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Oh god, what a waste this game is


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Are you trying to live up to your name or something? :)

Hah, I actually chose this name from a worms armageddon team. Had no Idea who the dude was until it was too late and it was already stuck. .)

Although, I dont think hes too bad, you got any examples that really doom the name? :P

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Edit: I dont think agreeing with Chris gets you special treatment.

Luckily disagreeing with him doesn't get you any special treatment either or I would have likely been banned from the forums years ago :P

As I have said before I think people need to keep in mind how this game started.

It was a one man bedroom studio effort that grew beyond the devs expectations while in progress.

Over the course of the five years it went from half a dozen pre orders up to a successful kickstarter and steam launch.

People are expecting more from it than was ever planned.

The original plan was expanded on with the extra money but not in every area and not as much as the devs would have liked.

Back to blaming that crappy game engine again.

I can only dream of the extra features that would have been possible if Unity or something a little more user friendly had been picked.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of criticism though and Chris has certainly had quite a lot of that through the years along with the compliments.

The way I see it any criticism is just more feedback to help the next game, as long as it is constructive and fair at least.

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The OP's tone is a bit over the top but it succeeded in getting some responses so it probably was intentional. =)

He criticised the complete lack of imagination in weapon mechanics when moving from tier 1 to tier 2 to tier 3...

Very much this. Gazz understands.

I'm not saying Xenonauts is a bad game. Far from it! It's a good game. It's polished, pretty, rather deep and atmospheric. But my point is, it could easily have been a great game if Chris&Co. had more courage and farsight! Right now it's a ~80% game, if I dare use the horrid Metacritic scale. It could have been 90+. The foundations are there.

But then this happened:

Xenonauts is exactly what it claims to be IMO, a modernized remake. Sure, they could have done a lot of different stuff, but that wasn't the goal.

Yes, that wasn't the goal. And by that, Chris&Co. shot themselves in the foot right at the start of development. You don't make "great" or "excellent" games by only rehashing twenty years old concepts. You just don't. It's enough to make a solid game, but not a great one. Great products demand innovation and originality!

This is easily seen in Xenonauts itself: the highlights of the game are the first time blips come up in geoscape and when you shield-maiden (hehe) rapes her first alien with a bare pistol. It's these kinds of moments that stay with you and make a great game. Moments that, ohwhaddayaknow, come from inovations in the game! Sadly, after this remarkable start, Xenonauts quickly becomes stale. Because, you know, "we had to stay in confines of a remake." GODDAMIT, WHY?? Was there an alien holding a gun to your head demanding that you keep the ballistic-laser-plasma progression?

Let me elaborate why this is bad game design.

Computer games by their nature should challenge the player to find ways to overcome obstacles. To keep the gameplay fresh, they need to present new kinds of challeges to force player to adapt. If the player keeps overcoming obstacles by the same approach every time, he gets bored very quickly.

This is what Xenonauts fails to do: force you to continuously adapt throughout the game. There was more or less only one such moment in my two games: when aliens started lobbing grenades my way about mid-game. I had to spread my tight door-breaching formations and start using different kinds of meatshields. I wish there were many such moments, not only one. There should have been many more.

One such gamechanger in the original game were psionic attacks, and that goes both ways. Before you start crying: yes, I know the mechanic was imbalanced, but it's the kind of switch that games need to make to keep the gameplay fresh.

Let me give some more images of what Xenonauts could have been.

Let's say aliens started using burst-type grenade launchers shooting smart munitions at your soldiers. Since you have stuff like that in labs of a 21st century human civilization, I'd dare think that galaxy-spanning aliens would have some too. Sure, one such salvo of homing explosive death could decimate your people. But. This is why your scientists devise a portable energy shield that you can switch on for a very limited time, say, one turn, before it needs to recharge for five turns or something. Thus, you get a whole new layer of gameplay.

OR

Your scientists devise a special sensor that enables you to see aliens sooner than they can see you. Of course, this active radar sensor emits signals and when those are later caught by special anti-electronic-combat flying reptile-men (because aliens), you're in deep trouple, because those anti-electronic-combat flying reptile-men commandos can use those signals to locate your precious electronics, hack into your system and drop a bomb into your internet. I mean, make you lose sight of your men, fry electronics or some similarly fun stuff.

OR

When aliens see you, they open wormholes around the battlefield and suddenly you're surrounded by wormhole-dwelling transdimensional organisms that prey on fearful thoughts, attacking your soldiers with the lowest bravery first. Now THAT would force you to change some approaches!

OR

When you've just cleared the area around the alien ship and you're preparing for door breach, those civilians that were huddled nearby suddenly burst in a torrent of blood and transform into monstrosities, hacking into your soldiers from behind. You'd need to research a special blood-test that you'd have to administer to each civilian to prove he's not a goddamn xeno. Of course, the latent xeno-civvies wouldn't happily let you test them ...

The possibilities are endless!!

But GH instead chose to have the same boring tech progression we've seen twenty years ago. Because remake.

