XCOM: Enemy Unknown

[Jarmam]

I can only recommend that you play it out a bit. This way you can supply the modders with info on what needs to be fixed, what feels uneven and what might be a good idea to tweak or implement.

I'm writing a longer essay to them atm, and I've just returned from one of my most terrifying XCOM experiences ever to fill in some more details. My current game is going amazingly. I'm fatiguing everyone hard and there are always 10 people in sick bay, but I managed to do a UFO mission, a Council mission (for 160 bucks and 5 engineers - in LW Scientists and Engineers are very valuable) and an Abduction all within 48 hours. I've got a firm plan for my tech paths, my squad officers and everything in general. It feels so right.

Then this happens on my first terror mission:


The random pods idea is excellent. I love it. It makes every map feel fresh, and it has opened up areas of the maps that I never even noticed before. However, atm it feels quite bugged. Sometimes the Outsiders in small UFOs will spawn on top of the power generators. These will then blow up (apparently this happens when the generator is classified as "damaged" in the shoot-down). And this triggers the Outsider, who regenerates the damage and goes on the hunt. Outsiders are terrifying - you are now very afraid.

But at times you also have enemies spawn within vision range of your deployment position. As it: The combat music starts instantly and someone can shoot an enemy as their first move. Im fine with random spawns, but I really dislike that you can potentially aggro enemies before you have a chance to make any moves. And unfortunately the spawns can also stack really heavily on one another, as shown in that picture. It's the Mumbai Train Map remade into a terror map, and as you can see I have moved litterally half a move from the deployment zone - and triggered every single enemy on the map. 4 Chryssalids from the flank, 4 Floaters from the spawn and 4 more who patrolled into me during turn 2. I get that the game is supposed to be really hard on Ironman Impossible, but this just feels silly. I was seriously considering just bolting for it - fulfilling the Beagle prophecy of the nefarious Trainyard. Now the game was going so well that I decided to do something stupid: I took a very randomized fight, double-nading the Chryssalids, taking 3 75% shots at them who all needed to hit (they did), and then taking a straight up shoot-out firefight with the Floaters, utilizing how efficient Infantry, Gunners and Snipers are in a shootout scenario. I used my Assault to cover the squad by hunting down Floaters who would do the airlift thing behind the squad on the lamppost, and my Support and Engineer as support.

The result was very undeserved:


I still call this scenario problematic. If I had missed *any* of the Chryssalid shots, it could have been a teamwipe and the Floaters missed every single one of their 10+ shots at me. Hardcover is good, but it's not that good. I got really lucky. But what else can I do when the spawns are like that?

Stories and experiences like that are lost if the mod isn't being tested. A lot. Plus, if you roll the hard 6 like I did, you might even have a ton of fun ^^

Balancewise I think the mod is at a fairly solid position. I limit myself to 1 of each class to force myself to learn all the classes thoroughly, and I never feel that any of them is a waste to bring. The flow of income is consistent and the missions reflect the stated difficulty well. I still hate the dogfights, but what can you do. My only realexperience of genuine imbalance is that Month 1 Council Mission with 9 enemies, giving me cash and a massive 5 Engineers. But it's imbalance in my favour - so put on the sunglasses!