Long War 2 is fantastic news

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csaran
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Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by csaran »

This is great and exciting news for all Long War fans. Thank you, Pavonis Interactive, for working on this!

Now commences begging and badgering for details. :D

Since you have created a subforum for Long War 2 by itself and created a different subforum for the "stand alone" mods can we assume that Long War 2 will be a massive overhaul mod which includes all of the mods you have created so far in addition to sweeping and subtle changes just for Long War 2?

And whether that is true or not what changes and additions can we expect in Long War 2? Campaign timing tweaks? SPARK classes? Pod balance adjustments? Cover and damage modifications? Maybe even new mechanics???

This is so much fun to speculate about. Pavonis rocks!
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johnnylump
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by johnnylump »

Long War 2 ain't a beards mod.

Beyond that, details will be coming out over the next few weeks. Stay tuned ...
fowlJ
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by fowlJ »

johnnylump wrote:Long War 2 ain't a beards mod.
Hype dead, hopes crushed, subscription cancelled. How could you betray us like this?
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nick_abbott
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by nick_abbott »

What's a beards mod?
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nick_abbott
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by nick_abbott »

I was just out feeding my dogs and realized that I had missed the sarcasm boat! I had to walk thru 3 feet of snow while wearing my slippers to feed my dogs and I at least remembered to put some socks on!
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Arantir
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by Arantir »

That's great news indeed. After expereincing LW I just can't look at original XCOM the same way. You've done a really great job and basically turned the game in what I think it should've been in the first place (gameplay-wise), it's like a diamond for someone who really loves the plain brutal (but still pretty fair overall) challenge. While I wasn't expecting Firaxis to go in the same direction as LW I just can't enjoy playing XCOM2 even as a "warmup" experience. It's like... there are many good things about XCOM2 which I really appreciete, but there are also quite a lot of design descisions & shortcomings that completely threw me off. Sure there are some nice mods around but it's not a panacea. Game balance is a very fragile thing indeed, hard to establish and easy to mess up.
Well... thank you guys for what you've already done, absolutely love your stuff and really looking forward for LW2 and whatever else you would come up with in the future. :)

I guess you've already got a pretty good understanding of what makes LW so great in the first place but I just feel like sharing some personal thoughts regarding LW highlights based on ~600h of almost excluesively I/I experience :D .

- Indepth soldier specialization in form of classes
The original game have a very few ways to define a distinct role of a class via perk selection and apart from utility choices they are pretty linear. Additional classes in LW are not there just for the sake of "more options", they take away some utility from original classes in exchange for more room to specialize in something particular. I really prefer the idea of doing less, but doing it better instead of having a jack of all trades. Specialization means more thoughtful and demanding approach to squad composing and it greatly raises your potential efficiency (if you're doing it right ofc) allowing for a higher difficulty cap without going completely unfair.

- Power comes from synergy
Not to say that unmodded XCOM 1&2 completely missuse this concept, it just matters a whole lot more in LW. Most perks & stuff in LW are not that beneficial just by itself and have multiple synergies in mind. It takes effort to make a good use of them and figuring out the best combinations of perks/equipment/wepons/squadmembers is challenging and rewarding. With LW balance even seemingly OP stuff (i.e. perks that allow multiple shots per round) require a great deal of synergy to make a really good use of it. This concept adds a lot of depth to the game providing a huge room for different strategies & strategy optimisation, it's what makes people draw spreadsheads for perk builds & categorize their roster also allowing a fair increase in difficulty cap.

- Resource deficit
It's just a best way to make things you've got feel valuable and make their management impactful. Your troops is a resource as well and you need to maintain a healthy roster to afford going on a mission. Struggle for resources & fatigue mechanics is a significant part of LW experience. I really like the idea of strategic decisions being depandent on what you can and can not afford at the moment. It's a better way to enforce tough choices than presenting straight-up mutually exclusive options.

- Risk vs reward balance
Playing around risk & reward counterweight is a pretty basic concept on which all XCOM games are based regardless, LW just provides extra fine-tuning to the whole system through the balance of gameplay mechanics. For example the meld mechanics in vanilla EW (one of the main points of which was providing a reward for more agressive & risky play) failed to achieve it's purpose due to meld just not being that valuable and once you've gain a certain amount there was no real benefit to collect more (unless you want to chop/genemod every living being in your barracks). In LW it just works gameplay-wise because of resource deficit and extended field of use as well as the ability to sell the orange stuff, effectively making successful risky advancements more profitable but leaving the option for a safe play. I mean... there nothing wrong in having some timed missions but the sheer amount of them in XCOM2 feels like fixing the problem of slow/safe play in a somewhat wrong way. I just hope to see some more "risk vs reward" workaround than "risk or fail".

