[Backers Build #2] General feedback

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
1

Providing feedback from a new player’s perspective here. I understand this is pre-alpha, but when I first loaded the game I was pretty lost. The game guide pdf only mentioned a new technician class and there’s no information on the other classes. It would be nice if pdf could point to some sort of wiki on what’s already been implemented. Only on my 3rd run of Fort Freiheit did I get a rough feel of things to play properly. If I’ve never played XCOM, I’d be completely and utterly lost.

More Tooltips please
I had no idea what the class icons meant, and I still don’t. There’s a new technician class mentioned in the game guide pdf, and remainder seem to be equivalent to XCOM’s heavy, assault, sniper classes ? It’s also kind of tiring to open up the inventory just to check stats. so it’ll be nice to be able to mouse over the weapon/classes to see some information on them.

Freeze the alien during aim.
The alien parts move from side to side while I’m aiming. The head can be 50% covered or completely uncovered completely depending on the alien model. I don’t know if it matters, so I tried to play safe. It feels like an unnecessary waste of time (considering this is a turn based game and not an FPS) to wait for the alien to expose its head again.

Inventory
#1: A misleading description says opening the inventory costs 25% AP, which scared me off to even check the inventory. It’s actually free to look (or even drop items ?), but only costs AP when you take items ?
#2: Please “mark” spots where items have been dropped. Given each soldier has carry limits, this would really help to distribute items.
#3: Make inventory swaps possible when soldiers are in close range. Right now I need to do some AP wasting “dance” just to transfer items

Hotkeys
Can the “attack” hotkeys (shoot, grenade etc.) be remapped to 1-3 by default ? I really have my hands on Q and E, but then the shoot hotkey is typically at 8 which is irritating.

Armadillo (APC)
#1: Not sure if APC mechanic or bug. The AP pool for the APC and soldiers are separate ? My soldier could shoot, run to board APC, which would be able to move + shoot again (I think ?).
#2: There were times when I couldn’t unload the personnel. I couldn’t even tab to the soldier in it. If this is due to the location i.e. the entrance to the APC is blocked, there should be some feedback/indicator instead of just refusing to tab to the soldier inside the APC.
#3: Friendly fire warnings for moving / ramming. I had a solider on the right of the APC which insta died when the APC moved. Not cool.
#4: Rammable indicator. It’s really not clear if the APC can ram through the structure or not. If it isn’t, the turn is wasted and the APC might get stuck in a position that’s tactically rubbish.

Color Tone
Is it just me, or is the everything in the game overly brown ?

Crashes
I’ve tried Fort Freiheit 5x. On 2 runs it just crashed. Once when I tried to drop a weapon, another time when I was attempting to aim. I’m still unable to complete any map =/

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Mouse-over tooltips are planned. Better instructions will be written as the game is more developed.

This is correct. It only costs AP to pick up items, not to drop or look inside the inventory.

This is planned.

You already can. If another soldier is directly adjacent (not diagonal) then when you open the inventory screen you will see their portrait on the right of the screen. You can drag items directly onto them. The UI for the inventory is far from finished at this stage, and mainly placeholder.

Key remapping will come.

This is a known issue and will be addressed.

You can always select the soldier using the class icons on the lower left corner of the screen. But most likely a bug.

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I suppose this is some representation if enemy is dodging or moving during your shot. :slight_smile: It was done on purpose. :slight_smile: But some players complain about it.

I have it too. And I can’t run Frostpunk game which should run smoothly on my rig. Program/driver/c++ libraries reinstallation didn’t help. Soon I will try to reinstall system and check if problem still exist. And after that I will try system with AMD’s GPU and CPU to check how they handle PP and Unity engine. :slight_smile:

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I don’t recall seeing crabmen do it but when you shoot the queen she takes a defensive stance, so it’s pointless to wait for her to move her “arms” out of the way. Presumably all units will have similar behavior in due time. Alternatively it might be nice to have an option like “dodge” or “defensive stance” that triggers that behavior in exchange for some AP to complement overwatch fire.

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This kind of influences how you fight the queen–like, if you want to destroy her head, the Sniper is your best option, otherwise your primary strategy should be to aim at one side of her torso so most of your shots will hit one of her arms and wear it away (since you’ll almost always hit one of her arms and her torso when she flinches).

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They spin in place a little bit. Most annoying case is when they wield shield and you aim for the head. :wink:

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Wait, that behaviour is intentional? Wow I had no idea. Gonna say now that I strongly disagree with that as a design choice. That seems crazy to me that they would do that intentionally. If it’s a dodge then that should be implemented as a separate stat based on agility or something like that, with an accompanying animation to show a dodge attempt (which would obviously be a lot less successful at closer ranges with wider firing arcs) not some BS character model rotation while lining up a shot.

Could you link me in to where it was stated that it’s intentional? If you remember which thread it was in that is. I’m not doubting you, I would just like to read the wording for myself.

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8

As Phoenix Point uses a simulationist approach to aiming, the moving enemies (while still an abstraction) are a representation that the target isn’t just going to be standing still like a statue and waiting to be shot.

