|
Xenonauts owns and its good to have multiple xcom like games imo
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 04:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 22:21 |
|
|
XCOM 1 was just so much overwatch crawling and I got bored halfway through every campaign. You didn't have to do that, but every time you didn't do that, it felt like you were making unforced errors out of boredom.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 04:31
|
|
|
XCOM 2 has the character pool and more dressup, it wins automatically
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 04:35
|
|
|
XCOM2 has a thousand quality of life improvements that I really appreciate, but I can't get used to timers. Like they are easy enough to beat but I loved Overwatch crawl. Also really not a fan of the randomized maps, they don't feel nearly as unique and interesting as the EW ones. Also, I don't like XCOM2's enemies. Advent are the most common enemy and they look too human. I miss the tiny sectoids as the base enemy in EW. Like, XCOM2/LW2 aren't bad games, they just don't really appeal to me specifically. I understand how designers(and players) weren't fans of the overwatch crawl, but I loved it. I also liked suppression/smoke grenades and stuff like that that allowed for longer firefights with aliens. So I don't like the "Kill thing quickly because the game was designed to kill things quickly" design. Not that it's bad or anything, it's done super well and achieves what it tries to do. I just don't really have fun with it. I've been working on what probably amounts to the ultimate "LIterally will only be fun for myself" mod, but I've been slowly making non-randomized maps with the plan of eventually playing the game with zero randomized maps and a bunch of dumb EW looking maps including stupid highways and crowded small spaces. Then I'll remove timers, add more enemies and pretend I'm playing LW1. And I know I'll probably be the only person in existence who wants to play the game that way but still haha. In my ideal world, if I can figure out how to mod this in I'll also do away with concealment but give the player X random rookies at the start of every mission to serve as disposable scouts. So far have only gone as far as doing the map stuff(with uh very limited number of them) and screwing with a limited reload mechanic, which I've mostly abandoned since I think is a terrible idea. Hopeford fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Jun 19, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 04:55
|
|
|
I love the random maps, they give the game so much more replayability for me. That said, I won't argue they feel much less unique. I appreciate mods that switch up and mix and match plot/parcel themes, like cozy suburbs with big, militarized checkpoints. But that's not quite the same as XCOM 1's variety. Still, I'm always seeing new stuff even now, like a church that shows up in spotless suburbs instead of just ruined in retaliations. I think that as much as 1's handcrafted maps had charm and distinct areas, they weren't all particularly well balanced (murder street comes to mind) and a lot of times you had such a dearth of high cover (or just any cover) that it became a prolonged shootout. If you do make a mod with handcrafted maps, I'm sure there are plenty of people (myself included) who'd love it. I wouldn't at all mind the occasional premade, fancy map with my generated ones -- that's what I'm getting with story missions, already, and these would be less rigid. That said, I imagine you could at least use the smaller randomization systems to change up a few features, like where trash cans or whatever are placed so it's not perfectly identical each time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 12:08
|
|
|
Light Gun Man posted:XCOM 2 has the character pool and more dressup, it wins automatically I can't wait for new space Barbie options 
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 13:20
|
|
|
My favourite little thing about EU maps was the supply barges. In particular, the way you could never really single-move forwards from one good bit of cover to another, it was always just a little bit out of reach. I'm pretty sure that was an intentional part of the design, and it owned for making the ship feel totally alien and wrong.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 13:20
|
|
|
XCOM2 was "ruined" (i.e. a very good game, but not XCOM-good) by having a timer on most of the missions, and having it be unnecessarily strict on most of them. Like "dash straight to the objective dodging anything on the way because any fight would delay you too much"-strict.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 13:37
|
|
|
If I'm being honest I also preferred to play scifi tactilol in XCOM1 over freedom fighting in XCOM2. It's just not as cool for me.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 13:43
|
|
|
Double Bill posted:XCOM2 was "ruined" (i.e. a very good game, but not XCOM-good) by having a timer on most of the missions, and having it be unnecessarily strict on most of them. Like "dash straight to the objective dodging anything on the way because any fight would delay you too much"-strict. The timer has never been this strict, in my experience. If you dash forward every turn when you don't hit contact, you have plenty of time to blow through whatever's in your way when you do finally run into enemies.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 13:45
|
|
Double Bill posted:XCOM2 was "ruined" (i.e. a very good game, but not XCOM-good) by having a timer on most of the missions, and having it be unnecessarily strict on most of them. Like "dash straight to the objective dodging anything on the way because any fight would delay you too much"-strict. True Concealment with harshly lowered timers makes the system so great tho. Gives you all the time you need before you strike then you have to take risks to complete the mission from there. Even better if you add in stealth kill odds so your Sharpshooters and Rangers can pick stranglers off before you engage.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 13:48
