Yeah, I never like the whole, ‘That’s XCOM baby!’ thing for that type of mishap.
For me, that phrase works best me when it comes to more random, chain-effect type events that you thought you had taken into account. Cars blowing up and then making something else explode after an unusual turn of shooting and grenades for example.
The real “That’s Xcom” shit was back in the OG when you threw a grenade and it decided to land 8 tiles to the right, right where your flanking squad was setting up.
100% flanking shots at point blank are easy to achieve, even in L/I, and there’s a fuckton of skills and consumables that will guarantee a kill, so that isn’t really an issue, the issue is what leads to the desperate need to always guarantee kills and alpha strike every pod, every single fucking time! This turns XCOM2 into a puzzle game where you have to find the proper combination to always wipe pods in a turn. It’s not an unpleasant game by any stretch, but it’s a tad one dimensional.
Issues such as the game favoring a deep roster with a few super soldiers, complete uselessness of rookies past the first month, reverse difficulty curve and prohibitive healing times make it crucial never to be hit. Solve these issues and leaving an alien alive isn’t such a big deal.
Take LW (for XCOM1), where these issues are (mostly) addressed. You can drag an engagement over a few turns because you have disabling skills, are encouraged to build a broad roster to deal with fatigue, armor health prevents infirmary time so you can get grazed on occasion. There is always a case where a prime target needs to be removed with high priority, as you’d expect in a tactical game, but it’s less of an issue if a random Matty Mc Muton is still alive to take a pot shot at you.
And, of course, there’s the dreaded activation system. Aliens patrolling in pods never bothered me, gives them an semblance of cohesion. What really irks the entire player base really is how aliens activate, and all the nonsense it generates.
Yeah, as your soldiers get better, guaranteeing a kill from flanking is far better, you’re right. However, it’s more the fact getting to those flanking positions could be, in itself, incredibly dangerous. That’s what I mainly meant by the ‘avoid doing things that make sense’.
I remember starting a firefight while inside a roadside diner. My team had cover and so did the aliens. There wasn’t much cover in between and I didn’t want to run far out to cover on flanking sides since it was the first pod and I knew there’d be others. In fact, when meeting pods, I try not to reveal even a single square of the fog of war, again, restrictive. My soldiers nearest to the enemy were just outside the diner behind some dumpsters, about 1-2 squares away from the outside diner wall.
My team had crap hit percentages and there was a Viper which I knew might use the tongue/wrap ability. So, seeing as though there was a ladder (behind my furthest soldiers) I sent a guy to the roof to get a better hit chance. Makes sense, right? Well, he got to the roof and, because of HIS better range of vision, he triggered TWO pods. What was he doing up there? Standing on the wall, dropping his trousers and mooning everyone while shouting, ‘Cop a load of this, alien scum!’?
Which leads me to one more thing about pods (sorry for all this off topic talk btw). The way pods activated was often very counter intuitive. It was so keenly set to squares that it was easy to think there were no other aliens around due to the amount of noise and explosions going on. You could blow up walls, cars and fuel stations right on the edge of the POD-triggering square and a group of mutons could be in the next room having a cup of tea, bizarrely oblivious. Then, because you get a false sense of security, you run around to flank your current enemies and you trigger them. The large ordinance explosives didn’t attract their curiosity at all but you send one scout forward to hide behind a tin of tomatoes and they suddenly gain eagle sight and go on a rampage. Argh, it’s hard to explain in words.
Anyway, the All or Nothing means finishing wounded aliens can be tricky due to needing to flank (to get a decent hit chance, at least early game) whilst avoiding pod activation whereas I’m hoping free aim with some guaranteed damage will eliminate that. That’s why in XCOM I used so many grenadiers.
Mind you, it might not even matter since PP doesn’t have pods and I doubt they’ve balanced the game with a, ‘kill everything in one turn’ mindset 
So yeah, I really enjoyed XCOM despite my complaints, and I agree with many of those you listed, but I’m really looking forward to PP’s different way of doing things.
luckily the ballistic system solves most of that. with all those explosions and bullets flying, there is no way the aliens just outside of your sight wouldn’t have been hit and injured, if not killed
That sounds great. I’m really tempted to get the edition that has the beta builds available to play now but at the same time I don’t want to risk spoiling the newness of playing from fresh on day one.
If it helps, they’re intentionally going to be keeping some stuff out of the backer builds so as to not ruin surprises. Also, these types of games are meant to be played through many times.
And with the three factions each with it’s own ending, you have to play at least three times in order to get everything out of it. Not to mention there may be a few easter eggs in there to keep things fun and interesting for your twentieth playthrough.
The 3 faction’s and PP’s own, so at least 4 times 
nevermind.
Thanks to all the replies. I didn’t know about the factions and different endings or the fact that they’re keeping stuff back.
I’ll mull it over and maybe think about picking it up soon, especially since the release date got moved.
Sure thing. Remember to check back later this month and see what we’re doing and thinking about backer build 4. It may be enough to nudge you one direction or the other. As always, there’s never anything wrong with waiting til release… 99% of the time, it’s the smart choice. I think a lot of us just have enough old school goodwill in Gollop’s name that we would’ve gotten behind just about anything he decided to do.
Good call. If you are not sold on what we are seeing now, have a look at the next release of game play. It is just around the corner anyway.
I fall into that second category who played the original xcoms far too much. If this is a modern remake by… by Gollop… and it is even 1/2 as good… it will be worth every cent! 
Yeah, I loved the originals too They were like nothing I’d played before. I’d enjoyed Laser Squad on the C64 but the original Xcoms just had so much more to them in addition to the turn based battles.
Despite the levels sometimes being too large, lone sectoids hiding in lockers and the shock of how much tougher the game felt, I really enjoyed Terror from the Deep too. Loved the addition of the underwater setting. I’m hoping this game, if successful, gets an underwater expansion at some point.
The true upgrade for xcom 2 - sectoids now had an entire cruise ship of coat closets to choose from to hide in.
Raise your hands if you eventually just started bringing rockets and levelling entire decks just to avoid hide n seek!
Launcher to clear out the ships in TFTD was worth the cost of every rocket! haha
I was so happy XCOM:Apoc gave us the Auto cannon with explosive rounds! 
Can’t find that last one… just let loose with the cannons and level the map! Then the final report was always negative from all the crap that was destroyed!