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There are a lot of completely justified opinions on Chimera Squad's design decisions both positive and negative, but "it doesn't have tactics" is a blazing take.
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Feb 18, 2023 00:33
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I still say they should do a turn-based adaptation of Interceptor next, with fighter pilots taking the place of soldiers.
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Feb 18, 2023 00:38
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Interceptor had absolutely no merits, I'm sorry man. Its combat was the worst part of the game by miles, and all the rest was just vanilla base-building stuff not much differed from the originals. It deserves to be forgotten.
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Feb 18, 2023 00:58
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The core concept of an XCOM-like game where you're managing fighter planes in dogfights instead of soldiers on the ground is neat, and off the top of my head I can't think of a turn based strategy game based around fighter dogfights. It's kind of like how TFTD is an awful garbage chore to play and it's a bad romhack of X-Com 93 but the concept rules and needs to be explored better.
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Feb 18, 2023 01:03
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Apocalypse is a really interesting concept which had to be scaled down massively too. I'd love to see a remake or spiritual successor which accomplished what the original ideas for Apocalypse actually was. Really, the only XCOM game which has zero redeeming value is Enforcer.
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Feb 18, 2023 01:05
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I played an unhealthy amount of Apocalypse and I love the game to death even if I will openly admit that it's ugly as gently caress and it sucks to play. Part of the reason Chimera Squad is pretty fun/cool is because it's very clearly nodding at Apocalypse in a lot of ways - the multi-species defense corps trying to protect a giant megacity riven by a bunch of different factions.
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Feb 18, 2023 01:10
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Mr. Fortitude posted:Apocalypse is a really interesting concept which had to be scaled down massively too. I'd love to see a remake or spiritual successor which accomplished what the original ideas for Apocalypse actually was. all the actually simulated city and alien dimension stuff, i bet you could actually pull it off these days. not everyone could do it successfully but it could be done. and it would be fuckin cool. Kanos posted:I played an unhealthy amount of Apocalypse and I love the game to death even if I will openly admit that it's ugly as gently caress and it sucks to play. the play-doh apocalypse!
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Feb 18, 2023 01:11
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Apoc is probably my favorite of the 3 older games, but it 100% has to be played in realtime, turns/TUs don't work at all with a bunch of the units and weapons. I'd love a new version of it, which Chimera Squad kind of felt like it was the proof of concept for.
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Feb 18, 2023 01:14
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The concepts of Interceptor's strategic game are perfectly interesting: you aren't defending a map, you are supporting humanity's push out into the frontier. That's a fundamentally different dynamic - you are playing a punch-counter game with the aliens where you are intercepting their raids while launching attacks on their infrastructure. Individual corporations establishing mining and industrial colonies and paying you for protection is a hook - you can tie certain tech/equipment to each corp and force choices on who's convoys you protect. I'm not sure I want another game about 4-6 soldiers fighting on a small map on Earth. Once you count expansions and Chimera Squad I've played 5 variations of that theme from Firaxis and while they were all great in their own way, I'm not sure there's much more fruit to be picked from that tree. e: the bit that Apocalypse really had to cut from the design spec was this spy thriller game where you would have agents trailing politicians or corp board members to try and work out if their brains had been sucked out and replaced with alien sentient bacteria. I think you can make the spy game or you can make a tactical combat XCOM game, but I don't think you can do both at the same time and I think Gollop realised that while making Apocalypse which is why it is what it is. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Feb 18, 2023 |
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Feb 18, 2023 01:15
