Rob Zacny

Episode 188: We Will Be Watching, Commander

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Bruce, on the other hand, was very disrespectful and bitter. Calling the game "X-Cover" repeatedly was just plain annoying, not to mention hammering his particular issues with the game while not listening to some technical reasonings.

I feel like you listened to a different show than the one I was on. I just had to go re-listen to parts of it just to see if I'd missed something, and I still don't see it. I think Bruce raised some great issues that led to fantastic answers from Jake.

Sorry you didn't enjoy the episode. I'm pretty happy with it, and with Bruce's contributions.

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I enjoyed the show, and it even inspired me to grab the original version - just to give it a try again, and remember what it was I liked about X-Com all those moon ago. It's funny because when X-Com was originally released, I didn't fall in love with it. I was more interested in the atmospherics, than the mechanics. There's just something about the music, the loading stills, and the eerie fog of war darkness that hides these invaders in the dusky twilight. I remember the stark atmosphere of the original Syndicate game in a similar way. Something about art and music that just worked to create a mood.

I always hear many strategy gamers gushing over X-Com, and it's obvious from the hype surrounding this up coming title that there is a lot of interest in the game. But over the years I never understood why other turn based tactical games didn't warrant the same sort of admiration. Jagged Alliance. Silent Storm. Even some recent titles, like Team Assault - Baptism of Fire or Star Sentinels Tactics. These games all provide a similar experience, mechanics-wise, but they seem to lack that atmosphere of battling the unknown. The Alien menace. Based purely on my recent nostalgic euphoria after playing some of the original, I've pre-ordered this new title.

I didn't think Bruce's comments were disrespectful at all. In fact his X-Cover comment was quite amusing, I thought. Bruce is well suited to playing the devil's advocate on many issues, and the new angle of questioning and reasoning he can bring to the conversation often ignites discussion in a positive way. Unless it's a discussion about Mark Walkers Lock N' Load game ;)

I thought Jake did an admirable job of giving insights into the design process, often humbling himself, and owning up to all the mistakes along the way. It's like having honest and interesting designer notes in a manual, only they're spoken, and they can be quizzed on certain issues that they raise. :)

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I guess I should explain. It is not 100% consistent. Sometimes I let units die, especially if I am winning the metagame, or the long game. However, sometimes I just have an OCD with redoing the battle until I get it just right (usually 0 losses).

The best example is the new Kings Bounty games. I probably get a perfect victory about 50% of the time in the game. I treat the battle as a puzzle, and I experiment with different ways to manipulate the AI into giving me extra turns so that I can wear them away with ranged attacks. I carefully choose between using damaging spells, blind, slow, placing a trap... all of which have different guaranteed outcomes. Sometimes though, when you are fighting dragons or a boss, you will lose soldiers and there is nothing you can do. These fights are boring for me because gradients of success are hard to measure... you always know if you got a perfect victory. So what I lost 5 archmages or 100 archers... I can go buy some more with the 10 million gold I have saved up. The only satisfaction I get is from mastering the combat tactics.

By reloading and learning the best way to defeat your enemies, you soon gain the ability to win on your first try. It helps that in King's Bounty there is very little thats unpredictable... I can even guess which unit the AI will target and with what spell in some cases.

I played X-Com UFO Defense a few weeks ago and I did a terror mission. I was doing really well killing 10 aliens and 1 civillian (oops). Suddenly an alien throws a grenade a very long distance right into the middle of 4 guys... 2 unarmored rookies and 2 armored veterans. The rookies die, one veteran is slightly injured. This is totally acceptable to me, actually kind of exciting. However, I thought about it for a minute... and decided to abort and retry. Why? I was certainly conflicted. I knew that people like Rob would look at me incredulously and say I am defeating part of the game. I don't think thats 100% correct, I get the best of both worlds, finishing the game efficiently while also experiencing defeat in entertaining ways. I seldom experience total defeat... such as losing 8 guys to chrysalids and having 4 take the lonely ride back to base. I guess... I am too much of a perfectionist to let my mistakes slide and when I go into the next mission, and the mission after that wondering why my guys have such crappy accuracy and morale... its those mistakes coming back to haunt me.

