Aug 17, 2017

Developer Strategy: How to Play the New Factions in XCOM 2 War of the Chosen

XCOM® 2 - Hinkle2K

This massive expansion to XCOM 2 introduces three new Factions – each with their own unique strengths and play styles. Of course, the developers at Firaxis Games have their favorites. We asked Joe Weinhofferand Mark Nauta (Designers) as well as Griffin Funk (Lead Producer) to explain theirs to us and give you some key survival tips.

The Templars, in their isolation, developed an almost religious zeal for collecting Psionic energy. Experimenting upon themselves, they even created weaponry that taps into their latent skills.

WHY JOE WEINHOFFER CHOSE THE TEMPLARS

The Templars are incredibly mobile, dual-sword-wielding melee Psionic powerhouses. What’s not to love? Nearly all of their damage comes from Rend, their primary Psionic melee attack.

Using sword attacks with Rangers always felt really satisfying, but came with a high degree of risk since the soldier would often be left in a disadvantageous position, either out of cover or far away from the rest of the squad. We’ve mitigated that by giving Templars “Momentum”, an ability which triggers after every Rend attack and allows them to move back into cover (or scout further ahead if you’re feeling risky). This makes the Templar one of the most mobile classes in the game.

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The Templars also have a really great combat mechanic: the Focus system. Templars derive their power from harnessing Psionic energy, which is collected after they kill enemies with Rend. Each charge of Focus boosts the Templar’s power, increasing their Rend damage, mobility, and defensive stats. It also improves the effectiveness of many of their abilities, either increasing their damage or duration based on the Templar’s current Focus amount.

At the start of a mission, Templars are slightly weaker than the other soldier classes, but they can quickly become killing machines after gaining a few charges of Focus. However, activating most of their special abilities requires spending Focus, which leads to some really fun tactical decisions:

Do you save the Focus for extra mobility and defense? Or do you spend it on a powerful AoE attack or utility ability to aid the rest of the squad? Playing the Templar is constantly filled with these small risk vs. reward moments, making every battle feel really dynamic. Choose wisely!

One of my first priorities is to boost my Templar’s survivability and defensive options, since as a melee unit they end up towards the front of the squad and can come under fire from surprise attacks. Parry, Deflect, and Reflect are all fantastic in this regard. Parry can be activated after using Rend instead of moving with Momentum, and will cause the next attack against the Templar to miss. This allows Templars charge ahead of the squad and still be relatively confident in their safety, even if enemies are left standing after the original attack. Deflect bolsters the Templar’s survivability by providing a chance to block attacks as long as they have Focus, and Reflect improves that ability by also adding a chance to counterattack after the block!

I also like to boost the utility of Rend by picking up Overcharge, which gives any Rend attack a chance to generate Focus, instead of only on kills. This makes it a little easier to justify sending in the Templar to attack enemies at the start of a battle, even if they aren’t likely to get a kill. Arc Wave is a really fun late-game ability which adds a cone of additional AoE damage to every Rend attack. And of course, Ionic Storm is one of the coolest and most powerful AoE abilities in the game. It requires all of the Templar’s stored Focus to use, but will barrage any enemies close to the Templar with multiple lightning strikes…and any kills will regenerate some of the Focus spent on the attack!

For utility, Deep Focus is a must. Templars gain a lot of additional power with each charge of Focus, so increasing the max Focus they can store is a no-brainer. Pillar summons high cover anywhere you want on the map, which is great to allow other members of the squad to make riskier movements and still be protected. And Invert and Exchange are fantastic for easily isolating dangerous aliens or setting up combo attacks with other soldiers by swapping the Templar’s position with an enemy or squadmate.

Templars also have access to a lot of great XCOM abilities from the Ranger, Sharpshooter, and Psi Operative. The abilities which show up on each Templar’s tree are picked randomly, but I’m always hoping to see Sustain, Bladestorm, and Reaper show up for even more survivability and potential Rend damage.

