Coffee Potato

I like to keep my wishes realistic. The system's in place, I want it to be more varied. That's adjustable, overhauling the system is a whole other deal. The only non tweak thing I'd like is the ability to see training happening, and have a montage of rookies getting trained.

I want to see: More specialized armors Weapons with different mechanics (getting there) Dropships with more functions (X1 did this well, would like to see more options) Unit morale handled like in XDiv More dynamic air battles (Haven't tested the new system enough to judge yet) More research. Fluff or chance discoveries, the XDiv thing. (Vanilla had this, XDiv took it up to 11, with an almost soft randomized tech tree using this mechanic) Basically all stuff for more of a back and forth, where a couple failures don't end the run, bit force a different route. Something to make runs different in their routing.

+1 to the waypoints please. How do I get that sweet air battle OST on my phone? Any chance of showing Dodge odds? I didn't feel like I was doing more than pointing the thing in my limited experience with it so far. Admittedly, this was two probe fights.

I will say that XDiv's approach of just letting you bring a free vehicle seemed like a solid middle ground. You had the same inventory space, but also had a reliable "oh crap" button to mitigate rng screws. Plus it just felt good without getting into the insane unit bulk of og-com

I've seen a lot of flavor ideas mixed in the middle of longer posts, and wanted to start one for just those kinds of things. Aka mechanics that wouldn't need any extra animations or total overhauls, but would add some neat variety. Not everything is viable, but let's just make a list without discussing the problems. Some personal ones: 1. Secondary skills. A noted second skill for most units that might give them a small bonus when used right. Could be used for small perks or FTL-Style random events answers. 2- Patrols and Supplies. Discussed earlier, but it would be cool if you could assign rookie teams as protection detail for supply lanes as a means to boost relations. They could show on the map, and it would look a lot more alive. Additionally, if they're on the map already, it would be neat if Bombers had that instant shoot down mechanic for them. 3. Customizable Medals. Even if they don't give any stats, I'd love to give a unit the "Unbridaled Badass" medal for taking out 3 lizards in one turn with a pistol. Just something to add fun labels to your dudes. 4. Ground transportation option. We've all had those times when we had to skip a mission right next to the base because both dropships are busy. What if you could send the rookies in a truck? This worked great in XCOM Files. 5. Armor Stat Bonuses. While this exists mildly, one of my favorite things from XDiv was the side variety of stat bonuses and detriments from armor made for certain tasks. It'd be nice.

Funnily enough I've ready about Ogre, but no, Ogre Battle from the SNES/PS1/N64. General idea was that you'd make squads of rpg characters, and send them out to take cities, fight battles, etc. Most of it happened in real time, with a pause function, and the battles involved the two squads each doing their respective actions against each other, with the only input being "Best", "Weakest", "Strongest", and "Leader". Taking out a commander caused the squad to retreat back to their base, being easily picked off by flying teams, or just ignores. You could also collect cards from each city saved, which could use an ability during a fight. Stuff like Shields for the team, calling down lightning, causing the enemy team to fight each other, etc. It's an incredible series that's changed a lot from game to game, but has some awesome implementations of experimental ideas. Also notable for Matsuno being a nutjob who demands bizarre programming for each of these. Also lots of randomness. Like when he confirmed a character dropped boots because he was responsible for killing the Puss in Boots in a duel in the background. Never explained why exactly, but I guess he hated Antonio Benderas or something?

I agree that it could use more mechanics to spice things up, but that's why I'm hoping they'll lean into nation relationships more to add a sort of simple diplomacy aspect. Asking for reinforcements, or funding, or manufacturing help, maybe they can send an emergency randomized team for you to command, but not necessarily keep for emergencies, etc. All XDiv needed to do was more than double the amount of units and randos on the map plus bulk them up a little, and it felt really unique when you'd roll up with your tank and shield wall to see a squad of soldiers holding a building against some Ceseans, while several civilians hunkered behind them. X2 seems to be taking some good steps, adding things like more varied unit types, more mission types, overworld missions, etc. These are enough, when refined, in my book to make a good sequel. As a kind of side note example, take a look at Armored Core. They made more or less the same game with tiny tweaks that was made for a small audience for about 15 years. Then for the last 5, they only released 2 games with radical changes, because a few folks asked. They were technically the best selling, and were fantastic games still, but it broke the fanbase against each other. We haven't seen a sequel or news of the franchise in years.

While it's mechanically unlikely, that might be nice. Turn order would be weird though.

It should be noted that they seem like they will have different roles. Their gear setups have been mentioned to serve different roles, like the heavy Sebs taking the HMG suppression spray approach you generally saw a lot more of in XDiv. The little crawlers will probably ignore terrain, psyons seem like they have suppression and Mind War flavors. Generally they seem to be working on that, so just remember that the AI doesn't have an I yet, shoot and go is literally their only mode at the moment.

So far all the same races from before are in there, with some variants added in. Ceseans (now Psyons) got little Sectoid looking engineers, Sebillians got their liznerds that can't take a tank's worth of damage, Wraiths got their little scrab looking situations, and there's different sizes of Reapers now too. Some of them look a little goofy still, like the Reapers kinda looking like they bathed in shoe polish, and their AI is basically nonexistent still. Oh, and we got fighter civvies back.

Thoughts so far: Loving the new visual style changes, this is the kind of modern dread feeling I think of from Xeno. De-clunked inventory is nice. Good job. Was there stuff changed in the music? I feel like it sounds darker. Single research queue? Liking being able to assign build orders to a location, that was needed. No Dodge rolls? Please, please, please let us use the first launch menu to reassign airborne jets to fight the thing they just rediscovered. This has been an issue since the original XCOM. Also, holy crap, this air fight music is baller. Liking the pilot stuff, should be a solid change. Liking the extra missiles on the fox, would like to see options for stances on jets.

