XCOM 2 (May be spoilers)

[Audiosmurf]

How many other people here have been playing Xcom 2? What are you thinking of it? I think the significant and obvious difference in design philosophy vs. Enemy Unknown (encourage proactive rather than reactive play,) is really interesting, the time limits on the missions feel a little tight sometimes though. I'm only a couple of months in so far, and I've been having a really hard time even on veteran. Even when I'm winning I feel as though I've only narrowly averted disaster on each mission.

Optimization is a w f u l, though.

[venatorvenator]

UFO: Enemy Unknown was the first game of the series and it had a different philosophy too. There was a more tangible char progression, with permadeath. The missions were more sandboxy and you needed to plan your tactics very well, so the game didn't rush you to finish things quickly. They also lasted longer because your squad had like 15 people. And there was ammo and weigth even for pistols so you had to manage it all or pick more items from the battlefield as the mission went on. Overall the game was much harder and much longer too, you were always on the brink of defeat, and the story made sense.
What I'm thinking of XCOM 2 is that when I saw that cartoonish Egyptian-themed alien on the trailer I realized it wasn't the same game anymore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX0Cm3N_n6k

Btw a Fallout dev mentioned the first XCOM was a major influence in their game, and I like to believe that the Fallout concept of power armor came from the one in XCOM. It's pretty similar.

[Audiosmurf]

UFO: Enemy Unknown was the first game of the series and it had a different philosophy too. There was a more tangible char progression, with permadeath. The missions were more sandboxy and you needed to plan your tactics very well, so the game didn't rush you to finish things quickly. They also lasted longer because your squad had like 15 people. And there was ammo and weigth even for pistols so you had to manage it all or pick more items from the battlefield as the mission went on. Overall the game was much harder and much longer too, you were always on the brink of defeat, and the story made sense.
What I'm thinking of XCOM 2 is that when I saw that cartoonish Egyptian-themed alien on the trailer I realized it wasn't the same game anymore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX0Cm3N_n6k

Btw a Fallout dev mentioned the first XCOM was a major influence in their game, and I like to believe that the Fallout concept of power armor came from the one in XCOM. It's pretty similar.

Oh yeah I've played the old ones, save for Apocalypse, but as I understand that was was a wild divergence from the previous games. I'm curious about how you feel that the character progression was more tangible? Just through more stats/clearer effects in battle? I did appreciate when they introduced an option for randomized stats for soldiers to the new Enemy Unknown, as having all your soldiers develop their stats identically was really boring.

I think there's an argument to be made that a lot of the difficulty in the early 90s titles was just from how cryptic they were right off the jump. Don't get me wrong, I love UFO Defence (Enemy Unknown 1994) a lot and had beaten it more than once years and years before the reboot, but in case you didn't play the new Enemy Unknown I think they actually have a lot in common. They're definitely different games, but I always felt that the developers did a really good job of staying true to what the originals were while making concessions to modernization. It's less hardcore than the original, for sure, but the missions actually feel a lot more tense when you're starting with a squad of 4 instead of (potentially) 14.

I get what you mean about the Archon (egyptian alien,) though there is an explanation given in-game for its appearance.

[springyb]

I'm loving it so far. I'm about a month away from losing my first play through on commander. I didn't know in advance how important making contact with nations as fast as possible is, so the "plot line" is about to finish. The time limits haven't bothered me at all, I usually stealth up with concealment and use a specialist to nab the objective before even firing.

[Audiosmurf]

I'm loving it so far. I'm about a month away from losing my first play through on commander. I didn't know in advance how important making contact with nations as fast as possible is, so the "plot line" is about to finish. The time limits haven't bothered me at all, I usually stealth up with concealment and use a specialist to nab the objective before even firing.

Have you found that the game seems to intend/encourage you to carry a much larger force? At least towards the beginning, I barely had a single mission that wasn't 2-3 rookies because every single one of my promoted guys were wounded. On another note, the fact that unlocking weapons opens them up for all soldiers is pretty nice.

