Pavonis Interactive Forums

Our official announcement regarding the XCOM 2 expansion and whether Long War 2 and our other mods will be updated to support it is that we have nothing to announce at this time. When there's something to provide we'll be sure and post here. Sorry we don't have anything more right now.

As of 11/7/2017, see this thread for an update: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=26982

Well thats no fun.

Edit: Just out of curiosity were you guys given a heads up and early access to this like you were with the base game? Or was this sprung on you the same as the rest if us.

Nothing to be sorry about, Johnny. We're too far out from the expansion anyway.

Looking forward for news of this and Terra Invicta!

I appreciate the transparency, thanks! Keep doin' awesome things and keep us posted when there's something to post!

ORIONOX wrote:Edit: Just out of curiosity were you guys given a heads up and early access to this like you were with the base game? Or was this sprung on you the same as the rest if us.

That gets into things I'm unable to talk about -- NDAs and all that. Don't want to make FXS and 2K unhappy with us.

Heya.

Just wanted to ask, if LW2 be compatible with/balanced for the new expansion right on release or we will have to wait some time after the release?

No matter the answer,you guys are doing great job. Looking forward to see more.

As this thread states, they have nothing to announce yet.

They'll announce something when they have something to announce. August 29th is a fair ways off.

Well just in case the following is any help in deciding things:
- I don't buy XCOM2 until longwar2 came out.
- I also bought both all expansions to add to the longwar2 experience e

I would also not buy war of the chosen until it is adapted by lw2.

It stands to reason that Firaxis would have intended for Chosen to integrate with Long War. After all, Long War is a big selling point for the game (it was the only reason I even got Enemy Within).

I think we can reasonably assume that PI knew about the expansion ahead of time, and perhaps were working behind the scenes to see how to fit it all with long war. After all, it seems like Chosen is introducing some new mechanics, so melding those with LW is not trivial.

I have full confidence that JL and crew will come through, no matter how things roll out. Patch 1.18 perhaps?

seeing as a few things we see in the trailer for the expansion scream you guys I am not surprised.

seriously the flame trooper for advant seems more like a long war item then a base xcom item. then their is what was leaked via the achievements the squad cohesion and getting tired stuff seem like they where taken right out of long war.

My only hope is that when/if long war 2 gets an expansion for the expansion that we can equip tenchicals with the Advants flamethrowers.

Magos Juris wrote: Just wanted to ask, if LW2 be compatible with/balanced for the new expansion right on release or we will have to wait some time after the release?

That sounds an awful lot like something Pavonis wouldn't be able to discuss due to NDA.

However, since rampant speculation by fans is allowed , allow me to say: I think that since an NDA exists at all, it's a good bet that Pavonis was given at least some advance notice, and LW2 will be, at minimum, compatible in a mechanical sense. For that matter, depending on what exactly the expansion does to the game, LW2 might not even need to be balanced all that much.
Can't wait can't wait can't wait can't wait...

johnnylump wrote:Our official announcement regarding the XCOM 2 expansion and whether Long War 2 and our other mods will be updated to support it is that we have nothing to announce at this time. When there's something to provide we'll be sure and post here. Sorry we don't have anything more right now.

johnnylump wrote:That gets into things I'm unable to talk about -- NDAs and all that. Don't want to make FXS and 2K unhappy with us.

All these "nothing to announce" are great things to read . ty and good luck with your mountain of work .

Content Consumer wrote:LW2 might not even need to be balanced all that much.
Can't wait can't wait can't wait can't wait...

I guess one of the real big work will be to include the add-on weariness mechanic with the squad system.

I think Long War 2 will definitely need a balance pass to work with the new expansion. There is so much stuff added, than it will likely cause some issues with the way LW2 handles things balance wise.

It would be extremely unlikely for new content to have no real effect on the finely-tuned balance of LW2

Thanks for addressing this issue with an official response. I hope this expansion does not severely break Long War 2 because that would be extremely disappointing. I'm guessing that Jake/Garth created this expansion with you guys (LW2 mod) in mind and to ensure all of the moving parts play nice with each other.

I am sure to not buy the expansion until there is a LW2 version for it. I cannot go back to Xcom 2 vanilla experience, even with a few new weapons and enemies. All I read about the expansion does not excite me much and it is not worth going back to explosive meta and terrible geoscape mechanics.

Also not being able to have LW2 classes is a major No-No in my book. Or going back to 4 to 6 soldier per mission only...

Thank you for keeping us informed.

I was watching the trailer and thinking "Hey, it's like LW2..." "Oh, like that other mod !" "Uh, a new cosmetic and voice pack !" The modding community and you guys have produced amazing work. I'm just concerned about compatibility issues in the future. That will probably mean a lot of update work for modders, which was not the point. I'm eager to hear more about TI.

