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The XCOM veteran's two main reasons the XCOM:EU game is bad.


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I have now found the two biggest and most important faults with XCOM:EU (and yes, I reinstalled the game and started to play it again in spite of earlier bouts, to come to grips with its fault and greats). My foremost grudges with this game is:

1. The fact that you only manage ONE base on the whole planet, and

2. The enemy NEVER attacks the base.

In the old XCOM games, the fact that you could build several bases meant that even on the hardest playing level, when loosing a lot of good and experienced combat personnel, you still had few more personnel that could fill the gaps from other bases. This means one VERY important thing: in the old games you didn't have to cheat by reloading the game over and over when the whole group went to the wind and was killed outright. And, the worry that bases could be attacked added to the feeling of a great threat (not to mention the overall atmosphere is lacking in XCOM:EU).

Good base building and personnel managing skills are not as important here in XCOM:EU as in the old games. I say: let's see what Xenonauts have to offer in these two parts. I am eager to know.

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In Xenonauts, more than EU1994, I feel I have to build secondary bases. This is due to the well thought out Chinook range limitation, combined with some remote Terror missions.

I've had base attacks on every base I've had a garrison in so far, and they have led to some fun missions. Well, I can say fun as it's alpha. Nearly losing my back up base was a near thing in one mission. Tense stuff.

Base management was one of the big drawing points of the original for me, so, for me, it's great that Xenonauts hasn't put that aside like EU2012.

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Did you really give the game bad marks for having a single base that never gets attacked?

If those are your main pinch points, consider that you only have to build a handful of base modules. You don't need workshops or labs. Until the end-game, you just need 5x satellite nodes, 2-3 power plants, an alien containment facility, a foundary, and an officer training school.

The game has worse problems than simplified base management.... like how unseen aliens never try to engage your party.

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Did you really give the game bad marks for having a single base that never gets attacked?

The game has worse problems than simplified base management.... like how unseen aliens never try to engage your party.

Have they still not released patches to combat this type of thing? Poor show Firaxis...

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Did you really give the game bad marks for having a single base that never gets attacked?

If those are your main pinch points, consider that you only have to build a handful of base modules. You don't need workshops or labs. Until the end-game, you just need 5x satellite nodes, 2-3 power plants, an alien containment facility, a foundary, and an officer training school.

The game has worse problems than simplified base management.... like how unseen aliens never try to engage your party.

The "The base never gets attacked" viewpoint was the lesser of the two, as you can see if you read thru my thread. So, no, this part isn't as important as having many bases, which more than anything changes the whole playability of the game. And just as you say, there's several more weak points than this in XCOM:EU, but this is MY view of what makes the game much less enjoyable.

Edited by dracopticon
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In Xenonauts, more than EU1994, I feel I have to build secondary bases. This is due to the well thought out Chinook range limitation, combined with some remote Terror missions.

I've had base attacks on every base I've had a garrison in so far, and they have led to some fun missions. Well, I can say fun as it's alpha. Nearly losing my back up base was a near thing in one mission. Tense stuff.

Base management was one of the big drawing points of the original for me, so, for me, it's great that Xenonauts hasn't put that aside like EU2012.

That sounds very good! Thanks for letting me know how Xenonauts alpha functions.

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The "The base never gets attacked" viewpoint was the lesser of the two, as you can see if you read thru my thread. So, no, this part isn't as important as having many bases, which more than anything changes the whole playability of the game. And just as you say, there's several more weak points than this in XCOM:EU, but this is MY view of what makes the game much less enjoyable.

What I'm saying, though, is that it doesn't matter if you had one or one hundred bases. They don't do anything. The base mechanic was gutted so heavily that having a second base wouldn't add anything.

In EU1994, you needed those extra bases for radar coverage, extra lab and workshop space, and extra hangars. In EU2012, you get hangars on every continent automatically, you build sats for radar coverage, and you don't need to build one single lab/workshop to beat the game.

You need to look deeper at the game to see how much it is tainted.

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Don't need too...

You don't need to research plasma weapons either...

Does everything in a game *need* to be done?

All you need to do is not to lose more than 7 nations, well, and win some tactical missions, and research the priority techs, and build a couple facilities and the skeleton key, arc thrower...

Need...

Such a silly word.

My personal want, is for XCOMEU to change the bomb missions to base/hanger defense missions. So the aliens invade a hanger/base, set up a bomb, and you have to send your troops to defuse it before they blow up your hanger.

