|
Outsiders have "a thing" in the game. They are a glorified piece of communications gear that must be captured for plot reasons. It may be a small and unexciting niche, but what do you expect from a HAM radio with a rifle?
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 16:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 05:50 |
|
|
Pvt.Scott posted:Outsiders have "a thing" in the game. They are a glorified piece of communications gear that must be captured for plot reasons. It may be a small and unexciting niche, but what do you expect from a HAM radio with a rifle? I think the point was that UFOs stop carrying them once you do the alien base. Basically, they just needed a "boss" enemy for UFOs and didn't want to spoil Sectoid Commander or Ethereal. It's important to note that Sectoid Commanders don't stop appearing in the game once you encounter the Ethereal, because the commanders have a reason to exist. But you never see an outsider again. If mid-game UFOs had a couple outsiders + a commander, it would make more sense.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 16:53
|
|
|
Sage Grimm posted:Keep a couple countries satellite free and you'll keep seeing Seekers in Abduction missions! You still get them periodically in the random council missions that pop up, and on landed UFOs. I also could have swore I ran into a couple in a terror mission which seem to be grab bags of alien types. Sloober fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Feb 19, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 17:27
|
|
|
I actually really like destroying power cores, especially in Battleships. The very last room has a power core in the center that Sectoid Commanders love to take cover behind, which can turn a Heavy's Suppression into a nearly guaranteed 10+ damage.  Also, is there any reason why you don't have subtitles turned on? I know the trio of talking heads don't have that much interesting to say, but it'd be nice to ensure we don't miss plot points. Mighty Dicktron posted:Heavies are useful. I like 'em. You know that achievement for clearing a UFO with one soldier on Classic+? I got that with a Captain-rank Heavy. Sure, he only had to deal with 2 pairs of floaters and the outsider (small scout), and he got shot in the face once by the outsider while in high cover, but that's just what outsiders do. Spiffo posted:I think the point was that UFOs stop carrying them once you do the alien base. Basically, they just needed a "boss" enemy for UFOs and didn't want to spoil Sectoid Commander or Ethereal. It's important to note that Sectoid Commanders don't stop appearing in the game once you encounter the Ethereal, because the commanders have a reason to exist. But you never see an outsider again. Really? I've never seen a Sectoid Commander after getting to Ethereals. Is this something they changed with EW, or do I just rush the endgame too hard?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 17:34
|
|
|
Felinoid posted:Really? I've never seen a Sectoid Commander after getting to Ethereals. Is this something they changed with EW, or do I just rush the endgame too hard? It's something changed with EW; Sectoid Commanders can escort one of the new alien units.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 17:37
|
|
|
SilentW posted:Hi everyone, it's me. So what exactly did happen to you and your team when they decided to scrap the FPS version and make it into the TPS that it is now?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 18:23
|
|
|
Oh hey, missed this somehow.SilentW posted:Hi everyone, it's me. I only have one question: Are you aware that you helped make a good game and should be proud of yourself? Because you did and you should.  Okay, an actual question this time. Did you consider making the dispatch missions (where you send agents out to do a thing by themselves) possible to result in failure (either failing to recover the item, losing an agent, or both), and if so, what were your reasons for deciding against it?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
I downloaded and played the XCOM:EU demo, basically a two-mission tutorial that holds your hand for the first 60% and tells you "Move here. Now throw a grenade at the sectoids." and two things really stood out. The first being that the tutorial teaches you to be bad at XCOM. It's things like spreading your team thin, and using two actions to run into buildings with no support. The second is that the tutorial ends at an awkward moment. The last action you're forced to take is this: "Now that you've moved all your other soldiers this turn, move this team member up on the roof and make a push. Oh look, there are two Sectoids over here, drawing a bead on you. ThisconcludesthetutorialhavefuninXCOM:EnemyUnknown!". EDIT: To clarify, the tutorial ends there but the mission doesn't. For the next turn you're given full control of your team. It's not hard killing the sectoids, but it's still a pretty lovely thing for a tutorial to do, forcing you to eat at least one shot from a Sectoid. Or is it Sputnik fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Feb 19, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 18:50
|
|
|
Or is it Sputnik posted:I downloaded and played the XCOM:EU demo, basically a two-mission tutorial that holds your hand for the first 60% and tells you "Move here. Now throw a grenade at the sectoids." and two things really stood out. The first being that the tutorial teaches you to be bad at XCOM. It's things like spreading your team thin, and using two actions to run into buildings with no support. poo poo, that's all? The tutorial in the full game kills all your rookies except one, because story! And gravitas! I suppose if you don't know how to play at all, then it's good to do once, but otherwise it's a huge hinderance and sets your squad evolution back a couple missions.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 19:08
|
|
|
The Tutorial is the perfect example of: "Don't ever do this" Seriously, if any shot you are taking, or any move you are making, is reminding you of the Tutorial, DON'T DO IT.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 19:39
|
|
|
Doesn't it also have you dash through a closed door that you can't see the other side of? The Tutorial is really bad.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 19:46
|
|
|
SniHjen posted:The Tutorial is the perfect example of: "Don't ever do this" Haha, more like "If you're playing like in the tutorial, this thing's gonna go down the same way".
