Skitso's thoughts on milestone 5.8.1

[Skitso]

Priority issues (for me) are bolded.

• Supporter UI (including all the info about OP costs etc.) being available before the whole OP system is activated is confusing. Supporter and OP systems should be introduced simultaneously after the ATLAS base mission.
• The new Cleaner introduction research and how other early researches are spread is now perfect.
• Increase in heavy armor accuracy penalty is good. Consider it a percentage though? 
  • MARS heavy armor should also give accuracy penalty? 
• Smoke shouldn't affect grenade accuracy as much as it does guns
• I'm constantly annoyed seeing my MARS buzzing around crushing every wall corner and cover in sight. Add a small TU cost for crushing to make it happen only when I want it.
• Demo charge is OP. Needs more weight and shorter throw distance
• Flash grenade is OP. It's too easy to suppress especially high ranking units when it's 100% success every time. Maybe make it just add suppression "damage" like normal gun fire does and make different races and ranks have different suppression resistance levels.
• Frag grenade is too weak. Maybe a tad larger range now that we have damage fall off?
• I'm not enjoying the fact that when my unit is moving, I can't move the camera freely as it force locks to the moving unit so it's always on screen. Force camera movement to earlier location after AI turn is also poison. Please remove these or at least make a toggle.
• It feels I can keep the doomsday in check so easily that the OP effects have time to grow too powerful before I need to activate them.
  • Consider lowering the OP reward starting values and cap the max. Consider lowering daily OP gain at least on higher difficulties.
  • "Reduce Tension" is way too powerful. I kept tensions low by just completing missions and on day 32 I could lower doomsday by a whopping 65 points with just 50op.
  • "Raise funds" also seems quite powerful now if used sparingly. I just raised an extra million with just 50op.
• Some supporter rewards are terrible (1 extra OP per day?)
• Eliminating an infiltrator currently feels like I'm just removing a red shield around the supporter so I can recruit him. IMO eliminating the infiltrator should leave that spot completely empty for X days before a new loyal supporter replaces it - making it actually feel like Xenonaut agents managed to liquidate the infiltrator from some local government and it taking 30 or whatever days before a new guy is found and available to recruit.
• Add a small omnious SFX every time doomsday counter advances. Flashing the screen red would also look cool. (Pretty standard visual language for taking damage in games)
• Hovering mouse cursor over soldier quick selection tabs at the top of the screen tanks performance hard. Not a deal breaker but if there's something that can be done to fix it, it would be nice.
• Making Alien magnetic weapons research complete 20-30% quicker could make pursuing accelerated weapons a bit more tempting.
  • I would also increase laser weapons' alloy cost a tiny bit to make me consider building some accelerated weapons instead.
• "Assign new research" -popup still comes before reviewing the completed research.
• Ha! I love the new short conversation with the head scientist before the first crash site mission! Small things like these add a lot!
• Is it on purpose that mantid and secton share the same racial sound effects?
• I'm still waiting for shield bearers to provide more cover than a normal unit. (20%)
• Hunkering right behind a cover item should provide additional cover or kneeling bonus. (This I feel is the single most important gameplay improving change the game is still missing) 
• Data raids are still a bit too easy.
  • Maybe easiest way to balance these would be to add a small TU cost (10tu?) to hacking.
• After day 55 Cleaner data raid I got 0 missions until day 84 when Cleaner HQ spawned. In that ~30 days I only got 1 scout I wasn't able to catch and 2 probes.
  • I would prefer to have at least one more cleaner mission in month 3
  • In general the game pacing and content was almost perfect for the first ~60 days. Month three felt broken with 0 mission content before Cleaner HQ.
  • reloading from day 55 and playing month 3 again I actually got a VIP escort mission spawn. Are these random? Also, I understood I should get a destroyer UFO on month 3, is that random too? Nevertheless, month three felt empty and sparse.
    • Maybe make sure the first destroyer is spawned close to player.
• Shot 2 destroyers in the middle part of NA and both generated a farm crash site map. As there should be a system in place that tries to avoid biome repetition, shouldn't the other crash site have some other biome than farm that is suitable for NA? Like docks or desert or something? 
• Laser cannon (vehicles) and Laser auto rifle (vehicles) cost less exotic materials (5/5) than a normal laser rifle (6/6) even though it's a one off upgrade. Should be something like 20/20 instead.
  • Actually, speaking of exotic material costs: I'm constantly restricted by money while having way too much exotics on hand. Now that I can even order more with OP, alloy and alenium requirements should be way higher in general.
• Terror missions should be something more than just an arena deathmatch and the completely passive bombs that are currently littered around the maps are screaming a missing gameplay mechanic. What if the bombs were instead ATD's (Alien Terror Device) that generate fear around them and the Xenonaut units would suffer constant morale damage until the device is destroyed. Would tie nicely to the theme of aliens terrorizing people and would also make these mission feel a bit more unique while still having a relatively low impact in gameplay.
  • These ATD's could also be used later in alien bases and UOO etc. to add an additional challenge with a nice one-two punch with alien psionics.

