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

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

This is part of the reason why nuXCOM gives you unlimited copies of each weapon when you build it. This introduces it's own problems, but at least solves a lot of the tedium of bad design.

Only nuxcom2 does that.

Are you sure? I'm relatively certain that XCOM: EW had unlimited weapons?

Again, OG Xcom fixed this by limiting cargo space on each skyranger. So you could take a small stock to supply your fighters in the field with multiple loadouts, but would have to return to base to make big changes. This encouraged actually building up collections of items, rather than freely being able to exchange things, in a non-tedious way.

Kinda yeah, but x-com also forces your skyranger to return to base after every mission. And only upon returning does it try to refill all the gear that was used or lost.

I forgot about this detail

Don't waste your time on Phoenix Point. If you want a compelling XCOM game that isn't oversimplified garbage, try OpenXCom Extended. The original game is almost perfect with a small handful of (built-in) gameplay tweaks.

I think this game has merit, especially with the tftv mod remaster, but I also second openxcom extended recommendation. There's also dozens of total conversions to freshen up the gameplay experience.

The game probably has some merit, I don't think it's unplayable. But if you're an OG XCOM player who was disappointed with the XCOM reboots, you won't be satisfied by Phoenix Point, which I guess makes is somewhat pointless as that was the niche it seems to be trying to fill.

 

[Harthwain]

Guys, you don't understand. If you don't spend a huge percentage of your time in tedious warehouse simulation, you never get that thrilling moment of gameplay tension when you forget to pack enough ammo for one of your guys and then combat starts and you have to figure out what to do about it.*

*actual Codex argument for really, truly dull game design

Limited ammo is actually an interesting aspect of gameplay, because when you have to count your bullets, it encourages better discipline over how you spend them.

Granted, it is possible to make reloading itself an important action (and how fast your burn your mag by firing), which is what XCOM: Enemy Uknown did, but that was also achieved by limiting actions to two, which introduced its own sets of problems.

 

[ArchAngel]

Guys, you don't understand. If you don't spend a huge percentage of your time in tedious warehouse simulation, you never get that thrilling moment of gameplay tension when you forget to pack enough ammo for one of your guys and then combat starts and you have to figure out what to do about it.*

*actual Codex argument for really, truly dull game design

This is more broadly true for Codexian arguments in general. I frequently find that people on here will argue that truly atrocious design decisions are actually good because they are done for "lore reasons", or for "realism", or because they "were fun in some other context", without realising how bad they make certain games overall.

Game's difficulty and economy is obviously tuned with the assumption that you will have to craft separate gear for every character - the ability to freely change items regardless of where your characters are exist simply to not make people butthurt about having to fly their characters back to base every time they craft a new weapon, to pick it up. Devs simply didn't predict that some people will be autistic enough to just craft few sets of gear then manually switch them between all their teams every mission, since it's a ridiculously retarded way to ruin the game for yourself.

You can abuse the system to decrease your need for gear/resources 2-3x, and completely invalidate the game's economy, to be able to technically play at higher difficulty while having an experience closer to lower, at the cost of hours spend on mindless clicking, but if you choose to do that, you have no one to blame but yourself. Bitching that devs should forbid you from doing it because you can't stop yourself, is like saying that government should ban fastfood because you can't stop being a fatass.

So you're (correctly) pointing out that the game has a fundamental design problem and is very easily abusable by it's design, but are then complaining when people criticise it for being abusable and tedious? The correct response is to blame the game for being badly designed.

This is part of the reason why nuXCOM gives you unlimited copies of each weapon when you build it. This introduces it's own problems, but at least solves a lot of the tedium of bad design.

To me, this smacks of being designed "to stop casuals getting unlimited plasma guns", without actually being thought out. The mere fact that it was "more hardcore" was enough to justify it. Who cares if it makes the game more tedious?

Again, OG Xcom fixed this by limiting cargo space on each skyranger. So you could take a small stock to supply your fighters in the field with multiple loadouts, but would have to return to base to make big changes. This encouraged actually building up collections of items, rather than freely being able to exchange things, in a non-tedious way.

