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

[Shadenuat]

How to aim the rockets at the flying enemies (cyberdiscs)? I know you can use the scroll wheel to change levels, but the blast often doesn't damage the cyberdisc unless it's hovering on the ground level.

They seem to be immune to area weapons.. when floating I guess, because I still managed to hit them sometimes. And sometimes, I did't.

This is so frighteningly simple, the fact that you haven't RTFM'ed or guessed it yourself is baffling. Aim = +% to hit. Defence = -% to hit for enemies.

Should't the chance of hitting an enemy who is right in the open = aim then? Do they have inbuild defense stat which I don't have? And does that mean that enemies aim can exceed 100? Otherwise I still can't see what's so clear about game mechanics.
This is clear game mechanics: [Chance to hit: X (Cover: Y, Natural Defence: Z, Other: (Unique) Psi Shield: W]] [And changes depending on amount of tiles enemy is away]
Fuck RTFM. There were tactical games where you could press shift and see chance to hit on any tile.

 

[Infinitron]

That's your argument?

"The characters look like action figures, so bad!11"

The art director directly wanted the models to look like action figures.

"The music sounds like someone wanted to ripoff the music from Deus Ex Human Revolution"

The main composer of XCOM is the same of DX:HR...

"OH MY GOD THE WOMAN SCIENTIST SOUNDS NOT PERFECT ENGLISH"

She is of german origin in the game

"OMFG there are only 14 different head styles, game sucks ,customization is none"




No wonder people ain't listening to any so called "journalists" anymore

Argument? What argument?

I'm not Spoony, if you want to argue with him go to his website.

 

[Marsal]

Argument? What argument?

I'm not Spoony, if you want to argue with him go to his website.

Nice try, Spoony. Just like J_C isn't Matt, right?

 

[kris]

squad size limit, and inventory limits. Why can't a soldier carry grenades and a medkit? Well why can't a heavy pick up a soldier's rocket launcher in TF2? 'cause it's a game.

That is neither a good argument nor a good opinion. These two things make the game worse, not better.

 

[Emily]

the make the game balanced. and that is good enough for me. If there was 2 slots, i think everyone would have the sameish setup, and there wouldnt be any hard choices to make.
I would go for everyone to have vest+scope, and supports would have medkit+vest.
In this system as it is now, there are a lot of hard choices to make, do i equip vest or scope on heavy guy, or go for grenade when i get the perk that allowed me to carry 3. Do i put arc thrower on assault, or heavy, or maybe even support.
With two slots, it would just eliminate most of these hard choices.

 

[Marsal]

the make the game balanced. and that is good enough for me. If there was 2 slots, i think everyone would have the sameish setup, and there wouldnt be any hard choices to make.
I would go for everyone to have vest+scope, and supports would have medkit+vest.
In this system as it is now, there are a lot of hard choices to make, do i equip vest or scope on heavy guy, or go for grenade when i get the perk that allowed me to carry 3. Do i put arc thrower on assault, or heavy, or maybe even support.
With two slots, it would just eliminate most of these hard choices.

I kind of agree, but there aren't really that many choices to make. Support gets the arc thrower because it's the fastest (+medikit or a vest if no healing perks), sniper gets the scope, assault gets the vest/chitin, heavy gets the scope (grenades are weaker than rockets and you want him providing rocket cover and hanging back shooting twice or using holo ammo). You can, of course, mix things up, but it's not like there are that many choices (stimpaks can be good later). If you had more equipable items and more slots, you could make just as many (or more) "hard" choices.

 

[Eyeball]

I got the game - or at least I think I did, because the box seems mislabelled.

It says X-Com on the box, but this is clearly Shadow Watch 2, with slightly more advanced weapon systems, more popamoley cover mechanics and aliens instead of terrorists, but Shadow Watch 2 nonetheless. As SW was a darned fun casual little game, I gotta admit that this game has been entertaining me as well, at least for the 2-3 hours I put into it so far. I was pleasantly surprised when I lost 2 guys to single-fire salvos from aliens in the second mission, suggesting engrossing lethal gameplay. I was unpleasantly not-surprised that these two deaths came from the cover mechanics being wacky at best, leading to my guys apparently being exposed when everything seemed to indicate they were in full cover, but this is just par for the course with Firaxis and their weird gameplay decisions.

