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

[Mustawd]

But as a gamer my dreams are utterly shattered.

Ima leave this here just in case you need it.

https://www.crisistextline.org/

Spoiler

 

[PanteraNera]

Ima leave this here just in case you need it.

https://www.crisistextline.org/

Spoiler

Thx bro might be helpful in the future

 

[Israfael]

What exactly were you promised, that we haven't/aren't delivering?

Boardgame isn't a simulation, it's the opposite way of doing things. Gamey vs Simulationist, ask Julian, he basically said the same in the pitches and interviews before Phoenix Point was funded.

 

[UnstableVoltage]

What exactly were you promised, that we haven't/aren't delivering?

Boardgame isn't a simulation, it's the opposite way of doing things. Gamey vs Simulationist, ask Julian, he basically said the same in the pitches and interviews before Phoenix Point was funded.

What do you consider "boardgame" about Phoenix Point? Simulated projectiles? WYSIWYG cover system? The ability to move one tile at a time? Not sure what your point is.

 

[Infinitron]

They mean it's still not as simulated as they wanted, obviously.

 

[UnstableVoltage]

They mean it's still not as simulated as they wanted, obviously.

Well, as I said before - we can't please everyone. I got chewed out for saying that last week. Someone accused it of being a "PR" line. But it's not. It's my totally honest personal opinion. There's no such thing as "the perfect game" It is absolutely impossible to make a product which at least someone will not find fault with.

We're not trying to re-invent the wheel here. We're not trying to make OG X-Com with AAA graphics - we never said we were. What we promised was to add more simulationist mechanics, like in OG X-Com (which we're already doing). As has already been said many times before though, we do have to consider the market. Weather the X-Com purists here accept it or not, there's a far larger (active) gaming audience out there familiar with the Firaxis XCOMs than the originals. It would be commercial suicide to ignore the Firaxis XCOM games, which have been far more successful than the originals ever were.

When we said we were making a spiritual successor to X-Com, and said we wanted to make the game more simulationist and less boardgame (which we are doing), some people clearly just chose to hear "We're remaking X-Com" and are now disappointed that isn't the case.

 

[Mustawd]

When we said we were making a spiritual successor to X-Com, and said we wanted to make the game more simulationist and less boardgame (which we are doing), some people clearly just chose to hear "We're remaking X-Com" and are now disappointed that isn't the case.

Seeing that the fig pitch had a ton of mentions of Firaxis’s XCOM games, it was quite obvious what PP was gonna be.

And since this is the 20th time we’ve covered this, people are either butthurt they didn’t read closely enough or just want to complain about it. I don’t see the benefit of further engaging them in that kind of discussion, quite frankly.

 

[Mazisky]

people are either butthurt they didn’t read closely enough or just want to complain about it.

Welcome to the codex!

 

[Alienman]

And round and round we go!

 

[Israfael]

What do you consider "boardgame" about Phoenix Point? Simulated projectiles? WYSIWYG cover system? The ability to move one tile at a time? Not sure what your point is.

Do you actually understand what a simulation is? Why nu xcom does not have inventory, free aim, no FoVs for your troops or aliens, and is restricted to a primitive phase combat? I assume you know it well, just going full inwoker on me..
In short, a proper simulation is a system where each object of the same class (like 'entity') would have the same set of parameters and degrees of freedom (check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_freedom if the idea is alien to you). The parameters may vary (as in like the stats of typical sectoid, snakeman or an x-com soldier), but the rules that govern their behaviour are the same. The starting stats of the soldiers define what they would become to some point (i.e. high str/energy and low accuracy rookie can serve as a heavy weapons guy, high accuracy/reaction rookie - as a pointman) without restricting the choices.

