Understanding DLC integration.

[EvaPilot1]

Ok, so assuming I've not played any of the DLC before, just got War of the Chosen and have mostly forgotten everything about the game, what is the best way for a player to get everything out of this game DLC wise?

Do I integrate the DLC or deintegrate and activate the two DLC missions or what? I'm just wondering what the most complete experience would be. I also think probably leaving the tutorial on is a good thing for this?

Or maybe just play the base game with the DLC first and then play War of the Chosen integrated?

[4rrakis]

If you want the complete story experience then you should play with the tutorial as well as Lost And Abandoned on. As for the other dlc: Deactivate the integration, but check both dlc boxes below to activate the story missions. No need to play vanilla first, WotC has everything the base game has.

[Synavix]

From a gameplay perspective, Integrated DLC offers the best gameplay with WotC (in my opinion). However, it disables the stories/missios that are included with the 2 DLCs (because they're not rebalanced for wotc).

I personally love the DLC missions and think they're worth enabling to play at least once. If you've forgotten a lot of the story and want to experience the full thing you'll want to enable the tutorial as well. It actually includes a few pretty important cutscenes and information that you don't get otherwise.

WotC can be really overwhelming at first too...so if you don't mind playing 2 playthroughs (or even just an partial playthrough) then I think it'd be worth playing the base game with both DLC missions enabled + tutorial. Play the couple months so you get access to the DLC missions (they're available almost right away, but you're much safer waiting until mag weapons + first armor upgrade...especially for Shen's which has a difficult encounter at the end). Then at that point you can either finish out the rest of the game or just switch over to War of the Chosen with Integrated DLC and "Lost and Abandoned" enabled (it's the new introduction storyline for the factions, a couple missions in).

With Integrated DLC you'll still get all the gameplay content from the DLCs, it's just locked behind research + Proving Grounds projects instead of free, and no missions. Disabling "Lost and Abandoned" can be fun in later playthroughs because it gives you a faction right at the start and randomizes it a bit more, but you lose the story and the semi-tutorial of the Lost.

[EvaPilot1]

With the Lost and Abandoned, does that only activate that 3 part mission and the follow up rescue mission? If so, I'm thinking of just turning the difficulty down and powering through all the DLC, then starting fresh on a harder difficulty with Lost and Abandoned disabled and DLC integrated.

[4rrakis]

That is right, LaA contains the introduction cutscene, the three-part mission and the rescue. If you saw that mission on one of the many preview streams than you can safely deactivate it without missing something.

[Rabmiral Skee]

How do I unlock sparks?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Skyward Sorceror:

How do I unlock sparks?

If you integrated DLC or didn't integrate and disabled the mission then Sparks are available for construction in the Proving Grounds at any time. If you enabled the mission then you must complete Lost Towers, which will give you a Spark, and then afterwards you can build more in the Proving Grounds.