Hehe, yeah its funny how much attention the other game has taken away from the original XCom game in this thread, people it lot more hyped about the REAL XCom, which isn't some FPS crap with blobs for aliens.
Hey, maybe they'll do the same thing for Syndicate.
The only thing I really like about the new Syndicate trailers are the music, though I believe Starbreeze will make a good game out of it, I don't think it'll be quite right.
Still, I'm excited for both Xcom games, and Syndicate regardless.
Just wish it wasn't such a risk to make a good, tactical turn based game anymore. :c
Well, lets not forget that fallout was a turn-based isometric title before Bethesda reinvented it as an RPG/FPS...and it turned out pretty great!
I'm cautiously optimistic.
People have been through that, It's not about the result being good, it's about something that defined the very soul of the series being removed for no good reason.
So yes, modern warfare series would still be a really fun series even if it was civilization: modern warfare, but it wouldn't be civilization.
Fallout 3 was still a singleplayer explorational non-linear rpg with roughly the same stats, skills and item-system, along with quests, npc's and even an interesting take on what would be fallouts turn-based combat with VATS.
new xcom takes away base-building, meaningful squad development, permanent-death, dynamic-mission flow, ufos, inventory and item-management, the tactical combat is more akin to mass effect than it is to xcom, which is quite far away.
And unlike xcom as it should be, this will be a linear experience with little consequence overall, which is the polar opposite of what defines xcom.
But hey, along comes firaxis, ALMOST saying "gamers are not as stupid as people make them out to be, and turn-based is not dead", and making an xcom game that manages to re-imagine but still retain what was important with xcom.
So anyhow, now we know it isn't at the complete cost of xcom forever, and we can all relax and enjoy both games (one a bit more)
People have been through that, It's not about the result being good, it's about something that defined the very soul of the series being removed for no good reason.
eld you could have stopped tying after this, you naild it.
So I was playing through the original again today, and coming out of the skyranger my very best soldier in flying armor shot a snakeman twice with a heavy plasma without missing, and then died to one shot of the (somehow still alive) snakeman's reaction fire. ARRGGGHH :poly127:
Eld: I hear ya, but we've got both versions coming out, so we're fairly safe I think.
Re: Syndicate...yeah, its a bit of a shame its an FPS, honestly, but now those other guys are making Cartel. So again, we've got a genre change/ re-imagining, and a remake of a beloved old-school franchise.
Seems like win/win for us, the gamers.
I've been enjoying the heck out of the original X-Com. Soooo hard.
uhh, i don't have time to listen closely to what these guys said but did they mention anything about possibility of disabling those super uber kewl attack cutscenes?
i'm really trying to treat it as a minor hindrance but my enthusiasm dropped anyway.
Actually I kinda like it. Because it is a turn based game, its not going to be such a immersing breaking like it would be in a FPS such as Aliens vs Predator. But if they are smart, they will have that as part of the options, to be able to disable.
What I really would like to know is, will the aliens be able to attack your base? Because that was one of my 'favorite' parts, when you suddenly see a ship approach your base and instead of attacking nearby, they actually attack your base. And it was cool, because you knew the area, you knew that around that corner, you will find your lab, which was like this and this, and not easy for aliens to hide in. And you knew it because thats how you build up your base.
The Firaxis guys seem pay a lot of attention to the Rock Paper Shotgun comments. Given the number of people who've come out saying they want to be able to shut off the cinematic camera, along with the vocal quips, I'd suggest it's likely that there will wind up being an option to turn it off in the final game.
Had the chance to play this at gamescom on wednesday, while the demo was pretty scripted and I managed to crash the base view, I was still pretty impressed. My comment above stands.
Well that was fucking awesome. First proper mission out (ie, not the scripted intro/tutorial), I managed to get my sniper killed before he'd even fired a fucking shot. Fucking cocktease end to the demo, though!
So far I'm loving the tactical decision-making, though I'm definitely hoping for larger maps. Not entirely sold on the base view, especially navigation-wise, though I looove the visuals for it.
Yeah, the base view is kinda a shame, because that was one of the big scare moments, when you discover one of the big ships coming towards your base and you realise that they are going to invade. And then you can battle in your base, see it from the perspective view (well, 2.5D view), which I thought it was awesome. Wish they had worked with that, so you could repel the attack in your base but might leave it crippled depending on how much damage you did. (I know I used to use Rocket Tanks all the time, and a LOT of damage was left behind after an attack).
