Backers Build 5 Feedback by Yokes... Prepare for TLDR

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
1

So lets make starting post just to not strech it too much. :slight_smile: Please also remember this is feedback related to BB5. All previous elements of the game that I really like (or dislike - but they didn’t annoyed me too much in this build) will not be mentioned here.

EDIT… Sheep! There is limit of 32000 characters.

4 Likes
2

So here is my more complete feedback (first one was before BB5 release?). Sorry for mistakes and grammar errors, but English is not my native language. What more, I still learn this last build, but as 3 weeks already have passed I suppose it is time to share my thoughts.

I will divide this feedback to topics to make it more comprehensible and in each topic I will mention what I like and what I expect to change. I will also try to move in the space you have created, so there won’t any talking about pointless class system, need of aerial combat, or that the bases need to be animated, I hope for tweaking some numbers, adding icons or small animations, or some changes to variables and that it will be enough to make this game better. Maybe some of those changes are already planned or maybe you have something other in mind, but we players don’t really know about that, so it may happen that my suggestions will be outdated or will collide with your plan. Nevertheless I hope it will express my opinion and general feelings I had during those 3 weak of gameplay.

First of all I want you to know that I’m really fond of what I have found in this build. Few things surprised me, some in positive way, some in… less positive way. But overall my experience with Backers Build 5 lean toward happiness and pleasure. Of course it would be better if not for some critical issues of which you already must know, as this forum is rumbling with separate topics about each of them. So far Phoenix Point is my most anticipated game in next few years, and I hope that it will be my game of the year of 2019/2020. To be like that Phoenix Point need to change most of things I will mention below. Maybe not all of them, but I really hope that most of them will be sorted out. Maybe balancing you currently do and features that didn’t get to BB5, but which you plan to add in December release, will lead to even better things than I expect.

Strategic/Geoscape

Great in this build:

  • Look of that globe with isolines is really nice. They should show your game in schools to teach geography. Just with not flooded areas yet. :wink:
  • Mist consuming water and land now feel more natural… maybe just work on colors and shading of this thing.
  • Exploration of unknown sites adds to the mystery.
  • Scanning area with satellites is way better than building radars, finally we start to use some nice tech.
  • New visualization for event system is really interesting and enjoyable for the eyes.
  • What more those events bring some life to the globe. They really help to tell the story. We don’t need story missions to feel what has happened to our planet.
  • Interactions with havens. Trade, sabotage, recruitment of their specific soldiers, all are great addition to XCOM franchise.
  • All UI tweaks like icons of resources or recruits near havens, NPC dropships add to the immersion of strategy
  • Music really gives the mood here
  • Great that there will be more than one base, maybe it is little sad that we won’t be able to set their locations, but well, it is understandable taking settings condition and I can live with that.
  • I like that we can switch directly to soldier screen from dropship interface.
  • Also having different dropships from factions is great (bugged right now, but I expect it to improve)
  • Great that haven can only have 2 of production sites there (factory, food or research) – it will always create some demand and possibility for trade

Introduce/change:

  • First will be small thing to not overkill the subject :wink: Show area which was scanned. Many players brought that up (it was even mentioned during BB4 feedback about radars). At some point we don’t know where we already have scanned, where was that border of scan ending? You can even just leave that expanding circle when it reaches maximum distance, just remove border when circle will overlap with previous circles.
  • I would change area scan by separating area of scan from Manticore. Why do we even require dropship to designate where it should start?
  • Don’t center view on selected Manticore after we exit haven info screen. Really annoying if you check haven on second side of the world.
  • Near research and manufacture clocks on the right side show also base building timer (now we only have notification on top of the screen when building is finished).
  • Allow to travel to any place on the globe with our aircrafts. Sticking to POI is really too simplistic. Why we can’t go to any place and start our satellite scan over there (if we really need Manticore for that)? What will happen if there won’t be any POI along the way when we will want to travel to some objective which is quite far? I would say that most of the time Antarctica and Australia with Pacific are beyond our range if there won’t be any place to pin our dropship (this lead to another point)
  • Bring back travel/fuel cost with different cost per 500 km for different aircrafts. For example Manticore could cost like 4 materials for such distance, Helios 3, Thunderbird 5 and Tiamat could cost 6. Of course there could be free refuelling in friendly havens (when we have at least pact relation with them) – next good reason to be friends with at least one faction. Actually you know what? Not just with faction, but also good relation with local leader should allow that. That would bring independent havens to glory of our interest and also speed up things with faction havens before we would get status with whole faction. Refuelling in our bases still should cost us, as we need to prepare and spend our own resources.
  • Refuelling, no matter where performed, should take some time (1h maybe?). Emergency refuelling in open terrain (outside of any POI) could take longer and be prone to ambush mission. That would require new map models depending on place around the world, but right now you can use scavenge maps, and bring some other environments (desert, jungle, forest, canyon, riverbank, old town, old village, tundra - will there be still snowy places in Antarctica?, etc.) in DLCs.
  • Make resources a material thing. I suppose that tech and mutagen are more like some rare part or rare element or even just ‘know how’ to allow production of some things, thus are light. Materials and food are heavier. We usually have less tech and mutagens than other resources. Make 25 tech/materials/food/mutagens weight 1 unit. Thus 1000 units of each resource will take 40 weight space. So overall 1000 tech, 1000 materials, 1000 food and 1000 mutagens will take 160 space in one of our storages (check Strategic/Bases section). Packing 100 tech, 500 materials and 500 food on Manticore will take 44 space – equivalent of gear for 2 well equipped soldiers. Allow automated transports (next point) to carry these resources between bases.
  • Introduce automated transportation between bases, like some fast jet/solar drones with cargo space (you will see why, below in next sections) with weight limit of 50 units (we want it to be small and fast - not huge and slow like An-225 Mrija or Airbus A380, but still it could take equivalent of 1250 resources at once) and cost to send it like 1 materials for each 500 km of travel. So it would take 40 materials to send something to other side of the globe – yes allow them to travel all over the globe without making stops. I know it sounds cheap, but imagine having like 12 or more bases all over the world and need to transport all kind of things between them. We could not use them to dispatch soldiers to missions because they are too small and travel with too big G-force.
  • Add also cargo space to Manticore with weight limit of 250 units. It will be bigger and slower than transportation drones. It would allow to transport 6250 resources without soldiers, but I suppose that would be rare case of usability. Check Strategic/Personnel section.
  • Explain research and manufacturing counters on top of the screen, then maybe +100 Research from an event will be more understandable for the players. I understand it as efficiency per hour. Let say that project needs 100 research time units to be put into, and with one research lab we have 4 units / hour, so project will take 25 hours. With 2 labs we have 8 units / h, so it will take only 12.5 h. And when we find event that grant 40 research points we have earned 10 hours of research in case of 1 lab, and 5 h in case of 2 labs and so on, but this must to be explained without resolving to testing and tries from player side (or asking on the forum).
  • I don’t know why but havens with research centers don’t always show gear icon beneath them, if this is desired behaviour of UI then please note it somewhere
  • Can destroyed havens show info what was in there? Some exploration done by our dropship and crew for some clues and records and giving us short info in haven info screen: “There were residential and manufacturing sections, haven counted 8000 souls at the beginning of 2047.”
  • Explain what is exactly haven range?

