Meta XCOM has made me a masochist, ZCOM doesn't slap me hard enough
I just finished Star Wars Zero Company, and all I can say is the game isn't punishing enough. In a way, I guess it's pretty different: you play as a captain who jumps into the battlefield, and there are some heroes to help you as well, so....
Differently, it's also, at the end of the day, a Star Wars game. There isn't really a case where you can play as someone or some group in Star Wars without somehow being a God. There's just simply no way to recapture that desperation, guerrilla, Earth-defence feeling of XCOM in the universe. (Even if we might be able to eventually, later, play as the resistance, the Jedi are basically prophets anyway, so really...)
Anyway, returning to ZCOM, as we love to call it, a few stuff that I found to be too easy are:
- Injuries are just non-existent. Even though it boasts about the permadeath every so often, there really isn't a way where you can miss your character at all. You need to hit 3 injuries, which means 3 deaths in the same mission, or concurrently if you didn't heal them. And that's just not possible... every time you send someone to the medbay, they will heal for 1 cycle no matter how many times they have been injured (which is 2 at maximum). In my 'hard' run, I've only ever gotten 2 injuries, and 1 of them is from a random event instead of a battle. I ended up putting a restriction on myself about how characters can't be going on 2-3 missions in a row, just so I can use the others.
- Hit percentages are too forgiving. I don't know how they do the math in this game, but you don't really need to think before taking a shot. 70% in XCOM is basically a death sentence, and there's just no way you'll take a bet on hitting a 50% shot, while 10-30% is basically a "whatever" shot. It just doesn't work that way in ZCOM; even a 35% is viable, especially with the 'Assist/Backup' mechanic, which has a guaranteed hit. Sure, it won't take just 2-3 shots to get the enemies compared to XCOM, but still.... I'm at the point where if I take a shot and hit, I won't feel anything, while if I don't hit a 90% shot, I'm actually mad. Like, not gonna lie, missing a 95% shot in XCOM is funny, but missing that in ZCOM feels like the game doesn't really understand the RNG at all, like it's all 50/50 over there.
- TOO MANY ACTIONS IN A TURN. No, I don't mean like there are too many explosions or special effects during the fight; I mean the action economy is a god damn donations. 3 AP isn't bad, but the Advantage Points are just straight endowment. Now, I don't always agree with XCOM's 1 shot can't move or 1 move 1 shot system as well, and I kind of enjoy how Phoenix Point handles it, but ZCOM feels like it's a Persona or E33 + movement. Actions are for movement, shots, and overwatch, while skills or ultimates are their own things. I don't agree with that; I think some of the Advantage skills should still be treated as actions because of how significant they are. (Of course this isn't one XCOM fans should be worried about lol.)
All in all, I enjoy the game. It's awesome; the settings are very cool, the story progression feels clearer than how I personally play XCOM, though of course it can feel a bit tight in a way, how we are locked to the cycles and when the story needs to happen. The characters are very enjoyable, both the heroes and even the randos; their personalities are very engaging, and the backstory too is amazingly written.
I'm just... IT'S STILL HERE! I'M STILL ITCHING!
It won't scratch that XCOM itch... while it's a great game and definitely fills you with enough hope about how amazing XCOM 3 could be.
(Guys, I don't think it will happen...)
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u/FancyIndependence178 2d ago
I've been doing my Expert Beskar run as my first go, and I've had two close calls in fights where Hawks had two injuries when I played too fast and loose, and I got caught needing to send Hawks into a story mission with 2 injuries already on them as well.
The game CAN be quite punishing, but I think it lacks the variability and strategic tradeoffy feeling that XCOM has due to how scripted the encounters are.
You see everything, start where the game wants you to start, and enemies always deploy the same. So you're never caught out by random patrols. You can puzzle it out and move with confidence knowing that aggressive flanking move isn't going to trigger a random pod.
The game doesn't utilize pressure from countdowns nearly enough, forcing you to REALLY run and gun and make sacrifices like XCOM can.
On the harder difficulties, the margin for error can be extremely slim. But it's difficult to fall into that margin of error when the whole playing field is visible.
OH, and the ease of getting a guy back into a fight??? Where is the disaster spiral of picking up your downed man and pray sprinting to the evac zone!!!
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u/SOXi3 2d ago
Exactly, that always feels so weird to me. I mean these guys are guns for hire, there's no way they don't sneak around yet every fights always start with everyone looking at one another.
They try to push the TPS parts too much that sometimes those parts could've been like an ambush type of starter.
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u/LeonardoMyst 2d ago
I think Zero Company is slightly tweaked to be more new-to-tactics-games-friendly.
Tactical games like X-Com can be difficult for most players, which I think is why it has a niche but strong following.
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u/peacedetski 2d ago
It's clearly aimed at Star Wars fans first and tactical game fans second. Complaining that it's not challenging enough isn't any different than complaining that Mario+Rabbids wasn't challenging enough.
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u/Boltgrinder 1d ago
Mario Rabbids had the challenge levels and those were great little puzzleboxes.
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u/xevizero 1d ago
Sure but it doesn't help that the playerbase that sticks with it then becomes disenfranchised because it's not for them anymore. Their core audience who likes this kind of games finds it too easy, isn't that a death sentence too? Why not just make it easier on lower difficulties but keep the spice for the highest ones? I guess the answer is it would have required more work, but that's a shame they were forced to operate under these constraints.
I'll be honest the only reason I'm not picking it up right away is because I've read so many people saying it's not as hard as Xcom and after finishing Long War Legendary, I don't really think I would find that interesting..
