New XCOM Video

[chimeracreator]

11. It should be coming to Steam this week, so w00t for pre-ordering as long as I get the stupid haircut bonus.

Nope, release is in October, next month.

Sorry I meant that the pre-order option will be showing up on Steam. I know it's still a bit more than a month to wait with no word of a demo.

1. It doesn't look like the timer stops during the glam cam which could be rough for large squads. I guess that means you normally won't see a full squad of 6 fielded in ladder games unless they fix that or raise the timer from 90 seconds.

The fancy mode camera temporarily disables the timer.

Also, it can be turned off in the options.

It didn't seem to turn off while they were playing in cases where the camera was following the soldier while moving.

 

[Zhukov]

1. It doesn't look like the timer stops during the glam cam which could be rough for large squads. I guess that means you normally won't see a full squad of 6 fielded in ladder games unless they fix that or raise the timer from 90 seconds.

The fancy mode camera temporarily disables the timer.

Also, it can be turned off in the options.

It didn't seem to turn off while they were playing in cases where the camera was following the soldier while moving.

That's because when the soldiers are just moving it isn't any slower than watching them move from the standard overhead view. It's just the same animation from a different angle.

Watch an example where it goes all dramatic and slo-mo.

 

[Dogstile]

1. It doesn't look like the timer stops during the glam cam which could be rough for large squads. I guess that means you normally won't see a full squad of 6 fielded in ladder games unless they fix that or raise the timer from 90 seconds.

The fancy mode camera temporarily disables the timer.

Also, it can be turned off in the options.

It didn't seem to turn off while they were playing in cases where the camera was following the soldier while moving.

That's because when the soldiers are just moving it isn't any slower than watching them move from the standard overhead view. It's just the same animation from a different angle.

Watch an example where it goes all dramatic and slo-mo.

Yep, but it stops you from selecting another soldier and moving him while the other one is running because the camera is locked to the guy's ass if you forget to turn it off. I think that's what he meant.

 

[Zhukov]

That's because when the soldiers are just moving it isn't any slower than watching them move from the standard overhead view. It's just the same animation from a different angle.

Watch an example where it goes all dramatic and slo-mo.

Yep, but it stops you from selecting another soldier and moving him while the other one is running because the camera is locked to the guy's ass if you forget to turn it off. I think that's what he meant.

I'm not 100% certain about this, but I'm pretty sure you can't select and move a second soldier while the first one is still moving, regardless of what the camera is doing.

 

[Captain Anon]

i prefer the other XCOM the first person shooter one now that one looked interesting

 

[Dogstile]

That's because when the soldiers are just moving it isn't any slower than watching them move from the standard overhead view. It's just the same animation from a different angle.

Watch an example where it goes all dramatic and slo-mo.

Yep, but it stops you from selecting another soldier and moving him while the other one is running because the camera is locked to the guy's ass if you forget to turn it off. I think that's what he meant.

I'm not 100% certain about this, but I'm pretty sure you can't select and move a second soldier while the first one is still moving, regardless of what the camera is doing.

He said you could do other stuff during one of the multiplayer match's but i'm to lazy to go dig through the five or so that have been put up.

 

[Uliana]

10. Impossible difficulty lives up to its name, and panic is still a big deal, but not so much as in the original from the looks of it as only soldiers who get shot at seem to panic not a random recruit in the skyranger who decides to go berserk and unload into everyone around him.

Actually panic still occurs to soldiers who see a traumatic event. The very first panic event we see from last week's 1-hour livestream was from a rookie who saw a high-ranking officer get shot. A later playthrough on the same save also had two soldiers panicking simultaneously after a squadmate get eaten by a Chryssalid (their panic reaction was to kill the Chryssalid, which was awesome).

 

[GiglameshSoulEater]

Y'know, chrysalids could suck, but early-game cyberdisks always scared me a lot more. They absorbed an absurd number of bullets, and their AI was much better than the finnicky melee aliens. Especially bad when you'd get one or two right outside the skyranger at the beginning of the mission. That turn-one reaction fire could be withering.

Plus, snakemen kinda sucked.

I messed up one game and didn't have anything beyond grenades, assualt rifles and stun rods to take on a terror mission on superhuman. The only way I could damage the cyberdiscs was to run up to them and jab them with cattleprods until they fell over. Luckily, if you kill them by stun they don't explode.

Unfortunately, they had a huge open area with a cluster of cyberdiscs at the other side.

Yeah, people died.

