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Thoughts on XCOM 2


Chris

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So I've now completed XCOM 2 on Commander (using voluntary Iron Man mode) difficulty and I figured I'd post up some quick thoughts on it:

1) Bugs / Performance Issues: The first thing to mention is that the game is in need of another patch. I had pretty serious performance issues even on a powerful machine until I turned down shadows and occlusion, and it still started chugging in some sections. It has long load times even on a solid-state drive, and there's also annoying camera delays at some points, as well as visual and animation glitches. I also encountered some gameplay bugs that stopped me completing missions or got soldiers killed - whilst this really isn't unusual for a newly released game, just be aware they exist and I'd probably avoid using Iron Man right now.

It's not like Xenonauts doesn't suffer some of these issues too - I'm just saying that if you're not in a hurry to play it, maybe wait a few weeks before picking up XCOM 2.

2) Repetition: I found the game got a little repetitive towards the end (I played 31 missions). The game starts off being really hard because four low-level troops don't have the skills required to win a mission if the aliens score a couple of lucky crits and kill half your team, but once you go up to 5 soldiers and they collect a few more abilities you can handle even large groups of aliens without too much trouble. Mid-to-late game is a bit of a cakewalk ... but more on that later.

I think part of the issue is that the XCOM 1 mechanics have become ubiquitous over the past few years. I have over 200 hours in the original game and the expansion, and I've played several other games that use the same basic formula. The dominant strategy in XCOM 2 seems to be stacking damage so you can kill all the enemies before they get a chance to attack you, and the type enemies you are fighting almost don't matter when all they do is get riddled with bullets before they have a chance to move. There's some cool enemy designs and tweaks to the rules, but the same tactics seem to work against all of the enemies so I didn't find the gameplay changed dramatically throughout the game.

3) Difficulty: The game is pretty easy even when going in blind on Commander difficulty, at least once you've got past the first two or three missions ... although weirdly the reasons for this are all quite positive.

Firstly, they've improved the "pod" system ... although the mechanics remain the same, so I'm not quite sure how. Maybe bigger maps? Anyway, in XCOM 1 the main challenge was essentially to fight each batch of aliens without accidentally activating another nearby pod and ending up massively outnumbered. The problem was that this discouraged mobile and tactical play - running a soldier around the side of the map to flank an enemy was a bad idea, because activating an additional pod was a bigger risk than the potential gains of gaining a flanking shot.

Accidentally activating additional pods of aliens is much less common in XCOM 2 even when you are using melee troops, which I assume is because the pods are more spread out. In any case, this allows you to play with a bit more freedom and makes the game more fun ... but it also makes it easier.

The other thing is that your soldiers now have the ability to gain abilities from outside their class. This can lead to some EXTREMELY powerful combinations and is a lot of fun to play with - and you obviously get far more attached to a truly unique soldier too. Problem is, these abilities tend to be fun because they are totally broken, which naturally screws up the difficulty curve of the game.

The only addition to the game that makes it more difficult is the turn limit for missions (about 50% of them have one), which I like as they speed up the game dramatically. I've had frustrations with them - reaching the target on the last turn and then finding out you need an action available to actually disarm the bomb - but they're definitely a good idea. They don't make the game that much harder unless you're a compulsive overwatch crawler though!

4) Combat Mechanic Changes: A few changes to the combat mechanics worth touching on, I think. The first is the much heralded concealment mechanic, which is initially fun but I actually don't find has much impact on the gameplay. I started ignoring it entirely in the later stages of the game (it only affects the first fight) and I still did fine.

The changes to melee are more significant. Melee units in XCOM 1 were pretty weak, but melee units in XCOM 2 are totally overpowered as they can move an absurd distance (both moves) and still attack. Chryssalids don't one-hit-kill like they used to, but along with the early-game Stun Lancers they can still feel a bit cheap.

Thing is, the reverse is true too - your Rangers have melee attacks and they are easily the best soldier class in the early / mid game until their lack of armour shred becomes a bit of a problem. Their mobility and reliable damage is so high than you can just swarm the enemies and shotgun them in the face / hack them to death before they have a chance to react. The net effect somewhat trivializes the tactical game, because cover and positioning doesn't matter too much when most of the action takes place at melee range.

The addition of an Armour system is a neat one though, and their system has some similarities with the one in Xenonauts 2. But basically splitting hit points and armour makes the combat more interesting, as some weapons remove armour whereas others just do raw damage and the interplay between the two adds an extra layer of strategy to the late game. I think I'd definitely miss armour if I went back to playing XCOM 1 now.

