Opinions after 30 hours of playing

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
1

Hey so first I want to say that despite the games numerous problems, I still enjoyed it, however I am disappointed with how unpolished and buggy it is upon release. I feels like it is still in beta testing.

Bugs or hiccups I’ve experienced
-I played a few levels I could not complete until breaking all the terrain because an enemy turned out to be stuck in a wall or a barrel.
-Sometimes enemies turns would take 3 minutes or more. So i’d have to get up and go do something else for a little bit, then come back. I feel this greatly diminishes the immersion.
-Sometimes free aim system gets blocked by cover you should be able to peak around.

Gameplay issues
-The difficulty in this is ridiculous. I would never dare play this on iron man or anything harder than normal because I can see it just not being fun and turning tedious. There are many unfair situations that happen (I know this is sort of expected with these kinds of games), but at least xcom seemed fair about it. For example, I once had 3 sirens spawn near me and mind controlled my whole team on turn one before I could do anything at all to stop them. That wasn’t hard. It was simply unfair. Admittedly the aiming system at least makes damage much much more reliable and It is a welcomed addition.

-Late game: I would end up in matches where It felt like there were 30+ enemies. Sometimes with a few sirens, or some sirens and a scylla while I still had 8 guys? That is simply too much and you are guaranteed to always lose a guy or 2, or have a whole squad wiped if the scylla roared then the sirens came in to mind control your squad while they lost a turn being crowd controlled. I’m not expecting this game to be easy, but surely there has to be a way out. Suggesting, maybe have some sort of cap on the number of units allowed, give them all a point value and cap them up to a certain point based on difficulty.

Suggestions
-allowing more than 8 squad members whole be amazing if we are expected to fight 30+ pandorans, multiple sirens and some scyllas to boot. I feel 8 is too limiting with what we are expected to do.
-More mission types. The ones we have get too tedious after a while. You could either increase the squad cap to 12 or make it so that when you have multiple ships on 1 mission with more than 8 soldiers, make the remaining spawn in as reinforcements 3 turns later or something.

-More maps. I have seen the same variations of each map several times and it is starting to get pretty lame.

-Meaningful vehicles. I have tried them and frankly they are a waste of space. The only use I had from them is base defense missions, and that was only if I could get them out of the stupid hallways. (THEY DON’T FIT THROUGH THE HALLWAYS). So sometimes they literally cannot make it to the fight! Not to mention when they run out of ammo they are useless. If they are going to replace THREE squad members either give them more ammo, give us the ability to carry vehicle ammo on squad members or at least give vehicles a ram function! Something!

-More enemy variety would be lovely. I know each enemy type has a bunch of variations, but I did not expect the enemy unit types to be so… limiting.

-More flushed out soldier ability tree. I was disappointed with the lack of variety in soldier abilities. every class gets 1 line of abilities to choose from with the option of specializing into another. I feel having at least 2 lines per class would alleviate this. Right now it just does not feel like we have a lot of options on how to customize our soldiers. You could maybe implement it on the level 4 option. Every class gets a particular specialization exclusive to that class or they can spec into any of the other 6 main classes.

Possible Ideas for soldier trees
-Berserkers: Their current tree is fine, but add an Akimbo side arms tree for berserkers.
-For technicals 1 tree being more medical focused while another is more turret and gadget focused. ----Infiltrators can divvy up between a stealthy cross bower or something more trap focused (loved the spider drones, wished we could do more them them).
-Priests 1 tree being crowd control centric and the other being damage centric, or maybe even buffing the party and debuffing enemies.
-Snipers One being a pure sniper class; camping, long ranged, pure damage. The other sniper tree could focus on more mobility focusing on weapons with less range and damage than the sniper but more range and damage than the assault rifle. semi automatic rifles? Make it feel more like a guerilla warfare soldier.
-Heavies: Current tree is fine, but maybe the second tree more focused on tankiness and defense? Give them a shield so they have mobile cover, or some way to negate damage for one turn. Give them the ability to be shields for our team mates.
Assaults: Honestly I am not sure what two trees this could be.

-Weapon mods. I know you are going for a more lateral approach to weapon upgrades and that’s fine. However, it is a little less rewarding. I feel a weapon modification system could help give our weapons maybe a little more punch of character. I do like the weapon variety we have though. I just wished there was a little more.

