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[scriver]

No MECs no deal

[umiman]

(I'm so happy I was actually first to break the news on something, hooray!)

I'm agnostic on the Chosen. The Lost sound cool, although to be honest when I was watching the trailer I had to do a doubletake to make sure what game this was. (I eventually got my confirmation from Bradford's face.) But I really like the idea for some reason; maybe because I like the idea of adding a huge hoard of slow-moving enemies to a face-paced XCOM mission. Also, abandoned cities scarred by bioweapons sounds amazing, I'm a sucker for a good battlefield. And the sound of the SITREP system is pretty cool if it does what I think it does.

I'm happy Firaxis is apparently willing to take direction from Modders as well. I know for a fact that ADVENT Priest was a pretty common idea among mods, but I'm super happy to see Firaxis do a take on them!

While I'm sure you can be agnostic on the Chosen if you want... I don't think you can "believe that nothing is known or can be known of the existence" over something that is actively moving around, is quite real, and is quite really killing your friends, and is quite really killing you. Also has a press release and an announcement trailer.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...

...

Actually I think God has had press releases and announcement trailers as well so maybe that part doesn't count. But the really really coming up and stabbing you in the face part probably does.

[nenjin]

New factions, meh. I feel like it muddies the waters excessively. The last thing I felt I needed were more factions, especially with such generic badass names as TEMPLARS and REAPERS. Soooooo edgy.

New maps, yay though. Interested how the game plays with new map formats like tunnels.

Resistance orders, sounds like they're coopting some of the stuff from LW2.

Actually a lot of this sounds like it's sourced from mods. I know for a fact the Advent Priest is from a mod.

Having just started LW2 and downloading a shit ton of mods, I wasn't ready for more official XCOM2.

I'll probably get this in a year or two.

[ventuswings]

Well, this announcement excites me because I can't imagine what modders will do regarding multiple faction combat.

[Sanctume]

Haven't checked that one out yet. What is it like?

Spectrum Green has changes to Enemies, Classless Soldiers, and Equipment Tech, each with it's Rock-Paper-Scissors type strength and weakness (S&W).

The first mission Gate Crasher will have a boss 1 of 5 factions that will drop loot that gives you a boost in research for an easy Tech 2 in that area.

Enemies have faction each with their S&W.

Advents are Medium Armor, and no particular S&W.
So the strat is to use Plasma to shred armor, then finish with Mag weapons.

Aegis faction are tech factions, uses laser for accuracy, and shield regeneration.  But have little to no armor. 

Pandora faction uses poison rounds and nades.  And no MECs.

Prometheous uses plasma weapons, fire rounds and nades, no MECs.

Titan are heavy armored MECs, drones.  Weakness are smaller pods, and do not use cover. 

Law factions are guards and stun lancers, limited to Council missions.  They have nasty reinforcements. 

Lazarous factions are psi but different.  Limited to 1 Thrall at one time that goes into Statis before it gets killed, then activates another Thrall in its place. 

Weapon Tech
Mag are good vs unarmored targets. 
Laser have accuracy and armor pierce. 
Plasma good are shredding armor, with Charging option to shred more armor. 

Tier 1 has +1 mod slot, Tier 2 gets +2, Tier 3 gets +3 slots.
Enemies can drop weapons you can use but has no mod slots.
Advent can drop Mag weapons, Aegis drop Lasers, Prometheous drop plasma weapons, Titan drop plate armor, etc.

Items
Items are made individually, so teching up to 2 or 3 does not auto upgrade old weapons. 
Gremlins have 3 types: Combat, Medic, and Utility; and 3 tiers to gain more +Hack, and specific abilities.
Grenade has 1, 2, and 3 tiers, but only T2 allows a choice of Large Radius vs Long Distance.

Troops
There are 8 types of troops giving them the initial perks.

Scout +12 vision range 1 per turn, +Aim
Sniper +Aim, +20 Aim after hunker.
Spartan +HP, No mobility penalty from weapons
Hunter +Stealth, +Crit
Desperado +Crit, Gunsliner for pistol return fire.
Paladin +Mobility, Blade skill for +dmg.
Codebreaker +Hack, free first turn use of gremlin/drone.  Umm, you have to research gremlin/drone.
Soldier I forgot the initial perks for this.

