Xcom

[Majek]

So DLC

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/10/23/firaxis-talks-future-xcom-content-slingshot-dlc-announced/

 

i'll buy it. :D getting that tech sooner is good enough for me, since it's such a pain the get it in the regular game.

[Malcador]

Meh to that. I must commend the spawning of aliens though, squad all hunkered up advancing to the ship and then...3 floaters materialize right in front of the drop off point (got mashed by overwatch, but still was funny). Have a tricky UFO clearance with those MC'ing Sectoids now.

[Starwars]

I really like this game overall but I can't imagine being less excited by that DLC announcement. "Story missions" is pretty much the exact opposite of what I want more of in this game and the unlocking of tech earlier in the game as a reward is just... eeeh.

 

Disappointing. But oh well, at least base game is great fun on its own.

[WorstUsernameEver]

The DLC sounds pretty awful. What the game needs is an expansion that injects more content, especially more maps and more layers/content on the strategic side which feels a bit barebone.

 

But instead we get story-based content that also alters the game balance in your favor? Why?

[alanschu]

The DLC does seem surprising.

[jivex5k]

Yup this DLC seems completely against the whole spirit of XCom.

It's funny how they lost it so quick...

That coupled with the pre-order only color swapping...Or you can pay a small fee of 4.99??

HA 4.99 to change your soliders armor color...smells like EA to me, shame on you 2k...

 

The game is good enough to warrant multiple playthroughs without DLC.

 

In other words...good job Firaxis.

Go eff yourself 2k.

Edited October 24, 2012 by jivex5k

[mr insomniac]

Just finished my first playthrough. Final mission was a blast, made especially interesting when four of my squad were killed in one turn... okay, the heavy and the assault trooper were critically wounded but both support troops were outright killed, so the other two couldn't be revived. I counted that as one turn. Damn Mutons. The badly wounded fifth trooper was killed near the end. Luckily my psionic sniper, with her plasma rifle + double-tap was a near unstoppable force and won the day with barely a scratch on her.

 

Only ran into one game-breaking bug. Sent a S.H.I.V. first through a doorway on an alien ship, and for the rest of the squad the game behaved as though the door was still closed, and there was no way to open it.

 

Anyway, very fun game. Now can't decide if I should play it again, or get into Dishonored, or go back to Borderlands.

[melkathi]

 

 

Anyway, very fun game. Now can't decide if I should play it again, or get into Dishonored, or go back to Borderlands.

 

You should channel that alien-killing-prowess and play Space Invaders.

[mr insomniac]

Anyway, very fun game. Now can't decide if I should play it again, or get into Dishonored, or go back to Borderlands.

 

You should channel that alien-killing-prowess and play Space Invaders.

Space Invaders isn't turn-based.

[melkathi]

Anyway, very fun game. Now can't decide if I should play it again, or get into Dishonored, or go back to Borderlands.

 

You should channel that alien-killing-prowess and play Space Invaders.

Space Invaders isn't turn-based.

 

True.

Neither are Dishonored or Boderlands though, so I guess you have no option but to replay XCOM

[jivex5k]

Play dishonored, but turn off the UI completely.

It makes a much more interesting game.

[Humanoid]

Oddball bug, fired the game up and panicked: "oh no, I've lost all my games from the past day!" For some bizarre reason it turns out that the game thinks that November 1 occurs between October 30 and October 31.

[Bendu]

Finished my first playthrough. It's a fun game overall, but basically it's the cover based corridor shooter of strategy games.

[Gorgon]

Oddball bug, fired the game up and panicked: "oh no, I've lost all my games from the past day!" For some bizarre reason it turns out that the game thinks that November 1 occurs between October 30 and October 31.

My saves aren't sorted at all, not even by time played and some times they don't show up before I do a reload. I have to limit myself to 3 slots to avoid confusion.

 

I kinda wish there were more than just the one base assault, not counting the endgame. It would change things up a bit as well from the alien abduction missions. Other than that, playing on Ironman after I got the crashes sorted out is extremely challenging.

[Humanoid]

I finished my first game earlier today, regular normal game, with soft-ironman self-imposed: but did reload a couple times where the wacky multi-level camera and movement issues would have wasted my time. Did very poorly strategically at the start - apparently a fairly common problem due to the economic management aspect being poorly covered in the tutorial - but once stabilised it wasn't really a challenge, yeah. I'm a bit loathe to start a new classic game before the upcoming patch though, and even then I might choose to mod/hack it to swap out some game elements I'm not fond of.

 

Lategame comments: tactically I think the game becomes a fair bit less interesting late on - the aliens, elite mutons aside, cease to behave in a 'realistic' fashion and instead just rely on inherent bonuses, making the game less about clever positioning and more about raw firepower. Cyberdiscs, Drones, Sectopods, Ethereals - none of them really behave tactically, being basically treated as being in permanent cover, and even for the Sectoid Commanders it's mostly just an illusion of it since they're not bound to the normal rolls. It was more interesting early in the game where the aliens mostly played by the same rules you do, with the occasional floater or chryssalid providing occasional but interesting exceptions.

 

Compounding the issue is that increasingly the varied mission settings are replaced by visually and tactically repetitive large UFO levels, where you pretty much start on the boarding ramp. Yes it makes in-world sense that eventually as you gain control of things, abduction missions gradually fall away, but most of different the levels in the game are only played on those missions, so while there is, in absolute terms, a good enough variety of maps, I'd hazard a majority of them are essentially removed from the pool by the second half of the game.

