XCOM2 - Glorious PC Exclusive (for now)

degrassinoel

less than a month to go so excireh so delirah

ED E

Debating whether I should pre-order this or wait until the summer. Hmmmm

degrassinoel

Cormac... wrote: »

One thing that really concerns me with the amount of Super-Enemies in this 2nd (or 3rd depending on how you look at it) instalment will be the amount of damage they'll be able to generate in their turn.

If it gets to a stage where 30% of the way through the game where everything can 2-shot you that'll be hella frustrating and just encourage even further save scumminess (and I'm king of the save scum haha).

I really don't want to have to play HYPER conservatively with 3 medics and 2 snipers et-al when the game is being all like "Oh look at these cool swords and flamethrowers, you can do huge damage.... well provided you're happy to sprint 15 squares that-a-way 1st".... *rubs hands*

I know it sounds like an odd complaint, but I hope they find a balance with these enemies to enable a bit of a level playing field.
I don't want to feel like running 2xAssault (whatever the current equivalent is) or a Heavy and a MECH (whatever they were called) is f**king lunacy.... like it was a gamble in UW but it was still feasible.

If every enemy just does crazy damage with AOE effects and generates zomvbies and can fly.... it'll just be like... "ugh... gonna camp inside this medium sized building with 3 windows".

And just before anyone jumps on the "Thats how you should play X-Com, Hardcore mode, no deaths, no saves, Iron Man, Speed run, hyper levelled enemies".... spare a thought for those of us that really enjoy the game but were sufficiently entertained by 2-4 completions to move on.

I know that they have balanced the difficulty levels in the last 2 entries well, and i hope they do the same here....

Maybe i'm not explaining myself well, but I don't want 15 missions of Sectoids.... followed by 40 missions of brutally crippling instal-kill enemies destroying you if you move 3 squares. Having to spend all your time having 9 medi-packs in play and having 5 units permantely on Overwatch.

X-Com EU and EW were 2 of my favourite games of the last decade full stop.... despite my slight confusion over Shen and Zhang :pac:

I know for certain that a lot of the soldier abilities, armour and weapons are still "classified" heh.. but i'm assuming there will be some great counters to these threats, there's also speculation on the fifth soldier class being included as a MEC, Alien 5th Columnist, Saboteur or something completely different, and even you as the commander him-bloody-self, and also no 5th class at all

But in any case, given the amount of time that they've spent polishing and balancing the game i'd say these new aliens will be tough at first but you'll havet he tools at your disposal to make quick work of them, plus you've got stealth ambushes to start off with. The only thing nasty in that is that RNG could play havoc with dropping too many of the big bad guys in, instead of a balanced load - but again i'd say that's being or has been balanced by now

iggyigauna89

Did Total Biscuit just call his Irish engineers "Sea-mus"? Around the 13 min mark.

Dair76

Yeah, reminded me of this;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK-alyohJ_Y

degrassinoel

hahaha, sheesh ahh she sells sea shells by the sea shore

Generic Dreadhead

Honestly though, there is probably NOTHING that I could hear that would make me NOT buy this game, so I'll avoid the longer videos so as to not nullify my experience

I know my point earlier was a but ham-handed, but it just seems like a lot of the new enemies and bigger, better, badder and bigger.

I think we all remember those missions were you got dumped in with 12 Mutons early on and were screwed.... but 5 missions later you were able to blow them away no problem :pac:

Have no issues with balance and have a LOT of faith in this studio, just a small thing like giving new recruits 6 HP instead of 4 or 5 would be good, subtle balancing like mentioned above about having good counters.

The counter play in X-Com is SOOOO strong that it makes the game, rising it above say Jagged Alliance where you just used the best guns and that was that..... I mean you could run a team of 4 MECs and 2 Heavies..... but you're gonna have a bad time

degrassinoel

Well... seems the fifth class has been revealed!


PSI Operative!

ancapailldorcha

If I may, I was wondering if the more technically minded among ye could tell me what you think the chances of my laptop being able to run this beast. It did handles Mass Effect 3 at it's max resolution at 60fps and EW though I think it might have been less than 60fps.

