Elemental Forums
The game just released. Looks like it is getting pretty good reviews. I pre-ordered on steam, but I am in the midst of a move and the gaming PC is not accessible so I can't play for a week yet. Anyone here play it yet?....what are your initial impressions?
I have finished Ironman Classic two times and played another two to end game before I got bored.
Of course it works but is not good enough. We had better in the past and I don't see why I should settle for anything less.
I lose 3x more time trying to target with grenades and rockets then I should. I heard on consoles these problems are less and only mouse users get to experience them.
The alternative is not worse. You are looking at this from the wrong side. They didn't implement alien movement as it is last. That movement is core feature of the tactical combat. They build the rest of the game around that poor AI and teleporting/spawning aliens. If it was build around aliens being on the map from the start the game balance would have been handled differently and life/defense/aim numbers would have been adjusted. I am 100% sure the game would have profited from different core design based around real AI and real alien movement.
Fine, don't settle for anything less, that's entirely your prerogative. Understand that other people disagree with your assessment and can enjoy the NG for what it does give. Personally I don't think 'we' had better in the past, so I'm happier with what we have now.
Meh... Rotate the camera 180 and then aim it. Works fine. Use the scroll button on your mouse to move up or down, works fine. Yes, trying to throw with the angle behind your soldier gets really wonky, yes they should hopefully address that. However, rotate the camera and I've rarely had any issues with the targeting. I am a mouse user and once I realized how to rotate the camera and change the height I was on all of those issues went away.
Right, they'd have to entirely change the balance, so yes, the alternative in a vacuum is worse, what you are advocating is essentially an entirely different system which works much better with TUs. They didn't use TUs, I'm glad they didn't use TUs. The cover and one shot per turn (without perks) essentially means that swarm tactics will almost always prevail. Considering you're limited to a max of 6 soldiers while the Aliens can have as many as 20 active on a map means you will run into far more no win situations if you get rushed. The AI is actually pretty solid (other than the overwatch lock bug, but my guess is most people use this without even realizing just how badly it gimps the AI). Try getting into a fight with 4 mobs on a small map where your cover is destructable. You really want to play mission after mission like that?
That said, it would be better if the aliens actually could call for reinforcements a bit, or if their group sizes were just a bit bigger. Fortunately I believe that can be done via modding.
Of course there are people that enjoy the current system. Some of them would always prefer it, some of them enjoyed it but would like to see it improved (like me), and some hated it from the start.
Quoting TorinReborn, reply 76 I lose 3x more time trying to target with grenades and rockets then I should. I heard on consoles these problems are less and only mouse users get to experience them.
Meh... Rotate the camera 180 and then aim it. Works fine. Use the scroll button on your mouse to move up or down, works fine. Yes, trying to throw with the angle behind your soldier gets really wonky, yes they should hopefully address that. However, rotate the camera and I've rarely had any issues with the targeting. I am a mouse user and once I realized how to rotate the camera and change the height I was on all of those issues went away.
No, it doesn't. I works better, but not fine.
Quoting TorinReborn, reply 76 The alternative is not worse. You are looking at this from the wrong side. They didn't implement alien movement as it is last. That movement is core feature of the tactical combat. They build the rest of the game around that poor AI and teleporting/spawning aliens. If it was build around aliens being on the map from the start the game balance would have been handled differently and life/defense/aim numbers would have been adjusted. I am 100% sure the game would have profited from different core design based around real AI and real alien movement.
Right, they'd have to entirely change the balance, so yes, the alternative in a vacuum is worse, what you are advocating is essentially an entirely different system which works much better with TUs. They didn't use TUs, I'm glad they didn't use TUs. The cover and one shot per turn (without perks) essentially means that swarm tactics will almost always prevail. Considering you're limited to a max of 6 soldiers while the Aliens can have as many as 20 active on a map means you will run into far more no win situations if you get rushed. The AI is actually pretty solid (other than the overwatch lock bug, but my guess is most people use this without even realizing just how badly it gimps the AI). Try getting into a fight with 4 mobs on a small map where your cover is destructable. You really want to play mission after mission like that?
That said, it would be better if the aliens actually could call for reinforcements a bit, or if their group sizes were just a bit bigger. Fortunately I believe that can be done via modding.
No, they wouldn't need to use time units. Time units are not only way to do turn based combat. Damn D&D is the most famous turn based combat system and it has no time units. Temple of Elemental Evil is fully turn based and as close to PnP D&D as any crpg has come so far and it is awesome without TUs.
And again you are talking current balance and comparing it with basic design decision I want to see changed. If swarm tactics would be what happened all the time aliens would have less hit chance and do less damage or the ration of life to damage would be changed completely. Maybe cover would give better bonuses instead of just reducing hit chance.
D&D has it's own set of rules for combat, but I'm not sure how well they would translate to a futuristic game where one shot kills are to be expected. Low level D&D it might work, since there is a bit of an element of one shotting there. D&D also caters much more to a melee based approach, or at least where the melee based approach is as important as the ranged component. It's a good system though.
