1.0 playthrough feedback

[Skitso]

Hey! I had a blast playing 1.0 with tons of memorable situations and fun missions. That said, the game does lose some of it's lustre towards the end, not gonna lie.

One major balance issue I'm having is that I'm not properly challenged after day ~220 forward. Nothing is pressuring me to complete the UUO missions and I can just wait and focus on making my assault team even more OP, just clicking and auto resolving UFOs. At that phase of the game I should really feel the alien campaign ramping up and starting to get a proper stranglehold of earth. Multiple alien bases around the globe, UUO strikes getting more and more frequent with higher panic damage, terror strikes and reapers swooping whole cities. Currently I'm just skipping single terror missions and letting alien bases be while waiting for my next tech upgrade... and with nano fabricator, $7 million in bank and super effective, supporter boosted nano-workshops, I can easily generate unlimited exotic materials and skip all the crash site missions.

I reached operation endgame with only 2 bases. One with 3 geminis and one with 3 phantoms. That was all I needed and I went with pretty much 0 panic around the globe. It was easy to down even a battleship with just 3 phantoms. 

I didn't need mind shield, didn't even research it. Didn't use focus mind. Didn't have a single mind control where I wasn't able to kill the controller immediately. Stalker armour felt weak and enemies one shotted my snipers from long distances. Weapon tech tiers felt like there was maybe one too many. As I only needed to complete maybe 3 tactical missions between starting to research UUO and Operation ENDGAME), the gauss tech felt a bit unnecessary step before fusion, especially as there's so few missions I felt I needed to complete.

I wish I had more combat against eternals. All 2 contacts I had against them before endgame were over before they had time to do anything.

The tactical gameplay starts to get a bit stale from day 200> as aliens struggle to keep up with the player. Regular gunplay is a bit "been there, done that" at that point of the game and at least for me the challenge just isn't there any more. And then the tactical missions start to become quite one note and stale. (Even if the first third of the game offered a nice challenge) So adding more and tougher mind control gameplay would make aliens feel threatening again and add new gameplay challenges where my 100+ TU, high acc, high hp soldiers would need to adapt. 

As aliens level up, they should all get a new ability towards the end game. Currently they just receive more stats, which doesn't add much as the player progresses at ~same pace. Only exception are psyons that get mind control, which would be perfect if it was more potent. Maybe mind control needs squad view and longer control time?

Other 2 main races need similar new mechanics to keep the player on their toes as the game progresses. Later wraith could have teleport + better invisibity cloak and sebillian could have shields and symbiote grenades.

So TLDR, more mid-game panic, scarier UUO, evolving challenge, more mind control, tougher mind control, more eternals, tougher eternals. Tougher final battle, tougher high eternal with some unique twist that makes me adapt. Now I can just rush in and shoot it dead. Tougher TOP3 UFOs.

Edited April 13 by Skitso

[PorT_Lobo]

I 100% agree with Skitso and reported the same problem. Lack of pression and to easy end game.

I also think 1 or 2 types of aliens should be immune to smoke 

[fxluk]

Hi,

I just ended my first playthrough on veteran. I played self imposed ironman (reload once, on full wipe terror mission). I know that difficulty would probably be a bit higher on commander, but I have similar feelings, like you guys.

To summarize, the game is challanging mostly for two phases. Later on, slowly, but steady it is getting easier and easier. What I liked was economically/bulding/reaserching was quite well balanced for me. I was always struggling with money, until maybe very late game, but then it didn't have much impact anyway.

I was trying to take notes when I was playing, so here it is:

1. More variety of missions in phases 2-5. It was actually a nice change to have a cleaners plot, including the different kind of missions. As I love regular UFO tactical missions, after a while I was missing that variety from Phase 1. I would very like to see more mission types, maybe some utilizing night time? In P1, extracting a VIP for example it was the only once when night time was helping me. Maybe there is a room for this feature with DLC or mod.

2. When we are on night missions, I was wondering to add an option to lower the timer to pick up crash mission. This way, player sometimes, would be forced to do it during night (similarly to terror missions).

3. Delegation as an option in base game. I was wondering if this would be possible to add delegation not only through extended option, but as a third option for tactical missions? So you can take the mission/money/delegate.

4. I was missing different kind of granades, like gas (which aliens do have), maybe some acid to destroy armor and incendiary

5. Aliens do not use granades often. In full 40h campain, I saw aliens using granades on me, maybe 5 times. 

6. Regular frag granades requires a buff. Damage is quite low, and sometimes even when the situation was perfect for it (having 3 aliens in range) I was not always choosing granade over shooting. It was more important to kill at least 1 out of 3 aliens, then damage 3 of them and let them operate next turn. I think I would also add more of terrain destruction to regular frag granades and extend a blast radius a bit for charges.

7. I think the same is with granade launcher. Damage is to low to choose it over another specializations. It is nice to have it to destroy covers for aliens, but since the damage is so low, it doesn't compensate to use it, especially later in the game. Buff the damage, or maybe let it shoot twice a turn, the same as snipers.

