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[Morokh]

Yes, it's a choice when you first launch the game. I don't think the original campaign has the performance improvements from the expansion though.

Ok, thanks I want to do another playthrough with Shen's gift before I do the expansion cause I've heard they nerfed the special aliens for it

 

[bobnowhere]

Finally just got my key from GMG.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Once you download the expansion can you still just create a new campain with the base game only ?

You just launch vanilla XCOM 2. You can keep playing your LW2 1.5 campaign while also playing War of the Chosen using the other option in the launcher.

How is performance on really crappy PCs?

My PC is pretty damn potato (don't need to upgrade if all you play is strategy games) and the game's performance is night and day vs. the game I was playing over the weekend.

 

[Shaii]

Wrong thread..... Derp

 

[LurkerPrime]

The pre-release coverage didn't prepare me for the sheer amount of mission variety this expansion has added. I don't think I've had a repeat mission yet, about 5-7 missions into the campaign. (Granted, this is with the tutorials on.) And I don't mean just new mission types, but wholly unique ones.

The sitrep mechanic was a brilliant addition.

The character creator looks to be identical in terms of options, has just been reorganized I think.

As mentioned, you launch the base game or WotC independently, so its seems like there are essentially two copies of the engine, likely with the expansion able to access the base assets so not entirely a 100% copy, but then a big chunk of its own new assets to make up the space difference. Makes sense considering the engine overhaul. Shame they couldn't find a way to bring it all under one roof, but I understand the reality of it.

edit: ninja aliens straight out of Blizzard design school are lame, imo. I wish they'd pulled from cosmic horror more for inspiration.

Yeah I didn't realise how isolated WotC was from vanilla until I saw the launcher. ("XCOM 2" and "War of the Chosen" are right there, separate!) In terms of file size, there's a significant amount of new cinematics and voices, at least early on, and I guess that's a big part of the 30 gigs.

For the character creator, there's a bunch of new stuff... but it's for the new classes; dunno how I overlooked them to begin with. On that note, the Reapers look really cool.


And I dunno man, I think the Chosen are pretty well done. You get an idea of what they're like purely from their movements in the introductory cutscene. (The animations in general, for all the new stuff in WotC, are great. Lost are shambly and horrific, Reapers are stealthy urban ninjas, Skirmishers are spiderman Klingons, and I'm dying to see the Templars.) The Chosen are ADVENT's equivalent to XCOM's wacky colonels.

 

[Baalzebup]

Awww yeah, got gatecrasher done and now I'm doing the op to pick up the thing for Shen. My squad, discounting the mandatory tutorial badass Kelly, is, rather unsurprisingly, a bunch of weirdos. One is a pretty hunky guy sporting twin-tails and an another one is a really lanky guy going shirtless. Yup, life is good.

 

[RedlineRonin]

I'm assuming this has (non-steam) controller support, just like what was added in September?

Was totally planning to play with my elite controller and realized with it not being in at launch, i probably shouldn't assume it's in at launch here either...

 

[Phionoxx]

I know it just came out but any thoughts or impressions on if any of the base DLC released before WotC is worth purchasing seperately that integrates well with the expansion?

I finished vanilla XCOM 2 and never bought any of the interim DLC releases as I figured I would just wait for the expansion to release for a second playthrough.

 

[Uthred]

What effect does the "Tired" status have?

 

[epmode]

Oh god, I love the post-battle photo op SO MUCH.

 

[LurkerPrime]

I dunno how they even dreamed up the photobooth. It's super fun, didn't realise it would pull backgrounds from missions and stuff. The Propaganda Center did a pretty bad job of showing its features, actually, as awesome as it was.

What effect does the "Tired" status have?

As fatigue increases Will (aka the ability to resist panic and psi powers) decreases. I'm not sure if there's an additional penalty when "Tired" soldiers are forced onto the battlefield (since they can still be manually deployed).

A soldier's stats screen will tell you if they're impacted by fatigue. You'll see their Will listed as current/max; so e.g. 40/47 for a weakened soldier, or 47/47 for one in perfect condition. Giving them time off combat will let them recover from fatigue. It's to discourage having that one "dream squad" for all missions.