It also might be a fun thing to assign rookies or some such to defend shipments, leading to a small fight if ambushed or something

I missed that one. So that. It's super handy.

There's a feature that Silent Storm had that I always wanted to see in all XCOM-likes. Namely indicators for when units snuck just out of sight, but without exact locations. I know this doesn't apply to everyone, but I love to play this game on one screen while working on another, and sometimes this means I forget or miss when a unit is hanging out right on the periphery. I like that X2 has included the ability to keep all vision gained during your turn to this effect, but I was curious if it would be possible to see something like this for us multi tasking folks.

Ok, yeah, I really like the idea of needing to defend supply lines. Maybe you could schedule regular patrols, it would give cheaper jets more of a long term role as recon, since I assume they won't be as utterly baller after upgrades this time around.

X1 meeting halfway with X-Div in a new engine then, which I think a lot of folks would agree would be ideal.

So with all this talk of what to keep or change about X1 for X2, I figured I'd run through the original to drop some thoughts on what exactly worked for someone from my perspective. For reference, I've always enjoyed the genre, but never could quite get into optimizing everything to perfection. It was the split second, jury-rigged nonsense that always drew me to these games. So, without anything else, some thoughts: 1. I love that the Condor can continue being viable all game if you can get stuff to run into it. It's just satisfying to see out of date things still putting up a fight. 2. While building out better stuff early is awesome, having such a wide range of available standard gear really feels good. grenades and such in particular. Maybe having a monthly cost, instead of per item would be a way to make that happen? Maybe you could pick and choose what you would like to maintain a supply of? 3. While the early game UFO variety is nice, once Corvettes hit, they become repetitive. Then when end game/financial stability hits, there's just little reason to ever go for more than one of each UFO type. I hope new mission variety with raids and such will help make that different. 4. The view cone in XDiv increased vision by about 1-2 tiles or so. This really fixed issues like when you lose 3 people to a reaper because it walked into one tile that you didn't turn around to look at (In this last campaign there was exactly one tile that my head colonel didn't look at. He then got eaten because one reaper made a massive circle around the entire map to hit that one tile next to him. While I respect the dedication of that little bastard, and we still took that lander, it just felt like a downer with no build up. 5. The Corsair was kinda pointless. As cool as the plane itself is, I'm not sure why it's there. The Marauder came slightly after in most runs, and had well over twice as much of everything. I ultimately kept a fleet of 2 Condors, 9 Foxtrots, and 5 Marauders. Maybe the next version will do better in terms of having a role. 6. The ultra end-game victory lap weapons and plane are cool, but there didn't seem to be motivation to actually go and grab a second core for the Fury, or the SC. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I kind of just wanted to launch the ending after the 50th wave of landers and battleships breaking up my research time. 7. It would be awesome to be able to automate the air game somehow. By the end, dealing with all the big ships just becomes more tedious than threatening. I just wished I could assign squads to just swat the flies out of the sky after a while. Maybe if they went for formations instead of swarming? What if they coordinated more? 8. The last mission is awesome. That awesome cathartic feeling of being on the defensive for so long, only to open a door and blow away 4 of their best with a tank is just too good. I did manage to screw up the thing this time, since I forgot that reapers start to spawn after a while. Whoops. Still was awesome though. 9. It would be cool to see a sort of outtro if your team makes it, something like the ending of the old Pokemon games comes to mind. Yes, it's a weird comparison, but it would be cool to see title cards of the survivors and their stats. 10. I wish I could give some custom medals, even if they give no stats. OK, that's enough jabbering out of me. Just wanted to share.

Been wanting something like this too

Do we want damageable parts of UFOs ? *Yes, but I would want an Ogre Battle situation here. Namely where you could give general commands, but would have no direct input, with the fight lasting a few rounds before the two lost contact (unless other things were in play). So commands like "Destroy", "Incapacitate", or "Scare Away" Do we want to have them have effects in Ground Combat ? *It would be cool to see an aggressive approach destroy more parts, bit result in less recovery. What should the effects of escaping UFOs be ? *I'd love to have a relationship-scaled set of options to either warn the country where the UFO is (so they could roll a chance to fight with Condors, which you could watch), lead them (if you don't have the numbers, but can send one jet), or be punished for doing nothing. What should the effects of shot down UFOs be ? *The usual effect is nice. That being said, some issues like bringing down a UFO into a major city would be interesting. Random interactions when <incident> happens ? *Weapon Jam if a plane isn't fully repaired, UFO support fire from space (for the bigger ones), ground support fire if near a city? FTL should be studied for this

A middle ground between X1 and XDiv with a snazzy engine is what I was expecting personally. As a cautionary tale, the Armored Core series ran for 20 years now, trying something radically new with every sequel. Great, those games kick all kinds of donkeys, but the community can't discuss what they like about the series without going ballistic at each other. You can't have a favorite without pissing someone off.

I'd say the vanilla version was amusing, but somewhat too simply utilized for logical reasons. What XDiv did with it really gave it a lot of depth though, and mechanically it was technically the same.

I'm sure they'll figure out something nifty.

The latest was 8.1, unless it updated during the hour I left that day. Not really critical at the moment, but was curious.

I like the idea of limited converted ammo, it feels like they're a little too reliable in my book. Power wise I'd say the two complement each other pretty well with a mix of pews and dakkas

Well based on some of the hilarious stuff out there, we can only assume someone dropped a paper plate, which led them to quit their job as a dog sitter and consider paper plates to be the one true globe