You don't get excellence by doing that. You get excellence by being bold and making anti-electronic-combat flying reptile-men commandos dropping bombs into player's internet.

Hope I cleared some stuff for you.

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New aliens are introduced throughout the game. They have different powers, teleportation, psonics, better weapons. They are also new ships and bases. You do have to adapt. Perhaps not as much as you'd like maybe? You should also bear in mind that the game is pretty inexpensive compared to other titles. Extra content means extra $$. I consider Xenonauts a bargain.

Edited by StellarRat
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"I'm not saying Xenonauts is a bad game. Far from it! It's a good game. It's polished, pretty, rather deep and atmospheric. But my point is, it could easily have been a great game if Chris&Co. had more courage and farsight! Right now it's a ~80% game, if I dare use the horrid Metacritic scale. It could have been 90+. The foundations are there. "

Time and money has to be there, dude. This game was supposed to be released back in early 2013, iirc. As it is, with the resources they had starting out, I would take mods to suit your needs as a wonderful solution instead of "it should have been what I wanted" (this modding community is amazing, btw). But to each his own, I suppose.

Edit:

Also, calling the game "broken" is pure opinion. I don't really have an issue with upgrades to current weapons, and I know there are many that are fine with it. Mods exist for those who want a different experience than the base game provides, it's up to you to apply them.

Edited by ViewThePhenom
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The OP's tone is a bit over the top but it succeeded in getting some responses so it probably was intentional. =)

And the suggestion / complaint wasn't to have a single OP weapon.

He criticised the complete lack of imagination in weapon mechanics when moving from tier 1 to tier 2 to tier 3...

Plasma weapons are hot stuff. They start fires and a hit has a DoT component, damaging something for 1 or 3 turns afterward.

HV weapons overpenetrate without destroying destroying the actual cover. They only punch tiny holes like in

.

Lasers could simply be more accurate. You just can't beat light speed.

*shrug*

True. I'm pretty much modding exactly this.

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If I knew that I would need to mod certain aspects of Xenonauts from the beginning, I certainly wouldn't preorder it. I can't really understand how someone can you excuse developers by suggesting mods or by saying " doesn't have the manpower of a AAA developer". It seems Indie developers get way too much free ride nowadays then they should.

omglaserspewpew is right in certain aspects, but I think it is also worth to mention that some changes from original show that Goldhawk doesn't necessarily understand what made OG a memorable game. Infinite Flares completely ruined night missions, one of the coolest things about OG.

There are many great things about Xenonauts and it's not a bad game, just the certain design decisions (to appeal casual players) are plainly poor and make Xenonauts a less memorable experience.

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You tend to find people only want change if it's going to be exactly the change they personally would put in the game. If any change is not to their exact personal specifications, then they are "clearly poor" etc.

To use some examples in this thread, read the OP, the reply of Rutger (above) and the post made by DamianAyre on page 2. All three agree that we've got it wrong, but for completely contradictory and largely mutually exclusive reasons.

Whatever we'd done differently, there's no possible scenario where all three people would think we have an excellent game. I'm not annoyed or even necessarily complaining here, of course - people are entitled to their opinions and I'm only picking those three examples because they are close to hand.

But when you write a post pointing out where the devs got it wrong, you're pointing out things that would make the game a subjectively great game in your opinion (i.e. great to you) rather than objectively a great game (i.e. great to everyone). There's really nothing concrete that suggests us making those decisions differently would have increased the sales, appeal or review scores of the game because clearly everyone thinks totally differently.

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The very few words I read suggest that 4 people agree the weapon tiers are boring, I dont think its a bad idea either, just the way it was introduced sent me in the wrong direction. I vaguely remember that around b19 I ranted about carbines being replaced by shotguns.

The whiny post about the game being hard and the man-mode post saying the "easy way out" options make it less memorable(which I agree with), can both be satisfied by modifying the difficulty? I was under the impression that one is still one of the few subject to change.

But what really made me reply again, is the "cheap excuse" part. There were a lot of changes I judged as bad, bordering on gamebreaking and so on, but apparently they appeal to people. Theres a lot of features "missing", but Id not go as far as wanting an excuse for not implementing them.

There's really nothing concrete that suggests us making those decisions differently would have increased the sales, appeal or review scores of the game because clearly everyone thinks totally differently.

From pure curiosity, is that the point? To appeal to as many and as much to increase the scores and sales?

Clearly everyone thinks the weapon tiers suck. :P

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Changing the weapon tiers MIGHT have been an improvement, but can also go wrong. I personally haven't experienced the weapon tiers as boring. If I hadn't read this thread I wouldn't have even known that the weapon tiers only worked with damage increase :P

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Getting out of bed can go wrong. And sorry for the bad news. Cant wait for your opinion of psionics. :D

Not just damage increase, they also add more suppression and less ammo per clip I reckon. The point is theyre still the same weapons with different sprites.

