Game News Firaxis promises XCOM: Enemy Within difficulty changes

[Whisky]

Tags: Firaxis; XCOM: Enemy Unknown; XCOM: Enemy Within

Firaxis has promised that XCOM: Enemy Within will be more difficult than vanilla XCOM: Enemy Unknown on the harder difficulties. Some of the cited methods include slowing down soldier and tech progression on harder difficulty modes.

At the end of the article, it is also suggested that normal mode will be a little easier.

 

[Grunker]

No random maps = no deal.

 

[ColCol]

I'm sure the new super mech and genetic freak soldiers will really be challenged

 

[MicoSelva]

No random maps = no deal.

I would also like to be able to buy more Skyrangers please.

Freely moving aliens would be nice too.

 

[Jaedar]

Freely moving aliens is priority number 1, followed by random maps.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Grunker]

"My movement is augmented"

 

[felipepepe]

I don't like how all we say are new powers and new soldiers & enemies with bricks walls of health... I hope the increased difficulty comes from managing resources and enemies with clever tactics, not from tons of insanely resistant enemies everywhere...

 

[IDtenT]

Wait. She had her limbs cut off?

SMA should hope for an alien invasion.

 

[Disgruntled]

Classic/Ironman was difficult enough. I mean, halfway through the strategic half was easy but arbitrarily increasing costs and grind times does not sound like a good solution to me.

 

[felipepepe]

Classic/Ironman was difficult enough. I mean, halfway through the strategic half was easy but arbitrarily increasing costs and grind times does not sound like a good solution to me.

Yeah, the first levels of classic/iroman were perfect, battles were hard, lots of soldiers got killed and even a lone sectoid could be dangerous... but then you start getting tons of health, powerful sniper rifles and all those perks... and then the difficulty curve goes waaay down... the last mission is definitely easier than the first.

 

[Achilles]

Freely moving aliens is priority number 1, followed by random maps.

Yup. More content is great but it's not enough. The game has serious gameplay problems that need addressing.

 

[Eyeball]

Looks like an absolute Waste of Money and time. No deal, Firaxis.

 

[Zeriel]

Tags: Firaxis; XCOM: Enemy Unknown; XCOM: Enemy Within


At the end of the article, it is also suggested that normal mode will be a little easier.

Oh, boy. Gotta make that mole popping even more trivial. Modern game design will never change.

 

[The Glitterdust Golem]

Freely moving aliens is priority number 1, followed by random maps.

And higher squad-member numbers.
And more inventory slots. (seriously, soldiers with ONE grenade?)

Not to mention attacks that aren't locked onto one individual alien - I'd like misfire, please. Oh, and the ability to transfer / drop / pick up stuff in combat.
Also Time Units.

 

[Space Satan]

Freely moving aliens is priority number 1, followed by random maps.

And higher squad-member numbers.
And more inventory slots. (seriously, soldiers with ONE grenade?)

They already said there will be foundry upgrade that will add one additional inventory slot for every soldier.

 

[Micmu]

How many more shitty console "xcom" games do they intend to defecate now?

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Hurray for making you pay for something that should have been a patch.

This is why the AAA industry is so frustrating, enough with the endless milking.

 

[Space Satan]

X-Com needs only two changes to be great - random maps and normal alien movement, without the "rule of three". And Firaxis fail to deliver it.

 

[sser]

Impossible/Ironman mode pretty soon after the game came out.

The battlefield is woefully easy because the gameplay elements are so simple. Enemies working in "threes" and having zero agency until you discover them leads to very easily exploited AI. Also, you know, the lack of randomized maps with an inkling of discoverability as opposed to the gradually "learned" maps that were in this game. And the lack of vertical elements in general, unless you count rooftops, I guess, which were always ascended the exact same way. Class progression really is not the issue at all.

The above picture demonstrates how the game's allotment of where battles take place was a little out of order. Sometimes it'd stack them in the same regions, leaving you with very "unprotected" areas withdrawing at the end of the month. Like the above example, even after winning every battle, I still lost the game. This would not occur in X-Com because the original designers didn't have a fairly dumbfuck approach to the geopolitical aspect of their game.

XCOM is too designed around boardgame-esque features to really change itself in any extraordinary fashion. I wouldn't expect anything new from expansion packs if you don't really care for the game already.

 

[Space Satan]

That instaloss is mainly due to retarded panic mechanic - one loss=lost entire continent.

 

[cvv]

If you plop a new piece of shit onto a older piece of shit you get two pieces of shit, not a chocolate cake.
They took a golden era PC classic and turned it into a Xbox game. I paid 40 euros for this tumor and I'm gonna regret every last cent of it for the rest of my days.

I hope Sid Meier burns in hell while playing unpatched vanilla XCOM for all eternity.

 

[Galdred]

Impossible/Ironman mode pretty soon after the game came out.

The battlefield is woefully easy because the gameplay elements are so simple. Enemies working in "threes" and having zero agency until you discover them leads to very easily exploited AI. Also, you know, the lack of randomized maps with an inkling of discoverability as opposed to the gradually "learned" maps that were in this game. And the lack of vertical elements in general, unless you count rooftops, I guess, which were always ascended the exact same way. Class progression really is not the issue at all.

The above picture demonstrates how the game's allotment of where battles take place was a little out of order. Sometimes it'd stack them in the same regions, leaving you with very "unprotected" areas withdrawing at the end of the month. Like the above example, even after winning every battle, I still lost the game. This would not occur in X-Com because the original designers didn't have a fairly dumbfuck approach to the geopolitical aspect of their game.

XCOM is too designed around boardgame-esque features to really change itself in any extraordinary fashion. I wouldn't expect anything new from expansion packs if you don't really care for the game already.

I agree about your points, but these defaults would not be that hard to remedy given some will to do this :
The lack of alien agenda would "only" require putting some kind of AI. The lack of randomized map would not be that bad if there were more of them.
The geoscape needs to be tweaked (in order to add some kind of alien agenda there too). That might be a big overhaul, but just tweaking a few things (Aliens targeting specific countries for strategical reasons, reworking the panic mechanisms) could have tremendous effects.

The problem is whether they see the shortcomings of the base game or consider these issues rants from grumpy gamers outside of their market. target.

 

[Space Satan]

New War Machines trailer

and an interview

Quote:
"Sid came to me and said, I think the flanking is too binary"
So they added cover scaling - the cloer you are to full flanking the more alien cover bonus declines

 

[felipepepe]

I can't stand that game journalist, he is the same retard that, face to face with Julian Gollop and Jake Solomon, says that turn-based was just due technology restrains.

These developers don't inspire much trust as well... how the fuck is having localized voices for the characters a improvement on player agency?