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

Yeah, the old one is a great game, but frankly not a particularly good strategy game.

X-Com UD has very few difficult decisions to make

Did you play the unofficially patched version?

The ordinary version has difficulty locked at "1" (out of 5), so you've been playing on minimum difficulty.

Anyway, to XCOM EU lovers, here's a question - is there any way to turn off constant confirmations? Such as when the game asks you if you are SURE that you REALLY want to use Overwatch. Not enough that there's no reason in hell not to use it, so it should have been made automatic, but it has to ASK.

These confirmations are annoying as hell. Like the game can't figure out that if someone clicks "overwatch", that's what he wants to do. If he wanted to go through some pointless menus, it stands to reason that he'd click "I'm a retard nag me" button. It's game-breaking.

Did you play the unofficially patched version?

The ordinary version has difficulty locked at "1" (out of 5), so you've been playing on minimum difficulty.

Anyway, to XCOM EU lovers, here's a question - is there any way to turn off constant confirmations? Such as when the game asks you if you are SURE that you REALLY want to use Overwatch. Not enough that there's no reason in hell not to use it, so it should have been made automatic, but it has to ASK.

These confirmations are annoying as hell. Like the game can't figure out that if someone clicks "overwatch", that's what he wants to do. If he wanted to go through some pointless menus, it stands to reason that he'd click "I'm a retard nag me" button. It's game-breaking.

That's odd, the game NEVER asked me to confirm anything, even at time when I wish it would've.

So when you click "overwatch", it doesn't display that window that says "MORE INFO" and "OK" below?

Need to check my settings if that's so.

No, I have not. I'm of the opinion that Beginner is the "real" difficulty level, by virtue of the fact that the developers never even realized that the others were bugged. So they clearly never tested the other ones were just bonus masochistic challenge difficulties. Whereas in the new one, Easy and Normal difficulties are designed as training wheel difficulties, Classic is the "real" difficulty level of the game, and Impossible is the challenge difficulty.

It sounds like a double standard, but it's really not.

I didn't even know you could have confirmations. I actually want to turn mine on for Ironman mode.

No, I have not. I'm of the opinion that Beginner is the "real" difficulty level, by virtue of the fact that the developers never even realized that the others were bugged. So they clearly never tested the other ones

Why would they need to test them? I'm not sure if they even fully tested Beginner. It was NOT designed as the real difficulty level, and players kept complaining that the game was too easy. That's why TFTD was made much harder.

Of course on a super-easy difficulty you don't have any difficult decisions. On TFTD max difficulty, you do.

So when you click "overwatch", it doesn't display that window that says "MORE INFO" and "OK" below?

Need to check my settings if that's so.

Ah, it might be because I'm using the number bar, so I don't notice it.

Yeaaah, if you double click hot keys or hotkey plus space you do it so fast that it doesn't have time to pop up, but I doubt its that.

Game sometimes bugs on me and skips whole are you suer thing completely when I click icon, it happens rarely and nevers been problem since I have always picked what I wanted to do but it has happened to me.

Anyway, I wouldn't say that old game is "bad as strategy game", but I do agree that "more options" =/= "better strategy/depth" especially when one of those options is "Blow up the whole map even areas you can't see to bypass strategy altogether". I consider using limited resources to achieve the goal more strategic than sand box.

Why would they need to test them? I'm not sure if they even fully tested Beginner. It was NOT designed as the real difficulty level, and players kept complaining that the game was too easy. That's why TFTD was made much harder.

Of course on a super-easy difficulty you don't have any difficult decisions. On TFTD max difficulty, you do.

It's the "real" difficulty, because that's the one the developers intended as the core experience of the game. If they didn't test the other ones, they clearly didn't care enough for them to be a well rounded experience. Not only that, it was the only difficulty you could even play on for a while. So the other ones were challenge, or "bragging rights" difficulties.

Likewise, in EU, Classic is the "real" difficulty of the game(or at least it's presented that way for fans of the original) and Impossible is the challenge difficulty. Impossible is clearly not designed as the core experience of the game, and likewise, all the other ones in the original weren't.

The players' perception really doesn't matter. If it was the majority case that people thought the first one was too easy, and decisions were easy to make, IMO, that only reinforces my view that it wasn't a particularly good strategy game.

And to clarify, when I say "not particularly good" I don't mean bad. It's simply not a gold standard of design for strategy games.

Choices? Decisions?

Sure, you can say UFO:EU has coices and decisions.

But practicly all of htem are forced. Decision that are there by the virtue of limiting you.

Irony, isnt' it?

By taking away your freedom and puting artificial limtis on things, they add more things to give it more "depth". tT's fake depth.

If they didn't test the other ones

You didn't tell how do you know if they even tested the Beginner difficulty.

