How to XCOM 2 Co-op Via Broadcast Couch Coop (Parsec)

This guide will help you understand how you can use Parsec to play XCOM 2 Cooperatively with friends, and a few suggestions to make gameplay fun and interesting with the people you choose to fight Advent with.

Introduction

I've been playing XCOM 2 cooperativley with a few friends via Parsec for the last month or so. Tears were shed, collective anger held at horrible, UNREALISTIC, 95% misses (that's XCOM baby), and great campaign photos taken to commemorate the journey.


Cats out of the bag, (credit to youtuber and all around great guy Tehsnakerer) so I figured I could help the XCOM 2 community by helping it understand how, in a few steps, it too could enjoy XCOM 2 cooperatively with friends. Trust me, if you enjoy XCOM, you'll enjoy it a hell of a lot more with friends to suffer the failures, and enjoy the successes, of a long fought campaign.

Maybe the real gatecrashers were the friends we played with along the way?













Remember these brave men and women from Operation Gatecrasher. Half of them would be dead by the next mission due to an unfortunate yellow move by a player controlling a rookie soldier. The other half of us were screaming.

Parsec, What It Is and How to Set Us Up The Bomb

Parsec[parsecgaming.com]

Parsec is a program that not only allows you to stream games to friends, doing so with extremely low latency, it also alows said friend to send inputs from their ends. What this means, is that it's broadcasted couch co-op, very much like Steam Remote Play but started a year earlier, and can do ANY game and program that you whitelist. This is unlike Steam Remote Play Together, as it only works with certain games.
XCOM Operatives Practicing Cooperative Exercises Together From Remote Locations (Colorized)

I'll go over two different Installation steps here, one of the host, and one for everyone whose joining. The first steps are similar, but for clarity I'll repeat them for each section.

Hosting Via Parsec

What You'll Need:

• XCOM 2. Vanilla, WotC, modded, doesn't matter.
  
• Parsec
  
• The best internet connection/computer out of your group of friends. Remember, you're going to be streaming to maybe up to other five people- you can't do that on a potato computer and a dial-up modem.
  
• Patience. First time setup, and testing to make sure everyone can join, WILL take some time. Super easy once you've done it a few times, but the first time seems daunting.

1. Download Parsec[parsecgaming.com]
   
2. Install and run Parsec
   
3. Register an account
   
4. Download and install the Virtual Audio Cable fix here[support.parsecgaming.com]*
   
5. Start up XCOM 2 and/or WotC while having Parsec running
   
6. Tab to, or use the Parsec overlay, to go to the Parsec Setting> Approved Apps Tab
   
7. Now that you have XCOM running, you should see it on this list, put a check next to it to enable your friends to later see your game, and nothing else, when they join later.
   
8. Go to the computers tab in parsec, and click Share Button underneath your computer (If you do not see anything, click the Reload Button in the top right)
   
9. Copy the link to give to your friends (they will enter this link in the bottom right of their parsec window to join you)
   
10. They'll be a little bubble/window at the bottom of the Parsec window when they attempt to connect, click on it, and click Accept
    
11. Click on their portrait again, and click on Mouse, and then Click on Keyboard to enable them to have mouse and Keyboard support.
    
12. Tab back into XCOM
    
13. They should now have mouse+keyboard control as well, seeing what you're seeing, and be ready to overthrow Advent together!

*The Virtual Audio cable, while not NECESSARY to run Parsec, gets around a huge annoyance myself, and a few others, have found when hosting Parsec. Mainly, parsec aggressively filters discord voice audio so your friends don't hear their own voices looped back at them as you broadcast your computer. This is fantastic, but parsec will also sometimes filter ANY spoken audio- unit lines, people speaking during cutscenes, etc. So while your friends may be able to hear the music, combat, and skittering of a chryssalid about to come around the corner and ruin your day, they won't hear your rookie's passive aggressive moaning, Tygan lament about Advent Burgers, or critical dialogue during cutscenes.

