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[MaximumZero]

Welp, I had a catastrophic loss in my base assault last night. I lost two soldiers. My brother, and myself.

FUUUUUUUUUUUU--

[Johuotar]

We kind of have a whole thread dedicated to discussing those things you asked.

Oop, sorry. I was in a bit of a hurry and didn't think that post properly. I'll try the demo and watch some lets play, thanks!

[GlyphGryph]

Demo not very good. Game is much better.

[Werdna]

While it is a bit arbitrary, the sense of racing against the clock does contribute to the feel of the alien invasion.

I feel the same way.  I don't mind the "choose" mechanic, I like the feeling of water leaking through the dam and there's only so many fingers to plug in; it makes for a tense game and does give the 'invasion' some weight.  But the panic results do seem overly doomtastic - the resulting "can't win" panic levels seems like something that should have been in Impossible, not Classic.  While I certainly lost countries in the original, it was never as relentless as it is here.

For "should I get it?" people - ignore the whole thread of griping, the game is far better than the little gripes we have might indicate.  Get it!

[nenjin]

While it is a bit arbitrary, the sense of racing against the clock does contribute to the feel of the alien invasion.

I feel the same way.  I don't mind the "choose" mechanic, I like the feeling of water leaking through the dam and there's only so many fingers to plug in; it makes for a tense game and does give the 'invasion' some weight.  But the panic results do seem overly doomtastic - the resulting "can't win" panic levels seems like something that should have been in Impossible, not Classic.  While I certainly lost countries in the original, it was never as relentless as it is here.

I feel like it's so rigid compared to the old game though. The original had the same thing going on but it wasn't based on screens or so strictly controlled. You also had multiple bases and multiple teams to respond to threats asynchronously, whereas here you're basically pigeon-holed into the "only get to do one!" choices. Yes, it keeps the tension up very well but at times I feel like it's contrived.

[Mephansteras]

Well, I think my first playthrough is about to go down in flames.

This is on Classic Ironman

When I last left off, I had lose every single experienced soldier save a single Sq. Assault and several key nations had just left the council. We'd just researched laser weapons, many nations were in the red for panic, and I had saved and quit out of the beginning of a UFO mission. I felt that was a bit of a tipping point for me. If I lost that, we were pretty much toast. If I won, I thought I might be able to pull through.

Well...we did win that one, but at a high cost. Only a single rookie survived, and heavily injured at that.

But it turned things around for a bit. I sold off every scrap of UFO tech I had to finance a new set of soldiers plus full carapace armor and laser rifles for them all.

For a while, things got better.

We took out two more UFOs, including a pretty large one, with few casualties. We met mutons again, and slaughtered them. We captured one of those UFO Outsider things.

I started to get some semi-experienced troops again. No one really high up, but at least I was using squaddies and corporals instead of just rookies.

Then I had a three bad missions in a row.

First was an abduction at a gas station. Almost no cover (I don't count gas pumps as cover), and we immediately run into a Cyberdisk and Mutons. It got ugly. Floaters showed up and flanked us, the mutons threw grenades around, and I lost all but a single Sq. Heavy who managed to flee. We took out everything but a single Muton, but it just wasn't enough.

That was bad. The next was worse, in a way.

It was a bomb disarm mission. My first. We were doing well with a bunch of rookies a Sq Sniper. It was just thin men and a few floaters, and were were tearing them up with the laser weapons. Well..until I disarmed the bomb and

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

four more Thin Men dropped out of the sky and murdered everyone.

Then I had another abduction, which I lost because I got cocky. I thought I'd killed everything down to a single Sectoid. I moved in to flank him without being cautious about it, and found another sectoid buddy of his and a group of Floaters. They tore us to shreds before I could regroup.

Had some more successes after that, but the damage was done.

The nail in the coffin was a Terror mission. I didn't even really try it was so bad. We entered near a store. I was immediately attacked by a Cyberdisk and a pair of Chryssalids. The next turn, another Cyberdisk and two more Chryssalids showed up.

We took out one Chryssalid, lost an Assault, and bugged out. I had no hope of winning that one.

So now...I have one last bright spot in the campaign before I think it's all going to end. Canada and India are both Red, and the Doom-o-meter is at 90%.

But I just had a group of rookies and a Sq. Sniper take out Mutons, Thin Men, Floaters, and a Cyberdisk without losing a single soldier. Laser weapons and Carapace armor are pretty damn effective, I must say! Even captured a Floater on that mission!

It's 4 days to the Council report, and I think that'll be it. But I've learned a ton and I feel like I've gotten much better at the combat.

My next playthough should go better.

[Werdna]

I feel like it's so rigid compared to the old game though. The original had the same thing going on but it wasn't based on screens or so strictly controlled. You also had multiple bases and multiple teams to respond to threats asynchronously, whereas here you're basically pigeon-holed into the "only get to do one!" choices. Yes, it keeps the tension up very well but at times I feel like it's contrived.

I hear ya, part of me feels the same.  I approach it this way - in the original, if you planned well, you could handle it, and as expert players we could easily get "ahead of it".  Once you knew what to do, you were always in control of it.  In this game, whether you are expert or newbie, you can't get ahead of it.  You are not in control, and the game maintains that 'edge' on you where you feel out of control of the events.  It feels contrived to us because we remember the original, which is unfortunate, but I think the new method will have merit over time.

