5204

I agree with everything that’s been said about reloading due to bugs, misclicks, and accidental-pistol-usage, but I’m surprised no one has brought up one of my biggest irritations with XCom’s tactical system and the Ironman concept: Tedious movement.

I heard Rob Zacny refer to this on the ThreeMovesAhead podcast with Jake Solomon, and it instantly rung true for me. I love the perma death in this game, and it’s great that it forces you to think carefully about your moves. But, the perma death can also be more irritating than satisfying if it ends up punishing you because you’re rushing forward to avoid the tedium and speed up the pace of play. Sometimes I’m tired and I just want to finish a mission, so I start dashing. This became even more common in my Normal game after I had the uber armors because, by that point, the enemy lethality was down and I’d played so many missions that I was a bit bored. Anyway, it’s clearly a silly thing to lose troopers out of impatience, but it’s also one of the costs of building a game with these kinds of penalties and difficulty arcs (i.e., the fact that the difficulty seems to decline heavily in the later game).

If I play The Right Way, it feels like I’m guaranteed an easy win which, of course, removes most of the tension and makes the whole process feel a bit mundane.
If I play The Wrong Way, it increases the risk, which increases the tension and, because it’s also faster, makes the game a bit more fun.

5205

I’m pretty sure that’s working exactly as designed.

5206

A few thoughts:

You can save the game in the middle of a mission. If you’re tired of playing, just save the game and come back to it later. No need to rush through a mission pointlessly.

You need to up the difficult to Classic. Normal is boring, because it is too easy. Classic is a little too hard, but better that you beat your head against that and learn it than just go through the motions playing a Normal game.

5207

I think the “tedious movement” you refer to is pretty much required in any game design where player surprise is an integral part of the game. If you’re not generating it artificially (i.e. via die-rolls in D&D), the only way to create surprise situations in a game is to make it uncertain where and when you’ll contact the enemy. This in turn means a smart player has to behave as if enemy contact could happen at any moment, and move his troops so they can deal with it well. “Tedious movement” is an integral part of any tactical game of this nature, not just XCom.

If you don’t play Ironman, you can play in a sloppy way and advance full speed, and just reload from a saved game once you make contact and play the last turn carefully. I had a friend who did that with the original XCom. The issue is that this style of play removes any possibility of surprise by granting the player perfect intelligence of enemy positions, and thus eliminates a significant tactical element from the game.

Any way you design around the requirement of playing carefully will have the same effect. You could, for example, give the player a move like the Aliens do on activation. One where they had one action on encountering the enemy which could only be spent on movement. You could dash forward to you heart’s content, knowing you’d always have a chance to run for cover when the fight started, but you’d never be surprised.

5208

I’ve considered this, and tried to figure out why it’s more noticeable to me in XCom than in other games. I think the reasons come down, in part, to some of the common criticisms of the XCom:EU tactical system. (i.e., the extreme importance of cover, the generally narrow level design–which is exacerbated by the cover system, and the enemy ‘free moves’ that mean you can only catch aliens off guard if you catch them with half your squad already in overwatch).

In particular, I think the level design plus short LoS exacerbates this problem. In Fallout Tactics (which doesn’t have a stellar tactical TBS reputation, I know), I was able to move cautiously through threatening areas and then move recon forces onto towers and other observation positions that would allow me to spot enemies without being seen myself. Those types of situations are much rarer in XCom.

Likewise, a game like FO:T had the hybrid real-time + TB system so you could move more quickly and then switch to TBS mode when you had enemy contact. That plus the greater LoS ranges and slightly reduced lethality (at least at longer ranges), meant that you could move a bit more freely in the areas that you ‘thought’ were safe (although there was always the risk that you missed a threat).

I also think XCom suffers from this more because so few of the missions given you a reason to hurry. I guess EW is supposed to help with this, but I think I would’ve preferred that the whole game had missions with more urgency (and some other mechanic/balance changes to offset the risk) so that dash moves and other types of riskier and more aggressive play were encouraged.

