I don't understand

[KAZOO]

This is the 3rd time i gave this game a try, and man i really can't get into this game. EVERYTHING i like is in the game, a lethal threat, squad based tactics, narrow corridors, Alien vibe, AND STILL i hate it.

You literally get punished to play the game.

Moved the squad? How about some stress? Oh need to get there? Here have 3 drones but you can't shoot them, or you'll get hunted. What is hunted? Oh they just come get you with and overwhelming force, forcing you to hide, run back to a save spot or the tank like vehicle.

All i end up doing is run around, occasionally kill a drone, try to get to a mission objective just to get spotted and do the same routine over and over again. Scaveging is a drag, you're constantly out of ammo, out of repair, out of everything. Instead of just dealing with the threat you're constantly worrying you face too much combat. It's just boring.

I'm all for punishing a player, but it has to have reason, not just random stress rising giving you debuffs. What makes this worse, is that you can reduce stress level, but these are the same meterials you use to heal up. Either that, or you have to rest every other minute welding yourself in a room, taking another 3 boring minutes of your life. Horrible, horrible design.

It's just a very bad stealth game this way. It's like dev's really didn't know how to make this game immersive and just put the "hunted" system in way later. It feels cheap.

[Freki]

I kinda felt the same, but with a few mods that removes things like stress and the countdown it became a really great game for me.. so if you haven't refunded give a few mods a try..

[KAZOO]

Originally posted by Freki:

I kinda felt the same, but with a few mods that removes things like stress and the countdown it became a really great game for me.. so if you haven't refunded give a few mods a try..

I dunno man, this games makes me mad more than its brings me fun. Oh look there's an onslaught coming. Time to set up a turret? Nope. Time to set up a handy killbox? Nope. It just comes after 5 seconds. Guess what? No chance! You die! HERE : Let's do the whole mine again. Suprise: You need to loot it all AGAIN. It's just a stealth game that's badly designed. You don't want to waste ammo, you don't want to fight, but you can't ignore fights as well. Man i outsmarted the xeno's and still they find me. Guess what, all while the squad slowly deteriorates into some depressive blob. It's just bs.

I'm scavaging ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 10 at a time recources jut to put extra ammo and medbags on my squad and hope they level enough and don't get injured forever. 7 days injured but every 5 days the threat level increases? What does tha even mean? What a ♥♥♥♥ game really.

I don't understand any of this gamedesign.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by KAZOO:

Originally posted by Freki:

I kinda felt the same, but with a few mods that removes things like stress and the countdown it became a really great game for me.. so if you haven't refunded give a few mods a try..

I dunno man, this games makes me mad more than its brings me fun. Oh look there's an onslaught coming. Time to set up a turret? Nope. Time to set up a handy killbox? Nope. It just comes after 5 seconds. Guess what? No chance! You die! HERE : Let's do the whole mine again. Suprise: You need to loot it all AGAIN. It's just a stealth game that's badly designed. You don't want to waste ammo, you don't want to fight, but you can't ignore fights as well. Man i outsmarted the xeno's and still they find me. Guess what, all while the squad slowly deteriorates into some depressive blob. It's just bs.

I'm scavaging ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 10 at a time recources jut to put extra ammo and medbags on my squad and hope they level enough and don't get injured forever. 7 days injured but every 5 days the threat level increases? What does tha even mean? What a ♥♥♥♥ game really.

I don't understand any of this gamedesign.

I understand you. As an alien fan even more so.
The issue is, that it just punishes the player when he plays like he is in charge of marines.
Marines should go in grill out all aliens and be done with it.
But the moment your squad gets noticed you get a fight, then hunted stress level increases, mission threat level increases, more aliens spawn.
Eventually you hit the max, and pull out.
So you either avoid all aliens and sneak around, which just makes the game with the lot of back and forth boring:( Or you just dont give a damn, use the ammo exploit(once available rest in a room, quit, reload, rest again, which just makes it again boring) and that is it. Also it makes the game last longer, but the rewards you get are just...not really there. The game is tedious.
Add to that the autosave function, which makes it even worse. Because the autosave numbers are tied to a slot. So only manually trimming them is available in the save game folder( , unless that corrupts the others).

And once you done all the thing you can on the map sneaking around for hours, now you can start to engage with aliens, to get the 2 xp for surviving an onslaught and one marine who kills the big alien can get another 2xp.
It is just tedious and very very boring.

[fourfourtwo79]

Yeah, it's a game actually trying to replicate the movie. You can't tell from almost all the other Aliens games. But crisis management, pressure/stress cooking and ressource management are the heart of Aliens. That's why the movie actually worked -- including the payoff / pressure release at the end. All those games that have you running and gunning must have watched a Michael Bay edit. That's why this worked for me.

Stress management is much less of an issue later on though. Sergeants and a couple abilities make life a lot easier. It's just enough to keep you from mindlessly charging. I think I had 1 marine who had suffered a trauma by the end of the campaign... and he wasn't called Hudson. ;-) Even the doomclock on the normal setting, still had days left. And I went into this blind.

Unfortunately, unlike Isolation, which also had a couple issues (and frustrated even professional reviewers, check IGN), it's unlikely that there is gonna be a sequel. A game that gets the chance to work on the flaws and make it even better.

[Chi Chi]

Originally posted by KAZOO:

I dunno man, this games makes me mad more than its brings me fun. Oh look there's an onslaught coming. Time to set up a turret? Nope. Time to set up a handy killbox? Nope. It just comes after 5 seconds. Guess what? No chance! You die! HERE

On hunt tracker (top right) you can see the swarm attack coming. So if you know you are going to hit it go ahead and find a killbox to defend and setup a few turrets. Unless you've really messed up you will have time to handle the attack.

The balance of the game is such that the first 2-3 missions will need to rely more heavily on stealth. Especially given your lack of weapons and xeno-tech. But after that you can start being more and more aggressive. Playing on Hard I completed Pharos Spire at "high threat" in a constant running battle without using exploits for ammo.


-----

But it sounds like this might be a genuine skill issue for you so I'd recommend setting the game to easy for a better time. Or possibly doing a custom difficulty with lower threat buildup and lower alien HP. I was able to complete it on hard and near the end of the campaign was able to have 10 auto-turrets up and could reliably enter a mission with 7 repair and 7 medical.

[DessIntress]

Read the ingame tutorials. There is a own tab for it if you have ignored the explaining messages before.

Based on your description, it's clear that you don't understand various mechanics. This, in turn, leads to even more attacks, even more death, and even more frustration.

[xipi]

yep, bro missed the whole point
limited resources and s* that goes from bad to worse is exactly what i was expecting in a decent aliens game
its a strategy game, not stealth, not a shooter
altho stealth can be a strategy, xenos arent the stupid AIs from kids games that will travel in the same path so you can just sit, watch and skip all the time
but you can avoid contact with motion trackers to distract them while changing position, it can work even on a hunt, as long you arent detected
the only annoying thing imo is the RNGesus while leveling
my first run was at hard level and now im doing the NM + NOCHTS run for the plat, not using NG+ and still fairly easy than my first run cause now i know the maps and how to deal with skills and resources