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

[ArchAngel]

Parabalus did you try the mod? What do you think?

Didn't find the time yet, will probably do it this week.

Was just thinking whether to try it with just the latest DLC or also the mod, will do the latter. From the doc it sounds very interesting.

Do you recommend dropping the difficulty with the mod?

Guessing you removed stuff like the 1 AP melee etc.

Depends on how hard you found vanilla. I found Legendary way too easy and even with this mod it is a bit easy for me but certainly harder if you played the game by abusing what you could.
Some things were nerfed (heavy), some things buffed (berserker and priest) and with some classes power was just moved around a bit (sniper)

Why would you say Priest and Berserker were buffed?

They seemed to have been heavily nerfed like all classes, a better name for the mod might be 'Nerfed Classes'.

Berserker gets Dash that lets you be effective at melee from low levels. My vanilla berserkers would usually throw grenades and fire pistols at these levels. Free pistol shot skill is pretty powerful to finish enemies that were left low on health. Then you got 1 AP for 3 WP skill that can be used once per turn and lvl 7 ability has no more downsides while still being good for melee weapons.
Priest gets Lay Waste (direct damage ability with huge range that ignores cover), Resurrect (super powerful ability that gives you your own one or more Pandorans until end of mission) and that aura at lvl 6 that now gives immunity to panic in a decent radius. And Mist Eater lets you recover WP without losing mind control over your enemies and Screaming Priest head now also gives you mind control immunity.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So I beat that heroic difficulty game I was worried about. Did the Anu path, could have gone Virophage Injector but the warning said it should be a last resort. Most of the surviving human populace was Anu anyway so I figured that maybe introducing a toxin that's lethal to anything that has pandoran DNA to a populace that has pandoran DNA might be a bad idea.

The final mission wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. The first room was a little worrying because there was a screamer scylla, but I already took care of most of the lesser mobs with boom blast rebuke and finished off the rest with a assault/zerker armed with a mattock and armored head mutation for adrenaline cheese, so it wasn't that bad. The Chirons were the goo variants and since nearly everyone was immune to goo, they were useless.
The mobs in the second room came to me so I just killed them and sniped down the artillery chirons who didn't return fire.

Mark of the Void wasn't that bad; the fact I can remove it is a nice design choice, and if you destroy all of the eyes the boss is pretty much dead anyway.
The reinforcements were a little annoying, but they came at a decent rate, about one per two turns, so it wasn't too overwhelming.

So what do I think about PP in general? I like it, but it really needed some more polish on release and some of the design choices weren't great.
There is a steam workshop coming out which is great, XCOM 2 is better because of the mods after all, but I'm worried that Snapshot will copy Bethesda and use mods as an excuse to not finish the damned game. Clarity Module is still broken and that's just embarrassing, and there are too many errors in the tooltips.

Also, map variety sucks. The original xcoms had more map variety, even going so far as to match the environment the mission is taking place in, and that's just sad.
You could have a mission in Antarctica or the Sahara and it will still be the same grassy terrain, and I've seen the same citadel map like 3 times.

Now I just have to wait for a decent sale for the DLC. Do they ever go for more than 25% off?

 

[ArchAngel]

So I beat that heroic difficulty game I was worried about. Did the Anu path, could have gone Virophage Injector but the warning said it should be a last resort. Most of the surviving human populace was Anu anyway so I figured that maybe introducing a toxin that's lethal to anything that has pandoran DNA to a populace that has pandoran DNA might be a bad idea.

The final mission wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. The first room was a little worrying because there was a screamer scylla, but I already took care of most of the lesser mobs with boom blast rebuke and finished off the rest with a assault/zerker armed with a mattock and armored head mutation for adrenaline cheese, so it wasn't that bad. The Chirons were the goo variants and since nearly everyone was immune to goo, they were useless.
The mobs in the second room came to me so I just killed them and sniped down the artillery chirons who didn't return fire.

Mark of the Void wasn't that bad; the fact I can remove it is a nice design choice, and if you destroy all of the eyes the boss is pretty much dead anyway.
The reinforcements were a little annoying, but they came at a decent rate, about one per two turns, so it wasn't too overwhelming.

