X-COM Firaxis - XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within Expansion

[Heresiarch]

After reading all the reviews out there and finding 100% of them think the expansion is good, I think I'll try it.

And, to be perfectly honest, I really don't have the right to complain that the game is easy, because...well, I'm a big, shameless savescummer and haven't finished ANY XCOM/JA2 games on Ironman, ever.

 

[SuicideBunny]

fuck yeah, finally a crashed ufo mission not set in a damn forest.

 

[spectre]

I wonder what's the deal with the ongoing difficulty drop, they want to make consoletards proud that they managed to pull an ironman win?

 

[m_s0]

I wonder what's the deal with the ongoing difficulty drop, they want to make consoletards proud that they managed to pull an ironman win?

Achievements.

 

[Cyberarmy]

fuck yeah, finally a crashed ufo mission not set in a damn forest.

LoL, is that even possible? Or something added in so called expansion?

Where did it crash, in farmland or maybe a town center?

 

[SuicideBunny]

some building being built and yeah, it's from the dlc.

 

[Raghar]

A little question should I start with original then play expansion, or start with expansion? The original has been patched up, and the expansion is crashing. Also it might be problematic for MEC vs SHIV. Aka in original the SHIV was important, but in expansion it harshly competes for space with MEC.

 

[Gozma]

Can someone that buys or pirates this tell me what the range of the mech's "collateral damage" ability is? Rocket range, visual range, grenade range, that kinda thing.

From what I've read they didn't do anything to the "first 2-3 missions are the hardest in the whole game by a huge margin and determine the course of the game completely" dynamic that means ironman impossible sucks too much to play once you understand the game.

 

[Brinko]

So having watched about 5 people play parts of this expansion I am starting to see why Firaxis made the choices they did. It seems that almost everyone playing this game has some latent form of down's syndrome as they constantly leave their men in no cover and take <10% shots at all times. So I can see why ratcheting up the easy mode after 2 months of game time would get them wads of cash because the retards buying it need every goddamn thing they can get. I expect the next expansion they release to cover the later parts of the game will include deployable shield generators and artillery strikes to make sure the shit for brains that make up this game's fanbase clamor for it.

 

[SmartCheetah]

So far I haven't been surprised with anything, except for one mission (fishing village, some of you might know what I'm talkin' about)
Ahtung! Spoilers!

Spoiler

Playing this one for the first time might be a "little" tricky, especially on hardest difficulty level. Well, I'll be honest. It was a massacre. At least I managed to run off with my last (Only corporal :<) guy so he survived it somehow (badly wounded)
I placed my guys in a very bad position when "spawning" script started to work. First of all, my soldiers were freaking far from the objective, so I couldn't reach it in 2-3 turns. Reloading is also crucial there. It was too late when I realized my rifles are half empty. The only option I had was a freaking suicide run with one of my fellas, while others tried to take Chryssalids on themselves (MEC trooper included)
Well, he failed, getting jumped by two chryssalids next turn. I tried to run off with the rest of my guys, but it spawned so many chryssalids I couldn't do anything really. At least I realized you can run off the mission by moving your squad to the exit zone.

So I lost a Lieutenant, 2 Sergeants and a corporal, saving only a squaddie who got promoted to corporal(ironman mode:<)Good thing is if you fail a story mission, you can get back to it at later date. I'm not sure when council is going to throw it at me again, tho.

 

[Raghar]

Actually it's more difficult than first game, especially on classic. However I seen serious trouble with line of sight and floaters going trough roof without making hole. So it should be patched somewhat before it would be properly playable.

leave their men in no cover

Shooting match against thinmen is losing proposition even in best cover. If you looked at forums you'd see complains about aimbots. If they spawned 2 less it will be much smaller problem.

 

[Jaedar]

So for some reason I tried this. Had seekers shoot me through walls, chryssalids attacking through walls and injured soldiers fall through the level geometry. I really don't understand why someone would play a game this buggy on ironman.

 

[cvv]

Actually it's more difficult than first game, especially on classic. However I seen serious trouble with line of sight and floaters going trough roof without making hole. So it should be patched somewhat before it would be properly playable.

leave their men in no cover

Shooting match against thinmen is losing proposition even in best cover.

The aim ratios are really annoying, especially in the beginning. Your best shooters can't hit shit unless they stand a few meters from the target and Thin Men hit you 80% of the time half across the map, with majority of the shots critical to boot. High cover doesn't make much difference and low cover is a joke, you might as well stand in the open, strip naked and spread your cheeks. I don't remember the original UFO too preciselly but I don't think it was as ridiculous. Your early guys were much better (after all, they should be the best all the world's Tier-1 special forces has to offer ffs) and the early aliens actually missed sometimes.

And then the game gives you MECs, SHIVs, plasma snipers, improved medkits and slaps a Titan armor on you so you can literally play XCOM like CoD. An action TBS. Konsole Kids dream. And worldmap-wise, in the beginning countries are withdrawing like crazy and there isn't any money for anything but halfway through you cover all the rest with satelites and are making many hundreds a month so there's literally no challenge.

