Havens facilitys should be inacessible to raid again after being raided for some days!
I just finish my 2nd campaign of PP in Hero level. In the first try i did not attack other human factions and had a hard difficulty ingame because lack of resources and decided to restart a new one were i decided to raid.
And that destroyed the game difficulty!!!
I mass raided other human factions, that allow me to before the end of January had:
A Team of 8 super soldiers full upgraded
All the 18 Phoenix Bases in earth under my control
4 Teams of 8 soldiers and 8 aircraft
All the point of interest in earth explored
Plenty of resources to do everything i need
All the missions were easy, Pandora can´t be so early in game be a menace. Even Pure and Forsaken were wiped out of map against my super soldiers early game.
Besides attacking them massivly at end game all have strong diplomacy with me and if i want i could be allied of the three.
I doubt this is the way the developers planned the game difficulty and strongly recommend:
After raid an Haven, that facility stays off for some days to prevent a new raid
Factions have a stronger reaction against Havens attack. That is an act of war and they must react accordly. At least -15 in faction diplomacy and -30 in local one (to prevent further trade in that Haven).
This game have potential to be a real challange to experienced players who like to play in Legendary level and have risk of loss… like it is, is a cakewalk unless player do house rules and limit himself instead game prevent it.
Thank you MadSkunky but it is not only the reaction of factions, is important to inactivate the facility to prevent multiple missions in same target in a row. That is the exploit. If we have to move to other faction haven and with more penalties on raiding it, we lost all factions and possibility to trade, so player must have calm and do less raiding. Is ridiculous to massive attack them and few time later (just destroying pandora nests) they want to be our allies…
“(2) Figuring out after countless hours that doing all those exploration events for resources is a WASTE OF TIME! I could have got all resources from my friendly New Jericho neighbourhood right at the doorstep of my base! WTF! It’s super cheap (just some sniper ammo), I can do it 5 times in a row without loosing valuable time and best of all: They are still my friends afterwards! Actually I am allied with them despite having killed more of their soldiers then the Pandorians ever will! But ok, I guess the game wants to teach you that becoming a opportunistic scumbag is the way to success in this world.”
I like your proposal to lose population, but the main problem is can do it 5 times in a row for same resources in same Haven. Even if a faction become at war with you it still an exploit… but even that is almost impossible to happen… - 75 in diplomacy is almost impossible. The real case is what
Zarkis said: We kill more of them guys than Pandora and they want to be our allys. That sucks
I am for more punishing raids (loosing more diplomacy, getting way harder next time, even fractions trying to attack) and more time to explore and that way gain resources, meaning less frequent heaven attacks (less Panda bases active at same time and a bit slower or different pace of evolution)
Perhaps after successfully raiding a time or two to show them you can just take what you want, you could have a civ like demand for resources. This kind of action is what I’d think of for the current relation penalties. You could still continue to raid, but if you keep doing it the penalties get increasingly severe, to the point you’ll end up in war after something like 3 total raids. Maybe leave raiding as the only way to get tech, feels like stealing tech should be a bit of a decision to not cooperate with a faction.
The Difficulty concept should ne like this in my opinion:
Rookie (easy) - easy rookie game, for new players in Turn based tactic genre in general, easy rookie game Veteran (normal) - standard game, new players from other TB games (XCOM Gears tactics, etc), solid chalange .standard game Hero (hard) - more chalenge than veteran, but not hardcore Legend (very hard) - for PP hardcore players
I would say that one problem is that “the enemies on all difficulty levels are the same, they have the same stats. mutations, and abilities, and the same AI”
The XCOM and Darkest Dungeon change the enemies’ stats depended on difficulty level
Looks, that PP difficulty levels do not change enough elements to balance the game
IMO, they change enough but the wrong elements to increase the difficulty.
The overall pace of the game (many things happens shortly one after another and also at the same time) increases on higher difficulties, but the missions on its own get only slightly harder.
Single enemies didn’t change but the players characters are getting weaker (longer way to get good)
Recruitment from havens changes from fully equipped to naked.