I do the same thing in baldur's gate 2. I have a low level party, only an hour into the game. I walk into an inn, see some mercs who think they are tough. So I call them out into a battle and get my ass handed to me. I retry the battle a dozen times and eventually i find a combination of spells and party positions that allow me to win. It is basically puzzle solving, and its my favorite thing about video games. I don't like chess, I don't like bejewled... i'm not sure if its purely the flavor of there is a fundamental difference between combining web and fireball compared to forking a knight and a bishop.

I have played Diablo 2 Hardcore...and even dueled someone once. My heart was pounding like I had sprinted a mile and adrenaline rushed into my body. The battle was very anticlimactic, with 3 minutes of futile melee until I decided that I didn't want to waste all of my potions. I didn't like it... I don't like getting so worked up about a video game. It was strange that just the idea in the back of my head that I could lose this level 40 character would have so much power over me.

Maybe a toned down version of that is what you are looking for when you play a game like X-Com. For me... its more of a cold calculating approach with plenty of funny roleplaying going on in my head to weave my own story. That story is about an elite group of soldiers who can take all odds and with 4-6 characters... there is no room for red shirts.

I am glad that there is criticism of saving/loading and I am teaching myself to only do it when something really extreme happens (or the UI sucks and I accidentally run forward 10 spaces instead of selecting a different team member, fairly common in 90's games). It is just difficult for me to accept the fact that I could outflank the enemy perfectly, having predicted their actions, having planned meticulously the situation and oops... I miss my shot, and they shoot me when I'm in full cover and kill me. That would drive me nuts... against a human its okay because its all fun and games... but the AI... maybe if the alien did a little celebration dance and told me to kiss its ass.. maybe then I could accept...

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Just finished listening to the episode and I was a big disappointed. I really liked Rob's criticisms and respectful tone towards Jake Solomon, specially when bringing up some fair points and understanding Jake's views on some decisions.

Bruce, on the other hand, was very disrespectful and bitter. Calling the game "X-Cover" repeatedly was just plain annoying, not to mention hammering his particular issues with the game while not listening to some technical reasonings.

I felt the same way back in a 3MA podcast about SoaSE: Rebellion, where Kat Bailey spent A LOT of time talking about her particular issues which clearly weren't shared by other hosts.

I love 3MA, but didn't enjoy this episode.

I completely agree, haven't listened to the show in a while due to podcast overload but fit this in because I was interested in this game.

I found myself frustrated and bordering on angry by the way Bruce was speaking to Jake, having criticisms is fine but I felt he went over the line and it was down right uncomfortable to listen to.

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In generally looking up videos about this XCOM game in the passed couple weeks, I saw Jake Solomon in enough interviews to actually recognize who he was. I've seen a load of interview banter with the guy, but I'm thinking "I bet this guy REALLY knows what's up when it comes to designing games."

So thanks! I shoulda known this is where I'd get that.

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I think some of the criticism against Bruce here is a little unfair. Jake Solomon seems like a really nice guy and has obviously put a lot of work and love into the game, but in reviving a hallowed series like X-COM, he was always going to deal with some hard questions from X-COM veterans, which is what I assume Bruce was brought into do. To be honest, I actually felt that Bruce was a little reserved in his criticisms, probably out of respect for Jake who obviously struggled with some difficult decisions in modernizing X-COM. The 'X-Cover' crack... well, I've only listened to TMA for just under a year, but it seemed to me a case of Bruce being Bruce. I think if Jake is also a listener of TMA as he implied he was, then he would get that as well.

One question though: are the tutorial missions skippable? They are fairly dull, and since I am a serial campaign re-starter, I'm hoping that I can do away with them once I have a handle on the controls.

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One question though: are the tutorial missions skippable? They are fairly dull, and since I am a serial campaign re-starter, I'm hoping that I can do away with them once I have a handle on the controls.

Check out this video:

and Skip to 1:23

There is a checkbox for Ironman and Tutorial you can set. The description of tutorial also reads: The tutorial is automatically disabled on the difficulty "Impossible".

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There is a checkbox for Ironman and Tutorial you can set. The description of tutorial also reads: The tutorial is automatically disabled on the difficulty "Impossible".

Awesome!

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ShadowTiger, thanks for your story. Appreciate your taking some time to talk about your playstyle.

Another pro-Geryk vote. 3MA is not a review podcast, it's an exploration of design. Mr. Solomon joins a long line of devlopers present and absent who've had games that the panel enjoy get a close look and an exploration of alternatives. I have to imagine that the XCOM team was at least as self-challenging internally. I listen because the panel is willing to imagine different (and not necessarily better) strategy games than those on the screen in front of them.

