What went right?

What went right?

I remember fans being kind of dissapointed when this came out. Is it true that they turned it around? I keep hearing its really good now.

war of the chosen

I enjoy it. There is loads of variety compared to the first nu-com and better customization as well.

BETRAYAL

I like the change to overwatch to make it happen one at a time, and the ability to map your path for movement.

I was completely clueless as to why anybody was disappointed when this game first dropped, it seemed like everyone was kinda down on it while I loved it. Maybe it was cause I had just replayed the first new XCOM, so I really appreciated all the little quality of life changes, as well as the huge improvement with the map generation.

I've not even played the expansion, which is meant to be really really good, but looking forward to that when I get around to it.

The 95% hit chance.

Oh wait...

It was mostly the piss poor optimization and a few super vocal people butthurt timed missions mixed up their step once overwatch gameplan which still works fine on most of the missions

it's a better game overall than the first

At launch it was a buggy unoptimized mess that was barely any better then the first nu-com. Then when the devs knuckled down for the Chosen expansion it solved most of the problems and made it great

day one modding and easy to use mod tools, plus workshop mods that let people fix Jake's bullshit

I cant enjoy xcom because I'm a compulsive save scummer. I ever figured out how to save scum the Eneny Unknown ironman mode

I can finally go full stealth on missions thanks to Reapers.

I know you can just quit the game during the enemy turn and it won't save, but is there another way to cheat?

Why is that stopping you from enjoying it?

At the start of every mission, just find your save file and make a back-up of it. It it goes poorly, close the game, replace it with the back-up, and try again.

tfw I didn't realize the power of remote start until my second playthrough.

Templars and Skirmishers are fun, but Reapers are just broken. 1 or 2 can easily solo certain types of missions and work phenomenally well with the already powerful XCOM snipers.

I eventually gave into my savescumming degeneracy and turned ironman mode off.
I just can't help seeing units I invest time into die, same as with Fire Emblem and other similar games.

The Banner Saga was suffering because of this.

Not much. It was a shit tier sequel that didnt fixed overwatch.

...

Because then there no more challenging, my victory is assured from the very. However, fuck losing a squad i devote a ton of resources to max and give them best shit to fucking bad rng.
The rng of xcom is too harsh

Reminder that if you see someone complain about turn timers that you can safely disregard any other opinions they have.

To be fair, almost nobody actually loses a squad from a bad mission. The risk is losing at most two guys.

Things can really spiral out of control with those Chosen. I lost a whole squad once because of the Assassin.

is the game better optimized now? I remember playing around launch and it ran like shit for no reason.

>mfw losing every single warhawk at the earliest possible opportunity

I know a bunch of shit got fixed on that end with WotC. I don't know if it applied to everything or just the WotC mode.

Fuck the assassin. Moving back into cover after attacking is almost cheating.

Timed missions made the game boring because it reduced your options to 1. With timed missions there is only one "right" way to beat the mission. They aren't harder - they are just a hidden form of boring linear gameplay. Timed missions give not "time" to deviate from the most efficient path, no flanking, no creativity, just boring. Once again, they aren't harder - they just force you to play a very specific way.

>tfw want to buy the game instead o playing pirated version but it cost too much
Those fucking DLC prices, Jesus.
That and BETRAYAL.

...

Long War 2 isn't as good as 1.

I don't get the BETRAYAL meme.

>I know a bunch of shit got fixed on that end with WotC. I don't know if it applied to everything or just the WotC mode.
its just wotc.
if you decide to play vanilla xcom2 cause you want long war or something its optimized like shit.
you need to be playing wotc. wotc optimization is great.

I really like the timers, as a fan of XCOM too, I thought it rewarded Overwatch too much. I also liked the gameplay progression of XCOM 2 and I think the expansion was really good. Happy to be able to play it on my PS4. Wish it ran a bit better though.

I'm playing Long War 1 right now, and fucking hell this is way harder than the base game.

that's the point.

a lot of things went right, but here's something that didn't go right; random pod placements. I tested this by running ~powerup and sprinting to the end of the map where the evac zone was, and the game plopped down two pods full of bullet sponges like MECs and Spectres right there by the end. when I went back a save and did the mission legitimately, and killing the ten or so aliens identified, those pods didn't spawn. the game artificially fucks you if you move through the level too fast without shooting anyone and that's pretty fucking stupid.

>5% instant kill chance
>chosen shows up at mission
>achievement pops up for killing chosen before he moves
>dies to overwatch 5 seconds later
Strange how far ahead hit chances are made

Yeah, the pod system is the only thing I don't like, it's way overused in many maps. Feels like the missions that rely on them are made for repeat playthroughs, when you already know that a specific mission will fuck you over.