TEMPLAR TIPS

Templars start missions underpowered and gain Focus from defeating enemies, so it’s important to set up their attacks as killing blows. Use other soldiers to inflict some damage, then send in the Templar to finish them off. The kill will increase the Templar’s Focus level, improving the effectiveness of their abilities and making them more powerful on the next attack.
Take advantage of a Templar’s Invert and Exchange abilities to reposition units on the battlefield. One of my favorite tactics is to use Invert on an enemy within single-movement range of the Templar, which will swap their positions. The Templar can then immediately run back to where they started and Rend the target, returning to a safe location while also leaving the target exposed to easy flanking shots from the rest of the squad.
Templars are fantastic early in a campaign, since their powerful melee attacks rip through Sectoids, and extra mobility from Momentum lets them safely return to cover. Or, you can activate Parry and leave the Templar out of cover as bait to draw fire from the rest of the squad, since the first attack made against them is guaranteed to miss!

The Reapers are outsiders and survivors – a pack of hunters that have made aliens and ADVENT their prey. They’ve existed for 20 years on the fringes of society.

WHY MARK NAUTA CHOSE THE REAPER

Having a Reaper in your squad reshapes the way you approach missions. Their ability to scout and remain concealed means an almost continuous series of ambushes on your enemies. Reapers can also go loud with the best of them, being extremely accurate with their Vektor rifle and carrying the devastating claymore explosive. And on a totally superficial level, they’re clearly the coolest looking soldiers to date. Can’t beat the trench-coat-and-mask look!

https://youtu.be/xVJg_KrLzBA

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MARK’S REAPER SKILL CHOICES

I like to invest heavily into the Saboteur branch and sprinkle some Stealth abilities in as well. Homing Mine attaches a claymore to a target and gives whoever targets that enemy a 100% shot. Plus if you have the Highlands ability you have two claymores. It’s crazy powerful! On the Stealth side, I love picking up Silent Killer. It makes kill shots not increase your chance to be revealed so theoretically, if you only land kill shots, you can remain at a 0% to be revealed.

REAPER TIPS

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Reapers are not actually invisible. The increased mobility and smaller detection radii while in Shadow can lead you to move far away from the rest of the squad. You need to be careful with this however because you’re just one Muton walking around a corner away from being in a whole mess of trouble.
I don’t think there is anything more satisfying than using Remote Start on a car with a few ADVENT huddled behind it. They thought they were safe there? FOOLS!
I find Reapers to be a good source of guaranteed (or almost guaranteed) damage, with their ability to move long distances and get close to enemies undetected. This allows the Reaper to finish a lot of kills when you really need it, instead of using Combat Protocol or a grenade which can then be used more optimally in the future.

The Skirmishers are a small army of former ADVENT troopers. Freed from the control of The Elders, they seek bloody revenge for what’s been done to them. They have devastating CQC attacks and can quickly whip across the battlefields with their specialized grapples.

WHY GRIFFIN FUNK CHOSE THE SKIRMISHER

The versatility of the Skirmisher is unmatched. We’ve built this unit to be able to react to any kind of situation with additional movements and actions. Their abilities combined with the power of their Ripjack and the mobility of their grapple means they can control the battlefield.

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The Skirmisher fills a lot of roles on my squad that would usually take a few different soldiers to do. I like to use Rangers as my “cleanup crew” after an ambush has left one or two enemies standing. The Skirmisher’s Bullpup can fire twice in a single turn which means you have better odds at taking out any stragglers. Whiplash is also great in this situation if you want additional opportunities to take the final enemy out.

GRIFFIN’S SKIRMISHER SKILL CHOICES

Anytime I use the Battlelord ability is my favorite moment in the game. It’s the quintessential Skirmisher ability. When activated, the Skirmisher gets to take an action after every enemy action. It’s incredibly powerful which is why it’s one of their final abilities.

All of the abilities in the Judge branch, which focuses on the Skirmisher’s Ripjack melee weapon, are incredibly fun to use. It’s hard to ignore some of the great abilities like Waylay which gives you multiple Overwatch shots, but you’ll find it’s worth it when your Skirmisher is flying across the map with his grapple to claw enemies to death.

SKIRMISHER TIPS

Use the Skirmisher’s grappling hook to reposition as much as possible. That way, you can save your actions for attacks.
Position aggressively to take advantage of flanking shots. The bullpup has a high critical rating and has the added benefit of being able to fire twice in a round.
Get in close with Skirmisher when you want to take a target alive, but unconscious. A Skirmisher’s melee strikes have a high chance to inflict stuns – very handy when suppressing a Codex that you want to prevent from cloning itself.
The Wrath ability allows the Skirmisher to move to their target, but always have a backup plan. If you’re grappling across the map, you may stumble into a trap. Leave yourself an extra move to deal with whatever comes next.
Given a Skirmisher’s ability to use both actions to attack and skills that can give them additional actions, they are well-suited to deal with the Lost. They can get a backup if they miss, but to get even more Lost cleared out, equip a Skirmisher’s weapon with an Extended Magazine (more ammo) and Autoloaders (free Reloads).

