Knightpt

You dont know that, if Chris feeds on cheers and Works faster then this thread is Nice and even useful your negativity on the other hand. Sucks Cheers for Chris and the team!

Couldn't have said it better myself. I was extremely excited about this game coming even before kickstarter but ever since the "revamped" air combat i just can bear to play this game anymore and it seems each build i like it less and less (air-combat i mean). I realy wanted to be an active beta tester but i truly have to put it aside because each time i do an air combat encounter i leave the game a few seconds after. Realy a shame for me i realy wanted to help more.

Well that is going too far imho. I'm sure they care that at least the people who helped fund the game aren't terribly unhappy... I know i'm not "entitled to be always pleased", but heck, for me the game is unplayable atm, unless you are a very little elite minority that likes extreme dificulty and sado-masochism.... I'm pretty sure i'll be swamped by posts of people saying "learn to play noob! game is balanced and you just suck!", but realy, i think a middle therm should be reached at least in the start game.

So experimental build 4 instaled, new game. First small alien spoted, one interceptor launched, alien combat pops up and here i go. My Missiles seem to have terrible short range now, so i am forced to go in for the kill agressively. I shoot missiles and the alien dodges, closes in and goes to slaughter my interceptor while i try to dogfight with no clue whats happening. Fortunately it seems my interceptor is miraculously returned to base, so i launch my second interceptor and basicaly same thing happens, whatever... A few days later Brazil downs an UFO and asks for my help and i go to ground combat. My xeno soldiers managed to fire around 60 shots at the 2 aliens outside of the downed aircraft and hitted 4 times, 1 of those shots were friendly fire in a seemingly impossible shot. Later i have 6 soldiers on the door of the alien craft with 2 aliens inside and i managed to fire 74 shots with 2 hits, and lost 4 soldiers. Yes i understand a grenade would solve most problems but realy... ? I honestly believe that the game is terribly unbalanced atm. Not even on the original X-COM i found that things were "that" ridiculous in therms of balance. Sure it was hard and sad to see a trooper die without even seeing the alien first but that would make some sense, firing with less than 10% acuracy is just frustrating. In sum, you are making air combat extremely frustrating and ground combat is just atrocious with this level of terrible acuracy. This is not dificulty this is just banging the head on the wall expecting the wall gets softer later on and i can have more fun. I'm realy sorry but i'm not happy at all. If you think this post is abusive then please delete it, but i had to let it out.

Accuracy of xeno soldiers is still atrocious. Many times i have 6 soldiers, everyone fires their shots at medium range with 40TU cost for extra acuracy and some turns i can't have a single shot on the alien, some ocasions i can land a shot i even celebrate on my room like it's an amazing acomplishment that my trained soldier acualy had more acuracy than a child with a gun. Honestly, realy, change that. It's beyond frustrating and stupid and just wants to quit the game and not play it again. I can honestly say there was a mission i shot around 60 shots and i managed to hit 2 and that wasnt even enough to kill the alien.

Same here. Perhaps the letters are a little hard to implement but the feedback from the funding countries is realy realy realy nice and makes perfect sense.

Because i can see beyong the veil in front of my eyes and i can perfectly understand that in a small team like the xenonauts team where development time is scarse the more and more time they dedicate resources to giving more "depth" to a mini-game the less time they will have to dedicate to the meat-and-bone of what most people expect from xenonauts wich is ground combat perfectness and geoscape base/troop strategic management. You might argue that xenonauts / xcom is much more than "just that", and i fully agree with that, but if xenonauts can't get this two things right they won't realy convice dire-hard x-com fans, and it won't realy be with a little bit more depth in air-combat that they'll win their gut. RIght more in-depht air combat its a wonderfull feature to have in xenonauts, especialy because its genuine and a new personnal touch to the game, and its a definate added value to their product, but i just wanted to say that please first nail it down to perfection what made x-com briliant (i know you can do it), and then if you still have resources then go for new stuff with a lot of depth like aircombat. There is still so so so so much more stuff you can add to geoscape/base/troops/gound combat to make it even better and more "hard-core" if you want to call it that (like for example joint-missions between countries with their special troops and Xenonauts, or random events in the world or ground missions where you could ask for mig air strikes, just imense stuff you can add). Air combat imho is a nice mini-game to have. Adding it too much options to the point that it stops being a mini-game and starts being a genuine full feature that HAS to have depth will force the team to make it realy awesome or people will QQ its bad. Making it just a mini-game and dedicating full resources to the other meaty stuff like ground combat that everyone excepts to be brilliant seems a much better bet imho. But please for the love of god don't bash me and say i'm doing bad things to aaron or chris or the xenonaut team because i'm not trying to demotivate them, i'm just realy trying to help in a small way. The path is there for them to walk and i'm a nobody to even sugest they should go other way, i'm just expressing what i feel would be better in the long(er) run.