So what do I think about PP in general? I like it, but it really needed some more polish on release and some of the design choices weren't great.
There is a steam workshop coming out which is great, XCOM 2 is better because of the mods after all, but I'm worried that Snapshot will copy Bethesda and use mods as an excuse to not finish the damned game. Clarity Module is still broken and that's just embarrassing, and there are too many errors in the tooltips.

Also, map variety sucks. The original xcoms had more map variety, even going so far as to match the environment the mission is taking place in, and that's just sad.
You could have a mission in Antarctica or the Sahara and it will still be the same grassy terrain, and I've seen the same citadel map like 3 times.

Now I just have to wait for a decent sale for the DLC. Do they ever go for more than 25% off?

They stopped working on the game after DLC 4, DLC 5 was made by some other team. By the amount of stuff fixed in latest patches they got like 1 guy fixing the most serious bugs and that is it. I don't even except much from the announced modding tools, probably nothing better than what is being used now to inject mods.

 

[Lacrymas]

This is in this month's humble choice. Is it worth resuming my membership for this? It doesn't seem like it.

 

[Parabalus]

This is in this month's humble choice. Is it worth resuming my membership for this? It doesn't seem like it.

Worth a run, has some cool ideas.

 

[Jaedar]

This is in this month's humble choice. Is it worth resuming my membership for this? It doesn't seem like it.

Worth a run, has some cool ideas.

Partial run at the very least.

 

[Doktor Best]

God damnit i forgot to pause Monthly Choice. Now i own this piece of crap lol

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

This is in this month's humble choice. Is it worth resuming my membership for this? It doesn't seem like it.

Worth a run, has some cool ideas.

I've been playing the UFO series, and I swear Gollop and Solomon took some notes from it.
The overall premise of Phoenix Point is really similar to Ufo Aftermath, and the idea of there not really being a dominant weapon type (like plasma) and every weapon type having it's own strength and weakness was a thing in UFO thing as well.

Both Firaxcom and PP uses a limited squad size like in UFO, as opposed to 26 troops like in the OG, and Firaxcom uses only one transport like UFO.

It's just that PP is proper turn based rather than Continuous Turn Based (or as the ufo series calls it, Simultaneous Action System)

So yeah, a lot of the ideas in both PP and Firaxcom have more in common with UFO afterblank than X-Com. Funny how that works.

 

[Thane Solus]

xcom lw rebalance, best NU Xcom so far, but i have an old version since the developer is insane, and updates the mechanics once per week. Yes Xcom wotc, have better maps and better tactical, but the overall campaign is completly retarded.

Spotlights:

-Better progression
-Engage an Ufo with multiple planes, up to 4 (Major Rank) - Ceptors get experience and Nicknames:d
-Not completely retarded as long war
-Leaders, each alien squad has a leader with multiple skills, based on X research and time, also grow in size
-If u get spotted while advancing free yellow move to get in the cover, if possible
-tons of other good stuff

https://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/686/?tab=forum&topic_id=6697492&BH=0

LW was always shit, and their game will also be a garbage, they had some nice ideas, here and there, but this guy put their retarded team to shame, too bad he is insane, and changes the mechanics once per month, or week...

I recommend archive 1.37 , i have 1.21...

P.S. Play on Normal first.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Worth a run, has some cool ideas.

That's the problem, we don't want cool ideas in a otherwise mediocre game but a cool game instead.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

It is a cool game though, it's just a little rough.
Could be worse. Could be a mobile game.

 

[Galdred]

Are the DLC worth enabling in PP? It looks like most of them are tacked on, or worse.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Legacy of the Ancients isn't great.
You get some nice maps and a story line, but it also spawns a super annoying and buggy enemy and the weapons you unlock are pretty OP.

Blood and Titanium is alright though.

No idea about the other DLC, I don't have them.

 

[Parabalus]

Are the DLC worth enabling in PP? It looks like most of them are tacked on, or worse.

