Complete game on legend. Feedback

Finished game on hardest difficulty with DLC Blood and Titanium. Here feedback, many words, maybe spoilers. And sorry for my English :slight_smile:

To complete game on legendary with new ODI you have three monthes, no matter defend you heavens and destroy lairs or not. Devs said, that new system work fine, but not. I finished at 66 day and have ODI 72%. With some math you can find, that 100% ODI will be at day 91. And yes, I defend all heavens and clear all laiers (in January, when I complete game on legendary, ODI was lower 5% with same actions).

With such ODI the only chance to win on legend, as I see, - complete PP storyline. I doubt, that factions will complete all preparations to final mission before ODI 100%. I ā€œcheatedā€ a bit, and last 10 days of research (few techs to launch final mission) hurry up by raiding faction heaven for researchpoints. I just affraid, that ODI reach 100% and I loose.

I used one squad on base PP aircraft till late game. With new prices on recruits and SP gain system itā€™s uneffective (and in some case impossible) to have more than one squad of skilled soldiers. Also, I manage to recruit only 3 soldiers without mutations or augmentations. Then every soldier from Anu and Jereho come with modifications. With cosmic price for hire and modifications there, where I donā€™t want to have it. So, I stop hire any new soldier.

The main strategy in PP - find soldier with imbalance combination. I made assault+heavy with torso that give -1AP with melee weapon, perk +20% damage with melee and shotguns, perk +30% damage -20% accuracy. With heavyā€™s +50% to melee damage I had 320 damage (with Anuā€™s hammer) for 1 AP. With 7 level perk from assault this one soldier complete all missions for 1 turn, sometimes for 2 turns (lairs without priest takes 3-4 turns). The more Pandorans came to mission - the better for me to plan chain of kills :wink: With priestā€™s speed buff lairs completed for 2 turns too. At final mission was atrons wich canā€™t be killed with one hit, so my terminator ask help from all squad :slight_smile:

Itā€™s enough to have just two bases to win - starting base and one new for prison and labs. All other bases just for bonus from buildings it has.

With new SP gain system near end game you have soldiers with max str/will/speed and all perks you want from two classes. Itā€™s boring, your brain is sleeping - you donā€™t need to choose, which skill take and which stat max to your soldier cause you donā€™t have skillcap. SP system befor DLC and patch was much better.

New augmentations in DLC is poor. There are three intresting aug: torso with shield and wallbreaking, torso with -1AP to melee, head that silenced weapon (this is masterpiece of stupidness). Without others aug game will loose nothing. Legs with jump for 5 tiles with cost of 2 AP? Why? May be to jump in windows at second floor? No, it canā€™t. Atrons place there shields for 0 AP, but shield from aug cost 1AP to activateā€¦ And what about new medkit for augmentated soldiers? It cost in resources more then TEN times than standart medkit, but heal 40 HP. And all aug soldiers normally healed with standart medkit.

New subfaction, Pure and Mutants (canā€™t remember how they called on English), killing assault rifles completly. All these subfaction in the very begging has only heavy aug/mutation with armor 30+ for all body. It was very ā€œfunā€ to fight them with starting 4 soldiers at scavenging missionā€¦ Also, I want very much to ally with Pure and destroy stupid bags of meat, that fighting each other near total extinction instead of unite, but I canā€™t! WTF? I cry one manā€™s tear when destroed Pureā€™s citadelā€¦

I complete this game third time, all on legend. And I never had attack on my bases. I always at war with one faction after week or two, at war with Pandorans, but noone want to attack me. Noone want to be my guest ;(

In this game I didnā€™t find even one Pandaranā€™s citadel - only lairs.

The only ray of light in this kingdom of bugs and boring was second mission of living weaponā€™s quest. It takes about two houres for me to complete it (final mission was finished in 30-40 minutes)! For a moment, I have emotions, like it was in 199x when I playing ā€œTerror from the deepā€. You are shooting, hiding, killing, healing, pushing to that-damn-bombard-chiron. Was really fun and hard.

In the end I donā€™t want to talk about tons of bugs, bad localization, bad balance of core mechanics or ask why we make early beta-test for 3 monthes and pay for it. I just want to say, that right now Phoenix Point is the worst XCOM-like game I ever played. But I love turn-based tactics very much and hope PP will be good enough some day.

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I suppose you mean only that there should be SP cap, not how SP are granted to soldiers. :slight_smile:

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-ODI
Yes, it does seem to just keep creeping up with little change when a nest etc. is taken out. I liked it before when I could work at it and keep it down. Felt like I was achieving something. Why do we need this relentless timer forcing us to the end?

-one squad
In my latest run through the game it is end of Jan. and I now have 3 teams of 6, but I have split the original soldiers up so that all 3 teams have 2 level 1 rookies + 2 level 2/3 (were B Team rookies a couple weeks ago) + 2 original level 5/6. But Iā€™ve found, like you wrote, that now these teams struggle to win. There are just too many Pandorans with too much armour/hit points with machine guns that kill a rookie in one shot. So it seems like your one squad idea is needed. Perhaps Iā€™d be holding up better with everyone level 6/7 by now.

-recruits w mods
I found this annoying. Why canā€™t I just get a normal human rookie? Let me decide if I want to modify him. One question someone could perhaps answer: If I donā€™t enable B+T will all my recruits go back to normal humans and just food costs?
ā€¦Snapshotā€¦please let us see what we are getting for recruitsā€¦buying blind is dumb

-SP gain
I found I still had to choose wisely for at least the first month but yes, eventually I was taking just about everything.

-Pure + Forsaken
I think Iā€™ve seen Forsaken once in the game in a scavenging mission. Thatā€™s it. Do they have a story line and missions attached to it?
The Pure were tough. I enjoyed the scavenging missions against them. Fighting four was challenging but possible. I needed to find a way to break armour without having a berserkerā€™s armour break available. The story lineā€¦mehā€¦

I love the combat/tactical system. I donā€™t think AR are useless. Having 1 point of armour shred has made it much more interesting. (I found the NJ rifle to be a bit underwhelming. I think Iā€™d rather have the 4 extra rounds taking out some armour/adding some virus (biochemist).)

My Wishlist?

  1. Remove the timer. Why do we need it? Let me play at trying to establish a full squad in all 8-9 bases if I want. Or let me be able to work at keeping it down.

  2. Make the augmentation stuff an option. Personally, I find it distasteful. Even in XCom I never used it for that reason. Make mutations an option. Let me see what a new recruit has (mutations or augmentations and potential skills).

Wow, I feel unhappy with the game as well in its current state, but thatā€™s a pretty damning result from you there!

No, system was normal for me. But training center must be reworked, of cause.

So do you want to babysit the soldiers back at the training facility? Sorry, but this would be a step back for me ā€¦

I never built a single training centre w the current game w B+T. It is far more beneficial to have soldiers out doing scavenging missions and any other missions.

Training centres should augment a specific skill or ability. Let me improve accuracy by a couple points. Or perception. That would be more useful and interesting.

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I think what we are seeing with the ODI is the fixed amount of time one has to complete the full story line. This was implemented in the Leviathan patch.

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Thatā€™s general gamedev strategy: if you donā€™t have interesting content to fill overwhelming boredom, you add time limit and start calling time pressure a feature. :slight_smile:

This special augmentation repair kit can also bring the limbs of your augmented bodypart back if they were disabled and they are ā€˜repairedā€™ after the match so you donā€™t have to spend aditionial ressources to repair them (but that alone isnā€™t worth it).
To get limbs back to function I gave everyone with augementations one of these expensive things but use it only when a limb was disabled.