Strategic/Bases

Great in this build:

  • It is fine there is power management and we have even food production and upkeep.
  • It is not yet implemented but I like that there will be personnel and AI to use in selected facilities. I also hope they will take space in living quarters (which could lead to some soldiers not resting for some part of the day).
  • Mist repellers – that is what many players have waited for. :wink:
  • Security Facility – great that it increases warning time, but how it helps to protect base (according to description) - not yet implemented?
  • Nice that we can build containment at last

Introduce/change:

  • There should be more of them. Currently it is not possible to react or just even explore part of the globe because of lack of bases on some of the continents.
  • In some of the bases there still should be Manticore or Scarab available. May be damaged and require some repairs (faster and cheaper than building new ones) but still of some value after proper maintenance.
  • Why can’t we build another Vehicle Bay? Searching for second base while having only one Manticore can be quite annoying, let us build hangar for second ship.
  • Medical bay and other building for personnel should have some limit for occupancy. Now they work on all available soldiers in base at once (see Strategic/Personnel section)
  • Current storage size of 200 items is kind of strange value, because you can stuff that facility to the brim with either 200 rocket launchers or 200 ammo magazines. Change it from items count to item weight. And each storage could store like 500 units (equivalent of 500 magazines for light weapons, 100 heavy weapons, or 90 armor sets). So 2 Manticores or 10 transport drones could empty such full storage.
  • Training facility should work slower – right now you can fully train soldier in less than a month. If I may suggest let it train soldier only to the half of next level. Theory and simulation are not real fight, so soldier will still need to go to mission to fully develop to next level. It could be even like that that soldier gain first half of experience on the mission and next half in base (look also in Strategic/Personnel section about soldier levels). And it should work only for few soldiers simultaneously which you put in there.
  • Some players suggested that training facility could unlock perks – I suppose it could happen, but I’m not sure it should be player’s choice what will be unlocked. Or maybe let player select some pool of perks and then randomizer will choose between those and assign them on some specific levels (for levels without assigned perk and skill – see Strategic/Personnel section about soldier levels). It would resemble personalized training selected by commander for his soldier, and personal factor if such soldier is capable of obtaining some of these perks. Btw what an interesting strategic part it would be then.
  • Add some info to containment facility what is the capacity and what monsters are in this particular base (may be just link to personnel/containment screen).
  • Does the entrance always have to be just near Hangar – or I was unlucky each time? Can’t we create some intricate labyrinth before enemies from entrance will reach this crucial facility?

Strategic/Personnel

Great in this build:

  • I really like the status page, where we have all HP and Stamina stats for soldiers and summary if they levelled up or maybe they need some attention.
  • Great that there is soldier model in here. We can see our unit at glance, but maybe this model could be smaller and zoomable?

Introduce/change:

  • Something more simple first – storage section of soldier screen has class filter on the left and item type filter on the top, please add faction filter on the right (or maybe near class filter?) or at least let us unfilter items which we can’t produce and resupply without proper research
  • As people posted on forum (most recently but also in case of BB3 I think – and there was large thread about UI improvements) merge training and equipment screens (also add mutation button somewhere near equipment box) for each soldier. Over half of the screen taken by 3D model of unit is too much, and each time when you want to prepare soldier for the mission you need to switch between those two screens.
  • Also on soldier screen show his current HP and stamina, not just in personnel summary screen – if we want to check that, we need to go back to previous screen.
  • Higher soldier levels happen too quickly. Levelling 6 times is not enough. You really need to change amount of xp required for next level or make more levels. Latter is I think more preferable. It is easy to max each soldier after few missions during one month of in-game time. There is no fun in it. Bam, boom, ding, tink and voila! Here is your super-soldier. In next battle… Ok I will use Rage Burst (Rapid Clearance, etc., etc.)… Next battle again… and again… There is nothing new to expect from a soldier after small amount of time. I suppose that your progression is ok, next level = previous level + (level - 2) * 25 xp. First levels would come quite easy like right now but all next will be much more demanding. Make at least 15 (more preferably 20) soldier levels. Mix some class and personal skills on specific levels, change their order between soldiers. Some soldiers learn faster one thing and others learn another things. What it for example could mean? That Return Fire is always available to Assault class but it can happen between 2nd and 4th level. Ready for Action is always available but between 14th and 16th level. I even think that some levels could just give Skill Point to spend on attributes. Btw 50 SP per level is too much. Make it 20 per level and make 20 levels to achieve. Current system becomes boring when you have 10 soldiers from just 2 factions, or when you have 20 from all factions.
  • Why multi-classing is a skill on 4th level? Can’t you allow that on 4th level without this being actual skill? Don’t waste main class skill slot. Of course make training into second class something that you spend Skill Points. So taking Assault Training should cost SP but just in second branch of skills not in the first one. Btw taking into account my 20 levels cap, please allow for something like that: on 6th level we take that second class, but we can train it for 15 levels along with our main class, and on 11th level we can take another class and train only 10 levels of it. Of course with their own randomized skills (and maybe perks?). That would mean that our main class stays that main class unless we will really invest in other classes. Still we won’t be as good as classes which started from 1st level. And it would create variety – right now Assault/Heavy and Heavy/Assault are the same which I think shouldn’t be the case as we want varied soldiers.
  • Differentiate class skills between factions. It is great that every faction has assault and that they use same proficiency for different items, but maybe give them at least 2 different distinctive skills aligned with faction?
  • Do you remember my request to randomize starting statistics for soldiers? Why all of them start at 20 STR, 6 WP and 14 speed? That is boring. Show that soldiers can be different.
  • We now have on soldier screen global storage which grant items anywhere on the globe (teleportation is fantastic thing I suppose), but please change that each base will have its own separate storage, and each aircraft also will have proper cargo hold to take weapons, equipment and ammo to at least 4 missions (I would count 5 weight per soldier per mission which would take like 120 weight), and bring back items looted from these missions. Soldiers with their equipment should be taken into account when loading Manticore (20 per soldier on average so another 120 weight taken). Same thing with vehicles (which could weight like 100 or more – that would also prevent you from transporting ground vehicles too easily). Also taking resources should be a thing. We will need to plan how much resources we want to leave in base for building, production and research (transportation drones could help here in case of shortage in one of the bases) and how much we will take to use for trade, recruitment and events. Taking more resources would decrease our capability of taking too many missions without returning to base.
  • As suggested on forum allow to switch stores view from ‘item icons’ to ‘list with details’ (just how it was in original X-COM) with sortable columns (Item Name, Faction, Item Category, Damage, Damage Type, AP Cost, Spare Ammo Count for tab equipment; Item Name, Faction, Item Category, Armor, and columns for all stat modifiers)
  • Items on soldiers get damaged during missions, I suppose it should be saved after mission and shown on personnel summary screen that soldier has damaged armor. It should be kept like that until we will repair stuff in base. So if soldier will go for next mission without going to base then he will start with damaged equipment.
  • On personnel summary under ‘send to base’ button we should have shortcut icons to send soldier to medical bay, training facility or mutation center which as I have mentioned in Strategic/Bases section should have limit for occupancy. Button ‘send to base’ should put soldier in Living Quarters.
  • When we have multiple places where soldiers / vehicles and / captured enemies reside let us filter and sort this screen per airship and base – now it becomes not quite friendly when you have more soldiers
  • In containment section show in which base is each alien and how many aliens we can capture, is capacity of 10 points important? – It is hard to say when we will reach the limit in particular base.
  • make WP restore slowly (still faster than Stamina and without any specific facility). It should be saved at the end of the mission and replenish slowly before next mission. Show it also on personnel summary screen and soldier screen

