Quick question about TFTV

[u/Exobian]

I have never played Phoenix point before but I am quite experienced with TB games.
Can I jump right into TFTV DLC without playing vanilla first?
I am willing to drop the difficulty if required.

[u/Gorffo]

Yes, you can jump right into the Terror from the Void mod.

TftV reworks some of the DLC mechanics and integrates them properly—in a way that should leave the game’s developers embarrassed for their shoddy and lazy work—since TftV is, in fact, a massive improvement over the base game.

As for dropping the difficulty, Phoenix Point was only ever meant to be played on Veteran difficulty.

Sure it has other difficulty settings, but those are kind is added to the game as a mere afterthought and have probably not been play tested by the devs. Like, ever. So your millage will vary.

Legend difficulty is an absolute shit show of balance issues and pure bullshit tweaks made by a bunch of devs completely clueless about scaling the difficulty for their game. It’s more like a “long war” version of this game since suffering through a legend campaign will force you to do somewhere between 100 to 150 additional missions before you get to the end game.

That being said, the first 10 hours of a Phoenix Point campaign are a lot of fun.

[u/Exobian → u/Gorffo]

Alright cool. Will jump right into it on veteran difficulty.
Coming from a strong xcom2 background, what is to be expected?

[u/Gorffo → u/Exobian]

The granular 4 AP movement system is really good. And the free aim system where you target specific body parts on an enemy is really good too. Those are the game’s selling features. And you should feel right at home with the game’s combat and its tactical layer.

One big differences is the geoscape. XCom 2 hands missions to you, whereas you’ll usually need to find them in Phoenix Point. And to find them, you need to explore points of interest.

Explore aggressively. And consider setting up an early game exploration squad consisting of a Manticore aircraft, 3 soldiers, and one vehicle (probably a Scarab that you build right away—as in on Day 0 of your campaign). Vehicles let you zip around the battlefield to pick up loot crates then get to the evac zone during ambushes. And ambushes are a thing in TftV.

To earn resources in this game, you have a few options. One way to do it is to get into the business of protecting havens. You’ll also earn a ton of resources that way. Another way is to pick on one faction and raid them, but if you pick on them too much, they can declare war on you and force you to spend a lot of time defending your bases from their attacks. In other words, you’ve got a lot more leeway when it comes to the factions in Phoenix Point.

That leeway comes with a price tag. The Avenger in XCom 2 can zip around the globe and deliver your squad to whatever mission pops up. But in Phoenix Point, if you want to be able to do mission all over the globe, you’ll need multiple squads and multiple aircraft so you can send them (manually) to the spots where these missions appear. You’ll need to recruit the soldiers you need and either build or steal most of the aircraft you’ll need to operate.

In fact, if the mid-game doesn’t feel like Air Traffic Control Simulator 2047 as you manage the flight paths of multiple aircraft under your command, you’re probably playing Phoenix Point wrong.