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

[HWP]

Not really. I feel no need to defend the game. This is literally the only site where the people who complain about EU isn't in the vast minority.

Really? Because I know at least a few others.

In fact, one of them is called XCom Nexus, and yes, the name refers to the new game.

It has some bad bugs and it KB/M scheme sucks. It sucks that everything is scripted in the Geoscape and you can't seek out supply bases and such. The game isn't perfect, but it's still definitely excellent.

Your standards for excellency are clearly not very high. About the same as other people's standards for "tolerable" or "adequate".

[Sinfullyvannila]

Really? Because I know at least a few others.

In fact, one of them is called XCom Nexus, and yes, the name refers to the new game.

Your standards for excellency are clearly not very high. About the same as other people's standards for "tolerable" or "adequate".

You probably are just dismissing the people who praise the new game, and see minor complaints as abject condemnation. I see that in the "old guard" camps of any popular game.

As for the second point, I'm going to call you the pot, because you have championed some truly awful aspects of the old games.

Edited January 14, 2013 by Sinfullyvannila

[HWP]

You probably are just dismissing the people who praise the new game, and see minor complaints as abject condemnation.

Hardly. The new game is playable and even entertaining - and just that. I've seen very few intelligent people actually praise it; the game survives on being, today, a sole survivor of its genre, without competition or alternatives. It's that or nothing, and it's certainly better than nothing.

As for the second point, I'm going to call you the pot, because you have championed some truly awful aspects of the old games.

You might have me confused with someone else.

Or confused the very reasons to play UFO - flexible financial system, full inventory, etc - with truly awful ones - difficulty bug, crashes, TFTD ship missions.

Or, consistent with your unusually low standards for excellency, confused tolerating with championing.

[Sinfullyvannila]

Hardly. The new game is playable and even entertaining - and just that. I've seen very few intelligent people actually praise it; the game survives on being, today, a sole survivor of its genre, without competition or alternatives. It's that or nothing, and it's certainly better than nothing.

It's hardly the sole survivor of the genre. It's simply the newest and most marketed.

You might have me confused with someone else.

Or confused the very reasons to play UFO - flexible financial system, full inventory, etc - with truly awful ones - difficulty bug, crashes, TFTD ship missions.

Or, consistent with your unusually low standards for excellency, confused tolerating with championing.

Well, the financial system is awful and the biggest reason I don't play it anymore(it makes the game too tedious and keeps me from what I enjoy about it), so I stand by what I said.

[StellarRat]

Motion Scanner/ Proximity Grenade - not sure on the status of these?

Last I remember Chris said the proximity grenade might make it in if time allowed.

One general comment about adding weapons and other features/changes: It will be much harder to balance the game if these aren't all set BEFORE the balancing begins. That may not be obvious to everyone. Even a relatively small change might throw off the balance of the game. Even my two small proposals, reduce grenade throwing range and fix/tighten burst fire would definitely make a difference in the game play and balance.

[StellarRat]

I dont' get it how XCOM:EU can be lauded for tactics. A bunch of enemies suddenly spawning in the middle of your squad is NOT tactics. Enemies getting cheesy bonuses and extra moves is NOT tactics. There is no fairness.

It's not my fault when things like that happen and soldiers die.

That happens? HOLY! Another reason not to buy it.

[thothkins]

Last I remember Chris said the proximity grenade might make it in if time allowed.

Ah, that's promising. It's been a while since I read anything about it.

[Sinfullyvannila]

double post

Edited January 14, 2013 by Sinfullyvannila

[Sinfullyvannila]

Originally Posted by TrashMan

I dont' get it how XCOM:EU can be lauded for tactics. A bunch of enemies suddenly spawning in the middle of your squad is NOT tactics. Enemies getting cheesy bonuses and extra moves is NOT tactics. There is no fairness.

It's not my fault when things like that happen and soldiers die.

They fixed the teleport bug(happened to me like once in 100 hours), and cheap alien bonuses is par for the course as far as X-Com in general goes.

[Tacobandit]

That happens? HOLY! Another reason not to buy it.

That's a bug. That still happens occasionally like once every 15-25 hours of playing.

