Gregness
11-14-2013, 01:39 PM
So, Enemy Within released on Tuesday and I gotta admit, at first I was worried that all the new toys XCOM gets was going to make the game too easy.
Holy shit was I wrong.
Research times were pretty much universally increased for the early game tech paths, and I only barely had lasers up in time for the first terror mission by completely skipping alien containment. You probably could still cash in on early interrogations if you started in South America, but weapon fragments took ~ 10 days or so and beam weapons needed a full month. In addition, it seems like Sectoid damage tables got adjusted 'cause it felt like my rookies were getting 1-shotted more than I'm used to (that could just be me though).
Anyway, skipping past a whole bunch of stuff in the midgame (some really kickass council missions are in here too, I'm not skipping it 'cause it's not good), I got a rude fucking awakening the first time I saw a sectopod.
Now, sectopods were ALWAYS terrifying incarnations of death itself, but with only 25 HP they'd actually go down fairly easily to focused fire, especially from soldiers with tier 3 equipment. Well, they now have 30HP and a perk that reduces all incoming damage by 50%.
Oh, and HEAT ammo for heavies got nerfed to a 50% bonus rather than 100%.
I've yet to see one this play through where I lose fewer that 2 soldiers. In fact, I just did the overseer mission and despite going in with basically every tech save for blaster launchers, with four hardcore colonels and only two people came back from that one.
Gotta get ready for class now but I'll add to this later.
Holy shit was I wrong.
Research times were pretty much universally increased for the early game tech paths, and I only barely had lasers up in time for the first terror mission by completely skipping alien containment. You probably could still cash in on early interrogations if you started in South America, but weapon fragments took ~ 10 days or so and beam weapons needed a full month. In addition, it seems like Sectoid damage tables got adjusted 'cause it felt like my rookies were getting 1-shotted more than I'm used to (that could just be me though).
Anyway, skipping past a whole bunch of stuff in the midgame (some really kickass council missions are in here too, I'm not skipping it 'cause it's not good), I got a rude fucking awakening the first time I saw a sectopod.
Now, sectopods were ALWAYS terrifying incarnations of death itself, but with only 25 HP they'd actually go down fairly easily to focused fire, especially from soldiers with tier 3 equipment. Well, they now have 30HP and a perk that reduces all incoming damage by 50%.
Oh, and HEAT ammo for heavies got nerfed to a 50% bonus rather than 100%.
I've yet to see one this play through where I lose fewer that 2 soldiers. In fact, I just did the overseer mission and despite going in with basically every tech save for blaster launchers, with four hardcore colonels and only two people came back from that one.
Gotta get ready for class now but I'll add to this later.