The team behind Long War for XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Long War 2 for XCOM 2 is operating under a new name, Pavonis Interactive, and at a new web site, www.pavonisinteractive.com. Pavonis Interactive Design Lead John Lumpkin said the name change is intended to mark that the company's future work will go beyond modding XCOM and focus on developing independent original titles, including Terra Invicta, a grand strategy alien invasion game. Going forward, "Long War" will remain exclusively linked with the XCOM franchise.
Pavonis Interactive and 2K Games announce Long War 2 for XCOM 2 on PC
Pavonis Interactive's final XCOM 2 mod is what fans have been expecting: Long War 2. More details on the mod, developed in partnership with 2K Games and Firaxis, will be released in the coming weeks by 2K Games at XCOM.com.
Currently replaying this on legend ironman with all DLCs. I guess I'm kind of addicted the adrenaline... now on attempt #45, going really well though (soon to unlock plasma weapons, only lost 2 notable soldiers so far, first ruler down).
People on the X2 sub-Reddit are speculating that this in combination with the LW2 announcement points to an incoming full fat expansion pack in time for the game's 1st anniversary.
It oozes artificial difficulty.
Do people think that this game is fair?
Dont get me wrong i like games like dark souls but it's at least hard but fair.
This game on the other hand has handful of features that are only there to make your xcom life a living hell
did i miss it or did ppl never mention this?
I liked xcom 1 and i dont think it was nearly as hard.
Never played long war 1 but ppl praise it for it's complexity whichin turn made it a notch harder.
Did firaxis confuse complexity and artificial difficulty :O in an effort to compete with the long war studio?
P.s.: yes im butthurt no i wont get gud
Spoiler:
went through the mission where youhad to kill the gatekeeper which i in the end did with my kinetic weapons. but seriously some things in this game are unreal.
Not all difficulties have to be fair. Some people just want to have any kind of challenge, even unfair ones. Because there is something wonderful about defeating all ridiculous odds and giving XCOM Ironman mode the middle finger when you beat it on the highest difficulty.
It oozes artificial difficulty.
Do people think that this game is fair?
Dont get me wrong i like games like dark souls but it's at least hard but fair.
This game on the other hand has handful of features that are only there to make your xcom life a living hell
did i miss it or did ppl never mention this?
I liked xcom 1 and i dont think it was nearly as hard.
Never played long war 1 but ppl praise it for it's complexity whichin turn made it a notch harder.
Did firaxis confuse complexity and artificial difficulty :O in an effort to compete with the long war studio?
P.s.: yes im butthurt no i wont get gud
Spoiler:
went through the mission where youhad to kill the gatekeeper which i in the end did with my kinetic weapons. but seriously some things in this game are unreal.
No, its not. ts because of that we want it longer.
Epsilon wrote:
Meanwhile the people of that generation will call those guys relics, and not move with the times when everything is auto fucking.
@lametta
I enjoyed the first game a lot but this one really annoyed me. Since you bought it, I suggest lowering the difficulty so you get less of the rage-inducing stuff thrown at you, so you can finish it and your money hasn't gone to waste. Or maybe install that mod that gets rid of all the fucking countdowns that put you at risk unnecessarily to get the bonus objectives. That makes it somewhat easier.
IMO they took the worst part of the first game, the bullshit RNG, and turned it up to 11.
All in all, I don't want to discuss this game with people that enjoy it, noone will change their mind. Good for you, fuckers
I agree that there is plenty of bullshit RNG in the early game. But once you survive the first X missions, and if you manage to survive them without taking significant losses, then you will have the tools to avoid bad RNG in nearly all reasonable cases. For instance, using phantom rangers you can scout ahead, trigger overwatch-engages during enemy turns, and basically only let enemies shoot at your soldiers in extremely rare and isolated "fuckup" circumstances (with the exception of rulers, who might get max. 1-2 shots in); and yes this is possible even in the timed missions.
I've just survived my first encounter with the Archon king on legend-ironman (no mods) on a timed mission wit 8 turns - took no losses and the king escaped with ~15 hp and 0 armor. IMO the hardest part is the early game, since once you get the tools you need and you know the mechanics (i.e., abilities of enemies) then the RNG is an obstacle that can be overcome.
