What's the late game looking like?

[Doctor Snidely is the Bae]

Specifically, how are the changes to the air war going to factor into the late game? Psionics (I swear I read something on here that alien mind control has been removed for X2, but I might be mistaken)? The actual "Engame" itself? I always thought it would be cool to have multiple win conditions for endgame... maybe if you failed to assassinate the High Praetor or something, you could try to shoot down the Dreadnought or take out Reaper hives across the globe... anyway, is there anything specific for what the late game of X2 will be like right now?

[Max_Caine]

There isn't an end game yet - well, not really. The beta has been more focussing on adding features, getting things working and determining the direction the game will take. So not real endgame yet. Oh, and there is mind control. Not quite as deadly as in X1, but as annoying if there's enough of it. 

[garyg]

39 minutes ago, Max_Caine said:

There isn't an end game yet - well, not really. The beta has been more focussing on adding features, getting things working and determining the direction the game will take. So not real endgame yet. Oh, and there is mind control. Not quite as deadly as in X1, but as annoying if there's enough of it. 

Glad to hear that something is being done to mind control. I have played the game for many hours in spite of the fact that I hated the mind control aspect of the game. That alone proves my high opinion of X1 but if X2 still has a aggravating, frustrating, annoying, hair pulling, fist through the monitor mind control, I will seriously reconsider buying it. No, that's a lie. I'd buy it anyway. Love the game.

[Max_Caine]

So the way "Mind War" in X2 currently works is, if a soldier is affected it by it you have a full turn before it kicks in to do something. If you kill the alien who used Mind War on said soldier then it stops before it even starts. Otherwise, you can do things like drop the gun the soldier is carrying, or send the soldier off somewhere they can't be a problem. Or you can build mindshields which go into the secondary slot. There are options. It only really gets annoying if you have qute a few aliens using Mind War at once. 

[Doctor Snidely is the Bae]

1 hour ago, Max_Caine said:

So the way "Mind War" in X2 currently works is, if a soldier is affected it by it you have a full turn before it kicks in to do something. If you kill the alien who used Mind War on said soldier then it stops before it even starts. Otherwise, you can do things like drop the gun the soldier is carrying, or send the soldier off somewhere they can't be a problem. Or you can build mindshields which go into the secondary slot. There are options. It only really gets annoying if you have qute a few aliens using Mind War at once. 

Oh sweet! So I don't have to do the "strategy" in X1 where you

1. Hoped the Praetor on crashed Battleships was already dead by the time you got there.
2. Avoided any missions with Caesans (and if you were Reaperphobic as well, like me, this really cut down the available Carrier missions to only Andron/Harridan sites).
3. Dropped all your soldiers' weapons on the ground every turn once you had breached the ship. This was the most effective, as I'm pretty sure the AI didn't know how to pick up weapons/throw grenades unless they were in the soldier's hand, but it was a time sink to have to do this every turn.

Are there any plans to have local forces be mind-controllable?

[garyg]

1 hour ago, Max_Caine said:

So the way "Mind War" in X2 currently works is, if a soldier is affected it by it you have a full turn before it kicks in to do something. If you kill the alien who used Mind War on said soldier then it stops before it even starts. Otherwise, you can do things like drop the gun the soldier is carrying, or send the soldier off somewhere they can't be a problem. Or you can build mindshields which go into the secondary slot. There are options. It only really gets annoying if you have qute a few aliens using Mind War at once. 

Sounds good!

[TrashMan]

On 5/9/2020 at 3:40 PM, Max_Caine said:

So the way "Mind War" in X2 currently works is, if a soldier is affected it by it you have a full turn before it kicks in to do something. If you kill the alien who used Mind War on said soldier then it stops before it even starts. Otherwise, you can do things like drop the gun the soldier is carrying, or send the soldier off somewhere they can't be a problem. Or you can build mindshields which go into the secondary slot. There are options. It only really gets annoying if you have qute a few aliens using Mind War at once.  

 

Speaking of Mind War, I can think of 3 different ways to spice it up/make it better, since 1 turn to activate it seems cheap: The soldiers fighting back during the Mind War.

 

1) The higher his willpower, the higher the penalties on all attributes while the soldier is MC'd. Even if he cannot fully break out of it, he can shoot worse than a star wars stormtrooper

2) The solider under MC gets a semi random TU cost increase for all actions (dependent on willpower)

3) The soldier under MC can at semi-ranom intervals (depending on willpower) simply suddenly stop and loose TU's

 

All of these simulate a soldier fighting back.

[ooey]

On 5/9/2020 at 2:40 PM, Max_Caine said:

So the way "Mind War" in X2 currently works is, if a soldier is affected it by it you have a full turn before it kicks in to do something. If you kill the alien who used Mind War on said soldier then it stops before it even starts. Otherwise, you can do things like drop the gun the soldier is carrying, or send the soldier off somewhere they can't be a problem. Or you can build mindshields which go into the secondary slot. There are options. It only really gets annoying if you have qute a few aliens using Mind War at once. 

