Do missions scale to the level of your team?

[noStas]

This game is still on beta test stages:
Where 50% of the skills are Broken (RB, RtT …), and 25% should be polished (additional skills 2 branches).
There is no good finished balance in Strength, Willpower, Speed, (Weight, Accuracy, Stealth and stable & transparent connection with difficulty levels)
There is a multiclass, but there is no balance and restrictions in it.
…
…
…

Now this is not a finished product and after 6 months it will not be brought to readiness by this team, IMO.

I do not believe that @VOLAND and @MichaelIgnotus after Steam will play without Mods, so as not to ruin the game .

[walan]

@Yokes

If the game wouldn’t throw too many enemies at once, then not even one player would need such skills to be able to progress further. And that should be addressed. Not the “We will keep those broken skills so everyone could enjoy our game”.

This!

This also includes:
Max Everything skill system (even more and more efficient terminators)
Extreme mobility
Extreme accuracy

What if the game was well balanced for release? Would the beginners still call for super skills? Either the courage to change is missing or simply the will to see the obvious.

Most liked Youtube statements regarding balance are simply thrown overboard just because “someone” reports and wants to play crab terminator. Why not just UNLOCK ALL skills from the start? This will guarantee success because the crab terminators will love it!

Do missions scale to the level of your team?

I don’t want to look malicious now or anything like that. Snapshot: Just look at what YOUR viewers see! [Post Balance Patch Final Mission (1/2) - Phoenix Point - Legend Campaign - Part...] Most liked comment: +34 -0 Waiting for the enemy to take their turn when there is 20+ enemy units … this is the reason why I don’t like these kinds of games towards the end … They need to make AI smarter not throw more of it at you … [Post Balance Patch Final Mission (2/2) - Phoenix Po…

One more:

CITADEL! (Merry Christmas!) - Phoenix Point - Legend Campaign - Part 37

Most liked comment: +74 -0
Phoenix point has an interesting premise and cool geoscape… But this game has one of the worst balancing I have ever seen. Definitely looking forward to combat being completely overhauled

@MichaelIgnotus

I do think Walan has a point, though:

Not only “that”.
Snapshot can continue with the (IMO broken) supersoldier Mechanic. The future Steam Reviews will have no mercy. But if they want to react to it, they will no longer be able to prevent the damage. What is written is written. We will see …

Edit: If you look at the comments in early game, there are almost only praises!

[icemann]

The trouble for me is that now that I know what the Terminator strategy is, not doing it, knowing that it is the “win button”. Ignorance is bliss.

[noStas]

@icemann

Ignorance is bliss.

Phoenix Point is a game for passing on 4 good endings.
Try to go through it twice and write comments again.

[MichaelIgnotus]

@Yokes

You are telling above that some players require such builds to be able to progress through the game.

Actually, no I’m not. If you read the whole thing in context, what I said was that the DEVs believe that some players need these broken skills to survive, but actually they’re confusing alpha- with Terminator-builds.

Icemann & mcarver2000 have both expressed a strong belief that alpha-strikes are necessary for their survival - and I concur in that I personally find it very difficult to survive in the current unbalanced environment without multiple Rallies in the late game.

BUT the crucial point of that post you refer to is this:

@MichaelIgnotus

I’d argue that if [as the devs say] ‘only a small amount of players are using these builds’, then the builds themselves are clearly not essential for most players’ survival.

What is essential, and what will remain whether you like it or not Yokes ( ) is the perfectly legitimate ability to chain skill combos to create singular alpha-strikes. This IMO - and in the opinion I suspect of most (but clearly not all ) players of this game - is a Good Thing.

I like the skills - I like finding new ways of combining them. I think they add to the game, not subtract from it.

But as Icemann put it so well:

@icemann

The trouble for me is that now that I know what the Terminator strategy is, not doing it, knowing that it is the “win button”. Ignorance is bliss.

[noStas]

Let’s write it down - @MichaelIgnotus likes the design of Rage Burst & Rally the Troops.