I'm so tempted to pre-order this but if I can't run it, it'd be a waste of £50.

degrassinoel

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

If I may, I was wondering if the more technically minded among ye could tell me what you think the chances of my laptop being able to run this beast. It did handles Mass Effect 3 at it's max resolution at 60fps and EW though I think it might have been less than 60fps.

I'm so tempted to pre-order this but if I can't run it, it'd be a waste of £50.

Minimum Specs:
OS: Windows® 7, 64-bit - Check
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 2.6 GHz or AMD Phenom 9950 Quad Core 2.6 GHz - not sure, you have an AMD A series A8-3520M / 1.6 GHz which can be maxxed out at 2.5ghz according to that site
Memory: 4 GB RAM - Check
Graphics: 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5770, 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 or better
DirectX: Version 11 - You have a AMD Radeon HD 6520G should be good to go
Storage: 45 GB available space - you'd know better than anyone if you've free space
Sound Card: DirectX compatible sound card - looks like onboard sound, be grand imo


your processor might be a bit under specced for it - but aside from that it looks like it meets the minimum for it to run - but like i say, not 100% sure

Personally i'd wait and see if it's known to run on similar systems before forking out for it - chances are it would actually run quite well anyway, but there's always a chance that if it's below minimum specs you might not get away with it.

Also, sidenote you can ask for a refund from steam if youre buying from them and cant get it to run.

ancapailldorcha

Cheers D! £50 isn't a small amount so I might do that. I think I might have run out of rope on this one though.

degrassinoel

If you're still stuck on a decision, google the cpu and "will it run XCOM2" shortly after launch, there's bound to be people with the same cpu or even identical system as that, that'll either have it working or wont

yimrsg

Cormac... wrote: »

Honestly though, there is probably NOTHING that I could hear that would make me NOT buy this game, so I'll avoid the longer videos so as to not nullify my experience

I know my point earlier was a but ham-handed, but it just seems like a lot of the new enemies and bigger, better, badder and bigger.

I think we all remember those missions were you got dumped in with 12 Mutons early on and were screwed.... but 5 missions later you were able to blow them away no problem :pac:

Have no issues with balance and have a LOT of faith in this studio, just a small thing like giving new recruits 6 HP instead of 4 or 5 would be good, subtle balancing like mentioned above about having good counters.

The counter play in X-Com is SOOOO strong that it makes the game, rising it above say Jagged Alliance where you just used the best guns and that was that..... I mean you could run a team of 4 MECs and 2 Heavies..... but you're gonna have a bad time

The thing is that you could be caught out by Mutons at the start of the month if you didn't prioritise laser over something else, finding a path in the research trees was crucial and it took time to get to know what you should be doing first and what you could put on the long finger and what wasn't worth researching. Having a long term plan of research was crucial as even if you were great in killing all the aliens in missions you were bound to lose out when it came to the airgame and satellites if you were making the wrong calls.

I think rushing laser meant you were giving up on armour research and your airgame but it made short work of baddies on the ground. Mutons were bullet sponges at times compared to thinmen and sectoids so they really were a pain encountering them if you only had ballistic weapons.

The enemies in EU and EW were fairly well introduced balance wise as if you were on top of research you were able to have a counter for them or have enough experienced troops to call on. Eg. chem grenades for berserkers and close combat specialist assaults. Most of the time if you were dealing with single enemy types it was fairly easy relatively speaking, things only got hairy when you had 2 or 3 enemy types messing you about.

If you played the long war mod where you were given a landed troop ship of 40 fairly high level enemies in the second or third month where you were completely outclassed and it was like walking into a meat grinder.

Nody

yimrsg wrote: »

If you played the long war mod where you were given a landed troop ship of 40 fairly high level enemies in the second or third month where you were completely outclassed and it was like walking into a meat grinder.

