Your three least favourite parts of the original X-Com?

[Oathbreaker]

1. Too much emphasis on using alien weapons and winning with psi and magic/sci-fi tech. I like the early-to-mid game better when you're still using stuff that's sort of recognizable as human, realistic stuff.

2. Slooooowly clearing a huge map only to find that last alien stuck in some buggy little spot due to some bug.

3. "You can't throw that there!" In the real world it's pretty easy to have someone open a door while you stand next to them and toss in a grenade. Or throw a grenade up on the roof. Then again it was 1994 and it's easy to complain but hard to code and Q&A.

[Inkidu]

1. Manufacturing ammo. I hated it. I've said it before, but it's basically one layer of minutia too many. You either take time out to make/load some or you forget. There's never any need or compelling argument to really go that deep. Especially when you're the commander.

2. Lack of alien tactics. No alien had any other tactic besides walk forward, shoot, walk back. Oh sure, you're etherials and leaders mind-raped and used blaster bombs, but mutons should not have the same tactics as sectoids. They shouldn't.

3. TUs. I think they put too much emphasis on the power of the individual over the power of the team.

[Oathbreaker]

Crap. Forgot about all the times I had to click "Ok" just to get through this or that menu screen to get to another screen so I could access the same darn soldier.

AI at the time was about average for other games, but yeah, that means it sucked. TUs was just the way things were done at that time, too - I'm glad they went with the new, more intuitive system so we don't have to worry too much about trying to plot a better path than the auto-pathing algorithm. I'm sure there'll be some small bugs or whatnot with moving up or down (stairwells, etc) things where it involves climbing or jumping, but as long as it's not too awful I'll deal with it.

[Aegeri]

1. Psionics. Absolutely hated them. Poorly implemented as once you have it the game is basically won once you have a month or so of psionics training. Unfortunately, it's equally true the other way as if you get ethereals too early and no psionics of your own, then it's straight up game over. This doesn't make the game more strategic or more tactical in any way or manner: Just more frustrating knowing there is ONE tech you absolutely MUST get ASAP to win.

2. The AI and its utter inability to deal with the "Sprint rookies in all directions, use elite snipers (basically high TU/high accuracy characters) to mop up" strategy. Given the large amounts of doods you can get each mission, this strategy actually makes superhuman surprisingly easy. Especially if you cut losses and just leave an engagement if you have too much threat on your more valuable soldiers. The net result is a team of murderous crack shots that should never be put in any real danger (unless you need to breach a UFO or something similar). Combine with psionics for extra hilarity once you daisy chain aliens together (then arm their grenades on themselves).

3. Interception in the original was an incredibly banal "minigame" at best. This needs a huge amount of work and I really need to see them improve something here. Such an opportunity, please don't waste it Firaxis.

[Aknazer]

It's hard for me to limit it to just three...

1) Psi and Blaster Launchers. These two things just make the game a joke, and that's when used by theirself. Use these two together and things just get stupid easy.

2) Lack of real tactics. From the aliens not having a decent AI to the fact that you can't see over a waist high wall if kneeling (or get over it in general), to TU hoarding for reaction shots, to only needing a few "scouts" and just using the rest of your guys to take auto-shots at aliens from safety and everything in between, I felt that the game was lacking any real tactics. Yes there were some tactics (like not grouping up to get 3-4 guys killed by a single alien grenade...), but I felt that they were very basic and generally made it easy to exploit the lack of a decent AI (who couldn't use tactics and thus would just walk into your firing squad 1-2 at a time, or some other stupid thing).

3) Lack of any squad control. I typically only used 6-8 soldiers at the start of the mission and by the time the mission ended I was down to only using two (unless it was a bug hunt and I was throwing soldiers to each of the corners) simply because I got tired of having to micro every single soldier.

4) I know you said top three, but I feel that "ammo" needs an honorable mention. I never had any real issues with ammo in EU, but that's because I found laser weapons (which didn't use ammo) to be good enough until after I had a good stockpile of heavy plasma clips (it also helps to only put a few heavy plasmas on the skyranger for your top soldiers at the start). Still, the micro of magazines and the fact that firing even a single round meant that you lost that magazine made the ammo micro very annoying. In TFTD it wasn't uncommon for me to skip gauss tech cuz I didn't feel like messing around with having to manufacture magazines for them.