Fun times! Little short, and almost entirely scripted (LoTekK really? How!?! I had almost no challenge at all). Looks great though, and I can hardly wait for my pre-order of the full thing to arrive in 2+ weeks.
(LoTekK really? How!?! I had almost no challenge at all)
Poor positioning on my part. Entirely my fuckup, and that's exactly how it should feel (basically I moved him too far up, didn't think he was visible to the floaters, and got shot point blank by both of them, lol)
I can understand some of the gameplay mechanics needed to be updated - but the ant farm view is just painfully annoying, the visuals though are really great!
I'm kinda disappointed that there's less control on my part in terms of searching (fast forwarding time) on the globe - i want time increments back!
Lastly i also think its kind of a weird decision that they've really dumbed down the interception part - really preferred back in the day to play really agressive against UFO's - now its just a cookie-cutter gameplay mechanic - bad firaxis designer, bad!
To top it all off it really feels as if you're constantly given 3 different choices, for example you can choose to shoot down a ufo, go fix panic in brasil or take care of alien abductions in europe...and you're basing your decisions pretty much on the panic level of each country - you're not free to go either way...this feels like a weird handholding-mechanic to lead the player through the game....there i much preferred the original where if you fucked up, it was entirely your own fault, and IF you had several teams, you could go on SEVERAL missions - it's ridiculous that i'm constrained to a single base and a team of 5-6
Sorry for ranting, i just think that the game has been simplified rather than built upon...
Edit> Either way, this is by far the best thing to come out of the franchise since xcom apocalypse, shelf that retarded fps version please!
so it's out, and pretty awesome! I'm playing normal mode because the devs warned not to try classic on your first go, even if you're an X-Com veteran. My guys are surviving pretty well but I'm not sure if it's because normal is too easy or if the original X-COM has made me super cautious.
I just hope they release a patch ASAP, way too many bugs for my taste, especially when the wall shooting is involved and the enemy getting an 'extra turn' after the cutscene of them getting exposed, seriously, how did some of these bugs get through QA?
I haven't encountered anyone actually shooting through walls - I've seen minor visual bugs where in certain situations the animation looks like it's shooting through a wall.
Are you experiencing enemies actually getting a whole extra turn after you spot them or is it the normal: cutscene followed by scrambling for cover that happens every time.
Enemies move once in Fog after I hunker 'near' them, they come though a Door/Field or in my area of View, play animation of 'Oh noes, he spotted us! Kill the humans'.
They now have one extra turn on me, not sure how many action points, but they do have one extra turn.
I was able to adapt to this and keep at least one guy in a room on Watch, but it's starting to get really bothersome. This happens sometimes, and sometimes not, but enough times to make me confused and say it's a bug. I checked the tutorial again, and can vouch no explanation of enemy distance and action correlations are explained.
The wall shooting doesn't happen everywhere, but an example of what I mean (as shown in the video) is the Shield, I figured enemies could shoot me through the Shields but not me, yet that's not the case. Checked again for any hints of shield from enemy sided and how they work, no proper explanation given.
Another more concrete example is against heavy cover, where the occasional Thin Man at same ground level will nail a single critical from good distance away from me, without using a Sniper. The problem is, you can see the bullet travel 'behind' the cover and directly into me, especially around doorways, at impossible angles where I don't get a shooting chance.
My comment about how this passed QA may have been harsh, but I'm loving the game, I just wish my dice rolls would account for gameplay, not the occasional shot through the walls which ends up wiping critical members in critical areas, hence snowballing my entire team.
Been playing on classic ironman, the game is lovely.
Ace, they get one free move (which can totally be exploited by squad sight snipers to give you free kills, and is anything but OP) if you move to contact THEM, and nothing if it happens during their turn (seen by them moving into view, playing cutscene, and then them either moving or firing, but never both).
'shooting through walls' is a matter of how the boardgame works, not some kind of bug or glitch. If your soldier is in cover, he occupies the square on either side of the cover for purposes of targeting, so if your enemy has line of sight to the other side of that cover, you are within their line of sight. There are isolated circumstances at angles where one person in full cover may be able to see the other, but not vice versa.
