General thoughts and Feedback after initial few play throughs

[cwamartin]

Hi Devs,

First of all, I have been patiently waiting for the early release of X2 and then you release it right before I go on holiday and have no access to it - very poor timing on your part...! 

Anyway, after I got back I have been playing it fairly constantly; just for context, I am old enough to have played the original UFO Enemy Unknown when it first came out (on a Commodore Amiga no less!) and have tried various iterations of X-Com games since then; I was (still am) a big fan of X1, so here are my thoughts on X2 so far.

First of all, this is a great game and I have enjoyed playing the early release version - congratulations on getting this far, it has been a long slog for you (and a long wait for us!). It is hard to tweak a game just enough so that it still appeals to people who love the first version but also still feels fresh enough to be worth the upgrade. I think on the whole X2 gets the balance fairly well, so good job.

I know there will be a lot more to come and I don't know how much can be adjusted at this point, but here are my thoughts:

1) Variety

I like the new mission types a lot - the cleaner base missions and the abduction missions, with the different goals it makes for a nice variety rather than the three basic types before (base defence, UFO/Base attacks and Terror missions). 

I particularly like the communication from Ops at the start of these missions. I would love it if the Ops comms could be done in audio using the same voice as in the introduction cinematic (I assume this is the Ops officer). This gives these missions a fresh feeling something distinct to X2 that differentiates it from X1.  That is why I think you should also include this interaction/Ops at the start of every mission; the new missions only appear a few times and once you get to the standard UFO crash site missions etc it suddenly feels just like X1 again rather than X2.

Also, I am not sure how random it is, but in the four campaigns I have played so far I only got 1 or 2 abduction missions in each so more of those please! 

 

2) Cleaner Missions

Again, I like this idea a lot and it also makes X2 distinct from X1, however I think it could be tweaked a little. At the minute you do the first mission and that kicks off progress on tracking the cleaner network, but that progress happens whether the player does anything more or not; indeed there is nothing more the player can do; eventually the two feeder bases come up and the main base, again without the player having to do anything.  I think it would be better if there were additional missions to retrieve data required before each feeder base is revealed.  Data retrieval should reveal the next part of the network and the final base should only be revealed if a leader is captured (not killed). Otherwise the cleaners thing can be just two missions in total. The first to get the initial data, then wait until the base is revealed and then attack the base. There is no real motivation to do anything else, especially since removing a Cleaner facility does not reduce panic (see below!)

 

3) Panic and Funding

I am sure there are a lot of views on this but I think there should be more options to reduce panic.  A Terror mission that fails will increase panic by 30 but if it succeeds it doesn't reduce it by anything? Removing a cleaner facility should also reduce panic by varying degrees, depending on the size of the facility.  The same goes for an Alien base.  It should not be easy to reduce panic, of course, but it also should not be impossible.  I think it needs tweaked a little; either alien/cleaner activity should create less panic or there should be options to reduce it.

Could there be an option to regain a funding region by completing a super hard mission - maybe eliminating an alien fortress or something of that kind?

 

4) Terror missions

First, I miss the bit in X1 where, after a certain amount of turns (20?) the remaining aliens would be revealed - makes a long mission less of a grind!

Also, the alien bombs seem a bit pointless - they cannot be defused and it doesn't matter how many of them there are.  What about if they were on a countdown and each had to be defused  within a certain time or it would go off and then the countdown resets and another one needs to be defused, until they are all done.  The mission would fail if all the bombs go off (or if all the Xenonauts are killed, as now) but there would be a reward (maybe Alienium/alloys) for each bomb that was defused.  Imagine our brave troops working their way through the ruins where one of the bombs have gone off, looking to prevent any more doing so - very cool! They would still have to kill all the aliens as well as defusing all the bombs since any aliens remaining alive would just reset the bombs after our troops leave (but not during the mission - that would be a nightmare!) 

Maybe the number of (currently suicidal) civilians saved would also have an impact on the mission rewards either in terms of panic reduction or materials gained.

 

5) Field Repair Kit

Bit of a random one this, but I what about a way of repairing the MARS during a mission; it would be like the medkit - you cannot repair it to full HP, but you could repair some of the damage

 

 

Just my thoughts - congrats again on a great game!

