Yes, I understand what “Pre-Alpha” means. But after a dozen or so attempts and ending up with one living soldier surrounded by 4 or more aliens and a giant Boss… with no more ammo, I am disappointed. How can we test for bugs? How can we evaluate gameplay and mechanics? I chuckled to myself when Julian got spanked playing the demo at PCG Weekender even with UNLIMITED ammo… how are we, the players, going to do any better with no ammo?
To the developers… give us a build we can actually play and test and evaluate. Yes, there are players who have posted their skills at killing all the aliens while blindfolded and the Boss while accidentally bending over to tie their shoelaces and firing a wild shot from their holstered pistol… but there are some of us who aren’t so adept.
Give us unlimited ammo to fully test and explore.
Give us more than one reload or bigger clipsizes.
Prevent EVERY alien on the map from firing at a soldier whenever they take a shot.
Yes, I would like some cheese with my whine… as long as I don’t have to see the below anymore.
Thanks for providing feedback, I have moved your thread in the appropriate Feedback area of the forums – this makes it easier for the devs to find it all in one place.
Yes - sorry - it is quite difficult - and randomly difficult too - sometimes you get more aliens, sometimes less. A few hints:
The crabman gunners won’t actively shoot at your heavy because they think they can’t hurt him (although they can shred armour, they don’t consider it). You can use this to your advantage.
You need to use missiles and grenades on the queen
The queen can’t get your soldiers in the lower trench walkways
Scavenging for ammo and grenades is definitely important
Speaking as someone who isn’t disappointed, please give yourself a chance to flourish, it’s only been out a day.
The system is really flexible and it pays to think on those grounds. Try, for instance, shooting and then fully relocating your soldier behind a wall or something.
The sniper’s manual aim can help disarm enemy weapons, and you can move on to other targets while they bleed out. Slowly. Painfully. Satisfyingly. Yesterday, I had the game crash after I had bled out five crabmen. I had two soldiers left but the AI only had a disarmed crab queen and one rooftop gunner. I had just baited the queen into destroying the gunners building (fall damage!) But thew game crashed instead of the crab. I’m still calling it a victory.
There is a balance to achieve between getting crates and killing active threats. There is usually this low tide MOMENT where you can reasonably spend your actions getting more supplies without sacrifice.
Try to get control of part of the map. It will help to establish CYA overwatch positions and better defensive spots.
Good luck soldier. Edit: plus everone loses. If they say they don’t they’re probably just edgelording.
Excellent post, exactly the right message!
Luring the Queen into an enemy-controlled building is a great tactic that I hadn’t thought of myself before, definitely going to try that out next time though.
I have not been able to play much so I won’t be definite on my assessment. I also find the game punishing - and I also recognise that some people love that. Maybe the issue here is the difficulty progression ( or maybe it is only going to get more and more punishing … oh dear …). Most probably this early version cannot cover several layers of difficulty but I hope the final game will have different levels such as rookie, veteran, madman, god … ironman to hell … did I forget someone?
As someone who played both the PC Gamer Weekender build and the EGX Rezzed build, this build is certainly a lot more challenging. I’ve still yet to beat the Fixed Map Scenario, but I’ve managed the Random Map scenario twice now. So it’s not impossible, but yes it’s very challenging for sure.
Two problems I noticed about that trench tactic, which I discovered by accident on my very first playthrough:
I was out of ammo and down to my last trooper who I had jump down there. He was the heavy who I forgot could not climb ladders. He was effectively stuck down there.
I had rocketed the queen before this and she was bleeding. I took a of couple shots at her with him until his ammo was out while she couldn’t reach him. I then just kept hitting finish turn and the queen eventually bled out. My heavy was still down in the trench and unable to climb out to fight the remaining aliens on the map, so the mission never ended. I had to Alt F4 to get out of the game as there is no quit button or menu I could find.
This trivializes the queen. Just put a bleed on her and jump down there (ideally with troopers who can climb back out) and wait for her to die. Or just take potshots at her as she storms around and does come in LoS, unable to reach down to get you. This is indeed an excellent tactic to win, but it’s complete cheese and made her completely trivial.
