Who's preordering X-COM?

[QuantumPion]

Ok, so I finally fired it up for the first time this weekend. Played a couple of hours. Got mainly through the tutorial missions and then a few beyond.

Gotta say that I like the tactical turn based combat. i am getting used to the interface. And I am starting to figure out tactics that work.

I am struck by the fact that most things seem fairly scripted. This is a significant departure from the previous three games where each mission was more or less random. There were several different mission types. There were various terrains and that the combination usually lead to a variable encounter every time. So far, everything seems pretty much like they are leading you by the nose. And fairly linear.

Even the choice of upgrades for the soldiers seem extremely limiting. Each "Level" gives you two choices of advancement. And the loadouts are exchange one item for another. So grenade instead of SCOPE or Medi-pack.

It just seems that the entire strategy is 'This or That'. One or Zero. I seem to remember that the choices in the earlier games were more diverse and meaningful than that?

Still enjoying the experience. Just wondering if I am the only one who feels it being a bit "simplified" instead of richer games like, say GalCiv2 or something?

In UFO Defense you had zero differentiation between soldiers besides stats. Now you have classes + subclasses giving basically 8 different soldier configurations. I don't see how you can call that less diverse than the original...

You only get to pick one or two items but the items are lot more meaningful gameplay wise due to the smaller squad size and more strategic gameplay from the original.

 

[KaOTiK]

I have almost a full squad of women I've been working on that are all named after porn stars, half of them are colonels so far. Sasha Grey is my best solider lol

 

[thespyder]

In UFO Defense you had zero differentiation between soldiers besides stats. Now you have classes + subclasses giving basically 8 different soldier configurations. I don't see how you can call that less diverse than the original...

You only get to pick one or two items but the items are lot more meaningful gameplay wise due to the smaller squad size and more strategic gameplay from the original.

It's been a while since I played Ufo Defense. Not so with Apocalypse. But I do seem to remember that there were stats to chose from. And that abilities in certain types of weapons were also in evidence.

Compare that to the stock/static four(?) class types (Heavy, Assault, Sniper, Support), seems like they 'Streamlined' things a bit to me. Haven't gotten far enough to compare the sub-classes you indicate, so I can't comment.

And again, not Dising the game. Simply observing that there is a heightened amount of hand holding that goes on even after the tutorial was over. And wondering if it continues like this. Just to set my expectations appropriately.

 

[Martimus]

In UFO Defense you had zero differentiation between soldiers besides stats. Now you have classes + subclasses giving basically 8 different soldier configurations. I don't see how you can call that less diverse than the original...

You only get to pick one or two items but the items are lot more meaningful gameplay wise due to the smaller squad size and more strategic gameplay from the original.

I disagree about having multiple set classes being more diverse than no classes, but different skills. In the first case, for example, you could never have a mage who also excels at lockpicking, sneaking, and archery at the expense of other skills, since those skills aren't in the mages class. I like to personalize my characters, and setting rigid rules for classes reduces what I can do with a specific character. I always hated that mechanic, I am not so stupid that I can't set up my own character for the way I want to play the game. That is the one thing Bethesda does well, since you can focus on whatever you want to do in their games. The biggest problem for them, is that they make it too easy to do everything so you aren't truly specialized in the end, but just good at everything.

 

[irishScott]

It's been a while since I played Ufo Defense. Not so with Apocalypse. But I do seem to remember that there were stats to chose from. And that abilities in certain types of weapons were also in evidence.

Compare that to the stock/static four(?) class types (Heavy, Assault, Sniper, Support), seems like they 'Streamlined' things a bit to me. Haven't gotten far enough to compare the sub-classes you indicate, so I can't comment.

And again, not Dising the game. Simply observing that there is a heightened amount of hand holding that goes on even after the tutorial was over. And wondering if it continues like this. Just to set my expectations appropriately.

Not really. There were certain stats that made some soldiers better with some weapons than others (ie: Increased firing ability, strength) but these were mild advantages at best.

And there aren't just 4 classes and 8 subclasses. You can mix and match abilities as you like from the varius subclasses. Mathematically there are 16 possible combinations per class, so that's 64 different varieties of solider; and the abilities are significant enough to make each one tactically distinct. I'd say that's actually more diversity than the original, where the only real difference the stats made was a +- 20% chance to hit with certain weapons.

