XCOM 2

[BvBPL]

So pleased at this. Long War 2 left a lot to be desired, so I’m very happy to be seeing more from XCom 2.
Also, I’m super-thrilled that this will be coming out in just a few weeks. I had assumed this would be out at the end of the year.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I guess I have my answer: the expansion is not a sequel. I can live with that. Here is the blurb about the expansion that gives a clue about the story:

XCOM 2: War of the Chosen greatly expands upon the XCOM 2 campaign by adding three new resistance factions, each with its own Hero class, to aid XCOM in its fight to liberate Earth. ADVENT, in its bid to recapture the Commander, responds by deploying a deadly new enemy force called the “Chosen.” The expansion also includes other new enemies, missions, environments and increased depth in strategic gameplay.

Here is the official Firaxis page on the expansion that gives some more info:
https://xcom.com/news/entries/xcom-2-expansion-war-of-the-chosen-pc-xbox-playstation-august-29

 

[SupremacyKing2]

This part really intrigued me:

A deadly new alien known as the Spectre, capable of creating dark copies of XCOM soldiers, has snuck onto the battlefield. Adopt new tactics to counter it as well as the explosive attacks of the ADVENT Purifier and the psionically charged ADVENT Priest.

The new alien threats sound scary as heck.

 

[BvBPL]

Also:

SHARE THE RESISTANCE

Customize and pose your soldiers, then add filters, text and backgrounds to generate your own unique resistance posters that appear in-game and can be shared with friends.

Brilliant!

 

[sherbz]

I just love it when i get so excited by a new release. For me XCOM 2 has been one of the best games i have ever played. So more content, particularly in this guise, is a very good thing indeed. Currently i have 642 hours on the clock. I guess with this it will push it above 1,000. I expect Vhalen to make an appearence at some point. Maybe she is one of the alien leaders. Seems as though this will be different from enemy within - in that it will follow on from the story after you beat the campaign. As opposed to being a rehash of the vanilla campaign (aka enemy within). I wonder whether the other development feature from enemy within exists here. For those that dont know, enemy unknown was made by Solomonn. And when released, part of the team went off to develop XCOM 2 and the other part made enemy within. Maybe Solomon is working on XCOM 3. Who knows. In either case i think we should be in for a treat.

 

[sherbz]

So pleased at this. Long War 2 left a lot to be desired, so I’m very happy to be seeing more from XCom 2.
Also, I’m super-thrilled that this will be coming out in just a few weeks. I had assumed this would be out at the end of the year.

I quite like Long War 2. It does have its problems, and it is by no means as good as its predecessor. But it is still a good re-imagining of XCOM 2 (IMO). Spectrum green has also been getting some good vibes recently. So much choice. I cant play all of them.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Seems as though this will be different from enemy within - in that it will follow on from the story after you beat the campaign. As opposed to being a rehash of the vanilla campaign (aka enemy within).

I am still confused about this. Is a sequel or a rehash of the vanilla campaign with more content? The trailer and title seem to imply a sequel. The idea seems to be that after XCOM defeats the Elders (final mission of the vanilla campaign), what is left of ADVENT unleashes the Chosen and thus plunges XCOM into another war, the "war of the chosen". Hence, the tag "the real war begins", implying that the war in the vanilla campaign was just a prelude to something bigger. I hope I am right. But the fact that it is being a called an expansion and not a sequel, makes me think that it is a rehash of the vanilla campaign with more content. Personally, I would much prefer a sequel. It would be cool to play the vanilla campaign and then after winning, we get to keep playing through the expansion story. Plus, we've done the "stop the avatar project" victory condition so it would be nice to have something new. The description page seems to imply that the expansion's victory condition will be to unify the resistance groups and destroy all the bases of the Chosen.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Pete Murrary answered my tweet about whether the expansion takes place after you win the base campaign:

No, it's all inline with the campaign. It's like EW vs EU. You start a campaign with the expansion enabled.