I gave up my latest EW run when I ran into (with laser weapons) a dual sectopod commander with two psychers and two outsiders (they had 8hp and regenerated 3hp a turn in EW) with in sight of my drop off point (the other side had another pod of two Sectopod commanders). Did I mention Sectopod commanders could not be damaged by anything but sniper weapons or Heavy lasers (normal laser weapons did zero, grenades did zero etc. as part of the buff they got in EW)? At that point I realized I was (again) to far behind

yimrsg

Nody wrote: »

I gave up my latest EW run when I ran into (with laser weapons) a dual sectopod commander with two psychers and two outsiders (they had 8hp and regenerated 3hp a turn in EW) with in sight of my drop off point (the other side had another pod of two Sectopod commanders). Did I mention Sectopod commanders could not be damaged by anything but sniper weapons or Heavy lasers (normal laser weapons did zero, grenades did zero etc. as part of the buff they got in EW)? At that point I realized I was (again) to far behind

That's when you remember you left the gas on at home and bugger back.

You had to kill the sectoids that were mind merging with the sectopods and once dead they'd feedback damage the sectopods who would lose their damage reduction, chem grenade them and they'll suffer more damage too, then you could panic one of them as their will is very poor if you had a psi of the appropriate level or disabling shot it and just concentrate on killing the other.

Heat or shredder rocket as many as you can and then light up the sectoid commanders as they can mind control your guys or mind merge several others and just weather the fire from the outsiders.

I kind of liked those moments when you realise your best team is nowhere near where it's meant to be and you need to go back to the drawing board as you learn more and it forces you to correct your mistakes. Though having to start again after 6 months of game time is a chore.

Digital Solitude

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Cheers D! £50 isn't a small amount so I might do that. I think I might have run out of rope on this one though.

TerrorFirmer might answer that for sure for you, he knows his stuff inside out.

Apologies in advance if he doesn't like people naming him

IMO if a core 2 duo can run it, an A8 can. I'm fairly sure you'd have no bother.

ancapailldorcha

According to System Requirements Lab, I have failed on Video Card and Processor for the minimum spec. Blast.

By the way, what's the story with Long War nowadays? Is it stable and playable? Seems to get updated an awful lot.

degrassinoel

Havent played LW in ages gutstomping cruelty abound, i just dont have the heart for it


In other news, pcgamer have a pretty cool article on XCOM2's full release build, they've got some deadly gifs on there too

Nody

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

According to System Requirements Lab, I have failed on Video Card and Processor for the minimum spec. Blast.

By the way, what's the story with Long War nowadays? Is it stable and playable? Seems to get updated an awful lot.

LW was stable last time i tried it a last month; had one or two CTD but I had that in the normal game as well so don't blame LW for that.

Shiminay

Long War is on version 1.0 as of the 28th of December (I just updated last night).

Kiith

I'm starting a playthrough this weekend, and think i'll leave LW out this time. It's so packed full of new features, that i'd worry the 2nd game will feel like it's missing things i've grown to love (or absolutely, god damn hate :pac:).

On a sidenote, i'm looking forward to seeing that the LW dev team can do with their own game.

Generic Dreadhead

Cormac... wrote: »

Honestly though, there is probably NOTHING that I could hear that would make me NOT buy this game, so I'll avoid the longer videos so as to not nullify my experience

You're so full of s**t Cormac... you watched the whole hour of that video last night and you loved every bit of it!!!

Zillah

degrassinoel wrote: »

That's awesome, g'wan the tricolour.

ancapailldorcha

Would Long War be worth a go do ye think? The website seems to list a lot of additions and changes. Also, it stresses that experienced players ought to choose normal difficulty for their first go.

Shiminay

When the creators of Enemy Unknown/Within are saying that their own product is merely a tutorial for Long War (actual quote), then you know you have to play it.

ancapailldorcha

Shiminay wrote: »

When the creators of Enemy Unknown/Within are saying that their own product is merely a tutorial for Long War (actual quote), then you know you have to play it.

Excellent point. Plus, I think I'm finally bored of it so LW could be a good idea.

Nody

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Would Long War be worth a go do ye think? The website seems to list a lot of additions and changes. Also, it stresses that experienced players ought to choose normal difficulty for their first go.

