And yet, you have no idea what enemies will you face and in what situation you’ll be deployed. I would say, not knowing about the terrain somehow fits the game even more and would explain why pilot is so dumb and blind. 
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I can better handle the idea of enemies starting out in hidden locations, ie buildings, than I can accept buildings that start out hidden in fog…
Me too, but I would prefer the proportion of small maps to larger maps to be around 5 to 1, and no larger maps just for the sake of making them larger.
I agree with this, basically:
As to FXcom… I think they did a great job, and a bit more than that. Right now we can say, hey they streamlined TBS to attract casual players! But before they did, who would have thought that such thing was even possible? Remember Fallout 3? How different things would have been if it was made after FXcom…
Also, they are actually great games, with very solid mechanics. I wouldn’t even call it streamlining, they didn’t cut things - they went to the whiteboard and did something new.
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Frankly, you need to do both. In its early days XCOM had a fairly limited suite of enemies, but what made the game so tense was the fact that you didn’t know where they were - you could only hear them moving in the dark.
One big problem with PP at the mo is that you know precisely what you’re facing right from the get-go, right down to the ability to click on the critter and find out how many HP/WP and weapons it’s got.
There is no tension, merely the semi-tactical challenge of figuring out how to alpha-strike Nasty A on the other side of the map without getting RF’d or caught exposed by Nasty B - assuming you haven’t alpha-struck it as well.
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Hmmm…Have you forgotten that mist is a story-wise object here? It’s a part of story and should be MUCH BIGGER part of gameplay. So your argument is very inaccurate here
But TBH, story related or not, games never had to have any explanation of fog of war. Fog of war exists in games for decades and I don’t remember anyone was complaining about it before? It adds to the surprise, tension and somewhat “simulates” limited vision of soldiers, so there’s really not a single reason why fog of war shouldn’t be implemented. Too much fun in it (and too much fun gone without it!!!)
And I don’t understand why bigger, slower missions are often perceived so badly? With assistance of fog of war and limited vision (=not 360 degrees), it could be very needed feature. You prefer all mutants to be crowded in one place of the mission because of small sizes of maps? Want them to be seen in first few turns because there is no fog of war implemented? It doesn’t sound like good gameplay design to me.
@noStas, new maps and new mission types doesn’t mean they will be bigger…
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I have no problem with bigger, slower missions as you put it, if the pacing of the game is built for it… there are simply way too many fights to slow this thing down and maintain my interest… and to restructure the game will require more than a band-aid…
That’s true. Personally I doubt that any serious gameplay mechanics rearrangements are being planned. It’s too late for that…
This is a fact, as well as the fact that developers think about it, and the game is in the process of balance + additions = development.