New Version of Xcom

[dazedroyalty]

I just finished (successfully) my first game. Played the tutorial and then onwards with Normal (Ironman style).
Really enjoyed myself for a long time. I actually had a couple of moments when I thought the game was about to end ...

... when the base mission cannot be aborted and with the overseer ship...

... and even then I thought "ah well, it was pretty good up to now". But no, no, the game goes on until an really epic ending. Had a comparatively tough time at the end. I have not lost a single soldier in months and then had to kill my mind-controlled sniper colonel, the guy who led the platoon almost from the beginning. That was actually a very sad moment.
As I said, I really liked the end and also the detailed stats there as well.
Not sure whether I want to try Easy now, to get a better grasp on what can be done on the strategic layer (hardly touched the foundry in my normal game) or go for Classic and get my butt kicked.

Certainly 50€ well spent.
Good job Firaxis!

mh

You gotta go up to Classic! but try it first w/o Ironman. It gets significantly harder on the strategic level because your choices matter more and it's easier to lose nations and you have less resources to spend on replacing troops. I think if you play Easy you'll find that it is TOO easy. I haven't tried it yet myself but if you beat normal Ironman, I think you might get bored. However, it could be interesting to play a variant on Easy. Could anyone beat it going Solo the entire time?!?!

[Jkaen]

I was thinking a solo challenge may be good fun to do.

Thing I can't decide (which means Firaxis have done well) is which class would be best for the challenge. My guess would be heavy, but can see an argument for everything other than sniper

[uberfish]

So I reached July on ironman with lots of cash but pretty much no veterans alive due to a couple of wipeouts and unsurprisingly the new recruits have a horrible survival rate due to panic chains.... maybe SHIVs can help me recover this situation.

[dazedroyalty]

I was thinking a solo challenge may be good fun to do.

Thing I can't decide (which means Firaxis have done well) is which class would be best for the challenge. My guess would be heavy, but can see an argument for everything other than sniper

I agree. Sniper would be terrible. Heavy or Assault would be my choice. I like Assault's ability to fire automatically on anything that closes in 4 tiles or less. That would really help with beserkers.

I was thinking about this overnight and the hardest part of going solo would be early Terror Missions when the Cryssalids would be hard to kill since they bunch together. Killing one wouldn't be enough since the second one would then just get you. I also don't know how easy "Easy" is, though, so maybe it'd be possible to survive one attack before succumbing.

The other question big question besides Class if trying to win solo would be inventory. That actually makes Support more attractive becuase they get double inventory. Chitlin plating plus an inventory item would make missions a lot easier!

So I reached July on ironman with lots of cash but pretty much no veterans alive due to a couple of wipeouts and unsurprisingly the new recruits have a horrible survival rate due to panic chains.... maybe SHIVs can help me recover this situation.

Try it and let us know how it goes. I have never built a SHIV but it seems like they could be great for flushing aliens out so your soldiers don't die as quickly. Does losing a SHIV affect panic/will?

[Sirian]

I've seen a glitch or two before, but always relatively harmless. I remember a case where a Chrysalid dropped out of thin air right beside one of my troops (in a spot where it could not possibly have jumped down from a higher elevation, or run to there with the animation skipping part of its move), but then it was my turn and I managed to kill it. I've seen something similar one or two other times with even less serious aliens -- and some other, minor things.

But today I had a much more serious glitch. I'm fighting a group of three Mutons, newly activated, and one of them teleports way WAY across the map, right next to my medic, and one shots him. My commander, a Heavy, then panics and reaction fires, but then it's my turn again. My commander then has an array of options that includes Shredder Rocket. Except that soldier didn't even HAVE that ability: I took the other option there, the Suppression shot. So I didn't just have one glitch there, but two: one that eliminated a troop wrongly, and another rewired a troop's abilities. Something went seriously wrong there, and I didn't stick around to see what else might pop up.


It's all fun and games until a bug wrecks your Ironman game, where you can't undo a problem that is the game's fault because you can't restore from an uncorrupted saved game.

I can do self-imposed Ironman style with the reloadable path. It only takes one bug, and one ruined game, to break my trust in this regard. And once broken, that's pretty hard to win back.

The game is fun enough that I've only lost that one game instance and I will just start over again. I already have several different games running simultaneously, so I can check out how things differ depending on making different choices. But I have no other troop of that class in the bugged game, so I can't just eat the loss and move on with that same game and have it go the way it was supposed to. If it was my mistake, sure -- that's the nature of the beast. But like this? I don't think so. I prefer to have two Support around, in general: double the Medkit power and insurance against your medic dying unexpectedly causing the whole mission to become hosed. Plus most of my Support troops take the extra movement, which makes them very flexible in a tight situation. But some games the random elements drive you in directions that fall short of the ideals in one way or another.


Has anybody else experienced any significant bugs or glitches?


