XCOM 2: Mods or no mods?

[veloper]

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.

Timed missions where your team's starting position and the objective are both close to the edge of the map and the lines of sight are long, can often be stealthed.
If done it plenty of times. You have to recognize the opportunity when you get one.

It can be really easy if it's also destruction or hacking mission, where you can blow up the walls of the building around the target with a rocket and then shoot or hack from a defensible position. After that you can overwatch creep the rest of the mission.

Where players go wrong is when they try it near enclosed spaces where aliens may be lurking or patrolling right around the corner.

 

[omega 616]

But I'm enjoying it, even if I think a logic should be installed, so that if my barrel is clipping through the enemy, it is a 100% chance to hit and a hefty crit chance!

Have you played shooter games before? If so, you should probably know that agile, fast moving targets that get right in your fucking face are some of the hardest things to hit in those games.

And if I was complaining about overwatch I would be right with you! Some little sectoid scurries across my face and I miss, fair enough.

This is more of a shooting gallery or TPS game where you wait for the little head to pop up so you can plink it, except you don't have to wait for the little head to pop up 'cos you can see the entirety of the person, especially on a flank shot!

 

[DoPo]

But I'm enjoying it, even if I think a logic should be installed, so that if my barrel is clipping through the enemy, it is a 100% chance to hit and a hefty crit chance!

Have you played shooter games before? If so, you should probably know that agile, fast moving targets that get right in your fucking face are some of the hardest things to hit in those games.

And if I was complaining about overwatch I would be right with you! Some little sectoid scurries across my face and I miss, fair enough.

This is more of a shooting gallery or TPS game where you wait for the little head to pop up so you can plink it, except you don't have to wait for the little head to pop up 'cos you can see the entirety of the person, especially on a flank shot!

Remember that this is a turn based game. What you see is just an abstraction of the intended reality - the units don't literally stand in one place for your soldier to walk over then spend 5 minutes drawing aim before firing - what actually happens is that your soldier would move and attack within the same action, which would also overlap with the enemy scampering for cover at the same time.

With that said, if you want that feature, there is the Point Blank mod [http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=621915522]

 

[happyninja42]

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.

I haven't played XCOM 2 yet, but I plan on playing a stealth heavy game if I can. So I have some questions.

How does the game normally function when it comes to concealment? When you kill a squad from concealment, do they all now know where you are? Or is it possible to drop a unit of badguys with an effective ambush, and the rest of the forces be unaware? If it's the former, does the mod you are talking about make it more like the latter? Please asplain. xD

And sort of a general question about concealment to anyone. How effective is a full stealth team anyway? I watched a bit of TB's review of it pre-release, and some of the stuff he described about the....Ranger class I think it is? The on that gets perks to concealment, made me very interested in a full stealth team. Is that viable? Or is it basically pointless after that first alpha strike?

OT: Who cares what other people think? Play the game how you like it. You paid money for it, the people talking shit about modders can just go fuck off.

 

[omega 616]

snip

Thank you very much!

snip

That still doesn't make a whole lot of sense ... if I am playing paintball and I happen to sneak my snorlax sized ass behind the enemy as they peek around the wrong corner, I am still pretty sure I could light his ass up like a fucking xmas tree and not spaff my shot into the next field!

When you are playing COD do you sneaky sneaky your way up behind zee enemy then proceed to miss a quad 'cos the enemies are moving? No, you spray like banksey and mow them all down!

On a serious note, it's a turn based game ... it's chess with cool powers and guns, the whites are aliens and blacks are soldiers risking their lives to save the world. There is no "abstraction of real combat" .... every shooting game in that case would be an abstraction of real combat if that was the case.

 

[Terminal Blue]

How does the game normally function when it comes to concealment? When you kill a squad from concealment, do they all now know where you are? Or is it possible to drop a unit of badguys with an effective ambush, and the rest of the forces be unaware? If it's the former, does the mod you are talking about make it more like the latter? Please asplain. xD

On certain missions, your entire squad starts in concealment. Once you attack or do something noisy (like break a window or attack someone) concealment is broken for the rest of the mission. One class (the ranger) can get abilities allowing it to remain in concealment when the rest of the squad breaks it, and to reenter concealment after leaving it, but for everyone else it's basically a chance to set up for a one time ambush or to complete an objective.

