What's the point of the LoA resource sites?

Phoenix Point
21

This should be done by one team, to not extend the game in too many directions which will too much complicate development process. There should be only triggers:

  • if player enabled DLC1 then include the best mutations at the end of alien evolution to counter bionics.
  • If player enabled DLC2 then include resistances and mutations with better perceptions for the aliens to counter new weapons and add new mutations to the pool in end-game missions.
  • If player enabled DLC3 then add airborne aliens since mid game and add anti-air defences to some sites to prevent player from accessing things.

But if they didn’t enabled any of them game still should stay the same. It doesn’t have to be developed in many different ways.

22

IMO this is not done only by counter all the toys for the player. Highly integrated DLC means for me, that story and missions, global strategy, probably the end game, the whole game is influenced by the DLCs, like in WOTC.
If these DLC only add some toys + separate side missions + counter enemies and you can easily disable it then they can go ahead as now, one DLC after another as usual. No high integration needed, just optional additions.
Edit: IMO :wink:

23

I guess that’s the difference today between DLC and expansions. I do prefer expansions btw, one can hope for a PP one after all the DLCs.

24

For me, the worst part of LoA is UX and UI.
I don’t have lot of time so I am a save scum. AND I AM VERY HAPPY ABOUT IT, because first meeting with cyclops high on gas was hot. like burning hot.
I would say even IMBA as a fire from every single unit on map can kill you in one shot or if not, disable arns because of fire.
And if I am correct, its a map wide aura… not 20 squares like.

and UI… OHhhhhhh… Blue circles, green circles, orange circles and now purple circles… you have to deploy probes in a random manner to find the very last ruin, so you drop four of them, you don’t have monit about a discovery, so you have to track it in manual way. Then you don’t see a difference until you start mining. You can deploy guardian, but you can’t leave your troops on site, at the same time you need to keep a manned ship hovering above the mining site. Makes perfect sense… not.

I LOVE the story, idea, weapons, enemies, but the execution? I can’t wait for a final patch after last DLC, I hope they will mix&match everyting to make it easier to operate

1 Like
25

What I would like to se is the LoA integrated into the story line better. THe sites need to either be automated or something. I have stopped playing PP and returned to XCOM: EW because of frustrations with the new DLC. I don’t like the way it works and it has turned me off of the game. I am waiting for an improvement that makes me want to return to PP. I love the game I love the story I don’t like the manner in which the new content was added it adds nothing but frustration to the game. IMO.

4 Likes
26

I’m also thinking of stopping playing for a bit, but because of new bugs. I’ve been F12’ing and I’d never done that before because most bugs I encountered were already known. These are related to the new DLC and were introduced with it, so it’s not really stable yet.

Besides that, I agree with you, I also didn’t like the first DLC much and actually disliked this second one. However Snapshot guys have responded to the feedback and as they’ve improved the base game, I’m sure they’ll improve these DLCs too. I hope that they apply what they learn from these 2 into the next DLC though, specially regarding lore and story integration as that’s more difficult to change later on comparing to gameplay mechanics and balance.

27

No! Add nothing to counter new weapons… the player probably does not have the new weapons. This approach only makes a very difficult game even harder! For gods sake would-be game designers, allow people to complete these games. Once they can do that they will replay on a higher difficulty to get the achievements.

28

I don’t do this at all, and of course as a consequence I have yet to complete Phoenix Point, despite playing since the betas. I’ve completed the original XCOM games (but not Apocolypse, Interceptor or the FPS ones), the Sid Meier XCOM games on Ironman (including War of the Chosen on Commander Ironman) and generally know what I’m doing. It’s obvious the game is built around a difficulty curve that assumes everyone is save scumming, however, recent changes have made an Ironman play through a little easier. It is still the case that if you lose your A Team you can’t ever come back from it, but at least now its possible to field another team (but you’ll never get them to level 5 - most rookies in the late game will die on mission one, even in heavy armour). Anyway, good on you for save scumming, it’s the only way I can see at this point to get a victory. I thought the new DLC might help with Ironman play throughs but the last game I tried a guardian site resulted in a total squad wipe of my A Team. Later I went back to retry with an Armadillo and 2 squad members (my new A Team, but very low level), hoping it would adjust to be easier, but the Armadillo was blown to bits and I had to retreat. In my last game I avoided the sites completely. This is what it’s currently like to not save scum and to play an ironman style. All this said, I might try another one in my current game, but it’s a massive risk that will almost end the entire campaign because of the risk to the A Team. I know they’ve made these missions a bit easier, but at the same time they sped up the Pandaron evolution (why? what possible rationale is there to making the entire game harder because some optional DLC gets a bit easier?). I’m pretty sure you are supposed to save scum to have any chance of victory.

