Legacy of the Ancients weapons are too OP

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
42

I could tell you how to do it.

The only thing stopping you is how many resources you have, so the solution to be found is to the question “How do I get those resources?” How do we get those resources? By any means necessary. What means are available? Quests/Story/Diplomacy Milestones/Research/Scavenging/Raiding. Are any resource gathering modes finite, or throttled in some way? Yes, every single one except Raiding.

Solution then? Raid. (I suggest Anu Food/materials, for ease, since there will be a lot of it)

WEEK 1
Step 1: The first week of the game your only goal is to build a Scarab, and you’ll complete that before the end of the first week.
Step 2: Find a nearby haven to raid, send your team with a scarab there, enter into the raid mission.
Step 3: Spend maybe 2 or 3 turns driving your soldiers to the nearby crates before evacuating the map. You earned maybe 300-500 materials/food, 5 SP on 3 soldiers, and about 3 SP into the general pool
Step 4: Repeat step 3 as much as you need to until you have 6-10 labs/fabs, 6 phoenix bases, and a few thousand materials/food and some tech.
WEEK 2
Step 5: While in week 2(or 3 or 4 if you’re just being lazy about this like I often am) and waiting for the fabs/labs to complete, just focus on researching main missions and doing them while building a second Manticore. Also transform a second base into a “training base” with about 7 training facilities in it.
WEEK 3
Step 6: All labs/fabs are done by week 3. You’re now building Aircraft at one a day, and vehicles at one every few hours. Fly around the world recruiting soldiers from every available haven (+ ones available in Personnel) until you figure you have enough. I didn’t rush this part as it didn’t seem all that important after acquiring a dozen soldiers, but I ended up settling with 45 soldiers by week 8 (end of the game).
WEEK 4 (and a bit of 3)
Step 7: Manticore/Scarab are being completed rapidly, and soldiers are quickly reaching level 7 in the training base. Begin distributing their SP and considering what roles you want each one to be. Consider the equipment they should equip, and manufacture it. Place them on the aircraft and fly them to their region to hold.

Once you get your 2nd team out, you can use the 2nd team to begin raiding for more resources while the first team focuses more on the story. While the 3rd/4th/5th/etc teams come out, they too just go do the raiding or gathering from LotA sites. So by week 5 (February) you should effectively have infinite LotA and regular resources. (Only thing making it not actually infinite, is that your RL time must be spent gathering these resources from these simple raids with little-no combat) The game, even on Legend, is easy at every step of the way because you’re always ahead of the curve. Recently they reduced the SP gained, and greatly increased the rate of Pandoran evolution to more closely match this level of progression.

Note: Stamina will drain from soldiers doing the raiding. It’s possible to still gain resources (especially if you have Ready for Action on any one of the soldiers) even once you reach 0 stamina. Edit: Personally I self-limited. I only raided a haven once every few days, and never twice in a row. I didn’t exploit the raiding by doing so with 0 stamina, nor did I exploit instant-evacs for quick SP. Even with these restrictions, everything occured in roughly the same timeline I gave you because the main issue was the build times on facilities and I settled with 6 labs/fabs at first, only changing to 8 of each by early february (probably better to do just get 7 fabs and at least 10 labs I’m thinking)

If you raid in this game, the cost of everything effectively becomes zero simply because raids pose no threat and are considered a free and infinite source of resources. Personally, I like the week1-8 gameplay I got going for the most part other than how resource gathering works. I’d like to be able to gain as many (or at least close to) resources by doing other things, I’d like raids to not be as exploitable, and maybe less total mission count in the game overall (considering more than half end up being raids).

43

** drages**

I like the multiple teams. I wish default X-Com had that…but they do get hard to manage for me if I have more than 3.

I haven’t done enough of LoA to really have a strong opinion on it…other than to just toss my two cents in about keeping the Risk vs Reward balanced.

