Operation Swift Mother
I almost completed a mission of clearing out a large scout UFO, but the game crashed right at the end. I was using the Steam Community browser to write the report, in hopes of avoiding crashes, so I lost everything. Short version: Mad Dog, Yeti, and the recruit Ghalib got killed, the last one because I had used another recruit's medkit on Yeti and couldn't stabilize Ghalib. Ghalib had the arc thrower, which failed to stun a berserker and could have stunned the Outsider if Ghalib hadn't had the tenacity to die. It should go without saying that Vahlen complained about us not prying the arc thrower out of Ghalib's--wait, why didn't we do that?
Oh, and I met heavy floaters.
X-Com crashed on the Mission Aftermath Screen thing--the one where it tells you who got promoted and how long the wounded will be out.
Schneider made Corporal, getting the all-vital Squadsight. Zhang became a Heavy, getting the all-destructive Rocket Lawnchair Actualy, he became an Assault the second time. Regardless, he is gravely wounded and will be out for an even week. But most importantly...we got a mess of alloys, elerium, and a new research.
We begin work, ordering a heavy floater autopsied, plus a couple sets of titan armor, a couple plasma rifles, and a heavy laser. And a couple arc throwers, but that has less to do with the sudden glut of materials and more to do with I thought about it.
The autopsy gave us little special, except hints on how to fix things faster. Somehow. We began work on alloy cannons. I want one now, but...we don't have enough alloys. Dammit. Well, we have our SHIV squad. I order research to begin on plasma cannons for the interceptors. However...
Apparently, a few more of those top-panic nations retreated from the council, because come the council report, I got news that the X-Com project would be ended.
"Well, not too bad sir, I suppose the Earth's militaries will just have to do stuff themselves. We have lots of research data and some spare weapons, so...what do you mean, cooperate with the aliens? Sir, haven't they been killing us and abducting us and...sir, what's that purple glow around your head?"
END TRANSMISSION
I
expected hoped to last a while longer, but really, this is probably best. I had some new toys, but my only really experienced soldier was Specter. I also had a lieutenant sniper, a new heavy, and some rookies, plus some SHIVs.
Some critiques, in case anyone here is working on the next XCOM game.
-The difficulty curve was...off. Sectoids? Thin Men? Outsiders? Canno fodder. Floaters? Sometimes took a couple shots, but usually not. Mutons? Tough, but doable. Crysallids? Berserkers? Swarms of mutons? Tardisks? All those other big-name aliens? Those were a lot tougher. (Especially the effing crysallids.) Similarly, early UFOs can be shot down easily with unupgraded Interceptors...then with damage...then not at all, eve with little upgrades. The first months lured me into a false sense of security, which lead to me developing habits that lead to the death of my best soldiers when I started encountering tougher aliens.
-I noticed that, once you hti a certain point, you start needing alloys and elerium a hell of a lot. I suspect that my inability to make or research advanced weapons past a certain point contributed to my decline--my inability to take any more ships (until that last one), get more raw materials, and make new weapons. I can't help but wonder...what were the mutons' armor, or the floaters, or whatever made out of and powered by? Consider having a chance for the more heavily-cyborged or -armored enemies to drop some alien alloys, or maybe even elerium.
-SHIVs were underwhelming. I mean, sure, they were a bit tougher and maybe had a better attack than rookies, but they can't advance, can't use advanced arms and armor, and can't take cover. Not really worth the credits. Plus, the feel was...off. It felt like they should be expendable combatants. To fix this, I would advise making them weaker and make it so they could be rebuilt if destroyed (probably at a cost).
-Early on in the game, scientists and especially engineers were in high demand and low supply. Once you get 30-40, though, the demand kinda...dropped off. I'm not sure exactly how to fix this, but it was odd. It fits back in with the "Difficulty Curve" thing as poor gameplay pacing, I guess.
-Make the Arc Thrower a secondary weapon. Isn't that basically what it is? Besides, if it wasn't pushing out things like nanofiber vests, SCOPEs, and medikits, I might have it more often. And on more than one soldier.