As for handholding, the original had zero. Practically any game made in the last 12 years has significantly more handholding than original X-Com. You can't really use it as a point of comparison.

I started a game cold turkey without the tutorial, and aside from some short voice-over explanations, there was very little handholding. Case in point: Satellites are paramount. No one tells you that, but they are. Likewise there's a pre-requisite number of engineers to build the uplink stations you need to support said satellites. I ran into this the hard way when I maxed out my satellite limit, went to build more uplink stations, only to be told I didn't have enough engineers. So I had to wait for an abudction mission reward or another month's engineering ration, which means that much more increased panic in countries without satellite coverage. On classic it can easily screw your entire game.

There are plenty of details like that the game simply doesn't tell you about. Heightened hand-holding not found outside of that painfully scripted tutorial.

 

[irishScott]

I disagree about having multiple set classes being more diverse than no classes, but different skills. In the first case, for example, you could never have a mage who also excels at lockpicking, sneaking, and archery at the expense of other skills, since those skills aren't in the mages class. I like to personalize my characters, and setting rigid rules for classes reduces what I can do with a specific character. I always hated that mechanic, I am not so stupid that I can't set up my own character for the way I want to play the game. That is the one thing Bethesda does well, since you can focus on whatever you want to do in their games. The biggest problem for them, is that they make it too easy to do everything so you aren't truly specialized in the end, but just good at everything.

And if we were talking about RPGs and Bethesda games you might have a relevent point. This is about the implementation of said class systems in X-Com Original vs Enemy Unknown.

In the original, you didn't really get to personalize your soldiers. All stats were randomly generated and randomly improved as missions went on. You could dismiss bad soldiers and hire new ones, but that was the extent of the "customization" outside of equipment selection.

In Enemy Unknown you actually get to choose one of 64 potential combinations of soldier, or 16 different combinations per class. And the abilities are significant enough to have profound tactical effects, so the customization isn't just self-expression, it has real meaning.

Thus Enemy Unknown customization > Original customization IMO.

 

[Dankk]

I have almost a full squad of women I've been working on that are all named after porn stars, half of them are colonels so far. Sasha Grey is my best solider lol

:biggrin:

 

[Martimus]

And if we were talking about RPGs and Bethesda games you might have a relevent point. This is about the implementation of said class systems in X-Com Original vs Enemy Unknown.

In the original, you didn't really get to personalize your soldiers. All stats were randomly generated and randomly improved as missions went on. You could dismiss bad soldiers and hire new ones, but that was the extent of the "customization" outside of equipment selection.

In Enemy Unknown you actually get to choose one of 64 potential combinations of soldier, or 16 different combinations per class. And the abilities are significant enough to have profound tactical effects, so the customization isn't just self-expression, it has real meaning.

Thus Enemy Unknown customization > Original customization IMO.

I will admit that I should have put more effort into caveating my example, but I stand by it. The original UFO: Enemy Unknown had random stats to start with, but they weren't upgraded randomly after missions. The skills you actually used were upgraded after each mission, which is how each character became specialized in the way that you used that character. But, thinking back I may be wrong, as it has been a while since playing it. I seem to remember it working that way though.

 

[thespyder]

As for handholding, the original had zero. Practically any game made in the last 12 years has significantly more handholding than original X-Com. You can't really use it as a point of comparison.

Um, most turn based strategy games that I have played lately (GalCiv2, Elemental, Sins, etc...) don't hold your hand anywhere near as much hand holding as I have seen in Xcom. And maybe the term itself is inappropriate as it has a negative connotation. Just saying that the original (and most even recent TBS games) seemed significantly less scripted and more open world free form. thus adding significantly to the replayability of the game.

As for not knowing about how important satellites are, or how to set up more of them, that was covered in the tutorial. I am guessing that if you skipped that you missed what I was seeing. But even with not being told, it seems (to me) very intuitive that, without satellite coverage you couldn't see the UFOs, and once you go to engineering and try to build more, the game tells you what you need. It is like any (simple) tech tree.

