Job of the perks
I foundPhoenix Pointdifficult to love, despite wanting to.
Perhaps that was a disservice to you, The Reader.
These impose worldwide curse-like restrictions like limited human perception, or a lower soldier-per-mission cap.
Void omens and side effects are, candidly, more “gamey” than I like.
They’re generally dispelled when you zap the leader, and a few can be a real pain.
They double as resource scavenging sites too, incentivisingpreparedexploration.
Complementing this are changes to “Pandoran evolution”.
They’re harder to find too, as radar coverage now makes detection more likely, not certain.
Undiscovered NPC havens now broadcast an open SOS, rather than quietly dying.
The world feels more desperate, actively crying for your help.
The lower detection chance makes expansion more complex - a more distributed connection plays the odds better.
It also hints, too, at the true path to victory - wiping them out is impossible.
You must chase the marked plot missions and press the right research.
TFTV requires the complete DLC set, some of which was frankly pretty bad.
But they’re rearranged - their major side plots kick off later, instead of piling up almost immediately.
The air game in particular is still dissatisfying, but much less demanding.
The “Kaos Engines” marketplace of unique weapons is readily available, and sells faction research too.
Those are still true, but the marketplace offers a third, expensive way.
You generally have more viable options and fewer mandatory resource sinks.
The most welcome changes, though, are to the class system.
High level snipers can access a huge “fire twice in overwatch” perk.
They can still multiclass too, opening a potential 21 perks before even factoring in bionic and mutant augmentations.
There are some partial misfires.
For example, my focus on single-shot attacks (apparently?)
led to a revenant who halved the damage of all my first attacks on an enemy.
But hey, it’s a meetable challenge, and varies things a little.
