First impressions

[Gnawer]

I've bought Xenonauts a couple of days ago. Let me first say that I've played original UFO, TFTD, and (somewhat related) Jagged Alliance in the 90s, and also I'm a major fan of Firaxis' XCOM. So I had a reasonably high expectations for this game. So far, I wouldn't say I'm disappointed, but I have encountered a fair share of annoyances in it. I'm going to list some of them, in hoping that maybe they can be addressed in some future patches.

1. Fonts. This is a really important one. I have a 1280x1024 monitor, and texts are unreadable, to the point where I just gave up on the Xenopedia entries. What about people with standard 1366x768 laptops? It really looks like the only intended resolution for this game is FullHD 26"+, which is ridiculous. I mean what, not a single one of the developers has any background in either web or mobile programming, where you just can't rely on any fixed screen size?

2. Random sloppiness around the UI. I'm talking about some really basic stuff, like:

- when soldiers arriving to a base, the message says "Items received". That's kind of degrading for your men, isn't it?

- when you click on a crash site, the option to go there says "Intercept". How do I intercept a crash site? I understand that that's a generic option to send an aircraft somewhere, still, looks funny.

- there seems to be no way to delete a custom role.

- when you hire soldiers, there's no way to see them in transfer, or ETA, or any of that. That was even in the original UFO. Also there's this chart with available soldiers. When I pick the good ones, I seem to be stuck with the bad ones until I hire them and make room for more. And more records keep popping up just like that, making an impression of playing some sort of slot machine. Again, I understand it's simplier that way, but it just makes them look like "items".

- ok, not an UI issue, but somewhat bothered me. There's no explanation anywhere on how the hunter vehicle works. Is it remote-controlled, automatic, or is there a driver? Currently, it just looks like "it's a reskinned copy of UFO's HWP, duh". Except in HWP I bought "automatic" without much problems, and in the '79 setting I'm having trouble buying it.

3. Controls in the tactical screen. They seem to be close to what I remember from UFO, but come on, that was back in the day when mouse was considered optional. What's worse, there seems to be no way to customize mouse actions. My issues with it:

- Why do I have to left-click to see TU cost of a movement? Wouldn't it be easier to just show it on hover?

- There seems to be no good way to cancel out of this pathfinding mode, once I clicked somewhere. By analogy, I would expect Esc to end it, like it ends the fire mode, but it doesn't. More so, I don't even like Esc for both of them, I'd really like to do all that with the mouse.

- Both movement and selecting a soldier are done with left-click. That can lead to misclicks. That's the thing I feel XCOM really done right: it does selection on left-click and actions on right-click, so they are not intermixed.

- Seems weird to change soldiers with the wheel. Again, just my preference, but in this day and age it should be customizable.

4. Terrain and cover. Again, compared to UFO, it's about the same I guess. But now that I played XCOM (a lot), I want more.

- In Xenonauts, cover is really unclear. I didn't even get any idea if it existed at all, until I RTFM'ed it. Come on, even Shadowrun is better at expaining cover to the player via UI, and Shadowrun is an RPG, not tactical sim.

- Lots of terrain is kinda hard to size up from the first glance. Like these round UFOs have wide margins which look like empty space, but are really not, so you have to click around them to see which squares are walkable.

- I'm still having trouble telling full-cover (walls) from half-cover (high crates), in some cases there's no telling which element is which, and you just have to remember them all.

- Ok, adjanced-tile objects don't count as a penalty. What if an object is 2 tiles wide? Also, what counts as being behind the cover? Is it "when line from centre of the shooter to centre of the target crosses the cover tile"? Then, does the "tile" really mean "cube" for different elevations of shooter and target, and where is the centre of that cube? This all doesn't seem that important, but it actually is. Having some board game experience, I can tell that this LOS model is the most confusing of all, and at least I'd expect to see it described in the release documentation (NOT somewhere in the internet). XCOM uses a somewhat simplier model, but it also does a good job explaining all the shot modifiers in the UI (there's a detail window).

I hope this feedback is constructive. I do like the game, and wouldn't care to raise the issues if I didn't.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Gnawer

[Sapare]

and also I'm a major fan of Firaxis' XCOM.

