XCOM 2

[Wingflier]

I agree with most of that. One of the things that never made sense to me about X:EU was how limited your resources were. You're literally the world's last hope. Your income should be in the billions or even trillions, but instead it's in the thousands. The U.S. Military alone has vastly more resources than the fictional XCOM project, which is supposed to be the culmination of the whole world's resources on a last-ditch effort to defeat an alien invasion. The fact that you have to worry about money at all is a little silly, from an immersion standpoint.

The XCOM 2 plot makes a lot more sense, given that in this game every nation has allied with the aliens, forging a "peace agreement", and you are instead a small group of ragtag resistance fighters, using the limited personal resources of rebellious sects. It makes perfect sense that you have no money, you're literally fighting against the world and the aliens now, instead of just the aliens. So it's more immersive in terms of the plot, and it's more immersive in terms of the way the soldiers act and behave. Anyway, a 5% chance to instantly kill an opponent (which is what the weapon mod does) is so hilariously unreliable that it's barely worth mentioning. It's just a nice thing to have every once in awhile when you get lucky.

[Aklyon]

15% from a superior repeater on the otherhand, is amazing(ly unreliable) at saving you shots. Its still more reliable than the basic hair trigger mods I have found by the quarter-dozen.

[Mick]

Just beat the game, holy shit that final mission... It was pretty intense. The final room would be quite a challenge on its own even if you didn't have to run the long gauntlet to get there.

[Shrugging Khan]

Well, you do you, I guess. I understand the weird disconnect between the names of mods and their function, like how a stock adds damage on a miss, but that doesn't affect immersion for me at all. In terms of the actual mechanics, I don't see how a chance to insta-kill is any less immersive than a critical hit. You got a good shot off and damaged something that destroyed the enemy in a single shot.

It's still iffy because it works with the same probability independently of the nature of the enemy - a flat chance to instantly destroy a rat or a tank. That is silly!
For this reason it also doesn't compare to the crits, because those were always dependant on the nature of the weapon used and the HP and armor stats of the enemy in question.

The modded stocks could be explained that they make the weapon easier to handle, improving the soldier's ability to hit in ways that inflict superficial wounds even when they fail to hit in a way that does "significant" damage. In this sense it's the inverse of the dodge mechanic.

Making it impossible to miss is still mighty strange. So a blind soldier can hit an enemy standing a mile away with a bent matchlock pistol, as long as they use the magic stock? Grah!

Also the new weapons all look stupid. Stuuupid. I want the Carbine, Battle Rifle and Heavy Machine Gun from The Long War, not some chainsaw-style autocannon straight from the hands of Arnie 

[keith.lamothe]

I think they could address all these concerns by adding a cinematic after the first mission or so:

"
Congratulations, Shrugging Khan, you have successfully Disliked This Game!

Press Alt+F4 to continue to further conquests!
"

[crazyroosterman]

Well, you do you, I guess. I understand the weird disconnect between the names of mods and their function, like how a stock adds damage on a miss, but that doesn't affect immersion for me at all. In terms of the actual mechanics, I don't see how a chance to insta-kill is any less immersive than a critical hit. You got a good shot off and damaged something that destroyed the enemy in a single shot.

It's still iffy because it works with the same probability independently of the nature of the enemy - a flat chance to instantly destroy a rat or a tank. That is silly!
For this reason it also doesn't compare to the crits, because those were always dependant on the nature of the weapon used and the HP and armor stats of the enemy in question.

The modded stocks could be explained that they make the weapon easier to handle, improving the soldier's ability to hit in ways that inflict superficial wounds even when they fail to hit in a way that does "significant" damage. In this sense it's the inverse of the dodge mechanic.

Making it impossible to miss is still mighty strange. So a blind soldier can hit an enemy standing a mile away with a bent matchlock pistol, as long as they use the magic stock? Grah!

Also the new weapons all look stupid. Stuuupid. I want the Carbine, Battle Rifle and Heavy Machine Gun from The Long War, not some chainsaw-style autocannon straight from the hands of Arnie 

to be fair xcom has always been a little bit silly and not completely realistic(I've never played the long war so I cant comment on that at all) just realistic enough to fit the theme and mechanics (although to a lessor degree) personally I'm just pleased that the developers cared enough about the mechanics to put them first over everything else.

[Mick]

You'd think in a world with alien technology they could come up with mods that make more sense. I don't think it's enough of an 'immersion-breaker' for me to make a fuss over it though.

Stock = Homing-Nanites, you'll always at least graze the target
Repeater = Uh, I dunno, adds some psionic wizardry

[Shrugging Khan]

I think they could address all these concerns by adding a cinematic after the first mission or so:

"
Congratulations, Shrugging Khan, you have successfully Disliked This Game!

