My random thoughts on the first 40 or so days

[Skitso]

Many soldiers' hair sticks through his/her helmet in the inventory screen paper doll.

Shots blocked by armour and/or shield generate blood particle effects even if no damage was dealt. Need to be changed into sparks or similar with some "metallic thud" sfx.

The two cleaner cell missions feel way too identical with same buildings just shuffled in different positions. I feel at least the main building should be unique in each map.

MARS still crushing walls too easily and thus plotting routes way too aggressively. Increase wall crush TU cost by 1 or 2

Edited July 9, 2023 by Skitso

[Skitso]

@Chris Clearing the main control room in alien bases revealed the whole map in X1 to help hunting down the last roaming aliens. Should we have similar functionality in X2 too? Doesn't seem to work in Cleaner HQ at least.

I really wish night missions were a lot darker. In original XCOM the FOV faded into complete black and it created super tense atmosphere there. In Xenonauts 2, even the last visible tile of the unit's FOV is relatively bright. The area outside of the FOV is also very bright and doesn't even look that different compared to day missions. Night time could also benefit from a slight blue color grading / pallette switch for added mood. Underground missions would benefit visually from a slight FOV brightness fade instead of flat lighting they have now. Similar to night missions but with lesser effect. Would look and feel more like it's not under the sun.

I'm not getting enough information on what interceptors and aircraft weapons I should use against different UFO's. Is it meant to be just trial and error? I mean I have for example both sidewinders and torpedoes from day one and if I'm auto resolving everything, it's really hard to understand each weapons niche.

Could we still push lasers a bit further to give magnetic weapons more room?

Footsteps are removed after certain time. I understand this is done for performance reasons. However, persistent (for couple of turns even) footsteps would be a nice gameplay element for tracking enemies

Reapers are currently pretty much good for nothing. No threat whatsoever. Upcoming AI overhaul probably helps it's swarming tactics, but I'm not sure it's enough. Maybe add "fast mover" trait that gives like -50% hit chance or something. Or add more of them and make them bunch together.

To add a sense of threat from the cleaners at the beginning of the game, they could maybe do a small scale scripted base attack to also introduce that game mechanic to new players.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Skitso

[SoftwareSimian]

2 hours ago, Skitso said:

Clearing the main control room in alien bases revealed the whole map in X1 to help hunting down the last roaming aliens. Should we have similar functionality in X2 too? Doesn't seem to work in Cleaner HQ at least.

Doesn't work in cleaner HQ (although I think it should). Half-works in actual alien bases (the aliens disappear at the end of each turn and only reappear when a soldier moves to a new tile in the control center. To me that's a bug and somewhat immersion-breaking that I need to go back to the soldier I left in the control room (supposedly looking at the security cameras to see where the alien(s) are) and tell them to move to a random new tile to (reactivate the screen?)

[Skitso]

Now with my latest playthrough, continuing my random thoughts from my post above... I'm now a bit further than what I've usually played at day ~140 and the topmost feeling is still that the game's intensity and feeling of progression plateaus after the Cleaner sub plot is resolved. Things start to pickup only after first Alien Base is revealed and abductor UFO's start to appear (at day ~130-140?). What I think generates this feeling comes to few reasons:

1. UFO waves are too weak/far and in between around 90-120 days
2. Not enough terror missions.
3. No new UFO types are introduced
4. Lack of special "scripted" missions after Cleaner HQ mission
5. Lack of Scripted conversation cut-scenes. To keep them coming, It might be a good idea to add one for each new UFO class observation and mission type (Terror, Alien Base etc.)

Quick question about terror missions and alien bases @Chris: at what point earliest should they start spawning? If I have very good air superiority, how many and how often should they spawn?

[Skitso]

Raided an observer: Had one sebillian on 1st floor, 0 on 2nd floor and 1 seb + 1 mentarch on 3rd. Yeah, most of the crew must have been killed on crash, but still - even doubling that would feel too low.

Edited July 16, 2023 by Skitso

[Solver]

On my own playthrough, I can second the lack of Terror missions. It's not like I'm great at air superiority either, but hardly any Terror showing up.

