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[Sharp]

Hell, new-X-COM cuts the maximum group size down to 4-6 soldiers and it's still beatable even on Ironman Impossible. Try beating all your missions in original X-COM with 4-6 operators; you're going to get massively fucked up even if they're all super-psyker cheesily-trained colonels with heavy plas, flying suits, and blaster launchers.

To be honest 4-6 rookies/squaddies in your first few missions will be disastrous but end game 4-6 guys can win most missions even without psi and blaster launchers. Psi is overpowered though and I only use it to screen troops, never to panic/MC aliens. Blaster Launchers are similar though I bring em along sometimes just to end missions more quickly but I don't use them for Cydonia.

Old XCom is fairly forgiving when you make mistakes as well because soldiers are more expendable and you can actually place meatshields infront of your valuable soldiers (I call it nature's kevlar), though losing a commander or colonels can cause tantrum spirals. New XCOM you misplace one move and you can fuck up your whole squad and soldiers are more important in new XCOM because they need training to even make good use of weapons.

That being said XCom on Superhuman mode can be pretty brutal, I got my base invaded like 5 times in February, sure it was just sectoids and cyberdisks but it was always risky especially with the crappy base layout.

[Haspen]

Currently throuhg Terror from the Deep and, oh boy. Traumatized by 'Shipping Lane Raid' missions so far.

I mean, the amount of aliens on those missions is insta-murder. The tight twisted corridors aren't helping, either.

And the game comes with Tentaculats, basically floating Chryssalids. Thank gods they don't appear in terror missions (above water), so no civilian zombies. The game is also cruel in terms of getting funds/equipment and thus your soldiers die even easier than in original xcom. Also, no infinite-ammo Laser weaponry + no smoke grenades.

For some reason though, in current playthrough, I'm swimming in Zrbite and Aqua Plastics. I've manufactured around 40 or 45 Ion suits and I haven't used up even half of the supply I had..

Then again, I still have to catch a Lobsterman Navigator. Or any Lobsterman, actually. I think I saw them twice so far.

[Leafsnail]

The game's fun at times but it's ultimately so tedious I struggle to keep playing.  So much micromanagement and painstakingly sweeping out buildings...

Try beating all your missions in original X-COM with 4-6 operators; you're going to get massively fucked up even if they're all super-psyker cheesily-trained colonels with heavy plas, flying suits, and blaster launchers.

This is a bizarre argument.  The old game was balanced for squads of 18-24, the new one is balanced for squads of 4-6.  Trying to beat the old game with a squad of 4-6 is like trying to beat the new one with squads of 1-2.

[Neonivek]

The old game was balanced for squads of 18-24

Wasn't those numbers only possible for the ultimate ship? Which by the time you actually got it you also could get weapons that could allow you to do missions with 4-6 people?

Also no, it was a LOT easier to beat the old Xcom with 4-6 opperatives because nothing in the old Xcom was balanced in a "You are expected to have six guys shooting this" as well the equipment was a lot more nessisary without stepping on any toes. So even the toughest enemies could be fended off with a single soldier or two if you had to.

While in the new one several enemies are based around the idea that you have a certain number of opperatives all firing at it at one time.

Beating the game with 6 opperatives in the old one would be more like beating the new one with maybe 4.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah I guess you'd never really need 24 people.

[Neonivek]

Yeah I guess you'd never really need 24 people.

A lot of players intentionally bring less people to missions because the game had too many soldiers.

[Heron TSG]

My squads in the original were 6 for small UFO cleanup, 12 with a HWP for the main strike force, and only maxed out against battleships, terror missions, and Cydonia. I always went for 0 psionics, though, so that was somewhat necessary. (After you get psionics, the game drops in difficulty significantly.)

Meanwhile, I'm walking through the early missions of the new game with one or two operatives. It doesn't feel right, letting a single soldier be the only defense of humanity against the alien menace. 48 super soldiers assigned to various strike forces, sure, but single operatives protecting cities? My most desperate hour of the original had the aliens attacking Rio de Janeiro while I only had three healthy veterans and a half-dozen fresh recruits. That was a Chryssalid mission, and only one veteran and a pair of rookies made it back to the Skyranger alive.

It feels a bit silly for one man to massacre a city of Chryssalids.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah I guess you'd never really need 24 people.

A lot of players intentionally bring less people to missions because the game had too many soldiers.

That was more due to the item limit than anything else. You just flat out couldn't bring enough items to fully equip an Avenger full of troops unless your idea of proper gear consisted of a laser rifle for each operator.

