Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GiglameshDespair]

Almost all of that, sambojin, is done by the Long War mod.

More maps and a map editor. Maybe even with maps being made up of pre-made blocks (ala, old xcom) so that there's some variation on even "samey" maps and mission types. This goes double for the multiplayer experience. Half the tenseness in Xcom comes from not knowing everything in a given level (until you've scouted it). With completely pre-made maps, many multiplayer battles come down to set-piece opening moves and hoping like hell the pseudo-rng likes you. With variation comes a stronger emphasis on safety, redundancy and flexible tactics.

While there aren't new maps, new start positions really change the way the maps play.

More weapons and options, for soldiers and attack craft.

5 tiers of weapons and 11 weapons for each tier (not including the various kinds of missile launcher, mec weapons or SHIV weapons.)

Multiple bases, even if they were just interceptor bases. It gives a more strategic feel to it being a world-wide war. Preferably full bases though.

Long war adds interceptor bases that can be attacked by aliens.

More death in general, which means more aliens and more soldier deaths. You and your bowling team probably aren't going to save the earth alone. Perhaps even just reports of casualties with actual ingame effects, not just budget or nation flipping. NewXcom feels to oldXcom what Dawn of War 2 did to DoW1. It just lost a lot of the scale, scope and feel, but neither game was actually that "big" in its numbers. Both were good games though.

With the fatigue, you have a lot more trained squads of soldiers. With increased alien numbers (both on missions and general alien activity) and difficulty you generally have more deaths, as well.

A good modding back-end. A moddable game tends to be a buyable game. You know that you'll be getting more than your money's worth from it eventually, and can even get creative yourself. As long as the basic product is good, fun and not left to modders to fix up (they're additions to a good game, not free coding to fix a bad one).

Well, it's a mod, so obviously it can't do much on that aspect.

[sambojin]

I'd be up for more death in new (or new2) if every basic trooper started with one free level-up. For the "best of the best", your starting soldiers certainly do suck.

This gives you semi-customizable soldiers from day 1, so you can play the sort of squads you want. While the loss of a colonel is still big, having to "blood" your supposedly elite troops, just so they stand a chance, was pretty dumb.

I don't want to do the whole old vs new debate, but that was another big difference between the two. Equipment vs class skills. If you could give a troop the right equipment in old, he could immediately do "something useful" on any mission. He wouldn't be as good as your elites, but he could still be useful. In new, having to level troops up to do basic, useful things, I tend to think was a flaw in the system.

It was an integral part of gameplay. It was half of what base and squad management was about, just making sure you spread the experience around a bit so you didn't get stuck with a pack of useless mooks. I just didn't like it.

Give me some grenades, a motion scanner and a laser rifle any day. Or a rocket launcher. Or an auto-cannon. Hell, just some flares and a laser pistol and that soldier was "doing something" for the squad, even as a rookie. Not quite so much in new.

I tend to think that all it needed was one free level on every new soldier, and no one would complain about more deaths, because they wouldn't be as drastic of a kick to the pants. Everyone feels semi-elite, but not drastically overpowered. The no-skill mook was horrible.

And yes, this is compared to old's mooks, who were an absolute liability at times. But you could at least tool them for a role.

[Chiefwaffles]

There was the upgrade that made all recruits start at Squaddie rank, but your point still stands.

The "starting soldiers suck" trope in XCOM is pretty understandable in a non-gameplay sense. These soldiers are the best of the best, but the best of the best have never seen aliens before; they've never seen psionics before. They don't know how the aliens operate or how they move. So they're understandably no longer the best at fighting aliens. Just better than a regular guy though.
This is the same reason I never really liked the occasionally proposed idea of being able to hire people you'd find trying to stand their ground against aliens. Sure, they have a pistol and they know how to use it, but they're nothing compared to an XCOM rookie. They'd be like a rookie*100.

