My random thoughts on the first 40 or so days

[Skitso]

11 minutes ago, Conductiv said:

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 

There's not much point comparing experimental 2.13 to old stable version as the game balace has since been changed drastically in so many transformational ways.

Edited November 26, 2023 by Skitso

[Skitso]

Started a new playthrough with 3.05 and I'm having a great time!

Bugs aside, Here's the new thoughts in random order: 

• Cleaner story arc suffers from mission repetition
• Cleaners seem to need a small damage buff
• Sebillian feel underwhelming after Cleaners
  • Needs more health/armor to compensate poor aim.
• I have constantly too much alloys at least until the lasers
• Cleaner reinforcements should not spawn close to my units.
  • Move reinforcements into an alternative spawn point if there's Xenonaut units within 15 tiles or something.
  • The issue is that the reinforcements are too easy to kill when they spawn next to you with 0TU.
• Destroyers are too easy to drop with two angels (auto resolve)
• It's too easy to cheese AI with flashbangs.
  • something needs to be done so I can't carry so many grenades.
  • something needs to be done to nerf flashbangs 
• Soldiers still improve their stats a tad too fast.
• Bravery checks are too lenient. I very rarely have any mental issues - even when I've Iost multiple units.
  • Maybe starting BRV stat needs to be lower?
  • Maybe bravery needs to have a bigger effect on morale?
  • Maybe morale recovery needs to be slower?
  • Focus mind feels completely unnecessary at least for now.

Edited February 10 by Skitso

[Skitso]

Regarding my earlier comments on having constantly too much alloys is NOT true after ~100 days. I have now lost maybe dozen soldiers and as I needed to re-build Warden for everybody, and now that I need new air weapons, new fighters, new upgrades etc. I feel I have actually way too FEW alloys. At this point (first terror mission done) I'm absolutely starved on alloys but have plenty of alenium (like 150). So it feels like the game needs a pretty significant alloy increase on abductors forward. I have researched all this cool stuff, but I can't build any of it.

Also, I'd like to have smaller UFOs like scouts flying between main waves to be able to farm more resources from, with lower risk of losing soldiers.

Edited February 11 by Skitso

[paulgoodenough]

Firstly, I really really love this game and think there's some brilliant improvements that really made me enjoy the game more thoroughly than ever before. 

However, here are some small areas of feedback
- It gets samey - real samey. After a while you just want to skip combat missions because there's no variation. The grounded UFO is usually in one of a few places, and you get to 'know' how many aliens are going to be in and out of the ship - and how they react. I'd love to see some variance in level design and alien tactics - maybe they all swarm on one mission, maybe they sit back with snipers and you've got to use cover to rush them... maybe underwater levels, maybe levels atop a skyscraper where you've got to go up and down levels to clear out the block... Maybe there's a bomb or experiment on humans that gives a time imperative... these could be really cool things to add, and with the exception of underwater - would change the type of soldiers and weapons you need on the mission.  
- The alien base doors - truly annoying. They're super hard to see as they're the same colour as the walls, and the isometric view means that they (and others things) can be entirely obfuscated by the foreground items. I've wasted so much time just trying to walk around alien bases and find the doors/remaining aliens. Simple suggestion, can we have glowing edges or a flashing light on the doors?
- Right/wrong tactics - I feel that there's a right and wrong way to play this game. I personally always use snipers and destroy them all from distance. It's kinda easy then. I never lose soldiers and the aliens accuracy means I rarely get hit. What about some flying creatures? Or mortar style attacks? I personally never seem to use the hi-ex or assault folks (never seems a need). Just snipers and rifles. 
- Changing difficulties. I've played through early release twice (more on that later) and I've got to about 20% of the way through, and i'm flying. I win every battle with ease - but I can't then change up the difficulty level and need to start again. Ouch - that's like 30-60 hours wasted... 
- To me, it's REALLY not clear that the game just 'stops' at 30% completion before I start playing. I know it's early access, but come on guys, stick that s*** on the homescreen in big letters. It's a real d move to expect people to go onto forums and store pages and find this stuff out. We all have busy lives and it wouldn't take long just to have that on the main screen and then people know. Also, I previously completed 30% on a former release, and then on update my save game didn't work anymore, so then I went through again, hoping for more than 30% of the game to be there on the new release, but it wasn't. It was in fact, the same again. Argh (yes yes I know I could have done some research, but surely it's easier to just make that super clear on the homescreen?)  

