My random thoughts on the first 40 or so days

[Alienkiller]

I think Skitso have to make an 70% Play through (up to Day 180+). Therefore you are in the Starting-Game-Part, which is balanced quite well already.

The first 50 to 70 Days are not impactful anymore. First if the more advanced stages are played (from Day  71 to 180+) or a fully Playthrough is done, the Gamers are in the Knowing.

Some Researches and other Parts of the Game need some more work and aren’t 100% done yet, there I agree.

[Kamehamehayes]

18 hours ago, Skitso said:

Yeah, you (and kame) are probably right about it. I'm just a sucker for immersion and flavor in my games.

Although now that I think about it, we might be able to get the most of both worlds with the help of tooltips. The research report can be a little vague by mentioning that "this information will help to increase soldier damage by a  significant amount" or something like that, but then have a nested tooltip that gives the exact description of how the mechanic works. So the realism is preserved within the research report itself, but the player would still know exactly what the mechanic would do. 

[Skitso]

24 minutes ago, Kamehamehayes said:

Although now that I think about it, we might be able to get the most of both worlds with the help of tooltips. The research report can be a little vague by mentioning that "this information will help to increase soldier damage by a  significant amount" or something like that, but then have a nested tooltip that gives the exact description of how the mechanic works. So the realism is preserved within the research report itself, but the player would still know exactly what the mechanic would do. 

Yeah, I thought about a solution like that too. It would make the flavor text feel more realistic and still give the exact details for those who really wants to know every ganeplay detail. @Chris, do it like this if it's not too much of a trouble to implement.

[Skitso]

Kinda related to the "gamification" discussion... Isn't it a bit of a spoiler to know how far I've progressed towards the operation end game? With this I mean the percentage at the bottom screen of the geoscape. It's something I really don't need to know and it doesn't even give much for the game or the player.

Unit progression is not displayed anymore. The stat bars used to have a slightly different shades of green between the baseline and current stats which was IMO a nice little detail.

Armory screen is really not snappy enough. Everything feels sluggish and unresponsive while equipping your troops. It's hands down the single most negative feelings generating thing in the game for me at the moment. You really should try to optimize the shit out of it. Switching base tabs also feel too sluggish.

Had one unit killed in the base defense mission. Last mission text didn't fit in the casualty list. Also, It stated the last mission was: Xenonaut base attack, International waters, which sounded wrong to me. It wasn't international waters, it was Egypt. Also, should it be Xenonaut base defense mission instead? 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Skitso

[Chris]

21 hours ago, Skitso said:

Kinda related to the "gamification" discussion... Isn't it a bit of a spoiler to know how far I've progressed towards the operation end game? With this I mean the percentage at the bottom screen of the geoscape. It's something I really don't need to know and it doesn't even give much for the game or the player.

Unit progression is not displayed anymore. The stat bars used to have a slightly different shades of green between the baseline and current stats which was IMO a nice little detail.

Armory screen is really not snappy enough. Everything feels sluggish and unresponsive while equipping your troops. It's hands down the single most negative feelings generating thing in the game for me at the moment. You really should try to optimize the shit out of it. Switching base tabs also feel too sluggish.

Had one unit killed in the base defense mission. Last mission text didn't fit in the casualty list. Also, It stated the last mission was: Xenonaut base attack, International waters, which sounded wrong to me. It wasn't international waters, it was Egypt. Also, should it be Xenonaut base defense mission instead? 

For the UI issue with the casualty list, you really need to create a bug thread for that with saves and screenshots. I can't easily fix it otherwise.

I actually agree with the armory screen being a bit sluggish. It's partially because you're playing an Experimental build, but I tested it in the standard release builds and it's not fast enough there either. Hopefully we'll have time to look at that before release.

The stat bars is just a visual styling thing; the two-tone colours looks a lot less appealing in the black UI. The same data is available in the tooltip if you want it.

The point of showing the player their Endgame progress is that you can reach 100% through different methods, not just by capturing an Eternal. So I think it is a useful thing to show, personally.

[Skitso]

-Pressing "i" opens inventory, but doesn't close it.

-hovering mouse over names in soldiers tab should give a popup with portrait, nationality and other info to better remember who is who

-researching magnetic weapons doesn't feel useful enough for me as laser weapon research comes available like one mission later and costs only 1 day more research time. What's your thinking on this @Chris? Is there something I'm not taking into account?

-pressing space in geoscape will stop time and center camera. In tactical missions it speeds things up instead, which is a bit confusing. I feel like space should stop and cancel everything in tactical missions too 

-I've just had a crash site mission in desert biome and now the game spawns an abduction site in desert too. I remember there was talk some time ago that the game should prioritize variety when choosing maps. Should be easy for these non-player-generated (crash sites) missions to be anywhere? I can't even remember when I've seen a snow map...