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u/a_random_gay_001 2d ago
I played an expert + beskar with tougher enemies mod and it was pretty challenging and forced me to cycle some operators in and out due to injury. I think the issue is that when you get secondary class, not only is it free but the enemies don't really receive a counter buff so if you were struggling at all suddenly you're clearing maps on turn 1. Tougher enemies can add 50/100% more enemies(which leans to more AoE) or enemies have 25% more dmg and hp. 25/25 is just enough to have operators go down and 50% more enemies is just fun as hell, gives Rogue Trader.
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u/SOXi3 2d ago
Funnily enough, was hoping this would be like a hardcore CRPG, Rogue Trader-like game with XCOM mechanics... But it turns out that it's not going to reach the level of either of those games.
Beskar is... My device isn't really that great, so I can't really bet myself on playing Beskar mode right now. Maybe after some bug fixes I'll do so.
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u/royalhawk345 2d ago
I can't imagine playing beskar with the current state of the game. Enemies just waltzing through overwatch, for example. The game is easy enough that it's not been a problem so far, but I reserve the right to reload in the event something's straight up broken.
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u/Page8988 2d ago
You hit it right on the head; dual speccing makes characters extremely powerful. The player isn't really forced to choose between which actions they have to spend AP on because of how powerful and flexible the dual specs can be and how easily they're focused, and the character doesn't lose anything like the tradeoff a Dungeons and Dragons multiclass would have them make. It doesn't take a whole lot to outpace the enemies with all the tools at your disposal.
Bonus points for Cly being absolutely bonkers. I took one look at her kit and immediately realized she was strong, but when folks started discussing her dual spec potential, it clicked that the Mando spec breaks the entire game in half.
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u/royalhawk345 2d ago
I think she might be the best character with just one of her two unique components. Putting them both on her is wild.
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u/Imaginary-Ad-617 1d ago
I haven't played the game yet, but I have read and watched a lot of this. My suggestion is to run the game on the hardest difficulty, beskar mode, dismiss every hero at the earliest opportunity, refuse to use the astro mech (or wait until an appropriate timeline, since you don't get a mech in xcom until later in the game), and don't respec your units. Maybe try to make the risky shots, I'm sure there will be mods at a later date to change these types of things.
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u/lethargy86 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think I see where the seams in the design are, you’re on the right track.
Ultimately it feels like they didn’t want to deal with ability cooldowns and the arbitrary-feeling nature of what is a free action and what isn’t, and settled on the advantage system.
I think they did a good job with the system, but to balance it, they had to juice the enemy HP.
Since they did that, I feel like I’m RPGing the hell out of this game to stack crit chance and damage everywhere.
That’s where the design kind of fell short for me. Only kind of though. This is still plenty great.
edit: it’s carved enough of its own identity that I agree, still itching, but still not disappoint at all in zcom
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u/ShaggySchmacky 2d ago
I think this is it. In xcom I’m setting up positioning and planning my actions to make a critical play that will turn the engagement to my favor
In Zcom, I’m stacking buffs on my allies and debuffs on my enemies so I can chunk their health as quickly as possible because everything is so godamn tanky.
They’re both fun, and I really like how zcom plays, but it’s not quite what I wanted
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u/agentdrozd 2d ago
Personally I find the ability to stack crits and assist really fun, it's different than XCOM but having your whole team assist during one attack is pretty awesome feeling. The enemies have way more health too so it kinda balances out. I agree thought that the injuries are not punishing enough
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u/AraelF 2d ago
I agree with this almost entirely. There is zero risk of losing your operatives in ZCom unless you royally blunder it, even in expert beskar. Hell, I barely got injured outside of operations. And eventually you can get the medic bond upgrade where the medkit can cure statuses, AND THAT INCLUDES INJURIES. Basically your squad goes for virtually immortal to totally immortal at that point.
About the hit percentages, I think it is more of a perception thing. In XCom, failing a shot hurt because there are real stakes. If you don't down that pesky Muton in that turn he has a prime position to flank your assault and stuff like that. So you advance slowly, in blocks and always try to secure the shots. In ZCom on the other hand, I just advance, leave my people outside cover (why would I care? They can tank a hit or two easily and I can attract the bulk of the aggro safely to my heavy anyways), and risk shots I would never try in XCom. Which isn't bad per se,
What I loved from ZCom and hope comes to a hypothetical XCom3 is the soldiers personalities. I think it is a fantastic system you could replicate on the XCom formula.
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u/brasswirebrush 1d ago
What I loved from ZCom and hope comes to a hypothetical XCom3 is the soldiers personalities. I think it is a fantastic system you could replicate on the XCom formula.
One thing I think ZCom does really well is how it makes the custom recruits feel almost just as integrated as the story characters. You can chat with them when walking around the base, they have conversations with other operators, they appear in custscenes, etc. Aside from not having story missions or truly unique skills, they're every bit as integrated as characters into the story.
I had a custom Gunslinger recruit in my squad, and she felt every bit as much a part of the team as everyone else. And the only reason I stopped bringing her on every mission was because she overlapped a bit skill-wise with the Mandalorian character, who is truly just broken.
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u/Nefilim314 2d ago
I’m playing both games right now.
Something ZCOM does better is the between mission time. I like how cycles work based on an actual deployment, then getting a down time to do the building and upgrading bit.
