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Xcom 2

SocialD

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XCOM is a franchise I liked from the first series of games back in the 90s to the reboot a couple years ago.
XCOM 2 coming out at the end of this week looks great. I'm looking forward to it.

some good trailers and gameplay vids -
‘XCOM 2’: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com
 
XCOM is a franchise I liked from the first series of games back in the 90s to the reboot a couple years ago.
XCOM 2 coming out at the end of this week looks great. I'm looking forward to it.

some good trailers and gameplay vids -
‘XCOM 2’: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com

I loved XCOM:EU and its expansion. The Long War mod was incredibly well done, albeit suffering from being.. well, too long.

XCOM 2 looks amazing as well. Incredible mod support, procedural map generations, stealth mechanics. Going to be a lot of fun. Have you watched Beaglerush's streams of the preview build? If not, you should.

Twitch

It's streaming right now, actually!

I wasn't a big a fan of the original series. Sometimes giving the random number generator too much leeway is a problem, like getting your entire team obliterated the second you step out of the skyranger. There aren't really circumstances in which I will find that fun.
 
I loved XCOM:EU and its expansion. The Long War mod was incredibly well done, albeit suffering from being.. well, too long.

XCOM 2 looks amazing as well. Incredible mod support, procedural map generations, stealth mechanics. Going to be a lot of fun. Have you watched Beaglerush's streams of the preview build? If not, you should.

Twitch

It's streaming right now, actually!

I wasn't a big a fan of the original series. Sometimes giving the random number generator too much leeway is a problem, like getting your entire team obliterated the second you step out of the skyranger. There aren't really circumstances in which I will find that fun.

Lol yea I remember that. you step out of the ranger and an enemy tosses a grenade right at the opening or something.
XCOM 2 has a very good metacritic rating. I went ahead and preordered last night. wish I could do the download now so its done and I can play Friday.
I don't pay the launch price for too many games anymore but I thought this was worth it.
 
Lol yea I remember that. you step out of the ranger and an enemy tosses a grenade right at the opening or something.
XCOM 2 has a very good metacritic rating. I went ahead and preordered last night. wish I could do the download now so its done and I can play Friday.
I don't pay the launch price for too many games anymore but I thought this was worth it.

Greenman Gaming often runs discounts, I got XCOM2 for 25% off.

Preloading started today, mine's finished!
 
XCOM is a franchise I liked from the first series of games back in the 90s to the reboot a couple years ago.
XCOM 2 coming out at the end of this week looks great. I'm looking forward to it.

some good trailers and gameplay vids -
‘XCOM 2’: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com

I like playing Bethesda games ( Fallout 3 and 4 ) which are RPG.

A promo of XCom2 popped up on Steam so I looked into it.

It's described as a " Turn Based " game. Just curious what are the distinctions between " Turn Based " and RPG ?
 
I like playing Bethesda games ( Fallout 3 and 4 ) which are RPG.

A promo of XCom2 popped up on Steam so I looked into it.

It's described as a " Turn Based " game. Just curious what are the distinctions between " Turn Based " and RPG ?

A turn based game ... is turn based? All actions take place sequentially in a discrete order determined by the ruleset. The game will wait on the player for each command.
 
Don't know about XCOM 2 but XCOM 1 is really great. I don't think my computer will run it though unfortunately =/

Think of it like a game of chess. The map is split into tiles. You control a number of soldiers (4 or 5 if I remember) and every turn you get to choose what move that soldier will make. That could be shooting at an enemy, moving, or 'overwatch', basically hunkering down and being on guard in case an enemy comes in sight. There are more options depending on each soldiers class. Once you've made the moves for your 4 guys, the aliens then move their guys.

There's a gameplay video here:
https://youtu.be/5UIMUXt5gPs?t=1391
 
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Don't know about XCOM 2 but XCOM 1 is really great. I don't think my computer will run it though unfortunately =/

Think of it like a game of chess. The map is split into tiles. You control a number of soldiers (4 or 5 if I remember) and every turn you get to choose what move that soldier will make. That could be shooting at an enemy, moving, or 'overwatch', basically hunkering down and being on guard in case an enemy comes in sight. There are more options depending on each soldiers class. Once you've made the moves for your 4 guys, the aliens then move their guys.

