Yep.
What's that shootout you're referring to, Fender? There was no shootout, unless, for some reason, hands dealing out Karate chops or weapons firing projectiles is all the same to you.

Also disappointing that you can't at least exfiltrate Aguirre and interrogate him back at the hideout if you manage to take him down/knock him unconscious.

I do not believe I am advocating changes for complexity's sake on its own, or to jack up game's difficulty so much few would play it.

Most of my comments are about elements that would make for (admittedly, subjectively) better, more engaging, and more internally coherent gameplay.

Do you think agents teleporting all over the world for a mission is good design, or implementation? I do not. You already have a mechanic for sending agents to a specific geographic location, so it's not like the mechanics behind this are not in place.

Do you think a binary choice between "dispose of body" and "carry agent" that only works on still-alive enemy agents (but not guards, regardless of what means you used to subdue the latter) is good design or implementation? Especially since, at its basic, "pick up" is already a thing in game. Players should, at the very least, have the ability to reposition any non-messy (i.e. takedown) body to a different location, regardless if it's an enemy agent, a guard, or a civilian.

Disguises are likewise not well implemented (or balanced, for that matter). I saw a lot of people bitching about "Actor" perk, but that's just a convenience - it's current implementation of disguises that breaks game balance in the first place. And, again, there are a lot of elements that are already in place that would allow much better interaction between that aspect of the game and the rest. I already mentioned greater potential for using Language skills during missions. You'd need to balance it out by giving, say, average of 3 languages to any agent, but that's actually more in line with what I'd imagine than the one or two you currently can often see in an agent's dossier. Then there is the whole thing of interaction with guards being completely one-dimensional. Guards should grow suspicious of odd actions taken by the player, or even the presence of disguised agents in certain areas of the map. Again, the foundations for better granularity of area restrictions (and the tied-in reaction from guards) is already in place, and at a glance from the outside it should not require too much effort to implement it. For that matter, having some "suspicion" check when an agent jumps through a window, or runs on a rooftop, is hardly a lot to ask for, yet would once again vastly improve the balance of disguises.

There are a lot of small additions that would completely rebalance (and make it all that more immersive and enjoyable) Infiltration phase, and most of the ones I mentioned would hardly require engine overhaul.

I'm actually ok with current implementation... in fact, I'd rather have icons for both intel and loot because "hidden object" approach (thank you kind poster for the formal definition that I completely forgot ;) ) just does not fit for me there.

Personally, I'd rather see a different way of implementing gear handling altogether. You are an experienced covert operative. You have at least access to information about potential local distributors, and if not, the means of establishing such contacts (which should not come without any danger, but that's another thing to elaborate on). "Trade contract" just feels much too abstract, and since it's completely random, as a player you have little control over its appearance.

Just makes no sense. I should be able to send an agent at a specific location to get me the equipment I need. Sure, make chapter-gates applicable to what's available ("hey, man, I can get you the good stuff too, but it'll take time" is as good an explanation as any for non-immersion-breaking equipment tiering), but the availability of "currently allowed" equipment should not be as random as it is right now.

That would open up the possibility of adjusting loot tables to make the things you pick up during mission a tier higher in terms of availability, or at least having better potential to provide the expensive stuff.

Hell, I'd be perfectly fine with gear management and "looting" the way UFO:Enemy Unknown did it in the 90s, or Jagged Alliance a few years later. Enemies (both agents and guards) have stuff on them - if you can drag it back to the van, it's yours. Anyway, spent far more time on this one element than I intended, especially since as I mentioned earlier on - I'm OK with this part of the game as it is. At least it's not as "in your face" immersion breaking as some other elements.

Hell, meanwhile I am annoyed that I can't match the photo appearance of a lot of agents to the 3d models available. >.>

Alternatively, it may actually prevent people currently voicing their displeasure at a lot of balance elements to appreciate the game more.