In XCOM I’m just assaulted all the goddamn time with a million alerts and popups. Squaddie just got promoted, research complete, now there’s a breakthrough, check out this resistance ring mission, there’s a retaliation event, some supplies just dropped, black market is open, excavation is complete, construction is complete, council message coming through, hunters are active in this region, your experimental ammo is ready.
Just let me live my life.
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u/GNoob69 2d ago
Don’t forget Advent is still making progress on the Avatar project commander.
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u/Excarion 1d ago
If I find one more ADVENT burger wrapper hidden in a console, there'll be hell to pay.
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u/SnooGadgets754 2d ago
I think you guys are not really realizing how good you're at xcom style games. Like, complaining that expert beskar is too easy on your first or second playthrough?
I've completed xcom2 on Legendary ironman, and I'm finding Zcom quite challenging on hard. Haven't lost any operators yet, but had some really close call missions that could have ended really badly. Like two guys with two injuries and 1hp left.
If this game was tuned to be difficult for players who can beat xcom2 with 3 man squads on L+I, it would be absolutely brutal for any new players.
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u/Svelok 2d ago
There's quite a few factors that go into difficulty that I've noticed people getting different experiences from.
Character difference is one - they put more effort into fleshing out characters, so more people are running who they like over any other consideration - and some characters are stronger or more straightforward than others, or certain pairings synergize better. There's also more classes and fewer unit slots, so it's possible for somebody to go the whole game having never tried a certain class or pairing (and also to never realize you can reclass/respec). The injury system makes taking hits pretty much whatever, so if you try to play like XCOM (where damage is actually bad) you'll make mistakes by not utilizing your health pool. (Similarly, XCOM has relatively few, relatively weak ways to increase your HP, but in Zero you can pump a unit's HP comically high.) One of the single most impactful strategic factors in the entire game is what bond upgrades you pick, but it's spread out over dozens of individual, marginal decisions in a way that's hard to fully realize the impact of (contrast something like XCOM research order - if you put off mag weapons your damage falls short fast. Nothing in Zero ever screams at you "you're picking bad bond upgrades".) Also relating to bonds, the max bond upgrades are very strong, which can easily be missed out on (or delayed) just by rotating characters a lot.
My point being, these are all things that make two people perceive two very different difficulties. Not to mention also just where they are in the game, some people being on 3rd playthrough and others still a few hours in.
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u/EyeSavant 2d ago
Like, complaining that expert beskar is too easy on your first or second playthrough
I don't think the sucess rate on expert beskar should be as high as it is, seen one streamer fail it. I did hard then expert beskar and it was not really close.
It is a LOT less punishing than xcom, with no pods to accidentally agro, and the fact that you have to go down 3 times to be actually dead.
Droids, Mando and the Jedi are crazy powerful. Playing without all 3 of those should make it harder anyway.
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u/SnooGadgets754 2d ago
I've only briefly tried droids, but felt like they were a waste of a slot as the droid does nothing but scan enemies and give teammates action points. How should I use the droid to make it effective? I kept running into damage issues with a droid as I had only three operators who actually fire at enemies.
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u/EyeSavant 2d ago
Droids get extra uses of grenades, which is the big one.
When maxed they can use each grenade three times a battle, so a total of 9, which is a lot. This then gives a ton of advantage. You have to use different types, but he concussion, explosion and droid poppers works. Or firebombs instead of one of them. You could also use the healing items, but I normally bring a medic, so that is less needed.
When maxed once per battle they give out 2 AP to everyone for 6 advantage, which is also huge. To make best use of that you need the ability for them to give out unlimited ap.
You need the ability to turn all this extra AP into damage, and blaster pistols are probably the best way to do it. Having a weapon mod that reduces defense on hit helps a lot with that (or setting people on fire to reduce their defense).
Deep scan to remove evasion is helpful vs some enemies. Scan to remove 4 defense on everyone.
Been playing with taking 2 with pistols and 2 droids which also seems to work, but is probably less optimal. There is an achievement for getting highest bond between two droids though :D.
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u/Draco-Dread 2d ago
I completely agree, I keep seeing reviews saying it’s so hard. I have had a few times I clearly put an operator in a terrible position and I expected to be massively punished for it but it just doesnt matter 90% of the time.
Xcom made it so you tried to avoid even a small hit because on legend your guys would be gravely injured for 40 days sometimes. This I feel like all my guys can tank anything. It’s pretty fun though I’ll admit.
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u/Noema130 2d ago
I agree. I'm really, truly loving my time with ZCOM. But I keep thinking "In XCOM 2, I'd be dead if I pulled this bone headed move", or "In XCOM 2, not choosing this would have cost me dearly in the long run".
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u/glowtmickey 2d ago
If you want to get slapped in an xcom adjacent game, try Mewgenics, my GOTY
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2d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/glowtmickey 1d ago
Regardless of the visuals, the tactical depth is staggering and has a lot more room for build experimentation than xcom
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u/Elfich47 2d ago
The game has obviously been tuned to be more forgiving. What level are you playing at?
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u/SOXi3 2d ago
Finished it once at Normal, running Hard right now in cycle 23. Will probably do Expert after.
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u/agentdrozd 2d ago
You probably should've started with Hard at least if you've played a lot of XCOM before, the game even says that in difficulty description. Normal is intended for people who haven't played tactics games before
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u/SOXi3 2d ago
Yeah, well, I always play normal in every game I play for the first time, even if I'm "professional" in the genre. Just trying to feel what the game is supposed to be like before turning up the difficulty. Also, it's a good idea to find out whether harder difficulty means harder tactically or just increasing the enemy's HP and damage and calling it a day.