29

Actually the Snapshot team should be commended for this. They are really listening and the game has improved a lot. People tend to moan a lot about things they don’t like (guilty!), but there is plenty here to like, and Julian Gollop has always been a game designer extraordinaire, from Chaos onwards, to the Rebelstar games, to Lords of Chaos (still a favourite for me and friends) to Laser Squad, XCOM and more recent endeavours. For the team I expect it may seem like a battle against the fans at times, so take heart, you’re getting there and thanks for listening to feedback Snapshot!

5 Likes
30

Is that actually true? Truthfully I’ve never faced the final boss, and I still feel as though I’m pretty far away from that fight… but I found these LoA missions to be extremely easy (5 lvl7 troops, armadillo). I have yet to capture a Scylla, and don’t even have the advanced paralyzing weapons yet.

There were only 3 types of enemies that I noticed, a large guardian thing, small dual-shield guys, and small single-shield drill guys. The Large guardian died in two turns and was almost completely disabled on the first, the small guys were so easily controlled by turrets… they’d all line up and just fire their lasers at them while all my soldiers would retreat into full cover. So… turrets being a small target, lasers being horribly inaccurate, having to move into hiding a lot, and armor that reduced dmg significantly ended up just making the missions time consuming. I’ve always had the idea that the final mission really pressed you to be quick?

(Legend Difficulty) The new patch has Pandorans advancing extremely quickly (awesome, btw!), various balance changes, reduced skill point gain (!!! makes a huge impact in how interesting the game remains by forcing weaker soldiers on the field against harder enemies). Previously I held the impression that I could end the game by month one, but now I’m here at month one feeling “Ahh… give me another month plz?” even though I’m losing less than I used to as enemies are also predictable and easier to fight.

I mention this because at my current position I find the LoA sites to be a refreshing addition to the game. Multiple teams spanning the globe and assisting one another each with their own vehicles and backup vehicles in the making, 3 main bases in Europe, NA and Asia mostly focusing on protecting the northern hemisphere. 1 month in, and almost all (?) have been explored, -100% with Anu as I farm them for resources, 100% with NJ and restricting myself to 50% on Syn.

My mission log looks something like: [Ambush! - Scavenging Site - Side Mission - Raid - Story Mission - Raid - Raid - Haven Defense - Lair/Nest/Citadel - Side Mission - Scavenging Site - Raid - Raid - Ambush] So along with LoA there’s now some Excavation Site missions thrown in there rarely and (presumably, eventually…) Ancient Defense missions.

So to stay on topic, “What’s the point of the LoA resource sites?”, I’d say it’d be to add variety to the game and offer you a side-path of extra missions to create very powerful weapons… The thing I immediately recognized was that these sites and weapons aren’t necessary (as the game still needs to be playable and beatable in vanilla, right?) and that these weapons are actually very powerful relative to the others. Do you need to outfit every one of your soldiers with one of these weapons? No I think that would be far too bothersome and time-consuming and would align with OP’s criticisms… Have a hero or two that you think you’d want to carry the team on the final mission and that maybe giving him a weapon made for a Hero would be a rightful thing to do? Then a few of these missions give them that, right? This reminds me of War of the Chosen and the Chosen weapons… but the comparison ends there. I merely intend to craft the sniper rifle and crossbow and probably leave it at that for my ONE hero I care about and then leave the ancient sites to the factions. Maybe I’ll do more depending on how cumbersome it is/how much time I have left, and the level of cumbersomeness will determine how many I end up making I think while continuing to progress the game alongside these added goals.

All this being said, I do find these DLC’s to both add a refreshing amount of content to the game while also being a bit lackluster and somewhat disappointing. Feedback for LoA is:

  • Why am I fighting factions for information when I’m allied with them, can’t I just cooperate? Diplomacy needs to be expanded…
  • Why must I defend sites from my allies? Diplomacy…*
  • Why is it a line of missions and research with no direction? What if I don’t care about an ancient melee weapon, and why must I do that mission first? Stamina is money, friend!
  • Nothing that particularly stands out… No “final” mission of any sort, no “boss” to fight, no interesting interaction between Pandorans and Ancients? Tech only related to weapons? No special “Lair Bomb” allowing you to destroy a Lair instantly? :stuck_out_tongue:

-* (side note regarding Diplomacy, somewhat related despite deserving its own topic: I think something needs to be done to address multiple play-styles. Some people like to ally themselves with all factions [obviously most effective and efficient currently, and I’d like that to change] and people like me only want one ally [Roleplay!]… the game should be able to reward/penalize either one of us in unique ways I think while not having one be clearly more beneficial than the other, for example:

