Could you elaborate a bit more about it being rough in some places? What do you mean with it?
I want to play it but I usually want the best experience and have no issues waiting for games to get polished, that's why I'm asking.
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Phoenix Point |OT| CTHULHU-COM
- Thread starter CenturionNami
- Start date
Could you elaborate a bit more about it being rough in some places? What do you mean with it?
I want to play it but I usually want the best experience and have no issues waiting for games to get polished, that's why I'm asking.
Yea I'm a backer as well. But also have game pass. Need to go put my key in. Or do I sell my key and just play it through gamepass. Hmmm
Played around 2 hours yesterday, one of the first story mission was retrieving a piece of intel and it wasn't showing the details between floors of the building in the centre of the map until I saved the game and reloaded it.
Stuff like research and recruitment seems a bit half baked. As well as dozens of a?
unexplored locations on the Geoscape after a couple of scans. I would be quite happy playing the game in it's current state using Game Pass. But since the DLC's will be incorporated into the main campaign more than likely I am going to wait.
I played a bit more and the game's main flaw is the cover animations (and maybe return fire) being unpredictable or not working.
And the develpers have probably been making cludgy fixes when they really need to rework the cover animation system.
For example, in full cover it's unclear where your LOS is. If you take a shot then your guy will step out like Xcom and acts as if he's in the adjacent tile. But it doesn't seem to trigger consistently. I think it's an issue where a soldier in multiple covers and/or has multiple 'stepping out/peeking' options. It seems like it won't test all of them.
But what happens with overwatch? It seems to not trigger unless you get LOS from the cover tile, but it's hard to judge. You step out to take the overwatch shot, but your overwatch cone can be blocked (and it certainly is blocked by cover on the GUI)
It all leads to a lot of confusion about what is covered by overwatch.
Oh and PSA - I've just read that ctrl+scroll-wheel lets you widen the overwatch cone. Maybe that will help a bit. Seems like something they should have tooltips for...
It's wierd because 99% of the time you would just go for max wideness and a length equal to your enemy's effective range (e.g. trigger when the facehugger gets close for best accuracy, but shoot from any angle). You'd only want a smaller cone if you had to avoid friendly fire or had a specific enemy that you want to save your shot for.
Reaction fire just seems broken. Especially since it's a level 3 skill and only available for assault class soldiers - but every enemy grunt seems to have it.
It should only be available to special elite enemies, or as a reactionary mutation for crab-men if you've been rushing them (the crabs are supposed to evolve different counter-weapons depending on your play-style).
It should only trigger once per turn and it should trigger after you've returned to cover. The current situation massively favours the shot-at over the shooter, when both are in cover. It shouldn't trigger unless you're shot at either. As it is, if 3 enemies can see you, then shooting any one of them means they all shoot back and you lose all your cover benefits (while they don't).
It's even more broken than camping with full overwatch in Gollop's original Lasersquad (yes I'm old).
I think it's the way it is as a massive fudge against the AI always shooting at centre mass. This makes half-cover incredibly effective, since players can manual-aim for exposed arms/tentacles/legs but the AI will shoot at your centre-mass, which is covered.
So to 'fix' it and make aliens competitive, maybe they just gave all aliens the return fire skill and let it trigger while you are in the "centre-mass exposed" peeking animation.
I still mostly like the game so far, but they need to patch it to make sure LOS and cover are "predictable".
I've only done the first main quest mission, so I can't comment on most tech or balance issues.
However, I think soldiers are way too expensive. They are quite squishy, but it's impossible to play in an Xcom ironman style because you'll need to do multiple missions to earn back the price of one rookie soldier. And you don't get access to many of them.
I liked the original Xcom where you'd buy 10 rookies and if half of them made it to sergeant then you were having a good run. Exiting the Skyranger was always like storming Omaha Beach and making sure Private Ryan and the other main characters were not in the first wave.
And the develpers have probably been making cludgy fixes when they really need to rework the cover animation system.