Note that these are simply my top three complaints for EU. TFTD has roughly the same gripes (but omg diaf you toilet camper!) as it is more of an expansion of EU than a sequel in how we think of them today (though I still loved TFTD). I feel that Apoc did a great job of fixing these complaints. Apoc had squad controls, aliens that worked together, a TU system that showed you how many TUs would be left after moving, multi-turn moves (so send a unit somewhere and he keeps moving towards it every turn till he gets there), and you didn't really have to worry about ammo (yes if you went with toxin-B/C you had to manufacture it but if you set up a manufacturing base this was laughably easy and I was regularly running out of things to manufacture). The biggest things in Apoc were that the AI could be improved upon (but typically what AI couldn't be), entropy launchers (the new blaster launcher that only aliens can use), and teleportation devices (if used right they could be viewed as the new psi).

[Usul]

1) AI: It is a must that this is improved in the new game. Unfortunatly, it is alsways easier to do marketing with graphics or action then with AI.
2) Balancing: I want everything (alien-types, weapons, aircrafts, ...) to also have disadvantages. There should never be one thing that tops everything else.
3) Being able to open doors without going through them (this was fixed in TFTD, but OP asked about original).

[heniv]

1. End game imbalance of PSI Amps, Blaster launchers & Stun launchers.

2. Looking for that single alien hiding in a corner on the map.

3. Having to re-equip your squad before each mission.

1. Manufacturing ammo. I hated it. I've said it before, but it's basically one layer of minutia too many. You either take time out to make/load some or you forget. There's never any need or compelling argument to really go that deep. Especially when you're the commander.

Personally I liked it as another layer of realism on the game. You should perhaps not need to re-equip ammo yourself each mission. But as the Commander you should have to care about resupplying your squad (even though I think they have streamlined that feature).

[Inkidu]

1. End game imbalance of PSI Amps, Blaster launchers & Stun launchers.

2. Looking for that single alien hiding in a corner on the map.

3. Having to re-equip your squad before each mission.



Personally I liked it as another layer of realism on the game. You should perhaps not need to re-equip ammo yourself each mission. But as the Commander you should have to care about resupplying your squad (even though I think they have streamlined that feature).

Realistically the commander of a an entire organization would never ever deal with the ammo requisition. They just don't. A major would get on the horn and ask. A general does not go about requesting clips for his mens' guns. There are people for that. To elaborate: You could steal the majority of alien ammo you needed. If you couldn't make it it was probably because you had no E-115, in which case you've got bigger issues than ammo. Ammo for conventional weapons I never made it through what they gave me. Lasers didn't need it.

I don't mind heavy gear, I don't mind craft gear, but I do draw a line at every single small arm.

[Brian Damage]

For brevity, broadly in agreement with Aknazer, especially on the subject of the improvements in Apoc.

[ShanDaMan]

1). Having to continually reset the "TU Reservation" buttons.
2). The 80 item limit.
3). "You can't throw here" (but if you kneel down you might could).

Note: Many of the gripes mentioned have been fixed or mitigated by XCOMUTIL.

[Gen_Pho]

1. Right clicking in soldier equip screen
2. "Unable to throw here"
3. Lack of different move modes (sprint, sneak, crawl) or prone.

[Zweistein000]

I never played TFTD or EU, but I can certainly tell 3 for Apoc:

1. It's over before it's over. So i miss clicked and played on average instead of hard and my efficiency anded up being so high, I shot down all the UFO's before they landed troops and defeated the landing parties before they spread for their offload building result being - only 2 real days of fighting a week, at the late game, this would bottle down to 1 day per 2 or 3 weeks meaning the alien threat was effectively over, all I need to do now is blow up their buildings (first one went down yesterday).

