XCOM 2: DORNE WHEN

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > XCOM 2: DORNE WHEN

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

DrManiac posted:

I remember in the last thread somebody posted a mod that removed the Hit percentage and crit bump enemies got on classic, anyone got that?

Those would be Normal .2 or Normal .5 at xcom nexus, but they haven't been updated for any of the subsequent patches. It wouldn't be difficult to recreate those tweaks though.

Dush posted:

I've also been wondering about why heavies seem to kind of suck a lot. <snip> I think they're less useful than Assault, who are tough as nails and complete loving slayers, but I am an idiot.

The problem people have with heavies is they see the big guns and think that the heavy is a big damage dealer. He's not. The guys you want shooting aliens are the assaults and snipers. A heavy is more of a utility class, and that's where holo-targeting starts to make sense. Don't get me wrong, bullet swarm is also a very good skill. But Holo combos with suppression and his rocket launcher. That's right, shoot a group of aliens with a rocket and everyone else gets the aim bonus. Using your heavies as a guy with a LMG who shoots a lot, needs a scope to hit anything, and fires a rocket once per mission is missing the purpose of the class, and you might as well use a rifle assault instead.

XCOM Classes, in MMO terms:
Assault = Tank / DPS
Sniper = Artillery DPS
Support = Healer / Buffs
Heavy = CC / Debuffs

Here's a thing I wrote about scopes on heavies in the last thread:

Klyith posted:

Heavies definitely appreciate the scope if you want to hit things more consistently with their guns. On the other hand, if you use suppression a lot with your heavy, a scope is not very valuable. AI won't move when suppressed, so an aim bonus is useless in that circumstance. Basically, a scope makes a heavy into an assault with no run and gun and no item slot. The way I'd describe it is a completely reasonable option that should never be an unthinking default, because you are compensating for the heavies' weaknesses instead of playing to their strength.

I put scopes on heavies not infrequently myself, but I always keep in mind the purpose (mostly trying to get more kills for leveling). In the mission I think: this guy is a shooty-heavy, I'm going to keep his gun hot and have him take as many shots as I can. Then I take the scope off when the mission's done.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2013 18:03

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 06:09

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

1337JiveTurkey posted:

So if aliens won't move when they know a soldier is overwatching, does this make Rapid Reaction and Sentinel comparatively worthless? Or does Covering Fire + Sentinel make some sort of sense?

A little bit. It's not like you will never fire an overwatch shot. Aliens will still move into overwatch shots, they just have to not see the soldier that shoots them before they take the move. The AI is fair, it only makes that decision based on what the the aliens can see. Overwatch traps are a great tool to wipe out a pod quickly (shoot them on their turn as they advance, clean up on your turn).

Rapid Reaction is pretty meh just because heavies have low aim and they have to hit the first shot in order to get a second. I never take it because HEAT ammo is just so good against the two bitchiest enemies in the game. I'd put Sentinel on a pure tactical/scout support who doesn't have either of the other medkit skills. I've built guys for that, but never leveled one all the way to Colonel level though.

1stGear posted:

An alien ran into my field of view while I was Overwatching and didn't get shot! SOLOMONNNNNNNNN!

There's like a one-tile space at the edge of a unit's LOS where you can see them, but Overwatch fire doesn't trigger. This applies for both the player and the AI, but the AI is a lot better at exploiting it. It doesn't happen that often, its just super loving annoying when it does.

Since that was originally written people found out why this works: to take an overwatch shot, your unit has to see at least two squares of movement. Things that frustrate overwatch include showing up on the last square of sight range, moving to the corner of a full-cover object that blocks LOS, and moving one square at a time while in full view. It's a bigger deal in multiplayer, but you can exploit this yourself against AI aliens in overwatch.

This is also why you frequently don't get an overwatch reaction shot on thin men in council missions, who drop from the sky into nasty flanking positions. The thinman is spawned on a square at max elevation, then moves 1 space and drops to the ground level. Quite often that initial square is out of LOS unless your units are out in the open.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jan 19, 2013

# ¿ Jan 19, 2013 19:02

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Coolguye posted:

If someone can vouch that this works with the most recent patch I will add it to the mods post.

Anything with a file date of october is out of date with the current gamecore. Not a whole lot has changed -- the only thing I know about is tweaks for second wave, but I didn't get the game until November myself so I don't know if a previous patch had more changes. It should still work just fine, in that it won't cause problems.

I could make some new versions of hybrid normal-classic gamecores for the thread based on the latest patch.

RBA Starblade posted:

Is there any way to handle supply barges that doesn't suck? It's one big open area. I inch forward, and trigger 3 heavy mutons, cyberdiscs, and drones at the same time, moving one tile.

Was that take 1 step in the deployment area and spawn all that crap, or take 1 step into the ship? Because if it was the former, that sounds like the teleport / spawn bug, there shouldn't be spawns triggerable from the starting zone like that. File it under reasons-not-to-play-ironman.txt

If the latter, the backside of the ship is nasty. There are likely to be multiple groups in there. On the maps that set you down in the rear, you can try to flank around to either the side doors or the "head" of the ship.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2013 22:28

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Coolguye posted:

Africa is amazing to pick up later when +30% funding is a matter of a couple hundred bucks, but early on it will be worth roughly 30-50$/mo to you.

Asia will save you hundreds almost instantly when you build the OTS. And holy CHRIST is the OTS a big deal in Classic/Impossible.

You are insanely low on the math for the Africa start. Month 1 it's worth $30, Month 2 you should grab the US and 1 other country worth at least $100, and the bonus is at least $125 even if you couldn't afford 3 sats. That's an entire extra country! From there is just snowballs up. Africa is worth at minimum twice any other bonus over the course of the game.

