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[syvarris]

I like this more streamlined version of Xcom but goddamn it I wish it was less buggy and less cheating. I've got guys shooting through walls, people walking through cars,  hacking prompts glitching into walls where they're inaccessible, all sorts of fun.

But The thing that bugs me the most is the fact that they stack the odds heavily for the computer in ways that are pretty bullshit.  Particularly how it allows the Enemies to take free, unopposed moves when I find them. It means they can just run around and flank me almost no matter what.  Not to mention there's this new "stealth" mechanic but it is almost pointless. Once you do a single attack you're all instantly un-stealthed and every enemy knows where you are.

Did I mention that every single mission now has a timer for incredibly contrived reasons?

Eh, bugs happen, they get patched out.  My favorite so far is when my sniper got confused and swung her rifle around for pistol shots (shooting it one handed) and had an invisorifle for sniping.

They only get the free shot if they flank someone, and then only one of them.  They just changed the behavior to nerf the "Beaglerush Manuever."  Now you can either put everyone in overwatch save one and let the one break stealth, or break stealth with your first shot and then react accordingly.

The timer is an obvious counter to overwatch trapping gameplay, a la meld.  I find them generous enough to not be in the way, and they're gone once you hack/steal/blow up the whatever except for the evac missions.  It is a bit obviously artificial, though.

I'm liking the greatly expanded options, and how a lot of gear slot items don't feel like filler and are instead useful.

Also, if anyone one wants to play with Brother Lars, here he is!

I meant to reply to PW's statement with my own thoughts, because the release of XCOM 2 made me decide to play XCOM 1 again, except with the challenge of only playing snipers.  While I haven't ever had  people walk through cars or anything, sniping enemies through walls is par for the course.  Floaters especially love to hover above a building while my people are taking cover behind one wall, and then shoot my people while I can't see them due to the ceiling blocking LoS.  Snipers pistol shooting with their rifle is also pretty common, though it's a purely cosmetic glitch.

The timer also does make a lot of sense.  I mean, if you're smart in XCOM 1, there's basically no reason to ever fight fair--just keep retreating and letting all the enemies get caught by overwatch fire when they leave cover to chase your troops.  Meld is supposed to counter it... but meld is completely ignorable, and it's still not risky to grab if you have over-leveled troops--which are easy to get if you stay cautious and use the above fighting retreat tactic.

Enemies getting a free move is bullshit, though.  I'd think just having a timer should nerf beaglerushing enough, since you've gotta wait for the enemy to come to you for it to be really effective.

[Empiricist]

Yeah the stealth is really poorly handled. I mean, generally for these kinds of turn-based games, the unwritten assumption is that it's an abstraction of sorts and the people aren't literally just taking turns to run around and shoot each other. Which is ruined by the fact that as soon as you shoot someone, the enemy just gets a turn. If they just remove the reaction completely and let every unit have a turn with full stealth benefits before concealment is blown, that'd make it much better, even if they keep the iffy mechanic where everyone revealed even if only one person is seen.

Also, I like how almost everyone is flamboyantly dressed in bright colors, while Twinwolf just stands there looking a slasher villain..

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

Very disappointed with undertale.  Would have been much better if pacifist run made you kill someone, and genocidal run had someone you couldn't kill.  Always like it when you are forced to confront your own philosophies.. but the game never makes you ask what you do when the easy answer doesn't work.

http://diggercomic.com/blog/2008/08/22/digger-533/

One of the greatest pieces of web fiction I've read was Digger, partly because it puts characters in difficult and dangerous situations that cannot be solved through philosophy.  It's deeply gripping to read characters who are in situations where they don't get what they want, and where goals may in fact simply be impossible, or where multiple driving forces come into conflict.  The interesting and fun situations are the ones where the easy answers are not possible.

That said, though, fiction like that is rare and precious.  Ones like Undertale, while good, are much more common, and I'm disappointed how rare it is to see protagonists put in situations where what you want is not possible.  I could tell, from the very first, that I would never be forced to make a choice between what I want and what would happen, which made the whole plot and conflict turn into so much meaningless fluff for me.

I dunno, in both routes you're given many points where you can make it so much easier, in the pacifist route, it would make things so much easier to just kill one of the monsters, toriel, papyrus, mettaton, flowey, or *Spoiler*, but what you do is still live through that, you encounter all those challenges to your philosophies, and you continue to surpass them, then in the genocide route, you never had to kill all those monsters, just... Walk away and you would be fine, no need to go through all that horror, no need for anything like that, every step of the way,you're confronted by points that could be made so much easier if you just... Broke what you believed in, or wanted, kill Asgore, and you can get out from the underground, where everything wants to kill you! Kill Flowey, and you can be rid of that snivelling bastard, but being a true pacifist, you don't, you give them a chance, even though you know that means you won't be able to get out of the underground, you won't ever be rid of that overgrown sunflower, that fight with Toriel isn't a true battle then, it's a battle of your want to get out into the real underground and your will not to kill.
I'm rambling, aren't I? I'll stop now, hopefully I've gotten my point across.

