I've tried.. I really have but now its time to ask for a refund

Phoenix Point Bug Discussion
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After the 4678th Crash I have decided enough is enough the game is unfortunately unplayable. It is buggy to hell and has serious balance issues

Bugs

  • Return fire killing pandoran enemy causes hang - press f12 to report - unable to upload… as get message out of memory…
  • Random PC breaking bug that causes my display driver to fail. 2 of my 3 monitors then switch off and one monitor to rotate its display 180 degrees. when attempting to correct, blue screen… upon re-launch the game loads on wrong monitor and the only way to correct is to switch to windowed, move to correct monitor and move to fullscreen… then to correct the resolution the game must be restarted. This… is… utterly stupid. I have not played a game in recent memory that merks my PC this hard… to make it clear, I am not playing on a toaster.
  • Randomly saves get corrupted and don’t load.

Balance issues - (I’m no super gamer but i’ve played enough to class myself as capable to complete a game on normal…)

  • Return fire. wtf. just wtf. no further comment, there is enough threads on it
  • The game literally forces you down the route of developing soldiers certain ways or you will lose. period. If you deviate then you will get smashed by the difficulty spike.
  • Losing 1 soldier can genuinely ruin your campaign. Save scum becomes the norm.
  • I have had a few maps that spawned 2 bombard chirons and a scylla within 15 tiles of me. “medium threat” - yea, nice one… i wonder how many people are reloading maps just because of stupid stuff like that?
  • Return fire again. because… f**k return fire.
  • Lairs - what kind of level design did you have in mind when a siren can MC through 4 metres of solid wall. GG. perhaps this belongs in the bugs section
  • Haven Defence - Where are the defenders? Come on, just admit it… you didn’t have time to develop this aspect of the game. “oh phoenix point are here, lets go sit and knock one out in the corner while they kill the bad guys” ----- “oh wait… they are coming to nick some food? TO ARMS. SMASH THE USURPERS.”
  • I saw a tooltip somewhere that said the Havens can fight back and raid pandoran lairs? Never seen it… just another forgotten thing I guess?
  • Havens go to war. within 5 minutes world war 3 has wiped out 50% of the havens in the world while the pandorans have a good giggle to themselves. Come on… thats just lazy story telling.
  • An “extreme” scavenging mission spawned 18 Athrons with grenade launchers + 3 sirens. Instil frenzy and within one turn my team of 6 level 7’s (that spawned in the open with no cover) was dead. One… turn… on “normal difficulty”

I mean look, I can go on and on. Nothing should be a surprise here… and there will be the gollop train that will jump onboard and tell me I dunno what im talking about and “stfu noob git gud”. Thats great, you enjoy the game as are clearly doing so and getting your moneys worth. I am not. the game is broken. I may return to it in a year when its been patched and modded to high hell with new DLCs. Until then. I want my money back. I even posted in early access and was told by a number of people to “trust in Gollop” when i couldn’t get the doom meter past 2% before game breaking crashes… a month before release in BB5. On release i got to 10% before the same happened… waited for the patch… now I can get around 20% before it starts… i dunno… probably a memory leak that builds up?

Rushed
Unbalanced
Broken

I’ll come back in 8 more patches when i can get to 100% doom meter if i wanted to.

Good luck to you all if you persevere and get something good out of this.

P.S To end on a good note, the body part targeting is so much better than x-coms percentage nonsense. Good work there.

Peace Out

Milny

xx

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I’ve had one time where i saw a New Jerico haven launch an assault, and it was on a citadel, which happened to be the first one to spawn in that game. New Jerico won the fight, though their nearby haven was destroyed by Synedrion. Had a good laugh at that.

Return fire isn’t as bad as it once was, though can still be pretty nasty. I’d like to see it limited further, such as not during overwatch, only within overwatch cone, or maybe not while a shield is deployed or something. Generally if i see an arthron with machine gun i try and snipe the arm off then go in for the kill.

I’d agree it does feel the game forces you to build certain ways on soldiers, seems sniper/heavy is the way to go. I have fun building with all of the other classes though and am avoiding that setup. it’s working fine so far, though not had to fight anything worse than a scylla yet.

Lairs i despise… had one this morning with a horrible layout. Started out having to head to lower right corner on entering, climb a pillar then drop the squad down a chasm to get to a ladder as this was the only path available to head for the objective, which of course was in the opposite corner of the pillar i had to climb. Would have taken 4 full sprints on the assaults to get to the middle of the map from start, then two more turns using full moves to get tot he hatchery itself. Snipers were rather useless on that map. Did get lucky and only had one siren on it though…

Completely agree on havens going to war. In one game i abandoned when New Jerico went to war with Synedrion NJ took out 8 havens in about 5 minutes before i intervened. Wish they could handle the Pandorans so quickly!

As for losing soldiers it’s not so bad once you set up a base as a full training center, 4 of the training rooms build up recruits pretty quickly. Actually had my 2nd and 3rd squad hitting level 7 before my starting force did doing that.

