XCOM: Enemy Within
- Thread starter GeneralF
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It's still there too, it's a new version that (I think?) stacks. it says "first standard shot taken within 4 tiles doesn't take an action point. doesn't stack with run and gun". So I guess it's like an offensive version.
Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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The Deep Pockets nerf... wow, really.
And the squad sight nerf? Meh, couldn't count on crits before, have to assume it's a plain hit. If they'd actually remove the ridiculous aim penalty on snap shot, this would be worth considering, thus Squad sight remains the autopick.
If I wanted a soldier that can shoot at targets after moving one tile. I'd take another assault on the mission, thanks.
The campaign is also now horribly un-linear. I encounter chrysallids and zombies and the voice input from the idiots at HQ already assume we learned about that, yet I didn't actually have a terror mission with zombies yet.
Same also goes for the MEC thing, one would assume the idea of MECs comes from actually seeing sectoid MECs in the field. Yet it is Dr Shen, the guy who is so strongly opposed to what the aliens did who came up with the idea? What a flip flopper.
Look, they implanted some microchip into this species brain. How horrible, what monsters could do such a thing - oh hello Captain, please lie down on the operating table so we can cut off your arms and legs so you can fit into these combat suits better.
Game is fun again, though. Good job on that.
"The Exalt base is in a country you can play in Civilization 5."
I don't even know what to say about that. And they even got it wrong, you can't play as the UK in Civilization 5, you can play as England
And the squad sight nerf? Meh, couldn't count on crits before, have to assume it's a plain hit. If they'd actually remove the ridiculous aim penalty on snap shot, this would be worth considering, thus Squad sight remains the autopick.
If I wanted a soldier that can shoot at targets after moving one tile. I'd take another assault on the mission, thanks.
The campaign is also now horribly un-linear. I encounter chrysallids and zombies and the voice input from the idiots at HQ already assume we learned about that, yet I didn't actually have a terror mission with zombies yet.
Same also goes for the MEC thing, one would assume the idea of MECs comes from actually seeing sectoid MECs in the field. Yet it is Dr Shen, the guy who is so strongly opposed to what the aliens did who came up with the idea? What a flip flopper.
Look, they implanted some microchip into this species brain. How horrible, what monsters could do such a thing - oh hello Captain, please lie down on the operating table so we can cut off your arms and legs so you can fit into these combat suits better.
Game is fun again, though. Good job on that.
"The Exalt base is in a country you can play in Civilization 5."
I don't even know what to say about that. And they even got it wrong, you can't play as the UK in Civilization 5, you can play as England
My thoughts:
Snap shot's aim penalty was changed from 20% to a 10% in expansion. I gave one of my snipers a 10% hit medal so no penalty at all, and then consider you get stuff like eye gene mods for more % to hit. New maps have you repositioning a shitload and needing to move forward rather than lure enemies back, so I think it's a more valid choice now, especially early game. I was running into a ton of maps where my sniper was having to reposition due to having to push for meld and walls being in the way. I feel like there are a lot more urban maps with line of sight blocks. Late game squad sight is still the easy choice for me, but I just wish we could see what kind of map it was before deploying. Some maps are MUCH more friendly to one skill or the other. I've also noticed that seekers like to make a beeline for my squadsight sniper.
Squad sight nerf is pretty massive because it was a guaranteed way to get 100% crits with ghost armor before. I guess now there's more incentive to use archangel armor though. Either Ghost armor + mimetic skin or archangel+squad sight.
Deep pockets: having 4 medkits is nice, despite the overall nerf. Covering fire's buff is pretty amazing, and was exactly what I wanted from overwatch.
Snap shot's aim penalty was changed from 20% to a 10% in expansion. I gave one of my snipers a 10% hit medal so no penalty at all, and then consider you get stuff like eye gene mods for more % to hit. New maps have you repositioning a shitload and needing to move forward rather than lure enemies back, so I think it's a more valid choice now, especially early game. I was running into a ton of maps where my sniper was having to reposition due to having to push for meld and walls being in the way. I feel like there are a lot more urban maps with line of sight blocks. Late game squad sight is still the easy choice for me, but I just wish we could see what kind of map it was before deploying. Some maps are MUCH more friendly to one skill or the other. I've also noticed that seekers like to make a beeline for my squadsight sniper.
Squad sight nerf is pretty massive because it was a guaranteed way to get 100% crits with ghost armor before. I guess now there's more incentive to use archangel armor though. Either Ghost armor + mimetic skin or archangel+squad sight.
Deep pockets: having 4 medkits is nice, despite the overall nerf. Covering fire's buff is pretty amazing, and was exactly what I wanted from overwatch.
Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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There's a $300 dollar foundry project that gives extra pockets to everyone, so that very much fixes this. Now I have an assault with an arc thrower and chitin plating and a heavy with 2 alien grenades and a scope. Overall much more powerful than what we had before.
Dr. Frankenchen is quite out of character now "a little chop here, a little chop there and we have a super soldier"
MEC are really good with their ability to destroy cover without using explosives and carrying three alien grenades with twice the range into battle.
What got a lot harder is strategy I think, I lost three council members at once on Report 3 or 4 because there were just too many abductions that month. I wasn't really behind on satellites either, I even lost a member that already received one.
I also play with damage roulette, which basically makes the game a lot more difficult than I expected. I rarely benefit from random 1 damage hits but suffer from them a lot. Really makes you save your grenades for must kill situations, because you just can't afford your heavy hitting that enemy twice for 1 damage.
Dr. Frankenchen is quite out of character now "a little chop here, a little chop there and we have a super soldier"
MEC are really good with their ability to destroy cover without using explosives and carrying three alien grenades with twice the range into battle.