So, when we play, we simulate the behaviour of the objects within the simulation, using the ruleset we were provided with. We know that all participants (that starts from an abstact 'entity' to the human and AI actors that control them) of that simulation are more or less equal (AI cheating notwithstanding). In short, simulation is not aimed at some sort of balance, it's just a physical system with some number of degrees of freedom that evolves with time with both human and AI input. For me, and the fact that the original x-com was a sim(tactical combat) inside a sim (geoscape which sets up combat situations), is the true beauty of the game, and the reason why Firaxis game is a total perversion of the principles of the original UFO Defense. And I stress it, it's not about 'realism' or whatever, system can be as abstract as its creator wants, but it's still a cohesive, singular system, not what is described next.

In a boardgame you have a random assortment of rules that are applied not equally and are usually tailored to serve or create some sort of balance or resolve a game situation. For example, the free move that the aliens get in nu-xcom when the next pod is popped, selective free aim (as a completely free aim would ruin the precious balance), lack of inventory, arbitrary classes, class perks and abilities and so on. Same goes to lack of ballistics - it's simply not needed in a boardgame, you can just roll the dice and then check your WS, BS, W and T and remove the mehreens from the battlescape accordingly. Basically, there's only one set of rules (for you), and it's completely irrelevant for the AI. Not sure if it even existed in the first Firaxis game, it worked even on anemic phablets and tablets. Please note again that I don't hate board games (I used to like 3-4ed WH40k, not sure how it goes now), just if you say 'simulation' it should be one, not just some ersatz with some buzzwords and bells and whistles.

They mean it's still not as simulated as they wanted, obviously.

Nigga please, currently I only see nu-xcom in the PC Gamer week demo, nothing like a simulation (and that's only the tactical part, Julian mentioned the word "mission" a lot, so Geoscape can also be heavily scripted)

 

[Israfael]

What we promised was to add more simulationist mechanics, like in OG X-Com (which we're already doing)

You can't say that in principle, it's like 'we added some fusion reactor elements to a steam engine'.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

What happened with Massive Chalice? Hard West? Fort Triumph? Shock Tactics? Why is the market littered with the corpses of Firaxis clones?

Lets see:
Massive Chalice http://steamspy.com/app/246110

Owners: 248,217 ± 15,692

Hard West http://steamspy.com/app/307670

Owners: 230,580 ± 15,124

Quite similar number of owners for games that were both released in 2015 and have been in numerous sales.
What's different between them is that Double Fine considers that Massive Chalice flopped and that was that for their tactical game productions, while CreativeForge is making their 2nd game in same genre.

Shock Tactics http://steamspy.com/app/473610

Owners: 2,334 ± 1,522

This is a genuine failure. They probably had to dump unfinished game to markets because developers ran out of money.


Fort Triumph and Depth of Extinction (which you didn't mention) are still work in progress, but those probably reach only the niche market.

 

[Shog-goth]

It would be commercial suicide to ignore the Firaxis XCOM games, which have been far more successful than the originals ever were.

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree, OG Ufo sold on DOS platform 600K units where nuXCOM has placed near 3.5M copies. But in 1994 there were 50M PCs versus 400M in 2011, so It's 1.2% of the potential market vs. 0.87%.

 

[DeepOcean]

Well, from what I saw, this game will be less decline than XCOM, maybe one day developers on the far future year of 2100 stop going backwards and dumbing down 20 year old concepts and move forward and actually innovate. The combat demo I saw, if you replaced the crab men by XCOM aliens, it would look like an expansion of that game. Maybe there is hope, if the developers add mod support and there is a decent modding scene to the game. XCOM 2 with mods is a much better game.

 

[Mazisky]

The problem is, for every single guy who dislikes Nuxcom style, there are 10 who likes it.

So why any dev or producer should try to please a minority?

This argument is outside personal preferenences.

 

[Alienman]

I guess it works like that if you are only in it for the money.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well, from what I saw, this game will be less decline than XCOM, maybe one day developers on the far future year of 2100 stop going backwards and dumbing down 20 year old concepts and move forward and actually innovate. The combat demo I saw, if you replaced the crab men by XCOM aliens, it would look like an expansion of that game. Maybe there is hope, if the developers add mod support and there is a decent modding scene to the game. XCOM 2 with mods is a much better game.

