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[Malikial]

The aliens will actually converge on you if they hear noise but it's kind of not very well implemented. It HAS to be explosions, either from missing and hitting something that goes boom, cars, grenades or rockets. They hear it from a set distance from the edge of the blast so if you use the huge explosion radius heavy rockets you can get swarmed pretty well... But even then it's like they take turns coming at you. I just fired one rocket to kill three guys then next turn a whole bunch of elite mutons came out, then next turn a bunch of chysalids, then more mutons, and so on. They came at me in such considerately sized and spaced groups that the only time it got dicey was when everyone in my squad had to reload on the same turn.

[Smiler]

The trick is that there are a few alien groups per mission that patrol. Once again, it is very hard to tell what the fuck is going on with the aliens. In one UFO landing I had a cyberdisk group and a floater group moving around, and then a stationary thin man and sectoid commander group. Grenades and rockets flying all over the place.

[Mongrel]

Are any of you playing the PSN version of this? My brother is wondering if it's worth picking up or not.

[Defenestration]

There's a demo on Steam, I can't imagine why there wouldn't be a demo there.

At the same time, I can't imagine how this game would work without a mouse

[Mongrel]

Sorry, it's the PS3 version, not the PSN. But still, no mouse either way.

I think most of you guys have the Steam or PC version? No idea if there are any significant differences between the two versions.

[Smiler]

The only difference is that the UI is slightly different for consoles, and you won't be able to tweak the difficulty settings.

Speaking of which, people are starting to do that. Somewhere down the line we might get some interesting things out of that.

[Smiler]

I was okay with the sectoid mind controlling my soldier without triggering any reaction fire at all. I was okay with the cyberdisk that patrolled right into all of my guys. But the group of heavy floaters that just happened to appear out of nowhere right next to my squad? No, fuck you XCom, I am done.

The end game is getting tedious since i need shittons of weapon fragments to unlock a ship capable of continuing, and the ground missions have become a slog. I am turning the difficulty down to normal to see if I can keep going.

[Mongrel]

I am hearing that "The game becomes a grind once you're established" from a lot of people on this one. :/

[Smiler]

It's even worse because due to the max 6 people you can take on missions and the fact that you can never really improve your soldier's survivability, you are losing veterans every mission. I am playing on a higher difficulty, which means this is going to happen, but I wish I didn't have to wade through another 6 missions before I can actually start to make progress again.

The panic system is also getting annoying, because on the higher difficulty levels the panic goes up even faster, and a lot of the missions are Sophie's Choice style "pick one of three places to go to and the ones you don't go to freak out an entire continent."

[Beat Bandit]

Can't tell if Classic mode requires insane micro or I'm just getting fucked by RNG.

So far the furthest I've made it is [spoiler]the underground base (after which apparently abductions stop?)[/spoiler]. I have never gotten to that point without losing at least one country. My next strategy is to just power through the plot until after that so panic doesn't rise as fast while I actually get my squad geared, but I'm getting tired of rerolling and playing ten hours just to reset again.

Really the only difficulty I care about is actually in the field, but I've heard normal becomes a joke once you've got a good squad of vets on your hands.

[TA]

Classic raises the difficulty relative to Normal in three ways.  One is stat manipulation of things - you have less HP, aliens have more HP.  The second is AI - Classic and higher use better enemy AI than Normal or Easy.  The third is a shittier kind of stat manipulation, where all aliens have +20% Hit and +20% Crit.  So it's not really insane micro as that you have to play bonkers conservative, because things never really miss you.  There are a lot of mods that get rid of the stat manipulation and just keep the heightened AI.

[Smiler]

You forgot the shittiest part of the difficulty differences: the panic rises much faster between normal and classic. By the third month you are almost guaranteed one terror mission per abduction unless you are pumping out satellites.

Edit: The stat increases were always in X-Com. It was just that armor in the original at least could protect you from the aliens 190% hit rate at times.

[Beat Bandit]

I guess I phrased that stupid. The only thing I consider bullshit about combat is until the shot is fired you have no way of knowing if the wall in front of you plans on acting like a wall today. Staying in constant overwatch and learning how to pull enemies is what I like.

My issue is 100% panic related. My last play I lost all of Europe seemingly just because the game decided to start with high panic there and never give me a chance to defend it. Current play through I'm starting my third mission with two satellites up and a workshop already and hoping it's enough that I'm not restarting yet again.

[Tefari]

The cover shields will be red if they're not gonna work for protecting you from whatever can hit you at the angles the cover provides. Aside from that walls only add to your dodge percent, when shots go directly through the walls its just a visual issue, its not like UFO Defense where bullets were objects in the world that could be stopped.

