Feedback from a new(ish) player

[Heffe]

Hi all - 

Long, long time player of the og XCOM games here (specifically UFO Defense and TFTD), going back into the 90s. Loved those games. Haven't played the newer XCOM games or Xenonauts 1, but I decided to go out on a lark and pick up Xenonauts 2, as it looks great. Turns out, it's a great game! Just made it to the endgame message and really enjoyed my time playing, and as a result, I figured I'd stop by and leave some feedback. 

Gameplay

Overall really solid. Really harkens back to the old school games, with some really great quality of life upgrades such as being able to see at a glance how many TUs your guys will have left after a shot, or knowing the percent chance to hit after a movement before you even move. That system felt really natural and user friendly. Geoscape is really cool, though it did tend to skip a little bit when dragging the focal point between hemispheres. Tactical combat is excellent. Even tactical air combat felt really nice. Overall, I'd give it an 8/10.

Sounds

Really enjoyed the soundwork as well. Could always be better, but I didn't notice anything really lacking. 8/10

Music

Music felt great. Atmospheric. 9/10.

UI

Especially for experienced gamers, the UI feels natural and all makes sense. 10/10.

Technical performance

I only encountered a single noticeable bug through my playthrough, and that was when one of my agents was stuck in an "Airborne state" while healing and I could never get access to him again. He was good too, so it was a bummer. Not super impactful though. There were some other stuff that's clearly not fleshed out yet due to the next milestone not having been hit yet - missing images, missing descriptions, etc. 7/10.

Timeline and Progress

This is the area that really messed me up. I decided to play on a normal start to dip my feet in, and I found the timeline to suffer from some of the same challenges as earlier versions. First, research progress combined with limited capital doesn't really allow for advanced interceptors by the time you start encountering better UFOs. Same thing with upgrading to Gemini fighters. By the time I hit about six months in game, I already had 3 bases up, but not nearly enough alienum to provide me with enough materials to build more than a small handful of advanced fighters, and certainly not enough to equip the fighters, my troopers, get base upgrades, etc. That felt pretty rough. By the time I hit the endscreen, most of my fighters were still Angels, and they simply had no chance of competing against the waves of 1 large cruise w/ 2 interceptors. Every UFO spotted was either that make up, or a bomber, or some other equally large UFO flanked by two interceptors. In short, I got to a point where I had to start making my own alienum just to be able to get enough to get adequate weapons on my fighters or to build more fighters. This was after I was already taking every possible crash site and mission, and scrimping what little alienum I managed to salvage. 

In addition, the endgame started seeing waves of UFO's similar to the above. I'd have 4 UFO groupings all hit at once all around the planet. They'd buzz around between my bases pinging my radar, but I wouldn't have the ability to down them. Then after a few days of this, they'd leave, and I'd have a window where zero UFOs would appear. Something felt very programmatic about this and it took away from the gameplay. Four waves of 3 UFOs each for a few days, then like 8 days without a single sighting. Over and over again. This pattern should be tweaked so that singular UFOs or other UFO groups still appear, even into the endgame. 

Regarding researching, it felt great overall, but I couldn't help but wonder if it could use some editing. Normal weapons felt good. Even advanced weapons felt good. Same with Laser weapons. But I couldn't afford the materials to be able to upgrade to Gauss. And by the time I did I already had researched Fusion, but couldn't afford that either. I believe a lot of that came down to base expenses and funding - by endgame I had 4 bases to ensure adequate world coverage, but the costs to maintain them would leave me with only an extra million per month. I'm no expert, but I felt like I was defending the earth and my rewards for doing so actually felt as though they got worse the longer I played. Something felt off about that. 

5/10

Overall

8/10

Overall I really enjoyed the game, and can't wait for it to make it to v1.0. Some really compelling gameplay here that's a ton of fun. I do wish there would be a lot of tweaks made to timeline and progress, but outside of that I was having a blast. I realize that a lot of the more hardcore gamers here will probably tell me I need to git gud and I clearly didn't know what I was doing. Maybe they're right - maybe I'm just old and don't have the skills I used to. But I have beaten the old school XCOM games so I feel like I at least understand the basics of what's supposed to done. And I'd argue that this makes me closer to the "average" gamer when it comes to being able to review the game, rather than someone who's already a die hard fan of Xenonauts 2 and knows all of the minor tips and tricks. 

 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading this. Again, I can't tell the team enough how much fun I had playing the game. I wish you all the best in your quest toward full release!

[Chris]

On 5/3/2024 at 12:56 AM, Heffe said:

Hi all - 

Long, long time player of the og XCOM games here (specifically UFO Defense and TFTD), going back into the 90s. Loved those games. Haven't played the newer XCOM games or Xenonauts 1, but I decided to go out on a lark and pick up Xenonauts 2, as it looks great. Turns out, it's a great game! Just made it to the endgame message and really enjoyed my time playing, and as a result, I figured I'd stop by and leave some feedback. 