So the expansion is a "rehash" of the base campaign except with a ton of new content.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

A ton of new info on the expansion:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06/14/e3-2017-extensive-details-on-xcom-2-war-of-the-chosen

I am glad that the expansion will nerf the rulers. I thought their ability to take an action after every action was OP. The new ability makes more sense.

The expansion will make campaigns about 10-15 missions longer according to Solomon. This is good news for those who like long campaigns. It also makes sense with all the new content. There was no way you could really enjoy all the new content in the old campaign length.

The changes to "Will" sound great. The new bonding mechanic sounds great too. Love the new mission rules. The new Chosen sound scary. Overall, it looks like this expansion will definitely add a ton of new cool stuff.

 

[BvBPL]

I quite like Long War 2. It does have its problems, and it is by no means as good as its predecessor. But it is still a good re-imagining of XCOM 2 (IMO). Spectrum green has also been getting some good vibes recently. So much choice. I cant play all of them.

I can see a lot of good elements about it. A lot of them. Those elements are just overshadowed by the less enjoyable aspects of the mod.

 

[sherbz]

A ton of new info on the expansion:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/06/14/e3-2017-extensive-details-on-xcom-2-war-of-the-chosen

I am glad that the expansion will nerf the rulers. I thought their ability to take an action after every action was OP. The new ability makes more sense.

The expansion will make campaigns about 10-15 missions longer according to Solomon. This is good news for those who like long campaigns. It also makes sense with all the new content. There was no way you could really enjoy all the new content in the old campaign length.

The changes to "Will" sound great. The new bonding mechanic sounds great too. Love the new mission rules. The new Chosen sound scary. Overall, it looks like this expansion will definitely add a ton of new cool stuff.

Yea i was never a massive fan of the way the rulers were implemented. I think it would have been better if they all had their own standalone lairs or something. And if you complete the lair, you get access to special loot or something.

there’s the new challenge mode. These missions can be either hand-crafted by Firaxis or randomly generated, but either way we’ll take a group of units - both human and alien - into combat and see how we fare against others on a leaderboard. They give you updates as you go, saying things like “75% of people have lost a soldier by now.” Firaxis isn’t sure yet how frequently they’ll be available - maybe weekly.

This seems interesting. I guess this idea fed off the fact that Firaxis track the stats of players in game. If you go on their website you get all sorts of live game statistics. Some of them are rather interesting. A selection:

907,986,702 Aliens killed
17% of Alien kills were committed by the trooper (the weakest enemy - i guess thats because they are the most numerous and also the ones who shoot most at your rookies)
29% victories on rookie
55% Veteran
12% Commander
3% legend
53,998,384 XCOM operatives KIA

 

[sherbz]

The Assassin. Like so many girls i know, she looks quite good from behind. But oh god the face!

 

[Arakhor]

908 million aliens and 54 million XCom operatives killed? That's a sizeable proportion of the real word population!

 

[sherbz]

908 million aliens and 54 million XCom operatives killed? That's a sizeable proportion of the real word population!

Almost the size of the UK. War is hell!

 

[SupremacyKing2]

First Look video of the new Reaper resistance faction. Looks like they have some cool abilities. The new "shadow concealment" mechanic allows a reaper soldier to stay concealed after taking a shot making them really good stealth units.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I'm surprised this thread is so dead. I thought you all would be debating all the new expansion info.

 

[Arakhor]

I saw the below image and thought of this thread.

Spoiler Largish image :

 

[Ailedhoo]

Trailer on the space necromancer known as the Warlock.

O... and since it has not been posted here yet: info on the renegade ADVENT troopers.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

The Skirmishers look really strong!

 

[Ailedhoo]

Reminds me: I have recently started to play XCOM 2 and have done my first Ironman game.

Also: thanks to the Gatekeeper...

Spoiler last level stuff :

This was from my Ironman game; Gatekeepers are mighty indeed... even if they destroy their own bases by just patrolling.

Their panic is also cute.