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My suggestions after about 45 minutes of play.


Mathalor

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I accidentally posted this in the wrong section. I'm re-posting it here, with a few edits.

Suggestions

I played it for a bit, and did two ground missions. These are my initial ideas.

1. (After editing based on feedback) When trying to shoot at or throw to an area, it'd be nice to know that I couldn't hit that area. When firing and throwing at the ground, I saw no accuracy indicator. Also, it would be nice if the cross-hairs went grey if there was no line of sight, or for grenades if you didn't have the strength, or had an obstacle in the way. Perhaps with some kind of indicator as to which was the problem.

2. Implement 2nd and possibly 3rd stories for buildings. I'm hoping this is already planned. I saw stairs going nowhere, but my soldiers could not climb them. They went through instead of up. There were two buildings on the map that had these stairs to nowhere. I used the camera level indicator. I would think it was just a bug if there had been second stories shown for these buildings.

3. I gotta rename my base! I made a thread about this earlier, but it bears repeating. Let me rename my base.

4. The Chinook has one extra space after my soldiers and tank are aboard. Why can't I load a ninth soldier? Make this more apparent in the load out screen that this space is occupied with something.

5. Some functions should be available from more than one base screen, like equipping soldiers from the personnel screen by double clicking the soldier's name. What would be really nice is being able to check a soldier's equipment by double clicking their green icon in the Chinook load out screen. That way I could easily ensure that whoever was near the doors had smoke grenades, and other such things.

6. When I pressed escape, it brought up a menu, but it wouldn't go away by pressing escape again. Make my escape key presses effective.

7. (This is already implemented, but it might be spelled out once tool-tips are implemented) I'd like a way for someone who's carrying a shotgun or a rifle to use a grenade without dropping the weapon, even if it kills my accuracy and/or time units. I'm used to the original, where I could just put the grenade in my soldier's left hand at the expense of accuracy if I fired the weapon.

8. When I click on a weapon, my soldier goes into a mode where I'm looking at stuff at the ground he can shoot at. I should be able to press escape to leave this mode. I had to select another soldier and then select the first soldier again.

Some of these issues are small, and I can get around without them, but I still think they should be added to the game; they would make it better. Anyway, I still had fun. Even when my soldier killed herself by shooting the gas main or whatever it was. It was kind of funny.

Edited by Mathalor
Editing based on feedback
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I accidentally posted this in the wrong section. I'm re-posting it here, with a few edits.

Suggestions

I played it for a bit, and did two ground missions. These are my initial ideas.

In my opinion 45min is realy not enough to make a somewhat well based resume..

Oh well.. some people like to discover others like to communicate. guess that's ok..

1. My soldiers will try to take shots at a thing even if they do not have line of sight. I think that if my soldier aims to take a shot and sees a wall between himself and the target he should shout at me. Or rather, I should get an alert that he has no line of sight. Please add a line of sight alert or just disallow them from shooting at stuff without any line of sight, like in the original. I, and I think a lot of people who played the original will do the same, just assume that if they can fire, they have line of sight and might possibly, however unlikely, hit their target.

You get a probability of hiting the target display right at the crosshair. That should do the trick. As to shooting at things you have no los for.. once you have a little more combat experience (Yeah teaching the noobs *duck*) things like shooting ap rockets through walls or burst firing through walls come to mind and are surprisingly effective.

2. Implement 2nd and possibly 3rd stories for buildings. I'm hoping this is already planned. I saw stairs going nowhere, but my soldiers could not climb them. They went through instead of up. There were two buildings on the map that had these stairs to nowhere. I used the camera level indicator. I would think it was just a bug if there had been second stories shown for these buildings.

Maps are far from done. But ordinary buildings on say UFO recovery missions do have 2nd and 3rd stores. Haven't had this etheral stairs problem yet.

3. I gotta rename my base! I made a thread about this earlier, but it bears repeating. Let me rename my base.

4. The Chinook has one extra space after my soldiers and tank are aboard. Why can't I load a ninth soldier? Make this more apparent in the load out screen that this space is occupied with something.

5. Some functions should be available from more than one base screen, like equipping soldiers from the personnel screen by double clicking the soldier's name. What would be really nice is being able to check a soldier's equipment by double clicking their green icon in the Chinook load out screen. That way I could easily ensure that whoever was near the doors had smoke grenades, and other such things.

6. When I pressed escape, it brought up a menu, but it wouldn't go away by pressing escape again. Make my escape key presses effective.

All nice and helpfull polishing ideas imho.

7. I'd like a way for someone who's carrying a shotgun or a rifle to use a grenade without dropping the weapon, even if it kills my accuracy and/or time units. I'm used to the original, where I could just put the grenade in my soldier's left hand at the expense of accuracy if I fired the weapon.

