Things you like to see changed/added in a patch

[Smurf]

I'm with Terror and Systems. They're all spot on points.

 

Zowrath, adding extra elements to a game falls well within the scope of most games companies patches, so why not this one. Especially seeing as the underlying game engine is so simplistic.

 

To be honest it looks like the game was released before it should have been and any company that does that should expect to invest a lot in post-release development otherwise there won't be a second game because nobody would bother buying it.

 

Some other things that I would like to happen:

 

- Get rid of the portraits and info sections on the tactical section. They're utterly useless and don't add anything to the gameplay.

 

- Replace them with decent controls as mentioned in previous posts.

 

- Allow more than one type of fighter to be produced, rather than upgrading one basic model.

 

- Allow more than one type of transport. Sure helicopters are great, but you wouldn't use one to fly to the other side of the world.

 

- Allow the bases to have specific funtions rather than just the general Military/Build/Research choice that you have now.

 

- Bring in an element of resource management with supplies of items dependant upon their country of origin being under your control rather than a global economy that simply couldn't exist under the scenario that is presented.

 

- At least make some attempt to allow interaction in the ufo downing sesssions beyond when to hit the button to retreat. Even if it does mean getting rid of the flashy animated section (although I liked that anyway).

 

- Its almost a given that a game that has tactical levels representing combat allow you to:

 

1. Stand on top of things for a better view and longer shot.

2. Go into things to hide and heal.

3. Lie down behind things to for cover.

4. Climb/Jump over things to aid progress.

 

Those are just basics. Let alone the dozens of things that could have been added to make combat more interesting or realistic or just fun.

 

Anyway, the developers should read this thread and at least consider implementing a few of the things listed on this and previous posts if only so that they can feel good about the fact that they're not ripping off an intelligent and loyal user community with the half-baked effort that they actually released.

[Amenable to Change]

Zowrath, adding extra elements to a game falls well within the scope of most games companies patches, so why not this one. Especially seeing as the underlying game engine is so simplistic.

 

The changes can really only be content changes. the engine and it's features is in it's final state, only bug fixes will be applied to it.

This means if the current engine doesn't support it, then it's not going to be added i a patch.

If all that needs to be done is a little bit of hacking of the game scripts not really a problem.

Bear in mind that patches take money and time to do, and they get no financial gain out of them. So any major changes to the game are unlikely it'll only be tweaks and bug fixes.

 

To be honest it looks like the game was released before it should have been and any company that does that should expect to invest a lot in post-release development otherwise there won't be a second game because nobody would bother buying it.

 

This can be said about many games, even the original UFO, and TFTD, they had weird bugs and problems, one's which weren't fixed, but they were so great games people worked around them.

Many people don't realise is the decision isn't to either release a game or keep working on it till it's perfect. It's to release the game, or just to shelve it.

 

Whilst a lot of the fixes can be done with the current engine a lot of them are significant work. There won't be patches with any large amount of additional content, so new guns, planes etc. won't happen. there won't be any changes to the current GUI, as this implys making engine changes as well as cosmetic alterations. Small changes even at this stage would require far too much work.

 

Anyway, the developers should read this thread and at least consider implementing a few of the things listed on this and previous posts if only so that they can feel good about the fact that they're not ripping off an intelligent and loyal user community with the half-baked effort that they actually released.

 

Making a stand about a crap product is fine, but expecting anything from a small developer and publisher such as altar and cenega is a bit much. You should take your arguments t the giants that lead the industry, when you convince them to do these things then the rest of the industry will follow, asking small independant studios to do things a large studio won't is pointless.

 

As the Genre isn't exactly brimming with possible games, I can't see how a small company that creates an entirely original product brings it to market that provides an enjoyable experience, for a decent price could possibly be ripping off it's fans. I don't think insulting people by calling their products half-baked or ripp off's is the way to make things better either.

[MCWojtekk]

What this game abso-f*ck*n-lutely need is an autosave feature (make it so it can be turned on/off so if someone doesn't want it, he can turn it off).

For me it would be enough if it would save on the beginning of a mission - and perhaps the end. Because the game is so easy (behold I play for the third day only) is so easy I completely forget to save - and now I have to resume from a savegame with bases less...

[rezaf]

I agree with many of the requested features, but like it's been said, many would need a LOT of work, even if they were essentially easy to realize. For example the helicopter idea. You'd need to tweak all maps so the starting location is big enough to allow the placement of the helicopter model. Sure, part of this task could be done more or less automatically, but the gain from implementing this would be very little and the result purely cosmetic. Not worth the hassle.

Anyway, the main change I'd like to see and that I consider doable:

Tweak difficulty!!!

Less aliens with them rapid fire rocket launchers! Give a lot of 'em Gray's non-heroic stats. PSI needs to be tuned town fundamentally!