I once again stopped my playthrough at day 120 as I want to keep the rest of the game fresh until v1.0. Overall I'd say the beginning is now starting to take shape really nicely. Doomsday was a tad too easy to avoid on veteran, exotic materials were way too plenty, and if the month 3 had worked better (destroyer UFO and cleaner mission missing), I would have said it was 90-95% perfect. Just small polish and balance tweaks and at least the beginning of the game is pretty much done. Well done @Chris and the team!

Edited February 9 by Skitso

[Skitso]

I would like to have a red progress bar representing the doomsday counter the same way we have panic progress bars later in the game. Having a white percentage number telling me when the world ends just doesn't feel omnious enough. Like this:

[Skitso]

A new mission appearing on the Geoscape map leaves a bit to be desired. Currently the game just pauses and a window with the mission parameters and an option to launch combat team pops up, effectively blocking the new mission icon and concealing the actual location of the said mission.

It would look and feel a lot cooler if the game paused and the camera quickly focused and zoomed to the newly revealed icon on the map while an SFX plays and a short announcement of a new mission being available pops up. Then the player could continue playing forward or click the mission icon to see the more detailed mission info.

Edited February 8 by Skitso

[Skitso]

These victory effects seem quite complex even for me as an experienced player.

 

EDIT: OK, I completed the mission and got 13 data sticks, earned 0 money and 65 Operation points, so 5op per stick? I'm pretty sure there weren't 40 computers on the map to gain that 200op mentioned in the victory effects. Sticks didn't end up in my stores so nothing to sell either. What does that 0% doomsday in the victory conditions even mean? If I hack 10 or more computers, I gain no doomsday?

But anyways, there has to be something wrong here so I made a bug report linking it here.

user_before_data_raid-8.json user_data_raid_end-7.json

Edited February 8 by Skitso

[gG-Unknown]

11 hours ago, Skitso said:

•  
• Increase in heavy armor accuracy penalty is good. Consider it a percentage though? 
  • MARS heavy armor should also give accuracy penalty? 

I see you like heavy armor debufff tuning same  as I do. Here are some things I would like to brainstorm :

1.

Heavy armor is bonus to defence which balances out as debuff ofence - that is obvious.

Melee offence is based on Reaction stat, it is not afected by Heavy Armor. I believe that debuff on Reaction should be same volume as for acc.

Recommendation : Heavy armor reduces Accuracy AND Reaction stat by  -3 to -5 for most armour types (and -2 to -3 for Warden)

What you think ?

=============================

2.

MARS

- debuf for mars doesn’t suits me. it is wheeled device and  receives  debuf in movement already.

However, I get another Idea - add an Optional research for additional armour (and HP buff for meat shield feeling) for MARS, which is mounted into secondary weapon slot. It keeps the base idea, trade-off defence for offence. This turn MARS into a movable cover ! It creates new gameplay "cover behind a tank".

 

Linked to this is already disused proposal, make Shieldbearer AND Tank create higher percentage blocking. So soldiers could better hide behind someone else. We will see more soldiers without heavy armor now, so give  an tactical option, how rise survivability would be nice.

What you think ?

 

Edited February 8 by gG-Unknown

[Chris]

On 2/8/2025 at 5:44 AM, Skitso said:

Priority issues (for me) are bolded.

