The_Darkest_Red
Member
This is easily one of my most anticipated games this year, and I haven't even played the original. It's looking fantastic.
I still think that his argument to ditch Time Units is bogus, by the way.
Yes, removing time units sacrifices some depth. Jake Solomon's point with "head space" is that the slight added depth of TUs wasn't worth the big increase in mental bookkeeping and tedium.It's awful. "Playtesters thought time units were frustrating because they'd use 'em up and be like 'gah, I can't do stuff this sucks!', sooo, now every unit does two Things, every turn."
While it still looks like an exciting and varied strategy game, that decision single-handedly dilutes so much depth from x-com's combat.
Sure being one time unit shy of being able to fire at that sectoid through the window right in front of you sucks, but you always have another plan; unless you're a playtester without any cognitive processes occurring in the brain. Which is uhh, literally every playtester today apparently.
It was confirmed for 360, PS3 & PC when it was first announced. I'm still hoping for a Wii U version.
I LOVE how they've approached base building. Really unique interface.
Yes, removing time units sacrifices some depth. Jake Solomon's point with "head space" is that the slight added depth of TUs wasn't worth the big increase in mental bookkeeping and tedium.
With TUs gone, the player can now usefully manage extra depth in other areas. The cover system, the character development/perk system, the plethora of new abilities and tactics we haven't seen yet--the depth these things add will more than compensate for TUs, and none of them will entail the boring hassle that TUs turned out to generate.
It's awful. "Playtesters thought time units were frustrating because they'd use 'em up and be like 'gah, I can't do stuff this sucks!', sooo, now every unit does two Things, every turn."
While it still looks like an exciting and varied strategy game, that decision single-handedly dilutes so much depth from x-com's combat.
Sure being one time unit shy of being able to fire at that sectoid through the window right in front of you sucks, but you always have another plan; unless you're a playtester without any cognitive processes occurring in the brain. Which is uhh, literally every playtester today apparently.
Strategy shouldn't be about "patience", in my opinion. Game elements that add lots of time and bookkeeping SHOULD be purged in favour of ones that reward creative thinking, adaptability, puzzle-solving, and other more engaging stuff.What you refer to as mental bookkeeping and tedium a lot of people find to be a satisfying cognitive process that becomes second nature over time. The concept of reward through patience has slowly been purged from nearly every aspect of society lately.
Strategy shouldn't be about "patience", in my opinion. Game elements that add lots of time and bookkeeping SHOULD be purged in favour of ones that reward creative thinking, adaptability, puzzle-solving, and other more engaging stuff.
What you refer to as mental bookkeeping and tedium a lot of people find to be a satisfying cognitive process that becomes second nature over time. The concept of reward through patience has slowly been purged from nearly every aspect of society lately.
RPS has made vague references to XCOM mod support in their comments sections over the past week. I'd be surprised if we don't get official word about basic mod support in the next few days.Looks great and should be fun but I still get the feeling you'll probably complete the game with the same four (to six or whatever the crappy limit is) people unless you mess up badly... Please be fully modable please be fully modable please be fully modable.
And more power to those people. They have a large selection of turn-based games that embrace that style.Yet some people, especially older gamers, enjoy this type of games.
yes, you are spot on about SOCIETAL changes. It's not in games only, it happened everywhere. Internet decreased attention spans, mobile phones and email sped up life. Deal with these changes, the world won't go back unless a sun flare destroys all electronic devices on Earth.
RPS has made vague references to XCOM mod support in their comments sections over the past week. I'd be surprised if we don't get official word about basic mod support in the next few days.
Or people could just make games in the style of old games.
I still think that his argument to ditch Time Units is bogus, by the way.
That isn't really his argument though, is it? It sounds more like, "freeing up that headspace to allocate it to something more interesting." In an ideal world the amount of intellectual thought the game will require will be even with the original but the amount of interesting mechanics and variables at play will be increased.Me too. "Freeing up that headspace" and making it simplified. Urgh, no thanks.
Is that in the video? I don't remember that in the earlier preview and I won't be able to watch the video until later today.but he already said in the interview that it will be moddable and he looks forward to play what hardcore people put out there.
Yeah, TUs are indeed hugely complicated mathematical calculations.
