The X-COM Topic

tomatobob

2012-10-10 08:00:04 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

First death due to friendly fire: Proper X-COM.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-11 10:49:35 am

2012-10-11 10:48:52 am

Note: Just because a Cyberdisc was a terror unit in UFO Defense doesn't mean that still applies here. Don't be surprised if they decide to show up suddenly for a friendly chat while on non-terror missions. Shocked

I'll just leave that here so you can imagine my reaction when I found that one out.

tomatobob

2012-10-11 06:09:21 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

<--- Your reaction

Prime Hunter

2012-10-11 07:48:17 pm

You know, this game does a good job at making me feel like I never have enough resources. Because of how scarce actual UFOs are this time around Elerium and alien alloys are even more valuable. Seeing as you can't just make alloys anymore, constantly running out of them seems to be my biggest issue right now other than the game stepping up the alien types a little after after I just got enough lasers and carapace (personal) armor to fill out a squad of six. I've got 2 plasma weapons and I'm working on getting my grenades all upgraded to the alien variety. Now that might be because I've only captured 3 total aliens at this point, but taking the Arc Thrower instead of one of the other items is a hard choice to make since there's only that 1 slot for them.

I'm surprised to admit this, but I almost think EU has more depth in its strategic choices than UFO does if you take absolutely everything into account. They weren't kidding with how many choices you have to make along the way; it's sort of like chess where you need to be extremely through and always planning your steps a few moves ahead of the curve.

You know, this game does a good job at making me feel like I never have enough resources. Because of how scarce actual UFOs are this time around Elerium and alien alloys are [i]even more[/i] valuable. Seeing as you can't just make alloys anymore, constantly running out of them seems to be my biggest issue right now other than the game stepping up the alien types a little after after I just got enough lasers and carapace (personal) armor to fill out a squad of six. I've got 2 plasma weapons and I'm working on getting my grenades all upgraded to the alien variety. Now that might be because I've only captured 3 total aliens at this point, but taking the Arc Thrower instead of one of the other items is a hard choice to make since there's only that 1 slot for them.

I'm surprised to admit this, but I almost think EU has more depth in its strategic choices than UFO does if you take absolutely everything into account. They weren't kidding with how many choices you have to make along the way; it's sort of like chess where you need to be extremely through and always planning your steps a few moves ahead of the curve.

tomatobob

2012-10-12 12:23:15 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

So selling corpses can't sustain you early game, then? :v

Prime Hunter

2012-10-12 04:21:43 am

It's actually beneficial to keep some of the corpses around for both research and if a council nation asks for some in exchange for money or scientists/engineers. I've still sold a bunch of them at times but they only give you $5 each and the more vital things can be quite expensive even from the start. (125-150 for Workshops, Laboratories, Satellite Uplinks, etc.) I don't know how the prices might change if you are on Easy or Normal difficulty though, so it's entirely possible the gain from selling corpses and other non-research artifacts could sustain you a bit.

The biggest money maker is getting Satellites up above the council nations. I think they give you anywhere between 60-180 a month just from having a satellite up on Classic. My dad's playing on Easy because he mainly wants to experience the story and not get frustrated with it and I think he's getting 270 from the US where as I only get 180. So I'm guessing Normal would give you around 225 maybe?

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-12 11:48:58 am

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-12 11:48:22 am

2012-10-12 11:48:11 am

Oh yeah... knew I forgot something.

Note 2: That same rule I mentioned about Cyberdiscs? Seems to apply to ANY alien, including Chryssalids! I ran into a few of them while attempting to take down a supply ship. (I've come across two of the larger UFO varieties at this point: Abductors and Supply Ships. Both are equally impressive in terms of scale and design.) However, they weren't as much of a problem for me as something else I found while I was there... a Sectopod. Crying or Very sad

Sectopods seem like they are going to be insanely difficult to take down this time, even more than in the past. Get into their LOS? Boom, dead. And the best part is, after it one shot one guy it immediately set its sights on another one nearby and took him down ON THE SAME TURN!

Also on the subject of Chryssalids is the fact that I have to kick myself for ever doubting their abilities in EU before getting my hands on the game itself. I had a terror mission the other night that happened to have quite a few of them, most of which spawned on the other side of the map where most of the civilians were hiding. I got through that mission, but not before I had to take down 20 aliens to win. One zombified X-COM soldier plus as many civilian zombies as there were Chryssalids. When the corpse count was 5 Floaters and 7 Chryssalids... you do the math on that one.

