Turn-Based Tactics Phantom Doctrine - "tactical Cold War conspiracy thriller" by Hard West devs

[Zombra]

Don't tell me about smoke grenades [which would solve the problem] because you need to fill the grenade spot with regular grenades since that is the only grenade [that can solve problems].

I haven't played the game but

 

[Alienman]

You need to come within range to use the grenades, that is the main problem. You can only throw them so far(actually pretty short range), and in this case the enemy is shooting across the map with perfect accuracy. But I guess I could use smoke grenade to increase my chance of surviving and sit still and take long range potshots that do 2 damage. The problem here of course is that the enemy remove all my awareness and eventually kill my dudes with full burst ak47s from across the map and reinforcements are a constant threat. They just keep... coming... in... endless... waves. The system is so fucking frustrating man. If I would try to flank, they would just target my flank man and whittle him down and eventually kill him, since LoS does not matter either.

Edit:

Best combo seem to be just equip all men with machine-guns since they actually have some range and remove all the awareness of enemies in one burst. Then just burst them down and use only grenades. But how fun is that? Not even sure how heavy machine-guns fit into the game in the first place. I have this guy with a leather jacket with a bren-gun under his jacket apparently.

 

[Stavrophore]

You need to come within range to use the grenades, that is the main problem. You can only throw them so far(actually pretty short range), and in this case the enemy is shooting across the map with perfect accuracy. But I guess I could use smoke grenade to increase my chance of surviving and sit still and take long range potshots that do 2 damage. The problem here of course is that the enemy remove all my awareness and eventually kill my dudes with full burst ak47s from across the map and reinforcements are a constant threat. They just keep... coming... in... endless... waves. The system is so fucking frustrating man. If I would try to flank, they would just target my flank man and whittle him down and eventually kill him, since LoS does not matter either.

Edit:

Best combo seem to be just equip all men with machine-guns since they actually have some range and remove all the awareness of enemies in one burst. Then just burst them down and use only grenades. But how fun is that? Not even sure how heavy machine-guns fit into the game in the first place. I have this guy with a leather jacket with a bren-gun under his jacket apparently.

Missions like assault base have fixed reinforcements, at least from my exp. After two reinforcement waves they are done. Ive killed 21 enemies total in one mission. Yeah machineguns somehow dont fit the theme, and what i would like to see is a system when you have a gun like machinegun or heavy armor, that when you move in the enemy vision range, you will be spotted next turn not on the actual turn. Same for "actor" perk and enemy agents. Right now actor perk completely make the game trivial and you dont have to make any precautions whatsoever. Two operatives with actor+two silenced machineguns=boring as fuck every infiltration.

As for beirut, with six men squad, machineguns, armor, grenades the mission wasnt hard at all. Good tip is to get someone with dragunov, and then use lmg to strip awareness, and then headshot combo. If you have someone who can grant awareness perk then you are even in better situation. Ive had such squad plus guy with dragunov with double tap perk, its nice to kill two guys behind heavy cover thanks to headshot.

 

[Alienman]

I don't have any dragunov rifles. I have mostly shitty weapons, with only 2-3 agents managed to level up to level 3. I guess the mission isn't impossible, but these commando assholes are sitting right on the evac zone. And I only have 2 guys with machine-guns on the mission, so they are the only viable ones for range. I'm more frustrated than actually finding the game hard. But I'm getting my 30 Euros worth of gameplay even if it kills me

 

[Stavrophore]

Im watching xwynns third episode and i find it hillarious that camera that is place on top of the doors leading to restricted area, wont sound alarm when an unauthorized person leaves said area. Quite stupid, i understand that it wont see his/her face, but still it shouldnt be like that. Cameras are extremely useless, unless you would go with heavy armor into mission[why would you do that in non combat missions?].

 

[azimuth]

Has anyone mentioned how stupid it is that smashing through windows doesn't alert guards, even if you do it right in front of them? (Of course, XCOM 2 -- a much deeper game -- had it so breaking glass broke stealth.)

