Firaxicon Panel: Designing the Soldiers in XCOM

[@Zaranell]

I could listen to Jake and/or Ananda talk about game design pretty much all day and I don't think I would ever get bored.

[@Drecon84]

Real interesting. I've noticed before that game design focuses a lot around trying to solve specific problems. This talk gave me a lot of insights into what problems they were trying to solve with XCOM and how this guided the design of the entire game. Really insightful video overall.

[@Draconisrex1]

I'm a '93 fan. And I have it in DOSBOX. And every release there after, too. All of them. So, speaking for myself, as a dedicated XCOM player, I appreciated the classes and the limited customization the new versions (I have both) But the distribution of classes was whacked. So finding out that you are letting train up our classes was about the best news I've heard about XCOM2. Not that I haven't enjoyed all the other things you've talked about.

[@user-zb4jk4zq8t]

Even through years, it is interesting to hear.

[@richardbohacik2685]

Nice video! About customization, I have recently played XCom 2 (loved it) and I have noticed possibility to customize my soldiers and I thought “naaaah, it doesn’t really matter, I won’t be wasting my time with it”. *half an hour of customizing every detail of one of my favorite soldiers later* “Wooow, that is soooo coool!” 😄

[@jarnomikkola8438]

This was intresting, and after playing the modified game a lots, I can say that you might have been wrong about the info on experience amount. But that said, I can certainly understand why the desition was made in the first place, it is the limited info space, and all the other factors. Luckily the moded PC game doesn't have the restrictions you set it at. I also disagree on the skill respec factor, especially with not showing the later skill tree items, but that's opinion based stuff, and it was later moded in as well. It's fun when you later notice that the modders didn't just add stuff to your classes, and if you look at the Long War mod, they arguably doubled the number of the normal classes, and allowed more selection of skills on top of them thanks to your system allowing it and also made all the doubled 4 original classes(so now 8) to have their very own mec classes, so you'll end up with 16 variants of the original builds and the humans also have the leader tree and psy tree with the gene mods in addition. That's a massive addition of choices, and is likely to affect the above oppinion. All this makes the tactical scope very variable, and very customizable force, depending the style of play the player wishes to use, which adds to the game in my opinion. I'll argue also that restricting the classes to default weapons is a little here and there, but again, moding can allow rocket launchers on high percision snipers and that's about it, well you have to also add in the ammo, but you win some loose some. The reason choosing sniper being that the standard rocket deviation has been increased lots, and is now dependent on the aim stat. But none of that would be there in the mod without your excelent game on top it all, so thank you for making it possible.

[@228zip]

So where did Gupta work before coming into Firaxis ?

[@zeniokaszabranovicius5604]

Zenimax online studios. Fucking nazis are in youtube now

[@P4INKiller]

Gupta, take away customization options and I'll cut you. SOLOMON FAIR, SOLOMON GOOD.

[@ScorpyX]

"Active skill vs Passive in Skill tree" "players choose active skills because fun and buttons" funny to hear this because in most games i see reverse situation.. basically player have active--passive choice but Active skill is pathetic and sometimes passive skill (in choice) even better 2-3 times.. - in this case if a player is at least a little understanding what would give an advantage in the game - he choose passive skill with boring gameplay as inevitability.. because player knows that with "bad active skill" will much more loss and frustration (If the game does give a challenge)

[@Erebus2075]

You cant recover thats why people dont do it -.- Respect is extremely important, relvling a new character takes way too long -.- When your character means something and it is extremely hard to get back, you fk the players since it will die due to stupid rng and then you basically lost -.- Which comes to rng. Why is it % to hit instead of % of max dmg -.- would be much better We cares how far they are into their xp -.- that’s basic rpg, wth.. All of these you screwed up majorly.

[@Frosty14748]

Once you get 6 Max rank troopers, the game is laughably easy. Go play Long War if you want more depth and better tactical and strategical play. Also, RNG, and its bad luck, are essential to making XCOM a good game. You'll remember moment where your backup plan to your backup plan is all that is left. Your Assault missed the 92% shot after Run & Gun on the Muton Elite. Your backup, the Grenadier, rolled low on his AP grenade. Now your Rocketeer has to move around a corner and take a crappy SMG shot into half cover. Its a 22% chance to hit, or your top level Assault is coming home in a body bag. The tension has you sweating, and you don't want to click the button. But there is no other option. CLICK ... Without the RNG, XCOM just wouldn't be the thriller it is.

[@Erebus2075]

Frosty14748 then you play it on too easy difficulty (you will very rarely get maxed 6 troopers). if it is too easy play on a higher difficulty. impos if you find classic too easy, longwar impos if you find everything too easy ^^ and rng is what makes xcom worse. rng is the lazy and stupid mans way of allowing bad players to do good and good players to do badly. the more rng the worse the design.

[@KyleGraveXx]

+Erebus2075 The devs themselves said that the game is designed around you losing some good soldiers, so you have to throw in rookies or other offensive means as replacement. If you lose everything, of course that's a huge setback, but if you lose just a few soldiers here and there you can easily adapt with some effort. If you savescum and keep all soldiers at all time the lategame obviously becomes very easy. If the difficulty is a problem, Long War is the perfect way to test your abilities, until XCOM 2 arrives.

[@CharlieFleed]

You have the same laugh as Tarantino. It was a fun talk indeed.