Joining Via Parsec

What You'll Need

• Any Computer
  
• Parsec
  
• Internet Connection

The important note here is that: for you, the person joining the host, YOU DO NOT NEED A COPY OF XCOM. The host is streaming their game to you, so you do not need the game in your steam library, unlike the older Co-op mod that said not only did you both need the game, you needed mod parity with the host to make sure everything worked. With Parsec, the program itself is all you need to join and play the host's version of XCOM. Just, uh, don't poke around his mods too much, yeah?

1. Download Parsec[parsecgaming.com]
   
2. Install and run Parsec
   
3. Register an account
   
4. When the Host is ready, he will give you a link. Copy and paste that link into the bottom right of your parsec window
   
5. Wait for the host to approve your connection.
   
6. Once accepted, you may see a generic looking window saying something along the lines of "the host is doing something else." If the host has done his setup right, this just means that he is currently tabbed out of the game or looking at something else. If the host is claiming that he's in game and you still can't see anything, he probably has not whitelisted XCOM 2/WotC in Parsec>Options>Approved Apps settings. He needs to do this
   
7. You should now see the game, be able to move the mouse and control the keyboard. Have the host start a new campaign and have fun!

Gameplay Suggestions

These are suggestions on how to divvy up the overall campaign, command, and the workload, because when everyone tries to move the mouse to get things done, nothing gets done. But ultimately, this will be your journey with your friends, so play it your way!

Overall Campaign and General Tips

Whatever difficulty you're used to playing on, I suggest dropping it by one. Having multiple people making decisions WILL add difficulty to any campaign, and if you're introducing new players to XCOM, doubly so. Don't burn out everyone else because you're used to Legendary Ironman and everyone else is getting slaughtered every mission.

One man out rule. A session of XCOM takes some time, a whole campaign a lot more time spaced over a couple dozen sessions. If you're playing with three or more people, it may be hard to line up everyone's schedules to play the once or twice a week needed to keep the game, and campaign momentum going. Our group has a house rule for the four of us that if 3 out of 4 of us are online and ready to play, we'll continue the campaign.

Give advice, but let new players learn and figure out things. It's much more enjoyable than someone dictating your every decision to you, which goes into the next part:

Resist the urge to yank away control from a bad decision. Yes, other players are not going to be making the most optimal moves every time- but they're your friends. You gotta trust them, and if you really disagree, talk it out. Nothing is worse than trying to enjoy something and someone yanks it away from you, going "nuh uh, you're enjoying it wrong!" (Hypocritical for me to give this advice when I'm telling everyone "How to play XCOM 2 Co-op", but it needs to be stated.) Some of the best times I've had in co-op campaigns are when someone fumbles, and we have to band together to clutch a mission in time and pull their butt out of the fire.

All that being said, feel free to cut the player's connection when they're about to hit backspace in the middle of a lost swarm, and prematurely end the whole squads turn- to avoid having them torn to shreds. I know you didn't know better at the time, Trevor, but that was almost a campaign wipe. :P

Strategic Layer

First and foremost, be clear on the strategy layer who is currently controlling the mouse, and respect that. One player trying to click on engineering, and the host trying to move over to the geoscape, you're going to end up somewhere in the medbay. The Strategic layer is also the place to talk out what the overall plan is, what you're going for, etc. Communication is very important in all this.
Maybe you can take turns, changing after every mission, who has base control. Or you can leave control up to the most experienced player, but talk out decisions and take input from everybody. You have many options.

Knowing is Half the Battle™

Tactical Layer

This is the Meat and Potatoes of the Co-op experience.
At the mission loadout screen, decide who is going to control what operatives during the mission. In an ideal world, The host and players would control the same people throughout the whole campaign, but fatigue, wounds, deaths, and non-optimal setups will prevent you from taking a fair representation of player's characters on every missions. It's much more fair to everyone involved to try to split up control of the squad equally at the start of every mission, even if that means you're going to have to give up control of your favorite grenadier for the mission as you're already assigned to move two rangers.


