Poll: XCOM 2 is Nigh - Prepare Your RNG Holes

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

first off...holy fuck balls, that fanmade trailer was extremely well done, better than most official trailers out there.

1. Are you planning on getting XCOM 2 for launch? Yes? No? Why? Why not?
2. What difficulty level are you planning to undertake? Easy? Normal? Commander? Legendary? Or whatever the Long War sadists have cooked up?
3. Anything about the game that worries/disappoints you?

1) Probably not pre-ordering it, maybe the first week or two...not that I have anything against it, I'm just really utilizing the time I have in my subscription for TOR right now, so I don't want to bite into x-com 2 until it has my full attention.

2) easy or normal the first playthrough, once I get my bearings on it and if I really like it, I'll do another playthrough on a harder difficulty, that's just how I am on pretty much all games, I just don't personally enjoy getting killed or wasting more time the first time through a game playing it on a harder difficulty.

3) TBH...not a damn thing so far, besides it being open to modding (haven't heard anything bad about that yet? so I can only assume it'll be mod friendly, at least relatively compared to EU)

It seems foolish of Firaxis to launch their game so close to Fire Emblem.

I'm going to throw my support in with Guppy on this one, out of the strategy fans I know off hand, they don't have a 3DS so they really don't care for FE, however they all have a pc so they are stoked for X-com 2, might not get it the first day, but probably in the first week or two. Among most of my friends, platform typically comes first before genre, since very very few of us have more than one or two platforms that we each individually own, so most games that aren't on that platform get ignored.

 

[Zhukov]

Yeah but it doesn't have an explicit end point. Like, I'm pretty sure you could cheese/cheat your way to victory for years. From the sounds of things XCOM 2 had a hard, explicit fail state that can creep up on you. I always hated timed trials in games and the only thing I hate more than timed trials are trials whose timers are hidden. I don't expect a "180 days until alien forces achieve victory" timer on the top corner of the map but I do hope they've got enough foresight to give warnings about it being impending.

Actually, from what I've seen you do in fact get a timer at the top of the screen.

It's a progress bar rather than a timer though. Like the panic meters in EU.

The idea is that the aliens are working on some kind of project, details unknown. Every now and again they build a facility or make a breakthrough and fill a section of the meter. You can take missions to prevent their breakthroughs, steal their research, take out VIPs and trash their facilities, all of which sets them back on the meter.

I don't know if you can stall them indefinitely. (Personally I don't know why the hell you'd want to. I found the length of EU/EW to be pushing it a bit. Those last couple of months were always a slog.)

I also don't know if the project meter being filled is an instant fail like in EU or if it just triggers a final mission that will stomp you if you're not adequately prepared. Or something else entirely.

 

[Recusant]

1. Goodness, no. Sitting in a locked box not five feet from where I now sit is a copy of Master of Orion 3. I hold on to it solely to remind myself never to buy a game without waiting for post-release reviews again. Those disc envelopes are atop another, smaller locked box which contains a copy of Spore, which I hold on to solely to remind myself that sometimes, even I ignore the lessons of the past and do stupid things. But only sometimes. I remember the stab in the back that was Civilization 5. I remember the sledgehammer to the groin that was Beyond Earth. The Firaxis of today is not the Firaxis of 1999.

2. I'm baffled by the bold declarations so many of you make about starting Ironman games on release day. Even assuming patches don't break your save files (a big assumption), do you really not forsee bugs causing hideous problems?

You do know you can just CHOOSE to not reload an earlier save, right?

3. Though I've avoided press coverage- quite a bit. I have been (and indeed continue to be) a harsh critic of the remake's failings and limitations, but I hold that no one who played both it and the original and honestly and fairly evaluated both can see it as anything other than a passionate effort made by people who genuinely loved the original and wanted to bring an updated version to a more modern audience. You may feel they failed to do so- I lean in that direction myself. But it's about as far from a soulless cash-in as you can get.

