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

[Gozma]

I think a very important contribution to the gameplay the MEC brought is it gives tactical management much more versatility because they are not reliant on covers. Before EW, I found many cases that all my troopers were competing for covers to stick behind, as seldom is the case that there are enough full covers for 6 people. This brought a lot of silly situations such as 3 or 4 guys lining up behind a wall, or 3 humans camping around a single half cover. In EW however, I could put one or two MECs in the open, giving the other 4 humans much more room to maneuver with. This helped solving the problem that the game was too reliant on covers.

A tip about using MEC: despite their perceived high HP, these guys are NOT bullet (or plasma) sponges or even tanks. Their resilience level is just like X-COM/TFTD tanks and Apoc androids - tougher than humans, capable to take a couple extra hits, but that's all. Their greatest survival ability is as mentioned above you can put them into less than ideal spots (for humans) without worrying being one-shot crit killed. Their high mobility also helps them getting out of trouble (or LOS) or getting in for a killing blow. Ideally MEC should never be damaged in most combat, just like humans.

but shivs

I watched some I/I of EW and it looks pretty standard except that the missions from the aborted DLC plans are fucking nightmarish. Like 15 thin men on a mission on the third of April and you need to have memorized every tile of the map nightmarish.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Well, I finished the base defence mission. Barely, I had to replay it a couple of times. Turns out that rushing the alien base on impossible (which was a real pushover in comparison - I didn't even see mutons there) is a big problem, because you get hit back fast. About two weeks after the alien base fast, so I was still in the middle of the third month when it happened. And I didn't even have laser rifles for fucks sake (I was literally hours away from completing my research), I had to fight with conventional weapons only. I was also two days away from completing tactical rigging and alien grenades that would also help greatly. If I only delayed the base assault a couple more days (and I could have done that and still complete it in the second month), this could have been significantly easier. I did have carapace armor and a couple of chitin plating to add some durability to my point men, and my sniper was an in-the-zone cloaked combat monster even with a shitty weapon.

I faced several groups of sectoids, thin man, chryssalids (no challenge so far), mutons (the first time I've even seen them), three cyberdisks with drones (again, first time they showed up and these assholes are a problem - if they flank me they can one shot even my toughest soldier and it takes my entire team pouring fire point blank on just one to take him down quickly enough to prevent that), one sectoid commander and the biggest problem of all - four fucking mechtoids.

Cyberdisks and especially mechtoids were a major pain in the ass. I had to nibble them to death with explosives and conventional weapons to take them out. Took me three hours but I managed to finish it with just a couple of security guards lost. I was trying to keep guards alive by keeping them in the back (apart from their grenades they were of no use anyway - everything weak enough for them to take on died to my in-the-zone sniper fast) but that turned into a problem as well - you only get reinforcements if you lose people. Since I wasn't losing anyone, my A team (yeah, you get people in the order they are in the barracks - best go first) had to face increasingly worse and worse odds with dwindling resources, until I had to put guards in the fight to buy myself a turn or two to prevent being overrun by mechtoids.

Anyway, that was an interesting and good mission, wish there was more stuff like this in the game. I just fear that after this the rest of the game is going to be anticlimactic in comparison.

 

[AngryEddy]

god I hate exalt, it adds so much filler combat to the late game and there are only 2 types of exalt missions

Yeah, Exalt was not challenging at all.

 

[AngryEddy]

Anyone want to play some Xcom multiplayer?

 

[ColCol]

So, do you guys think there will be an end game focused expansion? Or any expansion at all?

 

[Psquit]

Whats the point?. They probably make a sequel.

 

[Zeriel]

Yeah, at this point I expect a brand new game. Then again, maybe they'll pull a Civ V and keep making expansions no one gives a shit about. I suppose it's just as likely.

 

[RK47]

They can pretend to advance the story or some shit. Maybe move the action to zero-g/underwater maps. Whatever. Firaxis loves to milk franchise with expansions, Civ V has a lot of expansions that actually improved is core gameplay, I can see a lot of improvements to be made in XCOM, except it's designed for consoles first hence it won't be as good.

 

[Surf Solar]

So I just found out the hard way that, if one of your soldiers is on top of a multistory building and lobs a grenade to an enemy on the same level, a soldier being 2 stories lower gets damaged as well by the blast.

 

[Raghar]

So I just found out the hard way that, if one of your soldiers is on top of a multistory building and lobs a grenade to an enemy on the same level, a soldier being 2 stories lower gets damaged as well by the blast.

Really? That's a common sense. You are lucky building didn't collapse on him.

 

[Jaedar]

So I just found out the hard way that, if one of your soldiers is on top of a multistory building and lobs a grenade to an enemy on the same level, a soldier being 2 stories lower gets damaged as well by the blast.

Really? That's a common sense. You are lucky building didn't collapse on him.

Pretty sure this game doesn't do collapsing buildings. Which is a shame, because it seems like one of those things where 2 decades of technological advancement would have helped a lot.

Grenade is a bug unless there was a 'warning: friendly fire' popup before you shot it(and if there were, you should not have been surprised)

 

[GreyViper]

So I just found out the hard way that, if one of your soldiers is on top of a multistory building and lobs a grenade to an enemy on the same level, a soldier being 2 stories lower gets damaged as well by the blast.

It makes sense.

What does bother me is that EXALT comes into play way to late and the Slingshot DLC kicks in before that. Because jump in difficulty is quite big. Less so with EXALT well that was my experience with my current game. Because Slingshots 2 and 3rd turned quite brutal in the end. Probably that surprised me most was the cyber disk showing up way ahead where it usually is so you had snake men and cyber disk before all the 3 reactors.

