What i'd like to have

Phoenix Point Game Feedback
1

There are several thinks i have not seen in the BB (but maybe i was not able to find it or maybe in the final version it will be there). So please take it only as a wish. :slight_smile:

  • I miss the possibility to knee to increase the accuracy.;
  • Sniper should be able also to lay down (also to hide them more);
  • To knee or stand up should not use AP, but to lay down and stund up should use 1 AP each for snipers;
  • I miss so much the “flight combat mini game” (in x-com enemy unknown)… or some other “mini game” in it. It could be a sort of “find resources” or “mining minigame” (like in Mass Effect). A time passing minigame to have some no stress fun and that helps also to receive resources or food or even to have only some fun. (not a card game please). Something where we have not to be too much involved but usefull.
  • I don’t like that i can see what bonuses i can receive when i am reserching something.!!! The great thing in xcom was the “surprise” effect after researching or finding something. Please return to that “surprise” effect.
  • One of the great thing in the glory old xcom was the xcom base attack because there you was able to have a look inside of the base you created. And after the battle you were full of alien resources, weapons and corps. That made it possible to sell a lot of stuff and have money to buy new soldiers. (now it should be exchanged with food etc.)
  • I still never received alien corps and weapons after battle… that’s not fun.
  • Civilian should run to soldiers to be protected and when they are in 3-5 ap distance from a soldier, we should be able to take the control of them and tell them where to go.

sorry for my english and hope you have understood it.
Thanks
ciao

1 Like
2

It won’t be like that

It will be in 3rd DLC

You missed that, but don’t expect to have loot after that.

There is nothing to do with them except autopsies.

They run from enemy. When you will approach them you will be able to take control of them.

2 Likes
3

So that’s just silly.

Making kneeling cost AP essentially doesn’t bring anything to gameplay, as at that point units hitbox and aim boost cancel each other (except of snipers who without extra AP spend are easier to hit and a worse shots).

This does seem more like a cosmetic request, and sure it would be nice to see a more lavish animation, but not really my priority in this kind of game.

  1. I did realise recently that there is no “full” base invasion, right? - so we won’t be able to fight on our base layouts and build rooms depending on their defensibility. From what I have seen enemy invades only individual districts (though I didnt see player’s base being attacked though).
4

The issue here is that if kneeling increases accuracy and kneeling/standing is free - then there are very few instances where you wouldn’t want to be kneeling. This means that every single time you move you’re going to click kneel (because you want to increase you accuracy for a shot, or make yourself a smaller target). If kneeling blocks your line of sight, you would click again to stand. All this would be doing is adding a lot of extra clicks for the player. This is the main reason stances were removed.

The same goes for the old X-Com mechanic of having to walk into a room and rotate 360 degree to check the corners. It’s a waste of action points. And once you make it a free action, there’s never a reason not to perform the action. So instead of making it several extra clicks to rotate in a complete circle, just give the soldier 360 degree vision.

2 Likes
5

You’re right, but having a Bipod and lay down with sniper would be nice to have.

6

And having at least 180 degree vision instead of 360 would be even much nicer to have, especially in horror themed game… There’s simply no other single feature that could replace that sense of uncertainty and direct threat. NOT. A SINGLE. ONE.
In X-com really scary was what you didn’t see, because it wasn’t known when, what and from which direction sh*t happens. In PP it looks like enemies are served on a plate almost right away. I’m sorry for my negative response but couldn’t resist. I hope PP will be fun to play anyway.
PS. and with no limitations in degree of sight you guys eliminated opportunities to bring some pretty cool features and gadgets that could improve these limitations over time (special goggles, helmets, heat trackers, enhanced senses, scanning throwables, etc etc, you know what I’m talking about).

3 Likes
7

+1 to the bulk of this. Sadly I think the game as a whole is catering a lot more to fans of the new style of Xcom game, than to those who were big fans of the originals.

It’s a damn sight better than my Italian… :wink:

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8

It could come with a cost though. At which point the player has a choice to make, especially if they have to pay a cost a 2nd time once they finish kneeling or laying down.