I honestly believe you are overcomplicating the air combat mini game and giving it too much dificulty. I like that you want to include new stuff beyond xcom but it feels to me an excessively complex feature like air combat ends up more of an added obstacle than a fun added feature. My personal feeling so far, probably Just me as everyone seems to praise it though. :-)

I made a post on a diferent thread, but i'll copy-paste it here if you don't mind: This is specificaly for ground combat: Even tough for purposes of balancing i understand that the rookie soldiers should be much weaker than later in the game hardcore veterans in therms of accuracy sometimes i am extremely close to the aliens and still i have 20-30% to hit with a rifle and then i miss most of the time. I understand the concepts of RNG and i understand what is a percentage to hit, but i've spent over 20 hours shooting things and it's gone to the point that a 0% chance has for me a more confidence that a 8-10-20% one and i expect soldiers to MISS most of the time instead of hitting the most basic shots. it seems to me that the chance to hit calculations are off. Either that or there's a bug lurking around in the code. I understand that rookies should miss more, but not miss 80% of the time, after all they are trained and are not village people that has a new gun on their hands, right? Everything else in the game is good. Still in beta and all, new UI poping up each build and things are going good, but this hit/miss chances realy make me not want to play again untill its better. Oh i nearly forgot, i also don't like that aliens are artificialy made tougher while game progresses. A much better aproach would be to make them MORE in numbers, instead of making us believe they have better invisible armor or their skin is tougher because... they have better sun blockers? PS: Something happened just now i'm realy sad i didnt record on video lol. One of those "impossible 0% chance" shots from a sniper rifle just killed 2 aliens. Aimed at one alien with 0% chance, killed him and the bullet went through and killed the second one that was not even all that close to the first. 0% chance rocks. lol.

Quite honestly the only thing that realy puts me off its the % to hit calculations. Quite honestly i think i've scored more "impossible" 0% chance shots on the aliens than >20% chance to hit ones. Even tough for purposes of balancing i understand that the rookie soldiers should be much weaker than later in the game hardcore veterans in therms of accuracy sometimes i am extremely close to the aliens and still i have 20-30% to hit with a rifle and then i miss most of the time. I understand the concepts of RNG and i understand what is a percentage to hit, but i've spent over 20 hours shooting things and it's gone to the point that a 0% chance has for me a more confidence that a 8-10-20% one and i expect soldiers to MISS most of the time instead of hitting the most basic shots. it seems to me that the chance to hit calculations are off. Either that or there's a bug lurking around in the code. I understand that rookies should miss more, but not miss 80% of the time, after all they are trained and are not village people that has a new gun on their hands, right? Everything else in the game is good except the caesians i think could have more character. Still in beta and all, new UI poping up each build and things are going good, but this hit/miss chances realy make me not want to play again untill its better. Oh i nearly forgot, i also don't like that aliens are artificialy made tougher while game progresses. A much better aproach would be to make them MORE in numbers, instead of making us believe they have better invisible armor or their skin is tougher because... they have better sun blockers? Cheers

Already is. http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/5744-Experimental-Build-V19-available-%28instructions-within%29

This is a fabulous idea imho. Probably add a few local militia troops as NPC as the first "meat shields" in the range outside of the crashed ship to give you a couple turns to heal up and gather up your own troops, and then its survival mode in defensive stance. Love the idea.

