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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    DwarfClericGuy

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    Default XCom Chimera Squad

    So there's a new XCom game coming out in 10 days! Gameplay Trailer and Story trailer are here.

    I'm cautiously optimistic, it will be on 50% sale till May 1st so I'll probably wait until some reviews come out before I decide to buy it. The shift from a squad/enemy turn to inter-weaved system has me excited. It reminds me of DOS2 combat system, as long as it can't be gamed as easily I look forward to seeing it. I hope it solves the XCom2 and EU/EW overwhelming emphasis on Alpha striking to eliminate an entire pod and never activate more than one pod.

    What are other people's thoughts?

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Theory going around that it's going to be a test-bed for changes in mechanics for xcom 3. Plus it reminds me of Tripwire pricing their games low(er than the standard price point) in order to build the fanbase.

    The setting though makes me worried that Firaxis doesn't have a good enough payoff in mind for the "greater threat" that they keep not showing us.
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by Thomas Cardew View Post
    So there's a new XCom game coming out in 10 days! Gameplay Trailer and Story trailer are here.

    I'm cautiously optimistic, it will be on 50% sale till May 1st so I'll probably wait until some reviews come out before I decide to buy it. The shift from a squad/enemy turn to inter-weaved system has me excited. It reminds me of DOS2 combat system, as long as it can't be gamed as easily I look forward to seeing it. I hope it solves the XCom2 and EU/EW overwhelming emphasis on Alpha striking to eliminate an entire pod and never activate more than one pod.

    What are other people's thoughts?
    I don't. That's how you survive. The levels where you have multiple pods activating at the same time, or where you can't kill all of a pod is where you start to take casualties, fast.

    Anyways, I'd be glad for more X-Com, but my budget is pretty minimal at the moment.
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    I'm getting to the end of Pathfinder:Kingmaker and was honestly thinking about replaying XCom: War of the Chosen afterwards, so this is great timing. I'll wait for a few reviews to trickle in before deciding, but at $10 I'm hoping this will scratch that itch nicely.

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    I like the idea of the interleaved initiative system; I-go-you-go systems tend to allow for way too much of a damage dump. Breach mode sounds reasonably nice, particularly if the game is aiming at more of a room breachy SWAT sort of feel. I'm less fond of the set squad of characters with set abilities and personalities. It smells of hero shooter, and I honestly find hero based games to be less emotionally involving than random pleb soldier dudes. Also generally a move away from more mechanistic/emergent interactions, and towards set ability combos, which are generally much less interesting to me.

    On the other hand, this drops at about the same time as Gears Tactics, which looks like it pushes the tactical formula a lot harder in terms of base mechanics. Simply being able to default shoot multiple times per turn per unit is huge.
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    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Gears Tactics is coming along as well? Sweet, sweet time to be a tactical fan!
    I like the whole idea, though as @warty goblin mentions, a prefixed squad is less likable, even more so for long time fans like myself. How can I bring my original squad who defeated the Elders on 2 to this game now, huh? That, and the loss of emergent stories makes this aspect feel downgraded to me. As an aside, now if you lose a soldier it's game over and you have to replay the mission...
    But then again, I see the price and scope and wonder if these decisions were made for budget reasons. Smaller in scope and with a pre-set narrative also makes the game less likely to be a buggy mess on launch day, as there's less moving parts with bajillions of interactions to take care of.
    In the end, I'm hopeful! This is a series I love too much not to buy on first day, even under current circumstances. Also, now that there're aliens in the squad (weren't they technically human by-products, according to XCOM2's campaign? That would make then humans in my book, but maybe these are the original aliens from XCOM1?), how can I sing Slay the Ayy along with the bloodbath currently on my screen? That's a important part of the atmosphere!

    :p
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    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by heronbpv View Post
    Also, now that there're aliens in the squad (weren't they technically human by-products, according to XCOM2's campaign? That would make then humans in my book, but maybe these are the original aliens from XCOM1?), how can I sing Slay the Ayy along with the bloodbath currently on my screen? That's a important part of the atmosphere!
    Some of the aliens in 2 had human DNA mixed in (that's why the Sectoids are taller than in 1), or were really more "human with some alien DNA" (ADVENT troopers), but not all.