5) Map Variety: Their randomised maps work really well as far as I can see; I never saw a repeated map in all my hours of playing. A really good addition to the game, something we'll definitely have to study for Xeno 2 (it looks like it works on a sub-map system similar to what we had in Xeno 1).

Conclusions:

Overall, I'd say XCOM 2 is a good game and one that will be very good once they've patched some of the more obvious bugs. It's a big strategy game with good production values and interesting core mechanics that I think is worth paying full price for. I'm not sure it's quite as good as the reviews made out, though - I'd probably rate it at 8.5/10 and I'd probably bump that up to a 9 once the bugs are fixed.

My problem with it is that it doesn't feel as fresh or as interesting as XCOM 1 did, and that's why I'd say the predecessor was a great game and XCOM 2 is merely very good. It has added quite a bit to the game overall, but I think the only mechanic that fundamentally altered the way I played the game were the melee changes (which are a bit overpowered). So for me it came pretty close to greatness but didn't quite make it. That said, Firaxis have a good track record with expansions and it'll be interesting to see what they have lined up for the inevitable XCOM 2 expansion!

(There's not really that much that changes our plans for Xenonauts 2, though - the big successes in XCOM 2 for me are the randomised maps and the armour system, both of which were already on our radar.)

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts about your competitor (?).

I do not have XCOM2 and do not plan to buy it unless it will be at least one year old. Not because of special sale, but due to the typically not-avoidable-bugs of 2K/Firaxis Games. I was furiously enraged from XCOM1 (and Civ5 before) and their inability and/or unwillingness of react/answer to customer complains about not-running software that were bought for full price.

However, I have watched a couple of Lets-Plays and read some reviews from on Steam and elsewhere and found most of my doubts about the game confirmed in some way. I don't want to go into details here, it is my opinion and it is biased in some way...

Although I don't think bugs will ever be rooted out prior release anymore nowadays, I think it is a sad trend...

Before the internet, a game came out in a box. You had to install it and it worked. Don't want to say that all was good back then, now you much more choice on games and better availability, but unplayable games were rare.

Now nearly every game has those issues. "ARK:Survival Evolved" was a nice exception, unfinished but playable.

As an engineer I know about quality control, but in software this seems to be of lesser importance, because of the "you can always fix later" attitude; definitely against my nature.

Now what I think is really annoying about XCOM2, and what I hope will not enter Xenonauts2 in any way:

- "Trivialize the tactical game" as Chris said above with artificial round limits.

Yes it can add some stress level, which I see valid with bomb timers, but not when choosing your own way to plan other missions. It is not logical when having the rebel character and guerilla tactics in mind. You have few ressources, have to hide, capture essential technology and avoiding direct contact. Why time limits? So you have to play the game in only one way, not your own. Stealth does not help here as I have seen a lot. Consequence: Low replayability!

The tactical game was the core of the ground combat in the original game and Xenonauts1. Here it is watered down dramatically.

Please don't weaken the tactical game to some easy solutions like that.

- Logical errors

XCOM2 is 20 years after the first, ok. The current XCOM organisation says that they hide and keep on working hiddenly since then, ok. But your soldiers beginn with the same ballistic weapons as before!!

Where are the inventions like plasma guns from the past? Confiscated? Could be but not mentioned. Lost? Possible but not mentioned. Impossible to rebuild? Definitly not! Even if it is not possible to achieve all components, the least start would be to have similar weapons like Advent. There are more stupids like that...

Please maintain a reasonable chain of events and decissions during the game, even if you don't use Xenonauts1 as a prequel.

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Interesting to see thoughts. Overall, I'd argue it's definitely a much better designed game than XCOM 1 and there's very little I would consider a step backwards compared with its predecessor. Even the technical issues, while a little frustrating, are not nearly as annoying as the various gameplay bugs in XCOM 1 (teleporting pods, flanking bugs, etc.).

Specific points:

- I like the concealment mechanic. I agree, Chris, that it's not very important as a combat mechanic. But it gives you the freedom to rush into the mission, rather than having to creep around from the start. It's more of a quality of life thing for me, plus it reinforces the sense a sense of urgency and that you (rather than the AI) are the aggressor. So it does a lot of work, even if it isn't important in a tactical sense, and the game would be much worse without it.

- Maps are so much better. I think Chris is right to say that they're larger and the aliens are less crowded. But the missions aren't any longer for it. I think this is because in spite of the larger maps, the missions themselves tend to use only a portion of the map (I don't think I've ever swept the whole of a map more than once in ~30 missions). And there's no obvious sign of map fatigue yet, which set in very early with XCOM 1.

