The Stragegical aspect

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
1

(I made a different post about soilder progression, so leaving that aspect out of this post; sorry if posting to much negativity; in general the game awesome idea and thats why i got the early version and is even bothered to post here)

In this “area” I am considering “long term” decisions; or big decisions.
And to be honest I dont really find those; I can basiclly do everything.

Research
is well irrelevant there are no various paths to decide upon, should I try to get X or Y, ie: laser or plasma weapons; genetic modifications, or cybernetic enhancments and then futher in the future what modifications? should I try to get those base buidings or that? get APC or tanks? flame throwers or rocket launchers?
Just pick whatever research it and then the next didnt feel it was super important in what order or even if at all.

Where are the big topics? the important decisions, different paths to go?

The Base has pretty much the same problem; kinda just have everything and what I have isnt something I need to care so much about.
How about researching/fixing/upgrading the Storage unit? Have more things that do stuff that alters/changes whats happening.
And importantly one needs to know early on what might happen/perhaps is possible.
Ie: having a possible upgrade path, the upgrade opions can be hidden; but have a upgrade button that indicates that if doing the “correct” things I can upgrade things in the future.

Map
Again the same here, I just fly around at random in some sort of whack a mole do not really have any problem selecing what to do; I can just fly to everything in a resonable order; and im most cases it do not matter in what order I go somewhere and its also randomized; pick some ? and go there see what happens; one attack happens somewhere I go there deal with that and then the next randomsied spot.

Making incusions agains factions to get some stuff that dosent really matter and pisses them off feels like a bad idea; kinda want to be friends with them (for some reason) so that part gets removed; perhaps in some way it should be a selection on X or Y if you pick X then Y automagicly hates you so you can “attack” them and its all good.

So basiclly in the grand scheme of things; It feel like the strategic aspect is irrelevant and i just fly around between various tactical battles on automatic; not at a single time i feelt like my decisions mattered;

This starts super early in the game, including the lack of rpg/progress; there is nothing that really captures me; I just fly around between various combat missions and well took about 2 hours the first time I started the game until I lost interest and quit and went and did something else; when starting up the game the next times this is the pattern.
Do one mission, meh; reload autosave…see if autosave is for some reason saved where the mission is completed (that happened on occtions); quit…do something else…a couple of hours later see if i can be bothered with another mission, meh nah

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Introduction of flight cost would change that. :wink:

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I agree, though I don’t know whether that’s because story elements are currently missing from the game.

I do know that I was also just flying about at random initially, later I was choosing areas to explore based on how close they were to the mist, but there wasn’t really a lot of method to my actions.

4

You know that mission in old and even in recent XCOM were randomly generated on the globe and you had to fly randomly to those missions? :smiley: That is freedom of choice - you can fly where you want or you can even stay in base.

5

At start the strategic goal is easy: find second base ASAP, build second Manticore, try to find a base in every continent.

After that in fact, being research bugged, there is not a clear path; ok destroy all alien bases you find and do diplo missions. There is a Phoenix mission, very tough indeed i had to spend 4 missiles to complete it, to get a sphere but having it changes nothing, there is not even a research the sphere.

The main problem in this beta is the research bug; being unable to research from other factions trees and being forced to wait for them to research and donate, and they wont because they stop a few hours from the tech and start something different, or steal raiding, that often gives just a lot of research bonus to do nothing and no new tech, is a bit frustrating

My soldiers are still equipped like they were at the beginning, Phoenix weapons and armors are still the best, and keep attacking alien bases or defend settlements attacked by aliens that are the same they were at the beginning.
Yes i have an useless technician a bugged infiltrator and a couple overpowered berserkers while aliens are the same with just 50 more HPS but i dont know what should i do to win the campaign

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It’s a bit different having 2 or 3 locations to choose from and deciding how to find the time to get round each before they expired like you did in old Xcom, that was a real feeling of being in a race against time - as opposed to having dozens of havens to choose from and it not making a whole heap of difference which you actually go to next like it is in PP at the moment.

