General thoughts and Feedback after initial few play throughs - Milestone 2

[cwamartin]

After a few playthroughs on initial release I stopped playing to see what difference the next Milestone would bring, so that I could come at it fresh, so here is my feedback on milestone 2.

Overall, it is a great step forward; I have very much enjoyed playing X2 and commend the devs on their progress! I especially like that there is more variety of mission types, especially in the cleaner stage - the ambush missions, rescue VIP missions and the rescue soldiers mission along with the already existing data retrieval missions and abduction missions just make the game seem genuinely fresh rather than simply a rehash of the original Xenonauts.

I think the difficulty of the ambush missions needs tweaking - they are far too easy; I had two and each time I killed all of the cleaners and got all the loot in two turns. Possibly there needs to be way more cleaners, or possibly the number of troops I can take needs to be limited because it is an ambush/covert mission?

 

As the game progresses, however, we end up quite quickly back to the same basic missions - downed UFOs, Terror Missions and Base defence, and even these are basically the same mission - kill all the aliens.  If there could be more variety in the mission types as the game progresses that would be great. 

Along similar lines, the Ops officer disappears as the game progresses; either remove the interactions completely from the game or have them for every mission. Perhaps the Ops officer could give audio briefings like "Central" does in the Firaxis XCom games?

These are the things that make X2 distinct from X1, so don't have them drop off as the game progresses.

 

I still think there should be some way to reduce panic that is under player control. At the minute if a region is nearing 100 there is little I can do unless a mission happens to come up in that region, and that mission happens to be one of the missions that reduces panic.  Even removing an Alien Base does not reduce panic. I know that a certain amount of panic is created by the base being there and removing it stops that panic being generated, but for a major win like the takedown of an enemy base to not even reduce panic in the region by, say, 5 or 10, seems unrewarding!

Also, on the issue of Alien Base missions, I liked the old X1 approach of having two ways to win - either destroy the generator of kill all the aliens.  Maybe the first way would not reduce panic (but still stop panic being generated) and the second way would reduce panic?

 

I also wonder of it is too late to do some tweaking to the development of weapons and aircraft.  Essentially we have the same type of weapons throughout that get upgraded as research develops so in the end soldiers always carry one of the 6 weapon types - pistol, shotgun, rifle, machine gun, sniper rifle or grenade launcher; research does not add different weapon types, just more powerful versions of the same weapons.  It is the same with aircraft or vehicles - they are essentially the same throughout the whole game they just get better armour or more powerful weapons (and a visual update).  Perhaps these are things for the modders to do later but perhaps the devs could give some thought to it at this stage?

 

Another thought I had was, could there be different Xenonauts base types; for example, an outpost that would have a cheaper initial cost to build but that could not have any more than, say, four buildings, or be restricted in some other way. For example, you might want a base that was nothing more than a radar listening post with a base defence battery and living quarters so that it could be defended.

 

One more thought - it would be great if the game added to the type of challenges posed by more advanced aliens - after a certain stage the original UFO Enemy Unknown brought in mind control, for example, and that changed the very nature of the fight (as opposed to simply giving the aliens bigger and more powerful ships and weapons.)

 

Just some thoughts; and congrats to the devs, the game is really coming along nicely.

 

 

 

 

[Alienkiller]

Hi cewamartin,

you have very good summarized the atm outcome from the Game. I can agree with you in that Points, what the Cleaner-Part, the special Missions in the Cleaner-Part, the Upgrade- & Refit-Process in Weapons / Armour etc., and after the Cleaner-Part with the Standard-Alien-Missions belongs.

Thanks for assist with the Ideas for different Bases, Outposts, the Main-Chars (Chief Scientist, Chief Workshoper, Operations Manager etc.) and important Parts for Upgrades / Refits as well as on the World-Map. That we Beta-Testers and the Communty say the whole time already. To get more assistance for bringing in more Features to make the Game more interessting and make an big Difference to the direct Rivals (UFO ET-Row as well as Xenonatus 1) is very good.

I aggree that from the first Gameplay-Test to Milestone 2 (as one of the big Founders & Betatesters) the Game get an very good Step forward. It takes time, but the Quality have to go over Quantity. More Quality like above announced is important. If it would be in some Parts like X-Com Apocalypse or Phoenix Point (with the different Base-Designs you have announced) then an other great Step is done.

Let´s see what the Devs, the Publisher and the Freelancers bring in for Milestone 3.