XCOM 2: Mods or no mods?

[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.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

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.

It's entirely overstated. In fact, without timers the game could be construed as almost trivially easy due to a couple of things.

One is the Mimic Beacon, which is just straight up broken and in line for a nerf. If you don't want to wait for the official nerf, Beaglerush has already scripted one of his own.

The second is grenade spam + salvo, the solution to which is the grenade damage drop-off mod so they mimic the way explosives behaved in Long War.

 

[Jack Action]

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.

It's entirely overstated. In fact, without timers the game could be construed as almost trivially easy due to a couple of things.

One is the Mimic Beacon, which is just straight up broken and in line for a nerf. If you don't want to wait for the official nerf, Beaglerush has already scripted one of his own.

The second is grenade spam + salvo, the solution to which is the grenade damage drop-off mod so they mimic the way explosives behaved in Long War.

Eh, won't over-reliance on grenade spam shaft you badly in the last mission? You can't really carry enough grenades to deal with everything, and the Nuke has a huge cooldown (plus, it only does half damage on cast, and things tend to move out of the way before it does the other half).

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Eh, won't over-reliance on grenade spam shaft you badly in the last mission? You can't really carry enough grenades to deal with everything, and the Nuke has a huge cooldown (plus, it only does half damage on cast, and things tend to move out of the way before it does the other half).

One mission does not mitigate the fact that grenade saturation is a ridiculously overpowered strategy across all difficulties right now. It needs to be aggressively toned down. As it stands there's really no upper limit on the number of grenadiers that is healthy to take, whereas every other class has strict drop-off points.

 

[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.

It's entirely overstated. In fact, without timers the game could be construed as almost trivially easy due to a couple of things.

One is the Mimic Beacon, which is just straight up broken and in line for a nerf. If you don't want to wait for the official nerf, Beaglerush has already scripted one of his own.

The second is grenade spam + salvo, the solution to which is the grenade damage drop-off mod so they mimic the way explosives behaved in Long War.

After i beat the game I found out that the mimic was OP... that would have come in handy on at least one occasion.

But for me its not so much that modding would make it too easy but (and at the risk of sounding pretentious) the limits that the game imposes really add to the experience for me. I'm someone who mods games (Bethesda games NEED them imo) so i'm not a vanilla purist but this tension is one thing which makes this game for me.

 

[DoPo]

One mission does not mitigate the fact that grenade saturation is a ridiculously overpowered strategy across all difficulties right now. It needs to be aggressively toned down. As it stands there's really no upper limit on the number of grenadiers that is healthy to take, whereas every other class has strict drop-off points.

Yeah - right now, I'm bringing two grenadiers to each mission. And they rock. I had another grenadier specced into the control/heavy weapons tree but I found that she's not nearly as useful as the ones who take the explosion skills[footnote]although even for them, I still take the armour shredding ability and the Suppress, since I found the alternatives - extra 1 armour and Demolition to be mostly useless a lot of times[/footnote]. Each of them has 3 grenades (2xthe grenade slot one) and a heavy weapon (I go for sredder and rocket) and the amount of boom they do is just crazy. With Salvo, enemies just melt.

I activated three pods today (by accident) and still destroyed them all thanks to all the explosions. Sure, I had other teammates also doing damage and stuff, but there is the thing - I'm pretty sure a team of entirely grenadiers would have been more effective. I keep other people around to keep the game from being too boring. Well, that and the fact that if you blow up an enemy, you lose the loot. Not really as much of a problem, but still something to keep in mind.

I agree that grenades are pretty powerful. They make the game SO MUCH EASIER. At least if you have two grenadiers, like me, you still have a somewhat limited amount of grenades. Still, even with 6 that's plenty - there are between 3 and 4 pods (9-11 enemies) per map on Commander excluding the reinforcements, dark event insertions (chrysalids, faceless) or other enemies not revealed by the Shadow Chamber (like turrets). You can pretty much just use two grenades per pod with no problems. Then there are the heavy weapons. Those totally allow you two explosions per pod. And even then, you probably won't need to use them. I usually start concealed engagements with the psi operative throwing Void and then pretty much everything dying thus not requiring any grenades.