Long war is basically taking your normal game XCom on classic, kicking you in the balls and having the aliens cheat on you. It's bloody brilliant but be warned it is really, really tough and even save scrumming you WILL lose the first few games because you get to far behind (and in LW if you get behind you are dead, oh and aliens can also invade your base at any time if they have harvested enough resources so no more we can wait with the skeleton key and be safe...).

iggyigauna89

Where is the cheapest place to pick this up? CDkeys or Nuuvem? Side question: can you still use keys from Nuuvem?? Last time I used them was for Rome 2 Total War, and there were no issues (apart from the crappy state of the game itself at release!)

Dair76

iggyigauna89 wrote: »

Where is the cheapest place to pick this up? CDkeys or Nuuvem? Side question: can you still use keys from Nuuvem?? Last time I used them was for Rome 2 Total War, and there were no issues (apart from the crappy state of the game itself at release!)

I was going to buy from Nuuvem, but it wouldn't let me - "item not available in your region". The key may have been grand on release, but didn't want to chance it for the sake of a few euro. Went with CDKeys in the end. Like them on Facebook for an extra 5% off code.

degrassinoel

Breakdown walkthrough of the PSI Soldier class, skip to about 24 mins in to see it in action - this is awesome

Shiminay

Dunno if this was mentioned already, but it pleases me greatly!

https://xcom.com/news/en-long-war-studios-preparing-xcom-2-content-for-launch

Dair76

That's pretty awesome alright!

For those too lazy to click;

We are happy to announce Long War Studios, the developers behind the Long War total-conversion mod for XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM: Enemy Within, has partnered with Firaxis Games and 2K for XCOM 2.

The Long War Studios team, which is comprised of John Lumpkin, Rachel “Amineri” Norman and James “JCLewis” Karlson, is currently hard at work on multiple mods for XCOM 2. These mods are currently slated to be available at launch on February 5, 2016. We’ll have more information about the content of these mods soon.

Kiith

Fair play to Firaxis. They really are pushing the mod support. We're going to see some fantastic mods i'd say.

degrassinoel

Day one mods, literally straight off the bat according to that ^^

I'll be going vanilla for starters but it's nice to know that there will be endgame whenever i'm ready to roll with it

Long War doesn't sound enjoyable tbh

Dair76

Deleted User wrote: »

Long War doesn't sound enjoyable tbh

:P

degrassinoel

Deleted User wrote: »

Long War doesn't sound enjoyable tbh

Funny ye should say that, coz i hated it with enemy unknown too - that being said, i know they've put some colossal work into that mod and it's extremely popular too. Just not my cup of tea, too cruel, too unforgiving That's not to say i haven't had the urge to go back and try again, ...and again... but maybe i'm a glutton for punishment.

Feck it though, it's a free mod on day one from an established modteam in partnership with firaxis - if firaxis put their name to it, there's gotta be something in it worth seeing.

Nody

Deleted User wrote: »

Long War doesn't sound enjoyable tbh

LW adds complexity and ramps up the difficulty; that's it's exact purpose and in essence it's adding an additional difficulty level to the game. That's the beauty of it though; if all you want is to play through on Normal and go to the next game it's not for you; if you want a real challenge in a game you love though it's a great addition (this is coming from someone who's failed to complete LW six times so far...).

ancapailldorcha

Nody wrote: »

LW adds complexity and ramps up the difficulty; that's it's exact purpose and in essence it's adding an additional difficulty level to the game. That's the beauty of it though; if all you want is to play through on Normal and go to the next game it's not for you; if you want a real challenge in a game you love though it's a great addition (this is coming from someone who's failed to complete LW six times so far...).

I'm quite liking it. I put it on normal as that's what the site said to do repeatedly no matter how much of an XCOM veteran one is. The fatigue system is brilliant but I think they've ruined rockets as they're almost impossible to use now.

fad460

XCOM 2 will be launching on Feb 5, 2016!

Nody

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I'm quite liking it. I put it on normal as that's what the site said to do repeatedly no matter how much of an XCOM veteran one is. The fatigue system is brilliant but I think they've ruined rockets as they're almost impossible to use now.

Well they are no longer sniper rifles with AOE damage :P

But I think the biggest difficulty is the break up of heavy (LMG) and double tap for when you meet mech... And honestly I could use a "Easy" mode (Normal is classic on the original X-Com which is quite brutal); to date I'll usually fail with in two months of meeting Sectopod commanders (their damn armor is killing me).

