And so did I. I remember seeing it for the first time, and being surprised they didn’t go with it. Cones of sight, adjustable aim, AP units those were all things I missed in FiraXCOM.
But he gave the reason for change, and I do buy it, as it is in line with overall design and Firaxis legacy: clear trade-offs.
Let’s not pretend that UFO’s design is some holy grail of perfection - AP system was less about smart tactical play, and more about counting and micromanaging of AP.
Could the system be modernised and made easier to interact with by modern UI? Yes, I believe it could be. But that’s more of a Paradox thing, not Firaxis. Firaxis were always to make a Firaxis game, and they changed design so it suits their sensibilities.
I am just quite tired of people blaming every change they don’t like on “dirty consolers”.
I didn’t realize that SteamSpy still works, they have different estimate:
and add sales from console, so it’s not 1 mil but probably 4 or maybe higher
don’t know how accurate it is, these are the number for XCom2
and 2 mil for sequel looks a bit too low
I know about many attempts at remakes of JA, well technically they still trying
War themed there was Fallout Tactics, Silent Storm, Valkyria Chronicles, Shadowrun(?) A bunch of various Warhammer themed games. There where some others of smaller scale, meaning more niche games that mostly sold from other shops like half of Combat Mission came out at that time. The UFO series, granted one of them was realtime. It’s not like others just didn’t exist or something.
You have games like Battle Brothers which have no connection to XCom but it’s one of the more popular TB tactics. Meaning people do play those, regardless of existence of XCom.
I can’t say that XCom is somehow “resurrected” TB tactical games, because in essence it’s not one of them like X-Com or Jagged Alliance was. Like Invisible Corps for example, you can call it a TB tactical game but would you recommend it to a fan of classical XCom?
It just annoys me in some of the gamedesign choices that where made. And I’m not taking about being too different to X-Com. I mean things like how classes and character focus drive you into a spiral of fails. Or how so many things in the game are meta abilities and arbitrary rules, the concept of pods. I can’t even play it anymore without mods.
Dragon Age: Origins - I actually really like it, unlike what came after it. I remember it as really fun fantasy RPG where playing as a good guy had more negative consequences compared to being selfish
Fair enough.
I just associate IP with the core game design. So if next Crusader Kings becomes a card game I would probably be pissed as that would be a bit too much of evolution. Imho some games are better to be left alone. Like not every book or a movie needs a sequel.
I also had the same thoughts when i saw that video way back then, i thought it was way more interesting that the stiff two point system, however after playing “old” AP system games i understood why they did it. there was also a part in the video were they said using the AP to increase the aim of the soilder, this would be a nice a add-on too.
P.P is is updating the “old” AP system without going the firaxis route, but the AP system in P.P can be further improved, i came to the forum to talk about what was bothering of such system, even though small, it is still something that is present, the visual representation of unspent points in the game.
But it was a “dumbed down” RPG, instead of spiritual successor of Baldur’s Gate i have been waiting for. Though an NPC trying to sell me DLC in my camp was what really left a bitter taste.
Luckily Obsidian with Pillars of Eternity has nicely scratched that itch nicely.
Was it trying to be a spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate? If so I’m stunned, I played through, and also liked, both games but I would have never made that connection. If anything I thought that Dragon Age played like Summoner.
I’m a console gamer myself, I just think that it suits a different style of game to the PC. I’ll use the console for FPS, Driving, platform games, and Twin Stick shooters. But anything with deep layers of strategy in it, I’ll use a PC.
Silly why? It wouldn’t be the first time that a game had this treatment in order to accommodate the console market.
I’ll never forget trying to play Populus on the Playstation 1, I was so made up that such a great old PC title was being converted over to my console, and my god it sucked when I got my hands on it. I don’t think I’ve ever once come across a serious strategy title that’s been remade well for consoles. The difference that came later, is that devs learnt that it was smarter to develop the game for all markets at the same time, you don’t get a remake of the game anymore, you get a port and a simultaneous release, and in order to do that for strategy titles you have to dumb down/streamline the gameplay to accommodate that console market.
Or do you think that console gamers would have lapped up an old style Xcom game in the way that they did the Firaxis version? (PC gamers would have, they’d been longing for it.)
There was quite a bit of marketing around it, yes. Bioware going back to it’s roots etc. Whenever it was devs intention - I don’t know. Not that I expected isometric D&D - I just found it dull after first couple hours (up to the end of battle of Ostagar). I also thought, that Bioware didn’t pull the morally ambiguous writing well - it had all the traps but none of the appeal of their traditional black&white approach. And it was the first game of theirs I notice the overindulgent exposition of boring and unremarkable lore (we look and sound like every other dwarf you have ever seen in the videogame, so let us tell you our indepth history, which will in no way enrich or expand us).
It’s a brigade level tactics game covering WW2 and more modern military conflicts. One of the cool features is simulation of communication chain, meaning that you have to maintain a radio or visual/audial contact between your platoons to be able to give them commands. There is a large degree of micro control available, like you can take a single squad from your platoon, split it into fireteams, tell them to get a bazooka and go and try to deal with a tank blocking your approach. It’s more like a training sim than a game. They have a simple but effective solution to commanding many units in real time. In turn based mode, each turn takes about 30 seconds. So you give out commands, end turn, game simulates next 30 seconds and you can watch results, with ability to scroll playtime and move camera around. The other option is to play game in real-time with pause, but it make it a bit more reactive and you might miss important events if you are not looking at right direction.
There are some similarities but they are superficial. Combat Mission is rather slow paced and requires more coordination between units. It uses real scale and real stats for units, instead of being balanced around multiplayer.
Though an NPC trying to sell me DLC in my camp was what really left a bitter taste.
