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Feedback from past X1 Player (Early Access)


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Frankly, I thought you guys wouldnt pull through for X2 since I've stopped following you guys years ago, but after spotting X2 in early access, I went to find my key and had a blast. Had some time now so i thought I info-dump feedback and playstyle as a guy who loved X1 to the core.

 

Feedback is based on around 120+  180 days of play, and played X1 several times, played in mixed difficulty between soldier and veteran. Do note that I am comparing this often with X1(if my memory serves playing it)

Playing on GOG version 1.19

 

Geoscape/Missions/Base

-I took a more rushed approach to base building, and aggressively constructed base 2 and 3 by day 30 and 60. Felt noticeable struggle to upgrade/build aircraft & weapons, It made sense to me, and felt rather balanced. The need to cover the globe too quickly leaves me with issues here and there.

- Escalation felt rather slow mid-game, I only had one terror mission around the end of month 2, and I thought I would have another one coming up soon. Month 3 & 4 was me waiting for alien UFOs to shoot down on. Only at start of month 5, did it pick up the pace. Does difficulty influence this?

- Base invasion around month 3, and I faced about a dozen aliens with more than a few losses. Have to say, Cyberdrones Really worked poorly in bases that have auto-closed doors, and once I figured them out, it was rather easy to stack up and dispatch the two in the room they were stuck at.

- I was briefed that certain aliens can come from any part of my base. Understandable but Cyberdrones being included just feels wrong.

- Continuing the elimination/capture cleaner leader and steal data missions, I was hoping for more types of that kind then just downed UFO, terror attack or eliminate missions. Perhaps extracting a human VIP or protecting an allied base under siege by wave based aliens would help provide more variety in that area.

- The unlimited alien reinforcements do give me a good run for my money to be more aggressive and I do like that, but not a fan of the endless reinforcements for its unnesscecary tension I hear that 1.24 solves the reinforcement difficulty by giving more time between waves, so thats nice.

- Abduction was a fun spin of the usual eliminate more aliens, it gives me the same need to balance aggression within the time limit, without the stress of endless reinforcements.

- I was holding on towards alien corpses and cleaner data, assuming that they have some worth holding onto it, but I eventually sold them off. If future updates would require them, then an indication to sell them sparingly should be notified early.

Aliens

- Sebillians feels weaker to me in X2, their naked engineers and soldiers felt like a breeze to fight, and only the 2nd-tier soldier provided a threat (perhaps the cleaner missions xp and accelerated guns had something to do with it) Still, the tried and true with their screams and fun to fight.

- Mentrach feels like a filler enemy, I assume there is more to it in future updates, but other than their shields, they are boring to fight as they always stay in their UFOs

- Sectons have little appeal to me apart from their accuracy boost. Perhaps other abilities to define them as agile skirmishers?

- Psyons ability is a good incentive for me to adapt my tactics to it (i.e firing at its sides or back, using grenades) to avoid the mesmerise, although it could be more interesting with more abilities to fight against.

- Wraiths with just a cloak? I assume their teleportation ability would come with later updates.

- Servitors feels like a slog to fight, since they hover too slowly during turns. At times they are far apart from aliens to use their heal ability even, their reaction fire burst and explosive death does force me to use different tactics to deal with them however.

-Mantids are weird. I dont get to see much of their abilities that affect me that much, I usually consider them the same as Sectons

- Reapers are pretty much the same, mow them down priority #1

- Cyberdrones have a knack for requiring my troops to outflank it so I like the challenge, and so far, I encountered them in 2-3 in all maps, which striked a nice balance. Anymore and it would be daunting to fight them.

- Overall, I like some of the aliens, but the rest felt half-baked

Cleaners

-To be honest, not a fan of cleaners. They seemed to be a mirroring of my own soldiers, and arent fun to fight compared to aliens (where I have to pay attention to their strengths/weaknesses). It feels more like filler than an interesting twist in early-game combat, and certainly loses the appeal of fighting an alien menace with superior firepower.

- However that being said, I liked the missions of extracting data and eliminating/capturing the leader before reinforcements arrive that made them more tolerable. I'm hoping for more of that for the alien side, like rushing deep into a research outpost and stealing alien data or have eliminating/capturing alien officers/commanders in this specific missions for game progression.

Air Combat

- Was hoping there is a utility slot on aircraft like how the soldiers have extra armour or accuracy modules, air combat still felt stale in terms of variety.

- Works perfect like X1, but for some reason I often fight my battles manually to ensure my aircraft survives/retains high health. That is far noticeable than when I played X1, so i say the tweaks in X2 are generally good.

- I enjoyed the start combat deployment, gives me options to tactically position my aircraft

- There has to be a scout craft to be a mobile radar array to give me options to actively search for UFOs in places I do not have coverage on.

- Repairs/replacement felt too slow for aircraft, by months 5 onwards I am on a losing streak due to low health while tackling my finances. 

Lore

- The annoying snob scientist man was a favourite to me in X1, but something felt off in the writing in X2. Others did point out that the writing's of lower quality than X1.