Oh yeah... knew I forgot something.

Note 2: That same rule I mentioned about Cyberdiscs? Seems to apply to ANY alien, including Chryssalids! I ran into a few of them while attempting to take down a supply ship. (I've come across two of the larger UFO varieties at this point: Abductors and Supply Ships. Both are equally impressive in terms of scale and design.) However, they weren't as much of a problem for me as something else I found while I was there... a Sectopod. :cry:
[hidden]Sectopods seem like they are going to be insanely difficult to take down this time, even more than in the past. Get into their LOS? Boom, dead. And the best part is, after it one shot one guy it immediately set its sights on another one nearby and took him down ON THE SAME TURN! [/hidden]
Also on the subject of Chryssalids is the fact that I have to kick myself for ever doubting their abilities in EU before getting my hands on the game itself. I had a terror mission the other night that happened to have quite a few of them, most of which spawned on the other side of the map where most of the civilians were hiding. I got through that mission, but not before I had to take down 20 aliens to win. One zombified X-COM soldier plus as many civilian zombies as there were Chryssalids. When the corpse count was 5 Floaters and 7 Chryssalids... you do the math on that one.

tomatobob

2012-10-12 05:16:52 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

So Enemy Unknown sounds like pretty much the best game ever confirm/deny?

Oh wait fuck no Blaster Bombs to kill Sectopods from across the map. Neutral

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-12 08:44:19 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-12 08:43:30 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-12 08:43:20 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-12 08:41:45 pm

2012-10-12 08:41:22 pm

Firaxis got a long of things right with Enemy Unknown. It's impossible to replace UFO Defense, obviously, but based on my experiences with EU I'd go as far to say that it can stand tall beside it as a great X-COM experience. From a design standpoint, there's only one element I can think of that I absolutely disagree with: Thin Men like to drop in from the sky on certain missions, and one time on Classic they dropped in 1/2 a dozen of them to completely surround my squad since they automatically go into Overwatch when they land. I had nearly finished the mission before that with 2/3+ of my squad intact, but because of the extra Thin Men they never made it back home.

The thing is, at the moment Classic is too hard for me, but on Normal I'm wiping the floor with the aliens during most encounters. I've only lost 4 guys and 2 SHIVs as well as 2 funding nations at this point, where as on Classic I'd probably have lost 4-6 nations and dozens of soldiers already. Now part of that may be the fact that I didn't have as many higher ranked soldiers when I played Classic since it was hard to keep most of them alive, but it's also a matter of the number of aliens and their AI not being as tough.

Comparatively I'd say the difference for my skill level between Normal and Classic is sort of like the difference between Veteran and Superhuman: I can handle things a lot better on the lower difficulties, but there's still room for me to screw up and get myself into bad situations. Plus, knowing what I do of some of the later aliens I encountered, I think they're going to be tough enough on Normal unless I've got myself outfitted with the higher end Plasma weapons by that point.

And yeah, nothing I've seen so far suggests Blaster Bombs are back, which leaves me both disappointed and relieved. (And wondering how the heck you take down a Sectopod unless you have the entire squad focus fire on it in a single turn and hope the RNG is on your side.) Granted there's still a lot of the later tech I haven't gotten to experience yet so the game could surprise me. Plus I never ran into Ethereals so who knows what else is in store for me once I get back to that stage of the game.

Firaxis got a long of things right with Enemy Unknown. It's impossible to replace UFO Defense, obviously, but based on my experiences with EU I'd go as far to say that it can stand tall beside it as a great X-COM experience. From a design standpoint, there's only one element I can think of that I absolutely disagree with: Thin Men like to drop in from the sky on certain missions, and one time on Classic they dropped in 1/2 a dozen of them to completely surround my squad since they automatically go into Overwatch when they land. I had nearly finished the mission before that with 2/3+ of my squad intact, but because of the extra Thin Men they never made it back home.

The thing is, at the moment Classic is too hard for me, but on Normal I'm wiping the floor with the aliens during most encounters. I've only lost 4 guys and 2 SHIVs as well as 2 funding nations at this point, where as on Classic I'd probably have lost 4-6 nations and dozens of soldiers already. Now part of that may be the fact that I didn't have as many higher ranked soldiers when I played Classic since it was hard to keep most of them alive, but it's also a matter of the number of aliens and their AI not being as tough.