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 19:47
|
|
|
I think I've finally gotten over the first hump on classic. Almost done with the second month, no squad deaths, I've captured several aliens and carapace armor should be done researching soon. I look forward to several infuriating full-cover veteran deaths in my future.  E: of course two of my three snipers were promoted from 55 aim rookies. Why not. Not created equally is fun! Pvt.Scott fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Feb 19, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 20:00
|
|
|
I can appreciate the tutorial for being a Bad Example. You play it once, realize that you can do so much better, and only improve from there. Unless you're Darksydephil.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 20:03
|
|
|
Green Intern posted:I can appreciate the tutorial for being a Bad Example. You play it once, realize that you can do so much better, and only improve from there. Plus, I think it's intentional that the game gives you an effectively bonus mission where you are guaranteed to lose three people and have one promoted, since it gives you a squaddie for your actual first mission. I'm not sure the three dead people even 'count' as it were, sort of like the bonus rookies in that one Enemy Within mission we'll speak no more of.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 20:09
|
|
|
The Casualty posted:poo poo, that's all? The tutorial in the full game kills all your rookies except one, because story! And gravitas! I suppose if you don't know how to play at all, then it's good to do once, but otherwise it's a huge hinderance and sets your squad evolution back a couple missions. The first time I played EU was hotseat-style with a friend and splitting control of the squad down the middle. That sole survivor was his guy, an aces Support named Padre, who survived the whole game and became the psychic who took one for Team Earth in the final cutscene. This remains the best ending to a videogame I'm yet aware of.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 20:09
|
|
|
I've always looked at it as a tutorial that doesn't tell you how to play, but how your attitude to fights should be. "Oh, you've lost all but one guy in your squad and have lost all hope for victory? Good for you, get over it and win."
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 20:14
|
|
|
Willie Tomg posted:The first time I played EU was hotseat-style with a friend and splitting control of the squad down the middle. In my first game, i got one and precisely one psychic out of my entire batch of 20+ soldiers. The dialogue in the final mission is a lot funnier when the peak of all humanity's mental potential is... one bald sniper.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 20:19
|
|
|
Willie Tomg posted:The first time I played EU was hotseat-style with a friend and splitting control of the squad down the middle. My sole survivor was a Heavy who basically had no fear and was the lynchpin of my early to midgame success. He also ended up being psychic and saving the world. Does anyone know if that one survivor is always going to be psychic, or is that just luck of the draw?
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 20:23
|
|
|
Feinne posted:Plus, I think it's intentional that the game gives you an effectively bonus mission where you are guaranteed to lose three people and have one promoted, since it gives you a squaddie for your actual first mission. I'm not sure the three dead people even 'count' as it were, sort of like the bonus rookies in that one Enemy Within mission we'll speak no more of. It's not a bonus mission though, pretty sure your barracks is that much emptier and you lost three people. The game opens up with a mission immediately whether you enable the tutorial or not.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 20:27
|
|
|
Spiffo posted:It's not a bonus mission though, pretty sure your barracks is that much emptier and you lost three people. It does give you a free satellite though. 45 bitcoins for 77 isn't a bad deal.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 20:30
|
|
|
The Casualty posted:poo poo, that's all? The tutorial in the full game kills all your rookies except one, because story! And gravitas! DatonKallandor posted:Doesn't it also have you dash through a closed door that you can't see the other side of? The Tutorial is really bad.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 22:56
|
|
|
