[quote=“Ragnarok, post:40, topic:1327”]
My only issue with the New XCom, that seems to have been addressed in XCom 2 was that the enemies were literally dropped in the path that you are heading. Many times I would literally see them drop down out of no where [/quote]
Yup, “teleporting”/“warping” - same issue PP has to some extent now.
That is weird. One thing FiraXComs are usually hated for, is the enemy activation mechanics (pods patrolling on a map). X2 isn’t any different. You can see enemies from a mile away and whatever spawns in XCOM 2 usually does from dropships, with a 1 turn flare (I’m assuming you don’t talk about those though).
I have never, in hundreds of hours of XCOM 2, had enemies instantly spawning on me (reinforcements and faceless notwithstanding) , and never heard of similar complains on the XCOM reddit, despite being a former regular there. Could this have been mod related?
In EU/EW not all of the pods would patrol around the map and instead some of them would literally teleport to their next location. I believe this partly had something to do with limitations of that generation of consoles (I know the consoles limited multi-floor designs) and the fact that it was a multi-platform release so everything had to work the same on all platforms.
With EW they did some things to reduce the likelihood of the enemy teleporting in but it was still a possibility. I think I only saw teleporting happen 2-3 times in my 250+ hours of non-LW play. And out of those teleports only once was it where the enemy literally teleported into the middle of my group as I was moving up the map (iirc was a Supply Ship).
For X2 they removed the pod teleportation bit and have all units on the map at all times. So it would make sense that you’ve never seen it in X2 as this was an EU/EW issue mostly brought about by trying to optimize the game for the consoles.
Something else I just remembered with EU/EW was that not all pods were loaded at the start of the map and instead the game merely “remembered” where they were until you gained sight of them. This was what led to the teleporting in EU. Since they weren’t a physical unit until spotted, when they “moved” there was no character to move so they just teleported to their target location. In EW I believe they made the game spawn all enemies (except for trap ones) at the start though there were still situations where the enemy could teleport as opposed to walking to their next location.
XCOM 1 had a few weird issues indeed, my morning brain just took “New XCOM” to mean XCOM 2, my bad.
I remember meeting Schrödinger’s cyberdisc, that was there and not there, at the very edge of a battlescanner’s vision. blinking in and out of existence on the list of targetable aliens.
RIP my first ironman LW playthrough lol
Agreed with everything you said, but this sentence here basically sums up why I shelled out the extra money for the backer’s version. On the other hand, I’m also married… which is why I didn’t shell out money on a higher tier lol
Actually, what they did was program two games. GEOSCAPE.EXE and TACTICAL.EXE. You start in GEOSCAPE, where you do all your management and handle the strategic game, then, when a mission starts, the game saves all its data to the hard drive, starts TACTICAL, and closes itself. TACTICAL does it’s thing, you secure the UFO, defend the city, whatever, then TACTICAL saves the mission results, starts GEOSCAPE, and closes itself.
In a way, they built a strategic companion game to Rebelstar that linked up with it.
That allowed both halves of the game to have full access to the resources available on the system.
Yeah, it was a glitch, not an intended game mechanic. It wasn’t limited to EU or unrevealed pods either, in EW with Long War’s Scout class you could actually watch a glitched pod teleport around. Basically it seemed to be some code to prevent pods from getting stuck. If they tried to patrol multiple turns in a row without reaching their waypoint, the game would just put them there. Firaxis probably figured nobody would notice since you can’t see a pod without activating it. Vanilla at least. Long War actually had to patch a lot of stuff that happened in the fog of war since they extended battlescanner range, and added a Phantom unit and motion tracker which allowed the player to see things Firaxis never intended.
That said, Thin Man drops were totally intentional. Mutons, too, in Confounding Light.
Oh I know Thin Mint drops were intentional. Same for Muton, Chrysalids, Cyberdisc, etc depending on the level. They would all fall under the “trap mobs” I mentioned.
And yes, Firaxis didn’t think people would notice right up until they started teleporting into people. When they worked on fixing it for EW they said as much and that it was done to help improve system performance. The game was at the edge of what the 360 and PS3 could handle so they did multiple things to make sure the game could actually be played on them.