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You tend to find people only want change if it's going to be exactly the change they personally would put in the game. If any change is not to their exact personal specifications, then they are "clearly poor" etc.

To use some examples in this thread, read the OP, the reply of Rutger (above) and the post made by DamianAyre on page 2. All three agree that we've got it wrong, but for completely contradictory and largely mutually exclusive reasons.

Post written by DamianAyre represents a very extreme view and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't play or enjoy OG. I don't even think more then few people would agree with him.
Whatever we'd done differently, there's no possible scenario where all three people would think we have an excellent game. I'm not annoyed or even necessarily complaining here, of course - people are entitled to their opinions and I'm only picking those three examples because they are close to hand.
I didn't mean to annoy you in any way with my post. I appreciate that you reply, even if I don't necessarily agree with you.
But when you write a post pointing out where the devs got it wrong, you're pointing out things that would make the game a subjectively great game in your opinion (i.e. great to you) rather than objectively a great game (i.e. great to everyone). There's really nothing concrete that suggests us making those decisions differently would have increased the sales, appeal or review scores of the game because clearly everyone thinks totally differently.
Sorry Chris, but you are wrong. In a different thread I did explain why making Flares infinite was a bad decision and even make a simple suggestion, that would please both groups of people. It was ignored in the end.
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So Chris do you think that weapons tiers currently are at an objectively good level or are you unhappy with certain aspects of it and didn't have enough time/money/etc. to implement other stuff?

Personally I like them or rather I'm "meh whatever" about it and don't think that the current system is broken or bad.

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Sorry Chris, but you are wrong. In a different thread I did explain why making Flares infinite was a bad decision and even make a simple suggestion, that would please both groups of people. It was ignored in the end.

I like infinite flares. Night missions are dangerous enough with them.

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I like infinite flares. Night missions are dangerous enough with them.

I like how all mission sites stay as long as you have a dropship en route, so you dont have to do a single night mission. xD

Edit:

Btw, a DLC question flew through here, Id rather buy a sequel in a more flexible engine, than a DLC in this one.

Edited by ViniJones
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From pure curiosity, is that the point? To appeal to as many and as much to increase the scores and sales?

Clearly everyone thinks the weapon tiers suck. :P

No, the point was for me to make the X-Com game I felt was the best possible modern remake. Barring some technical limitations inflicted by the engine, I'm content enough that I've done it. You can't please everyone all the time, so I just did it my way and hoped it would sell well and get good reviews.

I also agree the word "excuse" is a poor choice here - I don't really need an excuse to implement different game mechanics to those suggested by a player. My own subjective viewpoint is just as valid as theirs, and anyone who says "lots of people think you're wrong about this" is essentially admitting that appealing to the largest number of people is all that matters. DamianAyre's opinion is extreme, but is it less important just because not many people hold that opinion? Does that then mean that popular things are objectively better and we should just have tried to appeal to as many people as possible?

@Tulx - Yeah, I think it works fine. The variation is within the tiers rather than between the tiers and without going into too much detail, it better preserves game progression and ensures more controlled balance. That sounds boring and is invisible within the game, but it's important. I suspect many people will only realise how much it matters once they play some of the mods that add more tier variation though.

@Rutger - Don't worry, you didn't annoy me. I was just pointing out how different everybody's thoughts on the game were.

I can't remember your suggestion off the top of my head, but I seriously doubt you had a solution for flares that everyone who plays this game would think was the perfect way of handling flares. Is your opinion more valid than that of Crusherven, who likes them? If so, why?

If not, then you can't say that I am wrong about flares. You can just say you'd have done it differently in my position - which is fine. But in all likelihood if I'd followed your idea there'd still be someone somewhere objecting to the flares system (it just wouldn't be you).

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I don't really understand the hostility of some.

I for one am not a particular fan of some parts of the X-COM formula, but this game nontheless is extremely fun and challenging for a long period of time.

The weapon tiers are not exactly interesting, but on the other hand you have quite a deep toolbox of weapons and equipment in Xenonauts from the start. At least it doesn't lose complexity - in the old X-COM psionics, blaster launchers and heavy plasma were a degenerate strategy (i.e. everything else was worthless due to them being the best option).

Other problems IMO are mission variety or grinding solder stats - but those are my general opinions and are not limited to this game.

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DamianAyre's opinion is extreme, but is it less important just because not many people hold that opinion?

No, his opinion is less important, because he doesnt seem to grasp, that this game, much like the "original" is not a casual one. You are supposed to deal with the problems he avoids, you are supposed to find a balance, that is not easy to achieve, that is part of the game as much as trying to avoid the funny angles, through which you get insta-gibbed all the time.

Without those, youre left with bad graphics, no voiceovers and sheer randomness or save/loading half the time.

Variation within a tier is good, but if what you put in the first day is all there is, you cant avoid it being boring after half an ingame year.

Seriously? Flares? Thats the issue? :D

Edit:

(i.e. everything else was worthless due to them being the best option).

This is a good point. :D

Edited by ViniJones
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