V25 Gameplay / Balance Feedback thread:

[Kamehamehayes]

2 hours ago, Melee said:

 

• Why no captures and corpses on Cleaner data mission?

That's because you and to go to the dropship and escape to complete the mission. Thus, your strike team did not stay and collect any corpses, captures, or weapons on the ground after mission conclusion. You only get the few cleaner harddrives that you stole. 

It's not very well explained in game imo, and it is easy to forget. I think it should be clear that you collect nothing in later builds. 

[Emily_F]

4 hours ago, Kamehamehayes said:

That's because you and to go to the dropship and escape to complete the mission. Thus, your strike team did not stay and collect any corpses, captures, or weapons on the ground after mission conclusion. You only get the few cleaner harddrives that you stole. 

It's not very well explained in game imo, and it is easy to forget. I think it should be clear that you collect nothing in later builds. 

I had stunned a cleaner on the mission and was also unable to pick up the body to carry it back to the dropship

[Melee]

10 hours ago, Kamehamehayes said:

That's because you and to go to the dropship and escape to complete the mission.

Yes, from a roleplay angle, but the normal retreat mechanic isn't used. I think I've had everyone but snipers in the dropship and didn't get asked about leaving. The mission just ends when everyone is in. Abduction missions just end too, but they yield loot(?).  I thought it was to prevent infinite cleaner farming.  I'm always out of money. 

[Melee]

6 hours ago, Emily_F said:

I had stunned a cleaner on the mission and was also unable to pick up the body to carry it back to the dropship

Moving bodies isn't possible anywhere I've tried (alien base, alien favorite cover spot, etc).  Could they in X1?  Maybe that was X-Division thing.

[Kamehamehayes]

1 minute ago, Melee said:

Moving bodies isn't possible anywhere I've tried (alien base, alien favorite cover spot, etc).  Could they in X1?  Maybe that was X-Division thing.

I think she mean picking the bodies off the ground into the soldier backpack. The same way you can pick other items off the ground. 
 

15 minutes ago, Melee said:

Yes, from a roleplay angle, but the normal retreat mechanic isn't used. I think I've had everyone but snipers in the dropship and didn't get asked about leaving. The mission just ends when everyone is in. Abduction missions just end too, but they yield loot(?).  I thought it was to prevent infinite cleaner farming.  I'm always out of money. 

With abduction missions, the aliens teleport the abductees and leave the area, so you technically secure the combat area. Same with ufo crash sites if you hold the ufo for 5 turns. I think its implied that the rest of the aliens escape. Which are both different from the cleaner hq mission where all of your soldiers escape (and don't secure the combat area).
although, it is definitely unclear what happens after mission conclusion. I adding cutscenes that depicts the dropship leaving or have sound effects that clearly show that the abductees are teleporting away and the remaining aliens escaping is probably the simplest way of conveying this visually. 

[Melee]

1 minute ago, Kamehamehayes said:

I think she mean picking the bodies off the ground into the soldier backpack...

I understood. I've tried unsuccessfully to move bodies via backpack to prevent them being blown up by flashbangs before, or to stack neatly in the corner out of the way.  I don't think moving is disallowed only on the data mission.

 

4 minutes ago, Kamehamehayes said:

With abduction missions, the aliens teleport the abductees and leave the area, so you technically secure the combat area. 

Accepting this scenario, then why don't they teleport their dead, stunned, and advanced weapons too to prevent capture by the Xenonauts.  The aliens are flaky.

[Kamehamehayes]

10 hours ago, Melee said:

I understood. I've tried unsuccessfully to move bodies via backpack to prevent them being blown up by flashbangs before, or to stack neatly in the corner out of the way.  I don't think moving is disallowed only on the data mission.

 

Accepting this scenario, then why don't they teleport their dead, stunned, and advanced weapons too to prevent capture by the Xenonauts.  The aliens are flaky.

I haven't tried putting the bodies in the backpack, but assumed you can because you could do it in Xen 1 and the original xcom. But I guess you can't do that anymore. This also means that you are completely locked out of the cleaner interrogation project until after the cleaner base assault, which means the +10% damage to cleaners from that project is completely worthless. Although interestingly, a soldier can die in the cleaner intelligence mission and be left behind, yet still survive after mission conclusion from what I've heard. I don't think it's a bug, but it is very weird that soldiers can come back after lying on the ground but mars wreckages cannot. 

