PP is fun, but needs a lot of quality of life changes.
There is a lot of things that just aren’t explained in game, which should be via in-game tool tips, once you unlock something for the first time. An example is trying to load a Scarab into your drop ship to bring with you on a mission. Another example is research, I didn’t realize the only way to get new weaponry was through factions raiding until probably 40 hours in(which was told to me on a random loading).
Speaking of research, it’s extremely dull to be gated on upgrades unless you raid tech from other factions. That it itself is a cool feature, but it shouldn’t be the only way to unlock new toys. Having to wait until you’ve reached a high enough rep with one faction to unlock their research takes too long and you quickly fall behind in the arms race against the aliens. Not to mention that if you recruit from any of the other two factions, they won’t have proficiency with your faction-specific tech.
Herein lies another problem related to acquiring new tech, you have to do missions for everything in this game. Missions to defend havens, missions to gain faction rep, missions when scavenging. There needs to be some other way of breaking up the monotony of missions, as they’re all the same type. Personally, I hate having to do a throwaway mission just to steal some research. This feature should be more like in X-Com 2 where you send in an infiltrator and only upon discovery do you have to send in a squad to extract the agent. Stealing research should use some other mechanic, or have the missions be drastically different that every other mission.
We need a better UI for managing two squads within two transports at the same base. It’s like working with an excel spreadsheet trying to move guys around and figure out who’s on which transport.
In base defense missions, why are my guys scattered all over the compound when I have advance notice hours beforehand that an attack is coming? That’s the who point of defending a base, you have time to set up your forces and hunker in. In the current iteration we might as well just run outside and fight the invaders in a random field.
I’m going to reply to one specific point you made about research being locked behind factions; this is not entirely true. Your claim is that the “only” way to get higher tier guns is through faction rep. You can research for instance mercy shotguns without unlocking any rep, and that is the best shotgun until pretty much the end game (where you replace it with iconoclast). I would also say that the heavy canon ages very well and you already have it available to begin with. I’m still using heavy canons on my elite teams in the final missions; the high one shot damage, armor shredding, and on top of this dazing make it an extremely compelling weapon not locked behind any research whatsoever.
The Helcannon is absolute garbage unless you’re standing in melee range with your target. Additionally, heavy’s are ridiculously slow. Shotguns are good, yes, but again that’s a close range weapon. So what about snipers and assault classes? With so much return fire in this game it’s nice to have some long-range options besides the vanilla pea-shooters.
I really like the game, so this is mostly just nitpicking, but I agree with some of this. It is really hard to ramp up tech without stealing it (which should be explained right at the beginning). Also, the missions should be quite different as Ramzi noted.
I have another issue to introduce and that is the way the difficulty ramps. Understand, I am not an expert player, but I do have considerable experience with this type of game and have finished all the old and new Xcom’s, Xenonauts, Xcom LW etc. Some have been on 2nd highest difficulty and Iron Man. So, I am probably 25 hours in, have 3 bases, two decent crews (mostly level 6 and 7) one lower level crew (levels 3-4, mostly from training centers) 4 aircraft and a Scarab. So, go to haven defense with lower crew plus Scarab in two aircraft. Able to deploy 4 mid-level soldiers (Two snipers, shotgun assault and level 4 technician, not very strong) plus Scarab. I figure this is going to be pretty hard as alert level was high. Yes, high is an understatement. Opponents have Scylla, Fire Chiron, 2 Sirens, plus roughly 15 more Tritons and Athrons. Armor went up 10pts on everything. Took down Scylla, Chiron, and both Sirens (was mind controlled once) but was out of grenades, rockets on Scarab and assault ran out of ammo. Then lost two soldiers and Scarab. Finally won, but what was that? It felt like opponent went up 5 levels from the last “hard” battle. If every mission is going to be like this one in the future, I am going to struggle much more than I would prefer.
I know they just did a patch (thank you!) but some balancing is needed…and I thought Dash was overpowered…but not if the aliens are going to be this powerful. Please either ramp up the difficulty more slowly or provide better tech earlier!
I still love the game but fear I won’t be able to finish at normal difficulty.
I don’t think you’ve tried the hel canon in the right circumstances. I equip half of my snipers/heavies with them and they hit just fine at long range, why? Because they are wearing +30% accuracy total from gear (10 head/body/pants), they use quick shot (+25%) and on top of that marksman is usually up (+50%). Give it another go, it’s definitely not garbage like you’re seeing.
I’m still using them in the end game and even though they are “only” dealing half of an enemy’s hp at this point, the daze means I get more turns to do things anyways and actually most guns have trouble one shotting enemies at that point too.
I agree with this, you should have the option to pre-place your troops via Deployment tiles at the start of these missions and/or have x number of free turns at the start of the base defence before you’re attacked in which to do it manually and lay-down turrets.
I was under the impression that there would be “upgrades” for armor and weapons and have been planning on them coming up in the research tree for a long time. Something like armor piecing or acuracy boosts at least. The only one I got was from a vivicection. These things shouldn’t only be achieved via trade… Phoenix Point sees the threat and should be able to adapt, just as the enemy does.
I’ve not gotten too far yet, but research feels like it has no real impact apart from unlocking story. And as most of my time is spent on the battlefield, it doesn’t really help keep up. Also… What is the point of “Research” discovered at a site? What does it do? It doesn’t let me access any new research.