-Each cleaner cell mission has the same cutscene dialog.

-I feel it's a bit vague that the Psyon is infact the VIP I'm after in the VIP missions as it looks just like a normal alien I've fought against in the earlier missions. I mean I was able to GUESS it's him, but it might be a good idea to add a quick cutscene dialog when located: "that's gotta be the VIP we are looking for" or something like that. 

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by Skitso

[Skitso]

-Alloy plating project in engineering screen is found under three different categories: vehicles, aircraft and equipment. The one under aircraft is only 250k and upgrades only Angels' armor, but the ones under vehicles and equipment are 500k and is described to upgrade both vehicles and aircraft but also soldiers armor. I assume it's not meant to be like this, but if it is, this is quite unclear. What if I update only aircraft... does the other ones become cheaper?

 

@Chris, please note my new listing from earlier today posted above too.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Skitso

[Chris]

1 hour ago, Skitso said:

-Alloy plating project in engineering screen is found under three different categories: vehicles, aircraft and equipment. The one under aircraft is only 250k and upgrades only Angels' armor, but the ones under vehicles and equipment are 500k and is described to upgrade both vehicles and aircraft but also soldiers armor. I assume it's not meant to be like this, but if it is, this is quite unclear. What if I update only aircraft... does the other ones become cheaper?

 

@Chris, please note my new listing from earlier today posted above too.

This is outdated description, thanks for flagging it. It doesn't actually upgrade the aircraft armour.

 

6 hours ago, Skitso said:

-Pressing "i" opens inventory, but doesn't close it.

-hovering mouse over names in soldiers tab should give a popup with portrait, nationality and other info to better remember who is who

-researching magnetic weapons doesn't feel useful enough for me as laser weapon research comes available like one mission later and costs only 1 day more research time. What's your thinking on this @Chris? Is there something I'm not taking into account?

-pressing space in geoscape will stop time and center camera. In tactical missions it speeds things up instead, which is a bit confusing. I feel like space should stop and cancel everything in tactical missions too 

-I've just had a crash site mission in desert biome and now the game spawns an abduction site in desert too. I remember there was talk some time ago that the game should prioritize variety when choosing maps. Should be easy in these non-player-generated (crash sites)where missions that could be anywhere? I can't even remember when I've seen a snow map...

 

We'll fix the "I" issue.

I think the soldier portrait on hover might be a sensible UI update, but I'm not sure how time consuming it'll be. It's not a priority pre Early Access but I'll note it down.

Magnetic vs Laser weapons is a balance issue for the balance thread. You might well be right about it.

For space, problem is it's kinda become the default for speeding up animations etc in other tactics games. It could be changed but needs to be a bigger discussion, I think.

The game does prioritise variety for missions that aren't spawned directly based on the player's actions (e.g. Crash Sites) but the system might not be working correctly. I probably need to spend some time debugging it but it's likely to be somewhat time consuming.

[Skitso]

-After renaming aircraft it doesn't update the new name in the panel at the right side of the screen until switching screens.
 

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Skitso

[Skitso]

After clearing all relatively tough 3 cleaner cell missions, the main Cleaner HQ operation felt a bit anticlimactic. While I like the idea that grinding through the cells make the HQ mission easier to tackle, I do think it needs a bit more aliens to feel more like a priority mission that it is.

Now, (on soldier difficulty at least) the main room had only 2 psyons, 2 suit cleaners and one gas mask cleaner, which felt it was too little after all the Cleaner cells that felt much tougher. I'd add at least one mentarch and one psyon more in the main room and maybe 3-4 suit cleaners around the base. Cleaner HQ is also much easier than the cells layout wise as it's much more linear and you can optimize your firing arcs and utilize reaction firing much better.

Also, what if clearing the Cleaner cells wouldn't remove each speacial effect (like turrets) completely, but instead just reduced their numbers significantly in the HQ?

My team is a lot more experienced and well equipped when attacking the HQ, so it should be a lot tougher compared to the Cells. Now it feels like the difficulty curve goes in the wrong direction. Actually, a better solution might be to, even after the latest changes, to make the cells still a bit more easy to smoothen the curve, and leave the HQ as it is.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Skitso

[Chris]

17 minutes ago, Skitso said:

After clearing all relatively tough 3 cleaner cell missions, the main Cleaner HQ operation felt a bit anticlimactic. While I like the idea that grinding through the cells make the HQ mission easier to tackle, I do think it needs a bit more aliens to feel more like a priority mission that it is.

Now, (on soldier difficulty at least) the main room had only 2 psyons, 2 suit cleaners and one gas mask cleaner, which felt it was too little after all the Cleaner cells that felt much tougher. I'd add at least one mentarch and one psyon more in the main room and maybe 3-4 suit cleaners around the base. Cleaner HQ is also much easier than the cells layout wise as it's much more linear and you can optimize your firing arcs and utilize reaction firing much better.