Also, not being able to climb back out is a problem, for heavies at least. Having them stuck in a tiny area of the map is not good for gameplay. Maybe a sloped ramp is needed somewhere as it looks like it’s intentional they cannot climb ladders.
Interesting, I’ve very easily, all in all, beaten the fixed map, FF, including killing the Queen without losing anyone, but my very first outing on a random map saw me in Turn 2 getting swarmed by seven enemies at once, which was pretty much Game Over right then and there.
Seems to be a really high degree of randomness involved, even on the Fort Freiheit map.
Ok, so I just learned about jump jets on they heavy which allows him to jump out of the trench along the rear of the map.
Still caught queen on other side of the giant chasm near beginning point of map, which again let me fire on her unopposed until she was bleeding, then let her die. Which felt really cheap. She needs some pathfinding work perhaps. She just sat out there without moving to the center bridge and coming into the base.
I beat it on my second go, on the first I got a bug that prevented play, and to be honest I’d lost that match anyway. I’ve played from the Rebelstars in the 80s on the 8 bit Spectrum, completed the original UFO and TFTD on the Amiga and PC, right through to the XCom reboots (and beaten the Xcom2 War of the Chosen on Ironman Commander level). To me the difficulty is just about right. The Queen is not as powerful as she first appears and nor are the crabmen. You just need to think about how to defeat the scenario based on what you learned on your earlier play through and the various weapon characteristics. The squad actually feels a bit more powerful than I expected, which is nice as it makes these initial play throughs a bit more forgiving. It’s also nice to see the aliens punished for making very long range shots by inflicting only glancing wounds. Perhaps the next build needs a difficulty setting that can take a few aliens off for people expecting an easier experience.
The queen is only very basically implemented. For a start, if she can’t attack she would spawn a brain leech or some other minion. She would also have a mist emitting injury reaction. Secondly, if she is at risk of dying she would flee the battlefield and heal inside her lair ready for another attack (the monsters are persistent characters.) Thirdly, there are other abilities and different mutations for different situations. Fourthly, she will gain a more flexible attack for her pincers which would be more difficult to hide from.
That sounds scary enough, alright. Does it also mean that you’d be more likely to have a bigger squad than the minimum four guys when you start to encounter her or could she spawn very early where you have very little chance of defeating her?
Or to broaden the question, is the game designed with the idea that every tactical encounter should be won/winnable, or is the game likely to throw enemies/situations that we should run from until we get stronger? (Thinking about “don’t try to molest alien Battleships with Interceptors and Avalanche missiles”, one day you’ll be able to blow them up, but not today)
I would rather not have such a random battles with bosses, and even if so, please make them not too frequent or more dependent on some game conditions, like when player loses/wins few missions in a row or lets mist to spread too much on the globe, etc…
One possible solution to this is marking all missions with adequate (unlike firaxis xcoms) difficulty sign. “Easy” should mean that very likely you will succeed. “Very hard” - tactical retreat should be taken into consideration from the very start. However, this system doesn’t add to unexpectedness, which is an important feature of this game.
I vaguely recall* (its been many years) the original X-com letting you shoot down alien craft - and based on the size of the craft, you could get a really good idea how many alien troops you might face. Or you would go cleanse a cruise ship, which meant lots of aliens. I’m hoping that they (consistent with the story) provide some other visual clue before mission start so you have at least a hint of how any troops to send, and could get a sense of how to equip them. When I shot down a scout craft, I sent a small crew of lightly armed newbies with lots of grenades (to overcome their accuracy issues). If I shot down a battle cruiser, I sent the biggest, most heavily armored crew I could, with heavy armor, as much alien tech as I possessed, and loaded with exra ammo.
The Hyper-wave Decoder is the ultimate in UFO detection technology. It is the most expensive facility available, but it is worth every penny. As a radar, the Hyper-wave Decoder’s detection sphere extends beyond the Large Radar and has a 100% chance of detecting any encompassed UFO during the half-hourly radar sweeps. In addition to the standard radar functions, it will also reveal the UFO’s type, mission, destination and the race of its crew. Hyper-Wave Decoders are made available after capturing and interrogating an alien Navigator.
