Xenonauts, Enemy Unknown and UFO Defense difficulty comparison

[Devanor]

I played UFO Defense when I was younger, but I didn't understand jack about how or what to do. A duo of aliens dominated my squad of 20+ soldiers in under a minute and then I went bankrupt, losing the game within a few months of starting.

As such, I enjoyed XCOM: enemy Unknown a lot more since it was easier to wrap your head around.

What about Xenonauts? Is it easier than UFO Defense but harder than Enemy Unknown, harder than both, easier than both? Or was UFO Defense easy, just that I lacked understanding of it?

Thoughts, you who have played these games?

[It's a Mind Game]

You know that X-COM: UFO Defense and UFO: Enemy Unknown and are the same games, just that USA likes to have it different than the rest of the world?
Smartass talk aside, as far as difficulty goes I think that Xenonauts has it - as least at the very start - much harder. You have 4 difficulty modes to choose from, easy, normal, "for people who played similiar games" and I guess something like "you will die all the time".
I picked third mode as I have played most of X-COM games, as well as many other "squad tactical combat" games. In fact just finished Wasteland2... and my first combat in this game went more or less like this:
Turn 1 -> 8 soldiers try to hit 1 alien, they failed
Turn 2 -> Now they did it, but said alien killed one of my soldiers in the process. One more died from shot from the back
Turn 3 -> I try to kill that alien in the back, hit it once. Another soldier died to other alien. My squad managed to hit this third alien once tho. Maybe I can do it?
Turn 4 -> Aliens regenerated their health... another soldier died. RAGE quit.

Did I mention aliens have sniper like accuracy and one shot you? Maybe it gets more balanced later on... dunno, guess I'll give it another try in a while.

[Devanor]

Originally posted by paziek:

You know that X-COM: UFO Defense and UFO: Enemy Unknown are the same games, just that USA likes to have it different than the rest of the world?

Yeah, but I was talking about XCOM: enemy unknown, not UFO: enemy unknown

Originally posted by paziek:

As far as difficulty goes I think that Xenonauts has it - as least at the very start - much harder. You have 4 difficulty modes to choose from, easy, normal, "for people who played similiar games" and I guess something like "you will die all the time".
I picked third mode as I have played most of X-COM games, as well as many other "squad tactical combat" games. In fact just finished Wasteland2... and my first combat in this game went more or less like this:
Turn 1 -> 8 soldiers try to hit 1 alien, they failed
Turn 2 -> Now they did it, but said alien killed one of my soldiers in the process. One more died from shot from the back
Turn 3 -> I try to kill that alien in the back, hit it once. Another soldier died to other alien. My squad managed to hit this third alien once tho. Maybe I can do it?
Turn 4 -> Aliens regenerated their health... another soldier died. RAGE quit.

Did I mention aliens have sniper like accuracy and one shot you? Maybe it gets more balanced later on... dunno, guess I'll give it another try in a while.

Sounds a whole lot like UFO: Enemy Unknown. Sniper-aliens that oneshots you from the start... That almost gave me nightmares when I was young.

[It's a Mind Game]

Okay, gave it another go. Maybe the other one was just me being placed in bad starting spot, this time I was able to advance litle by litle and amazingly they didn't hit me even once. It was night time as well, with makes no difference for aliens (all of them? I hope not), but reduces your vision. Have to keep throwing light sticks all the time.

I guess having hard start makes sense from realism stand point as humans wouldn't be prepared for this attack, but not so much as far as gameplay goes. I would rather begin easy and go from there.

EDIT: I would compare it to the old games, since those new ones usually don't want people to lose their preciousss. I guess you meant that game with pretty graphics from 2012, where base was shown from side, not top? Then this one is way harder.

[Benjafins]

Its hard but you can quicksave as much as you want and I do because there are some unfair moments, imo but nothing to deter my enjoyment. You have to move slowly, uncover new areas with shield carriers (I use 2 in my squad) and make "V" formations as much as possible while staying behind cover.

[Casaubon]

Failing is part of the fun.

[Drages]

Xenonauts gets much more challanges with X-Division Mod.