I think it's from when the third person shooter xcom was announced and Spoony went into a tard rage at a convention shouting betrayal and got the game reviewer community into shit.

The fact they fixed the load issues, and fixed the alien leaders yes. Everything else, blow it out your ass.

Start of turn or when you reload it seems. Why do individual roll seed when you cna just do one and cheese turns.

>try better barracks mod for WotC
>only viable strat is to equip everyone with rifles and shotguns because you have no resources to upgrade anything else
What were they thinking

Is it built around WotC or vanilla?
I'm all for new classes but I've never tried any of the "better ___" mdos.

What they did wrong was fuck the atmosphere/aesthetics

They really have NO CLUE when it comes to any of it. It's really weird because the first game nailed the atmosphere and aesthetics, but the second game just went fucking stupid.

And these characters. Forcing these characters nobody gives a flying fuck about. Trying to turn the game into some stupid fucking storyline or something that's fitting for an RPG but xcom isn't a fucking RPG it's so out of place and bizarre.

The Chosen should never have happened. Bradford and the other people who I can't even fucking remember their names, should've just stayed as little pictures telling you what your objectives in this mission are. I don't need the cutscenes, I don't need the exposition, I don't need the stupid character development. I'm not playing an RPG, I'm playing a squad based tactical board game and what you guys are trying to do with these characters and plots fucking SUCKS.

Also the game is too RNG based in the wrong ways instead of the right ways, and the turn/order/initiative system is kind of lame and probably could've been done better.

I give it a 7/10 it's okay.

same reason i didn't start playing darkest dungeon yet. i can't see myself not loading up the safe file if things don't go according to plan.

It gets infuriating sometimes when you actually get a roll on your first attempt and then something happened and you have to reroll and it won't give it you anymore. One time I dominated an andromodon with 60% chance and upon rerolling it refused to give it to me for like 10 rolls before it eventually gave it to me. I wouldn't be mad but I got it the first time

turn timers are a hamfisted attempt to fix broken game design

>the players will just sit back and overwatch spam while carefully advancing across the map, making it really easy
>should we rethink our turn system, AI, or overwatch itself so that it stays challenging?
>Nah lets just add time limits and pretend that fixed it.

DD has no manual saves and overwrites your progress every turn. You can backup game files, but that's essentially cheating.

You know, I appreciate the craftsmanship of the new X-COM games but I will never lose my love for UFO Defense. The fact I can just crack it open and play it for an hour without fully committing a whole day to it AS WELL AS crack it open and spend a whole day on it.. fuck. It's so addictive.

But the timer fixed the Overwatch problem while also contributing to the tense atmosphere XCOM should have.

Timers

To fix overwatch why didn't they change it so you have to select a single unit in line-of-sight like suppression does - it would ruin stupid shit like both you and the enemy losing overwatch shots to the lost when both ADVENT and the lost are in the mission

The RNG has weird rigging. If you're playing WoTC and playing the assassin and she cloaks, if you save she will teleport around the map if you reload and grenade a spot she "was" in. When she cloaks it seems that she actually leaves the field and then the AI will put her in a valid and legal position that isn't visible or attacked if possible. So you can't save scum and shredder cannon her because she's not there. I can't guarantee this is true on all difficulties, or accurate beyond my limited testing.

i have it on ps4 and with ps+ you can upload your file and download it later to overwrite any progress since the last upload. at least that's how it worked in invisible inc.

The worst part about the RNG is that the numbers lie to you - was it confirmed that the game shifts RNG in your favour when you are losing and against you when you're winning?

No idea about shift. I always assume the RNG is bullshit, but that's because if I roll a 100 5 times in a row I'm lucky but if the opponent rolls it once it's cheating. I've played tabletop games too long to assume the GM is actually playing fair.

I thought a way to fix RNG would be to calculate a roll number for the first or first two attacks against every enemy and hackable object on the map for that turn to ensure you cannot save scum - I think that would be a lot better than their shitty anti-savescumming they use now

>was it confirmed that the game shifts RNG in your favour when you are losing and against you when you're winning?

No. On lower difficulties (non-Legend) the player receives an aim bonus after missing a certain amount of times. That is it.

Nah. The RNG shifts when you are on the lower difficulty. But on the higher difficulties, it gives the enemy more % but is honest about it as in you can see the penalties.

The game employs psuedo RNG instead of real RNG.

I think the reason why people thinks the game 'cheats' is because of the enemy ai. Most players won't take a shot if they can avoid it when the chance is below 50% but the ai is more than happy to take potshots at your guys who are behind high cover - they are bound to make lucky shots if they keep rolling with low hit chance rather than doing something smarter

>rather than doing something smarter

It's always smarter to take a shot until you get to late game where you have a bunch of guaranteed damage abilities. If you aren't regularly taking shots below 50% you're playing the game wrong.