- Game difficulty & scaling over time
Apart from having a high difficulty cap I mostly mean enemies not drastically falling behind once you get your hands on some powerful stuff and presenting good or even sometimes pretty brutal challenge regardless of how good your in-game situation looks like. XCOM is one of those games where the snowball effect is real (more wins = easier to win more) and failing to compensate for it result in reverse difficulty curve. I'm one of those people who would say that LW on impossible difficulty is still a pretty fair game overall and in some ways even more fair than vanilla. It's just not tolerant for mistakes and bad descisions (which is the whole point of highest difficulty in a game) and the challenge provided is a good match for a player who tends to maximize his efficiency, please keep it that way.

Well, those I think are the main points. I just really want to mention a few more things regarding uppcoming LW2...
I beg you, can we please have an assault class without mandatory sword thingy? And some adequate range aim bonuses & penalties for everyone?
C'mon, am I the only one who hates the idea of giving a secondary melee weapon (and a sword of all things!) to a class that already have a close-range weapon as a primary? I just can't watch a shotgun trooper putting away his gun to draw a sword from his back just in front of the enemy instead of shooting it in the face! It would make a lot more sense to give a sword option to a class that suffer a close range penalty (LW scout with marksman rifle is kinda the best candidate). Assault is a class that benefits a lot from having a mid-range sidearm, if only aim modifier wasn't so messed up in XCOM 2 apparently turning shotgun into a mid-range weapon. I also can't see the point of crippling the aim for pont-blank shots. That's not XCOM, baby! In XCOM despite the common belief you don't miss point-blank shots unless you're being under some aim decreasing status effects.
And by the way, if LW2 is going to decrease the overall pace of the game, maybe we shouldn't have a legit free lock'n load perk for basically all troops?

Damn, there are so much things I wanna ask about and feel like they're pretty important as well... I guess I'll just trust that you guys know what you're doing and gonna wait for further news :D
Well, thanks for reading this anyway.
Badman_bacon777
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by Badman_bacon777 »

nick_abbott wrote:I was just out feeding my dogs and realized that I had missed the sarcasm boat! I had to walk thru 3 feet of snow while wearing my slippers to feed my dogs and I at least remembered to put some socks on!
So what's a beard mod?
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johnnylump
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by johnnylump »

A few details in this Eurogamer article
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017- ... al-players
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93isnot100
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by 93isnot100 »

Mac question for you!

Apologies if this has been asked/answered somewhere else, but has there been any mention about whether or not Long War 2 will be released simultaneously for PC and Mac (or even for Mac at all)? I know the other Pavonis mods have worked on Mac, but I wanted to check.

Long War on Mac is the reason I went from "kinda into XCOM" to "disturbingly into XCOM" (coincidentally, it's also the reason I learned what "self-flagellation" is), and I'm hoping I can dive into Long War 2 the same way. Thanks!
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Valaska
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by Valaska »

Badman_bacon777 wrote:
nick_abbott wrote:I was just out feeding my dogs and realized that I had missed the sarcasm boat! I had to walk thru 3 feet of snow while wearing my slippers to feed my dogs and I at least remembered to put some socks on!
So what's a beard mod?
A mod that adds no actual content other than beards or cosmetic.
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johnnylump
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by johnnylump »

@93isnot100

I want to acknowledge your question but I don't have an answer for you right now, sorry.
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93isnot100
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by 93isnot100 »

johnnylump wrote:@93isnot100

I want to acknowledge your question but I don't have an answer for you right now, sorry.
Welllllll, if the answer is eventually "no", please see the attached image. If the answer if eventually "yes", thank you for the extra efforts.

Either way, I very much appreciate the consideration (and the response!). And either way, best of luck with it! Coilguns look boss, can't wait to see more.
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Amineri

Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by Amineri »

93isnot100 wrote:
johnnylump wrote:@93isnot100

I want to acknowledge your question but I don't have an answer for you right now, sorry.
Welllllll, if the answer is eventually "no", please see the attached image. If the answer if eventually "yes", thank you for the extra efforts.

Either way, I very much appreciate the consideration (and the response!). And either way, best of luck with it! Coilguns look boss, can't wait to see more.
I'll just chime in here to say that we didn't code anything in any way that was particular targeted toward Windows OS. And there were a few places we had to work around such things (main one that pops to mind is replacing multi-line config, which is a problem because the line-endings differ between WinOS and others).

Unreal Engine 3 is designed to be pretty cross-platform compatible, but I personally haven't done any testing on a platform other than Windows, so we can't guarantee there aren't any little gotchas hanging about.
Desslok
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by Desslok »

Unbelievable !

