Topics

1

Open Feedback / A Challenge

« on: August 05, 2024, 05:10:27 am »

Lots of people play on higher difficulty levels. Here's my challenge: Can you beat the game without taking *any* casualties? Can you avoid having any soldiers die? If not, how many missions can you accomplish?

It's a very different game when you don't want to take casualties -- which is how I play, and why I am so disattisfied with the game. As shipped, it's a meatgrinder.

2

Open Feedback / Mitigating flaws in XCOM/Openxcom

« on: August 05, 2024, 05:08:18 am »

There are obviously huge differences in what players want. Most of the players who come here like the classic game (or like it but want it to be more difficult). I'm not one of those. I liked the original when it came out, but I'm not sure I'd like it today.

Grenades (especially alien grenades) are too powerful in the original. It's easy to put an alien in a difficult to assault position that commands a strategic passage and lob grenades at any soldiers who approach. In general, grenades do too much damage over too wide an area.

Some aliens (Chryssalids come to mind) are just too powerful, period. Ethereals before you know about mind control. There are ways around this, but they all seem to involve exploiting other design flaws (e.g., aliens not picking up weapons).

Soldier reaction fire is completely stupid. They might as well be robots. A soldier with a rocket launcher will respond by launching a rocket into a group of its fellows if an alien shows up. It completely breaks any immersion in the game, it's so stupid. There should be a way to set reaction fire only if it won't likely result in friendly fire.

Are there mods that seek to rectify any of this?

3

Open Feedback / Dumb question, but... new Alien races?

« on: December 23, 2023, 01:48:18 am »

Has anyone added completely new alien races?

4

Open Feedback / 12 avalanche missiles (that HIT) fail to take down a Large?

« on: December 23, 2023, 01:47:12 am »

What the heck? 6 missiles not killing it I could believe. 12? No.

And it was definitely a large, not a very large.

5

Open Feedback / Skyranger placement is insane

« on: December 19, 2023, 03:36:24 am »

<vent>
I know, this is classic x-com. But who the hell would put the Skyranger down in between buildings and the alien spacecraft? Why the hell would you do that?

The real reason, of course, is that the game designers wanted to put you in a more difficult position. But it's unbelievable.

I find myself tired of the whole "guys who can't shoot put on impossible missions" theme. There are many good parts to this game, but that isn't one of them. It just makes me want to play a better game, that knows how to make gameplay interesting in other ways.
</vent>

6

Open Feedback / Grenades

« on: December 08, 2023, 06:43:44 am »

I've played this game a lot. I hate grenades. I hate the aliens use of them. I hate it when I use them. They are too powerful on small maps (particularly alien grenades, which are ridiculous).

I hate blaster bombs for similar reasons.

It's a classic, but there are a lot of aspects that don't wear well over time.