Phoenix Point - Interview @ Rock Paper Shotgun

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Rock Paper Shotgun has interviewed Julian Gollop at the start of his crowdfunding campaign for Phoenix Point:

The original X-COM (UFO: Enemy Unknown), Julian Gollop tells me, “succeeded in spite of itself”. I asked him how he felt about the game now, twenty three years after its initial release, and particularly about the way it’s often placed on a pedestal. He didn’t expect it to be a success and certainly didn’t think he’d be making a game heavily based on its legacy almost a quarter of a century later.


Yet here we are. The crowdfunding campaign for Phoenix Point, a sci-fi horror strategy game about an alien onslaught, has just begun. Gollop is back where many people feel he belongs, and this time round he seems extremely confident in his game’s design.

[...]

And that, I think, is the major difference between Phoenix Point and other XCOMs and XCOM-likes past and present. It’s intended to be a game in which systems interact, overlap and allow players to observe them and react to them, while encountering factions and entities that make up and are reacting to those same systems. In that way, it has much in common with my beloved but flawed X-COM: Apocalypse and I can’t help but see it as a continuation of some of the ideas in that game. It’s about time.

The most enticing loose thread I find to pull on involves a game that never saw the light of day. As we talk about the long wait for more XCOM-like games, Gollop tells me about a project he pitched at MicroProse immediately after UFO: Enemy Unknown.

“It was set in the 1930s and you controlled a team of occult investigators. Portals were being opened bringing paranormal entities in the world, and you had to fight all kinds of different supernatural creatures. And Nazis.”

The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense: Enemy Unknown? Maybe once this next alien threat has been repelled.
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More information.
 
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Just checked their Fig Video...it looks great except of...the combat.

I already strongly disliked the Firaxis XCom Release. And this one even looks more "reduced".
 
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Kordanor said:
Just checked their Fig Video…it looks great except of…the combat.

I already strongly disliked the Firaxis XCom Release. And this one even looks more "reduced".
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Yeah exactly...is there any place we can find actual details on the combat besides the fluff that's in the video and the Fig campaign text? At a glance, it looks/sounds really dumbed-down, perhaps even moreso than the Firaxis games. Wouldn't bother backing with what I see so far.
 
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Some of the cool stuff I have noticed.

Soldier Stuff:
-Squad sizes range from 4 at minimum up to 12 depending on injuries. Your soldiers will have an inventory so there is inventory management. There is a movement and action phase but if you spot an enemy while moving you can change direction. It maintains a reasonable degree of complexity due to the soldiers inventory management and many more soldiers on the field imo.
Map Stuff
-Everything is fully destructible and multi-leveled including buildings and terrain. Buildings will tumble killing all inside if you want that to happen.
Strategy Map
-There is a strategy map of far more depth than the Firaxis games. You will have to make alliances with factions and you will also make enemies. You will have to worry about base defence and you can have multiple bases. It is a very fluid situation as your allies can get pissed off at you and become your enemies. There will be aircraft and interceptions.
Tech Tree
-You can steal alien/enemy tech and they can steal yours.
-Exotic research and development will depend on success on the field like X-com.
General Stuff
-There is a focus on the single-player campaign. Multiplayer is not a focus at all.
-Modding will be looked at post-release.
 
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Kordanor said:
Just checked their Fig Video…it looks great except of…the combat.

I already strongly disliked the Firaxis XCom Release. And this one even looks more "reduced".
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What did look reduced?!
They removed pod system, soldiers now have an inventory and squads can go up to 12 men. And you can target specific body parts.
 
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Archangel said:
What did look reduced?!
They removed pod system, soldiers now have an inventory and squads can go up to 12 men. And you can target specific body parts.
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Well, for starters the view in combat looked more FPS'ish and not isometric/top view. UI wasn't present in the video IIRC, but I'm doubting that's an action points system either, more likely something simpler like what Firaxis did. (Also noticed that the need for action points came in fairly low on the survey they did, but I guess that means they haven't even decided yet?)
 
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Stingray said:
Well, for starters the view in combat looked more FPS'ish and not isometric/top view. UI wasn't present in the video IIRC, but I'm doubting that's an action points system either, more likely something simpler like what Firaxis did. (Also noticed that the need for action points came in fairly low on the survey they did, but I guess that means they haven't even decided yet?)
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That is called action cam, new Xcoms have that and it only activates once you give command to your men so it can play out what is happening closer to player vision. I am sure you will be able to turn it off just like in new Xcom if you want faster gameplay and don't care to see resolution of your actions closer.
There was UI for body part targeting in the video.
What you are calling action points is actually called time units (TU), and new Xcom actually does use (real) action points, it has a 2 action point system. Phoenix Point will have something similar except you will be able to change your movement path if you find a new enemy while moving (game will pause) and you will have something called will points which you will use to do more than 2 actions per round when you need to.
 
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The 2 Actions per turn is one of the big problems in the XCom System. As this also means that all the other mechanics need to be crippled as well. Like the cover system, the toHit Chance calculation and the crutches they use, like extra turns aliens get once you find them.
 
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Kordanor said:
The 2 Actions per turn is one of the big problems in the XCom System. As this also means that all the other mechanics need to be crippled as well. Like the cover system, the toHit Chance calculation and the crutches they use, like extra turns aliens get once you find them.
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You are making wrong assumptions. 2 AP system has nothing to do with stuff like cover or alien pod/activation system.
2 AP system is mostly used to speed up gameplay and it works well like that.
The rest are separate systems, and for example PP will not have alien pod system and aliens will not get a free move. Also the game will have real ballistics system and more of the map will be destructible.
 
