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Mordaedil posted:Base it off of Madoka Magica and it'd be pretty swank. I dunno about your squad being limited to a bunch of idiot kids but fighting against abstract nightmare monsters would be pretty cool. EDIT: Actually your troops could just be sectoids in wigs. The Iron Rose posted:That's exactly how dynamic war works. That reminds me, I don't suppose there's any way to force Exalt missions to always be the asset defense ones, is there? I love the defense ones since they go by relatively quickly but are very hectic and fun. The ones where you just have to plod across a map to hit some relay points are boring as hell though. Internet Kraken fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 09:09
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Fangz posted:I just want a xcom anime already. 
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Jul 3, 2015 09:16
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Internet Kraken posted:I dunno about your squad being limited to a bunch of idiot kids but fighting against abstract nightmare monsters would be pretty cool. You know... there might actually be. I don't have my windows laptop on me, but check and see if you can't disable specific maps for specific gamemodes. Unfortunately I can't remember how DefaultMaps.ini is structured, but if it's structured in a per mission type format you could try just commenting out every map for EXALT besides the asset defence. If it's an absolute list you could also see what maps proc intel retrieval and disable all of those, though you'd lose access to those maps for other missions. I can check more tomorrow when I have access to more than a chromebook, and I've asked JL to see if there's a more elegant solution. I'll also dig around in the .upks to see if there is anything relevant.
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Jul 3, 2015 09:18
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Cat Army 
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Shumagorath posted:That's the impression I got when I checked the wiki. The weapon progression looks like a lot of complexity for the sake of it, which is something game designers figured out was a bad thing awhile ago. Skill choices are also still a choice between two with a distant third rather than the original two. I'd disagree fairly emphatically. The weapon progression (between tiers) adds some meaningful decision making (when, if, and how to upgrade) while helping pad out LW's much longer campaign with more points of progression. The additional weapon types (such as Battle Rifles, SMG's, etc) are really wonderful additions that give you some serious control over your troops abilities. The skill trees actually do a REALLY good job of adding choice and allowing for specialized builds. There are duds of course, but the addition of stat bonuses to weaker skills really helps shore them up. If there is anywhere where LW shines, it's with those kinds of additions. I tend to be hyperbolic, but going back to Vanilla really feels like playing blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back as far as customizing and outfitting my squad. It's not for everyone, but if you like to tinker with builds and try to figure out optimal loadouts and strategies, LW just blows Vanilla out of the water. I think the reason the mod gets so much attention and praise is that it managed to make all those additions have purpose and meaningful decisions attached to them, instead of just being pointless clutter. It really is well done in that aspect. The Iron Rose posted:As a super big LW player/parttime modder I can confidently say that Long War would make a terrible shipped game. I 100% agree with this. LW is not perfect by any stretch, but if what you want is EW but MORE OF EVERYTHING, it does that excellently. AttackBacon fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 09:38
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Pomp posted:That's three different midrange shooty dudes, two AR wielding explosives guys, scouts and assault fill the exact same niche, and every one of these classes share multiple perks with others. Most of what should the level 1 perks, the ones that are supposed to define the class, aren't even unique to them. Yeah, I'm gonna disagree with you here too. The eight base classes certainly feel a lot different to me at how they accomplish things and what tasks they're best at. While it is certainly possible to cross-class and get one class to do things another class can do (e,g, a scout playing sniper, an high aim overwatch medic playing infantry, a shotgun flashbang engineer trying out assault, etc.) I believe that's more of a testament to the system's flexibility than a usurpation of roles. Each class has a definite role, an area that it's best at, and trying to use another class to fulfill that role will always be inferior. The only class that doesn't necessarily have a clear-cut niche is infantry, and that's completely by design since they're supposed to be the glue that holds the squad together by being able to perform multiple roles as required in the mission, which is much more difficult for the other classes. In your specific statement here, the "three different midrange shooty dude" I