My thoughts of the first 120 days (3.40)

[Skitso]

Took the time to start a new playthrough with 3.40 just to feel how the difficulty and balance feels after latest changes. Here's my random thoughts. I played with veteran difficulty with increased starting funds. 

• Start of the game and plot might not make much sense for the players that have disabled or skipped the tutorial. Maybe add a text box or dialog scene at the beginning of the game that summarises events that are otherwise told in the tutorial. Most game tutorials don't have any story content, so people might really miss out here.
• I had a Cleaner VIP mission very early in the game (first or second cleaner mission, right after the first abduction) and it felt really difficult. I tried to push forward as fast as I could while looting one side building for extra intel and I had no business trying to capture the VIP. There's just too many cleaners and the time limit is too tight. It's way more difficult than any other cleaner missions while they should be about the same IMO. Reduce enemies and add one or two more turns. Also, might be a good idea to force the mission to spawn later and/or be one time persistent mission. It has no business being that tough so early in the game.
• New jungle (escort) maps are way too clutterd and dense. Makes them difficult and annoying to play.
• Soldier progression feels spot on now.
• Cleaner mission repetition annoys me still. Had a second (too tough) VIP mission before even one intel gather. I'd gladly have it the other way around: 2 intel gathers and then a VIP mission. Would make more sense difficulty curve, progression and story wise too.
• Resources were quite well balanced but even with the increased starting funds I had, I felt the money was a bit tight. Alenium/alloy seemed fine.
• I hate to build basic air weapons. Why is the logic different than with troop weapons?
• Air game felt too punishing after day 100. I only had three angels with laser lancers and needed to transfer them around the globe to try to keep panic down. It didn't end well. I would have needed at least 2 more airplanes at that time but had no means funding them and their weapons. Also, as I need to complete a destroyer crash site before I can research Ufo Hull plating and only then I can research Phantom and after that, I still need to build and arm them. This all takes like a month or more and by that time, destroyer waves have raised the panic to 90-100 at least in some regions.  
• AI still leaves a lot to be desired: They waste a lot of TU's moving back and forth for no reason, don't stay put when in optimal positions, don't take multiple shots when close to a clear target, but move into shroud instead and take a quick snapshot from there etc. AI doesn't seem to be aware of where each side's frontlines are, so they often move into unoptimal locations behind my lines.
• My third abduction at day 87 was brutal. Wraiths and servitors in dock biome and I just had to save scum my way through it. Waaaay too difficult. Huge difficulty spike.
• After the Cleaner HQ is destroyed, the game starts to repeat itself and becomes somewhat boring. The plot to reveal Cleaner HQ has so cool progression that when it's finally resolved, I feel the game starts to become stale. It might be a good idea to introduce some similar large scale objective for the player to strive towards a month or so after the Cleaner HQ so advancing the plot wouldn't feel so linear and predictable where you just shoot bigger and bigger ufos down.
• Mid/late game needs cleaner style mission variety too. Make alien base similar mission objective as cleaner HQ with multi-tiered proggression maybe?
• Civilian turns take too long. Do they all need to move so much and every turn? Do we need to have a civilian turn at the end of the mission when all the enemies are dead and we could just call it a day?
• End of mission screen should also show changes in panic and the amount of broken/lost gear
• Shotgun civilians are still super aggressive and raid ufos completely fearlessly.
• Abduction missions start to annoy me - too much repetition. Maybe after completing a few, unlock an abductor alien base mission where you need to rescue already abducted people or something instead.
• Other that that, the game felt good. Somewhat buggy, but still great fun.

Edited March 18 by Skitso

[Tom Pouce]

I agree with several points raised.
Once the cleaners are eliminated, the game seems to revolve around a somewhat similar loop in terms of mission.
We could perhaps find intelligence capture or capture an alien VIP to obtain information and not just go to crash sites.
At the air level, the game is more difficult given the price of planes and weapons. I understand the benefit of paying for weapons individually, but that seems excessive to me for missiles.
Seeing civilians trying to enter a ship with a shotgun makes me laugh.
If there are things I would like to see, it would be an improvement to the stun stick and a little more variety in terms of music.
I can't wait to see what happens next and test the Gemini plane with the fusion cannons.
I wrote this post using google translate so I hope everything is understandable.

[Raffik]

On 3/17/2024 at 9:57 AM, Skitso said:

Took the time to start a new playthrough with 3.40 just to feel how the difficulty and balance feels after latest changes. Here's my random thoughts. I played with veteran difficulty with increased starting funds. 