And hopping over shit / jumping through glass windows is apparently the standard way to travel in this game...

The stealth system is just so bad.

 

[Lhynn]

Seriously, how is this not an rpg?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Lhynn]

This game has RNG everywhere, just not in combat. Next these retards are going to claim that if it doesnt have combat its not an rpg.

 

[Jinn]

Interesting explanation of the LOS and LOF/Sidestep mechanics from our very own Kacper Szymczak

http://www.creativeforge.pl/cfg-blog/2018/8/17/the-phantom-wallhack

AMONG ALL THE FEEDBACK AND PLAYER COMMENTS ABOUT PHANTOM DOCTRINE, ONE TOPIC QUICKLY SURFACED AS CONTROVERSIAL. TO MANY PLAYERS, THE LINES OF SIGHT AND LINES OF FIRE APPEAR BUGGED OR UNFAIR. WE HEAR YOU, WE UNDERSTAND THAT YOU DON'T LIKE IT AND AS OF RIGHT NOW, WE'RE ALMOST READY TO OFFER YOU AN ALTERNATIVE. BUT IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN THE INS AND OUTS OF THE GAME'S COMBAT SYSTEM, HERE'S AN EXPLANATION FROM THE LEAD DESIGNER OF PHANTOM DOCTRINE, KACPER SZYMCZAK.
TL;DR WE'RE WORKING ON IMPROVING THE CLARITY AND VISUALIZATION OF THE LINE OF SIGHT (LOS) AND LINE OF FIRE (LOF) SYSTEM
What are sidesteps and why they matter?
Waaay back in the day, in turn-based, grid-based tactical, you’d often encounter a situation like the one below; there’s a target (T) just around the corner, normally you’d smell their bad breath at such a distance, but your shooter (S) wouldn’t be aware of the danger until you’d run into the enemy.

Realistic in real life, impractical in turn-based 3D world

Realistic in real life, impractical in turn-based 3D world

The problem is that the old school approach makes the game slightly less tactical; it is once you know where your enemy is, that you can actively think of a way to overcome them. Back in the day you’d just frequently bump into enemies and whoever had the turn - won the encounter.

Whoever has the turn, moves and wins

Whoever has the turn, moves and wins

Hence, a frequently used solution is a cover-sidestep mechanic: when adjacent to cover, visually shooter would “stick” to the wall, take a peek and the target would be revealed - and shot. Technically speaking, the shooter would check for line of sight both from their actual position, and an adjacent tile at the same time; if either provided line of sight, then the shooter has line of sight.

This is how it's calculated...

...but this is how it may end up looking

...but this is how it may end up looking

Both characters sidestep to our right and through the door and window LOS exists

Both characters sidestep to our right and through the door and window LOS exists

In the example above, if the enemy guard sidesteps to his left, he has a clear line of fire to the tile under the window, which is one tile to the right of agent Stoney. The screenshot is from a Youtube video, but we recreated the exact case in 3D. We understand that it looks anything but clear and the reception of it has been divisive. Hence, one of the tweaks we are implementing right now is to increase the clarity and remove the most controversial or confusing cases.

Any change to this mechanic needs to be very carefully tested and considered and it will likely affect the entire game balance but we're preparing to deploy a major change and will definitely ask for your input. Thank you for all your feedback and support!

Makes a lot more sense to me after reading that. I'd say the most jarring aspect of it is getting engaged from a particularly long ways away on the map, which could maybe be fixed by reducing actual range of LOS.

Alienman maybe wait a bit and see if they address some of your issues with combat? Better than stubbornly playing the game now just because you bought it, and walking away (seemingly extremely) mad every time.

 

[Alienman]

Jinn Heh, I know what you are saying and I promise it won't reach Celerity levels just yet. But at this point I'm just so fascinated by the game - how these combat decisions came to be, was decided to be good and playable. I know you don't agree with me, but at this point I just can't help it. Kinda wanna see where the story goes too.

PS. I'm not that mad!

