Feedback on the game - how to make game better

[FArheinfisch]

Hi there,

yeah, PP is sometimes great and sometimes it makes you cry. Here’s some feedback.

1 Savegames
1.1 Fix those bugs (endless loading screen, not loading from tactical)

1.2 Then make automated quicksaves at the start (!) of every turn in tactical mode up to 3turns in a row (yeah, like x-com2)

2 Geoscape / Special Missions
2.1 Special missions should NOT spawn at the other end of the world, reduce max. distance where they can spawn from the haven which gives the mission

2.2 Geoscape is too big, adjust aircraft speed for all factions by at least +15%-20%

2.2 First NJ mission at start of the game is far more difficult then the others, no armor at start of the game

2.3 Special mission for NJ where you must escort a spy (i believe “Start Codes”?) from a synedrion is BS as hell.
I had three maps in a row where i lost on the 1.st enemy turn because the spy has low life and no armor and there was no cover available. i tried nearly every reasonable position including building a wall with my soldiers but every time 1 of those 4568 stealth sniper/-assaults just 1shot the spy. Only on try/map no4 i had cover in reach so that i could dash in the only 2 left possible flank positions and kill the enemys there (and even then1 shot got through, reducing life to 30 of the spy…)

2.4 Explain when the game decides the outcome of a exploration. From my PoV it seems that the type/outcome of exploration is randomized every time you start the exploration, meaning that you can savescum til you get a good result with the only exceptions being ambushes which seem to be determined by geoscape creation

2.5 Phoenix bases will randomly power off buildings (i have the energy upgrade but it seems as if the game does not count it in so it powers off structures >20 energy)

3 Soldiers / Vehicles
I like powerful soldiers because its fun to play them (like in x-com2) so i’m fine with some OP abilities not meaning that there’s no need for a general rebalance.

3.1 Plz let us respec our soldiers even if it costs resources and time (some tech/mat/food and e.g. 4h/level)

3.2 Change the rng-trait system. At least let us chose from 2 options per trait which will greatly reduce the number ob BS traits or combinations on certain types of soldiers. A heavy/sniper with +2str/25% carry, strongman and sniper expert is nice to have, one with thief, cautious and pdw/pistol is BS

3.3 We want statistics, i want to know how many and which foes my Assault "Shou Time “Shoutime” has killed, how many missions he run etc

3.4 More customisation options ofc

3.5 Vehicles scale badly, no, the just don’t scale anyhow into lategame. Adjust Armor, HP and Dmg/acccuracy of vehicle weapons. If you don’t use them to cheese they are simply useless (sry armadillo, but i’d rather take my lvl1 priest) with midgame

4 enemys and maps (talking lairs…)
4.1 Enemys are too fast with armor. Slow it down, really. If you balance soldiers abilities and traits you NEED to slow pandoran armor-evolution down quite a bit at midgame

4.2 Just remove triple grenade-launching chirons from game. I had a lot of maps where there was no cover (esp. in lairs) and one or sometimes two of those idiotic enemys just triple naded my soldiers every turn. This is total BS because w/o cheesing you can not get rid of them and you just have to watch your soldiers getting naded over the whole map. One bad/good volley can ruin your day and It feels helpless to play against which is the worst possible feeling in a strategy game.

4.3 Fix worm-bugs and give them spider-drone-ai. Bugs/worms landing on park bench or other tiles not being visible is annoying. You either need to nade the tile or put a vehicle or auto-turret near them so they detonate themselves
Hell the spiderdrone-ai is good (they come with maphack i think)…

4.4 Detonations of spider-drones/worms are 2-dimensional, not reaching enemys a level above or below. Make explosions truely a globe not a square

4.5 Lair maps are bad and take too long w/o cheese. I want my tactical missions be done in 20-30 minutes, lairs sometimes take hours. Reinforcements e.g. could spawn only every 2nd turn
This is especially true in late game. When you have 3 teams you do missions way more faster after another. The more squads u have the less time you spend on geoscape and more in missions so plz make them faster

4.6 Synedrion maps lag hard if you zoom out or go on the top levels of buildings, fix plz

5 Living weapons
I’m on my 5th campaign still not having seen the DLC weapons or missions. PLZ fix it asap. Do i have to check the box at start or not, wtf really?