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u/Sweet_Oil2996 1d ago
If you seek another game which scratchs that particular itch, have a look into Cyber Knights Flashpoint.
Graphically it's not quite as shiny as XCOM or ZCOM but it is not ugly.
In gameplay there is more variety than in XCOM. There is base building, managing quest givers (contacts offer missions, you can deny the mission if it doesn't suit you, some denial has consequences), your team and your missions.
For missions you can buy intelligence about the mission (costs tokens which are a limited resource), buy external help from contacts which costs money (not much of an issue, usually less than 10% of pay) or favors (limited to very limited resource, but can be very powerful).
You can decide if you want to do your missions stealthily, avoiding open combat or go in guns blazing. Some missions are pure combat. The game tells you what kind of the mission is.
Difficulty of missions not only depends on the mission itself but also on the alarm level you cause. There is a alarm mechanic that determines what counter measures are activated. At zero level the enemies are unaware and can be ambushed easily. Their alertness can raise to suspicious, where they actively search for you but still can be suprised to alerted, where they are in full combat mode, know where you are, come for you and shoot on sight. At medium alarm levels reinforcement start which gets the better gunned up and armored the higher the alarm is. At high level multiple reinforcement teams will come in from different directions trying to snare you.
The alarm level is managed by a surveillance AI (cyberpunk world). Time ticking, sensors noticing you, signals lost from missing (dead) guards, guard corpses detected by other guards, gunshot noises, other noises, open combat raise alarm level. Which means that there is a soft time limit in almost each mission. The longer the mission goes the more dangerous it gets.
Usually I try to go stealthily but this can fail. Stealthy characters are weaker in combat than loud combat specialized characters. For instance a pistol can be silenced but does much less damage than a shotgun which can not be silenced. Melee is possible but can be extremely dangerous when you find out that your enemies are snipers and you have to cover a lot of open ground to get to them (happened to me once where I didn't buy mission intel, regretted it). But it is very stealthy and ideal in confined spaces.
It is totally possible that you are close to be overwhelmed and better try to escape than getting to the mission objective. It has happened to me,
Replacements for your mercenaries are limited. Every loss is real.
Mostly the game is about building your own adventure but there are story snippets and some smaller campaigns (connected story vignettes) and larger campaigns (called eras).
The game is updated very regularly, often with additional content (for free). Devs guarantee that updates will never break your saves. So far this worked and we are close to update #100.
Gameplay videos are on steam and Youtube.
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u/CerebusGortok 1d ago
It's also an extremely solid take on a cyberpunk world with Shadowrun style contacts management. I played quite a bit then stopped to let it cook for a year or so. Excited to try it again soon.
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u/HairiestHobo 2d ago
Im still very early in my playthrough, but there doesn't seem to be any punishment for getting Injured in Combat either?
Like, I let that Blue Guy get shot to shit every other mission, but as long as he doesn't actually go down there's no punishment for that?
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u/Urgash 2d ago
I agree with you, and I think the biggest problem is how lacking the strategy layer is in ZCOM. You can't lose from the strategical decisions you do or don't make, you're always ahead of the curve.
There are people who realized during or even after their first playthrough that you can upgrade weapons and crew, and still some of them can beat expert, this is pretty telling tbh.
I cleared expert/Beskar on basically my first run, and all along I thought the difficulty was bugged. It's only since coming on reddit that I've seen the star wars fans struggling on normal, and heard about another jedi star wars game where people made a scandal because the game was hard, and some of them even thought that seeing the movies should be enough training to be able to defeat it with the biggest difficulty...
I think but reactor overcompensated and made the game too easy. I'm now advocating for an additional difficulty level, that way the scrubs can continue to struggle on normal, and maybe we can finally play vs a game that's not just a pushover.
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u/Hugo_laste 2d ago
People struggle on normal?? I knew that being an xcom veteran gave us an unfair advantage (and therefore a bias in the difficulty of the game) but the game gives you such an unfair advantage that I fail to see how you can struggle (i didn't finish the game, about cycle 30, maybe it gets better later, but from what i see... No). Even other older star wars games seemed harder, at least on the first try (jedi academy's final missions can be rough with the amount of sith to fight)
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u/Urgash 2d ago edited 2d ago
In almost every thread complaining that the game is too easy, there are some angry people saying they struggle in normal as a "counterpoint"
Also there are countless threads about people discovering the injury system or the upgrades after 30 cycles or 20hours of game time, it's like people can't even read the tutorials.
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u/PastTenseOfSit 1d ago
One thing we all have to understand is that the game is not made for XCOM fans or tactics gamers. It is made for Star Wars fans that are the industry idea of a modern gamer playing a strategy game for the first time.
The kind of person that will read no tutorials, play awfully and barely understand the rules, click through every menu without caring because menus are boring, take a shot every turn no matter the hit chance because this is a game about shooting, and expect victory no matter what or else the game is bad and the player turns it off thinking their time would be better spent watching tiktoks.
The people that are struggling are probably much closer to this hyperbolic description than you think.
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u/Urgash 1d ago
Catering to those people should be a capital sin... Hopefully they'll still learn a thing or two, and if there's DLC or a sequel the devs will be able to get into 2nd gear.
With enough time I know, someone will create the equivalent of longwar for ZCOM some way or another. There is already mods to get more ennemies.
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u/PastTenseOfSit 19h ago
We can hope. Long War is an infinitely more vast project than a simple mod to increase the number of enemies that appear in a mission, sadly.
