Question about Alien Hunter DLC

[Captain Wolf]

I just started a new playthrough. This time I did not select any DLC (Shen's Last Gift / Alien Hunters). But I just went to engineering and shaw the bolt caster and the Hunter's axe. I didn't think these things would be here. I guess I won't be the first person to just ignore them and use the vanilla weapons?

I'm also wondering...I'm not going to see any Alien Kings, will I? I didn't like playing with them last time.

[Synavix]

It sounds like you will have them, yes. The options are a little confusing and it's a common problem people have when they want to turn the Rulers off.

If you DO integrate the DLC, the rulers will only show up after you "activate" them individually at blacksites marked with a "dangerous alien" warning.

if you DO NOT integrate the DLC, but you DO turn on the mission, then the rulers will only show up after you play the Nest story mission. One of your choices to avoid the Rulers would be to choose this option and simply ignore the mission all game. There are no penalties for ignoring it.

If you DO NOT integrate the DLC, but you also DO NOT turn on the mission, then the rulers will just appear randomly as soon as their enemy type (vipers for the viper king, zerkers for the queen, etc). It is probably the worst choice because most people do this assuming it will turn off the DLC, but it doesn't.

Your best choice for turning it off completely would be to just uninstall the DLC. You should be able to do that by right clicking the game in your steam library and going to Properties -> DLC tab -> uncheck Alien Hunters. But that will probably require you to restart your campaigns.

The FAQ pinned on this sub by SamBC goes into the options with a bit more detail in how it affects things like the weapons and progress if you want to read there. It's the first thing under the "Gameplay" header.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/268500/discussions/0/1474221865179564124/

[Captain Wolf]

Awesome, this link is helpful. Can you just explain what "integrate the DLC" and "turn on the mission" means exactly. I only seem to have the option of checking the boxes or not. Nothing says integrate or turn on missions in the setup.

[Synavix]

I guess I should have asked if you are playing with War of the Chosen. It has been so long since I played without it I don't remember what the choices are when you start a game, so my answer before my not be correct. But if you are playing WotC you should get this screen after you select difficulty/tutorial options:

https://giantbomb1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/26/268096/2961316-20170905171124_1.jpg

The three choices under DLC are what I was talking about before.

The first one is the Integrate DLC option, and if you select that it disables the 2 below it (the dlc story missions).

If you turn off the Integrate DLC option you can turn on the 2 bottom choices to enable their story missions called The Nest and The Lost Tower. If you do that you'll get a green mission to scan for 1-2 months into the game that you can either play (to activate SPARKs or Alien Rulers) or just ignore those all game without penalty if you don't want it.

Or leaving all 3 of them unchecked is the weird one that doesn't actually turn it off and makes stuff appear randomly.

[Captain Wolf]

I'm not playing Wotc. I'm playing vanilla. Can anyone elaborate on this. The link seems helpful, but since it doesn't define phrases like integrate and activate missions, I can't follow it. I don't think these are options in vanilla.

[DaBa]

It's tough to say anything since almost everybody owns WOTC by now, it makes the game so much better. I guess you could just disable this particular DLC and not download it?

[Abrakadabra]

As was mentioned, the easiest way to 'control' whether you want to have the rulers in your campaign at all or not is to simply choose whether you scan the alien ruler dlc mission on the geoscape. Scan it and then play it (in vanilla) and you got your rulers or simply never scan that location and never start the mission and they are no issue. Youll still have access to the experimental weapons in their unupgraded, basic form.

The enemies, the rulers, will only show up in your campaign, if you play the story mission. No mission. No rulers.

[Captain Wolf]

I have Wotc. I just never played it. I played the vanilla Xcom2 on Xbox about four years ago and I loved it. Then I got a gaming PC, and I bought Xcom2 again with all the DLC. I just did a playthrough and I did not like the alien kings or the extra gear. For that reason, I decided not to even try Wotc. I just want to play the vanilla game as is. There's a lot of different things I want to try.

I think I'll just take synavix's advice and remove all the DLC entirely. I can reinstall it later if I feel like I want to change things up.

