Why There's No Multiple Bases in XCOM - Firaxis Q&A

[Jburton9]

Single base? So the aliens never bother to attack the Very thing that is a threat to them?
Single Interceptor run? So as the big saucer happily goes across the globe yet there can only be one interceptor at a time?
Single Sky Ranger? Part of managing is to figure out when to hold back teams in reserve or to do a big push. Why are the aliens not shooting down our One Sky Ranger then as they come in on final approach?
Narrative? So get wrapped up into the story, when was this supposed happen? I see and hear some lines of text. I have some goals - objectives and that is about it.

The original game came out in 1994 so when I make comparisons, I feel like I am only getting about half the game.


So in then 1994 edition, Aliens did not wait around, they were on the move. The screen went black, you had to Listen for clues, was that metal they were walking on, yes that was definitely a door opening nearby, etc You had to pay attention to the screen when it would blink on. When one of your troops had line of sight, the screen blinked on and you quickly tried to find land marks before it goes dark again. After that you take what you know and guesstimate where the baddies are now.

There were many breath holding moments of a room breech, going around a corner, or checking the next floor of a building, as you can't get a clear scouting vision over there and BAM! There is a baddie there and it takes a corner cover shot from over watch.

I do appreciate a new edition of Xcom being released but I think like with the Civilization series, they need to offer mod support. I think it could greatly benefit from the gaming community, take a fresh approach, new ideas and such.

 

[Bindal]

So in then 1994 edition, Aliens did not wait around, they were on the move. The screen went black, you had to Listen for clues, was that metal they were walking on, yes that was definitely a door opening nearby, etc You had to pay attention to the screen when it would blink on. When one of your troops had line of sight, the screen blinked on and you quickly tried to find land marks before it goes dark again. After that you take what you know and guesstimate where the baddies are now.

The black screen was the most annoying thing EVER in any turnbased game. Why the heck can't I still see the battlefield? There is NO good reason to.

 

[Teoes]

Guys, try out Xenonauts. It not only keeps the good things of xcom, like multiple bases, managing equipment of soldiers (although less tedious than in the original) and stuff, but even improves things.
As i mentioned above overall things are less tedious and air battles are amazing. You now fight alien ships with squadrons of up to 3 ships and the fighting takes place in real time in a 2d plane, were you have to order your ships around smartly to flank the enemy and and attack them, while not being in range of their weapons.

Absolutely. I feel like I've been a broken record in the last couple of weeks, mentioning this game constantly.

My game's starting to get nuts - 6 UFOs popping up at once is now a regular occurrence so I'm having to really carefully manage my squadrons of interceptors to bring as many down as possible. I've got two bases that operate dropships and the soldiers are constantly having to hit multiple crash sites one after the other before being allowed back to base to rest. No wonder they look haggard and exhausted in the equip screen.

I still have love for XCOM2012 but the more I've been thinking about it the more I've been realising that I just prefer the way Xenonauts does things. In every respect.

 

[Amaror]

Guys, try out Xenonauts. It not only keeps the good things of xcom, like multiple bases, managing equipment of soldiers (although less tedious than in the original) and stuff, but even improves things.
As i mentioned above overall things are less tedious and air battles are amazing. You now fight alien ships with squadrons of up to 3 ships and the fighting takes place in real time in a 2d plane, were you have to order your ships around smartly to flank the enemy and and attack them, while not being in range of their weapons.

Absolutely. I feel like I've been a broken record in the last couple of weeks, mentioning this game constantly.

My game's starting to get nuts - 6 UFOs popping up at once is now a regular occurrence so I'm having to really carefully manage my squadrons of interceptors to bring as many down as possible. I've got two bases that operate dropships and the soldiers are constantly having to hit multiple crash sites one after the other before being allowed back to base to rest. No wonder they look haggard and exhausted in the equip screen.

I still have love for XCOM2012 but the more I've been thinking about it the more I've been realising that I just prefer the way Xenonauts does things. In every respect.

