Finally, I’ve been thinking this for weeks. Well said UV!
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That is why I really count on modding support to show before Steam Release. I have lost hope to get the game that I want, so I will try to modify it to my liking.
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Yep, that answer from Snapshot ended up “cooling down” our expectations 
I get all of that - in fact I’ve said some of it on occasion.
But I still maintain that you can actually please most of the players - both vocal minority and silent majority - by instituting Second Wave options that let people tailor key aspects of the game to fit their aspirations. It worked very well for Firaxis.
For all I know, you are already considering this (I hope so); but I haven’t seen any evidence of it on Canny or elsewhere.
We’re a vocal minority (most of us) because we love the game and can see its potential - I refer you to my replies to Nattfarinn above which give a pretty good indication of what I think works best about the game. But because most of us have played it to death, we are also very familiar with its flaws, and our suggestions are genuine attempts to grope towards a solution to those flaws.
Some of us, I will admit, have a greater appreciation of the amount of work these solutions might take than others - and some of us have a greater empathy for the wishes of other players who might not feel the same about the things that most concern us - but we’re all here day in day out because we want the game to do well.
And I say that as someone whose only real investment in the game is a genuine desire to spend as much time with it as I can afford.
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This might be believable if this is how it worked for any other well received game.
Lets look at the youtube viewership for PP and competitors in the past month:
Phoenix Point 2.9k views for the most popular video this month
Xcom Chimera squad 273k views for the most popular video this month
Xcom 2 37k views for the first popular video I could find in between all the Chimera squad vids
X-com: UFO Defense 487 views for the most popular video this month, 7.6k views for the most popular video in the past year
Xenonauts 6k views for the most popular video this month
Again we have Xenonauts, an x-com clone out-preforming PP by a factor of two. Even the 25 year old UFO:defense is outpreforming if you open up the time frame a little bit.
Now lets take the claim that there actually exists a silent majority out there that can only be seen by the team’s data collection tools as on it’s face true. Are they posting good reviews? No. Are they posting fun AARs? No. Are they making tons of fan art? No. Are they making youtube videos? Maybe, but they’re not gaining any traction.
If PP wants to be a massive hit it’s obvious that somehow the customer base needs to grow. This silent majority doesn’t seem to be doing it. Everywhere I look I see 90% of the comments are “the game is currently flawed, but maybe I’ll give it another chance in a year if I hear good things”. Anyone outside of this silent majority is only hearing this. Maybe this silent majority will spread things by in-person word of mouth? Seems like a stretch, particularly with the corona-virus lock downs that are forcing most people to communicate online where, again, most of the feedback is bad, but at least lenient.
The fear seems to be: “let’s not let the hardcore xcom players alienate everyone from the game”.
I submit that there might be another fear that the devs need to be even more worried about: “are the hardcore PP purists alienating everyone from the game?”
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Those who post YouTube videos are not necessarily the mainstream. Let alone the number of viewers. I’m a semi hardcore gamer. But the majority of my YouTube videos were to share my sim-racing experiences with my fellow racers. The majority of my YouTube views are related to looking for tips. Neither are extensive.
I’m really not sure what you are trying to prove. Some of your examples are of long lived games, so of course they may have more viewers. When it comes to PP, I’ve viewed perhaps a handful. And for the majority, I never finished them. Yet the fact that I started them, counts as a view. So I’ve skewed the results, they shouldn’t even count. How many other views for the other games apply?
If youtube wasn’t a good pulse on the status of the game then it should be pretty simple for you or anyone else to post something that contradicts the trend I’ve shown.
Maybe all the PP players are on twitch? Oh there’s one stream with 12 viewers… How many ufo:defense streams? Oh there’s 3 with 35 viewers.
Appealing to a private source of knowledge that no one else can know or understand but you, in order to justify yourself against a public and easily viewed source of knowledge is a hallmark of schizophrenia.
