You completly miss the point while admiting the need for flawless run to be successful.
I don’t know if you’re XCom-like genre fan or not. Maybe that’s how you played other games: reloading every time few off your highly-trained supersoldiers died and every mission had to be victory. And I get that. That’s one way to play the game and whatever suites you is fine. Phoenix Point doesn’t give you other choice. You can’t recover from loses. I want to recover from loses, as I don’t find reloading game fun. It’s save-scumming and has nothing to do with mastering the game. Dead soldier is dead, I would like to live with it rather than reload game.
You put it like “you’re just a noob and I’ll show you how to play”, yet you’re speaking to someone who finished XCom: The Long War few times. Game far more punishing, longer and hard than Phoenix Point probably will ever be, regardless of chosen difficulty level. You can’t make flawless Long War run nor you should. Phoenix Point, in comparison, is easy, expoitable as hell, linear and cheap. Win or reload. That’s really lazy way to make a game.
EDIT: That said you could have not notice, but the game is wrong on one thing, Easy isn’t much easier than Legend which is a big problem around players expectations. And can generate expectation to easy win at first campaign that aren’t possible even at EAsy.
Ah, because losing one, single mission with result of total, or almost total wipe (like you know, grenade rain first turn from outside of your vision) make whole campaign, no matter of previous progress just “too bad”, right? You have to be True Master of Load Game Button apparently, and I have to try harder.
Edit: Oh, you can finish the game first run. Unless ypu make some bad decisions and don’t progress fast enough to be eaten by progress bar. It’s just matter of reloading the game every time something goes really bad. That’s all. I don’t see the reason why you finished the game on fifth approach, considering you’re not a fan of Ironman and use load button as part of game mechanics. I would say third approach at most would be average following these principles.
And total wipe of a team being total wipe of campaign is Ok to you?
Edit: maybe the UX is wrong. Losing the team should result in modal window “Phoenix Point is no mpre. Humanity have lost. [Load Previous Save] [Quit Game]”
Original XCom games (UFO:EU, XCOM:TFTD, Apoc.), Xenonauts, Extraterrestials, Ufo Aftermath series, XCOM1 with or without EW. XCom: The Long War, Xenonauts: X-Division.
You totally miss the point. Managing wipes makes these games harder, not easier. But it’s managable. In PP you reload game and don’t deal with consequences at all
Edit: Considering what you’ve said about “other games”, I’m getting impression that reloading the game after wipe was your choice of dealing with the problem in at least few above mentioned titles. Like I’ve said, whatever suits you and if that’s how you play the games is not for me to judge. I’m fine with it if you find it fun.
Mmm you play the biggest boy game, and you never reload… It’s weird that you stick to your believing that only Ironman is fun. Your opinion, not mine.
Well I didn’t thought that a full team wipe out was fine in XCOM1, even less in LW1. I don’t remind ever have seen any. On this base there’s no arguing, for me your list is plain wrong.
That said, do you want make me believe you won first campaign ironman of all those games? This too I wouldn’t believe it possible.
Anti team wipe out/campaign lost designs in PP:
Death in PP just cost some food at legend, and you have plenty.
Team wipe out when you know on start where are evac is very weird.
You play ironman, play cautious, I doubt you did. No timer in PP to push you rush. Containers/Civil/Building can be lost with low penalty, no rush.
First parts of campaign will hardly generate any team wipe out it gives you time to recruit a second team and level up this team with training bases.
Death doesn’t lost equipment. The problem of team wipe out is you will probably lost all equipment, not if one soldier survive. Except that in maps you know where is evac on start, that not even one soldier can flee is big.
Ambush are easy that they don’t show evac at first is minor.
You can ignore ton of combats during some time.
You can skip all combats during some time, the only risk is ambush, even with team of 3 it should be manageable, and pick quickly a vehicle will give a lot of margin, time to get and level up somehow a second full team.
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That said if you say you won all those games in your list at first campaign and ironman, and PP is your first fail, ok I can see why it feel wrong. And again, probably more a problem of difficulty levels in PP, not a too harsh design.
Let me answer this by quoting myself, as I’m not feeling like I could repeat this once again:
Soo… yeah. You’re just making things up here a bit.
Never said I’ve finished any of those games on first approach, ironman or not. But I’ve lost or got to the point I didn’t want to continue campaign for other reasons than losing one tactical mission with a terrible result. In none of above mentioned titles I’ve had to reload game just becasue enemies shred to pieces my whole squad. Because… why should I? There are ways to mitigate damage done and recover. Sooo… why should I reload PP in case of wipe?
You’re trying to teach me how not to get wiped, which is cute, but have nothing to do with a game design that doesn’t allow you for such mistake. If devs wont change it, I hope modders will.
It’s obvious that some players don’t understand the appeal of playing a game to it’s conclusion without interrupting the ‘story’ of the game play by replaying sections of it. Hence why they argue that the problem lies with the player and not the game design. There really is no reason why the game has to try to crush the player on every mission other than it’s what the designer’s intend to happen. That will shrink the potential player base. It would be much better for the game to recognise it has just crushed the player and actually give them some breathing space to recover. Those who wish to reload their game are not affected by this in the slightly, so they really should stay quiet and let those of us who do wish to play like this have our say.
And again you are asking a game that can’t be lost at first play, this has consequences on all players.
I don’t understand how a campaign can be destroyed by a team wipe out if player has a fair knowledge of the game.
I see nowhere in comments any explanation justifying it in context of evac points, training centers, first parts of campaign quite gentle, ability to skip all combats but ambushes during a long time, no timer to force rush and tempt try excessive risks, that ambushes are easy combats, that you don’t lost equipment at soldier death.
And that past a point when it starts be harsher, it’s more than easy to use multiple teams and go back to one team can’t make you lost a campaign.
The tools to not lost a campaign are already here, only a player with very weak knowledge of the game can think otherwise.
And then the true problem is the real difficulty of Easy, it can certainly be too hard because of auto scaling, but that’s a different aspect.
The game does have a point where crabmen start having 320 HP and crazy armor to go with it.
After lots of runs through the game, I think the New Jericho approach is the less frustrating.
I am currently cruising through this difficulty spike thanks to a team composed of 5 heavy with 30 strength and NJ armor. With grenade launcher and Thor (successor to Fury) I can take on the hardest situations. And with a technician to provide +20 armor when I expect a few shots or grenades against me it’s a breeze.
Mortar Chiron can shoot, it has to go through the armor to damage my body parts. An assault for rally to do one more bash or situations where I need to close the gap. I had a sniper, but no need for it.
Yes, it’s expensive, but I still have lots of resources and closing in on final mission (Thor festival).
