Jump to content

First impressions from someone who never played X-Com originals


Recommended Posts

I guess the tittle of the thread makes the context pretty obvious. So, I've never played any of the original three X-Com games. I do own, play and enjoy the Firaxis X-Com game which is a pretty different kind of a game and I've understood that the fans of the original series don't often really like it.

First of all it's kind of difficult to get information out of the game. In particular tooltips take so long to show up that I wasn't even sure that the game has any. This was especialy confusing in air combat (which is in itself kind of confusing for the couple of first times) when I couldn't figure out what the buttons do if anything, or if I can disable the weapons of an aircraft and things like that. Equipment and weapons tooltips also take a long time to show up and I'm not sure if they are avaiable during combat.

Distinguishing between the different ranks of aliens and what kind of weapons they have is also kind of difficult especialy when a lot of them look so similiar to each other. In an earlier development phase they could have been made more distinct from each other. I know it's not happening now. But it would be nice that if you'd hover the mouse cursor over an alien it would display what kind of a an alien it is and what it is armed with. Of course it would be strange to have advance knowledge of what a Psion or a heavy plasma looks like if you've never seen one. So perhaps this identification tooltip should just display "Unknown Alien" and "Unknown Weapon" if you have not recovered to aproriate corpses/alien weapons from the field.

Figuring out how much money you are getting from funding blocks and what is the projected change is also, well, such information isn't really avaible as far as I know untill you get the monthly funding report. It's really, really difficult to gauge how well or bad I am doing as it is. Perhaps this information is avaible somewhere and I can't find it? If not it would be nice to have access to it other than every month.

I can't get information on how much a base costs. All I ever get to know if I have the funds or not. Displaying the cost when you are about to build new one could be sufficient. This was extremely confusing when I first played the game. It's also difficult to get any information on what is the function of the base facilities. Perhaps it's obvious for long-time X-Com players what the Warehouses and Medical Centers are needed for. But it took a while for me to figure out that you need Warehouses to transfer goods between bases. I'm still not sure what Medical Centers do since soldiers seem to heal without them just fine? :confused: I also had to read about the radar chaining thing on the forum.

The fact that the game manual is incomplete only makes these problems worse. For all I know there could be some screen that shows me the information I want but I don't know how to access it and I have no means to get this information when the manual is in such a barebones state. Of course it would be pointless to write a manual for an incomplete game which is why plenty of responsive tooltips would be nice.

As for tactical combat it's sometimes kind of confusing if I can move behind certain objects, if there is really space between that car and that wall or not and such. Some objects turn transparent when you walk behind them which is nice, but I would like a way to turn these objects transparent without walking behind them so I could figure out in advance where I can move or not. The fact that the movement path tracer gets lost behind the objects and certain walls only makes this worse.

Finally, it would be nice if the game could prompt you about potential friendly fire. I had some rather...unpleasant experiences with grenades and machine guns. It might sound stupid, but especialy with grenades that 0% to hit was and is really inscrutable. Does it mean that I can't throw it over that wall or does it mean that it's going to blow my squad up? With guns it of course displays the block on your teammates/civilians and gunning down my squads with it was probably my own stupidity. Of course it could still be nice for the total rookies if the game would warn about it.

Despite how confusing the game can get it times I've really enjoyed it so far. It's very challenging even though sometimes the challenge comes from not being able to figure out things like what are the alien commanders I'm supposed to capture or how much will my funding change likely change and things like that. On v21 stable the invasion starts to feel really hectic around the time Corvettes show up (on Normal difficulty...) and I had to bail a game because I had wasted so much money without realising how poorly I was doing and got stuck in a losing cycle of not being able to manufacture the things I need while getting ripped apart by the invading forces. Of course it was a humiliating learning experience and challenge is good. Challenge due to not being able to figure out you're only going to get pennies the next month is not a good form of challenge IMO.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that I'm concerned that some players will be put off by the lack of information and how confusing it can make the game at times. I believe this is a very sound and highly enjoyable game. I mean I wouldn't have already spent hours on it if I didn't fundamentaly enjoy the experience. But I know that there might be players who are interested, then fire up the game, then can't figure out what is going on and abandon it out of frustration. In some sense this game reproduces not only the good features of "retro" games but also one of the worst features which is the lack of information. Hideous and clunky UIs are the other thing and I'm glad to see that this game is perfectly fine on that department.

