[The E]

For shame Sir. For shame.

Talking so ill about other people for not sharing you oppinion (and assuming too much in the process).

For the record - I knew exactly what XCOM:EU would be like, and I had no flawed expectations.
It's NOT a bad game, but I have every right to not like it's direction and to say so publicly.

Putting this where it belongs.

Also, why do you think I was talking about you? I could have used the discussions surrounding ME3 as an example, it would not have changed the argument.
But then, you'd probably take that as a call to action as well, so the end result would have been the same.

To elaborate on the argument I was trying to make, it's currently impossible to discuss XCOM without people coming into the thread who are disappointed that <FEATURE> from the original didn't make the cut, which means that at some point, someone will say "Consoles ruined everything". It's just a more elaborate, less amusing version of "Stop liking what I don't like" as far as I am concerned.

[TrashMan]

Also, why do you think I was talking about you?

Becase I was the last person (and one of the few) to voice displeasure about XCom and oyu did specify X-com and not ME3?

To elaborate on the argument I was trying to make, it's currently impossible to discuss XCOM without people coming into the thread who are disappointed that <FEATURE> from the original didn't make the cut, which means that at some point, someone will say "Consoles ruined everything". It's just a more elaborate, less amusing version of "Stop liking what I don't like" as far as I am concerned.

I don't see the problem.
It bears the title of X-Com, so of course some people will be dissapointed if it misses features that to them are central to what X-Com is.

Immediately lashing out at people for sayign such this can also be easily interpreted at  "Stop not linking what I like"

[The E]

I think you missed the second part of that sentence, where I describe the likely progression of arguments towards the seemingly inevitable end state of "<GAME> could have been so much better if it wasn't made for a broad audience", which I think is one of the most poisonous ideas to ever enter into gaming-related discussions (Just like "DLC is evil" or "Consoles are holding everything back").
As in, they're almost always made by people who are missing the point completely.

[Luis Dias]

As in, they're almost always made by people who are missing the point completely.

Perhaps you meant more on the lines of "As in, they're always missing the point completely".

[TrashMan]

I think you missed the second part of that sentence, where I describe the likely progression of arguments towards the seemingly inevitable end state of "<GAME> could have been so much better if it wasn't made for a broad audience", which I think is one of the most poisonous ideas to ever enter into gaming-related discussions (Just like "DLC is evil" or "Consoles are holding everything back").

To each his own oppinion I guess.
I tend to think there is some truth in those statements.

[Scourge of Ages]

Holy sheep man. HEAT ammo + Shredder rockets + Danger zone = a whole lot less Cyberdisc

[The E]

Hover SHIVs with plasma are ****ing sweet. When they're actually selectable, that is.

[NGTM-1R]

I actually skipped the Spoonzer option this time, but won't for the Let's Play because Spoon.

[The E]

Yeah, in this game, taking a tank always seems to be a much bigger decision, given that they're not really useful until the Hover/Plasma stage. By the time I was able to build them, my regular troops were levelled enough and well enough equipped to make the tank only an emergency option in cases where several of my regular people were injured.

That being said, once you actually do have a hover shiv, and you're able to pair it with a squadsight-enabled sniper (and honestly, is there any other kind?) the game becomes much easier (Disclaimer: I am currently playing on Ironman Easy, after getting my ass kicked on Ironman normal).

[QuantumDelta]

You can say it's dumbed down after you beat ironman impossible.

The game is lovely despite a few minor control flaws that are annoyances rather than anything else.

On balance, especially since they did more to control player economy this time, rather than making the entire game lulzydisappointingly easy by selling crap, I don't think they made it any easier. If 'dumbing down' isn't some kind of brattish code for 'waaaaaaah I can't exploit poorly thought through mechanics to make the game super easy', then colour me cynical.

I skipped shiv's in favour of assault/sniper/heavy/heavy/support/support, but I could probably drop a heavy for a shiv.

[TrashMan]

You can say it's dumbed down after you beat ironman impossible.

An odd statement.
Since when is there a direct correlation between difficutly and "depth" (or dumbing down)?

On balance, especially since they did more to control player economy this time, rather than making the entire game lulzydisappointingly easy by selling crap, I don't think they made it any easier. If 'dumbing down' isn't some kind of brattish code for 'waaaaaaah I can't exploit poorly thought through mechanics to make the game super easy', then colour me cynical.

Most people reffer to removing features and options, and general freedom in the game when they say "dumbed down".

[Polpolion]

You can say it's dumbed down after you beat ironman impossible.

The game is lovely despite a few minor control flaws that are annoyances rather than anything else.

On balance, especially since they did more to control player economy this time, rather than making the entire game lulzydisappointingly easy by selling crap, I don't think they made it any easier. If 'dumbing down' isn't some kind of brattish code for 'waaaaaaah I can't exploit poorly thought through mechanics to make the game super easy', then colour me cynical.

