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

[Mew]

Frankly, I feel the opposite.

Actions may be easier to learn but Enemy Unknown's are so utterly limited that after a while, I was really wishing for Time Units to return. Time Units are hard to learn and I think that visual aids to indicate to a player how many Time Units a sequence of actions will cost would help a lot but the flexibility is worth it in the long run.

What I'd really like is a Time Unit system that give you a permanent indicator of how many units your current course of action will cost overall and the ability to reserve as many Time Units as you want for each unit. In short, merge the two.

... or if one go with Actions, don't have it as utterly limited as Enemy Unknown.

Xenonauts is frankly quite good on that aspect, with a number indicator that tell you how many time units you have left if you make your chosen sequence of actions and color-coding the paths. The only point I'll really fault is that it doesn't put label the ducking button to show how many TUs it use up but apart from that, it's actually very easy to pick up and play.

Once you understand that the number indicate the amount of TUs you will have left once at that spot rather than how many it will use up, the interface is very intuitive.

Edited December 12, 2012 by Mew

[HWP]

A widespread opinion here is, indians are hired because they are cheap.

Or rather because they have an insanely pipelined industry of mass producing outsourced code of the lowest grade that still compiles and moving on to the next job while it does.

Not unique to India, but freelancers easily get involved in a project, while hiring "code sweatshops" puts so many levels between code users and code makers that the latter just know to "make it do X when button Y is pressed"; the talents of good programmers are lost on it, while sloppy code from the rest contaminates the whole thing.

That said, it probably wasn't outsourced; in that case, my dream retirement is now to be a Firaxis AI programmer.

[StellarRat]

Or rather because they have an insanely pipelined industry of mass producing outsourced code of the lowest grade that still compiles and moving on to the next job while it does.

Not unique to India, but freelancers easily get involved in a project, while hiring "code sweatshops" puts so many levels between code users and code makers that the latter just know to "make it do X when button Y is pressed"; the talents of good programmers are lost on it, while sloppy code from the rest contaminates the whole thing.

That said, it probably wasn't outsourced; in that case, my dream retirement is now to be a Firaxis AI programmer.

Man, you hit the nail on the head. I know someone worked with some Indian software guys that were brought to the US on "green cards" (work visas.) They were paid 1/3 of the wages of the American programmers in the same office. Now, imagine this, even with the 1/3 guys working in the US that same company had sweatshop coders working in India that made even LESS than their imported Indian counterparts! All they was did was code EXACTLY what the specs said (like HWP said.) Needless to say, when you do EXACTLY what the specs say without any knowledge of the "big picture" or even how things are done in different countries, there will be trouble. Nothing is questioned, no missing pieces are asked about, etc...so things end up being done twice or more and your "savings" evaporate sometimes. It's no way to build GOOD software. Also, in India a college degree is basically equivalent to a two year trade school degree in the US and has to taken with a grain of salt. Edited December 12, 2012 by StellarRat

[licker]

Frankly, I feel the opposite.

Actions may be easier to learn but Enemy Unknown's are so utterly limited that after a while, I was really wishing for Time Units to return. Time Units are hard to learn and I think that visual aids to indicate to a player how many Time Units a sequence of actions will cost would help a lot but the flexibility is worth it in the long run.

What I'd really like is a Time Unit system that give you a permanent indicator of how many units your current course of action will cost overall and the ability to reserve as many Time Units as you want for each unit. In short, merge the two.

... or if one go with Actions, don't have it as utterly limited as Enemy Unknown.

Xenonauts is frankly quite good on that aspect, with a number indicator that tell you how many time units you have left if you make your chosen sequence of actions and color-coding the paths. The only point I'll really fault is that it doesn't put label the ducking button to show how many TUs it use up but apart from that, it's actually very easy to pick up and play.

Once you understand that the number indicate the amount of TUs you will have left once at that spot rather than how many it will use up, the interface is very intuitive.

