Phoenix Point is a masterpiece

I’m sure that more flexibility will evolve, not to mention that corrections and adjustments will be made. My point is it has to come from PP, not forcibly imported from xcoms.

Though I agree that nostalgia might play a big role in this, I played xcom again after trying out Xenonauts and found it much more satisfying. There were a few obvious issues, like random maps and that shot down UFOs are in different states of imperfection, but there was something else which I couldn’t put my finger on.

I for one don’t mind hit chances, and there is nothing I really hate about xcom2. Except maybe the story and the incessant yada yada yada, particularly in WotC. I think it’s a great game, in fact it’s so good that IMO this format can only be marginally improved.

I want something different and PP does that.

I wouldn’t exactly say that it is a masterpiece, yet; as it definitely needs a few extra brush strokes.

However, after saying that; it might be the first UFO:EU clone that makes me pack up the original for good.

I don’t know how many days I have spent playing the original, however, it is far more than The UFO trilogy, FraXCom and Xenonauts combined; The reason for this is that I still believe that original UFO:EU was and still is better; Why?

  • The UFO series was a bit of a mess; play Aftermath’s first release to truly understand BUGS!
  • The second and third were OK, but I never felt the want to replay them. So back to the original.
  • Xenonauts could have been great, but the flat geo-scape left too much to be desired.
  • However, Xenonauts still has the best interception mechanics.
  • Then there is FraxCom, how can I say this nicely, I don’t think I can!

Even in its current state PP just draws you in, the storyline is very nice and the ground combat system is second to none, all the benefits of a TU system without the need to open calculator in your brain.
Yes, there is some balancing needed/wanted, but that is not enough for me to stop wanting to play.

All in all, I think I am going to go play PP.

Never played Apocalypse, always tried play the original X-com or OpenXcom, perhaps I should try it.

Even if OpenXcom is a clone (allowing mods I never tried) and that it clearly improves the UI, it’s one of my main grip with the game and shared with JA2, except that if I want do the effort anyway I feel that better try JA2.

JA1 I never played was a quite pleasant surprise, and made me realize better what I don’t like in JA2, and eventually original Xcom.That’s mainly the UI. JA2 added plenty features but it degenerates in a very slow gameplay:

  • Manual reload, more micromanagement very often
  • Prone and Crouch, more micromanagement at each turn for each soldier
  • Side steps, more commands to bother with, weaken a possible mouse interface.
  • Open and close containers, more pointless click.
  • Open and close doors, more pointless click, cheesy tactics.
  • Certainly more.

The problem is you can’t define a non keyboard heavy control with that much commands, micro management is quite increased during combats and a lot slower.

Does it add much, in my opinion no, but the price is Heavy.

JA1 uses much more elegant solution to combine a certain level of complexity and makes the gameplay more fluid. A perfect example is Crouch, it’s just a crouch command, that’s it, add prone too doesn’t add much. And you can’t crouch and move but that also means that you don’t need constantly change crouch/prone/up at each turn, for each soldier, and often two times for each soldier. Sorry but JA2 price is too heavy, I have few doubts that no modern dev will ever do again such choices.

Original Xcom could not have the same level of burdens, but it’s similar, and I don’t ses the tactical value benefit much of that, but this makes the gameplay a lot more low and heavy.

The sim aspect is another element, it’s perhaps more a problem of implementing huge maps with modern graphics and true 3D.

I don’t get it, there’s Hit chance but it’s not shown isn’t it? I recently played JA1 not showing the Hit chance but having hit chance and found the system was interesting. Are other games show the enemies hit chances, very rarely. Are other games show the hit chance from a possible position, very rarely. Are other games show the hit chance from a possible enemy position, never.

So at end you need learn have an evaluation of hit chance despite it’s hidden, for most games of this genre. JA1 or PP just don’t show it also for next possible shoot.

I don’t think it’s a superior choice, I think it speed up a bit the gameplay and make it a bit more natural and fluid, at price of slowing the learning of chances to hit or be hit. So for me it’s a good alternative.

If you want play such combats without any hit chance, there’s Phantom Doctrine, which has great combats in my opinion. But it’s also a Stealth game and this aspect is average and doesn’t sustain the fun for a full campaign. You can play a campaign mostly only with combats, but it’s very non natural.

