Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Krevsin]

How did they nerf squadsight and improve snap shot? Why didn't they just update the actual game with this stuff? >.>

• Assault's Close and Personal is now called Up Close and Personal: gives a free shot when within 4 tiles of an enemy. (used to be when enemy moves within 4 tiles you auto shoot)
• Support's Covering Fire now fires before the enemy uses its weapon. (was pretty shit when used after enemy already fired and thus having a chance to kill support as well before they use it)
• Sniper's Snap Shot aim penalty reduced from -20 to -10. (so scoot and shoot snipers much more viable)
• Sniper's Squad Sight only gives Critical Damage if Headshot is used. (so stationary snipers from otherside of map can't score lots of crits turn after turn)
• Support's Deep Pockets now gives twice as many charges to Grenades, Arc Thrower, Medikits or any other item with limited uses. (can double up same item which makes a lot of sense especially with medkit)
• Foundry upgrade that gives all classes the ability to use equip two items (dunno if this will stack with support's deep pockets for 3 or 4 items, if it does you can have ultimate medic to heal everything!)

If they updated the actual game with this stuff then people might not buy the expansion/dlc hybrid

That's how they did it in the old days before patches via internet were common.

And I think the standalone expansion is justified. Well, I would if I got a confirm on my cultists with plasma rifles and strainers.

[Parsely]

How did they nerf squadsight and improve snap shot? Why didn't they just update the actual game with this stuff? >.>

• Assault's Close and Personal is now called Up Close and Personal: gives a free shot when within 4 tiles of an enemy. (used to be when enemy moves within 4 tiles you auto shoot)
• Support's Covering Fire now fires before the enemy uses its weapon. (was pretty shit when used after enemy already fired and thus having a chance to kill support as well before they use it)
• Sniper's Snap Shot aim penalty reduced from -20 to -10. (so scoot and shoot snipers much more viable)
• Sniper's Squad Sight only gives Critical Damage if Headshot is used. (so stationary snipers from otherside of map can't score lots of crits turn after turn)
• Support's Deep Pockets now gives twice as many charges to Grenades, Arc Thrower, Medikits or any other item with limited uses. (can double up same item which makes a lot of sense especially with medkit)
• Foundry upgrade that gives all classes the ability to use equip two items (dunno if this will stack with support's deep pockets for 3 or 4 items, if it does you can have ultimate medic to heal everything!)

If they updated the actual game with this stuff then people might not buy the expansion/dlc hybrid

I thought it was just the one skill alteration, not all that other stuff too. :P

[Sharp]

That's how they did it in the old days before patches via internet were common.

And I think the standalone expansion is justified. Well, I would if I got a confirm on my cultists with plasma rifles and strainers.

But patches via internet now are rare again...

Actually what I'm annoyed about is

• There's an option to disable Dr. Vahlen's and Dr. Shen's tutorial voice overs.
• There will be a number of bug fixes (including the "teleport bug").

I don't think there has been a patch since January and AFAIK even though they said they fixed teleporting aliens I don't think they actually fixed it completely. If it is fixed completely in Enemy Within then it's sad if it's not patched in the original. Multiplayer was buggy as hell as well, I dunno if they ever fixed that either.

[Parsely]

Only being able to get something that's normally common sense through DLC is kind of messed up. Pretty irritating.

[Krevsin]

I don't think there has been a patch since January and AFAIK even though they said they fixed teleporting aliens I don't think they actually fixed it completely. If it is fixed completely in Enemy Within then it's sad if it's not patched in the original. Multiplayer was buggy as hell as well, I dunno if they ever fixed that either.

Okay, this is something different. I can understand DLC and Expansions to provide content, but not issuing patches for the original is something different.

Although, it could be that they'll release patches after they're done with EW. But I'm not hopeful. *heats up the torture chair*

[Muz]

Well, it would mess up the current game balance. Idk, games like Fallout would make huge balance fixes in a patch, but most AAA games prefer to be more conservative and save balance changes for an expansion.

• Sniper's Squad Sight only gives Critical Damage if Headshot is used. (so stationary snipers from otherside of map can't score lots of crits turn after turn)

Squad sight snipers were way OPed in the game. The sniper rifle itself offers a huge critical advantage. SCOPE gives critical advantage. Ghost mode gives a whopping +100% critical IIRC. And both colonel perks lets them shoot several times per turn from the other side of the map.

So pretty much most of the kills in a game is by a squad sight super sniper. There's almost no reason to have Snap Shot. Even with -10 penalty, it's not worth it because you can kill an alien from the other side of the map by camping a rooftop or hiding behind a tree. I'd say you'd need to remove the range penalty before the snap shot option is even considerable.

[Myroc]

Only being able to get something that's normally common sense through DLC is kind of messed up. Pretty irritating.

If they're doing this the same way they did expansions for Civ V (which is likely, as Enemy Within as an expansion has been likened to Civ V expansions), they'll release the balance changes for everyone when its released, whether they own the dlc or not, leaving the actual new content to the ones who bought it.

[Sharp]

Squad sight snipers were way OPed in the game. The sniper rifle itself offers a huge critical advantage. SCOPE gives critical advantage. Ghost mode gives a whopping +100% critical IIRC. And both colonel perks lets them shoot several times per turn from the other side of the map.

So pretty much most of the kills in a game is by a squad sight super sniper. There's almost no reason to have Snap Shot. Even with -10 penalty, it's not worth it because you can kill an alien from the other side of the map by camping a rooftop or hiding behind a tree. I'd say you'd need to remove the range penalty before the snap shot option is even considerable.

