My thoughts of the milestone 4

[silencer]

Well Gauss Weapons clearly show that you can handle enemies easily, even so with Fusion, but when it comes to survivability, nothing beats pure skill and knowledge of the mechanics. A soldier with Colossus armor will die in 2 shots to plasma weapon. I sort of loved TFTD armor. The Magnetic Ion armor made you like imprevious to frontal damage, but side and back was vurnerable. The same you could say about the X-COM's Apocalypse Distruptor armor. It could take a few hits from the Devastator cannon, but after a while it got worn down. Here in X2 armor is depleated very quickly and at best it can survive 1-2 shots. 

[Skitso]

I wanted to check when one of my soldiers died from the casualty list, but it has only the date of death, while the geoscape only tells the sequential day number. A small thing, but could you maybe add the date to the geoscape view too? You could easily fit it under the day counter.

Edited June 29, 2024 by Skitso

[silencer]

So I played the new Harvester UFO. I like the scale of it. Wish other UFOs increased in scale.

Edited June 29, 2024 by silencer

[Skitso]

• I just had 6 cleaners around the starting point of VIP extract mission. And it's not just this mission type. Terrible, put those spawn points away from the starting area. Especially when I need to escort / keep someone alive
• It seems VIP extract is somewhat more difficult than other cleaner missions. One or two enemies too much IMO. Reinforcement time is ok.
• Cleaner MP5 is too effective at long ranges. I should have upper hand with assault rifles.
• Sniper rifles need a buff. Map desing rarely supports proper sniping tactics. (open spaces, more than 1 floor of verticality)
• Guardian armor definitely needs a buff. Plasma weapons cut right through it
• There should be a small chance for each UFO to contain extra enemy/enemies that doesn't belong in the current enemy pool at hand. It'd give a nice aspect of uncertainty and provide frightening surprises as you'd never know if there's a rogue andron or a reaper lurking in the shadows. Or if there are more than one mentarch patroling around the UFO. 
• Base defense missile batteries feel too niché and used only few times per playthrough at most, which isn't that satisfying to put lots of money into. Would it make sense to change the batteries to have their own radar range around the base in the geoscape view and have them actively shoot UFO's flying within the range?

Edited June 30, 2024 by Skitso

[Skitso]

After second playthrough of MS4, my number one issue is that alien forces feel too homogenous. No matter what race the mission is against, things play out about the same way and I don't need to change the way I play that much from mission to mission. There are three reasons I can think of:

1. AI isn't unique enough for each race
2. Stats are too similar on each race
3. Race special abilities are too weak to really make a difference

How to improve this?

Not everything needs to be in perfect balance in a single player game. Underline racial differences boldly with broader brush strokes:

• If you want sebillian to have poor eye sight, decrease their accuracy but have them heal a lot more per turn.
• If you want wraith to be sneaky snipers, double their cloaking field effect, but cut the armor in half.
• If you want mantid to be skittish, halve their HP but add their numbers
• If you want andron to be unstoppable terminator, add more armor but reduce TU
• If you want cleaners to be normal humans, make them not shoot civilians and try to preserve their own life more actively
• If you want cyberdrone to stand out as a fearsome tank, change it's weapon to AOE or burst. Make it throw 5 grenades randomly around it per turn. Something different than just a different color, singular plasma bolt.

These are just quick ideas to drive my idea home.

[gG-Unknown]

On 7/3/2024 at 8:28 AM, Skitso said:

.

• If you want sebillian to have poor eye sight, decrease their accuracy but have them heal a lot more per turn. // keep accuracy, but reduce spot range even more, from minus 3 up to minus  5.
• If you want wraith to be sneaky snipers, double their cloaking field effect, but cut the armor in half.  //  perhaps make wraight same advantage against Humans  like humans  agains  Sebilian.  Make cloaking effect  reduce acc AND lower spot range same as for sebilian minus 5.
• If you want mantid to be skittish, halve their HP but add their numbers  // agree that not  all oponents must  be bullet sponge. What is  mantid advantage  ? Speed of movement ?  Perhaps they should walk for 3 TU instead of 4TU.  Low  HP but higher armor due to natural carapace? (this would be nice opponent for melle)
• If you want andron to be unstoppable terminator, add more armor but reduce TU // I am not sure about it. they are not exactly bad. Dont change to much numbers at once.
• If you want cleaners to be normal humans, make them not shoot civilians and try to preserve their own life more actively // YES !
• If you want cyberdrone to stand out as a fearsome tank, change it's weapon to AOE or burst. Make it throw 5 grenades randomly around it per turn. Something different than just a different color, singular plasma bolt. // reaction shot which hit our throw-ables ? (it neutralize grenades in range)

These are just quick ideas to drive my idea home.