Stuff like that.

 

One other task, this time of even trivial nature. Prolly doable in a mod:

Make x5 production task. Laser Pistol, Laser Pistol x5. Sun Armor, Sun Armor x5. I can't believe no production queue was implemented in the first place, but since it happened, maybe this is a viable workaround that's pretty easy to realize.

 

That's all for now, most of my other wishes have been already mentioned and / or are too difficult to realize in a patch.

 

EDIT: Oh, and a) make the game run on older GeForce cards without forcing the user to mess around with the advanced settings and B) prevent the game from crashing when Windows try to go into screensaver mode.

______________

rezaf

[Ravenwing]

I agree with most tweaks already mentioned like:

1) toned down PSI powers and alien stats (they come from low grav world and have heroic strenght? lol)

2) less heavy weapon aliens (it's silly like having all soldiers with bazookas in army just because it's powerfull

3) tone down difficulty jump, it goes from easy to insanely hard in one moment

4) ability to deploy turrets without firing and keeping them deployed

5) some tweaks to certain weapons and especially the 'must have heavy armor to use this one' especially when aliens (who are supposed to be physically weak) carry them with no problem at all

Now for some additions and content changes that seem doable:

 

1) Base defense and mission deployment. I think we should have some control on where and how our soldiers get deployed, especially in defense missions.

2) proximity grenades

3) more mission types, hopefully some even with support units controlled by ai (like helping in fighting off some major alien/mutated thingy offensive or recruitment mission)

4) ai controlled security personel in bases

5) ability to manufacture at least ammunition to earth technology weapons (some on they can make laser rifles but can't make ammo for my sniper rifle?)

6) or make that supplies are being gathered from your resources (adding some ammo and weapons each month/week), that could also lead to nice "protect the convoy" mission

 

I know some things I've mentioned are hard work but all of them seem doable in a patch. btx. great game anyway

 

Some first post that is

 

EDIT:

fix that annoying bug with items disappearing from chopper, especially when doing more than one mission in row without going back to base

[Predjee]

boobytraps btw would be cool also

[HXavier]

I WANT FRIENDLY FIRE, NOW!

 

Ok, let m rephrase it...

 

please, can we have an option for friend fire? Without it, Im feelin im playing an arcade game and not a tactical squad game.

 

Besides, auto-shooting, with option on it, would be awesome.

[Predjee]

dude, there IS friendly fire only you command a tactical squad trained NOT to walk in eachother fire line

[Smurf]

Bear in mind that patches take money and time to do, and they get no financial gain out of them. So any major changes to the game are unlikely it'll only be tweaks and bug fixes.

 

Ok I agree with what you said up until then, the chances are that they won't change it a great deal and perhaps we'll have to wait until they or more likely someone else does it in another game. However, they have already gained financially from me and you and all the others and as the work is significantly below the quality that was expected by quite a lot of people I would expect them to remedy that.

 

Making a stand about a crap product is fine, but expecting anything from a small developer and publisher such as altar and cenega is a bit much. You should take your arguments t the giants that lead the industry, when you convince them to do these things then the rest of the industry will follow, asking small independant studios to do things a large studio won't is pointless.

 

Well the thing about small and independant studios is that they're small and independant and therefore a bit more flexible about how things are done. They exist because they take the risks that the big boys won't and their games either become innovative, outstanding successes and the company goes on to fight another day or shoddy efforts which eventually puts them out of business. At the moment this one falls into the latter although they are patching like demons so it might still make it. Personally I hope they do.

 

As the Genre isn't exactly brimming with possible games, I can't see how a small company that creates an entirely original product brings it to market that provides an enjoyable experience, for a decent price could possibly be ripping off it's fans. I don't think insulting people by calling their products half-baked or ripp off's is the way to make things better either.

 

Erm..the one thing that this game isn't is original. Almost every aspect of the game that I've seen so far has appeared in other games. That doesn't make it bad as that happens a lot. But it doesn't make it original either. I'll give them credit for the car with legs though, although for some reason that reminds me of a Terry Pratchet character.

 

I think that if 'half-baked' is the worst word used about the game then they should probably consider themselves fortunate. 'Half-Baked' is one of the nicer words that I use after my team has been wiped out for the sixth time by rockets because I hit the space bar to freeze the game a fraction of a second after the computer has already done so for some other reason. In fact it normally falls about half way through a long and descriptive sentence full of words which are not so nice.

 

Which getting back to the topic is what I would also like Them to look at. It would be good to break down the pause options even more than they have done so that we can choose exactly what we want to be stopped for as some of the choices enable the irritating notifications as well as the useful ones.

[bulldogc]

the bigest reason they alwase seem to get that last rocket off is because regardless of how fast u kill them they alwase finish their last action first then die. this realy needs to be fixed.

