Hey everyone,
I keep meaning to post some gameplay feedback. But never get round to writing an actual list. So here I will post my thoughts as and when I have them, before I forget them!
1. Health and Fear.
Why are medikits more powerful than hospitals? If I make sure that everyone is healed before the end of a mission, I can keep everyone active, if I don't they have to go to hospital, where they spend a long long time. So maybe..
-medikits can only heal up to a certain amount of total health... 50, 60, 70?
Or wait a sec.. I've just fired a rocket launcher from 3 squares away at my own men. This is still an early mission, and both survived. Not by much, but they lived. How on earth can my men survive a direct hit from a Rocket launcher from very very close range. I should be able to pick up what is left of them and stir-fry it, not turn around and heal them as though nothing happened.
I am scared. But I am not scared enough. I'm looking for that feeling of urgency, and sick feeling that we're all going to die!
-The easiest way I can think of to do that would be X-Com's Fatal Wounds. At the moment, an injured man will always make it to the end of a mission, as long as he keeps safe. Fatal Wounds would change that, especially if he is a long way away from his friends.
-Ufo enemy unknown: Cyberdisks blow up when they die taking half my men with them, cryssalids turn half my men in to their men. This changes the game balance so that no matter how well you are doing, you never get too happy, too confident, because there is a good chance that you are all still going to die anyway.
3. The HUD
Any chance of making the pixel count on the grey areas smaller? Looks like a waste of space to me.
When it says "Your Turn!" at the start of each turn, I remember I am playing a game, and not really trying to kill these alien bastards!
4.Geoscape
Can multiple fighters attack a UFO at the same time, if so I haven't figured it out yet.
5. Text
The font on the geoscape for countries does not look pretty. I think it may be better to have no writing than ugly writing.
The emails, ufopeadia. I find them really hard to read.. mainly because there is so much information. The quickest fix for me would be to make the columns a bit thinner so it is quicker to read. A newspaper, the bible, is easier to read than a novel because it has thin columns. Or maybe each entry could be tabbed in to sections, though that would be more work.
6. Base
Workers and Scientists, I really don't care what you are called, just do your job!
I don't think the base icons are easy to recognize. The only ones i do know are the hangers and alien containment and the SAM battery. Everything else is a big what is this? It is helpful that a mouse over gives the name, but this is very slow, almost a second. Could this be speeded up?
7. Love.
I don't love my men, and women enough. I love them a bit, but not much. I don't know why, but I just don't.....maybe having an enemy that suddenly kills half my men will make me angry at the game rather than in tears that my pride and joy has died...I'm not sure.
maybe...maybe...it has something to do with tone. X-com, when someone died, didn't they kind of turn round and look at you, as if to say.....oh ....bugger...I'm dead.... Maybe it is just that I'm older... I can't be sure.
Maybe it is because I don't feel enough involvement with their stats....? How about, if stats were colour coded according to level. 10-20, red, 20-30, purple, 30-40, blue... By that I mean the entire bar, not the bit above each cut off point. That way I could look at a guy and see he has 4 blue bars, wow I love you buddy, what is your name...
That should do for now. I hope that this information is useful in some way. I am more than willing to help if I can!
