spots on the map provided there is space for the Skyranger to land.
- Chose not to subtitle XCOM 2 because "this is the next step for the franchise."
dragonfart28
Banned
On the PC/Mac exclusivity, it looks like there will be an official explanation on Friday.
I'm still kinda shocked myself.
I'm still kinda shocked myself.
If it hasn't been posted already - XCOM 2 Reveal Trailer Rewind Theater with Jake Soloman
Delta Assault
Member
I feel like the scampering thing should just be on a case-by-case basis. I mean, if you're coming for them and they know that, because they spotted the dropship or whatnot, then they should all be in prepared positions and it's impossible to surprise them out in the open. But if you're being real sneaky and Wolverines-from-Red-Dawn, which makes sense given the setting of this game, then you should be able to surprise them if they're all gathered up at a military review, for example.
That's really what I feel like this whole campaign is gonna be like... Red Dawn. There'll be times when you surprise them as guerrilla fighters, and times when you can't.
And ideally, there should be some branching missions at certain points, where you can either choose to take on a harder mission where they see you coming, for greater rewards, or an easier mission where you can surprise them, for lesser rewards.
Shake Appeal
Member
Yeah, I'm looking forward to Wasteland 2's big update too.
KyanMehwulfe
Member
Better destruction should be pretty much a net plus, where as the procedural generation I suppose really depends on how well it's done. Could go either way, but even if it ends up being rather average, I think the simple fact that we cannot memorize maps as easily now will help keep scouting important. I mean, the fog of war always sort of let's you see ahead, but I think just having random maps will still help keep things fresh and each new map a little more uncertain a few months down the line.
Would be interesting if they did more with "scavenged upgrades." I like carrying dead soldiers back to the evac... general poor dog days scavenging and scrapping to get by, using every little piece of junk you have. More ways to scavenge bodies or items to upgrade equipment would really benefit the early scrapping-to-get-by start of the game. Even more so now that XCOM are essentially guerrillas.
Hoping for a lot of city environments... big white and clean arcologies or whatever Argent has for cities, downtown dark and neon mega-city environments. It's a lot more dystopia masquerading as utopia than, say, cyberpunk, so I don't mean massive black skyscrapers spewing fire, but just the sort of cities from the concept art but at a bigger scale and maybe at night, a lot of lightning and shadows, etc. First game had a lot of urban environments but they were rather rural in scale. Lot of potential for metropolises with the focus on Argent now, and even raiding Argent HQs, Alien political city halls or corporate towers, and their general city-sim infrastructure.
Would be interesting if they did more with "scavenged upgrades." I like carrying dead soldiers back to the evac... general poor dog days scavenging and scrapping to get by, using every little piece of junk you have. More ways to scavenge bodies or items to upgrade equipment would really benefit the early scrapping-to-get-by start of the game. Even more so now that XCOM are essentially guerrillas.
Hoping for a lot of city environments... big white and clean arcologies or whatever Argent has for cities, downtown dark and neon mega-city environments. It's a lot more dystopia masquerading as utopia than, say, cyberpunk, so I don't mean massive black skyscrapers spewing fire, but just the sort of cities from the concept art but at a bigger scale and maybe at night, a lot of lightning and shadows, etc. First game had a lot of urban environments but they were rather rural in scale. Lot of potential for metropolises with the focus on Argent now, and even raiding Argent HQs, Alien political city halls or corporate towers, and their general city-sim infrastructure.
Delta Assault
Member
I hope they don't just mean better destruction visually. In XCOM, destruction just meant that a rocket would wipe out all cover in that area. For 2, I hope they get more sophisticated and have destruction actually create new kinds of cover.
Like in Company of Heroes, destruction didn't just destroy cover, it actually would create new cover for your units as well.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I love pretty much all of this, but the bolded especially is music to my ears. The hype builds...
I got the impression that Scamper happens all the time, but only when they see you, which is not always going to be when you see them, thanks to the new concealment mechanics they've briefly mentioned. Like, setting up a proper, "kill them all before they get to cover" ambush would require some planning and setup; you're not going to be able to just pour a turns worth of fire into them without getting everybody into position first.
KyanMehwulfe
Member
Yeah, for sure. It could create some cool moments... like, you're in a large open hall or something, say, a city hall, and there's basically no cover between the single front entrance door and the far back steps that lead upstairs. But there's a bridge overhead that crosses the center of the room on the second floor. So, you destroy the second floor bridge and it crashes down to the open foyer of the first floor, and now suddenly you've got cover as you try race across the open room.