- Multiverse lore? Have to say its quite a putoff for me, It feels like an overused popular mainstream sci-fi story to me.

- Where did the 1-armed officer and the lazy storeman go? I loved those guys, bring them back in X2.

- While X2 takes up in an modern day alternate cold war, I feel that there is a void of the alternate lore that's missing that needs to be fleshed out in the game. X1 enjoyed the immediate understanding of a 1980s style cold war, which the game's maps and artwork reflects the era itself. I felt X2 could have discarded that cold war alternate universe and everything would still be the same.

Tactical Combat

- It saddens me we wont have mini-tanks to join the fray, but the MARS robot serves a good alternative, being a mini-wheel of destruction pounding past walls and surprising sebillians with accurate autocannons was a comedic treat. What I love about it is that it acts as a convenient breacher tool without the need of wasting TU on Demolition charges. I still want mini-tanks though.

- Civilians are hilariously random, running towards aliens unarmed, going back and forth, and them crushing into windows like unfazed professionals is funny. I still prefer for them to be coded to run towards the general direction of the landing craft, or at least shorten the back and forth to look like panic rather than being headless chickens.

- What on earth are allied soldiers on in terror missions? A few of them do take a stand and fought bravely, but I encounter survivors who run back and forth towards aliens while my guys get one-shotted

- Lasers are *chef's kiss* perfect. Instead of movie style laser projectiles they are laser beams of death. I love that, coupled with the ease of use bonus for low acc soldiers and terrain destruction they make perfect sense and definitely more distinct than X1's straight upgrade weapon tree.

- Accelerated guns make a nice early research goal, they are a stopgap to ballistics, and trading weight for more damage gives a good edge and compliments the balance to experienced soldiers that can carry 1 more rock on their backpack.

- I love the equipment system for soldiers to have options in battle, gives more variety oh how to outfit and optimise your troops, similar to weapon mods in other games.

- Not a fan of the grenade launcher, if memory serves, the rocket launcher of X1 was more accurate and more destructive? Since Demolition Charges (and the MARS bar) exist to breach obstacles, I find less of an incentive to use them(even if they have less TU), I could outfit a more urgent role than having a grenadier

- Losses of soldiers are about a  few dozen now, and I am one who loads from a soldiers death if I find it ridiculous. Still, the death rate seemed reasonable to me, and I usually play carefully. Losses are usually on terror missions, the cleaner missions and base invasions.

- Is it me or my soldiers are promoting too fast? I tend to load games over some soldier deaths and played more carefully, but the promotions still felt too fast to me even factoring that in. I have 2 Colonels, 3 Majors and 8 Captains within my 3 bases on day 120.

- Friendly fire feels !^$!#&$ to me. Even with a reasonable 3 tille distance forward & 1 tile distance on the right from the line of fire and with 70% accuracy I still hit my own soldier. I can expect that to happen, but I find that even with enough space to reasonably gauge, FF still feels ridiculous.

 

Overall, I love X2, it follows the formula faithfully like the good kind of sequel to expect, with adding new changes that I love and hate. Hope this helps.

Edited by Mr.Xia
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  • Mr.Xia changed the title to Feedback from past X1 Player (Early Access)
6 hours ago, Mr.Xia said:

Frankly, I thought you guys wouldnt pull through for X2 since I've stopped following you guys years ago, but after spotting X2 in early access, I went to find my key and had a blast. Had some time now so i thought I info-dump feedback and playstyle as a guy who loved X1 to the core.

 

Feedback is based on around 120+ days of play, and played X1 several times, played in mixed difficulty between soldier and veteran. Do note that I am comparing this often with X1(if my memory serves playing it)

 

Geoscape/Missions

-I took a more rushed approach to base building, and aggressively constructed base 2 and 3 by day 30 and 60. Felt noticeable struggle to upgrade/build aircraft & weapons, It made sense to me, and felt rather balanced. The need to cover the globe too quickly leaves me with issues here and there.

- Escalation felt rather slow mid-game, I only had one terror mission around the end of month 2, and I thought I would have another one coming up soon. Month 3 & 4 was me waiting for alien UFOs to shoot down on. Does difficulty influence this?

- Base invasion around month 3, and I faced about a dozen aliens with more than a few losses. Have to say, Cyberdrones Really worked poorly in bases that have auto-closed doors, and once I figured them out, it was rather easy to stack up and dispatch the two in the room they were stuck at.

- Continuing the elimination/capture cleaner leader and steal data missions, I was hoping for more types of that kind then just downed UFO, terror attack or eliminate missions. Perhaps extracting a human VIP or protecting an allied base under siege by wave based aliens would help provide more variety in that area.

- The unlimited alien reinforcements do give me a good run for my money to be more aggressive and I do like that, but the tension of endless reinforcements do give me dissatisfaction at how I complete it.

- Abduction was a fun spin of the usual eliminate more aliens, it gives me the same need to balance aggression within the time limit, without the stress of endless reinforcements.

- I was holding on towards alien corpses and cleaner data, assuming that they have some worth holding onto it, but I eventually sold them off. If future updates would require them, then an indication to sell them sparingly should be notified early.