The Asia bonus is, financially, the worst bonus. Yes, even worse than Europe. If you bought everything from the foundry and OTS, it would be worth $1550. But you can't buy everything from the foundry because it doesn't reduce the cost in alloys or fragments. It does let you rush some OTS upgrades faster than normal in the early game, which is nice. But it's completely outclassed as a starting location by Africa's bonus or NA's starting cash.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2013 22:56

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Coolguye posted:

By the end of month 3 you should reasonably have enough of an infrastructure going to cover most of the map. 3 satellite control centers with adjacency bonuses is 8 sat capacity, which is more than enough to cover both Africa and Asia (presuming an NA start), plus a spare to fight panic.

And by the same token, it's pretty easy to afford the good stuff in OTS during month 3 even if you don't have the Asia bonus. For example, Iron Will is cool, but are you really getting it in the second month?

I'm not against the Asia start, but to use it to the same effectiveness as Africa or NA, I feel you have to blitz on both the OTS and the foundry. The other thing is the benefits are all about the battlescape. I have the impression that most people think that in Impossible difficulty, the geoscape is a harder problem than the battlescape.

ChronoReverse posted:

I personally dislike the EU start the most. You don't even get to have Russia for free!

I play EU start, but out of perversity. :shepface:

The interesting thing about the Europe bonus is, it's actually the second best, money-wise, after Africa. Half price workshops mean you can poop them out as fast as you can dig the space and power them. Lots of engineers mean all the equipment you buy is cheaper, saving you more money. But it takes a while to spool up, so you don't really get the ROI until the mid-game. By then most people have their finances in hand, so it's not as big a deal.

I have spreadsheets for xcom. :suicide:

# ¿ Jan 19, 2013 23:27

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

WeaponBoy posted:

If I try to close in and flank them (Run & Gun + Rapid Fire with an Alloy Cannon is one of the most reliable tactics) then I usually end up inviting some buddies to the fight and then I'm almost guaranteed to lose 1-2 soldiers. Should I just be trying to pull them backwards by breaking LOS? They seem perfectly happy to huddle up and snipe with their insane hit chances for-loving-ever.

Yes. Your first move with your first soldier should be your scouting move. When the scout reveals strong groups, pull back and set other soldiers on overwatch (snipers, supports at the back) or hunkered down (the guys in front). Let them come to you. Also, you might try swapping out a support for a second heavy or sniper -- once you have a support with the 3x medkit uses that should be enough healing.

Coolguye posted:

Yes? Any later and most of your initial crop of officers will be big liabilities against Sectoid Commanders and Ethereals. Early Iron Will saves you the effort and risk involved in training a late game A-Team. Even with early IW your first officers will be inherently inferior, but the extra Will they get is a Big Deal.

Ok, well then tack some of this to differences in gameplay. I go by the adage "they can't mind control you if they're dead" and care much less about maximum will. I don't intentionally cycle through a second set of soldiers with OTS bonuses for super psi resistance. If a sectoid commander or ethereal even makes the attempt at mind controlling, I have hosed Up and deserve lose my dude on a dice roll.

I will grant you this about the Asia start: it is the most worthless continent to acquire after the fact. Two $60 countries? Hell no. The bonus feels good even if it's not the most powerful monetarily, but Asia is absolutely the first continent to throw to the wolves.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jan 20, 2013

# ¿ Jan 20, 2013 00:01

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

3Romeo posted:

I haven't even started researching the Containment Facility yet, but I'm rolling with laser weapons and carapace armor. I feel like I'm in a good spot (this is by far my most successful attempt at the game), but every time I feel that way I get 'ed. How hosed or not hosed am I?

You are almost out of the hosed zone. Start work on Containment ASAP, because you need to nab an outsider and do research on it in order to get to the next step of the plot. If you wait around too long at that stage the aliens will fill their base with all sorts of nasties that will make that a near-impossible fight, and throw more and more UFOs at you to try to kill your sats. It sounds like you've beaten the initial march of doom, but now you're on the technology clock.

In particular, in Classic you can still trend upwards in panic even with satellite coverage if you fail some missions.

Coolguye posted:

I can see use cases for pretty much every other continental start.

Ok, I think we can probably end this thole thing with that. Man, this is why nobody wants do be an OP for a game! You say one thing that's more personal choice than objective truth and people jump all over you, even if it wasn't part of the OP.

On the topic of the OP -- this bullet point:

quote:

Soldiers are now promoted purely based on the number of kills they have, instead of the cryptic way they were promoted in UFO. Classes are assigned completely randomly.

should be more like:
Classes are assigned semi-randomly, lightly favoring classes with the fewest soldiers.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2013 01:57

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Shalinor posted:

... that said, I may feel that way mostly because I never run grenades. Does anyone run grenades? I can never convince myself to outfit a heavy (or really anyone but a flying sniper, once I have enough) with anything but the extra carapace armor.

I had an idea for a late-game heavy built around alien grenades with grenadier and mayhem. But it turns out that mayhem doesn't add any damage to alien grenades, so scratch that. That pretty much insures I'll never use the Grenadier skill, Danger Zone is just better.

I put grenades on supports with deep pockets quite often, even just regular grenades when I don't have alien ones yet. They don't get shot at very much so extra HP isn't a priority, and using a support to blow up some cover gives the other guys free reign. e: The people saying grenades are useless once you're not fighting sectoids are wrong. Grenades take down cover, and they are 100% accurate kills on wounded but still dangerous aliens.

Not a Step posted:

Heavies I'm never sure how to equip though. SCOPE + Bulletswarm usually provides at least one hit out of two activations, along with a chance to destroy cover at long range, but grenades are a much more direct way to expose an enemy.

Scope is good, grenades are good, extra HP is good. Combat stims are pretty loving great once you get them. Stims + will to survive + LMG = the full John Rambo effect.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Jan 20, 2013

# ¿ Jan 20, 2013 19:51

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Ravenfood posted:

Boost will, halve damage taken, provides immunity to critical hits, and increases movement speed by 3? spaces. They'd be really good if they were instant-use, but with taking your whole turn, they're kind of limited.