Also, what if clearing the Cleaner cells wouldn't remove each speacial effect (like turrets) completely, but instead just reduced their numbers significantly in the HQ?

My team is a lot more experienced and well equipped when attacking the HQ, so it should be a lot tougher than the Cells. Now it feels like the difficulty curve goes in the wrong direction. I would advice still, even after the latest changes, to make the cells a bit more easy to smoothen the curve.

Did you start a new campaign in V1.03 or carry on your existing one? I'm not sure the changes to the alien crews will kick in until you make a new campaign.

Your style of play is interesting, really - you're not really meant to do all three Cleaner Cells, although I guess the game should be designed so that's also supported. What was your motivation for doing it once the Cleaner Base was revealed? That it felt like it should be necessary to give yourself a fighting chance?

[Skitso]

7 minutes ago, Chris said:

Did you start a new campaign in V1.03 or carry on your existing one? I'm not sure the changes to the alien crews will kick in until you make a new campaign.

Your style of play is interesting, really - you're not really meant to do all three Cleaner Cells, although I guess the game should be designed so that's also supported. What was your motivation for doing it once the Cleaner Base was revealed? That it felt like it should be necessary to give yourself a fighting chance?

No, I actually contiuned my existing playthrough.

There's no time pressure and I tend to be a bit of a completionist as a gamer in general.... so why wouldn't I maximize my chances in the presumably tough main HQ mission? The game doesn't exactly push me into assaulting the HQ as soon as possible, does it?

Also, as each cell gives you an unique buff, it gives you kinda check list vibe.

 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Skitso

[Chris]

14 minutes ago, Skitso said:

No, I actually contiuned my existing playthrough.

There's no time pressure and I tend to be a bit of a completionist as a gamer in general.... so why wouldn't I maximize my chances in the presumably tough main HQ mission? The game doesn't exactly push me into assaulting the HQ as soon as possible, does it?

Also, as each cell gives you an unique buff, it gives you kinda check list vibe.

 

That's fair enough. I'll have a think.

[Skitso]

On 6/23/2023 at 11:57 AM, Chris said:

That's fair enough. I'll have a think.

Got few ideas how to improve this:

1. After completing the first Cell, other two sites get timers. (Maybe 3-5 days?)  When the timer expires, Cleaners evacuate and the site is removed from the map. Evacuated cell adds 1-2 enemies each to the HQ mission.

2. The main HQ gets constantly stronger the more player waits. After player clears the first cell, a cut scene plays that tells this to the player and that he needs to hurry.

Edited June 24, 2023 by Skitso

[Skitso]

I really miss the old X1 research system where you could set multiple projects simultaneously. It was perfect to assign a few scientist to work with low priority stuff to advance them slowly but surely while most of them work with the important stuff.

My completionist/perfectionist nature makes me kinda anxious with the current research tree: there are so much of it and I feel I don't have proper control over it and can't handle it the way I would in real life.

Is this something that is still improving or are we stuck with a single research at a time? Even with different laboratories in different bases all around the world, every scientist has to work on that one project?

Also, I feel the game kinda plateaus between day ~90 to day ~140 where the game offers nothing particularly intresting or new challenges. It's just a wave after a wave of destroyers and observers, later with escorts, but I got bored to be frank. I just intercepted UFO's, collected their bounties and concentrated or researching and manufacturing. Even the end game counter has risen to almost 50% without me doing anything to raise it. If it's too early to introduce alien bases at this point, it might be a good idea to mix in a terror mission or add a cleaner cell styled scripted mission or something here to spice up the mood.

Edited June 25, 2023 by Skitso

[Chris]

20 hours ago, Skitso said:

Got few ideas how to improve this:

1. After completing the first Cell, other two sites get timers. (Maybe 3-5 days?)  When the timer expires, Cleaners evacuate and the site is removed from the map. Evacuated cell adds 1-2 enemies each to the HQ mission.

2. The main HQ gets constantly stronger the more player waits. After player clears the first cell, a cut scene plays that tells this to the player and that he needs to hurry.

I'm not sure those would address the fundamental issue, really. The Cleaner Cell missions just aren't interesting enough for it to be exciting to fight three of them, even once they have proper map variation. One is fine, and two is probably okay too, so I've reduced the number of Cells down to 2 to stop players feeling like they have to grind the missions too much.

You can wait as long as you like to take out the Cleaner Base, but it's constantly spawning anomalies that inflict Panic across the world and when it's completed you get $500k and your monthly funding is increased by ~$450k too. So I think you're already incentivised to take it out ASAP (although perhaps those incentives aren't communicated very well).

[Skitso]

Oooo, the new cutscene portrait images are hot!

