X-COM Firaxis - XCOM: Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within Expansion

[Grunker]

Are you saying that's not pretty much what the so called tactical combat consists of?

yes

 

[Darth Roxor]

Yes, that description is completely false. Once in a while you shoot a rocket too.

 

[circ]

Right. Here's a random sample from XCOM tactics session: everyone dash, because I've seen the map 20 times and remember alien locations as its not randomized in any way other than level scaling the mobs to the date. Ok sniper doesn't dash, he engages jetpack and flies up to snipe shit. Turn. Now everyone seeks cover because aliens are... oh there we go. Overwatch for everyone. Oh, new alien. Shoot every motherfucker that didn't go down with overwatch spam, but leave new alien alive but slightly winged. Zap alien. Continue, cover, overwatch spam.

Stop the lies. R00fles. For real.

I can throw in a grapple use here and there, I haven't bothered with ghosting because who gives a shit.

I'm gonna throw in JA2 again just because. You don't have to overwatch, you don't have to overwatch in UFO either for that matter. Even on special maps in JA2 like Tixa, you don't always know where the opponents are because they patrol. Do aliens patrol in XCOM? No. No fucking way they do. I can stand behind a closed door in overwatch indefinitely and nothing will come out or fucking flank me. Ever. Unless there are aliens I didn't bother disposing of earlier, but yeah, whatever. Shit on the other side, any AI noticable there? None. They will just sit there and wait for me to open that door and blow them all new assholes.

I keep hearing noises just to let me know exactly where the aliens are. What? You got that in JA2 too, with special equipment and even then it could often result in some random guessing.

Dungeons & Dongs.

 

[Gord]

Stop the lies. R00fles. For real.

 

[sea]

Are you saying that's not pretty much what the so called tactical combat consists of?

It's like saying that tactical combat in the original game is "click on ground and shoot enemies" or like stealth in the original Thief is "don't step into the light and don't make noise." Yeah that is what you are doing a lot of the times, but it really obviously ignores the nuance in gameplay that is required to explore on the higher difficulty settings. Setting up combos with various class skills, for instance, becomes extremely important later on. The harder enemies in the game simply will not wait for you to overwatch them to death and you can no longer rely on the RNG giving you lucky shots, because they will simply throw grenades on your ass and wipe out half your squad, instakill your dudes in melee, mind control them, etc.

The game is by no means nearly as tactical as the original, if you are playing on a level where you actually know what you are doing and not just sending rookies in one by one to die. However, it's hardly "not tactical" and if you are playing primarily by spamming Overwatch then you probably have not reached the late game or are still playing on easy/normal. And arguably there is much more tactics in the use of cover and positioning/flanking than anything in the original game, even if it's still kind of a "tactics for dummies" system.

 

[Gord]

Not forgetting if you try to capture aliens, which can be quite worthwhile esp. when you are low on resources (which seems to happen all the time to me).

It's no JA2, that's for sure, but definitely not as dumb as some guys make it.

 

[circ]

It's not as tactical as some other guys make it either. Yeah, you can throw a grenade and destroy the other guys cover. You can suppress them and make their weapon malfunction for a round and throw down some smoke grenades. But by the time you get archangel/ghost armor and plasma weapons, none of that matters because you will just blow everything away with your colonels. And if you're seriously having problems it's because your squad consists of rookies/you picked some crap skills which is possible even with just 2 choices. Unless you completely screwed yourself over by bad choices like building a shitload of labs instead of say workshops, and didn't upgrade interceptors or something, there's no way you can lose. It's so tactical the AI has to resort to cheaing on the hardest difficulty.

The only reason the game isn't over in about 2 hours is because you're screwed for resources, and that isn't handled inventively in any way. More like, taking the cheesiest design route possible for holding the player back. I'd love to hunt for resources, if not for a number of design issues including laughable maps and tactics and so on, and if I wasn't replaying the same five maps over and over. Actually it might just be 3 maps all in all, as every scenario just uses a small portion of the same map and randomizes the entry point, a little, sometimes.

I really can't understand how Firaxis keeps releasing games in this state, with some extremely obvious glitches and bugs, and gameplay equal to flushing a toilet. And then people actually defending it, what? Aliens with hp bloat on harder difficulties and throwing grenades and having an extra +10 to accuracy. Wow.

I liked leveling up and exploring/exploiting the skills, and, that was it.

