2K Games and Firaxis have just put up their second patch for XCOM: Enemy Unknown on Steam. Here are the patch notes:
Major Fixes
- Abductor roof visibility problems resolved
- Interception game hang issues resolved
- If two interceptors are sent after UFO
- If Skyranger is returning from combat after an Interceptor was already deployed
- SHIV inaccessible issues resolved
- AI Alien Activity Hang resolution
- Multiplayer connectivity optimization
Other Fixes
- TempleShip optimization: All Soldiers properly spawn when restarting the mission after clearing the second room of TempleShip
- Snapshot penalty should no longer apply when Overwatching without first moving
- Easy Difficulty is now easier
- Rookie HP issue is now resolved (confirmed by 2K in Nov 12, 2012
It’s great to see that they’ve addressed the abductor ship roof camera problems (in fact I can confirm first hand that they did, just loaded an abductor mission just now). And more importantly that they’ve supposedly fixed the issue where sometimes it was not possible to deploy SHIVs for combat. These mini, but powerful tanks are very handy in combat and quite cool, it was a shame they were broken at game release.
As a side note, Take-Two Interactive (mother company of 2K Games) announced that XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a “critical and commercial success, with strong digital sales”. The future looks bright for further DLCs, expansions or even sequels. Have a look here for news on the upcoming DLCs for XCOM:EU.
So, are you still playing the game? I’m currently in my last mission on Impossible difficulty (not Ironman). Early game on Impossible is a real nightmare, and to keep your sanity you will need to save and load a few times, but after that I feel that the last two-thirds of an Impossible game are very enjoyable and you don’t need to save scum anymore to make it.
Have a look at my XCOM:EU review to see why I think this is “one of my best, if not the best, gaming experiences in recent years”. It’s not always possible to live up to everyone’s expectations but this game can be an excellent experience, if you give it a chance.
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Horrible basic combat mechanic imho. Waiting for a mod to deal with that. Stopped playing the game out of frustration after 7 hours.
But what I am also wondering is whether they have or will patch the HP bug which bascally implemented a mandatory cheat on harder difficulties.
Some people are reporting that the HP bug may have been fixed but I don’t see confirmation on that from 2K. I’m following the developments to see how many more bugs may have been addressed. Anyway, one way to get around the HP issue (where you recruit soldiers with more health than they should in classic and impossible difficulties) is to change difficulty to Easy and them back to Classic or Impossible again. Then you can recruit with the correct HP.
Why do you think the combat mechanic is horrible by the way?
Ah, cheers. But this workaround would somehwat feel like opening the console to spawn a broken quest item in an RPG. ^^
My main issue with the combat system is that XCOM uses a very abstracted and unrealistic way of calculating hit chances which then again creates a world where most real life common sense choices are stupid. Cover doesn’t mean anymore that you “should be hard to hit” but that “you got a wall next to you”.
Of course it has a logic. But “learning” to use this logic would learning to ignore realistic logic. And that gives me a feel of stupify-ing myself. So before continue playing the game and permanently think “seriously?” and “How stupid is that?” I’d rather stop it alltogether.
Of course I could just turn it to normal or easy and walk through. But I am in here for the challenge – not for the story and so there is no use of playing it on something different than ironman-classic.
Wote about it in much more detail on the idle thumbs forums (can’t post link here as this will cause my entry to vanish)
Check it out if you are interested. But I didn’t want to just copy paste it.
That said, apparently most players aren’t bothered by that at all. Strange world. :P
The post can be found by going to the idlethumbs main page, and adding following after .net:
forums/topic/8165-episode-190-the-xcom-review-show/#entry208212
But when you’re in cover you are indeed harder to hit. I feel that in Classic difficulty it works great. In Impossible, not as much since even high cover doesn’t help you much. I interpret XCOM:EU’s cover system not as “soldier is quietly behind a wall” but as “soldier is hidden but peeks from time to time” and sometimes BANG you’re dead. In fact your soldiers can still see everything that happens in front of them, even when in cover. So, that hints you that they are not standing still behind a wall but peeking. Half cover isn’t much of a hidden place but full cover can be ok.
In Impossible the aliens almost always hit you, even in full cover so I interpret that as the aliens having great awareness and a formidable targeting system, which in fact it’s told that they do have. I find that realistic and their very high chances to hit you don’t bother me. It’s Impossible difficulty right?
If you want to be safe the game offers you a chance for that. Just use “Hunker Down” and the aliens can’t hit you when they are far away (NEVER). If they are near you they still have a chance to hit you though. The advantage of hunker down is that you gain the advantage of moving forward while avoiding being hit and in your next turn you have another shot, maybe you are in grenade launch range or perhaps the alien has moved to another place.
I frankly don’t have any problem with the cover system. But, I’m more a strategist than a tactician, so it’s fine by me.