Yes, 3 spaces. They do take a turn to activate, which isn't that big a deal in SP -- I have tons of spare turns where I'm reloading or moving slowly that you can use stuff like that. And they have infinite uses in SP, contrary to the description.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2013 19:57

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

monkeu posted:

Do you guys think it's worth finishing my normal run, or should I start a classic run instead now that I have a much better understanding of the basics of the game?

You can switch difficulty in the middle of a game. Options -> Change Difficulty. (You'll probably still roll the aliens with all that tech. Even at higher difficulty, the game is much easier as you tech up. I'd finish out that game just to get the end cutscene, you're not far off. It might be another few tries to get there playing classic from the start.

quote:

I'm playing on 360, and so far I haven't seen any of the teleporting or whatever. I did have one mission where a muton had its turn and then the mission froze up. I couldn't have my turn, I couldn't get to the pause menu, and I ended up having to go back out to the Xbox dashboard and restarting the game. If I play on ironman and something like that happens am I absolutely hosed? Would that mean I'd have to start again all over from scratch?

a) The number of teleport bugs people are talking about right now are mostly on PC. We got a patch a week ago that was supposed to fix teleports, but instead seems to have increased them. 360 didn't get this patch, it's still on a older version (score one for the MS pay-for-patch system).
b) Most of those issues and things like uncompletable missions or disappearing skyrangers can actually be fixed by quitting to menu and reloading the current save. It's like something gets wedged in the display engine, not the code that keeps track of where things really are. Ironman runs can still be damaged by bugs, like teleports, all aliens activating on turn one, and things like that. But I think it's rare to have a truly corrupted save.

Nephilm posted:

And, I'm not sure how the 360 version does it but I assume that if it doesn't autosave at the start of every turn then it does so on the geoscape right before embarking on a mission.

No, both PC and 360 ironman save every turn during battles.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2013 00:36

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Iceshade posted:

Where are those mod tools already.

The UPK package files that the game uses are only compressed, not encrypted or protected. The UDK is free to download. That's about as moddable as an Unreal Engine gets. If you are expecting mod tools along the likes of Bethesda games, you're going to be disappointed.

MrXmas posted:

Pretty sure it's actually two uses. [Combat Stims]

Ok, between two uses and however many uses the slightly buggy code for the item gives you. I'm pretty sure I've gotten more than two self-stims on a guy, but I don't know how much. Anyways, stims are pretty good in SP because it's at least 4 turns of nigh-invulnerability.

ParadoxEngima posted:

Are there any Mods to make the AI smarter? or any ways you guys can think of to make the game more interesting?

I had a thought that I've been toying with, for a more difficult Impossible battlescape. The idea is to reduce the sight radius of soldiers by 1, and increase the sight & weapon range of aliens by 1. I have not even tried this in practice, so I don't know exactly how the some thing would work. IE, will alien pods activate when they see you and you still can't see them, or does activation rely on you exposing them from fog? But the general idea is to produce some situations where aliens can shoot you from out of sight, for that authentic :xcom:

bullshit feel.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2013 01:18

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

WeaponBoy posted:

I'd prefer a higher probability of hitting aliens (and a higher chance of getting hit by aliens) but with lower amounts of damage. I'd be totally ok with the enemy defense that muton elites and ethereals have meaning -X damage so shooting them with a basic pistol is pretty much never going to do damage unless you crit. So, I guess, something like this:

I think your design could easily be done with a combination of removing defense penalties on various aliens, increasing thier HP, and using the Absolutely Critical option to pump up the high damage flank shots. It would be a really different game. And less interesting. If both sides have a damage buffer large enough that 1 hit isn't always dangerous, it makes a lot of the tactics less important.

quote:

As it is now I've basically accepted that my entire offensive strategy is based around my one or two colonel snipers basically killing loving everything while anyone below Major rank can't hit the broadside of a bus.

This says to me that you haven't fully explored other ways of killing aliens with tactics and maneuvering. The fact that snipers are the only class that can hit an alien in full cover means that you should find ways of negating cover, not that you should use only snipers.

WeaponBoy posted:

Oh, absolutely it wouldn't be XCOM. My point sort of spun out of control. Really, I just hate RNG seeded zero sum game design. That's what makes the difference between something like Demon's Souls and XCOM for me. In DS you're getting pounded but it's always your own fault if you die. In XCOM there's a certain point where you're not doing anything wrong but you still get hosed over and that's an essential part of the experience, but it's not what I consider good game design.

I love both games, but when I win in DS I feel elation; when I win in XCOM I just feel exhausted because I spend so much of the mission muttering under by breath about loving thin men and muton elites and goddamn bullshit gently caress rear end. There's a reason why it took nearly two decades for a new XCOM to be made.

I think you're a bit off in how you're thinking about these things. "Zero sum" is a terrible description; it probably would be more clear if you called it "all or nothing" or something. Also, I think the way you're comparing Xcom with DS is really bad. One soldier killed is not the same as being fully killed in DS, you have multiple dudes. Now a full squad wipe, that's an accurate analogy. And if you have a full squad wipe in XCOM that wasn't from a bug, then yes, you hosed up and it was your fault. Probably more so than being killed in DS -- you can still have failures of reflex or skill in DS, but a mistake in xcom is solely your brain.

_{^{(I think the thing I hate the most about the sudden popularity of the DS games -- a game that undoubtedly has good game design -- is the flood of people who seem to think that the design principles it uses are the only good way to make a game. There's more than one good rule of design, morons.)}}

Klyith fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Jan 21, 2013

# ¿ Jan 21, 2013 21:52

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Since everyone else has it covered, I'll just add:
*One containment building holds an infinite number of aliens. You don't have to do anything like finish one interrogation before nabbing the next.
*As soon as you have arc throwers you can zap aliens, even if you haven't built the containment yet. It doesn't count for a real capture, but you do get their weapon intact. Good way to stock up on LPRs early from an alien that's dead easy to capture.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2013 22:38

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Paingod556 posted:

There are 2 main ways to play a tactical squad-based game like X-COM, or Jagged Alliance, or whatever. Note this is pretty basic and could be wrong but whatever.

