Suddenly stops being fun

Have had this game for about a year and been playing it on and off. Im a casual player and play on Veteran difficulty. Took a long break from this game because it suddenly gets really hard, seems like out of the blue… but gave it another try after some DLCs and heard it should be better now. And I did have a lot of fun playing it… until again it suddenly jumps in difficulty. It seemed to happen after I got Armor Piercing tech and started making some weapons. I play on Veteran difficulty so I can play at my own pace and dont have to max / min everything.
After Armor Piercing tech I got a rescue mission, difficulty Extreme, not the first time that have happened… but managed it before. After a few rounds where I really didnt get out of the starting area, too many mobs… I had 3 Sirens, 1 of those summon help / rez dead mobs and 2 that bombarded me with fireworms… plus all the extra mobs, was around 12 mobs on my list. It just stops being fun… I was on a rescue mission and was wondering… who is going to rescue me?
So I withdrew and got a salvage mission, it went more or less the same way… Sigh. Time for another break from PP.

1 Like

Armor piercing weapons is mid-game research. It means that you are deep into your campaign. Don’t expect every mission to be easy. You should already have experienced team which should deal with any Siren/Chiron combination. The only thing that can push you out of the map may be Acheron - yes they are difficult to deal with and are priority targets.

And if you experience so huge spike then it means probably that you avoided being hit in previous missions. Game at some point tries to bump up difficulty so to be more challenging and be able to deal some damage.

Thank for you the reply :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

The missions havent been easy, but that was just impossible… did manage to kill the Acheron, only to have another come in after 2 turns. There is a limit on how long I want to spend time on a single mission and I wasnt getting anywhere.

Any hits on dealing with the big mobs? Have a problem getting close to them if there is 1 or 2 Sirens lurking around (along with all the other crap that is usually around) and it seems my Snipers just dont deal enough dam to them at range. Maybe I am missing something.

On another note: All these kind of games, not just PP, get harder and harder… which is both good and bad. It means that you dont really feel like your soldiers are getting better, because the difficulty is just increasing with your soldiers (I hear in the end it might be different), but try using new recruits and you see how hard it suddenly gets. After a point, you need to use your top soldiers all the time to have a chance and it usually takes longer and longer to do the missions, even though your soldiers are now badass…

Only a guess, but if you rely too much on snipers than you lose vastly on damage per turn. The best damage dealer are also the most inaccurate, sure, but relying too much on snipers and you will have a hard time in my experience.

Another key is to shred the enemies armour, explosives like the grenade or rocket launcher are your friend. 2 Heavies with Boom Blast, Goliath grenade launcher and Fury missile launcher and you can rain 6 x explosives over a pretty long range on the enemies in one turn. After that the rest can easily get killed by your snipers and assaults (<- superior damage dealer with shotguns but also with assault rifles once the enemies armour is pretty low or down).

The order of attacks and prioritising dangerous enemies matters a lot in the later stages as also to use the disabling mechanic, a Siren with a disabled head is pretty harmless as long as she don’t get in melee range. Acherons have also a lot of their dangerous abilities tied to their head, disable it and you gain time to deal with other easier to kill enemies. Some normally pretty dangerous melee Arthrons can be ignored once they lose their pincer etc pp

Finally, if you still feel like it’s too difficult then consider playing on Rookie. There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re having troubles and aren’t really having fun to play on Veteran but just want to enjoy the game as it is.

To be true, I don’t like how PP handles soldier progression and difficulty of enemies, but… There are class and skill/equipment combinations that let you overcome almost any enemy. Remember that most enemies is not so dangerous after you disable one or two of their body parts. You don’t need to kill them.

Just went played a bit again and it suddenly becomes very difficult, not as bad as in the beginning but enough for me to stop playing. Played many of these games, but I do have 3 snipers in my 8 man squad, 2 of them are infiltrators as well, I like the spider drones and hiding them. My best dam dealer is a zerker / heave (brawler) that can 1 hit kill most mobs, just have to get close enough. Time is limited and I cant spent hours per mission, when I get a chance to play I can maybe do 2-3 missions at the later stages and that just isnt fun for me. Just had a salvage mission with 4 Archerons (?), they just kept summoning each it seemed, took about 2 turns to kill one, while still holding of the other mobs. Come on, 4 of them and they likely can keep coming, never ending mission, thats no fun for me, I like to do missions in about 30 mins, fair that special or rare missions take an hour, but now most of them do. Heard Gears of War should be good, might give that a try.
Seems really ridiculous that you have to play on Rookie to have some fun in this game. I tried it on Rookie before and that was way too easy, might be more fun in the later stages tho. Also tried harder difficulties, the change wasnt so bad, expect it gets hard and takes a looooong time per mission sooner. I dont have to have to min / max for a normal game and I wont to be friends of all of the factions. I read a guide to PP about raiding 2 of the factions for research and ships to sell, and just doing that in the beginning to get a good cash flow, just seems silly to me.

