Gameplay feels fluid and solid. There's a couple things to get used to, like not being able to shoot around hard corners and moving through thick trees, but it smooths out with time and understanding. I also didn't play the tutorial so there's a chance it's covered there and I didn't see it. Other than that, mechanics feel solid and enjoyable. Guns sound and feel meaty and cool. Progression is a little fast for me but its early access so I'm expecting that to change with additional updates and content drop. Overall style of the game feels gritty in most aspects but the splashes of SL personality feels flavorful. Enemies feel varied enough to be consistently satisfying and challenging to fight. IMO building the squad to fit the mission profile is the most satisfying part of the game. Playing with the supply is also fun and a neat spin on build crafting and specialization. Difficulty customization is always appreciated and lets you tailor the run to how you want. There's usually some form of upgrade gained between missions(new gear, promotion points, OCIs, ect.) so it feels like you're consistently getting stronger, not always by leaps and bounds but always growing. Overall I am loving the game and can't get enough of it. Im super hyped to get my hands on new weapons, armor, SLs, gear, and OCIs! I will be watching this one's career with great interest.
Dev Feedback: (Ofc these are just my uncultured opinions)
Mortars feel under tuned against most targets - Maybe increase the suppression, HP dmg or armor dmg(alternatively offering more types of shells, like smoke, gas, fire, AP, or HE would be cool)
Bombardier bugs feels very punishing early game - prolly a skill issue but I dislike how much dmg and kills they can rack up if they get a good position/wacky sightline. (Feels easier to handle once you have intel up and you can see where they spawn + have more tools at your disposal) - maybe reduce damage a bit but add a heavy increase to armor dmg and/or an AP penalty
Not being able to shoot around tall buildings/hard corners feels bad - add an ability to take a corner shot but heavily reduce the number of shots taken or accuracy of the shots.
OCI slots feel very limited - I think the number of armament slots are good at 4, but would like to see more slots for the bridge and hull. With new factions coming eventually and hopefully more OCIs, it seems like a fun way to enable further customization and playstyles. Perhaps have the ship start damaged and you can repair it, with OCI creds to unlock additional slots. To help balance maybe add diminishing returns for stacking the same OCI more than 2x?
Tooltips feel lacking - Just update to have ALL effects so i don't need to keep tabbing out to the wiki to see if there something I'm missing that isn't mentioned.
Alien loot drops don't feel as good as pirate and RA drops - I feel excited to fight pirates and RA cuz it feels like im getting new toys to play with after the missions or cash in at the black market to gamba. While aliens do have drops that can be cashed in at the black market, it just doesn't excite me and it feels like the value for bug parts isn't equivalent to some of the drops you get fighting the other factions when trading in at the black market. [REDACTED] drops feel slightly less bad cuz of crafting and a higher resell value but not as much as RA or pirates imo. Adding gear thats crafted from alien parts would also be an very acceptable fix for me.
Boarding commandos - maybe its just my RNG but i feel like boarding commandos only ever throw stun grenades after they jump into my lines so they don't really feel like threats. Make them shoot more after a jump
Smoke grenades feel oppressive with the complete obstruction. - In a game that all about calculated risk, it feels a little over tuned that a smoke grenade is essentially a get out of jail free card. Is ur unit in a bad spot? Drop smoke. Is that MG bunker team being a challenge in a breakthrough mission? Pop smoke. While i do think it adds a nice tactical change of pace, i think it should only provide a accuracy debuff/defense buff, instead of prevent shots and line of sight(so i can run up on the mf'ing [REDACTED] carriers wth my AP stonewall, speaking of...)
Stonewall shotgun wth AP - This thing feels like exterminatus in a slug. Big E could take on every ctan, necron, eldar, ork, and tyranid at once if he had this weapon. needs to be brought in line wth the other weapons and it does too much for only a small trade-off of range(See mobile infantry)
Ammo Types - After using all 3, i think AP rounds will forever take the cake. Sure REND and Hollow points can be nice but AP seems to be the best at removing the worry of armor from the game. (Yes im aware that REND can combo nicely wth special weapons to help reduce the armor for them but why would I do that when I can just kill them with AP and free up the special weapons team to shoot something else?)
Operations feel good but would love to see some longer ops - Increase the number of missions and add some new rewards/buffs to make each op feel a bit more like a rogue-lite run.
Waved based mission - Pick a number of waves(5,10,15,ect.) and hold out like you do in defense missions. You cannot extract before the selected wave or stay longer. If you pick a higher wave number = better/more rewards.
Loot progression - After finally getting my first Low Profile Protective suit(my beloved) @ ~50 hrs in, I feel like having a system that lets you target single pieces of gear would be nice(Not in the sense of oh I can just do this bounty and get whatever armor I want but I have a higher chance of getting what Im looking for via excluding common item rewards). Maybe some form of bounty system where you need to complete X ops, get X kills from concealment, destroy X large units, ect but make it a longer term goal with like 30 ops and it lets you pick a piece of high end gear(similiar to selecting gear after completing an op but wth on rare items, more options, and you can pick the item when you start the bounty and get it on completion - would be cool to incorporate Wetteroth's lodge into this)
SL Specialist perks - Stolen from someone on reddit, but add a "mastery" perk slot that has a unlock requirements to it. Ex) Kill 200 large bug enemies from concealment while at least 10 tiles away wth Darby to unlock 1 of 3 perks(NON-REFUNDABLE): Perk 1 - While deployed and concealed, Darby gains +1 weapon range per turn to a max of 3(moving or breaking concealment resets the buff), Perk 2 - Suppressing a target with Darby automatically marks them, Perk 3 - Once per operation, Darby gains +10 concealment for 2 turns and is immune to enemy scans.
I thought this would be a cool way to "dedicate" a character to a certain arch type(stealth, support, and sniper in this example)