Press Alt+F4 to continue to further conquests!
"

Oh yes, and if you actually do quit at that point it immediately opens one window for steam refunds and one for metacritic (or something) 

Come on though, I really see it as valid criticism. If game devs just put in things that make no sense and nobody calls it out, it can only ever get worse

[keith.lamothe]

Come on though, I really see it as valid criticism. If game devs just put in things that make no sense and nobody calls it out, it can only ever get worse

Sure, it's silly. And they should try harder on that front next time.

But bear in mind an important principle of engineering: if you're trying to solve a hard problem that's been failed multiple times (e.g. various problems with the user experience in the original XCOM and all of its imitators), stop trying to solve other problems (e.g. plausibility) at the same time.

In other words, I'd rather deal with silly than the bullshot-and-slowverwatch sandwich XCOM's served me in the past. It's still one of my favorite genres, but I've generally only been able to stomach a full game very occasionally.

[TheVampire100]

I think this is hair splitting.
For example the hit and miss stuff and with mods, that alöways hit. Hit and miss isn't hardlined like it wasin the first remake. There are grazing shots that are a mix between miss and hit. They don't fully hit the enemy but they still do some damage.

XCOM 2 is in all terms better than its predecessor and just because something does not "fit 100% into the lore or realism" I wouldn't refuse to buy an overall awesome game.
Did I mention that the makers of Long War worked with the development team together?

[crazyroosterman]

I think this is hair splitting.
For example the hit and miss stuff and with mods, that alöways hit. Hit and miss isn't hardlined like it wasin the first remake. There are grazing shots that are a mix between miss and hit. They don't fully hit the enemy but they still do some damage.

XCOM 2 is in all terms better than its predecessor and just because something does not "fit 100% into the lore or realism" I wouldn't refuse to buy an overall awesome game.
Did I mention that the makers of Long War worked with the development team together?

no you didn't actually btw is long war a mob or an actual expansion? its just the way people keep talking it make sound like more than a mod to me but yes mechanically this game looks very solid to me.
ps before anybody asks no I hadn't actually heard of this long war thing before this thread

[TheVampire100]

It was a mod for the original game that expanded it (a lot). You could say it's an "inofficial expansion".
http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?
Never played it, though.

I don't know how much they worked on XCOM2 because clearly they weren't lead devs. They released however three mods right at release, one that adds leaders for your team that give squad buffs (but you can have only one leader at the same time in your squad).
Another adds a new alien type. I forogt what the third did but I think it was a new weapon.

[Coppermantis]

Making it impossible to miss is still mighty strange. So a blind soldier can hit an enemy standing a mile away with a bent matchlock pistol, as long as they use the magic stock? Grah!

Also the new weapons all look stupid. Stuuupid. I want the Carbine, Battle Rifle and Heavy Machine Gun from The Long War, not some chainsaw-style autocannon straight from the hands of Arnie 

That just seems like an exaggeration to me. It's not a "magic" stock, it's taking an already high-class (or alien) weapon and giving it an improvement that lets a trained soldier wield it better. That effect translates into one or two guaranteed damage. In the "fluff" it doesn't actually mean that any Tom, Dick, or Harry could always do 2 damage with it, but the abstraction that is the game represents it as such.

I suppose that's what you're complaining about in the first place but I'm just not sure why, XCOM and any turn-based strategy game will always involve a goodly deal of abstraction.


As for the weapons looking stupid, I only really dislike the magnetic weapons. The Plasma ones are awesome, I think, and all of them feel really good and impactful when they fire. Even the pistols actually feel like they're doing damage rather than the "pew pew pew" ones in EU.

The armor, on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired. The starting armors look cool, but I'm not too fond of the Warden Armor that makes all my guys look like the main characters in Crysis.

[crazyroosterman]

It was a mod for the original game that expanded it (a lot). You could say it's an "inofficial expansion".
http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?
Never played it, though.

I don't know how much they worked on XCOM2 because clearly they weren't lead devs. They released however three mods right at release, one that adds leaders for your team that give squad buffs (but you can have only one leader at the same time in your squad).
Another adds a new alien type. I forogt what the third did but I think it was a new weapon.

thanks that looks like the sort of thing id love if I had xcom also one particular part of the q and a amused me greatly.
Q: I'm fairly new to xcom. What difficulty should I start with?
A: Normal.

Q: I'm an XCOM veteran. What difficulty should I start with?
A: Normal.

Q: But I'm really awesome at --
A: Sorry to interrupt, but just start with Normal. We don't have easy difficulties in this mod that hold your hand while you learn the ropes and we've removed every bit of code we can find that cheats for the player on the lower difficulties. It's going to be hard. The other difficulties are just harder versions of Normal; feel free to move up when you get a handle on all the new mechanics. XD
 

[Aklyon]

The plasmas in nucom2 are certainly cooler looking, yeah. Instead of little bolts you get a big trail of particles behind the shot.