Cleaner pacing might need some work. As an experiment, I did the Intel Hub late. Ignored it for a month, and only rolled into it during the second month, full Wardens and Lasers by that point. I of course dominated the hub, grabbed all the data and killed all Cleaners a turn before reinforcements started spawning. The mission is meant to be done earlier but perhaps it needs a bit more urgency? The difficulty curve of Cleaner Cells vs the HQ also doesn't feel quite right. The Cells are difficult missions, in particular the armoured one as it guarantees enemies will survive 1-2 more shots. After that, the HQ is a step down in difficulty. You can more carefully take your time and it's just easier than the Cells.

[DaviddesJ]

To be fair, the cleaner missions are a source of lots of income, so if you put them off maybe you are just handicapping yourself.

[Skitso]

On 7/17/2023 at 1:46 AM, Solver said:

On my own playthrough, I can second the lack of Terror missions. It's not like I'm great at air superiority either, but hardly any Terror showing up.

Cleaner pacing might need some work. As an experiment, I did the Intel Hub late. Ignored it for a month, and only rolled into it during the second month, full Wardens and Lasers by that point. I of course dominated the hub, grabbed all the data and killed all Cleaners a turn before reinforcements started spawning. The mission is meant to be done earlier but perhaps it needs a bit more urgency? The difficulty curve of Cleaner Cells vs the HQ also doesn't feel quite right. The Cells are difficult missions, in particular the armoured one as it guarantees enemies will survive 1-2 more shots. After that, the HQ is a step down in difficulty. You can more carefully take your time and it's just easier than the Cells.

Exactly. After Cleaner cells, the whole difficulty curve goes all wrong. And it's not just the cleaner HQ, but pretty much every mission going from there feels way too easy.

Sebillians are too easy compared to other alien races and all alien races feel too easy compared to cleaners that are super accurate for an early game enemy type.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Skitso

[Cik]

Just wanted to pop by and second the cleaner "issue". they seem on the whole much more threatening than alien enemy forces which are generally sebillians. On the second cleaner mission I have been demolished twice by the starting cleaner group(s) (out in front of the building among the container stacks.) They have you surrounded to start out with and they seem really, really accurate. Maybe aliens do slightly more damage but I step one foot out of heavy cover and these guys have me totally zeroed, just taking overwatch fire out of the fog all over the place.

I had lasers and defender/warden and it barely seemed to make much of a difference. Maybe if defender/warden made more of a difference vs. standard weapons it'd be easier, but it doesn't seem to help that much.

Just for scale I lost 6 reasonably skilled defender/warden armor with laser weapons to that mission for a failure, and a raid on a destroyer (landed, I think) I got through with like 1 loss (died as I entered the upper floor where there were 3 aliens at point blank range)

 

I think the cleaners are cool but they seem very good at what the player is also good at, which makes them difficult to stand toe to toe with (at least for me idk)

Could be they just have a really well prepared position in that one mission or bad luck but just throwing in 2 cents.

[Skitso]

Started a new playthrough with prototype 2.06 and here's my thoughts about the first 3-4 hours:

Pacing feels a lot better and I really like the slow start. However, the early story beats felt like the game assumes I should know what Cleaners are and it's a bit odd their initial introduction is so self-evident. Also, going back to the original base, while a cool mission, felt out of place for me. The whole organization was on a brink of total destruction at the end of the tutorial, people just barely fleeing with their lives, and only a few days later we go back and kill everyone. Sure, it's hand-waved in the briefing text, but it felt wrong nevertheless. I'm not sure how to make it feel better.... maybe make it an intel gathering mission instead of requiring to kill everything? I'm aware it's way too early for a (timed) intel gather mission, but maybe put it a bit later and have the first mission be something else?

Difficulty curve felt almost perfect. Only VIP (cleaner cell) missions still felt too punishing. Convoy ambush also took me by a surprise by giving the AI the fist turn. (which lead to a brutal blood path). More thought on these missions later.

I like that the Cleaner progression is more organic and tied to player actions/completing missions instead of a simple timer like before. As I mentioned above, I still feel the VIP (cleaner cell) missions are way harder than other missions at that point of the game. It might be a good idea to keep them persistent like before and spawn few of them at 50% progress so you can decide when to tackle them. It makes more sense lore wise for them to be persistent instead being available for only 3 days. It would also give a nice sense of progress and a change of pace at the half way point to have these bit tougher "mini boss" missions.