They certainly didn't test it for balance, as evidenced by the presence of a lot of game-breaking opportunities.

I could go the opposite way though and say that by making one decision clearly more viable than the others, you get fake depth, since the other ones aren't even worth considering.

Ok, here's the deal. Beginner was the intended difficulty. They didn't have to test it, because Beginner is the difficulty they designed the game around. The others are challenge difficulties. Even if they did test all the difficulties, they would have come to the same conclusion, because they could only test beginner, because that's the only difficulty they could access, because of the bug.

With that in mind, it's not a reach at all to say that the extra difficulties were challenge difficulties.

It's a moot point the because you couldn't even PLAY any other difficulty levels until the windows edition, which came out years after the DOS edition.

Kind of odd that they apparently designed game around difficulty where aim and armor was 50% of base stats Check ufopaedia for that. Anyway, I think its more of that they didn't notice bug late in development and its possible that game wasn't balanced around bug and that bug was born late in development too.

This is an extreme but I think it illustrates the issue between "depth" vs. "no depth". At least for me.

Lets say I made a game. When you start it up you are presented with two buttons "Win" and "Lose". The importance associated with those two buttons would be colossal in terms of winning or losing the game. This is a situation in which you have more importance and much less depth.

Now XCOM: EU isn't that extreme by a long shot BUT it isn't very deep either. I lost several games even when I was on Normal difficulty because I tried to think outside of the box. As soon as I tried to do something creative (within the very limited options present) the game would punish me for it severely. In the end I just took the ridiculously obvious paths (often times what I was directly being told to do) and the game became a cakewalk. I used that strategy to beat Normal and got all the way to psionics on Classic before it became too boring to continue playing.

I'm not a big fan of "fewer options that are more important" because to me in the end it all just feels like the imaginary game I mentioned in the first paragraph. I want to think about things! I want to be at work and have a sudden realization that there is a different way to try something in the game and rush home at the end of the day to see what happens. That just isn't possible in XCOM: EU. Without a plethora of options it's just an interactive movie and that's not for me...

Yeah, the best strategy in EU does seem to be "Move forward -> Take cover -> Overwatch" Occaisionally with other solutions showing themselves, my favorite being "Blaster Launcher -> Three Thin Men"

Whether or not the game designers intended Beginner to be the base difficulty, it's the difficulty level that most people who played X-Com associate X-Com with(the ONLY one available to many Veterans), and therefore, the difficulty level I'm addressing.

Whereas the best strategy in UD is: "Move Forward with a guy who isn't using explosive, Use Explosives"

With that in mind, it's not a reach at all to say that the extra difficulties were challenge difficulties.

This is just your personal fan speculation.

I'm not familiar with the extra difficulty levels because I didn't have access to them. From what I gather from the wiki though, it really doesn't seem to add any depth or make decisions more difficult. It's just higher stats.

Yeah, the best strategy in EU does seem to be "Move forward -> Take cover -> Overwatch"

It's really pretty much the only strategy available.

Making "Overwatch" a move is outright silly, because there is no reason ever to end turn without activating it.

Whereas the best strategy in UD is: "Move Forward with a guy who isn't using explosive, Use Explosives"

This is patently untrue.

The best strategy for psionic-uberteam approach in UD is to use HWP to discover one alien, use mind control on him, use him to discover other aliens, have them shoot one another.

There are multiple strategies for weapons-uberteam approach in UD, generally revolving around solid cover and preserving TU for a shot, none of them are about explosives.

The best strategy for psionic-redshirt approach in UD is to spread out in thick numbers to discover a few aliens, use mind control on them, have them drop their weapons and discover more aliens, practice mind control on them.

The best strategy for weapons-redshirt approach in UD indeed involves leveling buildings and obstacles you don't need with explosives, but you still begin with a guy with explosives.

Psionics aren't even available for the majority of the game. And even once you do have access to them, Explosives are extremely viable.

Using overwatch with everyone is pointless in EU. Unless you are only running Supports, you only react to movement with Overwatch. Your enemies plasma is going to rip apart your cover eventually, and you lose to attrition. You only ever want to Use Overwatch with your Sniper and maybe the guy that follows point, since they are the only ones with enough range to hit accurately on overwatch.

A generally better strategy would be: Overwatch with your sniper, Scout to blue range with support, then deal with the situation from there.

There are alternative strategies in XCOM: EU, but they mainly have to do with class setup of your team. For example, steam full of heavies plays differently from steam full of snipers and such.

Well, obviously when you find the enemies it's best to shoot them, but as you're advancing you just keep using overwatch, and when someone activates the aliens, your entire squad shoots at them (assuming they're in range.)

Overwatch isn't really reliable tactic though as overwatch has reduced aim. Its useful but you won't win with it.