V19 Stable general feedback.

[Skvid]

So as someone who only reads official development update news and patchnotes i have a few thoughts to share about v19.

Geoscape:

Im holding off most of the thoughts about it until the new UI, but the change i hope to see the most is a proper interface for ordering your air units around (in geoscape, not in dogfights), proper waypointing (like shift+clicking), maybe even creating patrol routes and saving them for later use.

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Ground combat:

AI:

It still feels weird... while i notice that aliens tend to go into safe spots where most of their angles are covered from the optimal ammount of xenonauts i still see them going out of cover for no reason (especially inside light scouts: they shoot some and when walk out from behind the cover).

I also witnessed a bizarre behavior in my first terror mission that i played in this build (im not sure if this behavior was present in previous builds). In this mission aliens (androns and light drones) completely ignored my scout car, to the extend where i was effectively able to cover my soldiers with it and exploit the scout car as a "sliding door": I would move it away at the start of the turn, fire some shots with my soldiers, and cover them again with my scout car at the end of the turn. Aliens never shot at the car, and acted confused, over running around aimlessly or just going after npcs instead of trying to flank my soldiers or attack my scoutcar.

I also find it hard to make use of secondary floors, its like they are not in game at all, i rarely find aliens in buildings (and never in upper floors) and wish it was a more common occurrence.

It also feels like their pathfinding could use some work, sometimes they make a lot of aimless movements and end up in the same position from which they left or out in the open. It feels like they have trouble managing their TU's...

Also every alien seems to act like an individual ignoring his comrades... I'd like to see some group tactics involved. An example would be aliens that are sitting inside of ufo storm out to help their buddies when there is a firefight going outside, attempting flanks and so on... Too often its just picking off one alien at the time... pushing a bit forward and finding another one hunched behind cover a bit further back, why didn't he come and help his buddy 3 turns ago?

Also the placement of aliens around the map (in ufo crashsites) is odd, they seem scattered and disorientated with no clear goal. Shouldn't they try to set up a defensive perimeter around their ufo wreck? Try to ambush you (in greater numbers than 1) as you approach it and so on?

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Visuals:

I thought i'd be used to it by now, but the particles that fly out of all the weapons look horrible and out of place, they are slow, sluggish and look like a cheap placeholder art. I would much more prefer to see just muzzle flashes and impact sounds, or some nicely animated tracer round lines.

In fact the whole combat gameplay feels off, soldier dont allign properly with the direction they are firing, sometimes skipping the "raise weapon" animation completely and just shooting from idle pose.

But the worst part is bullets hitting things... it just looks so impact-less? I mean shooting stuff felt more satisfying in fallout 2, and im not talking about critical gore-fest kills. (which would be amazing to see in this game, but i know that the its very hard to do thanks to overly-complicated animation processes used in this game).

Ground combat part 2

Shooting from the cover sometimes shows that theres a 50% chance to hit the cover im shooting from. This just isn't right... and there is a bunch of other oddities when trying to aim through/from complicated cover. I once saw like 3 50% indicators pop out by simply aiming at the target behind a low train platform...vagon... thing.

Morale system isn't working properly i think.

Im still not seeing the randomness in maps, and there's too few of them so it gets repetitive fast.

I had few other things i wanted to mention but i forgot. I should keep a list or something. Anyway hope this helps.

Edited September 1, 2013 by Skvid

[thothkins]

i still see them going out of cover for no reason (especially inside light scouts: they shoot some and when walk out from behind the cover

The aliens have travelled the galaxy looking for a cure for the pins and needles they all suffer from.

I'd not seen saved patrol routes mentioned. Interesting to keep those alien bases spotted.

Aliens never shot at the car, and acted confused

Alien culture missed out the invention of the wheel entirely, and went straight into hover platforms. They are distressed by the noise of the combustion engine.

Some very good points. The AI is still ongoing so hopefully there will be groups of alien snipers killing Xenonaut from the top floors of buildings in the end. Sometimes, the aliens being a little dim helps me survive my dimmer moments.

There is a morale system but I'm not sure it's fully active at present, and there will be more versatility in maps as more are added. The Community Map pack has a number of options.

[StellarRat]

The not shooting at vehicles is a known AI bug. It will be fixed. IMO, the AI for is much, much, better the one in the OG and it will still be receiving further improvements. Most of the quirks in ground combat you mentioned are known bugs or things that will be improved. Remember, we probably have a couple or more pre-release beta builds ahead of us.