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XCOM2 is a miracle [free on EGS right now]
- Thread starter SofNascimento
- Start date
If you're on PC, Alternative Mod Launcher not only bypasses it, but provides an objectively superior mod management experience.
Is it bad that I didn't even know what these games were before the Mario + Rabbids games? I missed out on Enemy Within when it was on Game Pass, but I did mean to go back and try these games
I still can't believe 2K Games decided to publish a AAA, PC first, "hardcore" tactics game in the late 360/PS3 era. And I can't believe it got an even better sequel.
Oooo! Is that off of nexusmods? My mobile search came up with this off the steam workshop, but I want to make sure I'm looking for the right one: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfi...134322341&searchtext=alternative+mod+launcher
I adore Enemy Unknown/Within, one of my all-time favourites. And it's so replayable, I haven't even gone too deep into the more difficult modes and whatnot. I preordered XCOM 2 and I gave it a go, but didn't really understand the avatar project thing and didn't get too far before I dropped it. I've been meaning to go back and give it a real try, and one of these days I will. I've also been enjoying Gears Tactics, and have a bunch of the other similar games installed. Not enough time in a day.
The Switch port is pretty great, I've played it a bunch on PC but ended up putting a lot of hours into the Switch version because of how well turn-based games work with it. I only played it in handheld mode, though, and I imagine if that's not your thing it's better elsewhere. The PC version has a lot of great mods, so I'd still pick that version over any other.
Firaxis hired the people who made the Long War mod to make it for Xcom 2. There is also a version for War of the Chosen, but that is done by an entirely different group.
You mean people who can't accept that 75% isn't 100%?
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I loved the first one but bounced off the 2nd one after seeing almost every mission has a turn limit.
I was pretty annoyed pretty fast . Haven't checked War of the Chosen tho .. does it remove this limit in any way , at least for some of the missions ??
I'd love to go back to it specially since the whole package is like 5 bucks on Xbox Live this week .
I was pretty annoyed pretty fast . Haven't checked War of the Chosen tho .. does it remove this limit in any way , at least for some of the missions ??
I'd love to go back to it specially since the whole package is like 5 bucks on Xbox Live this week .
If you want to talk about how cool XCOM 2 modding is, a community member of XCOM streamer Beaglerush has recently modded in Twitch integration.
Chat can now raffle to become named soldiers in-mission, and random chat members are picked to be Advent/aliens as well. Best part is both sides can now chat and it appears as a popup over their heads, as well as the communication toast in the top right. Works on the Avenger too.
Chat can now raffle to become named soldiers in-mission, and random chat members are picked to be Advent/aliens as well. Best part is both sides can now chat and it appears as a popup over their heads, as well as the communication toast in the top right. Works on the Avenger too.
I think it's this:
GitHub - X2CommunityCore/xcom2-launcher: The Alternative Mod Launcher (AML) is a replacement for the default game launchers from XCOM 2 and XCOM Chimera Squad.
The Alternative Mod Launcher (AML) is a replacement for the default game launchers from XCOM 2 and XCOM Chimera Squad. - X2CommunityCore/xcom2-launcher
github.com
Boy it'd be nice if they fixed this seven-year-old game to function properly on consoles. It is simultaneously one of the best games I've ever played and one of the worst gaming experiences I've ever had. When I think about it all I feel is a cold rage.
XCom 2 + WoTC might be the best tactical game ever made.. It's just so good. I loved how Xcom 2 already switched up the formula and made you a scrappy resistance on the run, doing hit and run missions and extracting before shit went bad. WoTC just expanded on it and really fleshed it out and the new factions and mission types are a huge upgrade.
Honestly such an underrated classic. It's also a tech showpiece, the randomly generated levels look amazing and have insane destructability and variety.
Honestly such an underrated classic. It's also a tech showpiece, the randomly generated levels look amazing and have insane destructability and variety.
The timers actually fix a glaring design problem that was present in the first game where the optimal strategy was to inch forward a tiny number of squares and then put the whole squad into overwatch.
The timers in WOTC aren't really that restrictive at all once you get used to them (I can't remember the last time I lost to a timer), but it puts just enough pressure on you to make you be more aggressive and take calculated risks. It makes it so that the optimal playstyle is simply a lot more fun.