 

[Spookie]

A soldier's stats screen will tell you if they're impacted by fatigue. You'll see their Will listed as current/max; so e.g. 40/47 for a weakened soldier, or 47/47 for one in perfect condition. Giving them time off combat will let them recover from fatigue. It's to discourage having that one "dream squad" for all missions.

Oh I'm so fucked.

 

[Grimsen]

As fatigue increases Will (aka the ability to resist panic and psi powers) decreases. I'm not sure if there's an additional penalty when "Tired" soldiers are forced onto the battlefield (since they can still be manually deployed).

A soldier's stats screen will tell you if they're impacted by fatigue. You'll see their Will listed as current/max; so e.g. 40/47 for a weakened soldier, or 47/47 for one in perfect condition. Giving them time off combat will let them recover from fatigue. It's to discourage having that one "dream squad" for all missions.

I'm not sure, but I think titred soldiers can get bad traits like being scared of certain enemies, being afraid of having no ammo (they'll reload without being told to), etc. All that stuff can be cured in the infirmary.

 

[Sulik2]

Is this basically just XCOM 3? There seems to be so much added, its crazy.

 

[CecilRousso]

Finally just got my key from GMG.

So it should be ok to buy from them now? Haven't bought it yet, but they're usually my goto site for keys bought outside of the Steam store.

 

[Sentenza]

Between this new tiring mechanic and the special covert missions they did a wonderful job in forcing turn-over between your men without making it feel too punishing.

 

[RedlineRonin]

Oh I'm so fucked.

.

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

How is performance on really crappy PCs?

I'll let you know what a GTX460 is worth once it finishes downloading.
The vanilla game with I think like patch six or so is basically 'okay' in the tactical map and during movement phases, but big effects or action cam is basically a slide show I didn't really get to see. It was 'playable' however, so that's something.
Should be interesting to be able to compare that with the 1050Ti that will replace it soon (assuming all goes well of course, considering the other hardware).

 

[yanipheonu]

Anyone dipped into how past mods are supported?

I'm gonna cull the amount of mods I have, but there are ones like Gotcha that I just have to have working.

I'd assume the cosmetic stuff at least wouldn't be too much of an issue, but I have no idea how much they've changed how that works.

 

[FunkyMonk]

What effect does the "Tired" status have?

If you take tired soldiers out on missions they have an increasingly high chance of gaining negative traits such as

Spoiler

Fear of *insert enemy type here*, cautious (hunker down after first move), compulsive (reload after every shot), aggressive (might shoot rather than overwatch)

and there's probably more I haven't seen on streams.

Anyone dipped into how past mods are supported?

I'm gonna cull the amount of mods I have, but there are ones like Gotcha that I just have to have working.

I'd assume the cosmetic stuff at least wouldn't be too much of an issue, but I have no idea how much they've changed how that works.

There is a version of gotcha in the game, you press something like the alt key IIRC while mousing around and it'll give you a target preview. Saying that I'll likely reinstall Gotcha once it's working as I prefer the mods way of displaying.

 

[Trey]

I'll do a vanilla (no mods) first run of the expansion unless there are some good QoL mods that are compatible.

 

[RedlineRonin]

Anyone dipped into how past mods are supported?

I'm gonna cull the amount of mods I have, but there are ones like Gotcha that I just have to have working.

I'd assume the cosmetic stuff at least wouldn't be too much of an issue, but I have no idea how much they've changed how that works.

Page 1

Here's a list of cosmetic mods that may and may not work. They've all been tested in the Propaganda Center demo, which is as close as we can get to WOTC right now.