 

[Jinn]

Jinn Heh, I know what you are saying and I promise it won't reach Celerity levels just yet. But at this point I'm just so fascinated by the game - how these combat decisions came to be, was decided to be good and playable. I know you don't agree with me, but at this point I just can't help it. Kinda wanna see where the story goes too.

PS. I'm not that mad!

I actually do agree with a few of your problems with the combat, in particular the seemingly endless amount of of shots flying at your agents from all over the map. It's just that I'm usually a lot more willing to cut independent companies - and especially one as relatively young as Creative Forge - some slack. It's clear they don't have the resources or time that a monster company like Firaxis has, so I keep that in mind too.

In a market where we are seeing rarer and rarer releases of games with strategic tactical combat, I'd rather see them releasing with some flaws and strange new ideas than not at all. Even if it was a game I didn't like, I'd try to root the developer on in spirit of the genre it's representing. Encouraging changes, rather than slapping the dev in the face with disapproval. Dropping negative reviews on their steam page when it already has mixed reviews, for example, seems like kicking them while they're down, especially when they've been working hard and clearly listening to the complaints of their customers. That's why I generally will focus on the positive aspects that I find in such a case, as the negatives are very loudly being voiced pretty much everywhere already.

 

[Alienman]

Yeah, I get that and I usually do the same. But this game to me is broken on a fundamental level. LoS issues and weird combat. The dev here in the thread have said himself that the old style of turn-based games are not gonna sell anymore so they have to use this system - this hybrid nuXcom Frankenstein system, but sorry to say, it's complete shit. So instead of making a cool niche game with working turn-based rules, aka with time-units/action-points and clear rules for LoS, they use this backwards system to reach a wider audience and it backfired. They only got themselves to blame. I mean, they even had the option to just copy Xcom 2, but nope. A few bad people couldn't handle missing a 95% shot once in Xcom.

If it was a small time developer that made a game, a functioning game with time-units and clear rules, but for some reason got shit on by people that can't understand % chance I would be up there with you man. But now I'm out of 30 Euros and a game, and the only thing left to do for me is to criticize the game for (in my opinion) its faults.

Remember I was looking forward to the game as well, it was way up there hype wise, and the deterministic system wouldn't stop me from buying it - but now, here we are. Don't know what to say.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

This game would have benefited from early access so players could have critiqued the gameplay.

 

[Jinn]

but sorry to say, it's complete shit.

You say that like it's the objective truth. It has its issues to be sure, but calling it complete shit™ is hyperbole.

But now I'm out of 30 Euros and a game, and the only thing left to do for me is to criticize the game for (in my opinion) its faults.

Should have got that refund, bro.

 

[Alienman]

Christ. According to me it's shit. You even quote me saying "in my opinion". Shouldn't you be glad I didn't get that refund though? Now this small struggling indie company got some extra cash, bro.

 

[Jinn]

Christ. According to me it's shit. You even quote me saying "in my opinion".

Didn't see that "in my opinion." Late at night (or in the morning rather) where I am. Sorry. Clearly wouldn't have put it that way if I had noticed.

Shouldn't you be glad I didn't get that refund though? Now this small struggling indie company got some extra cash, bro.

Nope. You sure are nice though.

 

[Stavrophore]

Ok the game again became boring, actor+supressed weapons+ two disguised agents. Who the hell thought this was a good idea? Free map reign without being detected at all, i can storm and kill everyone in room without being detected. And im playing on HARD difficulty. Devs please, please overhaul the difficulty/game to make it harder. I hope you are going to support modding, because this game sorely need it, and it deserve it. It can be really great with Long War alike mod, and with "second wave" option like in xcom 2. Right now i have to self impose on myself rules, that i wont use disguise system ever.You can abuse the system, once you kill the agent, you can clear the whole map and rack up XP, making super agents.

