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[10ebbor10]

Honestly, it's more using percentage to justify the choice than using them to make it.

[Rolan7]

Yeah they explain that the setting is a result of gameplay, then they justified the setting.
IE gameplay wise they wanted XCOM to be stealthy, with a mobile base.  With a reliance on scavenging tech and items from the battlefield.  The simplest setting to explain that would be a situation where XCOM was trounced.

It's just convenient that that's the most common result of a game of XCOM, particularly on impossible ironman.  Not to mention Long War.

[Gabeux]

Ha. I remember playing Iron Man mode on classic and I remember how I rage quitted.
That map filled with train wagons on a train track, one of my dudes moved behind an alien 1 tile apart..and proceeded to miss 2 shots on 2 turns even though the alien managed to derp too.
Then another one flanks left and misses. Then sniper misses. Then the aliens stop derping and kill everyone except my "main" Assault.

I punched my table so hard.

Maybe I'm just not used to it, but I had lost a soldier on a previous battle because I got flanked, and it was fair.
But everyone going on a miss-fest was just too much for me. 

And by the way..the UFO Extraterrestrial series was all about resistance and guerilla and all that. Of course the combat model is different, but I kinda liked the XCOM "Vigilo Confido" Secret-Guardians-Of-Mankind feel. Oh well. Since the guerilla thing goes along with the plot, I can like that too.
UFO Afterlight was one of my most tense experiences in this genre. By the end of the game, the difficulty ramped up absurdly, and I was rather young so I just wanted to kill aliens and didn't optimize anything. The aliens were winning, yet via non-sensical tactics I actually managed to beat the game on that first playthough somehow, and I couldn't believe it.
I was SO tense, it felt so satisfying that I just lied on my bed and slept smiling. This genre easily messes with my feels.
Ha.

[Sheb]

I dislike Ironman, because I hate dying to a LOS bug.

[etgfrog]

http://www.twitch.tv/firaxisgames
I think some info is going to be put out.

Nevermind, them just saying their preview is on monday at 4 pm 

[Flying Dice]

http://www.twitch.tv/firaxisgames
I think some info is going to be put out.

"WE'RE GONNA HAVE GAMEPLAY AT E3. SOON."

WE ON NOW

[Henny]

“It’ll be cool to show Central, as he’s 20 years older,” said Solomon.

The running joke of Central being Bradford's actual first name is now canon.

[Quartz_Mace]

Did anyone else feel that new XCOM was actually, in a way, more difficult than the original? Before you freak out, here's my reasoning.
Deaths: in the original you received about a death a mission unless it was an easy mission and often more if it was a harder one such as a terror mission or battleship. It was also very easy to replace dead soldiers.
Countries: In the new game the panic system is highly volatile and when you have to respond to only one of the three countries panicking from abductions, you are very likely to lose at least one. Also, in the original you could fight to the last council country but in this you could only fight to about half were lost.
Squads: You go from the original's 26 maximum to the new game's 6 maximum. Yeah, big difference.
Aliens: Not quite as deadly as normal, but you always encounter packs of them which can be harder to deal with when they surprise you. Some are still deadly, mainly sectopods with their ludicrous health, but if you know how to exploit the AI you can safely handle them.
Soldiers: In the old game a rookie could be extremely useful for things like grenade relays, being a pack mule, acting as a psi-puppet, being a psi-soldier, or even operating a blaster launcher without accuracy playing into effect, but in he new one rookies are useless and squaddies are still pretty bad.
Money: Okay, if you didn't have an extra $10,000,000 by the end of the original you were spending ludicrous amounts of money. It was significantly more scarce in the new game. This was balanced out by other resources not being as important and scarce.

[Aklyon]

“It’ll be cool to show Central, as he’s 20 years older,” said Solomon.

The running joke of Central being Bradford's actual first name is now canon.

Does that make his name Central Bradford now?
Also, where did Left Bradford and Right Bradford go?

[NullForceOmega]

Actually I found the tactical ground combat to be rather easy though unreasonably restrictive, the real problems arrived in the form of the strategic layer.  I really fail to comprehend the design decisions that went into the strategy half of the game.

Edit:  In newcom, that is (realized my post was too vague.)