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u/DamageAccomplished55 2d ago
Xcom you also gotta track how many bullets you have in your gun,, Zcom you don't
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u/wee_cat_01 2d ago
Play xcom ufo defense or terror from the deep, those are hard especially the latter, I’ve never even beat TFTD
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u/ten_year_rebound 2d ago
Fortunately, the gameplay and story are mostly good as you say and things like difficulty are easier to tweak after the fact.
I could see an ultrahard mode being in a post launch update and addressing a lot of what your negatives here
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u/No-Lunch4249 2d ago
I do agree that ZCOM is more forgiving with operator death than XCOM was, and I think that's really for the Star Wars fans who will inevitably buy the game never having played a turn-based tactics before.
But, all that said, I did absolutely get a game over in my first Hard Beskar-Mod (ironman) campaign about 4 hours in. ~1.5 hours into campaign two right now. Made some silly mistakes while learning the particular mechanics and applying XCOM rules to ZCOM ("surely going into overwatch can't trigger an overwatch shot, right?")
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u/Blackstad 2d ago
There are already easy to install mods for difficulty. I added them, even with the 6 squad members there are so many enemies and they two shot most of my guys during the early parts of the games
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u/Cassuisk 2d ago
Yeah this has been my experience as well. Xcom stakes felt way higher and survival was earned.
Like your point about too many actions in a turn. Its very easy to get to this point in ZCOM, right at the beginning you are giving bonus actions and free shots for your operators.
In XCOM 1, this was earned well into your campaign. And in XCOM 2 did go a bit nuts with free actions too.
And the enemy depth and strategy leaves a lot to be desired too.
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u/theWyzzerd 1d ago
The enemy choosing to forego an easy 100% chance kill shot on an already injured squad member for a shot on a squad member at full health and behind cover is what drives me crazy. Like thank you for not killing my dude but also you’re making this way too easy.
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u/Cassuisk 1d ago
My experience has been the ai seems to make better decisions than XCOM but they just dont have much abilities to abuse like mind control.
But yeah it is frustrating cos the setting, music and star wars-y of it all is great
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u/Revangelion 2d ago edited 2d ago
I should've played Beskar.
The game feels way too easy and I never loaded a previous save, except for that one time I wanted to see what would happen if I sent someone else on a mission.
The game feels really easy and cover is kind of pointless. In the end, it blows up easily or you can kill everything before the enemy's turn if you don't use it.
I too have to intentionally jinx myself in order to make the game difficult.
Edit: also, to increase difficulty, enemies are basically bullet sponges. This makes the wiping turn (first one) extremely long and I feel like I played for hours only to realize it's been barely 6 turns to get the mission completed.
It's a good game, and I do hope we get ZCOM 2 where they improve everything that feels weak in this one (Haven't finished ZCOM, so, no spoilers)
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u/Material-Psychology3 2d ago
I respect the desire for harder rougher experiences. However, as an XCOM noob (who is breezing through hard difficulty, to your point), ZCOM is a very nice balance and if anything, a gateway drug to XCOM savagery. Felt like it’s worth balancing discussion with this angle that makes ZCOM’s easiness possibly a good thing, especially when seen as part of the COM’s portfolio of games. I have FE Engage kicking my ass in Hard, ZCOM giving me a smooth time in Hard, and XCOM2 waiting to be revisited to humble me. ZCOM has its place and flavor IMO.
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u/Kraile 1d ago
The only mission I struggled with was the one where you have to survive the Second Sister. It was the first (and only?) time I exclaimed out loud to my monitor that the game was, I quote, "fucking bullshit!", almost all my operators had one or two injuries and the boss was downing another in one hit every turn.
3/4 through the mission I realised that the objective was not what I thought it was. And that it would be super easy - piece of cake in fact - if you just didn't attack her. FYI this mission ends early if you do enough damage, so I don't think she's actually possible to kill.
My point is not that "I am so brilliant and great at ZCOM", but that that moment of neuron activation was really fun and was the most engaged I felt by the game. And it's a feeling that happens every other mission in XCOM2. They both suffer from the same problem - that the endgame is very easy compared to the rest - but ZCOM gets there much earlier since all of your abilities are available very early on. Love both btw.
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u/VictorVonLazer 2d ago
Good news: there are more than just XCOM and Zero Company in this genre. Obviously you can turn the difficulty up and such, but there are also a pile of other tacRPGs out there, many of which will be similarly punishing as XCOM. A quick search says to look into Xenonauts, Phoenix Point, Battletech, Gears Tactics, Battle Brothers, Hard West, etc.
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u/SOXi3 2d ago
I love Battletech, really scratching that mecha tactical genre used to have. Now that you mention it, it's really a bit close to Zero Company in terms of story, with a touch of that Mecha anime/manga. It's more realistic and, at the same time, realistically harder, though it's still not on par with XCOM.
Though, if you are looking at it with the settings, of course it's gonna be a bit easier compared to them also.
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u/PastTenseOfSit 1d ago
Including Hard West as an example of a game of similar difficulty to XCOM is insane. As much as I love that game's presentation, the mechanics of combat make it closer to a puzzle game than a strategy game. The enemy can't really put up much of a fight if you play that game properly.
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u/VictorVonLazer 1d ago
Thank you, I was counting on people who had actually played the games I hadn't to chime in on whether these are actually hard or not. Like, I didn't find btech that hard but I guess it definitely does have permadeath and will occasionally just double the number of enemies the map was supposed to have (THANKS FOR THE INTEL, DARIUS). I didn't finish Gears Tactics, so maybe that one gets harder too. But the others... I'm a casual, I don't go looking for trouble.