[Zweistein000]

2. Fear - basically coming form the same root problem as #1, my guy(s) are (is) such an expert(s) in alien termination, the aliens simply don't walk out of UFOs anymore. Even at the beginning of the game I find them panicking or just simply hiding in different corner of the UFO (even megaspawn, micronoids and psi-morphs).

[Zweistein000]

3. Retarded Antropoods lategame. REMEMBER THAT TIME WHEN YOU HAD A DECENT 100K FOR ALIEN GEAR HAUL, BENEATH YOUR AGENT'S FEET AND THAT ONE ANTROPOOD CAME IN WITH A F***ING VORTEX MINE. Your unit's didn't die, cause you had shields and X-COM disruptor armor, but you lost all your shields, had all your agents wounded or bleeding (and thus being unable to hit anything) and the Antropood just died, depriving you of vengeance!

[katscan]

Slight rebuttals

1) the AI was decent for its time. There is no reason to think or want the aliens to use tactics or other crap that we humans believe to be effective. No reason at all. They are aliens. Maybe thats the way they learned how to fight. The AI was programmed SPECIFICALLY to be wierd and unpredictable.

2) While I didn't like hunting the map for that one last alien, why is that not realistic? Either 1) he just saw all his buddies die so why the hell wouldn't he hide until you went away and 2) its better than the alternative (XCom Apoc) where the aliens would just rush you every time they heard or saw you, meaning that most of the cool multistory buildings were nothing more than decorations since there was NEVER any reason to go inside and have a firefight. In fact, let me list that as a separate item that I HATED. The monotony of the search for that last alien, while I agree painful, is ok given the surprise/shock you get when you open up that last toilet door and see him standing there right in your face.

Things I hated:

*Some of the posters on here, "min-maxing" the game and then calling it unbalanced or too easy. If you play it +/- realistically you end up having more fun, and not complaining the game is not balanced (sending rookie scouts out and just sniping with experts from afar)
*XCom Apoc, Alien reaction- There were NEVER any aliens hiding. There were awesome multistory buildings, with all kinds of cool interior objects, close in doors, bathrooms, closets, stairwells, etc. But GUESS WHAT? It was all just eye candy because the second your guys walked into the center courtyard, the aliens would just rush you from every corner and you end up just having a firefight out in the open, or at best, using part of the first story of a building. What a waste of an awesome environment. The aliens wouldn't even set up and snipe or anything, to force you to enter the buildings.
*Aerial combat- That doesn't even deserve the term 'minigame'.. I understand the need to streamline it majorly, but what we had was essentially ridiculous.
*Psionics- I think they were too powerful as another poster said.

[Alucardex]

Slight rebuttals


2) While I didn't like hunting the map for that one last alien, why is that not realistic? Either 1) he just saw all his buddies die so why the hell wouldn't he hide until you went away and 2) its better than the alternative (XCom Apoc) where the aliens would just rush you every time they heard or saw you, meaning that most of the cool multistory buildings were nothing more than decorations since there was NEVER any reason to go inside and have a firefight. In fact, let me list that as a separate item that I HATED. The monotony of the search for that last alien, while I agree painful, is ok given the surprise/shock you get when you open up that last toilet door and see him standing there right in your face.

Well if you try hard enough you can find a glimpse of realism in the dumbest and most boring game designs, but that doesn't make them any more fun.
I don't really get what you mean with the shock when finding the last alien. I mean you are searching for that alien specifically so you already expect to find him in one of those corners. To me there is absolutely zero suspense in that.

Things i hated:

1)The stupid item limit on base defense missions. I lost at least two bases because my soldiers didn't have any weapons because of that.

2)Soldiers sometimes missing the target by a completely impossible amount.
I had one soldier fire at an alien and accidentaly kill a guy standing to his right!
How is that even possible?

3) base defenses firing at ufo's got really, really boring at the end of a game.

[katscan]

LOL @ #2.. that's very true. Didn't mean to imply that realistic = good or fun

I dunno about you, but most of the time, I would have to clear a house room by room.. so yes, it would sometimes be startling to be opening yet another door to a closet/bathroom and bam, he's right there in front of you. Not that this outweighed the negatives.

