Persistent serious bugs

There are a couple bugs that are quite serious that have persisted since the backer builds.

The worst by far is the LOS bug with soldiers at corners. I can’t express how annoying it is to move a soldier into a great position behind a corner, only to discover that he can’t see an enemy directly in front of him. It’s so bad that I’ve had enemy units that are closer and further out laterally from the corner be untargetable while more distant enemies in a more direct line back from the corner can be seen. It’s unforgivable that it’s remained unfixed for so long.

Next is the extreme unpredictability of return fire. For the life of me, I cannot understand why my soldiers with RF fail to RF when it seems obvious that they should.

Next, enemy blundering through overwatch cones to shoot at me without triggering overwatch when my own LOS in the next turn indicates that the enemy is fully visible.

Finally, the crappy hitboxes surrounding terrain. For example, the trapezoidal pole bases that completely block LOS in the forward direction while doing almost nothing to protect you from fire from the front.

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I… agree. Reading this I guess I just became used to these and they started not bothering me much anymore. They don’t happen as often as before, but still do. I guess the worst offenders for me are the trapezoidal pole bases and the corners.

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While I can agree with almost any point, I think some of them have different causes.

It isn’t really that unpredictable, but probably not enough explained and also somewhat unintuitive. 2 important points from what I know:

  • Melee attacks doesn’t trigger RF. Of course this also counts for your soldiers against RF enemies, melee is one way to deal with them.

  • RF only triggers in half of the perception of the soldier that has the ability.
    If you have the Strongman personal trait (-20 perception) and it is also a night mission (1/2 perception for all, except they have the night vision module) then RF can only trigger on enemies at (35-20) / 2 / 2 = 3,75 so roughly 3-4 tiles distance, pretty close. Even on day missions it triggers only at targets in 7-8 tiles distance. That’s why I don’t like how they changed Strongman, the perception penalty is too much for me (also worsens the OW range).

But I have also to admit, that I mostly not rely on RF with my Assaults. Because of these points it is too unreliable against shooting opponents and does not help at all against all melee opponents.

These poles are only half cover so that the soldier doesn’t step out to shoot something. And because there is no other adjustment/animation to change the LOS when behind something similar you aim directly at the top pin of this pole when you want to shoot an enemy that is direct behind that.
I think that is not really a problem of the hit boxes but more of how the game gives you other possibilities to aim or make it for you automatically (leaning slightly to one side would almost be enough in this case).

True, so true …

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All to true below. Thanks MadS. You saved me from making another tedious pointing out the User Errors post. :wink:

  1. Agreed 100% Especially if behind half cover with a Heavy, who practically needs total unobstructed LOS to a target, in order to hit it. :open_mouth:
  2. Defensive Melee Attacks are something I’d like to see added as a Proximity Triggered Event in game. This could be added as a Free Attack Perk, giving the character a chance to Bash an enemy that runs next to your soldier. Like rifle-butt-stroking maybe?
  3. Can Phoenix Point stand improvemnet? What game ever released, could not stand Improvements, in the eyes of the End User?

Ahh, this one is easy to explain. Return Fire does not work, if you are in Over Watch mode. :open_mouth:

Over Watch Cones are a thing with me as well. But not why they don’t activate. My issue with it, is Why is that activation zone so darn short? Especially for HMG’s, and Sniper Rifles? In a Real Life sense, I find it curiously refreshing to see a game have characters shooting in OW, but hitting obstacles in the path of the target. Frustrating? Sure it can be. But you learn from your mistakes, or just wade through the mire and repeat them again, and again, etc.

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Depends also on perception (but full and not half like RF) and so also if it is a night mission. Strongman gives OW a very short range because of its -20 perception. Farsight (+10 perception) helps a bit but not that much especially for snipers with Strongman.

Don’t skill Strongman on Snipers if you like to use long range overwatch with them :wink:

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Perhaps cover icon should be replaced with stance icon to properly communicate what it is. The game doesn’t have a “cover” per se, neither it should pretend to have one and confuse players. Show it as what it is - stance of soldier when next to it.

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Perhaps it should simply not display anything and also not automatically crouch down when the soldiers stop moving next to low cover. Instead, introduce that you can and must choose it by yourself: standing, crouching and additionally lying down.
Then also take out the automatic sidestep from high cover so that you have to do it yourself and the education for self-guided movement management is done.

Do not take this too serious, but sometimes I wish they would copy more from old and IMO not that bad game mechanics. :wink:

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Nah, some things need to evolve. This one is clear for me: if they do this, you won’t have overwatch from a corner anymore (assuming it did always work…). I know you were kinda joking though.