** Rainer**

I’m not 100% sure I can play that aggressively, but I’m gonna give this a go and see how it works for me. I’ve never raided a faction before so I didn’t have a clue about any of that and I don’t spend a lot of time reading about exploits or strategies for the game.

and a lot of that - would never have occurred to me to even try. No I like to play a bit longer, when I played X-com I’d always tick the box or use a mod for longer play, that tends to fit my slow-build up style better (and why I also tend to lose in StarCraft lol). But I’m gonna try this and see what happens.

Thanks for taking the time to write all that out and show me. I appreciate it.

1 Like
44

I assure you that I do not, and my apologies if it seemed otherwise.

Also @Rainer: of course it would be possible to make the effort to get these weapons early, possibly as part of a speedrun attempt, or something like that. But I’m not sure that this is so bad given the investment it requires - it’s clearly an opt in situation, unlike what happens with TBs where you have to make an effort to avoid certain combinations (opt out, or play with self-imposed constraints).

What I’m trying to think of is “what fun can there be had with LOTA?”

TBH, I have been trying to answer this question since the testing we did in CC, because I didn’t like it at all at the time.

Now I’m finishing my first playthrough with the release version and I’m trying to find a way to have fun with it. And postponing the whole thing until it doesn’t really matter seems to me like the best approach. What I get then is the evolved Pandorans (some of which I like, particularly the Umbra) and some stretching of the end game to do something a bit different with the ancient sites and the treasure hunt. I will play around a bit with the OP weapons and be done with it: on my next run I will either just ignore the ancient sites altogether, or perhaps do the ancient sites for the challenge, but ignore the treasure hunt for schematics.

45

Thanks for the clarification, hope is not dead yet :slight_smile:

I don’t really know all of the new pandoran evolutions LotA brings yet. I have got evolutions for umbras and the golden siren. I’ve faced only umbras up to now but the golden siren seems to be only a HA variant. I know there’s at least one new chiron too, although I don’t know what it is. Is there any other? No need to tell what they do, just if there’s more or not… thanks!

46

VOLAND

Man, I am not a fan of the Umbra’s at all.

If they close in on your group you are going to llose 1 or 2 soldiers. I killed one and next round it walked half way across the map, killed 1 soldier in 2 hits and then move over and kiledl a wounded soldier in 1 hit. Was crazy. I think they need to be toned down a tad.

47

Chiron and Scylla Smaragdus are new

1 Like
48

I think you might be exaggerating for effect there with the “halfway across the map” :wink:

The Tar Shadows are pretty fast and deadly, but the key to dealing with them is to avoid killing the host unless (until) you can properly deal with the Tar Shadow. That’s what I like about them - it makes you think before you kill.

49

LOL I’m not actually.

but it wasn’t a big map. Was a map of Syn buildings, we were at the entry, bottom center and they were over to the right at the edge.

But you’re right about that - they are fast and very deadly.

50

Short answer for dealing with reanimated Arthrons: turrets. I had lots of the things spawn on me in my 1.7 campaign, but never had one actually attack one of my soldiers, because there was usually a turret to soak the hit. Occasionally I’d lose a turret, but oh well, just toss another one in the fabrication queue.

Actually, my answer for dealing with most enemies was turrets . . .

1 Like
51

Scorcher AT is OP , and I’ve said this again and again:

We learned the lesson weeks ago, pre release :wink:
When OW works is the best option

1 Like
52

The Rebuke is game-breakingly awesome (and don’t change that) and should cost more than just Gas to build. I think Orichalcum should be part of it as well.

1 Like
53

I don’t know, I still prefer Shard Gun and Scyther

1 Like
54

Half & Half on this one.

  1. Yes the Zero Ammo is Totally OP.

  2. Other than that, I see the Ancient Weapons as being … What if, the Celts had today’s weapons to fight off the Romans?

Making the weapon and ammunition Very Expensive to build, would be a good balance, IMO. :wink:

1 Like
55

To be honest, if you will make the weapons very expensive, just make them unique.