Comparatively I'd say the difference for my skill level between Normal and Classic is sort of like the difference between Veteran and Superhuman: I can handle things a lot better on the lower difficulties, but there's still room for me to screw up and get myself into bad situations. Plus, knowing what I do of some of the later aliens I encountered, I think they're going to be tough enough on Normal unless I've got myself outfitted with the higher end Plasma weapons by that point.

And yeah, nothing I've seen so far suggests Blaster Bombs are back, which leaves me both disappointed and relieved. (And wondering how the heck you take down a Sectopod unless you have the entire squad focus fire on it in a single turn and hope the RNG is on your side.) Granted there's still a lot of the later tech I haven't gotten to experience yet so the game could surprise me. Plus I never ran into Ethereals so who knows what else is in store for me once I get back to that stage of the game.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-13 01:57:01 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-13 01:56:00 pm

2012-10-13 01:55:18 pm

So Sectopods continue to be a pain to deal with, but thankfully I've got enough firepower now to balance things out a little. (Still the single-most difficult enemy I've seen, but I'm pretty sure all that remains are the Ethereals which I still haven't seen yet.) Even on Normal things are starting to heat up quickly in the late game, and I imagine a lot of punishment will be coming my way now that they've started throwing out the big guns on every mission.

Speaking of which, if I wasn't convinced Firaxis had nailed the mood of the original X-COM, attacking the alien base confirmed it for me. A key part of that was taking out the "action" music and leaving a more tense theme throughout the entire mission that heavily reminded me of the original's battlescape music. I really love what they did with that base in terms of design and aesthetics too, so I'm really glad I didn't spoil myself by watching a video of somebody doing that mission before the game came out. It's not the same as in UFO Defense, but it fits beautifully with the direction they've taken everything else.

And stupid me somehow killed the Sectoid Commander as I was attempting to whittle down its HP to try and stun it. Thankfully I didn't need to have a live one to research the Psi-Lab but it would've been a nice prize at the end of that mission. And as it turns out, 2 of the 3 Colonels I sent into Psi Training have Psionics. Hooray for my two best soliders, a Heavy and an Assault! aiwebs_011

So Sectopods continue to be a pain to deal with, but thankfully I've got enough firepower now to balance things out a little. (Still the single-most difficult enemy I've seen, but I'm pretty sure all that remains are the Ethereals which I still haven't seen yet.) Even on Normal things are starting to heat up quickly in the late game, and I imagine a lot of punishment will be coming my way now that they've started throwing out the big guns on every mission.

Speaking of which, if I wasn't convinced Firaxis had nailed the mood of the original X-COM, attacking the alien base confirmed it for me. A key part of that was taking out the "action" music and leaving a more tense theme throughout the entire mission that heavily reminded me of the original's battlescape music. I [i]really[/i] love what they did with that base in terms of design and aesthetics too, so I'm really glad I didn't spoil myself by watching a video of somebody doing that mission before the game came out. It's not the same as in UFO Defense, but it fits beautifully with the direction they've taken everything else.
[hidden]And stupid me somehow killed the Sectoid Commander as I was attempting to whittle down its HP to try and stun it. Thankfully I didn't need to have a live one to research the Psi-Lab but it would've been a nice prize at the end of that mission. And as it turns out, 2 of the 3 Colonels I sent into Psi Training have Psionics. Hooray for my two best soliders, a Heavy and an Assault! [aiwebs_011] [/hidden]

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-10-14 02:07:07 am

2012-10-14 02:05:20 am

So... yeah. The Earth has been saved!

I kind of understand why some reviews were saying the final mission was anti-climatic, because it's pretty much a story mission. While that part of it I enjoyed the battle itself was certainly no Cydonia. That said, the final room of the game nearly took me down so things got extremely tense on those last few turns before the end. Nearly lost everything right then and there until I got a lucky shot off with my best soldier.

That aside, I think it's safe to say that Enemy Unknown can proudly stand beside UFO Defense. Some things might be missing from the experience that are in UFO, such as a few of the classic aliens types, certain weapons and other research items, and the substantial decrease in actual UFO missions. But for everything it doesn't have, the game manages to give you something else to become excited about, especially with the class system and the higher end perks. Now that I've played the game to its end, I feel like the classes and smaller squad size were justified. It really did feel like the squad was a cohesive team rather than a group of mercenaries or faceless grunts, and because of that it really hurt when I either lost troops or they fell into critical condition.