You’ll get your chance to join the new factions soon enough. How will you stack up yours when XCOM 2: War of The Chosen launches for PC, Xbox One and PS4 on August 29?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/593380/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen/
That’s it for this update. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!

Aug 17, 2017

Developer Strategy: How to Play the New Factions in XCOM 2 War of the Chosen

XCOM® 2 - Hinkle2K

The Templars, in their isolation, developed an almost religious zeal for collecting Psionic energy. Experimenting upon themselves, they even created weaponry that taps into their latent skills.

WHY JOE WEINHOFFER CHOSE THE TEMPLARS

SUBSCRIBE ➜ http://2kgam.es/XCOMYT

TEMPLAR TIPS

Templars start missions underpowered and gain Focus from defeating enemies, so it’s important to set up their attacks as killing blows. Use other soldiers to inflict some damage, then send in the Templar to finish them off. The kill will increase the Templar’s Focus level, improving the effectiveness of their abilities and making them more powerful on the next attack.
Take advantage of a Templar’s Invert and Exchange abilities to reposition units on the battlefield. One of my favorite tactics is to use Invert on an enemy within single-movement range of the Templar, which will swap their positions. The Templar can then immediately run back to where they started and Rend the target, returning to a safe location while also leaving the target exposed to easy flanking shots from the rest of the squad.
Templars are fantastic early in a campaign, since their powerful melee attacks rip through Sectoids, and extra mobility from Momentum lets them safely return to cover. Or, you can activate Parry and leave the Templar out of cover as bait to draw fire from the rest of the squad, since the first attack made against them is guaranteed to miss!

The Reapers are outsiders and survivors – a pack of hunters that have made aliens and ADVENT their prey. They’ve existed for 20 years on the fringes of society.

WHY MARK NAUTA CHOSE THE REAPER

SUBSCRIBE ➜ http://2kgam.es/XCOMYT

MARK’S REAPER SKILL CHOICES

REAPER TIPS

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that Reapers are not actually invisible. The increased mobility and smaller detection radii while in Shadow can lead you to move far away from the rest of the squad. You need to be careful with this however because you’re just one Muton walking around a corner away from being in a whole mess of trouble.
I don’t think there is anything more satisfying than using Remote Start on a car with a few ADVENT huddled behind it. They thought they were safe there? FOOLS!
I find Reapers to be a good source of guaranteed (or almost guaranteed) damage, with their ability to move long distances and get close to enemies undetected. This allows the Reaper to finish a lot of kills when you really need it, instead of using Combat Protocol or a grenade which can then be used more optimally in the future.

WHY GRIFFIN FUNK CHOSE THE SKIRMISHER

SUBSCRIBE ➜ http://2kgam.es/XCOMYT

GRIFFIN’S SKIRMISHER SKILL CHOICES

SKIRMISHER TIPS

Use the Skirmisher’s grappling hook to reposition as much as possible. That way, you can save your actions for attacks.
Position aggressively to take advantage of flanking shots. The bullpup has a high critical rating and has the added benefit of being able to fire twice in a round.
Get in close with Skirmisher when you want to take a target alive, but unconscious. A Skirmisher’s melee strikes have a high chance to inflict stuns – very handy when suppressing a Codex that you want to prevent from cloning itself.
The Wrath ability allows the Skirmisher to move to their target, but always have a backup plan. If you’re grappling across the map, you may stumble into a trap. Leave yourself an extra move to deal with whatever comes next.
Given a Skirmisher’s ability to use both actions to attack and skills that can give them additional actions, they are well-suited to deal with the Lost. They can get a backup if they miss, but to get even more Lost cleared out, equip a Skirmisher’s weapon with an Extended Magazine (more ammo) and Autoloaders (free Reloads).

Aug 17, 2017

Do games have enough respect for your spare time?

