106 réponses à ce sujet

[blaidfiste]

 

 

Yes! 

Sniper taking point? Must not have squadsight yet.

[xPez]

Never have I been so disappointed over pc exclusivity.

 

Hopefully it will only be a timed exclusive as others have said.

[L. Han]

YES! ALL OF THIS! GIVE IT TO ME! I WANT IT ALL OVER MY FACE NOW!

 

BRRRRBRBRBRRBRBRRR

[AventuroLegendary]

So you play as a bunch of terrorists working to undermine our Benefactors? Why would I ever do that?

 

[L. Han]

^Smaller squads mean shorter turns and somewhat less complicated gameplay. They also punish reckless commanders who rush blind or utilize redshirts.

 

As for the whole PC exclusivity really seems to come down to the fact that they want to create a more tactical game. Consoles rarely allow room for a lot of depth in terms of strategy or tactics. If Firaxis doesn't have to worry about making sure that there isn't too much info for a controller, they can take full advantage of a PC's inherent complexity. (IE: more options in combat, switch fire, etc)

 

Also, Enemy Unknown proved to be better with mods. They might be hoping to open up a new modding scene, just like Firaxis' Civilization.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

I am quite worried/paranoid about the paid mods being a reality with XCOM 2, but aside from that, there's nothing bad I can bring up about this announcement at all.

Firaxis is primarily a PC developer, Strategy games are primarily a PC genre and XCOM was originally a PC franchise. So it's not like the PC exclusivity should be a huge surprise. Beyond that, 2K may not believe XCOM is that big of a seller, that it deserves to go through the AAA multiplatform ringer with all that entails (massive budgets, etc). Not to mention their increased focus on mod support.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if PC were a testing ground for them, and if sales warrant it, then ports for the next-gen consoles would eventually be released.

[Cyonan]

Maybe a few years ago, but these days multi-platform game development is very high-level, with most of the base and middleware code doing much of the heavy lifting. Plus, most AAA devs now have a lot of experience co-developing multi-platform games, with largely successful results. Indeed, Fyraxis themselves co-developed XCOM: EU on multiple platforms with no major issues.

 

Really, I see only two real reasons aside from market demand for platform exclusivity these days; manufacturer subsidy, which does not exist on PC, and resource limitation, which is a common problem for indie devs, but not for AAA devs like Fyraxis.

 

It's less about the underlying code of the game and more about the game being more designed with a controller in mind than it is with a keyboard and mouse in mind most of the time when it comes to multi-platform games. KB/M can play a game designed for a controller much better than a controller can play a game designed for KB/M.

 

Although admittedly even as a multi-platform game I think Firaxis did a good job on XCOM EU for PC. I'm not sure how the console played.

 

Given that XCOM EU apparently did pretty bad on console, I could see it being a market demand thing.

[daveliam]

This is the best and worst news wrapped up into one. XCOM is my go-to filler game. Whenever I don't have any game sucking up my time, I turn on a new playthrough of XCOM. I even keep a spreadsheet to record stats of my squad members over time. I'm OBSESSED with this game.

That being said, I don have a gaming computer and have only ever played it on the 360. I'm gutted that this isn't set for a console release.

[Warden Commander Aeducan]

 

 

Yes! 

[Fast Jimmy]

Controls and UI interactions are also these days largely handled by the common underlying code, with pretty much only input and art assets differing between platforms, and even most of the latter are shared. Truth is, most games these days are developed to be multi-platform from day one, with smaller specialist teams working on frontends for the same code for different platforms. If you could crack open DA:I's hood and see how different versions handle input and UI, for example, I don't think you'll find much underlying difference.

...which is a huge freaking problem.

[Fast Jimmy]

Eh, I think it all depends on how much effort devs are willing to put in each of their versions. Most AAA devs these days do decent to passable jobs. AAA game development is too expensive to tailor each version from the underlying design upwards to each platform. Same code, same assets, different frontends, exporters and compilers. That's it.

I disagree. The limitations or deficiencies of one platform limit the features designed and their limitations, even if the code would be the same. There's nothing technically limiting in the Frostbite engine to constrain DA:I to eight abilities, but it's a design choice made to have gameplay parity between consoles and PCs.

[Cyonan]

Controls and UI interactions are also these days largely handled by the common underlying code, with pretty much only input and art assets differing between platforms, and even most of the latter are shared. Truth is, most games these days are developed to be multi-platform from day one, with smaller specialist teams working on frontends for the same code for different platforms. If you could crack open DA:I's hood and see how different versions handle input and UI, for example, I don't think you'll find much underlying difference.

 

As Jimmy said, sometimes you get things like ability limits because it's easier on controllers to not have 15 different buttons. Or Mass Effect 3 has a button that does damn near everything because of the limited number of buttons on a controller, and BioWare doesn't let us split the bindings up on PC without hacking into our game files.

 

Other times it's like Skyrim where the menus are just really inconvenient to navigate on a KB/M setup, and you don't always have the modding scene that Skyrim has.

 

Or even just the way the character input handles. Assassin's Creed tends to play much smoother on a controller instead of a KB/M.

 

So yeah the code is perfectly fine, I know that. The design is the problem.

[Serza]

Sniper taking point? Must not have squadsight yet.

 

Nope. It's obviously a Snap Shot.

[L. Han]

Nope. It's obviously a Snap Shot.

 

What scrub uses Snap Shot.

[Sir Froggie]

What scrub uses Snap Shot.

The type of scrubs that let the aliens win in the first place.

[panzerwzh]

I just hope XCOM 2 could be as good as Xenonauts. XCOM 1 is too simple and dump down.

[TheRealJayDee]

Awesome news, this is an announcement I so hoped for! Kind of sad about the PC exclusive part though, I enjoyed playing EU and EW on the Playstation. 

[Fidite Nemini]

Nope. It's obviously a Snap Shot.

 

Snap Shot?

 

Gun Slinger with Foundry improved pistols is arguably better, especially because it still offers the Squadsight perks when you need them. Snap Shot is only halfway decent in the very early game when your pistols are meh, but why would you let a sniper take point in the first place?

[xPez]

Talking about X:EU, it released the same time on PC as it did on consoles, and received a fantastic critical reception on all formats.

 

Also, I've just read that in 2014 Jake Solomon (lead designer) said that the Volunteer doesn't die in the final mission, and instead disappeared before the temple ship exploded. Will this somehow fit into the story of XCOM2, or is it a plot thread that will be left alone?

 

I did have a look for any financial information regarding how well the original game did on consoles, as I believe that it did well enough to warrant a sequel, but I can't find anything.

 

I disagree about the KB/M and console button layouts, I don't think it's that difficult to find a balance. DA:I is completely different as the 8 skills limit was brought in to attempt to make the game more tactical. DAO allowed you to use as many skills as you had on PC and console.

[Fast Jimmy]

I disagree. The limitations or deficiencies of one platform limit the features designed and their limitations, even if the code would be the same. There's nothing technically limiting in the Frostbite engine to constrain DA:I to eight abilities, but it's a design choice made to have gameplay parity between consoles and PCs.

Jebus, why didn't someone tell me how many times I used a variation of the word "limit" in that post?