They all add extra mechanics and increase the difficulty.

All are worth turning on, unless feeling overwhelmed when first picking the game up.

 

[Trithne]

Blood and Titanium should've been in the base game, the augmentation system is incomplete without it.

CthuluIsSpy describes Legacy of the Ancients pretty well, it's nice but the rewards are busted. It's also basically a series of linear missions, but tbh that's PP in general.

Living Weapons is a nothingburger.

I also haven't played with the rest of them, but Festering Skies is apparently shit.

I would say that you absolutely have to have Blood and Titanium, and ignore the rest.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Oh lol, I forgot about living weapons.
Yeah it's pretty mediocre.
The armour is nice I guess, but the two weapons you have aren't spectacular.

The acid AR is sort of useful, but I have yet to find a use for the poison MG. I remember the base damage and accuracy being too low to reliably use it's poison procs.

 

[gurugeorge]

Are the DLC worth enabling in PP? It looks like most of them are tacked on, or worse.

They're alright, apart from the one with the aerial combat. Nice idea and the mechanics are ok, but they obviously don't have enough people to tune the system properly, so it's like this horrendous difficulty spike that's kind of exhausting and pointless. At least that's how it was about a year ago, I don't know if they've improved it and balanced it out since.

It's definitely worth a play, just to experience the live firing combat, which definitely makes the game have its own flavour that's quite different from nuXCOM. And the strategic layer is pretty decent. But again, it's kind of only about a 3/4 finished game (in terms of proper balancing, polish, etc.). The ambitions for it were great, and the assets (the models, the animations, the world building and story, the factions, etc) are decent enough; but the stars didn't align in terms of finance, enthusiastic but small and inexperienced team, etc.

 

[spectre]

I'm getting ready to give this game another go, this time maybe finishing it. I've also been considering which DLC to actually enable.

From what I remember, the only good thing about Festering Skies is the new enemy, that melee mantis thing makes for a nice challenge. Not really a cryssalid-level threat, but can fuck you up.
Unfortunately, the whole selling point of that DLC is pointless bloat. I recommend turning it off straight off the bat because it's one of the rare cases that a DLC makes the game worse.

Legacy of the Ancients I'd say only adds pure tedium. Also, shit doesn't mesh well with the base game's aesthetics (a shared complaint with Living Weapons).
IIRC it doesn't really break anything like FS.

Blood and Iron I remember being OK., felt like a bit of a hurdle fighting all those armored dudes early on, but otherwise it meshed well with the rest of the game.

Corrupted Horizons and Kaos Engines I haven't played with earlier, so no first-hand opinion. From the description, CH seems to add a bit of unnecessary tedium to troop management and
KE looks pretty "safe". Vehicle customization sounds like a nice thing to have.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

living weapons is the one which makes the final boss a piece of cake: it gave me two machineguns, one spits acid, eating armor like the aforementioned cake, the other is viral, nullifying actions available. in short i waited behind a corner, megaboss jumped in, first one made an opening, second one paralized the boss forever.

 

[ArchAngel]

living weapons is the one which makes the final boss a piece of cake: it gave me two machineguns, one spits acid, eating armor like the aforementioned cake, the other is viral, nullifying actions available. in short i waited behind a corner, megaboss jumped in, first one made an opening, second one paralized the boss forever.

By boss you might be thinking about Scylla which is not a boss but just a big enemy. And you can use other non DLC viral weapons to do the same to Scylla. In Phoenix Rising mod, Scylla is buffed and it is not longer easy to get viral stack so high they no longer do anything until end of combat.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

living weapons is the one which makes the final boss a piece of cake: it gave me two machineguns, one spits acid, eating armor like the aforementioned cake, the other is viral, nullifying actions available. in short i waited behind a corner, megaboss jumped in, first one made an opening, second one paralized the boss forever.

Viral? No, you get a poison MG from Living Weapons.
The acid AR is a useful sidegrade though. It has more effective range than the Ares, more shots than a bulldog and it has an acid DoT.
The Danchev MG does have one niche application and that's Rage Burst Spam due to it's unlimited ammo. You need to shred armour first though.

