KickStarter Phoenix Point - the new game from X-COM creator Julian Gollop

[Ezeekiel]

Troubleshooter deserves 2 threads. Phoenix Point is irrelevant anyway, so let's make this the Trouble Shooter appreciation station.




(alright, alright, I'll stop now before the devs cut ArchAngel 's pay)

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

one thing that I don't get so far is the researching tech feels completely pointless and its such a downer its hard to want to continue. Every faction has the same exact equipment.. an Assault gun, a hand gun, a sniper rifle, some armor for each class etc and they differ from each other in only the most minor ways. Like one faction might have 2 more range on the Assault gun, but 1 less damage, but an extra shred damage, but 2 less ammo capacity. And each item is like that. they all have identical tech that is barley different from each other; its one step away from having identical sprites but just coloring them, blue, red, green and yellow like in some 80's arcade game.

Does this change as you get later into the research tree or something or is it always like this? Because at the moment I see no reason to research anyone else's tech, they are simply tiny trade offs that completely balance and cancel each other out giving no net difference except perhaps in very specific encounters (maybe)-- so why bother spending a bunch of time and money researching? Yeah it might do a tiny bit more shred damage but it has less range, hardly seems worth the effort. Do you get some sort of other breakthroughs later on or something?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

Troubleshooter thread about Troubleshooter right this way >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

To me It just does not matter how good the game play is in that game, I can't play it with those graphics, there is just no way. I wish I could, I am being serious, but it just too much to overcome. If there was some mod or something maybe, but I just can't do it. Even terrible shitty 30 year old graphics would be better for me.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

One question ArchAngel: Does mission where you'll have to keep civilians alive count as any sort of success if you evacuate them from the map.
I had this mission where I had to keep some scientists alive against quite tough opponents, I was considering a retreat, but managed to whittle them down.

Spoiler

Partially because 3 enemies ran into fire to heal their wounded buddy; that took good portion of their armour and made a nice cluster to throw more grenades & focus fire in. *sigh*

Funniest fights that I've had in this so far have been against Pure and Forsaken.
I think both are DLC-factions.

Starting to like the musics, I slipped into proper geoscape mood while listening one track and thinking "Korea is pretty much fucked".

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

One other thing.
This game would get insane amounts of attention if it had WH40k license.
Turn Pandorans into 'Nids/Genestealer cult and PP into Ordo Xenos task force, change some visuals etc.

Spoiler

There's also Forsaken Berserkers

Perhaps this will happen when/if modders get into it.

 

[Alienman]

Some of the battlescape fighting music sounds as the old OG soundtrack at times. The music overall is pretty damn good.

 

[ArchAngel]

One question ArchAngel: Does mission where you'll have to keep civilians alive count as any sort of success if you evacuate them from the map.
I had this mission where I had to keep some scientists alive against quite tough opponents, I was considering a retreat, but managed to whittle them down.

Spoiler

Partially because 3 enemies ran into fire to heal their wounded buddy; that took good portion of their armour and made a nice cluster to throw more grenades & focus fire in. *sigh*

Funniest fights that I've had in this so far have been against Pure and Forsaken.
I think both are DLC-factions.

Starting to like the musics, I slipped into proper geoscape mood while listening one track and thinking "Korea is pretty much fucked".

In Haven defense where you need to keep civilians alive your main task it to kill all enemies. That stops whole haven from being destroyed. Keeping any of the civilians alive keeps that sector of the haven from being destroyed and also gives you more XP for the mission. If you retreat Pandorans still blow up the Haven. But if you retreat Haven does not get destroyed immediately, its battle vs haven defenders continues and you can go into another defense mission.

 

[ArchAngel]

one thing that I don't get so far is the researching tech feels completely pointless and its such a downer its hard to want to continue. Every faction has the same exact equipment.. an Assault gun, a hand gun, a sniper rifle, some armor for each class etc and they differ from each other in only the most minor ways. Like one faction might have 2 more range on the Assault gun, but 1 less damage, but an extra shred damage, but 2 less ammo capacity. And each item is like that. they all have identical tech that is barley different from each other; its one step away from having identical sprites but just coloring them, blue, red, green and yellow like in some 80's arcade game.

Does this change as you get later into the research tree or something or is it always like this? Because at the moment I see no reason to research anyone else's tech, they are simply tiny trade offs that completely balance and cancel each other out giving no net difference except perhaps in very specific encounters (maybe)-- so why bother spending a bunch of time and money researching? Yeah it might do a tiny bit more shred damage but it has less range, hardly seems worth the effort. Do you get some sort of other breakthroughs later on or something?

In UFO and nuXcom weapons were damage, damage type and in nuXcom also crit chance, crit damage, accuracy. In PP each weapons has these stats: Damage, damage type, range/accuracy, shred, pierce, rate of fire (single shot or multi projectile), AP cost (and there is a lot of variation here), weapon HP, weapon base bash damage. PP also has lot of special effects that different weapon can apply: Shock/daze, poison, paralyze, fire, acid, blast (blast damage effects multiple limbs but only does damage to total HP once)
In all 3 games there is also AoE or not.

