XCOM EU De-Nerfing Chryssalids

[fys]

These Chryssalids are only dangerous in the first terror mission with a bunch of rookies in the team and no laser weapons. They especially become harmless if half of the team later runs around in chryssalid plating.

About the terror missions in general with these bugs: whatever Bradfort blahs about civilian safety first, my own team always comes first. What’s the point of saving some hopeless civilians and experienced soldiers dying in the act once if the next dozen alien attacks can’t be stopped by greenhorns?

I’ve once shot with a rocket launcher into a crowd of three Chryssalids which surrounded a single civilian. A shredded soldier of mine was already infected nearby, so this poor sucker died for a good purpose I’d say.

I haven’t noticed a difference in panic reduction so far how many civilians you save or not. I once almost saved them all and didn’t get any medal, so what? :D

[Tomberculosis]

Glad to see that my ideas have sparked some discussion! Personally, I don't think that increasing the Chryssalid HP is really the way to go—as someone pointed out, you can usually one-or-two-shot them in the original, and even if they had insane amounts of health, you could still train your whole squad on them. I really think the scariness factor comes from the ability to take out (and zombify) multiple XCOM agents in one turn, before you can do much of anything about it (if you're not paying attention).

 

Someone pointed out that my proposed leap ability would be somewhat like the Brute's bull rush—indeed, this is kind of what I was basing my idea upon. I'd like to have the ability for Chryssalids to move up levels and attack flying units, but something along the lines of bull rush would work pretty well I think.

 

Another person The same commenter pointed out that having attack as a non-action would be too cheap, because then the Chryssalid could just attack infinitely until the unit died. This is a good point, and I don't really see a way around it. It would be nice if there were a way of giving the Chryssalid a limited number of attacks per move, but I don't know if that is really possible. (But, just as a thought experiment: maybe it could be jury rigged by having the Chryssalid attack have a certain "ammo" limit, but also be automatically reloaded at the beginning or end of every turn? Or by having attack be like an item with a certain use-limit, but also like an ability with a 0-turn cooldown rate? Just thinking out loud here.)

 

Although, at a certain point, all of my ideas for making them scary basically end up turning into various ways of re-introducing TUs. I honestly don't mourn the loss of TUs that much (except when I accidentally move my unit one space away from cover, grumble), but it does seem difficult to really return the Chryssalids to greatness without having TUs.

 

Anyway, thanks for considering these ideas, guys. I don't think of myself particularly masochistic, but Chryssalids seriously gave me nightmares when I was little and playing the original, and I'd like to see some element of that returned to the new game.

Edited November 1, 2012 by Tomberculosis

[fys]

I’ve tried lately giving Chryssalids the Berserker’s eAbility_BullRush but that didn’t work at all. Maybe a special script must be tied to each creature to make such ability work, something like an action camera zoom for intimidation effect with added extra movement afterwards how it normally goes with Mutons. Too bad. I like the bull-rush ability, but in the end it is maybe rather advantageous if critters come closer and you can hit them better with your other five lazer guys waiting.

I guess to make the game somewhat scarier, you need to remove the strong laser and plasma weapons from soldiers’ hands, similar like the Colonial Marines fighting the aliens in the Alien movies with conventional weapons.

What is also not helping the poor Chryssalids that many maps are quite open revealing enemies early. Cameron’s aliens usually have the advantage of darkness, ceilings, and corridors with many blind corners. Just take a look at these new XCOM large ships and alien base with their half-cover walls. Only to make the game more visually appealing without transparent walls.

[FlyingHigh10000000]

Aw, I was just going to suggest giving them Bullrush. Hopefully the awesome people checking out the upk stuff will find where the relevant code for Bullrush is, and enable it to be used by assaults,(Close-combat specialists, perhaps? Could imagine they have a knife.) and Chryssalids.