XCOM EU I wanted so much to love this game... but I HATED it.

[rogerpenna]

In Combat:

1 - what the f*** those "to hit" percentages mean? There is this mission where I have 55% to hit a grey with a sniper and 47% to hit another gray with a rifle. My soldiers ALWAYS miss it. I mean, I loaded the game 10 times, and they missed the shot ALL THE TIMES! So wtf those percentages mean? If they ALWAYS miss a 55% to hit, then that 55% actually means 5,5%????????

 

2 - I cant decide WHERE to shoot. I must shoot just at the aliens. Holy f***, I want to shoot between two different aliens, like in the original XCOM, so if my soldier is bad at shooting, I may have a chance of actually hitting the aliens with my bad aim

 

3 - developers said their new non-TU system is actually more "strategic" because with the TU system you couldnt actually know what you were doing, or thinking in group. I disagree. The new system is actually the one where you cant properly think strategically, and thats why players are finding it difficult and having squadies killed in every mission.

 

I will give an example: in the TU system, you had an good idea of how far an alien could move and how much he could shoot in a move. So you could decide where to position your soldiers. In the new system, the aliens can walk a very short distance, OR a very long distance, and still shoot, because walking a long distance or a short distance consumes the same amount of "action points". (very long distances consume more action points however)

 

 

STRATEGIC/BASE LAYER

 

1 - you cant select the precise location of the base. Nor build more bases

2 - for some reason, you can´t hire scientists/engineers from right away. The game restricts too much what you can or can´t do at the start of the game

3 - it seems they limited even more what you can do during fighter/alien craft engagements... you cant even decide anymore if you want them to be cautious or agressive. The only option is to abort the engagement!

4 - I hate this new system of "choices", where idiotically, you have two or more events happening exactly at the same time. Again, strategy and decision making taken out of players hands in favor of what developers thought was fun (in the original you could very well buy another Skyranger and deploy two teams at the same time in different locations around the globe. OR, if the two locations of events were near, you could do both with the SAME Skyranger and team... as long as it had fuel for both missions.

 

 

 

I like some things. Like the extra mission variety, I like the graphical style and sound/music. But I think there is so much else that is really irritating, not to mention the complete dumbing down of the game, removing TONS of features that made strategy deeper, in favor of stupid decision making "strategy" that make no sense whatsoever, like deciding if your soldier will carry a grenade or a gun sniper into battle. (cant do both at the same time, ridiculous!)

[dreadylein]

In Combat:

1 - what the f*** those "to hit" percentages mean? There is this mission where I have 55% to hit a grey with a sniper and 47% to hit another gray with a rifle. My soldiers ALWAYS miss it. I mean, I loaded the game 10 times, and they missed the shot ALL THE TIMES! So wtf those percentages mean? If they ALWAYS miss a 55% to hit, then that 55% actually means 5,5%????????

 

You encountert a seeded rng where the seed is saved within you savefile, this is done so you cant just reload until you hit :)

Working as intended

[snwkill]

In Combat:

1 - what the f*** those "to hit" percentages mean? There is this mission where I have 55% to hit a grey with a sniper and 47% to hit another gray with a rifle. My soldiers ALWAYS miss it. I mean, I loaded the game 10 times, and they missed the shot ALL THE TIMES! So wtf those percentages mean? If they ALWAYS miss a 55% to hit, then that 55% actually means 5,5%????????

 

You encountert a seeded rng where the seed is saved within you savefile, this is done so you cant just reload until you hit :)

Working as intended

 

Yea take a step to the left and then do it... You will get a different roll. But if you reload and do the exact same procedure over and over the outcome will be exactly the same.

[Soulzityr]

In Combat:

1 - what the f*** those "to hit" percentages mean? There is this mission where I have 55% to hit a grey with a sniper and 47% to hit another gray with a rifle. My soldiers ALWAYS miss it. I mean, I loaded the game 10 times, and they missed the shot ALL THE TIMES! So wtf those percentages mean? If they ALWAYS miss a 55% to hit, then that 55% actually means 5,5%????????

 

2 - I cant decide WHERE to shoot. I must shoot just at the aliens. Holy f***, I want to shoot between two different aliens, like in the original XCOM, so if my soldier is bad at shooting, I may have a chance of actually hitting the aliens with my bad aim

 

3 - developers said their new non-TU system is actually more "strategic" because with the TU system you couldnt actually know what you were doing, or thinking in group. I disagree. The new system is actually the one where you cant properly think strategically, and thats why players are finding it difficult and having squadies killed in every mission.

 

I will give an example: in the TU system, you had an good idea of how far an alien could move and how much he could shoot in a move. So you could decide where to position your soldiers. In the new system, the aliens can walk a very short distance, OR a very long distance, and still shoot, because walking a long distance or a short distance consumes the same amount of "action points". (very long distances consume more action points however)

 

 

STRATEGIC/BASE LAYER

 

1 - you cant select the precise location of the base. Nor build more bases

2 - for some reason, you can´t hire scientists/engineers from right away. The game restricts too much what you can or can´t do at the start of the game

3 - it seems they limited even more what you can do during fighter/alien craft engagements... you cant even decide anymore if you want them to be cautious or agressive. The only option is to abort the engagement!