My thought exactly. I had not played it since the alpha, i bought it even before the kickstarter started, back when Total Biscuit mentioned them. It's just amazing how far this game has come since.
It's also kinda sad, thinking about it, because xcom 2012 doesn't even get the advantage of being a finished game. At least on pc the game is still incredibly broken. I would have bought the dlc otherwise, but considering how broken they released the main game and that they didn't fix it in a whole YEAR. No way, i am supporting someone that treats his consumers as badly as this.

 

[Doom972]

I don't miss the ability to make multiple bases. The satellites and interceptor bases on each continent make up for them.

As for the ability to have multiple Skyrangers: The real reason people want this is because of the abduction missions, in which you have to choose one of 3 countries (usually on different continents). So if they just removed the need to choose a country and have the other two's panic levels rise, people wouldn't care about having just one.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

This thread sums up my feelings on Generation 1 of Pokemon. I don't hate Red and Blue. I grew up playing Red and Blue as well. But when you deny everything about the newer games because 'it's not Red and Blue', that's when I start to have an issue. It's when you smack down everything about the new games just because they're different that I start getting irate.

Let me explain you a thing. XCOM: Enemy Unknown was not meant to be X-COM: UFO Defense with 3D graphics. It was meant to emulate the feel of the game: under pressure strategically due to a lack of money and resources (at first, but waning off later so you start feeling you can do it), under pressure tactically because even your best units can die at any time to an unlucky plasma bolt or nuclear football. But that's what you seem to be expecting out of it, even when that's explained directly to you. And it's still a pretty fun game on the tactical layer - heck, even more so because you can't just have your rookies facecheck everything.[footnote]Vitriol for criticising UFO Defense even slightly in 3...[/footnote]

I thought the narrative of Enemy Unknown was tacked-on and unnecessary as well, but they left in the ability to create your own emergent stories in battle. I didn't like trying to juggle three invasions at once, but it added more to the strategic layer that persisted even after you started getting somewhere. But it's still a good game, and right now, it just feels like you guys are hating for the sake of hating. And if you've gotten to that point, allow me to point out that nothing is stopping you from playing UFO Defense again.

Heck, it's even available on Steam with an in-built DOSBox, and if your computer can't run DOSBox without crashing, then OpenXcom is a thing. Please stop being elitist about things that change things you like.

 

[sonofliber]

so why dont you just make it an on-rails game if narrative is so important? because honestly i never gave a shit about horny doct and old fool, they could die for all i care, just because you gave someone a name doesnt mean you will be connected to them. I feel more for my troops than for those 2, also for the matter, if you want to focus on the narrative make it made sense: so we are killing and shooting down aliens, yet they dont give a **** to the only ones that are actually hurting them (contrary to the original where they will come to get your ass), or hell why would xcom keep just 1 skyranger for 4 troops to help save the world? i wonder what they told france when they chose to go to south africa, cause they gave them engeeniers:

"sorry we cant buy another skyranger, and we will let you die because we like engis more than science boys, take care kisses."

yeah thats good solid narrative there.
i could go on, but its clearly they just wanted a stream-lined, pretty looking game, nothing more.

 

[Nalikill]

Keep in mind. Narrative is about more than the plot. Narrative includes the whole theme of the game. The game is about the Nietzschean dilemma of becoming the monster- the comments indicate that as well as the gameplay. You discover new, horrific things about the aliens as the game goes on- and are required to "test" your own soldiers- whose equipment and armor gets less human and less comprehensible as the game goes on, to the point where a soldier in Titan armor with a Plasma Rifle is barely the same person as the person with the assault rifle and body armor. The psi-soldiers are changed completely and wind up capable of doing morally reprehensible things- including violating the free will of your enemies, arguably the greatest crime against sentience possible.

You also wind up doing morally questionable things to the aliens- it's more or less stated that you torture them to death. You also wind up butchering sentient beings- either for cybernetic parts, or for the capacity to produce interceptor parts.

Multiple bases would undermine the dilemma involved- it undermines the necessity of making the choice between becoming the monster and potentially falling at its hands by reducing the world's pressure on you to find a solution and end the crisis quickly, and by reducing the pressure on you to take the low road.

It also undermines the strategic level/base-side gameplay. If you allow the players to respond to two missions, then you have to ask: Do they play both missions, one after another, or do they play one and calculate the outcome of the other?