 

[spectre]

Comparing the new xcom to Ja2 is retarded. News flash, even the original Enemy Unknown doesn't compete with regards to tactical complexity (or whatever you'd like to compare) to Ja2.
Come to think of it, not a lot of stuff holds its own compared to Ja2 (especially with 1.13).

It's not as tactical as some other guys make it either. Yeah, you can throw a grenade and destroy the other guys cover. You can suppress them and make their weapon malfunction for a round and throw down some smoke grenades.

And you can flush them out of cover so that guys on overwatch can make potshots at it, you can panic it with psi (which is slightly different from supression because there's a chance it will shoot its buddies) , you can blow up the cover if its explosive for additional damage (let's forget the inanity of exploding cars for a second), you can mind control it to tip the odds in your favor, if it has friends, you an run and gun to instaflank it, while you're at it, choose between making one, more accurate shotgun shot, or two at lower cth, use grappling hooks to sacrifice one action to gain higher ground, use Ghost mode to scout and setup ambushes.
If it's piss easy because you're playing it on easy and don't have to use half of that stuff, it doesn't make it less tactical nonetheless.

But by the time you get archangel/ghost armor and plasma weapons, none of that matters because you will just blow everything away with your colonels.

From my experience on Classic (one full game so far, work is a bitch), this only happens when you savescum to always win missions with 0 losses. Even if you do, there will be times when half of your team will be on sick leave and you'll have to make do with inferior troops.
When you do have a task force of hardened vets with good gear (which you will get eventually), it makes sense for the game to be a little bit easier. Though even when all your guys are fully levelled up, the game can kick you in the balls when sectopods and heavy mutons start rolling.
Again, none of this applies when you're playing on easy or normal, don't blame the game for being piss easy then.

Aliens with hp bloat on harder difficulties and throwing grenades and having an extra +10 to accuracy. Wow.

HP bloat? Not really. I'd say classic values are the baseline. It's like Easy and Normal gives you a hand in giving additional HP to your guys and knocking a bunch of HP off the bad guys.
Also the AI gets fully unlocked on Classic. Impossible would be the one that gives the AI unfair advantages, but that's what it's there for.

Have to say, I enjoyed your glorious butthurt, it's a very solid 8/10, would read again.

Dudebro, the game deserves a lot of the flak it gets because of the design shit Salomon pulled, thing is, tactical complexity and difficulty ain't one of them.
I played my first game on Classic and I thought it to hit the sweet spot for me, but I'm no tactical genius myself.
If you're complaining about low difficulty and haven't tested it on Classc/Impossible Ironman, I'd say you're doing it wrong.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Comparing the new xcom to Ja2 is retarded. News flash, even the original Enemy Unknown doesn't compete with regards to tactical complexity (or whatever you'd like to compare) to Ja2.
Come to think of it, not a lot of stuff holds its own compared to Ja2 (especially with 1.13).

It may have something to do with the original Enemy Unknown coming out before JA2. JA2 came out and set the new standards.
Sorry dude, it's 2012, not 1985. It's going to get compared to JA2 and Silent Storm.

If you're complaining about low difficulty and haven't tested it on Classc/Impossible Ironman, I'd say you're doing it wrong.

How many troops did you lose per mission?

 

[spectre]

It's 2012, and JA2 is still the only game able to meet the standards it set back in the 1999.

So, umm, what the fuck are you trying to argue here Awor? Me, my point was:
not meeting that quality standard set by JA2 does not automatically mean the game is shit.
It only means it's less good than JA2... which does stand for a lot.

That would be in response to that was said on the previous page.

 

[JrK]

Installered a mod which removes the aim penalties for higher difficulty, but does nothing else (granted I had to tweak an existing mod to remove the other stuff). Game is still challenging (at least in the beginning), still don't have good aim (46% or so when guys are behind low cover), money is tight, my guys keep getting wounded and out of comission for one or two missions.

The special abilities of the classes make the game fun.

 

[circ]

The only way the game kicks you in the balls in the combat portions are if you do really dumb shit. Like bunch all your guys up or wander off with one guy etc. As for hp bloat, easy is the baseline for aliens according to the game's code, and the other difficulties stack on extra hp, hence, bloat. The only difference between normal and easy seems to be a little extra starting money. Classic is also the hardest difficulty, even though they're sorted in such a way that would make one think impossible is the hardest. And classic has the AI cheating, not impossible.

