bobnowhere
Member
Am I just weird or do other people colour-code their classes? Red/White for medics, Green/Black for snipers, Black/Orange for Rangers etc... None of this happens until they get a callsign, before that they are expendable.
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XCOM 2: War of the Chosen |OT| Mario + Rabbids + Autopsies
- Thread starter Jintor
- Start date
Oh, I didn't know they didn't release a patch for the vanilla. It makes sense then.
I used to do this in XCOM 1. Red for Heavies, Green for Assault, White for Snipers and Blue for Support.
But in XCOM 2 we have too many options (and the goddamn Workshop with wonderful things like the Mass Effect characters) to restraint ourselves to that. It also fits the guerrilla theme, with XCOM being not-so organized. I don't see them applying strict dress codes anymore
TC McQueen
Member
The problem is that due to the code changes, the WOTC SDK bakes the scripts in a different way from vanilla XCOM 2, so some mods lose all compatibility with one version or the other. Some people (voice pack makers, mostly) got lucky and don't have to change anything, but the rest generally have to make new versions to support both.I suppose there's a reason behind, but it annoys me that all the cosmetic mods seems to be releasing new versions instead updating the original mod. QoL mods seems more divided on that.
Time to dive in the workshop once again
LurkerPrime
Member
I only try to customise nicknamed soldiers... but then someone ITT broke everything when they mentioned that all random soldiers have brown eyes. So now everyone gets custom eye colours.
There's definitely more but my mind is drawing a blank on the specifics.
- Bonds are amazing. Try to group characters with high affinity or w/e into the same squads so they can form and advance bonds ASAP. Passing an action to a character, from the first tier of bonds, is gamechanging; and that's only the beginning of their powers.
- Lost are scary. Free reload mods and assault rifles are great against them. Snipers seem really meh unless you have a good pistol (though early on their high damage can be useful against "stronger" Lost). The Lost have low damage but their numbers can veeery easily get out of control.
- You will need many more soldiers than vanilla. Between forming bonds, the new fatigue system, covert actions, and all the new missions, you will need a good selection of soldiers at all times, not just during the critical missions.
- Don't chase the new inspirational research opportunities unless it truly helps you--the standard research can be deceptively essential early on.
- A good propaganda poster is not essential. It isn't necessary. But it sure is fun.
There's definitely more but my mind is drawing a blank on the specifics.
greatnorthern
Member
Just to ask one more time: I literally started my first game of X2 the other day after putting it off for so long. Is the consensus to just buy the expansion and play that instead?
If yes, this may be a good addition to the OT.
If yes, this may be a good addition to the OT.
TC McQueen
Member
Hell no, play vanilla XCOM 2 until you feel comfortable with the mechanics, then jump into WOTC.
ShinySylvee
Member
One thing that almost seems game-breaking is don't expand past the first continent early. The Chosen don't seem to start doing anything until you get a territory in the continent they belong to. (That includes powering up, building the research meter, showing up on missions, and sabotaging your funds) Discovering the resistance faction that corresponds to them doesn't reveal them either so I would discover all of them fairly early so you have more options to choose from for Covert Ops. Honestly you can stave off expanding or doing the story stuff for an extremely long time as long as you keep doing all the covert actions that impede the Avatar project progress, (Each one takes off 2 bars) especially if you can get the tactics thing that decreases the meter by one every month. Once you take out the Chosen on your home continent and feel decently confident in your gear and tech you can expand to the continent that has most the factories and story missions on it and wipe out that Chosen while it's still weak, and then move on to the final one. Just a warning that if you do this it might make your later missions a bit boring since a lot of the expac's challenge is dealing with the chosen and with this strategy only one of them will be a serious challenge.