Strategic/Research

Great in this build:

  • I like the amount of research to be done and that there are separate tech trees for all the factions.
  • Idea of animosity between factions preventing from achieving all these researches at once is also great. If we want to have research from hostile or just not friendly enough faction then we need to steal it. Love it. :wink:

Introduce/change:

  • Joined research effort from couple of bases is ok, but it would be great to allow player to run separate research projects depending on number of bases with research labs available. Of course lower number of labs working on specific project would mean it will take more time. But at least it would lower impact of interruption of research in one base to the other project in another base.
  • Introduce research for aircrafts? They could give modules mounted on ships like: increase cargo capacity, decrease fuel consumption, increase range with the same speed and fuel consumption, increase speed with additional fuel consumption and decrease in range, give some advantage during tactical mission (that would be great translation of strategic decisions to tactical environment). And let say that you can only install one or two such modules at once per ship just like body parts on soldiers (each module can even have multiple modifiers). That would create some depth of strategy.

Strategic/Manufacturing

Great in this build:

To be true I’m not impressed by this part of the game. It is good change that production now takes time, but you need to improve and balance this element a lot.

Introduce/change:

  • Allow player to run separate manufacturing processes depending on number of bases with fabrication plants available (if I well remember original X-COM allowed you to build couple items at once even in one manufacturing plant depending on how many engineers you assigned to each item – that was great!)
  • It was already mentioned in couple of threads, but let us pause manufacturing process in specific base and then resume it from the same moment. Also mark somehow these half-finished products – maybe put them at end of queue with option to cancel them with refund if we decide they are obsolete? When production of more important items will finish they will resume automatically. That would also mean to allow changing order in the queue in each base.
  • Production of ammo and consumables should not be instant. We should not have conjure spell on our disposal. Let it be an hour or 2 for more advanced magazine (it could even not interrupt time elapse) but make manufacturing of 10 different magazine meaningful on production schedule and planning. It would require player to have some ammo in stock and plan ahead.
  • I’m not sure if production of armor parts should take whole days. Full light armors should be completed in 3, maybe 4 days. More advanced should not take more than a week. So it would mean that single armor part should take between 24 to 48 hours.
  • Why there is no repair functionality somewhere here? All our weapons and armors get hit during missions and we should be able to repair them here (check Tactical/Overall mechanics section).
  • We should also repair and rearm our vehicles with cost in resources.
  • Can’t decide if it is should be here or in personnel section, but nevertheless, when mutating soldier let it take some time. Like one full day to mutate full body of a soldier. Or maybe even make it random. That some soldiers are less resistant and their body will subjugate faster to the mutations and for others it will take more time. We can have it shown, as some preliminary scanning of how our volunteer is suited to become part of Pandora world. For some it could be the reason, why not to try to mutate them, as whole process will take too long.
  • Add independent items to manufacturing list as soon as we will find them. As they are worse than PP versions they could be cheaper.

Strategic/Diplomacy

Great in this build:

  • I like that there are decisions to make which affect factions one way or another.
  • Internal struggles within factions are also great idea.

Introduce/change:

  • Tone down reputation gains from haven defence missions. I mean for faction as we collect it really fast. For haven leader reputation gain can stay as it is.
  • Do not punish player for events happening in havens far away from our bases, range limit may be triple or quadruple Manticore flight range from any of our reactivated bases. And that punishment may decrease with that range – 1 flight range big punish, 2 ranges with moderate, 3 ranges with small, 4 ranges with minimal. And why from base, not the dropship itself? Because factions more likely tend to know where is your base rather than where is your ship. :wink: And it is more likely to expect from you that you will have at least ship near vicinity of your bases. Of course you can even produce another one there. Beside that player could cheat the system by putting dropship far away and not take any consequences for lost havens.
  • Change things unlocked with diplomacy. Major steps 25%, 50% and 75% should be really significant, but things like trading resources, trading items (add this at least for magazines!), recruitment should be available already on friendly relation with higher diplomacy affecting only exchange rates and costs (every 5% or 10% relation change should have some impact).
  • Make recruitment less restricted. I know we should struggle to have enough personnel to do all kind of missions, but right now replacing a soldier is really expensive with current resources available. Let them be recruited without faction equipment just to decrease that cost. They can use stuff after fallen soldier. There could be also option that supportive or allied faction will send that recruit to either our base (not likely?) or at least to the closest haven which we will designate (we could do that in next point).
  • Diplomacy screen should have buttons for another 2 screens. One with summary of all recruits waiting somewhere on the globe. It should list class, level, cost and maybe distance to nearest PP base (or aircraft?). And with proper diplomacy standing we could recruit them by clicking Recruit button and designating their destination to arrive (look to above point). Hovering over soldier could show us his personal perks. Clicking on him should link us to that specific haven on the globe (not the haven screen) where such soldier resides.
  • Second new screen with trade, showing exchange rates, available resources and nearest distance to PP base (or aircraft?). Clicking on it also link to view of the haven on the globe.

Tactical/Overall mechanics

Great in this build:

  • Limiting squad size to 6 soldiers was nice move which added to the tension when soldiers are low level recruits. Later on it is destroyed by super-human abilities and overwhelming alien counts (which probably are to counter those super-abilities) but start of campaign is quite nice.
  • Soldiers’ barks dependant on their condition are really great way to build a mood.
3 Likes
3

Introduce/change:

