Difficulty raising

Phoenix Point Hints and Tips
21

:slight_smile: , indeed but what Im saying is that nowhere in the patch notes I have seen anything about removing user based performance. Which was surely a thing.

Just above that point the notes state:

The evolution system progression was advancing too rapidly from tactical battles and less from with time - we are changing this to be weighted more towards the time component making the whole progression a bit smoother.

Taking both points into account it seems that Pandoran evolution was Im march tunned down to consider less how the player was doing in battle and adding a difficulty component, and In July, they seem to have removed the DD options that affected the ammount of enemies. But there is nothing on removing the effects on how the player performed in battle affecting evolution.

To me the patch notes strongly point to being currently a performance based component affecting the rate of evolution.

Also the suggestion on removing DD for high difficulties being marked as under review, supports this conclussion.

22

Possibly, though I have to say I’ve seen no real evidence of that in my last 2 playthroughs.

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23

To see that you have to play very differently, I did that just for science (see above) and the difference was very remarkable when just doing nothing (again, Citadels 2-3 weeks later as usual on Veteran, normally end Jan early Feb, in the test past mid Feb).

24

i tend to disagree on that. maybe in papers but when you get on easiest dif. a scylla and 2 MC and one throwing glue or explosives were is the balance in that?
Next mission you can have normal enemies or normal according to the date of campaign. As i said you it gets harder and more enemies the further you go.

25

ill check the acid cannon :slight_smile:

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26

It’s also a RNG thing. Some special missions are scripted to a degree as well. Example, I had a Lair Mission where it started with 4 Chrions + 2 Screaming Sentinels and not a single other Pandoran enemy on the map. Only later did others appear as reinforcements. They spent their entire budget on the Chirons and did have anything left to send more troops.

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27

Apparently you liked it?!))))

28

OMG i would never figure it out. I started a new campaign and met my first Scylla not the sonic one. Use the burst after i manage to go near and it was amazing 2 turns as you said and boom.

I need more tips:)

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29

I’m glad you liked the advice)))

30

If you are doing well, then use that to prepare because the game just keeps getting harder

31

I play on Legend difficulty and in my current campaign haven’t lost a soldier (yet), although it is still early in the campaign and have just faced and defeated my first Scylla. Took her out in two turns before she got close enough to do anything. All I did was use Boom Blast to strip off off some armour with one Heavy, one grenade and a War Cry from the other heavy on my squad followed by a mixture of assault rifle bursts to shred the remaining armour off her abdomen and some Quick Aim shots from some of my sniper/infiltrators. All that while also dealing with some Tritons and a Chiton lobbing worms in my general direction.

Okay, this was my A-team, a couple soldiers with assault rifles have the Trooper perk (bonus assault rifle damage) and are dual-classes as infiltrators (bonus damage from their level 7 perk). And the sniper/infiltrators have the Sniperist perk (more bonus damage). So some plain, old fashioned shooting up a Scylla did the trick because the entire squad is jacked up on bonus-damage soldier perks. In one turn, the Scylla was down to half-health. Then on its turn, it spent its two AP trying to flee from the battlefield.

I tend to have a balanced play style that mixes long range sniping with some in-the-Pandoran-face-shotgun action and some liberal use of grenade launchers. I also creep and overwatch a lot. In the mission where I took out the Scylla quickly, I didn’t even advance from my spawn point. Just got into cover, sniped a few visible enemies, let the Haven defenders do their thing and get killed fighting like idiots, and laid down a lot of overwatch cones. I also let the Scylla come to me, which is why I was able to stay out of range of all its abilities. In fact, when I saw that it was heading in my direction, I pulled back with a few troopers.

One basic tip is to move up to a squad of 8 soldiers for every mission. For me, that means flying around in a pair of Synedrion Helios for all my squads. Having 8 soldiers (instead of the basic 6 in a Manticore) gives you a lot more tools to deal with all the bullshit the game throws at the player, and when things inevitably go south, you have a few more troopers to help bail you out of trouble.

As for squad composition, I have, at the moment, three troopers armed with assault rifles and shotguns, two soldiers with grenade launchers and machine guns, and three snipers with sniper rifles and pistols. I bump up everyone’s strength stats so they can not only carry all that gear but also survive a couple of hits.

And Med Kits. I spend a fortune on those since every soldier carries at least two. Some carry three. I will swap out a trooper or heavy for a Technician once I have access to that class.

Anyway, this is a long post to say that I, like you, don’t enjoy the infinite reinforcements on many missions. On Legend, these buggers just keep coming every turn, and it just makes mission in the mid game feel relentless.

I don’t find Legend difficulty to be all that hard or challenging. But the mission with infinite reinforcements become monotonous and repetitive and, well, truth be told, a real grind that is not exactly fun to play. And I’m kind old school when it comes to video games: they ought to be fun to play.

The infinite reinforcements need to be toned down and mixed up a bit. I would prefer to see waves of reinforcements instead of the constant steady steam of single reinforcements. Or steady dreams in some mission types (Pandoran colonies) and waves on outdoor maps (like scavenge resources).

If we had—just speaking theoretically—some eyes in the sky from an aircraft that happened to be on station, maybe, just maybe, we could get a heads up that a groups of enemies are heading in our direction that will arrive in a number of turns. On scavenge resources missions, that would shake everything up and give the player a little breathing room to loot and run or, perhaps, set up a defensive overwatch trap with some soldiers to buy enough time for the rest of the squad to finish ransacking all the loot crates and filling their backpacks and pockets with everything they can grab before dashing to the evac zone.