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    i think i'll try it out. looks pretty interesting so far. Kinda looks like you won't get to customize / create your own characters, so that kind of sucks if true. but we'll have to wait and see. I'd love if there was a way to bring in one or two of my soldiers from my Xcom 2 character pool.


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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by Draconi Redfir View Post
    i think i'll try it out. looks pretty interesting so far. Kinda looks like you won't get to customize / create your own characters, so that kind of sucks if true. but we'll have to wait and see. I'd love if there was a way to bring in one or two of my soldiers from my Xcom 2 character pool.


    Sectoids look so weird in clothing... and surprisingly dapper.
    It seems to be more story-based in regards to your squad, but they've also said it'll be just as moddable as X-COM 2 was, since it's mostly the same engine.
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    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Imagine if the mods are portable to the new game...
    My, oh my, Long War of the Chimeras? Star Wars Chimeras? W40K Hive city Chimeras? That alone would be awesome!
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    I just realized, after all these year's Yahtzee's "P.C. Hissy" joke came true.
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by Hunter Noventa View Post
    It seems to be more story-based in regards to your squad, but they've also said it'll be just as moddable as X-COM 2 was, since it's mostly the same engine.
    meh. modding isn't the same as hero customization. but hey, we might be surprised. maybe you'll get to customize the humans and skirmishers since both of those were in xcom 2 and it's using the same engine. aliens might be more limited though.

    and sadly probably won't be able to carry over some classes. really want to bring my templar in, but i get the feeling they might not give us templars

    Quote Originally Posted by MCerberus View Post
    I just realized, after all these year's Yahtzee's "P.C. Hissy" joke came true.
    Can't say i know that one. what's the context?
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    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    No perma-death? #NotMyXCOM will soon be trending. It's odd what people decide is a core and inalienable (pun intended) feature of a franchise sometimes.

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    No perma-death? #NotMyXCOM will soon be trending. It's odd what people decide is a core and inalienable (pun intended) feature of a franchise sometimes.
    You can have guys die, just that means the mission fails.


    Anyways, I feel like they are going for a tighter story, and are planning on characterizing your squad, which makes sense for a side-story sorta deal. Like you aren't running a global resistance here that can take casualties and replace them easily. You are basically a single police station. Getting new recruits is a lot harder.
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    No perma-death? #NotMyXCOM will soon be trending.
    Oh, it already is... but it is due to the "excesive" number of non-white characters . The comment section in the steam forums became a cesspool practically the minute it was announced. Reminded me just how good we have it here.

    The game itself looks wonderful to me, since I'm one of those that approaches XCOM more as a puzzle to be solved than a one-step-from-disaster experience, so this is right down my alley. Unfortunately, no word on a Mac version yet (presumably, Feral Interactive will be involved, and they tend to run a few months behind).

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    Oh, it already is... but it is due to the "excesive" number of non-white characters .
    What. Just... What. Of all the franchises to push that complaint around... XCOM always had a diverse international cast. Especially the goons.
    The lighting even tricked me into thinking Bradford was somewhat brown-ish in a hispanic way, and seeing him whiter than white in XCOM2 was a minor disappointment for me. And I'm white.
    (Same with Raynor from Starcraft.)
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    I think it looks interesting.

    I'm also not really that surprised or care about "people can't die" because most missions are either everyone lives or you get steamrolled and everyone dies and you restart (because completely loosing a mission or two pretty much means you're done).

    Sure there is a dedicated set of niche players that really like that, they're also the same players that play with all sorts of mods that change things, so them getting a mod that adds that back in is pretty much a given.

    I'm hoping they have done away with the "enemies don't really exist until you see them" thing. A lot of games do that and that is fine for some genres but seems completely counter to me in a strategy based game.

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by Erloas View Post
    I'm hoping they have done away with the "enemies don't really exist until you see them" thing. A lot of games do that and that is fine for some genres but seems completely counter to me in a strategy based game.
    Sort of? AFAICT, there is no longer the gameplay bit of moving through a map looking for enemy pods. Each mission is divided into three encounters, and each encounter is divided in breach (preparation) phase and actual combat. Presumably (haven't seen it in the trailers), when the combat is over, you just move automatically to the next encounter's breach phase.