#1- Overwatch/Interrupt Trap.
or
#2- Blitz

I would say that XCOM tactics are best when using *both* of these techniques, more or less in alternate turns. Overwatch traps are great because they keep your dudes safer, but overwatch is much slower at getting kills (fewer hits, no crits). Blitzes are great for quick kills, but as you mentioned there's the activation issue. But trying to do overwatch traps on the same group runs the same risk -- you have to keep moving back out of range so that the aliens will move forward into your trap. This risks activating a patrolling group at a spawn behind you, a much worse position for a second threat. Fighting two groups at a time is what happens at high difficulty, there are just too many aliens on the map to kill them all cleanly. As long as they're in the same direction, it's not to end of the world. It's when the second group is getting flanks that guys die.

The platonic ideal of a 2-turn kill of an enemy group

It's rarely that simple of course. But that right there is what I use as my basic gameplan for most encounters.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2013 19:41

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Muscle Tracer posted:

I've encountered it plenty, although I've never had it screw me over. You can observe this activity easily enough with battle scanners or ghost armor�if you reveal a patrol pack with the scanner or a ghosted unit, they won't activate, and on the alien turn, the camera will swing to them, and then swing somewhere out in the fog of war, where you'll be able to see their health bars for a moment. It will swing back to your units, and the patrol pack will no longer be visible.

Apparently, this happens every turn, not just when you are observing unactivated aliens, and that's when you get screwed over.

That's not the teleport bug. This is the teleport bug:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTt9-pRqOkU

Patrolling groups of unactivated aliens move around the map by teleporting from one spawn location to another. This is normal behavior and not a bug. If a pack wanted to move from spawn A to B, and you happened to have your squad at a point C directly between them but with no sight on either spot, they would teleport right over you. Assuming you had scanners on both A & B you'd actually see them do it. If you have LOS on a spawn location and a pack wants to move there, that's when they walk in from the fog edge, do a startle animation, and run to cover (without shooting at you).

The reason Firaxis did this, from a game making perspective, is that it's the easiest and best way to keep the aliens spaced out so that the player doesn't get mobbed. If they were really walking around, it would be really difficult to keep the groups well separated -- either you move them semi-randomly and run into a traveling salesman type problem, or you do something dumb like walk in regular patterns.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2013 01:06

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

So it turns out that Chryssalids are actually a bunch of imported Ravenous Bugblatter Beasts of Traal. If you stand with your face against a large object and your arms over your head, the Chryssalid will assume that since you can't see it, it can't see you. The beast will be rendered harmless and completely unable to attack. If only Xcom had the foresight to equip their soldiers with towels!

# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 21:09

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

lordbovine posted:

Oof, harder than I was expecting. Thanks, giving it a shot now.

Oh god, don't use a loving hex editor. Modding the gamecore file is much easier than that. Here is a copy of DefaultGameCore.ini from the current patch, with some formatting for better readability / editing. (I've put in tabs to line stuff up nicely & added some comment lines, nothing that affects the game).

Make your edits and use Modpatcher to mod the exe. Just drag and drop your edited gamecore onto modpatcher.exe and it should auto-find the xcom location. If you're going to do a lot of experimenting make an extra backup of xcom.exe somewhere so you have a known-good backup.

NESguerilla posted:

This is probably a dumb question, but as someone who very rarely plays PC games I have no idea. When you guys mod games to make them easier, do you still get the steam achievements?

In xcom you do. You also still tally in the you vs world end-game screen, which is why the stats for the world are so crazy. I think in some other games with more developed mod systems, achievements are turned off with mods.

I wish there was a mod for Steam to remove or hide everything to do with cheevos.

Christian Knudsen posted:

Wow. This just turned the most terrifying alien in the game into a joke! I assume this is a bug?

Yeah, the bugs are bugged. :v:

I guess it works in single player too, haven't tried it myself yet.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 22:37

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Bruceski posted:

Can you still do simple ini-fiddling to remove the startup cinematics and pausing when out of focus? I've lost track of what was moved where.

Yes, in Documents\My Games\XCOM - Enemy Unknown\XComGame\Config\XComEngine.ini search for "StartupMovies=" and delete those lines or ';' comment them out.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2013 21:39

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

ChronoReverse posted:

Also, someone once told me I could use a Shredder Rocket to inflict Holo-targeting. I either heard wrong or that someone is a dirty liar.

I said that based on the ufo wiki. Are you sure? I made a holo-shredder combo heavy at one point but I think I just assumed it worked, without directly testing it. Maybe it only works if you're directly targeting an alien with the rocket? (In which case it's still mostly worthless) Sorry.

1337JiveTurkey posted:

I wonder how half a dozen heavies building towards mayhem suppression would do as a gimmick squad.

Sounds like the best way to re-create xcom.gif

# ¿ Jan 29, 2013 00:14

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Nephilm posted:

Has he participated in anything that's not social skinner boxes in the past 5 years?

He was the CEO of Big Huge Games until they got acquired by 38 Studios in 2009. And I can totally see why he went to Zynga. Facebook games like those are essentially strategy games, and at the time it looked like the new place to be as a strategy designer. Second, Zynga at the time was heavily pushing the "we're going to make games that aren't pure evil" story. I remember a lot of press buying into them turning a new leaf, hiring Reynolds and Soren Johnson, etc. It turned out to be bullshit, but I don't think either of them are now tainted or anything.

e: VVVVV
The world of Xcom is actually a Michael Bay alien invasion movie. But don't worry, the aliens have all been watching mythbusters during their trip here too, they don't think that cars should explode either.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jan 31, 2013

# ¿ Jan 31, 2013 01:39

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

nohopeindope posted:

Hey guys, you should check this out. Great read: http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/31/3928710/making-of-xcoms-jake-solomon-firaxis-sid-meier

Russ Pitts :swoon:

For anyone having trouble reading that article what with the bad font, busy background, and excessive web-cruft, you should get the "zap style sheets" bookmarklet from here. It's my favorite thing for reading sites like that.

