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Mr Dog posted:Yeah, speaking of which Mimetic Skin sounds like it's going to be devastatingly broken (i.e. early-game cheap ghost armor with minimal drawbacks and arguably some advantages). I wonder how that one's going to play out. Camp two snipers and two assault bodyguards at the LZ, send out two Mimetic Skinned Sprinter Supports and have them move between hard cover, which makes them perma-stealthed. Murder everything on the map with impunity since the aliens have no recourse against the spotters. The bodyguards can take care of the squids, since it looks like they come in packs of two and you'll get a free Squadsight kill against one of them. You're not going to get all the upgrades at once since they're autopsy related. I'm pretty sure you don't get Mimetic Skin until you fight strangler-squids and Dr. Vahlen gets a chance to cut one open. And strangler-squids don't exactly seem like something you'll be facing out of the gate. Also, remember, Mimetic Skin is entirely reliant on your soldier having full cover, which won't always be available. Either because of map layout or because some chucklefuck rookie missed with a laser and vaporized a wall.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:32 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 08:39 |
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Alkydere posted:You're not going to get all the upgrades at once since they're autopsy related. I'm pretty sure you don't get Mimetic Skin until you fight strangler-squids and Dr. Vahlen gets a chance to cut one open. And strangler-squids don't exactly seem like something you'll be facing out of the gate. Yeah, I'm positive that's what unlocks Mimetic Skin since the other option besides Mimetic Skin is something that would help you defeat the strangler squids (it makes you immune to strangulation and reveals enemies that are really close to you, even if they're invisible or behind a wall).
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:34 |
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There was a new MP demo on Twitch yesterday. Showed a fair amount of gameplay with new units and there was guest commentary with Jake and Ananda. Prices for most of the new soldier equipment was revealed, including some interesting price revisions: Frag Grenade: 300 (reduced from 900) Alien Grenade: 500 (reduced from 1500) Flashbang Grenade: 100 (normal radius, no damage, -50% aim, -75% move for two turns) Needle Grenade: 500 (DZ rocket radius, 3 damage, no cover destruction or damage to enemies through cover) Gas Grenade: 600 (Thin Man poison, normal grenade radius) Ghost Grenade: 2000 (Radius unknown but probably normal grenade radius, duration unknown) Alien prices have not been revised at all in that build, but I would expect all grenade using aliens to have their prices revised down, except possibly Sectoid Commander. I would like to see reductions to melee enemy costs as well. Need to look more closely to try to match up Exalt prices with abilities, but it seems at first blush that you can recreate most Exalt soldier ability packages with XCOM soldier builds.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:48 |
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Flashbangs look like a neat little thing to pack along for later missions using the second equip slot, or to help ensure safe captures in the early game. Hopefully you can get them quickly. Also hoping that LW does something interesting with them: I really liked how anyone could carry smoke grenades, but the smoke grenade ability made it so that using a SG didn't end your turn, so you could smoke and do something else if you wanted. I know I'd really like flashbangs if one equip got two uses, but I suppose that's what Deep Pockets Supports are for.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:55 |
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One of the previews confirmed that Mimetic Skin does work with Low Profile and makes a pretty neat combo (though I think you still have to move to cover to trigger it? I don't think you can just stand still and keep firing/cloaking?). Watching the previews also cleared up my confusion regarding the MEC subweapons- I was worried that you could only keep your rocket punch if you stuck with tier 1 armor, but as it turns out the subweapons stack as you upgrade. I want to have MECs punch so many things.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:55 |
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Flashbangs are probably going to be really really handy for capturing guys alive or weakening tough enemies. I don't know if they work on Sectopods but since I heard that sectopods got their effective health doubled anything that makes them miss half their shots can't be bad.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 19:58 |
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Speedball posted:Flashbangs are probably going to be really really handy for capturing guys alive or weakening tough enemies. I don't know if they work on Sectopods but since I heard that sectopods got their effective health doubled anything that makes them miss half their shots can't be bad. Flashbangs don't work on robots.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 20:06 |
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Speedball posted:Flashbangs are probably going to be really really handy for capturing guys alive or weakening tough enemies. I don't know if they work on Sectopods but since I heard that sectopods got their effective health doubled anything that makes them miss half their shots can't be bad. Hmm. Does anyone know if the new and improved Deep Pockets give Supports an extra grenade per slot? I'd guess no because then it just becomes a more flexible version of the Heavy perk no one ever takes, but you never know. I hope not--something like flashbangs, alien grenades to blow cover and Covering Fire to lock down targeted aliens should make an awesome capture specialist/combat support. Actually, does anyone know--will aliens give up shots if covered by Covering Fire Overwatch? I only ask because I can't currently imagine a scenario where you'd want it over Sprinter
