XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Strategy Game - Developed by Firaxis

PlainGreyT wrote:

A question for the gallery:

How much do you feel the result of any given mission comes down to your skill at the game? Also do you feel like saving/reloading missions that go wrong is reasonable given the games admitted glitchyness/inconsistencies?

Same as the other responses, I think there's some random chance stuff that's a big part of this, but most of the times I get in trouble, it's because I've overextended, grouped up guys by cars, etc that have stacked those odds even higher against me. So by playing tactically, you can reduce the odds of a wipe.

At least on Normal. I haven't tried classic yet.

The game is not too hand holding on some of the key, non-mission stuff, though. I think I got myself in a bit of trouble by not upgrading my fighters when I should have. A lot of the other *Critical* research stuff was plot stuff that I could wait on, so I assumed the fighter tech was, too. So this month, I've missed several UFOs due to still being on the low level fighters.

Nice to see you around. I've not been playing much Xbox stuff lately so haven't seen you in awhile.

Those are fair observations, I ended up going back to the second mission and things went much smoother - even things like overwatch shots I probably shouldn't have made came off.

I guess its just a case of taking the rough with the smooth, which in spite of my complaints is one of the things I enjoy about the game - its not afraid to make life hard for the gamer whereas other games tread lightly when it comes to unpleasant surpises

Playing on Classic Ironman has changed the game a lot for me. Previously on normal non-ironman it would be my go-to game to load up and play. Now, I'm hesitant about clicking on it. I now have to really be in the mood for Xcom otherwise I'll lose people and stuff up my game. I still enjoy it, but it's certainly not a game I'll be playing to relax with.

On the plus side, going well so far. Only lost 2 guys and came close to losing a third, but the RNG gods were kind and I made the shot which saved my Major Support. Now geared up with some light plasma rifles and ready to give the aliens a taste of their own green medicine.

Ugh. Think I've hit my first "stuck at a door" bug. Playing normal iron man, so that might be it for this play through? Even more frustrating:

Spoiler:

It's my second play through the temple ship. First play through did not end well. The two sectopods took out two of my squad and then my volunteer was taken out by the Ethereal Elite in the final room. In Ironman, if you wipe during the temple ship it restarts you outside the Skyranger.

Hmmm. Maybe I can do a joint suicide to restart. Must try...

Itsatrap wrote:

Playing on Classic (Ironman in particular, so you can't just savescum) will definitely keep you from "maxing out" too soon. You'll be chronically short on money, and good luck keeping enough soldiers alive long enough to reach Colonel rank. Yes, it's doable, but it won't feel overpowered.

Uhm, no. Classic, and I don't 'savescum'. The only reason I don't have a full team of Colonels for the alien base mission is due to taking the time to build up a second team worth of backups so I don't have a hole in my team if someone is recovering from wounds. I can field a full team of Colonels and Majors, and a second team of Captains or better right now as it is. Pretty much all the gear I need, I don't worry about ghost armor so its all titan except for the sniper in the air.

By the end of May, 7 satellites in orbit, carapace and laser rifles/laser sniper rifle, I never do get laser heavy weapons.
By the end of June, the other 7, and building titan armors.
End of July, I do the alien base mission with 4 Colonels and 2 Majors, the second string team of captains and lieutenants stay home. Titan armor, all plasma weapons.
End of August, the Memorial shows 3 dead total, 2 squaddies and a rookie. Only have the one PSI capable, but I could push for the game end if I cared enough to play out the campaign.

There is a set path you follow in Classic that gets you where you need to go. Lasers, carapace, engineers are the key, this lets you keep soldiers alive and kill aliens, and get satellites up quickly. That is a big part of the problem with the game, if you follow that tech path and you fight in a slow methodical painfully patient style, you win. You try something else and its painful at best. Which cripples replayability. And no this isn't bragging, its doable once you figure the game out, as long as some silly ass bug doesn't result in a TPK. Its the bugs that would keep me from playin Ironman, if I was worried about it. But I also enjoy the ability to reload a map after I've beaten a mission and try different tactics (okay, so, what if I didn't use snipers, or, lets try pushing fast up the left instead of the right but with no heavies, etc, etc), so I don't worry about Ironman.

