I also miss the darkness of the original, but it makes sense that you dont see it in the game, or maybe if they used a lowlight filter (with detail cut out) that would be cool, but plain darkness doesn’t make sense in this kind of futuristic setting.
Looking on the PP forums there are a few people with CTD errors, Snapshot said a patch is coming in “one to two weeks”. Double urgh.
I probably didn’t make it clear, but it’s absolutely correct that there’s no tension about night missions vs daylight missions because the entire system of perception and stealth is under the hood. There should be more tension at night, and as @grahamiam says, it’s particularly disappointing that the guy who made the original X-com – where nighttime was an absolutely “holy fuck i shouldn’t be here this is going to be bad i should probably leave now!” affair – has made nighttime even worse than irrelevant: he’s hidden its relevance so you have no idea it’s even in effect or what it’s effect is.
I’m bitterly disappointed in this aspect of Phoenix Point. All that great carefully calculated tactical gunplay, but I have to guess when and whether something can actually see my dudes? That’s the worst kind of stealth gameplay. :(
-Tom
Eh, I see where you’re coming from–high-tech night vision and all that–but I disagree. Night is and always will be scary for humans, no matter how much technology we have. Nothing can fully compensate for the absence of the sun and ambient light, psychologically. In terms of the game, it’s easy to construct a tech/lore reason for not being able to deploy the full panoply of vision enhancement stuff. Maybe the aliens can sense it. Maybe they have pulse grenades that blind anyone using low-light enhancement. Etc.
I just fondly/with terror remember the night missions in the original XCOM games. Scary AF.
Does PP have directionality? That’s one of the big problems of new xcom for me. You can’t have directional turns (that should take 1-2 action points) in a 2-phase system. But without directionality, you can’t have enemies sneaking up on you (in the dark or otherwise), nor can you sneak up on enemies – the game must assume that the enemies see you as soon as there is line of sight. This is one of the key things missing - one of those small details that makes a huge difference - but I don’t think PP brought it back, did it?
I don’t think so really outside of setting the overwatch zones.
Yes I think the overwatch zones is the nod to that aspect. If it has this aspect at all, its under the hood again. Not obvious, but based on my last mission, I’m guessing not since i saw hints my guys were getting flanked.
There’s a guy called Beagle who’s played thousands of hours of XCOM, and who posted his very long video examining PP. He strongly dislikes it, probably more than is reasonable. The main complaint is that the FPS aiming is a gimmick that doesn’t add much, slows down the game tremendously, is absolutely crucial for optimal play, and yet it makes it really hard to get proper information about shot status. For example, you may check a shot and think you can’t hit an enemy, but if you wait for the right idle animation to happen and try again, now you can hit that enemy.
I think I agree with his point about this being a gimmick. They could have had an interface for simulated shots that lived in harmony with the main interface – there was no need to switch to first person, making things extremely confusing. The FPS view creates a ton of issues stemming from the fact that as a strategy game, it’s an abstraction of what happens, but the first person view breaks that abstraction. Aside from the example of idle animation cycles determining whether you hit or not, there’s the matter of being behind cover and needing to step out to shoot (triggering overwatch), or getting hit mostly in the head because that’s what visible when you’re behind partial cover and the game’s guns are too accurate to simulate how things would happen in a real battle.
Basically, a full simulation of a battlefield is way beyond the capabilities of the game, but the turn-based abstraction is forced in that direction due to the FPS gimmick.
Thanks for further clarification. I withdraw my objection :)
What is wrong with that? If you are going to get hit, then that is what is going to get hit. Makes more sense than being hit in the torso or leg.
Anyone know the effects of encumbrance? Less move points?
The first hot-fix has been released but there are VERY few changes (below). Where the f*ck is the fix for the Mac version crashing on exit and not syncing saves to cloud?
Diego
- Fixed a crash that occurs when launching the game with certain locales.
- Fixed an issue with invalid targeting when behind cover.
- Fixed various sound issues.
This is where the abstraction clashes with simulation. This is a turn based game – the whole tactic section is an abstraction. This is why there are idle animations. In a battle, when only your head is poking out, you’re unlikely to get hit at all, or you might go prone because why wouldn’t you if that’s the best cover you can find? You’re much more likely to get hit when exposed, when trying to shoot, but that’s very hard to simulate correctly in a turn-based game. Also, full cover is hard to find etc.
All these complicated things are far better hidden behind abstractions of some sort, and have been done better in games like Jagged Alliance 2 (which still account for cover).
Wait, really? So can you use an action point to just face a different direction?
Not that I know of. I think you’re just facing the direction you last moved, unless you change it with overwatch.
-Tom
I just can’t get around how Overwatch and Firing don’t let you peak out from cover.
It destroys the whole idea of cover because apparently your soldiers are morons.
Phoenix Point answers the question: “What is better cover a concrete wall or a metal guard rail, with… the guard rail. So much the guard rail, you can shoot over it you can’t shoot through concrete, that’s just crazy.”
That’s the problem of the abstraction clashing with the simulation. They have to give you a firing POV (for firing, at least). But which POV do they give you? Whichever angle they give you will determine your ability to shoot. So they punted and just kept you at the original location, seeing nothing.
So they punted on this as well. Imagine moving into position, having a few TUs left - more than enough to turn reasonably given TU cost, but not enough to overwatch - and a creature sneaks up behind you and gets a bonus on its attack since you couldn’t turn.
The best part is that some part of you is invariably sticking out for the enemy to shoot at.
I don’t like the enemy dancing through my overwatch cone and getting a shot at me. That has to be fixed.