This whole infinite reinforcement mechanic is overused, and it makes every mission feel the same. In fact, the only missions I really look forward to playing are story missions and Haven defence missions—precisely because those missions don’t have any infinite reinforcements.

32

I could not agree more.

You do you. After 200 hours played I find Veteran extremely unfair at times. Difficulty will change a lot depending on how fast you progress in the tech maps, squad composition, when you do certain missions, and many other things. Most of them have nothing to do with playing well, but with knowing the game.

This being one example, rushing certain techs and playing the economy of the game to obtain certain options and ignore others. In my experience this is a big problem the game has, it is not about chosing how to play it as much as finding the arbitrary tools for cheesing it.

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33

I would like that as well. The way it is now with lots of individual actors running around just doesn’t feel right. I’ll argue that PPs main advantage is unit coordination. The AI does sometimes work together, but most often is as individuals.

In LongWar2 (XCOM2) one of the best changes that went in was the ever increasing waves that started when the mission timer ran out. You really needed to leave or be overwhelmed!! Also, a key detail was the reinforcements never had any loot, so the was no point in fighting them. I am tempted on some of the unlimited reinforcement missions to just farm for loot. If feels wrong, is sort of boring, but yields more loot…

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34

Most games in this genre have a reverse difficulty curve simply because the player starts out the game with low level soldiers that have no perks or abilities. In XCom 2, for example, one of the hardest missions in the game is the first one, Gatecrasher, because the player only has four Rookies armed with assault rifles and one grenade each. No med kits. No Flashbangs. No shotguns. No boost to their aim stats and hit points. No class special secondary weapon. Fast forward to the end of the game, and the player has six Colonel rank soldiers with a whole bunch of skills and abilities unlocked, special bond perks on some soldiers, power armour, grappling hooks to boost movement , mimic beacons, extra slots to carry more grenades, and mods applied to their weapons that boost aim, provide free reloads, or increase ammo capacity on their main weapon. Just to name a few.

The more tactical tools players has at their disposable the easier the game becomes simpler because the player has more options to deal with all the tough situations these kind of games throw at the player.

Another secret to getting good at these games is to figure out what enemies in every engagement is a priority target. Which enemies have to be dealt with this turn and which ones can be ignored for a turn.

Going back to XCom 2 for a second, an example of knowing what enemies to focus on and what enemies to ignore occurs in the early game. The Sectoid would show up leading a pod of Troopers. It had a huge heal pool and a hard hitting laser on its wrist. The players that focused on it first got owned by the game since the Sectoid would shoot back or mind control a soldier, and the Advent Troopers accompanying the Sectoid would also light up the players squad—leading to injuries, soldier deaths, and early-game squad-wipes. But the players who took out the Advent Troopers first effectively neutralized the Sectoid too since it would almost always raise a Psi Zombie on its first move. Then go for a mind control on its second turn. On the third turn, the player could Flashbang the Sectoid and—with one move—simultaneously break mind control, kill the psi zombie, and daze the Sectoid (giving it a -30% hit chance with its laser gun.

Phoenix Point really punished the players who are aggressive and really try to push forward to get into melee and shotgun range. But if you call back and overwatch once you make contact with the enemy they will rush toward you. The melee armed Arthons will also have to spend more of their AP moving and less of their AP attacking. In fact, if you pull back far enough, the Arthons will often charge in—using all 4 AP to move—in order to set up devastating multiple attacks the next turn. Unfortunately for them, they are in close range, and my frontline soldiers have melee weapons and shotguns.

One key difference between XCom 2 and Phoenix Point is that the priority targets are much more fluid in Phoenix Point and shift every turn. By disabling an arm or a head, you can often neutralize an enemy without (and force it to flee the battlefield) without having to kill it outright, which also means that your soldiers can then focus on the next priority target. In this sense, Phoenix Point is much closer to Paradox/Harebrained Studio’s 2018 turn-based BattleTech game.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but combat on Legend difficulty is actually easier than it is on Veteran. One of the things that actually makes the tactical combat missions on Legend easier than battles on Veteran is the panic mechanic. On Legend, there are more enemies on the map, and just about every single mission in a Legend campaign has a mass panic moment where the almost the entire opposing force loses two turns in a row to the panic (one turn) and the need to recover from the panic (second turn).

Battles on Legend often devolve into turkey shoots when that happens. When the enemy is just sitting there and not firing back for two consecutive turns, well, how difficult is that battle? Veteran difficulty can be much more challenging because there aren’t enough enemies on some maps to reliably trigger this mass panic mechanic.

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35

I disagree. In some battles maybe. In general, and acording to my experience, in which I fairly enjoy playing veteran, but I am unable to not be frustrated in legend, this is not the case for me.

Also you are right, In general there are some tactics that once you know them make the game more accesible. Still, I think I have to agree in the dificulty rising with the new enemies.

Also there is not really a point in comparing the difficulty of XCOM to the difficulty of PP. They are completely different games, and while XCOM was really accesible, and was sucesfull because of that. PP is not. It has obscure mechanics, unfair situations, and can be very frustrating. Which I think is the main reason why PP has not been such a big hit.

36

Yeah, me neither. I do agree some aspects of the game doesn’t scale well with difficulty, and game may be seen as easier overall, but the feeling is very subjective; depends on what you rely on.