Nah... I'm quite familiar with TUs and how to use them. I just don't like using them any more I found the 2 move and perk system to actually increase tactical decision making, because the move/shoot/move cheese sequence is not possible. That and super soldiers with mega TUs just feel abusive to me, 3+ shots depending on which game... Large squad size on top of that is just level the map and go home.

Granted, I have not played a lot of Xeno, and not the latest builds, so maybe they address that somehow, but the issue still usually comes down to AI, and how it can handle it's decision making in a TU system. As I think we can all agree, the AI in the old games was... well... bad. The only real issues one had was with shots from the dark and the occasional mind control rocket

At first I resisted the new games combat model, but after putting in ~80h on it, I've come to really enjoy it. It makes the AI 'better' because it has a simpler set of rules to follow. It doesn't really make the game play any easier either, and it requires one to still use good tactics to achieve optimal results. At least on classic and impossible. Complaints about it on easy and normal are to be expected, but meh, easy and normal are really forgiving of bad tactics. Granted, once you get good at any game, it gets easy, but that's no different for any mechanic. And TUs just feel so clunky and slow, especially on a bigger map. I suppose there is something to be said for the gradual creep across a map not knowing when you'll bump into the buggers, but after doing a couple like that... wow, the next 10 times just feel like wasted time to me.

That's the other unexpected 'advantage' I've come to find in the new XCOM. The hand crafted maps, while repetitive for some (though frankly 'random' maps are also repetitive since they usually are not very well constructed), lend themselves to certain fixed positions and (occasionally) interesting and tight positional battles. The flanking mechanism forces you to not just stand and exchange shots with the aliens, because over the long run that's a losing proposition. This is so true on impossible it's not even funny. I used to think that random maps were the only way. Now I appreciate that random maps really weren't very random, nor were they very much fun when they were too big. It's just a grid with a bunch of tile specific junk plopped down on it. Once you've seen them a couple of times, you've seen them all. At least the hand crafted maps are designed for specific 'choke' points, or present a problem in areas of low to no cover. Though again, once you've played them a few times, you know what to expect, but I knew what to expect on the 'random' maps too.

Anyway, not here to poop on xeno, I think xeno looks great myself, just surprised with my own reaction to XCOM.

[Nickolaidas]

I love everything X-COM related, always has since I played the original back in 94-95.

But Firaxis' X-COM: Enemy Unknown was a wet dream come true for me. It was everything I ever wanted out of an X-COM game. More epic, more action, filled with amazing cutscenes (unlike many hardcore elitists of the original, I enjoy every close-up cutscene of the aliens I get).

The design was excellent. A tremendous work was put in the enemy designs and the X-COM armor suits. The titan armor especially is so cool I could cry, especially when you put those awesome helmets on. Visual effects were amazing for a TBS game, and when compared with the original, it is incredibly superior (which is natural, it came like 20 years after X-COM UFO Defence).

The music lacks the horror-suspence of the original battlescape (and the PSX version had the best soundtrack) but in its stead I got an action-epic soundtrack making my squad feel like true heroes against an unknown foe.

The gameplay of the battlescape was a lot better than the original's in many ways, and inferior in a few others. Gone are the cheap deaths your squad would get when taking one step out of the skyranger / avenger (I don't mention the Lightning ) or the incredible ease in which they would die. In X-COM Enemy Unknown, when a soldier dies, you know it's your fault. Sure the old one was more unpredictable in that area, but I consider it hugely unfair to have a soldier trained-veteran get wasted because a snakeman fired a cheap shot in the dark half a desert map away. Some guys liked that, but I didn't. It was cheap, and unfair.

Of course, not being able to pick up weapons from squadmates or stunned enemies is a minus, but not a game-breaker for me.

The Geoscape got a lot of criticism for its simplicity, but I agree with most changes. The micromanagement of the old X-COM was alienating curious gamers who wanted to give the game a chance, and only hardcore strategists would make the gist of it. The inventory system was a nightmare for me, whether we're talking general stores or skyranger floor, and I was very pleased with the direction FIRAXIS took in the remake.

