This is shaping up to look great. New trailer thru RPS below...campaign is supposed to be 50+ hours....More info on the Steam page.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/06/08/phantom-doctrine-e3-trailer/
Looking great!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x29TyKpdf8&feature=youtu.be
looking forward to this release on tuesday. i have seen it will be $39 with a 10 percent first week discount and saw someone mention if you own hard west, you get an additional 5 percent.
hope it doesn't disappoint
Releas in to early access or full release?
Tuesday? Wow. This snuck up on me.
From everything I've seen it looks like it could be really fantastic. Course, appearances can be deceiving. But I love the XCOM games even though the whole 'aliens invading earth' setting has never especially appealed to me.
But XCOM in a Cold War setting, with spies instead of aliens? Sign me up. 8)
Quote from: Gusington on August 11, 2018, 08:28:01 AM
Releas in to early access or full release?
Full release...
It seems like an insta-buy for me.
Full release!! :D
Quote from: Gusington on August 11, 2018, 06:25:28 PM
Full release!! :D
....god damn it.....
CLEAN UP IN AISLE GUS!!!!.....again.....
:D :D :D
Talk about moist loins.
Woah! And it's out tomorrow! This appears to have a crapload of depth and immersion. I hope it lives up to its promise.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on August 11, 2018, 07:10:12 PM
Quote from: Gusington on August 11, 2018, 06:25:28 PM
Full release!! :D
....god damn it.....
CLEAN UP IN AISLE GUS!!!!.....again.....
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/8e705a5ffb1303c828bfd2c7a2e0c830/tumblr_now0ofjddJ1s9v0c4o1_500.gif)
Will be buying myself....looks like they have a review embargo until 2 hours before release...of course some folks questioned it and sometimes does raise eyebrows.....developer's response. Fingers crossed they aren't hiding anything:) I won't be able to download until tomorrow night anyway, so will give me some time to see those reviews and initial player impressions...just in case I need to bail:)
Yeah, we do get that. It might seem that we're hiding something.
The reason, however, is trivial. Without a big marketing budget at our disposal, we hope that all the reviews will start pouring in at the same time during the immediate pre-release window, creating some much needed buzz, instead of being spread over a day or two, if the embargo was to be lifted earlier.
That's one of the reasons why we wanted to reach as many content creators as possible before the release and provide them with builds to showcase the game for you. We do believe in Phantom Doctrine and we hope that you see that we've been very transparent about the game.
PS: I believe that in the case of Assassin's Creed the embargo was lifted post-release. We're not doing that stuff.
No price listed on Steam yet which is weird.
Quote from: Gusington on August 13, 2018, 09:25:07 PM
No price listed on Steam yet which is weird.
look a few posts up it will be $39 but with some discounts initially.
Thanks - 39 a bit high but I am looking forward to reviews.
Review embargo lifted...generally favorable.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/08/14/phantom-doctrine-review (http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/08/14/phantom-doctrine-review)
Quote
Whether you're reading classified documents, wracking your brain over whether or not pursue a lead that could lead to an ambush, or plotting every step a spy takes on their way to assassinating their target, every move you make in Phantom Doctrine carries an urgent tension. That's a hallmark of every great spy novel, movie and TV show you've ever seen. The campaign itself can feel drawn out at times thanks to a less-than-stellar story and some obviously recycled content, but there's a real thrill in executing covert missions and putting all the pieces together like a master spy.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/phantom-doctrine/phantom-doctrine-review (https://www.pcgamesn.com/phantom-doctrine/phantom-doctrine-review)
Quote
As the rain beats down on Soviet streets and the van speeds in for yet another evac, it's hard not to enjoy Phantom Doctrine. It's an often impressive example of the reborn turn-based tactics genre, built with an intimate understanding of how the layers of its inspiration interplay and an eye for areas where the formula can be tweaked.
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/phantom-doctrine-review-tactical-espionage-action/1900-6416958/ (https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/phantom-doctrine-review-tactical-espionage-action/1900-6416958/)
Quote
In spite of the lackluster visuals, Phantom Doctrine succeeds in making an incredible impression with its intricate and engaging mechanics. There is a lot to admire, with a single-player campaign taking about 40 hours to complete, full of varied and interesting mainline missions and procedurally-generated side content. The ability to play as either a CIA, KGB, or Mossad agent (the latter unlocked after one complete playthrough) also offers the tantalizing prospect of different narrative perspectives. Phantom Doctrine takes the familiar framework of isometric turn-based strategy and confidently repurposes it into a unique and satisfying experience. It wholly embodies the paranoia and tension of the 1980's Cold War setting in every aspect of its numerous gameplay systems, and completely immerses you in that all-encompassing state of mind.