- The alien designs are (mostly) fantastic. I would argue that this is one of the main things Xenonauts 2 could learn from XCOM 2 - each of the main alien types is clearly distinct both aesthetically but also in terms of their combat role and abilities. Notwithstanding the basic grunts (i.e. ADVENT units) and early aliens I'd accidentally spoilered (Sectoids and Vipers), every enemy type has given me at least one moment of shock or surprise and the words "enemy unknown" have never been more appropriate. There is one exception, however: Faceless are the most frustrating thing ever and should all melt away into horrific piles of goo.

- And melee units can join them. I actually don't mind melee units in general and they worked nicely in XCOM 1. But it feels like they've gone overboard with XCOM 2. Coupled with the ability to dash an attack for most melee units, the consequence is that a reasonable proportion of the aliens basically just suicide-charge you, rendering key aspects of the game (cover and positioning) more or less pointless. Further, since they don't seem to have any obvious counters, the only option is to make them priority targets and kill them before they can attack. Less of that would have been nice.

- Geoscape is massively better. The base building I've found fairly interesting and the deployment of specific engineers is something I've enjoyed. It still feels like there's an optimal strategy or building facilities but since facility building itself is less critical it doesn't dissolve into a mad rush to build as many satellites as you possibly can. Turning time into a resource is an excellent idea (and this bodes well for Xenonauts 2 which has implicitly done a similar thing). And the tonal shift from reactive-defence-force to proactive-guerilla-terrorists provides a much greater sense of agency even though, at its core, missions generate in a manner not dissimilar to XCOM 1. They also did the best thing that they could do with the interception game and got rid of it. Definitely no loss.

- Timed missions are probably the most important innovation of the entire game. Playing non-timed missions feels like playing XCOM 1. Playing timed missions feels like playing XCOM 2. While I suspect there would be resistance to this, I'd strongly encourage making timed missions a feature of Xenonauts 2.

- Classes are better balanced and overall have more interesting abilities (less stat modifiers, more Things You Can Do). Specialists (new Support class) admittedly feel weaker than the others but I think this is an issue with hacking balance more than the class itself (the hacking system could have been interesting but the odds are always sufficiently low that it's not worth the risk. A 50/50 coin toss between a minor reward and spawning a new pod of enemies is just not worth it).

EDIT:

I do not have XCOM2 and do not plan to buy it unless it will be at least one year old. Not because of special sale, but due to the typically not-avoidable-bugs of 2K/Firaxis Games. I was furiously enraged from XCOM1 (and Civ5 before) and their inability and/or unwillingness of react/answer to customer complains about not-running software that were bought for full price.

My own experience is that the game is remarkably stable and bug-free. There are definitely optimisation issues and the game runs less smoothly than it should do but I have not found this especially disruptive and don't have a massively powerful machine. There's no major bugs like teleporting aliens or flanking bugs like the original. Indeed, the worst bugs I've seen have been minor map bugs (e.g. a tile which does provide cover doesn't) but so long as you're paying attention you can identify these things in advance (i.e. if a tile is not going to provide cover then it won't have a cover icon). May just be that I've been lucky, of course, but XCOM 1 had more serious gameplay issues than this by far.

XCOM2 is 20 years after the first, ok. The current XCOM organisation says that they hide and keep on working hiddenly since then, ok. But your soldiers beginn with the same ballistic weapons as before!!

Where are the inventions like plasma guns from the past? Confiscated? Could be but not mentioned. Lost? Possible but not mentioned. Impossible to rebuild? Definitly not! Even if it is not possible to achieve all components, the least start would be to have similar weapons like Advent. There are more stupids like that...

There's not an explicit timeline but it is implied in various ways that many of the innovations from the original game were either lost or simply not developed in the first place. E.g. in the description of the new version of skeleton armour it's stated that it is based on an old XCOM prototype from the First War. Similarly, it seems to be the case that the XCOM base was entirely destroyed - canonically I get the feeling that the game ended after the 'player' lost the base defence mission from XCOM: EW, with the implication that any technology developed by XCOM during the First War was lost and most anyone who knew how to build it killed (certainly Dr. Vahlen seems to have been killed in action and indeed she seems more or less forgotten about by the time of the new game - there's a research entry which implies the new head scientist literally does not know who she is or where scraps of old XCOM research files come from).

So while it's not all articulated on screen and explicitly, there appears to me sufficient grounds for the current situation.