From my perspective, this was never a waste of action points, but again a choice of whether to invest those action points into properly scoping out a room, or instead go rushing in and hope for the best. It’s something that I’ve enjoyed in TBS games since, never mind Xcom, but all the way back to Laser Squad, where half the fun of playing as Sterner Regnix was to see where you could hide your droid squad and try to meta your opponent into taking the bait of rushing after you all too hastily.

To which sorry, but I’m with @bartekb8 above here. Having 360 degree vision feels totally illogical and wrong, it’s completely immersion breaking, you’ve even got guys laying down overwatch out of the back of their heads, it’s awful… and what’s more in a game that aims to lay partially within the horror genre you guys are missing a massive opportunity to add some much needed tension and suspense this way, and also the opportunity to provide the player with possibility to fight to overcome that restriction, instead you’re just handing it all on a plate from the get go.

3 Likes
9

You do have to take into account that this is a game trying to run a simulation of a real time situation in a turn-based environment. If you consider that a turn is approximately 5 seconds of real-time, a trained soldier would be checking their surrounding multiple times within that period.

Again, not technically. Overwatch is a direction cone which has a maximum spread of around 160 degrees. The soldier should be aiming in that direction - so they can’t shoot things that are behind them.

10

A soldier who stops when entering a room, and takes the time to carefully survey his surroundings would do. A soldier who runs into that same room and doesn’t survey it properly would probably get shot in the back by their opponent who is also trained and therefore going to be doing their best to try stay hidden.

Unfortunately that directional cone is sometimes pointing out of the back of a soldier’s head, at least in BB5 it is. Which is potentially then a bug, if the soldier is meant to turn to face their direction of overwatch.

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That doesn’t change the fact, that limited vision don’t add tactical depth to originalX-COM - from my experience, there is no choice in terms of “move further or crouch” or “rush in, or check your surrounding carefully” - both crouching, and carefully checking rooms you enter into are must do, and are a busy work, nothing more. Immersive busy works, but busy work nonetheless.

There is potential for “rush in, or check the room” mechanic, though it would take a different type of design. Invisible Inc. does this well, as while it is a game with 360 vision, checking your surroundings and peaking through doors is a thing, and combined with raising alarm system and limited action points leads to some great risk/reward decision making.

Then there are other games, which use X-COM cones vision properly, but those are real time affairs: Frozen Synapse, Door Kickers. Which reminds me, I need to dive back into FS2 at some point - I bought it day 1, and bounced of it hard.

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Of course it adds tactical depth, the simple fact that you can’t automatically see all angles when moving around a map means that you need to take into account your LoS whilst moving around that map, whereas with a 360 degree view you don’t need to bother about it.

Maybe you always choose to play with that level of caution, it doesn’t mean that everyone else made the same choice.

To name just a few alternative strategies, I’ve approached door breaches by:

  • Sending more than one solider in at the same time so that they can cover angles between them.
  • Sneaking around looking through windows because I’m convinced that something is waiting inside.
  • Opening a door and then backing off to see what comes for me.
  • Lobbing a grenade in first to explode/burn/stun whatever might be inside.
  • Blowing the whole damn building down.

I feel like with PP that I’m just going to either wait for the AI to come to me, which seems to be its default, and then I’ll just run around the map irrespective of whether opponents are in or out of buildings because I’m automatically going to see them all, in fact the game is even going to show me when I can see them before I move with its sight lines.

I’m with you on that, it’s an amazing game.

What was it that put you off FS2 - They’re all games that I wished I could like, but I just couldn’t get into them, I think possibly the graphics were putting me off as much as anything, I maybe didn’t give the actual games themselves enough of a chance.

Silent Storm or Dead State would be my most recent examples.

Silent Storm is a great game all be it dated, but it does a fantastic job of having you use caution and stealth to plan your attacks, whilst trying to cover your angles so that a paroling guard doesn’t catch you unawares.

Dead State, I wouldn’t recommend on the whole, it’s got some nice ideas, but the tactical combat is a bit too simple and it gets repetitive eventually. It does do a great job of giving your some scares when you’re not looking however.

