XCOM 2 thread of the game

[noiseredux]

yup. This feels like a legit expansion - and I mean this time around the team was actually commissioned by Firaxis, so it makes sense. I am def exciting to jump back into XCOM 2.

[Stark]

Not sure if it was mentioned yet, but XCOM 2 is the current Humble Bundle Monthly, which is crazy. $12 for XCOM 2 and you will get a whole other bundle of stuff once the bundle comes out.

https://www.humblebundle.com/monthly?hm ... ium=banner

[noiseredux]

holy shit Long War 2 is hard. After an hour spent on the second mission, I beefed it.

[MrPopo]

The change to the effectiveness of grenades in destroying cover is a major game changer.

[noiseredux]

The change to the effectiveness of grenades in destroying cover is a major game changer.

Big time.

[MrPopo]

So here comes a bump because War of the Chosen is out! I'm already 6 hours in and am loving every second of it.

War of the Chosen is the Enemy Within of XCOM 2, though I'd say it goes even further in terms of changes. It draws even more heavily from the stuff added in Long War than the base game did, and there's a bunch to manage that keeps you on your toes. The first two things that stick out are the fatigue system and the additions to the skill system. Fatigue has been added; people fatigue while on missions and it recovers off of mission. You can send people who are tired but I assume it confers some sort of penalty; I haven't tested it specifically because I'm in Ironman. Your characters still get to pick from one of two skills when ranking up, but the new change is to the Advanced Warfare Center. Whereas before it provided healing, respeccing, and the chance for a soldier to learn a random cross-class skill post mission, now things have been made more interesting. Healing has been split out into a separate Infirmary (more details in a bit), respeccing is the same, but now you have a full skill learning system. When you pull up a soldier in this interface you will see a different view of their skill tree; in addition to the existing two tracks there is a third "XCOM" track, which has four skills at random points in the progression. These replace the chance of acquiring cross class skills; instead you get four random cross class skills available, but you have to train them. These are trained by using skill points which are earned both individually on the soldier and available in a global pool for your force. The cool thing is that these skill points can ALSO be used to get the regular skills a soldier gets during level up. So if you want to spend points on getting both of your Corporal skills you can. From what I can tell, individual soldier skill points are earned on level up based on a fixed "learning" stat they have, while global skill points are earned through playing battle smart; you get points for ambush kills, kills from high ground, kills from flaking, etc.

The skill system gets even deeper with the three new classes added from the three new allied factions in the game. I'll get to them later, but one of the things about them is they have three skill lines, rather than the two of normal soldiers, plus the XCOM line of cross class skills. Now, for a given rank you don't necessarily have skills available from all three lines, but some of them you do. Additionally, these classes on level up don't just get a skill from one of these lines, but rather get a large number of skill points at least equal to how many you'd need for a skill of that rank. So their level up interface is identical to the "learn a new skill" interface at the AWC, making them far more customizable out of the gate (as you don't have to take a skill mapping to that rank; you could instead get lower ranked skills instead).

These three new classes are sort of "hero" classes, but they fortunately aren't limited to one instance. You have to recruit them through interacting with the three factions, so you don't have as ready access to more as you do with the base classes, but they also aren't unique (so if you lose one you can still get another, and you can have more than one at a time). Each of them adds their own niche, rather than just being a straight upgrade of an existing class. The Reapers are the stealth specialists; they have a special form of concealment called Ghost which they always get at the start of a mission (even if it's a mission where you don't start concealed) and they get one charge of being able to renter it during a mission at no action point cost. What makes Ghost special is twofold: enemy detection range for it is a single square (except for the scanning posts) and it doesn't necessarily break on action. Some Reaper actions never break it, while others (like shooting an enemy) only have a chance to break it (starts at 50%, goes up with each successful staying ghosted). This makes them amazing scouts, as well as some of their specializations being able to do sabotage (they start with a special grenade that can be thrown without breaking ghost but doesn't detonate until shot, either by the Reaper or another squad member, and they can get a skill that lets you detonate an explosive in the wild for extra damage and radius without breaking ghost). The Skirmishers are your combat specialists; once shit hits the fan they can pump out some really good damage. Their innate abilities are being able to fire as the first action without ending the turn (so you can shoot and move or shoot and shoot), they automatically get grapple to get to high ground, and they can do a Scorpion impression and use the grapple to drag an enemy into melee range and stab them with some wrist mounted claws. Later skills are focused around increasing their ability to deal extra damage. Finally, the Templars are this hybrid of blade Rangers and Psionic troopers. Their primary weapon is a psi blade with a machine pistol as backup. When they attack with the psi blade they build up a resource that is used for making ranged psi attacks and they immediately get an extra action point to move (but no other action) again. They also can get a skill to let you burn that extra move and instead take no damage from the next attack.