In fact, I've found one of the worst things you can do is to try and stealth through the whole mission. Usually, it means when you do break concealment you'll be caught in a crossfire of several alien pods which would be much easier to take one at a time.

If it all seems unrealistic, bear in mind that lorewise the aliens are connected via a telepathic network.

On the original post. I have some cosmetic mods and would consider convenience mods, but anything which alters game balance is out for me. The turn timers are aggressive but I find them enjoyable and I've not at any point felt that I never had a chance to complete a mission because of them. As for Avatar, you can fuck up a lot and still not lose the game.. Again, Avatar serves to give you an urgent motivation, but it's not exactly hard to stay ahead unless your game is totally screwed in some other way. Basically, I prefer the game as it was designed and I would rather just accept that I'm not good enough to play on higher difficulties than alter the difficulty with mods, but unless someone is actively bragging about how good they are I don't see the problem with others using mods to get whatever experience they want.

 

[DoPo]

That still doesn't make a whole lot of sense ... if I am playing paintball and I happen to sneak my snorlax sized ass behind the enemy as they peek around the wrong corner, I am still pretty sure I could light his ass up like a fucking xmas tree and not spaff my shot into the next field!

Yes, but you're missing the point - your soldiers aren't sneaking. They don't tip-toe a meter behind the enemy, take aim and fire, while the enemy stays there patiently. They move, duck and weave at the same time. Again, the combat is an abstraction - in reality both units would have been moving at the same time. Heck, all units would be moving at the same time - your soldier isn't locked down in an individual 101 with his/her target - your soldier is part of a unit and would also be keeping tabs on where his people are, at the same time as trying to watch the enemies. You could wait for minutes, even hours, before taking an action - in reality, these actions would all happen in the span of few seconds.

On a serious note, it's a turn based game ... it's chess with cool powers and guns, the whites are aliens and blacks are soldiers risking their lives to save the world. There is no "abstraction of real combat" .... every shooting game in that case would be an abstraction of real combat if that was the case.

Well, "real" in the sense that the game mechanics shouldn't be taken as literal representation of what's happening. In RPGs you don't kill your nth goblin and suddenly become smarter. In D&D a level 12 fighter hasn't suddenly grown literally thicker skin to get more HP than a level 1 fighter. In Magic the planeswalkers aren't just pulling swamps out of their asses and piling them on the ground in front of themselves. All of these are just mechanical representations of underlying ideas. Abstractions.

In "reality", which is to say, if you look past the mechanics and what those ideas are, the RPG hero has been learning about the world for the entire time, yet XP is only given on kills, because the game doesn't simulate the character reading books before bed, studying the markings in old ruins for insight to old dead civilisations, nor does it explore them meditating on all the lessons they've learned throughout their journey. In D&D the experienced fighter knows how to take a blow without being harmed as much - more HP is the collective representation of them angling their body right, applying force to mitigate the force of strikes, and just sheer determination to not succumb to the pain - that's how they are able to survive better through experience. In Magic, the planeswalkers are slowly laying claim on the lands and drawing the magic in them.

Game mechanics are simplifications in order to facilitate gameplay. We have to look past them to understand why they work the way they do - if you're to just examine the stylised representations, then of course they would look flawed. They are not the whole picture, after all. It's as if looking at a passport photo of somebody - would you assume that the man or woman shown there is just a head with no hands, legs or a body? Or would you take it as just a representative sample of them - enough to recognise the real person? It would be the latter, I imagine - this is also the case with game mechanics.

 

[DoPo]

And sort of a general question about concealment to anyone. How effective is a full stealth team anyway?