I skipped shiv's in favour of assault/sniper/heavy/heavy/support/support, but I could probably drop a heavy for a shiv.

FWIW I don't think trashman is complaining about the difficulty of the game. At the very least, what disappoints me isn't the difficulty, it's the fact that you can't micromanage to the level of detail of the original. I was kind of puzzled at the gap between classic and normal, though. On classic mode there was hardly a mission where I didn't come back with only one or two soldiers left, whereas on normal I think I've only lost one or two soldiers total in an elapsed time at least doubling my time on classic. That's a relatively minor qualm, though, quite insubstantial compared to my other misgivings.

And now that I'm here, I might as well point out that the patch they released did seem to fix the stability issues I've been having, which really was the brunt of the reason I haven't been playing more despite what I've been saying about not being able shoot everything everywhere all the time and etc.

[The E]

This article matches my sentiments regarding the streamlining of the gameplay pretty well: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/xcom-enemy-unknown/1226388p1.html

[General Battuta]

My #1 gameplay issue is simply that the missions become too predictable. There are never any enemies right at the Skyranger ramp, and gaming the activation of various enemy clusters feels dumb and, well, gamey.

[NGTM-1R]

I'd elaborate more on one point from the gamespy article

UFO Defense is slow. Let's Playing a mission frequently took at least two hours, most of which was spent in the process of actually playing it. My choice every time was reserve TUs and move, as well, because there was never any reason to do otherwise.

In EU I can Let's Play a mission in under 45 minutes. I actually do bother with a full move sometimes, which I doubt I would have ever done in UFO Defense.

[The E]

My #1 gameplay issue is simply that the missions become too predictable. There are never any enemies right at the Skyranger ramp, and gaming the activation of various enemy clusters feels dumb and, well, gamey.

I played this map twice, and both times I got enemy contact with the first move.

This was also the map that cost me my first playthrough (A few turns in, most of my core of experienced guys was dead due to mutons and cyberdiscs and overlapping fields of fire. This screenshot is from my current playthrough, where this map came up rather late in the game).

[TrashMan]

In EU I can Let's Play a mission in under 45 minutes. I actually do bother with a full move sometimes, which I doubt I would have ever done in UFO Defense.

Technicly you KNOW there won't be an enemy in certain areas and they won't attack you while you are moving. (they will do their little animations, get a free move, flank you and THEN kill you)

Which is one of the things I miss from X-Com. You could run, spot an enemy and immeditely duck for cover, back up or whatever. (assuming the enemy didn't reaction-fire you dead) Of course, X-com has many, many DERP moments and flaws of it's own.


To this day I consider Jagged Alliance 2 the pinnacle of squad-based tactical shooters.
Technicly real-time untill enemy contact? Great, speeds the game up!
Learn-by-doing system that doesnt' suck? Check
Soldiers with personality? Double check
Tons and tons and TONS of options and ways you can play? quadripple check!

[NGTM-1R]

Technicly you KNOW there won't be an enemy in certain areas and they won't attack you while you are moving. (they will do their little animations, get a free move, flank you and THEN kill you)

That's actually got nothing to do with it. I knew UFO Defense and TFTD well enough to know exactly where aliens would spawn if they were going to, so the argument works both ways in knowing where they would be and which positions they could spawn in that would be most dangerous to my advance. Just having more spawn points doesn't change the fact that I know where to be worried about them appearing if I still know all the possibilities.

The real reason is this: If you ended a turn in LOS from an alien in UFO Defense, you were dead about nine times out of ten. The game was thus about killing all the ones you could see on the same turn you met them. If you were moving forward without a shot to fire left in your TUs, you were a dead man walking. The same thing went for the aliens. And unless you knew that guy over there was out of TUs because he'd already expended his overwatch shots, moving across his field of view was equally likely to kill you.

EU's cover system means that both sides have a chance to move to contact, fail to immediately eliminate all enemies in view, and live to tell. Moving across an enemy's field of view, due to the selective overwatch system, is also not as immediately fatal. This gives both the AI and the player greatly expanded tactical options.

[TrashMan]

My team:


True to His name Chuck "The Allmighty" Norris has by far the highest number of kills. 2-3 per mission. It might be just a concidence that he's a murderdeath machine, but I'm begining to suspect the devs coded something to make a soldier with his name unstoppable or something.

Major Forsythe "aka Phoenix" earned his nickname by beign wounded. Every friggin mission. Snd surviving. Not only surviving but killing the living s*** out of the alien that shot him. He just refuses to stay down apparently.

[MP-Ryan]

Question:  Does this game allow you to save and quit at any time, including mid-mission?  I often have only 30-60 minutes to play at a time and the last thing I need is another game where I'm stuck without a save when my time's up (BL2, I hate you for your respawn-only-at-fast-travel-locations-after-quitting stupidity).