Hi guys, I stopped playing this for a while but downloaded it again last month and damn... it's still awesome! Can't wait for the new elements you guys are working on. Daddy wants some heavy armor.
Pros:
Reaction-Fire... (this would have been on the list for cons a while ago). What ever you guys did, it actually works worth a damn. The last time I had UFOAI on my PC, I stopped using RF after the first mission when aliens pranced across my whole squad's LOS (who all forgot they were supposed to do something), popped off a few shots, did a moon-walk to the quick-mart around the corner while singing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and grabbed a case of bear for the trip back on their next turn. Mouth gaping, I swore "Reaction what? Never... again..."(as I had seen the hundreds of complaints about it and its lack of any kind of effectiveness) Out of curiosity i decided to try it (since it had been a while) to see if anything had been changed. An evil grin spread across my face as an alien rounded the corner on his turn and was greeted with a hail of bullets. THANK YOU soooo much.
Effort: You guys have all put so much effort into this project and continue to for all of us to enjoy. I personally thank you, you brought the kid out of me again with this game. To this day, the X-COM series is my all-time favorite and this is right up there with them in my book with it's own unique elements. Keep up the awesome work you bad@sses.
Everything else not mentioned below: Outfrickinstanding. Daddy like.
Cons:
UFOpedia: Extreme lack of luster. Don't get me wrong, it's well written and flows with the story-line, but the lack of a large, sweet looking image of the research just makes it dry and uninteresting to review. Hell, I used to check out old reports in X-COM often during a game no matter how many times I beat it (even the autopsy reports were cool), but I actually found I had to force myself to read UFOAI's research reports. I almost feel I'm being punished for finishing the R&D, boys. 5 days and 375 UFO incursions later and I'm just not excited tenough to bother reading the plasma rifle or autopsy report. It's a shame too because whoever wrote the 'pedia and put all that effort in was almost in vain. It's bad when even just throwing up an animated picture of Starwars Kid in the top corner of every report could make it more interesting to browse.
A.I.: I'm sure it's a monster to program, but good god... as an X-COM veteran, your AI is effing retarded. It is predictable and not too bright, and on many maps they congregate like cattle near key locations (especially base def). What's worse is you compensate this by making them unnaturally beefy, like what the rage-quitter mentioned in earlier posts. Granted, he struck me as having absolutely no strategic talent if he had that much of a problem, but it's obvious what's going on when the naked Tamans suddenly can take some serious punishment with a coke and a smile after researching plasma. Compensating poor AI with exponentially accumulating, god-like stats does not present a challenge, its just poor programming border lining the ridiculous. I can buy them becoming sharp-shooters due to the hive-mind learning curve according to the story, but health? How does connected intellect explain learning how to take a burst of point-blank plasma fire after losing a few of the collective to ballistic rifle fire? (Might be another con then, weapon Imballance?) A 98 pound Tamon in his undies is still a 98 pound Tamon even if the over-mind he's connected to tells him he's a 12 ton armored elephant thats eats plasma for breakfeast. I wish I could offer you a solution but I'm not a programmer, it's just blatantly absurd as it is. I, too, have had Ortnoks take pot-shots at civilians across the entire map when I have a troop 4 meters in front of it armed with a sword and a dirty look. Not only was my troop an immediate threat, but was what I thought to be an easier target than some idiot 10 clicks away behind 4 fences and some hay. I've also noticed Aliens force-firing at targets like civilians or my troops when they have absolutely no LOS in that direction whatsoever, and they aren’t going berserk when this happens.
UFO Spammage: The frequency of the UFOs paying a visit... holy piss. Hopefully that is WIP, quite a popular topic.
Maps: Farms and Oriental districts come up way to often and are too boring for their frequency, especially when you take into account the above mentioned spamming. Some days I play about an hour and go, "Fu#$ this, not up for the grind today." Ugh, just thinking about another forest mission right now makes me want to drive my head through a wall.
Variety: In essence, the lack there of. A year into the game and I am sssssssooooooo sick of Tamons and Ortnoks I could club a baby seal. The great thing about a "story line" is you can modify it, change it, add things, take away things, whatever, to make it better- more enjoyable... for the game's sake this is a must. Keep in mind you guys doing all the work on this project: Stop slapping down ideas from all these creative people flooding in to support your game, I've seen allot of things that could greatly improve every aspect of this game. As it stands right now, the game gets unbearably monotonous. MORE weapons, MORE enemies. On the topic of weapons, you have too damn many useless secondary weapons that really aren’t even handy in the beginning of the game let alone later on. I see that there MIGHT be some new armors introduced which means you have a prime opportunity to enhance the game with some shiny new gnarly $h!t. (GREAVER I have seen too many posts from you stating "it doesn’t go with the story line... it doesn’t go with... it doesn’t..." shuddafukup. The game aint done yet, the story-line CAN be MODIFIED to accommodate better game-play which is equally, if not MORE important.)
Fuel: yea, there isn’t much point in making the advanced aircraft. Why spend lots of money and waste allot of resources to get an aircraft so you can take on the harvesters and prevent them from landing when you need them to land so you can get the fuel to be able to take on the harvesters... yea... doesn't really make sense considering how long it takes to disassemble a fighter for the drop of antimatter they give does it? Did any of you take into account how many damn UFOs visit during a 24 hour period, let alone 500 frickin hours? Some one failed beyond epic on this. The idea of technological advancement is to ADVANCE. Getting a Firestorm and Avenger in X-COM was a wonderful time. Getting the starchaser and other craft in this is painful and irrational. I could get 1-4 ufos down with advanced craft's tank in this but with absolutely no point or end-game when letting them land or using Stilettos would have been as rewarding if not more. I'm really hoping you make an attack transport, BTW, hopefully one that resides somewhere near the realm of economic.
Civilians: steeeeewpeeeed eeedeeots. So stupid they often run to aliens for shelter, or towards a gunfight... I must have missed that in the story-line Greaver, did the people of the future become incredibly dumb due to red-neck inbreeding and playing with Chinese lead-painted toys? Why don’t they panic and run hiding like the aliens after being shot at? Can you not program them to lose morale if they are the target of gunfire and/or within a radius of an alien? How about when phalanx troop is in their sight they head to them or something, maybe even being able to take over their actions if you get within a radius (as if your troops were telling them what to do)? I make it a priority to have cattle prods ASAP, and NOT for the aliens, hell no. Its for the idiots I’m sworn to protect blocking doorways and stairwells for 10 turns. How about a "restrain civilian" option when standing next to one that puts them down? Their avatars crack me up too, aliens landed and the chicks pose with a hand on their hip like they gunna chew some @ss out of their man cuz they caught him cheatin'. Where is the arms flailing, cowering, screaming, pant soiling, and lamentation of de women?
Soldier Skins: I get sick of the same 8 heads, some with glasses some without. I’m hoping you're adding more variety there. Out of curiosity why do most of them all pop up with Asian names every game I play? Are they the expendable race of the future ROFL? The US gives me all their Asians, Africa gives me all theirs, Europe and so on every time.
The chick's death screams still sound like a chipmonk being punted over a field goal by a line-backer.