4 - I hate this new system of "choices", where idiotically, you have two or more events happening exactly at the same time. Again, strategy and decision making taken out of players hands in favor of what developers thought was fun (in the original you could very well buy another Skyranger and deploy two teams at the same time in different locations around the globe. OR, if the two locations of events were near, you could do both with the SAME Skyranger and team... as long as it had fuel for both missions.

 

 

 

I like some things. Like the extra mission variety, I like the graphical style and sound/music. But I think there is so much else that is really irritating, not to mention the complete dumbing down of the game, removing TONS of features that made strategy deeper, in favor of stupid decision making "strategy" that make no sense whatsoever, like deciding if your soldier will carry a grenade or a gun sniper into battle. (cant do both at the same time, ridiculous!)

 

 

While I feel like everyone is justified to have their own opinions and decide for themselves whether or not they enjoy the game, I'd like to point out some things that I think you may have overlooked.

 

1 - what the f*** those "to hit" percentages mean? There is this mission where I have 55% to hit a grey with a sniper and 47% to hit another gray with a rifle. My soldiers ALWAYS miss it. I mean, I loaded the game 10 times, and they missed the shot ALL THE TIMES! So wtf those percentages mean? If they ALWAYS miss a 55% to hit, then that 55% actually means 5,5%????????

 

The % as stated above is working as intended. No, you cannot reload your game for different results. The seed is embedded into the file, meaning that when you reload the game, it is using the same coin toss as before. Meaning you're not tossing the coin every time you're loading the file, you are revealing the coin that's ALREADY BEEN TOSSED. There are way around this, of course, like doing other movements first, or etc. But I am of the personal opinion that changing up results of shots will "take away from the tactics/strategy" of the game that you keep complaining about.

 

2 - I cant decide WHERE to shoot. I must shoot just at the aliens. Holy f***, I want to shoot between two different aliens, like in the original XCOM, so if my soldier is bad at shooting, I may have a chance of actually hitting the aliens with my bad aim

 

The removal of free aim is probably because of the changes to the cover system. Since cover is so important now, the free ability to just flatten the whole map could be deemd as overpowered, as you can just remove all terrain at will leaving the AI with no cover itself. People have replied that the AI can be programmed to do the same thing, but then the battles become merely who can remove whose cover first, which, again, I believe detracts from the "tactics/strategy" part of the game. Some differ in opinion.

 

3. 3 - developers said their new non-TU system is actually more "strategic" because with the TU system you couldnt actually know what you were doing, or thinking in group. I disagree. The new system is actually the one where you cant properly think strategically, and thats why players are finding it difficult and having squadies killed in every mission.

 

I don't have squaddies killed every mission.

 

4 - I hate this new system of "choices", where idiotically, you have two or more events happening exactly at the same time. Again, strategy and decision making taken out of players hands in favor of what developers thought was fun (in the original you could very well buy another Skyranger and deploy two teams at the same time in different locations around the globe. OR, if the two locations of events were near, you could do both with the SAME Skyranger and team... as long as it had fuel for both missions.

 

I assume you're talking about things like abduction missions where you have 3 countries requesting assistance and you can only help one at the cost of two. This is actually the game's time mechanic, meaning you cannot prolong the game indefinitely as the situation just deteriorates if you don't get a move on. This isn't about strategy/tactics above the "panic/reward" level. This is something to kick you in the butt so you don't overstack on research/gear/experience before going to the next objective. This does not mean that you CAN'T, just that the time constraints make it harder as you also have to siphon resources to push the time limit back. So it's not direct strategy, but it is there. I wouldn't say it's complicated, but you must make important and time-efficient decisions.

 

"favor of stupid decision making "strategy" that make no sense whatsoever, like deciding if your soldier will carry a grenade or a gun sniper into battle. (cant do both at the same time, ridiculous!)

 

So while I don't disagree that perhaps the game isn't as "deep" at first glance as you might hope being an obvious fan of the originals, but I wouldn't be so quick as to dismiss decisions made about the game as a bunch of things that don't make sense. Perhaps there is a lot more meaning to the way things are in the game that you just don't understand or know about. Also, console porting has an obvious huge affect on the way the game shaped up.

 

Also, I'd like to point out that a sniper can carry a sniper and a grenade at the same time.

[Perraine]

Firstly ... Shouldn't this post realistically be in the "Spoilers" thread? There's are quite few game play/game mechanic spoilers here ...

 

 

 

1- The % hit chance I think is based on that particular soldiers "aim" stat, so if you have a soldiers with only 60 aim, it will probably miss nearly every time where as if the soldier has a 90 aim it will strike more often (I have a "Sniper" who, with the enhanced scope, has an aim of 117 and she basically can't miss no matter what the %, I also have a "Support" who, after being promoted, now has an aim of 83 and he rarely misses either)

 

2- Use grenades and/or rockets to accomplish the same result

 

3- The aliens do no more than your soldiers can, have you actually used the "Run & Gun" ability on the "Assault" class? or chosen flat ground and moved your soldiers up slowly and carefully, and making STRATEGIC use of cover, overlapping fields of fire, different class abilities, such as the "Battle Scanner" and the "Squad Sight" abilities, the support classes "Smoke Grenades" or the heavy classes "Suppression" abilities?