-Nerf the Sirens. As they are right now, they are frankly BS to fight. I think a simple fix would be allowing them only 1 mind control per turn. If not that then maybe limit them to only 2 per map. 3 is over kill and I don’t even want to imagine how awful more than that would be. Maybe nerfing the damage their claws do as well or at least nerf the armor they have.

-I feel being able to somehow upgrade our armor would be nice. Maybe adding some under layer protection? energy shields? Our soldiers feel too disposable and I wanted to develop a little more attachment to them.

-More mission types would be great.

I’m not making these complaints to be a whiner. I genuinely want this game to be better because I know it can. Xcom was not great when it first came out and it got polished to the point it is now. I was hoping the development team would have learned from what fireaxis did, but unfortunately that was not the case.

ALSO WHY IS THERE NO MODDING YET!!!

Anyways I hope the devs take the time and make this game what is should be. Thank you.

EDIT
-Forgot to add. Modding vehicles would be cool.

-Also late game haven attacks are relentless and just not fun. I get that would have to choose, but I feel having 6 haven attacks in 1 hour is a little excessive.

Edit 2
-Upon further reflection, the lateral weapon system only works if the difficulty curve is tweaked. If it stays spiked the way it does we need to have meaningful upgrades. Lateral upgrading does not work when the levels keep getting harder and harder. Unless you use some broken class combinations like sniper/heavy, you will have a very hard time succeeding in the end game.

-Forgotten bug: Sometimes the geoscape does not indicate what materials a haven wants or if they have a soldier ready to recruit. When I finish a mission sometimes those icons are there and sometimes they aren’t. I then always have to click the haven and click info if I want to see what is happening with that haven. a minor annoyance.

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You forgot to mention the balancing issues.
The worst situations occur in lair ambushes. There has to be a limitation on how many Chirons and sirens you can stumble over. 2 of each and the mission will be a big fail…and this happens very very often!

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Honestly I just plain got bored around the middgame when it dawned on me I’d never be upgrading equipment, vehicles, nothing. There’s just no resource dump in the game except to buy new soldiers because death is permanent (no chance to stabilize), and why there’s no upgradeable equipment in a strategy game of all things is… very headscratching. I really think it’s a result of being forced to market early. FiraCom only has 3 upgrade tiers and even THAT borders on boring, which is why I find that I can only play LW2 anymore. But to have no upgrades of any sort in a squad-based tactical RPG… just seems like terrible design.

I built one vehicle and took it on a few missions and never bothered with it again. It’s overpowered for the few shots that it has, and then it immediately loses all functionality except to shuttle characters around which can be useful in some situations. The levels however are definitely not designed for vehicles, and they are frustrating to use in most situations. Honestly this was either another indication of bad design at the core of PP, or a perk devs wanted to offer backers to invite more funding. I mean when I read about vehicles I thought, “Wow that sounds cool and something I wish FiraCom had.” I was wrong. Very wrong.

Sirens are yet another poorly designed feature of PP- although not because of their ability to mind control several units in one turn, but rather because the devs didn’t recognize the potential to have entire team-wide mind controls when two or more sirens are grouped together. Also there is no hard counter to sirens- unless you put your Heavy in full sniper gear and get a lucky shot that drops their health to 1/4. Long War 2 had sectoids become a serious threat by buffing their health and giving them chance to mind control- but it was exactly that: a chance, and they were hard countered by melee weapons. Though in the act of melee’ing down a MC’ing sectoid, you could very well expose your unit to other aliens. It was a tough tactical choice to make… unless you constantly sacrificed equipment slots to put flashbangs in them.

Honestly, the Sirens example once more screams poor design at the core of PP. They made an enemy that is lethal and has no hard counter other than ‘hope you have enough remaining firepower to destroy the Siren immediately’.

On the point of weapon mods, I’d love to see them but I disagree that a lateral approach is fine to weapon upgrades. This is a long-term tactical strategy RPG. Upgrades are at the heart of the play experience in these titles. as I mentioned before, it leaves you with nothing to do. Resource collection is simply a matter of stocking up for the next soldier you have to buy because insta-death, and supply missions/haven responses become meaningless because there’s really no point in collecting resources without a resource dump and satisfying reward, i.e. upgrades.