Haven't tried ironman. Why would I? It's not even real ironman as it does autosaves, probably because they noticed it would occasionally freeze and having to start over because of that instead of squad wipeout might have pissed some people off.

Why do people always call games challenging on harder difficulties when 99% of the time it's a case of hp bloat and stat boosts. That's not challenging, it just takes a little longer. Rarely do games actually amp up the AI, and this isn't one of them.

 

[Cassidy]

I'm apalled at the effort some shitslurpers pull to claim the piece of popamole shit they enjoy isn't one. They look almost like advertising plants.

 

[circ]

It's 2012, and JA2 is still the only game able to meet the standards it set back in the 1999.

So, umm, what the fuck are you trying to argue here Awor? Me, my point was:
not meeting that quality standard set by JA2 does not automatically mean the game is shit.
It only means it's less good than JA2... which does stand for a lot.

I'm not expecting JA2 with aliens or anything, but it has no quality standards at all. Just to repeat what I've said before, it's repetitive to the extreme with a minimal amount of maps. It's as if the designers didn't want the player to actually play the maps. You'd think a game that has over half of the gameplay consist of running around maps to actually have some variety. It didn't actually improve on anything from UFO, and removed even basic options. This is I think the most dumbed down franchise I've ever seen, and that's counting Fallout 3.

 

[Achilles]

I have a number of issues with the game, mostly with the tactical combat, but overall it's a rather decent effort. Still, a lot of the game's difficulty stems from design limitations and issues rather than actual smart play from the AI or clever design encounter. There's a clear tactic that will help you win each and every time, barring catastrophic luck with the "dice". Keep your squad together (but just enough apart so that the aliens don't decide to use grenades), advance slowly and always keep them in cover. That's it, there aren't a lot of situations where you'll have to change your tactics or come up with something on the fly.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

seriously speaking, all you have to do is advance with a single man, the rest of the squad have to be behind.
if he meets an alien, you're free to shoot at what's in sight and rearrange the team.
if the aliens run out of sight, rearrange and wait in overwatch. the squad-sight snipers will make short work of anything which will come.
if no aliens are in sight, place the team behind the scout and wait for the next turn.
there's really no tactics involved at all.
mind control actually is dangerous because using it you could trigger more squads.

the only problem can be sectopods which can be hardly killed in a single turn and i've never seen them moving, meaning they won't die to overwatch like every other alien.
everything else can be slaughtered by snipers while assaults/heavys mop up.

not meeting that quality standard set by JA2 does not automatically mean the game is shit.

it does because they're standards set 13 years ago. and they're not even barely reached by xcom.
would you rather buy a brand new monitor or settle with a 13 years old 640x480 because when it came out it was almost the best you could get?

 

[Gozma]

seriously speaking, all you have to do is advance with a single man, the rest of the squad have to be behind.
if he meets an alien, you're free to shoot at what's in sight and rearrange the team.
if the aliens run out of sight, rearrange and wait in overwatch. the squad-sight snipers will make short work of anything which will come.
if no aliens are in sight, place the team behind the scout and wait for the next turn.
there's really no tactics involved at all.

Ever play UFOD/TFTD or JA2? Scout for snipers (JA2 streamlines this by giving you sight range advantages over the puter so your snipers scout automagically) is the whole game. EU is boring me at this point not mainly because it sucks but because it degenerates into the shit I got sick of in UFOD and JA2 in the '90s. The early game where you NEED to do stuff like flanking by "sneaking" around a building is actually a really good basis for a squad tactics game that isn't about sight range fucking but what is there is too shallow and random such that the only way to get the game under control (on impossible) is to go for heavies and SS snipers.

But I mean... I had a good time figuring it out. My first classic ironman run was fun for hours. Still haven't seen the TB single player game that doesn't eventually break down after you have thought about it enough.

 

[spectre]

Still haven't seen the TB single player game that doesn't eventually break down after you have thought about it enough.

I think this sums it all up pretty nicely.

 

[Bigg Boss]

If they made it too complicated the poor console gamers couldn't figure it out.

