The best things of X1 are abandoned

[Noether]

I looked throw the main fetures of X2 and was quite disapointed, because things which I like(and I gues many people too) are planed to be replaced. And I'm talking about geoscape.

Air combat was super cool. It was interesting stratigically and tactically . I would like to see how it's evolve, becoming more interesting with different options for different strategies. The atmosphere of X1's feels whery realistic to. In X2 there some sort illusion of control. If you have enough power you will beat UFO. It only depends of random, how many damage your fighters will receive. There is way come up with any kind of tactic. Yet again it feels awesom when you direct your planes in X1. You realy feels like commander.

Plenty of bases was also nice. As for me, the logistic was interesting. It maked atmosphere of serious organiztion as well. It also can evolves to become more interesting for player. Base planning system was interesting too. I'm sorry but my first thought when i saw ATLAS was "XCOM", but this kind of vertical construction is't best part of it.
I like clever game X1 was, but ut looks like X2 lossing best  of Xenonauts.

[Rico2]

I have to agree with the air combat system. The old one was in my opinion better. The new version of the combat system is a little bit like in the original x-com, but that doesn't mean it should be the first choice. I would prefere to use the Xenonauts 1 system, because the game felt much deeper.
About the base system: It feels kind of weird to have only one Mainbase fore the hole planet earth. The smaler one only for the aicrafts feel like thats something is missing there. I would prefer to have the choice of building more bases, maybe one or two just for building Aircrafts there or for research/engineering.
With one fixed base it feels kind of unnatural and heavily controlled and not as complex as the old one X1.

[Ninothree]

The game is not finished yet. It would be surprising if you found a bunch of things that you did like because there aren't really any new or exciting features. It is just the old xenonauts stripped down, smartened up with better graphics, and put out for bug testing. The Mona Lisa probably looked awful when it was half-finished too but I don't hear you criticising da Vinci

[Noether]

50 minutes ago, Ninothree said:

The game is not finished yet. It would be surprising if you found a bunch of things that you did like because there aren't really any new or exciting features. It is just the old xenonauts stripped down, smartened up with better graphics, and put out for bug testing. The Mona Lisa probably looked awful when it was half-finished too but I don't hear you criticising da Vinci

Developers said that they don't wan't to move back to X1 system, ad ATLAS base been positioned like a feature. I say about things which is planed to change. And even at this time this seams like wrong way.

P.S.: I'm sorry for my English(I'm not native speaker), hope you are understand me correct.

[Alienkiller]

Yes it´s not finished yet. But the things which were to complex are done better, like the Airfight. The old Dogfightsystem was more stress then anything else. For the first 20 Ufos was it fun, but it repeated every time, every time and every time again. Between a Terror Attack. That was all.

No special things or something else. And if you wanted something better you had a fully research to do (like Armor, Weapons). That´s why the Devs said, we need a fully new Game, we can´t go on with that.

So we get Xenonauts 2. You don´t know what´s done better in being Modified / Overworked or completely new. Therfore you must be a Betatester.

So don´t blame something you haven´t tried or played yet. For that I like to give a cuff on your ears. After you got the Early Access and played it from beginning on you will be happy that the Game gets more and better features then it´s predecessor like the Atlas Base. And much more, we get missing Features from the Predecessor in (upgradeable Weapons, Armors and much more).

The Devs could have said we aren´t interested to do anything more. But instead they give us Xenonauts 2. A better Ground fighting System, everything in 3D, a much interesting Starting Base and many things more. I read here and in Kickstarter and show the Vids the Devs will give us. And the Concept is correct. Or the Concept from XCom (or the old X-Com), which belongs on the same. So if you uninterested in Xenonauts 2 you can play the old Xenonauts. But then don´t cry about missing features and a every same Gameplay / Playthrough. That´s why I don´t play the orignal Xenonatus anymore and therfore I supported Xenonauts 2.

Edited February 18, 2019 by Alienkiller

[Noether]

20 hours ago, Alienkiller said:

Yes it´s not finished yet. But the things which were to complex are done better, like the Airfight. The old Dogfightsystem was more stress then anything else. For the first 20 Ufos was it fun, but it repeated every time, every time and every time again. Between a Terror Attack. That was all.

