5024

Are you guys telling these tales of woe playing on normal or classic?

5025

Normal for me, Classic for Gus. Yes, I’m a wuss.

5026

Yeah, Classic. While I could revert to Normal, I have the nagging feeling that I’m just not adapting to the new rules / new maps as well as I should. It’s clear that I should be getting a big power boost from that early MEC trooper - +8 HP, immunity to Thin Men poison, and the extra firepower of the MEC weapons ought to give me the edge I need, but I’m still losing.

5027

The early game is harder than it used to be. It took me a lot of tries to adapt as well. It helps to be very deliberate in your research-- research Meld (for an MEC), then Weapon Fragments, then Beam Weapons. You need laser rifles as early in the second month as possible.

5028

The outsiders are always in the same spot so getting caught by one is almost always avoidable. Though I too might have risked it for that delicious meld.

“thin men” “basic equipmennt + 4 men”

Note that you can skip any council missions without penalty. I’m pretty sure I skipped (or at least retreated from) my first council mission on my C/I run. It’s probably the biggest jump in difficulty in the whole game.

5029

I’m going to try and play this on Classic. I played EU on normal a couple of times through but was always afraid to play it on Classic. Going to add in some of the Second Wave options too. Which do people use? I tried Damage Roulette but I seem to hit for 1 damage way too much especially when I flanked the enemy and am at point blank range. So I probably won’t use that. But the other options seem to add to the gameplay a bit with random stats on new recruits and promotions. Changing the seed number on reloads, variable economic aid, etc.

5030

If you’ve already played through the game once, definitely go with Training Roulette to randomize skill picks.

I like diminishing returns because it extends the time when you don’t have full satellite coverage and makes not building satellite more viable, but it makes the game a lot harder so I wouldn’t try it if you are just jumping to classic.

5031

I like Training Roulette a lot, but I’m not sure I’d recommend that one either if you’re moving up in difficulty. Having reliable, replaceable soldiers has a lot of value.

(It’s a much less important consideration if you aren’t playing ironman, but what isn’t?)

5032

This was an abduction mission, not a council mission. I don’t think you ever get floaters on Council missions. It was early in month 2, and I still didn’t have lasers. My sole advantage was a solitary MEC, who lived longer than the rest of the squad but still died.

5033

Another stupid XCom moment: I had just unlocked laser rifles, my initial moments of an abduction mission were going easily, though I did destroy a Meld container with overwatch fire. Then I had to get up to go to the bathroom, and by the time I came back, I forgot that the car in front of two of my guys was on fire. So end turn, and BLAM, half the squad is gone. I moved forward with my MEC and sniper, and my sniper managed to trigger a Floater group while running forward through an area I swear I’d cleared. Zap, no more sniper, and one turn later, no more MEC either.

One issue with Classic is that it’s not at all forgiving of early wipes. You need all the panic control you can get, and taking an extra +6 or so Panic is enough for me to decide it’s time to start over. Again.

5034

Normal is still… fairly mellow with the expansion.

I ground partway through a new classic expansion campaign, but gave it up as a bad job when I kept seeing misses on sequences of hit percentages of 66%+. “Oh look, I just missed on a 66, a 75, a 64, and an 89. Then that thin man railed my best guy, in full cover, from across the map. OK…” Classic didn’t feel fair to me. It’s an old complaint, I think – that there’s no middle ground between normal and classic.

And boy does the St. Johns expansion mission suck. For a gimmick mission, it’s way, way too long.

5035

I’ve never really felt the dice rolls were unfair, though I hear that one a lot. Essentially, I never make plans around assuming that any particular shot is going to hit unless it’s a grenade or rocket. Likewise, I expect my best guys to get one-shot killed now and then until I get enough armor to prevent it, so long as I’m exposing them to any enemy fire at all. In the early game I tend to be very aggressive with explosives because I know my best defense is not being fired upon at all. I don’t sweat the lost weapon fragments, and that seems to be OK.

What’s extremely frustrating are times when a few bad rolls will result in a wipe. I’m OK with a few bad rolls killing a guy or two, but I won’t accept a lost mission. Which makes me want to post in this thread again and again to vent. Like just now: 4 floaters wiped my squad, including the MEC. 4 floaters should be easy enough, even with conventional weapons. Instead it was a lucky kill on a rookie, 2 of the remaining guys panic including the MEC, second rookie dies after moving into a flanking position, a few shots takes out the MEC, and then it’s just the sniper left facing overwhelming odds.

5036

So is the Slingshot DLC worth $1.74 (the price on the Steam recap day sale)? I gather it gives you early access to the blaster launcher.

5037

I’m not a big fan of Slingshot, but sure, I suppose it’s pretty cheap. Get it for the armor mods and not so much for the missions. I mean, they’re okay, but on higher difficulty levels they’re going to give you a lot of trouble. I mean the rewards are nice, but yeah, not if you lose half of your squad in the process.

5038

Yeah, I guess it’s worth $1.24, barely, but I wouldn’t pay much more for it personally. You’re basically paying for 3 missions (and some more cosmetic bits, but I never messed with that myself). There are some details about the DLC on the X-Com wiki if that helps you make up your mind (there are some spoilers for the missions if you click through to the actual mission pages). The missions are at least somewhat novel, which helps to break up the sometimes samey core gameplay a bit.

5039

I’ve done the first mission several times now and it hasn’t been so bad, though I keep wiping on regular abductions. I’m guessing you can skip the later missions if they’re too hard - they’re Council missions, right?

5040

Yeah, the first mission isn’t too bad. The second one is timed, which makes it hard to do a standard move-overwatch advance. The third is a straight up combat mission, during which you can expect to encounter Mutons and a Cyberdisc. If you’re doing well in the strategic game (i.e. you have lasers & carapace), this is manageable. If you aren’t, it can be tricky. Keep in mind that wounded soldiers from the second mission probably won’t be recovered in time for the last mission, which follows almost immediately.

Also, the missions are heavily scripted and always the same, which is part of why I found them underwhelming.

5041

That’s what I hate about Council missions in general. They get stale quickly because they’re scripted and they don’t change. The one upside is that you don’t always see any particular mission in a game, whereas the Slingshot and Progeny missions always show up.

5042

Yeah I play them once, then turn them off. They are the least desirable kind of DLC.

5043

Since the base defense is tied into the Progeny story, I’d originally assumed it was part of that package. It isn’t, it still happens regardless. So it’s another static mission that’s required in every playthrough.