Man if you think this game is a masterpiece you must have low standards.
There is a lot of cool ideas in PP and some of them work, but man there is a lot wrong and im not only talking about bugs.
I like the universe/lore and story seems solid, but there are so many design decisions that have gone wrong in my opinion.

Take it for what you will, this is comming from one that was looking forward to this game and have tons of hours in the old & new xcom + xenonauts and jagged alliance 1+2

6 Likes

There is a hit chance and it’s shown by two circles. What I mean by PP challenging HitChances is that it’s pretty evident in most cases what are the chances to hit a target as it’s based on the line of sight which you observe from third person or first person, not on some meta buffs and de-buffs on a dice roll. Because of this, it’s pretty much impossible to miss a blank shot (what does happen in X-Com), unless it bugs out. You can judge and take decision for a riskier shot but one that can hit important body part or play it safe and choose a better coverage of the target over both circles.
At the same time, you can wait for idle animation of the enemy to play to a keyframe where some of his body is more exposed and then initiate a shot, this makes no sense as AI is not able to do the same. Or both you and enemy can hit a target that is in full cover, just by a virtue of character standing away from the cover as there is no concept of leaning or minimizing your profile against the covver. The best, this is visible on building corners and trees, where even 20-30 degree angle is enough to see a target pretty much completely.

JA2 1.13, with new chance to hit system, draws you a maximum cone of fire at a target distance, kind of what PP does but in isometry. You can’t really see if you are going to hit some obstacle in-between but can judge the probability of a hit.

Thanks for the explanations.

Ok the line of sight can help, but I thought the aiming was the best way, to apply an intuitive evaluation, standard shoot show nothing safe.

For the management of full cover, I don’t know yet, I’m bored to explain full cover can’t be a full protection with a shooting game using cover and side step shoot. Well I recently played one that probably mixed both and wasn’t looking awful from this decision.

I think JA1 and JA2 approach is the more intuitive, no cover just obstacles, no auto sidestep move to side step, but, it requires the complex interception system, and this interception system feels quite not fully controllable by player.

Never played the mod for JA2 prefer know the original that I find good enough, except from the slow gameplay aspect and burdened game by excess of commands, but the mod won’t change it. In fact I also always felt JA2 gameplay too hectic, because of multi interuption system, but JA1 is no different, or I haven’t noticed yet the difference, and I didn’t felt JA1 hectic. The only reproach to JA1 is abuse of RNG disasters, for all you can low down the probably it happens, for none or very few you can cancel it. I think of surprising interruption effects, swimming even with knife and right mercenaries, enter in area and get multi shots when it’s not multi grenades in face, surprising enemies strength sometimes like enemy with recent critical state shoot 4 times or enemies with state staying a long time at a state to weirdly finally go down to critical or death, abuse of explosions that can be very devastating, blow out a full team in a plant processing until you have this pre knowledge, more. Otherwise for me JA1 is a game I’d whish have a remake much more than JA2 that pushed it too far. just a current opinion, nothing definitive as at best I did 15% of a JA2 campaign.

I prefer hit chances. I find the visual indicator too vague and waste a lot of time trying to calculate the actual percentage that the game is hiding.

The game is not hiding them, it doesn’t “know” them either. Think about the calculations involved (and how to present them) when you are targeting a body part with a burst weapon and other body parts can be hit as well. This is not Bethesda Fallout VATS.

My understanding is the game is continually calculating the shot that you’re about to take, and then when you take the shot it’s that particular instance which is carried out. (This is how you’re able to see predicted damage).

Even with a ballistics model of firing, the game needs to perform RNG calculations in order to decide where those bullets will travel. Roll 1-360 for the angle, roll 1-100 for the distance from centre, repeat for the number of bullets being fired. It’ll be something along those lines.

1 Like

Yeah, it could well be something like that.

Perhaps the chances to hit a particular body part could be shown, regardless of the fact that a different body part could be hit. Or it could show the chances to hit anywhere and then the chances to hit a specific body part.

I find the current system to be quite intuitive and the interface getting quite busy if %s were also shown. Also, I’m not sure whether the predicted damage output should then also be changed.

To quote the Dude, this is just, like, your opinion.

I consider PP a masterpiece because it does something innovative with the genre that goes beyond a couple of new ideas.