One could be nice to have but perhaps too late thing would be more variety for the missions. I'd like to see something along the lines of...gasp...the X-Com remake's abduction missions which are actualy more like "get into the area and kill the intruders". The UFO crash missions get a bit repetive and while the maps are nice it feels kind of strange how they always manage to make such neat landings on military bases and such. Those bases and such would IMO fit more as areas where you do some kind of mini terror missions. Perhaps some of the alien scouting missions require a bit groundwork from the redshirts or their lizard buddies, so they land, a couple of them get out, the ship takes off into space with the promise it will return to pick them up. The redshirts on the ground get some soil, air water and charred human corpse samples and the Xenonauts have the opportunity to stop them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the long and detailed post. I'm glad you like the game.

Yes, unfortunately it is too late to add new missions and reworking the aliens to make them more distinctive isn't possible at this point (although alien design is something I admit we could have done better in retrospect).

The rest of the issues you've raised mostly address usability and communication, and are largely valid. We're working on making things a bit clearer and the manual should also help clear things up before final release so the game is a bit friendlier to new players.

If you look at the top-right of the screen, that displays all the funding information when you mouse over a region or place a base. But yes, it could be better signposted.

Out of interest, did you get the Explanatory Tooltips the first time you played and were they useful if so?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

a333 and Max to the rescue! MKDELTA, as you're having difficulty telling the difference between aliens, why not try our original receipe Alien Class Analysis Mod? Now in spicy v21 stable flavour! (Texan Barbecue V22 experimental flavour coming by the weekend).

EDIT: Need more info? Coming to a computer near you, UFO Mission Analysis Mod (Producers: Henry Ponciano and Max). Season 1: v21 stable (Season 2: v22 experimental TBA).

Edited by Max_Caine
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@MKDELTA - A lot of good ideas/points here. I guess since I have experience with the OG and have been playing beta for a long I never really thought about a lot of things you brought up. I can see some of the confusion a complete newbie might experience. The tooltips for weapon and alien type are an especially good idea. I would use those.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you look at the top-right of the screen, that displays all the funding information when you mouse over a region or place a base. But yes, it could be better signposted.

Thanks, I don't know how or why I missed that so completely..

Out of interest, did you get the Explanatory Tooltips the first time you played and were they useful if so?

Yes I did, and I did find them usefull. The air combat tooltip sort of slipped out of my mind immediatedly after I read it, perhaps because you are staring down at an UFO in real-time combat. I checked it again and it does mention what the buttons do, but the tooltips for the buttons itself take IMO a bit too much long to appear.

a333 and Max to the rescue! MKDELTA, as you're having difficulty telling the difference between aliens, why not try our original receipe Alien Class Analysis Mod? Now in spicy v21 stable flavour! (Texan Barbecue V22 experimental flavour coming by the weekend).

EDIT: Need more info? Coming to a computer near you, UFO Mission Analysis Mod (Producers: Henry Ponciano and Max). Season 1: v21 stable (Season 2: v22 experimental TBA).

I actually figured out who that purple-shirted dead guy in the first Corvette I shot down was after checking out the mods, heh. I thought it was one of the alien commanders you are supposed to capture. It's a bit strange how you get that mission/objective so early on while the commanders take a good while (AFAIK) before they start appearing.

The mods however don't really adress the problem of how difficult it is to tell apart some of the aliens and especialy weapons from each other on the battlefield. Sebilians are especialy difficult, doubly so if they are crouching in some position where you can't tell if they are armored or not. It's nice that the Psion got his own project in the mod because it IMO feels a bit weird that you suddenly have aliens with notable new abilities and the research doesn't mention it at all. IIRC original X-Com had something about the alien psionics (from what I remember watching LPs) and the Firaxis remake makes a really big deal about it. I mean I guess for people who are familiar with X-Com it's kind of given that there are going to be aliens with psychic abilities. But even I was a bit confused of what was going on when I first faced off a live Psion in a terror mission and I started getting the "x is unnerved" messages. I thought the soldiers were getting scared because a platoon of Caesans were blasting them with all they got, but after a Psion waded into my LOS I figured out that they were probably PSI attacks. Now imagine if someone who hasn't played X-Com or is not familiar with it wounds up in the same situation, and doesn't even get the information after the battle...

The mods seem lovely and will probably add much to the athmosphere but I think I will wait for the final version before I install them. It's a bit of a hassle to mod a game under development with all the re-installs and stuff.

The little events which accompany the UFO activity are by the way one of my favorite things in this game. It makes it feel so much more alive. I remember when a Bomber first showed up and I got a string of those bombing/attack events and I thought it was really cool.