Main base defense would be fine too, but meh, not the biggest deal of any thing. Some people just like more 'builder' game play I suppose. To me, it just takes more time away from the tactical missions. If the tactical missions aren't any good then the rest wouldn't matter to me anyway.

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Wha?

There's a cut scene for every autopsy...

Kind of the same every time, but it is there.

I dunno though, bailing on a game because it doesn't have the kind of autopsy pics you want? Your call man, your call...

i know there is cutscene, just that i prefer something archived in the ufopedia is more interesting than a bunch of grandmother story text and halfway done autocad grids. :P

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Why do you think xenonauts discussion forum is best place to scold firaxis?

Firaxis, as every other game producing company, can be hailed as great producers (in my taste for Alpha Centauri), and also trashed (in my taste for an oversimplified XCOM game). No different from other companies. And scolded? Yes, just as you can scold me for expressing those feelings. It's your and my right on this democratic forum.

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What I'm saying, though, is that it doesn't matter if you had one or one hundred bases. They don't do anything. The base mechanic was gutted so heavily that having a second base wouldn't add anything.

In EU1994, you needed those extra bases for radar coverage, extra lab and workshop space, and extra hangars. In EU2012, you get hangars on every continent automatically, you build sats for radar coverage, and you don't need to build one single lab/workshop to beat the game.

You need to look deeper at the game to see how much it is tainted.

That's your view, not mine. I played through both the original XCOM games, both "UD" as you call it, and Terror from the Deep, and on the hardest level of playing w/o cheating. That's because I HATE cheating, which I think reloading saved games is when the sh*t hits the fan. When I could use more personnel from other bases to fill out the thinned ranks of my brave soldiers, the fight was very much helped by that fact. So it DOES indeed matter if you have more bases. And it's also more realistic, IMHO, that there exists several bases in our world, having just one base severely cripples the whole defensive idea of the organisation. No, it's just stupid.

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I don't see the point in the XCOM:EU debate. It's a different game for me, and it's an enjoyable game. They should have taken more of the Geoscape thing out... Especially the stupid aircraft fight, where there was no user interaction left except pressing OK two times.

I enjoy the game for its tactical combat, as well as I enjoy Xenonauts for more management, as well as I enjoy Dwarf Fortress as well as I enjoy FPS like Arma Multiplayer and player killing as well as I enjoy Japanese Go as well as I enjoy...

Why do you always bash different games?

I think today we are in the great position of having thousands of fantastic games. But if you ask the internet communities, all games except the one they currently love are garbage.

"Badminton is crap, because it has no Chelyabinsk Variation of the Sicilian Defence"?

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I've been playing the new game for the last week. I don't have a problem having only one base. My major complaint is that enemies teleport around the ground map. That's so cheap. With bad luck, I can get 5 packs on me in 2 turns. There are a lot of things that I think they improved over the original game, but not that.

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I don't see the point in the XCOM:EU debate. It's a different game for me, and it's an enjoyable game.

Why do you always bash different games?

Because they called it XCOM.

They did it to use the marketing power behind this name.

But by doing so they also build certain expectations for the xcom hardcore base.

It's a decent game, but it's a bad Xcom.

Edited by Gam
typo
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@centiles - no one that was paying attention was expecting a pure remake in 3D, but there are flaws in the game - I play games of different genres as well, but that doesn't mean all games are equal.

tactical: overall I really enjoyed the simplification of the TU system. having hotkeys shift around was very annoying, as is the alien "pack" behaviour when flanking is so critical. A more traditional enemy placement would have fit their system better, as you wouldn't auto unlock 3-4 enemies that can move into cover whenever you spot one. Placing a huge emphasis on cover that is so easily destroyed yet not targettable is odd as well. That said I enjoyed this aspect of the game.

strategic: I didn't really mind the no base attacks or one base (again I was expecting it, and satellite coverage kind of covers for this), but the total lack of player agency in the strategic layer sucked. UFO battles were meaningless (I didn't do a single fighter upgrade until I was required to by the story in my normal classic first time through) and the player is totally reactionary. While they did a good job with the feeling of never having enough money/resources, not being able to see and have a chance to intercept UFOs that cause abduction/terror missions was wrong IMO. While the choice of reward/difficulty/terror level added a nice tension, in the end you're just watching bars go up for little to no reason and launching satellites that automagically reduce those numbers but don't really change gameplay aside from adding money. This is where the game really loses replayability imo.

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