>>723711982
It is not just a problem with winning/losing. Being able to engage on your terms reliably makes it less obnoxious but the system is still there. I think the larger factor in XCOM 1 was the map design, which was usually simpler in broad layout, with more fragmentation by large or impassable barriers rather than simply high ground.
Needing to play around initiative in arbitrary-feeling ways (i.e. trigger pods early in your turn rather than late) is annoying in any strategy game, but it doesn't go past being kind of annoying. The real problem is the constraints not triggering pods places on you. Information gathering is a foundational aspect of strategy and tactics, yet it is massively punished by the pod system since obtaining vision will actively get you killed. That alone makes the system a complete failure. The player is strictly playing around the unknown rather than attempting to minimize the unknown, they're not weighing between calculated risk against obtaining certainty, not balancing conservative play with decisive aggression. It is almost not a strategy game, not in the videogame sense. And at the end of the day, taking come central overlooking high ground being a universally terrible move just feels fucking retarded.
Beyond that, needing to tackle enemies in distinct little groups encourages strict, rote play focused on abilities and statistics rather than general tactics of position and maneuver. Obviously the latter is still an element, but the pod system diminishes its importance for literally no reason. The pod system also punishes play patterns involving spreading your forces out even more than the game already does for little reason, which is another thing which you can obviously play around but is retarded and pointless.
The pod system is clearly terrible in a lot of objective, design-driven ways that go well beyond it being easy or hard to deal with.
