XCOM: Enemy Within

Some of those sound redundant with the new abilities from the xpav too - I.e. I recall mention of an extra inventory slot gene mod I think. So rather than Support getting 3 slots they're getting 2 amped up ones.

Looks legit

Droigan_sl said:

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I feel like this video justified my comments about this being an overpriced DLC of features that should have mostly been in from the start.


He almost says as much himself at several points. Yet I get neg'd for it. Well hah! I'm not alone, bitches (although I'd be more positive too if it got me ad revenue and press releases of games).

Sulrn_sl said:

I feel like this video justified my comments about this being an overpriced DLC of features that should have mostly been in from the start.


He almost says as much himself at several points. Yet I get neg'd for it. Well hah! I'm not alone, bitches (although I'd be more positive too if it got me ad revenue and press releases of games).

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I watched the video and got the exact opposite from it, it is a classic (and excellent) Firaxis expansion along the same lines as the ones available for Civ5 which have always been well worth the money. There is tons of new content, and I don't know what video you watched but TB himself during the video said that it was well worth the money.

Watched the vid. Looks great but I hope the game isn't too easy with all the power creep.

hodj_sl said:

Actually he says explicitly the exact opposite at the start of the video when he says its not DLC, that they did one DLC pack and it wasn't very good and that this is a much more fleshed out piece of content.

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You're spot on. At the start he has very strong push on how good the "expansion" is. However, towards the end it was clear to me he lost his energy in trying to sell the product and opens up some of his non-filtered observations that do nudge the product as something that should have been expected from the original box. Watch the video again and how his enthusiasm starts at a peak and slowly drops off until he ebbs back and forth at the very end trying to remain purely positive.

dassem_sl said:

Watched the vid. Looks great but I hope the game isn't too easy with all the power creep.

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That's my concern as well, everything he showed was basically an increase to player power. The only challenge was that new early game enemy tank unit which seems to be there now only because nothing else can touch the mech suits. I was surprised by the regenerating health also, hopefully they will make some tweaks before release (mandatory sleeveless gene troopers can go away please).

Sulrn_sl said:

You're spot on. At the start he has very strong push on how good the "expansion" is. However, towards the end it was clear to me he lost his energy in trying to sell the product and opens up some of his non-filtered observations that do nudge the product as something that should have been expected from the original box. Watch the video again and how his enthusiasm starts at a peak and slowly drops off until he ebbs back and forth at the very end trying to remain purely positive.

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Here students we have an example of confirmation bias - a phenomena noteexclusive to the Tea Party contrary to common belief.

Or less sarcastically - he's being critical and he talked for nearly 60 min straight on a single topic... Waning enthusiasm is a given unless he's a robot...

Yeah... I'm not sure what the debate is about the video. The expansion adds tons of customization to troops, more progression paths, all the little things that make RPG's fun; at least for me. Play through it on Classic, see how it is, if it's too easy, play on impossible.

Any good reason to play through this game a few more times is totally worth it.

Yeah, all that video did for me was make me want to play it all the more. Had a blast with the first one and I have this one waiting in Steam for it to release. I'll say it once, and I'll say it again too. This company needs to put out a DnD version with this engine.

He said research was WAAAAAAY slowed down and research is required so yes...

Vaclav_sl said:

He said research was WAAAAAAY slowed down and research is required so yes...

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Yup. He also mentions in the vid that this is probably how they intend to add difficulty. I'm guessing their goal is to lessen it slightly in the tactical battles (By giving soldiers more tools), while adding it to the strategic map (By making research make or break you.) Which is good, in my opinion, I always enjoyed XCOM's overall strategy as much as the battles.

In the main game, when people say it was too short--I think, as you said, that is what everyone was really talking about. It felt like new armor and weapons just flowed in, even on the highest difficulty, the only "strategic" crunch time was at the start of the game--after that, I was never pressed to develop just to survive against the aliens (Especially considering you controlled the story pace). If they can tweak it so your research and your manufacturing output matters, a lot, in terms of whether you can keep pace with the ramping up of encounters? It will be a much better game.

Which also might explain why they've added things like auto heal and tougher troops--they really want to make it about the overall strategy, too. So there isn't the huge amount of frustration from instant and sometimes arbitrary deaths in battle (Though I suspect fuck ups will still be punished). Instead small screw ups won't spiral out of control into ridiculous defeats, thanks to the extra padding, but they will hurt by having soldiers down and larger and larger draws on resources that are desperately needed for other things (More engineers, scientists ect). Which I think is a really good direction, the strategy map needed more resource management difficulty outside of what you faced in the first few months and managing global panic. (Which I like the change to as well--I like that you can be proactive in reducing panic through missions.)

so Stroggos is actually Earth... mind blown.


Ironic how he talks about awesome new maps in the video and all that, yet the first map he gets is one I've had so often I'm sick of. Despite being an Exalt mission. Second mission also old map, but given it's a highly scripted Council Escort, that's to be expected.

I'm also curious how much slower research actually is. He's just in June and already has Fusion Lance, Laser weapons and skeleton suit in addition to all that gene and mec research that surely won't be a 3 day research program.

So, this released yesterday... I forgot about it and am at work. Anyone play it yet?

dioblaire_sl said:

So, this released yesterday... I forgot about it and am at work. Anyone play it yet?

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Amazon getting it to me tomorrow by 8pm EST - will quote impressions then (although probably will take a bit to get to the actual new parts).

(At least assuming I'm not "engrossed" in grinding MP levels to platinum AC4 - L55 is gonna be a grind it looks like)

So, get home. Fire up Steam and start up XCOM... get to first mission, and my cpu BSOD -.- I really need a new rig.

It's really fun! Meld changes how you play, since you sometimes need an aggressive rush strategy to get it, and my mec-trooper is hilariously awesome. Some of the new skill revamps make it REALLY hard to make a decision. Like lightning reflexes (enemy always misses reaction shot) alt skill choice now gives you a free shot within 4 tiles, making assault into shredding machines at the cost of defense.