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Rob Zacny

Episode 240: Enemy Within

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The XCOM expansion turned out really interesting. I think a lot of people maybe expected Firaxis to go back and "fix the game" (whatever that might mean to someone). Instead, they just enhanced what was interesting about the original game. It's not the sort of expansion that will win over people that were disappointed by the original game, but for the rest of us it makes a game we enjoyed exciting again.

 

I keep going back to David's opening comment about how the game doesn't push him to switch up his tactical style once he settles into something, and that is an interesting open question about game design. As the episode progressed it became clear that the three of you were playing very different tactical games, and it is a remarkable thing that the game can support all of that and more. There is an argument to be made that a game that supports lots of different play styles is preferable to one that forces your hand. This will inevitably come as a disappointment to people that felt that playing the game successfully meant keeping everyone on overwatch all the time. No question, this expansion isn't going to push you to try anything else if you keep doing that. On the other hand, people that like playing the game a different way aren't punished for it either, that more highly kinetic play style totally works provide you do some reasonable risk mitigation. I've also seen people play the game on impossible ironman and barely ever use overwatch to great success, so anyone that seems to believe there is a single optimal way to play the game is probably not considering all the other options available.

 

The 2nd wave options really bring this all together. That came out before the expansion, but the expansion really enhances their capacity to produce more varied games that are much less predictable. It used to be there was a common consensus that playing classic ironman was the "correct" game play experience. That's a much more strained argument at this point, and the game is better for it. The game design at this point is really about letting a player play the game in whatever way she sees fit, and while that isn't the only model for good game design, I have a hard time finding any fault with that approach.

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The late game strategic problem in XCOM is simply that panic, the primary strategic mechanic, is irrelevant once you have satellites everywhere and there's no other source of urgency in the strategy layer.  The beginning of XCOM is a tense race between global panic and alien power escalation, and your ability to split resources to deal with both. Every battle, every decision, has huge consequences.  Early game XCOM feels like a climax of a campaign!  When you fall behind you have to press your luck and hope you can pull off next mission with a weak squad.  But once you get over the hump it's just a grind to the end. In fact you will likely never have a panic raise in the last third of the game since the only way for panic to rise is if you fail a terror mission -- every other mission can be skipped or failed without consequence.  You can stare at the alien temple ship as long as you want and take your time powering up.

 

I find myself not playing XCOM games to the conclusion and stopping after I know the game is won.  I hope a modder can make it so that alien base attacks occur on periodic but unpredictable intervals with increasing difficulty to the point of being completely impossible if you wait too long.  So you have a press-your-luck thing going on -- can you really wait until you have all your mec suits upgraded to level 3 before the overseer UFO?  Ultimately it would be better if the panic mechanic scaled all the way through the game that requires deeper changes.

 

I too found the meld made me play risky in the beginning but I soon adapted and only got it when it was perfectly safe, so the gameplay ultimately didn't change much.  I would LOVE a second-wave option, "Every time a meld canister expires a random soldier is killed."  Now THAT would be tense.  What I would give for actual mod support in this game!

 

The second wave option that gives you random skills, Talent Roulette, nice tweak to the game.  I think it probably makes it a bit easier overall but it's really fun and each soldier is actually unique and irreplaceable.  Recommended for anyone who has already done a complete play-through of the original.

 

David is right about the stealth gene mod (memetic cover) in fact I'd go farther and so it's outright broken.  I would almost recommend avoid it as the AI just can't handle it. I won't spoil the details it seems like a squad of mimetic cover soldiers can win any map.  It needs either a flat chance of failing, or it should only work if the cover actually benefits you so can't walk into flanked positions like you you can now.

 

I play super safe and rarely lose a single soldier on C/I like David but I do often use shotguns.  100% shots are gold on ironman since they leave nothing to chance so running up next to enemies to guarantee a hit is something you want to do somewhat often anyway -- you may as well do it with a shotgun and get even better damage.  With the crit perks the damage with a shotgun really gets up there and it's possible to get three attacks if you forgo lightening reflexes.

 

Seekers seem like the obvious anti-sniper enemy but they aren't a threat by themselves and in all cases but one that's how they spawned for me.  They need to only spawn in conjunction with other enemies.  During the base attack this actually happened and it was amazingly frightening to know they could latch onto any soldier at any time.  And I'm not sure if they can see stealthed squaddies but they should have that ability. 

 

Comletely agree about the tedium of the giant UFOs.  Give me a small intense map any day.  Nothing worse than lining up your whole squad to open a door over and over and over again.

 

Couple of errata 

  • they did nerf squad sight, crit is always 0% on squad sight shots except with headshot skill.  So it's a bit less clear now... but only a bit.
  • the alternative to lightning reflexes in EW is actually a shot that uses no action if you are within 4 tiles of an enemy.  Rob looked up the old talent from EW.  This is a pretty tough choice.