Long War 2, the upcoming XCOM 2 mod for PC from Pavonis Interactive, includes some dramatic changes to the strategic gameplay side of the game. This mod completely overhauls the Geoscape and how you engage in XCOM’s operations throughout the globe.
Players are now tasked with managing the Resistance within each region they have contacted. Each region has a certain number of rebels who may be assigned to one of three different tasks: scrounging for supplies, recruiting new rebels and soldiers, or gathering intelligence to generate new missions. You’ll also be able to deploy a single adviser – a scientist, engineer or soldier – to each region to provide bonuses to a particular task, and may improve a region’s defenses by capturing ADVENT MECs and repurposing them through the advanced Specialist perk, “Full Override.”
Rebels can die during retaliations and other missions, and even some can be Faceless in disguise. Keep this in mind when assigning tasks to your rebels, Commander.
ADVENT won’t be sleeping while this is all going on, Commander. The enemy has employed a new strategic AI that will be operating counter to your own efforts, under the same goal of finishing the Avatar Project. ADVENT will try to move forces from adjacent regions to your location; if ADVENT feels safe in a region, it’ll try to construct research facilities to further the Avatar Project. If you’ve managed to drive ADVENT out of a region, they may return in force to try and take it back.
Additional changes include the ability to deploy multiple squads simultaneously to infiltrate several enemy targets at once. Each of those missions will be played individually. We’ll have more info on some of the other changes to Tactical gameplay in the future.
Interesting. The strategy layer definitely needed an overhaul, like adding some actual strategy to it for starters.
They have also implemented a squad management system that sounds pretty cool. You can assign soldiers to preset squads to make selecting squads more streamlined (useful with the inclusion of multiple simultaneous squad deployments) and to better leverage their squad interaction system from their earlier mods.
Afterwards, johnnylump posted some further info on the PI forums:
John Lumpkin (johnnylump) wrote:
These don't really fit in a promotional blog post, but following the FXS stream, I thought I'd bullet point some of the tactical changes we've made in Long War 2:
COMBAT
Shotguns are less accurate at medium and long ranges
LMGs are less accurate at point-blank range
Pistols and SMGs are between shotguns and assault rifles in terms of accuracy at range
On Veteran+, enemy reinforcement flares do not appear to XCOM
Reinforcements on many missions will appear at more regulated intervals, based on regional ADVENT strength. They will start out somewhat stronger than in vanilla and end up far stronger.
Enemy pods may have up to 8 enemies. Larger all-alien pods will almost always have more than two species.
Enemy pods will now employ certain tactics before they engage XCOM. This may include going to protect the objective or attempting to flank XCOM. They also have a broader set of options if they become aware a battle is underway, typically from hearing weapon fire/explosions or seeing dead allies.
Enemy AI will generally be more careful about cover and moving. They will order their turns to put units with certain ability types ahead of others.
Enemies who activate on their own turn will have a chance to take a ‘reflex’ action. If the unit was previously aware that a battle is underway, this may include firing at XCOM if they are unharmed after their scamper move.
Throwing any grenade has a one-turn cooldown before you can throw something else. Launching a grenade does not.
It now takes the Skyranger multiple turns to arrive after you throw the evac flare. Certain factors like Squad Size and infiltration status affect the number of turns. Throwing the evac flare reveals the squad.
When receiving a potentially fatal wound, soldiers are more likely to bleed out in general rather than die immediately.
Mission timers may be extended by officers using the “Intervention” ability. Using this ability costs intel.
Absent certain grenadier perks, grenades rarely destroy all but the most fragile of cover or induce vehicles to immediately explode.
Minimum explosives damage falls off from the center of an explosion. So a grenade that does 6-8 damage at the center will do 1-8 at the edge of the area of effect.
Rockets scatter based on a soldier’s aim, distance to target, perks, and whether or not the soldier has moved yet.
Loot drops are more common, but contain less loot.
GEAR
All armors have three utility slots. Pistols now go in utility slots.