Aliens

- Sebillians feels weaker to me in X2, their naked engineers and soldiers felt like a breeze to fight, and only the 2nd-tier soldier provided a threat (perhaps the cleaner missions xp and accelerated guns had something to do with it) Still, the tried and true with their screams and fun to fight.

- Mentrach feels like a filler enemy, I assume there is more to it in future updates, but other than their shields, they are boring to fight as they always stay in their UFOs

- Sectons have little appeal to me apart from their accuracy boost. Perhaps other abilities to define them as agile skirmishers?

- Psyons ability is a good incentive for me to adapt my tactics to it (i.e firing at its sides or back, using grenades) to avoid the mesmerise, although it could be more interesting with more abilities to fight against.

- Wraiths with just a cloak? I assume their teleportation ability would come with later updates.

- Servitors feels like a slog to fight, since they hover too slowly during turns, and I noticed they are often far apart from other aliens to heal in combat. Their reaction fire burst and explosive death does force me to use different tactics to deal with them, but they are quite frustrating to fight for above reasons

- Reapers are pretty much the same, mow them down priority #1

- I have little to say for the rest of the aliens without enough encounters

Cleaners

-To be honest, not a fan of cleaners. They seemed to be a mirroring of my own soldiers, and arent fun to fight compared to aliens (where I have to pay attention to their strengths/weaknesses). It feels more like filler than an interesting twist in early-game combat, and certainly loses the appeal of fighting an alien menace with superior firepower.

- However that being said, I liked the missions of extracting data and eliminating/capturing the leader before reinforcements arrive that made them more tolerable. I'm hoping for more of that for the alien side, like rushing deep into a research outpost and stealing alien data or have eliminating/capturing alien officers/commanders in this specific missions for game progression.

Air Combat

- Was hoping there is a utility slot on aircraft like how the soldiers have extra armour or accuracy modules, air combat still felt stale in terms of variety.

- Works perfect like X1, although I had a reason to go to air combat after an autoresolve fail now(phantom with 2x acc. cannon vs 2 fighters)

Lore

- The annoying snob scientist man was a favourite to me in X1, but something felt off in the writing in X2. Others did point out that the writing's of lower quality than X1.

- Multiverse lore? Have to say its quite a putoff for me, but since its early access, I'll see where this goes.

- Where did the 1-armed officer and the lazy storeman go? I loved those guys, bring them back in X2.

Tactical Combat

- It saddens me we wont have mini-tanks to join the fray, but the MARS robot serves a good alternative, being a mini-wheel of destruction pounding past walls and surprising sebillians with accurate autocannons was a comedic treat. What I love about it is that it acts as a convenient breacher tool without the need of wasting TU on C4 packs.

- Civilians are hilariously random, running towards aliens unarmed, going back and forth, and them crushing into windows like unfazed professionals is funny. I still prefer for them to be coded to run towards the general direction of the landing craft, or at least shorten the back and forth to look like panic rather than being headless chickens.

- What on earth are allied soldiers on in terror missions? A few of them do take a stand and fought bravely, but I encounter survivors who run back and forth towards aliens while my guys get one-shotted

- Lasers are *chef's kiss* perfect. Instead of movie style laser projectiles they are laser beams of death. I love that, coupled with the ease of use bonus for low acc soldiers and terrain destruction they make perfect sense and definitely more distinct than X1's straight upgrade weapon tree.

- Accelerated guns make a nice early research goal, they are a stopgap to ballistics, and trading weight for more damage gives a good edge and compliments the balance to experienced soldiers that can carry 1 more rock on their backpack.

- I love the equipment system for soldiers to have options in battle, gives more variety oh how to outfit and optimise your troops, similar to weapon mods in other games.

- Not a fan of the grenade launcher, if memory serves, the rocket launcher of X1 was more accurate and more destructive? Since C4s (and the MARS bar) exist to breach obstacles, I find less of an incentive to use them(even if they have less TU), I could outfit a more urgent role than having a grenadier

- Losses of soldiers are about a dozen, and I am one who loads from a soldiers death if I find it ridiculous. Still, the death rate seemed reasonable to me, and I usually play carefully. Losses are usually on terror missions, the cleaner missions and base invasions.

- Is it me or my soldiers are promoting too fast? I tend to load games over some soldier deaths and played more carefully, but the promotions still felt too fast to me even factoring that in. I have 2 Colonels, 3 Majors and 8 Captains within my 3 bases now.

- Friendly fire feels !^$!#&$ to me. Even with a reasonable 3 tille distance forward & 1 tile distance on the right from the line of fire and with 70% accuracy I still hit my own soldier. I can expect that to happen, but enough of these ridiculous angles happened for me to my fustration.

 

Overall, I love X2, it follows the formula faithfully like the good kind of sequel to expect, with adding new changes that I love and hate. Hope this helps.

Thanks, glad to hear you're having fun. I appreciate you taking the time to write all this out and I've skimmed it once, but I'll come back and read it properly next week when the stability fixes are done.

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