I understand (note that I don't say "agree with") every change made- with one exception. Why, oh why, can you not shoot and then move? This doesn't make any sense in either mechanical or story terms. I have faith that the developers were willing to learn from the failures and successes of the last game. This is my test, petty as it may seem. If they have given us the ability to shoot and then move, or given us a reasonable explanation why we can't, I will see that they have realized "yeah, that didn't make any sense" and buy the game with confidence. If not, then they've either grown complacent or negligent, and that kind of attitude is going to be reflected in the game's quality. In short, I'll pass.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

1. Are you planning on getting XCOM 2 for launch? Yes? No? Why? Why not?
2. What difficulty level are you planning to undertake? Easy? Normal? Commander? Legendary? Or whatever the Long War sadists have cooked up?
3. Anything about the game that worries/disappoints you?

1. Nah. Too scary for me, plus I've got The Witness to play so no time to waste on XCOM.
2. Normal is always the boss.
3. Yeah it looks like something that's interesting for a few hours and then gets repetitive and boring.

 

[Dragonlayer]

1) An incredibly generous friend bought the pre-order with all extra goodies for me on my birthday, so I'll be jumping right into it come Friday/Saturday (fucking Australian time-zones). I am a little worried that it's going to be chunky to play, as my otherwise excellent laptop is *just* below the minimum processor requirements, but I'm prepared to suffer a low graphics lag-fest if I have to. If it doesn't work, well then I'm going to punch whoever decided to make it PC-only in the face. Several times.
2) Normal of course: Enemy Unknown was merciless at times and that was when XCOM was a pan-global mega-organisation. I dread to think of taking on ADVENT at anything higher then normal with a freaking resistance movement.
3) I am extremely disappointed at the lack of an in-depth Viper dating mechanic, with extreme gratuitous nudity and sex.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Reviews are trickling out. 22 up on Metacritic now, at an average of 91. Only real outlier was a 75 from EGM blasting the game's difficulty for being too high.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/xcom-2/critic-reviews

 

[Eddie the head]

I'll likely get it at some point. I enjoyed the first one more that I thought I would. I'll likely play it on normal or hard(whatever they're calling it). And I'm not looking enough into it to know if I don't like something.

On a slightly unrealted note dose anyone know where the nicknames for the soldiers came form in the first XCOM? I was playing it earlier and I got a support with the nickname "Bull" and I'm wondering if they are referencing this guy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_%22Bull%22_Allen

I mean supports are basically medics and this guy saved a bunch of people. I don't know if it's just a happy coincidence or a full on reference.

 

[Zhukov]

On a slightly unrealted note dose anyone know where the nicknames for the soldiers came form in the first XCOM? I was playing it earlier and I got a support with the nickname "Bull" and I'm wondering if they are referencing this guy.

They're pulled at random from list.

Separate lists for each soldier class. So heavy's would get nicknames like "Lockdown" and "Nuke", assaults would get things like "Pitbull" and "Blitz" and so on.

It was possible to modify the list. People would make it so that their rookies would come with celebrity names, or the names of their friends and family, that sort of thing.

The sequel has a full fledged character list feature.

 

[lionsprey]

1 no, mostly because i don't have a machine capable of running it yet.
2 if i do get it im playing on normal and without ironman because im not hardcore enough.
3 shooting and seeing through intact walls always annoyed me but ive heard its better. but i will refuse to buy the game until they fix the list of Swedish names because its disrespectful to Danes, Swedes and Norwegians and it annoyed me to no end when playing the last game.

 

[Souplex]

It seems foolish of Firaxis to launch their game so close to Fire Emblem.

I'm going to throw my support in with Guppy on this one, out of the strategy fans I know off hand, they don't have a 3DS so they really don't care for FE, however they all have a pc so they are stoked for X-com 2, might not get it the first day, but probably in the first week or two. Among most of my friends, platform typically comes first before genre, since very very few of us have more than one or two platforms that we each individually own, so most games that aren't on that platform get ignored.

...I'm confuzzled. There are gamers who don't have 3DSes? How do they smash the bros?

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

It seems foolish of Firaxis to launch their game so close to Fire Emblem.