Yes squadsight was pretty powerful but now with the nerf and the reduced penalty it makes it a much more useful option to have. Your sniper can flank and do lots of damage as well as move to a good position for overwatch rather then hope enemy come into range and clear line for shot. Generally squadsight sniper was really powerful once you have flying suits but before then on many maps you had to hope for enemy to come into view which made it not very effective, especially on time critical maps like bomb disposal or terror mission.

The -20 aim meant you were much better off just getting gunslinger and using pistols but now that its only -10 it allows more syngergy with other later level abilities, you can get your colonel sniper to move to a good flanking area and use In the Zone to clear up.

Still with the gene mods and support perks just having a squad-sight sniper while you try and draw enemies in will still work, although the new strangler enemy is supposed to be a counter to squadsight snipers.

[Leafsnail]

Covering Fire still sounds pretty useless unless it discourages enemies from firing.  You might as well just take the shot and have a higher chance of hitting them.  The only time when it seems useful is a fairly rare edge case (alien moves into your view in such a way that it wouldn't trigger a normal overwatch shot then tries to fire).

[MorleyDev]

Yeah, Squad Sight was basically for overwatching every turn and covering your guys when they trigger alien movement. Worked pretty well, and was waaay OP with flight (really the fix to that would be just to make flight use fuel every turn, movement or no movement). I found it so even on bomb disposal, since it meant every alien that tried to drop down from the sky on your guys got their brains blown out. Grappling made it very useful on urban missions.

In terms of balance I personally found Ghost Armour pretty useless, but then again it seemed to be mostly about getting shotgun wielding assaults into position, and I just never used shotgun. I always found the point blank assault rifle would do about the same when needed, but had better range.

[Sharp]

In terms of balance I personally found Ghost Armour pretty useless, but then again it seemed to be mostly about getting shotgun wielding assaults into position, and I just never used shotgun. I always found the point blank assault rifle would do about the same when needed, but had better range.

Point blank shotgun does way more damage, I just liked using assault rifles on my assaults so they can get in a good flanking position and still do lots of damage while remaining relatively safe from being insta-killed on alien turn.

Covering Fire still sounds pretty useless unless it discourages enemies from firing.  You might as well just take the shot and have a higher chance of hitting them.  The only time when it seems useful is a fairly rare edge case (alien moves into your view in such a way that it wouldn't trigger a normal overwatch shot then tries to fire).

With the rework it won't be so bad, yeah before it was pretty shitty by only activating once enemy fires but if it does it before it does discourage aliens from firing and gives a chance of killing the alien if it does try and fire. Overwatch pins aliens in place, now covering fire might stop them from doing anything. Also those edge cases happen a lot, not that rare, even more frequent vs human opponents I would guess.

So it's nice, it's like suppression but without wasting any ammo.

[umiman]

Shotguns on impossible was essentially gambling that there wasn't anything else that was going to spawn that turn.

However, it (and sniper rifles) was also the only thing that could reliably kill floaters, snakemen, and the energy guys early on.

Was an interesting tradeoff.

[EnigmaticHat]

Yeah, Squad Sight was basically for overwatching every turn and covering your guys when they trigger alien movement. Worked pretty well, and was waaay OP with flight (really the fix to that would be just to make flight use fuel every turn, movement or no movement). I found it so even on bomb disposal, since it meant every alien that tried to drop down from the sky on your guys got their brains blown out. Grappling made it very useful on urban missions.

In terms of balance I personally found Ghost Armour pretty useless, but then again it seemed to be mostly about getting shotgun wielding assaults into position, and I just never used shotgun. I always found the point blank assault rifle would do about the same when needed, but had better range.

Flying armor seems too lategame to matter from a balance perspective.  Its harder to research than the psy armor you need to beat the game.

Ghost armor, imo, is the best thing since dead aliens.  Its grapple and increased health give it most of the utility of flying armor (you can't go upwards anywhere, but when you can go up its faster).  It can make you invincible any turn you don't attack and makes alien overwatch/suppression totally useless.  It let's you scout areas while giving yourself the option not to trigger aliens.  And when you finally do decide to attack, you can run any class right up to the enemy for 100 hit/100 crit.

[WillowLuman]

Ghost armored assaults and flying snipers make any mission a cinch. Well, except the last one, but they're still great.

Now that I've seen that full teams of maxed-out shivs can take on most missions, I want to try out full mech teams, just cuz.

[Leafsnail]

Archangel armour is kindof useful, but ghost armour breaks the game wide open by allowing you to flankmurder every enemy.  It's the best armour for every unit that isn't a squadsight sniper by far.

With the rework it won't be so bad, yeah before it was pretty shitty by only activating once enemy fires but if it does it before it does discourage aliens from firing and gives a chance of killing the alien if it does try and fire. Overwatch pins aliens in place, now covering fire might stop them from doing anything. Also those edge cases happen a lot, not that rare, even more frequent vs human opponents I would guess.

So it's nice, it's like suppression but without wasting any ammo.

It would be like suppression assuming it discourages the alien from firing.  If it doesn't discourage the alien from firing then it's worse than just taking the shot in every case except that edge one.  And I'm not convinced it would be overly useful in that rare edge case either (90% of the time you'd be taking an overwatch shot at an enemy in heavy cover - that would have a very low chance of connecting).  So it's an ability that's mildly useful in a rare case going up against a general ability that's highly useful in a lot of cases.

That said, it would be kindof good combined with Sentinel and really high aim, but at the cost of both Sprinter and Savior.  Maybe it could be buffed by making Sentinel a bit better, and thus allowing a unit with both Covering Fire and Sentinel to shut down several aliens at once.