14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Firaxis working on the Enemy Within expansion for XCOM: Enemy Unknown says that it is adding a new random seed option to the game, which should make it easier for players who save scum to progress in the game.
Save scumming is the practice of using quick saves and loads frequently during battles in order to make sure that all positive results are recorded and all negative ones are eliminated.
The original release of the game made the practice impossible because XCOM did not introduce a new random seed on load, which means that all results remained the same.
Firaxis is allowing players to introduce random changes in the expansion because it wants as many gamers to get the experience that they want out of Enemy Within.
Anand Gupta, the leading developer working on the title, tells PCGamesN that, “It’s called Save Scum in honour of what Jake Solomon likes to call players who do this. It resets the random number seed whenever the game is loaded. For people who really want to keep shooting until that 80% shot hits.”
The team is also balancing the game via a new secret luck stat, which should compensate for poor results during combat.
The developer adds, “Believe me though, on Easy, if you miss three times in a row you’re not going to miss your fourth shot. It can be a 1% chance to hit and you’re not going to miss that shot.”
The true way to play the XCOM reboot remains Iron Man mode, which restricts save opportunities and makes every decision a player makes more important while also attaching more importance to every team member.
Enemy Within is set to be launched on November 15 and will be offered on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.