I am an XCOM veteran and have now played XCOM: Enemy Unknown.

[Kaguya]

Why would you need to control the way your troopers are looking at? People have these magical things called necks, and eyes that move around in their heads. It's ridiculous to suggest that ordering a guy to a position he would only look at a 90 deg arc in front of him and nothing else. It's just a bunch of ultimately pointless micromanagement required from the game. It's not like with smart movement you'll have more than one option to look at anyways, one direction is where you came from/where rest of the team is, and the other direction is where the enemy is.

Shooting at walls on demand wouldn't make sense with the new gameplay mechanics. Oh, an enemy in high cover? Just have one guy shoot the cover away, and the rest get free shots at the target. It can still be done with grenades, but since they are limited use per mission, there's downsides to removing someone's cover, you can't do it all the time.

The limited inventory slots reflect that as well. You can't equip everyone to deal with absolutely everything, you need to make choices. Do you want to give the guy extra survivability, ability to heal, blow up things or something else? Likewise, losing your medic actually has consequences, instead of another guy simply picking up the medikit and soldiering on.

Sure those things might be nice to have, but none of that is absolutely required re: the way XCOM works.

Plotting the path for your troopers to move would be nice however, for example for avoiding poison clouds whatever.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Kaguya

[Gazz]

Why would you need to control the way your troopers are looking at? People have these magical things called necks, and eyes that move around in their heads.

Yah, now they do but that's the result of 18 years of development!

In X-Com you were remote-controlling robots.

In XCOM they feel a lot more like soldiers because you don't have to hand-hold them through the most simple operations.

X-COM: Like... look Jim, that rifle in your right hand? Put in in your backpack. Now take a grenade from your left leg pocket... no, not the right leg pocket, the left one... yes... now arm it to explode in this turn, not half an hour from now, this turn... now throw it at the alien over there.

No, we're not done, yet! Now you take the rifle back from out of your backpack and hold it in your right hand. Great. That's a good boy!

XCOM: Jim? Throw a grenade at the alien over there.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Gazz

[HWP]

Now take a grenade from your left leg pocket...

There's that other hand.

In XCOM they feel a lot more like soldiers because you don't have to hand-hold them through the most simple operations.

However they also became sissies.

"Jim? Throw another grenade!

I can't carry two grenades! My ba-a-ack!"

[Par'Gellen]

"Jim? Throw another grenade!

I can't carry two grenades! My ba-a-ack!"

ROFL! I think I woke the wife laughing at that! +1 to you sir!

[Sinfullyvannila]

I don't care if the "guy knows his stuff". That's your evaluation. Not mine. XCOM:EU IS definitely dumbed down, when you play a game where facing means quite a lot to seeing the enemy or not, especially when using the "overwatch" tactic, but I can't control the facing in this crappy game! And I can't choose the exact way my men should run, as going from one point to another is totally controlled by the computer/game itself. That means my XCOM operatives sometimes run right INTO the overwatch of the aliens, instead of the smarter way I want them to run! And that's in addition to all the other stupid stuff of this game, like you can't pick up stuff from the ground, you can't tactically shoot at walls to uncover hiding aliens. You can't throw stuff between XCOM members, and you're not allowed to carry normal amounts of stuff into battle. No XCOM:EU IS dumbed down.

First off, why would you run into enemy overwatch without Lightning Reflexes? You either make them waste it with LR, Flush them out of cover, use an explosive to expose them, or throw down a smoke grenade if you are desperate.

Secondly, all of the stuff you mentioned makes you actually think more. Can't pick up a medkit? Don't put your critical guys into situations where they will risk dying as easily. You CAN destroy walls to uncover aliens, but you have to choose whether or not you want to do that, or save the explosive for damage. You can't abuse the throwing mechanic to "time warp" gear from one side of the map to another(you do that to save "TU"s which represent time spent)? Well, I never had to rely on stupid gimmicks like that because, wait for it, your guys could carry so much stuff into battle that they were never at want for anything.

All that stuff may have been more "realistic" or "deep", but it cheapened the experience and made it rather goofy and brainless.

And fair enough, it is my evaluation, but the guy clearly has a lot of experience with strategy games.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Sinfullyvannila

[Par'Gellen]

Personally I do not consider being given fewer options akin to being made to think more. Fewer options limit you. More options do not.

Silly limits like only being able to carry one grenade just make the game less enjoyable to me and break any kind of immersion that I may have been feeling. Boo to silly limits! BOOO!

Edit: Thinking more with fewer options is more strategic than tactical I think. Like the difference between playing chess and actually being on the battlefield fighting.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Par'Gellen

[Sinfullyvannila]

There's that other hand.