Fintilgin posted:

My biggest hope for XCOM II is a reintroduction of random maps, although from how down the article sounded on the subject it may not be technically doable/satisfactory.

I'm sure it's technically possible, but it's not in the base U3 engine. So you'd have to devise a method and code your own dynamic level system.

Here's the way to look at it: they went with Unreal, an engine that Firaxis didn't have history with and weren't experts at, because it's flexible and they could do rapid prototypes. If they had rolled their own, they would have needed to have the design much more solid at the beginning. Randomized maps or a built in map editor might have been in the design spec, but so would a much worse combat system. I'm much happier with the Xcom we got, complete with it's limitations, than an Xcom that looks and plays like one of the bad prototypes from that 100 Mistakes video.

Olive Branch posted:

If procedurally generated maps are impossible or too much work, could Firaxis release a kind of map builder and encourage the community to upload or download user-made maps? I would love to create my own maps and share them with some Steam buddies.

It would be amazing if Xcom had a level editor like Portal 2's. It would work well too, what with the game built around squares. But it's not going to happen. Valve has near-infinite money to play around with stuff like that, and they're supporting their own engine by building a compliment to Hammer editor. Firaxis does not have the money or ability to do something like that.

It would be cool if they put out a call to modders who already know UnrealEd to send in new maps made with the assets in the base game. Firaxis would select the best n maps and put out a free patch with them added to the rotation. Lots of talented modders would be interested in that even if they weren't big fans of the game.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2013 00:17

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Decrepus posted:

Can I enable the other modes without having beaten the game and without installing anything? Just editing an .ini or something?

Use a profile.bin from someone who's beaten the game on the needed difficulty settings (it goes into the SaveData directory). Implassic has one included.

Cobbsprite posted:

I'm sure there is some reason why this is rarely (if ever) done by major game design studios, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it must be.

It used to be pretty frequent. Doom, Quake, Descent, and other classic 90s games all shipped expansion packs or reissue editions with fan-made levels. The concept really got forgotten during the age of console supremacy, but now that most games are functionally identical on all platforms it seems like a great way to use the enthusiasm of the PC crowd to add some cheap content. Imagine if Skyrim did a GOTY edition with not just Dawnguard and the other DLC included, but also a small selection of their favorite community mods? I think you'd get the console people buying it a second time.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2013 03:14

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

modig posted:

- I would really like to be able to shoot to destroy cover wether or not an alien is nearby. Unless I really missed something, this isn't currently possible but could be a good mod.

This is the thing people want but never stop to think about what it would do in practice. It would totally wreck the game balance if you could reliably pop the alien's cover, the game would be a cakewalk. If they could do it back to you every encounter would be a murder-fest.

quote:

- I think I went way too heavy into scientists and laboratories... It kind of seems like I shouldn't build any laboratories?

The mistake was getting too many scientists. Labs are a straight percentage cut to research time no matter how many (or few) scientists you have. This is great because you can ignore scientists for mission rewards and still cut endgame research to reasonable levels with two or three labs. You should be taking engineers as your mission reward unless there's a critical reason to choose otherwise.

So a couple of labs are good, but workshops should be the bulk of your base (and the workshop adjacency bonus way more important than the lab's).

quote:

- I should look up the math on cover, because apparently people think low cover is a waste of time, and I never have any idea how helpful being on a roof is.
- I had the case where my dude is on a roof and currently can't see any aliens. One alien moves up inside a building, shoot at the dude on the roof, doesn't kill him. On my turn that dude can't see the alien that just shot at him. I'd expect either exactly symmetric sight lines, or height to always have the advantages.

Half cover is pretty worthless in Classic unless you're hunkering down behind it. I mean, it's better than being in the open, but if you have the choice between staying in half or falling back, you should fall back.

Roofs are a decent advantage just because being at higher elevation gets +20% to both offense and defense, so being behind half cover on a roof is almost as good as being behind full cover and you have better hit chances against targets on the ground. The downsides are that roofs often have spawning locations, and once any alien is up there with you there's frequently no cover. Plus, as you found, elevation is a great source of LOS bugs in the game.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2013 08:21

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Aureon posted:

Does the final boss get any decent at classic+?

Not really. The dude is always vulnerable to being sniped out, and since killing him ends the mission it's pretty much always a cakewalk.

Solomon has said in interviews that the final mission was intended to be a "victory lap" and not the hardest mission of the game, but it's a bit unsatisfying. I wish they had done something a little more interesting with the final showdown. An easy gimmick would be to give the Uber Ethereal an invulnerability psi-buff from his two regular minions, so you at least have to kill them first.

However I suspect that they didn't do any of that because they were out of time. Also it seems they were genuinely worried before release about the game being too difficult. Garth DeAngelis got interviewed a week after it came out and was like, people have already beaten Ironman Impossible, we though it would take over a month.

Coolguye posted:

Especially in this game where it's not hiding anything at all by this point.

Hey Coolguye, does TheLastRoboKy play xcom at all? Because if so, a multiplayer showdown video would be awesome.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 06:43

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

SeaTard posted:

You'll hear people from both camps saying their choice is the best thing ever.

Eh, I think the Shredder vs Suppression choice is actually the one that is the least heated, if only because both are pretty great but in completely different ways. Even the people who always take one and not the other seem to admit that it's just their preference and that the other is also a good skill. Plus I'd bet that's the choice which people are the most likely to say "one of each".

The real flames come out for people who suggest that a Sniper could possibly be any good with Snap Shot, or some of the other more one-sided choices.