Yes, I agree with you. It did get to be tedious and boring/frustrating. But do you really prefer them bum-rushing you all the time so that there is one massive firefight and the whole mission is over? There has to be a balance somehow.

[DP1982SK]

1) For some reason, I hated that in the original, each time you had to re-equip soldiers... I'd rather have them equiped once, and then adjust the load outs instead of doing that every single mission as the equipment was a complete mess. I'll just add no partial clips (so one shot and the whole clip is gone after the mission)

2) Psionics... - it sure can be fun, but I'd rather not see psionics equipment as a must have.

3) Not sure which one would it be - opening doors without rushing through or all aliens of one species looking exactly the same with not even a minor visual distinction on what their function may be... Trying to capture a commander was a real pain.. or you just had to work really hard to get all the aliens stunned...

[Akinaba]

=Misunderstood=

[tazong]

I never played TFTD or EU, but I can certainly tell 3 for Apoc:

1. It's over before it's over. So i miss clicked and played on average instead of hard and my efficiency anded up being so high, I shot down all the UFO's before they landed troops and defeated the landing parties before they spread for their offload building result being - only 2 real days of fighting a week, at the late game, this would bottle down to 1 day per 2 or 3 weeks meaning the alien threat was effectively over, all I need to do now is blow up their buildings (first one went down yesterday).

With the greatest of respect but if you played the game on average(medium) - what did you expect? Anyone else would have just restarted and changed the level - you can hardly blame the game for that - yourself yes?

Try playing the game on superhuman then you really will have something to moan about?

Apocalypse is a fantastic game and the best of the trio - the biggest fault of that game was a ton of stuff wasnt used simply because they ran out of time

[Usul]

3) Not sure which one would it be - opening doors without rushing through or all aliens of one species looking exactly the same with not even a minor visual distinction on what their function may be... Trying to capture a commander was a real pain.. or you just had to work really hard to get all the aliens stunned...

Mind probe, your welcome.

[katscan]

Mind probe, your welcome.

They should have made it an Anal Probe. More in keeping with UFO lore, and funnier.

[DP1982SK]

Mind probe, your welcome.

I know, it still would be better to have some distinction at first glance (nothing major like in ET).

I usually was leaving the mind probe research for later and not going ASAP for it. At least I recall fun times with stun rods in close combat

I guess that leaves door opening as point 3

[katscan]

You know what I absolutely HATED about the original ? Voice confirmations (just kidding, there were none) . No seriously, I hated the fact that you could not see your soldier's stats when you were assigning weapons at the beginning of a mission. I would sometimes end up assigning heavy weapons to someone that is not strong, and getting screwed. Or giving grenades to guys that dont know how to throw. So I had to come up with a naming convention for my troops.

[Inkidu]

You know what I absolutely HATED about the original ? Voice confirmations (just kidding, there were none) . No seriously, I hated the fact that you could not see your soldier's stats when you were assigning weapons at the beginning of a mission. I would sometimes end up assigning heavy weapons to someone that is not strong, and getting screwed. Or giving grenades to guys that dont know how to throw. So I had to come up with a naming convention for my troops.

I give them (parenthetical designations).

(S) Sniper.
(R) Recon/support role
(H) Heavy
They get a P like (HP), (SP), (RP) if they have psionic capabilities.

[heniv]

You know what I absolutely HATED about the original ? Voice confirmations (just kidding, there were none) . No seriously, I hated the fact that you could not see your soldier's stats when you were assigning weapons at the beginning of a mission. I would sometimes end up assigning heavy weapons to someone that is not strong, and getting screwed. Or giving grenades to guys that dont know how to throw. So I had to come up with a naming convention for my troops.

Couldn't you do that by clicking their rank symbol? Or am I mistaken?

[katscan]

Couldn't you do that by clicking their rank symbol? Or am I mistaken?

Ill tell you in 2 seconds. Im playing it on my old ass 2001 laptop while at work.. one sec.

Edit- No.. before you deploy on the mission, still in the Skyranger, you cannot click on anything that gives you unit stats.

