More than familiar, I probably played old X-com than 90% people here.
No, being shot from the dark was never “Interesting”. Fighting strange new enemies for the first time, learning their weaknesses, saving your soldiers just barely, adopting new technology, that was interesting part. If your idea of fun is being shot from the dark, suit yourself.
I agree with you but as I remember it weren’t just night missions in OG: shots from nowhere were frequent on any kind of missions - night/day/underwater. I thought you just don’t like night missions with no specific reason. But mind that there might be some ways to mitigate darkness and improve visibility during the night missions in PP. We don’t know it yet but infiltrator class already says a lot.
Personally, I have nothing against occasional shots from nowhere: it makes sense when alien flanked your soldier or just have better vision because of some specific mutation or race features. I don’t want my soldier to see an enemy immediately after the fire starts when there is no logic reason behind it.
I don’t have anything against “occasional shots from nowhere”, occasional being the key word. But it’s hard to say that shots from nowhere are the games main appeal.
I dunno, “shots from nowhere” were a big reason the original game was as scary as it was–even though the alien designs and sprite graphics were 90s comic book style and not exactly H.R. Giger, the fact that aliens could kill your guys without you even seeing them really added to the sense of terror and creepiness in missions.
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I actually think it might be great with rather frequent “shots from nowhere” as you put it. At least at first with perception abilities and tech coming in to give you all the info you need making it rare late game. Or just depending on your style of play. Gives you the fear early game, and a feeling of being unstoppable late game.
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But guys please remember that enemies here are not supposed to use ranged weapons at least until some point in campaign. 
So I suppose there won’t be a risk of “shots from nowhere”. And it is hard to predict what balancing will give us but currently Sniper class with proper skill can see almost whole map of small size. Only bigger alien bases and phoenix bases may hide something if they will be long enough.
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In 1995 xcom there were flares for that.
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No ranged weapons so aliens from nowhere? Doesn’t quite have the same ring… Damage from nowhere… Dead from nowhere. Anyways same principle. Scary death before you can react. 
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I don’t know, lad, aliens sneaking up on you sounds both scarier and realistic than sonic/plasma cannon shooting from unknown position. I would be fine if it was explained how aliens shot like that. Also, such comparison is weird, as this time, Earth is mutated and we are high-tech invaders.
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Surprise physical attacks of some sort could add to the horror and tension, especially in early hours of the game until soldiers learn how to defend against it. Nice idea!
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As a matter of fact what I’m still afraid of are map sizes… I know there will be at least few sizes, but all of them have been rather small… It could kill the sense of exploration. Remember Terror from the Deep maps? Or were they only seem huge to me back then when I was a kid?
Yeah. Maps in PP are quite small. At least all haven maps. Alien and Phoenix bases are somewhat bigger. I hope that developers made so small maps just for fast pace game in Backers Builds and full release will have at least half of the maps bigger. Or even if not December release then maybe some DLC will bring something bigger to the map random pool.
To be true I don’t remember how big were maps in original first two games. My guess is not much bigger than PP, but I think that spotting range of soldiers there was not so great as here in PP.
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Now I wonder how sight range (and line of sight?) will be implemented in final game I’d love to see that in upcoming build as well.
It should be in BB5. If they won’t change sight range then soldiers will still see 73% of map in straight line standing near map edge (blocked with objects). But if time of day and stealth factor will also apply to that sight range (not only return fire) then it will be interesting.
I would think so? Unless something changed you are supposed to be able to take 10+ soldiers on the mission later in the game. Tis would be silly if they were cramped in a map designed for four.
First had small maps, second has large and enormous maps. Veterans know which ones I talk about.
I’m keeping forgetting that PP will let us send 10+ soldiers. That and maybe vehicles makes some big maps almost certain.