No special things or something else. And if you wanted something better you had a fully research to do (like Armor, Weapons). That´s why the Devs said, we need a fully new Game, we can´t go on with that.

So we get Xenonauts 2. You don´t know what´s done better in being Modified / Overworked or completely new. Therfore you must be a Betatester.

So don´t blame something you haven´t tried or played yet. For that I like to give a cuff on your ears. After you got the Early Access and played it from beginning on you will be happy that the Game gets more and better features then it´s predecessor like the Atlas Base. And much more, we get missing Features from the Predecessor in (upgradeable Weapons, Armors and much more).

The Devs could have said we aren´t interested to do anything more. But instead they give us Xenonauts 2. A better Ground fighting System, everything in 3D, a much interesting Starting Base and many things more. I read here and in Kickstarter and show the Vids the Devs will give us. And the Concept is correct. Or the Concept from XCom (or the old X-Com), which belongs on the same. So if you uninterested in Xenonauts 2 you can play the old Xenonauts. But then don´t cry about missing features and a every same Gameplay / Playthrough. That´s why I don´t play the orignal Xenonatus anymore and therfore I supported Xenonauts 2.

I understod you. But all I'm saying, is that I like to manage my resourses and direct controll units. I feel response when I guide the plane, it feels like that there are real plane, the resoutl depends of my actions. I feel like it is reale bases somewere in Australia when I open the window and chose the plase for another hangar. Maybe a lot of micromanagement is not fun for somebody, but I'm sure that there are another options besides simplification of gameplay. I agree that it was monotonous sometimes, but I think this can be fixed. Maybe old systemwas fun only firs 20 times, but new isn't at all.

P.S.: I'm not in test team, but it didn't meens that I can't see situation.

[Chris]

It'd be best to hold off on any judgements for a while longer, as the two areas you're talking about (the base and the air combat) are the areas where we've not yet implemented our ideas in full or playtested them very much. We'll be discussing the base mechanics in more detail with the next update in 2-3 weeks.

[Alienkiller]

Thanks Chris, Beta 3 is comming up.

[Decius]

X1 had tactical air combat, but it wasn't particularly deep tactics. If the autoresolve wasn't 100%, take over, fly behind the enemy, and then deliver the entire ordinance into the back of the enemy.

Repeat

Repeat

Repeat

There's very little change between air combats, and there's a lot of them.

[Chris]

Yeah, that's the fundamental issue with the air combat - the air combat in X1 is as good as that model of air combat is ever going to be. We were already bumping up against the limits of the design with the stuff we put in for X1 so there's nowhere new for us to take it.

If we spend a load of time experimenting with new mechanics and can't find anything as good then we probably would move back to the old method, but it's a last resort because I doubt even people who liked the X1 air combat would be happy with getting exactly the same thing again with no improvements.

[Dagar]

I am with Chris here in the sense that I feel that X2 should not have the same air game as X1. As awesome as it was, it does not really fit into a turn-based tactical game, and I have read numerous accounts of people who disliked it because of how hard it was to get into.

Having played FiraXCOM 1 and 2 I still feel it is the superior system compared to these two. FiraXCOM 1 was a joke of a game (watch and pray for luck, maybe use a consumable from time to time) and 2 abandoned it completely, both of which are no viable options for X2, I hope.

I don't know how to solve the issue with the air game, which is aggravated by the fact that I have not yet played the X2 version. But I encourage the Goldhawk team to take their time, orient on how real air combat in the Cold War period worked (and extraploate with cool SciFi abilities from there) and focus on tactical gameplay without any reaction component.

Elements of these encounters could be position, orientation, speed, height, aircraft design (determining minimum and maximum values as well as change rate of parameters), pilot experience and loadout.

[Charon]

4 hours ago, Chris said:

Yeah, that's the fundamental issue with the air combat - the air combat in X1 is as good as that model of air combat is ever going to be.

Wait, wait. I have to disagree completely. Since i hardly played the vanilla aircombat i cant remember it, but X-Division made so much more out of it. Hell, even XNT made it into a formidable and funny game to relax your nerves. The vanilla aircombat was nothing more than basic, but it had all its potential to be put into one of the best ever made arcade aircombat.