The original UFO: Enemy Unknown had random stats to start with, but they weren't upgraded randomly after missions. The skills you actually used were upgraded after each mission, which is how each character became specialized in the way that you used that character. But, thinking back I may be wrong, as it has been a while since playing it. I seem to remember it working that way though.

This was more my recollection and expectation. That your soldiers started out as a nebulous ball with random stats that lent them one way or another. But what you actually did with them was your choice and yours alone. Not some preset group of stats that automatically meant that you ended up with a heavy, an assault, a support or a sniper.

I can't speak for how the 'Classes' later on differentiate in combat because I haven't played that much. But I have fear that this was based on the WoW model (and other MMOs) where it is easier to balance four classes than actual random stat based characters.

 

[irishScott]

I will admit that I should have put more effort into caveating my example, but I stand by it. The original UFO: Enemy Unknown had random stats to start with, but they weren't upgraded randomly after missions. The skills you actually used were upgraded after each mission, which is how each character became specialized in the way that you used that character. But, thinking back I may be wrong, as it has been a while since playing it. I seem to remember it working that way though.

Yeah, a little checking shows you're right. They were upgraded based on the stats they used. Still, in my experience this was a very limited amount of "specialization". The individual soldiers mean a lot more in Enemy Unknown in part because if you lose half of an experienced squad, that will cause a massive shift in your tactics. In the original it was a pain, but not nearly as vital IMO.

Most of my tactics in the original basically consisted of zerglings (expendable rookies) doing the exploration and shielding hydralisks (experienced troops) who actually did the vital stuff.

 

[Daverino]

This was more my recollection and expectation. That your soldiers started out as a nebulous ball with random stats that lent them one way or another. But what you actually did with them was your choice and yours alone. Not some preset group of stats that automatically meant that you ended up with a heavy, an assault, a support or a sniper.

I can't speak for how the 'Classes' later on differentiate in combat because I haven't played that much. But I have fear that this was based on the WoW model (and other MMOs) where it is easier to balance four classes than actual random stat based characters.

The new system is far better than the old. Originally, you had to keep track of which soldiers were proficient at what and develop your own annotation style in their names so you could remember who could do what when a mission started. Strong guys? Blaster launcher. Psi guys? Psionic stuff. Lots of TUs? Medkits. One guy gets a Shock launcher and the rest get rifles. What was lousy was you had to equip you folks EVERY SINGLE MISSION, because they dropped their crap on the floor when it was over. If you remember the original system as the apex of crew flexibility and customization, you remember it wrong. It was an exercise of tedious repetition.

As pointed out, soldiers have many kits they can use and many combinations of skills. If you want to spec one of your Support soldiers as a field medic, you're giving up combat abilities. If you want to spec out a heavy soldier to use his rocket and grenades to best effect, you give up machine-gun related skills. It is perfectly reasonable to have two support soldiers in your squad where one is a medic and the other has concentrated of smoke and defensive buffs. Many of the skills have synergies as well. If you use the heavy to suppress an enemy he gets an aim penalty and is likely to take heavy damage if he moves. If you use the assault's flush skill to force that alien to move, you can then force them to take heavy damage. The game has many of these neat interactions that makes customizing your soldiers worthwhile.

 

[Howard]

The skills you actually used were upgraded after each mission, which is how each character became specialized in the way that you used that character. But, thinking back I may be wrong, as it has been a while since playing it. I seem to remember it working that way though.

I also recall it being that way. Shooters get better aim, psi users get better mental ability.

 

[thespyder]

The new system is far better than the old. Originally, you had to keep track of which soldiers were proficient at what and develop your own annotation style in their names so you could remember who could do what when a mission started. Strong guys? Blaster launcher. Psi guys? Psionic stuff. Lots of TUs? Medkits. One guy gets a Shock launcher and the rest get rifles. What was lousy was you had to equip you folks EVERY SINGLE MISSION, because they dropped their crap on the floor when it was over. If you remember the original system as the apex of crew flexibility and customization, you remember it wrong. It was an exercise of tedious repetition.