Also Mag weapons are good to get early IMO. If you see a breakthrough that ups Mag weapon damage by 1 go for it above everything since it allows you to put off going for Plasma weapons for a super long time because at that point they're just +1 damage. Get the damage, heal, revive, and hack commands for all your specialists once you get the points for them since they're all super good. (Combat is especially strong since it deals extreme amounts of damage to robotic enemies, and heal helps when things aren't going well) Get squad size upgrades pretty early. Also the Resistance Ring is extremely important since you need it to do covert ops so I'd recommend getting it really early and try to keep an engineer staffing it at all times if you can afford one. Check out the alternate class skills your regular dudes can pick up and look for Rapid Fire, Shredder, Serial, and Rupture as well as any other skills that go well with what your dude is trying to do. (You can check them out by getting the Training Center) It might be tempting to burn all your pooled AP on the special resistance units but your normal soldiers get really strong later on since their weapon damage scales better then the resistance dudes from my experience because they get access to the Chosen Weapons so it's important to make sure they don't get left behind. As the dude before said bonds are OP so get those going if you can.
Grenades are really, really good here.
I'm weird and just started playing vanilla XCOM 2. Three hours into a campaign at the moment, saw the smaller DLC packs were on sale and decided to pick them up. Do I need to restart my campaign to play them? If that's the case I'll probably just grab WOTC rather than wait for a sale. Edit: restart it is!
LurkerPrime
Member
You'd have to restart, I believe. Shen's Last Gift and Alien Hunters are fundamentally integrated into the campaign right from the start.
I don't think the Chosen info is correct? From my experience they seem to do monthly actions that don't involve XCOM, like training (to get a new trait) which is REALLY BAD. It will make every mission harder on that continent, and make it more likely that they'll capture soldiers and further progress their agenda--i.e., your destruction.
Like, defeating them relies on exploiting their weaknesses, but every positive trait they gain will make it harder to to so.
So, really, I'd make it a mid-term goal to defeat them. The earlier the better, particularly since Convert Actions mean it will take months to get to the fighting stage.
Oh man. That's savage.
I don't think the Chosen info is correct? From my experience they seem to do monthly actions that don't involve XCOM, like training (to get a new trait) which is REALLY BAD. It will make every mission harder on that continent, and make it more likely that they'll capture soldiers and further progress their agenda--i.e., your destruction.
Like, defeating them relies on exploiting their weaknesses, but every positive trait they gain will make it harder to to so.
So, really, I'd make it a mid-term goal to defeat them. The earlier the better, particularly since Convert Actions mean it will take months to get to the fighting stage.
I need an Engineer, but maybe not that badly.
Oh man. That's savage.
WOTC has performance enhancements. I was playing the vanilla version with load times long enough to do some reading prior to the expansions release and now it's almost instant. Play the expansion to have more fun IMO.
Trickster
Member
This makes no sense to me. The expansion goes through everything for you. There's literally no need to spend x hours in xcom 2 before ditching that save file and starting over in the expansion
LurkerPrime
Member
Yeah WotC feels better top to bottom. I can't recommend vanilla over it for any player.
The start of WotC may be rough, but so is vanilla's.
Mine is immune to like, everything. I love it.
He's a Jedi!
The start of WotC may be rough, but so is vanilla's.
Mine is immune to like, everything. I love it.
He's a Jedi!
Poodlestrike
Banned
I'm sure someone will mod it in, but nope.
LurkerPrime
Member
You can recruit (aka impress) them through Convert Actions.
Training a regular solder to be one would be like training a solder to be a SPARK.
Sad Affleck
Member
Couldn't you just change the Steam Controller profile to the "Gamepad with Camera Controls" template? It should function exactly like a 360 pad.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Shake Appeal
Member
First Commander/Ironman run ended in tears. Combination of not understanding the new supply drop mission type, a sitrep that includes wave after wave of The Lost, meeting a Priest for the first time, and the Chosen Assassin showing up. Good times.
CrichtonKicks
Member
Exact same here, including nothing until getting a call sign. Green/black for snipers, dark blue for rangers, red for grenadier, etc. Officers get arm tattoos.
Shake Appeal
Member
No color-coding, but I do wait until they get a callsign before editing anything. I almost always change the callsign and their dress, but keep their name and physical appearance (unless it's just weird/obnoxious). The effort I put into this makes their death on the very next mission all the sweeter.