Thanks again

Thatsxcombaby wrote:I'm guessing that Jake/Garth created this expansion with you guys (LW2 mod) in mind and to ensure all of the moving parts play nice with each other.

To speculate with zero knowledge of what's actually the case: if I was the code architect for this expansion, I'd make sure to let modders pick and choose which features they want to enable. Maybe that's inherently already possible, I haven't done any XCOM2 modding myself.

Assuming the above is possible, if I was then the code architect for LW2 I might consider a phased approach to integration. It would get the new enemies and smaller features into LW2 faster, at the cost of more balance work overall. There is merit to the alternative of biting the bullet early to do a full integration upfront - especially if there's more commission money dictating that.

With only the marketing text to go by, the community can't have informed discussions on this topic. Personally I do get the impression this new expansion took several clues from Long War.

archangel wrote:...
Also not being able to have LW2 classes is a major No-No in my book. Or going back to 4 to 6 soldier per mission only...

I am actually happy that Pavonis takes it's time to let us to familiarize ourselves to the new environment, cause much alike with LW2, I predict that it's going to take a LOTs to adjust.
So play the vanilla version FIRST.

I'd never make the claim that FXS picks up design cues or mechanics from us. Back before XCOM 2 was released and we were pitching LW2, they reviewed our plans against theirs to make sure we weren't overlapping with any of the DLC ... and we weren't. They have been fantastic to us all the way through, but we have designed independently of them and they of us. It's a testament to the strength of the core squad combat design and story of XCOM that we can take their product and riff on it for a meaningfully different experience.

For what it's worth, some of the Squad Cohesion code was in vanilla XCOM 2. Even in EU there was an enum in the code that suggested they had thought about some kind of fatigue mechanic, but they never used it. There was also a line that suggested they wanted a "Skyranger mortar" but they never used that either.

johnnylump wrote: "Skyranger mortar" but they never used that either.

Oh god, please make that happen

johnnylump wrote:..they reviewed our plans against theirs to make sure we weren't overlapping with any of the DLC ...

Which also most likely means.. they already took great care into NOT interfering badly/brokenly with the current (other) modding mechanics that people create for the Workshop. The SDK would probably need a few changes and we'll be up&running within a week or less of release. I fully expect them to extrapolate over exact Modding facts in the coming weeks anyway. Once we know some details, we can react accordingly.

With 2700+ mods uploaded (10/25% of which are actively maintained & still subscribed to, btw).. Firaxis should keep supporting that replayability factor as much and often as possible. That's where the meat is -- as proven by your own LW2 popularity, JL.

archangel wrote:I am sure to not buy the expansion until there is a LW2 version for it. I cannot go back to Xcom 2 vanilla experience, even with a few new weapons and enemies. All I read about the expansion does not excite me much and it is not worth going back to explosive meta and terrible geoscape mechanics.

Also not being able to have LW2 classes is a major No-No in my book. Or going back to 4 to 6 soldier per mission only...

Although I completed vanilla, I've completely forgotten what playing it is like. To me, LW2 is Xcom2; I can't imagine playing it any other way. I can only hope that this new expansion gels with the LW2-Xcom2 experience.

sumxcom2 wrote:

archangel wrote:I am sure to not buy the expansion until there is a LW2 version for it. I cannot go back to Xcom 2 vanilla experience, even with a few new weapons and enemies. All I read about the expansion does not excite me much and it is not worth going back to explosive meta and terrible geoscape mechanics.

Also not being able to have LW2 classes is a major No-No in my book. Or going back to 4 to 6 soldier per mission only...

Although I completed vanilla, I've completely forgotten what playing it is like. To me, LW2 is Xcom2; I can't imagine playing it any other way. I can only hope that this new expansion gels with the LW2-Xcom2 experience.

THIS, this so much. To me LW2 feels like what the vanilla XCOM 2 should have been from the start. The strategy layer is a lot deeper and I feel like I actually have a lot more options in the tactical layer as well. I didn't realize just how binary vanilla felt until I played LW2. I cannot imagine ever playing vanilla again. Which kind of sucks because now we are getting an expansion and we have to go back to vanilla units. Let's just hope Firaxis takes a page out of LW2 and implements a lot of similar features. I already see that the strategy layer is much better in the expansion as opposed to vanilla.

I do hope you guys end up integrating the new DLC into LW
I know that myself and many others only bought X-com 2 because of LW 2 and will probably do the same for the expansion/dlc
This is not to say that vanilla X com 2 is bad ( i wouldn`t know annyway since i never played vaniila ) but rather LW2 is THAT good