As pointed out, soldiers have many kits they can use and many combinations of skills. If you want to spec one of your Support soldiers as a field medic, you're giving up combat abilities. If you want to spec out a heavy soldier to use his rocket and grenades to best effect, you give up machine-gun related skills. It is perfectly reasonable to have two support soldiers in your squad where one is a medic and the other has concentrated of smoke and defensive buffs. Many of the skills have synergies as well. If you use the heavy to suppress an enemy he gets an aim penalty and is likely to take heavy damage if he moves. If you use the assault's flush skill to force that alien to move, you can then force them to take heavy damage. The game has many of these neat interactions that makes customizing your soldiers worthwhile.

I have to say that I am feeling that "Better" is a subjective term. I take it from your comments that you don't want to hassle with customization and micro-management. Which is fine. Personally, I prefer more choice. Even if it ultimately leads to less efficiency.

But then I am exactly the guy who never uses the stock ships in Gal Civ2. Almost from turn one, I have my own custom ships outfitted.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Keep in my I think it's a great game, but I somewhat agree with spyder on some things. I like the skill system, but I wish there was an underlying stat system as well. I also wish rank was decoupled from all it of it. It's pretty silly going into battle with 6 colonels. Old games had it right. You were capped by how many total men you had and chances are your better performers were higher rank, but not guaranteed. Rank mostly affected moral (recruits were resistant to losing moral while there was a high ranker alive).

The other thing that's a little dissatisfying is the strategic view is too scripted. After restarting only a couple of times it was very clear each month there's a very set pattern of what happens (so many abductions/ships appear/etc). I think part of what made the original legendary was how organic the strategic view felt.

 

[kevinsbane]

I have to say that I am feeling that "Better" is a subjective term. I take it from your comments that you don't want to hassle with customization and micro-management. Which is fine. Personally, I prefer more choice. Even if it ultimately leads to less efficiency.

But then I am exactly the guy who never uses the stock ships in Gal Civ2. Almost from turn one, I have my own custom ships outfitted.

Once you get enough soldiers, classes cease to matter as far as freedom of customization is concerned.

The original XCOM's stat system was neat, but not for reasons of customization; it was neat because you could make every soldier into the same superman. Screen enough high psi strength soldiers, then put them through the wringer until you come up with a squad of 90+ psi strength, 100+ psi skill, 120+ aim, 100 reaction monsters. And they would ALL have superhuman aim, superhuman psi, and superhuman reaction. In the end, I found that there wasn't very much choice. Heavy plasma or laser pistol? Add Psi amp. Or blaster launcher. Then add Psi amp. In the beginning, sure, there was nice choice - heavy cannons, autocannons, rocket launchers, grenades... + entry level laser weapons... they all had their place. Once you researched heavy plasma (after the third month) you obsoleted almost everything else in your arsenal except niche weapons like laser pistols and blaster launchers. And you still packed a psi amp with everyone.

Customization, in X-COM: UFO Defense, came down to what items you gave them.
Customization, in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, comes down to skills/classes you use.

Personally, I prefer the current system since it results in more interesting gameplay. It was fun

What I'd like to see is to integrate the item customization with the skill/class customization. So each item has, say, 3 versions; 1 no crit, but high accuracy; 1 high base attack, but less accurate; 1 high crit, but less base dmg. As it is, there is no reason not to use the latest tech other than availability issues. Whereas in the original, a laser pistol was sometimes better than a heavy plasma. Oh! They should give assaults a pistol as an option for main weapon; and your attack becomes Guns Akimbo And give the heavy double machine guns as an alternative to rocket attacks. The GlamCam lends itself to exactly those kinds of ridiculous attacks.

 

[Daverino]

I have to say that I am feeling that "Better" is a subjective term. I take it from your comments that you don't want to hassle with customization and micro-management. Which is fine. Personally, I prefer more choice. Even if it ultimately leads to less efficiency.

But then I am exactly the guy who never uses the stock ships in Gal Civ2. Almost from turn one, I have my own custom ships outfitted.

I think you misunderstand. X-COM and X-COM:TFTD had no customization, insofar as you could not outfit any of your soldiers to your liking and have that stick. You needed to manually assign weapons and items to each one at the beginning of every mission. As a typical game could have dozens, if not hundreds of missions, you would have to repeat that task over and over and over.