Color-coding would probably be useful, though.
Poodlestrike
Banned
I used the Uniform Manager mod to set up this whole elaborate class uniform system. Rookies all looked one way, Squaddies on up another, depending on class (so different armors/hats/etc). When they got to Sergeant they got to take off their helmets/headwear. Captain and above, custom color scheme.
Looking forward to the cosmetic mods getting back into WOTC.
TC McQueen
Member
There's a ton of new stuff in WOTC, especially on the strategy layer. It could easily get overwhelming for someone who just jumped in cold.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Found another bug where my photo booth pictures seem to be disappearing. Had a great mission where I killed 2 vipers without them even touching me and made a 'yes we step on snek' poster. It's gone now.
grandwizard
Member
God damn this expansion is amazing. It is really like a whole new game. Anyone know when the Shen's last gift stuff starts up in the wotc campaign?
Trickster
Member
Yeah there's more stuff to learn. But I don't think the extra learning curve should prevent anyone from diving straight into the expansion rather than the "main" game. Especially not when stuff is explained for you.
There's no mission, you can just build a Spark as soon as you have a foundry.
Impeccable
Member
I played the hell out of Enemy Unknown and thought it was time for some more Xcom goodness so I bought Xcom 2 and the Expack last night, jumping straight into expack tomorrow.
I am excited.
I'm honestly considering picking up WotC solely for the performance boost.
I had XCOM 2: Digital Deluxe pre-ordered but was gutted by the game's insatiability at launch. Months went by with little change and it really soured me on the whole deal.
The game has been patched a bit since and user mods like Stop Wasting My Time further alleviated some of the issues of the game stumbling out of the gate. YET, to date the vanilla game still feels incredibly unoptimized. My PC isn't cutting edge, prob. more mid-range, but XCOM 2 base-game performance feels unacceptable either way.
So now I'm actually toying with the idea of purchasing WotC just so I can get the XCOM 2 experience I've been desperately craving since launch. Essentially paying $40 for a stability patch.
Feels dirty, man.
What say you, TBS 'Gaf? Should I just suck it up and go for it?
it's really one of the highlights of this expansion
LurkerPrime
Member
Had my first crash during a "plant the X4" mission, with an alien ruler and everything. It crashed after I targetted a muton with a grenade, I think. Only unusual thing I did recently was Rending an enemy whose pod hadn't triggered yet (since he was spotted by a Reaper).
It's time to roll the dice.
The performance improvements are mindblowing and its a great expansion. So long as you meet the requirements (not sure how mid spec lines up with the reqs), I'd say go for it.
It's time to roll the dice.
Dick Justice
Banned
The Spectre shadowbound ability seems glitched. On one mission, killing the Spectre resulted in my soldier waking up right away. Another time, the soldier doesn't wake up.
bobnowhere
Member
The only crash I've had was using a grenade as well, was dragging the bubble towards the target and it crashed.
Performance otherwise is very good, 75-90 fps at 1440p on max settings.
I think there are far more reasons to pick this up other than just the performance enhancements, but definitely.
I was in a similar position to you but with a top-spec pc; so you can imagine how salty I was when this was running so poorly. I then really struggled to get on with the game in general and only put in about 3 hours. However, I have to say that the expansion has corrected an awful lot of what I didn't like. I think it is well worth the price.
LurkerPrime
Member
The performance also bummed me out at launch. I assumed it had to do with how destructible the environments were and always justified it on those grounds. (I really love the destructibility.)
How naive I was.
That might've been what I did; I don't remember if I commited to the action just before it happened or what. The bug report thing popping up shattered my mind, lol.
My Grenadier was on the ground, aiming two stories up, to the roof of a building.
And yeah, I went from medium/low settings for 60 FPS, to max settings for 60 FPS, both @1080p. I'm loving it.
How naive I was.
That might've been what I did; I don't remember if I commited to the action just before it happened or what. The bug report thing popping up shattered my mind, lol.
