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

[ArchAngel]

It is interesting that it turns out that the main bad guy behind everything is

Spoiler

Cthulhu

 

[SymbolicFrank]

This is untrue. Hobbes (Area 51) wanted there to be no donations at all as a condition for using his maps in any other mod. A compromise could not be reached so his maps had to go.

As far as I could piece it together, Hobbes felt it was unfair that Dioxine got all the money, because he had done half the work. So he asked for a part of the donations. Dioxine refused, as he felt he had done a far greater amount of work by adding all the existing mods into an epic game (which he did). And those donations amount to just a few bucks anyway. So, Hobbes decided, that if he wouldn't get any money, so should Dioxine and demanded he would stop asking for donations. Dioxine refused. Next, Hobbes opened a forum thread which sounded fair enough at first, but escalated within a few posts in him demanding everyone should stop using his assets if they got any money (donations) out of it.

His main complaint in all his further posts is, that he spend thousands of hours creating those assets twenty years ago, but other people are making lots of money from them today.

And if you are in doubt, just check the Credits.txt and XPirates_readme.txt files.

 

[Daedalos]

Is this good or not? Is it better than xcom2? please honest answer?

I hear good things about it.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Is this good or not? Is it better than xcom2? please honest answer?

I hear good things about it.

So i gave the free version a spin (buy it if you like it, ye) and its extremely clunky and lacks shitton of polish, but there is a decent game underneath.
Its not just the bugs but overall presentation and ui that is half assed ans atrocious. If Gollop keeps up steadily improving it, it could reach its (promised) potential.

 

[Raghar]

Is this good or not? Is it better than xcom2? please honest answer?

I hear good things about it.

It's trash of the year.


Also I found a way how to beat up lairs.
First I though I'm smart and send one vehicle to bombard what I needed to kill. Then I found vehicle rockets have too short range. Retreated and did second attempt without vehicle, but with special team.

In next attempt I had several soldiers that cheered for captain who ran towards the point I needed destroy.
It reminded me of this:

Aside of small problem of rage burst from shotgun don't destroy armored Chiron, who was more interested in launching worm at rest of the team thus there was round 2. Captain arrived nearly without willpower and at last moment he noticed it has also non armored part, aimed at non armored part and two shots from shotgun were enough.

Special mention to:
Zev "Zev" Zev
"Axehappy"
"Cybernetic"
Berserker peter "lightning"

 

[Child of Malkav]

Destroying a lair is pretty easy. Either use an infiltrator with the thief perk for 100 stealth and rush the spawnery or use an assault with 20 will points and max speed and a shotgun, dash to the spawnery and 2 hit it or if you have a heavy armor use jump jet but it exposes you and it takes longer plus you can be gooed in place or MCed.
What I find difficult is on the geoscape level. No matter how hard I try to destroy nests, lairs, citadels and keep the ODI as low as possible, they are being spawned all over the world and in places where it takes a while to get there (most of the time I fail to get to a haven and defend it) even with the fastest ships available (Helios from Synedrion). Feels.....cheaty.
Also, the enemies become difficult early in the game not to mention that Sirens and Chirons can be met within the first 3 or 4 haven defenses. In my case, I had a Scylla on my 5th haven defense. Yeah, that's the level of bullshit sometimes.
In response to this you have to get in contact and ally with New Jericho for the best armor piercing weapons, with Disciples of Anu for the best shotgun and priest, with Synedrion for the paralysis sniper rifle, fastest ships, infiltrator class. Just get on good terms with all of them, but prioritize NJ. At 25 rep, they show you on the map all the havens that faction has, at 50 it shares research with you which is instantaneous, at 75 it gives you all the research and at 100 it gives you 1k of every major resource.
It really pays off to work with the factions, and if you're really desperate you can raid them for resources and tech and research. If you get lucky you can get research for weapons, vehicles, armors, ammo etc.
A cool thing you can do with your bases if they're getting attacked is to build only one access's lift. That way the enemies will come in one way instead of multiple if you more than one lift. Also vehicles are only good in the beginning, after that they don't compare to 3 lvl 7 soldiers.
Keep new recruits in bases with 4 or 5 training centers and they level up very fast.
And the last mission is hell. You need all the ammo you can carry or bring 8 priests or so (haven't tried that).
Best skills: dash, rapid clearance, rage burst, mind crush, quick aim, marked for death, reckless and others depending on class and proficiencies and various combos. Also, turrets are great.
Hope this helps.

