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« on: June 14, 2013, 07:30:16 pm »
An Open Letter to the Developers.
Hello and thanks for taking the time to read this. Thanks for making this game on your own time and resources. While I would like nothing more than to claim that I registered to thank and praise, I have to admit I want to humbly submit some criticisms. I'm just a gamer, nobody important, and much of what I say below are simply my personal opinions, not truths. So you are welcome to take what I said with a grain of salt or ignore them entirely. Discussion of differences is a healthy part of any community and I hope you all understand that regardless of the level of criticism, I will do you no wrong and hope you continual successes in the future.
I thought about which part of the game I want to talk about first, but decided on an observation I have made on your forum. I noticed good input, good discussions, as well as criticisms, disagreements and inapprorpiate trollings. With the except of this last thing I feel that it is all part of anything that is put forward online onto public view and use, and subjected to public opinions and debate. I will categorically say that I support the censure of those who just want to bait or flame. On the other hand, after having been following you guys for a number of years, I have frequently noticed a distinct lack of tolerance for criticisms, the kind that are not trolling.
I am sure I don't need to tell you, but frequently the line of "If you don't like it then code it yourself" was used as some sort of discussion ender. I would like to politely submit that this kind of rebuttal and statement is not healthy, and actually not to your own interest. Imagine, if you go to McDonald's, and you said that a burger that they have made did not turn out well at all, is it an acceptable response if they reply with "if you don't like it then cook one at home yourself?" If you go to a ball game, or a discussion at city hall, or attend a for-charity concert, is it okay to say a player played badly, or a politician didn't do the right thing, or a singer at the concert sang badly, or even VERY badly? I think it is safe to say that one is not expected to make one's way into sports, or become a politician, or go on stage to sing, before one can criticize, even criticize harshly provided it is all done within the code of conducts of the premise in question.
You all have kindly put this game out in public. It is absolutely truth that you are doing it for free and using your own time. Just like anyone who posts their singing on youtube, or their funny videoes in the public domain, receiving *and* dealing with criticisms immediately become part of it. And I said earlier that saying "if you don't like it then code it yourself" is against your own interest, because you need people. There is a sticky post on the top of your forum right now asking for translators, testers, etc. etc. Yes, you need people actually more than people need you, because so many don't even register on the forum to say thanks. And by dismissing people's criticisms, legit or otherwise, with that line will almost certainly drive people away. I know I would be much more willing to work for a boss who is not dismissive like that even if he disagrees with the substance of my statements. Humility and thick skin, like in real life, will get many more people to help you. So please, please don't tell people any more that if they don't like something to do it themselves. Not only does it not deal with any issue itself, but you've just turned away the next potential tester, or money donator, etc.
I spent a bit too much time on the above so I'll quickly go into the ONE main specific things I most want to have the developers consider. As mentioned, I have followed you guys for a number of years, since 2.1 (or 2.2 I don't remember the number). Every release since, I can count on one change with absolute certainty, and it is that the new version will be HARDER. Harder, more challenging, more 'fun', or whatever you want to call it, the result is the same. Please consider the following :
There is already a difficult setting for the game. Those who want an extremely unfair experience can already play on Very Hard. Those who don't mind things being somewhat unfair and play on Normal. No, I'm not being facetious and I would like to submit the following examples for your consideration -
1. Aliens whacked Mumbai and are advanced and merciless, Phalanx will get the BEST that earth has to offer to ensure its survival. So, why is it that nearly all my soldiers have the rank of "Mediocre", which is one step below Average? Why are they less than average?? Are we getting the best or just anyone. Why is it that I run short on such simple supply as Med Kit??? Does the UN really want me to do the job or are they joking? And are you saying that the UN has set up my organization to save the world, but I can't get enough scientists to fill just a second Lab in May? Again, either don't write up the story with Phalanx as the last line of defense, or TREAT it as such. It is absurd that I can't get 16 Med Kits to fully outfit a second team until 2 months and 1 week has past.