…
All in all many things to weaken the player side or just increase the amount of missions to do, but not so much to strengthen up the enemies (they evolve faster, so you get stronger types earlier, but there are not really much more or stronger enemies in the missions on Legendary compared to Veteran, except some story missions, just the players soldiers are weaker). That’s the reason why I almost stick with Veteran even when I could and should play higher difficulties. The main reason is the increased pace (more missions over time and also simultaneously), but also the weaker starting soldiers and recruits.
Increased research by 50% from start, enabling faster development
Increased resources from exploration and resource run missions
Even less active Pandoran bases, meaning less simultaneous missions, practically activate mist as bases are operational
Making Palace mission easier for rookie (less enemies, less HP for end boss)
This would make it feel even “easier”. With big fat disclaimer this is rookie only.
Picking one fraction to constantly raid of everything is good choice. Still plenty ways of win, and as you noted, not only resource-research-steal planes, but plenty of experience can be derived much faster then in vs Panda missions that take time. Doing things fast, like I did 5 steal missions in a role, can severely boost team experience and boost normal team to early super team. Also having some nice rifles early on gives edge over Pandorans. Couple that with experience multiple team development and congrats - you beat Hero quite easy.
Quote from mentioned canny of “more severe consequences”
Lukáš Kováč
About this topic,
I had similar WTF moment, which I would like to share…
On my first gameplay, I bit struggled to prepare second and third team, with manufacture all equipment and aircrafts, but I considered it, as a part of game - so Phoenix point has a very strict in-game economy.
Later I started a new campaign just for experimenting, so I tried to steal aircraft on beginning game - it was so easy, and with some trifling penalty. WTF!!! How much materials and manufacture time could I saved ?!?
That was one of these moments, when I realized, that “a balance is not a strong part” of Phoenix Point
Or from “7 WTF Legendary moments” thread
[quote=“Zarkis, post:1, topic:12532”]
(2) Figuring out after countless hours that doing all those exploration events for resources is a WASTE OF TIME! I could have got all resources from my friendly New Jericho neighbourhood right at the doorstep of my base! WTF! It’s super cheap (just some sniper ammo), I can do it 5 times in a row without loosing valuable time and best of all: They are still my friends afterwards! Actually I am allied with them despite having killed more of their soldiers then the Pandorians ever will! But ok, I guess the game wants to teach you that becoming a opportunistic scumbag is the way to success in this world. I get it. Therefore my assault, who gathers most of the resources, just got a new nickname: ‘The Trump’…
[/quote]
To raid is part of the game, i understand it, but it can be exploited by player as you refer.
The solution is to impossibilitate to raid more than one time for some time, making the facility that went
damage for some days forcing the player to move to other Haven if want to raid more, and making more damage to fation raided diplomacy . It is an act of war, it must have consequences for player.
Like it is is a game breaker for Hero and Legendary difficulty just because you can build super teams and activate a lot of bases early in game.
There is a balance issue here, but it is not as severe as some are suggestging, and it can be corrected relatively easily without throwing the rest of game balance or lore out of balance.
(1) Place a limit such that after the player raids a haven, that same haven will then have no more of the “stolen” resource available for raiding for a period of time, such as for 24-72 hours.
(2) Keep record after a player raids a haven of a specific faction. If within a specific time period after that raid (say, 24 or 48 hours), the player raids a haven of that faction again (the same one or a different one), then the faction hit for the second raid is doubled. If a third time, then the faction hit for the third raid is trebled, and so on. Addendum: Actually, this second point is just too severe - on reflection and playtesting this kind of raiding, point (1) above alone is sufficient.
These changes would still allow the occasional raids as they are now, but will heavily punish raiding the same faction more often in a short time.
What if there was an increasing chance of spawning an Ambush mission instead of Steal resources/research/aircraft mission if you raid the same faction/haven several times?
This mission wouldn’t let player get any resources except for occasional drops from faction defenders.
I think it would be:
Logical in terms of lore (the more you steal the higher the chance to get caught)
Easy to implement (we already have Ambush missions in game)
Would make continuous raiding of the same haven/faction unprofitable