Hate to say this, but I’m getting bored. It’s a challenge, but that doesn’t make it interesting.
I totally agree. I kind of boloxed up my first run, so decided to restart and take into account all the things I had learnt the hard way.
I have now got to the point where I need to find the SE Asia base and do the Symes retreat. Sadly I seem to be stuck in a rut where I have to leave 7 troops at phoenix point and have one guy scouting as the Pandorans seem to be attacking my base like clockwork.
I am now on my 4th defense of the base in what seems like as many minutes, and yet again a stupid siren has 4 of my guys mind controlled because they start off scatted all over the damn map and apparently I cant start off surrounding the lift, even though I know they will come in that way, a fact which seems to have escaped my crack team of soldiers.
Also one thing I don’t get with Havens. If You want to raid them for some veggies they instantly have a squad ready to fill you full of lead. However if the Pandorans raid, they are all at home having a cuppa and watching TV and ONLY your squad of 6 + guys mostly using THEIR tech are the thin line between the Enemy and total annihilation…
I had to restart a couple times too just from to not realizing things sooner, like how to upgrade my weapons/armor etc. I didn’t want to immediately start espionage on the other factions after just meeting them and souring relations until I knew more about them.
It quickens your current research project. If you don’t research anything then it is wasted.
I don’t know how you were doing in original X-COM, but I had to restart more than couple of times just to get pass some point in the game. So Phoenix Point isn’t so bad in this field.
It’s true, I had to restart several times in the X-Com (Firaxis Games) games, but the difference was that I was never at a loss on how to unlock tech, or what class of soldier did what. I knew what the game expected of me. All that information is there for you explaining how the game works. Any restarts were due to my own mistakes like losing council member nations because I choose to prioritize other countries defence missions.
I am now considering entering a 3rd campaign and I am pretty frustrated. It feels like I did a lot right in my current campaign, but feel helplessly behind. The problem is, I am not sure how I got behind. I have one very powerful crew of multi-classed fighters who can win on any of the maps fairly easily. Unfortunately, the “junior” crew is hopelessly overmatched in even routine missions. Latest frustration. Scavenging mission with medium opposition (not high or extreme) had Scylla, Siren and at least 15 crabs / tritons. The crabs and tritons are definitely not cannon-fodder as they are heavily armored. Further, I don’t have much in the way of armor piercing weapons. I have one heavy with a very inaccurate machine gun and that is about it. {Note that it is probably a mistake to not go back to the Hell Canon with new armor that doesn’t kill accuracy. I just did that and we’ll see how that works.)
I am wondering if there is something I am missing to “ramp up” It seems like I am getting lots of resources trading food. I have 3 aircraft (Manticore, Helios, Thunderbird, no Tiamat yet) 5 bases. All the bases have medical bays and training centers. One central base has 3 training centers for leveling up, but all have at least one. I am also producing +37 food for trading. Right now, I am scrambling to save havens from a war between New Jericho and Synedrons.
So what can I do to speedup my development or slow down the Pandorans? One thing I haven’t done is do a 2nd lair mission. Now the lairs have turned into Citadels and I haven’t attacked one yet. Plus, the lair missions are very tough and pretty sure it will take my best crew (with good options to get to spawnery, assaults with lots of WP’s and an assault/heavy for jet packing) to even stand a chance. Will taking down a Pandoran Citadel slow their progress in terms of ever better armor / weapons. Is there a way to have fewer sirens and scylla’s show up in what should be routine scavenging missions?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
XCOM1&2 are a lot simpler, morover, it was providing zero information on research tree, so your counter example comparison doesn’t work at all.
For elite problem, you still get a point, not how build stuff, it could be as well just by research, but by showing the potential problem, can"t give them any weapon that you can build.
HAHAHAHA love it! "… they instantly have a squad ready to fill you full of lead… however if the pandoran’s raid, they are all at home having a cuppa and watching TV… " hahahahaha comment made me laugh out loud! I’ve asked myself this question too!
I’m currently on the 15.02.2047 and am getting hammered with force level 27 haven attacks on small maps. I’m facing off with the big mindfragger spawning alien, one that spits fire worms and 3 others (usual smaller aliens).
In easy difficulty (I like to play through games once for the story and get a feel for the game etc).
I can say, that the current haven defense basically ends my game unless I constantly save/load or juts ignore it.
Either way, it’s stopped being fun. I am all for a hard challenge etc but not on easy. It looks like a game created for hard core players for hard core players, we are not going to win any new fans/players with this as it is.
Far too frustrating. It’s one thing to make a mistake and be punished for it, it’s another to be placed right next to a huge alien you can’t kill in one turn and get wiped out due to that placement.
PP has the potential to be a great game, but at the moment it needs balance and some bigger maps.
Tried Easy, boredom first 3 special missions, but after it was ok…
Until at first haven defense, only one big structure, alien staying in open thown two grenades, soldier killed, knowing how bad is the game to sustain soldiers death (huge hire cost, equipment lost adding even more, stopped and will until a real bug fix.
Now I have plain game breaking bugs like with site explore finishing on nothing and requesting a second exploration, unacceptable in a game based on a time rush.
The design need choose if it’s a roster game and soldiers death can be managed, or if it’s not. Current design on that is plain absurd. Gee I wish be on Steam to throw a thumb down vote. Im’ not used to play Early Access games, it’s not helping.
