Finally got to play it - though I should really have been finishing Episode 8’s script, but hey, what’re trains for eh? ;0)
It’s early days, these are just basic Crabbies and we know what we’re doing, so it still feels a tad too easy so far. But I can see where this is going, and some of the tweaks from BB3 make me suspect that we’re OP for a reason…
Let’s take the new Training System as an example. My first mission out, I was: 'Oh, they’ve got rid of Exertion/Return Fire/Rally - all those things that made the Squad awesomely unstoppable. Then I got some XP and started examining the Training Tree a bit more closely - and realised that all those things that made us really powerful in BB3 were actually advanced skills that it’s gonna take us a while to build. So we were OP in BB3 because we were SUPPOSED to be OP - the devs were testing out the higher level skills on us. Clev-er…!
SOME NOTES ON THE TRAINING TREE FOR THE DEVs:
- Exertion is still underpriced. Personally, I think you should swap Return Fire & Exertion around, because if you use it right, Exertion is REALLY powerful - I’ve just completed a mission which damn near got cleaned out single-handed by a Grenade Launcher-wielding Assault using Exertion to spread explosive love around.
- I really like the way you mix up the classes, allowing us to have Sniper Heavies for instance (and that’s really powerful too, once she’s Jetpacked onto the high ground and can pick off almost anything on the battlefield).
- It wasn’t entirely clear on first usage how the point spending worked, but after you’d done it once, it was obvious that the PP Points would be spent topping up any shortfall in the Squadie’s personal pool, which is a nicely elegant way of allowing us to spend the points where we need to.
EQUIPMENT LIST is intuitive and largely works. Took me a while to suss that the number of each item available was in the top corner of the item, and it wasn’t immediately obvious what the Recycle symbol meant - but since it had an ‘are you sure about this?’ failsafe, a little experimentation made it clear. It would be good to have some easier way of comparing armour stats (for instance) than having to bounce from one item to the other. It’a also a good thing that you’re now limiting us to one Heavy weapon in a Ready Slot (though I appreciate being allowed to cart a secondary weapon along on my back).
- My one big request is to have some quickly obvious way of seeing what’s a Light Weapon and what’s a Heavy Weapon, since certain skills only work on each, and it’s not immediately obvious which weapon applies.
TACTICAL GAME
- I LOVE the new Overwatch system. It works a treat. A really good way of solving the problem.
- Not sure how I feel about the Supply Boxes yet. I think it’s good - it has that ‘Meld’ feel of Enemy Within, where it was up to you the player to decide how much you wanted to push it to get the resources you needed, and that’s a good thing. Without Fog of War etc, it’s hard to see how that will pan out in the final iteration of the game, but I do think it’s an improvement on the crates.
- Lack of Fog of War and over-familiarity with the Crabbies tends to drain all the tension out of the mission, though.
GEOSCAPE LAYER
- Is it just me, or is it much easier to get around now? I kinda miss the whole refuelling thing - it made deciding whether to risk that extra jump or not a proper choice.
- I can definitely see how events etc will really lift the game when they are implemented fully. I’m hoping they will be very influenced by how you’ve treated each faction throughout the game - and also contain some sort of meta-game influence over the plot and revelations throughout the game.
- Looking forward to seeing how the Base develops over time.
- It may just be the way the RNG is panning out, but things feel a lot slower this time around. I’ve built a radar station and raided 3 scavenging sites so far, and I’ve yet to experience a Haven Raid or encounter a Nest. Probably no bad thing, as we’re definitely not as powered-up for it as we used to be.
Hope this helps. Really enjoying it so far.
But in the final game, they will be there, with a much more agressive fog of war, a redesigned perception system and, I suspect, with certain features present only at night. Stealth units will shine in night missions, maybe certain skills gain different attributes, even chances of panic may be higher.
And they don’t have Exertion or Return Fire, Gunslinger or Deadly Duo, Jet Jump or Rage Burst, or even basic Mech Arms skills. Enemies have more hit points… Fortunately our weapons do more damage and with lower armor values on enemies it is not so hard to kill them, but I think that enemy count is bigger in each mission than it was in BB3. And now they have all those different special attacks.