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 20:15 |
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amanasleep posted:Flashbangs don't work on robots. HaitianDivorce posted:Hmm. Does anyone know if the new and improved Deep Pockets give Supports an extra grenade per slot? I'd guess no because then it just becomes a more flexible version of the Heavy perk no one ever takes, but you never know. I hope not--something like flashbangs, alien grenades to blow cover and Covering Fire to lock down targeted aliens should make an awesome capture specialist/combat support. [quote]ctually, does anyone know--will aliens give up shots if covered by Covering Fire Overwatch? I only ask because I can't currently imagine a scenario where you'd want it over Sprinter[/quote}Covering Fire will now activate before the alien shot, so there's that. Its still niche, but now its worth comboing with Sentinel if you wanted. I think it should halve the cover bonus of the target, too.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 20:21 |
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Ravenfood posted:Covering Fire will now activate before the alien shot, so there's that. Its still niche, but now its worth comboing with Sentinel if you wanted. I think it should halve the cover bonus of the target, too. Mm-hmm, I've got that part down. I also know that, now, if enemies are flanked/out of cover and you've got Overwatch on them they'll stay put, but that won't stop them from attacking. What I'm wondering is how Covering Fire affects that cost/benefit analysis--does the alien make an attack? Throw a grenade? And then is that decision further affected by the change in EW, with the possibility that the alien won't even get off its attack? So basically, if you can flank an alien with a Covering Fire Support and put him on Overwatch, do you completely prevent him from making any sort of move now? Will the same scenario in EW do that?
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 20:32 |
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Eifert Posting posted:I was reading the wiki's notes on the expansion and it's kinda morbidly funny how much of the expansion seems to be geared to making squadsight snipers vulnerable. The strangler enemies might as well be called fuckus squadsightus. I adored Hunter/Agent Snapshot sporting Laser snipers when I was doing Multiplayer though, and they had some good luck finishing people off with their laser or plasma pistols thanks to gunslinger. I also really liked the Commando Assaults, that Critical Immunity has let my laser shotgun sporting guy pull off a lot of bullshit facetanking, but Plasma snipers and Alloy cannons will always hurt like hell. Tl;DR: I have a boner for using High ranked Laser Weapon soldiers in MP. Also for Skeleton Armor's move speed bonus. Also the sequel, using Sectoids as Suppression Spam. And typing "Touchdown" Every time I won a match by having a Muton blow up the last enemy. Fake Edit: gently caress yes grenade cost reduction in MP. Way grenade costs were last I played the MP, it was impossible to set up 6, or even 5 "Rookies with Assault Rifles, Grenades, and no armor". If Mutons don't get price cuts due to soldier grenade cuts though, that will really cut down their overall worth. It helped to consider Mutons "Cheap Alien grenade and Plasma Rifle". I mean, a Muton costs less than those two weapons did on a soldier alone. Hell, an alien grenade's old 1,500 pricetag is over half of what it costs to grab a Muton.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 21:00 |
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amanasleep posted:Need to look more closely to try to match up Exalt prices with abilities, but it seems at first blush that you can recreate most Exalt soldier ability packages with XCOM soldier builds. I don't think that'll be the case with the Exalt Elite, as they said in the demos they get gene mods XCOM won't. Also, isn't the case with Mimetic Skin that you need to both be in full cover and concealment for it to work? That's a little more balanced, I think.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 21:03 |
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I think its that you only get the benefit if you're in full cover at the start of a turn. So if you move into half cover and attack, the next turn you can't get the benefit unless you move into full cover and even then it won't activate until the next turn. Least that's how I remember reading it, but I haven't seen it in action.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 21:17 |
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Brainamp posted:Where the hell is your Ghost armor, commander? I prefer the aliens know who they just got hosed by.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 21:18 |
Ravenfood posted:I really liked how anyone could carry smoke grenades, but the smoke grenade ability made it so that using a SG didn't end your turn, so you could smoke and do something else if you wanted. I know I'd really like flashbangs if one equip got two uses, but I suppose that's what Deep Pockets Supports are for. Wait, is this something being changed from Enemy Unknown? By default, smoke grenades are an ability of the support class--are they allowing smoke grenades to be carried by anybody (in EW) now?