So, more changes. I mentioned Infirmaries being added. That's because in addition to healing they have a new function; cleansing negative traits. If things go "That's XCOM Baby" in a mission your soldiers can be traumatized by it and gain a negative trait, such as a chance to panic if they or a squadmate gets set on fire. The Infirmary can remove these. There's also a Bond system that has been added. Each soldier has a compatibility rate with every other soldier, and as they are on missions they gain compatibility points with each other based on those rates. When those reach maximum you can create a bond between these two soldiers. Initially this gives them a shared ability to give the other an extra turn (one shared charge between the two of them). You can also rank up these bonds to level 2 and 3 in the AWC, though I'm not sure what the benefit is yet. These bonds also have a penalty; if one member dies in mission the other member can go berserk and I wouldn't be surprised if they can also gain negative traits.

I've talked a bit about factions, and I want to go a bit deeper into them. These are three groups that have also been fighting Advent in their own way. You will quickly ally with them and they provide a variety of benefits. Besides the fact that the initial alliance gives you a member of their unique class, they also give you access to Orders and Covert Operations. Orders are month-long benefits that can be changed every month (but not mid month). These can be things like "Covert Operations will never be ambushed", "Gain 2 power", or "Mission rewards are increased by 33%". As your standing with each of the factions ranks up you gain additional orders from that faction. These Orders are then slotted in for which ones are being applied that month. You start with a single XCOM slot which is a wildcard slot, while each faction has no slots. Ranking up the factions unlocks additional slots for them, but you can only put orders that match the factions in those slots. The XCOM slots can be increased by building and upgrading a Resistance Ring facility. This facility is required for you to use Covert Operations. These are missions that will sideline one or more soldiers for a period of time to accomplish a specific goal. This might be gaining intel, recruiting someone for resistance, or tracking down a captured soldier. These operations provide experience, bond points for anyone on them, and some specified stat upgrades for particular soldiers. You can only run one at a time, but as soon as one finishes you can launch another. However, they also have the possibilities of your soldiers being hurt or captured (though sometimes you can remove that by spending resources). This, along with the fatigue system and the existing "all wounds sideline a soldier" of base XCOM 2 means you will need to have a largish and diverse force.

Oh, I forgot to mention captured soldiers. So thing that can happen is that enemies can capture your dudes (there's one that is fixed by the story, but others can happen as well). I'm not sure what triggers it normally, but if it does happen you can then later on get a Covert Operation to track them down; when that is finished a new mission pops up where you need to infiltrate a prison and rescue your unconscious soldier. If you cause too much of a ruckus the alarm level goes up which leads to reinforcements and eventually you getting swarmed. So it is a super stealth mission where you get in, get your guy, and book it out of there before they can swarm you.