Position your troops more carefully, this is utterly avoidable, and you only really lose troops in this kind of a situation in the case of TERRIBLE die rolls or you trying to exploit cover way too much (ie leaving non-assault soldiers out in full cover with five enemies staring them down). This is a grid based, dice based game with 3d graphics draped over it -- you really expect them to spend the dev time to make sure it NEVER looks like an enemy is just shooting the square you're in, instead of your actual characteR?
It seems to operate like the surprise action in D&D - once you stumble upon them they get a free move.
I don't have an issue with the spaceship shield thing, it makes sense that humans are confused the first time they come in contact with alien technology. I thought I couldn't walk through the forcefield doors inside the ship - until I took cover by one and saw the "open door" icon pop up.
It seems to operate like the surprise action in D&D - once you stumble upon them they get a free move.
Yeah, basically like that, with the caveat that they get no free moves if they stumble on YOU, they just typically take a dash move in that case.
Seeing as playing the game on classic (and i assume impossible, too) setting up reaction shots is VITAL to scoring kills without risking your own soldiers, it's a huge boon that you get that reaction move in the first place. A major part of the strategy of SAFELY positioning your team is about having people on overwatch when that first contact starts, so that you can pick off 2-3 of the enemies before the fight even begins.
As for shields, I thought it was obvious (at least, by my second or third ufo) -- they can be shot through but not walked through. Both sides. Again, snipers with squad sight on overwatch are the ideal way to approach shields -- on bigger ufos you can expect contact on at least one of the sides.
Played the first one on our family Amiga when I was really young - loved the game, but only had 1MB of ram so couldn't complete big missions because it would take 5 hours for the enemy to finish their turn. Anyway, played the demo on PS3, actually quite enjoyed it, can definitely feel the similarities with the original/terror/apocalypse. The base freaked me out a bit, I want to plan my base from the sky and choose where my base is in the world at a pin point accuracy. In the alps or something.
Thought the demo was good so bought it on PC, looking forward to playing some.
The first issue is that I was always hunkering around the corners, so I never entered a room to contact them, which is what confuses me, as to why once they pop up, they get an initiative, and the enemy is always under Fog of War in these cases. I have the feeling my game is acting funny and reading 'proximity' of enemy as 'seen', which clearly cannot be in my case.
I use my environment very carefully, I always take cover behind 'full' cover, not lite when I can do so, but an example of what I mean is having a rubbish bin, small columns and a lamppost infront of me, between my sniper and an enemy at the other end, I'm on slightly higher ground, enemy is at slightly lower ground.
I have at most a 1% chance to hit them, if I position my guy in such a way that I do have a shooting chance (usually I don't when I'm surrounded by cover, but there is the occasional small hole to fire from), enemy shoots 3 times, out of those 3, I get hit twice. Dice rolls, yes, acceptable, but the enemy shouldn't even be able to reach my Sniper with all that debris infront of them and me, especially if they're using one of the smaller weapons at such a distance.
It's acts almost as if the cover doesn't exist for them.
Shield will be obvious after the first time you get to experience them, but it doesn't make sense from a visual perspective when you don't know about them at first, you have all this fancy 'wrooomzzzz' going on, and shields, just as the name implies, should shield, and unless I'm mistaken, you cannot toss anything past a 'door shield' which has the same effect as the other shield, which adds to the initial confusion. You learn after the first time, but it was very weird choice to make from the start.
I don't expect them to make it graphically perfect, which was my initial confusion about it, they did an excellent job at making sure that if an enemy hits me, it looks like it's hitting on my square in the center of my character, and I don't care if that passes through an object in lite cover, I get the gist of it and I'm fine with it, just like missing fire traces over my head, but if they want to make it seem like something can be 'shot through' (not lite cover BTW, since those are indicated with half armor icon), then add a small transparency effect of something to say 'hey idiot, this piece of scenic item on the enemies side actually has no effect, so you can shoot through it with your sniper and it won't affect the roll of % and cover at the same time'.
With all of that said, I'm playing on Man, but I have the feeling I need to restart and the game needs a reinstall because I just noticed Man isn't saving my game after every move as it's supposed to be.
If you can shoot the enemy, they can shoot you - if it's early on they have a greater chance of hitting you because plasma weapons confer a 10% bonus to aim (if I recall). I haven't tried multiplayer yet but I do believe the aliens have better stats than X-com troops too.