  1. Single Ally = free missions (missions you don’t have to do, but still get rewarded due to the close nature of the alliance) but tougher research requiring stealing from other factions. Easier targets for raiding because of your clear enemies, but also more likely to be attacked by them as well.
  2. Multiple Allies = less cooperative alliances if you choose to ally with more than one, but easier research and trading (same as now almost)
  3. No Alliance = requiring you to steal tech from factions… but due to the extreme shadowy nature, you’re regarded as a raider and most of your actions go unnoticed in the world and are unattributed to Phoenix which results in less reputation penalties and a minimum -49% rep and you wouldn’t ever be attacked by factions at any site or base… *additionally the ability to re-raid the same haven repeatedly needs to be addressed
    ** Double side note: maybe make it so you can only control friendly defending units in Haven Defense, and allied defending units start off under your control as well? Wouldn’t benefit my playstyle all that much, but I think it’d sound fair and really make me consider whether I really care about defending that Anu Haven, especially knowing they won’t cooperate with me.

Just some ideas to make diplomacy more interesting… More could be done with Blood and Titanium too.

4 Likes
31

Well, my current campaign is about 1 week into February, and so far I’ve done 3 LotA resource sites, and 3 Citadels.

The LotA sites are MUCH MUCH harder than the Citadels. They’re harder than Lairs, harder than haven defences, harder than every other mission type in the game. It’s not even close. Scyllas are a joke compared to fighting 6-10 Hoplites with shields that give them 90% coverage across their body and weapons that do sniper rifle levels of damage.

Right at the moment I’m at the point where I have to clear the refinery sites. I feel like I ‘ought’ to do it since that’s the only way to see more of the LotA content but I really, really don’t want to. I just cringe at the thought of having to do yet another incredibly slow grindy mission where I hide behind cover for an hour and pop out to snipe the Hoplites one by one to whittle them down slowly, after having to replay the mission twice because the first time I tried I stepped on the wrong tile and all the enemies on the map animated and killed my lead soldiers instantly.

I’ve been doing these stupid missions for what feels like weeks now. I’ve sunk hours of playtime and thousands of in-game resources into them, and I still have nothing to show for it. It’s just not fun . . .

1 Like
32

There are quite a few of us who are playing on self-imposed HonestMan on Legendary, but TBH we know the game very well at this point and it should be playable like that for a first time player on a difficulty level appropriate for his skill.

The devs are very interested in what problems the players are having with the difficulty and why, particularly first time players, or at least those that don’t know the game inside out.

When it comes to squad wipes, the idea is that it shouldn’t happen :slightly_smiling_face:.

The expectation is that 1) if the mission says “Extreme difficulty” it will not be attempted by a player unless he is very confident of his chances, and 2) if things go bad during the mission the player will evac (as the vast majority of the missions - and all of the important ones - can be attempted any number of times, there is no penalty for doing that), so you shouldn’t have a total squad loss.

And then for replacing individual losses you can now acquire higher level recruits from Havens and Rescue Scavenging missions, and eventually that should be coming to direct recruiting to base as well.

That’s the theory, mind you, so if you have any feedback/thoughts on why it doesn’t work this way please do share. :slightly_smiling_face:

Nah, the game doesn’t do that… AFAIK DDA is basically gone, except that Pandoran evolution is faster the more they lose.

33

It really doesn’t work that way in practice.

Firstly, the big bottleneck on replacing losses isn’t the soldiers, it’s the gear and especially the armour. There’s no way to recover armour from soldiers killed in action except by winning the mission (and sometimes not even then). So it’s absolutely not true to say that there’s no penalty for abandoning the mission - often winning the mission is the only way to get lost gear back!

And insofar as the bottleneck IS soldiers, it’s SP that matters, not levels, which can only be accumulated very slowly by doing lots and lots of missions. So replacing losses by buying a recruit from a Haven isn’t very effective.

Second, evac-ing in response to losses often isn’t practical since 1) many of the nastier enemies make you unable to move somehow, 2) the panic spiral effect means that after losing a couple of soldiers the rest of your squad will probably panic, and 3) the evac zone can be anywhere on the map.

In my current campaign I’ve had 50 overwhelming victories and 1 squad wipe. Either I wipe out the enemies with minimal casualties, or I get TPKed. Not much in between.

6 Likes
34

These are good points.

The higher level recruits from Havens and Scavenging Rescue OPs have much better stats (actually, at least on Legend much better than you own troops even if they get to the same level by doing missions).

2 Likes
35

Oh, do they? I’d never noticed. I’ll have to compare them next time I recruit one.