$39 seems pretty darn reasonable to me, for what this game seems to be offering. A more mainstream 'premium' pricing of $60 would have given me pause, but $39 seems like the minimum of what could have been expected for this.
EDIT -- you can play as Mossad in addition to CIA & KGB? Wow!
So PCGame's main complaint seems to be that the game relies too much on XCOM-like mechanics and influence? Why is that a negative? XCOM is a fantastic game.
Quote from: sandman2575 on August 14, 2018, 11:07:06 AM
$39 seems pretty darn reasonable to me, for what this game seems to be offering. A more mainstream 'premium' pricing of $60 would have given me pause, but $39 seems like the minimum of what could have been expected for this.
EDIT -- you can play as Mossad in addition to CIA & KGB? Wow!
They teased a secret third faction in addition to the CIA&KGB, and were very secretive about it on the forum.
I thought it MIGHT be the Mossad, but MI6 and the Chinese Intelligence service made more sense.
Glad to see I was wrong :)
Mossad seems like a more daring option than MI6 (though MI6 would of course be cool too) -- but Mossad seems like more of a true third option, because while probably inclined toward CIA/USA/NATO's interests, they should seemingly be motivated primarily their own interests, whereas MI6, one might think, would play pretty similarly to CIA.
Pure conjecture of course. But I'm genuinely intrigued by what a Mossad play-through could look like, trying to balance against the two 'superpower' CIA/KGB services.
I admittedly know nothing about the Chinese Intelligence services.
This sorta game isn't really my bag, but it brings up memories of a game I played YEARS ago..."Top Secret". I'm looking forward to some of the reviews here.
another favorable review: https://techraptor.net/content/phantom-doctrine-review
9.5 Amazing
Summary
Phantom Doctrine is a life-consuming espionage simulator, offering a deeply complex cluster of systems to explore. Its turn-based tactics gameplay is a feat of engineering that will offer players many hours of combat thrills and stealth schemes.
Pros
Complex, Dynamic Gameplay
Excellent Player Agency
Clever, Convoluted Narrative
Exquisite Analytics Minigame
Wealth of Replay Value
Cons
"Enemy Activity" is a Necessary Evil
Nice to read an unabashedly positive review.
Entirely possible that I'm pre-judging before I've tried things out for myself, but some of the other reviews seem like they're trying to find something to fault -- the "it's too much like XCOM" criticism strikes me as particularly lazy. And call me a cynic, but I'm much more inclined to credit a glowing review from an indy-ish site than I am the typical "9.5/10" that many AAA titles get as a matter of course from the big sites like IGN and PCGamer...
Hmmm, very negative review from RPS:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/08/14/phantom-doctrine-review/ (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/08/14/phantom-doctrine-review/)
Of course, RPS initially panned another XCOM-like that I had a blast with: Battletech.
To be fair they re-reviewed Battletech several times and finally decided it was excellent :/
That's true, but to be honest, what the RPS 're-reviews' revealed to me was that the reviewer Alec Meer did a pretty lousy job with his initial review. When he was met with a chorus of "WTF are you talking about? Did you actually make a serious attempt to play the game?" it felt like he was obliged to go back and reassess...
Definitely. The review for Phantom Doctrine seems a little more ironclad, to the point of recommending Invisible Inc. instead.
I lend very little credence to RPS reviews. I almost always disagree with their conclusions.
Gamespot review is up. 9/10 calls it superb!
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/phantom-doctrine-review-tactical-espionage-action/1900-6416958/
Quote from: GeneralHawk on August 14, 2018, 02:52:57 PM
Gamespot review is up. 9/10 calls it superb!
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/phantom-doctrine-review-tactical-espionage-action/1900-6416958/
Already posted above.
Would really appreciate some grogpinions.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on August 14, 2018, 02:44:49 PM
I lend very little credence to RPS reviews. I almost always disagree with their conclusions.
With the exception of Tim Stone, whose commentary I really enjoy and trust, I have become wary of RPS's take on things. The Phantom Doctrine review has the same kind of exasperated, weary tone of the BattleTech review, like, no matter what the game offers, it's going to be same old tired, derivative, 'we've seen this before' 'naff' in the eyes of RPS's connoisseur reviewers.
Maybe a little unfair of me, but after a while that tone does wear on me. And who knows -- maybe the game really is a disappointment. But I really hope not!
A key theme in the RPS review is that an exploit makes some of the game's other systems unnecessary, and therefore, the game is boring because it encourages the player to rely exclusively on the exploit.
Why not just not use the exploit?
This game looks good. I'm going to have to check it out further.
Oh gawd these devs are idiots.
Their game almost borked-up my computer.
Instead of limiting the game's framerate to something normal (60 or such), their games by default has an FPS of thousands.