Your points on classes are pretty spot on though. They feel completely underwhelming, each class does its job in the exact same way every time, and while the experience point system is something I thought was great, the lack of ability options and customization in what the class ‘does’ once more hints at poor design.

I used to think PP was simply rushed, but after reading all the forum posts and complaints, I’m convinced that yes, maybe PP was rushed to market with plans to continue development via patches and DLC (kind of a crap business model but there’s some economic realities we may not be aware of), but at the core of PP’s problems is poor design decisions that no amount of development is going to fix. If all the bugs are fixed (which bother me the least, it’s a new release after all), difficulty smoothed out, sirens given a chill pill… I still don’t feel like I want to play this game. I’m going to be stuck with the same classes doing the same things with the same equipment for the whole game. Why would I do that to myself?

Free aim isn’t that fun. Though it is pretty fun- that was a great feature.

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I think Sirens with that 30 will power is too OP maybe 20 is fair due to Priest’s limit is 22 at max stats. It means a Sirens can control your priest at his/hers full will. And the Armor of Sirens are too op. My suggestion is you can have strong Armor Sirens with lower will power 15~20 ish and low armor Sirens ( at least the tail and head) with higher will power like currently 30. So you can head shot and break tail hopefully to reduce the speed. I think that’s the only down side. For some classes it’s extremely OP people even make post about game too easy. But i know if you do the wrong build you can have hard time like you experienced. The Heavy/Sniper is the typical OP unbalanced one. You use rapid fire with sniper 130+50 pericing x10 you can one shot Scylllas in first turn first action. Because it usually too big you can see him and aim at him right away. So a lot of Lair mission was end at first action it’s not even funny. But i know if i dont use this build gonna have a painful fight maybe couple guy will die. Find your own build than the game gonna be super super ez

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^This. I was interested in how the game was working and liked most of the combat but once I figured out that there really wasn’t anywhere meaningful to go… Well, that was that.

The soldiers feel like meaningless clones with virtually no differentiation, the classes have no internal variations, the weapons don’t upgrade, the research runs out almost instantly…

This really does feel like a mid-term Beta product rather than a finished game of this genre.

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The counter to Sirens is managing your distance from them and disabling their head. If they can’t get close and can’t mind control they aren’t that scary.

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What? Is this for real? :frowning: I had no idea, always assumed our equipment would get cool upgrades down the line.

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Sadly real… The game seems like the mid-end content just didn’t get done.

I was blown away by the fact that even base improvements were essentially left out beyond the basics you start with and one/two others you get from factions.

You start falling behind the power curve in the mid-game and keep waiting for when the research etc starts to bring your game strategy in striking range… and it doesn’t happen.

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That’s… strange, to say the least!

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I am not sure why they are saying there are no upgrades available to your soldiers. Perhaps they are referring to only the base research tree.

Once you improve relations with one or more factions, you get access to their research and it provides improvements to equipment and your soldiers directly.

Maybe not dramatic improvements, but I got research that allowed me to build weapons with improved armor penetration, armor that had better protection and (from a different faction) potential mutations that could be done to my soldiers.

So, yeah, I don’t think saying there are no upgrades is a fair assessment. Perhaps they are disappointed with the upgrades, or have not gotten access to faction technologies.

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So no… I have accessed 2 of the 3 factions before I got bored. They aren’t upgrades.

These are not upgrades, they are routinely less effective than the vanilla techs you start with. Sometimes ever so slightly better.

And there they stay. Want to focus on improving snipers? Tough, because once you unlock your partner’s tech there is no upgrade to anything. Just slightly different versions of the same thing.

There is no MKII, or MK III with mods etc… that would be an “upgrade” tree.

This is pretty much entirely lateral differences with very limited flexibility. This is upgrading at all in the sense that is meant by upgrading tech/gear in these genre games.

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Sorry, but that is nonsense. The faction gear is better then your starting stuff.

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Lets take the first thing you normally find… the AR-50 vice your starting assault rifle.

The “upgrade” has lower range, fewer bullets per burst, but higher damage per round.

That is NOT an upgrade. It is just a different bloody assault rifle.