Xcom is sufficient for what it is, but doesn't have enough depth to live up to JA2, but I didn't really expect it to. The maps do get repetitive as hell, so I'm not sure why they skimped in that department. I am already getting tired of playing the same maps over and over again. Never play the same map twice huh? It's still worth playing at a reduced price, I got mine for $40 after trading in Resident Evil 6. Heh. I upgraded a little bit at least right? I was honestly disappointed that your troopers couldn't get into the prone position. I also expected more equipment customization on the soldiers. Even more so, I expected the game to be slightly less buggy. Despite those complaints I find myself enjoying the game for the most part. Classic difficulty is really the way to play the game. Normal is so easy at times it's almost depressing.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

seriously speaking, all you have to do is advance with a single man, the rest of the squad have to be behind.
if he meets an alien, you're free to shoot at what's in sight and rearrange the team.
if the aliens run out of sight, rearrange and wait in overwatch. the squad-sight snipers will make short work of anything which will come.
if no aliens are in sight, place the team behind the scout and wait for the next turn.
there's really no tactics involved at all.

Ever play UFOD/TFTD or JA2? Scout for snipers (JA2 streamlines this by giving you sight range advantages over the puter so your snipers scout automagically) is the whole game. EU is boring me at this point not mainly because it sucks but because it degenerates into the shit I got sick of in UFOD and JA2 in the '90s. The early game where you NEED to do stuff like flanking by "sneaking" around a building is actually a really good basis for a squad tactics game that isn't about sight range fucking but what is there is too shallow and random such that the only way to get the game under control (on impossible) is to go for heavies and SS snipers.

But I mean... I had a good time figuring it out. My first classic ironman run was fun for hours. Still haven't seen the TB single player game that doesn't eventually break down after you have thought about it enough.

well, you see, maybe ufo hadn't all the fancy skills and shiny classes, but it had CHOICES.
you stumble into an enemy with your scout? you could throw a couple grenades at him, or throw them to a wall to give the rest of the squad free aim on him, or just to hope to have an emergency exit, or have the most precise sniper in your back fire at a wall near the scout to give him an emergency exit from where he could throw those grenades at his enemy.
or maybe all you had were rockets and terrible aim, so you just fire in the general direction of that enemy hoping to eventually kill him.
or the scout wasn't so important, so you activate all the explosives in your pockets and just rush forward in a kamikaze attack.
see? choices.
what choices do you have in xcom? fire, hide, overwatch, die.
and the last one isn't actually a choice because at best you're going to lose one sixth of your squad in a single hit.

 

[Grunker]

beyond creating fake choice

Not very opinionated either way on your mini-review, but this is simply false. This is not what 'fake choice' means. A fake choice is the choice between only cosmetically different options. This is the reverse - they have limited the inventory precisely to make a real choice.

I guess you mean a forced choice. Which is correct, but not really problematic as many others have point out in this thread. However, what COULD be considered a problem is the lack of inventory management which this design decision carries with it. While I (and, it seems, you) lament it, people's mileage may vary. But the system in place is functional and pretty good, if not as good as an actual inventory system.

But a fake choice, it certainly is not.

 

[Gord]

I can live with it, but would have prefered an somewhat expanded system with additional slots (maybe through an upgrade) that e.g. gave you penalties on movement range when using more inventory slots.

 

[betamin]

But I mean... I had a good time figuring it out. My first classic ironman run was fun for hours. Still haven't seen the TB single player game that doesn't eventually break down after you have thought about it enough.

I probably said this enough and I know it's gameplay has more of a random-chess aproach rather than a line of sight one but Final Fantasy with the 1.3 patch will break you down all the way to the end. How does it do it? By using fixed story battles, I know a lot of people like random missions to keep things spicy but fixed encounters gave the modders the chance to have an extremely challenging game with good tactical depth and choices since the AI doesn't retard around as much when you put it in certain places. Almost no grinding also. I think it was you who said that didn't like the focus put into character creation but to me the game it isn't like at all. Give it a shot if you haven't already.

 

[Mangoose]

Combat:

I like the cover system,
My only problem with it is that once both you and your enemy get high cover, then it becomes a dice throwing duel where the one with the most aim and health win, at least until you can get someone to flank the foe, assuming you CAN get someone in position to do that. The spawn system is lame because it forces the player to hunker up and go slow. Granted, its a mean to stop the player from scout-sniping the AI to death, but the AI could simply START in cover instead, alert nearby allies, then retreat into further cover/flank.

More later, library is closing down.

Good points here.

 

[Gord]

Just found out that my 32€ retail copy also came with the x-treme, visceral emotionally engaging "Elite Soldier Pack" DLC available on Steam for 5 €. I can now create my own Guidos and send them to their death.