• Start of the game and plot might not make much sense for the players that have disabled or skipped the tutorial. Maybe add a text box or dialog scene at the beginning of the game that summarises events that are otherwise told in the tutorial. Most game tutorials don't have any story content, so people might really miss out here.
• I had a Cleaner VIP mission very early in the game (first or second cleaner mission, right after the first abduction) and it felt really difficult. I tried to push forward as fast as I could while looting one side building for extra intel and I had no business trying to capture the VIP. There's just too many cleaners and the time limit is too tight. It's way more difficult than any other cleaner missions while they should be about the same IMO. Reduce enemies and add one or two more turns. Also, might be a good idea to force the mission to spawn later and/or be one time persistent mission. It has no business being that tough so early in the game.
• New jungle (escort) maps are way too clutterd and dense. Makes them difficult and annoying to play.
• Soldier progression feels spot on now.
• Cleaner mission repetition annoys me still. Had a second (too tough) VIP mission before even one intel gather. I'd gladly have it the other way around: 2 intel gathers and then a VIP mission. Would make more sense difficulty curve, progression and story wise too.
• Resources were quite well balanced but even with the increased starting funds I had, I felt the money was a bit tight. Alenium/alloy seemed fine.
• I hate to build basic air weapons. Why is the logic different than with troop weapons?
• Air game felt too punishing after day 100. I only had three angels with laser lancers and needed to transfer them around the globe to try to keep panic down. It didn't end well. I would have needed at least 2 more airplanes at that time but had no means funding them and their weapons. Also, as I need to complete a destroyer crash site before I can research Ufo Hull plating and only then I can research Phantom and after that, I still need to build and arm them. This all takes like a month or more and by that time, destroyer waves have raised the panic to 90-100 at least in some regions.  
• AI still leaves a lot to be desired: They waste a lot of TU's moving back and forth for no reason, don't stay put when in optimal positions, don't take multiple shots when close to a clear target, but move into shroud instead and take a quick snapshot from there etc. AI doesn't seem to be aware of where each side's frontlines are, so they often move into unoptimal locations behind my lines.
• My third abduction at day 87 was brutal. Wraiths and servitors in dock biome and I just had to save scum my way through it. Waaaay too difficult. Huge difficulty spike.
• After the Cleaner HQ is destroyed, the game starts to repeat itself and becomes somewhat boring. The plot to reveal Cleaner HQ has so cool progression that when it's finally resolved, I feel the game starts to become stale. It might be a good idea to introduce some similar large scale objective for the player to strive towards a month or so after the Cleaner HQ so advancing the plot wouldn't feel so linear and predictable where you just shoot bigger and bigger ufos down.
• Mid/late game needs cleaner style mission variety too. Make alien base similar mission objective as cleaner HQ with multi-tiered proggression maybe?
• Civilian turns take too long. Do they all need to move so much and every turn? Do we need to have a civilian turn at the end of the mission when all the enemies are dead and we could just call it a day?
• End of mission screen should also show changes in panic and the amount of broken/lost gear
• Shotgun civilians are still super aggressive and raid ufos completely fearlessly.
• Abduction missions start to annoy me - too much repetition. Maybe after completing a few, unlock an abductor alien base mission where you need to rescue already abducted people or something instead.
• Other that that, the game felt good. Somewhat buggy, but still great fun.

I had a very similar feelings when I played version 3.2.0 recently (got no time yet to try 3.3.0 and 3.4.0) - last time I played the whole 200 days was 2.0.9. Played at veteran.

I agree with all of what Skitso wrote. A few remarks below:

Cleaners - at the start it is very interesting to have a "human" opponent with some alien missions, but I would like to see the Cleaners interfering with the alien missions, like "cleaning" parties, say after turn 10, cleaner reinforcements would show up and try to destroy the human player to "protect the secret and clean the area" and the destrction of cleaners could be postponed to later in the game. The combined threat of cleaners and aliens at once would be intimidating.

The air combat feels different - more demanding now with the homing drones and defensive turrets on some of the UFO´s. Angels are almost no use after day 90 or so, Phantoms are a must, but very expensive. Also to be able to comfortably win every air combat, at least 3 fighters were necessary, in later stages even 3 phantoms with fusion weaponry (2 with missiles and lances, third with torpedoes and missile)

What I disliked about the air combat is the new interceptor model - Genesis. The model looks ridiculous (resembling a dragon drawn by a kid... sorry if I am being too honest here, but the model from X1 was really cool with the forward swept wings - now the game uses the same icon during combat, but the model (picture and model in hangar) just looks terrible and small. Pleeeeease, change it.... The previous model resembling su47 was much better. If you added some alien features to the same model it would look just fine...

Same goes to the advanced transport Pegasus - a flying box - the model seems too small to the carrying capacity, i kind of feel they should be bigger to fill the space in the hangar a bit more to feel more robust.. It would be perhaps cool if the Pegasus had an upper level - soldiers in the upper level with the tanks on the bottom level. Soldiers with jetpacks could exit the ship from the upper level or there would be the big door on the lower level. Or perhaps a ramp that would descent downwards (similar to skyranger in UFO: EU) Just a thougt..

Economy is also tighter than before - most of the times I had to think what to build and what to skip as the money were very tight - building a solid airforce and good equipped ground force was challenging. 6 bases were a dream never coming true. 2 bases with troops with another one with planes was all I could manage to build until end of the scenario (last UFO appeared around day 380 or so) 

In general, the game feels solid, there was a lag in the jungle missions, some minor bugs here and there (may be my old PC having hard time only), but the overal feeling was good. The loading times improved a bit as well I believe. The repetition of the missions is a bit annoying. The maps need more levels (high buildings, undeground levels etc). There couls be more mission variety - search and rescue of downed planes (in case UFO downs a military plane or defense of a military base/installation would be nice for example)

Well done devs, Looking forward to the next build!

P.S. pleeeeease again, better genesis model...

 

Edited March 19 by Raffik

[Shadeth]

The civilian shotgunners remind me of drunk Texas rednecks. I kin of think it is funny how fearless they are.

[Ozh]

++

Good summary. I can't agree more with 'air' part of the game. Its way too amplified compare to main game. As it right now I have to invest most of my resources and push as hard as possible to build air weaponry and fighters just to keep up with swarm of alien's UFOs. And 'my' game is not about it. I always use auto and at the end despite my 'focus' I start losing every air combat anyway.