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So i am playing the long war mod, and the changes it makes are interesting. Except i am getting destroyed on normal difficulty. It takes about 3 interceptors just to take down a small UFO. The repair drones the mod adds to pretty much everything past the second mission are extremely difficult to kill with normal weapons. Forces me to basically plink their health down with 1-2 damage shots. While they seem to be extremely accurate and do a ton of damage. A guy gets poisoned by a thin man, and he cures himself, but he is stuck in the hospital for over a month. Even worse is its been over a month and a half and i am absolutely nowhere near to getting a better weapon for my fighters. The whole troops need rest mechanic is interesting, except when a terror mission pops up. Just after i finish another mission. Rookies are useless, and i don't understand what i am supposed to be doing.
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Oct 14, 2013 00:28
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Everything I've actually read about playing the Long War has made me want to not play it. Everything I've read explaining the idea of the Long War has made it sound interesting. At least EW is coming soon. Alchenar posted:The writing for XCOM really is very good all over. ...wri-ting...? For XCOM?
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Oct 14, 2013 00:31
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UberJumper posted:The repair drones the mod adds to pretty much everything past the second mission are extremely difficult to kill with normal weapons. Forces me to basically plink their health down with 1-2 damage shots. While they seem to be extremely accurate and do a ton of damage. What? The swarms of repair drones are the easiest enemy in the game. They don't take cover, their AI is kinda dumb, they do very little damage and they're really not very accurate. Even their upgrades take a long time to go through so they'll still have 3 HP for a long time while sectoids & thin men start getting 5+ HP. The only thing they have going for them is the armoured unit damage reduction, but even with normal rifles you can still usually kill them in two shots, maybe three if you're unlucky. And since they don't take cover you'll probably hit those shots even with rookies. They're such a joke that I will sometimes ignore drones flanking my troops in order to kill aliens I have full cover against. The real bullshit enemy of Long War for me is Berserkers, because when they started showing up they came in groups of 2 zerkers 2 mutons and had 25 HP each, so it took my entire squad firing to kill just one and if the second was close enough or god forbid there were other packs around I was going lose someone. Darox fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Oct 14, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 00:47
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UberJumper posted:So i am playing the long war mod, and the changes it makes are interesting. It can take three interceptors to down a UFO but it also sometimes takes just one. The important thing about the UFO game is to keep one interceptor free so that you can always engage a UFO (and then immediately abort before taking damage) because unengaged UFOs cause panic. Regarding the rest mechanic, you can assign Tired soldiers to a mission if you really need to but they'll finish the mission with a new Exhausted status that prevents them from assigning for 20+ days. This along with the increased hospital time means you need to maintain a much larger roster. Rookies do suck but you can usually afford to take a couple to any mission to gradually increase the quality of your forces. Rocketeers are particularly valuable early in the game even though they can't hit the broad side of a barn, and Infantry will be your main damage-dealers pretty much right from the start (tip : take Opportunist and the extra ammo perks on all of them). Drifter posted:...wri-ting...? Yeah, the story is minimal but I agree it's very well written. The musings of Shen and Vahlen especially add a lot to the atmosphere (aside from the admonishment about using explosives you have to endure every time you start a new game, which thankfully they're allowing you to skip in EW).
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Oct 14, 2013 00:56
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Darox posted:What? The first time repair drones showed up was with 5HP. Which was a few days into my play through (i am a 1.5 months into it). Their shots seem to do between 3-4 HP a hit. Thin Men started with 5HP as well and haven't changed. The sectoids just started hitting 5HP, and seem to come in waves with most of them being 4 HP. When an units circle turns yellow when an enemy shoots at him, does that mean he is considered flanked?