 

[ArchAngel]

Why would you build 2 access lifts anyways?! They serve no purpose other when defending the base...

 

[Child of Malkav]

Why would you build 2 access lifts anyways?! They serve no purpose other when defending the base...

I don't know. I never do. Just some heads-up for those who do build more. I saw a video where some guy built like 3 or 4 and during base defense he was attacked from 3 or 4 sides.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

This is highly speculative. How do you know any of this?

I spend hours reading the threads and googling it. Feel free to disagree, or ask on the openxcom forum.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

Anyway, I'm very sure everyone who thinks this is cool or even great never played X-Piratez. It might not be the game for you, but it's one of the most Epic single-player games ever. I only rate Planescape: Torment higher in that respect. And a single playthrough takes hundreds of hours. If you're rushing it.

If you just want a great game to scratch that "just one more turn" itch, play The X-Com Files. It delivers.

Phoenix Point isn't outright bad, but it is at most mediocre. And it won't get great with mods. I would rate it: "Unhinged".

 

[lightbane]

The X-Piratez download has been unavailable for about a week because some modder threw a tantrum (he wanted part of the donations). And now lots of people are begging for the download link.

It seems it became very popular after the release of Phoenix Point. And rightfully so: if Gollop ever played this he should be very ashamed.

It's just like with Garriott: they expect to sell total trash with just their name.

Luckily, piracy solves everything, even with games about pirating! Courtesy of the openxcom thread:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/aag6qb
I haven't checked if it's the real deal, so beware. Also manually download the last version of Extended openxcom first, just to be sure.

 

[Alienman]

I don't understand how they forgot to add a memorial and kill stats...

 

[Raghar]

Why would you build 2 access lifts anyways?! They serve no purpose other when defending the base...

I don't know. I never do. Just some heads-up for those who do build more. I saw a video where some guy built like 3 or 4 and during base defense he was attacked from 3 or 4 sides.

I heard about popeple who removed access lifts to get money. Now of course game developers probably didn't think someone would remove access lift.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Why would you build 2 access lifts anyways?! They serve no purpose other when defending the base...

I don't know. I never do. Just some heads-up for those who do build more. I saw a video where some guy built like 3 or 4 and during base defense he was attacked from 3 or 4 sides.

I heard about popeple who removed access lifts to get money. Now of course game developers probably didn't think someone would remove access lift.

You can't prevent base attacks by removing access lifts, can you? It would be pretty dope.
Pandoran Boss: Let's fuck that base up.
Pandorans: No way in boss!
Boss:

 

[Shaewaroz]

BTW, are loot crates automatically looted in the end of scavenging site missions? I presumed this is the case, but I just noticed that I didn´t receive any new items after a scavenging mission despite having protected 6 loot crates.

 

[ArchAngel]

BTW, are loot crates automatically looted in the end of scavenging site missions? I presumed this is the case, but I just noticed that I didn´t receive any new items after a scavenging mission despite having protected 6 loot crates.

Protecting loot crates gives you food, tech or materials. More survive means more of those.

 

[Shaewaroz]

BTW, are loot crates automatically looted in the end of scavenging site missions? I presumed this is the case, but I just noticed that I didn´t receive any new items after a scavenging mission despite having protected 6 loot crates.

Protecting loot crates gives you food, tech or materials. More survive means more of those.

And what about treasure chests that you can open during missions? Are they looted automatically?

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

BTW, are loot crates automatically looted in the end of scavenging site missions? I presumed this is the case, but I just noticed that I didn´t receive any new items after a scavenging mission despite having protected 6 loot crates.

Protecting loot crates gives you food, tech or materials. More survive means more of those.

And what about treasure chests that you can open during missions? Are they looted automatically?

AFAIK they are looted automatically

 

[Raghar]

BTW, are loot crates automatically looted in the end of scavenging site missions? I presumed this is the case, but I just noticed that I didn´t receive any new items after a scavenging mission despite having protected 6 loot crates.

Protecting loot crates gives you food, tech or materials. More survive means more of those.

And what about treasure chests that you can open during missions? Are they looted automatically?

Actually the question is what about loot boxes that you don't open. Are they looted automatically?

 

[ArchAngel]

Since devs didn't release a new patch before holidays I have decided to continue playing with current version of the game.
Factions are kind of interesting in end game. Synderion builds mist repellents, New Jericho scanners that find alien nests and then go to attack them. Not sure what Anu get, my guess is that they can get their Havens to be ignored by Pandorans.

