Like it or love it, Firxas is a AAA studio. This means a AAA budget, but also the requirements to get a minimum number of sales to justify that giant budget. I postulate that anyone who knows about, let alone plays dwarf fortress is already at least two standard deviations from the norm and there are just not enough people this far out on the bell curve to meet the sales requirements. By comparision, I consider Angry Birds to be about the center or slightly left of center of the "strategy" bell curve (it is a strategy game and look at the number of players). This means that In order to satisfy their corporate overlords I don’t think Firaxis can afford to aim any more than one standard deviation more complex than Angry Birds. This is the same reasoning that lets me compare the complexity of civ IV vs. V. The question then becomes how much “streamlining” can the average codexian stomach, and in the off chance that a developer gets ahold of this information, possible suggestions. With that in mind, here are my thoughts.
Time units Vs. Move and shoot: Clearly this is “streamlining” since it removes the choice between leaving one guy further back, but able to provide better cover versus moving to a better position, but spending half his time running himself. Now there is no opportunity cost for repositioning. This removes a bit of tactical depth, but will tend to make the game progress faster. My opinion; I don’t like it, but I can stomach it.
Max of 4(6) units: I would like to think this is a concession to consoles that do “pretty” very well, but can’t really handle “thinking”. However I fear that this is a design decision that will bring the same degree of unintended (negative) consequences that one unit per tile did in Civ V. On the face of it, it brings tighter, more tactical games, a salve to those who did not like such things as keeping track of 4 separate bases and 3 fronts in some of the later RTS games. This also forces the game into much smaller maps because clearing medium sized or larger maps would be effectively impossible for such a small team. Combined with the above, we get small, fast paced missions. I am also sure the word “dynamic” was also used in the design meetings. However, let’s start dissecting some of the negative unintended consequences.
One of the defining themes of X-Com is that you start out initially in way over your head. This makes clawing out and eventually defeating the aliens that much sweeter (yay underdogs). NOTHING makes you feel more like the underdog than actually losing. If you know that your interceptors don’t stand a chance one on one against an alien ship that your squad mates will die in a mission you really feel like an underdog. The first time I am able complete a difficult mission without any causalities is an unbelievably sweet feeling. However, despite what the press releases say, with only 4 squad members, having any of them die is not really an option.
When I was playing X-Com early on, I would generally have 1 heavy weapon guy, 1 specialist (sniper/psi), and the rest riflemen. The former would provide the heavy backup that could prove critical, but the latter would be the soldiers who actually did the work of clearing rooms and exploring buildings. Sadly, their front-line position meant that they were usually the ones who ate it. I had a difficult strategic decision in balancing the number of specialists versus riflemen. With only 4 soldiers my choices are severely limited. Option one is to take all riflemen so I can explore effectively. However if this is a viable option then why have specialists at all. Conversely, if the game difficulty is calibrated such that specialists are needed and I take one sniper and one heavy weapon I can have only 2 riflemen. If one of them dies I have not lost 15% of my exploration capability, I have lost half of it. Of course "fixing” brings in an unintended consequence. Firaxis can generalize specialties; re. snipers get move and shoot. The problem either this is not enough (back to the first problem) or is enough which is that this removes real choice because if both riflemen and snipers are generalized (e.g. can move once and shoot once), there is no real difference and we get the second problem. The latter (apparently selected option) also breaks immersion because said flexibility means that there is no penalty for having your sniper kicking down doors and clearing rooms.
Perks vs. training: I understand that moving to the center means moving away from numbers and math. I also believe that the designers feel that picking special “perks” gives a bigger thrill than watching stats climb. I disagree, but I will stomach this if I have to. However, I would like to point a few flaws in this though process. The first is the “lauded” fact that you don’t even know a soldier’s specialty until after the first mission. Unless X-Com changed from elite unit pulling the crème de la crème from across the world to a bunch of average Joes that just drafted the contents of the local YMCA, I would assume that you have a pretty good idea of each person’s capabilities. Give rookies large penalties to hit, or better yet make much more likely to panic (oh wait you can’t, because one guy who panics and kills a teammate will cripple your small squad) and it would be much more realistic than not realizing that perhaps Sylvester 'chaingunner' McBuff might be good with heavy weapons.
The other problem with perks is that (going back to the small squad size) you are going to be picking the same perks for every character anyway. Either the perks will be functionally identical, e.g. 10% increase in rate of fire, or 10% increase in damage both result in 10 more dps, or due to the small squad size, or will range from crippling to overpowered depending on random circumstances. For example, imagine a perk that let you fire twice, but cut your range in half in a building map, and than again in a canyon map. Because of the small squad size you can really only take one person for a given role. This means that you cannot afford to take the latter type of perk in case you pick wrong and end up crippling 25% of your team. As a result you will always get generic perks, and if they are all generic, why have them at all?
Unlimited ammo: Although the previous three points are design decisions that I may not agree with, eliminating ammo is like having a golf simulator that ignores the effects of wind. An easy fix to the issues (such as they were) with the original X-Com is to create a default load-out for each solider, have them unload fully at the end of a mission, and reload fully to that value at the start of each mission. If you want to “streamline” things, create a weapons locker in your ship that allows one to either reload back to default (selected) values or grab extra ammo if desired. The only upside to the current design is that it allows you to remove the inventory screen in battles (personally I consider this a downside). While this certainly “streamlines” things and moves the game towards the center, the downsides are nearly game breaking.
The first is that with no ammo limitations, single shots, bursts, and full auto have to be effectively identical. If you have no ammo restriction and shooting 20 rounds downrange does more damage then why would you only shoot once? To balance this, the designers either have to put steep restrictions on the effectiveness of fully automatic fire (and bursts), or give unrealistic advantages to single shots.
The next reason is even bigger. Ammunition is heavy, no seriously; try picking up a box of ammo some time if you don’t believe me. In fact the reason heavy weapons had teams was generally so that a second or third person could carry the ammo the heavy weapon required. In X-Com I did this by having a rifleman carry extra ammo in his backpack so he could both protect the heavy gunner (remember specialization) and keep him fed, but tis is not really an option anymore because of the small squad size. Limited ammo also means that you can never afford to carry enough ammunition to be profligate with it. Because of this, you don’t have to balance fully automatic with single shots and you have the option to go nuts (and get a few “oh shit” moments when you run dry). Tactically it matters when deciding to use a rocket on a wall to give you a safe entry point versus keeping one spare for a group of aliens. Strategically it matters when deciding on whether to give a solider an extra clip or an extra grenade, and can a medic really afford to carry grenades or extra ammo without being weighed down too much. I cannot stress enough how much limited ammo changes the entire flavor of the game. It affects every decision of when, and how much to shoot. It affects what weapons you take (or don't take), how aggressivly you attack and how much support you bring along. It may not even be too hyperbolic to say that removing ammo will essentially remove most of the flavor from the tactical combat of the game.
Satellites vs. satellite bases: A final point but I don’t really understand why this decision was made. Generally when I played, I would have one main base with R&D, hospitals, and the bulk of my troops, and several satellite bases where I could put interceptors and quick response teams. Flying halfway around the world made a difference, and added a nice (minor but real) strategic decision based on fast response (North Africa and Panama) or good coverage for your paying clients (North America and Europe). Removing this seems like dumbing down for the sake of dumbing down.