If you had a 3 square wide wall that counts as total cover between you and the enemy, the only place that gives 0% chance of being shot by that enemy is the center square, unless the enemy is above you.
Been playing since release. Loving it!
I just beat the game on Normal, and gonna go for my 2nd play through on Classic/Ironman. Normal was a bit too easy for me most of the time.
Also, yeah...lots of bugs, and I'm not talking about the "shoot through walls" issue.
The SHIV's were totally bugged for me it seems. I built one and it worked great and got blown up...I built a HoverSHIV and it spawned with no weapon or abilities. I had to junk it. Built a new hover and ground based shiv...and suddenly I can no longer assign SHIV's to my Skyranger crew. It just makes the "bonk" error noise when I click a SHIV.
Real UI trouble when trying to maneuver flying or grappling units (or anything with verticality)
Lots of weird human character graphical glitches, with missing heads, black textures, T-pose playing instead of anims, and multiple suits of armor overlayed on the 1 character.
The first issue is that I was always hunkering around the corners, so I never entered a room to contact them, which is what confuses me, as to why once they pop up, they get an initiative, and the enemy is always under Fog of War in these cases. I have the feeling my game is acting funny and reading 'proximity' of enemy as 'seen', which clearly cannot be in my case.
I use my environment very carefully, I always take cover behind 'full' cover, not lite when I can do so, but an example of what I mean is having a rubbish bin, small columns and a lamppost infront of me, between my sniper and an enemy at the other end, I'm on slightly higher ground, enemy is at slightly lower ground.
I have at most a 1% chance to hit them, if I position my guy in such a way that I do have a shooting chance (usually I don't when I'm surrounded by cover, but there is the occasional small hole to fire from), enemy shoots 3 times, out of those 3, I get hit twice. Dice rolls, yes, acceptable, but the enemy shouldn't even be able to reach my Sniper with all that debris infront of them and me, especially if they're using one of the smaller weapons at such a distance.
Ace, man, I mean this in the best possible way: You just aren't very good at the game yet. I REALLY love this game, goty for me at least, so I hope you keep playing to a point where you don't see these situations as negatives anymore. The issues you're running into with the ai poppong your guys from behind cover is a mixture of a few factors. Using the environment carefully isnt a matter of just finding cover and shooting from it, it's about using the entire board to minimize your risk of getting attacked and maximize the enemy risk of getting attacked.
1- The game is designed to very much resemble the original x-com, which is basically a 'get sniped from across the map' simulator. It's easier to protect troops in xcom, but still not very easy. Your biggest obstacle in this game is minimizing chances for your soldiers to die. Especially on classic, aliens do not make this easy, and will employ all kinds of bully tactics, like rushing floaters past reaction fire to get no cover shots, or setting multiple aliens on overwatch so that you have to either leave a guy in bad cover or chance him against 3 plasma rifles if he tries to move. Every effort should be made to protect your troops. Firing your only rocket at a lone sectoid isn't silly at all if it means a 90% chance to NOT expose a soldier to the enemy moving up and flanking him.
2- Psychologically people who don't play a lot of dice based games, or otherwise deal with statistics in their real life, don't realize how big of a chance 20% or 30% is. If your entire tactic relies on putting a guy in full cover where the aliens have probably 25% shot chances on him and hoping he doesn't die, you are in trouble. In the inverse, if you have 3 guys with 30% chance to hit a lone alien in their line of sight, it's usually a better chance to just have them all fire than push someone up and look for a flank -- your odds of getting a hit are pretty good, and the repercussions are pretty low, vs the huge risk of the guy you move being exposed to some unseen threat in the fog of war.
3- GET SQUAD SIGHT ASAP for those snipers. It not only lets them use teammates line of sight to fire, it also applies to overwatch, so they can fire from outside of range on enemies you uncover or anyone who moves to try to flank your team. This is a lifesaver on classic.