Same with intel gathering missions, they should be persistent. Troop and reporter rescue missions, abductions, convoy ambushes make more sense to be timed. Troop rescue mission is a great idea and I just wish the map was something more distinct than just a normal deathmatch area. It might also give the mission even more of a unique feeling if you needed to play with only six units until you find the three troops and only then you gain the control of them? Convoy mission map was also a nice change of pace, but it left me thinking wouldn't it make more sense for the ambushers to have the first turn - the whole point of the ambush is the element of surprise, isn't it? The convoy map also left me wanting more higher ground and proper sniping positions.

Mixing persistent and timed missions would make the geoscape gameplay more interesting by having situations where there'd be more than one mission available and the game would feel even more dynamic and organic.

The new probe UFO is a great addition and finally downing a first real UFO after hours of Cleaner missions felt properly fascinating and rewarding.

 

Edited October 8, 2023 by Skitso

[Skitso]

New armour system feels nice and intuitive and a clear improvement of what we had before. Should the heavy variation decrease the accuracy a bit too like before?

Now that the autopsy is manual research, I feel it costs too many man hours to complete. Something like 1d or 36h instead of the 3d we have now.

Did I understand the system correctly: interrogation gives damage and train boost while autopsy generates multi tier manufacture project that also boosts damage?

[Skitso]

Hmm, now that I've played a bit further, I feel the new armour system needs acc penalty back. The new system felt fine with the starter armour, but I feel the upgrade to warden was too binary. What I mean with that is that as soon as I researched it, I just manufactured 10 of them and equiped the whole team with it and switched everyone who has the carrying capacity into the heavy variant. That's it and it was a bit too one note experience with no interesting choices to make. With the old system I needed to at least consider the accuracy. I didn't want my snipers for example to wear any armour until stealth armour was available as they all decreased aim. Old heavy variant (armour module) also decreased inventory so that also added things to consider.

As the new system is indisbutably more intuitive and should be kept, what I propose is you add some acc penalty to heavy variants and make inventory grid size armour type dependant. This gives the player more interesting choices and forces you to make tough decisions about what armour to wear.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Skitso

[Raffik]

2 hours ago, Skitso said:

Hmm, now that I've played a bit further, I feel the new armour system needs acc penalty back. The new system felt fine with the starter armour, but I feel the upgrade to warden was too binary. What I mean with that is that as soon as I researched it, I just manufactured 10 of them and equiped the whole team with it and switched everyone who has the carrying capacity into the heavy variant. That's it and it was a bit too one note experience with no interesting choices to make. With the old system I needed to at least consider the accuracy. I didn't want my snipers for example to wear any armour until stealth armour was available as they all decreased aim. Old heavy variant (armour module) also decreased inventory so that also added things to consider.

Agree with almost everything written above. I have played just about 18 days of 2.06, here my observations so far:

The turorial is nicely overwritten and provides more wholesome picture, there is a small typo though - in the dialogue between the traitor general and the main characters before the attack on atlas base begins.

Perhaps the team of soldiers used in the tutorial could be also the starting team after the tutorial? The soldiers in the tutorial and at the game start seem to be different, although the xenonaut forces managed to retreat.

As the cleaner agents are now normal humans, there could be a chance to persuade some of them to join xenonauts as a side quest perhaps (captured agents for example)

Not sure if my understanding is correct - are the cleaners still EXDEF or now just Xenonaut traitors?

Some other observations from the first 18 days of V2.06 playthrough:

Weapon weight is shown without ammo in the armory now, but unloading and loading the weapon still seems to add the weight to soldiers inventory (loading the clip again after unloading reduces the weight carried actually).

HEVY has been nerfed from 35 dmg to 25, which renders it tactically almost useless, as the dmg output is the same as demo charge. Having a GL with loaded weight of 56 and only 4 shots is nonsense. The same soldier could carry 4 demo charges, a rifle and a grenade on top of it for 54 weight and be therefore tactically much better equipped.

The HEVY should fire in a shallow arc with longer range so that it can provide at least some advantage to the player. Or additional types of ammo for close range combat (buckshot f.e.)

