Forum Overview :: Guess Who Fucked Up X-Com Now :: There's nothing necessarily wrong with random assignation of classes

[quote name="Arbit"]I barely got any snipers or assaults past the first month so when my colonel sniper and assault bit the dust, I was forced to put put some heavies into the rotation despite my opinion that they were terrible. I was forced to change up my tactics and, in addition to freshening up the game, I found out that heavies were pretty good. So that's a good thing that came out of random classes. The problem as you point out is that it's contrived and videogamey. Again, not necessarily instant death for a game, but the game is stacked head to toe with these sorts of choices, all delivered with sledgehammer subtlety. The original was good at making choice emergent (if I'm using that fruity term correctly). Take grenades, for instance. Alien grenades cost elerium to produce and trained up your throwing skill. You were encouraged to make minimal use of them to conserve elerium and to use a mix of guns and grenades so you didn't end up with a crack team of guys that do nothing but throw things. In XCOM, Quartermaster Jake Solomon has decided you get one (1) grenade per soldier, to be swapped out with one (1) auxiliary item if desired and fuck you for asking two (unless the soldier we're talking about is a Captain heavy or Major support, in which case, cool). Choosing a grenade or a scope or a stun gun is an important decision, but it's gamey as hell. Other egregious instances being abduction missions that always come in threes, soldiers that can't fire before they move without special training, choosing training off the left side of the tree makes the option on the right side forever forbidden to you... It's all well and good to make meaningful choices but when they're all contrived it feels like you are dancing to the tune of some arbitrary bean counter wizard musician rather than leading a campaign against aliens.[/quote]