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Yeah, this was hardly the Bruce-iest Bruce that ever Bruced up a podcast. His questions were critical, they did get good answers, and that's kind of why many people listen to our show. We try (not always successfully) to be respectful, but 3MA has never been about just letting developers say whatever they want and market the game. There's been an entire year long ad campaign for that. This was a chance for two people who know and love XCom to talk about the design changes and try to get answers about why the changes were made and that was that.

Jake answered them well and to my satisfaction. (And yes, he is a regular listener to the podcast. In fact, the development community in general was an early adopter of 3MA precisely because we treat design seriously and don't just go "awesome or not awesome?" in our chats.)

And keep in mind that you are allowed to be critical of things you love! Saying a bad thing about one part of media does not always mean that you are making a judgment that poisons the whole.

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I agree with some of the earlier comments about Bruce. I felt like nearly every question he asked was a five minute statement that basically boiled down to "Why is x so terrible."

And when asked what he liked about the game, his response was, "I thought the glam-cam would suck, but it really doesn't."

So clearly he didn't care for the game, since he had very little positive to say about it. Which is fine. Everybody is different. But it made for a frustrating listen to me when it all seemed to be focused on fairly minor things that Bruce had a problem with. When you have a lead developer on, I think it's best to focus on high level design decisions and approach rather than stuff like:

"Why can't I zoom out?"

"Why is this X-Cover?"

"Why is the interface so console-y?"

"Why am I not getting a medic promotion?"

Granted, that last one wasn't Bruce's question, but it was another example of the strange focus of this podcast. And I thought Bruce's use of the terms X-Cover and glam cam were pejorative and slightly insulting.

I thought the designer did an admirable job of taking these questions and twisting them into larger design discussions, which redeemed the podcast a bit. But overall I was disappointed with the discussion.

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And now you take a look at the 2k forums and find the following threads:

-The controls are an insult to pc gamers (64 Postings)

-The PC UI I WANT (186 Postings)

-Promotions/Experience - How does it work? (Only 4 Postings, well, ok, on that level you probably find threads about every topic)

From what I see, controls and interface are the number one critics on the forums (including cam controls) and so I find these points absolutely valid. And I really like these questions more than "Your Feature XYZ is awesome, do you agree?" or "You got a great XYZ, what was your inspiration for that?".

Sometimes you have to make design decisions which are not liked by all people but needed so that other systems don't fall apart. And I think Jake did a good job in explaining some of them. Though I would have loved even more openness, but I guess he had to play the game of wandering the small line between his "streamlining" decisions on the one hand and the hardcore xcom fans on the other, especially so short before release.

I agree that the length of some questions and calling it x-cover might not have been the best choices, but the questions I found perfectly valid. "Glam Cam" however seems to be a common term over there.

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This is exactly the kind of scenario I was referring to in my post, I guess with a bunch of players these things are bound to happen eventually.

http://forums.2kgame...hat-s-bull-****

Also, I re-listened to the podcast and I thought it was great. No complaints, obviously in one episode you can't get everything that happened in 5 years.

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Bruce's problem was that he wasn't particularly articulate in spitting out his questions/criticisms. The rambling preambles made it an awkward and confusing listen. But rambling and meandering is a characteristic of all of the 3MA regulars from time to time.

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This is exactly the kind of scenario I was referring to in my post, I guess with a bunch of players these things are bound to happen eventually.

http://forums.2kgame...hat-s-bull-****

That sounds like X-Com to me :D

but unfortunately, a user later claims that is a bug: "As it stands however, panicked soldiers will in fact go out of their way to shoot teammates."

I played 3 sessions of the original X-COM, only 3 campaings where I was fully invested in beating the game. Early I understood that the only way to play X-COM was by never reloading, never (even if I mis-clicked). My small brother on the other side played for perfection, if he missed a shot he reloaded, if a soldier died he reloaded, if the shot didn't killed the alien at the moment he wanted he reloaded, im my opinion that made for a really dull experience; still what my brother loves about games is winning experience, new perks, upgrades and stuff (he's addicted to League of Legends) so he passed more time configuring his army with the latest tech, leveling up his soldiers in the process.

I never won an X-Com campaing (I don't expect to)... but I will always have awesome stories to tell my grandchildren about.