I'd say the difficulty curve is way more absurd than in original. I'm so glad I trial pirated it first, I don't know what those guys at Firaxis are smoking but they aren't buying it with me money anymore.

 

[Vival]

The aim ratios are really annoying, especially in the beginning. Your best shooters can't hit shit unless they stand a few meters from the target and Thin Men hit you 80% of the time half across the map, with majority of the shots critical to boot. High cover doesn't make much difference and low cover is a joke, you might as well stand in the open, strip naked and spread your cheeks. I don't remember the original UFO too preciselly but I don't think it was as ridiculous. Your early guys were much better (after all, they should be the best all the world's Tier-1 special forces has to offer ffs) and the early aliens actually missed sometimes.

And then the game gives you MECs, SHIVs, plasma snipers, improved medkits and slaps a Titan armor on you so you can literally play XCOM like CoD. An action TBS. Konsole Kids dream. And worldmap-wise, in the beginning countries are withdrawing like crazy and there isn't any money for anything but halfway through you cover all the rest with satelites and are making many hundreds a month so there's literally no challenge.

I'd say the difficulty curve is way more absurd than in original. I'm so glad I trial pirated it first, I don't know what those guys at Firaxis are smoking but they aren't buying it with me money anymore.

I remember it more like starting out with a bunch of fools in jumpsuits that couldn't hit shit without rockets or HE-ammunition while the aliens could one shot them from the other side of the map on highest difficulty. Once you got your hands on heavy plasma and flying suits though, it became fairly easy as well since your snipers could now hit anything in sight on the map and for those aliens out of sight you could just send a blaster bomb and call it a day. Not to mention maxed out psi-soldiers who could pretty much single-handedly conquer a landed battleship.

 

[Heresiarch]

Played for a couple of hours Classic Ironman, haven't lost a single soldier so far but will restart nonetheless because I forgot to send out a satellite at the end of the first month. Some findings:

- Research time got massively increased (+40% on Classic, +70% on Impossible). We're talking about researching the four basic techs (weapon fragments and stuff) at 8 days and arc throwers at 18 days. Beam weapons start out at 38 days so there's almost no hope to get laser weapons to save your hide (i.e. before Mutons) unless you either beeline it or capture a sectoid beforehand. Even an autopsy takes 10 days. This means that building labs and scientists rewards are actually useful now.
- Because of the new buildings and more options to start out, building space becomes a huge PITA very soon.
- At least at the beginning, MEC aren't that overpowered as it seemed. The biggest problem is ammunition, the starting minigun have only two shots in it. Heavy MEC with body shield is an awesome bullet sponge though. Haven't used flamethrower nor kinetic punch yet.
- To my surprise, the alien packs seem to have fewer aliens now, at least in the beginning. Around 40% have only two aliens and 30% have actually only 1 sectoid/thin man. Perhaps that's to compensate the higher frontup difficulty.
- The new aiming angles second wave option is very useful. The bonus it grants is very substantial, I've seen up to +30 which practically nullified a full cover. Combined with the random rookie stats and random increasing stats, it gives a much more dynamic gameplay as you can actually influence the to hit chance, and make it feel closer to the original XCOMs.

edit: from what I've read on several forums, it seems that Aiming Angles is not very balanced (just like the other Second Wave options). With this option on, the late game turns to be even more easier because you can semi-flank everything quite easily. This isn't a big issue early on, but later into the game as your guys' to hit rate increases, combined with this semi-flanking, aliens are very easy to hit because of the universal decrease in cover effectiveness, thanks to the improved mobility from grappling or jumping or flying, and greater number of squad mates, which all make semi-flanking too easy to achieve. However it's still a very valid option to use if you want to spice up the cover system a bit.

To the guys above who complain about Thin Men accuracy, try to use more Hunker Down. Thin Man's basic accuracy is 75 and the light plasma rifle it carries grants +10. So even if you are behind high cover they still have a 45% chance to hit you, which is a dangerously high to-hit rate. But with Hunker Down, their to hit rate will be decreased to only 5. They'll switch to the 100% hitting poison spit though, but at least that can be cured and isn't instantly lethal.

 

[Gozma]

Aliens don't actually get the +10 accuracy bonus for light plasmas (or you could say it's built-in). Hunkering in high cover gives most enemies in the game a 1% chance to hit you unless they get an elevation bonus or similar.

Another trick: holding a medikit (even a used one) makes a character immune to poison. So you can have a point man with a medikit hunker down in high cover and thin men will have to take 1% shots (though that can still destroy cover). That's how you can make the second month of impossible ironman fairly simple despite the big health boost floaters and thin men get.