XCOM® 2

Seeing re-releases of Final Fantasy games like IX and X/X-2 on PC makes me happy, and it's not just because they're great RPGs. The secret, real reason is that Square Enix added optional fast-forward functions to both of these games, allowing me to knock through their many random battles in seconds, rather than minutes. That shows a lot of respect for the player's time, and inarguably improves the game for me. Well done, Square Enix. Now I want to play everything at four times the speed.

The only trouble is, it's made me think, in detail, about the games that don't use my time so well. When I'm driving from one side of the map to the other for a mission in GTA Online for the hundredth time, with no fast travel option, I feel like I should be doing something more worthwhile, like reading Great Expectations or learning the German language. That's not to mention the three-or-so minute wait between the game launching and putting me in a server every time it starts. I love GTA Online, but I have to work for it.

Time is more important than money in PC gaming: it's never been cheaper or easier to accumulate the games you want to play, but the hours you invest have to feel like they're worth it.

End of the grind?

"I think the developer of any kind of game needs to be respectful of a player’s time, and if you make long-form games you have a lot more time that needs to be treated preciously," says Matt MacLean, lead narrative designer on Obsidian's Tyranny. I ask MacLean whether he believes mandatory grinding has gone out of fashion in RPGs specifically. "I think as more games grow up and away from the D&D model of knocking down doors to kill monsters to knock down bigger doors to kill bigger monsters there will be less and less emphasis on ‘grinding’ monsters and more emphasis on rewarding the player for completing quests, collecting things, exploring areas.

"Seen from a very abstract level, I think very old RPG games failed in that, if you were not winning at a particular battle, your only recourse was to play bully and tackle older/easier encounters until you level up and are ready to tackle the previous impossible obstacle."

Developers know the fight is on for your time, not just your money.

MacLean also worked on South Park: The Stick of Truth. The combat in this undemanding RPG was pretty simple, with the emphasis instead on enjoying the jokes and exploring an authentic version of the show's town. "The target audience factors into most every decision we make on a game—we have to be very familiar with what concepts players will already know coming into a game. On a game like South Park, our intended audience was ‘the South Park fan’ and while we could safely assume a lot of South Park fans are RPG gamers, the game has to be aimed at the entire venn diagram, not just the overlap that’s easiest to entertain.

"South Park’s length is more a function of the story and humour than the demands of the audience, but certainly the game’s relatively modest difficulty was driven in part by [us being] conscious that it’s better to err on the hardcore gamers calling Stick of Truth too easy than to have a massive swaths of fans stop laughing because they’re dying over and over again."

Pillars of Eternity was made for a different crowd, one deeply familiar with the Infinity Engine era of RPGs from the late '90s and early '00s. It's fair to assume the player will be more patient when it comes to customisation, absorbing lore and strategic combat. "Whereas South Park had character creation simplified down to one choice (pick your class), Pillars opened with nearly a dozen classes, a bevy of races, attributes and skills to customise—this deluge of options was both acceptable for the target audience of Pillars and, based on Kickstarter input, many of them craved this level of detailed character customisation and would likely have found too much simplicity to be a bad thing."

Instead of thinking about hours invested, they considered the different ways you might spend that time. "Some players will read every line of text, examine every object, and take full advantage of a real-time-with-pause system to ponder their options, others skip every bit of reading allowable and with most folks resting somewhere between those extremes, estimating where the player will be after X number of hours only gets you so far," MacLean says.

"Taken as a whole, it’s largely meaningless for us to think in terms of ‘hours in’ and most pacing is established by character level, quest completion, or some combination of the two."

Back to the start

Roguelikes, or games with roguelike elements, are repetitive by design. I love FTL, even though I've tackled the same intergalactic moral conundrums a bunch of times and memorised all the various ways they play out. With such light touch writing, though, I can blitz through them and focus on gathering a large crew and decent ship upgrades for the game's final battle.

Presenting the same chunks of story over and over again can still be a test of the player's patience. In the roguelike narrative game Sunless Sea, permadeath meant repeating chunks of text-heavy scenarios. Alexis Kennedy, the game's creative director, is frank about that. "I think having long negative spaces between events in Sunless Sea made the game, but one thing I regret most, by a long way, is making players repeat content after permadeath. That was just me trying to make two different kinds of games at the same time. It’s not a mistake that I hope I’ll make again." It's something that Failbetter's promising-looking space-based follow-up, Sunless Skies, is looking to avoid. It's even mentioned in the game's Kickstarter pitch video.

