Why is this game worse than the original x-com?

[REDCORN #BLUNTFORCE]

I remember the devs saying something along the line of "we've removed some of the stress and difficulty of the original x-com by adding in mechanics that allow you to combat and counteract their tactics." What mechanics allow me to stop the enemy from shooting through a tree halfway across the map, killing my best soldier with a critical while he's behind full cover that is perpendicular on the grid to his attacker.

Firaxis decided to remove line of sight, destructible cover, soldier stats, inventory systems, time units and more in favor of a dice rolling minigame with more minutiae that are incomprehensible to understand than the original x-com. Yea the original x-com could ♥♥♥♥ you over but when the game ♥♥♥♥♥♥ you over it did so in a way that you could understand.

I'm so disgusted by this jambled mess of mix matched gameplay design, going through the game over and over again trying to understand it but to no avail. I've purchased a random number generator with 8.75 gigs of movies on top, and so have you. There are no tactics in XCOM:EU, just a convoluted numbers game in which you hope the dice land in your favor. Can someone please convince me otherwise? Tell me I'm bad and demonstrate my flaws so I can understand and enjoy this game.

[Otleaz]

Sequels are always terrible compared to their predecessors. It has something to do with how out of touch developers/publishers are with modern gamers. They think that if they don't include dumbed down, facepalm inducing features, the uneducated masses would mistake their game for expensive toiletpaper.

[Ubiquitous FUD]

ATKOtleaz eredeti hozzászólása:

Sequels are always terrible compared to their predecessors. It has something to do with how out of touch developers/publishers are with modern gamers. They think that if they don't include dumbed down, facepalm inducing features, the uneducated masses would mistake their game for expensive toiletpaper.

*flush* What?

[🍣]

This whole discussion is bad and wrong.

[Lou the Lou]

Makes me sort of glad this is my first XCOM (somehow, I missed the series - been playing PC games since Commander Keen, Quest for Glory, etc., yet didn't come across XCOM until the past few years).

If you had to recommend one game out of the series, which would it be? Seems most people favor the original.

And Otleaz, that's false more often than it is true. It happens a lot, but it's not the norm, and it's certainly not "always".

P.S. Don't get me wrong - I'm actually enjoying this title a lot.

[REDCORN #BLUNTFORCE]

I'd recommend the original. The thing that makes me really angry about this title is that it feels so close to being a really great game. There is just something fundamentally wrong with the core gameplay that I can't stand.

[Sarda]

I think its called cover.

On its own, its a decent game, however the more I play it the more im just reminded how much better and how much more freedom Ufo Defense gave you. I give it a 6.5/10.

[Kyutaru]

You got unlucky. Happens.

Also, here's what Firaxis didn't decide to remove:

- line of sight - it's still required, you can't shoot through anything. Things you can shoot through have a reason for why you can shoot through them, and it's usually because the obstacle is thin enough to shoot through.

- destructible cover - it still exists, your cover can be destroyed easily by missed shots, leaving you with no cover and a necessity to move out the way.

- soldier stats - also still exists, your soldiers all have personally generated stats that determine how great they are. Aim determines base chance to hit, Will determines mental strength, Defense reduces chance to be hit, and even base Health can vary from soldier to soldier inexplicably.

- inventory systems - perhaps not in the field, but you still have to manage equipment in this game and decide what loadouts are being brought to a mission.

- time units and more - the only things you can safely say were left out, especially with "and more" being vague.

If you press F1 on a soldier, everything about the game gets explained quite well. Full Cover is not total concealment, it's a -40% accuracy penalty to enemies shooting you. They can still shoot you. The only way to NOT get shot by an enemy is by having no line of sight to that enemy, which means being far away from any wall corners. I played through an entire game of this and the combat mechanics make perfect sense. Everything is based on random numbers, but it's all about how well you alter the odds to be in your favor.

[REDCORN #BLUNTFORCE]

You say that but I've been shot through hills. Not cover, but a hill consisting of multiple full tiers of rock spread across multiple tiles between the alien and me. Thick trees should be enough to stop a shot or at least warrant destruction. Additionally you beat the game on normal.

[Sarda]

I've shot thru hills, tree's, thru ufo walls without damaging them, thru the front of a bus and out the back to hit someone hidding behind it while we were both ground level, ect.