• Supporter UI (including all the info about OP costs etc.) being available before the whole OP system is activated is confusing. Supporter and OP systems should be introduced simultaneously after the ATLAS base mission.
• The new Cleaner introduction research and how other early researches are spread is now perfect.
• Increase in heavy armor accuracy penalty is good. Consider it a percentage though? 
  • MARS heavy armor should also give accuracy penalty? 
• Smoke shouldn't affect grenade accuracy as much as it does guns
• I'm constantly annoyed seeing my MARS buzzing around crushing every wall corner and cover in sight. Add a small TU cost for crushing to make it happen only when I want it.
• Demo charge is OP. Needs more weight and shorter throw distance
• Flash grenade is OP. It's too easy to suppress especially high ranking units when it's 100% success every time. Maybe make it just add suppression "damage" like normal gun fire does and make different races and ranks have different suppression resistance levels.
• Frag grenade is too weak. Maybe a tad larger range now that we have damage fall off?
• I'm not enjoying the fact that when my unit is moving, I can't move the camera freely as it force locks to the moving unit so it's always on screen. Force camera movement to earlier location after AI turn is also poison. Please remove these or at least make a toggle.
• It feels I can keep the doomsday in check so easily that the OP effects have time to grow too powerful before I need to activate them.
  • Consider lowering the OP reward starting values and cap the max. Consider lowering daily OP gain at least on higher difficulties.
  • "Reduce Tension" is way too powerful. I kept tensions low by just completing missions and on day 32 I could lower doomsday by a whopping 65 points with just 50op.
  • "Raise funds" also seems quite powerful now if used sparingly. I just raised an extra million with just 50op.
• Some supporter rewards are terrible (1 extra OP per day?)
• Eliminating an infiltrator currently feels like I'm just removing a red shield around the supporter so I can recruit him. IMO eliminating the infiltrator should leave that spot completely empty for X days before a new loyal supporter replaces it - making it actually feel like Xenonaut agents managed to liquidate the infiltrator from some local government and it taking 30 or whatever days before a new guy is found and available to recruit.
• Add a small omnious SFX every time doomsday counter advances. Flashing the screen red would also look cool. (Pretty standard visual language for taking damage in games)
• Hovering mouse cursor over soldier quick selection tabs at the top of the screen tanks performance hard. Not a deal breaker but if there's something that can be done to fix it, it would be nice.
• Making Alien magnetic weapons research complete 20-30% quicker could make pursuing accelerated weapons a bit more tempting.
  • I would also increase laser weapons' alloy cost a tiny bit to make me consider building some accelerated weapons instead.
• "Assign new research" -popup still comes before reviewing the completed research.
• Ha! I love the new short conversation with the head scientist before the first crash site mission! Small things like these add a lot!
• Is it on purpose that mantid and secton share the same racial sound effects?
• I'm still waiting for shield bearers to provide more cover than a normal unit. (20%)
• Hunkering right behind a cover item should provide additional cover or kneeling bonus. (This I feel is the single most important gameplay improving change the game is still missing) 
• Data raids are still a bit too easy.
  • Maybe easiest way to balance these would be to add a small TU cost (10tu?) to hacking.
• After day 55 Cleaner data raid I got 0 missions until day 84 when Cleaner HQ spawned. In that ~30 days I only got 1 scout I wasn't able to catch and 2 probes.
  • I would prefer to have at least one more cleaner mission in month 3
  • In general the game pacing and content was almost perfect for the first ~60 days. Month three felt broken with 0 mission content before Cleaner HQ.
  • reloading from day 55 and playing month 3 again I actually got a VIP escort mission spawn. Are these random? Also, I understood I should get a destroyer UFO on month 3, is that random too? Nevertheless, month three felt empty and sparse.
    • Maybe make sure the first destroyer is spawned close to player.
• Shot 2 destroyers in the middle part of NA and both generated a farm crash site map. As there should be a system in place that tries to avoid biome repetition, shouldn't the other crash site have some other biome than farm that is suitable for NA? Like docks or desert or something? 
• Laser cannon (vehicles) and Laser auto rifle (vehicles) cost less exotic materials (5/5) than a normal laser rifle (6/6) even though it's a one off upgrade. Should be something like 20/20 instead.
  • Actually, speaking of exotic material costs: I'm constantly restricted by money while having way too much exotics on hand. Now that I can even order more with OP, alloy and alenium requirements should be way higher in general.
• Terror missions should be something more than just an arena deathmatch and the completely passive bombs that are currently littered around the maps are screaming a missing gameplay mechanic. What if the bombs were instead ATD's (Alien Terror Device) that generate fear around them and the Xenonaut units would suffer constant morale damage until the device is destroyed. Would tie nicely to the theme of aliens terrorizing people and would also make these mission feel a bit more unique while still having a relatively low impact in gameplay.
  • These ATD's could also be used later in alien bases and UOO etc. to add an additional challenge with a nice one-two punch with alien psionics.