[Aknazer]

You know what I absolutely HATED about the original ? Voice confirmations (just kidding, there were none) . No seriously, I hated the fact that you could not see your soldier's stats when you were assigning weapons at the beginning of a mission. I would sometimes end up assigning heavy weapons to someone that is not strong, and getting screwed. Or giving grenades to guys that dont know how to throw. So I had to come up with a naming convention for my troops.

XCOMUTIL can help out greatly here. It has a feature that will add designators to people based on stats, and it can remember how people were equipped between battles (though you will want to double check it because sometimes it gets messed up). Still very much a gripe of the original (though Apoc fixed it except for replacing spent grenades/ammo), but there are things out there to help out with it.

[heniv]

Ill tell you in 2 seconds. Im playing it on my old ass 2001 laptop while at work.. one sec.

Edit- No.. before you deploy on the mission, still in the Skyranger, you cannot click on anything that gives you unit stats.

Yes, I was mistaken. That feature did only first show up in TFTD.

[Zweistein000]

With the greatest of respect but if you played the game on average(medium) - what did you expect? Anyone else would have just restarted and changed the level - you can hardly blame the game for that - yourself yes?

Try playing the game on superhuman then you really will have something to moan about?

Apocalypse is a fantastic game and the best of the trio - the biggest fault of that game was a ton of stuff wasnt used simply because they ran out of time

I plan too
The problem is since I play apoc once a year, I didn't realize I was on average until one day I miss-clicked again (start new game instead of load) and started it up on hard so I could load. I didn't feel like restarting the game since I was like 2 months in the game (I had devastators and personal shields coming :P )

[Aknazer]

I never played TFTD or EU, but I can certainly tell 3 for Apoc:

1. It's over before it's over. So i miss clicked and played on average instead of hard and my efficiency anded up being so high, I shot down all the UFO's before they landed troops and defeated the landing parties before they spread for their offload building result being - only 2 real days of fighting a week, at the late game, this would bottle down to 1 day per 2 or 3 weeks meaning the alien threat was effectively over, all I need to do now is blow up their buildings (first one went down yesterday).

Try it on superhuman then. Also the difficulty combined with your score directly influences the rate that they bring out new gear. The higher your score the sooner they bring out better equipment (with that threshold being lower the harder the difficulty). The sooner they bring out higher tech then the less time you have to research and prep for that new tech. The less prepared you are the harder it is to deal with the aliens.

On this last play-through there was a week where I couldn't shoot down both dropship UFOs (I was lucky to shoot down one of the dropships and taking out one of the escorts was almost impossible; oh and the UFOs had shields now), the aliens had dev cannons and shields, I was down to 6 soldiers with only two fit for duty, I couldn't hire any more soldiers, and by the time I was finally able to higher more people I was down to three soldiers, one sub 50% hp and the other two sub 20% hp. And this happened when I was less than 50% of the way through researching dev cannons (which is like the second alien tech I research right after disruptor guns).

I agree that the end-game of Apoc could get boring (to spice things up try doing the building missions with a single soldier), but at least you could raid buildings endlessly. End-game EU you could shoot down all UFOs and never have a terror mission while waiting for the research for the final mission; which is effectively the same thing as shooting down all the UFOs of Apoc. Really only TFTD had a "mandatory" terror-site every month (regardless of how good your coverage was there would always be 1 mission that would pop up that couldn't be prevented).

[tazong]

I must admit i read that post with a totally big smile on my face -there is a person who knows what xcom is all about.
:-)

[cescos]

1. Lack of "Simulate" button. You know, I really liked the original (still think it's one of the best games of all time), but sometimes I wish I could just click on a simulate button to quickly pass the combat portions just so I could concentrate on the base-building phase.

2. Re-equip the soldiers every single time they return from a mission.

3. Lack of a GOOD story and dialogues. I have been playing Mass Effect 3 (finished it!) and I always tought that a strong history would be benefical to this mute game. In that time, 1994, I imagined the player as the corporation head who would deal with politics issues as to where deploy a new base, or, engaging in deep conversations with the chief engineer to discuss what should be built next, what is needed for it, or approaching the chief scientist as to what theories does he have to finish the alien threat. Etc, etc. Somehow, I don't think the soldiers, per se, would be an interesting addition as they seem to be almost dischargeable, unless we're talking about someone who does not engage in combat.