There is also an in-game optional modifer to double all timers iirc, so they become completely ignoble, if one absolutely cannot deal with them
Also I wanna give a shoutout to those in-between mods that aren't just cosmetics but aren't full overhauls either, whether they're adding a lore-friendly special unit with their own class, letting your carry heavier weaponry than what you ever thought you could wield (do you like the idea of a giant robot carrying a gun that can only fire one shot per magazine, but the shot's so strong it also damages anything standing too close to the target?), having to deal with Resident Evil's Nemesis showing up out of nowhere (this one even has dialogue keyed to play if you have a soldier using particular head options the mod adds), or to plug myself, have a burning need to have appropriate units to go with that MGR soundtrack mod?
Xcom 2 collection (xcom 2 + War of the chosen) is only 5usd on Xbox right now. I just bought it.
So uh might it be for me?
Loved Gears Tactics' overwatch ability where you can shoot MORE THAN ONCE. That sort of seems to be what I've missed from these games.
I've played that thing on the hardest (not the silly iron man thingy) few times.
Loved Gears Tactics' overwatch ability where you can shoot MORE THAN ONCE. That sort of seems to be what I've missed from these games.
I've played that thing on the hardest (not the silly iron man thingy) few times.
i love xcom 2, not played it since 2019 apparently so i think its time for another play. the only thing i hate though is that last mission god it sucks but otherwise i love the game.
I don't like either, frankly.
I don't like the idea of playing without "timers" and I don't like using an external mod to leverage "true concealment" when it's an option that you can already unlock properly playing the game with the "resistance orders" (so basically a convenient cheat).
The Avatar Project is incredibly easy to figure out: it's functionally irrelevant.
It's there just to look intimidating and make people sweat, but chances are it won't EVER become a meaningful factor unless gross incompetence is at play.
You have to fuck up on multiple levels multiple times to go anywhere near close to make it an actual threat.
It's not even HALF of them and as already pointed the "time restriction" is rarely strict enough to be an element of stress.
And it makes for some great stories and some of the best moments in the game when it is.
That said, yes, War of the Chosen added plenty of mission types that weren't "on a timer".
...And some that were basically on a "hidden one", but hilariously enough were very well received because apparently if people don't see an explicit counter in a corner is enough to not make them freak out.
Eh, I fiercely disliked Long War 2, while conversely I liked War of the Chosen so much it became the point where I stopped considering the Firaxis take on the franchise inferior to the original DOS game.
Incidentally, here's an old thread where I spent several posts talking about what was so great about it (and giving hits for ease their way into the game for beginners):
The more I go back to play XCOM 2, the more I realize it may very well be one of my all times favorites.
Not even sure what I'm expecting or hoping to achieve by starting this thread, but I was just replaying this game in the past few days and the realization dawned on me. I enjoyed the first Fireaxis reboot to a fair extent, but I had some criticism about how they managed some parts of the game...www.resetera.com
I need to clarify: I'm NOT talking about Long War. Long War Rebalance is a completely different mod that uses the original Long War as a base to reimagine the gameplay into something very new (yet still recognizably XCOM). It's still receiving significant updates to this day and has very different pacing and overall game balance (especially in regards to how overwatch is handled). You'll have to try it yourself to understand why I praise it so highly.
That works for me. It did look intimidating. I'll give it a go soon.
Xcom 2 is amazing, i loved everything about that game. I think I prefer the base version instead of War of the Chosen, personally. It's still one of my most favorite Ironman/ permadeath games.
If you have never played this game before, it is free on Epic Game Store apr 14 - 21... can't beat that price to check it out.
If you have never played this game before, it is free on Epic Game Store apr 14 - 21... can't beat that price to check it out.
I'm not sure if I'm down for this, but constantly hear it's praise. Gears tactics was okay, but I didn't finish it. Similar type of game? Xcom is super cheap for everything on Xbox right now, could add to the library..
XCOM 2 is lightning in a bottle for me.
It's just the perfect culmination of concept, design & execution. It has few genre peers operating at this level of quality.
When you factor in the incredible Workshop support (7K+ mods and counting), it starts to be come a Forever Game.
There are some TBS titles of this nature that come close (much love for Troubleshooter), but man it's gonna take something monumental to top XCOM 2.
It's just the perfect culmination of concept, design & execution. It has few genre peers operating at this level of quality.
When you factor in the incredible Workshop support (7K+ mods and counting), it starts to be come a Forever Game.