While that sort of thing might work in XCOM (a game where the outcome of a shot is determined by a dice roll and the animations are just for show), it wouldn’t work here in PP. Things work the opposite way around. The physical simulation of the models determines the outcome.

Well, that’s the choice we’ve made. You probably disagree with it because it’s different to what you’re used to. But we’re not remaking XCOM. This is a different game with different rules and different mechanics. The challenges will require new and different tactics to overcome.

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The reason I don’t like it as a mechanic is because what I find usually happens is: I line up the shot as I want it. The crab character model rotates slightly. I have an infinite amount of time for my turn so I wait for him to rotate back to the same place again. Then I take the shot. So ultimately, it just ends up being a waste of time.

I know this game isn’t going to be a copy of XCom, and neither do I want it to be. In fact I tried playing it like was the same when I played the first backer build and couldn’t work out why I was doing so badly. Once I got used to the huge differences in the way projectiles and taking shots are treated in PP and well as how cover and line of sight are both far more important, suddenly I was getting it and finding a lot more success with the missions. I just find this character models moving slightly while your lining up a shot to be very peculiar. But as there are no ‘dice rolls’ so to speak, I guess you’re right. Not sure how else you would simulate it…?

If that’s the design choice that’s been made then that’s that. Can’t expect everything to be the way I like it :slight_smile: to be fair, it’s not actually stopped me enjoying the game at all.

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The problem that I have with the idle animations is that it’s a time sink, while aiming you’ll be searching for a sweet spot, that means you’ll watch the whole animation to find that spot and then you’ll wait to the point of the animation when you want to shot.

I can understand the animation it’s a representation of the creature not being standing still, but it makes the process of aiming very slow. Also when You finally push the trigger, if the creature is not faster than the bullets they should hit where they go, and not find an arm between them and the head because now the creature is covering itself.

In valkyria chronicles the enemies don’t stop moving, but they don’t move so much and they don’t enter in super slow motion so the animation is quick, also some of them don’t stop firing what makes you shot faster.

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I agree that there’s a balance to be found so that taking each shot doesn’t become tedious - but I am confident that will get worked out.

Taking an age to line up a shot with the animation can be counterproductive anyway - as many enemies have a flinch animation. As soon as the first round hits, their position is going to change. There’s also a difference between how manual and snap targeting works. With the manual (free) aim, you will continue to aim at and fire at the same point in space, regardless of what the target is doing. With the snap (traditional XCOM) aiming, your shot will actually track the centre of mass for the target, even if the target moves.

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Oh wow, I didn’t know that. Hmm, that may be another reason to use “snap” shots :octopus:

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I didn’t know this either. Can the snap targeting be used to target and follow specific body parts and not just the centre mass of the crabs main torso? Because if it can I may start using that instead to speed things up a bit. The only time I’ve used it previously has been when I’ve already shredded a lot of the queens armour so it doesn’t really matter where I’m aiming when finishing her off.

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Not currently, though the Sniper used to have an ability that did just that. So maybe that will be added back in.

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Maybe that’s it, what confuses me is the slow motion, if you want to maintain the simulation aspect don’t make the creatures enter the slow motion realm, just because I’m aiming the time doesn’t freeze. It would feel more natural if the creature is doing its things in real time while I’m aiming at it.
I feel the slow motion it’s a feature to help the player in his aiming process, but if there’s an ability that allow you to do a better aiming you can bring back the old sniper paperdoll ablility or just stop the time and let the creature stay still.

Is there any issue doing the manual aiming in real time? maybe it doesn’t work for any reason.

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There’s no technical reason why it can’t be done. It used to be like that initially. The slow motion effect was added later to “make it easier to aim”, but it could be that it’s encourage slow, careful aiming - which might not be desirable.

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Can I ask how is it feels, was it too difficult? (The real time thing)

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It was very dependent on the weapon being used, the distance of the target and the angle you were shooting from. Sniping was certainly less reliable.

I can see how some people would prefer it and some would prefer the slow motion, just as some would prefer them not to move at all.

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I think there’s a balance to be struck between realism and practicality. I generally don’t play FPS games, and prefer turn based games, which is why I play D:OS2, XCOM, Civ 6 etc.

Everybody else is already frozen in place which any given character’s turn. This is already immersion breaking and literally as unreal as it gets. So after scanning the battlefield and selecting a strategic tile for a angled shot, I have to wait for the alien model animation. Imo it’s just a pointless time sink to me, while nothing fun was “gained”.

I’d much rather have a accuracy rating i.e. each bullet has 30% chance to hit targeted part, 50% chance it’ll land inside the red circle, 99% chance it’ll land inside the orange circle, 1% complete miss because shit happens.

Alternatively, there can be an “events” model that is similar to return fire. If an alien has ultra high reflexes, so just before shots there’s an X% that it adjusts their shield/position.

Most turn based games have game mechanics that simulate/replace real time reflexes - Initiative, accuracy, crit % etc. I’m perfectly fine with a reasonable amount of RNG, because the main focus is on the strategy layer. I have to say I’m not a fan of including mechanics that rely on my reflex / timing as it goes against why I play turn based games in the first place.

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