[forsaken1111]

I really wish there was a way to recover a country once it has reached 'full panic' state and pulled out. Maybe a special mission to help re-establish control or shipping extra equipment out to the country, etc.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I really wish there was a way to recover a country once it has reached 'full panic' state and pulled out. Maybe a special mission to help re-establish control or shipping extra equipment out to the country, etc.

Well in the first game, once a country pulled out they signed a pact with the aliens or something like that, so short of assassinating the head of the country (which would be awesome), I don't see how you could get them to join XCOM again.

[forsaken1111]

I really wish there was a way to recover a country once it has reached 'full panic' state and pulled out. Maybe a special mission to help re-establish control or shipping extra equipment out to the country, etc.

Well in the first game, once a country pulled out they signed a pact with the aliens or something like that, so short of assassinating the head of the country (which would be awesome), I don't see how you could get them to join XCOM again.

Let me run a mission to disrupt the meeting between the aliens and the collaborators then! We're fighting for the WORLD here, some sovereign rights may get trampled a bit in order to keep us from the yolk of alien oppression.

Hell in Apoc you can do raids on suspected alien collaborators and murder them wholesale if you really want to, or just blow up their buildings.

[Mephansteras]

I feel like it's so rigid compared to the old game though. The original had the same thing going on but it wasn't based on screens or so strictly controlled. You also had multiple bases and multiple teams to respond to threats asynchronously, whereas here you're basically pigeon-holed into the "only get to do one!" choices. Yes, it keeps the tension up very well but at times I feel like it's contrived.

I hear ya, part of me feels the same.  I approach it this way - in the original, if you planned well, you could handle it, and as expert players we could easily get "ahead of it".  Once you knew what to do, you were always in control of it.  In this game, whether you are expert or newbie, you can't get ahead of it.  You are not in control, and the game maintains that 'edge' on you where you feel out of control of the events.  It feels contrived to us because we remember the original, which is unfortunate, but I think the new method will have merit over time.

It feels contrived because it is contrived. There is no reason we couldn't have multiple skyrangers and send out multiple teams. That's a game constraint that is simply there for balance purposes. Same with it being exactly 3 abductions every single time.

I'm ok with never being able to get the edge on it. I'm ok with fighting a desperate battle against time. I just wish it was done by letting us have multiple teams/skyrangers and just upping how many alien missions were flying around doing stuff. The original game could have been that way (and sometimes was), it just wasn't specifically designed to do so.

They could have done that here, but instead decided to go more of a set 'You have X missions' route. I don't know...I feel like the UFOs and the Missions you get aren't connected like they were in the first one, and that really contributes to how arbitrary it all feels.

Like...let's say the Aliens always send out 3 Abduction Missions at a time. It's just what they do. Ok, that's cool...but why can't we see and shoot down those UFO's? It's always either a UFO or Three Abduction Missions or some special mission. They just don't feel connected.


Not that any of that is going to stop me from going home and playing XCom for hours tonight. *shrug*

[mikefictiti0us]

I feel the same way.  I don't mind the "choose" mechanic, I like the feeling of water leaking through the dam and there's only so many fingers to plug in; it makes for a tense game and does give the 'invasion' some weight.  But the panic results do seem overly doomtastic - the resulting "can't win" panic levels seems like something that should have been in Impossible, not Classic.  While I certainly lost countries in the original, it was never as relentless as it is here.

The variables that control panic are coded into the exe, though you can edit them with Resource Hacker. You can adjust the initial global panic levels for each difficulty level as well as how much panic is added for the various events in the game.

There's also a hidden menu which has extra difficulty options, if anyone's interested. See this thread.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[USEC_OFFICER]

It feels contrived because it is contrived. There is no reason we couldn't have multiple skyrangers and send out multiple teams. That's a game constraint that is simply there for balance purposes. Same with it being exactly 3 abductions every single time.

I'm ok with never being able to get the edge on it. I'm ok with fighting a desperate battle against time. I just wish it was done by letting us have multiple teams/skyrangers and just upping how many alien missions were flying around doing stuff. The original game could have been that way (and sometimes was), it just wasn't specifically designed to do so.

They could have done that here, but instead decided to go more of a set 'You have X missions' route. I don't know...I feel like the UFOs and the Missions you get aren't connected like they were in the first one, and that really contributes to how arbitrary it all feels.

Like...let's say the Aliens always send out 3 Abduction Missions at a time. It's just what they do. Ok, that's cool...but why can't we see and shoot down those UFO's? It's always either a UFO or Three Abduction Missions or some special mission. They just don't feel connected.


Not that any of that is going to stop me from going home and playing XCom for hours tonight. *shrug*

I think that you can shoot down the UFOs responsible for the abductions. At least, I've had abduction missions with only two places after shooting down a UFO. The problem is that your radar coverage is crap, and the detection chance is low, so you rarely ever see the UFOs responsible for the mission. Once the modding tools come out I'll edit the game to check my theory. Or I'll just hack the game somehow. I don't know.

[Mephansteras]

I was just about to post that.

So, yeah, Second Wave Options can be hacked to be available.

Well...some of them, anyway.

Hopefully Firaxis will just make those available soon.

@USEC_OFFICER: Hmm. Ok, I guess I've just never seen that in action. For me it's always been a lone UFO I shoot down with nothing else going on.

[kilakan]

Yeah if they want us to pay to unlock something thats already built into the game I will rage.   Having to hack a game that I actually bought to get all the features included in it just feels dirty.