"FTL was one of my influences on Sunless Sea, but we didn’t do a lot of the things FTL did well. You might play five games, or you might settle down and have a dramatic game that lasts all evening. Cultist Simulator is something much more lightweight: something that you could play over evenings and evenings and get hundreds of hours of play out of it, but you can finish the game in the evening."

Cultist Simulator is a narrative board game, the prototype of which you can download now. To avoid repetition, Kennedy is looking at including a legacy system similar to Sunless Sea, only with a few additions—that is, you play as a successive character each time, so there's a sense of continuity between playthroughs, but more random elements shape your protagonist so the game feels different from the start.

Stop wasting my time!

I'm convinced that some of the success of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is down to the way it respects your time as a player. Games last around 20 or 30 minutes and the matchmaking is quick, making it the most concentrated and gratifying form of battle royale around. "I was actually thinking about that as well when I was making Cultist Simulator," Kennedy says. "The games are almost in no sense alike and they’re at the opposite ends of the market, but you know what you’re getting into. It’s not just that it’s something that takes up a short period of time—a lot of games are short and not interesting—it’s that at least I know how much time I’m going to have to invest in it."

Any design decision that cuts out wasted time is a welcome one, no matter how granular a change that might seem. I was fascinated by the success of the Stop Wasting My Time mod for XCOM 2, which currently has over 240,000 subscribers on Steam Workshop and over 70,000 downloads on Nexus. Despite this unquestionably being one of the best strategy games of the last few years, the mod's popularity suggests many players were more than happy to cut out the pauses that occur between kills, going into cover and so on.

"When the game was released, my very first mod was a simple config edit that increased soldiers' movement speed," says the mod's creator, Danny 'BlueRaja' Pflughoeft. "I liked that it saved time, but I quickly grew to hate how unnatural it made the animations. I realised what I really wanted was to reduce the lengthy pauses between actions, which would require more than a simple config edit. Thus, 'Stop Wasting My Time' was born."

Pflughoeft wanted to preserve the natural pace of Firaxis's game, while still removing those little time-wasters that players found annoying. "In XCOM 2, most of the pauses are definitely deliberate. They're also important—if you play the game with no pauses at all, the game feels rushed and unfun. With 'Stop Wasting My Time', I tried very hard to strike the appropriate balance between 'time-wasting' and 'too rushed.' If I did it correctly, you shouldn't even notice the mod is enabled!"

I ask Pflughoeft if developers are conscious enough of players' time generally. "Definitely. In fact, the little pauses and time-wasters are a crucial element in many games to making rewards feel rewarding. Would Minecraft be as fun if every block broke instantly? Would Clash of Clans be as addictive if you didn't have to wait for things to build? Waiting can be so gratifying that games like Cookie Clicker spawned an entire genre of 'Idle Games', where waiting is the entire game!"

Not everything should be instantly satisfying. Games like Dark Souls are built on the idea of delayed gratification, which is backed up by world-class combat and environmental design. And developers are more conscious of how they use your time than ever, I think, because they have to be. That's apparent in better pacing at the start of modern blockbusters, shorter forms of games and more generous use of checkpoints—they know the fight is on for your time, not just your money.

"I do think that every game dev who’s responsible for checkpoints should be forced to spend a year raising a child," Kennedy says. "Sometimes you don’t have any option but to put the controller down. I think there are strong reasons to prevent someone from pausing or saving, but those reasons are sometimes overwritten because the real world has children, fires and grocery deliveries."

Additional interview quotes supplied by Joe Donnelly.

Aug 15, 2017

Create Your Own XCOM Propaganda Now

XCOM® 2 - Hinkle2K

While XCOM 2: War of The Chosen launches on August 29, start recruiting efforts today! You can create some war-and-meme-worthy posters right now, through a free download on Steam. Welcome to the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Propaganda Center.

Now available for free on Steam, the XCOM 2: War of the Chosen Propaganda Center contains the Photobooth application included in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. With it, create your own propaganda posters using a variety of backgrounds, filters and soldier poses of your favorite XCOM troops.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/433050/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen__Propaganda_Center
Even if you haven’t signed up for duty yet, you can get a jump by creating your new troopers in the Propaganda Center. Then designate them as soldiers or VIPs that you might find in your XCOM 2: War of The Chosen campaign. Let’s walk you through this…

DOWNLOAD PROPAGANDA CENTER

The first, most obvious, step is to download the Propaganda Center. It’s available on Windows PC – and you’ll find it on the Steam store here. The app itself is a 3GB download and has the same system requirements for the XCOM 2 base game.