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 22:30 |
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Cream-of-Plenty posted:Wait, is this something being changed from Enemy Unknown? By default, smoke grenades are an ability of the support class--are they allowing smoke grenades to be carried by anybody (in EW) now? No, this mechanic is exclusive to the Long War mod of EU.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 22:42 |
amanasleep posted:No, this mechanic is exclusive to the Long War mod of EU. Alright, that's what I figured.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 22:44 |
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I'd love to try Long War but it sounds as if most of the stuff is there to drag things out* rather than make it a more challenging game. *yes i know this is what marathon does shut up
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 23:33 |
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Lotish posted:I think its that you only get the benefit if you're in full cover at the start of a turn. So if you move into half cover and attack, the next turn you can't get the benefit unless you move into full cover and even then it won't activate until the next turn. Least that's how I remember reading it, but I haven't seen it in action. From what gameplay I've seen, the sequence is as follows for memetic skin: 1) Click on a piece of cover 2) If that cover is full cover, cloak the soldier before moving 3) The soldier moves to that cover 4) The soldier stays cloaked until after the alien turn ends or until the soldier attacks, much like ghost armor 5) In addition, if the soldier moves from that full cover to anything that isn't full cover during the same turn, they lose the cloak before the second move This neither makes sense in the context of what the gene mod is supposed to be, or with the fact that this basically means that you can just constantly dash between full cover and never get hit.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 23:33 |
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ThePeavstenator posted:From what gameplay I've seen, the sequence is as follows for memetic skin: The way it works is that you only cloak if you are unseen at the beginning of your turn AND you move to full cover. So it's like this: 1) No enemies in sight 2) Click on Full cover 3) Cloak 4) Move to cover 5) Stay cloaked until you attack, are detected (by battle scanner or bioelectric skin), move out of full cover, or the beginning of your next turn If an enemy has LOS on your position when you uncloak, then you will not cloak before your next move even if it is to high cover.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 23:42 |
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amanasleep posted:The way it works is that you only cloak if you are unseen at the beginning of your turn AND you move to full cover. So it's like this: So if you move to full cover while spotted by aliens, do you still cloak once you get there?
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 23:48 |
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Not to my knowledge from what we have seen. The only check on the cloak we've seen in gameplay footage is from before the move is started. It seems to be for moving forward/opening doors with low risk.
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# ? Nov 8, 2013 23:52 |
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FoolyCharged posted:Not to my knowledge from what we have seen. The only check on the cloak we've seen in gameplay footage is from before the move is started. It seems to be for moving forward/opening doors with low risk. Like I said, concealment and full cover.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 00:15 |
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drat, I tried to get Lone Wolf (classic difficulty) doing nothing but the very first UFO shot down, because I wanted a small target with nothing but sectoids and one outsider to worry about, but my guys are all at Squaddie level and just don't have enough equipment, tricks up their sleeves and hit points to take on this much solo. I guess I really do need ghost armor/flying armor and psychic powers.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 00:17 |
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Speedball posted:drat, I tried to get Lone Wolf (classic difficulty) doing nothing but the very first UFO shot down, because I wanted a small target with nothing but sectoids and one outsider to worry about, but my guys are all at Squaddie level and just don't have enough equipment, tricks up their sleeves and hit points to take on this much solo. I guess I really do need ghost armor/flying armor and psychic powers. One Super-Soldier that "recruits" allies in the field to get shot for him is always the safest option.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 00:23 |
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Speedball posted:drat, I tried to get Lone Wolf (classic difficulty) doing nothing but the very first UFO shot down, because I wanted a small target with nothing but sectoids and one outsider to worry about, but my guys are all at Squaddie level and just don't have enough equipment, tricks up their sleeves and hit points to take on this much solo. I guess I really do need ghost armor/flying armor and psychic powers. I just did it with my squaddie sniper. The big accuracy bonus for becoming a sniper plus the bonus damage from the rifle means he can trade blows reasonably effectively with sectoids if you're careful. You've got to play cautiously because you can't move and shoot but a combination of overwatch and hunkering should get you through, and you can take a grenade as backup.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 00:26 |
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Brainamp posted:One Super-Soldier that "recruits" allies in the field to get shot for him is always the safest option. RIP, Tank. It's kind of sad but I remember precisely how each of my soldiers died.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 00:26 |
