A vital detail of original X-Com

[Eillis]

After playing all those X-Com remakes I can notice one thing that was always overlooked.

In the original, soldier survivability was very low. It was simply a common thing to deal with multiple losses in every single mission (including loss of your favourite veterans).
Then, as soon as you got the tech to make things better, a new race pops up in a bigger saucer and tension is as high as ever.
This overabundance of death is what gave player the feeling of a desperate struggle against superior foe.

It was a very bold design decision. It was brutal towards the player, as much as it was a vital reason why X-Com felt so good.
No other remake that I played have decided to go this route, which I consider to be a big mistake.
It's understandable, if those games wanted to do their own thing, but if they wanted to recapture the spirit of X-Com, that detail mustn't had been ignored.

You could say "hey, if you want high mortality rate then just play on highest difficulty",
but that's not the case. I'm not talking about high difficulty here.
Original X-Com had high mortality rate, while being of moderate difficulty. This is simply because your squad consisted of a large number of soldiers.
These soldiers were designed to die easily on you. It felt brutal and overwhelming, as much as you could expect from a war against alien invasion.

In comparison, missing the high mortality, all those X-Com remakes felt like tactical Rambo games. They were something completely different.

I've played the demo of Xenonauts 2 recently. I must say that I really like it! Looks very promising.
It seems to highly respect the original game... except that one detail, which I explained.
Or rather, at this point I can't say for certain if Xenonauts 2 will stick close to the feeling of X-Com or "do it's own thing".
Assuming that we only get 9 soldiers at the beginning, I'm guessing it's the latter?
I'm very curious to know the answer to this.

Thank you for reading. Have a meme:
https://i.imgflip.com/7b4bfh.jpg

[Jaasrg]

Think it was condensed pretty well in other thread: In XCOMs you control a team of superheroes.

[[*~MAJA~*] Mandragoron]

I played the old x-com a lot, never lost 1 men. Of course i used loading, but thats a part of the game for me, trying to get the best move for this turn together.

[ulzgoroth]

I'm confused. I typically lose 1-2 unlucky Xenonauts on missions. Are you not doing that? Or are you expecting higher losses than that? Because I sure didn't expect higher losses than that when playing actual X-Com.

[Sunday Driver]

I think in Xenonauts losing soldiers is something that can really happen. Certainly I've seen my fair share drop. All the more when you are new to it or if you move up a difficulty level for the first time and feel the pressure once more. If you're really good at it and have superb luck maybe you could avoid such losses but that's a limited pool of players or play throughs.

Hitting the first Cleaner operations center was tough despite my preparations and pretty good armor. The close proximity, the timer pushing you to hurry through it instead of taking your time and the numbers involved mean you have to take risks and almost certainly some fire from the enemy. Trying to get the bonus data sticks right at the back means you're going to come into contact with their troops and you will be in a really dangerous fire fight that will be very easy to lose someone if you get greedy and try to get more or all the sticks at that point. I had to fall back and escape after getting 20 of them. Lost one guy who was holding them back while the rest escaped and closed the door behind him as he died. Ended up with 18 sticks making it to the drop zone with my guys.

Very enjoyable and the death felt fair and earned!

I'd imagine when the post-EA balance is done and difficulty levels are more cemented it can also be made extra brutal at those high levels for those who clearly want it.

[VipreRX]

Originally posted by Hoxilicious:

I think in Xenonauts losing soldiers is something that can really happen.

I learned the hard way why you shouldn't cluster your squad together an a hallway when the enemy threw a grenade into the group and turned half of them into goo then shot the survivors.

[Sunday Driver]

Originally posted by VipreRX:

Originally posted by Hoxilicious:

I think in Xenonauts losing soldiers is something that can really happen.

I learned the hard way why you shouldn't cluster your squad together an a hallway when the enemy threw a grenade into the group and turned half of them into goo then shot the survivors.

I love that behavior of them when you cluster up. I had the same thing happen as you did. Couple of guys turned into vapor and slime and others badly injured. Mission was not the success I expected. I never let my guys blob up after that lesson because of that and it forced me to be a better player. It's very realistic and sensible as it is exactly what I'd do if I saw a big blob of the aliens doing the same thing.