No, you're right, I'm pretty much done with XCOM now. The bugs have killed it for me, to the point where I just don't care to play any more. I was hoping the DLC might add something, but it sounds terrible. Maybe I'll come back to the game when it's patched. As it is, I haven't touched the game in weeks.

To be fair, I enjoyed my first playthrough, and I feel like I got my money's worth from it. I just don't think the game has any staying power in its current state.

Itsatrap wrote:

No, you're right, I'm pretty much done with XCOM now. The bugs have killed it for me, to the point where I just don't care to play any more. I was hoping the DLC might add something, but it sounds terrible. Maybe I'll come back to the game when it's patched. As it is, I haven't touched the game in weeks.

To be fair, I enjoyed my first playthrough, and I feel like I got my money's worth from it. I just don't think the game has any staying power in its current state.

I swear I've gotten next to no bugs, especially compared to everyone else. Must be my luck or something. Still after beating it on normal I was satisfied with it, and put it away for now. Playing it too much and for too long is really draining. And really it doesn't have a lot of depth. I basically know what perks and kit I'm going to give every class, and I don't change it up much. I love the game, but I've said it before and I'll say it again. It really needs a full on expansion. Sadly I don't see that happening. DLCs basically killed expansions and that made me very sad.

master0 wrote:
Itsatrap wrote:

No, you're right, I'm pretty much done with XCOM now. The bugs have killed it for me, to the point where I just don't care to play any more. I was hoping the DLC might add something, but it sounds terrible. Maybe I'll come back to the game when it's patched. As it is, I haven't touched the game in weeks.

To be fair, I enjoyed my first playthrough, and I feel like I got my money's worth from it. I just don't think the game has any staying power in its current state.

I swear I've gotten next to no bugs, especially compared to everyone else. Must be my luck or something. Still after beating it on normal I was satisfied with it, and put it away for now. Playing it too much and for too long is really draining. And really it doesn't have a lot of depth. I basically know what perks and kit I'm going to give every class, and I don't change it up much. I love the game, but I've said it before and I'll say it again. It really needs a full on expansion. Sadly I don't see that happening. DLCs basically killed expansions and that made me very sad.

I am in the same situation as you. But it's the only isometric squad simulator for a pc in the last 5 years so I am staying with it for the moment at least until xenonauts comes out.

Right now I am on the Ironman Impossible.

When I am done with this I will switch on the the additional options that I heard about.

I just had a Thin Man teleport to the square next to a Heavy and one shot him. Grr bugs.

I must stink at this game. I've had to reload missions a few times now, and that's playing on easy.

I'm playing on PC and haven't noticed any bugs so far but have had one CTD and 1-2 lock ups.

I don't think I ever crashed it, but I saw tons of bugs.

My shiny new strategy guide arrived today. All the way from the land of America. It's not quite as meaty as I would have liked, but I did order the Skyrim guide too and that thing is just huge. I could seriously squash an elephant with it.

Anyway, it's 192 pages long and has some really awesome concept art as well as some nice maps of the tech tree and enemy dossiers. Pretty cool stuff.

BlackSabre wrote:

Anyway, it's 192 pages long and has some really awesome concept art as well as some nice maps of the tech tree and enemy dossiers. Pretty cool stuff.

Depending on what the DLC packs do, the tech tree info may already be out of date. But it's still to nice have guides on the bookshelf.

(And by 'bookshelf' I mean in a plastic bag, hidden in the cellar behind an armless mannequin. That's where my Too Human guide is.)

I sent a tweet to Jake Solomon (@solomonjake) asking him not to sell early access to weapons. Of course it won't make a difference, but I felt I should let him know.

1Dgaf wrote:
BlackSabre wrote:

Anyway, it's 192 pages long and has some really awesome concept art as well as some nice maps of the tech tree and enemy dossiers. Pretty cool stuff.

But it's still to nice have guides on the bookshelf.

This is the reason why I got it. The information is nice, but it's nothing I didn't already know. I just like to be able to sit on the couch sometimes and just have the feel of a nice book and flick through the pages of some cool stuff about a game I really enjoy. It's like the old manuals we used to get.

anyone wrote:
Too bad Firaxis is ambiguous about whether it will support modding or not. ....