Edited by kabill
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The time limits and pod system are directly related to each other. The pod system encourages extremely defensive overwatch camping because catching the enemies in your sights like that is powerful, while activating multiple pods in the process of offensive manouvering is extremely dangerous. The time limits exist to force you to play more aggressively despite this encouragement to play defensively.

If the game was balanced around the idea of the aliens operating as a coherent team overall, rather than as a series of tiny pods that it is optimal to tackle one at a time, then this would be a non-existent issue.

The foot note here is that a more mechanically complete system would be able to handle stealth outside of a binary concealed / not concealed switch, and that could be a real boon to an X-com style game. Would be cool to have a variety of missions where you could plausibly stealth them to achieve an objective, or use late game alien communication jammers to isolate enemies and prevent them calling reinforcements or throwing up an alarm. I mean these aren't stealth games implicitly, but that's one take you could do on the genre.

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It's not X-Com... yes i said it..

No looting, no air fights, short/fast tactical game play, not a proper armour health system.. and soul maybe.. X-Com 1 was same for me.. i want to like those games but that simple and fast game play is not for me.. Even drops got timer.. everything got timer.. everything pushes you to make something..i don't plan what to do, i do things i must to do..

The maps are maybe bigger but not for you. It's like a chess which you can't effort to lose your pieces so easily but enemy does not have that problem. Because of the PODS, you can't find a good place to flank the enemy but if you miss your kill chance the enemy can place himself to a good point and crit you so easily. Even you got for point blank, you miss and you are dead. Thanks to xenonauts bonus acc for close combat. Even your soldiers do not die, they mostly badly wounded and at least 10 days at medbay.

As i said, not X-Com.. won't be X-Com.. a good concept with good points.. but not X-Com..

AND... flanking.. a soldier lies down to ground even if there is no cover and if there is a cover between you and enemy, that cover will help you.. I got a huge tree in front of my soldier but he gets flanked because he is not hugging it.. So any tactical militaristic game without lying down or crouch option is a fail. X-Com Apocalypse did that, Xenonauts used it most part..

I do not want a fast chess game, i want a tactical turn based game..

why can't i produce scopes?????

Edited by drages
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As i said, not X-Com.. won't be X-Com.. a good concept with good points.. but not X-Com..

I do not want a fast chess game, i want a tactical turn based game..

If what you want is the original X-Com, you've got the original game and OpenXCom, and if you want an updated successor to X-Com, you've got Xenonauts 1 and you'll be getting Xenonauts 2 in the next couple of years as well. Old-style X-Com is fairly well catered for these days.

I do kinda get what you're saying, but I think by this point people need to judge the new XCOM games on their own merits rather than by comparison to the original X-Com. They've made it pretty clear what sort of game they want to make by now ... they're not really claiming it's a faithful remake of X-Com, so criticizing it for that feels like missing the point.

The time limits and pod system are directly related to each other. The pod system encourages extremely defensive overwatch camping because catching the enemies in your sights like that is powerful, while activating multiple pods in the process of offensive manouvering is extremely dangerous. The time limits exist to force you to play more aggressively despite this encouragement to play defensively.

If the game was balanced around the idea of the aliens operating as a coherent team overall, rather than as a series of tiny pods that it is optimal to tackle one at a time, then this would be a non-existent issue.

The foot note here is that a more mechanically complete system would be able to handle stealth outside of a binary concealed / not concealed switch, and that could be a real boon to an X-com style game. Would be cool to have a variety of missions where you could plausibly stealth them to achieve an objective, or use late game alien communication jammers to isolate enemies and prevent them calling reinforcements or throwing up an alarm. I mean these aren't stealth games implicitly, but that's one take you could do on the genre.

Yes, that's true. And yes, I also think the stealth / concealment system could be a killer mechanic if it was a bit more fleshed out.

- The alien designs are (mostly) fantastic. I would argue that this is one of the main things Xenonauts 2 could learn from XCOM 2 - each of the main alien types is clearly distinct both aesthetically but also in terms of their combat role and abilities. Notwithstanding the basic grunts (i.e. ADVENT units) and early aliens I'd accidentally spoilered (Sectoids and Vipers), every enemy type has given me at least one moment of shock or surprise and the words "enemy unknown" have never been more appropriate. There is one exception, however: Faceless are the most frustrating thing ever and should all melt away into horrific piles of goo.