Well then.... anyway:

. Fonts. This is a really important one. I have a 1280x1024 monitor, and texts are unreadable, to the point where I just gave up on the Xenopedia entries. What about people with standard 1366x768 laptops? It really looks like the only intended resolution for this game is FullHD 26"+, which is ridiculous. I mean what, not a single one of the developers has any background in either web or mobile programming, where you just can't rely on any fixed screen size?

This one I can't really say anything to because I have a 1920x1080 and I run it in 1600x900 windowed mode, no problems for me.

- when soldiers arriving to a base, the message says "Items received". That's kind of degrading for your men, isn't it?

I made a topic all about nitpicking the minor flaws of the game, and this is just to the level of silly. What do you want it to say? It already tells you what the soldier is. Keeping things straight forward and using the same overall title makes sense. When you see 'items Received' you already know what it is, if you have a different message for each possible object it just becomes needlessly convoluted. It would also require you to have multiple pop up boxes for scientist, soldiers, items, engineers..

- when you click on a crash site, the option to go there says "Intercept". How do I intercept a crash site? I understand that that's a generic option to send an aircraft somewhere, still, looks funny.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intercept

This would fall under the Seizing

- there seems to be no way to delete a custom role.

Very much agreed, I have pointed this out myself and it isn't a pointless nitpick as it is actually obnoxious to deal with.

- when you hire soldiers, there's no way to see them in transfer, or ETA, or any of that.

Valid but minor point, it takes 2 days(I think) after you hire soldiers, and I dont see how you would forget that you hired soldiers in such a short period of time, never really had a problem with this.(that counts for any kind of objects you can hire)

As for the 2nd part, that was an active design decision, the game did not want to limit you on how many soldiers you can buy, but it also did not want to make you cherry pick the best of the best from a list of 100 soldiers, so it just always only gives you 12(or whatever the number is) soldiers to choose from. It was a good decision.

ok, not an UI issue, but somewhat bothered me. There's no explanation anywhere on how the hunter vehicle works.

It says it is based on the Ferret Armored car, aka, it is manned like the original would be. I do agree though it doesn't OUTRIGHT state that it is manned,

(minor spoiler)but later vehicles mention when they are automated(spoiler end)

and as such you can draw the conclusion the Ferret is manned.

- Why do I have to left-click to see TU cost of a movement? Wouldn't it be easier to just show it on hover?

I actually prefer this as having it constantly update just when I move the mouse around is kinda obnoxious.

- There seems to be no good way to cancel out of this pathfinding mode, once I clicked somewhere. By analogy, I would expect Esc to end it, like it ends the fire mode, but it doesn't. More so, I don't even like Esc for both of them, I'd really like to do all that with the mouse.

I never considered this a problem, if you want to move somewhere you click there, and click again, if you dont want to do the move you only click once, then you do whatever else you decide to do. There isn't really a 'pathfinding mode' just a thing on the ground telling you what you last considered to do. I mean.. you JUSt said you wanted it to be on hover... which means you ALWAYS be seeing this.

As for firing, you can deselect it by clicking on the weapon icon, or selecting a different soldier(in the UI, not on the game screen..), either works fine, never used the ESC key.

- Both movement and selecting a soldier are done with left-click. That can lead to misclicks. That's the thing I feel XCOM really done right: it does selection on left-click and actions on right-click, so they are not intermixed.

I won't say it is impossible to have this happen, I had it happen just yesterday in a stream, but it is very rare and I never considered a problem. They don't move there unless you double click, but clicking once on your guy selects your guy. Right/left mouse key combo can work, but it also makes it a little more clunky, having most everything bound to left mouse button is fast and easy to use. Rather then remember which mouse keydoes what, but it is really preference.

- Seems weird to change soldiers with the wheel. Again, just my preference, but in this day and age it should be customizable..

I have never used the wheel for this, you have a good 4 different ways:

Wheel, as you mentioned.

Number keys

clicking on the soldier

clicking on his tab in the UI

I use the last two all the time for it and I find it very fluent and responsive. The number keys can be used even after the soldier is downed to see who was hit easily.

- In Xenonauts, cover is really unclear. I didn't even get any idea if it existed at all, until I RTFM'ed it. Come on, even Shadowrun is better at expaining cover to the player via UI, and Shadowrun is an RPG, not tactical sim.