 

[Parabalus]

living weapons is the one which makes the final boss a piece of cake: it gave me two machineguns, one spits acid, eating armor like the aforementioned cake, the other is viral, nullifying actions available. in short i waited behind a corner, megaboss jumped in, first one made an opening, second one paralized the boss forever.

By boss you might be thinking about Scylla which is not a boss but just a big enemy. And you can use other non DLC viral weapons to do the same to Scylla. In Phoenix Rising mod, Scylla is buffed and it is not longer easy to get viral stack so high they no longer do anything until end of combat.

When is that mod getting released?

Have to admit I found Better Classes more boring than the vanilla ones though.

 

[ArchAngel]

living weapons is the one which makes the final boss a piece of cake: it gave me two machineguns, one spits acid, eating armor like the aforementioned cake, the other is viral, nullifying actions available. in short i waited behind a corner, megaboss jumped in, first one made an opening, second one paralized the boss forever.

By boss you might be thinking about Scylla which is not a boss but just a big enemy. And you can use other non DLC viral weapons to do the same to Scylla. In Phoenix Rising mod, Scylla is buffed and it is not longer easy to get viral stack so high they no longer do anything until end of combat.

When is that mod getting released?

Have to admit I found Better Classes more boring than the vanilla ones though.

Changes to enemies can be grabbed here: https://github.com/dt22/Better-Enemies/releases
Latest version is: https://github.com/dt22/Better-Enemies/releases/tag/v0.4.5.0-alpha

 

[Parabalus]

living weapons is the one which makes the final boss a piece of cake: it gave me two machineguns, one spits acid, eating armor like the aforementioned cake, the other is viral, nullifying actions available. in short i waited behind a corner, megaboss jumped in, first one made an opening, second one paralized the boss forever.

By boss you might be thinking about Scylla which is not a boss but just a big enemy. And you can use other non DLC viral weapons to do the same to Scylla. In Phoenix Rising mod, Scylla is buffed and it is not longer easy to get viral stack so high they no longer do anything until end of combat.

When is that mod getting released?

Have to admit I found Better Classes more boring than the vanilla ones though.

Changes to enemies can be grabbed here: https://github.com/dt22/Better-Enemies/releases
Latest version is: https://github.com/dt22/Better-Enemies/releases/tag/v0.4.5.0-alpha

Interesting, but seems mostly straight numerical upgrades, better classes had more new mechanics?

Also, why no changes to DLC enemies?

 

[ArchAngel]

living weapons is the one which makes the final boss a piece of cake: it gave me two machineguns, one spits acid, eating armor like the aforementioned cake, the other is viral, nullifying actions available. in short i waited behind a corner, megaboss jumped in, first one made an opening, second one paralized the boss forever.

By boss you might be thinking about Scylla which is not a boss but just a big enemy. And you can use other non DLC viral weapons to do the same to Scylla. In Phoenix Rising mod, Scylla is buffed and it is not longer easy to get viral stack so high they no longer do anything until end of combat.

When is that mod getting released?

Have to admit I found Better Classes more boring than the vanilla ones though.

Changes to enemies can be grabbed here: https://github.com/dt22/Better-Enemies/releases
Latest version is: https://github.com/dt22/Better-Enemies/releases/tag/v0.4.5.0-alpha

Interesting, but seems mostly straight numerical upgrades, better classes had more new mechanics?

Also, why no changes to DLC enemies?

There are a lot of changes, new abilities and stuff for enemies. For example Mind Fraggers explode in acid when killed so you cannot just shoot them easily off someone face without consequence. And some enemies are very different with new abilities they gained.
It also has a bunch of AI improvements for pandorans and humans (for example humans are less crazy about healing even slight wounds including not running into fire to heal their burning ally and then killing themselves in the process)
As for DLC enemies, it is not done yet. I think DLC enemies didn't get their turn yet and some are considered already challenging enough (like Acherons).
Also some stuff was cut as it didn't work when it moved from design to changing the code. You can only do so much with mods.