|
|
|
I feel like if they put 2 or 3 more turns it woulda been perfect. It just felt like you always need just a liiiiiitle longer to not really worry
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 13:51
|
|
|
Timers don't bother me because it's a guerrilla operation, and 95% of the time you have plenty of time to reach the objective. As a matter of fact according to the statistics displaced whenever the Avatar project gets completed, I'm actually completing timer missions with more available turns than average. Remember: In VIP missions, you don't have to actually kill anything, just bring them to the extraction point
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 14:15
|
|
|
I will never understand how people can say Xcom 1 has better mission variety when 99% of them are "overwatch creep until everything on the map is dead". The fact that Xcom 2 actually forces you to keep moving in a lot of missions makes it better by default.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 14:17
|
|
|
Internet Kraken posted:I will never understand how people can say Xcom 1 has better mission variety when 99% of them are "overwatch creep until everything on the map is dead".  Some people are just autistic and can't stand being imperfect in video games
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 14:22
|
|
|
Internet Kraken posted:I will never understand how people can say Xcom 1 has better mission variety when 99% of them are "overwatch creep until everything on the map is dead". Yeah, as fun as that was, XCOM 2's variety of actually having an objective...and not overwatch-creeping along the same damned map...makes the game way more fun to me. Yes, I'll admit the pre-made maps were more fun, and some of them were really cool setpieces (the downed UFO on TOP of a building) however having a more fluid map generation does wonders in keeping the game fresh. Also I really don't get the hate for turns. I mean, yes, I freaked out the first couple of times, then I realized it wasn't actually *that* big of a deal. Just gotta keep moving, be agressive instead of passively over-watch creeping. Take the dash now and then. Alternatively... Ramadu posted:I feel like if they put 2 or 3 more turns it woulda been perfect. It just felt like you always need just a liiiiiitle longer to not really worry Edit the .ini, or download a mod to give you a few more turns. There's a mod out there that gives a straight up +4 turns on all timers that I've been using since I first beat the game. A mod that you can edit to give you 99 turns/map if you really want.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 14:24
|
|
|
I started Long War 2 and it's really cool even though I'm probably playing it horribly wrong and going to doom myself. I'm like two months in and still have nearly no cash to build new rooms lol
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 14:56
|
|
|
LordNat posted:True Concealment with harshly lowered timers makes the system so great tho. Yea, squad up in some burned out wreck of a building or some shiny Advent office park, hoping that roving patrol of snakes passes you by before you bound to the next room is awesome. Then when it's time to get wild, you really gotta bring your A-game. It's really the best combination. Extracting four prisoners, while the timer counts down from three and you're in a firefight with 4/5ths of all the ayys on the map. Good loving times.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:03
|
|
jfood posted:Yea, squad up in some burned out wreck of a building or some shiny Advent office park, hoping that roving patrol of snakes passes you by before you bound to the next room is awesome. Then when it's time to get wild, you really gotta bring your A-game. I love for extraction missions, leads you to having to take out walls or making risky moves to get in out in time. Makes Sparks great as moving cover to allow for quicker escapes.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:22
|
|
|
Iron Crowned posted:
Mods change my name to imperfect video games
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:24
|
|
|
Lunchmeat Larry posted:I started Long War 2 and it's really cool even though I'm probably playing it horribly wrong and going to doom myself. I'm like two months in and still have nearly no cash to build new rooms lol its really good but unfortunately you need to look a bunch of stuff up. the vulture upgrade in the gts is a really good investment whenever you can afford it. you end up with a poo poo load of cores and pcs chips which sell for a lot. Jabor posted:My favourite little thing about EU maps was the supply barges. All of the UFO's were super fun to fight in. I wish some modder out there would make a ufo pack. i particularly miss those mediums where you could breach the outsider pod from both sides of the ship and obliterate them with overwatch fire.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:35
|
|
|
timers good lw good suck my nuts
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:35
|
|
|
Ramadu posted:I feel like if they put 2 or 3 more turns it woulda been perfect. It just felt like you always need just a liiiiiitle longer to not really worry
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:39
|
|
|
bwuhhhhhhhh duh if i do not like a thing, people who like it are autistic bwuhuhhhhhhhhhhh
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:40
|
|
|
Bogart posted:bwuhhhhhhhh duh if i do not like a thing, people who like it are autistic bwuhuhhhhhhhhhhh Only when video games and trains are involved, and do you know what video game has trains in it?