  • Most… really MOST important thing in combat – enemies and allies should disappear after breaking line of sight (unless spotted by other means). Really! How do we know if they run, take a pee, reload, overwatch or do anything else, when they go behind any building or even large vehicle? We should not know that unless we have some super x-ray vision with all of our soldiers.
  • Change willpower balance implementing 3 things. First one - decrease penalty for deaths. At least for aliens. Right now keeping them in permanent state of panic is really easy. Maybe it is linked to the ease of dispatching next soft aliens, or maybe aliens are durable enough but skills are overpowered, but nevertheless when you start killing them, fight becomes really easy, so please decrease effect of constant panic somehow.
  • Second thing - this will probably link to the above point. Decrease effect how much WP our soldiers acquire. Maybe it should be linked to soldier level? If it is higher after dividing by 2 (I refer here to my number of levels, see Strategic/Personnel) than WP granted for enemy then that WP should not be given? So soldiers on level 6+ would not get WP for Arthrons, on level 8+ for Tritons, on level 10+ for Sentinels, on level 12+ for Sirens and Chirons and on level 20(?)+ for a Scylla. It would indicate that they don’t get excited and invigorated by such kills. Because right now they gather WP like some magical superpower. We use some skill by spending WP, then we usually kill an enemy, thus regain WP and we can do again such trick, even if not in the same turn then in the next.
  • Third thing – Decrease number of skills which generate Will Points. There can be one such Recover which penalize you by taking out all your Action Point, but other should be removed or in other way debuffed. Right now I can’t actually remember when the last time I have used Recover ability. I think it was in BB2 or BB3. This is partly to above point with WP rewards for kills, but there are also other skills. I suppose that WP should be limited resource like it was in BB1 or BB2 where you have struggled to maintain WP, because of Overwatch cost just to not panic, and were holding some grenades to have them to use at last resort (arrival of queen). That was intense. Now I bump WP as some Street Fighter or Mortal Combat booster and then I start making Combos and Fatalities. I suppose this game was supposed to not be like that.
  • Revamp xp earned from missions. Use some proportion of alien deployment units to our average level or something like that. Currently when we have mission with few Arthrons and one Mist Sentinel we earn almost the same amount of xp as when we encounter horde of enemies including Chirons and Sirens. It is not really proportional to the danger both these mission pose. And this is also reason that early we earn levels too quickly.
  • Please do not destroy items unless aliens or one of the factions will have disintegration technology! And it applicable not just to explosives but to any other type of damage (btw fix that damn bug which is since at least BB3 or indicate somewhere that explosives do more damage to equipment) - Make item broken and unusable until we will repair it in our base. But do not force us to produce another piece of equipment because old one got hit with a bullet or explosive shrapnel. Make that repair at least half as expensive as production of new item, and let it take time, but for gosh sake don’t make items vanish in thin air. Or even if you really wish to keep those vanishing items then set condition that enemy have to deal at least three times more damage than item has HP. For example if Assault Rifle has 70 HP then make it vanish after receiving 210 damage (remember also about armor). After receiving double damage, repair could cost and take time like 75% of original cost and time of production. Because right now it is frustrating that your soldier is holding Ares, Mercy and Medkit and after 3 grenades he has nothing in his arms (well this one can be almost dead by then if he was lightly armored). But for heavy soldiers it is frustrating. You send guy with his powerful items ready for action, you get close to enemy, bam, bam, bam some grenade spam… And he has only his bare arms to fight. Resources spared here could be spend on automated transport system (see Strategic/Geoscape section).
  • Bring back bullets punching through objects (I remember that in BB1 and BB2 my sniper could shot at enemy behind cover, cover was destroyed and enemy was hit, just for less damage) - it will be great when firing on objects made of glass or thin metal sheets that even single bullet will do something except removing enemy cover
  • Glass windows should not block sight and more importantly assault rifle bullets!
  • Explain or maybe fix mechanic where soldiers stop moving when spotting enemies. It works currently in random moments (or at least look so, do soldiers stop only when going towards the enemy?). It is not just when we spot completely new enemy, sometimes enemy will run away and when we will follow him soldier will stop when he will spot him, and sometime soldier just run no matter if he just spotted 5 new or old enemies. It is frustrating if you try to rely on that mechanic and it doesn’t work - so you need to move almost square by square if your soldier is wounded and you don’t know what is out there and you don’t want to put him in danger.
  • Differentiate bleeding effect, some body parts like head, torso or abdomen could bring more bleeding when disabled (for our soldier too)
  • Change soldier movement to not trigger jumps from upper floors. Unless our soldiers have some unnatural legs (Agile Legs from Disciples?) or some super augmented leg armors it is strange that our soldiers must go up using staircase or ladder and then they just jump down from 2nd floor for example. Normally such movement after alien grenade would hurt them a lot from falling damage.
  • For items with stun property when enemy won’t be stunned during attack don’t show only “Resisted” info. Show also damage done and against what value we were using it. It will help to decide if we’re using something wrong or the enemy is just too strong to be stunned.
  • For electroshock weapons (except vehicle weapons) decrease their damage from 180 and 200 to 120 and 150, but let that damage accumulate in one round. So that two attacks at the same target can disable enemies with HP up to 300. 3 attack up to 450 HP and so on. That could help Aspida to function better on battlefield. After one round that accumulated damage would dissipate.
  • Music during firefight is not really interesting (music from Dotkov was better in this case)
  • I suppose you won’t change current inventory management cost, but for me it is really annoying that changing magazine cost the same “time” as complete overhauling inventory between soldiers or from crate to the inventory. Now everything is set at 25% of Action Points, no matter how many and what items do you move. I see that all items weight between 1 and 5. Items with 1 weight should take 10% of AP, while moving heavy weapons should take even those 50%. And by that I mean every moved item. So if you pick up w 2 heavy weapons you spend whole turn to put them in the inventory. Of course use it for moving items between whole sections of ground, crate, ready items and backpack. Moving something within one section should not take time. Add there also possibility to reload weapon through inventory. Also will there be different ammunition as you announced a while ago for some of the weapons? That would probably require such ‘reload through backpack’ functionality. And as side note (I had in bugs thread) don’t let Assault (or any other soldier) mess with inventories of other soldier without spending Action Points of those soldiers. :smiley:
  • Please give us slider in options to speed up animations. Or even better would be some key like page down to skip animations for unit already moving. Watching enemies may be important, but sometimes it is just formality, but I would love to skip civilian animations.

Tactical/Maps

Great in this build:

  • All new Disciples and Synedrion settings are fantastic (when you will remove all the bugs from the maps), even new buildings in New Jericho havens increase replay potential and don’t get boring fast enough.
  • New alien Nests are great, with many (maybe still not so many, but I think that more than 3 map plots are there) changing ways and Hatching Sentinels as our primary target are way more interesting than old design.

Introduce/change:

  • Bring back bigger maps from Backers Build 1 and BB2. Current are only fine for most of 15 or maybe 20 enemies at once. Or I don’t know, maybe you will decrease number of enemies fighting at once? But currently when we get 20+ enemies then grenades and rockets become only feasible option - with one explosion you shred many of them and game become boring. I know that explosives will get scatter, but even with that scatter and so high number of enemies we will always hit something. And imagine there will be also allied soldiers somewhere – that will be cluttered fight, almost like medieval battle in close distance, face to face, sword to tentacle… Bigger maps would also allow for ambushes even during a day. Currently we can spot enemies on whole map if nothing is blocking our line of sight.
  • Will there be maps wholly covered by mist? Why we see mist over the geoscape rolling in all direction and we go to the spot and there is none of it? That would also prevent skill spam just to not panic in such missions.
  • Add ceiling to alien bases. Those grenades flying from behind walls are really not welcomed

Tactical/Missions

Great in this build:

  • Night missions have their own feeling, the moment when you can’t see enemies before they can see you is quite thrilling, here also music from Mr Broomhall gives the mood)
  • Fantastic change to base defence missions – no more breaches in each room. Now we can focus on few places to defend.