I really think the worst part of Classic is the jacked up alien crit rate. I mean seriously, it feels like they crit >50% of the time and its garbage. Can someone link a good mod that cuts off that bullshit while keeping the heightened AI? Nevermind I'm doing my own research on the XCOM Nexus...there's some good stuff in here. I might have to start this fucking game over again on Classic Ironman just to feel like I got the right experience. Someone linked the Warspace mod in IRC earlier and that looks awesome, I wonder if you can combine a stat fixer with that and have it work right.

[Beat Bandit]

Warspace is definitely a major recommendation on my part. It makes panic a lot more manageable (arguably objectively easier), and combat is just wild. Enemies can spot you and plan ahead (not just patrol) before you ever detect them, and I have yet to see a single case of a Thin Man getting spotted, jumping over a bunch of walls / trucks to a horrible position that lets him take out the guy you've had near the evac behind cover the entire mission.

The only thing I'm not crazy about is unit recovery time. Guys are much less likely to die (a problem I never really had) but any damage puts them under for a while. My assault got taken down to one tick (not a critical wound) and is out of the game for three months.

[Tefari]

Holy shit three months? That's crazy! :D The panic management aspect is fine for me but I'm fine with it being made slightly easier in exchange for more interesting combat scenarios that don't just feel like the deck is stacked against you in such a way that its just boring to deal with the repercussions.

[Doom]

I beat the new X-Com game today, don't read this story if you don't want ANY spoilers or the final boss or anything.

Also it's only Normal Difficulty but it just goes to show you how X-Com this X-Com was.

Also Also I keep mentioning the guy's name because I'm telling this story to my best friend that I named the soldier after.

Doomykins: Hoyl shit I just had an X-Com Story
Doomykins: So I go to do the last mission with my absolute best guys, with Col. Zack 'Enigma' Daly as my psi-suit sniper, and things go OK, if a bit harshly. Gun down all the fodder, use 2/3 of my Medkit charges with 1 for emergencies, everybody's in Titan suits and my assaults have Chitin Padding. Maybe 2 guys have like 10 HP missing, not bad considering fodder gonna fodder.
Doomykins: Get to the last doorway, have everybody line up in coverless at the entrance since it doesn't spawn the next set of guys.
Doomykins: One person moves in, spawning the Ethereal Council and their Muton Guards.
Doomykins: So the other 5 guys move in, take pot-shots, do a little damage to the uebr, get sight on the other 2 Ethereals and damage them lightly, Holo-target an Elite, good set-up.
Doomykins: So Zack opens fire and headshots an Elite for the kill, then double-taps to disable weapons on the other guy.
Doomykins: Medic Eanaa guns down the second Muton with a surprise crit. Not so tough now, huh Ethereals?
Doomykins: On their turn they MC 3 people effortlessly :ironicat:
Doomykins: So the Uber Ethereal is missing 7 HP, another Etheral is missing 7 HP, the other is full health. NO SMALL ORDER.
Doomykins: I have 2 guys try to take one down, but they fail: a rapid fire hits once, gets reflected!
Doomykins: Eanaa wasn't MCed so she ran up to try to contribute the winning shot but she missed(AAAAAAAAAAAAA)
Doomykins: It fell to Col. Zack Daly to make the big play...
Doomykins: ... so he shot the Uber Ethereal for 9 damage, leaving it at like 5 HP left.
Doomykins: Alien Turn :STARE:
Doomykins: I watch in horror as Col. Maxmaps Martinez guns down Assault Loco with his heavy plasma after valiantly damaging the uber earlier. The bitterest betrayal!
Doomykins: And then the other 2 turn on Eanaa and murder her! The Medkit charge... unused!
Doomykins: The Ethereals mind-flayed Eanaa and one of the MCed guys shot Zack, dropping him to 4 HP.
Doomykins: The...
Doomykins: The Uber was out of sight, because the spotters were the first MCed
Doomykins: Col. Zack had no cover, and even if he ran to it, Sniper Rifles can't be primed that fast(took Squadsight)... and he's flanked by his former friends!
Doomykins: The Ethereals ponder the frailty of man as most of X-Com is now dead, dying... or enthralled...
Doomykins: So Col. Zack runs forward to the end of his Blue move
Doomykins: And gets sight on the Uber and his 5 stinking xeno HP
Doomykins: and uses Psi Rift to implode him, the first time he'd used the move that mission, yielding simultaneous praise and damnation as the Uber Ethereal died :D
Doomykins: that's x-com baybeeeeeeee
Doomykins: In Memorial - Col. Zack 'Enigma' Daly