[Parisbre56]

I think you're looking at it from a wrong perspective. My opinion is that the philosophy or story of the game is mostly irrelevant, since the feeling I got from playing it was that it was meant to be most of all a fun game that achieved much of that fun by being unexpected, making jokes and screwing with the player, their expectations, game concepts and tropes and the gamer way of thinking in general. The story and the way choices were presented, while good, mostly served to underline the general theme of screwing. In that way one can consider it to be barely more important than music or art design. Same for pacifism and non-pacifism, it seems more like a way to implement certain mechanics or call out the player or otherwise screw with him than actually deliver some philosophical message, like games like "SOMA" or "Spec Ops: The Line" do. In a way I feel that the game, the medium and messing with that medium and the things associated with it is a superset that includes the story.

(And by screwing I mean things like playing with, subverting and playing completely straight various tropes, breaking your interface and immersion or putting things that are normally immersion breaking as elements of the game, taking advantage of your expectations as a gamer to trick you, calling out the player for various things gamers tend to do, etc.)

[Gentlefish]

Wait, when did it become fifty new players?

I swear like, a month ago, it was something like twenty.

Even still, people should stop hounding PW about "Oh my god I don't like this new setup of handling things"

Have you GM'd a game for fifty people and managed to usually process turns every other day for each and every one of them?

Damn, PieceWise, I'm impressed. You should take, like, a hiatus after this mission set or something. A sabbatical.

[NJW2000]

I suspect ER may end before that happens. And that PW may have to take an unplanned sabbatical pretty soon anyway, to fill in lots of lovely exam papers.

[piecewise]

I like this more streamlined version of Xcom but goddamn it I wish it was less buggy and less cheating. I've got guys shooting through walls, people walking through cars,  hacking prompts glitching into walls where they're inaccessible, all sorts of fun.

But The thing that bugs me the most is the fact that they stack the odds heavily for the computer in ways that are pretty bullshit.  Particularly how it allows the Enemies to take free, unopposed moves when I find them. It means they can just run around and flank me almost no matter what.  Not to mention there's this new "stealth" mechanic but it is almost pointless. Once you do a single attack you're all instantly un-stealthed and every enemy knows where you are.

Did I mention that every single mission now has a timer for incredibly contrived reasons?

Eh, bugs happen, they get patched out.  My favorite so far is when my sniper got confused and swung her rifle around for pistol shots (shooting it one handed) and had an invisorifle for sniping.

They only get the free shot if they flank someone, and then only one of them.  They just changed the behavior to nerf the "Beaglerush Manuever."  Now you can either put everyone in overwatch save one and let the one break stealth, or break stealth with your first shot and then react accordingly.

The timer is an obvious counter to overwatch trapping gameplay, a la meld.  I find them generous enough to not be in the way, and they're gone once you hack/steal/blow up the whatever except for the evac missions.  It is a bit obviously artificial, though.

I'm liking the greatly expanded options, and how a lot of gear slot items don't feel like filler and are instead useful.

Also, if anyone one wants to play with Brother Lars, here he is!

In my game there is already a lars. And he is one of the few who has lived for any substantial period of time. Twinwolf is another. On one of the videos currently uploading she stands right out in the open and I think 2-3 people just straight up miss her. She spent the majority of the game in the hospital because I always have her charge into enemies and slice them up.

[Twinwolf]

Spoiler: I guess kind of spoilers for the playthrough (click to show/hide)

I thought my character died in the second episode though?

[Empiricist]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

No he reloaded the save. You then proceeded to run right at a codex on overwatch and slash it's face off before killing its clone.

Your slasher franchise continues for now it seems. Maybe you should try just standing next to the Lurker and trying to hit it with a knife? I'm sure it'll just miss you

[piecewise]

Generally, if the mission is looking like wipe, I get some really stupid mistake because of misunderstood game mechanics, or anything similar, I'll restart the mission.

I haven't played in a long time and as I've said (and as you'll see in the coming episodes) I'm really not a fan of some of the decisions they made with gameplay, so I'm prone to reloading whenever something feels like bullshit.

Which is happening more and more to be honest. This combination of low squad size, teleporting/mind fucking enemies, and timers forcing me to act quickly while punishing me for being reckless is really starting to piss me off. It legit makes me angry half the time because it feels like playing chess against someone who has two or three times more pieces than me, gets extra turns and screams at me whenever I try to take my time.  It's not one thing, it's all of the things together.

[Pancaek]

-snip-

I feel you. I haven't played xcom:2 myself, but I get frustrated a lot if it's obvious the enemy just has more options than I do or just plain cheats. Also, mission timers are the bane of my existence. I make horrible decisions when I'm under a time limit.

[piecewise]

-snip-

I feel you. I haven't played xcom:2 myself, but I get frustrated a lot if it's obvious the enemy just has more options than I do or just plain cheats. Also, mission timers are the bane of my existence. I make horrible decisions when I'm under a time limit.

The thing is, all strategy games cheat, because they have to. CPUs just aren't good enough to fight people.

It's just they're usually less in your face with their special favors.

[Xantalos]

You ever played Galciv 2, PW? They have AI good enough to kick the shit out of me without giving it any bonuses - above Tough it starts giving the AI extra resources and stuff, but tough is plenty challenging.

[Empiricist]

Well, goods new is, everyone hates timers.

[Pancaek]

The thing is, all strategy games cheat, because they have to. CPUs just aren't good enough to fight people.

It's just they're usually less in your face with their special favors.

Oh, I know. I've got plenty of hours with shogun 2: total war. Those shitty tiny 1 province clans always manage to pull full muderstacks out of their asses. But at least they don't get units with abilities that I can't get and they don't magically get extra turns or something, so I can deal.