Vicxas

Absolutely cannot wait for next friday, gonna be amazing!

Kiith

Just about finished my first Ironman playthrough this weekend. Only did normal, as i'm not very good at the game, but it was enjoyable. Lost a few soldiers (mostly recruits, though one Sargent Sniper ), and the UK and Russia withdrew support (1 mission where i didn't choose their country, and they both went from 2-3 to 5 star panic :mad:), but it's been pretty smooth sailing for a while now. Got the Firestorm early on, and never lost a satellite.

As for XCom 2, i'm really looking forward to it. I'm curious to see what sort of abilities the rest of the characters get, as it seems like the enemies are stupidly overpowered this time around. Everything looks bloody massive.

Kiith

Just about finished my first Ironman playthrough this weekend. Only did normal, as i'm not very good at the game, but it was enjoyable. Lost a few soldiers (mostly recruits, though one Sargent Sniper ), and the UK and Russia withdrew support (1 mission where i didn't choose their country, and they both went from 2-3 to 5 star panic :mad:), but it's been pretty smooth sailing for a while now. Got the Firestorm early on, and never lost a satellite.

As for XCom 2, i'm really looking forward to it. I'm curious to see what sort of abilities the rest of the characters get, as it seems like the enemies are stupidly overpowered this time around. Everything looks bloody massive.

ancapailldorcha

Nody wrote: »

Well they are no longer sniper rifles with AOE damage :P

But I think the biggest difficulty is the break up of heavy (LMG) and double tap for when you meet mech... And honestly I could use a "Easy" mode (Normal is classic on the original X-Com which is quite brutal); to date I'll usually fail with in two months of meeting Sectopod commanders (their damn armor is killing me).

They were very accurate in vanilla though you only ever had a few at most. LW seems to have marathon on by default so hopefully it gets a bit harder. I love the idea of having a squadsight heavy though. Some very cool ideas on display here.

Kiith wrote: »

As for XCom 2, i'm really looking forward to it. I'm curious to see what sort of abilities the rest of the characters get, as it seems like the enemies are stupidly overpowered this time around. Everything looks bloody massive.

I'm confident that Firaxis will find a good balance. I suspect that the difficulty will go up a tad as I suspect that it'll mainly be XCOM vets who buy this. This might be the game that finally gets me to actually build a PC, something I've wanted to do for years.

ShadowHearth

X-com expansion Iron man Hard mode is the only game that got me in to pure Nerd Rage. I actually threw my keyboard... Cant wait to play X-com 2.


Meanwhile while you wait lads, I would strongly suggest give Darkest Dungeon a go. Keyboards will fly... Thanks **** its no on iOs as misses ipad would fly across the room and I will have to buy her it again...

degrassinoel

Less than a week to go now

Interesting interview here regarding the game, and the amount of info released and withheld. Apparently the campaign which has been heavily redacted by Firaxis and NDA'd to bits by the copious preview streams will be a lot more involving than the original.

I have my own theory on why they've released so much info, and it's as simple as them delaying the release from November til February, it's Firaxis' way of keeping people interested with a steady release of new info. The hype factor, a lot of magazine sites are calling it the most anticipated game of 2016.. not sure i agree, but i've been dying to play this since last summer's official announcement that it was infact in development and near completion.

6 More Days!

strelok

bloody hell, that soon? that kinda snuck up

degrassinoel

it's been dragging in for me Strelok, absolutely dragging in


anyways, there's a pax south panel on tonight at around half six here which will no doubt be on youtube fairly shortly afterwards

The last big show before release, might have a surprise or two in there and maybe spoilers, though i highly doubt it at this late stage.

degrassinoel

heh, i was wrong, there are spoilers in that, the start of the game cinematic - but mostly on the SDK & Modding.
The three free mods at the start look good

- SMG's. Less damage, mobility bonus and harder to spot from concealment.
- Muton Centurion. Kind of a leader for aliens, looks like a Krogan from Mass Effect.
- Officer subclass. Trainable for any soldier class i think, limited to one per mission. Acts as a buff class