HOW PROPAGANDA CENTER WORKS

From the main menu, you can see who is currently available in your Character Pool or create your own, new soldiers. For the sake of this walkthrough, let’s focus on the Photobooth option.

Starting from the top, you can select the formation. Get your squad lined up, in a wedge formation, as a small mob, posing with a pal or going solo.
From there, select up to six soldiers to set up their position and pose (there are loads of different poses for all the soldiers and number of class-specific ones as well.) From there, tweak with your mouse to zoom in and around what you’ve put together. Not sure how you want to compose the shots? There are six pre-sets to get you going.
Next up, select from 23 different background images. Want to make yours stand out more? Go ahead and tint it with two color variants.
From the 16 different layouts you can choose how – and if – you want to stylize your propaganda art. Do you want to make it look like you’re taking a snapshot or drafting a recruitment poster? It’s up to you.
Select from a few different fonts, filters and effects to complete the look of your images.
When you’re ready, tap the “Take Photo” button. By default, it saves a poster-sized image (720 by 1080 pixels) to the following directory:
- Documents / XCOM2 Propaganda Center /XComGame/Photobooth

http://store.steampowered.com/app/593380/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen/
That’s it for this update. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!

Aug 15, 2017

Create Your Own XCOM Propaganda Now

XCOM® 2 - Hinkle2K

DOWNLOAD PROPAGANDA CENTER

HOW PROPAGANDA CENTER WORKS

From the main menu, you can see who is currently available in your Character Pool or create your own, new soldiers. For the sake of this walkthrough, let’s focus on the Photobooth option.

Starting from the top, you can select the formation. Get your squad lined up, in a wedge formation, as a small mob, posing with a pal or going solo.
From there, select up to six soldiers to set up their position and pose (there are loads of different poses for all the soldiers and number of class-specific ones as well.) From there, tweak with your mouse to zoom in and around what you’ve put together. Not sure how you want to compose the shots? There are six pre-sets to get you going.
Next up, select from 23 different background images. Want to make yours stand out more? Go ahead and tint it with two color variants.
From the 16 different layouts you can choose how – and if – you want to stylize your propaganda art. Do you want to make it look like you’re taking a snapshot or drafting a recruitment poster? It’s up to you.
Select from a few different fonts, filters and effects to complete the look of your images.
When you’re ready, tap the “Take Photo” button. By default, it saves a poster-sized image (720 by 1080 pixels) to the following directory:
- Documents / XCOM2 Propaganda Center /XComGame/Photobooth

Aug 10, 2017

DETAILS: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen’s Covert Actions and a Whole New Strategy Layer

XCOM® 2 - Hinkle2K

The new Factions in XCOM 2: War of The Chosen aren’t just single heroic units you use in battle, they are part of a larger organized force. You’ll work with each of the Factions, perform Covert Actions and use Resistance Orders to improve your odds of success. It’s a whole new addition that resonates in both the tactical and the strategic layer and will shake up your decisions on each playthrough. And it was inspired, in part, by collectible card games.

Today, we’ll explain how it all ties together into the larger Geoscape in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen’s expanded campaign.

https://youtu.be/e4z7HT-UJiI?list=PL8mfplD2jGg8vQN0HZrwJxfDrg7eOq1rD

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THE FACTIONS

We’ve already talked about each of the three new Factions (Templars, Skirmishers, Reapers) you’ll be recruiting in the fight against the Chosen. Finding a new Faction opens up their HQ, which gives you a new place to scan and benefit from in the strategic level. For example; scanning at the Reaper’s HQ gives you additional Intel, operating from the Templar HQ heals your troops quicker, and the Skirmisher’s HQ allows you to build facilities faster.

Working with each Faction on Covert Actions is the key to defeating the Chosen once and for all. The more missions you undertake for a Faction, the better your influence is with them. The better your influence, the more Covert Actions will be available. More Resistance Orders become available and you’ll be able to assign more Resistance Orders per mission.