This pattern is followed with all the faction rifles. They are within a few percentage points of performance overall, with one or two stats higher than starting tech and 1-2 stats lower than your starting tech.

This is literally the antithesis of “upgrade”. It is just different gear at the same tier.

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That just isn’t true. The Armor Piercing Sniper rifles did literally the same damage as the non-AP sniper rifle, but had like 50 Armor Piercing while the non-AP had none. Huge improvement. Same for the AP Assault Rifle vs the non-AP.

And you did not even mention the mutation tech, which there is no equivalent in the base tree.

I also did not mention just getting access to different types of weapons either. Flame throwers, Acid pistols, lasers. Some are like what you say, just different but not better, but different not better can also be good as you can build squads around different tactics.

I had a similar opinion as you do before I got access to 2 different faction technologies. Mid game, not really seeing any way to improve and getting more and more stomped on missions. Since I got access to those technologies, I have been scrambling to trade and scavenge for as much materials as I can get and my fabrication plants have been going non-stop manufacturing weapons and armor for my soldiers.

Also vehicles. I got access to several new types which I hope to build and try out at some point (but weapons and armor are too important right now)

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Glad you feel that is a large improvement and counts as an upgrade path.

I do not.

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There won’t be any direct upgrade like in old or new XCOM. Every weapons has some advantage or disadvantage comparing to base weapons. But later tech you get from factions is really powerful and way better to counter end-game enemies. Even if it fires less bullets or is less accurate.

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I’d say disappointment with the upgrades was my issue. I wanted weapons with more ommph, but I understand they are going for a more lateral system which i’m fine with. However I feel if they do this then the difficulty curve should not spike the way it does to compensate. That’s why I thinking a weapon modding system would be great in this game. Does not take away from lateral design much and you can make some more meaningful upgrade to your gear allowing you to keep up with the difficulty spike. More customization too leads to more attachment as well and I feel largely detached from my squad. I’ll have to see what the other tech trees offers as I have only gotten synderions full tree. Currently working on new jericho’s. Maybe my opinion will change after seeing what the other factions offer.

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First x-com: ufo defense have more items (flare, plasma rifle, prox granade, armors (flying suit not jump abillity), weapons, research… give us blaster launcher,alien granade, alien ship design, better alien design, simple is better, terror mission, etc… I have feeling that i play The Thing strategy game wanabe X-com not X-com, I am backer for this game without thinking… This need to be 2 child from Julian, 2 revolution like first x-com was… He need to put name X-Com: something… Because Fraxis have Xcom not X-com…For now Julian 1st baby stand for me the best even in 2019-2020 style, gameplay, feeling and it is playable on big projector screen. … Amen!!!52bede0e31fcef49d847d9b53cc2b5facb6a75b1bea231c599530c9d4d710655_product_card_v2_mobile_slider_639

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I’m glad that the lateral equipment sidegrade system is working for some, but it’s still ignoring the obvious flaw in design: there are no valid resource sinks in a game that is about resource management. Or at least supposed to be. Maybe you really did enjoy the game experience in its entirety all the way to the final boss fight, that’s great, it’s working for you- but I guarantee you won’t be replaying this title the way you’d replay FiraCom, or even better, LW. The core design simply has very limited appeal, and I will always argue that a large-scale strategy rpg needs an equipment upgrade system to keep pushing the player forward, keep player interested, and keep rewarding wise resource investments. Without that resources are just a superficial layer to the strategy system that becomes meaningless even before the mid-game. A good game has no superficialities, it makes use of every aspect to its fullest.

The announced DLC, which I did buy and aren’t planning on asking for a refund on, promises several cool things- but at this point I have serious concerns that that’s all it does: make cool promises. Just like vehicles and how terribly they were implemented, interceptions and soldier synthetic upgrades or w/e now seem like they may be a ‘cool idea’ that got again, poorly implemented. That simply seems to be the verdict with PP- lots of cool ideas, but only a few were well implemented. Tbh at this point I’m just hoping PP is successful enough to spur a quick PP2 development that addresses the fundamentally flawed design elements at the heart of the game.

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I agree, free aim is cool but the rest of this game needs so much work it might as well not be called PP anymore. Flaws are in the initial design. I’m just going to check it again in a few months and hope for the best.

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