New-Game Syndrome Un-welcomed

So I’m a rather older gamer and unfortunately with the real-world taking up the majority of my life I still find time to hop on a few times a week. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good/technical reason for this but why must we restart a campaign after every major patch? Each playthru I’m only on my 2nd Phoenix base and now I have to start over if I want the new DLC and patches to work correctly.
From a technical perspective this makes sense since you’re defining the game’s AI and playthru when you start a new game, so adding in say “Blood and Titanium” content after a game is 40+ hours in will cause the AI to rethink what it has already planned and I don’t want to give the CPU a bipolar problem so I restart the game as requested.
After the 4th “new game” I’m starting to dislike this process and we still have two major DLC’s to go (Legacy and Skies) so I’m under the impression I’ll need to launch a new game for them as well but here’s the part I need someone to answer…

Cthulu patch is just that, a patch. It isn’t a major DLC release and while I see why they do it given the reasoning above I can’t justify making a new game every time a patch is applied with a new name. XCom ran into the same issue when War of the Chosen expansion launched but it didn’t require a new game every time a major patch was released… is it not possible to do that with Phoenix point? Not everyone has 20+hrs a week to devote to this so the casual gamer may never see end-game if we have to keep restarting every few months.

Thanks Snapshot and community… enjoy the bug hunt >=D

Good question. You can disable automatic updates and continue playing your game, if that’s what suits you better. And perhaps jump in again later when there is more content added (I think you might need to launch the game manually from directory - I tried simply disabling updates on Epic story to see through my game to the end, but when I launched the game through it, it updated anyway).

Well, the problem is, that unlike XCOMs, PP is still in active development. For example Cthulu patch overhauled many mechanics - like enemy evolution, exploration, doomsday meter and map generation (the last one is important, I will get back to it). While you can continue playing old save after the patch, it is not recommended as those changes won’t gel well with older games, which run on differelt ruleset.

As to DLCs - I was surprised that B&T required a new start, and after seeing it though - I am not quite sure why. While not ideal, I don’t see why B&T couldn’t trigger in the late game as well.

You can disable automatic updates and continue playing your game, if that’s what suits you better

Yeah but that’s really not a valid solution because the patches fix numerous bugs (which is clear from the patch-notes). By your logic you’re basically saying “Play the broken version until you’re in a position to upgrade to the less-broken version”. You should be able to patch up various bug-fixes without needing to re-roll the entire campaign. I can certainly understand saying that the new content can’t be added in without starting a new game but the bug fixes?
I dunno… maybe I’m just harking back to the old-days but I’m a kickstarter backer through and through so I might as well just bite the bullet and make a new game anyway. Game’s fun… just not restart every few months fun.

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I fully agree. Sort of kills the progression and time spent for me. I have so many games and tend to binge play a couple of games at a time then move to other games. Having to restart all over to gain the benefits of a patch, while seems reasonable when mechanic overhauls are part of it, I feel like I’ve wasted several hours of play time. (maybe wasted is too harsh, I’ve enjoyed my time with PP but have some really nice soldiers built up.)

Anyway it is what it is I guess… I plan on playing a bit with my current save and the patch to see if anything goofy happens and if so, I’ll come back to the game at a later date like I’m doing now with Xcom 2. :wink:

I am not saying it’s an ideal situation, but just the best advice I can think of. As long as Snapshot keeps making sweaping changes to game systems I don’t see a valid alternative. Supporting older builds, and releasing DLCs and new features seperately might not be valiable.

Well, making game to work with any savegame any player had with previous game iteration would probably require too much effort from developers. When they re-design things they can’t take all possible variations in such open strategy. How would you saw alien evolution change adapt to what was previously saved? How would you implement new exploration and Phoenix bases placement if player already had something uncovered in randomly generated world?

It is painful when you need to start new playthrough, but game changes just require it. Developers would need to stick to all previous ideas to not break old savegames. And I’m thankful to them that they try to reshape game being brave and implementing major changes.

Everything you mentioned is an additional new feature and thus WOULD require a new game to implement the new content. The current version (now the previous version) had a functional Pandoran evolution system but the patch revamped it so you couldn’t use an older save. I get that and I agree that’s painful for developers to implement.
My complaint originally is about releasing patches that don’t require a new game to fix. If I get a flat tire the solution isn’t to get a new car so why can’t the fixes specifically for bugs be fixed just by a patch. Things like new content, features, UI overhauls… These are all things that justify a new game, but part of the patch like fixing a known issue for crashes or minor bugs (for example there were tooltips missing text in the previous version that are now updated) shouldn’t require a new game to apply.

I fully support the Development team that’s why I’m a Kickstarter backer in the credits, I’m invested in this game. I just wanted to post somewhere in the forums that there has to be a better way to patch issues that doesn’t involve purging the progress I’ve made for the sake of fixing something that wasn’t supposed to be broken.

Look at this way. If you’re going to buy a new car tomorrow, why replace the flat tire on your old one today?

That’s basically what’s happening with those fixes and the updates.

That’s… Surprisingly the best answer I never would have thought of myself so thanks!
I feel a bit better understanding the equation but still doesn’t change the outcome… I’m gonna be starting a lot of new games in 2021

that’s right a person is going through - he still has a bunch of games to spill in 2021. but I don’t like anything, I like PP no matter what. I am pleased with the new changes and I am happy to start a new company. So comrades I’m looking forward to the new DLC.

I am older as well, and quite busy with real life. I am struggling with the major changes. I haven’t played much the last couple months (took a detour to play new Xcom Chimera Squad, which was a good change of pace) because I don’t want to have to figure everything out again. That said, this game was pretty broken in terms of the player being encouraged to cheese the game. Also, some of the older issues like blocked Lair missions were uselessly time consuming slogs until you learned how to cheese them, then so easy that you could finish them in 3-4 turns. So, my frustration is that the game just wasn’t finished and all the changes with each patch make me less willing to relearn. I think I am going to wait for the new DLC (which sounds awesome) before playing again, because I suspect the game will be much closer to “finished” by the time it is introduced.
I still appreciate that Snapshot is consistently fixing and improving the game, I just don’t have time to keep up with all the changes. In other words, wake me up when it is basically finished.

Haha, first I playtested Cthulhu and haven’t finished test build, now I won’t finish release build of Cthulhu because in some near future will be test build of DLC… and I probably won’t finish it too, because they will release it to the public… and then will be next major update in September, so probably I won’t finish DLC before that update. So I know your pain. :wink:

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now you feel yourself like a QA Tester :joy:

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