Could think of examples from the first entry with UFO crashes in the open forests where there's a lack of cover, and I wouldn't of mind knocking over a few trees to land toward the UFO so I have a bit more cover on my approach.
I kind of wonder if you can make them scamper wrong. Like you set up three of your guys in a good elevated position out of sight, and then have another guy get spotted on the opposite side of the enemies, causing them to take cover from HIM, but be totally exposed for your kill team who set up shop behind them.
Concealment and the ability to start the fight yourself opens up so many tactical options that Enemy Unknown just didn't have.
I've pulled that off on a couple occasions in LW, against large pods of outsiders. It's incredibly satisfying and effective.
Well you can sort of force where they go, because the obvious path is behind cover and not being immediately flanked by your men. It's pretty easy to abuse it if you put enough time in and start to notice it.
KyanMehwulfe
Member
Even in Enemy Unknown, can sometimes get a chance to do that. It's often not practical... I mean, you're typically inching along slowly in full cover covering as little range as possible to try 'aggro' 1 group of aliens at a time, usually... so, trying to surround 1 group of aliens to get them to scamper into your main force would typically be a good way for your flanking soldier to aggro another different half dozen aliens lol
But when you know you've just got one group of aliens left, especially, say, in a building you're familiar. Than, yeah, all the time. Get everyone into cover and overwatch all around them, and send in one guy to aggro them so they perfectly scamper into your overwatches and then get stuck with half cover haha. I always try do that with my last alien group when they're inside buildings, or especially rooms... especially when I know they're in a room, like the a storage room in a warehouse or the cockpit of a UFO. Always trying to make that initial contact and their scamper a perfect ambush. Probably one of the most satisfying things in the last game.
But when you know you've just got one group of aliens left, especially, say, in a building you're familiar. Than, yeah, all the time. Get everyone into cover and overwatch all around them, and send in one guy to aggro them so they perfectly scamper into your overwatches and then get stuck with half cover haha. I always try do that with my last alien group when they're inside buildings, or especially rooms... especially when I know they're in a room, like the a storage room in a warehouse or the cockpit of a UFO. Always trying to make that initial contact and their scamper a perfect ambush. Probably one of the most satisfying things in the last game.
I had to do that once against a landed barge. I save scummed like a madman just to see if I could pull it off, but in the end, the solution was to toss a grenade in through a door so they took cover THAT way, while I breached from the other side.
If that's going to be the standard MO for XCOM 2, then it'll be awesome.
charlequin
Banned
It sold like 90% of its copies on PC and it's easier to develop some features with that flexibility in mind. It's not like it's some huge mystery.
Regardless, it wouldn't be surprising to see a late port of the expansion edition to PS4/X1.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
You can fuck up the aliens' scampering even in vanilla XCOM. Using an ability or stealth like Battle Scanner, Ghost Armor, or Mimetic Skin, you can reveal inactive pods without activating them.
Then, set your snipers on overwatch, position everyone else in positions where they can get an overwatch shot, then on the aliens' turn, you get a free shot when the pod activates, then you get your turn again.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I'd be curious as hell to see another Bureau. The first one had a lot of interesting ideas (plus, what is possibly the best in-game justification for a 3rd person camera EVER), and I'd love to seem them iterated on.
Absolute scientific proof Rules of Nature goes with EVERYTHING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZwlC4lSID8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZwlC4lSID8
lazyproblems
Member
Really excited for this, hopefully it runs well on mac. Enemy Unknown/Within were good ports, so I'm optimistic.
XCOM 2S PROCEDURALLY GENERATED MAPS IGN FIRST
It talks about how EU had randomized maps but they weren't good so in the end they hand-crafted them and how the procedural maps works in XCOM 2.
Also different terrains:
It talks about how EU had randomized maps but they weren't good so in the end they hand-crafted them and how the procedural maps works in XCOM 2.
Also different terrains:
LurkerPrime
Member
Two concerns from that article:
A lot of it will depend just how much variation there is, I suppose.
- I don't know how I feel about randomly-generated side missions just yet. It could easily become a drag depending on how it's implemented, sucking the unknown right out of the match; i.e. "Destroy the building? Better bring the heavy weapons to knock down that big building again."
- Patchwork maps, depending on how its done, will lead to situations where buildings or landmarks (i.e. parks) become familiar. Especially if there's not many variations per diorama.
A lot of it will depend just how much variation there is, I suppose.