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Kanos posted:The core concept of an XCOM-like game where you're managing fighter planes in dogfights instead of soldiers on the ground is neat, and off the top of my head I can't think of a turn based strategy game based around fighter dogfights. It's pretty obscure unless you were really into windows shareware CDs like I was in the 90s (although given this is the X-Com thread I expect that may describe more posters here than it would the average person) but the game Critical Mass is a neat take on turn-based strategy with space dogfights. It uses a system similar to Frozen Synapse where each turn is a short time increment and both sides play out simultaneously when they submit their turns, but a key difference is that since you're controlling fighters, they have different amounts of momentum based on their direction and speed and can only be adjusted so much per turn. binge crotching posted:Apoc is probably my favorite of the 3 older games, but it 100% has to be played in realtime, turns/TUs don't work at all with a bunch of the units and weapons. Yeah the way that the turn-based system interacted with some enemies made them way more threatening than on realtime. Although I never really liked how the game played in realtime either, it always felt like you were just lining up your squad to frantically blast away at everything that moves as you march them forwards, rather than being particularly "tactical". I feel like a lot of what made Apoc interesting lived outside of the battlescape and it feels like the sort of thing that modern games would optimize out of the design. The Cheshire Cat fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Feb 18, 2023 |
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Feb 18, 2023 01:15
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The Cheshire Cat posted:It's pretty obscure unless you were really into windows shareware CDs like I was in the 90s (although given this is the X-Com thread I expect that may describe more posters here than it would the average person) but the game Critical Mass is a neat take on turn-based strategy with space dogfights. It uses a system similar to Frozen Synapse where each turn is a short time increment and both sides play out simultaneously when they submit their turns, but a key difference is that since you're controlling fighters, they have different amounts of momentum based on their direction and speed and can only be adjusted so much per turn. https://store.steampowered.com/app/244070/Sid_Meiers_Ace_Patrol/
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Feb 18, 2023 01:19
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Kanos posted:There are a lot of completely justified opinions on Chimera Squad's design decisions both positive and negative, but "it doesn't have tactics" is a blazing take. seriously
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Feb 18, 2023 02:11
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Alchenar posted:The concepts of Interceptor's strategic game are perfectly interesting: you aren't defending a map, you are supporting humanity's push out into the frontier. That's a fundamentally different dynamic - you are playing a punch-counter game with the aliens where you are intercepting their raids while launching attacks on their infrastructure. Individual corporations establishing mining and industrial colonies and paying you for protection is a hook - you can tie certain tech/equipment to each corp and force choices on who's convoys you protect. I think that was kinda what Terra Invicta started as, but then they basically figured out that the earth politics side of it was almost more interesting than X-com but you're fighting in space with space ships. It's probably the closest thing we'll get to Apocalypse from a big picture perspective, and it feels kinda disjointed. Alchenar posted:I'm not sure I want another game about 4-6 soldiers fighting on a small map on Earth. Once you count expansions and Chimera Squad I've played 5 variations of that theme from Firaxis and while they were all great in their own way, I'm not sure there's much more fruit to be picked from that tree. Same. I wouldn't mind them going to an Advanced Squad Leader scale, or maybe just kinda going back to the '93 scale of things- the former's more interesting, though. Maybe they'll draw some inspiration from Nu-Microprose's Second Front. I think the huge advantage of going to that scale is that there wouldn't be such a disconnect between interceptors and skyrangers and the guys on the ground- you could have vehicles play a role in the tactical combat layer. There are some OpenXCom mods that feature transports with turrets, probably the most extensive use of this is the 40k mod, where part of the reason you might choose a particular transport is the turret attached to it, but it's a very janky implementation and sometimes the Leman Russ in your convoy spawns in a place where it has no line of sight and you can't move it because it's "terrain". Kanos posted:There are a lot of completely justified opinions on Chimera Squad's design decisions both positive and negative, but "it doesn't have tactics" is a blazing take. Alright, i'll be a bit more specific- the interleaved turns are a solution to the alpha strike issue, but i think the alpha strike issue is because firefights in nu-com are designed to be these hermetically sealed combat instances, and interleaved turns just sort of turn it into 'do the best thing in this very moment' which is really simple, imo. I think the more interesting solution to the alpha strike problem would be to have the possibility that you need to hang onto some firepower on your turn because enemies you don't know about could come out and attack you, but then, that would require a radical redesign of firaxcom because they are designed specifically so that you will always see every alien at least a turn before they can possibly do anything. Panzeh fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Feb 18, 2023 |
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Feb 18, 2023 11:38
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Firaxis's special sauce is that their games are all really board games. I don't think we'll see them deviate from that.
