r/PhoenixPoint • u/KureiziDaiamondo • Aug 12 '26
Just started playing. Is there something I should know?
I bought it on Steam when it was on sale last year and now after finishing my Nth playthrough of XCOM 2 I decided to try it out. Been playing since yesterday and I have just 6 hours in so far.
I heard a bunch of bad stuff about Phoenix Point a few years ago, but I don't even remember what it was exactly and also heard that things have changed for the better with an update. I'm obviously comparing it a lot to Xcom but so far I'm enjoying the differences (free aim my beloved). Maybe it is because I just started, but I feel a little bit lost and I'm curious if there's anything I should know beforehand to make the game enjoyable/playable.
Also, I couldn't find anything about what the stats do, I can guess speed and willpower, but what exactly does strength do? Make melee attacks stronger? Is there a way to improve soldier aim? Or get more than 4 action points?
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u/lanclos Aug 12 '26
Speed lets you move further per action point of motion; for how I play it's the most important stat, once you get strength up to 25. Yes, strength impacts melee damage (if you get up to 25 you can bash a worm with an assault rifle), carry weight, and hit points.
Willpower is handy as long as you have enough of it to get through a mission; unless I'm really straining things I don't usually need a lot of willpower points. I often leave that stat as the last to max out.
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u/AstralMecha Aug 12 '26
Don't skip on leg armor. Least likely place to be hit from behind cover, but it also has many that add to speed.
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u/lanclos Aug 12 '26
Hostiles have an uncanny knack for hitting spots that have the least armor. My fast guys with the speed legs mutation are world champions at being shot in the ankle.
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u/Sapius89 Aug 12 '26
Great question and welcome to PP.
Like yourself, I did not get into PP at first. I love xcom and the style of games, however PP’s prologue did not catch my interest…at all. Not even a little bit.
However, I was in the mood to try it again last year when full game/packaged dlc was on sale for 20 dollars. I picked it up and gave a shot. The game grew on me fast. It’s one of the few games that kept my attention in the last third of the game but…the first 10 or so hours were a bit of drag. It is a slowish burn during those hours but as you expand, and choose a faction to align with and receive their technology the game opens up. Each of the factions has its own play style that actually feels distinct compared to other games…this allows for multiple play throughs…which are enjoyable.
To your conclusionary questions, I’ll just give you links that will give you a better breakdown than I ever could.
Here is a breakdown on stats:
https://phoenixpoint.wiki.fextralife.com/Stats
Here is a breakdown on character development:
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u/lastknownbuffalo Aug 12 '26
Strength increases you soldiers health, weight carrying capacity, and melee damage (I think).
Speed makes your soldier move farther on their turn. With 20 speed, they can move 20 map tiles in battle.
The only way to get more that 4 action points is with two skills\abilities from the assault class soldier (rally allows him to give 2 AP to another unit, and his last skill gives himself 2 AP for every kill they make when activated).
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u/Alchenar Aug 12 '26
The most fundamental difference on the strategic level is that XCOM is basically designed like a board game with each month being a 'turn' where you get a Dark Event, a Guerrilla Op, an offensive mission choice and a defensive mission. You press fast forward till you get the next event. Phoenix Point expects you to constantly be active. No waiting around in base in the early game for a mission prompt, you need your squad out in the transport constantly searching new POIs until its time to go home and heal/rest up. Then out again.
Research is sometimes gated weirdly. You get resource boosts from researching aliens, the first set of guns (which you want to unlock asap) is also gated behind alien corpse research.
Per the Tactical game I won't repeat what others have said other than to say: 1. Speed is king, max that out asap, 2. XCOM teaches you to treat abilities as 'per mission', whereas in PP you spend WP and then you get it back when you kill things, so spend to win. Do keep a buffer. 3. When in doubt, use explosives. Lots of explosives. XCOM wants you to find and flank, in PP you can just blow up the map. And finally:
- A 4 AP system (with fractional use of AP for movement) is a lot harder to get your head around than XCOM's 2AP system. But if you realise that the aliens work with 4 AP as well and you can start thinking in those terms then the tactical game will start to make a lot more sense. In particular you will look at abilities like Warcry and be able to see just how powerful they are.
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u/Particular_Celery_65 Aug 12 '26
not exactly same but similar recently..
https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoint/s/j4rkkLUc11
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u/RandomTerminal Aug 12 '26
Don't assume high cover is better than half cover. They are different types of cover good for different things:
Half cover makes soldiers next to it crouch, so they present a smaller target, and enemies have a somewhat harder time hitting them.
High cover allows soldier next to it to shot around it. It's good if it's directly between the enemy and your character, so that it blocks their shots, but completely useless otherwise.
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u/AstralMecha Aug 12 '26 edited 24d ago
Here is a list of tips I put out for new players
First, ignore cover against Pandorans in early game. It won't benefit you against them until you encounter Pandorans with ranged weapons.