My Grenadier was on the ground, aiming two stories up, to the roof of a building.
And yeah, I went from medium/low settings for 60 FPS, to max settings for 60 FPS, both @1080p. I'm loving it.
RedlineRonin
Member
I am really, really enjoying my time here.
The "tired" mechanic is making me play way different than before. I have a huge bench of dudes due to both that, and death, which I'm oddly okay with. Just keep pumpin rookies into the GTS and replacing specific classes.
I did take my reaper chick into battle when she was tired and ended up with a permanent negative character trait of reloading randomly after the first move if her clip isn't full. That's annoying.
Sort of feels like they threw the kitchen sink of systems at this game. I feel like there are soooo many things to be managing. It's good though, just constantly having to keep tabs on everything.
I just saw the first mission pop up for alien hunters too. With that and shen's last gift all rolled in with WotC there is gonna be an absolutely metric ton of shit to do in a main campaign now.
GG Firaxis. Woulda paid $60 for this as Xcom 3.
The "tired" mechanic is making me play way different than before. I have a huge bench of dudes due to both that, and death, which I'm oddly okay with. Just keep pumpin rookies into the GTS and replacing specific classes.
I did take my reaper chick into battle when she was tired and ended up with a permanent negative character trait of reloading randomly after the first move if her clip isn't full. That's annoying.
Sort of feels like they threw the kitchen sink of systems at this game. I feel like there are soooo many things to be managing. It's good though, just constantly having to keep tabs on everything.
I just saw the first mission pop up for alien hunters too. With that and shen's last gift all rolled in with WotC there is gonna be an absolutely metric ton of shit to do in a main campaign now.
GG Firaxis. Woulda paid $60 for this as Xcom 3.
This assassin has been really hard to deal with. She has such high mobility that I often can't retaliate and she does her hit and run melee (that leaves one of my units dazed), hits like a truck on top of that and she is immune to overwatch and explosives. I still only have 5 man squads and base level armor.
She decided to show up on the blacksite mission right after I had made it harder on myself by skull jacking an officer (thus summoning a codex). Thankfully I had thought ahead and brought my field medic and gave my grenadier some gas grenades.
I've killed her twice but I'm really not looking forward to our next encounter.
She decided to show up on the blacksite mission right after I had made it harder on myself by skull jacking an officer (thus summoning a codex). Thankfully I had thought ahead and brought my field medic and gave my grenadier some gas grenades.
I've killed her twice but I'm really not looking forward to our next encounter.
RedlineRonin
Member
Showed up in the Blacksite mission for me too. But I just ran away =)
I threw a Mobility PCS on my main reaper so her movement range is enormous now. Walked the entire rest of the squad to the evac and just let her infiltrate solo, grab the canister, and exfiltrate to the evac spot.
P.s. I love that extracting is a free action now so you can do it after two moves. Makes a big difference for missions where you're trying to gtfo
Okay, but can I modify them once I've recruited them? I'm just looking to turn myself into a reaper
I thought negative traits started appearing if tired soldiers were fielded. Looks like being gravely wounded might do it too? One of my soldiers is now afraid of being afraid. She'll panic if she sees someone panic.
I love that system.
Yes, you can even modify the ones that are related to the story mode.
I love that system.
Okay, but can I modify them once I've recruited them? I'm just looking to turn myself into a reaper
Yes, you can even modify the ones that are related to the story mode.
Yeah I had an experience with that too. The chosen showed up the first time on one of those new collect crates missions.
I got like 2 crates and then she pops in. This missions also had the lost in it. Which means those new flame troopers were there. I had my squad all clustered and I knew he was going to hit me with a flame grenade if I didn't do something about him so, I used the reapers huge explosion ability. Which summoned about 20 more zombies.
I just had to gtfo (but not before murdering the assassin). Thankfully it still counted as a mission success.
RedlineRonin
Member
Nice! One thing I really seem to be hurting for (only did magnetic weapons so far) is ammo capacity. I need a ranger with like double the rounds to just be able to steam roll lost.