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

[Mazisky]

It's honestly baffling how neglected the weather is in games. Battle Isle did this in cool way, with weather forecasts and terrain changes.

Games like Panzer General, Total War and Combat Mission factored in weather. It's odd that X-COM didn't considering the scope.

Agree. Expecially because the engine already support it with Sitreps and differents times of day\weather.

It's odd that nobody modded it too.

 

[geno]

I've watched the fig trailer again.
To see if I still feel

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

the alien adaptive morphology is implemented in the game?

kinda doubt it

 

[orcinator]

the alien adaptive morphology is implemented in the game?

X-Piratez has weather.

 

[orcinator]

the alien adaptive morphology is implemented in the game?

There's basically three variants of each of the 5 main aliens. They get more health and a bit more armor as the game goes on but it never felt like they were countering me. Might be because the devs were unable to implement something that might counter shotgun killstreaks.

 

[Puteo]

sweet, sounds good. So mod the panzerkleins out? Does sentinels have panzerkleins?

I never tried the remove panzerklein mod but it does sound like a good idea.

SSS has panzerkleins but they work a lot better there. In the original SS, Panzers can only be reliably damaged with with a handful of weapons (mostly laser rifles) and are a total chore to take out.

In SSS, they introduce a penetration value to all the weapons, meaning that an SKS is a decent anti-panzer weapon. There's also a lot less of them, they're introduced much later, and IIRC they have more movement points than in the first game.

 

[lightbane]

There's basically three variants of each of the 5 main aliens. They get more health and a bit more armor as the game goes on but it never felt like they were countering me. Might be because the devs were unable to implement something that might counter shotgun killstreaks.

Looks like the devs broke all of their promises, as expected. By the time it comes to Steam, no-one will care anymore, or Nu-XCOM 3 will be out and render PP irrelevant.

 

[Harthwain]

Looks like the devs broke all of their promises, as expected. By the time it comes to Steam, no-one will care anymore, or Nu-XCOM 3 will be out and render PP irrelevant.

My speculation is that they probably went 1.0 with clearly unfinished game in order for the release timer on Epic Games Store to start ticking. From that point on they have a year to polish the game and add more content via DLCs to try and sell Phoenix Point on Steam as a Ultimate Edition or something like that. If they manage to introduce more interesting gameplay mechanics and put in extra content before XCOM 3 releases, then they might have a chance of catching more XCOM-like fans through Steam. If XCOM 3 releases first... Well, then they will probably have to go on sale to get more sales.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well this happened, I had to retreat from my first mission on Legendary difficulty. Not 4 sirens, not two Schylas made me do it so far. This time was two exploding alien artillery dudes on Lair map where they were on other side of map and I had no way to reach them before they murder everyone. I tried one round, only one of them fired and almost killed one guy while destroying equipment on another... so I said fuck it.. this Lair can live longer :D Once it turns into next bigger one I will have easier time clearing it :D

 

[ArchAngel]

Also I lost a base to aliens. My plan to keep one plane with soldiers to send if defense is needed failed. My team didn't make it in time. Also I had Armadillo stationed in that base, hoping it would defend if needed but I never got the chance, it just said I lost it immediatelly
So now I know for next time, I need to keep soldiers in all bases.

 

[Luka-boy]

By the time it comes to Steam, no-one will care anymore, or Nu-XCOM 3 will be out and render PP irrelevant.

So Phoenix Pointless?

 

[Raghar]

There are few problems I seen so far.

Geoscape is about web like game standing on points on interests and scanning them. While that's necessary doesn't need to be bad. There is a little problem. When you ally with a faction you lose 1/4 of scannable points. Then second faction you are left with 1/2, third faction 1/4.

Then there are some really bad decisions in game design. You are supposed to protect these small forts for story reasons, and to increase relations with faction... Thus fort protection is one of important mechanics. Considering forts are one of more important way how to get soldiers and supplies, theirs protection missions should be more detailed.
Problem 1. For some weird reasons you don't see ANY allied soldiers on defense mission.
Problem 2. You see all that numbers of enemy attackers and allied defenders... Yet when you enter the combat, you see instead of 3 enemies 7 enemies or worse.
Problem 3. There is no detail about damage caused by raid, or how long would take repair.