There are some TBS titles of this nature that come close (much love for Troubleshooter), but man it's gonna take something monumental to top XCOM 2.
Please play it with War of the Chosen.
It elevates the game to an all timer.
I was barely lukewarm to the first one (and mostly thanks to the expansion, otherwise my opinion of it would be even colder). Some parts of it worked, while other (like the base management) were so half-assed I couldn't help but dislike the comparison with the original UFO Enemy Unknown.
I didn't know exactly how to feel about XCOM 2 at first because I wasn't the biggest fan of the switch in setting, but it won me over time with far better gameplay and mechanics than the first one.
Still, War of the Chosen is what turned it from "a game I liked just fine" to an absolute all-timer for me.
It improved so much over the vanilla game it felt almost like playing its sequel/remake.
Better tech tree, better perks system for soldiers, a mechanic that forced turnover between your men and encouraged you to hire/use/level up more units, the Lost, the Chosen, the "hero classes", the new types of enemies...
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Ah, well I never played it with the expansion.
If I ever go back to it, I'll make sure I play it with that!
Yeah, but I'm guessing it will be just the vanilla version (which has already been on sales for pennies like a million times; you can still buy the Steam version for 5 dollars on CD Keys even right now) and there are good chances the EGS version won't have mod support (waiting for confirmation on this).
I have played both Long War and Long War Rebalance. To me they go in the category of overated mods like RogueTech for Battletech.
Now Battletech Extended 3025 Commanders Edition, that's a great mod.
when i played it a bit this year it glitched out and soft locked regularly. Once every couple of sessions.
Agree otherwise though
From what I've played it feels no more intensive or time sensitive than your average strategy game or even Xcom 1. In these games the world is coming to get you whether you like it or not.
TBH, I didn't care for this one. I actually enjoyed Chimera Squad much more though XCOM 1: Enemy Within is the best (I haven't played the original).
IMO, the game just had too many annoyances for me.
I don't really like being rushed and fucking hate time limits in game and while I honestly didn't find the time limits on missions too bad, the constant warnings about it (or the fucking doomsday clock or whatever) got old really fast.
I hated the wound/tiredness mechanic. I guess the idea was to have more troops (I went through XCOM Enemy Within with pretty much the exact same troops), but it just got annoying to deal with - especially when I beat the Chosen and had their OP weapons before I even completed most story missions. I got the point where i just wanted to beat the damn missions and the Alien Rulers or whatever they were (i.e. the berserker queen), but I had to wait because my troops would get tired easily despite having good Will and getting through missions easily...
While I didn't care that much about things like Satellite management and shooting UFOS, I enjoyed it more than the flying base mechanic of XCOM 2. It felt like it was too often that I had to be going around the world for missions/scanning which just ended up being obnoxious.
I also hated how there seemed to be mechanics in place to discourage save scumming - i.e. save/reload to make a shot. I know XCOM 1 had a thing where you had to do things differently to get different results (something about a Seed or something), but XCOM 2 seemed to actually penalize you. Like, I had moments where I did the exact same thing, but was suddenly missing every shot (even the infamous 95% chance to hit).... and this wasn't even me trying save scum - this was occurring when I loaded after the game would crash or bug out on me...
IMO, the game just had too many annoyances for me.
I don't really like being rushed and fucking hate time limits in game and while I honestly didn't find the time limits on missions too bad, the constant warnings about it (or the fucking doomsday clock or whatever) got old really fast.
I hated the wound/tiredness mechanic. I guess the idea was to have more troops (I went through XCOM Enemy Within with pretty much the exact same troops), but it just got annoying to deal with - especially when I beat the Chosen and had their OP weapons before I even completed most story missions. I got the point where i just wanted to beat the damn missions and the Alien Rulers or whatever they were (i.e. the berserker queen), but I had to wait because my troops would get tired easily despite having good Will and getting through missions easily...
While I didn't care that much about things like Satellite management and shooting UFOS, I enjoyed it more than the flying base mechanic of XCOM 2. It felt like it was too often that I had to be going around the world for missions/scanning which just ended up being obnoxious.