The snakemen themselves weren't much more of a problem than sectoids (floaters were by far the easiest), but chryssalids were pretty bad - until you got flying armour.

i prefer the other XCOM the first person shooter one now that one looked interesting

 

[Jadak]

im really wary about the multiple platform release for this. i really hope they can pull of a strategy game thats decent for all 3 rather than either the console or pc version suffering

My only concern there is that they make the interface with the 360 in mind, as the video indicates, and then port it over for the PC. It can always turn out just fine even if they do, but often devs fumble with that and the conversion of the UI to keyboard and mouse usage comes out crappy and irritating. Hopefully that's not the case, not that it'll stop me from getting it either way.

Edit;


Apparently a PAX video is up showing the PC UI and some multiplayer, time to take a look.

 

[Uliana]

My only concern there is that they make the interface with the 360 in mind, as the video indicates, and then port it over for the PC.

They've repeatedly mentioned that the PC and console controls were developed concurrently, so there's no porting involved, and it really shows with the functionality they added to the PC UI, with the mouse controls looking incredibly intuitive like an RTS game, and the return of the "phonebooth".

 

[Jandau]

Ok, I gotta ask, did everyone really have that much trouble with Chrysalids in the original game? Seriously, are you sure about that? You're not just imagining things? Exagerating?

Of all the enemy sets I'd place Snakemen/Chrysalids at the next to the lowest threat. They are harmless. Snakemen are pushovers and Chrysalids go down to a few solid hits from a Laser Rifle (if you brought plasma, it's even easier). If I had to rank the threat level of the enemy sets, it would be something like:

1. Ethereals/Sectopods - So much psionics...
2. Sectoid/Cyberdiscs - Psionics, and Cyberdiscs are nasty
3. Mutons/poop monsters - Mutons are solid troops, but nothing stands out
4. Snakemen/Chrysalids - Snakemen are harmless, Chrysalids are melee
5. Floaters/Reapers - Floaters are, as their name implies, poop. Reapers are target practice.

I'm currently playing through a campaign and the moment I saw Snakemen in a mission, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that I've entered the blessed midgame, before the Ethereals start showing up and after the Sectoids start to fade out. There is a sectoid base in England that I don't dare set foot into, since my troops start getting mind controlled within the first few turns and then it's all over. Maybe after I get my psi program up and running, but not before.

I really hope they tone down the psi powers in the new game...

 

[Jadak]

Are the levels randomly generated?

Cuz if they aren't I'm REALLY hoping this will come with a map editor.

No, I don't know what the single player game contains, but they confirmed that there is no random maps and that the game will ship with 5 multiplayer maps. I would certainly expect more than that for the main game.

 

[chimeracreator]

Ok, I gotta ask, did everyone really have that much trouble with Chrysalids in the original game? Seriously, are you sure about that? You're not just imagining things? Exagerating?

Of all the enemy sets I'd place Snakemen/Chrysalids at the next to the lowest threat. They are harmless. Snakemen are pushovers and Chrysalids go down to a few solid hits from a Laser Rifle (if you brought plasma, it's even easier). If I had to rank the threat level of the enemy sets, it would be something like:

1. Ethereals/Sectopods - So much psionics...
2. Sectoid/Cyberdiscs - Psionics, and Cyberdiscs are nasty
3. Mutons/poop monsters - Mutons are solid troops, but nothing stands out
4. Snakemen/Chrysalids - Snakemen are harmless, Chrysalids are melee
5. Floaters/Reapers - Floaters are, as their name implies, poop. Reapers are target practice.

I'm currently playing through a campaign and the moment I saw Snakemen in a mission, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that I've entered the blessed midgame, before the Ethereals start showing up and after the Sectoids start to fade out. There is a sectoid base in England that I don't dare set foot into, since my troops start getting mind controlled within the first few turns and then it's all over. Maybe after I get my psi program up and running, but not before.

I really hope they tone down the psi powers in the new game...

The danger with chrysalids largely came from zombies. Five turns into a terror mission your soldier would reaction fire on a zombie, kill it, release a chrysallids who would then walk over to him and kill him making another zombie.

Also there were cases where a group of soldiers would fail to kill one and then an entire tactical unit could be converted at once. That happened to this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB5ueKmKu6g&feature=plcp despite him packing heavy plasma, blaster bombs and flight suits because those things were tough.

 

[Jandau]

The danger with chrysalids largely came from zombies. Five turns into a terror mission your soldier would reaction fire on a zombie, kill it, release a chrysallids who would then walk over to him and kill him making another zombie.