Well, the annoying guy that Feinne or whoever found notwithstanding, basic xcom is pretty easy. You can run into the darkness a lot. The thing they need you to understand is . Not the running into darkness part--the dying part.I appreciate that at least *some* part of the tutorial isn't a 4th wall breaking hand-holding exercise. That they illustrate the most meaningful part of the game by showing, not telling, through bodycount is pretty refreshing. You lost most of your guys. Those are guys you'll never get again. And the free satellite is a pretty clever way to make up for it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 23:02
|
|
|
Except EU is vastly different than OG XCOM because those people that you lose are way more important especially if they're colonels and have all the upgrades. The squad size is another massive factor. In OG XCOM you could lose 5 people on a mission but it didn't matter too much as long as none of them set off a panic chain since people, even higher officers, were ultra disposable. I generally kept all of the low aim/brave soldiers to blow holes in UFO walls and eat reaction shots so the real soldiers could get their kills.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 23:11
|
|
|
I agree (and I miss OG Xcom's 14 rookie human wave attack on sectoids). But nobody learns a game straight up first time out, and EU is designed to discourage saving constantly and gaming the randomness to force unusual success. The game is about trying to recover from something not going your way. It's so often in a game that the game basically expects you to win, and if anything goes unexpectedly, it hand holds and brings you along to try to get you to the end. Xcom is about getting past that hump of having nothing in your favor and making the best of your losses until you can finish off the story missions and run your victory lap. The point isn't 'rookies don't matter--just throw them away'. The point is 'you're going to lose guys and not always be able to replace them'.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 23:17
|
|
|
The Mighty Biscuit posted:Between the point where you upgrade to Alien Grenades (which should be pretty soon for Jade here) Hahaha. Yeah... no. Not going to happen any time soon. I don't even have a foundry built yet, for starters. And even if I did, upgrading to alien Grenades would be at the bottom of my list of way more important poo poo to research. And I still probably wouldn't waste the money and resources needed on this project. Stun a muton or two, take their grenades. That's all I need. Felinoid posted:Also, is there any reason why you don't have subtitles turned on? I know the trio of talking heads don't have that much interesting to say, but it'd be nice to ensure we don't miss plot points. You're not going to miss plot points, all those are in cutscenes which we won't talk over. I suppose I could turn them on, but I honestly wish I could turn their voices completely 100% off outside of cutscenes. I'm not focused on showing the plot of the game. We all know what it is, aliens show up, we're over whelmed, we fight, we win. Vahlan looks power hungry, Shen waxes philosophical. What Guava and I have to say at any given time is more important than the three of them, but we do shut up for cutscenes. Also the LP is going to miss a lot of 'character development' between the missions as Shen and Vahlan talk about crap during the base sections when I pop into the labs to assign new projects. e: Disposable rookie argument. Aside from the points already made above, there is another important distinction between Old X-Com and XCom: EW. Just look at the costs of soldiers compared to other things in the game. In old X-Com, if you killed an alien you could sell it's gun and cover the cost of hiring 2,3, or 4 new soldiers. Pistol, Rifle, and Heavy Plasma gun respectively. That means midway through the game you could come off financially even losing 3-4 soldiers for every alien you killed. New XCom, you make about 5 bucks from killing an alien, the value of their corpse. Some are worth a little more but most are 5. A new soldier on classic costs 15. So now the ratio is flipped, you need 3 aliens killed to cover the hiring cost of one XCom soldier. I just like looking at the numbers and economics of things. It's an interesting way to put the rookie value argument in perspective. Jade Star fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Feb 19, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 23:26
|
|
|
DatonKallandor posted:Doesn't it also have you dash through a closed door that you can't see the other side of? The Tutorial is really bad. This is actually good because it shows the player that you can do that. Leaping through windows, kicking down doors, I'm glad they didn't leave me to think "drat, there's a door/window in the way. I have to run up to it first". Nah, just knock that fucker down. It teaches mechanics good. Same with the rooftop in Tutorial #2. They didn't want to hold your hand all day so they had you test them out real quick in a haphazard way. Exciting!