- And melee units can join them. I actually don't mind melee units in general and they worked nicely in XCOM 1. But it feels like they've gone overboard with XCOM 2. Coupled with the ability to dash an attack for most melee units, the consequence is that a reasonable proportion of the aliens basically just suicide-charge you, rendering key aspects of the game (cover and positioning) more or less pointless. Further, since they don't seem to have any obvious counters, the only option is to make them priority targets and kill them before they can attack. Less of that would have been nice.

My own experience is that the game is remarkably stable and bug-free. There are definitely optimisation issues and the game runs less smoothly than it should do but I have not found this especially disruptive and don't have a massively powerful machine. There's no major bugs like teleporting aliens or flanking bugs like the original. Indeed, the worst bugs I've seen have been minor map bugs (e.g. a tile which does provide cover doesn't) but so long as you're paying attention you can identify these things in advance (i.e. if a tile is not going to provide cover then it won't have a cover icon). May just be that I've been lucky, of course, but XCOM 1 had more serious gameplay issues than this by far.

Yeah, the alien designs are visually strong - but I find the way the fact they basically all have powerful special abilities again negates the core gameplay quite a lot because most of them seem to ignore cover. That said, the interplay between some of the special abilities (the ADVENT shieldbearer, the alien with the AOE "unload weapon" ability, etc) can lead to some interesting combat situations. You're right that we could learn something from it for Xenonauts 2, but the "group buff" abilities that work so well in XCOM 2 are much less effective when your aliens don't come in pods.

Regarding the gameplay bugs, I found a few - there were a lot of instances of aliens being able to see, shoot or melee through walls and often also floors. I also was unable to finish a mission because I hacked a turret and a Stun Lancer knocked it out, leaving it untargetable and me unable to neutralise all the enemies. The exact blast radius of grenades seemed a bit unreliable too. And then the aforementioned visual glitches, including a texture issue that turned the final mission into a psychedelic festival of pink strobe lighting and left it almost unplayable. However, if you're playing without Iron Man these issues are fairly minor annoyances as you can just reload an earlier save.

- "Trivialize the tactical game" as Chris said above with artificial round limits.

Yes it can add some stress level, which I see valid with bomb timers, but not when choosing your own way to plan other missions. It is not logical when having the rebel character and guerilla tactics in mind. You have few ressources, have to hide, capture essential technology and avoiding direct contact. Why time limits? So you have to play the game in only one way, not your own. Stealth does not help here as I have seen a lot. Consequence: Low replayability!

The tactical game was the core of the ground combat in the original game and Xenonauts1. Here it is watered down dramatically.

Please don't weaken the tactical game to some easy solutions like that.

The round limits really don't trivialize the combat in my book - I see a lot of complaints about them, but I don't personally agree. They're only on about half the missions and they force the player to adapt their playstyle to the situation in front of them; that requires more tactical skill rather than less and it actually makes the game a lot more interesting. If the only tactic a player can master is a slow overwatch crawl, they're not really demonstrating much tactical aptitude.

Hello Chris,

I was just wondering what your thoughts were on the overworld and the changes there, since that is one of the largest (if not the largest) change from XCOM:EU/EW.

Also have you used any of the Mods from the Long War team?

Nope, I've not used the mods by the Long War guys - I wanted to play a vanilla game first.

Regarding the overworld I think it's definitely an improvement over XCOM 1 but I wouldn't necessarily say it adds *that* much strategy; they've just found a more immersive way of getting new scientists and engineers and supplies etc. That said it's much less contrived as not every mission is "choose one of three", and I think the small squad combat fits into the lore of having a guerrilla organisation rather than a military one. So it's certainly an improvement, but more from the immersion side than the gameplay one imo.

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The time limit is the only thing that I find disgusting. Why? They wanted to produce a game, where you are the attacker, you act, instead of react. So you have time to plan your initial assault. Good idea. The time limit kills this concept completely. I have to rush over the map, with the chance to trigger aliens after a sprint. Not much time to set an ambush and wait for the aliens to walk into. Also most of the time limits are so pointless. What does the enemy think? "Oh, no one is here, let's shut down our network anyways in 8 rounds, because....we can!!".

Also the Avatar project progression forces you to do specific missions. Additionally the retailiation missions and the "choose one of three" missions. In the end, you are not a careful planning attacker. You still react to the events the game unleashes on you.

To remove one point from the avatar project I have to assault an alien base, for that I have to make contact with the local forces. For that I have to make contact with an additional country, just to get the possibility to make contact to the country, where the base is. To do that I have to upgrade my contact cap, for that I need resources. All that spiced up with above mentioned random missions, dark events and what else..