36

Fair enough. I’ve only just begun doing them, and I can admit that they’re time consuming because every enemy is a version of a tanky sniper like you said. The strategy remains the same, hide from sniper, shred tank, repeat… except it’s the same enemy this time. Already I wouldn’t mind some variety, but I think we only fight them on the initial excavations and how many are there of those, and do we even need to do them all? I’ve got two and it doesn’t seem that bad to me yet, but I’m still enamored by the prettier maps.

Also is it just me, or do these Ancients not make any sound effects whatesoever? I just have some loud tribal music playing the whole time and my units sound effects, and the whole thing is eerie and a bit off-putting.

1 Like
37

Okay, it doesn’t work that way because the player doesn’t have the information required to stop a total squad wipe from happening ahead of time. There are two main scenarios that cause it: 1) the new DLC mission was clearly intended to tax players that had completed everything else (in terms of difficulty level) but this is not the assumption of the player trying the DLC for the first time and 2) Mind control can destroy your entire A Team due to a cascading issue.

On point 1, the new downward difficulty adjustment might fix it, I’m not sure, but if a mission occurs early in the campaign (or earlyish) the player will assume, even if the game tells them it will be difficult, that it can still be done. There’s a trust between the player and the devs, I suppose. Note that this trust issue is a problem with the XCOM 2 War of the Chosen as well and you only learn from experience that certain missions should be left until MUCH later in the game, even though you get presented with them early on.

On point 2, the loss of a soldier to mind control can cascade into a squad wipe by 1) the mind control takes the soldier off you, 2) that soldier then kills another soldier 3) the mind controller has gone into hiding and it takes a few turns to reposition the squad around the building to get to her 4) she mind controls another squad member 5) her head is now down so she can’t mind control any more (and 2 is not her limit, I’ve had 3 mind controlled by one enemy before in a single mission!) but your two mind controlled members have killed another squad member, or perhaps the Pandoran has with her claws because it’s very dangerous to get close to her but you have no choice due to terrain 6) a Mind Fragger escapes opportunity fire and gets another squad member 7) during all of this, certain members of the team have been panicking, leading you to only actually control 2 of your squad members 8) you are headed for a squad wipe because your remaining unit(s) can’t get to an extraction point (if there is one on the mission - some mission types don’t even let you retreat!). This is late game stuff where you have a powerful A Team. What happens next is recruit, recruit, recruit, use anything left in the stores, trade excess food for materials, manufacture suits of armour and a vehicle, explore anything left out of the mist to grab more resources… struggle to complete a mission, retreat, level up, try for anything on the globe that might help.

There is a third scenario, which happens in 2.7 above, where morale takes additional squad members out of your control and so you lose them to enemy fire/attacks, but generally the squad itself can survive this. This is solveable by not permitting enemies to target panicking units, as the XCOM reboots do, but I understand why this isn’t so and losing a unit to morale here and there is bad but not catastrophic.

1 Like
38

I’m pretty sure I heard their laser fire (or photon cannons, or whatever they use), in the two attempts I made.

39

You make some good points and I agree with you. I think this last point is caused by Armour having a minimal effect on damage, so offensive play is heavily rewarded. Most of the time the player is able to quickly wipe out enemies, but if forced on the backfoot, the defences the player has (armour, opportunity fire doesn’t always connect and if it does the unit may still die) are insufficent to protect them for long enough to turn it around. You can’t, for instance, ‘hide behind a heavy’ and vehicles are durable but do have to be evacuated sometimes because they can get overwhelmed quickly by multiple foes.

40

I respect Ironman-Legendary players with their skills and patience but yes this game is a save-load one.

The biggest reason is the armor system. PX armors are very weak and they never get an update. The armor method is not for fighting at front but just makes your soldier save from dying from an attack. I try to say, armor mostly saves from dead but not let you continue to fight mostly.

There are many armor system at this kind of games. Some are resistance based, some makes the damage less and some stops damage at a limit. Here armor makes you take less damage. So if something big hits you, you should die. To prevent one hits, even the max damage in the game is hardly more then a human HP… I mean look to scylla and it’s melee damage is very little compared that human sized death blade.

I would like to have a solid armor which absorbs the damage and then you start to take damage after that. So a mixed version… So not every melee enemy disables your arm at one hit if you don’t have heavy armor.

For those reasons, even one soldier is important and is very expensive to send in front. I am playing ranged but I like to melee too when it’s safe. It’s not at this game… you can send a soldier in front and then an enemy can pop up and kill you. LoA guys hits so hard that one shot already sends your non-heavy units to the graveyard or hospital. So you need to play safe but it kills the fun…

It’s another discussion but I find very odd that melee hits need 2 TP and there is no skill to let you run from danger if the enemy is not dead or got support. People use those dangerous manuevers just near end of the mission when the thread already low and you got your safety. So it’s fantasy more then tactical.

1 Like