EDIT:

Also one thing I forgot to mention is that it took me a while to figure out that the engineers and scientists aren't pooled but each base has it's own amount of them and you manufacture and research per base. I don't remember if there is a tooltip for the base functions but if not there should be one which covers things like these.

Also, I don't know if this has been corrected since I'm using the v21 build but if you try to go to the soldier equipment screen on a base where there are no soldiers the game crashes. That's the only serious bug I've seen so far. I also had an instance where the game would freeze when loading an alien base. I may even have the savegame for that.

Edited by MKDELTA
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree wholeheartedly with the not being able to tell alien classes and weapons apart point. I have over 50+ hours in the game (not a ton but no small amount either) and to be honest I still cant really tell the aliens apart. I dont ID the weapon until they take a shot at me lol. I haven't given the mods a try yet but they look amazing and I will install for sure as soon as the game is stable. I am waiting for the final release at this point just because ive had 3 games on V21 that crashed to the point where I could not continue and I dont have a lot of free time to play.

At least until final exams are over and I can kill aliens all summer :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

a333 and Max to the rescue! MKDELTA, as you're having difficulty telling the difference between aliens, why not try our original receipe Alien Class Analysis Mod? Now in spicy v21 stable flavour! (Texan Barbecue V22 experimental flavour coming by the weekend).

EDIT: Need more info? Coming to a computer near you, UFO Mission Analysis Mod (Producers: Henry Ponciano and Max). Season 1: v21 stable (Season 2: v22 experimental TBA).

I really enjoy all the job that you did in this mods Max, your a great master of flavoring and communication.

Many thanks,

PD/ I'll love if you did compatible ones for Experimental versions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget a333! He provided the art for the ACA - he actually did 2 versions of the art (I have the old one backed up). He and I also discussed each screen in-depth. It was a real joint effort. Henry did amazing work for the UMA - I think he really got into the UFO mindset.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't forget a333! He provided the art for the ACA - he actually did 2 versions of the art (I have the old one backed up). He and I also discussed each screen in-depth. It was a real joint effort. Henry did amazing work for the UMA - I think he really got into the UFO mindset.

Thanks both of you, Artworks are marbelous.

For my this addition of the game is MUST be for the final version. I hope GoldHawk Devs considere take this piece of art.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

EDIT:

Also one thing I forgot to mention is that it took me a while to figure out that the engineers and scientists aren't pooled but each base has it's own amount of them and you manufacture and research per base. I don't remember if there is a tooltip for the base functions but if not there should be one which covers things like these.

Actually, research projects *are* pooled - you can have scientists spread over mulitple bases all working on the same project. (Only discovered this a few weeks ago)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Internet already existed - in the form of ARPANET - in the 1970s before Xenonauts takes place. Indeed - so wikipedia tells me - the term 'internet' was used as short-hand for 'internetworking', so not only does the lead Xenonaut scientist not in fact invent the Internet, but even uses an outmoded term for it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First of all it's kind of difficult to get information out of the game. In particular tooltips take so long to show up that I wasn't even sure that the game has any. This was especialy confusing in air combat (which is in itself kind of confusing for the couple of first times) when I couldn't figure out what the buttons do if anything, or if I can disable the weapons of an aircraft and things like that. Equipment and weapons tooltips also take a long time to show up and I'm not sure if they are avaiable during combat.

Agreed. I've been saying this off-and-on for a while. It really bugs me that tooltips take so long to pop up. It makes the interface feel clunky and just slows the game down. If people don't want tooltips to pop up, they can turn them off, but for those of us who want them, I'd really like them to appear immediately. In the grand scheme of things I guess it's not a long delay, but still, why should there be *any* delay if I've already indicated I want to see them in the options?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Internet already existed - in the form of ARPANET - in the 1970s before Xenonauts takes place. Indeed - so wikipedia tells me - the term 'internet' was used as short-hand for 'internetworking', so not only does the lead Xenonaut scientist not in fact invent the Internet, but even uses an outmoded term for it!

I can testify to the truth of that. The "internet" was originally designed for use by professionals and academics as a way to more efficiently exchange knowledge. I remember my dad, a project engineer for a major oil company, talking about it and using it in the 70's. He also used to take me to his office complex every now and then, where I marveled at the giant banks of computers with huge reel-to-reel tapes that executed programs based on data fed to them by punchcards. Quite funny now, but back then it was all revolutionary

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...