Then there is a problem with what exactly are Phoenix Point organization leftovers.
Are they?
1. Hobos/homeless equivalent in post apocalyptic world. (Few random/loosely related to project people found base and took it as theirs own?)Just small resources and people would throw them some weapons from pity, or to give them small support to find rest of Phoenix Project.
2. Equal footing, just smaller in numbers. Government tried to push for theirs funding before collapse and they survived collapse on one base.
3. Much more high tech group than the rest, but small in number. And they can't support rest of groups by technology, because rest of groups can't mass reproduce it.

This decision have consequences. 1. theirs research is based on reverse engineering and theirs own home research, because nobody wants to give technology to hobos.
2. shared research between ALL four factions.
3. mostly in house research but MASSIVE tech tree.

And now the more ugly part. The number of enemies per mission.
There are two ways how to make stuff like this. One way is to make few enemies and shoot at various body parts. Other is making horde of weaker enemies and weapons sufficiently strong to kill them on proper hit.
Phoenix Point did neither. As a consequence it feels like it's balanced to be winnable only with cheese.

Now let's looks at bad decisions they made.
Soldiers hired from factions come with body armor. Thus there is no need to produce one, thus well whole manufacturing process is nearly irrelevant.
Ammo and medikits can be manufactured instantly. ANYWHERE. As a consequence large part of game is basically simplified into pay and get stuff instantly. No item transport between bases, no need to delay fort defense because you need medkits.
Medkits basically allows to skip hours in infirmary. A simple pay to win scenario.
Damage and wound model has some flaws. For example, disabled head... Well it just need few seconds out of combat and it's fine. Perhaps soldier is a troll who regrow his head. Or his body.
Number of weapon types and research is definitely lacking.
And I seen weird stuff like aliens are using Phoenix Point weapons. Where did they got them? They are pretty unique. I didn't have loss before that, and the only way to get them is by manufacturing on Phoenix Point.

It's like they never tried imagine how in real world would Phoenix Point actually happen. What would be a consequence, and other stuff. If the game was 3 years in development, well that's weird because what I wrote is elementary stuff.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Finished the campaign. Stand by everything I said so far, and want that there is too little alien variety. Research and manufacturing seem both irrelevant (research less so, but still). It's all about getting higher faction relationship and getting nice elite soldiers.

 

[ArchAngel]

There are few problems I seen so far.

Geoscape is about web like game standing on points on interests and scanning them. While that's necessary doesn't need to be bad. There is a little problem. When you ally with a faction you lose 1/4 of scannable points. Then second faction you are left with 1/2, third faction 1/4.

Then there are some really bad decisions in game design. You are supposed to protect these small forts for story reasons, and to increase relations with faction... Thus fort protection is one of important mechanics. Considering forts are one of more important way how to get soldiers and supplies, theirs protection missions should be more detailed.
Problem 1. For some weird reasons you don't see ANY allied soldiers on defense mission.
Problem 2. You see all that numbers of enemy attackers and allied defenders... Yet when you enter the combat, you see instead of 3 enemies 7 enemies or worse.
Problem 3. There is no detail about damage caused by raid, or how long would take repair.

Then there is a problem with what exactly are Phoenix Point organization leftovers.
Are they?
1. Hobos/homeless equivalent in post apocalyptic world. (Few random/loosely related to project people found base and took it as theirs own?)Just small resources and people would throw them some weapons from pity, or to give them small support to find rest of Phoenix Project.
2. Equal footing, just smaller in numbers. Government tried to push for theirs funding before collapse and they survived collapse on one base.
3. Much more high tech group than the rest, but small in number. And they can't support rest of groups by technology, because rest of groups can't mass reproduce it.

This decision have consequences. 1. theirs research is based on reverse engineering and theirs own home research, because nobody wants to give technology to hobos.
2. shared research between ALL four factions.
3. mostly in house research but MASSIVE tech tree.

And now the more ugly part. The number of enemies per mission.
There are two ways how to make stuff like this. One way is to make few enemies and shoot at various body parts. Other is making horde of weaker enemies and weapons sufficiently strong to kill them on proper hit.
Phoenix Point did neither. As a consequence it feels like it's balanced to be winnable only with cheese.