1 Like
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Crouching or careful checking rooms maybe was always a busy work but I’ve never found it tedious in turn-based games. The upside of this careful moving of soldiers was also sense of exploration which PP is lacking of. The rest is very well explained by SpiteAndMalice.

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Got Phantom Doctrine on a recent sale, and ffs how I want it to have Invisible Inc. style movement/exploration, would be amazing…

The “Look Around” is the best feature one could think of for these types of games, and I want that even in 360° vision games.
PP is somewhat better on that than PD, as the movement is not FiraXCOM style, so it’s possible to back out after going in, but it would be so much better for me to just press a “look around” button next to a door/window to do that.

It could need some balancing for overwatch, but I would still love to try it out.

15

I thought FS1 was phenomenal. Door kickers, could have been a great SWAT sim, and it, ekhm… borrows FS design, but unfortunately it doesn’t borrow its UI - I wish I could utilise more available items, when making a movement plan.

FS2 didn’t impress me with it’s strategic layer. FS1 was a chain of pre-designed combat challenges, and it was glorious, but FS2 went for a more X-COMy scale. I played a bit of the game, didn’t really understood the strategic layer, combat encounters, due to systemic nature, weren’t half as interesting as FS1’s, and left it alone, waiting for possible patches and DLC, before attempting to decipher the game. I don’t thing other players were into it either. For not it remains on my disk, waiting for me to not have something more promising to play.

Phantom Doctrine was one of those games I was waiting for, until I realised its made by folks who did Hard West. Which was bad. 7 quid seemed like a fair price for satisfying my curiosity, but with PP behind the corner I gave it another pass.

What’s the benefit of not playing with that level of caution? Sure, sometimes I rush in, but it’s impatience, rather then “tactical choice”. None of the things you mention, though, would be present in PP even if kneeling or vision cones were implimented. Like FiraXCOM PP seems to be more about combat, then SWATting, and while I understand for wanting PP to not be that, requesting for individual mechanics from UFO, without seriously altering the context, would do any good. None of those mechanics are bad, by themselves, but they need to serve a purpose, and I don’t believe they would find one in PP.

But you should give Frozen Synapse1 a go at some point.

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And this could be solved with mission objectives… Which are rather not liked by “the players”, they think it’s forcing them to rush, instead of reward vs risk, making the whole thing controversial, even more if the balance of risk-reward is not on point.

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We’ve kinda already got those with the resource chests - How quickly can we get to them before the crabmen destroy… except we don’t have the risk vs reward of moving cautiously vs rushing as we can just dash everywhere and see everything from ever angle.

But I agree, some missions of the type, , wouldn’t at all go amiss. The problem the chests is that at some point we’ll presumably reach a point where we’ll have an abundance of resources at which point gathering more won’t be a priority, and they’ll then just act as the equivalent as a decoy duck.

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Aye, I might have another go.

Would you say that there’s an element of pain barrier to go through in getting used to how the game works?

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Mechanics which push you forward are a risky bunch. I agree, that rewarding for playing fast is a safer way of doing that, but it is also a not very interesting one. I see it more as patching the problem (there is no benefit of rushing forward, so we encourage you to not do that, because it is optimal, but not fun). However. Forcing players to play badly via timers (aka vanilla XCOM2) isn’t rewarding either - making decision you know is bad “because timers” isn’t great.

Previously mentioned Invisible Inc. deals with the problem wonderfully, though its alarm system would be difficult to simply import to other titles - it is tailor for this very game, and interacts neatly with all smaller systems. Rushing forward isn’t always a better choice, and one has to weight the risk vs reward carefully. At the same time, making a mistake generally results in complications, not termination, and there is a lot of middle ground between “playing safe” and “rush in”.

I didn’t feel that way. Basic are fairly intuitive: shotgun wins in short range, rifle in middle range, sniper in long range. Kneeling increases aim, not moving when acquiring target increases aim, already having a view centered on where you expect the enemy to pop up will increase aim.

The biggest concept is simulation, and effective use of an ability to experiment with potential enemy movement to decide on best course of action. There are also dark rooms (can’t track enemies without line of sight).

RIP TB