For example, in full cover it's unclear where your LOS is. If you take a shot then your guy will step out like Xcom and acts as if he's in the adjacent tile. But it doesn't seem to trigger consistently. I think it's an issue where a soldier in multiple covers and/or has multiple 'stepping out/peeking' options. It seems like it won't test all of them.
But what happens with overwatch? It seems to not trigger unless you get LOS from the cover tile, but it's hard to judge. You step out to take the overwatch shot, but your overwatch cone can be blocked (and it certainly is blocked by cover on the GUI)
It all leads to a lot of confusion about what is covered by overwatch.
Oh and PSA - I've just read that ctrl+scroll-wheel lets you widen the overwatch cone. Maybe that will help a bit. Seems like something they should have tooltips for...
It's wierd because 99% of the time you would just go for max wideness and a length equal to your enemy's effective range (e.g. trigger when the facehugger gets close for best accuracy, but shoot from any angle). You'd only want a smaller cone if you had to avoid friendly fire or had a specific enemy that you want to save your shot for.
Reaction fire just seems broken. Especially since it's a level 3 skill and only available for assault class soldiers - but every enemy grunt seems to have it.
It should only be available to special elite enemies, or as a reactionary mutation for crab-men if you've been rushing them (the crabs are supposed to evolve different counter-weapons depending on your play-style).
It should only trigger once per turn and it should trigger after you've returned to cover. The current situation massively favours the shot-at over the shooter, when both are in cover. It shouldn't trigger unless you're shot at either. As it is, if 3 enemies can see you, then shooting any one of them means they all shoot back and you lose all your cover benefits (while they don't).
It's even more broken than camping with full overwatch in Gollop's original Lasersquad (yes I'm old).
I think it's the way it is as a massive fudge against the AI always shooting at centre mass. This makes half-cover incredibly effective, since players can manual-aim for exposed arms/tentacles/legs but the AI will shoot at your centre-mass, which is covered.
So to 'fix' it and make aliens competitive, maybe they just gave all aliens the return fire skill and let it trigger while you are in the "centre-mass exposed" peeking animation.
I still mostly like the game so far, but they need to patch it to make sure LOS and cover are "predictable".
I've only done the first main quest mission, so I can't comment on most tech or balance issues.
However, I think soldiers are way too expensive. They are quite squishy, but it's impossible to play in an Xcom ironman style because you'll need to do multiple missions to earn back the price of one rookie soldier. And you don't get access to many of them.
I liked the original Xcom where you'd buy 10 rookies and if half of them made it to sergeant then you were having a good run. Exiting the Skyranger was always like storming Omaha Beach and making sure Private Ryan and the other main characters were not in the first wave.
Thanks for the answer. I never play campaigns again just because something has been added. Will wait until the game is complete with all the DLC.
I really wanna know what they mean by
They want people to have the ability to rollback updates? And the lack of that is why they are not launching it yet?
Hi from the GB stream!
I was coming here to post the game pass update.....Yeesh, not a great look for them - especially after claiming it was 'in Microsoft's hands' pre-release.
They go from 'day 1' to 'no known release date' within the span of the game's launch week, lol.
They go from 'day 1' to 'no known release date' within the span of the game's launch week, lol.
It most likely was in Microsoft's hands for a bit, but MS got back to devs with "Ummm... so.. uh.. did you guys even bother reading manual and doing groundwork before trying submit the game?"
Hopefully the Win 10 version doesn't fall into whatever hole swallowed up Ashen after it missed it's release on that platform.
Just chiming in to mention base stuff - took me a while to figure out and had me pretty confused, but when you find a new base and repair any broken facilities inside it, you have to manually turn the power back on for those facilities. I was wondering why my men weren't healing while stationed somewhere.
I have to say I'm enjoying the game - I grew up playing x-com enemy unknown, apocalypse, interceptor, (and that god awful third person shooter), but I enjoyed the rebooted series too, with several hundred hours in xcom 1 & 2 and the long war related mods. Phoenix Point is definitely harder to enjoy, but since I got into the rhythm of it I've been enjoying it a lot more. It's not without its flaws - research pacing seems a little off at points, and there seem to be some balance issues too, but looking past that it's a solid game. I certainly haven't encountered any bugs that people are complaining about on reddit.