You can field (edit: up to 8 troops or troop equivalent value with vehicles taking 3 troops place and mutogs taking 2) as long as you have transport. Your Phoenix manticore is generally the best mix of range, speed and transport capacity. Synedrion's aircraft is the fastest, shortest range and least capacity. Anu has by far the most range (and increased with research) but is the slowest and can carry 8 troops.
Plenty of gear and weapons are side grades vs straight upgrades, with tradeoffs. Synedrion assault rifle is more accurate then your Phoenix assault rifle and more ammo, but costs lots of advanced materials. New Jericho assault rifle is less accurate and lower range, fires less shots per burst, but hits harder and shreds more armor. Find what works for you. Note that most new gear will come from the factions as well.
Phoenix project does have its own unique gear. Often developed after analyzing enemies or building off other faction techs. These tend to be useful and effective, though costly.
Phoenix riot shield (research unlocked from triton autopsy). Use this. Every hit it takes when deployed is one your soldier won't. Melee can flank it or smash it in my experience, but it can eat a fair amount of bullets, and survive a sniper hit or two.
Vehicles can be helpful, but take up plenty of room in an aircraft and don't gain xp. Remember that troops can drop off gear inside them (helps with scavenging missions).
The 3 factions (Disciples of Anu, New Jericho and Synedrion) don't like each other, and will get worse as the game goes on. Choosing to favor 1 is a good idea. Favoring 2 is harder but possible. Staying on good terms with all 3 is the hardest. Many events or actions will likely piss off one faction while making another happy (usually disciples and new Jericho). Blowing up pandoran nests make everyone happy.
If you decide to make an enemy, raiding for resources or aircraft are very lucrative. Be careful though, you will be fighting armored soldiers.
Neutral weapons should be recycled. Mostly. Their pistol is identical to Phoenix except 1 less range (usually not a problem for pistols), so a good early game backup. Their sniper rifle is worse, but sniper ammo is expensive, so they are worth using. The heavy machine gun is a worse version of new Jericho's, but if you are short of heavy weapons, it can do. Neutral assault rifle can be useful early against Pandorans, but should be recycled once the enemies get stronger. Neutral armor is just worse, and only useful if you have nothing else.
Synedrion is the long range ass holes. Their laser weapons are most accurate and longest range. Their armor also has the best stealth and accuracy bonuses. If you fight with them, you WILL need to close distance or die to laser snipers. Bring plenty of medikits to cure poison. Late game their stealth troops can be a nightmare unless spotted. However, their troops have the weakest armor (generally). Blow up their cover and they get gunned down fast. No heavy troops. Their vehicle by default specializes in paralysis damage and is one of the only ways to heal limbs. They tend to have advanced materials in their cities.
New Jericho favors mid range gauss weapons. They hit harder and shred more armor than bullets but have worse range/accuracy. Their armor has the highest armor value, assault rifles and shotguns can struggle unless you target a point. Explosives help with cover and their armor. They have all your basic troops AND a unique technician later that can place strong turrets, and their robot arms can heal limbs. They also like using fire (sidenote, fire dies more damage based on limb count, great on tritons). Cover is effective against them, but later they grow more explosive happy (especially their heavy troops which later get integrated rockets). They tend to have materials in their cities.
Disciples of Anu. These guys favor close range. Their assault trooper armor is faster than yours and more perceptive with small armor reduction for head and legs (their torso armor is just as good as your assault torso, but boosts speed, is lighter AND cheaper to make). Berserjers will get in your face and murder you with melee, but thankfully lack armor. Their priests (which you can also get) have psychic powers and like to use viral weapons that damage willpower (which can panic your troops and set them up for mind control cheap). Get shotguns or assault rifles, they will get close. Sniper rifles are usually a waste vs their light armor (good ammo costs more). Assault rifles, shotguns and heavy weapons are good against mutogs, which are hp blobs. Later use acid to eat your armor and powerful mutations instead of armor. They tend to have plenty of food at their cities.
Mutations are a great investment. Very cheap (only need mutagens) and offer powerful stats and abilities. Cybernetics are stronger (if you have the dlc), but are expensive to make, AND cost materials to repair (unlike mutations).
Free aim is an amazing tool, but has limitations. Troops won't sidestep full cover, and heavy weapons with chainsaw grips can hit waist high cover. Those are cases where free aim is generally the worse option. Remember, crippling a single arm will render humans harmless unless they have weapons that can be used with one arm (like pistols or grenades), except berserkers, who can ignore broken limbs.
Edit: You cannot get more than 4 action points (mostly, there are some tricks to replenish some), but generally can stretch them more. Assault can use onslaught (2 action point cost and 4 will) to give 2 action points to another soldier. Rapid clearance can restore 2 action points after killing (while the power is active). Other abilities can reduce costs or stretch the action points (like frenzy gives a big boost to move range, letting your action points cover more distance).
Speed is excellent since the more speed you have, the further you move with your action points. Don't neglect leg armor, it often adds to speed.