Gameplay

Overall really solid. Really harkens back to the old school games, with some really great quality of life upgrades such as being able to see at a glance how many TUs your guys will have left after a shot, or knowing the percent chance to hit after a movement before you even move. That system felt really natural and user friendly. Geoscape is really cool, though it did tend to skip a little bit when dragging the focal point between hemispheres. Tactical combat is excellent. Even tactical air combat felt really nice. Overall, I'd give it an 8/10.

Sounds

Really enjoyed the soundwork as well. Could always be better, but I didn't notice anything really lacking. 8/10

Music

Music felt great. Atmospheric. 9/10.

UI

Especially for experienced gamers, the UI feels natural and all makes sense. 10/10.

Technical performance

I only encountered a single noticeable bug through my playthrough, and that was when one of my agents was stuck in an "Airborne state" while healing and I could never get access to him again. He was good too, so it was a bummer. Not super impactful though. There were some other stuff that's clearly not fleshed out yet due to the next milestone not having been hit yet - missing images, missing descriptions, etc. 7/10.

Timeline and Progress

This is the area that really messed me up. I decided to play on a normal start to dip my feet in, and I found the timeline to suffer from some of the same challenges as earlier versions. First, research progress combined with limited capital doesn't really allow for advanced interceptors by the time you start encountering better UFOs. Same thing with upgrading to Gemini fighters. By the time I hit about six months in game, I already had 3 bases up, but not nearly enough alienum to provide me with enough materials to build more than a small handful of advanced fighters, and certainly not enough to equip the fighters, my troopers, get base upgrades, etc. That felt pretty rough. By the time I hit the endscreen, most of my fighters were still Angels, and they simply had no chance of competing against the waves of 1 large cruise w/ 2 interceptors. Every UFO spotted was either that make up, or a bomber, or some other equally large UFO flanked by two interceptors. In short, I got to a point where I had to start making my own alienum just to be able to get enough to get adequate weapons on my fighters or to build more fighters. This was after I was already taking every possible crash site and mission, and scrimping what little alienum I managed to salvage. 

In addition, the endgame started seeing waves of UFO's similar to the above. I'd have 4 UFO groupings all hit at once all around the planet. They'd buzz around between my bases pinging my radar, but I wouldn't have the ability to down them. Then after a few days of this, they'd leave, and I'd have a window where zero UFOs would appear. Something felt very programmatic about this and it took away from the gameplay. Four waves of 3 UFOs each for a few days, then like 8 days without a single sighting. Over and over again. This pattern should be tweaked so that singular UFOs or other UFO groups still appear, even into the endgame. 

Regarding researching, it felt great overall, but I couldn't help but wonder if it could use some editing. Normal weapons felt good. Even advanced weapons felt good. Same with Laser weapons. But I couldn't afford the materials to be able to upgrade to Gauss. And by the time I did I already had researched Fusion, but couldn't afford that either. I believe a lot of that came down to base expenses and funding - by endgame I had 4 bases to ensure adequate world coverage, but the costs to maintain them would leave me with only an extra million per month. I'm no expert, but I felt like I was defending the earth and my rewards for doing so actually felt as though they got worse the longer I played. Something felt off about that. 

5/10

Overall

8/10

Overall I really enjoyed the game, and can't wait for it to make it to v1.0. Some really compelling gameplay here that's a ton of fun. I do wish there would be a lot of tweaks made to timeline and progress, but outside of that I was having a blast. I realize that a lot of the more hardcore gamers here will probably tell me I need to git gud and I clearly didn't know what I was doing. Maybe they're right - maybe I'm just old and don't have the skills I used to. But I have beaten the old school XCOM games so I feel like I at least understand the basics of what's supposed to done. And I'd argue that this makes me closer to the "average" gamer when it comes to being able to review the game, rather than someone who's already a die hard fan of Xenonauts 2 and knows all of the minor tips and tricks. 

 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading this. Again, I can't tell the team enough how much fun I had playing the game. I wish you all the best in your quest toward full release!

Thanks for the feedback - always good to read people's thoughts on the game, and we'll be working hard to continue improving it during the rest of Early Access

The balance in the later parts of the game is definitely a bit dubious at present and is something we'll hopefully be improving in the next major update - but it's an ongoing process, and we'll probably only have it nailed down shortly before final launch (as repeatedly playing into the late game is quite time consuming).

[mafi]

On 5/3/2024 at 3:16 PM, Chris said:

Thanks for the feedback - always good to read people's thoughts on the game, and we'll be working hard to continue improving it during the rest of Early Access

The balance in the later parts of the game is definitely a bit dubious at present and is something we'll hopefully be improving in the next major update - but it's an ongoing process, and we'll probably only have it nailed down shortly before final launch (as repeatedly playing into the late game is quite time consuming).

 

Hello Chris, I bought the game as soon as it was released in early access and I tried it out a bit, but I'm waiting for its full version to play it 100%. Is there an approximate date for when the final version will be ready? Thank you very much.