Its extremely obtrusive and obnoxious in the new XCOM and only works because of the extreme simplicity. Cover is the way it should be, like in real life. If there is a wall, it blocks bullets from the direction that the wall faces, hay, fences, rocks, trees. They will all also do that. The only reason players seem to find this unclear is because they can't do anything unless there is a big sign saying 'this is cover'. Look at it and use your logic, that is what a sim is all about.

- Lots of terrain is kinda hard to size up from the first glance. Like these round UFOs have wide margins which look like empty space, but are really not, so you have to click around them to see which squares are walkable.

True, though I would not say lot's... in fact, I think the only case of this is the UFO's, which is because they are round (and big) on a square game. Kinda a basic problem of games that use squares. There really isn't anything you can do about that.

- I'm still having trouble telling full-cover (walls) from half-cover (high crates), in some cases there's no telling which element is which, and you just have to remember them all.

I don't really see this happening, but if that is a problem for you.. *shrug*

Ok, adjanced-tile

If you are standing adjacent to cover you can shoot over it, unless it is a wall or buss, or something tall that you just literally could not shoot over. You can shoot past it if you are shooting at an angle that would allow you to shoot past it(from the corner of your square(the best fitting) to the center of their square, is the definition I believe. But really, this game follows the Warhammer table top rules(pretty much) if you imagined putting a measuring stick to it, could you hit any part of his body?

I don't see why that is very difficult.(I have had a case of the system just glitching out on me though, but that was one of many)

As for the new 'XCOM'... it doesn't even really do LOS.. or objects.. or the bullet travel path... or well, anything. Of course it can explain everything in the UI because there is only 3 things to explain: Your aim, his dodge, his stat boon.

Overall, when it comes to the combat, I think it comes down to look at it as a sim, rather then a strategy game. Things will seem slightly odd, or sometimes less clear, but that is because you are modeling many factors and trying you can't simply tell the player 'high cover is 40% on dodge, low cover 20% on dodge' Because it isnt true, there are many forms of high cover, many forms of low cover, many ways that low and high cover can affect yo ubased on where the bullet comes from, what the bullet is. Your best strength is applying your mind, if you see a wooden fence, you probably should hide behind the two meter long car instead of the fence. Or you can put your guy behind the wall, he wont get shot for sure, but he also wont be shooting that alien from there any time soon. there is no 'noclip' bullets.(or there shouldn't be)

[Irishguy117]

- ok, not an UI issue, but somewhat bothered me. There's no explanation anywhere on how the hunter vehicle works. Is it remote-controlled, automatic, or is there a driver? Currently, it just looks like "it's a reskinned copy of UFO's HWP, duh". Except in HWP I bought "automatic" without much problems, and in the '79 setting I'm having trouble buying it.

I was going to yell at you to read the xenopedia again but having double checked it doesn't actually say it there. I know somewhere in the game it explains that there's a driver in there, but to a certain degree its just common sense that someone is operating the vehicle. And the Scimitar it explicitly states that they've removed the driver in favor of more armor by fitting a signal amplifier to all the dropships and remote controlling it from base.

[Chris]

Thanks. I'm glad you like the game. Sadly, though you generally raise valid points there's not a great deal we can do about most of that - they're generally not small fixes.

[Jean-Luc]

It's terrible how XCOM has now set the standard with what it possibly the dumbest cover system I've seen. Even the 1994 game had a more nuanced cover/los. XCOM technically doesn't even have a cover system because "cover" merely reduces to-hit chance, it doesn't provide actual cover, it doesn't block shots. Not to mention the game's derpy physics and line of sight.

Xenonauts' cover and line of sight/fire are not nearly as fluid and precise as in JA2 but at least this game makes an effort to do it right.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Jean-Luc

[Irishguy117]

It's terrible how XCOM has now set the standard with what it possibly the dumbest cover system I've seen. Even the 1994 game had a more nuanced cover/los. XCOM technically doesn't even have a cover system because "cover" merely reduces to-hit chance, it doesn't provide actual cover, it doesn't block shots. Not to mention the game's derpy physics and line of sight.

Xenonauts' cover and line of sight/fire are not nearly as fluid and precise as in JA2 but at least this game makes an effort to do it right.

Honestly its really not as bad as all that. You aren't hiding behind the cover in EU, you're usually in overwatch, which means your head and weapon are exposed, which means its possible to shoot you. If you use hunker down and are actually hiding behind the cover you almost never get shot.

[Gnawer]

- when soldiers arriving to a base, the message says "Items received".

