is there an XCOM thread?

ha, that's exactly what i have, but a crappier video card, i think. not the game's fault, considering my iMac is eight (godforsaken!) years old now

wow i can't believe you kept your mac alive for eight years

easy when you're cheap, foolish and stubborn

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M?!?

lots of performance issues according to steam forum

i'm just going to pretend it doesn't work, i don't really want to spend that much anyway

It's a 2K game, so it'll heavily discounted soon enough. I never even got around to Enemy Within, anyway...

Fuck it, let's do this.

Dealzon has links to like ~25% off, with a slightly better discount for UK/EU sites.

http://www.dealzon.com/deals/cheap-xcom-2#xcom-2

Is there an easy way to share squaddie builds yet? Are we all on the ILX steam group?

Interesting set-up so far. Graphics are hitching during the cinematics, but okay during fights. Little delay in the scripting after alien activity before they shift it back to your turn. If this thing has gamepad controls, they're pretty limited so far.

Cover factors include not just distance and half/full blocking, but elevation too.

this is just about running at min settings on my 13in mid-2014 Macbook Pro. I get warnings about being sub-minimum spec (I think the graphics card is the weak link), but it lets you click continue. Long load times and it stalls when campbell tries to tell you things during missions, but first couple of maps have been comfortably playable.

bradford not campbell i mean

There must be optimization problems in this build or something. It runs like ass on my 3.3gz i5, 24gb ram, Radeon R9/2gb. All hinky even at low settings and resolution.

man i hope this doesn't hurt them. seems a massive oversight, though: i don't think xcom players, on average, are really the gotta-have-the-newest-graphics type

I was thinking "ok, I'm getting by, it's basically working, and I'm happy enough to be getting MORE XCOM on my just-under-the-bar laptop", but once I saw just how many problems there are, on machines that are >>>recommended spec… I think maybe do not touch this till it is fixed.

going to play it now though, it's such fun

Bradford should be played by Nick Kroll with a little too much eye-liner

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSlk8ITU8AAKk0g.jpg:large

Also, for those who want a little preview gameplay footage:

https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CaerqUdUUAAa1yW.mp4

I turned off action cam, vsync, dropped down shadow and AA effect, then forced them on with the graphics card app. Better.

Game still hard as shit. Thinking about dropping this down to easy for the 1st playthru.

I had a quick try at it and lost on the first (non-tutorial) mission.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/44b7pf/xcom_2_tips_megathread/

Wow, these are good. Flashbang a sectoid to kill its psionic controls, aggro a patrol squad before you get too far in and wind up getting caught between squads afore & behind you, etc.

http://www.gamepur.com/guide/21988-xcom-2-pc-error-fix-fps-loss-save-game-location-cant-detect-4k-resolution.html

Ooo, how to speed up animations!

time management of base operations stress >>> combat stress

not sure there's a game I cuss out more while playing. missing multiple 80%+ shots unleashes my nerd rage.

during my playthrough of the 2012 x-com, i got so fed up with missing high percentage shots that i briefly maintained a spreadsheet where i recorded the predicted percentages vs the actual outcomes. it balanced out in the end. but yes, nerd raaaaaage

how does the new one compare to 2012 x-com?

i'm only a few hours in but its mostly the same aside from your base being busier/more complex. (there are likely more new aliens and tech I haven't got to.) my biggest complaint is that your base advisers won't stfu. No matter where you click they have some stupid comment or story.

if you were into the 2012 game, you'll easily like it.

I'm still only a few hours in, but, yeah, it's like the same but more so - more options, more stuff to do, more to research - biggest change to the feel is that most missions have some kind of timer, so slow-slow-slow overwatch play doesn't work.

You can click off the in-house radio chatter, I think. The option of "ambient dialogue" or sumthing in the options, isn't it.

Added the mod for facepaint last night, and sending out all my squaddies in Pris-style warpaint is strangely satisfying.

Game is MUCH harder this time round, it should be emphasized. I'm just now getting non-shite gear.

feel like they overdo the punishment of getting squad members injured. trying to get your best crew set up for a difficult mission is almost impossible b/c of that.

Has anybody tried the multiplayer yet?

This game is really hard. I was chugging along doing great, beautiful squad, nice gear, flawless victory on holding off an attempted invasion of the base. Then all of a sudden while everybody's celebrating I find I haven't done enough outreach and I have three fires to put out and absolutely there's no way I'll have enough healthy guys to answer the second or third one. I just tried and failed through seven reloads to keep my best sharpshooter, Glenn Danzig, from getting merked by that muton on what should have been a pretty easy mission. Aka, I'm fucking done! Considering eating about 6-7 hours of progress and going back to an early save. I <3 u xcom

btw the specialist and ranger classes are the greatest in this game. The ranger's free overwatch bladestorm perk, how awesome is that. Also the flash grenade is the most useful flash grenade in video game history

Confirming that ranger and specialist are OP. Sharpshooters have been pretty underwhelming.

Specialist on the support tree is a little OP, I agree. It kind of blows the whole medikit economy which contributed to so much fun tension in the last game. (Specialist on the offence/hacker tree is kind of boring so far.)

imo saying ranger is OP is being kind of hard on yourself given how tough this game is. It's a glass cannon. Given that the sharpshooter can't be used in the usual way on the timed boards and the grenadier is actually more of a support class than a tank I think the classes are pretty balanced.

something i noticed today is that my evening spent playing xcom 2 war of the chosen has really made me want to time-manage my own life way more effectively

https://www.polygon.com/2020/4/14/21219644/xcom-chimera-squad-release-date-price-pc

firaxis announced a new xcom game today; it comes out in less than two weeks and it's half price on steam right now and for the first week of launch. HM.

i mean, is this a total dog they're trying to offload, or did an internal team do something experimental and they realised they could monetize it, or what ...

someone take the plunge and tell us how it is!
it's a 2K game so i will just wait until it's bundled. i never got around to playing XCOM 2 anyway

i have some buds who will for sure jump in day 1, i'll report back

-- the opening cutscene has a weird energy--it's still image flash animation. no budget. mouths don't move when people talk.
-- but the game itself is ... a modern xcom game.
-- runs just about on my non-gaming laptop on the lower settings but i should probably get my gaming pc out.
-- the writing is less bad than the other modern xcom games.
-- the base stuff ... kind of less bad also?
-- changing to interlaced turns doesn't bother me because it seems very familiar from just playing octopath traveler.
-- even on hard nothing difficult in the first two missions, though i guess one of those was a tutorial.
-- i wonder if the ending is going to set up a modern xcom version of apocalypse.

isn't there some sort of deal with this new one where there's a set, limited selection of characters you can pick from, rather than endlessly regenerating/training new soldiers like the last few? maybe i made that up

no that’s the deal

and if anyone bleeds out you have to start the mission over, which saps the tension rather a lot.

also missions are series of discrete rooms. it’s almost arcade-y. into the breach just got a big update, i think after i get through chimera squad i will do another run at that. maybe invisible inc also.

this game has over 1300 discussion topics on its steam board

my friend i mentioned above is a fan fwiw. i am prob gonna get it

don't play it on ironman. it generated a mission it was legit impossible for me to win* which meant i was just in an eternal 'restart mission?' loop

* if enemies ended the turn on a particular set of squares the mission was failed, but i didn't have the item or character that would let me start the mission near it, my characters all started more than a turn away from being in LOS of the fail condition