Also the game should have permanent zoom setting option. I would like to play zoomed out all the time, but i can't. I have to press the damn key. Annoying as hell. Also even with tactical recon before an infiltration, the containers are hard to see, i would like them to be easier to see. Sometimes i have lot of time during the mission, ive reconed it before, but i still can't find the damn containers. I just give up and head to evac. That shouldnt happen. Its really time consuming to rotate every room to find containers.

I also found the teleporting agent mechanics stupid as hell. This is one thing that should be optional. Only after few missions i discovered this and was baffled that i could call agent that were not on the site. Completely wasted few agents, sending them surplus on the mission site doing nothing there...

 

[Kacper Szymczak]

Also Kacper Szymczak does enemy damage also fall off as fast with range like my team does? Or simply it feels that they do much more dmg flanking because they all run with LMGs?

Guns are perfectly symmetrical between you and enemies.
We think that most players just aren't as effective in choosing tiles to shoot from, so we're dumbing the AIs a bit in this regard, to act more natural.

Also - MKUltra facility is counter-intuitive. Having to pay 1250 and +20 danger for something that was for free before is bullshit. I stopped capturing enemy agents.

Manual interrogation is 2x more effective then the automated one, but I hear you. The difference will be made greater.

Game is still in the top sellers list on steam after two days. Kacper Szymczak I hope you're making a lot of money!

Hard to tell. The company stock is down because of the strongarming user reviews, and several employees invested their savings (you would, too, after investing 2.5 years of work and occasional evenings and weekends) and, well, it's a preeeety stressful time for us.

You know what i would like on hard mode, instead of disposing a body just let me carry it, and place in other place. Disposing, as in normal mode, where the body just vanish is stupid, but so is killing a guy and then leaving the body, because the game can't let you just move it...You could try to balance it out, since it will make hard diff easier.

Our rule of thumb for difficulties is: we adjust medium for how we feel is right. If people say easy is too hard, we make it easier. If hard is too easy, we make it harder.
Not the other way round. Sorry! We still get some feedback that HARD 2EZ! So we'll probably crank it up a bit (esp. in stealth).

it's the boring samey missions that kill it for me.

So the thing is that most of the things you guys mention are there; they are, however, almost never communicated until they act up. So we'll be working on that.

door opening and closing shouldnt be 0 cost.

It probably shouldn't, but 1 full AP is too much.

Also it feels that im abusing movement + shoot + go back out of line of sight

Pls expand a bit with more detail.

And don't tell me about smoke grenades

Use smoke grenades. And armor, if you expect combat.

the enemy is shooting across the map with perfect accuracy

That's exactly the range that you have. But we'll be shortening enemy ranges somewhat anyway.

I'm getting my 30 Euros worth of gameplay even if it kills me

best kind of customer <3

unless you would go with heavy armor into mission[why would you do that in non combat missions?].

I recommend always taking one tank with you because every mission can end up being combat mission.

Has anyone mentioned how stupid it is that smashing through windows doesn't alert guards, even if you do it right in front of them?

Let's do a quiz. You are a game designer, you disabled it, and it made game better. Why did you do it?

Seriously, how is this not an rpg?

I'm told that if you can name characters, change their hat, they get XP and level up, then it's an RPG.
But out of respect for, like, games where you act out a role in a story, ie. RPGs, it totally isn't.

This game has RNG everywhere, just not in combat.

That is actually true!
Actually, there's some RNG in combat, just not in shooting.

PS. I'm not that mad!

And I love you too.

I actually do agree with a few of your problems with the combat, in particular the seemingly endless amount of of shots flying at your agents from all over the map. It's just that I'm usually a lot more willing to cut independent companies - and especially one as relatively young as Creative Forge - some slack.

We agree, and we fix, and we thank you.

In a market where we are seeing rarer and rarer releases of games with strategic tactical combat, I'd rather see them releasing with some flaws and strange new ideas than not at all.

*Slams desk*, *points hand*, THANK YOU!

Consider this: all devs KNOW that if they go for a complex hardcore genre, their target is YOU GODDAMN TROLLS.
No wonder the genres are dead

Dropping negative reviews on their steam page when it already has mixed reviews, for example, seems like kicking them while they're down

That is actually exactly what it is! FYI we read the positive reviews also. The only thing different with a negative review is it hurts business, limiting resources and driving us (and other companies) away from the genre.