It's not really a bad game. I like it because it gives you more options than shoot + crouch (you could do more in a turn in the original, but you have more variety in your actions in the EU.)

[licker]

Hardly. The new game is playable and even entertaining - and just that. I've seen very few intelligent people actually praise it; the game survives on being, today, a sole survivor of its genre, without competition or alternatives. It's that or nothing, and it's certainly better than nothing.

You know, I don't know you, but you certainly come off as a rather large female hygiene product. Few intelligent people praise it? What does that actually mean? Have you consulted all the intelligent people who have played the game? Do you just like making inflammatory comments for no particular reason?

You might have me confused with someone else.

Or confused the very reasons to play UFO - flexible financial system, full inventory, etc - with truly awful ones - difficulty bug, crashes, TFTD ship missions.

Or, consistent with your unusually low standards for excellency, confused tolerating with championing.

Flexible financial system? That's rich.

The financial system was so abusable that it quickly became utterly pointless. So you liked that you could essentially ignore all the countries in the world because their funding was completely unnecessary? Flexible. Sure, you can call it that. It's probably even correct to call it that. But flexible was broken as hell.

And the inventory system? Full inventory system? Where you just equipped everybody with the same load out because there was precious little reason not to do it that way? Well I can see that. Some people like that, some people find limitations (no matter how 'unrealistic') to be more interesting. To each their own. But neither is exactly an example of good or bad design, just examples of different design. You can read between the lines to see which one I prefer, but I'm not going to say that the other one was bad.

Your issues with EU are yours, but they in no way constitute a critique of what is good or bad about that game, other than from your very subjective point of view. Sure, we're all subjective with our points of view.

Some of us are just much less like the french word for shower about it.

[GizmoGomez]

That was beautiful.

[TrashMan]

The new X-Com is... somewhat dissapointing. I see what it wa going for, and it's an OK game...but not a good sucessor.

The AI cheats like hell, the gameplay is NOT fair and there are far too many restrictions and limitations in place.

Fake choice. Fake diversity.

Using balance problems in a 20 years old game to justify bad design decisions in a new game is not a good defense b.t.w.

[HWP]

Few intelligent people praise it? What does that actually mean?

That means that I have seen very little praise for the game, in comparison to criticism for it, phrased in the form of intelligent arguments.

Let me clarify what I mean by the term. I'm not using any elitist definition.

"Wow mega awesome alienZZZ!1!" is not intelligent.

"I don't miss the TU system, class perks eventually upgrade your two moves to a reasonable degree of freedom" is intelligent.

Let's try and see where you come in. You didn't present anything in defense of the new game. You argued that the better parts of the old game didn't matter to you, which is more relevant to yourself than to the game. And then you finished with trying to sneak in at a personal attack.

Where, in your own opinion, does your post fall on this spectrum?

Flexible financial system? That's rich.

The financial system was so abusable that it quickly became utterly pointless. So you liked that you could essentially ignore all the countries in the world because their funding was completely unnecessary?

Yes. It was a harder way to win the game, you'd need to build up factories, invest in them, spend a lot of time.

It should work this way. You are transnational, not just international. Your initial source of funding is national contributions. But no single nation has the power to magically switch off all your lights. And if no single nation has that power, as they fall out of the project, neither does the last remaining nation, provided that you pay your own bills.

It's certainly not unreasonable - proprietary technology has consistently been a source of solid profit margins - and the ability to balance your fiscal strategy between pandering to every single nation and solving your own problems provided a major boost to replayability.

And the inventory system? Full inventory system? Where you just equipped everybody with the same load out because there was precious little reason not to do it that way?

It works the same way in EU2012 - you use the same load for each class. I don't see your point.

And yes, a good player would divide his soldiers into "classes", although more subtle and free to make his arbitrary choices, not presets. At the very least you'd have riflemen, grenadiers/missile operators and psionics. And you could make your own choices.

Well I can see that. Some people like that, some people find limitations (no matter how 'unrealistic') to be more interesting.

Certainly. There's even a new term for people with severe limitations - "differently able".

Perhaps, then, we should consider games that excessively limit player choices to preset options to be "differently well-designed"?