Or, like Slyfrog says, maybe I just need to up the difficulty… But from all accounts here, that just sounds like it adds more frustration and even more reason to plod through with the same basic hyper-cautious (and imo unrealistic) slow-moving, bait-with-the-lead-guy tactics. What I want is the feeling I had when I first started playing the game (i.e., the idea that I need to move around with a balance of caution and aggression because (I assumed) the AI was moving too and if I sat still for too long there was a greater chance that they’d move around my flank or take the high ground, etc.)

5209

Obviously they added the meld point timers to push players into a faster pace in general, but I actually am finding that I enjoy the game a lot more this second go around with this more aggressive approach. Originally, I played a very typical (I assume) style where I slowly crawled my team through cover sitting basically in overwatch at all times and just trading fire with both sides in cover. Now I’m dashing all over the place and actually using the flanking mechanics. The option to have partial flanking increase accuracy also makes me more aggressive. Even when I’m not trying to get a meld canister, I’m zooming through the missions. I bet I am taking something like half as much time a mission this time through and it is just making the game so much more fun. I’m not even really taking heavier loses so far because the higher vulnerability is being offset by much more effective alien killing.

5210

I never liked those hybrid systems. I didn’t play Fallout Tactics, but I’ve played systems where you were real-time until contact, like Silent Storm and Jagged Alliance 2, and I found myself wishing it was always turn-based so I could move my guys in a coherent fashion. I’d move one guy forward in real-time and he’d be caught out and isolated when we made contact because I could only move one guy at a time.

You do not want to have your guys on overwatch when you encounter the enemy. Yeah, I did that a lot when I was first playing, but you’re almost always better off using your initial action some other way.

Higher difficulty does add frustration, but the point is that it’s never easy. Your complaints about tedium are mostly about it being too easy and thus boring when you play cautiously. It’s not easy on the higher difficulties when you are playing cautiously. As with any game with difficulty settings, it’s about finding the level which balances enough challenge to keep it interesting without raising your frustration level too high.

5211

Really? I’ve read about other people suggesting this and I’ve found that it works pretty well for me (on Normal). If you get your free overwatch shot during the alien ‘free move’, you often get a shot when they’re not in cover. If I do it any other way, I’m probably going to be shooting at the aliens in half or full cover.

As for the hybrid systems: IIRC, in FO:T you could enable combat/TB mode whenever you wanted, so you didn’t have to wait for contact to switch. This was preferable because, as I described above, the battlefields and LoS ranges were more varied. So I’d leave it in real time while I approached a fence line or wall or building, then switch to TB mode before I started poking my head around the corner.

5212

Really. It’s one of the things you have to unlearn when you go from Normal to Classic.

Firing at an alien from overwatch is strictly inferior to shooting at an alien in half cover. It’s the same -20 aim penalty, and you cannot get a critical hit unless you’re a sniper with Opportunist, and you can get criticals against targets in cover. You cannot prioritize targets, or the order in which you fire.

Worse, you’re giving up all initiative and committing yourself to a straight firefight, which is only a good choice in the late game when your chance to hit is near 100% and your damage is high. You cannot use explosives, you cannot use special abilities like Run and Gun, and you can’t move into a position to flank the enemy.

Worst case is an Assault armed with a shotgun class weapon. You’re usually trading a 100%, 70% critical attack at point blank range for a 30%-40% chance to hit with no critical. Often, you’re trading two 100% shots for a single low-odds attack, because you have either Close and Personal or Rapid Fire. Or three if you use both. Best case is a sniper with Opportunist within normal shooting range, because then the overwatch shot takes no penalty and can cause a critical hit. A Heavy is giving up two shots if he’s got Bullet Storm, and possibly his chance to catch multiple targets with a rocket and destroy cover. A Support may only need to move a few squares to get a flanking shot, and may want to pop smoke if the odds are that the enemy will survive your first turn’s attack.

The only time I use Overwatch when I’m flushing a group is when it’s a Squad Sight sniper, and only when I’m pretty sure the aliens are not going to end where my sniper can shoot them.

5213

Re. the discussion about the fun of moving fast vs. the more staid approach that’s required.

I made my peace with the game when I realized that it’s basically a board game, and the tactical element isn’t where the immersion (in the sense of “being there”) immersion comes in, but rather in the overall feel of the game on CI (where there’s a real risk of failure, so the over-arching attitude you bring to the tactical game is what sets the immersion, rather than the things you’re doing in the here and now - e.g. running to a spot).