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The concept of open world, go where you please is fantastic; no problem with that.
Its just that I get the feeling that there are no decisions to make, no real plan just randomly flying around looking for stuff (of wich most is irrelevant)

Soilders have the same gear, why isnt there some sort of progress there? pisses me off…

Anyway… at any given time there should be several decisions that one should need to pick?

Example time…
Do I want to ally with these or those, if helping those someone else gets pissed.
Go and help that base or this?

Plunder this caravan for a new grenade launcher or help faction X find a key to a house.

Do not fly to far away from point A as the enemy is gathering forces there and may attack at some point.

Infiltrate a base to get schematics for an improved medical bay or a larger storage hangar.

Promote this dude or this to captain (can only have one captain?)

Build rocket defense station or a gun platform? the rocket thing is way way way better, but have only 10 rockets now and need to steal, find, research and produce more.

Place a spy station here or there to get early warning of what not?

Oh yeah and perhaps all those ? have time limit on them, so well go there or there? perhaps various quality on those, so I get to decide if i want to go to the cluster of 4 low ones or the one of high quality and only have 4 hours to get there because of reasons.

There are basiclly limitless options on decisions that would make things a bit more interesting and just randomly flying around collecting everything in a order that doesnt matter and well to be fair is just luck based, its not like you can figure out where the second base is, just find it by random?
Perhaps research some tracking thingy? or steal some clues from someone?

I dont know, I guess you understand my point :slight_smile:

8

As i said before the strategic plan at the beginning is simple: find another base, help ALL factions for diplomatic bonuses and resources, once we have second base build second Manticore and second squad, keep helping everyone, if possible because having a single base in Italy makes difficult to help Japan or Mexico, destroy asap all alien bases before they get stronger.

To find the new base you dont need to explore, just fly there, like for settlements.
Helping a faction with mission doesnt enrage the other two and, strange indeed, raiding a base will just anger the leader of that base not the faction. That means you will pay a bit more when trading tech and food for resources

I like the open world style, like in Bethesda games: Fallout and Elder Scrolls. You go where you want, settle where you can, help who you like more or think are more helpful.

It’s not true that your equipment doesnt improve; helping, or raiding, NJ you get access to armor piercing weapons, the rocket launcher, more powerful than grenades and with a long range, and the technician class, a field medic; helping ANU you get the berserker class, a melee fighter very powerful once you learn how to use it, and mutations; helping Synedrium you get the infiltrator class, bugged but potentially deadly, and ranged paralyzing weapons

There are some bugs that prevents the story from developing, but the strategic layout is sound.

9

This.

This is what’s missing right now - You find the hidden Phoenix Point bases by stumbling upon them, if there was a set of clues to follow, or research to unlock as a prerequisite to being able to find those bases the strategic game would be far more interesting imho. Maybe even a mixture of both, different routes for different bases.

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I like the open world style of Fallout and Elder Scrolls too, but the difference is that in those games; you’re travelling within the world; you’re not just an icon on the map; the worlds that you travel through are graphically breathtaking; and most importantly, there’s a story.

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I think there is a story here too; after some mission you get an important, and hard, mission to recover a mysterious Phoenix Sphere.
Done that i got no research for the sphere even if, after the end mission, i got a message and the close button was examine the sphere or something

12

That’s not going to retain player interest.

Look, we’re the hardcore players of the game, we’ve backed, hung around on the forum, whether we agree or disagree with each other on different topics, we’ve all got a vested interest in the game, want it to be as good as possible and we’ll therefore stick around to see what’s under the hood.

But someone who comes along casually, and has a 100 other games in their epic/steam library isn’t going to respond well to a feeling of the game being directionless, and they’re probably the greater share of the potential player base.

If it’s not a question of story, it’s a questing of pacing, but there needs to be something that comes along early in the game that goes ‘boom’ this is what you need to do and why you need to do it.