- Sirian

[mostly_harmless]

I had the "magically appearing enemy" once with a Muton berserker. He appeared right in the middle of my formation. I had the sides and the higher ground covered.

mh

[dazedroyalty]

I've seen a glitch or two before, but always relatively harmless. I remember a case where a Chrysalid dropped out of thin air right beside one of my troops (in a spot where it could not possibly have jumped down from a higher elevation, or run to there with the animation skipping part of its move), but then it was my turn and I managed to kill it. I've seen something similar one or two other times with even less serious aliens -- and some other, minor things.

But today I had a much more serious glitch. I'm fighting a group of three Mutons, newly activated, and one of them teleports way WAY across the map, right next to my medic, and one shots him. My commander, a Heavy, then panics and reaction fires, but then it's my turn again. My commander then has an array of options that includes Shredder Rocket. Except that soldier didn't even HAVE that ability: I took the other option there, the Suppression shot. So I didn't just have one glitch there, but two: one that eliminated a troop wrongly, and another rewired a troop's abilities. Something went seriously wrong there, and I didn't stick around to see what else might pop up.


It's all fun and games until a bug wrecks your Ironman game, where you can't undo a problem that is the game's fault because you can't restore from an uncorrupted saved game.

I can do self-imposed Ironman style with the reloadable path. It only takes one bug, and one ruined game, to break my trust in this regard. And once broken, that's pretty hard to win back.

The game is fun enough that I've only lost that one game instance and I will just start over again. I already have several different games running simultaneously, so I can check out how things differ depending on making different choices. But I have no other troop of that class in the bugged game, so I can't just eat the loss and move on with that same game and have it go the way it was supposed to. If it was my mistake, sure -- that's the nature of the beast. But like this? I don't think so. I prefer to have two Support around, in general: double the Medkit power and insurance against your medic dying unexpectedly causing the whole mission to become hosed. Plus most of my Support troops take the extra movement, which makes them very flexible in a tight situation. But some games the random elements drive you in directions that fall short of the ideals in one way or another.


Has anybody else experienced any significant bugs or glitches?


- Sirian

I also had the magically appearing soldiers a couple of times. Fortunately, when 3 heavy floaters appeared in the middle of my troops, I was able to kill them all off right away. But, I think you're right, Sirian. My trust in "Ironman" is low until they fix some of these things.

I also had a major MP bug when I opened the chat window. I couldn't send a message or close the chat window making it impossible to play my turn. I couldn't even access the menu to quit so I had to do a force quit. Feel bad for my opponent since I quit without explanation.

[uberfish]

I had a cyberdisk "patrol" appear in the middle of my squad, instantly die to reaction fire, and do a bunch of collateral damage when it exploded - that was a bit annoying. That's the only serious glitch I've experienced.

Also if you completely wipe out on a mission you get all your gear back, if you abort and save some troops you lose the gear on the troops left behind. Presumably a bug.

On the subject of Shivs - Alloy SHIV have 18 hp, +3 movement more than a base recruit and the Suppression ability. They can't use cover. The base minigun does something like 5-7 damage. You can also hide behind them for cover although aliens will grenade you if close enough. I do feel they could be a bit more durable for the late game, although I've not tried the field repair option on Arc throwers. But I think the SHIV is really meant to be an expendable assault/scouting unit rather than a defensive turret. And unlike rookies they don't panic.

On that subject. I feel the way panic is implemented is rather silly/unrealistic and panicked rookies shoot their friends way more often than is reasonable. It's panic more than anything else that makes recovering from wipeouts in the later game very difficult. You can afford to fail some missions and lose some countries on classic - I think the statement that there's one right path and no room for error is inaccurate, although you definitely want at least one satellite a month and the tutorial should really have stressed their importance a bit more. But one thing XCOM 2012 doesn't provide is easy missions to train new recruits back up on.

[antisocialmunky]

On that subject. I feel the way panic is implemented is rather silly/unrealistic and panicked rookies shoot their friends way more often than is reasonable. It's panic more than anything else that makes recovering from wipeouts in the later game very difficult. You can afford to fail some missions and lose some countries on classic - I think the statement that there's one right path and no room for error is inaccurate, although you definitely want at least one satellite a month and the tutorial should really have stressed their importance a bit more. But one thing XCOM 2012 doesn't provide is easy missions to train new recruits back up on.

The council missions onyl feature low level aliens but they get really rare later on

I've also seen glitchiness with cyber disks. I've seen then go through walls due to the cinematics.

I've been playing on Ironman for my current game and the only time I reloaded was I was curious how well squaddies compare to my regular team and they got wiped on a terror mission.

[xenin]

I just finished a playthrough on normal without seeing any glitches, but I'm also wary of trying the actual ironman setting. I'd be interested in some kind of SG if people want to try one, variant or not.

Firaxis did a reasonable job at balancing the classes I think - I always wanted one more of everything, but by the end fixed on 2 heavies/snipers and 1 assault + 1 support. Medikits become very precious, but the extra firepower made up for it.

Overall a pretty fun game, although I think it's a little short.

The final fight was a little anticlimactic for me; my scouting assault trooper ran into the final room, which triggered the ethereal and the spawn of his minions... and one of my elite squadsight + double tap snipers then landed two 75% shots to instantly drop the ethereal and end the game. High level snipers are probably a little strong.