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Speedball posted:drat, I tried to get Lone Wolf (classic difficulty) doing nothing but the very first UFO shot down, because I wanted a small target with nothing but sectoids and one outsider to worry about, but my guys are all at Squaddie level and just don't have enough equipment, tricks up their sleeves and hit points to take on this much solo. I guess I really do need ghost armor/flying armor and psychic powers. I was able to do it with a heavy. Grenade one sectoid set, shot another mind merging sectoid, rocket the outsider.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 00:28 |
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So they released this new interactive choose your own adventure trailer dealie. http://www.xcom.com/enemywithin/us/ivideo.php I quite like the normal soldiers rappeling in while the MEC just fuckin airdops out the back.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 01:43 |
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Got through that without any losses or damage. Total objective completion. Is it just me or do MECs take up multiple squad slots? Seemed weird that the initial group was only a couple MECs and the gene modded sniper.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 01:50 |
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Chexoid posted:So they released this new interactive choose your own adventure trailer dealie.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 01:50 |
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My very important question is this: are mimetic skin soldiers naked and just using their powers to make it appear as though they are wearing armor
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 02:03 |
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Space Hamlet posted:My very important question is this: are mimetic skin soldiers naked and just using their powers to make it appear as though they are wearing armor …bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahha. It looks to me like there's only one real failure path through this interactive trailer--making your sniper snipe past their usefulness on the roof gets her killed, and trying to send your covert op to the roof to also snipe gets him killed.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 03:01 |
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Would hunkering down activate Mimetic Skin if you're in half cover?
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 03:13 |
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SBJ posted:Would hunkering down activate Mimetic Skin if you're in half cover?
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 03:21 |
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Chexoid posted:So they released this new interactive choose your own adventure trailer dealie. I actually lost the mission. At least their advertising is true to their product.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 03:27 |
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Deuce posted:I was able to do it with a heavy. Grenade one sectoid set, shot another mind merging sectoid, rocket the outsider. Assault squaddie with a rifle, I moved to flank from behind high cover, had a grenade for emergencies, did it on classic no save scumming.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 03:29 |
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On an unrelated note, if they make a straight-up sequel to the new XCOM series, it would be neat if your squad had infinite actions until the moment you made contact with the enemy, then your actions would start to tick down as usual. It would eliminate a lot of the Overwatch Crawl tedium by transparently automating it: nothing really changed between revealing a pack of mutons as the last action of Turn N versus revealing them as the first action of Turn N+1, except that you magically don't have the initiative in the first case. Hunker Down is meaningless in the "roaming" state and you can make Overwatch a toggle that locks upon contact with the enemy (so you can still set up an Opportunist Squadsight sniper and go for a gimme shot when revealing new enemies as you could before). It would interact in a non-intuitive way with dashing and the MELD/disarm mechanic, though, and by all impressions the MELD mechanic seems like a very necessary addition to the game, since the only sensible thing to do in its absence is the turtle conga.
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 03:34 |
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Assuming we didn't get an XCOM game that got us the weird biological aliens of Apocalypse…who I loved the concept of, by the way... I'd like an XCOM sequel to take place in some sort of guerrilla setting. The basic premise of stealing tech from aliens would remain, but you're on some sort of planet being run by the creatures and most people are kept ignorant and toothless, and you need to topple the oppressive alien government by having commandos grabbing whatever stuff they can steal to keep your troops keyed up and powerful. Alternately-alternately, no continuity at all, just another "aliens are invading and we don't know why" premise. Still, I am vastly intrigued by EW's idea of having to contend with a second human invasion on top of the first. Who knows...
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 03:57 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 08:39 |
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Space Hamlet posted:My very important question is this: are mimetic skin soldiers naked and just using their powers to make it appear as though they are wearing armor They should take notes from the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzWN4v2Ck0s Sorry, couldn't find a better clip of it. Man, now I kind of want to rewatch Mystery Men, but I'm sure it probably won't hold up as well as it does in my head
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# ? Nov 9, 2013 04:32 |