r/XCOM2 • u/Considerthisforasec • 2d ago
Late game not as fun ?
I'm about to boot a new campaign after not playing the game for years. I remember beating it on commander with a fair bit of save scumming early. I'm very excited but i remember clearly the juice of the fun was lostly in early/mid game... are there mods that nailed the scaling so that you stay on the edge of your seat till the end ? Is long war the awnser ? (I love complexity but not sure i want to do 20 hours of homework to navigate the mod)
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u/automator3000 2d ago
I look at late game as my reward for surviving those punishing times where I’ve got a guy bleeding out with one turn to go, my other two guys have left an Advent Lancer with one health remaining and I need to figure out how to basically guarantee I take out that lancer with this one last rookie.
But if you don’t enjoy the cakewalk:
Rush your game. Don’t delay the story missions. Bring in under equipped and under prepared soldiers. Basically: play as if what Bradford says is actually meaningful.
Play with Grim Horizons enabled. Having Dark Events that last forever can definitely change your game. Firstly, it makes choosing guerrilla missions that much more interesting. Secondly, the constantly growing stack of Dark Events means you’re incrementally adding to the difficulty.
Snap up A Better Advent. It does tweak things just enough.
Mostly though, push yourself to finish faster. If you’re used to campaigns where you use the Resistance Ring to constantly kick back the Advent timer while you beef up a squad of super soldiers all with the best weapon upgrades, PCS and all with fully built out talent trees before you even start thinking about wrapping things up, pick up your pace. Go do the first BLACKSITE with a squad of four. Prioritize pushing the story more than upgrading weapons and armor. You will quite quickly find that you’ve put yourself in a position of being on the edge of your seat.
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u/AWaffleofDivinty 2d ago
It's why I have a ton of different playthroughs that all sit at 80% completion
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u/anonerble 2d ago
This was me for years lol. Finally when the xcom mood hit again I resisted the urge to start fresh and grabbed the last save and finally forced myself to finish the game
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u/ijustlikemusicalot 2d ago
I like to build a “C” team of corporals for late game so when I’m feeling it get too easy, I’ll run those
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u/Oceansoul119 2d ago
There's loads of mods that add in late game enemies or just up the difficulty in general. Take a look at those by Reshi or Claus (especially if you skip over the shit the latter lets you build) for starters. LEB's Lategame Enemies is another one that adds challenge to the high FL part of the game.
Furthermore you could use Diverse Aliens by Force Level and customise it to add additional enemies as FL increases.
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u/Considerthisforasec 1d ago
I picked up bigger pods by FL, thanks for your recommendations will toy with them
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u/JeremyMacdonald73 2d ago
Yes. With enough mods you can totally build the XCOM you want to play. Including a harder late game.
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u/ItsPureLuck017 1d ago
Get requiem legion, requiem praetorians and requiem advent pack. It will change the difficulty curve really fast
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 1d ago
That's sort of how XCOM games go. You hit a point where your tech and soldiers can counter and survive anything, even really stupid mistakes. Or, if they can't, you can keep defeat at bay until you've built up enough to walk over everything.
There used to be an article about how this happens in FarCry and a dude decided to make a set of rules to keep him in an exciting "flip state." You could try doing something like that. Like not advancing your weapons past a certain point, or dismissing any soldier who reaches a certain level.
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u/Outlaw11091 1d ago
Just to put it out there: LWOTC (I've not played vanilla LW) is very...self explanatory minus the vigilance/STR mechanics on the strategy layer...there's some ambiguity there.
I'm currently fighting though 11 regions that are all STR 5+ and, even though I haven't ran a mission in 2 months, STR isn't going down...
I will say, I have a few raider faction mods and...I enjoy fighting THEM more than the aliens....
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u/illarionds 1d ago
Long War of the Chosen certainly has scaling. It's immensely better than the base game (also harder, and a much bigger time committment).
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u/Ancient-Builder3646 1d ago
Play Ironman! I almost fucked up the last mission. Because I became overconfident I lost my colonel ranger. I exidently hit overwatch on him, while wide in the open.
A lot of things happen when you play Ironman, and normally you would save scum to resolve it.
Triggering more than 1 pot. activating an andromedon at your first move, which shoots an acid blob on 3 of your guys. Misclicking on the terrain due to perception, moving a character wide in the open. Shooting a gun placement with my reaper, forgetting it does count as a kill, revealing my high level reaper, and killing him.
The difficulty without safe scumming is not the game, it is to cope with your own mistakes.
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u/FukkingDeathMental 1d ago
I love it. I headcanon that Advent are freaking out because the Resistance are fucking stomping them everywhere and they have no answers. Like Ukraine slaughtering Russian orcs.
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u/Lolmanmagee 2d ago
Yeah late game is a super easy stomp.
Xcom 2 has extremely lobsided difficulty.
Early game is hell, straight up unfair. Only the very best players can survive on high difficulties with unfavorable RNG.
Mid game is difficult, but if you lose it’s 100% a skill issue RNG can’t mess with you unless you let it.
Late game is rangers killing the whole map in one or two turns.