I'm sad writing this, because there's so many good features and ideas in this mod. But I've also never been so frustrated with a game as I am now. "A lack of balance" doesn't even come close to describing this mod... it's frankly just insulting how bad some things are at this point.

Somehow, hit percentages are even worse... to the point where 93% feels less reliable than 70%. Conversely, I've hit more 20% shots than I ever did in the vanilla game, but that's only because of the new "graze" system, which is even worse. Do you have an ADVENT soldier flanked by an Assault? Well too bad, he just grazed that shot down to 3 damage. Meanwhile, his buddy just "grazed" one of your best troops down for all his health... through full cover... from half the map away.

Certain skills are so appallingly useless, I seriously wonder if anyone ever took the time to play test them, or if they just slapped some numbers in and left it at that. Who's bright idea was it to have concussion rockets provide smoke FOR THE ENEMY? Who's bright idea was it to give rockets a 6 tile scatter range? Who's bright idea was it to give rockets a 2 - 7 damage range? In short, why would anyone ever choose a rocketeer, who by the way only gets 1 rocket and that's it, over a grenadier, who's pinpoint accurate, and can carry 5 grenades with a relatively low investment (despite grenade damage circles snapping inconsistently, and sometimes upfront lying as to who they're going to hit).

Vision's been made even worse in this mod. Enemies can activate well beyond your own detection range. This is on "default" alertness, too. Don't even get me started on activation ranges if you're even slightly below 100%% infiltration. And on that note, why do areas with 5 people on intel still give missions with impossible mission timers? Why is 0:00 programmed to be in the game? Why do alien convoy missions ALWAYS have impossibly small timers on them?

Speaking of timers, let's talk about mission timers for a minute. I made a statement earlier that questioned whether or not the devs had actually play tested the game, and I didn't make it lightly. So by your logic, you think that having a default mission timer of 12 turns, on a map where it takes 10 turns of gold move sprints to reach the objective & extraction point, is a balanced feature? When your mod requires your subscribers to manually edit the game's files themselves to make it actually playable, you should maybe reconsider your definition of balance. Oh, and that "- Set Mission Timers modifier to +2 on veteran sted +1, because we listen and care" mention on your balance notes... that's a good joke you made there. Thank you for insulting your player base.

This mod pisses me off, because there's so many good ideas that are brought down by a slew of balancing incompetencies. I like the haven management system, I like the varying mission types (when the detection range for stealth missions are actually working properly), even things like finding and fighting infiltrators... if they'd just stop stealing 40% of the monthly supplies.

I'm not the best player at this game, I won't lie. But this game shouldn't be this unforgiving, especially on lower difficulties. Original X2 was balanced around the idea of you having good missions, but also losing some people... which made snowballing a bit of an issue. This mode assumes you'll be snowballing, and balances around that. This means that making a couple mistakes means you lose the campaign. Wound timers and training timers are already punishing enough... I can't imagine what it'd be like trying to play on ironman, and constantly losing your soldiers due to awful gameplay features.

I've said it a couple times before, but I'm going to say it again: please actually play test your game, and from the perspective of your average player, not your top veteran who's memorized every line of code. And maybe rethink some of your gameplay decisions? Is it really necessary to have constantly spawning pods in haven assault missions (and have the Jammer perk SPAWN TWO WAVES AT ONCE)? Is it really necessary to have 8-man reinforcement pods spawn in the middle of your squad in the second month, because you were forced to spend one more turn getting the objective? Is it really necessary to balance mission timers around never activating more than one pod? Is it really necessary TO HAVE PODS ACTIVATE OUT OF VISUAL RANGE?

This mod has a ton of potential. But your balance team needs a firm slap upside the head. I'll be back to this in a few months, to see if the game's actually been updated to the point of playability. But as is, I can't stand dealing with all these balance inconsistencies. I'd prefer not grinding my teeth to dust out of frustration, tyvm.

And FFS, can we PLEASE not have the after-mission screen glitch after every couple missions or so?