Depends. If you use them right, you can bypass most of the combat in a mission. On the other hand, they'll take much longer to level up, as you only do so by getting kills (there isn't XP per se, however, kills matter [http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/255057/how-can-i-tell-how-many-kills-my-soldier-is-away-from-promotion/255062#255062]). Still, I've heard of people finishing Blacksite missions (go in, plant some bombs, go out) with almost always being in cover (planting charges breaks it) and generally without alerting on fighting anybody. It's supposedly easiest if you take a single scout ranger on these missions. There are other missions as well, where full stealth works, although you may have to fight a pod or two at the end. The general strategy there would be to make your way to the objective unseen, then just unleash everything you have on the aliens around it (if any) and make a quick get away afterwards.

As I said, it would work, but you won't be levelling up that fast. Also, it's slightly risky - if you take too long fighting, you may end up fighting all the enemies from the level that you bypassed. Hence the need for a quick getaway.

Overall, I wouldn't really play this style, not all the missions, but I can see it working as a long term strategy of some sort.

I watched a bit of TB's review of it pre-release, and some of the stuff he described about the....Ranger class I think it is? The on that gets perks to concealment, made me very interested in a full stealth team. Is that viable? Or is it basically pointless after that first alpha strike?

Rangers have two specialisations - one is scout, which gives them more bonuses to do with mobility and stealth, the other is blademaster, where they become profficient at chopping enemies to ribbons and avoiding being filled with bullet holes in the process. Scout rangers are really good at stealth. The problem I find with them is that they are really better at scouting than combat. As in, they are good at combat, but you probably want them to either fight or scout - mixing the two is a bit difficult. They get an ability that keeps them concealed even after your team is revealed - this helps, since they can have a look ahead. But if they fight, they also get revealed. They have a single extra ability that immediately conceals them again, but it can be only used once per mission. So, if they fight, they can only ever go back to scouting one more time, and the second time they attack, they can't scout any more. Which makes them participate less in combat. On the other hand, if you wish, you could just keep fighting with them - they become really mobile and one of their abilities gives them bonuses to attacking enemies that haven't seen them yet. The ranger doesn't need to be concealed, just out of sight - behind a corner or something. Another ability allows them to move after a kill, so you could be dashing around the battle field attacking enemies and immediately retreating out of sight afterwards.

Rangers are fun, overall.

Still, I think one of the most fun classes is the Grenadier. They just completely wreck stuff up. There is nothing quite like dropping an acid grenate on a group of enemies and watch their armour dissolve and them taking continuous damage from the corrosive substance. Or dropping a fire grenade that lights the aliens' asses on fire. Or shooting a rocket at somebody high up in a building and then watching them fall through a couple of newly missing floors down to their doom. Grenadiers are just amazing at how effective they are. I bring a couple at every mission.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

A massive portion of mods on the workshop are cheat mods.

When I play "legit" I don't use gameplay-altering mods of any kind; I will first beat the game on Legend Ironman, then I will play for fun adding whatever crazy stuff I feel like adding. Certainly I wouldn't feel that I really "beat" the game if I willingly made it easier on myself.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

I have two words for you: Corgi Gun [https://twitter.com/FiraxisGames/status/695655198757408768/photo/1]. ;-)

Also can't wait for a Long War mod for Xcom 2. But that'll take a while.

Yeah, saw that... but there's a difference between "wacky crazy" and "interestingly crazy", and the two sets not always intersect. I think I'll pass on that. On the other hand, the Katana [http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom2/mods/115/?] and Pulse Rifle [http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom2/mods/218/?] mods are right up my alley.

 

[Ryan Minns]

I usually prefer to play through my first playthrough unmodded because, for example how do I know what better melee in Xcom 2 means if I have never used it. I would never think to have others obey this as I do though in a single player 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.

I haven't played XCOM 2 yet, but I plan on playing a stealth heavy game if I can. So I have some questions.