Btw, I feel that Firaxis XCom (the first one) also deserves that accolade. (not so the second one, because it just marginally improves on the formula).

I was very glad and pleasantly surprised to see such a fresh, expansive take on Phoenix Point as the OP here. Goodness. :slight_smile: I agree with all of it, especially about the comparisons with Firaxis’ XCOM being like a board game, and Phoenix Point needing a computer’s processing power. When thought of in that way, it does feel even more unique, as you said, from even Gollop’s old XCom games.

1 Like

This is just like your opinion, XCOM2 is much better than XCOM1, only maps variations is no way a detail, and the single only game doing it well with complex high detail 3D. XCOM1 is clearly obsolete, the problem is that only Fireaxis know do it.

EDIT: Moreover PP clearly got influenced much more by XCOM2 than XCOM1.

1 Like

It was innovative around BB1-BB2. When Engagement distances where as far as you could see, where assault rifles and MGs where a useful weapon as sending lead in a general direction of a target was a viable tactics. Limbs damage actually made sense and cover was a thing as distances where large. There where pretty much no magic abilities.
Then later version started to heavily shift in direction of Firaxis XCOM. Like you cold run across the map in several turns, so you could flank using single soldier in a single turn. Fighting distances where reduced. Magic abilities added. What was innovative and fresh, became a half broken mechanics that gets even more broken when tries to synergies with the rest of the game. Specifics where discussed here many many times.
For something to be a masterpiece it needs to have a coherent game loop from the start to finish. Instead we have something that plays one way till you get your team to level 5-6 and then plays completely differently as you get access to magic.

I am not a backer, so I don’t know about the BBs. I know that I like the gameplay as it is now. Call them magic spells if you will, I like them. Much more than “pin them down and flank them” milporn, which I find boring and silly, especially when fighting giant crabs with machineguns.

But, hey that is just my opinion. Your preferences are just as respectable. And that’s precisely my point - PP has a very different kind of gameplay. You can dislike the game for what it is not or embrace it for what it is. What I disagree with is statements to the effect that the game is broken because the gameplay is different from what was wanted or expected.

1 Like

People seem to forget the classic UFO fight start - an alien rocket flying inside the dropship :rofl:
So after kicking your PC and screaming at your cat, you wise up and start fights by actually smoke grenading your insertion spot before moving troops out of dropship to avoid eating alien overwatch shots, like a serious commando.

Overall PP is very solid game and I am happy to have backed it.
Some mechanics are refreshing (vehicles, multiclasses, etc).
Multiple bases are nice, although they don’t feel unique in any way.

General balancing and some soldier abilities feel off/OP (yes Return Fire, I am looking at you), but that’s easily tuned along the way.
If anything, first UFO was brutal on Superhuman - maybe that’s why I am more tolerant towards games now, compared to younger players.

Factions seem to be concerned too much on fighting each other instead of aliens, which is a bummer - you would expect humanity to band against common enemy more, no matter how different their political or sexual preferences are. Second World War was a good example of weird alliances in the face of a greater threat.

I hope the game is commercially sound to support further development of content updates, bugfixes and balancing.

1 Like

Absolutely, that’s why I said “I feel that”: we are dealing with thoughts, opinions and feelings here, not hard facts.

Playing Firaxis XCom1 I was missing the random maps. But in xcom2 I barely noticed the randomization, because basically it’s all just decorative. There are elements of low cover, high cover and high ground. And explosive barrels of different sizes. That’s it. A tree and a rubbish bin are the same thing.

There isn’t one, not really. Game doesn’t make an attack roll against the enemy: weapons fire with a spread indicated by the reticle, and hit whatever they hit. Snapaim makes it easy to centre the reticle on the enemy, but that’s about it.

Some bullets will more likely to hit then other, as bursts are distributed using bell curve, so coming up with a number which would helpful, or at least not straight up misleading might be tricky. This problem is highlighted by the “predicted damage” bar, which ranges from useless to unreliable, when it comes to predicting our chances of striking the enemy.

PP system does have a frustrating element of not knowing quite a math behind each shot, so if you want to play optimally you might go crazy. However, when compared to animation movement when pixel hunting for a shot, and when enemies move after being hit, vague math of chances to hit is a lesser problem.