IOW, the realistic graphics fool you into thinking of it as a realtime game, and immersive in that sense (like an fps or a 3rd person game like an MMO might be), but while you can definitely get moments of that type of feeling, on the whole, it’s more a thinking game in which you spend more time pondering options than doing things.

And I second the advice above: if you’re tired, STOP PLAYING, save the game and do something else for a bit. It’s not the sort of game where it’s easy to recover from a silly mis-step made through tiredness, so better to leave it till you’re mentally fresh again.

5214

I understand what you mean, but I like thinking games. The issue isn’t that I want the game to play like an RTS (I love RTS and TB games equally, though my TBS are normally 4x), the issue is that there isn’t a lot of interesting thinking involved in the move-to-cover+overwatch, rinse and repeat regime.

Although, perhaps if I was playing Classic and using overwatch less (as Gus suggests) I’d find the tactics a bit more interesting. On the other hand, I have zero interest in restarting 10-20 times, so if that’s what it takes then I’d rather play on normal and pretend that responding to an alien abduct or crash site requires some urgency. If I play again, maybe I’ll give myself a house-rule for finishing missions faster somehow…

5215

Woodenman is the answer, if you can stomach it. You can avoid the restart issue if you are willing to save before every mission, and replay it if the results are too bad. I wouldn’t suggest creepsaving for the reasons I laid out before, but at least you won’t have to restart the game from the beginning, just from the start of the mission. The drawback is that running the same mission can feel tedious in its own way, and it’s easy to develop bad habits if you are take high risks because you know you can redo the mission. The advantage is that you can try different approaches to a mission if it’s kicking your ass, and you might find tactics that work reliably without relying in extraordinary luck.

5216

Just got my first MEC and ran it up to a car that two mutons were using as cover and hit it with the kinetic attack. Took some dmg, but cleared the map of those two critters. Might have to go with the ranged attack next time. :P

5217

On an unrelated note, Training Roulette is proving interesting, but doesn’t vary the game quite as much as I thought it would.

The thing is that Assaults are largely defined by shotguns and Run and Gun, Heavies by their rocket launchers and related abilities, and Snipers by their rifles and related abilities - particularly Squad Sight, Double Tap, and In The Zone, which will always appear in their normal spots.

Supports are affected the most. They lose the guaranteed ability to become excellent medics with Medic, Deep Pockets, and Savior, but they can get all sorts of odd combos. Flush is a lot more attractive on a Support than on an Assault, for example.

Mostly it shows up as soldiers with unusual strengths that aren’t normally available. Assaults love getting Sprinter and HEAT, which work a lot better for them than for Supports and Heavies respectively. A Sniper with Aggression or Bring 'Em On is a lot deadlier than one with Damn Good Ground, Executioner, or Low Profile. Sometimes it gives you a soldier who is relatively weak since they never get any of the better choices.

5218

Yeah, the fact that you must destroy nearby cover can sometimes be a serious drawback, if the cover is a car, UFO power plant, or Exalt encoder. If you haven’t encountered this, if you destroy the encoder, it’s the same as Exalt successfully hacking it. I’ve done this with a missed rocket attack.

5219

I think so. IIRC Classic Ironman is “the way the devs meant it to be played”, and that’s when you get the full impact of the game. Normal is just training wheels to get the hang of the basics, and the odd thing is, not only do you not get the best out of the gameplay, you don’t even get the full sense of immersion, either. The full sense of immersion, of feeling that you’re actually responding to an alien abduction, etc., only comes when your mind is concentrated wonderfully by the thought of imminent death, when every single move counts :)

It’s only with CI that you start really thinking tactically, and exploiting all the game has to offer tactically. e.g. awareness of 180 degree cover + LOS before any alien sighting or combat becomes big part of the gameplay, and getting yourself in a position where you can hit as-yet-unseen aliens, preferably with elevation advantage, without them hitting your guys at all (if possible), and without awaking potential other close groups (on a Very Difficult setting map, which of course you have to do to get those juicy Engineers :) ) becomes important.