assume are infantry, gunner, and... medic? Scout? Engineer? There are a lot of classes that can pick up a rifle and shoot, it's the most basic of basics in the game and even the rookies can do that much. It's not a primary role for anyone except gunners and infantry (everyone else either specializes at non-midrange or in some support role), and even for those two the end result is very different. Gunners are back line firing support, weakening single hard targets for others or suppressing enemy hardpoints for attack or defense. Infantry, as I previously mentioned, are glue guys, always available to add consistent damage to a fight, overwatch, or simply never break in combat. "two AR wielding explosives guys" isn't false, but it's certainly a simplification, since engineers and rocketeers do different things even aside from the fact that engineers can (and I often do) be close combat shotgun types instead of base riflemen. Rocketeers are almost solely long range boom boom, while engineers combine adequate short-to-midrange booms with AOE buff/debuffs. Engineers are less specialized into pure destruction. "scouts and assault fill the exact same niche" if basically completely untrue in my experience, although again the flexibility in weapons and playstyle preference means you can probably try to do something along those lines. I wouldn't recommend it. Scouts are best used as independent operators to find the enemy and draw him out, and can use anything from sniper rifles to SMGs to shotguns to maining pistols to accomplish that. Assaults, on the other hand, are straight-up killers whose ability to kill single targets is unmatched by anyone but snipers, while also being able to utterly dominate close quarters combat. I won't deny there's perk-sharing, but the whole here is much greater than the sum of it's parts. I don't see any loss of identity, but I acknowledge that should a player choose to they can steer soldiers to be jack-of-all-trades instead of specializing. IMO, that's not usually what you want to be doing - at least not on a large scale. Having a guy or two who can do a bit of anything in a pinch is good if someone goes down (hello, infantry!), but at the end of the day you need a close combat guy, you need a long-range single target killer, you need heals, you need explosives/cover destruction, you need suppression/single target debuffs, you need to be able to discover enemies/draw out overwatch. Using a second, less good option instead of the class dedicated to such roles usually gets your poo poo rocked in Long War in the long run. However, this is probably an overlong post interrupting what I imagine is a slow-burning turf war over XCOM poo poo. I just wanna play round 2, but I'll certainly miss some of the stuff from Long War when the time comes. It's not a perfect mod by any means, but I'll give credit where it's due and there are many things the mod gets right. I like having to make real decisions without a necessarily "right" or optimal choice, I like having the flexibility to use soldiers in different ways, I like how the mod identified and solidified the multiple combat roles from the base game into new classes. They took some of the wonky out of XCOM (before adding a poo poo ton right back in, but you can't have everything) and on balance did more good than bad. If they fell into a "add everything including the kitchen sink" mentality, that's not uncommon in modding, and for what they were trying to make they've managed to keep things pretty tight and have a niche for nearly all the poo poo they've added. Mostly. There's a couple items that are a bit meh, and between psi, meld upgrades, mechs, and officers they definitely went a bit overboard, but to be fair the basics of all of those systems were in EU/EW and they didn't all quite mesh nicely there either. The 'base' weapons all mostly have their uses too; I'd argue against the "heavy pistol" type (and probably the sawed-off while I'm at it) as excessive but I get use out of all the primary weapons to some extent. Someone mentioned carbines as not being greatly useful, but I think even they have enough utility early game with less-experience soldiers/rocketeers to deserve their place. edit: ^^^^^^^ I basically agree with this guy on the points he made while I was typing. LW is more, with all the positives and minuses that implies. Ultimately, I think they added that "more" in the about the best way it could be managed, and there's very few misses all around. Especially in the areas that get the most play, i.e. the basic eight classes, their upgrades, and their normal weaponry, the LW additions allow for thoughtful, flexible decisions and optimization of your personal playstyle. You can make lots of strategies effective if you do a bit of planning on perks ahead of time. orangelex44 fucked around with this message at 10:30 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 10:25
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Mordaedil posted:Base it off of Madoka Magica and it'd be pretty swank. Jeeze. As if XCOM's world wasn't crapsacky enough.
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Jul 3, 2015 10:49
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I appreciate LW but the last few pages have confirmed my decision to never play it myself.