How does the game normally function when it comes to concealment? When you kill a squad from concealment, do they all now know where you are? Or is it possible to drop a unit of badguys with an effective ambush, and the rest of the forces be unaware? If it's the former, does the mod you are talking about make it more like the latter? Please asplain. xD

And sort of a general question about concealment to anyone. How effective is a full stealth team anyway? I watched a bit of TB's review of it pre-release, and some of the stuff he described about the....Ranger class I think it is? The on that gets perks to concealment, made me very interested in a full stealth team. Is that viable? Or is it basically pointless after that first alpha strike?

OT: Who cares what other people think? Play the game how you like it. You paid money for it, the people talking shit about modders can just go fuck off.

Someone already explained a good chunk of it, but yes, technically on some of the missions you could complete them going totally stealth, but like in the last game, the vast majority of your XP comes from killing enemies.

Yes, once you "break concealment" (open fire on the baddies) you've lost it. However, Rangers do have an ability where they can re-enter concealment. So, theoretically, if you had a squad composed entirely of Rangers, you could break concealment and ambush the bad guys and kill them, and then have everyone re-enter concealment.

But no, there aren't silenced weapons, or you can't run in and do some sort of coordinated mass killing strike and kill everyone before they have a chance to yell out and let their buddies know you're around.

The basic 2 paths with Rangers are "typical Assault class from X-Com" and "Ninja". Ninja focuses heavily on concealment and using your blade, while Assault is more oriented towards run and gun, rapid fire, not triggering overwatch, etc.

 

[DoPo]

the vast majority of your XP comes from killing enemies.

The only way to level up is through kills: explanation of the promotion system [http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/255057/how-can-i-tell-how-many-kills-my-soldier-is-away-from-promotion/255062#255062]. There isn't really XP in the game, per se.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

If you prefer to play it like that, then more power to you. But there is no denying it is cheating. It allows you to do whatever you want and build up resources, train your squad, build equipment. I mean, I played through on easy before anything else, so this isn't a judgement thing, just think you should be clear with yourself.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

Generally, I would complete the game by itself (maybe even the hardest mode) and then try the major gameplay mods out there. I break this rule for games that I don't really find fun or interesting at vanilla, even after hours of playing it (Empire: Total War; thank you Darthmod).

Then there are some harmless mods that only add fluff like music or accessories. Can't go wrong with that.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

I am playing with a handful of cosmetic and performance fix mods. I will probably beat the game and then mod in infinite resources to my save so I can test out all the things, get a feel for what combinations of research paths and such are viable on harder difficulties. Future runs will probably involve heavy modding, maybe even my own mods.

 

[Thyunda]

I have so many mods. Another gun? Customisation? Voices? Nations? Gotta have 'em all. I haven't subscribed to anything that would alter gameplay beyond additional, balanced classes, though, because that would render my achievements moot and my friends would mock me.

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

I have so many mods. Another gun? Customisation? Voices? Nations? Gotta have 'em all. I haven't subscribed to anything that would alter gameplay beyond additional, balanced classes, though, because that would render my achievements moot and my friends would mock me.

Have you found any good additional class mods? Particularly ones that are well balanced?

For that matter, has anyone tested the officer class the long war guys made?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

For that matter, has anyone tested the officer class the long war guys made?

Yep. Through a couple campaigns now.

Not sure the time required to train an officer is a great trade off for the mildness of the abilities, but they definitely help a bit. I actually think getting one started early is a good idea, as there are some "gathering" perks that give extra intel/alloys/elerium, and those would be best employed early to help push through the mid game when all those are scarce and in high demand. By end game they are something of a "win more" proposition. I think they'd shine more in an extended campaign.

 

[spartandude]

Personally I didn't find the timers too strict at all and while the Avatar Project made me tense (got to a point where it was nearly done) I was able to beat the game on my first playthrough.... 10 minutes or so ago. I should also point out I am still unable to beat Enemy Unknown/Within but found this game challenging but fair.

I say play as you want but I think the harshness of the turn/ avatar counters is far over stated. I would advise trying it without the mods to get that frantic tense feel it's meant to have but each to their own.