But for most of the early game grenades will carry you

It's one of the biggest problems with the nucom vs oldcom games.

old xcom:
>rookies can 'level up' but it marginally changes a stat or two, nothing big
>there are no classes
>rookies become vets by not dying
>class distinctions are determined by who has good stats for particular weapons e.g. aim gets the sniper rifle
>in a pinch you can give a sniper rifle to anyone
>your progression is determined by equipment, not leveling up characters
>you can lose 12 xcom operatives per mission and it doesn't matter because you'll recover some of the lost gear and there's always more rookies
>over the course of the game you'll burn through a solid 200 - 300 xcom rookies

new xcom:
>distinct classes with power ups and abilities
>but also progression via tech and gear
>in order to stay competitive you need to farm and level up your guys
>you'll have two teams on rotation to take care of things
>losing a single high level guy can absolutely fuck you over for the rest of the game
>especially on higher difficulty the fast pace doesn't give you time to farm xp and level them
>promotes savescumming type of gameplay because xcom units are so irreplaceable
>the game is basically welping the AI without any losses or restarting because you lose someone you can't afford to lose
>over the course of the game you'll lose MAYBE 20-30 guys, if you don't savescum at all and just take your licks

It's pretty good, but I fucking suck at it. Like, even on Normal I find myself getting hit, killed, flanked, panicked, mind controlled, you name it. Hate to admit it, but I save scum a lot

should've been done with waves of aliens not hard timers

>old xcom
>sniper rifle

Why not just have a check box in the starting option n for "save seed" and if not checked reseed the RNG every load. People who want to save scum can, otherwise you get differences. I know Civilisation had that option for several iterations. It also allows for a different kind of save scumming. "oh crap I saved with a single move action left and now this viper will murder me." Time to save and reboot the RNG.

>I remember fans being kind of dissapointed when this came out

The only major complaint was the terrible optimization, but that has been fixed since with WotC

it's an import of long war 2 classes into WotC so neither. But gods it's broken, I can't use Templars and those stabby-stabby-ripjack guys because they can't be equiped with normal weapons and upgrading them costs resources that I simply don't have. At least they made it so all classes can wield two types of weapons so there are no dead classes

>hey guys, want a performance patch?
>buy an expansion then :)
That's fucking atrocious.

there were other performance patches before the expansion as well, shitposter-kun

They have waves of zombies now though

I really liked war of the chosen but not porting the loading times improvement to vanilla was a dick move

It was in the age of "We take your iconic strategy game and turn it into a FPS" era.
It was an massive middle finger to the fans and Spoony was right to call it what it is.

Everything stems form nu-XCOM being build on foundations of Final Fantasy Tactics instead of Xcom

Nothing much.

It's still a very lightweight (honestly - basically dumb slow rinse and repeat always the same) tactics game that spends 90% of its time on making you watch animations, even if you use all the fucking speedup mods and settings that you can get.

Not really happy with it at all.

>losing a single high level guy can absolutely fuck you over for the rest of the game
If this is an issue to you, the problem is with your roster and playstyle, not with the game.

>over the course of the game you'll lose MAYBE 20-30 guys, if you don't savescum at all and just take your licks
You'll loose no one if you cheese one of MAYBE two squad compositions and tactics that work... but mostly it's just one that you want to use.

Everything else will loose people due to lack of DPS on these always-running-for-cover enemies and the pretty hard limits on who can flank and still shoot.

It's overall one of the dumbest strategy / tactics titles I've seen in a long while.

I had this problem too. Mordheim forced me to abandon savescumming to some extent. I only savescum now if losing an army, unit or whatever in strategy game would completely destroy my campaign and forced me to restart it.

>They really have NO CLUE when it comes to any of it. It's really weird because the first game nailed the atmosphere and aesthetics, but the second game just went fucking stupid.

this, it's a fucking mess both in the narrative and thematically, the music also still carries the same heroic tone even though you're supposed to be playing as terrorists

they really just didn't have a strong sense of direction while making this, although war of the chosen takes steps in the right direction

Only thing that went wrong was the whole vibe of the game, assaulting stationary war UFOs/alien bases and exploring the crashed UFos was the best thing of the prequel

It's also a mess gameplay-wise, same as the first title.

Enemies running for cover upon spotting is a terrible mechanic, and most skills and equips are just terrible to deal with this terrible mechanic. You cheese the few that work, and that + watching overly long animations and loading screens all the time is the game.

I agree, I didn't care for the whole "resistence" thing.

Though I did enjoy all the XCOM as ISIS memes.

how about you get good and live with the consequences of your actions, fucking pleb

Pretty sure that was just in XCOM EU, like if you were playing on easy then your last soldier literally could not get hit. I don't think there's anything hidden like that in XCOM 2.