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Jul 3, 2015 13:42
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this is beautiful Pomp posted:scouts and assault fill the exact same niche 
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Jul 3, 2015 13:54
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Keiya posted:Jeeze. As if XCOM's world wasn't crapsacky enough. 
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Jul 3, 2015 14:12
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FistEnergy posted:I appreciate LW but the last few pages have confirmed my decision to never play it myself. Played some multiplayer with a Goon last night. I remembered to warn him about the bugs before we started so he wouldn't get mad. Never play multiplayter, though it can be fun when poo poo works right.
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Jul 3, 2015 15:43
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Latest reports indicate that XCOM forces attacked a local merchant ship and made off with 50 entertainment units.
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Jul 3, 2015 16:23
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Pohl posted:Never play multiplayter, though it can be fun when poo poo works right. Multiplayer is fun. It's a terribly imbalanced afterthought tacked on to the game, but it is fun.
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Jul 3, 2015 16:35
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Basic Chunnel posted:Plus, item degradation has never been fun or tactically interesting in any game Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 16:47
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Anyone know how the 'quick and dirty' SW option works? How much it reduces pod sizes by, which aliens it cuts, etc? I'm wondering if a squad size 6 game would still have the same balance with quick and dirty as squad size 8 LW.
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Jul 3, 2015 16:51
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I'm thinking of playing Impossible EW if JA2 doesn't grab me. Is it possible to powergame hard enough to keep all the countries in the project or am I guaranteed to lose a few? I'm going to install Commander's Choice and No Move on Reveal so I figure Impossible is mandatory to offset the drop in difficulty. e: Does this look legit? I always start in North America https://www.reddit.com/r/Xcom/comments/1xyy6d/saving_all_countries_on_impossible_mode_enemy/ Not a Step posted:Basically, if your game takes 100+ hours to complete you have failed as a designer. No single player game has enough cool stuff to support over 100 hours of play in a single campaign without being a drawn out grind. I love that XCOM has so much replayability, and that Long War has given the game even more replayability, but the length of a Long War campaign means I dread starting a new playthrough enough where it can take months to come back to a game I genuinely enjoy.  . XCOM doesn't really have that but still takes me ~60 hours to see fusion lances and I don't really mind because the core game is fun. Balancing around 150 hours is untenable if I want to both finish a campaign and interact with my friends / other hobbies.FistEnergy posted:I appreciate LW but the last few pages have confirmed my decision to never play it myself. Shumagorath fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jul 3, 2015 |
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Jul 3, 2015 17:00
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Shumagorath posted:I'm thinking of playing Impossible EW if JA2 doesn't grab me. Is it possible to powergame hard enough to keep all the countries in the project or am I guaranteed to lose a few? I'm going to install Commander's Choice and No Move on Reveal so I figure Impossible is mandatory to offset the drop in difficulty. It's possible, but you can ace every tactical mission and still lose a country in the geoscape thanks to abduction roulette. My advice is to try to get to the alien base ASAP if you want to avoid this.
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Jul 3, 2015 17:06
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I found the best mod: http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/...review%3D&pUp=1
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Jul 3, 2015 17:14
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Shumagorath posted:It can be if you're doing a dedicated survival game, but XCOM? You guys already have to sleep off the mission in Long War; just say they spend that time cleaning their guns too. No, because sometimes an important mission comes after just because I used my ace Sniper, and yes I want to put them back out there without having them be in the sick bed for a month afterward. Bholder posted:I found the best mod: Don't you mean this one?
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Jul 3, 2015 17:19
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Why would you want to change the in-game music god drat now I'm angry.
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Jul 3, 2015 17:21
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:Why would you want to change the in-game music god drat now I'm angry. Everything gets tiring after you listen to them multiple times over and over again.
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Jul 3, 2015 17:24
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Sometimes the operation name gen is funny, sometimes it is more ominous: Broken Skull broke my pattern of only losing non-rookies on base defense missions. I hadn't actually realized before that Mutons could grenade UFO walls. 3 TSGTs and 1 SGT for 4 damaged power sources and 4 damaged computers from a medium UFO.