[SoftwareSimian]

On 6/25/2023 at 8:06 AM, Chris said:

I'm not sure those would address the fundamental issue, really. The Cleaner Cell missions just aren't interesting enough for it to be exciting to fight three of them, even once they have proper map variation. One is fine, and two is probably okay too, so I've reduced the number of Cells down to 2 to stop players feeling like they have to grind the missions too much.

You can wait as long as you like to take out the Cleaner Base, but it's constantly spawning anomalies that inflict Panic across the world and when it's completed you get $500k and your monthly funding is increased by ~$450k too. So I think you're already incentivised to take it out ASAP (although perhaps those incentives aren't communicated very well).

I would also make it a point to always do all 3 cleaner cell missions before the main base, even if it had been revealed, purely for the bonus of not having armor/weapons/guns in the main base.

My last Cleaner Headquarters playthrough (v1.06 I think) seemed a lot tougher than previous playthroughs, with what felt like a lot more enemies in the main room than before (on Recruit). Having to deal with sentry guns also made it harder than previously.

I don't think the in-game text says anything about +$450k/mo for taking out the Cleaner Headquarters (it just says $500k reward). It does say stops all cleaner activity, but it's perhaps not as clear as it could be that cleaner activity = panic, even after playing the game a dozen times in the last month I still see those panic events as random (perhaps caused by an invisible UFO) and I don't have the strong association that they're caused by Cleaners.

[Chris]

On 6/29/2023 at 11:35 PM, SoftwareSimian said:

I would also make it a point to always do all 3 cleaner cell missions before the main base, even if it had been revealed, purely for the bonus of not having armor/weapons/guns in the main base.

My last Cleaner Headquarters playthrough (v1.06 I think) seemed a lot tougher than previous playthroughs, with what felt like a lot more enemies in the main room than before (on Recruit). Having to deal with sentry guns also made it harder than previously.

I don't think the in-game text says anything about +$450k/mo for taking out the Cleaner Headquarters (it just says $500k reward). It does say stops all cleaner activity, but it's perhaps not as clear as it could be that cleaner activity = panic, even after playing the game a dozen times in the last month I still see those panic events as random (perhaps caused by an invisible UFO) and I don't have the strong association that they're caused by Cleaners.

Thanks. Yeah, so I've played through the Cleaner Base mission myself now and I think there's too many enemies now too. I added some more, without realising removing the third Cleaner Cell would also prevent the player from taking the sentries out too, so I kinda overcompensated I think.

Ironically the mission is actually very easy if you don't do the Cleaner Cells because the cleaner magnetic rifles had a bug where their ammo wasn't compatible - which meant they couldn't attack.

I'll patch that for the upcoming hotfix.

[Skitso]

@Chris, do you have any plans to fix the automatic roof toggle logic before EA launch? Having buildings' roofs visible when possible improves game's visuals quite a bit IMO. I'm sure it's a lot more complicated to implement than what it sounds, but I just happen to love how the game looks when I scroll the camera one level up. (And not just the buildings, but the landing ships and UFO's deserve to be seen in their full glory too!)

Edited July 3, 2023 by Skitso

[Chris]

3 hours ago, Skitso said:

@Chris, do you have any plans to fix the automatic roof toggle logic before EA launch? Having buildings' roofs visible when possible improves game's visuals quite a bit IMO. I'm sure it's a lot more complicated to implement than what it sounds, but I just happen to love how the game looks when I scroll the camera one level up. (And not just the buildings, but the landing ships and UFO's deserve to be seen in their full glory too!)

It's on our radar, but honestly it's unlikely we'll get far enough down our work lists to have it completed by Early Access unfortunately.

[Skitso]

-Should there be a night time tutorial popup? Was it in X1 or did we have one in earlier builds? Can't remember... Nevertheless, I didn't get one on my most recent playthrough. Also, I remember some time ago that it was made so first mission was always a day mission, but has that changed as now my first mission was night and I didn't get a tutorial popup.

-WOW what the hell, since when have we been able to zoom in tactical battles? :O :O Very nice!!!

 

-Hmm... Jungles might still need something to make them feel more lush:

Edited July 4, 2023 by Skitso

[Skitso]

Are the normal black suit cleaners supposed to be such ungodly snipers? They hit me from across the map, through windows, obstacles and smoke, multiple times in row. Super annoying from such early game enemy.

[Ruggerman]

That Desert is looking a little arid, they should be more foliage. 

[Skitso]

Speaking of biomes... the ancient mayan temple ruins in the jungle biome look bland and feel oddly specific and a bit too stereotypical to represent all the tropical areas around the world - especially when you find them in every jungle map.

This old screenshot is IMO much better. It looks more interesting and is geographically more vague: 

 

Not every jungle map even needs buildings. Some might be really dense with vegetation with almost claustrophobic feel, while others might be more urban and open with shacks, roads ect like in that image.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Skitso