Thoroughly enjoyed XCOM

[ShinyCharizard]

Yeah I loved it, by far my favourite game from 2012. I've played through it about 5 times now. I wish there was a difficulty mode in between Normal and Classic though. Towards the middle of a Normal playthrough, it just starts to become a bit too easy, I wish the battles were a bit more challenging. But on Classic the base management stresses me out a bit too much.

 

[DeimosMasque]

Preferred the original. Thing about the new game is the dice were against you and you could never surprise attack the enemies. A lot of it was luck of the dice than strategy and i hate when 4 guys cant hit an alien 3 squares away. Its a fun game, but the difficulty is fighting the crappy dice, not the aliens.

same thing happened in the original, plus some other bullshit, do i even have to mention psy powers and how the AI blatantly cheated with them?

Cheated to the point that the Official Strategy Guide even told you that the AI cheated and that Aliens could see you for longer and had a list of soldiers that it could always use Psi-Powers against.

 

[veloper]

What I would like to understand tho, if anyone knows, is whether the aliens progression is strictly tied to the storyline missions I complete, or by time passed? eg. If I put off development of the Arc Thrower and building Alien Containment for example, can I continue for the first couple of months fighting only Sectoids/Thin Men, or will floaters and mutons appear regardless?

It is beneficial to put off the base assault and by extent, to postpone the so called "priority" research projects.
Capturing aliens after you have your lasers and carapace armor is good, but you don't want to rush the last step.

This guarantees feeble outsiders will be on the UFOs instead of sectoid commanders or ethereals, while you tech up all the way titan armor.

The other aliens types all the way up to the Sectopod will still keep coming though, which is all the more reason to prioritize MEC troopers, lasers, armor, satellites, etc.

 

[BeerTent]

I enjoyed it quite a bit. ESPECIALLY the expansion. The Enemy unknown felt a little lackluster, but Enemy Within adds the extra cool stuff that has me going on marathon, even though I still cannot beat classic. It's still too brutal for me. :<

Once you get the formula right, Normal's too easy, but classic still too hard... I should do a lets play with it too. Get some people talking while I do it. ^.^

Also, I've seen mention that Aliens never ambush you. I'm gonna call such hard bullshit on that. I've ambushed aliens,(Before the pod activates, but attacking them triggers it.) and they've ambushed me. I think the current format is best, because when you're fighting enemies to the west, and enemies from the South come in and blindside you? You get the "pod activated" animation, and they all immediately get in position. Some in sight, some out of sight. And they all shoot at you next turn. I've been shot at numerous times when solders are not hunkered by an invisible out of sight enemy. They're normally misses... But one or two of them have hit. Taking on 9 aliens at once, team of 6...? Not easy, even when the game cheats for you on normal.

Tips for classic I've seen though?

Don't shoot unless your hit% is above 70.

Don't attempt to flank until you've got 6 marines. My "pod emulation" tactic seems to go fairly well. (Two closely knit groups of three, they meet up at the end of the level.) Flanking with 4/5 marines means your lone guy, or group of two could activate another set of aliens, and now you're up against 6.

Only use partial cover when you haven't activated an alien pod. When your stuck in partial cover, Hunker.

Actually, hunker, hunker, hunker. If you think someone's going to be targeted a lot, hunker. Someone in partial cover? Hunker. Civilian? Hunker. This is the biggest hurdle for me, because I saw hunker, and thought "I'm not attacking and this blinds me. It sucks." The extra bonus is worth it.

Overwatch. Have at least one person overwatching at all times.

Split up. The AI is "unshackled", which means there's no restrictions on their items now. (one grenade collectively only, 10% chance to actually go through with it.)

*** Also, in case your wondering what a pod is... ***

The AI doesn't manage the aliens individually all the time. It has groups of up to three aliens moving around the map, or remaining stationary. Maybe we have three sectoids moving around, or an outsider standing still.

When the player sees a pod, the pod is now active. A "scurry" AI takes over, which forces the aliens to use 1AP to hide, and get into some random cover. Often, they'll choose partial cover. On easy, they might "forget" to do this.

On the next turn, the AI based on difficulty takes place for each individual alien.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Agreed with those saying it's a bit of a masterpiece, and I'm kind of sick of the whining 'duh, it's dumbed down' angle from some older fans of the series. Games evolve - end of, and clearly EU/EW has been received with something akin to universal acclaim, so it must be doing something right.

One thing I enjoyed about my latest playthru was having the "Training Roulette" modifier from the "Second Wave" options (along with Not Created Equal and Hidden Potential) which made all soldiers unique.

I toggled NCE and Hidden Potential, but the Second Wave menu wasn't exactly forthcoming with actual details about Training Roulette. I'm currently on a first run of EW (second or third month), so I'm glad I didn't check it. But I'll give it a spin (ahem.. ) on another playthrough.

One downside I've found with NCE is that quite often you're forced to junk new soldiers. It's not really worth keeping anyone with Will around the 30's, or with Aim under 65, as you end up compensating with abilities and/or gear. I've not bought Lead By Example yet, but I can't see that as a way of banking on saving low Will troops.