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Jul 3, 2015 17:25
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Brainamp posted:Multiplayer is fun. It's a terribly imbalanced afterthought tacked on to the game, but it is fun. I remember on launch you could have two cyberdiscs on one 1000 point team. Played against a guy on the resturant map so I just hid both my discs on the roof until he moved all his units inside. Then they flew in through the windows and introduced him to the cyberdisco  I think my best team was 3 sectoids, 1 commander, 1 floater, and a berserker. Bull rush is a super fun and devastating ability you never see in single player.
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Jul 3, 2015 18:12
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monster on a stick posted:No, because sometimes an important mission comes after just because I used my ace Sniper, and yes I want to put them back out there without having them be in the sick bed for a month afterward.
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Jul 3, 2015 18:33
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monster on a stick posted:No, because sometimes an important mission comes after just because I used my ace Sniper, and yes I want to put them back out there without having them be in the sick bed for a month afterward. Sending fatigued soldiers out tends to give them a light wound, which takes them out for 2 weeks or so I believe. It's also easily moddable. Heck, I've modded fatigue and injury timers down for so long I entirely forgot how ridiculous it is at base.
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Jul 3, 2015 18:36
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Internet Kraken posted:I think my best team was 3 sectoids, 1 commander, 1 floater, and a berserker. Bull rush is a super fun and devastating ability you never see in single player. Another thing that LW brings in and is quite frankly terrifying.
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Jul 3, 2015 18:37
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Bholder posted:I found the best mod: the best mod replaces all armour textures with bradford sweater textures and i have not yet found it
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Jul 3, 2015 19:20
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I just tried replaying my last game's temple ship mission, but with my psionic sniper and 5 hover SHIVs upgraded with plasma, repair, etc. Granted I am playing on Normal, but talk about easy mode, even the Sectopods weren't much threat with two SHIVs suppressing them while the others were flying and taking potshots at them, and I always have problems with that section. I felt like I was cheating. The Iron Rose posted:It's also easily moddable. Heck, I've modded fatigue and injury timers down for so long I entirely forgot how ridiculous it is at base. Shumagorath posted:I wasn't endorsing that part of Long War...? I guess this is something else I don't get about LW, I hear a lot of people talking about how they don't like X feature, or mod this part out. Maybe that's because LW is such a massive overhaul that it's impossible to ship something that everyone will approve of, does anyone play vanilla LW?
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Jul 3, 2015 19:21
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monster on a stick posted:does anyone play vanilla LW? I've only seen big ini edditing and trading been spoken consistently about here. In the subreddit and nexus forums, almost all discussion is vanilla or with common SW options like interceptor-only Cinematic Mode and Dynamic War.
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Jul 3, 2015 19:33
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Yeah there's a modding LW section on Nexus but the general discussion over there doesn't deal with ini modding since the devs are obviously not as interested in hearing feedback with that wild card thrown in. Doesn't help that the nexus forums are awful. Reddit occasionally brings it up along with patcherGUI stuff.
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Jul 3, 2015 19:38
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:Why would you want to change the in-game music god drat now I'm angry. To fix the glaring oversight of not using the old Interception music.
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Jul 3, 2015 19:40
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monster on a stick posted:I just tried replaying my last game's temple ship mission, but with my psionic sniper and 5 hover SHIVs upgraded with plasma, repair, etc. Granted I am playing on Normal, but talk about easy mode, even the Sectopods weren't much threat with two SHIVs suppressing them while the others were flying and taking potshots at them, and I always have problems with that section. I felt like I was cheating. I do but I play on LW Normal. I don't give a poo poo about research trees or gun differences, just give whatever looks coolest. Don't seem to have a huge problem with that approach. The only thing that is total poo poo for me is when all my interceptors are damaged and can't do anything. It's true that I might get outpaced later on or whatever, but the early game is so much more fun than vanilla I wouldn't mind starting over.
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Jul 3, 2015 19:42
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LW question; a lot of you enjoy many parts of it, but does ANYONE enjoy the air game? Now I'm not saying the air game in EW is good. Its pretty pointless and shallow, but at least its easy so it doesn't interfere with the real parts of the game. From what I've seen LW tries to correct this by making the air game actually difficult. However the basic mechanics of the system are still so shallow that this doesn't really succeed and instead results in a frustrating nightmare.