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Feb 18, 2023 11:54
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Panzeh posted:Same. I wouldn't mind them going to an I think the huge advantage of going to that scale is that there wouldn't be such a disconnect between interceptors and skyrangers and the guys on the ground- you could have vehicles play a role in the tactical combat layer. I liked one of the ways OpenXCOM played with this, turning every fighter into a transport. Your base interceptor only has room for 6 guys, but if you down something and want to run the mission immediately (day/night, end of month, whatever) you have that option. Just like with the Avenger in the endgame.
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Feb 18, 2023 16:09
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Makes no sense though. An interceptor is surely designed for that specific purpose, or at the very least as a multi-role fighter. Making it a transport as well should be unfeasible until you are on par with the aliens technologically. Sending out a formation of crafts seems the better way to handle this if one does not want to have to micromanage interceptors vs transports. Have the transports try to break away and return to base if the interceptors lose.
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Feb 18, 2023 16:24
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thotsky posted:Makes no sense though. An interceptor is surely designed for that specific purpose, or at the very least as a multi-role fighter. Making it a transport as well should be unfeasible until you are on par with the aliens technologically. This is also something Apocalypse did; it had some dedicated transport vehicles but the fighter jet-y Valkyrie Interceptor was most likely to be your main transportation vehicle at least until the late game when you'd have unlocked a bunch of straight upgrades. Although getting troops to places quickly wasn't as important in Apocalypse since even without vehicles at all they could just like, walk, and generally the timing was generous enough that this was fine.
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Feb 18, 2023 16:34
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thotsky posted:Makes no sense though. An interceptor is surely designed for that specific purpose, or at the very least as a multi-role fighter. Making it a transport as well should be unfeasible until you are on par with the aliens technologically. The megamods generally have interceptors able to drop a limited amount of soldiers for things, but because crash sites stay for at least 48 hours it's really trivial to get a real transport out there unless you're playing a mod where transports are ultra-slow for some portions of the game, like files or piratez, where you have to choose between 'fast' and 'plenty of soldiers/able to use 2x2 units'. I think the advantage of a pulled back, squad scale is, you could actually have the transports perform tactical transport roles and have things like IFVs and even close air support.
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Feb 18, 2023 16:47
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Panzeh posted:Alright, i'll be a bit more specific- the interleaved turns are a solution to the alpha strike issue, but i think the alpha strike issue is because firefights in nu-com are designed to be these hermetically sealed combat instances, and interleaved turns just sort of turn it into 'do the best thing in this very moment' which is really simple, imo. I think the more interesting solution to the alpha strike problem would be to have the possibility that you need to hang onto some firepower on your turn because enemies you don't know about could come out and attack you, but then, that would require a radical redesign of firaxcom because they are designed specifically so that you will always see every alien at least a turn before they can possibly do anything. Figuring out what the best thing to do in the moment is the essence of the tactics, though. You can theoretically boil it down to "it's objectively correct to have shield guy press the shield button here and then have snake lady tongue pull this specific enemy in this situation", but the point is that there's a lot of permutations for potential combat situations based on specific unit choice, equipment access, enemy types, and terrain layout that mean that figuring out the best option to use in the moment is the skill check of the game. You can boil the early UFO 93 gameplay down to "crawl across a field with laser rifles/explosives and rocket HWPs" but I would never say it isn't tactical or involved because there's a lot of thought that goes into the application of the general principle. How would you propose to have "hanging on to firepower in case enemies come and attack you" work in an interesting manner in a you go-i go turn structure? Both UFO 93 and Firaxcom have overwatch functionality for that purpose. You could introduce some kind of interrupt system for you to give additional actions if the player saved AP/TUs, but then you're basically just applying an interleaved turn system inconsistently and with extra steps.