Link Rally to Officer Promotion

Linked to Canny here: https://phoenixpoint.canny.io/feedback/p/rally-the-troops-needs-some-limits Rally is currently OP. According to the maths done by others more competent than I, it is possible for a 6-soldier squad to gain more than 1 extra turn of Actions for all of its soldiers and for an 8-soldier squad to gain 4 or more extra turns if you abuse it completely. From my own personal experience, I can tell you that an 8-soldier squad with 4 Rallies gives everyone in the squad 2 full turns…

@MichaelIgnotus

Couldn’t agree more. I have long argued that this should be limited to machine-guns only. I personally limit myself to this in my campaign, and it works well.

Though TBH, snipers can still take out a Scylla in a Citadel in 2 or 3 turns without ever being threatened by it, even without RB. If you want to fix that, it’s much more fundamental than the RB problem.

[VOLAND]

@Yokes

Don’t you think that this is kind of wrong approach? I mean that, basically what you suggest is, that those exploits and powerful skills should be retained to overcome broken balance issue.

Yeah, I have to agree with Yokes on this one.

EDIT: @MichaelIgnotus not that I agree with Yokes that you are saying that. I’m commenting on the argument itself.

I mean, I understand and subscribe to the argument leave the powerful skills & combinations in so long as they don’t break the game because they are fun, but not “leave them in because we need them because the game is too hard” (and, IMO, much of the difficulty arises because the rules are too complex and not properly explained).

*and though what is “fun” is subjective, I think whatever idea of it we go by we have to make an effort of framing it in the context of playing the game, not toying with it. I had fun as a kid playing Doom with Godmode on, as I’m sure did everyone else who tried it, for the first 5 minutes at least.

@Ementrude there are different kind of exploits in games, and among the differences some of them require wilful intent to use, a particular combination that if not activated remains inert. The thing with Terminator Builds is that it’s not a particular combination, or even a number of particular combinations - it just happens if you consistently follow the path that the game itself encourages. The game encourages stacking buffs and combining skills, this is something that is clearly there by design. The game never penalizes stacking, it never says “careful, you don’t want to increase damage too much because then the enemies will do so and so”. It’s always “keep piling on!” You can now move pretty fast, right? Well keep investing in mobility, try on differenet armors, augs, etc see how far you can go then.

That’s why tbh I find unfair the argument that “hey, some players broke the game for themselves” or “some players will always try to find exploits”. No, we were not looking for exploits; we only did what we were encouraged to do at every turn by the game itself.

I spend much less time playing the game than writing about it, because this I can do while multi-tasking. It took me 60 hours of playing 1h a day to come across the Terminator Builds. I played Firaxis XComs for 1000s of hours without ever breaking them.

[noStas]

@VOLAND

I played Firaxis XComs for 1000s of hours without ever breaking them.

Firaxis were not afraid to make a military simulator in skills and design.

[walan]

@VOLAND

I spend much less time playing the game than writing about it, because this I can do while multi-tasking. It took me 60 hours of playing 1h a day to come across the Terminator Builds. I played Firaxis XComs for 1000s of hours without ever breaking them.

I can only confirm!
Had about 800h in XCOM2 + WOTC. Could I find strong strategies? YES … did I break the game? Absolutely NOT. Rather, I only tried the (I think) fifth play through to the “Legend” level. It was damn hard, because there were NO absolutely dominant tactics.

In PP: I started writing here after 30 hours.

Rage burst for sniper / heavy still OP

After the first playthrough, all exploits were known to me, except for the invulnerability (stackable electric reinforcement)

[MichaelIgnotus]

I didn’t say I liked Rage Burst - though actually I do (and always have) like RB for machine guns only.

I said I liked the ability to create Skill combos, and that I’m not a good enough player to be able to survive in the late game as it currently stands without using Rally more than once/turn (I usually use it twice, an occasionally 3 times)

[noStas]

I understand, now you are a Community Councilor)

But it was still created broken and will interfere with others.