    It does mean there is likely no way to accidentally have to fight two enemy pods at once, which as far as I am concerned is a good thing, since that means they can make each pod more challenging on its own.

    (I also quite like that they are working on reducing the impact of the Alpha Strike, while also giving us a cool Alpha Strike phase)

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    No perma-death? #NotMyXCOM will soon be trending. It's odd what people decide is a core and inalienable (pun intended) feature of a franchise sometimes.
    This i meanwhile think people will ignore.
    I suspect that a large enough majority reload when someone important die anyway.
    The game producers just took the logical conclusion, and balanced the game out from it.

    I for once do think the staggered turns is a good idea.
    Likely it will only improve the tactical gameplay if its suddenly no longer mostly about alpha strikes.

    And i also do like getting more personalized agents.
    thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    one benefit of having pre-made characters is them actually being involved in the story that's for sure. rather then having your character stand awkwardly in a cutscene, not acknowledging anyone else, these pre-made characters can talk and interract with other characters. you don't need to isolate them and their voicelines anymore.
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    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    On the other hand, having my random generated character create it's own history is precisely what a bunch of people enjoyed in the series, myself included, so taking that out IS a reasonable negative in the eyes of series veterans.
    I definitely would rather have a human only squad, but I expect the mods to eventually get there. That, or I just found myself a pet project! :D
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    meh. i think fans can survive one game of little to no customization. it's like ten bucks right now. it won't kill them.
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by Draconi Redfir View Post
    Can't say i know that one. what's the context?
    It's a joke about how advent uses actual monsters as peace keepers and all of humanity is completely nonchalant about it.

    video here (language if before the start time of the link)


    edit - the community seems to be settling on XCOPs for a shorthand. thoughts?
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    gah. i wish i didn't know about the steam forums thing. i'm not even participating, and reading this BS is upsetting me.

    a whoooole lot of Godwin's law in action there.

    think i'm gunna stay away from that for awhile and try to just enjoy the game when it comes out. maybe do a positive youtube series on it or somethin idk.
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by MCerberus View Post
    edit - the community seems to be settling on XCOPs for a shorthand. thoughts?
    That's absolutely perfect.
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by heronbpv View Post
    On the other hand, having my random generated character create it's own history is precisely what a bunch of people enjoyed in the series, myself included, so taking that out IS a reasonable negative in the eyes of series veterans.
    I definitely would rather have a human only squad, but I expect the mods to eventually get there. That, or I just found myself a pet project! :D
    If this were XCOM 3, I'd agree with you. But it's not.

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by heronbpv View Post
    On the other hand, having my random generated character create it's own history is precisely what a bunch of people enjoyed in the series, myself included, so taking that out IS a reasonable negative in the eyes of series veterans
    But the games never did that. You did. You can still write all the fanfiction you want.
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    And some of the serie veterans actually missed a little bit more of backstory.
    Instead of just sending out faceless grunt #63 to the grinder :P

    If this were XCOM 3, I'd agree with you. But it's not.
    This is another perfect point. Its not XCOM 3. Its a spinoff.
    Those are allowed to try and go into a different direction.
    thnx to Starwoof for the fine avatar

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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    Quote Originally Posted by Cazero View Post
    But the games never did that. You did. You can still write all the fan fiction you want.
    What fan fiction? One of the points of the emergent story line is exactly that of giving your generated characters these emerging experiences, while playing the game. Nobody needed to write that in a blog or what have you (though some sure did, and it's their choice; most didn't, they just have fond memories of their gameplay!). People who were looking for it and not finding that particular on this game can and will see it as minus. That's not a problem at all.
    The game being a spin off does not make it imune to complaints. And the fans are entitled to voice theirs, even more so when the source of contention is reasonable like this one example.
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    Default Re: XCom Chimera Squad

    like i said though, all those situations had those characters just be voiceless bystanders during story portions. you'll never see your ranger coming up with an idea on how to breach the alien blacksite, or chiming in about how it's a bad idea to try and put the commander into an avatar. you get a couple of cutscenes with them walking dramatically and that's it.

    with pre-made characters, each one gets a bit heavier role in the game. they can talk, quip, exchange ideas, interrupt one another, acknowledge eachother, etc. they might not be your spesific characters, but neither are mario or kratos. they'll just be normal characters, which is fine too.
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