I'll probably write up a more through review of the game for Gamelogs in the next few days, but based on my first impression with the game, Enemy Unknown delivered nearly everything I wanted in a modern day X-COM experience. As long as you aren't expecting the game to be a complete remake of UFO Defense but an entirely new spin on the lore that's heavily inspired by the original, you shouldn't be disappointed.

So... yeah. The Earth has been saved!

I kind of understand why some reviews were saying the final mission was anti-climatic, because it's pretty much a story mission. While that part of it I enjoyed the battle itself was certainly no Cydonia. That said, the final room of the game nearly took me down so things got extremely tense on those last few turns before the end. Nearly lost everything right then and there until I got a lucky shot off with my best soldier.

That aside, I think it's safe to say that Enemy Unknown can proudly stand beside UFO Defense. Some things might be missing from the experience that are in UFO, such as a few of the classic aliens types, certain weapons and other research items, and the substantial decrease in actual UFO missions. But for everything it doesn't have, the game manages to give you something else to become excited about, especially with the class system and the higher end perks. Now that I've played the game to its end, I feel like the classes and smaller squad size were justified. It really did feel like the squad was a cohesive team rather than a group of mercenaries or faceless grunts, and because of that it really hurt when I either lost troops or they fell into critical condition.

I'll probably write up a more through review of the game for Gamelogs in the next few days, but based on my first impression with the game, Enemy Unknown delivered nearly everything I wanted in a modern day X-COM experience. As long as you aren't expecting the game to be a complete remake of UFO Defense but an entirely new spin on the lore that's heavily inspired by the original, you shouldn't be disappointed.

Prime Hunter

2012-10-25 01:12:02 pm

Classic continues to drive me into the ground time and time again. I finally got things under control long enough to make a lot of progress for once only to lose everything by failing one lone terror mission and having South Africa cut ties with the council. (Yeah, nations will automatically leave the council no matter what level their panic is if you fail a terror mission!) All of this because of one stupidly overpowered enemy...

Sectopods suck. Evil or Very Mad

tomatobob

2012-10-25 05:02:54 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

So how common are Terror Missions, then? Classic sounds like it could end very quickly of countries are going to bail that easily. Though I guess curb the classic land and then leave immediately strategy of Terror Mission avoidance. At last it's not Terror from the Deep!

tomatobob

2012-10-25 05:05:22 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Also how have you been dealing with Sectopods? Other than that last one I mean. Sounds like they are juts mean motherfuckers this time around, maybe they always were but I've always Blaster Bombed them so I don't know.

Prime Hunter

2012-10-25 05:42:45 pm

From my experience you can't really afford to skip any mission unless absolutely necessary, at least in the early game when panic levels dictate nearly everything you do. Terror Missions in particular usually happen every month or two it seems, so a little less often than in UFO but still enough where they can mess you up if you aren't prepared. Problem is right from the beginning they have Chryssalids in them and they always seem to be involved no matter what else you might face. Chryssalids combined with late game enemies are a total nightmare when one of those enemies is also a Sectopod.

On that note, there are certainly much better ways to handle Sectopods than I've employed, which is the straightforward "focus fire" technique. The reason they're so nasty is because of how much firepower they unleash alongside how durable they are. They deal a lot of area of effect damage with their main beam which can sometimes fire twice in one turn, although I'm not sure what triggers the 2nd attack but it happens pretty often against me. There's also a 2 turn bombardment attack that is quite devastating and can hit you from across the map, but if you pay attention to alien activity when you know a Sectopod is running around the camera will point to the relative area they're about to blast so you can try and avoid it. Then there's an extra plasma weapon just for Overwatch which seems to always be active (unless they are in the middle of the bombardment attack) ON TOP of those, so good luck trying to move anywhere without getting blasted by it.

The problem is I can't keep my guys alive long enough in the late game on Classic to have the higher rank perks necessary to deal damage quickly enough before things get out of hand. Heavies in particular are supposedly the best option if they have a certain perk that deals double damage to robotic enemies. Plus, they are the only ones that can carry Blaster Launchers which ARE in fact in the game, I've just never seen them because you need to shoot down and successfully invade a Battleship to unlock them. From what I understand they do twice as much damage as a normal rocket and you don't need LOS to fire them so while they aren't nearly as powerful as before they sound incredibly useful because I use rockets all of the time in EU.