Overlord K posted:

It's also kinda sad how four of my KIA soldiers are assault class. I hope my guys don't get a feeling of dread when they rank up to find themselves wielding a shotgun.

If you can rank them all the way, Extra Conditioning + Resilience makes them immortal gods who laugh at puny alien bullets. But until then, it's definitely a high-risk job. My shotgun assaults always get vests or chitin, and have priority on new armors.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2013 06:35

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

doomfunk posted:

The rifle assault is more or less identical to the shotgun assault, favoring rapid fire and lightning reflexes and so on. The difference is in execution: Rather than dashing up close to maximize crit chance, you're instead dashing to a really advantageous cover position to take two shots from considerably longer range. You have the tankiest forward scout, basically, who can really hold their own in a firefight.

e: Of course they won't have the same punch as a shotgun assault, but rapid fire is rapid fire.

Personally I build my Rifle Assaults with more offense boosting skills, to make up for the lesser rifle damage and crits. Plus a rifle guy is not as likely to be as big a target as a shotgun assault who needs to get up in alien grills.

Shotgun Choices: Tactical Sense, Lightning Reflexes, Rapid Fire, Close Combat Spec, Resilience
Rifle Choices: Aggression, Lightning Reflexes, Rapid Fire, Bring em On, Killer Instinct

That rifle build can do some fantastic damage without having to move into dangerous spots, and is possibly even better at dealing with oh poo poo moments than a shotty assault -- bring em on is fantastic for that. Rifles are also much better for overwatch, but that takes away all those crit bonuses, so you need to take shots on your own turn to get your money out of it.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2013 09:36

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Nephilm posted:

Diminishing returns + Marathon is pretty brutal. He'll have to learn to build workshops.

Is the game even beatable with all those 2nd Wave options?

Marathon and war weariness is a nasty combo.
Diminishing returns + results driven is awful, reduce panic with sat-spam to keep funding.
All four? If someone told me they beat I/I with all of them on, I'd want video proof.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2013 05:07

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

quote:

Roof in SP

A roof is an amazing tool that can also be a highly double edged sword. If you own a roof you have easy concealment, overwatch-free scouting, and hit bonuses. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, on Fast Food it is, because there are no spawn locations on that roof. On other maps, there is the possibility that the roof could be occupied. If you pop a group on a roof that you can't kill right away, you are giving aliens possession of those advantages. They will use those hit bonuses to murder one of your mans.

Furthermore, even if you take over a roof, if there is a spawn spot a patrol might just decide to move there. When that happens, as often as not they will appear by climbing over a roof edge and taking over whatever defensive positions are available. You now have either a scramble to kill all of them in one turn, or you have to get off the roof and leave aliens on it (very bad).

Finally, in the game of "see no evil" that is avoiding spawn triggers when you're not ready for them, roofs are dangerous. If a spawn is sitting on a roof they're 100% safe because you can't see them without going up there. And roofs have long sight lines, easily spotting other spawns. On the Observatory map, the roof is the *last* place I clean out. I learned by experience that if I go up there early I will trigger the spawn that's invariably in the 2nd floor room plus another group halfway across the map who will make my life hell.

I feel at least some of the props for roofs has come over from MP, where they are a giant tactical advantage -- way more so than in SP.

ChronoReverse posted:

That's because he exclusively plays Ironman Impossible. You get caution hammered into you in a hurry. It also shows understanding of odds because taking 50% odd shots because you're in hard cover is a terrible idea (you only have 40% defense in hard cover without hunkering down).

Eh, he also has a long list of dudes with epitaphs that read "Beagle tried to get too cute with some aliens and I died." The guy he lost in the first mission was a good example, and it could easily have been much worse.

We all link him because his gameplay is solid for C/I and I/I, but he's not the ultimate xcom master. Dude still thinks Asia is better than Africa. He's entertaining though, even with a vid that's not edited like the old series. I saw another I/I player at some point that I thought was tactically better, but completely unwatchable.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2013 16:39

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

K. Farb posted:

I actually buy into the Asia start on Impossible since getting another squad member or two out sooner than later is very helpful. I'm in month 3 and money is no longer the bottleneck on anything I want to produce, so I doubt Africa would help as much.

People in this thread and the old one have done math to show that even on Impossible, the Asia start is inferior. If your strat is to rush OTS in month 1 and get three OTS upgrades, North America will have more money at the start of month 2. If your strat is mixed sats and OTS, NA or Africa are both better.

But whatever, starting continent min-maxing is dull: the best bonuses are also the most boring and have the least impact on gameplay or strategy. Asia, Europe, and SA are all more interesting because presumably you are tailoring your plan to take advantage of something besides money.

ChronoReverse posted:

Was he getting cute with the trying to get more flanks bit at the end of the first video? Perhaps you could make a case for it. But suppose he missed the 65% shot he didn't take or failed to kill the alien with that shot, he'd be in just a bad position because the alien now has +40% chance to hit that soldier because he wasn't hunkered down. Nevermind the cover getting destroyed by the first shot and then the soldier killed by the second, he had a high chance of SIMPLY DYING. It's not being cute to try taking a 5% chance of getting hit (but not killed) to prepare 2x 65% hits.

Right, on the turn that starts at minute 38, he can get:
* a 65% flank shot at the mind melder, from full cover
* a 65% flank shot at the ones behind the car, from full cover
* two 70+% regular shots at the ones behind the car, from rooftop half-cover
Those are all good odds shots. The expected value should be 2 out of 3 kills. They're not 100% shots and they're not absolutely safe, but it's a month 1 mission and you've used all your grenades. Them's the breaks. On I/I coming out of those rookie missions with zero casualties is a bit unrealistic.

