XCOM 2: Mods or no mods?

[IamLEAM1983]

The Steam board has a small nugget of contentious folks who believe that anyone who so much as refuses to play the game as intended by Firaxis is either spineless or just bad at XCOM.

I doubled the timer thresholds on the Avatar Project to give myself time enough to scour the map and fully explore the Geoscape without any serious obligations bothering me. Does that make me a "filthy casual", or does my purchase entitle me to tailor the experience to my liking? What's your stance on supposedly mandatory "vanilla runs", come to think of it? Is there such a thing as modding a game too much?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I think it's very easy to mod the challenge out of the game. The game was carefully balanced over many months. Is the balance perfect? No. Do players have a better idea of how to balance after a single campaign or...even more frequently...part of one? LOL NO. Something as seemingly innocuous as a small timer change can turn a difficult mission trivial. Shifting HPs by one can make a difficult enemy a piece of cake. And players are seldom so gentle with their adjustments, usually they'll just start hammering values wildly in their preferred direction. Beaglerush might be the most experienced XCOM player alive, and his first .ini tweak was to dramatically increase HP and pod size on Legendary, and he was immediately run over. I highly doubt the average modder is even half so considered in their changes.

All that said, it's your fucking game, do whatever you want with it. You're not answerable to anyone. Did you have fun? Yes? Mods successful.

 

[Aerosteam]

It's a singleplayer game. No one but you should care how you play it.

 

[Zhukov]

Your game. Mod it howsoever you please.

It's a single player game to boot. What you do doesn't affect anyone else.

Personally I'm doing my first run with zero mods. But that's mostly because I don't want to risk messing up my save files with potentially buggy mods.

Although I will say I'm deriving a definite satisfaction from all the people saying that the game is "brutal" and that they're getting their shit ruined by time limits. Apparently somewhere along the way I became a decent XCOM player. I guess this is how those people who are good at Dark Souls feel. Git gud scrubs.

 

[DoPo]

Your game. Mod it howsoever you please.

Yep. That's why I am puzzled by people complaining about trivial things that are already fixed by mods.

It's a single player game to boot. What you do doesn't affect anyone else.

Personally I'm doing my first run with zero mods. But that's mostly because I don't want to risk messing up my save files with potentially buggy mods.

I've got TimerTweaks which is the only game changing mod. The rest is cosmetics:

Free Camera Rotation [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616359783] because the default 4 available positions were limiting.

Better Tactical Zoom Out [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=617964189] because the default one is also limiting at times.

Show Health Values [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=617015579] because the health bars suck this time around. They didn't in EU.

Evac All [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618669868] because doing soldiers one by one is bo-o-o-o-oring

Strip Primary Weapons [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618504171] - not sure why that wasn't in the base game.

Chance to Miss [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=619869389] - the only other mod that's vaguely gameplay-y. It simply reverses the hit chance and shows you the miss chance. It does help me focus on not pursuing riskier actions (60% chance to hit? Sounds reasonable! 40% chance to miss? Probably safer to not take it)

Stop Wasting My Time [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=620600092] - because reasons.

Mirror's Edge Faith Tattoo Set [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=621248504] - it's just cool. Also, the game lacks good tattoos, I found.

Things I want but haven't gotten yet


XCom International Voices Pack [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=623812197]
More Nations and Names [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618891146]
More Nations Mod [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=619708200]

First one is not finished yet, neither are the other two. I also hope they get merged into one. At any rate - I don't really like the game being about taking Earth back...by mostly US English speaking soldiers. Few UK English one and a couple of Aussie English voices but most are from the US. I like the game being about people from, you know, around the world trying to save it. Adding these is just vital. It really should have been part of the base game - at least the nations.

Always Show Shot Breakdowns [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=620475262] - currently doesn't work with Chance to Miss. But it'd be a nice addition when it does.

Enhanced Hit Chance Displays [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=624406557] - I'd wait for the UI to be slight improved

Although I will say I'm deriving a definite satisfaction from all the people saying that the game is "brutal" and that they're getting their shit ruined by time limits. Apparently somewhere along the way I became a decent XCOM player. I guess this is how those people who are good at Dark Souls feel. Git gud scrubs.