Classic difficulty is an entirely different beast than Normal or even UFO was, in my opinion. You have to be two steps ahead of the aliens on the Geoscape/Strategy level if you want to survive at all, and the aliens pull no punches whatsoever in the Tactical level. Mutons in May (2 months after the game starts) is not a happy thing if you can't get lasers or armor up and running by then alongside managing global panic levels and maintaining a strong scientist/engineer pool. Classic is incredibly punishing if you make any sort of mistake in those first few months. And, as mentioned above, even later on one mission's outcome can spell certain doom if things go sour, whether through nations leaving, losing out on the highly coveted UFO materials necessary to build everything, or if a high ranking soldier happens to fall.

I really should get around to that review for Gamelogs I planned on making for this.

From my experience you can't really afford to skip any mission unless absolutely necessary, at least in the early game when panic levels dictate nearly everything you do. Terror Missions in particular usually happen every month or two it seems, so a little less often than in UFO but still enough where they can mess you up if you aren't prepared. Problem is right from the beginning they have Chryssalids in them and they always seem to be involved no matter what else you might face. Chryssalids combined with late game enemies are a total nightmare when one of those enemies is also a Sectopod.

On that note, there are certainly much better ways to handle Sectopods than I've employed, which is the straightforward "focus fire" technique. The reason they're so nasty is because of how much firepower they unleash alongside how durable they are. They deal a lot of area of effect damage with their main beam which can sometimes fire twice in one turn, although I'm not sure what triggers the 2nd attack but it happens pretty often against me.  There's also a 2 turn bombardment attack that is quite devastating and can hit you from across the map, but if you pay attention to alien activity when you know a Sectopod is running around the camera will point to the relative area they're about to blast so you can try and avoid it. Then there's an extra plasma weapon just for Overwatch which seems to always be active (unless they are in the middle of the bombardment attack) ON TOP of those, so good luck trying to move anywhere without getting blasted by it.

The problem is I can't keep my guys alive long enough in the late game on Classic to have the higher rank perks necessary to deal damage quickly enough before things get out of hand. Heavies in particular are supposedly the best option if they have a certain perk that deals double damage to robotic enemies. Plus, they are the only ones that can carry Blaster Launchers which ARE in fact in the game, I've just never seen them because you need to shoot down and successfully invade a Battleship to unlock them. From what I understand they do twice as much damage as a normal rocket and you don't need LOS to fire them so while they aren't nearly as powerful as before they sound incredibly useful because I use rockets all of the time in EU.

Classic difficulty is an entirely different beast than Normal or even UFO was, in my opinion. You have to be two steps ahead of the aliens on the Geoscape/Strategy level if you want to survive at all, and the aliens pull no punches whatsoever in the Tactical level. Mutons in May (2 months after the game starts) is not a happy thing if you can't get lasers or armor up and running by then alongside managing global panic levels and maintaining a strong scientist/engineer pool. Classic is incredibly punishing if you make any sort of mistake in those first few months. And, as mentioned above, even later on one mission's outcome can spell certain doom if things go sour, whether through nations leaving, losing out on the highly coveted UFO materials necessary to build everything, or if a high ranking soldier happens to fall.

I really should get around to that review for Gamelogs I planned on making for this.

Prime Hunter

2012-11-02 03:02:23 am

Finally got through Classic difficulty for the first time. Had to replay the final mission 4 times because of the final room alone, but thankfully even on Ironman difficulty it'll let you restart that mission if you completely wipe. Would've hated to get that far and then lose everything and be forced to start a new game like I was afraid was going to happen.

Blaster Bombs are a lot of fun, by the way. Green plasma balls of death that slowly maneuver around the terrain to hit the designated target area.

tomatobob

2012-11-02 03:20:29 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

So is Classic Ironman the correct way to play or just for people that want to suffer?

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-11-02 03:52:14 am

2012-11-02 03:49:44 am

Normal was really easy for me but Classic constantly kicked my butt until this latest run when I got lucky early on and was able to setup for the long haul and minimize the long term effect that panic had. It eventually ended up with me having satellites over all of the remaining countries and only having to worry about UFOs I couldn't shoot down and the random Terror mission here and there as far as dealing with panic was concerned. The battles were a lot more strategic and tense because the AI is "shackled" as the devs put it on Easy and Normal.