To put it into perspective, imagine if you had to re-customize you Gal Civ2 ships every time they got into an encounter. Only a masochist would claim that would be the ultimate in customization. Everyone else would just find it tedious and numbing.

And as far as skills, the original X-COM didn't even have the concept. So introducing skills and skill choices is an added level of complexity that didn't exist in prior games.

Originally, your X-COM agents had attributes for time units, stamina, health, firing skill, throwing skill, strength (carrying capacity), bravery, psionic strength and psionic skill. Time Units are gone, and with them goes strength and stamina. Firing and throwing accuracy are collapsed into one. Health is still there as is bravery (now will). I haven't gotten to psionics, but I know that they are there. So it has gone from nine skills that randomly level up between missions to four or five. You still have the motivation to get all your folks into the fight to level them up as you did before because rookies still blow relative to vets. But the point is that nothing was changed. You couldn't tweak your soldier's skills before and you cannot do it now. The same amount of incremental improvement is still found, just in a simpler format.

 

[Howard]

Whereas in the original, a laser pistol was sometimes better than a heavy plasma. Oh! They should give assaults a pistol as an option for main weapon; and your attack becomes Guns Akimbo And give the heavy double machine guns as an alternative to rocket attacks. The GlamCam lends itself to exactly those kinds of ridiculous attacks.

You mean the laser rifle, not the laser pistol.

 

[thespyder]

Originally, your X-COM agents had attributes for time units, stamina, health, firing skill, throwing skill, strength (carrying capacity), bravery, psionic strength and psionic skill. Time Units are gone, and with them goes strength and stamina. Firing and throwing accuracy are collapsed into one. Health is still there as is bravery (now will). I haven't gotten to psionics, but I know that they are there. So it has gone from nine skills that randomly level up between missions to four or five. You still have the motivation to get all your folks into the fight to level them up as you did before because rookies still blow relative to vets. But the point is that nothing was changed. You couldn't tweak your soldier's skills before and you cannot do it now. The same amount of incremental improvement is still found, just in a simpler format.

So if Time units and stamina and strength are gone, you don't find this less customizable? And Firing/Throwing are collapsed into one? You don't find that less customizable? And now every soldier of a given 'Class' is identical (seemingly). So you have four stock characters, just with different names and hair cuts.

Plus, skills in the original didn't level up 'At random'. they went up by usage. So even if you had a guy with a really low firing score, if you used him a lot and got lucky a few times, it got better.

so it comes down to customization and choice. Plus the missions. In the original games there were variable maps and variable placements on the map and variable mission types adding up to a much wider selection of missions and greater replayability. In the new game, every single mission I have been on seems very scripted.

I am not saying that it is BAD, merely different. And for a gamer who wanted the new Xcom to be more like the old one (and by extension more like GalCiv) than it is, it isn't necessarily "Better". Again, "Better" in your statements is largely subjective.

I fully intend to play Xcom all the way through. And I am very much enjoying playing it. But I doubt I will play it through more than once. I have played Apocalypse and TFTD and Ufo Defense dozens of times each.

 

[kevinsbane]

You mean the laser rifle, not the laser pistol.

No, I mean the laser pistol

Laser rifle was better in general than the laser pistol, no argument there. But the Heavy Plasma > Laser rifle in, well, everything.

Whereas the laser pistol was faster (4 auto or 5 snap shots), dealt less damage (good for minimizing friendly fire damage; you were actually immune to friendly fire with flying suits) and maximized the amount of "xp" you could get per mission. And you didn't get an accuracy penalty with psi amp in the alt hand (not that it matter anymore in the late game).

Oh and you could throw the pistols as a gift to enemies so that you could train reaction fire. They'd fire at you (uselessly) and you'd reaction fire in response. Even against mutons with their ridiculous reaction stat.

 

[kevinsbane]

So if Time units and stamina and strength are gone, you don't find this less customizable? And Firing/Throwing are collapsed into one? You don't find that less customizable? And now every soldier of a given 'Class' is identical (seemingly). So you have four stock characters, just with different names and hair cuts.

