general gaming topic

2012-01-13 02:04:13 pm

I guess I don't have a problem with how they're handling classes because of a few reasons. One is that it sounds like a lot of players basically created their own classes as they went along or had a mod that did it for them automatically, but in the end you couldn't choose specific ones. And continuing from that is the fact that you never knew who you'd be hiring in the original version anyway so there was always a chance you'd get that soldier who was awesome in the same group as those two or three that were sub-par.

And of course, in true X-COM fashion, the three sub-par ones would somehow survive while the awesome one would be the first to die on their first mission together. Sure, the three could somehow survive and become awesome down the line, but chances are they'd all die before then anyway so it washes out in the end.

tomatobob

2012-01-13 05:08:06 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from kesvalk:

i am concerned with the entire class system, and even more so to not be able to recruit from a specified class...

Classes don't sound like they make or break the game, rookies can still kill aliens getting a class just makes them better at it/gives them a new way to do it. It gives you a reason to try to keep some of them alive and play a little more carefully and adds a reward for succeeding. Giving the player a reason to think for even a second about whether using a rookie as a human shield is the right move is ok by me.

tomatobob

2012-01-13 05:28:38 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from kesvalk:

i played lot's of X-COM in my life, but i never got to the mars part, terror missions always fucked me and i didn't had enough resources to get my team back to full power and everything would blow up in the end...

Could be that you just aren't selling enough things. Plasma pistols and rifles? Sell that shit. Don't need it. Corpses? Sell 'em. Sell some heavy plasmas too because you're going to be swimming in them soon enough, just keep a good amount of ammo around. Can sell most of that too because you'll have plenty. Not a bad idea to make laser weapons just for purposes of selling either.

Cash will be tight for a few months but losing a bunch of troops should never be irreparable harm to your cause. Losing a Skyranger sucks and will really bite you early but as long as you're making sure to sell most of the junk you get from successful missions you shouldn't have to make too many sacrifices to replace it. You'll have to send out an undermanned squad from time to time, but if you play carefully it'll be fine.

if all else fails just go to the terror mission and take off immediately if you don't think it'll go well for you. The funding nations will give you credit for at least showing up and won't dock your pay as much as they would for ignoring it and you won't lose any dudes.

[quote="kesvalk"]i played lot's of X-COM in my life, but i never got to the mars part, terror missions always fucked me and i didn't had enough resources to get my team back to full power and everything would blow up in the end...[/quote]
Could be that you just aren't selling enough things. Plasma pistols and rifles? Sell that shit. Don't need it. Corpses? Sell 'em. Sell some heavy plasmas too because you're going to be swimming in them soon enough, just keep a good amount of ammo around. Can sell most of that too because you'll have plenty. Not a bad idea to make laser weapons just for purposes of selling either.

Cash will be tight for a few months but losing a bunch of troops should never be irreparable harm to your cause. Losing a Skyranger sucks and will really bite you early but as long as you're making sure to sell most of the junk you get from successful missions you shouldn't have to make too many sacrifices to replace it. You'll have to send out an undermanned squad from time to time, but if you play carefully it'll be fine.

if all else fails just go to the terror mission and take off immediately if you don't think it'll go well for you. The funding nations will give you credit for at least showing up and won't dock your pay as much as they would for ignoring it and you won't lose any dudes.

Poision Envy

2012-01-13 07:37:29 pm

Club 27 Goals

See, just from that last post xcom sounds totally kickass, but everytime I start it up there's just so much stuff I end up giving up because it feels like I would have to seriously study and learn the game before I can start having any fun in it.

Same thing with dwarf fortress.

arkarian

2012-01-13 07:40:42 pm

red chamber dream

Quote from Poision Envy:

I end up giving up because it feels like I would have to seriously study and learn the game before I can start having any fun in it.

in other words, it's a turn-based strategy game? :P

tomatobob

2012-01-13 07:46:18 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

That is the major issue I hit with Dwarf Fortress, too. Yeah, neither game really gives you a whole lot of information to go on to start. You're just tossed onto the Geoscape and whelp figure it out scrub. But at least X-COM has an interface you can use quickly as opposed to Dwarf Fortress having and endless stream of keyboard commands you are only told once and expected to memorize. Also having a wiki that has information that isn't already in the code language of the fans like DF. I was able to learn about things really quickly and jump back in.

What X-COM really should do is let you place your starting base and then take you right to the base screen so you know what your options actually are. But it came out before tutorials were really figured out or something so hopefully this new one can get people up to speed properly so everyone can enjoy the X-COM experience.

Poision Envy

Edit history:

Poision Envy: 2012-01-13 07:51:46 pm

Poision Envy: 2012-01-13 07:49:56 pm

2012-01-13 07:49:38 pm

Club 27 Goals

@ark
Well even before getting to that part there's a shitload of other things you have to do. Setting up a base or something and navigating around and something about other nations.

I usually hate tutorials in games but something like "start here, make sure to do this and this and this, and THEN try to fight aliens." would be nice just for one turn.

Poision Envy

2012-01-13 07:50:40 pm

Club 27 Goals

@tbob Hm didn't think to look up an xcom wiki, might have to do that and try getting into it again.

arkarian

2012-01-13 07:51:27 pm

red chamber dream

one thing to keep in mind is that x-com was released when in-game tutorials didn't exist. strategy games came with huge-ass manuals which people actually read, because you pretty much needed to.

tomatobob

2012-01-13 07:53:13 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

I'll drop the X-COM wiki here just because I do have it booked marked because I still refer to it sometimes because there's a lot of shit to remember.

tomatobob

2012-01-13 08:01:34 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

It's actually kinda weird that I like X-COM so much or had even the slightest interest in Dwarf Fortress since I don't especially like overly difficult games. I don't play games on hard very often. And I don't play X-COM on hard ever. But for some reason I really like games where things can go completely wrong in every imaginable way at any given time and yet you can still not lose. You can bounce back from just about anything.