LMG range reduced to 20 from 25. Perhaps it would be worth it reducing the 3-round burst TU cost, so that 2 could be fired in a turn?

Its a shame, that the Angel interceptors do not have 4 slots anymore, that seemed to be an interresting feature worth exploring more.

[skaianDestiny]

15 hours ago, Skitso said:

As the new system is indisbutably more intuitive and should be kept, what I propose is you add some acc penalty to heavy variants and make inventory grid size armour type dependant. This gives the player more interesting choices and forces you to make tough decisions about what armour to wear.

Absolutely agree with this.

[Komandos]

On 08.10.2023 at 15:51, Raffik said:

LMG range reduced to 20 from 25.

Does this mean that the machine gun is no longer a fire support weapon for the advancing soldiers? And if the machine gunner ran forward 1 tile and saw the enemy ahead of him at a distance of 25 tiles (range of vision), then it is faster for him to run ten more tiles and hit the enemy with a grenade than with a burst from a machine gun?

And if an advancing soldier (who has taken a step forward one tile) finds an alien ahead (at a distance of 25 tiles from himself), then a nearby machine gunner can no longer effectively suppress this alien by firing a machine gun?

Edited October 10, 2023 by Komandos

[Skitso]

I've been now playing Experimental 2.07 for the first 130 days or so and the game feels really good. Progression is a lot better than before and balance seems pretty spot on. Only few small bugs and issues here and there, but the game is SOLID thus far. Great work @Chris and the team.

I reported a bunch of bugs in the bug forums but here's the other stuff I feel like should be addressed:

• Soldiers should NOT automatically plot movements through UFO teleporters if the second floor is not yet revealed! The situation was that the route was blocked and soldier took a detour around the second floor and getting killed.
• I'm not sure if the map selection system works as intended. I've yet to see a single desert or jungle mission, but lots of others.
• Same with cleaner missions. I never had an VIP escort mission but had 2 intel gathers and 2 Cleaner Cell raids. The game should spawn at least one of each missions IMO before having repeats.
• Would like to see more landing UFO's if I struggle shooting them down. Maybe make them land at evening and be grounded only during night.
• Soldier inventory is way too big to provide any interesting choices.
• Cleaner HQ could maybe have a bit more difficulty (but not much)
• Observer UFO needs more aliens. Felt a bit too easy. Based on my earlier playthroughs in general, tactical missions become too easy after getting laser weapons and advanced armour. 
• Continuing the subject, the first terror site mission at day 130 was super underwhelming: only 8 mantids, 4 reapers and a couple of those flying drones... These kinds of missions become boring as I can just click them through with "autopilot". No threat whatsoever. Should have had at least 12, 8 and 6.
• Reapers need more dense maps to be any threat.
• Sebs are also underwhelming and feel by far the easiest enemy type. They can't hit anything and have too low armor/health to feel like tanks they should be.  
• Had my first Mantids at day 130 terror mission. Same as the map selections system, maybe consider ensuring that the enemy variation is also there.
• Vaulting through windows should cost more TU
• Cheesing UFO command room is too easy. Maybe teleports should be single use per turn per unit? (Or add TU cost of teleportation to 20% or something)
• landing zones are a tad too hot. It'd provide more interesting gameplay to fight most enemies around the map and inside the UFO.
• Should the cost of aircrafts "rush replace" be cheaper the more it's already repaired? 

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Skitso

[Skitso]

It's great to have a good variation of mission types, but I would suggest forcing at least one of each Cleaner mission types before having any duplicates. I started a new playthrough with 2.11 today and before raiding the Cleaner HQ, I had three Cleaner VIP assassination missions, but not a single inter gather missions and no convoy missions. @Kouki

BTW, check my other impressions above too, if you haven't already.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Skitso

[Skitso]

A few quick thoughts (v2.13):