It's quite clear the game is not balanced yet, but sure as hell is fun to play on this situations as well if you aren't on the mindset that you want to finish the game at all and are just testing it in multiple starts. makes good practice. I'm quite confident that when the game ships i'll have so much practice with its dificulty as it is now i'll need to make myself play at maximum dificulty after the balancing act is done in the final version.

I'm not worried i'm sure someone will mod it later and i'll just use that mod from the community (i would do it, but i'm sure someone will do a much better job than me), i just want the best for this game and i'm sure this will be the point of some criticism of reviewers and gamers when they buy the game (already the review i linked above shows it) It's a shame if its too late to change it (even tough a simple workaround would be to change the clothes' palette to something else besides striking bright colors), i'm not demanding anything just trying to help out.

Even on the few reviews i see online from game sites, they state the aliens as: "Yes, that’s an alien in those jeans" I realy don't like it that they say that as in a small joke implying they are not realy great. but lets face it an alien race doesnt cut it as a race with jeans and leather jackets (uniform? ) http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/xenonauts/1045/preview.html Realy hoping at least the caesians get some extra lovin in beta

I've been using steam for over 5 years and i've been only a couple of times to the forums and those 2 times have been when i have a problem with a particular game and i look for a fix or workaround. Oh, i think i've been there also once on the skyrim ones to check if there was a sticky for good mods aswell. Thats it. Great platform, terrible community.

wow, you are the composer of the soundtrack? giant props man, it's one of the highlights of the game, it's absolutely perfect for the tone and pacing of the game. /bow

Quite honestly the graphics in xenonauts are more than fine. Feels warm inside to see 2D hand crafted art. In fact i feel they are a strong point of the game. For example when i saw a red tractor in a farm tileset i was "wow thats beautifull". My only complain is indeed the artstyle of the aliens as i said in my first post and being this a game that is all about fighting "them" it realy needs to have strong presence making us have strong feelings that can range from fear, curiosity, anger, association with Real Life pictures/movies, whatever. For example, in X-Com EU sectoids are just so similar to the normal RL folklore of the alien race that suposedely a lot of people describe as seeing that anyone that has already been interessed in the subject will have as the first feeling of encountering one to associate with things they already seen and think "ah! who is winning now you abducters of inocent people ???" Honestly if Chris would put in xenonauts an exact copy of sectoids with just a diferent shade of grey and with the same amount of pixels as X-com EU i would love it, its just that iconic feel of relating to RL sightings that make our brain go tick and interested in fighting them. I went around today and asked all my friends that played X-com EU back in the days what they remember the most of the game and 4 out of 8 said it was fighting the sectoids, while other answers were diferent isolated things ranging from the music up to the geoscape world globe, intro, etc. Also, i agree that putting in the new UI and judging from the artstyle i saw so far i'm sure it will give a giant boost to the game wow-factor. Just hopefuly something can be done later about the aliens in time for shipping even if its just the guys losing their red leather jacket

Ban me for posting an opinion in a polite manner (i think i didnt ofend anyone) and still saying that the game has strong positive aspects ? I don't get it. Even chris said that the aliens did lose some flavour somewhat due to balancing and that was somewhat what i said. Also, are realy "mother jokes" allowed in this forums as good comunity interaction?