What's so good about Wotc anyway? I read some complaints about it online.

[Captain Wolf]

Originally posted by Abi-Dalzim:

As was mentioned, the easiest way to 'control' whether you want to have the rulers in your campaign at all or not is to simply choose whether you scan the alien ruler dlc mission on the geoscape. Scan it and then play it (in vanilla) and you got your rulers or simply never scan that location and never start the mission and they are no issue. Youll still have access to the experimental weapons in their unupgraded, basic form.

The enemies, the rulers, will only show up in your campaign, if you play the story mission. No mission. No rulers.

This was very helpful. It took me a while to get it. I could do this or just remove DLC entirely. Then no Alien Rulers...yay!

[Zyrrashijn]

Originally posted by CaptainWolf2002:

What's so good about Wotc anyway? I read some complaints about it online.

First and foremost, it got rid of some serious performance issues and is more stable overall than vanilla. Then there are several addtions to the base experience.
- three new player classes with unique gear and skills
- several new enemiy types
- new mission types
- the chosen
- factions to ally with
- covert ops
- bonding system for soldiers
- fatigue system
- much more

[Abrakadabra]

Originally posted by CaptainWolf2002:

I have Wotc. I just never played it. I played the vanilla Xcom2 on Xbox about four years ago and I loved it. Then I got a gaming PC, and I bought Xcom2 again with all the DLC. I just did a playthrough and I did not like the alien kings or the extra gear. For that reason, I decided not to even try Wotc. I just want to play the vanilla game as is. There's a lot of different things I want to try.

I think I'll just take synavix's advice and remove all the DLC entirely. I can reinstall it later if I feel like I want to change things up.

What's so good about Wotc anyway? I read some complaints about it online.

Play wotc man.

It is the better version of the game.

You can still choose whether you include the rulers in a wotc run or not. Same procedure as in the basic game.

Wotc has a ton more features, more enemies, more missions, more research, new facilities, covert ops you can start for all kinds of things, less bugs, much better loading times. You gimp yourself and your xcom experience by only playing the vanilla version.

You also get 3 new classes in wotc Specially the reaper opens up a whole new ballgame. Its fun to play around with the new classes. Chosen will also introduce a new threat but theyre not op or unfair, specially not if you take advantage of the new classes. Reaper is the single best scout in the game. I dont know anybody that played wotc and said that vanilla is better. Tleast I cant remember reading that anywhere.

Most of the good mods are updated for wotc, not really for vanilla. Some mods only work for wotc, some really good mods.

If you have wotc, play it. Its like xcom 2 2.0.

[gimmethegepgun]

In vanilla it will ask you whether or not to enable the Alien Nest mission. If you enable it, then:

Originally posted by Synavix:

if you DO NOT integrate the DLC, but you DO turn on the mission, then the rulers will only show up after you play the Nest story mission. One of your choices to avoid the Rulers would be to choose this option and simply ignore the mission all game. There are no penalties for ignoring it.

If you do not enable it then:

If you DO NOT integrate the DLC, but you also DO NOT turn on the mission, then the rulers will just appear randomly as soon as their enemy type (vipers for the viper king, zerkers for the queen, etc). It is probably the worst choice because most people do this assuming it will turn off the DLC, but it doesn't.

[Captain Wolf]

@gimme thanks, the translation helped. I understand now.

Ok, I'll try WOTC next. I'm on my third vanilla playthrough (Veteran diff), and I just love the game. It took me this long to really grasp the nuances. I'm looking forward to checking out WOTC next. The rulers will probably be easier since I'm gaining all this experience now.

[Abrakadabra]

I envy you. Youll experience everything for the first time. Wotc feels like a whole new game after xcom 2 vanilla.

[Captain Wolf]

Neat. I mean in no way do I feel like I'm lacking variety in enemies, characters or weapons. Even after about 100 total hours of vanilla. (I played on XBox too).

Good job devs. In, fact, I think that deserves a good review aftrer all. I'll do that later.