V25.2 Commander 6hr playthrough impressions

[ventuswings]

I've intended to play enough to get sufficient understanding before writing my impressions, but recent update broke the save so here I go. I guess there's value of feedback from early player who still have no idea what's going to happen past first month (haven't followed Xenonaut 2 changes for awhile either). Played four crash sites with Sectoids and those four-legged things, one cleaner intel, and one abduction mission. No casualties except 3 from the cleaner intel.

⦁    There is no tooltip or any source of information that tells you can force fire with CTRL, which is very important tactical tool. I assume this will be part of the tutorial mission?
⦁    No persistent suppression indicator? I notice red circle and cross thing, but I still have no idea what it means. So yeah for current build there isn't enough information and new players (and even Xenonauts 1 vet like me!) are going to be very confused/uninformed.
⦁    Went for cleaner mission as soon as it was available, and cleared with 10 USB. Definitely harder than UFO crashsites but I did beat it first try without any knowledge or preparation. I do remember reading "this mission is expected to be hard" or something somewhere, so I'm not sure if devs expect me to get better gear before trying this mission? Can't remember if this was clearly communicated (since I can't access the save).
⦁    Disappointing to see that bodyblocking the door still seem to be effective strategy, as AI don't seem to be able to open doors unless walking through it. Abusing this was one of major reason why I managed to clear cleaner intel despite knowing nothing about it.
⦁    Cleaner Reinforcement AI should be encouraged to advance towards the dropship, especially if the first objective of collecting 10 USB is clearned. I've skipped five turns near the droship before leaving to see if there was any pursuit yet nothing happened.
⦁    One of my soldiers "survived", which should not happen on extraction mission like Cleaner Intel unless player brings the body back to the dropship.
⦁    Three day abduction expiration date (on strategy layer, not mission timer) seem pretty generous, could consider shortening on higher difficulties. Rescued 7/10 pods so timer feels fine.
⦁    I did notice the cash is more more valuable, but personally enjoyed limited finance a lot since it introduces choices and builds (instead of Xenonauts 1 where I could spam almost everything at the start). I haven't had cash issues because I sold all but 1 of cleaner corpses and cleaner intel, don't know enough about the game to know if I'm runing my mid-game by doing so.
⦁    I only played few missions but tactical combat feels pretty easy on Commander difficulty. I haven't tried lower difficulties yet but perhaps there should be greater variation between the difficulties. Even if Insane difficulty is going to be added later on, I haven't felt like I am playing on second hardest difficulty so far. Note that I'm only referring to tactical difficulty, strategy layer feels more challenging than Xenonauts 1 though it may be unfamiliarity.

 

Edited December 24, 2022 by ventuswings

[Chris]

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll read it properly when I have some time free in the next few days, but just as a heads-up: you can always switch to the legacy / legacy experimental Steam branch if you want to keep playing the previous version!

[Chris]

On 12/23/2022 at 6:27 PM, ventuswings said:

I've intended to play enough to get sufficient understanding before writing my impressions, but recent update broke the save so here I go. I guess there's value of feedback from early player who still have no idea what's going to happen past first month (haven't followed Xenonaut 2 changes for awhile either). Played four crash sites with Sectoids and those four-legged things, one cleaner intel, and one abduction mission. No casualties except 3 from the cleaner intel.

⦁    There is no tooltip or any source of information that tells you can force fire with CTRL, which is very important tactical tool. I assume this will be part of the tutorial mission?
⦁    No persistent suppression indicator? I notice red circle and cross thing, but I still have no idea what it means. So yeah for current build there isn't enough information and new players (and even Xenonauts 1 vet like me!) are going to be very confused/uninformed.
⦁    Went for cleaner mission as soon as it was available, and cleared with 10 USB. Definitely harder than UFO crashsites but I did beat it first try without any knowledge or preparation. I do remember reading "this mission is expected to be hard" or something somewhere, so I'm not sure if devs expect me to get better gear before trying this mission? Can't remember if this was clearly communicated (since I can't access the save).
⦁    Disappointing to see that bodyblocking the door still seem to be effective strategy, as AI don't seem to be able to open doors unless walking through it. Abusing this was one of major reason why I managed to clear cleaner intel despite knowing nothing about it.
⦁    Cleaner Reinforcement AI should be encouraged to advance towards the dropship, especially if the first objective of collecting 10 USB is clearned. I've skipped five turns near the droship before leaving to see if there was any pursuit yet nothing happened.
⦁    One of my soldiers "survived", which should not happen on extraction mission like Cleaner Intel unless player brings the body back to the dropship.
⦁    Three day abduction expiration date (on strategy layer, not mission timer) seem pretty generous, could consider shortening on higher difficulties. Rescued 7/10 pods so timer feels fine.
⦁    I did notice the cash is more more valuable, but personally enjoyed limited finance a lot since it introduces choices and builds (instead of Xenonauts 1 where I could spam almost everything at the start). I haven't had cash issues because I sold all but 1 of cleaner corpses and cleaner intel, don't know enough about the game to know if I'm runing my mid-game by doing so.
⦁    I only played few missions but tactical combat feels pretty easy on Commander difficulty. I haven't tried lower difficulties yet but perhaps there should be greater variation between the difficulties. Even if Insane difficulty is going to be added later on, I haven't felt like I am playing on second hardest difficulty so far. Note that I'm only referring to tactical difficulty, strategy layer feels more challenging than Xenonauts 1 though it may be unfamiliarity.

 

Right, I've finally got around to reading these comments in detail. Here's my responses:

• It's interesting to hear you got so few casualties, as I tend to average one or two casualties per mission myself. I'd probably have to watch a video of you playing to see what your tactics are to fully understand why you're being so successful and whether we perhaps need to adjust the game mechanics to compensate, but it sounds like you're playing better than the vast majority of players do.
• Yeah, force firing and suppression will be covered in the tutorial which will be implemented shortly. The persistent Suppression indicator is the little red arrow in the combatant infobar - is that not persistent for you? Or were you just unaware what it meant?
• Yeah, the Cleaner Intel mission is meant to be reasonably hard if you try it with just your starting equipment but it's certainly not impossible for experienced players (the difficulty mostly comes from the time limit, which currently remains the same on all difficulty settings). Were you using basic equipment or had you researched some advanced armour / weapons that made it easier?
• The AI hasn't properly been worked on yet and is still relatively primitive, but I'll note down the fact it won't open doors if you're blocking them as something we need to address.
• Yeah, I'll take a look at how the reinforcement AI behaves.
• You're right that units should not be able to survive if their body was left behind on the Cleaner Intel Site mission.
• Are you playing Commander difficulty here, or Veteran? There's only four difficulties so we won't be adding higher ones in the future, and Commander is the highest. The game should become more challenging as the AI is improved, though, and we'll probably also increase the number and accuracy of aliens on the hardest difficulty setting once we implement support for those things.