If they play both, then that detracts from the amount of time they spend on the base screen per amount of time they spend on the tactical gameplay. This stands the risks of making the strategic gameplay feel 'tacked on' to the tactical gameplay- and they want to make them equal partners. They would then have to either lengthen the time between abductions, or take the risk.

If they calculate the outcome of the other, then that requires them to sustain essentially a full second team of uber-level people, something that's not really possible, particularly on the higher difficulties. Again, it would require a more or less complete rethink of the game. If it's difficult or impossible to win the autocalculated battles, then people will not do it, and so it would be the same as not having it; if it's easy to win the autocalculated battles, then that induces players to put the mission they want most to do on the autocalc list for higher difficulties.

With respect to the complexity of the interceptions, the interceptors have a strategic value rather than a tactical one. The interceptions are intended to be strategic decisions- do you sacrifice or remove from service an interceptor for the sake of resources? Do you sacrifice strategic resources to increase the chance of success in the interception? Giving tactical options for the interceptions removes the deliberate feeling of helplessness that they were designed to induce. You're supposed to feel powerless when intercepting a UFO except for your ability to throw strategic resources at the problem, to help emphasize how foreign, odd, and advanced the aliens are. It's supposed to be a supremely important moment when you launch an interception- a high-stakes game of choice on par with the abductions.

In short, it was not laziness that made them make these decisions- it was a calculated, informed choice with respect to the design of the game. You can certainly disagree with it, but I think it's wrong to try to say they were lazy, or ill-informed choices.

 

[reachforthesky]

Cool, now I don't suppose they could explain why the most elite soldiers in the entire planet can't consistently shoot a man-sized target that's five feet in front of them.

 

[Nalikill]

Cool, now I don't suppose they could explain why the most elite soldiers in the entire planet can't consistently shoot a man-sized target that's five feet in front of them.

XD, fair point. The attempt to be consistent creates some weird outcomes a lot of times- like not being able to hit someone on the other side of a doorway you're pressed up against. You could justify that with a Watsonian or Doylist explanation.

Watsonian (in-lore) explanations:

1. The alien dodges (mostly thin men/sectoids)
2. It's a hit, but their armor fully absorbed the hit. (mostly mutons, ethereals, etc)
3. Your soldier was nervous and fired before they aimed (mostly explains rookie/early on misses)
4. Your soldier was close enough that the alien was able to push the weapon aside before your guy fired. (explains the five-foot problem)

Etc.

Doylist (gameplay explanations):
1. Having differences between the effects of distance on weapons creates incentives to have variety on your team and make choices based on the tactical situation (e.g., shotguns increase in accuracy as you get closer a hell of a lot more than any other weapon, whereas the Sniper Rifle actually gets more accurate at higher distances, and the assault rifle is indifferent, largely, to distance.)

2. It creates a feeling of nervousness on the part of the player to never be able to rely on a sure thing- particularly early on where your weapons can fail to kill even Sectoids if you're unlucky or playing with that Second Wave feature active, incentivizing caution.

3. Trying to add "chunky salsa"-like rules to enhance realism could have come at the cost of some of the more organic possibilities of gameplay- blowing up walls to clear LOS for snipers, setting cars on fire to flush aliens out of cover, destroying cover with suppression/low chance shots, etc.

 

[Bindal]

Seriously, I don't think anyone gave a shit about the xcom story of all things.
That thing was flat as cardboard. It was all about the challenge, the gameplay.
I would be content if the next xcom had no story at all but deep gameplay on multiple levels.
They barely scratched the surface in enemy unknown in that regard.

Still better than the story of the original, where the Aliens invaded because and the gameplay was most effective with "ROOKIE ZERKRUSH!"

No idea what people are on about with that. If you threw rookies at them, you ended up with less elites, reduced morale for everyone and massive recruitment bills. The only time it was useful is if you all equiped them with stun rods in order to capture aliens. Even then, it required a lot of tactics because at medium to long range, it didn't matter how much rookies you had, they were going to be slaughtered if you tried charging them.

Nope, always works. Morale is pretty much a non-issue as maybe two or three guys panic, out of 14. Money is not an issue thanks to your near-infinite money created by Laser Cannons you're constantly going to produce. And elites aren't a problem because they weren't that much more useful than Rookies, either as they deal the same damage, can shoot exactly as often and also die just as easily.