2. The mission deployment design, for the lack of a better word, seems to be just deliberately inconvenient and unfair. Why are 4 out of 8 of my men facing the edge of the screen upon deployment? What are they hoping to spot? For that matter, the enemies are at the north side of the map. So why is it that even when there are plenty of space, 2 of my guys remain inside the Firebird and 3 others have deployed south against the edge of the map? Did they fly there to avoid with the enemies or to make contact with them?
3. A lot of the maps are just innately unfair to begin with. You are deployed in wide open space. Even if you move for a full round you can't get under cover, because there are just perhaps a couple trees or a beach lounger around. Now, if it is a terror mission where you are requred to assault a dug-in set of enemies, fine, I can accept that. But you know that railroad map which is frequently used for downed UFO, or that large workyard map, and many other maps where you are simply and deliberately deployed in a retarded position, requiring you to get shot at regardless of what you do as you run for cover. Please, there is no need to make things more 'challenging'.
4. So if the excuse above is that we are arriving on scene to assault already landed enemies, why is it that base defense is so ridiculous? I understand that rooms need four paths to link up a base to make it work, I don't begrudge that type of technical requirements even though no one would make a high security lab with four entrances. But why are there access points in workshops just to make things difficult? No engineer would design an incompetent base entrance where there is a balcony surrounding from above so arriving enemies can fire at your troops from an elevated position. Again, if the aliens come to my base, I expect things to be difficult for THEM, just like if I were to assault them.
5. So at one point, we could just build the Dragon, Starchaser etc. once we have done the long research, and yes they are already extremely long. When it was then designed to require a Dragon to take 5000 Alien Materials to make, did that person ask : "How will this IMPROVE the game?" Yes, it will make it harder, more challenging for some, more frustrating if you ask others, but how does requiring that absurd amount add to people's playing experience? The requirement for Anti-matter fuel is already a good balancing factor for the use of these new planes, specially considering that most UFO don't even give anti-matter upon disassembly. I played a 2.4 game to its conclusion and ended up using the same two craft types I started the game with, Saracen and Firebird. What's the point of doing research, or pretending to make progress when tech are too expensive to build or takes too long to gather? By the time I have collected 5000 for ONE new plane I would have already been so sick and tired of capturing UFOs that I'm ready for something different.
6. It takes ten people altogether 12 hours to make ONE sniper rifle magazine. Are you kidding me? Even the old Soviet Union wasn't that inefficient. At mid/late game, I have 5 bases and 8 soldiers in each base. They are each responsible to clean up after down'ed UFO in their continent. Each person is equipped with an assault rifle and a sniper rifle. And I constantly have to waste workshop time making sniper rifle magazine despite the few that become available for sale each day. And these soldiers were good at shooting and rarely wasteful. It galls me that I'm asked to defend the planet and I have to waste valueable workshop time, not on disassembly or building aircrafts, but just to make enough bullets.
I have so much more that I won't go into details, suffice to say that most of the tech I research simply aren't PLAINLY better than my starter equipment. I don't even like the nanoarmour because it subtracts TUs, which is far more important the protection. But I have saved the best for the last : When it says you have a 99% chance to hit, you probably don't. The number has always been very buggy when the target is on a slope. It doesn't seem to consider well the obstacles in between. I remember having a 100% chance of hitting an alien around the corner, but four shots fired ALL ended up hitting the corner of the wall instead of the target. These numbers have always been inaccurate, sometimes wildly so. I can't even count the number of misses at 99% I have in the course of a single game, and as a mathematician I understand the diference between probability and statistics, as well as the psychological aspect of it. Unfortunately it is the only tool available to the players and they are stuck using that number.
Yes, all these things, be they deliberate design or necessities, or shortcomings, already make the game plenty difficult. When I read someone wrote that 2.5 it will be even harder to not have casualties, and that there will be a punitive wound model, and now weight can literally half my soldier's TU's, and med kits, something that is used to keep me from losing irreplaceable combat experience will be nerfed/made harder, I question whether the developers are losing perspective.
Please, remember that a game is supposed to be, first and foremost, fun. More difficult does not always translate into that. If you are going to spend your valueable time and resources to make a change, please don't simply ask whether they will make it more challenging, but instead ask whether it will add to the player's experience as a whole.
Please, the game doesn't need to be harder, there is already a Very Hard difficulty level.
My apologies for the insane wall of text.
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