comment on new combat system

[RealSpirit]

i was quite pleased to find the combat system changed in the recent version. although aliens could work cooperatively (instead of now), the alien run at your position at the start of the fight is finally over. the lurking of aliens therefore is not possible anymore too. unfortunately the aliens still know whom of my guys is wounded most, even if he/she got the wounds from an earlier fight

all those things that i really like much

the bad thing about that change is the chance of late-fight-deaths of soldiers in missions with more than ~15 opponents. i tried to do an alien base run with my best team (about 50-60 combats, weap skills somewhere between 70 and 90, quite much health and so on). well, one base run.... more like 20 at same base. the best i could master so far was 16 kills, i saw at least 2 others, and for the time it took it felt like there were another 5-10. unfortunally that was when my computer froze. cant tell why but i dont think it was UfoAI. on every other try i never crossed 10 kills without own losses.

what i want to say about it:
either the complexity of the alien base is too big (no more than 5 guys per team possible / 2,5 teams though)
or the amount of enemies is too high
or the aliens aim too well

also some rooms have obstacles that force you to split-up, esp. those rooms with large fuel tanks, and crossing that room you'd have to turn to 2 sides. may be i did the base in a bad situation. the aliens already are on the latest tech level while i am not yet. Still it hurts.

[H-Hour]

on every other try i never crossed 10 kills without own losses.

That's impressive. I can rarely get through the first few alien base turns without a loss or two. The entrance is a real killer.

In 2.5-dev, you should expect soldier losses. Everything -- weapon balance, armour levels, wounds, medikits, soldier stats, employee numbers, UFO frequency, alien squad size -- have been designed with the expectation that you will suffer losses in combat. Battlefield success requires minimizing losses, not eliminating them.

[RealSpirit]

hm, i know what i should expect, yet it hurts to loose a guy that survived more than 50 battles yet

my point is that it was possible before the recent AI changes, even though it was hard. what really disturbs me on it is that aliens still can "sense" me without paying TUs, and with bigger range than i could using goggles. if - somewhen - aliens would hide on purpose and would play cooperatively death will be unavoidable, and not only for 1-2, but for more than half of the team.

the problem wont be half as big if i could use not only 12 soldiers, but lets say 20, even 15 would help big time. what kills me is the split into 4 teams that is required at one point to clear the area "behind" the entrance. at best i'd have 4 soldiers heading "right", 2 guarding the entrance "ahead" and 6 to the left, to be split into 2 teams. one of those 6 will use a distance weapon, so hardly can take part in reaction killing enemies that come around the corner. anyway, thats more a tactics thing now.

what i wrote this comment for initially was for 2 things:

1st: wanted to thank for better AI, even though not perfect
2nd: wanted to remind that esp. enemy base missions got much harder.

[Crystan]

In 2.5-dev, you should expect soldier losses. Everything -- weapon balance, armour levels, wounds, medikits, soldier stats, employee numbers, UFO frequency, alien squad size -- have been designed with the expectation that you will suffer losses in combat.

Sounds like i have to save/load a lot of times, the next time i play the game