[GizmoGomez]

Is differently able seriously a new term? Some kind of politically correct stuff?

Huh.

Good counter-argument by the way, I enjoyed the description of intelligence in posts. Very funny (although too often true.)

...

ZEENONOTS RULZ!!!!!!!1!

[Tacobandit]

That means that I have seen very little praise for the game, in comparison to criticism for it, phrased in the form of intelligent arguments.

Let me clarify what I mean by the term. I'm not using any elitist definition.

"Wow mega awesome alienZZZ!1!" is not intelligent.

"I don't miss the TU system, class perks eventually upgrade your two moves to a reasonable degree of freedom" is intelligent.

Let's try and see where you come in. You didn't present anything in defense of the new game. You argued that the better parts of the old game didn't matter to you, which is more relevant to yourself than to the game. And then you finished with trying to sneak in at a personal attack.

Where, in your own opinion, does your post fall on this spectrum?

Yes. It was a harder way to win the game, you'd need to build up factories, invest in them, spend a lot of time.

It should work this way. You are transnational, not just international. Your initial source of funding is national contributions. But no single nation has the power to magically switch off all your lights. And if no single nation has that power, as they fall out of the project, neither does the last remaining nation, provided that you pay your own bills.

It's certainly not unreasonable - proprietary technology has consistently been a source of solid profit margins - and the ability to balance your fiscal strategy between pandering to every single nation and solving your own problems provided a major boost to replayability.

It works the same way in EU2012 - you use the same load for each class. I don't see your point.

And yes, a good player would divide his soldiers into "classes", although more subtle and free to make his arbitrary choices, not presets. At the very least you'd have riflemen, grenadiers/missile operators and psionics. And you could make your own choices.

Certainly. There's even a new term for people with severe limitations - "differently able".

Perhaps, then, we should consider games that excessively limit player choices to preset options to be "differently well-designed"?

And by invest, you mean have 50 engineers print money for you with those laser cannons right?

And yes, they do have the power to shut off your electricity, because they hired you; they can fire your ass if they feel you are inadequate. To an extent that happens in the OG, where if your score is too low, you lose. If for some reason you lost every funding nation's support in the OG, you should not be X-COM; I like to think of it as X-COM became the supreme rulers of earth, but it's a gigantic loophole. They didn't hire you to get rich. They hired you to kill the aliens!

Yeah I hear about the "limited" loadout all the time. But what's limited about it? The fact that you can't carry 10 clips, 10 grenades, 10 medikits, or a combination of all of those? Newsflash: Most of the time all of your units used the heavy plasma and/or a blaster launcher (I pretended it was a grenade launcher under the heavy plasma) with some ammo and a medikit. Essentially they were the heavy class from EU 2012. The grenadiers, psionics, and riflemen you mention do not exist in the OG, basically because your default soldier was a jack of all trades; he usually had psionic powers (late game), he used a heavy plasma like a rifle, one grenade/blaster launcher was all you needed for each troop, and by "make your own choices" you mean that you could carry a medikit & a stun rod at the same time. You can do that with the support. Yeah there really were no choices in the OG. If you aren't using heavy plasma, you're gonna have a bad time.

The original had some severe balancing issues, and IMO were detrimental to the overall playstyle of the game. No one carefully researched every weapon in the game as a necessity; usually you researched the laser pistol, then stopped that and started on the heavy plasma ASAP and the clip. No other weapons necessary, except the blaster launcher. There was no reason to use terran weapons (laser rifles were useful for base defense, but the heavy plasma had enough ammo for most missions not to need a reload) except for training purposes, or if you were going against ethereals. To an extent this is true in EU, except there is a big difference between the plasma weapons that may dictate how you apply them; the plasma carbine is accurate but slightly weak, the plasma rifle is a mid ground, and the heavy plasma has brute force with slightly worse accuracy. The laser pistol has an innate crit chance while the plasma pistol doesn't. Certain armors had certain perks, but not one was the best overall (ghost armor was for wimps, titan armor + stimpaks all the way), and I feel that this small amount of balancing added to the overall tactical side of the game.

TL;DR

(OG) Sniper? Oh you mean heavy plasma.

Rifle? Oh you mean heavy plasma.