Introduce/change:

  • On missions where we have allies please change sound at the start of their turn. They have the same as we have and this is misleading if it is our turn starting.
  • I’m not sure if it will be useful in every kind of mission, but show us which turn it is. You can make some counter near “End turn” button. It would also allow to reference to specific turns instead of timestamps while commenting videos. Also will give us some indication how much turns it took to finish each mission.
  • After mission when there is summary window show us how many different enemies soldier have killed (different mutations on same class of enemy can be aggregated in one record/column/icon)
  • Show somewhere on the UI maybe next to camera rotating buttons which elevation we have currently selected (those selected with mouse wheel)

Tactical/Skills

Great in this build:

  • Great update of abilities “End turn/Standby” (it was one of my request to not end turn for a soldier unless we will click End Turn) and “Bash” (working now with almost any item and with bare hands (!), now even medkit can do damage) :smiley:
  • Overall better balancing of classes, but Assault without additional limits is still too good
  • Ignore pain – what a fantastic skill, which brings idea who Disciples can be and what are their capabilities.
  • Field Medic – interesting that it also mends armor.
  • Great that Mech Arms grant now repair and heal to any soldier.
  • Mind control with its mechanic is really interesting. I still can’t say if it needs some balancing but I like how it works. Maybe cost to maintain control should be increased? But this ability really may prevent Will Points spam from player’s side.
  • Pain Chameleon – that is great ability. I wonder if we will be able to mimic it with some advanced armor. Infiltrator for example could have such feat – except his activated ability.

Introduce/change:

  • Overall you know what? Backers Build 1 without skills was more interesting in terms of combat pace, balance, danger and survivability than Backers Build 5 with all current skills. Right now we have “super-heroes fest” where we try to kill everything in first turn. Maybe some players have even contests who will win faster against 20+ enemies (of course using only one turn), but I hope this is just oversight to let players test everything and then balance things based on input collected from game clients.
  • Fire ability – when in free aim mode show us zoom range indicator, because right now it is frustrating when you decrease zoom to better see what is closer to this soldier, then camera exits free aiming mode, and when you enter it another time, then zoom is set to far away target again so you need zoom out)
  • Give soldiers general ability (like all have Bash) to fire half of burst with automatic weapons. Sometimes there is that enemy clinging with 10 or 20 HP and you still need to fire full burst of assault rifle or other weapon wasting many bullets. BTW does the Shotgun use only half of pellets during overwatch and return fire? :smiley:
  • All skills and items involving virus – I’m not quite sure I like it right now. Previously becoming a zombie was something that could scare, and right now when there is only panic effect it is not so terrifying.
  • Strike – ability for many melee weapons seems not to take advantage of Strength of a soldier. Please add such modifier just like with Bash ability.
    • Assault
  • Assault training – give it a speed boost, just like Infiltrator Training is giving stealth boost – currently assaults are fast at the beginning thanks to armors(!?).
  • Dash – make it usable only twice per turn and grant each time only 25% TU (1 AP) for movement. Assaults are not Flash and they should not run all over the map.
  • Return Fire - should work just so many times, how much AP have left while ending turn and dividing it by half of typical cost in AP for a shot with automatic weapons, so assault rifles would take 1 AP to return fire, PDW only 0.5 etc. I’m not sure if weapons with shots which can’t be divided like sniper rifle, handgun or shotgun should be allowed to return fire as they are not designed to firing quick inaccurate short burst, but if so then they should use full AP cost - this would end bullet spam from single units. It is really unnatural that Arthron can shot only 2 times in their turn, and a lot more in our turn. Or even our multi-class sniper/assault guy trying to return fire when he already shot in his turn one or even two times - I don’t know but maybe we have automatic sniper rifles? I would also decrease accuracy of such shots especially if single shot weapons will be still allowed to return fire.
  • Ready for Action – I would say it is nice, but not really. I would let it to decrease AP cost by half (see Tactical/Overall mechanics section), but not completely eliminate it.
  • Rally the Troops – it would be ok if it would be really 1 / turn use. If we have 4 assaults they all can use it and spending 2 AP gain 3 AP. For them it is maybe not so big gain, but now imagine other classes who already have moved but now again have their full turn. Limit it for 1/turn use by only one soldier and we have good skill.
  • Rapid Clearance – allow to regain only 2 AP, cost can be decreased to 4 WP. They already can have 1 AP if other Assault will Rally the Troops and 2 AP for move from Dash. And will save AP for inventory actions. That will be enough.
    • Berserker
  • Berserker training – I would also allow here increase his speed. Why armor is giving it? Of course his armor is light, but shouldn’t berserker in any armor be faster than any other class in such armor?
  • Armor Break – additional 50 shred damage? Don’t you think it is too much? It is more than any weapon can do. Most powerful launcher or grenade can’t do such thing in instant. Acid weapons need 5 turns to do something like that. And here we have berserker using his will to smash almost any armor. It can bring down most heavily armored parts of queen or vehicles - with few exceptions, but still after this hit any assault rifle can wreak havoc on queen or armored personal carrier because there is almost no armor. And that was use of 4 WP. Now imagine Berserker uses it for his next 2 or 3 sword attacks. His target is left without armor on at least 2 or 3 body parts. That is insane. I would understand 10 shred damage after using 2 WP. But 50 is too much with one blow.
  • Close quarters – 25% less damage in close combat. This is XCOM baby! How the hell is that possible? Does berserker bend space-time somehow, so he receives less impact and thus damage, but he is able to do that only for close attacks? Please leave such effects maybe for mutations, or maybe some super-powered berserker armor. Not a passive skill some human use. Please give him some other skill in place of this one.
  • Bloodlust – ok, it may be his great value while in close combat and when getting hit, but change one thing. Increased damage should be only with melee attacks. Why would he do more damage with any gun or grenade?
  • Adrenaline Rush – all actions brought down to 1 AP? Imagine it paired with abilities or attacks which normally use 3 or 4 AP, thus are naturally limited to 1 use / turn (in most cases). Now bam! I can do all such things 4 times per turn. No thank you. Change it to decrease any action cost by 1 AP (min 0.5 AP?), and give it timer so it may work for 2 or 3 turns. So it would be a combination of Instil Frenzy and Quick Aim (current versions), but don’t allow for Jet Jump, Sniper shot, Grenade Launcher shot to be done 4 times per turn.
    • Heavy
  • Body Slam – it is nice, but please also add Strength modifier as in Bash ability. Right now it doesn’t matter if guy tossing himself with 6 flamethrowers in backpack has more or less condition to do that - well low Strength will decrease his range, but that is normal penalty, we need also bonus for high Strength.
  • War Cry – to be true I didn’t used that skill even once. Everything that was near my Heavy was obliterated by his weapon so I didn’t bothered with spending WP. Everything that was away was too far for use this skill. I could use it to decrease chance of getting hit by enemy after rushing under his nose, but still I preferred to have WP for something else. Btw with one use of that skill I wouldn’t prevent any enemy from attacking unless that enemy would want to move and shoot with sniper rifle or launch something from his abdomen (yes Chirons it is for you). And using it twice for 6 WP to eliminate such attacks is quite a lot, having in mind that we would probably want to have some WP and there still would be enemies with attacks ready to use on our heavy. 9 WP to eliminate chance for standard attacks of most enemies is tempting, but then this is quite many WP burned for one turn. So I don’t know. Maybe decrease WP cost, or make it last longer? Or maybe not. This one is tricky for me and would require a discussion. Because disabling enemy attacks just with a cry is… well, strange at least. Maybe it should be light supportive skill to use… so cost 2 WP, not stack more than once per turn per enemy and work on greater distance?
  • Boom Blast – interesting skill, really fit heavy class. But taking into account how powerful explosive weapons are, maybe it should cost more than 5 WP?
  • Inspire – no… say no to this one. Will Points should be hard to replenish. But here you activate Boom Blast, sent 2 grenades and voila, you have 2 WP for all team members, repeat.
  • Rage Burst… with heavy cannon or sniper rifle. Really? Make if only for automatic heavy weapons. If heavy can do such thing with assault rifle why assault can’t do that? Because he is never enraged? And why you have removed firing arc with selection of 2 points in space? It was quite great.
    • Infiltrator
  • Surprise Attack – it is fine but maybe change name to Disabling Attack, I would think that ‘surprise’ connects with increased standard damage, not the addition of stun damage.
    • Priest
  • Mind Control - is this his first skill to learn? It is more powerful than any other of his skills, including Panic which is next. I know it is WP consuming and when controlling powerful enemy we are left with no power to fuel next skills, but still 2lvl priest can wreak havoc taking control over some powerful enemy which happens to have lower WP. Move it to some higher level.
  • Induce Panic – fine skill, but 2 WP cost for completely disabling enemy is quite cheap. Compare it to War Cry (3 WP for 1 AP taken – for many enemies yes but still WC won’t save your ass in critical situation vs unexpected enemy). Increase it to 4 WP?
  • Psychic Ward – complete passive immunity for your team? Take one 6th level priest. :wink: Really it could increase resistance against (reduce damage of) WP attacks, but not grant full immunity. Or maybe make it activated ability where you select 3 team members and you spend 3 WP per one of them and then they can have immunity.
  • Mind Crush - is really powerful with the possibility of attacking something behind wall without removing this wall, and without taking care of enemy armor, and all of this without using AP. Maybe limit its range to 8 meters or make it that you select up to 4 targets only? And I suppose that such heavy mind blast should take that 1 AP.
  • If you will introduce more levels then another skill for Priest could be Will Drain to steal WP. Make it cost 3 AP, and that you retake 6 WP from target (may be even your own soldier – maybe limiting just to Disciples as such servants).
    • Mutants
  • Poisonous darts – you really need to make this attack strong, because without 2-handed weapons I think we would only mutate berserker with this torso (sometimes). I would omit it otherwise.
  • Electric Strike (from Disciples torso tentacles) – nice addition but I think that is should have at least 1 AP cost.
  • Electric Kick – this damage needs to cumulate, because 100 is not enough for most of enemies and when they are so much down with HP it is better to finish them off instead of stunning.
    • Sniper
  • Extreme Focus – limit it to one shot weapons, because making overwatch easier with this skill should not affect any weapon, especially those with recoil.
  • Quick Aim – limit for 2 uses per turn, because how many shots can you squeeze in 1 turn? It is the same time frame that all units use, and now one of them fires lightning fast? Instead of increasing accuracy, decrease it. Btw limit it to weapons with at least 2 AP cost. It makes handgun shot instant thing with only Willpower limiting your “mini rage burst”.
  • Weak Spot – make it activated ability modifying next shot. Sniper should be limited with that armor removing ability. I would say it requires really careful shot, thus should cost at least 4 WP.
  • Mark for Death – don’t you think that sniper could mark only one target at the same time and it should be limited to 2 enemies per turn? How many he can mark in such short time frame? Marking only one target at a time would decrease synergy with explosives.
    • Technician
  • Fast Use – when selecting item from skill description please don’t modify all abilities - only those which are granted by Medkits, Stimpacks and Mech Arms.
  • Remote Deploy – quite ok, but maybe decrease throw range to 6 meters. This is quite heavy turret out there. J
  • Electric Reinforcement – how exactly you imagine increasing armor with electric power? Please change this skill as this is some kind of magic (especially when it works all over the map)
  • Ram – add control zone for it, just like we do with Overwatch. Highlight the path which vehicle will travel, let us decide about range (make also minimum range it will need to pass), and highlight obstacles which will be destroyed (in yellow), and those which will stop Ram movement (in red). Then we will be able to correct path we want it to travel.