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Oct 14, 2013 00:56
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The writing is minimal, but it's there and it's good. A couple of Shady VAs aside, the dialogue is good and the atmosphere is palpable. There isn't a straight Aesop (Human augmentation bad or good? Alien aggression justified or not?), the characters are remarkedly well developed and the plot -while patchy- keeps you on your toes. Bradford is cocky and skeptical, but his actions and assumptions show the distinct difference between alien logistics and our own (He'd be right about a terrestrial force being hosed if you took out the base, their gear and their command structure). He also trims down the skepticism as the game develops (See his objections to the remarks and desires of Shen and Vahlen early in the game vs his 'If either of you two have any good ideas, now's the time' stream when the temple ship comes up). Shen is competent and cautious - He's a fellow who has seen the depths of man's madness and worries about empowering it. He's a little condescending ('That's because this is out of your field of expertise') but ultimately a compassionate fellow who cares about morale and has his musings as to how the augmentations of X-COM will effect the troops personally. That, and he's the cool, calm, quiet granddad that everyone wishes they had. Vahlen doesn't really change or develop, but she doesn't need to be. She's got a rivalry with Shen ('For once, trust me!') while still being friendly and cooperative (Skeleton Key + Decryption). She thinks Bradford is a small minded dunce, and enjoys the commander's presence because he isn't. She's ambitious, driven, and seems to have difficulty discerning the difference between a compound and an element. Also she's a torture goddess. Face it, X-COM can make you care about both the characters they tell you the story of and the soldiers that you make stories up for. That's good writing.
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Oct 14, 2013 01:11
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WarpedNaba posted:Also she's a torture goddess.
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Oct 14, 2013 01:24
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Veyrall posted:Has this just gone memetic at this point? Sure, the "interrogation" process is invasive, but it's basically Simon Says with neurons and brain mapping. The point of the procedure isn't discomfort, that's just an irrelevant byproduct. Think of it as surgically assisted mind-reading. And, especially in the case of Mutons or better, there's no reason to think they even feel pain the same way humans do, since injury only seems to piss them off as opposed to the ingrained flight response in humans. It is heavily implied that they use traditional "enhanced interrogation" techniques on the Thin Men and others. Dr Vahlen posted:It seems unlikely that this particular species will break under interrogation as the other captives, as we believe it was specifically intended to serve as an infiltrator. Still, perhaps if we use more agressive techniques, we can...coax...it into revealling additional information about how the aliens arrived here. e: Dammit, I hadn't realized they're adding gun customization on top of new armor styles and tints. I think it might be time for a new thread with this stuff in the OP. Vengarr fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Oct 14, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 01:45
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Can anyone enlighten me as to why does the game consider this alien to be in high cover? http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=185867074 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=185867138 Kalko posted:It can take three interceptors to down a UFO but it also sometimes takes just one. The important thing about the UFO game is to keep one interceptor free so that you can always engage a UFO (and then immediately abort before taking damage) because unengaged UFOs cause panic. Thanks, i didn't know about the interceptor aborting reduces panic.
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Oct 14, 2013 02:29
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I'm assuming that somewhere in the past several dozen pages since the EW announcements, this has come up. But is anyone else going to be a complete bastard and nickname their first Cyborg "Enforcer"? Or am I just a sick man? EDIT: vvv I sorta kinda liked interceptor though, even if you NEEDED cheat codes to get past a game breakingly bugged mission. Just something about space fighters with side view mirrors and fuzzy dice Section Z fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Oct 14, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 02:53
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Section Z posted:I'm assuming that somewhere in the past several dozen pages since the EW announcements, this has come up. Nobody talks about that game, and rightfully so.
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Oct 14, 2013 02:58
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UberJumper posted:Can anyone enlighten me as to why does the game consider this alien to be in high cover? I think it's just an evil fluke with how the game calculates line of sight. Let me show you true bullshit: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=106908736
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Oct 14, 2013 03:12
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Vengarr posted:I think it's just an evil fluke with how the game calculates line of sight. That's not bullshit, you're so close to the alien that you can't get your rifle up to aim. 
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Oct 14, 2013 03:15
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Vengarr posted:I think it's just an evil fluke with how the game calculates line of sight. Oh? Are we going to play the line of sight game? Time for the insurmountable waist high desk. I'm still not sure how the soldier is flanked, while neither of them are able to see each other though.
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Oct 14, 2013 03:51
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UberJumper posted:Can anyone enlighten me as to why does the game consider this alien to be in high cover? Because it's really buggy and kind of lovely in some key ways.