My one criticism of Beagle's play is that tendency to slow-roll a group, looking for maximum safety. It's a good principle but in practice taking several extra turns to set up a "perfect" strike is extra turns for bad poo poo to happen. And when that bad poo poo does happen, it's easy to say it was unforeseeable, which it generally is. You can't know that your cover will be destroyed or a patrol will flank you, so your strategy was not to blame. The failure isn't about predicting the unpredictable, it's in waiting 4 turns for the unpredictable to happen.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2013 19:19

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

FoolyCharged posted:

Having run the numbers the shot on the melder was 47.84% chance of killing the melder.

Basically a short expected value sum:
Shot on the melder = ~.50 of 2 kills = 1 kill
Shot on flank = ~.50 of 1 kill = 1/2 kill
Shots from the roof = .70^2 that both shots hit one target (guaranteed damage to kill) = .50 of 1 kill
Total: ~2 kills

It's risky since the first shot has such a high swing, 0 or 2. In practice I would have taken that shot first, and if it had failed taken the 2nd flank shot from behind the car but not the shots from the roof. That would leave two guys in full cover with at most two shots coming at them, a very good chance that at least one survives.

ChronoReverse posted:

In fact, if his assumption that his cover was indestructible were true, his choice in this particular case are unambiguously better, it would have been a TERRIBLE choice to take the shot.

Note that even if that cover doesn't get destroyed, the odds are not improved that much. With 3 flank shots you get EV of 2 kills, but if the 4th guy is not on the roof his odds are way worse. You are marginally improving your position but taking more shots while hunkered in cover. If the aliens are shooting, they have a non-zero chance of hitting.

And it's only because in that specific instance that it was the last spawn on the map that it's even a discussion.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2013 20:34

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

It's the world's easiest prediction that it'll be a Civ-style expansion. Firaxis knows how to make that work, and an expansion to an established game on the established consoles is a safe bet for this fall. They can repackage a combined box for retail and get sales to people who missed it last year but saw the hype, everything about that idea sounds great. A sequel on the other hand feels really dicey in 2014 -- everything about that console transition raises big questions for a game like Xcom.

The last time they did interviews before going dark the past few months, Jake and Garth DeAngelis talked about how the first DLC was received. It feels like when reviews praised it for the good content and polished production, but it just wasn't Xcom, they looked at each other and said "Oh poo poo, they're right. Lets scrap this and do something better." It also helps that 2K would be ready to give them the budget for another big swing instead of 2 more bunts.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Apr 19, 2013

# ¿ Apr 19, 2013 22:59

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

chiasaur11 posted:

Speaking of Australians and insanity, anyone else notice that Beagle never goes for the overwatch pin? I mean, yeah, it exposes you to more fire, but even when he's saying that the only thing he needs is the enemy to stay still, he hunkers down instead of keeping the enemy in place. Wonder if there's a reason for it.

Pinning with overwatch on visible aliens means they just shoot you. There are occasions this is useful, but mostly it's not a good tactic. In particular, a lot of the time you want the aliens to be a bit mobile, so that they will move into positions that are close enough that you can maneuver into flanks. Think about how many turns in that vid Beagle had to just wait another turn in hunker because the sectoids didn't move either. You just have to calculate movement ranges and make sure that if they move they can't get flanks on you.

I figure he'll start using overwatch a bit more once he has a bigger squad size and teams that aren't half rookies. But in Impossible overwatch is a much weaker tool in general.

# ¿ Apr 23, 2013 03:24

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

quiggy posted:

For those interested, Joystiq just put up a video preview of The Bureau with impressions from one of their writers who played the game recently. I'm still a little apprehensive about it but it looks like it's still got the potential to turn out great.

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/19/the-bureau-xcom-declassified-video-preview/

Some stuff in the video looks pretty janky (character animations in particular), but it actually looks like fun gameplay which is what matters. I've seen people make Mass Effect comparisons, but if the ME series had the tactical control of squadmates that this one does it's companions would have been way more useful. This may be a contender for "worst development hell ever that still made a good game".

August 20 means it's going against Saint's Row 4 though. I'll probably wait for the T-giving sale.

edit: Also, for anyone who enjoys xcom multiplayer, Shin Sanzuken uploaded a whole whack of videos a day ago. There are even more new ways to break the game now!

Klyith fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Jul 19, 2013

# ¿ Jul 19, 2013 17:00

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Jethro posted:

I watched Beaglerush's Live and Impossible yesterday. His knowledge of the maps is damned impressive, but I can't help but think he's just a bit too conservative. Well, actually I think he's way too conservative, but I've been playing all of 3 days on normal, so I know my calibration is wrong. At any rate, as much as he says "take the shot" he rarely actually does it. Like when he wiped at the end of his last Live and Impossible, he sees 61% and says "that's a bad percentage to hit." He was probably screwed anyway, but I can't imagine he'd become less screwed by running away instead of taking the only shot he'll ever get on an enemy that has flanked him but hasn't taken a shot yet.

Well, you are right but then again you're totally wrong. Beagle does play ultra conservatively, and I personally feel that at times when he's made errors in calculation (as opposed to random mistakes or "getting too comfortable") they're on the side of being too cautions. I wrote a post back when the first Live Impossible went up about how sometimes he turns down an entire round of medium percentage shots because he wants a high percent shot the next round, but that can bite you in the rear end by giving the aliens more turns.

But you're totally wrong because in that specific circumstance, and probably a lot of the other places you thought he was doing the wrong thing, he was absolutely right. Taking that 61% shot means there's a 39% chance his sniper was dead, and hitting it would not improved his situation substantially. Without playing some classic or impossible yourself, I don't think you have the context for a good judgement on those things. Normal mode cheats in your favor, you get hidden boosts to shot percentage in some circumstances.

MechPlasma posted:

You're making it sound like soldiers have an easier chance of hitting something on lower difficulties.

They do.