 

From here on out its a detailed description of the X-Division aircombat. Skip if you dont want to read it.

Fundamentally there are 5 types of aircraft

dogfighters - 2 cannons, fast, agile and nimble, dodge
bombers - heavy torpedo carrier, slow and slow to turn
hybrids - 1 cannon + 1 missile, your typical jack of all trades, master of none, very fast, low hp, 
semi bombers - this depends on the phase, but ranges from fast non-dodging 2 missile aircraft over to 1 missile 1 torpedo and able to dodge aircraft
super aircraft - depending on phase, but it gets an additional weapon slot, ranging from 2 cannon + 1 missile to 2 missile + 1 torpedo, the production of this kind of aircraft is limited by rare resources and is standardly hidden for players, superior stats

 

Here is a rundown on aircombat cannon weaponry:

autocannon: standart range, standar dps, higher total damage ( standart autocannon research + assimilated alien beams )
close encounter weapon: very short range, insanely high dps, low total damage ( mauser, focuslense, focusblast, shortcircuit )
zoning weapon: high rate of fire, good range, higher than 180 degree coverage, low total damage, average dps ( sonarpulse, sonicthruster, particlepulse )
long range weaponry: very long range, very small firing arc, low rate of fire, mediocre projectile speed ( can be dodged, evaded under circumstances ) ( spearcannon, corvettespearcannon, cruiserspearcannon, battlecruiserspearcannon )

missiles:
missile - normal range, normal dps, normal total damage ( sidewinder, aleniummissile, plasmamissile, fusionmissile, singularmissile )
anti-missile - eliminates incoming missiles and torpedos (antimissile, titaniummissile, blacktitmissile, particleantimissile )
spawner missile - splits total damage into smaller missiles to attempt to overload anti-missile systems when present, lower total damage ( hypermissie, lowsonicmissile, warpmissiles )
mines - well ... mines, can be outrun by walking speed, very high range, good total damage, but you will have to bait the UFO into them ( minimines, stealthmines )
piranhas - close quarter, high fire rate, high dps, low total damage, low range ( piranha, particlepiranha )

torpedos:
normal torpedo: normal range, damage, dps, total damage ( avalanche, aleniumtorpedo, plasma- , fusion- , singularitytorpedo )
long range torpedo: very high range, higher total damage, low rate of fire, ( gravity- , neutrino- , particletorpedo )

 

There are too many UFOs to be made to name, but here are a few features from which you could make your own.

standard forward beam: average everything
fighter beam: high rate of fire, high dps, lower range
standart alien missile: average everything but higher damage and lower rate of fire
fighter anti missile system: anti missile system with top of the art fire rate against missiles and torpedos, cant be overloaded
cruiser anti missiles: good range, low firing speed, can be overloaded
Long range spear cannon: very very long range "spear" projectile, fast projectile speed, very low rate of fire, narrow firing arc
drones: homing in drones which can be countered with anti missiles,  high speed, unlimited turn rate, long range

etc ...

 

The very basic aircombat system can be described like this ( blue is Xenonauts, while purplse means alien assets ):

 

And thats just what we did with the code which was already available. No give me functioning armour coding for UFOs and we could talk again ... .

Here is a 44 minutes preparation of how to take on a terror battleship in X-Division:

 

And thats just scratching the surface. 1 UFO out of 39 ( although 1 is unbeatable ).

 

In a nutshell i think there is a lot of room to improve. Seriously, taking a single side look to any other arcade aircombat game will make you overflow with ideas. Currently there are a lot of popular mobile aircombat games available, as a source of inspiration.

 

 

 

The reason why people complain is simply because most people who like turn based games, like them, because they dont like to do something which requires fast reflexes ( like turning a plane at the right moment ). They like turn based things because the are not ... real time stress. And the combined group of people who like arcade aircombat and turn based gameplay at the same time is propably smaller than either of them.

 

So i will propably have to support @dragesclaim that people who play XCOM play it for their ground combat missions. If you dont want to limit the player base who wants to get into the ground combat you cant make the aircombat too skill intensive ( like X-Division does ). But when its too easy people will complain it will be too repetetive. So i think whatever you do you could propably think about an "autoresolve" solution ( but not the X1 model ), or a simple visual representation like UFO Aftermath did. Because the aircombat is only there for people to get into the ground combat.