[NullForceOmega]

The real elite soldiers of the world would not give a damn what they were told to shoot, they would do it, and be effective at it.  The xcom-likes act like just seeing an alien would cause a veteran of 10+years in the armed forces to completely forget basic things like aiming and breath control, you know, shit drilled into them from the first day they are ever allowed to hold a weapon as a soldier.  It exists purely as a game mechanic and nothing else, because if, for the sake of argument, A Navy SEAL team were dispatched to clear the area, one side would be dead before the other gained situational awareness, and if the aliens were acting like xcom aliens, they'd be the ones falling motionless to the earth, every single time.

the decision doesn't make for bad gameplay, but it is totally divorced from reality.

[sambojin]

Yeah, it is just a gameplay element, so it tends to just come down to individual player's likes and dislikes of the ways certain things are done.

I liked old's way, many people liked new's. Both weren't bad concepts, but since new2 is getting hyped, I may as well wishlist the thingies I like in a comparative sense.

For me, equipment instead of skills felt that it wasn't just an individual getting better at fighting aliens, it was all of Xcom. You had more money, more resources, more equipment. Your supposedly elite soldier (ie, rookie mook #243) actually WAS pretty good to begin with, he just got better with experience. But it was the technology holding us back from beating the aliens, not the average soldier's skills. We just had to pry that technology from their cold, dead hands. But our soldiers were trained at everything, and with every weapon. He might not want to stick around when most of his squad got gunned down by gouts of plasma, he might not have a clue about psi-combat, but other than that, he could do everything. Maybe better than some, maybe worse, but he could still do it.

Except aim. He couldn't do that. But neither could his sergeant either.

[BurnedToast]

The real elite soldiers of the world would not give a damn what they were told to shoot, they would do it, and be effective at it.  The xcom-likes act like just seeing an alien would cause a veteran of 10+years in the armed forces to completely forget basic things like aiming and breath control, you know, shit drilled into them from the first day they are ever allowed to hold a weapon as a soldier.  It exists purely as a game mechanic and nothing else, because if, for the sake of argument, A Navy SEAL team were dispatched to clear the area, one side would be dead before the other gained situational awareness, and if the aliens were acting like xcom aliens, they'd be the ones falling motionless to the earth, every single time.

the decision doesn't make for bad gameplay, but it is totally divorced from reality.

I always rationalized it that sectoids were quick, much quicker then a human, so they dodged around a lot and were harder to hit (obviously the same for thin men in new xcom).

While tougher aliens had armor plating or really tough skin, or pisonic bullet deflection powers so that a miss was not always literally a miss, but just them hitting something that didn't cause any damage, or was in some other way mitigated. So it's not that your soldiers are terrible, just that the aliens are so different that your previous training is maybe not so good anymore.

The game is obviously a turn based abstraction of a battle, in "reality" everything is all happening simultaneously, so you don't really see how the sectoids are actually jumping from cover to cover while your guys shoot, or the muton berserkers are charging *through* the hail of bullets and just ignoring most of them, or the floaters are dive bombing you, or whatever. It seems stupid when your guys miss easy shots, but it's actually just because the game can't really display the actual shot that they'd be making.

[NullForceOmega]

I think you misunderstand me, I'm talking about the entire theory of combat here, simultaneity is not relevant, when we are talking about the worlds most elite soldiers, action would be coordinated to ensure that the enemy never even had a chance to respond, they would simply die.  The shots would be called and lined up before contact was even made (this may be my biggest gripe about newcom, as it ONLY allows for mutual awareness or hostile ambush.)

Yes, they are games, yes reality is thrown out in favor of challenging mechanics, I'm only supporting the position that the game decision is divorced from reality.

[Lightningfalcon]

If you have the mimetic skin mod, it is actually possible to sneak up on aliens.  If you do so, it is possible to set up very, very effective ambushes.  Put people into prime overwatch positions.  Then, either bombard the area with explosives, get flanking shots on all of them, or put everyone into actual overwatch so that they start firing the moment the aliens start to move. 

[sambojin]

There are very few games where reality isn't thrown out the window. I mean, you have to arbitrarily conceptualize some things for the sake of fun at some point. Otherwise you'd start complaining about what's happened to the stock market in "such and such a country", while you totally ignored a terror mission there as being too hard to fight. And could you invest in it, now your wounded soldiers are "definitely" going to be back online to defend the place? 'Coz you need money like nobody's business. You're fighting aliens. And buying cheap is a very real-world concept.