Tactical/Items

Great in this build:

  • I really like those touches to damage and armor durability. Machine guns now do some damage to even heavy armors. Snipers can resist more, but still not as much as assaults.
  • Shredding was changed in fantastic way. Now we can be sure that we will shred at least something instead of praying for it to work.
  • Quite many new items with new properties (paralyse, armor penetration, powerful shredding) and now we can also attack with acid, bleed, poison, virus and sonic after doing proper research or just by acquiring proper loot.
  • Soldier mutations – I really like them as they give really unique abilities to the soldiers, and we can mutate soldier again to have different set of mutations, that is nice.
  • Independent haven weapons and armors also give some flavour – I just don’t know why we can’t manufacture them, as they are simpler than our gear and there is no diplomacy option to acquire research about them.
  • Shotguns received return fire ability and now they obliterate any alien which date to attack from close range. This makes Assault class really great team guardian against melee attackers – question is if not too good.
  • Good that explosive weapons became little weaker and more expensive. When scatter will be introduced it will make them supportive items instead of weapons of mass destruction.
  • Good that sniper rifles received some damage boost as it give them more flexibility on field – right now sniper can dispose weaker enemies with one shot, and nicely wound enemy in one turn (later overpowered by skills)
  • Great that medkit can now remove poison.
  • Good that heavy armors received some speed boost, now assaults are quite mobile even from the beginning (but later it is overpowered with skills), and heavies don’t stay SO much behind (and about assaults is next point in section…).

Introduce/change:

  • It is not so good that assault armors received speed boost, undoubtedly assaults are now quite mobile even from the beginning (later it is overpowered with skills), but I would give that bonus to Assault Training skill not the assault armors itself (which lead to next point).
  • Speed modifier on armor should be at least in some way correlated with its weight. Right now light armors are slower than medium armors which is strange.
  • It was supposed to be positive point, but after thinking it over I have changed my mind - differentiating perception with armor is nice touch to equipment and balance between classes, but I’m not sure if we don’t see too far away, especially with snipers, berserkers and infiltrators. Currently if there is no obstacle on the map between our unit and enemy unit, we will spot it on the other side of the map even in first turn. I would decrease all values by at least 5 points, and maybe decrease penalty during night missions (we need to see something then)?
  • Bad that sniper armors received accuracy boost, and heavy armors received accuracy penalty compared to BB4 – from what I saw in Lets Play videos most of the players tend to put sniper helmet on every soldier. Enemies tend to shoot at torso (I know it will change with AI improvements), and head is quite small target for weapon scatter, thus sniper helmets are too good compared to other helmets. For other parts it is hard for me to judge as I haven’t played really extensively (game breaking bugs). I think that maximum boos from whole armor set should be like +30% or +25%, the same with penalty where max penalty should be like -30% or -25%, now whole range from armors is from +45% to -45% (thus many threads that heavy is useless, which is not true, but you know – it is some kind of feedback)
  • Add Repair Kit item to the game. Currently we can repair Scarab or any other vehicle only with Technician - so if we won’t ally with them we are not able to do any repairs (this also lowers vehicles usability).
  • Can I hope for already deployed turrets on some defence mission? Those can even be not deployable but just stationary guns around some strategic building. They can work the same way as technician turret – so it is not a Big Bertha gun kind of request.
  • Why Fury-2 missile launcher can’t be targeted? Bring it back as something what we can disable.
3 Likes
4