We could probably go back and forth on this forever. I do not see how your suggestions are an improvement, in fact, I think they would make combat more tedious and even more reliant on luck than it already is. Right now the aliens and your units are on par as far how cover works, and how much damage they can do to each other with individual weapons. It sounds as though you are suggesting the aliens should be nerfed and the players buffed, with the main change being simply facing more aliens at once. That really doesn't make any sense to me from a 'reality' point of view, nor does it sound like much fun.
I'll tell you right now what would make the aliens far more dangerous, even given their current activating mechanic. If they fix the overwatch lock bug (assuming it's a bug), you'll face either more shots, or more aliens on overwatch instead of aliens who simply are skipping their turn doing nothing while you easily march up behind them and shoot them in the head from point blank. Just doing that shifts the balance a bit back towards the aliens, especially thin men with their tohit bonus from the LPR.
What you call an overwatch lock bug is actually AI that know if it does not overwatch you will move your units next to the alien and shoot him in the head.
This usually only happens when you are in high cover and got overwatch on him. He does not want to shoot as his hit chance is too low and he does not want to move as you got overwatch. So he only got overwatch left to prevent you from moving towards him. He cannot account for other units moving to flank.
No, that's not the bug. The bug is that he doesn't overwatch or shoot, he may hunker down (it's unclear), but since you can often flank them anyway using overwatch lock it hardly matters if they HD or not. Honestly it may not be a bug if they are indeed hunkering down, but it's an ineffective strategy to HD if you are going to be flanked anyway.
The AI is fairly effective once engaged at range, it becomes slightly less effective once you begin to out maneuver it. Of course the results should go in favor of whichever side can out flank the other, but the AI has a glitch which can make it almost trivial to flank them. On the other hand, once you have some skills on your troops many engagements are fairly trivial until you wind up missing that 90% shot 
Nabbed this as it's on sale now. Flying player-controlled units can be bugged at times, which annoys me to no end.
Picked it up this weekend and only played a few hours in. Loving it so much. Great tactics game. Really enjoying it.
Got it for half price from Amazon. Laughing a lot when playing. I give it an A for fun. Not sure I'll be playing it a year from now but I hear they are going to introduce some DLC that could give it some legs. And yes the interface could use a little work. I've named my top soldiers after the X-Files and Starcraft pros. iNcontroL was my first heavy. GLHF 
The DLC is expected to be...
Underwhelming.
But who knows really.
It's mods which will add to longevity eventually, assuming they get their mod support straightened out. In fact, after finishing the game on vanilla C/I, I went with a simple mod which opened up the 2nd wave options, and am enjoying just trying out various combinations of those in a marathon game.
In case you missed it, a new patch for XCOM was released yesterday.
For those that prefer the older version of XCOM, be sure to check out UFO:Alien Invasion
It's been a long time in development by that community, and it's free to download (on purpose)
As for the new game, I'm glad it did so well in that when they produce XCOM-2 we're likely to get
the additional funding to develop a more realized game.
It's totally different from those games so impossible to say. It's a great game if you like tactical turn-based games.
I like the concept, but I dislike how the War-Room portion of the game works. It seems too linear. I like to take my time and build up my forces, but if you try to do that in this game you end up losing countries you can't gain back. if you could get them back, I'd be all for it.
-Huzzah!
And what kind of game is it? I played WOW and Diablo - do you think Xcom is good choice for me?
It's sci-fi based, so WOW and Diablo are poor comparisons. You do get up to 6 units you can customize through a basic leveling system, but overall, if you only play rpgs or are looking for one, this probably isn't for you. It's more of a RPG/Turn based Strategy hybrid. More of the latter than the former.
-Huzzah!
You can have as many soldiers as you want (there's no wage bill, just a hiring cost) but you can take a maximum of six on a mission.
Actually, the cap is 99 or 100 soldiers, I forget which, but I should have clarified it's 6 per mission. (4 before research) Not sure if S.H.I.V.s count towards the max in reserve though. (S.H.I.V.s are mini-tanks that take the place of a soldier in a mission, for those who haven't played yet.)
-Huzzah!
Shallow game compared to original. I miss being able to build choke points for base defense (base defense totally missing here), I miss being able to to allocate roles for my soldiers (and training them for those unique roles as the game progresses), i.e snipers, heavies, grenadiers, scouts (instead you get that randomised BS), I miss having my 14 men teams, i miss being able to pick up any weapon or even the clip from a heavy plasma from the ground during the middle of a mission and use it (the clip) to try and KO the aliens (example of so much freedom here), i miss having to actually think about ones base locations (as location greatly impacted funding and played a significant role), I miss being able to build more then one base, I miss the TU's... etc etc etc.
You might want to check this latest interview with Jake then:
Part 1: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/14/firaxis-jake-solomon-post-mortems-xcom-part-one/
Part 2: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/15/firaxis-jake-solomon-post-mortems-xcom-part-two/
Basically Jake Solomon agrees with you and plans to improve the game for the future (probably expansion or Xcom2) that will include base defense, more meaningfull base building, more randomness in play (both in alien encounters and tech) and more different gameplay depending on what tech of weapon you use.
I believe it when I see it.
Didn't the original take you into space? Like Mars or something? If they do an expansion, I'd like to take the fight to the aliens on their home-turf. 
-Huzzah!
Only for last mission.
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