XCOM 2

[Cordeos]

  On 6/16/2015 at 3:26 PM, Vasari said:

In all the excitement yesterday, I completely forgot that IGN showed the first XCOM 2 gameplay.

 

 

 

Thoughts:

  Reveal hidden contents

Bradford is looking rough. As is required for gritty dark sequels, he's grown a terrible beard.

 

You start off in Concealment, which means the aliens don't know you're there and you can position your squad for an ambush. The red tiles show you where enemies will detect you. When you attack an enemy you'll break concealment and they'll run for cover, but you can set up your team in Overwatch to automatically shoot at them before they get to cover.

 

The movement range for soldiers looks huge now, which I guess means the maps are also alot bigger.

 

I like that your soldiers can appear on wanted posters in the cities, that's a neat touch.

 

It looks like every mission now also has an objective to accomplish that's randomly placed on the map. That could be something like hacking a computer, sabotaging something or rescuing someone.

 

Holy fuck, Vipers! Snake ladies can pull soldiers out of cover and I guess straight-up kill them too.

 

The soldiers with swords can rush up on enemies and slice them up, but it looks like that leaves them exposed and out of cover. They mentioned a perk that lets those soldiers move again after killing an enemy with the sword.

 

That African soldier has an accent! I always wanted to hear more accents for soldiers from different countries, I hope they get a good variety.

 

Enemy soldiers can drop in as reinforcements at any point in a mission. I hope they don't drop in behind your squad and get a free flanking shot to kill them all because that seems lame.

 

The specialist can hack stuff. Depending on his/her Tech stat they can get different effects from hacking something. Sounds like you can hack anything that's considered "robotic".

 

Aliens look nasty! I guess you're not supposed to take them on until later in the game where you have the equipment to deal with them.

 

When you want to leave a mission, you place a waypoint for the Skyranger. If you want to recover dead/wounded soldiers and their equipment you have to have another soldier carry them to the landing zone.

 

They don't show the pathing system, but they explain that the automatic paths your soldiers take will avoid hazards like fire. You can set manual paths for soldiers to follow that take them exactly where you want, but even if you don't use it you're not going to run into poison clouds by accident.

 

The Muton Berserker is also female. Aliens are confirmed SJWs

 

Sectoids can "Psi-reanimate" either aliens or dead XCOM soldiers to make them fight against you. Sectoids are the new Chryssalids.

 

This looks great! I love the new changes they're making, it sounds like this will be alot more replayable than the first one.

 

I am a little annoyed that they made a bunch of exceptions in this "gameplay" I want to see an actual representation of the game, not this cinematic gameplay thing. I am excited by the possibility of overwatch happening one by one so three soldiers don't shoot the same guy at 1 HP (some sort of initiative system?).

[sclpls]

This looks mostly good, and hopefully the stuff that might prove to be less than great will be moddable (they said enemies showing up won't get any free shots, but I'm okay with the idea of reinforcements getting free shots I think).

 

You should be able to click on a tile and see what LoS looks like from that position. That needs to exist I think.

[YoThatLimp]

Man, this game looks great!

[YoThatLimp]

Oops, forgot the Eurogamer video:

 

[Vasari]

SEXY

 

 

ALIEN

 

 

BODS

 

[Apelsin]

That's a proper good looking torso in that last one there. Hot damn.

 

  On 6/5/2015 at 5:56 PM, SuperBiasedMan said:

Any hint of adding undoable moves or at least a consistent understanding of what moving into a square will allow you?

One of the worst parts of EU was moving a soldier into position to take out an enemy, only to discover that apparently it's not an adequate spot for line of sight. The soldier can't do anything else in their turn and now the alien gets to move in on the idiot that ran so far they couldn't see the alien any more.

 

I just watched a video where the 'tuber mentioned that there is some kind of UI element that informs you whether there is line-of-sight when selecting where to move.

[Badfinger]

Over this weekend I became irrationally excited about this game. I'm sure it'll be wonderful, but I never beat XCOM: EU. Why am I so hyped up for a sequel to a game I never finished.