Tactical/Units (mostly enemies)

Great in this build:

  • Tritons – overall nice idea of enemy. He really play well with mist mechanic, and it you will catch you close they can paralyse or vampire your soldier. :slight_smile: Also can regenerate themselves. I hope there will be more enemies with properties like Tritons.
  • Evolved versions of enemies – really nice idea of how to make Arthrons (and other units) useful and challenging later in the game.
  • Agile Scylla – what a fast beast!
  • Hatching Sentinels – now they can be really dangerous if you won’t plan your strikes carefully, that is nice change
  • Good that death of small aliens don’t affect Will Points of our soldiers and aliens alike. Those would be too big gains for us and too big losses for enemy.
  • I still think about damage upgrade for Arthrons if it is positive, but right now I think it is. They are really fragile in their basic form (even with armored parts) so it is good that they pose more threat – which is more similar to original X-COM. And they now overwatch – that surprised me few times.
  • Addition of acid worm and poison worms is quite interesting, when hatched in great numbers in alien bases they can surprise player in not the most pleasant way. Which is good, because previously they were just ‘meh’.
  • Good that Siren don’t cause panic to her allies, previously it was ridiculous.
  • Mutogs – real reason I may want to ally with Disciples :wink:
  • Civilians – now they really flee from enemy. I like that!
  • Armadillo – now is controlled by AI? I didn’t need a soldier inside of it to be able to fire and ram, it may be a good change having in mind that we can only take few soldier on the mission and one of them had to become a driver.
  • Good that Scarab received some HP boost, but it is still quite fragile (only 90 HP more than 1-lvl soldier, even Aspida and Mutogs have more, not to mention Armadillo).
  • Infiltrator is really fine class, some would say underpowered, but I think that all classes should be like that in terms of power (I still bring BB1 and Fort Freiheit before my eyes).

Introduce/change:

  • Boost vehicles. Right now they are almost meaningless. They take too much space as for their capabilities. Right now 3 spaces in dropship is too much to really consider taking Scarab into mission. It still can have 4 rockets, armor may be as it is, but give us some ability or passive functionality to the movement to let it drive onto enemy (may be lesser form of a ram) it is really stupid that vehicle is stopped by any kind of enemy, even worm or mindfragger, and of course after firing 4 rockets Scarab becomes useless except providing some armored cover and possibility to scout large distance, but efficiency of it is really poor compared to 3 soldiers. Armadillo is way better because of Ram ability, but I would say that this skill is way too much unpredictable, unless you will change it (please check Tactical/Skills section). Still Armadillo could use that passive ability to run over enemies.
  • Tritons – how to say that? Just look at the numbers - we have 6 guys with some powerful skills and weapons, they have 20+ snipers with also powerful weapons (and by some means skills). Unless we will make use of “one and only right” tactic in this situation – “kill as many as possible in first turn to make them panic running with your 2 guys (because one is just too boring) all over the map” (can they be considered Superman twins?) you will get wiped. Please change deployment numbers to some more reasonable values. Having 8 of them at once on the map will be enough I suppose. Of course you need to tweak other balancing issues. Maybe they could fumble with more advanced human weapons?
  • There was something about naming aliens. Can you please add to UI functionality that after pressing some key those names will be displayed over enemies? Was thinking also about that name when hovering above enemy, but that would take too much time to check every alien in sight – that key on keyboard will be better.

I will probably add some more feedback in here when I will run few more campaigns to know each faction better, but currently after hotfix to 0.5.48579 game really doesn’t help me to move further. And is it not because of game difficulty but because of game broken features. :wink:

4 Likes
5

Jesus, you weren’t joking when you said to have a fairly lengthy feedback! I’m replying to keep this thread on top, as it deserves, but have yet to read everything

6

Really? That’s really long text, need more time to read everything…

7

in this build is it possible to get a bigger squad? , as you said , missions are getting harder and harther and i feel like i`ve should have more than 6 peaple there

8

With Manticore no. There is Thunderstorm (from New Jericho, 7 seats for soldiers) and Tamat (from Anu, 8 seats) dropships, which can be used to go for a mission. But they are bugged, so not so fun to use. But I have heard that you can send two Manticores to the same mission and second Manticore will fill your squad up to 8 people. I didn’t try that.

Yeah I know it is quite too long, but I wanted to comment on many things and don’t start many threads. Btw, it is still not finished. :smiley: I will need to comment how combination of classes work, how much enemies we would need to encounter, how improve many items… etc. But well it will take probably some time. I will add such points in next post, without modifying previous ones.

9

I typically trade Tech for Mats, so I disagree with your less tech than other ressources.

No fan of it at all, what happens when your aircraft is full and you are far away from base? Automated transport with your Manticore? Sorry, but I need it for my soldiers and it takes long time to find a second base and build another aircraft. The baisic store has 200 free space, 1000 mats = 40 space would be too much, 1000 = 10 could be ok.

Yeah, that is really what make me crazy. I’m 3-4 max. ranges away from an haven invasion and I can’t do anything about it. There is not enough time with only 1 aircraft. At some point you need at least 2 or just can watch while all havens getting overrun.

I think Julian said long ago we will often loose soldiers and we will need a lot of them, for this case it would be good with the leveling. At the current state where a soldier barely dies it would be better to slow it down or increase level.

That could work out, I was skeptical at first but I think you’re right.

Yes, please!!! 100000% agree! And if its only +2/-2 value, they wouldn’t be all the same!

No fan of it at all.

It is like auto-refill clip. Auto-repair stuff. Some of your ideas sounds really cool but it would make the game too complicated. I don’t think it is meant to be that realistic simulation.

Would be fine with me.

Yep, that’s what I really don’t get, why does the Tech-Ops Body Armor takes over 7 days, that is really too much compared with other ones!

Would be ok, but really it should not take much time.

Right!

I’m no fan for punishment at all, if they loose the base it might be also a loose for us (no trade, no recruitment…).

Trading items you have unlocked from research would be really cool! At least it could be an offer you get when you visit the haven. (They need some food and offer you a sniper rifle).

Good one!

That would be great QOL!

Right, that would also make the “motion detection sensor” more valuable.

Yes, yes, yes,… the WP amount has to be balanced or the WP loss for a kill. If you have a map with 2 chirions and you kill them on first turn, they all have -10 WP in their first turn!

That’s also something on my list. I’m not happy with the grenade at all. If you compare, a single grenade cost 20 mats and a clip of granades (from grenade launcher) with 12 granades in it cost only 32 mats! WTF?! The purity grenade cost 40 mats, that is as much as for an sniper rifle and you need to pay even more tech for it.
In the current state of the grenade it has low damage, cost many mats and is only useable to destroy aliens equipment.
I would increase the damage of the grenade to at least 70 dmg and increase the durability of all equipment so it is not destroyed by one grenade. The rocket launcher should only be able to destroy the equipment with 1 rocket, that is ok.

At least with piercing ammo. The “Raven SR13” should pierce through anything like butter except for massive walls. And if I say anything, I mean anything, it should also pierce through aliens standing behind until the projectile is hold by armor or so.

Yep, strange!

Give us +bleed ammo type! Would be a cool research!

