itchyeyes

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  1. Episode 343: XCOM 2

    I think the opaqueness of some of the systems and the technical glitches kind of work together to make it especially inpenetrable for some people. It's not always clear what is a bug, what is a poorly designed system, and what is a good system that's just poorly understood. For example, on another podcast I lestened to yesterday, they were complaining about how there was a bug that would sometimes reveal you in concealment even when you moved to a square that's not shown as red. That's actually not a bug, just a poorly explained system. What's actually happening there is that you only see red reveal sqauares for enemies that are within your field of view, and it's sometimes dangerous to approach obstacles that block your line of sight while in concealment, because there could be an enemy or civilian on the other side that can spot you if you get too close. If you don't understand that system, which the game makes no effort to explain to you, it's infuriating to continually move to squares that you think are safe only to be revealed. Once you get it though, it's a non-issue, maybe even a strength that makes concealment something more interesting and challenging than just "stay out of the red squares". But getting people to that place of understanding, on all the various systems, seems to be where the game struggles the most.
  2. Episode 343: XCOM 2

    Yeah, same here. There are plenty of issues with XCOM 2 that could put someone off of it. But I didn't really feel like the podcast was a discussion of those issues. Or at the very least, for every minute they spent discussing real issues, they spent two talking about things that aren't really issues with the game (eg the "punishing" difficulty of sectoids), or comparing it to some imagined superior version of EU/EW that never existed (where you apparently don't get projects interupted by missions while you're scanning, for example). Likewise, a lot of the discussion about the general difficulty level (especially when it seemed nobody had bothered to turn it down a notch, and at least a few had turned on Iron Man for their very first run), seemed really out of place too. I get that it's a difficult game, and how that can put some people off of it. But at the same time, it seems a strange thing to complain about if you've played EU/EW, or the original UFO Defense. The difficulty is part of what makes an XCOM/X-COM game. You're supposed to lose soldiers, even entire teams. That's part of the experience of the game. Complaining that you're losing soldiers in XCOM2 on your first run is like complaining that you couldn't complete Dark Souls 2 in a single life on your first attempt. Again, if this is your first time playing an XCOM game, I could see how that might put you off. But if you've got over 100 hours in XCOM: EU/EW, it shouldn't really be a huge shock to you when you lose a team on your very first campaign.
  3. Episode 343: XCOM 2

    Yeah, one more here who thought some people were maybe looking back at EU/EW through rose colored glasses. Not that XCOM 2 doesn't have plenty of issues, but this conversation felt really one sided to me and several of the criticisms felt like they were really stretching. I would have liked to see more discussion around the fact that the game is clearly designed with the assumption that you're going to play the campaign more than once, and that things that seem like huge hurdles your first playthrough, quickly become a non-issue. I can definitely see arguments both for and against why that's a valid approach to the design. On the subject of turn timers, I think they're a major improvement over EU/EW, which quickly became very stale. They lead to much more dynamic and interesting encounters than just overwatching your way through every map. That being said, Invisible Inc handled that same problem better, and I'm hoping to see some mods or expansions that work in some more variation on how to put pressure on the player than just immediately failing the mission.