Print

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

[Domenique]

Those aren't all hexagons. A lot of those are 3d cubes just looked at from a direction that the outline makes them appear to be hexagons. Forget the word for that. Want to say orthogonal but I don't think that's right.

Lots'a hexes in the background though. It makes sense since CIV V was hexagonal.

[Muz]

Hexes are great because they're the best way to map the world. Doesn't mean buildings are hex. Unfortunately a lot of people are bad with hex level design, though Fallout is a rare game that pulled it off so brilliantly that nobody realized it was an ugly hex game. Firaxis did pretty damn well with hexes with Pirates and Civ 5, so I think they could do a good job with it with Xcom too.

[a1s]

Unfortunately a lot of people are bad with hex level design

That's a really lame excuse- hexes are just a different way to represent stuff you want to have somewhere. Honestly, if one can't shift from graphing paper to hexagons, one isn't creative enough to be a designer anyway.

[Microcline]

X-COM is much more suited to an isometric grid than tessellated hexes.  The main advantage of hexes is that the increased number of contacting spots allows for more advanced formations and melee engagements (movement can be disregarded, as most square grid games have a 150% cost for diagonal movement, which is close enough to the actual factor of sqrt(2) while leaving it easy to calculate, as well as offering a total of eight squares to move to instead of six hexes).  This matters most in games where conflict takes place one or two hexes apart, like Wesnoth or Civ, but it would be wasted on X-COM.

Square grid combat plays into X-COM's strengths: use of line-of-sight and dynamic cover.  The ready availability of a Cartesian grid makes it easy for the player to visualize their line of fire and how it might intersect with intermediary objects.  I'll be disappointed if they switch to hexes just because it's what their last game used.

I also think that hiding the grid from the player would hurt their ability to think tactically.  A button to do so would be acceptable, but I don't see why anyone would use it.

Hexes are great because they're the best way to map the world

While hexes would likely work well for modeling the world, I don't know why the geoscape would need to be divided up into a grid, unless they were making a mechanic of it.

Fallout is a rare game that pulled it off so brilliantly that nobody realized it was an ugly hex game.

While I love Fallout, I don't think that it's hex-based grid was at all suited to the environment, architecture, or combat.

I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic.  "We're all big fans of the original" has become the industry code for "so we're turning it into an FPS", and there has been a general trend in the industry for reducing depth.  If they want my money, they should implement Mephansteras' weapon suggestions, rebalance psionics and UFO encounter rates, and in general produce X-COM: More Content and Less Bugs.

[a1s]

The main advantage of hexes is that the increased number of contacting spots allows for more advanced formations and melee engagements (movement can be disregarded, as most square grid games have a 150% cost for diagonal movement, which is close enough to the actual factor of sqrt(2) while leaving it easy to calculate, as well as offering a total of eight squares to move to instead of six hexes).

If you want to maximize melee attacks, why no just let people attack over the diagonal (for 8 points of attack instead of just 6)?

Square grid combat plays into X-COM's strengths: use of line-of-sight and dynamic cover.  The ready availability of a Cartesian grid makes it eas[ier] for the player to visualize their line of fire and how it might intersect with intermediary objects.

You're going to have to explain this one to me, because I seem to have contracted the stupids. (in case it's contagious, the question is "What makes it easier for you to estimate line of fire on a square grid, then it would be on a hex lattice?")

[GlyphGryph]

Touching on the police and military occassionally helping accomplish something, you know what would be REALLY fucking cool?

If after a successful terror mission, you can see the stats and kills of the various NPCs and offer to hire some of them.

[Tellemurius]

Touching on the police and military occassionally helping accomplish something, you know what would be REALLY fucking cool?

If after a successful terror mission, you can see the stats and kills of the various NPCs and offer to hire some of them.

Thats actually not bad at all: can see potential in a individual, couple of months of training will get him/her in shape.

[BishopX]

Touching on the police and military occassionally helping accomplish something, you know what would be REALLY fucking cool?

If after a successful terror mission, you can see the stats and kills of the various NPCs and offer to hire some of them.

Thats actually not bad at all: can see potential in a individual, couple of months of training will get him/her in shape.