Yes, please! The maps could be like twice as big with the same amount of aliens (20+). I don’t like the fact the chirions always staying at the other corner of you, you just need to shoot them to death in first turn.

100% true!

Yep, annoying!

Would be cool. I mainly switch to pistols or pdw if I’m in range. I would also like to see a balanced NJ assault rifle with less bullets fired, more dmg and higher range (3x 55 dmg, 22 range, 24 ammo). It would be just more different than the PP assault rife with (6x30 dmg, 27 range, 30 ammo). The other rifles still have to be balanced too. Main idea: There should be a assault rife that fires more like a small burst of 2-3 rounds and another that fires larger auto-fire bursts.

Haven’t you watched the superhero movies? :smiley:
Okay, it is not realistic, especially without any equipment. But I still like the idea of gaining extra armor!

I would also balance the armors a lot, I’m still doing some balanced, will post it later / next days.

Tritons with sniper are some of the strongest ones on the battlefield, they still require a bit more strategy than even chirions or sirens.

WOW? I’ve done it, I’m at the end. Now have fun reading my post. :smiley:

2 Likes
10

Phew, it makes me feel really tiny trying to come up with new ideas to add to this huge pool, but here goes (haven’t yet fully read the last ideas regarding soldiers and enemies, so won’t be touching those)

  • Bring the Tavern concept. There was this idea that soldiers wouldn’t be that easy to kill, but they would be suffering from PTSD due to, you know, their friends being Seth Brundled. For those soldiers who recovered from physical wounds, but not emotional ones, there was the Tavern building, and there was a chance that, if they recomposed themselves from their emotional toll, they could gain some new abilities. The trade-off would be that not all soldiers would get there.

We discussed this in other topic :smiley:

I’m sure that will change. Right now it’s sooo easy to get a level 7 soldier if you place your cards right.

  • What exactly will the difference be between PP/NJ/Syn/ANU classes? Because I’m using a Syn Assault right now and it’s basically any other faction Assault
  • I’m sure it will happen as well.
  • Better, more detailed text for every research. For me, what took the original XCom to the next level was the research tree, and it developed its own story. It was really great, and with the writing team behind the Briefings taking care of it, there’s no reason not to develop a kickass Phoenixpedia!
  • More starter missions for each faction. Whenever I start a new game, it’s always the same Smash The Worms for Anu, Kill The Dissidents for NJ, etc.
  • This will be tied up to the Perception system? And proper research can give us motion/thermal scanners to get a better view of the battlefield. Although, do aliens have warm blood? Would a thermal scanner pick their heat signatures?
1 Like
11

Manticore would be used as last resort. Automated will be jet drones.

That is why I requested to change it to 500 per building. :slight_smile:

If we would have more transports, and production cost and time would be lowered (and repair would be even more easy) then I suppose we would manage it.

Good one!

:+1:

12

That’s nice Yokes, and nice guys, I think you raised all important things here :+1:
EDIT: I really don’t like the fact that BB5 feels even more like XCOM than before… You are right BB1 was better in terms of difficulty and overall feeling of commanding human soldiers rather than super-soldiers… I’d thought that in destroyed world survivors would play a role of underdogs, at least for a very, very long time before some key researches and breakthroughs.
Some special skills nicely show soldiers’ progression but make too many of them and game quickly becomes a race for skills with tactical battles being mainly skill-based. I don’t say I didn’t like it in XCOM, but to be honest I hoped PP to be more like X-Com than XCOM, not only in terms of bigger scale of events or larger amount of choices/options, but also in terms of “clearer” tactical battles, If you know what I mean.

13

It was so much @Yokes it might work the way you wrote @store + transport, it is just more complex than changing some values.

14

Come on, I think you can do it! :wink:

Nice idea!

I’m not sure what exacly are you asking here? In this point I just wanted to fee 4lvl icon to be place for first class skill. Second class would just appear below if we will select anything.

As for difference between factions in similar class I mean that they are the same, thus not really interesting. It would be great if we could multi-class with PP Assault + Syn Assault. If they would have at least half of the skills different. Synedrion assault could more rely on advanced tech, stealth and surprise, but still be close combat unit. While PP Assault would bring more “assaulty” skills like Dash, Return Fire etc.

:+1:

15

Not quite, there’s yet so much potential hiding in this game that not one of us has mentioned a very important thing, and not even in these forums many people have talked about it: boss fights! Even with Queenie taking the shots, there hasn’t been a word from the developers regarding other bosses. And I have yet to get to her in BB5, since I think she only appears in Alien’s Lair Lv. 3, and I usually destroy nest from the moment it appears…

16

I was never a big fan of boss fights in PP, especially those unscripted :stuck_out_tongue: That’s true they can make game more interesting and challenging, but cautious balance is needed. I would even prefer bosses to be added later in some DLC so Snapshot team could focus on other, more important things right now. Their presence in the nests is something to seek, however.

17

The less recurring ‘Boss fights’ there are, the better.

Having some larger nasty enemies in certain locales would be fine, and having some ‘conclusion’ “big bad” whilst not really necessary is probably expected by so many people in any and all games they play nowadays that not having one would probably leave a lot of people feeling unaccomplished.

But having recurring ‘bosses’ throughout the game is just a bad way to go.

1 Like
18

So how often would you like to see a boss?

I would like to see them more often that now, haven’t seen one in BB5, 4 and 3 (?).

It shoudn’t be only like 1-2 times in whole campaign. The boss fights can be really satisfying and will be something different than always the same aliens.

And I really hope there will be more like the queen and the fat guy doing nothing in nests.

19

I’m thinking about at least few boss fights throughout the game, but they shouldn’t happen too frequently to make them something special and unique. To let that happen Queen and others should be treated more like bosses than mini-bosses (who will return in one mission or another). I don’t know it’s going to work in a strategy game like PP to have such mini-bosses, especially in missions which you’re not expecting them: it could be tense/fun on one hand but tedious/game-breaking on the other. That’s why I would suggest very careful approach with designing boss fights.
If there really must be recurring bosses fights, all missions could have some built-in info on probability of boss encounter, so players would approximately know what to expect before launching it.

20

Personally, I’d like to see zero boss fights at all.

I would much rather have every fight feel like a interesting and challenging engagement that scales upward as the campaign progresses, so for instance crabmen start off as is, but by late campaign their mutations have really scaled them up so that they are still a legitimate threat against higher grade tech. I don’t feel the need for ‘boss fights’ at all.

I would even prefer it if the ‘Final mission’ however that may end up shaping up in the campaign was purely a ramped up tactical challenge, like some giant nest complex with multiple tiers and each one sourcing tons of enemy forces and having to decide how to distribute your forces to take down the different source points against a ongoing flood of enemy, before making your way to the main objective area to do whatever it is that needs to be done… so the player has full freedom to decide to take on the source points, or push ahead and try to soldier through before they get swarmed, with no forced “Big boss” fight that drags the whole thing down into some bland scripted experience that is the same for everyone.

I think even things like ‘The Queen’ should be regarded as just a tougher form of standard unit, and not treated as some kind of special boss object. They might be rare and only seen in established nests early on, but later on becoming much more frequent if you allow the hostile influence to encroach everywhere.

2 Likes