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Oct 14, 2013 04:15
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Honestly i am done with the Long War mod i think. Some of the changes it makes are fantastic, others not so much. The really nice changes are having a larger number of enemies, the class changes, the changes to how enemies scale/work (even if the scaling seems wonky). Along with the countless other changes like # of troops deployable, being able to bring countries back into the xcom project, and the new items and stuff. I also get it the mod is supposed to make the game last longer. But i have spent almost ~15 hours on my game, and i just got to start researching laser weapons  The number of missions the game throws at you gets extremely tedious, even more so with the double unit count of missions. However on the flip side, an enemy breaths on your guy and hes in the hospital for a month. Basically i would love this mod, if they just went and instead of dragging the campaign out for an eternity, instead perhaps just tone it down to something more manageable? Is there any other mod that changes the campaign?
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Oct 14, 2013 04:34
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Enemy Within is supposed to have better/more enemies per battle, right?
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Oct 14, 2013 05:06
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Because it's really buggy and kind of lovely in some key ways. The result is that ladders block flanks, there are weird edge cases like ramps or the Bar dumpsters, and the occasional invisible poly that mapmakers always leave somewhere around becomes a magic shield. I wouldn't call it buggy per se, but definitely not ideal. Unhappy Meal posted:Oh? Are we going to play the line of sight game? Time for the insurmountable waist high desk. 
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Oct 14, 2013 05:20
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I'm surprised no one has posted this IGN playthrough of the Exalt demo, with Ananda Gupta. The info on Exalt is pretty much a rehash, although it's nice to see someone actually win the mission. However, they talk quite a bit (starting at 1:06:00) about the new Council missions. There's a new Slingshot-esque series of linked Council missions called "Progeny" centered around Annette, a young woman with "unique" psionic ability. It appears she'll end up in a tug-of-war between EXALT and XCOM as both groups try to bring her into the fold. She can end up joining XCOM "if you play your cards right". These missions were apparently the second planned piece of DLC for Enemy Unknown, but got folded into Enemy Within after the negative response to Slingshot. This change means that the side-story could be more fully integrated into the main plot, although you can apparently still choose whether or not to activate Progeny the same way you can Slingshot. It first becomes available in April. They also all-but-confirm Base Defense in some form. Gupta said he couldn't wait to talk about it. Later. The tease!  Other tidbits if you don't care to sit through the hour-long video: --They apparently did a lot of work with the ragdoll animations. --You can customize gun skins and gun tints. The AWP-looking sniper rifle appeals to me. --The encoder and transmitter are both vulnerable to explosives and accidental environmental damage. Letting guys into the capture area and treating it like a kill zone could backfire spectacularly. --You get bonus cash at the end of a Covert Ops mission if you protect the encoder and the transmitter. Bit of an incentive to play loose. --There are 20 Covert Ops maps, 10 for each mission type.
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Oct 14, 2013 09:40
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I'm presuming the base defence will be a single plot mission set around the obvious 'XCOM under attack' cutscene from the trailer.
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Oct 14, 2013 09:44
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Vengarr posted:--You can customize gun skins and gun tints. The AWP-looking sniper rifle appeals to me. Any chance someone could snag a screenshot of anything shown for this? My internet is unable to load videos during popular hours, but this sounds totally awesome.  I hope it works like the armor variations you get from Elite Soldier/Slingshot, where each tier of technology gets a few options for its appearance! That was always something I loved. Alchenar posted:I'm presuming the base defence will be a single plot mission set around the obvious 'XCOM under attack' cutscene from the trailer. Man, don't jinx it! I... think that might be the one way to make the return of base-defense anything less than  -incarnate.
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Oct 14, 2013 12:33
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I'm hoping we get more than one variation for the Ghost/Psyche/Arch/Titan armours when the expansion rolls around. I want my A-team to have custom gear with skull helmets!