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The few YouTube PP videos I’ve started, show those who are out to point out it’s flaws, some to show the major OP loopholes, and those that show a balanced version of playing the game. The most popular are based on what? Some of the better vids I started are more of the latter. I want to play PP to enjoy it, not to ruin it. So while I appreciate those that want to rip it a new one, I also appreciate it for what it currently is. Does that mean there aren’t things that needs attention? No, I’m here to help make what I enjoy that much better.
IMHO, social media is a version of Pandoran virus. 
I think there is no denying that there are relatively few people creating and viewing content on YT, Twitch, etc., or that the game disappointed many on release, and continues to do so now.
The question is, can you, or I, or anyone else for that matter claim that if the devs do x, y, or z (nevermind that it’s not like there is anything approaching an agreement on that) the situation will radically change for the better?
Nothing can be claimed with absolute certainty no. What we can say: it is most likely that the trend of disappointment will continue if the game stays substantially the same. Even if all the ‘minor’ issues are fixed there will still be the reputation to overcome. Taking a radical approach and redesigning the fundamentals at least offers another roll of the dice. It’s possible the game goes lower, but I think there are many many more chances that it rolls higher.
The game is like a car that spews a cloud of smoke everywhere it goes. Dumping more oil into the engine every 50 miles isn’t going to make the problem go away. At some point you’re going to have to replace the engine or get a new car.
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Actually a new set of piston rings or valve seals might solve the problem. Certainly cheaper than a new engine or car. Just saying… 
Either way we’re talking about a lot of work that more oil won’t fix, and continuing to drive like that is just making the damage worse
Phoenix Point doesn’t have much engagement, but that could also be because it has only been released on a Epic (and Microsoft Store).
A cynic may say that Snapshot has had is cake and eaten it too, by having profits underwritten for the release on Epic and using feedback to prepare the game for a full release on Steam a year later. At this point, the game will be good enough to attract acclaim and get continuous, positive engagement. In 2020, the lines between early access, full release, “live service” etc are all very blurred.
On the other hand (at least from a commercial perspective) you would be a fool not to do this.
We are now about halfway between the Epic and Steam releases…
The @UnstableVoltage statement has absolutely no wrong views. In fact: This statement would get its aplaus on every controversial topic. It is also a fact that PP cannot form a fan base with hardcore players (the streamers). It is also a fact that in this forum all (almost all) tactics veterans complain about the supersoldier skills and “FTS”. The mere fact that a new word had to be created for super alpha strike shows how strongly PP missed the balance mark.
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But apparently we are the one percent 
Not relevant for the company
But it won’t, it has undergone major changes since release and if you look on Canny you will see that there are very big changes coming, some of them in a matter of weeks (those are the one marked In Progress).
What Snapshot is doing is by all means more sensible than re-rolling the dice (that can just as easily come up the wrong way again) - they are doing marginal, incremental upgrades based on the actual experience of the players with their game.
However, and I say this as someone who is very much in the devs corner, I do feel like there is a lack of communication on the part of Snapshot when it comes to describing their (current) vision for the game. There is Canny, of course, but that’s for specific issues. There is some marketing material, but a lot of it is outdated. Among the professional reviewers the consensus seems to be that Phoenix Point is an attempt to bridge the gap between the ‘old’ X-Com and the ‘new’ XCom, but that is not very helpful because it is a description from third parties and even if Snapshot subscribes to it there is no explanation (however succinct) as to how this is meant to be accomplished.
Beyond that there is a general expression of commitment to make the best game possible, that is balanced and fun for as many players as possible, but that doesn’t really say anything about what game Phoenix Point aspires to be; after all, creators usually do want their creations to be liked by as many people as possible.
It’s like if it was a nuanced political issue that’s too divisive to tackle.