UFOpaedia posted:

On normal with 4 or fewer soldiers, or easy with precisely 4:
Chance to hit is 120% of displayed value
For hits that have at least a 50% chance of hitting, chance to hit is increased by 15% (absolute) per consecutive miss, with no upper limit
Alien chance to hit is reduced by 10% (absolute) for each consecutive hit.

edit: and that's in addition to the fact that on easy & normal the AI is limited to be less aggressive, not use their special powers (alien grenades etc) as often, and restricted to only 5 aliens allowed to do anything per turn.

Klyith fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Jul 23, 2013

# ¿ Jul 23, 2013 16:01

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

FairGame posted:

He is still too conservative, though. And doesn't use his explosives nearly liberally enough.

I've seen him several times get hosed by hunkering down only to have his cover blown and his hunkered guy end up totally exposed.

He's a good-not-great player who's tremendously entertaining and I love his videos, but I wouldn't watch his stuff to learn tactics.

Nobody, including the dude himself, ever claimed he was the greatest player ever. In fact his geoscape play in the first two series was often criticized (nobody bothered during live & impossible because the 2nd wave options he took are probably unwinnable). We link him because, for anyone who is just starting classic or impossible, it's a good tutorial on howto avoid getting massacred by aliens. His three basic principles (never dash into fog of war, don't gamble on 50-50 shots, use hunker down above overwatch) are absolutely the right way to play, the rest is details and how aggressive or cautious you personally like to play within those boundaries.

Beagle has hosed himself on occasion by being too conservative. If you play a more aggressive style, you've probably hosed yourself by being too ballsy. I know I have. :xcom:

# ¿ Jul 23, 2013 16:43

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Fintilgin posted:

Nope!

At this point I really think they are going to hold off until after The Bureau is out for a while.

I'm predicting that there's going to be a Civ-style expansion announced shortly after The Bureau comes out. That way they don't interfere or cause confusion with The Bureau's marketing, but can ride on it's post-launch PR of the xcom brand being back in the spotlight.

MechPlasma posted:

Actually, I've been wondering, how much defense bonus does dashing give you?

-20 to hit on top of the standard -20 overwatch penalty. Dashing through overwatch is one of those risky-but-worth-it moves that I'll use if I have to, but on classic & impossible you're still taking 35-40% shots from aliens (before adjusting for armor defense or lightning reflexes of course). It's a help if you really need to move through overwatch, but don't get a false sense of security from the dash.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2013 19:41

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

DarkAvenger211 posted:

Just a quick question. I've always wondered, are there actually wandering alien groups that patrol maps? Or are they all waiting for you to come find them?

Yes, but the way that they "patrol" is by teleporting from one spawn location to another. Each map has a static number of spawn locations, so after you play a lot of games you start to get a feel for where the aliens might be (on abduction missions they helpfully mark out some of the spawns with the green bodies).

Because unactivated groups move by teleportation, they can do things like move from Point A to Point C while your dudes are standing at B right between, as long as you don't have vision on A or C. Also this means that you can't safely retreat into ground you've already "cleared"; aliens might have teleported behind you after you moved on. Any part of the map that's fogged might have aliens.

When an alien patrol group decides to teleport to a spawn location that you do have vision on is when they walk in from the fog edge, do their startle, and potentially get shot by soldiers you put on overwatch. Even though it's the aliens turn, they're don't get to shoot the same turn they walked in (preventing the aliens from coming in on flanks and getting unfair shots).

That's how it's supposed to work. There are exceptions to this rule (chryssalids on terror missions are active are run around killing civilians) and bugs -- the teleport bug is likely some kind of broken patrol behavior.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2013 19:59

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Ugly In The Morning posted:

I stopped playing for a while, but I thought one of the patches was supposed to fix the teleport bug? Now that I'm playing again, I definitely have started seeing undiscovered aliens actually moving into my LoS, instead of how it was before where I would have to find them on my turn 100 percent of the time.

One of the patches was supposed to fix the teleport bug. It instead made it 5 times worse. Another patch got sent out fairly quickly after that which put it roughly back to where it was before. It's lovely because the bug makes Ironman into a much less fair game and people want to play Ironman. But it's also a bug that's really hard to replicate -- in all the time people have been playing the game, nobody has ever found a way to 100% trigger an alien teleport. Personally I have the feeling it might be something not in Firaxis's AI & movement code, but a deeper bug in UE like the LOS calculation or something.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2013 20:19

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

wolfman101 posted:

I really have to question why the game rules are dependent on the unreal engine instead of being an underlying base game with the unreal engine being a graphical interface to said underlying game.

I was talking about this exact subject with a friend who is a game developer, and he had the same response. I think if you look at this story and the PAX panel they did, it's clear that they didn't have the luxury of implementing a fully speced game design. The whole thing was done as a series of prototypes, and many of the basic mechanics evolved along the way. The upside is that we got a game with some amazingly good mechanics that both keep the depth and spirit of the original x-com, and are totally playable and engaging for modern times. The downside is there's a little less polish than the usual Firaxis game and some of the bugs are the weird poo poo you get from the prototype they managed to finish in time to ship.

dud root posted:

The Bureau is available for preorder, with a bunch of bonuses for doing so http://store.steampowered.com/app/65930/

Those are some crap bonuses in fact. 2K is doing that scheme on all their games now I guess, but that selection is weak. Spec Ops at this point has been on sale for single-digit dollars multiple times, anyone who wanted to play it probably has. The Xcom collection is better, but they already gave away XCOM:EU as a bonus with Bioshock Infinite.

Not that it's a great idea to pre-order the game right now anyways, wait until we see more.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 01:13

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 06:09

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

thehumandignity posted:

I have a theory that the gaming industry isn't actually a cabal of corrupt assholes who have decided to gouge an isolated market completely arbitrarily because almost none of them are based here and can basically give the finger to our laws with impunity, no, that's not it at all.

Look at the Saint's Row 4 classification brouhaha. Australia requires video games to jump through more hoops and frequently do more work to produce special Australian versions for a tiny market. If I was a publisher drat right I'd charge more over there.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 14:54

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