I once again stopped my playthrough at day 120 as I want to keep the rest of the game fresh until v1.0. Overall I'd say the beginning is now starting to take shape really nicely. Doomsday was a tad too easy to avoid on veteran, exotic materials were way too plenty, and if the month 3 had worked better (destroyer UFO and cleaner mission missing), I would have said it was 90-95% perfect. Just small polish and balance tweaks and at least the beginning of the game is pretty much done. Well done @Chris and the team!

Thanks for the feedback, as always. Just to focus in on a few key points here:

• The "assign new research" issue is a bug, and it doesn't usually happen. If you have a reproduction case then please post it in the bugs forums so we can fix it.
• One of the camera issues is a bug, the other one we'll turn into an option shortly.
• There's clearly an issue with the Cleaner missions if you didn't get any after day 55. There's meant to be a mission spawning on day 68, and there's also a Scout on day 62 and two Destroyers on day 74 (one of which should spawn near your base). Had you started building a second base at that point? Maybe it spawned near your secondary base before you got it operational?

EDIT - oh, actually, there was a bug with that Destroyer mission. I'll fix that.

[Skitso]

Second playthrough now and everything went smooth until day 110 first terror mission. Huge difficulty spike again and a full wipe. It's fun how everything until that point feels almost too easy (Cleaner base was a total cake walk, destroyer crash sites too) and then, BAM! Everybody's dead!

[Skitso]

On 2/16/2025 at 1:21 AM, Skitso said:

Second playthrough now and everything went smooth until day 110 first terror mission. Huge difficulty spike again and a full wipe. It's fun how everything until that point feels almost too easy (Cleaner base was a total cake walk, destroyer crash sites too) and then, BAM! Everybody's dead!

I'm gonna add here: we played this with 3 of my friends who had never played X2 before. (They did play X1 though) And they all felt the Cleaner HQ and especially it's command room was anticlimatic. (Command room had only two Psyons and two bald guys) They felt it was easier than some of the earlier cleaner missions like the VIP escort. I didn't help them and they completed it without losses on veteran difficulty. And after that early game "boss mission", the very next new mission type (Terror) is so hard we can't complete it even with my help and few tries. Closed quarter missions like bases are so much easier to tackle than more open terror maps so that needs to be taken into account when thinking about the enemy numbers. I'd add at least 2-3 enemy  units to the Cleaner HQ command room and reduce 2-3 units from the first terror site.

Edited February 17 by Skitso

[gG-Unknown]

1 hour ago, Skitso said:

 I'd add at least 2-3 enemy  units to the Cleaner HQ command room and reduce 2-3 units from the first terror site.

I have noticed another thing. Majority of opponents at one combat is same level. Only one difference is those small crawlers.

List of oponent for a battle should be build as pyramid. Majority weak, then less midrange , then few hard opponents on top. This scale allows player to feel his power.

Now I face weak alien, I can kill 3 in one turn.

Now I face the tough monster, I need backup.

Current status is, weak opponents are missing. When you are going to add some, add those weak ones.

Regarding this, when assaulting shot down UFO, there is a sentence in the briefing " some aliens might be dead" it would be cool if you can script wounded aliens to these mission types. Which means you dont really need another rank in alien database, just cut Armor / HP.

Edited February 17 by gG-Unknown

[Skitso]

2 minutes ago, gG-Unknown said:

I have noticed another thing. Majority of opponents at one combat is same level. Only one difference is those small crawlers.

List of oponent for a battle should be build as pyramid. Majority weak, then less midrange , then few hard opponents on top. This scale allows player to feel his power.

Now I face weak alien, I can kill 3 in one turn.

Now I face the tough monster, I need backup.

Current status is, weak opponents are missing. When you are going to add some, add those weak ones.

Regarding this, when assaulting shot down UFO, there is a sentence in the briefing " some aliens might be dead" it would be cool if you can script wounded aliens to these mission types. Which means you dont really need another rank in alien database, just cut Armor / HP.

This is true and I wholly agree.