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Feb 19, 2023 01:00
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In order to make "saving firepower for the enemy turn" the best choice, you need to set up the game so that saving it typically helps you more than just shooting on your turn. XCOM does a little bit of that with overwatch-focused perks, but outside of a character specifically built that way, you can do far more effective stuff by using your full spectrum of abilities on your turn instead of just taking an overwatch shot. Just having enemies potentially appear out of nowhere doesn't actually solve that, by the way. You need something like "the enemies are in cover and it's very hard to shoot them, but if you save for reaction fire then they'll move out of cover on their turn and you can shoot them then".
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Feb 19, 2023 01:13
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Jabor posted:In order to make "saving firepower for the enemy turn" the best choice, you need to set up the game so that saving it typically helps you more than just shooting on your turn. XCOM does a little bit of that with overwatch-focused perks, but outside of a character specifically built that way, you can do far more effective stuff by using your full spectrum of abilities on your turn instead of just taking an overwatch shot. It's true- even XCOM '93 heavily favors attacking on the active turn over relying on reaction fire because both the reaction mechanics give the active player a little break on first-sight, and because snap shots are less efficient than throwing grenades or taking auto shots (or blaster bombs, or any number of options). The optimal tactic in '93 is to use exactly one unit to spot, and have everyone else attack from out of sight range or move out, attack, and run back to a protected location. There's an AI mod that actually has the AI do this, and it's called Brutal AI for a reason. Most people tend to overvalue reaction fire in that game because of a mechanical flaw in which the enemy begins with a full set of TUs on your first turn which means they get full overwatch, so novice players get dunked on for walking out of the skyranger. The veteran player just hits end turn once you start the game. (If you do this vs Brutal AI you will get absolutely shat on though).
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Feb 19, 2023 01:39
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Panzeh posted:It's true- even XCOM '93 heavily favors attacking on the active turn over relying on reaction fire because both the reaction mechanics give the active player a little break on first-sight, and because snap shots are less efficient than throwing grenades or taking auto shots (or blaster bombs, or any number of options). The optimal tactic in '93 is to use exactly one unit to spot, and have everyone else attack from out of sight range or move out, attack, and run back to a protected location. There's an AI mod that actually has the AI do this, and it's called Brutal AI for a reason. I always hunted the aliens outside the ship with snipers/a spotter, but there was another bug that would cause anyone inside the ship to come out looking for you around turn 20. That’s where they walked into an L-shaped ambush made up of all my most reactive shooters  There was always inevitably one that had to get dug out, but teams of 3 with high reactions were usually pretty good about sorting that out with minimal casualties.
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Feb 19, 2023 01:56
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Icon Of Sin posted:I always hunted the aliens outside the ship with snipers/a spotter, but there was another bug that would cause anyone inside the ship to come out looking for you around turn 20. Yeah, the aliens are auto-given your location starting turn 20. The way the nodes are laid out in alien ships means they tend to pathfind inside the ship and go in circles mostly when they're in "idle" mode, which is most of the time. They really want you to breach the ship but if you're patient enough you can just set a reaction trap at the door as you say. BTW there's almost always a fairly active node outside the door to the alien ship and you can throw blind grenades there for easy kills. Still, you're generally better doing things on your turn but breaching a ship often involves taking weird risks. The brutal AI runs out the door quickly before you can get a trap set up and heaves grenades like crazy.
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Feb 19, 2023 02:05
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dear Lord, forgot how bad xcom2 endgame is, I just to finish some researches and have almost all the map connected, please stop giving me guerilla ops
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Feb 19, 2023 23:59
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Honest Thief posted:dear Lord, forgot how bad xcom2 endgame is, I just to finish some researches and have almost all the map connected, please stop giving me guerilla ops Every xcom has that point where you just want to finish it. You don't have to do those guerilla ops if you don't need the loot and don't mind all the dark events they have.