8. In the UFO, aliens sometimes should be more agressive with the teleportes. Usually they were just waiting for me to storm them and waiting to be killed.

9. Maybe I messed the research somehow, but for me, it was to long between accelerated/laser weapons to gauss/fussion. It seems like i played 60-70% of time with accelerated/laser, 30% with Gauss and 5% with fussion.

10. Stun gun. Oh it is bad  I don't know if anybody is using it as this state. Accuracy is abysmal, clip got only 4 shots. Baton is much more reliable, especially with suppression and flashbangs strategy 

11. Already mentioned, psy abilities. I was maybe mesmerized once or twice when I first met Psyons. Then maybe mind controlled once or twice in regular mission and then during Endgame mission. I was never using the focus skill or the item to raise bravery.

12. Damage on machine guns seems a bit to much. I mean I could do like 400-500 dmg per burst with Gauss machine gun. I would tone it down a bit.

13. Maybe it was my bad luck, but for whole campaing I only got like 2 terror missions.

14. Air combat is getting even much easier later on then tactical missions. I mean I was maybe struggling to day ~200 with angels and interceptors, but after getting Phantoms and gauss cannons it was pretty much over with the challenge. I could even down a battleship with 3 angels, using gauss cannons/fussion torpedos. 

15. I didn't even reasearch fussion lance. for aircrafts. Everything was shreded anyway, using automatic mode.

16. Mentioned no pressure in phases 4/5

17. I was attacked 3 times in general. Only first time I had to defent it on ground as I did not have any defense set up. Later on I have like 3 in main base and 4 in second one. In the end two Gauss/Fussion (don't remember) was able to destroy Battleship completely. It felt like it is to easy to shoot attacking ufo. Maybe tone it down, but lower the percentage of aliens attacking the base, with the % of damage done vs defenses (if not already in place).

18. End game for me was ok when it comes to balancing. I didn't have all soldiers maxed out, but I ended the game with 3 soldiers alive  One more turn and it would be game over for me.

19. UOO needs a buff. Panic gain should be massive from its bombardment like 2/3x what is right now.

20. It seems that there is not enough going on with aliens attacking in not visible areas. Two bases are enough to make everything under control

21. It would be nice to be able to capture different type of aliens, like scientists etc, to unlock additional research

22. Alien bases seems to have very limited impact. Usually it can be ignored, which should not be the case

Overally, I had a great time with X2. In most places this is a nice upgrade from the first one (although waiting for it 8 years was not optimal :)). 

At some point I will be definitely going for a commander run with possible DLC/mods.





 

[Skitso]

New playthrough and I just completed the UUO sabotage mission again. It's incredbly easy to sabotage the data terminals in just a few turns. I think I had 4 turns left before reinfoecements would have started to arrive. 12 high level units with ~100 TUs can move so fast it makes the mission almost trivial.

To make it more challenging, either move the terminals further away from the starting position, shorten the reinforcemet time, add more enemies or make the sabotaging action take a turn or two so it ties the unit for a while.

This beautiful setpiece is one of the coolest missions in the game and a clear thematic highlight so it's a bummer it doesn't provide enough of a gameplay challenge. These end game missions should really require some sacrifises to make them feel like a huge hurdle towards winning the war.

Edited April 20 by Skitso

[Skitso]

One more thing I forgot to mention. Late game UFO maps are just way too large for their own good. You've already played a dozen or so crash sites at the point you start downing harvesters and Battleships. Those maps are just colossal and at least for me, break the post UUO pacing just as I'd want the game to pick up the pace towards it's climax. I would really suggest cropping those larger UFO maps to just consist the dropship, a tiny bit of scenery and the UFO, chock full of high level aliens.

I remember X1 beta having the same issue and Chris decided to cut them smaller just before the launch.

Edited April 23 by Skitso

[Skitso]

Now that I've finished the game for a third and final time (for now), it's time to give some final words.

Xenonauts 2 is a a great game and I Iove it and Goldhawk for making it. It's far from perfect though. First third of the game is pure 10 out of 10 perfection, but the further the game progresses, the more it just loses it's charm, and by the end of it, it's a 7/10 at most. Progression, pacing, polish and balance just drops from mid-game towards the end and I always seem to lose my intrest at latter parts of the game.

It's also disappointing to still see all the visual issues being present in the endgame part 1 mission. The slanted walls are not revealed correctly and destroyed walls are all black. It's frustrating to see all these issues I've reported like 12 months ago still being there. :/

That said, I'm eagerly waiting for the official modding tools, mods and upcoming DLC's! And maybe even map editor. Who knows?! I really hope the launch was great for GH and you get the opportunity to really polish the shit out of this game and improve the late game pacing/balance. As I've said years ago, the game has amazing potential to be a game of forever for me, a classic that can only get better the more content you are able to put there. 

Now, after like 10 years of almost daily following, I'm gonna take a short break from Xenonauts. See you after the summer guys and take care!

 

Edit: I just want to underline the fact that all the critisism I've given now and over the years are all just because I care about the game a lot and I wanted it to succeed!

Edited May 1 by Skitso