Thank you so much for bringing back the fun

Discussion of our XCOM 2 mods
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raydeft
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2016 1:30 pm

Thank you so much for bringing back the fun

Post by raydeft »

Hi Johnny / Amineri / James / Capnbubs (and anyone else who contributed),

I've been playing on legend with the long war perk pack since release. A lot. Let's call it a good 30-40 hours so far. For background, I've played for 400 hours and managed one legend ironman win so far, bit most campaigns have stuttered to a repeat squadwiping failure around plasma july/august in the campaign. I realised last night (at some ungodly hour) that the perk pack had really brought back the fun to XCom2. I think this is in the mainly due to Fleche / Close Combat Specialist / run and gun (early in tree).

* With Fleche I feel like there is a real point to taking swords and blademaster and perks that improve melee. In the early game I know that there's a pretty good chance that I will get a sword kill with fleche, so even though it often leaves the soldier exposed if things go wrong, I am willing to use it to make a dash across the screen. I never used slash in base game.

* Likewise having run and gun early in the tree suddenly gives me confidence to move forward and explore, knowing there's an action I can take if things go wrong. So I am less cautious and "creep" less. Also R&G now does not conflict with another great perk. I feel like the assault archetype is back.

* CCS is mind boggling. I'd forgotten how much I love this perk. Death dealers are back. Last night I felt like I was thematically back at the fishing wharf in Newfoundland as I moved directly up to pods and watched carnage happen. But it does not always go well. A faceless munched a soldier when I forgot to reload (CCS has trouble processing with an empty shotgun), a viper on 2 health dodged a CCS shot and poisoned a group of soldiers. So the changes probably get me into more trouble when things go wrong.

But here's the thing: I lost 3 out of 5 soldiers on a bad mission in May - and it was okay. I wrote up an obituary, commemorating one guys 2/3 CCS, gave a salute and carried on with the game. I knew that my new specialists were going to be viable. This is a dramatic contrast with the usual experience of Legend, where this kind of result gets me thinking seriously about abandoning.

The perk pack really brings back some fun in areas. And I could go on about Area Suppresssion, Grenadiers vs Gunners, and snap shot snipers, and and and

Thanks A Mil
Amineri

Re: Thank you so much for bringing back the fun

Post by Amineri »

I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. We make the mods for people to enjoy, so it's nice to get feedback that it's working for at least some.

Hopefully when we release the new aliens (soon-ish), it will provide some fresh challenges after you've gotten used to the new soldier options. :)
ASDF0716
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2016 3:18 pm

Re: Thank you so much for bringing back the fun

Post by ASDF0716 »

LWS,

Out of curiosity, was it a conscious decision to not break out the "medic" stuff from the Specialist class into a full "medic" class? If so, was it at all discussed, or was it basically just understood? Just curious! I love hearing the "behind the scenes" stuff that leads to decision "A" vs decision "B"
Amineri

Re: Thank you so much for bringing back the fun

Post by Amineri »

We did discuss that as an options, but felt we couldn't really spit them without leaving each subclass a bit too bare-boned.

The existing Grenadier split more naturally based on weapons -- Cannon vs Grenade-Launcher. The sword and shotgun split also was based more on weapons than on functionality. Both are melee weapons, so they end up a little redundant on the same class. Finally there's the more "pure Rifle infantry" class rounding them out.
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