 

I virtually never lose a single soldier and rarely have any in the hospital, simply by using the in game "strategies" like healing squad members in the field and being careful when moving soldiers up to always allow them an extra shot during the aliens turn.

 

DON'T BE IN A HURRY! ... Move up only a few tiles at a time if needs be, and always keep 1 or 2 soldiers in overwatch to protect the one moving forward, plus, you can let the aliens come to you.

 

Have your sniper use the pistol when moving, that way they can still use overwatch+opportunist and, with the foundry upgrade and laser pistols, do nearly as much damage as other soldiers with the assault rifle. I actually actively place "rookies" and "Squaddies" in my teams to get more soldiers promoted, so I have a "back log" of higher ranked soldiers.

 

Also don't be afraid to fire/dismiss soldiers if there stats aren't that great, it's better to have a rookie with high stats, than a captain with low stats.

 

Geoscape Gameplay

 

1- You don't need to build more than 1 base as satellites now take care of that function and you can get to any destination on the planet quickly.

 

2- Scientists and Engineers are supplied by the countries you are protecting, so have a look at your options when launching satellites or doing missions, and decide which gives you the best options = quick cash/Scientists/Engineers ... Also, the starting country can have a BIG impact on the gamely so choose wisely, and look to see what benefits there are for 2 or more satellites on any given continent, plus, placing 1 extra satellite on 1 particular continent/region will have a "flow on" effect on other "members" on the same continent.

 

3- There are several researchable "techs" which do exactly this, plus you have a choice of what to arm your interceptors with = Long range/low damage weapons which keep them safer, or short range/high damage which shoots down bigger aliens but at a bigger risk ... You can also send more than on interceptor after a ufo, though only 1 can engage at a time, so always make sure to have multiple interceptors at each hangar, that way you can "abort" if interceptor one gets to badly damaged, then send up interceptor 2 and take out the alien in 1 or 2 shots ...

 

4- Again, this comes down to your play style, go for the quick cash or get more engineers/scientists or do the "easy/moderate/difficult" mission or choose the country that has the highest amount of "terror" to decrease it there, even though the "rewards" might not be quite as good.

 

In other words, have you actually "PLAYED" the game?

 

 

[Sabbalonn]

Soulzityr you make some very good points. I haven't yet bought this game but i probably will soon. I agree with both of you, being frustrated but also understanding why. However i was more distressed to hear that the missions are not randomly generated, does this not greatly reduce the replay factor ? What i liked most about apocalypse, is even on my 4th playthrough i still didn't know what was going to happen where for the most part.

[Perraine]

Soulzityr you make some very good points. I haven't yet bought this game but i probably will soon. I agree with both of you, being frustrated but also understanding why. However i was more distressed to hear that the missions are not randomly generated, does this not greatly reduce the replay factor ? What i liked most about apocalypse, is even on my 4th playthrough i still didn't know what was going to happen where for the most part.

 

It seems unfortunately that the game has contracted what I like to call "Consolitis" ...

 

Were it a PC exclusive (or if there was a "PC Specific" build) I don't doubt that many of the features we all loved from the original Enemy Unknown (and some of the sequels) would be in the game, and in fact, they actually are coded into this game already, they were just "turned off" by the devs, probably to make it easier for owners of certain products made by Microsoft and Sony ...

[Sabbalonn]

That really is sad to hear, but if they are coded for we might get lucky with the modders who are able to preform miracles. Its a shame that the old school x-com play style is not as popular, or at least it doesn't seem to be, because i remember being able to spend days in that game and feel like i had only scratched the surface. But they did keep it turn based and to be honest i was shocked that it was, i was convinced it would be a fps. I do get the feeling however that had to try and be an fps and a turn based game at the same time, meaning they could do neither as fully as they wanted too.

[Perraine]

Modders have already unlocked some of the things that are in the game but "switched off" ... The "Second Wave" for instance (maybe they thought console players lacked the attention span?)

 

And also showing the "hidden" UFO's that are actually doing the random missions that are increasing terror across countries, as with the original game, if you shoot down these UFO's doing "Terror Missions" you can stop panic increasing altogether in those areas BUT! If you fail, panic will increase at a much higher rate ... Makes it very ... interesting ... to say the least ...

 

And the constant little "cinematic" scenes the game plays is a perfect example of pandering to the console markets ...

 

Plus the whole cut down interface and the removal of many of the customization features of your soldiers is an obvious trick to make it more appealing to a younger demographic who want instant gratification without spending hours deciding how best to spend those 12 "experience points" you just earned for your soldier, Or what loadouts to take from the vast list of weapons available

[Sabbalonn]

Well i think a couple of mods should really extend the longevity of the game, much more customization could be implemented perhaps ? The idea of being able to control UFO's definitely sounds like something i think deserves to be in the game. It is undeniable that it has been aged down but its not a big deal. The second wave is definitely something i am going to look into though.