Also good god the new sectoids are the scariest when you don't have the drop on them. I had to spend about 5-6 minutes running in circles , taking 20% shots on the second tutorial mission to avoid a wipe because it kept mind controlling one of my two remaining soldiers every time it had the chance.

[MagicManICT]

Oh yeah I've played the old ones, save for Apocalypse, but as I understand that was was a wild divergence from the previous games

Critically and by the fans, it was the best of the original four games. It was available on gog.com without the DRM, but I don't see it listed anymore. I did find it on Steam for $5 normally, but on sale right now for only $1.24 from the listing I just saw). You really should play this one.

[springyb]

I'm loving it so far. I'm about a month away from losing my first play through on commander. I didn't know in advance how important making contact with nations as fast as possible is, so the "plot line" is about to finish. The time limits haven't bothered me at all, I usually stealth up with concealment and use a specialist to nab the objective before even firing.

Have you found that the game seems to intend/encourage you to carry a much larger force? At least towards the beginning, I barely had a single mission that wasn't 2-3 rookies because every single one of my promoted guys were wounded. On another note, the fact that unlocking weapons opens them up for all soldiers is pretty nice.

Yes, it does. I slowly got to a point where I had so many wounded and no options to recruit rookies that I couldn't field a full team. Something that would have helped if I discovered it sooner, if you place an engineer into the advanced warfare center will increase healing rates for all wounded by 100%.

Also, all other xcom games on steam are 75%-80% off right now as an fyi to everyone.

[ven]

Oh yeah I've played the old ones, save for Apocalypse, but as I understand that was was a wild divergence from the previous games. I'm curious about how you feel that the character progression was more tangible? Just through more stats/clearer effects in battle?

It was directly related to your actions: throwing stuff increased your Throwing skill, not panicking improved Bravery, hitting stuff increased Aim, and so on. It was exploitable, of course. But I liked the concept. And since it took some personal effort from your part, the characters were more meanigful.

I think there's an argument to be made that a lot of the difficulty in the early 90s titles was just from how cryptic they were right off the jump. Don't get me wrong, I love UFO Defence (Enemy Unknown 1994) a lot and had beaten it more than once years and years before the reboot, but in case you didn't play the new Enemy Unknown I think they actually have a lot in common. They're definitely different games, but I always felt that the developers did a really good job of staying true to what the originals were while making concessions to modernization. It's less hardcore than the original, for sure, but the missions actually feel a lot more tense when you're starting with a squad of 4 instead of (potentially) 14.

I did like the new XCOM, but it felt too arcadey to me. The mechanics were too neat, too symmetrical, and everything was too obvious and too black and white (with the exception of the final alien dialogue, that was some surprising grey area plot twist).

[MagicManICT]

Just want to say sorry for the title change. People have different definitions on what a spoiler may be and saw a few things here that I've seen some people complain about in the past.

[Audiosmurf]

Oh yeah I've played the old ones, save for Apocalypse, but as I understand that was was a wild divergence from the previous games. I'm curious about how you feel that the character progression was more tangible? Just through more stats/clearer effects in battle?

It was directly related to your actions: throwing stuff increased your Throwing skill, not panicking improved Bravery, hitting stuff increased Aim, and so on. It was exploitable, of course. But I liked the concept. And since it took some personal effort from your part, the characters were more meanigful.

I somehow never actually realized this. I suppose I didn't ever take enough note of my soldiers stats, and I always thought they increased alongside their rank. That's actually really interesting, and upon reading more about it the systems in UFO Defence are a lot more intricate than I believed. Thank you for telling me about that!

I can definitely understand what you mean about the new games feeling very arcadey compared to the old, though. A lot of depth was removed in the interest of streamlining the experience.

With more playtime under my belt now, I think the new game is a really solid sequel. It's similar enough to the first game with enough incremental but meaningful changes that you have to learn how to play it all over again. The mission timers can be a bit grating if you get a bad map (procedural generation is nice, but you definitely see the negative side of the coin sometimes,) but most of the time they're more than manageable if you're not overwatch crawling.

Ironman is going to be hell compared to EU, I think.