Anyway, the OP asked for feedback. I wouldn't waste my time posting (instead of playing something I already do enjoy quite a lot) if I did not care ;)

Right? The first time I did that mission, I kept re-checking if it's a bug or whatnot. I needed what Aguirre could have told me. I liked Leslie (also, high-profile-bombing involved, solving of which would earn my agent not insignificant amount of political capital...)

Seriously, breaking established mechanics for the sake of intended narrative is a bad and lazy practice, to put it mildly. At least do a cutscene "explanation" of why my professional Sandman failed with that one.

Edit: Thinking about it, it would have been a perfect place to have Aguirre get cardiac arrest during interrogation because he was conditioned to expire if somebody was forcibly asking about Operation Poon...

Thanks for the terms, for some reason I completely forgot the terminology for "hidden object" games. >.<

As somebody who greatly enjoyed non-walkthrough attempts at solving Investigation missions in the Secret World, I'm mildly disappointed at something that could provide at least somewhat comparable level of challenge being instead a simple matter of clicking. Don't get me wrong - I like the Intel Board. A lot. I find myself paying more and more attention to various codewords as I keep restarting early game for the nth time (don't ask XD), and start to see the narrative behind it.

I just wish it had a more "I made dis!" feel to actually reaching some kind of a breakthrough in it.

Which is why I would recommend making it either a game option (current or more difficult mechanics), or tying it to game difficulty itself. Preferably the former, since somebody may enjoy a lot of the "hard" elements, but not be such a word-fondler as myself.

Then there's that - another already existing element that could be put to better use. Right now "Intel analyst" feels like a complete waste of a perk.

I wouldn't call this a fair comparison. Phantom Doctrine is a spy-pulp. You already come in expecting some degree of intelligence operations being involved. Having a word puzzle in it (especially if as an optional element) is hardly breaking the immersion the same way, especially since the game is already quite cerebral ;)

Believe me, so do I, regardless of what faults I presonally perceive in current implementation. I'm just mourning the gem Phantom Doctrine could have been with a little bit more time and love.

(Ok, I officially hate GOG forum coding now. I don't always post here, but when I do, I have a lot to say. Which apparently is automatically discouraged.)

It would be a nice quality-of-life addition to have access to that information in strategic map. Not everybody is familiar with linguistic intricacies of the world (hello to my fellow 'murricans! XD).

Of course, it would be far more crucial of an information if it actually mattered because of its use during mission beyond a highly situational and mostly irrelevant ability...

No offence, but - I really sad that NOBODY ever tries to understand my point. My problem is not with endless enemies per se, but with inability to remain hidden in all missions. Some missions ARE started in open combat, without any means to hide.
So if devs try to make a spy game, then why the hell they take away from me the very possibility to use my brains & carefull planning in ALL missions?
Only to brag that their game is the same masochists' delight as Dark Souls?
And sure, ok, my post may offend you :)

oh i see... i saw one of those missions... and i suspect "having your hideout raided" by enemy forces may be another one of those missions

sure it may be annoying, i mean, for a game of stealth and such, to be directly put into gunfight combat situation without any possibility to hide...

but when i encounter such situation, i try to always put myself into context... Most of the time it is enough (for me at least) to have the whole thing making sense for me and that i make up with it... Sure it would not please you, i understand... But as a spy, being burned and cornered is also a (sadly) possible situation: traps/ambushes, betrayal and/or long term's lack of carefulness can lead to points when you have meanies with big guns knocking at our door and fleeing is the only option for survival( flee today to fight another day)

There already had been similar situations in other tacticals (such as base getting raided on XCom games for example)

so i finally got your point more precisely, i'm afraid i can't side with it, though, as it doesnt have same effect on me (in this situation and context at least). Don't know if devs can modify the core of the game deep enough to tailor it to your liking, frankly (and i don't know if it would be possible without loosing some of what makes this game's essence in the midtime)

True, but I believe this is only visible in two places:
1) the crew quarters screen, if the city the agent is currently in speaks a language that the agent speaks;
2) the assault screen, where you select your agents.

There is currently no way to see this - either the language of the city or the language of the agent - on the map screen, which is the primary way of sending agents to locations.