[Skitso]

Further feedback from my friends who play this for the first time:

• UFO crash sites in general feel underwhelming difficulty wise after tougher cleaner missions.
• Breaching UFOs doesn't feel intense enough in both gameplay and visual wise. They mentioned how lack of smoke, fire and debris made it look and feel a bit lacklustre and how it'd be cool to be able to blast through UFO walls and roofs. I did try to explain why it's not technically quite so easy to pull through, but they said even X1 had a mod that made it possible... I guess they have a point there..
• Even though the first terror mission felt way too tough, the overall tactical difficulty doesn't seem to ramp up quite fast enough for them. They did a couple of observer crash sites and had no difficulties with zero casualties. Veteran difficulty for first timers it does feel quite easy.
• They also mentioned crash site maps getting too large and boring. I have actually thought about this same issue too: as the UFO's get bigger, the maps should get smaller to avoid things getting stale/repetitive and having more focus on the new UFO type full of aliens and breaching it.
• They mentioned geoscape gameplay being quite uneventful in general. Too few missions and UFOs. They wished there were more optional "side missions".
• Overall they really liked the game and you got 2 new customers (+1 more potential buyer)

Edited February 18 by Skitso

[ih8california]

1 hour ago, Skitso said:

Further feedback from my friends who play this for the first time:

• Breaching UFOs doesn't feel intense enough in both gameplay and visual wise. They mentioned how lack of smoke, fire and debris made it look and feel a bit lacklustre and how it'd be cool to be able to blast through UFO walls and roofs. I did try to explain why it's not technically quite so easy to pull through, but they said even X1 had a mod that made it possible... I guess they have a point there..

Yeah, maybe the "door" to the UFO is locked by default (can only be opened normally by aliens) making it necessary to breach.

Quote

They also mentioned crash site maps getting too large and boring. I have actually thought about this same issue too: as the UFO's get bigger, the maps should get smaller to avoid things getting stale/repetitive and having more focus on the new UFO type full of aliens and breaching it.

THIS!!!!!!!!!! either that or there needs to be more building variety within a biome (a suggestion I made on discord)

Quote

They mentioned geoscape gameplay being quite uneventful in general. Too few missions and UFOs. They wished there were more optional "side missions".

Yeah I've made suggestions for "cleaner-equivalent" missions for the invasion phase

[Tchey]

Quote

They wished there were more optional "side missions".

This i understand is too time consuming for the state of the game, but i feel it's really missing. The game is too focused/linear, but that's me, i love long useless stuff like XDiv or OXCE-Files. 

However in XDiv, one major flaw IMO is the different phases simply feel just the same, but with bigger numbers (damage, armor...). Reach Phase 2 ? Be weaker again and grow stronger. Reach Phase 3 ? Be weaker again and grow stronger. Reach Phase 4 ? Be weaker again and grow stronger...

 

[MIkiondra]

Quote

Breaching UFOs doesn't feel intense enough in both gameplay and visual wise. They mentioned how lack of smoke, fire and debris made it look and feel a bit lacklustre and how it'd be cool to be able to blast through UFO walls and roofs. I did try to explain why it's not technically quite so easy to pull through, but they said even X1 had a mod that made it possible... I guess they have a point there..

X1 was made in different engine (atleast I think), X2 is made in Unity. And I think they aren't focused on this right now.

 

Quote

• UFO crash sites in general feel underwhelming difficulty wise after tougher cleaner missions.

He talks about early game ones, right?

 

[Skitso]

I forgot to mention the new cursor elevation automation (on top of containers etc.) is terrible. Please revert to the earlier logic (no automatic cursor elevation changes!) we had in MS4.

[gG-Unknown]

On 2/26/2025 at 5:27 PM, Skitso said:

I forgot to mention the new cursor elevation automation (on top of containers etc.) is terrible. Please revert to the earlier logic (no automatic cursor elevation changes!) we had in MS4.

YES !

I dont know why you add this torture mechanics. It force me to do MUCH more input than before. I need to turn camera back and forth like a mad man.  On top I sent few soldiers wrong.

Make it a TOP priority for an upcoming hotfix, remove it !

[Skitso]

5.16

Introducing doomsday from day 0 right after you place your first base feels wrong. It's fine to give some high level lore about it, but especially when there's no gameplay mechanics involved at that point, it's just confusing and serves no point. Doomsday progress bar and more detailed information regarding it should be introduced at the same time with infiltrators at day 5.