WHAT IS THE RANGE OF COLLATERAL DAMAGE

 

[cvv]

Ok, just finished the base defense scenario and it's quite brutal tbh. For those of you who want to read up and prepare:

Spoiler

First of all I was spawned smack dab in the Mission Centre, without any preparation or loadout ajudstment. I got couple of my veterans and some complete rookies with assault rifles. And some of my veterans were given plain shotguns and machine guns instead of their heavy plasmas and plasma rifles. I think only two of my veterans kept plasmas (although maybe it was because they just returned from the gene lab and I hadn't reequiped them yet). Then 3 Mechtoids, some Heavy Floaters, Sectoid Commanders and some plain Sectoids and Floaters were plopped down all around me. In the ensuing fight I lost most my rookies and two veterans vere bleeding on the ground. My support medic wasn't in the squad. Before I got time to reorganize, two Cyberdiscs and some Drones and Seekers and more Heavy Floaters and Sectoid Commanders came at me from the other side. In the next turn all my guys were completely annihilated.

I said fuck it and save scummed it through to the end. You get two more reinforcements but it's either more rookies with pea shooters or your veterans with some shitty weapons. And there is wave after wave of enemies, including Mutons and Berserkers and an Ethereal in the end. It's pretty interesting mission but without save scumming on higher difficulties I think it would be...pretty fucking rough to say the least. I wonder if someone else had other experience and if somebody made it through on Impossible or Classic without savescumming.

 

[Raghar]

WHAT IS THE RANGE OF COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Find it yourself.

 

[Heresiarch]

WHAT IS THE RANGE OF COLLATERAL DAMAGE

The same as rocket launcher it seems.

 

[Average Manatee]

The aim ratios are really annoying, especially in the beginning. Your best shooters can't hit shit unless they stand a few meters from the target and Thin Men hit you 80% of the time half across the map, with majority of the shots critical to boot. High cover doesn't make much difference and low cover is a joke, you might as well stand in the open, strip naked and spread your cheeks. I don't remember the original UFO too preciselly but I don't think it was as ridiculous. Your early guys were much better (after all, they should be the best all the world's Tier-1 special forces has to offer ffs) and the early aliens actually missed sometimes.

And then the game gives you MECs, SHIVs, plasma snipers, improved medkits and slaps a Titan armor on you so you can literally play XCOM like CoD. An action TBS. Konsole Kids dream. And worldmap-wise, in the beginning countries are withdrawing like crazy and there isn't any money for anything but halfway through you cover all the rest with satelites and are making many hundreds a month so there's literally no challenge.

I'd say the difficulty curve is way more absurd than in original. I'm so glad I trial pirated it first, I don't know what those guys at Firaxis are smoking but they aren't buying it with me money anymore.

I remember it more like starting out with a bunch of fools in jumpsuits that couldn't hit shit without rockets or HE-ammunition while the aliens could one shot them from the other side of the map on highest difficulty. Once you got your hands on heavy plasma and flying suits though, it became fairly easy as well since your snipers could now hit anything in sight on the map and for those aliens out of sight you could just send a blaster bomb and call it a day. Not to mention maxed out psi-soldiers who could pretty much single-handedly conquer a landed battleship.

Well the main difference is that in X-Com 1 your rookie could fire at least 6 times a turn with autofire, so a hit rate in the 25%-35% range was manageable. And because X-Com 1 accuracy wasn't retarded and actually increased when you were near an enemy, that hit rate went up drastically at close range. Things suck when you can fire 1 shot a turn and the maximum hit rate is 30%.

 

[sser]

I play Impossible/not-expac, but you should never be fully engaging the enemy unless you're sure you can get a kill that turn. Exchanging fire with the AI even when you're in full cover is a huge gamble - particularly early-game when bros tend to die to one shot. Half-cover? Fucking forget it. Your best cover is enemy FOV - rather, not being in it. Your best offense is blowing the shit out of them with as many explosives as you can before they can go anywhere. Your best offense if you gotta shoot something is 1) Overwatch spam or 2) Everyone is shooting on-target with very good odds. Heavy rockets and Support smoke are the two best abilities early game, then followed by the Assault's double-tap battle closer. I hear snipers are great late game, but they're so worthless in the brutal opening stages that I never really developed one.

 

[AngryEddy]

Anyone have crashes?

Nope.

 

[AngryEddy]

I've been having a lot more success with kinetic fist's than Flamethrowers for my MEC's.

 

[cvv]

I've been having a lot more success with kinetic fist's than Flamethrowers for my MEC's.

I took Kinetic for both my MECs but I'm wondering if it wasn't a mistake. The fist does 18 damage which seems like an overkill in most cases and you have to get super close to boot which is mostly a pain. Tbh 9 damage to multiple enemies at range seems as a more appealing option now.

 

[AngryEddy]

I've been having a lot more success with kinetic fist's than Flamethrowers for my MEC's.

I took Kinetic for both my MECs but I'm wondering if it wasn't a mistake. The fist does 18 damage which seems like an overkill in most cases and you have to get super close to boot which is mostly a pain. Tbh 9 damage to multiple enemies at range seems as a more appealing option now.

Well, I need the resources, but if you just need to kill the enemies, then a flamethrower would be alright. Although when i'm running my flamer, he usually has a hard time closing the game outside of eating 2 turns and a lot of damage.