I have to say I'm enjoying the game - I grew up playing x-com enemy unknown, apocalypse, interceptor, (and that god awful third person shooter), but I enjoyed the rebooted series too, with several hundred hours in xcom 1 & 2 and the long war related mods. Phoenix Point is definitely harder to enjoy, but since I got into the rhythm of it I've been enjoying it a lot more. It's not without its flaws - research pacing seems a little off at points, and there seem to be some balance issues too, but looking past that it's a solid game. I certainly haven't encountered any bugs that people are complaining about on reddit.
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The OP only lists PC and Xbox but according to Wikipedia it's coming out on PS4 next year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Point
Is there any way to boost your faction relations when they aren't actively being attacked? I had to abandon my first campaign after hitting a point where my weapons just weren't good enough to damage the current generation of Pandorans, and my relations weren't high enough with anyone to get access to next-gen weapons tech. I could maybe have launched a research raid on someone, but I was trying to avoid going to war.
I've seen a number mention that there isn't really a peaceful path through the game. You'll eventually piss off two of the three factions so pick the one you like and smash the others.
Watching Cohh stream it again, I don't know what the guy claiming it's not worth the HDD space is smoking, he's acting like the game killed his dog or something. It is different from the Xcom remake, it's closer to Xcom original which is only good in my book. I didn't like some of the simplifications of the new Xcom. It's a bit buggy and rough, but I expect that to be patched. Down the line, it will be a pretty good game I'd say. Now if only they put it up on MS game pass already so I can play it finally.
XCOM/2 struggled with this a lot, and I think there are still fringe cases where it happens even with the mod that cleans it up.
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Yeah, honestly, I'm on the default difficulty and was considering a restart because it was feeling a little easy, but known it has dynamic difficulty, might stick with it a bit more and see.
This seems like one of those things you should be really up front with from the start because otherwise you're getting the current situation where you got a significant chunk of people wondering why Normal's kicking their ass hardcore because this is a genre infamous for people going "That didn't happen" with the power of saved games.
Like I don't mind the idea of it escalating beyond the given difficulty level if it thinks you require it, but like a lot of other things in this game it really should be told to the player instead of just hoping they figure it out on their own.
(Also from peeking through the code the dynamic difficulty also changes a lot more than enemy strength, so again, sort of thing that should probably be told to the player upfront.)
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Shoot now I'm getting mad again that I have to deal with Phoenix Point's entire thing re: aiming (I just simply do not have the brain wired to easily comprehend this at all), when Silent Storm was right there with a definitive and elegant manner of providing you a way to target body parts via paperdoll format, while retaining ballistics simulations and destruction.
And that game was made in the early 2000s!
Like I don't mind the idea of it escalating beyond the given difficulty level if it thinks you require it, but like a lot of other things in this game it really should be told to the player instead of just hoping they figure it out on their own.
(Also from peeking through the code the dynamic difficulty also changes a lot more than enemy strength, so again, sort of thing that should probably be told to the player upfront.)
EDIT:
Shoot now I'm getting mad again that I have to deal with Phoenix Point's entire thing re: aiming (I just simply do not have the brain wired to easily comprehend this at all), when Silent Storm was right there with a definitive and elegant manner of providing you a way to target body parts via paperdoll format, while retaining ballistics simulations and destruction.
And that game was made in the early 2000s!
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alright, got to that point in every XCOM-like where I have to restart the campaign because I very thoroughly fucked up lol. Turns out that level 5 and only one upgraded weapon is not enough to raid a Pandoran stronghold. Fuck the sirens!
Anyway, how do people feel about the HEL cannon? Worth keeping, or better to set it aside after you get the grenade launcher? I feel like it'd be good on CQC units as sort of a breaching gun/anti-armor tool, which the shotgun is naturally gonna have some trouble with.
Anyway, how do people feel about the HEL cannon? Worth keeping, or better to set it aside after you get the grenade launcher? I feel like it'd be good on CQC units as sort of a breaching gun/anti-armor tool, which the shotgun is naturally gonna have some trouble with.