[puke]

The thing oldCom had going for it, was that it was brand new.

I had played a FUCKTON of Breach (including Breach 2 and 3) before Xcom was ever a gleam in Julian Gollop's eye (okay, maybe Breach 3 was after xcom1), so the sci-fi squad tactical game was not new on me -- but somehow xcom was still brand new. 

I didn't know the interface, ended up having a rookie throw his pistol instead of a grenade, hilarity and death but eventually overcoming it and getting good at it and winning.

If I had understood the interface and how the AI acted from the beginning?  Maybe it would have been easier than nuCom, on low levels.

But oldCom on high levels?  you cant even get out of the skyranger without getting blown up.  You need to do everything under cover and smoke.  swarms of early UFOs that shoot your interceptors out of the sky... It was *way* harder at the high levels.

[Sensei]

In newcom, I always felt like losing a single mission resulted in a death spiral in the strategic game.

[Rolan7]

I did find NewCOM's geoscape a lot harder, even after I knew which things to do ASAP (like rush satellites).  In oldCOM you could just spam laser cannons from a single manufacturing base and have effectively infinite money.  And you could actually afford to lose terror missions, if you did okay otherwise.  Particularly if you took on an alien base that month.

And I think the tactical combat was a bit easier too, generally.  Your back-row shooters (IE the non-rookies) were basically safe.  You could spam explosives if you were willing too.  Psi was absurdly overpowered once you got it, along with blaster bombs.  There were ways that it was harder, but I think it's a tough comparison.  Basically most situations were solvable with large numbers of completely expendable rookies.

That's how I inevitably beat X-COM 1 (and UFO Afterlight's later missions) yet couldn't get past a few months in NewCOM on ironman or long war.
(Meanwhile TFTD kicked my ass, partially because of the huge missions which used up my ablative meatbags.  And my patience.)

In newcom, I always felt like losing a single mission resulted in a death spiral in the strategic game.

Yeah this basically, and you could lose a few nations without losing a single battle.  Technically possible in OldCOM, but not nearly as easy.

[Wimopy]

Actually I found the tactical ground combat to be rather easy though unreasonably restrictive, the real problems arrived in the form of the strategic layer.  I really fail to comprehend the design decisions that went into the strategy half of the game.

Edit:  In newcom, that is (realized my post was too vague.)

Exactly my problem as well. Dunno if it was this thread or no, but I said I started LW on Normal (thinking it's really hard), but I easily won the first few encounters. The problem stems from managing finances.
To be honest, I'd probably assign a person to deal with appropriate funding and handle all the expansion needs of the base. It's kinda like how a king might have a load of advisors, so he can go and wage a war in peace.

Oh, and I never really used Psi powers, just the right positioning and such and that can carry you very far.

[Quartz_Mace]

The thing oldCom had going for it, was that it was brand new.

I had played a FUCKTON of Breach (including Breach 2 and 3) before Xcom was ever a gleam in Julian Gollop's eye (okay, maybe Breach 3 was after xcom1), so the sci-fi squad tactical game was not new on me -- but somehow xcom was still brand new. 

I didn't know the interface, ended up having a rookie throw his pistol instead of a grenade, hilarity and death but eventually overcoming it and getting good at it and winning.

If I had understood the interface and how the AI acted from the beginning?  Maybe it would have been easier than nuCom, on low levels.

But oldCom on high levels?  you cant even get out of the skyranger without getting blown up.  You need to do everything under cover and smoke.  swarms of early UFOs that shoot your interceptors out of the sky... It was *way* harder at the high levels.

Maybe it's just me then but I've found newcom harder. Also, in the very original, not openxcom, a glitch always reset difficulty to the lowest setting. You could still cope with the enemies by free-aiming and your soldiers, even if a few would almost always die on the first turn, could easily be replaced. Not to mention you could use legit tanks to take a beating for your soldiers. Also, you don't need to shoot down every UFO in the beginning to win, not to mention you won't be seeing them all as your crap radars only have a chance to find UFO's every half hour.* As long as you shoot down a few, and get some good score from missions, you'll stay afloat and soon upgrade to firestorms and avengers that can decimate swarms of UFOs.

*Correct me if wrong. Been a while since I played UFO Defense.