There's a gameplay video here:
https://youtu.be/5UIMUXt5gPs?t=1391

Right now, basically no computer runs XCOM 2 properly. There's some massive optimization problems with anti-aliasing. Turn that setting way down and things work out alright. Still a ways to go before that's all settled, but I expect in the end it wont be that much rougher on a machine than Xcom 1.

It's a Firaxis game, so naturally it launched with some serious bugs. The worst of the bunch they've patched out so far: attempting to load any save file with burrowed cryssalids crashes. First response: ugh that really sucks for anyone playing Ironman. Second response: Wait. Cryssalids can ****ing burrow now? Oh god why?

The rest are the same we saw the first time around. Strange line of sight errors, certain abilities not always working right, etc. (One Grenadier class ability sometimes... lights your own guy's tile on fire. Whups)

If it were any other game, I'd find these bugs and performance issues unforgivable. But XCOM 2 is just so freaking good that I can look past it. And the modding support is making things even better. Some of these bugs are getting fixed faster by the players than the developers!

I love the concealment mechanics. You can set some pretty amazing ambushes. Procedural map generation means you wont be running into the formulaic "oh, this map again. Enemy pods will be here and here and here. Again" thing we saw in EU.
 
Right now, basically no computer runs XCOM 2 properly. There's some massive optimization problems with anti-aliasing. Turn that setting way down and things work out alright. Still a ways to go before that's all settled, but I expect in the end it wont be that much rougher on a machine than Xcom 1.

It's a Firaxis game, so naturally it launched with some serious bugs. The worst of the bunch they've patched out so far: attempting to load any save file with burrowed cryssalids crashes. First response: ugh that really sucks for anyone playing Ironman. Second response: Wait. Cryssalids can ****ing burrow now? Oh god why?

The rest are the same we saw the first time around. Strange line of sight errors, certain abilities not always working right, etc. (One Grenadier class ability sometimes... lights your own guy's tile on fire. Whups)

If it were any other game, I'd find these bugs and performance issues unforgivable. But XCOM 2 is just so freaking good that I can look past it. And the modding support is making things even better. Some of these bugs are getting fixed faster by the players than the developers!

I love the concealment mechanics. You can set some pretty amazing ambushes. Procedural map generation means you wont be running into the formulaic "oh, this map again. Enemy pods will be here and here and here. Again" thing we saw in EU.

Oooooh it's procedurally generated? One of the reasons I never got through Enemy Within DLC was because I bought it after I completed the base game for the first time and had to replay everything again, which I couldn't be bothered with.

XCOM's the kind of game I don't mind playing on the lowest settings. To me it's not about the graphics at all (although the zoomed in close ups do look cool) but the gamplay in general. Unfortuantely, since playing XCOM I've switched to a macbook and I've heard it's pretty much unplayable with integrated graphics. I don't want to drop full price on a game I don't know will run, so I'll wait until it shows up on sale or in a humble bundle and give it a look at. Might replay XCOM 1 in the meantime though :mrgreen:
 
Oooooh it's procedurally generated? One of the reasons I never got through Enemy Within DLC was because I bought it after I completed the base game for the first time and had to replay everything again, which I couldn't be bothered with.

XCOM's the kind of game I don't mind playing on the lowest settings. To me it's not about the graphics at all (although the zoomed in close ups do look cool) but the gamplay in general. Unfortuantely, since playing XCOM I've switched to a macbook and I've heard it's pretty much unplayable with integrated graphics. I don't want to drop full price on a game I don't know will run, so I'll wait until it shows up on sale or in a humble bundle and give it a look at. Might replay XCOM 1 in the meantime though :mrgreen:

Yeah, the maps are procedurally generated. They're not totally random, you don't end up with skyscrapers planted in the middle of a dirt road or anything. Helps with the replayability a bit. Additionally, the strategic layer is a bit more randomized than EU: there's a similar continent bonus system, but the continent bonuses are randomized each playthrough, and there are more bonuses available than there are continents. (so a particular bonus might not even be around at all) The Advanced Warfare Center gives troopers a chance at a random bonus perk at level up, so your sniper might get a bonus skill from the Grenadier perk tree, giving a little more individuality. Some of the bonus perks aren't even from any of the classes: one of my guys got Lightning Reflexes, which works the same as in Enemy Unknown. It's not on any class skill list in XCOM 2. (although an overwatch-bypass exists on the Ranger skill list)