Just because the art style resembles nuXcom and camera would zoom in to show shots it does not mean it is an expansion to Xcom.
I don't understand one thing here so please explain it to me. Is the problem for you (and others like you that called this a expansion to Xcom2) that the game plays like Xcom 2 or looks like Xcom 2?
Because it does not play like Xcom 2, it only seems so. You can copy UFO mechanics 1:1 but give it Xcom 2 art style and zoom in for every shot and it will look very similar.

 

[Mazisky]

I guess it works like that if you are only in it for the money.

If Firaxis where it only for money they could just do an Fps or a random online game. so why doing turn based?

 

[Alienman]

They did try though, but the public didn't like it.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

The problem is, for every single guy who dislikes Nuxcom style, there are 10 who likes it.

So why any dev or producer should try to please a minority?

Has anyone else, but Firaxis really succeeded with Nuxcom style?

XCOM: Enemy Unknown had massive advantage in name recognition; on both developer and franchise side and it came into practically empty market that hadn't seen release of major squad based tactics games in years.

Besides one could point to success of both Divinity: Original Sins that action points combined with simulationist approach to environments doesn't doom game into being niche product for small audience.
Though those games also have other things going for them.

 

[PanteraNera]

Mazisky

- Little extra OT question, why do you think Bethesda bought the Fallout license?

Same reason I worked with Atari to make a Planescape expansion for Neverwinter Nights 2 in 2008 (nixed by Hasbro/WOTC at the time because "Planescape" was a "dead license"). The guys at Bethesda knew Fallout was a strong name from the point of view of players. Fargo knew it too, that's why he crowdfunded Wasteland (the precursor to Fallout). The original two post-apocalyptic brands are always going to be the strongest post-apocalyptic brands (unless someone fucks up massively). Coke & Pepsi. Star Wars & Star Trek. 1st and 2nd place in the mind = brand strength.

X-Com is a strong brand. Sure as hell they were in for the money.
Also wasn't X-Com Bureau first the high value game and XCOM:EU the side project?

 

[Mazisky]

The problem is, for every single guy who dislikes Nuxcom style, there are 10 who likes it.

So why any dev or producer should try to please a minority?

Has anyone else, but Firaxis really succeeded with Nuxcom style?

XCOM: Enemy Unknown had massive advantage in name recognition; on both developer and franchise side and it came into practically empty market that hadn't seen release of major squad based tactics games in years.

But Xcom 2 sold not worse than Xcom EU even with no empty market anymore and with all the fanbase knowledge that it would be more casual than the classics. How do you explain this?

Also, the Fps Xcom was a total different dev, not Firaxis. They make only strategy games.

The problem is that a lot of people liked Nuxcom, even along old fans of the franchise.

If that is too much pain to deal with doesn't change the fact.

 

[PanteraNera]

Has anyone else, but Firaxis really succeeded with Nuxcom style?

And than the question is, why did the others not succeed?
Me for example:
Hard West, I really wanted to like it, but I just never could get into the setting.
Massive Chalice, I really wanted to like it as well, but I really dislike fantasy.
Falling Skies the Game, again really wanted to like it, but it was just to unpolished/unfinished/raw.

 

[Shog-goth]

But Xcom 2 sold not worse than Xcom EU even with no empty market anymore and with all the fanbase knowledge that it would be more casual than the classics. How do you explain this?

XCOM -> Owners: 3,521,988 ± 58,919

XCOM 2 -> Owners: 1,776,167 ± 41,913

Difference = minus 1,745,821 Millions

 

[ArchAngel]

Has anyone else, but Firaxis really succeeded with Nuxcom style?

And than the question is, why did the others not succeed?
Me for example:
Hard West, I really wanted to like it, but I just never could get into the setting.
Massive Chalice, I really wanted to like it as well, but I really dislike fantasy.
Falling Skies the Game, again really wanted to like it, but it was just to unpolished/unfinished/raw.

Hard West didn't fail.