I think more oponent should use a toxic grenades (a new exclusive type) so player see more value in  re-brether  . Especially cleaners with  gas mask should use some toxic AOE attack. Grenades are dangerous in hands of AI, so perhaps, each gas-mask cleaner can have just one toxic grenade ?

Edited July 7, 2024 by gG-Unknown

[Komandos]

On 6/1/2024 at 11:56 AM, Skitso said:

About UFO movement patterns:

[Skitso]

Alien bombs on terror missions seem like they are missing the gameplay aspect of it. 

 

Maybe add a timer on them and IF you manage to defuse one, you'll get a significant alenium reward or something. Currently they are just a boring nothing burger.

 

And place them in logical spots where they actually cause some damage like in the buildings etc. so when they explode, they really change the map layout.

Edited July 14, 2024 by Skitso

[gG-Unknown]

12 hours ago, Skitso said:

.

Alien bombs on terror missions seem like they are missing the gameplay aspect of it. // agree. Curent status feels like a place-holder for certain mission type.

Maybe add a timer on them and IF you manage to defuse one, you'll get a significant alenium reward or something. Currently they are just a boring nothing burger. // I have no problem with ticking bomb but it looks like many people are scared of timed  missions, so perhaps use different mechanic ?

And place them in logical spots where they actually cause some damage like in the buildings etc. so when they explode, they really change the map layout. //  abduction tubes should be outside (which is) so make it opposite, place bombs  only inside. When it goes  off then it properly tests destruction model.

------------------

What about this mechanic: mission starts with no  time limits, when you disarm the first bomb time starts  ticking on all bombs (3 turns count down) AND reinforcements are start incoming  each turn until end  of mission.

Solution: your task is split your team, disarm bombs ( ideally at the same turn), and  get out as fast as possible. With valuable bombs (energy source basicaly) in your backpacks. Bombs are about  50 weight. you need strong soldier,

Edited July 14, 2024 by gG-Unknown

[Skitso]

How about moving cleaner progress into the objectives list like this:

[Skitso]

I got a splendid (IMO) idea to improve the base building minigame: The issue it currently has is that it can be played the same (optimal) way every time. Goldhawk has added adjacency bonuses etc, to spice the game up, but it doesn't generate additional variety or add that much real options gameplay wise as the only real choise the player needs to do is what buildings to build and when to do it. There's "only one" optimal way to place the facilities.

So what if each base building grid was randomly littered with 4 to 8 (depends on difficulty) debris tiles that block building any structures until you excavate it, which costs significant time and money to do. Now player needs to weight if it's worth to strive for adjacency or build faster and cheaper but with unoptimal facility placement. With this relatively simple addition, every playthrough would be different and you'd also need to build more facilities in the 2nd and 3rd bases when you can't fit everything in the first one. Currently all additional bases tend to have just radars, hangars and missile batteries as almost everything you need can be built in the first base.

Make sense to you?

Edited August 9, 2024 by Skitso

[gG-Unknown]

Good idea. Althou those hard rock pillars should be permanent.

People complain for monney shortage already, if you add another money siphon, it creates even more money stress.

[Komandos]

On 8/9/2024 at 9:37 AM, Skitso said:

Make sense to you?

This will force the player to start a new game every time until he gets a convenient configuration of the first base. This will force the player to save the game before building a new base.

 

The idea is interesting, but players don't like to depend on chance in the most important cases.

[gG-Unknown]

On 8/9/2024 at 8:37 AM, Skitso said:

 improve the base building minigame: The issue it currently has is that it can be played the same (optimal) way every time.

Add irregularity is good idea. However, mine stones for money leads to other problems. Also my proposed idea of permanent stones is not ideal.

What about other form of money ? Lets say each Engineering workshop has also secondary feature, it digs out one stone square per 30 days.

It is irregular, layout and dynamic  progress and do  not interfere with money management.

[Skitso]

Oops, wrong thread.

Edited August 14, 2024 by Skitso