Hi Happydays, I’m trying to figure out how to finish Phoenix Point. 
Please tell me your example of a “fun” game.
My sample is X-Com1994 and it was a very sad game.
PS
I want to hear your side with an example to understand your image.
PSS
And how do you feel about the idea of dividing the game process into selective customization of difficulty?
I’m isolated for 3 months so what a great opportunity to try and finish PP for my self. I was hoping to hear it had gotten easier 
Personally I don’t mind hard if it is fair, and this game isn’t hard but just unfair. 
3 Likes
You know? Your right. It’s not hard at all, it’s fun, but in more than one way it’s totally unfair.
It’s like, okay you’ve had a few hours fun but now I’m going to kill off your whole team and kiss you off because we don’t like you having to much fun.
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I would like to pick up on precisely these words. My primary concern is tactics in a tactical game.
My definition is that for every action there must be a countermeasure to counter or at least the possibility of noticeably reducing the effect. However, if your team has already been halved after the first turn or your legs have dropped out due to an extreme chiron range, the fight is practically over after this round. This means that no further tactical countermeasures are possible.
All of the following aspects have already been mentioned. There is only a categorization of the overpowering combat system / skills according to my subjective feeling.
Generally:
- Mobility: As long as the maps are based on their current size, it seems totally unrealistic that the entire map can be crossed with the combo max speed and skills.
- Weapon Range: Sniper and Chirons can often dominate the action from their starting position. You don’t feel like you have to put yourself in a tactical position (just like your opponent). Especially because of the unfair “OP” skills, either you damage the opponents massively in the first round or they sweep you away immediately afterwards.
Enemy:
HEAVY “OP”
- Bomb Chiron (mortar?): Often discussed … not fulfilling the tactical definition above.
- Acid Chiron: just absolutely unfair?
- Siren: stands behind the wall and can take over several soldiers without line of sight … has also been discussed many times. Maybe the Siren can cancel the entire “WP” on the first turn and take control only on the next turn? So you would have more time to react …
- Number of opponents: You currently need “OP” skills to simply cope with the amount of opponents. The level of difficulty should make a significant difference in the number. It will also make the long turns of opponents run faster.
LIGHT “OP”
- Goo Chiron: not that much experience …
- Arthron: Bomb is dropped for 2 AP. This will at least severely limit tactical responses, especially when he’s standing next to you.
- Return Fire: can be avoided, but looks unfair when triggered. When I get shot, I don’t shoot back with full precision!
PP soldiers:
HEAVY “OP”
- RB sniper / heavy: Of course …
- Electrical Reinforment: is stackable and the soldier can half-make his “WP” again in the same turn? wow … (Maybe the effect can only take place in a 10 tile radius, as with priest, and / or cost 1AP additional)
- Adrenaline rush: someone sprints towards you and shoots you with heavy weapons for 1AP several times. fair?
- Rapid Clearance: Can be combined to create unfair terminators.
- Double Stealth Damage: stacking with other boni, OP with many builds. (Currently only usable with DLC) --> Under certain conditions, even EXTREME “OP”
- Rally the Troops: Can’t a radius be introduced here, like for priest? However “Multiple Rally” makes this skill heavy OP. 4 Squaddies with Rally effectively gives every Squaddie in the team 2 turns for every 1 turn of the Pandas.
LIGHT “OP”
- Quick Aim: Shoot 2 times with heavy weapons or how about firing the pistol for 0 AP?
- Boom Blast: + 50% range -> similar to the Chiron, but for 2AP. The difference, however, is that the Pandoras have significantly more HP. Here either the range extension or the AP costs should be deleted.
- Dash: massive mobility … Not much significant alone, but in combo with HEAVY “OP”, well …
.
.
Do you have something to add or something to delete / change?
3 Likes
for enemy heavy “OP” - their count. if soldier skills should be nerfed then enemy number should be lowered.
Good point. added …
Double stealth damage and stacking with other boni, OP with many builds.
EDIT: Currently only usable with DLC
HEAVY or LIGHT ?
I would say HEAVY, comparable with RB and in some cases even more OP (i.e. you can combine it with RB!)
Edit: One very OP example, please only read if you are aware of the risk of exploitation: 
Infiltrator / sniper with assault rifle skill, called “MrScyllaKilla”, can really handle Citadels alone.
4 Klicks:
1st Mark for Death
2nd Quickaim shot with Pythagoras at the thick armored part with the low HP (almost arround 250), deals 360 damage - 60 armor = 300 damage, bodypart disabled, armor away
3rd Quickaim Daimos shot on the same bodypart, 6 x 99 = 594 damage
4th see 3rd
=> together 1488 damage, almost any Scylla is dead in one turn with only one soldier that is not revealed, so in no danger. There are only few Scyllas with a bit more HP and yeah, then i need a second turn
2 Likes
Multiple Rally - this is the one Skill I do abuse, since survival is currently impossible without it. But 4 Squaddies with Rally effectively gives every Squaddie in the team 2 turns for every 1 turn of the Pandas.