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Oct 14, 2013 12:56
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Vengarr posted:There's a new Slingshot-esque series of linked Council missions called "Progeny" centered around Annette, a young woman with "unique" psionic ability. It appears she'll end up in a tug-of-war between EXALT and XCOM as both groups try to bring her into the fold. She can end up joining XCOM "if you play your cards right". I'm guessing that means "If you can get an Arc Thrower shot off", since I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume they didn't add a dialog tree system to this game. Sounds like we can expect the equivalent of an early-game Ethereal battle to go with the early-game Battleship raid from Slingshot, granting a unique early Psionic soldier to go with your early Blaster Launcher. It'll probably a stage-wise battle where she'll periodically retreat and a wave of EXALT will need to be fought off. Having an early Psionic on your squad would certainly be interesting, but at least the Blaster Launcher returns to your armory if its wielder bites it in the field, the sorts of missions where things are serious enough to warrant fielding an early Psionic are the sorts of missions where I wouldn't want to risk losing a unique and powerful field asset. I'd probably end up ranking her up on easy UFO missions and then take her along for the base assault; worst case, if she gets killed then I can roll my own psionics at that point.
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Oct 14, 2013 13:09
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UberJumper posted:Honestly i am done with the Long War mod i think. Some of the changes it makes are fantastic, others not so much. (Also, everyone looking to play the LW: start in Europe and get two labs ASAP. You'll appreciate the investment)
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Oct 14, 2013 13:48
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Vengarr posted:I'm surprised no one has posted this IGN playthrough of the Exalt demo, with Ananda Gupta. I have to admit that I'm a little concerned about EXALT after watching this. I know that one of the stated reasons they're a threat is because of sheer numbers, but there are just so goddamn many enemies in this demo that I can't see a way you could possibly get through this mission unscathed. I feel like if the EXALT were a little bit more powerful on a per-unit basis but only brought, say, 10-12 soldiers to a battle it would be a little more reasonable. As it stands they just seem incredibly powerful on a pure zerg-rush level. Oh, and I shudder to think of how many EXALT will appear on Impossible missions 
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Oct 14, 2013 15:38
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quiggy posted:Oh, and I shudder to think of how many EXALT will appear on Impossible missions Enough to make heavies weep at the beauty. 
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Oct 14, 2013 15:44
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Generic American posted:Man, don't jinx it! I... think that might be the one way to make the return of base-defense anything less than While I'd love for random base defense to come back, the one problem is that you're placing far fewer structures than you did in the original, and the way you're placing them doesn't work that well for a battlefield. Still, having say a plot mission to defend a static XCOM base(essentially limited to the structures you start out with) and random missions to defend an interceptor hangar/control room from waves of enemies would be pretty cool.
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Oct 14, 2013 15:52
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I hope there's at least 6 distinct builds for genetically treated soldiers so X-Com can use the X-Men to save earth.
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Oct 14, 2013 16:12
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quiggy posted:I have to admit that I'm a little concerned about EXALT after watching this. I know that one of the stated reasons they're a threat is because of sheer numbers, but there are just so goddamn many enemies in this demo that I can't see a way you could possibly get through this mission unscathed. I feel like if the EXALT were a little bit more powerful on a per-unit basis but only brought, say, 10-12 soldiers to a battle it would be a little more reasonable. As it stands they just seem incredibly powerful on a pure zerg-rush level. Keep in mind that mission was on normal difficulty. If nothing I'd expect them to use those rockets more often on Classic. Though there are rough edges on the AI: Medic charges and stops near the capture area without cover. He gets wounded and next turn heals himself... without getting into cover 
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Oct 14, 2013 16:14
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quiggy posted:Oh, and I shudder to think of how many EXALT will appear on Impossible missions Probably about the same given that in the video they mention that EXALT appears in much less variable numbers than the aliens.
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Oct 14, 2013 16:20
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fspades posted:Keep in mind that mission was on normal difficulty. If nothing I'd expect them to use those rockets more often on Classic. The AI only stops deliberately making bone-headed moves at random on classic and up, so that isn't something to really hold against it. Also, everyone concerned about the number of EXALT being too high needs to remember that hacking the comm arrays/whatever on the map will render all EXALT soldiers on the map unable to attack for an entire turn. That's a massive incentive to actually have your operative moving about and doing stuff as opposed to just hanging back where it is safe.
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Oct 14, 2013 16:26
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Vengarr posted:It is heavily implied that they use traditional "enhanced interrogation" techniques on the Thin Men and others.
