Another feedback thread

I’m not addressing bugs, but some things I regard as problems or suggestions for improvement:

  1. GEOSCAPE:

I’m generally happy with this part of the game. It’s an interesting choice to have limited resources, weigh up what’s worth doing, cut your losses, etc.

a) Starter missions (e.g. the basic first diplomacy missions for each faction) should be distance limited from Phoenix Point. I’m midgame and still nowhere with Disciples of Anu because this mission was the other end of the planet.
b) Diplomacy could be more exiciting and involved than simple mission granting.
c) I’m not sure haven defences should damage your reputation with other factions. I can’t really see why they should be so against you helping defend other humans from Pandorans.

  1. TACTICAL

Here, there could be significant improvements, as there becomes a point where missions can become chores rather than fun going into the mid-game. They should get tougher, but some of the ways they get tougher make the game annoying to the point of quitting and reloading.

a) I think the limb HPs are a little low for your agents. Not usually too bad for weapon fire, but anything except a heavy gets hit by an explosive, that character’s often out of action for the battle. And when you meet missions where every Arthron has a launcher arm and there’s 1-2 grenade Chirons, that’s a lot of explosives.
b) More diversity of opponent equipment. Every arthron/triton seems to have the same equipment each tactical battle - armour, pincer/shield/gun/launcher - etc. That localised Pandoran areas have preferences, fine, but all in the same battle area the same loadout, no.
c) More weaker opponents. This partly relates to the above about diversity of opposition, but it would be good if there were still some lower-risk missions and badly armoured & low HP arthrons/tritons around, for instance on scavenger missions (which become far more effort than they’re worth quite quickly). I think this would be nice to give your rookies something to do, as otherwise low level agents just have to sit in base training or they’ll be eaten alive. Also, maybe, limit training to L4 and force your guys to go out and get combat experience for higher levels?
d) Remove return fire ability for melee attacks. At least, from the aliens. If you melee a machine gun arthron and don’t kill it, say goodbye to your agent. In fact, return fire generally is maybe a bit OP - limit it to once/twice a round?
e) Grenade Chirons are a problem. Worm-throwers, fine. Goo-throwers, annoying but fine. But there’s no fun being wrecked by a unit you can’t see or shoot at. Maybe give a sort of preparation turn (like the Scylla blaster) - forcing your units to move is at least some disadvantage.
f) Heavies generally have, perhaps, too many accuracy negatives. Not so bad with the grenade launcher, but the gatling gauss thing is virtually useless beyond close range even despite how many rounds it fires, and the Hel II cannon is just a prayer to the RNG gods.
g) Range balance. The game pushes you to long-range combat ttoo much: mid-range weapons (assault rifles) become ineffective, and the enemy effectiveness at close range (Sirens & Mindfragger control, pincer melee, poison spit and launchers, high damage & inaccurate weapons, etc.) plus frequent numerical superiority makes close range very dangerous.
h) I’m not convinced by the way bits of terrain I think should be very robust like walls and staircases are destroyed when hit by assault rifles and shotguns.

GENERAL GAMEPLAY:
a) As far as I can see, you hit a nasty “crunch point” . Starts easy, becomes challenging, turns into a nightmare when you suddenly find all your opponents are too armoured for much of your equipment. Sure, once you get past this hump with the penetrating weapons it’s not too bad again, but it’s a really horrible and frustrating point in the game.
b) No armour improvement tech (except from DoA)? Or have I just not got there yet?
c) Faction balance: Synedrion seem terrible. I get that sneak and poison might be useful and I might not have worked out how to use them yet, but normally I find I need to urgently remove the amount of firepower coming my way, I can’t wait four turns for the enemy to die. A flyer with only 5 seats? No thanks, I need my squad size. They also seem unable to defend their havens as well as NJ and DoA do, but maybe that’s just anecdotal from my experience.
d) Together with aspects of the above, recruits are incredibly expensive and thus agents (especially experienced ones) very painful to lose, which is why I think some of the lethality at difficult points makes the game more chore than fun. I get there has to be a certain cost otherwise you could recruit and scrap their equipment at profit, but…
e) Assault rifles become very bad too quickly - only salvageable with characters who luck onto the assault rifle perk. Maybe provide some sort of mid-level ammo tech that gives them a bit more potency (+10 pen?) mid-game? Same with PDWs. I might note the Pandorans seem to get machine guns with plenty of damage to spare.
f) When I get to Haven defences, it sometimes says there are faction defenders left. Where are they? I’ve never seen any - is this a bug or defenders are represented by some other game mechanic?
g) Make two types of Pandoran Haven assault? A raid which can destroy a district (if all districts are lost, haven destroyed anyway), and a full invasion with harder opposition which can destroy the whole haven.