More or less fully functional:

• Military Camouflage Patterns
• More eye colors
• More armor colors
• HistoricalCamoPack
• Mass Effect Armor & Camo Pack
• New Countries
• Custom Face Paints
• Lipstick Pack (Facepaint)
• Stargate Glyphs
• More hair colors
• Symmetrical Kevlar Arms!
• Valkyria Chronicles Country Pack
• MGS 4 Frog Trooper Outfit
• Anarchys Children Extra Options
• SliWhists SPARK Pack
• Adam Jensen's Glasses
• Stenchfury Modular Armors

Tested by tiagobmiranda:

• Destroyer's Female Hair Pack
• Destroyer's Female Hair Pack 2.0
• Lara Croft Squadmate
• Hotline Miami Masks Pack [W.I.P]
• Invisible Heads
• XCOM EU/EW Ports: Tier 1 Armour

Barely functional:

• Eyepatch Right (no texture)
• [Customisation Set] Im Too Fancy For Thouse Ayys (some textures/materials might not be working right)
• XCOM EU/EW Ports: Helmets (textures don't load and can cause crashing)
• WA'sCustomGear (texture errors)
• Halo ODST Armour (no textures)
• XCOM EU/EW Ports: Extras (no texture, causes lag)
• Halo Reach Marines Pack (texture errors on helmets, not textures on everything else)
• EW MEC Ports (no textures, slight lag)
• ME3 Tali Squadmate (no textures besides face plate)
• ME3 Kasumi Squadmate (some textures load, others don't)
• ME 3 Cat-6 Mercenaries Pack (no textures)
• CX Praetor Armor (Doomguy / Chick 2016) (leg & 1 helmet textures work, error on transparent face plate, no textures on arms and chest)
• Warden Gear (no textures and/or texture errors)
• ADVENT MEC For SPARK (no textures)
• XCom EW helmets for SPARK's (texture errors and/or no textures)
• Spart's SPARKBashes (some textures work, others turn neon, some have bits that bug out)
• Capn' Bubs (some textures work, others broken)

Tested by tiagobmiranda:

• Marvel Squadmate - Deadpool (no textures)
• [PAYDAY] Payday 2: Masks (no textures, which is no surprise since there is a disclaimer at its description stating that it doesn't work with the propaganda center)
• Star Wars Helmets (no textures, causes lag. R.I.P. Platoon, and thanks for the awesome mod)

 

[The Iron Weasel]

Has anyone else still NOT received their key from cdkeys?

I'm still waiting on mine. I'm impatiently checking my email every 30 minutes or so.

 

[SmiteOfHand]

And I dunno man, I think the Chosen are pretty well done. You get an idea of what they're like purely from their movements in the introductory cutscene. (The animations in general, for all the new stuff in WotC, are great. Lost are shambly and horrific, Reapers are stealthy urban ninjas, Skirmishers are spiderman Klingons, and I'm dying to see the Templars.) The Chosen are ADVENT's equivalent to XCOM's wacky colonels.

I just hope we are approaching the end of Advent as a focal point and not a pivot into Blizzard / Star Wars fantasy alien. It is the most boring direction they could go from an aesthetic perspective.

Everything in this makes my eyes roll into the back of my skull: https://youtu.be/yRLOkk-Lhdw

 

[HungOverOnATues]

Make sure you actually activate the config. I kept on selecitng the config but forgetting to activate.

Also some of the community ones are better than the official one, IMHO.

Went out for lunch and fired the game up again when I got back and it works now. I only changed 1 of the 2 Shoot/Move bindings to Enter the last time and changed nothing else between then and now. Not sure what broke it before.

edit: Seems to not let you confirm a shot sometimes if you bring up the weapon HUD by using the right grip or clicking on the icons below instead of using the Shoot/Move button to bring it up. I'm binding it back to the Enter key because this is way too finicky.

 

[Human Trashcan]

Played a few missions, I like the in-mission gameplay additions, but all the new narrative stuff is incredibly lame, like this would be embarrassing for a saturday morning cartoon. And on top of that, it never shuts up, especially in HQ. It's kind of overbearing, the amount of chatter and activity going on on the world map now. No idea what I should really be prioritizing either but that's not really my main concern.

I just don't know why they thought what XCOM needed was some super cliche storytelling. I liked the sparseness of EU. No bullshit, just "aliens invaded earth, go kill them". It was functional and fine. All the Chosen story stuff so far just makes me roll my eyes, it's just terrible. About on the level of Diablo 3's Azmodan.

 

[ISee]

I'm still waiting on mine. I'm impatiently checking my email every 30 minutes or so.