I also hated how there seemed to be mechanics in place to discourage save scumming - i.e. save/reload to make a shot. I know XCOM 1 had a thing where you had to do things differently to get different results (something about a Seed or something), but XCOM 2 seemed to actually penalize you. Like, I had moments where I did the exact same thing, but was suddenly missing every shot (even the infamous 95% chance to hit).... and this wasn't even me trying save scum - this was occurring when I loaded after the game would crash or bug out on me...
One of the game setup options allows you to double the number of turns per level from their standard count.
XCOM 2
XCOM 2 Welcome to the Resistance Create your own aliens, weapons, maps, and other content to expand the XCOM2 universe
If you're on PC there's a bunch of mods to self-adjust mission timers or turn them off completely.
Probably my favorite PC game of the last decade. Just a perfect level of tactics and stakes in every single mission. Firaxis are masters at hooking me for long sessions with this and Civ.
OP
OP
I've been playing Sekiro lately, alongside XCOM2. So I did this:
And there is a beauty to that. I mean, in a way I'm just naming a character after the game, but it fits in such a cool way. It makes this Skirmisher unique. And just makes XCOM2 a little bit better.
And there is a beauty to that. I mean, in a way I'm just naming a character after the game, but it fits in such a cool way. It makes this Skirmisher unique. And just makes XCOM2 a little bit better.
I really really like the game in principle but it stresses me out with analysis paralysis a bit too much and I go soooo slow and regret everything I do. It's a general problem I have with tactics games. But I still love it in doses from time to time
My most played game since World of Warcraft, and probably my most played single player game, ever. Back in 2019 I was playing so much XCOM 2 that I would dream about flanking enemies and looking for full cover at night.
The biggest problem with this game is how terrible performance and stability is on console. However, I've discovered that playing the Xbox One version on Xbox Series consoles dramatically improves load times and performance. Much more so than the PS4 version on PS5. Plus it gets Quick Resume and Auto HDR. PC is still the way to go, of course. I mean, you can do this:
It's not great. Performance is pretty bad, but at the end of the day it's a turn based strategy-tactics game so it's not the end of the world. The biggest problem is how unstable it is. It crashes all the time, often corrupting saves in the process. Load times are very long as well.
Xbox version is not better but it runs better on Series hardware compared to ps4 on PS5.
War of the Chosen integrates into the main campaign, but it changes it so dramatically that it might as well transform it into a different game.
Yeah, the game has a weird difficulty curve. Early game on higher difficulties is monstrously difficult. Hell, the very first mission is arguably one of the hardest, because if you don't get four healthy, promoted soldiers out of it, you might be screwed, or at the very least confronted with an uphill battle that's probably not worth dealing with.
Mid game can be very hard depending on some choices, and what terror missions you get. And end game can be trivially easy, specially on WotC
No shame in that. I had to go all the way down to rookie with my tail between my legs when I first got started with this game so I could get a feel for the systems and the tech trees. I slowly climbed my way up to legend difficulty and it was one my most fulfilling game experiences ever.
The biggest problem with this game is how terrible performance and stability is on console. However, I've discovered that playing the Xbox One version on Xbox Series consoles dramatically improves load times and performance. Much more so than the PS4 version on PS5. Plus it gets Quick Resume and Auto HDR. PC is still the way to go, of course. I mean, you can do this:
It's not great. Performance is pretty bad, but at the end of the day it's a turn based strategy-tactics game so it's not the end of the world. The biggest problem is how unstable it is. It crashes all the time, often corrupting saves in the process. Load times are very long as well.
Xbox version is not better but it runs better on Series hardware compared to ps4 on PS5.
War of the Chosen integrates into the main campaign, but it changes it so dramatically that it might as well transform it into a different game.
Yeah, the game has a weird difficulty curve. Early game on higher difficulties is monstrously difficult. Hell, the very first mission is arguably one of the hardest, because if you don't get four healthy, promoted soldiers out of it, you might be screwed, or at the very least confronted with an uphill battle that's probably not worth dealing with.
Mid game can be very hard depending on some choices, and what terror missions you get. And end game can be trivially easy, specially on WotC
No shame in that. I had to go all the way down to rookie with my tail between my legs when I first got started with this game so I could get a feel for the systems and the tech trees. I slowly climbed my way up to legend difficulty and it was one my most fulfilling game experiences ever.
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OP
OP
Oh man, I'm gonna download this asap. I have so many voice packs that I use for characters that have nothing to do with the original source. So I have Jason Bourne with GDI Commando voice pack for example.