In fact, it's the only way I ever play and it is incredible successful. I've even seen an LP, where the guy not only did nothing BUT that, basically - he also had only one base and placed it in the worst possible location (south pole). Still, he managed to nearly win and lost solely due the fact that his "only one base at southpole"-tactic caused him to be a bit slow on the capturing. (And the fact that he was unable to consider using Stun Launchers in a base so he could try capturing a commander)

 

[immortalfrieza]

Guys, try out Xenonauts. It not only keeps the good things of xcom, like multiple bases, managing equipment of soldiers (although less tedious than in the original) and stuff, but even improves things.
As i mentioned above overall things are less tedious and air battles are amazing. You now fight alien ships with squadrons of up to 3 ships and the fighting takes place in real time in a 2d plane, were you have to order your ships around smartly to flank the enemy and and attack them, while not being in range of their weapons.

I heard about that game. I'd be interested in it, but I also heard it isn't finished yet, so I was going to wait until it was before playing it.

OT: If they put some actual effort into it, it would be simple to implement multiple bases and base attacks and such, Firaxis just doesn't care to. If the fanbase wants it, then give it to them, or if you don't care to do the work yourself add in mod support so that they can do it.

 

[Amaror]

Guys, try out Xenonauts. It not only keeps the good things of xcom, like multiple bases, managing equipment of soldiers (although less tedious than in the original) and stuff, but even improves things.
As i mentioned above overall things are less tedious and air battles are amazing. You now fight alien ships with squadrons of up to 3 ships and the fighting takes place in real time in a 2d plane, were you have to order your ships around smartly to flank the enemy and and attack them, while not being in range of their weapons.

I heard about that game. I'd be interested in it, but I also heard it isn't finished yet, so I was going to wait until it was before playing it.

OT: If they put some actual effort into it, it would be simple to implement multiple bases and base attacks and such, Firaxis just doesn't care to. If the fanbase wants it, then give it to them, or if you don't care to do the work yourself add in mod support so that they can do it.

Yeah. The game is currently in beta. So almost everything is implemented. Although i never made it that far you can actually finish the game in it's current state, all the items and research are there. It's just pretty buggy at not that well balanced at the moment. But since you played xcom 2012 which, if you look at all the bugs, is basically in beta even now, you may not care so much.

 

[Master_Fubar23]

One base that can only have one Transport craft... the Joys of having a base funded by the ENTIRE world but can only afford one plane to send out one four-six man squad. What the governments of the world couldn't throw thousands of men from their own armies at the aliens for a better affect? Heck even less than 20 would do since X-Com agents start with normal weapons that can be used to the end of the game. This X-Com just did not work, just reading the article makes me feel like they went about cutting things from the original game so they can be lazy in making the new X-Com. Although, I've already played the game enough to see just how poor and how much of a disappointment it is. Whelp, time to try Xenonauts.

 

[Phishfood]

Nah, confirmation bias.

OK, I fired it up and actually wrote my % to hit vs hit and miss. Overall it does seem to come out about right, I'm hitting roughly the shots I should be hitting. However of note is the distribution of the hits, including a 6 miss spree. 25% - miss, 45% - miss, 65% - miss, 45% - miss, 65% - miss, 45% - miss. 0.75*0.55*0.35*0.55*0.35*0.55 = 1.5%. That sequence should occur 15 times out of 1,000 and yet it feels more likely. I recall sequences of missing all four shots 2 turns running, with chances around 50%. Which neatly sums up the problem - it's not that the statistics are wrong, it's that limiting the game to 4 soldiers with only a single shot each makes for a TINY sample size given that the original game gave me 14 soldiers, each of which could potentially be spraying out 6 shots each. In the original if I miss 8 times in a row I move on to the next soldier. In XCOM if I miss 8 in a row my squad gets wiped out. This is also compounded by the problem that misses generally do very little. I can sometimes hit and destroy the cover, but I can't aim a low hit chance shot into the middle of 3 aliens and get hits on the one I wasn't aiming for.

So, yes - my feeling was confirmation bias but IMO it is still flawed game design.