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Playthrough feedback, thanks, criticism and questions


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I joined Xenonauts somewhere during the beta, tried it and didn't quite like the feel of it in the end. Picked it up again during winter holidays and absolutely loved it! As a summary and old fan of original XCOM games, I would say Goldhawk has accomplished it's goal in making a successor for XCOM: Ufo defence. Best reference is that I know that I don't have to play the original anymore. In the future when I get the XCOM itch, I just pick up Xenonauts (or firaxis XCOM, which is also excellent game, just not in the original way). So big thanks to the devs and kudos for believing in your product to the end!

What I especially liked:

- Tactical battles. Different aliens require different tactics, the AI feels great and has some random elements? I found it hard to predict it's moves. No more safe gathering behind closed doors as AI may or may not come.

- Balance. On strategic/tactical level everything feels balanced. Money is tight but not too much, tech and weapon progression feels right as old weapons get obsolete very slowly. All weapons serve some purpose and none (save from shields to some extent) feels OP.

- Difficulty on normal is challenging. I must admit I savescummed a LOT.

- Atmosphere and story. As a fan of realism in scifi/fantasy I especially liked the explanation for the invasion.

Some (minor) critic of the game:

- Mind control. The single mindcontrolled/berserking Xenonaut can truly wreak havoc. Is this WAD? I think this is a major obstacle on playing ironman (Which I will try next). Halving the TU's of mindcontrolled or berserking Xenonaut should be a quick fix? Better would be to make it skip the first turn?

- Area weapons. When I start ironman I will never fire a rocket if there are obstacles in the firing zone inside blastradius of the shooter. Not realistic to blow yourself apart half the time you fire rockets.

- Air combat. Could not into it. Autoresolved it through the game.

- Map/mission variation. Especially in game start I was a bit let down by the low variation. Was this all there is to tactical combat? Luckily I was wrong and as the game progressed variation increased. But not too good for the game popularity to make new players bored/worried of future boredom at start.

Questions for anyone up-to-date to answer:

- Will there be expansion/sequel soon? Official mappacks? Anything?

- Will mindcontrol/berserk be 'fixed'?

- Was Xenonauts a financial success?

Edited by Velihopea
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Yeah, if you update to V1.5 on the Experimental branch then mind control and berserk have been reworked to make them less game-breaking. Unfortunately we won't be doing any expansions / sequels to Xenonauts in the near future, but we are working on a new squad based tactics game that should appeal to anyone that enjoyed Xeno. And yes, Xenonauts has sold surprisingly well since release (which bodes well for the future).

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Thanks Chris for the answer!

Yeah, if you update to V1.5 on the Experimental branch then mind control and berserk have been reworked to make them less game-breaking.

Good, most likely it will be official when I get to ironman replay :)

Unfortunately we won't be doing any expansions / sequels to Xenonauts in the near future, but we are working on a new squad based tactics game that should appeal to anyone that enjoyed Xeno. And yes, Xenonauts has sold surprisingly well since release (which bodes well for the future).

Good to hear that the hard work has paid off financially as well. Makes Xeno2 much more likely? Will check the new games when there are more info.

V 1.5 also has Skitso's map pack included with it, you just need to activate it from the launcher screen.

Playing ironman is a bitch if the game isn't stable. Hopefully adding mappack to launcher screen means that it will be near faultless. The game does need more maps.

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The game is stable, and I have yet to hear of any problems caused by Skitso's maps.

Skitso's map pack has a few oddities. Occasionally it fails to provide cover where it ought to, and very rarely it won't provide a clear path from arbitrary point A to arbitrary point B. This is not in any way game breaking, though. It's just not entirely in line with the layouts of the original maps.

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