Yeah...I got TimerTweaks, since I was scared off by people talking about the timers. I finish the vast majority of missions under the extra time added by the mod. Not even rushing. On Commander, no less. I admit, I've been afflicted or pretty miraculous luck at times, still, I don't think it's enough to justify my performance.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Although I will say I'm deriving a definite satisfaction from all the people saying that the game is "brutal" and that they're getting their shit ruined by time limits. Apparently somewhere along the way I became a decent XCOM player. I guess this is how those people who are good at Dark Souls feel. Git gud scrubs.

To be honest I think people saying the game is 'brutal' are saying so because they're trying to stealth it. And stealth basically doesn't work well at all.

Its massively counter-intuitive given the whole concealment mechanic; but its truly a terrible, terrible idea to try to use stealth beyond, say, the first turn or two to ambush your first pod or two. Because it slows you down SO MUCH that you just lose and get wrecked by time limits. After trying to play a couple missions smart with concealment and coming super close to losing some of them I literally just gave up and now I just ambush the first pod I find and blast my way to the objective and I rarely come close to the turn limit anymore. And I'm not running a turn-limit-adjusting mod.

Its...a bit disappointing really. They hyped up the concealment mechanic a fair bit but its almost totally irrelevant on missions with turn limits. Because you outright do not have the time to be screwing about doing things carefully. You just need to go full steam ahead, charge in and fight your way through. And there are SO many turn-limited missions early on its crazy. I seem to get less of them now I'm into the midgame.

 

[monkeymangler]

I have TimerTweaks on (+2 turns for all) because rushing ahead gets squads killed.

Considering the Mod that adds +4 to the Avatar Project. I got royally screwed in Avatar facility placement, and it will likely cost me my campaign. +4 would greatly help for these worst-case scenarios.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I haven't started yet because I wanted to finish a full run of enemy within first (beat unknown multiple times when it came out) but I've already downloaded like 12 different mods, only one of them adds a slight bit to the timer (i'm not one of those people who is edgy as fuck and needs a "to the death" battle every single second of a game) otherwise it's all depth/customization options. Honestly too many mods are being added every other day that I like so I'm fine waiting a bit longer lol.


I have seen those comments though, some aggressive as fuck people being super snotty with the "git gud, fucking casuals, why would you ever mod this game?" type stuff, it's hilarious and sad that they are so vehemently against people modding their own single player game.

 

[jab136]

I beat it once with no mods, I now have a few
Numeric Health Display (because stock sucks)
Experimental Item Unlock (although I haven't actually utilized it yet)
Quiet Bradford (because he was getting annoying on retaliation missions)
Sword Rebalance (because stock swords sucked)
Tech Armor (because I felt like it)
Evac All (because doing evac individually was annoying)
Leader Pack (because I figured it would be nice, but I haven't really used it)
I really want more voices, or at least accents, because it is really weird with the way it is now
I would also appreciate if there was a mod that made rookie's stats differ like the second wave option from the last game

 

[Ihateregistering1]

The only one I'd recommend that does actually affect the difficulty is "True Concealment". It basically makes it so that the mission timer only starts after you've broken concealment.

For one, this allows you to have more fun with the stealth mechanics of the game. I also personally thought it was significantly more realistic. I mean, if we're supposed to believe that Advent doesn't know you're troops are even there yet, why would they be calling in reinforcements, or setting their stuff on self-destruct? It just didn't make much sense to me, and I thought it made the missions way more fun to set up an ambush, hit the enemy hard, and then have to get out of there as fast as possible before reinforcements showed. Felt way more like being an actual Guerilla force.

 

[xaszatm]

After beating it once, I'm allowing myself a year-long grace period before doing a mod. I'm hoping someone does a "long war" styled mod again, even with the old mod team doing new stuff. The game's fine as it is right now.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

The game is VERY well balanced as is, but I have no problem with people tailoring their experiences.

I, for one, am using the "true concealment" mod, which makes it so that the Turn Counter doesn't go down while I'm in concealment. It gives me a few extra turns to get into position and scout the map a bit before I have to worry about the Turn Counter, and it just makes sense most of the time (Why would the aliens set self-destruct charges on something when they don't even know someone hostile is there?). Besides, even with the mod, most of the time I just manage to get out with 2 turns left anyway.

In fact the reason I even got the mod was because of one mission where I spawned so far from the objective, with EVERY enemy group on the map directly on the ONLY path to the objective that it would be outright impossible to make it without a total suicide rush and I found myself thinking "If I just had like2 more turns..." And so I downloaded True Concealment and it gave me JUST enough time to make it.