So went to replay OG XCom today. Beginner, first mission. Crossing a window, a soldier is caught in an alien blast. Another soldier is caught in another window. A third soldier is killed when a forth soldier goes auto shot and kills the alien target AND his human comrade. A fifth soldier is killed when an alien shots from the darkness. In six or seven turns, lost half my troops and got an “OK” rating.
If Phoenix Point can keep this level of insanity, but with FXCom interface, it’s going to be my new favorite game 
I don’t expect it to be quite like that. Don’t forget that the Skyranger could hold 14 soldiers while the Avenger could hold 26. In Apocalypse you could have up to 36 soldiers in a mission and could issue commands to groups at a time (you were allowed up to six groups of six). The problem with this is that you either end up just swarming the enemy or only using a few soldiers (once you have proper armor). It also becomes tedious to constantly move so many soldiers around, though in Apocalypse it wasn’t so bad if you played in Real Time Mode (something not coming to Phoenix Point) and the alien structures allowed for some pretty intense/epic firefights with large squads but also they trivialized a bunch of the other missions (like the 36man Death Squad waiting for aliens to try and leave the alien #6 Transport Ship). Also with the free-aim feature you could do things like have a “scout” (aka a red shirt) followed by 3-6 “snipers” and keep the majority of your people safe.
Now there is going to larger squad sizes than FiraXCOM and I expect there to be more losses as well. I just don’t expect squad sizes/losses to be as large as the OG games due to balance reasons.
I just realized that we didn’t saw Aliens’ Overwatch yet in Phoenix Point… Like if Return Fire wasn’t enough. 
It’s going to be interesting to see how they do this. I would assume it would take Willpower for them to use OW just like it does us. At which point how will the game decide to use it? Of course they could just give it to them for free as a way to try and balance things, but I doubt that since it’s now an automatic shot as opposed to the OGs where it was a formula to see if/when they fired on your soldier.
The notion of alien willpower is really strange, I take it as such a human concept. We see in the BBs that aliens loose willpower when their own gets killed, but what happens when their willpower gets depleted? They panick? They start to override their instructions and inner programing? Refuse to fight? If that’s the case, then they very clearly have their own self purpose, limited to each individual alien, and can think on their own.
I have written before that it would be a interesting idea for the player to arrive at an alien haven. Rebel aliens, not willing to join humanity, but also not siding with their overmind.
They panic - even while driven by some overmind they still can think and make individual decisions, and evaluate their chances in specific situations, thus panic. At least crabmen and queen have this trait. Since they love their overmind then they simply follow orders, but I think that they are not enslaved and didn’t lost their own will.
I just “hope” that there are different kind of “panic” for enemies too, some might just ignore “retreat” or “stand ground” commands and suicide-charge at nearest instead of staying in cover and using OW/etc., even if not “individual mutants”, but mutant-types (aka crabs will do X, floating-thingies will do Y, Sirens can do Z, etc.).
If our “trained” soldiers can blow up our whole team due to panic, I want the enemy to do the same 
They follow the Overmind but they’re still individuals. The virus has merely changed them to follow the Overmind. Think of them panicking as their individual fear, rage, etc overwhelming the instructions of the Overmind. The virus might rob one of free will but that doesn’t mean it can 100% suppress instincts.
Right there with you my friend… as it sits I had to hide, move around and embezzle money from the checking account to back at 125. My wife never understands the love of gaming, even if I now have her addicted to WoW to distract her. X-Com (Enemy Unknown for EU) is a game that took many of mine, and my brothers, lives in hrs that we spent together wiping out those blasted Gray’s and their alien cohorts from our beloved planet. Nothing better then moving short off the ship, hunkering down and BOOM, grey moves far out on your eye sight and you down em with a head shot. ARRROOOOOO! only sound you needed to hear!
That was a hard earned lesson as a kid. Don’t run past windows willy nilly. Sadly, until i read that, i bet the same thing would happen to me if I had gone back to play again.
I remembet being so paranoid on some missions that i’d rather rocket the front off an entire house than try running past it.
They had a team of just 4(!!!) people, so they are truly legendary developers.
Yes, in Original X-Com you were HUNTED and it was like a horror survival game. Exactly what made the original legendary first and foremost.