 

---

 

Unfortunately it seems that modding the game is a bit more finicky than in Civilization for the moment, with most changes requiring hacking of the game executable. The mods out there I mostly like the sound of, but the issue is that you're essentially stuck picking one pre-defined package of what the particular modder thought was the best balance. Hopefully in the future the tweaks can be done in simple text files so that I can pick and choose what I want.

 

Things that are known to be changeable and which I would like to have direct access to:

- Restoring the Arc Thrower to be a secondary weapon and not a miscellaneous item

- Removing the arbitrary +10% hit and crit from aliens in Classic/Impossible (happy to just have to deal with the unshackled AI and no limit on active AI combatants, they don't need flat bonuses on top of that)

- Toning down the environmental damage effect of plasma weapons

- Slowing base research speed thereby making science improvements more meaningful (I did not build a single lab in my initial playthrough)

- (Maybe) removing panic friendly fire (though it only occurred once in my game just now)

- Increasing trooper downtime after injury (the perk to halve injury time in particular I feel is a bit too strong)

- (Maybe) enabling an extra miscellaneous item slot for all troopers

 

I want those changes, but don't care for the couple dozen other tweaks the current mods tend to add. Guess I might do it myself after the patch hits - I don't want to make these changes now then have to redo them a few days later.

[Humanoid]

Oh, and bug report for that playthrough: besides the obvious camera/movement issues and the date sort bug:

- One occasion where the UI became unresponsive during my turn: I could select an action but not execute any, and could not switch soldier or force end turn (Backspace). Had to force terminate for this one.

- One occasion where after firing a rocket in a UFO, the game seemed stuck calculating its effect, effectively hanging.

- Only one occurrence of the oft-reported random enemy spawning in LOS: a Sectopod spawning behind my squad, effectively right next to the Skyranger. while I was scouting ahead.

- One occasion, again on a UFO, where a soldier landing after using Archangel armour ended up inside the level geometry and was unable to move (including flight) for the remainder of the mission.

[Starwars]

I really wish there were less UFO missions overall. Those really strike me as the most... well, boring ones really. Tactically speaking, they just feel so cramped. Which may be a challenge in itself but is not too fun to play in my opinion. Plus, the bigger UFOs have those horrid camera/movement issues.

 

Bomb Disposal is always a complete crapfest (in a good way) for me. They're always "ohmygodohmygodohmygod" experiences. Would've liked to see just a few more of those, though still keep them rare. Just like the terror missions. They're also lots of fun and very "panicky". But yeah, probably good there aren't too many.

The escorting ones are kind of annoying... Don't like the "let's spawn Thin men" gimmick they've got going.

 

And the regular ones are often pretty fun, varies a bit on the map. But they usually work well.

 

It's been such a long time since I played the original game, I can't remember at all how the various mission types were divided up there.

[Malcador]

Terror missions are pretty boring affairs for me, at least on Normal. I just set up a killzone near some civilians, the aliens inevitably show up and get wasted. Game's into a long slow process now, slagging everything with my Colonels.

[Gorgon]

The spawning isn't very good. Initially you are often better off not moving an inch after initial contact because trying to flank would bring in extra enemy squads. This is exacerbated on small maps. Getting the ghost armor helps some, but it's quite massively overpowered particularly if you get 6 assault squaddies using it.

 

You guys should really be playing on classic, normal gets much too easy after your squad gets beefed up.

[Starwars]

Yeah, though Normal is too easy in my opinion. But even on Classic, I think there is a tendency that is similar to some RPGs... in that the game is kinda more fun in the beginning in some ways. Even if you can get pwnd quickly later on, it doesn't feel as exciting or nerve-wracking when you get all the advanced abilities and equipment.

I always like it when you're struggling to find your momentum in the opening parts.

[Humanoid]

It's more fun in the beginning in almost all ways. Would love some UFO missions not located in "sparsely populated areas" as generic man repeats over and over. I understand glossing over UFOs being shot down over the sea (until they do a TFTD expansion of course), but an urban UFO crash would be interesting tactically. But for best immediate improvement of game variety, what probably should happen is that a new mission type is implemented for the late game to replace the abduction missions, and occur on the same map set as abductions - even if they're just "kill all alien" objectives under a different name.

 

Have tried base Classic mode a little. The +10% hit and crit bonus aliens get is, I suspect, affecting the AI decisions and not in an interesting way. They factor in the extra hit chance when deciding on their move and will take the relatively improbable shots instead of manoeuvring into position and I feel that's less interesting. Just a hunch of course, can't say for sure that's how they're programmed, but at any rate, I'd probably go with removing that bonus for a better experience, and generally moving classic a bit away from impossible.

[Majek]

I never noticed the +10% hit and crit bonus in my classic games. The tactical combat was pretty easy even if i did save every 3-4 turns.

[Gorgon]

One really annoying bug has been bothering me. Every time a mind controlled enemy dies you get the 'fallen comrade' penalty applied again. Doesn't take much for most of your squad to panic with two psy squaddies. On the other hand you get the (intact) inventory of aliens you have controlled even if they were blown to bits on the last turn of the control ability. Which can be quite profitable.

[Gorth]

I downed my first medium sized ufo today and met my first sectopod. I don't remember them being *that* nasty in UFO: Enemy Unknown

[Gorgon]

save the bodies for armor upgrades.