Firaxis' XCOM Enemy Unknown

[Woebin]

Is anyone else stoked for this? I love turn based tactics games like the original XCOM, Jagged Alliance and so forth, but there hasn't (to my knowledge) been a polished game in the genre for ages. I mean, there are a bunch of these games being released by smaller developers, like 7.62mm, the UFO series and most recently Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, but they've been pretty rough around the edges (and most of them haven't actually been turn based, which is one of the biggest appeals of this genre to me).

Firaxis usually know what they're doing, so I really look forward to this. Also with any luck it won't be too simplified compared to its predecessors.

Here's the official website, for the record. Not that much info there, and I haven't read most of the previews yet.

[a purple future]

I'm over here shitting bricks on a daily basis that this is a thing that is actually happening. The original games (even Apocalypse) are absolutely some of my favorite games of all time, and I still play them constantly.

I just hope this is better than the recent Jagged Alliance reboot/remake

[Sno]

I'm confident it'll be a very good game, but I've heard some things that have caused me to raise an eyebrow.

I read it quite a while ago now, i don't recall the specifics or even where it was from, but it was a interview where one of the leads was talking about how in focus testing people weren't grasping the time units system from the original X-com, and so they pulled it out in favor of something more straightforward.

Focus testing: Ruining everybody's fun, always.

[Woebin]

I'm confident it'll be a very good game, but I've heard some things that have caused me to raise an eyebrow.

I read it quite a while ago now, i don't recall the specifics or even where it was from, but it was a interview where one of the leads was talking about how in focus testing people weren't grasping the time units system from the original X-com, and so they pulled it out in favor of something more straightforward.

Focus testing: Ruining everybody's fun, always.

This got me googling, and I found this interview.

RPS: OK, well let’s do time units. Go on, explain yourself about why time units have been removed…

Jake Solomon: (laughs) Ok, so I guess what I’d say is that we had time units, our prototype had time units and time units are a great mechanic – sorry, I even hear it in my own voice, I’m switching into defensive mode here – time units are a great mechanic, there are still plenty of games that use time units. The reason was, and this was one that actually quite surprised me, we had time units, and when we studied players, everybody was getting really frustrated because what people wanted to do in the game was they wanted to make a plan, right, that’s a lot of the joy of a tactical game like this – you look at the battlefield, you see the aliens, you see your XCOM squad and you’re going to start saying, in your head ‘Ok, right, I’m going to sneak around for the flank here, I’m going to pin this guy down there, I’m going to flush this guy out of cover, and the same time my other guy’s going to be an overwatch so I get a reaction fire shot on him’ right? So that’s how you think, looking at the battlefield.

But making and executing that plan, that’s one of the joys of a tactical game, of a strategic game, of games that reward thinking. So the problem was that people were getting frustrated, they were never planning past their first unit because time units don’t really map towhat you see, they’re not a direct map to what you see and how you think about your soldiers, and so people would basically break down and they would basically only plan for their one active unit, because they actually were never quite sure what they were going to be able to do. I think any player of the original would acknowledge that it had the sort of great experience of like, ok, snapshot, snapshot, back behind cover, oh look at that, kneel, snapshot.

That’s not a bad thing, but what that prevented was for people planning their squad as a squad and instead they planned individual units basically as it happened. Because you could have a rough idea, but the problem was that people couldn’t map time units to the way that they thought about the battlefield, and so it became a real frustration for people – because on top of that, we’ve added so much stuff, I mean we really have added so, so much stuff, in terms of abilities that your soldiers can do, weapons, classes, the cover system, the abilities that the aliens can do, new item, new armours… All these things, and we’ve designed these abilities to be combo-d together from different soldiers, and then they can interact in interesting ways.

We thought about a lot of these mechanics as like you have to use multiple soldiers to be successful at them, and time units just basically broke that system, because people just weren’t able to think like that with time units. They would say like ‘I have no idea what I can do’, they thought they knew what they could do but they weren’t sure, and so because of that, time units just didn’t work, I guess. I know some people are not going to believe me and I think that’s fine, but I would say that I’m speaking completely honestly. This was not some sort of thing where we said ‘Oh, time units are too tough, this’ll make it easier to play’ because everybody intellectually understands time units once you explain it to them, it’s easy to intellectually understand. The problem was that it just didn’t map to the experience well. With all these new abilities and things, it just created this barrier between ‘I know what I want to do and I know how I’m going to do it’ and instead it became this sort of thing where you were like ‘I’m not quite sure what I can do, and so I’m just going to let it sort of play out’. So in this case when we had time units, they ended up making the game more shallow, because all these different abilities and combos, all these interesting things, were never getting used because people couldn’t think about them that way.

Once we put in a system where the player could think about their abilities as discrete events, then it became much much easier for people to say ‘ok, I’m going to play in my turn, then the aliens are going to do something and they’re going to mess with my plan, but ultimately I’m going to execute my plan’. And that’s what’s most satisfying, is understanding that you have a superior plan, and then forcing the execution of that plan on to your enemy – that is what’s so thrilling.

So yes, time units are out, and it's because players in focus testing got confused, but it doesn't necessarily sound like it's been dumbed down for it. However, I should admit that I actually haven't played the original X-Com myself yet. It's in my Steam list, I intend to get to it, but whenever I feel the itch for turn based tactics I tend to boot up something that looks a bit more modern (not current, since there aren't a lot of good current games in the genre, but something like JA2). It's silly, I don't usually care that much about graphics, but there you go. I'll get there.

[Dr Wookie]

Major necro time !

Call me Johnny Come Lately, but I got XCOM Enemy Unknown + Enemy Within in a bundle in the latest steam sale, having never really played it. Would you recommend that I play the original first or just dive in with everything?

I played Rebelstar and Laser Squad back in the day, and heard that XCOM was kinda based on that, but spent many years as a console gamer rather than PC gamer so missed out

[iax]

(I think this thread is a little bit more alive. https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/8124-xcom-enemy-unknown/ )

[Nappi]

Do we still need a separate strategy games subforum?

[brkl]

It's because of three moves ahead, but I'd much rather welcome their readers here.

[Cordeos]

It's because of three moves ahead, but I'd much rather welcome their readers here.

Most of the activity I see in the Strategy forum is from users that are active in the general games and idle banter sections.