Actually, I’ve spent more time weighting a single Guerrilla option in FiraXCOMs than thinking about what to do next on the strategic layer of BB5 during my whole playtime. The slog of nest clearances is a symptom of a greater problem: The strategic layer is 80% reacting to a haven defense and applying a nest clean up when it is revealed. Scavenging sites missions goes gradually down due to a lesser presence on the map and an increased activity of alien bases forcing you into a reactive mode.
Also, the mist cause alien bases to be spawned, fully staffed and ready to strike, around the map without a clear pattern or logic that can be predicted and countered. It just spawn there like a hostile civ in CIV would spawn a city with 20 pops in the middle of your civ without a settler.
The alien strategic options need to be more defined with troop movements (like the aircrafts on the map but on ground), convoys and other things (RISK-like strength distribution) that will make the player able to glimpse the progression/growth of the alien and alter his/her strategy accordingly.
LW2 abstracts this interestingly with Advent Strength and activity. If you are inclined to spend time analysing it, you can target your raids etc to divert Advent’s attention away from your most vulnerable areas, and use it to anticipate where Advent will strike next.
Something like that might be a more viably implementable way to go at this late stage - because unless it’s already built into the system, I can guarantee there’s not enough time for Snapshot to tack what you’re talking about onto the game before its Dec 3 release.
I hope this is just because of Backers Build 5 is not final build. But devs already said that missions will be major part where players spend most of their time.
I suppose that this slog is because of two things:
players feel obliged to react to each alien attack (of course it is better to defend than to ignore, but if player doesn’t feel he is ready for this fight then he should omit such mission and do something else)
overall lack of balance in BB5 which here is probably low defenders strength vs high attacker strength
Well majority of this game is about it. You should defend human population from invaders and prepare counterattacks. Whole XCOM series is bases around that. If you can, you discover flying saucer, shoot it down and go to mission, or just go to mission where enemy has landed. In Phoenix Point it is even more realistic that enemy is overwhelming and human population is at brink of annihilation.
This is existing situation on the globe and we should adapt to it. Enemy is not human civilisation which you can predict and easily track their progress and strategy. In Civ it had to be like epidemy starting inside of your civilization and spreading exponentially without any settlers, units and even resources.
Maybe with proper tech we will be able to track their movements just like we currently track mist. Bases as underground structures will probably show only after successful defends. Or maybe later on as some predicted and estimated locations which require additional local scan of area (like Explore on sites).
Btw. I’m not sure if your risk-like distribution would make sense as we oppose here enemy which counts his units in bilions and his main territory is water where we couldn’t stand against them with the tech owned by humanity in presented setting/lore.
So each alien base destroyed is just slowing aliens down, but definitely not stopping their global progress. We are just itching them of surface. We are not an equal opponent to them. Our deeds doesn’t count in great scheme of events. I suppose this was intention of developers and well… Threads like end of this one confirm that they succeeded.
They only need to make sure that the game wont get boring.
Then they are shoehorning themselves into a direct comparison to Fireaxis XCOM and what will come with it in the reviews. I just hope there’s an ace in their sleeve in the form of various main objectives and variants.
For Firaxis’s XCOM, that’s a lie. Note the mission type down and distribution during a month’s playthrough: You have a landing site, a crash site (similar to landing but different tileset), a terror site and alert site. All distributed in the timeline. For XCOM2, you have even more missions type and variants too which allows for more interesting gameplay.
Another game, UFO: Afterlight was able to generate at least 5 different main objectives out of a single “attack territory” strategic point and able to make an enemy that even if it was cornered or controlled the whole map, provided a good distribution. Can we at least expect this or it will go the way of Xenonauts (nothing for 1 week, 5 missions in one geoscape hour, repeat)?
What adaptation? “Click to intervene”? That’s the only thing which is going on. There’s no decision-making related on how to adapt beside “go to beeping point on map or not”. The PP bases are already builts, the havens are preset and interchangeable/expendables cogs…
But human factions will gladly kill each others by flying troop transports above those billions of units to attack another settlement hundred of kilometers away. That thing is a plot hole that will need to be addressed somehow.
Being told that your game might have a few glaring flaws that are mentioned by the players and probably also by reviews later on isn’t a sign of success…
That’s what I think too and expected at least another 6 month delay just to make sure to avoid any direct comparison to other games.
Sure they are. And in this comparison they will come with better game. Tactical combat is way better than in FiraXCOM. But I also hope that full version of PP will surprise us with something. If it will be similar to BB5 then it would mean that indie studio have just made something interesting but not phenomenal.
But still you just react to what randomizer will throw at you on monthly basis. You don’t build bases, you hardly expand on the globe, or make any strategic decisions. You click next research, then manufacture what was researched and go on a mission which has poped up on the globe. And remember that Firaxis is big studio.
Exactly. You need to decide where you will go to not overstretch your soldiers. I hope that deciding what to build in base will have more consequences, and decision with which faction we should ally will impact more what options of exploration and research we will have. Also I hope that it will be important what weapons we take on the missions, and how aliens adapt to those weapons. It will impact our manufacturing. Currently all these elements are not balanced or are not working as intended or are not present at all.
That was addressed in other thread that even in face of overwhelming enemy people tend to fight for their beliefs and according to their way of thinking.
It depends how they will balance other things. Who knows. Maybe base and mission generation frequency won’t change, but we will be explained what we should do in those cases. Or maybe consequences will be different.
I was doing a Nest clearout the other day, and the Crabbies just kept coming! That’s never happened to me before. They were just the ordinary pincer & shield types, but there was such a never-ending number of them that I had to abandon my dug-in position and go hunting the Sentinels before I ran out of ammo.
It made the whole thing much more tense and enjoyable - in fact I had to Dash my 2 pointmen into the second Sentinel’s chamber and Quick Aim a couple of times to take it out before it unleashed Hell just as I was about to run out of ammo
In Phoenix Point it is even more realistic that enemy is overwhelming and human population is at brink of annihilation.