Sure, it would be nice to have base defence (although I always had such strong defences that my base would never get invaded -- 3 fusion ball & gravity shield -- maybe that's why I don't really miss it), but I *do* miss multiple alien bases.

I also miss the snakemen (the thin men are interesting, but I'd like the snakemen too). The outsiders were very interesting design-wise, and it's a pity they disappear the minute you go to the alien base.

Well, what I'm trying to say is that A) X-COM Enemy Unknown is a solid entry to my X-COM collection and my fave X-COM game so far, B) It has room for improvement and C) I wholeheartedly disagreed with people saying that it's irrelevant to the previous X-COM games and just had the X-COM name on it. That's a lie, and they know it. It's a tactical strategy game, it contains a HUGE portion of the elements of the original (tech, aliens, interception). It misses a few points, but succeeds on a lot of others.

I play the old X-COM trilogy, the UFO Trilogy, Extraterrestrials, X-COM EU, and I will also add Xenonauts to my collection. I love all alien defence strategy games, and FIRAXIS' one was no different.

[Darkangel]

There must be something wrong with me, i'm actually considering skipping the xcom deal at gmg (17,5 €). Having played the demo, seeing vids and read plenty of comments, just doesn't seem worth all that much.

[HWP]

It's pretty much at $20 everywhere now, if you pick it right.

I think it's still overpriced, a fair value for this game+DLC would be more like $15 (and I'm basing it on production values - clearly Firaxis' idea of "AAA" is very different from everyone else's - not preference). It doesn't really suck, it just isn't XCOM, and it's a deeply flawed game.

[Sinfullyvannila]

I got over 100 hours out of it, and have been thinking about playing through it again, so $50 was definitely a fair price.

[Chollirem]

hmmm well i played and beat EU2012 on classic and with MP time I got in like 80ish hours...but I still play Apoc, tftd, and UFO...got them for 20 bucks...20 years ago...THAT is good bang for the buck...

but if you realllllly want to go into the nitty gritty on why people dislike XCOM EU...a game with 4 years plus dev time.... in a open source engine.... and has more bugs then any game from a AAA publisher would normally allow...

read these two posts some time...its good fun : )...and ya...op...you missed a lot on why xcom eu2012 fails, but

Im sure you will LOVE this : D

http://steamcommunity.com/app/200510/discussions/0/864948300020375439/

or

http://steamcommunity.com/app/200510/discussions/0/864951022534431348/

[Tacobandit]

hmmm well i played and beat EU2012 on classic and with MP time I got in like 80ish hours...but I still play Apoc, tftd, and UFO...got them for 20 bucks...20 years ago...THAT is good bang for the buck...

but if you realllllly want to go into the nitty gritty on why people dislike XCOM EU...a game with 4 years plus dev time.... in a open source engine.... and has more bugs then any game from a AAA publisher would normally allow...

read these two posts some time...its good fun : )...and ya...op...you missed a lot on why xcom eu2012 fails, but

Im sure you will LOVE this : D

http://steamcommunity.com/app/200510/discussions/0/864948300020375439/

or

http://steamcommunity.com/app/200510/discussions/0/864951022534431348/

Thanks for the free advertising on my youtube video.

[Chollirem]

???

the game play video on "alright lets be frank for a moment" is yours?

dude have you monetized with you tube yet? make some money off that vid : D

[Tacobandit]

???

the game play video on "alright lets be frank for a moment" is yours?

dude have you monetized with you tube yet? make some money off that vid : D

Never thought about it. Yeah it's mine. I made a month 2, but it's an epic fail. 14 rookies and a lost skyranger on a terror mission . Made up for it near the end with another terror mission, but still had a negative score.

Oh no. Mine's on the "Why EU failed" one.

