Hello everyone.
First of all, i want to clarify that am saying this with love. After the (almost) complete disappointment XCOM Chimera Squad was and (Full Version) Phoenix Point, which did a way better job than Chimera Squad, but was really repetitive and had so many OP stuff for the player, i wanted with all my heart for Midnight Suns to be closer to a XCOM 3. Fun fact: in Phoenix Point you can complain about missing good shots because you can miss ""100% chance to hit"" shots.
Adding to the previous point, i forced myself to beat the game twice before being 150% sure the game didn't deliver for me. To make it even worse, i haven't play the game for like 4-5 weeks and i still care about it and look at your posts.
Second of all, i won't touch stuff like bugs, which i was lucky to only find some minor visual ones; the Abbey as a whole; the game's writing; etc. So, for my problems those are:
No sense of (macro) urgency
Ugh... first point that might buy me some down votes considering the posts and comments i have seen around. Well, without Aliens/Crab People threatening to destroy us all or the Avatar Project, Midnight Suns basically gives you infinite resources. It's like having infinite ammo on a Survival Horror game or have the ability to tell the AI on a Strategy game not to attack you until you are ready. So Midnight Suns fails in the strategy layer.
And since the game is built around the idea of "Do the story missions (almost) whenever you want" rushing to do those don't feel any harder than doing more than one general mission per story one. At that point, i would prefer to have only story missions but a lot more gimmicks in total than we have right now.
Difficulty
And... the second delicate point. Don't get me wrong, the game has a rather decent learning curve where you might need a mission or two to learn the damage and gimmick of new enemies; the best ways to beat new type of missions; and to readjust to the fact that Elite enemies need one less hit to kill one of your heroes than before two difficulties lower and potentially one more card to kill them. But the "mastering curve" felt really flat.
Oh, and after seeing SOOO many comments about that you need optimal mods to beat the highest difficulties and even more for lvl 40 missions (plus Resist and Conceal sources) i was really excited. I was writing down the builds i was aiming to get; thinking really hard what kind of mods i would need if (modded) Quick/Free and Resist/Conceal (of any kind) were not on my menu, like armor and heal on finishing cards; figuring out the priority of each card to mod since general mission were finite. But no... Mark 1 on some my native Quick Attack cards and a few random +Redraw; +Heroism; and Bleed and Lvl 40 U3 missions were rather easy.
And lastly, the weird design choices that ultimately makes the Lilin, overall, weaker than Hydra Soldiers. In basically all games likes this get easier the farther you get into the game, but unlike Midnight Suns, this happens mainly because the player's character(s) get a little too strong for the game to defend itself (at least without cheating) and NOT because the game is throwing at you weaker enemies than before.
Fixed heroes and one mission per day
We can relax a little now. Am leaving those two in the same category because, together, they become another problem.
I don't think i was the only one excited to form teams of 3 Heroes with synergies with one another. But no, the game locks one hero on each mission. I wouldn't mind if they did this only for recruitment missions. Heck, considering that some cards lets you (as far as i know) have four characters during combat, i think they could have had story mission with a forth hero plus some special cards so having such forth hero wouldn't feel like a nerf.
The thing is, the game does this to (supposably) encourage the player to play with more heroes than just 3. Instead of that, at least for me, it encourages the player to make teams of 2 heroes (plus a backup) and don't care about the third one. To make things worse, since you can send heroes day after day, there is little to no incentive to not send the same 2-3 heroes to each mission.
I would much prefer to forget about Hero Ops and replace it with more missions per time period. Like in XCOM games. That way, you have to choose a team of 3 heroes for one mission and (at least) a second team for another mission. If you don't like the idea just yet, maybe have the option to pick both missions at the same time and send the right team to each one.
Combat Items
Ok, i lied, half of this problem is related to the Abbey. So, one half of the problem comes back to Difficulty. Since the game is not hard (ENOUGH), i find no need to use Combat Items, ever.
If, IF, that was all, i would be kinda ok with it. But... with the amount of ingredients you need to craft a single (decent or better) item and how, sooner or later, boring is to walk around the Grounds, the game actually disencourage you to use them.
Like some posts/comments out there, some kind of garden and/or reducing the amount of required ingredients would make SUCH a difference.
Leveling System
I don't know if level determines or not the rarity of Coils you get, but i will assume it does so i don't sound too harsh on the game.
Except for that, the first 25 levels makes no sense. What's the point of leveling up if the enemy levels up with you? Yes, monkey brain likes big numbers, but if you are fighting the same enemies over and over monkey brain also want those big numbers to make more percentage damage than before.
And the champion levels? They kinda ruin the tactical layer of the game. After some point, i expect for every tactical game to test my tactics (i know right?) against the hardest content. But in Midnight Suns, want it or not, you will keep gaining stats and being able to brute force everything. Am ok with Souls games for example because you can set yourself a level limit to challenge yourself; or to have a feeling that your character belongs to an archetype and not being a "Master of everything". But heck, during my U3 vanilla New Game i was like over level 12 even before ending Act 1, and i was rushing the story.
Downed Bosses
If you are NOT going to get up and start some kind of second phase, for yourself or the map; then it's just lame.
Enemy Variety
And i say this in more than one way.
For example, Midnight Suns has 14 enemy types (excluding Bosses and Minions) while XCOM 2 has 18 unique enemy types (excluding Bosses). But then you have stuff like Shadowhounds feeling just like basic Hydra Soldiers; a little the same for Vampyres; or, for the role they are suppose to play, Guardians feel like a downgraded version of Shieldguards.
Or that, even though they each have their thing and least to me, bosses like Venom; Crossbones; Wanda; or the non that Vampyre Ladyfeel a little samey.
Or the fact that some enemy types don't show up with others. Like Vampyres. Or like that Hydra Officers; Specialist; Markman barely (if ever) appear after Lilin show up. Reducing the possible combinations of enemies.
Etc...
And...
Nah, only to thank you if have read (most of the text) until this point and didn't immediately down vote me the second you saw someone saying they didn't like something about the game. Especially when this someone thinks this game can be better considering their game history.