It nearly burnt down my new GPU.
By the time I managed to reach RivaTuner program to limit the FPS the motherboard's built-in protection against this sort of thing kicked in and did an emergency restart.
Its 28% off at GMG. Comes to just over $28.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on August 14, 2018, 04:17:11 PM
Its 28% off at GMG. Comes to just over $28.
Thanks! and bought
Does anyone know when (which year) does the game takes place?
There seems to be some anachronistic stuff in it (90's style hair-dos and clothing).
Quote from: Tpek on August 14, 2018, 04:57:25 PM
Does anyone know when (which year) does the game takes place?
There seems to be some anachronistic stuff in it (90's style hair-dos and clothing).
Only seen the description say at the peak of the cold war....
Quote from: Tpek on August 14, 2018, 04:57:25 PM
Does anyone know when (which year) does the game takes place?
There seems to be some anachronistic stuff in it (90's style hair-dos and clothing).
1983
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on August 14, 2018, 06:29:26 PM
Quote from: Tpek on August 14, 2018, 04:57:25 PM
Does anyone know when (which year) does the game takes place?
There seems to be some anachronistic stuff in it (90's style hair-dos and clothing).
1983
Coincidentally, I'm on season four of
The Americans, which takes place during the same era and makes this game even more tempting 8)
Seeing a few negative reviews on STEAM that claims the AI shoots through several walls and hits your characters.
Any impressions? I have an itch for a new game
Picked up the game yesterday and played through the opening tutorial mission and the first regular mission. Also got a chance to play around the headquarters and world map.
I'm digging this game a lot. The ai seemingly shooting through walls and windows from across the map is a valid complaint that everyone is having. But guess what? Your agents can do the same. Until this problem is patched I find that if you take out as many of the guards as possible during the quiet stealth portion of the mission you won't have to deal with too many reinforcements during the live fire portion of the mission. Remember to always check to see if your agents can get a shot off through walls and windows before moving them and you should be fine.
The real fun of the game is during the planning stages. On the world map you can send agents to different locations to talk to informants and get information, thwart known enemy agent activities, tail suspect enemy agents to learn more about their network, etc. Then there are the secret files you work on. Those files are organized into dossier folders that you go through and try to piece together clues about your enemies and their activities. The clues are arranged about a cork board. You 'pin' the clues to the board and then tie 'string' between two or more bits of evidence that you discover are related. Those files that your agent takes pictures of during missions have a lot to do with obtaining these clues but you can also get clues doing other activities such as talking to informants and successfully investigating enemy activity on the world map.
For me the bottom line with this game is not having to deal with the frustration of the random chance stacked heavily in the computers favor of missing a 99.99999999% chance to hit an enemy during combat and then watching your best soldier that you spent centuries on leveling up die to a long shot from the computer that they always seem to nail. Instead every shot you and the ai takes hits however the amount of damage dealt depends on various factors such as cover, the amount of awareness you and the ai have remaining that turn, etc. In this way you have more control over how much damage you take and deal out.
I like this game a lot and will never go back to Xcom.
Phantom Doctrine v1.0.1 Patch Notes: https://steamcommunity.com/games/559100/announcements/detail/1689300456280505216
Fixed: placeholder lines in the Russian localization
Fixed: disposing of bodies of enemy agents (including story characters) no longer causes a crash
Fixed: minor corrections in other languages
Thank you for all your feedback and support! We're working on more improvements and fixes. We expect to have all other languages in order tomorrow. We're also working to explain the "shooting through walls" perception and offer alternative designs for it.
Quote from: W8taminute on August 16, 2018, 07:55:44 AM
Picked up the game yesterday and played through the opening tutorial mission and the first regular mission. Also got a chance to play around the headquarters and world map.
I'm digging this game a lot. The ai seemingly shooting through walls and windows from across the map is a valid complaint that everyone is having. But guess what? Your agents can do the same. Until this problem is patched I find that if you take out as many of the guards as possible during the quiet stealth portion of the mission you won't have to deal with too many reinforcements during the live fire portion of the mission. Remember to always check to see if your agents can get a shot off through walls and windows before moving them and you should be fine.
The real fun of the game is during the planning stages. On the world map you can send agents to different locations to talk to informants and get information, thwart known enemy agent activities, tail suspect enemy agents to learn more about their network, etc. Then there are the secret files you work on. Those files are organized into dossier folders that you go through and try to piece together clues about your enemies and their activities. The clues are arranged about a cork board. You 'pin' the clues to the board and then tie 'string' between two or more bits of evidence that you discover are related. Those files that your agent takes pictures of during missions have a lot to do with obtaining these clues but you can also get clues doing other activities such as talking to informants and successfully investigating enemy activity on the world map.