When in mission, feel free to go in the order XCOM set up the units in, or talk it out and let the player move their unit "out of order" if it's more strategically important- i.e. destroying cover with the grenadier first. Just make sure that when it isn't your unit, you're not touching the mouse and keyboard. I know it's mundane to switch to every person at the beginning of a mission only to have them move operatives forward, but that's part of the fun is letting everyone have control.


Special little note about the photobooth at the end of the mission: it's not practical to do it after every mission, but after a particularly memorable one, let everyone pose their own operative to commemorate the culsterfu another successful operation. It's how I got the first photo in the introduction, and this special little one on the right.



Post mission, I suggest if anyone has earned promotions, you let the player who controlled that unit for the mission make the decision on what perk to select- it's fun and rewarding this way. Just keep in mind that you should also feel free to talk it out and give input if you don't think it's a great idea, but ultimately the power is in that particular player's hands.


Alternative Tactical Layer Method (aka XCOMMANDERLESS aka doing Tehsnakerer Tango) :
Everyone muted on discord, just you, your units and your thoughts. More chaotic, but also more fun. See the below youtube video.

Troubleshooting

I've hosted different campaigns for around a dozen different players, and we only had connection issues with two of them, so if that small statistic pool could be believed, you're more likely than not- not going to run into any issues. But if you do, here's some tips:

First and foremost, check out Parsec's Common Issues page here.[support.parsecgaming.com]

That being said, sometimes some users have issues connecting, and we've found some workarounds.
You can use a Virtual Lan Network to improve the connection if someone cannot join normally. How to set one up is a whole guide into itself, but check out the bottom of this Parsec help page, P2P VPN solution like ZeroTier[support.parsecgaming.com]

Another, uh, interesting workaround, is nesting parsec streams.
So you have Host, Player 1, and Player 2.
Player 1 can connect just fine, but Player 2 cannot.
Have Player 1 disconnect from host, and start broadcasting themselves.
Player 1 goes into their Settings>Approved Apps, and turns it off, thus broadcasting their whole desktop.
Player 1 gives Player 2 his code, Player 2 joins Player 1 and sees/controls everything he sees.
Now Player 1 uses HIS parsec to join the host.
It's insane. Quality is a bit scummier for Player 2 than usual.
But It Just Works.™

Another Player had success by turning on their VPN. Suddenly they could connect to hosts that they couldn't connect to before. Again, no idea why, but it's worth a try!

Endgame, Disclaimer, and Acknowledgements:

If you've made it this far and have successfully ran a few missions with your good, Advent-slaughtering friends, stop on by the Avenger Bar: you all have earned yourselves a beer.


This guide was a small way I could give back to this community. I have a lot of love for XCOM 2, been playing since it's release, but I have even more love for the very active modding community that have kept this game not only alive, but thriving with gamechanging mods, fun cosmetics, and everything in between. I can honestly say, without their constant output, big or small, overhaul or flag pack, none of us would still be around to post anything and continue to enjoy this fantastic game.

Thank you, all of you.

General disclaimer:

I make no promises if you somehow brick your hardware doing this, or break your keyboard in frustration from a missed shot. Both are incredibly unlikely, but I'm not responsible for anything that goes wrong in pursuit of cooperative XCOM. I do not promise any ongoing support of this guide, fixes, or other maintenance or troubleshooting of parsec, XCOM CO-OP, or anything related to this guide. It's provided as-is.

Please don't scream at me if something goes wrong.