>tfw Terror from the Deep 2 will never happen.

>you'll have two teams on rotation to take care of things
>losing a single high level guy can absolutely fuck you over for the rest of the game
no these are just your own fault for not planning for redundancy

Let's talk about what went wrong
Losing McCan was totally wrong

it will, why not?

correct

I'd argue the resistance angle of XCOM 2 is seriously underwhelming. Despite the marketing and characters talking about being a rag-tag group barely standing up to overwhelming odds, you still from the very start play like a military taking heads and clearing zones. Watch how many missions have you clear the area of enemies after you've finished mission objectives, for a underdog resistance you seem to be extremely efficient and lethal.

Whilst you choose what resources you pursue on the globe map, I'm surprised by the complete lack of moral decisions the Commander is forced to make. Considering how bad the situation is, I'm surprised there was never a time you had to grapple with risking civilian casualties for greater damage against the enemy. This excluding the skirmishes where the civs take cover in your rocket blast-zones.

There could have been another bar for faith or trust the people of Earth accrue. One XCOM has to manage as well to ensure support still comes even as propaganda and retribution increases. Choosing between short-term advantages with civilian causalities, and long-term consequences from acting just like the terrorists ADVENT wants you to be.

I never felt like a real guerilla force, it's still a good game and I had great fun, but I never felt that desperation.

USG: I’ve just got to say thanks so much for not doing Terror from the Deep again.

Solomon: It's not going to happen! I’ve made my feelings on that one known! You know, it's funny, because I’ve played that one, and I’m playing it as I’ve played all XCOM games, but that one to me – I feel like because of the water setting... XCOM works because of the Earth setting, and then it’s like "aliens are weird because they’re on Earth, so we should put it in the future." We didn’t want to make it seem too futuristic, because then I think that the player loses any sort of emotional connection to what it is they’re fighting for. Terror from the Deep was pretty weird; you’d be underwater and just like, "I’m not sure where I am, I could be on a space planet right now."

This guy gets it. It's like the resistance was waiting 20 years for the commander because they didn't want to win without him and break Bradfords heart. "O-okay central. We, we uh... we killed everything on site and recovered all required materials but.... code x-ray immediate retrival required.... *sotto voce* all lz's clear, pick up at your convenience."

yeah, I really liked missions with evac, swoop in, plant C4/evac NPC and evac as soon as possible. It looked like you were far outgunned and only reason you did it because enemy could not respond fast

Even in Long war where you magically somehow aren't allowed to drag enough alien corpses home (lel, you had to leave!), it's still just feeling odd and planless.

PS: I say it doesn't really feel like a "resistance" also because frankly, you're not really doing different things in different locations of opportunity.

It's all ~ the same kind of gay map with some cover and some aliens you almost inevitably have to shoot dead in the same way, and then the plot says you apparently achieved x or y, mostly in cinematics rather than on-map. Uh, "fantastic".

Actually doing it right feels like it would have required doing more on the maps themselves. IDK, "Commandos" - style or Jagged Alliance style or something.

Another issue is that the nu-com doesn't encourage, but makes necessity having an A-team for which any casualty is a potentially game-losing event. Old-com system would have worked far better, your guys are expendable. Everyone is expendable except for the missions success. You get attached to the guys through grit and RNG blessings manage to pull through mission after mission.

You are, the resistance is, a entirely centralized flying hub doing everything, whilst real rebel fighting is much more cell-based. Imagine squads around the world on stand-by whose secrecy had to be maintained whilst still having to target bigger and bigger targets, at risks to themselves on-site and off-site. Instead you have a single flying location wherein all Resistance heads and top-brass are located, the shooting down if which is an instant game over for Humanity.

When you think about it, a great deal of the Resistance strategies and actions are absolutely insane. Flying around in ADVENT controlled space, a helicopter picking you up from city-limits every third mission fucking hell. Fun game and obviously makes base invasion meaningful, but there's a missed opportunity for a CELL group blowing cover and you have to evac your guys more naturally.

Makes me think the big twist if they make 3 is "lol, just like the matrix you never left. That explains all out bullshit."

It's because they did the resistance thing all wrong and it's more like the first game defending the earth again, than an actual resistance movement
there's no politics, there's no subterfuge or espionage, there's no breaking into the propaganda centers to expose alien crimes on their own propaganda networks, there's no inciting riots or ambushing VIP convoys to capture or assassinate people/aliens

it's just an ambling mess of a story/plot/game that makes no fucking sense at all. It's inconsistent garbage in tone, style, and even gameplay.

The only saving grace the game has is the gameplay itself is relatively fun, and you can play barbiedoll dressup with the soldiers which apparently a lot of guys like to do. But otherwise, holy shit is it bad.