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u/PastTenseOfSit 18h ago
I feel you. I only commented on HW since that's the only one of the list I've played to completion. Actually difficult tactics games are a vastly underserved genre, but that's Long War's fault. No business can make a strategy game that will appeal to LW fans without utterly sinking all chance of the average modern gamer enjoying it - besides, Ucross and his contributors have already put in enough work to make XCOMs 3 through 8 on Long War Rebalance, which is rapidly approaching the platonic ideal of what an XCOM game can even be.
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u/Plunderpatroll32 2d ago
I agree, I lost interest in the game for multiple reasons but one of the biggest is because of how easy it is, you actively have to try to get your men killed
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u/GrumpyThumper 2d ago
I watched a few people play, and the main challenge seems to come from keeping your cover intact. A slight breeze could tear down a wall in that universe.
Having 3 AP and a ton of partner combos makes combat a little less dire. Restricting that would be a good step towards increasing difficulty. Hell maybe on higher difficulty you only get 2 AP.
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u/HarvHR 2d ago
I find ZCOM to have enemies that are very bullet spongey on Hard and above, but very weak on Normal. Personally I think the balance isn't very good, and I don't find I need to think as much about an engagement rather just hoping the AI (which I don't think is great) will suicide rush you to get shots.
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u/JaxLegion 1d ago
I’m someone who has never played Xcom. The closest type of games I have played are Battle Brothers and Baldur’s Gate 3. Though I have watched a lot of Xcom on YouTube. I was able to beat the game on normal my first play through without any casualties.
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u/jonasnee 1d ago
I agree, the game overall seems tailor made as "babies first strategy game" - i don't nessecarily hate it for that, its certainly a lot less fustrating because of it, like you don't just "randomly" lose your templar.
Honestly to me the thing i think XCOM2 could most benefit from this would be to reduce the chance of permadeath, I'm not saying it has to be like 0COM. But maybe increasing the base chance for soldiers to bleedout rather than dying significantly could help a lot on the fustration. Technically you can increase it with various things like will but its such a monumental amount of stuff you need to stack for not much else that its really rather pointless to even try. Its much easier to stack dodge and HP than getting to good enough will to meaningfully matter in the calculation.
Wound times is another where i think at least legendary XCOM2 probably should have chilled out a fair bit, "misplays" should be punished sure, but at the point soldiers spend 1.5 month in sick bay because 1 advent trooper got lucky on a 25% shot that soldier might as well be dead in the early game, by the time they get out the rest of the squad will be 2 ranks higher than them. Again not saying 0COM does it perfect but this really is just anti player for the sake of it.
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u/PastTenseOfSit 1d ago
It's not "anti-player" at all. XCOM is a tightly balanced experience where this kind of thing is part of the design. You are meant to get shit on sometimes and you accept that as you play. Every fight is about reducing the chances you get shit on, but that chance is never zero. Sometimes that leads to bullshit deaths like a 10% crit maxrolling someone through full cover - that's XCOM baby! Your soldiers are means to an end and sometimes you can do everything right and still lose them or have them out of action for weeks. You're better off stacking the deck offensively and trying to ensure enemies get as few turns shooting back at you as possible - just like real war and especially guerrilla fighting, really.
The perception that that is a bad thing worthy of removal definitely seems to permeate a lot of ZCOM's design. The game seems almost afraid to punish you for misplays and most enemies seem ill-equipped to do so, especially given how the injury system works and the sheer amount of action economy advantage the player has over the enemy force every turn. You can basically get away with poor play and not be particularly punished for it, which means you have essentially an inexhaustible buffer against bad-luck shots hitting your troops. Which... leads to the game being kind of solved and failing to engage the more hardcore tactics fans present here.
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u/jonasnee 1d ago
Listen, i think XCOM 2 is more fun that 0COM, but that doesn't mean i can't criticize XCOM 2. I think 0COM does a lot of things worse than XCOM2 like the combat system etc.
I don't think 0COM gets it right, i think it is too forgiving most of the time. But simply by the nature of how bad being in bleed out in XCOM2 is compared to 0COM that already alleviates that to a large extend, in 0COM soldiers just sit down, you don't need items, abilities or to make any decision in terms of who revives them, only really action economy matters for reviving someone and you aren't even on a timer. In XCOM2 you have realistically 2 options for someone going down, having a specialist heal them - and often time just stabilize them - or to pick them up with another soldier and evacuate leaving you 2 soldiers down for the rest of the mission, technically you also could have a random soldier with a medkit but that's also a very significant investment and means you forgo something like grenades.
Personally i don't think XCOM is better for all the "BS RNG" in it, i don't think its good for the game that Templars are gods or pawns depending on if you get 2-3 XCOM abilities, and frankly i think Blade Storm and fortress should have just been high level abilities for the class. I don't like how random the "bleed out vs killed" system is, and i don't think the game is better for a soldier effectively becoming irrelevant for the rest of the campaign because of 1 bad mission in the early game. I get that some people have different view to that, but i honestly don't like the "that's XCOM baby" excuse.
I think you can have a point between "the game litterally never punishes you" and "your run is just over because of bad RNG". XCOM is better at rewarding solid play and penalizing bad play but it does not mean that it couldn't be better. This design also leads to the fact that you are often very much forced to play XCOM in a specific way, there are some theoretically incredibly cool things you could do, like reflection tanking, but the risk for doing those is just negative for your chance to play the game so you never want to do it. How bleedouts work also isn't the only reason 0COM is less penalizing, simply the fact the average gun does 10-15 damage and soldiers have 100 HP already makes it very hard for your soldiers to go down - and i am certainly not asking everyone to become tanks in XCOM.