Also there were cases where a group of soldiers would fail to kill one and then an entire tactical unit could be converted at once. That happened to this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB5ueKmKu6g&feature=plcp despite him packing heavy plasma, blaster bombs and flight suits because those things were tough.

I honestly rarely had much trouble with them. Keep people in teams, always leave them enough TUs for Snapshots, maybe even Autoshots, advance slowly, keep wide lines of fire and make sure you see them coming.

As for the video, he didn't get screwed because Chrysalids are tough, he got screwed because he's terrible at the game. First turn, he has a full Avenger of dudes, he disembarks SIX of them and the two tanks, and only one tank fires. I can deploy a full Skyranger on turn one with everyone in formation around the landing zone and shooting anything that moves. That's 14 dudes. He got six of them off and ended the turn. OF COURSE the Chrysalid is just going to walk over and murder him. A Muton with a Heavy Plasma could have just shot 2 of his dudes just as well.

Again, I'd rather face a Snakeman Base (or Terror mission) than go inside a Sectoid base (or any UFO larger than Small).

 

[chimeracreator]

I honestly rarely had much trouble with them. Keep people in teams, always leave them enough TUs for Snapshots, maybe even Autoshots, advance slowly, keep wide lines of fire and make sure you see them coming.

As for the video, he didn't get screwed because Chrysalids are tough, he got screwed because he's terrible at the game. First turn, he has a full Avenger of dudes, he disembarks SIX of them and the two tanks, and only one tank fires. I can deploy a full Skyranger on turn one with everyone in formation around the landing zone and shooting anything that moves. That's 14 dudes. He got six of them off and ended the turn. OF COURSE the Chrysalid is just going to walk over and murder him. A Muton with a Heavy Plasma could have just shot 2 of his dudes just as well.

Again, I'd rather face a Snakeman Base (or Terror mission) than go inside a Sectoid base (or any UFO larger than Small).

Trouble is chrysalids have an insanely high reaction score so it's hard to get a reaction shot against them even if you save the TUs. Also you can't fully deploy a skyranger on turn one without a crazy high level squad and expect not to get bunched up around the ramp. Low to mid level soldiers just don't have enough TUs for it to work and even high level soldiers can't deploy that fast from an Avenger without making themselves blaster bomb bait.

That said a lot of players remember chrysalids being an enemy that they first faced when they didn't know what to expect and as a result they were utterly crushed by them. See a zombie, well shoot it right? Ooops now it's even more dangerous.

I mean they have nothing on the horror that is your first ethereal mission if you don't already have psionics because nothing measures up to that sort of threat. Sectoid leaders nd commanders are annoying and can be dangerous, but facing an entire UFO or terror mission full of psionic aliens that are stronger than them... that's just something else.

 

[Jandau]

I mean they have nothing on the horror that is your first ethereal mission if you don't already have psionics because nothing measures up to that sort of threat. Sectoid leaders nd commanders are annoying and can be dangerous, but facing an entire UFO or terror mission full of psionic aliens that are stronger than them... that's just something else.

That we can agree on. I've had full wipes on landed Sectoid Medium UFOs because the Commander (who is placed at the butt end of the ship and takes forever to get to) kept mindcontrolling my dudes, who would then proceed to murder at least two other people. Every turn. Ethereal missions are just freaking unfair. I've had full wipes as early as turn 2 or 3 simply due to all the panic and mind control...

 

[chimeracreator]

That we can agree on. I've had full wipes on landed Sectoid Medium UFOs because the Commander (who is placed at the butt end of the ship and takes forever to get to) kept mindcontrolling my dudes, who would then proceed to murder at least two other people. Every turn. Ethereal missions are just freaking unfair. I've had full wipes as early as turn 2 or 3 simply due to all the panic and mind control...

I think the trick with sectoid ships is that you can't afford to use large clusters of troops. So at most they should move in pairs to minimize the damage. It does give you less firepower when it comes time to face down cyberdiscs but that's what high explosives are for because lord knows they pack a punch and 4x damage vs cyberdiscs makes up for their armor.

 

[Bernzz]

I haven't been this excited for a game since...well, Skyrim, I guess. That's not long ago. Bad example.

Suffice to say, very hyped for this game. I love how the PC UI was developed separately and actually looks good. The phonebooth throwback is a cool addition, too.

 

[BenefitEvil]

This will be a day one purchase for me. It looks like they kept the spirit of X-com alive and well with this new game. Personally I like how they did multi-player I just hope you can create teams and load them up for quick easy play.

 

[chimeracreator]

W00t, it is now on Steam for pre-order because I for one thing a stupid haircut is worth giving them money a month in advance.