Which brings us to combat changes. First off, there's new mission types as well as changes to existing mission types. One new mission type that I've encountered is a variant on the "blow up the transmitter in time" missions; here you need to set X4 charges (like the first mission) before the timer is up but you can push back the timer by destroying certain environmental objects along the path. Another new mission type is a major modification to the VIP extraction ones if this is a mission exclusively involving the Lost (more on that in a bit). Now your timer is until the VIP's sentry gun runs out of ammo, and at that point you will get swarmed by infinite enemies. So you need to quickly get in, trigger him, and then book it out. Once you trigger him it starts the spawning, so it's a mad dash rather than a careful fall back. In terms of changes to existing mission types, sometimes retaliation missions are more organized; you will have a few groups to save and those groups have a few people with rifles, so you're going from setpiece to setpiece rather than the confused clusterfuck of random civvies. And the capture material missions can be starting off with 12 crates in the world that will every so often be airlifted out by Advent, but you can lift them out first (or kill all the enemies and get all the remaining). Naturally the reward is based on how many you get.

There are also new enemies. There's a flamethrower enemy who sets a large area on fire and sometimes explodes when killed. There is an Advent Priest, which is implied to have psychic powers but so far I haven't let them have a turn yet, so I'm not sure. And finally, there's the Lost, which are another major gameplay addition. These function as your zombie hordes, and they come in regular, fast (Chryssalid movement ranges), and brute (lots more HP, maybe more damage?). They have a couple specific mechanics. First off, they are a third faction on the battlescape; they will attack you or Advent and Advent will attack them. Second, they sometimes will show up as an additional force and other times are the only force. Third, they have a mechanic where they will keep spawning in mission, not too dissimilar from Advent reinforcements. However, their spawn rate is affected by what's happening; if you use grenades in a mission where Lost exist then you will very quickly spawn a large horde who are attracted by the noise. Finally, because they are large zombie hordes you have a new mechanic to combat that. When you fire a regular ranged attack at them, the preview card will be called "Headshot", and if you kill an enemy then your action is refunded. So, let's say you're using a Sniper Rifle at the start of your turn. You shoot one, which consumes an action, and would normally end the turn. If you kill a Lost with that shot, the action is refunded and you can shoot the Rifle again. Once you're out of ammo you can reload, but now you only have one action point and so you can only use your pistol. But you can keep taking pistol shots as long as you keep killing Lost with those shots. The Lost have fairly variable HP; I've seen as low as 2 and as high as 6 in a single pack. It all adds another layer to the combat and varies it up more.

Finally, we come to the titular Chosen. These are three enemy hero units which are effectively three additional Avatar timers, in that you need to deal with them before their meter fills up and they come after you. I'm not sure if that's an instant game over or if you have a life or death mission like those Avenger defense missions. These heroes will taunt you both in the geoscape and in battle. Each one is based out of an area of the geoscape, and taking missions within their area of influence gives them a chance to show up and complicate those missions. However, you can't permanently kill them until you progress things to the point of challenging them in their own stronghold. Each one is some form of combat specialist; one is a stealthy melee, one is a sniper, and one is psionic (I haven't met him yet outside of a story cutscene). They each have unique abilities that make fighting them a bit more interesting, such as the sniper marking one of your soldiers who then has to get out of the overall area he is targeting or take massive (if not automatically fatal) damage. They also have innate traits which are both positive and negative. An example positive trait is "immune to overwatch". An example negative trait is "takes extra damage from melee". Over time they can gain more traits, so it behooves you to deal with them sooner rather than later (but don't bite off more than you can chew).

All in all, it makes a package that basically puts XCOM 2 as the training for War of the Chosen. Oh, and I left of the best part; pre and post battle loading is now something like three seconds, rather than three minutes.

[noiseredux]

alright so I'm a few hours into War Of The Chosen and wow, totally different game. I was pushing along with no lost soldiers until guess what? A Chosen shows up in the middle of a battle with some Advent. And she's the one that doesn't trigger overwatch which is totally detrimental to my style of play. She managed to kill two of my own before I got rid of her. It's crazy because the mission was going fine until she just popped up and threw me off. Great expansion so far.

[MrPopo]

Buckle up; it sounds like you haven't run into the third Chosen yet.

[noiseredux]

So far just the one, yeah.

[noiseredux]

Things were going well. Were. I lost some very good soldiers. Of course Ironman so it is what it is. But rage quit and need to cool down.