4- If there is just no good move, nothing that gets you more than say a 20% chance to hit that one muton who's about to ruin your day, just fall back! Making an enemy move forward (hopefully through some reaction fire) to even get line of sight back on your guys is ideal. Remember, your team has to (hopefully) last you 20-25 missions, whereas the alien team just needs to kill one or two of your guys to ruin your day. You have to be much more conservative about your guys than the alien ai player does.
playing on classic mode (not in ironman yet) and having a blast! played it the last 2 nights in a row until 2 am! Joseph - i use similar tactics to what you just posted. The only difference is that I do it as smaller squads. I usually have 2 damage takers roll straight down the middle going from heavy cover to heavy cover. then i will have 2 damage dealers flank. rolling with a heavy and support in my "tank" group and 2x Aussult (1 with shotgun 1 with rifle) in my flanking group. on top of all of that i have my sniper just sit in the back constantly on overwatch.
i am defiantly going to be playing this again on ironman. so much fun!
Replies
hahaha especially when he was playing the music.
I'm cautiously optimistic.
The only thing I really like about the new Syndicate trailers are the music, though I believe Starbreeze will make a good game out of it, I don't think it'll be quite right.
Still, I'm excited for both Xcom games, and Syndicate regardless.
Just wish it wasn't such a risk to make a good, tactical turn based game anymore. :c
People have been through that, It's not about the result being good, it's about something that defined the very soul of the series being removed for no good reason.
So yes, modern warfare series would still be a really fun series even if it was civilization: modern warfare, but it wouldn't be civilization.
Fallout 3 was still a singleplayer explorational non-linear rpg with roughly the same stats, skills and item-system, along with quests, npc's and even an interesting take on what would be fallouts turn-based combat with VATS.
new xcom takes away base-building, meaningful squad development, permanent-death, dynamic-mission flow, ufos, inventory and item-management, the tactical combat is more akin to mass effect than it is to xcom, which is quite far away.
And unlike xcom as it should be, this will be a linear experience with little consequence overall, which is the polar opposite of what defines xcom.
But hey, along comes firaxis, ALMOST saying "gamers are not as stupid as people make them out to be, and turn-based is not dead", and making an xcom game that manages to re-imagine but still retain what was important with xcom.
So anyhow, now we know it isn't at the complete cost of xcom forever, and we can all relax and enjoy both games (one a bit more)
eld you could have stopped tying after this, you naild it.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/01/20/sid-meier-talks-xcom-enemy-unknown.aspx
Re: Syndicate...yeah, its a bit of a shame its an FPS, honestly, but now those other guys are making Cartel. So again, we've got a genre change/ re-imagining, and a remake of a beloved old-school franchise.
Seems like win/win for us, the gamers.
I've been enjoying the heck out of the original X-Com. Soooo hard.
pix plz!
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/01/28/advanced-tactics-exploring-xcom-39-s-combat-part-2.aspx
[ame="
Another different video here: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/features-interview-xcom-enemy/727640
i'm really trying to treat it as a minor hindrance but my enthusiasm dropped anyway.
What I really would like to know is, will the aliens be able to attack your base? Because that was one of my 'favorite' parts, when you suddenly see a ship approach your base and instead of attacking nearby, they actually attack your base. And it was cool, because you knew the area, you knew that around that corner, you will find your lab, which was like this and this, and not easy for aliens to hide in. And you knew it because thats how you build up your base.
So far I'm loving the tactical decision-making, though I'm definitely hoping for larger maps. Not entirely sold on the base view, especially navigation-wise, though I looove the visuals for it.
tldr; ERMAHGERD NERDGASM
October 11th can't come soon enough!
I'm kinda disappointed that there's less control on my part in terms of searching (fast forwarding time) on the globe
Lastly i also think its kind of a weird decision that they've really dumbed down the interception part - really preferred back in the day to play really agressive against UFO's - now its just a cookie-cutter gameplay mechanic - bad firaxis designer, bad!
To top it all off it really feels as if you're constantly given 3 different choices, for example you can choose to shoot down a ufo, go fix panic in brasil or take care of alien abductions in europe...and you're basing your decisions pretty much on the panic level of each country - you're not free to go either way...this feels like a weird handholding-mechanic to lead the player through the game....there i much preferred the original where if you fucked up, it was entirely your own fault, and IF you had several teams, you could go on SEVERAL missions - it's ridiculous that i'm constrained to a single base and a team of 5-6
Sorry for ranting, i just think that the game has been simplified rather than built upon...
Edit> Either way, this is by far the best thing to come out of the franchise since xcom apocalypse, shelf that retarded fps version please!
[ame="
I just hope they release a patch ASAP, way too many bugs for my taste, especially when the wall shooting is involved and the enemy getting an 'extra turn' after the cutscene of them getting exposed, seriously, how did some of these bugs get through QA?