[Sinfullyvannila]

hmmm well i played and beat EU2012 on classic and with MP time I got in like 80ish hours...but I still play Apoc, tftd, and UFO...got them for 20 bucks...20 years ago...THAT is good bang for the buck...

but if you realllllly want to go into the nitty gritty on why people dislike XCOM EU...a game with 4 years plus dev time.... in a open source engine.... and has more bugs then any game from a AAA publisher would normally allow...

read these two posts some time...its good fun : )...and ya...op...you missed a lot on why xcom eu2012 fails, but

Im sure you will LOVE this : D

http://steamcommunity.com/app/200510/discussions/0/864948300020375439/

or

http://steamcommunity.com/app/200510/discussions/0/864951022534431348/

Those games didn't come out 20 years ago.

I'm not going to argue which have more replay value, I'm just saying, $50 for 100+ hours in the course of a couple months without burning out on it to the point of never wanting to play it is money well spent.

And the original X-Com had a comparable amount of bugs. I beat both UD and TFTD ages ago and they never compelled me to play through them again. I'll play them for about 10-20 hours now and then until it gets to the point in the game where it slows to a crawl due to micromanagement and becomes unpleasant.

I read both of the posts. I don't agree with them as a whole, and only agree with a couple of negatives from the one that lists a ton of negatives. I even thought most of them were positive changes(no free-fire, limited explosives, inability to pick up gear from dead soldiers, class system, no longer being able to sell manufactured weapons, smaller teams). I've had this discussion before, and don't see the point of revisiting it.

Sorry you didn't like the game. You are in the minority, hope Xenonauts works out for you. If it doesn't, I highly recommend UFO Extraterrestrials: Gold.

Edited January 10, 2013 by Sinfullyvannila

[Tacobandit]

Those games didn't come out 20 years ago.

I'm not going to argue which have more replay value, I'm just saying, $50 for 100+ hours in the course of a couple months without burning out on it to the point of never wanting to play it is money well spent.

And the original X-Com had a comparable amount of bugs. I beat both UD and TFTD ages ago and they never compelled me to play through them again. I'll play them for about 10-20 hours now and then until it gets to the point in the game where it slows to a crawl due to micromanagement and becomes unpleasant.

I read both of the posts. I don't agree with them as a whole, and only agree with a couple of negatives from the one that lists a ton of negatives. I even thought most of them were positive changes(no free-fire, limited explosives, inability to pick up gear from dead soldiers, class system, no longer being able to sell manufactured weapons, smaller teams). I've had this discussion before, and don't see the point of revisiting it.

Sorry you didn't like the game. You are in the minority, hope Xenonauts works out for you. If it doesn't, I highly recommend UFO Extraterrestrials: Gold.

What's the point of this post?

[Sinfullyvannila]

It was a response to the threads he linked on a post that followed mine.

[Chollirem]

Sinfull

I played ufo gold, fk that, I'm going with xeno

and ya it was more like 10 years ago not 20, but I still play em and you get the idea : )

((But I don't understand....

you are saying you don't like...

free fire

total inventory control

ability to loot the dead

War profiteering (got get money some how though ya it was a touch OP in ufo/tftd)

limited ammo/grenades based on your load out))

you LIKE a class system that micro manages you telling you what you can put on your troops and then only letting you upgrade gear? that and not having any control over what class they are from the word go?

....um I must be horrible confused...the (( )) part is all the stuff that in xeno...a game being made by xcom fans cuz no one is making the game we want...isnt that why your in here? 0.0

EU is for the COD kids who don't know any better and can only mentally handle 2 moves per soldier cuz anything more then that would fry their brains right?

lol

[HWP]

What's the point of this post?

There is no point to his posts. He just feels obliged to defend EU12 whenever any feature in it gets criticized.

[Gorlom]

What's the point of this post?

EU is for the COD kids who don't know any better and can only mentally handle 2 moves per soldier cuz anything more then that would fry their brains right?

lol

There is no point to his posts. He just feels obliged to defend EU12 whenever any feature in it gets criticized.

Be nice guys!

HWP don't gang up (all by yourself) on someone for having a different opinion than you.