Well obviously XCOM is not trying to simulate real life military squad tactics. I don’t really know why people can’t see through that nice layer of Aliens, Spaceships, Research and Psionics to see the simple, chess-like principle behind it.
You don’t complain in chess because rooks can’t move in real life. It’s the rules of the game. The same way XCOM establishes the rule that cover means “having a wall next to you”. That doesn’t make the combat mechanics any worse then, Halma “combat mechanics”.
That said I didn’t like the game either. The combat felt very simplistic and while I am a fan of “easy to learn, hard to master”, mastering the combat never really seemed very gratifying.
@Adam
> So, that hints you that they are not standing
> still behind a wall but peeking.
That is true. But that does not help with evaluating the situation, as your soldiers hit zone is also expanded and Alians can shoot you around a corner.
But it’s not only this but also the angle, which doesn’t matter at all. You are either covered or not, there is no smooth transition between angles. If you are completely covered or lust your little right toe, doesn’t make a difference.
And only the cover next to you counts – it doesn’t matter what is on the way.
But there are several other things adding in, but well, check out the forum post for that. ^^
@Anon
Well, maybe the problem is, that it’s not stylized enough? But then again, it’s XCom after all. Especially when comparing to the fights in Jagged Alliance 2 where it was a great feeling to fight in itself, where every fight was somehow rewarding, where you moved from cover to cover, not to magically swap your hit chance from 10% to 65% because you just passed the magical angle boarder like in Xcom, but because you got a 10% higher chance. In JA2 you had the feeling that it actually make sense to do this stuff, stuff you have seen a thousand times in movies or action sequences. And I expected somehwat like that from Xcom as well. But Xcom is more like, as you said, a chess system. And I while I like chess, from a tactical game I expect other rules than pawns who can just run into one direction. What would that make for a medieval tactics game? :P
If I was into that kind of stuff I’d buy battle-chess instead. ;)
@Kordanor
I can see where you come from and I agree. Especially since XCOM combat isn’t too impressive it would have been so nice if it were just a bit more stylized. It helped so much with the immersion in games like Jagged Alliance or the original XCOM. I blame console simplif…err I mean streamlining.
@Kordanor
I understand what you mean about the angle, as I myself also found it a bit odd at first, but then realized that the idea here is not to offer a realistic tactical simulation experience but rather a more abstracted approach, and perhaps that’s what you don’t like.
So, even if you’re angle seems to expose you more than if you where really behind a tree sort of speak, the chance for the aliens to hit you is still the same unless they flank you, because as this is not a tactical simulation the angle is interpreted as when you see the alien you move to the best angle that gives you the best cover. You don’t see this, you have to imagine that part.
It’s not a static realistic approach. I don’t know if I’m expressing myself good enough. What I mean is that unless the enemy flanks you completely, which I think is when they reach at least 0º or 180º (9 or 3 o’clock) with respect to your cover, you always have the same cover bonus no matter if the angle between you and your cover and the alien is 90º, 45º or 7º. And the game interprets like your soldier hides the best he can in the spot he is. It’s like, the alien knows you’re there, they are in a more favorable angle to hit you but you hide more than you would if he was 90º with respect to you (12 o’clock I mean). But when they flank there’s no place to hide anymore and the chances increase drastically. I accept that but I understand that others may not.
People, the whole concept of turn based combat itself is abstract representation of a fire fight, not a real time simulation.
A lot of people are complaining missing shots when the enemy is adjacent or being hit when in full cover behind a corner and how it’s unrealistic or illogical. The fact is, characters are always in motion – ducking, peeking around a corner, lying prone etc but they are simply not represented in TBC game mechanic.
That 80% hit rate of an enemy hiding behind the wall is not about shooting through the wall, it’s the possibility of hitting it when it peeks around the cover. Just because the graphic static, doesn’t mean your imagination has to stay that way too.
@SQW: I get what you mean, and yes, it makes sense. However this affects only the target zone and neither the angle nor the “ignoring all other obstacles” mechanic.
That said we have JA2 as direct comparison which feels much more realistic.
The mechanic about having more hit zones due to being turnbased however is a result of not having interruptions and similar which then again is a result of reducing action points to two actions, where “fine tuning” can’t be part of.
Easily best game of the year, let alone best strategy game..It sold well too so I look foward to possible full blown expansions packs and sequals in the near future.
This patch really doesn’t worth a post, not to mention a praise.
Come one, they fixed 6 crashes (hangs) and 3 minor bugs. At a software company it is 2-3 days of work for a minor dev/qa team. Is that a news?
The fact that you may find the patch disappointing doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of news. And if it is disappointing then it would deserve to be news in any case due to volume of people reading this blog that are interested in the game. Besides, the SHIV bug was not a minor one and could be preventing some people from playing, and that alone would be sufficient for a patch in my opinion. The abductor ship camera issues were also a pain, and that’s fixed now also.
