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Review & Suggestions

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cpsogoj:
I just finished the game in the last stable 2.4 version.
I´ve played a lot, not only in that version but others too. I would like to give my small contribute by reviewing some aspects of the game that could be improved.In fact, this is not exactly a review: i will suggest things based on what i've played so far. See it a positive way, because the game is already very, very good.
TACTICAL MISSIONS:
1) It would be nice to see again weather conditions, like in older versions, and respective sounds (ex: rain falling); it would improve environment i think;
2) The black background on tactical missions could be replaced - by player option - with blue sky, night sky and dark clouds;
3) Sometimes it feels that the missions are more of the same so there could be more things to do and different objectives: protect a tactical point, protect a given (important) civilian, reach a given point in the scenario, etc; i will not give more ideas because i know that such change is really hard and should be very well discussed by all team;
4) Similary, there should be more tactical options and environment manipulation: move some objects (boxes, chair...), maybe scenario destruction (trees, walls, etc falling, destroying bridges), driving vehicles (nor only cars, but small boats, etc.
5) Some scenarios missions repeat very much. When my Firebird goes to a crash site and i start the mission i get disapointed many times because i will find often the exact same scenario.
6) Civilians are just small bugs that i always ignore, they dont have the feel of a person; i like role play on games and will try to save civilians on many games, but not in this, so i would suggest these: more interaction with civilians like yelling at them [that would mean, giving an order or moving them to safe places]; there should be more obvious penalties when a civilian died; some civilians could use guns (and some of them could go crazy and attack us);
7) I feel that AI could be better and missions even more hard; another idea could be the creation of different "mods" of acting: in some missions aliens would be very agressive towards civilian killing them all (and that would be very bad for Phallanx, with more penalties), other times they could be very cautious (hiding a lot, sneaking behind, etc); in other missions aliens would try to collect something and then go away (and we would loose the mission, but no the soldiers of course);
8) AI could have more acting options: teleport themselves from one point to other, crouch, controlling the minds of civilians and even players;
9) There could be different types of aliens: keevars, ortnoks, etc are just more of the same because they act/attack in the same manner, so i would suggest other kind of aliens: flying aliens for example, a very big and powerful alien (so powerful that should demand a big number of soldiers and tactics to kill him) that would create fear on the player, invisible aliens, aliens that would be experts on creating traps (proximity grenades for instance), aliens that could metamorph like civilians, etc.
10) Some weapons are never used, like pistols and knifes, but they are nice because give a feeling of real to the game; even so they could be more used thats why i suggest that they could use less units; also, if ammunition on important weapons (sniper riffle, torch, etc) were even less, maybe one would find itself using small weapons more often.
11) There is a very big variety of weapons, and thats really great, but armors are just the same and its boring doing so much research on them for nothing; armors could have different uses: for example, one armor would be great against plasma but weak against explosions, others would be the opposite; some armors could hamper player movments and/or should be used by strong players. I think that would force players think a lot before choosing their armour on each mission.
12) I dont use grenades at all because they dont seem very useful; perhaps they could have a greater spread effect hitting lots of enermies at the same time.
13) The alien scimitar is very good, specially with an expert soldier on Close Combat! I would never see myself using such weapons, so dont make them worst :); i also  think that there should be more close combat wepons like the shotgun;
14) Reaction fire doenst work that much.
15) Some weapons should be review i think: i will hit an alien with a laser rifle, faster than a sniper rifle; rocket launcher should have a more powerful feeling, causing more deaths around the target; it should be powerful enough to kill civilians within a range of 5 for example (of course that in order to balance the game, maybe it should use much more units, maybe 20).
16) Alien bases could have more aliens (12?14?) and maybe a boss.
17) There should be more missions for capturing live aliens.

Geoscape:
1) Sometimes the number if missions and ufos is too much; so i suggest that the automission button could be used more often and with more probability of sucess (less damage on soldiers for example).
2) I think that it would be useful to have the "escort" option on interceptors because sometimes i have the need of escorting my Firebird to a mission.
3) I would like to see the path of transport missions.
4) I dont get the happyness system: sometimes i sell a ufo to a given nation and their happyness increases, sometimes decreases.
5) Ufopaedia could have more in-game useful information: whats the real difference between submachineguns,microguns,etc? How does it works the antimatter storage (now i know)? and a lot more
6) I never used Starchaser neither Dragon interceptors; i feel that Stingray is enough. Maybe there could be a new ship able to transport 10 soldiers to a mission
7) Sometimes battle on Geoscape will freeze and everything gets normal after a few seconds/minutes.
8) I think that there should be the option of building the first base from scratch.
9) In the begining of the game there could exist a quick transport ship for much less soldiers (3?-5?). It would be a cheap ship and anyone starting from scratch would be (almost) forced to buy it, instead of the firebird. Just and idea to think of course.

I could say much more things but these are enough :P. I think that devloping some things on tactical missions (like points 3 trough 9) would make things much more better.

H-Hour:
A few things about 2.5 you might like:
- more diverse map selection
- a new alien type (hovernet)
- lots of changes to weapon balancing
- support for more than 8 soldiers on a team

Things we hope will be done "soon":
- More difficult tactical battles with more aliens
- Better balancing of aircraft so there are reasons to use other interceptors

Things that are not likely to happen "soon":
- Different tactical battle objectives
- Environment destruction or manipulation
- Different types of AI
- Squadron deployment of aircraft
- A mid-game fighter-dropship combo that only supports a few soldiers

Things that are not likely to ever happen:
- Sky/cloud background on tactical missions

Other comments:
- I think there's an option in video settings to turn weather effects on (never used it myself)
- The more civilians die, the angrier nations get
- No one understands the nation happiness system
- All missions allow you to capture live aliens
- Reaction fire works pretty well

Quidgiboo:
Hi all!

So I've finally gotten around to registering and wanted to say that you've put together an awesome game, which is causing me to have far too many late nights (worth it!).

Anyway, I've been playing 2.4 and like the OP notice that some maps come up pretty often. Haven't downloaded 2.5dev yet, so don't know how much that's changed. But I did notice that in some scenario maps (I'm thinking of the desert/train one at the moment) you end up playing a very similar game each time. Is it possible to make map variants, where the ally/enemy spawn points are moved around, and then pick one of these at random? This would save from having to make entire maps from scratch, but would let you fight across different areas / have different tactics.  Just a thought!

In any case, great game! I'd love to help, but my talents are limited to a bit of 2d-image creation, so not sure how much of that you need. (haha, though i'm a biochemist if that helps with any of the XVI stuff)

Duke:
Quidgiboo, the system you describe is already in place :)
There may be some maps with too few spawnpoints though.
Adding spawnpoints is one of the easiest tasks in mapping (even I can do that). You may want to take a look at uforadiant.

As for 2D-skills: afaik there are several missing images that are desperately needed. See the first sticky thread in this forum.

cpsogoj:

--- Quote from: H-Hour on July 04, 2012, 06:42:04 pm ---- No one understands the nation happiness system

--- End quote ---

 :D


--- Quote from: H-Hour on July 04, 2012, 06:42:04 pm ---- All missions allow you to capture live aliens
- Reaction fire works pretty well

--- End quote ---

I didnt explain myself very well: there should be missions where is really important to capture live aliens, otherwise no one will  try to capture them (only for research).

About reaction fire, i put my soldiers ready (with Reaction Fire mode on of course), crouch and pointing towards aliens. Even if aliens aproach they wont fire back on many occasions. Why is that?

Anyway, the game is already very very good :). I think i will rest a little now and come back within a few laters and see how things are going :P

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