I also had a sniper called "Ashley 'Ash' Williams" (since realising that voice 2 was the same VA from ME)

I recognised her voice instantly, but never actually thought of that... Methinks I have a new future XCOM trooper lined up! (although I'll make her Assault with a rifle, as my Ash was never a sniper)

Btw, how many people pick Covering Fire over the +3 move perk for Supports? I'm not sure I've ever used it. I generally find Supports acting as straight up medics (covering the most amount of distances, being able to use 3 kits, etc) to be far more useful than the kind of tactical role the other path biases towards. Multiple smoke grenades and having riflemen suppress is nice in theory, but a very good medic is a--- well, literal life and potentially a mission saver. You're never always going to want to use smoke screens as buffs, but you are always going to need medics.

As I said, this is my first run on EW, and I've not unlocked all the gene mod and MEC options yet, but are there are pointers for how best to spend MELD? It's such a precious commodity at the moment, so you can't exactly experiment. And are MEC's actually worth the hassle? So far it seems like the gene mods combined with class perks (and armour/suit abilities) would be a more efficient use of MELD.

...then again, I guess if you lose a MEC trooper you 'only' lose the soldier, not the suit. But with gene modded soldiers, once that asset is dead, all of the resources poured into them is lost too.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

Yeah I loved it too. Damn good game. I still struggle to beat it though aaaaargh.

Think I'm in the mood now for a fresh run through it.

It'd be cool to play as the aliens but the gameplay with the humans is so freaking well done...

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I toggled NCE and Hidden Potential, but the Second Wave menu wasn't exactly forthcoming with actual details about Training Roulette. I'm currently on a first run of EW (second or third month), so I'm glad I didn't check it. But I'll give it a spin (ahem.. ) on another playthrough.

One downside I've found with NCE is that quite often you're forced to junk new soldiers. It's not really worth keeping anyone with Will around the 30's, or with Aim under 65, as you end up compensating with abilities and/or gear. I've not bought Lead By Example yet, but I can't see that as a way of banking on saving low Will troops.

You do get some duds but it also allows for some to standout. The thing with Training Roulette is that the squaddie and (most) colonel skills are unaffected, as are class specific things like extra smoke grenades, shredder rocket, etc, but the rest is random. It also often makes you try skills you otherwise wouldn't since it's the lesser of two evils as it were. As I mentioned, I ended up with a super mobile Assault class medic (run/gun, deep pockets, Field Medic, Revive, rapid fire, Close and Personal). I gene modded him with the jumping ability and he was great. That combination in one character made him a great medic and meant I didn't need a support at all. Also Zhang (from the DLC) had Deep Pockets too, so with 2 alien grenades (tactical rigging) he carried 4 grenades and 3 rockets into each fight. Only annoying thing was no Bullet Swarm on any body.

Btw, how many people pick Covering Fire over the +3 move perk for Supports? I'm not sure I've ever used it. I generally find Supports acting as straight up medics (covering the most amount of distances, being able to use 3 kits, etc) to be far more useful than the kind of tactical role the other path biases towards. Multiple smoke grenades and having riflemen suppress is nice in theory, but a very good medic is a--- well, literal life and potentially a mission saver. You're never always going to want to use smoke screens as buffs, but you are always going to need medics.

On a Support, I wouldn't pick it but again it was that or something less useful. Combining it with Sentinel meant that she got two shots on overwatch which, since I took In The Zone over Double Tap at top level, meant she could still get two shots off if there weren't any uncovered enemies.

As I said, this is my first run on EW, and I've not unlocked all the gene mod and MEC options yet, but are there are pointers for how best to spend MELD? It's such a precious commodity at the moment, so you can't exactly experiment. And are MEC's actually worth the hassle? So far it seems like the gene mods combined with class perks (and armour/suit abilities) would be a more efficient use of MELD.

The ones I found most useful were the jumping one on my sniper and medic, secondary heart/healing on the frontliners and mimetic skin across the board.

For the MECs, I made 4 for the achievement, but beyond that only took one out regularly (who got to major). I found he was never in a good position to be of great help but that's likely my failing. It's a bit of an odd mix since the abilities are very situational. I found the long range grenades got the most use, but when i had resources later, I remade the suit with the kinetic module for melee. 18 damage in one hit is phenomenal, particularly against mechtoids and berserkers. Flame thrower was okay but very few times where I could use it to good effect (panicking two mutons and taking their health down, for example). I never used Proximity Mine or Electro-Pulse to any great effect. I ended up ditching him when I got my first (and only) semi decent support who also had the Gift. With the entire squad having Mimetic Skin it made for some amazing tactical options...actually it felt a little cheap at that point.

Mimetic Skin and the Jumping ability together pretty much makes Ghost Armour redundant too, so soldiers can benefit from Titan Armour's health and immunities.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

You do get some duds but it also allows for some to standout.

True, vanilla Aim is 65 for Rookies, and I gained some early on with 70 and 75.

Training Roulette definitely will be toggled next time. I like Not Created Equally as it tends to make your squaddies feel more distinct - and TR would have an even greater effect on that.