I made a topic all about nitpicking the minor flaws of the game, and this is just to the level of silly. What do you want it to say? It already tells you what the soldier is. Keeping things straight forward and using the same overall title makes sense. When you see 'items Received' you already know what it is, if you have a different message for each possible object it just becomes needlessly convoluted. It would also require you to have multiple pop up boxes for scientist, soldiers, items, engineers..

It could easily say "transfer/production complete", which is just two options. It's about immersion. I have the same feeling about it I had when I first worked with Microsoft Project and discovered that people are essentially "resources", same as staplers.

and as such you can draw the conclusion the Ferret is manned.

Well I can just as easily draw a conclusion that it's powered by a machine spirit, can't I. Google Car is also based on Prius (I believe), yet it has this automated driving system. If Hunter were manned, then the driver should have levelled, had hospital time etc. Again, immersion. If it's a drone (which essentially it is now), I wouldn't think twice about using it as a fire magnet.

In Xenonauts, cover is really unclear. I didn't even get any idea if it existed at all, until I RTFM'ed it.

Its extremely obtrusive and obnoxious in the new XCOM and only works because of the extreme simplicity. Cover is the way it should be, like in real life.

I'm not saying that Xenonauts' model is worse. It is however more complex and confusing, and therefore has to be presented more clearly to work well. In tabletop wargames, this system is called "true LOS" and involves lots of very annoying checks with a laser pointer. Like, what if your dude can only see another dude's sword? Does that count as a shot? There's a rule for that in Mordheim (it doesn't), so you can imagine how many other rules there is. Thankfully modern tabletop games, like Warmachine, have done away with that and are using precisely the same system used by XCOM.

I'm still having trouble telling full-cover (walls) from half-cover (high crates), in some cases there's no telling which element is which, and you just have to remember them all.

I don't really see this happening, but if that is a problem for you.. *shrug*

It is, actually. Just yesterday I had an alien hiding behind something that looked like a waist-high crate (inside an UFO), but was apparently a full cover. I marched my entire squad past this crate and never saw him. Got plasma'd right in the side.

Overall, when it comes to the combat, I think it comes down to look at it as a sim, rather then a strategy game. Things will seem slightly odd, or sometimes less clear, but that is because you are modeling many factors and trying you can't simply tell the player 'high cover is 40% on dodge, low cover 20% on dodge' Because it isnt true, there are many forms of high cover, many forms of low cover, many ways that low and high cover can affect yo ubased on where the bullet comes from, what the bullet is. Your best strength is applying your mind, if you see a wooden fence, you probably should hide behind the two meter long car instead of the fence. Or you can put your guy behind the wall, he wont get shot for sure, but he also wont be shooting that alien from there any time soon. there is no 'noclip' bullets.(or there shouldn't be)

I understand simulation as something built on well-defined principles to model a real-life situation. If you don't KNOW the principles behind a simulation, it's useless to you, because you can't tell why something went wrong. Now, part of a GAME is figuring out how underlying simulation works. You can't master it just by wild guessing, at some point you have to get down to the real math. Therefore, in both cases you need some way to access the exact parameters affecting your shot. Ideally that would be UI cues, less ideally - something in the documentation. Then, after you have the understanding, you can take "educated" guesses.

[Gnawer]

Thanks. I'm glad you like the game. Sadly, though you generally raise valid points there's not a great deal we can do about most of that - they're generally not small fixes.

Thank you for listening to the players' feedbacks. May I suggest to at least bump the font in Xenopedia and ground mission briefings up to like 2x current size? It should be extremely simple and doesn't involve any other rearrangements.

[Sapare]

To your last statement in my post, XCOM Apocalypse doesn't even give you % on your hit chance, or anything, and the game works just fine. You only need the exact numbers because you want them. A true sim doesn't give you numbers you would not have in real life.(this game is a bit more of a hybrid)

My point is, you playing the game with the wrong mindset, in my honest opinion.

As for the ferret statement, you make a pointless argument. It says it is based on a manned vehicle, it never says it is not manned, as such the assumption it is manned makes perfect sense. Google car probably states it is automated. Case in point is that the later vehicles state when they are not manned.

But for the sake of the games application, it acts like a metal object.(for the driver being wounded aspect, do pilots get wounded in the game? Or are you assuming the planes are all automated, because.. they arnt)