LMG? Oh you mean heavy plasma.

Pistol? Why are you using those? You mean heavy plasma.

Rocket launcher? Oh you mean blaster launcher.

This changes a bit in TFTD, where the choice of sonic weapons is a bigger choice, but it's generally the same between the two.

[HWP]

And by invest, you mean have 50 engineers print money for you with those laser cannons right?

It takes an approx. $1 million+$4 million starting investment per line to organize LC production. The net profit is $1.9 million with perfect management and closer to $1.6 million with practical. The buildup time is approx. 1 month + 1 month for a new line.

A complete LC project, from scratch to a production base with defenses, will set you back $25-30 million, with 2-3 months of buildup time and $8-9 million monthly income. That's another 3 months of recouping your investment.

So it's a total of 4-5 months (with perfect management) up to half a year (with practical management) before you actually start seeing net profit on your investment. It's not a huge profit, either; comparable to combined national funding for a well-performing player.

Half a year is a long time. I think, with skill, the game can be won in half a year. And it takes a lot of effort to earn enough money to build a factory base in the first place. You're looking at another half a year just for that.

The game is quite typically won within a year.

Furthermore, the game can be won with $30 million without looking for more sources of income, making the whole effort little more than a freeform sandbox venture.

You don't seem to be quite that quantitatively familiar with the game's actual economics.

They hired you to kill the aliens!

So where is my salary? My overboss telling me what to do? My bonuses for aliens killed? My gaudily decorated office with a promiscuous administrative assistant? My stock options?

and by "make your own choices" you mean that you could carry a medikit & a stun rod at the same time.

Wait a moment. You sound like you've played the original game... but how do you forget this? Aliens are captured with Small Launchers, not with stun rods. You only use stun rods very early in the game.

To an extent this is true in EU, except there is a big difference between the plasma weapons that may dictate how you apply them;

Weapons in EU are class-limited. It's that which dictates how you apply them, not spec differences. The only difference from UD is that instead of "Heavy Plasma for everyone", it's "Whatever plasma weapon this class is allowed to use" for everyone.

Fake choices. Instead of X merely being the best weapon for its tier, now it's the only weapon the appropriate class is capable of using.

[djlogue]

I found that the money system was really odd to. I know we are heading into a triple dip recession by 50-100 pounds/dollars/credits for your country to have full XCOM services. Seems very cheeps if you ask me. Also what was with not being able to recover and sell weapons? Then out of no where china would want you to supply them with 3 scopes or 8 plasma rifles. Personally there are bits of the game I enjoy, but it seems that allot of the single player aspects were built with multiplayer balancing in mind. (I could be wrong) Obviously they did put thought into the single player but it just didn't have enough depth to hold the XCOM crown.

[Commissar Pancakes]

They also used Simoleons.

The fact that the aliens invaded SimCity/SimWorld so successfully is because nobody could understand each other, since they're all speaking giberish. And each country couldn't understand one another's gibberish.

The main advantage of XCOM over the others was because they all were mentally augmented to speak English in an American accent (because 'Murica is xenophobic and militaristic).

[Tacobandit]

You didn't know that your sold alien corpses were actually paid bounties from the council?

And I only captured aliens with stun rods because I used a mind probe. I could look at who was a soldier and who was a navigator/leader/commander. Once I could do that/capture those important aliens, stun weapons weren't worth carrying around.

In EU, the weapon you choose is slightly more varied than in UD. For instance, the Assault can use a plasma carbine, a plasma rifle, or an alloy cannon; all valid choices. Should he use the plasma carbine for its increased accuracy which will couple nicely with his crit perks, or go with the alloy cannon, which does raw damage and has the distance accuracy increase. Or maybe he should stick with the balanced plasma rifle. The support has the two rifle decision, and yes the Heavy and Sniper really only have their one choice of weapon.

As for the startup for the laser cannons, just sell the heavy plasmas. I think I racked up like 20 mil in one month for all the HPs I collected in a month, not counting the ones that I used. That will more than allow you to afford the startup cost/profit gap of the workshops. And you're right. I'm not familiar with the game's economics. Because you don't need to be. Every mission that you respond to is like 1-6million right off the bat once you beat it. You will be rolling in dough even if you didn't have the council funding.