Thanks for the replies! Guess the game just isnt for me.

Does anyone know if the game can become easier again? If you spend to much time and all the soldiers are wounded everytime, can the game lower the difficulty?

Note: Festering Skies seems poorly made, the air combat, if you are unlucky, the enemy planes are across the world with no way of getting over there or doing anything about it. And what is the point of it? What happens if you dont intercept them? It resupplies, ok? Just seems like a good way to get extra resources by taking them down. The “tactical” combat also needs a redo, imo.

I don’t know what to answer…

Maybe check this player on youtube. His missions are rarely longer than 40 minutes, often go between 15 and 30 minutes on the hardest difficulty. But he is “power playing” - which means he uses no restrictions on his soldiers (so they become really strong). Maybe you will see some tricks to help you out with more difficult missions.

The game doesn’t lower difficulty. You hit a point where most Pandorans are tough, deadly, and Acherons are calling in seemingly endless reinforcements. But you do have things to counter this.

-keep team of 8 together (use two ships to go to a mission)(or blimp); you need to combine firepower to take down a couple Pandorans a turn - never split up a team
-Heavy w War Cry can help a great deal…keep pumping up the willpower so he can use it 3 or 4 times before needing to recover; grenade launcher can really soften up (but expensive to use)
-Assaults - laser rifles a bit more accurate…lead w an armour break shot…don’t stand at the corner where you think you will get two shots off next turn…move out + shoot + duck back unless you know you are safe
-decoys can give you a turn breather
-disable legs to slow down speedy arthrons, shoot off weapons, disable pain torsos, etc.

Pick one sector of the map + never go up the middle. Go to the left or right and fight the Pandorans there, hopefully while others beat on haven defenders or structures. Try to fight a small chunk of the enemy or do the old X-Com tactic of leading some back onto your team, getting overwatch bursts into them and then your turn’s fire.

Priests + virus damage can also really help if you can get it into something.

Probably lots I’ve missed, but first and foremost: keep team together + pick one chunk of the enemy to fight at a time.

I have started again… I realized that my main problem lies with the Acheron (?) and that was part of the lasted expansion. So I just started again without that expansion… and everything seems to be going very well. It seems like an expansion without any real bonus, at least for me, just some penalties. The Acheron that summons mobs and can summon another Acheron, just adds extra time to each mission and makes it little fun for me. The chaos corruption is also a pain in the a… Part of the same expansion, happy to get rid of that as well. But we did get Mutiods, which I dont like, I cant heal them on a mission. Ok… well the healing attack is there, but kinda sucks, only heals 60hps and have to be in melee range. I know some ppl love them, but I dont :slight_smile: so an expansion I can live without. Everything is going well, running a veteran campaign and havent seen any sudden increase in difficulty yet. I havent even upgraded or stolen a 8 blimp transport yet, still only got my 6 starting transports.
I am allied with 2 factions and Anu is 50+. Might be faster to just steal what I need, but I like to play the game as a good guy and do as much as possible.
War Cry works wonders! :slight_smile: been a tactic for a bit now.

I have watched some ppl playing PP in the beginning, but quickly stopped doing that. It was just frustrating to watch… The guy I was watching hit nearly everytime with his shots and not even on close range. Headshots at long range hit, even assault rifles at a good range nearly hit every shot. And when it came to the enemy, they hit like Stormtroopers from Star Wars, and he was playing on Legendary. I miss 50% of my headshots with my snipers at long range, with only the head in the small circle.

On a different note:
Do you guys know why I am not getting my living weapons? I do the missions, I remember them from previous runs but dont get the rewards. I only have the armor, not the assault rifle or heavy weapon yet, even though I have done the missions.
And have anyone noticed that the second time you shoot with an assault weapon, they miss more? I might be concentrating on the times it happens and not everytime I shoot twice… :slight_smile:

No idea. Never happened to me.

Agreed with the OP 100%

The game is broken. Always has been.