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Jul 3, 2015 19:53
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Internet Kraken posted:LW question; a lot of you enjoy many parts of it, but does ANYONE enjoy the air game? Now I'm not saying the air game in EW is good. Its pretty pointless and shallow, but at least its easy so it doesn't interfere with the real parts of the game. From what I've seen LW tries to correct this by making the air game actually difficult. However the basic mechanics of the system are still so shallow that this doesn't really succeed and instead results in a frustrating nightmare. The air game blows. The only person who defends it is amanasleep and that is because he's a LW dev groupie or something. It's not too bad if you mod the hell out of it.
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Jul 3, 2015 19:56
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The best you can do with EW's air game, and by extension LW's, is tolerate it and learn how to optimize it.
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Jul 3, 2015 19:58
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oswald ownenstein posted:The air game blows.
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Jul 3, 2015 20:08
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The air game sucks, but there isn't much you can do to fix it without making it pointless like in EW. I was thinking about increasing the early aim, maybe decreasing the power of UFOs, but there's already a SW option that does this...
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Jul 3, 2015 20:40
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I've said it before, but if you're the kind of person who enjoys playing slots at a casino (not because you're a gambling addict, you actually just really like watching bright lights and colored shapes move around on a computer screen), you're probably the kind of person who likes XCOM's air game. It was slotted into the 2012 release as basically an homage to the earlier interception systems, but was wisely implemented in such a way as to have minimal impact on the real game. Sure, after the first couple of campaigns it feels kind of odd that you can dominate every single UFO that's sent your way, but that doesn't change the fact that the game itself is about shooty mans taking cover and blasting the gently caress out of aliens, with a side of base development and tech progression.
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Jul 3, 2015 21:04
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I am Okay with the air game being pointless and hope Xcom2 has none because the game is about having GI joes shoot things. Xenonauts is a good example about how to do one decently though. The planes have different strategies you can do, like having an interceptor with aerial topedoes shoot down a large UFO from outside its weapon ranges then zoom away at supersonic speeds from its escort fighters.
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Jul 3, 2015 21:08
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You go fast and kill dudes. The overlap only gets stronger as they go up in levels. Scout has options to stay safer, while assault has options to poo poo out more damage. That's not identity, that's the build choices of one class spread out over two and then a bunch of trash/boring filler skills added on. Furthermore, a marksman sniper will be doing the same thing as well, except avoiding overwatch shots instead of taking the gamble. Of the 8 classes, there are four that I feel like can't just be replaced with someone else. Medic is a renamed support, gunner helps everyone dish out more hurt, rocketeer brings me back to rookie rocket roulette and sniper is sniper. A max level Scout and Assault are just short of identical. I like both of these classes a lot, but I really want to see a rework of their skill trees that differentiates them more. Infantry fills a generalist support role which is boring and doesn't feel needed in the slightest when I have 8 man squads to do everything infantry does but overwatch like a god. I guess it does have an identity, but it's not one a particularly agree should exist in a game like Xcom. Could easily be rolled into gunner and Medic (and named back to Support.) The existence of engineer confuses me when I've got 8 soldiers worth of grenades to remove cover or secure kills, rocketeer to level everything in sight. They also get some medic skills, and suppression along with a ridiculous number of other classes. Of all of them, engineer feels the most like "uh, gently caress, we need another class." At least narrow the skill trees back down to 2 rows and trim out a lot of the bad/boring options. Surely nobody disagrees with that?
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Jul 3, 2015 21:12
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Bholder posted:The air game sucks, but there isn't much you can do to fix it without making it pointless like in EW. Besides, deciding that a mostly pointless trifle is better off as a significant and mandatory drag on gameplay with 0 redeeming qualities (by the standards of literally everyone) sort of speaks to the incoherent feature creep that defines a late-stage total conversion mod like LW.
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Jul 3, 2015 21:19
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