I personally like the triumvirat of Ground Combat ( turn based ), Geoscape ( real time, managing ) and Aircombat ( real time twitch skills ) for psychological reason i could write you one or two scientific papers about. But for most people easier is better ^^.

Against popular believe i like the FiraXCOM Enemy Unknown aircombat model quite well. Easy to understand, easy to execute and everything is just dice based. Big explosions and good visual representation. Propably one of the best approaches to the genre, and very similar to UFO aftermath, with some spice.

Edited February 21, 2019 by Charon

[Dagar]

I agree with @Charon in that X-Division brought out the full potential of the vanilla air game. Still, not a good fit in a turn-based game.

[Charon]

Just now, Dagar said:

I agree with @Charon in that X-Division brought out the full potential of the vanilla air game. Still, not a good fit in a turn-based game.

What did i say about people who like turn based gameplay, but not real time one ?

[Dagar]

... and I am one of the people who thoroughly enjoys the air game! I just feel that "real time" "mini" games do not have a place in a turn-based game (the contrary works better though). I am playing a game where I can take all the time I want to think for a reason. I also play other genres of games, but genre mixes (e.g. SpellForce) are usually not that well received (or very simplistic like Spore) for a reason. And SpellForce is the best genre mix example I can think of.

[Charon]

8 minutes ago, Dagar said:

but genre mixes (e.g. SpellForce) are usually not that well received (or very simplistic like Spore) for a reason.

I agree with you, and thats what my long post had at its core. You either make it so everbody can access the content, or you refrain from crossbreeding. Or you cater to the smaller group of people who like both. Or you cater to the small group of people who like both and implement a proper autoresolve system ( preferable with lots of flashy graphics so everybody feels good about winning ).

In the long run i dont recommend a turn based strategy minigame in a turn based strategy game, for the same reason people buy their favourite ice cream the most. Its not like they dislike other ice cream, but they only have a stomach so big for ice cream in general, and you want to fill that with your favourite one.

There is a reason why a minigame is radically different from other gameplay, but is in the best case optional.

Edited February 21, 2019 by Charon

[Ninothree]

1 hour ago, Charon said:

the triumvirat of Ground Combat ( turn based ), Geoscape ( real time, managing ) and Aircombat ( real time twitch skills )

Yup! This is what I love about the genre. You get to do a different set of tasks, using different skill sets, which all relate to one another in a meaningful way. Although I am not attached to any of those aspects remaining realtime/turnbased. Realtime ground combat is fun, previous games in the genre have shown that. I'm sure turnbased air combat could be cool, not that I've seen it yet. And there are about a million realtime/turnbased strategies out there to prove that large-scale strategy games can be fun.

[Decius]

The thing about a complex air combat system would be that it is blocking. If someone cannot perform up to par in that system, they cannot play the game.

Either there has to be some 'autocalculate' (X1 had that), the skill par has to be low (X1 had that even for non-autocomplete: most fights could be won with enough aircraft armed well enough doing the default behavior, even if you could do much, much better by giving smart orders) or the players with insufficient skill to win can be excluded from the intended playerbase (which I think is what X-Division does).

All of those outcomes work, but excluding players is dangerous to business. There's a lot of very good reasons to let the hardest, most complicated parts be implemented by mods, mostly related to making enough money that the team gets to make more games in the future.

Also, there's no reason why the real-time air combat section is actually necessary to having lots of strategic decisions about which aircraft/armament systems are ideal for a given interception. Just have UFOs with different weapons, and have an evasion check where weapons that are easy to evade are almost always evaded by craft that are good at evading, but weapons which are hard to evade are rarely evaded even by craft that are good at evading. Fire guided missiles and lasers at small evasive craft, and dumb rockets and slow-moving magic plasma balls at big, tough, unmaneuverable craft. Assign fast, evasive craft against inaccurate powerful weapons, big tough craft against weak accurate weapons, and lots of craft against weapons that are both accurate and powerful.