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Well this expansion is causing me more than a few problems, and I cannot, for the life of me work out why. 

 

All in all I really like it - it adds to the parts of the game that (for me at least) make it so addictive, and yet I also think it completely fails to solve the most basic problem with the game - that of the optimal path. I'll admit I appear not to figured that out yet, but underneath it all there it is - that path is clearly there, I just need to work out how to get it.   I had one game where I got to the late mid game, but the new DLC missions and the Exalt missions  (which are fantastic but cripplingly hard later on - are you just supposed to take the loss of cash and occasionally critical research time?) just wore me down and the subsequent lack of UFO missions left me horribly short on resources to sell and a massive cash flow problem. In the end, without access to a steam square in the base that was easily accessible it too me so long to get an elerium generator up and running I was being over run by Mectoids before I could respond, and that was that. It feels like the amount of Councul missions just gets in the way of the base game now, you need a fairly steady stream of UFO missions to get you through on the grey market and I had a month and a half spell with no UFOs at all.    

 

Since that playthrough, which didn't feel particularly hard in comparison to the base game, the problem I am now having is that of mission death. Because my god, my squaddies are dropping like flies! Someone has clearly taken all the thin men to shooting school (do they ever miss?!?), while the proportion of 90%+ shots (usually extremely critical ones that I factored into working out how to get to 90%+ in the first place) my soldiers are taking are missing is just gob-smacking. One miss at that 90%+ in a mission is one thing, but 3 or 4 is really, something else. I'm losing my entire squad 2 or 3 missions in, on classic, and in the base game that's just something that does not happen - my tactics aren't that bad and I've not changed them to go MELD hunting particularly. Coupled to the truly ridiculous amount of kills (10+ for some of them) now needed to get them levelling up and  I've had to turn off ironman mode just so I can get somewhere with the game, next step, to my shame, is probably going to have to be normal level.

 

I can only assume that for reasons I don't quite understand, they have made classic mode harder. Whether it obvious seeming things like increasing the aim value for the aliens, or little things like not having a steam generation level above tier 4 or having to excavate every sodding square before you build on it for the base infrastructure (I aborted one game immediately because it had 1 steam on level 5 in the far corner and no free squares)  It just suddenly seems a lot harder. Frustratingly harder. And that's not fun. I just feel the balance is now all over the place, and in making the strategic side of the game more challenging it's really upset the flow of the missions on the tactical side.

 

It also fails to do the little things like tell you you can repair MEC suits if their original owner gets kills, rather than just build a new one at great expense. Or have the flamethrower panic effect work properly where the aliens can move and shoot afterwards rather then spend the next turn cowering. I'm not sure I really want t play it on normal but at the moment classic feels more like Impossible on the base game rather than the excellent balance it was in the original. Punish my mistakes please, but don't have me repeatedly missing 90%+ shots, and have the aliens miss none of theirs mission after mission. 

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 Someone has clearly taken all the thin men to shooting school (do they ever miss?!?), while the proportion of 90%+ shots (usually extremely critical ones that I factored into working out how to get to 90%+ in the first place) my soldiers are taking are missing is just gob-smacking. 

 

I finished my first attempt of C/I though I was pretty experienced from the original.  A few things that may help: You can skip council missions with no penalty.  If you have too many wounded or just aren't ready for bomb disposal just skip them.  Early game heavies are a massive equalizer against thin men, able to take out groups in one rocket or just clean up that 90% shot you missed.  You probably want to rush either laser OR mecs even if it means losing countries due to not having satellites, or else you just fall too far behind in firepower.  

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The late game strategic problem in XCOM is simply that panic, the primary strategic mechanic, is irrelevant once you have satellites everywhere and there's no other source of urgency in the strategy layer.  The beginning of XCOM is a tense race between global panic and alien power escalation, and your ability to split resources to deal with both. Every battle, every decision, has huge consequences.  Early game XCOM feels like a climax of a campaign!  When you fall behind you have to press your luck and hope you can pull off next mission with a weak squad.  But once you get over the hump it's just a grind to the end. In fact you will likely never have a panic raise in the last third of the game since the only way for panic to rise is if you fail a terror mission -- every other mission can be skipped or failed without consequence.  You can stare at the alien temple ship as long as you want and take your time powering up.