[talltom]

Well I'm on my first restart, the first time I got to the russian base mission and was slaughtered. After restarting, on v1.1a, I still see the same bugs. They're not in the tactical game either. There's the old power cell issue that everyone's noticed and the Manufacturing issue that I haven't seen yet.

When you select an item to research it tells you the estimated time, the same with development. But, when you select something to manufacture it says (between the red lines) "Not Ready for Development".... As these items have already been Researched/Developed they don't need it. Most annoyingly this means that if you want to know how long it will take to manufacture items you have to start everything to see. Oh well maybe its just me!

[frenzon]

Things I would *love* to see:

 

1. When you order a group of units to move then shoot, the units who arrive at the destination first should start shooting, rather than standing around getting shot at waiting for the slower units to turn up before firing.

 

 

Things I would like to see:

 

1. When pressing the 'next area' button, numbers next to the soldier's names would be nice so we can quickly confirm that all 7 are in the area.

 

2. Half-speed mission play.

 

3. A 'loose camera' mode, so I can get in close and personal. Although I'm sure this isn't in for art reasons.

 

4. Range indicators.

 

5. Mission playback.

 

6. Bullet trails, even if they're like Half-life's hitscan-based trails and therefore aren't entirely accurate.

[daishiw]

When I set my guys to start moving, then put the mouse over an enemy it gives me the chance to hit calculated as if my units have already moved to the position ordered, instead of from where they actually are, so I have to cancel the movement order if I want to see if anyone is able to shoot the enemy.

[systems]

There are plenty of good ideas here now. I actually like everyone else's ideas more than I like my own!

 

Slaughter (or other mods) - any chance of using your influence and shipping a list over to Altar with our "patch wish list" on?

 

I've just realised how annoying it is to have to start a production to find how long it takes, and then you only build one item.

[Predjee]

hope they will fix the ENEMY A.I 2 :'(

 

it just tottaly sucks

 

no 1 ever tried to outflank me, or attack me in the back, or attack in groups

 

also UFO attack missions are NO FUN

 

you just cant manouvere arround, and as soon as i enter the friggin ufo, i get shot

[Pete]

What this game abso-f*ck*n-lutely need is an autosave feature (make it so it can be turned on/off so if someone doesn't want it, he can turn it off).

After I checked in the manual, I noticed the quicksave and quickload features, which have now become invaluable It's not the same as an autosave, but it's close, and you don't have to go through the system menu to do those two actions.

 

the bigest reason they alwase seem to get that last rocket off is because regardless of how fast u kill them they alwase finish their last action first then die. this realy needs to be fixed.

They're alien invaders trained to kil you. You're commanding what's left of humanity. They are far superior, but I know what you mean I just suspend disbelief far beyond normal when my sixth squad member dies and it just about gets me by

 

And finally, Smurf - I know (as does probably everyone else who's played the game) what you mean about the pause options. Kinda annoying puts it mildly when 6 Reticulans pop up one after the other and you accidentally keep unpausing the game so your men get creamed

 

There are issues in this topic that patches can fix, and there are things that are unlikely to happen (such as completely new addition) that would require re-coding. I think if ALTAR made a few more patches to address the remaining bugs and even offer some patches which allowed you to turn on or off extra options, or alter minor in-game settings (like how difficult the aliens are etc.) then they'd be making a lot of players very happy.

 

They may do it, then again they may not, though they'd have a bigger fanbase if they did I reckon and in time for a sequel too

[quasarstrider]

It is a great game. I love it. It is like a mix of Jagged Alliance (I could swear the music even sounds the same!) and UFO: EU. It is also very fast at load/saving and level loading compared to some other games.

 

However there are some small things which irk me. For e.g. I never know when it is night or day. There should be a symbol like in WarCraft III, saying the time when playing. In the globe view, there should be a way to see if you are in the night zone or not. Does night play even make any difference?

 

Another thing: in the level up stats choosing screen, the players who have leveled up should have some distinguishing symbol, e.g. a flashing star or level number. I always get annoyed by having to click around to find which ones I need to select the stat for.

 

I also cannot research the improved energy cells, or whatever they are named. But this is a known bug.

 

Worst of all, the path-finding. It gets a bit tiresome having to constantly cancel someone's movement because instead of him following the group, he decides to go all around the map instead of waiting for the ones in front to move.

 

Nonetheless, kudos are in order for Altar! They managed to make a superb game. I love it! :inlove:

[bulldogc]

although there are a good amount of annoying semi big bugs id say its was very well done overall considering the rather noname co that made it.very little do u see the little guys make such a gereraly good game firstish try out.

[Soly]

Deploy Guns.

A easier way to pick up aliens. (I have to make the soldier to walk over the alien, and then clear orders.. Is it any easier way to do this?)

More sounds from the aliens, moore spooky :-)

A sound when the doors are opened.