Each full utility slot reduces your mobility by one. Base mobility is 15 for soldiers.
Soldiers may equip vests (bonus hp + a special bonus) and plating (ablative HP that functions like shieldbearer shields) at the same time in utility slots.
Most items, including weapons and armor, must be constructed individually. The schematic system of upgrading all weapons at once is largely eliminated.
Proving Ground projects are now tied explicitly to single items and generally enable mass production of a given ammo, grenade, vest, weapon mod, etc. in engineering.
All primary weapons have at least three slots for upgrades.
Repeaters are gone. They now function as suppressors and reduce infiltration time as well as the range at which enemies can hear your fire.
Stocks now provide the “Steady Weapon” ability (turn-ending action to provide bonus aim and crit on the next turn) instead of doing damage on misses.
Hair Triggers now provide to-hit bonuses on reaction fire. Scopes now only work on non-reaction fire.
Shinobi: Primary: Rifle, SMG or Shotgun; Secondary: Sword
Ranger: Primary: Rifle, SMG or Shotgun; Secondary: Sawed-off Shotgun
Assault: Primary: Rifle, SMG or Shotgun; Secondary: Arc Thrower
Gunner: Primary: Cannon; Secondary: Combat Knife
Grenadier: Primary: Rifle, SMG or Shotgun; Secondary: Grenade Launcher
Specialist: Primary: Rifle, SMG or Shotgun; Secondary: Gremlin
Technical: Primary: Rifle, SMG or Shotgun; Secondary: Gauntlet
Psi Operative: Primary: Rifle, SMG or Shotgun; Secondary: Psi Amp
Spark (DLC): Primary: Spark Rifle; Secondary: Bit
TO-HIT MECHANICS
The following hit mechanics in Long War 2 have been modified:
Critical chance is no longer an absolute chance
In base XCOM 2 a 10% hit and 10% critical chance would land 10% of the time, and if it hit would always be a critical. This is no longer the case.
Dodge no longer supersedes crit. (In base XCOM 2 if dodge + crit chance was greater than hit, crit chance would be removed in favor of dodge.)
Soldiers can graze even if the target has no dodge (In base XCOM 2, grazes were only possible if the target had dodge stat)
These changes apply completely symmetrically to both sides
All units will now graze if their to-hit roll is “close” to the required to hit
This is referred to as the “Graze Band.” The measure of “close” is configurable in-game, and defaults to +/- 10%.
Example 1 : Base 70% chance to hit results in 60% chance of a normal damage hit and 20% chance of a graze. The displayed to hit is 70%.
Example 2 : Base 20% chance to hit results in 10% chance of a normal damage hit and a 20% chance of a graze. The displayed to hit is 20%.
Critical Hit Chance is now a chance to “promote” the damage type. A successful critical roll will:
Promote a graze hit to a regular damage hit
Promote a regular damage hit to a critical damage hit
Dodge Stat is now a chance to “demote” the damage type. A successful dodge roll will:
Demote critical damage hit to regular damage hit
Demote a regular damage hit to a graze
Demote a graze into a miss (configurable)
Consequences:
Low % shots are generally more likely to do something, but that something results in less damage, and is very unlikely to deal critical damage
90% to-hit and above won’t entirely miss enemies (unless they have dodge)
Dodge and Crit counter each other, so a high critical chance helps counter high dodge units, while a good dodge helps protect against critical hits
When using Not Created Equally, soldiers may have negative dodge, increasing the chance hits against them will be promoted
Example 1: 90% to hit, 50% to crit
In base XCOM 2, this will result in Critical damage 50%, Normal damage 40% of the time, Miss 10% of the time.
In Long War 2, this will result in Critical damage 40% of the time, Normal damage 50% of the time, Graze damage 10% of the time.
Example 2: 20% to hit, 10% to crit
In base XCOM 2, this will result in Critical damage 10% of the time, Normal damage 10% of the time, Miss 80% of the time
In Long War 2, it will result in Critical damage 1% of the time, Normal damage 11% of the time, Graze damage 18% of the time, Miss 70% of the time
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last time i read they were preparing for the Terra Invicta kickstarter
You really are addicted 