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 23:35
|
|
|
That's slander. Vahlen isn't power-hungry. She's an amiable, efficient, unrepentant torturer and cold blooded murderess, as charming and vicious as Patrick Bateman ever was. Seriously, you make her sound like some sort of megalomanaic. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 23:36
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:That's slander. Vahlen isn't power-hungry. She's an amiable, efficient, unrepentant torturer and cold blooded murderess, as charming and vicious as Patrick Bateman ever was. Seriously, you make her sound like some sort of megalomanaic. She's still less evil than Dr Shen. Though Jade needs to hurry up and get MECs so I don't feel like I'm spoiling things to talk about them.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 23:45
|
|
|
Jade Star posted:You're not going to miss plot points, all those are in cutscenes which we won't talk over. Fair enough. If all they've got to offer outside of cutscenes is being their usual annoying selves, let 'em hang. Everyone will probably get to hear them when they're replaying the game armed with good tactics anyway.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2014 23:51
|
|
|
TheCosmicMuffet posted:I agree (and I miss OG Xcom's 14 rookie human wave attack on sectoids). This reminds me of my favorite game of OG Xcom. Through a combination of recklessness, bad luck, and bringing a rocket launcher to a psi fight, I lost my entire elite(ish) team in an attack on a sectoid ship. The only soldier remaining in my primary base was some courage 10 rookie I didn't fire because she had insanely good accuracy and reactions. I ordered replacements, but before they arrived, I got a goddamn Snakemen retaliation attack. I decided not to start a new game until I actually lose, so I gave the rookie the last heavy plasma in storage and a rocket launcher without any extra rockets, figuring I might at least try to kill a few Snakemen before they erase her with blaster launcher fire, or a chrysalid. The first thing I did was moving her out into the hallway to shoot the elevator, knowing that there's always a cluster of enemies that spawn there at the start. Cue the luckiest rocket I've ever fired in any game. It took me a while to realize, but I killed every single Snakeman armed with a blaster launcher in that shot. Then, I had her drop the rocket launcher and retreated her ~12 tiles behind a corner next turn, waiting for the inevitable chrysalid charge. They came in one at a time every turn, and she loving riddled them with hot plasma. I was rather confused at that point since chrysalids usually have more than enough movement and reaction advantage over my troops to never ever trigger reaction fire. Still waiting for my luck to run out (I didn't realize I had killed all the blaster launcher guys until the end of the mission), I just pressed end turn while she killed a bunch of Snakes and eventually ran out of ammo. So, naturally, I ran her out to get some HP ammo from a corpse, and triggered reaction fire by the enemy. It missed. It loving missed. I retreated her, and kept pressing end turn as the Snakemen kept coming. Eventually, the mission end screen shows up. I won. I have no idea how I got so lucky, but I won. Now that was an enjoyable gaming experience I really don't think I'll experience again.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 00:01
|
|
|
My best effort was charging in with most of the squad dead, but only 1 alien on a battleship, I was sure And it was an Ethereal commander. I equipped my Stun rod. Stepped around the corner to look. There was another Ethereal. With a Heavy Plasma. I missed my shot to kill it. RIP Soldier. You were the bravest of us. In other news: Snap shot is so awful  I tried one since there were so many people arguing for one.She gets 1 more square to sight range'd so much. And this is WITH partial cover = full. Doesn't help that her aim is rubbish. Trying to level the B team and ugh. Veloxyll fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Feb 20, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 01:34
|
|
|
I was pretty young when I played Ufo Defense. I would equip my guys with 2 stun rods. I was pretty sure it made them better at it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 01:37
|
|
|
Going back to the talk about enemies being phased out, I've never seen your bog standard floater after around 2/3rds of the way through the game. They get replaced with the heavy variant, and then the original ones just don't seem to spawn anymore. Which is really annoying, because those dicks can be hard to taze.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 01:58
|
|
|
I think the main reason people don't like Vahlen is because before EW, you always had to have her yell at you for using grenades every time you started a new game. She yells at you for a lot of things, actually. Shen doesn't.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 02:18
|
|
|
my dad posted:some courage 10 rookie I didn't fire That was a great story and I understand the reason, but seriously never do this. 10 Will soldiers have to go immediately.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 03:25
|
|
|
Jade Star posted:Hahaha. Yeah... no. Not going to happen any time soon. Honestly if it wasnt for the fact that researching alien grenades upgrades the mechs grenade launcher I'd probably never research it unless it was the last thing as I usually have as many as I'll use from captures.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 03:32
|
|
|
Jade Star posted:Hahaha. Yeah... no. Not going to happen any time soon. You may eventually want it because that Project also Upgrades the damage on one of the MEC abilities [assuming you take that one] But before that yeah not important if you are capturing any more advanced aliens.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 04:05
|
|
|
GuavaMoment posted:That was a great story and I understand the reason, but seriously never do this. 10 Will soldiers have to go immediately down the ramp to catch plasma for the big boys. I agree.
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 04:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 05:50 |
|
|
Jade Star posted:
In the interest of full disclosure, I just wanted to point out that I gave my recruit that specific name so that Jade Star would have more difficult names to pronounce. Sorry, Jade Star. (I'm not sorry). Also, will you be sharing the artwork and haikus, etc., of the recruits at any point?
|
|
#
?
Feb 20, 2014 04:49
|
|