Now let's looks at bad decisions they made.
Soldiers hired from factions come with body armor. Thus there is no need to produce one, thus well whole manufacturing process is nearly irrelevant.
Ammo and medikits can be manufactured instantly. ANYWHERE. As a consequence large part of game is basically simplified into pay and get stuff instantly. No item transport between bases, no need to delay fort defense because you need medkits.
Medkits basically allows to skip hours in infirmary. A simple pay to win scenario.
Damage and wound model has some flaws. For example, disabled head... Well it just need few seconds out of combat and it's fine. Perhaps soldier is a troll who regrow his head. Or his body.
Number of weapon types and research is definitely lacking.
And I seen weird stuff like aliens are using Phoenix Point weapons. Where did they got them? They are pretty unique. I didn't have loss before that, and the only way to get them is by manufacturing on Phoenix Point.

It's like they never tried imagine how in real world would Phoenix Point actually happen. What would be a consequence, and other stuff. If the game was 3 years in development, well that's weird because what I wrote is elementary stuff.

Haven defense missions, those strength numbers are not number of enemies, it is just strength of attacking and defending force. Attacking force strength when you arrive determines if the mission will be Light, Medium or High. And if haven is covered in Mist then it is even harder. Harder missions means more enemies and more dangerous ones there like Sirens or Schylas.

As for gear on recruits, well you are playing on Normal difficulty. On hard or legendary recruits come with no armor or weapons. Only Engineers come with turrets and Priests come with head gear (as it is part of its body).
Ammo and medkits being instant is OK decision, other way would be to let them be made superfast and very cheap so you can make a lot in advance. They went with this decision which makes it a harder gameplay choice because some of the ammo is not cheap and you have to sacrifice other stuff for it.
As for disabled body parts, they talked about how you would need to replace damaged body parts with cybernetics but like other stuff they didn't have time to implement that so now everyone just heals out of combat. But considering Engineers can do that on battlefield at higher levels, it should not be too hard to imagine their medical facilities can do the same out of combat.

 

[Mazisky]

It is worth noting that not only half of the art assets are a straight rip-off from Xcom 2, but also the mission types.

 

[ArchAngel]

It is worth noting that not only half of the art assets are a straight rip-off from Xcom 2, but also the mission types.

Everything is a rip off from something else.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

It is worth noting that not only half of the art assets are a straight rip-off from Xcom 2, but also the mission types.

Everything is a rip off from something else.

There's only so many mission types that can be done before things get overtly gimmicky.

 

[Mazisky]

It is worth noting that not only half of the art assets are a straight rip-off from Xcom 2, but also the mission types.

Everything is a rip off from something else.

True, but this happens because you can't reinvent the wheel, so many things are similar across game.

However, in Phoenix Point case they deliberately carbon copied some art and gameplay, which is another thing.

 

[Shog-goth]

It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. (Melville)

In fact Snapshot did even worse, they failed in imitation...

 

[ArchAngel]

Even with all the complaints to me this is PKM for Xcom games. It is completely busted at release in many ways and unfinished but what is currently there and working it lots of fun and better than all the games Firaxis released. Firaxis games are like how Pillars of Eternity was to PKM.

 

[Mazisky]

Even with all the complaints to me this is PKM for Xcom games. It is completely busted at release in many ways and unfinished but what is currently there and working it lots of fun and better than all the games Firaxis released. Firaxis games are like how Pillars of Eternity was to PKM.

The hate and bias against Firaxis makes mediocre competitor games like Phoenix point magically good. It's the power of brain

 

[Raghar]

And then we have story of Phoenix Point. Basically it's the same story as Aftershock. Did you like it first time? Of course it's no longer goo on surface. That would be too easy to remove.

 

[Harthwain]

It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. (Melville)

In fact Snapshot did even worse, they failed in imitation...

Did they though? My understanding was that they wanted to do XCOM, but with more elements from X-COM.

That's why there is the ability to aim, bullets have trajectory (which makes obstacles more important and actually changes combat to a significant degree, compared to XCOM), action points are more distributed and you don't have to commit to a move as long as you have enough movement left, etc. Yes, the game is clearly half-finished and what they did to their backers was truly outrageous, but judging the game's mechanics (the ones that are in) it's not that much of a failure. Although I think they should've deflected way more than they did, so they would be much more interesting than "XCOM, but with some modifications".

 

[Shog-goth]

Did they though?

IMO yes, they failed to imitate both XCom and X-Com. Few ideas, but confused. And this is the result.

 

[DeepOcean]

Will wait after this beta period finishes and play the 1.0 version on Steam.