What got a lot harder is strategy I think, I lost three council members at once on Report 3 or 4 because there were just too many abductions that month. I wasn't really behind on satellites either, I even lost a member that already received one.
I also play with damage roulette, which basically makes the game a lot more difficult than I expected. I rarely benefit from random 1 damage hits but suffer from them a lot. Really makes you save your grenades for must kill situations, because you just can't afford your heavy hitting that enemy twice for 1 damage.
On your base mission did you have access to your upgraded weapons? Every member of my team and even the reinforcements came with the low end weapons (rifle, shotgun, etc). Just had one plasma sniper and a load of mutons, sectoid commanders, mechs, cyberdiscs, etc. It's nuts and I'm losing people left and right as nobody has a medpack or can do adequate damage to kill off the invaders. It's going to cost a ton of money if I need a full stable of weapons for all my soldiers.
Random thoughts:
Played through a classic non iron man, (wanted to feel out the game) and it's really fun. Meld forcing you to play a little more aggressive for bigger rewards is a amazing feature. With the added maps, I never felt I played the same map twice. Some were familiar ones from vanilla, but i think almost every map was a new one (though the Exault covert hacking 2x towers got a little repetitive).
The aliens have better AI, and Exault missions which have even better AI... well they would be very tough without the global disarm button you get.
Mechs... I love watching them every time they kill something especially with the fist. I didn't try flamethrower, EMP sucks. My usual squad in vanilla was 1 tank assault, 1 blitz assault, 1 support, 1 heavy, 2x snipers, and the snipers did all the heavy lifting. Now I use a mech as the tank, and with self healing meld on everybody else, I save all my heals on him. Support is now speced for smoke as they will get 2x uses out of a medpack. Rigging means I can field a lot more grenades, and with Exault missions having no penalty for using them, I make Micheal Bay proud during my fights with them.
With meld, and everybody getting the heal one. Supports are now Mech Healers. Speaking of Meld, the invis skin is too good. It means you can scout without fear of waking up another cell of baddies and it means if you find them you get the drop (either start them off with a shot from a sighted sniper, or let them find you). Fun combo skin + sniper skill that allows full cover in 1/2 makes all cover invis you. I don't see any reason to get the defensive mind Meld, as the damage one knocks like 1/2 the life off, even if the enemy fails... and it's cheaper.
The 2 bonus counsel missions feel kinda cheep. One you get a leveled up heavy and a LOT of elurium + alloy. The new one you get 4x Psi soldiers... rape.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed vanilla and I love EW. Though I do agree, knowing the personality of the head engineer, when he causally suggested lopping off arms and legs to make a mech soldier, I was like... sup?
Played through a classic non iron man, (wanted to feel out the game) and it's really fun. Meld forcing you to play a little more aggressive for bigger rewards is a amazing feature. With the added maps, I never felt I played the same map twice. Some were familiar ones from vanilla, but i think almost every map was a new one (though the Exault covert hacking 2x towers got a little repetitive).
The aliens have better AI, and Exault missions which have even better AI... well they would be very tough without the global disarm button you get.
Mechs... I love watching them every time they kill something especially with the fist. I didn't try flamethrower, EMP sucks. My usual squad in vanilla was 1 tank assault, 1 blitz assault, 1 support, 1 heavy, 2x snipers, and the snipers did all the heavy lifting. Now I use a mech as the tank, and with self healing meld on everybody else, I save all my heals on him. Support is now speced for smoke as they will get 2x uses out of a medpack. Rigging means I can field a lot more grenades, and with Exault missions having no penalty for using them, I make Micheal Bay proud during my fights with them.
With meld, and everybody getting the heal one. Supports are now Mech Healers. Speaking of Meld, the invis skin is too good. It means you can scout without fear of waking up another cell of baddies and it means if you find them you get the drop (either start them off with a shot from a sighted sniper, or let them find you). Fun combo skin + sniper skill that allows full cover in 1/2 makes all cover invis you. I don't see any reason to get the defensive mind Meld, as the damage one knocks like 1/2 the life off, even if the enemy fails... and it's cheaper.
The 2 bonus counsel missions feel kinda cheep. One you get a leveled up heavy and a LOT of elurium + alloy. The new one you get 4x Psi soldiers... rape.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed vanilla and I love EW. Though I do agree, knowing the personality of the head engineer, when he causally suggested lopping off arms and legs to make a mech soldier, I was like... sup?
I thought EMP was pretty rocking on my kinetic mech, but then I also have an irrational hatred and fear of sectopods. Definitely agree on snipers though. mimetic skin+jumpy legs+full cover skill just turns them into doom ninjas.
The EMP and the proximity mines were both so so in my experience. I think they need to nerf Mec's though. In my playthrough I was running three Mec-soldiers, a shiv, and two supports and even on classic ironman it was a breeze until the end of the game. The mec skill tree is just too good in addition to the medals all the other shit they shoved in there. But there's always the impossible difficulty if I really want that dick smashed in a car door experience.
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Barring undiagnosed mental illness that makes you randomly hate things, you absolutely should enjoy it. (Well, maybe expect some frustration with a few trophies if that's your thing though - a few are very obtuse situations required or vague...)
Seananigans
Honorary Shit-PhD
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Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Just zap thin men instead of killing them with imp arc thrower. You'll get awesome Light Plasma Rifles - +10 Aim, same damage as laser rifle. No need to spend money.
That's why I have so much of that stuff. I basically just sell it now whenever I need something paid for, selling elerium was absolutely unthinkable in vanilla.
I'm pretty sure with three level 3 Mec Colonels, impossible will also be trivial.
However, good luck getting that meld on impossible in the first place.
best covert class: Sniper, right? Gunslinger, Battle scanner, executioner, low profile and a plasma pistol.. my James Bond isn't Colonel yet, but does Double Tap work on the pistol?