Tell me, are you playing this game? Have you finished it? Does your interceptors hang from time to time? Does your combat get stuck in “Alien Activity” from time to time, which is horribly annoying? Well, that happened to me more than once and I can tell you it was very frustrating. Are you playing multiplayer? If your answer is yes to any of these questions than you’d understand the importance of the patch better.
A post is done with an audience in mind, the one that may be playing, not playing, enjoying or not enjoying the game. So, what you may not find important or to be news worthy may be important for other people. If I thought it didn’t matter to a considerable number of people I wouldn’t have written it.
I guess you’re just part of the “unsatisfied with the game or the patch” group. And that’s fine and understandable :) But the patch isn’t that minor in my opinion, and knowing Firaxis, more will come.
You know, I like your site ans style because you filter the news very well for me. So when I clicked on the UFO patch news, I expected something like new content – not just bugfixes, cause in the past you gave heads up when real content adding happened.
Just, click the “patch” tag at the end of your post. In case of every other game, that meant HUGE patches (Civ5 fall patch), complete DLCs (Endless space), real content update – so things which really change something in the game.
Of course, every bug is annoying, but I would prefer to see real news as before – steam does his job anyway – even if I don’t know it.I’m pretty sure more patches will come, but when they will update typos on the UI or replace the textures on the left foot of the female chinese soldiers that wont be a “Brand new patch out, praise firaxis” headline :)
I’m sorry if I didn’t – or still don’t sound – constructive, I just tried to give a feedback to make sure you keep up the good quality and granularity on your blog. But also I understand, you might be hooked on Ufo, so thats why you tought this patch is just as important as the massive Civ5 update. We are all humans at the end :)
The idea is to cover only important patches. Like you say, the idea is to filter news, not just aggregate everything. I always try my best to give you the juicy stuff with added value, no rubbish (I try).
But, in my opinion, patch importance is not always measured by new content alone but also by important fixes, especially concerning very popular (and recent) games, which is the case with XCOM:EU. Just look at the number of comments XCOM:EU usually generates, it does tell you how interested people are in the game.
So, I increased the scope of patch coverage for XCOM:EU. And, the game is new, so it’s more patch sensitive, than let’s say, a Civ 5 game that is 2 years old. If the next Civ5 patch is only about minor bug fixing I wouldn’t post about it, but it Civ6 releases expect to see information here about the first 2 or 3 patches, especially if they fix annoying bugs or broken mechanics. I think people are interested in knowing when it’s time to give a game another go. The SHIV issue and abductor roof bugs where, in my opinion, sufficiently important to justify people to stop playing.
But, if in the long run I see that people are not very interested in patch posts then I’ll reduce their scope. I’m always after to what people want. Usually it’s easy to understand, others it’s not. But if a post type keeps generating 0-4 comments consecutively, then I know it’s time to reduce throughput about that topic.
I may have reacted defensively to your post, but rest assured that I listen to what everybody has to say in order to fine tune my methods. Especially when they are from regular readers like yourself ;) So, thank you for your comments.
I have switched to Conquest of Elysium 3 for a while, until real expansion available…
An old school turn-based fantasy strategy game, right? Sounds cool. No Fallen Enchantress to you? Keith gave it a good score… I’ll probably pick it up, after I’m done with XCOM:EU and have another good run with Civ5 after the fall patch.
Oh, FE…. just saw, they finetuned the monster AI (my biggest complaint on the game)
Look at this boss, this is what I call a PATCH .. and they just versioned it to 1.01
http://forums.elementalgame.com/434823
:)
(I promise I stop bothering you on the patching topic as we already discused it above, just couldn’t resist to troll a bit. It is your fault anyway, because you mentioned FE, and I just went there to take a look on whats happening on that game :D )
And thats why I like this site – I never ever heard about COE3, and it’s look pretty promising.
You seem to have an eye for patches. Let me know when you find good ones ;)
Get pointer from Quater2Three. I have bias for grumpy reviewers :) I’ve also played 1st Dominion by Illwinter. FE – I’ll wait for patch/re-balancing, I hate those end-game micromanagement situations…
COE3 – the UI is clanky and can’t be learned during the play, some manual reading is necessary, also no in-game tutorial. So there is considerable one-time learning threshold, not exactly “learning curve” though. The gameplay is great. It’s as if alines took Warlords by SSG and made a warbeast out of it with genesplicing and combat implants :)
I was underwhelmed with this game.
It really felt like playing an unfinished game . UI and framerateissues (PS3) for the most part but also Gameplay.
I was really hyped before the game came out. then i played 12 hours with my preorder and stopped before even finishing the alien contamination things.
And i’m still somehow sad about the game not being fun for me. I think i was really blinded by
Nostalgia
Guess the key is to find out what you loved about the old game, and don’t like about the new one. Or – if you only have good memories (nostalgia) about the old game, but actually didn’t like it that much either.