There are two tiny slots just right to your weapon. Probably one has a flare in it. Rightclick that one and you can choose a grenade (rightclick again to close that window).

8. When I click on a weapon, my soldier goes into a mode where I'm looking at stuff at the ground he can shoot at. I should be able to press escape to leave this mode. I had to select another soldier and then select the first soldier again.

Right or leftclick his weapon again, don't remember exactly.

Some of these issues are small, and I can get around without them, but I still think they should be added to the game; they would make it better. Anyway, I still had fun. Even when my soldier killed herself by shooting the gas main or whatever it was. It was kind of funny.

Yeah they tent to hurt themselves more than any alien could the first couple of missions. It REALLY IS FUNNY :D

Appologies for the spelling the autocorrect function gave up on me and I'm COMPLETELY helpless whithout it :o

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1, The accuracy percentage should reflect your sight to the target.

If you cannot hit at all because you can't see them then it would be 0%.

Not sure what effect firing on them anyway would have regarding suppression.

2, Most buildings have multiple stories, some of the unfinished ones don't obviously but they are placeholders.

3, Probably get added at some point.

4, You can load up to 12 troops or up to 2 vehicles in the Chinook.

Maybe being unable to add a 9th soldier when a vehicle is present is a bug because it doesn't make sense.

5, The UI is all being replaced in the next few patches, look for the individual UI threads to see the planned changes and add anything you think is missing.

6, Escape should definitely close the menu that it opens, that does make sense.

7, Use the grenade button, it costs more AP if you have both hands full to simulate the extra effort involved.

8, Pressing escape should already cancel ground target mode, so should clicking the weapon again.

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1, The accuracy percentage should reflect your sight to the target.

If you cannot hit at all because you can't see them then it would be 0%.

Not sure what effect firing on them anyway would have regarding suppression.

Sitting in the typical american cardboard and glue house, getting shot by .50cal mg sure would supress me.

Besides having the first 2 rounds tear away said obstruction and the rest tear away the alien does happen. Thumbs up for collateral damage :D

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In my opinion 45min is realy not enough to make a somewhat well based resume..

Oh well.. some people like to discover others like to communicate. guess that's ok..

I had to go back to doing homework. That's actually something I like about these kinds of games. They're easy to put down when you need to.

About 1: I realize, now, that there is an accuracy percentage posted and that I should pay attention to it, but I still think there should be line of sight alerts.

About 7: I'll look into remapping those buttons with grenades next time.

Edit: And I apparently fail at quotes. Oh well.

Edited by Mathalor
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Okay, I don't like relying on the 0% indicator, but it is there. What about grenades? If I'm trying to throw a grenade at a piece of ground and not an alien, is there any way of knowing that my soldier doesn't have the mechanics to make the throw (lack of strength or something obstructing the arc)?

Same question, only about rocket launchers and spots of ground.

What I'm trying to say is, I think the game would benefit from having line of sight, out of range, and you can't throw here alerts from the original game. If you'd put the accuracy indicator up when I'm firing/throwing at terrain, I could get by though. I'd still want those alerts to spell out why that number is zero percent, for if I wasn't paying attention, and for new players, but I could get by without them.

I think I'd be happy if there was an accuracy indicator when setting up to fire at terrain, and perhaps a small text warning with a description as to why if my chance to hit was 0%, underneath the accuracy indicator. That would be nice.

Edited by Mathalor
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I don't like the idea of text warnings, they are out of place on a UI that has no other text messages (other than tooltips).

I also really disliked the original games system of stopping you firing at an area because you didn't have line of sight.

A slightly different icon as a cue might work well though.

For example add an eye with a cross through it to the top left of the crosshair icon when over a target you can't see.

If I want to fire somewhere that I can't see then there is probably a reason for it.

The 0% accuracy indicator and no sight indicator would be plenty of warning that I am not going to hit the spot I am aiming at.

If I choose to fire anyway then that should be up to me, not up to the game to disallow it.

With hypervelocity ammunition that is capable of penetrating solid objects to hit enemies on the other side it would make even less sense to prevent you firing at those targets.

The ground/object targeting used for the grenade seems to be slightly broken.

In some areas you get a hit percentage while in others you don't.

Hopefully it will be fixed so that all shots will give you a clue how likely you are to hit your target.

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Wouldn't a grey targeting reticule (as opposed to a red one for targets you can see) work better than a crossed out eye?
a grey targeting reticule would be fine.
Isn't grey already used for something?

Clearer?

I have seen the grey targeting reticles but I can't remember what status they represent.

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