COVERT ACTIONS

These are essentially non-combat missions. You’re allocating resources and soldiers to ferret out information seek out perks that’ll benefit XCOM, or rescue captured soldiers. A successful Covert Action can mean additional resources, new soldiers, a new mission, or information leading to a Chosen stronghold. Once players successfully complete three Covert Actions to locate and gain intel on a stronghold, that Chosen’s final mission will be available. But don’t think that this is simply a matter of you choosing a mission, then waiting for timers to tick down.

Covert Actions can – and will – go sideways. Each mission has a chance of seeing your soldiers get wounded. Worse, a mission could devolve into an ambush. When this happens, the game immediately changes focus from the Avenger to the soldiers deployed on the Covert Action. The player has to move the soldiers to an extraction zone and safely get them out of the ambush. The odds, however, are stacked against you. You won’t have a full squad – usually two, maybe three soldiers – and you’ll be fighting off enemies as well as ADVENT reinforcements.

Of course, there are ways to mitigate risk. When setting up a Covert Action, you will sometimes be able to add additional soldiers and staff (scientists and engineers) to improve the odds of mission success. Or you’ll be able to employ Resistance Orders. We’ll get to that in a minute.

INTEL: Examples of Covert Actions

Some of the missions you may undertake in our fight against ADVENT.

Hunt the Chosen: Three separate missions that will lead you to a Chosen Stronghold.

Rescue Soldier: Only available after a soldier has been captured by the Chosen.

Locate Faction: Always available at the start of the game, used to meet the Factions and gain one of their soldiers.

Recruit Faction Soldier

Counter Chosen Activity: Prevents the Chosen from performing their scheduled monthly activity

Breakthrough Research: Activates one of the new breakthrough research techs

Resistance Order: Gives the player another Resistance Order card for the Faction

RESISTANCE ORDERS

Think of Resistance Orders as modifier cards used in CCGs. According to XCOM 2’s Senior Producer, Garth DeAngelis, “Design leveraged the foundation of a tried-and-true card system to provide that variability from a mechanical standpoint. These Factions are unpredictable, just like the game itself, and you never know what services they can offer in a given playthrough.”

In addition to gameplay depth, unique narrative context was given to each of the new Factions based on those services. The accurate Reapers may allow your squad to insta-kill Lost if you hit them at all, while the Skirmishers may strong arm the Black Market into offering you more favorable deals – it’s your choice to take advantage of what you want.

INTEL: Examples of Resistance Orders

Once you gain the trust of the Factions, you may earn policy cards. Here are a few examples, by Faction.

Reaper

Infiltrate: On timed missions, the timer does not begin until the squad has lost concealment.

Volunteer Army: There is a chance that a Resistance soldier will join the XCOM squad for the duration of the mission.

Skirmisher

Bomb Squad: Experimental Grenade and Heavy Weapon projects are completed instantly in the Proving Grounds.

Modular Construction: Facility construction speed is increased by 25%

Templar

Mental Fortitude: All battle madness (panic, obsession, berserk, shattered) only lasts one turn.

Machine Learning: Research breakthroughs are twice as likely to occur.

Something to consider when you start playing the game: Maximize Resistance Orders by thinking ahead. If you know you’re going to be excavating or building several new facilities, use cards that help speed the process up. Did you just unlock a new weapon tier and know you’re going to use most of your resources to purchase them? Apply cards that will give you additional resources during a supply drop, reduce costs of facility actions, or give you bonuses that would usually cost money (ex. getting additional Resistance contacts).

Making use of these new features will give you more control in the Avenger to execute the perfect strategy in your fight against the Chosen.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/593380/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen/
That’s it for this update. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!

Aug 10, 2017

DETAILS: XCOM 2: War of the Chosen’s Covert Actions and a Whole New Strategy Layer

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THE FACTIONS

COVERT ACTIONS

RESISTANCE ORDERS

INTEL: Examples of Resistance Orders

Once you gain the trust of the Factions, you may earn policy cards. Here are a few examples, by Faction.

Reaper

Skirmisher

Bomb Squad: Experimental Grenade and Heavy Weapon projects are completed instantly in the Proving Grounds.

Modular Construction: Facility construction speed is increased by 25%

Templar

Aug 9, 2017

How Soldiers in XCOM 2: War of The Chosen Form Bonds, Learn New Skills

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Ever since we announced XCOM 2: War of The Chosen, people have been fascinated by the introduction of Soldier Bonds. With the upcoming expansion, you’ll see soldiers bond in the heat of battle and if they make it out alive, come out stronger – and closer than before. That’s saying nothing of how soldiers can now develop additional abilities.

