Phoenix Point - new Julian Gollop turn-based strategy game

I agree with this. I just went back and played the original reboot (Firaxis one) and they have static pods in that game. XCOM 2’s patrols and ambush mechanic were a huge improvement but you get into an ambush grind after a while. I’d love to see someone come up with a more fluid/responsive system.

ETY at me, bro.

I agree with this. In those areas, of course – which, admittedly are a large part of the game loop. But XCOM2’s polish and extraordinary ability to get the player to care about their “soldiers” bespeaks a significant amount of resources combining with some deep game design intuition that is rarer to find.

I haven’t been following anything very closely. Do the day 1 DLC available for the game. Do some of them end up being mini-cheats and unbalancing the vanilla game?

Whoa, those will be Day 1 DLC?

The strategic map of the original X-COMs (haven’t played the new ones) never really appealed to me. I was under the impression that PP is more like an RPG. Well, we’ll see.

Oh I didn’t see the release date cause the screen was so tiny! I guess they are for the future and not release day DLC.

So if you want to season pass there are 2 sets of items. Alien living gun set and the Alien chitin armor set. Do we have word on whether those are glorified cheats and will unbalance the vanilla game?

We’ve barely seen much outside of a tactical battle or two of the base game, let alone anything from the DLC. Way to early to know yet.

Lame. Where is the strategic map? Where is the outfitting screen? Where is the gameplay demo?

That video seems more like the intro to the game than a trailer.

There is a video I linked from 12 months ago (and then deleted when I realized how old it was) that shows the Geoscape layer. I know it’s not timely and it was undoubtedly linked upthread but here it is

Honestly this made more interested in this title than anything else I’d seen - I like the gameplay loop here, scanning and exploring procedurally generated sites with missions, resources, and even other bases to bring online. Seems like something I’d really enjoy exploring. Hopefully the combat can pull it’s weight, I’m still a little leery of things like manual aiming and how hard it looked to play it well (even the guys making the game are getting crushed in all the videos I’ve seen).

I don’t have a ton of in-depth knowledge about the game but I gotta say as far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out on whether being able to target specific parts makes the game more engaging or interesting or whether it simply adds an additional layer of complexity.

I’m not against adding complexity, per se, but I wouldn’t do it unless there was a definite payoff in terms of the game (rather than just saying “it’s more realistic!”).

I’d rather it was automatic - like if you score a particularly good hit, such as a critical, then you also blinded them, or destroyed an appendage that had a specific weapon. Making it part of the game is cool, making me manually do it seems like it would get annoying around hour 10 or 15 or so. Or sooner.

I’d prefer it had an automatic process by default but an option for manual if you wanted, e.g. click on an enemy does an automatic shot, hold ctrl & click brings up the targeting dialog.

Playing on normal, and the tactial combat is challenging and fun. Very XCOM like, i actually lost during the strategic, and it wasnt because something simple like failing to have enough satellites. There is more meat to the strategic layer Ive yet to fully figure out.

In combat, you can either just fire, or aim your fire. Its easier than some of the play videos ive seen suggested. Defaulting to aim fire, is a good point, I’d like to see that in most cases.

I’ve seen the strategic map a bunch of times on gameplay videos. I’m not sure what the issue is here. It looks very similar to XCom 2 IMO.

Isn’t manual aiming optional? Or am I mistaken?

Ok, that’s what I thought, it was totally optional.