[Tacobandit]

Sinfull

I played ufo gold, fk that, I'm going with xeno

and ya it was more like 10 years ago not 20, but I still play em and you get the idea : )

((But I don't understand....

you are saying you don't like...

free fire

total inventory control

ability to loot the dead

War profiteering (got get money some how though ya it was a touch OP in ufo/tftd)

limited ammo/grenades based on your load out))

you LIKE a class system that micro manages you telling you what you can put on your troops and then only letting you upgrade gear? that and not having any control over what class they are from the word go?

....um I must be horrible confused...the (( )) part is all the stuff that in xeno...a game being made by xcom fans cuz no one is making the game we want...isnt that why your in here? 0.0

EU is for the COD kids who don't know any better and can only mentally handle 2 moves per soldier cuz anything more then that would fry their brains right?

lol

For all the stuff that xenonauts kept with UFO Defense, it threw out a lot of stuff that I liked. It's another EU: a different take on X-COM. Oh and there's no total inventory control in Xenonauts either, otherwise my rookies would be carrying an LMG and a rocket launcher like in EU.

[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.

EU is HORRIBLE in that regard.

[thothkins]

For all the stuff that xenonauts kept with UFO Defense, it threw out a lot of stuff that I liked. It's another EU: a different take on X-COM. Oh and there's no total inventory control in Xenonauts either, otherwise my rookies would be carrying an LMG and a rocket launcher like in EU.

So what is it that you think is missing in Xenonauts that was in X-Com? Bear in mind that a number of these things have been removed after discussion and in the interests of game balance. So, feel free to give some suggestions on why they should be present.

Blaster Launchers - Removed due to overkill/ easy missions in EU1994

Human Psionics - Removed due to overkill/ easy missions in EU1994 (I'd personally like to see very limited human psionics as a mod option)

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

The Global Map is still a Global Map even if it's not spherical. Most things have a replacement of sort to avoid legal wranglings.

The economy is a lot tighter, to prevent abuse and promote you going on missions, but it's the simplest of alterations to change this, if you were desperate.

[thothkins]

StellarRat typed:

"Agree. It would nice to have some type of map overlay indicating the general level of happniness with XCom though by region. You know a "picture is worth a thousand words." "

[HWP]

HWP don't gang up (all by yourself) on someone for having a different opinion than you.

I didn't mean to attack him; rather, it appears to actually be the case. I.e. not so much that he likes every bit of the game as that he likes the game and doesn't want to separate the good from the bad.

[Sinfullyvannila]

Sinfull

((But I don't understand....

you are saying you don't like...

free fire

total inventory control

ability to loot the dead

War profiteering (got get money some how though ya it was a touch OP in ufo/tftd)

limited ammo/grenades based on your load out))

I either think those things were poorly implemented in the original(total inventory control, war profiteering), or thought that certain things in the original would have made this version of XCOM worse(Free Fire, ability to loot the dead).

I prefer the class system, because it was annoying and tedious to control how your soldiers improved in the original.

Sinfull

I played ufo gold, fk that, I'm going with xeno

....um I must be horrible confused...the (( )) part is all the stuff that in xeno...a game being made by xcom fans cuz no one is making the game we want...isnt that why your in here? 0.0

This is what I'm confused about, because this is clearly what UFO ET:G is. It's a strictly better version of UD in pretty much every sense.

If you were disappointed in ET:G, I can pretty much assure you that you will be disappointed in XN because of your attitude.

Edited January 14, 2013 by Sinfullyvannila

[Sinfullyvannila]

There is no point to his posts. He just feels obliged to defend EU12 whenever any feature in it gets criticized.

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. It's more to paint both games in a realistic light, and sometimes to manage expectations. The people in this "I hate EU club" seem to think UD is flawless(and unmatched in the genre lol) and that every change in EU is horrible. That's just not the case.

I didn't mean to attack him; rather, it appears to actually be the case. I.e. not so much that he likes every bit of the game as that he likes the game and doesn't want to separate the good from the bad.

I'm fully capable of determining good from bad. EU is not without flaws or relative weaknesses. 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.