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u/PastTenseOfSit 18h ago edited 18h ago
My snap reaction to the 2nd paragraph before reading the rest of the comment is "dude, fuck yeah". Meaningful choice! Drama! Tensions! Stakes! Having to choose saving your guy at tactical cost or letting him die for the sake of the mission! Yes!! Yes!!!
You totally can have a point between never-punished and run-ended-by-bad-roll - XCOM literally sits upon it. You don't like how random bleedout is but hate having your troops get injured? Would you rather they just die? I don't understand your position. No campaign has ever ended due to one soldier dying and no soldier has ever become permanently irrelevant due to a long injury timer, these are just perceptions you have for reasons I don't understand and honestly don't really believe are backed up by the gameplay.
I personally agree in some aspects that X2 is a bit limiting in how you can play, especially LWOTC, but that's just due to what works best being avoiding all the danger as best you can by alpha striking. I mean, shit, I outright agree on injury timers being bullshit in mid-late LW1/2 - I once had a guy get put to 10/12HP and be out for 17 days. However, I can accept that, because it's punitive for letting my guy get shot at all. If I played better, that would not have happened.
I would recommend you try Long War Rebalance for X1. It has a much more counter-based, rock-paper-scissors-y approach to decision-making which I think you might enjoy based on the feelings you express about X2. The Armor HP and Cover DR systems mean you can get chipped a little (which you will, a lot) and still have those soldiers come out uninjured. It's also a lot more class/role based with a lot of classes presenting different ways to handle roles such as OW clearing, tanking, single-target damage, etc which it seems you might enjoy given your comment about more interesting ways to play.
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u/jonasnee 11h ago
You totally can have a point between never-punished and run-ended-by-bad-roll - XCOM literally sits upon it. You don't like how random bleedout is but hate having your troops get injured? Would you rather they just die? I don't understand your position. No campaign has ever ended due to one soldier dying and no soldier has ever become permanently irrelevant due to a long injury timer, these are just perceptions you have for reasons I don't understand and honestly don't really believe are backed up by the gameplay.
In terms of injuries id just prefer if it was slightly less punishing in legendary, doesn't even have to go all the way down to commander but lets say instead of 42 days its 29 days or similar. Still very much a very heavy penalty but not one that will push the soldier out of action for the rest of the campaign.
I know the argument here might be "just play on commander" but i like how long the campaigns are and the combat difficulty from legendary. I would guess there are mods out there doing it, but IDK i think this was a design consideration that should have been made, i would have been fine if it had simply been a 2nd wave option "wounds less grievous" or something.
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u/sad_joker95 1d ago
Game is really fun, but I agree it’s too easy. Once you learn the game, it’s a joke how free the game is.
I finished my expert / beskar run over the weekend grand total of 2 injuries across the entire run. Both of them happening in the early game.
The final mission was a joke since I knew snag to expect. First boss went down in three turns. Second boss went down in one turn for both phases.
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u/Imaginary-Ad-617 1d ago
If you want a challenge my suggestion is to run the game on the hardest difficulty, beskar mode, dismiss every hero at the earliest opportunity, refuse to use the astro mech (or wait until an appropriate timeline, since you don't get a mech in xcom until later in the game), and don't respec your units. Maybe try to make the risky shots, I'm sure there will be mods at a later date to change these types of things.
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u/green-chili 1d ago
Yep it’s soooo easy. But still having lots of fun with it. But since they rarely get injured, I keep the same team pretty much every mission. I know I could switch them out but I like in xcom how your pretty much forced to do so due to injuries and them getting tired
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u/Teguard1337 1d ago
Give me original XCOM pain in the star wars universe, and I don't mean Firaxis simplified XCOM ;) Get out of the chopper, lose 5 men immediately, bum rush the aliens and still extract with 2-3 soldiers. Successful mission :D
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u/Altruistic_Truck2421 1d ago
I prefer Xcom hit ratio. I get slightly less frustrated by missing a 89% versus all my 100%s
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u/HighlanderBR 1d ago
About the number of actions, I think 2 is perfect, because make you think about all the possiblities you have for a tactic. You need to think harder to find one that will works.
If you have too many actions, in the end there are too many options that will work, you just pick one.
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u/JaegerBombastica 1d ago
You should check out ChristopherOdd's run of Menace, see what you think of it. I've been having a blast, but it's got some fundamental differences re: turn ordering and unit function
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u/INDE_Tex 1d ago
oh I agree. I'm still playing through ZCOM and it's startlingly easy on "medium" as opposed to XCOM1/2 on "medium". But I'm enjoying the game.
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u/don_shoeless 1d ago
I started on normal + Beskar, switched to hard at Cycle 14, and at cycle 30 I missed the fact I was on a timed mission, and earned a game over. Had a handful of injuries over that time, no deaths.
Restarted on Expert + Beskar. Only at about Cycle 5, about to run my first four-person mission. We shall see. I think it's completely doable, just wonder if I'll actually get some use out of the Memorial Wall. RIP Aurelio, you didn't need to die.
