Does this game have a lot of theory-crafting and endless possibilities?

[☁]

Like for team synergies, tanks, healers. I couldn't see many items on the wiki, so is this more about the story events than playing with fun build combinations?

I couldn't get into XCOM because there wasn't much customisation in skills and such and the time based game-play made me feel under pressure all the time.

I do enjoy getting attached to randomly created or personally created characters as they develop/die and the story telling seems awesome from what I've seen, but the deep combat customisation needs to be there too for it to be replayable for me.

[Green riding hood]

It has a lot of customization. To the point that you'd spend 100 hours on it and still find something new to do.
Abilities change something drastic on one character. And they can only choose 5 from a list of them. So you can make builds that tank, heal, attack, snipe, backstab or support and still experience new builds to try out.

It has several layers of abilities that can be added on your character. Weapon related, class related, transformation related. Etc. To the point you could think up of 10 different combinations and still only scrape the barrel.

And everything, including events are random. So either you scour the wiki to get specific events to make your 'optimal' character.
Or play the campaigns like stories and get attached to your character through the course of its adventures.

I could write what all the customizations and abilities are but then you'd be reading a wiki page.

[Gandorques Hikla]

Id say its not designed for the kind of player who wants to spend a lot of time to min/max every character and "make the numbers go up", as there is no guaranteed way to always get what you want.

The focus is more on the story and personalities,
but the character development has a lot going for it too.
There are many abilities your characters will learn and improve over time with many synergies and team ups to try.
You also have to take in account that your characters also age and eventually retire from the current campaign.
They do so with prior notice, but a single overspecialized character leaving the party can leave a big gap in your team composition if you are not prepared.

As far as time limits go, I did not encounter any missions yet with a specific game ending time limit.
But there are some missions that get harder if you take too long.
Mostly missions that need you to accomplish a goal, while endless waves of enemies spawn in, but also some others that are more tricky.

The overworld gameplay has this kind of soft timer too.
The longer you take, the stronger and more varied the enemy factions get, but there are ways to migitate how much stronger they get.

On default difficulty, all of this feels very balanced difficulty wise.
It keeps me on my toes and provides a good challenge, but does not feel totally overwhelming.

Now that I write all that out, the customization aspect is a lot deeper than I realized, as it doesnt end at your character, but stretches to all aspects of the game.
It all feels very natural and fluent, and not like you have to manage a myriad of different systems, skill trees and numbers.

[pi73r]

There's some possibilites and cahracter development but it's rather a game where you go with what you get.
If you want to go theorycrafting on builds go play PoE.

[K1ll3rc0mb0]

Its possible. There is a level of grinding available with the 5 chapter games. Just keep in mind that no matter how much time you put into building a character in 1 playthrough, they will not keep their level and skills unless you max out the legacy on them.

In other words, if you can make a warrior with paladin, vigilance, sentinal, and engage, that's great but after the campaign ends, they will not keep more than 1 skill in the next campaign they are in.

However, the more campaigns they are in and the more you promote their legacy, the more skills they will be able to carry over to the next campaign.