If that makes me a filthy casual cheater, so be it.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Just gonna put my smug ass line in here and say how great is it to play on PC. I really appreciate what the mod community do, little tweaks in single player games make things all the more enjoyable. For one, I usually do weight-limit mods in open world RPG's where all I'm doing is saving time lugging stuff back and forth. Not to a ludicrous degree though, I don't want it to skew the usefulness of a strength stat.

Having said that, so sorry I can't offer insight as I haven't played XCOM 2, but I found XCOM: EU and EW to be rather balanced and enjoyable, the difficulty and balance was only affected by how you choose to play (Normal, Hard, Classic, Ironman etc). So that's most likely how I'm going to play it my first time round. The free rotate camera mod sounds very tempting though, that's one thing I could really have appreciated in the last game.

 

[DoPo]

I would also appreciate if there was a mod that made rookie's stats differ like the second wave option from the last game

There is Second Wave Reborn [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=622475105] which tries to recreate the Second Wave options, as well as, Hidden Potential [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=618826129] which sort of tries to do Not Created Equally but the randomisation is more likely to buff a soldier.

 

[Dragonzeanse]

I just finished XCOM 2 a few days ago, vanilla. I wanted to complete it at least once before I bothered installing mods, just to give myself some familiarity with the game's mechanics - something I recommend everyone do. Afterwards, feel free to mod it.

If you're concerned about the game's balance, there are a lot of mods that don't affect the gameplay, but still improve the experience. The ones DoPo posted are all good examples. In that case, it really doesn't matter if you play the base game or not: cosmetics are perfectly fine. I still recommend installing them a few at a time.

Also, XCOM 2 doesn't have Second Wave options like XCOM: EU did, so you'll have to mod those in if you want them.

 

[Zhukov]

To be honest I think people saying the game is 'brutal' are saying so because they're trying to stealth it. And stealth basically doesn't work well at all.

Its massively counter-intuitive given the whole concealment mechanic; but its truly a terrible, terrible idea to try to use stealth beyond, say, the first turn or two to ambush your first pod or two. Because it slows you down SO MUCH that you just lose and get wrecked by time limits. After trying to play a couple missions smart with concealment and coming super close to losing some of them I literally just gave up and now I just ambush the first pod I find and blast my way to the objective and I rarely come close to the turn limit anymore. And I'm not running a turn-limit-adjusting mod.

Its...a bit disappointing really. They hyped up the concealment mechanic a fair bit but its almost totally irrelevant on missions with turn limits. Because you outright do not have the time to be screwing about doing things carefully. You just need to go full steam ahead, charge in and fight your way through. And there are SO many turn-limited missions early on its crazy. I seem to get less of them now I'm into the midgame.

The stealth is just there so you can get directly into the action without having to edge your way forward at the start of the mission until you hit your first contact. That used to severely fuck with the pacing in EU.

Trying to stealth your way to the objective is foolish, if not suicide. Even if you get there without a patrol stumbling into you, you're going to need to break stealth to take the objective and if you didn't clear the enemies on the way there then you're going to have them coming at you from multiple angles for easy flanks.

I agree that the stealth could have been utilized more. Like making the stealth rangers into a class of their own who can kill or skulljack enemies while staying concealed. However, as it is, the game is clearly designed with open combat in mind with the stealth just being there to hurry things along and provide a bit of flavour.

If people want to use woeful tactics that's up to them, but them blaming the game for their poor decisions is rather unbecoming.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Boop!

I'll have to look into modifying the way grenades behave; I agree they don't do the job well enough.

Honestly, I think it's just some subset of the game's community that's kind of infatuated with the idea that this is supposed to be some sort of top-down Dark Souls, plus guns. All I know is that losing your first set of rookies past the tutorial to barely anything except bad RNG and pod placement is a bit harsh. It's realistic given the setting, but my first few attempts at a Vanilla run ended with me hitting that Evac button pretty often. I say that having started on Normal and then dialed down back to Easy, to at least give myself some breathing room.

I'm happy enough modding minor hassles out of my games, I just wish strategy titles didn't spawn the kind of person who basically think the only way to play is Beaglerush's way. Newsflash: people can be talented in specific game genres and dismal in others!

My Steam profile makes it seem like I've plowed through the game up until the midpoint - give or take a few missions - but that's really the result of several do-overs and lots of save-scumming. Ironman or bust? Ha, no thanks. Learning from my mistakes suffices, I don't need said mistakes to end up irremediably scarred into my campaign's timeline.