With that knowledge you could at least go on and decide whether you might want to take a look at Xenonauts or UFO Extraterestrials 2. Or well…even the Jagged Alliance Series if you haven’t played that yet. JA2 with 1.13 even looks kinda decent.
I heard that the PS3 version had a frame rate problem as you describe. A sluggish behavior of some sort. I can tell you that the only framerate issue I have in the PC (and I think it’s a general issue) is with the Berserker animation, but you don’t seem to have reached that far.
As for the gameplay, and as Kordanor said, maybe there are a few things you miss from the original game, like time units (points to spend on your actions) or the open inventory system. Could it be also a difficulty issue? Maybe you’re not having enough challenge.
What part of the game do you like less? Tactical (turn-based combat) or the strategic part (research, interception, base building)?
Ive played normal Ironman which was a bit easy, but i dont think thats what i didnt like.
Its more about those “Boohoo here we are” alien sequences, the scripted feeling of abduction missions.
When you have your guys in Rotation you have to manually unequip everyone before the mission loadout screen to have the stuff for your guys (so annoying).
The Sniper standing 5m away from target is missing, i mean it was in the old game and it is resonable for a Tactical Combat Sim, but seeing it in Close-Up Slowmo GlamCam is kind of strange.
Sry i hate ranting, and i hope you enjoy the game but it just didnt suck me up.
You can disable some of the animation sequences if you want to (in the interface menu screen). By your description you don’t seem to appreciate them, maybe that helps.
Yes, Normal is too easy, especially for veteran tactical gamers like yourself. You did say you played the original X-COM games, right?
The scripted feeling is bad I agree, that’s one of the negative points I included in my review.
Having to manually unequip soldiers to equip others can be annoying at times yes (who had that Arc Thrower again?). However, they automatically return their equipment when injured, which is nice, and it shows that the devs felt that need and did something about it. But, how would you wanted to unequip/equip your soldiers? I would say that perhaps an overall equipment screen could help, where you could see all your soldiers at a glance and all their equipment listed. For some reason they thought that wasn’t needed. I don’t think it’s a major issue but I agree it can be annoying sometimes.
I didn’t understand your “Sniper standing 5m away” point. What do you mean there?
I think the GlamCam is mostly a cool feature, the sniper example is just a downside of it. Because in th Animation he/she aimes carefully in SlowMo just to miss from 5m away, which looks stupid. Would have been much better if you see a hectic turning fast aiming and then miss.. but that is really nitpicking.
Yes ive played TFTD countless times.
For unequipping i would vote for a unequip all button or smthg.
I really hope they continue to patch this game so that i can reconvince me of its awesomeness when i come back in some Months. The PS3 version is ..uhm.. bad, i mean its fixed Hardware since 7 years, why this stuttering and constant texture loading. Plus if you spot an Alien the game stops for like half a second and then stutters some more seconds.
So it was the cumulation of the things i mentioned that took the fun from it.
That lag you report on the PS3 is unacceptable, and I’m sure that’s a big part of the blame for your unsatisfaction with the game. I mean, any hope for immersion you may have is destroyed by that constant stuttering.
The animations 5 meters away can look a bit awkward but I think the fact that you miss at that range with a sniper is ok. After all, snipers are good at taking time from afar. In close range they are clumsy and lack the time or attention to shoot correctly. You have to abstract yourself from the turn-based system a bit. The sniper looks like it’s taking it’s time but in fact he’s like reacting to a close enemy, where everything is happening in real-time. I would be much more confident with a shotgun than a sniper rifle in that situation.
“For unequipping i would vote for a unequip all button or smthg.”
Yes, they could have done that. But then, don’t you think that is a overkill? I mean, sometimes you just want to change gear between two soldiers. If you “unequip all” you’ll have to re-equip everybody from scratch. I’m sure the devs thought about that. I still think an inventory overview screen could work better.
Too bad you’re stuck with the PS3 version. I don’t see anybody with the PC version complaining about the game’s graphics or framerate. Not that there can’t be some of course.
“Yes, they could have done that. But then, don’t you think that is a overkill? I mean, sometimes you […] an inventory overview screen could work better.”
Ok, i see your point, but i had just 1 Soldier constantly in and always had to unequip 3-5 soldiers.
But that aside, what turned me of foremost was really the framerate issues.
2K confirmed that the Rookie HP issue is now resolved (when you recruited rookies in Impossible with 6+1HP when it should be 3+1). That was included in the patch “Other fixes” list. 2K also confirmed that this was it for patch #2. “This is the complete change list and no other bugs were fixed on this patch”. Let’s wait now for patch #3.
By the way, the “teleporting” issue is already in test for the 3rd patch said 2K, release date unknown yet.
Thank’s for the heads up!