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So having a sniper freak out and kill another soldier from across the map in a fit of panic sounds pretty crummy to me. But yeah, that story doesn't quite tally with my experience. Panicking troops almost always either cower, try to flee, or blast the enemy that's scaring them. I have had maybe one rookie solider turn around and fire at another squad member.

The exception being mind-control. Mind control induces panic and, unfortunately, the object of that panic is usually the mind-controlled soldier. Frustrating to watch a rookie headshot an elite veteran that you could have rescued three seconds later by shooting the psy unit. But frustrating in a good way, in my experience. Really makes those MC-encounters fraught.

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So having a sniper freak out and kill another soldier from across the map in a fit of panic sounds pretty crummy to me. But yeah, that story doesn't quite tally with my experience. Panicking troops almost always either cower, try to flee, or blast the enemy that's scaring them. I have had maybe one rookie solider turn around and fire at another squad member.

The exception being mind-control. Mind control induces panic and, unfortunately, the object of that panic is usually the mind-controlled soldier. Frustrating to watch a rookie headshot an elite veteran that you could have rescued three seconds later by shooting the psy unit. But frustrating in a good way, in my experience. Really makes those MC-encounters fraught.

I think, from the two times it's happened to my squad, they'll shoot their own teammates if A) they elect to shoot but the object of their freak-out isn't in sight, or B) they elect to flee but the cover they've decided on is occupied by a teammate. That may just be apophenia on my part.

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Yeah, watching people play the game has helped me realize that you can avoid most of the risky situations by positioning your troops correctly. Never stand your guys next to gas pumps, for example. My main concern is the people who mentioned that rookies are really weak in the late game and losing your veteran troopers is a huge disadvantage. Hopefully I an overly cautious playthrough and not being grenade shy can allow me to keep them alive.

I wish I had time to play this right now... oh work.

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FWIW, I've had three instances of panicked troops, none of which have resulted in friendly fire. Lots of wimpering and firing ineffectually at aliens, but no friendly fire.

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So I'm late on listening to this one, but listened last night. Great show, you guys, and Jake is a super guest. I have been on a nonstop high in my time with XCOM. I liked Bruce's story about playing the original almost twenty years ago -- I have similar feelings playing this one, it transports me back to when I was 26 or whatever, and all I want to do is get a supply of my favorite beer, and go into bunker mode with the game for 12 hours. I have been too busy to play much, but I look forward to a night soon when I can really dig in. I am so impressed that they have removed so much of the tedium of the original game (X-Com is a great game, but there is also a lot of tedious crap involved with it), and mostly kept the great stuff. This game is happiness.

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Bruce's problem was that he wasn't particularly articulate in spitting out his questions/criticisms. The rambling preambles made it an awkward and confusing listen.

I think this may actually be on the money for the problem I had with the cast. Like many of you I found Bruce's "complaint" segments to be sort of awkward and perhaps not even entirely on-topic, but that was only until I actually played the game. What seemed in the podcast to be overblown whining about the fact that all multi-platform games have a slightly different UI design to PC-only games turned out to actually be a point of frustration in the game for me too. I don't think XCOM: Enemy Unknown's UI is bad, but I do think it can occasionally be frustrating in the first few hours. Obviously you adjust, but it's now clear to me that Bruce really did have a point when he suggested the PC version was less friendly to mouse and keyboard than it could have been. So it was really just the presentation of the problem in the cast that was off, and perhaps not the problem itself.

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This was a very good episode. It felt like you were talking to an independent developer, not a guy about to ship a big multi-platform game.

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I wonder if people that were put off by Dr. Bruce Geryk's comments are fairly new to 3MA? I only ask because I think Bruce is something of an aquired taste. I didn't care for his contributions when I first started listening, I tended to find he would obsess over weird details, and sort of derail conversations. Over time though, I began to find him more insightful than I originally gave him credit for. Worth considering.

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@sclpls Completely agree. I actually found him annoying the first few episodes I listened when a friend recommended 3MA to me. Now I am happy each time I see him joining the cast. :)

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I thought Bruce was a little more adversarial than usual this episode, but nothing really incongruous. Like someone else said, the nadir of the episode was really the brief excursion into bug-hunt territory. Nothing as bad as the Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion episode, but still somewhat vexing. There's a line between "this hilarious weird thing happened to me while playing, it must have been a bug" and "here is my laundry list of ways to improve your game's balance and stability" that is easy to cross in casual conversation, but that sticks out like a sore thumb when listening.

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