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Feb 20, 2023 01:55
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Finally got around to playing through Enemy Unkown and looking to tackle XCom 2 next. I noticed I grabbed it at some point free through the Epic Store, but it's just the base game. Is it worth playing XCom 2 vanilla first? Or just bite the bullet and grab the War of the Chosen DLC?
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Feb 20, 2023 02:25
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XCOM 2 is a perfectly good game in its own right and you don't need to buy War of the Chosen to have a good time.
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Feb 20, 2023 02:33
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try it awhile and see if it clicks with you. if you get real into it and wish it had way the hell more, get the DLC and install several hundred mods  it's arguable but i'd say WOTC does fundamentally change the game for the better overall. mileage may vary on the other DLCs. i remember the performance even seemed way better with WOTC but that might have just been my machine.
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Feb 20, 2023 02:35
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I'd say it's like EW and base firaxcom. If you're interested there's no real reason not to upgrade: the base game is fun, but the expansion is the same game but better. Why not play with all the toys?
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Feb 20, 2023 02:43
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Yea, my advice for XCOM2 has always been: Buy and play vanilla, finish the game, *then* go back and buy literally everything and enable it all at once. The new content can be quite overhwelming, and so one benefits from a less cluttered playthrough first. Vanilla is a perfectly complete product, so it's a good representation to just buy the base game before finishing the bundle.
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Feb 20, 2023 02:53
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also if you do get into it / do multiple runs, totally learn to use the character pool. save cool soldiers you like from previous campaigns and load them up into future ones.
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Feb 20, 2023 03:11
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Sounds good. Thanks everyone.
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Feb 20, 2023 03:36
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I think i now know why I constantly restarted campaigns but only finished a couple, the final mission is such a chore, i get that they were going for a last stand sorta of thing but it just feels like a battle of attrition
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Feb 21, 2023 17:03
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If Nauta goes, then I write off at least XCOM, probably Firaxis too.
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Feb 21, 2023 18:10
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Honest Thief posted:I think i now know why I constantly restarted campaigns but only finished a couple, the final mission is such a chore, i get that they were going for a last stand sorta of thing but it just feels like a battle of attrition If you think the jakecom final missions are a slog just wait until you see midnight suns. a fun enjoyable game ruined by a fuckin 1-2 hours final mission
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Feb 21, 2023 21:26
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TK-42-1 posted:If you think the jakecom final missions are a slog just wait until you see midnight suns. I played it, it's not good no, but once you know what the deal is you can clean house given how overpowered some characters are
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Feb 21, 2023 21:35
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StratGoatCom posted:If Nauta goes, then I write off at least XCOM, probably Firaxis too. loving lol if they dumpstered the whole company by going all-in on Marvel of all things. At least we can be sure Civilization 7 is going to be a pretty traditional Civ experience, they wouldn't dare mess with the formula now that it pretty much has to succeed or the company is done for.
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Feb 21, 2023 22:07
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Double Bill posted:loving lol if they dumpstered the whole company by going all-in on Marvel of all things. At least we can be sure Civilization 7 is going to be a pretty traditional Civ experience, they wouldn't dare mess with the formula now that it pretty much has to succeed or the company is done for. Don't think it would be instant death, not in the least, buuuut depending on how much damage MS did to their finances and talent pool, and how much baleful attention from Take-Two they may have brought upon them...
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Feb 21, 2023 22:16
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Or... OR... What if we stop feeding a cycle of anxiety with baseless speculation and just see what actually happens and react to that?
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Feb 21, 2023 22:52
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Tricky Ed posted:Or... OR... What if we stop feeding a cycle of anxiety with baseless speculation and just see what actually happens and react to that? How perverse.
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