I'll just stand by my position that old's mooks had massively superior cross-training and utility compared to new's. I actually am getting a little bit excited about new2.

Because I have a fall-back plan, even if it isn't very good. Reasonable opinions on bay12 of what went wrong, and openXcom with mods.

Hurrah!

[TherosPherae]

If you have the mimetic skin mod, it is actually possible to sneak up on aliens.  If you do so, it is possible to set up very, very effective ambushes.  Put people into prime overwatch positions.  Then, either bombard the area with explosives, get flanking shots on all of them, or put everyone into actual overwatch so that they start firing the moment the aliens start to move. 

Orrrr you could have a half-team of Mimetic Skin folks run around and spot aliens while a half-squad of snipers with that flight armor sit at the LZ and Squadsight everything to death.

[Teneb]

If you have the mimetic skin mod, it is actually possible to sneak up on aliens.  If you do so, it is possible to set up very, very effective ambushes.  Put people into prime overwatch positions.  Then, either bombard the area with explosives, get flanking shots on all of them, or put everyone into actual overwatch so that they start firing the moment the aliens start to move. 

Orrrr you could have a half-team of Mimetic Skin folks run around and spot aliens while a half-squad of snipers with that flight armor sit at the LZ and Squadsight everything to death.

Depends on the map, I guess. Some maps have lots of buildings that make squadsight a pain to use.

[Chiefwaffles]

One thing I really want in XCOM2 is expanded air game.

I mean, really. In NewCom, you have 1 type of troop transport, 2 kinds of interceptors, and 5 fairly linear weapon upgrades for those interceptors. Then when you get to fight UFOs, all you get is basically RnG with consumables.

I think Xenonauts shines in this regard. Air combat in that game was actually really fun, and the variety+uses of the various aircraft were great.

[i2amroy]

I do agree that the fact that it's impossible to actually set up an ambush was quite annoying in new-com (though the fact that aliens couldn't really do the same was rather nice, so there's that ). It would be rather nice to have a bit more to vision then just "I don't see them", "I see them + they see me", and "I am 100% invisible".

A better air game would get a definite +1 from me as well.

[EnigmaticHat]

Soloman based the reveal system heavily on Space Hulk, which unfortunately isn't the best as Space Hulk was built entirely out of hallways whereas newcom was built almost entirely out of empty space.  Hopefully there'll be a better system in the new one.

[sambojin]

@Chiefwaffles:
That is a good point. In old (vanilla), you had a skyranger for transport, because it was the best. Then you had 2 interceptors, flying tech kind of capped out then. With an "unlock endgame" thingo just as a thingo until you could research endgame.

In new (vanilla), it's just as you said.

Give xenonauts its due, at least it had more flying thingies.

So does UFO:AI, but only with mods. It's a pity that project stalled for so long.

Hopefully new2's creators can take the best bits out of openXcom(Final mod-patch), XCOM1(Long War), Xenonauts and UFO:AI.

Because, they've got some competition to "not suck" at making a game. All of the above aren't horrible, but they're not solidly claiming "THIS IS THE NEW XCOM!!!! WITH WHISPERY SHIT AND A WEIRD ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN!!!11!!!1!!"

So far they've successfully proved that they can make a decent game, but are fucking hopeless at re-imagining things. Because they've never successfully given us what we wanted. An updated Xcom, with pretty graphics, and more and lots of everything. We didn't even mind their cover system, it was pretty cool, just the rest was kind of crap (yes, I am using the royal "We" if you don't agree).

So we'll see how it goes.

((Oh. And an honourable mention to X@com. Because it didn't stall. It's just now the Cogmind engine. And game! Alpha released!
It's strange that the most sophisticated ascii/graphical roguelike engine in development got made off the back of a wish for an Xcom sequel.
Check it out. It's technically miles ahead as a gameplay platform than any title mentioned above. Can't wait for Kyzrati's next crazy thing.
Or even this one. Play it. Love it. Hype it.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=131427.0 ))