Not saying it’s Tri-d chess or anything, but there’s a fair bit more to it than the “standard” tactic. Yes it’s the standard tactic, but it’s more like a core from which you will deviate from and vary 90% of the time in various ways, as you try to anticipate trouble rather than just cope with it when it comes.

I now think a good middle ground is to play Classic with only Autosave on (i.e. no manual saving) and tapping Quicksave before those moves you instinctively feel might be dodgy. That way, you get some of the similar effect Ironman has of game momentum and freeing you from thinking about saves, thereby heightening immersion, and also, if the shit hits the fan, you’re only ever going to be able to go back to before the moment when the shit was the shittiest, you’ll never be able to totally recover, so you’re still committed to the momentum of a single game to some extent.

But also, hitting F10 before a move you have an instinctive feeling will be dodgy (which it invariably is :) ) doesn’t take up much psychological space, but will train you to be aware of and avoid “those” moments, if at all possible.

(I’m saying “you” here, I mean “one” - you’re probably a better player than me and I’m teaching Gran to suck eggs, but these are just some thoughts in defence of the game’s tactical layer.)

5220

Excellent post. I tried this and just felt cheated so many times because of inconsistencies in the engine’s LOS. I can’t tell you how many times I get a fantastic height advantage on a roof and am not able to shoot someone because the game deems the half-wall is a giant barrier for you and you can’t target an alien - but it’s effectively invisible for the alien as he one shot crits my people to death. In fact when I’m on a roof it often seems easier for the aliens to shoot me, vs if I’m on the ground with the same amount of cover & the same distance.

5221

This is undeniably frustrating. I wish the game had better tools so that you could tell things like what your line of sight will be, where you can throw grenades, launch missiles, etc. before you move your character to a position.

5222

So, I’m going to both entirely agree with you and disagree at the same time. My original experience with the game was very much like this. It was all about the logical puzzles of arranging my squad in arrangements that maximized their ability to respond to unveiled groups of aliens. I enjoyed the game that way and I think it was wonderfully done. However, to me it also ended up becoming a bit of a slog as I carefully exposed territory only when I had my squad fully in place, healed, reloaded, etc. Then I would shuffle forward a tiny bit and repeat and repeat and repeat.

With the timed (by turns) missions, there is a lot more incentive to actually keep my squad moving. It is now an actual strategic decision on when I reload, when I heal someone, if I dash ahead with a couple troops or take the time to consolidate my forces. I mean, there’s still all of the need to optimize terrain, lines of fire, etc. But it is no longer a situation where I can plot out a (within reason) ideal deployment and then take however long I need to rearrange my troops into that exact alignment and reload and heal because I know the LoS rules and engine well enough to know how to safely plot that route without triggering a fight. It’s, to me, a wildly different play style that I wouldn’t have explored on my own. And I’m finding that I love it! Obviously, the most game play effective strategy is still a slower consolidated crawl, but there’s a whole different challenge there if you start to try and finish maps in fewer turns. It’s like the nerdiest form of being an adrenaline junky.

In the original UFO/X-Com, my brother, our friend, and I would actually play ‘co-op’. We would split our squad between each other, and we’d act fairly independently hot seating the keyboard. And it was awesome! Instead of crawling scouts across the map while the main group nuked new contacts from afar, we had small groups of troops fighting on multiple fronts and trying to assist each other. It wasn’t a more effective way to play, but it was a heck of a fun way to play.

5223

Mostly I find that the time pressure from Meld makes me run around in the open. If I’m not in combat and I don’t know where the enemy is, I’ll move everyone forward one action, verify that I haven’t triggered anything, and then I’ll either set people on overwatch or move stragglers to catch up with the main group. The “you heard meld in that direction” signal also gives me goals I wouldn’t normally follow, like running around in the parking lot instead of setting up to enter the primary building.

Sometimes this means I’ll lose several actions when I make enemy contact and run everyone for cover, but it also means that sometimes I’ve got a tight-packed group on overwatch that decimates an enemy patrol on contact. When I was moving people around to cover positions, I’d usually only get a couple of overwatch shots since my guys were more spread out.