I guess the thing is that X-COM really isn't that hard when you get down to it, you can lose a lot of battles and a lot of soldiers but it's pretty hard to straight up lose the game. Most restarts are caused by being a bad spot and not being able or really wanting to think your way out of it.

arkarian

2012-01-13 08:02:40 pm

red chamber dream

my dick was hard when urmom got down to it

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-01-13 10:14:46 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-01-13 10:14:20 pm

2012-01-13 10:06:22 pm

Quote from tomatobob:

I guess the thing is that X-COM really isn't that hard when you get down to it, you can lose a lot of battles and a lot of soldiers but it's pretty hard to straight up lose the game. Most restarts are caused by being a bad spot and not being able or really wanting to think your way out of it.

There's a lot of truth to that, actually. As long as you are still doing something each month and aren't just sitting there letting the Aliens take over unopposed it can be hard to flat out lose entirely. You can still get a bad streak of missions where things go terribly wrong each time and it sets you up towards failure, but at least there is a notice that you're doing so bad you could lose funding completely (Game Over) and you have a month to recover from that so it's not a sudden fall.

X-COM is definitely one of those "the more you play, the more you'll learn, the more you'll get skilled at it" type of games that are common of the 80s and early 90s. Even then it's nice to have a resource like the wiki Tomatobob brought up since I still look at it from time to time as well. It does have a small tutorial-ish Guide in there for newer players too if anyone needs help getting started.

Edit: Also found this and don't know if you've seen it yet Tomatobob. General Screenshots, including Skyranger, Muton, and Sectoids

[quote="tomatobob"]I guess the thing is that X-COM really isn't that hard when you get down to it, you can lose a lot of battles and a lot of soldiers but it's pretty hard to straight up lose the game. Most restarts are caused by being a bad spot and not being able or really wanting to think your way out of it.[/quote]
There's a lot of truth to that, actually. As long as you are still doing [i]something[/i] each month and aren't just sitting there letting the Aliens take over unopposed it can be hard to flat out lose entirely. You can still get a bad streak of missions where things go terribly wrong each time and it sets you up towards failure, but at least there is a notice that you're doing so bad you could lose funding completely (Game Over) and you have a month to recover from that so it's not a sudden fall.

X-COM is definitely one of those "the more you play, the more you'll learn, the more you'll get skilled at it" type of games that are common of the 80s and early 90s. Even then it's nice to have a resource like the wiki Tomatobob brought up since I still look at it from time to time as well. It does have a small tutorial-ish [url=http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Starting_Your_Shadowy_Paramilitary_Organization]Guide[/url] in there for newer players too if anyone needs help getting started.

Edit: Also found this and don't know if you've seen it yet Tomatobob. [url=http://forums.spacebattles.com/showpost.php?p=7105422&postcount=225]General Screenshots, including Skyranger, Muton, and Sectoids[/url]

Prime Hunter

2012-01-13 11:00:36 pm

Speaking of X-COM, Just saw on IGN that the FPS XCOM was delayed until next year. Not surprised, really.

And I'm reading through that topic where I just linked to the screenshots a minute ago and saw an image that shows we can slightly customize the appearance of our soldiers. In some ways I like this since it means you can craft whomever you want into your squad, but at the same time I realize those few I really like are going to die sooner or later and I'll end up being more worried about them than I should be given the game's track record for casualties.

tomatobob

2012-01-13 11:09:44 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Like that second screenshot. Dude is so boned.

TheGreenManalishi

2012-01-14 07:05:18 am

Quote from Quietus:

It's the one that's like a mix of Tetris, Gran Turismo, and Tekken, right? Anxious

Gran Tekkris sounds like an amazing game.

Poision Envy

2012-01-14 08:30:21 am

Club 27 Goals

tomatobob

2012-01-14 11:45:51 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Fucking love that video. Dude owns.

kesvalk

2012-01-16 07:00:27 am

Indie Lover

great! no more Guile wannabes in x-com!

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-01-16 02:25:06 pm

2012-01-16 02:24:41 pm

Ack, why is the first thing I think of when I see that message Guile's theme from SF? Now I'm going to have it stuck in my head for a bit. Think I watched too many of those "Guile's theme goes with everything" videos the other day on YT when scarily enough I realized that it's true for the most part.

Ah well, could be worse I guess.

TheGreenManalishi

2012-01-16 02:52:39 pm

It's a beautiful piece of music.

Quietus

2012-01-16 03:49:18 pm

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Guile has always been my favourite character, though I fight better with many others. Cool

TheGreenManalishi

2012-01-16 04:27:36 pm

Cannot do charge moves with a pad, but give me my stick and it's Guile and Chun-Li all night long.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-01-16 06:39:27 pm

2012-01-16 06:39:15 pm

My SF mains have always been Cammy and Dhalsim, although I do play Blanka and Zangief at times as well. Can't say I'm good at the SF games but then again I don't think I've ever played against anyone who wasn't the AI or my brother. Don't think I ever played online when we were renting SF4 after it came out.

kesvalk

2012-01-16 09:43:38 pm

Indie Lover

i need some help in X-COM guys, i just got the first big UFO (two stories tall) on my radar, my interceptor got fucked by it, does i just ignore them for the time being, or i try to fight it with my two interceptor at the same time?

i am like, two months in the game, i still don't even have started alien alloys research...