My comments current game content

[Martouf]

Hello devs, as requested at the end of campaign to share thoughts on forum, here are mine.

I've played nearly all tactical squad games over the past 30 years and play most games preferably on hardest diff and iron man mode.
One game I havent played is Xenonauts 1, i was going to, but then a kickstarter happened
I have not checked other playstyles or strategies.

It took 2-3 attempts on the first map to learn survivability
As every alien on the map can have 2 reaction shots, and already 1 can be lethal at start. The only way I found to go through with least amount of casualties is using lots of front runners with shields
I guess the other way would be to have a tank and run behind that.
 

MY SQUAD SETUP:
At beginning of game, rifles and shotguns guys are crap because of the low hit percentage and then getting 1 or 2 reaction fires back in your face (and because of the range, reaction fire hits a lot)
So what i did was:
4 Shields, with pistol, 1 extra clip but mostly stocked with grenades. They are front runners until shield is gone

3 snipers to attack from range without getting reaction shots. They carry the medikits, and aim item (mostly shields are being wounded after shield goes down, they walk back to sniper and heal)
2 Rocketeers, just a grenade launcher and as many rockets as possible, can have some weight overload since they gonna blast ammo from first turn to remove line of sight blockers.
They are used to shoot corners of buildings, or fire at enemy and at the same time remove obstacles. (Not directly shot at enemy, but targeting ground )

Mid game and end game: Too easy. Your strength increases much quicker than the aliens. I've shot lizards with a gauss pistol 1 shot.

ENEMIES ARE ALL THE SAME:
All enemies are kinda the same. I hope that in future there will be more variaty, because i was bored halfway my first playthrough.
Airborne units?
Large units that bash through everything
Maybe a melee unit that gets free reaction moves instead of reaction fire (because its so damn fast)
A quick bee type that 'stuns' your units rather than killing. You can make it that it can easily fly to and stun 2 of your soldiers in 1 turn. So it can really upset the player playstyle but he can come back from it unharmed.
Headcrabs? They would ignore shield and counter that kind of heavy focus.
Units that spawn many little monsters over time?
An alien mob that fight in a pack (like wolves). So grenadiers are good, snipers are worse

Just some things so that you have to tweak ur squad for missions and get into new situations
Newest Xcom games has some really creative enemies with behaviour, keeping the playthrough fresh, and you really 'respect' certain aliens and their capabilities.
Havent really noticed much psionics. in my playthrough. I hate the 'mind control', though new xcom has that solved with a visible 'link' to the caster. But psionics could do so much more, like illusions and buffs. For example, a soldier is hit by an illusion that the world is on fire. You select him, and you see fire and smoke everywhere, and moving through it actually cause damage.

YOUR SOLDIERS ARE ALL THE SAME:
Same counts for your troops, they are also all the same. In the first days of campaign, you gotta look at their stats, because 1 might have 30 accuracy or 60. That is significant.
But after a while, they train up all stats equally and it hardly matters anymore: All your troops are kinda the same.
Jagged Alliance is truly great in having unique characters. It doesnt have to be like that for Xenonauts.
But current troops are too generic, they can all throw grenades equally good and far.
If you look at dungeons and dragons. Each character has stats: Dex, Int, Str etc. They get much better over time, but certain area's improve much faster than others.
You might want to reconsider adding something like this. So you gotta handpick recruits that will get really great snipers over an amount of missions, or really good grenade throwers.
Or maybe slow down training speed by 50% of current, and give each soldier a random 1,2 or 3 affinities (maybe even hidden) in which they progress much faster.

USER INTERFACE:

I am very pleased with the menu's, keys and commands. It plays really easy. Game looks good. Really old school vibe but new and crisp. great work.
 

OTHER STUFF:

I like a squad of 9 instead of 4/6: A casualty is than so much less significant for the completion of the current mission. Its also not too much, your turns go quite fast.
Hoping floors will be breakable in future.

Stun gun is really thrash, before you have a good hit %, you are so close to target a stun rod would have done the work too.

I dont like how reaction works at all. I mean aliens that dont move, just stock up 2 reactions.
Thats mostly when you see reaction shot system: From enemies that are too hard to kill with 1 shot, but can kill you in response immediatly, and if they miss on the first reaction, they kill you on the 2nd.
So the whole reaction shot system does not feel 'rewarding and fun' Like with gears tactics of jagged alliance 3. Its just some annoying behaviour that the aliens have.
Atleast keep reaction fire to the 90 degree angle of facing. It would make a sneak around with a shotgun much more viable.
I rather fight 2x the amount of aliens on a map (or they have 2x the hitpoints), than that every alien can rotate 180 degrees and one shot you in reaction.

I would like to see more flexibility with research progression and base building progression and squad strategies.
I know the state of the game, and I get it that it couldnt have been primary focus till now.

Right now I am pleased with the basics of the game. It's like a good basic meal, but it needs some salt, pepper and a bit of variety.
Because right now, I cant see me play it again. Its too much of the same thing throughout the game, and I had already figured out how to beat it on day 1, and didnt have to change my strategy at any point.
After first map, there was never a moment: Holy crap what is this and how do I beat this.

I dont like the exploration of UFO's, its the same thing as the original with many reactions as soon as you open the door

Overall: Pleased what I saw and experienced, and looking forward to more. I have faith that this game will grow into one of the best tactical squad games of all time. It has a good basics for that.

 

 

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by Martouf