You did kill all of those aliens, and all that equipment and dead bodies probably won't be able to fit into the pods. Also, the aliens do not have enough time or capacity to do so (because the game runs on a tus system and you cannot legally pick up bodies right now).  The devs probably have to better explain what actually happens after the missions. 

I do have something else to talk about though. What are people's opinions on sniper rifles and machineguns right now? This is probably the result of my playstyle, but I really struggle to take advantage of there extra accuracy if a soldier doesn't move. It doesn't feel like most of the maps are open enough to take advantage of it and/or I play too fast for them to be useful. Perhaps implementing something like leaning would alleviate the problem slightly, but what are your guys thoughts? 

[Melee]

58 minutes ago, Kamehamehayes said:

...What are people's opinions on sniper rifles and machineguns right now?

I usually take one sniper each mission and aim for them to have a secondary knife, stun baton, pistol, or lots of 'nades so they can do support or close quarters work once UFO is reached.  Before that I try to stick them in a spot where multiple flanks are covered and they are out of alien weapon range. They only move a few times during the mission.  Most of the time, I'm trying to capture everything so I can sell the captives. Snipers help the first few months killing aliens that must die this turn and later for damaging armored aliens and Sebillians.  They are situational, like the Cleaner data mission where I take two to cover the building sides.  Often the recruits with best accuracy have no strength to do anything else.  Once they strengthen up, I move them to other roles.

I usually take one machinegun each mission too, but I don't like the machinegun as much.  Using one to suppress at distance doesn't seem to work as well in X2 and they usually just get shot in return.  In an "assault" type role they are good one-bursting drones and mentarchs if close enough, but they seem to miss alot even with high acc and str.  Overall, meh.

[asdfcyber]

18 hours ago, Kamehamehayes said:

What are people's opinions on sniper rifles and machineguns right now?

I feel like the use of snipers is limited because almost all maps have a lot of cover without great elevated positions. I'd say that for defending open areas they would be good, but aliens don't really come to you so you need to go to them. That costs TU's, and sniper rifles are expensive to fire. They have more damage per shot than a rifle, but because firing costs more I think the damage per turn is lower. Sniper rifles feel like slightly more accurate but also more limited rifles to me.

Machineguns are only good if used by a soldier with high-ish accuracy, but especially with upgrades they can be extremely effective. I've been able to kill two aliens in one burst with them if they line up nicely. Also good in other kinds of target-rich environments like UFO's. I don't use them for suppression, because flashbangs are far more reliable.

[Kamehamehayes]

6 hours ago, asdfcyber said:

I feel like the use of snipers is limited because almost all maps have a lot of cover without great elevated positions. I'd say that for defending open areas they would be good, but aliens don't really come to you so you need to go to them. That costs TU's, and sniper rifles are expensive to fire. They have more damage per shot than a rifle, but because firing costs more I think the damage per turn is lower. Sniper rifles feel like slightly more accurate but also more limited rifles to me.

Machineguns are only good if used by a soldier with high-ish accuracy, but especially with upgrades they can be extremely effective. I've been able to kill two aliens in one burst with them if they line up nicely. Also good in other kinds of target-rich environments like UFO's. I don't use them for suppression, because flashbangs are far more reliable.

I can definitely see machineguns being incredibly powerful weapons in the right circumstances. A 10 round burst form someone with decent accuracy sounds pretty awesome. But it feels like a soldier would have to have a strong assets in str, tus, and accuracy in order to make such a strategy more effective. That reminds me a lot of X1 where machineguns were pretty weak in the earlygame, but got increasingly better as soldier stats improved (with it peaking when predator armor was researched). It seems like this game has a very similar progression with machineguns so far. I'll experiment more with machineguns more once v26 comes to the open beta (which I suspect will happen at a similar timeframe to a couple of months ago, so the 1st or 2nd hotfix). 