[Eillis]

I only played through the demo version on the Veteran difficulty level. (No save-scamming of course.)
Had no losses or other issues on the landing/crash site missions.
Then there was this mission, where I had to rescue people form abduction tubes.
That one was tough due to time limit and I did loose two soldiers because of the hurry. It was as painful, as it was fun and exciting!
I could probably play it out much better if I was wiser though - it was my first time after all.

Btw, finishing this mission was actually quite anti-climatic. I got all the needed tubes while my squad was exposed to enemies, wounded and in disarray. Then it just suddenly ended...
I'd surely take a few more hits if I had to actually retreat back to the choppa.
The devs really should add actual retreat as a winning condition.


Anyway, from what you guys are saying, it sounds like the game has more difficult missions like that. That sounds promising.
I just hope it's not always gonna be due to time limit rush.

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

I'm confused. I typically lose 1-2 unlucky Xenonauts on missions. Are you not doing that? Or are you expecting higher losses than that? Because I sure didn't expect higher losses than that when playing actual X-Com.

I was talking about the original X-Com/UFO from 1996. That game was quite brutal to your precious squads.
So yeah, I was actually hoping for more losses. (Take note: I don't necessarily mean higher difficulty.)
As I mentioned, I had no losses in Xenonauts 2, except that one mission. But maybe that's my experience with the old X-Com and being lucky with missions.

[Sunday Driver]

Originally posted by Eillis:

I only played through the demo version on the Veteran difficulty level. (No save-scamming of course.)
Had no losses or other issues on the landing/crash site missions.
Then there was this mission, where I had to rescue people form abduction tubes.
That one was tough due to time limit and I did loose two soldiers because of the hurry. It was as painful, as it was fun and exciting!
I could probably play it out much better if I was wiser though - it was my first time after all.

Btw, finishing this mission was actually quite anti-climatic. I got all the needed tubes while my squad was exposed to enemies, wounded and in disarray. Then it just suddenly ended...
I'd surely take a few more hits if I had to actually retreat back to the choppa.
The devs really should add actual retreat as a winning condition.


Anyway, from what you guys are saying, it sounds like the game has more difficult missions like that. That sounds promising.
I just hope it's not always gonna be due to time limit rush.

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

I'm confused. I typically lose 1-2 unlucky Xenonauts on missions. Are you not doing that? Or are you expecting higher losses than that? Because I sure didn't expect higher losses than that when playing actual X-Com.

I was talking about the original X-Com/UFO from 1996. That game was quite brutal to your precious squads.
So yeah, I was actually hoping for more losses. (Take note: I don't necessarily mean higher difficulty.)
As I mentioned, I had no losses in Xenonauts 2, except that one mission. But maybe that's my experience with the old X-Com and being lucky with missions.

Could be that you're a good player and know the ways to keep them alive. Some of the missions like the one I mentioned are designed deliberately to push you out of your comfort zone and practiced tactics though. Normally I'd be throwing flares around and advancing carefully in teams, but with that mission you've got to rush fast through the place while second place is trying to keep them alive and together or else you get overwhelmed, plus it has the escape rush you wanted as you don't get anything unless it is secured in the escape zone by the soldier holding it.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Eillis:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

I'm confused. I typically lose 1-2 unlucky Xenonauts on missions. Are you not doing that? Or are you expecting higher losses than that? Because I sure didn't expect higher losses than that when playing actual X-Com.

I was talking about the original X-Com/UFO from 1996. That game was quite brutal to your precious squads.
So yeah, I was actually hoping for more losses. (Take note: I don't necessarily mean higher difficulty.)
As I mentioned, I had no losses in Xenonauts 2, except that one mission. But maybe that's my experience with the old X-Com and being lucky with missions.

Yes, I was too. Losing more than a couple squaddies in an X-com mission indicated that a very, very bad day was being had in my recollection.

But yeah, you're either lucky or good. I've played old X-com, Xenonauts 1, and a number of other X-com-like games and do not get that kind of consistent zero-casualty results.

[Eillis]

Originally posted by Hoxilicious:

Could be that you're a good player and know the ways to keep them alive. Some of the missions like the one I mentioned are designed deliberately to push you out of your comfort zone and practiced tactics though. Normally I'd be throwing flares around and advancing carefully in teams, but with that mission you've got to rush fast through the place while second place is trying to keep them alive and together or else you get overwhelmed, plus it has the escape rush you wanted as you don't get anything unless it is secured in the escape zone by the soldier holding it.