I find the "event-based" encounter system to be insanely depressing, though. There I am, hosing down two greys with my gang when I take one step too much forward and trigger another encounter, adding 3 more sectoids who had apparently been standing around holding their dicks just outside my visual range without wondering what all those gunshots and screams were 50 yards south of them. As somebody said, this makes the game seem more like a tactical RPG with occasional monster encounters than an actual tactical game. Did anyone find a way to make aliens free-roam yet?

 

[circ]

[Why does my heavy guy had 45-65% chance to hit at any distance for the whole game? Seriously.

Well, like sniper rifles, heavy weapons don't work like other weapons. Well weapons just don't work like weapons.
Sniper rifles are good at long distances, just not as long as you'd like, and so you end up missing because some alien decided to get personal. You're probably supposed to use a pistol when that happens, but I never did. They're probably shit anyway.
Heavy weapons I discovered, have a good hit ratio when you're elevated. Unfortunately, you're not really put in those kinds of cherry picked situations a lot because the heavy has shitty moves and you'll probably want to throw the heaviest armor on them so there go the extra moves or grapple from other armor. Nice Firaxis!
Shotguns seem to be good. When you're right next to the enemy. Otherwise, good luck hitting anything.

 

[Black]

Plasma pistols, especially upgraded, are dope.

 

[Fart Master]

Fart Master:

It's all fine and dandy with sniper-heavy squads right until you get a tight-quarters map with lots of LoS obstructions and lots of mutons and cyberdiscs. Unless, of course, you're not playing ironman.

On ironman I never send out squads with two snipers except for shot down UFO missions where most of the combat is out in the open field and positioning is easy.

I dunno. I use SCOPE on all my soldiers and I have no problems getting rid of cyberdiscs in one turn, even on close quarters maps. Granted I haven't finished the game yet, currently at the Alien Base on Impossible Ironman with just finished titan armor.

 

[sea]

the make the game balanced. and that is good enough for me. If there was 2 slots, i think everyone would have the sameish setup, and there wouldnt be any hard choices to make.
I would go for everyone to have vest+scope, and supports would have medkit+vest.
In this system as it is now, there are a lot of hard choices to make, do i equip vest or scope on heavy guy, or go for grenade when i get the perk that allowed me to carry 3. Do i put arc thrower on assault, or heavy, or maybe even support.
With two slots, it would just eliminate most of these hard choices.

No, Spoony got it right. You can't have too many equipment slots because time units are no longer in the game. There can now never be such thing as a movement speed/distance penalty for wearing heavy armor or carrying lots of guns, and you can never make the choice between firing a rifle three times in one turn or a rocket once in one turn. The game is balanced around the new "two moves, one shot" setup, but it also saps a lot of tactical depth from the game.

Let's also note that the lack of proper inventory management for soldiers means that ammo management other than reloading is now non-existent; you can't choose between lots of guns but little ammo, or few guns and lots of grenades, etc. Why? They already have mechanics in there to balance explosives and to capture aliens alive, which are more than enough incentive to make you not want to just blow everything to bits...

This is what happens when you start simplifying gameplay systems. It's not that one decision on its own, in isolation, is bad, it's what other sacrifices and changes you have to make to get it to work well that are important. And XCOM feels so dumbed down precisely because a few key decisions meant they could no longer do things the way they used to.

Did anyone find a way to make aliens free-roam yet?

Sorry, can't happen. The game is specifically designed and balanced around the existing encounter sizes of 3-6 dudes, to match your own 3-6 dudes. If enemies free roam then you would routinely end up fighting 10-15+ aliens at once, or more, which would be almost impossible to deal with given how they scale up. See what I mean about one change affecting everything else?

 

[kris]

the make the game balanced. and that is good enough for me. If there was 2 slots, i think everyone would have the sameish setup, and there wouldnt be any hard choices to make.
I would go for everyone to have vest+scope, and supports would have medkit+vest.
In this system as it is now, there are a lot of hard choices to make, do i equip vest or scope on heavy guy, or go for grenade when i get the perk that allowed me to carry 3. Do i put arc thrower on assault, or heavy, or maybe even support.
With two slots, it would just eliminate most of these hard choices.

It is a simplification. Lets not forget that the scope isn't put on a weapon, it is just a magical thing that makes you have better aim with BOTH weapons. The vest is just a strange thing, since you already got different armour and then... you put on a vest, which also gives you more HP. You could still have choice with a more realistic inventory (as in things sea mentioned) and you can't at any rate carry everything, but now we are talking about a simplified game were all is made to fit their simplfied model. The small maps, squads and lack of inventory all go hand in hand. Only one base, only one troop transport, a cyclic alien mission system instead of a random or more "alien masterplan" one.