When i heard about the then longwar studios working on their own game i was hyped .. but that was tempered by the realization there may not be an actual full longwar mod for xcom2. .. I was watching TotalBiscuit's top10 games of 2016 and was delighted to see Xcom2 claim his #1 slot and thought i heard something about longwar2 .. I got somewhat excited. Upon rewatching that section of his youtube vid to confirm what i believed i'd heard .. The hype was real.

My 150hours in xcom2 is just the beginning. :D

Did i hear correctly that this is going to be another free mod? .. So explain to me where all the money i've been throwing at my screen has been going ... ?
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93isnot100
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by 93isnot100 »

Amineri wrote:
93isnot100 wrote:
johnnylump wrote:@93isnot100

I want to acknowledge your question but I don't have an answer for you right now, sorry.
Welllllll, if the answer is eventually "no", please see the attached image. If the answer if eventually "yes", thank you for the extra efforts.

Either way, I very much appreciate the consideration (and the response!). And either way, best of luck with it! Coilguns look boss, can't wait to see more.
I'll just chime in here to say that we didn't code anything in any way that was particular targeted toward Windows OS. And there were a few places we had to work around such things (main one that pops to mind is replacing multi-line config, which is a problem because the line-endings differ between WinOS and others).

Unreal Engine 3 is designed to be pretty cross-platform compatible, but I personally haven't done any testing on a platform other than Windows, so we can't guarantee there aren't any little gotchas hanging about.
I have to admit, I find the details on how Windows/Mac OS stuff gets built fascinating in much the same way I find weather patterns fascinating (that sounds kind of weird, but I promise this is not sarcasm) — it's amazing and kinda beautiful and seems very complicated and intricate, but I don't know anything about what the hell is really going on or why it's working.

That said, if I may ask, how did the different versions of "For PC" vs. "For Mac/Linux" stuff work for Long War 1.0? Was that your team making both versions, or a separate group on the Mac/Linux side?

And hey, if Mac testers are needed for LW2 things, I would gladly volunteer myself as tribute. Either way, thanks for the info, and please keep up the kick-ass work!
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johnnylump
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by johnnylump »

For Long War EU/EW, the magnificent WGhost and several others did a port. I think it wasn't TOO much work. The main thing for Long War 2 is whether Mac/Linux has received the Patch 7 update ... (the Nov. 8 patch that also provided controller support). Long War 2 is built to work with that patch and isn't backward compatible out of the box with older versions of XCOM 2.

If you guys don't have that patch and it isn't forthcoming, it may be possible to rework LW2 to mostly function, but I don't know how much work that might be.
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93isnot100
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by 93isnot100 »

johnnylump wrote:For Long War EU/EW, the magnificent WGhost and several others did a port. I think it wasn't TOO much work. The main thing for Long War 2 is whether Mac/Linux has received the Patch 7 update ... (the Nov. 8 patch that also provided controller support). Long War 2 is built to work with that patch and isn't backward compatible out of the box with older versions of XCOM 2.

If you guys don't have that patch and it isn't forthcoming, it may be possible to rework LW2 to mostly function, but I don't know how much work that might be.
Ooh, I actually have an answer for that — the November patch actually came through from Feral in late December/early Jan (I started being able to use LW Toolbox again, etc.), so I think us Mac folks are all up to date with the proper version of the game. They're usually a wee bit behind the PC version, but Feral's been good about getting the updates out before *too* long goes by.
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johnnylump
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by johnnylump »

Ah, that's good to hear ... I had checked some Feral page and it didn't mention that update. I'm more confident it should work then.
tekronis
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by tekronis »

I just want to say Thank You to johnnylump, Amineri, CapnPubs and anyone else in the Pavonis Interactive team.

Thank you for your hard work and dedication, and seeing this through to its culmination.

I appreciate everything you guys have done.

Additional thanks go out to everyone who helped out in testing and more.
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93isnot100
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by 93isnot100 »

johnnylump wrote:Ah, that's good to hear ... I had checked some Feral page and it didn't mention that update. I'm more confident it should work then.
johnnylump - "I'm more confident it should work then."
93isnot100 - *continuous sound of much rejoicing*
tekronis
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by tekronis »

johnnylump, you mentioned that Psionics were still being looked at.

In addition to that, is there anything else still being examined?
Drenn
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by Drenn »

Since Long War 2 is apparently being released "very soon", can you say anything about whether it will have Linux / mac support at release?
mattprice516
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Re: Long War 2 is fantastic news

Post by mattprice516 »

tekronis wrote:In addition to that, is there anything else still being examined?
All the things. :)
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