KickStarter Phoenix Point - the new game from X-COM creator Julian Gollop

[mercyRPG]

Squad Size?
Anybody has info about the max. 16 strong squads they told us last year, is that feature still a go?

 

[PanteraNera]

Squad Size?
Anybody has info about the max. 16 strong squads they told us last year, is that feature still a go?

Yes it is, but there was talks that they will encourage the players to use smaller squads (I belief it was said through XP bonus).
I do not know (as there was nothing new about that in the last couple of months) if this still holds true (max. 16 soldiers)

 

[Shog-goth]

You are (legitimately, of course) asking questions about the classes, but please look at the picture: after all this time the only available screenshot of the Geoscape (probably the most important feature after the tactical layer) is still that of the Fig Campaign, which is actually only a mockup and not even a real one. It's really disarming.

 

[PanteraNera]

You are (legitimately, of course) asking questions about the classes, but please look at the picture: after all this time the only available screenshot of the Geoscape (probably the most important feature after the tactical layer) is still that of the Fig Campaign, which is actually only a mockup and not even a real one. It's really disarming.

Lately when ever I read a post from you I have to think about that song:


Well it is obvious that you are excited about that game, but there is not enough to keep you positively excited. I can understand that

 

[luinthoron]

You are (legitimately, of course) asking questions about the classes, but please look at the picture: after all this time the only available screenshot of the Geoscape (probably the most important feature after the tactical layer) is still that of the Fig Campaign, which is actually only a mockup and not even a real one. It's really disarming.

Eh, I'm as disappointed as you by the use of campaign images not just for this here but also for the tactical UI in most of the recent articles, but we do also have the screenshots from their devblog post on the geoscape.

 

[Shog-goth]

but we do also have the screenshots from their devblog post on the geoscape

Even those two images date back to August '17. After that nothing more was showed, and I consider them more proofs of concept than real screenshots (and found them horrible, BTW).

 

[PanteraNera]

Well to bring in some facts, the team started end of last year (Oktober/November 2017) to focus on New Jericho and the tactical part of the game for the PCGamer Weekender (mid February 2018) they were not able to include some elements they wanted to (a fourth class, Technician, reworked Larva, new creature "Chiron", functioning vehicle, to mention some). UV said that the geoscape was on hold for that time (still is?). Now another two months later, they basically show the same stuff + free-aim. Maybe UV will make a video of the EGX built (if there is enough additional stuff that was not shown in the EGX presentation). What I can tell from the presentation is: Technician still not in, as well as working vehicle.
Backer Build One ETA two weeks, will most likely be the same + inventory and procedural-generated maps.

No news on base building, geoscape, two non-player-factions, player faction, skill-system, class system, inventory-system.

But seems they do the right thing, as pre-orders keep on rising beyond 100k $ a month.

I still believe they are not holding back anything (or not much) that they could show.
I am genuinely puzzled what they are working on (especially the artists) and why there is so little new to show.

Actually I start to think that maybe Phoenix Point is a project to not closely follow but to forget and maybe (big maybe) it will release Q2 2019 and everyone will be surprised (for the better or worse).

I personally have still not pre-ordered the game, as I still have no fucking idea were the journey is going.

 

[PanteraNera]

BTW there is this video that shows a bit more than the dev blog that was just linked by luinthoron

 

[Latelistener]

Synedrion was (or is) supposed to have Infiltrators as their special class.

From what I gathered from the Fig update, specialists are something like second classes to the standard ones.
You get Heavy at the start, you choose some skills for him and then you turn him into something else (Technician, for example). Yeah, I have a feeling that Technician is the specialist class for New Jericho.

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/phoenix-point/updates/376

Then there will be five specialist classes. These represent more refined, interelated skill groups, although there may be some crossover with other classes.

Even those two images date back to August '17. After that nothing more was showed, and I consider them more proofs of concept than real screenshots (and found them horrible, BTW).

From the official site.

Spoiler

 

[PanteraNera]

From what I gathered from the Fig update, specialists are something like second classes to the standard ones.
You get Heavy at the start, you choose some skills for him and then you turn him into something else (Technician, for example). Yeah, I have a feeling that Technician is the specialist class for New Jericho.

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/phoenix-point/updates/376

Oh that is all outdated info.
Read up on the posts to get up to date: link 1, link 2, link 3

 

[mercyRPG]

You are (legitimately, of course) asking questions about the classes, but please look at the picture: after all this time the only available screenshot of the Geoscape (probably the most important feature after the tactical layer) is still that of the Fig Campaign, which is actually only a mockup and not even a real one. It's really disarming. [..]