Are you experiencing enemies actually getting a whole extra turn after you spot them or is it the normal: cutscene followed by scrambling for cover that happens every time.
They now have one extra turn on me, not sure how many action points, but they do have one extra turn.
I was able to adapt to this and keep at least one guy in a room on Watch, but it's starting to get really bothersome. This happens sometimes, and sometimes not, but enough times to make me confused and say it's a bug. I checked the tutorial again, and can vouch no explanation of enemy distance and action correlations are explained.
The wall shooting doesn't happen everywhere, but an example of what I mean (as shown in the video) is the Shield, I figured enemies could shoot me through the Shields but not me, yet that's not the case. Checked again for any hints of shield from enemy sided and how they work, no proper explanation given.
Another more concrete example is against heavy cover, where the occasional Thin Man at same ground level will nail a single critical from good distance away from me, without using a Sniper. The problem is, you can see the bullet travel 'behind' the cover and directly into me, especially around doorways, at impossible angles where I don't get a shooting chance.
My comment about how this passed QA may have been harsh, but I'm loving the game, I just wish my dice rolls would account for gameplay, not the occasional shot through the walls which ends up wiping critical members in critical areas, hence snowballing my entire team.
Ace, they get one free move (which can totally be exploited by squad sight snipers to give you free kills, and is anything but OP) if you move to contact THEM, and nothing if it happens during their turn (seen by them moving into view, playing cutscene, and then them either moving or firing, but never both).
'shooting through walls' is a matter of how the boardgame works, not some kind of bug or glitch. If your soldier is in cover, he occupies the square on either side of the cover for purposes of targeting, so if your enemy has line of sight to the other side of that cover, you are within their line of sight. There are isolated circumstances at angles where one person in full cover may be able to see the other, but not vice versa.
Position your troops more carefully, this is utterly avoidable, and you only really lose troops in this kind of a situation in the case of TERRIBLE die rolls or you trying to exploit cover way too much (ie leaving non-assault soldiers out in full cover with five enemies staring them down). This is a grid based, dice based game with 3d graphics draped over it -- you really expect them to spend the dev time to make sure it NEVER looks like an enemy is just shooting the square you're in, instead of your actual characteR?
I don't have an issue with the spaceship shield thing, it makes sense that humans are confused the first time they come in contact with alien technology. I thought I couldn't walk through the forcefield doors inside the ship - until I took cover by one and saw the "open door" icon pop up.
Yeah, basically like that, with the caveat that they get no free moves if they stumble on YOU, they just typically take a dash move in that case.
Seeing as playing the game on classic (and i assume impossible, too) setting up reaction shots is VITAL to scoring kills without risking your own soldiers, it's a huge boon that you get that reaction move in the first place. A major part of the strategy of SAFELY positioning your team is about having people on overwatch when that first contact starts, so that you can pick off 2-3 of the enemies before the fight even begins.
As for shields, I thought it was obvious (at least, by my second or third ufo) -- they can be shot through but not walked through. Both sides. Again, snipers with squad sight on overwatch are the ideal way to approach shields -- on bigger ufos you can expect contact on at least one of the sides.
Thought the demo was good so bought it on PC, looking forward to playing some.
I use my environment very carefully, I always take cover behind 'full' cover, not lite when I can do so, but an example of what I mean is having a rubbish bin, small columns and a lamppost infront of me, between my sniper and an enemy at the other end, I'm on slightly higher ground, enemy is at slightly lower ground.
I have at most a 1% chance to hit them, if I position my guy in such a way that I do have a shooting chance (usually I don't when I'm surrounded by cover, but there is the occasional small hole to fire from), enemy shoots 3 times, out of those 3, I get hit twice. Dice rolls, yes, acceptable, but the enemy shouldn't even be able to reach my Sniper with all that debris infront of them and me, especially if they're using one of the smaller weapons at such a distance.
It's acts almost as if the cover doesn't exist for them.
Shield will be obvious after the first time you get to experience them, but it doesn't make sense from a visual perspective when you don't know about them at first, you have all this fancy 'wrooomzzzz' going on, and shields, just as the name implies, should shield, and unless I'm mistaken, you cannot toss anything past a 'door shield' which has the same effect as the other shield, which adds to the initial confusion. You learn after the first time, but it was very weird choice to make from the start.