Heya all, i've been extensively playing beta since the steam pre-launch and i'm enjoying the game so far since i'm a big fan of the original x-com. Unfortunately i think the game it's a little too "dull" and lacks a little imagination. Not on its mechanics wich seems realy good, but in the design. For example the aliens are somewhat boring and don't apeal to a sense of mistery or terror. For example the "sectoids" are a very powerfull and iconic 1st alien that realy reminds people who play the original X-Com of the aliens that we know from RL movies and pictures, so we imidiately "relate" somewhat between the game and RL pictures. That is but a simple thing that draws us into the original X-com from the first mission. Unfortunately on Xenonauts the first races are not as good. Sectoids-look-alike are too similar to humans with a jacket and the lizards are just not very convincing. Also the game could use an intro that explains the iceland incident story. I did read about it but i'm pretty sure most people buying the game won't bother to do it. Also something that explain a little better what is the xenonauts. This is basicaly my main complain about the game, the lack of "character" of the alien races especialy the most iconic ones from the beggining. It doesnt realy make us feel we are fighting a force that is menacing and we can associate with RL fear and curiosity. We are just thrown into a geoscape, build stuff, intercept a craft and then when we see an alien its just "meh... was that an alien?" in X-com i was like "omg thats a grey one, i want to kill him and perform tests in him!", i am not as curious and drawn-in with mystery in xenonauts as i was with x-com EU (and even firaxis xcom wich is a much worse game for me than the original). Ofc i have to leave a few good words because the game realy is cool in many other aspects like the music that brilliantly creates a good vibe for the ground missions. Also the artstyle is realy cool and detailed, love it. I understand that a lot of the menus on the geoscape are still placeholders but they could have a major overhaul since they are mostly text inside rectangles only but i do love the artstyle of the hidden movement screen (for example). Sorry for my bad english.

I only redeemed my game from kickstarter from desura today (since june last year KS ended lol) and i have to say i can't wait to use steam. Desura is not bad but i only installed it because of this kickstarter and on the other side i have 100+ games on steam and i like everything tidy Also, steam kicks ass. I don't care what a lot of people say about its "draconian DRM" and yada yada yada. I like it, its organized, good UI, rarely fails, gets constant updated, has mod support for skyrim and other games i own, etc. Also, when can we have our keys for it ?

After more play in X-COM EU i find that the panic level of nations is realy bad. Its a good concept but very poorly executed. I find it interesting that you are constantly pressured into going faster against the clock because you can't control the world per say, but i find the implementation of "you can only help 1 country, forget the other 2" in very specific timmings is very ARTIFICIAL and realy feels fake. The major problem is that it feels realy realy fake. Its an artificial barrier that when you see it you just think "RLY? again? there goes my monthly gamming perfection". It feels that you might play realy well but its all for nothing because the Panic abductions have like 90% of the game dificulty attached. It would feel much more natural if those abductions (and consequent increase on localised panic levels) happened in places where you didnt have satelites and one at a time to make you speed up the satelite coverage and interceptor investment in all continents. The game from start to mid-game is a race for : a) Engineers b) satelite links c) satelite building d) deployment of satelites on regions that are in max panic, but you had no control over it anyways. Game feels unidirectional and frustrating because you feel there's something unfair coming up in a few days that kinda invalidates most of what you do. It seems that the game was 99% done and on playtest they found it too easy and said "hum, what can we do to make it harder ?" and then they decided to put a monthly barrier of something you can't realy control untill mid-game.

X-com from firaxis is actualy an entertaining game. I wouldnt say its an X-Com remake tough. One of the most important trademarks of the first X-com was the sandbox feel of the game, and the fact that you could choose where to do missions, where to put your bases and the missions were randomized and most of the time you didnt even know what would come next. On firaxis x-com it seems you are playing a "rails-on-track" game that feels its a strategy game with a story/adventure style slaped into it for streamlined content. The game is not bad by any strech, and it realy feels fun but its a disapointment so far simply because it "feels" almost everything i do is a simplified version of what i realy wanted to do. Also, i find it very confusing the graphical engine, because where i move my mouse cursor to check for cover spaces, the graphical engine makes everything transparent, making it very hard to understand the scenario where we want to move to. Also, i realy hate the fact that the game chooses where you can go to your missions, based on a couple of pre-made scenarios. i loved the freedom of the original X-COM, i can't understand why did they do this... "you can help canada, US, or brasil", choose one and upset the rest... Honestly? lol... terrible design. (hopefuly its just in the beggining of the game?) Anyways, an entertaining game, but i'll just expect xenonauts to be my game of choice if i'm looking for a serious strategic experience with aliens.

Its fundamental to a big project to have clear and definite goals with timmings like you have. You might not be able to do it, but at least you have a very clear idea of what is behind schedule and what is going acording to plan. Entering beta phase will be very very exciting for the comunity.

Well, thats not as good as i was thinking, but it's good enough i guess