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:43
|
|
|
Bogart posted:bwuhhhhhhhh duh if i do not like a thing, people who like it are autistic bwuhuhhhhhhhhhhh 
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:45
|
|
|
Honestly I'll just recommend people to buy WotC if they didn't like timers that much but otherwise liked the game, because one of the Resistance Orders (IIRC Jake has called this their equivalent to policies from Civilization) is enabling True Concealment mode for timer-based missions.  (And if they didn't like the Avatar Project timer, there's also a resistance order that delays Avatar Project progress by one bar per month.)
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:55
|
|
|
People who think the timers are too strict just need to get better at the game or mod it to their liking.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 15:58
|
|
|
Part of me wonders if the people that hate timers are actually using all the tools at your disposal to make advancing in concealment easier. Battle scanners are one of the first thing you can research and you can get phantom rangers easily as well. Both of these make it a lot safer to dash forward to reach the objective quickly.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 16:04
|
|
|
I've blown countless XCOM missions, but I've never blown one due to running out a timer.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 16:09
|
|
Exposure posted:Honestly I'll just recommend people to buy WotC if they didn't like timers that much but otherwise liked the game, because one of the Resistance Orders (IIRC Jake has called this their equivalent to policies from Civilization) is enabling True Concealment mode for timer-based missions. WotC is more or less "Most subscribed mods" tossed into a pack. So far it looks like I am removing all my non-cosmetic mods from my mandatory list when WotC comes out.
|
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 16:14
|
|
|
I like the feel of XCom 1 better but find the gameplay improvements and more varied missions in 2 enough to outweigh that. Particularly with Long War, doing mission after mission of "sweep over the map and kill everything" got tedious but the different types of missions in 2 kept that from being a problem.Bogart posted:bwuhhhhhhhh duh if i do not like a thing, people who like it are autistic bwuhuhhhhhhhhhhh I sometimes wonder if the people crying autism because someone likes (XCom1 | XCom2 | LW 1 | LW 2| OG XCom) when they don't are being deliberately ironic or just that oblivious.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 16:24
|
|
|
Jabor posted:My favourite little thing about EU maps was the supply barges. That was all of the XCOM maps and it was a terrible design choice, particularly given that at Classic difficulty Thin Men had a 100% hit chance against low cover and other high level enemies weren't far behind (I know EW toned that down a little). One of the things that's really impressive about XCOM2's map system isn't just that it matches plots together in a way that always looks good and natural, but that cover is spread liberally around - never too generously but enough so that you don't have 6 soldiers and one piece of high cover in the middle of a field between you and the point you need to get to. I miss UFO assaults though. To me there's something quintessentially XCOM about making a deliberate set-piece assault on aliens desperately defending their technology from you. AVATAR facility assaults take their place in XCOM2 but a) it's about stopping the timer rather than actually gaining anything, and b) it's missing that wonderful transition from a familiar environment (farmland, etc) to an alien one (a really weird spaceship). e: and having thought about it for a moment that's really the thing I think XCOM2 gets wrong - every other XCOM game from UFO to Interceptor works around the theme of XCOM going after the aliens in order to grab very specific bits of their technology and reverse-engineer it. In XCOM2 you accumulate generic supplies of Alloys and Elerium and the scientists work out how to make Plasma guns work all by themselves. There's no sense of 'grab an intact version of x so we can pull it apart and find out how it works' and that's a loss. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jun 19, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 16:26
|
|
|
Yeah, the only thing I really miss from XCOM EW was alien craft assaults. There is something about sending a team of dudes into the woods to follow a burning trail to the wreckage of a UFO I find really cool. It would also fit in with the guerrilla theme if we had missions where we shot down UFOs and had a tight timer to scavenge for materials from them. A mission type like Long War 2's supply raids which I really like.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 16:32
|
|
|
Bremen posted:I sometimes wonder if the people crying autism because someone likes (XCom1 | XCom2 | LW 1 | LW 2| OG XCom) when they don't are being deliberately ironic or just that oblivious. Maybe. Though seriously, in general using autism as an insult is terrible. Like, jesus guys what the hell? Internet Kraken posted:Part of me wonders if the people that hate timers are actually using all the tools at your disposal to make advancing in concealment easier. Battle scanners are one of the first thing you can research and you can get phantom rangers easily as well. Both of these make it a lot safer to dash forward to reach the objective quickly. I can only speak for myself, but I use all of that and I still hate timers. Keep in mind that "I hate timers" and "I can't beat this mission" are two different things though. I have no trouble beating the game on timers, I just don't really enjoy doing so. My issue is less with difficulty and more with what I find personally enjoyable in the game. The game as it is right now is pretty balanced and I don't really argue that timers are unfair or anything - they are pretty well designed and work wonderfully as they were intended. I just don't enjoy them. Timers essentially make you go on a straight line from spawn to objective. This means that by