For me the bottom line with this game is not having to deal with the frustration of the random chance stacked heavily in the computers favor of missing a 99.99999999% chance to hit an enemy during combat and then watching your best soldier that you spent centuries on leveling up die to a long shot from the computer that they always seem to nail. Instead every shot you and the ai takes hits however the amount of damage dealt depends on various factors such as cover, the amount of awareness you and the ai have remaining that turn, etc. In this way you have more control over how much damage you take and deal out.
I like this game a lot and will never go back to Xcom.
Great to get a detailed -- and positive -- assessment. Folks seem to be having pretty strong reactions to Phantom Doctrine, either really loving or really hating it. I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt that I will indeed probably love it, though I'm going to wait for them to fix the shooting through walls issue before diving in.
I'll wait for now. I still haven't finished the new XCOM games. :-[
I agree with W8t...I'm just scraping the surface, but so far I really enjoy it. It has some really nice mechanics and a great cold war/spy atmosphere. The intel board is very cool. Its very rewarding to go the extra mile on tactical operations in order to collect extra intel for the board. You then get to look at the intel for clues and make connections for important locations, valuable gear or operatives, etc. Its also cool to manage the training, abilities, gear and look of your agents. The game seems really complex at first take. Hopefully, it will remain engrossing.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aarcentral.com%2Fpics2%2Fnl.jpg&hash=9609876cb41401d21af653d7b6bec4231adcef20)
I caved. Installing now.
Seems decent so far. Some of the language is pretty spotty though. Lots of grammatical errors and muddled explanations. I had to go check the Steam community to discover what the "extended" mode was all about as the option to select it was greyed out in my game and it sounded more interesting than "normal" mode. Turns out it's not really what is described but is only available after you beat the regular game and you can then select extended mode and play as the bad guys.
http://www.creativeforge.pl/cfg-blog/2018/8/17/the-phantom-wallhack O0
this explains very goody why it looks like a bug, but is part of the unavoidable abstraction that just came with having tiles.
my first solution would be that when the animation scenes gets generated both figurines 'move'/lean first to those sidestep tiles that had generated the positive LOS and then the bullet animation gets rendered, ...no walls hit
well, people will then complain: why did my stupid avatar and the enemy moved one tile in the open without orders just to get shot.
the answer is: even so it look like real life, the nice rendered figurines still partly remain kind of "chess pieces" in your game and there always remains a level of abstraction in a simulation.
a side note thought
if you introduce tiles, a quantification , situation gets similar to the Quantum world.
actually the figurine then became a quantum object in that tiles-structured world and its wavefunction gives the likeability it is found on a tile or the tiles around the tile it just get shown in the game visual representation -which the developer calls 'sidstep-algorithm' :dreamer:
Schrödingers Agent :D
Quote from: MikeGER on August 17, 2018, 03:45:18 AM
http://www.creativeforge.pl/cfg-blog/2018/8/17/the-phantom-wallhack O0
this explains very goody why it looks like a bug, but is part of the unavoidable abstraction that just came with having tiles.
my first solution would be that when the animation scenes gets generated both figurines 'move'/lean first to those sidestep tiles that had generated the positive LOS and then the bullet animation gets rendered, ...no walls hit
Perfect solution. However, they should have included this at release. Did no one on QA say " uh, guys, this looks bad?".
mikeger...quantum physics meets pc gaming....I love it. :D
I saw this comment on GOG:
"A warning to anyone buying this game it has save DRM in that your saves are held off your computer and kept in another server. Which means if you save your game, lose internet and try and play this game your saves will be missing as all of your saves are not kept on your computer."
Any idea if this is really the save game mechanism?
And can you save at any point in a game or does it use "checkpoints"?
Hearts of Iron 4, Endless Space 2 (trying the Vaulters for first time), some Witcher 3.
Wrong thread. I wondered where that got to.
Quote from: Ian C on August 17, 2018, 12:14:10 PM
Hearts of Iron 4, Endless Space 2 (trying the Vaulters for first time), some Witcher 3.
Wrong thread?
Quote from: DoctorQuest on August 17, 2018, 11:43:48 AM
I saw this comment on GOG:
"A warning to anyone buying this game it has save DRM in that your saves are held off your computer and kept in another server. Which means if you save your game, lose internet and try and play this game your saves will be missing as all of your saves are not kept on your computer."
Any idea if this is really the save game mechanism?
And can you save at any point in a game or does it use "checkpoints"?
You can save at any point during the game, including during tactical missions.
No idea about Save-DRM, maybe the people writing it confused it with the Steam Save Cloud.
I've been getting error messages when quitting and sometimes the game will hang when loading missions and I have to CTRL-ALT-DEL out and restart. Anyone else having similar issues?