[captainwolfer]

So I forgot this game existed for a while, then was reminded by a video and downloaded and have been playing V25.5. Here are my thoughts, having gotten up to day 53:
Note: I constantly reload saves, basically whenever I lose a Xenonaut I reload to the start of the turn to try to avoid dying by doing something different.

• Strategic Thoughts
  • Aircraft weapons are way too expensive. Why are missiles as expensive as a whole airframe. Also, I think sidewinders should be free, since all-aspect sidewinders have existed since 1977, and they can lock onto anything that isn't exactly matching air temperature. I can understand why torpedoes would need to be built, though, since there aren't any "heavy" air to air missiles like what torpedoes do.
  • Workshop build times feel pretty long for some items, especially weapons. I know I can build more workshops but I don't have the spare cash.
  • Cleaners are kinda interesting. One nitpick I have is: why do cleaners increase panic. I think cleaners should actually reduce panic (because they are covering up invasion signs), but also reduce how much income the Xenonauts can get (So once you destroy the cleaners your income should spike a lot)
  • Basically I think there should be more cleaner and scout hunting missions before abductions and terror missions start happening.
  • Aside from scout UFO missions, I have had the 1st cleaner mission, the cleaner intel mission, 1 abduction mission, and 1 destroyer UFO mission
  • In terms of air combat, It has mostly been scouts, but I have also shot down 2 destroyers, and I saw a flight of 2 UFO fighters flying around but my 3 interceptors were too damaged to attack them.
  • I started in the middle east, and once I got 1st month's funding I built a base in central america, for interceptors, although I haven't managed to build new aircraft for it yet.
  • I think that anything that isn't used to build something should automatically be sold. I don't know what I might need later, and given that base storage is apparently limited I don't want to have to micromanage base storage to ensure it isn't filled up with stuff I should have sold. It would basically be adding a direct payout to ground missions based on how many enemies you killed via gunfire vs needing explosives.
• Tactical combat thoughts:
  • My standard squad loadout has been 2 Assaults, 4 rifles, 1 MG, 1 Grenadier, and 1 Sniper.
  • Grenades are great for tough situations, but not OP due to short range and limited uses. I didn't appreciate them until the cleaner intel mission, where the 4 cleaners on overwatch looking right at the helicopter posed a problem, until I used smoke and a lot of frag grenades to deal with them (but it took a few save reloads to get to that method)
  • I feel like riflemen firing bursts should be more accurate at close range than they currently are. As it stands I rarely use 3 round bursts, because I would rather take one shot with a 80% hit chance than 3 with 30% hit chance.
  • MG doesn't feel very reliable about suppressing targets with 10 round burst, I find using flashbangs is usually more reliable for suppression.
  • The abduction mission was interesting. I felt very rushed, and so far it has been the only mission where I had soldiers die (despite reloading a save from the start of the turn). I underestimated how many aliens would be in a building, and 3 soldiers got killed when the aliens rushed out and attacked.
  • It is hard to figure out when my soldiers will actually have useful overwatch and shoot aliens (I know it has to do with reflexes, gun used, and amount of TU left). It is also really annoying when overwatch is wasted on long range shots.
  • On the cleaner intel mission, I think that the cleaner agents (the ones in suits) should have pistols. You are told they would be lightly armed, but they seem to have the same guns as the normal Cleaner soldiers. I also think that instead of starting with 4 cleaners looking at your helicopter, they should start in the building and rush out, instead of being ready to shoot your soldiers right away (This would represent them being surprised and not ready for a fight).
• Humorous thoughts:
  • My machine gunners are apparently cursed. They have taken more injuries than any other role.

[Kamehamehayes]

For v26 balance issues, should I continue posting here or will a v26 balance thread be made in the near future? 

[Emily_F]

I've recently reported what I think has to be a bug; namely that I have played ONE map whenever I have downed a UFO over a medium size, no matter where I down it.  It's gotten REALLY boring.  If it isn't a bug, I think the devs need to focus all their efforts (excluding bugfixes) building more maps.  Earlier in development I am sure they said it was a laborious process, but if that is the case, couldn't someone build a map editor?

[MARSHalMELLOW]

C4 vs Demo charge. 