The dev here in the thread have said himself that the old style of turn-based games are not gonna sell anymore so they have to use this system

No, I did not.
Consider this: you want to make a turn-based tactical game. You basically have three options: build your ruleset from scratch (always risky), base it on nuXcom or base it on classics.
You know nuXcom recently sold well, because it's accessible. You have no clue how the old rules would hold water in modern times.
So do you keep the rules exatly as XCOM and just change the setting, add features on top? Big risk is - the press will give you headlines that say "reskinned XCOM" and never get to your unique stuff. Because in the first minutes of presentation they'll doze off because that's something they've seen before (because an average decent journalist has seen it all). Or you can mix things up so every aspect is at least slightly different.

So I'm not saying you HAVE to do it this way. Or that you CAN'T do it the old way.
I'm just saying that if you want to ask non-gamedev investors for a couple of mil based on a powerpoint, you need something that sounds reasonable.

and the only thing left to do for me is to criticize the game for (in my opinion) its faults.

Ok, I'm going to spill the beans here a bit, and sorry for being frank :D I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR GENERAL OPINIONS
I'm here for your IDEAS, because you know the genre well and can take mechanics apart well and can help me find the problems in them. I skip through all posts that boil down to "I wish it was '95 again".
Consider this: I have a ton of feedback that says the combat gameplay is crisp, fair, tuned, fun.
You say it's bullshit, and it's broken, and them are n00bs. And I totally agree!
I know there are imperfections to iron out, but having built it, I have no way of seeing them. Someone with high enough expectations and big backlog of games can. You can.
You already did point me to a couple of fixes - more or less knowingly.
So yes, please, keep throwing shit at it. I just ask that you are as precise as possible, that's much more useful feedback.

This game would have benefited from early access so players could have critiqued the gameplay.

Yes, but Early Access is super risky business-wise and totally fucked up if you do an actual marketing campaign.

Now this small struggling indie company got some extra cash, bro.

:evil laugh:

Ok the game again became boring, actor+

nerfing actor

make it harder

I hope you are going to support modding

yes, but fixes first




Anyways.
Our meta going down, userscore is low, and as I said stock is, like, worth half it's recent value, so I'll be taking some time off from here and try to put my life together a bit.
I hope you enjoy the incoming fixes. If you have something that should be processed quickly, I recommend the steam forums.
Cheers!

 

[Stavrophore]

nerfing actor

This guy has also nice idea for actor

https://steamcommunity.com/app/559100/discussions/0/1734336452552368659/#c1734336452556042872

Pls expand a bit with more detail.

He probably has the perk that when you shoot single bullet it wont end the turn, thus you can go out of cover, shoot and then move in to cover.

That's exactly the range that you have. But we'll be shortening enemy ranges somewhat anyway.

And please change the overwatch range so it can be set to same range as vision range[max weapon shooting range?], since right now its pretty useless. Enemy can shoot from really far range, but the overwatch has much lower range, and it wont catch them.

Its really weird that the game wasnt warmly welcomed, despite the good reviews. 75 overall score from critics on metacritic, 8.9 user score. Weird. Gamespot gave outstanding review, i guess IGN and PcGaamer review hurt a little, since they are biggest ones? Rock paper shotgun is in the making, so hopefully they will give a nice score of 4/5. The game deserve it.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

(because an average decent journalist has seen it all)

Found your problem.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[veevoir]

Well, on metacritic and gog the reviews are pretty good. It is just steam that apparently reached to, *ekhm*, wider audience.

 

[Jinn]

t is just steam that apparently reached to, *ekhm*, wider audience.

Looks like steam reviews are slowly but surely climbing out of the dreaded yellow mixed pits. I think a lot of people who stuck it out and tried to learn the game are finally rallying to share their positive impressions. Not to mention those who are seeing the earnest communication from the developers to fix issues as quickly as possible.

