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Discussion / My observations on the game
« on: June 06, 2012, 04:49:42 pm »
I'm a longtime X-Com player going back to the original game when it was first released. I've played a lot of X-Com wannabees, and one thing I've seen in all of them is the insistence by developers to make changes to "make it better." It wouldn't be one of the best games of all time if you COULD make it better just by changing a few things.
First off, I'll say I like the look of this game. It has a lot going for it. The tactical maps are too small and the aliens just stand out in the open and say "shoot me." but overall I don't have may issues with the tactical game. However, one thing I really do not like about UFO:AI is the auto-deploy feature used in the tactical map. Half the time my guys are out in the open with their butts exposed! That's not good tactics and it certainly isn't making it better. I break my team up into two identical squads to cover more area. I want to be able to determine where they go when they disembark the vehicle. Not have the game determine it for me. And the other is the ridiculous situation of having my men deployed on the other side of the base from the entrance when it's attacked. This completely negates any advantage created by using the entrance as a bottleneck to deny aliens access to the inner part of the base.
Everything in this game happens much too quickly. I normally play on standard because I don't like to have to play on easy.
The strategic game is a mess as far as I'm concerned. Everything is happening much too fast. The progression of the alien incursion is too fast to deal with. You shouldn't have a base attacked within the first week or two of the game. In X-Com, that didn't happen for many months.
After only a few days, I'm finding my ships up against aliens that can shoot them down easily. That didn't happen in X-Com except on the very hardest levels. I appreciate that there are people who can beat X-Com on superhuman. More power to you. I can't, so please don't ramp up the difficulty on the lower levels of this game to accommodate them. If they want an extremely difficult game, let them play this game on its highest level. But allowing UFOs to shoot down the troop carrier after successfully completing a mission is entirely unfair tactics, especially as it happens very early in the game. In fact, it's set up as an ambush. They just wait for you to leave the LZ then blast you out of the sky. That almost never happened in X-Com until you had Avengers which could hold their own against UFOs. And if I try to use my interceptor or whatever it's called to cover the troop carrier, that gets shot down because my weapons can't even compete with a simple fighter.
And since countries begin losing their confidence within the first 3 days, and each ufo missed reduces it more, which is absolutely ridiculous, money is very tight. You cannot survive more than one complete wipe out because you don't have the luxury of just hiring 20 more soldiers and choosing the best ones, you're stuck with the chaff that's left over after you pick your first squad. That may add to the realism but it makes the game a lot less fun. If you're going to do that, you might as well just have them invade with a 1000 ufos and 100 million men and get it all over with on the first turn. That's what a real alien invasion would be like if it ever happened.
And research is entirely too slow. I shouldn't have to do three or four crashed ufo's and a terror mission before I can research laser tech. If you remember from X-Com, laser tech research took 1 to 2 days at most, and by the 3d or 4th mission, you had access to laser rifles already.
Some people may consider this too easy, but even laser rifles were weak compared to the plasma that the aliens were using, but the balance of the game was good. You knew you were outgunned and out teched, yet you felt you had the chance to catch up. I don't get that feeling in this game. I feel completely overwhelmed in the first half hour and after my troop carrier got shot down, I just put the game away. To me, losing unfairly isn't fun.
Just having a strategic game system and a tactical game system does not an X-Com quality TBS game make. Be aware of the game balance and the pace of the alien growth. You game has the aliens with far too much of an advantage, and the humans so far behind that it is virtually impossible to catch up with the money and research time provided.
Either that or I just have no idea how to play this game.
First off, I'll say I like the look of this game. It has a lot going for it. The tactical maps are too small and the aliens just stand out in the open and say "shoot me." but overall I don't have may issues with the tactical game. However, one thing I really do not like about UFO:AI is the auto-deploy feature used in the tactical map. Half the time my guys are out in the open with their butts exposed! That's not good tactics and it certainly isn't making it better. I break my team up into two identical squads to cover more area. I want to be able to determine where they go when they disembark the vehicle. Not have the game determine it for me. And the other is the ridiculous situation of having my men deployed on the other side of the base from the entrance when it's attacked. This completely negates any advantage created by using the entrance as a bottleneck to deny aliens access to the inner part of the base.
Everything in this game happens much too quickly. I normally play on standard because I don't like to have to play on easy.
The strategic game is a mess as far as I'm concerned. Everything is happening much too fast. The progression of the alien incursion is too fast to deal with. You shouldn't have a base attacked within the first week or two of the game. In X-Com, that didn't happen for many months.
After only a few days, I'm finding my ships up against aliens that can shoot them down easily. That didn't happen in X-Com except on the very hardest levels. I appreciate that there are people who can beat X-Com on superhuman. More power to you. I can't, so please don't ramp up the difficulty on the lower levels of this game to accommodate them. If they want an extremely difficult game, let them play this game on its highest level. But allowing UFOs to shoot down the troop carrier after successfully completing a mission is entirely unfair tactics, especially as it happens very early in the game. In fact, it's set up as an ambush. They just wait for you to leave the LZ then blast you out of the sky. That almost never happened in X-Com until you had Avengers which could hold their own against UFOs. And if I try to use my interceptor or whatever it's called to cover the troop carrier, that gets shot down because my weapons can't even compete with a simple fighter.
And since countries begin losing their confidence within the first 3 days, and each ufo missed reduces it more, which is absolutely ridiculous, money is very tight. You cannot survive more than one complete wipe out because you don't have the luxury of just hiring 20 more soldiers and choosing the best ones, you're stuck with the chaff that's left over after you pick your first squad. That may add to the realism but it makes the game a lot less fun. If you're going to do that, you might as well just have them invade with a 1000 ufos and 100 million men and get it all over with on the first turn. That's what a real alien invasion would be like if it ever happened.
And research is entirely too slow. I shouldn't have to do three or four crashed ufo's and a terror mission before I can research laser tech. If you remember from X-Com, laser tech research took 1 to 2 days at most, and by the 3d or 4th mission, you had access to laser rifles already.
Some people may consider this too easy, but even laser rifles were weak compared to the plasma that the aliens were using, but the balance of the game was good. You knew you were outgunned and out teched, yet you felt you had the chance to catch up. I don't get that feeling in this game. I feel completely overwhelmed in the first half hour and after my troop carrier got shot down, I just put the game away. To me, losing unfairly isn't fun.
Just having a strategic game system and a tactical game system does not an X-Com quality TBS game make. Be aware of the game balance and the pace of the alien growth. You game has the aliens with far too much of an advantage, and the humans so far behind that it is virtually impossible to catch up with the money and research time provided.
Either that or I just have no idea how to play this game.