Check your old "order confirmation" email and follow the download link there. I didn't receive a "here is your key" email, but I was able to access my key through that link.

 

[Rhaknar]

Played a few missions, I like the in-mission gameplay additions, but all the new narrative stuff is incredibly lame, like this would be embarrassing for a saturday morning cartoon. And on top of that, it never shuts up, especially in HQ. It's kind of overbearing, the amount of chatter and activity going on on the world map now. No idea what I should really be prioritizing either but that's not really my main concern.

I just don't know why they thought what XCOM needed was some super cliche storytelling. I liked the sparseness of EU. No bullshit, just "aliens invaded earth, go kill them". It was functional and fine. All the Chosen story stuff so far just makes me roll my eyes, it's just terrible. About on the level of Diablo 3's Azmodan.

you need to stop being such an adult

 

[Pheace]

I'm still waiting on mine. I'm impatiently checking my email every 30 minutes or so.

Checking every 30 mins is *not* being impatient... lol

 

[Sentenza]

Check your old "order confirmation" email and follow the download link there. I didn't receive a "here is your key" email, but I was able to access my key through that link.

Same here. Too bad I won't be able to make any use of it for at least a couple of hours yet.

 

[Sblargh]

lol.
Lost my first campaign.


Well, didn't lose lose, but it was going off the rails.
-
Still, it's weird, I can't say the game is more difficult. In a way, it's more forgiving when it comes to injuries because it gives you more soldiers.

But then again, the game is a lot different now in a lot of big and subtle ways and I'm so used to vanilla. I think I messed up the most on the strategy side of things. Spent way too much time on breakthroughs that aren't that important, for example. Gotta learn to say no to shiny new things on the screen.

Also, the heroes are obviously very good, but they also play very differently. The skirmisher is the only on that feels like "part of the squad". The reaper sometimes just vanishes away doing the scout, it changes a lot of how think about the map having a unit who can "decouple" and do its own thing and then come back and shoot or explode enemies like normal,
And the templar is just this very weird tool. Big, guaranteed damage, but then again, it's melee, so it's so tempting, it's like, "press this button and you have a guaranteed kill", but the risk, oh jeez.

The GTS now have only Squad Size I, II and the class-specific skills, so it consumes a lot less supplies, which means that I can probably focus my engineer more on construction rather than excavation.
-
Man, the game feels so different. It's very weird.
It's like a funhouse mirror. I think calling it XCOM 3 is too much, but it's definetly not Vanilla + Stuff.
So much to relearn and rediscover.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Played a few missions, I like the in-mission gameplay additions, but all the new narrative stuff is incredibly lame, like this would be embarrassing for a saturday morning cartoon. And on top of that, it never shuts up, especially in HQ. It's kind of overbearing, the amount of chatter and activity going on on the world map now. No idea what I should really be prioritizing either but that's not really my main concern.

I just don't know why they thought what XCOM needed was some super cliche storytelling. I liked the sparseness of EU. No bullshit, just "aliens invaded earth, go kill them". It was functional and fine. All the Chosen story stuff so far just makes me roll my eyes, it's just terrible. About on the level of Diablo 3's Azmodan.

XCOM 2's narrative was also a mess, this at least makes the mess into something more enjoyable if judged next to a 90s Fox Saturday morning action cartoon. Long War 2's way of interpreting the story (and the pace for how it plays out) always made the the most sense:

- omg let's build the resistance and kick some BUTTS.
- omg let's take it to ADVENT on a global scale and fight them in the open! BTW what are the aliens really doing here?
- omg we were doomed all along, but we there's one way out of this and we'll have to thread a needle to get to it.

If you want less chatter it'll be a mod on the workshop in a very short time, I'm guessing.

You are right about EU, and I wish the series would stop building up all these characters and just be like Civ where every new version is "Aliens attack earth, you fight them, turn the tables, and eliminate the threat" with different varations on core mechanics. It's what Firaxis knows and does best.

 

[Manac0r]

So never played Xcom2; got gifted it plus the new expansion.. I just jump in fresh and it is all integrated??