The one thing I really hated about Enemy Unknown unfortunately followed us to XCOM 2: the RNG cheating in your favor. in EU's normal difficulty, there were hidden bonuses to aim after your guys missed shots, and hidden penalties to enemy aim after enemies hit you. Also, if too many enemies were engaging you, extra guys simply wouldn't attack you. And any particular alien on any given turn had some chance to just do something stupid like step out of cover for no reason. Bleh. "Classic" difficulty contained no such boosts.

In XCOM 2, not only are these RNG cheats present, they exist on the equivalent to Classic difficulty too! Only the highest difficulty doesn't cheat a little for you. :/

But I'm the sort of guy who made it through Ironman/Impossible difficulty, so clearly I'm just a glutton for punishment.
 
Yeah, the maps are procedurally generated. They're not totally random, you don't end up with skyscrapers planted in the middle of a dirt road or anything. Helps with the replayability a bit. Additionally, the strategic layer is a bit more randomized than EU: there's a similar continent bonus system, but the continent bonuses are randomized each playthrough, and there are more bonuses available than there are continents. (so a particular bonus might not even be around at all) The Advanced Warfare Center gives troopers a chance at a random bonus perk at level up, so your sniper might get a bonus skill from the Grenadier perk tree, giving a little more individuality. Some of the bonus perks aren't even from any of the classes: one of my guys got Lightning Reflexes, which works the same as in Enemy Unknown. It's not on any class skill list in XCOM 2. (although an overwatch-bypass exists on the Ranger skill list)

The one thing I really hated about Enemy Unknown unfortunately followed us to XCOM 2: the RNG cheating in your favor. in EU's normal difficulty, there were hidden bonuses to aim after your guys missed shots, and hidden penalties to enemy aim after enemies hit you. Also, if too many enemies were engaging you, extra guys simply wouldn't attack you. And any particular alien on any given turn had some chance to just do something stupid like step out of cover for no reason. Bleh. "Classic" difficulty contained no such boosts.

In XCOM 2, not only are these RNG cheats present, they exist on the equivalent to Classic difficulty too! Only the highest difficulty doesn't cheat a little for you. :/

But I'm the sort of guy who made it through Ironman/Impossible difficulty, so clearly I'm just a glutton for punishment.

I'm all for high difficulties in most games. I'll play 1999/1998 mode on bioshock, grounded on last of us etc. All the old school PC games I used to play (system shock, deus ex etc) prepared me for that.

But after going through XCOM on ironman and losing half my squad to bull**** misses I decided that no saving on an RNG driven game was not for me :blowup:

I applaud you for your persistence lol.
 
Right now, basically no computer runs XCOM 2 properly. There's some massive optimization problems with anti-aliasing. Turn that setting way down and things work out alright. Still a ways to go before that's all settled, but I expect in the end it wont be that much rougher on a machine than Xcom 1.

It's a Firaxis game, so naturally it launched with some serious bugs. The worst of the bunch they've patched out so far: attempting to load any save file with burrowed cryssalids crashes. First response: ugh that really sucks for anyone playing Ironman. Second response: Wait. Cryssalids can ****ing burrow now? Oh god why?

The rest are the same we saw the first time around. Strange line of sight errors, certain abilities not always working right, etc. (One Grenadier class ability sometimes... lights your own guy's tile on fire. Whups)

If it were any other game, I'd find these bugs and performance issues unforgivable. But XCOM 2 is just so freaking good that I can look past it. And the modding support is making things even better. Some of these bugs are getting fixed faster by the players than the developers!

I love the concealment mechanics. You can set some pretty amazing ambushes. Procedural map generation means you wont be running into the formulaic "oh, this map again. Enemy pods will be here and here and here. Again" thing we saw in EU.