While I do agree that many weapons/armor are similar in stats, these stats matter. At least on higher difficulties. Also there are clearly better weapons later. But don't expect RPG like weapons and armor, this is a Xcom like, it was always about small changes in stats. In nuXcom new weapons give +2 damage and new armors give +3 life. In UFO you could still get one shot by a heavy plasma while wearing Power Armor.
In PP you build your characters for roles you want them to perform and you give them items with exact stats you want them to have.

Although some of the DLC2 weapons will give you what you want and DLC 1 armors also give a bunch of special abilities as well as many mutations.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

In Haven defense where you need to keep civilians alive your main task it to kill all enemies. That stops whole haven from being destroyed. Keeping any of the civilians alive keeps that sector of the haven from being destroyed and also gives you more XP for the mission. If you retreat Pandorans still blow up the Haven. But if you retreat Haven does not get destroyed immediately, its battle vs haven defenders continues and you can go into another defense mission.

I thought as much about haven defense, but this was slightly different case.

Spoiler

Time limited mission where I had to save at least 1 out of 5 scientists from Forsaken attack.
Mission had 2 victory conditions listed:
-Secure area (meaning kill all enemies
-At least 1 scientist have to survive.

I was thinking if maybe evacuating some scientists from the map without killing all enemies counted as partial success and would maybe give reduced reward.

 

[ArchAngel]

In Haven defense where you need to keep civilians alive your main task it to kill all enemies. That stops whole haven from being destroyed. Keeping any of the civilians alive keeps that sector of the haven from being destroyed and also gives you more XP for the mission. If you retreat Pandorans still blow up the Haven. But if you retreat Haven does not get destroyed immediately, its battle vs haven defenders continues and you can go into another defense mission.

I thought as much about haven defense, but this was slightly different case.

Spoiler

Time limited mission where I had to save at least 1 out of 5 scientists from Forsaken attack.
Mission had 2 victory conditions listed:
-Secure area (meaning kill all enemies
-At least 1 scientist have to survive.

I was thinking if maybe evacuating some scientists from the map without killing all enemies counted as partial success and would maybe give reduced reward.

No, evacuating works same as keeping them alive in some corner. You want to evacuate as many on any missions where you got some to protect (unless you want to use them for scouting purposes :D)

 

[robinox]

the EULA + privacy policy slapped at the beginning is indeed off-putting. it seems like I'm subscribing to a MMORPG...

 

[Thorgeim]

Im rally sad how this turned out ... I tried the One Year edition after a really long break and I dunno... the whole game just feels, mediocre. I loved the original xcom, was and probably still is my most favourite game ever. I even enjoyed the new xcom.
This just isnt interesting or engaging or scary enough. Graphics look mediocre and even mobile game like except for some decent textures, sounds are mediocre, UI was supposed to get some overhaul but it still looks like a mobile game, back in beta I actually liked this game, the UI was clunky but didnt look so bad, I really liked the HP Shevrons/dots rather than this health bar with weird colour and budget game looks. And dont get me started on items, enemy design. Someone really likes worms and crabs.

Oh well, back to waiting for Xenonauts 2.

 

[Alienman]

Just lost my game on Hero. I didn't lose anyone in the tactical aspect of the game, but got outplayed on the strategic level. I think I played the game wrong and unlocked too many bases. I couldn't afford neither new men or more ships, all resources went to bases. I thought you had to unlock bases to travel, but apparently it's better to work up your relation with all factions so you can jump from faction base to faction base to reach those out of reach missions.

Time for attempt number 2, but I think I will go down to veteran/medium. Hopefully the alien evolution don't go into overdrive like it did on Hero.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I couldn't afford neither new men or more ships, all resources went to bases.

Did you do any trading with Havens?

 

[Alienman]

I couldn't afford neither new men or more ships, all resources went to bases.

Did you do any trading with Havens?

I did, so I never had any food for recruit any new men

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I couldn't afford neither new men or more ships, all resources went to bases.

Did you do any trading with Havens?

I did, so I never had any food for recruit any new men

I'm sure glad that I've only used 2 bases in east Asia and managed to build my reputation with local havens before I started trading with them.

 

[Alienman]

I'm sure glad that I've only used 2 bases in east Asia and managed to build my reputation with local havens before I started trading with them.

You approaching the end?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I'm sure glad that I've only used 2 bases in east Asia and managed to build my reputation with local havens before I started trading with them.

You approaching the end?

Not even close.
Just captured my 1st live alien and I'm building second plane with B-team so I can go explore those plot and diplomacy mission locations.

 

[karoliner]

Playing for a few hours and to be honest i'm not impressed. The game just feels okay nothing about it really stands out. Except for the art style which is really poor. Looks like a free to play cellphone game.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Playing for a few hours and to be honest i'm not impressed. The game just feels okay nothing about it really stands out. Except for the art style which is really poor. Looks like a free to play cellphone game.

What did you expect? They spent all their budget on paying ArchAngel

 

[razvedchiki]

hows the overall difficulty? i read alot that you dont actually loose any men......