IMHO, this is more damaging to Phoenix Point than alienating any substantial group of players by clearly stating what the vision for the game is. It can brief, but is has to be informative. For example, Firaxis XCom was marketed as an up to date, streamlined take on the classic XCom. That alienated plenty of players, but it also helped to manage expectations, which ultimately led to many fans of the original X-Com accepting Firaxis XCom for what it was.
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I do see updates. Were there not any updates I wouldn’t be bothering. What I am trying to discern in this thread is how bull-headed the development direction is. While there are updates, I’ve also looked through year’s old past threads and seen “I really hope they don’t implement X”, yet X is now implemented, and doesn’t make sense.
While I’m willing to throw in feedback, and bug hunt etc, I’m not going to do so if I think the devs are singularly driven towards making an inferior nuXcom, or crab murder simulator 3000.
Thing is I believe that this is the best encapsulation of the problem. As I said earlier in the thread it seems that the starting point for the game development was a nuXcom successor, but was billed as an X-com successor. NuXcom works for one reason really. Presentation and polish. While I cannot find hard numbers comparing budgets or employee’s, I think it’s fair to say that nuXcom has been able to deploy significantly more resources into polishing it, although I admit I could be wrong on this. Presentation could be a function of reduced scope. Regardless the Xcom remake ‘movie’ has about 30-45 minutes of animated cut scenes. Xcom 2’s movie is about an hour of animated cut scenes. PP has about 20 minutes of animated still shots.
PP is unlikely to surpass firaxcom in presentation in the near future. Maybe that is something to consider in DLC, but in the short term I think sorting out a decent gameplay system should be of utmost importance.
Perhaps the team has already done this, but I think the most important thing that could be done right now is to setup a VS game mode. Have someone go through a campaign against the AI, and play it normally to see what the DDA produces for deployment points, and then have someone actually play the pandas and factions under that point system. I think that would reveal many of the issues in balance. Next get Pandas to the point where it actually feels fun to play from both sides if they want to have a game with interesting tactical battles.
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Started new campaign after not touching the game for 4-5 month. So some people claim that there are a lot of changes. Yes, factually this is true, there where patches and changes to game mechanics.
But what changed practically? Like quick aim still allows to make 2 shots per turn using the most powerful weapons. A full squad of snipers is still a viable and flexible composition of team. My top soldiers are not even at level 7 yet but they already feel OP. And this is just using standard PP classes.
I don’t have a sense of progression either. Unlocking some marginally better weapons from other factions doesn’t change the gameplay. Finding out that you unlock GL by doing autopsy of a crab was a “funny” surprise, again. Acid was annoyance, then it was OP, now it’s annoyance with some side effects, like a rando crab killing your guy with one shot because acid ate his armor… This feels really gimmicky.
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This time I’ve lost desire to continue campaign after two sessions. I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing anything and don’t see a direction in which strategy should grow.
Unlocked cyber upgrades and then realized they are limited to 2 per soldier… Why?
We are going on a mission to retrieve some scientific data and fighting crabs who obviously have no way to use or understand that data. So why they are there?
We cooperate with Sindyrion and get access to their support vehicle research which is worse by stats to even PPs crapmobile. Why?
I assume that flamethrower is locked behind autopsy of some useless enemy just as GL… Very immersive.
Half a year since launch and the game is practically in the same gamedesign stage as it was. It still confused as to what it wants to be.
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That’s why I say that by not effectively communicating their vision for the game Snapshot are mismanaging expectations, which is very important for the prosperity of the ‘stakeholders’ community. And it’s a shame, because it’s not like the devs aren’t investing time and resources into the community - UV reads practically every post here, and answers when he has something to say.
That is certainly the case and the disparity in avaliable resources has been often pointed to by Snapshot as well.
Sure, but when it comes to figuring out what would make for a decent gameplay system the devs are not starting with a clean blackboard, thus the incremental, marginal changes based on how the game is being played right now.
What I think is missing is some forward guidance on what these incremental, marginal changes are expected to amount to.
I think at this point DDA has very little impact compared to RNG.
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