Currently

• Demo Charge = space; 2x2, weight; 5, grenade range
• C4 = 2x3, 15 and 1 tile range

Quote

I find I am using the Demolition Charges more commonly due to Grenade throw range, and they are lighter to equip vs c4, taking up only 2x2 vs 2x3 slots in the back pack and generally effective at clearing any terrain tiles. While risking less exposure to troops. 

I would reduce C4 to 1x2 blocks each with their weight reduced to 5 each too. more compact due to precise placement on a specific tile.

Going one further: Creating a demolitions Class;

1. Using the capability of either single 1x2 C4 to breach specific access points at one tile range.
2. Thrown C4, consuming 2(1x2) C4 at a greater range, still less than Frag, stun and smoke grenades.

[MARSHalMELLOW]

Will the Molle and tactical equipment pouches be directly interactable. For example:

Putting Steel plates in the backpack makes sense vs being shot in the back, but slotting it into the soldiers plate carrier, with the top edge visible just covering the orange tag. 

Each standard Class having specialised carriers for their kit:

• Snipers having a Pistol holder on the leg, reducing TU for switching weapons.
• Grenadiers having a grenade belt, reducing TU for throwing grenades.
• Assault Having their Knife or Stun Baton in one pistol holster slot a C4 in the other, for reduced TU to use it. 
• Heavy, Gaining Exo legs, adding a flat carry cap bonus, add Pneumatic piston melee(Researchable).
• Riflemen, their Medical kit in one pistol holster slot.

 

[Sorbicol]

So: Having got to day 278 in v25.5 I've got a couple of thoughts. Ultimately my defence of Earth failed because I didn't get enough coverage up quick enough to prevent Latin America and Asia leaving the coalition (this was mainly down to me not really realising how those panic counters worked)  but I also felt like I fell behind the power curve a little. Some of that was me I think, some of it was what I would consider some odd design choices, and some of it what I assume are bugs? Not sure if they are deliberate or known about for v25.5, so apologies if they are and I just didn't realise. 

General Thoughts

1. Overall balance on Veteran felt about right - a proper challenge requiring some decent tactical thinking not to suffer continual losses. It did take me a while to work out some optimal play patterns there, but there are enough options in terms of grenades and things to shake things up if you feel you need to. 

2. Weapon progression felt fine, but you seem to get stuck on Guardian Armour before you get to the Colossus suits for a very long time. Before I got near the power suits, if I got hit (and boy  those late game Aliens are very accurate with their fire) then it was one-shot death time. It does feel like you should be hitting the power suits about the same time as the Gauss weapons, not after. Maybe that was me and my research choices, but it didn't feel like I was actively ignoring better materials. 

3. The cost of aircraft and aircraft improvement is prohibitive, and one of the reasons why I didn't expand new bases as much as I apparently should have. I would never have been able to afford the amount of interceptors that would have needed, and build the bases, and arm them etc. The economy felt distinctly off there, missiles / guns costing that much should be like Vehicle weapons - one payment enough for an unlimited supply.

4. I think one of the main factors there was the reduction in sell price once you'd sold a few items. I get the idea, I like that idea, but maybe that reduction should be on some sort of "supply and demand" basis rather than a flat, permanent reduction? It felt overly stingy to be honest, funding your organisation on the black market has always been a major component of XCOM style games!  

5. Air Combat - manual Air Combat - felt right, finally. No longer was it just a case of endlessly clicking "auto-resolve". Big thumbs up from me there, much better! 

6. The Cleaner base needs to appear later in the game. No matter what I did, at the time that occurs in-game (Accelerated weapons, Warden Armour) I couldn't complete it with losing the majority of the team I sent in. You don't like to let it linger due to the panic penalty. It just feels like something that maybe should happen later in the game.  It is the biggest difficulty spike in the game by some distance. 

7. Your vehicles - MARS/ARES - correctly draw a lot of fire. However no matter how well armoured they were, they never withstood more than 2 shots before blowing up, often just the one late game. I did feel like they should have a little more survivability than that. The Sentry Guns in the Cleaner HQ withstood several shots from my soldiers with markedly less Armour. Again, I wasn't sure if that was a feature or a bug. 