I'm going to throw my support in with Guppy on this one, out of the strategy fans I know off hand, they don't have a 3DS so they really don't care for FE, however they all have a pc so they are stoked for X-com 2, might not get it the first day, but probably in the first week or two. Among most of my friends, platform typically comes first before genre, since very very few of us have more than one or two platforms that we each individually own, so most games that aren't on that platform get ignored.

...I'm confuzzled. There are gamers who don't have 3DSes? How do they smash the bros?

I almost bought a 2DS, but I didn't like that it didn't fold, and I don't really care for the price when I'd only play probably a couple games on it (I don't have travel/downtime like alot of people do when they use their 3DS's, so it wouldn't be played enough to probably justify it.)

I'm assuming you're referring to super smash bros? Usually someone among my friends or family has a wii/wiiU lying around somewhere, so we just borrow that and hookup 4-8 controllers when we want to play, and super smash is a fun party game, but not anything we go out of our way to play alone/consistently.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Total Biscuit's WTF is XCOM 2 is up.


Some excerpts:

"XCOM 2 is XCOM dialed up to not 11, dialed up to 12."

"As a platform for new ideas/DLC this game is going to have a massive shelf life."

"XCOM 2 is a triumph of turn based strategy."

"It's excellent. Astonishingly excellent. A brilliant improvement."

"If you liked the original, get this immediately."

"I love it to death."

"Excellent. Outstanding. Fantastic."

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Total Biscuit's WTF is XCOM 2 is up.

from what I saw, I gotta agree, that looks like xcom dialed up to 12, familiar, yet expanded upon in great ways.

The concealment system has 2000 thumbs up from me personally, but if there are less obvious cons to it I'd like to hear.

 

[Jack Action]

Err, given the fact that for some reason Firaxis felt the need to specify that the first 3 Long War Team mods will be, and I quote, "free of charge," does this mean we're about to see the comeback of paid mods?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Err, given the fact that for some reason Firaxis felt the need to specify that the first 3 Long War Team mods will be, and I quote, "free of charge," does this mean we're about to see the comeback of paid mods?

As per Reddit:

The two primary sources of mods, Nexus and the Steam Workshop, do not allow paid mods.

Unless either of those things change, the majority of mods will remain free.

That said, unless a clause of the EULA specifically states that all mods must be free, I would not be surprised if a few mods did wind up being paid.

But any paid mods from the Long War team or Firaxis themselves, would just be DLC.

I wouldn't worry. It's just phrasing.

And I'd have happily paid for Long War whatever the case. That mod was ridiculous.

 

[Jack Action]

As per Reddit:

The two primary sources of mods, Nexus and the Steam Workshop, do not allow paid mods.

Unless either of those things change, the majority of mods will remain free.

That said, unless a clause of the EULA specifically states that all mods must be free, I would not be surprised if a few mods did wind up being paid.

But any paid mods from the Long War team or Firaxis themselves, would just be DLC.

I wouldn't worry. It's just phrasing.

And I'd have happily paid for Long War whatever the case. That mod was ridiculous.

Oh, good. Thanks. I probably should've googled before posting that.

 

[Kathinka]

Ironman Impossible all day erry day, biatches! Just like the predecessor.

Man I hope they one day bring back some of the things that made the original so great.
I hope it isn't again done in a way that you have your core troops, and one bodged mission pretty much dooms your campaign. I want to shiver and be scared for the safety of my beloved soldiers, not just be forced to restart after I take 3 or 4 casualties.

 

[scotth266]

Does anybody know exactly what the preorder bonus (the Resistance Warrior Pack) consists of exactly? I dislike preordering immensely and want to make sure I'm not missing out on much in terms of cosmetic options.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I literally unfollowed the XCOM facebook page to avoid hearing too much about it, because I want it to still be fresh for me when I play it. I actually forgot it was coming out so soon!

I've already preordered it to get the minor discount the humble store was offering, as well as the additional customization stuff.

I'm gonna be playing it like I did the last game. Normal Ironman mode for the win!