13

Spiteandmalice have it correct!
First of all its a bit unclear if the developers are actually reading this forum or not, havent really seen any indication on that…its a bit scary tho.

For this game to be sucessfull, copying a “10 year old game” is not going to be good enough; most of us have played a number of various xcom clones/games; so we know what we like! it will ofcourse differ from person to person but the general principles are in play.

Engaging, Fun, Difficult, Complect, Replayibility, progress, loot, epic loot, leveling, and so on how one goes about is ofcourse differnt but if to many of those are missing what is left is to far behind the other games in the category that people will lose interest almost at once.

And given that we live in the time of instant gratification; the begining of a game is more important than ever.

The player must feel that his actions are important, vital and key to the overall success of the campain!

After each hurdle (completion of a mission, research, leveling up a soilder) there needs to be a reward.

Each mission (tactical combat) needs to be enough complex (not just more difficult due to more enemys) but complex so it can be solved in various way where the player can feel smart by for example using various tactics with differnt types of soldiers/weapons

If these elements are not inplace some players will quickly stop to care, why bother doing this thing it gives me nothing, not loot, not real reward to happy-good-feelings;

Thats how you feed the player the need for “one more turn” I just need to wait 6 hours and I get this cool upgrade; a attack happens you will need to defend the thing so that you can get those 6 hours to go so you get your epic-sword.

The global map needs to be so interesting, especially in the begining so you feel a need to check that thing out! I want no need to know whats there, or find that thing? get a couple of “quest” threads to follow.

Im sure there are people who are just happy enough to just get random results from random actions; but the more hard core players demands complexity and deapth in ALL aspects of the game.
Some like quests, equipment, character progression or whatever.

So the “high” keeps on comming, over and over again and then in end or even in the middle you start to consider perhaps it would have been better if I done this instead? Did take a wrong turn at some point?

Now its also a little bit hard to get involved in anything; who are my heros? not some generic troops for sure; Im I the general of this event…sure but the decisions the general makes could as easily been done by the janitor as they are mostly linear, random or just not important in the grand scheme of things.

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I reserve my judgement until i get in my hands a more finished product.

This one looks, to me at least, an attempt to mix the XXX (eXplore, eXpand eXterminate) kind of games like Civ with the tactical squad combat.

ATM there are bugs in the strategic layer but i already know that alliance with NJ will turn my soldiers in walking tanks with super heavy armor, rocket launcher and armor piercing weapons, the alliance with Syn will instead give me a stealthy way to play with semi invisible commandos with poison and virus weapons, the alliance with Anu will give me mystic soldiers berserker and priests able to mind control. Too bad that that is bugged and i cannot research their techs but i want to hope the developers are well aware of the problems and are working hard to fix them

Some reward techs arent yet implemented; the virophage i guess is something like the bio weapons of Apocalipse, a weapon that allows you to change the course of the campaign

The mysterious relic i found in antartica will probably, once researched, give me the location of the alien base and the chance to mount the assault maybe using a super Manticore with double the capacity that i will build once i finish all techs of all factions

What i’m playing now is absolutely not worth the 60 euros i payed, but it’s a beta, it’s not the finished product, and there are many things i like, it’s not everything to throw away

15

They do. Feedback from the forums is forwarded, and you can see Community Manager keeping a close eye on the forum.

16

Ye. Atm, strategic map offers no real strategy… What I personally hoped for - is some territory you conquer and try to control, try to expand. But it seems such thing wont happen in this game.

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An idea could be to be able to use any free settlement as a base. We fight them with enemies proportional to the population and structures and once we win we have a new base.

To balance the thing the new base will be empy apart a living room, a storage and a food production if the settlement had one, so it would be a cost before we are able to benefit having to build from scratch generator, laboratory, airport, factory; a lot of cost and time

After all free settlement are pratically useless; once in a lifetime you happen to recruit a soldier and defending them you get equipment that almost immediatly is scrapped

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