6 Gameplay
6.1 Plz, if i totally screwd up a mission let me press esc for menu during enemy turn and not having to watch the whole enemy turn till the end which can take minutes depending on the # of enemies

6.2 Let me move my soldiers parallel, having to wait till every soldier has moved slows the game down, too

6.3 Cover! If i move behind cover, let my soldier lean outwards to get a shot off. LoS is completely BS on high-level, plz let my soldiers lean over that glas-railing, plz…

6.4 Kills with overwatch still sometimes freeze the game

I Like PP quite a lot but it definitely is more beta than release. Could get pretty good if the devs put still work in it.

[Fufuneraire]

This -> 6.1 Plz, if i totally screwd up a mission let me press esc for menu during enemy turn and not having to watch the whole enemy turn till the end which can take minutes depending on the # of enemies <- This

This ^

[AraytShah]

Every part of this - Yes!

As much as I find this game great, it’s really starting to just piss me off because of how poorly thought out so much of it is - and it gets so much worse later in the game.

I’ve just come from a haven defense where:
1: My ‘defenders’ start in the middle of the open in the centre of the map. Not entirely bad in itself, but the Arthons are ON the bloody buildings around me with grenade launchers.
2: Multiple bombard chirons. Completely agree on the point this unit has no place in the game, in no way is it comparable to any of the others units. Even cheese would have problems dealing with that situation.
3: on the first turn, the enemy was able to kill 6 of the 8 civilians… in turn 1… In many cases the enemy didn’t even have to move to shoot them, they spawn with line of sight in places I can’t see myself. And that was the least bullshit first round they had, not the most (I’ve no moral issues save scumming when they have multiple bombard chirons, it’s the lesser of the two bullshit things).
I still haven’t finished that mission, and I don’t think there’s a reasonable way to do so. If I find more haven defenses like this I’m going to be putting the game down until there’s some major patches.

On that NJ Mission you mention, there’s a similar one for an independent haven, “Alchemists”. The operative you’re there to extract starts next to enemy assault units, who are for some reason hostile with him ‘just because’… first attempt seemed easy, just run him to the exit, except the assault units who started next to him use dash to chase him and in one turn murder him, with some starting where you can’t see to do anything about. Second attempt knowing they were there was a cake walk, but none the less a the mission makes no sense; he hasn’t defected, and my troops have shown up at a haven which I’m friendly with. Do they kill one of their scientists every time I show up? In the Firaxcom cames this made a lot more sense - you have to make contact before there’s hostility between the operative and their ex-faction.

Loot missions - Maybe I’m just lucky but at this point they are all coming up with ‘extreme’ difficulty. Keeping my guys and equipment in tact isn’t a big issue (because your spawn location isn’t so stupid most of the time), but again turn 1 will often see at least 50% of all crates destroyed. By the end you may have 2 or 3 crates tops, which makes it hardly worth the time or risk. From an ‘in game logic’ sense, these crates just being scattered loosely around the map doesn’t make much sense… surely the crab men have been here before, if they’re smashing all the crates they see then these crates would already be gone. Loot that survives would be in buildings, in basements, in places that aren’t so easily gotten to. The crab men are there now likely drawn by your search, not in a systematic box smashing effort. That would make sense that both factions need to get to the crates in said defensible location, or maybe your ‘liberating crates’ crab men are hanging around, or maybe defending a find. There’s a couple of mission variants off the cuff with little thought (if liberating them becomes a thing crab men shouldn’t be hostile to crates - I’d hope this would go without saying but there’s a lot in this post that you’d think should as well). I’m sure the game designers if they tried could put a bit of thought into making it both a little more realistic and fun all at once.

Part of it I think is the map size - the tactical maps are too small given the speed things can move at, which creates situations where everything is on top of each other, allowing for creates and civilians to be in line of sight of spawns. Even being within a single move is too close.

Sorry, long post, but I am at a point of just getting angry with the idiocy of how this game has been designed.