Right now they seem to go against more than for, really don't know what's going on. Is no one from the CIV team working with them? Have they changed owners? They seems like a strange company to me with this product, recently a very active community manager or some similar position left the place, haven't follow them too much, but I just hope for the best.

Maybe because this is because XCOM is also a console title. It could be also be influence from the publisher. Perhaps they want to push out all the DLC before considering modding.

Moggy wrote:

Ugh. Think I've hit my first "stuck at a door" bug. Playing normal iron man, so that might be it for this play through? Even more frustrating:

Spoiler:

It's my second play through the temple ship. First play through did not end well. The two sectopods took out two of my squad and then my volunteer was taken out by the Ethereal Elite in the final room. In Ironman, if you wipe during the temple ship it restarts you outside the Skyranger.

Hmmm. Maybe I can do a joint suicide to restart. Must try...

[spoiler]Use the Volunteer's fancy psychic explosion power on the Sectopods. When I tried it on Normal, it one-shotted the pair of them before they could react. Ghost Armor is also handy to have on your scout to avoid activating the Sectopods before you're ready.

I'm now playing classic and those critical hits can hurt. I find snipers have little utility indoor so I rarely take more than one. I'm using heavy more this game because of they can speed up the death of robotic aliens. I'm mostly preferring assaults and supports. Supports are just great because they can run fast,heal, suppress and carry an extra item. Assault as we've mention take ground and hold it with an occasional kamikaze charge at a lone alien.

All my soldiers are equally default skinned it's a little confusing but I find it chore enough to setup their equipment.

I'm hardly using shivs. Am i doing something wrong? I find it better to level my soldiers. I already have 2 colonels from each class except for support(really close to it).

In terms of logistics I started in Asia and I'm mainly protecting countries who pay a lot of cash + Africa for the 30% perk. I decided to raid the alien base this time in order to gain back Brazil (It's not really a big deal) . My funding is still pretty good so soon all the countries can burn for all I care .

The gameplay seem a little too fast in the new game and if I remember correctly the original had more missions. I think Assault rifles become obsolete a little faster but not by much. Personal armor and Laser rifles are generally the first rushed tech in XCOM. The fact I don't have to worry about wasting ammo is nice ;). The lack of upkeep for scientists and engineer is nice too. I guess they took out the annoying things from the original xcom and improved some of the good things.

hannibals wrote:

Maybe because this is because XCOM is also a console title. It could be also be influence from the publisher. Perhaps they want to push out all the DLC before considering modding.

Or it could be they didnt believe this game would have good sales so they didnt plan much past release.

Thought you might enjoy.

Old build of xcom years ago featuring time units:

PAX 2012, discussion panel with dev team lightly touching on why unit size was smaller and time units were left out as well as previous builds of xcom. Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Dev team have worked on prototype builds of this game since early/mid 2000s and through years of development and Q&A testing they figured having larger unit size didn't make the player feel fully vested in their troops but more as pawns. As for time units, with the new mechanics they threw in broke the game.

:

Niseg wrote:

I'm hardly using shivs. Am i doing something wrong? I find it better to level my soldiers.

Nope, I'm not using them either. I built one for the achievement, an Ethereal promptly blew it up, and I never bothered to build another.

In other news, what I thought would be an impossible task turned out to be unusually easy (Normal/Ironman game).

IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1136291596797723413/09CD5AAD9B08102719707798B0A986EFB42FCB38/)

An Ethereal pet!

I had 2 psi soldiers on the mission and the first one hit the Ethereal with a Mind Fray. When the 2nd psi soldier's turn came up I figured I'd hit Mind Control just so I could laugh at the % (I figured it would be like 1% or something) and was shocked to see it said 49% chance. Figured it couldn't hurt to try. I used him to Rift his buddy in the upper right corner and then didn't really know what to do at that point. Since he was friendly I couldn't put a bullet in his head and I didn't want to throw a grenade and blow up the bridge. So I just put everyone into Overwatch turn after turn after turn figuring they'd all open up when he flipped. They didn't. He mind controlled one of my assaults as soon as he came back, but it was no matter as a sniper shot later the mission was over.