HOW SOLDIERS BOND

Each soldier has a compatibility level with each other, the higher the compatibility, the more likely they are to bond while on missions together. But there are also incidents that can occur, mid-mission which can boost a soldier’s compatibility. Whether one solider rescues an unconscious squaddie from the battlefield or if more than half the squad is lost, the survivors bond. In watershed moments like these, two soldiers’ compatibility will shoot up.

When two soldiers are ready to bond, you will see them on the Avenger getting a drink together, practicing at the range as pals and more. Once two soldiers have bonded, neither soldier can bond with anyone else unless their bondmate dies…til death do us part. If a soldier’s bondmate dies, the survivor might not take it well and fly off in a berserk rage and suffer penalties. But they will recover and eventually be able to bond again.

Besides personalizing your in-game experience, there are some inherent benefits to sending bonded soldiers on a mission together

SOLDIER BOND LEVEL I

Teamwork: Grant an additional action point to a bondmate.

SOLDIER BOND LEVEL II

Spotter: This soldier is granted a bonus to aim when their bondmate has attacked or been attacked by the soldier's target. An extra bonus is granted if the bondmate is adjacent.

Stand By Me: When this soldier ends a move adjacent to their bondmate, the other soldier will be automatically cleansed of any negative mental effects.

Covert Operators: When deployed on a Covert Action together, the duration is reduced by one day.

SOLDIER BOND LEVEL III

Advanced Teamwork: Grant an additional action point to a bondmate.

Dual Strike: A combined standard shot attack by the soldier and their bondmate.

NEEDING SOME R&R

Whether or not your soldiers are bonded, though, they will need to rest. The more missions you send a soldier on without a break will start to take a toll. Exhaustion and stress, as well as bad encounters in the field, could lower a soldier’s Will and develop negative traits. This can include a fear of certain types of enemies. For example, after a fight against Mutons that ended poorly, the soldier might panic when they see Mutons again. It could lead a soldier to constantly reload a weapon on their second action, a nervous tick, instead of listening to your orders. These negative traits can be cured by setting a soldier to heal in the infirmary.

Needing to rotate your squad makeup between missions does come with a couple benefits as well: You’ll have to make some interesting choices while selecting who deploys. The other notable perk is that your entire roster will benefit from being more evenly-powered.

NEW SOLDIER ABILITY POINTS

The Training Center – replacing the Advanced Warfare Center from the base game – is an essential facility that XCOM can build. Not only is the Training Center there to enhance soldier bonds in War of the Chosen, but this is where you’ll spend Ability Points earned in combat to buy additional skills and abilities for the regular XCOM troops.

According to Senior Producer Garth DeAngelis, the design team wanted to offer a new way of soldier leveling with War of the Chosen. “Since XCOM: Enemy Unknown, progression has been a binary choice: Which of these two skills do I want,” says Garth. “This was an opportunity to allow more meaning to squad capacity overall. Will I dump most of my Ability Points into a promising hybrid XCOM recruit through the Training Center, or save those points for a balanced approach across multiple units? The AP system is also far more comprehensive by being a direct result of smart decisions by the player.” You earn AP by pulling off maneuvers like flanking and taking shots from height. Gaining a resource from intelligent combat play gives progression an entirely new feel.

This also allows the player to execute on a non-linear approach to spec’ing out Faction Heroes, since the tree now offers more than two choices at once. You can rush for the later abilities, or go for breadth and grab a number of low-cost abilities, up front.

This also impacts the original XCOM soldier classes. Take the Specialist, for example. With Ability Points, you can select previously passed-on abilities from either the Battle Medic or Combat Hacker skill paths. Or, you can opt for a third path made up of abilities from the other XCOM soldier classes. The assortment of available abilities is random for every individual soldier. Only a few of these abilities show up for each soldier.

Essentially, every soldier class gets more powerful in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen and we want you to have more of them in your ranks. And then, of course, are the even-more-powerful Faction Heroes joining the cause.

The Chosen are going to be in for one hell of a fight.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/593380/XCOM_2_War_of_the_Chosen/
That’s it for this update. Be sure to follow XCOM on Twitter and Like XCOM on Facebook to keep up to date with the latest information on XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. If you’re looking to enlist with the Resistance, join the 2K Forums!