-Make the story less...linear and more developed. For instance, Thin Men were supposed to have been used as infiltrators (presumably once they fixed the "weird eyes" and "explodes into toxic gas with heavy impact" issues), but this never really gets developed. Heck, just having the Director guy turning out to be a thin man would be nice. It's a thread that gets started...then dropped. There were also hints that mutons (and other aliens?) were to some extent conquered peoples working as soldiers, with the tribal markings and whatnot, but again this was mentioned and dropped. And what do the aliens do with their human abductees? Heck, these last two could be combined--some kind of cybernetic human unit would be potentially scary. Not to mention...crysalids and zombies. Geez, just a zombie apocalypse of sorts would be worth expanding on. "Ignore/Fail a Terror Mission and that area has an infestation of the undead which will cause missions and increase panic, possibly spreading." That threat would have gotten me to risk my folks more, rather than just running once the crysallid resistance got too heavy. Two more points related to these...
-Seriously, how do you spell cryssalid? Couldn't you have given these guys a simpler name, like "Skitterer" or "Crawler"? And mutons...why not name them "Hulks"? And what's with "Sectoids"? I'm guessing this has something to do with the original, but seriously. every other alien, from thin men to berserkers had a name that was a real word. Pick a consistent nomenclature and run with it. And the soldiers supposedly came up with the names...what's with that? "Why did they name them" is a bit odd understandable, but the "Why did they name them that is peculiar.
-When I abandoned the terror mission, why were the "saved" civilians thrown out? Couldn't we take them with? And while I'm at it, why can't we take weapons, medkits, arc throwers, etc off of our dead teammates and use them? Why can't we have multiple Skyrangers? Why do the local militaries never send tanks, or soldiers, or anything? Why can't we share the technology with the world's governments, letting them make their own (possibly crappy) advanced weapons and armor? Why is it so hard to get any support? Why do the soldiers always break down any doors in their way (the "open door" command is spotty at best) and jump through any windows? Is that why we can't get the support? Why can't normal fighter jets take down UFOs if even the first, unupgraded Ravens can? Why can we send only one Interceptor at a time, anyways? There are a lot of questions like this, but I think that's enough.
-On the Interceptors...the Firebirds were neat, but expensive. (I never even used mine.) So were other things, like Archangel armor and advanced SHIVs. Heck, pretty much anything having to do with Interceptors counts, as they almost never get used and almost always cost a lot.
-The "cutscenes" in the middle of battle were an awesome feature! ...for the first few missions, then they got dull. There are two solutions I propose: Reduce the number and increase the variety (if possible). To the first...cutscenes most every time someone dashed, killed or saw an alien (or would have if they hit), took a reaction shot, got killed, grappled, or whatever gets dull fast. Limit it to important events--killing major enemies (that first sectoid, early thin men, mutons before we get laser weapons to deal with them, crysalids if you ever get weapons that blow the buggers away in a single shot, always berserkers, tardisks, and other "miniboss" monsters...), successful reaction shots, killing notable soldiers (ie, not the one rookie surrounded by veterans), jumping through windows, spotting a new or dangerous type of alien, etc. The second would be tougher and perhaps not feasible, but having more than one animation/"scene" arrangement per cutscene-triggering event would help.
I think that's all, and it's definitely enough.
Now to delete those autosaves and such that piled up.
This is starting to remind me of those arguments I saw back when Skyrim came out and people were very angry that the "Dragons" weren't "Dragons" but "Wyverns" instead.
((But they were dragons... what exactly is the difference between a dragon and a wyvern?))
((Usually, wyverns have two legs and two wings, whereas dragons...well, a plurality have four legs and two wings. Wyverns are basically a type of dragon.))
((I like Terry Pratchett's view on it. Somewhere- and I can't find the source after a quick Google- he basically said that both labels were bogus, and fiction is fiction is fiction. In the end, they're all the same story.))
((That's like saying that there is no such thing as an animal or a plant because they're both eukaryotes. He is often a wise man, but that bit of "wisdom" is utter BS.
Also, there's like seven types of stories. The monomyth is the
"Voyage and Return" plot as described by Christopher Booker. There are about half a dozen other basic plots, some similar, some nothing alike. How do you fit "Rags to Riches," "Comedy," "Tragedy," or "Rebirth" into that monomyth?))
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