I've discovered the optimal music to set the atmosphere while playing, so I made a Spotify playlist. Listening to this stuff has made the experience sublime. John Carpenter, Goblin and Morricone (for The Thing soundtrack) provide the core. Throw this sucker on random and enjoy the tactical horror.

hannibals wrote:
Moggy wrote:

Ugh. Think I've hit my first "stuck at a door" bug. Playing normal iron man, so that might be it for this play through? Even more frustrating:

Spoiler:

It's my second play through the temple ship. First play through did not end well. The two sectopods took out two of my squad and then my volunteer was taken out by the Ethereal Elite in the final room. In Ironman, if you wipe during the temple ship it restarts you outside the Skyranger.

Hmmm. Maybe I can do a joint suicide to restart. Must try...

[spoiler]Use the Volunteer's fancy psychic explosion power on the Sectopods. When I tried it on Normal, it one-shotted the pair of them before they could react. Ghost Armor is also handy to have on your scout to avoid activating the Sectopods before you're ready.

Spoiler:

So a group suicide restarted the mission nicely. All was going well right upto the same point where the doors were unopenable again. This is at the end of the room containing the floaters and Chrysalis. Done.

I may restart on Classic once these bugs have been resolved, though I may add the "remove to hit and criticals bonus" mod. In the meantime, Fallen Enchantress is giving me my strategy fix.

Vega wrote:

An Ethereal pet!

Xavier! That's awesome.

I had my first complete loss on Classic a couple days ago. I think I'll take a little break.

Vega wrote:

I used him to Rift his buddy in the upper right corner and then didn't really know what to do at that point. Since he was friendly I couldn't put a bullet in his head and I didn't want to throw a grenade and blow up the bridge. So I just put everyone into Overwatch turn after turn after turn figuring they'd all open up when he flipped. They didn't. He mind controlled one of my assaults as soon as he came back, but it was no matter as a sniper shot later the mission was over.

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed by this mechanic as well. I ended a game with a mind controlled Muton. Was hoping it would count as a prisoner--fat chance. But the game wouldn't even let me tazer him. Which I think is a real oversight.

Yeah, I had my pet muton throw a grenade at his own feet.

Another strange thing I noticed with mind control is that your own soldiers can suffer the "friendly death" penalty if a mind controlled enemy gets killed. Hopefully that will get addressed as a bug in the future though, if it hasn't already even.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Yeah, I had my pet muton throw a grenade at his own feet. :lol:

Yeah, the few times I managed to control a Muton I made him run up to his buddies and drop a grenade. It's funny every time.

And.. done.

(Normal/Ironman)
IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1136291596810280713/A72FFE411CBEF9CC33B5BD47821E102C77F8B537/)

That was a fun ride, but I think I will probably take a break before I try Classic/Ironman.

I think I got off lucky with the final mission as I never even stepped foot into the last room.

Spoiler:

In that last long room (before the final room with the Ethereal leader) I killed a couple Sectopods and then some Elite Mutons spawned in. I killed one and then mind controlled the second one. Since there were no more enemies I figured I'd use him as a scout and ran him backwards while the rest of my troops stayed put. On his last turn under my control I ran him into the final room which triggered the cut scene after which a whole bunch of other Elite Mutons (and maybe other stuff, he didn't have a full view) spawned in. My troops were still way way back in the long room. I started running them up both sides to get to the doorway which took several turns and by the time I got up there mister Super Ethereal floated through the door right into my entire squad. It was over in 1 turn and I never had to fight whatever else was waiting for me in the actual room.

Finished the game on Normal Ironman also. The tactical battles are awesome, although I wish some of the aliens were deadlier long range and we wouldn't be so punished for flanking (as it is, if you try to flank, you might trigger another pack, messing your positioning). Most of the battles revolve around moving slowly and packed. You don't really get punished for bunching up (as long as you spread enough to avoid grenade damage).

The scripted maps are a bit iffy, the random generated ones are so good.

The strategic overlay needs a bit more muscle. What's the point of workshops? Rebates? And labs?

Nevertheless, I've already started a campaign on Classic Ironman, but I'm considering uninstalling. It's just too damn addicting.

patch notes released, no date announced