[walan]

@MichaelIgnotus

I said I liked the ability to create Skill combos, and that I’m not a good enough player to be able to survive in the late game as it currently stands without using Rally more than once/turn (I usually use it twice, an occasionally 3 times)

But you also play on “Legend”.
You should expect difficulties or not?
You don’t need survive skills for that!

[MichaelIgnotus]

No, I don’t play on Legend. It goes by too fast for me, and doesn’t give me enough time to just enjoy the world.

I played my first playthrough on Heroic, only updating when the patches gave me no option (ie. Leviathan); and I’ve now started a second playthrough on Veteran - which I have to say is ludicrously easy in its early stages, but the Pandas haven’t started to evolve yet.

But yea, if you’re playing on Heroic or Legend, you should expect it to be hard. All I’m saying is it’s hard enough for me to need multiple Rallies to ‘get out of jail free’ on occasion.

[Ementrude]

@noStas

This game is still on beta test stages

Yes I know. And I personally was not very impressed when I realised this. I’ve been involved as a player from alpha builds onwards with other game development in the past and really didn’t care to do this again. I don’t have the time anymore in my life to do this, only to play the game in my spare time.

But this didn’t happen. But since I like this genre of game, I’d still like to see PP being developed to it’s potential. We can denigrate the game as much as we like, but that isn’t very constructive. It’s easy to give negative criticism, and less easily positive. I also think that many users here don’t have any development experience. Making small changes to any software has large implications and impacts.

Perhaps it’s time to start a thread detailing what is good about PP. I actually feel now it’s about where I expected it to be when released last December (from an indie developer).

[noStas]

@MichaelIgnotus

‘get out of jail free’

“Breaking Out of the Surrounded” and “Destroying All” are the opposite.

[MichaelIgnotus]

If you’re talking about Rage-bursting Sniper Rifles, I agree - it’s ridiculous and I absolutely refuse to use it

If you’re talking about Rage-busting Deceptors, I don’t agree. I think they are perfectly legitimate, a lot of fun, and pretty well balanced with the aim malus that comes with Heavy weaponry.

As for Rally, I completely concur that infinitely stacking Rallies simply breaks the game. So I play with limits - in fact, I use my own personal Officer System to limit the number of Rallies I can give to any one Squaddie in a turn. But as I said to Walan above, I’m not Voland - I can’t survive in the endgame without occasionally using 3 Rallies to get my Heavy into action where she’s needed most.

All other skills I play with a strict 1/turn limit.

[mcarver2000]

@MichaelIgnotus

mcarver2000 have both expressed a strong belief that alpha-strikes are necessary for their survival - and I concur in that I personally find it very difficult to survive in the current unbalanced environment without multiple Rallies in the late game.

By alpha-strike, I mean take out or disable the most dangerous targets as soon as possible. For the record I’ve only used Rally once or twice in my many play throughs. Then, only to get a unit or two back into safety.

[noStas]

@Ementrude

We can denigrate the game as much as we like, but that isn’t very constructive. It’s easy to give negative criticism, and less easily positive.

This bottomless forum has swallowed so much positive and pointed criticism that you will feel bad from knowing how much you need to read.
Now it’s just a useless load and wasted time of fans, because Devs = @UnstableVoltage ignore it and say that they have their own analytics.

[MichaelIgnotus]

You’re probably right @VOLAND, but I’m a realist. The devs aren’t going to nerf Skill combos into the ground just because a handful of us don’t like them.

They have, however, acknowledged that Terminator Builds are more OP than they were intended, and have expressed a commitment to fixing that. Which is the best that we could hope for.

The game would benefit greatly from stripping back the Power Creep on both sides and engaging in a massive rebalancing exercise, but whether there is the will to do that at this late stage, I’m not sure.

Personally, I think the best that we can hope for is an acknowledgement of the problem, and perhaps some Second Wave Options that help make the game a more tactical exercise for those players who want it that way.

[MichaelIgnotus]

Precisely