Ive finished the game at least twice and wont start another game when the 3rd DLC comes out but would probably wait till the fourth. I have to say the game is much better now than what it was in the first 6 months of the original release date.
Stuff i would like to see in a DLC.
Soldier resurrection. There are times you when you have a tough encounter and a couple of damn good units die. Rather than restarting a save and trying again, how about the ability to resurrect? Of course would be the soldier is incapacitated for a long while, costs prohibitive, temporary debuffs etc.
“Vehicle” units are still sort of useless. I never use them as they take up too much space and four units are infinitely better than one vehicle unit (in almost every case). Units should also be tougher. Example, when you take out a tyre, why can i still shoot the tyre and erode health? If the tyre is punctured, what use would puncturing it again do? It should be i have to target other area’s or there will be very minimal damage on an already destroyed component.
Underwater Enemies/battles. Im surprised this has been overlooked. I liked X-COM Terror from the deep the most out of the early titles. It creates more scenarios/events and certainly new weapons/equipment that would need to be researched/made.
I also think base battles should be done much better. If i have a heavy, i can launched as much as 3 missiles at them as they are clumped together. Essentially winning the battle.
I think more battles should follow a “mould” where the enemies are in an attack formation that will minimise their casualties (unless ambushed).
Less faction against faction or a way to negotiate a “cease” fire or other remedy as opposed to just a battle.
Because that’s how PP health works. Unit dies when HP is depleted. On top of that, you can disable parts of the units, removing it’s abilities or applying debuff by removing health from individual part.
DLCs no. 5 is to focus on vehicles, as recent Roadmap indicated. No further news then that.
Ok, lets see what the vehicle revamp has in store.
Regarding base battles, how about the enemy sends in “heavy” siege type units where it is the bullet magnet and the infantry follow behind. It should have a structure rather than just having random units all over the place. I think there should be more script and less random with each attack on a base and is progressively stronger. Also, most of the player units should not be in the back. I mean players have had 24 hours to setup base defence but we can choose where to place out units. All enemies should come from the main entrance where later battles the enemy finds a way to crawl in smaller units from another area… At the moment the base battles seem to generic and essentially the same.
That is the problem with too many games now, everything is “random” as opposed to well designed and structured battles with a smaller amount of “random”
There should be an option to build base defences where some of the enemy is killed or injured before they reach the main gate. Either a mini game (where you can focus on a certain type of unit you really hate) or just a general damage to the attacking force based on the amount of base defences you have built/researched.
IMO one of the fundamental appeals of XCOM-likes is the synergy between strategic and tactical layer. That is what I am missing the most in Firaxis remakes - enemy progression and mission structure is scipted rather then result of enemy’s action on strategy layer. Individual tactical engagements don’t need to be always challenging, and don’t need to be always winnable - it is possible for us to have advantage/disadvantage due to our strategic play. So I would rather have raid difficulty depend on alien strength in this area, rather then be scripted.
Firaxcoms decided to gut this principle, and went for a more even, predictable and balanced approach, and that is fine, though it does give those games little replayibility. Phoenix Point promise was bridging the gap, however, between modern XCOM and UFO of old. Arguably, though, they didn’t quite succeed. The best example is enemy evolution, that turned out rather bad - it was patched to be more structured and linear, and in the end more enjoyable, but it made enemy progression more predictable and cut an interesting promise that PP made, when pitching this system. Adding even more scripting to PP could make it more enjoyable then it currently is, but would at the same time further undermine what this game was supposed to achieve. I would be wary of moving PP closer and closer to their big budget Firaxis owned cousin - not because I dislike XCOM1&2, but because I don’t think PP has budget necessary to match Firaxis work on their terms.
And yes, the trick with procedural generation is that it is not, and should not feel “random”. There is as much (if not more) design that goes into good procedural generation. I, once again, have to mention my favourite XCOM-like in recent years - Invisible Inc. Levels and missions in that game are all procedurally generated, but with enough varety, differnet level layouts and smart well tuned alogrithms it is just so very very good, with distinct factions and level layouts. And as someone who followed this game through Early Access I can attest to how much game can be improved with tweaks and overhauls to level generation.
Base defences are missions that I would like to get closer examination, just as Snapshot did with alien bases. I don’t think they work - odd unit spreading feels especially odd and artificial.
Maybe many, but not all. I would consider myself an experienced player and I never use vehicles. Especially late-game when they can get 2-3 shot, I just find them useless. They’re big and clunky (which I understand is actually useful sometimes) and when they die, everyone inside dies - because, you know, that’s how actual vehicles work, or something…
I never used tanks in any of the other X-COM games either. They didn’t bring anything valuable to the field. That’s the space of 4 soldiers. Their attack power wasn’t amazing, and didn’t add up to the versatility of those 4 soldiers in its place. And soldiers were much cheaper to replace when they died.
Especially in a game where the abilities your soldiers get can let them clear a map in 1-2 turns with as many soldiers, I just don’t see a need for vehicles.