• Difficulty seems too easy in general (played on veteran). Cleaner nerf has had far-reaching consequences to the difficulty.
• Xenonaut units become too good too fast. I play without training center, and I still feel I'm constantly ahead of the curve. As I rarely lose any soldiers, they become quickly super soldiers which leads to aliens not feeling threatening enough. I suggest lowering starting stats and decrease experience gain. 
• Units becoming too good too fast might also be that they become too equally skillful. Diminishing returns in exp gain make sure that all the units feel the pretty much the same quite fast.
• Rescue soldiers mission should have a second win state where you evacuate with at least one of the three soldiers. It feels odd that the mission is to rescue three soldiers, but the only win state is to clear the area.
• Convoy mission pre-plan phase is overpowered. Player should not know enemy positions when arranging unit starting positions.
• I have WAY too much alloys. As soon as I have Warden armor and accelerated weapons researched, I can build them as much as I need and want as long as I have the cash. Alloys should be much more sparse at the beginning of the game or gear should require much more of it. On my latest playthrough, I built six Warden armors, 2 accelerated shotguns, four accelerated rifles, 2 accelerated MG's, 3 accelerated pistols and 1 accelerated sniper all at once and had almost 70 alloys left. I could have built double the amount and still had surplus.
• Geoscape mission icons should have a visual "hovering over" state.
• Having a 35% survival rate on veteran with just a regular medical center is too generous. Medical center should give maybe 15% survival rate and default value with veteran should be 5% so the every fifth casualty would survive on average. Survival chance calculations seem off. With the current 35% probability it seems my survival chances are close to 50-60% Might be just a coincidence and luck, but maybe something to keep an eye on? 

Edited November 26, 2023 by Skitso

[Komandos]

5 hours ago, Skitso said:

I have WAY too much alloys. As soon as I have Warden armor and accelerated weapons researched, I can build them as much as I need and want as long as I have the cash. Alloys should be much more sparse at the beginning of the game or gear should require much more of it. On my latest playthrough, I built six Warden armors, 2 accelerated shotguns, four accelerated rifles, 2 accelerated MG's, 3 accelerated pistols and 1 accelerated sniper all at once and had almost 70 alloys left. I could have built double the amount and still had surplus.

Any war - always very generously supplies the winners with scrap metal. It would be very strange if a player captured a UFO weighing several hundred tons, and only one bulletproof vest weighing 5 kg can be created from the captured material.

 

[Skitso]

7 minutes ago, Komandos said:

Any war - always very generously supplies the winners with scrap metal. It would be very strange if a player captured a UFO weighing several hundred tons, and only one bulletproof vest weighing 5 kg can be created from the captured material.

 

I don't care that much about real world comparisons in gameplay balance discussions.

[Komandos]

3 hours ago, Skitso said:

I don't care that much about real world comparisons in gameplay balance discussions

1. "Cognition comes through comparison."

2.  The player's soldiers (in the game) are strong and effective enough from the very beginning to defeat the superior number of aliens. By developing technologies and training soldiers, the player makes his strong soldiers even stronger. You propose to slow down the player's development by limiting the amount of available resources, but by doing so you deprive the game of drive. 

The player comes to the game for a constant stream of new sensations, so there should be no restrictions on the player's ability to constantly develop in the game (and not: "save and collect in the piggy bank").

[Skitso]

3 hours ago, Komandos said:

1. "Cognition comes through comparison."

2.  The player's soldiers (in the game) are strong and effective enough from the very beginning to defeat the superior number of aliens. By developing technologies and training soldiers, the player makes his strong soldiers even stronger. You propose to slow down the player's development by limiting the amount of available resources, but by doing so you deprive the game of drive. 

The player comes to the game for a constant stream of new sensations, so there should be no restrictions on the player's ability to constantly develop in the game (and not: "save and collect in the piggy bank").

 

1. "Per aspera ad astra". No pain, no gain. 
2. Here in Finland we have this saying "Through difficulties to victory", so I wholeheartedly disagree with you here. I feel these kinds of games should feel desperate struggle so you really feel the victory against superior enemy.

Edited November 26, 2023 by Skitso

[Komandos]

1 hour ago, Skitso said:

I feel these kinds of games should feel desperate struggle so you really feel the victory against superior enemy.

The player's soldiers are more effective than the alien soldiers from the very beginning of the game. And with the development of technology, the player's soldiers will become even more effective. "Desperate struggle", in the game, goes only for money. At the same time, the game is not economic at all.

