XCOM: Enemy Within Introduces the Paranoia-Inducing Seeker

[Doclector]

Coming face to mandibles with a Chrysalid wasn't what made me drop one, it was those disks things... When I first encountered that badass it threw something and killed 3 guys and reduced another to one health.

This new one though... Seems early game like a nightmare but with things to basically render them useless late game, they sound under powered.

It was the first chrysalis' that made me crap my pants. Their high health and damage was bad enough, but I didn't know that they turned those they killed into zombies. A few turns later, the chrysalis' were dead, but my dead squadmates outnumbered the living.

As for this, sounds nightmarish, especially to someone like me who wasn't especially good at XCOM to begin with.

 

[Bindal]

They really wanted to nerf Squadsight Snipers didn't they?

Once you hit HEAT Ammo for Heavies Cyberdisc's become a cakewalk, unless this was a late-game creature like a Sectapod there should be some counters for it that you can research.

Both gets nerfed. Squad Sight removed any chance for Crits (unless you combine it with Headshot or the sniper can see the enemy without squad sight as well) and HEAT ammo only gives 50% more damage instead of 100%.
Also, there was a counter to Sectopods - HEAT ammo + Rocketlauncher (or Blaster Launcher). Incredible damage instantly. Followed by a Sniper in a Flight Armor, Damn Good Ground and a Plasma Sniper and that Sectopod is history.

I knew of the removal of crits nerf, but the addition of a creature that goes after lone squaddies (ie the sniper up back) is a little overkill.

You will have things to counter it, tho.

 

[Amaror]

okay can we get info in what matters? for example: the campaign, will it still be a base invulnerable to everything even if you are clearly the aliens biggest threat? will the maps finally be RND? or we will have to play the same 6 maps over and over (now expanded to 8 thanks to the dlc), will the AI still spawn in the same places? will the AI move more that 3 units when it sees you?, will we have a good UFOPEDIA now?, etc.. etc..

I don't know why the Escapist hasn't said about it yet, but the new achievements for the expansion have been revealed on steam.
http://steamcommunity.com/stats/XCOMEnemyUnknown/achievements
And what's really interresting is that there is an achievement for getting 4 kills with security personal of the xcom base. Which in my opinion hints pretty strongly at base defense missions.

 

[SweetShark]

Now the only thing we need is a Kickstarter which we can vote for specific Alien types for the next expansion.

 

[Lucane]

"Enemy Within, the upcoming expansion to last year's Enemy Unknown,(...)"

Wait, so it's an expansion to the base game? Or a standalone update release based on the same engine?

I believe it's an expansion on PC, and a standalone on Consoles.

Last I heard it's $30 on PC as an expansion of sorts and $40 on consoles as a new all in one deal I think due to Microsoft saying the new contents size is to much to just be any kind of DLC but no mention if Sony is agreeing or not or if they are just using similar versions for consoles so PS3 is being forced to match.

But either way you get it it'll basically be the same content though you might have to "re-buy" the core content.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

question: can it strangle my shiny new walking tank?
caus I will totally use that walking tank!

 

[RJ 17]

A "Flying Spider Shark"? Yup, I'd say that's the stuff of nightmares. Strange that they then go on to describe it as a floating cloaked robot squid.

 

[1337mokro]

Not really that enthusiastic about it. For one enemies light up on your HUD, so you will either immediately spot them or they will cheat early on. Now I call it cheating because it's supposed to be near perfect camouflage. This also means that they either don't show up on hud cloaked or simply can't be targeted whilst cloaked, despite you clearly being able to see them hoovering around. If you visually can't pick them out then the term is pointless and they are basically nothing more than teleporting tentacles.

So the match will go kind of like this;

Spot enemy to activate them (after all roaming aliens is not in the budget and too hard for the "modern" gamers), enemies cloak because surprising aliens is also a thing of the past. It's not fair to shoot someone with superior weaponry in the back. Fire fight ensues, suddenly one or more of these things are strangling a squad mate or even several squad mates. Now remember your squad has a max of 6, so that's 1/3 of your squad dead, incapacitated or about to die from friendly fire.

Sounds good on paper, but in execution it will be about as useless as the SHIV, that was a cool idea, but made utterly pointless and redundant by the requirement of it replacing a squadmember. Or the panic some squadmembers could experience early on, which was an amazing idea in the original X-com because you had 15 other guys who could pull the weight, but here it could start of a panic chain reaction incapacitating your squad for no reason.

(If you dare to excuse this by saying "but it's realistic" I will be forced to beat some sense into you. Realism has no fucking place here, do you think the fucking army is going to send out squads of 4-6 to fight overwhelming odds on crucial world wide missions whilst there are literally 40 other dudes jerking off in the baracks? No they are going to pack that chopper with as many personnel and as much equipment to kill them Martians deader than dead.)

 

[Pyramid Head]

I'm looking forward to the expansion, but i have a little concern. Earlier X-Com titles had kind of a problem with overpowered upgrades and exploits, and the gene therapy and new armors may upset the balance a little. We'll have to see. Though one thing i'm hoping for is manual aim so you can get soldiers to destroy pieces of the environment without needing to break out precious explosives.

 

[DeimosMasque]

I absolutely hate how they haven't done anything to let you see your chances of hitting the enemy, or even if you can hit them at all, before you commit your unit to moving to a certain location. I saw in the TotalBiscuit interview about this that the developer said he figured that the players should, and I'm paraphrasing here, "be looking around at the environment and using their judgment". Well, two hours later, playing XCOM, my assault unit with a shotgun is five squares away from a Thin Man, both out in the open. 33% chance to hit. No debuffs in at all, just really crappy chance to hit for no apparent reason at all. Stubborn dicks >.<

Other than that though, I approve of just about all the changes I've seen so far. My only beef as to why that one is so big is because its essentially one of three reasons I refuse to play Ironman mode.

Actually that's one change I would very much dislike. It would make the game entirely too safe. You'd never move up on an enemy unless you saw that when you got to your position you had over 80% chance to hit. Part of the risk in X-Com is moving in and finding out that you are going to get that soldier killed.