In xen 1 it also gets really annoying on the big ships where the psi aliens hide on the bridge at the top of the ship and affect your soldiers, even if no other alien can see them. This is not really fair as you have a whole bunch of aliens in between you and them. Line of sight rules should apply - if an alien can see your soldier then they can psi-op him. That's fair enough isn't it?

Also, I never really worked out if those things that could teleport in xen1 got to fire directly after they teleported. I would presume they teleported and then got to act on their next turn (in the same way that a Paratroop unit drops and takes time to gather together before it can attack). Otherwise teleportation is just too powerful.

Edited May 12, 2020 by ooey

[Doctor Snidely is the Bae]

18 hours ago, ooey said:

Also, I never really worked out if those things that could teleport in xen1 got to fire directly after they teleported. I would presume they teleported and then got to act on their next turn (in the same way that a Paratroop unit drops and takes time to gather together before it can attack). Otherwise teleportation is just too powerful.

Nah, it says on the wiki (I think) that Wraiths take 100% of their TUs to teleport. They always seem to teleport somewhere right behind your squad where a well-placed shotgun blast can put them down. Frankly, I think it generally hinders them more than anything else.

[ooey]

That's fine as long as you always take a look behind you (using some TUs to do so in the process)!

 

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by ooey

[Doctor Snidely is the Bae]

The Wraiths are probably my favorite alien for that reason... no psionic BS, no resistance to kinetics, no one-hit kill zombifying attack, somewhat stupid AI, goofy-looking... it's great.

[Max_Caine]

I'd warn everyone now not to expect the same abilities and playstyle of aliens in X2 as they are in X1. As an example, while Sebillians do play very similarly, Androns are considerably different. One of the big differences is that they explode like a micro-nuke when you kill one, so being near them is a Very Bad Idea. Hopefully we'll see more exploration of alien abilities in later builds. 

[ooey]

Sounds good, though I wonder how we are going to capture one for examination in that case?! Perhaps there's a chance that they won't explode in a fireball. In the original UFO it was the Cyberdiscs that tended to explode.

Edited May 13, 2020 by ooey

[Doctor Snidely is the Bae]

So... does that mean Reapers still have the one-hit kill attack? Or are they going to be more like Chryssalids now (more of a nuisance than anything in the late game)?

[ooey]

The problem with the reapers is I've noticed that they sometimes seem to appear from nowhere. I saw a reaper on a farm-scape way ahead of my soldiers in a dropship (no other entry point so it must have been the same one). I moved the soldier that saw him back to safety because I couldn't kill it. Then on the alien turn it somehow managed to come very close without five soldiers, who were facing in the same direction as its path with plenty of reserve fire, managing to see it until it was right upon them like it somehow 'warped' up! needless to say it wrecked my squad and I had to abort the mission. This was in Xen1 though, and I just hope this unfairness isn't carried over to xen 2.

In reality it would have been taken down before it got anywhere near my squad (which all had reactions of over 60). All a little unfair.

Edited May 14, 2020 by ooey

[Alienkiller]

No Endgame yet. The Betas can test about 6 or 7 Gameplaymonth of the Game with any implementation are already in. The Game is still WIP and will be for a longer time. And it outstrip it´s predecessor in most Parts, that we can say already.

In the remaining Parts it´s in big WIP to not have the old and boring X1-Feeling. We all (incl. Beta-Testers) aren´t knowing what the Devs give us as surprisses on the way to the Endgame and in the Endgame.

[ooey]

So from a beta testers point of view you're saying it's only really the endgame that is looking sparse (and the air combat) and everything else is pretty much complete? That sounds all good for a Christmas release; if so that's fine with a lot of us I think.

It's interesting to get a view on this from Chris and his team in the updates and also from the lads beta-testing to see what they think too. Hopefully the opinions of both converge - then we know we're getting somewhere :-).

Edited May 16, 2020 by ooey

[Max_Caine]

Well, I'd say a lot of the systems are complete, but it needs more content. Aliens in particular need more alien-y abilities to help them stand out from each other. There's more systems coming into v13 so it's really a case of wait and see if those systems pan out. 

[Alienkiller]

@ ooye:

That I would not say. Many things are already in for the first 5 to 6 Month of Play, that´s true. But they aren´t ready for public yet. Like Max_Caine said, this all need more content. There will be comming more in Beta 13. If the Nerve-Bolters get lucky an Early Access could be ready around in Winter.

But we have to see. Like I said before all is WIP and many things could change during the Development for the Base Game. I have seen many Changes in Early Access Development (the last Early Access I remember was Squadron 303) and that we like to reduce to a Minimum.

[Chris]

As Max says, the content is still sparse throughout the entire game. We've mostly built the systems and game mechanics that power the game (which is the hardest and most time consuming thing) and now we're in the process of adding the art / levels / writing / game balance that makes a playable game ... but there's still some way to go on that front, and until that is mostly done the average mission in X2 will play worse than the average mission in X1 does.

The changes for the late game can't really be confirmed until we start testing the full campaign from end-to-end as changes can only really be evaluated by testing the changes in the context of a proper gameplay session. Right now the campaign isn't well enough balanced for us to be able to tell how cool / annoying they are in practice, and we'll be revising our plans based on community feedback during the Early Access period.