Not only that, but this ugly red-brown mockup sucks. I wrote to the developers and sent a redesigned color scheme. Since I have work, I didn't bother getting all the colors right, I did them separately

 

[Shog-goth]

BTW there is this video that shows a bit more than the dev blog that was just linked by luinthoron

Thanks, I missed that video. However even this is more than 6 months old and it doesn't add much to what we already know.

Well it is obvious that you are excited about that game, but there is not enough to keep you positively excited. I can understand that

"Excited" doesn't even come close to what I feel about the possibility of a new "X-Com spiritual successor" from JG. But I'm extremely frustated by an amateurish approach to the crowdfunding campaign and this crawling pace of development without apparent steady progress.

 

[luinthoron]

You are (legitimately, of course) asking questions about the classes, but please look at the picture: after all this time the only available screenshot of the Geoscape (probably the most important feature after the tactical layer) is still that of the Fig Campaign, which is actually only a mockup and not even a real one. It's really disarming. [..]

Not only that, but this ugly red-brown mockup sucks. I wrote to the developers and sent a redesigned color scheme. Since I have work, I didn't bother getting all the colors right, I did them separately

And Kevin Hill's reply to your rant is still one of the best comments on the devblog. I wonder, did you ever bother to take up his offer to discuss this further via e-mail, or is complaining and coming up with worse color schemes all you can do?

 

[Grotesque]

Sorry, but no.

I really like the style and color palette of the prototype but I guess this will be just another conceptual design that will get scrapped.



I hope they will introduce the need of some kind of aerial interception of hostile forces that attack you, allies or other points of interests even if it will just be in the form of missiles or attack drones.
Also seeing a hostile human faction settlement getting attacked and then attacking it further while is weakened could be interesting and for a true sense of exploration, the geoscape could be covered in fog of war.
A mechanic of pinpointing radio signals of different settlements instead of just stumbling onto them while flying would also be interesting, a feature Fargo promised for Wasteland 2 but never acomplished

 

[Shog-goth]

I really like the style and color palette of the prototype but I guess this will be just another conceptual design that will get scrapped.

I really like it too, but sadly I'm also pretty sure that it's just a mockup. It's a shame, because it suits the game theme really well and the devblog ones are simply ugly, even as concepts.

A mechanic of pinpointing radio signals of different settlements instead of just stumbling onto them while flying would also be interesting, a feature Fargo promised for Wasteland 2 but never acomplished

This would be great.

 

[Shog-goth]

I got a question that I don't remember anyone asked or answered yet: Will there be night missions in PP and will they have any gameplay effect?

Just found this:

The main environmental impact will be the day and night cycle. Some enemies prefer to operate in the dark. The other effect is an alien created one, which is the mist. As the mist encroaches on the land, it will start to have an effect on the tactical battles, and there will be special alien monsters which will actually deploy the thick, semi-intelligent mist inside the battle which can dramatically change the tactics and topology for the map. It can be used to cover aliens. It can be used to spot you. It can heal them too.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

It's a difficult balance to strike. We don't want to be like XCOM, where losing 2 or 3 of your best soldiers can cripple you for the whole campaign. At the same time, we don't want to make soldiers feel like expendable cannon fodder.

So, Apocalypse? I think the balance there was acceptable. We got a decent-ish amount of soldiers per week, limited, but soldiers were pretty durable because Megapol armor was quite decent until the aliens got Devastators. We could deploy as many soldiers as was felt like but the game quickly teaches you to employ small teams early on, which grown with the game. Newbie soldiers aren't that bad.

I also felt the Android soldiers were a bit of a crutch for new players with their awesome stats. I loved having Androids on the team, good stats and no worries about getting Brainsucked.

I think my favorite Apocalypse moment was when I lost all but six wounded soldiers after a streak of unsucessful missions. Then my base is invaded TWICE, one time after the other - I think the first time by Diablo, the second time by Osiron. Through a heroic effort and judicious application of autocannon HE and IN ammo, we managed to beat the enemy with two wounded soldiers remaining.

 

[Latelistener]

I have serious doubts that the game will come out at the end of 2018, or if it is, with all these features Julian mentioned on EGX.
I mean, c'mon there is: advanced AI, procedural and random generation, simulated world, destructions, ballistics, etc.
It's much more than nuXCOM had on release, and he stated that they don't have the resources Firaxis had.