[Charon]

1 hour ago, Decius said:

(which I think is what X-Division does).

X-Division also has a No Airgame option which gives you 100% chance of victory as long as you keep your aircraft up to date and are intelligent enough to line up dogfighters vs alien interceptors, and bombers vs bigger UFOs. So you dont need to play the airgame in order to play X-Division. Mulligan shows this impressively: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHgIsPDtzjQ

 

 

1 hour ago, Decius said:

All of those outcomes work, but excluding players is dangerous to business. There's a lot of very good reasons to let the hardest, most complicated parts be implemented by mods, mostly related to making enough money that the team gets to make more games in the future.

+1.

Still, as a developer, you gotta be satisfied with your game.

1 hour ago, Decius said:

Also, there's no reason why the real-time air combat section is actually necessary to having lots of strategic decisions about which aircraft/armament systems are ideal for a given interception. Just have UFOs with different weapons, and have an evasion check where weapons that are easy to evade are almost always evaded by craft that are good at evading, but weapons which are hard to evade are rarely evaded even by craft that are good at evading. Fire guided missiles and lasers at small evasive craft, and dumb rockets and slow-moving magic plasma balls at big, tough, unmaneuverable craft. Assign fast, evasive craft against inaccurate powerful weapons, big tough craft against weak accurate weapons, and lots of craft against weapons that are both accurate and powerful.

+1. Top down shooter aircombat is still neat though.

[Alienkiller]

The Airfight / Sub-Fight from X-Com 1 (Enemy Unknwon), X-Com 2 (Terror from the Deep) and X-Com Apocalypse were the best. Played many Games of that Gerne (UFO Afterlight, Aftermath, Aftershock, UFO Extraterestials and some spin offs) and the new XCom Titels with XCom EU / EW has the Dogfights, but no one come to the cool Air / Subfights from the Originals. 

Chris and his Staff of Developers are trying to go back to that cool fights of the Basic Games from that Gerne. And that´s what matters. The Fights will be hard enough with the new old upgraded system. But most important is the tactical convenient to the rest of the Game.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Alienkiller

[Ninothree]

I think there is a lot of potential for the new air combat system, but I imagine that it will streamlined to the point that it is parcelled up with the geoscape strategy layer - so just giving two modes of game rather than three. However, it is too early to say what Goldhawk are going to do with the dogfights, and far too early to say what mods could unleash out of it. However basic it is in the vanilla game, I don't doubt X2Division will bump it up. 

The crucial thing is for X2 not to have the same problems as X1: that the air war can stymie a campaign, or that a non-insignificant proportion of players don't get on with the style. As @Decius says, all the time, effort and complexity will come from mods, the base game just needs to be a balanced platform.

In terms of overall direction, one thing I'd be interested in seeing is not so much related to the mechanics of aerial combat, but rather, the feel of it. I can't find the exact page I'm thinking of but this will do as an explanation. Essentially, it uses the example of Subset's FTL game, which really harnessed a feeling that most sci-fi junkies had through their childhood: being a spaceship captain and calling for the engineers to reroute power to the deflector shields. As the title of the article says, FTL satisfied a long-time yearning. I'm not suggesting that the aircombat mini-game in X2 should match up on equal terms, but I think that it is worth tweaking the style of it so that it feels like something people already know and love. So, since the mechanics will eventually be taken over by mods, I guess the question is what should the balanced platform of the base game aim to represent?

[Sentelin]

On 2/18/2019 at 5:47 PM, Noether said:

I looked throw the main fetures of X2 and was quite disapointed, because things which I like(and I gues many people too) are planed to be replaced. And I'm talking about geoscape.

Air combat was super cool. It was interesting stratigically and tactically . I would like to see how it's evolve, becoming more interesting with different options for different strategies. The atmosphere of X1's feels whery realistic to. In X2 there some sort illusion of control. If you have enough power you will beat UFO. It only depends of random, how many damage your fighters will receive. There is way come up with any kind of tactic. Yet again it feels awesom when you direct your planes in X1. You realy feels like commander.

