2.5 sucks completely

[noctilucus]

... The AI always knows where you are. This is common in many games as it's very difficult to create a challenging AI if they don't know where to look. AI improvements are always welcome, but it's a bit of a specialised field and hard to attract talent.

Maybe too simple, but how about setting the area of/around the phalanx ship as target for the aliens until they start seeing phalanx soldiers?
Another possibility would be to add 1 characteristic to each phalanx soldier's position: as long as it hasn't been spotted yet, set to 0 meaning the AI will ignore those position. As soon as the soldier has been spotted, set it to 1 and continue to give the AI full knowledge of that position. This sort of assumes that the aliens are clever enough to keep track of your soldiers after they've been spotted once.

[Garavani]

Hey guys just dropping my two cents though it's just an echo of what has been said by many others.  I really enjoyed 2.4 and turned a lot of my friends onto the game.

I understand the devs have been playing the game a lot more than me and require a greater challenge to have fun, and since no one is paying you that is your right, it's your game. 

In my opinion 2.5dev is too hard for the casual player, and even for someone who is fairly apt at tactical games if feels like you have to lean on what I consider cheesy tactics (smoke grenades) in order to win with acceptable loses.  This will turn off the vast majority of your players though.

Just my thoughts, please don't reply with "It's fine just learn some tactics".  If the game frustrates me when 2.5 release launches I just won't play.

[Duke]

I recently applied a small but significant change to reaction fire.
Not really a bugfix, but let's call it a fix for a design bug.

There was a check for visibility that tested 3 points of the target: eyes, belly and feet. If two of them were not visible, it was considered a bad hit chance. Reasonable so far. The problem was that if visibility was interrupted, the reaction timer was reset (as intended) and started over.

After the change only one of the three points is needed. That will result in
- reaction occurring earlier
- RF hitting the cover more often.
Overall, RF should *feel* much more right now.

So everybody who complained about RF not working is encouraged to get latest HEAD from git and try again.
Have fun

[ShipIt]

Confirmed RF feels quite different now. Soldiers blasting away there ammo with every none-zero chance to hit. I wonder when people will start to complain about this.

[ShipIt]

There was also this commit, which prevents aliens on certain missions from fielding the advanced weapons. This makes some missions much easier.

[Merlin]

There was also this commit, which prevents aliens on certain missions from fielding the advanced weapons. This makes some missions much easier.

Oh thank god. I'm playing on 2.4 and those guys end up with hightech weapons right as I make one D-F ammo. I swear those guys are watching me. Hopefully 2.5 will give me some breathing room on some missions.

[ShipIt]

... Hopefully 2.5 will give me some breathing room on some missions.

Humanity is in great danger! The aliens come to take us down! No time to take a breath!

Tbh, the missions are much harder to solve in 2.5.

[GPS51]

I always got a kick out of shooting down a scout late game and having 6 pb rifle toting heavies come rolling out. Sounds like steps are being taken to polish off a few of these quirks

[Merlin]

Humanity is in great danger! The aliens come to take us down! No time to take a breath!

Tbh, the missions are much harder to solve in 2.5.

I hope so, as my usual tactics haven't changed in forever. For example, downed UFO; Bazooka the biggest danger, snipe him if he lives or move on to others, start moving out those that haven't shot.

I tend to blow through my TUs as I can't seem to get my guys to reaction fire. But enough people have talked about that. I just dislike when my flamethrower at full TUs on overwatch, is looking at the door and 3 aliens walk by him without him shooting one. So my usual tactic for most the game is movement.

[Duke]

Merlin, about flamethrower RF: try again now

[Merlin]

Merlin, about flamethrower RF: try again now

Haven't been able to try flamers yet in 2.5. But on the note of weapons, what's the research path to Laser Rifles?

EDIT: Oh and how do Medikits work? They don't seem to heal anymore nor stop bleeding out.

[ShipIt]

Haven't been able to try flamers yet in 2.5. But on the note of weapons, what's the research path to Laser Rifles?

EDIT: Oh and how do Medikits work? They don't seem to heal anymore nor stop bleeding out.

About Medikits there is a thread already where most of your questions should be answered already.

About Laser Rifles, well, its part of the game for you to find out whats going on.

[Merlin]

About Medikits there is a thread already where most of your questions should be answered already.

About Laser Rifles, well, its part of the game for you to find out whats going on.

What's going on is that I'm in April, hoverbots hurt, and no upgrades to my ground troops besides keriblades and plasma pistols. If I have to actively catch one of those hoverbots I'm gonna be in for some pain.

EDIT: Oh and this may have been mentioned but something is wrong with the harbor map. I can't go about height 4 or 3. Makes getting into those cranes or buildings impossible.

[ShipIt]

What's going on is that I'm in April, hoverbots hurt, and no upgrades to my ground troops besides keriblades and plasma pistols. If I have to actively catch one of those hoverbots I'm gonna be in for some pain.

Back in 2.4 the Laser weapons research felt like wasting time. The player could get the more powerful Plasma weapons within the same time frame. So we delayed the appearance of the handheld Lasers, which now outperform the Plasma weapons in many ways. But you are on your own to find out how to get them. Oc I can tell it´s not about catching a Hovernet.

You play the nightly build of 2.5-dev? Whats the build date of your version (see main menu screen)? What difficulty level?

[ShipIt]

...
EDIT: Oh and this may have been mentioned but something is wrong with the harbor map. I can't go about height 4 or 3. Makes getting into those cranes or buildings impossible.

The maxlevel (some level buttons are greyed out so you cannot access them) does not influence the playability of the map. It´s just a relic from those days back in time when computers did not have unlimited processing power.