Did I mention I play in easiest mode??

No, I don't have a choice, which mission I do. I am not the attacker. I react. Just like in XCom 1. Maybe even worse.

Don't get me wrong, I still like the game, but I expected more from the highly announced guerilla style gameplay.

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I don't believe that's accurate with regards to the Avatar progression - the facilities generate extra points but those points accumulate on the facility, including extra ones from the Dark Events, and destroying the facility removes ALL of them.

I knocked out a facility in Australia that had been there most of the game and it reduced the counter by 4-5 points, so that was the only non-plot blacksite raid I needed to do. Given you also get reductions for pretty much everything you do that is story-related (which are often quite easy), the Avatar counter wasn't really much of a problem for me.

There's also plenty of missions where you don't have a time limit but you do start in concealment, and you can sneak around to your heart's content on them ... although as the bonuses only count for the opening round of combat, I found it doesn't really give you much advantage.

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Ah okay, I have to admit, I still didn't manage to destroy the facility, because I simply can't get the resources to get there. A few missions removed 1 point, so I thought the facility would remove 1 point, too. If it removes a whole bunch of points, I find it ok to be so hard to reach.

I didn't count, but It felt like most of the misisons have time limits (I count retaliation, too, because killing 1+ civilian each round where you have to rescue a minimum of 6 is a sort of timer, too. I admit, here the "story" fully legitimates the timer). But I can be wrong here. Time limits in games has ever been a thing I hated. Not because I want to crawl forward in overwatch, but because I want to plan my assault carefully and strike in the perfect moment. In most (again, can be wrong here, next time I count..) missions, I just can't do that.

You said it yourself, concealment is not a great advantage, you didn't even use it later on. That's the design flaw here, because the concealment was announced as a new "killer feature" which would change the gamestyle completely. In reality it just doesn't do that.

It's not a great advantage, but it is definitely an advantage in the first assault. No one knows you are there, so you can set the perfect ambush and kill one pod easily. You then have to manage the rest of them. In my opinion, this is how it should be. You should (in most cases) have all the time you want for the first ambush. But when you are revealed, the aliens could even more press the attack on you. Maybe then a timer could kick in. This is what I understand regarding guerilla warfare. Concentrate on your target, strike, and then pull back or be overwhelmed. If more missions would look like this, there would be no need for a timer.

Actually I liked the mission, whare you have to get the avenger off the ground after an UFO attack very much. You had to concentrate on destroying the emp (or whatever it was) device and then get your arse outta there or be overrun.

And again, don't get me wrong, I really enjoy playing it, I think it's a great game, I just hate time limits or getting railroaded through missions, where the announcement was "decide when to strike where"

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Ah yeah, that's true - the terror / retaliation missions do have a timer, it's just expressed differently.

As you sort of imply, one of the biggest changes they could make to the game (for minimum effort) is to make the turn counter start as soon as your squad are revealed from cover rather than at the very start of the mission. It'd simultaneously make stealth more valuable and give a player more tactical options on timed missions.

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Totally agree with that :)

I could easily live with a timer that starts after detection.

Although I like the concept, that you have to retreat after fulfilling your primary target, even more. This could easily remove the loot timer also, because then you would have to pick up the stuff you want to take with you (even bodies) and lose the rest. This would also support the aliens as an overpowered force, which at least in easy mode is not the case now. Time limit generates the stress here, but not the overpowered enemy. In missions without time limit (at least on easy) you can without problems even kill whatever reinforcements appear on the map, just to get more xp and more loot. ;)

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@kabil

Maybe all the little explanations are there. As I just watched Lets-Plays only it might be lost to me. The 20 years was afaik announced after the tutorial mission when you (the commander) are updated to your new/old position. However it just feels stupid to not even have ADVENT technology or anything better than ballistics.

@MasterZelgadis

Overall agree with your thoughts on time limits. Crawling-through is not what I want, some time limits ar ok; like bombs to defuse, rescue missions or if certain things need to be brought quickly to safety (live organs, computer codes that becomes invalid, living biotech etc.). Starting the timer with the initial combat would totally explain it and will go well with the guerilla theme. However a timer does not mean to end the mission directly. Maybe backup comes in more and more with time. You can take it only for so long then you have to leave. No dead end failure because a number reaches zero.

I understand what drages means...though I don't care so much (am already burnt here with X-Com1)

And why not compare XCOM with the original?

The original was named X-COM.

They have choosen the name to have a connection. If they want to cash in some credibilities and breath some ghost of the legend here then they damn well have to observe some obligations.