Phoenix Point seems like a "hardcore" Xcom clone made by someone who was frustrated by the oversimplification of many of nuXCOMs systems, but who fundamentally didn't understand WHY the original Xcom was good. So we get a hodge-podge of gameplay ideas that end up encouraging really tedious, degenerate micromanagement gameplay.

This is absolutely an issue with the game, and blaming people for "playing it the tedious way" is asinine. If a game provides an optimal strategy that provides SIGNIFICANT advantages (by your own description it basically trivialises the entire economy), and then makes that strategy tedious and boring, players have every right to complain when they have to go out of their way to be bored if they want to be efficient. That's textbook bad game design.

Any game designed around efficiency being annoying and requiring the player to fight against the game's systems in order to be effective is badly designed by definition.

If Phoenix Point wants to maintain the "everybody gets one copy of everything" gameplay design, AND wants to keep equipment teleporting in (which seems contradictory, IMO), they could very easily resolve the tedium with some proper design. Each character should remember the last item they had in each slot, and then they should add an "auto-loadout" button on the squad selection screen, which will automatically strip weapons and armour from undrafted soldiers to equip the current squad, based on what they used last. Easy peasy. Problem solved instantly. But of course they won't do this because then it will very obviously expose how broken the game's economy is, because it's badly designed, so this would require more work on the gameplay side to create an actually compelling economy that's based on strategy rather than tedium.

Phoenix Point defenders baffle me. You can't simply hand-waive away all the game's flaws by blaming players when the game encourages them to do something boring.

I have said it before in this thread and I will say it again: Don't waste your time on Phoenix Point. If you want a compelling XCOM game that isn't oversimplified garbage, try OpenXCom Extended. The original game is almost perfect with a small handful of (built-in) gameplay tweaks.

What is difference between Open Xcom and Extended?

I've played and finished Open Xcom a few times few years back (before release of PP), I have no reason to go back to that.

Also PP plays fairly different to old Xcom with FP aiming, special abilities and very different enemies and squad sizes. One can play both and get a different experience and have fun with both.

Saying that, the simplest solution to equipment switching in PP is just to not do it. There are no mods that makes it good and balanced with it turned off and game was designed without one needing to do it.

 

[Serious_Business]

Snip

That's a lot of words to complain about item swaps. I didn't even notice it myself. I honestly have no problems with the micromanagement, perhaps because I don't swap items. If you care that much, there is an option in the TFTV mod to save item configurations and apply them at will. But I wouldn't even do it. You don't need the strategic edge, it's not so much a hard game. The problem with PP, to me, is that the combat has no lethality for the most part. Too many free heals. But the progression is interesting : instead of having the usual power curve where things become more trivial as you go, you just get more and more pressure. To a degree, at least, because you do have overpowered builds in vanilla. Still, I do enjoy that dynamic ; the game forces you to stay on your toes. There's no linear upgrades for your team. The pressure with ressources and so on is good, although it could be more.

As far as going to Open X-Com instead, yeah, well, some of us have played that game to the death. So variety is good. But I understand your little need to have strong opinions. Actually I don't, but I'll pretend that I do

 

[Zombra]

Limited ammo is actually an interesting aspect of gameplay, because when you have to count your bullets, it encourages better discipline over how you spend them.

I quite agree BUT there is a time and a place, and a cost/benefit.

On one hand, if you have something like Resident Evil, where scrounging ammo and managing your shots are very intentional and core to the design, that's great. There's no cost and all benefit because this is the intended gameplay loop and that tension remains with you throughout the game.

