Hey guys,
The "Second Wave" settings that some people have found by digging in to the game files was a feature that the team was toying around with, but it was not ever finished by the time the game released. It’s something the dev team at Firaxis is still interested in going back to and working on, but at this point we don’t have any firm plans to share.
Too bad but thanks for clearing it up.
What a shame. The Marathon one, and some others seemed like they would have breathed longer life into the game. Hopefully we still see this at some point or modders finish it up.
Son, I am disappoint.
Please go back and finish it.
Seriously, I've gotten three more people to buy the game and one of the selling points is the second wave feature for all of them. They all enjoy it (through the file edit you can do to get the menu). The game is awesome, and I'm positive that your sales would go up a bit if you all finished putting in marathon as a second wave option.
I'll be disappointed if second wave is not added or if it is as paid dlc, especially since some players have already been able to activate/mod portions of it.
^ ThisOriginally Posted by Slayton
It will add the replayability we are all waiting for.
:: Dumb guy enters ::
What's Second Wave?
They are a bunch of game altering options you unlocked after finishing the game. Options like: lose all equipment on death, elerium stores slowly deteriorate and so on. People saw in the demo files that there was some code about this so everyone expected that this would be in the full game. Apparently it was just some left over code.
Please Firaxis, make it happen
We should make a petition for thisWould that help, Greg?
For those wanting details on what "Second Wave" is, here's this thread detailing it: http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread...t-Look-Like-It
Indeed, I just started a new campaign but it's progressing way too fast! 5 hours and I'm already trying to delay it by postponing *priority* research. I want to continue a single, long campaign. I always played Civ4 on epic length as well.
Spot on! I'm hoping that you guys will be enabling it with a patch soon enough. The game is currently too easily consumed. 20 hours isn't enough for a single campaign!
The marathon setting is necessary IMO. The current pacing is far too fast.
One really good reason to finish the "Second Wave" settings: it will bridge the gap between Normal and Classic mode. Lots of players have come onto the forums complaining that Normal mode is too easy while Classic is too hard, and asking for a mode in between. Instead of making this mode explicitly, players could pick and choose the "Second Wave" settings they want to get the desired level of difficulty.
Three things is all we need:
Second Wave
Non-Yank voices
A Camera that TILTS!
It would also be nice to see a mode added to "Second Wave" that increased the number of enemies per map. Saw a thread where one poster recommended having the game set to Impossible before going into a mission, then changing the difficulty to what you want to get more enemies to fight. It's a sound idea, and like jdschw said, it'd bridge that gap between normal and classic.
Classic and Impossible need to have their gap bridged too. Impossible is just utter insanity, whereas I feel like Classic is starting to feel... I won't say it doesn't have its challenge, but aggroing three zerker packs, a cyberdisc group, and a chrysalid pack with a mix of tier2 and tier3 gear shouldn't result in no causalities.
This is smart. I imagine it would get extremely tedious flipping it back and forth though.Saw a thread where one poster recommended having the game set to Impossible before going into a mission, then changing the difficulty to what you want to get more enemies to fight.
Yeah, having an option to do this for you via "Second Wave" would be so much easier.
it probably was left inside so it could be easier to add on as dlc later...unfortunately dlc is an issue that ticks me off small crap like this should be part of the original purchase or even just a random game update. DLC should just be story expands and TONS of maps. This goes for any game im sick of costumes that do absolutely nothing and just a paltry couple of maps being a money scam.
yah a huge disappointment, but our own fault I guess
This here.
One of my biggest concerns for long-term replayablity is all the of the stupid talk breaks where you're locked out of control. Like on the base when you order research (it happens all the time, and it's very agrivating) and whenever you see the UFO power core for the first time, etc.
Really wish there was an option to remove all that story crap.
I am confident it will be released as a post release patch or DLC, after the strong fan base reation it has gotten.
I don't think it will be too soon though.
To posters saying MODS have already enabled it. Please remember all they did was activate the option, not a difficult thing to accomplish (no disrespect meant to the mods, I imagine they would agree). The options themselves have likely not been fully balanced and tested with the current game. I imagine that is why it is not yet available.
I hope they do revisit it. It'd be fantastic to have a complete list of difficulty settings that we can check off at will to customize the level of difficulty.
For instance I enjoy the more challenging tactical combat of classic, but find the strategic layer too unforgiving. I'd like more room for error, since I'm primarily interested in bringing the hurt to the aliens and not juggling color-pips for council members.
I imagine it might be possible to mod in our own 'Marathon' option - many aspects, such as research time, can already be increased. At present I'm simply uncertain whether the time-line for the alien invasion, which they say happens at its own pace regardless of player actions, is encoded into internal game logic or, basically, a value or set of values at which things start to happen. If the latter, that's not too hard to change... though, apparently, against the EULA if it modifies the exe, which at present embeds settings.
Getting an official Second Wave with Marathon is clearly far better than tinkering with that, and I agree with the person above that an option to disable various non-essential cut scenes would be great.
That said, ... I'm loving this game. I scoff at the notion of sleep these days! There are aliens to kill!
This needs to stay on the front page so everyone can badger Firaxis into finishing the Second Wave.
Thanks Greg (and Elicas for the bump).
Although the game has a BOATLOAD OF BUGS to fix before I want to see any second wave options
Like I've been saying to my viewers and my buds online - this will become DLC...
Please give us the second wave !
I need a midway between Classic and impossible... and that its defenitely some of the second wave options .
And a better squad loadout system!!
I really do hope that they can finish this feature in the future.
I hope this is something like the True Vault Hunter Mode in Borderlands 2 which adds new enemies and difficulty (and hopefully new weapons and technology to).
As it is right now, because of all the cut scenes and scripted story missions, even though there is a random element, I think re-playability suffers.
Second Wave works. Haven't tested all options, but currently playing Marathon which does the following:
Increase reaserch time.
Cost of everything is pretty much doubled.
Monthly incoming in 50%
Sold parts price is double.
I'm sure what Greg means is that is not optimised, so as an example with marathon, these changes may not be balanced correctly etc. Also if you load up an old save after enabling it and quit it crashes the game.
If you know how to activate it that is
I have altered the Exe to enable Second Wave turned a few bits on (my fav is 100% chance to crit on flanking which can be really punishing and rewarding), enabled abduction interceptions and Fixed the annoying HP bug where new hired soldier's have max HP.
I read around that modders found another interesting hidden option, left in the game files but disabled:
The ability to detect and intercept abduction and terror UFOs!
There's some difficulty drawbacks with it, but i think that it could make wonderful things as a new second wave option!
Does second wave add more ufo sightings? I remember in my game, I had a ufo I couldn't handle and it escaped. By escaping, it increased the panic level by 1 in that country.
If second wave adds a lot more ufo sightings, it would make the strategic layer very hard and interceptors actually useful. I want to see that in second wave.
Also, I would like to see a even harder difficulty level than impossible.
Almost everything about second wave sounds exactly like things that should of been in the game in the first place :P I want it.
Quoted for emphasis.
This does work. Plus the following spoiler:
Once you've done the alien base, this enables automatically anyway
I miss the time when video games were released finished...
I'd really like to see this added in a patch asap
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