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Ah yeah, that's true - the terror / retaliation missions do have a timer, it's just expressed differently.

As you sort of imply, one of the biggest changes they could make to the game (for minimum effort) is to make the turn counter start as soon as your squad are revealed from cover rather than at the very start of the mission. It'd simultaneously make stealth more valuable and give a player more tactical options on timed missions.

There's a mod that does that in the workshop called "True Concealment". Personally I don't think it makes too much sense in most of the missions, as the briefing states that the activity with the timer is occuring before XCOM deploys, but it's still a decent mod. There's also a mod to increase the timers as a whole.

If anything, the fact that they decided to focus on modability is my favorite part of XCOM 2. They give you access to so many scripts and functions that, realistically, most modders will never need to touch a substantial majority of them.

EDIT: There's 3,465 script files weighing it at 25 MB!

Edited by bwc153
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I love Xcom EU, but am holding off buying Xcom 2. Timed missions were okay in the first one every now and again, but the frequency of them in 2 is turning me off.

Though I loved Xcom EU I think pods were a terrible design decision, and was hoping they'd get rid of them in 2.

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By watching beaglerush play XCOM 2, the biggest thing that made me excited was the depth of interactive mechanics. Things like:

  • The null lance, which allows you to hit everything in a straight line
  • The leaking acid trail from the Andromedon
  • The fall damage that occurs when gravity pulls people down who had their floor blown up underneath them
  • The emphasis on terrain destruction to remove cover
  • The ability to create new cover with one of the armor abilities
  • How armor is handled as a seperate layer and not some degrading percentage thing
  • How fire, acid, emp, PSI and other elemental things are infused in weapons, abilities and items
  • Actual melee weapons
  • A whole host of status effects that apply to both humans and aliens alike
  • The drone that can hack, heal and attack
  • Extended PSI abilities for both sides
  • Armors that provide massive tools to do really interesting things, like grapple onto roofs or walk through walls
  • Multilayered enemies, like the Andromedon, the cocoon left by a Chrysalid
  • Aliens that empower each other in many ways (holotargeting, shields, armor, mobility boost)
  • Aliens that disempower your soldiers in many ways (less accuracy, less mobility, immobilization, stunning, poison, PSI...)
  • PSI abilities that raise the dead
  • Ability to call an evac anywhere on the level
  • A lot of different things that directly affected the geoscape and alien activities outside the mission

The other thing that also really impressed me was the aesthetics behind weapons, like there was actual thought put into how they work and that reflected on they behaved in combat, with plasma weapons noticably charging up before firing, magnetic weapons having these cool unique muzzle flashes. And the armors look so sexy and sleek.

Finally, the character customization and the character pool features was just awesome. I've seen people customize them to look very familiar to things from other sources and even give them bios. The best part that these characters can also be villains that you have to capture or kill, adding even more depth to the gameplay. Also the many ways they've incorporated the character portraits in the game world was superb, like wanted posters in cities and so on.

Theres a lot to learn and take inspiration from XCOM 2, thats for sure. :)

Edited by Reactorcore
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This is only really a minor observation, and I'm prejudiced, but the lead characters in XCOM 2 feel flat. Tygan and Shen's cutscenes feel like

, all exposition with Bradford as the audience. Tygan, Shen and Bradford's personalities are super stereotypical - the engineer who loves machines more than people, the clinical scientist, the grizzled war vet. All three characters have interesting backstories we get very few glimpses into, with some flashes of personality in the occasional radio message in the Avenger. To be honest, Bradford is the most fleshed out character XCOM 2 has, and given how much money must have been thrown at the VO and animation, it's a damn shame.
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This is only really a minor observation, and I'm prejudiced, but the lead characters in XCOM 2 feel flat. Tygan and Shen's cutscenes feel like
, all exposition with Bradford as the audience. Tygan, Shen and Bradford's personalities are super stereotypical - the engineer who loves machines more than people, the clinical scientist, the grizzled war vet. All three characters have interesting backstories we get very few glimpses into, with some flashes of personality in the occasional radio message in the Avenger. To be honest, Bradford is the most fleshed out character XCOM 2 has, and given how much money must have been thrown at the VO and animation, it's a damn shame.

I'm curious what you would have wanted them to do instead.

To me, I thought the stereotypical personalities were fitting for the purpose of the game, which is primarily about a replayable turn based combat game against alien invaders while story is there to simply give a backdrop, but not really intrude largely. Do you feel differently about this?