 

[Surf Solar]

the make the game balanced. and that is good enough for me. If there was 2 slots, i think everyone would have the sameish setup, and there wouldnt be any hard choices to make.
I would go for everyone to have vest+scope, and supports would have medkit+vest.
In this system as it is now, there are a lot of hard choices to make, do i equip vest or scope on heavy guy, or go for grenade when i get the perk that allowed me to carry 3. Do i put arc thrower on assault, or heavy, or maybe even support.
With two slots, it would just eliminate most of these hard choices.

No, Spoony got it right. You can't have too many equipment slots because time units are no longer in the game. There can now never be such thing as a movement speed/distance penalty for wearing heavy armor or carrying lots of guns, and you can never make the choice between firing a rifle three times in one turn or a rocket once in one turn. The game is balanced around the new "two moves, one shot" setup, but it also saps a lot of tactical depth from the game.

Heavy armor reduces the amount of tiles you can move forward...
If you shoot a rocket once in a turn, both your movement points get used up.

Did we play the same game?

 

[Shadenuat]

The game is specifically designed and balanced around the existing encounter sizes of 3-6 dudes, to match your own 3-6 dudes. If enemies free roam then you would routinely end up fighting 10-15+ aliens at once, or more, which would be almost impossible to deal with given how they scale up. See what I mean about one change affecting everything else?

The game is balanced around a lot of simple things. And is balanced well.
It is a fun game for those two days I had to spend to finish it. I'm not a hater just for sake of hating. Throwing grenades and every shit I had on bipedal killer-robots made me squak.

I don't like simple things though. XCOM EU once again proved for me that, I'd rather take a bit poorly balanced system with lot of options, customization and simulation over a well balanced game without them.
Because that game only was fun while it's lasted. No more.

 

[Gord]

No, Spoony got it right. You can't have too many equipment slots because time units are no longer in the game. There can now never be such thing as a movement speed/distance penalty for wearing heavy armor or carrying lots of guns, and you can never make the choice between firing a rifle three times in one turn or a rocket once in one turn. The game is balanced around the new "two moves, one shot" setup, but it also saps a lot of tactical depth from the game.

A few quite simple modifications might already bring some of that depth back, I think:
Allow for more slots in the inventory, with each used slot reducing the movement radius.
Make shooting without moving increase your to-hit chance.
Add a fire mode that has low to-hit chance but always uses only one action, available to all. The special ability will negate the to-hit malus or e.g. allow 3 shots.

 

[bonescraper]

It is a simplification. Lets not forget that the scope isn't put on a weapon, it is just a magical thing that makes you have better aim with BOTH weapons. The vest is just a strange thing, since you already got different armour and then... you put on a vest, which also gives you more HP.

In before, "why can't i equip my dudes with SHIVS, and melee the shit out of the aliens? Durr."

Next time, make the actual effort, and read research descriptions, they are there for a reason.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

So I was just bored enough to try out the full version not removed from an inventory. Got as far as the controls section, accidentally changed the input device from "mouse" to "Xbox 360 gamepad" by clicking on the unlabelled arrow next to "mouse" to see what it did, and it completely disabled my controls. I had to alt-F4 out. I think this brief experience told me everything I need to know.

 

[kris]

It is a simplification. Lets not forget that the scope isn't put on a weapon, it is just a magical thing that makes you have better aim with BOTH weapons. The vest is just a strange thing, since you already got different armour and then... you put on a vest, which also gives you more HP.

In before, "why can't i equip my dudes with SHIVS, and melee the shit out of the aliens? Durr."

Next time, make the actual effort, and read research descriptions, they are there for a reason.

I am guessing that had something to do with my comment about the scope. With the typical lack of explanation and a unrelated example that is just stupid.

 

[kris]

If you shoot a rocket once in a turn, both your movement points get used up.

Everything that is shot on the first move uses up both movement points. Rocket like unskilled sniper is just different that it can only be used before movement. (and heavy have a skill exception to shoot and move.)

 

[bonescraper]

I am guessing that had something to do with my comment about the scope. With the typical lack of explanation and a unrelated example that is just stupid.

Unrelated example? It's not a scope, it's called S.C.O.P.E. And shivs aren't improvised knives, they're called S.H.I.V. Now go figure. I won't bother explaining something that's already explained in the fucking game. Learn. To. Read.

