XCOM 2

I'll reserve judgement until we see actual gameplay, and not what looks like a heavily scripted tutorial mission.

Still super hyped though.

I assume that outside of that tutorial mission, enemies won't be able to kill you the same turn they're revealed, or maybe aliens are just ultra deadly in the early game but get more manageable as the game progresses. Shit like a viper coming out of hiding and instantly tongue-lashing + wrap killing a rookie, or the berserker running in from the side of the map and instantly getting to charge up and backhand the ranger into another zipcode. I assume it's done like that in the tutorial to drive home the 'ALIENS ARE BAD MMKAY?' point.

Gavinmad_sl said:

I'll reserve judgement until we see actual gameplay, and not what looks like a heavily scripted tutorial mission.

Still super hyped though.

I assume that outside of that tutorial mission, enemies won't be able to kill you the same turn they're revealed, or maybe aliens are just ultra deadly in the early game but get more manageable as the game progresses. Shit like a viper coming out of hiding and instantly tongue-lashing + wrap killing a rookie, or the berserker running in from the side of the map and instantly getting to charge up and backhand the ranger into another zipcode. I assume it's done like that in the tutorial to drive home the 'ALIENS ARE BAD MMKAY?' point.

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Garth DeAngelis (lead producer) said when they were presenting the demo that those actions were specifically done for the sake of the demo. Reinforcements won't get a free attack when they spawn in and the viper will very rarely be able to both pull and bind on the same turn since that requires the player actively moving into pull range.

I suppose the intent of scripting things that way for the demo was to drive home the idea that things are dangerous, but I'm still betting it won't be very hard to get zero casualty playthroughs even without excessive save scumming.

But yeah, hyped. Wish i could time travel forward about 5 months.

Dyvim_sl said:

My XCOM2 story predictions:

Spoiler

The Volunteer saved earth and survived, but years go down and he grows immensively in power and succumbs to the dark side.
Then he builds a Solomon ChamberTM, travels back in time, helps the aliens to take over earth as he wants rest of mankind to either serve or become powerful psilords as well and keeps trying to ascend to god-hood. Maybe finally opening a portal to another alien dimension.

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I want to be able to vastly customize my squad, long war mod is a good start.

Gavinmad_sl said:

I suppose the intent of scripting things that way for the demo was to drive home the idea that things are dangerous, but I'm still betting it won't be very hard to get zero casualty playthroughs even without excessive save scumming.

But yeah, hyped. Wish i could time travel forward about 5 months.

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Players hate "losing" and your soldiers dying feels like that, so any mechanic that murders you without any counters or retaliation is going to be disliked and feel cheap.

I did really like customizing my squad. Named them after all of my friends. I was a bit butthurt when one of my friends unlocked powers and my guy didn't, but then he went on a suicide mission and I was happy. I told him I'd take care of his wife after he saves the world. He was thankful.

Zaphid_sl said:

Players hate "losing" and your soldiers dying feels like that, so any mechanic that murders you without any counters or retaliation is going to be disliked and feel cheap.

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Except that's just not true with XCom. Most of the cult status of the originals is due to how unforgiving and brutal they were. Enemy Unknown took some pretty big steps away from that, the Long War mods drug the game kicking and screaming back towards the spirit of the originals, and it looks like Firaxis has taken that lesson to heart with how much they're trying to stress the idea that you are very much the underdogs this time around.

First game play reveal. Looks pretty legit, I think I pay full price for this one.

First XCOM 2 Gameplay Footage - IGN Live: E3 2015 - IGN Video

Yeah' that's from Monday, and it's not gameplay, its a mega scripted tutorial mission. I mean, I guess it's closer to gameplay than the cutscene trailer was.

But yeah this will be my first pre-order/day 1 purchase in quite a while.

Gavinmad_sl said:

Except that's just not true with XCom. Most of the cult status of the originals is due to how unforgiving and brutal they were. Enemy Unknown took some pretty big steps away from that, the Long War mods drug the game kicking and screaming back towards the spirit of the originals, and it looks like Firaxis has taken that lesson to heart with how much they're trying to stress the idea that you are very much the underdogs this time around.

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Am I really the only one who save scums the shit out of the game when my soldier dies ? I know, play Ironman yada yada, I play to have fun not to worry when a berserker rounds a corner and murders somebody I have nurtured over the past 10 hours. There are also much better ways to introduce that idea than to outright kill your soldiers. LW has injuries and fatigue I believe, both of which force you to add newbies to your squad regularly and killing somebody who you haven't spent countless missions with is easier to swallow and your supersquad stays safe.

Cult status be dammed, that demographic won't finance a triple A title these days, but it makes for good stories and youtube videos and it's cheap to implement.

Once you've gotten good enough to complete an I/I run, Classic difficulty and below offer zero challenge, so no save-scumming is required. And if you save-scum on Impossible, you're defeating the purpose. There's no tension without the risk. It's bad enough that even on Impossible, once you reach mid-game, it's faceroll easy.

Zaphid_sl said:

Am I really the only one who save scums the shit out of the game when my soldier dies ? I know, play Ironman yada yada, I play to have fun not to worry when a berserker rounds a corner and murders somebody I have nurtured over the past 10 hours. There are also much better ways to introduce that idea than to outright kill your soldiers. LW has injuries and fatigue I believe, both of which force you to add newbies to your squad regularly and killing somebody who you haven't spent countless missions with is easier to swallow and your supersquad stays safe.

Cult status be dammed, that demographic won't finance a triple A title these days, but it makes for good stories and youtube videos and it's cheap to implement.

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You don't need to necessarily crank the difficulty to ball busting, but I highly recommend playing with Ironman. For me, I like not having the option to save scum, because when you have the option you will. I feel that I get far more value out of my purchase, and I feel far more attached to my soldiers when they can actually die. With save scumming you can just take it to the next level. Run your solider ahead, find all enemy positions/spawns - reload? I am really a fan of roguelikes and honestly have spent hundreds of ours failing at games. I find myself playing those games far more hours in the end than many others because the replay value - overcoming stacked or silly situations is highly rewarding for me personally.

Fantastic for you. Many people of us aren't filling cotton with fecal matter. So being able to just casually enjoy the game without being endlessly punched in the dick because we're not totally interested in investing 1000 hours into it is nice.

Leadsalad_sl said:

Fantastic for you. Many people of us aren't filling cotton with fecal matter. So being able to just casually enjoy the game without being endlessly punched in the dick because we're not totally interested in investing 1000 hours into it is nice.

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Which is why you one and done folks can happily save scum your way to a casualty free ending, while us fanatics can slog our way through an Iron Man marathon of dead troopers. Everybody is happy.

What exactly are we arguing about here?

I hope they have better death animations.

I try not to save scum, but I refuse to do ironman because I've had the game bug out on me on several occasions. Last time was on the subway mission that you have to disable the controls at the very end. Its a pretty long mission and the first time through I get all the way to the end, but no matter where I stood near the controls or how I rotated the camera I couldn't click the controls. If it was ironman I would have failed the mission and lost a whole squad from a bug and this mission is pretty far into the campaign. Did the mission again and had no problems the second time through. Probably would have uninstalled if it was ironman.

Also I disagree with not having even a chance to revive someone if they are killed. Getting knocked out and only having 3 turns to stabilize them is penalty enough for me, not even having a chance to do so just seems so wrong to me.

You can still save-scum on Ironman, just need to alt-tab and close the game manually.