Spot a Siren? Jet-Jump your Heavy next to her, fire off 2 Rallies, and your Heavy can either blow off her head or RB her into the ground in the same turn. Third Rally then lets them Dash for cover - assuming you didn’t stack RB with Rapid Clearance.
Very definitely HEAVY OP
Strong argument
I’ve editet my last post above to add an example …
Impressive … For that you might have to introduce Extreme “OP”?
People, if someone needs the GOD MODE, just click the hidden text from @MadSkunky.
Agreed. For me, a clear example of that is alpha striking - killing, or crippling most of the opponents in the first turn before they can even go on overwatch. It’s something that only the player can do and it has a tremendous impact on balancing both ways, because it “hides” the real difficulty of many encounters. As long as alpha striking is generally possible it is very hard to evaluate the real difficulty of any mission.
I don’t see a problem with sniper, as LOS is needed and the damage is comparatively low (usually not enough to one shot kill). I see some situational problems, a lot of them to do with accuracy buffs, quickaim, rage burst, and hellcannons and Scyllas, because their size makes them vulnerable.
OK… I’m going to start a separate topic on Scyllas before I go off topic 
Sirens have the same capabilities as the priests, I believe. In fact, previously I had assumed that priests couldn’t mind control more than one enemy at the same time, but I was wrong - they can.
There are methods of preventing mind control, including not depleting your WPs. In fact, that is kinda the role the sirens have - they punish spending WPs carelessly, because the reason they can mind control 2 soldiers at the same time is because they have low WPs.
The devs have said that the sirens will be capped to 2 per mission, and I think that is all the nerfing they need.
One huge problem is that there is a bug that has always been there that results in sometimes double (if not more) damage being dealt from explosions, and it affects all explosives, those of the player and of the Pandas. This is why sometimes an acid nade from an Arthron is just annoying, and sometimes it’s death in 2 turns. The worst I have had recently is an acid worm that dealt 400+ acid damage (yes, it spread over different body parts, but it killed the guy with 180HPs on the next turn anyway).
Once (if? the devs are aware of it from release…
) it is fixed I would suggest capping Chirons per mission and reducing the damage (in the case of acid, probably something else also needs to be done). My reasoning: what is happening currently is that bombard/acid Chirons are the scariest enemies on the battlefield, and we deal with them with extreme prejudice, alpha striking at all costs, or using electric reinforcement to completely negate damage. We are not seriously attempting to deal with them tactically and don’t know if it’s actually possible. Make them a little less scary and see if they are manageable.
Agree on the skills, though as I said before most of it is contextual/due to other OP holes (like accuracy/mobility/damage buffs) and skill spamming.
One important caveat for all balancing that involves nerfing player’s capabilities, and particularly skills: I think they are fine as they are now for a casual difficulty level.
In this regard, I really liked @Wenlock post,
I recommend reading the whole thing, I’m just making a random quote to point to it.
PP can be played in many different ways, almost as different games, and it is being played that way right now. Different difficulty levels should be used to allow for that, to avoid balancing necessary for some “game modes” cutting into other players’ fun.
2 Likes
Also agree: And it is precisely this fact that makes this game either terribly easy (no tactics necessary, because it always works) or frustratingly impossible.
It is obvious that this problem affects many players.
Devs @UnstableVoltage @Valygar, I know you are still working on balance. But what specific measures are planned?
- Minimal rebalancing?
- Total rebalancing?
- Rebalancing based on the level of difficulty or advanced settings?
- Everything still open?
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This is one very long way of saying “I like it as it is.”
Edit: Bad joke. I dont want to pick another fight.
But I don’t agree with @Wenlock. His post is high quality and explains a lot about why & what he considers fun. But I don’t agree about different playstyles as everything is bound to PP being a very boardgame-ish experience. Every strategy he described focus on different specialization of the very same mechanic, just differs in skill set. None of them brings game closer to tactical battlescape. So sure, if you like the core mechanic you’ll have plenty of options to choose. If you don’t, well… you’re screwed. My problem is game wasn’t advertised as what it become, and I feel like we’ve backed completely different game. BB1 was a nice teaser of what we can get but we didn’t.
I’m not sure if what he wrote there are really differnet ways. Those are just more or less optimized playthoughs and they mostly depict what you can do on strategic level, which is still quite shallow. On the missions you just try different tactic based on skills you already have there. Also read what SpiceAndMalice replied to it.
Nevertheless I like your previous part of that post. If Snapshot did introduce what you are writing then skills would be not so overpowered, just a bit of magical.
These are fair points, and I didn’t suggest reading Wenlock’s post with the idea of convincing anybody about PP’s merits.
It struck a cord with me because I realized that I approach regular difficulty missions as if PP was a quick, but classical tactical TB game, but when it comes to very hard missions I switch into something not entirely unlike “Into the Breach” thinking mode. I imagine other players can approach the game differently too, for example as a fantasy tactics game, with skills doing the part of spells and WPs being the mana. And a casual player will not think about any of it all.
Doesn’t mean that you can play PP as you want to play it, I’m not saying that. My point is that when proposing changes to balance it is important to consider how other players are playing it, because Snapshot is more likely to make those changes to balance that are more likely to be accepted by all the players.
1 Like