On a Support, I wouldn't pick it but again it was that or something less useful. Combining it with Sentinel meant that she got two shots on overwatch which, since I took In The Zone over Double Tap at top level, meant she could still get two shots off if there weren't any uncovered enemies.

So you had Covering Fire with a Sniper? Or In The Zone with a Support?

MEC's: I gather the melee upgrade adds to movement, too, so I should imagine that could help a MEC get into position more often (I never got a chance to try the melee attack in the only mission I played with the MEC). The flamethrower having limited uses doesn't exactly recommend it, either.

With the entire squad having Mimetic Skin it made for some amazing tactical options...actually it felt a little cheap at that point.

I've not used Mimetic Skin yet as it's quite pricey for MELD, but I don't really mind such 'cheap' tactics. In the latter stages the game can come close to easy, but only because you've done the groundwork to establish that, and you know how to use assets properly. I think in XCOM you earn the right to start taking full advantage of all kinds of tactics. Two aerial S.H.I.V.'s and an Archangel sniper with Squadsight and Double Tap is cheap to some players, but I just see it as a very effective use of abilities and gear.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

You do get some duds but it also allows for some to standout.

True, vanilla Aim is 65 for Rookies, and I gained some early on with 70 and 75.

Training Roulette definitely will be toggled next time. I like Not Created Equally as it tends to make your squaddies feel more distinct - and TR would have an even greater effect on that.

I think you'll have a lot of fun with it. Similar to NCE, you'll get some very cool combinations and others not so much. I had no decent supports until I got a Captain as a mission reward late-mid game. And as I mentioned I didn't see Bullet Swarm the entire game which changes heavies quite a bit.

So you had Covering Fire with a Sniper? Or In The Zone with a Support?

The first. Ashley "Aye Commander" Williams had Headshot, Squadsight (vs Snap Shot), Heat Ammo (vs Executioner), Sentinel (vs Disabling Shot), Covering Fire (vs Extra Conditioning), Sprinter, In the Zone (vs Double Tap).

MEC's: I gather the melee upgrade adds to movement, too, so I should imagine that could help a MEC get into position more often (I never got a chance to try the melee attack in the only mission I played with the MEC). The flamethrower having limited uses doesn't exactly recommend it, either.

It's lucky the MECs have so much health as they did get abused, mostly by my inability to position them well compared to his limbs-still-attached teammates. I mean where do you hide a giant robot so he doesn't alert everything for miles around? The 18 damage attack was brilliant when it landed and saw more use than everything else except the grenades.

I've not used Mimetic Skin yet as it's quite pricey for MELD, but I don't really mind such 'cheap' tactics. In the latter stages the game can come close to easy, but only because you've done the groundwork to establish that, and you know how to use assets properly. I think in XCOM you earn the right to start taking full advantage of all kinds of tactics. Two aerial S.H.I.V.'s and an Archangel sniper with Squadsight and Double Tap is cheap to some players, but I just see it as a very effective use of abilities and gear.

That's a very good point actually, it's not like we didn't work towards that. MS turns the soldier invisible if they enter full cover, providing they weren't observed when they started moving (ie. if they have an alien in their sights at the start of the turn, MS won't work). No idea whether it confers the same crit bonus as ghost armour, tho I felt I critted more often from it than not.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I think I'm going to nickname my Ashley Williams 'Tennyson'. I've meant to have a Shepard since I first played EU, but never got around to it. I'll probably go with 'Commander' as her nickname, but then it'd be something like Maj. Cassandra 'Commander' Shepard, which would likely cause confusion in the ranks... Hm, I guess I need a Kaiden Alenko, who'll hopefully turn out to be Gifted. His nickname can be Onasi.

One of the aspects I most enjoy/ed about XCOM was the troops themselves, and just how much you can customise 'em, and how hard you fight to keep the ones with cool names and abilities them all alive.

Ashley "Aye Commander" Williams had Headshot, Squadsight (vs Snap Shot), Heat Ammo (vs Executioner), Sentinel (vs Disabling Shot), Covering Fire (vs Extra Conditioning), Sprinter, In the Zone (vs Double Tap).

Is Squadsight (vs Snap) class locked?
Having a sniper with Disruptor Heat Ammo would be pretty frikkin' awesome.

MEC's: it's a tiny gripe, but I kinda expected and wanted them to move slower, and clunkier. I assumed they'd be bigger (I avoided all trailers and screenshots of EW before getting it), too - more akin to, say, 40K's hulking Dreadnoughts. Plus, I thought maybe they'd be such an asset that a single MEC takes up two squad slots, making your choice about deploying one all the more risky.

Re the inverse difficulty curve: I can see how some people found it off-putting, or that they wanted to be challenged more later in the game. For me that's rarely interesting or rewarding. I think of Morrowind, or even Dark Souls; games you struggle with early on, fight to survive, but eventually you understand how it all works and you can actually put your gear and experience to use.

Besides, in a situation where Earth is defending itself against a hostile force, would science teams and engineers suddenly think 'Nah, this is too easy! We need to dial it back so the aliens kill more of our troops!'... XCOM is surely about slowly turning the tables on the invaders, so it works with the general narrative, too.