[It's a Mind Game]

Its almost 4 AM here, but I'm just gonna drop this - game is pretty fun. It was VERY bad luck on my side when started playing. Those regenerating mobs have rather bad aim as long as you keep your distance (with is recommended by researchers as soon as you bring them first corpses). Later on when you get better weapons and armour you don't get steamrolled as much anymore, but I still lose soldier now and then and have to be extra careful. So far difficulty is pretty consistent - they get better and soon I match them.
Some aliens are really fun, like those The THING like creatures. You can do air tactical combat (with autoresolve option), something that wasn't as detailed before in X-COM. Everything feels just like the old games, but with modern UI and some nice tweaks in mechanics.

[Gilmaris]

Originally posted by paziek:

You know that X-COM: UFO Defense and UFO: Enemy Unknown and are the same games, just that USA likes to have it different than the rest of the world?
Smartass talk aside, as far as difficulty goes I think that Xenonauts has it - as least at the very start - much harder. You have 4 difficulty modes to choose from, easy, normal, "for people who played similiar games" and I guess something like "you will die all the time".
I picked third mode as I have played most of X-COM games, as well as many other "squad tactical combat" games. In fact just finished Wasteland2... and my first combat in this game went more or less like this:
Turn 1 -> 8 soldiers try to hit 1 alien, they failed
Turn 2 -> Now they did it, but said alien killed one of my soldiers in the process. One more died from shot from the back
Turn 3 -> I try to kill that alien in the back, hit it once. Another soldier died to other alien. My squad managed to hit this third alien once tho. Maybe I can do it?
Turn 4 -> Aliens regenerated their health... another soldier died. RAGE quit.

Did I mention aliens have sniper like accuracy and one shot you? Maybe it gets more balanced later on... dunno, guess I'll give it another try in a while.

I've had that experience loads of times... with UFO and TFTD. My first missions in Xenonauts were a walk in the park. Even experiencing soldiers surviving multiple hits. And my men seem less prone to hit their comrades in Xenonauts than in the first X-COMs. Maybe I've had a lucky streak, but I think I do a bit less loading in Xenonauts.

[Qutsemnie]

So far the tactical maps of xcom seem more calculated than xeno. This said with 200 hours of xcom and 10 hours of xeno. Contributing factors:
- need more "hits" to kill things in xeno and it is less clear how many hits will be required before you start hitting. This makes it hard to plan out in detail a turn. In xcom you get told how much life they have and how much damage you do.
- starting 4 people vs 8 people. Individual actions count more when you have less people
- activated abilities are relatively strong in xcom but there are also relatively rare in your squad, so using them wisely counts a lot.
- Also I think the fact that aliens move whether you have triggered them at all has an emergent property of causing you to lack control. Thus you tend to think in generalities instead of specifics. Will someone round that corner next turn and shoot me? XCOM: "No, if I don't do X..." vs Xeno: "Maybe no matter what I do". Don't get me wrong. I am very much in favor of aliens moving according to their own plan.

In xcom every turn a carefully planned out series of actions that usually involve planning everyone's move (with a plan for misses) before anyone moves at all. In xeno I am much lazier about the planning instead choosing to move a couple of people at a time to sweep, or fire with the nearest people if there is a bad guy. It isn't so much about using everyone exactly right as much as "who is nearest?"

I wouldn't add up any of this to "harder" or "easier". Just different. New xcom you feel more like a calculator. I first played original xcom in the army and I recognized a lot of the needed skills (not being a calculator). Most of them were controlling lines of vision and sweeping buildings intelligently, and I see a lot of that in xeno. New xcom is very much more calculate probabilities and do the high percentage thing.

I guess it boils down to this (without having finished xeno):
Every individual action on the tactical map in xeno feels less impactful than in xcom, but the sum total of the difficultly is still comparable.

[Drages]

You should not calculate everything an a chaotic battle zone. This is not chest. Its an invasion from "no idea" menage..

[Heimdall]

The latest 'Xcom' game was made for portability over to tablets. It is a very simple game if just a tad way too simplistic for my tastes.

I consider Xenonauts the pinical of the tactical shooter compaired to my experiences with every tactical Xcom game and clone.

Everything that was under developed in earlier games of this genera seem to have been addressed in this game and if they weren't the modding community have access to correct any failing or desire one might wish.

29 years a gamer. This is my present best game of all time for what that's worth.