I'd urge anyone here who doesn't normally post steam reviews, and has found some enjoyment in the game, to give this a thumbs up. At this point it could be extremely helpful to Creative Forge. On top of genuinely enjoying their games, I really can't help but root for these guys. They put a lot of love into their games and you can feel it.

 

[Alienman]

Ok, I'm going to spill the beans here a bit, and sorry for being frank :D I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR GENERAL OPINIONS
I'm here for your IDEAS, because you know the genre well and can take mechanics apart well and can help me find the problems in them. I skip through all posts that boil down to "I wish it was '95 again".
Consider this: I have a ton of feedback that says the combat gameplay is crisp, fair, tuned, fun.
You say it's bullshit, and it's broken, and them are n00bs. And I totally agree!
I know there are imperfections to iron out, but having built it, I have no way of seeing them. Someone with high enough expectations and big backlog of games can. You can.
You already did point me to a couple of fixes - more or less knowingly.
So yes, please, keep throwing shit at it. I just ask that you are as precise as possible, that's much more useful feedback.

I have already said what I think. I find your system pure decline of the tactical genre. I can live with nuXcom style shooting, but that combined with perfect hits all time except when a character has full awareness is just dull. Not to mention the LoS problems. Anyway, to escape an situation you just put your guy with the most awareness in front and let the enemy/enemies target him. If he lives, you heal him up and replace with someone fresh with awareness. This is extremely boring gameplay and gamey as hell. I did this yesterday while waiting for a slow poke character to reach the LZ. Instead of having an epic last stand firefight this was the solution. Shooting back is just pointless. Actually, when enemies have full awareness it reminds me of the Original Sin 2 with its shield mechanic. You have to go through that first before you can do any damage, instead of just having a normal system where I can target dudes and maybe kill or wound them from the get go.

And it doesn't matter what I think or say, I know that, but I do like discussing games, good or bad. I'm not expecting devs to change their game because of me. But if you would take any considering in what I say, or my ideas you have to revamp the whole system. So coming with specific ideas seem kinda pointless, since I view your combat system fundamentally bad.

No, I did not.
Consider this: you want to make a turn-based tactical game. You basically have three options: build your ruleset from scratch (always risky), base it on nuXcom or base it on classics.
You know nuXcom recently sold well, because it's accessible. You have no clue how the old rules would hold water in modern times.
So do you keep the rules exatly as XCOM and just change the setting, add features on top? Big risk is - the press will give you headlines that say "reskinned XCOM" and never get to your unique stuff. Because in the first minutes of presentation they'll doze off because that's something they've seen before (because an average decent journalist has seen it all). Or you can mix things up so every aspect is at least slightly different.

So I'm not saying you HAVE to do it this way. Or that you CAN'T do it the old way.
I'm just saying that if you want to ask non-gamedev investors for a couple of mil based on a powerpoint, you need something that sounds reasonable.

The old system holds pretty well in modern times. Xenonauts did well, and the dev team behind that is now working on Xenonauts 2. Battle Brothers is also a fine game. Gollop have gone back to time-units for his new game. Also, seems kinda sad you had to go with this system because investors and game journos (of all things), if that is what you are getting at.

*Slams desk*, *points hand*, THANK YOU!

Consider this: all devs KNOW that if they go for a complex hardcore genre, their target is YOU GODDAMN TROLLS.
No wonder the genres are dead

That is nice and all, but the genre is not dead. It was revived. And this goes into your second point:

That is actually exactly what it is! FYI we read the positive reviews also. The only thing different with a negative review is it hurts business, limiting resources and driving us (and other companies) away from the genre.

So being a small time dev or whatever should shield you from negative reviews even if people don't like your game? This whole thing just sounds bad to me. I can appreciate the fact that you are making a game that is not Battle Royale, but come on. You also make it sound that you would be guaranteed to make a lot more money if you only made a game in a different more popular genre. That is just not true either.

Nope. You sure are nice though.

I know. Thanks.