[Usul]

3. Lack of a GOOD story and dialogues. I have been playing Mass Effect 3 (finished it!) and I always tought that a strong history would be benefical to this mute game. In that time, 1994, I imagined the player as the corporation head who would deal with politics issues as to where deploy a new base, or, engaging in deep conversations with the chief engineer to discuss what should be built next, what is needed for it, or approaching the chief scientist as to what theories does he have to finish the alien threat. Etc, etc. Somehow, I don't think the soldiers, per se, would be an interesting addition as they seem to be almost dischargeable, unless we're talking about someone who does not engage in combat.

As long as it does not take away freedom from the player. But I like the idea of talking to your staff members. Like the Normady in Mass Effect. You could just walk around your base and listen to the newest developments of research or the problem these guys have. Maybe a scientiest even tells you "We are just before an important breakthrough, all we need is one living snakemen!". This could really spice up the athmosphere. Good idea, but its probably too late for that now.

[Severene]

1 - Psionics.
2 - Lack of full game multiplayer.
2 - End of game.

[SectoidSquisher]

You can't throw that there/No Line of fire (aaaaaaaaaggggh!)
Time Units (yes )
Hunt the last alien, who usually hides in the highest room of the last building in the corner of the map.

The new Xcom game looks to be providing many more mission types - there's that weird looking machine spouting evil green smoke into the air, for example. That's got to be some sort of alien terror weapon that we have to disable/capture.

As long as it does not take away freedom from the player. But I like the idea of talking to your staff members. Like the Normady in Mass Effect. You could just walk around your base and listen to the newest developments of research or the problem these guys have. Maybe a scientiest even tells you "We are just before an important breakthrough, all we need is one living snakemen!". This could really spice up the athmosphere. Good idea, but its probably too late for that now.

Yeah, that would be great. Maybe there is some of that sort of thing in there - we don't know yet. We do know that the commander (you) is asked via PA annoucements to go to various rooms.

[Gen_Pho]

You can't throw that there/No Line of fire (aaaaaaaaaggggh!)
Time Units (yes )
Hunt the last alien, who usually hides in the highest room of the last building in the corner of the map.

The new Xcom game looks to be providing many more mission types - there's that weird looking machine spouting evil green smoke into the air, for example. That's got to be some sort of alien terror weapon that we have to disable/capture.


Yeah, that would be great. Maybe there is some of that sort of thing in there - we don't know yet. We do know that the commander (you) is asked via PA annoucements to go to various rooms.

It looked like there was some dialogue with the research lady in the video tazong posted.

[SectoidSquisher]

Add to that - Rookies blasting your best soldier in the back of their head. If there's a chance of hitting another trooper, then it should be a case of 'no line of fire'!!

[katscan]

Add to that - Rookies blasting your best soldier in the back of their head. If there's a chance of hitting another trooper, then it should be a case of 'no line of fire'!!

Yea.. but those moments were fun ! Just picked up the original this week, and started playing again. 2 missions in, my rookie opens up autoshot with the autocannon (my fav weapon) and the third shot hits one of my better guys in the back and kills him. LOL

By the way, I have some dialogue ideas for the research lady.. "Hey baby.. whatcha doing? Looks like you've been working a long, hard, so hard day. Why don't you let the base commander help you relax". Yes, I am a dirty dog.

[SectoidSquisher]

Ha ha ha! 'Relax! "Mr Big" wants to see ya'...

Edit: Shooting your best man in the back two missions in isn't too much of an annoyance - no, it's annoying when it happens ten or twenty missions in!

Going back to the dialogue, it could even be used to set up certain mission types. If the science boffs need a live snakeman, then that's the mission objective: capture a live snakeman. Either way, it would lead to mission types outside of 'kill all aliens'.