I'd say for someone with previous X-COM experience it would probably be best to play Normal at least once to get the mechanics and story and then move up to Classic once you're comfortable with the way the game works. Classic pulls no punches in the tactical missions and Impossible is supposed to be extremely difficult and tipped in the AI's favor all over the place. (They get something like a 20% bonus to hit and to deal crit damage on Impossible from what I've heard and a 10% increase to both on Classic, so in reality it's not much different from the higher end difficulties of UFO and TFTD.)

In the end though it comes down to what you want out of XCOM. If you just want to play and blast the aliens Normal will give you that, but if you want a challenge reminiscent of what the old games gave you Classic is closer to that experience. I agree with a lot of people though that a difficulty setting between the two would probably be the ideal way to play the game. Classic can be very punishing if you screw up early on or don't keep up with the alien's advancements.

And as far as Ironman goes that's a matter of preference. It's convenient for me to use it since that's how I ended up playing UFO anyway and it auto saves after almost everything you do. You can get boxed into a corner if you run into a bug and you only have that one save file, but otherwise I'd say there's no real difference between using Ironman and not as long as you have enough self control and don't always reload if something doesn't go your way or you lose a high ranking soldier. Although if you want to reload and do that it works too, it's just not how I play XCOM because I feel it minimizes a lot of what makes the game so special.

Normal was really easy for me but Classic constantly kicked my butt until this latest run when I got lucky early on and was able to setup for the long haul and minimize the long term effect that panic had. It eventually ended up with me having satellites over all of the remaining countries and only having to worry about UFOs I couldn't shoot down and the random Terror mission here and there as far as dealing with panic was concerned. The battles were a lot more strategic and tense because the AI is "shackled" as the devs put it on Easy and Normal.

I'd say for someone with previous X-COM experience it would probably be best to play Normal at least once to get the mechanics and story and then move up to Classic once you're comfortable with the way the game works. Classic pulls no punches in the tactical missions and Impossible is supposed to be extremely difficult and tipped in the AI's favor all over the place. (They get something like a 20% bonus to hit and to deal crit damage on Impossible from what I've heard and a 10% increase to both on Classic, so in reality it's not much different from the higher end difficulties of UFO and TFTD.)

In the end though it comes down to what you want out of XCOM. If you just want to play and blast the aliens Normal will give you that, but if you want a challenge reminiscent of what the old games gave you Classic is closer to that experience. I agree with a lot of people though that a difficulty setting between the two would probably be the ideal way to play the game. Classic can be very punishing if you screw up early on or don't keep up with the alien's advancements.

And as far as Ironman goes that's a matter of preference. It's convenient for me to use it since that's how I ended up playing UFO anyway and it auto saves after almost everything you do. You can get boxed into a corner if you run into a bug and you only have that one save file, but otherwise I'd say there's no real difference between using Ironman and not as long as you have enough self control and don't always reload if something doesn't go your way or you lose a high ranking soldier. Although if you want to reload and do that it works too, it's just not how I play XCOM because I feel it minimizes a lot of what makes the game so special.

Prime Hunter

2012-11-03 07:02:08 pm

Ouch: Decided to try starting a game on Impossible just to see how much nastier it is than Classic. I had to redo the first mission a second time, plus at the end of the 1st month I've already lost 4 council members because I couldn't get any additional satellites up and panic skyrockets like crazy no matter which choice you make out of the available abduction missions.

Good news is I had a lot of fun on one mission where I had to outflank a ton of Sectoids and figure out how to get into a good position to take them down. Yes, you heard me correctly. Sectoids are once again tough little critters and out of the little bit of Impossible I've tried so far that's probably my favorite aspect of it. Even Sectoids are extremely dangerous because if there's an even number of them left it's almost guaranteed that 1/2 of them will mind merge with the other half, which can lead to some lucky shots like taking out 4 with a single rocket due to blasting the 2 that had initiated the merging.

tomatobob

2012-11-03 10:49:27 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

What does that mind merge thing do exactly? I saw it once in the demo and never really figured out what it was.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-11-04 01:19:18 am

2012-11-04 01:17:43 am

Adds an extra hitpoint on top of the max HP to any Sectoid (or ally in MP) that's targeted along with 25% added crit chance I think it is, but it also means that if you take out the Sectoid that initiated the mind merge whatever it's merged with also dies. I've heard people say that it can technically heal a point of damage if that enemy has already taken a shot, but since I have enemy health bars turned off I can't confirm that.

tomatobob

2012-11-09 08:00:08 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Got this earlier today and played a little bit (AC3's taking up a lot of my time), just one non scripted casualty so far. The guy that survived the tutorial! Sort of mindlessly moved him out into the open while escorting some scientist back to the Skyranger on my first rescue mission.