 

[Chris]

On 8/10/2023 at 4:10 PM, cwamartin said:

Hi Devs,

First of all, I have been patiently waiting for the early release of X2 and then you release it right before I go on holiday and have no access to it - very poor timing on your part...! 

Anyway, after I got back I have been playing it fairly constantly; just for context, I am old enough to have played the original UFO Enemy Unknown when it first came out (on a Commodore Amiga no less!) and have tried various iterations of X-Com games since then; I was (still am) a big fan of X1, so here are my thoughts on X2 so far.

First of all, this is a great game and I have enjoyed playing the early release version - congratulations on getting this far, it has been a long slog for you (and a long wait for us!). It is hard to tweak a game just enough so that it still appeals to people who love the first version but also still feels fresh enough to be worth the upgrade. I think on the whole X2 gets the balance fairly well, so good job.

I know there will be a lot more to come and I don't know how much can be adjusted at this point, but here are my thoughts:

1) Variety

I like the new mission types a lot - the cleaner base missions and the abduction missions, with the different goals it makes for a nice variety rather than the three basic types before (base defence, UFO/Base attacks and Terror missions). 

I particularly like the communication from Ops at the start of these missions. I would love it if the Ops comms could be done in audio using the same voice as in the introduction cinematic (I assume this is the Ops officer). This gives these missions a fresh feeling something distinct to X2 that differentiates it from X1.  That is why I think you should also include this interaction/Ops at the start of every mission; the new missions only appear a few times and once you get to the standard UFO crash site missions etc it suddenly feels just like X1 again rather than X2.

Also, I am not sure how random it is, but in the four campaigns I have played so far I only got 1 or 2 abduction missions in each so more of those please! 

 

2) Cleaner Missions

Again, I like this idea a lot and it also makes X2 distinct from X1, however I think it could be tweaked a little. At the minute you do the first mission and that kicks off progress on tracking the cleaner network, but that progress happens whether the player does anything more or not; indeed there is nothing more the player can do; eventually the two feeder bases come up and the main base, again without the player having to do anything.  I think it would be better if there were additional missions to retrieve data required before each feeder base is revealed.  Data retrieval should reveal the next part of the network and the final base should only be revealed if a leader is captured (not killed). Otherwise the cleaners thing can be just two missions in total. The first to get the initial data, then wait until the base is revealed and then attack the base. There is no real motivation to do anything else, especially since removing a Cleaner facility does not reduce panic (see below!)

 

3) Panic and Funding

I am sure there are a lot of views on this but I think there should be more options to reduce panic.  A Terror mission that fails will increase panic by 30 but if it succeeds it doesn't reduce it by anything? Removing a cleaner facility should also reduce panic by varying degrees, depending on the size of the facility.  The same goes for an Alien base.  It should not be easy to reduce panic, of course, but it also should not be impossible.  I think it needs tweaked a little; either alien/cleaner activity should create less panic or there should be options to reduce it.

Could there be an option to regain a funding region by completing a super hard mission - maybe eliminating an alien fortress or something of that kind?

 

4) Terror missions

First, I miss the bit in X1 where, after a certain amount of turns (20?) the remaining aliens would be revealed - makes a long mission less of a grind!

Also, the alien bombs seem a bit pointless - they cannot be defused and it doesn't matter how many of them there are.  What about if they were on a countdown and each had to be defused  within a certain time or it would go off and then the countdown resets and another one needs to be defused, until they are all done.  The mission would fail if all the bombs go off (or if all the Xenonauts are killed, as now) but there would be a reward (maybe Alienium/alloys) for each bomb that was defused.  Imagine our brave troops working their way through the ruins where one of the bombs have gone off, looking to prevent any more doing so - very cool! They would still have to kill all the aliens as well as defusing all the bombs since any aliens remaining alive would just reset the bombs after our troops leave (but not during the mission - that would be a nightmare!) 

Maybe the number of (currently suicidal) civilians saved would also have an impact on the mission rewards either in terms of panic reduction or materials gained.

 

5) Field Repair Kit

Bit of a random one this, but I what about a way of repairing the MARS during a mission; it would be like the medkit - you cannot repair it to full HP, but you could repair some of the damage

 

 

Just my thoughts - congrats again on a great game!

 

Thanks. Apologies for the slow reply, appreciate you giving us your thoughts!