When I played the original Xcom I always assumed that the soldiers you recruited where roughly to equivalent of the US army rangers. Not quite special operations troops but definatly elite military.  The fact that they have to-hit chances in the double digits and the capability to remain up and functioning after getting shot is a testament to their bad-assitude. The fact that they don't go completly insane when facing flying aliens and chest-bursters is likewise a testament to their mental flexibility. I think the odds of a NPC you meet on a mission having enough of those traits to make them worth your while is astronomically low.

[Tellemurius]

Touching on the police and military occassionally helping accomplish something, you know what would be REALLY fucking cool?

If after a successful terror mission, you can see the stats and kills of the various NPCs and offer to hire some of them.

Thats actually not bad at all: can see potential in a individual, couple of months of training will get him/her in shape.

When I played the original Xcom I always assumed that the soldiers you recruited where roughly to equivalent of the US army rangers. Not quite special operations troops but definatly elite military.  The fact that they have to-hit chances in the double digits and the capability to remain up and functioning after getting shot is a testament to their bad-assitude. The fact that they don't go completly insane when facing flying aliens and chest-bursters is likewise a testament to their mental flexibility. I think the odds of a NPC you meet on a mission having enough of those traits to make them worth your while is astronomically low.

......... where do you recruit for the "elite" military?

[a1s]

Everywhere there's elite soldiers. Don't forget you have the support of the most militarily advanced nations on your side (initially). So the secret agency in that country approaches a member of their special forces, and offers him (or her- XCom does not discriminate) a job in this new and exciting zone of interest for the government, that comes with a pay raise, and who knows? It might just be more fun then running drills. (they would expect it to be some black ops thing in downtown Baghdad, or upstate Chechnya, but turns out it's aliens)

[GlyphGryph]

I didn't say it would be super common - but it might be cheaper, for example, since you'll be recruiting someone who's home was just attacked by the aliens, and you may just occasionally come across someone who just honestly is an absolutely amazing shot or particularly brave or with immense psionic potential.

[Cthulhu]

The problem with a lot of these ideas is that they're adding complexity without a commensurate benefit.  It'd be cool, yeah, but it's adding a lot that isn't necessary.  Ideas like the ones people have been throwing out are the kinds of ideas you see in games with terminal feature creep.

[Stargrasper]

The problem with a lot of these ideas is that they're adding complexity without a commensurate benefit.  It'd be cool, yeah, but it's adding a lot that isn't necessary.  Ideas like the ones people have been throwing out are the kinds of ideas you see in games with terminal feature creep.

This sounds strangely like Dwarf Fortress.

[Virtz]

I never really got the impression of X-Com soldiers being particularly elite. Especially considering it was sometimes preferable to have them run in a door with a primed grenade rather than try to shoot the stuff inside (and fail even more).

The problem with a lot of these ideas is that they're adding complexity without a commensurate benefit.  It'd be cool, yeah, but it's adding a lot that isn't necessary.  Ideas like the ones people have been throwing out are the kinds of ideas you see in games with terminal feature creep.

I don't think it's that much of a stretch to make the police units do something considering there's civilians running around already that get their own turn phase.

I dunno about recruiting on site, though. Like I think it'd just seem weird to pull people on board and essentially abduct them away from their current life to some base in Antarctica at such short notice.

[BishopX]

I never really got the impression of X-Com soldiers being particularly elite. Especially considering it was sometimes preferable to have them run in a door with a primed grenade rather than try to shoot the stuff inside (and fail even more).

The problem with a lot of these ideas is that they're adding complexity without a commensurate benefit.  It'd be cool, yeah, but it's adding a lot that isn't necessary.  Ideas like the ones people have been throwing out are the kinds of ideas you see in games with terminal feature creep.

I don't think it's that much of a stretch to make the police units do something considering there's civilians running around already that get their own turn phase.

I dunno about recruiting on site, though. Like I think it'd just seem weird to pull people on board and essentially abduct them away from their current life to some base in Antarctica at such short notice.

I tend to think of my soldiers as suisidelly brave, not suicidally stupid. Although abuducting random people to antartica to fight aliens is kinda awesome, it's just a different kind of awesome than X-Com is. It would actually make a decent princess maker type game though. You have x weeks to train a random human into an elite super soldier who can be sent on a one way mission to cydonia.