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Oct 14, 2013 17:49
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Mr Dog posted:I'm guessing that means "If you can get an Arc Thrower shot off", since I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume they didn't add a dialog tree system to this game. Sounds like we can expect the equivalent of an early-game Ethereal battle to go with the early-game Battleship raid from Slingshot, granting a unique early Psionic soldier to go with your early Blaster Launcher. It'll probably a stage-wise battle where she'll periodically retreat and a wave of EXALT will need to be fought off. I could see it working differently--not dialogue trees, but it could fold nicely into the EXALT Covert Op system, in that you have to track down the specific EXALT Cell that has Annette, and if you ignore it/don't find the right one in time, bad things happen
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Oct 14, 2013 18:32
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Ravenfood posted:Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about it. If everything was maybe 75% as long as it is now, it'd be a fantastic long. difficult XCOM mod. As is, it just takes far too long of repeating the same gameplay over, and over, and over again to be consistently fun. Yeah, i agree. The increased number of enemies means the missions take much longer. But on top of that, there are so many more missions to do. Which makes the game last and take even longer. It would probably take me about 60+ hours i am guessing to beat this LW campaign, and i don't even have the faintest idea about how insane it gets later on. This is also ignoring the chance that my game might just end up in an unwinnable situation 45 hours into it like people have ran into on the forums. UberJumper fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Oct 14, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 18:37
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Veyrall posted:Oh, well alright. I just read that the interrogation process consisted of putting electrodes in the brain and zapping at random, and I guess I just stopped reading into it. That's for dead or incapacitated individuals. Not sure if that makes the Doctor more or less of a psychopath.
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Oct 14, 2013 18:42
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Mr Dog posted:I'm guessing that means "If you can get an Arc Thrower shot off", since I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume they didn't add a dialog tree system to this game. Sounds like we can expect the equivalent of an early-game Ethereal battle to go with the early-game Battleship raid from Slingshot, granting a unique early Psionic soldier to go with your early Blaster Launcher. It'll probably a stage-wise battle where she'll periodically retreat and a wave of EXALT will need to be fought off. From what they described of the scenario, It seems that Annette was on the run from the aliens and sought asylum in France. France immediately contacts XCOM, but EXALT learns about this and launches a raid. XCOM arrives to see bits and pieces of EXALT scattered across the French countryside and Annette gone. So it becomes a race to see who can get to her first. Presumably, either you recruit her or EXALT does, and then she becomes an enemy. I'm guessing it'll play like an Anna Sing mission where both sides want to evacuate the VIP.
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Oct 14, 2013 19:50
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Vengarr posted:From what they described of the scenario, It seems that Annette was on the run from the aliens... Does that mean that she was experimented upon, displayed the Gift and somehow escaped?
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Oct 14, 2013 20:13
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So can someone tell me what the hell the uberetheral was expecting to happen in the end mission? "HEY new warrior race just came onto the temple ship! And they're killing all our earlier failures! Oh wait they're killing us HOW COULD I HAVE SEEN THIS COMING."
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Oct 14, 2013 20:17
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Andre Banzai posted:Does that mean that she was experimented upon, displayed the Gift and somehow escaped? Gupta says she was a prisoner who escaped, so yeah, probably. Unless she was a prisoner of EXALT who were running their own experiments...? Benagain posted:So can someone tell me what the hell the uberetheral was expecting to happen in the end mission? "HEY new warrior race just came onto the temple ship! And they're killing all our earlier failures! Oh wait they're killing us HOW COULD I HAVE SEEN THIS COMING." Arrogance? The same reason why they didn't just conquer Earth militarily before running their experiments. As becomes clear in the final mission, no one else has ever fought back against the Ethereals, let alone do it successfully. The idea that someone could defeat them in spite of their superior technology and psionic abilities just doesn't register at all.
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Oct 14, 2013 20:30
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Vengarr posted:Arrogance? The same reason why they didn't just conquer Earth militarily before running their experiments. As becomes clear in the final mission, no one else has ever fought back against the Ethereals, let alone do it successfully. The idea that someone could defeat them in spite of their superior technology and psionic abilities just doesn't register at all. Also, they were going to do exactly what XCOM did, try to identify someone with the Gift and then make them part of the collective. When XCOM did the first part, they still went along with the plan/offer (which they thought was one that we wouldn't be able to refuse). My buddy Nitro with his rapid-fire alloy cannon had different thoughts on the matter though. 
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Oct 14, 2013 20:38
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