[Tacobandit]

You didn't know that your sold alien corpses were actually paid bounties from the council?

And I only captured aliens with stun rods because I used a mind probe. I could look at who was a soldier and who was a navigator/leader/commander. Once I could do that/capture those important aliens, stun weapons weren't worth carrying around.

In EU, the weapon you choose is slightly more varied than in UD. For instance, the Assault can use a plasma carbine, a plasma rifle, or an alloy cannon; all valid choices. Should he use the plasma carbine for its increased accuracy which will couple nicely with his crit perks, or go with the alloy cannon, which does raw damage and has the distance accuracy increase. Or maybe he should stick with the balanced plasma rifle. The support has the two rifle decision, and yes the Heavy and Sniper really only have their one choice of weapon.

As for the startup for the laser cannons, just sell the heavy plasmas. I think I racked up like 20 mil in one month for all the HPs I collected in a month, not counting the ones that I used. That will more than allow you to afford the startup cost/profit gap of the workshops. And you're right. I'm not familiar with the game's economics. Because you don't need to be. Every mission that you respond to is like 1-6million right off the bat once you beat it. You will be rolling in dough even if you didn't have the council funding.

Oh and I forgot to mention that I don't "play" the game to beat it anymore. I play it like a sandbox now, where X-COM terrorizes the aliens now.

[HWP]

You didn't know that your sold alien corpses were actually paid bounties from the council?

I had no idea: never in the game does it say that.

Bounties are paid on proof of kill, so you'd have most of the body to yourself, rather than choose between having it and selling it.

In EU12, they are explicitly sold on the "gray market", but you don't sell most of them because you need them for items (which on the correct difficulty you do need).

This, then, only counts as fan explanation.

In EU, the weapon you choose is slightly more varied than in UD.

Only for two classes there is even a choice at all. And it's little more of a choice than Plasma Rifle vs Heavy Plasma in UD.

Plasma Light Rifle (that's how it is called) only has enough damage to kill a weak opponent with two hits or a critical. Plasma Rifle has enough damage to kill weak opponents normally, midrange opponents with a critical.

The probability of scoring one hit is higher than that of scoring two hits even with the 10% bonus. Since everything in the game, you and enemies, has so much damn health, it all comes down to just how fast you can wear off theirs before they wear off yours.

And all non-plasma weapons become useless the moment you have plasma. They don't even have a token benefit like unlimited ammo - which mattered within the 80 item limit, even if unintentionally. Or explosive capability like you got from Heavy and Auto cannons.

I actually brought some lasers and even starter tier weapons with me to Cydonia. They still had utility.

As for the startup for the laser cannons, just sell the heavy plasmas. I think I racked up like 20 mil in one month for all the HPs I collected in a month, not counting the ones that I used.

So why bother with laser cannons at all?

1) 20 million is enough to win the game if your monthly bottom line is at 0 and you don't lift a finger to earn a cent more.

2) It's 5-6 months till you start seeing net profit on them. If you already have loads of heavy plasmas, you'll have won this playthrough well before that.

[TrashMan]

The new X-Com is a decent game on it's own, but dissapointing given it's predecessor.

Yeah, the originial had some funy AI and balance problems. But the new one isn't really better in that regard.

[licker]

Bounties are paid on proof of kill, so you'd have most of the body to yourself, rather than choose between having it and selling it.

What are you talking about? Real bounties? How some game handles it? What?

Dude, these are games, they are not remotely close to realistic if you want to take the time to pick holes through their mechanics. If you prefer one mechanic over another. That's freaking great for you. Understand though, that your preference doesn't make that mechanic superior in any way, other than to you. So stop with your idiocy of slamming every aspect of the NG as being dumb or bad or retarded or whatever other shallow pointless argument you want to pretend you have.

You like one set of mechanics over another. Yet you argue as though your opinion is the only one which matters. I didn't present defense of the NG before because why the hell would I? I'm not going to convince you of anything, your minds already made up. It's just entertaining to see people like you spin out of control when someone challenges your personal convictions.