Time units vs current setup is a design choice that I think overall is a wash. Stamina was stupid, I hated it as a stat. Strength was neat, but after you go through 2 or 3 battles, it ceased to be something I ever thought about. It's more customizable now, not because you can do more now, but because you're forced to choose between a or b - you have to give something up to get a perk. In the original, you didn't have to; you could get it all. You could get more time units, AND stamina, AND strength, AND accuracy, AND throwing accuracy, AND psi strength, AND psi skill, AND bravery (that one was tough to level up), AND health. And they all tended to max themselves out to the same thing.

Besides... as far leveling up the stats you referred to, you could only affect firing accuracy and throwing accuracy. You could improve reactions + bravery by taking advantage of the game engine and careful play. You couldn't affect energy/stamina, time units, hp, strength levelup in the slightest, those were random and only based on whether you landed a hit on an alien or not.

 

[thespyder]

Time units vs current setup is a design choice that I think overall is a wash. Stamina was stupid, I hated it as a stat. Strength was neat, but after you go through 2 or 3 battles, it ceased to be something I ever thought about. It's more customizable now, not because you can do more now, but because you're forced to choose between a or b - you have to give something up to get a perk. In the original, you didn't have to; you could get it all. You could get more time units, AND stamina, AND strength, AND accuracy, AND throwing accuracy, AND psi strength, AND psi skill, AND bravery (that one was tough to level up), AND health. And they all tended to max themselves out to the same thing.

Besides... as far leveling up the stats you referred to, you could only affect firing accuracy and throwing accuracy. You could improve reactions + bravery by taking advantage of the game engine and careful play. You couldn't affect energy/stamina, time units, hp, strength levelup in the slightest, those were random and only based on whether you landed a hit on an alien or not.

You couldn't "Effect" stats such as strength, but you definitely had a chance to pick one soldier over the other because of that. With the new system, you don't see (that i recall) their stats at all. And if you did, it would end up being one of four models.

I remember cycling through soldiers and cherry picking the ones that I thought were the BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST, SIR! and letting the rest go. it was a customizable choice that we no longer had. Not every soldier was created equal. They were more human than that. Not clones.

but at the end of the day, it is still a fun game. Not complaining in the slightest. merely commenting on the change in direction from the original. i would have preferred it be closer to the original, but since that wasn't my decision. guess I am going to have to simply have fun with the game that we did get and thank the guys at Firaxis for that.

 

[Agent11]

Not all soldiers stats are the same in this version. You don't have as many sucky troops but you will find great variation in will power and aim.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Not all soldiers stats are the same in this version. You don't have as many sucky troops but you will find great variation in will power and aim.

Are you sure? It looked like all recruits started out with the same aim and willpower to me, with aim increasing based on rank and class, and will increasing based on rank and injuries sustained.

 

[Agent11]

By the time they make colonel they will be quite different. I've got guys with 45 wp and guys with 96 and everything in between. Aim seems to be set by rank and class though you're right.. or at least there is less deviation.

 

[kevinsbane]

You couldn't "Effect" stats such as strength, but you definitely had a chance to pick one soldier over the other because of that. With the new system, you don't see (that i recall) their stats at all. And if you did, it would end up being one of four models.

I remember cycling through soldiers and cherry picking the ones that I thought were the BEST OF THE BEST OF THE BEST, SIR! and letting the rest go. it was a customizable choice that we no longer had. Not every soldier was created equal. They were more human than that. Not clones.

I had a lot of fun levelling an entire squad of average soldiers to ridiculous stats... like 120 accuracy and 100 reactions (I react faster than mutons!), as well as 120 psi skill (had to be patient for that) and even contemplated getiing a 100 bravery soldier. I gave up on that last one though... you basically need to kill off a dozen of your own soldiers to level up bravery by ten. Pain in the butt.

In the end though, all you really wanted in original xcom was a bunch of soldiers who could shoot straight, and had 80 time units, as well as a couple of really powerful psi users. True, your soldier had unique attributes in str/stamina/throwing accuracy, but for the most part, it didn't matter. Those things had almost as much impact on the game as the colour of your soldier's armour. I probably would have preferred customizing colours in the original over str/stamina/bravery. At least that would have made keeping track of them that much easier.

Edit - is it my imagination, or does using a lot of psi attacks increase willpower?