[Skitso]

31 minutes ago, Komandos said:

The player's soldiers are more effective than the alien soldiers from the very beginning of the game. And with the development of technology, the player's soldiers will become even more effective. "Desperate struggle", in the game, goes only for money. At the same time, the game is not economic at all.

Yes I know, but my point is that it shouldn't be like that. Xenonauts should be the underdogs against the superior enemy at the beginning and slowly fight their way up.

[Conductiv]

12 hours ago, Skitso said:

A few quick thoughts (v2.13):

• Difficulty seems too easy in general (played on veteran). Cleaner nerf has had far-reaching consequences to the difficulty.
• Xenonaut units become too good too fast. I play without training center, and I still feel I'm constantly ahead of the curve. As I rarely lose any soldiers, they become quickly super soldiers which leads to aliens not feeling threatening enough. I suggest lowering starting stats and decrease experience gain. 
• Units becoming too good too fast might also be that they become too equally skillful. Diminishing returns in exp gain make sure that all the units feel the pretty much the same quite fast.
• Rescue soldiers mission should have a second win state where you evacuate with at least one of the three soldiers. It feels odd that the mission is to rescue three soldiers, but the only win state is to clear the area.
• Convoy mission pre-plan phase is overpowered. Player should not know enemy positions when arranging unit starting positions.
• I have WAY too much alloys. As soon as I have Warden armor and accelerated weapons researched, I can build them as much as I need and want as long as I have the cash. Alloys should be much more sparse at the beginning of the game or gear should require much more of it. On my latest playthrough, I built six Warden armors, 2 accelerated shotguns, four accelerated rifles, 2 accelerated MG's, 3 accelerated pistols and 1 accelerated sniper all at once and had almost 70 alloys left. I could have built double the amount and still had surplus.
• Geoscape mission icons should have a visual "hovering over" state.
• Having a 35% survival rate on veteran with just a regular medical center is too generous. Medical center should give maybe 15% survival rate and default value with veteran should be 5% so the every fifth casualty would survive on average. Survival chance calculations seem off. With the current 35% probability it seems my survival chances are close to 50-60% Might be just a coincidence and luck, but maybe something to keep an eye on? 

as I play the non-experimental released version I'm very curious if these conclusions are relative to the non-experimental branch, or relative to previous experimental iterations. I know the comment is about the experimental branch.

this is my view based on the current non-experimental release, looking at the same topics as much as possible.
1. the early game cleaner missions can be a real pain, especially as..in my opinion.. this game isn't build for quick rush-in-and-out style tactics. and 3 of the 4 cleaner missions are timed with infinite reinforcements. the base is not..but its an early game mission where at month 2 the enemies have access to plasma weaponry (55 or so damage average per shot) and actually use their plasma grenades...on top of that the base has like 24+ enemies in it. on every run I do...those missions are serious speedbumps
2. yes, and no...losses will have to be replaced, and past a certain point the rookie statline just won't do...training centers allow for a reserve to be build up. on top of that many weapons and tools actually need a fairly high set of stats to hit their breakpoint. but on the other hand...it takes like 4 missions to get almost +8 or so on most stats between medals, promotions and experience gains, and I agree that is very quick.
3. agreed to the extent that they almost always grow equally across all their stats, this makes higher level troops almost interchangeable.
4. cannot compare that, don't have rescue missions
5. cannot compare that, don't have convoy missions
6. alloys are abundant, but the bottleneck is cash and alloys themselves don't give the player any major advantage. if you have the alloys and a strong economy combined you can build whatever you want. both the latter and the former however are strongly dependent on how well you are doing and how many missions you can take on, and that in turn is tied again to how many resources you can use to get the tools needed. as such..if the player falls behind in cash or alloys (or alenium for that matter), it will be harder to get more of them. be careful about constricting access to resources or you will force only 1 way..the "optimal way"..to play. (bit over-dramatic, but I hope you get what I'm going for)
7. agreed, even though the pop up after clicking usually makes it clear if you missed the icon or not..it would definitely be better to get some indication that you are actually going to click on the right spot.
8. in my opinion, you can do away with survival rate altogether. its not what I count on, build around or select the medical facility for. its just ah..oh..he lived...kind of moment if it does trigger