In a game like X-Com or PP, firstly you have a setting about super soldiers with a bankroll in the millions and the support of a legit military apparatus. In a story like this, counting pennies is inappropriate. That's not truly relevant to pure game design, but still worth saying I think. More to the point, the gameplay cost of penny counting is high - dragging little pictures of bullets into little boxes, going back to look at the little boxes to make sure there are little pictures of bullets in them every time you get in the Skyranger - this is not a thrilling adventure. It's no-stakes warehouse management and it is a drag. And critically, if you're a competent player, you do all this and your "reward" is that now there is no tension, because your soldiers are adequately supplied, as you'd expect them to be in a game of this type. You did the busywork and the payoff is that nothing interesting happens.

OK I need to say out loud at this point that I hope I've made my opinions clear and we don't have to argue about it for the next 20 posts because I know I do that too much.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

Snip

That's a lot of words to complain about item swaps. I didn't even notice it myself. I honestly have no problems with the micromanagement, perhaps because I don't swap items. If you care that much, there is an option in the TFTV mod to save item configurations and apply them at will. But I wouldn't even do it. You don't need the strategic edge, it's not so much a hard game. The problem with PP, to me, is that the combat has no lethality for the most part. Too many free heals. But the progression is interesting : instead of having the usual power curve where things become more trivial as you go, you just get more and more pressure. To a degree, at least, because you do have overpowered builds in vanilla. Still, I do enjoy that dynamic ; the game forces you to stay on your toes. There's no linear upgrades for your team. The pressure with ressources and so on is good, although it could be more.

As far as going to Open X-Com instead, yeah, well, some of us have played that game to the death. So variety is good. But I understand your little need to have strong opinions. Actually I don't, but I'll pretend that I do

I've never seen anyone simultaneously ignore my points, while acting as if they somehow understand/refuted them in such a smug manner.

I guess this is typical Codexian bullshit.

Frankly I don't give a single shit if it never affected you personally. You don't matter and nobody cares about you or your experience. My argument was the existence of the system in the first place is an indication of bad game design. Which it is.

 

[ArchAngel]

Limited ammo is actually an interesting aspect of gameplay, because when you have to count your bullets, it encourages better discipline over how you spend them.

I quite agree BUT there is a time and a place, and a cost/benefit.

On one hand, if you have something like Resident Evil, where scrounging ammo and managing your shots are very intentional and core to the design, that's great. There's no cost and all benefit because this is the intended gameplay loop and that tension remains with you throughout the game.

In a game like X-Com or PP, firstly you have a setting about super soldiers with a bankroll in the millions and the support of a legit military apparatus. In a story like this, counting pennies is inappropriate. That's not truly relevant to pure game design, but still worth saying I think. More to the point, the gameplay cost of penny counting is high - dragging little pictures of bullets into little boxes, going back to look at the little boxes to make sure there are little pictures of bullets in them every time you get in the Skyranger - this is not a thrilling adventure. It's no-stakes warehouse management and it is a drag. And critically, if you're a competent player, you do all this and your "reward" is that now there is no tension, because your soldiers are adequately supplied, as you'd expect them to be in a game of this type. You did the busywork and the payoff is that nothing interesting happens.

OK I need to say out loud at this point that I hope I've made my opinions clear and we don't have to argue about it for the next 20 posts because I know I do that too much.

So apparently mod Terror from the Void has some save loadout, load loadout option that might ease some of the pain all the "gear switchers" suffer.

 

[ArchAngel]

Ok so after talking with Terror from the Void mod author it has save loadout (per soldier) option, it has strip all equipment and load loadout so all you gear switchers can have your cake and eat it too.

 

[Parabalus]

Ok so after talking with Terror from the Void mod author it has save loadout (per soldier) option, it has strip all equipment and load loadout so all you gear switchers can have your cake and eat it too.

Completely wrong direction, just makes it worse instead of better.

 

[ArchAngel]

Ok so after talking with Terror from the Void mod author it has save loadout (per soldier) option, it has strip all equipment and load loadout so all you gear switchers can have your cake and eat it too.

Completely wrong direction, just makes it worse instead of better.

Well it was either that or implementing full inventory systems for many places, transferring items and all the UI that would that require and he had things do add that were more exciting for him to work on.