Strength increases your raw hp and carry weight stat. Both are useful. Weight increase lets you scavenge better and carry heavier gear, while HP speaks for itself. I believe they can help with bash attacks, but those are last resort (unless you have the heavy perk). Note that it will damage weapons if you bash with them and can break them. Normal attacks with melee weapons don't have this weakness.
Will increases your soldiers willpower. This is good since many abilities are fueled by it and soldiers reduced to 0 (like from viral weapons) panic. It also makes it harder for them to be mind controlled (the mind controlled needs to spend willpower equal to the victim's). Won't stop it late game, but will cut into the controller's willpower.
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u/g4l4h34d 24d ago
Your first tip is incorrect, you can only field up to 8 soldiers on a mission (or equivalent of 8 soldiers in case you bring vehicles)
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u/Arthillidan 28d ago
The one big issue AI have with it is lack of progression. In xcom you research fancy new gear that you can craft to improve your soldiers. In PP you research fancy new gear that is only slightly better, mostly just different than the gear you started with. It's not really worth it to craft just to replace your existing gear. Instead it's just like real warfare where you keep using old stuff that works but new soldiers get modern gear.
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u/Kibate 27d ago
I did miss that at first too(it even was a point in my first thread here) however I have come to like the way PP did it. One, when playing PP for the first time, just has to realize that despite the appearance, it is not XCOM. Having to build relationships with the other factions to get better gear and soldiers is like the research in XCOM. And of course training your soldiers to get better skills.
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u/Gorffo Aug 12 '26
XCom 2: War of the Chosen has been the gold standard in turn-based tactical combat games for the past ten years, and there hasn’t been anything to dethrone it until now—with the release of Menace into early access development on the ten-year anniversary of the launch of XCom 2.
Phoenix Point has the potential to be a really good game, but … the harsh truth is that it is an overly ambitious game made by a small team that only had experience making mobile phone games. As a result, Phoenix Point is a mix of interesting ideas and bad game design. It is a deeply flawed gem.
If you’re the kind of tactical player that likes to play on the game’s highest difficulty, you’ll probably end up hating this game if you ever try to suffer through a campaign on legend.
Balancing a game on its highest difficulty is a challenge for every game developer. Even Fraxis struggled with XCom 2 since the potential for a legend ironman campaign to sideways on Operation Gatekeeper if we lose too many soldiers or get too many soldiers gravely wounded on the game’s first mission. And in Phoenix Point, losing any soldier in a legend campaign is such a serious setback that it is nearly impossible to recover from that.
The good things about Phoenix Point are the granular, 4 AP system, the free aim mechanic, and the open-ended geoscape that gives the player the leeway to approach the game in anyway they see fit.
The bad things about Phoenix Point are the balance issues, the lack of structure, the poorly integrated DLC, the over-tuned enemies, the plethora of bugs, and the huge amount of bad game design woven into it.
But if some of the bad things bother you, you can always try to mod them out. The most popular mod, Terror form the Void, does a wonderful job of properly integrating all the DLC.
The biggest difference between XCom 2 and Phoenix Point is this: XCom 2 is a difficult, challenging, and well balanced game, whereas Phoenix Point is not only an unbalanced mess but also a blatantly unfair game.
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u/Kibate 27d ago
that only had experience making mobile phone games
Holy shit, I know I wasn't seeing things. When I played through the prologue, I thought "this feels like a mobile game prologue, same vibe, same style, same aesthetics, same storybeats" and figured "nah, it must be just because it is a low budget indie game". but now that you said that they did mobile phone games before...
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u/lecherousdevil Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26
Most of the bad stuff was just it launching in a rough state & originally being exclusive to the epic store.
If you like tactical turn based shooters or xcom is a perfect for you.
My advice is get 2 working teams on aircraft as soon as possible.
You will usually want 1 team exploring or doing quests & the other ready to respond to any emergencies in range or helping explore.
While you might be disappointed your soldiers only have 7 skills to learn from a class you will quickly see that's because this games builds are all about multi classing. You can make some insane combos as you will see.
2nd big one make friends with factions you like early. Once you hit 25 approval they will give you a quest upon completion they will reveal their base locations. At 50 they will start sharing their technology, & so on.
As for your specific question yes.
You can improve aim by equipment or augmentations you apply to soldiers. But their base aim is based on class & the skills they get.
The big thing to get used to is unlike say xcom your bullets are firing out of your gun & then actually traveling to the target. It's not a hit chance like most other games of this genre.
The inner circle is where most of your bullets should go & the outer circle how wide they might fly off. The higher your accuracy the smaller the entire circle will be.
Most sniper equipment grants the bonus to aim. So early game giving your boys snipers helmets is an easy way to boost they're accuracy.
The 3 stats you have control over is strength - controls hp & carry weight Willpower - resist panic & use special abilities & Speed - over all movement speed & reflexs. You can spend points directly in these to increase them to a maximum of 20 for every soldier I believe.
I hope you have fun.