Those difficult missions sound very cool. I'm starting to think that I was just lucky (or rather unlucky?) in my demo playthrough.

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Yes, I was too. Losing more than a couple squaddies in an X-com mission indicated that a very, very bad day was being had in my recollection.

But yeah, you're either lucky or good. I've played old X-com, Xenonauts 1, and a number of other X-com-like games and do not get that kind of consistent zero-casualty results.

Don't get me wrong. I had a ton of casualties in old X-Com too. That's what I'm talking about.

Consider this: in original X-Com, Skyranger started with space for 12 soldiers. Avenger at the end carried 26!
Remakes had 4, 6, 8, 10 soldiers and that number didn't go much higher during playthrough. (Take note that they also included more complex character development systems.)
Just the number of soldiers alone already says a lot about your expected casualties.

[Gen. Von Sassel]

they die aplenty. stop save scumming, you have the power, if it bothers you.

[Eillis]

Originally posted by Gen. Von Sassel:

they die aplenty. stop save scumming, you have the power, if it bothers you.

I'm not save scumming. I even literally said so.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Eillis:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Yes, I was too. Losing more than a couple squaddies in an X-com mission indicated that a very, very bad day was being had in my recollection.

But yeah, you're either lucky or good. I've played old X-com, Xenonauts 1, and a number of other X-com-like games and do not get that kind of consistent zero-casualty results.

Don't get me wrong. I had a ton of casualties in old X-Com too. That's what I'm talking about.

It seems like you're not reading what I wrote. I said, twice, that I didn't believe I tended to have a lot more casualties in x-com than in xenonauts 2.

...I wonder if you played a version with more patches than I did though, since X-com semi-famously has a bunch of difficulty-reducing bugs. (AI defects and loading save game always going to the easiest difficulty.) I don't remember whether I made sure to get the fixes for those.

Originally posted by Eillis:

Consider this: in original X-Com, Skyranger started with space for 12 soldiers. Avenger at the end carried 26!
Remakes had 4, 6, 8, 10 soldiers and that number didn't go much higher during playthrough. (Take note that they also included more complex character development systems.)
Just the number of soldiers alone already says a lot about your expected casualties.

Xenonauts 2 starts with 9, I believe. I don't know how the upgrades path out though.

Wiki says Xenonauts 1 was 8/10/12, so perhaps we can hope 2 will take us a bit further back towards the big numbers.

It's a fair point. (Actually, according to UFOpedia you got it wrong - Skyranger has 14 spots.) Modern games seem convinced people don't want to handle that many distinct pieces or something...even Xenonauts.

[Eillis]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

It seems like you're not reading what I wrote. I said, twice, that I didn't believe I tended to have a lot more casualties in x-com than in xenonauts 2.

...I wonder if you played a version with more patches than I did though, since X-com semi-famously has a bunch of difficulty-reducing bugs. (AI defects and loading save game always going to the easiest difficulty.) I don't remember whether I made sure to get the fixes for those.

Hm. Now that I think of it, I first played vanilla game ages ago and it was surely difficult as I wasn't that experienced.
I later played OpenXCom with some basic mods which might've fixed the issues that you mentioned.
I'm sure that the modded version made AI start using grenades. There were probably other fixes too.
Besides that, I never really liked relying on the more OP exploitable tactics.
All those things are likely to have twisted my experience to some extent.

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Xenonauts 2 starts with 9, I believe. I don't know how the upgrades path out though.

Wiki says Xenonauts 1 was 8/10/12, so perhaps we can hope 2 will take us a bit further back towards the big numbers.

It's a fair point. (Actually, according to UFOpedia you got it wrong - Skyranger has 14 spots.) Modern games seem convinced people don't want to handle that many distinct pieces or something...even Xenonauts.

Well, handling large number of pieces is one thing.
I think that another factor is that having a small group of developed favourite characters you can get attached to is a more mainstream decision,
than making player deal with the painful losses of his de facto cannon fodder army.
Large number of soldiers naturally forces more casualties to maintain a balanced level of difficulty.
Then there's the problem, that high level of casualties contradicts the more sophisticated character development systems.

Anyway, here's hoping that Xenonauts 2 will actually go the big numbers route!

[Machiavelli]

Save scumming removes the challenge.