It can be a fun game, though i have to play it in short bursts and there are plenty of moments where i just say to hell with this. Hopefully the balancing gets sorted soon.

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I agree. It has potential but it’s a lot of patches away from it… the fact you have spammed training centres to build up recruits again proves the point… forcing you to play a particular way… Wasnt until half way through my 2nd run through that I realise training centres stack… now think that one through and realise how silly it sounds… why would they stack… can they train in 4 rooms at once?

There are so many things like this in the game. Which makes it feel like more of an indie game where they didnt finish a lot of stuff… which really is a shame.

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Yeah, I have seen way more bugs than I like myself. And, the only good bug is a dead bug…
But I digress. As long as this was delayed I would have hoped they were farther along. This thing is still early access. I have frozen up twice during the first invasion op at the end. That is really annoying. Should I keep trying? Or, play another game that is out of EA?
Look, I waited a LONG time for this one like many did. I am not saying it’s garbage or unplayable. I like the targeting system just fine. I don’t like crab monsters or the vague scenario - what exactly am I trying to accomplish here? World domination? Kill all alien scum??
Not gonna lie I like it, I just can’t play it like this. I hate to pause cuz usually when I do it is months if not longer before I revisit a game. Just too many to in the library to try out. I hope they get it together and communicate their progress better. I have seen nothing since launch but the one initial patch.
C’mon JG, don’t make me resort to XCOM2 LW or Into the Breach as I was advised! Fingers crossed.

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I haven’t seen a haven attack an alien site, but I’ve explored and found plenty of already destroyed alien nests.

An issue I’m getting now is that bases seem to be getting attacked with no alien base in range to do so - and yes I’m scanning the area with the upgrade to let me find them but still nada.

On a side point though I have noticed a change in the ability to recruit units using full aircraft, so there’s definitely been something released since the last patch, just seems not to have been announced.

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I agree with you on all your points. But i’d like to point out your point about Haven defense. I dunno if u were that far in the game, but there actually IS a map where you fight along with New Jericho soldiers. All I can say OMG i wish i never had ai controlled helpers. It looks like they want themselves get killed. They end their turns right in front of Pandrorans. They can’t hit anybody but wall. They can’t even use their dedicated items TURRETS (they had like 6-8 technicians there) in their inventory. But once they die your guys lose -2WP…
And here i was -8wp after my first turn. Half of my guys panicked because of that. I managed to win purely by luck and save/reload button. After this frustration, i say better be on my own than have helpers, who die way too easy. It’s either remove -2wp penalty or make helpers tougher and SMARTER than end turn in front of Serien…
I remember playing firaxis xcom, they had good helpers. They could defend themselves on their own and actually own aliens!

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“either remove -2wp penalty or make helpers tougher and SMARTER”

Sounds like the proper solution - was also expecting havens to fend for themselves on hte tactical battle untill they have some troops

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Huh that’s the first i’ve heard of them actually adding troops in for haven defenses. Rescued plenty of civilians, and i love how i can move in close and take control of those. Perhaps a system where we trade a few willpoints or move points to take control of the haven defenders would work. Not sure they’d be worth it to spend either resource on for combat, but if it keeps them alive the tradeoff might be a good one.

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few comments :slight_smile: as you plan to come back to game.

Try to clean PC - if there is a dust inside then it may be that your CPU or GPU hangs. I know it is bad design of the game (no optimization) as other, better looking, titles don’t do that. For me it was CPU overheating. If cleaning won’t help then try to set Windows page file to customized at least 16 GB. It also prevented game from few crashes.

It is in a game, but shows later in the campaign.

According to lore it would be 4th World War. :wink:

I wish you (and me) that when you will return, then the game will be in better shape. :slight_smile:

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That makes three of us, as of end year I uninstalled PP, and I’ll be waiting for good news to come in a few months. But there’s quite some work to be done by Snapshot to accomplish all the objectives.

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Hey yokes.

Just to be clear I installed my new gfx card (Early xmas present to myself!) less than a month ago. There is nothing wrong with the Pc. It got a good clean at the same time. It is only PP that is casuing any issues.

Later in the campaign they fight back? Well I am interested to see that one!!! :slight_smile:

4th world war… or 5th world war… either way… geez its a massacre!

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I’m glad that people generally agree with what is being said…

To be fair I’m probably not gonna ask for a refund i’m just gonna uninstall and keep an eye on here to see when patches come out…

I hope it gets fixed…

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Very well said and I concur.

I think there are quite a few people in the same boat i.e. they all desperately wanted the game to be great and have reluctantly shelved/uninstalled until the major balance issues are sorted out.

I too hope they are able to turn things around. I’m just worried that there’s too much to have to fix… almost rewriting large parts of the existing game for this to ever happen; but I sincerely hope after an extreme make over to return.

The game certainly is fun to play for a while I will give it that. It has a great backstory and lots of potential.

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In 20+ hours I had New Jericho attack one lair.
Then Synedrion and New Jericho started to massacre each other and the game lost all pretense being about fighting pandorans. I uninstalled.
Will wait for all the DLC to be added and try again next year. Maybe with the bug fixes and new content it will become what I understood Phoenix Point was supposed to be.