Then basically each rank / level up, you can choose any perk in that rank.

Any trooper can use any weapon and equipment.

As I was levelling up my sniper, he carried an AR/Grenade Launcher, then switch to Sniper/Pistol after some rank and equipment. 

Same for my Codebreaker who used a grenade launder until my research for gremlin completed.

[Furtuka]

so sparks are getting buffs

[Mephansteras]

@Sanctume: Thanks! I may have to check that out. Sounds like an interesting change of pace.

[DolosusDoleus]

I'm calling it now: there's gonna be a mission where one of the Chosen infiltrate the avenger and you have to hunt down and kill it. Given what we know so far, it's pretty much inevitable.

[Rolan7]

I hope so!  I was really hoping for something like that with Enemy Within.  Which wasn't *that* far off, and EW was very satisfying.

This seems like a lot.  I'm cautiously optimistic.  I'm going to avoid hyping it up, but it sounds like they're trying to address some of the stuff I was wishing for earlier.
If they improve the loading times a bit (it could happen!!) this could be really good!  I'll definitely consider buying it after release.

[nenjin]

Other than new cutscenes and voice acting....I dunno, seems fairly formulaic to me.

Put another way, I have never been impressed by their "side systems." Everything from Psi Powers to the AWC has always underwhelmed. So I'm not a believer that them trying to do what mods did is honestly going to rise above them. If anything it just creates an official framework for modders to again build off of, rather than having to do side hacks.

[Neonivek]

The way they did Psionics in 2 is pretty bad.

Mind you not in terms of the powers or abilities. In the sense that it takes so much time and resources to get your psionic character up to bat that you end up not using them.

I don't mind psionic classes being dedicated classes or unlocking later... They just needed a better system than this.

[umiman]

The way they did Psionics in 2 is pretty bad.

Mind you not in terms of the powers or abilities. In the sense that it takes so much time and resources to get your psionic character up to bat that you end up not using them.

I don't mind psionic classes being dedicated classes or unlocking later... They just needed a better system than this.

?

What are you talking about. All you had to do was research the psi lab (which isn't particularly difficult) and off you go. To get the psi lab, all you needed was the sectoid autopsy > psionics. Frigging sectoid. Unless you play on baby difficulty, you're getting this in your second goddamn mission.

In the early game you were basically choosing between getting the psi lab or getting better weapons. If for some abstract reason you decided to put off psi research until the end of the game, then you only have yourself to blame as you could get it anytime from the start.

And really the only skill you needed on the psi operative was soulfire. Everything else was gravy with void rift being overpowered, which you could very easily get early on if you were lucky with the rng skill selection. They got skills so often anyway you could easily end up with a max ranked psi op long before you had maxed anything else.

[Chiefwaffles]

If anything, Psionic Operatives are OP.
But they're the fun kind of OP.

And in other news, apparently SPARKs are also going to be buffed. You can mod their weapons and they have better aim + better health. And "DLC has been redesigned to integrate with the Expansion." Whatever that means.

EDIT: Woops, this was already mentioned. I'll leave it here though since it doesn't really matter.

[Xvareon]

I especially liked how in XCOM 2, you didn't have to pull Psi Operatives out of the tank to send them on missions; they'd resume their progress right where they left off after returning. It got really annoying for me in EU/EW that I had to take out key soldiers if an important mission came up, which it did quite often.

[Neonivek]

If anything, Psionic Operatives are OP.
But they're the fun kind of OP.

And in other news, apparently SPARKs are also going to be buffed. You can mod their weapons and they have better aim + better health. And "DLC has been redesigned to integrate with the Expansion." Whatever that means.

The problem isn't how powerful Psionics are. It is that... Most players typically get one Psion and only get them ready by the time the game is just about, or outright, over.

To put it another way

Your Soldiers get more powerful by putting them in missions

Your Psions get more powerful by not putting them in missions.

---

They are a lot like Elixers in Final Fantasy games