[Vulpes Absurda]

I just saw the official twitter account for XCOM just retweeted a total Biscuit video and man, that killed a good bit of my enthusiasm for this one. :/

 

I guess I'll have to turn to the new Mass Effect for all my sexy alien bods needs.

 

SEXY VOICE, I'M NOT WEARING A THING. WHAT ABOUT YOU BLASTO?

[aoanla]

  On 1/11/2016 at 12:14 AM, Mupp said:

That's a proper good looking torso in that last one there. Hot damn.

 

 

I just watched a video where the 'tuber mentioned that there is some kind of UI element that informs you whether there is line-of-sight when selecting where to move.

 

Specifically: there's a little crosshair icon to the left of the health bar on enemy troops, which is displayed if the current destination would give you LOS to them (and I think it changes to yellow if you'd be flanking). Similarly, your troops' icon shows if you'd be flanked if you moved to the current destination.

In general, the UI seems to have been significantly polished for this kind of thing over EU.

[Gwardinen]

This video highlights a few of the broader changes to the gameplay, though I'm not sure I go along with their "biggest changes" titling:

 

[SuperBiasedMan]

  On 1/11/2016 at 10:28 AM, aoanla said:

Specifically: there's a little crosshair icon to the left of the health bar on enemy troops, which is displayed if the current destination would give you LOS to them (and I think it changes to yellow if you'd be flanking). Similarly, your troops' icon shows if you'd be flanked if you moved to the current destination.

In general, the UI seems to have been significantly polished for this kind of thing over EU.

 

Aha, that's good! I played Massive Chalice recently which did exactly this and it made a big difference so I'm glad to see they're adopting it.

[zerofiftyone]

Yeah, I think they credited that addition to Massive Chalice, which is cool. 

[Badfinger]

  On 1/11/2016 at 4:30 AM, Vulpes Absurda said:

I just saw the official twitter account for XCOM just retweeted a total Biscuit video and man, that killed a good bit of my enthusiasm for this one. :/

 

I guess I'll have to turn to the new Mass Effect for all my sexy alien bods needs.

 

SEXY VOICE, I'M NOT WEARING A THING. WHAT ABOUT YOU BLASTO?

 

How about Jake Solomon and Garth Jake-ing it up on an hourlong mission?!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kacg5SKJy_4

[Dewar]

There's definitely been some XCOM 2 streams where you can see the whole first couple months of the game. Beaglerush is the big one I'm aware of, but I think there's a few more out there.

 

I haven't watched any, I already know I'm buying it so I'm not in any rush to consume content.

[Vulpes Absurda]

I'm bothered that they would retweet a Total Biscuit video then I am with what I've seen of the game. A single retweet fof someone I consider truly awful might not warrant a boycot, but it doesn't exactly endear me to it either.

[Bjorn]

I still wonder how much awareness a lot of people have of TB and how he's courted his audience over the last couple of years.  I saw a thread the other day on the Warframe forums where someone linked to a TB video, and easily half of the people who commented had no idea who he was.  I think, even being a pretty dedicated enthusiast, it's possible to have missed TB's existence.  And on the dev side, they're probably more likely to know who the popular 'tubers are for marketing reasons, but that doesn't mean they have an awareness of all the actions those people have taken.  Even if you were doing some vetting of who you tweeted, a quick google of TB doesn't turn up any red flags in the first few pages, and would even paint him as sympathetic with stories about his cancer. 

[Vulpes Absurda]

Yeah it seems to have been largely swept under the rug as no one wants to be the one to question a dying man. But his ragging transphobia really should be better known by now. As someone who is not directly effected by it's easy enough to assume the marketing person doesn't know and is just doing their job, but it's hard to think about my friends who are effected and feel good about it.

[aoanla]

  On 1/11/2016 at 4:51 PM, Dewar said:

There's definitely been some XCOM 2 streams where you can see the whole first couple months of the game. Beaglerush is the big one I'm aware of, but I think there's a few more out there.

 

I haven't watched any, I already know I'm buying it so I'm not in any rush to consume content.