 

[PanteraNera]

Well to be fair, the tactical part of the game is much better than anyone expected. As far as I can tell pretty much everyone here expected an XCOM 2+ "Julian Gollop edition", even the people that were positive about the game. And than after quit some time of speculation and wrong assumptions UV talked about the hybrid-system in detail and we find out that it is in terms of the TU's very very close to X-Com (while offering just two "actions per turn").

To me that is a tiny glimpse of hope, that they are actually going to deliver what they are or were talking about in other areas of the game. But yeah with a very very big question mark, because what people keep saying "it might change" or other things "got scraped" holds true as well. There is no guarantee for example for the tactical part that it will work as it is now (could get more complex, or more dumped down). UV said that they are testing multi-shots (so you can move-move, shot-shot, move-shot, use item-shot etc pp) but as he has said it is just a test and could get scrapped if it does work for their liking.

Their "target audience" on facebook that bring in that whopping 100k+ $ monthly in pre-orders do not seem to care to much about that (which puzzles me very much). But it is very likely that they will have enough money to postbone the release at least for a couple of months (which is all I care for).

So to sum it up, some things have changed for the better, but there is still a lot of things that are not revealed (or even worked on?) so it is still to early to say if the end-result will be good or bad, closer to XCOM or X-Com. Be a great game, or just a mediocre.

Also keep in mind that they are expanding their team now, it might change the pacing (I surely hope so).

 

[PanteraNera]

I have serious doubts that the game will come out at the end of 2018, or if it is, with all these features Julian mentioned on EGX.
I mean, c'mon there is: advanced AI, procedural and random generation, simulated world, destructions, ballistics, etc.
It's much more than nuXCOM had on release, and he stated that they don't have the resources Firaxis had.

Yeah, also other bits of information, around their crowdfunding campaign Julian Gollop said n an interview that the Backer Build will be delivered January 2018, than that changed to Q1 2018, than to March, than to late March, than to end of March / beginning of April. And now they want to deliver it on April 30 2018. That is four to five months later.

About the financial side, Firaxis spent quit some money from their budget on extensive VO and cut-scenes (also they scrapped their initial work that was much much closer to X-Com and completely redid the game-system). Phoenix Point will most likely have neither (that might actually change with the recent success in pre-orders, so far only "some VO" is planned). Also it is said that developing in Bulgaria is a lot cheaper.

 

[Shog-goth]

Is this an official confirmation of multiple shots per turn, UnstableVoltage?

 

[Latelistener]

Yeah, also other bits of information, around their crowdfunding campaign Julian Gollop said n an interview that the Backer Build will be delivered January 2018, than that changed to Q1 2018, than to March, than to late March, than to end of March / beginning of April. And now they want to deliver it on April 30 2018. That is four to five months later.

About the financial side, Firaxis spent quit some money from their budget on extensive VO and cut-scenes (also they scrapped their initial work that was much much closer to X-Com and completely redid the game-system). Phoenix Point will most likely have neither (that might actually change with the recent success in pre-orders, so far only "some VO" is planned). Also it is said that developing in Bulgaria is a lot cheaper.

I didn't say that they will run out of money. It's just unrealistic to see this game coming out this year.
So far they designed 4 classes, one of which is still in the works. The tactical part that will be in the demo is still far from ready, and they have the strategic part which isn't easier to make with all that simulation.
Although the fact that there are living breathing time units is giving me much hope.

 

[ArchAngel]

Is this an official confirmation of multiple shots per turn, UnstableVoltage?

I think how Xenonauts did it with right click adding more TU to your shot in exchange for more accurate shot is how it should be done. Since PP shows how much you can move and still fire they could change in real time the move+shoot border as you add more TU to that one shot. That would be easy to understand for players.

 

[Shog-goth]

I think how Xenonauts did it with right click adding more TU to your shot in exchange for more accurate shot is how it should be done.

"It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white; as long as it catches mice, it's a good cat" . The only thing I really care about is that the hybrid tactical system becomes "TU à la X-Com + Will Points" from "2 potential actions + Will Points".

 

[PanteraNera]

I didn't say that they will ran out of money. It's just unrealistic to see this game coming out this year.

Yes I keep saying since the PCGamer Weekender (two months ago) that they will not make that deadline in Q4 2018. Back than running out of money was my main concern.