Acknowledgements:

Firaxis for not only making an amazing game, but giving it all the modding tools and support it need to keep it alive to this point.
/xcg/ for always being #1, even when we were in exile
Ninja Nub, and the larger dimi-discord group for helping me test this and play through a fantastically wild ride of a campaign. But seriously, Ninja makes some seriously high quality cosmetic mods for XCOM 2, check them out.
Arsen for proofreading

And finally, for my longtime friends and my brother, in which I started this crazy journey of how to host XCOM 2 for others for:
XCOM 2 is my favorite game. You are my favorite people. Being able to enjoy XCOM 2 with you over the past month has been a dream for me. You will probably never find this guide and read this, but I had, and continue to have, so much fun playing this game with you guys- and I need to express that somewhere. It takes me back to lan parties a decade ago in high school at the apartment, it takes me back to spending whole summers just gaming it out, it's a fantastic feeling and I'm so happy that you guys took a chance to try it out. The current campaign is probably the most positive gaming experience I've had in a long time, and I doubt anything will top it anytime soon.

You all rock.

Fin

Thank you for reading through all that. Playing XCOM 2 with friends is an absolute blast, and I hope this guide has given you and your friends the confidence to give it a try!

Good luck, Commanders.

[Anakinhall06]

fucking legendary guide

[Planewalker]

Very well made guide; concise, bordering on poignant. :D
(VPN works bc it circumvents filters btw)

That's it for the compliments.

Thank you

[UNSC Trooper]

there is a disturbing lack of praise for this highly detailed, informative, and helpful guide. you, my friend, are the GOAT!

[frankspijker1994]

- The host should set the fps at 60 in Parsec, above that will increase the bandwith too much.
- The host should experiment with the ingame graphic and video settings. I would first look at setting the window mode not at fullscreen but at borderless, it improves perfomance and is less buggy.
- The host should also look in keeping stability and fps high, so if that requires lowering the graphics, the host should do so. Don't go further than high in the settings, the visual improvements are negligble above that.

[frankspijker1994]

Also feel free to add this in the guide as additional tips for Parsec if this helps.
- Do a speedtest on your upload speed, then adjust your "bandwith limit" in Host Settings in accordance to the results. The higher, the better.
- Consider using Exclusive input mode (you can find it in host settings), especially if the host is assigned as the commander
- In client turn H.265 on, it requires a GPU or CPU that supports H.265 encoding, but if it does, the streaming quality is higher and it requires a lower bandwith. If one client doesnt support H.265 then it will revert back to H.264 for everyone.
- The host should turn off Vsync, especially when it has freesync or gsync. This will lower the latency. Turning vsync on or off in Parsec should also be experimented with, in my experience turning it off improves the latency. Turning of freesync or gsync will also lower latency potentially.

[frankspijker1994]

Maybe this has been mentioned already but here is another tip in how to improve who controls which soldier. The UI sometimes is confusing in seeing who plays. This issue gets even more troublesome if you play LWOTC since squads are much bigger and you have more than two players playing the game. People tend to forget which soldier they control and thus mistakes will happen. There is a solution for it.

If you do not mind not using nicknames for its original intend, then use those nicknames as a way to assign who is gonna play that soldier.

For example if a player's name is Tom you could give his soldiers the nickname: Tom1, Tom2, Tom3, Tom4. Something else is also fine if the nickname makes it clear to which player the soldier is assigned to

I would recommend to give each player at least four soldiers to assign a nickname to because their soldiers will get wounded or die and need to rotate in between missions.

[Timon]

There is also an another way - hijack Steam's Remote Play system. Use a special little program, called "Remote Play Whatever" and just send the Remote Play link to one of your friends. It baffles me that devs couldn't just enable "Remote Play Together" by default after the feature was out by Steam, yet they came back to shove us a fucking shitty launcher, which was never asked for.

[Perogi Palooka]

Thanks for the kind words, BlueAuran. Hopefully your group found it useful!

[BlueAuran]

I just though, hey lets click on this because it looks cool. LITTLE did I know what I was missing out on. This is very in depth and complex, SUPER USEFUL, and would of make, WILL MAKE a great addition to the base game or WOTC...what an absolutely outstanding contribution...and from all the awards you have received many others surely agree!

[Perogi Palooka]

I don't know, Preston, don't you have a settlement defense to tell me about?