For all the bitching ive seen on the steam xcom 2 forum about performance issues I have had very little myself. the game has kinda froze on me like 2 times and its been kinda slow a few times but it runs fine.
Ive only found one bug which was when a viper pulled and coiled up around my ranger she used bladestorm and killed it but it still had her kneeled down with her arms pinned to her sides like she was still bound. for the remainder of that battle when she would move she would just instantly be at the destination instead of seeing her move.
 
For all the bitching ive seen on the steam xcom 2 forum about performance issues I have had very little myself. the game has kinda froze on me like 2 times and its been kinda slow a few times but it runs fine.
Ive only found one bug which was when a viper pulled and coiled up around my ranger she used bladestorm and killed it but it still had her kneeled down with her arms pinned to her sides like she was still bound. for the remainder of that battle when she would move she would just instantly be at the destination instead of seeing her move.

I've discovered that griping on gaming forums is kind of a game unto itself. If a developer sank a trillion dollars into making the greatest game ever and released it free for any format you played on then gave you candy just for being logged in people would still bitch.
 
I've discovered that griping on gaming forums is kind of a game unto itself. If a developer sank a trillion dollars into making the greatest game ever and released it free for any format you played on then gave you candy just for being logged in people would still bitch.

that pretty much sums it up yes.
Xcom 2 is pretty demanding performance wise. I do have a bit of an older vid card. Its a GTX 660 with 2gb vid ram and its overclocked. Any other game I can still generally play on high/very high settings. Xcom 2 is medium high.
Granted the vid card is my weakest component I do have 16gb ram running and an amd fx 8350 both overclocked a bit and an SSD.
Ive seen xcom using about 5gb ram so its pretty demanding.
 
that pretty much sums it up yes.
Xcom 2 is pretty demanding performance wise. I do have a bit of an older vid card. Its a GTX 660 with 2gb vid ram and its overclocked. Any other game I can still generally play on high/very high settings. Xcom 2 is medium high.
Granted the vid card is my weakest component I do have 16gb ram running and an amd fx 8350 both overclocked a bit and an SSD.
Ive seen xcom using about 5gb ram so its pretty demanding.


I can run Shadows of Mordor on Ultra settings, 1440p, better than XCOM 2 on medium settings at 1080p. Until I turn off anti-aliasing in XCOM2, anyway. It's not so much demanding as it is just broken. They've already released one patch working on the performance issues, I bet it will get much, much better with time.
 
I can run Shadows of Mordor on Ultra settings, 1440p, better than XCOM 2 on medium settings at 1080p. Until I turn off anti-aliasing in XCOM2, anyway. It's not so much demanding as it is just broken. They've already released one patch working on the performance issues, I bet it will get much, much better with time.

well xcom 2 does have a bit higher recommended system requirements but I get your point.
LIke I said I don't have a big issue myself. I think those that are at the min system requirements area though are going to really struggle. if it uses about 5gb ram at medium ish settings you would have to bottom out your settings pretty much to run it with 4gb
 
I tried getting into the XCom remake but after a couple of missions I quit. It's too linear and holds your hand. Not enough freedom unlike the Original XCOM (which I still play occasionally).
 
I tried getting into the XCom remake but after a couple of missions I quit. It's too linear and holds your hand. Not enough freedom unlike the Original XCOM (which I still play occasionally).

On the other hand, no pile of bodies on the skyranger ramp.
 
Never had that happen to me. :mrgreen:

If you want a taste of the classic X-COM game you might want to check this out: Xenonauts ? Strategic Planetary Defence Simulator | Xenonauts ? an indie spiritual successor to X-Com!

Sectoid with blaster launcher in view of ramp. Rookie steps out. Crew nuked. Gear destroyed. That's the moment I thought to myself: "Why would anyone bother with this awful, awful game?"

OG XCOM gave zero ****s about being fair.

XCOM2 seems to have upped the environment destruction a bit:
https://gfycat.com/AstonishingBrilliantEel
Edit for those unfamiliar: the slow-mo action shots are Overwatch shots, troops set up to take a reaction shot if an enemy moves. The tall pinkish alien fleeing in the back is a Sectoid apparently disoriented by a flashbang or something, so it's fleeing. The overwatch shots in XCOM2 will sequence like that, so you don't waste a whole team's reaction fire on a single enemy killing it four times over. Plus it looks cool.