However they also became sissies.

"Jim? Throw another grenade!

I can't carry two grenades! My ba-a-ack!"

Well, they are carrying unlimited ammo.

[Par'Gellen]

Well, they are carrying unlimited ammo.

Which is also kind of silly.

[Sinfullyvannila]

Personally I do not consider being given fewer options akin to being made to think more. Fewer options limit you. More options do not.

Silly limits like only being able to carry one grenade just make the game less enjoyable to me and break any kind of immersion that I may have been feeling. Boo to silly limits! BOOO!

Edit: Thinking more with fewer options is more strategic than tactical I think. Like the difference between playing chess and actually being on the battlefield fighting.

http://www.sessions.edu/notes-on-design/resources/design/how-limitations-influence-creativity/

It may not be comparable on a 1-1 basis to this, but this sums up my view on the matter.

Too many choices and you fall back on the familiar. Less choices force you to think harder to find a solution within your limitations.

I wish I knew whether or not that concept has a name or not, but I've heard the same thing said quite a bit in the past.

[Kaguya]

Which is also kind of silly.

Which hardly was the issue in the originals anyways.

Laser rifles? Infinite ammo. Heavy plasma? 35 rounds. It took some effort to burn out the entire mag. The only thing with ammo issues were rocket launchers, which also are limited in XCOM.

(and Apocalypse had Devastators which again had infinite ammo, with some hilarious results)

[Sinfullyvannila]

It's not like there isn't really silly stuff in the other X-Coms.

[TornadoADV]

There's that other hand.

However they also became sissies.

"Jim? Throw another grenade!

I can't carry two grenades! My ba-a-ack!"

Get a Heavy with the Grenadier perk, there, two grenades.

That's 11 units. Larger than USMC squads at 9 or Soviet squads at 8.

If you use Avenger, even with its usual load of 4+12 or 3+16, you approach a small platoon.

There are more countries in the world then just the US and Russia. Squads can vary in size from 8 to 13.

Edited October 29, 2012 by TornadoADV

[GoodGuyEddy]

Get a Heavy with the Grenadier perk, there, two grenades.

And?

"Why can bill have two grenades and i can have only one?

Oh we are sorry but producing more pockets is expencive, only when you collect enough points you may choose the extra pocket armor from the:

WHEEL...OF...BULLSHIT!!"

[GoodGuyEddy]

Oh and does the "we don't like dumbing down" shabang still going on? One would assume that 10 pages would be enough.

[HWP]

"Why can bill have two grenades and i can have only one?

That's because Bill is a colonel. If everyone had two grenades, how would you tell who is an officer and who is enlisted?

[TornadoADV]

Bill is a Captain. Just sayin.

[HWP]

I know it comes at captain, but he can just as well be a colonel. Meh, in the un-modded game your whole squad is colonels by the time you meet cyberdisx.

[Dangermouth]

Like UFO: AI.

Couple of gripes, minor ones.

Economy's a bit daft: buying things is cheaper than making them i.e. you pay for workers and don't get labour costs off the items, but you need to manufacture e.g. ships.

Aliens are a bit 'good'. They rarely miss, and as always with a new game I play on the easiest setting first of all.

They can always find a safe spot, in about 3 steps and I had one (of many) example where one shot through a hole in the wall in one building, successfully sent said straight-firing projectile through the doorway of another and into my crouching trooper. Got a bit annoyed at that.

Worth getting though.

[SirAstral]

My problem with Xcom:EU is that its not XCOM. XCOM is a tactical simulator, and the new one is just a run on rails where levels are designed for you to play in a pattern. I want entrenched enemies, enough units to feel like a war and not some tip-toe skirmish. Artificial constraints like, you can only get close and dangerously snuggly to capture an alien with this here stick are stupid. 1 Firetruck and a water hose would knock a lot of aliens out for easy capture in reality, so get off the stupidity. Tazer's and a couple of spikes attached to wires have a fairly decent range compared to close and snuggly as well.

A better storyline would be nice too... not they are here for our resources because the other planets in our system has better resources with the added benefit of no pesky humans shooting at you while you take them.

And for goodness sakes... put some damn clothes (think bio-suits) on those aliens... It is reasonable to assume that they have learned about microbes by now... having accomplished space flight and all that.

[TornadoADV]

Uh...let me fill you in on something.

The aliens, specifically the Etherals, are here to see if humanity is worth intergrating into their happy group of alien species. Mostly for our ability to have psionic ability without being physical cripples or mental wastrels.