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Archangel said:
You are making wrong assumptions. 2 AP system has nothing to do with stuff like cover or alien pod/activation system.
2 AP system is mostly used to speed up gameplay and it works well like that.
The rest are separate systems, and for example PP will not have alien pod system and aliens will not get a free move. Also the game will have real ballistics system and more of the map will be destructible.
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These things are strongly tied together.

For example:
In XCom you cannot move for 1 point out of cover, shoot, and then move for 1 point back into cover (as you can in Jagged Alliance). So you have to make cover work differently.
In XCom You are not "unattackable" when you got a 2mx1m wall infront of you. Instead you are below "high cover". You are only "unattackable" if you got 1 wall next to your, and one tile of additional wall into each direction.

Also because of the limitation fo one move action, you need to make the toHit calculation much "easier".

The list basically goes on and on.
Of course the XCom way isn't the only way to do it. Shadowrun, Hard West and Halfway use a similar system, which works better imho. As they use different "crutches", add even more Asymetry, or they make hits matter less.
 
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The two-tiered move-and-attack system is definitely inferior, providing fewer strategic choices, to an AP system. I'm sorry to see Divinity:OS 2, amongst so many other games, move in that direction
 
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Kordanor said:
These things are strongly tied together.

For example:
In XCom you cannot move for 1 point out of cover, shoot, and then move for 1 point back into cover (as you can in Jagged Alliance). So you have to make cover work differently.
In XCom You are not "unattackable" when you got a 2mx1m wall infront of you. Instead you are below "high cover". You are only "unattackable" if you got 1 wall next to your, and one tile of additional wall into each direction.

Also because of the limitation fo one move action, you need to make the toHit calculation much "easier".

The list basically goes on and on.
Of course the XCom way isn't the only way to do it. Shadowrun, Hard West and Halfway use a similar system, which works better imho. As they use different "crutches", add even more Asymetry, or they make hits matter less.
Click to expand...

None of what you said is worse, it is just different. And 2AP system is not even close to nuXcom biggest problem. PP is fixing nuXcom biggest problems .
 
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The two point system is to the detriment of X-Com and removes much of the tactical nuance present in the old games.

It's one of those things that seem to be a nice streamlined approach until you actually compare the potential tactical options that no longer exist in the new game.

It's more like a board-game system - which would be excused in that format, because more complexity could easily become impractical and unplayable.

But, to my mind, there's really no excuse to remove interesting tactical options in a computer game. It's all about presenting the options to the player in a way that's digestable - and balance the game around nuanced options, instead of rigid "cover/no-cover" gamey nonsense.

That said, the biggest problem with the new X-Coms lie in the strategic layer, not the tactical layer.

The strategic layer is laughably simplistic and - unlike the original X-Com - it can't be confused with a real strategy game. Even in X-Com 2 - there's literally never any doubt as to what you should be doing - because of the "Avatar Project", the implementation of which is yet another board-game mechanic that simply doesn't belong in a computer game.
 
You guys are forgetting about the will pool. Using will points will allow you to perform additional actions so in practical terms you have more than a move and attack phase.
 
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Archangel said:
None of what you said is worse, it is just different. And 2AP system is not even close to nuXcom biggest problem. PP is fixing nuXcom biggest problems .
Click to expand...

I never thought that I would ever write this: I agree with Archangel.

The two-tiered move-and-attack system is not crippled, it is just different and calls for different strategies than an action point system. IMHO it feels a lot more realistic in a round based game that the action point variant. Let me explain this:

If you have a round based system (all player characters act => all enemy characters act after that) the cover-attack-cover action does not make any sense, because it cannot be countered except for a response/assault mechanic the opponent had to put action points in the turn before. It is more a guessing game than a tactics simulation.

If you have a real turn based system (maybe initiative based like in HOMM5) this is no problem at all, but that would be no longer a XCOM game.

BTW: The system is totally optimized for console controllers, though.
 
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Sir_Brennus said:
I never thought that I would ever write this: I agree with Archangel.

The two-tiered move-and-attack system is not crippled, it is just different and calls for different strategies than an action point system. IMHO it feels a lot more realistic in a round based game that the action point variant. Let me explain this:

If you have a round based system (all player characters act => all enemy characters act after that) the cover-attack-cover action does not make any sense, because it cannot be countered except for a response/assault mechanic the opponent had to put action points in the turn before. It is more a guessing game than a tactics simulation.

If you have a real turn based system (maybe initiative based like in HOMM5) this is no problem at all, but that would be no longer a XCOM game.

BTW: The system is totally optimized for console controllers, though.
Click to expand...

Why would anyone want a fully round based system, though?

You can go all the way back to Laser Squad and find "overwatch" features, for instance.

No one is arguing for a UGOIGO system with no way to intervene during the enemy turn.

We're arguing that it's not only more realistic to be able to move and shoot at the same time - which is what a proper point system would allow without feeling restrictive - it's also a more fun game if you have more options than simply going from cover to cover.

Like spending your last energy to make a desperate attack and then having just enough movement left to crouch or go prone. In these new X-Coms - you're essentially forced to always end your turn in cover - because the entire game is restrictively designed around it. There's no leeway - no middle ground.

That kind of binary tactical approach might appeal to some, but it definitely doesn't appeal to me.

I prefer tactical games where you can think outside the box and be highly creative.
 
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