I don't expect them to make it graphically perfect, which was my initial confusion about it, they did an excellent job at making sure that if an enemy hits me, it looks like it's hitting on my square in the center of my character, and I don't care if that passes through an object in lite cover, I get the gist of it and I'm fine with it, just like missing fire traces over my head, but if they want to make it seem like something can be 'shot through' (not lite cover BTW, since those are indicated with half armor icon), then add a small transparency effect of something to say 'hey idiot, this piece of scenic item on the enemies side actually has no effect, so you can shoot through it with your sniper and it won't affect the roll of % and cover at the same time'.
With all of that said, I'm playing on Man, but I have the feeling I need to restart and the game needs a reinstall because I just noticed Man isn't saving my game after every move as it's supposed to be.
If you had a 3 square wide wall that counts as total cover between you and the enemy, the only place that gives 0% chance of being shot by that enemy is the center square, unless the enemy is above you.
I just beat the game on Normal, and gonna go for my 2nd play through on Classic/Ironman. Normal was a bit too easy for me most of the time.
Also, yeah...lots of bugs, and I'm not talking about the "shoot through walls" issue.
The SHIV's were totally bugged for me it seems. I built one and it worked great and got blown up...I built a HoverSHIV and it spawned with no weapon or abilities. I had to junk it. Built a new hover and ground based shiv...and suddenly I can no longer assign SHIV's to my Skyranger crew. It just makes the "bonk" error noise when I click a SHIV.
Real UI trouble when trying to maneuver flying or grappling units (or anything with verticality)
Lots of weird human character graphical glitches, with missing heads, black textures, T-pose playing instead of anims, and multiple suits of armor overlayed on the 1 character.
Woman charged me across whole map and shot me in the face.
Sectoid mindfucked my sniper, then made my heavy guy shit his pants and skip 2 turns, and he also shot my other guy. What the fuck.
Multiplayer in this game sucks.
Ace, man, I mean this in the best possible way: You just aren't very good at the game yet. I REALLY love this game, goty for me at least, so I hope you keep playing to a point where you don't see these situations as negatives anymore. The issues you're running into with the ai poppong your guys from behind cover is a mixture of a few factors. Using the environment carefully isnt a matter of just finding cover and shooting from it, it's about using the entire board to minimize your risk of getting attacked and maximize the enemy risk of getting attacked.
1- The game is designed to very much resemble the original x-com, which is basically a 'get sniped from across the map' simulator. It's easier to protect troops in xcom, but still not very easy. Your biggest obstacle in this game is minimizing chances for your soldiers to die. Especially on classic, aliens do not make this easy, and will employ all kinds of bully tactics, like rushing floaters past reaction fire to get no cover shots, or setting multiple aliens on overwatch so that you have to either leave a guy in bad cover or chance him against 3 plasma rifles if he tries to move. Every effort should be made to protect your troops. Firing your only rocket at a lone sectoid isn't silly at all if it means a 90% chance to NOT expose a soldier to the enemy moving up and flanking him.
2- Psychologically people who don't play a lot of dice based games, or otherwise deal with statistics in their real life, don't realize how big of a chance 20% or 30% is. If your entire tactic relies on putting a guy in full cover where the aliens have probably 25% shot chances on him and hoping he doesn't die, you are in trouble. In the inverse, if you have 3 guys with 30% chance to hit a lone alien in their line of sight, it's usually a better chance to just have them all fire than push someone up and look for a flank -- your odds of getting a hit are pretty good, and the repercussions are pretty low, vs the huge risk of the guy you move being exposed to some unseen threat in the fog of war.
3- GET SQUAD SIGHT ASAP for those snipers. It not only lets them use teammates line of sight to fire, it also applies to overwatch, so they can fire from outside of range on enemies you uncover or anyone who moves to try to flank your team. This is a lifesaver on classic.
4- If there is just no good move, nothing that gets you more than say a 20% chance to hit that one muton who's about to ruin your day, just fall back! Making an enemy move forward (hopefully through some reaction fire) to even get line of sight back on your guys is ideal. Remember, your team has to (hopefully) last you 20-25 missions, whereas the alien team just needs to kill one or two of your guys to ruin your day. You have to be much more conservative about your guys than the alien ai player does.
i am defiantly going to be playing this again on ironman. so much fun!