1 Like

Addendum:

TACTICAL: Remove willpower loss from killed civilians. It’s too easy to suffer massive willpower damage to your operatives if you can’t get to them.

Totally agree. PP soldiers are in a war to save their planent against the crabmen and the other factions. They’re used to seeing casualties, and not at all probable that they expect to rescue every single civilian 100 percent of the time. Squadmates are another matter, but some random civs that you are trying to rescue - this is wartime, and a fight to prevent extinction.

Agree. This is total BS.

Honestly I think part of the problem with Willpower is the dual-purpose it serves as both Morale, and Mana for your soldiers’ frankly supernatural abilities.
That means losing it to civilian casualties is really crippling- your soldiers panic and now you can’t magdump your sniper rifle from across the map to kill a Siren quickly, or teleport around the map with Dash.
Honestly I think most of the squad abilities would work better with a small cooldown rather than using willpower as a consumable ability fuel, and just have Willpower serve as a morale stat, but that would essentially involve re-doing the entire tactical game’s balance, so I rather doubt it’ll happen.

It forces an alpha-strike behavior that I hoped not to see.
Frankly, I was hoping that we would be facing hordes of enemies but not that lethal and a few select ones more lethal.
It would have enabled less super-human abilities to be viable and no need to rush kills. This feeling of all or nothing. Either I kill it or I get a squad wipe.
And Sirens mindcontrolling without line of sight…

Yep.

I’m stopping playing this: in current form in my game, it’s broken. I’m on average difficulty, and the Pandorans are now effectively impossible to take on without me taking losses I can’t afford. As you say, it seems to me all about packing out an alpha hit to clear the enemy, because your team has so little tolerance to taking incoming damage. Fatalities and cripplings rapidly degrade your combat effectiveness. But I’ve got to the point where in nearly every battle I get swamped sooner or later - usually when the willpower runs out.

Every mission is 10+ grunts (arthrons / tritons), 2-4 sirens, 1-2 chirons and a scylla, or something very close. The arthrons usually have 200+ HP, and 20-40 armour on all locations. Launchers are potentially crippling due to limb damage, and the MGs do (I think) four bullets with 70 damage each, plus the return fire skill. The tritons are slightly less armoured, but have up to 350 HP, equipped usually with Deimos AR (okay), Nergal’s Wrath (nasty) or Cyclops (really nasty). The arthrons in particular are infuriating - every single one of these can cripple or kill my agents in one 'nade/burst - and if they’ve got MGs, due to the return fire I sometimes can’t even risk attacking them. I’ve got penetrating weaponry, but it’s nothing like enough.

The toughness and lethality of the grunts is really bad, but add the synergy with the other units and it is devastating. The Siren frenzy ability to protect them from panic and 50% speed means the grunts can overrun me too easily (the mind control isn’t so bad, funnily enough), The grenade Chiron is devastating. The goo Chiron is like a slow death - by robbing me of manoeuverability, I can’t fight the grunts effectively. The Scylla rampages round causing havoc - enormous move, destroying cover, and its options (mist, goo/poison spit, even the mindfragger spawn)… and if I want to cripple the Scylla, that’s one turn dedicated fire when I’m not getting rid of the grunts that will flatten me.

It’s overwhelming, even for a team of L6-7s. And once they’re dead, how are my agents at lower level supposed to cope? Am I supposed to sit in base doing nothing letting the clock run until the training rooms get them to L6/7?

However, strangely, the Pandoran Citadel missions are still very doable because you can snipe the Scylla at extreme range in before you have to deal with anything else.

TACTICAL: Remove willpower loss from killed civilians. It’s too easy to suffer massive willpower damage to your operatives if you can’t get to them.

Actually, since your operatives are (I assume, I haven’t seen lore that indicates otherwise) volunteers from the various factions… have a chance for willpower loss, which gets reduced with every single killed civilian. Maybe double or triple it (or halve/third the reduction) for other operatives.

After all, it takes time to get used to such things – and, honestly, the reaction to losing another ‘soldier’ is, unfortunately, worse than seeing someone you don’t care about die. Ask anyone who’s been in combat… actually, don’t.

1 Like