Shake Appeal
Member
This is actually what I was hoping for and described a couple of times earlier. Best of both worlds: designed play spaces that have more longevity than completely hand-crafted maps.
Completely random placement with destructibility would either be a total mess or require a complete dismantling of the (excellent) cover system, taking us back to the original X-Com.
Completely random placement with destructibility would either be a total mess or require a complete dismantling of the (excellent) cover system, taking us back to the original X-Com.
XCOM 2S PROCEDURALLY GENERATED MAPS IGN FIRST
It talks about how EU had randomized maps but they weren't good so in the end they hand-crafted them and how the procedural maps works in XCOM 2.
Also different terrains:
Oh god. Oh my god. yuefiuberciueriuxdwlub
Game, let me buy you.
WhirlwindMonk
Banned
Yeah, there definitely needs to be enough variety in the side missions, otherwise those could get annoying. As for the familiar buildings/landmarks, I'm not too worried about that. Yeah, we might get used to the set pieces, but the way they're doing the procedural generation sounds very smart. I think that will do a lot to vary things up, and with how amazing XCOM was despite that particular fault, I can't imagine this being anything other than a significant improvement.
Shake Appeal
Member
Top-left image there suggests there are still regular pintsize sectoids in the game.
Interested to see more how the wilderness stuff will come out looking. I'm certain the more urban maps will probably be easier to spot the "plots" they're using. But whatever, you need to probably through a hundred hours or so until you start seeing it. Diablo and Torchlight do the same thing and it's pretty much fine with me.
Also it looks like there's already cover built into the plots and then they throw randomly generated additional cover on top, which will keep it interesting.
Also it looks like there's already cover built into the plots and then they throw randomly generated additional cover on top, which will keep it interesting.
LurkerPrime
Member
Yeah, that's true. And Shake Appeal's point about retaining the hand-sculpted nature of the maps was a good one as well.
It'll be good - it has to be.
It's concept art so maybe that was made before they made the new Sectoid's design.
Remachinate
Member
Any randomly-generated mission would be more welcome than playing that highway rescue mission for the 100th time.
As far as map generation goes, I expect it will use a similar approach that Spelunky's algorithm did--there'll be a set number of base tile blocks to pull from in creating the overall map, and then within each block there are a number of variable tiles. In Spelunky, after enough playing you do recognize the overall architecture of levels, but hundreds of hours in they still don't feel stale. In XCOM, I think as long as the tile variation offers enough unpredictability in cover layouts, familiarity shouldn't be an issue.
Shake Appeal
Member
You will definitely start seeing it, but the mix and match approach should at least mean that it plays differently and you don't start taking the same tired routes or expecting pods in the same places. And yeah, the random rule cover scattered over plots should make it even less predictable.
I had my fingers crossed it would be something like this rather than completely "random."
bonesmccoy
Banned
I don't like at all what they're doing with the story. It feels like a 'reboot' for the sake of re-using assets from the first game. Like we'll 'discover' drones, plasma guns, mechs etc all over again.
I sure hope so. I like the design of the new secoids, but I also really like the design of the little ones.
It's not truly random because Soloman-XCOM isn't trying to be a simulation but more of a boardgame, hence the emphasis on cover, cover, cover. In OG-XCom, you were likely to not hit/get hit running out in the open over a large distance so you could conceivably close in while providing some kind of suppressive fire but this philosophy in the newer games is about making it from cover to cover to engage. Hence the reason why aim scores for everyone seem to hover in the ~50% range even at the start of the game and why rifle class weapons aren't affected by distance from target.
XCom: Citadel/XCom: Mass Effect
Which is A-Okaladokaly for me, as that would be a pretty badass crossover. Psyched this is coming. I completed the base game but never got around to playing the expansion (which I did buy), will have to give that another round or two before this comes out.
Which is A-Okaladokaly for me, as that would be a pretty badass crossover. Psyched this is coming. I completed the base game but never got around to playing the expansion (which I did buy), will have to give that another round or two before this comes out.
What, would you rather have gauss rifles and sonic cannons instead? The game needs a new tech tree and I don't see the point in coming up with reskins just to have something "new".
Anyway, we don't know much about the strategic side so it may not be that simple.
Shake Appeal
Member
Yep. A lot of my favorite videogames of late (e.g., Invisible, Inc.) are just really tightly designed boardgames with strong rulesets that happen to have more potential replayability than anything you could ever cram into one cardboard box. I like everything I've heard about XCOM 2 so far.
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