 

[Raghar]

Pretty sure this game doesn't do collapsing buildings. Which is a shame, because it seems like one of those things where 2 decades of technological advancement would have helped a lot.

Grenade is a bug unless there was a 'warning: friendly fire' popup before you shot it(and if there were, you should not have been surprised)

Original games had collapsing buildings. And why should they warn about friendly fire?

Friendly fire isn't friendly.

See now you have been warned.

 

[Zeriel]

So I just found out the hard way that, if one of your soldiers is on top of a multistory building and lobs a grenade to an enemy on the same level, a soldier being 2 stories lower gets damaged as well by the blast.

It makes sense.

What does bother me is that EXALT comes into play way to late and the Slingshot DLC kicks in before that. Because jump in difficulty is quite big. Less so with EXALT well that was my experience with my current game. Because Slingshots 2 and 3rd turned quite brutal in the end. Probably that surprised me most was the cyber disk showing up way ahead where it usually is so you had snake men and cyber disk before all the 3 reactors.

You can turn off Slingshot. I always have, because it's basically cheating. Fusion/Blaster tech without doing a battleship? That's a joke.

 

[Trash]

Some of you guys should play Silent Storm for a bit and see how buildings, friendly soldiers and the careless use of high explosives mix together.

 

[Raghar]

Some of you guys should play Silent Storm for a bit and see how buildings, friendly soldiers and the careless use of high explosives mix together.

Duno about that, I used HMG against walls. There were plenty of ammo for MMG, but not enough heavy grenades for everyone.

 

[Average Manatee]

Or play XCOM:A. Building falls on your skyranger-substitute, everyone dies.

And I remember some of those horrible, horrible buildings to fight in because entire levels were supported off a single elevator shaft.

 

[Raghar]

Factories. Auto-Cannons. HE Shells. Burst Mode. Inevitable chain of explosions followed by half-factory collapse, but those DAMNED hyperworms are dead!

Only brainsucker was dangerous.

 

[Average Manatee]

Factories. Auto-Cannons. HE Shells. Burst Mode. Inevitable chain of explosions followed by half-factory collapse, but those DAMNED hyperworms are dead!

Only brainsucker was dangerous.

That's a funny way to spell popper.

 

[Trash]

I loved the chain reactions you could get if you fired a rocket into a large UFO. Burn the fuckers out.

 

[Average Manatee]

Factories. Auto-Cannons. HE Shells. Burst Mode. Inevitable chain of explosions followed by half-factory collapse, but those DAMNED hyperworms are dead!

Only brainsucker was dangerous.

That's a funny way to spell popper.

Hyperworms are just as bad, they often reaction-kill my soldiers, they're fast and they hit often and damage hard.

Hyperworms are pretty easy if you apply stun damage to Multiworms so they don't come out in the first place.

Brainsuckers >>> Poppers through. At least the Megapol armor can usually tank popper explosions. With Brainsuckers you better get on your knees and start praying.

Or get on your stomach, where they can't hurt you. Also androids.

Poppers are much, much faster than brainsuckers which makes them significantly harder to reaction shoot, and before you get lasers they'll still blow up anyway and heavily damage half your team.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Some of you guys should play Silent Storm for a bit and see how buildings, friendly soldiers and the careless use of high explosives mix together.

... and how quest items remain airborne after you've leveled the whole building

 

[Average Manatee]

Hyperworms are very rarely spawned on their own. And they aren't really dangerous when they run off alone like that anyway. The only real danger of Hyperworms is killing a Multiworm and having 4 Hyperworms rise from its corpse with full TUs ready to reaction fire you 50x over. On their own they are a rather slow unit with a range 1 attack who can't deal all that much damage and certainly can't take any.

Gas grenades suck. Bring stun guns. They are awesome. With XCOMA's no TU cost to switch weapons there's no reason not to have as many troops loaded with them as possible. And for taking out enemies without destroying shields, surely you have toxiguns by the time shielded enemies arrive? Toxiguns go right through shields and are by far the strongest general use weapons in the game.

Hearing poppers hardly helps when it's the enemy turn and you can't do anything about them. Flyers don't work in cramped buildings or especially UFOs (and poppers will still blow up on you up to 3 or 4 levels away). If you are at the point at which you can use personal disruptor shields you're at the point where the whole game difficulty is a joke anyway. Poppers OTOH are the hardest obstacle during the hardest timeframe of the game: The mid-game where UFOs are creaming your hoverbikes and can be barely shot down, and where you need a UFO capture to progress in tech.

 

[Raghar]

Or get on your stomach, where they can't hurt you. Also androids.

I hate abusing game bugs.

Poppers are much, much faster than brainsuckers which makes them significantly harder to reaction shoot, and before you get lasers they'll still blow up anyway and heavily damage half your team.

That's a simple admission of you didin't used enough autocannons, missiles, and your sharpshooters sucked.

Hyperworms sometimes are already on-stage, so you often get surprise raped by them because you went through a corner.

And there is your problem. There were no corners, heavy plasma, or explosives, does that.

 

[Average Manatee]

Or get on your stomach, where they can't hurt you. Also androids.

I hate abusing game bugs.

Androids certainly aren't a game bug.

That's a simple admission of you didin't used enough autocannons, missiles, and your sharpshooters sucked.

Autocannons: Still blows up poppers.
Missiles: Yeah, reaction-firing missiles is a good idea. 2 explosions in your face instead of 1.
Sharpshooters: XCOMA's accuracy stat formula is so shit that the concept doesn't exist.