4442

Come on…I think Firaxis means crappy expansion in some language maybe even English.

I am having fun with it too, bought during Steam Summer sale.

4443

What? Firaxis makes crappy expansions? Uh… examples?

4444

They certainly make crappy DLC if the past xcom DLC is anything to go by.

I’m not buying any XCOM DLC. I played through the scripted, static campaign once and without major improvements to the geoscape, i’m not giving them more money. This is doubly true if they release another horse armor DLC.

4445

Sure, Slingshot or whatever it was called is indefensible. But Gods and Kings and Brave New World are outstanding expansions. While we can all agree no one wants another shitty little DLC like Slingshot, I don’t think many would agree Firaxis is known for making “crappy expansions”.

4446

I’m not particularly interested unless they rejigger the game to add randomized maps, remove the scripted maps (You can still have council missions, just not the same damn scripted ones with thin men every goddamn time), aaaaaaaaand that’s basically it. I’d be alright with other content but the maps were what really killed the Firaxis remake for me. Can’t really stand replaying it the few times I’ve tried.

4447

The council mission(s) were actually pretty good I thought. I just got tired of doing that one mission OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. So really, the problem with xcom is that there just isn’t enough unique content.

4448

Yeah, I’m not against them as far as alternate mission types (VIP escort, bomb defusal) with extra rewards go, they just need randomized maps and enemy composition so it isn’t nothing but thin men forever and ever. I assume the reasoning behind those missions being all thin men was because they’re “Undercover aliens” and were blending in at the location or some crap in a way the other aliens couldn’t, but reasoning be damned.

4449

Doh, good point. Clearly when it was disbanded all of the technical personnel were shot.

Ahh crap, just playing for the first time and thought I noticed this as well that, while I’ll even accept the maps not being fully randomized, at least the placement of baddies I assumed was randomized. These council missions, however, do appear to be completely scripted which makes replaying them tedious as all Hell. It’s not like you can freely skip them, they’re far too important.

4450

Once you have global satellite coverage, you can absolutely skip council missions all you want with no repercussions.

4451

Oh, so they aren’t important plot points or something?

4452

Nope, not at all. If I’m remembering correctly, Council missions just offer specific rewards if completed, so skipping them just means that you’re foregoing whatever the reward would have been. I don’t think any will increase panic if skipped. And once you have global satellite coverage, you won’t get Abduction missions anymore (they can only spawn in countries without satellites). Abduction missions are the primary way in which panic increases in the game, so you’re pretty much set with controlling panic at that point. And you only have to shoot down UFOs to avoid a panic increase (you don’t have to raid the crash site if you don’t want to). You should still do Terror missions, though.

4453

So are all of the council missions, especially the ones added with Slingshot, really that scripted, even to initial enemy placement?

4454

I have no interest in Slingshot, so I can’t speak to those missions, but yeah, council missions are extremely-though-not-100-percent scripted. I believe that enemies are still randomly spawned when you start the mission, but there are points in each where enemies will always spawn after completing the mission’s goal (like defusing all the bombs). At that point, enemies will spawn in the same locations every time in my experience (and in others’; just look at the strategies of placing soldiers on Overwatch at certain spots to shoot at Thin Men who drop down from the sky – my understanding is that such tactics are critical to Impossible-level play).

The final mission is 100 percent scripted, though. The same exact enemies will spawn in the same exact places at the same exact times every time you play it. I really, really hate the Temple Ship mission. If Enemy Within is any sort of new expansion, I hope it wipes that mission and replaces it with something else.

4455

You know what’s “within” the earth? The Ocean!

Terror From the Deep DLC Confirmed!

4456

No details yet. Just an image from the Gamescom display:

4457

Ocean? Don’t be silly.

In the Enemy Within, minimum wage workers will start organising themselves in these nasty alien entities called “unions”. If not purged by your death squad, these unions will slowly creep across the face of the globe, summoning forth evil xenos in the process.

… Sorry, the title is just a bit too 40k :p

4458

Will this dlc include a working geoscape?

4459

Geoscape, Shmeoscape, just give me more XCOM so I can have an excuse to stream this again.

4460

I’ve put my hours in x-com, guess i should be satisfied but i want:

  • No more scripting! a proper simulation will create replayability which now there is none. Simulate tech tree, enemy movement, enemy strategic planning etc etc.
  • More maps, not necessarily random
  • Proper accents for each country, minor thing
4461

In the same vein as Jeffery’s post, I’d also like to see aliens and tech that just don’t show up in some games, to keep the end game interesting. Maybe mix up the tech tree’s a little, while they’re at it.