All in all though, one of my favourite ever games. The above (apart from difficulty and messaging the current level of completion of the game) would just elevate it greatly. 

[Chris]

On 2/14/2024 at 1:18 PM, paulgoodenough said:

Firstly, I really really love this game and think there's some brilliant improvements that really made me enjoy the game more thoroughly than ever before. 

However, here are some small areas of feedback
- It gets samey - real samey. After a while you just want to skip combat missions because there's no variation. The grounded UFO is usually in one of a few places, and you get to 'know' how many aliens are going to be in and out of the ship - and how they react. I'd love to see some variance in level design and alien tactics - maybe they all swarm on one mission, maybe they sit back with snipers and you've got to use cover to rush them... maybe underwater levels, maybe levels atop a skyscraper where you've got to go up and down levels to clear out the block... Maybe there's a bomb or experiment on humans that gives a time imperative... these could be really cool things to add, and with the exception of underwater - would change the type of soldiers and weapons you need on the mission.  
- The alien base doors - truly annoying. They're super hard to see as they're the same colour as the walls, and the isometric view means that they (and others things) can be entirely obfuscated by the foreground items. I've wasted so much time just trying to walk around alien bases and find the doors/remaining aliens. Simple suggestion, can we have glowing edges or a flashing light on the doors?
- Right/wrong tactics - I feel that there's a right and wrong way to play this game. I personally always use snipers and destroy them all from distance. It's kinda easy then. I never lose soldiers and the aliens accuracy means I rarely get hit. What about some flying creatures? Or mortar style attacks? I personally never seem to use the hi-ex or assault folks (never seems a need). Just snipers and rifles. 
- Changing difficulties. I've played through early release twice (more on that later) and I've got to about 20% of the way through, and i'm flying. I win every battle with ease - but I can't then change up the difficulty level and need to start again. Ouch - that's like 30-60 hours wasted... 
- To me, it's REALLY not clear that the game just 'stops' at 30% completion before I start playing. I know it's early access, but come on guys, stick that s*** on the homescreen in big letters. It's a real d move to expect people to go onto forums and store pages and find this stuff out. We all have busy lives and it wouldn't take long just to have that on the main screen and then people know. Also, I previously completed 30% on a former release, and then on update my save game didn't work anymore, so then I went through again, hoping for more than 30% of the game to be there on the new release, but it wasn't. It was in fact, the same again. Argh (yes yes I know I could have done some research, but surely it's easier to just make that super clear on the homescreen?)  

All in all though, one of my favourite ever games. The above (apart from difficulty and messaging the current level of completion of the game) would just elevate it greatly. 

Thanks for the feedback. Changing difficulty on the fly is a bit technically challenging, but we're looking at adding more variety and the alien base doors are also on our "to fix" list.

Apologies if you felt misled about the amount of content in the game. It's closer to 60% of the game in Milestone 2, and we have tried to flag it up on the store page, but yeah - it's never nice when people are disappointed. This will only be an issue for a couple more major updates though, and I'm glad you've enjoyed what you've played so far!

[paulgoodenough]

On 2/21/2024 at 3:50 PM, Chris said:

Thanks for the feedback. Changing difficulty on the fly is a bit technically challenging, but we're looking at adding more variety and the alien base doors are also on our "to fix" list.

Apologies if you felt misled about the amount of content in the game. It's closer to 60% of the game in Milestone 2, and we have tried to flag it up on the store page, but yeah - it's never nice when people are disappointed. This will only be an issue for a couple more major updates though, and I'm glad you've enjoyed what you've played so far!

Cheers Chris - really appreciate you getting back to me. With the content, i just reckon if possible stick something on the main menu as store pages etc require actively going back into steam to check.

and mate, I love the game! As I say, these are just niggles. x