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I held off on buying War of the Chosen for a long while because it just seemed like too much. I would read through the list of what was added, feel overwhelmed, and then pass on it.
Now that I’ve finally purchased it though: I can say that I love it. All of the things that they add to the game do a great job of stretching your resources just a little bit more thing while giving you a reward for each. The result is that even a vet player is constantly kept just slightly “on their back foot” which I personally believe is when this game is the most fun.
They also added a ton of minor RNG to several systems which helps each run feel completely different from the others which increases replay ability a lot.
I do think people new to the game should still start on the vanilla version of Xcom 2 at least until they master the combat system. Normal engagements can be brutal enough in your first campaign when you’re coming out of fights with 1 death, 2 light wounds, and 1 grave wound....layer the fatigue system, bond training, covert Ops, and negative trait removal on top of that and I assume a new player will have a very frustrating time.
If you liked Xcom 2, but always got intimidated by this DLC like me then I’d highly recommend you give it a spin.
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Personally I don't like the way WoC adds what are basically MCU villains to X-Com. The great vibe of X-Com for me was that you're facing a mysterious, ultimately unknowable alien menace, which has motivations and reasoning we humans can't fully wrap our heads around. WoC dumps that for blue humans who act petty and throw insults at you. For me, it really hamstrings the atmosphere.
ID: gq1vu48ID: gq22rfbInteresting.
While I love the vanilla game, I did feel like advent is only ever reactive to my actions and never really tried to hunt me.
While I agree that they got rid of the mysterious villain and I would have liked that better: I did feel like the chosen made it feel like advent was actually fighting back. I enjoyed the “cat and mouse” feel of trying to pull off my operation while simultaneously preventing them from pulling off theirs.
ID: gq2cjtkI think that issue was offset by me by the fact that I played my first campaign vanilla, so I did get to enjoy the mysterious enemy, but for the second play-through I was ready for "more story" at the slight expense of ambience.
I think that's overall a thing that can make (substantial) game expansions a good thing: Add to the fun while keeping the original game "lean".
ID: gq2fp92Yeah it’s the same vibe as borderlands 3. A bunch of super powered children throwing cheap stupid insults while getting their asses kicked (because obviously you win in the end). If there was an option to turn off the taunting and the fake news media after every mission, I probably would’ve finished it, but I couldn’t take it.
ID: gq2wok0The way that they chose to implement the stamina system is also awful.
Consider that...
1.) Wounds override being tired, so soldiers that take damage ignore the stamina system
2.) Wound time can be shortened through research and buildings, while "tired" is completely unscalable. A lightly wounded soldier can be back on their feet in as few as two days, while a tired soldier is out of the fight for at least a week.
Taken together these decisions create a perverse incentive to make sure that all of your soldiers take a small amount of damage during every mission, especially in the late game where losing a psionic or faction soldier for a week can be lethal. The aliens are too dangerous, so the correct play becomes to force every uninjured member of your squad to circlejerk a frag grenade while they're standing in the evacuation zone.
I hope you didn't have any sort of attachment to the fantasy of the game, because that goes straight out the window the first time your elite squad of world-saving supersoldiers intentionally blows itself up.
ID: gq2snhhYou could argue the base game already did that with the Avatar though...
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I agree. Even though the Switch version comes with WOTC, I'm very glad I selected vanilla XCOM2 for my first campaign, seeing what was added in WOTC. But after my first play-through, seeing the added systems, factions, and story beats was well-refreshing and added tons to the game.
I'm saying that as I haven't progressed very far through my first WOTC campaign, though, so I cannot make any comment about balance or how it feels later-game.
ID: gq171rdI found that the game stayed difficult a little bit longer than the base game, but ultimately turned into an even bigger stomp fest in the late game. This was due to two things: the chosen, and the systems which restrict your ability to consistently field your A or B team for missions.
The chosen didn’t ever lead to a straight squad wipe for me, but they would consistently wound 3 members of my squad while sometimes killing/kidnapping another.
And the various systems force your to have around 3 squads worth of viable soldiers rather than the traditional 2 that you could have in the base game. This forces them to gain promotions more slowly which makes it harder to get ahead of the enemy’s power curve.
But in the late game, bond abilities, abilities from the training center, and the weapons from the chosen put even more power in your hands than before.
ID: gq1miufDoes it run well on the switch? I was thinking of getting it but wasn't sure how well it would play especially portable.
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100% agreed. WoTC is amazing but it's different enough to vanilla and because of it's faster pace you should never play it first, i mean you can get >! randomly invaded by the alien queen dlc stuff and get completely thrown out of "the plan"!<
I love the new baddies too, advent always felt too.. absent to be a menace.
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Damn I completely agree. I played WotC and had the same thought - "This is cool and adds depth, but if I didn't already know 'XCom 2' was good, it would've annoyed and confused the shit out of me to have so much of it be about Rita Repulsa's 3 supervillains when I'm still learning to fight basic enemies."
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I really liked WoTc. I kinda want to get into Long War, but I'm a bit intimidated by it.
ID: gq3pymdSince it’s a free MOD I’d definitely recommend just going for it if you think you might be interested. Could always bail if you don’t like it.
Many people swear that Long War is the only way to experience Xcom. I’ve never tried it personally though because I feel like it exaggerates all the things about the game that I don’t like.
That’s the cool thing about the mod community though: there is just so much to dig into and try!
ID: gq4pqu5Long War turns Firaxis' port of XCOM to the superhero genre back into a squad game. Firaxis made some absolutely lovely stuff, but if you want the UFO Defense feeling back, it's Long War that will deliver it to you.
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You've got it pretty spot on. I think that players new to x-com or even x-com 2 should try without wotc at first. Wotc is definitely a lot of great content though.
I would also recommend not having the alien hunter dlc turned on during your first run throughs either. Those random alien boss spawns can wipe out an entire squad or ruin your turns.
ID: gq40cp3Great point. It’s not very well said in the description but alien hunters is definitely DLC for people who are looking for an additional challenge. Not for people on their first ever play through.
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Some of the other DLC is garbo OR isn't level gated properly.
Like the King units are just straight up unfun and their loot is garbage. Fuck those dweebs, I turn that shit off instantly.
The Mech stuff is cool, except the mission really REALLY needs to come later in the campaign. Taking really underleveled people in is incredibly unfun and the game doesn't do anything to discourage you doing this.
I nearly 100%ed X-Com: Enemy Within and I didn't even finish 2. I did really like the legacy missions/campaign generator.
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Vipers make me rage quit everytime so I never get beyond a certain point. Pulling through walls and floors from so far away with a tongue and almost always guaranteeing death just pisses me off too much.
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It's a long way from a sectoid in a cornfield.