But! I do have a sniper up to Sergeant and I am fucking loving the perk that lets him shoot any alien that is in any squadmate's vision radius. Just murdering dudes all over the map from the starting point aww yeah.

Prime Hunter

2012-11-09 11:44:32 am

Squadsight is almost a necessity for my Snipers because of how awesome it is. Get your sniper up on higher ground and in a place that has a good view of the map and things will die. Reminds me of UFO and being able to do that with everybody by having that one scout in the lead.

But your first official death was the tutorial survivor, huh? Remember when I told you about that guy who rocketed himself in my 1st game to become my 1st casualty? The same guy, and it might have even been the same mission if I remember right since you're technically in the tutorial until your 1st UFO mission I think. (The escort mission with the fountain in the center, right?)

What do you think of the game so far though?

tomatobob

2012-11-09 03:15:37 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from Prime Hunter:

(The escort mission with the fountain in the center, right?)

Hahaha yuuuuup. He was standing right a short distance behind the fountain. In the original he might have survived because of plasma bolts hitting the fountain instead of him, but as we all know no amount of cover was actually going to save you in the original lol.

I'm not really making any hard judgments about the game quite yet since I've only done one or two real missions and am still working out the mechanics. It feels like XCOM though, and not just because of the Sectoids, on that fountain mission two of my three remaining dudes panicked like crazy after the one guy got killed. He also panicked the first time he got hit on that mission and nearly got himself killed in the process.

Which brings up maybe the biggest change from the original: Squad size. I wasn't too worried about it going in and I actually kinda like it already, when that heavy died and everybody freaked it was like the mission went from under control to incredibly uncertain in just that one turn. It was just one Thin Man left but it was between us and the evac zone and it had a free turn to take another shot at us because the two guys that could see him were losing their shit over their boss exploding right next to them. Losing a dude feels like a problem now, they're still expendable and I wasn't going to lose sleep over that guy, but it had a direct impact on the mission. No human wave tactics for XCOM this time around, and that's pretty cool.

[quote="Prime Hunter"](The escort mission with the fountain in the center, right?)[/quote]
Hahaha yuuuuup. He was standing right a short distance behind the fountain. In the original he [i]might[/i] have survived because of plasma bolts hitting the fountain instead of him, but as we all know no amount of cover was actually going to save you in the original lol.

I'm not really making any hard judgments about the game quite yet since I've only done one or two real missions and am still working out the mechanics. It [i]feels[/i] like XCOM though, and not just because of the Sectoids, on that fountain mission two of my three remaining dudes panicked like crazy after the one guy got killed. He also panicked the first time he got hit on that mission and nearly got himself killed in the process.

Which brings up maybe the biggest change from the original: Squad size. I wasn't too worried about it going in and I actually kinda like it already, when that heavy died and everybody freaked it was like the mission went from under control to incredibly uncertain in just that one turn. It was just one Thin Man left but it was between us and the evac zone and it had a free turn to take another shot at us because the two guys that could see him were losing their shit over their boss exploding right next to them. Losing a dude feels like a problem now, they're still expendable and I wasn't going to lose sleep over that guy, but it had a direct impact on the mission. No human wave tactics for XCOM this time around, and that's pretty cool.

Prime Hunter

2012-11-09 05:44:47 pm

Yeah I've seen the panic system be praised and shredded in the same discussion before because of things like that. Your guy barely gets scratched by a plasma bolt and takes 1-2 damage? Panic. You MC an alien and get him killed somehow? Panic. (That one ticks off a lot of people, and I kinda agree with them on that example because it doesn't make as much sense.) An alien sneezes half way across the map? The whole team Panics in a chain reaction. Usually though I get lucky and the guy(s) who panic will take a shot at a nearby alien and end up killing them in the process, so it works out nicely sometimes. But you still have to prepare for your panicked soldiers to do incredibly stupid things like run around and plunk themselves down on the wrong side of the cover in a flanked position.

I forgot to ask: What difficulty are you playing on?