...in this case it went bad, though.
 
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Sectoid with blaster launcher in view of ramp. Rookie steps out. Crew nuked. Gear destroyed. That's the moment I thought to myself: "Why would anyone bother with this awful, awful game?"

OG XCOM gave zero ****s about being fair.

XCOM2 seems to have upped the environment destruction a bit:
https://gfycat.com/AstonishingBrilliantEel
Edit for those unfamiliar: the slow-mo action shots are Overwatch shots, troops set up to take a reaction shot if an enemy moves. The tall pinkish alien fleeing in the back is a Sectoid apparently disoriented by a flashbang or something, so it's fleeing. The overwatch shots in XCOM2 will sequence like that, so you don't waste a whole team's reaction fire on a single enemy killing it four times over. Plus it looks cool.

...in this case it went bad, though.

I always made it a habit to jump out from the upper ramp across the side of the Skyranger. Although there were a few times when my squaddies were killed when they bunched up together. The best tactic was to keep them spread out but within visual range of each other. :cool:
 
Never had that happen to me. :mrgreen:

If you want a taste of the classic X-COM game you might want to check this out: Xenonauts ? Strategic Planetary Defence Simulator | Xenonauts ? an indie spiritual successor to X-Com!

You can get the the old classic xcom bundle on steam for dirt cheap. it has Xcom UFO Defense and Xcom Terror from the deep and 3 or 4 other xcom titles I only liked those first 2 really.
Xenonaughts does look a lot like the original though your right there.
 
XCom2 is pretty good. It's too tempting to keep loading your last saved game.

I think my favorite is the ranger. You can keep one concealed to scout out the second batch of enemy patrols.

Sharpshooters seem disappointing. When you get that area-attack ability, your sniper rifle only has 3 bullets and they often all miss. It should be ridiculously awesome.

Specialists are great to have one for hacking and healing, but they're more circumstantially useful.
 
XCom2 is pretty good. It's too tempting to keep loading your last saved game.

I think my favorite is the ranger. You can keep one concealed to scout out the second batch of enemy patrols.

Sharpshooters seem disappointing. When you get that area-attack ability, your sniper rifle only has 3 bullets and they often all miss. It should be ridiculously awesome.

Specialists are great to have one for hacking and healing, but they're more circumstantially useful.

Give the sniper an extended magazine to improve Killzone effectiveness. Even with only three shots, Killzone is a fantastic concealment opener because it allows you to activate an alien pod on their turn with your whole team on overwatch. Your whole team fires, aliens take their free scramble to cover, and then you get an entire round to clean up what's left. The drawback is if the pod decides not to move that round, you waste the attempt and killzone goes on cooldown. I think the accuracy issue is that Killzone isn't technically "Overwatch (Concealed)," so you get the usual overwatch aim penalties. Perception PCSs and Scopes can, of course, improve this.

Sniper build sharpshooters definitely feel weak, but I think that's just because we're used to the comically overpowered Enemy Unknown version. Gunslinger builds hold their own nicely, and a lot of people seem to prefer them over the Sniper build because many of the game's missions have short timers so mobility is important.

I don't usually bother with medic-spec'd specialists. Dead enemies don't shoot back. Best defense is a good offense! Although I'll carry a medkit in case I need to stabilize a trooper.
 
XCom2 is pretty good. It's too tempting to keep loading your last saved game.

I think my favorite is the ranger. You can keep one concealed to scout out the second batch of enemy patrols.

Sharpshooters seem disappointing. When you get that area-attack ability, your sniper rifle only has 3 bullets and they often all miss. It should be ridiculously awesome.

Specialists are great to have one for hacking and healing, but they're more circumstantially useful.


I just finished the game on regular difficulty the other day. I give it a run on a harder difficulty some time soon.

Sharpshooters can be nasty nasty. once you get the improved weapon you have 4 rounds base in the sniper rifle. honestly though a plasma pistol with lightning hands and faceoff can do plenty.
ive killed 4 enemies in one turn with a sharpshooter.
 
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