[tiger12348]

Never played the original xcom, and really enjoyed EU.(Dont hit me) From what I have read, it seems the "classic one" definitely worth a try. Well... the thing is, I found not one, but six games, judging by the Ancient Graphics (Dont hit me here either), I am unsure if I would try some more if the one I picked is not the one you guys refer to, so... any suggestion on which one I should choose to play first?

[Kaguya]

Never played the original xcom, and really enjoyed EU.(Dont hit me) From what I have read, it seems the "classic one" definitely worth a try. Well... the thing is, I found not one, but six games, judging by the Ancient Graphics (Dont hit me here either), I am unsure if I would try some more if the one I picked is not the one you guys refer to, so... any suggestion on which one I should choose to play first?

UFO: Enemy Unknown / X-COM: Ufo Defense is the "original" game (one name was used in the EU, the other in US). Terror From The Deep was a sequel to it, and is largely a palette swap of the first game, and adds a whole lot of tedium to the game with multipart missions and obscure techtrees.

X-COM Apocalypse is very different game from the two originals, it has it's good sides, but it suffers from getting rushed out the gate with lot of the cool mechanics planned for it scrapped. It's worth a look if you are a fan of the tactilol squad games.

X-COM Interceptor is a very different beast. It's a flight sim. It still has basebuilding and research and whatnot, but it's in a whole different genre.

X-COM: Enforcer is all that remains of X-COM: Alliance. It was supposed to be a tactilol squad game like the first three games, but they ran out of money / the project got slashed. Someone slapped in all the assets they had made for Alliance, and made it a first person shooter. A really, really bad first person shooter.

Given the track record, the fact that we got XCOM: Enemy Unknown in the first place is a minor miracle.

They are all available on various digital distribution services like Steam for pretty cheap. The Steam version of the original IIRC comes with both the original DOS version and DOSbox to run it, and the Windows(95) (gold) version. The Windows version probably requires some fixes since it doesn't run very nice with modern graphics cards, but the Dosbox version should run out of the box, so to speak. XcomUtil is good thing to look at, it fixes few bugs and annoyances that the old games had.

Edited October 30, 2012 by Kaguya

[Sirinan]

It may not be comparable on a 1-1 basis to this, but this sums up my view on the matter.

Too many choices and you fall back on the familiar. Less choices force you to think harder to find a solution within your limitations.

I wish I knew whether or not that concept has a name or not, but I've heard the same thing said quite a bit in the past.

Limitations are fine, as long as they have some basis in reality, otherwise it can destroy immersion. An example would be the 80 item limit on the Skyranger for the original game. There's no obvious reason why you can only take 80 items, particularly when a huge autocannon or a pistol ammo clip are considered equivalent as '1 item'. I think it would have been better to have the Skyranger have an overall cargo size that soldiers, HWPs and equipment all share space for. That opens up all kinds of tactical decisions and choices that need to be made, particularly if more powerful equipment tends to be bulkier.

E.g. You could choose to have a larger squad, but the compromise is that they would have to have minimal/light equipment. Or, you could risk taking a very small squad, but the advantage is that they could be equipped for almost any eventuality. Getting the balance right would be key, but if the balance was right, I think this way of doing things would be awesome.

The limit makes sense (the Skyranger doesn't have infinite cargo space) and the limit increases your choice of playstyle and adds immersion. Surely that's win/win.

[Sinfullyvannila]

I guess agree to disagree then, because then it becomes a matter of balancing immersion and good game design. To me, design beats out immersion, because a)It's a video game, not a horror movie. b) There was a lot more stuff in the first game that broke immersion. c) it really didn't affect my immersion personally.

[Sirinan]

I guess agree to disagree then, because then it becomes a matter of balancing immersion and good game design. To me, design beats out immersion, because a)It's a video game, not a horror movie. b) There was a lot more stuff in the first game that broke immersion. c) it really didn't affect my immersion personally.

Immersion isn't specific to movies, and if you truly lack immersion when you play games, I suspect you're unusual.

A snippet from your previous post - "Too many choices and you fall back on the familiar." - what's wrong with that? Even if you choose the familiar, at least you have that choice, and someone else may choose to play a different way. There is no negative about too many choices - there is no one forcing you to make use of them all. Whereas a game which forces you to play the way the game designer wants you to play...?

And the rest of that quote -"Less choices force you to think harder to find a solution within your limitations." - it's all about balance. There have to be positives and negatives to every way of playing, and it's up to the devs to balance it all properly. But limiting choice, and railroading the player into doing it their way is lazy design.