Plenty of bases was also nice. As for me, the logistic was interesting. It maked atmosphere of serious organiztion as well. It also can evolves to become more interesting for player. Base planning system was interesting too. I'm sorry but my first thought when i saw ATLAS was "XCOM", but this kind of vertical construction is't best part of it.
I like clever game X1 was, but ut looks like X2 lossing best  of Xenonauts.

it never cease to amaze how much people praise the prior installment in comparison to new installment by very opinionated reasons (and often the features that were among the most criticized, equally positive and negative) .

X-1 air combat system was double edge sword and opinions were split a lot people like it, a lot people found it impossible to play with ( I have been with this game before it launched out of EA) and hence why developers given players option to auto-resolve ( it wasn't there initially). Atmosphere in X1 was again hit or miss, it's a very biased point made there again.

About the bases, while they may have been taken out of picture there are so many more new elements to the Geospace and overall across the board to breath in fresh air into the game. What X1 really excel at was tactical combat on the ground (which was and is , meat and butter of the game) and lacked a lot in so many other areas that I personally and many others have incorporated with mods. Now this is my statement and I don't represent anyone but I can speak for some people I know, that X1 linear progression, sparse of events and more ways to interact on geopsace, or to be more precise lack there of, were main faults of X1.

Now, you may not like some changes and developers can't please everyone,however, maybe wait a bit more and have a chance to see how all new features come together to give a new fresh experience with a spirit of X-1, because I sure am not going to pay for a make over for a nostalgia sake - and likely plenty of others.

[Charon]

I cant help to come back to make another point.

 

Total War Rome 1 is very similar in the fact that it also employs a triumvirat. Geoscape ( turn based ) Ground Combat ( Real time, pausable ) and Sea Combat ( Ships vs Ships ). Now the last point in the series is 100% autresolve. Up until Total War: Empire, including Rome 1, every naval battle was an autoresolve only.
Now there were players who wished for full scale naval battles, and after Empire came the players who said it was awful in comparasion to the land battles, and then they removed it in later installements again, giving birth to the players who lamented the lack of sea combat gameplay.

So what can we learn from this ?

(1)   Even AAA games substitute large parts of their games with autoresolve solutions
(2)   That is ok as long as they focus on the quality of things people do like. Grand scale armies clashing together in a detailed Land Combat Environment. Simply put: dont forget what your game is about.
(3)   Implementing a third aspect to the game with the same quality is not only very resource intensive and will propably be not be on par in comparasion to the main focus of the game. This is the same aspect as when people say that food can either be 1. fast 2. good or 3 cheap. Ofcourse people want to have fast, good and cheap food, but realistically you can only maximise two aspects.

This sums it together pretty nicely:

Quote

ive said it before, and i say it again, naval battle? no, naval combat on campaign map, yes, so you have the ability to buy ships wich are used only for attacking other ships or blockade ports, it will require tiny 3d models on the campaign map , not much work imo, similar to eu 4, i think that will be doable.

I personally didnt miss the naval combat in Rome 1, and i was happy to not spend time on something which is on a lower quality as the rest of the game.

Edited February 24, 2019 by Charon

[Dagar]

Agree. The thing is that Goldhawk are in a bit of a bind here since X1 already had air combat. If they now switch to autoresolve only, in my perception this would get them a bad reception with the players already familiar with the franchise, which, let's be honest, will be the biggest part of the customer base.

[Charon]

1 hour ago, Dagar said:

Agree. The thing is that Goldhawk are in a bit of a bind here since X1 already had air combat. If they now switch to autoresolve only, in my perception this would get them a bad reception with the players already familiar with the franchise, which, let's be honest, will be the biggest part of the customer base.

Which is why i suggest a visual eye pleasing candy. I just wouldnt want that developers to pretend that the aircombat would need any skill to begin with, or go wtih a proper solution. But we already discussed what that means. The Utopia of good, fast and cheap food.

I would rather like them to focus on things which DO matter. Like integrating a detailed "what happens in air combat has an effect on ground combat" feature(s).

Here is a fast eye pleasing eye candy which is over in 16 seconds, and optionally can have a detailed connection between aircraft weapons used, UFO parts hit and which information can be transmitted to the players in various stages.

 

You can make infinite stages between this and the X1 aircombat.

Edited February 24, 2019 by Charon