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Just a little, actually it would be interesting how it would play then. Sure, OW from high cover would then no longer go, but only in the direct direction of cover. I once took pictures*** of it (high rock as high cover), your line of fire goes up to around 45 °, up then you have a full field of fire, depending on what kind of cover there is in front of you (a tree offers smaller angles, a wall rather higher to shoot). On the other hand, such a high coverage in PP is also a high protection in the opposite direction with the same angles, straight ahead to 100% (apart from the fact that something shoots through the cover) and not just an accuracy reduction in the chance of hit (as in FXCom).
So, if you stand behind high cover like the big rocks, trees or walls, then you can already overwatch anything in diagonal direction to a certain degree. If the enemy wants to hit you, he has to go in your overwatch.

Edit***:
I found my post where I took some screenshots from the view of a potential enemy that aims at one behind a big rock as high cover:

The evolution I see here is a mechanic to enable a soldier to peek/shoot through a corner, or a window, etc. Firaxcoms enabled that while using the percentage to hit mechanic, so there was that.

PP uses a more realistic approach and thus higher cover could really mean better protection, which is better in my opinion. Also as you can control the overwatch cone, angle, etc, it also has it’s own trade-off: do you overwatch in a 90 degree angle where, let’s suppose, the enemy is behind cover too, or you set the cone in an angle that’ll only trigger if the enemy leaves cover? I think it’s a really good system. The only part that’s not good is that the cover mechanic doesn’t always work.

Sure, it is not bad, but maybe it can improve? Leaning mechanics/animations would be for sure better than this, in my opinion, stupid step one tile to the side, shot and step back. This is also a reason why OW and return fire are so devastating when you shot from high cover.

PS: I found the thread with my pics about cover in PP, see my edit in the previous post.

Make sense to me. But the missions, whether in Day or Night, have the same Cone Range Distance in the play I’m doing. :open_mouth: I’ll have to count out the tiles tonight to be sure.

If you use the night vision module (“Multi-vision Sensor Module” i guess [I play in German language :wink: ], a Synedrion helmet module) then it is the same whether day or night, but if not then it should be half the distance.
Also the Echo Head bionic augmentations provides night vision.

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Yes yes, the los bug that some structures and small covers create is the problem, and leaning mechanics are a possible solution.

I took the time to read your post on the other topic and all the replies below it. Reading from an outside (of the argument there) perspective, I think I understood the guy’s grievance. What he wanted were those leaning mechanics, and I agree that it would be a great addition to PP. I also found it very nice of you to take the time for the screenshots, I would never do that :joy:

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Honestly, I also understood him, but these “there is no cover system in PP” and “low cover is better than high cover” has driven me mad :wink:

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I seem to remember that for purposes of the RF perception check, the stealth stat of the shooter/target was also taken into account (just as with Overwatch) which should make it harder to RF against (most) Tritons.

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Thanks, but I know all of these things about RF. I’m taking about when an assault with good perception with a totally clear shot fails to return fire at an arthron just tiles away. I have this happen with annoying regularity, but then I intentionally use RF as a weapon, so I probably encounter it more.

The LOS problem from behind linear cover, I believe, is due to the fact that LOS is determined from the center of the tile. If they’d use the least obstructed tile corner instead, things would work much better.

Tbh, I don’t rely on RF to do anything, so that’s why perhaps I have noticed this. Does this happen in any situation, or is there some sort of pattern to it?

AFAIK the LOS is determined from the shooting position of the currently equipped weapon. So you get one LOS with a pistol and another with a rifle. (and a very different one with a heavy weapon)

You mean if they leaned to change the position of the weapon?

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I’ve been unable to determine the pattern of RF failure, which is what makes it so frustrating. I never know when it’s going to go off or not.

Are you sure about LOS? For example, all forward LOS is blocked when you’re behind one of those useless trapezoidal pole bases, regardless of weapon. I’m not sure that the lateral position of the weapon is accounted for. Perhaps it’s just vertical position relative to the center of the tile, when it should be relative to a tile corner.

Yeah, that’s the worst… Well, see if you can spot a common thread, I will pay attention to see if I come across this too. You should also F12 it, because I’m not sure that the devs have this on their radar atmo.

I’m sure that LOS is different for each weapon - you can often see when moving that you have LOS to an enemy from a tile with one weapon, but not another, and I’m pretty sure that’s because weapons when shooting are positioned differently.

This can actually be a big deal. You can see it with Destiny III when mounted on a raider heavy armor. Due to a bug, it appears mounted on a foot, and that changes completely how it works vs the proper position over the head.

What happens with the trapezoidal pole bases (former lamp posts, I guess) is that the base is too high, so although they are low cover, for shooting from them they should behave like high cover… There are a couple of annoying assets like that in the game.

Another issue, maybe connected with this one, is the hitboxes, and that unfortunately seems to be a technical limitation - to maintain performance some item hitboxes are slightly bigger than the item itself.