I would like to have archaeological random missions like scavenger ones to get “weapon parts” rather then mining something. There could be energy cores to fire up the weapon too.

Any possible way is better then this…

2 Likes
56

I get what they’re going for by making the Phoenix Point gear weak and limited. It forces you to engage with the factions, and scrape and dig to get access to better stuff. Ancient weapons require a lot of work to access so their being top tier seems fine to me.

What I’d like to see is some mixed tech options for merging the LOTA materials with Faction tech to build some really unique stuff.

1 Like
57

Kinda. As it is, some of it’s just a bit more limited than others. The assault rifle proves to be useful throughout the game (if used in conjunction with other things to remove the armor) but it entirely outclassed by the Synedrion assault rifle. I think the Syn costs more tech, so there’s that to consider sort of (if there wasn’t “infinite” resources). That’s alright and I’m okay with that, but if I understand correctly the gap was smaller before. There’s plenty of reasons to choose one semi-equivalent tech over another just for the minor differences, but they’re not so different/more powerful to render the other entirely obsolete.

There weren’t really “Tiers” in this game, and I don’t understand or see a need for that. Right now the difference between using a Syn/NJ/PX assault rifle really comes down to which ones I manage to get as loot, because why bother manufacturing them really? That’s how I’m engaged with different standard tech, while the factions continue to provide even more niche equipment (flamethrowers, poison, virus) which provide interesting ways of tackling situations.

LoA kind of just butts in all of a sudden and is like “Hey, forget everything else. Just do this, Rapid Clearance snipe with a shotgun.” Which admittedly is fun in its own way. But when it’s cheap, and easy to obtain early on it can kind of take more from the game than add to it I feel.

1 Like
58

Some have way higher chance to drop than others, it seems. For instance, NJ AR’s seem to drop a lot more than SYN’s. Some heavy weapons drop a lot too, like the NJ MG. This is only my experience of course, but it’s been steady through the latest patches. In my current playthrough I’ve had about 3 NJ AR’s drop and none else. Most drops for me are ammo, medkits, grenades… only very few weapons.

I’ve gone through the whole game mostly with initial equipment and those few drops, because I’ve not had enough resources to build them (most players that do, use one of the exploitative mechanics in the beginning to fast track their reputation and resources) since I needed to spend them elsewhere. Right now I’m close to the final mission and I’ve just started building better equipment.

I agree. Besides not using exploitative mechanics, I’ve opted to not do LotA content at all. I’ve never reached the final mission in my playthroughs and I don’t want it to be a cakewalk with LotA weapons, I know I’ll be disappointed.

59

Because it’s boring to play hours and hours with same assault rifle which you get in first battles.

60

The game let you get other weapons in different ways. And @Rainer’s scenario with one weapon was an economic decision.
I like the “tier”-less or light-“tier” system very much, because everything is still useful even if you get new weapons with better accuracy or damage.

2 Likes
61

You don’t use other weapons as much as your main class weapons. As I said, you get your laser rifle and you play half of the game with that. Machine gun? Same for whole game. Cannon same for whole game. Pistol, same for whole game. All armors, same for whole game…

You do not feel any improvement when you use same weapon against the first enemy and scylla… You just throw all the accomplishment research and gear system of xcom genre for years, in sake of able to use everything. Use everything with upgraded versions? You will still have same number of options. I can’t understand the need of able to using the first gun you start the game.

Everyone have the right to want what they want and I respect, but this is wrong for an x-com game.

I still think it’s very wrong decision to not able to get new technology I can use from pandorans. If you played X-Com 3 Apocalypse, the aliens were biological too but they still got their own weapons and you can get those items, research them and use or improve your gear, weapons and armors… at PP there is nothing.

I am still against to see aliens with adv.gauss weapons which makes my own medium or less armor into the nothing as they all armor penetrating… and I don’t understand why they don’t have mutated weapons…