I dropped that cannon the second I got the grenade launcher
It's too short ranged to be a primary weapon (especially on slow-ass Heavies), but I think there's potential for it as a secondary. Shreds the hell out of armor, hits like a truck. Good companion to a shotgun, I think.
Actually, I want an entire options tab where I can choose to auto-pause all the things if I want to.
Auto-pause when the team is healed, auto-pause when a facility is built, auto-pause when an item is manufactured.
Also, choosing assault a second class to heavy creates very satisfactory situations where you can, finally, run a reasonable distance and point blank fools with the cannon.
Auto-pause when the team is healed, auto-pause when a facility is built, auto-pause when an item is manufactured.
Also, choosing assault a second class to heavy creates very satisfactory situations where you can, finally, run a reasonable distance and point blank fools with the cannon.
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Wow this has to be my biggest gaming disappointment of the year. I preordered the game this summer and was all hyped up for the game. I played backer build 4 and while very rough, it still looked like they could salvage it before release.
Turns out the game feels even worse than I remember from this summer.
Why do enemy units get infinite amounts of return fire? And why do the return fire shots hit you while you are still stepped out from the corner. Why does cover feel meaningless? Why if I put a soldier next to a ledge can they not shoot down over the ledge at the enemy below.
Why is there only one music track during combat? It's painful to listen to, it sounds like the a bad copy of the night mission music from the original X-com. Why do does the footstep sound just sound terrible. It's like they left a placeholder sound in.
I really wanted to love the game. Hopefully in 6 months after a few patches it will be worth playing.
Oh well for now, back to playing the Heavy Metal DLC for Battletech.
Turns out the game feels even worse than I remember from this summer.
Why do enemy units get infinite amounts of return fire? And why do the return fire shots hit you while you are still stepped out from the corner. Why does cover feel meaningless? Why if I put a soldier next to a ledge can they not shoot down over the ledge at the enemy below.
Why is there only one music track during combat? It's painful to listen to, it sounds like the a bad copy of the night mission music from the original X-com. Why do does the footstep sound just sound terrible. It's like they left a placeholder sound in.
I really wanted to love the game. Hopefully in 6 months after a few patches it will be worth playing.
Oh well for now, back to playing the Heavy Metal DLC for Battletech.
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Hmm lots of complaints about return fire, but I've barely even seen it. Hell my own assaults don't seen too use it much. And when it does come up I kill who ever had it pretty quickly.
Though I am currently playing on the 'normal' difficulty and am only 10 hours in...
Btw I made the little truck thing, but I can't seem to use it... do I need better ship to take it anywhere? Cause if so I'll skip building a second manticore and just pay new Jericho a visit and borrow one of theirs...(tobias sounds terrible so no big loss pissing them off).
Though I am currently playing on the 'normal' difficulty and am only 10 hours in...
Btw I made the little truck thing, but I can't seem to use it... do I need better ship to take it anywhere? Cause if so I'll skip building a second manticore and just pay new Jericho a visit and borrow one of theirs...(tobias sounds terrible so no big loss pissing them off).
Return Fire is only a thing at fairly close ranges - 1/2 Perception distance, I think (but they don't surface Perception afaik so don't ask me how far that is). Longer-range engages against enemies sporting it seems to be the way to go.
Agreed on Cover kind of being a trainwreck. Whatever system they have for popping in and out is just not working properly. I think it's supposed to be intentional for Heavy weapons - there's a tooltip to the effect of "remember that heavy weapons are fired from the hip when trying to aim them from behind low cover!" but that's kind of dumb, and it's just nonsensical on everything else, where you've got to fight with the aiming system to get your guy to look over the wall. And high cover is almost a liability for how much it limits your Overwatch potential and fire lanes, while not screening you at all from return fire.
Overall, I like to think that it's more buggy than broken, and it'll be up to speed in a few patches. But we'll see how it goes.
(I really gotta get back into Battletech more)
I'm on my 4th attempt and everything is going so well, the death bar is only at 10%, my rep is at 65%, my guys will soon be decked out in New Jericho armor and armor piercing weapons and there's only one Nest on the map which I'll clear tomorrow. I have never been in such a good position before.