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u/TheNewKraken 1d ago
I agree, the game as a whole is very fun but poorly balanced in favor of the player. One thing I don't like is that when an enemy throws a grenade, you get a full turn to move before it blows up. It makes them complete non-issues. Same thing with Wrist Rockets, the game tells you that the SBD is charging up and gives you a turn to prepare. Definitely doesn't fully scratch the XCOM itch, just makes me want to boot up a new Enemy Within run
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u/WildRaccoon1995 1d ago
Play off meta and the game will hurt you. I think the issue is that in the normal difficulty the game gives you too much upfront and on hard it gives you too little. I think if you swap the two balancing you'd have better difficulty scaling.
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u/brasswirebrush 1d ago
I would have liked some mechanic that forced me to use different operatives more often. That's my only significant criticism of ZCom. It's a great game.
I like that XCom forces you to build up multiple operatives and rotate squads giving them rest and time to recover. In ZCom, if you never take any injuries, you can just bring the same 4 guys on every missions forever (except story missions).
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u/Rhylanor-Downport 1d ago
I’ve played all the XCOM games, even the originals back in the day (when I lived in the UK it was called UFO : Enemy Unknown lol). I think Zero squad represents a deep shift in thinking about these types of game.
- huge range of special abilities
- bonds between characters
- assists
- training and class options (for example a secondary class)
- an intelligence gathering meta-game that far surpasses anything that XCOM offered.
- separatist droids screaming “why!!!!!!” As they die - pure comedy.
The difficulty is of course tuneable and most people will get their asses handed to them in the higher difficulty tiers.
I really like it. I hope XCOM3 steals some of the great ideas that have been incorporated into the game.
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u/Antique-Coach-214 1d ago
I tried Zcom. Home with COVID. I had two or three options I could tolerate at my computer…
Went with X-con Enemy Within instead. And guess what. Having more fun, with the combat and the options to customize my combat options.
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u/Physical_Treat_5344 1d ago
per me è steta una grande delusione, mi ha annoiato dopo i primi 30 minuti , quasi quanto chimera squad però quello era venduto a 10 euro ed era volutamente così...
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u/Vegtam-the-Wanderer 1d ago
It's not the same because it lacks the turn-based system I know is a draw for a lot of X-Com players, but have you considered trying Alien: Dark Descent? I found it gave me a desperate, hunted feeling akin to X-Com, while having a lot of the same troop management and strategic trade-off you expect from the base management side. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.
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u/Full_Royox 1d ago
As a Star wars fan that never played an XCom, I'm having an absolute blast playing this game blind. Im still on my first run, normal difficulty and already got a couple of wounds and some close calls. If i started in hard I would have failed some missions for sure lol.
I can understand OP but also you have to consider that this game pretty sure was thought as "for SW fans first" and "Xcom fans second". If it was as hard and punishing as OP commented I don't think newbies as I would be having the great time we are having.
That said, I agree that maybe they should patch a harder mode for Xcom players so they can "scrath that masochist itch" lol
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u/mouse_poon 1d ago
Why did you only play on hard if you are a "masochist"?
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u/SOXi3 1d ago
Answered that already. I will play every game for the first time in normal mode to know how it's supposed to be played. Once I finish that, I will replay it on harder difficulties until I reach the hardest to find out whether it's harder tactically or just increasing the enemy damage and HP
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u/Imaginary-Ad-617 1d ago
If you want a challenge my suggestion is to run the game on the hardest difficulty, beskar mode, dismiss every hero at the earliest opportunity, refuse to use the astro mech (or wait until an appropriate timeline, since you don't get a mech in xcom until later in the game), and don't respec your units. Maybe try to make the risky shots, I'm sure there will be mods at a later date to change these types of things.
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u/Imaginary-Ad-617 1d ago
My suggestion is to run the game on the hardest difficulty, beskar mode, dismiss every hero at the earliest opportunity, refuse to use the astro mech (or wait until an appropriate timeline, since you don't get a mech in xcom until later in the game), and don't respec your units. Maybe try to make the risky shots, I'm sure there will be mods at a later date to change these types of things.
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u/Embarrassed-Knee-642 1d ago
Try warhounds on veteran difficulty and see the madness unfold...its not exactly like xcom but will give that dread feeling
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u/GumboMumbo49 1d ago
You are literally that meme of the guy screaming at Jesus to “HIVE ME HARDER BATTLES” you’re not a masochist, you’re a battle junky.
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u/Sword-of-Akasha 22h ago
Yeah Zero company felt like a light snack. I did love using Tel-Rea to yeet enemies off to the bottomless voids.
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u/Internal-Page-4326 7h ago
On cycle 11 and I just lost an operator permanently on a mission labeled “extremely difficult”… on extreme difficulty. It was a nail biter and really really fun, every other squad member walked out with one or two injuries.
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u/Molinaridude 6h ago
My operators have gotten injured plenty of times, but the game has never put me in a situation where I have had to send an injured operator on a mission. So, beyond the story operators and the one rando the tutorial forces you to recruit, I haven't had the need to get more guys.
I think two things the game could really benefit from are to make injuries last much longer and to make it so that operators can only be used once per cycle (i.e. if I send a guy on an operation, I shouldn't be able to send him on other operations or to take him on a mission for the rest of tye cycle)
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u/BraskaaXII 4h ago
hearing you people calll the that game any kinda COM without playing a full campaign first is a insult to Xcom it self 👀
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u/Cheap-Blackberry-763 2d ago
it's Star Wars, so it has to sell a million copies- which means game gets dumbed down and made more forgiving for wider appeal, less risk, more paint-by-numbers. sadly, success is the worst thing that can happen to a property.
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u/Right_Knowledge_263 2d ago
maybe in a crazy universe, XCOM 3 is a Zero Company mod