Also I got access to NJ direct fire rocket launchers. They are very good vs smaller targets. It says it does 70 base damage but like other explosives it can hit multiple limbs and damage stacks. I hit enemy sniper and one shot it for 250+ damage lol.
Also they are super precise, almost like a sniper.

 

[Alienman]

It's a real shame they had to fuck around with console UI, EPIC and stuff like that. It made me write off the game completely. But after trying the game for 1 euro on the Xbox game pass I have to say it is pretty enjoyable. Well, at least from the setting, and tone. The way the background/story is presented with faction bickering, the breadcrumb trace of the former Phoenix Point scientists etc makes me feel engaged in it. The voice acting helps a great lot too since it's damn well done honestly and the text is well written as well. It oozes struggle with a bit of despair sprinkled on top and the real-time mist spreading on the map make me genuinely unnerved - watching it creeping closer and closer to my base while consuming whole countries and other factions on the way.

Combat is okay, but the free aiming might as well have been % based a la Jagged Alliance 2 or Silent Storm. I'm actually not sure about the addition except it adds a visual cinematic flair to the combat, because it's not a deterministic system. It's still pretty much RNG based. I guess the main thing it has in favor is that you can visually see where the bullets will land in the circle, but you get used to that in the other games anyway. It's not like soldiers will shoot hopelessly wide that every shot or burst will be totally unpredictable.

I can't say I love the hybrid cover-system. Cover never actually give you full cover. If you can see the enemy, the enemy can respond. The men will always stick something out of cover, a hand or a head and it will be hit by laser accurate super deadly alien machine-guns. They should have just gone the traditional route I feel. Time units with full control over your soldiers so you can actually duck behind cover after taking a shot, or going prone when caught in the open...

They seem to have found a nice balance between OGX-com and nuXcom when it comes to casualties. High rank losses don't spell doom like in nuXcom, and you won't have insane losses like the OG where Officers has to be replaced after every mission. I managed to wipe once to a couple of crabmen though but thanks to recruiting not being totally out of reach economically and that you can train rookies outside of missions I managed to continue the campaign, so that was a plus.

 

[Riddler]

So, I watched a couple of videos of this game and it looked fun. Can someone enlighten me as to why it in fact isn't fun but shit?

 

[orcinator]

So, I watched a couple of videos of this game and it looked fun. Can someone enlighten me as to why it in fact isn't fun but shit?

It's NuCom with actual line of sight but terrible implementation.
Press the "Prev" button for more info.

 

[ArchAngel]

So, I watched a couple of videos of this game and it looked fun. Can someone enlighten me as to why it in fact isn't fun but shit?

It is lots of fun. Don't let the haters tell you otherwise.

 

[Grotesque]

So, I watched a couple of videos of this game and it looked fun. Can someone enlighten me as to why it in fact isn't fun but shit?

"Hello!

I'm Julian Gollop, the designer of the original X-COM series.

Now I'm returning to the genre that I created - turn-based tactics, world based strategy and a terrifying alien menace.

In the near future, Earth is devastated by Pandora virus released from melting permafrost.
Human civilization is reduced to warring factions and isolated havens.

You play the role of a leader of a small group of soldiers, scientists and engineers brought together
by the Phoenix project, an organization prepared to protect Earth in a time of peril.
The pandora virus incorporates human and animal DNA to create horrific mutations.
You'll face a constant evolving threat that will mutate and adapt to your tactics.
The intelligence of these new hybrids will present you with new challanges in every battle.

You will also face huge and terrifying monsters that require tactical thinking and coordination to bring down.

The geoscape returns as your strategic view with even more detail and importance.
Aliens operate under cover of a dark microbial mist rolling across the surface of the globe, harboring all manner of horrors.
They control the sea, you control the skies and you fight for the land.
Interceptions take on a whole new dimension with gargantuan alien walkers that require a combination of vehicles and special squads to bring them down.

But you don't have to just contend with aliens. Different human factions control numerous havens, resources and technology.
As the leader of the Phoenix group, you'll have to negociate, barter, make alliances or war with these factions in order to further your cause.
With a large varieties of mission objectives, destructible battlefields and a dynamic world, Phoenix Point will take the genre to a whole new level.

I founded Snapshot games three years ago, a year later we released our first title, the critically acclaimed Chaos Reborn.
I have assembled a highly talented team of developers at our ??? studio and we have been working on Phoenix Point for a year.
Now we need your help to make it one of the greatest strategy games ever made.

Please support our campaign and join us for the ride.

*batteries for controllers not included "