Hi guys, first time poster here. Will try keep this brief but felt the need to express my opinion on the direction the game is headed.
Going with the shadow-war theme it seems to be headed down a path where it will be in direct competition with XCOM 2. As it turns out, I like XCOM 2 but I was hoping for something different with Xenonauts 2. To be frank what XCOM 2 does do it does extremely well and the action camera creates a sense of being in a dramatic Hollywood production with some outrageous yet fun action sequences. In short it's going to be tough to top what XCOM 2 brings to the table in this regard. Having smaller squad sizes/similar mechanics I think is going to have many going "where's my action cam?".
Also, while I understand the point Chris made in not wanting an average joe with an M16 to be able to take on an alien directly I think there are other ways to achieve the same thing other than limit the number of aliens on the battlefield and giving them boss-like abilities. I also understand the need to try and expand a bit more on the original Xenonauts by having different mechanics and strategies and so forth but in my opinion there's a very different approach that could also achieve some of these goals. I will try give some constructive input on what I feel would be interesting but would feel like an expansion of Xeno 1:
Instead of a "secret war" I envision a very, very hot war with gradually expanding levels of aggression/technology where the aliens expect an easy victory but are surprised to find out just how well humans are able to survive despite being technologically and in many cases physically weaker. In short, their ego basically avoids an out-right annihilation and gives humanity some time to regroup and stand some kind of chance to repel the invasion.
Instead of tiny squad sizes I envision much larger scale conflicts with something like up to 36 soldiers lets say supported with tanks and other vehicles. In this way you could have 12 aliens versus 36 humans and balance things out to be where this fight is "equal" on paper. So here you can create a sense of an average joe with an M16 being able to do some damage but in no way being able to stand toe-to-toe with an average alien soldier.
Now, being turn based it would take some thought to making rounds manageable. I don't think that necessarily everyone would want to micro-manage 36 units in the standard sort of control interface we have at the moment but I think it could be done with things like having 6 squads and being able to move and attack as a squad instead of just 1 unit at a time - switching to mirco-manage mode as needed. You could have morale at a squad level as well as opposed to individual soldiers and instead of recruiting "grunts" as it were perhaps another thought is being able to recruit only senior people and developing abilities/skills at a leadership level e.g. calling in fire-support or giving all team members a bonus to morale or to defense etc.
Hopefully I was able to convey the gist of what I'm getting at - bigger and bolder essentially. Thanks for taking the time to read.