Of course, language currently only plays a role when assaulting, and agents will magically teleport there anyway - but if languages ever play a larger role (IMO they could play a larger role in assaults, but probably don't need to on missions?), or if agents actually have to travel to assault locations (IMO this should definitely be the case), then this will become more important.

That would be good, though the only thing I can think of for languages to be more useful would be to tie them to disguises. At its most basic, the option to use a disguise could be disabled for agents that are not speakers of the local language - though this may be excessively restrictive, if it were an optional feature I'd probably use it.

The more advanced version would require guards to actually "challenge" anyone in their vision cone somehow (if agent is disguised and in a restricted area) - that would require the agent to either respond using a special skill which would only be available if the correct language was spoken (similar to "distract"), or alternatively take the guard down in that turn. If none of those actions are performed, it goes into combat on the guard's turn. Not sure how feasible that would be to implement at this stage, but it would be cool.

Apparently this is actually a "feature", and is working as intended. Personally I hate it, and it shouldn't be needed - though our max roster size would need to be increased for balance, otherwise it'd be difficult to ever send the max crew on an assault mission. I currently attempt to only assault with agents on-site, but despite having exceeded my roster due to a number of informant rescue missions (plus some story missions), I still find myself occasionally "cheating" by using agents in other locations (e.g. to fill 6 assault + 3 support or more).

Additionally, at the end of the mission, the agents shouldn't just teleport back to base (as happens now), but instead remain in the city where the mission took place. Since most of the time your agents get their IDs compromised is after a mission, this will make keeping their heat down (e.g. using the cleaner) much more important, since getting them back to HQ will take a while (due to slow travel while compromised).

Also it would be great if agents could get ambushed leaving a location where a mission recently took place (especially if they're compromised), as opposed to ambushes triggering on arrival (I think this is what happens now). On that note, the current system where agents travelling in groups of two or more are protected against ambushes (bar story ones) should be changed - ambushes shouldn't take number of agents into account. If anything, a larger group would be MORE conspicuous (and result in a larger opposing force if ambushed).

I rarely send agents by themselves, and not because of the ambush mechanic, but because all missions (except assault, due to magic teleportation) require at least 2 agents, so there's no point sending less than 2 anyway since there's usually not time to send more after one finds out more may be required (except for missions that don't time out).

Since we've all seen the intro video about a million times by now (The cork board intro with the company logos and game title), how about adding an option in the game to automatically skip it? That would be really nice of you. :)

Yes an option to skip intro videos would be good. I just skip them with escape, but it's one less click whenever I start it up...

Indeed, did not realize this is intentional behavior. I have a feeling it's another part of the game that did not see proper development due to "release nao!" push.

Would have been so much better with a (movable) HQ and satellite hideouts, or just multiple hideouts. With facilities required to be built in every location separately if you needed them functional there.

Right now the whole deployment and travel time is pretty schizophrenic. "You can teleport agents here, but you have to get them to fly there!"

Not to mention that the interface really does not help maintain field teams together, since aside from "Away" you have no indication where that agent is, and whether or not you want them to bounce back to the HQ. I'm too old to try to remember where each of my 20+ agents are when I set up a mission.

Yes, that's something else I've been meaning to mention: instead of "Away" it should instead indicate their current location - it should be obvious they're "away" because they're not "available" or "busy".

I was playing the game and enjoying the Actor perk nerf as I have to sneak around more and thinking about the rage when I though: Hey, maybe to improve the Actor perk to make it "better" while keeping the nerf could be to allow the Disguised agent to carry one piece of Equipment. You know... A grenade, a set of lockpicks, a flashbang. One thing something.

Just a random though I had running across a locked door.

IMO disguised agents should definitely be able to carry lockpicks. To balance this some more, there should be more locked doors, though it would be better if they didn't disappear on use. If lockpicks didn't disappear on use, then lockpicks should also be required for getting into cabinets and safes.

As a tactical choise, how about having a set number of uses on a set like... 3? Then you have to pick to either open a safe or open that door.
As it is, I don't use lockpicks very much.