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I would feel differently if there hadn't been so much effort poured into the three main characters and the way they are massaged into the game. Tygan, Bradford and Shen are visually unique, especially in comparison to other XCOM support staff which appear to be the same models used over and over and unlike Shen Snr. and Vahlen, their dress, accessories and other accoutrements are styled to the person rather than the organisation. They are well voice acted and have backstories which they explicitly allude to in their introduction videos. There is almost an hour of cutscenes splattered throughout the game and the primary characters are involved in most of them, with generally two characters, sometimes three appearing in each scene (with the notable exception of the dissection cutscenes which stars Tygan, rather than a faceless researcher in a biohazard suit as in XCOM 1). Bradford is always present during missions and both Tygan and Shen get a chance to talk during certain missions. Tygan, Shen and Bradford (although mostly Tygan and Shen) will occasionally give some commentary when looking at the Avenger antfarm, and expand upon their backstory.

This is a strong effort on the part of Firaxis to make recognisable characters and to include them both inside and outside of the progression of the game. I almost wish they hadn't because the characters, as I have said, are flat. XCOM support staff could have delivered the cutscenes just as well. They are well characterised, but Tygan and Shen have no character. The nameless Chief Scientist of Xenonauts has more character through his written reports than these expensively modelled, voice acted, plot-centric triple A vapid puffs of pixels. So yes, I do wish more had been more done to flesh out these characters. These are characters, after all, who have lived through the ascendance of the ADVENT administration. Tygan was part of ADVENT. Shen lost her father to ADVENT. Bradford was at ground zero when XCOM was lost and the Commander - the player - was taken. The Commander comes to XCOM 2 In Medias Res. You don't know anything about the world, the ADVENT Administation, why they're bad guys - anything! Who else is better equipped to tell you about this world that you're supposed to emotionally engage with and care about? But that opportunity to engage the player is, I feel, criminally squandered.

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Hmm, so you're saying its like XCOM2 storywise is stuck between this limbo of introducing these rich characters that have the potential to give a stronger emotional connection with the world the game takes place in, but ends up using them so superficially that they may just have been as good as generic nameless staff members?

Did I understand it correctly?

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Xcom EW was the game that introduced me to this type of game and I loved it for the time I played it (one campaign, 30 hours). At the end, I had fell in love for this type of game but I wanted more. This is when I found xenonauts and played it for many more hours than I did for xcom. The depth of this game was so damn sastifying.

I just noticed xcom 2 released and played it for a couple of hours, but it feels so pale in contrast with xenonauts it only makes me want xenonauts 2 more than ever.

If I only had one thing I could have improved in both games is the difficulty curve. I feel like Xcom is always hard at the beginning but becomes too easy past the first missions while xenonauts starts quite easy and becomes impossible later on. Maybe I'm doing something wrong because I played over 10 campaigns in xenonauts and never won any of them. It always ends up with my troops, despite having full predator armor squads, getting their ass kicked in alien base missions or terror missions.

Though rare are the games I played in my entire life that have a balanced difficulty curve, I'm still wondering why is there no one out there that implements scaling difficulty settings. Instead of putting fixed difficulty settings and just wishing the player will be neither too strong nor too weak when getting to a specific point where otherwise it's going to be either boring easy or impossible for the player, why not simply use a percentage of current's player overall strenght? Is there a reason why no one ever tried this?

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The addition of an Armour system is a neat one though, and their system has some similarities with the one in Xenonauts 2. But basically splitting hit points and armour makes the combat more interesting, as some weapons remove armour whereas others just do raw damage and the interplay between the two adds an extra layer of strategy to the late game.

Yes, but not much actually. It is only a damage reduction not a proper armor mechanic. It is just like playing (again) a d&d -like game.

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The relatively low level of tech is explained in game. XCOM never developed any advanced tech, it lost while still on ballistic tech. Then ADVENT banned all private weapon ownership, and obviously they aren't sharing their weapons tech. Bradford has a line where he states it's difficult to just find enough ammo/parts to keep their weapons in service since no one manufactures them any more. They also talk about how it took a long time just to get the Avenger operational, and in fact it only becomes fully operational at the end of the tutorial.

Honestly, the missions without timers just feel incredibly boring now, especially with a concealment ranger on the team. It allows you to ambush every single group of enemies on the map. It also allows you to sit back and keep all your cooldowns ready (more relevant late game). The justification for timed missions may be a little weak (although as story goes, "the aliens are doing a thing and we have a limited chance to interrupt it" seems sufficient for this sort of game) but mechanically they work well.

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