My sniper once had 90% chance to hit a target, thru 3 walls and a hill and hit him. No possible way he could have seen him, the bullet could have reached him, nothing, complete voodoo.

[nyandi]

And just what makes you think that the original Xcom wasn't built around random dice rolls? Because I seem to recall that you had to deal with percentage chances for when you shot at things and they shot back at you.

By the way, cover seems to work just fine - it's just that most cover is not especially impervious to plasma bolts. And you can blow it up. I've shredded cover that a Muton was hiding behind so that other soldiers could take it out.

Many of the things that they took out were a pain and a half to deal with unless you knew exactly what you were doing. Like, say, the 80 item limit for any vehicle, including gear you went in with. Good luck collecting alien technology if you went in with too much stuff.

I'm not saying that the original Xcom was a bad game, by any stretch of the imagination. But it had a lot of tedious micromanagement that got annoying really fast once I started trying to play the game again a few months back. So for me, this game is Xcom without that annoyance factor.

Here's the way I see it. Playing the original Xcom today is like driving a 20-year old car with a manual transmission. Great if you know how to drive a stick, but a large hassle if you don't.

[nyandi]

Honestly, being shot through a hill sounds like a bug more than anything. If that's the case, hopefully they'll fix it once they start patching.

[Danielle]

yeah i lost a guy in the first base when a tall man crit through a giant rock wall where the level started to bottleneck. Not even a few tiles from a corner, this was strait into what looked like a solid level border and out the other side.

[ParGellen]

Ezio Auditore eredeti hozzászólása:

- line of sight - it's still required, you can't shoot through anything. Things you can shoot through have a reason for why you can shoot through them, and it's usually because the obstacle is thin enough to shoot through.

Actually I've been shot through an entire forklift on four different occasions.

Ezio Auditore eredeti hozzászólása:

- destructible cover - it still exists, your cover can be destroyed easily by missed shots, leaving you with no cover and a necessity to move out the way.

Yes but you can't target that cover specifically in order to force your opponent into the open. All you can do is spray and pray, and that's ONLY if the game thinks you can see the opponent in the first place. Sometimes it doesn't think you can see things that are directly above you. Maybe neckbones of soldiers had to be removed to make room for more muscles...

Ezio Auditore eredeti hozzászólása:

- soldier stats - also still exists, your soldiers all have personally generated stats that determine how great they are. Aim determines base chance to hit, Will determines mental strength, Defense reduces chance to be hit, and even base Health can vary from soldier to soldier inexplicably.

Which is a very dumbed down version of what the original gave you to work with. I knew my squad's stats in the original almost by memory. In the new one I couldn't tell you ANYTHING about my squad's stats because it's not interesting enough to think about.

Ezio Auditore eredeti hozzászólása:

- inventory systems - perhaps not in the field, but you still have to manage equipment in this game and decide what loadouts are being brought to a mission.

Supremely dumbed down. Almost unforgivably so. Why can't I pick up a stun gun from a dead soldier if I need it? I have to fail the entire capture goal just because my soldiers are unable to use their thumbs for more than holding a weapon? What?!?!

Ezio Auditore eredeti hozzászólása:

- time units and more - the only things you can safely say were left out, especially with "and more" being vague.

The removal of TU's is my biggest gripe with the game. Why can't my soldiers stop when they spot an enemy and let me shoot at them if I have the points left? Are they complete idiots?

Don't get me wrong. I am enjoying the game but they really shouldn't have called it XCOM. Don't get on YouTube spouting about how you are remaking X-COM when you really aren't. That's called lying. Say something like you are making a game "loosely kind of sort of" resembling X-COM and you will still attract fans of the old one without having as many of them call you out on the things you screwed up.

[Rumpullpus]

Power User JOHNREDCORN #BF eredeti hozzászólása:

You say that but I've been shot through hills. Not cover, but a hill consisting of multiple full tiers of rock spread across multiple tiles between the alien and me. Thick trees should be enough to stop a shot or at least warrant destruction. Additionally you beat the game on normal.

you could shoot through hills in the original as well.
loved the original and so far i love the new xcom too. very happy with the game and how its turned out compaired to how it could have turned out.

[ParGellen]

Rumpullpus eredeti hozzászólása:

you could shoot through hills in the original as well.
loved the original and so far i love the new xcom too. very happy with the game and how its turned out compaired to how it could have turned out.

When I shoot the side of a hill in the original it digs a hole and the bullet stops.