The problem is that they're NOT complicated. They just bog down the entire game without adding depth to justify it. You have to deal with them for every single move of the game, but they only add genuine strategy in like 10% of those moves.Yeah, TUs are indeed hugely complicated mathematical calculations.
What you refer to as mental bookkeeping and tedium a lot of people find to be a satisfying cognitive process that becomes second nature over time. The concept of reward through patience has slowly been purged from nearly every aspect of society lately.
Yeah, TUs are indeed hugely complicated mathematical calculations.
Encumbrance = Strength / Carried Weight*
If Encumbrance >= 1 then
Available TUs = Base TUs
Else
Available TUs = INT(Encumbrance x Base TUs)
Strategy shouldn't be about "patience", in my opinion. Game elements that add lots of time and bookkeeping SHOULD be purged in favour of ones that reward creative thinking, adaptability, puzzle-solving, and other more engaging stuff.
Also, the entire MMORPG genre is about reward through patience, and it sucks because of it.
This is just nonsense. I chttp://www.neogaf.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=35772715onsider XCOM to be the greatest game of all time. That said, removing the TU for a level-based skill progression of Move-action-skill adds depth and interest will removing the tedium that was TU. TU didn't add anything but useless micromanagement to the original. Optimizing and exploiting the system didn't require any thought, strategy, or ingenuity. It only forced rote accounting into the gameplay.
As for unit limits, I like the idea of smaller squads. 4 may be a little low, but that is preferable to 14 in turn-based game with movement. I prefer this because it increases fun per unit time and decrease unnecessary micromanagement. I just don't have the time anymore to spending 10 minutes setting up a battle.
So, I conider both of the big changes highly beneficial for fun/time.
Looks great and should be fun but I still get the feeling you'll probably complete the game with the same four (to six or whatever the crappy limit is) people unless you mess up badly... Please be fully modable please be fully modable please be fully modable.
And a fun game play thing is we have critical wounding in the game, so when somebody takes a critical wound, just like in the original, they’re bleeding out and you’ve only got a couple of turns to get to them with a Medkit and stabilize them. But those soldiers who are critically wounded, if you stabilize them, well then good for you, you’ve saved one of your soldiers, but the problem of course is that they suffer a permanent Will penalty from that point on, and so now they become a little shakier. Like God forbid you suffer two critical wounds, you’re going to be jumping at every sound. I mean depending upon what their starting will was, but then you get these guys who are a little shaky and they’re going to panic at the first sign of things going south and they’re going to start chucking grenades everywhere and freaking out and firing off their gun wildly…
So, just an in depth an experience on console as on PC?
Jake Solomon: Yes, absolutely. We have not changed the feature set at all. There are some things with the PC interface we're not doing with the console, just because we have a little more freedom in terms of the depth of zoom and the ability to show different things tactically on PC. Certainly the interface will be different between the two. So we are doing some things on PC.
But in terms of core game elements and the way you interact, you can do everything on console you can do on PC.
So how is the camera perspective different on PC?
Jake Solomon: It's more you have more zoom. You have a longer zoom. So you can get out even further. On the console you can pull the left trigger to go out. But on PC, you could potentially play at a very high zoom level.
UFO and Jagged Alliance 2, are two of the best best turn based tactical games ever, and they use TUs/Action Points: how can they be so good if that system is so deleterious as you make it sound? Maybe it just isn't, rather it is the opposite: that system actually adds to this kind of game.They just bog down the entire game without adding depth to justify it.
I'll say this--if Firaxis was really worried about "audience marketability" (or at least what a lot of dumb industry execs think is marketable), this game wouldn't have been made at all. We wouldn't been stuck solely with the FPS.I'm glad you guys are hopeful but literally hearing the words "playtesters were frustrated/overwhelmed" tells me that compromises were made for the sake of reducing mental taxation. Not that it isn't possible for a game to be bogged down by useless management, but even the way this guy sounded in the RPS interview sounded as if the game's vision was diverted due to audience marketability.
I'll say this--if Firaxis was really worried about "audience marketability" (or at least what a lot of dumb industry execs think is marketable), this game wouldn't have been made at all. We wouldn't been stuck solely with the FPS.