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

hows the overall difficulty? i read alot that you dont actually loose any men......

I've taken couple casualties by now.

Spoiler

Both we're my galaxy brained mistakes.
I shouldn't have left my shotgunner exposed or try to finish heavily armed enemy point-blanc with a pistol when said enemy has ability to return fire with HMG,

Besides keeping troopers alive isn't always easy, I've use lots of medikits.
Early game worms and close combat crabs are joke, but later enemy variety expands rapidly and they get some serious armor, firepower, psychic abilities and fucking snipers.
There's something about enemy progression that really reminds me of X-Com: Apocalypse.

Then there's Strategic geoscape side with economy and diplomacy which I haven't cracked yet.
I'm somewhat certain that I'm losing my campaign on 2nd highest difficulty.

 

[ArchAngel]

hows the overall difficulty? i read alot that you dont actually loose any men......

On Legendary difficulty as first time player going in blind you are going to be losing men a bunch no matter how good you think you are. Lots of enemies got Gotcha abilities that if you don't know how they work and how to battle vs them, they will kill your soldiers. Kind of like how original UFO worked where you bunched up all your guys to cover reaction fire in all directions and then on alien turn here comes an alien grenade over something where you could not see and everyone is dead :D
Or your rocket guy gets mind controlled by a sectoid commander that is on other side of the map and he blows up everyone inside the Skyranger
PP is not as bad as that but I have seen new players screeming unfair for 1 year now as they meet some of the enemies and what they can do.

 

[PanteraNera]

hows the overall difficulty? i read alot that you dont actually loose any men......

On Legendary difficulty as first time player going in blind you are going to be losing men a bunch no matter how good you think you are. Lots of enemies got Gotcha abilities that if you don't know how they work and how to battle vs them, they will kill your soldiers. Kind of like how original UFO worked where you bunched up all your guys to cover reaction fire in all directions and then on alien turn here comes an alien grenade over something where you could not see and everyone is dead :D
Or your rocket guy gets mind controlled by a sectoid commander that is on other side of the map and he blows up everyone inside the Skyranger
PP is not as bad as that but I have seen new players screeming unfair for 1 year now as they meet some of the enemies and what they can do.

Have they fixed the super hero abilities?

I never encountered anything like that cause I multi classed everything with the assault class. Especially assault/berserker was insanely op.

Really liked the skills in the earlier Backer Builds. The assault mobility skill gave just 2AP that you could use for anything. Than it became a superhero skill were you just zip around the battlefield.

There was also the berserker skill that let you shoot 3AP weapons for 1AP. And that one skill that gave you AP's back when you killed an enemy.

How do these skills work now? Are there still op skills?

 

[ArchAngel]

hows the overall difficulty? i read alot that you dont actually loose any men......

On Legendary difficulty as first time player going in blind you are going to be losing men a bunch no matter how good you think you are. Lots of enemies got Gotcha abilities that if you don't know how they work and how to battle vs them, they will kill your soldiers. Kind of like how original UFO worked where you bunched up all your guys to cover reaction fire in all directions and then on alien turn here comes an alien grenade over something where you could not see and everyone is dead :D
Or your rocket guy gets mind controlled by a sectoid commander that is on other side of the map and he blows up everyone inside the Skyranger
PP is not as bad as that but I have seen new players screeming unfair for 1 year now as they meet some of the enemies and what they can do.

Have they fixed the super hero abilities?

I never encountered anything like that cause I multi classed everything with the assault class. Especially assault/berserker was insanely op.

Really liked the skills in the earlier Backer Builds. The assault mobility skill gave just 2AP that you could use for anything. Than it became a superhero skill were you just zip around the battlefield.

There was also the berserker skill that let you shoot 3AP weapons for 1AP. And that one skill that gave you AP's back when you killed an enemy.

How do these skills work now? Are there still op skills?

Most OP stuff was nerfed.
Dash now costs 1 AP and 3 WP and gives you 2 AP worth of movement. So it cannot be abused anymore. Speed bonuses from items and max speed from leveling have also been nerfed so you are no longer covering whole map in one turn by abusing dash.
Adrenaline Rush (berserker ability) still makes all attacks 1 AP for 1 turn but gives 50% accuracy penalty and makes your guy dazed on his next turn (so you lose whole next turn as a result). Armor Break was also nerfed, now it costs 4 WP, reduces 30 armor (it was 50 before) and if you got multiple attacks then no longer each of them reduces that value but total is 30.
Assault lvl 7 ability gives AP back when you kill someone. That one is mostly unchanged, it still gives 2 AP back per kill but since dash costs 1 AP it is no longer a free move and speed nerfs make it impossible to clear more than smaller groups.

Also shotguns had their base damage nerfed, iconoclast does 35 instead of 40 and all damage perks were heavily nerfed so you are not longer just one shot shotgunning everyone left and right. To really use that assault ability you need to soften your targets first with other characters.
Lvl 7 Heavy ability no longer murders big single targets from other side of the map but now it works like in beta build, it covers an AoE and spends all ammo to hit multiple targets inside that area.