8. Clearing out the larger UFOs became something of a chore in the late game before the end. They are very very big! It's just a personal feeling I guess, but could you make the UFO the focal point of the map so you spend less time clearing the map before storming the UFO, that would be nice. It just felt like it was dragging everything out unnecessarily. I appreciate that might be a minority viewpoint though!

 

Possible Bugs - I never got the option to research or build laser cannons - there was a long wait from accelerated cannons to Gauss cannons. Similarly, Gauss Blasters never became available , although Advance Gauss Blasters did - but I couldn't build any as I couldn't build the previous level blasters.  I wasn't sure quite what was going on there, whether it was a bug or deliberate for the v25.5 build. It made aircraft progression very disjointed.  

Having said that, if I transferred aircraft weapons back and forth from my original and second base they did seem to reproduce, although they would correctly show as "transferred" on screen, I would end up with 2 new weapons in the destination base, while the copies would still be available at the source base.  I won't lie, I ended up exploiting that. I guess that's a definite bug, not a possible one. 

Over all thoroughly enjoyable! 

 

[Alienkiller]

As an Beta-Tester from beginning on I agree that the Game is very good after the Refits, Reworks, Upgrades and Bugfixes it get already.

Now to your Points:

1. Yeah, the Balance for Difficultys get in since that Version, which were very important. Some light balances they still need here & there.

2. Yeah, the Warden-Armour-Upgrade and Guardian-Armour you get very fast for your Soldiers and are a must have for a long time. That´s cool Stuff, esp. if you combine the first one later with the upgraded Suit (Stealth Suit) to get the Snipers and other Specialists an more advancement. The Weapon-Upgrade to Accelerated- and Laser-Weapons is very cool too in the Beginning for your Soldiers, esp. the Accelerated-Upgrade for your Standard-Weapons directly in the Beginning.

2b. If you use your Support-Vehicles correctly, then you won´t loose them. Where I give you right is that the light Steel-Plating / Alien Armour-Plating-Upgrade gives not to much protection at the beginning. If you use the full Steel-Plating / Alien Armour-Plating-Upgrade you will loose some APs, but it can be used as an barrier for your Soldiers in open Areas.

3. Yeah, that´s an Problem, where we discussing and experiment for longer. Either the Weapon- / Protection- ect.-Upgrades for the Aircrafts are to cheap or to expensive. An Middleway we haven´t found yet, but we still looking for it before the Early Access-Release.

4. Yeah, that´s an new Feature. With other Features for the Economy in that Game it will get more Upgrades before Early Access. We will see what the Devs get done for it in the next Versions (V.27+).

5. Yeah, I play only with manual Air-Combat. I love that challange.

6. The Cleaners are very good Opponents too. That more of them get shown is not only the big Whish from the Community, it´s too an big whish from us Main-Beta-Testers / Crowfounders. We got already the Promisse, that the Devs will integrate more of them as Missions, Specials etc. on the Geoscape to make the Storyline we have now from the Aliens, Xeononauts-Organistion and Cleaners much more exciting. In that Upgrade the Cleaner-Base-Mission will come later too.

7. The MARS / ARES have atm 2 Choises for Armors. Either the light Version with more APs (f. e. Steel- / Alien Alloy-Armor) or the heavyer Version with lesser APs (f. e. Steel- / Alien Alloy-Armor). We have to see what there for Upgrades or light Reworks come up for that Problematic in the more advanced Versions (V. 27+). We already testet an other Version of that in V.23 or V.24 already, which was nice with the heavy Protection as Standard. Hope that comes back again with the remaining modular Upgrades and switching between the Armors (like it is possible for the Raven in UFO 2 ET).

8. The Maps are very good. If you have ever played similar Games (like old X-COM-Series, UFO ET-Series, UFO-Aftermath-Series, new XCOM with more Outside-Parts of the UFOs) you have to controll the Map or Outside-Parts first until you storming the UFO. That´s realistic. I suggest you play this announced Games first to get the feeling for it. You won´t get an shortation of the Maps or similar.

V.26 will be similar to V.25 but with more Advancements as well as Gap-Fillers (like the Tutorial). Much more Ballance and Advancements we all will get in V.27 first.