 

I think the fix for this is to change the scope of the game as it progresses:

 

- in the beginning you're small and weak, but the aliens don't know you're there; your job is to build up an organization with some expertise and people, without tipping your hand and getting stomped -- you have to pick your intercepts and interventions carefully so as not to expose yourself, maybe by turning the tables on terror missions and abducting aliens -- your funding is secure; only a few people in the world know you're operating, so you're getting "black" funding through back channels

 

- gradually work up to the point where you can do interceptions, but you need to do so without revealing the location of your base; maybe you have a mobile interceptor launch site you can reposition, and if you intercept from the same position enough for the aliens to triangulate its location you're going to be defending it against repeated assaults until you manage to hide it from them again somehow

 

- at this point, the aliens know they're facing someone, but they don't know much about you yet, and the governments of the world are starting to be aware of your existence -- the aliens start probing and trap attacks to try to gain information about you, and your funding gradually goes from secure to political football as word of your organization's existence (and funding!) begins to leak out of the top secret briefings and into the wider halls of governments, and as your financial needs increase

 

- you stabilize the political situation, research advances, and you start to be able to actually lock down territories so the aliens can't do as they please, but the aliens now know they're up against a serious foe and start going directly for you -- expect your satellites to need regular replacing, and you're going to have to disperse forces to defend satellite base stations, interceptor bases, and so forth -- whenever they can crack a path through to your base (say, by exhausting your interceptor coverage and then sending in a couple of dropships) expect an invasion

 

- if they can't get you, they can get the people funding you, and the countdown begins -- you've got to find their command base and wipe them out before they can cut your financial legs out from under you

 

Of course, anywhere along the above path the aliens could get a step ahead; if they figure out where your base is when you're still starting out, for example, well.... boom.

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You can skip council missions with no penalty.

I think that depends on what you mean by no penalty. If you skip a DLC mission - slingshot or progeny - then that's it. Those missions don't reoccur. Their occurrence also seems to be randomised. Sometimes the Slingshot "friends in low places" is the first council mission I get, other times I have to wait until 3 or four have gone past before it comes up.

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With what Mr Heron says about his style I can understand why shotguns might not seem like his thing, but I love them to pieces. Huge to-hit bonuses at close range largely negating cover. The ease with which Assaults can achieve flanks. Big damage output from multiple shots at high-crit chance. Of course, if you run into a crowd of aliens and kill one you're going to lose your Assault to the others. But think of it this way- shottie Assaults don't start fights, they end them. 

 

It helps that they come with some nice insurance policies. Lightning Reflexes is amazing, obviously, but Tactical Sense (extra defense for every alien you can see) had an unexpected benefit, at least in the pre-expansion version. Aliens would always shoot at the target they were most likely to hit, which, cover being equal, was almost never your Assault. You can't get hit if you never get shot at. I was always pleasantly surprised by how readily my Assaults would survive. Not like my poor Supports. 

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I think that depends on what you mean by no penalty. If you skip a DLC mission - slingshot or progeny - then that's it. Those missions don't reoccur. Their occurrence also seems to be randomised. Sometimes the Slingshot "friends in low places" is the first council mission I get, other times I have to wait until 3 or four have gone past before it comes up.

 

I only enjoy the heavily scripted encounters the first time I play them anyway. The fact that they don't randomize spawns means they are exactly the same the second time.

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I think the panel are a bit too cautious in terms of trying out items/abilities/tactics. A lot of the items are a *ton* more useful than they describe. It's maybe a fault of the game that it doesn't force you to change things up, but if you do, it's very rewarding. For example, ghost grenades are fantastic - they give you a 'way out' button in any circumstance, protecting you from the enemy for one turn. This can and will save soldier's lives.

 

I suggest the following cure to XCOM strategy rut - instead of picking the skills you are comfortable with, flip a coin. Heads, pick the ability on the left, tails pick the ability on the right. That will teach you the value of the less-used skills in no time. Also, snapshot is really good now. I'm running dual snapshot-sniper squads and kicking ass. The reduction to the snapshot penalty, the meld mechanic, the prevalence of high HP enemies that you need critical hits to kill... all of that has buffed that ability a lot.

 

It's understandable that talent roulette lends itself to no-brainer decisions, though. Pairs of skill options are balanced against each other, but the skills in general are not. Hence it's less likely you will end up with a difficult choice in that set-up.

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Heads, pick the ability on the left, tails pick the ability on the right. That will teach you the value of the less-used skills in no time.

 

This would make a fun second-wave option as well!

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The new maps have renewed my appreciation for the map design in this game. I recall that it was very important to the developers that they create environments that looked believable, because it's so much more atmospheric and eerie to fight aliens in familiar environments. Within the constraints the tactical game (and the engine provide) I think they've done a fantastic job all round. 

 

There's just something about tossing a grenade in a convenience store or seeing Chrysalids tear about a museum, you know?

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The new maps have renewed my appreciation for the map design in this game. I recall that it was very important to the developers that they create environments that looked believable, because it's so much more atmospheric and eerie to fight aliens in familiar environments. Within the constraints the tactical game (and the engine provide) I think they've done a fantastic job all round. 

 

They did strike a pretty good balance between "gamey" and "realistic".  Nobody would mistake the maps for real places; the world isn't that full of half-height cover.  They're close enough for suspension of belief, and they're also close enough that there aren't many "uh... what's this place supposed to be?" moments.  At the same time, they're tactically interesting; far more so than they would have been if they were set in "realistic" locations.

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