(PC) - Phantom Doctrine

I've been waiting for another game like Silent Storm 2 (without the retarded sci-fi 'mech' shit) for like a decade now. Invisible Inc. was the closest anyone has gotten, but I don't know what it is about that game. I just can't get into it. I'm not a big fan of the new XCOMs as I have almost zero interest in the base management part of those games.

Hadn't really heard much about this, but it does look good. It's by the same people who made Hard West, which I did like but it was rather unpolished.

For anyone buying this (until the 21st) Christopher Odd has a GOG link on his let's play for 15% off. I still find the price a little high for an indie game, but there are just so few games of this type coming out now. You'd think with the success of Xcom there'd be more.

I enjoyed Hard West, except for the expansion with the annoying body part/rot mechanic, but it had zero replay value for me, which is one of the things I love about Xcom.

It should be 15% off on whichever platform you own Hard West on too.

Reviews are fairly positive so far. I mostly read them because I was hoping to get the PS4 version, but there were some complaints about the UI and controls (mainly menus and base stuff, not combat, but still...) and some performance issues. Nobody mentioned load times that I saw, but I'm not going to risk it. I did notice that the PS4 version is like 9GB while the PC version says 20GB on GOG and 35GB on Steam.

I picked it up. Looks pretty good and something different. Gonna play it later today after I get back from the DR. I got it from steam since I the balance in my steam wallet from a gift card.

Playing the Steam version too. I like it so far, but I've only played one mission after the tutorial and messed around with stuff at the base afterwards. Not seeing what's so bad about the gamepad controls; just like XCOM I prefer it for missions, and it's not bad at all for base stuff either.

Only thing I really don't like is the bizarre pathing. It's silly how you will path through windows (breaking them) and nobody cares, but if there's an arbitrary block of tiles that is "trespassing" the game thinks nothing of pathing you across the corner of it which makes enemies and civilians all go nuts if they see you. I have "always use shortest path" turned off and it still does those things.

Droigan said:

There is a bug in the first mission after the tutorial for the CIA. In the end you get to a part with two buildings next to eachother. In one is an optional objective, the other has the main one. I did the optional first, which said it recommended a breach entry, which cause live fire and alerts everyone. In the other building, there are civilians who hunker down when alerted. One guy is hunkered down in front of the computer I need to access to finish the primary objective. Can't target the civilian, so can't shoot or use a takedown.

Can probably be avoided by doing the primary one first?

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Does it force you to breach, or is it just a suggestion? I'm playing KGB so I don't know what that mission is like, but my first one was easily completed with takedowns (and a few savegame reloads).


P.S. If your screen is a blurry mess when the camera pans to the world map (you can set this to open instantly too) or when starting a mission, set post-processing to low to fix it.

Vorph said:

I'm playing KGB

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I've known something was wrong with you ever since you rolled up a favored soul in DDO.

Yes, I am Russian bot, tovarisch.

So how do you 'acquire equipment'? Just did the second CIA story mission and it said 0/3 classified documents (i know what those look like but I didnt see any) and 0/5 equipment, and I didn't see anything that looked like lootable equipment. Tried standing over some taken down baddies and nothing.

Equipment is in safes, cabinets, briefcases, etc. Generally they're grey with a pulsing white glow. You can often see them even if you haven't gone into a room, but sometimes you actually need to open a door and look inside. Line of sight in the game is pretty janky, and that's just one symptom of it.

Docs are basically the same, just gold highlighted folders on desks and such. The big difference is that enemies on alert will destroy docs if they get near them.

'Actor' is an incredibly useful perk (only seen it available once so far) that makes it so agents can't see through your disguise. By 'incredibly useful' I basically mean 'almost as broken as abilities that let you maintain/re-enter concealment in XCom 2'. Combine it with the +hp perk and you have an undetectable guy capable of instantly KOing enemy agents, although even without the hp perk he can scout the enemy agent so you can approach with someone else for the KO. Completed a cell assault mission with no alarm, 7/7 gear, 6/6 documents, and 2 captured enemy agents although capturing them seems like a waste of time until you're far enough along to have the more advanced MKULTRA techniques researched.

Watching the dev stream on steam. Said they're not shooting thru walls but some of the deals make it "appear" to and they have a fix to change the perception/perscpective of it going thru walls. I don't know we'll see. "community guy" is wearing a russian winter hat, he's playing with a guy labeled designer sitting side by side. Said they slept 4 hours today so they are good to go.

It's streaming on the steam phantom doctrine store page. I've never watched a stream on steam.

I'm sure it has some issues, but it's something different from a lot of the stuff.

Read random review today (I forgot who it was) who said it took them 80 hours to finish.

The guy in the Russian hat sounds like Izzy from Miami Vice.

Yeah I suppose the campaign duration largely depends on how much time you spend fucking around on the geoscape vs aggressively pursuing the story.

How are you placing your dudes around the map? I tried getting 1 agent to most of the locations, but then I still run into a problem when I trigger an event and need multiple agents to tail or recon because I can't always get more of them there in time. A lot of the 'suspicious activity' markers only last for an hour or so, so I assume it's just normal to miss most of them. I still completed the first two investigations easily enough. Strangely though, when I start an actual mission it allows me to select any of my agents regardless of where they currently are and it's like they just teleport there.

Not really sure what to look for when recruiting new agents either. They all seem fairly shitty stat-wise so far, some just have multiple hidden talents--which can backfire--while others have none. I'm thinking maybe I should just work on the ones I have and wait to recruit new ones after some more story missions which will increase the quality/level of the recruits.

Is there a way to takedown agents that have higher hp than yours without ending stealth mode? I had one last night where my only option was to shoot him once and then knock him out, but of course that set everyone else on alert (if I hadn't already taken them out, that is) and called for reinforcements. I found a pistol silencer, but I apparently still have no pistols with mod slots. Even so, I assume shooting someone and not killing them still calls reinforcements anyway, even if the shot was silent.

You need proficiency with a weapon to mod it.

As for the geoscape I always send my dudes in teams of two so they can immediately start a counter-op if necessary. One very important thing I didn't realize at first is that you don't actually have babysit an informer, the timer will keep ticking down with no agents there.

I wasn't such a homer for XCom-alikes, I don't think I'd like this game very much. The geoscape, pin-board file mini-game, and base management in general are fine, tactical missions fucking suck. I can sort of understand that they didn't want to go with the traditional 'being in cover makes you invisible' shtick, but when im standing in a corner inside a room and a patrolling enemy approaching from an angle outside the room spots me because my dude is literally just STANDING IN THE FUCKING CORNER instead of taking cover beside the window, I get pretty fucking annoyed. So now I just do everything I possibly can with disguised agents with the actor perk, which is typically 90-100% of every mission.

Yeah, for a game that makes it so you can do entire missions with stealth, the actual stealth mechanics other than disguises are fairly shitty. Why the fuck don't my dudes at least try to hide behind half cover while trespassing prior to all hell breaking loose?

As frustrating as it is at times though, I'll keep sneaking around because actually engaging in combat is so much worse. Mostly I just regret buying it at all, should have waited for a bunch of patches and a big sale like I did with Hard West.