design, alien fights are meant to last only one or two turns at maximum. The game doesn't want to hold you down for longer than that so the gameplay is balanced in such a way that firefights only last short amounts of time. So the gameplay ends up, by design, being something that moves you from point A to point B without ever stopping. Combined with the "Line of Play" cheating AI behavior, it makes stealth essentially worthless and also means that pods get incredibly predictable after one playthrough. But honestly the fact that timers limit your strategies to one approach, which sucks. Like the fun of the randomized maps is that sometimes you could get an awesome defensive position/sniper's nest, but since you have to keep moving all the time that's basically worthless anyway. Plus even if you could do it, since fights are designed to be ended super fast you don't really need to have a nice, high cover building to hug or a point for your sniper to pick people off from. I've tried just modding the game out of the timers, but since the game is balanced around timers anyway doing that tends to break the balance in a hilarious way, especially with the timer-designed AI being ridiculous without one. So modding out timers would include rebalancing the AI and other things if you wanted to keep the game working well. Admittedly I am doing that exact thing, and I'll admit that modding the game is super fun. It's like, I think XCOM2 does what it tries to do very well but what it tries to do lacks what made XCOM1 enjoyable for me personally.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 17:19
|
|
|
That's how I see things as well. Like, I'm not inherently against timers - the train mission for Enemy Within remains one of the most frantic, pressured things I've had to do especially coupled with Bradford's increasing panic - but for all missions, every mission it gets a bit tiring and I start to feel like I'm just being rushed. After a couple of XCOM2 campaigns I disabled the timer and found myself enjoying the game a lot more. I'm glad they tried to innovate on the original, mind.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 17:22
|
|
|
As much as I liked XCOM EU/EW, XCOM 2 is a much better game. Legend/Ironman has a much better feel than Impossible/Ironman and is less dependent on decent RNG in the early game. The tactical pacing is much better in 2, not even because of the timers but because the game rewards much more aggressive tactics. There's genuinely only a few small windows in the game where your ability to just steamroll alien scum is ever in jeopardy and the game is simply trying to reinforce that concept with a countdown to get poo poo done. I mean part of the reason EU was such a slog on I/I was because you were living in a house of cards, trying not to blow it over with an errant fart for 3-4 months, while you carefully constructed your metaphorical nigh-invulnerable robotic exoskeleton warmachine. EW was great because the designers just decided to go "hey, how about we just give you an easy way to build your own, literal, nigh-invulnerable robotic exoskeleton in the first 2 weeks of the campaign?" You can get them so goddamn early it seems like Shen is suffering from dementia because one second he's aghast at what the aliens did to the floaters and the very next he's choppin off limbs of some rookie girl knocked unconscious by a gas attack.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 17:24
|
|
|
What do you mean "stealth is essentially worthless" because of timers?
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 17:29
|
|
|
Fangz posted:What do you mean "stealth is essentially worthless" because of timers? Less because of timers and more because of how the AI works. Gonna spoiler this because this is a neat "magic trick" the developers pulled, but once you see it it may kind of pull back the curtain a little bit too much. Basically the pod placement in XCOM2 works by drawing a line between you and the objective and placing enemies to the side of the that line. That seems reasonable, only that line updates as you play, and so does the AI. So even if the pods don't know where you are, they still always reposition themselves between you and the objective. So if you sneak past a pod, for example, it will always catch up to you. Also if you can see a pod it will absolutely refuse to move even if it's not activated. Basically the stealth is only there to let you approach that first pod on the map wish dashes without caring. It doesn't actually work for...well, stealth. LW2 did change this behavior though. But yeah in XCOM2 Line of Play AI effectively means that every mission is way more linear than it seems - you are basically guaranteed to fight every pod on the map, and in order too - no multiple activations. And after a while you can even predict what flanks are "safe" to take based on line-of-play. So the missions just appear a lot more...linear. Developers did this to presumably address the BULLSHIT claims when you moved a little to the left in XCOM1 and triggered a second pod. Some see that as a good thing, but I don't personally. The riskiness in multiple activations was a huge part of the fun for me in the original. But yeah basically: stealth is actually worthless beyond a safe first activation and the AI line of play means every mission is predictable. This addresses most of the mainstream "That's so unfair" complaints at the cost of making pod placement feel very samey and missions feel very linear, especially when coupled with a tight timer.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 18:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 22:21 |
|
|
Hopeford posted:Less because of timers and more because of how the AI works. Gonna spoiler this because this is a neat "magic trick" the developers pulled, but once you see it it may kind of pull back the curtain a little bit too much. So much of this is unbelievably wrong. I've seen pods patrol out of my vision while in stealth all the time. I'm not gonna claim Xcom 2's AI is flawless but its way better than the literal magic teleporting aliens from EW.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2017 18:10
|
|