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I think most people agree with your post.

The game has such potential… There are some fantastic things in the game, that with a bit of extra polish, would’ve been awesome. They just never got that polish.

I personally, have not seen the many of the game instability issues, crashing, locking up, corruption, etc. But the balance issues are all over the place. Most could be fixed but I am not sure they will be, if they are under pressure to release the DLCs on time. I would rather see a patch to fix the game than any expansion.

The return fire is better than it used to be. One of the BB builds you would fire once and watch your soldier melt with return fire. A simple fix for this, would be only one bullet is fired in return fire… not the usual 3-5 bullets. Far less damage received but keeps it in the game.

I totally agree with the Chirons and the Sirens. I have read others saying how they think the game should be harder and more of them etc… but I am with the other 99% of players who are saying WTF! Keep them as they are on hard (to keep those elite few happy) but in normal difficulty they need a fix.

I wouldn’t want them removed from the game but nerfed. Either give them a cool down, or limit how many spawn per mission, etc. 2 bombard chirons when you spawn in the open… GG.

The Sirens Mind control is a pain in the arse and removes a lot of enjoyment from the game. I love a challenge and boss enemies that force you to change the way you play. However, when 3 of them rush your team and can mind control 2 soldiers on every turn, that had me questioning where the fun in playing was. If they were limited to one mind controlled soldier at a time, they would still be a pain in the arse… but not save scumming every mission.

  • I have worked out playing against Sirens you need to retreat and play keep it off. If they don’t get within 10 squares you are safe. Take out the tail and they can’t chase you. Use the empty clip from a Helcannon to kill them.
  • Chirons you need to rush and use the empty clip from a Helcannon to bring them down.
  • When there are a couple of both types… you can’t do both tactics at once.
  • If you do not have fully upgraded soldiers (because they were all slaughtered in the open in the last mission) you get to watch your new team all get wiped too! :laughing:

I am still playing the game but more waiting for patches to balance it. There is a game that I really want to play under all of this but it needs to be finished. I think it still has awesome potential, but your are right, it feels more like a BB still.

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If im honest i personally haven’t had too many issues with sirens so much as the bombard chirons. That shit is f**king brutal.

I am in unfortunate agreement… I think the DLC’s will take priority as they always do in these things…

:frowning:

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I have never tried but can you have the hostages pick up weapons and fight?

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I tried, can’t remember if they won’t pick up or won’t fire, but I do remember it didn’t work.

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I’m pretty much with the OP here. Won’t be asking for a refund but have already uninstalled and will wait until all the five announced DLC are released before picking PP up again (think I got a season pass already from backing the game early).

I don’t want to blow my top like some posts on this forum (it is just a computer game!) but definitely agree that I’m disappointed in what was released despite the game’s obvious potential.

I don’t want the devs to get discouraged, or to consider abandoning the project or anything - there’s a wonderful game can be built on this, flawed, foundation. Just a shame that with the Kickstarter and Epic money and a small army of free playtesters and bug reporters (I was one of them from BB4 onwards) a better game couldn’t be released already.

Enough has been said about all the flaws already (too many bugs, terrible optimisation, bland enemy ‘evolution’, uninspired UI, unbalanced difficulty, problematic procedural generation of levels, and a lack of variety in missions, enemies and environments) so I wanted to leave the devs (if they still even read these forum posts) with some of the things I love about the game and one humble proposal to consider:

  • pretty original setting / lore and genuinely creepy atmosphere
  • great writing - actually enjoyed reading the fluff text for a change!
  • the flexible action system is great and, with some improved AI and more variety in enemies and environments, I think will produce some very tactically interesting games
  • the ballistics system. WONDERFUL

My proposal is about cover, as it seems quite a few people are assuming ‘cover’ in PP works on the same classic ‘half/full’ model as in so many combat games and I wonder if having the ‘half-cover’ and ‘full-cover’ symbols is unnecessary and actually misleading… did you ever consider just doing away with these symbols completely? I know that soldiers duck in half cover (and lean in full cover?) but you could just have a couple of 0 or very low AP actions to ‘duck down’, ‘lean out’ and maybe even ‘drop prone / stand up’ that could be done anywhere - thus allowing people even more creativity in choosing their cover and, perhaps, helping to reduce confusion about how ‘cover’ works in PP. Anyway, maybe there’s a good reason not to do it like this but thought I’d mention it.

So, good luck with all the patches, DLC and ‘what next’ head scratching that I hope you’re doing lots of. I’ve got my fingers crossed that when I rejoin the game again at the end of this year / early next year (in time to write Steam reviews…), this game will have evolved (natch) into the awesome title it clearly can be and shrugged off its current cruddy bits like a discarded athron shell.

Cheers!

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y’know i was actually looking back at the older games and the action to crouch even for a small amount of action points is something i feel is lacking.

Definately if the cover system could be looked at I would be a happier man… This would include the return fire mechanic waiting for the soldier to go back into cover… because… thats just dumb.