 

Christopher Odd is also covering the first few months (all that you can do in the preview build the streamers have) pretty quickly - he also has complete class perk breakdown videos for each class, including the Psi Operative.

(And Northernlion is doing a playthrough, but given his usual approach to tactics, I'm not sure he'll actually get to the end of the preview...)

[Bjorn]

  On 1/11/2016 at 6:40 PM, Vulpes Absurda said:

Yeah it seems to have been largely swept under the rug as no one wants to be the one to question a dying man. But his ragging transphobia really should be better known by now. As someone who is not directly effected by it's easy enough to assume the marketing person doesn't know and is just doing their job, but it's hard to think about my friends who are effected and feel good about it.

 

Oh, I totally agree with you on that, it's just I think it's sometimes easy to forget that things we're aware of generally on this board don't represent the knowledge that others have. 

 

Also, I hadn't gone and looked at that tweet.  It's not just directing a link to him, but he was given a preview copy, which they then advertised on their official channel.  That's...got some more problems than just happening to retweet him or something.  I'd rather not see my favorite devs doing business with him. That feeds the symbiotic beast that now exists between the most powerful tubers and devs.

[Vulpes Absurda]

I didn't even think about it being a preview copy that they had to have given him. I guess my question now is do I try to contact the XCOM people for some sort of comment? Try to get a hold of someone who could do that and actually get a response? The cynic in me tells me it won't matter and the realist in me tells me I'm right.

[SuperBiasedMan]

  On 1/11/2016 at 7:59 PM, Vulpes Absurda said:

I didn't even think about it being a preview copy that they had to have given him. I guess my question now is do I try to contact the XCOM people for some sort of comment? Try to get a hold of someone who could do that and actually get a response? The cynic in me tells me it won't matter and the realist in me tells me I'm right.

 

The pragmatist in me says it doesn't take much to just send them word and see if they answer, you likely wont get an answer but if you did it would be valuable.

[Vulpes Absurda]

I may well do it as soon as I can find out how best to contact them. I could try finding the email for marketing. I know tweeting at them would be pointless. And I don't see how posting on any official forums would do anything but get the thread locked.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I wouldn't post and let the public at large weigh in on it, that only invites TB and his fans to flock there.

[Badfinger]

  On 1/11/2016 at 7:34 PM, Bjorn said:

Oh, I totally agree with you on that, it's just I think it's sometimes easy to forget that things we're aware of generally on this board don't represent the knowledge that others have. 

 

Also, I hadn't gone and looked at that tweet.  It's not just directing a link to him, but he was given a preview copy, which they then advertised on their official channel.  That's...got some more problems than just happening to retweet him or something.  I'd rather not see my favorite devs doing business with him. That feeds the symbiotic beast that now exists between the most powerful tubers and devs.

 

Quite a lot of people who would play a game like XCOM 2 have gotten a preview copy. Matt Lees from Cool Ghosts posted a 25 minute video talking about it, and then did an hour-plus podcasts all about playing it along with Chris Bratt from Eurogamer, who also got a preview copy. RPS got a preview copy. I think it's time to stop viewing the line between "enthusiast" and "press" as blurred and just not see it at all.

 

It's not quite the same thing, but it's similar to tarring Soren Johnson with the same brush you might have painted Brad Wardell with because Offworld Trading Company is being published by Stardock.

 

I read what I wrote and I don't mean to be dismissive. I think it's absolutely worth saying something, even while I honestly believe their decision to do that is completely outside of understanding who TotalBiscuit actually is as a person.

[Bjorn]

I could have worded that more clearly, but generally I think there's still a pretty clear demarcation between the YouTube/Twitch cults of personality that have developed around some streamers and organizations that have a variety of staff that will come and go over time.  If Bain suddenly took a job at Polygon, I'd still say the same thing about not liking seeing devs directly hand off promotional work to him.  On an organizational level, I could understand if someone had the same sentiment about Kotaku because their parent company has acted in some pretty reprehensible ways. 

 

Edited to add: On topic of X2, I'm still really pumped for it, TB notwithstanding.  After last year's AAA releases left me feeling pretty meh, Xcom 2 has been a shining beacon to look forward to.