The game has flaws and is a bit short on everything (tile sets, enemy types, mission types etc) but I'm very much enjoying it still, I have been playing it every day since release and have easily clocked 50 hours into it. I got the game in the 50% EGS sale and I've definitely had my monies worth already, if they support the game post launch I will happily drop £25 on the season pass.
The game has flaws and is a bit short on everything (tile sets, enemy types, mission types etc) but I'm very much enjoying it still, I have been playing it every day since release and have easily clocked 50 hours into it. I got the game in the 50% EGS sale and I've definitely had my monies worth already, if they support the game post launch I will happily drop £25 on the season pass.
It got pretty painful when I ran up to a guy who was carrying a shotgun to kill him, who needed several volleys to take out but shot back every time. Definitely need to pay better attention to that.
The Scarab takes up 3 slots in your ship so you'll need to make space if you want to take it with. It's also under the Vehicles tab under personnel.
Agree with someone above about the music. I just had to turn it off at some point. It has the ominous thing down but to a point that it just gets grating to listen to.
As for cover, I'm at the point where I just step out to shoot at something, too often I'm just pointlessly blocked by objects. I'm a savescummer anyway so from the sound of it I'll get punished for that eventually. Just hope it scales back down when I get my behind handed to me, if there's still time to save the campaign at that point.
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I think the dynamic difficulty is just the enemy mutations. They start getting better armour and guns if you've been doing well. And it's supposed to choose mutations to counter your specific performance, though I've not seen evidence of what that means.
But maybe there's more to it.
My main strategy has just been trying to stay at long range and snipe everything before it gets close (and rush-shotgun if I need to get close).
Being out in the open but too far away to hit (or trigger return fire) is a lot safer than being in "cover" but with poorer sightlines.
Unlike Xcom, flanking is pretty useless and dangerous. It's best to keep your guys spaced at about "grenade AoE distance". Especially with return fire. If some enemy sneaks up on you, they only get one shot before the rest of your team murder them with return fire. And likewise, if you flank an enemy group, you'll get one nice shot before they turn round and murder you.
Just spotted my first Siren. Haven't fought it yet. I'm guessing I'm best doubling-down on my "run away and snipe" tactics when facing them.
But maybe there's more to it.
My main strategy has just been trying to stay at long range and snipe everything before it gets close (and rush-shotgun if I need to get close).
Being out in the open but too far away to hit (or trigger return fire) is a lot safer than being in "cover" but with poorer sightlines.
Unlike Xcom, flanking is pretty useless and dangerous. It's best to keep your guys spaced at about "grenade AoE distance". Especially with return fire. If some enemy sneaks up on you, they only get one shot before the rest of your team murder them with return fire. And likewise, if you flank an enemy group, you'll get one nice shot before they turn round and murder you.
Just spotted my first Siren. Haven't fought it yet. I'm guessing I'm best doubling-down on my "run away and snipe" tactics when facing them.
Flanking can actually be pretty key for getting eyes on weakpoints or getting around those pesky shields.
Just had to restart, lost everyone I had. God it got gloriously brutal :D
Had a weird graphical glitch going on during my last play through. It looked like there were a bunch of horizontal lines burned into the screen. You could only make them out when the camera was moving. Also had some weird FPS hitches happening.
Wondering how many differences on Legendary are due to difficulty and not bugs. I can get how new recruits do not come with tech from the faction you recruit them from, but this apparently includes weapons for vehicles you get from them as well. I already know some tilesets don't work properly for vehicles and drones, too.
Also, there's mod support already, even before Snapshot pushed support for it out. RealityMachina, who created a great deal of fantastic XCOM 2 mods, has put out three already. You'll need the Mod Injector.
Console Enabler
Retrievable Items
Resource Raid Loot Fix
Also, there's mod support already, even before Snapshot pushed support for it out. RealityMachina, who created a great deal of fantastic XCOM 2 mods, has put out three already. You'll need the Mod Injector.
Console Enabler
Retrievable Items
Resource Raid Loot Fix