In EU12, they are explicitly sold on the "gray market", but you don't sell most of them because you need them for items (which on the correct difficulty you do need).

Incorrect. But hey, don't let your opinion of how to play the game intrude on reality.

This, then, only counts as fan explanation.

And your opinion, then, only counts as a summers breeze opinion. Seriously, do you actually think you're that special that you can discount everyones opinion which doesn't agree with yours?

By the way, that's a rhetorical question.

Only for two classes there is even a choice at all. And it's little more of a choice than Plasma Rifle vs Heavy Plasma in UD.

Say what? A choice of what? Weapon? Armor? Grenade/scopre/kit/arc???

Plasma Light Rifle (that's how it is called) only has enough damage to kill a weak opponent with two hits or a critical. Plasma Rifle has enough damage to kill weak opponents normally, midrange opponents with a critical.

The probability of scoring one hit is higher than that of scoring two hits even with the 10% bonus. Since everything in the game, you and enemies, has so much damn health, it all comes down to just how fast you can wear off theirs before they wear off yours.

It becomes rapidly apparent that you have not spent much time playing the game on a meaningful difficulty, or with the latest 2nd wave options. Which is fine, since you don't like the game, I wouldn't expect you to spend time playing it. So then why are you babbling about it as though you have clue one about the difference between Light Plamsa and Heavy and why you would choose one over another depending on your squad composition as well as individual soldier statistics?

And all non-plasma weapons become useless the moment you have plasma. They don't even have a token benefit like unlimited ammo - which mattered within the 80 item limit, even if unintentionally. Or explosive capability like you got from Heavy and Auto cannons.

I actually brought some lasers and even starter tier weapons with me to Cydonia. They still had utility.

All weapons in the game have unlimited ammo. You mean time between reloads I suppose. Foundry project ammo conservation. *shrug* You brought along junk because you wanted to pretend that load outs mattered in the OG. The hint is that they didn't, other than for folks who wanted to pretend that they did. And look, that's great if that's how you wanted to enjoy it. But it's not exactly a great selling point.

Look, I can equip my dudes with zillions of useless items because it makes them feel more like a real soldier to have back up weapons and 10s of clips! Even though mechanics wise it was meaningless to actually do this.

So why bother with laser cannons at all?

1) 20 million is enough to win the game if your monthly bottom line is at 0 and you don't lift a finger to earn a cent more.

2) It's 5-6 months till you start seeing net profit on them. If you already have loads of heavy plasmas, you'll have won this playthrough well before that.

Which is part of the reason why many people felt the economic system in the OG was broken and silly. I'm not going to argue that the system in the NG doesn't have it's own particular issues, but that doesn't mean that the OG was any better in that area.

Edited January 28, 2013 by licker

[HWP]

What are you talking about? Real bounties? How some game handles it? What?

Lots of questions. One answer: it wouldn't be hard at all to reward money on kill, if it was meant as a bounty; therefore, it's a corpse sale.

Incorrect. But hey, don't let your opinion of how to play the game intrude on reality.

I have completed the game on Impossible vanilla and on Impossible with SW, with M 1.99, DR and RD, and without any easymods like BA's WSE. You almost certainly haven't. What makes you consider yourself qualified to teach me on how to play the game?

Your fighters - and that's all you have by the time stronger UFOs start appearing, with SW+M+DR, and intercept on mission=1, it's a while before you get a Firestorm - get toasted without consumables. Getting toasted or letting UFOs go raises panic and screws up the funding.

Say what? A choice of what? Weapon? Armor? Grenade/scopre/kit/arc???

You haven't been following the discussion, or you'd know already.

All weapons in the game have unlimited ammo. You mean time between reloads I suppose. Foundry project ammo conservation. *shrug* You brought along junk because you wanted to pretend that load outs mattered in the OG.

You have misunderstood the subject. It's that these specs are exactly the same for all weapons in EU12. At least UD had ammo for plasma and not for lasers.

In UD I brought along weapons other than HP because HP is easy to get a hold of on Cydonia, because for 26 soldiers you need to manage inventory tightly, and because they had utility.

Before you ask why did I need 26 soldiers, I played without save-scumming and for fastest time, so they weren't ubercolonels.