Mario X Rabbids and now this... Good time to be a strategy fan!!!

 

[LurkerPrime]

I kinda... really like XCOM 2's crazy attempts to justify the gameplay mechanics. And heroes.

I want it all; RPG, strategy game, and XCOM.

So never played Xcom2; got gifted it plus the new expansion.. I just jump in fresh and it is all integrated??

Mario X Rabbids and now this... Good time to be a strategy fan!!!

Yup, just be sure to select War of the Chosen and not XCOM 2 in the launcher.

 

[Pheace]

At what point is it safe to reroll your campaign without the Tutorial? Do you miss anything important with the new tutorial? Really don't know why I went with Normal difficulty but regretting it already xD

 

[Sblargh]

At what point is it safe to reroll your campaign without the Tutorial? Do you miss anything important with the new tutorial?

You mean the lost and abandoned?
If you disable that, you get a random faction hero on gatecrasher (and that faction start the game friends with you) and the first chosen you encounter is also random.

 

[Pheace]

You mean the lost and abandoned?
If you disable that, you get a random faction hero on gatecrasher (and that faction start the game friends with you) and the first chosen you encounter is also random.

If that's part of the tutorial then I guess I'll play through it at least once, didn't get to that yet. I assume there's some introductory stuff in there.

 

[Baron_Calamity]

Check this out. Found out why I hadn't recieved me XCOM 2: War of the Chosen digital pre-order. Gamestop no longer sends codes to your account. If you preorder a digital product, you have to come in to a store to pick it up. aka, they print it out on a register for you. Thats a step backwards from how they use to handle it. Not happy.

 

[suaveric]

This is weird, I bought the game from Best Buy, finally got my key and now steam doesn't seem to want to download it. Steam accepted the key and says the expansion in in my library, but I see no indication that anything is downloading. What am I missing?

 

[Erheller]

This is weird, I bought the game from Best Buy, finally got my key and now steam doesn't seem to want to download it. Steam accepted the key and says the expansion in in my library, but I see no indication that anything is downloading. What am I missing?

DId you check the box on the XCOM 2 library page to enable the DLC?

If so, try checking the downloads page in steam. This morning mine was scheduled to download later instead of Steam downloading it immediately.

 

[RedlineRonin]

This is weird, I bought the game from Best Buy, finally got my key and now steam doesn't seem to want to download it. Steam accepted the key and says the expansion in in my library, but I see no indication that anything is downloading. What am I missing?

I did the verify file integrity thing in steam to trigger my download right away

 

[Pringler]

Game keeps crashing after I installed WotC, either in the game menu or during the first mission. Very very uncool.

I hope there will be a fix, as I am not the only one having this problem according to the official forums.

Too bad, never had any problems with the base game.

 

[Brokun]

Game keeps crashing after I installed WotC, either in the game menu or during the first mission. Very very uncool.

I hope there will be a fix, as I am not the only one having this problem according to the official forums.

Too bad, never had any problems with the base game.

Do you have mods installed?

 

[Pringler]

Do you have mods installed?

No, nothing at all.

Tried verifying the game install. Said that there were some corrupted files but that didn't help either.

Well I posted on the official forums and on twitter.

And I will re download the whole game over night, I guess.

 

[Kaffeemann]

Damn, I'm not sure if I should get WotC.
I watched so much gameplay already that it feels like there won't be many surprises anymore

 

[Jintor]

installing now, about to hop onto a plane.

if ya'll want to signup for gafcom name usage when i get back !signup. Some of the vets here can tell you what that means.

I'll be doing more of it on video this time around just to shorten the amount of time I have to spend on things.

 

[darkwing-buck]

So this expansion is an entirely new campaign or does it just add on and alter the og campaign?

 

[TC McQueen]

So this expansion is an entirely new campaign or does it just add on and alter the og campaign?

Alters the campaign.

 

[derFeef]

Is the intro different? Did not play the base game so I have no fucking idea what's going on... also what happened in the first game canon wise? I kinda know but the game does not tell me anything, haha.

 

[Sinh_Magnus]

There's already a mod that shows healt values, for those interested.