I tend to finish missions with spare explosives left, just because they are so useful deploying one or two tends to solve lots of problems immediately. I've given my grenadiers extra movement through PCS since positioning them right makes them so much better.

 

[Jack Action]

Eh, won't over-reliance on grenade spam shaft you badly in the last mission? You can't really carry enough grenades to deal with everything, and the Nuke has a huge cooldown (plus, it only does half damage on cast, and things tend to move out of the way before it does the other half).

One mission does not mitigate the fact that grenade saturation is a ridiculously overpowered strategy across all difficulties right now. It needs to be aggressively toned down. As it stands there's really no upper limit on the number of grenadiers that is healthy to take, whereas every other class has strict drop-off points.

Well, you can't really use them on Terror missions either, but yeah see how they'd wipe the map on most of the others. They could change the grenadiers' utility slot to Utility Items only, I think, since they have the custom grenade slot anyway.

 

[Elfgore]

Tried four games, the first three without mods. The fourth game I've downloaded several mods. This includes no avatar project timer, no mission turn timers, guaranteed sword strikes, and stop wasting my time. These mods have increased my enjoyment of the game tenfold.

So yeah, I say mod it up.

 

[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.

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?

I only got the Rogue (submachine gun and pistol) and Trooper (any weapon, supposedly) but I do need to get the Leader one. They're okay, I suppose, my problem was that the only Trooper I've ended up with - a Scotswoman named Charlotte Sutherland, if I recall correctly, got captured on her first mission and killed when I got her back. She had a sniper rifle and the Return Fire skill, but it simply did not help. Every Rogue I've had has gotten mind-controlled. I swear. Every single one.
They don't make the game any easier, these classes. I'll tell you that for free. The Rogue is like a Ranger except shit.

 

[Laughing Man]

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

I would debate that to a degree, I did my first play through on Veteran difficulty managed to make it through the entire game using the same basic squad and tactics, a couple of naders, a hacker / healer, a sniper and a melee guy, using overwatch cover and move until reaching the first pod of bad guys then gunning my way through the rest with a nod towards a more defensive position of my guys.

Note anything strange about my set up here? No Psi-Ops, got through the entire game without even looking at the Psi-Ops branch of combat and then tried my hand at the last missions and got wrecked, got to the last section, killed my first big bad and then had a second one complete with back up appear then they started calling two sets of reinforcements every turn (6 new baddies every turn.) I got rapidly overrun.

So I opted to reload an earlier save and plough some time in to Psi-ops, the closest save I could find was the first encounter with a Gatekeeper. I trained 3 Psi-ops to at least a level were they could use Domination and my god do things get easy, I mean really easy.

For example you start the last level with 7 guys, with 3 Psi-ops (which I ran with) you can make a squad of 11. You hit a Gatekeeper and a squad of humanoid bad guys like I did, a Gatekeeper followed by 4 troopers I was able to mind control the Gatekeeper and then use it to attack and take control of the 4 dead troopers. I suddenly had a squad of 15. I just ended up using my mind controlled puppets to distract the bad guys while I moved my main squad in to take out the big bad and my god was this difficult last mission suddenly a whole heap easier.

The game is very well balanced and challenging if regular squaddies but the second you get a few well trained Psi-op guys on your team it becomes a total walk in the park and if you mind control the right enemies it get's even easier and just to test this theory I tried some of the later missions with my Psi-op guys only to find that missions that I was finishing on Excellent or Good I was suddenly walking through with Flawless.

Oh and I didn't use any mods but I will on my replay.

 

[wings012]

I never modded EU/EW and I don't plan on modding 2.

If I was younger and had more free time though, I would do a mod run after I've done a vanilla run and taken a break. Which was my Bethesda game policy.