 

[kris]

I am guessing that had something to do with my comment about the scope. With the typical lack of explanation and a unrelated example that is just stupid.

Unrelated example? It's not a scope, it's called S.C.O.P.E. And shivs aren't improvised knives, they're called S.H.I.V. Now go figure. I won't bother explaining something that's already explained in the fucking game. Learn. To. Read.

You certainly fit right into the codex. The new codex. I read it up, since you couldn't be gracious enough. It sure both looks like a scope and works like one, except the game says it is part of a otherwise non-existant HUD.

Which makes it even stranger that it would take up a "equipment spot".

But is part of it all being gamist

 

[kris]

Sorry, can't happen. The game is specifically designed and balanced around the existing encounter sizes of 3-6 dudes, to match your own 3-6 dudes. If enemies free roam then you would routinely end up fighting 10-15+ aliens at once, or more, which would be almost impossible to deal with given how they scale up. See what I mean about one change affecting everything else?

i am pretty certain all the encounters are 2-3 dudes. When you think it is 6 is when you meet two groups.

I once even had a group teleport in just behind my guy and it wasn't a escort mission.

 

[Angthoron]

I am guessing that had something to do with my comment about the scope. With the typical lack of explanation and a unrelated example that is just stupid.

Unrelated example? It's not a scope, it's called S.C.O.P.E. And shivs aren't improvised knives, they're called S.H.I.V. Now go figure. I won't bother explaining something that's already explained in the fucking game. Learn. To. Read.

S.H.I.V.s give Super HIV to the Aliens?

Okay, I had a slightly WTF moment earlier, again, from one of the early missions (haven't had much time to play) - one of those slim men appears, I have two squaddies behind half-cover, ready to take him on, standard enough situation, BUT, blammo, one misses, one hits for half, and it's the alien's turn. Standard shit, again. Except the alien goes BLAM and kills one of the dudes. Dude is in for promotion, so I reload, because fuck it. Same shit again, even though I hide the dude in another spot. Then I hide the dude so well that he couldn't be hit at all, and of course, the alien immediately gibs the other soldier. Okay. I go for "head down" or whatever, doubling protection - the slim man shoots poison projectile. I run both the fuck away, he FOLLOWS the 1st dude and shoots, or, if hidden, shoots it with poison projectile. Ends up in a ridiculous situation when the poison projectile is shot like halfway across the map and STILL hits. So yeah, um, what's up with that? Are they locked in on their targets? Is this a bug? A feature? What the fuck. Eventually "fixed" it by just lobbing grenades at the fucker, that somehow settled it, but man oh man, that was a weird moment. And this was probably a dozed reloads, since I wanted everyone alive at that point, AND preferably undamaged so I could take them to the next mission.

And yeah, I know that rolls are fixed and savescumming doesn't help, but aggro locks I didn't know about.

 

[Gozma]

Fuck I said I was done and then I started fucking with impossible and noticed an AI error that makes it like a whole new game. If you have a character overwatching an alien and someone else is flanking it, that alien will not do shit. It will do it's little "I DANNO WTF" animation and end its turn over and over. It will shoot at someone in no cover, but that's it as far as I can tell. I think maybe in the code an overwatched and flanked alien thinks it's being suppressed and has a -30 hit, so it thinks it's not worth shooting. Anyway this gives you a tool to make impossible not a suffocation-by-probabilities thing, I hope they don't patch it because it's fun.

 

[Drakron]

Well so far I had horrible Mutton Rape, a lot of it.

I am not like you people and play on normal and I had plenty of deaths, the strategic layer is the hardest to balance since I had 2 countries going to bail and was saved by assaulting the base, the problem is that Terror Missions can fuck you over and the Satellite only detection system fucks you over over downing UFOs that means sometimes you cannot do any project because you lack materials.

Council missions for me been rare, that is annoying since they reduce panic levels and they dont seem balanced against Terror missions because for every council mission I had 4-5 terror missions so there is no "cancel out" effect of panic added by Terror missions, I dont like the whole "pick one and get fucked on the other two" system.

Also why is there only one transport? I am saying this because I was on my way into a Landed UFO Mission and on route a Terror Mission pop up, I finished the Landed UFO Mission, gone back to base and then done the Terror Mission that made me ask the question of WHY? Is that hard to put two Skyrangers at the same time? I mean we might as well put the XCom base IN SPACE and they just drop into the mission area.