Try beating all your missions in original X-COM with 4-6 operators; you're going to get massively fucked up even if they're all super-psyker cheesily-trained colonels with heavy plas, flying suits, and blaster launchers.

This is a bizarre argument.  The old game was balanced for squads of 18-24, the new one is balanced for squads of 4-6.  Trying to beat the old game with a squad of 4-6 is like trying to beat the new one with squads of 1-2.
[/quote]
The point I was getting at (somewhat obliquely, I'll admit) is that the squad size in new X-COM doesn't feel right. It's not a balance issue, it's a flavor issue. The game feels much smaller for a number of reasons, this not least among them. Again, in X-COM or TFTD it was expected to lose at least one or two people every mission, and there's a very real chance that a random blasterbomb could wipe out most of your veterans before you even notice the threat. Unless you're a dirty savescummer, that is. In new X-COM you're expected to beat most of your missions without losing anyone, and in most cases it's possible. It's a matter of opinion, but I dislike the OORAH SUPER ELITE SPEC OPS vibes; the game had a much more brutal feeling when determining acceptable numbers of casualties and recruiting cannonfodder was a part of the game, in the same way that base attacks made the "alien invasion" deal hit much closer to home; you weren't just fighting in random bits of city and countryside, you were fighting over the stuff that you built, knowing that if you screwed up it was gone.

[Sharp]

Yeah I guess you'd never really need 24 people.

A lot of players intentionally bring less people to missions because the game had too many soldiers.

That was more due to the item limit than anything else. You just flat out couldn't bring enough items to fully equip an Avenger full of troops unless your idea of proper gear consisted of a laser rifle for each operator.

Once again, OpenXCom solves the problem, you can bring as much as you want on the skyranger, also same for base mission but also means that aliens are all armed as well instead of sometimes spawning with no weapons when you had lots of soldiers at a base being invaded.

[frostshotgg]

Since this thread is for all the old X-com games as opposed to just the first, what's with all the hate that Apoc got? Everywhere I ask about it says it was terrible, but I've played it and found it enjoyable. Better than TFTD at least.

[Neonivek]

Since this thread is for all the old X-com games as opposed to just the first, what's with all the hate that Apoc got? Everywhere I ask about it says it was terrible, but I've played it and found it enjoyable. Better than TFTD at least.

Well the aspect of the game that made me just IMMEDIATELY stop playing it was hunting down that very last alien...

and while that did happen in the original... there wasn't that many places it could hide and would often be seeking you out as much as you were seeking it as well moving around turn for turn was rather easy.

While Apocolips has locations that are like a maze where the last alien could be hiding ANYWHERE and by the time you find it you won't even care anymore.

[Parsely]

Apocalypse wasn't that bad. I still like UFO Defence better, but it has its merits. Apparently a lot of people were displeased with the art style, among other things. Not really sure why it was so despised.

I actually just started a playthrough of XCOM: UFO Defence. My gameplay is fair, but I still have a lot to learn as well. Really I just want someone to watch it.

Part one is here, for anyone interested in giving me tips.

[Neonivek]

I will say that there are a lot of aspects of Xcom Apocolips that felt unfinished and you KNEW it was.

The Corperations which you just knew were meant to be a major aspect of the game mostly did nothing. What could have been a major facet of the game didn't really go anywhere.

So it did have a lot more potential to give and I am kinda sad it didn't meet it because honestly. If done right, it would have kinda been... Better then the original.

[Leafsnail]

There are some pretty great gifs of people beating Apoc missions by just razing buildings to the ground with lasers.

The point I was getting at (somewhat obliquely, I'll admit) is that the squad size in new X-COM doesn't feel right. It's not a balance issue, it's a flavor issue. The game feels much smaller for a number of reasons, this not least among them.

I suppose, but goddamn if having 6 people and turns that take a minute rather than 10 doesn't take the boredom out of the game.  Base assaults were always great though.

[Virtz]

I thought Apocalypse was a great progression for a sequel (and better than the reboot) and I did finish it, but it felt so damn flawed at the same time.
Like it basically had issues that balance on the edge between plain annoying and game breaking.

For example, at one point I had to be really careful when fighting at slums not to knock down the fire escape, because often times aliens would hide around on roof tops, accessible only through that one fire escape. And that was before I got flying suits.

Or in the city scape, the vehicle targetting was really awful against fast moving targets. Like instead of aiming at the location where they would be by the time the projectile got there, they aimed directly at where they were at the moment. It actually made lower accuracy have a higher chance of hitting them sometimes. To illustrate, I once had a hoverbike fighting an enemy hoverbike, and they just flew around outside city limits for hours, cause neither of them could hit the other. It only ended once I told my hoverbike to go home.